The end does not justify the means
Posted on | Tuesday, 10 May 2011 | No Comments
By BENJIE OLIVEROS
Analysis
Bulatlat.com
The US has finally caught up with Osama Bin Laden, its number one enemy and its former ally. It could be remembered that the US helped build up, arm and strengthen Osama’s forces during the Afghan people’s war against Russian occupation, but later became its number one enemy. In other words, the US helped create al-Queda, which became its worst enemy afterwards.
What Osama Bin Laden was accused of masterminding, the 9-11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people, is reprehensible and could not be justified no matter what his reasons were for doing it. But what the US did in retaliation, last Sunday night, and the message it has been sending afterwards also raise a lot of questions.
First, it was obviously a kill mission. It was only after the Obama administration was criticized for ordering a kill mission did it say that it was a kill or capture mission. But the US also admitted that Osama Bin Laden was unarmed when shot at and killed by US Navy SEALS forces.
Worse, it was revealed that only one from among the five killed in the raid was armed and fired a shot. The question is, was Osama Bin Laden tried in absentia before the raid and meted out the death penalty? If not, what is the justification for killing him, and his companions for that matter, when he was unarmed? The raid was indeed a better option than bombing the compound. However, what stopped the Obama administration from choosing the latter option was not the potential “collateral damage” that the bombing would cause but its fear that Osama Bin Laden’s body might not be found and his death could not be confirmed.
In the final analysis, what the US did is not surprising. It has been bombing and firing missiles at the homes and vehicles of its perceived enemies with impunity. It even recently bombed the house of Muammar Ghadaffi, killing his son. These killings and bombings are merely different forms of political assassination and extrajudicial killing.
Second, the US government and its Armed Forces have been saying that much of the information it got regarding Osama Bin Laden’s trusted courier who, in turn, led the CIA to his house cum hiding place was obtained through the use of ‘harsher” interrogation methods – a euphemism for torture – such as water boarding and other “enhanced” methods. Water boarding is locally called water cure: continuously pouring water onto the face over the breathing passages of a prisoner causing him or her to feel the sensation of drowning. When the prisoner passes out, he or she is hit at the bloated stomach. It is a brutal form of torture. What is alarming is that a debate over the need for “enhanced interrogation techniques” has again reemerged from among US policy makers.
Of course, these acts are consistent with the thinking of the US Armed Forces – as contained in its counter-terror, counter-insurgency manuals – that a terrorist or insurgent forfeits his or her life once he or she gets involved in terrorism or in an insurgency, But this thinking has no place in a civilized world.
Political assassinations and extrajudicial killings, and torture could never be justified no matter what the objective is. If it is justifiable in this case, then we might as well throw international conventions on human rights and humanitarian law out the window.
Third, what the US did – conducting a military operation in Pakistan without informing the Pakistani government – is clearly a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. If this act would not be condemned what then would prevent the US from doing it in other countries as well? If it is justifiable in this case, we might as well forget about the concept of a nation’s sovereignty.
The means employed by the US could not be justified by its objective of achieving justice for those killed in the 9-11 attacks nor by its aim of putting a stop to terrorism. On the contrary, it merely committed another injustice without ensuring that acts of terror would stop. It is a folly to think that terrorism would stop by decapitating it. It might even spawn more acts of terror. After all, these acts of terror were committed not because it was ordered by one man, no matter how influential or persuasive he might be. The reason for al-Queda’s continued existence, despite the efforts of the strongest armed forces in the world, lies in conditions of poverty and oppression. But of course, the end does not justify the means for both al-Queda and the US. Reposted by Cordillera News Portal.
Analysis
Bulatlat.com
The US has finally caught up with Osama Bin Laden, its number one enemy and its former ally. It could be remembered that the US helped build up, arm and strengthen Osama’s forces during the Afghan people’s war against Russian occupation, but later became its number one enemy. In other words, the US helped create al-Queda, which became its worst enemy afterwards.
What Osama Bin Laden was accused of masterminding, the 9-11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people, is reprehensible and could not be justified no matter what his reasons were for doing it. But what the US did in retaliation, last Sunday night, and the message it has been sending afterwards also raise a lot of questions.
First, it was obviously a kill mission. It was only after the Obama administration was criticized for ordering a kill mission did it say that it was a kill or capture mission. But the US also admitted that Osama Bin Laden was unarmed when shot at and killed by US Navy SEALS forces.
Worse, it was revealed that only one from among the five killed in the raid was armed and fired a shot. The question is, was Osama Bin Laden tried in absentia before the raid and meted out the death penalty? If not, what is the justification for killing him, and his companions for that matter, when he was unarmed? The raid was indeed a better option than bombing the compound. However, what stopped the Obama administration from choosing the latter option was not the potential “collateral damage” that the bombing would cause but its fear that Osama Bin Laden’s body might not be found and his death could not be confirmed.
In the final analysis, what the US did is not surprising. It has been bombing and firing missiles at the homes and vehicles of its perceived enemies with impunity. It even recently bombed the house of Muammar Ghadaffi, killing his son. These killings and bombings are merely different forms of political assassination and extrajudicial killing.
Second, the US government and its Armed Forces have been saying that much of the information it got regarding Osama Bin Laden’s trusted courier who, in turn, led the CIA to his house cum hiding place was obtained through the use of ‘harsher” interrogation methods – a euphemism for torture – such as water boarding and other “enhanced” methods. Water boarding is locally called water cure: continuously pouring water onto the face over the breathing passages of a prisoner causing him or her to feel the sensation of drowning. When the prisoner passes out, he or she is hit at the bloated stomach. It is a brutal form of torture. What is alarming is that a debate over the need for “enhanced interrogation techniques” has again reemerged from among US policy makers.
Of course, these acts are consistent with the thinking of the US Armed Forces – as contained in its counter-terror, counter-insurgency manuals – that a terrorist or insurgent forfeits his or her life once he or she gets involved in terrorism or in an insurgency, But this thinking has no place in a civilized world.
Political assassinations and extrajudicial killings, and torture could never be justified no matter what the objective is. If it is justifiable in this case, then we might as well throw international conventions on human rights and humanitarian law out the window.
Third, what the US did – conducting a military operation in Pakistan without informing the Pakistani government – is clearly a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. If this act would not be condemned what then would prevent the US from doing it in other countries as well? If it is justifiable in this case, we might as well forget about the concept of a nation’s sovereignty.
The means employed by the US could not be justified by its objective of achieving justice for those killed in the 9-11 attacks nor by its aim of putting a stop to terrorism. On the contrary, it merely committed another injustice without ensuring that acts of terror would stop. It is a folly to think that terrorism would stop by decapitating it. It might even spawn more acts of terror. After all, these acts of terror were committed not because it was ordered by one man, no matter how influential or persuasive he might be. The reason for al-Queda’s continued existence, despite the efforts of the strongest armed forces in the world, lies in conditions of poverty and oppression. But of course, the end does not justify the means for both al-Queda and the US. Reposted by Cordillera News Portal.
Category:
opinion
Noynoy Favors the AFP
Posted on | Tuesday, 26 April 2011 | No Comments
By SATUR C. OCAMPO
At Ground Level | The Philippine Star
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has shot up in notoriety as the most corrupt government agency in the public’s perception, per the Pulse Asia survey last month, in light of the top-level, long-running misappropriations of public funds exposed in the Senate investigation.
But President Aquino doesn’t mind. He continues to repose explicit trust in the AFP.
Speaking before Philippine Army soldiers last Wednesday at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Mr. Aquino said, “Whatever happens in the Senate investigation, we will not allow this controversy to erode the honor of the Armed Forces.”
And for good measure, he announced that Malacañang had set aside P11 billion “for various purchases of the Armed Forces,” with reassurance that he was looking for ways to fulfill the needs of the AFP “at the soonest possible time and to the best of our ability.”
That reassurance pertains to the promise — to provide whatever the AFP needs — that Mr. Aquino made on three occasions last year: his inaugural address, his state-of-the-nation address, and a command conference with the armed services shortly after assuming office as their commander-in-chief.
Last Tuesday the President signed Administrative Order 9, dated April 11, which orders the National Housing Authority to “formulate, implement and manage” a P4.2-billion housing program for 20,000 military and police personnel. (Simplistic arithmetic: P21,000 each…!?)
He also directed the Department of Budget and Management to give “priority attention” to funding the project, and the Home Development Mutual Fund to prioritize financial aid to the beneficiaries at concessionary rates and express processing through a “special loan window.”
What struck my attention about the P11-billion procurement fund is that only P3 billion would be drawn from the P5-billion AFP modernization fund. The bulk, P8 billion, would come from royalties paid by US oil firms exploiting the Malampaya oil and natural gas reserves off Palawan.
Lucky AFP for this off-budget bonanza! Tough luck for the Palawan local government! It has long begged the national government to give the province its due share of the royalties, in vain.
Lucky, indeed, is the AFP under P-Noy’s government. Its 2011 budget has been increased by P34.09 billion, from P55.67B in 2010 to P89.77B, and the Department of National Defense (including the AFP) budget has been upped by P47.22B, from P57.67B to P104.50B. The AFP general headquarters’ P5.30B allocation in 2010 has ballooned to P34.69B in 2011, of which P24.12B is for military pensions.
That’s a lot more money going through the AFP financial management system, a lot more opportunities for corruption to prevail in devious ways. The safeguards reportedly adopted will be severely tested.
Now what would the AFP buy with the fresh P11B? Mr. Aquino talked of new ships for the Philippine Navy, other watercraft and long-range helicopters “for our service contract areas around Palawan, the Sulu Sea and other areas.” What? Use the money from Malampaya royalties to buy military equipment to secure the foreign firms’ operations there?
For the Philippine Army, Lt. Gen. Arturo Ortiz, PA commander, cited night-fighting systems, howitzers, mortars, light rocket launchers, communications and transport equipment needed to strengthen its combat capability. The PA is the main force deployed against the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Through upgraded equipage the AFP hopes to achieve the counterinsurgency goals in its 2011-2016 Internal Peace and Security Plan “Bayanihan,” that purportedly subscribes to “the primacy of the peace process.” The goals, called “end-state(s)”, are: “a negotiated political settlement (with the MILF) within the bounds of the Philippine Constitution”; and “render the NPA irrelevant… convince them to abandon armed struggle and instead engage in peace negotiations with the government.”
Render the NPA irrelevant, how? The IPSP says: “The AFP shall continue… conducting combat operations with even greater vigor… Intensified and relentless pursuit of the NPA is intended to exhaust their armed capabilities and diminish their will to fight.”
Obviously the AFP ignores the fact that the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, representing the CPP-NPA, has engaged the government in peace talk over 25 years, and that the militarist approach has mainly obstructed the attainment of peace.
Also, the militarist approach contradicts President Aquino’s statement, quoted in Pilipino in a giant billboard at the entrance to Camp Servillano Aquino in Tarlac City, the Northern Luzon Command headquarters. It says, “Rather than relentlessly pursue the rebels, let us focus on addressing the problems of our people and the impact (on them) of military operations.”
The quotation proceeds from President Aquino’s mantra, picked up from his mother: “We must revive the peace process on the basis of a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the conflict, under clear policies that pave the way ahead…”
But the “clear policies” haven’t been articulated definitively. Instead, Mr. Aquino has approved the IPSP, which pays lip service to the peace process but hammers on the AFP’s “primary role… to ensure that the group with whom the government is talking peace will not use force or the threat of force as leverage at the negotiating table.”
Where does President Aquino stand regarding this apparent policy conflict? — Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
At Ground Level | The Philippine Star
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has shot up in notoriety as the most corrupt government agency in the public’s perception, per the Pulse Asia survey last month, in light of the top-level, long-running misappropriations of public funds exposed in the Senate investigation.
But President Aquino doesn’t mind. He continues to repose explicit trust in the AFP.
Speaking before Philippine Army soldiers last Wednesday at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Mr. Aquino said, “Whatever happens in the Senate investigation, we will not allow this controversy to erode the honor of the Armed Forces.”
And for good measure, he announced that Malacañang had set aside P11 billion “for various purchases of the Armed Forces,” with reassurance that he was looking for ways to fulfill the needs of the AFP “at the soonest possible time and to the best of our ability.”
That reassurance pertains to the promise — to provide whatever the AFP needs — that Mr. Aquino made on three occasions last year: his inaugural address, his state-of-the-nation address, and a command conference with the armed services shortly after assuming office as their commander-in-chief.
Last Tuesday the President signed Administrative Order 9, dated April 11, which orders the National Housing Authority to “formulate, implement and manage” a P4.2-billion housing program for 20,000 military and police personnel. (Simplistic arithmetic: P21,000 each…!?)
He also directed the Department of Budget and Management to give “priority attention” to funding the project, and the Home Development Mutual Fund to prioritize financial aid to the beneficiaries at concessionary rates and express processing through a “special loan window.”
What struck my attention about the P11-billion procurement fund is that only P3 billion would be drawn from the P5-billion AFP modernization fund. The bulk, P8 billion, would come from royalties paid by US oil firms exploiting the Malampaya oil and natural gas reserves off Palawan.
Lucky AFP for this off-budget bonanza! Tough luck for the Palawan local government! It has long begged the national government to give the province its due share of the royalties, in vain.
Lucky, indeed, is the AFP under P-Noy’s government. Its 2011 budget has been increased by P34.09 billion, from P55.67B in 2010 to P89.77B, and the Department of National Defense (including the AFP) budget has been upped by P47.22B, from P57.67B to P104.50B. The AFP general headquarters’ P5.30B allocation in 2010 has ballooned to P34.69B in 2011, of which P24.12B is for military pensions.
That’s a lot more money going through the AFP financial management system, a lot more opportunities for corruption to prevail in devious ways. The safeguards reportedly adopted will be severely tested.
Now what would the AFP buy with the fresh P11B? Mr. Aquino talked of new ships for the Philippine Navy, other watercraft and long-range helicopters “for our service contract areas around Palawan, the Sulu Sea and other areas.” What? Use the money from Malampaya royalties to buy military equipment to secure the foreign firms’ operations there?
For the Philippine Army, Lt. Gen. Arturo Ortiz, PA commander, cited night-fighting systems, howitzers, mortars, light rocket launchers, communications and transport equipment needed to strengthen its combat capability. The PA is the main force deployed against the New People’s Army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Through upgraded equipage the AFP hopes to achieve the counterinsurgency goals in its 2011-2016 Internal Peace and Security Plan “Bayanihan,” that purportedly subscribes to “the primacy of the peace process.” The goals, called “end-state(s)”, are: “a negotiated political settlement (with the MILF) within the bounds of the Philippine Constitution”; and “render the NPA irrelevant… convince them to abandon armed struggle and instead engage in peace negotiations with the government.”
Render the NPA irrelevant, how? The IPSP says: “The AFP shall continue… conducting combat operations with even greater vigor… Intensified and relentless pursuit of the NPA is intended to exhaust their armed capabilities and diminish their will to fight.”
Obviously the AFP ignores the fact that the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, representing the CPP-NPA, has engaged the government in peace talk over 25 years, and that the militarist approach has mainly obstructed the attainment of peace.
Also, the militarist approach contradicts President Aquino’s statement, quoted in Pilipino in a giant billboard at the entrance to Camp Servillano Aquino in Tarlac City, the Northern Luzon Command headquarters. It says, “Rather than relentlessly pursue the rebels, let us focus on addressing the problems of our people and the impact (on them) of military operations.”
The quotation proceeds from President Aquino’s mantra, picked up from his mother: “We must revive the peace process on the basis of a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the conflict, under clear policies that pave the way ahead…”
But the “clear policies” haven’t been articulated definitively. Instead, Mr. Aquino has approved the IPSP, which pays lip service to the peace process but hammers on the AFP’s “primary role… to ensure that the group with whom the government is talking peace will not use force or the threat of force as leverage at the negotiating table.”
Where does President Aquino stand regarding this apparent policy conflict? — Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
Category:
opinion
A Sad Day for Filipinos
Posted on | Saturday, 9 April 2011 | No Comments
By Benjie Oliveros
bulatlat.com
March 30 is a sad day for Filipinos. Three overseas Filipino workers Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain were executed after being caught by Chinese immigration authorities and subsequently sentenced to death for carrying heroin into China. Even before the execution, one could already feel the somber mood of the people being shown in television coverages. It’s as if time stood still until the announcement that the three were already dead.
Malacañang came out with a statement expressing sympathies to the families. Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte reminded the people of the efforts the government exerted in trying to stop the executions. Malacañang also talked tough against drug syndicates.
Reading from the statement, Valte said, “Their deaths are a vivid lesson in the tragic toll the drug trade takes on entire families.” The government also vowed to break the “chain of victimization” being done by drug syndicates and called on the support of the citizens to do this.
However, Migrante International blamed the government for not doing enough to save the three OFWs. It also pointed to the continuing labor export policy of the government as the cause of the woes of OFWs.
The anchors of both Channels 5 and 7 defended the government saying that it has done a lot in trying to save the three OFWs from execution, even sending Vice President Jejomay Binay to China to appeal in behalf of the three OFWs. Tulfo of Channel 5 said the government should investigate Philippine airport authorities to find out how the drugs were slipped out of the country, in the first place.
Well, an investigation of drug syndicates, their network and dealings and a thorough asssesment of the handling of the cases of the three OFWs by the Department of Foreign Affairs(DFA) and consular officials in China are in order. The government, through the Philippine Natonal Police, has a continuing program of breaking drug syndicates and catching the culprits. There is nothing new in that. However, the government really needs to investigate how these drugs were slipped out of the country through the airport. Either some one is sleeping on the job or is earning extra money because the manner by which the drugs were concealed, such as through the lining of suitcases, is not new.
The Aquino administration should also not merely brush aside the allegations of lack of assistance by Philippine embassy officials. After all, Migrante International has received more than enough stories and reports of OFWs in distress who have not been assisted by DFA officials and of OFWs in death row who were not provided with lawyers and were not even visited until their execution was about to be promulgated. By that time, it was too late.
Migrante is also right in pointing to the country’s continuing labor export policy as the root of all these problems. First, because the country is being able to export migrant workers, the government is not pressured to address the worsening unemployment situation by generating jobs. It is even not pressured to solve the country’s economic problems. The government benefits a lot from labor export in the form of revenues from licenses and fees; it is the biggest export earner for the country; it props up the country’s dollar reserves; and it boosts domestic consumption.
The government could just go on implementing the neoliberal prescriptions of the IMF-WB. In the meantime, advanced capitalist countries try to save their failing economies by implementing stimulus programs and generating jobs through government spending, implement protectionist measures and provide hidden subsidies such as in agriculture, and try to gain undue advantage for their investments, multinational companies and export products by pressuring third world countries to further open up their economies and not to deviate from the neoliberal policies of deregulation, liberalization and privatization.
Second, because Philippine embassies have the task of opening up opportunities for the country’s labor export, consular officials walk on eggshells in dealing with officials of host countries and employers of OFWs. This is why they always advise OFWs who escape to return to their employers or to just go back home and not file cases or demand for what is due them. This is also the reason why the Department of Foreign Affairs rarely, if at all, files diplomatic protests against abuses committed against Filipinos abroad. The US was able to spirit out of jail a convicted rapist Lance Cpl Daniel Smith, who was accused of raping a Filipina in Subic in 2005, and even had him acquitted. But the Philippines would never do such a thing. There is truth in the saying, “Do not bite the hand that feeds you.”
Thus, OFWs are always vulnerable to abuse by their employers, unscrupulous recruiters, and even by Philippine embassy officials. The sad thing is that OFWs, even those who have experienced being abused or were subjected to stressful situations such as wars, would still prefer to risk working abroad just to earn a decent income than risk hunger and slow death for his or her family. This makes them vulnerable to the machinations of drug syndicates and white slavery gangs.
During his inaugural address, President Benigno Aquino III promised that his administration would create enough jobs in the country so that Filipinos would no longer feel the need to work abroad. In the meantime, he said, the government would intensify its services to OFWs. Well, the tragic fate of Villanueva, Credo, and Batain shows that this is all rhetoric as of now. And there are no indications that this would change in the future. Republished by Cordillera News Portal
bulatlat.com
March 30 is a sad day for Filipinos. Three overseas Filipino workers Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain were executed after being caught by Chinese immigration authorities and subsequently sentenced to death for carrying heroin into China. Even before the execution, one could already feel the somber mood of the people being shown in television coverages. It’s as if time stood still until the announcement that the three were already dead.
Malacañang came out with a statement expressing sympathies to the families. Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte reminded the people of the efforts the government exerted in trying to stop the executions. Malacañang also talked tough against drug syndicates.
Reading from the statement, Valte said, “Their deaths are a vivid lesson in the tragic toll the drug trade takes on entire families.” The government also vowed to break the “chain of victimization” being done by drug syndicates and called on the support of the citizens to do this.
However, Migrante International blamed the government for not doing enough to save the three OFWs. It also pointed to the continuing labor export policy of the government as the cause of the woes of OFWs.
The anchors of both Channels 5 and 7 defended the government saying that it has done a lot in trying to save the three OFWs from execution, even sending Vice President Jejomay Binay to China to appeal in behalf of the three OFWs. Tulfo of Channel 5 said the government should investigate Philippine airport authorities to find out how the drugs were slipped out of the country, in the first place.
Well, an investigation of drug syndicates, their network and dealings and a thorough asssesment of the handling of the cases of the three OFWs by the Department of Foreign Affairs(DFA) and consular officials in China are in order. The government, through the Philippine Natonal Police, has a continuing program of breaking drug syndicates and catching the culprits. There is nothing new in that. However, the government really needs to investigate how these drugs were slipped out of the country through the airport. Either some one is sleeping on the job or is earning extra money because the manner by which the drugs were concealed, such as through the lining of suitcases, is not new.
The Aquino administration should also not merely brush aside the allegations of lack of assistance by Philippine embassy officials. After all, Migrante International has received more than enough stories and reports of OFWs in distress who have not been assisted by DFA officials and of OFWs in death row who were not provided with lawyers and were not even visited until their execution was about to be promulgated. By that time, it was too late.
Migrante is also right in pointing to the country’s continuing labor export policy as the root of all these problems. First, because the country is being able to export migrant workers, the government is not pressured to address the worsening unemployment situation by generating jobs. It is even not pressured to solve the country’s economic problems. The government benefits a lot from labor export in the form of revenues from licenses and fees; it is the biggest export earner for the country; it props up the country’s dollar reserves; and it boosts domestic consumption.
The government could just go on implementing the neoliberal prescriptions of the IMF-WB. In the meantime, advanced capitalist countries try to save their failing economies by implementing stimulus programs and generating jobs through government spending, implement protectionist measures and provide hidden subsidies such as in agriculture, and try to gain undue advantage for their investments, multinational companies and export products by pressuring third world countries to further open up their economies and not to deviate from the neoliberal policies of deregulation, liberalization and privatization.
Second, because Philippine embassies have the task of opening up opportunities for the country’s labor export, consular officials walk on eggshells in dealing with officials of host countries and employers of OFWs. This is why they always advise OFWs who escape to return to their employers or to just go back home and not file cases or demand for what is due them. This is also the reason why the Department of Foreign Affairs rarely, if at all, files diplomatic protests against abuses committed against Filipinos abroad. The US was able to spirit out of jail a convicted rapist Lance Cpl Daniel Smith, who was accused of raping a Filipina in Subic in 2005, and even had him acquitted. But the Philippines would never do such a thing. There is truth in the saying, “Do not bite the hand that feeds you.”
Thus, OFWs are always vulnerable to abuse by their employers, unscrupulous recruiters, and even by Philippine embassy officials. The sad thing is that OFWs, even those who have experienced being abused or were subjected to stressful situations such as wars, would still prefer to risk working abroad just to earn a decent income than risk hunger and slow death for his or her family. This makes them vulnerable to the machinations of drug syndicates and white slavery gangs.
During his inaugural address, President Benigno Aquino III promised that his administration would create enough jobs in the country so that Filipinos would no longer feel the need to work abroad. In the meantime, he said, the government would intensify its services to OFWs. Well, the tragic fate of Villanueva, Credo, and Batain shows that this is all rhetoric as of now. And there are no indications that this would change in the future. Republished by Cordillera News Portal
Category:
opinion
Empowering our Graduates
Posted on | Tuesday, 29 March 2011 | No Comments
By Vladimir Cayabas
The month of March usually marks graduation days. Parents are happy considering that it’s the fulfillment if their parental dreams.
Elementary finishers are excited going to secondary level education, while high school graduates are uncertain of their chances going to college because of high rocketing fees. Proud are the college graduates for after more than 12 years of education, alas, they have now the title to attach with their named.
Apart from being proud is the feeling of uncertainty on the next career track to follow leading to the fulfillment of their goals in life. They are bound to gainfully apply their education in order to help other members of their family and put good impact into the world of employment.
This is why college graduates are pressured because of the high societal expectation that they will become more employable and in demand in the market. That they will become wiser with their career decisions and expected to bring hope to their respective families.
One concern which challenges them centers on employment opportunities which match and are line with their competencies and qualifications. It needs extra effort and rough attitude to hurdle these challenges but that is what graduation offers them. Allow me therefore to relay this simple message to our dear graduates;
Success is an exemplary attitude. It comes to those who have the character to continue and finish the race despite all seems lost. Success is a trait of doing what others believe they can’t!
With sheer determination, you have successfully hurdled the acid test of learning and able to reach another rung of your life. It’s now safe and fitting to brand you as “Ambassadors” of learning! Indeed, your graduation is an imperative one, for it serves as a symbolic manifestation of you embracing the significance of education as a vital tool for understanding the real essence of life.
Your graduation is now part of the chain of your achievements, but still won’t give you the assurance to life fulfillment. Meaning, possessing the rudiments of education does not exempt you from the hard-knocks of life, but in a way of having broader horizon of understanding how to efficiently handle what life offers. It cultivates your volition of facing the issues of the real word and enriches your databank of knowledge in determining the best approach of marking significant difference into our world.
Education unlocks our minds to new ventures of learning life opportunities. It officially permits you to drive your own career according to your own preference, pacing and direction. Furthermore, it embodies unto you the significance of enviable attitude, functional knowledge and desirable skills as your passport to the great world of success.
We enjoin you not to cease in seeking knowledge, for learning is a lifelong process. We want you to make the most of your education by helping and empowering other people, of letting yourself available in the aid of others for that is the utmost way of living your life to the fullest.
Our utmost aspiration is for you to become somebody, who will always endeavor to live up to that great responsibility and to serve as formidable assets of our society. Maintain in your heart that all we pray is for your success; it never entered our minds to see you as life losers for all we dream are the fulfillment of your life legacies. CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU!
Think about this; Education makes a man a good thinker and hones him a right does, but more than that is transforming him as a responsible citizen.
HAPPY GRADUATION! Have a wonderful week; never seize finding your significant spots in life! Long live Cordillera… Ag biag ti ka-Ilokoan, Mabuhay ka Pilipinas. Never curb advancing your life in the name of COMPETENCE! Si KABUNYAN koma nan wada ken datako! God Bless my Friends!
For inputs, this writer could be reached thru 0918-3523-284 or send your message at vladimir_cayabas@yahoo.com
From the Baguio Chronicle reposted by Cordillera News with permission from the author.
For inputs, this writer could be reached thru 0918-3523-284 or send your message at vladimir_cayabas@yahoo.com
From the Baguio Chronicle reposted by Cordillera News with permission from the author.
Category:
opinion
Cordillera Autonomy: a key to a progressive Cordillera Administrative Region?
Posted on | Friday, 25 March 2011 | 2 Comments
By Jun Pitas
The quest of the autonomous status of the Cordillera Administrative Region is once again pushed as pro-autonomy leaders of the region believe autonomy the key to a more progressive Cordillera Administrative Region.
The first time the community leaders pushed for the drafting of the organic act was as early as 1990. In a plebiscite held on Jan. 30 of the same year, the Cordillerans rejected RA 6766 which was supposed to be, if approved, will lead to the creation of the autonomous Cordillera. Unfortunately, only the province of Ifugao gave a positive response.
After eight years of its first rejection, another plebiscite was conducted and once again, only one province accepted the organic act but this time, the province of Apayao.
As ruled by the Supreme Court, there must be at least two of seven provinces and a city of the region should agree to form an autonomous status.
In a survey conducted by the Regional Development Council (RDC) in 2007, 64 percent of the respondents were unaware of the provisions of regional autonomy. Also, 40 percent do not know if the region is ready for autonomous status while 30 percent say the region is not ready for autonomy. Ask should be there a third voting for the Cordillera Autonomous Region tomorrow, 66 percent are undecided.
Baguio city mayor Mauricio Domogan, in the series of public consultations in the city and around in the provinces, says the best way to explain autonomy is that existing powers and benefits the region is getting from the national government will be maintained further once autonomy is achieved.
The five principles are:
The quest of the autonomous status of the Cordillera Administrative Region is once again pushed as pro-autonomy leaders of the region believe autonomy the key to a more progressive Cordillera Administrative Region.
The first time the community leaders pushed for the drafting of the organic act was as early as 1990. In a plebiscite held on Jan. 30 of the same year, the Cordillerans rejected RA 6766 which was supposed to be, if approved, will lead to the creation of the autonomous Cordillera. Unfortunately, only the province of Ifugao gave a positive response.
After eight years of its first rejection, another plebiscite was conducted and once again, only one province accepted the organic act but this time, the province of Apayao.
As ruled by the Supreme Court, there must be at least two of seven provinces and a city of the region should agree to form an autonomous status.
In a survey conducted by the Regional Development Council (RDC) in 2007, 64 percent of the respondents were unaware of the provisions of regional autonomy. Also, 40 percent do not know if the region is ready for autonomous status while 30 percent say the region is not ready for autonomy. Ask should be there a third voting for the Cordillera Autonomous Region tomorrow, 66 percent are undecided.
Baguio city mayor Mauricio Domogan, in the series of public consultations in the city and around in the provinces, says the best way to explain autonomy is that existing powers and benefits the region is getting from the national government will be maintained further once autonomy is achieved.
The five principles are:
1) Permanent regional identity where the term Cordillerans shall apply to all Filipino citizens who are domiciled within the territory of the CAR;
2) The powers and benefits of the region, including the different units within it, shall not be diminished;
3) Nationally paid officials and employees will continue to be nationally paid and the budgetary needs of the regional agencies where they belong shall continue to be provided by the national government;
4) Mandate the national government, under the Autonomy law to provide subsidy for the first ten years of the Cordilera Autonomous Region over and above the internal revenue allotment and other existing benefits that are being enjoyed by the local government units; and
5) After the period of subsidy, the national government shall continue to provide sufficient budgetary allocation to the region in order to ensure its financial stability and sustenance.
The powers to be developed after the enforcement of autonomy are:
1. Administrative organization; 2. Creation of sources revenue; 3. Ancestral domain and natural resources; 4. Personal, family, and property relations; 5. Regional, urban, and rural planning development; 6. Economic, social, and tourism development; 7. Educational policies; 8. Preservation and development of the cultural heritage; 9. Powers, functions, and responsibilities now being exercised by the departments of the national government, except with respect to certain areas such as national security, postal management, foreign affairs, postal service, coinage and fiscal and monetary policies, quarantine, customs and tariffs, citizenship, naturalization, immigration and deportation, general auditing, civil service and elections and foreign trade.
In a consultation held in Mt. Province lately last year, the Indigenous People raised a fearsome issue, “is the Ampatuan case a failure of Autonomy?”
Franklin Odsey, chairman on Regional Development and Autonomy says, “The abuse of powers by the Ampatuans did not come about because of regional autonomy. It came about because of several factors like the history in warlordism in Muslim Mindanao, the coddling by the national government of the Ampatuan, and lack of an empowered citizenry to stop an abusive politician.”
As inhabitants of the Cordillera Administrative Region, when will we fully understand the provisions of autonomy? As the third organic act is drafted and will be presented to the congress on May this year, will we finally accept it and approve once a plebiscite is conducted in our region? Long live the Cordillera Region!!!
Source : http://www.cordillera.gov.ph/
Category:
opinion
Other Senate invitees can imitate Ligots
Posted on | Tuesday, 22 March 2011 | No Comments
 | GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc |
et al thwarted them by foul means. Outside Congress she readied her rear guards too. Foremost is Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez to quash any graft case against her and minions. Even when legally barred Arroyo posted loyalists, including a personal beautician and a gardener, in executive and judicial sinecures. The result of the 2010 election can only be the cumulative reaction to Arroyo’s transactional Presidency. Severest critic Noynoy Aquino won as President, as her party crumbled.
As congresswoman, Arroyo lingers in power but heads a puny minority. With the shoe on the other foot, her loyalists Monday tried to pin their dirty tricks on the new House leadership. The scenario was familiar, although it was their point person Gutierrez on the impeachment dock. They spread the text that the pork barrel will be withheld of congressmen who’d support Gutierrez. Then they used their concocted text to accuse President Aquino of buying the impeachment vote. When the tally came in — 210 to impeach, 47 against, four abstentions — they sniveled about cheap partisanship.
Arroyo and party feign to be aggrieved, but they actually scored points. Gutierrez should beware of their devious support. In spreading the text-canard, they were able to wangle from a defensive Malacañang the promise that even their pork perks as minority members were forthcoming. Thence they proceeded gleefully to delay what Gutierrez herself knew was inevitable impeachment. They must have phoned after the voting to condole that they did all they could for her. But now with their pork barrels at stake, she must depend on the other lines of defense that Arroyo had laid down.
* * *
For many first-term legislators, impeaching Gutierrez was a duty. Aware of the anti-corruption message of the 2010 poll outcome, they needed to be true to voters. Requests by certain religionists to be absent last Monday, and so have no quorum for the voting, were ignored. The young legislators consulted their constituents. Sectoral Rep. Angelo Palmones noted, “Gutierrez’s supporters may say all they want, but the message is clear. People want removal of the corrupt. In exercise of people power, the majority overwhelmingly voted for impeachment.”Former senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. opined that the voting was a piercing of Arroyo’s armor. Gutierrez was one of many booby traps left behind to deter the exposure of the Arroyo tenure’s anomalies. More lie hidden in government corporations and financial institutions, and in lower and higher courts. “With Gutierrez’s impeachment,” Pimentel said, “Arroyo can now be made to answer for her abuses in power.”
* * *
The fight now moves to the 23-member Senate, which will try Gutierrez for betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution. Hearings are set to begin in May, when Congress resumes sessions from this week’s recess.Betting is hot this early that Gutierrez will walk. The numbers favor her. She’d need only eight votes for acquittal; nine senators are in open opposition to Aquino. More evident is Gutierrez’s smug confidence in how the senators will vote for her. Because she lost in the House, she wails that Aquino bought the political vote. Because she’s positive of a Senate win, she’s saying she’ll get a fair political trial.
The Senate has first to grapple with an issue related to Gutierrez’s downfall — her abetting of plundering military comptrollers. Gen. Jacinto Ligot, wife Erlinda, and brother-in-law Edgardo Yambao have been mocking the Senate Blue-Ribbon Committee. By invoking rights to privacy and against self-incrimination, they refuse to answer even the most innocuous questions. Ignoring the Senate’s investigative power, Ligot is tight-lipped about where he resides, Linda about liking ballroom dancing, and jobless Yambao about the hundred million pesos in his bank accounts. Then, there’s the matter of whether to continue probing into possible unexplained wealth of a general who has killed himself. Future inquiries, including Gutierrez’s trial, will depend on how the Senate handles the matters.
* * *
Full-page newspaper ads, each worth nearly P200,000, purport to defend Gutierrez. Yet aside from raising suspicions about who’s paying, the ads expose the lameness of her alibis.About her inability since 2006 to indict Jocjoc Bolante for the P728-million fertilizer scam, Gutierrez says she has yet to finish questioning all 178 co-respondents. But then, she has also failed since 2008 to charge the euro-smuggling police generals, and there are only seven of them. She has found no one liable for the P1.3-billion Comelec automation scam, despite the justice department, the Senate and the Supreme Court declaring it anomalous.
* * *
Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
Category:
opinion
A Woman’s Liberation
By CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
Streetwise | BusinessWorld
Last March 8, GABRIELA, the foremost Filipino women’s alliance championing women’s rights, held a nation-wide mobilization to commemorate 100 years of International Women’s Day (IWD). Let us recall that it was Clara Zetkin, an outstanding German socialist and a fighter for women’s rights, who proposed in 1910 that an international working women’s day be held on March 8 of each year. March 8 marked the day when hundreds of women workers in the United States of America demonstrated for the right to suffrage and to build a powerful garments union.
The following year in March 1911, more than one million women and men in Europe attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, and hold public office, for equal pay for equal work, maternity and child benefits, and better working conditions as well as for the general upliftment, emancipation, and empowerment of women.
GABRIELA emphasized that this year, IWD would be commemorated as, worldwide, women join their menfolk in mass protests and uprisings “spurred by the burgeoning impact of protracted global depression” especially in poor and backward countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Further, the alliance said, “Filipino women, like our toiling sisters in other countries, suffer from the same torment of poverty, hunger and violence caused by imperialism’s last ditch attempt to salvage its moribund existence by plundering poor nations and further enslaving the working class people.”
GABRIELA concluded that Filipino women must demand immediate respite from the Aquino government through urgent socio-economic reforms as well as join the rest of the Filipino people in struggling for fundamental change, for genuine freedom and democracy, against an elite-ruled and foreign-dominated social order.
At the March 8 rally, as I waited to deliver my speech to the thousands of women gathered at some distance from the Presidential Palace, I could not help but reflect on my own sojourn as a woman, from a carefree middle-class upbringing to one defined by the social and political struggles and upheavals of my generation.
I thought about how I had been surrounded by feisty, assertive, and articulate women all my life: a mother who transcended social stereotypes, was an outstanding operating room nurse and a working woman all her life; aunts who despite economic hardships guided their brood to stable and successful careers; sisters who are capable and personable individuals, accomplished in their own fields; friends and most of all comrades who have struggled to combine the roles of working/career women, activist/revolutionary and wife/mother/daughter — to varying degrees of success.
My father gave us a very liberal upbringing. He made sure his children had all the opportunities to excel in school and have an active social life. There was never any stereotyping of girls as good cooks, homemakers, fashionistas. But he did expect his daughters to serve him his coffee while the only boy was free to gallivant.
My education in an all-girls’ school run by socially oriented nuns, who were exacting in academic work and disciplinarians to boot, gave me the basic skills, self-confidence, and empathy for the poor and underprivileged that served me well in my adult life. It also provided the inestimable benefit of growing up in an academic environment where being a male was no advantage. There weren’t any.
In high school, I was introduced to the concept of women’s liberation by my eldest sister who left for the US to do graduate studies and eventually settled there. She had strained against the social conventions of her time that kept even middle-class, educated women from being equal to men and achieving their full potential as individuals. She became a feminist and an active participant in the US women’s liberation movement.
When I entered the University of the Philippines, the liberal arts program of the general education course (which UP has since abolished) reinforced my openness to feminist views from the West, my involvement in moderate social activism at the UP Student Catholic Action, and later, in more radical student activism as a member of the student council and while doing organizing work among jeepney drivers and the urban poor.
My stint at UPSCA was a major venue for male-female socialization. A milestone in my life took place in the friendly environs of Delaney Hall and the UP Chapel: that is where I met my first boyfriend who eventually ended up as my lifelong partner.
My husband deserves several sentences in this narrative. Being much older than me, he was mature where I was immature. Being an engineering graduate, he was practical-minded where I was an idealistic AB Psychology student. Being a patriot, a democrat, and a closet Leftist, he was supportive of my political activism.
And being the self-confident, loving man that he was, he let me pursue my passions and my commitments with nary a hint of jealousy nor insecurity even as he worried and watched out for me at every turn. (Yes, of course, we wrangled about the inherent dangers and the time away from family that was the offshoot of my political activities.)
As I grew more deeply involved in the national democratic movement, my ideas about egalitarianism, social progress, and commitment to a cause higher than oneself resonated with the movement’s Marxist philosophy, revolutionary political analysis and program and its mantra “Serve the People.”
This includes the presumption that being a woman is no barrier to being a dedicated activist and revolutionary. It also meant subordinating boyfriend-girlfriend relationships to political considerations.
It meant making independent decisions that entailed risks and sacrifices including the risk of being separated from one’s boyfriend or husband. This was a harsh reality especially during martial law when the tempo and direction of one’s life were altered in major, unanticipated ways.
The struggle for women’s emancipation from feudal culture as well as bourgeois stereotypes had to be carried through inside the “nd” movement. Notions of sexual roles were rapidly being transformed even as there was also resistance to change and the vestiges of old-type relationships persisted.
More important, the need to organize women who, as Chairman Mao said, “hold up half the sky,” to achieve their own liberation from economic, political, and cultural bondage was met by the conscious effort to build a distinct women’s movement integrated into the people’s movement for national and social liberation.
I will always credit and be grateful to the two major influences toward my liberation as a woman — the national democratic movement and the people — women and men alike — who fostered my full development as an activist/revolutionary and as an emancipated wife and mother. — Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
Streetwise | BusinessWorld
Last March 8, GABRIELA, the foremost Filipino women’s alliance championing women’s rights, held a nation-wide mobilization to commemorate 100 years of International Women’s Day (IWD). Let us recall that it was Clara Zetkin, an outstanding German socialist and a fighter for women’s rights, who proposed in 1910 that an international working women’s day be held on March 8 of each year. March 8 marked the day when hundreds of women workers in the United States of America demonstrated for the right to suffrage and to build a powerful garments union.
The following year in March 1911, more than one million women and men in Europe attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, and hold public office, for equal pay for equal work, maternity and child benefits, and better working conditions as well as for the general upliftment, emancipation, and empowerment of women.
GABRIELA emphasized that this year, IWD would be commemorated as, worldwide, women join their menfolk in mass protests and uprisings “spurred by the burgeoning impact of protracted global depression” especially in poor and backward countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Further, the alliance said, “Filipino women, like our toiling sisters in other countries, suffer from the same torment of poverty, hunger and violence caused by imperialism’s last ditch attempt to salvage its moribund existence by plundering poor nations and further enslaving the working class people.”
GABRIELA concluded that Filipino women must demand immediate respite from the Aquino government through urgent socio-economic reforms as well as join the rest of the Filipino people in struggling for fundamental change, for genuine freedom and democracy, against an elite-ruled and foreign-dominated social order.
At the March 8 rally, as I waited to deliver my speech to the thousands of women gathered at some distance from the Presidential Palace, I could not help but reflect on my own sojourn as a woman, from a carefree middle-class upbringing to one defined by the social and political struggles and upheavals of my generation.
I thought about how I had been surrounded by feisty, assertive, and articulate women all my life: a mother who transcended social stereotypes, was an outstanding operating room nurse and a working woman all her life; aunts who despite economic hardships guided their brood to stable and successful careers; sisters who are capable and personable individuals, accomplished in their own fields; friends and most of all comrades who have struggled to combine the roles of working/career women, activist/revolutionary and wife/mother/daughter — to varying degrees of success.
My father gave us a very liberal upbringing. He made sure his children had all the opportunities to excel in school and have an active social life. There was never any stereotyping of girls as good cooks, homemakers, fashionistas. But he did expect his daughters to serve him his coffee while the only boy was free to gallivant.
My education in an all-girls’ school run by socially oriented nuns, who were exacting in academic work and disciplinarians to boot, gave me the basic skills, self-confidence, and empathy for the poor and underprivileged that served me well in my adult life. It also provided the inestimable benefit of growing up in an academic environment where being a male was no advantage. There weren’t any.
In high school, I was introduced to the concept of women’s liberation by my eldest sister who left for the US to do graduate studies and eventually settled there. She had strained against the social conventions of her time that kept even middle-class, educated women from being equal to men and achieving their full potential as individuals. She became a feminist and an active participant in the US women’s liberation movement.
When I entered the University of the Philippines, the liberal arts program of the general education course (which UP has since abolished) reinforced my openness to feminist views from the West, my involvement in moderate social activism at the UP Student Catholic Action, and later, in more radical student activism as a member of the student council and while doing organizing work among jeepney drivers and the urban poor.
My stint at UPSCA was a major venue for male-female socialization. A milestone in my life took place in the friendly environs of Delaney Hall and the UP Chapel: that is where I met my first boyfriend who eventually ended up as my lifelong partner.
My husband deserves several sentences in this narrative. Being much older than me, he was mature where I was immature. Being an engineering graduate, he was practical-minded where I was an idealistic AB Psychology student. Being a patriot, a democrat, and a closet Leftist, he was supportive of my political activism.
And being the self-confident, loving man that he was, he let me pursue my passions and my commitments with nary a hint of jealousy nor insecurity even as he worried and watched out for me at every turn. (Yes, of course, we wrangled about the inherent dangers and the time away from family that was the offshoot of my political activities.)
As I grew more deeply involved in the national democratic movement, my ideas about egalitarianism, social progress, and commitment to a cause higher than oneself resonated with the movement’s Marxist philosophy, revolutionary political analysis and program and its mantra “Serve the People.”
This includes the presumption that being a woman is no barrier to being a dedicated activist and revolutionary. It also meant subordinating boyfriend-girlfriend relationships to political considerations.
It meant making independent decisions that entailed risks and sacrifices including the risk of being separated from one’s boyfriend or husband. This was a harsh reality especially during martial law when the tempo and direction of one’s life were altered in major, unanticipated ways.
The struggle for women’s emancipation from feudal culture as well as bourgeois stereotypes had to be carried through inside the “nd” movement. Notions of sexual roles were rapidly being transformed even as there was also resistance to change and the vestiges of old-type relationships persisted.
More important, the need to organize women who, as Chairman Mao said, “hold up half the sky,” to achieve their own liberation from economic, political, and cultural bondage was met by the conscious effort to build a distinct women’s movement integrated into the people’s movement for national and social liberation.
I will always credit and be grateful to the two major influences toward my liberation as a woman — the national democratic movement and the people — women and men alike — who fostered my full development as an activist/revolutionary and as an emancipated wife and mother. — Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
Category:
opinion
Heed the People’s Call for Immediate Relief
Posted on | Monday, 14 March 2011 | No Comments
By BENJIE OLIVEROS
Analysis
Bulatlat.com
There seems to be no relief from oil price increases. The price of oil per barrel in the world market has breached the $100 mark ending at $105.44 for light, sweet, crude at the New York Mercantlie Exchange and $115 for Brent North Sea oil at the ICE Futures this March 9. Locally, pump prices have increased by another P2 after increasing by the same amount just last week. This would trigger another round of price increases of basic commodities and utilities because of its impact on production and transport costs. Likewise, we could expect another round of fare increases, and this might be used as a justification for pushing through with the highly unpopular plan to increase the fare of the Metro Rail Transit and the Light Rail Transit lines 1 and 2.
And there is still no end in sight to the increases. Take note that the spike in the price of oil is not the result of supply problems but of “worries” that supplies might be affected because of the worsening conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East. In other words, the oil price spikes are being caused by speculation. And for as long as the conflict in North Africa and the Middle East persists and spreads in different countries, speculators and oil companies would have a heyday in reaping a lot of profits. This is profiteering at the expense of majority of the peoples of the world.
Also a beneficiary to this profiteering is the Aquino administration. Since the Expanded Value Added Tax (EVat) on oil products is pegged at 12 percent, any increase in the price of pump prices translates into more revenues for the government. But again, this is at the expense of the Filipino people who are already suffering from the runaway prices of basic goods, services and utilities.
To add insult to injury, the Aquino government seems to be lending a deaf ear to the calls of the people for immediate relief. The Aquino government could do something about it, and there are already a lot of suggestions on how to go about it, but it still refuses to do so. It ignores the call for removing the EVat on oil products, the demand for the government to intervene and control oil prices, and the suggestion regarding bulk importation. And of course, there is the long-term call to nationalize the oil industry, including the exploration and processing of oil and natural gas resources discovered in Palawan, the Sulu sea, and other places. On the other hand, to help the people cope with the recent price increases, there is the demand for a substantial wage increase for workers and government employees.
Government spokespersons are saying that this would scare away oil companies and other investors. However, it should take note that oil companies are reaping a lot of profits from doing business in the country and getting a mere slice from its huge profits would not scare them away. They would lose more from not doing business in the country. In fact, in California, the pump price of gasoline is $3.55 a gallon equivalent to P40.52 a liter. That is P13 cheaper than here in the Philippines!
It seems that the Aquino government would rather let the Filipino people suffer than lean on oil companies to “moderate their greed.” It is more scared of facing the wrath of the IMF-WB than the Filipino people. Perhaps, it is banking on its popularity and relying on its apologists-allies who are already in government but still stake their claim to being part of civil society.
But the Aquino government should remember that the rising popularity of the previous Ramos administration dipped when the 1997 financial crisis hit the country hard and it did not do anything about it, except claim that the problem was international in nature. The former Estrada administration’s flaunting of its profligacy and gallivanting ways became intolerable to the Filipino people when it was in stark contrast to the hardships the people were experiencing then. Before that, it never became an issue in the 1998 presidential election. Likewise, the unprecedented depth the rating of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo dipped into was not only attributable to the corruption scandals that were hounding it, but also to the hardships that the Filipino people were going through.
How far would the Aquino government go in testing how much the Filipino people could take? Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
Category:
opinion
The Imperative of Justice
Posted on | Sunday, 13 March 2011 | No Comments
By BENJIE OLIVEROS
Analysis
Bulatlat.com
From the time of his inauguration up to the present, President Benigno Aquino III has not made any policy statement or measure that would push for human rights. It is as if human rights and civil liberties were not under attack during the previous administration.
The dispensation of justice and the implementation of sweeping reforms for human rights have been necessary for countries that have emerged after years of being under a dictatorship. This has been true in Argentina. President Roberto Alfosín who was democratically elected after the last of four military juntas acceeded power ordered the prosecution of known junta and terrorist leaders; signed international human rights treaties; and ordered the formation of Argentina’s truth commission “National Commission on Disappeared Persons,” (CONADEP). CONADEP produced a report 50,000 pages long, which listed names of 9,000 disappeared persons and locations of 365 detention centers. The report was summarized and published in a book entitled, “Never Again”.
In Chile, President Patricio Aylwin appointed a National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation to “investigate and report on the human rights violations of the previous period and to make recommendations for reparations and prevention of further abuses.” After the commission published its report the Chilean Congress passed a law which awarded reparations to the families and victims of human rights violations under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. It also established the National Corporation of Reparations and Reconciliation (NCRR) to continue the unfinished investigations of the commission. When Pinochet died in 2006, about 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for various human rights violations, tax evasion and embezzlement.
In Guatemala, the government, in partnership with the United Nations, created a Comision Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala that led investigations of crimes committed by clandestine armed groups or death squads. It was able to send a former president and an ex-minister to jail.
In the Philippines, the late president Cory Aquino did try to implement sweeping measures to promote human rights and democracy such as the release of all political prisoners, the creation of a Presidential Committee on Human Rights – the precursor of the Commission on Human Rights – the restoration of formal democratic rights and processes, and the inclusion of international human rights laws and instruments, as well as safeguards against a return to a dictatorship, in the 1987 Constitution. These were necessary to show that it was different from the Marcos fascist dictatorship. However, it did not pursue justice for the victims of human rights violations and the Filipino people. On the contrary, it coddled the Armed Forces of the Philipippines, and implemented a Total War policy, a bloody counterinsurgency campaign, which led to the commission of more human rights violations. Because there was no justice, there was no decisive break from the dictatorship. Thus, impunity persisted and the weak and incomplete democracy that has been instituted since has been under constant threat.
It is this weak and incomplete democracy that former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo exploited for her personal gain. To keep herself in power and continue raiding the nation’s coffers for nine years, Arroyo made numerous attempts to curtail civil liberties through declaring a state of national emergency, violently attacking rallies, and harassing its critics by filing trumped up charges in court. Worse, the extrajudicial killings under her administration was comparable to that of the Marcos dictatorship but was unparalleled in terms of brazeness. The Marcos dictatorship tallied 1,500 extrajudicial killings in 13 years while the Arroyo administration had almost a thousand in nine years. And the Arroyo administration did not make much effort to conceal its responsibility for the killings, even praising the notorious former major general Jovito Palparan – who left a bloody trail in the regions where he was assigned – during one of her state of the nation addresses. This emboldened the military, and even the police and political warlords who Arroyo relied on to thwart attempts to oust her from Malacañang. This, in turn, resulted in the killings of journalists and the gruesome Maguindanao massacre.
Thus, it is imperative that the administration of Pres. Benigno Aquino III makes a decisive break from the Arroyo administration in order to save the frail and incomplete democracy from the throes of death. However, justice seems to be the farthest from Pres. Aquino’s mind. Nor does it appear that he would implement measures to revive respect for human rights. From the time of his inauguration up to the present, he has not made any policy statement or measure that would push for human rights. It is as if human rights and civil liberties were not under attack during the previous administration. Pres. Aquino has consistently refused to order the release of political prisoners, including the Morong 43, whose arrest and detention were, by his own admission, marred by numerous violations of their rights. He has not lifted a finger to assist the relatives of the disappeared. Nor has he ordered any investigation on the numerous human rights violations committed by the previous administration. On the contrary, the Aquino administration has been dragging its foot even on the investigation of the corruption cases involving the Arroyo family.
Thus, it is no longer surprising that cases of extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and other human rights violations continue to pile up. Even the renowned botanist Leonardo Co was not spared from the impunity in killings while undertaking a research on forest trees and plants in Kananga, Leyte.
If this is the path that the Aquino administration intends to take, the Filipino people would have to say goodbye to human rights or continue fighting against impunity and for justice and democracy. Reposted by Cordillera News
Category:
opinion
The Journalist in Times of Inhumanity
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com
Bulatlat.com
Last Saturday was the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Leo Velasco, a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Velasco’s daughter, Lorena “Aya” Santos, together with families of other victims of enforced disappearances,extrajudicial killings and other human-rights violations, trooped to Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame.
Often, I am torn between being a journalist and an activist, especially when covering human-rights issues.
Often, I am torn between being a journalist and an activist, especially when covering human-rights issues.
In front of the towering gate of Camp Aguinaldo, at the foundations of a flyover at Santolan, Aya’s colleagues posted coupon-bond sized papers with Velasco’s photocopied picture. As expected, soldiers attempted to stop the protesters. One officer said: “Itigil nyo na ‘yan! Aabalahin n’yo pa kami sa pagtatanggal niyan!” (Stop that! We don’t want to be bothered taking those off!) To which Roneo Clamor, Karapatan secretary-general, replied: “Yan lang ang abala sa inyo. Ang mga nandito, kaanak ng mga nawawala. Matagal na silang naghahanap.” (That would be the only inconvenience on your part. Here are the families of the disappeared, they have long been searching for their loved ones.)
I could imagine how hellish those four years of searching had been for Aya. As I should, I asked Aya for an interview. She recalled how they went to every government agency seeking for help, how the Court of Appeals junked their petition for habeas corpus and writ of amparo, how the court told them that they failed to produce evidence that the perpetrators behind his father’s abduction were state agents.
I have heard similar stories many times before, in the cases of Jonas Burgos,Prudencio Calubid, father and son Rogelio and Gabriel Calubad and many more but each tale is different as every pain is unique.
I asked Aya her message for her father. As she spoke, I felt that my heart was also being squeezed. I fought back my own tears. She said sorry for not being able to find her father for four years. I was tempted to stop recording her on video and just hug her, comfort her, but I knew I must go through it. I needed to listen to what she wanted to say, to capture even the most painful moments. I embraced her after the interview. I felt it was the humane thing to do.
I am convinced again and again that enforced disappearance is the cruelest form of human-rights violation. I heard families of the desaparecidos say how envious they were whenever they attend wakes of victims of extrajudicial killings. They neither have the bodies to bury or graves to visit. There is no closure to their endless search.
And so, whenever I see Nanay Connie (mother of Karen Empeno), Nanay Linda (mother of Sherlyn Cadapan), Nanay Lolit (mother of Romulos Robinos), Ate Bilet (sister of Cesar Batralo), I would kiss them, hug them, hold their hand or simply engage them in small talk. To me, it is a gesture of sympathy, not pity.
In fact, I am amazed at their courage. Aya said her father’s disappearance has led her to continue what her father strived for. I think the same goes true for the other families of enforced disappearances. Before their loved ones went missing, Nanay Connie was a simple public school teacher, Nanay Linda and Nanay Lolit were housewives, Nuki Calubid (son of Rogelio Calubid and Celina Palma) and Ipe Soco (son of Gloria Soco) were ordinary students, unmindful of activism. They have been transformed into human-rights advocates, fighting for justice not only for their loved ones but for all victims.
Yes, there are times when I see righteous anger in their eyes but I could sense that their actions are grounded in deeper convictions. This is something that the state could not understand. By sowing terror and violence, they produce more activists and dissenters. The military could succeed in making some cower in fear but many have chosen, to borrow my dear friend Beng Hernandez’s words, “to raise their fists to continue living.”
In these times of inhumanity, the thin line between being a journalist and an activist is blurred even more. I know in my heart that I owe no one an apology. Reposted by Cordillera News Portal
Category:
opinion