"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

Flying coffins?

PAF aircrafts ‘widow-makers or flying coffins’?

 

 It escapes comprehension why, after a C-130 aircraft crashed, no other C-130 is available in the Philippine Air Force to carry out various operational commitments. It shall take a few more weeks before the next C-130 would be flight-ready, undergoing as it does, an uncharacteristically long period of repair. Does it really take almost a year to repair a C-130? Does the PAF have to ‘cannibalize’ from three other C-130s given the alleged prohibitive costs of repair or more so of having to acquire a new one that costs $80 million? Would the defense secretary be right in claiming that there are no available funds intended for the repair of any or all of the five C-130s in its air base?

 

 Lt. Gen. Pedrito Cadungog of the Air Force was heard to have challenged to a fist fight anyone who can tell him straight to his face that the aircrafts at the PAF arsenal are “widow-makers or flying coffins”. Fact is, he calls those who say this as – ‘brainless, heartless, ruthless, and reckless’. Bottomline, the AFP does not have to acquire aircrafts or naval vessels that are already considered military surplus of another country since logically they are more expensive to maintain than brand new airplanes. And if there is such a word as depreciation, x number of hours of flying and x period of time of use will naturally not give higher guarantees of safety. So can the good general really blame those who think that not too few instances of crashes of PAF aircrafts can readily lead one to think that the aircrafts of the PAF have become less reliable?

 

 The lesson of this C-130 crash is the expressed resolve that the government would then insure acquiring brand new aircrafts for the Philippine Air Force no matter the cost. Likewise, the government should realize by now that over the long term, it could have been more expensive to have maintained old-aged aircrafts. Certainly, it is sound military norm that any branch of the AFP should acquire only brand new aircrafts, vessels, vehicles, armory, firearms, ordnance and materiel – not those that are merely handed down by a military power such as the

US

. Let there be a state policy banning the use of second-hand aircrafts or vessels for the AFP since national security should never be compromised.

 

 RP has probably trained the best pilots in the world. We are probably the only army who cannibalize from other aircrafts to fly one or two of its kind given a viciously chronic claim of budgetary constraints. So perhaps, not just for the C-130s, the Air Force does cannibalize from the other types of planes in use – helicopters, tora-toras, fighting jets, whatever. And when it does so, does it not become close to possibility that our planes are reduced to become unreliable aircrafts? The same is true with the Philippine Navy which still uses very old naval vessels from the

US

, such that maintaining them to a near point they become scraps of metal proves to be very disadvantageous to the government. 

 

 There ought to be an expressed state policy that from hereon – with the fatal crash of that C-130 – AFP will only acquire brand new aircrafts and vessels, nothing less. A package of reforms for the Air Force as it is with the Navy shall now be initiated. Let us cease to be the junkyard of

US

military surplus under the guise of RP-US Military Bases Agreement or whatever euphemistic claims of RP-US alliance. We should not even begin to accept anything of economic assistance that comes in the form of military hardware and in truth, are largely surplus, second-hand, handed-down. The AFP, the last institution to crumble in any given society, deserves no less than the best.

 

 It pains us to think that in the past, RP has shown itself too interested to acquire a fleet of probably over-used, second-hand M151 Kennedy jeeps for use in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines. Truth is, their engines have to be replaced with locally available

Toyota

surplus engines. They have to be reconditioned and rebuilt to be of any use to any unit in the AFP until it proved to be useless that we see no more of these M151 Kennedy jeeps an entirely useless period of time after acquisition. In the end, the AFP has spent more for these virtual pieces of junk. They proved to be of no use. 

 

 By its own official admission, PAF authorities say that aircrafts retire after x number of flying hours. So for us to continue to fly 40-year old vintage aircrafts must come with certain valid suspicion as to its worthiness and integrity. There is no doubt that C-130s in particular, have served the public very well because it is through these cargo planes that goods, medicines are being transported from one point to another; that troops or people are transported due to wars, disasters, emergencies; and whose availability are ready upon the request of our politicians regardless if such request carries with it any related value for the military. 

 

 So the next time the PAF flies the C-130 or any other such aircraft for that matter, it shall be a brand new one – not “widow makers or flying coffins” – as some quarters tend to rather believe. With no one having to call the aircrafts of the PAF flying coffins, no one has to engage the good general into a fist fight. What is disturbing a bit is the room for abuse in the way C-130s are being scheduled for political reasons when they should be used for purely military purposes. They should be made less accessible for use of congressmen, senators, and other cabinet officials as they tend to interfere with the true mission of the AFP in general. Truly, it costs so much in taxpayers’ money to have to ferry a congressman or senator from one province to another – free of charge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bangsamoro juridical entity, anyone?

Bangsamoro juridical entity, anyone?

 

Events in

Mindanao

indicate that the problem of peace in general has not been approached with a studied plan in mind – no ‘cognitive map’, no ‘blueprint’, no ‘frame of reference’. There continues to be a tug-of-war between the AFP/PNP and the MILF/MNLF to the extent that the future of the whole

Mindanao

hangs in the balance. Peace is presented to the viewing screen as being resolved by simple arithmetical solution. This means that the AFP/PNP, when it experienced heavy casualties, will just send additional contingent to

Mindanao

– more casualties, more troops. 

 

Fact is, the government has commercialized its exclusive, bounden, constitutional duty to protect the State against its enemies – by ‘subcontracting’ the entire job of running after Commander Umbra Kato and Commander Bravo via a P5 million reward for each of the top leaders of the apparently dreaded MILF. If we go by the more official pronouncement from the defense or military establishment, it is as if, the MILF leaders are ordinarily categorized as criminals with their crimes spelled out as murder, robbery, arson, et cetera. If they were so, why is it so hard for the government to bring them to the bar of justice?

 

It is clear that Kato and Bravo are not your ordinary criminals or terrorists as our Defense Secretary and Chief of Staff want us believe. Thus, for bureaucrats to make a swelling understatement, oversimplification, or resort to this rather vicious reductionist arrogance – in the end – simply cannot provide soothing comfort to our people who become part of the collateral damage of this unstudied joint military and police action against the MILF. How many more innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire – Muslims and Christians alike? How many more lives – on both warring camps – will be expended for fighting an armed battle where not one single camp really wins? 

 

If the Supreme Court did not as much as issue a temporary restraining order to the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain forged between the GRP and the MILF in uncharacteristic secrecy that could have been paved the way for a

Bangsamoro

 

State

, could events have followed a different configuration? If there had not been any sort of opposition to a so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity – under the ‘terms of reference’ set forth in the MOA – could the armed conflict  – have scaled down to zero? There were to be two scenarios that never have to take place. The contemporary mood is against two apparent states in a deceivingly peaceful co-existence and it remains to be the only constitutional barrier against any attempt to a secession or dismemberment. By whatever political gameplan this attempt at an independent

Mindanao

must have been drawn, in the final analysis, the government failed to cut clean.

 

Serious observers have taken an entirely different view on the matter. There is more than meets the eyes on this sad comeuppance in

Mindanao

– Lanao, Cotabato, Sarangani, wherever. There is a school of thought that says the whole scenario is part of a US plan in Southeast Asia to position itself against a possible increasing regional or global role of another country in that part of the geographical grid. True enough, US is always the world policeman that is willing to pay the price to set up strategic defense posts in every part of the globe as is  euphemistically called – US military presence.

 

On another, there is a prevailing worldview that this has been borne out of fear of the US against a JI-led pan-Islamic state spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines that is perceived to become a choke point through which oil imports from China, Hongkong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan will pass. Has if then become logical that US is taking a pre-emptive move if indeed this is part of a JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) plan especially so where it is said that this area contains some of the richest petroleum and mineral deposits in the world? If there is reason for US, as a major importer, to be threatened in the future of an oil embargo, then this kind of theory holds water.

 

What probably adds insult to injury is the observation that the Chinese have strategic interests in the Spratlys that would make US jealous. After all,

China

is US’ next strategic enemy in the higher scheme of things. Where the

Philippines

will favor a

China

than a

US

, a lot of things can result in the diplomatic landscape that probably bears watching. There are indications that a China-RP trade relationship is being strengthened with new contracts with the Chinese. Be that as it may, this can have certain political implications in the future. In the meantime, PGMA remains a nut hard enough to crack as one historian says.

 

 Is there really an oil game beyond the peripheral peace problem in

Mindanao

? Who stands to benefit in a given constitutional order legalizing a Bangsamoro state or that a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity finally secedes itself from the sovereignty of the Republic of the

Philippines

? There appears to be a larger picture beyond what are presented as though isolated pockets of rebellion throughout the

Mindanao

peninsula. There seems to be a grand scheme of things thought out by the stronger societies in the international realm. 

 

 Can RP just play pony to a Trojan Horse? What really is this war in

Mindanao

as it is happening now? Who amongst us are actually selling our sovereignty by a dubious independent Bangsamoro state? We hope the problem settles down soon with us better enlightened than what we just hear over radio, view from the TV, read from newspapers. The war in

Mindanao

is being made a convenient smokescreen for the real motives of either a

China

or a

US

over our territorial sovereignty. In the end, RP is under siege in the guise of a theatrical war game of sorts.

Charter change, anyone?

Charter change, anyone?

 

 Once again, the matter of a charter change is being floated around at the highest levels of governance – with no less than the Senate uncharacteristically endorsing its own Senate Resolution No. 10 and signed by 12 senators and still counting. “It’s all systems go for Charter Change” – so it’s said as though it were a sweet inducement in the sense of a Skinnerian schema. On the other hand, it can send signals that what the ‘powers that be’ really want is to reduce the fulcrum of power one of perpetuity with PGMA as its most favored patron. Whatever is the motive for this move of changing the Constitution when there was no hint whatsoever in the president’s last sona on this crucial issue challenges reflection. In a political culture dominated by the principle of numbers, the tyrants win the day. The votes will mirror that the Senators as the congressmen of Congress have unanimously agreed to erect a change in the fundamental law.

 

 Senate Resolution No. 10 is yet to be deliberated upon or a similar bill at the Lower Chamber of Congress on a paradigm shift – from our present Constitution to a Federalism making 11 federal states with

Manila

as the Federal Administrative Region. Senators Villar, Pimentel,

Angara

, Biazon, Pia Cayetano, Enrile, Escudero, Estrada, Honasan, Lacson, Pangilinan and Revilla signed this mere Senate resolution that would set the stage for a

Federal

 

Republic

of the

Philippines

. Not too convincingly however, they want us believe that such a move is designed to actually dissipate central authority down to the local set up as though more powers will be given at the lowest tier of governance. Unabashedly enough, the presidential spokesperson even claims that such charter change actually supports that controversial Memorandum of Agreement or that which would create a

Bangsamoro

 

State

. The shift to a federal form of government, the theory claims, will bring lasting peace in

Mindanao

. This ought to be one of Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

 

 No one seems to recall how then Speaker Jose De Venecia was batting for a charter change under the concept of a shift to a parliamentary form of government. As to whether the federalism proposal is woven from the same thread – is still unknown at this juncture. The latest developments point to the fact that a pattern of withdrawal now occurs with the original signatories withdrawing their support to Senate Resolution No. 10. What seems to be the preferred constitutional route for a charter change is the convening of a Constituent Assembly and both House of Congress seem agreed. Certainly, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales has always been optimistic that such change can still happen in PGMA’s term but enough of Ripley’s. 

 

 Malacanang has to disabuse our minds that there will no such thing as a surgical amendment to the Constitution or that it will sneak in amendments to the new Charter that will in effect, extend the term limits of the president. This seems to be the single stumbling block to the success of such a Palace-sponsored move of a shift to a federal government. In the same breadth, it seems a mere ploy the official position that a federal form of government will address or in fact put an end to the

Mindanao

conflict. There is inherent danger in this kind of analysis since the creation of a Bangsamoro state will always undergo long period of debate and in the end, the Palace will not have to accede to what they will propose. There has never been an end to this problem of peace nor can it be micromanaged via a federal government system. For as long as

Mindanao

heavily subsidizes

Luzon

and for as long as

Mindanao

is always shortchanged by government in terms of ‘social dividends’, the

Mindanao

conflict always is here to stay. More than the political dimension, the economic side of the ledger ought to be carefully studied and resolved in their favor.

 

 Consider for a moment that

Manila

would be the new US Washington, D.C. and the Bangsamoro is actually one of 11 federal states, meaning, at long last, we have Bangsamoro as a Juridical Entity in the whole scheme of things. More authority will be dissipated down to the local set up thereby allowing Mindanao as similar other federal states a decentralized form of governance. How far will decentralization go? How far will centralization allow? There will be more questions asked than answered once we go for a charter change. First, there will be massive revisions in the various Articles contained in the 1987 Constitution. There will be amendments that will undergo long debates unless the tyranny of number will the prevailing intellectual culture if only to railroad such a move.

 

For want of peace, we will erect a new Constitution. And such move presupposes that there is already a proposed new Charter, a new Constitution altogether – that no one has yet seen except those in Congress. There ought to be that version from the Senate as there ought to be another version from the House of Representatives. Has anyone even as much as outlined for the viewing public what the new

Federal

 

Republic

of the

Philippines

is all about? Everybody just seems to point to

Mindanao

as the culprit of it all. How good indeed can we pattern our new Charter from that of a so-called ‘Model Democracy’ that is the Swiss Cantonal System? Where is the stimulus coming from in this seeming mad race for a new form of government? Did Swiss President Pascal Couchepin really believe the myth or sense of hope expressed in our official peace theory? 

 

RP is no

Switzerland

. As a people, we have yet to evolve as a mature democracy starting at the highest levels of governance. Until then, it will be a treacherous social experiment to tinker with the present Constitution as though it has turned entirely useless just because we heard bullets fired and houses burned in some remote barangays in

North Cotabato

? It bears watching this vicious issue of a Charter Change as it simply gathers more steam than heat. Majority is not always right until it does right. The numbers game ought now to be an intellectual taboo, pray tell. Still, before push turns into shove, people would have decided in a plebiscite called for the purpose. Pray tell, we Filipinos decide wisely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Critique on PGMA's 2008 sona

Critique on PGMA’s 2008 Sona

 

 The acknowledgment given by no less than the President of the Republic of the

Philippines

to at least a dozen ordinary Filipinos on the occasion of her State of the Nation Address did justice to the newly-refurbished Congress by the new Speaker courtesy of taxpayers’ money. The one-day affair costs a P100 million after many years of neglect of a historical edifice that ought to be preserved and maintained. 

 

 On the viewing screen, at least, it serves as therapy that we don’t have to see a clapping Speaker as much as an equally patronizing Senate President. Fact is, Villar practically did not have to clap his hands that must have made it inhibitive for Nograles to have to overdo any indicative patronage act. Coming as 8^th in a row of Sonas, this is probably the lousiest sona ever delivered lacking as it does in its climactic effect. 

 

 As reported, the sona has gone through 20 drafts to have been finalized on the wee hours of the morning. Paradoxically, right after the speech, headlines say that there was actually nothing in a P50 cents reduction in text messages. This has given PGMA away or whoever wrote that sona? Where it reads, the piece must have been written by a not-too-above-average person of influence. Fact is, it was almost unpresidential.

 

 What has a sona got to do with the personal circumstances of the likes of Federico Alvarez – a jeepney driver; Rodney Berdin – 13 year-old boy; Edwin Bandila – a rice farmer; Rosario Camma – chieftain and mayor (in tribal attire); Jessica Barlomento, Shenve Catana, Mary Grace Comendador, Marlyn Tusi – all welders of Hanjin (a private firm); Victoria Mindoro – a farmer and factory worker; Pedro and Concordia Faviolas – rubber farmers; Justice Vitug and Francis Lim – of Texas Instruments and Philippine Stock Exchange, respectively; Allan Amanse – a fisherman turned whaleshark watching officer; and Joey Concepcion – a partner entrepreneur? 

 

 The story line seems to generalize from very individual instances of deceptive successes by particular individuals and necessarily, it is grossly violative of logic as we normally understand. We simply cannot generalize from limited particulars – in this case, singular instances or specimens. Its residual media value is of course of some help perhaps to launch that self-confessed admission of PGMA to spend her time daily with the underprivileged. But this piece of PR utterly lacks that modicum of honesty that makes advertising a good one.

 

 There isn’t really much of a corpus of data that will make it hard for the average layman to understand from PGMA’s speech. There is no linguistic barrier as would otherwise make it difficult for readers to get the gist of what the PGMA has to say she has accomplished and will continue to accomplish. In other words, the sona is couched in near layman terms.

 

 PGMA turned the oil price issue as a convenient scapegoat for the shortcomings of government in fiscal matters and braggingly enough, claims the government has all the money to cushion off the impact of oil price spikes.

 

 Cunningly, PGMA defended her VAT policy dismissing as she did that opinion polls made her look unpopular. In her exhaustive enumeration of the amounts of money taken from VAT for various programs of government, it becomes crystal clear that without VAT, her administration has long succumbed to death. It further became clear that Malacanang always allocates from P.5 billion to P4 billion for every program it envisions to undertake. For instance, PGMA allocated P3 billion for anti-graft fund, can you believe it?

 

 It ought to challenge reflection the uncharacteristic pride PGMA exhibits in her mention that Land Bank has quadrupled loans for farmers and fisherfolks; that Pag-Ibig loans have increased from P3.8 billion to P22.6 billion; that SSS as it is with GSIS has increased salary loans benefits to employees since 2001; or that PhilHealth has paid P100 billion for hospitalization (fact or fiction?). 

 

 In the end, there is nothing to be thankful of about programs being implemented by this government. Managing corporate RP has become a profitable business in governance that even government banks have become loan sharks to – fool the people, buy the people, off the people. See you in the 9^th. 

 

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman,

Quezon City

 Email: nielsky_2003@yahoo.com Cellphone: 09164985265

Sona 2008

The President’s SONA

 

 The State of the Nation Address, a yearly tradition where the president delivers her speech before the joint session of Congress and Senate, is always attended to with a sense of Marxist dialectics. 

 

Offhand, it divides a wedge between apparently only two classes of people – the psychopants the militants, if we go by extremely reductionist drift. 

 

At no time of the year is the dynamics of democracy more graphically demonstrated than when a thick mob of protesters is blocked by thick rows of anti-riot police and military troops and any number of 10-wheeler container vans, fire trucks, military 6 x 6 army vehicles, and APCs are placed across all possible entry roads. Red flags, pennants, and effigies and the skilled political agitators in clenched fists drown patronizing activists and international media observers to their piercing oratories. 

 

 Thus, Sona, viewed from within and beyond, mirrors two conflicting scenarios. PGMA does a one-woman show to make official the final draft of her long-consulted presidential speech. At the other end, a mob – and their vocal icons – speaks their minds on the true state of the nation before a demagogue. Thus, society writ large can see two sides of the coin and it is apt for them to judge which version to choose.

 

 President’s sona ought not to be a difficult task altogether. It is easy enough to defend some pro-poor programs that are visible at ground level. Who will forget the food for children program, the one-time P500 refund on electric bill, the cheap NFA rice in designated outlets, the land titles to identified beneficiaries rationalized by presidential proclamations, those checks to families-victim of the sea mishap and other disasters? 

 

No wonder, Malacanang, Inc. – under the skilled care of its spin doctors – is just like any other photo studio outlet. Tri-media takes care of the final cosmetic touch with their editors, broadcasters, and writers placed in secret payroll from Arlegui. In other words, on special events, PGMA can be portrayed in the kindest way possible to her heart’s content.

 

Even the latest findings of social weather or poll circuits such as the Social Weather Station, Pulse Asia and the like few days or weeks before Sona are entirely tinkerable, if there be a word. However bad, in very real terms, the latest findings of PGMA’s performance and trust ratings have become for the July 1 to 14, 2008 survey by Pulse Asia, still, if compared to that of last year, nothing is really rotten anywhere. Is that statistical trick or what? Such words as – “do not differ significantly” in the context of 2007 and 2008 comparison are really tricks in the book by push-polling circuits.

 

Funny, but even if we say that one of every two thinks that PGMA’s performance and trust ratings are poor, the analysis as would be given by the president’s advisers will cut across the grain to say – it is not that bad, in the end. Even if the statistical data already tells us that 48% disapproves of PGMA and that 53% distrusts her – this disapproval and distrust ratings – can still be (mis)interpreted in the best of light such as saying that in Visayas, except

Mindanao

and

Luzon

, a 30% approval is registered. In other words, in matters political – “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” – that the defense secretary is heard to have said it is pointless to boycott the sona without knowing it. 

 

PGMA has been president long enough in a tricky two-term scenario. On the scoreboard, the more official is the one from Malacanang or is this why there had been at least 20 drafts before the final sona is completed? The military, defense, and police establishment – being all-out on her side – serves as an insurance company that she will finish her term up until 2010. What with upcoming promotions for colonels and generals?

 

When sonas seem to resolve issues as to why many Filipinos today experience hunger, as to why the price of oil follows a near spiral, why the number of poor provinces or towns were never reduced in spite of fatty pork barrels, then something is wrong in this country. Effigies, grafitti, militant voices – all will be drowned in oblivion with a government vest with so much political power

 

There will be nothing new about the sona that people do not already know at ground level. As an old year has passed, a new one has begun. PGMA simply makes a grocery-list of what she has delivered so far and a new grocery-list of what she intends to deliver this year after her speech. 

Impact of oil price increase

Impact of oil price increase

 

 There appears to be a contemporary global thinking that embraces the view that the oil game is over. Stated simply, those rounds of oil price increases – from $30 to $40 to $50 to $60 to $70 per barrel of oil – will hit $100 per barrel. And there seems to be a truism on this prevailing mindset given that oil price increases were never seen falling in the world market.

 

 In the end, there is an evolving ‘economic world war’ between the oil-producing countries that export this product and those countries that are dependent on oil via importation. The global law of supply and demand, from a macroeconomic perspective tells us that the war is won on the exporters’ side. And ironically enough, up until today, such prices are demand-driven. It would have been worse if supply decisions from these oil exporting countries have come to play.

 

However, here in the

Philippines

, like politics, economics is local. The impact of oil increases will, by and large, hit badly in our domestic lives. Ordinary wage earners will understandably suffer the most as soon as its adverse effects will be passed on to the prices of goods and services given a consumer-led economy. Even the rather palliative or nominal wage increase that has been legislated in recent memory has done very little to compensate for the economic effects of such oil price increase.

 

There are quarters who think there is something that the government can do to cushion off its social and economic impact. One is a temporary reduction on the 3% tariff on oil. Another proposal is to succumb to oil rationing. Lastly, there are other cost reduction plans being laid out such as shorter or lesser use of electricity in government offices such as maybe the three-day work week in Congress.

 

As a people, Filipinos are known to adjust automatically when domestic problems crop up. The word that best describes this national trait is resilience. If we cannot afford the transport fare, we walk or even perhaps, bike our way to our place of work. Does this not explain the phenomenal increase in the motorcycle-riding population? 

 

Like other governments, there is not much that can be done. The era of the oil game is indeed probably over. The oil-producing states will dictate what the world price per barrel would be upon those states that are largely dependent on them. In short, over-dependency has become a universal problem that individual states should resort to other possible alternatives to move away from this heavy and crippling dependence on oil imports.

 

The next time we go to the mall or department stores to discover how well the prices of basic commodities and other consumer items have jacked up, we should not be anymore surprised. Things are bound to happen – life can be a lot worse than it used to be. This serves as a domestic challenge – everybody in the household must find work to get a little income.

 

Each day will soon be a survival problem to not a few other families – our marginalized. Our economic experts are heard to make any kind of proposal and it is yet uncertain if the government will be willing to subsidize oil price increase through some form of temporary tax holiday. Will it do a tax embargo at this point in time that its anxiety to project an economic growth has preoccupied it?

 

Oil price increases – and their second-round effects – stare us all to the face. If there is not much the national government can do for us, then, maybe we have to help ourselves enough. This rising tide of oil price increases, figuratively speaking, will probably wipe out all societies lying below sea levels. And our country is no exception.

 

In the meantime, let us fight it out in the home-front. Let every able-bodied and responsible-thinking member, aged 18 and above, in our household do some productive economic activity just so to bring in money to contribute his/her share to the overall household expenses. There is no time for lethargy. 

 

The current oil price shocks are soon to be felt even harder since there will be no shift in the terms of trade between the oil-exporting and the oil-importing countries. All of us, no exception will be the unintended victims of this world economic order. But as societies or governments must do their part, every individual in any given society or government must do his or her share as well. 

 

And, the challenge has just begun.

 

 

Bloomfields plays par excellence

Bloomfields

plays par excellence!

            Our kids – Chloe, Andre, and Niels – went yesterday for a ‘baby’s day out’ which has been scheduled a week before.  That we consented to it is one of fair play – students deserve a break from a virtually regimented kind of high school education from La Salle College, Antipolo on the one end.

And on the other, it marks one month of my harrowing experience working for the city government where on the strength of a 14-0 tribal game, I got booted out, however mistakenly from being the head of a Business Permits & Licensing Office.  Politics is local, as they say and either one bends or breaks.   And bending is simply not my cup of tea.

I shall be writing a book on this learning situation possibly even have to enroll at the UP

College

of

Public Administration

and have a masteral thesis written on the subject as a permanent contribution to knowledge and place the experience in its true and correct historical perspective.  I am no Trillanes but the same analogy may be drawn.

On a happier note, we went to

Araneta

 

Center

, at the Gateway and were there from as early as

4 pm

to few more minutes before

12 midnight

.  Eat, walk, and be merry – seems to be the vicious activity for that day combing malls of anything our eyes could feast on but not quite buy them.  And then having to wait for the 9 o’clock time slot, we killed time around the Cineplex in Gateway – me and my wife were two-some, and Chloe, Andre and Niels are in their company of Bloomies who showed up to watch the gig.

A road fronting Café Adriatico was closed and tables and chairs were put instead and a nice makeshift stage were set up if not already fixed for a regular Saturday live band performance.  Cubao must have copied from Eastwood this stuff – a gig area in the middle of mall. 

There were yet to be two bands that played before the turn of the

Bloomfields

but that is not to say that the two other bands performed their level best according to their own music genre.  Except that it is the

Bloomfields

we came there for to watch.

And speaking of that Cubao gig, it seems to me it must be the best performance of the

Bloomfields

in a long time that we haven’t seen them perform.  My kids must realize that music as much as their education, is just part of their lives – either one is not their lives. 

In their new uniform hair-cut, the Bloomfields come up the stage with Rockie making the first crack of the show that were to be rock, that were to be oldies but goodies hits of the 60s.  The group sang two of their originals – Wala ng Iba, and Ale.  And for anyone who always  would not resist having to sing his or her out with such songs as Beatles’ Medley, Beach Boys’ Medley, Elvis hits, Hurting Inside by Dave Clark 5, The Things We Did Last Summer, Going Out of My Head, I Love You Now Today than Yesterday, Put your Head on my Shoulder, I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout, La Bamba and such others I may have forgotten to recall – it was a fun-filled Saturday night worth the wait since 4 in the afternoon.

There ought to have been a kind of metamorphosis.  This means, they are doing better each time of musical performance in a select crowd.  Those who did not go and occupy the tables placed with white linen cloth do not have to go away – they listened to the

Bloomfields

just the same from outside the designated area – possibly more of them than we were seated. 

To get a table, one has to order.  That has always been the name of the game for a good show as the

Bloomfields

and the other bands that played, one from

Baguio

and one that copies from Queen.  Truly, the

Bloomfields

does copy from Beatles and the Beach Boys but what the heck.  We simply love the songs from way back and grew up with these songs to kingdom come – there is no changing musical taste – it stays forever.

Bloomfieds took a much longer time as the last band to perform trying to pinch the

12 o’clock

 

midnight

mood.  The group must have sang and played a lot of songs more than they did in one of their regular gigs at the Eastwood and performed pretty much better than all the gigs combined – that was really a personal opinion but I know where I am coming from.

Again, if there is always one thing lacking – it is that, the Bloomfields cannot quite perfectly connect at first sight with a new crowd only in the sense that it cannot enjoin the crowd to stand up, yell and shout any quicker than said.  It takes getting used to.  Also, the crowd does not respond to questions as if the national IQ is one of uniformity.  Only the little pack of Bloomies in the crowd have a stimulus response in the best tradition of B.F. Skinner in his concept of the “Ideal Society”.

The end part of the show is always the best part of it all for my kids and the Bloomies with them as they bond with the group on a one-on-one, one turn at a time basis.  And being with them, we have no option but to connect just as well.  As they say, there is no substitute for that ‘smooth interpersonal relationship’.  Fact is, one lady in the adjoining table thought  that me and my wife are relatives of the

Bloomfields

.  I admit, we are – being from the same species or my laughs.

It turns out, the lady was trying to see whether or not they can possibly invite the

Bloomfields

to their anniversary celebration.  But of course, the group is above the ordinaire.  It would cost anyone a lot of money to get them to perform or George knows it well.  That performance was really fabulous that we normally expect George to in fact cut the show as soon as he feels like doing but it seems he was more excited than anyone of us who watched.

            In the away-from-the-stage conversation with George and anyone of the group, we were told that their performance abroad was such a success that not many Filipinos were able to watch because the tickets were priced prohibitive and therefore, that show seemed to have catered to the American public.  The

Bloomfields

will be coming back with vengeance – they want to see more Filipinos enjoy the show, however prohibitive the ticket price is.

            And then again, they are booked for

Bahrain

, wherever that place is.  In short, the

Bloomfields

are living on a jetplance.  And George thinks he would not mind having to perform on a regular basis at the Gateway and that seems a good pleasant thing to hear – downtown Cubao – has not lost its history and place in the business world.

            So for the

Bloomfields

, when the crowd says encore, please oblige.  There ought to be no population control.

            

RP's comedy of errors!

RP’s scheme and scene – comedy of errors!

            Keen observers will not fail to notice the comedy of errors the whole scheme and scene in our contemporary realpolitik now has become.  After the “Hello Garci” scandal (that an NBI director has called the mother of all scams) had been buried alive, breathes another multi-million dollar scam that would soon rock the very foundations of Philippine society and bring it to her knees.  If writings on the wall were gauge, simulations of People Power as they actually happened in Edsa I and in Edsa II are fast taking place.  Such call for GMA’s final exit or ouster will soon reverberate across the globe as it has begun to inflict major injury to our own collective psyche.  Ours has always been a damaged culture and to add insult to injury, we, individually and as a whole, self-destruct. 

            The untiring, endless, even useless Senate proceedings as televised the world over must now come to a halt.  In the end, they mean nothing than mere competing political advertising campaigns from either side of the political fence.  If one worldview is destroyed by another and so on up to infinity, then we are just moving about in circles.  No one member of Senate will stop the vicious cycle of pros and cons and at the end of the day, nothing in aid of legislation would have been achieved.  If that happens, the Senate has just been a huge tri-media field of free publicity.  As the Senate does its avowed task, it is not far removed a lot of payolas will flow into every door of the institution.  The thin membrane that divides the wall between decency and indecency will count its own beneficiaries.  Patronage politics is even more strengthened in the unseen process.  Since nothing more can disabuse the public mind that something of a high-level corruption has really taken place right at the inner sanctum of Malacanang, what more is there to add in an entirely unmarked, even unstudied and highly untrained discussion of issues brought to the fore? 

            Cory, the principal icon of EDSA Revolt has spoken – prescribes that GMA has to go.  In an earlier occasion, FVR, another major icon of that historical event sent across the same plea to GMA’s face.  Erap seals all beams, matter-of-factly, short of asking for GMA’s ouster likewise.  Who, in his right mind, will not want GMA to go as the plot thickens.  No amount of so-called ‘unity walk’ by her Cabinet in the premises of Malacanang or by her AFP and PNP in places elsewhere can delete the solid public perception that GMA has done a public wrong that manifests itself clear as crystal.  The more well-meaning members of her Cabinet should start thinking of having to leave an institution now under siege and it is almost predictable that the domino effect of one resigning to trigger mass resignations is about to unfold.  It bears watching.  JDV, now sings another tune, disowns his former big boss when he was moved out of her grace.  Political survival for the man who has claimed authorship of nearly every law enacted for the last two decades was the name of the game.  To think he will again be the major beneficiary of a GMA ouster, if it happens, is tantamount to sheer luck – a turn of events that goes back to the dirty guys.  Pray tell, it will not be so.

            CBCP, playing well its make-believe image as the final moral arbiter of large societal issues, was never quick to the draw.  Its pastoral letter has always been buried in the limbo of meaningless utterances.  For the average mind, it is nonsensical, myopic, and for its ‘neither-here-nor-there’ stance, it is worth nothing at all.  It betrays its avowed concern as expressed in the dictum – the greatest good for the greatest number when it fails to deliver the true message across. And it failed as it has always failed.  Behind every 10-hour closed-door meeting beyond the piercing eyes of media that CBCP holds on a number of ‘turning points in the country’s history’ is a presumably institutional ‘power struggle’ taking place.  However, in an institution built on chronic seniority and hierarchy, personality cult is its chief beneficiary.  The head  of CBCP rules that little universe of supposed-to-be noble men of faith – the religious clique. 

            JDV’s little Congress – his once kingdom – is now on the silent mode as if to tell us nothing is the matter with this country.  The daily menu in the entire viewing screen that is the “Jun Lozada” brought to light an entire wasteland of claims and counterclaims, evidence upon a counter-evidence, truth upon counter-truth to the point as though, everything will be mathematical at the end of the whole equation.  What is this?  Truth, as we know it, provided nothing obstructs its flow like a self-serving defense mechanism as an EO 643 (whatever its number is) does not come as mere pile of facts, documents, or narratives.  Truth, when it comes out, comes out with simplicity in its wholeness.  All available evidence, if we may call it that, point to FG, that again, by simple implication is GMA herself.  An entire infrastructure of testimonies, material evidence, and papers can be built had the process been allowed to take its normal course.  There is however, a country to be saved as the official line from the military and the police would have us believed. 

            Malacanang is under heavy attack.  If it survived “Hello Garci”, is there anything else it cannot overcome?  If the prescribed legal route be followed, nothing tells us of a way GMA will be ousted, nor resigned from her position, nor booted out of Malacanang.  They know something we don’t.  They can do something we can’t.  They have planned ahead of time something we can never do.  In this country, the AFP and the PNP make governments, believe it or not.  And so long these institutions are beholden to the Queen, ouster is next to impossibility.  GMA will finish term, good or bad.  There is even greater danger of rallying behind that certain Jun Lozada who cries when nothing pains him to a breaking point, laughs when highly serious statements were uttered, smiles when there is nothing so suited to smile about and breaks the frontiers of serious ideas from the non-serious ones.  We might be rallying behind a man that history will soon unravel to be just another ‘Chavit Singson’, pray not.

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

JDV out – another with a different collar

JDV out – another with a different collar

JDV’s almost theatrical 59-minute rhetoric, served public notice that he stood trial – and pleaded guilty as charged, matter-of-factly.  Keen observers of trends know where the man is coming from – trying even a last-ditch effort – to free his head off the noose.  Blackmail, call it that, for the first and final act, against the president of this damned republic.  It was time for the man that left a legacy only best known to him – to go.  Or ask anyone in the know what monstrous scenario he has created in an institution called the House of Representatives as its supposed-to-be mere agency head.  JDV projected himself as bigger than the institution he represents when in truth and in fact, no part ought to be bigger than the whole.  Thus, he probably overdid the state of affairs of what ought to be a sacred institution in so far as the officials and employees are concerned and more so in so far as the historic role of a Legislature is taken into account.

            The vote configuration betrayed the man who thought he has all the Batasan for himself – as new set of congressmen and women mixed with the old set in what Pichay always referred to as the ‘Old Boys Club’.  Now, there must be any given number of his colleagues – old or new – who rebelled against JDV’s own self-fulfilling prophecy not to mention antics that have already lost their spell or hypnotic effect.  Ironically how many editors, political analysts, and even scholars ever thought of JDV as the consummate statesman – as such perception rests on a mistake.  It is not just Malacanang that benefited more with his ouster – the Filipino people in general.  The anomaly that is JDV is soon a thing of the past or how indeed can he seat as speaker for three consecutive terms when each time a new Congress opens, every member is deemed on equal footing – no such thing as primus inter pares.  In other words, he is the author of a grand historical blunder and good thing this Gorgian knot is finally cut that no more tradition as bad as that JDV authored be repeated in history.

            Public perception of JDV is limited to what we read in newspapers, hear over radio, watch on TV, view on the net.  All these were created to be false by the man himself who writes his own press release, his own oratory, his own place in history.  History should be objective but when he came, he made it purely subjective as though everything that happens in the country, every issue that burns in the day, every hope left for the entire people – gravitates around his well-designed image as a great political leader of the times.  Not anymore as his long oratory or rhetoric gave the man away – JDV – in real than in reel, has become more of himself.  Now that he has to subordinate himself to the new leadership he himself apparently anointed – good or bad – not much shall be heard of him.  He shall resigned himself to oblivion – the sooner the better – that no more of him is heard, not his idea – if it ever was a bright one anyway.  His chronic reference to all his accomplishments – spoken from the first point of view, that is – really is an insult to intelligence.  Now he fall in his own snake pit.

            JDV’s successor, albeit his protégé, does not have to test the waters any longer.  Problem is, our fate and future might still be more of the same as they both came from the same breed of what Salonga conveniently calls ‘traditional politicians’ and its negative slant.  Spin doctors, damage control experts, media handlers need not do a lot of dishing in or dishing out.  The same menu will be served to the public at large with no perceptible change in flavor detected from any distance from the frying pan.  As a people or as a country, Nograles doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.  Creeping patronage politics as that discussed by Brillantes of UP will be the norm than the exception.  If we go by B.F. Skinner’s psychoanalysis, we shall find out in no time at all, that anybody driven by the same set of stimuli will respond in the same particular way as that demonstrated by the old occupant for three punishing terms or the man called JDV.  Thus, it is not as if ‘payolas’ will be a thing of the past.  It is not as if ‘lobby money’ will no longer circulate within the Big League.  It is not as if, the Congress will cease to be a Malacanang rubber-stamp.

            PGMA is probably the luckiest president we ever had.  And she better has to finish all of her term in office till she really has to go herself – with all the music and trimmings of a well-served term, if we can call it that.  Nothing has been proven of all the charges slapped against her to the satisfaction of the High Court.  On whether or not the High Court is beholden to her is another story by itself.  If the AFP and PNP and even the bureaucracy itself continue to patronize her leadership, so be it – nothing is the matter with that.  If coup plotters, destabilizers, or other extremists group cannot inflict the political blow they want to deliver, then so be it.  The president is the president under all the harsh conditions that have visited her – past, present, future. 

            It would seem that no promising group ever holds promise.  No such group can keep up a good fight – not even the so-called ‘bully from the school yard’.  Definitely, not Lacson, not Cayetano, not Escudero, not Magdalo.  Nobody as no group can boot PGMA out of office except by the tinkerable processes of law. Malacanang knows what buttons to press, its survival kit complete, its lieutenants and sub-alterns trained in politics as it should be better done under existing culture and sub-cultures. PGMA’s core group of advisers are a force to reckon with and they understand their political calculus more than other presidents combined.  Who said it was hard for PGMA to boot out JDV from his speakership?  It is a walk in the park – so far as PGMA is concerned – no fuss, no fibs. The daughter of the former president knows how to run the affairs of state, albeit – one step forward, two steps backward, if you follow my drift. Fact is, the more she is ‘harassed’, the stronger her stay in power becomes.

            What is in store for the Filipino people? 

Rebellion?

Rebellion?

 

 Suppose Group X is a small number of military officers and enlisted personnel whose cases in a civilian court have to be heard by the cognizant regional trial court on a scheduled day. In the middle of the hearing, the respondents, walk out of the court room and proceeded to a nearby hotel. Before such walk out, the third-party who took custody of them did not shoot at the judge, the fiscal or any enforcement authority there present much less issued what may constitute as grave threats. In other words, the court has not done any action whatsoever that could have reasonably pre-empted their act that made it easy for them to proceed from the court to a nearby

Makati

hotel. Let us grant that this was exactly what happened at Manila Peninsula Hotel when news broke that there was a lightning ‘coup d etat’.

 

 Soon after the incident, Malacanang sent troops in V-150s, armored personnel carriers (APCs), and more special forces than necessary from the

AFP

and

PNP

to conduct assault operations if after the deadline set by government, the personages who holed themselves up will not voluntarily surrender to the authorities. As it did in fact happened, the government troops cordoned the whole hotel complex and the V-150 has to break in the hotel’s lobby and troops have to give a volley of fire to clear the lobby area. Then, troops have to lob a lot of ‘tear gas explosions’ to compel the suspected group to come out. To cut a long story short, those holed up in the hotel offered no resistance and were forced to surrender themselves to the apprehending police or military. Thus, they were taken out, handcuffed, or tied and ferried to a bus for tactical interrogation at

Camp

Crame

, whatever. As this is happening, PGMA has to appear on nationwide TV threatening to punish them to the fullest extent of the law.

 

 And thus, the inquest proceedings have all been built under the trumped-up charges of rebellion and inciting to rebellion against those who are alleged to have participated even merely present in the premises when the event occurred. Ironically, not few media people were arrested likewise. The reason officially given is that of intelligence reports saying that the Magdalo soldiers pass themselves off as media people so as to elude arrest. Thus, the

AFP

and

PNP

have to arrest everybody to even get at that person or persons who may have no participation, in any way, to what they conveniently automatically label as a coup d etat, or in this case, rebellion. Thus, a bishop, a political scientist in the person of

Dr.

Francisco

Nemenzo

, other civil-rights lawyers were not spared the whip. It should be the first time for

Dean

Nemenzo

to get himself arrested although whenever a coup is hoisted, he is always at the scene of the crime, matter-of-factly.

 

The State Prosecutor from the Department of Justice presided over the inquest proceedings. The lawyers of the accused, some of them lawyers themselves, and their collaborating counsels who made their appearances as respondents were called one by one. A lot of things can be said of how the proceedings came about. It was baroque, grotesque, bizarre, absurd – even a total shame – on the part of that DOJ panel headed by

Atty.

Velasco

who does not seem to know where his left hand is from his right. In fact, had every word, voice or sound in the entire proceedings been captured in the later transcript or journal, it should make for an interesting reading. I would have wanted to have a copy of the minutes of the proceedings or a copy of its

VCD

. Certainly, every student of law knows that the inquest or mock trial has miserably failed to show any sign of proof of probable cause largely because the charge cited in the complaint is totally bereft of any degree of truth in it or so because the private counsels of the respondents were the top-caliber lawyers that they are who would know everything about law. And sadly,

Atty.

Velasco

pales in comparison. The result was clear – it weakened the government position against those they arrested and charged for such offense.

 

Since the whole inquest proceedings have everything complete – the accused and their accusers – and considering further the fact that it is televised nationwide, it simply behooves upon the DOJ Panel to have successfully brought the matter to a close except that it failed. Thus, the last thing a viewing universe understands is that – it was suspended at about past

midnight

and that their (DOJ) resolution will be forthcoming – “as soon as possible” – and not even before seven (7) a.m. the day after, which runs counter to Atty. Velasco’s earlier pronouncement. I have great reservations on the manner the whole affair has been conducted. Here we find a State Prosecutor unable to communicate in the official language which in this case, is the English language. Here we find a State Prosecutor, caught with his pants down, on what should have been basic and elementary knowledge of law but he was clearly ignorant about. This was on the matter of having to detain the persons accused beyond the 36-hour reglamentary period. Here we find a State Prosecutor who keeps on uttering the phrase – “thank you very much, panero” – countless times in the process and who always begs for the understanding of the defense counsels of the accused, individually and collectively. In short, in a scale of 1 to 10, the government and taxpayers paid for the services of a State Prosecutor who may be better off shooting mock-up targets in a shooting range. He probably best qualifies as a range officer in a shooting range. All told, it was a faux pas, a comedy of errors.