Richard James Mendoza
07/23/2010
This July 26, 2010, the 15th Congress will open its regular session. On the same date, BSA III will deliver his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). While Malacanan has said that the speech will focus on current problems, I think this will become another episode of the blame game where the yellows are good at. They will probably go on blaming GMA for the problems that we have today. But the problem is that they are the ones who started this whole mess. It all started after EDSA I. Government assets were practically given away for free. Rampant privatization took place. It was also at this period when Corazon Aquino started a borrowing binge. As a result, she accumulated more debt in her six years than in Marcos’ twenty-one years of rule. Because of these, it would be hypocritical of BSA III to blame GMA for this mess. He was one of the many who joined EDSA II that installed an illegitimate president.
XOXOXO
Police State? Reports indicate that about 10,000 policemen are about to be dispatched for BSA III’s SONA. Why does he need such a large amount of policemen? Can it be true that they are only protecting their own kind? Or can this be a sign of things to come?
XOXOXO
Right to rally. There are reports that the residence of BSA III in Times Street, Barangay West Triangle, Quezon City has been declared a “no-rally zone”. Why is this? He is the President (supposedly) and therefore he has to respect freedom of expression as written in the Constitution. In relation to this, does anyone know if the “no permit, no rally” policy is still in effect? Anyway, the Constitution is clear about this. At least I do not see the Calibrated Pre-emptive Response (CPR) being implemented now.
XOXOXO
Complaints against COMELEC. The Philippine Computer Society (PCS) has filed criminal charges to the Ombudsman against COMELEC officials for allegedly violating the provisions contained in the Automated Elections Act. On a similar note, Gov. Homobono Adaza filed a TRO to the Supreme Court a few weeks ago asking that the elections be declared null and void, citing violations of the Constitution. Let’s see if the COMELEC can answer these charges.
XOXOXO
Miscellanea. I just finished downloading all the parts of the MIGHT-e2010 video. However, it seems that the sixth part was “corrupted”, so to speak. It probably received a lot of “tongpats” during the download. Anyway, all I need to do is to download it again and buy some blank disks. You can ask for a copy, if you want. All you need to do is contact me. I will also burn “Moneymasters”, “Great Global Warming Swindle” and Alex Jones’ “Endgame”. Give me suggestions on what to burn.
Friday, July 23, 2010
That 'coup' case charade
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
07/23/2010
In 2003, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV led a military protest that found itself in what used to be the Oakwood hotel grounds. There was never any attack on a center of power nor any use of violence according to the defined legal hallmarks of a “coup d’etat.” Even the Yellow Jesuit legal luminary Joaquin Bernas had to admit this. The validity of the plaints raised by Trillanes and his fellow young officers, the Bagong Katipuneros, had been confirmed in the course of the Feliciano Commission’s fact-finding hearings and by history’s subsequent conviction of the Gloria Arroyo regime, through a succession of elections that condemned it to massive defeats.
The corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the flaws in its grievance mechanism, the lack of housing for soldiers, their obsolete equipage, the much-needed action on the National Recovery Program, and the removal of Angie Reyes, Vic Corpus and Jun Ebdane on suspicion of “false flag” operations in Mindanao, among others, were issues brought to the fore.
Oakwood wasn’t Malacañang nor was it a military installation that could be the launching pad for a wider “swift attack.” The Claymore mines some of the young officers apparently installed around the hotel’s perimeter were more apparent that real. As one retired general I talked to, who was at the scene with others like Gen. Roy Cimatu to negotiate for a peaceful conclusion to the Oakwood situation, told me: “When I saw that the Claymore mines were not being connected to fuses and triggers, I knew the young officers were not really going to engage in a fight. It was more psy war.”
This is an important point to be made as some yakking radio anchors are still hammering at the “explosives-being-installed” issue as evidence of the soldiers’ so-called “violent” intent. What transpired was a dramatic airing of issues that changed a nation’s view of the illegal, corrupt, and oppressive regime.
One of the unspoken issues of the Oakwood protest was the seething disquiet among the ranks of the AFP over the illegal Edsa II power grab against a constitutionally, legally and democratically-elected president.
Edsa II constituted a real violation of the Constitution; and despite the Davide-led Supreme Court (SC)’s imaginative figment of “constructive resignation,” this never settled well with the intelligent officers’ corps. The whole Edsa II defiled the very essence of the Rule of Law that every officer and soldier swear with his life to defend. That is also why the military protests did not end with the suppression of the Oakwood protest. Since Arroyo was able to get away with Edsa II, she proceeded to use the AFP in L’affaire “Hello Garci” as she did in the false flag terror ops in Mindanao.
Thus, Oakwood was followed in 2006 by the aborted Gen. Danilo Lim protest march and the Fort Bonifacio stand-off starring Col. Ariel Querubin. It can be argued that with the massive electoral rejection of Arroyo’s candidates in May 2007, the stage would have been set for even more AFP protest moves in the years that followed. But since Arroyo had gradually been persuaded that it was for her own survival and long-term good to decompress and depressurize the situation, this led to the grant of clemency for Estrada.
Then came the Manila Peninsula siege on Nov. 29, 2007 — the protest that arose due to the injustice of the continued detention of Trillanes and the refusal to allow him to attend Senate sessions. All the praises being heaped on the Makati judge sitting on the case are thus without merit, as this is an injustice that continues to this day where the justice system is complicit.
Trillanes’ case highlights the farce that is our intertwined political and judicial system — a farce that persists from the SC down to the lower courts. If judged on merits, ethics, or morality alone, Trillanes and his comrades should have all been freed long ago. They didn’t steal, rob, corrupt or plunder the government. It is Gloria Arroyo, her FG Mike, Reyes, Corpus, Ebdane, Ben Abalos, Nani Perez, Chavit Singson, Hilario Davide, et al. who have been alleged to be demonstrably corrupt, anti-democratic and treasonous in their acts; yet they are scot free. Then there are the corporate and oligarchic plunderers enriching their coffers while impoverishing the nation.
All the quibbling and all the legal hair-splitting, aired through the obfuscating media, that delay Trillanes’ release to fulfill his duty to his 11 million voters are all just farcical stunts to distract from the real issue of the corruption of the entire system.
If our AFP were made of better stuff and prouder of their calling and oath to the nation, they would have long continued the Bagong Katipuneros’ quest for a better society, sprung Trillanes, and put the truly corrupt where they truly belong — in prison.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Destiny Cable Channel 21; our new blog, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
07/23/2010
In 2003, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV led a military protest that found itself in what used to be the Oakwood hotel grounds. There was never any attack on a center of power nor any use of violence according to the defined legal hallmarks of a “coup d’etat.” Even the Yellow Jesuit legal luminary Joaquin Bernas had to admit this. The validity of the plaints raised by Trillanes and his fellow young officers, the Bagong Katipuneros, had been confirmed in the course of the Feliciano Commission’s fact-finding hearings and by history’s subsequent conviction of the Gloria Arroyo regime, through a succession of elections that condemned it to massive defeats.
The corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the flaws in its grievance mechanism, the lack of housing for soldiers, their obsolete equipage, the much-needed action on the National Recovery Program, and the removal of Angie Reyes, Vic Corpus and Jun Ebdane on suspicion of “false flag” operations in Mindanao, among others, were issues brought to the fore.
Oakwood wasn’t Malacañang nor was it a military installation that could be the launching pad for a wider “swift attack.” The Claymore mines some of the young officers apparently installed around the hotel’s perimeter were more apparent that real. As one retired general I talked to, who was at the scene with others like Gen. Roy Cimatu to negotiate for a peaceful conclusion to the Oakwood situation, told me: “When I saw that the Claymore mines were not being connected to fuses and triggers, I knew the young officers were not really going to engage in a fight. It was more psy war.”
This is an important point to be made as some yakking radio anchors are still hammering at the “explosives-being-installed” issue as evidence of the soldiers’ so-called “violent” intent. What transpired was a dramatic airing of issues that changed a nation’s view of the illegal, corrupt, and oppressive regime.
One of the unspoken issues of the Oakwood protest was the seething disquiet among the ranks of the AFP over the illegal Edsa II power grab against a constitutionally, legally and democratically-elected president.
Edsa II constituted a real violation of the Constitution; and despite the Davide-led Supreme Court (SC)’s imaginative figment of “constructive resignation,” this never settled well with the intelligent officers’ corps. The whole Edsa II defiled the very essence of the Rule of Law that every officer and soldier swear with his life to defend. That is also why the military protests did not end with the suppression of the Oakwood protest. Since Arroyo was able to get away with Edsa II, she proceeded to use the AFP in L’affaire “Hello Garci” as she did in the false flag terror ops in Mindanao.
Thus, Oakwood was followed in 2006 by the aborted Gen. Danilo Lim protest march and the Fort Bonifacio stand-off starring Col. Ariel Querubin. It can be argued that with the massive electoral rejection of Arroyo’s candidates in May 2007, the stage would have been set for even more AFP protest moves in the years that followed. But since Arroyo had gradually been persuaded that it was for her own survival and long-term good to decompress and depressurize the situation, this led to the grant of clemency for Estrada.
Then came the Manila Peninsula siege on Nov. 29, 2007 — the protest that arose due to the injustice of the continued detention of Trillanes and the refusal to allow him to attend Senate sessions. All the praises being heaped on the Makati judge sitting on the case are thus without merit, as this is an injustice that continues to this day where the justice system is complicit.
Trillanes’ case highlights the farce that is our intertwined political and judicial system — a farce that persists from the SC down to the lower courts. If judged on merits, ethics, or morality alone, Trillanes and his comrades should have all been freed long ago. They didn’t steal, rob, corrupt or plunder the government. It is Gloria Arroyo, her FG Mike, Reyes, Corpus, Ebdane, Ben Abalos, Nani Perez, Chavit Singson, Hilario Davide, et al. who have been alleged to be demonstrably corrupt, anti-democratic and treasonous in their acts; yet they are scot free. Then there are the corporate and oligarchic plunderers enriching their coffers while impoverishing the nation.
All the quibbling and all the legal hair-splitting, aired through the obfuscating media, that delay Trillanes’ release to fulfill his duty to his 11 million voters are all just farcical stunts to distract from the real issue of the corruption of the entire system.
If our AFP were made of better stuff and prouder of their calling and oath to the nation, they would have long continued the Bagong Katipuneros’ quest for a better society, sprung Trillanes, and put the truly corrupt where they truly belong — in prison.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m. on Destiny Cable Channel 21; our new blog, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com)
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