Herman Tiu Laurel, host
-----------
May 17, 2011
Guest: "Linggoy" Alcuaz
-----------
May 26, 2011
Guest: Butch Junia
-----------
June 7, 2011
Guest: Prof. Louie Montemar
Monday, January 31, 2011
Radyo OpinYon
Tune in to DWAD 1098kHz from Monday to Friday, 5-6 P.M.
Herman Tiu Laurel, host
-----------
May 17, 2011
Guest: "Linggoy" Alcuaz
-----------
May 26, 2011
Guest: Butch Junia
-----------
June 7, 2011
Guest: Prof. Louie Montemar
Herman Tiu Laurel, host
-----------
May 17, 2011
Guest: "Linggoy" Alcuaz
-----------
May 26, 2011
Guest: Butch Junia
-----------
June 7, 2011
Guest: Prof. Louie Montemar
Just the tip of the iceberg
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/31/2011
As Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia couldn’t have pulled off his larceny on the Armed Forces’ logistics command without authorization from above, so could these superiors of his (i.e. Angie Reyes, other chiefs-of-staff, including various Defense secretaries) also not have conducted these rackets over time without their higher ups ever condoning such acts.
For one, let’s ask who got Reyes to turn against the Constitution in Edsa II by shanghaiing a busload of generals to Gloria Arroyo’s illegal oathtaking, with him even sardonically exclaiming, “Gentlemen, we are committing treason.”
Knowing the answer is key because ever since that fateful day, Mrs. Arroyo has lavishly taken care of Reyes’ fortunes; likewise that of the “cheap” magistrate who administered her oath; and, of course, the vast riches of that noted oligarch slash Edsa pavement dancer who financed her coup — whose ilk Gloria’s economic adviser Joey Salceda claimed nine years later to have “…never had it so good, earning P10 trillion in 10 years” under their Queen’s inglorious reign.
Going by the P300-million loot Garcia had amassed, the former military comptroller may look like a big or middling fish. But once people get to see how much more his bosses may have plundered, he will certainly look like a small fry.
A small fry indeed Garcia is compared to, say, his erstwhile boss, Angie Reyes, who could have amassed P500 million to well over a billion (or even more), and that former Chief Justice, who was alleged to have benefited from the P3-billion Judiciary Development Fund, a scandal circa 2002-2003 that set off impeachment proceedings against him, which Gloria expectedly quashed.
A small fry, too, is what Garcia appears to be especially when placed alongside members of the then expanding Arroyo cabal, whose power addiction grew simultaneous with their own designs to stay in power, such that subsequent elections had to be rigged in order to net the players hefty kickbacks in, say, the ZTE-NBN scandal or even the transitional ruse that was the fraudulent P11.8-billion Smartmatic system.
But then, these billions are definitely miniscule compared to the ten thousand billions of pesos (read: P10 trillion) that the handful of Big Business oligarchs got, starting from the P5-million to P10-million payola-laden passage of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) by the Edsa II lameduck Congress under Sonny Belmonte, which ushered in a decade of power plunder that, up to this day, is the single biggest economic disaster for Filipino households and livelihoods.
Why, Epira was just a harbinger of all the predatory public utility rate increases that followed. In the years after Edsa II, the oligarchs were always on a roll — be it water, toll ways, or even port and harbor service fees! Good thing that a handful of consumer advocates, like the 89-year-old Mang Naro Lualhati, who won us our first P30-billion Meralco refund, are still around. This Feb. 7, he will be presenting in court Meralco’s P92-billion disallowances and P39-billion overcharges.
If and when the likes of Garcia and Reyes are put away in jail, does anyone believe Philippine society will be cleaned up? Their acts of corruption are but shovels of garbage from the Payatas pit of official corruption.
Who were the collaborators of Arroyo and Reyes all through the last decade in the Senate, Congress, media, religious and business sectors, as well as NGOs?
Ask Roilo Golez who, as National Security Adviser, defended Arroyo to the hilt during the Oakwood protests and investigations and called my radio program on dzXL to stop my reading of the Trillanes manifesto on July 27, 2003 and got me kicked out of the station a week later.
Ask Sen. Rodolfo Biazon to enlighten us as to why a group of retired generals reject him as being part of the so-called “righteous generals” of our soldiery. Ask Sen. Miguel Zubiri, too, who has been vocal on the Garcia issue. Let’s see if he can explain how he won his Senate seat.
Oops, I almost forgot, what about Etta Rosales and the funds she got from Gloria to jumpstart her party-lists and her comrades’ congressional careers?
If anyone thinks Garcia and Reyes’ alleged loots are scandalously huge, they should ask Sonny Belmonte where the former QC mayor’s annual P1-billion pork barrel went to in the past 10 years, and why his councilors’ counterpart pork barrel had grown from P40 million to P50 million a year, amid the worsening squalor of Quezon City’s poor.
What about the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and its officials, who are collaborating in a great financial larceny by keeping the P1.22-trillion Special Deposit Account idle while borrowing heavily year in-year out, adding up to the country’s mounting murderous debt to the global banking mafia?
What about the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s top officials, who implement debilitating taxes on small and medium scale businesses, as well as the onerous VAT on hapless Filipino consumers, knowing that an awfully huge chunk of these go off to feed the insatiable sharks of international Finance?
Garcia is a small fry; Reyes is but a middling shark. And while we should never take our eyes off them, we must all know that the megalodons (or prehistoric, dinosaur-like sharks) are swimming below in the coldest, darkest depths of our predatory sea.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, about “Crime and Corruption in Philippine Society” with PMJ’s Tito Guingona and Atty. Oliver Lozano; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/31/2011
As Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia couldn’t have pulled off his larceny on the Armed Forces’ logistics command without authorization from above, so could these superiors of his (i.e. Angie Reyes, other chiefs-of-staff, including various Defense secretaries) also not have conducted these rackets over time without their higher ups ever condoning such acts.
For one, let’s ask who got Reyes to turn against the Constitution in Edsa II by shanghaiing a busload of generals to Gloria Arroyo’s illegal oathtaking, with him even sardonically exclaiming, “Gentlemen, we are committing treason.”
Knowing the answer is key because ever since that fateful day, Mrs. Arroyo has lavishly taken care of Reyes’ fortunes; likewise that of the “cheap” magistrate who administered her oath; and, of course, the vast riches of that noted oligarch slash Edsa pavement dancer who financed her coup — whose ilk Gloria’s economic adviser Joey Salceda claimed nine years later to have “…never had it so good, earning P10 trillion in 10 years” under their Queen’s inglorious reign.
Going by the P300-million loot Garcia had amassed, the former military comptroller may look like a big or middling fish. But once people get to see how much more his bosses may have plundered, he will certainly look like a small fry.
A small fry indeed Garcia is compared to, say, his erstwhile boss, Angie Reyes, who could have amassed P500 million to well over a billion (or even more), and that former Chief Justice, who was alleged to have benefited from the P3-billion Judiciary Development Fund, a scandal circa 2002-2003 that set off impeachment proceedings against him, which Gloria expectedly quashed.
A small fry, too, is what Garcia appears to be especially when placed alongside members of the then expanding Arroyo cabal, whose power addiction grew simultaneous with their own designs to stay in power, such that subsequent elections had to be rigged in order to net the players hefty kickbacks in, say, the ZTE-NBN scandal or even the transitional ruse that was the fraudulent P11.8-billion Smartmatic system.
But then, these billions are definitely miniscule compared to the ten thousand billions of pesos (read: P10 trillion) that the handful of Big Business oligarchs got, starting from the P5-million to P10-million payola-laden passage of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira) by the Edsa II lameduck Congress under Sonny Belmonte, which ushered in a decade of power plunder that, up to this day, is the single biggest economic disaster for Filipino households and livelihoods.
Why, Epira was just a harbinger of all the predatory public utility rate increases that followed. In the years after Edsa II, the oligarchs were always on a roll — be it water, toll ways, or even port and harbor service fees! Good thing that a handful of consumer advocates, like the 89-year-old Mang Naro Lualhati, who won us our first P30-billion Meralco refund, are still around. This Feb. 7, he will be presenting in court Meralco’s P92-billion disallowances and P39-billion overcharges.
If and when the likes of Garcia and Reyes are put away in jail, does anyone believe Philippine society will be cleaned up? Their acts of corruption are but shovels of garbage from the Payatas pit of official corruption.
Who were the collaborators of Arroyo and Reyes all through the last decade in the Senate, Congress, media, religious and business sectors, as well as NGOs?
Ask Roilo Golez who, as National Security Adviser, defended Arroyo to the hilt during the Oakwood protests and investigations and called my radio program on dzXL to stop my reading of the Trillanes manifesto on July 27, 2003 and got me kicked out of the station a week later.
Ask Sen. Rodolfo Biazon to enlighten us as to why a group of retired generals reject him as being part of the so-called “righteous generals” of our soldiery. Ask Sen. Miguel Zubiri, too, who has been vocal on the Garcia issue. Let’s see if he can explain how he won his Senate seat.
Oops, I almost forgot, what about Etta Rosales and the funds she got from Gloria to jumpstart her party-lists and her comrades’ congressional careers?
If anyone thinks Garcia and Reyes’ alleged loots are scandalously huge, they should ask Sonny Belmonte where the former QC mayor’s annual P1-billion pork barrel went to in the past 10 years, and why his councilors’ counterpart pork barrel had grown from P40 million to P50 million a year, amid the worsening squalor of Quezon City’s poor.
What about the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and its officials, who are collaborating in a great financial larceny by keeping the P1.22-trillion Special Deposit Account idle while borrowing heavily year in-year out, adding up to the country’s mounting murderous debt to the global banking mafia?
What about the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s top officials, who implement debilitating taxes on small and medium scale businesses, as well as the onerous VAT on hapless Filipino consumers, knowing that an awfully huge chunk of these go off to feed the insatiable sharks of international Finance?
Garcia is a small fry; Reyes is but a middling shark. And while we should never take our eyes off them, we must all know that the megalodons (or prehistoric, dinosaur-like sharks) are swimming below in the coldest, darkest depths of our predatory sea.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, about “Crime and Corruption in Philippine Society” with PMJ’s Tito Guingona and Atty. Oliver Lozano; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Small setback...
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/26/2006
"Maliit na setback sa movement,” was the text message sent to us by my text source in reaction to my query about the reported arrest of 1st Lt. Lawrence San Juan yesterday morning. This may be considered an official response to the incident as my text source has proved consistent and reliable, and there has been no denial from the visible and invisible Oakwood young officers’ leadership to what we report of their announced views here. We are informed that a statement will also be forthcoming from them in the coming days which we are supposed to read in a Mass that will be heard in the coming days.
I use the term “Oakwood young officers” referring to what the mainstream media have so erroneously tagged as the Magdalo group. From Day One of Oakwood to this day the group led by Trillanes, et. al. have displayed the symbol that unambiguously defines the spirit, goals and aspirations of their movement. We have also repeated time and again the name by which the group calls itself and should be called: The Bagong Katipuneros. The embroidered caps they use and give out are embroidered with the initials BK and the sun symbol they use is unambiguously of the Magdiwang faction of Bonifacio.
The Magdiwang of Bonifacio raised the 16-ray sun instead of the eight-ray sun of the Magdalo faction. The symbolisms here are crucial to the correct understanding of the Oakwood young officers, for while the Magdalo faction of Aguinaldo is written in genuine Philippine history as the faction that capitulated to the colonizers, the Magdiwang faction of Bonifacio remained true to the spirit and sacrifice of the Philippine Revolution. Is the persistent misidentification and misrepresentation by media of the symbols of the Bagong Katipuneros deliberate?
This column has consistently and persistently used the term Bagong Katipuneros to refer to the movement of young officers that symbolizes the ferment for anti-corruption reform within the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Those who persistently use the wrong term are mostly doing it out of ignorance and the force of habit of just following the diktat of the mainstream newspapers and media, but I will not be surprised if we were to discover someday that the consistent misnaming and misrepresentation of the symbolic identity of the Bagong Katipuneros were deliberate.
The manipulation of mainstream media is not difficult, all it requires is control of a handful of editorial positions in the largest newspaper in the country (supported by the advertising revenues of the establishment corporations) and the two main TV-radio broadcast giants. But much of it begins with the mainstream print media which most of the broadcast news writers, particularly radio, just pick up first thing in the morning, condense and read as news throughout the day. Indeed, if I were a propagandist of the establishment fearful of ideas of real change, I would strike out the idea of a new Katipunan and the reincarnation of Bonifacio’s spirit and Magdiwang movement.
That 1st Lt. San Juan’s arrest is but a “small setback” to the Bagong Katipuneros’ struggle is logical, the four “liberated” young officers being very well-known now. They are actively circulating to serve as catalysts and have become propaganda figures who take a lot of risks. As we wrote before during Faeldon’s arrest there will be others to rise. The Bagong Katipuneros even let their displeasure with Faeldon surface showing that they have enough confidence to exercise discipline among their ranks, reflecting a deeper bench than expected.
The Bagong Katipuneros “sleepers” are in place, coordinated by the many means at the disposal of their comrades. Surprises like Capt. Candelaria Rivas lie in wait; they cannot lose because the young officers constitute the vast majority of the AFP and each moment of the unfolding day is theirs because of their youth. Small setbacks are of little moment in the great endeavor the Bagong Katipuneros embarked on when they chose the name of the true revolutionary movement, the Katipunan, and Bonifacio’s faction as its model.
Another info they sent through text is about the alleged “bomb” reportedly recovered at the Philippine Military Academy rites recently which was actually a DOE (Demolition, Ordnance, Explosive) kit left behind by the DOE team detailed to Baguio, “not a foiled sabotage as they claimed.” Apparently, the AFP top brass propaganda machine and Malacañang have been hatching up a lot of these psy-ops to confuse the public. How many of the “bombings” now being reported, from the “kerosene can bomb” to the pill boxes in various places are actually on GMA’s orders we can’t tell.
While the BK’s struggle for change and emancipation continues, the nation’s plight worsens. The Leyte tragedy following a long succesion of similar catastrophes highlights the “primitivization” of Philippine life. While scientific resources are within reach of every community and Filipino, resources to acquire and use them are impossible to reach. The geo-mapping of communities in landslide danger has been made, and Phivolcs director Punongbayan was martyred doing this, but now we discover that GMA had not appropriated funds for its implementation.
Meanwhile, GMA extends another P680-million tax holiday to Ayala’s Manila Water which reported earnings of P2 billion after raising water rates again and adding 2 percent to the 10-percent eVAT. And Mike Defensor sheds crocodile tears for St. Bernard?
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/26/2006
"Maliit na setback sa movement,” was the text message sent to us by my text source in reaction to my query about the reported arrest of 1st Lt. Lawrence San Juan yesterday morning. This may be considered an official response to the incident as my text source has proved consistent and reliable, and there has been no denial from the visible and invisible Oakwood young officers’ leadership to what we report of their announced views here. We are informed that a statement will also be forthcoming from them in the coming days which we are supposed to read in a Mass that will be heard in the coming days.
I use the term “Oakwood young officers” referring to what the mainstream media have so erroneously tagged as the Magdalo group. From Day One of Oakwood to this day the group led by Trillanes, et. al. have displayed the symbol that unambiguously defines the spirit, goals and aspirations of their movement. We have also repeated time and again the name by which the group calls itself and should be called: The Bagong Katipuneros. The embroidered caps they use and give out are embroidered with the initials BK and the sun symbol they use is unambiguously of the Magdiwang faction of Bonifacio.
The Magdiwang of Bonifacio raised the 16-ray sun instead of the eight-ray sun of the Magdalo faction. The symbolisms here are crucial to the correct understanding of the Oakwood young officers, for while the Magdalo faction of Aguinaldo is written in genuine Philippine history as the faction that capitulated to the colonizers, the Magdiwang faction of Bonifacio remained true to the spirit and sacrifice of the Philippine Revolution. Is the persistent misidentification and misrepresentation by media of the symbols of the Bagong Katipuneros deliberate?
This column has consistently and persistently used the term Bagong Katipuneros to refer to the movement of young officers that symbolizes the ferment for anti-corruption reform within the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Those who persistently use the wrong term are mostly doing it out of ignorance and the force of habit of just following the diktat of the mainstream newspapers and media, but I will not be surprised if we were to discover someday that the consistent misnaming and misrepresentation of the symbolic identity of the Bagong Katipuneros were deliberate.
The manipulation of mainstream media is not difficult, all it requires is control of a handful of editorial positions in the largest newspaper in the country (supported by the advertising revenues of the establishment corporations) and the two main TV-radio broadcast giants. But much of it begins with the mainstream print media which most of the broadcast news writers, particularly radio, just pick up first thing in the morning, condense and read as news throughout the day. Indeed, if I were a propagandist of the establishment fearful of ideas of real change, I would strike out the idea of a new Katipunan and the reincarnation of Bonifacio’s spirit and Magdiwang movement.
That 1st Lt. San Juan’s arrest is but a “small setback” to the Bagong Katipuneros’ struggle is logical, the four “liberated” young officers being very well-known now. They are actively circulating to serve as catalysts and have become propaganda figures who take a lot of risks. As we wrote before during Faeldon’s arrest there will be others to rise. The Bagong Katipuneros even let their displeasure with Faeldon surface showing that they have enough confidence to exercise discipline among their ranks, reflecting a deeper bench than expected.
The Bagong Katipuneros “sleepers” are in place, coordinated by the many means at the disposal of their comrades. Surprises like Capt. Candelaria Rivas lie in wait; they cannot lose because the young officers constitute the vast majority of the AFP and each moment of the unfolding day is theirs because of their youth. Small setbacks are of little moment in the great endeavor the Bagong Katipuneros embarked on when they chose the name of the true revolutionary movement, the Katipunan, and Bonifacio’s faction as its model.
Another info they sent through text is about the alleged “bomb” reportedly recovered at the Philippine Military Academy rites recently which was actually a DOE (Demolition, Ordnance, Explosive) kit left behind by the DOE team detailed to Baguio, “not a foiled sabotage as they claimed.” Apparently, the AFP top brass propaganda machine and Malacañang have been hatching up a lot of these psy-ops to confuse the public. How many of the “bombings” now being reported, from the “kerosene can bomb” to the pill boxes in various places are actually on GMA’s orders we can’t tell.
While the BK’s struggle for change and emancipation continues, the nation’s plight worsens. The Leyte tragedy following a long succesion of similar catastrophes highlights the “primitivization” of Philippine life. While scientific resources are within reach of every community and Filipino, resources to acquire and use them are impossible to reach. The geo-mapping of communities in landslide danger has been made, and Phivolcs director Punongbayan was martyred doing this, but now we discover that GMA had not appropriated funds for its implementation.
Meanwhile, GMA extends another P680-million tax holiday to Ayala’s Manila Water which reported earnings of P2 billion after raising water rates again and adding 2 percent to the 10-percent eVAT. And Mike Defensor sheds crocodile tears for St. Bernard?
(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
Friday, January 28, 2011
Edsa II and the Greenbase legacy
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/28/2011
Who is in need of turning public attention away at the moment? Who is capable of this? Who has the actual track record for such dastardly crimes? These were the first questions that came to mind when I heard about the Newman Goldliner bus explosion the other day.
My thoughts immediately raced back to the F-I-D-E-L series of Rizal Day bombings a decade ago where the masterminds, who continue to run scot-free, subsequently attained their goal of grabbing power from a popularly-elected president, with some Muslim insurgents cum “patsies” (manipulated dupes) falling by the wayside.
I also had flashbacks of Operation Greenbase, an exposé by the Bagong Katipuneros against a top ranking military general and Defense official, accused of ordering the bombing of mosques to create a crisis scenario. Now, it seems, these shadowy figures have good reason to mobilize their assets once again.
In December 2000, the masterminds created a sense of absolute failure on the part of government to secure public safety, thus laying the predicate for the forced removal of the national leader back then. In the Edsa-Buendia bus bombing, the timing and the probable suspects lead us to speculate that the motives may well range from a deepening investigation into the Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia caper to their eagerness to show how much more incompetent the present government is compared to theirs.
Echoes of similarities between those two bombings became more vivid as the former’s most lamented victim, Crizel Acusin, a little girl whose face was blown off, shared an eerily similar name with Kristel Ausena, one of the fatalities in the recent blast. But apart from this, one cannot help but get unnerved by the deliberate inhumanity of it all.
Among the theories that officials are circulating about Tuesday’s explosion is the involvement of Abu Sayyaf or other Islamic insurgents and extortionists. But many of these groups are known to be offshoots of military, police, and paramilitary black ops — let loose under continuing monitoring of handlers who hold dossiers to keep these elements under control and used whenever necessary.
The circumstances and timing of the F-I-D-E-L bombings point to such a similar scenario, where the conspiracy of military and police generals with “The Great Usurper” to topple President Joseph Estrada (boastfully admitted by Arroyo in the video-recorded Copa celebrations of 2001) was the most likely culprit in the different maneuvers that made it possible for the heinous crime to happen, e.g., opening access to the LRT (through the withdrawal of bomb sniffing dogs a week ahead).
Subsequent events involving generals of Edsa II and the capture, helicopter escape, and then rubout of Al Ghozi also point to police brass manipulation of these elements. Some individuals involved in that conspiracy have been in the limelight the past few weeks and may have believed it opportune to put some of these old assets to use this time around.
Whether there is actually this plot today doesn’t really matter. Media have now been effectively sidetracked from the heated investigations that lead to certain generals and people in authority.
But it really brings up the old questions again: If those who have conspired against the Rule of Law and have been shown to have used direct threats of treasonous military action and actual violence against the elected government of Estrada continue to dominate Philippine society, should we wonder why such atrocities as the Goldliner “terror” bombing keep happening?
Remember that these Edsa II personalities, from Gloria and Mike Arroyo to (ret.) Gen. Renato de Villa (who recently got featured in the Jan. 26 Business Mirror column of Manuel Buencamino), were on record with this quote: “Our group, there was a backup strike force… with orders to shoot…” And with their rogue columnists continuing to justify this dark chapter in our history, can it not be said that they and their brand of injustice are still very much around?
The respect for the Rule of Law has not been restored; therefore, the reign of justice and peace cannot as yet return. The culture of impunity will remain for as long as the corrupt and dehumanized powers continue with their Rule of Force.
We must pressure media to return to the burning issues of the day before this latest tragedy completely distracts us. The investigation into widespread military corruption, the network behind the carnapping syndicates and the recent spate of gruesome murders, the injustice of unending increases in public utility rates, the exposé on Supreme Court sleaze by victims of injustice, as well as the economic larceny behind the latest Cha-cha (Charter change) call must all proceed full steam.
In short, we must continue to expose the legacy of Edsa II and Operation Greenbase, which is the total failure of the present system and the parasitic ruling class that are destroying our society and Republic. Nothing short of a revolutionary reversal will restore justice and peace in this country.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, about “Crime and Corruption in Philippine Society” with PMJ’s Tito Guingona and Atty. Oliver Lozano; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/28/2011
Who is in need of turning public attention away at the moment? Who is capable of this? Who has the actual track record for such dastardly crimes? These were the first questions that came to mind when I heard about the Newman Goldliner bus explosion the other day.
My thoughts immediately raced back to the F-I-D-E-L series of Rizal Day bombings a decade ago where the masterminds, who continue to run scot-free, subsequently attained their goal of grabbing power from a popularly-elected president, with some Muslim insurgents cum “patsies” (manipulated dupes) falling by the wayside.
I also had flashbacks of Operation Greenbase, an exposé by the Bagong Katipuneros against a top ranking military general and Defense official, accused of ordering the bombing of mosques to create a crisis scenario. Now, it seems, these shadowy figures have good reason to mobilize their assets once again.
In December 2000, the masterminds created a sense of absolute failure on the part of government to secure public safety, thus laying the predicate for the forced removal of the national leader back then. In the Edsa-Buendia bus bombing, the timing and the probable suspects lead us to speculate that the motives may well range from a deepening investigation into the Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia caper to their eagerness to show how much more incompetent the present government is compared to theirs.
Echoes of similarities between those two bombings became more vivid as the former’s most lamented victim, Crizel Acusin, a little girl whose face was blown off, shared an eerily similar name with Kristel Ausena, one of the fatalities in the recent blast. But apart from this, one cannot help but get unnerved by the deliberate inhumanity of it all.
Among the theories that officials are circulating about Tuesday’s explosion is the involvement of Abu Sayyaf or other Islamic insurgents and extortionists. But many of these groups are known to be offshoots of military, police, and paramilitary black ops — let loose under continuing monitoring of handlers who hold dossiers to keep these elements under control and used whenever necessary.
The circumstances and timing of the F-I-D-E-L bombings point to such a similar scenario, where the conspiracy of military and police generals with “The Great Usurper” to topple President Joseph Estrada (boastfully admitted by Arroyo in the video-recorded Copa celebrations of 2001) was the most likely culprit in the different maneuvers that made it possible for the heinous crime to happen, e.g., opening access to the LRT (through the withdrawal of bomb sniffing dogs a week ahead).
Subsequent events involving generals of Edsa II and the capture, helicopter escape, and then rubout of Al Ghozi also point to police brass manipulation of these elements. Some individuals involved in that conspiracy have been in the limelight the past few weeks and may have believed it opportune to put some of these old assets to use this time around.
Whether there is actually this plot today doesn’t really matter. Media have now been effectively sidetracked from the heated investigations that lead to certain generals and people in authority.
But it really brings up the old questions again: If those who have conspired against the Rule of Law and have been shown to have used direct threats of treasonous military action and actual violence against the elected government of Estrada continue to dominate Philippine society, should we wonder why such atrocities as the Goldliner “terror” bombing keep happening?
Remember that these Edsa II personalities, from Gloria and Mike Arroyo to (ret.) Gen. Renato de Villa (who recently got featured in the Jan. 26 Business Mirror column of Manuel Buencamino), were on record with this quote: “Our group, there was a backup strike force… with orders to shoot…” And with their rogue columnists continuing to justify this dark chapter in our history, can it not be said that they and their brand of injustice are still very much around?
The respect for the Rule of Law has not been restored; therefore, the reign of justice and peace cannot as yet return. The culture of impunity will remain for as long as the corrupt and dehumanized powers continue with their Rule of Force.
We must pressure media to return to the burning issues of the day before this latest tragedy completely distracts us. The investigation into widespread military corruption, the network behind the carnapping syndicates and the recent spate of gruesome murders, the injustice of unending increases in public utility rates, the exposé on Supreme Court sleaze by victims of injustice, as well as the economic larceny behind the latest Cha-cha (Charter change) call must all proceed full steam.
In short, we must continue to expose the legacy of Edsa II and Operation Greenbase, which is the total failure of the present system and the parasitic ruling class that are destroying our society and Republic. Nothing short of a revolutionary reversal will restore justice and peace in this country.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, about “Crime and Corruption in Philippine Society” with PMJ’s Tito Guingona and Atty. Oliver Lozano; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, January 24, 2011
'Competitiveness,' GDP and other BS
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/24/2011
Charter change (Cha-cha) proponents are foisting their battle cry of economic “competitiveness” to hoodwink our people into letting down their guard like a boxer lowering his arms. This BS has prevailed in the country for the last 25 years ever since the Yellow fever took hold, with the Makati Business Club behind it. Just look at how much clobbering the Philippine economy and population has taken--beaten to a pulp, in the ICU--while countries which kept up their guard such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, India et al. have not only kept up their sparring form but have taken crown after crown in the ascending economic weight divisions.
Like the Philippines , the US is now being beaten to the canvass by the likes of China because, in its bigness, it led down its guard as China did the famous Ali “rope-a-dope.” So who’s the dope now?
This is what economist Paul Krugman had to say when Obama, in a crucial address, dwelt on the matter: “Sigh. So it appears that President Obama is going to make ‘competitiveness’ his main economic theme… But this is hackneyed stuff, and involves a fundamental misconception about the nature of our economic problems. It’s OK to talk about competitiveness when you’re specifically asking whether a country’s exports and import-competing industries have low enough costs to sell stuff in competition with rivals in other countries… But the idea that broader economic performance is about being better than other countries at something or other--that a country is like a corporation--is just wrong… As Robert Reich says, this could all too easily turn into a validation of the claim that what’s good for corporations is good for America , which is even less true now than it used to be.”
Last week we focused on the incontrovertible fact that the Philippines is fully equipped to achieve success in its national economic recovery aspirations, particularly in the availability of domestic capital, as the idle P1.22-trillion Special Deposit Account managed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas shows. Hiro Vaswani, forensic finance process consultant and research chief of KME (Kilusan para sa Makabansang Ekonomiya), pointed this out--something that we shared in our last column. Well, Hiro just sent us another e-mail on the subject of competitiveness and the Cha-cha:
“Maintaining nationalist (partial bars to foreign ownership) provisions in the Constitution in some sectors of the economy and qualified restrictions of land ownership for foreigners is not a bar to economic development. The present 1987 Constitution in many ways calls for a developmental state model that has not been clearly established by the government itself. The calls for changes to the Constitution, in the alleged face of the emergence of a borderless economy, are stupid and insane at best. Firstly, countries do not and cannot compete like corporations. Countries do not have a bottom line that, if not achieved, they die like corporations. Furthermore, the recent financial crisis has already put the lie to the ideas of this so-called borderless world economy led by the more developed economies of the world.
“Countries all over the world today are putting in place domestic policy measures to grow their domestic economies. Amongst the emerging market economies, strong state developmental policy paradigms are driving their economic development. The problem in the Philippines remains with the policy of importing demand (i.e. export market dependence) deeply imbedded in the Filipino psyche. The economist Simon Kuznets who is credited with the creation of national income accounts (such as GDP or Gross Domestic Product) warned the government then that this measurement does not measure the general welfare of the people in the country. He further warned that there will be a huge disparity in income with developing economies as they transition from agrarian economies… (which) can only be avoided if an industrialization process happens…
“Figures from the government today reveal that income from deployed foreign employment is greater than domestic employment. The so-called ‘employed,’ consisting of self-employed and unpaid family workers, comprise the bulk of the true unemployed in the country (30 percent to 40 percent).”
Simply put, competition as an exemplar only emerged from “corporate economics,” along with its myth of the “private sector”-led growth. Of this Vaswani says: “An economic system that depends on individual selfishness and greed without qualifications will always lead to perverse incentives. Lying, cheating and corruption in both public and private sectors become institutionalized. Individual and familial interests prevail over a non-existing national psyche. Economic systems are morally neutral. This is where politics come in. Any student of political economy knows that the material base will greatly influence the political structure. It is in the rational self interest of a poor man to sell his vote for lugaw to survive the day…
“Economic history has proven that the selfish motive of man to create a better life for himself with ever decreasing levels of effort was directed by men who established state institutions to direct this effort over the last three centuries with resounding success.
“These state institutions are still mainly national in character. The idea of competitiveness in a borderless economy is a utopian dream of nuts and carpetbaggers. Taking it in hook, line and sinker has created a dystopian situation in the country.”
So let’s cut the BS and get back to the National Development Economics paradigm. Let’s all junk the GDP mantra and replace it with a National Development Index of human, ecological, industrial and sovereign growth!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, about “The RP Constitution, Economics and Cha-cha” with Atty. Alan Paguia and Dr. Hiro Vaswani; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/24/2011
Charter change (Cha-cha) proponents are foisting their battle cry of economic “competitiveness” to hoodwink our people into letting down their guard like a boxer lowering his arms. This BS has prevailed in the country for the last 25 years ever since the Yellow fever took hold, with the Makati Business Club behind it. Just look at how much clobbering the Philippine economy and population has taken--beaten to a pulp, in the ICU--while countries which kept up their guard such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, India et al. have not only kept up their sparring form but have taken crown after crown in the ascending economic weight divisions.
Like the Philippines , the US is now being beaten to the canvass by the likes of China because, in its bigness, it led down its guard as China did the famous Ali “rope-a-dope.” So who’s the dope now?
This is what economist Paul Krugman had to say when Obama, in a crucial address, dwelt on the matter: “Sigh. So it appears that President Obama is going to make ‘competitiveness’ his main economic theme… But this is hackneyed stuff, and involves a fundamental misconception about the nature of our economic problems. It’s OK to talk about competitiveness when you’re specifically asking whether a country’s exports and import-competing industries have low enough costs to sell stuff in competition with rivals in other countries… But the idea that broader economic performance is about being better than other countries at something or other--that a country is like a corporation--is just wrong… As Robert Reich says, this could all too easily turn into a validation of the claim that what’s good for corporations is good for America , which is even less true now than it used to be.”
Last week we focused on the incontrovertible fact that the Philippines is fully equipped to achieve success in its national economic recovery aspirations, particularly in the availability of domestic capital, as the idle P1.22-trillion Special Deposit Account managed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas shows. Hiro Vaswani, forensic finance process consultant and research chief of KME (Kilusan para sa Makabansang Ekonomiya), pointed this out--something that we shared in our last column. Well, Hiro just sent us another e-mail on the subject of competitiveness and the Cha-cha:
“Maintaining nationalist (partial bars to foreign ownership) provisions in the Constitution in some sectors of the economy and qualified restrictions of land ownership for foreigners is not a bar to economic development. The present 1987 Constitution in many ways calls for a developmental state model that has not been clearly established by the government itself. The calls for changes to the Constitution, in the alleged face of the emergence of a borderless economy, are stupid and insane at best. Firstly, countries do not and cannot compete like corporations. Countries do not have a bottom line that, if not achieved, they die like corporations. Furthermore, the recent financial crisis has already put the lie to the ideas of this so-called borderless world economy led by the more developed economies of the world.
“Countries all over the world today are putting in place domestic policy measures to grow their domestic economies. Amongst the emerging market economies, strong state developmental policy paradigms are driving their economic development. The problem in the Philippines remains with the policy of importing demand (i.e. export market dependence) deeply imbedded in the Filipino psyche. The economist Simon Kuznets who is credited with the creation of national income accounts (such as GDP or Gross Domestic Product) warned the government then that this measurement does not measure the general welfare of the people in the country. He further warned that there will be a huge disparity in income with developing economies as they transition from agrarian economies… (which) can only be avoided if an industrialization process happens…
“Figures from the government today reveal that income from deployed foreign employment is greater than domestic employment. The so-called ‘employed,’ consisting of self-employed and unpaid family workers, comprise the bulk of the true unemployed in the country (30 percent to 40 percent).”
Simply put, competition as an exemplar only emerged from “corporate economics,” along with its myth of the “private sector”-led growth. Of this Vaswani says: “An economic system that depends on individual selfishness and greed without qualifications will always lead to perverse incentives. Lying, cheating and corruption in both public and private sectors become institutionalized. Individual and familial interests prevail over a non-existing national psyche. Economic systems are morally neutral. This is where politics come in. Any student of political economy knows that the material base will greatly influence the political structure. It is in the rational self interest of a poor man to sell his vote for lugaw to survive the day…
“Economic history has proven that the selfish motive of man to create a better life for himself with ever decreasing levels of effort was directed by men who established state institutions to direct this effort over the last three centuries with resounding success.
“These state institutions are still mainly national in character. The idea of competitiveness in a borderless economy is a utopian dream of nuts and carpetbaggers. Taking it in hook, line and sinker has created a dystopian situation in the country.”
So let’s cut the BS and get back to the National Development Economics paradigm. Let’s all junk the GDP mantra and replace it with a National Development Index of human, ecological, industrial and sovereign growth!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, about “The RP Constitution, Economics and Cha-cha” with Atty. Alan Paguia and Dr. Hiro Vaswani; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Taken for a ride on fluoride
CONSUMER'S DEMAND!
Mentong Laurel
1/24-29/2011
Our campaign against the power plunderers has gotten off the ground and our colorful car stickers are gradually finding their way to more and more consumers to rouse public sentiment against the continuing con game and larceny.
With us are our comrades, Butch Junia of OpinYon, and others such as Job Bordamonte of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), who both guested in my GNN program last Tuesday. (Incidentally, the FDC is holding its conference on power issues this Jan. 25-26 at the Ciudad Cristhia Resort, San Mateo , Rizal; interested parties may contact Job through 0920-9149561 or jobkevin@yahoo.com.)
As we continue to drum up the crusade for fair electricity rates, we urge all citizens to join the cause. Meanwhile, we’ll focus on another vital consumer issue: The fluoride fraud.
Last January 8, 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a report admitting that 2 in 5 children there show signs of fluoride poisoning, such as streaking, spotting, or pitting of teeth due to dental fluorosis. Hence the CDC has decided that fluoride levels in municipal water supplies be lowered from 1.2 to 0.7 milligrams per liter.
Five decades of putting in increasingly high levels of fluoride in drinking water has come to an end; but the questions have just begun. Since fluoride is really a poison, why wasn’t it completely banned as European governments have done? How can the CDC ever have recommended such high levels of fluoride in public drinking water; and worse, what could it have done to those who’ve used tap water for infant formula?
Even mothers who drink from tap water would also have fluoride in their breast milk! What does this now make of the sales pitch of toothpaste companies that brandish their fluoride content? How did this horrendous fluoride myth begin?
The story is equally shocking, as reporters Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson discovered about the Manhattan Project, the US ’ secret atomic bomb development program. They found that fluoride was a key chemical in atomic bomb production.
“Fluoride was the top chemical hazard of the US nuclear weapons program, not only for workers, but for those living in nearby communities as well,” writes James Donahue in The Great Fluoride Scam. He continues: “The documents show that the first US lawsuits levied against the atomic weapons program were over fluoride poisoning, not radiation damage. The documents reveal that the US government secretly ordered atomic bomb scientists to create ‘evidence useful in litigation’ against defense contractors who were being accused of injuring citizens with fluoride.”
So they created this myth that fluoride is good to allay the public’s fears of the millions of tons of fluoride being dumped in US waters. That’s why toothpaste tubes have a warning printed onto them that any child who swallows more than a pea-size amount of the toothpaste should contact poison control. That poison is fluoride. Brushing with water is enough. And while others may want pastes that contain no fluoride, it’s time to stop buying this poison!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Mentong Laurel
1/24-29/2011
Our campaign against the power plunderers has gotten off the ground and our colorful car stickers are gradually finding their way to more and more consumers to rouse public sentiment against the continuing con game and larceny.
With us are our comrades, Butch Junia of OpinYon, and others such as Job Bordamonte of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), who both guested in my GNN program last Tuesday. (Incidentally, the FDC is holding its conference on power issues this Jan. 25-26 at the Ciudad Cristhia Resort, San Mateo , Rizal; interested parties may contact Job through 0920-9149561 or jobkevin@yahoo.com.)
As we continue to drum up the crusade for fair electricity rates, we urge all citizens to join the cause. Meanwhile, we’ll focus on another vital consumer issue: The fluoride fraud.
Last January 8, 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a report admitting that 2 in 5 children there show signs of fluoride poisoning, such as streaking, spotting, or pitting of teeth due to dental fluorosis. Hence the CDC has decided that fluoride levels in municipal water supplies be lowered from 1.2 to 0.7 milligrams per liter.
Five decades of putting in increasingly high levels of fluoride in drinking water has come to an end; but the questions have just begun. Since fluoride is really a poison, why wasn’t it completely banned as European governments have done? How can the CDC ever have recommended such high levels of fluoride in public drinking water; and worse, what could it have done to those who’ve used tap water for infant formula?
Even mothers who drink from tap water would also have fluoride in their breast milk! What does this now make of the sales pitch of toothpaste companies that brandish their fluoride content? How did this horrendous fluoride myth begin?
The story is equally shocking, as reporters Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson discovered about the Manhattan Project, the US ’ secret atomic bomb development program. They found that fluoride was a key chemical in atomic bomb production.
“Fluoride was the top chemical hazard of the US nuclear weapons program, not only for workers, but for those living in nearby communities as well,” writes James Donahue in The Great Fluoride Scam. He continues: “The documents show that the first US lawsuits levied against the atomic weapons program were over fluoride poisoning, not radiation damage. The documents reveal that the US government secretly ordered atomic bomb scientists to create ‘evidence useful in litigation’ against defense contractors who were being accused of injuring citizens with fluoride.”
So they created this myth that fluoride is good to allay the public’s fears of the millions of tons of fluoride being dumped in US waters. That’s why toothpaste tubes have a warning printed onto them that any child who swallows more than a pea-size amount of the toothpaste should contact poison control. That poison is fluoride. Brushing with water is enough. And while others may want pastes that contain no fluoride, it’s time to stop buying this poison!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Meralco and ERC: Traitors
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Friday, January 21, 2011
The SDA and the Cha-cha bailarinas
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/21/2011
Congress wants to do the Cha-cha (Charter change) again. But beyond the timing, semantics, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s histrionics lies the real simple reason for the hype over this new dance session. Money, or the country’s alleged lack of it, as well as the claimed need to attract foreign money by opening up to foreigners ownership of land and other businesses previously limited to Filipino nationals--supposedly for investment in social, governmental, and physical infrastructure, form the oft-repeated mantra by the likes of Enrile, Escudero, Santiago or Evardone, Haresco, Romualdo, Remulla, and Gonzales. What many of them seem to forget is that this is nothing but a reversal of the nation’s stellar Filipinization victories in the past such as the “Retail Trade Nationalization Law” and the vigorous campaign to end “Parity Rights.”
Senate President Enrile says he is strongly for amending the economic provisions of the Charter, particularly on changing the provision on the percentage of foreign investments in local projects, saying: “How can we have a meaningful investment policy if we are giving protection only to the rich? Only they are allowed to have 60 percent share in mining, agriculture, aquaculture, and transportation. Everything is 60 percent.” Well, he’s dead wrong.
On the other hand, administration ally Sen. Francis Escudero, in saying that Charter change should be initiated within the first two years of Aquino III when PeNoy’s “trust” rating is still high, simply states that it isn’t the validity of any argument for Cha-cha that matters but the manipulative opportunity to bank on the people’s trust for something they may not approve. But honestly, won’t this trust wear off, especially given that more MRT-LRT, toll, power and water rate hikes loom in the horizon?
The argument that Cha-cha is necessary to increase the “percentage of foreign investments in local projects,” i.e. to attract foreign moneys in, collapses in the face of headlines that have persistently appeared in the financial and business pages of Philippine newspapers: “SDA funds parked in BSP vault reach P1.22 trillion.”
The SDA is the Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) consisting of bank reserve requirements, investments, and such instruments set up in 1998 to serve as a “toolkit” of the BSP to manage the country’s financial environment. P1.22 trillion is almost $28 billion, an amount that exceeds all the funding requirements for PeNoy’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects for all of the next six years. The National Economic Development Authority (Neda) estimates the 10 PPP projects for 2011 to be worth only P170 billion, and Budget Secretary Abad himself said that government was only “looking forward to generating P180 billion to P200 billion worth of PPP undertakings“ this year.
The real motivation for Cha-cha in changing the economic provisions has been in the shadows for the past two decades. This motive is expressed coyly in the words of Party-list Rep. Teodorico Haresco (from a group deceptively named, Kasangga). In arguing for Cha-cha, Haresco pointed out that “ China , which zealously guards its sovereignty, grants investors a 99-year lease on land, which is tantamount to total ownership.”
So the real reason behind this persistent revival of Cha-cha is nothing but the economic sell-out of the entitlements of Filipino citizenship and the affirmative, preferential treatment of Filipinos in their ownership of the national patrimony. The thing with these legislators (most of whom own huge properties such as Splendido and the like) is, with the removal of existing limitations on foreign ownership, the first to taste the bonanza would be these super rich landowners as land prices go up with the expected windfall of foreign funds.
That there is more than sufficient internal capital to fund any economic recovery is incontrovertible after reading about the buck-passing of the BSP and the local banking cabal. For instance, last September 03, 2010, it was reported that “Banks (were) urged to fund infra projects… (using their deposits) with the special deposit account facility of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas… (adding that banks) can use some of these idle funds to help finance the government’s infrastructure projects.” Meanwhile, last November 17, 2010, the “BSP (in turn, was) urged to lower interest rates on (the SDA) facility… to move against the tide and reduce interest rates.” Congress should be looking into this before opening the flood gates of the country to more foreign ownership of land, businesses (including media), and our lives.
As for the argument that foreigners can’t cart away the land, these Cha-cha instigators should first review the experience of Zimbabwe and other countries where natives were eventually dispossessed of all their land rights that they had to launch their own revolutions to reclaim these. As for the rest, all other arguments for Cha-cha are either minor accompaniments or outright distractions, such as “constructive resignation” Justice Reynato Puno’s lament about the Constitution’s imperfections and the need for constant amendments--because following his logic dictates that we must have a permanent Cha-cha every so often. The US Constitution, for one, has only been amended over 27 times in the last 201 years.
Certainly, of the four Philippine Constitutions since the First Republic , the worst has been the Cory Constitution. But if amendments are needed, let them be carried out by particular propositions submitted directly to the people for ratification; not the kind of “shotgun” or bailarinas’ Cha-cha of the elite corrupt nomenklatura.
Having divulged the long-kept secret that a P1.22-trillion or $28-billion SDA is lying idle in the BSP vaults which the government and the banking cabal refuse to utilize in order to maintain easy income from high interest rates while kowtowing to the impositions of the foreign financial mafia, we have exposed the total paucity of the argument for Cha-cha to remove limitations on the onslaught of foreign predators. We have also exposed the self-interest of the landowning class to multiply their wealth even if this ultimately robs a majority of Filipinos the opportunity to own a piece of land in their own country.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/21/2011
Congress wants to do the Cha-cha (Charter change) again. But beyond the timing, semantics, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s histrionics lies the real simple reason for the hype over this new dance session. Money, or the country’s alleged lack of it, as well as the claimed need to attract foreign money by opening up to foreigners ownership of land and other businesses previously limited to Filipino nationals--supposedly for investment in social, governmental, and physical infrastructure, form the oft-repeated mantra by the likes of Enrile, Escudero, Santiago or Evardone, Haresco, Romualdo, Remulla, and Gonzales. What many of them seem to forget is that this is nothing but a reversal of the nation’s stellar Filipinization victories in the past such as the “Retail Trade Nationalization Law” and the vigorous campaign to end “Parity Rights.”
Senate President Enrile says he is strongly for amending the economic provisions of the Charter, particularly on changing the provision on the percentage of foreign investments in local projects, saying: “How can we have a meaningful investment policy if we are giving protection only to the rich? Only they are allowed to have 60 percent share in mining, agriculture, aquaculture, and transportation. Everything is 60 percent.” Well, he’s dead wrong.
On the other hand, administration ally Sen. Francis Escudero, in saying that Charter change should be initiated within the first two years of Aquino III when PeNoy’s “trust” rating is still high, simply states that it isn’t the validity of any argument for Cha-cha that matters but the manipulative opportunity to bank on the people’s trust for something they may not approve. But honestly, won’t this trust wear off, especially given that more MRT-LRT, toll, power and water rate hikes loom in the horizon?
The argument that Cha-cha is necessary to increase the “percentage of foreign investments in local projects,” i.e. to attract foreign moneys in, collapses in the face of headlines that have persistently appeared in the financial and business pages of Philippine newspapers: “SDA funds parked in BSP vault reach P1.22 trillion.”
The SDA is the Special Deposit Account with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) consisting of bank reserve requirements, investments, and such instruments set up in 1998 to serve as a “toolkit” of the BSP to manage the country’s financial environment. P1.22 trillion is almost $28 billion, an amount that exceeds all the funding requirements for PeNoy’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects for all of the next six years. The National Economic Development Authority (Neda) estimates the 10 PPP projects for 2011 to be worth only P170 billion, and Budget Secretary Abad himself said that government was only “looking forward to generating P180 billion to P200 billion worth of PPP undertakings“ this year.
The real motivation for Cha-cha in changing the economic provisions has been in the shadows for the past two decades. This motive is expressed coyly in the words of Party-list Rep. Teodorico Haresco (from a group deceptively named, Kasangga). In arguing for Cha-cha, Haresco pointed out that “ China , which zealously guards its sovereignty, grants investors a 99-year lease on land, which is tantamount to total ownership.”
So the real reason behind this persistent revival of Cha-cha is nothing but the economic sell-out of the entitlements of Filipino citizenship and the affirmative, preferential treatment of Filipinos in their ownership of the national patrimony. The thing with these legislators (most of whom own huge properties such as Splendido and the like) is, with the removal of existing limitations on foreign ownership, the first to taste the bonanza would be these super rich landowners as land prices go up with the expected windfall of foreign funds.
That there is more than sufficient internal capital to fund any economic recovery is incontrovertible after reading about the buck-passing of the BSP and the local banking cabal. For instance, last September 03, 2010, it was reported that “Banks (were) urged to fund infra projects… (using their deposits) with the special deposit account facility of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas… (adding that banks) can use some of these idle funds to help finance the government’s infrastructure projects.” Meanwhile, last November 17, 2010, the “BSP (in turn, was) urged to lower interest rates on (the SDA) facility… to move against the tide and reduce interest rates.” Congress should be looking into this before opening the flood gates of the country to more foreign ownership of land, businesses (including media), and our lives.
As for the argument that foreigners can’t cart away the land, these Cha-cha instigators should first review the experience of Zimbabwe and other countries where natives were eventually dispossessed of all their land rights that they had to launch their own revolutions to reclaim these. As for the rest, all other arguments for Cha-cha are either minor accompaniments or outright distractions, such as “constructive resignation” Justice Reynato Puno’s lament about the Constitution’s imperfections and the need for constant amendments--because following his logic dictates that we must have a permanent Cha-cha every so often. The US Constitution, for one, has only been amended over 27 times in the last 201 years.
Certainly, of the four Philippine Constitutions since the First Republic , the worst has been the Cory Constitution. But if amendments are needed, let them be carried out by particular propositions submitted directly to the people for ratification; not the kind of “shotgun” or bailarinas’ Cha-cha of the elite corrupt nomenklatura.
Having divulged the long-kept secret that a P1.22-trillion or $28-billion SDA is lying idle in the BSP vaults which the government and the banking cabal refuse to utilize in order to maintain easy income from high interest rates while kowtowing to the impositions of the foreign financial mafia, we have exposed the total paucity of the argument for Cha-cha to remove limitations on the onslaught of foreign predators. We have also exposed the self-interest of the landowning class to multiply their wealth even if this ultimately robs a majority of Filipinos the opportunity to own a piece of land in their own country.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, January 17, 2011
'Let them eat Porsche'
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/17/2011
The Porsche episode in the still early presidential life of Aquino III reflects the culture deep within the heart of this Yellow President — hedonistic, materialistic, uncompassionate, insensitive, and essentially corrupt to the core.
The information reaching us brings up the last item in list of traits that we have written here, because the claim that Aquino III bought the second hand Porsche at a discount with his own money seems clearly to be a lie.
Furthermore, many other major goings-on in the Aquino III government is leading all eyes to that corruption factor — particularly, the major decision of the PCSO to transfer its offices and to turn over Quezon Institute along E. Rodriguez Ave. — that extremely valuable real estate property — to the major backer of the Yellows, the Ayalas. All these are being done while the government is approving massive rate increases in power, transportation, and other fees. Reminds us only too well of the times of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The remnants of the pro-Arroyo regime are in jubilation over Aquino III’s continuing failures in governance and moral ascendancy, with some saying that “Gloria is at least better in governance.” That is the myth that the pro-Arroyo apologists would like people to believe, and many dumb Filipinos might just swallow this out of frustration with Aquino III’s dismal performance.
The basic fact is still this: Throughout the nine-and-a-half years of Arroyo, the national debt increased beyond the combined borrowings of the previous three administrations; hunger and poverty reached their highest levels; and private sector and government corruption reached unprecedented heights (with P10 trillion going to local Big Business and God knows how much for Arroyo’s coterie). But then, Aquino’s Yellows have nothing to crow about as they are set to match, or even surpass, Arroyo’s nine-and-a-half year-record in a much shorter time.
In our column a few weeks back, we paraphrased historian Arnold Toynbee’s saying that “society starts to decay when it loses its moral fiber and the elite turns parasitic, exploiting the masses…”
Aquino III and Arroyo are both mere political representations of the ruling class, i.e. the parasitic elite ruling families that sit atop the social edifice. In alliance with foreign powers, their rule got re-invigorated in the Edsa I elite counter-revolution against an economically modernizing semi-feudal state, and subsequent to that in Edsa II, where their neo-colonial exploitation accelerated further to stomp the rising populist surge under President Estrada.
Arroyo did her part for the ruling elite in maximizing privatization of power and other public utilities. Aquino III’s ascendancy, meanwhile, was engineered by the ruling powers through “Hocus PCOS” and is now maximizing the squeeze on the people’s capacity to pay by raising all the public service fees and rates massively.
Back to the Porsche: The insensitivity and uncompassionate character of Aquino III shone through like the glitter of the Porsche’s baked enamel. The timing and circumstances of this “purchase,” juxtaposed with Aquino III’s announced string of massive increases in costs for the public, is nothing but an unabashed display of extravagance.
It revealed his absolute lack of empathy with the sufferings of the ordinary folk, as he did during that news conference right after the hostage massacre where he smiled (or sneered) nonchalantly while the all-too-serious subject of the murders was being discussed. This Porsche episode sneers right down on the Filipinos’ faces that are all the more bowed by life’s increasing burdens. To add insult to injury, it is now widely held that the source of that luxury vehicle is a certain Manny Dimaculangan, Aquino III’s architect-friend and presidential foreign trips companion who also has contracts with government.
One can certainly agree with “Walang mahirap kung walang korap.” It partly explains why the ranks of the hungry and poor have grown again as we near the 200th day-milestone of the present government. But it must be said that the corruption endemic to the socio-political system is one which the Yellows instituted after Edsa I, and the situation cannot change until a new popular and national revolution, led by anti-elite and pro-People leaders, is begun.
By such leaders, I certainly do not refer to the NDF or Satur Ocampo, whose welcome for the “$7.5-million compensation for Marcos victims” is coupled with support for the perpetuation of US subversion of our nation’s cultural sovereignty. They also can never be such leaders because they only divide the people, diffuse the anti-imperialist consciousness of the population, and promote the US myth of defending democracies across the globe, while reducing the people’s struggle to an alms-begging exercise.
The revolution will come from a people enlightened by nationalism, in alliance with patriotic officers and soldiers who will rally around that National Economic and Political Development Program. This program, in turn, should be led by those who are dedicated to erasing the moral and economic corruption engendered by the ruling class, the foreign, colonial powers, and their controlled intelligentsia. Only then will the nation not be waylaid from the real enemy — the oligarchy.
The Monsods, for instance, who promote the myth of the credibility of the Feliciano Commission, simply distort the issues of Oakwood to distract the public’s attention away from the elite’s complicity in the corrupt Arroyo regime. Feliciano himself, too, is part of that corrupt system, evidenced by his role in the questionable $50-million lawyers’ fee as chair of the arbitration panel for the NAIA 3 controversy — a very privileged appointment courtesy of Gloria Arroyo again.
The nation should thus spit out the Porsche and ram it down the throats of the corrupt ruling elite instead!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Fight vs Power Elite Begins” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/17/2011
The Porsche episode in the still early presidential life of Aquino III reflects the culture deep within the heart of this Yellow President — hedonistic, materialistic, uncompassionate, insensitive, and essentially corrupt to the core.
The information reaching us brings up the last item in list of traits that we have written here, because the claim that Aquino III bought the second hand Porsche at a discount with his own money seems clearly to be a lie.
Furthermore, many other major goings-on in the Aquino III government is leading all eyes to that corruption factor — particularly, the major decision of the PCSO to transfer its offices and to turn over Quezon Institute along E. Rodriguez Ave. — that extremely valuable real estate property — to the major backer of the Yellows, the Ayalas. All these are being done while the government is approving massive rate increases in power, transportation, and other fees. Reminds us only too well of the times of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The remnants of the pro-Arroyo regime are in jubilation over Aquino III’s continuing failures in governance and moral ascendancy, with some saying that “Gloria is at least better in governance.” That is the myth that the pro-Arroyo apologists would like people to believe, and many dumb Filipinos might just swallow this out of frustration with Aquino III’s dismal performance.
The basic fact is still this: Throughout the nine-and-a-half years of Arroyo, the national debt increased beyond the combined borrowings of the previous three administrations; hunger and poverty reached their highest levels; and private sector and government corruption reached unprecedented heights (with P10 trillion going to local Big Business and God knows how much for Arroyo’s coterie). But then, Aquino’s Yellows have nothing to crow about as they are set to match, or even surpass, Arroyo’s nine-and-a-half year-record in a much shorter time.
In our column a few weeks back, we paraphrased historian Arnold Toynbee’s saying that “society starts to decay when it loses its moral fiber and the elite turns parasitic, exploiting the masses…”
Aquino III and Arroyo are both mere political representations of the ruling class, i.e. the parasitic elite ruling families that sit atop the social edifice. In alliance with foreign powers, their rule got re-invigorated in the Edsa I elite counter-revolution against an economically modernizing semi-feudal state, and subsequent to that in Edsa II, where their neo-colonial exploitation accelerated further to stomp the rising populist surge under President Estrada.
Arroyo did her part for the ruling elite in maximizing privatization of power and other public utilities. Aquino III’s ascendancy, meanwhile, was engineered by the ruling powers through “Hocus PCOS” and is now maximizing the squeeze on the people’s capacity to pay by raising all the public service fees and rates massively.
Back to the Porsche: The insensitivity and uncompassionate character of Aquino III shone through like the glitter of the Porsche’s baked enamel. The timing and circumstances of this “purchase,” juxtaposed with Aquino III’s announced string of massive increases in costs for the public, is nothing but an unabashed display of extravagance.
It revealed his absolute lack of empathy with the sufferings of the ordinary folk, as he did during that news conference right after the hostage massacre where he smiled (or sneered) nonchalantly while the all-too-serious subject of the murders was being discussed. This Porsche episode sneers right down on the Filipinos’ faces that are all the more bowed by life’s increasing burdens. To add insult to injury, it is now widely held that the source of that luxury vehicle is a certain Manny Dimaculangan, Aquino III’s architect-friend and presidential foreign trips companion who also has contracts with government.
One can certainly agree with “Walang mahirap kung walang korap.” It partly explains why the ranks of the hungry and poor have grown again as we near the 200th day-milestone of the present government. But it must be said that the corruption endemic to the socio-political system is one which the Yellows instituted after Edsa I, and the situation cannot change until a new popular and national revolution, led by anti-elite and pro-People leaders, is begun.
By such leaders, I certainly do not refer to the NDF or Satur Ocampo, whose welcome for the “$7.5-million compensation for Marcos victims” is coupled with support for the perpetuation of US subversion of our nation’s cultural sovereignty. They also can never be such leaders because they only divide the people, diffuse the anti-imperialist consciousness of the population, and promote the US myth of defending democracies across the globe, while reducing the people’s struggle to an alms-begging exercise.
The revolution will come from a people enlightened by nationalism, in alliance with patriotic officers and soldiers who will rally around that National Economic and Political Development Program. This program, in turn, should be led by those who are dedicated to erasing the moral and economic corruption engendered by the ruling class, the foreign, colonial powers, and their controlled intelligentsia. Only then will the nation not be waylaid from the real enemy — the oligarchy.
The Monsods, for instance, who promote the myth of the credibility of the Feliciano Commission, simply distort the issues of Oakwood to distract the public’s attention away from the elite’s complicity in the corrupt Arroyo regime. Feliciano himself, too, is part of that corrupt system, evidenced by his role in the questionable $50-million lawyers’ fee as chair of the arbitration panel for the NAIA 3 controversy — a very privileged appointment courtesy of Gloria Arroyo again.
The nation should thus spit out the Porsche and ram it down the throats of the corrupt ruling elite instead!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Fight vs Power Elite Begins” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Friday, January 14, 2011
Rule versus Principle
Alan F. Paguia
Former Professor of Law
Ateneo Law School
University of Batangas
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
alanpaguia@yahoo.com
January 4, 2011
Under the Constitution, may a rule defeat a principle? NO.
The Rule
1. The Constitution provides that all cases heard by the SC shall be decided:
a) EN BANC - “with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon.” (Sec. 4(2), ART. VIII)
b) In DIVISION - “with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon, and in no case, without the concurrence of at least three of such Members. When the required number is not obtained, the case shall be decided en banc; Provided that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the court in a decision en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the court sitting en banc.” (Sec. 4(3)3, ibid.)
Implementation by the SC
2. To implement the foregoing provisions, the Internal Rules of the SC were issued, the material provisions of which read:
“Rule 12 Voting Requirements
SECTION. 1. Voting requirements. – (a) All decisions and actions in Court en banc cases shall be made upon the concurrence of the majority of the Members of the Court who actually took part in the deliberations on the issue or issues involved and voted on them.
(b) All decisions and actions in Division cases shall be made upon the concurrence of at least three Members of the Division who actually took part in the deliberations on the issue or issues involved and voted on them.
SEC. 2. Tie voting in the Court en banc. – (a) In civil cases, includingspecial proceedings and special civil actions, where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the necessary majority vote cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on it anew. If after such deliberation still no decision
is reached, the Court shall, in an original action filed with it, dismiss the case; in appealed cases, it shall affirm the judgment or order appealed from.
(b) In criminal cases, when the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the necessary majority cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on it anew. If after such deliberation still no decision is reached, the Court shall reverse the judgment of conviction of the lower court and acquit the
accused.
(c) When, in an administrative case against any of the Justices of the appellate courts or any of the Judges of the trial courts, the imposable penalty is dismissal and the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the majority vote required by the Constitution for dismissal cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on the case anew. If after such deliberation still no decision is reached, the Court shall dismiss the administrative case, unless a majority vote decides to impose a lesser penalty.
(d) Where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the majority vote required by the Constitution for annulling any treaty, international or executive agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance, or regulation cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on the case anew. If after such deliberation still no decision is reached, the Court shall deny the challenge to the constitutionality of the act.
(e) In all matters incidental to the main action where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion, the relief sought shall be denied.
SEC. 3. Failure to obtain required votes in Division. – Where the necessary majority of three votes is not obtained in a case in a Division, the case shall be elevated to the Court en banc.
SEC. 4. Leaving a vote. – A Member who goes on leave or is unable to attend the voting on any decision, resolution, or matter may leave his or her vote in writing, addressed to the Chief Justice or the Division Chairperson, and the vote shall be counted, provided that he or she took part in the
deliberation”
The Principle
3. Under the Constitution: “The Philippines is a democratic and republican State. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.” (Sec. 1, ART II)
Comments
4. The RULE in question is – SC cases shall be decided with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in each case and voted thereon.
5. The PRINCIPLE is DEMOCRACY, which means the RULE OF MAJORITY.
6. WHAT IS MAJORITY? It means: “The greater number. The number greater than half of any total.” (Black’s Law Dictionary; Perez v. De la Cruz , 27 SCRA 587)
7. The RULE appears to be an EXPERIMENTAL DEVIATION from established constitutional standards of articulation.
a) Under the Constitution of the United States of America, the Federal Supreme Court consists of 9 Members (Sec. 1, ART. III, in relation to 28 USC § 1). 5 votes constitute the MINIMUM MAJORITY to render
a decision (Bush v. Gore, December 12, 2000). It bears notice that such minimum majority is based on the total number of 9 Justices. However, it takes 6 Justices, or 2/3 of 9, to constitute a QUORUM (par. 2, Rule 3, RULES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES)
b) Under the 1935 Philippine Constitution, the Supreme Court consists of 11 Members (Sec. 10 ART. VIII), 6 votes constitute the MINIMUM MAJORITY to render a decision (Sec. 9, R.A. 296, a.k.a. Judiciary Act of 1948). It bears notice that such minimum majority is based on the total number of 11 Justices. It takes 6 Justices to constitute a QUORUM, except when the appealed judgment imposes the death
penalty, in which case the presence of 8 Justices, or more than 2/3 of 11, is needed to have a QUORUM. (ibid., TAÑADA and FERNANDO, Constitution of the Philippines Annotated; 1949 Ed., p. 759)
c) Under the 1973 Philippine Constitution, the Supreme Court consists of 15 Members (Par. 2, Sec. 2, ART. X). 8 votes constitute the MINIMUM MAJORITY to render a decision, except that in order to declare the UNCONSTITUTIONALITY of a treaty, executive agreement, or law – there must be a vote by at least 10 Justices, or 2/3 of 15. (ibid.).
While the foregoing provisions are CLEAR and SPECIFIC as to the MINIMUM MAJORITY for the SC to render a DECISION, the 1987 RULE is NOT. In fact, the latter is AMBIGUOUS. When applied to cases heard by a DIVISION of 3 or 5 Justices, the MINIMUM MAJORITY of 3 votes is CONSISTENT with the
cardinal principle of DEMOCRATIC RULE in relation to the total number of Justices in the division, that is: (a) 3 out of 3, or (b) 3 out of 5. However, when applied to cases heard by a DIVISION of 7 Justices, or by the Court en banc, the MINIMUM MAJORITY is INCONSISTENT with the cardinal principle of DEMOCRATIC RULE in relation to the total number of Justices in the division or the Banc, that is: (a) 3 out of 7, or (b) 5, 6, or 7 out of 15. Obviously, the solution to the AMBIGUITY is JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION that could reconcile the RULE with the PRINCIPLE by harmonizing the rule with the objective MINIMUM MAJORITY of: (a) 4 out of 7, and (b) 8 out of 15. To construe otherwise would be
to ridicule common sense by applying the MAJORITY of the MINIMUM MAJORITY, which is actually the MINORITY. The mechanical application of the 1987 RULE thus defeats the principle of DEMOCRACY or MAJORITY by creating the possibility of the RULE OF THE MINORITY.
8. WHAT IS THE RULE WHEN THERE IS A TIE OR THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF VOTES IS NOT OBTAINED?
First. In cases heard by a Division, the same shall be decided by the Court en banc (Sec. 3, Rule 12, IRSC).
Second. In cases heard by the Court en banc, the rules in Section 2, Rule 12 of the INTERNAL RULES OF THE SUPREME COURT shall apply.
It is important to note at this point that in Fortich v. Corona, 312 SCRA 751, at 758, the SC ruled that when there is a tie or the required number of votes is not obtained, THERE IS NO DECISION. It seems clear the intrinsic merit of the argument is self-evident.
9. WHAT IS THE MINIMUM MAJORITY FOR THE SC TO BE ABLE TO RENDER A DECISION EN BANC? Eight. (People v. Alberca, 257 SCRA 613, at 640, June 26, 1996). According to the Court: “Since the votes of the five Justices fall short of the majority of the 8 votes needed to affirm the sentence of death of the trial court, the penalty of reclusion perpetua should be imposed” (ibid.). This is clear recognition that a majority of 8 votes is necessary in a case heard by the Court en banc. While such majority is qualified by the purpose to affirm the imposition of the death penalty, the same necessarily constitutes an affirmation of the necessity of a majority of 8 votes to render a decision en banc. Common sense dictates that if it takes, at least, 8 votes TO AFFIRM, it ought to follow that it should also take, at least, 8 votes TO REVERSE. To rule otherwise would be to read into the Constitution a DISTINCTION that is not there. Moreover, the ruling in Fortich v. Corona, supra, would seem to indicate, by extension of logic, that unless there is a majority of 8 votes, there is NO DECISION to speak of.
10.Hence, if there is no majority of 8 votes MODIFYING or REVERSING the appealed decision or matter subject of the motion for reconsideration, it follows that the same had WITHSTOOD scrutiny by the SC, and, therefore, should be deemed to STAND ON RECORD.
11. Thus, a 5, 6, or 7-vote acquittal, reversal, affirmation, and/or modification by the Court en banc is NOT A DECISION.
Former Professor of Law
Ateneo Law School
University of Batangas
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
alanpaguia@yahoo.com
January 4, 2011
Under the Constitution, may a rule defeat a principle? NO.
The Rule
1. The Constitution provides that all cases heard by the SC shall be decided:
a) EN BANC - “with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon.” (Sec. 4(2), ART. VIII)
b) In DIVISION - “with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in the case and voted thereon, and in no case, without the concurrence of at least three of such Members. When the required number is not obtained, the case shall be decided en banc; Provided that no doctrine or principle of law laid down by the court in a decision en banc or in division may be modified or reversed except by the court sitting en banc.” (Sec. 4(3)3, ibid.)
Implementation by the SC
2. To implement the foregoing provisions, the Internal Rules of the SC were issued, the material provisions of which read:
“Rule 12 Voting Requirements
SECTION. 1. Voting requirements. – (a) All decisions and actions in Court en banc cases shall be made upon the concurrence of the majority of the Members of the Court who actually took part in the deliberations on the issue or issues involved and voted on them.
(b) All decisions and actions in Division cases shall be made upon the concurrence of at least three Members of the Division who actually took part in the deliberations on the issue or issues involved and voted on them.
SEC. 2. Tie voting in the Court en banc. – (a) In civil cases, includingspecial proceedings and special civil actions, where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the necessary majority vote cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on it anew. If after such deliberation still no decision
is reached, the Court shall, in an original action filed with it, dismiss the case; in appealed cases, it shall affirm the judgment or order appealed from.
(b) In criminal cases, when the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the necessary majority cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on it anew. If after such deliberation still no decision is reached, the Court shall reverse the judgment of conviction of the lower court and acquit the
accused.
(c) When, in an administrative case against any of the Justices of the appellate courts or any of the Judges of the trial courts, the imposable penalty is dismissal and the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the majority vote required by the Constitution for dismissal cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on the case anew. If after such deliberation still no decision is reached, the Court shall dismiss the administrative case, unless a majority vote decides to impose a lesser penalty.
(d) Where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion or the majority vote required by the Constitution for annulling any treaty, international or executive agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction, ordinance, or regulation cannot be had, the Court shall deliberate on the case anew. If after such deliberation still no decision is reached, the Court shall deny the challenge to the constitutionality of the act.
(e) In all matters incidental to the main action where the Court en banc is equally divided in opinion, the relief sought shall be denied.
SEC. 3. Failure to obtain required votes in Division. – Where the necessary majority of three votes is not obtained in a case in a Division, the case shall be elevated to the Court en banc.
SEC. 4. Leaving a vote. – A Member who goes on leave or is unable to attend the voting on any decision, resolution, or matter may leave his or her vote in writing, addressed to the Chief Justice or the Division Chairperson, and the vote shall be counted, provided that he or she took part in the
deliberation”
The Principle
3. Under the Constitution: “The Philippines is a democratic and republican State. Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.” (Sec. 1, ART II)
Comments
4. The RULE in question is – SC cases shall be decided with the concurrence of a majority of the Members who actually took part in the deliberations on the issues in each case and voted thereon.
5. The PRINCIPLE is DEMOCRACY, which means the RULE OF MAJORITY.
6. WHAT IS MAJORITY? It means: “The greater number. The number greater than half of any total.” (Black’s Law Dictionary; Perez v. De la Cruz , 27 SCRA 587)
7. The RULE appears to be an EXPERIMENTAL DEVIATION from established constitutional standards of articulation.
a) Under the Constitution of the United States of America, the Federal Supreme Court consists of 9 Members (Sec. 1, ART. III, in relation to 28 USC § 1). 5 votes constitute the MINIMUM MAJORITY to render
a decision (Bush v. Gore, December 12, 2000). It bears notice that such minimum majority is based on the total number of 9 Justices. However, it takes 6 Justices, or 2/3 of 9, to constitute a QUORUM (par. 2, Rule 3, RULES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES)
b) Under the 1935 Philippine Constitution, the Supreme Court consists of 11 Members (Sec. 10 ART. VIII), 6 votes constitute the MINIMUM MAJORITY to render a decision (Sec. 9, R.A. 296, a.k.a. Judiciary Act of 1948). It bears notice that such minimum majority is based on the total number of 11 Justices. It takes 6 Justices to constitute a QUORUM, except when the appealed judgment imposes the death
penalty, in which case the presence of 8 Justices, or more than 2/3 of 11, is needed to have a QUORUM. (ibid., TAÑADA and FERNANDO, Constitution of the Philippines Annotated; 1949 Ed., p. 759)
c) Under the 1973 Philippine Constitution, the Supreme Court consists of 15 Members (Par. 2, Sec. 2, ART. X). 8 votes constitute the MINIMUM MAJORITY to render a decision, except that in order to declare the UNCONSTITUTIONALITY of a treaty, executive agreement, or law – there must be a vote by at least 10 Justices, or 2/3 of 15. (ibid.).
While the foregoing provisions are CLEAR and SPECIFIC as to the MINIMUM MAJORITY for the SC to render a DECISION, the 1987 RULE is NOT. In fact, the latter is AMBIGUOUS. When applied to cases heard by a DIVISION of 3 or 5 Justices, the MINIMUM MAJORITY of 3 votes is CONSISTENT with the
cardinal principle of DEMOCRATIC RULE in relation to the total number of Justices in the division, that is: (a) 3 out of 3, or (b) 3 out of 5. However, when applied to cases heard by a DIVISION of 7 Justices, or by the Court en banc, the MINIMUM MAJORITY is INCONSISTENT with the cardinal principle of DEMOCRATIC RULE in relation to the total number of Justices in the division or the Banc, that is: (a) 3 out of 7, or (b) 5, 6, or 7 out of 15. Obviously, the solution to the AMBIGUITY is JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTION that could reconcile the RULE with the PRINCIPLE by harmonizing the rule with the objective MINIMUM MAJORITY of: (a) 4 out of 7, and (b) 8 out of 15. To construe otherwise would be
to ridicule common sense by applying the MAJORITY of the MINIMUM MAJORITY, which is actually the MINORITY. The mechanical application of the 1987 RULE thus defeats the principle of DEMOCRACY or MAJORITY by creating the possibility of the RULE OF THE MINORITY.
8. WHAT IS THE RULE WHEN THERE IS A TIE OR THE REQUIRED NUMBER OF VOTES IS NOT OBTAINED?
First. In cases heard by a Division, the same shall be decided by the Court en banc (Sec. 3, Rule 12, IRSC).
Second. In cases heard by the Court en banc, the rules in Section 2, Rule 12 of the INTERNAL RULES OF THE SUPREME COURT shall apply.
It is important to note at this point that in Fortich v. Corona, 312 SCRA 751, at 758, the SC ruled that when there is a tie or the required number of votes is not obtained, THERE IS NO DECISION. It seems clear the intrinsic merit of the argument is self-evident.
9. WHAT IS THE MINIMUM MAJORITY FOR THE SC TO BE ABLE TO RENDER A DECISION EN BANC? Eight. (People v. Alberca, 257 SCRA 613, at 640, June 26, 1996). According to the Court: “Since the votes of the five Justices fall short of the majority of the 8 votes needed to affirm the sentence of death of the trial court, the penalty of reclusion perpetua should be imposed” (ibid.). This is clear recognition that a majority of 8 votes is necessary in a case heard by the Court en banc. While such majority is qualified by the purpose to affirm the imposition of the death penalty, the same necessarily constitutes an affirmation of the necessity of a majority of 8 votes to render a decision en banc. Common sense dictates that if it takes, at least, 8 votes TO AFFIRM, it ought to follow that it should also take, at least, 8 votes TO REVERSE. To rule otherwise would be to read into the Constitution a DISTINCTION that is not there. Moreover, the ruling in Fortich v. Corona, supra, would seem to indicate, by extension of logic, that unless there is a majority of 8 votes, there is NO DECISION to speak of.
10.Hence, if there is no majority of 8 votes MODIFYING or REVERSING the appealed decision or matter subject of the motion for reconsideration, it follows that the same had WITHSTOOD scrutiny by the SC, and, therefore, should be deemed to STAND ON RECORD.
11. Thus, a 5, 6, or 7-vote acquittal, reversal, affirmation, and/or modification by the Court en banc is NOT A DECISION.
The Federal Reserve is a private bank!
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/14/2011
It was on a Jan. 11 episode of a morning radio program that I realized how very few even among our society’s most well read really understand the core of the global financial and economic problem. To this day, only a handful are able to narrow the issue down to the very character of the so-called “Central Bank of the World,” the US Federal Reserve.
And whenever this happens, such as on that day when one bright texter conveyed this very important point to Teddy “Boy” Locsin during his radio broadcast, saying that “the US Federal Reserve is a private bank,” it is no longer strange that a lame retort that goes, “No. The Federal Reserve is a government bank; that is why it is called Federal,” will fly back almost without a nanosecond of thought from the supposed erudite’s lips. Yet even as Locsin believes this to be too obvious, it will definitely do him good if he can shift his attention to the case, Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982), US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, where the court ruled that: “The Federal Reserve Banks ‘are independent, privately-owned and locally controlled corporations,’ and there is not sufficient ‘federal government control’ over ‘detailed physical performance’ and ‘day to day operation’ of the Federal Reserve Bank for it to be considered a federal agency.”
The case involved a plaintiff who was injured by a vehicle owned and operated by a Federal Reserve bank, who brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The district court under Judge David Williams dismissed it, holding that a Federal Reserve bank was not a federal agency within the meaning of the Act.
The Center for Research on Globalization (CRG) report on this issue is very thorough and anyone can access its Web site (http://globalresearch.ca/) to check out the documents involved. At the end of the long analysis, the CRG says: “The common claim that the Fed is accountable to the government, because it is required to report to Congress on its activities annually, is incorrect. The reports to Congress mean little unless what the chairman reports can be verified by complete records. From its founding to this day, the Fed has never undergone a complete independent audit. Congress time after time has requested that the Fed voluntarily submit to a complete audit, and every time, it refuses.”
After the 2008 Wall Street collapse, the clamor for the audit of the Federal Reserve has intensified with former and soon-to-run-again “independent” Republican and Tea Party-backed presidential bet Ron Paul leading the charge. The Federal Reserve is still refusing the audit and the US Congress can’t do much about it so far because its character as a private bank allows it to set up many barriers to auditing.
The many Web sites on the issue say there’s an easier way to confirm if the Federal Reserve is or isn’t a private bank by looking into the US’ Yellow Pages. Indeed, the Federal Reserve does not appear in the pages’ government listing — but it comes after Federal Express in the commercial listing!
Enterprising investigators have dug up the private interests that own the controlling stocks of the Fed: Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris; Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy; Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam; Kuhn, Loeb Bank of NY (now Shearson American Express); Goldman Sachs of NY; National Bank of Commerce NY/Morgan Guaranty Trust (where JP Morgan Bank, Equitable Life, and Levi P. Morton are principal shareholders); Hanover Trust of NY (where William and David Rockefeller and Chase National Bank NY are principal shareholders); and Lehman Bros. (prior to 2008). Is it just a coincidence that all of them are Jewish interests?
In the final analysis, the Philippines — being tied to American economy and finance — is also under the control of this system. It’s no surprise then that many of our Finance secretaries have been recommended by Hank Greenberg — yes, another prominent Jewish money master.
It is therefore important for the likes of Teddy “Boy” Locsin to appreciate the real nature of the Federal Reserve. As a very popular communicator, it will be a boon to public enlightenment if he starts explaining this.
The control of money is the control of society; and control open to the public such as that of the “Bank of China,” which makes no bones about its being under the control of the Chinese government, is better than control hidden behind the cloak of terms such as “Federal” or “Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas” (BSP) that mislead the people, when their money is actually controlled by unaccountable and self-interested parties that continue to exploit, abuse, and steal from them and the nation’s wealth.
The banking system that China maintains, similar to that of many other countries that are still state-controlled or dominated (e.g., India and, of course, Vietnam), is coined by some as the “National Bank” system. The Philippines, in contrast, has an absurd set-up where the BSP Board is dominated by private directors, even as the Philippine President appoints the BSP chief.
The famous and infamous quote from Amschel Rothschild, father of the Rothschild banks of Germany, Paris and Britain goes thus: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws…” And, if I may add, neither will they care about who votes in these elections or who counts these votes as many of these (including those PCOS machines) can be bought anyway. And since there are no elections in China, the Rothschilds of this world are not able to control such state-centered countries, including Cuba.
In the end, it’s a choice between the dictatorship of Money or the dictatorship of the People, represented by a National Economic Development program geared toward popular economic democracy. Whose side are you on?
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “2011: Year of Fighting Phil. Oligarchy” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/14/2011
It was on a Jan. 11 episode of a morning radio program that I realized how very few even among our society’s most well read really understand the core of the global financial and economic problem. To this day, only a handful are able to narrow the issue down to the very character of the so-called “Central Bank of the World,” the US Federal Reserve.
And whenever this happens, such as on that day when one bright texter conveyed this very important point to Teddy “Boy” Locsin during his radio broadcast, saying that “the US Federal Reserve is a private bank,” it is no longer strange that a lame retort that goes, “No. The Federal Reserve is a government bank; that is why it is called Federal,” will fly back almost without a nanosecond of thought from the supposed erudite’s lips. Yet even as Locsin believes this to be too obvious, it will definitely do him good if he can shift his attention to the case, Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982), US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, where the court ruled that: “The Federal Reserve Banks ‘are independent, privately-owned and locally controlled corporations,’ and there is not sufficient ‘federal government control’ over ‘detailed physical performance’ and ‘day to day operation’ of the Federal Reserve Bank for it to be considered a federal agency.”
The case involved a plaintiff who was injured by a vehicle owned and operated by a Federal Reserve bank, who brought action alleging jurisdiction under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The district court under Judge David Williams dismissed it, holding that a Federal Reserve bank was not a federal agency within the meaning of the Act.
The Center for Research on Globalization (CRG) report on this issue is very thorough and anyone can access its Web site (http://globalresearch.ca/) to check out the documents involved. At the end of the long analysis, the CRG says: “The common claim that the Fed is accountable to the government, because it is required to report to Congress on its activities annually, is incorrect. The reports to Congress mean little unless what the chairman reports can be verified by complete records. From its founding to this day, the Fed has never undergone a complete independent audit. Congress time after time has requested that the Fed voluntarily submit to a complete audit, and every time, it refuses.”
After the 2008 Wall Street collapse, the clamor for the audit of the Federal Reserve has intensified with former and soon-to-run-again “independent” Republican and Tea Party-backed presidential bet Ron Paul leading the charge. The Federal Reserve is still refusing the audit and the US Congress can’t do much about it so far because its character as a private bank allows it to set up many barriers to auditing.
The many Web sites on the issue say there’s an easier way to confirm if the Federal Reserve is or isn’t a private bank by looking into the US’ Yellow Pages. Indeed, the Federal Reserve does not appear in the pages’ government listing — but it comes after Federal Express in the commercial listing!
Enterprising investigators have dug up the private interests that own the controlling stocks of the Fed: Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris; Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy; Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam; Kuhn, Loeb Bank of NY (now Shearson American Express); Goldman Sachs of NY; National Bank of Commerce NY/Morgan Guaranty Trust (where JP Morgan Bank, Equitable Life, and Levi P. Morton are principal shareholders); Hanover Trust of NY (where William and David Rockefeller and Chase National Bank NY are principal shareholders); and Lehman Bros. (prior to 2008). Is it just a coincidence that all of them are Jewish interests?
In the final analysis, the Philippines — being tied to American economy and finance — is also under the control of this system. It’s no surprise then that many of our Finance secretaries have been recommended by Hank Greenberg — yes, another prominent Jewish money master.
It is therefore important for the likes of Teddy “Boy” Locsin to appreciate the real nature of the Federal Reserve. As a very popular communicator, it will be a boon to public enlightenment if he starts explaining this.
The control of money is the control of society; and control open to the public such as that of the “Bank of China,” which makes no bones about its being under the control of the Chinese government, is better than control hidden behind the cloak of terms such as “Federal” or “Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas” (BSP) that mislead the people, when their money is actually controlled by unaccountable and self-interested parties that continue to exploit, abuse, and steal from them and the nation’s wealth.
The banking system that China maintains, similar to that of many other countries that are still state-controlled or dominated (e.g., India and, of course, Vietnam), is coined by some as the “National Bank” system. The Philippines, in contrast, has an absurd set-up where the BSP Board is dominated by private directors, even as the Philippine President appoints the BSP chief.
The famous and infamous quote from Amschel Rothschild, father of the Rothschild banks of Germany, Paris and Britain goes thus: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws…” And, if I may add, neither will they care about who votes in these elections or who counts these votes as many of these (including those PCOS machines) can be bought anyway. And since there are no elections in China, the Rothschilds of this world are not able to control such state-centered countries, including Cuba.
In the end, it’s a choice between the dictatorship of Money or the dictatorship of the People, represented by a National Economic Development program geared toward popular economic democracy. Whose side are you on?
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “2011: Year of Fighting Phil. Oligarchy” with Butch Junia and FDC’s Job Bordamente; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Unite and lead
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/10/2011
"Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Last week we saw the climactic final arguments in the intensely-debated issue of apology as a requisite for the amnesty to be granted to the Oakwood and 2006 AFP protesters. Those demanding it — led by Joker Arroyo and the Monsods (Christian and Solita), along with outright Gloria Arroyo devotees such as Edcel Lagman — were pitted against Gen. Danilo Lim, the most vocal, unapologetic anti-Gloria military protester, as well as the equally firm but more restrained Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
About a month ago, a special article by Christian Monsod got the ball rolling, followed by a series from Solita, all against Lim. But the final devastating blow, the coup de grace so to speak, was delivered when Gen. Danny Lim delivered his knockout blow via his statement: “Admitting guilt would clear Gloria Arroyo…” Now that ends the debate!
Anybody still demanding an apology from the patriotic soldiers who stood up to oppose the venalities of the Arroyo regime would hereafter look like pro-Gloria apologists; but indeed, the Monsods and their ilk are still really closet Arroyo devotees, as are many others in print and broadcast media who range themselves with the pro-apology line.
Gloria’s media operations are very much around. Our Sulo ng Pilipino volunteers monitoring the radio airwaves can identify each and every one of these “kumain-taristas” still under someone’s payroll, evidently because of their inane spiels that the plea bargain with Gen. Carlos Garcia is even more acceptable than the amnesty for our conscientious military objectors.
Trillanes, for his part, also gave his own coup de grace by accepting the amnesty while “proudly” admitting the disobedience of certain rules without apologizing for anything.
If after this point the amnesty is not consummated, then there’ll be hell to pay. The embers of protest will grow into a fire and then ignite a great prairie conflagration over in the tinder fields of suppressed popular rage over MRT-LRT and transport fare increases, along with other burdensome hikes in toll fees as well as power and water rates.
No doubt the Gloria Arroyo forces would like to see this happen too. So if the Aquino III administration falls into the trap of yielding to the demand for an apology then they’ll have hell in their hands. But either way, the Arroyo media team, planting their assets in various newspapers and commissioning full-time bloggers and Facebook brigades, will go to town hitting at the administration and destabilizing the situation.
That requirement for apology was indeed inserted by Arroyo elements in Aquino’s cabal, and he’d better recognize who they are or he’s in deep shit.
While the Arroyo versus Aquino undercurrents continue to run (at least officially), it should also be clear that the Aquinorroyo direction runs parallel to it. Among the many factors that tie the two together, the clearest ones are their co-existence in the matrix of Belmonte-Ochoa and Rico Puno, aside from the aggressive continuation of such policies as the cash transfer program, privatization, and build-operate-transfer scheme in the guise of public-private partnerships.
This is very difficult for many to keep in perspective as the ruling class which presides at the very top works hard through the manipulation of media to frame the polarization of issues as Aquino versus Arroyo, when the real polarization is between the people’s welfare and the insatiable appetite for profits of the oligarchs, which both Arroyo and Aquino are serving and are part of. The people and the conscientious and patriotic military officers must therefore be conscious of this.
Unity of the people is key to overcoming the millennial strategy of divide-and-rule. For so long, the ruling oligarchs have been dividing our minds and ruling our lives. Through the past three decades, members of the ruling class centered in the plush Makati business district, guided and aided by foreign powers, have set the agenda by dividing the people into Yellows, Reds, pro-Marcos, pro-Erap, and whatnot.
And now that they are featuring a tussle between the pro-Aquino vs pro-Arroyo Yellows, the oligarchy with its foreign partners continues to increase its stranglehold on the nation’s assets, resources and natural wealth while making the country harsher and harsher for the Filipino people — with higher taxes and public utility rates, among others. Even filing fees now make it impossible for the poor to bring their cases to court.
“Those who have less in life should have more in law,” Magsaysay was supposed to have said. But that is no longer true today especially after the evolution of economics and politics into an anti-poor and pro-oligarchic system.
The recent turn in the Vizconde case seems to have highlighted this and has led to efforts by heretofore divided pro-people advocacy groups to come together and clamor for a rethinking of what is happening to our justice system.
Last week the People’s Movement for Justice was formed with various groups, ranging from Liza Masa’s Gabriela and its once estranged fraternal organization Sanlakas, to Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (associated with Edsa II) and our own Sulo ng Pilipino which was part of Edsa III, as well as many others under the unifying influence of Rasti Delizo and Tito Guingona, to pursue justice for all.
The people’s military and civilian champions are getting wiser. Unification of popular causes and efforts must proceed henceforth with greater energy and wisdom to lead this nation toward full emancipation and prosperity.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 with Dr. Rene Ofreneo and Mr. Hiro Vaswani on “2011: Filipino SWOT”; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/10/2011
"Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Last week we saw the climactic final arguments in the intensely-debated issue of apology as a requisite for the amnesty to be granted to the Oakwood and 2006 AFP protesters. Those demanding it — led by Joker Arroyo and the Monsods (Christian and Solita), along with outright Gloria Arroyo devotees such as Edcel Lagman — were pitted against Gen. Danilo Lim, the most vocal, unapologetic anti-Gloria military protester, as well as the equally firm but more restrained Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
About a month ago, a special article by Christian Monsod got the ball rolling, followed by a series from Solita, all against Lim. But the final devastating blow, the coup de grace so to speak, was delivered when Gen. Danny Lim delivered his knockout blow via his statement: “Admitting guilt would clear Gloria Arroyo…” Now that ends the debate!
Anybody still demanding an apology from the patriotic soldiers who stood up to oppose the venalities of the Arroyo regime would hereafter look like pro-Gloria apologists; but indeed, the Monsods and their ilk are still really closet Arroyo devotees, as are many others in print and broadcast media who range themselves with the pro-apology line.
Gloria’s media operations are very much around. Our Sulo ng Pilipino volunteers monitoring the radio airwaves can identify each and every one of these “kumain-taristas” still under someone’s payroll, evidently because of their inane spiels that the plea bargain with Gen. Carlos Garcia is even more acceptable than the amnesty for our conscientious military objectors.
Trillanes, for his part, also gave his own coup de grace by accepting the amnesty while “proudly” admitting the disobedience of certain rules without apologizing for anything.
If after this point the amnesty is not consummated, then there’ll be hell to pay. The embers of protest will grow into a fire and then ignite a great prairie conflagration over in the tinder fields of suppressed popular rage over MRT-LRT and transport fare increases, along with other burdensome hikes in toll fees as well as power and water rates.
No doubt the Gloria Arroyo forces would like to see this happen too. So if the Aquino III administration falls into the trap of yielding to the demand for an apology then they’ll have hell in their hands. But either way, the Arroyo media team, planting their assets in various newspapers and commissioning full-time bloggers and Facebook brigades, will go to town hitting at the administration and destabilizing the situation.
That requirement for apology was indeed inserted by Arroyo elements in Aquino’s cabal, and he’d better recognize who they are or he’s in deep shit.
While the Arroyo versus Aquino undercurrents continue to run (at least officially), it should also be clear that the Aquinorroyo direction runs parallel to it. Among the many factors that tie the two together, the clearest ones are their co-existence in the matrix of Belmonte-Ochoa and Rico Puno, aside from the aggressive continuation of such policies as the cash transfer program, privatization, and build-operate-transfer scheme in the guise of public-private partnerships.
This is very difficult for many to keep in perspective as the ruling class which presides at the very top works hard through the manipulation of media to frame the polarization of issues as Aquino versus Arroyo, when the real polarization is between the people’s welfare and the insatiable appetite for profits of the oligarchs, which both Arroyo and Aquino are serving and are part of. The people and the conscientious and patriotic military officers must therefore be conscious of this.
Unity of the people is key to overcoming the millennial strategy of divide-and-rule. For so long, the ruling oligarchs have been dividing our minds and ruling our lives. Through the past three decades, members of the ruling class centered in the plush Makati business district, guided and aided by foreign powers, have set the agenda by dividing the people into Yellows, Reds, pro-Marcos, pro-Erap, and whatnot.
And now that they are featuring a tussle between the pro-Aquino vs pro-Arroyo Yellows, the oligarchy with its foreign partners continues to increase its stranglehold on the nation’s assets, resources and natural wealth while making the country harsher and harsher for the Filipino people — with higher taxes and public utility rates, among others. Even filing fees now make it impossible for the poor to bring their cases to court.
“Those who have less in life should have more in law,” Magsaysay was supposed to have said. But that is no longer true today especially after the evolution of economics and politics into an anti-poor and pro-oligarchic system.
The recent turn in the Vizconde case seems to have highlighted this and has led to efforts by heretofore divided pro-people advocacy groups to come together and clamor for a rethinking of what is happening to our justice system.
Last week the People’s Movement for Justice was formed with various groups, ranging from Liza Masa’s Gabriela and its once estranged fraternal organization Sanlakas, to Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (associated with Edsa II) and our own Sulo ng Pilipino which was part of Edsa III, as well as many others under the unifying influence of Rasti Delizo and Tito Guingona, to pursue justice for all.
The people’s military and civilian champions are getting wiser. Unification of popular causes and efforts must proceed henceforth with greater energy and wisdom to lead this nation toward full emancipation and prosperity.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 with Dr. Rene Ofreneo and Mr. Hiro Vaswani on “2011: Filipino SWOT”; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Ministry as presiding judge
THRSHP
Richard James Mendoza
1/8/2011
Last time, I introduced the term “Ministry of Disinformation” as a collective term for the corporatocracy’s propaganda machinery. Now, I’ll talk about the Ministry’s role as “presiding judge” in their trials of publicity.
It can’t be helped that some cases receive much attention, primarily because it often involves high-profile personalities. Let’s use the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada as an example.
It’s known that the Anti-Estrada sentiment was strong in elite circles from Day 1 of the Estrada administration. With the media controlled by the same elite that hold Estrada in contempt, they focused on his personal traits and accused him of being corrupt, among other things. This further intensified when a self-confessed jueteng tong collector Chavit did an “expose”, supposedly revealing incriminating information against Estrada which turned out to be a litany of lies, half-truths and innuendoes.
Then, with the Lower House “having enough numbers” to initiate an impeachment, the impeachment trial began. During and after the trial, all we heard was from the prosecution who had nothing to prove but their hypocrisy. Estrada was never given the chance to air his side. And when the chance did come, such as his suggestion of opening the second envelope after the senator-judges voted 11-10 against the opening of the said item, the Joker suddenly issued a thought-terminating statement saying that it’s “too little, too late”.
No thanks to the Ministry, the public had assumed Estrada guilty even as the impeachment trial was still ongoing. In the editorial of the Bangkok Post sometime around December of 2000, it observed that “too many Filipinos have forgotten: that the accused is innocent until proven otherwise” (statement paraphrased).
We have other high profile cases such as the Vizconde massacre. Now, let me be clear that I cannot tolerate such inhumane acts, whatever it may be and whoever had committed it but like the others; they undergo due process of law and are entitled to a fair and speedy trial. It is the duty of the court to establish guilt and not the media.
When will the sensationalism end? When will these trials of publicity stop? I certainly don’t know.
*****
Email generalkuno@gmail.com for comments.
Richard James Mendoza
1/8/2011
Last time, I introduced the term “Ministry of Disinformation” as a collective term for the corporatocracy’s propaganda machinery. Now, I’ll talk about the Ministry’s role as “presiding judge” in their trials of publicity.
It can’t be helped that some cases receive much attention, primarily because it often involves high-profile personalities. Let’s use the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada as an example.
It’s known that the Anti-Estrada sentiment was strong in elite circles from Day 1 of the Estrada administration. With the media controlled by the same elite that hold Estrada in contempt, they focused on his personal traits and accused him of being corrupt, among other things. This further intensified when a self-confessed jueteng tong collector Chavit did an “expose”, supposedly revealing incriminating information against Estrada which turned out to be a litany of lies, half-truths and innuendoes.
Then, with the Lower House “having enough numbers” to initiate an impeachment, the impeachment trial began. During and after the trial, all we heard was from the prosecution who had nothing to prove but their hypocrisy. Estrada was never given the chance to air his side. And when the chance did come, such as his suggestion of opening the second envelope after the senator-judges voted 11-10 against the opening of the said item, the Joker suddenly issued a thought-terminating statement saying that it’s “too little, too late”.
No thanks to the Ministry, the public had assumed Estrada guilty even as the impeachment trial was still ongoing. In the editorial of the Bangkok Post sometime around December of 2000, it observed that “too many Filipinos have forgotten: that the accused is innocent until proven otherwise” (statement paraphrased).
We have other high profile cases such as the Vizconde massacre. Now, let me be clear that I cannot tolerate such inhumane acts, whatever it may be and whoever had committed it but like the others; they undergo due process of law and are entitled to a fair and speedy trial. It is the duty of the court to establish guilt and not the media.
When will the sensationalism end? When will these trials of publicity stop? I certainly don’t know.
*****
Email generalkuno@gmail.com for comments.
Friday, January 7, 2011
A duty to disobey
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/7/2011
"Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.” — Chinese Proverb
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and the Bagong Katipuneros are now at least free from imprisonment with complete finality. Despite their admission of having violated certain “rules,” one TV network’s Web report headlined, “No remorse.” Of course there should be no remorse!
At that time in 2003, Trillanes and company marched out of their military camps to make known their stand against the illegality and massive corruption of Gloria Arroyo’s regime as well as the military under her reign. The deaths of soldiers from lack of equipment and dud ammunition directly linked to the thievery of the AFP’s budgets make it a duty of every soldier to conscientiously object to what was going on; but only a select few mustered the courage to say what must be said.
Even today, soldiers around the world who in their conscience cannot accept the impositions of authorities over them exercise such conscientious objections by breaking the rules deliberately, refusing to serve, such as in US Army Lt. Watada’s case, or by taking more drastic moves, such as in US Army Private Bradley Manning’s alleged leak of classified documents and video files to WikiLeaks, which led to his solitary confinement today.
Break the military rules they do but shirk from the consequences they don’t. Senator Trillanes, Gen. Danilo Lim, Col. Ariel Querubin, Capt. Nick Faeldon and many others faced the consequences and paid for their courageous acts with years upon years of unjust imprisonment, loss of career and income, and even emotional upheavals.
Disobedience — in service of one’s conscience and of the greater good of God, country and people — isn’t new. The world has a long glorious history of this, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King, from George Washington who rebelled against his British superiors down to Hugo Chavez who is now a well-respected leader in the global stage.
At the time Senator Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros decided to risk everything on which their families depended, including their lives, the so-called “civil society,” including Yellow critics of Oakwood and subsequent military protests, continued to be in full support of the corrupt Gloria Arroyo. Yellow “icon” Corazon Aquino even staged a special scene for the commemoration of Ninoy Aquino Day (Aug. 21) two months after Oakwood to emphasize the Yellows’ unflinching support for Arroyo, with an inset photo of Cory holding Gloria’s hand on the Aug. 22, 2003 front page of a Yellow broadsheet.
I have this saved because I know I will need to invoke this whenever Yellows such as Christian and Winnie Monsod blame others again for the travails of our society when it is they who persistently sustain the cancers that plague us.
And so it was that by December 2008, Cory apologized both to Erap and the people for her support of Arroyo. In fact, she had already shown remorse even earlier by physically going to the Marines standoff led by Col. Ariel Querubin in 2006. Could the Monsod husband-and-wife team trying to smear the amnesty for all conscientious military objectors — particularly Gen. Danilo Lim who has been at loggerheads with the Monsods over his refusal to express any apology — find the courage to apologize to the nation for their own perfidy?
I hope Gen. Danilo Lim and Capt. Nick Faeldon both apply for the amnesty now that it is clear that no apology is necessary and their years in confinement have sufficiently paid for their “violation of the rules.” We need them to continue serving the people.
This new year and new decade, we must push even harder the campaign for disobedience against the prevailing system to bring about real social change. My philosophy student-son’s La Salle study guide highlights Arnold Toynbee’s conclusion about societal collapse: “The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats.”
Proletariat in simple terms simply means the alienated employed and unemployed classes who don’t count in social decisions anymore, while the words “elite” and “parasitic” are self explanatory. Today, even our most highly educated are “proletarianized,” like how the top computer experts of UP and other universities who asked to test the source code of the PCOS machines have been given a runaround for a year now by Smartmatic and the Comelec, and this even after the Supreme Court ordered that it be given.
A perfect example of this parasitic behavior is the way the Philippine elite is insatiably extracting the blood from our society dry. In the latest research on 2010 power rates provided by our volunteer Ka Richard from the World Electricity Price Index we have the following data in US dollar terms:
Australia 18.55 cents/kWh; Hong Kong 11.80 cents/kWh; Singapore 17.38 cents/kWh; Turkey18.30 cents/kWh.
Compare all these to the Philippines’ 28.80 US cents/kWh and you’ll definitely seethe in anger. While we’re still updating 2010 prices for other countries, we should note that as of 2009, the Philippines was already at 23.00 US cents/kWh.
So it’s clear that our power rates have risen and continue to rise to breakaway levels as the highest in Asia, if not the world. It is only a matter of time before the VAT rate will be raised anew to 15 (or even 17) percent — this after PeNoy imposes hikes in MRT-LRT fares, the Slex, Nlex, and SCTex toll fees, and water rates, ad nausea.
During the past decade I have made calls for civil disobedience more times than there are fingers and toes on my limbs. We just have to keep on trying. And thanks to Trillanes and Danny Lim, our society is being educated on the dignity and honor of disobeying for the common good.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “2011: Fears, Tears and Trends” with Dr. Rene Ofreneo and Mr. Butz Junia; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
1/7/2011
"Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.” — Chinese Proverb
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and the Bagong Katipuneros are now at least free from imprisonment with complete finality. Despite their admission of having violated certain “rules,” one TV network’s Web report headlined, “No remorse.” Of course there should be no remorse!
At that time in 2003, Trillanes and company marched out of their military camps to make known their stand against the illegality and massive corruption of Gloria Arroyo’s regime as well as the military under her reign. The deaths of soldiers from lack of equipment and dud ammunition directly linked to the thievery of the AFP’s budgets make it a duty of every soldier to conscientiously object to what was going on; but only a select few mustered the courage to say what must be said.
Even today, soldiers around the world who in their conscience cannot accept the impositions of authorities over them exercise such conscientious objections by breaking the rules deliberately, refusing to serve, such as in US Army Lt. Watada’s case, or by taking more drastic moves, such as in US Army Private Bradley Manning’s alleged leak of classified documents and video files to WikiLeaks, which led to his solitary confinement today.
Break the military rules they do but shirk from the consequences they don’t. Senator Trillanes, Gen. Danilo Lim, Col. Ariel Querubin, Capt. Nick Faeldon and many others faced the consequences and paid for their courageous acts with years upon years of unjust imprisonment, loss of career and income, and even emotional upheavals.
Disobedience — in service of one’s conscience and of the greater good of God, country and people — isn’t new. The world has a long glorious history of this, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King, from George Washington who rebelled against his British superiors down to Hugo Chavez who is now a well-respected leader in the global stage.
At the time Senator Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros decided to risk everything on which their families depended, including their lives, the so-called “civil society,” including Yellow critics of Oakwood and subsequent military protests, continued to be in full support of the corrupt Gloria Arroyo. Yellow “icon” Corazon Aquino even staged a special scene for the commemoration of Ninoy Aquino Day (Aug. 21) two months after Oakwood to emphasize the Yellows’ unflinching support for Arroyo, with an inset photo of Cory holding Gloria’s hand on the Aug. 22, 2003 front page of a Yellow broadsheet.
I have this saved because I know I will need to invoke this whenever Yellows such as Christian and Winnie Monsod blame others again for the travails of our society when it is they who persistently sustain the cancers that plague us.
And so it was that by December 2008, Cory apologized both to Erap and the people for her support of Arroyo. In fact, she had already shown remorse even earlier by physically going to the Marines standoff led by Col. Ariel Querubin in 2006. Could the Monsod husband-and-wife team trying to smear the amnesty for all conscientious military objectors — particularly Gen. Danilo Lim who has been at loggerheads with the Monsods over his refusal to express any apology — find the courage to apologize to the nation for their own perfidy?
I hope Gen. Danilo Lim and Capt. Nick Faeldon both apply for the amnesty now that it is clear that no apology is necessary and their years in confinement have sufficiently paid for their “violation of the rules.” We need them to continue serving the people.
This new year and new decade, we must push even harder the campaign for disobedience against the prevailing system to bring about real social change. My philosophy student-son’s La Salle study guide highlights Arnold Toynbee’s conclusion about societal collapse: “The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats.”
Proletariat in simple terms simply means the alienated employed and unemployed classes who don’t count in social decisions anymore, while the words “elite” and “parasitic” are self explanatory. Today, even our most highly educated are “proletarianized,” like how the top computer experts of UP and other universities who asked to test the source code of the PCOS machines have been given a runaround for a year now by Smartmatic and the Comelec, and this even after the Supreme Court ordered that it be given.
A perfect example of this parasitic behavior is the way the Philippine elite is insatiably extracting the blood from our society dry. In the latest research on 2010 power rates provided by our volunteer Ka Richard from the World Electricity Price Index we have the following data in US dollar terms:
Australia 18.55 cents/kWh; Hong Kong 11.80 cents/kWh; Singapore 17.38 cents/kWh; Turkey18.30 cents/kWh.
Compare all these to the Philippines’ 28.80 US cents/kWh and you’ll definitely seethe in anger. While we’re still updating 2010 prices for other countries, we should note that as of 2009, the Philippines was already at 23.00 US cents/kWh.
So it’s clear that our power rates have risen and continue to rise to breakaway levels as the highest in Asia, if not the world. It is only a matter of time before the VAT rate will be raised anew to 15 (or even 17) percent — this after PeNoy imposes hikes in MRT-LRT fares, the Slex, Nlex, and SCTex toll fees, and water rates, ad nausea.
During the past decade I have made calls for civil disobedience more times than there are fingers and toes on my limbs. We just have to keep on trying. And thanks to Trillanes and Danny Lim, our society is being educated on the dignity and honor of disobeying for the common good.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “2011: Fears, Tears and Trends” with Dr. Rene Ofreneo and Mr. Butz Junia; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Ministries of Disinformation: Introduction
THRSHP
Richard James Mendoza
1/5/2011
A Ministry of Information is a ministry in a parliamentarian government whose task is to release information about the current events in an administration as well as control the flow of information. Although the Philippines has a different style of governance, it has its own version of a Ministry of Information. An example is the Office of the Press Secretary.
But that's not all. Thanks to the corporatocracy along with media entities such as ABS-CBN, GMA-7, Inquirer, ad nauseam, along with its accessibility to the masses, its task of spreading disinformation to the unsuspecting public is made easier. Even survey firms such as SWS and "False Asia" play a part in the disinformation drive. Aside from obfuscated statistics being presented by the government, these survey firms are nothing but tools by the yellows, such as their fantastic claim of "88% of Filipinos trusting Aquino III."
Collectively, these firms, agencies, etc. (which are owned by the corpo-rats) are what I call the Ministries of Disinformation. Seeing that Aquino III is "president", the term might be changed to singular form, making it the MINISTRY of Disinformation, since Aquino III only serves the interests of the oligarchy. In return, these oligarchs use their media entities to spray cheap perfume on their "messiah" as a reward for his subservience to them.
But what is the Ministry's task/s? They present lies, half-truths and produce propaganda hyperbole to the Filipino people for the dumbing down of the masses so that when the time comes, the populace will beome nothing but zombies and the cycle of subservience has become irreversible. For now, it's only in the middle stages and can still be fought by only one weapon: Truth. The truth is not flexible, lies are.
Next article will be about the Ministry's role as presiding judge in their trials of publicity, which is tantamount to usurpation of power.
****
Email to generalkuno@gmail.com for comments.
Richard James Mendoza
1/5/2011
A Ministry of Information is a ministry in a parliamentarian government whose task is to release information about the current events in an administration as well as control the flow of information. Although the Philippines has a different style of governance, it has its own version of a Ministry of Information. An example is the Office of the Press Secretary.
But that's not all. Thanks to the corporatocracy along with media entities such as ABS-CBN, GMA-7, Inquirer, ad nauseam, along with its accessibility to the masses, its task of spreading disinformation to the unsuspecting public is made easier. Even survey firms such as SWS and "False Asia" play a part in the disinformation drive. Aside from obfuscated statistics being presented by the government, these survey firms are nothing but tools by the yellows, such as their fantastic claim of "88% of Filipinos trusting Aquino III."
Collectively, these firms, agencies, etc. (which are owned by the corpo-rats) are what I call the Ministries of Disinformation. Seeing that Aquino III is "president", the term might be changed to singular form, making it the MINISTRY of Disinformation, since Aquino III only serves the interests of the oligarchy. In return, these oligarchs use their media entities to spray cheap perfume on their "messiah" as a reward for his subservience to them.
But what is the Ministry's task/s? They present lies, half-truths and produce propaganda hyperbole to the Filipino people for the dumbing down of the masses so that when the time comes, the populace will beome nothing but zombies and the cycle of subservience has become irreversible. For now, it's only in the middle stages and can still be fought by only one weapon: Truth. The truth is not flexible, lies are.
Next article will be about the Ministry's role as presiding judge in their trials of publicity, which is tantamount to usurpation of power.
****
Email to generalkuno@gmail.com for comments.
Monday, January 3, 2011
2011: Decade of enlightenment begins
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
01/3/2010
First on my agenda for my first 2011 column is exposing the lie of one regular Yellow writer of a mainstream newspaper. This loud-mouthed lady charged Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV in her Christmas Day column with “silence” on the Gen. Carlos Garcia plunder case and subjected the vastly popular senator to a barrage of abusive language. She even hypocritically claimed to have had second thoughts about it in view of her so-called “Christian spirit” during the holidays. But it’s good that she wrote it anyway as it allows the public a glimpse into her Yellow bigotry.
If only she were genuinely out to correctly inform her readers, that columnist wouldn’t have failed to note that on various news media last Dec. 22, Trillanes lambasted the Ombudsman’s “plea bargain” deal with Garcia. The Manila Standard Today, for instance, headlined, “Replace Gutierrez, Trillanes proposes” while various radio broadcasts repeated Trillanes’ statement: “I believe we have to change the Ombudsman. That’s the only way.” Fact is, the Trillanes-led Oakwood protest was instrumental in helping flush out the kind of corruption perpetrated by Garcia and his ilk.
The columnist I am referring to is none other than the opinionated lady much pampered by mainstream print and broadcast media, who has been given shows left and right by the rival networks. She is really one hell of a pampered personality. Even the global oligarchy’s History Channel features her on its “Tale of Two Filipino Presidents” teaser in time for the Edsa anniversaries this year. Here, she is depicted with her usual histrionics as saying, “My God, how can you say he did a good job…” referring to Marcos vis-à-vis her then boss, the disastrously inept yet vindictive Cory Aquino.
Yet no matter how much support she gets from the powers-that-be, the Filipino public doesn’t seem to be impressed at all, as the electorate had given her a trouncing defeat when she ran as senator under Gloria Arroyo’s K4 coalition — this after prominently figuring in the destabilization and ouster of the popularly- and legitimately-elected President Joseph Estrada.
Coinciding with media reports on Trillanes’ call for the removal of Ombudsman Gutierrez was “A Christmas tribute to Trillanes” written by lawyer and columnist Harry Roque Jr. In it he says, “I was ambivalent when I first saw Antonio Trillanes IV on television. But there he was, a very young man, taking a clear and unequivocal stand against evil in government.”
Reporters, pundits, and ordinary citizens alike most probably got wind of what Trillanes said about the Garcia case, and yet the columnist chose to disregard this and damned Trillanes three days later for his “silence” on the matter, which is absolutely false and malicious.
Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalos, an erroneous tag by ABS-CBN) are the most upright, clean, and idealistic young Filipinos one can ever meet. With a record of principled actions to back up their idealism and honesty, they have proven themselves to be absolutely sincere in their quest for reforms in society.
Meanwhile, these pristine traits are in direct contrast to the hypocrisy, treachery, deceit, and greed of all those who have been deliberately engaging in character assassination against Trillanes and company. It is obvious that such a sinister campaign will be a sustained one.
In her January opening salvo, she falls back on the Feliciano Commission report on the Oakwood protest, deliberately obscuring the fact that members of that commission were handpicked by Gloria to make sure the only credible member would always be outvoted. She kicks this further with her volley across the bow on so-called “military adventurism, selective idealism.”
But what are the facts of history? It is the Yellow clique of Monsod’s corrupt masters in the Big Business cabal that conspired with corrupt military superiors of General Garcia et al. with the usurping “President Evil” Gloria Arroyo, in connivance with the American financial mafia, led by the likes of Hank Greenberg (who would later become part of Arroyo’s “Council of Economic Advisers”) that ran destabilization operations against a pro-people president, collaborated with wayward Islamic insurgent elements in the F-I-D-E-L bombings — all in the run-up to January 2001, and consummated in Edsa II the anti-constitutional and anti-democratic coup that led to massive AFP demoralization.
What resulted was an unprecedented nine-and-a-half year reign of greed and corruption for which others like Bishop Tobias and Cory Aquino have apologized but to which the columnist would never deign murmur a mea culpa to redress.
The Makati Business Club (MBC) along with its bevy of crony groups sanctimoniously lambasted the plea bargain with Garcia a few days after it was announced. Truthfully, though, that was just a red herring since members of the MBC had been the biggest beneficiaries of Gloria’s corrupt reign through the unabated grant of privatization tax breaks and exorbitant rate increases for power, water, infrastructure, and other projects in the past decade.
Arroyo economic mouthpiece Joey Salceda, in defending his erstwhile boss against perfunctory attacks by the MBC, even said: “You (MBC members) have never had it so good!” And with P10 trillion in profits all raked in during Gloria’s reign, is it still any wonder why this columnist and her like-minded Yellow hacks never ever criticize any Big Business exploitation and price gouging?
This 2011 will be a continuation of our struggle against the exploitative and oppressive oligarchy whose interests she and her colleagues represent. While we are waging a continuing information war against their unceasing deceptions, there is now a big difference: Their double cross and treason against the people have been exposed by their decade-long complicity with Gloria Arroyo. We must keep pressing this point amid their sham criticisms of the previous dispensation and their feeble attempts to throw mud at the real heroes of the people. 2011 thus begins a decade of enlightenment for the nation and an end to the Yellows’ regime of lies.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable channel 8 on the “2011 Review” with Gov. Bono Adaza and political economist Hans Palacios; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com; P.S.-“10 minutes lights out vs power plunderers,” 7 to 7:10 p.m., Monday nights)
Herman Tiu Laurel
01/3/2010
First on my agenda for my first 2011 column is exposing the lie of one regular Yellow writer of a mainstream newspaper. This loud-mouthed lady charged Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV in her Christmas Day column with “silence” on the Gen. Carlos Garcia plunder case and subjected the vastly popular senator to a barrage of abusive language. She even hypocritically claimed to have had second thoughts about it in view of her so-called “Christian spirit” during the holidays. But it’s good that she wrote it anyway as it allows the public a glimpse into her Yellow bigotry.
If only she were genuinely out to correctly inform her readers, that columnist wouldn’t have failed to note that on various news media last Dec. 22, Trillanes lambasted the Ombudsman’s “plea bargain” deal with Garcia. The Manila Standard Today, for instance, headlined, “Replace Gutierrez, Trillanes proposes” while various radio broadcasts repeated Trillanes’ statement: “I believe we have to change the Ombudsman. That’s the only way.” Fact is, the Trillanes-led Oakwood protest was instrumental in helping flush out the kind of corruption perpetrated by Garcia and his ilk.
The columnist I am referring to is none other than the opinionated lady much pampered by mainstream print and broadcast media, who has been given shows left and right by the rival networks. She is really one hell of a pampered personality. Even the global oligarchy’s History Channel features her on its “Tale of Two Filipino Presidents” teaser in time for the Edsa anniversaries this year. Here, she is depicted with her usual histrionics as saying, “My God, how can you say he did a good job…” referring to Marcos vis-à-vis her then boss, the disastrously inept yet vindictive Cory Aquino.
Yet no matter how much support she gets from the powers-that-be, the Filipino public doesn’t seem to be impressed at all, as the electorate had given her a trouncing defeat when she ran as senator under Gloria Arroyo’s K4 coalition — this after prominently figuring in the destabilization and ouster of the popularly- and legitimately-elected President Joseph Estrada.
Coinciding with media reports on Trillanes’ call for the removal of Ombudsman Gutierrez was “A Christmas tribute to Trillanes” written by lawyer and columnist Harry Roque Jr. In it he says, “I was ambivalent when I first saw Antonio Trillanes IV on television. But there he was, a very young man, taking a clear and unequivocal stand against evil in government.”
Reporters, pundits, and ordinary citizens alike most probably got wind of what Trillanes said about the Garcia case, and yet the columnist chose to disregard this and damned Trillanes three days later for his “silence” on the matter, which is absolutely false and malicious.
Trillanes and the Bagong Katipuneros (a.k.a. Magdalos, an erroneous tag by ABS-CBN) are the most upright, clean, and idealistic young Filipinos one can ever meet. With a record of principled actions to back up their idealism and honesty, they have proven themselves to be absolutely sincere in their quest for reforms in society.
Meanwhile, these pristine traits are in direct contrast to the hypocrisy, treachery, deceit, and greed of all those who have been deliberately engaging in character assassination against Trillanes and company. It is obvious that such a sinister campaign will be a sustained one.
In her January opening salvo, she falls back on the Feliciano Commission report on the Oakwood protest, deliberately obscuring the fact that members of that commission were handpicked by Gloria to make sure the only credible member would always be outvoted. She kicks this further with her volley across the bow on so-called “military adventurism, selective idealism.”
But what are the facts of history? It is the Yellow clique of Monsod’s corrupt masters in the Big Business cabal that conspired with corrupt military superiors of General Garcia et al. with the usurping “President Evil” Gloria Arroyo, in connivance with the American financial mafia, led by the likes of Hank Greenberg (who would later become part of Arroyo’s “Council of Economic Advisers”) that ran destabilization operations against a pro-people president, collaborated with wayward Islamic insurgent elements in the F-I-D-E-L bombings — all in the run-up to January 2001, and consummated in Edsa II the anti-constitutional and anti-democratic coup that led to massive AFP demoralization.
What resulted was an unprecedented nine-and-a-half year reign of greed and corruption for which others like Bishop Tobias and Cory Aquino have apologized but to which the columnist would never deign murmur a mea culpa to redress.
The Makati Business Club (MBC) along with its bevy of crony groups sanctimoniously lambasted the plea bargain with Garcia a few days after it was announced. Truthfully, though, that was just a red herring since members of the MBC had been the biggest beneficiaries of Gloria’s corrupt reign through the unabated grant of privatization tax breaks and exorbitant rate increases for power, water, infrastructure, and other projects in the past decade.
Arroyo economic mouthpiece Joey Salceda, in defending his erstwhile boss against perfunctory attacks by the MBC, even said: “You (MBC members) have never had it so good!” And with P10 trillion in profits all raked in during Gloria’s reign, is it still any wonder why this columnist and her like-minded Yellow hacks never ever criticize any Big Business exploitation and price gouging?
This 2011 will be a continuation of our struggle against the exploitative and oppressive oligarchy whose interests she and her colleagues represent. While we are waging a continuing information war against their unceasing deceptions, there is now a big difference: Their double cross and treason against the people have been exposed by their decade-long complicity with Gloria Arroyo. We must keep pressing this point amid their sham criticisms of the previous dispensation and their feeble attempts to throw mud at the real heroes of the people. 2011 thus begins a decade of enlightenment for the nation and an end to the Yellows’ regime of lies.
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Politics Today with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable channel 8 on the “2011 Review” with Gov. Bono Adaza and political economist Hans Palacios; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com; P.S.-“10 minutes lights out vs power plunderers,” 7 to 7:10 p.m., Monday nights)
2011: Off with the oligarch's heads!
CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Mentong Laurel
01/3-9/2011
One of the enduring scenes from the closing year of the first decade of this century will undoubtedly be the snapshot of the spider web crack on Prince Charles’ Rolls Royce window. His face aghast with his lady Camilla in shock, this came about when rampaging British “yobs” (or juveniles) protested the UK government’s economic austerity plans for the British people, particularly students, after British banks were bailed out to the tune of billions over the past two years.
”Off with their heads,” the rioting crowds shouted, evoking images of the French Revolution against King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Depending on how one sees it, the “yobs” can actually be the good boys who are demonstrating indignation at the threefold increase in tuitions in the next three years. It’s good because they are standing up for their rights--for justice and equity in their society.
The closest thing to the European royalty of kings and queens in the Philippines is the local corporate and bureaucrat aristocracy, or the “corporatocracy” that rules over our economy, government, and society.
The corporatocracy is a phenomenon emanating from the two-and-a-half decades of globalization and privatization of the nation and its economy: From the massive trade tariff revenues forgone by the state with forced liberalization, to the transfer of great revenue generating state assets to private corporations that started with Corazon Aquino, accelerated under Fidel Ramos and peaked under Gloria Arroyo’s 10-year rule, which was summed up by her economic adviser Joey Salceda’s “You never had it so good” retort to Big Business criticism against Arroyo in the last election debates.
After the 2001 power grab, Big Business raked in a whopping P10 trillion, mainly in the electricity, water, ports, toll ways and other public utility “businesses.” What this proves is that the corporatocracy is antithetical to the people’s cherished dreams of democracy and popular prosperity since time immemorial. What prevails today is a government of, for, and by the corporatocracy sucking the people dry through exploitative public utility and privatized public service rates and fees.
The premier power company Meralco exacts a 50 to 80% increase in profit every year while the SLEX toll fees are rising this January by up to 300%--this as water rates in both the east and west sectors are also rising anew, same with the port fees and power rates that are already among the highest in the world. Simply put, regulatory agencies such as the ERC, TRC, and MWSS are captured and controlled by the oligarchs in the same way that their corruption money lords over our national and local elections. There is no government of, by, and for the people anymore.
As in the olden days, insatiable greed is destroying society. Come January, this writer and advocate, with the help of OpinYon, will start releasing car stickers protesting this regime of stratospheric power rates. The revolution starts here. Join the struggle; share a few coins to stick it to the ERC and power pirates’ ass!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, January 4, 2011, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., for the “2010 Year-ender” on Global News Network, Destiny Cable channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Mentong Laurel
01/3-9/2011
One of the enduring scenes from the closing year of the first decade of this century will undoubtedly be the snapshot of the spider web crack on Prince Charles’ Rolls Royce window. His face aghast with his lady Camilla in shock, this came about when rampaging British “yobs” (or juveniles) protested the UK government’s economic austerity plans for the British people, particularly students, after British banks were bailed out to the tune of billions over the past two years.
”Off with their heads,” the rioting crowds shouted, evoking images of the French Revolution against King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Depending on how one sees it, the “yobs” can actually be the good boys who are demonstrating indignation at the threefold increase in tuitions in the next three years. It’s good because they are standing up for their rights--for justice and equity in their society.
The closest thing to the European royalty of kings and queens in the Philippines is the local corporate and bureaucrat aristocracy, or the “corporatocracy” that rules over our economy, government, and society.
The corporatocracy is a phenomenon emanating from the two-and-a-half decades of globalization and privatization of the nation and its economy: From the massive trade tariff revenues forgone by the state with forced liberalization, to the transfer of great revenue generating state assets to private corporations that started with Corazon Aquino, accelerated under Fidel Ramos and peaked under Gloria Arroyo’s 10-year rule, which was summed up by her economic adviser Joey Salceda’s “You never had it so good” retort to Big Business criticism against Arroyo in the last election debates.
After the 2001 power grab, Big Business raked in a whopping P10 trillion, mainly in the electricity, water, ports, toll ways and other public utility “businesses.” What this proves is that the corporatocracy is antithetical to the people’s cherished dreams of democracy and popular prosperity since time immemorial. What prevails today is a government of, for, and by the corporatocracy sucking the people dry through exploitative public utility and privatized public service rates and fees.
The premier power company Meralco exacts a 50 to 80% increase in profit every year while the SLEX toll fees are rising this January by up to 300%--this as water rates in both the east and west sectors are also rising anew, same with the port fees and power rates that are already among the highest in the world. Simply put, regulatory agencies such as the ERC, TRC, and MWSS are captured and controlled by the oligarchs in the same way that their corruption money lords over our national and local elections. There is no government of, by, and for the people anymore.
As in the olden days, insatiable greed is destroying society. Come January, this writer and advocate, with the help of OpinYon, will start releasing car stickers protesting this regime of stratospheric power rates. The revolution starts here. Join the struggle; share a few coins to stick it to the ERC and power pirates’ ass!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, January 4, 2011, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., for the “2010 Year-ender” on Global News Network, Destiny Cable channel 8; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
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