Why Merci's resignation is void

Alan F. Paguia
Former Professor of Law
Ateneo Law School
University of Batangas
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
alanpaguia@yahoo.com
April 29, 2011

Merceditas Gutierrez, who claims to be Ombudsman, has tendered her resignation to President Noynoy Aquino.

Is her resignation valid?

No. It is, like her aborted impeachment, VOID ab initio.

1. She cannot relinquish an office she no longer holds. Her term had expired in 2009.
2. Her resignation, like her impeachment, is a cover-up for about thousands of ILLEGAL indictments and acquittals she had signed WITHOUT JURISDICTION after the automatic expiration of her inherited constitutional term. 

In other words, in spite of her dubious resignation, she still has to account for such acts of bad faith, not only to the sovereign Filipino people but also to the individual victims of her sham indictments and acquittals.

Those who were illegally indicted would do well to move to dismiss their cases. Those who were illegally acquitted should be re-investigated for possible indictment. The common ground for such courses of action would be lack of jurisdiction on the part of Gutierrez.

Political implosion imminent

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/29/2011



As I write this piece, I recall my recent radio chat with “Sorry Yellow Movement” lead convenor Linggoy Alcuaz. He sees the accelerating collapse of the current regime, citing as a major fissure in the political firmament the declared intention of the presidential uncle, Rep. Peping Cojuangco to actively join the PDP group identified with Binay. “Tito Joe,” as Peping is known in their family circle, was followed by “Tita Tingting,” who resigned from her post as head of a government safety academy connected with state security institutions.

Alcuaz adds that these tremors are just a precursor to more earthquakes ahead as the deadline nears for the one year-ban on appointments, where only one out of 10 of PeNoy’s losing partymates from the 2010 elections can ever hope to get appointed. Many of these un-appointed loyalists will then start to grumble as PeNoy is now a captive of the warring Balay and Samar groups, himself bereft of any redeeming accomplishment.

At the same time, I recall my discussions with leading pro-PeNoy figures from three major economic sections of society — the rice, dairy and coconut sectors. In all, the judgment is the same: The present government has been a massive letdown.

The rice sector’s problems are clearly reflected in the contradicting pronouncements of PeNoy’s Agriculture secretary and his National Food Authority chief, with the former declaring no need for rice imports but with the latter openly contradicting it.

In the dairy sector, the country’s premier organizer of farmer-dairy production networking and marketing says PeNoy’s government has absolutely no support for efforts to increase farm income through production substitution of the country’s yearly P100-billion dairy imports. While he admittedly supported PeNoy as he was taken in by the Yellow mania, when I reminded him that it was President Estrada who was his industry’s biggest supporter, he acknowledged his error.

The coconut industry, meanwhile, which directly and indirectly supports the livelihood of some 20 million Filipinos, initially had high hopes. Coming from the past administration’s kleptocracy, particularly in state coconut institutions such as Philcoa (which was headed by a tradpol), coconut farmers and entrepreneurs anticipated changes; but their hopes were short lived.

To everyone’s disappointment, a coconut NGO leader averred that another non-coconut man was appointed to Philcoa, resulting again in paralysis, where coconut exports slumped severely in the first quarter while coconut development programs continue to be at a standstill.

As the combined rice, dairy and coconut sectors constitute 70 percent of the country’s population, the multi-layered incompetence plus the breakdown of PeNoy’s political coalition, notwithstanding his regime’s administrative aimlessness in the critical economic sectors, all predicate disaster for the Filipino people.

Can we wait until 2016 to take another shot at changing the leadership that is obviously failing big even at this early stage? Can we sit idly by when the food price crisis starts impacting on the people by the third quarter, with the full force of a Fukushima-like tsunami and nuclear disaster, as we face PeNoy’s unceasing commitment to his masters at the US Embassy and the IMF-WB to increase VAT from 12 to 15 percent, to raise MRT/LRT fares, and to keep unchecked the murderously escalating fuel prices pushed by the global “oily-garchs?”

It probably won’t be like Oakwood in 2003 or the 2006 Marine standoff but there certainly will be a new variation that is more political than military. Such a move will be prompted by the pressing need to save the nation from the unprecedented crises that have emerged from a second of year of PeNoy’s massively failing governance and irreconcilable turf wars.

The genuine opposition must come together, prepared for this imminent implosion. By “genuine opposition,” we do not mean the GMA-led trapos who are engaged in a moro-moro with the sitting administration via a fake, acoustic war around the issues of Merci Gutierrez and this new, designed-to-fail Frank Chavez plunder case against Gloria Arroyo. (Why not revive the “Hello Garci” case when all the evidence is there?)

By genuine opposition, we mean the peasants, farmers, coconut planters, workers, as well as urban poor movements — the constituency that is bearing the brunt of PeNoy’s failures. By taking to the streets once more, much like in Edsa III of 2001, the nation can finally install a leadership that is both sincere in its passion for the people and armed with a competence born of experience, maturity and wisdom. Lest it be nipped in the bud, we shall not name names just yet. But believe me, it is growing and biding its time.

To continue our post-Lenten recap from the last column, here’s my take on the cultural front: The Revillame imbroglio is really a political campaign to clobber the entertainer for repeatedly snubbing the Yellow powers. If cultural reformation were the real goal, then they’d also have to demand for a review of Tito, Vic and Joey’s decades-long trashy fare. With the growing number of street children which the Commission on Human Rights isn’t doing anything about, this Jan-Jan child abuse charge by Etta Rosales, et al. is pure hypocrisy.

On the global front, a recent event encapsulates how pitiful some local opinion writers are for being hoodwinked by the West’s info manipulation: The resignation of Al Jazeera Beirut bureau chief, Ghassan Ben Jeddo, over his former network’s unprofessional coverage of Libya — where massacres that never took place were repeated over and over — and Bahrain — where massacres that did take place have been all but ignored. Need I say more?

(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Edsa Tres Revisited;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Rice price subsidy won't solve the problem

KIBITZER
Rod Kapunan
4/25-5/1/2011



Maybe the increase in the price of rice is something we could not avoid. But instead of finding the right solution to the problem, those in charge of preventing famine are looking for a scapegoat.

The scapegoat the National Food Authority has found is the steep increase in the prices of fuel products, like diesel. From an average price of P34 per liter in June 2010, the price now is at an average P47.10 per liter.

I am not saying the previous regime was better than the variety we now have. Their economic policies remain the same, and the only difference is the person in charge. Both dance to the cadence of the band leader for them to carry on the deception that the Filipino people are free and wholly responsible for what they are now – bedraggled, stupid and hungry.

If some came out with their formula of resolving the impasse of poverty, hunger and unemployment, they are palliative solutions because they are not really meant to help, but to boost their own political image as the chosen people of the languid Church we have.

In Connivance
Take the case of rice. When we joined the World Trade Organization, we promised to abide by its rules and resolution.

Unfortunately, one of those resolutions was for the scraping of all subsidies and the dismantling of all protectionism in agriculture to theoretically allow the free flow of cheap food to countries that could not otherwise feed their own people.

As Western economists would say, “why spend time and money in producing food that is costly and unsustainable, when others could produce them much cheaper for us?”

So, instead of encouraging our people to farm, we told them to leave the country and serve as slaves and even as mules abroad. With their meager earnings we tell them now to buy their own small house and lot, while the rich developers in connivance with the good-for-nothing government buy and develop abandoned farmlands to be converted into subdivisions, leisure parks, golf course, ecotourism parks, etc.

Back to Square One
As the hypocrites would often say, there is more money in that approach. The problem is the money earned is not in the hands of ordinary Filipinos who were not able to leave and escape the pangs of hunger here.

The money is mostly in the hands of the elite. So, it’s back to square one. The original problem of the farmers wanting to secure an incentive to produce the food we could eat has become a serious problem of losing both their lands to farm and their money to buy food.

One must bear it in mind that the NFA, headed by that image conscious former acolyte of Senator Lacson, Lito Banayo, cannot forever borrow from the government. The P129-billion debt which is expected to increase cannot be forever tolerated.

The NFA should be taught that it does not exist to serve the political ends of whoever is in charge, but as leverage to reduce the price of rice and other essential food items such as corn. Whether the subsidy is at P1 to P2 per kilo is beside the point just as it would not help solve the problem of food shortage.

One thing sure, for every sale of that imported commodity the government is losing heavily, while at the same time it serves as a disincentive to the remaining farmers. The reason is obvious: that the subsidy in price just to make them affordable is directly helping the farmers and traders exporting those rice at the price they are willing to sell.

Agricultural Subsidy
The hypocrites justified their decision to dismantle the subsidy by citing the comparative advantage theory of David Ricardo, which is to concentrate on what we could produce and sell at cheaper cost, which is to export our people as livestock! For that we removed the guarantee imposed by the then National Grains Authority to buy all the palay at subsidized price during bumper harvest as incentive to the farmers, and to sell the milled rice at floor price to make them affordable to the consumers.

That decision was thorough with the Department of Agriculture discontinuing the subsidy on fertilizers and hybrid rice seedlings.

Instead they revived the rice cartel to increase their price during periods of short supply through hoarding. They abrogated the authority of the NGA to buy, sell and distribute rice, and likewise ordered the National Irrigation Administration to discontinue the subsidy in the cost of irrigation by privatizing them.

Even the size of the farm lands were restructured such that the income of the average farmers today has fallen below the take home pay of the wage earners in commercial and industrial establishments resulting in many of them abandoning their farm lots.

In that one could see the whale of difference in the subsidy in the price from the subsidy in the production of rice. The WTO wants us to dismantle all forms of agricultural subsidy, but would not mind us subsidizing the high cost of imports, while allowing the West to maintain their subsidy in agriculture.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

Post-Lenten recap

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/25/2011



The holidays allowed me a breathing spell from the daily information battles we are waging on several fronts. With the peace and tranquility of the last few days, I am able to see the dust and din from a distance more clearly again, helping me make this post-Lenten recap of these foremost issues:

The Economy. Aquino III is clueless about oil and energy and the elite globalists’ geo-political machinations on them. Veteran reporter Jim Tucker reported this month that “By the end of the year 2012 (the Bilderbergers and other elite) want us paying $7 a gallon for gasoline (that’s $4 today)…” and Western ground troops into Libya, as suggested by Kissinger, is the next step to ensure this.

The fuel subsidy of around P500 million taken from the Value Added Tax is really paid for by Filipino fuel consumers while oil companies are paid in full (without a dip in their sales volumes) for oil that’s overpriced by transfer pricing to their mother companies.

Aquino III’s importation of 50 million liters of diesel fuel is a farce, a claimed “strategic stock” that will last only a few hours for 3.3 million diesel vehicles plus countless sea-going vessels.

The only solutions are a re-regulation and re-nationalization of the fuel industry, along with a restoration of the Marcos-era energy development program.

The economy is now on its 26th year of counter-democratic re-structuring as it continues to see the privatization of the nation’s wealth and the socialization of the tax burden. The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines found approval with the Energy Regulatory Commission to pass on its 3 percent franchise tax to consumers. That will be on top of the franchise tax that’s being passed on to us by power distributors such as Meralco (Manila Electric Co.).

Marcos’ Presidential Decree 551 of Sept. 11, 1974 (which writer Rod Kapunan recently retrieved) was precisely issued to lower the cost of public utilities by assigning the payment of franchise taxes specifically to electric franchise holders enjoying the privilege granted.

It is immoral and patently illegal for those enjoying the privilege of a captive market to transfer their tax burden onto those who are entitled to these constitutionally-mandated basic services.

As the two passed-on franchise taxes will cost consumers 6 percent in additional burden, we ask: Is the fulfillment of one’s basic needs no longer a right but a privilege that people have to be heavily taxed for?

Then, there’s the issue of the minimum wage hike again, which will directly affect small-and-medium businesses and the lowest paid workers, many of whom will be retrenched, but spare transnational mega-corporations whose wage structures are already above minimum.

Former Sen. Ernesto Herrera, being the head of a US “labor” movement-sponsored unions’ federation that has always spoon fed his needed “capital,” has the temerity to write that “companies can afford the wage hike” even when he has never handled a private business that had to compete in the market.

On the other hand, Leftist labor movements that have nothing to show for still rely on the irrelevant minimum wage issue to maintain their illusion of relevance when the real issues are the exploitative, oligarchic government and the increasing “oligopolization” of the economy as small-and-medium enterprises are systematically being marginalized.

The Real Political Battles. Since both the Balay and Samar factions kowtow to the Yellow flag, as Aquino III and Marcos Jr. are united under the Marcos-Ochoa-Serapio-Tan law firm, and after Arroyo Comelec chairman Jose “Hocus PCOS” Melo was appointed by PeNoy to the multi-million Clark Development Corp., is there still any doubt about the Aquinorroyo zarzuela?

Such conflicts are par for the course in Philippine agnotology, i.e. the science of perpetrating ignorance, where anything and everything will be used to distract people’s minds from the real class exploitation happening on the real, live economic stage.

Another one is the reproductive health (RH) — now renamed RP for responsible parenthood (What the hell!). While it pits the triad of women, the Catholic hierarchy, and politicians against each other, there’s only one real loser — the people.

The bill, once enacted into law, makes the RH budget automatically appropriated in succeeding years. Politicians will get their RH medical buses with all the supplies and their large names plastered a la “Project of Congressman Piggy.” I knew there was a catch!

Meanwhile, as Kissinger’s National State Security Memorandum 200, entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests,” cited with alarm the burgeoning populations of “ India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines… since it would quickly increase their relative political, economic, and military strength,” more people must be made aware of this other reason for the vigorous push for the RH bill.

Still, aside from the US planning to eliminate these “threats” through its contraceptive devices, it will also enable its pharmaceuticals — one of two US business mainstays alongside the defense industries — to enjoy a continuing bonanza by supplying these RH supplies. In the end, ALL Filipinos (women included) lose economically.

Then, while the PeNoy government lumbers, within its bowels operates the future US virus — the Akyat-Bayan gang that’s beholden to the oligarchs and kowtows to US diktats in every way but hides in leftist gibberish. This Etta Rosales-Gloria Arroyo bunch of fresher clones with populist pretensions, supported by the likes of ABS-CBN, is reportedly “really powerful” these days, so much so that other leftists who may want positions now have to apply with them.

The real giveaway for this group, however, is its rabid support for the CCT (Conditional Cash Transfer) doleouts that only create a culture of mendicancy and dependency, even to the USAID and IMF-WB.

We’ll have more on cultural, global and other issues in our Friday column.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on the “Philippine Labor Movement: Quo Vadis”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Buzzwords

Sangandaan '93
Richard James Mendoza
4/25/2011



As I searched the Internet for something to read other than news articles about religion, somehow it came to my mind that I should find the definition of “buzzword.” Using a little-known Google command (by typing define:word on the search bar) I found an interesting definition from http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=buzzword. In the link, buzzword was defined as “stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition.” Suddenly, I remembered some phrases that are continuously being repeated through the media; phrases such as democracy, human rights, corruption, saving the planet, ad nausea infinitum. And perhaps these phrases have truly embodied the “buzz” in buzzword, as in the buzzing of the bees, except that these phrases are more deafening than the buzzing itself.

Democracy. It’s something that I often hear from the US whenever they invade—I mean, take a “visit” on a country. For them, it’s a magic word like abracadabra that enchants many people and perhaps fool them in the process. They often proclaim that they‘re going to bring democracy and prosperity on a country that is being ruled by a despot or a dictator. But the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions rings true in this situation. It’s what we’ve witnessed in Iraq in 2003 when the US did a military intervention in Iraq for the “search” of the so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which turned out to be nothing more than a shabby excuse to overthrow Saddam Hussein, steal its resources (in this case, oil) and ruin the country. Until now, Iraq is still reeling from the effects of the illegal invasion of the US military, with some areas still uninhabitable because of the radiation brought about by uranium bullets.

If you are looking for an example of “democracy” (or demo-crazy, for that matter) in our country, look no further. Twenty-five years ago, in what has been called “Edsa I,” the Yellows removed Ferdinand Marcos and installed their “Dear Leader” Corazon Aquino, thus “restored democracy” in our country. But what did their “democracy” really mean? Through the years, it only meant the return of the old ruling class and the worsening of living standards, all the while chanting “Demokrasya,” “Kalayaan” and other slogans which it had dulled the minds of many. It’s sickening to think that while the masses are toiling for their very survival, the oligarchy are enjoying the spoils through their legal extortionists such as privatized public utilities (how ironic) which are supposed to provide the basic needs for everyone and at the same time hypocritically mouthing on how life has “improved” after restoring democracy in this country. If democracy meant the rule of the minority and not of the majority, then I must be in a parallel universe but unfortunately, such is not the case.

These Yellows often claim to respect democracy and the rule of law but Edsa II proved otherwise. In broad daylight, they pulled off a coup d’état disguised as a “civilian uprising” on a democratically elected leader who brought hope to the masses. In the guise of removing a corrupt and immoral leader, they seized the opportunity and illegally sworn in GMA who never had the mandate of the people and thus strengthened the hold of the repressive ruling class in bleeding the country dry of its resources, all the while fooling the people that democracy lived once again and that justice had been served.

And then there was the real people’s uprising, Edsa III. This event was largely ignored by the media stations, with the exception of Net-25. The very same Yellows who claimed to love democracy suddenly became snobs as they berated the event and its participants, calling them “unwashed,” amongst other derogatory terms. The sinful cardinal bemoaned about the sacrilege of the sacred Edsa, hypocritically remarking Jesus’ first of the last seven words. A certain journalist even derided Edsa III, the title of the piece saying it all “Excuse me, please don’t call it People Power.” Twenty-five years after Edsa I, can it still be said that democracy rules the country? Well, I daresay that democracy died on February 25, 1986.

Saving the planet. If one thinks about it, there is really nothing wrong with saving the planet. After all, what could be wrong with planting trees and dreaming of a better world for the next generation? Nothing, except that hypocrites and knuckleheads are abound whenever the issue of “saving the planet” comes up, especially when it’s about global warming. Meet Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States of America and the so-called inventor of the internet who is currently on a world tour preaching the gospel of global warming/climate change/global climate change/whatever name they’re using. Because of his continuous preaching, he has become an expert eschatologist regarding global warming and its purported doom, more so than the climatologists themselves.

According to the gospel of Gore, if we humans do not stop emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, the CO2 will worsen what is called the greenhouse effect. And he and his followers (read: alarmists) also preach about how the debate on climate change is “over” and anyone who presents a different point of view about global warming are compared to Holocaust deniers and should be sent to a “Nuremberg-like trial.” Regarding the so-called “greenhouse effect”, it turns out that the phrase itself is deceptive, according to W.R. Pratt in a booklet entitled “CO2: The Debate Is Not Over” which can be found in this link: http://www.spinonthat.com/CO2_files/CO2tdino.pdf (requires Adobe Reader to open).

According to Pratt, “The term was first coined in 1824 by Joseph Fourier to describe the way the atmosphere is warmed by the heat from the Sun. But it is John Tyndall, who according to some, it is claimed, is responsible for proving that the Earth has a greenhouse effect. It is strange then that in his book entitled Contributions to Molecular Physics in the domain of Radiant Heat written in the 1860s when he was professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution (previously known as the Hidden College) that the closest he comes to alluding to anything like a greenhouse effect is a reference on page 117 to the atmosphere behaving like a dam on heat energy from the sun.

However even this is an extremely inaccurate and unhelpful analogy because there are only two dynamics invoked in the example of a dam: The water flowing down hill and the wall of the dam across the path of the body of flowing water. However the dynamics involved in the heat energy from the Sun entering the Earth’s atmosphere are so numerous that they simply cannot be quantified” (emphasis added).

Added to the fact that greenhouse gases only compose less than one percent of the atmosphere, with CO2 being only less than a thousandth of a percent (a thousandth of a percent would look like this: 0.001). And most of the CO2 comes from the world’s vast oceans. These bodies of water store large amounts of CO2 and release it to the atmosphere very slowly. In fact, there are many graphs that show a different kind of correlation when it came to CO2 and the fluctuations in temperature. These graphs show that the rise of CO2 levels followed the rise in temperature, not the other way around.

Regarding the alarmists slogan of “The debate is over,” well I have bad news for them. The debate is NOT over yet and it will NEVER end. The scientific process is supposed to be about the discussion of different point of views; about debating and critical analysis. It’s certainly not about consensus. An example is the theory of Big Bang. Even though many believe that it was the Big Bang that started the universe, the theory is still being debated until the present day, even inventing the Large Hadron Collider to attempt to prove that the theory is correct. But such is not the case in global warming. Dissenting voices are silenced and are often accused of receiving money from Big Oil, which is uncalled for.

Truly, the spread of disinformation and agnotology continues to grow. The only antidote to such malaise is truth. Because the truth remains the same, while a lie does not. But what is the truth, anyway? That, my friend, is something that I’ll leave to the philosophers.

Back blasts on NFA critics

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
4/18-24/2011



There is a campaign by local globalist underlings to vilify and demonize the National Food Authority (NFA) as an organization and public service institution, despite the agency’s long 37-year history of serving the nation well. Chief among these detractors are two ranking members of PeNoy Aquino’s Cabinet, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and Budget and Management Secretary Butch Abad.

Both have pointed their accusing fingers at the NFA, branding it as corrupt for over-buying stocks of rice, causing inventories to rot, and losing government close to P500 million in delivery expenses just to deliver an eighth’s worth of those stocks to warehouses. But thanks to the National Food Authority Employees’ Association (NFA-EA) and its very well-researched documentary exposés, the claims of those two are now exposed as outright lies. I had Mr. Roman Sanchez and Mr. Larry Tan, NFA union president and vice-president, respectively, together with Marilyn Qui, also of the NFA-EA, as my guests on my cable TV show “Politics Today” on GNN last week.

PeNoy Aquino III’s inaugural address on July 1, 2010 highlighted the alleged corruption at the NFA, lambasting it with all sins imaginable. His speech writers were obviously following a decade-long script, since this anti-NFA line has been part of the official government spiel for the past 10 years, silently egged on by multilateral agencies, the World Bank, ADB, and their local consultants. In it, PeNoy said, “In 2004: 117,000 metric tons of rice was the shortage in the supply of the Philippines . What they (NFA) bought were 900,000 metric tons. Even if you multiply more than seven times the amount of shortage, they still bought more than what was needed…”

What PeNoy may not have known (or is incapable of knowing) is that Cesar Purisima was already a member of the NFA Council--the agency’s deciding body--way back in 2004 and was a party to the decision on the importation. So the question now is: Why did PeNoy appoint a culprit in that alleged over-purchase of rice in 2004? Also, now that he and his Cabinet have been told of Purisima’s complicity, when will they ever investigate and fire the guy?

Purisima showed his utter hypocrisy in following up on his boss’ inaugural statements regarding the NFA when he said this, which appeared on the July 29, 2010 page 1 of the Manila Standard Today’s “Malacañang may abolish rice agency as debt balloons” story: “‘Gross mismanagement’ had seen that debt (of NFA) balloon to more that P170 billion this year…”

Well, now that we know Purisima, as a member of the NFA Council, was a party to that “gross mismanagement,” we ask him: Why didn’t you object and expose this “gross mismanagement” at that time? For sure, Purisima didn’t resign from the Gloria Arroyo Cabinet until mid-2005 when the Hyatt 10 sensed signals coming from the US Embassy of its dissatisfaction with the “Hello Garci” tenant in Malacañang. But as has been the practice of the Yellow regimes, from Cory Aquino to Gloria Arroyo, they have appointed to different agencies people who would best exacerbate the corruption and misdirect the policies to ensure these agencies fall into discredit--or, a sabotage, in simple terms--just as Cory Aquino brought Napocor to ruin when she appointed power oligarch Ernesto Aboitiz to be president of that state firm. And as Purisima helped sully the NFA from the inside; now, he wants to dismantle it from the outside.

The NFA-EA also catches Jesuit political acolyte Butch Abad in his contradictions. The NFA-EA position paper entitled, “NFA privatization and decoupling--A deliberate move to endanger food security,” its manifesto on House Bill (HB) 4284 entitled, “The National Food Authority Reorganization Act of 2011,” reports: “To justify the shutting down of NFA, Secretary Abad cited data from the World Bank that it costs the NFA as much as P8.60 to deliver P1 of low-priced rice. Translating Abad’s fantasy would imply that in 2009, where the NFA delivered nationwide P49.2 billion worth of low-priced rice, the agency would therefore incur P423 billion cost in disposing of the same. In that year, the NFA only spent about P10 billion on subsidy, interest payment, personnel salaries and wages, and other (operating costs). So, the ration should be 1:4.95 or NFA spends P1.00 to deliver P4.95 worth of low-priced rice.” Ateneo has obviously not taught the acolyte to lie as “Jesuitically” as he should.

The NFA-EA has given back blasts to the malicious criticisms against the NFA. Now, it is the PeNoy government and Cabinet members who are on the defensive, unable to explain the many contradictions of their claims and positions. PeNoy’s appointed NFA chief have not only once, not twice, but on multiple occasions somersaulted on his claims about the NFA rice stocks--at one time saying NFA bodegas were bursting at their seams, then the next time around saying the country needs to import more; also, claiming huge amounts of rotting rice, which were nowhere to be seen later when the “huge” pile was requested by media to be documented.

PeNoy’s Cabinet execs stumble over each other with contradictory claims: Agriculture Secretary Alcala on April 7, 2011 said, “We will not be importing additional rice for 2011. Harvest is good,” only to be contradicted by NFA administrator Lito Banayo’s declaration on April 11, 2011 that “(the) Philippines will import an additional 300,000 metric tons of rice to prevent a shortage in the latter part of the year.”

Despite all their blunders and obfuscations, the privatization of the NFA has long been planned, as shown by a timeline provided by the NFA-EA:

• 1980: WB Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) $200-million loan - phase out of price control and subsidy for farm inputs including fertilizer;
• 1983: Increase of loan to $300-million - on condition that the private sector is allowed to export rice, as price controls for rice and corn are dismantled;
• 1985: US PL-480 conditionalities - liberalize fertilizer imports (which led to the death of PhilPhos), privatize wheat/flour imports and non-grain trading, thus reducing NFA revenues;
• 1986: Dismantling of government-supported monopolies in international trading of rice, corn, wheat;
• 1993: ADB loan agreement leading to complete subsidy withdrawal in 1998;
• 1998: USAID-AGILE study on privatization of NFA;
• 1999: Required privatization of rice importation, etc. in exchange for ADB’s $175-million loan grant;
• 2001: Incorporation of AGILE plan to dismantle NFA under Arroyo’s Medium Term Development Plan;
• 2010: Proposed zero budget for NFA under PeNoy as the WB recommends the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program instead of rice rationing so that the US and transnational corporations can control rice trade and sell their surplus rice to the poor.

The consequence of all past privatizations like power, water, tool ways, and ports have been very dire for the people as costs have shot up, making these services beyond the reach of ordinary folks. When this happens to rice supply, we can imagine the social turmoil we’ll face in the future.

It’s a chilling prospect but a desired explosion of a social volcano nonetheless for the foreign powers to pick up the pieces.

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and 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 “Yellow Hypocrisy vs Willing Willie?”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Jesus' bane: Money changers

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/18/2011



This week the nation remembers the suffering and death of the historic Jesus Christ under the Roman Empire and the money changers of the temples of his time. It reminds me of the present era of Imperia Americana, with its retinue of money masters, under which many nations have experienced untold suffering and slow death.

Globally and nationally, we are witnessing this continuing passion play of the yoke of imperial tyranny with the US’ 800 military bases across the globe, its NATO sidekicks, the IMF, and even social networks conjuring “Twitter revolutions left and right, while the New Imperium refurbishes old puppet regimes with new versions. Undoubtedly, one such case is Egypt.

On infowars.com, Kurt Nimmo’s “Banksters Cook Up Economic Snake Oil for Egypt” describes Egypt in the aftermath of its so-called “people power” revolution (with “banksters” denoting the Shylocks of these times, the banker-gangsters). The writer cites an Agence France Presse report detailing that “the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the African Development Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank are pledging to have an ‘action plan’ outlined by the end of May… an effort that will lock the victims of the so-called Arab Spring into perpetual debt…”

Further, “The international bankers have agreed ‘to develop a joint action plan for aligning their investments toward a new vision to support the aspirations of citizens for inclusive and sustained growth,’” with the IMF at the forefront. However, according to Nimmo, what the reports do not say is that “prior to the so-called revolution, the globalists considered Egypt an ‘economic miracle’… in other words (it) followed orders and privatized…”

Back in the 1990s, Egypt privatized its state-owned industries and held fire sales that sank it into poverty. Such precedent, coupled with US food policies that pushed hunger massively higher everywhere beginning in the 2000s, accounts for why “The uprisings in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and elsewhere in the Arab world are due in large part to escalating food prices--prices jacked up by bankster speculation.”

Explaining his view on why Mubarak was destabilized, Nimmo says, “In May of 2010, the Egyptian government (Mubarak) announced that the sale of state assets to investors had effectively ended.” A year later, the “Twitter revolution” transpired. “Soon after the CIA orchestrated revolution,” Nimmo adds, “the people of Egypt were subjected to military rule little different than the rule of the brutal dictator Mubarak.” This was exactly what I saw when I wrote “From US frying pan to US fire” months ago. Everyone would thus be better off to know that another kind of menace corollary to US imperialism, but one that goes largely unnoticed, is these banksters’ imperialism.

In several forums, analysts such as Robert Wenzel, Alex Newman, and Ellen Brown of the Economic Policy Journal, New American, and Global Research, respectively, expound on the first act of the Libyan rebel “Transitional Council” of organizing a new Central Bank. Newman notes “…the rebels’ seemingly odd decision to establish a new central bank to replace dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s state-owned monetary authority (as) possibly the first time in history that revolutionaries have taken time out from an ongoing life-and-death battle to create such an institution.”

Brown, meanwhile, cites a Russian source which I looked up that said, “Mummar Ghaddafi became the main initiator of (the) idea of refusing (the) dollar and euro. He called (the) Arabian and African world to start (using) one new currency--golden dinar… (backed by a population of around 200 million)… uniting African countries into one powerful federative state… strongly approved by many Arabian countries and almost all African countries… last year (2010).”

To compare, after the 1986 Edsa I “People Power” revolution in the Philippines, one of the first acts of the Cory Aquino regime was to convene a handpicked Constitutional Commission that added--as one its first revisions--the word “independent” to qualify the Central Monetary Authority, which, contrary to present claims, was never in the 1973 Constitution--Section 14, Article XV of which read: “The National Assembly shall establish a central monetary authority…”

The Aquino regime then tampered with the Monetary Board and increased private sector representation to the detriment of government. Those two acts insulated the central bank, now known as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), from accountability to and audit of government, making it subservient to private banking interests.

After 25 years, the Philippines only became poorer and poorer until it reached a new nadir under the present regime. Just imagine: “Gov’t stockpiling fuel,” a headline designed to save government’s face, trumpeting Aquino III’s declaration of building up a “strategic oil” reserve of (get this)…50 liters, amid government’s recent oil subsidy embarrassment. But look how pitiful it is.

A 50-million liter fuel stockpile for 6.6-million registered vehicles won’t even last three hours of a given day with only a 5-liter ration per vehicle. That’s the “strategic” breath of PeNoy?! In Marcos’ time the fuel stocks were kept at 45-day levels.

Consider this other one: “5 soldiers hurt as chopper makes emergency landing in Rizal.” The report mentions “PAF spokesman Lt. Col. Miguel Okol in a dzBB interview (claiming that) the incident will not cripple the AFP’s fleet of Huey-type helicopters, saying it has ‘seven airworthy helicopters of different types.’” What?! Only seven? During Marcos’ time, it was over a hundred! Truly, everyone has gotten worse off under the world’s money masters.

Jesus was tried, suffered and died essentially under the hands of the money changers. They were the ones who took vengeance and called for his death after he chastised them at the temple. While they now go by the name of IMF-WB, with their enforcers--the Pontius Pilates of yore--today’s Barack Obama, the world is still very much under the power of these money masters. Let us reflect and be mindful of this throughout the Lenten Season and beyond.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Money Masters and the Death of the Body?”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

A lamentable decision

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
4/16-17/2011



There is a saying among those who bother to harness a bit of their common sense that one need not be a lawyer to know the law. But in this latest judgment rendered by the Sandiganbayan, where it ordered former First Lady, now congresswoman for the 2nd district of Ilocos Norte Imelda R. Marcos to return the P10 million allegedly “pocketed” by her late husband, former President Ferdinand Marcos, the saying could now be restated that one need not even go to school to know how the Sandiganbayan came out with that lamentable decision.

Maybe for the hypocrites the decision was absolutely perfect. After all, it is not justice they seek. They just want to satisfy their primeval lust for revenge. In fact, one wonders how a criminal case of graft could survive after the accused died, more so that he was never arraigned. The facts are so simple that one could easily detect the incongruous logic that runs between the admitted facts from the conclusion. The error is not one of law or of perception to say there was a misapprehension of facts that led it to an error in judgment, but one borne out of downright stupidity.

The decision is not even a case of travesty of justice, which in the first place is common in this country, but one that delivers a straight insult to human intelligence. The public fears that the decision would now serve as jurisprudence to allow courts to pass on their verdict to the surviving spouse. Easily, government functionaries will use that discordant decision as their instrument to harass their enemies with the thought of keeping themselves popular. Beyond commenting that something is terribly wrong with the outrageous decision, people cannot be wrong in judging that possibly, they need a doctor.

Even if the public would give the court the widest latitude that the criminal complaint against the former President survived; that indeed he ordered then National Grains Authority administrator Jesus Tanchangco to release said amount, still it did not seep into their brain that what they heard was the open admission made by Tanchangco himself. Uncannily, he was allowed by the Sandiganbayan to pass on the crime he admitted to have committed to a person who by death could no longer defend himself. The mere fact that the alleged order was made by Marcos through telephone is enough to elicit serious doubts.

Nonetheless, the court instead muddled the entire case by believing that the comptroller of the then NGA, Cesar Aquino, delivered the P10 million in three bags to Security Bank president Rolando Gapud upon instruction of Tanchangco (not Marcos), despite the fact that there was no paper trail that an amount of P10 million was withdrawn from the deposits of the NGA at the Philippine National Bank, least to confirm that said act of pocketing transpired.

Every angle and every phase of how the alleged crime was committed clearly indicates that the one who testified was the one who committed the crime. Such is the only conclusion one could draw. In the absence of any paper trail, the self-serving testimony of the witness to acquit himself is nothing more but a scrappy fiction story. Maybe stupidity is bliss for instead of punishing the witness for his prevarications, they took his word hook, line and sinker.

To make sure that the court won’t change its mind, the witness demanded that he be given immunity. Surely, at the back of his mind he was laughing at how he managed to convince the magistrates to believe him. Perhaps, they were not really that dumb. Maybe they were just a bunch of willing accomplices aspiring to be promoted and thereto come out with much more silly decisions. Such is the perception because many are asking why the court entered into an agreement that would exempt the very person that unmistakably pocketed the money. The dilemma was not a case of selecting between the most guilty and from the least guilty, but a case of one person standing as guilty.

More than anything else, there was malice in the court’s decision use of the word “pocketed” to describe how the deceased allegedly committed the crime. The court was unmindful that to pocket, the accused must personally perform the act to consummate the crime. To laymen, the words “to pocket” refer to his physical taking of the things not owned by him, not through a third person, from somebody’s pocket as it literally means. Rather, it was used casually, and it was the most grievous slur for it was intended to malign a dead man. Here, one could see the difference between one who uses his tact so as not to offend the sensibilities of others from one concededly tactless not to know that.

To make sure that such stupidity will not go unnoticed, the 5th Division of the Sandiganbayan sought to the punish wife who was not even aware that such a case exists by letting her pay the P1 million in moral damages and the P1 million expenses in court litigation. Solicitor General Jose Anselmo-Cadiz and PCGG commissioner Gerard Mosqueda then wasted no time to enforce the decision, which according to them has become final. But even if we take it at that, the question is where those bunch of bigots got their bright idea that they could proceed to collect the amount from the wife?

Even in civil cases that survive after the death of the respondent, properties which could be the subject of execution need to be submitted to the court. The plaintiff is not free to grab anything as he pleases. But since the case is obviously criminal in nature, it would be most unprecedented and insane for the Sandiganbayan and the PCGG to punish the wife by garnishing her savings or levying her properties in a case where she was not even impleaded as co-accused. Anyway, the decision now stands as another landmark in the continuing retrogression in our judicial system.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

RP's rice and fall

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/15/2011



Since the 1986 Yellow takeover of Philippine government, the country has nosedived economically. The US and IMF-WB-backed Cory Aquino economic team’s promised progress and democracy never came. Ushering in economic dynamism with competition, the elimination of corruption, as well as “foreign investments” were merely used as pretexts for the ruling Yellows to impose globalization, through the triad of liberalization, deregulation and privatization.

Twenty-five years later, after privatizing the central bank by decoupling its accountability from public control through constitutional and statutory redefinitions; after emasculating tariff with import liberalization; after privatizing major state industries in power, water and lucrative infrastructures such as tollways and ports; and after the many extractions of “foreign investors,” the country has been pauperized.

Today, amid increasing domestic hunger and global food supply and price crises, these Yellows are into privatizing the National Food Authority (NFA) and the country’s rice trading, thus, ensuring the explosion of hunger and the final collapse of the nation’s food sustainability.

Each and every privatization of economically as well as socially beneficial, not to mention strategic and basic, state enterprise was preceded by massive disinformation and black propaganda — obviously to discredit, vilify, and even demonize the prized target.

Yellow economic managers and controlled mainstream media, including captured learning institutions such as the UP and Ateneo schools of economics, joined in maligning these state enterprises — whether in power, water, and other services — as either corrupt, inefficient, or budget-guzzling white elephants.

When that did not suffice, successive Yellow presidents appointed their loyal lieutenants as heads of these companies to ensure that these state enterprises indeed became even more corrupted, inefficient, and budget-guzzling — and sabotaged deliberately, the way Cory Aquino appointed power oligarch Ernesto Aboitiz to the National Power Corp. (Napocor), old Tarlac politico Aping Yap to the MWSS, and terrorist bomber Ed Olaguer to the PNCC.

Today, the final privatization is going into high gear, led by the Malacañang team so endeared to the Americans that its ambassador went to congratulate the then president-elect in 2010 to preempt the official congressional proclamation lest some evidence crop up in the aftermath of Hocus-PCOS. That was essential to ensure that the global neo-conservative agenda of systematic re-domination and mass genocide of clueless and unresisting Third World countries proceeded unhampered.

With the “success” of privatization of virtually all essential public services now used to squeeze every ounce of wealth from each Filipino, the globalists are now ready to privatize the last remaining ones to squeeze him of the very staple that gives this nation life — rice. With it, the globalists are going to wield the power of death over our nation.

This was done systematically in the years leading to Edsa I, even as the late Bong Tangco, then President Ferdinand Marcos’ Agriculture secretary, tried to preserve the gains from Masagana 99, a timeline of which the NFA Employees’ Association provides us:

• 1980: WB Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) $200-million loan — phase out of price control and subsidy for farm inputs including fertilizer;
• 1983: Increase of loan to $300 million — on condition that the private sector is allowed to export rice, as price controls for rice and corn are dismantled;
• 1985: US PL-480 conditionalities — liberalize fertilizer imports (which led to the death of PhilPhos), privatize wheat/flour imports and non-grain trading, thus reducing NFA revenues;
• 1986: Dismantling of government-supported monopolies in international trading of rice, corn, wheat;
• 1993: ADB loan agreement leading to complete subsidy withdrawal in 1998;
• 1998: USAID-AGILE study on privatization of NFA;
• 1999: Required privatization of rice importation, etc. in exchange for ADB’s $175-million loan grant;
• 2001: Incorporation of AGILE plan to dismantle NFA under Arroyo’s Medium Term Development Plan;
• 2010: Proposed zero budget for NFA under PeNoy as the WB recommends the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program instead of rice rationing so that the US a la PL-480 and transnational corporations can control rice trade and sell their surplus rice to the poor.

In contrast, Marcos had the CorFarm that required large companies like Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) and San Miguel Corp. to engage in rice production to supply one sack of monthly rice allowance to its tens of thousands of employees.

Despite pressures from the US, WB and ADB, Philippine rice production was sufficient throughout the 70s and 80s until the effects were heightened by the FVR-Sebastian policy of giving low priority to rice and high priority to such “high value” crops as black pepper, leading to the rice “pila” and deficit in 1998 that quickly recovered under Estrada from 1999 to 2000, until it crashed again into deficit a year after Edsa II, in 2002, and remained that way ever since.

Nothing good has and will come out of the acquiescence of the Philippine government to the demands of the multilateral financial agencies and the US Agriculture Department to completely privatize our government’s rice agency and its related functions. That will be the nation’s fall.

The only good thing, in a black humor sort of way, is the potential for mass uprising and revolution that a desperately starving people may resort to. But that will require a leadership that is ideologically and organizationally developed to lead to the correct path. A Tunisian or Egyptian “people power” will not do; only a Venezuelan Hugo Chavez-type revolt, organized with an alliance of nationalist-populist mass organizations like the ones we have here that are led by nationalist military idealists, will pave RP’s rise.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “Yellow Hypocrisy vs Willing Willie?”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Talk News TV with Herman Tiu Laurel

TOPIC: Thorium Reactor: The Alternative Nuke
Guest: Roger D. Posadas, Ph. D, Professor of Technology Management


[PART 1]

[PART 2]

The week: From RH to Jan-jan

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
4/11-17/2011



One of my purposes in writing this regular Critics’ Critic series is to offer readers of OpinYon a select summary of opinions of commentators from tri-media that I think are worthy of special attention.

But with over 50 op-ed columns and articles everyday from at least seven major newspapers and at least five major AM news and talk shows, these would be impossible to follow unless you are a pundit of pundits like me.

As such, this is my service, as well as OpinYon’s, to you all. This week we review the reproductive health (RH), drug mules, and Jan-jan issues, as tackled in choice columns of different newspapers:

“Damasos and ovaries” by Elizabeth Angsioco in the Manila Standard Today got me really interested to read her take on the RH issue with this striking title. Part I of her two-part series came out in the paper’s April 2 to 3 editions. Had the title just stated an obvious proor anti-RH position, I wouldn’t have taken another look at it since there is now a diarrhea of chatter on the debate; but by bringing up our history’s Padre Damasos, juxtaposed with a most sensitive organ in the female anatomy, Angsioco perfectly summed up the clash between the pontificating conservatives and the female gender’s right to their own.

Here’s a sampling:

“Damaso lives. He mingles with us exacting obedience even on personal matters, women’s ovaries included… Controversies surrounding the reproductive health bill are significant because of present-day Damasos who vigorously oppose its passage… Recent developments like the anti-RH ordinances approved by Barangay Ayala Alabang (BAA) and the seven barangays in Balanga, Bataan, the ongoing black propaganda against the RH bill particularly using the pulpit, all these show us how modern-day Damasos and their allies work… The BAA documents are explosive… no public hearing was called to discuss the ordinance. All of the kagawads our leaders spoke with said that they were just asked to sign the ordinance…The plot thickens. There will be more next week.” Search for “Elizabeth Angsioco, Damasos and Ovaries” on the Internet to read more on this.

On Bended Knees
The past week saw the drama of the three Filipino drug mules’ execution drummed up by mainstream media. The Inquirer bannered it on March 30 with “Nation on bended knees.”I was really aghast. It’s a demeaning headline for a nation of 90 million normal, righteous Filipinos whom I don’t believe would be that cross-eyed.

When I tuned in to the major radio stations that morning, all of them were on it too, as were the TV networks with tearjerking interviews of the condemned convicts’ families. I thought everyone else had gone insane until I came across Ellen Tordesillas’ column in Malaya’s April 1 edition:

“TV networks realize that their attempt to sensationalize the deaths of the three to boost their ratings failed. In my prayers for the families… as they try to cope with the loss of their loved ones, I also… hope the TV networks learn… and not to again attempt to replicate a Flor Contemplacion… a media event in 1995 that violated all rules of journalism, as what ABS-CBN tried to do…

In the man-on-the street survey of TV Patrol (on) whether the three deserved to be executed, Noli de Castro couldn’t hide his disappointment that 80 percent answered in the affirmative… (When asked) if they thought that the government had done enough…

45 percent said ‘No’ and 55 percent said ‘Yes.’ De Castro said, ‘Halos tie lang.’ He didn’t stop there. He said… ‘May gusto kasing pumapel…’ Yes, there’s one who is trying to exploit the situation: De Castro and his ilk.” Bravo, Ellen.

Enough with Hypocrisy
A similar view was expressed by Conrado de Quiros in the Inquirer: “One text message sender said enough with the hypocrisy. The Filipinos who were executed in China were selfconfessed drug couriers. Even their families admitted so… It is one thing to be dramatic, it is another to be melodramatic… itis another to have a sense of proportion…The day the networks see those differences is the day we are spared grief…”

The spoiler in the piece was his impulse draw a parallel with the emotional Marcos burial issue: “…only a couple of weeks ago, the congressmen voted overwhelmingly to bury Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani… Gone was the fact that Marcos had ruled the country illegitimately, pitilessly and viciously… stealing, enough of the murder, torture and disappearances.” But then, 50 percent of Filipinos remember better things of Marcos and worse of the Yellows.

Child Abuse or Not…
The week also saw the imbroglio over an alleged exploitation of a six-year-old boy supposedly compelled to do a sexy macho dance in Willie Revillame’s primetime program. I honestly don’t watch Revillame so I don’t know how bad that episode went.

I also can’t ascertain as of yet why the child reportedly cried as the audience was said to have laughed like mad.

Child abuse or not, is this really a priority issue for the Commission on Human Rights when teachers and their students are kidnapped (and later freed) in Agusan del Sur and 11 are dead again in Maguindanao, in a clash between MILF elements and the Mangudadatu clan? That’s what I wondered when I read Emil Jurado’s column in Manila Standard Today:

Lesson on Mendicancy
“The move of both the Commission on Human Rights and the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board to investigate Manny Pangilinan’s TV5 and Willie Revillame for
that unfortunate episode of a six-year-old boy, in tears, doing a sexy dance should be pursued to their logical ends…

It’s a show people go for since all they have to do is to make themselves look like fools and presto, Willie pulls out wads of pesos from his hip pocket as a give-away. It’s a lesson on mendicancy… Revillame crossed the line. I have supported TV 5 and Revillame in the long fight against the Lopez-owned ABSCBN. But Willie has gone too far this time. Let the axe fall where it should.”

But will it?

TV5 of Manny Pangilinan is no different from the Lopezes’ ABS-CBN.

Laissez-faire capitalism’s media interest is solely for profit and diverting the people’s mind from the exploitative character of the system.

‘Liars’ Next
I have run out of space for the other two writers and topics of real importance: John Mangun of the of Business Mirror pushing for the removal of protectionist constitutional provisions and Ken Fuller’s splendid Tribune commentary (entitled “Liars”) on Washington and London’s “arming the Libyan opposition.”

Those will be for our next issue.

(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 “NFA Privatization: Grains of Wrath;” visit http:// newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)

'People power' backfire

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/11/2011



Only two-and-a-half months after the Egyptian uprising on Jan. 25, 2011, forces of the US-Egyptian ruling establishment have started to devour the revolution’s children. As I start this column, international cable and Internet news have started flashing clips of the Egyptian military’s dispersal of protesters at Tahrir Square , the site where the so-called Egyptian “people power” began.

Since a “transition government” took over after Mubarak’s fall and despite the holding of a constitutional plebiscite, innumerable voices of dissent have been raised against the new government’s direction — with the same old Mubarak generals in charge and the same old US domination of that part of the world.

The resurgent protesters were engaged in a sit-in and defied the imposed curfew. When a smattering of military officers started to join them in protest, the Egyptian army cracked down heavily on the crowd, which led to two deaths (though the number is believed to be bigger).

The Egyptian people power against Western-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak went off to a very heady Twitter start but lacked the effective clarity in ideology and organized political-military leadership to consummate a revolution. While Twitter and Facebook can indeed rouse the young and the middle class, and even draw in the masses, these social media simply do not have the wherewithal to seize and maintain government power and wage a programmed restructuring of society, thus laying them open to opportunistic predators.

I remember issuing a warning in my column, “From US frying pan to US fire,” that unless the spontaneous combustion of the Egyptian revolution was being fanned by a clear nationalist civilian-military leadership (with emphasis on “nationalist”), the people power there would just end up like the one we had here, where the people were made to suffer worse conditions under the continued control of the US and the old oligarchy.

Even today, with the US calling the shots, Egypt is already sending arms and military trainers to neighboring Libya, a country that has double its per capita income and standard of living, to fuel the Libyan civil war while it has yet to sort out its own problems. What proof does the world — or the Yellow bleeding hearts rooting for the so-called Libyan “rebels” — need in order to realize that worse things have come upon the Egyptian people today after their so-called “revolution,” no different from what has happened here since 1986?

In a decade or so, Egyptians will have nostalgia for Mubarak — for the relative calm and stability of his period, for the poor but survivable neo-colonial economic conditions, and for the relative predictability of the whole of North Africa and the Middle East then. What the US and its Egyptian lackeys have in store for Egypt is simply the complete deconstruction of its stability, security, and economic leverage. This backfire is to be seen in the coming years.

Like the Edsa “people power,” the long line of US-engineered or abetted destabilizations, coups and putsches have all been about maintaining Western political-economic hegemony — from the CIA Iranian “people power” project in 1953 against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh for nationalizing Iran’s oil fields to the fake Libyan “pro-democracy” rebellion, which, according to Italian journalist Franco Bechis, was actually planned by French intelligence services in November 2010, a year after Moammer Kadhafi threatened to nationalize joint ventures with the West.

The French plan was actually rehashed in the context of the Arab “people power” when Washington took over with its own counter-revolutionary goals. In October 2010, Nouri Mesmari, Kadhafi’s protocol officer, turned himself over to the French secret service with plans against his former boss. He then led them to Libyan air defense Col. Abdallah Gehani who was ready to collaborate. But it was recent defector former Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa who is being held responsible for the earlier defections of Mesmari, et al.

Thus, similar to Egypt, where Mubarak’s former intelligence chief rules the roost today, in Libya, former Kadhafi officials are the chief collaborators of the US and Nato posing as “rebels.” The new Benghazi-based rebel government recognized by France, Italy, Qatar, etc. already ships oil to these countries and the rest of Europe. It is therefore pretty clear that these “rebel” rulers, being complete underlings of the West, will absolutely be unable to bargain for any favorable terms for Libya and its people.

Let’s not forget Côte d’Ivoire, where French and UN forces bombed President Laurent Gbagbo (who was nationalizing the cocoa industry) and his forces in support of former IMF country manager Alassane Ouattara, a once unelected prime minister and presidential candidate in the recent disputed elections. With economic sovereignty ceded to Western powers by their lackeys, isn’t it still obvious that these countries will be reduced to worse penury like the Philippines?

Under the Yellow governments, the Philippines has grown hungrier each passing year since Edsa 1986, with its national economy regressing terribly from an incipient state of industrialization and agricultural self-sufficiency. A March 2011 SWS poll showed an astounding 70-percent increase in hunger to 20.5 percent of the population from a 12-year average of 13.8 percent. PeNoy was reportedly “shocked,” showing how out of touch he is.

And so the backfire in the Philippines is now burning rapidly — incontrovertible evidence of which is what Amando Doronilla desperately fretted of in his column, “Marcos rehabilitation bandwagon,” together with Commission on Human Rights Chief Etta Rosales’ discombobulation over Marcos being voted by the people as one of the nation’s “Top 10 Heroes.”

But then, the whole elitist, holier-than-thou Yellow army — from Jim Paredes, Leah Navarro, Dinky Soliman, Etta Rosales, ABS-CBN, to PeNoy — still choose to bear down on someone like Willie Revillame over his mindless, albeit sadistic, entertainment (more likely for his outburst during live coverage of Cory’s wake) when their failures for the past quarter of a century have sent more Filipinos to desperate straits than ever before.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m.; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “NFA Privatization: Grains of Tears” with the NFA union; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Retrenchment as an option

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
4/9-10/2011



Retrenchment rightly applies if individual companies are suffering from financial losses, but not when it becomes pandemic. In which case, the economy is experiencing a recession. Moreover, the term is more of a euphemism than a candid admission that the employee will be terminated from the service, and the valid reason given by the Labor Code under Article 283 is to prevent losses, closure or cessation of business operations. Thus, looking at it the objective is to save the company from going down the drain than of the employment of the workers whose loss of income could mean their life and death.

Nonetheless, retrenchment would be less devastating if we opted to deregulate wage because that could make our labor cost more resilient. Although at a certain degree, the economy would still be affected, just the same we could easily make a rebound. The thrust would not be on how to pass judgment on the fate of the workers, but on how to adjust their wage during the crisis. Maybe it could not instantly restore our competitiveness, but certainly that approach could save the company from going down the drain.

Most important, we would not be entrapped into taking that option of firing our workers every time the company suffers financial difficulties. Besides, automatic wage reduction is most humane because it instill to all that there is a serious problem, and the company need not use the rank-and-file employees as cannon fodder.

While nobody is saying that retrenchment should not be taken as an option, the government, standing to balance the interest of labor and capital, should take a more objective approach in resolving the perennial problem of financial losses. Surely, there are other satisfactory formulas, but as it is we opted to focus on the workers; that at any moment the company fumbles they would be the first to be jettisoned. Both the employers and the Department of Labor and Employment jointly vent their ire on them without looking back that it was the same workers they now want to eject that at one point gave the company its bountiful earnings.

One must it bear in mind that the problem on how to save the company is not just a problem of the management, but also that of the workers. For sure there are many ways to cut losses, and companies that have reconciled themselves with that painful truth could only concede to retrenchment as their last option. There are other options like reducing, if not scrapping, all costly representations, allowances, and other unnecessary expenses that add up to production cost. Focusing on the status of the employees should come as last, and even that could well damage the image of the company as utterly ungrateful.

Instead, business establishments could embark on a company-wide wage reduction scheme. That tosses to the employees the choice between reduced wage and no wage at all. Surely, there would be no much problem for those receiving above the minimum wage, like the company executives, managers, supervisors and senior employees. Maybe the “no diminution of wage and benefits” practice could be set-aside in a new jurisprudence given the exigencies of economic survival.

Countries such as Germany and Japan value much the training and experience acquired by employees through years of working with the company. That is why every time the company experiences a recessionary downswing, the management and the union work long hours to map out strategies to save both the company and the employees, instead of just saving the company but dumping the employees. They realize that training new batch of employees, especially in technology-oriented and robotized companies, is more costly.

Thus, aside from drastic wage reduction, the management offers short working hours, cancel all overtime work, employ job rotation, require some of them to work for only three to four days a week, and at times just give a monthly allowance to those placed on a standby status. The option of securing the services of labor-only contractors is ruled out. In that one could see that such companies recognize the value of their experienced workers, and are bent in rehiring them once they are able to extricate themselves from the current financial quagmire.

By analogy, the retrenchment of the flight attendants by Philippine Airlines is sexist to be considered legitimate considering that they were hired not to work as belly dancers. The argument that some of those flight attendants are already old for their job is belied by the fact that passengers have more trust on older and experienced pilots they accompany.

Often, to soften the hearts of the grieving workers targeted for retrenchment, the management offers them an amount of separation pay of up to 200 percent or more, or “pampabulag”, as the workers would call it. It’s an offer they could not refuse, but betrays the claim that the company is experiencing a financial rough sailing. So, if retrenchment is unavoidable, then the additional premium is not the solution, just as it is unfair for employers to seek the cover of retrenchment to weed out from their ranks inefficient employees.

Besides, surveys show that retired employees and those who were targeted for early retirement but were given their lump sum separation pay, even with the added premium pay, often end up as virtual paupers five years after receiving them. Ninety percent of those who ventured to use their retirement pay to engage in business fail. Those lucky enough migrate to other countries. The grim result is the unusual high mortality rate among them either due to lack of financial resources to support themselves or due to financial despondency.

Unlike those who retired and receive their pension on a monthly basis, many of them live to enjoy a much longer life. That factor has been attributed to their financial stability. This underscores the need to prohibit private companies, the GSIS and the SSS from giving in lump sum the separation pay to retrenched employees just to induce them into accept gracefully their walking papers.

(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)

UN as instrument for war

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Philippine Charity ‘Sweeped-stakes’

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
4/8/2011



“Charity begins at home,” an old proverb goes; but I don’t think it applies to the current officials of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). Instead, the new managers from the Yellows are apparently making a clean sweep of the agency’s name literally. In a 56-page exposé, former PCSO chairman Manoling Morato reveals: “From the lobby pa lang, katakot-takot na ang harangan. ‘Yan ang instruction ni Margie (Juico, the new PCSO chairman) and her sons and brothers. They call the shots too. People are afraid of them; and rightly so…”

I wouldn’t take Morato’s word for it had I not known that Juico’s husband, Philip, allegedly has been going around brokering talents for PCSO advertising proposals. It also helped that a former PCSO insider told us that the husband-and-wife team is reportedly brokering for the Ayalas’ takeover of the prime 6.9-hectare lot of Quezon Institute (QI) along E. Rodriguez Ave. that was quickly vacated when Juico transferred the agency’s offices to the PICC last year.

This transfer to the CCP Complex on Roxas Blvd., where there are no direct jeepney or bus rides to the agency’s doorstep, severely limits the access of PCSO’s supposed clientele, the poor and infirm. At its former QI location, rides from Quiapo, Cubao, Caloocan, San Juan, Makati, Marikina, Pasig, and the provinces are easily taken to bring these beneficiaries right up to PCSO’s gates. Besides, since the lease on the QI property is for a good 50 years, it still has 37 years left for which either a penalty has to be paid or it may try to sublease — which is likely where the brokering of the real estate deal comes into the picture.

The QI property was leased by PCSO in 1995, edging out the LRT proposal which would have used it for a train station. Since it was already deemed a perfect site for a commercial center and transport hub back then, it’s no wonder that Ayala and other real estate developers have been eying this property for over a decade now. And since the Ayalas and the Juicos are known to belong to one Yellow family, hands down, it will probably go to the Ayalas this time.

We should also stress that the PCSO leases QI from the Philippine Tuberculosis Society Inc. (PTSI) for P24 million a year with a 5-percent annual increase proviso. This augments the PTSI’s P9-million endowment from various sources, of which its most notable project is the continued operation of the Quezon Institute hospital. It was precisely because of this and PTSI’s other functions that President Manuel Quezon established the PCSO. However, with Juico’s plan, this historical connection among the three will be merely thrown into the dustbin and, from my perspective, another 6.9-hectare green, oxygen breathing lung for Metro Manila will be converted into yet another choking, concrete rat maze.

As Juico is planning to transfer PCSO to Makati, the classic lagaring Hapon where she will likely buy or lease from Ayala or even use it as a pretext for swapping the E. Rodriguez property may set in. Juico claims she is in a hurry to get out of QI because it is already an old and unsafe structure. Really now.

The structures at the QI area were built in 1938 and designed by National Artist, Architect Juan Nakpil. Through the many earthquakes Metro Manila has experienced over the century, it is such old structures that have withstood the test of time. Note the resilience of the University of Santo Tomas main building, Malacañang Palace, the Post Office beside the Pasig River, and many others.

The trouble is, there are elements eyeing big real estate deals that are attempting to deliberately weaken them, such as those in Morato’s report where some contractors were made to dig holes on the QI’s beams and posts; and recently, under Juico, where electrical wirings were pulled out, fuse boxes stripped, toilet bowls and faucets removed, glass partitions and panels cannibalized, and water pumps dug out. Was it all to ensure that the PCSO would not be able to return if so ordered by the courts or any other authority?

The only charity known is one that is given to her extended parasitic Yellow family, such as a PR man who has grabbed the chance to position himself anew to benefit from government’s info and advertising budgets — a privilege the PR man enjoyed without limit during a previous administration.

Morato says that during his term as chairman, he did not avail of any PR firm because the PCSO had its own PR department. But, since PR firms get commissions of anywhere from 15 percent to 40 percent for contracts signed, we can assume it’ll be on the high side for the PR man and his “sponsor.”

Morato’s lengthy exposé includes many other issues, such as the conspiracy to transfer all PCSO funds to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Juico’s “spoiled milk” case at the Ombudsman filed by the late former DSWD Secretary Mita Pardo de Tavera, and others — but we’ll reserve these for future columns.

Looking at the situation, it’s now clear why Aquino III placed the PCSO directly under the Office of the President from where it used to be. It’s part of a sinister plot to take over the property, which had been preconceived by the Yellows from the very beginning. It shows the heartless, cynical, and predatory hypocrisy of this “elite” class of old families and oligarchs that rip off even the most vulnerable, needy and desperate of our public at every turn. This sweepstakes office under the Yellows should therefore be called Philippine Charity “Sweeped-stakes.”

(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 “The Grain Drain: NFA Privatization” with the NFA union; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus select radio and GNN shows)

Criticism of Marcos: An evaluation

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
4/4-10/2011



A new wave of anti-Marcos propaganda is afoot. Such attacks seem to spring up so serendipitously during EDSA I celebrations, Martial Law Day (September 21),or on Ninoy Aquino’s August 21 date with fate. This time, the “milestone” of EDSA I’s 25th anniversary, preceded by a somewhat deliberately timed US court decision in mid- January to release $7.5 million to alleged “Marcos human rights victims,” may well have been an added trigger.

Seeing that the money was only distributed last month due to our tradpol Congress’ “Filipino time,” contrary to some US reports that it would be released by mid-February, the hoopla understandably had the effect of extending EDSA I celebrations and revived past controversies involving Marcos, including the issue of his burial.

Act of Reconciliation
Just the same, former Marcos Agriculture secretary and now congressman, Sonny Escudero, led a resolution in late March for the transfer of the former leader’s remains to the military heroes’ memorial. Stating that “Allowing the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani will not only be an acknowledgment of the way he led a life as a Filipino patriot, but it will also be a magnanimous act of reconciliation,” the resolution gained overwhelming support among his fellow solons--193 at one count -- eventually swelling to over 200.

However, as it was in the past, the controversy seemed to have divided the nation more than it united.

As expected, the usual anti-Marcos elements from the Left and the Yellows raised vehement objections. Some quarters thus sought to resolve these irreconcilable positions through a referendum. And if it can be considered such, a referendum of sorts did transpire with an SWS survey finding that 50 percent of Filipinos already want a hero’s burial for Marcos.

Stigmatized
Suddenly, as this momentum for the hero’s burial gathered steam, from nowhere came this news: “Marcos’ Aussie daughter axed from TV show.”

But isn’t it an injustice that Analisa Josefa Hegyesi, an acknowledged child of Marcos from a relationship with a former model, was removed from an Australian reality show simply because she admitted to being Marcos’ daughter?

Since the news cited confirmation from Marcos confidante Roquito Ablan, I queried former Marcos spokesman Lito Gorospe, who likewise confirmed it.

Still, I absolutely do not think much of this as I know enough of the histories of obsessive achievers’ hormonal urges, from Chinese emperors to Indian moguls, from Catherine the Great down to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mao Tsetung, John F. Kennedy, François Mitterrand, Bill Clinton, and most recently, Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Many leaders are known for their great deeds, with their proclivities raised only when the need to stigmatize them arises.

Most Loved Leaders
But Marcos’ romantic adventures with Dovie Beams, among others, or even supposedly early on with Carmen Soriano, are known to many Filipinos. And yet, he still managed to maintain such high esteem from the people after all this time, as refl ected in the latest surveys.

An even more amorous president, Joseph E. Estrada, who, despite his string of lady loves, rose from a town mayor and scaled the ladder of political success until reaching the highest office -- almost replicating it in the last elections after six years and six months of unjust imprisonment, were it not for “Hocus PCOS.”

In a February 2010 Pulse Asia survey, Marcos and Estrada were still voted as the second and third most loved presidents, despite years of calumnies heaped upon them by the Yellow and Westerncontrolled mainstream media.

Furthermore, leftists such as Karapatan and anti-Marcos pols such as the young Erin Tañada or an old porker such as Edcel Lagman constantly lambast Marcos as massively corrupt, a plunderer, human rights violator, murderer, dictator, among other things.

Dismally Worse
But why are such criticisms (and critics) of Marcos still not convincing half the Philippine population?

That’s because the people recall many good things under Marcos: Cheap and abundant rice enough even for export; cheap power and water; bridges and roads built all over; doubledecker buses in the capital; an LRT that was affordable; an insurgency problem that was licked, with the NPA, MNLF, and MILF vanquished; as well as our nation’s opened ties to China and Russia.

Conversely, the people are also convinced of how dismally worse Cory Aquino and the Yellows did in governance.

Since EDSA I, living standards crashed; corruption and cronyism among the Yellow pols and oligarchs, and even taxes, rose; jobs became scarce; power and water climbed beyond the masses’ reach; the poor multiplied; the middle class shrank; while the super rich became richer.

Divide and Rule
As for the Left, people saw through their Plaza Miranda bombing op, their self-decimating purges, Operation Missing Link, Cadena de Amor, etc. How then can they be self-righteous? Similarly, the Marcos critics that overflow in mainstream media -- in ABS-CBN, GMA-7, TV5, Inquirer, Philippine Star, and on mainstream radio -- all omit one aspect in their critiques: Why the US and Western media are so attuned to the anti- Marcos line as well.

One lesson in geopolitics that has made Western imperial hegemony survive to this day has been the art of “divide and rule.”

In fact, the imperial powers are now even more effective than during the time of British deep penetration agent Lt. Col. Thomas Edward, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia, who pitted Arabs against fellow Arabs to break up the Ottoman Empire and establish puppet kingdoms that rule as oppressive autocrats up to the present time.


It’s Time to Move On
These days the Western powers profoundly use media, including social media, to pry open fault lines in targeted nations.

In the Philippines, they regularly stoke the anti-Marcos fault line, as if always ready to set off a Magnitude 9 political earthquake and tsunami.

Thus far, the most sensible position that has been expressed in the Marcos burial debate comes from Senator Antonio Trillanes IV: “To be consistent (with the rule that soldiers are buried at the Libingan), we should allow the former president to be buried there…

It’s time we move on. Let us get it over and done with so we can unite and move forward.”

Inconsequential Now
In contrast, Edcel Lagman, like the antiquated Ford flop he’s named after, could only quibble with disjointed comparisons between the self-confessed somnambulist Angelo Reyes (he who “walked into corruption”) and the late President Marcos who was never convicted of any charge.

Like most anti-Marcos critics, Lagman is shallow and petty, and equally useless for enlightenment -- only useful for destabilization.

Yet, as the people have already acknowledged Marcos as a hero in their hearts, I now find the insistence for his transfer to the Libingan inconsequential.

Still, if the Marcos family wants vindication and closure, and the majority of Filipinos concur, then we should unite once and for all.

(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 “NFA Privatization: Food Suicide?;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)

May the President dismiss a Deputy Ombudsman?

Alan F. Paguia
Former Professor of Law
Ateneo Law School
University of Batangas
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
alanpaguia@yahoo.com
April 5, 2011

May the President dismiss a Deputy Ombudsman? Yes, for the following reasons:

1. Under the Constitution:

“The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust. All other public officers and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.” (Sec. 2, Art. XI)

The first sentence refers to public officers who may be removed from office only by impeachment. The second sentence refers to those who may be removed as provided by law, but not by impeachment. Clearly, the Deputy Ombudsman is covered by the second sentence. Therefore, he may be removed in the ordinary course of law.

2. “The Ombudsman and his Deputies shall be appointed by the President from a list of at least six nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council, and from a list of three nominees for every vacancy thereafter. Such appointments shall require no confirmation. All vacancies shall be filled within three months after they occur” (Sec. 9, ibid). Generally the power to appoint carries the power to remove from office. The exception is with respect to public officers who are removable only by impeachment. Hence, a Deputy Ombudsman may be removed from office by the President after due process of law.


3. Under the Ombudsman Act of 1989, a Deputy Ombudsman “may be removed from office by the President for any of the grounds provided for the removal of the Ombudsman and after due process” (par. 2, Sec. 8, RA 6770). Thus, the presidential power to discipline or dismiss a Deputy Ombudsman is recognized by express provision of law, upon the authority of no less than the Legislative Department.

4. Under the Administrative Code of 1987:

“No formal investigation is necessary and the respondent may be immediately removed or dismissed if any of the following circumstances is present:


(1) When the charge is serious and the evidence of guilt is strong;


(2) When the respondent is a recidivist or has been repeatedly charged and there is reasonable ground to believe that he is guilty of the present charge; and


(3) When the respondent is notoriously undesirable.


Resort to summary proceedings by the disciplining authority shall be done with utmost objectivity and impartiality to the end that no injustice is committed: Provided, That removal or dismissal, except those by the President himself or upon his order, may be appealed to the Commission.” (Sec. 50, Chapter 7, Subtitle A, Title, I, BOOK V, E.O. 292)

In other words, under any of the grounds cited by the law, the removal or dismissal from office by the President is FINAL, EXECUTORY, and NOT APPEALABLE to the Civil Service Commission. At best, the respondent’s only remedy is to claim grave abuse of discretion and file a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court before the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. In the latter case, the dismissal remains FINAL and EXECUTORY, unless the Court rules otherwise or issues a temporary restraining or status quo ante order or preliminary injunction.