DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/25/2010
Last Sept. 29, Meralco announced the strong likelihood of its exceeding the company’s core net income target of P11 billion for 2010. Set on top of its reported P7-billion income for 2009, this is already well beyond a whopping 60-percent profit growth that’s sure to signal a lot more happier days for the power firm.
Meralco’s chief financial officer highlighted the company’s power sales volume growth of 11.7 percent in an attempt to justify its astronomical earnings. The official statement says that “volumes are much higher on an accumulative basis… (and that) today it’s greater than last year in terms of energy sold… (therefore, making it) the main driver.” But frankly, this is a load of BS.
First of all, virtually all sectors have been tightening up on power consumption. My own business, for instance, has had to shut down some huge kitchen exhaust fans and office air-conditioners to cut down on power bills. In my home, I have rationed everyone’s use of air-conditioning and replaced our old side-by-side no-frost ref with a smaller manual defrost one that saves on consumption by almost half. Secondly, neither industrial nor commercial, nor any household statistics, can buttress that alleged 11.7-percent jump — which, honestly, is still 50 percent short of the projected income growth.
Meralco’s claim is simply a big fat lie to cushion the impact of its obscene profit. It also adds: “Another reason that contributes to the growth is the mix of our customers. There is a difference to their rates.”
But then, after all these diversionary claims, the true reason for the shoot-up, which is hardly covered by media, finally surfaced when “the official also cited the rate increases granted by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) as another reason for the growth in income.” Ahh!
Meralco’s distribution charge was hiked twice since 2009 (P0.27 and P0.269/kWh) for a cumulative increase of almost 50 percent granted by the ERC under the new Performance-Based Rate (PBR) setting mechanism.
The PBR allows Meralco to charge rates based on “projected investments and operating expenses related to the distribution of electricity,” or rates based on investments and costs it has yet to make or incur years into the future.
It’s like vegetable vendors charging the prices of next year today, by citing equipment purchases yet to be made as well as fertilizer cost hikes and typhoon damages still to come. The thing is, with such mercenary vendors, we can just give them “the finger” and proceed to the next stall that prices its goods based on today’s costs.
But with the monopoly of electricity in the Meralco franchise area, we have no choice but to buy power from that company no matter how onerous, exploitative, abusive, exorbitant and oppressive its rates are — thanks to the ERC.
Last Oct. 13, Aquino III’s Energy Secretary Jose Almendras announced that government had “solved” the Mindanao power shortage. But most do not know the big “1-2-3” behind that claim:
An El Niño weather crisis was predicted by meteorologists in 2009 for the current year, which the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. was well aware of. Despite this, the National Power Corp. was given the green light to sell power barges (PB) 117 and 118 at about the same time to the Aboitiz group.
It’s as if nobody thought that Mindanao was going to be effectively deprived of some 200 megawatts of power from these PBs, especially since these were instrumental in easing the power crisis during Cory and Ramos’ time when they were acquired in 1994.
So when the El Niño drought finally fell upon Mindanao in February 2010, the depletion of water in hydro plants Agus and Polangui resulted in five- to eight-hour brownouts that led to terrible losses in business and employment.
Thereafter, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), which took control of the publicly-owned Transmission Corp. or TransCo after privatization, immediately entered into a so-called Ancillary Services Procurement Agreement (ASPA) with Aboitiz-owned Therma Marine Inc. (TMI), wherein the latter, with the use of PB117 and PB118, would supply “additional” power to the Mindanao grid.
The NGCP then applied for a power rate adjustment as part of the ASPA application; afterwhich, the ERC gave it a provisional authority (PA) to raise its rates. This way, TMI will get paid as the monies will have to be collected from the electric utilities and consumers’ pockets.
But that’s not all. The capital recovery fee of $30 million calculated by TMI for the two barges when these were purchased was raised to $84.7 million — or increased threefold after being transferred from the government to the private sector, for a windfall of P3 billion!
Furthermore, the new ASPA charges were set over 10 times higher than the average 2009 NGCP monthly rates. These are aside from the fact that there was no competitive bidding at all in favor of TMI and little public consultation prior to the issuance of the PA.
A coalition of Mindanao congressmen thus reported on the real cost of this claimed “solution” by Almendras: “The electricity bills in Mindanao have virtually doubled from March to April and May this year. In 2009, we paid P49.70 per kWh/month. However, last April we paid P360 per kWh/month and P606 per kWh/month in May 2010. This had caused untold sufferings and hardships to our people in Mindanao, especially the poor.”
At about the same time as that Almendras boast, consumer advocates Pete Ilagan of Nasecore, maverick power entrepreneur Jojo Borja from Mindanao, lawyer Nelson Loyola of CCI, 89-year-old Lamp leader Mang Naro Lualhati, and writer Butch Junia, who called for the abolition of the ERC recently, were all at the hearing on ERC Case No. 2010-069-RC — on the, hold your breath… “Application for Approval of the Annual Revenue Requirement and Performance Incentive Scheme for the Third Regulatory Period” — in other words, the proposed Meralco rates for years 2011-2015.
In the proposal, four million of us ordinary consumers will be slapped with an additional P2.8564/kWh while Meralco’s large customers, including mall owners such as SM, Robinsons, Ayala and Rockwell will be charged only P0.2205/kWh, or 10 times less!
With ABS-CBN and TV5 in the power oligarchs’ hands, plus the fact that Meralco stockholders are the biggest advertisers in media, the power consuming public may never get hold of these facts. It’s time all of us realize how we are being fleeced as consumers for our revolt has long been overdue!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch “Power Consumers’ Revolt Long Overdue!” with Pete Ilagan, Butz Junia, and Mang Naro on Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
RP’s currency and socio-political puzzle
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/22/2010
In June 2010, South Korea and Indonesia issued several currency policy measures. The former announced a series of controls to protect its economy from external shocks while the latter devised ways of capping short-term capital inflows and outflows. Earlier in October 2009, Brazil instituted a 2 percent tax on foreign portfolio investments. During this period, Taiwan also restricted overseas investors from buying time deposits.
The Philippines, in contrast, has being the doing the reverse under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s open mole, Cesar Purisima, by ushering in the flood of foreign moneys. In particular, Purisima exempted the dollar bond disguised as the “peso bond” from any taxes because, according to him, the bond “…has to be structured in such a way that there will be no tax issues.”
So with our gates wide open to predatory finance, the Shylocks that deluge the local market with dollars that couldn’t even earn 1 percent domestically are in today for a bonanza with Purisima’s 5 to over to 6 percent interest! Why, the IMF gofer even proclaims, “Our position is that we (the government) take the tax exposure.”
And yet, what he doesn’t say is that deluging the local market with dollars further appreciates the peso, causing our OFWs and exporters to get less pesos for the dollars they earn; thus, depressing their lives and incomes as well as those of others, such as the BPO sector.
And as Philippine exports are made more expensive in the international market, imports will become cheaper and more purchases from abroad will be made, which will depress our local industries even more, putting a great deal more pressure on social and national equitability. Already, we are hearing the cries of our OFWs and exporters.
Leaders everywhere are worried, too. Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega declares: “We are in the midst of an international currency war, a general weakening of currency. This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness.”
Today is an era of shrinking global demand. Issuers of reserve currencies, such as the US, adopt monetary expansion to cheapen their exports while non-issuers, such as Brazil, correctly respond with currency intervention. Those who do not do so, such as the Philippines, only find their currencies soaring to their detriment.
Brazil is touted today as one of the best stories of impressive economic growth. This is attributed, first of all, to the growth of its domestic production capacity, whereby products, such as cars and other vehicles, produced in Brazil are substituted for imports; and second, to the massive surge in Brazilian raw material sales to China — which mean a further breaking away from US and Western diktats on politics, finance, and the economy.
Purisima is leading this country into its final financial and economic ruin, and that is not surprising for one whose loyalty is to the foreign financial powers, and not the Filipino nation. He remains a governor of the World Bank (WB) Group and the Asian Development Bank and alternate governor for the IMF for the country, as one recent editorial of the Tribune revealed. So why would he bat an eyelash in sacrificing the welfare of this nation to prop up the US dollar, as we are seeing him do today?
It is the supreme irony that treason — both political and economic — not only goes unpunished but is richly rewarded; while patriotism and nationalism such as that of Senator Trillanes continues to be punished by the system (although we are happy that the Senate has finally concurred with the amnesty, over the dead political body of Joker Arroyo).
We have been educating our people to be concerned about the nation’s financial and monetary policies over politics and personalities. With regularity, we have brought our readers back to the time of Presidents Quirino and Garcia when capital and currency controls spurred a fledgling program of Philippine industrialization to gain a headstart over the rest of Asia.
These policies have to be restored to restore economic justice to our people. Only then can domestic agriculture and industry, not to mention employment and growth, be revived.
Aquino III’s government is a puppet regime of the US and the IMF, having several IMF-WB and US Embassy lackeys appointed to every key position in the Cabinet. It will not be more than two years before this predation and its disastrous impact will compel the people to react explosively to compel a reversal of policies.
The zarzuela between the “warring” Aquino III and Gloria Arroyo camps is exposed in the charades, such as in the meeting between the Budget chief with Arroyo supposedly to clarify the “cash transfer” program’s operations, the basis of which both are actually in agreement over. All told, these players are simply part of the continuing implementation of the US and Western plan of institutionalizing mendicancy in our people.
The Truth Commission of Davide is another such distraction. As we can see, it is clearly obfuscating the real issues against the Arroyo regime by stirring the pot with extraneous cases, such as Manuel Villar’s alleged budget-land manipulation schemes. The Davide commission is obviously intending to divert the cases away from the courts where they should be pursued, and with a certainty of success over time. But truth will out, as it now appears in the Glorietta bombing case.
Retired Army Col. Allan Sollano, Army Explosive and Ordnance Disposal unit leader at the Glorietta blast scene last Tuesday reaffirmed his original findings: “From… the dome in the roof of the basement and the damaged steel ladder… it was caused by a very, very powerful blast effect of a high explosive.”
He also recounted a meeting in Malacañang, attended by his men, where Gloria Arroyo supposedly told the generals to make the Glorietta blast a methane gas explosion. So it’s absolutely strange that the FBI team sent by the US concurred with the methane gas theory. Was there a quid pro quo there?
Gloria’s Noberto Gonzales was acting Defense chief at that time and destabilization was suspected. The massive defeat in May 2007 of Gloria’s senatorial slate was followed by the beheading of over a dozen Marines in Basilan in July. Two months later, the Glorietta blast occurred. It happened just days after Fidel Ramos issued veiled threats against Gloria that went kaput after the blast. And in November, a bomb exploded in Congress, killing Gonzales’ buddy and suspected brains behind the Basilan massacre, Rep. Wahab Akbar. Oh, how the pieces are coming together!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch “Privatization of Irrigation” on Politics Today, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., Tuesday, on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/22/2010
In June 2010, South Korea and Indonesia issued several currency policy measures. The former announced a series of controls to protect its economy from external shocks while the latter devised ways of capping short-term capital inflows and outflows. Earlier in October 2009, Brazil instituted a 2 percent tax on foreign portfolio investments. During this period, Taiwan also restricted overseas investors from buying time deposits.
The Philippines, in contrast, has being the doing the reverse under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s open mole, Cesar Purisima, by ushering in the flood of foreign moneys. In particular, Purisima exempted the dollar bond disguised as the “peso bond” from any taxes because, according to him, the bond “…has to be structured in such a way that there will be no tax issues.”
So with our gates wide open to predatory finance, the Shylocks that deluge the local market with dollars that couldn’t even earn 1 percent domestically are in today for a bonanza with Purisima’s 5 to over to 6 percent interest! Why, the IMF gofer even proclaims, “Our position is that we (the government) take the tax exposure.”
And yet, what he doesn’t say is that deluging the local market with dollars further appreciates the peso, causing our OFWs and exporters to get less pesos for the dollars they earn; thus, depressing their lives and incomes as well as those of others, such as the BPO sector.
And as Philippine exports are made more expensive in the international market, imports will become cheaper and more purchases from abroad will be made, which will depress our local industries even more, putting a great deal more pressure on social and national equitability. Already, we are hearing the cries of our OFWs and exporters.
Leaders everywhere are worried, too. Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega declares: “We are in the midst of an international currency war, a general weakening of currency. This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness.”
Today is an era of shrinking global demand. Issuers of reserve currencies, such as the US, adopt monetary expansion to cheapen their exports while non-issuers, such as Brazil, correctly respond with currency intervention. Those who do not do so, such as the Philippines, only find their currencies soaring to their detriment.
Brazil is touted today as one of the best stories of impressive economic growth. This is attributed, first of all, to the growth of its domestic production capacity, whereby products, such as cars and other vehicles, produced in Brazil are substituted for imports; and second, to the massive surge in Brazilian raw material sales to China — which mean a further breaking away from US and Western diktats on politics, finance, and the economy.
Purisima is leading this country into its final financial and economic ruin, and that is not surprising for one whose loyalty is to the foreign financial powers, and not the Filipino nation. He remains a governor of the World Bank (WB) Group and the Asian Development Bank and alternate governor for the IMF for the country, as one recent editorial of the Tribune revealed. So why would he bat an eyelash in sacrificing the welfare of this nation to prop up the US dollar, as we are seeing him do today?
It is the supreme irony that treason — both political and economic — not only goes unpunished but is richly rewarded; while patriotism and nationalism such as that of Senator Trillanes continues to be punished by the system (although we are happy that the Senate has finally concurred with the amnesty, over the dead political body of Joker Arroyo).
We have been educating our people to be concerned about the nation’s financial and monetary policies over politics and personalities. With regularity, we have brought our readers back to the time of Presidents Quirino and Garcia when capital and currency controls spurred a fledgling program of Philippine industrialization to gain a headstart over the rest of Asia.
These policies have to be restored to restore economic justice to our people. Only then can domestic agriculture and industry, not to mention employment and growth, be revived.
Aquino III’s government is a puppet regime of the US and the IMF, having several IMF-WB and US Embassy lackeys appointed to every key position in the Cabinet. It will not be more than two years before this predation and its disastrous impact will compel the people to react explosively to compel a reversal of policies.
The zarzuela between the “warring” Aquino III and Gloria Arroyo camps is exposed in the charades, such as in the meeting between the Budget chief with Arroyo supposedly to clarify the “cash transfer” program’s operations, the basis of which both are actually in agreement over. All told, these players are simply part of the continuing implementation of the US and Western plan of institutionalizing mendicancy in our people.
The Truth Commission of Davide is another such distraction. As we can see, it is clearly obfuscating the real issues against the Arroyo regime by stirring the pot with extraneous cases, such as Manuel Villar’s alleged budget-land manipulation schemes. The Davide commission is obviously intending to divert the cases away from the courts where they should be pursued, and with a certainty of success over time. But truth will out, as it now appears in the Glorietta bombing case.
Retired Army Col. Allan Sollano, Army Explosive and Ordnance Disposal unit leader at the Glorietta blast scene last Tuesday reaffirmed his original findings: “From… the dome in the roof of the basement and the damaged steel ladder… it was caused by a very, very powerful blast effect of a high explosive.”
He also recounted a meeting in Malacañang, attended by his men, where Gloria Arroyo supposedly told the generals to make the Glorietta blast a methane gas explosion. So it’s absolutely strange that the FBI team sent by the US concurred with the methane gas theory. Was there a quid pro quo there?
Gloria’s Noberto Gonzales was acting Defense chief at that time and destabilization was suspected. The massive defeat in May 2007 of Gloria’s senatorial slate was followed by the beheading of over a dozen Marines in Basilan in July. Two months later, the Glorietta blast occurred. It happened just days after Fidel Ramos issued veiled threats against Gloria that went kaput after the blast. And in November, a bomb exploded in Congress, killing Gonzales’ buddy and suspected brains behind the Basilan massacre, Rep. Wahab Akbar. Oh, how the pieces are coming together!
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch “Privatization of Irrigation” on Politics Today, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., Tuesday, on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Justice for Trillanes, justice for all
DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/18/2010
Remember the “Alabang Boys” drug and bribery case involving state prosecutor John Resado? Remember the shit that hit the Department of Justice (DoJ) fan in 2009 when Resado was accused by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) of illegally releasing drug suspects Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Tecson because of purported “defects” in PDEA’s case?
The DoJ prosecutors at that time rallied around Resado. The two agencies then traded charges. Government was thus compelled to conduct an independent investigation, where it found a suspicious, unsatisfactorily explained P800,000 deposit in Resado’s account on the same day he signed that infamous resolution.
Good thing someone pursued the Alabang Boys and Resado cases. PDEA agent Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino at that time impressed the nation by standing up to the browbeating of then DoJ Chief Raul Gonzalez and other DoJ top brass.
Meantime, let us be reminded too, of the case that hit international news with the headline, “Philippine judge sacked, another suspended over bribery scandal,” involving Justice Vicente Roxas and Associate Justice Jose Sabio, where three other justices were suspended for not taking the appropriate action.
The scandal arose after Sabio revealed a P10-million bribe offer by a lawyer of Meralco but which he didn’t report until months after, whereas Roxas was dismissed for offering fabricated transcripts of deliberations to a review panel investigating that scandal and writing a ruling on the petition without first consulting the Court of Appeals justice involved.
There is a large volume of seamy stories on our justice and judicial system. So when I heard the DoJ’s lawyers quibbling about technicalities in the amnesty for the Magdalos, I thought: “Who are they to talk?”
They of all people should realize that the power to grant amnesties bestowed upon the Office of the President — the office, not the person — is absolute. The progenitors of our Western (or American) constitutional tradition recognized the potential of any system of laws and government to be flawed. Thus they provided the power, under the checks and balance principle, to the highest elected official representing the almighty people to resolve such issues in behalf of the people themselves.
The anomaly though in our current political and cultural set-up is that power is being wrested from the people’s hands by the politicians and bureaucrats, many of whom have been corrupted and controlled by the powerful oligarchs, Gloria Arroyo, and foreign interests. And this is the only reason Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has not been able to sit in the Senate despite the earnest efforts of his 11 million voters.
For truly, the struggle of Trillanes is the struggle of the people to wrest back the power that is supposedly theirs, peacefully and legally, despite all the obstacles put in place by the bureaucratic and political usurpers of that power.
Take this issue of the Makati trial court’s handling of Trillanes’ case which, despite having taken over seven years of hearings and deliberations, has not been resolved to this day. While most perceive this murderously slow grind as normal for this country’s courts, by international standards, two years is already a denial of the fundamental right of the accused to “a fair and speedy trial,” the rectification of which should be an outright dismissal.
But the tragedy of our society is that the flaws and infirmities of the system have been so accepted because they have plagued us so long. Alas, those who shrug the injustice to Trillanes off are really condemning themselves to suffer that same fate soon.
I heard the DoJ prosecutors complaining about having “labored long and hard these seven years preparing and arguing” the case against Trillanes. But have they actually thought of the hardships the senator, his wife and children, his family, friends and comrades underwent over seven years and seven months of being behind bars, and of being unable to travel the 10-kilometer stretch leading to the halls of the Senate where he was elected by the people to serve?
The parties carping against the amnesty, such as those “unnamed legal experts” quoted by a mainstream pro-Arroyo paper when the Oakwood protest occurred, are undeserving of serious consideration because they have not done their share in standing up to the corruption of the system as the Magdalos and Trillanes have, or risked their whole profession, as what Alan Paguia laid on the line when he criticized the Edsa II transgression of the highest court of the land.
The high prominence being given to criticism of the amnesty from a motley crew of non-entities does not surprise me. I am aware that the party with the most to lose when the amnesty for Trillanes is perfected, i.e. Gloria Arroyo and her cohorts, is moving to fan the criticisms to cover the real issues that led to the Oakwood protest and the astonishing victory of Trillanes over Arroyo’s moneyed candidates in 2007: The unprecedented levels of perfidy, treason and corruption of that regime, which continues today with Arroyo’s reign in Congress and her factotums ensconced in the government bureaucracy.
As for Teddy Te’s comment, I understand his belief in his infallibility, but even he must admit that it is the system that is corrupt through and through — like a Kryptonite that even his super legal brain cannot overcome.
The entire nation, with the 11 million voters of Trillanes, must take action now to shout down the voices of petty tyrants who are attempting to usurp the power and the sense of justice of the people.
Text to radio and TV programs; start hanging posters in your windows and vehicles; start the teach-ins in schools; and declare to the world, “Justice for Trillanes, justice for all!”
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch “Justice for Trillanes, Justice for All” on Politics Today, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., Tuesday, with Teofisto Guingona, RG Guevarra and co-host Abby Aquino on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http:hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/18/2010
Remember the “Alabang Boys” drug and bribery case involving state prosecutor John Resado? Remember the shit that hit the Department of Justice (DoJ) fan in 2009 when Resado was accused by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) of illegally releasing drug suspects Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Tecson because of purported “defects” in PDEA’s case?
The DoJ prosecutors at that time rallied around Resado. The two agencies then traded charges. Government was thus compelled to conduct an independent investigation, where it found a suspicious, unsatisfactorily explained P800,000 deposit in Resado’s account on the same day he signed that infamous resolution.
Good thing someone pursued the Alabang Boys and Resado cases. PDEA agent Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino at that time impressed the nation by standing up to the browbeating of then DoJ Chief Raul Gonzalez and other DoJ top brass.
Meantime, let us be reminded too, of the case that hit international news with the headline, “Philippine judge sacked, another suspended over bribery scandal,” involving Justice Vicente Roxas and Associate Justice Jose Sabio, where three other justices were suspended for not taking the appropriate action.
The scandal arose after Sabio revealed a P10-million bribe offer by a lawyer of Meralco but which he didn’t report until months after, whereas Roxas was dismissed for offering fabricated transcripts of deliberations to a review panel investigating that scandal and writing a ruling on the petition without first consulting the Court of Appeals justice involved.
There is a large volume of seamy stories on our justice and judicial system. So when I heard the DoJ’s lawyers quibbling about technicalities in the amnesty for the Magdalos, I thought: “Who are they to talk?”
They of all people should realize that the power to grant amnesties bestowed upon the Office of the President — the office, not the person — is absolute. The progenitors of our Western (or American) constitutional tradition recognized the potential of any system of laws and government to be flawed. Thus they provided the power, under the checks and balance principle, to the highest elected official representing the almighty people to resolve such issues in behalf of the people themselves.
The anomaly though in our current political and cultural set-up is that power is being wrested from the people’s hands by the politicians and bureaucrats, many of whom have been corrupted and controlled by the powerful oligarchs, Gloria Arroyo, and foreign interests. And this is the only reason Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has not been able to sit in the Senate despite the earnest efforts of his 11 million voters.
For truly, the struggle of Trillanes is the struggle of the people to wrest back the power that is supposedly theirs, peacefully and legally, despite all the obstacles put in place by the bureaucratic and political usurpers of that power.
Take this issue of the Makati trial court’s handling of Trillanes’ case which, despite having taken over seven years of hearings and deliberations, has not been resolved to this day. While most perceive this murderously slow grind as normal for this country’s courts, by international standards, two years is already a denial of the fundamental right of the accused to “a fair and speedy trial,” the rectification of which should be an outright dismissal.
But the tragedy of our society is that the flaws and infirmities of the system have been so accepted because they have plagued us so long. Alas, those who shrug the injustice to Trillanes off are really condemning themselves to suffer that same fate soon.
I heard the DoJ prosecutors complaining about having “labored long and hard these seven years preparing and arguing” the case against Trillanes. But have they actually thought of the hardships the senator, his wife and children, his family, friends and comrades underwent over seven years and seven months of being behind bars, and of being unable to travel the 10-kilometer stretch leading to the halls of the Senate where he was elected by the people to serve?
The parties carping against the amnesty, such as those “unnamed legal experts” quoted by a mainstream pro-Arroyo paper when the Oakwood protest occurred, are undeserving of serious consideration because they have not done their share in standing up to the corruption of the system as the Magdalos and Trillanes have, or risked their whole profession, as what Alan Paguia laid on the line when he criticized the Edsa II transgression of the highest court of the land.
The high prominence being given to criticism of the amnesty from a motley crew of non-entities does not surprise me. I am aware that the party with the most to lose when the amnesty for Trillanes is perfected, i.e. Gloria Arroyo and her cohorts, is moving to fan the criticisms to cover the real issues that led to the Oakwood protest and the astonishing victory of Trillanes over Arroyo’s moneyed candidates in 2007: The unprecedented levels of perfidy, treason and corruption of that regime, which continues today with Arroyo’s reign in Congress and her factotums ensconced in the government bureaucracy.
As for Teddy Te’s comment, I understand his belief in his infallibility, but even he must admit that it is the system that is corrupt through and through — like a Kryptonite that even his super legal brain cannot overcome.
The entire nation, with the 11 million voters of Trillanes, must take action now to shout down the voices of petty tyrants who are attempting to usurp the power and the sense of justice of the people.
Text to radio and TV programs; start hanging posters in your windows and vehicles; start the teach-ins in schools; and declare to the world, “Justice for Trillanes, justice for all!”
(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; watch “Justice for Trillanes, Justice for All” on Politics Today, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., Tuesday, with Teofisto Guingona, RG Guevarra and co-host Abby Aquino on Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21; visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http:hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)
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