Topic: Twisted ARMM
Guests: Al Tillah, Former Governor (Tawi-Tawi) and President of Islamic Society of the Philippines and Brigido "Jun" Simon, Former Mayor (Quezon City)
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Invite me at your own risk
YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
8/25-27/2011
On the very light side of things, I fell for a fake invitation to a meeting of Tanggulang Demokrasya (TANDEM) set for 2 pm, Tuesday, August 9, at the Greenhills East Association Boardroom. It was a text invitation from an unlisted cellular phone number.
I responded with a template message – “Hu r u pls? U txtd my Sun w a new # nt in any of my directories – Linggoy”. He responded by sending via business card a name, Willy, whom I knew, and his # that was listed in my Sun memory.
And so, I texted the latter about the invitation. He reiterated the invitation. I asked, “Are you authorized to invite me?”
He answered by saying that it was an open meeting. I explained to him that TANDEM invited me to their big and public meetings, but not to their small and private meetings.
Closed-Door Meeting
Anyway, since Willy was on the way and would arrive ahead of me. I became comfortable with the invitation. When the Gate 3 guard did not get my license or ID, I thought that the welcome was complete.
I had arranged with OpinYon’s Kath to send me some complimentary copies as well as blank advertising contracts and subscription forms to the venue of the meeting.
Our messenger and Willy had arrived at the venue of the TANDEM meeting ahead of me. When at last I got there, Willy told me that it was a closed door meeting.
However, he assumed that I could attend because I was known to the TANDEM leadership. I explained to him that I do not gate crash meetings that I was not invited to.
I just requested him to bring a dozen copies of OpinYon isyu # 51 (with the Banner “Blood on their Hands”) to the boardroom in the second floor.
Fake Invite
Before long, a uniformed security guard arrived and wanted to see my gate pass which I did not have.
The guard explained that whoever had let me in without getting my ID and clearing with TANDEM before letting me in would lose his job.
Then, a security supervisor arrived holding a copy of OpinYon.
According to him it was against association rules and regulations to distribute newspapers.
So, I let go curses and invectives at them for suppressing the freedom of the press. That is what happens when one accepts a fake invitation.
Not all fake invitations turn sour. I once faked a GMA invitation and it turned out very sweet for my victim beneficiary.
It was the fifth night of EDSA 3.
By EDSA 1 and 2 standards, the critical mass or tipping point was long overdue.
EDSA 1 was done in four nights. EDSA 2 too, was done in four nights.
It was Sunday, April 29. Rumors were rife that the political opposition’s leadership would be coming out in force and lead the assembled masses wherever.
Malacaňang was a favorite inspirational target.
Popoy & Atong
We had an emergency meeting in Mabini Hall in Malacaňang set for that evening.
Marie Guingona had informed me about it and had issued periodic text reminders.
I had gone to the birthday party of Margarita “Tingting” de los Reyes Cojuangco at Palm Ave, Forbes Park.
As soon as I entered the house, I saw Gen. Popoy Fianza. Popoy had been with GMA even before I joined Kampi in 1997.
However, when GMA was illegally proclaimed (due to his partisan excitement, Davide forgot to prefix the word “acting” before President) by Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr., as the permanent replacement of Erap, they had a little “tampuhan”.
Popoy was supposed to stop Atong Ang’s departure abroad so that he could be pressured to testify against Erap.
Considering that he was helping GMA when she was still a Senator wanting to run for the Presidency, he did not get a good position in the PNP.
He was assigned to a staff position in plans or training. These were the least money-making functions in the PNP.
My instinct when I saw him was to kid him and tell him that GMA was calling for him.
Poor man, he took me very seriously and agreed to go straight to where GMA was.
For that he got GMA’s renewed gratitude and a medal which his peers disputed.
As for me, I got a free ride to Malacaňang and easier entry past the strengthened and stricter PSG checkpoints.
Important Days
The last of the very important dates of August is August 27, 1987.
This is the day of the fifth coup attempt. (That came after the following publicly known failed attempts: 1) The July 4, 1986 Manila Hotel Loyalist attempt to install Vice President Arturo Tolentino; 2) The November 1986 “God Save the Queen” plot that hardly took off; 3) The January 1987 Colonel Canlas takeover of GMA 7, and 4) The Black Saturday incident at the Philippine Army Headquarters in Ft. Bonifacio, Taguig.)
This is the day when Noynoy was ambushed along J. P. Laurel Street.
This is the day that as NTC Commissioner, I had to run around closing down radio and TV stations.
That is what gave me the right to criticize Pinoy’s handling of the Luneta Hostage Massacre,
I almost forgot. Another very important date in August is the 30th.
It is the feast day of my mother, Rosa. She used to celebrate it bigger and grander than her birthday in April. We have an altar cum fireplace in our sala at home. That was the center of the praying and singing that she and her guests did before dinner.
It was also the night in 1969 when my future wife and I realized that we would share the next half century together.
In the coming years we will remember in August: the resignation of Juan Miguel Zubiri on the 3rd, Koko Pimentel’s proclamation by our previous pet peeve, the SET, on the 11th, and Koko’s first day in the Senate Plenary on the 15th.
Linggoy Alcuaz
8/25-27/2011
On the very light side of things, I fell for a fake invitation to a meeting of Tanggulang Demokrasya (TANDEM) set for 2 pm, Tuesday, August 9, at the Greenhills East Association Boardroom. It was a text invitation from an unlisted cellular phone number.
I responded with a template message – “Hu r u pls? U txtd my Sun w a new # nt in any of my directories – Linggoy”. He responded by sending via business card a name, Willy, whom I knew, and his # that was listed in my Sun memory.
And so, I texted the latter about the invitation. He reiterated the invitation. I asked, “Are you authorized to invite me?”
He answered by saying that it was an open meeting. I explained to him that TANDEM invited me to their big and public meetings, but not to their small and private meetings.
Closed-Door Meeting
Anyway, since Willy was on the way and would arrive ahead of me. I became comfortable with the invitation. When the Gate 3 guard did not get my license or ID, I thought that the welcome was complete.
I had arranged with OpinYon’s Kath to send me some complimentary copies as well as blank advertising contracts and subscription forms to the venue of the meeting.
Our messenger and Willy had arrived at the venue of the TANDEM meeting ahead of me. When at last I got there, Willy told me that it was a closed door meeting.
However, he assumed that I could attend because I was known to the TANDEM leadership. I explained to him that I do not gate crash meetings that I was not invited to.
I just requested him to bring a dozen copies of OpinYon isyu # 51 (with the Banner “Blood on their Hands”) to the boardroom in the second floor.
Fake Invite
Before long, a uniformed security guard arrived and wanted to see my gate pass which I did not have.
The guard explained that whoever had let me in without getting my ID and clearing with TANDEM before letting me in would lose his job.
Then, a security supervisor arrived holding a copy of OpinYon.
According to him it was against association rules and regulations to distribute newspapers.
So, I let go curses and invectives at them for suppressing the freedom of the press. That is what happens when one accepts a fake invitation.
Not all fake invitations turn sour. I once faked a GMA invitation and it turned out very sweet for my victim beneficiary.
It was the fifth night of EDSA 3.
By EDSA 1 and 2 standards, the critical mass or tipping point was long overdue.
EDSA 1 was done in four nights. EDSA 2 too, was done in four nights.
It was Sunday, April 29. Rumors were rife that the political opposition’s leadership would be coming out in force and lead the assembled masses wherever.
Malacaňang was a favorite inspirational target.
Popoy & Atong
We had an emergency meeting in Mabini Hall in Malacaňang set for that evening.
Marie Guingona had informed me about it and had issued periodic text reminders.
I had gone to the birthday party of Margarita “Tingting” de los Reyes Cojuangco at Palm Ave, Forbes Park.
As soon as I entered the house, I saw Gen. Popoy Fianza. Popoy had been with GMA even before I joined Kampi in 1997.
However, when GMA was illegally proclaimed (due to his partisan excitement, Davide forgot to prefix the word “acting” before President) by Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr., as the permanent replacement of Erap, they had a little “tampuhan”.
Popoy was supposed to stop Atong Ang’s departure abroad so that he could be pressured to testify against Erap.
Considering that he was helping GMA when she was still a Senator wanting to run for the Presidency, he did not get a good position in the PNP.
He was assigned to a staff position in plans or training. These were the least money-making functions in the PNP.
My instinct when I saw him was to kid him and tell him that GMA was calling for him.
Poor man, he took me very seriously and agreed to go straight to where GMA was.
For that he got GMA’s renewed gratitude and a medal which his peers disputed.
As for me, I got a free ride to Malacaňang and easier entry past the strengthened and stricter PSG checkpoints.
Important Days
The last of the very important dates of August is August 27, 1987.
This is the day of the fifth coup attempt. (That came after the following publicly known failed attempts: 1) The July 4, 1986 Manila Hotel Loyalist attempt to install Vice President Arturo Tolentino; 2) The November 1986 “God Save the Queen” plot that hardly took off; 3) The January 1987 Colonel Canlas takeover of GMA 7, and 4) The Black Saturday incident at the Philippine Army Headquarters in Ft. Bonifacio, Taguig.)
This is the day when Noynoy was ambushed along J. P. Laurel Street.
This is the day that as NTC Commissioner, I had to run around closing down radio and TV stations.
That is what gave me the right to criticize Pinoy’s handling of the Luneta Hostage Massacre,
I almost forgot. Another very important date in August is the 30th.
It is the feast day of my mother, Rosa. She used to celebrate it bigger and grander than her birthday in April. We have an altar cum fireplace in our sala at home. That was the center of the praying and singing that she and her guests did before dinner.
It was also the night in 1969 when my future wife and I realized that we would share the next half century together.
In the coming years we will remember in August: the resignation of Juan Miguel Zubiri on the 3rd, Koko Pimentel’s proclamation by our previous pet peeve, the SET, on the 11th, and Koko’s first day in the Senate Plenary on the 15th.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Opening our door to foreign intervention
BACKBENCHER
8/27-28/2011
Rod Kapunan
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago was the principal sponsor of a bill that ratified our subscription to the Statute of Rome that created the International Criminal Court. Once signed by President Aquino, this measure would formalize the devolution of the country’s sovereignty to the European powers to try our leaders and soldiers entrusted with the patriotic duty of keeping the territorial integrity of this country intact.
That means that any Filipino driven by the zeal to defend the Motherland could end up being held accountable for crimes of genocide, human rights violation, war crimes, and other atrocities that at times are the consequences of intense fighting. As Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile would put it, the statute could “expose Philippine presidents to all kinds of suits…”
That decision brings to our recollection the proverbial saying of us “getting our own rope to hang ourselves with.” We say this because our membership to that European-based organization would not guarantee that our leaders and soldiers would be spared from being charged in exchange for our membership. In the first place, the aftermath of war is always taken as circumstantial or “collateral damage”, as the West would put it.
Worse, these idiots failed to realize that even with our membership, it will still be those Europeans now lording the ICC that will determine who will be charged and prosecuted for war crimes. What has been validated is the fact about their stupidity in not seeing the hues of national interest hanging above the heads of those entrusted to enforce their brand of justice. There are prognostications that most likely our soldiers will end up being charged, than those roaming rebels once the conflict in Mindanao deteriorates into another full-scale war.
If that happens, by implication the cause of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front could be interpreted as a just cause. That then would put a heavy international pressure on us to give in to their demand for an independent state just as what happened in Serbia where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the US helped create the state of Kosovo by force, and lately in Sudan where after a long-drawn civil war instigated by them, the Sudanese government had to hold a referendum to legalize the partition of their country. Most fearful, our leaders and soldiers will be hunted like rats by occupying NATO forces on orders of the ICC.
Although called an international organization, the ICC is far from being one. Except for France, Italy, and Germany and a cluster of tiny European states that had their own history of imperialist conquest in Africa, Latin America and Asia, none of the leading and regional powers like the US, Russia, China, India, Brazil and Argentina are members of the ICC. Not one would recklessly compromise their national sovereignty all for the noble cause of humanity.
It is this aspect about the ICC that exposed our hankering politicians as utterly ignorant! In fact, while the ICC encounters difficulty in convincing others to join, the Philippines, like manna from heaven, volunteered to join. More than that, not one of those senators who voted to ratify that opprobrious treaty could explain why criminal states of the US and Israel have refused to join the ICC. Everybody knows the US has always been able to get away with from its long list of war crimes. Certainly, it would be foolish now to allow its soldiers and its presidents to be placed in default of being tried as war criminals at The Hague.
Despite that, the ICC continues to praise the US for its active participation in various military interventions and in securing the arrest of those charged as war criminals. This scenario is now likely to happen to Libya’s Moammar Gaddhafi; that after being savagely attacked by international gangsters calling themselves NATO, he now is likely to stand trial for alleged war crimes against his own people.
Hence, for all of Senator Santiago’s hallucinations of the Morgenthau era of international relations, she miserably failed to read between the lines that the creation of the ICC is part of that concerted plot to substitute the UN with a NATO-created and controlled international organization. As collaborating quisling, she could not see that the objective of the European-based mafia is anachronistic to the four principles of the UN, foremost of which is the respect for equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
It did not even seep into their brains that to capture those accused of war crimes would require the commission of aggression which constitutes a violation of the UN Charter. This has lead scholars on international relations and international law to suspect that indeed NATO and the US are collaborating to systematically supersede the role of the UN. Such is the familiar case now of NATO and the US acting as the conduit of the ICC.
Although the ICC projects its role as supplementary to the International Court of Justice, in truth its function runs counter to the charter of the UN, much that the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of an independent state is the cornerstone for which it was created. There may have been sporadic internal fighting in many countries, but somehow those conflicts were prevented from escalating precisely because of that limitation in the UN Charter.
Since ICCs concept of justice points at the individual or group of players in an internal conflict, the view about the inviolability of one’s sovereignty has all of a sudden been erased. Consequently, things had been made easy much that it has for its main frame the concept of bringing to court “people” it may identify as war criminals, while they run the show of acting as prosecutor, judge and executioners, all rolled into one. This has now become their most convenient passport to justify aggression.
Without the world knowing it, the ICC stands as more formidable than the UN Security Council. Unlike the UN Security Council which has to secure a prior unanimous approval from all the permanent members to militarily intervene, the ICC has at its disposal a fully armed war machine called NATO. The people of Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and now Libya all could tell their harrowing experience of savage aggression, while NATO and its Kangaroo Court denudes the world about its role to humanity.
Thus, after being “liberated” and their leaders tried and executed as war criminals, oil-rich countries like Iraq ended up having its oil fields owned by foreign companies, and their people driven to extreme poverty. This again is likely to happen in Libya, with Senator Santiago not asking whether hapless states ever voted to join the ICC.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
8/27-28/2011
Rod Kapunan
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago was the principal sponsor of a bill that ratified our subscription to the Statute of Rome that created the International Criminal Court. Once signed by President Aquino, this measure would formalize the devolution of the country’s sovereignty to the European powers to try our leaders and soldiers entrusted with the patriotic duty of keeping the territorial integrity of this country intact.
That means that any Filipino driven by the zeal to defend the Motherland could end up being held accountable for crimes of genocide, human rights violation, war crimes, and other atrocities that at times are the consequences of intense fighting. As Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile would put it, the statute could “expose Philippine presidents to all kinds of suits…”
That decision brings to our recollection the proverbial saying of us “getting our own rope to hang ourselves with.” We say this because our membership to that European-based organization would not guarantee that our leaders and soldiers would be spared from being charged in exchange for our membership. In the first place, the aftermath of war is always taken as circumstantial or “collateral damage”, as the West would put it.
Worse, these idiots failed to realize that even with our membership, it will still be those Europeans now lording the ICC that will determine who will be charged and prosecuted for war crimes. What has been validated is the fact about their stupidity in not seeing the hues of national interest hanging above the heads of those entrusted to enforce their brand of justice. There are prognostications that most likely our soldiers will end up being charged, than those roaming rebels once the conflict in Mindanao deteriorates into another full-scale war.
If that happens, by implication the cause of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front could be interpreted as a just cause. That then would put a heavy international pressure on us to give in to their demand for an independent state just as what happened in Serbia where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the US helped create the state of Kosovo by force, and lately in Sudan where after a long-drawn civil war instigated by them, the Sudanese government had to hold a referendum to legalize the partition of their country. Most fearful, our leaders and soldiers will be hunted like rats by occupying NATO forces on orders of the ICC.
Although called an international organization, the ICC is far from being one. Except for France, Italy, and Germany and a cluster of tiny European states that had their own history of imperialist conquest in Africa, Latin America and Asia, none of the leading and regional powers like the US, Russia, China, India, Brazil and Argentina are members of the ICC. Not one would recklessly compromise their national sovereignty all for the noble cause of humanity.
It is this aspect about the ICC that exposed our hankering politicians as utterly ignorant! In fact, while the ICC encounters difficulty in convincing others to join, the Philippines, like manna from heaven, volunteered to join. More than that, not one of those senators who voted to ratify that opprobrious treaty could explain why criminal states of the US and Israel have refused to join the ICC. Everybody knows the US has always been able to get away with from its long list of war crimes. Certainly, it would be foolish now to allow its soldiers and its presidents to be placed in default of being tried as war criminals at The Hague.
Despite that, the ICC continues to praise the US for its active participation in various military interventions and in securing the arrest of those charged as war criminals. This scenario is now likely to happen to Libya’s Moammar Gaddhafi; that after being savagely attacked by international gangsters calling themselves NATO, he now is likely to stand trial for alleged war crimes against his own people.
Hence, for all of Senator Santiago’s hallucinations of the Morgenthau era of international relations, she miserably failed to read between the lines that the creation of the ICC is part of that concerted plot to substitute the UN with a NATO-created and controlled international organization. As collaborating quisling, she could not see that the objective of the European-based mafia is anachronistic to the four principles of the UN, foremost of which is the respect for equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
It did not even seep into their brains that to capture those accused of war crimes would require the commission of aggression which constitutes a violation of the UN Charter. This has lead scholars on international relations and international law to suspect that indeed NATO and the US are collaborating to systematically supersede the role of the UN. Such is the familiar case now of NATO and the US acting as the conduit of the ICC.
Although the ICC projects its role as supplementary to the International Court of Justice, in truth its function runs counter to the charter of the UN, much that the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of an independent state is the cornerstone for which it was created. There may have been sporadic internal fighting in many countries, but somehow those conflicts were prevented from escalating precisely because of that limitation in the UN Charter.
Since ICCs concept of justice points at the individual or group of players in an internal conflict, the view about the inviolability of one’s sovereignty has all of a sudden been erased. Consequently, things had been made easy much that it has for its main frame the concept of bringing to court “people” it may identify as war criminals, while they run the show of acting as prosecutor, judge and executioners, all rolled into one. This has now become their most convenient passport to justify aggression.
Without the world knowing it, the ICC stands as more formidable than the UN Security Council. Unlike the UN Security Council which has to secure a prior unanimous approval from all the permanent members to militarily intervene, the ICC has at its disposal a fully armed war machine called NATO. The people of Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and now Libya all could tell their harrowing experience of savage aggression, while NATO and its Kangaroo Court denudes the world about its role to humanity.
Thus, after being “liberated” and their leaders tried and executed as war criminals, oil-rich countries like Iraq ended up having its oil fields owned by foreign companies, and their people driven to extreme poverty. This again is likely to happen in Libya, with Senator Santiago not asking whether hapless states ever voted to join the ICC.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
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