Mayor Lim: Consistent crimefighter

Mayor Lim: Consistent crimefighter

The City of Manila’s Mayor Alfredo Lim made our day again. He has once more shown how consistent and admirable an enemy of crime he is.

The Filipino “Dirty Harry” vowed last Monday not to lift a finger to help his son, Manuel, who was arrested in a drug bust.

He said “Manuel should be man enough to face the music. I will not protect him. I will not lift a finger to help him. Whatever trouble he has got himself into he must bear by himself.”

Manuel is a 44-year-old man. He had been arrested with two other suspects for allegedly trying to sell methamphetamine—also known as shabu, which is the most popular illegal drug in the country. They did not know that their sale was a sting. Their buyer was an undercover agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Police have filed charges against the young Lim and his companions. If convicted, Manuel could face a long prison term for selling shabu.

A model LGU official

We have always admired Mayor Lim for being a staunch anti-crime crusader. He cleaned Manila’s red-light districts of prostitutes and drug dealers in his previous (pre-Lito Atienza) terms as mayor of the Philippine capital. He is a model for other local government officials.

Not too many Filipinos liked his use of the spray-paint in one of his anti-drug campaigns. What he did was spray-paint warnings on the the houses of suspected drug pushers. This was criticized by activists as a violation of the house-owners human rights. Besides, they reasoned, some of the residents in the spray-painted houses—the wives and children and parents of the actual drug pusher—were most likely innocent. What if some crazed anti-drug crusader threw a grenade at the house?

Mayor Lim relented and stopped his unusual campaign. But it was effective. Many of Manila’s drug pushers moved to other places—especially Pasay and the Baclaran area.

We need more public officials with Mayor Lim’s honesty and consistency as a crime-fighter.

It must have been painful for him to make the decision to let the law take its course in the case of his flesh-and-blood Manuel.

Mayor Lim’s posture runs counter to the feudalistic and overly-personalistic mentality of the Filipinos. That mentality is often the source of corruption in this country.

A less strong-willed and honest powerholder than Mayor Lim would have surely sprung Manuel out. The mayor could have easily managed such an operation. He is after all a former chief of the national police and a former senator. But it would have sullied his integrity.

If President Arroyo had been as firm a crime and corruption fighter as Mayor Lim, she would not have to suffer for the alleged corruption of her underlings—and perhaps some close friends and political creditors—whose wrongdoings are being exposed in Senate investigations.

Many people of good will are not joining the anti-Arroyo forces holding rallies and trying to organize the public into forming a massive movement that will force her out of office.

Among these are the Catholic bishops and the impressive body of former senior government officials (FSGO). These two groups have made sharp assessments of government corruption. They see the President as—at least—negligent in curbing corruption that has cost this country scores of billions. The FSGO says she must be central in these alleged corrupt deals.

Yet they do not want to add their voices to the call for her resignation or ouster by people power.

They want her to continue being president until her term ends in 2010. But they do insist that she must zealously go after her administration’s monsters of corruption.

We hope the President heeds the CBCP and the FSGO. Doing so can’t possibly be as painful as Mayor Lim’s resolve not to lift a finger to help his son out of the mess he has put himself in.

Lim as Malacañang anti-corruption czar

Here’s our inspired thought: Mayor Alfredo Lim—despite being an opposition party member and a close friend of former President Estrada who has of late been actively speaking against President Arroyo and asking her to resign—is one of those men of goodwill who want President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to finish her term.

He has vowed to keep her safe from any force that will unconstitutionally push her out of the Palace.

Why not make Mayor Lim the Palace’s anti-corruption czar? He can be that while keeping his job as Manila mayor.

But, of course, if she takes our unsolicited suggestion, she has to give Mayor Lim the proper equipment and resources to collar the thieves and scoundrels in the corridors of power.

Automated barangay elections?

Automated barangay elections?

Gloria Arroyo strikes again all the way from left field with her proposal to auto-mate elections starting with the October 29 exercise covering barangay officials.

For starters, there is no more time to prepare for automated elections which are scheduled in six weeks. Second, results of barangay elections do not require consolidation. Third, the barangay elections are nominally non-partisan. And fourth, as result of the second and third factors, barangay elections are hardly afflicted by the cheating, the buying of votes, the intimidation and the violence that characterize local and national elections.

In short, the barangay elections are not the problem. The local and national elections are. And automation, while it would help speed up the count, is a technical solution that misses out on the wider dimensions of the problem.

We don’t mean the sort of transformation in individual values that some argue is a prerequisite to an authentic exercise of the people’s sovereign power to elect their leaders. For we can storm the heavens with our prayers that the phone pals of Virgilio Garcillano be struck by their conscience and stop cooking the tabulations of votes, and only end up losing our belief in the power of prayer.

If we want honest and clean elections, we can start impeaching and jailing the election officials whose actions are for outright sale or, in the case of someone who is now in the limelight, in exchange for multi-million dollar- denominated overpriced deals.

But corrupt Comelec officials are the effects, not the cause, of a degenerate electoral process. For elections to be honest, we have to overhaul the structures and reverse the trends that make elections the equivalent of a war of total annihilation.

Joseph Estrada has just been convicted of plunder and sentenced to lifetime in jail. Many see his conviction as a triumph of the law. We certainly wish it were so, because we would be seeing most of the current high officials joining him in Bilibid in the not too distant future.

But the more likely outcome of Erap’s conviction is not the return of law. It is more likely to lead to a further travesty of the law.

Gloria is exiting in 2010. That certainly means a more dirty and bloody election for the presidency. Gloria will pull out all stops to secure the victory of her candidate, for she has to ensure she and her accomplices do not end up in the slammer like Estrada.

That’s the kind of dynamic we expect political developments to follow in the next three years and possibly further down the road. Computerization of elections is a minor sideshow to the grand drama unfolding before our eyes.

Our skewed immigration policy

Our skewed immigration policy

You would think that an archipelago of 7,1000 islands, stretching 1,100 miles north to south, would have a professional career immigration service to protect the country’s national security and defend its sovereignty.

You would expect that a country with a coastline twice as long as that of the United States’, whose shores are extremely porous and vulnerable to alien intrusion, would be amply protected 24 hours a day by a security umbrella using modern hardware and technology.

And since this is the 21st century, you would also imagine that the country’s immigration and citizenship laws are sufficiently dynamic to cope with the fast-moving global economy, international travel, unchecked migration, borderless crime and global terrorism.

You’d be wrong to think in the positive if you live in the Philippines. Our immigration policy is hopelessly dated. The immigration service creaks. Our principal immigration bill—The Philippine Immigration Act of 1940—is more than 60 years old. Our priorities for protecting our national gate are misplaced.

A self-respecting immigration office—such as the Bureau of Immigration—should be sufficiently manned, funded and equipped for the threats to our national security and sovereignty. This is not the case. The bureau is underfunded, undermanned and lacking in basic resources.

It does not have a single aircraft, not even a hand-me-down helicopter, to patrol the skies, or a decent pursuit boat to chase illegal aliens or drug smugglers. Its motor pool lacks the necessary number of vehicles. The communications system belongs to an earlier age.

The bureau has about 900 regular employees—backed by 300 temporaries—to man the big and growing network of airports, seaports and other ports of entry. It operates on an annual budget of P300 million, 70 percent going to salaries and housekeeping. These are not enough for the demands on the service. The volume of newcomers—tourists, businessmen, students, jobseekers (posing as tourists)—is increasing every day. Out of necessity, the bureau has to pull out temporaries from their desks and designate them as immigration officers.

The immigration bureau has to hone its skills and train officers against global terrorism. Poaching on our waters is rampant. Borderless crimes that have washed on our shores include gunrunning, drug trafficking and human smuggling.

We were stunned to learn that citizens from 132 countries could enter the Philippines without a visa. That’s opening the national door to the world. Do we have reciprocity agreements with these states? Despite this generosity, aliens have been known to gatecrash on our shores anytime of the day because we don’t have the resources to protect our coasts.

Visa-free aliens may stay for 21 days, with the option to stretch their stay by formally requesting the bureau for extension. In a given month, nine percent of the newcomers overstay. This adds up to 15,000 overstaying foreigners. The bureau estimates anywhere from 500,000 to 700,000 aliens are living and working illegally, many running their business or competing for jobs with Filipinos. A considerable number must be engaged in crime and vice. This estimate is very conservative. Illegal immigrants could number from one to 2 million. We have thrown away the keys to the gate in the past 50 years.

A big problem is that the bureau does not have an accurate count of how many aliens have entered the country, how many have left, and how many have stayed and overstayed.

‘No longer our country’

WE had an interesting roundtable with Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan on Tuesday.

The commissioner had just completed his first 100 days in office, so it was a good chance to review the work of the Bureau of Immigration and the history of immigration in the country.

In his first hundred days, Commissioner Libanan, a three-term congressman from Eastern Samar, did well enough to introduce timely reforms and to revive the culture of discipline and professionalism in the ranks.

The bureau took the instructions of President Arroyo to heart, crafted and carried out programs to help promote tourism, investment and education in the country.

It cracked down on the lucrative escort service, protected women from human traffickers, strengthened border control and scored a few significant victories against illegal immigration.

Libanan took his oath with the specter of Administrative Order 175 looking on. A few weeks before his assumption, the President ordered the transfer of the responsibilities of the bureau to the Office of the Justice Secretary, an indictment on the poor work of the immigration agency owing to past and recent records of corruption.

Graft had taken roots because of poor management, low pay, pressures from work, scarcities in resources, opportunities to make money from controversial deportation and citizenship cases and a perception that the legislative and the executive had neglected the immigration service and had not appreciated its work.

The new commissioner persuaded his superior and the chief executive to recall the order and to give him a chance to restore discipline, bring back professionalism, curb and punish graft and tighten control at the national door.

Libanan has a big job ahead, including getting critical support from Congress and Malacañang to develop the immigration bureau into a professional, disciplined and muscular career service that could effectively check illegal immigration.

Failing to do so, the commissioner warned, we will wake up one day and “discover this is no longer our country.”

Frat brats

Frat brats

EVERY human being that walks on this planet has a good side and a bad side. The difference is in degree. Ergo, every member of a university fraternity has a good side and a bad side. The difference is in degree.

From time to time we come across news stories that tell us about fraternity initiates who end up dead as a result of hazing, or being forced by their initiators to perform strenuous, humiliating, or even dangerous acts to prove their worth as potential members.

Of course, if they end up dead on arrival at a hospital, they no longer qualify as members, but get to have their names and photos (full of life and smiling) appear in newspapers and television screens.

The few who have perished at the hands of their killers--oops, sorry, frat members---did not die of loneliness or old age. They died because they were not made of steel, only flesh, which could not stand the bludgeoning and the clubbing at the hands of their masters, each of whom had assumed the personality of Mr. Hyde into which Dr. Jekyll's evil impulses had been channeled, thus the tendency to inflict bodily harm.

Imagine a blindfolded fraternity recruits being set upon by a group of tormentors, much like a pack of wolves ganging up on a hapless prey. Each succeeding whack from a wooden paddle/club heavier than the one before it, the club wielders getting a high from their acts of violence upon a fellow human being--and seemingly oblivious to the consequences of their act. Men had turned to beasts.

The beatings stopped only after the frat brats finally regained their senses, realizing too late that their victim had been reduced to, well, not a pulp really, but to a lifeless creature. They had become accessories to a crime of homicide (they had not meant to kill, after all).

And what was it all about in the first place?

Law is bent to serve the powerful

Law is bent to serve the powerful

Will some of our leaders continue to block the public clamor for a reinvestigation of the “Hello, Garci” incident? When will they face the fact that some questions are still hanging in the air because they chose to ignore them three years ago?

To put it simply, ignoring the questions made them live with the painful consequence, which is that the ordeal left them confused and dazed, unable to recognize what is right and what is wrong. If Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago indulged in more clever rhetoric in her speech (Aug. 28) about what is illegal and inadmissible in court, it was only because the trash she stored in her already cluttered mind made her forget that the spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law.
What good is the law if, in the hands of the deluded, it only serves the interests of the powerful few to the detriment of the marginalized multitude? Is Santiago denying that the law has time and again been used by the rich and strong to frustrate the will of the poor and the weak?

It is time our leaders understood the fact that our Constitution is there purposely to uphold the dreams and aspirations of the entire citizenry, not just the ambitions and greed of the selfish powerful. That means leaders cannot persist in interpreting the law according to their own selfish inclination.

Indeed, they must realize that their tendency to talk glibly about the law -- while they ignore the need for public consultation -- hides the intention to deceive. This is what muddles the issues, thus violating the true objective of the law. This is why there is so much injustice in our system. Indeed, it is sad that our deluded leaders have wrought so much divisiveness -- the product of the bad advice to “divide and rule” -- just to stay in power.

And it is certainly a shame that a senator of long standing like Santiago chose to belittle the “tortured analysis” by Sen. Francis Escudero during his interpellation. For it clearly showed she has no respect for anyone who would dare to show more insight, more honesty and more promise than she could in something as important as upholding the truth for the nation’s sake.

The question now is, if the corrupt in our midst have soiled the law with their dirty hands and expect us to bow down to their antics, will the rest of us not rise up to fight for the truth and thus preserve our nationhood?

Confidence building

Confidence building

In putting an end to unexplained killings and disappearances, the buck stops with the president and commander-in-chief. This was pointed out during the recent multisectoral summit on extrajudicial killings, by the United Nations’ rapporteur on human rights, and by other sectors worried over the continuing deadly attacks on left-wing militants and journalists.

The commander-in-chief can show that she’s in command of her troops by ordering the military to come clean on the disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos, son of the late press freedom fighter Jose Burgos. Instead the government refuses to release even a report on the license plates used in the getaway van of the armed men who kidnapped Burgos at noon last April 28 from a crowded mall in Quezon City. The plates were later found on another vehicle at the camp of the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion in Norzagaray, Bulacan. The vehicle was reportedly impounded from illegal loggers by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the 56th IB.

Bulacan accounts for one of the highest cases of militants killed or reported missing in what relatives say were enforced disappearances. It is part of the region that used to be under the command of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, tagged as a “butcher” by militants. But military officials in Central Luzon as well as in other regions have consistently denied involvement in extrajudicial killings, insisting that most of the purported victims were slain in legitimate counter-insurgency operations.

The government is not the only one to blame for the failure to ferret out the truth. Verifying the military’s version of what is happening has been complicated by the refusal of left-wing groups and relatives of alleged victims of state-sponsored killings and disappearances to cooperate with authorities in any investigation. But the refusal to cooperate is also rooted in a mistrust that is not entirely misplaced, given the military’s long history of human rights violations in the campaign against the communist insurgency. Gaining that trust and cooperation will require some confidence-building gestures on the part of the government. Coming clean on the case of Jonas Burgos would be a good start.

Fine-tuning

Fine-tuning

Monetary officials are worried that terrorists could take advantage of loopholes in the Human Security Act to launder funds. Senators, for their part, want to introduce more safeguards in the HSA to prevent the state from abusing wiretapping powers. Law enforcers, meanwhile, have been so spooked by provisions in the new law that leave them no wiggle room for making mistakes that no terror suspect has been arrested so far by the police since the HSA was passed. Instead the cops have left the counter-terrorism battle to the military, not only in Basilan and Sulu but also, it seems, even in Metro Manila, where over a thousand soldiers have been deployed ostensibly to conduct civic operations.

The biggest danger in these developments is that the campaign against terrorists will suffer because a new law has paralyzed those who are supposed to enforce it. This paralysis must be avoided. The terrorist threat is real and terrorists never sleep. They bide their time, waiting for targets to let down their guard, and then strike. There are other laws that can be applied in going after those who plan to commit mass murder. These laws are inadequate – precisely the reason counter-terrorism forces sought new tools from the legislature to fight the terror threat. But if everyone is scared to enforce the new law, public safety can be compromised.

A big deterrent to the enforcement of the HSA are provisions – 22, as counted by authorities – that could land counter-terrorism forces in prison for more than a decade and require them to pay fines of at least P500,000 for certain methods of arrest and interrogation. A number of these methods have long been employed in regular law enforcement. No law enforcer wants to serve as the guinea pig in testing the provisions, which are meant to protect the public from state harassment.

There is a common enemy here, and it’s neither lawmaker nor law enforcer. The HSA was passed because legislators recognized the need for it. But the law can use some tweaking. While the HSA is undergoing fine-tuning, the battle against terrorism must not be derailed.

Freezing the ball

Freezing the ball

Here we have a case of agents of the state apparently having engaged in a criminal act. Compounding the offense, their superiors apparently perjured themselves before official bodies in repeatedly denying the men and the unit to which they were assigned had the technical capability to undertake the alleged criminal offense.

Comes the Senate which is proposing an inquiry in aid of legislation that would seek to prevent a repetition of the illegality. The Palace answer? It would not only not cooperate in the inquiry. It would also actively block the investigation by preventing the appearance of officials in the executive department from attending hearings.

The case is the wiretapping which was allegedly mounted by the Intelligence Service of the AFP.

The targets were sundry opposition personalities, one Palace operator (Mike Defensor) assigned to liaise with the opposition and a Comelec commissioner named Virgilio Garcillano. In the course of the wiretapping, the Isafp agents caught on tape somebody who sounded like Gloria Arroyo talking about cooking the results of the 2004 elections with Garcillano.

The administration has been stonewalling and muddling investigations into the "Hello Garci" tapes since Day One (remember Ignacio "I-Have-Two Tapes" Bunye?). We understand why the Palace has been moving heaven and earth to block investigations. If the Garci tapes are authentic, it means Gloria Arroyo stole the 2004 elections and her stay in Malacañang is under illegitimate pretenses.

We were, therefore, not surprised when Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita yesterday said the Palace would invoke EO 464 to prevent people from the executive department from attending Senate hearings.

It’s probably for the best, Malacañang again seeking refuge in an issuance the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional. The Senate can again go to the Supreme Court and seek a tighter ruling on when executive department officials can be prevented by the President from attending inquiries in aid of legislation.

The ruling clearly says executive privilege may only be invoked when it involves department secretaries. It also sets specific conditions the legislature has to meet in inviting department heads. But it is also categorical in saying officials who are not department heads cannot be considered as enjoying executive privilege, which attaches to the President by extension.

It will be recalled that EO 464 was issued on the eve of the appearance of Marine Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and Lt. Col. Alexander Balutan before a Senate hearing into election rigging in the Lanao provinces. The hearing was called as an offshoot of the "Hello Garci" scandal. Gudani and Balutan were subsequently punished for violating a direct order from the AFP chief to ignore the Senate invitation.

The Supreme Court said Gudani and Balutan could not possibly be among the officials who require presidential approval before they can attend congressional hearings.

The way is clear for the Senate to invite all those perjurers from the Isafp and the AFP. So we are perplexed by Ermita’s mention of EO 464. A Supreme Court rebuff is a certainty. We guess the game plan is to freeze the ball until Gloria exits in 2010, which has been the strategy of the Palace since Bunye came up with his I-have-two tapes announcement.

Closure

Closure

The alleged victim of poll fraud is dead, and wiretapped conversations or other forms of illegally acquired communication are inadmissible as evidence. These have not stopped several senators from pushing for a reopening of the investigation on the vote-rigging scandal where the purported smoking gun is a recorded phone conversation between a man named Garci and a woman he addressed as Ma’am. Garci was widely believed to be former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, while the woman asking him about her vote was widely believed to be President Arroyo.

Nothing was ever established and the “Hello, Garci” tapes were never authenticated by neutral experts. Now an intelligence agent has re-emerged after two years to claim that he was the one who tapped the conversations. Vidal Doble, formerly of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, also claimed he could not make his revelation earlier because his superiors had placed him under detention — a claim denied by the AFP.

As of early evening yesterday, senators were still arguing after a group including administration lawmakers decided to refer Doble’s case to a smaller body. Malacañang, meanwhile, prepared for battle, with officials threatening to bar members of the executive branch from facing the Senate in connection with the scandal. The secretary of justice also announced that his department had obtained documents on an espionage case in the United States that could prove damning for certain opposition figures. Those figures are widely known to include Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who had brought Doble out of hibernation, and deposed President Joseph Estrada.

Will there ever be closure in the vote-rigging scandal? Garcillano has stood firm on his story, denying that he rigged the 2004 vote in favor of President Arroyo. The President’s closest rival, actor Fernando Poe Jr., died several months after the elections. Closure here is unlikely. But if senators are bent on reviving the investigation, they should make sure it would lead this time to pieces of legislation. There are two issues here: poll fraud and illegal wiretapping. A congressional probe of the vote-rigging scandal should lead to electoral reforms. And Doble’s testimony should at least lead to the further fine-tuning of laws governing electronic surveillance. Something more than a political free-for-all should come out of this scandal.

Impossible dream?

Impossible dream?

Justice was ill-served when retired Chief Justice Andres Narvasa said the book on the assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. should be closed. Narvasa said the commission on which he had worked -- at times to the extent that it irked the dictator Ferdinand Marcos -- had already unearthed the truth or come as close to it as is humanly possible. That truth resulted in the conviction of some soldiers, but it never revealed who the mastermind was behind Ninoy’s killing. No point in further trying to find out, Narvasa said.

Narvasa recalled that “the burning question at that time was whether it was President Marcos or the First Lady [Imelda Marcos]” who ordered the killing. He even recalled public suspicions concerning the alleged involvement of businessman Eduardo M. Cojuangco Jr. in the murder. That question burns still. But Narvasa said, “I have to be frank. There was no evidence pointing either way… There was no direct evidence. They remained speculations.”

Today, even former President Corazon Aquino has publicly stated she wouldn’t oppose executive clemency for the soldiers who have been convicted for the crime and who remain in jail. They were the only ones caught in the net of justice during her presidency. The late dictator himself died abroad and never ended up being deposed in court or properly investigated about the assassination. Gen. Fabian Ver, too, avoided the long arm of the law until the day he died.

And by 1992, the restoration of the disgraced and dispossessed leaders of the New Society had well and truly begun. It will be recalled that had Imelda Marcos and Cojuangco combined their forces, their combined votes would have defeated all other contenders for the presidency. As it was, their individual votes were remarkable and politically formidable. In a sense, it paved the way for the defeat of the Edsa People Power I political forces with the election of an unrepentant Marcos loyalist, Joseph Estrada, to the vice presidency in 1992 and to the presidency in 1998.

We forget, too, the circumstances surrounding Ninoy Aquino’s return home. Imelda Marcos had gone to see him. She issued a warning: there were people loyal to them and whom they could not control and they might kill him. She offered him financial inducements not to go home. He refused the offer.

And yet today Narvasa maintains, “Doña Imelda, I don’t think was deeply involved ... in such a dreadful thing. Maybe [she knows something] because she’s the President’s wife, she could not have been excluded from conversations by President Marcos.” The record tells us the “something” she knew at the time was quite specific; and that her concern for Aquino could have been feigned. This certainly deserves further investigation, precisely because the dictator is dead.

Explaining his decision to come home, Aquino told his friends: “When we start to feel the pain of those who have been victimized by tyranny, it’s only then we can liberate ourselves… The feeling right now is, ‘Fred was tortured, thank God it’s Fred, not me.’ That’s the tragic part. Society is atomized. Until the Filipino nation can feel the loss of one life as if it was their own, we’ll never liberate ourselves.”

Liberate ourselves we did; the rallying cry of those days was, “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All.” It included demands for his killers to be exposed. That demand has only partially been fulfilled. Now Narvasa, who once zealously sought the truth, whatever the cost, thinks it’s time to declare the quest ultimately defeated.

Were we to adopt Narvasa’s suggestion, the ultimate lesson here would be the ultimate victory of the dictator’s attitude toward the law: that style matters more than substance. Narvasa said the Narvasa Commission did its work, it filed its report and now the case “is finished, functius oficio.” The paperwork may be done, but the case remains ultimately unresolved.

Ferdinand is dead, Imelda lives. Ver is dead, Cojuangco lives. At worst, half of the main suspects do not only remain alive, they are living within our shores instead of in exile. To borrow a thought from Ninoy, so long as his murder remains unsolved, until the public feels that the case has been pursued to its ultimate end, what hope is there that the ever-multiplying cases of political assassinations since then will ever be resolved, too?

Lifestyle check

Lifestyle check

Conducting a lifestyle check on private citizens to flush out delinquent taxpayers is a good idea – if it can be implemented efficiently and if it targets the right people. In the absence of racketeering laws, the move can be used to nail down notorious smugglers, jueteng lords and other crooks who enjoy the protection of influential people. The lifestyle check, authorities said, would go hand-in-hand with a tax amnesty program. Both measures aim to boost revenue collection, which has fallen below projections, creating a bigger-than-expected budget deficit and costing the revenue commissioner his job.

On the other hand, if the measures simply provide yet another opportunity for large-scale tax evaders and crooks to keep their dirty money after giving a token tax payment to corrupt revenue collectors, the idea should be dropped. Gambling barons and smugglers can buy the protection of police and military officers, judges, prosecutors and politicians. How hard will it be for these crooks to pay off revenue collectors, many of whom are already used to accepting bribes? Corruption has long been one of the biggest hindrances to proper revenue collection. The same problem bedevils the Bureau of Customs and its efforts to stop smuggling. Many revenue and Customs collectors are likely to fail a lifestyle check.

At the hands of the inept and corrupt, the lifestyle check on private citizens is bound to net a couple of small fry who cheat on their tax payments to make ends meet. The worst use for the lifestyle check is for political harassment, which some quarters in the opposition fear. It is often said that those who follow the law have nothing to fear, but in this country, being law-abiding does not guarantee protection from state persecution. The fear is valid, considering the track record of the administration in using state power to harass political enemies.

Fiscal reforms and their positive effects on the economy have been undeniable achievements of this administration. Now weak revenue collection is threatening that bright spot. In moving to increase government earnings, the administration will need proper focus and must keep its revenue collectors on a tight leash.

Remembering Ninoy Aquino

Remembering Ninoy Aquino

Meeting in San Francisco to form a new alliance of antimartial law groups from across North America, we received the news that the former senator was assassinated at the Manila International Airport. Talks were suspended for a while to enable everyone to listen to the media broadcasts. My wife called from Montreal to say that Canadian reporters were already asking about the reactions of the Filipino community.

Since his arrival in the US in 1980 Ninoy had become the leading traditional opposition leader—overshadowing Raul Manglapus who was then head of the Movement for a Free Philippines (MFP). Sonny Alvarez used to act as right hand man of Manglapus; this time he was accompanying Aquino around in his speaking tours. Ninoy with his audacity and eloquence readily won the support of the Filipino expatriates who previously thought only of making a life in the US and gave if at all cavalier assistance to antimartial law groups.

The new alliance formed in San Francisco was independent of the MFP and other groups identified with premartial law political leaders like Manglapus, Alvarez, Raul Daza, Serge Osmeña and oligarchs like the Lopezes—whom pro-Marcos Teodoro Valencia called “steak commandos.” There was bound to be ideological differences between antimartial law groups. The tags “libdems,” “socdems” and “natdems” were not that well defined or understood at the time. But alliances and coalitions were formed. Ninoy seemed open to meeting all groups.

We saw the crucial role of Ninoy in reaching out to the once apathetic Filipino expats in North America. He really had a gift—the gift of gab that can move crowds and the mass. His death roused even those in the community who thought it was an honor to have as guests Philippine embassy people in their June 12 celebrations. Everyone saw a turning point in the struggle against the dictatorship, and the beginning of the end of Marcos’s rule.

It was in a Toronto hotel in 1982 when I was introduced by “brod” Ruben Cusipag (one of the journalists jailed by Marcos) to a wan-looking person lounging at the hotel lobby. Ruben didn’t mention our names, and for a moment Ninoy’s eyes and mine locked. Just about the same time, we blurted, “brod!” Ninoy and I belonged to the same batch (’50) of the oldest frat in UP.

I gave Ninoy a batch of publications including accounts of war in the countryside. While waiting for his turn during the forum, he read avidly the “subversive” publications. That was the last time I saw him.

Back in the 50s he was a staff member of the Philippine Collegian which I then edited. When the Korean War broke out, he was sent by The Manila Times as a war correspondent. He was not quite 18 at the time, but endeared himself to the soldiers of the 10th BCT (battalion combat team) by writing about them in a personal way in his dispatches. In one of his furloughs we asked him to send us special reports for the Collegian. This he did at least twice, and the Collegian became the only student paper with a war correspondent.

I would see him again a few years later (1954) at The Manila Times as a fellow staffer, and I couldn’t quite get over seeing him one evening stride to the city room with a holstered pistol at his side a la Gary Cooper in High Noon. He had just come from his meeting with Huk leader Luis Taruc who surrendered to President Magsaysay’s emissary. Why the side arm? You can never tell, he said. He later toured and wrote about Southeast Asia and was said to have met with the CIA during the Sumatran revolt in Indonesia. His detractors said he was a CIA agent. I remember Ninoy saying he had dealings with the CIA but did not work for them.

He became more of a public figure when he entered politics, first as town mayor, then governor of Tarlac, and later senator of the republic. As governor, he invited a UP group headed by Dr. Ricardo Pascual to set up a UP college in his province, and showed us the old capitol building as possible campus site. The UP branch was set up in the sixties, functioned for a while, and ultimately gave way to another state college or university.

In his public life as senator Ninoy was unstoppable in his quest for the presidency. In a frat alumni meeting held at Wack Wack with the Laurels, President Marcos and his nemesis Ninoy Aquino, both brods, were brought together to smoke the peace pipe as it were. But this did not stop Ninoy in the Senate from delivering his scathing speeches about the Marcos administration. Marcos had his turn during martial law and, after seven years of detaining Ninoy, banished his brod to the US. The frat was divided into pros and antis.

His audacious return to the Philippines under the name of Marcial Bonifacio (in a passport issued by a brod in Taipei), we all thought, was in character—from the time he would ride along in a US bomber raiding enemy positions near the Yalu on the Korean-Chinese border, to his adventures in Indonesia affairs or in Huk-controlled Central Luzon, his relentless attacks on the Marcos regime, enduring seven years of prison and going on a hunger strike, to that moment of truth when he left his family in the US and finally boarded the plane from Taipeh back to the Philippines.

His death or his martyrdom is still shrouded with mystery (and so is the death of his brod, Col. Baltazar Aguirre, killed in his car rammed by a truck reportedly owned by a military intelligence chief; the colonel was said to have a line to Ninoy). When will it all be known?

But as what Ninoy would have quoted, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I remember this quote from one of his dispatches on the Korean War.

A minor setback

A minor setback

The Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini were missing, and so was President Arroyo as 18 luxury vehicles smuggled through the Subic Freeport Zone were destroyed yesterday. The destruction pushed through despite warnings from legislators that it could violate laws governing the disposition of items seized as part of criminal operations. The vehicles, lawmakers said, must be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to national coffers.

Malacañang officials pointed out that public auctions merely allowed smugglers to bid for the vehicles that they bring in. How to stop this practice, which is also employed in smuggling other items through various ports around the country, is a challenge to those who want to stop smuggling. The task is daunting especially because Customs and port personnel themselves are often in cahoots with smugglers. Also involved in the operations are certain personnel of the Land Transportation Office, who issue license plates and the necessary documents not only for smuggled vehicles but also for stolen ones.

The biggest hindrance to the campaign against smuggling are influential people who can clear contraband for release with just one phone call to Customs authorities. Every administration has such people; their activities have served as the biggest inspiration to the corrupt in the Bureau of Customs. Every administration makes a big show of fighting smugglers and destroying intercepted contraband. But how many people have been arrested and sent to prison for smuggling? The most notorious smugglers know whose palms to grease all the way to the top, and have survived several changes in government.

These smugglers launder crime proceeds, setting up or expanding legitimate outlets for contraband, from vegetables and dressed chicken to luxury vehicles. Yesterday’s destruction of the luxury vehicles, some of which appeared to have seen better days, were a minor setback for the smugglers. They are still out there, unidentified and unrepentant, enjoying the protection of influential people.

JdV’s amnesty worth studying

JdV’s amnesty worth studying

When it comes to generating big ideas, few can beat Speaker Jose de Venecia. It was JdV who first proposed face-to-face talks with National Democratic Front during the Ramos term. In the Cory administration, he initiated diplomatic contacts with Pyongyang, a taboo idea at that time.

Is JdV a leftist? Not at all. If we subject the Pangasinan lawmaker to an ideology test, he would probably be sitting on the left side of the Klu Klux Klan. But in day-to-day politics, he is a pragmatist. “Kung anong kailangan ng bayan at sitwasyon—OK siya.” He is the type who can talk with US President Bush now and then deal with Kim Jong Il tomorrow.

An example of his flexibility is his proposal to grant amnesty to the political enemies of the state and critics of President GMA. Probably, it is his way to finding ways to ease the burden on the government. He thinks that with the grant of amnesty, the administration would be able to acquire a breathing spell up to 2010.

I am just surprised why JdV chose to announce the amnesty proposal without the benefit of discussions within the National Security Council. The NSC is the body to discuss a big policy change such as amnesty. I could only suspect that JdV prefers a prior public discussion on the issue before it is discussed with the cabinet.

Perhaps, he wanted to float the idea first to test the opinion of the military, the civilian leaders, the NGOs and the international community. If that was his intention, he had succeeded in drawing Senators Joker Arroyo and Miriam D. Santiago to the debate. Both senators are allies of the President.

In truth, JdV’s idea carries no details. Remember that on the matter of amnesty, its knots and bolts are very important. For instance, JdV should first clarify if the amnesty he is giving (a) is automatically granted or (b) should be based on a hearing. Clarification of this issue is needed for credibility of any future presidential proclamation on amnesty.

By way of a background, after World War 2, the government issued an amnesty to all those suspected of collaborating with the Japanese invaders. That kind of amnesty, which eventually freed former President Jose P. Laurel and Sen. Claro M. Recto, was an automatic type of amnesty.

The amnesty proclamation, declared by President Roxas, did not require the two leaders to argue why they deserved to be amnestied. By definition, all suspected collaborators were amnestied. In fairness to Recto, it should be said that the Batangas leader Recto opposed the amnesty as he wanted to be given the opportunity to argue before the courts. But this option was not possible under that kind of amnesty.

In the case of President Marcos, he had many amnesty decrees directed to members of the Communist Party and the MNLF. But as the late Sen. Lorenzo Tañada (lawyer for many political prisoners) observed, these amnesties failed because rebels were required to go through the humiliating process of application and hearing. The WW II amnesty was successful because no questions were asked of the beneficiaries.

Speaker Jose de Venecia should specify in his proposal the kind of amnesty he wants the Arroyo government to carry out. Otherwise, the targets of these policies would reject his idea.

Senate coalition holding on

It looks like Senate President Manny Villar has found the secret in managing the current crop of senators—a collection of proud men and women who all believe they can become President of the Republic.

I think Manny was able to find and work on the weakness of everyone. At the moment, each one has found a modus vivendi with the other. In the words of Sen. Chiz Escudero who spoke at The Manila Times roundtable: “We need to be good to each other because the Senate hall is very small. Palagi kaming nagkikita, unlike in the House.”

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, a member of the opposition, and administration Sen. Joker Arroyo are now on one side. So are Miriam D. Santiago (admin) and Alan Peter Cayetano (opposition). How does Manny manage the nine-person administration group, Miriam, Enrile, Lapid, Revilla, Honasan, Angara, Arroyo, Zubiri, Gordon?

And the group of independents, Pia and Alan Cayetano, Estrada, Escudero, Panglinan? And the so-called Solid Seven oppositionists, Lacson, Pimentel, Madrigal, Biazon, Roxas, Aquino, Trillanes?.

In the end, it is all a matter of responding to the political needs of everyone. And it seems Villar has been able to master the art of consensus since he headed the House during the Estrada term.

Bayani’s bolo brigade

Bayani’s bolo brigade

"The MMDA wants to pursue its plan to arm its traffic enforcers with bolos to protect themselves because Malacanang does not object to it, the agency said yesterday”—Manila Standard Today, Aug. 11, 2007

MAKATI City, August 30, 2007. Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando launched yesterday the new MMDA traffic enforcement system in colorful ceremonies at the MMDA headquarters in Makati City.

Wearing a custom-made uniform with a shiny bolo on his waist, Fernando thanked President Arroyo for supporting his initiative and pledged to help the law and order campaign, including joining the war against the Abu Sayyaf.

Fernando waged a vigorous campaign to arm his traffic enforcers with jungle bolos, claiming that violent drivers, sidewalk vendors and squatters have hurt or threatened his employees. The police resisted the idea.

The chairman resisted suggestions that the MMDA use billy sticks and teargas. Spears and bow-and-arrow struck him as too medieval. For a while, according to sources, the agency considered using swords. But immediately thrown out was the proposal to use human excrement on unruly squatters and sidewalk vendors.

Fernando won the debate, ordered new uniforms for the enforcers, made them train in bolo fighting, read them the riot act and conducted a metro-wide PR campaign.

About 2,000 rayadillo-clad (the cloth used by the Katipunan revolutionists) traffic officers took part in the launch. They raised high their bolos when they rededicated themselves to their oath.

The MMDA originally wanted to import the kukri jungle bolo, the machete popular among the Gurkha warriors of Nepal who are serving the British army. Fernando was told Marikina-made steel is just as sharp.

About a hundred young good-looking enforcers were noticeably barefoot. They will be used for ceremonial functions and official state ceremonies, according to an MMDA source.

Fernando vowed the weapon was purely for self-protection and would be used only as a last resort. As part of their code of ethics, the enforcers will not take their bolo when visiting bars and cocktail lounges. The rules of engagement require that only rusty bolos may be used for demolitions that usually turn violent.

After the ceremonies, Fernando traveled with two groups that were deployed to Ayala Avenue and Roxas Boulevard. The enforcers demonstrated before assembled businessmen and diplomats their new system of enforcing traffic rules and the correct way to wear and use a bolo.

CNN Asia reported the unusual program, wondering what new perceptions of the Filipinos the world would get this time from Manila’s new experiment.

An unsung patriot

VERY few Filipinos have heard of Jose Kumilos but oral history among old-timers at the Home for The Aged in Pasay City remembers him as an unappreciated patriot who tried to do many great things for his country—and failed.

According to one story, when Emilio Aguinaldo wanted the United States to endorse the June 12 independence proclamation, he sent Kumilos to Washington, D.C., to lobby the White House and Congress. He failed because he traveled to Washington State instead of proceeding to the District of Columbia.

Some old-timers credit Kumilos for writing a set of advice for young Filipinos that uncannily recall popular counsel being circulated today. They recite the advice from memory that, according to those who could remember, was read them by their fathers and forefathers. The Kumilos Cartilla for Young Filipinos include:

Read the works of Rizal, Balagtas and other Tagalog writers for wisdom. Ignore the grammatical mistakes.

Pay your taxes even if the money goes to the Spanish government. This habit will help us because Tagalogs will rule the country one day.

If you have a servant, treat her well because that’s the human thing to do. She will also respect you and will not spit in your coffee or glass of water.

Patronize the national railways because it’s the only thing that unites us from Manila to Damortis, La Union.

Treat foreigners well—Spaniards, Chinese, Japanese, Americans—because someday they may run the economy.

Intramuros, Bagumbayan, the Pasig River, Manila Bay and the Botanical Garden will never be as clean and green as they appear today.

A plan is afoot to do a more extensive oral history on Jose Kumilos. His life is inspiring because it reflects the aspirations. failures and small victories of the Filipino.

‘Crispy pata’ for frequent fliers

WE rather like the Philippine Air Lines ad that invites us to
“fly all you can!” by offering two domestic tickets with every purchase of an economy class domestic ticket. It borrows from the buy-one, take-one concept but not, of course, from the eat-all-you-can promotion. We cannot fly all we want, even if we wish to.

Equally interesting is the BPI Express Credit ad that offers a free crispy pata— courtesy of Gerry’s Grill—with your “free BPI express credit card!”

Next time you get a hankering for “irresistibly free” crispy pata, call a designated number or visit any branch and you get a free card at the same time. Could the bank throw in a bottle of beer? Could PAL link up with BPI’?

Buffoonery

Buffoonery

The tragic state of Philippine public life is crystallized in the buffoonery of all the characters involved in the picaresque saga of Lintang Bedol.

After blatantly not doing his duty as Commission on Election supervisor in Maguindanao—and worse, allegedly conniving with others to frustrate the will of the voters of that province—he refused to be contacted by his Manila superiors. As far as everyone in Maguindanao knew he had disappeared. He became unavailable for questioning about the true facts of the conduct of the polls in that province and the fate of election documents.

He finally surfaced—after the Comelec threatened to order his arrest. On June 11, appearing at the Comelec hearing to answer the questions his bosses and the entire country were asking, all he could say was that all the election documents had been stolen from him two weeks earlier. He could not properly explain why he was in possession of the documents when those should have been in proper safekeeping according to the procedure in the Election Code and the Comelec rules. And his explanation of his reluctance to obey his superiors’ orders to come to Comelec sitting as the National Board of Canvassers on May 30 was that of a clown. He could not come to Manila because he had not received his superiors’ subpoena and without a subpoena his travel expenses would not be reimbursed.

He claimed that there was no election fraud in Maguindanao but he could not explain how the statistically improbable zero votes for 19 senatorial votes could have happened. No municipal certificates of canvass were available to back up the provincial certificate of canvass (COC) for Maguindanao because these were lost or stolen, he said. So he was asked by the media to describe how the elections were conducted in that province. He claimed he could not reply to that question because he was in another province on Election Day. But he could swear to the correctness of the provincial COCs because these were “duly executed.”

Bedol had collected all the municipal certificates of canvass on May 28, two days before he was needed in Manila by his Comelec superiors convened as the National Board of Canvassers. On May 29 all these documents were allegedly stolen from him.

The next joke he was to tell was the answer to the question who could have stolen the documents from his office. He said it could have been the group of people who demonstrated against the Comelec and the authorities on May 29. And he suggested that a case should be filed against those people.

The biggest buffoons of all at this point were the entire Commission on Elections. Bedol’s incredibly shameless performance neither made them puke nor blow up in outrage.

Indecency

When the Comelec, en banc, found Bedol guilty on Wednesday of indirect contempt—guilty of being disrespectful—and nothing else, buffoonery became squalid indecency.

It was as if they had decided to shit on the Filipino people.

The congressmen and senators who spoke of the verdict being wrong and the punishment of six months’ imprisonment and the fine of P1,000 being too light were too kind to the Comelec.

For, by treating Bedol like a naughty child and not a saboteur of our electoral democracy and a destroyer our Republic, the Comelec has loudly proclaimed that elections should not be taken seriously and that it is all right for constitutional officials to be negligent, derelict and perhaps corrupt.

Now more than ever the citizenry has a reason to suspect the Comelec’s members—except for one or maybe two—of knowing and condoning what Bedol really did. Why did they allow Bedol to behave the way he has? Why did they reappoint him to be an election supervisor in the 2007 elections even after he was implicated in alleged election fraud in the 2004 elections?

The Comelec is a constitutionally independent body. Its members can only be removed by impeachment.

The Fourteenth Congress has a duty to prove its worth and integrity by impeaching the members of the Comelec.

The definition of terrorism under the HSA

The definition of terrorism under the HSA

The definition of the crime of terrorism under the Human Security Act (HSA) has been criticized for being vague as well as ambiguous and, as a result, highly susceptible to governmental abuse. In truth, the definition is clear enough, albeit ill-conceived. For it is guilty both of under-inclusive­ness and over-inclusiveness. Under-inclusive classifications do not embrace within its scope all those intended to be considered guilty of the crime; while over-inclusive classifications encompass within its breadth those intended to be innocent. Hence, the criticism that it is susceptible to abuse is correct. More significantly, since the definition includes those who are not similarly situated under an intended classification and excludes those who are, it may also be criticized for violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

There exist three elements to the crime of terrorism under the HSA: (i.) a person must commit any of various specified acts punishable under our criminal law, the more important of which constitute piracy or mutiny, rebellion or insurrection, coup d’état, murder, kidnapping, crimes involving destruction, arson, illegal or unlawful possession, manufacture, dealing in or acquisition of firearms, ammunitions or explosives; (ii.) such an act “thereby [sows] and [creates] a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace,” and (iii.) the act is committed “in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand.”

It is instructive to examine some paradigm examples of terrorism in our historical experience in order to test the suitability of the above definition. In the late 70s and early 80s, members of the Light-A-Fire Movement issued threats of arson and committed crimes involving destruction in an attempt to overthrow the Marcos government. These crimes included making numerous calls warning government offices of imminent bombings or fires and actually bombing some buildings, such as the Philippine International Convention Center. More recently, the bombing of certain buses or railway trains was allegedly committed by the MILF in order to compel the government to recognize an independent Muslim state.

If the above examples are indeed paradigmatic, then the definition is flawed by several misconceptions. First, they indicate that an essential element of acts of terrorism involves the willingness of the terrorist to actually harm, kill, damage or destroy civilians or non-military targets as part of strategy. That is precisely why such acts result in widespread and extraordinary fear and panic. Hence it is not actually the commission of any of the crimes enumerated in the first element of the definition, along with the second and third elements, which renders an act one of terrorism; rather, it is the commission of these or other acts in fulfillment of the above strategy which does.

The failure to appreciate the first misconception results in the anomaly of prosecuting and punishing the traditional rebel for the crime of terrorism instead of rebellion. Whereas the terrorist uses methods such as the sacrifice of innocent civilians in pursuit of his cause, the traditional rebel refrains from doing so. After all, in his attempt to overthrow the government, the traditional rebel desires to win over the populace to his cause. And yet, if the rebellion is reasonably successful so that widespread and extraordinary fear and panic results, he would, under the HSA, be guilty of terrorism, and not simply of rebellion or insurrection. The definition, as a result, is over-inclusive.

Next, the second element of the crime indicates that the “condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace” is merely an effect of the criminal act. This is counterintuitive. On the contrary, the very intent of the act must be to create that condition. This distinction is critical.

Clearly, the intent of the Light-A-Fire or MILF terrorist, in the paradigm examples above, was to create widespread and extraordinary fear and panic; however that was not realized, since most of the populace went about their daily lives largely unaffected. Consequently, their crimes would not, under the HSA, be classified as acts of terrorism. The definition, as a result, is also under-inclusive.

The point just made needs further emphasis and clarification. It is not necessary to the crime of terrorism that widespread and extraordinary fear and panic are successfully sown and created; it is enough that the fear and panic were intended by the terrorist for the crime to have been committed. Otherwise, acts normally considered terrorist in character would not be punished as acts of terrorism.

Support the US sex-slave resolution

Support the US sex-slave resolution

The Democratic Party-dominated US House of Representatives has passed a resolution pressing the Japanese government to apologize officially to Asian women forced to become sex slaves by the Japanese military during World War II. These are the so-called comfort women.

The United Nations, recognizing the claims of Asian NGOs, accepts the fact that some 200,000 young women—13 years old and older—from mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and other East Asian countries were abducted or forced to serve in officially sanctioned, established and managed houses where they were systematically abused by Japanese soldiers in need of sexual release.

In the post-WWII war-crimes trials of the Tokyo tribunal, forcing women to perform sexual congress with Japanese soldiers was not among the charges against the Japanese. As a result, the “comfort women” issue never came up. It was not until the 1990s when the complaints of the, by then, dwindling group of Japanese military victims, became widely known.

Silence on the issue allowed the Japanese government to ignore the comfort women’s call for justice and demands for compensation.

The Japanese authorities argued that rape was not a war crime until the 1949 when the Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted.

They also tried to deflect the complaints against the Japanese military authorities by claiming that it was civilians, not military officers, who had gathered the women to serve in the soldiers’ bordellos.

Korea was Japan’s colony from 1910 to 1945. The 1965 Japan-Korea agreement required a payment of US$800 million to the Korean government in loans and grants. In return the Korean government agreed not to demand further reparations.

Japan claims that the agreement disallows private claims because the Korean government has been paid. The Korean government denies that claim and has declassified the agreement to prove to Koreans that the Japanese statement is false.

But in Japan, no private WWII Korean victim is allowed to sue the Japanese government unless Tokyo declassifies the agreement. In March lawyers of Korean victims went to court petitioning for the declassification of the agreement.

Also last March, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had obscenely stood firm on the protestation that the World War II Japanese military authorities were not guilty of forcibly using Filipino and other Asian women in official sex houses. “There was no coercion such as kidnappings by the Japanese authorities. There is no reliable testimony that proves kidnapping,” Abe said. He even added that economic reasons and the persuasiveness of pimps made these Asian women choose to become whores to Japanese soldiers.

That Japan’s military authorities were involved in putting up and managing these brothels for soldiers was substantiated by six official documents from Japan’s National Institute for Defense Studies. These were found and then published by Prof. Yoshiaki Yashimi of Chuo University.

In 1993 the Japanese government at last began to admit that sex slavery had happened in the Second World War. And in 1994, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama announced that the private Peace and Friendship Exchanges Foundation had been founded to deal with the comfort-women issue.

International, including Philippine, associations of victims refused to cooperate with the organization. They knew it was again an effort of the Japanese government to avoid responsibility and liability. The victims declared: “We want our honor back, not charity.”

UNCHR’s recommendations

THE UN Commission on Human Rights has recommended a list of measures the Japanese government should take to solve the problem:

It should acknowledge that the Japanese military violated international law; it should make a public apology to all the women; it should pay each victim a cash compensation; it should change the Japanese schoolbooks and curricula so that the true facts of history are taught; it should publish all the documents relevant to this issue and ferret out and punish those involved in this crime.

It was only in 1996 when the Chinese delegate to the UN officially spoke of the need for Japan to pay compensation to the comfort women or sex slaves.

Preparing for the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, women’s groups in Asia, Europe and North America formed a united front in publicizing the demands that the Japanese government apologize and pay compensation to the sex slaves.

The Japanese authorities had tried to prevent the US House of Representatives from passing its resolution. Tokyo instructed the Japanese ambassador in Washington to say that the resolution would not be beneficial to Japanese-American relations.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki also made his displeasure publicly known when he said that, “The Prime Minister personally informed the United States of our position during his visit to that country in April. We regret to say that the resolution was approved despite that.”

Meanwhile, human rights and women’s organizations in Japan are launching a campaign to demand apologies and payment to the comfort women from their government.

We Filipinos should support these movements in every way we can.

TV as a reflection of society

TV as a reflection of society

WHAT appears on television in most countries is a useful reflection of what topics are on the mind of the people and what is considered socially acceptable.

Both Philippine and Brazilian television have current shows that reflect similarities in outlook that come from being developing and Catholic nations.

In Brazil this month I watched the country's most popular telenovela "Paraiso Tropical" (http://paraisotropical.globo.com) which airs on the country's largest TV network Globo. One of its main characters is a social-climber prostitute called Bebel played by Camila Pitanga. She was originally supposed to be an evil "contravida" [villain], but her struggle to lift herself out of prostitution by snagging a rich husband is being viewed positively by a majority of the show's viewers, making Pitanga one of the show's and country's hottest new stars.

In a newspaper interview the head writer of "Paraiso Tropical" said that he and the other writers of the telenovela were surprised that Bebel turned out to be such a favorite of the viewers. But in a country like Brazil where there are so many poor people, and the gap between the rich and poor is still so large, is it no wonder that viewers identify and root for a character such as Bebel?

In the Philippines, ABS-CBN television is embarking on a similar “telenovela” [TV soap] with the launch of "Margarita."

So far only teaser ads are being shown, but it seems to be the story of a female dancer torn between loving two men a la "Burlesk Queen." Starring Wendy Valdez of “Pinoy Big Brother” fame, I'm sure Margarita will undoubtedly pull herself out of the sleaze of nightclubs and into a better life, only to be eternally haunted by her fleshy origins. But the new telenovela is not getting very good previews, even though no one has seen any episode of it yet. One Filipino blogger said: "Brace yourself for crappy acting from the lead stars Wendy, Bruce and Diether on July 30."

ABS-CBN is launching "Margarita" as a replacement for their martial arts, science-fiction telenovela "Rounin," which has been a dismal failure with viewers.

Obviously, television executives believe that viewers will be able to identify more with the struggles of a showgirl than with the flying fights of the characters on "Rounin."

Some commentators made a big deal when "Paraiso Tropical" launched in Brazil because it includes a gay, male couple. But they are depicted as young, professionally successful men who live together in a nice apartment. Globo said it was never going to show the couple kissing each other as it had polled its viewers and found out that the majority of Brazilians were not ready to see that just yet on their TV screens.

But Globo television has been hyper-successful in making and exporting telenovelas to countries around the world. One such weekly series, "Malu Mulher," was a huge hit when it aired in 1979. Starring Regina Duarte, one of Brazil's best actresses, as a recently divorced sociologist living in Sao Paulo with her 11 year old daughter, the show was innovative and progressive for dealing with such sensitive topics such as abortion, divorce and the rights of working women.

I was delighted to find the whole series on DVD when I was in Brasilia. I immediately bought it and watched a few episodes at home, finding that it still was excellent even 28 years after it first aired. What was amazing to me was the bold dialogue of the characters, especially given the fact that Brazil then was still under a military dictatorship and all television shows were closely scrutinized by government censors who strictly monitored programs for anything they could consider immoral or subversive.

If only Philippine television could produce something similar, instead of the dopey programs that networks currently churn out.

Emergency powers

Emergency powers

It’s an emergency, so President Arroyo is said to be considering asking Congress for emergency powers to deal with the drought. Farmlands are parched, threatening the country’s food supply, and low water levels in reservoirs are threatening power supply.

Mrs. Arroyo will not be the first Chief Executive to seek such emergency powers, which Palace officials emphasized would depend on whether the amount of rainfall would increase in the coming weeks. Fidel Ramos was given emergency powers by Congress shortly after he assumed the presidency in 1998 so he could put an end to the worst power crisis to hit the country. Ramos succeeded, quickly ending the eight-hour blackouts that had crippled Metro Manila for months and sent foreign investors packing to cooler climes.

But the emergency measures did not come cheap. Unable to absorb all the power generated by independent producers, consumers bore the burden of excess energy in their monthly bills. Such consequences must be considered as President Arroyo mulls asking Congress for emergency powers to deal with the drought.

There is another consideration: the use of emergency powers should not provide opportunities for state abuse or corruption. If any project requiring substantial financing will have to be undertaken quickly, the officials in charge should resist the urge to earn fat commissions in the process. From poll automation to airports and a government broadband deal, major projects in this country tend to end up tainted by scandals. Even if the drought persists, there is valid reason for critics to be wary of granting any form of emergency power, especially to an administration with a track record for the inappropriate use of its existing powers.

Yesterday lawmakers crossed party lines to oppose the grant of emergency powers. There may no longer be any need for such powers; weather experts said the drought could be over in a month. The reactions to the proposal should remind the administration that emergency powers are supposed to provide short cuts in decision-making during periods of national calamity. They are not supposed to pave the way for undermining the law.