Red's Herring

SC review imperils Mindanao peace process

2008-08-18T12:49:00.009-04:00

The future State of Bicol per Senate Joint Resolution No.10 (SR 10) will have greater powers than the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity proposed in the MoA-AD (the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, now under scrutiny by the Philippine Supreme Court.)

The senate resolution, to begin with, expressly permits Bicol, subject to certain conditions, to secede or dismember itself from the Federal Republic contemplated in the senate scheme. Additionally, under the same initiative that was introduced by 12 senators in April 2008, Bicol, as well as 10 other proposed states, will possess, among other powers, the following: 1) Exercise powers the Federal government shall not exercise because they are reserved to the individual states; 2) Enter into trade relations with other countries; 3) Grant reprieves, commutations and pardons, remit fines and forfeitures concerning crimes committed against state legislations; 4) Enact laws relative to agriculture, agricultural lands, flora and fauna, mines, mineral resources, gas, gas-works, water, water supplies and water power; 5) Establish courts for the governance of its indigenous populations; 6) Organize and maintain civilian police forces, local prisons and reformatories; 7) Create autonomous regions consisting of provinces, cities, municipalities, and geographical areas or alter the same and be responsible for the defense and security of those regions; 8) Pursue local development in the utilization of mineral, marine and aquatic, forest and other natural resources; 9) Engage in local and international trade and commerce to attain self sufficiency and progress; and 10) Incur foreign loans to fund state or local government projects.

The main justification given in the “whereas” clauses for the move to transform the present unitary arrangement into a federal system allowing these awesome grant of powers to the states: the “lopsided arrangement has spawned a host of problems including massive nationwide poverty to runaway insurgencies and rebellions that feed on the societal inequalities in the nation.”

Still, some people are calling the SR 10 “crappy,” although thus far no one is publicly claiming that the 12 senators who introduced the resolution had conspired to commit culpable violation of the Constitution or treasonous acts. The reason, arguably, is simple: congress, of which the senate is a part, is expressly authorized by the Constitution to initiate whether inconsiderable or radical constitutional reforms of the present setup. So therefore, while SR 10 is blatantly ultra constitutional (to repeat, the resolution allows any region proposed therein to be organized as a sovereign state and secede from the republic), it is not unconstitutional. Moreover, at this stage of the senate-initiated constitutional reordering, the action of the senators is essentially political and therefore beyond the pale of judicial review.

By comparison, what is the basis of the presidential power to wage war, conclude peace or make treaties or executive agreements? Basically, it is the president’s power as commander in chief of the military.

Now, while the president shares with the senate the power to make treatise or international agreement, she (or her alter egos) alone negotiates or adopts bargaining inducements, devices or strategies that may lead to a final compact of peace.

Decades of armed conflict in Mindanao have already cost more than a hundred thousands human lives and the dislocation of more than a million. In the political give and take of the delicate and complicated Mindanao peace process, the president, and none other, is supposed to be the “sole organ” to do the communicating and negotiating and as such may rely on a large reservoir of inherent and extra-constitutional powers of the executive to serve the public interest. In so doing, she may pursue political pragmatism or go as far as push the constitutional envelope (for example, ignore Philippine claim of Sabah for peaceful co-existence and trade relations with Malaysia, or, as in the instant controversy, sit in the peace table and negotiate with armed rebel group MILF to prevent further bloodletting among brothers and pave the way for national economic progress).

In certain extraordinary situations, the president may in fact employ the classic Lockean prerogative “to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of law or sometimes against it.” (Emphasis mine)

These only mean that, as in the matter of the MoA-AD that has generated raging nationwide discourse and public anxiety, even the senate (the president’s treaty-making partner under the Constitution) cannot meddle with this (negotiation) aspect of treaty making or of forging executive agreement in the same way that the court cannot interfere with the decision of congress or the senate to introduce ultra constitutional resolution it deems appropriate to institute structural or systemic change in governance.

Let me ask this question again: If we grant that the SC can prevent a peace negotiation via a temporary or permanent injunction to forestall a perceived dismemberment of the national territory, doesn’t it follow that, if the president dillydallies, the court can also order her to recover a lost ground or territory, inflict punitive action or conduct an all-out war to win peace?

The legal answer to the foregoing challenge is almost commonsensical: while the political branches of the government and the people directly may pursue political acts and decisions ultra-constitutionally, an unaccountable judiciary is always constrained to act within the constitutional box. It has to be so since in so far as the court is concerned, the Constitution is a read-only document notwithstanding judicial indulgence at times in “creative jurisprudence” (e.g., the invention of “substantive due process” by the US Supreme Court to protect corporate rights or of “constructive resignation” by the Philippine Supreme Court in the case of President Estrada’s ouster through People Power II, to pave the way for an intra-constitutional succession of governmental powers). However, even in “judicial activism,” the court is weighed upon by the very nature of its constitutional obligation to always anchor or fasten its reading of the Constitution strictly to the existing constitutional framework.

Beyond legalism, there are pragmatic reasons why the classic view that executive power is restricted to enforcing the law and that the judiciary may oversee such enforcement does not apply when it comes to military (and foreign) affairs: 1) the need for secrecy, and 2) the president has access to information that may not be available to the judiciary (or congress) such as conditions and political dynamics on the ground or details in operations that cannot be shared without jeopardizing those operations. In these areas, the political judgment of the executive may not be replaced by judicial discretion, the president being accountable only to the public as a whole.

It is therefore blatantly irregular for the judiciary (the supposedly apolitical, publicly unaccountable and the least informed of the three branches of the government) to step in at the crucial negotiation stage for the Mindanao peace settlement or, in the guise of judicial review, actively participate in such a decidedly political matter by constraining the President, temporarily or permanently.

If the public offers stiff resistance to the MoA-AD and forces the president to scrap it, so be it. The SC however may not arrogate the same prerogative without violating the Constitution or needlessly imperiling the Mindanao peace process.

GMA lost her luster but is she a spent force?

2008-07-31T00:29:00.006-04:00

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) might have been swept to power by radical means but she has proven since day one to be a dyed-in-the-wool incrementalist unwilling to be a transformation agent. And quite unmistakably, if her last State of the Nation Address (SONA) is any indication, she has clung to her brand through the difficult endgame of her political career.

There were, of course, moments of Marcosian delusions as in the SONA 2005 when she painted a picture of a Philippine economy "poised for take off" or delivered the royal punch line of SONA 2007: "From where I sit, I can tell you, a President is always as strong as she wants to be." Today, imagine a diminutive Arroyo brandishing VAT in SONA 2008 as her giant accomplishment, or badge of victory, and still got 104 times of applause while a great mass of the Filipino people is either going hungry or raring to jump the ship of state at the slightest prospect.

But, the true state of the nation based on official government data, according to Dr. Ceilito Habito, former Socio-Economic Planning secretary, shows "declining school enrollment rates, more school dropouts, rising hunger, worsening health, declining peace and order, diminishing hope for the future, and more."

Backtracking momentarily will remind us that within days of the triumphant EDSA II rebellion, GMA did not equivocate to temper the mode of the time by putting everyone on notice that her "administration will resist the temptation to take adventurist initiatives and directions for the sake of appearing to be innovative."

During the formative period of the Arroyo presidency, then still ardently contested by Joseph "Erap" Estrada, the rogue kingpin ousted from Malacañang by EDSA II, she's stuck to her billing quite openly although rather coyly: "I have no grandiose ambition of being great," she pleaded. "I just want to do my work well. I don't want magic. I just want to be 100 percent right - morally right."

The convent-bred reluctant rebel has however lost her La Aunor luster and the "progressives" of the EDSA II coalition, whom she co-opted, when they realized she could neither have, indeed, the audacity to aspire as a charismatic political magician (who could bring about a sea change and make the big and tough decisions to whisk away the long-standing malaise facing the Filipino people) nor the plain moral ascendancy to govern. She naively mislaid the first one by intentional default; the other, by some buried character flaw she preferred to characterize as "lapse in judgment."

If we draw a boxing analogy, the Filipino people, while seemingly magnanimous, if not simply oblivious, of the no-magic rope-a-dope of GMA, have seen for the most part the "Hello, Garci" scandal as a mortal blow sending her flat to the canvas up to the eighth count and, because only of a biased referee obdurately adhering to sheer technicality, she was saved by the bell. Since then, she's been on the survival mode in the remaining few rounds. And as the dramatics of SONA 2008 indicates, she seems tiring but comfortably backpedaling and dancing around although no one is really actively pursuing her in the ring.

The probing questions then are:

Why has Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gone the distance delivering her eighth SONA and not her defense (while in the dock for various misconducts in office and breaches of public trust that make Erap, her convicted predecessor, look like a petty plunderer)?

Is Arroyo really a spent force or in fact the force to be reckoned with, the sought-after "golden girl" in yet another mega bout?

She may not be a magician, but what is the secret formula of her staying power?

A Ces-pool of Lamitan

2008-06-14T10:08:00.009-04:00

Some profit from war or from a permanent state of war materially or ideologically.

For instance, post WW I several investigations in the US Congress were conducted in connection with the charge in a series of publications that certain bankers and merchants encouraged the US to get involved in the war so that they could make money or protect interests in loans and weapon sales to England and France.

Only recently, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has rebuked the Bush administration in his best selling memoir What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception for using propaganda to mislead the American public and sell the Iraq War. That the war is otherwise “unnecessary” according to McClellan but for the “grandiose objective of reshaping the Middle East as a region of peaceful democracies” is no surprise to many. What seems new in McClellan’s tell-all is the claim that the (liberal) media has been easy on Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq “that pushed (his) presidency off course.”

As an early critic of the Iraq War, I have pointed out in a commentary that the Philippine media had a better reason to gag itself on the follies of Marcos than the US media on the failings of Bush:

During the second Gulf war, dubbed as “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” CNN repeatedly maligned the UN as a “talk shop,” echoing President George W. Bush’s own belittlement of the UN as “irrelevant” or “a mere debating society” even as Bush used Iraq’s alleged violations of UN resolutions as the fig leaf for the “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq, thus the perception that the “embedded” media censored itself out of servility; on the other hand, during Marcos martial law, the tyrant simply coerced the Philippine media into muzzling itself or into extolling what Marcos wanted the Filipinos to believe about the Bagong Lipunan (The New Society).

But during President Estrada’s all-out war in Mindanao, University of the Philippines journalism professor Luis Teodoro scored Manila broadsheets for failing to provide the “contextual information” for the public to understand the Mindanao crisis, a problem that could have been exacerbated by news reports and comments “(fomenting) anti Muslim prejudices through hate articles.”

Remember Lamitan?

At mlq3’s blog, I have recalled the Lamitan fiasco (in connection with the July 2007 ambush in Basilan of a military convoy where reportedly 14 Marines looking for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi were killed, 10 of them beheaded) in the following:

Helsingin Sanomat and The Boston Globe produced a joint report showing that both the Philippine military and government have been involved in a cover-up over Lamitan incident that took place in June 2001. The tragedy, a web of collusion between the AFP, Abu Sayyaf, local warlord and blood money, claimed several innocent lives.

At that time the question raised was whether the AFP is even interested in getting rid of the Abu Sayyaf Group.

Eye-witnesses to the incident have recounted that ASG leaders managed to escape from the Lamitan siege by fleeing to safety from a high-walled hospital complex that was surrounded by AFP units.

Hours after the “Great Escape,” the AFP launched an attack on the complex, with only civilians inside.

A ransom of 25 million pesos was paid to secure the release of hostage Reghis Romero II and two others. According to a friend of Romero and a catholic priest, the money was split among the ASG, the military and some politicians.

Pedro, a commenter at mlq3’s site, was similarly blistering in his response to my above post:

There was a question that was asked back then, asking why US military and humanitarian assistance always come in the form of equipment and expertise instead of funding or cash. Of course the question was answered in a politically correct way so as not to offend, but everybody in the US side including the local audience knew what really was the answer. A little bird told me that ransom payments between Abu Sayyaf and the AFP during combat patrols become hard to pull off when armed US visitors are tagging along (out of shame I suppose). Information has been coming out about AFP military hardware and ammunition being sold to various groups.

Now, of late, the decibel of the Mindanao conflict, raging on and off since 1978, has reached new levels as peace negotiators from Manila and the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front have expressed fears about the possible collapse of a five-year old ceasefire. The apprehension is about the expiration by the end of August this year of the mandate of the International Monitoring Team (IMT) to oversee the ceasefire. The IMT is made up of foreign facilitators that have been monitoring the peace talks since 2003 when it was signed. The team is also supposed to administer the final peace agreement if forged.

The greater part of the IMT representations is from Malaysia. The Malaysian contingent has however announced its intention to withdraw from the multilateral team apparently because of disappointment with the slow progress of the peace process. What’s bogging down the negotiation is the lack of consensus on the definition of “ancestral domain” that will affect the control of areas in southern Philippines by the Muslim group as well as the operational conception of the Bangsamoro. The trust level among the parties has taken another low when the Manila representatives have indicated supposedly being hamstrung by certain requirements under the Philippine constitution in addressing these contentious issues.

Is the media interested this time to know and inform the public whose intransigence it is that’s making the road to final peace bumpy?

“Despite the injuries, fatalities and damages done to private citizens, property, and business, the never ending cycle of ceasefires/peace talks and resuming military action has always been the norm,” Pedro has wryly concluded in our exchange.

Bear in mind again that the Senate inquiries into the Lamitan disaster have found “strong circumstantial evidence” of collusion between the AFP and the Abu Sayyaf Group. Now, about the kidnapping of the ABS-CBN news team led by TV anchor Ces Drilon (and Mindanao State University professor and peace advocate Octavio Dinampo), there’s unsettling report in Inquirer.net that looks like Lamitan redux:

The hired driver of television reporter Ces Drilon and her crew has claimed to police that a known “military agent” and not members of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group abducted the ABS-CBN team, the Sulu police chief said . . . .

Meanwhile, Manolo Quezon’s raves on the news embargo requested by Drilon’s employer, which the government has broken, are equally chilling: “Which makes the illogical behavior of the government logical only if you assume (as I do) that there are hawks in the administration happy over any mayhem in Mindanao.”

Dosen’t this post-release recollection by Arlene de la Cruz, another journalist kidnapped in January 2002, offer precious insights?

In the next few days, they kept asking me about the ransom. The torment only subsided when they turned me over to another group around the first week of February.

The uneasy calm allowed for some conversation between me and a man named Lakandula, one of their leaders.

“When will you, reporters, stop writing stories about the fighting in Sulu? Is that all what you reporters are after?” Lakandula then wondered aloud. “You write your report and that’s it. It’s all just work for you. Is that it? Just another ‘scoop’ from Sulu?”

I remember the two of us having this exchange inside a hut, and outside we could see a group of women passing by.

“Do you see those women, their children? Every day they have to walk for several kilometers to draw water from the river. Why? Because they don’t have a source of water near their homes . . .

“Haven’t you thought of how you can help them?”

In an op-ed piece of mine that was published by Inq7.net on June 15, 2001, I believe to be in the same state of mind as Arlene’s (in recounting her conversation with Lakandula):

Peace is achievable in Mindanao if there is a collective change of attitudes of all the parties concerned. First of all, total victory by either side is impossible. If it were, the war would have been won or lost long, long time ago.

I personally perceive an institutionalized culture of bias by the Christian majority, whether in the region or in imperial Manila, against the Muslim minority. The attitude seems rooted in basic human relations.

Now that the peace process is being reinitiated, the Philippine government must come to the peace table with the full realization that it cannot win an ethnic war against the Moros. On the other hand, the Moros must recognize that it cannot win a war of secession against the Philippine government. Not in our lifetime.

‘Philippines has much to teach the world’

2008-05-11T23:34:00.007-04:00

The relevant exchange in FilipinoVoices runs thus:

ANTHONY: I think the difficulty here is that when you scratch beneath the surface, you find that the concept of a nation as a distinct and unique collective is artificial.

After all, the rise of the Nation State came hand-in-hand with the rise of industrialisation and capitalism. It was the mechanism to create artificial bonds between disparate ethnic groups, giving them a shared sense of identity. This collectivisation happened to be most efficient way of mobilising enough people to create wealth during the industrial age.

ABE: I agree that the state is neither universal nor natural, but an ideological construct for the most part; what’s even more apparent is that the power that has personified (or fabricated) the state is the same power that is attempting to demystify, delegitimize or deconstruct it, again, as you said, in the service of wealth. Now, would it help the disempowered individual to resist the reverse process? If not, why should the individual simply go with the flow (or get equipped for the paradigm shift, if you will)?

ANTHONY: For centuries, we have learned to equate culture and identity with the Nation. Now, in a world of the multinational corporation and supranationalism, we’re forced to reassess what this means. As Chuck’s post displays, people still draw comfort in the permanence of their Nation. In reality, Nation States are struggling to remain relevant as their powers are being rapidly eroded by global corporations and supranational bodies. For example, just last month European Union laws drafted in Brussels affected how loud traditional bagpipes can be played in Scotland.

Abe asks if the disempowered individual should resist. We cannot. There are such huge forces in play that resisting will only lead to the annihilation of one’s values. What we must do, as all successful cultures have done, is adapt. In nature, the species that resists environmental change becomes extinct; cultures are no different.

However, culture and traditions cross national boundaries; they transcend the Nation State and need not die with it. Ironically for the Philippines, our disadvantages and failures as a nation has given us a head-start in this new landscape. The Filipino ‘OFW global workforce’ is a sign of things to come as more people leave their countries in search for jobs. The Philippines has much to teach the world about this new style of living.

We must also learn quickly to capitalise on this ‘first mover advantage’. While we spend our time with insular bickering about governmental failures, others are catching up. To put things in context, approximately 90k to 100k Filipinos have settled in the UK over the last three decades. During that time, we have stayed largely underground, our groups mirroring the same divisive squabbling as can be seen in the Philippines. On the other hand, in the 5 years since Poland’s accession to the European Union, around 1 million Poles have moved to the UK. They are making their presence felt and once again Filipinos risk being relegated as insignificant.

What in effect I am postulating is that both nation-state and a “world of the multinational corporation and supranationalism” are not something given, but constructed by those with the power to do so for a reason and therefore the concept (or process) could be deconstructed or reconstructed also for a reason either by the self-same power to further their interests or by those whose ends are not thereby served or in fact jeopardized in the wake of it.

On the juristic (legal) level, a parallel could be drawn between the conception of the state and that of the (private) corporation, an artificial being no less bestowed by law with certain attributes of a person than a state personified by being invested with a mind and a will of its own. So, if the legal rationale fades out or lapses (e.g., the law is abrogated), what actually break the surface are real people socially relating to each other, or working and collaborating together (and I agree with BenignO that they may not be forged as one identity by some hollow symbolisms like Manny Pacquiao; commonality of purpose may be enough).

The artificial entity, it is well to note, is not just legitimized by a statute or by some agreed upon international legal arrangement, it is also reinforced by a belief system. If we look back at history, the myth of the territorialized nation-state has supplanted another myth, the open and frontier-less kingdom of the absolute monarch. The belief system then was that the king was supposed to have unchallenged authority (sovereignty) because his power was derived directly from God. The Devine Right of Kings was however undone when the struggle for parliamentary democracy was won by once disempowered individuals.

It needs to be underscored too that while we are certain the tectonic transformation of the global village is happening, its consequences are still very problematic. For one, are the winners so far outnumbering the losers? What are the negatives in terms of plain ethics: Does supranationalism value life the same way irrespective of nationalities? Or, supranationalism notwithstanding, to what extent the interests of “our” nationals should be promoted or protected at the expense of “their” nationals? How serious is the concern at this point to reconsider the locus, indivisibility or indispensability of sovereignty, or, just like Divine Right of Kings, consign it to oblivion (forget about it)?

The question then is not that “we cannot” resist as inevitable the paradigm shift but more appropriately whether we are unwilling or not to exercise the choice to tame or undo it. For if there is emerging a so-called “network of Empire” (of powerful nation-states in combination with supranational institutions and transnational corporations) poised to rule over a new global order, there is also a “movement of peoples” that is materializing as a countervailing force. In the Philippines, we also call the latter phenomenon as People Power.

Come to think of it, if the Blacks in the United States, together with certain enlightened members of the White establishment, dared not struggle to end slavery and the slave economy but simply gave in to “adapting” to their realities, would there be a Barack Obama today?

Please don’t get me wrong, though. An older commentary below about our town in Bikol, a portion of an op-ed piece of mine published by Inquirer.net about six years ago, perhaps shows my concurrence with, rather than divergence from, Anthony’s discourse:

In a microcosmic sense, Iriga (etymologically, y raga, meaning “upland” or figuratively, “there’s opportunity”) was a land of promise to the folks of an older settlement. Apparently goaded by some appreciation of economic topography, the more adventurous settlers of the lowland saw the opportunity to trek up and form a new community. Historically, therefore, Iriga was a land of émigrés, a town built upon the pioneering spirit of its forebears, driven by the hope for greater autonomy. Little wonder then contemporary Irigueños, probably still motivated by such a sovereign zeal, are strong believers in equalitarian values exhibited in a manifold of ways that many would often take for granted.

The Iriga of my childhood welcomed anybody who would want to intermingle with the descendants of the town’s forerunners and its indigenous people. The ever present Chinese and the mestizos, some of Russian, German, Japanese, even Jewish ancestries, and the scions of the “Castilians,” not to mention, of course, the travelers and adventurers from neighboring towns. Nonetheless, the “centro” people called each other “guy” irrespective of status. The pervading communal conception was thus one of inclusiveness and mutual respect in the face of a healthy climate of competition.

In my view, the foregoing enlightenment, so to speak, allowed the fruition of multifaceted talents and abilities, and spawned a wellspring of aspirations and ambitions among the growing cosmopolitanized Irigueños, which, unfortunately, the town’s resources could not accommodate or absorb. Like their founding ancestors, the unsinkable Irigueños had to look for another y raga, or a land of superior opportunities, first in the megapolis of Manila and suburbs, and then even in more distant climes.

The irony is that North America, the favored expatriation of many, as well as Australia, was once a place of banishment where European labor, who couldn’t sell their skills in the market during the early phase of industrial revolution, had been ostracized to go, the better skilled craftsmen having been forced into the burgeoning factories principally in England. In recent years in Iriga, however, a reverse phenomenon—which is quite endemic in the Archipelago—has been taking place. More and more of the “best and the brightest” are lured to leave for the beckoning “upland” in an exodus of some kind because there are no factories, offices or hospitals in town to tap their craftsmanship and expertise with commensurate remuneration. Like other countries whose endowments are natural resources and the human constituents, the adventurism (or, perhaps, abnegation) of the latter would prove to be heroically significant in a lot ways, more particularly in keeping the struggling ship of the nation afloat. The Diaspora of Irigueños, and many other Filipinos for that matter, in different regions of the world, is therefore both a blessing and disguise.

Today, one of the challenges in our rapidly transforming global village could be how to create new meanings and purpose from such our state of affairs. Or, how to avail of the scientific and technological advances that are continuing to shrink both time and space, and turn our situation of physical dispersion to our favor.

In retrospect, Filipinos in exile during Rizal’s times, had taken advantage of the liberal ideas in Spain to hone their cosmopolitanism and proved that given the opportunity they could rise easily to be equals with their “masters.” It was also during this period when the conversation about which course to pursue to attain “emancipation”—either through reforms within the existing colonial relationship with Spain or by social upheaval of the French paradigm—was deepened and polarized. There are lingering questions today whether the Filipino Diaspora, generally speaking, is a reaction to some insurmountable obstacles to reaching rising expectations, such obstacles as anachronistic societal relationship, population growth, technological divide, blighted discipline, geographic fractiousness, prolonged experience of dependency and marginalization, or the ineptitude of self-seeking elites, to cite only those already recognized by some scholars, self-serving or otherwise.

As expatriates ourselves, we have the practical edge of critically looking at certain things that are occurring in our adopted countries from the perspective of our native culture and sub-cultures vis-à-vis our economic, political and demographic structures. Now, which ones do we choose to let go, or intend to preserve, capitalize on and impart? In an age of connectivity and information as wealth, there is an excellent window of opportunities to enrich our exchanges or share our social, cultural and other experiences with one another, and with our compatriots from a geographically distant town we still love to call home.

Man does not live by rice alone

2008-04-30T16:48:00.008-04:00

True, man does not live by rice alone, but democracy can really get problematic when the great mass of sovereign particles cannot get past subsistence level to be free from want. So when the needy bargain with their votes or go blindly by the bidding of their political lords (because power over basic needs is power over will) the free expression of the sovereign will is violated.

This is where we're stuck today: The Philippine economy is not growing enough to create surplus not only to provide and hold economic safety nets but also pay for certain essential infrastructure, physical and social, such as a meaningful program for a high-quality universal education in order to produce a large population geared up for a modern economy and an enlightened citizenry, the essential ingredient for a working democracy.

Creating the good society that democracy aims to pull off often involves a decision to conserve long-held beliefs, values, traditions and institutions, or, otherwise, revolutionize them. Whether to undergo transformation or not, it could be driven either by fear of a change for the worse or by hope for the better. Those with something or so much to lose will most likely lean toward conservatism and those with little or nothing to lose but their blighted station will veer toward radicalism. There are however well-intentioned individuals from across the political and social spectrum who will not shun adventurism to experiment on other pathways to progress.

At this stage of nation-building however, the burden of resolving, sans violent upheaval, the economic scarcity the country is facing is upon the laps of those with effective power or those who have access to various institutional sources of power. These powerholders are essentially the society's elites, who may have experienced some sort of Pauline conversion in secular sense, the way Filipinos in diaspora have been to some extent remade attitudinally, having been uprooted into new ways of doing things.

The change agents could in fact be new breed of productive men who must feel relatively deprived, not materially but morally, because they are challenged (or humiliated) out of individual and national pride for being elites in an economic basket case. Once this self-importance or sense of country is stirred, the decision to attain modernity will come easier such as on what approach to take in employing the country's resources to attain economic growth and development or how to allocate the economic surplus if and when created, depending on what ways of thinking they are willing to keep or unsettle. Even more specifically, on whether goods and services should be produced according to the autonomous decision of the individual wealth producers and entrepreneurs or government bureaucrats and specialists drawn in into those decisions in the context of public/private sectors coordination or partnership?

The looming "rice crisis" in the Philippines that threatens to destabilize the Arroyo government anew if it spins out of control is one such instance where the critical choice should have been decisively made long time ago. Today, the continuing breakdown of imagination is a telling reminder of failure to marry proven traditional practices with science in order to transition to modernity. We need not fall for or completely write off some doomsday "conspiracy theories" about giant corporate seed breeders controlling the food chain. Still a successful strategy for sustained agricultural surpluses in the area of rice production (possibly in conjunction with the development of the extractive sector) can be understood to pick up a good portion of the bill for the transition (e.g., foreign exchange from rice exports and similar agricultural supplies would help meet the need for imported capital goods necessary for industrialization).

If the political and entrepreneurial will on the part of those with effective power and resources held sway, there ought to be no excuse, given our equivalent natural and human resources, not to be competitive with rice exporting countries like our peers Thailand and Vietnam. But as it is, we are faced today with the humiliating reality of having botched big time to achieve and maintain food security for our growing population if only, at minimum, to keep their human dignity, or beyond which, for rational and free citizens of a surplus society to be actively involved in dealing with the many human problems that impact the system.

On the other hand, when only a handful of people perpetually hold power over the necessities of the many, our democracy, any democracy, is gravely imperiled.

The Hitlerian misadventures of Ferdinand Marcos that have turned upside down what's left of our democratic experiment and whose profligacy has vastly contributed to the morass we are in today will continue to haunt many Filipinos. Interestingly, however, it was during Marcos that the highest productivity level in agriculture has been observed. Since then, we have yet to see any substantive agenda to revolutionize our agriculture in terms of productivity-enhancing investments, such as research and development and infrastructure buildup. Any such policy redirection has apparently been eclipsed by the strategic focus on labor export and ultimately blindsided by the lure of OFW remittances of enormous worth. Now, in response even to this phenomenal stimulus, what novel ways of doing things have so far been agreed upon and pursued with a view to generating internally economic surpluses?

In the face of tendentiousness in favor of the old rent-collectors and money capitalists, real estate-based entrepreneurs and shopping mall taipans, without creating an adequate manufacturing base, general economic abundance and positive liberty for individuals in the service of democracy are unlikely to come about in the immediate future. Certainly, not when the legitimacy of the present political leadership remains in question.

Is the SC clueless of the meaning of legislative oversight?

2008-04-14T23:17:00.009-04:00

The following is in part what the Supreme Court of the Philippines has held in Neri v. Senate Committee about the meaning of “congressional oversight” as earlier expounded in Senate v. Ermita:
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At the outset, a glimpse at the landmark case of Senate v. Ermita becomes imperative. Senate draws in bold strokes the distinction between the legislative and oversight powers of the Congress, as embodied under Sections 21 and 22, respectively, of Article VI of the Constitution, to wit:

SECTION 21. The Senate or the House of Representatives or any of its respective committees may conduct inquiries in aid of legislation in accordance with its duly published rules of procedure. The rights of persons appearing in or affected by such inquiries shall be respected.

SECTION 22. The heads of department may upon their own initiative, with the consent of the President, or upon the request of either House, or as the rules of each House shall provide, appear before and be heard by such House on any matter pertaining to their departments. Written questions shall be submitted to the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives at least three days before their scheduled appearance. Interpellations shall not be limited to written questions, but may cover matters related thereto. When the security of the state or the public interest so requires and the President so states in writing, the appearance shall be conducted in executive session.

Senate cautions that while the above provisions are closely related and complementary to each other, they should not be considered as pertaining to the same power of Congress. Section 21 relates to the power to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation. Its aim is to elicit information that may be used for legislation. On the other hand, Section 22 pertains to the power to conduct a question hour, the objective of which is to obtain information in pursuit of Congress’ oversight function. Simply stated, while both powers allow Congress or any of its committees to conduct inquiry, their objectives are different.

This distinction gives birth to another distinction with regard to the use of compulsory process. Unlike in Section 21, Congress cannot compel the appearance of executive officials under Section 22. The Court’s pronouncement in Senate v. Ermita is clear:

When Congress merely seeks to be informed on how department heads are implementing the statutes which it has issued, its right to such information is not as imperative as that of the President to whom, as Chief Executive, such department heads must give a report of their performance as a matter of duty. In such instances, Section 22, in keeping with the separation of powers, states that Congress may only request their appearance. Nonetheless, when the inquiry in which Congress requires their appearance is ‘in aid of legislation’ under Section 21, the appearance is mandatory for the same reasons stated in Arnault.

In fine, the oversight function of Congress may be facilitated by compulsory process only to the extent that it is performed in pursuit of legislation. This is consistent with the intent discerned from the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission

Ultimately, the power of Congress to compel the appearance of executive officials under section 21 and the lack of it under Section 22 find their basis in the principle of separation of powers. While the executive branch is a co-equal branch of the legislature, it cannot frustrate the power of Congress to legislate by refusing to comply with its demands for information. (Emphasis supplied.)

The availability of the power of judicial review to resolve the issues raised in this case has also been settled in Senate v. Ermita, when it held:

As evidenced by the American experience during the so-called “McCarthy era,” however, the right of Congress to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation is, in theory, no less susceptible to abuse than executive or judicial power. It may thus be subjected to judicial review pursuant to the Court’s certiorari powers under Section 1, Article VIII of the Constitution.

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My original reaction to Senate v. Ermita was a play of words: “An oversight on oversight.” The pun was of course meant to play up the Court’s “careless error” (oversight) in understanding the scope of congressional “watchful care” (oversight) of public policy execution. Why the highest court of the land appears clueless (twice) about legislative oversight really boggles the mind considering that two incumbent members of the Court have been outstanding former members of the Congress, Justice Tinga (a three-term congressman) and Justice Nachura (a two-term congressman).

Legislative oversight is broadly acknowledged as a long-standing process inherent in the power to make laws exercised by Congress basically through its various committees. Any congressman or senator who deserves the title ought to be familiar with this very important legislative task the essential purpose of which is to ensure the government is held accountable for carrying out the letter and the spirit of the law the legislature enacts.

Oversight is in effect a monitoring function of the vast public policies emanating from Congress written in statutes that are oftentimes deliberately general. A good example is the Labor Code of the Philippines, which because of its rather broad structure still necessitates the promulgation of a more detailed Omnibus Rules Implementing the Labor Code to enforce effectively the legislative policy on labor. The idea behind what some would claim as amounting to a “re-delegation” is to explore not what the implementing agency must do but what it can do under the law to accomplish its intent. The legislature in turn keeps an eye on this implementation phase of the law through oversight.

On the other hand, Senate Bill No. 1793, introduced by Senator Mar Roxas, entitled AN ACT SUBJECTING TREATIES, INTERNATIONAL OR EXECUTIVE AGREEMENTS INVOLVING FUNDING IN THE PROCUREMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS, GOODS, AND CONSULTING SERVICES TO BE INCLUDED IN THE SCOPE AND APPLICATION OF PHILIPPINE PROCUREMENT LAWS, AMENDING FOR THE PURPOSE REPUBLIC ACT NO. 9184, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT REFORM ACT, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, is an example of an attempt to enact a law to give Congress an oversight leverage in terms of enhancing or reinforcing the implementation of existing laws.

The most familiar aspect of oversight involves legislative inquiry or investigation in aid of legislation. The inquiry may refer to a specific legislative proposal (or in aid of making law in the strict sense of the term) or extend to any and all matters vested by the Constitution in Congress; or it may be conducted to probe government inefficiency, corruption, fraud or abuse to inform itself in the formulation of policy on those areas of public concerns. The investigation is not deemed misused regardless of whether it results in actual legislation or not. In this sense, legislative inquiries in aid of legislation as expressly provided under Section 21, Article VI of the Constitution serve as a tool of the broader implied oversight power of Congress in similar way that the contempt power of Congress works as a tool of its investigatory power.

Another essential, and probably the most efficacious, legislative oversight tool is the power of the purse. By employing this oversight mechanism, Congress can curtail or increase funding for a governmental agency, or reduce its personnel or expands its functions, as may be warranted. It is in this sense that heads of departments on their own initiative may appear before Congress for “question hour” pursuant to Section 22, Article of the Constitution on matters pertaining to their departments such as to explain the need for departmental budgetary changes.

The congressional confirmation of the presidential appointments involving heads of executive departments, ambassadors and officers of the armed forces from the rank of colonels is an oversight function of no insignificant worth but it is oversight nevertheless. So is the oversight that takes place whenever members of congress consult with their constituencies to obtain information that may form part of their committee reports or be availed of in congressional debates.

Oversight, which comes in many other forms than congressional inquiries in aid of legislation, takes up a lot of legislative time and is often observed as being improperly used for grandstanding purposes or gaining sound bytes by some ambitious politicians. It is perceived as counterproductive sometimes or perhaps most of the time. One thing is however certain: the scope and meaning of legislative oversight are not confined only to the so-called “question hour” under Section 22, Article VI of the Constitution as the Supreme Court had boldly pronounced in Senate v. Ermita and then reiterated in Neri v. Senate Committee.

How could the Supreme Court miss it twice?

The first time, it is possible the Court may have committed an “error of judgment” which is not punishable per se; the second time, it is as not as easy to justify the voluntary ignorance as other than a political decision by a partisan court, a judicial misconduct liable to rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

Transparency mandate on foreign loans trumps executive privilege

2008-04-09T21:14:00.004-04:00

According to Justice Holmes “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience,” because the “law embodies the story of a nation’s development.”

Many salient provisions of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, such as those dealing in human rights, accountability, transparency as well as the curtailment of presidential powers on the one hand and the expansion of congressional authority and the protection of judicial independence on the other, are lessons learned from the national experience of licentiousness and abuse of power during Marcos misrule.

Because of the strongman’s seemingly untrammeled profligacy, for example, the Philippines has become one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world and a laggard economy in the region.

It is quite explicable then that when it comes to contracting foreign loans under the post-Marcos constitutional regime, the President and Congress are not co-equal, the return to the presidential system notwithstanding. By express constitutional provisions (Section 20, Article VII) the authorization allowed the President to incur foreign debt remains subject to the limitations as Congress by law may provide, thereby according Congress a seniority position in this power relation between the two government branches.

But plain constitutional governance also supersedes legislative control over foreign loan disclosure requirements by the very absence in the Constitution of legislative authority to limit disclosure. Pursuant to Section 21, Article XII “Information on foreign loans obtained or guaranteed by the Government shall be made available to the public” without any limitation or qualification. This rigid disclosure requirement can be better appreciated if juxtaposed with the “right of the people to information on matters of public concerns” under Section 7, Article III, which while constitutionally “recognized” is “subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.”

What is more, in the tripartite partnership among the President, the Monetary Board and Congress in the matter of contracting or guaranteeing of foreign loans created by Section 20, Article VII in relation to Section 21, Article XII, the President occupies a status even junior to the Monetary Board. Accordingly, the “President may contract or guarantee foreign loan . . . with the prior concurrence of the Monetary Board” (indicating the requirement of the Board’s concurrence before initiating loan negotiation)(emphasis mine) and “in accordance with . . . the regulation of the monetary authority.” By contrast, no such prior Senate concurrence is required when it comes to the validity of a treaty or international agreement entered into by the President.

Such control mechanism in place is again understandable from the standpoint of the same dreadful experience the nation is still smarting over. For instance, the largest single debt of the Philippines was for the financing of the Bataan nuclear power station, a white elephant constructed during the dictatorship at the cost of $2.3 billion. The station has never been in operation and the country has struggled to repay the loan for over three decades.

The strategic switch in the now “cancelled” national broadband network (NBN) project from a built-operate-transfer (BOT) arrangement (which normally does not require direct government funding) to a scheme financed by a government foreign loan has been attended by testimonies of overpricing, bribery and a $70-million “commission” for Jose Miguel Arroyo, the presidential spouse. The scandal is reminiscent of the dubious change of heart in the selection of the contactor for the Bataan nuclear power plant from General Electric (whose lower bid had already been approved by a Marcos-appointed panel before being reversed by Marcos himself) to rival Westinghouse marred by charges of some $80 million kickbacks for Marcos.

We can never afford to have a short memory of a tragedy yet so fresh because even the younger generations of Filipinos of today are still paying for the faintheartedness, apathy and canine submission of our elders.

The cogency is thus inevitable in the proposition that if in the overarching constitutional architecture of disclosure and transparency, the general rule is the right of the people to information on matters of public concerns, and an exception to the rule where applicable is the doctrinal executive privilege, an obvious exception to such an exception is the specific constitutional mandate on disclosure of information on foreign loans. Very sadly, the majority of the Court in Neri v. Senate Committee by protecting presidential secrecy has voluntarily ignored in toto the all-important constitutional distinctions with potential consequences of crisis proportion.

Neri, a landmark ruling if held on half a page

2008-04-04T17:14:00.012-04:00

No frills, Neri v. Senate Committee should have been a cut-and-dry case.

The essential FACTS and ALLEGATIONS are not complicated:

The testimony of Romulo Neri, former NEDA Director General, before the three Senate committees was to the effect that President Arroyo to spare the government from funding the proposed National Broadband Network (NBN) project had been first amenable to undertake the said project on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) arrangement; it was however put aside to give way to one financed by a government-to-government loan to be obtained by the Philippines from China. Over other competitors, the project worth $329.48 million, now better known as the NBN-ZTE deal, was ultimately awarded to ZTE, a China owned corporation.

Of all the people in the Philippines, the highest election official of the land, COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos - who had been alluded a number of times in the “Hello, Garci tapes” - appeared to have brokered the deal and offered Mr. Neri 200 million pesos in exchange for NEDA’s approval of the project. Mr. Neri informed President Arroyo of the bribe offer but Arroyo did not immediately order the investigation of the “crime” directly reported to her by Mr. Neri or cause the prosecution of Abalos. Arroyo however told Mr. Neri not to accept the bribe. At such point and thereafter, Mr. Neri has refused to answer further questions from members of the committees about what he and the President talked about invoking executive privilege.

Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr, an erstwhile NEDA consultant who reviewed the NBN project testified before the Senate committees that the project was overpriced by $197 million and accused Abalos of demanding a $130-million “commission” from the project.

Jose De Venecia III, the son of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., also testified before the Senate committees that the President’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo told him to “back off” from pursuing the project. De Venecia III co-owns Amsterdam Holdings Inc, which submitted a losing proposal for the NBN project.

In his testimony, De Venecia III further claimed that Mr. Arroyo wanted a $70-million “commission” from the project.

Following the testimony of Mr. Neri, three more important events happened: 1) The foreign loan was cancelled together with the NBN project; 2) Abalos quit as COMELEC chairman; and 3) Arroyo admitted over dzRH radio that she had been advised about the irregularities in the project the day before she witnessed the signing of the NBN-ZTE deal in China. (NOTE: The executed NBN-ZTE contract was also reportedly stolen.)

The ISSUE: Whether or not Mr. Neri should be required to answer more questions about the NBN-ZTE deal than he has already made available to the public despite his invocation of executive privilege?

What are NOT AT ISSUE: 1) That the President and other high-ranking executive officials, by established constitutional doctrine, are entitled to “executive privilege” to withhold information from Congress, the courts and the public, subject to constitutional limitations. 2) That by express provisions of the Constitution, Congress or any of its committees, have the power of inquiry in aid of legislation or by time-honored congressional practices and traditions and established constitutional doctrine the power of oversight, both powers being similarly subject to constitutional limitations.

The RULING (that never was):

The issue being thus narrowed, the APPLICABLE LAW is straightforward:

“Foreign loans may only be incurred in accordance with law and the regulation of the monetary authority. Information on foreign loans obtained or guaranteed by the Government shall be made available to the public.” (Section 21, Article XII of the Constitution)

The foregoing provision is an express constitutional limitation to the doctrinal executive privilege developed in American jurisprudence. The limitation is operative regardless of whether the information on foreign loan is being demanded by an ordinary taxpayer, the Monetary Board, or by Congress or any of its committees in aid of legislation. When it comes to information on foreign loans obtained or guaranteed by the government, judicial decisions of alien origin upholding the claim of executive privilege but are inconsistent with the constitutional requirement of disclosure are without force and effect. For how could a decision of an inferior foreign court modify an unmistakable constitutional mandate?

Under pain of penalty, Mr. Neri may therefore be compelled to disclose more information about the NBN-ZTE deal than he has already made available to the public despite invocation of executive privilege.

Postmortem ANALYSIS: Executive privilege encourages presidential unilateralism. When used against legislative oversight, the privilege serves to veto policymaking at its very inception. Why did the majority in Neri in the effort to uphold executive privilege choose to play blind to the clear language of accountability and transparency in the Constitution?

Neri, en route to judicial despotism

2008-04-02T16:04:00.008-04:00

(This piece originally a reaction comment at mlq3’s blogsite is re-posted here, slightly edited, for easy reference)

I remember excusing myself from an invitation of Manolo Quezon to participate in the discussion on “separation of powers” in his talk show. However, I did draw his attention to a constitutional issue I had had a chance to delve into in an older commentary regarding the implication of the so-called expanded certiorari jurisdiction of the Philippine Supreme Court under Section 1, Article VIII of the Constitution as construed today by the justices. I was referring to the Court’s “judicial power” as defined in the said constitutional provision as including “the duty of the courts of justice to settle actual controversies involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable, and to determine whether or not there has been a grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction on the part of any branch or instrumentality of the Government.” (Italics mine). The suggestion was meant to express my apprehension about the potential for “judicial despotism” in the Philippines in the long term rather than the resort to Marcosian authoritarianism by President Arroyo in the short term.

I have pointed out in my commentary that Section 1, Article VIII is the realization of a singular mission of Mr. Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion (“Mr. Rule of Law” himself). The former Chief Justice’s hope, grown out of his unfortunate experience as chief justice, was to obviate another Javellana scenario wherein his brethren in robes conveniently have chosen to evade, on “political question” pretense, their judicial “duty” to rule on transcendental constitutional matters such as the adoption of a constitution.

Today, instead of a prescription for judicial duty, Section1, Article VIII is emerging as an alarming source of seemingly unlimited judicial powers, with the Supreme Court effectively transforming itself as a branch of government more equal among co-equals.

The Court had brandished a couple of times before this self-branded expanded certiorari authority, but in the most recent Neri v. Senate Committee decision, it brought out the monster out of the cave to cripple a coordinate branch of the government, or even encroach upon textually committed constitutional functions of the Senate or three of its committees.

To follow at this point Mr. Quezon’s painfully nostalgic drift to legal history, it should be noted that judicial review or the scope of judicial powers for that matter is actually vastly unsaid in the US Constitution. But Alexander Hamilton defended it in the Federalist papers during the campaign for ratification of the US Constitution, by arguing that “the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them” unlike the executive who has the “sword” and the legislature the “purse.”

“The interpretation of the laws,” according to Hamilton, “is the proper and peculiar province of the courts” although he was also among the first to call such function an “arduous a duty.” The plea was characteristically Hamiltonian. He was countermajoritarian (i.e., anti-people power) and during the constitutional convention, delegate Hamilton was quite straightforward about his preference for a constitutional aristocracy, if not monarchy. Luckily for the Americans, none followed his lead, well, not until Chief Justice Marshall’s exercise in applied politics in Marbury v. Madison (1803), essentially a plagiarized version of Hamilton’s arguments.

Constitutional democracy in America was then in its infancy and yet taking place on a trial and error basis. One of such costly errors was the Court’s decision 50 years after Marbury in Dred Scott v. Stanford (1857). In Dred Scott, it was ruled that black people were not US citizens (because they were in fact not humans but property), heightening the political tensions that attended the American Civil War. The horrible cost was more American lives lost in the fratricidal war than in World War II.

Abraham Lincoln was among those vocally wary early on of “judicial despotism.” During his inaugural address in 1861, Lincoln assailed Dred Scott: “ . . . if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers . . ..”

Quite afflicted by the Lincolnian angst as a result of some recent disturbing pronouncements by the Philippine Supreme Court (Estrada v. Desierto, Francisco v. House of Representatives, Santiago v. Comelec, Lambino v. Comelec and Senate v. Ermita) as a student of Constitutional Law I have welcomed the following corrective measures: Make easier the constitutional requirement for people’s initiative, referendum and recall and make judges, lawmakers, political parties, professional politicians and the laws and the Constitution responsive to changing necessities of our own time instead of fawning deference to American jurisprudence, a flawed “jurisprudential colonial mentality” (to borrow the fighting words of Senator Meriam Santiago).

Neri v. Senate Committee is just another exercise of such “jurisprudential colonial mentality,” in a manner so degrading our Court is even willing to substitute a decision of a US court of appeal for what’s expressly mandated by our own Constitution.

Neri, a culpable violation of the Constituion

2008-03-31T23:29:00.003-04:00

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, Ateneo de Manila law dean and an authoritative Philippine Constitutional Law commentator, is simply diplomatic in stating that the implication of the majority decision in Neri v. Senate Committee would be to “revolutionize the doctrine on executive privilege.”

On the other hand, the Hon. Artemio Panganiban, the former Supreme Court Chief Justice, is almost apocalyptic in finding the Neri decision to have “unreasonably suppressed the truth” and warning the justices against choosing “to serve . . . President Arroyo” or otherwise earn the dishonorable tag as the “Arroyo Supreme Court.”

When push comes to shove however and what’s teetering on the precipice is the very foundation of our democratic institutions, ought not Filipinos of the stature of Bernas and Panganiban do more and call a spade a spade? The message would certainly be heard louder if what’s said in unison is: That the judicial misconduct by the majority in Neri amounts to “culpable violation of the Constitution” and therefore constitutes impeachable offense.

Why not?

Panagniban is unequivocal that the Neri majority has ignored the “constitutional mandate requiring transparency and accountability of officials” and instead invoked and applied foreign jurisprudence that’s “simply inapplicable” (the greater part of which, if I may add, is a decision of a U.S. court of appeals).

On the other hand, for Bernas “the ponencia (ruling) that the matter was covered by executive privilege” could mean no less than “to sublimate guesswork.” Indeed, Neri v. Senate Committee while may not be a doctrine as yet is a “paralyzing and stifling” decision, Bernas, the Court’s most wanted amicus curiae, evidently suggests further.

Won’t the Court fire a lower court judge for disregarding clear constitutional mandates or basing on guesswork a decision the effect of which is to “cripple efforts to battle official corruption” or to seek the truth about such corruption rending a nation already financially strapped? This time, what’s inside the envelope the “Negotiable Nine” have denied the public to know?

For such an assault on the Constitution and the very foundation of Philippine republicanism, a motion for reconsideration as the next course of action would be a copout for Congress. But initiating impeachment proceedings against the erring justices will afford an opportunity to let out the folly of the unfortunate decision they arrived at in the comfort of their secret chambers.

Or, at the very least, the Senate can call the Palace bluff or threat of a constitutional crisis that may result from all and any of its proceedings or activities including legislations being rendered null if traceable to the supposedly infirm Senate Rules.

And by the way, where are the “fast draw” impeachment competitors, Lozano and Pulido?

Neri v. Senate, a bad decision

2008-03-26T23:02:00.012-04:00

[Neri v. Senate Committee] is really bad decision. It pays lip service to the doctrines laid down in Ermita and expands executive privilege to the detriment of legislative inquiry and right to public information. - by Prof. Edwin Lacierda (per mlq3)

In an earlier entry, I have submitted that the Supreme Court in Francisco, Jr. v. House of Representatives has practically crippled the impeachment process by adopting the Bernasian reading of “initiate” under Article XI, Section 3 of the Constitution in lieu of the interpretation of the House of Representatives, and taking up what it supposed as its “activist” role, declared such interpretation of a coordinate branch, contained in the House Impeachment Rules, unconstitutional. Under the impeachment gun then was Hilario Davide, Jr. and so the robed gang huddled together and quite expectedly hailed their Chief - at the expense of the Constitution. Francisco, I concluded, is therefore the father of Lozano and Pulido.

Now, Senate v. Ermita can also say, “Here, have a cigar, we have sired a son … in Neri v. Senate Committee.”

Because the father had misspoken, the son lost its way, and unabashedly acknowledged being befuddled. The majority in Neri conceded:

Senate v. Ermita ruled that the “the oversight function of Congress may be facilitated by compulsory process only to the extent that it is performed in pursuit of legislation.” It is conceded that it is difficult to draw the line between an inquiry in aid of legislation and an inquiry in the exercise of oversight function of Congress.

I had the chance here to analyze Senate v. Ermita in re Section 21 and Section 22 of Article VI of the Constitution as follows.

The power of inquiry provided under Section 21 of Article VI is just one specific source of the totality of the congressional oversight authority [other sources include a) the power to reorganize the government bureaucracy, including the executive and judicial agencies, b) the power of taxation, c) the power of appropriation, d) the power of impeachment, e) the power of confirmation, f) the power to declare war, and g) the power to raise and support the armed forces]. In this case, the power of inquiry is employed as a tool to carry out the oversight function just as the subpoena and contempt powers are availed of as mechanisms ancillary to the same function. It is not therefore correct to suggest that the oversight power is of lesser consequence than the power of inquiry.

Section 22 of the same Article VI is one other source of the oversight authority of Congress. The Supreme Court in the Senate v. Ermita, adopting the characterization of then constitutional commissioner and chairman of the Legislative Committee Hilario Davide, calls Section 22 as the provision on “Question Hour”. Such interpretation is not mistaken except that this section, it should be noted, underscores more the interdependence of the two political branches of the government than their separation (hence, its rather non-obligatory or “discretionary” nature by contrast with Section 21). The same section acknowledges the privilege of the heads of the executive departments to appear, with the consent of the President, and be heard by Congress on matters pertaining to their departments (as, for example, in a request by a department head for enhanced powers or greater funding for his department).

In the overall scheme of the oversight function of Congress, Sections 21 and 22 of Article VI are not only complementary but, to borrow Davide’s words, “very, very essential” to each other.

In the light of the constitutional conception and overriding reach of congressional oversight, the Supreme Court lacks firm grounding in the following explanation it has provided in the said Senate v. Ermita case:

Sections 21 and 22, therefore, while closely related and complementary to each other, should not be considered as pertaining to the same power of Congress. One specifically relates to the power to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation, the aim of which is to elicit information that may be used for legislation, while the other pertains to the power to conduct a question hour, the objective of which is to obtain information in pursuit of Congress’ oversight function.

When Congress merely seeks to be informed on how department heads are implementing the statutes which it has issued, its right to such information is not as imperative as that of the President to whom, as Chief Executive, such department heads must give a report of their performance as a matter of duty. In such instances, Section 22, in keeping with the separation of powers, states that Congress may only request their appearance.

Nonetheless, when the inquiry in which Congress requires their appearance is “in aid of legislation” under Section 21, the appearance is mandatory for the same reasons stated in Arnault.

Policymaking on the part of Congress is well-nigh plenary. It is then axiomatic that the presumption of acting responsibly and constitutionally is strongly in its committees’ favor precisely because of the equivalent breadth of the oversight function in the policymaking process. This function preponderates over against the possible invocation of the so-called “executive privilege” - one that has yet to find expression in the explicit language of the Constitution.

Very clearly, executive privilege can only be invoked by way of exception. So when the executive officials fail to show that the privilege is “of such high degree as to outweigh the public interest,” as Senate v. Ermita ruling describes it, in the disclosure of the supposedly privileged information, congressional oversight, as a general rule, will trump an appeal to the supposed privilege. In that event, contumacious defiance and refusal to disclose the information sought or needed by Congress for legislative purposes renders the withholding official liable to its contempt process and the attendant punitive measures. Indeed, Congress, acting through its committees, need not rely upon the all-too-measured judicial pace to exercise the ultimate power of oversight and thereupon employ the necessary enforcement tools.

I did mock the Senate then when it dashed to the SC like a cry baby complaining about EC 424, this way:

Now, given that “in republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates” (James Madison, Federalist No. 51), one wonders why the congressional committees easily backed off (unless of course the committee members have been clueless what’s in their wallet) when President Arroyo upon a claim of executive privilege issued Executive Order 424 and the Senate itself immediately repaired to the Supreme Court to complain as if its subpoena and contempt powers were suddenly whisked away by the order like candy bars snatched by a “schoolyard bully.”

This time the bully is in the Court’s yard. For the majority in Neri, while pretending to sing paean to “the fundamental constitutional principles which underlie our tripartite system of government,” has ultimately decided, invoking the Court’s so-called expanded certiorari jurisdiction under Section 1), Article VIII of the Constitution, to clip not just one particular checks-and-balances mechanism expressly committed by the Constitution to a co-equal branch but also effectively encroach into the very core of the power of Congress, the power to make laws.

Needless to state, when the Court proceeds to nullify an act of a co-equal branch, especially the most representative of the three branches, it should only do so when the unconstitutionality (or grave abuse of discretion) is shown to be so manifest as to leave no room for reasonable doubt because even a court of last resort must also confess the limits of its own powers. Therefore, whenever an act of Congress is rational it must be presumed to be regular and constitutional and the Court must respect the great range of legislative power or discretion whether in legislating or interpreting the constitution by leaving it unperturbed in the absence of moral certainty as to its infirmity. In like fashion, Congress should not by law interfere in the way the Court arrives at its decisions or in the deliberation over its cases, or in the manner the Commander-in-chief for instance prosecutes a war against an enemy because one power or the other does not belong to it but to a co-equal branch.

By force of this logic, there was no reason for the Court in Neri to unnecessarily try to import its own judgment at the very inception of legislative process or of initiating remedial legislation and waste its own time, when it could have easily conceded that on the hand the President is entitled to executive privilege (to withhold information requested by other branches of the government) by established constitutional doctrine and that on the other the Senate or its committees by express provision of the Constitution have the power of inquiry in aid of lawmaking (which includes the power to probe into government agencies to expose corruption).

Considering however that Mr. Neri himself, without seasonably invoking the supposed lack of proper publication of the Senate Rules, already testified under oath before the joint Senate committees that he had been offered a “bribe” of 200 million pesos (“Chairman Abalos offered me 200 million for this,” Mr. Neri has testified) involving the incurring of a foreign loan, it would have been logical to look in the Constitution for express exception or limitation not to the congressional power of inquiry but to the invocation of executive privilege. Section 21, Article XII (National Economy and Patrimony) provides such express limitation to the executive privilege of non-disclosure where it states: “Sec. 21. Foreign loans may only be incurred in accordance with law and the regulation of the monetary authority. Information on foreign loans obtained or guaranteed by the Government shall be made available to the public.” (Italics mine.) Perforce executive privilege must give way to such a categorical mandate of disclosure in the plain language of the Constitution.

Dismissing forthright the petition of Mr. Neri would have been the simple end of the matter since neither the President nor the Supreme Court is above the Constitution.

Jesus and People Power

2008-03-21T13:16:00.012-04:00

In Why People Power III is taking its time, I’ve wrapped up with a reminder that “Ecclesiastics and the laity alike must not fail to remember that the continuing appeal of Christianity as a powerful religious upheaval and of People Power is due to the historical reality that both have given hope to the many who were once powerless.”

On the other hand, Manolo Quezon’s pointed entry on Roman Catholicism vis-à-vis charges of possible abuse of pastoral authority by certain bishops in the Philippines (prompting NBN/ZTE deal star witness Jun Lozada to call the Archdiocese of Cebu as the “Archdiocese of Malacañang”) has come to highlight the historicity of the Church hierarchy and papal primacy:

Catholicism is a hierarchical religion, and administratively, organized under imperial Roman lines, one of the Pope’s titles being that of Supreme Pontiff (Pontifex Maximus), one of the titles of the emperors of Rome; archbishops and bishops rule of over dioceses, a term borrowed from the administrative setup of the Roman empire. Spiritually, it is organized on both a hierarchical and collegial lines, as bishops are successors of the Apostles, of whom the first among equals was Peter:

“And I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock will my church be based, and the doors of hell will not overcome it.”

As a religion that happens to have a government, the governing power of Catholicism is exercised by the Pope in a political sense (as sovereign of the Vatican City state), and in a spiritual sense, by the Pope together with the bishops. In matters of faith and morals, the Pope is infallible when proclaiming dogma: for example, Pius XII’s proclamation of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as dogma; infallibility is also granted the hierarchy of the Church when they gather in Ecumenical Council for the same purpose, for example, most recently, Vatican II.

But there was of course a period of decadence in ecclesiastical hierarchy and authority when bishops, even popes, were drawn into royal service or forced to an interweaving of ecclesiastical and royal authority, or when the Church in fact saw its division into dioceses and individual parishes well-nigh lapsing into popular Christianity.

More recently, there have been profound changes initiated by progressive leaders of the Roman Catholic Church weighing down on the scaffold of the Church’s culture of hierarchy that the Philippine Church (and other Catholic conservatives) might have failed to catch on.

For example, the idea of workers empowerment has been attributed to an Englishman named Eric Trist, considered to be the “evangelist for participative management.” Challenging the conventional wisdom about the imperative for “autocracy” in business concerns, Trist suggested that giving workers complete responsibility for an entire operation could lead to job performance that is more productive. It was also a challenge directed to “scientific management” which Henry Ford perfected in the U.S. automobile factories. The concept of empowered work team, however took root in the U.S. only in the 70s and 80s, and only after the Second Vatican Council had begun preparation in 1959, the most important achievement of which could be the empowerment of the laity and the parallel cutback in the power of the clergy and maybe the magisterium itself.

At the Second Vatican Council, among the progressive documents enacted by the fathers is the “Dogmatic Constitution of the Church” (Lumen Gentium) which, inter alia, called the lay people to share the missionary vocation of the church and described the church as the “People of God.” Another Council document, the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” has promulgated the principle of greater participation of the laity in the celebration of the mass. The Council also enunciated the apostolate of the laity.

The monarchical underpinnings of the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) that proclaimed the infallibility of the pope when speaking ex cathedra somehow deferred, following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), to the increasing role of the bishops (versus the papal prerogative of infallibility) even as the textual modification of the Canon Law paved the way for the recognition of the expanding role of the laity, Chapter III of Lumen Gentium, affirming the hierarchical structure of the Church notwithstanding.

The notion of “shared responsibility,” “co-responsible leadership,” and “decision-making by consensus,” became intertwined with the progressive construction of the Canon Law provisions, as modified by the Second Council, on “pastoral (parish) councils” long before those terminologies became fashionable in the world of business, management and political discourse.

Pope John Paul II in Sources of Renewal, a book he wrote about his experience at the Second Vatican Council, articulated the following:

“. . . A parish needs a council in order to insure that it is truly faithful to God’s call. Catholics have always cherished the idea of obedience and fidelity to God’s word spoken in and through the Church. It is that same Church that is calling its people now to listen for God’s words spoken not only through the leadership, but through fellow Christians as well. But to hear that word spoken through the people requires a new structure, a new way. A council united with the pastor provides by design that way, because its representative nature insures that every voice is heard, not just those that are the loudest, or the most powerful or the most traditional. ”(Italics mine.)

Expounding on the same vein in his book, Co-responsibility in the Church, Leo Joseph Cardinal Suenens, who helped set the agenda of the Vatican II, wrote:

“. . . The role of the one in charge is not that of making a ‘personal’ decision after taking the advice of others into account. For in that case it would still be ‘his’ decision. His role is rather to make it possible, in so far as this depends upon him, for there is to be a common decision, which commits each member to the decision, in such a way that they are solidly behind it and willing to accept all the consequences of what has been decided together.”

Many Christian faithfuls recognize in the gospel narrative that the first to rebel against Hierarchy was Jesus himself. Despite being Divine, Jesus came down not as a conquering King but as a steward to serve and not be served, to ransom as many men, to “go on to the nearby villages” and to build the rock, one Peter at a time.

Christianity triumphed not only for the fact that it accepted all believers (rich, poor, woman, Samaritan, Jews or gentiles); it also returned the power of hope to the powerless.

Compared to Arroyo, Spitzer deserves respect for chutzpah

2008-03-15T17:59:00.011-04:00

Reacting to the Eliot Spitzer bombshell I have posted the following in mlq3’s blog:

Rising star Eliot Spitzer who could have been Hilary Clinton’s running mate, announced his resignation as governor of New York on allegation of spending thousand of dollars on call girls. Prostitution is basically a victimless crime but Spitzer, way before a “probable cause” has been determined or “legal truth” established, resigned for failing to live up to the standards expected of public officials, he said.

Politically, Spitzer is deemed finished.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has faced a staggering list of corruption charges including the following as compiled by Philippine Daily Inquirer:

“The Impsa deal where high-ranking officials, including then Justice Secretary Hernando Perez, allegedly got $14 million in kickbacks; the P260-million Jose Pidal bank accounts; the P728-million fertilizer scam; the P2.5-billion poll computerization contract which was voided by the Supreme Court but for which no Comelec official has been prosecuted or penalized; the NorthRail and SouthRail projects entailing millions of dollars in kickbacks; and now, the $329-million NBN-ZTE deal where $130 million was reportedly earmarked in kickbacks for a group of officials and private persons.”

Arroyo’s political body language is seen by many as choreographed to prolong her rule beyond constitutional term limit.

Is it us, Filipinos, or Gloria?

And in reply to the comments of rego, a Filipino New Yorker and both a Spitzer fan and a pro-GMA commenter, I posted, “I’m just thinking too that maybe in the deeper recesses of your thoughts, weren’t you wishing na nag-Gloria na sana si Eliot?” (meaning, Eliot should have just done a Gloria, i.e., hold on to power and not resign).

Rego retorted: “I was thinking about this when this Spitzer scandal came out. My instant reaction was Eliot should resign same way with the majority of the people. I have this discussion with my cousin in law (another big fan of Eliot) who feels that Eliot should not resign. The evidences was just soooooo strong that my stand prevails in the house.”

I came back with this rejoinder:

Let me focus on Manolo’s original sin.

During the 2004 presidential election in the US there were charges of electoral fraud or cheating to the effect that about 350,000 mainly Democratic voters in Ohio either were not allowed to vote or their votes were not counted and that thousands more of Kerry votes were shifted to Bush, altogether enough for Kerry to have won Ohio and the presidential election.

If the evidence to prove the allegations of fraud and cheating were a video clip of hundreds of registered Democratic voters waiting outside the voting precincts for 10-12 hours (and many who were frustrated eventually left home without voting), I’d hold my horse to claim those were “solid” evidence of the charges.

However, if you have a wiretap evidence of Bush (or someone uniquely sounding very much like Bush) telling an Ohio election official to prevent 500,000 Democrats from voting and then 10 of Bush’s cabinet members (with whom he had confided as to how to handle the crisis or what to do with the evidence) have resigned out of disgust, would you consider the wiretap evidence “solid” enough to establish “probable cause” not necessarily of fraud or cheating but of “betrayal of public trust” to be worth the consideration of an impeachment court?

In such a situation, would not your “instant reaction” or your cousin-in-law’s, “same way with the majority of the people,” have been for Bush to resign before being impeached as fast as Spitzer having resigned before being indicted?

Let’s look back a bit.

A couple of weeks before the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s “lapse in judgment” admission, sociologist and UP Professor Randy David (applying what he calls in sociology as "ethnomethodology" that goes into “the rational characteristics of conversations”) had come out with the following analysis of the “Hello Garci” tapes in the June 12, 2005 piece for his PDI column “Public Lives”:

The key figure is a male voice variously referred to as "Commissioner" or "Garci." It was obviously his phone that was bugged. By the types of situations brought to him for fixing, by the variety of people desperately seeking his help, and by the frightening ease with which he dispenses solutions-one would know that this man is an old hand in the underworld of electoral fraud.

He knows exactly where to pull additional votes and for how much, and how to deal with recalcitrant election registrars who don't cooperate. Politicians come to him for help like anxious little children. They rely on him to do all the dirty tricks they need to do to win, things they themselves would sanctimoniously decry in public.

This is the political operator that "Ma'am" repeatedly calls as she nervously awaits the results from far-flung towns in Mindanao. Listen to this cryptic exchange: "Hello Ma'am?/ Hello, meron tayong statement of votes, ERs para sa Sulu?/ Saan po Ma'am?/ Sulu, Sulu./ Oo Ma'am meron po./ Nagco-correspond?/ Oo Ma'am./ Kumpleto?/ Oo Ma'am. Lahat ho meron, hindi po namin ika-count kung.... / Ok, ok."

On the surface it does look like an innocent exchange. The key word here is "nagco-correspond" - a gloss that refers to the practice of fixing canvass results at, say, the provincial level so that they are not at variance with precinct election returns or statement of votes for municipalities. The other gloss is the question "Kumpleto?" This is not a harmless inquiry. Given the kind of response it elicits, it is an urgent demand to make sure the doctoring is done with care.

One knows this from examining other conversations: "Hello/ Hello, Ma'am, good morning. Ok Ma'am, mas mataas ho siya pero mag-compensate po sa Lanao yan./ So will I still lead by more than 1 M overall?/ More or less, but it is still an advantage, Ma'am. Parang ganun din ang lalabas./ Oo, pero it will not be less than 1M?/ Pipilitin ho natin yan. Pero, as of the other day, 982./ Kaya nga eh./ And then, if we can get more in Lanao./ Hindi pa ba tapos?/ Hindi pa ho. Meron pa hong darating na 7 municipalities./ Ah, ok, ok./ Sige po./ Ok, ok, ok..."

The Counsels for the Defense of Liberties (CODAL) has contended the contents of the conversations in the "Hello Garci" tapes are crimes in themselves:

CODAL arguments as summed up by PCIJ in the following abbreviated version are equally compelling:

- Pres. Arroyo’s implied request for Garcillano to deny any petition from Sen. Biazon to open election documents in Tawi-Tawi ‘at baka matalo ako dun’ is a crime. Influencing an official to decide one way or the other in a case to be filed or pending before him violates Section 261 of the Election Code.

- Garcillano admitted to electoral fraud when he told Pres. Arroyo: "kinausap ko na yung chairman of the Board ng Sulu, yung sa akin. Pataguin ko muna ang EO ng Paguntaran para hindi sila makatestigo ho." A COMELEC official is not supposed to ‘hide’ an election officer or any member of the electoral board to prevent said official from testifying as this is obstruction of justice under Sec. 1 (a) of PD 1829. If the hiding was not ‘voluntary’, Garcillano may even be liable for kidnapping.

- From various conversations in the Garci tapes Pres. Arroyo and Garcillano may be held criminally liable for discussing the commission of electoral fraud. Alleged statements like ,‘ganito ang pagpataas ng iyong boto, eh malinis naman ang pagkagawa’; or "will I still lead by 1 M’ followed by a reply of ‘pipilitin natin’; or ‘Doon naman sa Basilan at Lanao del Sur ito ho yung ginawa nilang magpataas sa inyo, maayos naman ang paggawa eh" followed by a reply from Pres. Arroyo saying "so nagma-match?" all point to a conspiracy to manipulate election results.

- The fact that Garcillano and Pres. Arroyo uses the words ‘atin’ referring to themselves and ‘kanila’ or ‘kabila’ when referring to her opponents, already shows the bias of a supposedly independent constitutional official. All these makes both of them liable under Section 261 (z) (21) of the Omnibus Election Code for violating the integrity of election returns and other election documents and other electoral fraud.

- Should Pres. Arroyo claim ignorance to electoral fraud, the fact that she failed to report Garcillano to the proper authorities or filed a complaint against him, despite his frank admission to committing election offenses and by reappointing him to the Comelec, makes her liable under Art. 208 of the Revised Penal Code which provides for a penalty of prision correccional upon a public official who in dereliction of his duties, shall maliciously refrain from instituting prosecution or the punishment of violators of the law or shall tolerate the commission of offenses.

Now, the wiretap conversation where Arroyo appeared to desire for a million-vote margin over the votes of opposition candidate Fernando Poe, Jr. sparked calls for Arroyo to resign. On June 27, 2005, she went on television and apologized for a “lapse in judgment.” While admitting that it was her voice in the recordings she however insisted she did not “influenced the outcome of the election “ as it has “already been decided and the votes counted.”

Here’s the pertinent portion of GMA’s “lapse in judgment” speech on charges of electoral prostitution:

“I recognize that making any such call was a lapse in judgment. I am sorry. I also regret taking so long to speak before you on this matter. I take full responsibility for my actions and to you and to all those good citizens who may have had their faith shaken by these events. I want to assure you that I have redoubled my efforts to serve the nation and earn your trust.

“Nagagambala ako. Maliwanag na may kakulangan sa wastong pagpapasya ang nangyaring pagtawag sa telepono. Pinagsisisihan ko ito nang lubos. Pinananagutan ko nang lubusan ang aking ginawa, at humihingi ako ng tawad sa inyo, sa lahat ng mga butihing mamamayan na nabawasan ng tiwala dahil sa mga pangyayaring ito. Ibig kong tiyakin sa inyo na lalo pa akong magsisikap upang maglingkod sa bayan at matamo inyong tiwala.”

New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s “private failings” speech on allegation of sexual prostitution seems of similar vein:

“I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.

“I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that as a public servant I, and the remarkable people with whom I worked, have accomplished a great deal. There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor. . . .

“I go forward with the belief, as others have said, that as human beings, our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. As I leave public life, I will first do what I need to do to help and heal myself and my family. Then I will try once again, outside of politics, to serve the common good and to move toward the ideals and solutions which I believe can build a future of hope and opportunity for us and for our children.”

What’s obviously missing from GMA’s speech is this:

“For this reason, I am resigning from the office of president.”

Why People Power III is taking its time

2008-02-27T22:51:00.028-05:00

Philippine Daily Inquirer’s John Nery has put forth his interesting take on why People Power III is taking its time:

I get the sense that, for many members of the Arroyo opposition and even for some who did not support the calls for resignation in 2005 but now believe the President too politically damaged to be worth the trouble of saving, ‘outrage’ necessarily translates to People Power.

This is a serious misunderstanding.

After some analogous exposition of certain events that had preceded both People Power I and People Power II, Mr. Neri arrived at his denouement about why People Power III seems still unsettled or otherwise inchoate: “So, yes, we should take to the streets; we should repair to our churches; we should fill the public square. But we should let People Power take care of itself.”

On the other hand, Manolo Quezon believes, quite paradoxically, People Power “must at the same time be organized and yet spontaneous.”

Revolution is doubtless a complex subject. Scholarship on the causes and nature, gestation period and actual process, consequences and outcomes of a revolution is rich and voluminous.

A safe starting point toward a basic understanding of the meaning of the phenomenon is an explanation, acceptable to many, of the distinction between the so-called social revolution and political revolution. A social revolution, referring to the definition given by Theda Skocpol, a recognized authority on the subject, is one which occurs where there is a “combination of thoroughgoing structural transformation and a massive upheaval.” Whereas a political revolution results only in replacing a government or in altering its basic (or bureaucratic) form without transforming dominant value and belief systems, property relations or other institutions to which the people have ordinarily acquiesced, regardless of whether the change or changes were brought by the action, massive or small-scale, of a class conscious class or group such as a roused or outraged proletariat, a relatively deprived middleclass, a marginalized elite, a messianic or disgruntled faction of the military or a combination of any such class, group or faction.

The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Chinese Revolution are often given as examples of social revolution. On the hand, military intervention or takeover, coup d’etat of the Thai or Pakistani variety or self-coup of the Fujimori or Marcos version is conceivably a political rather than social reordering.

If the events that have led to People Power I (EDSA Revolution of 1986 or EDSA I) are any guide, revolutionary uprisings go through certain levels (of consciousness): First, the underlying belief by a sizeable segment of society that the rulers and certain institutional arrangements have lost legitimacy; second, certain intense participants or change agents have gotten around their sense of powerlessness and come to realize they have the power or capacity to effect the needed changes; third, the disaffected members of society have more or less formed a consensus as to the nature and or scope of the changes they desire to occur in lieu of the illegitimated rulers or arrangements, whether be it about a total systemic overhaul, a “regime change,” an extra-constitutional overthrowing of a corrupt or immoral government, etc.

My sense is that People Power III has already reached the first and second levels of consciousness described above. However, before the Great Beast “could take care of itself” today it has yet to hurdle the third level of consciousness.

For one, I have noted even the reformists in the military and the progressives in the civil society are still tentative about the scope and the nature of the changes to be sought (note should also be taken for instance that the slightest suggestion during the Manila Peninsula “uprising” that a military junta was being contemplated has not sit well with potential supporters), while other veteran people power practitioners are apprehensive the next exercise “could again end up repeating a vicious cycle of simply ‘moving on’ in circle, and not leaping onward or to a higher ground” or a “new qualitative state.”

Recall that with the Left having marginalized itself during EDSA I, establishment figures, e.g., Cory Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin, having positioned themselves at the helm of the movement and US stance having immediately switched gears (from staunch support for a dictator to a lavish tribute to the housewife in yellow), any serious expectations of radical restructuring, both in the political and the economic fronts, were effectively bridled at the first “people power” revolution. Where the Aquino government could have been regarded as having actually breached an implied promise was in the area of meaningful land reform.

The forces of old-school political economy in the domestic scene plus the external pressure emanating from Washington Consensus’ prescriptions for the many ailments germinated by the conjugal dictatorship dampened nascent aspirations for transformative reforms that had been gestating for decades. There’s however one change the participants of the EDSA I movement were in unison in bringing about – the end of the dictatorship.

If EDSA I had paved the way for the restoration of “old money” elites, the Estrada presidency just before being driven out power by EDSA II saw the return of the Marcos inner cliques and cronies (even Marcos right-hand man, General Fabian Ver who had dared to shoot down the EDSA crowd at the height of the uprising, was given a hero’s funeral when he returned from self-exile in a casket). Meanwhile Estrada was proving to be a disgrace to the hidden rules of the elite class (he was of course considered as one of them ex-officio) because of what’s thought to be as nickel-and-dime operations in jueteng payoff. But EDSA moment only took shape when the “politicized” impeachment against President Estrada (a Filipino replication of the proceeding against US President Clinton) permitted proceduralism to tamper with substantive democracy with ignominy and impunity.

The demand for a change during EDSA II therefore converged around a public awareness of a rather circumscribed issue, which was the egregious disregard by the Senate majority of the essence of Rule of Law because of callous partisanship. The gestation period of the Great Beast was then almost irrelevant since the “transforming” consensus was in fact in connection with a limited, albeit vital, goal: to make People Power democracy triumph over procedural democracy.

Now, the question once again: Why is People Power III taking its time?

My own take is: There is yet no general consensus among potential people power participants and activists, as has been in EDSA I or EDSA II, as to what change to aspire for and institute.

Arguably, proposals for reforms or transformations, at odds with each other for the most part, still abound. To cite a few: some who believe the two EDSAs were both a failure aim this time to act against a failed system and plan to overhaul it either according to some rigid ideologies or based merely on the “best practices” of ongoing successful experiments; other groups are just angry and frustrated because of “relative deprivation” (middle class weighed upon with a looming downgrade to the next class complain how come only their counterparts in other regions are having all the fun); still others are focused only on struggling for control of the state apparatuses and effecting “regime change” while keeping both the political and economic structures intact; and specifically, accused coup leader and now detained senator Sonny Trillanes is eager to transform the nation “without reinventing the wheel,” whereas Bishop Francisco Claver can only entertain the belief that “our problem comes down to this: how to correct the aberration that is the present administration without destroying the stabilizing structure that is our democratic system of government.”

Interestingly, conservative segments of Philippine society such as the Catholic Church that was a key collaborator during the two successful EDSAs have of late shown their true colors maybe fearful People Power III could spin out of control and end up challenging long-held values and myths. As a result, reactionary moves from old and once reliable alliances, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in particular, are silently taking place in the form of tokenism (a plea to President Arroyo to take lead in the fight against corruption) and diversion (a call for a new brand of People Power through “communal action”).

Ecclesiastics and the laity alike must not fail to remember that the continuing appeal of Christianity as a powerful religious upheaval and of People Power is due to the historical reality that both have given hope to the many who were once powerless.

__________

(NOTE: According to one organizer, Monsignor Gerry Santos, national capital region director of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP-NCR), the huge “Interfaith” rally on Friday, February 29, 2008, at Makati City, made up largely by youthful participants and students, was supposedly a “communal action” at the height of which President Arroyo reportedly holed up in a military camp as a precautionary measure.)

Post-People Power III: Let's hope and let's hope not

2008-02-17T00:17:00.005-05:00

For the elites at the command center in the Philippines, the “grand” design is simple and simplistic: encourage the migration of a substantial portion of the burgeoning “relatively-deprived” middle class which the local economy is incapable of absorbing.

Temporarily or permanently self-exiled, curtailed somehow are the chances for the adventuristic being homegrown into radical elements coming to full consciousness of a flawed system designed to favor only a few and therefore largely indifferent to their interests. But for these professionals, intellectuals and skilled or semi-skilled workers - as productive workforce abroad instead of idle ideologues or potential street parliamentarians at home (unless they are card-bearing members of the “move-on” horde) - demanding a systemic change becomes less of a preoccupation, to the relief of the elites.

On the other hand, the foreign exchange the heroic expatriates remit to the families they left behind (which is three times more than the much-heralded foreign direct investments (FDIs) of the pro-liberalizing Washington Consensus recipe) greatly enhances the buying power of the recipients and in turn eases up the pressure upon the domestic wealth producers, who have access to productive capital and other institutional means and sources of power, to take greater or more vigorous entrepreneurial risks. Preferring to shun less than “sure bet” ventures that create value-added, the economic elites are self-content to play it safe in the securer havens of mega malls, real estate, public utilities and paper entrepreneurships, i.e., banks, insurance, etc., offering more or less captive markets.

Pursuant to the design, the economic wheel is supposed to keep on grinding but business activities, decisions, and goals are narrow, calculated and short-term, individualistic rather than nationalistic, and the framework of competitiveness is local instead of global or at least regional.

The brutal irony of it is that wealth distribution, defying conventional economic gravity, proceeds in reverse, that is, trickling upward rather than downward to those who need it most. The gaping chasm of inequality, if not simply taken for granted or patched up with palliatives, is ultimately blamed to the victims through the imageries warped by the media power of suggestion that the elites control, which the uninitiated or the uncritical easily buy into.

What’s the relevance of these musings to another “people-powered” call, following the Jun Lozada revelation, for President Arroyo to step down?

Well, during the first shock wave of the NBN-ZTE scandal, I posted (Nov. 8, 2007) the following comment at mlq3’s blog:

My sense is that both the “reformists” in the military and the “progressives” in the civil society are somehow constrained by the possibility that even if People Power III succeed, the movement could again end up repeating a vicious cycle of simply “moving on” in circle, and not leaping onward or to higher ground. Take note for example that even rebel leader and now swashbuckling senator Sonny Trillanes has said he does not want to reinvent the wheel. But if the system or part of it is not working, shouldn’t the flawed facet be allowed to die away and make way for that which is budding and promising?

After two upheavals, the expectations are greater . . . that the next exercise of People Power would propel the transitioning into a “new qualitative state.”

The new state may be approximated by answering a few questions such as, off the top of my head, the following:

On the economic front (and this is directed more specifically to the country’s wealth creators): Why are we exporting people - teachers and young mothers like Marilou Ranario [working as a domestic helper the former teacher has been meted a death sentence in Kuwait for killing her employer who mistreated her] - instead of producing competitive goods and services that create value-added? Why has the Philippines been lagging behind its peers in the region or why a war-ravaged Vietnam is poised to overtake America’s first empire, once a regional powerhouse in the 50s and 60s?

On the political sphere: Should the process of building a working democracy be bottom-up or for the most part brought into being by the wise, the learned, the elites by the process of re-entrusting? If our borrowed democracy were redefined, should it continue to be based on some preconceived foreign notion or principally upon our own unique experience? How much power the sovereign people should retain and not delegate until public servants prove their worth?

And ultimately, the fundamental question: How much do we love our country?

So, People Power III should not just arrange to force a sitting president from power, it must “press on” to graduate from the same retrograde state the country is in.

A crucial part of the initial dialogue is the question of representation in governance where various interests should adequately be given a voice. So is the “to do list” during the first 30 – 60 days of regime change.

On the other hand, justice to those who breached the public trust should be swift, predictable yet humane but only after appropriate charges are substantiated by due process of law.

There’s plenty of work to do. Indeed, as the experience of People Power I and II tells us, removing someone from the seat of power could be the easy part.

No, EDSA is not dead. On the contrary, to borrow from Salud Algabre, each EDSA is “a step in the right direction.”

EDSA I (or People Power I) had a limited goal: to end the Marcos dictatorship that had essentially dismantled the traditional inner circles, the “old money” elites. The new trustee, Cory Aquino, thus represented the restoration of the old power. But the rise of Joseph “Erap” Estrada, a Marcos lieutenant, and of the “Binondo intsik behos” threatened anew the old elite power structures. The command center could not possibly permit an “outsider” to wield too much political power or for Erap’s midnight buddies to consolidate considerable economic power. Hence, through the media of mass communication the higher circle controls, the demonization of Erap: sugarol, babaero, lasengero at bobo. Consequently, Erap was ousted from the presidency by the EDSA II stratagem of “withdrawal of support” and “constructive resignation.”

Make no mistake about it: during both EDSAs people power and elite power rode upon each other’s back, with the latter keeping as expected the reins of the command center. There’s one notable contrast. Whereas Cory Aquino of EDSA I, at the inception of her administration, was open to a wider spectrum of meaningful reforms, GMA of EDSA II was quick to announce on the first day of office her deep-rooted conservative agenda: conserve the system for the “market-dominant minority” of economic elites.

Necessarily a part of a larger problem, Arroyo is not the economist she claims to be who sees a problematic political economy she is willing to solve. She comes out first and foremost a politician adroitly capable of being Marcosian sans martial law, prematurely thrust into power as the elites’ best wager to protect their interests and power structures. Now, as Arroyo shows signs of waning, the elites are again ready to double-bet on the People Power III crowd, hoping to package a surrogate as the people’s next champion.

A way out of Hobbesian state

2008-02-11T22:15:00.005-05:00

What’s painfully disturbing about the litany of polity-wrecking scandals that have visited the Arroyo regime where none, by the regime’s own playbook, seems poised to be held accountable is that it has the effect of “normalizing” breaches, however manifest, of the basic definition of a good order.

Parallel excesses during Marcos rule, it should be recalled, were at least seen for what they were – aberrations as outgrowths of the supposed “abnormal” times. Yet, expectations then that public decency would prevail when normalcy returns were not dashed altogether.

Today, frightening telltale signs of a dysfunctional or collapsing system are cascading in the ordinary course of the business of governance: plunder of the national coffer are prima facie traceable to the First Family; documented incidences of extra-judicial killings and other forms of political repressions have been reported by reputable international organizations; flights of the middle class, professionals and intellectuals continue to drain the nation’s human capital; election fraud and machinations implicate the very governmental agencies(the Commission on Elections and the military establishment) charged with protecting the sanctity of the electoral process; emasculation of the constitutional checks and balances mechanisms is simply taken for granted by those members of Congress entrusted to enforce them; unfettered and autonomous yet primitive pursuit of self-interest by the economic elites sustains uneven economic development and gaping inequality.

The harsh reality appears inevitable: the longer President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo holds on to power, the sooner she (or even her immediate predecessor, if at all) will preside over a failed Philippine state in which life for the unfortunate majority of the Filipinos, so entrapped, will be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

I have had the chance to tackle this matter before (when the laundry list was still shorter) in the following post:

The institutional cost of Arroyo clinging to power, come hail and high water to the republic, amidst the “Garci tapes” scandal has become extremely prohibitive. Aside from the prostitution of the electoral body and Philippine military during the last presidential election as indicated in the tapes and testified to by high-ranking military officers of solid or daring scruples, the other obvious casualty of course has been the built-in checks-and-balances mechanism of impeachment when the pro-Arroyo members of the House opted to hide behind the narrow reading or misreading of the law or the brutal application of technicality. But the Catholic Church hierarchy has not been far behind; under the humiliating shadow of Palace payola to some bishops, the hierarchy has joined the chorus to bury the tapes for the “common good” while ignoring the clamor of the flock. The middling Filipino, on the other hand, which like the Church was once at the core of two great upheavals, has cast its lot with the “let’s move on” bandwagon choosing to sweep the tapes under the rug or let the matter melt into thin air as if it were a “figment of one’s imagination.”

There’s one window of opportunity to abort the slide of the country into Hobbesian anarchy: like Marcos, Arroyo must cut and cut cleanly – now, not later.

Whereupon, following a voluntary transfer of power, Vice President Noli de Castro must proceed to assume the presidency pursuant to the Constitution. At a minimum, obeisance to the constitutional succession process will restore a modicum of popular confidence in the legal order but therefrom the momentum could be built for the nation to undergo a long-overdue cathartic experience.

However, to begin at once the healing process and reconciliation, de Castro must be unhampered in the exercise of his (presidential) prerogative of deciding whether to condone Arroyo and others by the executive grant of general amnesty.

On the other hand, as a matter of reciprocal self-abnegation on the part of de Castro himself, he must commit to the nation not to vie for the office of the president in 2010, the next scheduled presidential election.

Plebiscitary democracy, muckraking and 'conspiracy theories'

2008-01-21T15:22:00.001-05:00

(This piece is my reaction to mlq3's comment in his blog on “conspiracy theories”)

Establishing the connection between “plebiscitary democracy” as a mechanism to “refresh” an electoral mandate or to have such mandate “constantly revalidated” or “perpetually proved” and “conspiracy theory” could be easier if we don’t lose sight of certain democracy fundamentals.

People elect officials both on self-regarding and other-regarding concerns. The former serve the individual’s interests and wishes, the latter the common good. The elected officials have incentives to fulfill both concerns because they want to get elected again (if re-election is allowed) or, otherwise, keep in power the political organization or party they are identified with (with the expectation that even when out of office their interests will continue to be protected by allies).

When public office is tenured, the exercise by the people of their power to hold public officials immediately accountable is held in abeyance until the next election. During the inter-election period, aside from the fact that the individual electorates would go about attending to their personal needs such as earning a living, their voices are effectively muted unless they combine to coordinate their efforts or form “interest groups.” By contrast, under our constitutional system, for example, the president has full discretion to fire any member of her cabinet who has lost her trust and confidence; that same discretion, by the fact of auto-limitation, may not be exercised by the people as regards the president who may have breached her electoral promises or is not performing according to their expectation. Reckoning will have to wait for the next election.

Historically, the “office” that had filled the gap was the newspaper (of the “mucrakers” who leaked the truth - before, of course, the media took on the corporate form) through which the people expressed their individual concerns and frustrations during the inter-election period. (This is the reason Fr. Bernas’s commentary following the Manila Pen incident to the effect that when it comes to freedom of expression the media have no more special rights than any citizen is entitled to is unfortunately a bit naïve, although coming from one “from whom most sensible people take their cue on the correct approach to exploring constitutional questions” in the Philippines [see mlq3’s PDI column of 12/06/2008]).

My thesis is this: Impeachment (which I also call the un–election process), initiative, recall, or “the way datus were chosen and replaced” as well as “muckracking” is of kindred mechanism with plebiscitary democracy that refreshes, revalidates or proves mandates in the interim.

Indeed, substantive democracy (or people power per se), as opposed to procedural democracy, predominates if popular sovereignty (or the power of the people to have effective control over leaders) is maintained throughout.

I had the occasion to distinguish however between the journalists, the brave and principled ones, and the Fourth Estate “Who really runs the world,” when President Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 declaring a “State of National Emergency,” in this manner:

. . . the individual journalists, like the one who shaved their heads in protest against President Arroyo’s Proclamation 1017, are easily vulnerable to intimidation (in the Philippines, the risk among journalist is statistically higher in the provinces with or without 1017); but certainly not the unsinkable Fourth Estate . . . (which) . . . “governs” in the way it creates events and frames issues on its own terms. Conditions in our midst that are not considered critical by the media or social problems that affect mainly ordinary people could be passed up for important public debate. Agenda-setting is power, an awe-inspiring one, in fact. Politicians avoid picking a fight with the media precisely because of this power and its capacity to lionize allies and demonize foes.

What’s of graver alarm however is when media power becomes a potent adjunct to other powers already possessed by the powers that be. Do we wonder why, post-martial law, business concerns controlled by some taipans have started to swallow up the ownership of major dailies in the Philippines? In an old commentary, I observed that “As new media owners, they saw the utility of the newly found power to defend their business interests from the government or rival elites while creating public awareness of matters favorable to those interests and ignoring others.” And again, even this is not as harmful as when the public mind is encroached upon in silence, for then there will be no opportunity to shave our heads and wear black armbands in protest. In a regime of liberty, we can challenge the legality of a government fiat like Proclamation 1017 or the presence of a policeman in a newsroom; but when in the name of the same liberty the assault is insidious and surreptitious like in the form of the “tight shots” of the crowd of supporters for FPJ during the presidential campaign that his wife Susan Roces has complained about (presumably to suggest a smaller assembly), often there’s no recourse.

That the “profession (of journalism) has very limited power” is open to debate. But now, do we still doubt the awesome potency of the sound bytes and the power of suggestion?

In the Philippines, the unofficial power structures behind “conspiracy theories” are well-nigh invisible (except maybe when they feel celebratory about their achievements as in Gokongwei’s rags-to-riches speech) and they are of course not voted to office by the people; but their decision or motive matters whether the Hello Garci tapes, the ZTE deal, the Glorietta blasts and similar scandals or controversies will be obscured or given prominence or will have ultimate closure or not (until perhaps the “new office” of blogging becomes a form of universal discourse).

Trillanes, a hero, a villain or plain cuckoo?

2007-12-05T19:32:00.000-05:00

One way of telling whether Senator Sony Trillanes is a hero, a villain or a plain cuckoo is to compare first his yet brief narrative with those of the two celebrated Filipino outlaws (or nutcases) the country has in due course acknowledged as national heroes.

One such familiar account is Dr. Jose Rizal’s. Rizal was a young man, about the age of Trillanes today, when executed by musketry at Luneta following a sham trial for rebellion. He practically sentenced himself to death for authoring, self-publishing and circulating in the Philippines his two novels, Noli and Fili. The books were a powerful commentary and a biting mockery of the powers that be, the friary, exposing the clergy’s religious pretenses and venalities, and the cancer it had caused in the Philippine society.

There are historical chronicles about the Philippine Revolution to the effect that Rizal was afforded the chance by the rebels’ emissaries to walk out of prison and eventually join Andres Bonifacio’s armed struggle. But he seemed to have other things going on in himself. Rizal could have been petrified while grappling with all the possible scenarios of a violent revolution and then sadly concluded its success was still a long shot; that even if the rebels could pull it through somehow, the bloodletting and suffering in a protracted strife would be unimaginable. Beside the fact that the achievements of earlier attempts at social agitations had been less than encouraging, Rizal could have also figured out that his role as a change agent was immense and thus appreciated that the lingering dilemma could be resolved, or the equation altered, should he suffer, as he did, the ultimate sacrifice of martyrdom.

A parallel account can be drawn about another Filipino hero, Senator “Ninoy” Aquino. As the Filipinos, or 40 million or so of them, cowered in fear during the tyranny of Marcos, Ninoy courageously stood his ground. Never did he waver despite efforts by Marcos to break his spirit such as by humiliating him to rot in long and often solitary confinement. Somewhat paradoxically, Ninoy knew too well the key to his freedom was himself: all he had to do was to acknowledge Marcos’ rule. Yet even when so vulnerable and defenseless, and abandoned by political allies and friends in his greatest needs, Ninoy remained unyielding. It was only through physical compulsion he was made to participate in his trial he wanted to boycott, to lend the proceedings (and indirectly the Marcos government) legitimacy. His reaction was to dare the judges to finish their task promptly – as ordered by the dictator, his accuser. Expectedly, Ninoy was convicted of the charges against him, among which was for the crime of subversion and, just as Rizal, sentenced to die by firing squad.

I will hazard to state both Ninoy and Rizal, well-aware of the amplitude of their high station, were hopeful, and confidently so, their selfless act, by and in itself, would be fruitful, i.e., it would serve as the necessary spark for the people’s collective action to mount a vigorous challenge to what have come to be regarded as unjust regimes. This bears repeating: under the rule of law of those regimes, two of Philippines’ most revered icons have been judicially declared criminals.

Trillanes today is also standing trial for various “political crimes” against the Arroyo regime. But unlike Rizal and Ninoy, the rebel soldier, although now a senator, is still a bit player in the grander scheme of things. This question therefore needs an answer: Is it fair demanding at this stage for Trillanes to have done a Rizal or a Ninoy to serve as the agent of change?

I salute Mr. Trillanes (as well as General Danilo Lim) for the singular courage and patriotism he has exhibited anew. I believe the Philippines will remain unsinkable if more men like him continue to thrive in our land. My thesis however is that beyond the risk of political decapitation for a promising boy wonder in mainstream politics, martyrdom at this stage on the part of Trillanes would either be wasteful or foolhardy: wasteful, because his martyrdom is not even necessary to rally a critical mass of supporters behind his cause if only such cause in fact reflects the people’s true aspirations; foolhardy, because it could even generate the contrary effect of being perceived as a careless assent to the claim by certain quarters dismissive of “people power” – that of it having supposedly sunk to a “fatigued” state (which might then require the fresh blood of martyrs to nourish and invigorate it).

The Great Beast did not come out of hibernation but I have no doubt it is not enfeebled by overexertion, much less, defanged. On the contrary it is much more potent, even sophisticated because of the invaluable lessons learned from the first and second exercises of its sovereign powers. If it’s not easily or precipitously stirred to rise, it is simply because people power has already passed its testy and heady days, and has grown to be more patient and calculating than when first awakened from long stupor.

What this situation translates into is that after two people powers (and EDSA Tres), the nation is now in earnest pursuit not merely of a change of personnel (from among the ruling elites playing their usual game of musical chairs or, to be different, from some messianic soldiers gladly marching to the same music) but of real and meaningful alternatives to the organic structures that have sustained our flawed experiment in nation building. In other words, the Filipino people want some believable answers to the question of how their lives will actually change if they opt for another people power.

For instance, keeping the peace or containing graft and corruption are laudable ends but even real gains on these spheres would be seen as illusory if there’s no equity because the advancement of the economic and social well-being of the people has only been given short shrift or otherwise left to the vagaries of the self-same forces that by design are supposed to be deliberately indifferent to it.

For newfangled reformist like Trillanes, there’s yet plenty of room for learning to recognize for example the distinction between the Arroyo regime and the long-standing oligarchy. Whereas, we should pause to reflect, the former could be grasping for last breaths, the latter is robust, well-entrenched and will survive Arroyo.

A fragile regime whose vital signs are failing can be rattled by a walkout of some indicted soldiers from a court hearing and followed by a walk-by to a luxury hotel to announce their intentions. Not so when it comes to a 12-headed Hydra like the Philippine oligarchy. To tame this brute, it would require motivating masterfully to action a worldly-wise Great Beast of superior power.

In the final analysis, the Filipino people will reciprocate the call of trustworthy and honorable leaders who, being fully conversant with the new strain of cancer afflicting the polity and the society at large, would not just die on them in martyrdom, but will work with them in life: first, to retire the beast of prey and the old forces abetting it, and then, politically willing as well as able to re-invent the wheel, transform the nation. More specifically, this will require forming, communicating and coming to a consensus on, new ideas about how to confront objectively the real conditions of inequities of wealth and power distribution in our society and to find the means for a continuing rediscovery towards the task of nation building.

It is not folly to prevent a rebellion

2007-11-30T21:23:00.000-05:00

The Philippines is in a state of war, but who created it?

Just a brief background. Impeachment should have been the appropriate process, by which Gloria Arroyo could clear the thickening clouds over her claim to the presidency.

Unfortunately, Arroyo and her allies in the House have chosen to ignore the essence of the Rule of Law in favor of procedural convenience. The House legislators were thus seen to have acted contrary to a power delegated to them by the people, which is to perform their check-and-balance role against the president.

By derailing the constitutional process of impeachment, the House has allowed itself to be bastardized by Arroyo as she by herself, thereby setting the stage for the people to take back what has been delegated.

In plainer terms, what have taken place are a rebellious conspiracy and or overt acts of rebellion on the part of Arroyo and her co-conspirators against the State. As a consequence, a state of war between the Arroyo regime and the Filipino People has been created. The condition of hostilities has thus been ongoing since Arroyo’s aggression against the State.

What are the known principles that support the foregoing propositions?

This paraphrase of John Locke, whose treatises on government became one of the foundations of American democracy, is straightforward: Where an appeal to the law and the courts (in this case the Impeachment Court) lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice and a shameless wrestling of the laws to protect the violence of some men, then it would be hard to imagine anything but a state of war.

“Whoever uses force without right - as every one in the society who does it without law - puts himself into a state of war with those against whom he uses it, and in that state all former ties are cancelled, all other ties cease, and every one has the right to defend himself, and to resist the aggressor,” Locke warned aspiring tyrants. By natural right, the people have the power to remove a government if it has rebelled against them.

If the Filipino people opt for a peaceful struggle, that is the Filipino way. But it does not deny the state of war the Arroyo regime has initiated and is prosecuting in various forms.

Arroyo is not ignorant of the rule having been on the opposite side of the fence before: the people have not only the right to get out of an illegitimate regime, but to prevent it from endangering the whole system upon which the people’s rights and liberties depend.

Why resort to people power? The Lockean sense is to the effect that people do not rise in rebellion upon every misgovernance, great or small, but only if a long train of abuses and corruptions makes the design unmistakable to the people, and they sense and feel it in every way, leaving them no choice but to re-entrust the power of governance into such hands which may secure to them the reason for being of every government.

Is the fear that the people can be habituated to people power well-founded? On the contrary, according to Locke, people are habituated to norms and as such they are the last to change. This aversion to change entraps the people in the system they have gotten used to. Hence, even if revolutions do happen, the people have the tendency to re-entrust authority to the powers that be for the simple reason that they are more habituated, and therefore more comfortable, to be ruled than rule.

But, who are prone to commit acts of rebellion? Rebellious acts are not normally committed by the people, Locke implied. For, essentially, rebellion is an opposition to the legal order. So those, who being in a position of power or under color of authority break that order, are properly rebels and create a state of war. The effective way to prevent that breach of the legal order that may develop into full-blown hostilities is to show to them who are under the greatest temptation to do it, the danger and injustice of it by real threat of counter-rebellion or people power.

So, is people power or for that matter mutinous act ruinous as it may occasion civil wars?

Let’s hearken to Locke once more:

“. . . they may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. If any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him who defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbour's. If the innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has for peace sake to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of a peace there will be in the world which consists only in violence and rapine, and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable peace betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf?”

Now, have the people the right to nip a rising tyrant in the bud? Definitely, Locke argued, for why wait to be slaves first before acting like free men? Otherwise,

“. . . men can never be secure from tyranny if there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it; and, therefore, it is that they have not only a right to get out of it, but to prevent it.”

In the service of the common good

2007-11-23T10:19:00.002-05:00

Hillblogger has called my attention in my last entry to Judge Richard Posner’s blog about the IMF’s report on the effect of globalization on inequality.

This question by Judge Posner in his blog has particularly bothered me: “Everyone is better off, and why should the fact that the rich are better off by a larger percentage concern anyone?”

That the economy works best when regulated least is a fundamental tenet of classical economics (of free trade and free market) Scottish economist Adam Smith fathered in 1776. That may be fine but were we to realize our unrestrained actions (or for that matter unfettered self-interest, our natural insularity) may have dire consequences to others than ourselves, a society would need more than a “night watchman” state to allocate boundaries or alter existing ones. Some people (like Jose Rizal or our valiant Overseas Filipino Workers) will always be bothered too by the claims of this system that not the wealthy but the poor themselves, or their laziness in particular, is responsible for the latter’s misfortunes.

Among the early supporters of classical economics were the utilitarians who believed that if the greatest happiness of the greatest number is advanced, then the resulting suffering of the rest would be excusable. Posner's question above is exactly utilitarian.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was another intellectual who reinforced the classical view by extending Charles Darwin’s theory of biological evolution to the economic sphere: the fittest would advance and survive but the lower kind would be left behind or possibly perish, a natural inevitability that ought not to strike the conscience of the fortunate ones.

Thus, if religious pretensions or sheer moral arrogance of the older era had been relied on as the excuse for the deadly doctrine of “discovery and conquest,” permitting the extermination of an entire race by supposedly civilized and moral people, “social Darwinism” was drawn upon to assuage the scruples of more recent colonizers, settlers/frontiersmen and imperialists as well as racial supremacists who would cause parallel untold misery to “lesser” peoples.

But the poor were just poor. They weren’t dumb. They always understood the system was nothing but an institutional premise that protected powerful economic interests and promoted a culture of indifference and impunity for brutal and rank exploitation.

Fortunately there were also men of probity who were considered turncoats to their class because of beliefs that human beings were entitled to certain basic measure of dignity. Activism, then as now, either by these radical humanists and or on the part of the exploited themselves, has been the only means of rectifying institutional injustices such as the dreadful plight of workers during the early phase of the Industrial Revolution in the areas for instance of child labor, safety in workplaces and security against disabilities and old age. Among these humanists was Karl Marx who also predicted that the capitalistic system would self-destruct given that the flaws of the system would drive the workers to rise up and overthrow it in a violent revolution.

I do not buy the Marxian inevitability of the proletariats’ violent revolution because I strongly subscribe to the view that there are alternatives to bloody confrontation in order to transform in a revolutionary way, such as the alternative of discourse. I do believe that it is through discourse for example that, on the one hand, new models of institutional vocabularies like “market” and “democracy” could be discovered or, on the other, exposed as less than God-terms in the same manner that the Divine Right of Kings was proved as not all but God-willed.

Similarly, the literature is now plenty about how to re-imagine “entrepreneurship,” another institutional buzzword. To author and MIT professor of political economy Alice Amsden, the “defining characteristic of entrepreneurship is planning, or deciding what, when, and how much to produce.” And by historical standards, when it comes to milestone decisions in big business, Amsden argued, “the entrepreneurial function of planning has primarily fallen to the state,” curtailing in the process the role of the private entrepreneur. Thus, in South Korea according to Amsden, “every major shift in industrial diversification in the decades of 1960s and 1970s was instigated by the state.” The role of professional managers because of their expertise was relegated to implementing those investment decisions. It is only in small firm situation, she further pointed out, that the entrepreneurial function of planning or the initiative to investment in minor project still lies with the private entrepreneur, now “a pale reflection of the heroic figure of the past.”

On the other hand, economist and Harvard professor Dani Rodrik, re-conceptualizing the standard literature on “industrial policies,” has called for “the softening of convictions on both sides” in order “to fashion an agenda for economic policies that takes an intelligent intermediate stand between the two extremes” where “Market forces and private entrepreneurship would be in the driving seat of this agenda, but governments would also perform a strategic and coordinating role in the productive sphere beyond simply ensuring property rights, contract enforcement, and macroeconomic stability.”

As thus conceived, the Korean strategy for economic take off, for example, was not as simple as protecting “the so-called ‘winners’ chosen by governments and their cronies,” as our free trader friend jemy would suspect. “Industrial policy is a state of mind more than anything else,” Rodrik has concluded.

So, why Bayanihan Pact (a people-powered town effort) as the suggested appellation for a new entrepreneurial arrangement that may allow the Philippines to catch up or ultimately propel its economy to take off? Because, to begin with, even the text itself evinces discourse, negotiation, inclusion and collaborative enactment; it also serves to challenge the institutional text of hierarchy, elitism and patrimonialism as well as the sociology of exploitation and impunity or general apathy to the appalling predicament of the less fortunate, our poor or theirs.

In reaction to cvj’s comment at mlq3’s blog on economist Dani Rodrik’s approach, I have had the opportunity to explain certain of my thoughts about the Bayanihan arrangement in two entries.

FIRST:

. . . what’s needed in order for the Philippines to join the big-timers in the big world out there, are:

1) Not necessarily for the small guys to think big as a condition precedent but for the bigwigs (the political leadership, the economic elites and the technocrats) to think big TOGETHER. However, during this process of big thinking, the petty Pinoy of the tingi mentality must be given a bigger voice than usual, allowing the Bayanihan spirit thus generated to legitimate the process [for now, I guess, this is as close as we could get to the Lincolnian “government by the people, of the people and for the people”].

2) The taipans must realize that low private returns from vigorous entrepreneurship in new activities may be compensated by high social returns. This demands of the economic elites a high “sense of country.”

In an earlier post I have also noted: “The key to economic progress is somehow attitudinal too and this happens when economic men and political animals judge such progress to be good not only for the material comfort it brings forth for their pioneering spirit but also for national identity and dignity, the welfare of the next generation and the common good.”

Historically, according to (Walt) Rostow, the decisive ingredient during the transition is the building of an “effective centralized national state” imbued with a “new nationalism” versus regional interests, the colonial power (if any), or both. When growth becomes steady and normal and institutionalized into habits and social structure and dominates the society, takeoff is said to occur.

Likewise, Rostow postulated, takeoff is spurred not only by the investment in “social overhead capital” (such as in railways, ports, roads or education) and the expansion of technological development in industry and agriculture, but also by the rise to political power of a group dedicated to the proposition that the modernization of the economy is a national goal of paramount order.

SECOND:

. . . to be legitimate, Rostow’s “transitional coalition” should not be equated to Justice Laurel’s “moral and intellectual aristocracy” . . .

The revolutionary path is not really what normally many of us would have in mind but only something of the Randy David’s scheme, as follows:

“First, a large and articulate constituency for reform must assemble itself from the countless fragmented voices and social movements that are already making themselves heard in our society today. Its first task is to draw and agree on a realistic roadmap to national recovery [adopting the Dani Rodrik's thesis is one], carefully marking out the main obstacles and dangers and indicating the immediate priorities to be tackled. Second, the document must be explained and debated in public fora all over the country, refined, and then presented to the President and Congress for action. And third, depending on the response of the present political leadership, the reform movement may either call for new elections or a constitutional convention or both.”

It is therefore revolutionary simply because it assumes the system in place, the metizo/taipan political economy (which to me is no less an extension of Friar system couched in “Madisonian democracy,” one the American founding fathers designed against the so-called tyranny of the majority) after more than a century has, in Noam Chomsky’s terms, failed to justify itself. A system that cannot be justified after that long period of time must go. The systemic failure once acknowledged, it is time to go through another experiment, our own experiment, where every member of the body politic could be committed to an open inquiry of the system. The transitional coalition, which I’d hope to come out of the Randy David scheme above, is just one proposition towards an enduring vision of an independent modern Philippine state.

When 60 million or so Filipinos are under constant threat of daily terrorism because they live on less than two dollars a day, indeed all possible propositions should be explored. I have then pointed out one barrier-breaking alternative available to Filipinos and perhaps others similarly situated:

Whether the gateway to equitable accumulation and ultimately national development could also be accessed by way of the power of consensus of people power democracy that’s willing to learn from the best practices that work and, based on ongoing experience and rising above ideologies, eschew things that don’t, or change even established notions and practices when concrete realities and the complex necessities for change in the service of the common good require.

What to do with the Philippine oligarchs

2007-11-16T22:24:00.003-05:00

I have once taken note that with Catholicism and Spanish Aristocracy, the basis of our elitist, patrimonlialist and hierarchical system could be explained in the following:

The friar system reformists like Rizal intended to dismantle had an entrenched network of power relations among its surrogates, mostly landowning families of Chinese descent who originally had served as stewards for the estates of the monastic orders, morphed into hispanized hacienderos, then transitioned as mutually-buttressing guilds or factions of Marxian bourgeois and cosmopolitan elites. In hindsight, one would be hard put to surmise whether the uprising fueled by Rizal’s ultimate sacrifice could have ended the system (had the Americans not come into the picture from out of the blue). The fact is that Rizal had been fearful in Fili, and rightly so, of “(freeing) the slaves of today, if they will be the tyrants of tomorrow.” For, those who were waiting in the wings—to succeed to the powers of the Pulpit—were fawning sycophants, hostage and servile but only to the fat friar. To the ignorant and powerless, like the Crispins and the Basilios of Noli, they were as fiendish and callous hirelings who savored every conceivable scent of power, as was the petty and abusive parish sacristan mayor who, as the darker side of the Filipino character in the novel, had made use of every niggling authority it had arrogated unto himself. Still, and in fairness, there were many of them who emerged as the ilustrado, the enlightened ones, and joined the nationalist movement against Spain and then, but only for a fleeting chapter, against the Americans.

Many ilustrados, to preserve their privileges, abandoned the nationalist cause to collaborate with the Americans even while the war was in progress. They saw themselves as heirs apparent and logical beneficiaries of yet another “royal grant” from the new sovereign.

Let me fast forward to more contemporary events.

The political instinct of Ferdinand Marcos, it is fitting to remember, has served him well in his practical analysis of power politics in the Philippines. One of his claims was that the scourge of the country has in the main been the oligarchy of economic elites, some 60 families of a population of 40 million then. These families, mostly of Chinese descent, by their elitist bent and plutocratic complex, think they own the country (of about 85 million souls today), so for them it is just right to govern it – through their trapo surrogates.

Marcos’ solution to the problem was to dismantle the old power and wealth. Unfortunately, by doing so through the use of dictatorial powers, he created another version just as virulent.

Cory Aquino and the EDSA Revolution that ended the dictatorship restored political and civil rights to the Filipinos, but she stopped short at confronting her own shadow and those cast by the reinstated oligarchic clan of which she is a part. She’s just a transition leader, the convenient excuse.

Aquino’s successor, FVR, a West Pointer and a Marcos cousin, was well aware of the “perverse symbiosis” between the oligarchs and trapos, yet he knew as well without doing a Marcos any meaningful change initiative on his part would have limited chance of success. His reform programs could have picked up more steam if he was accorded longer time to lead. In the end President Ramos conducted himself as a good soldier and decided to respect the constitutional limit of his presidential term.

Supposedly populist Erap, once a Marcos lieutenant, was seen as a threat to “the rules of the game.” To the chagrin of the established elites, President Estrada has closely associated himself with the Binondo Chinese (Rizal’s Chinaman?); he in fact has driven a wedge between the “new immigrants” and the “Makati elites.” Consequently, his term was rendered short-lived. It was however under Erap’s watch that many more of the Marcos cronies sneaked back to power.

Wily Gloria Arroyo is the quintessential conservative (i.e., she has professed not wishing to be great, or adventuristic, intending only to “conserve” - even after EDSA II had swept her to power ahead of her schedule after evicting the “Champion of the Poor” - the old tradition and ideology of “market and democracy,” thereby keeping intact the existing wealth and power distribution). So, logically, in the presidential election that followed, the Establishment opted for Arroyo to rule instead of another Erap in FPJ, the Opposition candidate and the Man who would have been Da King.

The oligarchy of the economic class likes it when the political class like Arroyo, beset with one scandal after another, is helpless, a lame duck. If she can’t effectively muscle her way, the powers that be could simply sit tight, allowing the system to operate by auto-drive.

On the other hand, the oligarchy secures itself from external pressure for as long as it toes the Washington Consensus line in an “almost sycophantic” fashion even as on the sly it nurtures relations with its “roots” from China, the awakened Dragon with creeping global extremities. That way, it gains more confidence of having wider latitude to navigate the waters of regional as well as global political economy

A crack in the wall has however begun to appear as more and more of the oligarchs’ counterparts in the region have been consistently outperforming them. That nasty sore spot exposes the Philippine version of oligarchic regime as one of a lower or inferior form especially in the eyes of the “move-on” Filipino middleclass. As a result, this class has become increasingly “relatively deprived” even while going through some sort of enlightenment, as well as perhaps conscience-stricken by the inhuman plight of the vast hoi polloi and the Payatas horde.

To cut to the chase, the holy mess the Philippines is in today has been about the extreme disparity in wealth and power between the oligarchs and the rest of society. The problem is confounded and yet propped up by the twin ideology that’s supposed to serve as the solution – the “market and democracy” construct first hailed by President Manuel L. Quezon as the “new ideology in Asia.” For, what was seen as “the greatest event of modern civilization in the Orient” did not seem to fit the following Philippine realities outside of some borrowed idealism:

- First, the Philippine oligarchy is exceedingly family-centered which has yet to subordinate its ancient roots to the Filipino nation-state. (This baggage is non-existent in longtime world economic power Japan and in the “tiger economies” of Taiwan, South Korea and China which are all essentially homogenous societies; on the other hand, city-state Singapore has confronted this problem by decreeing integration, while Malaysia has institutionalized affirmative action for the Bumiputra, the “sons of the soil.”)

- The oligarchy is content with rent-seeking and paper entrepreneurship and of late is ignoring or failing to make the most of the OWF-generated boon as a medium for sustainable growth and development. Even as corporate entrepreneurs the oligarchs are still basically engaged in family-enterprise capitalism (where as owners they, rather than professional corporate managers, continue to be in control of the entrepreneurial decision-making) but, take note, are somehow disposed to leapfrog right into modern financial capitalism (of the speculative financier type or as traders in money), possibly skipping in the process the productive and employment-generating stages of industrial and managerial capitalisms.

In a nutshell, my preferred prescription for a successful solution to the scourge of oligarchy includes:

- The “tsinoy” oligarchs must do a Rizal (himself a direct descendant of Cue-Li Lam, an immigrant from Fujian, China) to form the Second Filipinos (the First Filipinos being Rizal and co.).

- Like the pariahs and the pirates of the ancient (who were the direct ancestors of the First Filipinos), the oligarchs, matching the risk taken by the OFWs, must venture into vigorous productive entrepreneurships.

- As risk-takers, the oligarchs must not allow their resourcefulness and imagination to be needlessly constrained, contained or contaminated by what was once touted as the “new ideology in Asia,” those pre-conceived notions of “market and democracy” that are themselves being re-imagined to obviate the inevitability of fading or dying away in a “creative destruction.” Instead, they could just attach a neutral appellation to the transformation process, a tag as simple as Design A or Design B.

The design could be something like operating under a Bayanihan Pact, an entrepreneurial arrangement where the oligarchs emerge as national business elites in partnership with the State, a representative group from the private sector, and the bureaucracy (hence, there’s no need for a bloody confrontation) in the nature of a Philippine, Inc., just as a Japan, Inc., a Korean, Inc. or a China, Inc., of recent time or the French, Inc. the British, Inc. or the American, Inc. of the old.

The U.S., the most advanced economy today, differed in economic strategy during its growing pains from the longer established European powers. Alexander Hamilton argued that a young country should use measures to shield its own industries from the vagaries of the market.

Little known heroes and great justice system

2007-11-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

I have been a critic of the elitist nature of American democracy and of US frenetic foreign policy as a number of the commentaries in this site will show.

But, I have also been all praise to the American jury system. In one blog exchange I have posted the following:

America is great because Americans of today are fundamentally good and just. There’s a lot more to be desired but America has done away with slavery as an economic system, it is seriously fighting the last remnants of the scourge of racism, and it is more and more looking at the world as one large community, to cite some quite laudable signs of progress.

Moreover, things being equal, the justice system in America is something that presents itself as a model that deserves the admiration of the whole world. I guess this is because the “jury system,” the one democratic institution that America has chosen to preserve is well at work. Citizen jurors as you know represent a cross-section of the community initially chosen at random; once empanelled, they are empowered to hold to account aberrant members for acts or behavior inimical to the community. More often than not, the rich, the famous and the powerful could not escape the judgment of their peers. Enron’s Ken Lay, homemaking diva Martha Stewart, Congressman and “Top Gun” hero Duke Cunningham and well-connected White House adviser Scooter Libby are recent examples. Yet imperfect, but the jury system is as close as it gets to the very rudiments of direct democracy. It is “people power” in a microcosm. Unfortunately, the system is one of those democratic essentials that the Americans have decided to deny to the Filipinos.

There’s another true and close to life reason for my optimistic outlook. Here’s why.

Last year, nine Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) were brought into South Dakota, United States from the Philippines to work in a hotel under what appeared to be a fair and attractive arrangement for them: minimum wage for 40 hours of work per week.

The workers’ nightmare has begun right upon arrival. Their visas and passports were confiscated by their employers. No sooner, they were made to sign overstated and escalating debt obligations, and were held to work from early morning to midnight. Their employers would threat them with violence during late-hour meetings, denying them needed rest and sleep, and regularly admonished them about their debts and work performance.

Some were made to work as many as 160 hours in a week but were paid almost nil. The payroll modus operandi was simple: the victims were handed paychecks but only for endorsement because immediately the checks would be taken back by the employers and deposited into the hotel bank account.

One had been relieved from her plight by an uncle who is a doctor in the area, and she eventually returned to the Philippines before her visa expired. In Manila, concerned about the continuing abuse and worsening condition of her co-workers left behind in the US, she lost no time to initiate a complaint (in April 2006) before the local authorities and the US embassy. In a text message to a US Embassy representative, she has written “What I want here is justice, and I believe this will served as eye opener and lesson for all of us.”

On May 28, 2006, she sent a follow-up letter to the US Embassy in the Philippines, part of which reads:

. . . just to inform you that last April 18, 2006, Mr. Robert John Farrel presented himself at the embassy there together with the 9 Filipinos (with) . . . fraudulent documents, such as fake pay slips and pay checks, and these people are being intimidated and harassed, they were forced to lie . . .

Now these 9 Filipinos . . . left for US last April 28, 2006, meaning they were granted visas. These people are now seeking help and assistance here to help them in their worsening situation there in Oacoma, South Dakota.

In fact, one of those 9 Filipinos who just arrived last May 27, 2006, had tried her best to make her way out of that place, and lucky enough she was allowed because she told them that she needs to go home to attend to her mother’s serious ailments, but the truth of it is that she can no longer stay there because of the TRAUMA, HARD LABOR and EXPLOITATION, and most especially that they are now in DEBT BONDAGE with the FARRELLS. She is MS.GINA AGULTO . . . She decided to go home because like me she wants justice. . .

Filipino people are coming to America hoping for a better life, and it is a terrible tragedy to find ourselves victims of human trafficking . . .

This call is not just for me or for ourselves but also for potential victims . . . I know there are hundreds of people out there seeking for help and assistance. I FIGHT NOT ONLY FOR MYSELF BUT FOR ALL THE VICTIMS, BECAUSE WE CANNOT (OTHERWISE) FULLY EMBRACE OUR OWN DIGNITY AS HUMAN BEINGS.

On May 30, 2006, Gina Agulto from the Philippines wrote the doctor in South Dakota and her own plea was similarly afflictive:

Just like any other Overseas Contract Workers, we only dreamt of working hard to earn good money and save for our family’s future. We did work hard, as hard as we could and bore all the hardships we went through but good money never came. What we actually got ourselves into is DEBT BONDAGE which in the first place is very inhuman. If I am going to compute, they even owe me money with all the payments I made through my pay checks which they claimed and asked me to endorse. They owe me and all of us Filipinos for all the things they put us through.

I left a good and stable job, left my husband and 3 kids to sacrifice with a promise of wonderful things for us. The separation even instilled a negative effect on my children. It gives me a very sad and heavy heart that I had to go home and have accomplished nothing at all. But I cannot furthermore stay and work for them and slowly lose my self-respect and dignity with the way they treat us. I’d rather go home and start all over again.

But again, I am not going to allow them to get away with all these illegal acts. I want them to realize their unjust ways and be penalized. . . .

Please assist our co-Filipinos who are still there right now. They are helpless and have no one to turn to but you.

I am placing all my trust and confidence in the justice system of the Philippines and of the United States of America.

The doctor had consulted a local judge who in turn recommended that the matter be referred to the State Department of Labor, the State Attorney and the Philippine Consulate in Chicago.

In July 2006 the investigation began to take shape even as some of the workers escaped from their employers, and thereafter were provided assistance by the same doctor and the local law enforcement. From this point, several US agencies have cooperated to develop the case: the U.S. Department of Labor, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, the Chamberlain (South Dakota) Police Department, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, Philippines, and the Department of Homeland Security.

The joint efforts have paid off. The employers, Robert John Farrell and his wife, Angelita Magat Farrell, both of Oacoma, South Dakota who own and operate the Comfort Inn & Suites hotel in Oacoma, have been charged in court.

Justice was swift: on November 8, 2007, after five days of trial the jury promptly deliberated on the case and returned guilty verdicts against the Farrells for conspiracy to commit peonage, peonage, document servitude, visa fraud, and making false statements to federal agents. Both face imprisonment of up to 125 years.

I’m quite familiar with the case. The principal complainant, Maria Corazon Margallo, is my niece and the South Dakota doctor, Lucio Margallo II, is my brother.

Wily Arroyo

2007-11-06T13:25:00.000-05:00

At mlq3’s website, I have posted a comment to the effect that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has a better hold to power than Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf, unless the Filipino people do their own math and then exercise their power of the “last say” (I was actually referring to the People Power equation of one million street protesters and a handful of generals to change a regime). But then I also took notice of Randy David’s suggestion that “middle class activism” or in general the people’s democratic “engagement tends to stop at the polls” or, as I had before noted, even at the exercise of People Power for, in the latter case, there’s that process of re-entrusting too – to those who, they think, are better equipped to govern, the elites in other words.

The comment has generated the following retort from Manila Bay Watch:

I refuse to compare Gloria to Musharraf (insult to the latter).

Most of Pakistan’s population still live in the feudal world, half illiterate and virtually caught in the stone age of Islam.

But the “analysis of Pakistan,” according to another commenter hvrds, is “so close to home,” the Philippines being more (of) a construct of empire with a very short history of people . . . very much somewhere between the stone age and the bronze age.”

If we follow hvrds’ logic, we could claim quite plausibly that “most of Philippines’ population still live in the feudal world, half illiterate and virtually caught in the stone age of Catholicism,” with one notable distinction – Philippine warlords sometimes carry certificates of attendance at US Ivy Leave schools, an added negative against Filipinos, since by such credentials they ought to conduct themselves a bit more “civilized” (i.e., Westernized or Americanized).

Relative to relationship with US, I will agree that the comparison between Ferdinand Marcos and Pervez Musharraf is closer than the one between Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Musharraf (simply because GMA, to her credit unfortunately, appears more cunning than both dictators because, instead of being just macho, GMA exhibits amazing reflexiveness: she adroitly “backs off” when called for whether what’s on the table is charter change, exercise of executive privilege, the suspension of Makati mayor Binay, the ZTE deal, a strong stance on former president Estrada’s incarceration or a showdown with former president Fidel Ramos or House speaker Jose de Venecia).

Do we remember the “Kirkpatrick doctrine” (Jean Kirkpatrick served as UN ambassador in Reagan administration) during Marcos time, by which US supported authoritarian governments as long as they were pro-American irrespective of the regimes’ human rights or governance records? US saw no need to press dictatorships to move toward democracy if it feared that communist groups might triumph. That the conjugal dictatorship survived in the Philippines for two decades is largely attributable to Kirkpatrick’s tenet.

The foreign policy of containing communism is now dated. Following the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush reconfigured the neocons’ professed goal about global defense of freedom and democracy by infusing into the rhetorical mix his “war on terror.” The definition of convenience democracy however remains the same: it means being pro-American (with free-enterprise capitalism a necessary add-on) regardless of whether on the hand the US dogs are cheating in elections, plundering the treasury and torturing or killing extra-judicially their opponents and on the other, economic growth is benefiting only a privileged few, as long as they are on board on the “war on terror” and advancing the cause of democracy. When it comes to US allies, in the so-called Third World anyway, the institutions of substantive democracy such as fair and honest elections, active citizenship, public trust, the rule of law, and accountability of public officials are frosting on the cake or play second fiddle.

So, even 1) President Bush’s call to Musharraf for parliamentary elections (recall that Musharraf came to power eight years ago via coup d’etat but like Bush senior who had been lavish at praising Marcos’ “adherence to democratic principles,” Bush junior at the White House in 2006 unabashedly paid tribute to Musharraf as “a strong defender of freedom and the people of Pakistan”), or 2) the US Senate’s condition that continued military aid to the Philippines must be tied to improvements in human rights, should be taken as mere lip service to the cause of freedom and democracy.

cvj on similar score seems equally prescient: a Democrat in the White House would (not) result in a policy change towards Gloria and/or the Philippines.

Meanwhile, wily GMA will not hesitate to play her China card against tougher US foreign policy, when it suits her ambition, an option that was not available to Marcos.

I have said it a number of times in this blog before and will say again: The real threat to America’s way of life is not from terrorism but the coming of age of true democracy.

Juggle out the bad guys too: a matter of wisdom

2007-10-25T19:38:00.000-04:00

(This post was first made during the early phase of the trial of former President Estrada on plunder and other charges when he dismissed his defense lawyers and the “exile option” was at that time the subject of some serious debate. I considered myself then as a GMA sympathizer. What a difference six years make!)

Erap’s decision to dismiss his defense lawyers is a political ploy. It appears to be a sequel to the scheme being attempted to do a Ninoy (as some people are trying to draw certain parallel from it) by Erap’s seeking medical attention abroad for his knee problem as a prelude to exile, and eventually avoidance from criminal prosecution and possible conviction.

Erap is a far cry from Ninoy. Ninoy was never afraid to die for his principles. He was near death when given medical treatment during his hunger strike to protest his trial before a Kangaroo Court. When the Military Tribunal sentenced Ninoy to die by musketry, he at once asked that his favorite garb be brought in which he intended to wear as he was to face the firing squad.

Ninoy dismissed his lawyers in order not to legitimize the mockery of justice he was being made to suffer during the dictatorship. By contrast, if there’s anyone mocking the judicial process in the Erap trial, it is none other than the defense itself given the many dilatory legal sideshows it has initiated.

If I were the Sandiganbayan, I would just appoint those high-flying lawyers whom Erap has dismissed, as de officio counsels or, otherwise, cite them for contempt of court should they refuse to discharge their functions or fool around with their duties as officers of the court. That is one way of dispensing justice or, at least, chastening judicial irreverence.

On another plane, it would be naivety to agree to the suggestion that what’s at stake in the latest of this Erap saga is the judicial system of the country and nothing more.

There’s the sense that the Erap matter is just one of the many balls that GMA is delicately juggling at the moment, not to accomplish her projects, but simply to avoid a misfortune. Another tossed up is the marching song that US President George W. Bush wants every terror coalition choir member to be attuned to. The Philippines, which signed up early, is facing some fervent nationalist intonations even from GMA’s political allies. This nationalist sentiment could haunt the GMA government and the nation anytime Bush “unilaterally” changes the music.

Also up in the air is how to grate the surface of the slippery road to economic recovery with resources largely from wary foreign investors. The investors could be assuaged if only there’s some semblance of peace and order at least in the capital region. Otherwise, continued sluggish investment would translate into less meaningful poverty alleviation and other welfare initiatives for the increasingly agitated lumpen proletariat. A hopeless sense of further neglect on the part of the Great Unwashed could again precipitate a peace-and-order-breaching EDSA upheaval with the slightest stirring by demagogues or political opportunists, thus potentially jeopardizing even short-term economic recovery strategies. The situation, although not revolutionary, could become combustible, with even greater likelihood if Erap loyalists join the mix.

Present threats of instability from other firebrands not necessarily loyal to Erap could not be totally discounted as one of the balls that could be trifled with. The threat could come from the likes of the once fugitive or soon to be re-indicted Panfilo Lacson who has not been coy about his high ambition. Not lightly to be ignored are similar dangers that could come from some messianic colonels waiting in the barracks for the propitious time to perform their self-appointive roles or, on the darker side of fiendish chamber, from the polity-crippling tentacles of narco-politics.

As a matter of expediency and possibly humanitarian grounds, the proposition to exile Erap should therefore be seriously mulled over in the light of this juggling act that GMA is apparently performing on a tight rope. To leave the matter in the hands of a supposedly apolitical and unaccountable judiciary, the course the GMA government has adopted, is to ignore the reality that the resolution of the Erap cases has graver political, economic and other consequences than merely legal.

To keep the “judiciary out” and bring the “executive in” again, the following option is suggested:

1. Erap pleads guilty to his crimes as charged
2. Erap serves a minimum of one year of his sentence
3. GMA pardons Erap after serving one year
4. Erap goes on exile.

After Erap is out of the way, the GMA government then prosecutes Erap’s accomplices whom Erap should name before leaving, as part of the deal.

The less balls to juggle, the better are the chances of not missing to catch the rest.

For many interested parties including the plunder watchers and other people of like persuasion, they could always look at the foregoing proposition as a “win” situation. For one thing, a plea of guilty, a conviction and a token service of sentence on the criminal cases would be on top of the capital political penalty of loss of the presidency already meted out. Altogether, it should be as proximal as to the ideal satisfaction of the call for justice.

With the gadfly swatted out, the GMA government could now put its meager resources to better use than maintaining the expensive security measures for an ousted president pending the long drawn trial. Meanwhile, the Sandiganbayan or the Supreme Court might thus be spared from being embroiled in a predicament that certainly has more than strictly judicial implications.

If we want to show to the world that our legal or justice system works, maybe, we should first complete the dry run on the Marcoses and their relentlessly more pernicious accomplices. Many of them are back in our midst as untouchables after being driven into exile, and now doing business as usual. This privilege would be denied Erap should he leave the country as someone disqualified (because of the conviction) to re-enter elected public office while the government would be allowed to keep the alternative of prosecuting his partners in crime. For Erap, if he were not expecting a fellowship in Harvard, the option to simply enjoy fishing by Lake Tahoe would be available and quite beckoning. When knees start to buckle, isn’t it telling us that life’s too short?

One short note about justice. Justice like sovereignty is an abstraction. (Some serious questions about sovereignty have also come to prominence relative to the war in Mindanao and the Balikatan exercises). We uphold both through the notion of proper balance. In reality, however, the scale is not always perfect either in weighing, for example, the legal equality of sovereign states or in balancing the precedent wrong with the present response in the pursuit of a just society.

What seems to matter most is that when we put into play certain abstract principles we hold dear, we take into account the common good of the present as much as the future. Juggling the Erap ball out is a safe and wise way to comply with that goal.

Francisco, the father of Lozano and Pulido

2007-10-09T16:35:00.001-04:00

According to Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago the impeachment complaint filed by private lawyer Roel Pulido, like the one filed two years ago by another lawyer Oliver Lozano, will “immunize [President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] from any impeachment attempt for one whole year. Then they will file again in 2008, and another in 2009. Effectively, they will not be able to impeach her.” The senator’s jeering excuse: “This is a political tactic. All is fair in love and politics and there is nothing the opposition can do about this.” (See Inquirer.net for full account)

But who “effectively” closed the constitutional remedy of impeachment to the opposition? The answer is the Philippine Supreme Court in Francisco, Jr. v. House of Representatives (November 10, 2003).

The Court has practically crippled the impeachment process by adopting the Bernasian reading of “initiate” under Article XI, Section 3 of the Constitution in lieu of the interpretation of the House of Representatives, and taking up what it supposed as its “activist” role, declared such interpretation of a coordinate branch, contained in the House Impeachment Rules, unconstitutional.

Under the impeachment gun then was Hilario Davide, Jr. and so the robed gang huddled together and quite expectedly hailed their Chief - at the expense of the Constitution.

As amicus curiae in Francisco, Father Joaquin Bernas, the Jesuit constitutionalist, has argued in the following:

Briefly then, an impeachment proceeding is not a single act. It is a complexus of acts consisting of a beginning, a middle and an end. The end is the transmittal of the articles of impeachment to the Senate. The middle consists of those deliberative moments leading to the formulation of the articles of impeachment. The beginning or the initiation is the filing of the complaint and its referral to the Committee on Justice.

Hence, to Bernas the initiation STARTS with the “filing” of the complaint, and is COMPLETED upon “referral” to the proper House Committee, not upon the vote or resolution by the House to charge or not to charge. Why, Father Bernas offers no plausible explanation, if at all.

As first indicated the Court adopted Father Bernas’ arguments and, by further attributing “initiate” a dictionary rather than a constitutional meaning, held:

Having concluded that the initiation takes place by the act of FILING of the impeachment complaint and REFERRAL to the House Committee on Justice, the initial action taken thereon, the meaning of Section 3 (5) of Article XI becomes clear. Once an impeachment complaint has been initiated in the foregoing manner, another may not be filed against the same official within a one year period following Article XI, Section 3(5) of the Constitution. (Capitalization mine.)

With the above ruling, the then Chief Justice Davide has gotten off the hook on a technicality, and the “legal truth” about the allegations in the impeachment complaint against him now foreclosed.

Under scrutiny was Article XI, Section 3 of the Constitution which delineates the impeachment process. It reads:

Sec. 3. (1) The House of Representatives shall have the exclusive power to initiate all cases of impeachment.

(2) A verified complaint for impeachment may be filed by any Member of the House of Representatives or by any citizen upon a resolution of endorsement by any Member thereof, which shall be included in the Order of Business within ten session days, and referred to the proper Committee within three session days thereafter. The Committee, after hearing, and by a majority vote of all its Members, shall submit its report to the House within sixty session days from such referral, together with the corresponding resolution. The resolution shall be calendared for consideration by the House within ten session days from receipt thereof.

(3) A vote of at least one-third of all the Members of the House shall be necessary either to affirm a favorable resolution with the Articles of Impeachment of the Committee, or override its contrary resolution. The vote of each Member shall be recorded.

(4) In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.

(5) No impeachment proceedings shall be initiated against the same official more than once within a period of one year.

(6) The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. When sitting for that purpose, the Senators shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside, but shall not vote. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate.

(7) Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than removal from office and disqualification to hold any office under the Republic of the Philippines, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to prosecution, trial, and punishment according to law.

(8) The Congress shall promulgate its rules on impeachment to effectively carry out the purpose of this section. (Emphasis supplied.)

I have had a couple of occasions before to expound upon the impeachment process, thus:

The duty to impeach is assigned by the Constitution to Congress with the House of Representatives being given the exclusive authority to prosecute the entire impeachment process. In ordinary parlance, the House acts as the prosecutor, the Senate as the judge and the “impeached” public officer as the accused (or the person charged or indicted).

When the charge or charges, otherwise termed as the Articles of Impeachment, are filed with the Senate, the Senate sits as the sole Impeachment Court to try the impeachment case and then to make a final decision either of conviction or acquittal. From this decision, the remedy of appeal to or review by any other authority, including the Supreme Court, is not provided. The Senate shall have the sole power to try and decide all cases of impeachment. Period.

Plain common sense dictates the aforesaid preclusion against a Supreme Court review because unlike the US Constitution, “culpable violation” of the Constitution is one of the grounds provided for impeachment. Justices of the Supreme Court making a decision in palpable (intentional) violation of the Constitution are impeachable. Therefore, to allow a review by the Supreme Court of the decision of the Impeachment Court finding any of the members of the Supreme Court guilty on such a ground would render the entire impeachment process in such a case inoperative or nugatory, obviously a situation the clear language of the Constitution never meant or the authors thereof intended.

Article XI, Sec. 3 of 1987 Constitution specifically provides for certain modes to prepare the impeachment case. The preparation process is referred to therein as the impeachment proceedings. Basically, there are two modes provided.

The first mode is covered by paragraphs (1), (2) and (3) of Sec. 3 of Article XI which is somehow the equivalent of the preliminary investigation stage of a criminal prosecution in the Philippines (or the grand jury trial in the US) where the object is to reach the prosecutorial decision to charge or not to charge, what acts to charge, and whether a case can be won based on the verified complaint and certain evidentiary matters that might be gathered in support thereof. The impeachment proceedings, instead of being considered as providing undue opportunities for harassment, are in fact a buffer to protect the public officer being investigated from harassment or from unfounded accusation especially where the complaint is filed by a private citizen. It is thus a mechanism by which the impeachment process at this stage is commenced leading up to the charging or indictment of the public officer in the impeachment complaint or articles of impeachment that completes the preparation process. It sounds oxymoronic but the decision to charge or not to charge (which takes place when at least a vote of one-third of all the Members of the House of Representatives is obtained) COMPLETES the “initiation” earlier STARTED by the filing of the verified complaint (either by any individual member of the House of Representatives or by any citizen with the endorsement by any such member). The intervening steps between the starting and completion of the “initiation,” which includes the referral of the complaint to the proper Committee and the action taken by the Committee thereon, are integral parts of the entire process of initiating the impeachment proceedings.

The conclusion reached by the Court pursuant to the Bernas interpretation, is, with due respect, constitutionally without any basis because the first mode of initiating impeachment proceedings covers and extends up to paragraph (3), Sec. 3 of Article XI which prescribes the prerequisite vote of the House. Without compliance with the said paragraph (3), the “initiation” is incomplete and unconstitutional.

By contrast, the erstwhile provision of the House Impeachment Rules (Rule V, Section 16, which was declared unconstitutional in Francisco) was squarely in compliance with the procedure prescribed by the Constitution because pursuant to it, it is only upon obtaining the prerequisite vote of the House either affirming or reversing the Committee’s resolution that the proceedings is “deemed initiated.”

Let’s recall and quote Section 16, of the ill-fated House Impeachment Rules:

Section 16. – Impeachment Proceedings Deemed Initiated. – In cases where a Member of the House files a verified complaint of impeachment or a citizen files a verified complaint that is endorsed by a Member of the House through a resolution of endorsement against an impeachable officer, impeachment proceedings against such official are deemed initiated on the day the Committee on Justice finds that the verified complaint and/or resolution against such official, as the case may be, is sufficient in substance, or on the date the House votes to overturn or affirm the finding of the said Committee that the verified complaint and/or resolution, as the case may be, is not sufficient in substance.

In cases where a verified complaint or a resolution of impeachment is filed or endorsed, as the case may be, by at least one-third (1/3) of the Members of the House, impeachment proceedings are deemed initiated at the time of the filing of such verified complaint or resolution of impeachment with the Secretary General.

Now, at the first attempted impeachment against Chief Justice Davide (and seven other Associate Justices) - or for that matter during the first impeachment case against President Arroyo, the vote by the House of Representatives had never taken place pursuant to paragraph (3), Sec. 3 of Article XI; hence, the multi-step initiation process had not been completed or ended to constitute a valid time bar to an appropriate “impeachment initiation.”

I was, I guess, among the first to form the following hypothetical:

If the initiation of the first impeachment proceedings is considered completed upon “referral” to the House Committee and hence a bar to any subsequent initiation against the same official within the one-year prohibition, then it would be quite tempting to contrive first a weak impeachment strawman and then, once the put-on is disposed of for being what it’s been intended to be, sans the examination and vote of the House, the impeachable official could then proceed to execute within the same year the true sinister plan, now fully insulated from the impeachment process by virtue of the time bar. That scenario, if subjected to the rather expansive scrutiny by the full House or at least by a greater number of gutsy and conscientious members thereof could certainly be obviated more “effectively” with the application of the House Impeachment Rules, which required that to be “deemed initiated” it should go beyond the Committee referral phase of the “initiation” and up to the House vote as the Constitution prescribes.

The second mode of initiating impeachment proceedings (the now familiar Villar route) is covered by paragraph (4), Sec. 3 of Article XI. All that is required under this mode is that the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment be filed by at least one-third of all the Members of the House; then the complaint or resolution shall constitute the Articles of Impeachment. This is rather an abbreviated procedure (there being supposedly no “complexus of acts” involved).

What is clear from the foregoing is that both the first and the second modes of initiating impeachment proceedings require the vote of at least one-third of all the Members of the House of Representatives. This conclusion is inevitable pursuant to the exclusive character of the power of the House of Representatives to initiate the impeachment process. Why such constitutional requirement was not followed in Francisco, the Court offered no clear and principled reasoning.

At stake was judicial independence, Chief Justice Davide contended about his impeachment. Was it that or the Supreme Court simply rushed to judgment to protect its territory.

For some ad hoc gain of barring the second impeachment of Chief Justice Davide and declaring the pertinent House rules unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has proceeded without clear or appropriate constitutional authorization and has thereby emaciated the impeachment process as a vital constitutional checks and balances mechanism.

The monumental gaffe by the Court in Francisco is being exploited and abused anew via the Pulido impeachment complaint to trash a potential third attempt to make President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo accountable to the impeachment process.

Romulo Neri: steward or switik?

2007-09-26T17:44:00.000-04:00

It was probably propitious the lector assigned last Sunday (September 23) could not meet his ministry schedule so I was asked to change my own and pitch in for him. The timing seemed perfect because the first, second and Gospel readings have some striking bearing upon certain hot-button issues in the Philippines today that I’ve wanted to write about.

The first reading was from the Book of the prophet Amos whose prophetic tenure is believed to have taken place in the 8th century.

Amos 8:4-7 (New International Version) reads:

Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,

saying “When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?”—
skimping the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,

buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob:
“I will never forget anything they have done.”

While in the selection quoted, prophet Amos has again denounced the abuse of the poor and the lowly by the wealthy and the privileged, a common theme in other Amos’ oracles and in those of other major prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah, it was however different in the sense that it highlighted the conjunction of the religious hypocrisy of the rich and economic exploitation.

To drive home his point, Amos cited specifically the impatience of the wealthy with religious bans during Sabbath that cut the bottom line, their underhanded and corrupt practices and the “commoditization” of people.

The first two examples of breaches of fair dealing could be as old as the Bible and commerce. As to the third, in the age of universal respect for individual liberty, one would be hard put first to find an appropriate analog today – until he starts thinking of the plight of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

In the second reading (1Timothy 2:1-8), St. Paul has instructed the Christian communities “that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for everyone - for kings and for all in authority so that we may live peaceful and quite lives.”

By “we” however could mean the Christian communities only which, as mere subjects, were at the receiving end of the policies of the Imperial rule (essentially by tyrants, not by rulers democratically chosen by the people), and as to which, even when those policies were so conceived to repress Christians, they have no say; therefore, those supplications, prayers, petitions and thanksgivings by the Christians were in some way self-serving, the invocation being ultimately in order to be “let alone” in their ways.

In the current context, it may be well to note that certain fundamental requirements of supposedly democratic societies are honored more in the breach than in the observance. If for instance only a handful of interlocking corporate ownerships control the TV networks and the print media, is freedom of speech a meaningful freedom for the majority or the vast many in the Philippines (or even in mature democracies like the U.S.)? Or have the peoples’ representatives in fact been voted to office by fair and free elections? When an un-elected High Tribunal, bounded only by the consciences of the individual members, frequently sets and selects the ground rules of governance, can ours still be considered a representative democracy? And why are so many people so politically desensitized they would rather just pray and “move on” than exercise the full extent of their citizenship so that “we may lead a quiet and tranquil life”?

The Gospel reading (Luke 16:1-13), a reflection on the concept of stewardship, reads:

TheParable of the Shrewd Steward

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
“ ‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
“ ‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.
“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

Literally, a steward is a household manager who takes care of the property of the absentee owner.

According to the Anchor commentary of Father Joseph Fiztmyer, the estate under management in this parable was losing money so, to make the owner whole, the steward has made the choice to take the loss himself by cutting down on his pay (since he was paid by commission for running the estate) and save the estate (upon the profitable operation of which many more people possibly depended).

Management guru Peter Block defines stewardship as “ the willingness to be accountable for the well-being of the larger organization.” It is choosing service over self-interest.

Is Romulo Neri a shrewd steward who cut down on his bottom line to serve the larger community? Or is he, as mlq3 has described him, a switik, plain and simple?

The intangibles of diaspora philanthropy

2007-09-10T14:15:00.000-04:00

(This piece was first published in unitediriguenos.org on Sept. 6, 2007)

In 1995, the world's second richest man, Warren Buffett, so it is said, made the following remarks:

I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well - disproportionately well. Mike Tyson, too. If you can knock a guy out in 10 seconds and earn $10 million for it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat 360, this world will pay a lot for that. If you're a marvelous teacher, this world won't pay a lot for it. If you are a terrific nurse, this world will not pay a lot for it. Now, am I going to try to come up with some comparable worth system that somehow redistributes that?

Then Buffett concluded that "society has a big claim" upon those with such a "peculiar talent" as an astute investor as him, a knock-out artist as Mike Tyson or an ace baseball slugger.

On another instance Buffett actually has opened up: "There's nothing material I want very much."

About a decade later, or in June 2006, Warren Buffett gave away approximately US$30.7 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established by the world's richest man Bill Gates, making the donation the largest in charity history.

If Buffet is after efficiency, he's probably right in putting his historic endowment literally in one basket but I think he's off in implying that society does not have a claim on the talent of a marvelous teacher or a terrific nurse.

A parallel can [once again] be drawn, perhaps a stretch, from Nick Joaquin's criticism of the Filipinos in the Heritage of Smallness that "We seem to be making less and less effort, thinking ever smaller, doing even smaller. The air droops with a feeling of inadequacy. We can't cope; we don't respond; we are not rising to challenges."

The foremost Philippine National Artist has unleashed more of his cavil at his compatriots: "And commerce for the Filipino is the smallest degree of retail: the tingi . . . this is a country, perhaps the only one in the world, where people buy and sell one stick of cigarette, half a head of garlic, a dab of pomade, part of the contents of a can or bottle, one single egg, one single banana."

Absent a Filipino Warren Buffett, the tingi system is however doing wonders for a "people-powered" philanthropy, Joaquin's contumely notwithstanding.

But first the big picture. The survival today of the Philippine economy leans on the money transfers from the Filipino diaspora community, the eight million or so Pinoys working abroad, comprising a tenth of the population. They are teachers, nurses, caregivers, entertainers, nannies, mechanics, beauticians, welders, seamen, japayukis, IT professionals, construction workers, and you name it. In 2006, their remittances officially reached $12.8 billion (minus the volume that bypasses the financial system), a figure that is more than three times the annual foreign direct investments the country targets to attract. The flow of money keeps immediate relatives out of poverty and children in school, and the country's economy afloat by enhancing purchasing power.

There could be downsides: for instance, on the part of individuals, dependency and other social costs that migration inflicts on separated families or, on the part of the government and the nation's wealth creators, a disincentive to improve on poor performance or to be competitive. This is not to rub in any further the "brain drain" argument against the phenomenon even before it became a recognizable fixture.

Aside from the enormity of the remittances constituting a tenth of the GDP, certain upsides border on the intangibles: a unique occasion for introspection as to someone of the Warren Buffett sort, at least disposition wise, who would come to realize "There's nothing material I want very much." To a plain migrant teacher or nurse that would be no more than committing some volunteer time or skills or giving out what little spare (money or goods) he or she has for others beyond the immediate household out of utang na loob (society's claim?) and bayanihan (town effort) toward a place they continue to call "home." Where migration results in separation, the ensuing "alienation" in far away climes also engenders the opposite phenomenon of reconnection, communal bonding and networking even as remote, transnational, if not virtual or electronic, relationships among former town mates, schoolmates and neighborhood are forged by shared and common goals for their kapwa (fellow beings). These motivations, it is believed, have kept millions of migrants and hundreds, probably thousands, of nondescript hometown organizations, alumni association, professional groups, nonprofit and charitable corporations and similar groupings around the globe to manage whatever they can (as in tingi) just to help their hometown and, largely by ripple effect, their homeland.

Funding is raised in multifarious ways aside from individual contributions: garage sales, raffle tickets, direct mail and email appeals, evening charities, golf outings, concerts, auctions, beauty pageants, souvenir books ads, corporate solicitations, and the like. It seems like tiny drops in the bucket but four years ago, on in 2003, the official estimate of this philanthropy by overseas Filipinos came close to a quarter of a billion US dollars. A larger figure could be extrapolated now given that remittances grew from $7.6 billion in 2003 to $12.8 billion in 2006 as cited above.

Diaspora philanthropic projects or programs are similarly varied and include school repairs and reconstruction, livelihood and nutrition, health and sanitation, library construction or enhancement, housing, disaster relief, educational scholarship, sports development, medical mission, environmental and cultural preservation, computer literacy and the like.

Now, Warren Buffett, to be efficient, might have chosen the easy path, so to speak: cut the check out to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has all the logistics and professional expertise in place to put his magnanimity to effective use.

As amateurs, some migrant philanthropists have to start from scratch to initiate, implement and complete their projects.

A few however have adopted the Orozco and Welle system which prescribes the following criteria:

1. Ownership: which requires the participation of the beneficiary community in terms of planning, decision-making, implementation, and project control upon completion.

2. Correspondence: which determines how much the project matches the community basic needs and priorities on the basis of an accurate assessment of the conditions in the community.

3. Sustainability: which refers to how the project enables development goals on a long-term cycle without imposing undue burdens on the community.

4. Replicability: which considers whether the project utilizes resources that are available in other communities that make it replicable.

The efficient channeling of migrant remittances for development in ways that are attractive to migrants remains a challenge to entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and policymakers. Investment instruments or mechanisms contemplated include the issuance of debit cards to beneficiaries to induce multiplier effects, micro-finance time deposits linked to small-enterprise loans, or municipal bonds with migrants as investors financing local infrastructures. We will leave that debate to the experts for now.

But, for a run-of-the-mill migrant, a marvelous teacher or a terrific nurse, simply looking back and being engaged out of utang na loob, or being driven by bayanihan for their kapwa through giving by tingi are a good starting point to build essential intangibles - trust and a renewed sense of country.

Magsaysay, the people's guy, was America's nightmare

2007-09-03T19:02:00.001-04:00

Manuel L. Quezon III has lamented in his blog that the birth centenary (August 31, 2007) of Ramon Magsaysay was officially ignored. The young Quezon’s commemorative piece somehow re-ignited the debate of whether the seventh President of the Philippines had been America’s stooge, manipulated by The Ugly American.

The “basic assumption” that Ramon Magsayay was in fact packaged by the CIA as a rags-to-power politician while “overstated” could have some grounding. For one, Magsaysay was not a poor mechanic from Zambales but himself a son of a wealthy merchant and landowner. Atypically of a Filipino teenager of his time, he sported a Ford in high school, best-selling author Stanley Karnow has pointed out in In Our Image. There are certain serious materials indicating that Magsaysay, as an aspiring politician of national standing, agreed to work “for” the CIA. However when as president he converted, his term was cut short by a fatal plane crash. The conversion was from acting out his supposedly assigned role in America’s battle for hearts and minds to becoming an earnest reformer in protecting the Filipino peasantry from abuse in the belief that “he who has less in life should have more in law.” In having done so, Magsaysay actually began to live his manufactured image as a “man of the people,” as if a Jacksonian democrat, at a period of sensitive global strategic alliances.

The plot is not simple.

There’s a reason why American journalists called Ninoy Aquino a Jeffersonian democrat.

But first, a better way to understand a Jeffersonian democrat is to define its antithesis, the Hamiltonian federalist. Hamiltonian federalists, like John Hay, advocated the rule by the “best people” upon the idea that “those who own the country ought to govern it” and that government should not interfere with but support private enterprise.

Jefferson, born of a landed aristocracy, believed that the government should operate for the benefit of ordinary Americans, the yeoman farmers who best epitomize republican virtue. So, when Jefferson said that the best government is the one that governs least, he was not demanding the laissez faire system but only expressing his support for popular self-governance versus a strong central regime.

Ninoy too was wellborn who believed in the Filipinos and promised to subdue the oligarchs if he would be president. But he was an accomplished politician. Pressed with a question at a television interview during the 1978 parliamentary elections of whether he worked for the CIA, Ninoy deftly explained that he worked “with,” but not “for,” the CIA.

The conversion of Ninoy took place in his detention cell. After about 8 years in confinement, he was allowed medical furlough in the US for a heart bypass surgery but then to save himself from the drudgery of life in exile, he returned to fulfill his destiny and his belief that the “Filipinos are worth dying for.” Jefferson’s full conversion was at deathbed where he spoke of the end of democracy and freedom once power shifts to the aristocracy of “banking institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

Now, a better way to define Jacksonian democracy is to distinguish it from Jeffersonian democracy? Jefferson’s crowning glory was not the dismantling of Hamiltonian aristocracy but his successful negotiation for the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte. The Louisiana acquisition however established the template for expansionism, the idea that people and territory could be acquired by purchase. Also, succumbing to pragmatic politics, Jefferson was accused of tyrannical act when he sought the passage of the Embargo Act which prohibited American exports, resulting in thousands of factory workers being thrown out of jobs. While Jefferson might not have lost faith in the common man (although he also believed that universal education should precede universal suffrage) Jeffersonians never became a mass-based organization.

Once again, when Jeffersonian democracy had called for the people’s self-governance, it was more of a call for state’s rights against the centralizing power of the Federal government; Jacksonian democracy two decades later went further by demanding direct governance by the common man (the electorate was then broadened to include all white male adult citizens, rather than only the propertied in that group of the Jeffersonian era) and therefore Andrew Jackson’s new democracy as politics for the people crossed social class lines and beyond mere geographic sectionalism. It was during this era that Davy Crockett, a semiliterate rifleman, was voted thrice to congress by Jacksonian rabble and was in fact groomed by his organized constituents to take on the presidency.

Karnow has suggested Magsaysay populism was Jacksonian.

The sub-plot: that Erap para sa mahihirap was stillborn owing to the pre-termination of the presidential term of another people’s champion unofficially by the conspiracy of the middle class and the “Makati rich” that was EDSA Dos and officially by a judicial misadventure in semantics (hence Erap’s ouster via “constructive resignation”) by elites in black robes.

Where is the connection?

Remember the intelligence dossier prepared by former US ambassador to the Philippines Joseph Mussomeli? The dossier was in turn based upon the reports of certain US agents detailed in the Philippines following the resignation of the “Hyatt 10” when the momentum for the Arroyo ouster movement heightened? The agents calculated that there was a clear and present danger People Power III would take place, hence the rush to scout for an acceptable replacement.

It was then logical for the US agents to conduct a job interview with the one who is formally next in line. However, not bound by constitutional requirements, the talent search has to meet other threshold priorities. How did Vice President Noli de Castro fare? Miserably by the interviewers’ own account.

First, De Castro was assessed to be lacking the required sophistication for the job in view, for one thing, of his comments on US-RP trade relations: sounding more like a fair-trader, he complained about the “imbalance” in those relations. De Castro was also quoted in the dossier as saying to the effect that the Philippines is America’s “Number One ally” and our President is its “Number One fan” and yet other countries are favored more.

Second, regarding De Castro’s take on Iraq, the dossier stated: “On Iraq, however, he said he didn’t understand ‘what was behind it.’ He then turned to his real interest in Iraq: jobs for Filipino workers.”

Third, on domestic matters, De Castro was portrayed as naive at best: “We asked about his legislative priorities and waited patiently as he searched for words. His chief of staff, Jesse Andres, broke the silence, noting that De Castro identifies his policy interest as anything that would benefit the masses. . . .”

U.S. can deal with a left-leaning nationalist or a patron of OFWs. But the third one was the proverbial straw that broke the Camel’s back. Why? Because a Filipino leader (or Third World leaders, for that matter) who pays attention to the needs of the masses is likely to ignore America’s powerful interests and U.S. strategic imperatives.

“[Magsaysay] undoubtedly had [American] support, because of the Cold War and the rise of the Huks,” mlq3 has attempted too make the connection. In the comment thread he added this caveat: “I understand some historians have been working on this which, combined with contemporary testimony, should lead to a reexamination of what has become a basic assumption.”

In another breadth, Jacksonianism, as reinterpreted by some historians today, is also about the creation of mass democracy as a check upon the expansion of manic free-market capitalism.

Not communism, not terrorism but the “excess of democracy,” or a true “government by the people, of the people, for the people,” whether of the Jefferson, Ninoy Aquino, Andrew Jackson or Magsaysay (and for that matter the Hugo Chavez) variety, is America’s worst nightmare.

RA 4200, some thoughts

2007-08-28T22:19:00.000-04:00

First of all, Republic Act No. 4200 (otherwise known as the Anti-Wiretapping Law) is a CRIMINAL statute that penalizes violation of PRIVACY as defined by it.

Second of all, the Act also LEGALIZES wiretapping under conditions prescribed by it.

Third of all, what the statute prohibits to further discourage the acts penalized is the ADMISIBILITY IN EVIDENCE of the “communication or spoken word or the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of the (communication or spoken word) or any part thereof, or any information therein contained” so obtained or secured in violation its provisions.

On the first point, as a criminal statute, RA 4200 should be construed strictly against the state and liberally in favor of the accused.

On the second point, if the communication is not private, the statute is not supposed to apply. Now, is a communication between the President and a COMELEC official about the conduct of a presidential election private? (Note: I am focusing my question to this and only this portion of the recorded communication in the tape).

On the third point -

a) If the record of the communication or spoken word is used in a “judicial, quasi-judicial, legislative or administrative hearing or investigation” but not introduced in evidence, and therefore there is no occasion to consider its ADMISSIBLITY, is the statute violated? (This could essentially be the point of Senator Chiz Escudero in another dimension as further elaborated by lawyer Jaxius here.)

b) If the introduction in evidence of the so-called “poisoned fruit” is being attempted in such a trial, hearing or investigation, who is the proper party to object to its admissibility?

c) May the objection be waived or is the right to object on ground of admissibility essentially waivable since it is a PRIVATE right?

d) In the case of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, if her privacy right has been violated, is she not deemed to have waived it by virtue of her public acknowledgement of the content of the recording in the “lapse in judgment” speech? Or as the country’s chief law enforcer, should she not waive her private right in the public interest?

e) Is PGMA deemed to have authorized the wiretapping by her conduct of not faithfully executing the law against probable violators and therefore barred from availing of the benefits under the law, if any?

f) Since Garci denies he is the same person whose voice is recorded on the tape in question, could he be at any time an improper party to object to its admissibility?

g) When is it seasonable to object, at any time reference is made to the tape or only at such time that the tape is being introduced in evidence, which the tape being essentially a “real” (not a testimonial) evidence should be at the “offer of evidence” stage of the trial, hearing or investigation?

FINALLY, considering the well-nigh plenary nature of policymaking by Congress, may the SC interfere via a TRO with congressional hearing in aid of legislation? On the other hand, may Congress assert its prerogative to cite anyone in contempt who is enforcing such TRO, if so issued?

Simply definitional

2007-08-26T15:27:00.000-04:00

At mkq3’s blog, I asked BrianB (a writer who earlier in the comment thread had given a lecture on “mannered writing”): “What do you mean when you say you are a humanist?”

“Well, Abe, I suppose besides the usual definition I root for more humans instead of fewer humans, and I don’t mean I don’t like condoms.”

On the next comment, lawyer Bencard, rooting for the Chinese in the Philippines or the Chinese Filipinos, first said: “they had absolutely nothing in terms of political and economic aid from their hostile hosts but they prospered, becoming bankers, professionals, scientists and artisans of world renown. they are not the whimperers (sic), bellyachers, complainers, self-justifying people that the average pinoy is. they believe in PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.”

And when I asked: “Otherwise, who would an ‘average Pinoy’ be?”, Bencard promptly retorted: “to me, ‘average pinoy’ is one who, generally, blames the government for every misery he suffers in life, one who thinks the government is responsible to make him ‘happy’ and self-sufficient as a matter of natural entitlement. anyone who fits this description, including myself, is ‘average’ in my estimation simply because it is a pretty common trait.”

Then, browsing Inquirer.net, I chanced upon an item about a 41-year-old priest from northern Italy who fathered a boy and so he was asked to leave his parish.

Explaining his conduct, according to the news report he said, “The fruit of one's fertility should be a cause for joy . . . I feel false, because it is not easy to walk alone along the path to truth. Sometimes you need to find someone to walk with.”

Funny but these accounts remind me of Oscar Wilde in the dock (then charged with homosexual acts with “rent boys”) who was asked on cross-examination by the prosecutor: “What is, ‘the love that dares not speak its name’?” (The prosecutor was quoting a line that alludes to homosexuality from “Two Loves,” a poem written by Wilde’s lover, Alfred Lord Douglas). Wilde was ebullient:

"The love that dares not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as "the love that dares not speak its name," and on that account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it.

The crowd in the gallery cheered!

Just another acerbic wit?

2007-08-16T15:14:00.000-04:00

(Updated Aug. 17, 2007 @11:15 am)
Now I know, by courtesy of Placeholder, Schumey and Maru, how she was trapped like a Cetacea in a sardine can, and felt that the airline seats were too small, and didn’t need a heavy sweater in the winter but a Joe Malone after climbing every steps of Parthenon (My foot . . . although I do believe her seeing herself floating by the law of buoyancy in the Aegean Sea and saving her makeup and herself from a major meltdown by natural internal combustion!) and claimed everyone but her in the economy class was yelled at for having overweight hand-carries and how in the first place she saved on her ticket and ended up on the economy class.

By the policy of some airlines, dating back to the 1980s, prickly Ms. Porky should be required to book two for one, according to a post in Associated Content.

That piece argued: “For years, airline passengers have had their carry-on baggage restricted to maximum dimensions. So, why not the passengers? One concept that is rapidly gaining in popularity is to install people sizers at all check-in counters: templates that all passengers would be required to fit through in order to qualify for a standard ticket. Can't fit through the people sizer? Buy two seats.”

“As I type this, I’d like you to know that it’s not about whining, complaining and bitching but just stating the facts.”

And the supposed facts are: “. . . I have just returned from a wonderful holiday in the Mediterranean. To cut on some costs for this impromptu vacation I was forced to fly economy class which I absolutely do not wish on my worst enemy. I was, however, encouraged by my travel agent to try out Emirates since it won the best economy class, so with great trepidation I flew on Emirates via Dubai, completely forgetting that Dubai is the hub for all the Filipino migrant workers. Call me whatever you like but when you are trapped in economy class that is filled to the brim with migrant workers the smell gets a little funky after nine hours of flying.”

I also did want to bang the keyboard more, harder and faster as I had in my last entry but some angel saved me the trip. The point is, Angelo Navarro explains to Manila Standard Today columnist Malu Fernandez -

I can take criticisms from foreigners with a grain of salt, since their observations may be due to their ignorance of our culture and values or lack of knowledge of the harsh realities of our country. But those criticisms coming from somebody who is at the very least aware of the situation of our countrymen is much harder to swallow . . . .

. . . not all Filipinos are as lucky in life as you. That is precisely the reason why millions of us are forced by necessity, and not by choice, to work abroad in search of greener pastures. True, a lot of us OFW’s may work as domestic helpers or construction workers (not the kind of people you want to be trapped with in any of your flights), but do understand that we’re just trying to make a decent and honest living to better our lives and the lives of those we love back home. We still believe there is dignity in labor, not like the corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen that bleed our country dry. And mind you, this comes as a big sacrifice for us; oftentimes we pay through our blood, sweat and tears.

__________

Post about post:

Malu’s inspirational journey after WLS

My name is Malu Fernandez. I am 39 years old and I had WLS (Weight Loss Surgery) June 8 2005. I live in the Philippines where a size 10 is considered extra large or a plus size, this I know because I am one of the first people to open a Plus size shop. I had been wanting to have the surgery for the last three years but it was never available in my country. To have it done in the USA would cost me forty to fifty thousand dollars not including the travel expenses. Bear in mind the average income in this third world country is 3000 a year. Plus being 322-lbs meant only business or first class seats another four thousand.(Emphasis mine)

At any rate a new team of doctors trained in the USA brought the surgery here for only ten thousand dollars. So I did it. The first two weeks were a living hell I puked all day without even eating I was so weak I kept telling myself you paid ten thousand dollars to puke all day what an idiot!

Like everyone else I was instructed to eat pureed foods which I couldn't even swallow it made me puke even more it felt like I was eating regurgitated food finally I rebelled and ate a soda cracker; it was heaven and I finally stopped puking. To date I lost 40lbs but I seem to be obsessed with my scale and when my weight fluctuates I freak out. I didn't even own a scale for years simply because I just didn't care any more. Getting WLS was just because my mobility was being threatened by my obesity and my health wasn't doing any good either. I have been on diets all my life and none ever worked out I have lost a 100 lbs and gained it back simply because I couldn't control my appetite and I am an emotional eater. WLS helps me control myself because I simply cannot overeat.

However, in a country where if you weigh 150lbs they call you fat (my sis weighs 93lbs) WLS does not have the same kind of support that the USA has in terms of visits to the nutritionists group therapy etc... There is a support group but there are not enough members to give enough feedback. For instance I can't deal with drinking my vitamins they make me puke what are the alternatives? I can tolerate regular cranberry juice (but stick to diet) I can tolerate diary, I can't tolerate meat(I used to in the beginning) I can only tolerate seafood. Rice which is a staple in Asian food I can barely swallow but I can eat pasta.

But I don't have anyone here to tell me if what I am doing is right or wrong... my doctor is very competent but he travels all around Asia all the time to perform WLS so he is always out and he says there are no set rules because everyone is unique even in terms of weight loss but I cant help getting paranoid when I hear someone losing 75 lbs in 2 months and I am on my 3rd month only having lost 40lbs.

This month I got myself enrolled in a gym with a personal trainer who I see 3x a week. I even count my calories and don't exceed 1000 calories a day but still I don't know if I am losing weight fast enough despite the doctor's constant reassurance that I'm fine. My paranoia still exists that I would screw this up just like all my other diets that have failed. But after reading some of the stories on your website I realize that I just need to calm down and be patient and continue to work hard but every day is a constant battle.

_________

If we want to be on board the Pequod and go whaling, shouldn’t we be harpooning Moby-Dicks, the likes of Mr. Nick?

Dead or alive?

Little drops that make the ocean

2007-08-12T19:04:00.000-04:00

Iconic Nick Joaquin was not only un-Filipino but anti-Filipino when in A Heritage of Smallness he has written: “Society for the Filipino is a small rowboat: the barangay. Geography for the Filipino is a small locality: the barrio. History for the Filipino is a small vague saying: matanda pa kay mahoma; noong peacetime. Enterprise for the Filipino is a small stall: the sari-sari. Industry and production for the Filipino are the small immediate searchings of each day: isang kahig, isang tuka. And commerce for the Filipino is the smallest degree of retail: the tingi.”

Somehow, Filipinos have decided to let the insult pass. Not Dr. Jose Rizal when a similar affront had been hurled at the “indolent” Filipinos of his time. (A couple of years ago I was equally disposed when an old hate e-mail accusing Filipinos as spurious Asians had landed on my inbox and so I blogged about The Asian hoax.)

Rizal’s answer in The Indolence of the Filipino was not surprising:

The evil is not that indolence exists more or less latently but that it is fostered and magnified. Among men, as well as among nations, there exist not only aptitudes but also tendencies toward good and evil. To foster the good ones and aid them, as well as correct the evil and repress them, would be the duty of society and governments, if less noble thoughts did not occupy their attention. The evil is that the indolence in the Philippines is a magnified indolence, an indolence of the snowball type, if we may be permitted the expression, an evil that increases in direct proportion to the square of the periods of time, an effect of misgovernment and of backwardness, as we said, and not a cause thereof. Others will hold the contrary opinion, especially those who have a hand in the misgovernment, but we do not care . . .

In defense of the “degenerate species,” Rizal made the case that Filipinos, before their “discovery and conquest” were, among others, shipbuilders, artillery manufacturers, international traders and warriors of great consequence. He did not spare both the Whiteman and the Chinaman.

How do the Europeans live in tropical countries? Rizal answered his rhetorical question: “Surrounded by a numerous train of servants, never going afoot but riding in a carriage, needing servants not only to take off their shoes for them but even to fan them! And yet they live and eat better, they work for themselves to get rich, with the hope of a future, free and respected, while the poor colonist, the indolent colonist, is badly nourished, has no hope, toils for others, and works under force and compulsion!”

And the “industrious” Chinaman: “so rarely does he take up agriculture . . . .”

The current efforts of Dr. Amy H. Sturgis to dismantle The Myth of the Passive Indian, by which “generations of scholars took as gospel and applied to other indigenous groups” who “had no real history prior to European contact, when Western influences at last put them on a path to genuine social evolution,” are no less Rizalian.

Dr. Sturgis wrote that during the Columbian conquest, the Aztecs were “more sophisticated in terms of construction and cleanliness than their counterparts across the Atlantic” and had made “extensive use of ceramics to build up the soil, elaborate road systems, and artificial ponds and canals—‘a highly elaborate built environment, rivaling that of many contemporary complex societies of the Americas and elsewhere.’”

Nick Joaquin, on the other hand, while demeaning his compatriots who “act on a pygmy scale,” extolled the Whiteman who are “accustomed to thinking dynamically” and their “murderer mentality” which, according to Joaquin, the Filipinos lack, and also hailed the Chinese who “clambered to the top of economic heap and are still right up there.”

If Joaquin’s subjects were the Semites, and he was not as vague as T.S Elliot, then the Jews would raise hell to bake what would be his Nobel Prize. But fortunately for him, Filipinos, as Joaquin claimed, are small-minded and don’t think as big as transforming a dessert into a verdant field or could only mount an uprising “large in number but small in scope.” So, the foremost Filipino novelist, essayist, playwright, poet and biographer remains a revered National Artist, the highest award for arts in the Philippines.

“We seem to be making less and less effort, thinking ever smaller, doing even smaller. The air droops with a feeling of inadequacy. We can’t cope; we don’t respond; we are not rising to challenges.” By “We” Joaquin meant the run-of-the-mill Filipinos excluding of course icons like him or towering personages like Jose Rizal or the “Chinese in the Philippines” who can handle “the big deal.”

If Rizal had been hell-bent to uphold the Filipino race, Joaquin’s denigration was unrelenting:

The depressing fact in Philippine history is what seems to be our native aversion to the large venture, the big risk, the bold extensive enterprise. The pattern may have been set by the migration. We try to equate the odyssey of the migrating barangays with that of the Pilgrim, Father of America, but a glance of the map suffices to show the differences between the two ventures. One was a voyage across an ocean into an unknown world; the other was a going to and from among neighboring islands. One was a blind leap into space; the other seems, in comparison, a mere crossing of rivers. The nature of the one required organization, a sustained effort, special skills, special tools, the building of large ships. The nature of the other is revealed by its vehicle, the barangay, which is a small rowboat, not a seafaring vessel designed for long distances on the avenues of the ocean.

Today, the small rowboat mentality, a social phenomenon that has swept the country, has caught the serious attention of world-class observers and in the Philippines has become the only pillar of economic growth and development vastly outperforming the combined achievements of the “Chinese in the Philippines” and the once-almighty Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that bigheads in IMF and World Bank have prescribed for the Philippine government to seize upon. The IMF/WB strategy has foundered on the rocks condemning a third of the population to isang kahig isang tuka subsistence or otherwise, if fortunate to posses some skills, to brave the uncertainty of distant shores like the seafarers of the old realm, for many “a blind leap into space.”

The barangays of eight to 10 millions Filipinos (the annual deployment is estimated to be close to a million now) have settled in exile in some 193 countries as tourism professionals in Dubai, seamen in Sydney, mechanics in Nigeria, domestic helpers in Hong Kong, teachers in South Korea, japayukis in Japan, and health care providers in USA, remitting back home dollars, dinar and dirham to the tune of US$100 billion since 1975, or ten times the Marshall Plan, the US economic aid used to rebuild Europe after WWII. And this is happening on a “people-powered” philanthropy of the tingi system variety on a monumental global scale.

The economics of migration, born out of petty thinking and desperation, is now the big picture. The swellheads in the elite community will not say it loud - that the national development policy revolves around the phenomenon and that the Philippine economy today is consumption-driven, propped by the economic activities of the Filipino diasporic community, small in amounts but large, nay, gigantic, in scope, much like the “little drops of water that make the mighty ocean” to borrow the highbrow gentility of a literary biggie, yet the much admired Nick Joaquin.

The Arroyo visions

2007-07-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

If President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is still stuck “visioning” at this stage of her presidency, then no one should wonder why the Philippines is going kaput. That essential process should have taken place as early as when she was a senator if, as her adulators claim, she is a true visionary.

But if we are noticing despotic turns in her body language (or “accidental” language), maybe visioning at this point is still apropos, because that means after seven years of reign, the second longest in Philippine history, she is just really warming up.

The “hallmarks of modern society” - to be built on a runaway national debt - in Arroyo’s 2007 State of the Nation Address looked more like a Hitlerian delusion the late Manila mayor Antonio Villegas had caught in Ferdinand Marcos’ own dubious pipedream. Villegas saw the handwriting on the wall when Marcos, supposedly on the final leg of his political career, had stepped up the building of roads, bridges and other physical infrastructures as the exit door stares right smack at him.

Watch these too.

First the myopic aforethought: “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” President Arroyo told Reuter on June 12 when asked what she’s planning at the end of her term.

That economy of vision has been measured, obviously.

Then the improvident teaser last week at Subic: “Who knows? I may run for Congress in my hometown.”

Despite being constitutionally term-limited by 2010, Arroyo could retain all her presidential powers as congressional allies, the majority, re-envisage a parliamentary system via a charter change that may allow her to run as member of the parliament representing her hometown and consequently become the prime minister.

Now the royal punch line of the SONA 2007: “From where I sit, I can tell you, a President is always as strong as she wants to be.”

Like a queen, Arroyo could conceive resorting to the exercise of draconian executive and military powers under the present constitution upon a claim that the national security is under threat.

Those telltales should not be underestimated at all. Not when coming from one with a Marcosian instinct.

What vision? Maybe a tunnel vision.

Rebels or bandits

2007-07-16T21:57:00.000-04:00

(This pre-9/11 essay was also published by inq7.net on June 15, 2001 or six years ago. It is being re-posted here in the light of its relevance to current issues arising from the July 10, 2007 ambush in Basilan of a military convoy where reportedly 14 Marines looking for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi were killed, 10 of them beheaded. There have been calls from certain sectors for the RP government to pull out of the Mindanao peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. has declared an all-out war against MILF as a possible option to force the MILF leadership to hand over the perpetrators. There are however counter-charges to the effect that the atrocities could be in retaliation to earlier brutalities allegedly committed by soldiers involving civilian victims and a religious leader.)

At a press conference in Quezon City, Armed Forces spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Edilberto Adan, has warned that the Abu Sayyaf problem could last for the next 30 or 40 years.

Explaining himself, General Adan claimed that Abu Sayyaf groups have a mass base, which provides them with food, medicines and motorized boats. That makes one marvel whether the duration of 30 or 40 years is no more an understatement than “mass base” a euphemism for a “people powered” struggle. As it appears, it was not quite certain whether the general is acutely aware that a struggle with a mass base is supposed to imply a sense of membership, a concern for the common good, and a moral bond with the community whose survival is in peril.

No wonder, one of Adan’s shor-sighted strategies to counter the activities of Abu Sayyaf is the activation of militia forces like the Civilian Armed Force Geographical Units (Cafgu). It is a proposal that human rights activists have opposed because of alleged human rights abuses committed by Cafgu. Now, this time Adan shot back, “Whose human rights are we looking out for?” He answered his rhetoric by arguing that thousands of Filipinos are already economically dislocated because of the terrorism of Abu Sayyaf. He perceived the dislocation as human rights violation.

“Let’s look after the welfare of the majority,” thus he stressed.

Rejecting the offer of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front to help neutralize Abu Sayyaf, General Adan proceeded to recognize that “What we need is the support of the local population.”

Adan went on to admit also that Abu Sayyaf will not be crushed if the government focuses only on the armed operations. “That is the wrong way to solve an insurgency problem,” he said.

In more ways than one, therefore, Brig. General Adan, the Armed Forces spokesperson, is acknowledging the Abu Sayyaf groups as a rebel or guerrilla force rather than misguided packs of bandits, which is how mainstream opinion makers are treating the groups.

Does this mean that Abu Sayyaf rebels are fighting for a cause? That their brand of terrorism is not a pointless act of banditry but the response of a people being banished from the lands of their ancestors?

Is the recent display of “ghoulishness” actually an expression of frustration following the co-optation first, of the MNLF and, now, potentially, the MILF?

If the leader of Abu Sayyaf and his men are ultimately crushed, will that be the end of the struggle of their endangered people?

Is there something that the other communities in the archipelago can learn from the communities Abu Sayyaf group freely roams?

In an article featured in Inq7.net on June 12, 2001, Peter Jaynul V. Uckung of the National Historical Institute wrote:

The real wealth of Sulu is its people. It is ironic that the collective character of the people of Sulu has never been channeled into the national psychological state of being. For it is the strongest point of its legacy--the indomitable spirit that has permeated the islands of Sulu and has forged into its people courage unfathomable and ultra-sensitive consciousness for being free.

But these traits, while successfully protecting the cultural integrity of the people of Sulu, has never found its way into the mainstream of national consciousness. Perhaps because the Muslims bearing the traits were themselves rejected and marginalized, an after-effect of centuries of conflict with a Christian colonial government under Spain.

Fred Hill, writing in April 1996 for the Islamic Horizons, gave a brief account of the Mindanao strife in general in this manner:

Mindanao is an island with a culture and history quite different from the rest of the Philippines. Islam has dominated the island for centuries. Its proud mujaheddin have defended their homes against colonial invaders from Spain, the United States and Japan. Now the Philippine government rules Mindanao, and they are exploiting the resources, diluting the Muslim majority and containing tribal peoples in enclaves of underdevelopment. Settlers from the crowded and predominantly Christian Luzon and Visayan islands have grown into a dominant culture, seizing Muslim homelands declared ‘public domain’ by the courts of Manila. Newcomers prospered, while the indigenous were displaced and abandoned to poverty.

Criticizing the Philippine government’s development program in Mindanao, Hill further wrote:

Development planners allocate resources to benefit Christian settlers at the expense of native Muslims. The National Power Company (NPC) has crowded 7 hydroelectric dams along a 30-km. stretch of the Agus River, to power the factories of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro. This enormous strain is destroying Lake Lanao, the river’s source, which covers 100,000 acres to depths of up to 300 feet. For centuries the Maranao (“people of the lake”) have relied on this lake for the subsistence of thousands. Now more than half of it has been drained away to power coastal factories, while Muslim cities like Marawi suffer diminished resources. NPC executives explain that some “Muslim bandits” have retaliated by cutting power lines and sabotaging generators. These officials dismiss the international protest of this ecocide, only to hear all local concerns dismissed with a laugh: “The receding shoreline means that they will have to walk a little farther to wash their clothes.” Hardships to the Muslim population seem to attract little concern.

Now that the rebels are cutting off not just power lines but the heads of innocent civilians whom the Moros might claim as symbolizing their oppressors, would it reduce their struggles to what the Christian majority calls “meaningless acts of terrorism”?

Peace is achievable in Mindanao if there is a collective change of attitudes of all the parties concerned. First of all, total victory by either side is impossible. If it were, the war would have been won or lost long, long time ago.

I personally perceive an institutionalized culture of bias by the Christian majority, whether in the region or in imperial Manila, against the Muslim minority. The attitude seems rooted in basic human relations.

Now that the peace process is being reinitiated, the Philippine government must come to the peace table with the full realization that it cannot win an ethnic war against the Moros. On the other hand, the Moros must recognize that it cannot win a war of secession against the Philippine government. Not in our lifetime.

The human relations I’m referring to is simply about the Christian majority wholeheartedly accepting Moros as Pinoys just like any Pinoy, Christian or not, no more than the Moros accepting themselves wholeheartedly as Pinoy too. For, “Every one who is a Filipino is Pinoy-rin.”

utol kita, mahal kita

‘lang hiya talaga
ipininagmalaki pang “utol kita”
sa ilong labas naman
talagang kabulastugan!

ganyan p’re ko pag ampon ka lang
at ang bansag mo ay Kiram
pa leather leather na o Levi’s pa ‘yan
naks, secon’ class pa ring mamamayan.

“utol kita, mahal kita”
‘sus tama na ‘yan
sabihin mong takot ka lang
pagkat kaluluwa n’ya ay Islam.

[Bro, I Love you, Bro

Damn!
Proud as if to call me, “Bro.”
(Boy, did he really mean that?)
Damn! Damn!

When you’re a foster, man,
And you go by Kiram,
Your leather coat or pair of Levi’s
Won’t hide your second-class brand.

“Bro, I love you, Bro.”
Gee, stop it.
You’re menaced (terrorized?) why not admit:
He’s all they say it is—Islam.]

The (nagging) Trillanes question

2007-06-28T21:06:00.000-04:00

What is important to remember is that the relevant law on the matter, Republic Act No.7055, “AN ACT STRENGTHENING CIVILIAN SUPREMACY OVER THE MILITARY” clearly provides that “Members of the Armed forces of the Philippines and other persons subject to military law” shall either be tried by the proper civil courts or by court-martial, not by BOTH.

R. A. 7055 reads in part:

Section 1. Members of the Armed forces of the Philippines and other persons subject to military law, including members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Units, who commit crimes or offenses penalized under the Revised Penal Code, other special penal laws, or local government ordinances, regardless, of whether or not civilians are co-accused, victims, or offended parties which may be natural or juridical persons, shall be tried by the proper civil court, except when the offense, as determined before arraignment by the civil court, is service-connected, in which case the offense shall be tried by court-martial: Provided, That the President of the Philippines may, in the interest of justice, order or direct at any time before arraignment that any such crimes or offenses be tried by the proper civil courts.

I hold that R. A. 7055 is a reaffirmation of the long-standing doctrine in People v. Hernandez (99 Phil. 515 [1956]), particularly where the same act or omission that may have given rise to “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentlemen” under Commonwealth Act No. 408 (otherwise known as the Articles of War) are “mere ingredients” or “part and parcel” of the political crime of coup d’etat as defined by the Revised Penal Code.

The injunction under R. A. 7055 against proceeding both ways is simply commonsensical. A different reading will allow an absurd and arbitrary situation where a civil court trying the coup d’etat acquits a member of the armed forces while the military tribunal convicts the same person of mutiny. To enforce the decision of the court martial under such a scenario notwithstanding the acquittal by the civil court is to impair civilian supremacy over the military against the mandate not only of R. A. 7055 but the Constitution itself.

Through the President’s alter ego, the Department of Justice, a decision has been made that Trillanes et al be tried by the proper civil court - a decision that has the effect of precluding the military court from further proceeding with the trial of the accused on charges that are “mere ingredients” or “part and parcel” of the underlying offense of coup d’etat.

On the other hand, in a tripartite system, the criminalization or de-criminalization of certain social behavior belongs to the province of congress, not the president or the courts. Amnesty or presidential pardons are basically checks and balances mechanisms upon that policymaking authority of congress. On the other hand, delegated powers are subject to the LAST SAY of the public, expressed either peaceably and intra-systemically in an election or as in EDSA I by abolishing the legal and constitutional order or the existing government.

In the last elections, the people, the source of all authorities, have spoken: navy officer Trillanes and the Magdalo group have committed not criminal and anti-social behavior but patriotic acts, in the same manner that Vice President Gloria Arroyo, General Angelo Reyes and Chief Justice Davide had committed essentially the same acts or behavior during the uprising that was EDSA II.

It may be worth mentioning that certain political crimes and other politically-motivated behavior are criminalized only at the convenience of the regime in power. In Singapore, for example, an act which produces a mere tendency (therefore criminal intent is irrelevant) to excite disaffection with the government is criminalized. The US had once a draconian anti-political dissent legislation, the anti-sedition law.

But even the American founding fathers (from whose political thoughts Filipinos have borrowed liberally) believed that to secure their inalienable rights any instituted government destructive of such ends are subject to “the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.” (Declaration of Independence)

Trillanes was simply stating the obvious when in interviews during the electoral campaign he said: “… rebellion is justified if the government goes against the interest of the people. That’s in the preamble of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It’s also in the US Declaration of Independence.”

Had Trillanes and the Magdalo group succeeded in instituting a new government, it would have been equally convenient for them to de-criminalize their acts and maybe even criminalize ex post facto the acts of the supporters of the deposed regime. They could also pass more laws to secure their hold to political power or establish a new constitution redefining and/or broadening the scope of their authorities.

Political crimes are not depraved or anti-social acts (as rapes or pedophilias are) especially from the standpoint of the persons (e.g., George Washington, Andres Bonifacio or Fidel Castro) engaged in them; in the final analysis, these expressions of dissent, violent or otherwise, are not simply statutory or constitutional issues but questions that the people in their sovereign capacity ultimately resolve. This is how the Philippine Supreme Court has decided in the case of EDSA I, which is why Cory Aquino, Ramos, Enrile, and Honasan have never been held accountable under the laws then existing for ending the Marcos regime and sending the tyrant into exile.

Let’s proceed to examine the facts in Gonzales v. Abaya [G.R. No. 164007, August 10, 2006] pertinent to our narrower discussion of the critical issue:

1. On December 12, 2003, the Pre-Trial Investigation Panel submitted its final Report to the JAGO, recommending that, following the “doctrine of absorption,” those charged with coup d’etat before the civil court (RTC) should not be charged before the military tribunal for violation of the Articles of War (Article 96 of the Articles of War pertains to Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman).

2. For its part, the RTC, on February 11, 2004, issued an Order stating that “all charges before the court martial against the accused…are hereby declared not service-connected, but rather absorbed and in furtherance of the alleged crime of coup d’etat.”

While not so stated, it is clear that both the Pre-Trial Investigation Panel and the RTC have invoked the half-a-century-old doctrine in Hernandez which states that

If a crime usually regarded as common, like homicide, is perpetrated for the purpose of removing from the allegiance “to the Government the territory of the Philippine Islands or any part thereof,” then said offense becomes stripped of its “common” complexion, inasmuch as, being part and parcel of the crime of rebellion, the former acquires the political character of the latter.

Based on the Hernandez doctrine, ingredient elements of the political crime of coup d’etat, such as “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman,” stripped of their “military” complexion, have become part and parcel of the underlying offense of coup d’etat.

The specific charge against our now senator Trillanes et al for violation of Article 96 of the Articles of War before the court martial states:

All persons subject to military law, did on or about 27 July 2003 at Oakwood Hotel, Makati City, Metro Manila, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously violate their solemn oath as officers to defend the Constitution, the law and the duly-constituted authorities and abused their constitutional duty to protect the people and the State by, among others, attempting to oust the incumbent duly-elected and legitimate President by force and violence, seriously disturbing the peace and tranquility of the people and the nation they are sworn to protect, thereby causing dishonor and disrespect to the military profession, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in violation of AW 96 of the Articles of War.

The forgoing charge, without stretching one’s imagination, is unmistakably a mere ingredient or part and parcel of the political offense of coup d’etat which is defined by the Revised Penal Code as follows:

Article 134-A. Coup d’etat; How committed. — The crime of coup d’etat is a swift attack accompanied by violence, intimidation, threat, strategy or stealth, directed against duly constituted authorities of the Republic of the Philippines, or any military camp or installation, communications network, public utilities or other facilities needed for the exercise and continued possession of power, singly or simultaneously carried out anywhere in the Philippines by any person or persons, belonging to the military or police or holding any public office of employment with or without civilian support or participation for the purpose of seizing or diminishing state power. (As amended by R.A. 6968).

Following the long-standing doctrine in Hernandez, which has become part of the law of the land, “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentlemen” as so described in the charge sheet is stripped of its military character and ceases to be “service-connected,” there being only one delictual act involved which is the political crime of coup d’etat.

Unfortunately, the majority in Gonzales has failed to see the obvious and held that

. . . there is no merit in petitioners’ argument that they can no longer be charged before the court martial for violation of Article 96 of the Articles of War because the same has been declared by the RTC in its Order of February 11, 2004 as “not service-connected, but rather absorbed and in furtherance of the alleged crime of coup d’etat,” hence, triable by said court (RTC). The RTC, in making such declaration, practically amended the law which expressly vests in the court martial the jurisdiction over “service-connected crimes or offenses.”

There is no mistaking that the RTC is definitely not amending any law but is merely being deferential to a well-settled doctrine in Hernandez that has withstood the test of time, the principled reasoning therein not having been reversed by any existing law or any obtaining judicial doctrine to the contrary.

What is disheartening in the majority opinion in Gonzales is that instead of dwelling on the intent and purpose of Republic Act 7055 which is “AN ACT STRENGTHENING CIVILIAN SUPREMACY OVER THE MILITARY BY RETURNING TO THE CIVIL COURTS THE JURISDICTION OVER CERTAIN OFFENSES INVOLVING MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES, OTHER PERSONS SUBJECT TO MILITARY LAW, AND THE MEMBERS OF THE PHILIPPINE NATIONAL OFFICE …”, it has gone the opposite direction by emphasizing the necessity “to preserve the peculiar nature of military justice system over military personnel charged with service-connected offenses”; and, banking on “the observation made by Mr. Justice Antonio T. Carpio during the deliberation,” the same majority has defined “civilian supremacy” in the context of the Commander in Chief powers of the President, the same powers used by Marcos, through the military court system, to try and convict (of common crimes such as murder and illegal possession of firearms) and sentence to death by firing squad Senator Benigno Acquino, Jr., a civilian, even when the civil courts were open to hear those cases.

The Carpio rationale adopted by the Court is neither the intent and purpose of R.A. 7055 nor the definition of “civilian supremacy” therein as explained by Senator Wigberto Tañada, the sponsor of the legislation:

[A]s long as the civil courts in the land remain open and are regularly functioning, military tribunals cannot try and exercise jurisdiction over military men for criminal offenses committed by them and which are properly cognizable by the civil courts. To have it otherwise would be a violation of the aforementioned constitutional provisions on the supremacy of civilian authority over the military and the integrity and independence of the judiciary, as well as the due process and equal-protection clauses of the Constitution.

The majority in Gonzales has violated its own precepts that “The first and fundamental duty of the courts is merely to apply the law ‘as they find it, not as they like it to be.’”

I believe the opinion of Justice Tinga, concurred in by Justice Ynares-Santiago and Justice Azcuna, is on many scores the more cogent one, one of the main contentions therein being

the majority has laid down a general rule that if members of the military are charged before military tribunals with violation of Articles of War 54 to 70, 72 to 92, and 95 to 97, then the court-martial proceedings would progress unhampered even if the acts which constitute the violation of the Articles of War also constitute offenses under the Revised Penal Code. The court-martial proceedings would also ensue even if the said personnel are also charged for the same acts with a criminal case before the civilian court, and even if the civilian court determines that the acts are not service-connected. Most critically, this view would allow the defendant to be tried and convicted by both the military and civilian courts for the same acts, despite the consistent jurisprudential rule that double jeopardy applies even as between court-martial and criminal trials. I cannot agree to these general propositions, excepting when the defendants happen to be charged before the court-martial for violation of Article 96 of the Articles of War.

Justice Tinga has explained his exception as to Article 96 of the Articles of War in the following:

However, I submit that Article of War 96 warrants special consideration, as it differs in character from the other Articles of War referred to in Section 1 of RA 7055.

Article 96 of Commonwealth Act No. 408, as amended, reads:
Art. 96. Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman. — Any officer, cadet, flying cadet, or probationary second lieutenant, who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be dismissed from the service.
Justice Callejo, Sr. points out in his Concurring Opinion that “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman is a uniquely military offense,” and that “[t]he article proscribing conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman has been held to be wholly independent of other definitions of offenses xxx [and] is not subject to preemption by other punitive articles.” It is difficult to dispute these conclusions, which derive from American military case law. After all, “conduct unbecoming” pertains to the unique exigencies of military life and discipline, whereby an officer is expected to conform to an idiosyncratic etiquette not required of civilians.

Yet more pertinent to my position is the penalty prescribed by Article 96 for “conduct unbecoming.” The penalty is dismissal from service, a penalty which is administrative in character, and beyond the jurisdiction of the civilian court to impose. Notably, of all the Articles of War referred to in Section 1 of RA 7055, it is only Article 96 that provides for dismissal from service as the exclusive penalty. All the other articles so mentioned allow for the penalty of death, imprisonment, or a punishment “as a court-martial may so direct” which could very well constitute any deprivation of life or liberty. While these other articles prescribes a penalty which is penal in nature, it is only Article 96 which provides for a penalty which is administrative in character.

As a result, I am prepared to conclude that courts-martial retain the jurisdiction to try violations of Article 96 of Commonwealth Act No. 408, or conduct unbecoming of an officer, even if the RTC determines that the acts constituting such violation are service-connected.

I take exception to Justice Tinga’s exception for the following reasons:

1. Contrary to the supposed “uniquely military” character of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentlemen,” the are many examples of “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” that are non-military in nature such as, a) dishonorable failure to pay a debt; b) cheating on an exam; c) opening and reading a letter of another without authority; d) being drunk and disorderly in a public place; e) public association with known prostitutes; and f) failing without good cause to support the officer’s family.

2. The penalty of reclusion perpetua for coup d’etat carries with it perpetual absolute disqualification from public office and therefore dismissal from military service (which is a public office or employment) is within the jurisdiction of civilian courts to impose.

On the other hand, lawyer Bencard in attempting to refute certain of my arguments has posted the following at mlq3’s blog:

. . . the Constitution which is a documentation of the social contract between the people (the body politic) and the government is the supreme law of the land. It is superior even against the “collectivity” you referred to that (has) effectively surrendered the exercise of sovereignty to its government, within the limitations set forth in that contract.

x x x

. . . my point (is) that the constitution is a social contract between the people (the entire nation) and the government, in which said people surrendered the exercise of sovereignty to the other party. The terms of this contract may not be breached in a cavalier fashion without paying dearly for it. There are legal ways to change its provisions but definitely not through self-help actions.

Again, the terms of the existing constitution do not allow absolution (either express or implied) of criminals by election to public office.

I am not one of those enamored by the social contract theory. What I have once posted in PCIJ partly explains why:

Think about it, now. Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were essentially “bloggers,” weren’t they? And like many of the bloggers in this forum, they had their own agenda to advance.

Let’s look at Hobbes for a moment. Hobbes was a monarchist. Thus he used certain arguments for individualism to conclude in favor of absolutism. His thesis in Leviathan: Because people pursued self-interest, the ruler needed total power to keep the people under control. By way of “social contract,” people supposedly gave up their rights to a strong ruler. Thus, his preference for a government by what we now call as an “authoritarian” ruler, an absolute monarch.

What about Locke. Locke postulated that governmental powers come from the consent of the governed; the purpose of government is to protect “life, liberty and PROPERTY”; and if government fails to do, “citizens” have a right to overthrow it. It appears however that his context of “citizens” was the rising bourgeoisie of his time. The progeny of this is, I believe, “elitism.” The American founding fathers, who were inspired by Locke, attempted to avoid the anomaly by a clever spin: “life, liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.” The profession of spin-doctors is an old one.

Rousseau? He was a plebeian, a son of watchmaker and he himself worked as an engraver before being recognized as a writer. He was passionately committed to individual freedom. His famous paradox was: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” And so to him the only good government is the one FREELY formed by the people and guided by the “general will”. Hence, the concept of “direct democracy,” where all citizens have the right to participate in making laws, and the idea of liberty as “participation” instead of “freedom from state interference” which was the Lockean tradition of protecting property rights. Rousseau’s idea inspired the French Revolution and, from what I’ve been taught, Bonifacio and his adherents as well during the Philippine Revolution.

In the final analysis, ALL that I am saying is that the matter of whether the acts of Trillanes et al by entering the premises of the Oakwood apartment building, disarming the security guards and planting explosive devices around the building, announcing, through the broadcast media, their grievances against the administration of President Arroyo, such grievances as the graft and corruption in the military, the illegal sale of arms and ammunition to the “enemies” of the State, and the bombings in Davao City intended to acquire more military assistance from the US government, and declaring their withdrawal of support from their Commander in Chief and demanding that she resign as president of the republic and calling as well for the resignation of her cabinet members and the top brass of the AFP and PNP are patriotic acts or criminal offenses, is no longer merely a legal question that the courts can pass upon but is now in the nature of a political question that only the people can ultimately decide, as indeed they did, in their sovereign capacity.

The people have spoken against sending Trillanes to the gallows; they have instead chosen their man speak for them in the Senate to carry out the political agenda and purposes that have been promised during the campaign. That is the people’s mandate in the last election that ought to be respected by any other agencies of the collectivity.

Trillanes, not guilty by 11 million votes

2007-06-17T16:02:00.000-04:00

The Philippine Supreme Court in People vs. Hernandez (July 1956) has defined political crimes as

those directly aimed against the political order, as well as such common crimes as may be committed to achieve a political purpose. The decisive factor is the intent or motive. If a crime usually regarded as common, like homicide, is perpetrated for the purpose of removing from the allegiance “to the Government the territory of the Philippine Islands or any part thereof,” then said offense becomes stripped of its “common” complexion, inasmuch as, being part and parcel of the crime of rebellion, the former acquires the political character of the latter.

The Supreme Court in Hernandez has further clarified that murders, arsons and robberies “are mere ingredients of the crime of rebellion” if committed as means “necessary” for the perpetration of the rebellion.

At the time of the Hernandez decision, coup d’etat had not been specifically defined by Philippine law as a crime; it is so now - in the same category as rebellion or insurrection- under Article 134-A inserted in the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, pursuant to a law (Republic Act 6968, October 1990) enacted during the presidency of Cory Aquino whose government has been subjected to at least eight coup attempts. R.A. 6968 in effect has reversed what the Court in Hernandez has found as “the settled policy of our laws on rebellion, since the beginning of the century, (which) has been one of decided leniency, in comparison with the laws in force during the Spanish regime.”

For the Court to view political crimes only from the standpoint of the state is quite understandable. There is however a broader dimension of political crimes according to criminologist and author Jeffrey Ian Ross. For instance, Ross considers treason, subversion or for that matter coup d’etat as aptly “oppositional political crimes” or anti-systemic crime; whereas governments also commit political crimes, or appropriately “state crimes,” such as extra-judicial killings of militants and dissidents, invasion or preventive war in violation of international laws or plain betrayal of public trust, political crimes that Philippine laws do not specifically define and criminalize in the same way that coup d’etat had not been so defined and criminalized prior to R.A. 6968. Opportunely, the Constitution defines “betrayal of public trust,” and possibly extra-judicial killing within the ambit of “high crimes,” as “impeachable offenses.”

The capital punishment of impeachable offenses not otherwise criminalized is only the pre-termination of the tenure of the officeholder found guilty. Acquittal, on the other hand, is a reaffirmation of the electoral mandate originally given.

In the case of President Arroyo, two of the political crimes in the nature of impeachable offenses she was accused of in the second impeachment proceeding against her are the following:

1) That she “appointed Virgilio Garcillano as COMELEC Commissioner and interfered with and manipulated the official election duties of the latter to orchestrate and implement electoral fraud” and that “During the 2004 election period, [Arroyo] engaged in unlawful correspondence with Commissioner Garcillano . . . wherein she directed/countenanced/abetted the commission” of various “electoral frauds”;

2) That she “has allowed, abetted and countenanced the assassination and summary executions of 690 political dissenters and 42 media practitioners, the involuntary disappearance of some 176 persons, the torture of 320 persons in the hands of government authorities.

President Arroyo has avoided being placed in jeopardy of punishment in relation to the above allegations simply by setting up technical roadblocks and procedural defenses, which the majority in the House has accepted as proper. Consequently, Arroyo has succeeded to avoid, wisely or unwisely, the political cleansing process intended by the Constitution to wash off the political crimes she has been charged with. To borrow from the argot of the Maguindanao election saga, one could think of it as a case of failure of un-election, since after all the inverse electoral mechanism, as an aspect of political sovereignty, is what an impeachment proceeding is all about.

On the other hand, coup d’etat according to the Revised Penal Code is committed as follows:

Article 134-A. Coup d’etat; How committed. — The crime of coup d’etat is a swift attack accompanied by violence, intimidation, threat, strategy or stealth, directed against duly constituted authorities of the Republic of the Philippines, or any military camp or installation, communications network, public utilities or other facilities needed for the exercise and continued possession of power, singly or simultaneously carried out anywhere in the Philippines by any person or persons, belonging to the military or police or holding any public office of employment with or without civilian support or participation for the purpose of seizing or diminishing state power. (As amended by R.A. 6968).

Revealing in this regard is the following excerpt from an interview with navy officer Antonio Trillanes conducted by Ellen Tordesillas and Victor Reyes during the election campaign (Trillanes, elected a senator in the May mid-term national election remains under military detention being one of the leaders of some 300 military men who call themselves the Magdalo group now accused before the civil courts for staging a coup d’etat in July 2003 and of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman before a military court):

Q. When you decided to enter the political arena, many took it that you have renounced the use of force to effect change. Is the reading correct?

A. It’s impossible for me to do that now especially that I’m detained. But like I said in previous interviews, rebellion is justified if the government goes against the interest of the people. That’s in the preamble of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It’s also in the US Declaration of Independence.

Q. Does the situation right now warrant that?

A. I believe so. I believe the environment is ripe for that. Because we have a president who has no mandate. Somebody who cheated in an election. Somebody who has no qualms of killing her own people just to stay in power, among other crimes that she has committed like plundering the wealth of this country, selling our country’s independence. These are tantamount to treason.

The issues being raised in this piece are: Does the election of Trillanes operate to quash the coup d’etat case against him and the Magdalo group? If so, is the case before the military court a mere ingredient of coup d’etat and therefore quashed along with the underlying offense.

Coup d’etat like rebellion is, to invoke John Locke, “an opposition, not to person, but authority.” (In fact, the right of revolution in the American Declaration of Independence is a Lockean dictum.) That authority is the people collectively speaking. Criminal laws against coup d’etat or rebellion are thus enacted for the protection of that collectivity in the same manner that the constitutional proscriptions against impeachable offenses in a presidential impeachment are for the protection of the people against their own elected chief executive.

So in coup d’etat as in impeachable offenses the substantive injury of the offense is done directly to the collectivity, the state itself. In the event the indicted sitting president is found guilty of an impeachable offense, the relief provided to the injured party, the people, is a mid-course withdrawal of their own electoral mandate, which results in the president being unseated from office.

The converse is true if the putschists or mutineers, whose intent and motive against authority may have been aborted, instead seek and court - upon essentially the same platform that have driven them to rise in arms - the people’s mandate, to put them into office and thereby allow them peaceably carry out their political purposes. The ultimate consequence of such a mandate if won is a direct verdict of acquittal (or otherwise a grant of pardon) from the selfsame source of all authorities. Moreover, based on the Hernandez doctrine, ingredient elements of the political crime, such as conduct unbecoming an officer stripped of its military character, are deemed extinguished with the quashing of the underlying offense.

When it comes to political crimes, the indirect un-election device of impeachment, in a way a negative articulation of the sovereign will through the people’s representatives, is as much a purging (and polity regenerating) process as a direct action by the people themselves in an election, beyond any doubt a positive and democratic expression of the same will.

The rights and liberties of the Honorable Senator Antomio Trillanes, a nationally elected public servant like the President, deserve full respect from the military authorities. For, in the words of Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion in Hernadez, “individual freedom is too basic, too transcendental and vital in a republican state, like ours, to be denied upon mere general principles and abstract consideration of public safety.”

The foregoing issues that have occupied our attention put to rest, it behooves the public to now dedicate greater interest and resources to dispense justice for the slain Musa Dimasidsing, the election supervisor and fearless Maguindanao poll fraud whistleblower who refused to be muzzled, and to the other heroes of Eleksyon 2007, by whose patriotism and self-abnegation Filipinos will continue to believe in their democracy. The dark psyches behind this dastard crime, who operate with “gunpowder mentality” - most certainly not citizen Trillanes and others of the same mold - are the real threat to our republic.

Made in America?

2007-06-13T19:54:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, or many a time, The End just comes like a thief in the night, you don’t plan for it or even imagine it as an inevitable part of the narrative. You’re having a dinner, dancing the tango, crossing the street, sipping a cold bottle of beer or simply in receipt of a great news and then . . . a blackout. That’s it.

We knew all the while The Sopranos would end but we were vaguely wistful how Tony Soprano would leave the final scene. The creator had the last say, we also granted, and that somehow relieved us of the burden of coming up with a prediction certain of the conclusion.

Tony Soprano is a mobster, which is an occupation, just like being a politician, a realtor, a clergyman, a soldier or a CEO is an occupation, a way of earning a living. The temptation comes with the territory: you sell your principle or a house with a broken pipe, covet a helpless juvenile or subordinate, grab power by deception or illicit machination, launch a flawed product or an all-out crusade in callous disregard of other people’s lives.

So Tony Soprano who philanders, cheats, steals, or whacks his buddies or relatives is the same guy who cares to keep his loved ones whole - provides a decent shelter, pampers his spouse, plans for his children’s future - or simply struggles against difficult odds and perils, even dreams.

We all wear some form of masks, don’t we? Or, if we could afford it, hire pros to paint or mold one for us. Who are we then to judge whether Tony Soprano is a sinner or a saint? We don’t, because Tony, except maybe by a matter of degree, up or down, is essentially us. In the grand scheme of things, we have played a part of Tony’s character, either way. So, did we wish Tony, monster or not, to depart a hero? On the other hand, didn’t the creator simply tire out of playing God with his other characters and, this time, choose to delegate the power to whack it off - to us?

This may be a dumb question: Even if we want to be in charge do we really have any choice when it comes to our own finales?

A couple of months ago, a doctor friend of mine scheduled himself for a routine colonoscopy. Aware there are risks involved when a patient is put under sedation, he acted as if he was going into a combat zone and even felt impelled to tell his wife, as he did, about some cash stashed in one corner of their house. I thought it had been funny until my own turn came. I began to understand my friend’s dilemma even as I debated before “everything faded to black” if there was any difference between my dry run with grim reaper and a lethal injection. More recently, an older good-natured neighbor who had been silently suffering from prostate cancer for more than a decade (practical in life he has once expressed a wish to preempt the terminal date given by his physician) finally succumbed - to pneumonia. And yet last week, a childhood pal, a retired army general and decorated infantry division commander underwent a heart bypass surgery. Full of life during our last meeting and rearing to serve more after his retirement, I had urged him to run for office in the last election; not this one he said. Very unfortunately, he might not have won his last battle (well, who knows for sure) because of some complication four days after what had first appeared to be a successful operation.

What if the last phase of our earthly tale is compressed in an hour-long final episode? Can we choose to have first a night out or partake of the favorite onion rings with our family before going? Or have the luxury, however infinitesimally fleeting, of being surprised or confused - “Hey, is it the cable or my brain cells?” The End.

The blackout, the final moments in Made in America, looked convenient yet so well thought out it got us as close as it could get from reel to real.

The rule of the minorities

2007-05-28T21:36:00.000-04:00

In political life in general, there are as many individuals or groups of individuals doing their best to transform our political habits, practices and institutions as there are others at the opposite end trying equally hard to conserve those habits, practices and institutions.

Radicals in this contest are seen as impatient with snail-paced reforms that leave behind their tracks a great mass of distressed losers. Conservatives, on the other hand, content with trickle-down progress, are regarded as reverential to certain time-honored values and traditional authorities that are deemed to serve well the existing order and a few winners who benefit most from it. In the face however of the perceived failure to justify the perpetuation of the system in place, drastic measures would be attempted paving the way in the process for the ideology of revolutionary transformation. For instance, feudalism or the old economy based on slaveholding, having lost its reason for being, has given way to industrial capitalism, and then capitalism itself, in need of reforms, has been subjected to serious challenge mounted by rival ideologies such as Marxism and socialism.

In 1989, conservative thinker Francis Fukuyama, in The End of History?, dared to claim that the big question has been settled with the supposed triumph of “liberal democracy” which he hailed as the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and the “final form of human government”; and that if at all flaws in that triumphant ideology might still be extant, they were rather due to “incomplete implementation” than “in the principles themselves.”

Ideologies are secular (not religious) beliefs in the abilities of man to establish the good society on earth. In the Western world, whether the good society for the greatest number would come in spurts or trickle is driven by the claims of two competing ideologies, one promotes the preservation of allegiances to established order and the other advocates the rupture of bonds from such order, or the values, thoughts and institutions that support it; yet both of which are all the same based on liberal democracy.

There is historical basis in the contention that liberalism grew out of the friction between government and business, with the latter asserting freedom from interference by the former. It was in that sense a negative liberty (freedom from), which insists further on continued protection by the government of such liberty so recognized. Therefore, the progenitor of modern liberalism is economic (or market) liberalism.

Before the emerging power of the merchants and manufacturers sought privileges against restraints, it had always befallen upon the government to provide for the well-being of the nation and its people and toward that end direct and control the national economy. Then, Adam Smith wrote a convincing treatise to reinvent the wheel, arguing instead for a self-regulating economy where the efficient producers of goods and services in free competition are supposed to outsell the less efficient ones and consumers as a result get better products for their bucks than when government interferes with such freedom. Smith’s postulate was the early beginning of laissez-faire economics and inter-national trade.

Democracy on the other hand is about the assumption by the people of the responsibilities of government. It is in a sense an aspect of positive liberty, of self-determination or the realization of the individual’s fullest potential. Political participation is a solemn exercise of this liberty.

Unfortunately, a large population is often too raucous to make decisive action. Democratic governance would then require the initiative of an organized group or the commitment of an elite citizenry to run the government in the name of the people. The growing complexity of modern life has also reduced the expression of political sovereignty to the practical requirement of government by representation. When the undercurrent of elitist democracy converges with the rush of economic liberalism to make up the ideology of market democracy, there is the peril that the blend could end up only in the protection and maintenance, constitutionally or otherwise, of rights and rents already vested (in those who may have attained “market power”) and deference to old habits and modes of thinking rather than in experimentation and innovation with a view to the substantive distribution of opportunities to the impoverished majority desperately aspiring to secure them, or at least the safeguard against invasion of basic rights.

In the Philippines, immediately following the May 2007 mid-term elections, Malacañang Palace has lost no time to enlist the succor of the Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (or certain high-profile representatives of what Yale Law School professor, author and Chinese Filipino Amy Chua prefers to call as the market-dominant minority) in an effort to tamper with what appears to be the harsh verdict of the elections. A Philippine Inquirer editorial has taken note of the following:

Early signs aren’t promising. The President sat down with members of the Federation of Chinese-Filipino Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and her Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila asked them to pass on a patronizing message to incoming senators. “It’s like fathers telling their children: ‘I’ve given you your allowance because I wanted you to do these things. Now if you don’t do them, you won’t have an allowance,’” Favila said. He hinted further: “They could say, ‘We don’t need (politicking) now. The elections are over. The people have spoken and we should accept the results. Let’s get our act together for our country’s future.’”

Indeed, democracy is threatened at any time political equality is violated (such as when the vote assigned to each particle of sovereignty is not properly counted or valued) just as in instances where political sovereignty is disregarded (such as when the will of the majority is adulterated or simply set aside post-elections through logrolling, cronyism, patronage and other political rent-seeking activities). In fact, there is as much failure of democracy when ordinary citizens lose the power of effective control over leaders resulting in utter lack of public accountability, as there is market failure when market-dominant minority engages in predatory market behavior because of unrestrained market power.

The observation that political elites are oftentimes helpless against well-entrenched economic elites who normally come out unscathed and blameless in the power play somehow dovetails with Amy Chua’s observation that fair, honest and democratic elections bring to power anti-market forces. Chua explains the polarity this way: “Markets concentrate wealth, often spectacular wealth, in the hands of the market-dominant minority, while democracy increases the political power of the impoverished majority.”

A couple of years ago at PCIJ blogsite, I posted the following historical analysis in reply to another post:

Well, then, as now, there was however a class conflict among the players, and to simplify, I will call the conflict as only between the middle-class (or the ilustrados) and the plebeians, the former preferring to just institute reforms within the existing Public, the latter being intent to form a new Public.

To create a new Public, or a State (or to upgrade civil society to an uppercased Civil Society or People Power), Rizal provided alternatives through Noli and Fili: Reform or Revolution.

To succeed in either alternative, the key ingredients Rizal indicated were a) patriotism, and b) self-abnegation.

Ibarra was the epitome of patriotism (the building of a school house in Noli was symbolic of his passionate stewardship to liberate the primitivized indio youth, the “hope of the fatherland”) and Elias, of self-abnegation. Indeed, without both virtues, civil society would remain in lowercase, meaning inchoate and unorganized and therefore would be unable to grow or collectivize into Civil Society (the uppercase).

The persona of Ibarra and Elias was merged in the martyred Rizal, and for a while effaced the class conflict between the ilustrados and the plebeians. The cultured and the unlettered saw a common enemy – the Friar system. But revolution as a means to attain a new Public failed primarily because self-interest (thirst for power) in Aguinaldo had prevailed over the greater good when he ordered the execution of Bonifacio (and later Luna) and dissipated the initial momentum of the revolution before the Americans had a chance to beguile the Filipinos.

As a leader, Aguinaldo failed to separate private interest from public interest. Also, while Aguinaldo was a patriot, he apparently lacked the self-abnegation of Elias and Rizal.

At the turn of the century, associated action powered by shared interests, born out of the patriotism, self-abnegation and a sense of the public of, and championed by, the civil society of the old was thereupon befuddled by the promise of the “enduring truths” of market and democracy peddled by the new Master. On top of it, the Friar system was in fact re-instituted to Christianize (how often could this happen?) and civilize the “half-devil and half-child” in the Hollywood but more virulent form, thereby perpetuating the indio myth. As a consequence, civil society has had to struggle painfully to arise from a damaged ego.

Meanwhile, a self-content and laggard oligarchy, under the backseat patriarchy of Big Uncle and its many instruments, has taken the initiative from a civil society entrapped and enthralled in its lowercased cast.

Arguably, the Philippine Revolution had preceded Rizal and company in the same way that EDSA I preceded the murder at the tarmac. But just as the execution of Rizal had galvanized the full conception of the real enemy and whereupon the fusion of interests across class lines, the murder of Ninoy led to the coalition of the Left and the Right, the bankers and the farmers, the teachers and the learners, and the clergy and the faithfuls against a common enemy upon the realization that under the conjugal dictatorship no one was really safe. Unfortunately, the people power “rebels” failed to form a new Public based on shared interests, not because they were not collectivized, but simply that they were collectivized only for a limited goal – to oust a dictator. It was then a short-lived break from pubescence or inchoateness. If at all, the public formed under the People Power Constitution of 1987 was based for all practical purposes on the inherited agencies of the old form.

Beyond any doubt, the struggle is far from over. It’s been a continuing one however, perhaps from way back or even before Gomburza. The nemesis remains potent and school houses are needed to be built, as Ibarra did, to uncover in Gramscian formulation the conspiracy of the unliberated mind.

The immediate challenge for civil society today, it seems, is how to internalize the true embodiment of the real enemy. Today, to make GMA face justice is an immediate goal. But the vision for the Civil Society has yet to be fully instantiated. To do so, civil society must be able to assert its primacy and thereupon form a new Public based upon Rizal’s recipe: a mix of patriotism and self-abnegation. If successful, the process has to be kept experimental. It has to be so, because the making and re-making of the Public ought not to be inflexible.

The result of the last elections in the Philippines may have produced certain revolutionary symbolism in the persona of accused and detained mutineer Sonny Trillanes who if elected a senator has promised to shatter money and patronage politics but, echoing a conservative ideological line, “not to reinvent the wheel” or, ironically, of catholic priest-turned governor-elect Fr. Ed Panlilio whose religious hierarchy, the traditional citadel of conservatism, frets about free trade and globalization, and considers the market a tyrant. The same result could also be interpreted as indicative of wider fissures in the system in place that might have been glossed over lately. One discernible systemic crack may be attributable to the re-emergence of active, organized and intense minorities willing and able to serve as countervailing force against the various powers that support the existing state of affairs. For instance, besides the reorganized and improved National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), volunteer election watchdogs have proliferated such as the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Bantay Eleksyon (BE), Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente), Bantay Boto, No Cheats, Kontra Daya and Halalang Marangal (Halal) that all have zealously guarded the electoral process. Ricky Carandang observes that “with so many people watching over the vote, it’s not as easy as it used to be (to steal the election).”

“In a true democracy,” I have also written, “the people (the multitude) and the minority (the oligarchy) do not rule; the minorities (civil societies) do.”

A solemn obligation of citizenship

2007-05-12T18:19:00.000-04:00

Reacting to the “Brawner Doctrine” by virtue of which the votes of two commisioners of the Special First Division of COMELEC have nullified the majority’s will in the election of Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo (who is at the end of his fifth term as mayor of the city and is running for his sixth in the May 14 elections) conveniently by ousting the mayor in a quo wrranto proceedings on a highly controversial citizenship question), FEU constitutional law professor Edwin Lacierda could not hold the stinging wallop of his analysis:

What is unfair in the decision is that (Commissioner) Brawner attacked the citizenship of Jesse’s grandfather who will never have the chance to rise from the dead and defend himself. And in fact, the Supreme Court said in a Co versus HRET, a case cited by Brawner himself, that you cannot attack the citizenship of a father just to get back at the son. This should be done in a direct action to nullify the citizenship of the father. In this case, Brawner should not entertain an attack on the citizenship of the grandfather just to get back at the grandson. Brawner knows the case, skips that particular part of the case and conveniently said that the Co case is totally not applicable to Jesse’s case.

That is the paternal line of Jesse which Brawner attacked and which I have shown why Brawner’s attack was ill conceived, deficient in research and totally unfair and disrespectful of the dead Lim Teng who in one swift stroke by Brawner was stripped posthumously of his Filipino citizenship.

Not satisfied with the paternal line, Brawner proceeded to destroy the maternal line as well. He said that Jesse who was born of a Filipino mother did not elect Philippine citizenship as provided by CA No. 625 which requires a person to execute a statement of an oath of allegiance to the Philippines and filed before the local civil registry. Brawner said that voting in an election or running for public office does not qualify because there is a procedure for election. I think that is a very restrictive interpretation of what election means. Brawner cites the case of Co v. HRET as basis for saying that implied election does not apply to non-Filipino like Jesse.

The present understanding in electing citizenship is that one has to elect in accordance with CA No. 625. I think the Supreme Court would have to revisit that jurisprudence because what better way to show your oath of allegiance to the Republic of the Philippines than to vote in an election or run for public office. Moreover, there is no definitive ruling from the court that CA No. 625 and implied election of Philippine citizenship such as voting in an election are mutually exclusive of each other.

The Supreme Court has mentioned that our citizenship laws are antiquated. I think now is the time to test our ideas on what constitute citizenship. Brawner was too quick to point out the absence of proofs forgetting the fact the evidences are nearly a century old and may no longer be extant. He also forgets the fact that their own Comelec building just burned down and the evidences have been destroyed. If a recent fire gutted down their building destroying all evidence, is it not fair to say that Brawner is being unreasonable to demand proof of documents a century old?

In an email to me on the same subject, Ric Marasigan, a US lawyer and also a Bicolano, has bewailed the “culture of impunity” that has attended the Philippine officialdom as well as the outdated notion of Philippine citizenship over against a culture of assimilation and diversity among successful and progressive nations:

This is but another manifestation of the “culture of impunity” that characterizes the Philippine government and its officialdom. This culture ignores all appeals and calls for legality, decency, morality and even invocation of basic Christian values. That is why “other” Filipinos are calling for radical measures to effect fundamental change and reform in the Philippines which is unfortunate. This latest episode is a shameless dismissal of the role, place and contributions of the Chinese ethnic element in what constitutes the Filipino nation today. All for the exigencies, whims and caprices of petty politics and petty people in Naga City and Camarines Sur! Rizal, Aguinaldo, Osmena, Aquino, and all Filipinos of Chinese descent must be shaking their heads in disbelief and rage. Some of the mightiest and richest nations in the world today welcome and encourage immigration and ethnic assimilation like the US and Singapore. Even the newly-elected President of France is a Frenchman of Hungarian descent.

When the camp of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had employed the same dirty tactic (not to mention other serious allegations of election chicaneries) against her leading opponent, Fernando Poe, Jr., in the last presidential election, my own reaction was anchored on sovereignty grounds and similarly on the continuing transformation of Filipino citizenship:

If there is anything certain about the controversy involving the citizenship of presidential frontrunner Fernando Poe, Jr., it is the fact that the historical process of transformation of the Filipino citizenship is still in a state of flux. Only recently, the dual concept of citizenship has been legislated not so much upon the emotional requirement of allegiance as on the practical imperatives of economics. This continuing formulation and debate are also a reflection from the wavering, inconsistent and back-and-forth positions taken by the Supreme Court in its earlier rulings—from Roa vs Collector of Customs(1912), Chua vs. Secretary of Labor (1939), Torres vs. Tan Chim (1940), to Tan Chong vs. Secretary of Labor (1947), and Talaroc vs. Uy (1952)—as to which citizenship criterion to rely on, whether the principle of jus sanguinis (citizenship based on blood) or jus soli (citizenship based on place of birth). On the basis of those shaky, if often clashing, judicial holdings, the Court’s readings of the constitutional requirements, circumscribed by the predilections of the individual justices, are not the most comforting place to go to for some intellectual conception of citizenship.

The other thing clear and certain on the question of FPJ’s citizenship is the language of the Constitution itself. Indeed, the constitutional requirements for Philippine citizenship are unmistakably plain and simple to be subjected anew to the reviewing itch of the Justices of the Supreme Court. Article IV, Section 1, (2) of the Constitution defines as citizens of the Philippines “Those whose fathers or mothers* are citizens of the Philippines.” And if, according to the Constitution, they are such citizens of the Philippines “from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship,” they are “natural-born citizens.” It cannot be any plainer and simpler than that. xxx

Citizenship, like religion, is more than an accidental birthright. It can only be taken for granted in innocence. Upon the attainment of the full consciousness of membership, what is inaugurated as a right of the natural person, to borrow from the political thoughts of Rousseau, is in fact transformed into a solemn duty of the citizen. This affirms the truism that membership in the community precedes citizenship in the polity. As a consequence of membership, citizenship goes well beyond definitional technicalities, constitutional or otherwise, as well as any judicial opinions interpreting those definitions. Before the formalities of conferment, citizenship must first be attained.

Hence, for example, one is only as much a Filipino citizen in name simply because the Constitution or the law defines him to be so, as another is a Roman catholic only in name simply because he was baptized in innocence as a Roman catholic. Citizenship, just as religion, demands devoutness. It is a solemn obligation of service more than a definitional right or a privilege.

Arguably, the First Filipino was Jose Rizal. He did not earn his citizenship by constitutional fiat because he had preceded the Constitution. By definition, he could have not been considered a citizen at all, having remained allegiant to Spain until his death. Rizal, a Chinese by direct ancestry, attained citizenship not by parchment but by historical relationship, and by duty and deed. Rizal, like Ninoy Aquino, identified with his intellect and wisdom as a citizen rather than with the desire for power, wealth or personal safety. And both decided to return to their community from exile against the counsel that impending danger awaited their arrival. Rizal and Ninoy Aquino died in a state of virtue as political animals—the original Aristotelian conception of a citizen as someone owing his labor and loyalty to the polity—not knowing whether their individual sacrifices would attain the goals they had hoped for.

Obviously, to draw in this current controversy any undue or unnecessary parallelism from the self-abnegation of Rizal and Aquino would be farfetched. But still, it is not easy for anyone not close enough to the popular movie actor to determine what motivations had obliged someone like FPJ with no experience, as others claim, about the intricacies, pitfalls or rewards of political governance, when finally he acceded to the importuning of people around him to run for president. Certainly many would be at a loss wondering why FPJ, already powerful, wealthy and personally secured, would sacrifice those hard-earned securities and his relatively private life for reasons other than possibly to give his labor and loyalty to the only country he has known, which made him powerful, wealthy and secured—however weird, hyperbolic or unrealistic those reasons, aspirations or motivations might be.

I am not particularly enamored with the change alternative so far bared by the FPJ campaign, or by the opportunities offered by the other presidential aspirants as they present their challenge to the incumbent. Neither am I excited at all with the business-as-usual approach the administration of Macapagal-Arroyo is pursuing to confront the long-standing scourge of elite democracy that has tormented the nation and the Filipino people. But I believe it is the quest of FPJ for the presidency, more than the ambition of the other candidates, which is rewriting again the people’s narrative of People Power Democracy.

In the last analysis, the resolution of the question involving the aspiration of FPJ for the highest office of the land is a sovereign matter the Supreme Court cannot preempt to pass upon. It is of no moment if the ancestry of the aspirant may be foreign as long as his qualifications clearly are in compliance, as above explained, with the unequivocal language of the Constitution, all the possible follies and other consequences thinkable attendant to such a political pursuit notwithstanding.

If the people vote for FPJ as their next leader, so be it. If not, that also is their final say, not the Supreme Court’s.**

By the very same weight and force of reason, the sovereign majority in the City of Naga, not the shameless illogic of two COMELEC commissioners bordering on impeachable offense, should have the final say as to who should serve or will serve the Nagueños as the City’s mayor.

Protecting and preserving the sovereign will in the May 14, 2007 elections is in fact the solemn obligation of all Filipinos who deserve the privilege of citizenship.

__________

* This provision is a constitutional recognition of the critical role of the mother in inculcating the virtues of citizenship in the child.

**In Tecson v. COMELEC (March 2004), the Supreme Court has ruled against the petitions to disqualify FPJ and in effect held that even a “bastard” could run for president; the rest is history.

Rule of law and representation

2007-05-05T14:32:00.000-04:00

The other day, I finally completed my absentee ballot and promptly mailed it. In my conscience I know I have voted for the “rule of law” and against illegitimacy.

At mlq3’s blog, the following comment of rego has caught my attention in relation to my vote:

. . . with the absence of witnesses and evidences, (former Comelec Commissioner Garcillano of the Garci tapes fame) just can not be convicted. Even (First Gentleman) Mike Arroyo with all the allegations of corruption can not really be convicted . . . And all the accusers should just stop talking but really work hard on gathering solid evidence against him.

Yet, who should “work hard on gathering solid evidence against” the likes of Garci, Jocjoc Bolante, or on such serious matters as the extra-judicial killings of journalists and militant opposition, or the new exposé on the “PNCC Radstock deal” that all appear to involve acts or omissions of public officials, employees, offices or agencies”?

The Philippine Constitution is clear on how the rule of law should be enforced in this regard.

Article XI, Section 13 (1) provides that the Office of the Ombudsman shall have, among others, the powers, functions, and duties to “investigate on its own” any act or omission of any public official, employee, office or agency, “when such act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust, improper, or inefficient.”

Remember for instance that in the Info Tech case, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez shirked her above duty even as she ignored the findings of the Supreme Court citing, among other things, the “reckless disregard of (Comelec’s) own bidding rules and procedure” in the case “in clear violation of law and jurisprudence”; instead, her office absolved the Comelec officials led by Chairman Benjamin Abalos from the anomalous P1.3 billion poll automation contract with Mega Pacific?

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, whose constitutional office has yet to prove as a pillar in the pursuit of the rule of law, was willing to shame her authority both as the Ombudsman and as an officer of the court by feigning an unconventional definition of probable cause in the Info Tech case in the same callous manner the House in the impeachment cases has dealt with the “Garci tapes.”

The egregious nonfeasance of Ombudsman Gutierrez is a distressing contrast with the spirited quest of the rule of law by US Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald against high-level White House adviser Scooter Libby. Fitzgerald’s tenacity resulted in Libby’s conviction for obstructing justice and lying to FBI agents then investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Libby now faces up to 25 years in prison. On the other hand, Garcillano, let off scot-free, is today seeking, quite tauntingly, a congressional seat while those Comelec officials whom the Supreme Court has found to have violated the law and jurisprudence remain at the helm of a critical electoral exercise for the survival of the polity.

Rule of law and legitimate representation are of the essence of republicanism. Without one or the other, there is failure of democracy.

Have Merci and Garci (and, oh well, Cheni) on US.

Hedging against the market

2007-04-27T23:06:00.000-04:00

A question about hedge funds came up at the first Democratic presidential debate last night from moderator and NBC News anchor Brian Williams: Do hedge funds make America better in any way? It was directed to former senator John Edwards.

Earlier in the week, the news was about Edwards’ lawyering for a major hedge fund in New York, which some political observers believe could hurt Edwards’ presidential bid. During the senator’s first shot at the White House he has devoted some time talking about the Two Americas, one of the rich, the other of the poor. Now, he’s been talking again on the same tenor, the wage divide.

I’m not sure if what hedge fund managers make is market dictated. I am however certain of one thing: it is obscene. Last year’s earnings of the top bettor, James Simons, were $1.7 billion. Two others, Kenneth C. Griffin and Edward S. Lampert, took the cake of more than $1 billion each last year.

Here’s how James Cramer* of CNBC’s “Mad Money” has recounted his heyday as hedge fund manager as summarized by TheStreet.com:

It doesn't take much money to sway the stock market, Jim Cramer said on TheStreet.com TV's Wall Street Confidential video Webcast Friday.

In fact, when Cramer was short stock during his hedge fund days, meaning he was betting the stocks would fall, he would look to create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures lower, he told Aaron Task, the host of Wall Street Confidential.

Conversely, when he was long and wanted to make things "rosy," he would commit $5 million in capital to a handful of stocks and make sure they were higher, Cramer said. However, as the market is bigger now, an investor would need $10 million to knock stocks down or drive them up.

And sometimes, hedge fund investors boost the futures to create a false sense of excitement that can quickly turn negative when the sellers come in, Cramer said. He encouraged anyone in the hedge fund game to follow this strategy, as it's legal and a "very quick way to make money."

When Task asked if the fact that there are so many more hedge funds intensifies market moves, Cramer said hedge funds are positioned long and short, not just long like mutual funds.

It's "vital" for the next six days [trading days], after which it's "pay day," to control the market and not let it lift if your fund is short and/or badly trailing the S&P 500 year to date, he continued. Therefore, when market players are presented with a stock like Research In Motion (RIMM), "it's really important to knock it down because it's the fulcrum of the market today."

"A hedge fund that's not up a lot really has to do a lot to save itself now," Cramer said. "When you have six days and your company is in doubt because you're down, it's important to foment an impression that RIM is down, because RIM is the key today."

Although he estimated it would take between $15 million to $20 million to knock the stock down, he said it would be "fabulous" to do so because it would beleaguer all the longs who are keying on it. This is what we're seeing now, Cramer said. "When your company is in survival mode, it's important to defeat RIM."

RIM reported a really good quarter, it's a "terrific story" and the stock probably should be up. But being five days away "from making your quarter, you can't risk having RIM up this much," he said. (After trading as high as $140.11 intraday, RIM shares were recently down nearly 3% at $129.79.)

Similarly, it's important for market players who are short Apple (AAPL) to spread rumors that Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) don't like Apple's new phone.

Cramer said Apple is an "ideal short," and said if he were short the stock, he would call six trading desks and say he just got off with his contact at Verizon, who said that the company has no room for Apple.

"It's a very effective way to keep a stock down," he said. "What's important when you're in the hedge fund mode is to not do anything remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view."

Maybe two weeks from now the buyers will come to their senses and realize everything they heard was a lie, but then again Fannie Mae (FNM) lied about its earnings, Cramer went on to say.
"It's just fiction and fiction and fiction," he said.

It's important for people to recognize that the way the market really works is that it has that nexus of hitting the brokerage houses with a series of orders that can push a stock down, after which rumors get leaked to the press and get on TV, Cramer explained. Then there is a "vicious cycle down."

On another note, Cramer said the Fed will have to cut rates and is "desperate" to figure out how quickly it has to cut them.

No wonder, presidential candidate John Edwards was taken aback.

The same question may be asked about private equity: Is it good for the public? This piece by Washington Post op-ed columnist Robert J. Samuelson makes for another interesting read. Samuelson describes private equity according to its critics as “sophisticated swindle that often cheats ordinary shareholders.”

_________

*Jim Cramer is also author of “Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World,” “You Got Screwed!” and “Confessions of a Street Addict.”

State vs market continues with Kerala Experience

2007-04-24T00:03:00.000-04:00

Placeholder has brought up the “Kerala experience” in that Indian state with a population a third of the Philippines that has attained a high degree of human development such as 94 percent literacy and high life expectancy while compromising economic progress.

Juxtaposing the Kerala phenomenon with the Philippine dilemma, Placeholder writes thus:

There is also the very real possibility that our present deadbeat Philippine elite won't be up to the historic task unlike their counterparts in East Asia and India. We may have to bide our time while we let the process of replacing the current elite with a more functional one (from the ranks of the poor and middle class) take place. In the meantime, the welfare of the rest has to be looked after.

So, why not emulate Kerala, he then posits.

If the goal of the good society, to borrow Noam Chomsky’s paraphrase of Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, is to “produce free human beings whose values were not accumulation and domination but rather free association on terms of equality and sharing and cooperation, participating on equal terms to achieve common goals which were democratically conceived” then the Kerala experiment could be a close approximation. But without such unique experience being integrated into the dominant economic order would it be sustainable?

As explained by Nobel Prize economist Amartya Sen, “the concept of cutting yourself out from the world of advanced technology, increasing productivity, and the opportunities that globalisation offers to the world will be a retrograde step.”

Where the Kerala educational and literacy expansion appears to be faltering as pointed out by Sen is “when it comes to developing higher educational potentials in tune with the opportunities offered by its wider network of school education” as well as “when compared to other States, in making the content of education suit the demands of the contemporary age, including in providing a focus on the technical facilities related to the rapidly expanding information economy in the world.”

So after a successful capacity expansion, Kerala, I believe, must take the next sequence - which is opportunity expansion. This is where Kerala, Inc. as in my proposed Philippine, Inc., must be pursued. Without opportunity expansion, the human capital they have produced, just as Philippines’ best and brightest, will emigrate to where there are opportunities.

Fortunately for Kerala, having moved forward already to genuine pluralism and democratic consensus, it is far ahead of the Philippines. The remaining challenge for Kerala it seems is how to transform its decentralized and consensual bureaucracy into “collective entrepreneurship,” which is here also deemed as the marriage of the state concept and the market construct, to compete in the world market. On the other hand, national governments of developing economies must be given enough maneuvering room by the forces of globalization (and therefore must not be hamstrung by Washington Consensus’ structural adjustments and rules of good behavior) to deliver the programs for those they are supposed to serve in the first place, and in order to thrive in the global economy.

(Entrepreneurship in this regard is considered as a social function, a network of conjoint relationships and accumulated knowledge of the community that hosts the individual entrepreneurs; hence, the government, or the bureaucracy in particular, is in a better position to take the initiative. The “entrepreneur” becomes thus as close as Harold Laswell’s political animal deciding “who gets what, when and how”.)

I agree with Placeholder that in the Philippines the deeper problem remains the perpetuation of the lackadaisical and rent preserving economic elites whose core constituencies are the traditional politicians (the trapos), and the “let’s move on” middle class who are themselves conserving their rents in a society of limited opportunities against those occupying the lower rung.

There are indeed no easy paths to growth with equity but the sooner this is discerned, especially by the reformist constituency of the middle class and heterodox politicians, the less are the chances of being entrapped in a pitfall of passing fancy.

The fiction of American free market model

2007-04-19T23:05:00.000-04:00

(This is my share in an ongoing state vs market exchange first started in Inquirer Current but I'm not sure where to post my piece, whether in Current, Placeholder or Newsstand; hence, I've decided to make it an entry here)

Before Adam’s Smith’s postulation of the market theory, providing for the welfare of the governed had traditionally devolved upon enlightened princes, the governors. Their governments vied in the promotion of commerce and industry in their respective kingdoms. To create wealth for the realm, one of the preferred methods employed was to encourage exports and discourage imports through a system of using the powers of the sovereign to amass a surplus of gold and other international monetary assets. Arguing against mercantilism, the system he attacked in the Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote that what mattered was not the possession of gold or silver but the quantity and quality of goods and services at the disposal of individuals and societies alike.

Mercantilism, which also means state involvement in, or control of, the economy was a dominant economic attitude when the European economy was “developing.” What thereafter came into being as laissez-faire proceeded to oversimplify an economic ideology: If men are barred from pursuing their natural disposition driven by self-interest, initiative will be stultified, but liberated, progress is bound to take place as a matter of course.

The spirit of liberalism in Great Britain hit town in the American colonies already resentful of serving as suppliers of raw materials and as captured market for the manufactures of the mother country. The new idea rebelled against coercion and the pervasiveness of governments. But even as the American Revolution triumphed, men of wealth and power in the colonies began to look askance at the supposed spontaneity and wisdom of liberal populism. So that when it was America’s turn to develop its economy, the founding fathers led by Alexander Hamilton, instead of pursuing laissez-faire free trade capitalism reverted to mercantilism, or neo-mercantilism. Although opposed by Jefferson who believed that which governs least governs best, Hamilton succeeded in calling for an active (federal) government in infrastructure development and industrialization fortified by tariff protection against British manufactured goods. Hamiltonian economics later became known as the “National System” of the USA, Inc., the key postulates of which were:

1) Protecting industry (new factories or infant industries) through selective high tariffs and later via government subsidies;

2) Government expenditures in infrastructure development targeting internal improvements such as road building and other public works;

3) Creation of big banking such as national banks along with policies promoting productive enterprises.

Despite the professed reverence to the market’s invisible hand, the United States did not after all develop on the basis of laissez-faire economics. On the contrary, there is historical indication it was in America that modern economic protectionism was born. At best, American free market was an afterthought.

Little wonder the first Miracle of Asia, Japan, Inc., was built by its own founding fathers, the Meiji leaders, according to Hamiltonian economics under the guiding hand of the state. And the roaring “Tiger, Inc.” and now the awakened Dragon, Inc. simply followed suit in adopting the American way.

To build the Philippine, Inc., I have also argued that

even the market construct could become fair if struggling but willing and ready nations are given a decent chance to build and accumulate just as exactly as the leading economic powers of today did during their own growing pains and struggles; and enabled to be on similar footing, then and only then should these latecomers be made to face up to the challenge of competition. On an individual level, they call this “affirmative action” in America. I believe even nations are entitled to equal opportunity. This axiom, possibly more legitimating than “economic liberalism,” requires that adjustments to transformation of this sort relative to the prevailing international economic order should demand more of the stronger states than the weaker ones, not the other way around.

Investment common sense

2007-04-12T00:37:00.000-04:00

Reacting to the criticism that I had quoted from Philippine Senator Manny Villar to the effect that Philippine banks would rather acquire Treasury bills and other sovereign debt instruments than lend to businessmen because aside from the rates being so attractive, the “investments are risk-free and protected from depreciation,” commenter UPn at mlq3’s blogsite was quick to riposte: Wouldn’t you want your own retirement funds (along with funds from the GSIS or SSS) to be in such instruments (attractive rates, risk-free, protected from depreciation) as opposed to being lent to businessmen-cronies of whoever is sitting in Malacanang?

Our exchange was part of a broader discourse wherein I have proposed, among others, that the Philippines should look at the best practices of successful economies in the region that have attained “late-industrialization” such as South Korea and Taiwan. I have cited that the high investment rate of the Koreans has kept the debt/GNP ratio unchanged despite heavy foreign borrowing.

The analogy between individuals and nations in terms of investment goals is not farfetched. For example, building one’s nest egg through investment in “growth” equities involves higher risk than, say, in the “stable” bond market. For younger investors with a longer time horizon, growth stocks (of companies that reinvest earnings back into the firm for business expansion) can provide protection against escalating cost of living due to inflation. But individuals nearing retirement would be wise to put their money in safer portfolios such as sovereign instruments that provide current income and protection of principal.

Just as individuals ought to be guided by sheer common sense in investment, so must nations.

The Koreans, to break from the confines of a traditional society, have defied the bitter “stabilization” prescription of the Washington Consensus and adopted expansionary policies to achieve productivity and growth. It would have been nonsensical if aiming for industrial expansion, the community’s surplus were left in the hands of hoarders or lackadaisical entrepreneurs who would rather conserve their rents. The Korean economy has taken off because profit-maximizing entrepreneurs in targeted businesses or sectors in conjunction with state intervention ploughed back a substantial portion of their earnings in further productive investments. As a result, the manufacturing sector rapidly shot up even as it imparted its growth impulses to the economy in general to attain industrialization.

Young and emerging economies could not afford to aspire merely for stability, unless the goal is nothing more than the preservation of the wealth of existing economic power and/or guarantee the repayments of foreign debts at the expense of national development.

In an economy like the Philippines where there is a high concentration of interlocking ownership among the manufacturing sector and banking institutions, the supply of working capital for industrial expansion could be much easier to assemble if the internal will is there to grow, and compete with other economies. Unfortunately, the will to develop, as suggested by Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar V. Purisima in 2004, is wanting. Purisima stressed: “(P)rivate domestic sources alone could finance a critical mass of projects that will be necessary to jumpstart and sustain the country’s economic development.”

Do you still remember the UP 11 report of August 2004, which has raised for the Philippines the specter of “rapid growth”? Here’s what I have written then:

One of the notable assertions the UP economists made almost axiomatically was: the “growing size of the debt and the deficit are undoubtedly the biggest reasons that investment and growth in this country have remained sluggish.” Is the issue really too “esoteric,” as the distinguished economists would want others think, to be comprehended by non-economist like many of us, specially when their paper also claimed that “rapid growth” is one of those “external shocks” that could make the country “vulnerable”?

It seems that when the problem is premised on being supposedly “arcane,” it becomes easier for intellectuals to ascribe the blame to the already severely battered public sector, the bureaucracy specifically, or even the poor tax structure, perpetuating even more popular disenchantment with the government. It had also the effect, unintended or not, of skirting “constructive public discussion” of other relevant important questions and actual economic experiences despite pretenses to welcome them.

First off, bear in mind the position paper affirmed that the Filipinos—or logically the economic elites for that matter—hold most of the government’s peso-denominated debt and “a good chunk” of the dollarized domestic debt (and the further fact that the national debt at 3.36 trillion pesos as of the end of 2003 is “split almost equally between foreign and domestic liabilities”). This is indicative of the overriding interest particularly on the part of the domestic wealth holders in renting their money at guaranteed earnings relative to otherwise risking such wealth in rational productive investments, conceivably fearful likewise that too fast a growth rate and inflationary pressures could threaten the value of their money. With the debt service (the income to the lenders) calculated at about 30 percent of the national budget, the money involved going to only some individuals is obscenely mind-boggling, or, to put it differently, enough to lull the rentier persona of the entrenched economic elites into an ongoing passive investment spree at the expense of the real economy of the nation. . . .

As Filipinos should by now have learned . . . restrained economic growth propels governments into ballooning indebtedness given that low productivity in the real economy undercuts tax revenues while the resultant unemployment or declining wages generally impact disposable income and the direly needed newer capital formation. This more or less calculated scenario—or imposed “structural adjustments” as others put it—leaves the “model borrower” (that the Philippines as a sovereign debtor has been programmed to always aspire to be) the unfortunate choices of either more belt-tightening, or more borrowing with higher risk premiums, or both, often as we all know, in wanton disregard for the plight of the voiceless citizens.

If then the paramount goal were to stop the escalating government debt as a proportion of GDP, won’t it be possible to attain it should the growth of GDP outpace the ever-rising debt? This would only mean that past the crisis and beyond some short-run government bureaucratic measures (such as new tax schemes and pork barrel curtailments), the wealth creators at the firm level must lead the march toward competitiveness and productivity growth, the intuition of the now famous “UP 11” that it would be “no more than whistling in the dark” notwithstanding. Therefore, rather than despair, perish or self-destruct, Filipinos must take the course that remains wide open for them—build and produce to earn enough to pay debts, provide basic needs, keep an efficient bureaucracy and build even more. When government capital expenditures are at a minimum, the private sector must take up the slack in investment to boost employment and enable the citizens to pull through a sense of confidence in the future.

The logic of moral equivalence

2007-03-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

Former American UN Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick has rejected the “logic” of “moral equivalence” in this manner: “(I)t is a short step from having demonstrated that a country like the United States is not a law-abiding society to demonstrating that it is lost and that it is like any other lawless society. The Soviets can always claim ‘We are no worse than you. Even if we are a lawless society, you too are a lawless society, we are no worse than you.’”

Kirkpatrick was in part responding to criticisms during the Cold War to the effect that “there was an uncanny resemblance between the superpowers,” that “if governments assign to themselves the right to change the governments of other sovereign states, there can be no peace in this world,” and eventually that could be “the most dangerous age which the human race has ever known.” At that time Kirkpatrick attributed the shaping of those criticisms, taken up even by “our allies and ourselves,” to the Soviet’s “very complex, comprehensive, multifaceted strategy” of assault on liberal democratic legitimacy, hence the conclusion “inexorably arrived at, that there is, at best, not a dime's worth of difference between these two regimes.”

But there’s in fact a serious difference according to Kirkpatrick: The soviets “make truth, and not only truth, but reality, dependent on power relations,” i.e., truth and reality are defined or exploited “by those people who hold power.”

In Kirkpatrick’s framework, holding US to its own values, which she believed to be essentially utopian, may not “result in anything but chronic, continuous self-debasement, self-criticism, and finally, self-disgust”; for that matter, US faces a difficult challenge to “simultaneously affirm our values and accept their relevance to our practice” while denying what ought to be utopian as “measuring rods” for actual practices. As a card-carrying neoconservative, Kirkpatrick argued that we should not allow others (the communist, in particular) who “criticize liberal democratic societies measure our practices by our standards and deny the relevance of their practices to judgments concerning the moral worth of our own society. (Italics mine). She called the soviet design as Orwellian “Newspeak” where words, relationships, and events are continually manipulated as part of the process of “redefinition, falsification, and utopianism” (check an older entry of mine here for one example of equivalent manipulation). The concept of superpower equivalence, based on the premise of superpower rivalry, is therefore said to be misleading; for, viewing the US and the Soviet Union as contending for the world, a symmetry that is uncalled for is thereby suggested between their goals: to dominate the world.

“The fact is, of course, that we do not seek to dominate the world,” put in plainer terms by the former ambassador who was also a political scientist. “We do not seek colonies. We do, in fact, seek to foster a world of independent nations.”

Eschewing utopianism Kirkpatrick concluded with her own newspeak of exceptionalism while adroitly avoiding to express it categorically. “It is very important to understand that not only are questions of politics involved here, but also the most basic questions of morality and meaning” which the US defends while imperialistic power (then referring to the USSR) withdraws from.

Renowned historian Howard Zinn poses a different frame of reference: It is the “inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism” that makes US think it is an exception to certain universal rules. “We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.”

Arguably, the common sense of ordinary people active in civil societies around the globe is reining in at different levels abuses of power. For example, the Permanent People’s Tribunal in The Hague found guilty on March 25, 2007 Philippine President Arroyo together with US President George W. Bush of charges of human rights violations, among others; whereas Time magazine reported March 26, 2007 that student-activists at Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran have upstaged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and against hardliners, pragmatic Iranians are “tilting toward less confrontation, more negotiation” so as to “win political benefits from the West.”

The question remains: Can American political leadership ever be held accountable not to some utopian but universally acknowledged political and social values and principles such as the rule of international law, equal application of laws, government by the consent of the governed, right to self-determination, or simply the just punishment of crimes as understood by civilized societies?

Never mind for now the bygone policy of extermination of the American Indians, the colonization “to civilize” the “half-devil and half-child” in the Philippines, the napalm bombing of Vietnam, the mass killings in Indonesia, or the untold atrocities in Nicaragua which have documented an overwhelming record of “redefinition, falsification, and utopianism” by people who hold power. Or that Reagan in 1985, on the White House lawn, giving a positive definition (or spin) of a supposedly false logic to suit his jihad in Afghanistan, unabashedly introduced the Afghan mujahideens (the precursors of Al Qaeda) as “the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.”

Let’s just take as example the ongoing “crusade” in Iraq - the rationale for it is still being re-defined or re-written to date - and vet it based on the following proposition of former US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the US at the Nuremberg Trials: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Another Nuremberg prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz, now 87, whose works have influenced the body of international laws on war crimes, believes a “prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

A summary of Ferencz’ position, using the UN Charter as the “measuring rod” is as follows:

The United Nations charter has a provision which was agreed to by the United States formulated by the United States in fact, after World War II. It says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defense, but a country can’t use force in anticipation of self-defense. Regarding Iraq, the last Security Council resolution essentially said, ‘Look, send the weapons inspectors out to Iraq, have them come back and tell us what they’ve found -- then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do. The U.S. was impatient, and decided to invade Iraq -- which was all pre-arranged of course. So, the United States went to war, in violation of the charter.

Foremost American intellectual Noam Chomsky similarly invokes the “new regime of international law” as the relevant value measurement in the practice or conduct of international relations:

After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.

There is however a simpler antithesis to the rejection of moral equivalence: it is not tit for tat or an eye for an eye but the ancient Golden Rule that, unquestionably, involves “the most basic questions of morality and meaning” transcending the boundaries virtually of all cultures and religions. Jesus said it best: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. With this “utopia,” the human race can march together toward the common cause for global peace, human rights and justice.

PERC on dirty perks

2007-03-16T20:46:00.000-04:00

PERC (Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, Ltd.) headquartered in Hong Kong issues to private firms and governments an annual report by which it examines graft and corruption in a dozen Asian countries. PERC’s method is by way of a corruption perception survey among regional executives of some 100 multinational banks and companies operating in Asia.

Last year, when Philippines got the better of Vietnam and Indonesia that were given the second worst and worst corruption rankings, respectively, PERC yet wrote an uncomplimentary analysis for the Philippines: “Nothing is happening that indicates the status quo with respect to corruption is about to change.”

If the PERC’s prediction was on target, it would have been a non-event or in fact spun favorably for the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government. In a scale of 0 to 10, zero being the best and ten the worst, Philippine was graded 9.4 this year from the 7.80 score it obtained in 2006. As a result, Philippines now has the unenviable distinction of being the most corrupt country in the region.

In 2003, when the perception of corruption in the Philippines came down to a healthier score of 7.67 from a high of 9.00 in 2001 - the year President Arroyo took over from former President Joseph Estrada - and then 8.00 in 2002, Arroyo was upbeat about the PERC report. This year she reportedly dismissed the PERC findings as based on “old data” and “unfair.”

PERC’s 2006 analysis sounded hackneyed, nay, practically a trite rant from some anti-Arroyo bloggers: “The problem of vested political and business interests is even more entrenched in the Philippines, where anti-corruption campaigns seem to be designed more as a tactic in political brinksmanship than as a serious attempt to actually tackle the problem at is core. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001 when her predecessor, Joseph Estrada, was swept from office on charges of corruption. Now Mrs. Arroyo herself is facing allegations of corruption and poll cheating.”

“People are just growing tired of the inaction and insincerity of leading officials when they promise to fight corruption,” PERC stated this year about the Philippines.

ABS-CBN Interactive reported that Trade Secretary Peter Favila, taken by surprise by the PERC 2007 report, has claimed that the survey respondents ignored various government initiatives to fight corruption.

“This is precisely the reason why the President issued Executive Order 558 creating the Anti-Red Tape Task Force to curb corruption brought about by long tedious process and lack of transparency in dealing with frontline agencies,” Favila is said to have stated.

On the other hand, Manila Times columnist and Arroyo protector Tony Lopez criticized the report as no more than “a damning generalization” of “so-called analysts” who really “don’t know the country that well.” Writing a column piece after hastening to the Palace where he obtained Arroyo’s reaction to the report, Lopez underscored how Arroyo “blamed ‘opposition people’ in a foreign group monitoring corruption across the globe for the negative perception.”

But PERC in its 2006 finding seemed to have well anticipated the angry blowbacks: “In our previous reports on corruption, the Philippines is usually the only country where we regularly receive complaints from people in the private and public sector that we are too harsh in our assessment of corruption.”

And this brings us to the twirl and whirl of Alex Magno, another Arroyo apologist, which appears to make some sense this time if not for the maladroit sleight in tautology, a style he is beginning to be noted for: “But the real gains against corruption are won on a less dramatic terrain. It involves reengineering the way we do things so that there is little margin for corruption to happen. It is about changing processes so that the opportunities for corrupt practices are limited.”

No more “tactic in political brinkmanship,” PERC put it more simply. Just “a serious attempt to actually tackle the problem at its core.”

One proposition by Magno, apparently to deal with the problem at the core, is “getting government off the backs of business” instead, for instance, of focusing efforts to fight corruption largely by “getting the big fish.”

I have once reflected on the problem of graft and corruption in the Philippines when on a technicality the government first lost a tax-evasion case* involving some 28 billion pesos against one big fish, then the Philippines’ richest guy, taipan Lucio Tan:

In Third-World countries like the Philippines, “graft and corruption” has served as a distorted form of social welfare or wealth distribution that usually reaches a high point during elections. It comes in many varieties such as vote-buying schemes and gimmicks, election dole-outs or campaign monies diverted somewhere—all coming from the same chest that escapes taxation. The cycle is so vicious, so inexorably enduring it is casually accepted as part of the institution.

However, even from that standard Philippine fact of life (or the further fact that 95% of business establishments in the Philippines are violating some tax laws), the botched tax evasion case against Lucio Tan is a deviation that is simply revolting to conscience. The tax Lucio Tan escaped from paying, according to some estimates given by well-meaning critics, is enough to rehabilitate war-torn Mindanao that has already wasted more than a hundred thousand human lives and displaced about a million more.

Former President Fidel V. Ramos has once summed up the monstrous malady: “The Philippine state is still too weak to prevent politically influential personages, families and clans from using their privileged access to the machinery of government to bend public policy and implementation to their purposes.”

What is bent is distorted. And distortion is corruption. There’s the problem at its core.

*13 years after the case was first initiated by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and then elevated to the appellate court and the Supreme Court, a lower court ultimately dismissed the case in October 2006 for “insufficiency of evidence.”

Beyond the American model

2007-03-03T16:29:00.001-05:00

mlq3’s prodigious insights are truly valuable for anyone desirous to gain a deeper understanding of the current Philippine political landscape.

Those same insights also confirm the perception by many, myself included, that Philippine politics remains a copycat of American politics, an awful copy however. Let me explain.

While Republicans have a more market-oriented philosophy than Democrats who favor government regulation of the economy, there are many instances where Republicans and Democrats echo each other’s platform. The reason for this is that Americans are either estranged ideologically or they find themselves at the Center, in which case the personalities of the individual candidates matter. Nevertheless, voters are at least presented with some threshold policy alternatives.

In the Philippines, major political parties are still highly ideologically identical; hence, electoral debates are mainly focused on the candidates’ personalities, stage histrionics or forensic skills rather than on substantively differentiating public issues framed by party ideology.

To illustrate, comparison can be drawn from the forthcoming presidential elections in France this April where the issues are being framed not merely along the usual Left/Right spectrum but between the “social democratic model” of Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party and the “Anglo-Saxon model” of Nicolas Sarkozy of the ruling Gaullist Union for a People’s Party, indeed still a choice between two opposing political telos.

Commenter cvj has once reflected on the same phenomenon in the context of Latin American politics that has brought to power Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Brazil’s da Silva, Nicaragua’s Ortega, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Kirchner, and more recently Equador’s Correa, not to mention the close call from Mexico’s Obrador and Peru’s Humala. Perceiving that the discourses of the National Democrats and Akbayan are bordering close to tedium, there’s been seen the need for them to go through some sort of repackaging in the Latin American brand. Indeed, this indicates the economic policy options of the Philippine government may not be as “limited,” the “globalized world” notwithstanding.

Not as the end goal, but as a means to attaining the common good, I believe business leader and philanthropist Washington Sycip is espousing Confucian authoritarianism even as national artist and social thinker F. Sionil Jose has once advocated the staging of a revolution to address the problems of the country, foremost of which is mass poverty. Neither of them is known to be a communist ideologue, it should be pointed out.

On the other hand, I have seen the political statements of strong 2010 presidential timber Mar Roxas as a potential trigger for the emergence of a sharper ideological realignment along the government and market discourse over the control of the so-called commanding heights that in British politics defines more or less the laissez-faire agenda of the Conservative Party and the social welfare program of the Labor Party.

I have noted that Mar Roxas has evinced his state-interventionist bent as a congressman at least as regards the Retail Trade Liberalization law in which he was accused of inserting protectionist clauses. As DTI secretary, Mar threatened to withdraw Philippine membership from WTO upon the contention that Philippine tuna has been subjected to tariff discrimination by the US in favor of the Latin American package. It was a gutsy move by a former Wall Street investment banker, I thought, which may bear out a capability of tinkering with some “grand economic policy.”

The ideological debate was boldly taken further by CBCP in its pastoral letter of July 10, 2005. “The people mistrust our economic institutions” the letter said, “which place them under the tyranny of market forces whose lack of moral compass produces for our people a life of grinding dehumanizing poverty.”

I believe the political envelope can be pushed beyond the “limited” enclosure that the Washington Consensus has imposed upon our class of political “midgets,” to borrow a popular tag overused in Philippine blogosphere, to allow considerations of even grander politico-economic policies.

Here’s what I am thinking, if I may. Aside from the Latin American route, there appear three others by which to attain a thorough makeover of Philippine political economy: 1) the Sycip model (or the China, or in some respects the Hamiltonian model) which places economic modernization and efficiency as the condition sine qua non for meaningful political reforms, and where political and bureaucratic structures adapt to economic imperatives; 2) the DJB model (or the First Iraq or the photocopy model), the liberal developmentalism installed by the Americans in the Philippines at the turn of the last century through the cloning of the American system as the normative state, or the imposition or transplantation of the rich nations’ political habits, practices and institutions such as the American constitutional government and the so-called rule of law; and 3) the People Power model (or the French revolutionary model) which is bottom up or people-powered transformation where reforms are written on a slate free of bias toward the so-called normative model.

Reversal of fortunes

2007-02-26T17:42:00.000-05:00

I hope the following Inq7.net op-ed piece of mine will be of help in the exchange about eligibility of Erap (former president Joseph Estrada) to run for the presidency in 2010. The article was published 10 days after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had announced that she would not be seeking the presidency in the 2004 presidential elections.

__________

Ramos not barred
from running in 2004
(Inq7.net, Jan. 10, 2003)

By Abe N. Margallo

WHETHER or not former President Fidel V. Ramos is qualified to run for reelection in the forthcoming presidential election to be held in 2004 squarely hinges on the application or the proper interpretation of the pertinent provisions of Article VII, Section 4 of the Constitution.

The Article VII, Section 4 of the Constitution in part provides:

Sec.4. xxx The President shall not be eligible for any reelection. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall not be qualified for election to the same office at anytime.

No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms xxx.

The cardinal rule in constitutional construction, it should be stated at the outset, is that when the language of the document is clear, the constitutional obligation is to apply and not interpret it. This rule is based upon the premise that the people and the framers meant what they say.

Without reference at this point to whatever could be uncovered from the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention as the true purpose of the framers, the text of the above-quoted provision, either from the standpoint of a lawyer or of an ordinary citizen, is quite equivocal and therefore requires interpretation or construction if only with a view to rendering it capable of being responsive to the complexities of the present and the future, the Constitution, to paraphrase Chief Justice Enrique Fernando, not being "a printed finality but a dynamic process."

I therefore differ with a handful of learned Filipinos, some of them are reputable legal scholars and practitioners, whose opinions support the position that the Constitution is clear enough to forever bar Ramos from running again for president.

The constitutional provision under question is below quoted anew but this time the words or phrases that may require closer scrutiny are highlighted, thus:

Sec. 4. xxx The President shall not be eligible for any reelection. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at anytime.

No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms xxx.

What is clear from the first clause is that "The President" refers to the incumbent president and no other. If it were intended to refer to any president, incumbent or former, it would have said, "Any person elected for president shall not be eligible for reelection."

The phrase "No person" in next line could only refer to any person who has become a president by way of succession, not by election as the word employed is "succeeded" instead of "elected," a situation obviously contemplated by Section 8 of the same Article VII of the Constitution which provides that "(i)n case of death, permanent disability, removal from office, or resignation of the President, the Vice-President (in the case of the Vice President, the President of the Senate, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives as regards the inability of the latter) shall become the President to serve the unexpired term."

The fact that Section 4 speaks of a term of office for less than the full term of six years of an elected president reinforces the interpretation that this clause refers to accession to the presidency by succession and not by election. Following this interpretation, Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who merely succeeded Joseph Estrada after the latter's "resignation," would have been disqualified from being elected "to the same office" had she served "as such for more than four years."

Not being an incumbent president or one who has assumed the presidency by way of the application of the rule of succession under the Constitution, Ramos, absent any other ineligibility, is not disqualified to run for reelection in 2004.

It is noteworthy that the disqualification in the succeeding paragraph that states "No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms" omits to mention "President." The omission is logical apparently to avoid redundancy (or inconsistency) as the incumbent president, pursuant to the clause first quoted, is already ineligible for reelection. What is clear from this particular provision is that the disqualification is with regard to serving "more than two successive terms."

Hence, the ineligibility is equally inapplicable to Ramos (assuming that by an overstretch of the imagination the word "President" could even be read into it upon a rather farfetched suggestion of an inadvertent omission) considering that there are two intervening presidents (Estrada and Ms. Macapagal) between Ramos' election and his possible reelection.

More as a footnote to our political history, I wish to reproduce a portion of an op-ed article I wrote in June 1998 about Ramos on the occasion of Estrada's presidential inauguration in an effort to compare the two personalities. The relevant part of the article reads:

Fidel V. Ramos, whom many Filipinos believed to be one of the architects (and enforcers) of Ferdinand Marcos' martial law, had assumed the presidency without such braggadocio as what Erap [Estrada] displayed on the first day of his office. Ramos proved his ability to govern by deeds and results. First and foremost a soldier, Ramos did not question the wisdom of his commander-in-chief. He gave Marcos the benefit of the doubt and followed his orders. As a military bureaucrat, Ramos saw the limits of authoritarianism and took the cudgels to end the abuses of Marcos. But then, Ramos let power slip through his hold and handed over it to Cory Aquino.

Thereafter, having led the nation to relative peace and economic prosperity, Ramos has retained the ability to continue his reign beyond the six-year limit of his term. In fact, the waters have been tested perhaps at the thought that his most likely successor would be unable to keep the benefits he had the best momentum to continue. Ramos, however, did not think himself to be indispensable. Upholding the rule of law, he stepped down at the height of his achievements.

Certainly, Ramos was not interested in ruling for its own sake. Lesser breeds, under similar premises, would have hung on. This is the true test of Greatness.

Fidel V. Ramos and Ms. Macapagal, we salute both of you. And may God bless the Filipinos and our country.
_________

NOTE: I have finally withdrawn my salute to GMA since the Hello Garci tapes scandal. And FVR has become a continuing disappointment as well.

Government by the people

2007-02-20T22:10:00.000-05:00

“Why (do) movie actors get elected” by the “average Filipino voters”? Prof. Randy David asks.

His own answer: “The poor who vote for movie actors are not lost in adulation; their eyes are as open as those of the educated. They invest trust, and they expect to be able to collect on their investment. It is futile to remind them that the work of a senator is to craft laws and to debate national policies, rather than to serve as a funnel for doles. For the fact is, the great majority of our legislators today measure their usefulness by the amount of projects they bring to their constituents rather than by the quality of their interventions on the congressional floor.”

David goes on to argue: In such a political system, “intelligence and experience or competence in statecraft are of little value” as the “virtues that matter are generosity, approachability, and a strong sense of empathy.”

I have grappled with a similar question before. With somewhat different take, in a commentary of mine published by Inq7.net on December 3, 2003 as the “King of the Philippine Movies,” Fernando Poe, Jr. (FPJ) was making a run for the presidency, I wrote:

. . . the movie in the making [Da King who would be the man] is having a bad review before the plot line is even finished. “How can a high-school dropout tackle international trade, the budget deficit, or the aberration of the currency, for instance?” the tabloid Philippine media asks, as if suggesting, quite unwittingly, the incumbent as well as her predecessors has done a stellar job on these charges. . . .

. . . who among the other presidential aspirants has ever captured or reduced the intricate issues of presidential politics into a mass appeal in the pre-campaign trail? If at all, it is the patriarchs of Philippine society that put the political and economic issues in esoteric terms as part of their mechanism of control over the political life of the nation. With the looming FPJ presidency, some feathers are certainly being ruffled, those of the economic elites in particular. FPJ as president has the potential of producing a people power narrative that promises to return a larger measure of that control to the ordinary citizens. That’s where the epicenter of the “jitters” is coming from . . .

. . . FPJ in effect said, the real issues are “sincerity,” “dedication” and “love of country.” And also, if successful, the governance style he has indicated to adopt will be pretty straightforward. He will serve only as acting president and a team of experts will run the Office of the Presidency. That’s enough safety net.

It was David also who called our attention in 2004 to a controversial speech by Washington Sycip, a well-known Filipino business leader. Sycip, by implication, spoke about governance in the Philippines supposedly by those with superior “intelligence and experience or competence in statecraft” before a forum of corporate leaders where he unabashedly broached the desirability of an authoritarian rule in lieu of the present Western-based democratic institutions.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, Sycip replicated himself before the Management Association of the Philippines:

Economic freedom with effective enforcement of laws and long term planning for needed infrastructure has been the success story of East Asia. Political freedom gradually increased as income levels rose. The widely praised four “tiger economies” of Asia all had authoritarian governments that were able to eliminate hunger and increased spending on education. Elements of democracy came naturally with a growing middle-class.

Taiwan’s growth was under martial law and South Korea developed under a military dictatorship. Prosperous Hong Kong and Singapore do not seem to be suffering from a lack of democracy. In fact both westerners and Asians admire the discipline of Singapore! (Italics mine)

Upon suggesting that one root cause of the problem could be “an overdose of democracy, Western style,” Sycip, lest he be misunderstood, is prompt to clarify: “I want to make it clear that I am for democracy but food, education, housing and health care for the poor should have first priority.”

How is Sycip’s democratic posturing different from FPJ’s dream of providing three square meals a day to every Filipino family based upon the principle of “sincerity,” “dedication” and “love of country”? I guess the difference is not so much as to the end - the attainment of the common good - as the means to achieve it.

Isn’t Sycip as well as those who support his ideological frame basically saying: We agree on the common good but since we have the intelligence, experience, competence in statecraft, we are better qualified than the average Filipino to achieve it; so, why don’t you allow us the exclusive right of governance? This may not be democracy in the Western traditions, it may be added, but in the end even that conception of democracy would follow suit as matter of natural course.

In FPJ’s plan, the way I perceive it then, the peoples’ representatives would still retain control of the “final say” and the delegation to “experts” was only as to certain secondary decisions, somewhat similar to a company president saying “Our goal is a productivity rate that is double or better than last year’s – you have my ok to use every reasonable means within the company rules to achieve it.” On the other hand, what Sycip seems to espouse is ceding the final decisions on a process oriented towards the common good to a select group of individuals, the “guardians,” if you will, in Platonic discourse, or the “moral and intellectual aristocracy” according to Filipino politician and jurist Jose P. Laurel.

In a large-scale democracy of 85 million people like the Philippines democratic governance can only happen through representation. And government by representation or republicanism, as now called, is deemed to exist if at a minimum the average citizens retain a firm measure of control over their elected representatives. This control process is made possible through free, honest and frequent elections.

It is therefore of the essence of democracy that adult citizens - whether they are movie actors, basketball stars, news anchorpersons, world champion boxers or fledgling politicos and lawyers, economists, political scientists, industrialists or trapos - should be presumed as sufficiently well capable to vie for public office or participate in the democratic process of governing the state. A political governance system that holds or practices a contrary ideal is non-democratic.

Let’s take the case of Hong Kong, an autonomous territory, so they say, of China. On March 25 this year the city-state will hold an election for its chief executive. Of the seven million Hong Kong inhabitants, a group of only 796 voters - in turn selected by the tycoons of industry, commerce and the professions - is enfranchised for the electoral exercise. Balloting will be secret, but the winner, Donald Tsang, is already known. Beijing and the tycoons are widely expected to engineer the elections in Tsang’s favor and versus Alan Leong, who is being endorsed by the Island’s pro-democracy activists. But then again, since opposition or dissent is somehow permitted within the framework of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, some “elements of democracy,” to borrow Sycip’s phrase, are passed around to be at work, not to mention the appearance of “rule of law.”

What of Singapore? The People’s Action Party (PAP) has been the ruling political party in Singapore since 1959 having won all parliamentary seats in at least five elections or at certain times allowing only a token participation by the opposition (one or two opposition seats in the parliament) and has thus dominated Singapore’s “democracy.” Over the years, Singapore has been criticized by reputable international organizations and individuals, and by the US State Department for suppressing dissent and free speech. Reporteurs Sans Frontières ranks Singapore 147th out of 167 countries on press freedom in its 2005 report, citing as ground the complete absence of independent newspapers, radio and television stations. Only recently, blogger Li Xueling has run a piece claiming that PAP is “mounting a quiet counter-insurgency against its online critics.” Like Sycip, former prime minister and now senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew was once quoted as saying that Singapore is better off sans “liberal democracy.”

According to democracy scholar Robert Dahl, the historical evidence is overwhelming attesting to the fact that the interests of those who are denied to participate in governance will not be advanced by those who govern. Who will speak up for you or your group, Dahl asks, if you are denied your voice or excluded from participation?

Political contests in the Philippines have yet to be severed from the same old squabbles of competing warlords. But the political success of some entertainment and sports celebrities not rooted in the political dynasties of the old gentry are signs of shifting allegiances of the masses from traditional power and wealth to their newly found champions like Erap (screen idol and former president Joseph Estrada) and Manny Paquiao(top-rated world boxing titleholder). At the very least, this phenomenon is also an expression of the masses’ rejection of elite ideology despite its intense promotion with all the wherewithal at the elites’ disposal.

The masses believe they are allowed participation in the political process when they succeed in enthroning their heroes whom they expect to look at issues not through the prism of some highfalutin party ideology but through their (the masses) own. This is how republicanism is understood by the people. The majoritarian principle based on this self-interest of the masses is somehow the antidote to the pursuit of the so-called rational self-interest of the dominant group in the context of liberal democracy. When freedom of expression and access to alternative or other sources of information than those plied by the government or the dominant group, particularly on political matters, hold full sway, there’s greater opportunity to gain civic competence on the part of all participants. Compromises or consensus among competing interests based on the enlightened understanding of critical issues may then take place in the quest for the common good, or at least, as hoped for by Sycip, “a common program to reduce poverty and develop a larger middle class.”

On the other hand, whether or not the majority has in fact voted a true champion is another story. Today, average Latin Americans are increasingly having good fortune in putting their bets in, say, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales who are seen to be stepping up to the plate to challenge the prevailing socioeconomic order and orthodoxy. If the final say remains with the people, does it even matter should Chavez or Morales ultimately turn out to be poor choices? As long as the elections of representatives are fair, honest and frequent, chances are the principals will learn their lessons in democratic governance.

Hope, faith, and politcal act of love

2007-01-28T22:55:00.000-05:00

I was thinking of St. Paul when my entry on Feb. 28, 2006, critiquing former president Fidel V. Ramos’ Manila Bulletin column, was titled “Holy coup: for a mission of love”. There I wrote:

What the still tentative People Power practitioners hope to see in the last analysis, after two People Power revolutions, is not just another “personnel” or “regime” change but a rejection of the “system in place” that has sustained [in the words of Ramos] “throughout history” the “unholy alliance” and “perverse symbiosis” of the “wealthy, powerful, and politically entrenched families” forming the “durable oligarchy.” As a result of this alliance and symbiosis, it should be pointed out, more than two thirds of the 85 million Filipinos live in “humiliation, powerlessness and brutal hardship,” to borrow some compelling words from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. A mere constitutional amendment is unlikely to alter the situation of the Filipino poor, perhaps not during FVR’s or our lifetime.

The Filipinos would be ready to challenge whatever myth there is that surrounds a borrowed constitutional order when the iceberg of mistrust among the collaborating actors is allowed to be broken. And if and when the time comes a Baynihan Pact uniquely Filipino is ready to be forged, it behooves the representatives to be faithful to the represented and to listen too to those who may not be the nearest and the loudest because “all human beings are created equal,” to use the political judgment or rhetoric of our colonial masters whom FVR at times hearkens to.

Lastly, to ensure the success of the systemic and paradigmatic change hoped for will require some self-abnegating mission, nay, a political act of love ranging from one end of the political spectrum to the other (i.e., from the Left, through the Center to the Right) instead of the persistent desire for ideological triumphalism from all sides. This collaboration, or holy alliance, if you will, could be the antithesis of the unholy one FVR has appropriately and correctly identified.

My entry today in another blog is a direct interpretation of the relevant portion of St. Paul’s letter, which inspired the above post. The new entry is quoted below in toto:

I was the second reader at the Sunday mass today and my assignment was to read 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 where Paul has defined love by certain enumeration.

Paul in his letter, while first placing love alongside with two other spiritual gifts, faith and hope, has raised love to an even higher level, that of being the greatest of the three. The same triad has been contrasted to the Corinthians’ most desired possession: prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. Paul then has postulated that the highest virtue for the Corinthians to aspire for is love, which is an act of charity for others.

The ability to prophesy and comprehend mysteries or fathom the depth of knowledge is an extraordinary gift. So is the charisma of speaking by the spirit of God (or the gift of tongue or ecstatic phenomenon). According to Paul, these abilities are nothing without love.

Paul has gone boldly further, asserting that philanthropy, even martyrdom (the giving of one’s life or self-sacrifice), could also be meaningless if the giver is not informed by love.

Indeed giving to the needy would be meritorious by itself yet to Paul if done not for love, it is still nothing. For, giving may still be motivated by guilt, for example, or by all kinds of self-righteousness, or pride.

When Paul wrote his letter, the early Christian community that he had founded at Corinth was in disharmony, riven by factionalism. To appeal for unity Paul has relied on the gift of love as a unifying force rather than the gifts of tongue, knowledge or prophecy. In today’s parlance, couldn’t these apparently subordinate abilities also take the form of demagogy, smarts or punditry?

The word actually used by Paul for love is the Greek agape, or in Latin caritas, from which the English “charity” is derived. All other virtues are inspired by charity according to Catholic teaching.

So, what is the way of agape?

“Love is patient, love is kind.
it is not jealous, it is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.”

Charity is love for others, corresponding to God’s love for humankind.

Tapping the leadership of the economic elites

2007-01-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

I’ve been taken to task once more by Anonie for running what, in fairness, are indeed remonstrations on my part about the rentier persona of the economic elites in the Philippines. He posts: “You seem to demonstrate an anti-Filipino businessmen agenda. You deride them when you really should be appreciative when Filipinos buy Philippine debt.”

But if I’m remonstrating, Blurry Brain, a self-styled free trader, is mercilessly haranguing:

Nevertheless, the point is: this country has been and is being held back by an oligarchic elite, and will remain so unless their power and influence is diminished vis-à-vis that of the rightful ruling class: the general citizenry. By “elite”, for present purposes, we exclude those that have worked hard and succeeded by their own merit, but do refer to those few families and individuals that have control over a substantive portion of the nation’s wealth; those families and individuals that turned their backs on the Katipunan, eagerly welcomed the Americans, “sat it out abroad” during the Japanese occupation (see Democracy and Discipline, Macaranas and Thompson), and have controlled our governments (by way of a seeming political rigodon) from the Third Republic onwards. Other countries have an elite or oligarchy and they have been done well by them. Ours just simply ... sucks. All you have to do is look around or read the newspapers to see their handiwork. You can’t really pinpoint anybody else for the rut this country is in as the same people, same families, same names have been governing this country since the Commonwealth days.

Over against the fury of Blurry, my reaction to Anonie could be a leap of faith:

Given the mediocrity of the Filipino political class, I’m actually looking, at this critical crossroad of our nation, for leadership from the economic elites, somewhere at the level of such ingenious American railroad men and financiers as Jay Gould, Edward Henry Harriman and J. P. Morgan whose shrewdness as well as sense of public responsibilities of wealth helped make America a global power. And greed notwithstanding, these American economic leaders, much like the Japanese zaibatsu, and later, the keiretsu (e.g., Mitsubishi, Sumitumo and Sanwa) and the Korean families who created the famous chaebols, have turned their nations around and triggered the second industrial revolution in America, the economic miracle in Japan or the founding of modern Korea in South Korea; these empire builders considered themselves first and foremost as Americans, Japanese or Koreans, something that should be compared to the hyphenated identities of the Philippine economic elites.

Watchful eye, on the other hand, vets the nation’s wealth holders:

Are they part of the nation’s problems or the solution? . . . Magkano ang investment nila sa China sa ngayon? (How much are they invested in China?) . . . Saan ba nagsisipagaral ang kanilang mga apo? (Where do they send their grandchildren to obtain education?) . . . Does it matter to them at all if two-thirds of the Filipinos don’t eat enough nutritious food?

And what is Blurry’s recipe?

Again, I am not advocating coups, violence, bloody revolutions, etc. What I am advocating for is precisely to avoid those. What I would rely on and work for and encourage others to work for is better education (which is the best economic policy a country can make), the strengthening of and reliance on institutions, better engagement of technology and globalization, and - finally - trade liberalization.

There could arguably be no surer formula for a nation’s development than better education for the citizens, pursuit of technical know-how and bankable institutions. But I’d digress from the expediency of liberalization if only to point out that most successful economies in the world have not been market fundamentalists when they started out. They began as developmental state with strong government involvement. It is therefore not fair to prescribe the strict discipline of the market and liberalization mantra to developing countries and taking those prescriptions like bitter pills before becoming competitive. This is how I look at Senator Mar Roxas’ alternative leadership potentials in my previous piece: he seems willing to challenge the prevailing economic orthodoxy when he threatened to opt out of WTO whereas President Arroyo, supposedly the economist, is willing to swallow hook, line and sinker the Washington Consensus of tight fiscal restraint, liberalization, privatization, and turboglobalization.

What I believe, as I have been pleading in protest (i.e., remonstrating), will lift the Philippines from its present state of laggardness is not Charter change or the Pauline conversion of the trapos but: 1) vigorous entrepreneurship on the part of the economic elites; 2) high-level capital investments by the same wealth holders; 3) a well-educated workforce whose skills are up to par to the requirements of modern business; and 4) continuing acquisition and promotion of technical know-how and zeal for innovativeness and creativity to sustain competitiveness.

I’m not passing over the liberalization route but for the contention that the attainment of competitiveness must come first, instead of the cart being put in front of the horse. I have once called this proposition as affirmative action at the level of nations, which means that struggling but willing economies must be given a decent chance to build and accumulate before being let loose to the vagaries of competition.

I have reckoned the gargantuan debt burden and the laggard performance of the economic elites as the two greatest obstacles to our economic takeoff and to a sustainable economic development. So, let me somehow think loud on how to get the economic elites wrapped up into the debt burden predicament in a different light in the conceptual scenario that follows:

Our economic elites (who own half of the debt burden), imbued with a deep sense of country, consider the possibility of entering into some form of “forbearance” with the national government with a view to a short-term moratorium on debt service payment, say, an 8-year temporary cessation. (This indulgence by the elites is in a way a matching counterpart to the acknowledged sacrifices of the OFWs, serving to keep the ship of the nation afloat.)

During the moratorium, the government in partnership with the same forbearing private sector, or vice versa, ventures into vigorous investments, targeting specific industries such as: the manufacture of the imported component of the electronic exports; bio-fuel as alternative source of energy; or exploration in the extractive sector. (I’d prefer to treat the forbearance as some sort of passive investment on the part of the economic elites; after all, the first beneficiary of dependable institutions and infrastructures, productive workforce and booming economy would be none other than the elites themselves.)

What’s withheld as otherwise rent payment, which, doubtless, is a considerable sum, may now be available for physical (maybe including contingency plans for undersea cable system disruptions) and social (certainly together with educational) infrastructure outlays as well as for state support for R&D. On the other hand, appropriate incentives like “tax holidays” for entrepreneurs directly involved in these targeted sectors are worked out.

Aside from moratorium on debt service and on capital strike, similar challenge is posed to the labor sector to bite the bullet by committing to a moratorium on labor strikes and other concerted actions during the experimental phase.

Foreign creditors and investors, not being importuned to make a change of position, are expected to regard the arrangement as a real honest-to-goodness resolve for internally driven strategic economic plan. On the other hand, in virtue of its ownership by local leaderships, the initiative is perceivable as one designed with a visceral sense of stewardship (to have lasting positive consequences for the next generation of Filipinos); hence, stabilizing and producing the effect of strengthening the country’s creditworthiness and standing in the world economy.

Experts improve on this model.

The above concept is neither ideologically populist nor elitist but motivated by the power of consensus is simply sensible. Quite unfortunately, the main problem with it at the moment is that President Arroyo remains hamstrung with legitimacy issue (principally because of the still unexplained Garci tapes fiasco) and as such may now be bereft of any political capital to bring to bear upon men of wealth and people in struggle.

Where does the office of the middling Filipinos fit in? My commentary in mlq3’s blogsite is thus:

Whenever I raise concern about the lackadaisical performance of the economic elites or their inability to produce the right goods the right way doing the best with what the Filipinos have, I am addressing my concerns to the relative deprivation of the Filipino middle class and hopefully allowing them to appreciate that no matter how the trapos change the constitution, if the economic elites are not creating wealth, they (the middling Filipinos) will someday find themselves opting out of the social contract, their sense of country notwithstanding, or ultimately leading the masa to try to transform the existing order.

One ray of hope: if only President Arroyo could be true to herself upon revisiting what inspired her to make the announcement in 2001 forgoing any further political aspiration, then the country could possibly start gaining faster traction on new ways forward, to use a Republican catchphrase, both toward national “character change” and a bona fide economic progress.

Yes, Anonie, there's a Santa from the South

2006-12-31T12:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, Anonie, there’s a better holiday package to answer our debt problem.

Anyway, in your wish list, which I’m quoting here verbatim, you mentioned two with which to deal with the matter: “(a) continue with Cory-FVR-Estrada-GMA policies (efforts to renegotiate the loan terms but follow world-banking procedures); (b) the Philippines to declare it will stop payments on the Marcos-’Nuclear-plant’-loans.”

At this point, I’m basically still hovering at macro level and I guess you are right on the money when you raised debt burden as a high priority issue.

I most certainly regard the Philippines’ gargantuan debt AND the lackadaisical performance of the economic elites as the two greatest obstacles to our economic takeoff and to a sustainable economic development. This means that problems often associated with dirty politics or certain perceived flaws of the constitution would be of second order. Therefore, in my view, to make the trapos and the constitution bear the blame for the ills of the nation, as many are prone to whine about, is to disguise the country’s real maladies.

How does our debt burden look like?

A bunch of Filipino economists (the “UP 11,” remember?) came up in August 2004 with a position paper affirming that the Filipinos - or logically the economic elites for that matter - hold most of the government’s peso-denominated debt and “a good chunk” of the dollarized domestic debt. The paper also indicated that the national debt at 3.36 trillion pesos as of the end of 2003 is “split almost equally between foreign and domestic liabilities.”

A more recent analysis by cvj in mlq3’s blogsite is equally interesting and shows that under the GMA regime, the Philippines has so far incurred US $3.8 billion in foreign debt and US $ 6.2 billion in domestic debt, both figures being in excess of those incurred by her immediate predecessors. What is however noticeable from cvj’s configuration is that the 40/60 split (versus the 50/50 split pursuant to the UP 11 report) has been the ballpark average of our public borrowings since Pres. Cory Aquino. Now, considering that only 60 or so families control the domestic financial market, may one likewise infer that, based on cvj’s figures, about 60 percent of the national debt is owed to a very small minority of economic elites?

Whether the debt burden is split 50/50 into foreign and domestic, or 40/60, would be of no moment because, as I see it, it remains indicative of the overriding interest on the part of the domestic wealth holders in renting their money at guaranteed earnings relative to otherwise risking such wealth in rational productive investments. With the debt service (the “income” to the lenders) calculated at about 30 percent of the national budget, the portion of the overall national revenues going to only some individuals is obscenely mind-boggling, or, to put it differently, enough to lull the rentier persona of the entrenched economic elites into passive investment.

Again, with about a third of the national budget being by law automatically earmarked for debt service, what incentives do these rentier families have, to take greater risks either to compete with their regional counterparts or to develop the real economy of the nation?

Little wonder, the Philippines’ richest guy, aside from his sizeable stake in the finance economy, appears content with building giant malls catering largely to the consumption proclivities of OFW remittance recipients. Meanwhile, the economic benefits derived from the country’s leading manufactured export (electronics) are practically set off by heavy import components. Shouldn’t we matter-of-factly be seriously thinking of setting the stage for attaining the competitive advantage of producing locally those import components? Or should we rather take the stance of blogger anna de brux and many others of similar persuasions who seem to “have no issue with anyone making loads of money provided their business is legit and that they’re paying the right taxes”?

Well, a couple of years ago, Senator Manuel Villar, Jr. as chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, explained at a Senate briefing on the 2005 budget proposal that banks would rather acquire Treasury bills and other sovereign debt instruments than lend to businessmen because aside from the rates being so attractive, the “investments are risk-free and protected from depreciation.” The preference of rich Filipinos to invest in the financial rather than in the real economy, deprives the nation of “a critical mass of projects that will be necessary to jumpstart and sustain the country’s economic development,” once frankly admitted by Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar V. Purisima.

We, as a nation, have to get our acts together if not for ourselves for the next generation. Scapegoating trapo politics or relying on primarily political solutions to essentially economic problem is a deliberate diversion from the true problem in which the nation is deeply immersed, i.e., the stark reality that the performance of our risk-averse economic elites is third-rate so that even if certain growth is seen in absolute terms, the Philippines remains a laggard in the region in relative terms. How our neighbors’ will to develop has readily bypassed our country in the short term, to become the covetable tiger economies in the region is now taken for granted. Yet, of very late one more comparatively stellar performance that’s mocking us to our face is the continuing economic surge from behind of once war-torn and debt relief candidate Vietnam.

Anonie, I call your first option above as the vicious cycle of generosity of “adjustment lending” from false Santas of the North. It comes with a dear price: externally imposed deregulation, privatization, liberalization and fiscal discipline, all meant to please foreign creditors and rating agencies. The net effects, as we are experiencing, are slow economic growth, heightened levels of poverty, forced cutbacks on vital physical and social infrastructures spending and increased unemployment from resulting de-industrialization.

We missed the second option boat during Cory’s time. Indeed, to raise a howl at this juncture about dictator’s debts or “odious debts” will be naughty and not nice.

I have had the chance to indulge in the rhetoric of a wish for a third option:

If then the paramount goal were to stop the escalating government debt as a proportion of GDP, won’t it be possible to attain it should the growth of GDP outpace the ever-rising debt? This would only mean that past the crisis and beyond some short-run government bureaucratic measures (such as new tax schemes and pork barrel curtailments), the wealth creators at the firm level must lead the march toward competitiveness and productivity growth, the intuition of the now famous “UP 11” that it would be “no more than whistling in the dark” notwithstanding. Therefore, rather than despair, perish or self-destruct, Filipinos must take the course that remains wide open for them - build and produce to earn enough to pay debts, provide basic needs, keep an efficient bureaucracy and build even more. When government capital expenditures are at a minimum, the private sector must take up the slack in investment to boost employment and enable the citizens to pull through a sense of confidence in the future.

Slowly, we have grown to perceive that the appropriate solutions to the country’s maladies require both funding and character change. With a sense of country and responsibilities for their own population, the economic elites, like patriotic Santas it is hoped, would resolve to give away both.

A BLESSED, PROSPEROUS and PEACEFUL NEW YEAR TO ALL!