Who’s protecting oil smuggling?

On Target

By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
02/03/2009

Two big oil companies hired a private investigation agency to look into the rampant smuggling of fuel at the Subic Freeport and the unloading of smuggled fuel off Bataan.

They backed off after they were told who is protecting the oil smugglers.

Who do you think is behind the oil smuggling?

* * *

“Nobody would dare smuggle fuel oil in big quantities without the blessing of the Godfather,” said a source at the Subic Freeport.

Who’s the “Godfather” being referred to?

* * *

President Arroyo has urged US President Barack Obama at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to take steps to address the worsening world economic crisis.
But do you think Obama will listen to our President?

He probably told himself, “Who do you think you are, telling me what to do?”
Obama snubbed President Arroyo when she sought an audience with him during the US presidential election campaign.

He didn’t talk to her over the phone either when she called to congratulate him after the announcement of his victory.

Why?

The answer probably lies in his inaugural speech, part of which is being quoted in text messages and in coffee shop talks:

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we’ll extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Is President Arroyo on Obama’s “wrong side of history”?

* * *

Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo should shy away from gambling for the sake of delicadeza.
On Race No. 6 Sunday at the Lazaro Racing Club, Mikey’s horse Defiant was an outstanding favorite.

But in the tight race, Boot Legs won by a length against Defiant.

A protest was lodged with the Board of Stewards.

The Board of Stewards’ decision: Defiant won.

* * *

It’s true, Defiant is not in the name of the First Couple’s eldest child.

Defiant’s owner – on paper – is a guy named Jun Molina.

But everyone in the racing circuit knows that Defiant is owned by Mikey Arroyo.

* * *

Billionaire Jose “Pepito” Alvarez feels alluded to in Saturday’s column about a billionaire entertaining plans to run for governor of Palawan.He vehemently denies destroying forests in the province during his logging days as stated in Saturday’s column.

Alvarez says he’s not planning to run for governor, but that 21 of the 23 town mayors in the province are prodding him.

“Setting humility aside,” the billionaire says in his letter, “ the best forest cover in the entire province is the area that was once my logging concession.”

Israel’s Gaza Ghetto

By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on Jan. 12, 2009

The numbers are lopsided. In two weeks of fighting, Israel has suffered 13 dead, of whom three were civilians felled by Qassam rockets launched by Hamas into cities in southern Israel, while ten were soldiers killed in action in Israel’s incursion into the Gaza strip.

On the other hand, as a result of Israeli retaliatory missile attacks by helicopter gunships and shellfire from Merkeva tanks, more than 850 Palestinians have been killed, of whom one fourth, one third or one half – depending on who is counting - are innocent women and children.

Because of the lopsided fatalities count, comparisons are being made between Gaza in 2009 and the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943.

By 1942, most of the Jews in Poland had been herded by the German Nazis into ghettoes, the biggest of which was the Warsaw Ghetto which was densely packed with 300,000 to 400,000 Jews. Of these, an estimated 300,000 were eventually shipped to the Treblinka extermination camp. Some one thousand of those who were left behind, armed with nothing more than pistols and revolvers, chose to stage an uprising against the Nazis, the biggest single Jewish uprising during the war.

The Nazi reaction was swift and systematic. Two thousand Waffen-SS troops surrounded the ghetto in April 1943 and, in less than 30 days, methodically swept through the enclave, especially through its sewer network, and quashed the uprising. Some 13,000 Jews, mostly unarmed civilians, were killed.

Is Gaza the Israelis’ Warsaw Ghetto in reverse? Yes and No.

The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose in revolt against being sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. They were purely in survival mode. They did not daringly lob grenades at the Nazis outside the ghetto walls. They had no ambitions to throw the Nazi Germans to the sea, nor did they have any dreams of forming a separate state.

By contrast, the Palestinians in Gaza, under the leadership of the Hamas militants whom they had elected two years ago to be their government, want to form a Palestinian state on the entire territory occupied by the Israelis, whom they have solemnly vowed to throw into the Mediterranean Sea. A goal that it shares with its main supporters, the Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs.

Not all Palestinians share the passion of Hamas. The Fatah organization, founded by the late Yassir Arafat, have arrived at a modus vivendi with the Jewish state and have accepted the existence of Israel as a fact of life. But in their civil war two years ago, the Fatah was driven out of Gaza by Hamas, which regards them as collaborators. Fatah’s writ is confined to the West Bank.

To accentuate its uncompromising attitude towards Israel and the hated Jews, Hamas has been launching Qassam rockets everyday into southern Israel for the past three weeks. More than 500, at the latest count, even after Israeli Merkeva tanks invaded parts of northern Gaza. For sheer chutzpah - ironically a Hebrew word - Hamas takes the cake.

But are they realistic? Did Hamas really think they could fire 500 rockets into Israel without drawing retaliation from the Israelis?. Or, more likely, did Hamas expect Israeli retaliation but are cynically using their own people as baits to draw that retaliation so as to score points with world public opinion, especially with the liberals who will soon be in power in Washington DC.

The question has to be asked because the main reason for the lopsided fatalities count is the total lack of preparations for war on the part of Hamas.

As far as I can tell, Gazan towns and cities do not have air raid sirens and air-raid shelters.(Israeli towns and cities do) Their hospitals did not stock up on medicines and fuel for generators and promptly ran out of both. Their food, fuel and water sources were apparently not prepared for war. Add to this the fact that Gaza is densely populated. Throw a stone in any direction and chances are that stone will hit someone.

Given these conditions, it is hard to understand the motivation of Hamas for starting a war situation that they know they cannot win. It seems more and more like a deliberate ploy to win some points with President-elect Barack Obama’s liberal government, even if it means unnecessary death and suffering for hundreds of thousands of their own people..

Liberal critics point to the lack of proportionality in the casualties: 859 dead Palestinians compared to 13 dead Israelis. But how should war be conducted? Should the superior side (Israel) count its casualties at the end of the day and exact more or less only that many casualties the next day on the other, weaker side (Hamas)? Would that have convinced Hamas to stop firing those rockets at Israeli cities? When was the last time liberals fought a war?

The Israelis claim that Hamas deliberately locate their arms depots and munitions factories under mosques, schools and hospitals, which made it necessary for them (the Israelis) to strike at these sites.

The Israelis also claim that they are close to achieving their objectives, whatever those may be. I can only guess that this involves sending infantry into the heart of Gaza City and capturing intact those mosques, schools and hospitals under which they claim Hamas has located arms depots and munitions factories, in order to show the media and the world why it was necessary to hit those sites..

The Israelis do not want a repeat of their stand-off with the Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. After being on the receiving end of some 4,000 Katyusha rockets and Iranian-built Fajr missiles fired by Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon, Israel failed to destroy Hezbollah as a military force in their 33-day war. The impasse forced the resignation of the Israeli minister of defense and the army chief-of-staff and pushed down the popularity rating of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to zero percent.

The Israelis apparently do not want that to happen again and will do their utmost to make sure that Hamas is destroyed as both a military and a political force, even if they are seen as revisiting the Warsaw Ghetto in reverse. Whether they will succeed or not remains to be seen. *****

Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in .www.tapatt.org and in abaya.blogspot.com.

The Filipino’s survival kit

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo
Philstar: January 25, 2009

Laughter is a vital part of a person’s survival kit. Laughter is the defense mechanism for coping with something traumatic that could otherwise drive us to insanity or dangerous uncontrolled rage. It also applies to a nation — the sum total of persons sharing a geographical location.

Laughter as a national survival kit is perhaps more applied in the Philippines than anywhere else. This national psychology is easily shaped by our sad collective experience with oppression — from past colonizers and the neo-colonizers, the oligarchs, who now rule our land.

In the past, our ancestors resorted to the Kundiman as a coping mechanism for the sad experience with Spanish tyranny. Kundi man (if not) says it all as music is resorted to for diverting the mind and soothing the pains of a nation suffering under the conqueror’s oppressive boot.

When Senator Richard Gordon treated my family and our Macgregor cousin from South Africa to the Light and Sound History Tour in Intramuros (one of Dick’s projects when he was Tourism Secretary), he pointed out this fact of history about the origins of the Kundiman when we were in that portion of the history tour portraying Filipino sufferings during the Spanish era.

One of the reasons why your Chair Wrecker rates Dick Gordon very highly as a potential good president is because of his sense of history. Time and again, your Chair Wrecker has emphasized the need for Filipinos to know our real history. It is a must if we Filipinos are to unite and move our country forward. We cannot solve our core problem when we do not know what it is and who caused it.

Lately, we have resorted to comedy as our coping mechanism and we try to take things lightly even when in the very marrow of our Filipino soul we know that the national situation is deadly serious and will heavily impact on us and our loved ones. We make fun of crucial national issues that carry the potential for unleashing civil strife in our country just so that the burden lightens somewhat.

It is the logical option for a largely un-empowered people. Other people will already be on the level of serious discussions and national mobilization when faced with a serious national problem that could lead to civil strife. But that is natural for people who are empowered to utilize the advantage of their numbers.

When Ninoy Aquino was assassinated on August 21, 1983, the prospect of civil strife here became all too real. A critical mass against the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship arose from the blood of the murdered Ninoy Aquino. When over two million people braved rain and lightning during his funeral, everybody thought that the end of Marcos has come.

The whole world started a sort of death watch on the Philippines — keeping an eye when our country will explode. But instead of seeing angry, violent mobs duplicating the successful assault of the Bastille during the French Revolution — the world was surprised to see festive rallies here. Puzzled, they asked why Filipinos are celebrating instead of demonstrating national outrage.

Who can forget the Hindi ka nag-iisa (you are not alone) jokes that rally placards sported in the Makati Commercial District? “Ninoy, hindi ka nag-iisa, Imelda (Marcos), naka-isa ka (you got one over us), Marcos, nag-iisa ka na (you are now alone)!” the most popular joke went. It became a running series of ‘hindi ka nag-iisa’ jokes.

Other more serious people, given the outpouring of support for the then Opposition after the Aquino assassination, could have toppled their oppressors within three weeks. It took us all of three years.

Thus, it is heartwarming to an old crusader for good government like your Chair Wrecker to see the advent of The Professional Heckler and Juana Change in the internet.
Loi Reyes Landicho, a young man this Chair Wrecker will want to meet one of these days, opened a website (www.professionalheckler.worldpress.com) and called himself “The Professional Heckler.” He entertains those who log on to his website with his imaginative and yes — funny — jokes that target our political personalities and some celebrities.
Loi follows the classic formula for comedy — the high and the mighty are made fun of by those below their station in society. It is the logical formula for comedy simply because the high and the mighty are better equipped and disposed to accept being made fun of than those below who are already trying to cope with penury and misery. You can just imagine how a person living in penury and misery will react if made fun of.

I came to know about Loi’s website when he emailed me many moons ago to introduce it. When I logged on to Loi’s website, I was pleasantly surprised to see a young Filipino dish out what I only see nowadays from the likes of David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Jon Stewart. In the past, we used to enjoy these political jokes from the late Joe Guevara.
I became a regular visitor of the website and my egroup thanked me for sharing Loi’s originals with them (which I cut and paste then email). Loi’s political jokes, like those of his US counterparts, allow many folks to appreciate what could otherwise not be accepted if communicated under normal editorial assertions. The comic, often witty, approach allows the idea to be accepted and establish a toe hold of the mind, as it were.
Juana Change, the series of YouTube videos produced by concerned and patriotic artists and entertainers, is particularly interesting in that it not only provides laughter and entertainment but it also provides insights to the core issue being tackled. Whether it is Charter change or government fixers being tackled, Mae Paner as Juana Change renders a hilarious performance that deserves an Oscar for comedy and a national award for education.

Mae Paner’s group is able to produce the YouTube videos with some help from patriotic donors. But she admitted in Che Che Lazaro’s ANC show that their group still contributes their personal funds to be able to produce more videos. They are non-partisan but want only to contribute their God-given talents (and money) to enlighten our people on important national issues and social problems.

If indeed it takes humor to win true Filipino freedom and democracy — then by all means let us have more Professional Hecklers and Juana Change characters. If ever, Filipinos will be the first to laugh their way to economic and political emancipation.

* * *

Chair Wrecker website: www.chairwrecker.com

Turning back to God is the true and real solution to the problems of the Philippines

Among Ed,

Thank you for being open to new windows or new ways of looking at what’s transpiring in our country. Forgive me if at times my zeal and enthusiasm make me sound all-knowing–rest assured that these ideas are shared in the spirit of humility and the desire to perform a servant’s role in efforts to help our country and people.

Allow me to share with you some PR proposals/observations from a former Jesuit novice/scholastic, former Samahang Demokratikong Kabataan-KM member and long-time PR/Advertising practitioner:

I. THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF THE PHILIPPINES’ SOCIO-POLITICAL PROBLEMS.

As an exemplary Catholic priest you certainly understand better than any other Philippine politician that the root of the country’s problems are spiritual: the turning away from God. The manifestations are greed, immorality, corruption, injustices and all the other vices which ultimately produce social chaos, poverty and political instability. The true and real solution therefore is spiritual: the turning back to God. Unless, the Philippines turns back to God, we will never solve our problems.

Knowing this truth, you still decided to leave your spiritual duties temporarily because you also realize that prayer and spirituality must be accompanied by action. This was shown by Moses in the book of Exodus when God commanded Moses to send Joshua to do battle against Amalek with the sword while Moses raised his arm in prayer in prefiguration of the pose of crucifixion. The lesson being it is not enough to pray; we must also do battle. And we cannot win the battle without praying. The Cross and the Sword go together.

II. THE ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH/CBCP.

If the above is true, then the CBCP must mount a vigorous effort to make people understand that the solutions to the Philippines’ problems is to return to God. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS DENOUNCING THE POLITICAL PROBLEMS, THE CORRUPTION, ETC, BUT NOT DOING ENOUGH TO CONDEMN THE PERSONAL IMMORALITY OF MANY POLITICIANS AND OF THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES.

This covers the spiritual arena. In the arena of political action, I believe Among Ed or Kaya Natin should approach the CBCP or individual bishops who may be sympathetic about the possibility of Kaya Natin making a presentation to the CBCP Plenary towards the end of January about Kaya Natin’s position regarding the CBCP/Catholc Church’s role in the 2010 elections. I believe a strong argument can be made in favor of the proposition that the CBCP should actively and openly support Kaya Natin’s leaders whether as individuals or as a group in the coming 2010 elections. A sound historical and political analysis combined with arguments from the perspective of moral theology and the Church’s social teachings would I believe be convincing and persuasive enough to make the CBCP take heretofore unprecedented actions. Allow me to cite the example of Poland where the Church and Solidarity worked together to successfully bring down powerful Communist regimes in eastern and central Europe.

In Pampanga, Bishop Ambo can do so many things in the spiritual realm and in the political arena. A spiritual renewal and reevangelization campaign leading up to HOLY WEEK in Pampanga can be undertaken.

III. CENTRAL THEME OF PR/COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN IN PAMPANGA AND PHILIPPINES: GOOD VERSUS EVIL.

In Advertising/PR Campaigns we do for consumer products like toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc, we try to focus all communication campaigns towards a CENTRAL THEME from which or to which all individual communications or information materials radiate. Some advertising agencies call the central theme by diffrerent names like THE UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION OR THE BIG PROMISE, etc. but the basic idea remains: to bring focus and impact to the campaign, the campaign must be united or framed by a central theme. I propose that the central theme of Among Ed’s campaign should be on GOOD VERSUS EVIL.

Good Governance can be relative or subjective and Among ED’s rivals can always cite failings or inadequacies or deficiencies in the area of Good Governance. That is playing the enemy’s game, a game where the enemy has options and possible arguments. But the game where the enemy is weakest and Among ED is strongest is the moral realm–and it’s something that the common ”tao” can easily understand and they can see with their own eyes.

In this context, the conflict is not between Among ED and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan but between Among ED and the jueteng lord of Pampanga, the personification of evil in Pampanga, Bong Pineda. Vice Governor Joseller Guiao and Board members and mayors allied with them are mere puppets doing the will of the personification of evil, Bong Pineda.

And even the protesting dismissed quarry workers are not abused oppressed workers but Pineda allies doing Pineda;s work. THE CHOICE IN PAMPANGA IS NOT BETWEEN WHO IS THE BETTER ADMINISTRATOR BUT BETWEEN SOMEBODY WHO REPRESENTS THE GOOD IN PAMPANGUENOS AND SOMEBODY WHO REPRESENTS EVERYTHING THAT IS BAD, DESPICABLE AND SHAMEFUL IN KAPAMPANGANS. IN THIS SENSE GOOD GOVERNANCE BECOMES A PROOF OR MANIFESTATION OF AMONG ED’S GOODNESS. THE CENTRAL THEME IS AMONG ED’S GOODNESS. GOOD GOVERNANCE IS SIMPLY THE PROOF. THIS PLAYS ON AMONG ED’S STRENGTH AND SPOTLIGHTS BONG PINEDA’S FATAL WEAKNESS.

Thank you for your kind consideration. I hope this helps.

In Christ,
Enri

Advocating Or Campaigning

GLIMPSES
Jose Ma. Montelibano

Whenever elections become a national focus, there is a lot of effort to teach voters how to vote wisely. It used to be more direct when voters were told clearly to vote wisely. Today, the messaging is somewhat distorted because the desire of political advocates, and politicians who are not in power but want to be, is for voters to vote in their preferred candidates and achieve good governance that way. I say distorted because the primary role of governance belongs to those who govern, and good governance.

It seems that citizens are politicized because of bad governance, or bad politics. Citizens are roused to political exercise like voting when there are elections, and the backdrop is constantly negative. Citizens are motivated to become active only when they angry or frustrated at serving public officials, or at the utter lack of better options even among those who want to run for office.

Politics, then, in the Philippines is not only very partisan and divisive, it is about bad governance rather than good governance. Any talk about good governance is misdirected to the wrong audience, not to those who ought to be taught about good governance, but those who are victims of bad governance. The main effect often is the changing of those who govern but not changing bad governance to good governance. The side effect is that Filipinos do not understand politics are a state of affairs that impact on a city, a province or a country - they only understand politics as a partisan activity and ultimately shy away from it. And the ultimate effect is that citizens know as little of responsibility as they see in those who govern them.

I have monitored advocacy groups for ten years. Most of them operate in the Internet because they are abroad. Some operate in the provinces and have limited reach. A few make their mark from the many groups which are active in Metro Manila because they can sometimes get interviewed on television and suddenly are known beyond their narrow audiences. And, then, there are the very few who are supported, or are extensions of, vested interests in business and the academe. These vested interests are not necessarily evil, but they are vested nonetheless and backed up by resources in cash, in kind and in facilities.

While the expressed desire of most is to start a movement, almost none of them succeed. The proof of this lack of success is the absence of any popularly known movement. When the target audience of these movements started by advocacy groups is the voting population itself, about 45 million Filipinos in all, there is not a single movement which one can say is known beyond a very small population circle.

Contrasted with traditional political parties, advocacy groups by themselves have little chance of making a difference. Political parties operate everyday, recruit and maintain people to their organizations, reward their key leaders and workers with jobs or projects, and are nationally represented or active even in between elections. They have grassroots presence even when their supporters are not formally registered and may have shifting loyalties.

Advocacy groups are dependent on media, on a few sponsors with funds and facilities, and the Internet for Filipinos active from abroad. Without media, without funds and facilities to host gatherings and conferences, and without the Internet to get free access to some attention, advocacy groups will have small constituencies, mostly themselves and personal friends. When they operate in Metro Manila and the Internet, they will have many common members as well.

And this is the crux of the problem. The advocacy hits the secondary market - the advocates and their personal networks of friends instead of the general public. Even with media support, the advocacy may find a wider reach but participation will hardly grow in proportion. Without the population itself agitated and ready to act, as in the two Edsa revolutions, advocacy groups accomplish little.
Their success rate is less from their performance and more from the state of emotions of their target publics.

I have often wondered if advocates for change and political reform are simply idealists whom a people in the dark cannot reach, cannot understand. There is this case of a doctor lecturing about sanitation and the consequences when people do not wash their hands before eating, when people do not wash themselves properly and regularly. Yet, the audience they lecture to have no regular supply of clean water.

Citizens who have little knowledge that, in a democracy, they are the engine that drives a nation to productivity, to growth and development, to peace and prosperity have as little chance to be responsible. And they will not be accountable either except by the misery of their lives from bad governance, from corruption and from poverty.

Citizens who are not aware and ready to realize their responsibility can hardly influence their rulers to be good governors. The governed, to be the pressure point for good governance, must have equal or greater power than those who govern. An ordinary citizen attains extraordinary power only in unity with other citizens, enough of them to offset the individual advantages of a rich and influential person. And that unity, if only achieved and used in anger and without new enlightenment, will only pay homage to bloody revolutions that litter the pages of history and the soil of countries.

Advocates, by the nature of advocacy groups, gain power by influence. But influence needs reach so more will know and may be converted to the advocacy, and the advocacy or cause itself seen as the answer to a pressing need so that there will be commitment and action from the converts. Advocates cannot be simple technocrats, not when the state of our weak nation is concerned and the future of our children are threatened.

There is a great challenge to political advocates today. They cannot be elitist in perspective and behavior or they will be no better than those they complain about. If we reach out to the people, the people must be able to reach out to us. It is not only the favorite causes of advocates that the people need, it is also the pressing needs of the people that advocates must address.

–

“In bayanihan, we will be our brother’s keeper and forever shut the door to hunger among ourselves.”

Why Hamas Can’t Win

By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on Jan. 14, 2009

At least not in the short or medium term. Meaning, in the next three to five years. But beyond that, all bets are off.

In its January 19 issue, TIME magazine devoted its cover story to “Why Israel Can’t Win.” The writer, Tim McKirk, who does not have a Jewish name, argues that “The offensive in Gaza may degrade Hamas’ ability to menace southern Israel with rocket fire, but, as with Israel’s 2006 war against Hizballah, the application of force won’t extinguish the militants’ ideological fervor…..”

I do not think the Israelis are unaware of that point. What the Israelis are trying to do is to buy time for more moderate Palestinians to come to the fore and accept a two-state solution that would give the Palestinians their own homeland or state, and at the same time allow the state of Israel to peacefully co-exist with it.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, made up largely of Arafat’s Fatah, has come around to that point of view. Many important Muslim countries – Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, all formerly hostile to Israel – have since accepted the existence of Israel as a fact of life.

But the Hamas, which defeated the Fatah in Gaza elections in 2006 and then drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip, maintains the traditional hard line position that the State of Israel must be destroyed and the Jews driven to the sea.

Not by coincidence, a view loudly and publicly shared by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs of Iran, and by eminent non-state entities such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and various Islamic militant groups all over the Muslim world.

Given such a hostile and belligerent next-door neighbor, Israel cannot be blamed for maintaining a strong military position.

By firing more than 500 rockets and missiles into towns and cities in southern Israel over the past three weeks, Hamas was deliberately provoking the Israelis to react with maximum force, which the Israelis did.

If the MILF or the Abu Sayyaf or some other Islamic secessionist group were to fire 500 Katyusha rockets into Zamboanga City from their hideouts in Basilan Island, wouldn’t or shouldn’t the Philippine armed forces react and retaliate with maximum force as well, assuming that it had such force in its arsenal?

In 1962, when the Soviets started positioning ballistic missiles on the island of Cuba, less than 100 miles from the state of Florida, the US government under President John F. Kennedy mobilized its nuclear might to confront the Soviets, with the implied threat that it was ready to go to (nuclear) war unless the Soviets removed their missiles.

I do not recall if the liberals at that time pilloried Kennedy for the “lack of proportionality” in his reaction, given that the Soviets had not even fired a single missile.

Of course, the present Gaza crisis did not start with the Hamas firing rockets into southern Israel in late December 2008. That was, claim the Hamas and its liberal allies, a reaction to the land and sea blockade that Israel imposed on Gaza years ago.

But that blockade in turn was the Israelis’ response to the smuggling of arms into Gaza from Syria and Iran. Without the blockade, Hamas militants would have acquired more lethal and sophisticated weapons, the kind that the Hezbollah used against northern Israel in 2006.

The whole Middle East crisis is one of blame and counter-blame, retaliation and counter-retaliation, but it all boils down to: who really owns the land that the Jews and the Arabs have been fighting over since 1948, or sixty long years ago.

By now most of Palestinians now living have never seen the land that their parents and grandparents claim was theirs. Similarly, most of the Israelis now living have never known any other land than the Israel that they know as home. So who owns the land?

In my article Who Owns Manhattan? (Oct. 23, 2001) – archived in www.tapatt.org – I asked : “Who owns Manhattan? Is it the descendants of the Manhattan Indians who were its early inhabitants before the coming of the white man?

“Or is it the descendants of Dutch settlers from the Dutch West India Company who had bought it in 1626 from the Manhattan Indians for beads, cloth and trinkets worth $24 in today’s money and named it Nieuw Amsterdam?

“Or is it the descendants of the British colonists who forced the Dutch out in 1664 and renamed it New York?

“Or is it the descendants of the American revolutionists who took possession of the city (from the British) in 1783 and later made it the capital of the new United States of America…”

The answer, of course, is: The land belongs to whoever can maintain sovereignty over it. And that means establishing a working government, promulgating a regime of law and order, making possible the growth of an economy based on commerce and industry, and successfully defending it against the incursion or invasion by outsiders or the revolts of domestic malcontents..

By this criterion, Hamas cannot win the argument since they have effective control over only a very tiny portion of the disputed territory.

If earlier occupation were the sole or main yardstick for ownership, then Manhattan and the rest of continental America would belong to the descendants of the Cherokees, the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the Chippewas, the Navajos, the Apaches, the Pueblos and dozens of other Amerindian peoples; the whole of Latin America would belong to the descendants of the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Quechas, the Aymaras, the Caribs, the Guaranis and dozens of other Amerindian nations; Australia to the Aborigines, New Zealand to the Maoris, South Africa to the Hottentot pygmies, Hokkaidp in Japan to the Ainus, Siberia in Russia to the Sibirs.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska would belong to the Inuits. Which would be a good thing for her since her husband is half-Inuit, and she is more qualified to be Ice Queen of the Inuits, than vice-president or president of the USA.

By the same token, Mindanao would belong to the lumads, not to the descendants of Muslim settlers from Borneo or Christian settlers from Panay and Ilocos. And Central Luzon would belong to the Aetas.

And, yes, the disputed territory of Palestine or Judea would belong to the Jews since their ancestors, with the same ethno-linguistic and religious identity as the present-day Jews, lived there for at least two thousand years – interrupted by involuntary vacations in Egypt and Babylon - until they were driven out by the Romans in the year 70 AD, almost six hundred years before the birth of Islam.

But, of course, in the long term (beyond five years) Hamas can win. But that’s for another article.

Is Sec. Raul Gonzalez laying the basis for a DoJ whitewash?

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo
Philstar: January 13, 2009

The actuations and pronouncements of Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Raul Gonzalez during and after the January 7 Congress hearing on the alleged “Alabang Boys” bribery case are disturbing, to say the least.

Gonzalez reminded the Congressional panel not to presume lack of good faith on the part of the prosecutors despite whatever oddities and irregularities have been found in the hasty resolution to dismiss the case and release the three suspects, namely Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Tecson.

In the January 6 Congress hearing, the irregularities were already clearly established in the resolution penned, with god-awful grammar and all, by prosecutor John Resado. Legal luminaries Edwin Lacierda and Raul Pangalangan of the FEU and UP Law Schools, respectively, shared the views of the Congressmen that the prosecutors erred in dismissing the case.

Several congressmen felt that Resado went beyond the limits of his job and rendered the PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) agents in peril of counter charges. Rep. Roy Golez even considered the possibility that the resolution was virtually lifted from the pleadings of the defendants’ lawyer while totally disregarding the side of the PDEA.

Most glaring was Resado’s conclusion that the buy-bust operation was illegal, even saying that a lone operative conducted it. These were clearly debunked in the January 6 hearing.
Assuming good faith as Gonzalez suggested is valid if no irregularities have already been established. But public accountability dictates that once basis for the assumption of irregularity has been established, then a suspected public official must be subjected to full scrutiny and inquisition.

Then Gonzalez committed an irregularity by questioning PDEA’s Major Ferdinand Marcelino as if Maj. Marcelino was the problem instead of the prosecutors. As a resource person, Gonzalez has no business questioning other resource persons in the hearing.

Why should Gonzalez exert pressure on Maj. Marcelino when it is his prosecutors and his undersecretary, Ricardo Blancaflor, who were under the cloud of suspicion? Can Gonzalez now blame people from thinking that he may be part of the problem for appearing to attempt to cover the tracks of his prosecutors and the mysterious involvement of his undersecretary?
Gonzalez appeared to be discrediting the reputedly honest Marine major. In contrast, other Congressmen and a Senator (Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former military chief of staff) recommended Maj. Marcelino for a well-deserved commendation.

Several Congressmen wondered why Gonzalez did not berate instead the defendants’ lawyer, Atty. Felisberto Verano, for writing that release resolution in a DoJ letterhead for Gonzalez to sign. Indeed, why is Gonzalez soft on those who are under a cloud of suspicion and belligerent towards a soldier who just wanted to do what is right?

Gonzalez painted the Congressmen as “biased” against the prosecutors. But how do you remain neutral when the conflict that is presented to you resonates as the truth on one side and the lie on the other? Won’t a moral person be forced to champion the truth? How else can the Congressmen proceed if not to focus and get to the bottom of the lie?

Gonzalez was quoted: “The problem with some of the congressmen is that they were biased already from the very start. Even the grammar of the supposed resolution, they were attacking it,” he added.

Is it not odd for a veteran lawyer like Gonzalez to downplay the importance of language in law practice when in fact many legal battles were won and lost depending on the capable or incapable interpretation of the language of the law? Indeed, Gonzalez is justified to fire prosecutor John Resado for lacking the skills to write a case resolution.

The Good Book said that no man can be blinder than the man who refuses to see.
Taken in perspective, this Chair Wrecker is not surprised at all that Raul Gonzalez reacted the way he did. Have we not seen worse pronouncements from him?

How come he now talks about good faith as a presumption in the actions of people? If the DoJ Secretary and his prosecutors presumed good faith in the writings of the 27 journalists whom First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo sued for libel — including this Chair Wrecker — then how come all those libel cases were elevated by the DoJ to trial?

Libel is the hardest case to prove and prosecute and yet 27 journalists went to trial. This Chair Wrecker was exonerated by the Manila Regional Trial Court for that libel case. The libel cases against 26 other journalists were eventually withdrawn by Mike Arroyo. Those are 27 black eyes for Gonzalez and his DoJ.

Compared to the 27 libel cases against the journalists, the PDEA case against the “Alabang Boys” provided more damning evidence.

Already rumblings from the Marines were registered. Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino had to caution the Marines to stay away from politics and focus on their main mission. The issue is not political but the fallout will be and even Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo must have sensed this which is why she ordered Gonzalez to resolve it soonest.

Have you noticed how many of the headline grabbers in the Opposition are silent on this bribery issue? They must be silently wishing for a whitewash and then they will capitalize on the fallout.
Napoleon said it best — do not interrupt your opponent while he is making a mistake.

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Chair Wrecker website: www.chairwrecker.com