By Booma Cruz
VERA Files
Malaya
The smile vanishes as soon as soon as she hears a deafening roar across the Abuan River in Isabela province.
“I hate that sound,” former Isabela governor Grace Padaca says. “They’re really back.”
“They” are hatcheros or chainsaw operators who are indeed back in business, cutting age-old trees in the northern Sierra Madre.
It’s not only the return of the illegal loggers that worries Padaca, whose reform movement “Kaya Natin”—which includes Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo and former Pampanga Governor Ed Panlilio—supported President Benigno Aquino III in the last election. She doesn’t see the reforms promised by the President during the campaign being fulfilled.
Looking at the pieces of timber scattered along the Abuan watershed, Padaca remembers a mayor who was one of her original allies. She says: “Pero dahil sa involved siya sa illegal logging e di isa siya sa pina-raid ko. Nag-iisa na nga siyang kakampi namin na original, naging kalaban pa (But since he was involved in illegal logging, we had his place raided. He was the only one of our original allies. Now he is an adversary).” The parting of ways was made more costly by the fact that the mayor headed an area whose congressman was an ally of her powerful political enemy, the Dy dynasty.
She left the provincial capitol after her loss to third-term congressman Faustino Dy III last May. Gunning for her third term, Padaca lost by only 3,438 votes in a hotly contested gubernatorial race that is now the subject of an electoral protest filed by the former governor. Her entire ticket was wiped out by the formidable Dy-Albano alliance.
Described as one of the Davids in Philippine politics, Padaca ended the 40-year reign of the Dys in Isabela in 2004 with a lead of more than 40,000 votes. She trounced another Dy in 2007.
Crippled by polio at age three, Padaca won in 2008 the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in Asia.
Now out of the capitol, one of Padaca’s fears is the return of illegal logging in Isabela. She feels it is just a matter of time before bogadors or timber transporters have a field day in transporting downstream contraband timber through the Abuan River.
Abuan River has been used to transport illegally cut logs from the forests of Sierra Madre for decades. About 1.8 million board feet worth more than P30 million—the biggest haul of illegal timber in the history of the Philippines—was confiscated here by the provincial government of Isabela at the height of Padaca’s anti-logging campaign.
Thousands of bogadors lost their livelihood during the capitol’s anti-logging operations. This cost the former governor a lot of votes in the succeeding elections. Her 40,000 lead in 2004 was whittled down to 17,000 votes in 2007.
A popular, hard-hitting radio broadcaster before entering politics, the feisty Padaca has made Manila her home base to distance herself from Isabela politics. She enjoys the freedom of being an ordinary citizen but feels sorry for her province whenever she hears bad news from supporters and concerned citizens.
The new administration has reportedly changed some of the major policies implemented by Padaca. Foremost is the additional P3 per kilo subsidy from the Capitol budget for the purchase by the National Food Authority of palay and corn from the farmers.
Sources say the current subsidy has been reduced to only P2 and covers only corn and not palay. Isabela is considered the rice and corn granary of northern Philippines.
Padaca counts the increase in the income of farmers due to the additional subsidy as her biggest achievement. With her departure from the capitol, farmers rue that the old prices of corn and palay are back again.
Grappling with mixed emotions about her recent visit to her province, she says: “Ayoko kasing lumalim ang mga observation ko. Kasi nga pag nakakakita ako, pressure sa akin ‘yun to do something, (I don’t want to know more because if I do, I am pressured to do something).”
Padaca had already texted President Aquino to ask about the pending appointments of corrupt environment officers she had removed while in office and the retention of police officials allegedly involved in vote-buying.
According to her, the President used to answer her text messages, but today their SMS conversations have become few and far between. Padaca understands that the President cannot answer all text messages he receives.
The concern of Padaca over the performance of PNP provincial director Jimmy Rivera, particularly what she claims was his open bias for the Dys and the Albanos during the election, has been the subject of so many letters and follow-ups with then Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno and PNP chief Jesus Verzosa.
It was the first issue that the former governor raised with Secretary Robredo who referred the matter to Undersecretary Rico Puno, the official assigned by President Aquino to take charge of police matters in the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Padaca personally delivered her letter to Puno together with a note from Robredo. Still no action has been taken.
The former governor does not hide her discomfort—and, at times, disgust—with the agenda of some people close to the President.
“Ibang klase talaga. Kung paanong from one administration to another, kayang-kayang mag-reinvent ng kanilang sarili ang mga masamang damo para laging ang gusto pa rin nila ang nangyayari (They’re really something. They reinvent themselves with every new administration so their agenda can be fulfilled),” she adds, without naming names.
There are issues that Padaca feels strongly about that are apparently not a priority in the Aquino administration. One such concern is jueteng.
As governor, Padaca fought hard against jueteng but failed to eradicate it in the province. All efforts to stop jueteng proved futile because of the alleged support of Malacañang to the illegal numbers game.
Padaca sums up the problem by comparing jueteng to water flowing. She says squeezing a portion of the hose to stop the flow will not do the trick.
“You just need the President to close the faucet and it will stop,” she says.
Despite the many missteps of the new administration, Padaca is still hopeful that the President will be able to govern effectively and immediately address pressing issues such as illegal logging and gambling.
“Malaki ang pag-asa ko kay President Noy. Kung effective president sana siya, kahit di na ako mag-governor. Sana magamit niya ang power niya to do things (I have high hopes for President Noy. If he turns out to be an effective president, I don’t have to be governor. I hope he is able to use his power to put these things in order),” she says.
Padaca believes the President and his men are in a period of adjustment and need a little more time to settle into their new jobs.
She cites her own experience as a newbie in politics. “I could not have been expected to hit the ground running, literally and figuratively,” she says with a hearty laugh.
***
(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)
http://www.malaya.com.ph/11112010/news3.html
Monday, November 15, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The Alarming Falsehood and Half-truth
By Erick San Juan
In today’s world of high technology and as the world becomes smaller through fast paced means of communication, ordinary people now find it hard to sift through all the information they are getting. But for those who are aware of the daily spins where the mainstream media, most of the time became the witting and unwitting tool in feeding the public, it is easier to draw the line between truth and a lie. As an observer of events unfolding here and abroad, we can say that where fact ends, lies and bigger lies begin to condition the minds of the people who are afraid to think beyond what is being forced to them to believe. Thus, creating delusion in the process. For as long as there are people who are willing to believe and for others, to be willing tools to the myth – mongering, humanity will suffer the consequences.
Take for example the recent bomb scare allegedly found inside an ink cartridge in a plane bound for Chicago, USA. The alarming truth to this false alarm was clearly reported that – “After having examined the suspicious ink toner device for six hours and found it to be a dud, bomb experts at East Midlands Airport only reversed their decision after being ordered to re-inspect the package by US authorities following President Obama’s Friday afternoon speech in which he claimed that the devices did in fact contain explosives”. (Did Obama order British Authorities To Find Non-Existent Ink Bomb?, Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet.com) The telling contradiction in the timeline of the cargo bomb plot fiasco proves that the story was being hyped and manipulated from the very early stages.
However, despite the fact that authorities not only in the UK but also in the cases of the Newark and Pittsburgh packages, initially gave the “all clear,” according to CNN, President Obama, having already been informed of the plot the night before, simply contradicted the very experts who had dismissed the devices as duds, claiming the packages contained explosives. This soon mushroomed into a media scaremongering blitz about powerful explosives that could have knocked dozens of planes out of the sky. (Ibid)
Now that the predicate was laid, it is but logical to ask – who benefits? (Note: I will elaborate this terror scare in global perspective on my next article. Let me focus first here at home.)
It is quite obvious that our country is one of the casualties here, as one foreign government after another gave their travel advisory that RP is faced by an imminent terrorist attack, particularly – Manila. We can’t help but cite here the statement of the good Ambassador, Harry K. Thomas, Jr., a day after the inauguration of President Aquino III (this was only last July 1, 2010) : “I don’t see the Philippines as a breeder of terrorism but I see the Philippines as a partner to rid the world of terrorists.”
And at the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) change of command ceremony last July 3, Amb. Thomas said that the rebel groups Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah and Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) have become much weaker.
With the above mentioned reports, as a loyal ally and friend of the rest of the community of peace-loving nations, why is it that the US government was among the first who issued the travel warning against the Philippines?
Again, we have nothing against the Americans, like us, majority of them are being taken for a ride here on the global war on terror (GWOT) which took effect after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. But let us all be clear here as to the credibility of the said terror threat. As a nation that had suffered enough especially in our tourism industry in the aftermath of the hostage crisis three months ago, we just cannot take this sitting down.
It is good that President Benigno Aquino III said that foreign governments were wrong in warning of an imminent terrorist attack in Manila. Government security forces even downplayed the separate arrests of five men and the seizure from them of explosives, which evidently were meant for fishing rather than bombing. It was President Aquino’s strongest statement yet in the past few days against what he had described as unsubstantiated intelligence reports on the supposed terror strike in Metro Manila.
Filipinos should unite in support of our leaders against this terror myth affecting us as a nation. A group headed by a certain Professor Rommel Banlaoi, executive director of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR), after they announced that the “bomb expert” with links to the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and who stayed in Mount Cararao in Maguindanao in the last few months has made contact with the Sulu-based bandit group Abu Sayyaf, travel warnings were issued. It became a “gospel truth” after his group predicated it at an international security forum at Dusit Hotel last October 29. In local lingo-”NABILI NA YAN.” “LUMANG SCRIPT NA YAN.’
Who are we going to believe? Marine General Ben Dolorfino, a converted muslim and a real expert on jihadists or a certain “security expert” Prof. Rommel Banlaoi? Who is he really working for? PIPVTR should have coordinated what they know, as courtesy to our DND, NSC, NICA or ISAFP so as to assist in apprehending these terrorists and neutralizing them..
There is no hope to this country if our fellowmen themselves will be part of the scare-mongering. Let us stop this and be steadfast in protecting our nation against state-sponsored terrorism slowly eating into the minds our citizenry and the rest of the world. The alarm bells for truth should be louder than that of the false alarms being concocted by some evil-minded heartless individuals who could be working for foreign governments or vested interests.
God bless the Philippines!
In today’s world of high technology and as the world becomes smaller through fast paced means of communication, ordinary people now find it hard to sift through all the information they are getting. But for those who are aware of the daily spins where the mainstream media, most of the time became the witting and unwitting tool in feeding the public, it is easier to draw the line between truth and a lie. As an observer of events unfolding here and abroad, we can say that where fact ends, lies and bigger lies begin to condition the minds of the people who are afraid to think beyond what is being forced to them to believe. Thus, creating delusion in the process. For as long as there are people who are willing to believe and for others, to be willing tools to the myth – mongering, humanity will suffer the consequences.
Take for example the recent bomb scare allegedly found inside an ink cartridge in a plane bound for Chicago, USA. The alarming truth to this false alarm was clearly reported that – “After having examined the suspicious ink toner device for six hours and found it to be a dud, bomb experts at East Midlands Airport only reversed their decision after being ordered to re-inspect the package by US authorities following President Obama’s Friday afternoon speech in which he claimed that the devices did in fact contain explosives”. (Did Obama order British Authorities To Find Non-Existent Ink Bomb?, Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet.com) The telling contradiction in the timeline of the cargo bomb plot fiasco proves that the story was being hyped and manipulated from the very early stages.
However, despite the fact that authorities not only in the UK but also in the cases of the Newark and Pittsburgh packages, initially gave the “all clear,” according to CNN, President Obama, having already been informed of the plot the night before, simply contradicted the very experts who had dismissed the devices as duds, claiming the packages contained explosives. This soon mushroomed into a media scaremongering blitz about powerful explosives that could have knocked dozens of planes out of the sky. (Ibid)
Now that the predicate was laid, it is but logical to ask – who benefits? (Note: I will elaborate this terror scare in global perspective on my next article. Let me focus first here at home.)
It is quite obvious that our country is one of the casualties here, as one foreign government after another gave their travel advisory that RP is faced by an imminent terrorist attack, particularly – Manila. We can’t help but cite here the statement of the good Ambassador, Harry K. Thomas, Jr., a day after the inauguration of President Aquino III (this was only last July 1, 2010) : “I don’t see the Philippines as a breeder of terrorism but I see the Philippines as a partner to rid the world of terrorists.”
And at the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) change of command ceremony last July 3, Amb. Thomas said that the rebel groups Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah and Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) have become much weaker.
With the above mentioned reports, as a loyal ally and friend of the rest of the community of peace-loving nations, why is it that the US government was among the first who issued the travel warning against the Philippines?
Again, we have nothing against the Americans, like us, majority of them are being taken for a ride here on the global war on terror (GWOT) which took effect after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. But let us all be clear here as to the credibility of the said terror threat. As a nation that had suffered enough especially in our tourism industry in the aftermath of the hostage crisis three months ago, we just cannot take this sitting down.
It is good that President Benigno Aquino III said that foreign governments were wrong in warning of an imminent terrorist attack in Manila. Government security forces even downplayed the separate arrests of five men and the seizure from them of explosives, which evidently were meant for fishing rather than bombing. It was President Aquino’s strongest statement yet in the past few days against what he had described as unsubstantiated intelligence reports on the supposed terror strike in Metro Manila.
Filipinos should unite in support of our leaders against this terror myth affecting us as a nation. A group headed by a certain Professor Rommel Banlaoi, executive director of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR), after they announced that the “bomb expert” with links to the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and who stayed in Mount Cararao in Maguindanao in the last few months has made contact with the Sulu-based bandit group Abu Sayyaf, travel warnings were issued. It became a “gospel truth” after his group predicated it at an international security forum at Dusit Hotel last October 29. In local lingo-”NABILI NA YAN.” “LUMANG SCRIPT NA YAN.’
Who are we going to believe? Marine General Ben Dolorfino, a converted muslim and a real expert on jihadists or a certain “security expert” Prof. Rommel Banlaoi? Who is he really working for? PIPVTR should have coordinated what they know, as courtesy to our DND, NSC, NICA or ISAFP so as to assist in apprehending these terrorists and neutralizing them..
There is no hope to this country if our fellowmen themselves will be part of the scare-mongering. Let us stop this and be steadfast in protecting our nation against state-sponsored terrorism slowly eating into the minds our citizenry and the rest of the world. The alarm bells for truth should be louder than that of the false alarms being concocted by some evil-minded heartless individuals who could be working for foreign governments or vested interests.
God bless the Philippines!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
‘Pork’ by any other name is still ‘pork’
PerryScope
By Perry Diaz
Recently, members of the House of Representatives were thrown into disarray on the allocation of pork barrel. A small but very vocal group of congressmen threatened to block the 2011 national budget if their pork barrel allocations weren’t increased. What caused the revolt was the disclosure that Gloria was allocated P2.2 billion of pork barrel funds for her 2nd congressional district for the year 2011. To placate them, each of the 278 congressmen were given an additional pork barrel of P50 million from the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPHW) and another P25 million from the Road User’s Tax.
It turned out that Gloria used her influence during the last year of her presidency to secure loans from “multilateral lending agencies” from Japan and South Korea specifically for her congressional district.
Evidently, she already had her mind set on running for Congress although she disclaimed any intention of doing so until just a few weeks of filing her certificate of candidacy.
With P2.2 billion pork barrel funds to be spent in Gloria’s district in any which way she wants, a lot of legislators are concerned on how the money would be spent – or misspent. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano raised a good point when he said during a radio show: “What I wanted was a review of midnight foreign borrowings for Arroyo’s home province, before we start losing the papers.” Knowing the extent of corruption in public work projects during Gloria’s presidency, including the controversial Diosdado Macapagal Highway, the P2.2-billion pork barrel could become the golden goose of politically connected contractors.
And the strangest thing happened when no other than Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda came to the defense of Gloria. He said that the lump sum “pork barrel” allocation was “not pork.” “The P2.2 billion is foreign-assisted. Local portion is P542 million and foreign is P1.68 billion,” he said during a Malacañang press briefing. He said that the money would be used for flood- and lahar-control works around Mt. Pinatubo and for a road between Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
But the nagging question is: If the P2.2 billion lump sum allocation is not “pork barrel,” why is it then that it’s going to be controlled by Gloria and not by DPWH? With Gloria controlling who gets the contracts and how much to disburse is wide open to manipulative actions that could lead — as in the past — to massive corruption.
P-Noy’s budget secretary, Butch Abad, pitched in and said, “If Congress will stop the project to be funded by the P2-billion foreign loans, the foreign financiers will definitely air their opposition.” So what? The money hasn’t been released or used yet, what’s stopping the Aquino administration from canceling questionable loan transactions secured by the Arroyo administration to be used during the Aquino administration and paid for by the Filipino people? It’s analogous to Gloria getting a loan to build a house in her property and then asking her neighbors to repay the loan.
If the loan is to be paid back by the Philippine government, then the Philippine government should allocate the funds borrowed equitably across the board, not just one specific district. That is the right – and straight — thing to do.
And the ultimate question is: Why is P-Noy allowing this to happen? What happened to “daang matuwid” (straight path) and his vow to fight corruption?
In a press release by “Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change,” P-Noy was criticized for “allowing Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to hog P2.2 billion funds in infrastructure projects for her congressional district in Pampanga.” Pagbabago! spokesperson Fr. Joe Dizon said, “Pres. Aquino in the past lambasted Mrs. Gloria Arroyo’s lathering of funds for Pampanga. But now, he is simply letting her off the hook. Aquino’s pronouncements are turning out to be empty rhetoric.” Then he asked P-Noy how can he make Arroyo accountable for multibillion-peso plunder cases on various anomalous projects in the past when he doesn’t use the Budget Department and the pro-P-Noy majority in Congress on the simple question of realigning public funds?
Last November 9, 2010, the IBON Foundation issued a press release, to wit: “VAGUE, HUGE LUMP-SUM FUNDS IN 2011 BUDGET GO AGAINST GOV’T THRUST OF TRANSPARENCY.
“With the 2011 national government budget approved by the House of Representatives in its third reading, research group IBON expressed concern over the PhP245-billion in vague lump-sum funds, or some 15% of the total budget. These funds, composed of big budget items for no properly identified purpose, run contrary to the Aquino administration’s declared thrust of transparency and accountability.”
The lump sum funds identified by IBON are: (1) P66.91-billion unprogrammed funds and PhP1-billion contingent fund subject to essentially presidential discretion; (2) P29.29-billion fund for the greatly expanded Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program (4Ps) and National Household Targeting System, even as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has yet to properly establish its capacity to implement the huge increase in the program and budget; (3) P15-billion fund divided equally among three ambiguous “public-private partnership support funds” under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) and Department of Agriculture (DA); (4) P2.34-billion fund to the military for “support to national development” which is even a matter more appropriately left to civilian departments; (5) P1.46 billion in intelligence funds, which is PhP403 million more than in Arroyo’s 2010 budget; (6) P1.19 billion for “major information and communication technology projects”, which is reminiscent of the failed NBN-ZTE deal; and (7) The P24.82 billion for the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), which increased from PhP10.9 billion in 2010.
According to IBON, “these huge lump sum items should be thoroughly justified with their purposes, programs and project specified. There should also be a significant, if not full, audit and itemization of funds use in time for the budget season next year. These, the group said, are some steps towards greater transparency.
“Lastly, the powers of the Executive to withhold budget releases should also be clipped as these lump-sum funds often function as presidential pork barrel. Doing this undermines their patronage character and will make them less prone to abuse.”
At the end of the day, no matter how P-Noy justifies this “pork barrel” spending, in the minds of the people, it would still come down to political patronage. Indeed, “pork” by any other name is still “pork.”
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)
By Perry Diaz
Recently, members of the House of Representatives were thrown into disarray on the allocation of pork barrel. A small but very vocal group of congressmen threatened to block the 2011 national budget if their pork barrel allocations weren’t increased. What caused the revolt was the disclosure that Gloria was allocated P2.2 billion of pork barrel funds for her 2nd congressional district for the year 2011. To placate them, each of the 278 congressmen were given an additional pork barrel of P50 million from the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPHW) and another P25 million from the Road User’s Tax.
It turned out that Gloria used her influence during the last year of her presidency to secure loans from “multilateral lending agencies” from Japan and South Korea specifically for her congressional district.
Evidently, she already had her mind set on running for Congress although she disclaimed any intention of doing so until just a few weeks of filing her certificate of candidacy.
With P2.2 billion pork barrel funds to be spent in Gloria’s district in any which way she wants, a lot of legislators are concerned on how the money would be spent – or misspent. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano raised a good point when he said during a radio show: “What I wanted was a review of midnight foreign borrowings for Arroyo’s home province, before we start losing the papers.” Knowing the extent of corruption in public work projects during Gloria’s presidency, including the controversial Diosdado Macapagal Highway, the P2.2-billion pork barrel could become the golden goose of politically connected contractors.
And the strangest thing happened when no other than Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda came to the defense of Gloria. He said that the lump sum “pork barrel” allocation was “not pork.” “The P2.2 billion is foreign-assisted. Local portion is P542 million and foreign is P1.68 billion,” he said during a Malacañang press briefing. He said that the money would be used for flood- and lahar-control works around Mt. Pinatubo and for a road between Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
But the nagging question is: If the P2.2 billion lump sum allocation is not “pork barrel,” why is it then that it’s going to be controlled by Gloria and not by DPWH? With Gloria controlling who gets the contracts and how much to disburse is wide open to manipulative actions that could lead — as in the past — to massive corruption.
P-Noy’s budget secretary, Butch Abad, pitched in and said, “If Congress will stop the project to be funded by the P2-billion foreign loans, the foreign financiers will definitely air their opposition.” So what? The money hasn’t been released or used yet, what’s stopping the Aquino administration from canceling questionable loan transactions secured by the Arroyo administration to be used during the Aquino administration and paid for by the Filipino people? It’s analogous to Gloria getting a loan to build a house in her property and then asking her neighbors to repay the loan.
If the loan is to be paid back by the Philippine government, then the Philippine government should allocate the funds borrowed equitably across the board, not just one specific district. That is the right – and straight — thing to do.
And the ultimate question is: Why is P-Noy allowing this to happen? What happened to “daang matuwid” (straight path) and his vow to fight corruption?
In a press release by “Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change,” P-Noy was criticized for “allowing Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to hog P2.2 billion funds in infrastructure projects for her congressional district in Pampanga.” Pagbabago! spokesperson Fr. Joe Dizon said, “Pres. Aquino in the past lambasted Mrs. Gloria Arroyo’s lathering of funds for Pampanga. But now, he is simply letting her off the hook. Aquino’s pronouncements are turning out to be empty rhetoric.” Then he asked P-Noy how can he make Arroyo accountable for multibillion-peso plunder cases on various anomalous projects in the past when he doesn’t use the Budget Department and the pro-P-Noy majority in Congress on the simple question of realigning public funds?
Last November 9, 2010, the IBON Foundation issued a press release, to wit: “VAGUE, HUGE LUMP-SUM FUNDS IN 2011 BUDGET GO AGAINST GOV’T THRUST OF TRANSPARENCY.
“With the 2011 national government budget approved by the House of Representatives in its third reading, research group IBON expressed concern over the PhP245-billion in vague lump-sum funds, or some 15% of the total budget. These funds, composed of big budget items for no properly identified purpose, run contrary to the Aquino administration’s declared thrust of transparency and accountability.”
The lump sum funds identified by IBON are: (1) P66.91-billion unprogrammed funds and PhP1-billion contingent fund subject to essentially presidential discretion; (2) P29.29-billion fund for the greatly expanded Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino program (4Ps) and National Household Targeting System, even as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has yet to properly establish its capacity to implement the huge increase in the program and budget; (3) P15-billion fund divided equally among three ambiguous “public-private partnership support funds” under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) and Department of Agriculture (DA); (4) P2.34-billion fund to the military for “support to national development” which is even a matter more appropriately left to civilian departments; (5) P1.46 billion in intelligence funds, which is PhP403 million more than in Arroyo’s 2010 budget; (6) P1.19 billion for “major information and communication technology projects”, which is reminiscent of the failed NBN-ZTE deal; and (7) The P24.82 billion for the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), which increased from PhP10.9 billion in 2010.
According to IBON, “these huge lump sum items should be thoroughly justified with their purposes, programs and project specified. There should also be a significant, if not full, audit and itemization of funds use in time for the budget season next year. These, the group said, are some steps towards greater transparency.
“Lastly, the powers of the Executive to withhold budget releases should also be clipped as these lump-sum funds often function as presidential pork barrel. Doing this undermines their patronage character and will make them less prone to abuse.”
At the end of the day, no matter how P-Noy justifies this “pork barrel” spending, in the minds of the people, it would still come down to political patronage. Indeed, “pork” by any other name is still “pork.”
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)
Friday, November 12, 2010
A bully Supreme Court
On Target
By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
MORE citizens and groups are standing up to the Supreme Court on the charge of plagiarism against one of its members.
The latest groups to pick a fight with the high tribunal over its defense of an alleged plagiarist, Justice Mariano del Castillo, are the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) and Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (Cocopea).
The CEAP counts on 1,290 Catholic schools, colleges and universities as members throughout the country, comprising millions of students.
The Cocopea, on the other hand, has more students in its fold than CEAP since the latter is just one of its members.
The sheer number of people under them makes CEAP and Cocopea the largest and most powerful groups to take on the Supreme Court.
In a half-page advertisement (the other half was occupied by Cocopea) in the Inquirer Tuesday, CEAP said the Supreme Court condoned plagiarism when it cleared Del Castillo of the charge that he copied the words of foreign legal minds without attribution.
“The highest tribunal has set a higher threshold for plagiarism to be punishable, and so may in fact abet plagiarism,” the CEAP said.
On the other hand, the Cocopea took issue with the high court’s claim that Del Castillo did not commit plagiarism since he didn’t do it with “malicious intent.”
The Cocopea went on: “How can we now discipline our students who copy the works and writings
of other authors without attribution when they can simply take refuge behind the Supreme Court ruling?”
* * *
Fr. Gregorio Banaga, CEAP president and Cocopea officer representing Adamson University, said it took them a long time to decide to come out against the high court’s “no malicious intent” ruling.
“We had to come out because it involves a moral issue,” Banaga said in my interview with him on my TNT program on dzIQ-Radyo Inquirer (990 AM).
“Plagiarism is not only a legal issue, but a moral one. We teach our students morality,” the academician-priest said.
* * *
The CEAP, in a half-page ad it titled “In Defense of Honesty and Integrity,” called on the high tribunal to withdraw its threat of sanction against 37 professors of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law.
The Supreme Court has ordered the professors to explain why they should not be punished for questioning its decision absolving Justice Del Castillo of plagiarism.
Del Castillo’s defense was that his researcher forgot to acknowledge the authors of passages used by the justice in a decision.
The threat of sanction against the UP professors for questioning the high court’s decision has exposed the present crop of justices’ intellectual arrogance.
In plain language, this is a bully Supreme Court.
Bullies always meet their match; in this case, the enraged educators.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20101110-302550/A-bully-Supreme-Court
By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
MORE citizens and groups are standing up to the Supreme Court on the charge of plagiarism against one of its members.
The latest groups to pick a fight with the high tribunal over its defense of an alleged plagiarist, Justice Mariano del Castillo, are the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) and Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (Cocopea).
The CEAP counts on 1,290 Catholic schools, colleges and universities as members throughout the country, comprising millions of students.
The Cocopea, on the other hand, has more students in its fold than CEAP since the latter is just one of its members.
The sheer number of people under them makes CEAP and Cocopea the largest and most powerful groups to take on the Supreme Court.
In a half-page advertisement (the other half was occupied by Cocopea) in the Inquirer Tuesday, CEAP said the Supreme Court condoned plagiarism when it cleared Del Castillo of the charge that he copied the words of foreign legal minds without attribution.
“The highest tribunal has set a higher threshold for plagiarism to be punishable, and so may in fact abet plagiarism,” the CEAP said.
On the other hand, the Cocopea took issue with the high court’s claim that Del Castillo did not commit plagiarism since he didn’t do it with “malicious intent.”
The Cocopea went on: “How can we now discipline our students who copy the works and writings
of other authors without attribution when they can simply take refuge behind the Supreme Court ruling?”
* * *
Fr. Gregorio Banaga, CEAP president and Cocopea officer representing Adamson University, said it took them a long time to decide to come out against the high court’s “no malicious intent” ruling.
“We had to come out because it involves a moral issue,” Banaga said in my interview with him on my TNT program on dzIQ-Radyo Inquirer (990 AM).
“Plagiarism is not only a legal issue, but a moral one. We teach our students morality,” the academician-priest said.
* * *
The CEAP, in a half-page ad it titled “In Defense of Honesty and Integrity,” called on the high tribunal to withdraw its threat of sanction against 37 professors of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law.
The Supreme Court has ordered the professors to explain why they should not be punished for questioning its decision absolving Justice Del Castillo of plagiarism.
Del Castillo’s defense was that his researcher forgot to acknowledge the authors of passages used by the justice in a decision.
The threat of sanction against the UP professors for questioning the high court’s decision has exposed the present crop of justices’ intellectual arrogance.
In plain language, this is a bully Supreme Court.
Bullies always meet their match; in this case, the enraged educators.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20101110-302550/A-bully-Supreme-Court
Monday, November 8, 2010
Tweeters and Tweakers
Balitang Kutsero
By Perry Diaz
President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III’s speechwriter — or ghostwriter — Assistant Secretary Carmen “Mai” Mislang, turns out to be a “tweetwriter” too. Little did Mai realize that the tweets she posted on her Twitter account were accessible to everybody. So when she tweeted her boss, Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang, her world turned upside down. Mai, mai, what happened?
It happened during P-Noy’s junk… err… state visit to Vietnam. P-Noy’s Vietnamese hosts honored him and his entourage with a sumptuous state dinner. That means that if you’re a guest, you wouldn’t dare criticize the food. Well, Mai – maybe because of her ignorance or arrogance, or both – tweeted Ricky saying that the wine served at the dinner “sucks.” Then she tweeted, “Sorry pero walang pogi dito #vietnam” (Sorry, there are no handsome men here) and “Crossing the speedy motorcycle laden streets of Hanoi is one of the easiest ways to die.”
Mai’s faux pas would have been serious enough for her to be fired from her job. But coming to her defense was P-Noy himself who said that Mai is “young and could easily make mistakes.” That confirms what a politician once said: the government is being run like a student council… and, I might add, by juveniles.
It’s bad enough that Mai’s tweeting has become an embarrassing cause célèbre. But what followed was a bunch of tweakers who tweaked Mai, Ricky, and P-Noy. One tweaker posted: “Exposed for the twit she is, keeping Mislang is a reflection of the competence and character that the Pnoy administration foster.” Another tweaker posted: “Mislang will stay! How can Noynoy fire her when the other cabinet members made more graver faults yet were not fired?”
But it was Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s tweak that hit home: “When you are with the entourage of the President, you should be very careful, even with the way you walk, the way you eat, the way you speak. Whatever you do would reflect on your boss.” Well, maybe P-Noy should conduct a “pre-tour” orientation class for his entourage and show them how they should walk, eat, and speak. The class can be aptly called “Robotics.” Yup, it would turn them all into P-Noy robots.
This is very important because his next junk… err… foreign visit will be to Japan to attend the Asian Pacific Economic Conference (APEC). The Japanese people are very regimented especially when it comes to etiquette at the dining table. It’s customary for dinner guests to burp after dinner. It’s a mandatory compliment akin to saying, “The food is great! Thank you verrry much.” Yup, if you don’t burp, that’s considered rude. Now, it is important that P-Noy demonstrate to members of his entourage how he burps. There’s a short and a long burp. The long burp means you’re very satisfied with the food. So the long burp is diplomatically correct. Try it… “burrrrrp.”
But P-Noy is not taking any chances so he decided that Mai would not go to Japan. Yup, the last thing P-Noy wants to hear is Mai tweeting the whole world that the sushi sucks and the sake tastes like basi mixed with vinegar.
Peripatetic prez… The APEC event in Japan would be P-Noy’s third foreign trip since he became president four months ago. According to him, he has received invitations to visit six ASEAN countries. Well, it looks like he’s going to be as peripatetic as former prez Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Hey, that hotdog in New York must have tasted really good that P-Noy wanted to taste all the hotdogs in the world. However, he should be careful cuz in some countries, their hotdog tastes like… a hot dog. And that’s another reason why Mai should never travel with P-Noy again. Imagine her tweeting, “Gee, the hotdog here tastes like my lolo’s ‘azucena’ in Baguio.” Woof, woof.
Battle of the tweeters… Soon after Mai posted her controversial tweets about Vietnam, her Facebook account was flooded with “hate” posts from her erstwhile “fans.” Within a few days and by the time she closed her Facebook and Twitter accounts, there were more than 800 “hate” posts including demands that she quit or be fired.
Then, one of Mai’s supporters created another Facebook account called “We love you Mai Mislang”. The account administrator challenged Mai’s “haters” to a debate on “what good acts they can do for the country.” Hey, anybody can do a hundred acts better than saying “the wine sucks”!
One of Mai’s defenders posted on Mai’s new Facebook account a picture of what seems like a “drinking session” showing Mai with P-Noy and several others. Now, I can see why P-Noy wouldn’t fire Mai. Like his “shooting buddy,” Rico Puno, whom he didn’t want to fire after Rico ran away from the August 23 hostage-taking crisis, Mai is P-Noy’s “drinking buddy.” Since P-Noy is a non-drinker, Mai does all the drinking and P-Noy does all the BS.
Shalani tweets… Meanwhile, P-Noy’s former girlfriend, Valenzuela City councilor Shalani Soledad, tweeted in her Twitter account, “No matter what, he will always have my support. That you can count on. Good morning.” That’s called “love at hindsight.”
There have been sightings of P-Noy together with his hair stylist and alleged new tweetheart, Liz Uy. It must be quite interesting – and challenging – styling P-Noy’s hair to give him that “distinguished presidential look.”
Wouldn’t anyone be surprised if P-Noy appointed Liz to the PAG-IBIG Board of Trustees just like what ex-prez Gloria did when she appointed her manicurist to the PAG-IBIG Board? Hey, why not? The position pays P130,000 a month! And the Board convenes only once a month. That’s what I call a “tweetheart” deal.
***
Gloria’s tweetheart deal… How in Heaven’s name did Gloria get P2.2 billion in pork barrel funds allocated to her congressional district for 2011? According to her spokesperson, Gloria negotiated these loans from Japanese and South Korean lenders specifically for projects in he home district when she was still president. But can’t P-Noy cancel these loans since he is now the president? The deal is analogous to Gloria getting a loan to build a house in her property and all her neighbors will repay the loan. That’s not fair! But who says life is fair in the Philippines?
Only in the Philippines… News report says: “A Philippine village watchman mistook an actor for a real masked gunman, jumped onto his moving motorcycle and fatally shot him.” According to the police, as the director shouted “Action!” actor Kirk Abella began to speed away on a motorcycle with a masked driver. The watchman, Eddie Cuizon, grabbed Abella by the shirt and shot him. Cuizon said he was just responding to a report about the presence of armed men in his community and didn’t realize that they were just “shooting” a movie. Well, these days you don’t know when people are just acting or doing the real thing.
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)
By Perry Diaz
Mai Mislang and P-Noy with friends at a "drinking session" after P-Noy's election victory
President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III’s speechwriter — or ghostwriter — Assistant Secretary Carmen “Mai” Mislang, turns out to be a “tweetwriter” too. Little did Mai realize that the tweets she posted on her Twitter account were accessible to everybody. So when she tweeted her boss, Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang, her world turned upside down. Mai, mai, what happened?
It happened during P-Noy’s junk… err… state visit to Vietnam. P-Noy’s Vietnamese hosts honored him and his entourage with a sumptuous state dinner. That means that if you’re a guest, you wouldn’t dare criticize the food. Well, Mai – maybe because of her ignorance or arrogance, or both – tweeted Ricky saying that the wine served at the dinner “sucks.” Then she tweeted, “Sorry pero walang pogi dito #vietnam” (Sorry, there are no handsome men here) and “Crossing the speedy motorcycle laden streets of Hanoi is one of the easiest ways to die.”
Mai’s faux pas would have been serious enough for her to be fired from her job. But coming to her defense was P-Noy himself who said that Mai is “young and could easily make mistakes.” That confirms what a politician once said: the government is being run like a student council… and, I might add, by juveniles.
It’s bad enough that Mai’s tweeting has become an embarrassing cause célèbre. But what followed was a bunch of tweakers who tweaked Mai, Ricky, and P-Noy. One tweaker posted: “Exposed for the twit she is, keeping Mislang is a reflection of the competence and character that the Pnoy administration foster.” Another tweaker posted: “Mislang will stay! How can Noynoy fire her when the other cabinet members made more graver faults yet were not fired?”
But it was Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s tweak that hit home: “When you are with the entourage of the President, you should be very careful, even with the way you walk, the way you eat, the way you speak. Whatever you do would reflect on your boss.” Well, maybe P-Noy should conduct a “pre-tour” orientation class for his entourage and show them how they should walk, eat, and speak. The class can be aptly called “Robotics.” Yup, it would turn them all into P-Noy robots.
This is very important because his next junk… err… foreign visit will be to Japan to attend the Asian Pacific Economic Conference (APEC). The Japanese people are very regimented especially when it comes to etiquette at the dining table. It’s customary for dinner guests to burp after dinner. It’s a mandatory compliment akin to saying, “The food is great! Thank you verrry much.” Yup, if you don’t burp, that’s considered rude. Now, it is important that P-Noy demonstrate to members of his entourage how he burps. There’s a short and a long burp. The long burp means you’re very satisfied with the food. So the long burp is diplomatically correct. Try it… “burrrrrp.”
But P-Noy is not taking any chances so he decided that Mai would not go to Japan. Yup, the last thing P-Noy wants to hear is Mai tweeting the whole world that the sushi sucks and the sake tastes like basi mixed with vinegar.
Peripatetic prez… The APEC event in Japan would be P-Noy’s third foreign trip since he became president four months ago. According to him, he has received invitations to visit six ASEAN countries. Well, it looks like he’s going to be as peripatetic as former prez Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Hey, that hotdog in New York must have tasted really good that P-Noy wanted to taste all the hotdogs in the world. However, he should be careful cuz in some countries, their hotdog tastes like… a hot dog. And that’s another reason why Mai should never travel with P-Noy again. Imagine her tweeting, “Gee, the hotdog here tastes like my lolo’s ‘azucena’ in Baguio.” Woof, woof.
Battle of the tweeters… Soon after Mai posted her controversial tweets about Vietnam, her Facebook account was flooded with “hate” posts from her erstwhile “fans.” Within a few days and by the time she closed her Facebook and Twitter accounts, there were more than 800 “hate” posts including demands that she quit or be fired.
Then, one of Mai’s supporters created another Facebook account called “We love you Mai Mislang”. The account administrator challenged Mai’s “haters” to a debate on “what good acts they can do for the country.” Hey, anybody can do a hundred acts better than saying “the wine sucks”!
One of Mai’s defenders posted on Mai’s new Facebook account a picture of what seems like a “drinking session” showing Mai with P-Noy and several others. Now, I can see why P-Noy wouldn’t fire Mai. Like his “shooting buddy,” Rico Puno, whom he didn’t want to fire after Rico ran away from the August 23 hostage-taking crisis, Mai is P-Noy’s “drinking buddy.” Since P-Noy is a non-drinker, Mai does all the drinking and P-Noy does all the BS.
Shalani tweets… Meanwhile, P-Noy’s former girlfriend, Valenzuela City councilor Shalani Soledad, tweeted in her Twitter account, “No matter what, he will always have my support. That you can count on. Good morning.” That’s called “love at hindsight.”
There have been sightings of P-Noy together with his hair stylist and alleged new tweetheart, Liz Uy. It must be quite interesting – and challenging – styling P-Noy’s hair to give him that “distinguished presidential look.”
Wouldn’t anyone be surprised if P-Noy appointed Liz to the PAG-IBIG Board of Trustees just like what ex-prez Gloria did when she appointed her manicurist to the PAG-IBIG Board? Hey, why not? The position pays P130,000 a month! And the Board convenes only once a month. That’s what I call a “tweetheart” deal.
***
Gloria’s tweetheart deal… How in Heaven’s name did Gloria get P2.2 billion in pork barrel funds allocated to her congressional district for 2011? According to her spokesperson, Gloria negotiated these loans from Japanese and South Korean lenders specifically for projects in he home district when she was still president. But can’t P-Noy cancel these loans since he is now the president? The deal is analogous to Gloria getting a loan to build a house in her property and all her neighbors will repay the loan. That’s not fair! But who says life is fair in the Philippines?
Only in the Philippines… News report says: “A Philippine village watchman mistook an actor for a real masked gunman, jumped onto his moving motorcycle and fatally shot him.” According to the police, as the director shouted “Action!” actor Kirk Abella began to speed away on a motorcycle with a masked driver. The watchman, Eddie Cuizon, grabbed Abella by the shirt and shot him. Cuizon said he was just responding to a report about the presence of armed men in his community and didn’t realize that they were just “shooting” a movie. Well, these days you don’t know when people are just acting or doing the real thing.
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Embarrassments
Theres The Rub
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
I’M GLAD the University of the Philippines is fighting back. In a statement entitled, “No to plagiarism! Asserting academic freedom!” the UP Diliman executive committee threw its weight behind its law faculty. It said: “The high court has undermined academic freedom by threatening to discipline 37 faculty members of the College of Law for taking a principled position on a grave academic concern.”
In fact academic freedom is the last thing the Supreme Court has undermined. Even the law is the last thing it has undermined. Common decency is first.
Its clearing of Justice Mariano del Castillo from the professors’ charge of plagiarism “for lack of merit” already constitutes an undermining of common decency. Its argument, that the plagiarism came from the accidental deletion of quotation marks by his legal researcher, is lamer than a polio victim.
At the very least, what’s wrong with it is that a student may commit accidents, a justice may not. A student’s accidents can affect only his grades, a judge’s accidents can affect other people’s lives. If you can be sloppy about your quotation marks, you can be sloppy about other things. Such as overlooking evidence that makes the accused innocent, or guilty.
In any case, you get caught for accidentally missing out on the quotation marks, you say sheepishly, “Ay mali! Sorry about that, it won’t happen again.” You do not mount your high horse and say haughtily, “You fools, I’ll give you an accident you won’t forget!”
But it’s more than that. You want “lack of merit,” don’t look at the UP professors’ complaint, look at Del Castillo’s accident. Let’s grant that Del Castillo made “tipid”, and hired someone who is an accident waiting to happen. Or let’s grant he made “sagad” and slave-drove the poor person to death, or to forgetfulness. But how explain how the accidentally quoted portion got to mean the opposite of what it originally did?
I’ve always wondered why people keep referring to the problem as plagiarism. The problem is not plagiarism—or not just plagiarism. The problem is the lifting of a portion from another person’s work and perverting its meaning. The plagiarized author himself, Evan Criddle, pointed it out: “Speaking for myself, the most troubling aspect of the Court’s jus cogens discussion is that it implies that the prohibitions against crimes against humanity, sexual slavery, and torture are not jus cogens norms. Our article emphatically asserts the opposite.”
That is not an accident. It explains why the quoted portion had no quotation marks and attribution. A reference to Criddle would readily have shown he was supplying an argument for the comfort women, not against them. The UP professors who discovered it do not deserve contempt, they deserve medals.
Which is really the astonishing thing about the Supreme Court’s persistence in persecuting them: The justices should in fact even now be falling on their knees and thanking them for saving them from a fate worse than death: dishonor of monumental and international proportions. Do they really think they can dispel the shame by shifting the blame? This won’t be Renato Corona’s crowning glory, this will be his crowning despair.
I don’t know where Del Castillo took his law, I don’t know where Corona took his law, I don’t know where the other justices took their law. But UP at least subscribes to US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ idea, emblazoned on the façade of its law school, that “[t]he business of a law school is not…to teach law or to make lawyers, it is to teach law in the grand manner and to make great lawyers.” And therefore the business of law is not to preach law and resort to lawyerly tactics, it is to practice law in the grand manner as befits great lawyers. One should think this idea would be fully grasped by judges, too, above all the ones whose breadth of wisdom is presumed by the word “supreme.”
This wrongheaded vengefulness is not grand, it is pathetic.
By the way, the UP College of Law puts its mantra in quotation marks, and makes the proper attribution.
* * *
I don’t know which is worse, the transgression itself or the lack of appreciation for its implications.
That is Mai Mislang’s now famous tweets from Vietnam. Specifically, “The wine sucks,” after Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet hosted a state banquet, “Sorry pero walang pogi rito sa Vietnam,” after presumably scouring the place, and “Crossing the speedy motorcycle laden streets of Hanoi is the easiest way to die” after presumably crossing one.
Ricky Carandang says “it’s pretty harmless,” “she had no offense meant to anybody,” and “as far as we’re concerned, that’s over, that’s gone now.”
You’re a silly person visiting Vietnam with your silly boyfriend and you say those silly things in public, they are pretty harmless, or you harm only yourself. You’re a silly public official visiting Vietnam with your serious boss, the President, and you say those silly things in public, they are not harmless, you harm your boss. By now those tweets will have been read by the Vietnamese Embassy and the other Asean embassies. At the time Mislang put them out, P-Noy was telling the other Asean countries to “speak with one voice.” The irony will not be lost on the people in those embassies, not all of whom are silly.
Besides, if you can be tasteless in this respect, what makes you think you can’t be so in others? If you can be tasteless in this respect, what makes you think you can tell good wine from bad? If you are tasteless in this respect, what makes you think you can tell pogi from not?
If you can be tasteless in this respect, what makes you think the Vietnamese ambassador might not say, “We’d be most happy if you’d cross our streets more often”?
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
I’M GLAD the University of the Philippines is fighting back. In a statement entitled, “No to plagiarism! Asserting academic freedom!” the UP Diliman executive committee threw its weight behind its law faculty. It said: “The high court has undermined academic freedom by threatening to discipline 37 faculty members of the College of Law for taking a principled position on a grave academic concern.”
In fact academic freedom is the last thing the Supreme Court has undermined. Even the law is the last thing it has undermined. Common decency is first.
Its clearing of Justice Mariano del Castillo from the professors’ charge of plagiarism “for lack of merit” already constitutes an undermining of common decency. Its argument, that the plagiarism came from the accidental deletion of quotation marks by his legal researcher, is lamer than a polio victim.
At the very least, what’s wrong with it is that a student may commit accidents, a justice may not. A student’s accidents can affect only his grades, a judge’s accidents can affect other people’s lives. If you can be sloppy about your quotation marks, you can be sloppy about other things. Such as overlooking evidence that makes the accused innocent, or guilty.
In any case, you get caught for accidentally missing out on the quotation marks, you say sheepishly, “Ay mali! Sorry about that, it won’t happen again.” You do not mount your high horse and say haughtily, “You fools, I’ll give you an accident you won’t forget!”
But it’s more than that. You want “lack of merit,” don’t look at the UP professors’ complaint, look at Del Castillo’s accident. Let’s grant that Del Castillo made “tipid”, and hired someone who is an accident waiting to happen. Or let’s grant he made “sagad” and slave-drove the poor person to death, or to forgetfulness. But how explain how the accidentally quoted portion got to mean the opposite of what it originally did?
I’ve always wondered why people keep referring to the problem as plagiarism. The problem is not plagiarism—or not just plagiarism. The problem is the lifting of a portion from another person’s work and perverting its meaning. The plagiarized author himself, Evan Criddle, pointed it out: “Speaking for myself, the most troubling aspect of the Court’s jus cogens discussion is that it implies that the prohibitions against crimes against humanity, sexual slavery, and torture are not jus cogens norms. Our article emphatically asserts the opposite.”
That is not an accident. It explains why the quoted portion had no quotation marks and attribution. A reference to Criddle would readily have shown he was supplying an argument for the comfort women, not against them. The UP professors who discovered it do not deserve contempt, they deserve medals.
Which is really the astonishing thing about the Supreme Court’s persistence in persecuting them: The justices should in fact even now be falling on their knees and thanking them for saving them from a fate worse than death: dishonor of monumental and international proportions. Do they really think they can dispel the shame by shifting the blame? This won’t be Renato Corona’s crowning glory, this will be his crowning despair.
I don’t know where Del Castillo took his law, I don’t know where Corona took his law, I don’t know where the other justices took their law. But UP at least subscribes to US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ idea, emblazoned on the façade of its law school, that “[t]he business of a law school is not…to teach law or to make lawyers, it is to teach law in the grand manner and to make great lawyers.” And therefore the business of law is not to preach law and resort to lawyerly tactics, it is to practice law in the grand manner as befits great lawyers. One should think this idea would be fully grasped by judges, too, above all the ones whose breadth of wisdom is presumed by the word “supreme.”
This wrongheaded vengefulness is not grand, it is pathetic.
By the way, the UP College of Law puts its mantra in quotation marks, and makes the proper attribution.
* * *
I don’t know which is worse, the transgression itself or the lack of appreciation for its implications.
That is Mai Mislang’s now famous tweets from Vietnam. Specifically, “The wine sucks,” after Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet hosted a state banquet, “Sorry pero walang pogi rito sa Vietnam,” after presumably scouring the place, and “Crossing the speedy motorcycle laden streets of Hanoi is the easiest way to die” after presumably crossing one.
Ricky Carandang says “it’s pretty harmless,” “she had no offense meant to anybody,” and “as far as we’re concerned, that’s over, that’s gone now.”
You’re a silly person visiting Vietnam with your silly boyfriend and you say those silly things in public, they are pretty harmless, or you harm only yourself. You’re a silly public official visiting Vietnam with your serious boss, the President, and you say those silly things in public, they are not harmless, you harm your boss. By now those tweets will have been read by the Vietnamese Embassy and the other Asean embassies. At the time Mislang put them out, P-Noy was telling the other Asean countries to “speak with one voice.” The irony will not be lost on the people in those embassies, not all of whom are silly.
Besides, if you can be tasteless in this respect, what makes you think you can’t be so in others? If you can be tasteless in this respect, what makes you think you can tell good wine from bad? If you are tasteless in this respect, what makes you think you can tell pogi from not?
If you can be tasteless in this respect, what makes you think the Vietnamese ambassador might not say, “We’d be most happy if you’d cross our streets more often”?
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Judicial Voodoo vs. Rule of Law
PerryScope
By Perry Diaz
The recent Supreme Court decision absolving Justice Mariano del Castillo of plagiarism stirred a hornet’s nest in the international legal community. And, at home, the high court’s subsequent action, which threatened to sanction 37 faculty members of the University of the Philippines College of Law, ignited a firestorm of controversy that questions the infallibility of the Supreme Court.
It all began in April 2010 when the Supreme Court dismissed the petition of 70 Filipino “comfort women” (Vinuya vs. Romulo, G.R. No. 162230) to compel the Philippine government to get a public apology from the Japanese government including reparation to victims of sexual abuse by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Justice Del Castillo penned the ponencia.
Plagiarism
That would have been the end of it. But Marvic Leonen, Dean of the U.P. College of Law, learned from a student of international law that Del Castillo lifted quotes and footnotes – without crediting the authors — from three internationally published articles. Consequently, lawyers Harry Roque and Romel Bagares submitted a motion for reconsideration on the comfort women’s petition and also accused Del Castillo of plagiarism.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mark Ellis, one of the authors whose work was plagiarized, sent an email to the justices, which says:
“In particular, I am concerned about a large part of the extensive discussion in footnote 65, pp. 27-28 of the said Judgment of your esteemed Court. I am also concerned that your esteemed Court may have misread the arguments I made in the article and employed them for cross-purposes. This would be ironic since the article was written precisely to argue for the appropriate legal remedy for victims of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.”
Pretty soon, calls for discipline against the 10 justices — including the ponente, Del Castillo — snowballed. Chief Justice Renato Corona created a five-member committee on Ethics and Ethical Standards, headed by him, to investigate the complaint of plagiarism. The problem is that all five justices assigned to the committee had concurred with the ponencia in question; therefore, if they recommended disciplinary action, they would be incriminating themselves.
Consequently, the 37 U.P. College of Law faculty members issued a public statement on the allegations of plagiarism and misrepresentation of the Supreme Court, to wit:
“It is within this frame that the Faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Law views the charge that an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court committed plagiarism and misrepresentation in Vinuya v. Executive Secretary. The plagiarism and misrepresentation are not only affronts to the individual scholars whose work have been appropriated without correct attribution, but also a serious threat to the integrity and credibility of the Philippine Judicial System.” They deplored the act of plagiarism as “unacceptable, unethical and in breach of the high standards of moral conduct and judicial and professional competence expected of the Supreme Court,” and demanded the resignation of Del Castillo to save the “honor and dignity” of the Supreme Court.
Last October 15, 2010, the Supreme Court — on a 10-2 decision — absolved Del Castillo of plagiarism for “lack of merit.” The two justices who voted against the ruling were Conchita Carpio-Morales and Maria Lourdes Sereno. Justices Antonio Carpio and Diosdado Peralta were on official leave while Del Castillo did not participate in the proceedings.
Judicial voodoo
In the ruling, the majority said that Del Castillo couldn’t be faulted because the alleged plagiarized material was “accidentally deleted” by Del Castillo’s court researcher. They also said that Del Castillo and his researcher could not be held liable for plagiary because Microsoft Word, the software used in writing the ponencia, could not detect “copied” material without the proper attributions. “Microsoft Word program does not have a function that raises an alarm when original materials are cut up or pruned. The portions that remain simply blend in with the rest of the manuscript, adjusting the footnote number and removing any clue that what should stick together had just been severed,” the ruling said. The majority also accepted Del Castillo’s explanation that there was “no malicious intent to appropriate another’s work as our own.”
The Supreme Court ruling defied conventional logic and used convoluted rationale that could only be construed as an aberration – or abrogation – of established norms and standards. It was classic case of “judicial voodoo” taking precedence over the rule of law where the magistrates used mumbo-jumbo reasoning.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sereno said, “Plagiarism thus does not consist solely of using the work of others in one’s own work, but of the former in conjunction with the failure to attribute said work to its rightful owner and thereby, as in the case of written work, misrepresenting the work of another as one’s own.” She also said that claiming “lack of malicious intent” would not “change the characterization of the act as plagiarism.” Indeed, Sereno’s rebuttal exemplifies logical rationalization predicated on the rule of law.
Desperate act
And in a desperate act to salvage what is left of its credibility and integrity, the Supreme Court tried to muffle dissent and criticism by threatening to impose sanctions against the 37 faculty members for their purported violation of the lawyers’ “code of ethics.” Little did the Supreme Court realize that its action would only provoke and infuriate the media and the academia; thus, further intensifying demands for Del Castillo’s resignation. Indeed, it’s a rude awakening for the Supreme Court justices who had gotten away with controversial decisions in the past which were accepted as “infallible” and therefore beyond reproach. Not anymore.
Quo vadis, Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court’s controversial ruling that totally ignored Section 15 Article VII of the Constitution — which bans “midnight appointments” — and allowed then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to appoint Justice Renato Corona as Chief Justice during the prohibited period was another process that could only be construed as “judicial voodoo” where rule of law was debased for the purpose of circumventing the constitution for the aggrandizement of a few.
Sad to say, with Corona at the helm of the Supreme Court until 2018 — when he reaches mandatory age retirement — and the other Arroyo appointees holding a majority until then, the Aquino administration would be under the spell of “judicial voodooism” for a long time to come.
Are these the signs that portend to the coming of the Dark Age in Philippine jurisprudence? Or, are we already in that age?
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)
By Perry Diaz
The recent Supreme Court decision absolving Justice Mariano del Castillo of plagiarism stirred a hornet’s nest in the international legal community. And, at home, the high court’s subsequent action, which threatened to sanction 37 faculty members of the University of the Philippines College of Law, ignited a firestorm of controversy that questions the infallibility of the Supreme Court.
It all began in April 2010 when the Supreme Court dismissed the petition of 70 Filipino “comfort women” (Vinuya vs. Romulo, G.R. No. 162230) to compel the Philippine government to get a public apology from the Japanese government including reparation to victims of sexual abuse by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. Justice Del Castillo penned the ponencia.
Plagiarism
That would have been the end of it. But Marvic Leonen, Dean of the U.P. College of Law, learned from a student of international law that Del Castillo lifted quotes and footnotes – without crediting the authors — from three internationally published articles. Consequently, lawyers Harry Roque and Romel Bagares submitted a motion for reconsideration on the comfort women’s petition and also accused Del Castillo of plagiarism.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mark Ellis, one of the authors whose work was plagiarized, sent an email to the justices, which says:
“In particular, I am concerned about a large part of the extensive discussion in footnote 65, pp. 27-28 of the said Judgment of your esteemed Court. I am also concerned that your esteemed Court may have misread the arguments I made in the article and employed them for cross-purposes. This would be ironic since the article was written precisely to argue for the appropriate legal remedy for victims of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.”
Pretty soon, calls for discipline against the 10 justices — including the ponente, Del Castillo — snowballed. Chief Justice Renato Corona created a five-member committee on Ethics and Ethical Standards, headed by him, to investigate the complaint of plagiarism. The problem is that all five justices assigned to the committee had concurred with the ponencia in question; therefore, if they recommended disciplinary action, they would be incriminating themselves.
Consequently, the 37 U.P. College of Law faculty members issued a public statement on the allegations of plagiarism and misrepresentation of the Supreme Court, to wit:
“It is within this frame that the Faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Law views the charge that an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court committed plagiarism and misrepresentation in Vinuya v. Executive Secretary. The plagiarism and misrepresentation are not only affronts to the individual scholars whose work have been appropriated without correct attribution, but also a serious threat to the integrity and credibility of the Philippine Judicial System.” They deplored the act of plagiarism as “unacceptable, unethical and in breach of the high standards of moral conduct and judicial and professional competence expected of the Supreme Court,” and demanded the resignation of Del Castillo to save the “honor and dignity” of the Supreme Court.
Last October 15, 2010, the Supreme Court — on a 10-2 decision — absolved Del Castillo of plagiarism for “lack of merit.” The two justices who voted against the ruling were Conchita Carpio-Morales and Maria Lourdes Sereno. Justices Antonio Carpio and Diosdado Peralta were on official leave while Del Castillo did not participate in the proceedings.
Judicial voodoo
In the ruling, the majority said that Del Castillo couldn’t be faulted because the alleged plagiarized material was “accidentally deleted” by Del Castillo’s court researcher. They also said that Del Castillo and his researcher could not be held liable for plagiary because Microsoft Word, the software used in writing the ponencia, could not detect “copied” material without the proper attributions. “Microsoft Word program does not have a function that raises an alarm when original materials are cut up or pruned. The portions that remain simply blend in with the rest of the manuscript, adjusting the footnote number and removing any clue that what should stick together had just been severed,” the ruling said. The majority also accepted Del Castillo’s explanation that there was “no malicious intent to appropriate another’s work as our own.”
The Supreme Court ruling defied conventional logic and used convoluted rationale that could only be construed as an aberration – or abrogation – of established norms and standards. It was classic case of “judicial voodoo” taking precedence over the rule of law where the magistrates used mumbo-jumbo reasoning.
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sereno said, “Plagiarism thus does not consist solely of using the work of others in one’s own work, but of the former in conjunction with the failure to attribute said work to its rightful owner and thereby, as in the case of written work, misrepresenting the work of another as one’s own.” She also said that claiming “lack of malicious intent” would not “change the characterization of the act as plagiarism.” Indeed, Sereno’s rebuttal exemplifies logical rationalization predicated on the rule of law.
Desperate act
And in a desperate act to salvage what is left of its credibility and integrity, the Supreme Court tried to muffle dissent and criticism by threatening to impose sanctions against the 37 faculty members for their purported violation of the lawyers’ “code of ethics.” Little did the Supreme Court realize that its action would only provoke and infuriate the media and the academia; thus, further intensifying demands for Del Castillo’s resignation. Indeed, it’s a rude awakening for the Supreme Court justices who had gotten away with controversial decisions in the past which were accepted as “infallible” and therefore beyond reproach. Not anymore.
Quo vadis, Supreme Court?
The Supreme Court’s controversial ruling that totally ignored Section 15 Article VII of the Constitution — which bans “midnight appointments” — and allowed then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to appoint Justice Renato Corona as Chief Justice during the prohibited period was another process that could only be construed as “judicial voodoo” where rule of law was debased for the purpose of circumventing the constitution for the aggrandizement of a few.
Sad to say, with Corona at the helm of the Supreme Court until 2018 — when he reaches mandatory age retirement — and the other Arroyo appointees holding a majority until then, the Aquino administration would be under the spell of “judicial voodooism” for a long time to come.
Are these the signs that portend to the coming of the Dark Age in Philippine jurisprudence? Or, are we already in that age?
(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)
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