SC decision should not be hindrance to make Arroyo accountable

By Ellen Tordesillas

Malaya

I’m not surprised that the Supreme Court slammed President Aquino’s Truth Commission, 10-5.

I’m bothered, of course, that we have a Supreme Court, beholden to a person who held power illegally for nine years, plundered taxpayers money and destroyed democratic institutions.

But even if the Truth Commission were declared “constitutional”, I was not really optimistic that Gloria Arroyo would be held accountable because Aquino chose to head it former Supreme Court Hilario Davide, who is also beholden to Arroyo.

I also believe that even without the Truth Commission, Aquino can make Arroyo accountable for her crimes against the Filipino people. What is needed is political will and a brilliant and efficient team to implement that “will.”

The High Court’s decision on the Truth Commission should impel the people to make known their displeasure over their betrayal of the people’s trust in the law. People should mark their name: Renato Corona, Lucas Bersamin, Arturo Brion, Teresita de Castro, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Mendoza, Diosdado Peralta, Jose Perez, Presbitero Velasco, and Martin Villarama.

Maybe it’s high time to stage People Power against the degradation of the Supreme Court. When you meet any one of the 10 justices outside the court, make known your anger. Tell it to their faces. Boo them. Make them uncomfortable. Throw rotten tomatoes or eggs at them.

People should also support justices who keep us from losing our faith in the rule of law in this country: Antonio Carpio, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Roberto Abad, Antonio Nachura, Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Harry Roque of CenterLaw Philippines asks, “Why and how can the search for the truth be unconstitutional ?”

His statement: “Centerlaw expresses its utmost disappointment with the decision of the Supreme Court declaring EO 1 which created the Truth Commission as unconstitutional. While Centerlaw has always maintained that the power of the proposed Commission may be exercised by the Department of Justice and other branches of government while the current Ombudsman has proven itself oblivious to the sins of the past dispensation, still this recent decision declaring EO 1 as unconstitutional would bolster impunity in the country and render nugatory the constitutional precept of accountability of public officers.

“Even assuming that the powers of the Truth Commission would duplicate the powers of the Ombudsman, there is nothing in the constitution that says that the power to enforce the country’s laws on the accountability of public officers is a monopoly of the Ombudsman.

“Neither may it be said that EO 1 violates the equal protection clause. The power of the Commission is only investigatory in nature and hence, its activities could not affect the constitutional rights of anyone under investigation. As a purely investigative body, its powers are clearly executive in nature and hence, it is within the powers of the President to create such a commission and to fund its activities using resources previously allocated by Congress to the Office of the President.

“What is objectionable to this recent decision of the court is its implications. Amidst the failure of the criminal justice system to investigate anyone in the past dispensation, the decision can be read to mean a grant of impunity to the past dispensation. Certainly, it sends a very loud message that this Court cannot be counted upon to support PNoy’s declared promise of promoting honesty in government by taking effective steps to investigate, prosecute and punish those who may have violated our criminal laws on public officers. The ultimate question of course is why and how could the search for the truth be unconstitutional?”

Blogger Olan wrote “Malaking insulto ito sa mahigit 15 milyong bumoto sa pagbabago!”

Terry Rindon of the League of Filipino Students said “Unconstitutionality should not be an excuse by Aquino not to send Arroyo to jail. He should have known the legal infirmity of the TC from the start. We reject this kid glove treatment of GMA and demand that Pnoy do all means to send GMA to justice.”

Release them

Theres The Rub

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer

BE ASSURED, says presidential deputy spokesperson, Abigail Valte, that Malacañang is studying the case of the Morong 43. It cannot as yet release them because their case is different from that of the military mutineers.

But of course their case is different from that of the military mutineers. They have more right to be released than the military mutineers.

Unlike the military mutineers, the Morong 43 are innocent. They are innocent because the law must find them innocent. They were arrested on the strength of a warrant against someone who has no fixed address and who is nowhere to be found—very likely a fictitious person. They were given no legal recourse, prevented not just from seeking any legal counsel but also from seeing relatives and friends, and thrown in the dark for months. Some of them were probably tortured; at least they have claimed so. No group of persons have been so systematically denied their basic rights since 1986 other than those who have been summarily fed to the worms by their captors.

Whatever has been found in their possession or extracted from them by way of confession is the “fruit of the poisoned tree,” as lawyers put it, which is inadmissible evidence. And in any case, they have resolutely stood by their word that the arms and explosives that materialized in their persons were planted, and confessed only to being so dedicated to their calling they were holding a medical seminar when swooped down upon by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s stormtroopers.

What is there to study? If only by the circumstances of their arrest, Malacañang should have thrown their case out the window as soon as it welcomed a new tenant. If only by the ordeal they have endured—10 months and counting—Malacañang should have offered them its deepest apologies and vowed to bring the tyrant who brought them to that pass to justice.

Even if they are NPA sympathizers, or NPA themselves, what of it? At the very least, the mutineers themselves took up arms against government, even if as in the case of Danny Lim that lay more in the threat and the execution, and they have been freed, to much rejoicing by the military. Even Tony Trillanes, who quite literally took up arms against GMA while she was still legitimate, has been freed, to much rejoicing by his family and friends. Why can’t the Morong 43, who haven’t even been proven to have taken up arms, be so? The selectiveness is patent and should be a source of shame for government.

At the very most, whose case is really thornier and requires interminable study?

Military officers are there to defend the citizens, for which they get benefits and privileges and guns for the role they play. When they turn those guns against government, they do not just commit rebellion, they commit treason. They betray the very thing they are sworn to uphold. The only compelling justification in the case of Lim and company is that they did so against a government that had no right to exist, that did not represent the citizens. They did so against a usurper, one who made fighting back a matter of self-preservation. The presidential amnesty given them naturally implies that justification, specifically the part about GMA’s illegitimacy. Otherwise, nothing justifies it. Treason is unjustifiable.

You grant that the Morong 43 are NPA sympathizers, or NPA themselves, then their case is far simpler and more forthright. They are rebels, they exist to fight government, they enjoy no pay or privileges in doing so. On the contrary they suffer privations and are hunted down as outlaws. Their added justification for fighting government over the last six years is that it is a coup regime, wrought by ballot if not by bullet. For which they have paid the gravest price: Hundreds of their fellows have been killed or made to disappear; many, like Jonas Burgos, judged, juried and executed without proof of their being NPA.

Between those two groups of political prisoners, the second is far more easily pardonable. That is tacitly implied by the peace talks with the NDF. You do not negotiate with bandits, you negotiate with rebels, or with people you consider to have principles. Yet the military mutineers have been released and the Morong 43 not so. Why so?

The only reason I can think of is that government doesn’t want to piss off the military. That’s what P-Noy’s own mother, Cory, did after 1986, and succeeded only in emboldening them to mount one coup after another. Led by Juan Ponce Enrile who, in one of life’s sublime ironies, or in one of this magic realist country’s not so magical twists, is now a staunch P-Noy ally. There’s no other explanation for it, certainly nothing approaching legal or moral. It’s just plain double standards.

It’s also just plain injustice. Government has no business appeasing the military, it has every business punishing the military. Or those of them that helped GMA mount a rule so vicious it made rebellion an act of grace. Or those of them that helped GMA steal the vote in Muslim Mindanao and propped up the even more vicious rule of the Ampatuans in Maguindanao to accomplish it. Or those of them that helped GMA stamp out any and all resistance against her, scuttling rallies, arresting protesters, mounting a cynical war against enemies of the State—State defined as the state of health of GMA and her husband, which buried hundreds of political activists, many of them in the flush of youth, in shallow graves. Or those of them that should even now be facing the Truth Commission to tell the truth about how they made the truth, quite apart from people like Jonas Burgos, disappear from the face of the earth.

What’s to study? The matuwid na landas is clear enough: Release the Morong 43.

And jail those that put them in jail.

Interviews with killer, torturer

TELLING THE FILIPINO STORY TO THE WORLD

By Nancy C. Carvajal
Philippine Daily Inquirer

(Editors’ Note: For 25 days, we will be telling stories about the Philippine Daily Inquirer to mark the paper’s 25th anniversary on Dec. 9, 2010. Some are little inside stories but impacting on how we cover unfolding events; some are mark-the-day stories that become talk-of-the-town types; others are turning-point stories that have changed the landscape of history; still others, big or small, seize the heart and never let go. But whatever, the Inquirer will tell you the story.)

THE ASSIGNMENT was daunting: Interview a communist assassin and a police torturer.

I was given two weeks to do the two interviews, which were to be my contribution to an Inquirer special report on the so-called “Abadilla 5”—five neighbors in Fairview, Quezon City, whom the police had tortured into confessing to the June 13, 1996, murder of retired Col. Rolando N. Abadilla, a feared military intelligence officer during the Marcos dictatorship.

Refusing to let caution trump ambition, I readily accepted the assignment given by the project head, Jose Ma. Nolasco. The managing editor had assured me and the two other members of the investigative team—Juliet Labog-Javellana and Stella O. Gonzales—that the special report had all the elements of a blockbuster.

The Inquirer stumbled on the Abadilla 5 story in the latter part of 2002, when lawyer Soliman Santos brought to our attention the plight of Lenido Lumanog, one of the five men convicted of killing Abadilla and sentenced to die by lethal injection. Lumanog, then 46, was at the end stage of renal failure, and he needed a kidney transplant fast.

After a series of meetings and discussions of the case, Santos was able to convince our investigative team that the country’s judicial system had perpetrated—beyond reasonable doubt—a grave injustice on Lumanog and his four fellow death convicts. By coming out with a special report on the Abadilla 5, Santos explained, the Inquirer may be able to generate public sympathy and mobilize financial help for Lumanog.

Truth, purpose, action

Our team felt it had the truth, it had purpose and it was ready to act.

Javellana and Gonzales were assigned to interview the members of the Abadilla 5, focusing on how they were tortured by the police and coerced into confessing to the murder. They were also assigned to go over the case records, particularly the physical evidence presented by the prosecution and conflicting accounts of eyewitnesses.

The managing editor explained to me the importance of my assignment.

By interviewing one of Abadilla’s assassins, our team sought to find out how the communist Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) carried out the killing as it had claimed it did.

By interviewing a police expert on torture, our team hoped to show that the police have not abandoned the martial law practice of forced confessions that, in turn, have led to doubtful convictions and, eventually, to judicial errors.

The art of torture

Finding a police torturer was the easy part. Many police officers love to talk about how they break even the toughest guys.

In my case, I came upon a police senior superintendent who regaled me with tales of torture and various techniques in making suspects talk. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Torture is an art, not a sadist’s game,” the graduate of the Philippine Military Academy in the 1970s said in a three-hour interview over baked ravioli, oysters, steak and iced tea at an Italian restaurant in Makati City.

His favorite method: Inserting a bird’s feather into a suspect’s urethra. “For the first few seconds, the suspect feels a tingling sensation and then comes excruciating pain,” he said. “Do the same thing with the rib of a coconut palm (walis tingting), tap it, and blood comes out.”

The officer confirmed the prevalence of other torture methods described by Amnesty International in its October 2000 report on the case of the Abadilla 5. These included electric shocks, “water cure,” “plastic bag” treatment and beatings.

How will a torturer know whether a suspect is telling the truth or just making up a story to avoid further pain? I asked my source.

Training, experience and a little knowledge in human psychology, the officer replied even as he conceded that “when a certain threshold of pain is reached, a suspect will admit to anything, including the killing of [Dr. Jose] Rizal.”

Encounter with assassin

Then came the hard part—interviewing an ABB gunman.

A top police intelligence official told me where to find my assassin. Traveling on an Inquirer vehicle, I went to the Las Piñas City Jail where I was told my subject was transferred after his brief detention at Camp Crame.

The jail warden, however, told me the person I was looking for had been moved to a remote jail in Silang, Cavite. At the Silang jail, I learned that he had been released after posting bail.

I checked the jail records and found that my would-be source had given his address at Riverside, Dasmariñas, Cavite. For hours, I asked tricycle drivers, bystanders and nearly everyone I met if they knew where I may find this man.

It was nearing dark. Hungry and tired, I told the Inquirer driver, Benjie Labay, that the woman sitting alone on a bench in front of a bakery would be the last person I’d ask.

The woman turned out to be the ABB gunman’s wife. She agreed to bring me to her husband if an ABB higher-up would vouch for me.

Luckily, I had with me the cell phone number of the son of an ABB leader. I called him up and explained my purpose. He told the woman I was OK.

Riverside shanty

From the main road, we entered a narrow alley and, after a short walk, we ended up in front of a shanty beside the river.

A dark, slim man ushered me into the living room, which had a TV set, an electric fan and a wooden bench. The shanty was sparkling clean.

I asked him about Abadilla’s ambush. Without blinking, he said he was part of a five-man ABB team that was assigned to kill Abadilla. A separate team did the surveillance on the target, he said.

He admitted he was the one who shot the dreaded intelligence officer. After the hit on Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City, he said, the members of the team fled on foot and rode a jeepney to Cubao.

I asked him why the task force assigned to solve Abadilla’s killing had refused to accept the ABB’s claim of responsibility despite its statement that it carried out the assassination “to render revolutionary justice to tens of thousands of people who had been victimized by martial rule.”

“To save face,” the ABB gunman said.

Special report

The Inquirer ran a four-part special report on the Abadilla 5 in the second week of December 2002. The series raised serious doubts about the weight and value of the evidence that the prosecution had presented against the accused.

Judge Jaime Salazar of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court found the Abadilla 5 guilty beyond reasonable doubt on the basis of the uncorroborated testimony of a single eyewitness and the confessions that the police extracted from the accused through torture.

This, despite Salazar’s acknowledgement that the ballistics tests showed that none of the guns presented by the prosecution and police in court was used in the killing. None of the fingerprints that were found in Abadilla’s car and the getaway car matched those of the accused. And none of the Abadilla 5 resembled police sketches of the killers, which were based on descriptions of eyewitnesses.

The judge disbelieved the alibis of the Abadilla 5 and discarded the ABB angle. He brushed aside the Abadilla 5’s retracted confessions and their complaints of torture.

The entire judicial process that the Abadilla 5 were subjected to appalled no less than Amnesty International, a London-based group that has won the Nobel Peace Prize for its outstanding defense of human rights all over the world.

After the publication of the Inquirer special report, however, Lumanog was able to get his kidney transplant—thanks to then First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. The special report won several international and local journalism prizes.

The Abadilla 5, however, continue to languish at the National Bilibid Prisons after the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court upheld Salazar’s ruling. The Abadilla 5 has filed a motion for reconsideration in the Supreme Court.

They remain hopeful the country’s justice system would eventually rectify its grave error.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101207-307459/Interviews-with-killer-torturer

North Korea can trigger the feared 21st century US-China war

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star

The recent exchange of artillery fire in the Yellow Sea between the armed forces of North Korea and South Korea caused Asian stocks to tumble and heightened fears that North Korea might recklessly instigate another US-China war, similar to what happened during the 1950s Korean War.

By now, many Chair Wrecker readers have realized why we have been raising the alarm for over three years now for Filipinos to watch intently the moves that the US has been making in Mindanao and against China. Three years ago, your Chair Wrecker felt like a Biblical Prophet, alone and unheeded, crying out in the wilderness.

Very few appreciated then the link that we established between the looming US-China conflict and that aborted MOA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement-Ancestral Domain) with the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front). Fewer still appreciated our expose of the sinister US agenda in promoting a virtual Muslim State in Mindanao.

It’s hard not to appreciate at this point the reality of a US-China conflict. Many aspects of it are now being openly discussed in international media. The consistent demonizing of China by the US is a giveaway of their preparations for a conflict.

The question many folks ask your Chair Wrecker now is this  what are the chances of a 21st century US-China War ever happening? Indeed, will these two nations really want to extend their present conflict which is basically economic, trade and geopolitical in nature  to a theatre of war?

It is doubted if both the US and China will want a 21st century war. They know that war is costly, devastating as well as unpredictable. The Russian Tsar did not imagine that Japan could beat them in the Russo-Japanese War of the early 20th century. That Russian defeat created the first big crack and set the stage for the fall of the Romanov dynasty following Russian involvement in World War I.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, Vietnam was nothing militarily compared to China today but they defeated the US. The British, Russian and American empires all failed to win their wars in Afghanistan.

If you were the US, you would think twice before engaging China in a war. If the US could not beat China in the 1950s, during the Korean War, what makes them think that they can now defeat a more powerful China in the 21st century? Former National Security Adviser Victor Corpus wrote an excellent book  America’s Dim Mak Points on how China will fight and win that war with the US.

It is doubted if China would want to engage the US in a war unless the armed conflict is really unavoidable. China is dominating the US in their present theatre of conflict which is trade, manufacturing and so forth. They would not want to deviate from where they are succeeding and enter a stage of conflict where the outcome is uncertain.

The West has a long tradition of using the hard brass knuckles to get what they want and deeply etched in Chinese memory are the experiences of the Opium War and the Boxer Rebellion. The Chinese philosophy centers on the SOFT APPROACH. A Chinese teacher will teach his pupil: “A rock is hard. Water is soft. But if water, which is soft, falls in droplets and consistently over the hard rock, the rock will eventually break.” Thus, we see the US and its allies invading Iraq which owns the third biggest oil reserve in the world while China prefers to use its economic muscle to try and corner African oil.

However, despite the lack of intention of two competing nations to go to war, history teaches us that war still manages to erupt. In 1940, neither the US nor the Japanese wanted to fight each other but it happened. In fact, many people here were so oblivious of the war clouds forming over the Pacific even during late 1941. Filipinos only woke up to the realization of a US-Japan War after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

Unforeseen developments, such as the June 28, 1914 assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which triggered World War I, can cause unwanted wars. Economic depression, such as the global economic condition during the 1930s which preceded World War II, can lead nations to war. Escalation, such as what the US is doing now in Mindanao, can force China to go to war.

Several years ago, your Chair Wrecker took the late Press Secretary Serge Remonde to task for dismissing a near confrontation off the coast of Zambales between a Chinese submarine and a US cruiser  as something that will not affect us because it happened in international waters. If that confrontation went ugly and the two nations went to war  how could that incident not affect us?

If a US naval presence in our international waters can prod the Chinese to send their submarine here, make their presence felt in order to send a counter signal, imagine how China will react to the establishment of a US military offensive capability in Mindanao which China knows is going to be directed against them.

Shortly before he was assigned to a post in Washington, Victor Corpus and your Chair Wrecker were discussing the looming US-China conflict vis-à-vis the US Mindanao agenda. Vic warned that if the US military offensive capability is established in Mindanao, China may be forced to undertake a preemptive military strike similar to Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor. Victor Corpus has done extensive research on this subject matter. His assessment is not to be taken lightly.

A preemptive military strike by China will make the US react and how the US reacts will determine if all-out war, which will affect us Filipinos, will follow. If the preemptive strike is successful  the US loses its military offensive capability in Mindanao  the US could decide that they cannot engage China in war. Sans an offensive capability, the US could resort to other means of reprisal like a trade embargo, condemnation in the UN and so forth. All-out war could thus be averted.

However, if the US reacts to a China military preemptive strike the way that they had reacted when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, then Filipinos should start praying that the war will not involve the rest of our country where a US military capability has not been established. We should also start praying that the combatants will resist using nuclear weapons.

How can we prevent our involvement in this looming 21st century US-China War? The answer is simple. Do not allow the US to establish a military capability in our country.

*      *      *

Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com

‘Somalia of Asia’

PerryScope
By Perry Diaz




Whoever would have thought that the Philippines would be the next Somalia?  Indeed, a few years ago, that question would have been ignored and ridiculed.  But today, there are disturbing signs that seem to manifest the unthinkable:  The Philippines could become the Somalia of Asia!  What happened?

In my article, “Road to Perdition or Redemption” (PerryScope, November 9, 2007), I wrote: “Arroyo’s dismal failure and egregious disregard — and disrespect — for the people’s sentiments should be grounds to abrogate her mandate of government. In six and a half years of usurped authority, Arroyo is embroiled in a quagmire of corruption and deception. She implemented ineffective programs and projects that only fed the voracious appetite of kleptocrats in her government. Indeed, as several bishops and political leaders have stated, Arroyo no longer has the moral authority to lead the people. Under Arroyo’s leadership — and skullduggery — the country is on the road to perdition. It will no longer be the ‘Sick Man of Asia’ but will soon become the ‘Somalia of Asia’ where anarchy would be the order — or disorder — of the day and warlords reign supreme in their fiefdoms.”

Private armies and paramilitary groups

Unfortunately for former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s successor, President Benigno Aquino III, the country hasn’t only changed since 2007 – it got worse!  The Philippines is now closer to becoming the Somalia of Asia.  As a matter of fact, some parts of the country are almost like Somalia.  Most parts of Mindanao — particularly Maguindanao – have the telltale signs of another Somalia in the making: overpopulation, poverty, corruption, and lawlessness where warlords rule and commit crime with impunity.
The massacre of 58 unarmed civilians including 32 journalists last November 23, 2009 alleged to be committed by the powerful Ampatuan clan of Maguindanao has brought to the consciousness of the people that the government has been rendered inutile in maintaining peace and order.  In the nine years of Arroyo’s presidency, military and paramilitary units killed more than a thousand people allegedly and several hundred more disappeared without a trace.  These extrajudicial killings continue to this day.

In the Maguindanao massacre, the Ampatuans allegedly used four armed groups:  the clan’s private army, Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs), Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs), and – disturbingly – Philippine National Police (PNP) personnel stationed in Maguindanao.   With that kind of firepower at their disposal, the Ampatuans ruled with absolute power over their political domain. Nobody would dare challenge them.  And their political alliance with Arroyo provided them with immense influence as well as protection.

Had there been no survivor from the massacre, and all the victims buried without a trace, the bloody incident wouldn’t have attracted international attention and could easily have been “swept under the carpet.” And the Ampatuans would continue on their bloody merry way.

A few days after the heinous mass murder, Arroyo created the Independent Commission Against Private Armies (ICAPA) and ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the PNP to dismantle all private armies in the entire country before the May 10, 2010 elections.   But like most commissions that Arroyo created during her presidency, the ICAPA — better known as the Zeñarosa Commission – missed its deadline.  However, it completed its work and submitted its report to outgoing President Arroyo and incoming President Aquino on June 30, 2010.

To date, Aquino is still reviewing the Zeñarosa report.  However, he indicated that he would not dismantle the CAFGUs and CVOs (formed by the military during Cory Aquino’s presidency).  He said that his government would work toward professionalizing the paramilitary groups.  The problem with Aquino’s proposal is that it would also professionalize those who are trigger-happy; thus, making them more dangerous and prone to commit more abuses.  That would be tantamount to licensing armed goons to kill.

Indeed, with 50,000 CAFGU members and 800,000 CVO members across the country, we are looking at humongous time bomb ready to explode.

Population explosion


Another factor that would put the Philippines into the category of “impoverished” countries like Somalia is runaway population growth.  Dr. Malcolm Potts, a US-based demographer and health expert, said in a recent forum hosted by the Asia Society Philippine Foundation Incorporated in Metro Manila that “due to its ballooning population, there would be about 160 million Filipinos, from the estimated 94 million today, in the next 40 years which could pose a huge problem of how to feed, clothe, educate and house them.” Interestingly, he mentioned another “disturbing aspect” of the population problem: “About 600,000 babies were born in the past four months after President Aquino took over Malacañang on June 30” or 5,000 babies born every day.

With the specter of population explosion, the congressional debate on the controversial Reproductive Health bills — which have been dormant in Congress for the past eight years due to strong opposition from the Catholic Church – might finally come to a vote and pass with the strong backing of Aquino.

In my article, “Is it time for population control?” (PerryScope, October 5, 2010), I wrote: “In 1903 when the first census was taken, the population of the Philippines was 7,635,426. Thirty-six years later in 1939, the population more than doubled to 16,000,303. Twenty-nine years later in 1960, the population increased by 169 % to 27,087,685. Forty-seven years later in 2007, the population increased by a staggering 327 % to 88,574,614. This year, 2010, the population is estimated at 97,976,603, an increase of more than 11% in three years or 3.67 % per year. At this rate, the population would be 500 million in 50 years, 1.2 billion in 80 years, and 2.2 billion in 100 years!”

Warlordism

If the Aquino government took the wrong step in dealing with paramilitary groups, it could end up institutionalizing warlordism similar to what’s happening in Somalia where a central government is diminished to an impotent body and its military arm fractured and rendered useless.

Is the Philippines on the road to becoming the “Somalia of Asia” and beyond redemption?

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

Jailed for the wrong crime

On Target
By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

GERARDO BIONG, former Parañaque police investigator who was sentenced to 15 years in prison and is about to be released, deserved his fate.

Not for being an accomplice of those convicted of the Vizconde massacre but for robbing the dead.
Biong, who was assigned to investigate the crime scene, looted the Vizconde household.
He didn’t know any of the young men convicted for the massacre and rape, much less principal accused Hubert Webb.

Biong burned the bloodied bed sheets and other things because he was a simpleton.
The cop from Samar thought that he could cover his crime of looting the dead by burning the evidence.
Biong was found guilty of the wrong crime.

* * *

President Noy stopped the grant of franchises to operate gambling casinos since Day 1.
But a franchise was given to a Korean company, Parana, by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) recently.

Early this month, three Pagcor officials went to South Korea upon the invitation of Choi Teon Sil, Parana president.

Two weeks after their return, Parana was allegedly given a franchise to operate casinos anywhere in the country.

What took place in South Korea?

* * *

A Pagcor official has reportedly bought a house at a ritzy subdivision in Quezon City worth P40 million.
Where did he get the money to buy such an expensive house?

* * *

Rampant smuggling is taking place at the ports of Cebu, Davao, General Santos and Cagayan de Oro.
A high official is allegedly in cahoots with the smugglers, with Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez out of the loop, my sources say.

The goods being smuggled in are rice, sugar, Japanese and Korean cars, general merchandise and used clothes (known locally as ukay-ukay).

* * *

For every 20-foot container of sugar or rice, P15,000 goes to the high official, my sources say.
A 40-foot container full of electronic items earns for the official P25,000.
Assorted general merchandise in a 20-foot container pays P5,000, say the sources.

Here’s part of the breakdown:

In November alone, 180 20-foot containers filled with rice were smuggled into Cebu port.
At the Davao port, 260 20-foot containers of rice, 31 40-foot containers of ukay-ukay, and new cars in 20 40-footers have been smuggled in since October.

From September to November, 163 shipments of rice in 20-footers and factory-fresh Korean and Japanese cars in 12 40-footers were smuggled into General Santos port.

* * *

And how is Customs Commissioner Alvarez taking all this?

One of my sources says Alvarez doesn’t have power over his subordinates since he can’t reshuffle them.
The infighting within the Aquino administration has rendered Alvarez useless at the customs bureau.
Alvarez was appointed based on the recommendation of the “Balay Group” identified with defeated vice presidential candidate Mar Roxas.

But the Balay Group is slowly being eased out by a rival faction, the “Samar Group,” identified with Vice President Jojo Binay, and the independents identified with Executive Secretary Jojo Ochoa, a close friend of the President’s.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20101129-306061/Jailed-for-the-wrong-crime