The Enabler of Death

Telltale Signs
By Rodel E. Rodis

If the Mayan Doomsday calendar prediction is right, then this will be my final column. It’s been a pleasure writing for you. Of course, if it turns out to be a 1600 year old hoax, then Merry Christmas to all.

I wish I could write about something cheerful and positive, but mightily as I tried, the nightmarish image of the 20 murdered children in Newtown, Connecticut, their bodies riddled with multiple bullets, could not leave my mind.

I just cannot fathom what possessed 20-year old Adam Lanza to enter an elementary school, after killing his own mother, armed with her three licensed weapons of mass destruction – a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, a Glock and a Sighauser pistol – and proceed to kill 26 people.

There is speculation that it was due to his mental illness – Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. Others attribute it to the influence of violent video games he played regularly like WarCraft with foreboding titles like Tides of Darkness and Reign of Chaos. Some blame it on the pervasive Hollywood culture of violence in movies like the Expendables and the forthcoming Django Unchained.

But the mental illness, the violent video games and movies spreading the culture of violence are present all over the world. In fact, the video game, Call of Duty Black Ops 2, just sold $1 billion worth of discs in 15 days worldwide. And yet mass murders did not break out outside the US.

What distinguishes the US from the rest of the world is the overwhelming availability of firearms. There are more than 300 million of them in the US, half of all the privately-owned firearms of the world, owned and possessed by less than 5% of the world’s population -accounting for 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries of the world. More Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire in the US than have died in all US wars combined.

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee denied that the December 14 mass murder of 20children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School was caused by the easy availability of guns, vehemently arguing instead that it was because “we have systematically removed God from our schools.”

But God was in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin on August 5 this year when Wade Page opened fire and killed 6 devout Sikh members who were in prayer. God was also in a Korean Christian College in Oakland, California on April 2 this year when a gunman killed 7 people including a Filipina immigrant working as a receptionist. Have we removed God from a Sikh temple and a Christian college?
Mother Jones magazine has identified 62 mass killings that have occurred in the US in the last 30 years. At least 25 of these killings have taken place in the last six years, about 7 alone this year.

In his speech at Newtown, Connecticut two days after the massacre, Pres. Obama pledged to end the epidemic of gun violence plaguing the nation. “We can’t tolerate this anymore,” he said.

“These tragedies must end, and to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and it is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this….Because what choice do we have?”

The answer is obviously gun control but, a measure of the powerful influence of the gun lobby in the US, is that the use of this term is almost a non-starter as Republicans consider the Second Amendment “right to bear arms” the most sacred right in the US Constitution. Other freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, like freedom of speech and freedom of peaceable assembly, are subject to limitations but not the Second Amendment.

In fact, in the last four years, it has been greatly expanded in 37 states where Republicans have passed 99 laws making guns “easier to own, easier to carry in public, and harder for the government to track.”

Eight states now allow firearms in bars. Missouri allows citizens to carry guns even while intoxicated and even to fire it if “acting in self-defense.” Kansas allows permit holders to carry concealed weapons inside K-12 schools. Five states allow citizens to carry concealed weapons on college campuses.

There was a time in the 1980s when Republicans would regularly vote for “gun control” laws like the ones that banned the manufacture of plastic guns that could pass through metal detectors and armor piercing bullets that were called “cop killers”.

Voting in the minority against both bills was Rep. Dick Cheney (R-Wyoming). When the assault weapons ban came up for renewal in 2004, after it passed in 1994, Vice-President Dick Cheney made sure that it was dead and buried.

The mantra the Republicans and its subsidiary, the National Rifle Association (NRA), has used repeatedly to oppose gun control is “guns don’t kill people, people do.” But Nicholas Kristoff argues, “many auto deaths are caused by people who break laws or behave irresponsibly. But we don’t shrug and say, “Cars don’t kill people, drunks do.” He asks: “Why can’t we regulate guns as seriously as we do cars?”

Kristoff points out that the US regulates ladders (there are 5 pages of federal regulations about it) but ladders cause the deaths of only 300 people a year in the US, just 1% of those caused by gun deaths. As one reader noted, it is more difficult in the US to adopt a pet than to own a gun.

It is so easy to purchase a gun in the US that Adam Gadahn, the American-born member of al Qaeda, uploaded a youtube video where he encouraged terrorists to carry out attacks on the United States. “America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check, and most likely, without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”

Al Qaeda can thank the NRA and its 4 million members for making the streets safe for criminals and terrorists. But actually, NRA members shouldn’t be blamed. A poll of NRA members conducted recently by Republican pollster Frank Luntz showed broad support for gun control.

For example, 74% of NRA members voiced support for background checks, while 68% of them believe that individuals who have been arrested for domestic violence should not be eligible for gun permits. And 75% agree that concealed weapon permits should not be available to people who have committed violent misdemeanors.

But the NRA leadership is not guided by the opinions of its members. More influential are the gun manufacturers like Smith& Wesson which have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA, a number based on publicly listed “sponsorship” levels on NRA fundraising pamphlets. The actual figures are much higher.

As Bill Moyers wrote, “the NRA is the enabler of death — paranoid, delusional and as venomous as a scorpion. With the weak-kneed acquiescence of our politicians, the National Rifle Association has turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel and deadly hoax.”

Make it one of your top new year’s resolutions to write your Congressional representative to support meaningful gun control legislation.
Have a safe new year.

(Rodel50@gmail.com)

2012 Person of the Year: Barack Obama, the President

By Michael Scherer 
TIME

Cover Photograph by Nadav Kander for TIME

Twenty-seven years after driving from New York City to Chicago in a $2,000 Honda Civic for a job that probably wouldn’t amount to much, Barack Obama, in better shape but with grayer hair, stood in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Fairmont Millennium Park hotel as flat screens announced his re-election as President of the United States. The networks called Ohio earlier than predicted, so his aides had to hightail it down the hall to join his family and friends. They encountered a room of high fives and fist pumps, hugs and relief.

The final days of any campaign can alter the psyches of even the most experienced political pros. At some point, there is nothing to do but wait. Members of Obama’s team responded in the only rational way available to them — by acting irrationally. They turned neckties into magic charms and facial hair into a talisman and compulsively repeated past behaviors so as not to jinx what seemed to be working. In Boca Raton, Fla., before the last debate, they dispatched advance staff to find a greasy-spoon diner because they had eaten at a similar joint before the second debate, on New York’s Long Island. They sent senior strategist David Axelrod a photograph of the tie he had to find to wear on election night: the same one he wore in 2008. Several staffers on Air Force One stopped shaving, like big-league hitters in the playoffs. Even the President succumbed, playing basketball on Election Day at the same court he played on before winning in 2008.

(Inside the White House: Never-Before-Seen Photos)

But now it was done, and reason had returned. Ever since the campaign computers started raising the odds of victory from near even to something like surefire, Obama had been thinking a lot about what it meant to win without the lightning-in-a-bottle quality of that first national campaign. The Obama effect was not ephemeral anymore, no longer reducible to what had once been mocked as “that hopey-changey stuff.” It could be measured — in wars stopped and started; industries saved, restructured or reregulated; tax cuts extended; debt levels inflated; terrorists killed; the health-insurance system reimagined; and gay service members who could walk in uniform with their partners. It could be seen in the new faces who waited hours to vote and in the new ways campaigns are run. America debated and decided this year: history would not record Obama’s presidency as a fluke.

So after his staff arrived, he left his family in the main room of the suite and stepped out to talk with his three top advisers, Axelrod, political strategist David Plouffe and Jim Messina, his campaign manager. He wanted to tell them what this victory meant, because it was very different the second time. “This one’s more satisfying than ’08,” he said. “It wasn’t just about what I was going to do as President. It’s what I’ve done.” In the end, the outcome would not even be very close, and this realization was sinking in, unleashing something, dropping a shield he had been carrying for a long time. Over three days in November, the man known for his preternatural cool won re-election and cried twice in public. And then, trying to find meaning in a tragedy in Connecticut, he did it again, all but breaking down in the White House Briefing Room.

In mid-December, as Obama settles into one of the Oval Office’s reupholstered chairs — brown leather instead of Bush’s blue and gold candy stripes — the validation of Election Day still hovers around him, suggesting that his second four years in office may turn out to be quite different from his first. Beyond the Oval Office, overwhelming challenges remain: deadlocked fiscal-cliff talks; a Federal Reserve that predicts years of high unemployment; and more unrest in places like Athens, Cairo and Damascus. But the President seems unbound and gives inklings of an ambition he has kept in check ever since he arrived at the White House to find a nation in crisis. He leans back, tea at his side, legs crossed, to explain what he thinks just happened. “It was easy to think that maybe 2008 was the anomaly,” he says. “And I think 2012 was an indication that, no, this is not an anomaly. We’ve gone through a very difficult time. The American people have rightly been frustrated at the pace of change, and the economy is still struggling, and this President we elected is imperfect. And yet despite all that, this is who we want to be.” He smiles. “That’s a good thing.”

Read more: http://poy.time.com/2012/12/19/person-of-the-year-barack-obama/#ixzz2FWedSVEl

The clowns we elected

Lowdown
By Jojo Robles  
Manila Standard Today

The best Congress that taxpayers’ money can buy didn’t only decide that it could not afford to fight Malacañang. It has also agreed that it should take on Canadian pop star Justin Bieber instead.

This, after all, is where your taxes go: Congress, on President Noynoy Aquino’s deadline and upon his certification of its urgency, coughed up the reproductive health bill to the Palace, signed, sealed and delivered. At the same time, allies of Aquino in the House of Representatives filed Resolution No. 2962 to declare Bieber persona non grata and barring him from entering the Philippines if he does not apologize for insulting Filipino boxing idol (and their Congress colleague) Manny Pacquiao.

In both cases, it is fair to ask: why should we pay for a Congress that acts this way?

In the first instance, concerning the shameless railroading of the RH measure, Congress once again abdicated its role as a co-equal branch of the Executive when it did not even pretend that it was doing something other than the President’s bidding. Despite the deep divisions that Aquino’s RH bill was obviously causing amongst the citizenry, both Houses could not even slow down the RH Express, especially after Aquino sent key Cabinet members to attend the deliberations and as soon as the President had certified the measure as urgent.

If Congress were truly a co-equal of the Executive, instead of a pork-fueled rubber stamp subsisting entirely on the taxpayers’ dime, it would have at least called a ceasefire to the overheating proceedings. It would have asserted its independence and told Malacañang that it wasn’t operating on Aquino’s deadline, as it should have under a true republican democracy.

Instead, Congress delivered what Aquino wanted when he wanted it, as if our congressmen and senators represented Malacañang, instead of the people who elected them to office. And all because Congress cannot afford to be on the “bad” list of the Palace Santa who would get coal instead of the pork that Aquino offers in this and every other season.

And the irony of it all is that the pork that Congress receives does not come from the Palace itself, even if it disburses it to our senators and congressmen. That’s our money that is being doled out and the law says that all members of Congress should get it, regardless of whether they’ve been naughty or nice to the President.

But Congress—or the money-grubbing majority that has always populated it, anyway—has once again forgotten who pays for its upkeep and lost its way. And it’s not Aquino who pays congressmen, even if he holds the terrible power to hand out Congress’ funds when and to whom he chooses.

And they said Ferdinand Marcos’ single-House Batasan was a rubber stamp. The latter-day Congress is a lot worse, if only because it is populated by hypocrites who say they are free and independent but who jump at the sound of Butch Abad’s dinner bell.

In the end, even the congressmen who initially voted against the RH bill changed their minds, after Aquino got serious. And Congress forgot who pays the bills and from whose flesh the pork they enjoy ultimately came from.

I agree with former Senator Kit Tatad, who argued that Aquino is now the chief corruptor of Congress. But I must add that I never saw a collection of people so willing to be corrupted with money that they are entitled to, to begin with.

* * *

As for the ban-Bieber proposal, I can only hope that the outraged congressmen behind it aren’t angling for an additional infusion of money from the Palace —or even from their billionaire colleague from Saranggani. Hey, you never know, do you?

But it’s more likely that this group of congressmen—who shall, for our purposes, remain unnamed—merely wants to salvage some of that old “Pinoy Pride” that got mauled together with Pacquiao, when he fell unconscious to the canvas after being hit by Juan Manuel Marquez. Pinoy Pride is like that—it basks in the reflected glory of individual Filipino achievers like Pacquiao and gets severely offended when foreigners poke fun at it, as it often so richly deserves.

The Pinoy Priders are the same ones who get angry when some Hollywood celebrity remarks on the size of the cockroaches in Manila. They bully anyone from another country (online, especially) when someone says something that they feel deserves to be taught that you can’t mess with Filipinos, never mind if they come off as “pikon,” as the locals describe someone who can’t take a joke made at their expense.

Perhaps these congressmen believe that if they can pass a resolution commending Pacquiao on yet another victory, they are obliged to take up the cudgels for the boxer, never mind if he was made the butt of online jokes by a singer they never even heard of. Or maybe these lawmakers just had too much time on their hands because, as Aquino allies, they already knew how they would vote on RH and all the other palace-initiated proposals.

But that’s the quality of the Congress voters elected to office. And perhaps that’s probably why we shouldn’t complain too much about how bad our lawmakers are—we put them there, after all, and they represent us so well.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/12/19/the-clowns-we-elected/

In China’s shadow, ASEAN leaders look to India for maritime security

By Ross Colvin
Reuters

NEW DELHI

(From L to R) Philippine Vice-President Jejomar Binay, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Laos Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Myanmar President Thein Sein pose during a group photo session at the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi December 20, 2012. (REUTERS/B Mathur)

(Reuters) – Southeast Asian nations and India vowed on Thursday to step up cooperation on maritime security, a move that comes amid tension with China in the potentially oil- and gas-rich South China Sea.

In a vision statement agreed at a summit in New Delhi, India and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) set their sights on a new “strategic partnership” that would bring closer political, security and economic cooperation.

Significantly, they underlined the need for freedom of navigation, a contentious issue because of competing claims with Beijing over parts of the South China Sea, though there was no mention of China in their statement.

In speeches, the Philippines and Vietnam referred to tensions in their region, but India’s foreign minister sought to distance New Delhi from the wrangling over the South China Sea.

“There are fundamental issues there that do not require India’s intervention,” External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid told a news conference, adding that issues of sovereignty “need to be resolved between the countries concerned”.

An ASEAN summit ended in acrimony last month over China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, with its leaders failing to agree on a concluding joint statement.

The South China Sea has become Asia’s biggest potential military flashpoint as Beijing’s sovereignty claim over a huge, looping area has set it against Vietnam and the Philippines as the three countries race to tap possibly huge oil reserves. Malaysia and Brunei, also members of ASEAN, as well as Taiwan also claim parts of the sea.

Other members of ASEAN include Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia and Laos.

Last month, China announced a plan to board and search ships that illegally enter what it considers its territory in the South China Sea, prompting ASEAN’s secretary-general to warn that the move could spark naval clashes.

“At this time of rising concerns about maritime issues, the need to maintain a high level of maritime security and freedom of navigation offers us … an opportunity for enhanced cooperation,” Philippines Vice President Jejomar Binay said.

INDIAN OCEAN ROUTES

Although India has no territorial claim in the region, it is hungry for energy and is exploring for oil and gas with Vietnam in an area contested by China. In future, it is expected to ship liquefied natural gas from Russia through the Malacca Straits.

This month, India’s navy chief said he was ready to deploy vessels to the South China Sea to protect exploration interests there if needed. Last year, an Indian navy ship was challenged for entering ‘Chinese waters’ off the coast of Vietnam.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the summit that closer maritime cooperation with India was needed because 70 percent of the world’s traffic in petroleum products passes through the Indian Ocean from the Middle East to East Asia.

“While the center of the global economy is shifting eastward, the Indian and Pacific Oceans have been and will become even more important in providing the vital sea routes for trade and commerce,” Yudhoyono said.

The New Delhi summit underscored India’s growing role in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions.

Twenty years after India launched a ‘Look East’ diplomatic push to promote trade with a neglected neighboring region, the relationship is finally beginning to gain traction. Annual trade has nearly doubled in four years and India’s growing economic clout make it appealing as a balance to other Asian powers.

However, China’s trade relations and links with ASEAN are far deeper than India’s.

Ian Storey, senior fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said many ASEAN nations want to see all major powers playing a role in their region so it is not dominated by one or two players, in particular China.

“So that presence by India in Southeast Asia would provide them additional hedging options,” he said.

(Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-india-southeastasia-idUSBRE8BJ0Q220121220

PNP official’s brod in ‘jueteng’ payola?

By Jing Villamente
The Manila Times

The brother of a ranking official of the Philippine National Police is receiving P2 million a month from a jueteng operator in Luzon, according to a source of The Manila Times.

The source, a civilian with connections in Camp Crame, said that this brother of the national police brass gets his monthly jueteng payola from gambling lord, Bong Pineda. He said that the main “line” of the brother is actually smuggling and not jueteng.

Pineda, the source said, is giving the payola to maintain his jueteng operation in most of Luzon. Charing Magbuhos is reportedly Pineda’s ally in operating jueteng in Quezon and Laguna. Pineda and Magbuhos had figured in almost all jueteng investigations by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Magbuhos’ turf is being run by a certain Ed “Kabayo” Gonzales, who claimed to have some connections with the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. Gonzales is often seen in Metro Manila casinos every weekend and usually loses millions of pesos, the source added.

A certain Ramon Preza also operates jueteng in Laguna. He has reportedly acquired about P200 million properties in the province, something that the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Anti-Money Laundering Council can look into.

Preza reportedly drops the names of President Benigno Aquino 3rd’s sisters Balsy and Pinky and the father of incumbent Rep. Ivy Arago of Laguna.

The source said that Tarlac, the home province of the President, was also not spared from jueteng. He said that jueteng operation in the province has the blessing of a very high provincial police officer, enabling the illegal numbers game to rake in a daily earning of P7 million to P9 million.

Pineda reportedly rules one of two jueteng “kingdoms.” The other clique is said to be under former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada’s former friend and gambling buddy, Atong Ang, who now runs a jai-alai fronton using his company Meridien Vista Gaming Corp.

“Not only are policemen on the take. It has been known that money from jueteng even reached as high as the Palace,” the source said, alluding to the seat of power.

Insiders said that this is the reason why the Department of Interior and Local Government could not totally wipe out jueteng.

The illegal numbers game again hogged the headlines after a Pangasinan mayor claimed that Gov. Amado Espino of Pangasinan is a jueteng protector in the province.

Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas 2nd, also president of the Liberal Party (LP), has given police protection to Mayor Rodrigo Orduna of Bugallon, Pangasinan.

Espino, who is seeking a third and last term against LP gubernatorial bet Mayor Hernani Braganza of Alaminos City, was charged with plunder by Orduna before the Office of the Ombudsman, claiming that the governor allegedly accepted P900 million in payoffs from jueteng operators in the last 10 years.

A political analyst has expressed belief that Orduna’s claim was politically motivated.

Dr. Perla Legaspi, former director of the UP Center for Local and Regional Governance and former vice chancellor of UP Diliman, also questioned why Orduna came out with his expose only now that the 2013 election is drawing near.

“Obvious na obvious na politika lang talaga at ang layunin ay sirain ang imahe ni Espino dahil balita ko malakas ang incumbent governor doon [It is very obvious that this is politically motivated and the objective is to tarnish the image of Espino who, I’ve heard, is strong there],” said Legaspi, now the program head and professor at Lyceum-Northwestern University, a school in Dagupan City, Pangasinan.

Earlier, retired Lingayen Dagupan archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz claimed that jueteng continues to flourish because government lacks interest in eradicating it.

He cited the President’s statement that eradicating jueteng was not his administration’s priority. He also claimed that jueteng operators no longer conduct their own draws since the winning numbers are based on the results of draws held by small town lotteries under the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

“There are three things that are exempted in President [Beningo Aquino 3rd]’s matuwid na daan: Jueteng, Hacienda Luisita and the KKK,” Cruz said.

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/top-stories/37651-pnp-official-s-brod-in-jueteng-payola

Asean nations lap up Indian Navy chief’s South China Sea comment

By Indrani Bagchi, TNN 
Times of India

NEW DELHI: Navy chief, Admiral D K Joshi’s recent comment on the South China Sea may not have warmed hearts in China, or in the South Block, but they have bolstered India’s standing among Asean countries.

Welcoming the underlying sentiment as part of India’s Look East policy, vice-president of the Philippines, Jejomar Cabauatan Binay, told TOI in an exclusive conversation, “In the present day, these issues are no longer of parochial interest. Freedom of navigation and lawful commerce are universal interests. The statement of the Admiral is a confirmation that it is a problem that India cannot turn its back to.”

Last week, Admiral Joshi had responded to journalists’ questions on the Navy’s preparedness, saying, “Are we preparing for it? Are we having exercises of that nature? The short answer is “Yes. We, of course, will need government clearance. Should a requirement come, I am sure we will have that clearance,” he said. The comment came even as National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon was in Beijing working on a border agreement with his counterpart Dai Bingguo. The ministry of external affairs (MEA) was livid and the blame was swiftly passed on to an “irresponsible” media after the comment reverberated in various parts of the world.

Indian navy warship (File photo)

The Philippines, of course, is in a unique position and in direct line of fire. The sea that China describes as South China Sea is known locally as West Philippines Sea — China and the Philippines have faced off over the Scarborough Shoal earlier this year, sparking fears of a larger regional conflict. Although the Philippines has activated a mutual defence pact with the US, Manila’s response to India, said analysts, could be a sign that the region was looking for a credible balancing power.

Recently, the Philippines “sought clarification from Beijing” after a news report suggested that from January, 2013, local police would engage in “search and seizure” of ships within China’s claim line.

“But we haven’t received any confirmation. Other countries too have sought a clarification,” Binay said.

Making a big pitch for increased Indian investment in the Philippines, the vice-president said, “We look forward to Indian investment, tourism and culture. We also welcome Indian pharmaceuticals into Philippines, because India is very advanced in this sector. But more than that, we want to have a deeper political and security relationship with India.”

However, the Philippines is also clear that the recent troubles are not the defining point of their bilateral relationship with China. Like India, the Philippines has a very deep and intricate relationship with China. Binay said, “The relationship is multifaceted. After all they are our neighbours. There has been continuous dialogue at the foreign ministry level. President Aquino met President Hu Jintao and they agreed this cannot be the sum total of relations between China and the Philippines.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Asean-nations-lap-up-Navy-chiefs-South-China-Sea-comment/articleshow/17668261.cms

hAPPY nEW yEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL READERS!