Commentary: Judiciary Committee junks Arroyo impeachment

COMMENTARY FROM PERRY DIAZ

As expected, the House Judiciary Commmittee on a 42-8 vote junked the fourth impeachment petition against President Gloria Macapapgal Arroyo as “insufficient in substance.” With 80% of the House members under her control, how could she be impeached?

Enough of this impeachment exercise. What the opposition should do is how to stop Gloria from staying in power beyond 2010. That’s where the battle line should be drawn. Right now, Gloria is pulling all the strings to put in place her master plan to extend her term. If the opposition cannot stop her by June 2009, then consider it a done deal. The only way she can be stopped at that time is “people power.” The question is: Who will lead the people?

Perry

THE DIRTY 42

The following are the members of the Judiciary Committee who voted to junk the impeachment petition:

1. Capiz Rep. Fred Castro (Lakas-CMD);
2. Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman (Lakas-CMD);
3. Baguio City Rep. Mauricio Domogan (Lakas-CMD);
4. Negros Oriental George Arnaiz (NPC);
5. Iloilo Rep. Raul Gonzalez Jr. (Lakas-CMD);
6. Cebu Rep. Pablo John Garcia (Kampi);
7. Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco (Promdi-BOPK-Lakas);
8. Antique Rep. Exequiel Javier (Lakas-CMD);
9. Party-list Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives (Apec) Rep. Edgar Valdez;
10. Bohol Rep. Edgar Chatto (Lakas-CMD);
11. Lanao del Sur Rep. Faysah Maniri Racman Dumarpa (Lakas-CMD);
12. Leyte Rep. Eufrocino Codilla Sr. (Lakas-CMD);
13. Zamboanga Sibugay Rep. Belma Cabilao (Lakas-CMD);
14. Ifugao Rep. Solomon Chungalao (LP);
15. Zamboanga del Sur Rep. Antonio Cerilles (NPC);
16. Masbate Rep. Rizalina Seachon Lanete (NPC);
17. Sulu Rep. Munir Arbison (Lakas-CMD);
18. Bohol Rep. Roberto Cajes (Lakas-CMD);
19. Tawi-Tawi Rep. Nur Jaafar (Lakas-CMD);
20. La Union Rep. Victor Ortega (Lakas-CMD);
21. Lanao del Sur Rep. Pangalian Balindong (Lakas-CMD);
22. Romblon Rep. Eleandro Jesus Madrona (Lakas-CMD);
23. Isabela Rep. Giorgidi Aggabao (NPC):
24. Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas (Kampi);
25. Quirino Rep. Junie Cua (LP);
26. Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia Sr. (Cebu-Kampi);
27. Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga (Kampi);
28. Surigao del Norte Rep. Francisco Matugas (Kampi);
29. Sultan Kudarat Rep. Arnulfo Go (Kampi-PTM);
30. Manila Rep. Ma. Theresa Bonoan David (Kampi);
31. Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas (LP-Ugyon);
32. Parañaque Rep. Eduardo Zialcita (Lakas-CMD);
33. Quezon City Rep. Bingbong Crisologo (NP);
34. Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin (Lakas-CMD);
35. Batangas Rep. Victoria Reyes (Lakas-CMD);
36. Agusan del Norte Rep. Jose Aquino II (Lakas-CMD);
37. Iloilo Rep. Arthur Defensor (Lakas-CMD);
38. Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Maranon III (Kampi) who signed for Rep. Amelita Villarosa;
39. Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong (Lakas-CMD);
40. Cebu City Rep. Raul del Mar (Lakas-BOPK);
41. Bukidnon Rep. Candido Pacrudo Jr. (Lakas-CMD) who signed for Rep. Eric Singson; and
42. Manila Rep. Maria Zenaida Angping (NPC).

Arroyo survives impeachment attempt

(CNN) — Allies of Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Wednesday defeated an attempt by opposition leaders to impeach her on large-scale corruption charges — the fourth such attempt in four years.

Protesters display slogans in front of the House of Representatives in Manila on Tuesday.

The House Justice Committee dismissed the impeachment complaint by 42-8 votes, saying that it was “insufficient in substance,” the state-run Philippines News Agency reported.

The complaint alleged that Arroyo and her husband were directly involved in an Internet broadband deal with a Chinese firm. The deal was ultimately scrapped amid allegations of corruption.

“I’m not saying that there is no substance (to the complaint), but it was insufficient,” Deputy House Speaker Pablo Garcia told the committee before the vote.

“The allegations are not allegations of fact. They are conclusions, opinion, inferences, and even arguments,” Garcia said, according to the news agency.

Arroyo first took office in 2001. Since then, she has survived four impeachment attempts and periodic rumors of coup.

She won re-election in 2004, but opposition parties called into question the legitimacy of that race.

During the vote count, Arroyo was tape-recorded talking to a senior election official, which opposition leaders charge is evidence she manipulated the outcome. The president has denied any wrongdoing.

The first of the impeachment charges were brought against Arroyo in 2005 for vote-tampering. Congress rejected the charges.

The opposition then tried to impeach Arroyo in 2006 and 2007 — and Congress dismissed those attempts as well.

Her six-year term ends in 2010

Awakening From A Historical Madness

GLIMPSES
Jose Ma. Montelibano

I wrote the following article in October of 2005. It seems that our country and people decided in the last three years to stay in place, unable to move forward and out of a quagmire. It is eerie how the state of collective life then remains as true now.
I heard a much respected man express his deep sadness and apprehension at the present state of affairs in Philippine society, saying that this moment is the worst and most dangerous he has monitored in the last sixty years. Privileged by circumstance to have had access to strategic personalities and events from his youthful days, Professor Manuel Quiazon Yap is one of a few left in the country who has experienced firsthand national and international political dynamics either as participant or witness. When he says that we are now inside the eye of the storm, at the edge of our most precipitous political cliff, it is wise to listen and reflect on his insight.
For centuries, the Filipino has been unable to resolve layers of human contradictions ushered in by colonialism. A free and deeply spiritual people were thrust abruptly and violently into a situation they had not deserved – conquest by aliens with the most contrary customs and cultures. In seamless transitions, Filipinos were subjugated by Spaniards, Americans and Japanese which saw the horrible massacre of natives who were unwilling to lose their freedom and their traditions. Trauma after trauma forced a coping mechanism in the Filipino psyche that morphed from one perverted form to another – all for the need to survive.
Jose Rizal saw this phenomenon more than a century ago and described it sensitively in his Indolence Of The Filipino. He had dreamed of intervening, of perhaps reversing this ugly process of how natives are dehumanized by the greed and lust for power of nations. The colonization of the Filipino and the Philippines is a classic example of the exploitation of man by man, of nations by nations. The fact that the world had to undergo that phase of global history does not make our colonization less ugly, or less painful. Worse, the fact that we have forgotten so many critical aspects of our historical truth and cannot learn from them continues to haunt us mercilessly today.
As the culture of ages stretched and bent over to accommodate imposed foreign dictates, often in a bloody context, the Filipino did survive but is now lost in a maze of natural and forced influences that defy coherent description and understanding. The composite of what the Filipino is today is best encapsulated in the term “psychological disaster,” the most dominant feature of which is an inculcated predisposition to fight one another over any issue. The divide-and-rule culture of foreign masters, after 400 years of application or enforcement in Philippine society, succeeded in twisting the gracefulness of what was naturally evolved into a groveling, grasping and quarrelsome present day mutant.
It is, indeed, a blessing that glimpses of the past can be captured in many rural areas that have largely been left alone due to difficulty of access. Many Filipinos in those areas are much more friendly and honest, a miraculously lingering expression of what naturally was. But sadly, they are a dying breed whose demise is facilitated by the unstoppable march of technology, especially in the field of communications. It is not only new knowledge that is brought by tri and multimedia, it is also unwanted cultural indoctrination.
What is sad is that we are living in a nightmare which we think is par for the course, a norm we think is as natural as the light of day. The truism that we cannot live in the past should apply at all times, but a living nightmare IS living in the past. It is only when we awaken from it that we can begin to live in the present. We have to transcend the curse it has cast on us - the warped and perverted mindset that dictates our present collective behavior.
Our collective predisposition to fight and destroy one another has finally brought us to a logical consequence. We have arrived at a constricting quagmire that can only conclude in violent confrontation, maybe even a class war. The masses are not wanting in pain and anger, just the charisma of a leader whom they will follow. The cause is already there in the face of massive poverty and corruption. The alternative ideologies, however, that have been offered, the names and faces presented, have not excited or inspired a suffering majority enough to bring them to physical action.
As though our internal problems are not enough, as though our predisposition to fight and destroy one another is not enough, the motherland is additionally influenced towards more tension as America the superpower is challenged by China the superpower-to-be. In our region, it is the Philippines that will feel the most heat from an inevitable contest between two giants. Already, China through Chinoy or Chinese businessmen control the economy. The United States, on the other hand, continues to control our politics and our military.
Between a rock and a hard place is one way to describe our present position. Yet, most Filipinos do not even realize the global and regional dynamics that dictate on our national and international policies. A people and country so utterly dependent on the loans, investments and products of others are so weak that real and functional freedom and independence remain elusive. The desired self-reliance that is a people’s foundation for a strong nation still has to be built against all odds and the state of historical amnesia.
The only way to avoid a terrible process of self-destruction as a people and nation is to wake up from our stupor and learn the lessons that our colonial past has to offer. We have to understand the extent of our incapability to take care of ourselves and our shameful need to cling to everybody’s strength but our own. It is not to stoke resentment at all those brutalized our forefathers that the historical truth must be known and understood; rather, it is to teach us how to relate to those who have control of our destiny until they let go and allow us to evolve at our own pace, in our own way, and towards a tomorrow we will be proud to leave as legacy to the next generations.
Exploitation of man by man, of nation by nation – this is the nightmare that has visited us and, to a large extent, has influenced us so strongly to be the unsuspecting puppets that we are. We must awaken, sweep the cobwebs from our minds, reach deeply for a lost history, understand why we have become what we are, and build our tomorrow today.***
–

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

Anachronistic, Part II

By Antonio C. Abaya

In the first part of this essay, I had written that the ultimate reason why a Communist insurgency still lingers in the Philippines, decades after our neighbors had solved their Communist insurgencies, is the failure of one Philippine president after another, from Ferdinand Marcos to Gloria Arroyo, to create broad-based prosperity.

In the East and Southeast Asian context, this failure was caused by wrong choices in economic strategies and policies, most especially in exports and in tourism. Two other East and Southeast Asian countries share our failure: North Korea and Myanmar, both of which have followed autarkic economic policies – meaning they were not interested in importing or exporting anything. Both countries have also deliberately shunned the presence of foreigners, tourists and otherwise, out of a deep-seated xenophobia.

But in the case of the Philippines, our failures in exports and tourism were not the result of deliberate autarkic and xenophobic policies, but rather the result of poor, mediocre, myopic, unimaginative, even stupid, leadership at the very top, from Marcos to Arroyo.

Marcos is pilloried for having been corrupt and authoritarian. But all the other leaders in East and Southeast Asia in the 1970s were corrupt and authoritarian, with the possible exception of Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew, who was also authoritarian but was apparently incorruptible.

The greatest sin of Marcos, I told my audience at Camp Aguinaldo, was his failure to build an export-oriented economy for the Philippines, as the other Asian leaders had succeeded for their countries at that time.

The Communists and nationalists blame our poverty on the Americans, the Japanese, the IMF and the World Bank. But neither the Americans nor the Japanese, nor the IMF nor the World Bank exerted any pressure on us NOT to develop export industries or tourism. These were the sovereign choices of our leaders, and they have been proven spectacularly wrong.

I wrote in the first part of this essay that our failure in exports and tourism, compared to Malaysia’s success, cost us 12.3 million foregone jobs, one and a half times the number of Filipinos forced to work abroad because they could not find gainful employment in the Philippines, jobs that our domestic economy failed to create because of wrong and poor choices in economic policies and strategies.

The export of manufactured goods was the basis for the industrialization of our neighbors which enabled tens of millions of their citizens to rise from poverty to middle-class status. Broad-based prosperity, generated by exports of manufactured goods, dulled any interest in and appetite for Marxist-Leninist-Maoist revolution.

Aided in no small measure by successful efforts to slow down population growth. As I wrote in comparing Thailand and the Philippines, it is far easier to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide jobs for (Thailand’s) 65 million people than for (our) 89 million.

The growth of enterprises in their export-oriented economies mopped up their pools of unemployed and underemployed, thus raising wages and salaries without the crutch of a minimum wage law, as entrepreneurs bid higher and higher for the workers and employees that they needed

In the light of the current economic crisis ravaging the entire world, there is an upside to our failures. As millions of people in the developed and developing countries lose their jobs and/or reduce their family expenses, markets for everything – including foreign tourism and imported manufactures – will shrink in the next two to four years.

As the East and Southeast Asian country with the least developed export and tourism sectors, the Philippines will suffer the least from the global meltdown, not because of any astute defensive measures taken by our stupid leaders, but because we just happen to have accumulated the least crockery that can be broken as the financial tsunami sweeps through our neighborhood.. This is our consuelo de bobo.

The tsunami also means that, for the time being, exports and tourism will not generate the GDP needed to raise tens of millions of Filipinos from poverty to middle-class status, as they did in the 1970s, 80s and 90s in other Asian countries. It is the enduring tragedy of us Filipinos that, having missed the exports and tourism buses in the past, because of the myopia and stupidity of our leaders, we now see that there is no bus going anywhere anytime soon.

While the tsunami is raging worldwide, GDP has to generated largely in the domestic economy. This means domestic producers have to be encouraged to start and expand their enterprises, with the domestic market, by necessity, their target market. This also means that global trade has to be conducted on a fair or managed trade basis, not on a free trade basis, despite the hue and clamor against protectionism in the recently concluded APEC Summit in Lima, Peru..

Under free trade – embraced foolishly by Gloria Arroyo, even while she was still a senator – rich and developed economies will always have advantages over poor and developing ones. Rich and developed countries have the capital, the technology, the marketing connections to overwhelm poor and underdeveloped ones with their products.

Poor and developing countries will never manage to develop their economies – and generate the jobs they need to survive - if they are overwhelmed right from the start by the superior products of rich and developed ones.

Under fair and managed trade, poor countries should have the option of choosing which products they can import and from which countries, so as to protect their producers and their workers from being overwhelmed by floods of imports, under the rubric of reciprocity. Nations will have to come to mutual agreements that “we will buy your products a, b and c, but only if you will buy our products x, y and z, in more or less equal measures.”

This may be the direction that President-elect Obama is heading, after he promised the American electorate that he would create “five million jobs that cannot be outsourced.” My sense is that American producers and American jobs will be protected under an Obama administration, and rightly so. Copycat Filipinos should do no less.

President Arroyo is correct in proposing a P100 billion package to stimulate the Philippine economy through a crash public works program. The US has set aside a similar bailout package now totaling $1.5 trillion, China more than $530 billion, parts of both of which will go into public works spending.

This would be similar to the New Deal emergency employment program launched by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s to pull the US economy out of Depression. Which, for the information of McCain-Palin supporters who labeled Obama a “socialist”, was socialistic and against the tenets of laissez faire capitalism.

In the Philippine context, however, caveats have to be raised: how much of those P100 billion will really go into building infrastructure and generating jobs, how much will get attached to the sticky fingers of President Arroyo’s relatives and favored bureaucrats, and how much will go into bribing congressmen and women into passing ChaCha that will allow her to stay in power beyond 2010 as prime minister? *****

Anachronistic
By Antonio C. Abaya

The topic assigned to me was “Defeating the Communist insurgency.”

But I told my audience last Friday, Nov. 21, that talking about “defeating the Communist insurgency” was anachronistic because Communism itself has become anachronistic.

My audience was composed of military officers, local government officials, and representatives of various government agencies, taking a five-day seminar on national security at Camp Aguinaldo under the direction of the National Defense College of the Philippines.

Our neighbors in East and Southeast Asia had defeated their Communist insurgencies decades ago, by taking draconian measures against their insurgents: Malaysia and Singapore, by using their Internal Security Act (ISA), inherited from the British colonial government, which gave both governments the right to throw in jail, indefinitely and without trial, anyone suspected of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer; South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand – confrontational states vis-à-vis North Korea and Maoist China - by crushing the Communist movements in their territories during their periods of military rule in the 70s and 80s; Indonesia by a bloodbath against the Parti Komunis Indonesia which had tried to grab power by machine-gunning to death almost the entire military high command in Halim Air Base outside Jakarta in September 1965. Estimates vary from 300,000 to two million on the number of suspected Communists and Communist sympathizers summarily executed by the military in their counter-coup.

But to use such draconian measures now against our Communist insurgents would no longer be fashionable and would just make this country an international pariah, and would dry up investments and official development aid..

Even before the first decade of the 21st century, Communism has faded as a global threat, having imploded from the accumulated weight of its own failures.

In 1989, millions of East Europeans – Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, etc – literally walked out on their Communist regimes in a spontaneous, leaderless and largely bloodless (except in Romania) civil revolt, People Power in its purest form, that forced their Communist governments to resign.

In 1991, a similar civil revolt broke out in Moscow, primed by the glasnost and perestroika reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and inspired by the defiance of the Eastern Europeans. The 15-state Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was even outlawed, ironically in the very country where the first Communist revolution had triumphed, only to be restored months later.

Since 1979, Maoism as the definitive national ideology was slowly and systematically dismantled in China by the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping, who restored capitalism and the profit motive, a counter-revolutionary transformation which propelled China to the status of an economic super-power in less than 30 years.

Communism is dead. The only Communists left in Europe are two Filipinos: Jose Ma. Sison and Luis Jalandoni. And even Joma has admitted that the victory of Communism, once considered by its gibbering true believers as inevitable and imminent, would now take “hundreds of years.” (See my article ‘Hundreds of Years’ of Nov. 14, 2006, archived in www.tapatt.org.)

But why is there still a Communist insurgency in the Philippines?

Largely because of the failure of successive Philippine presidents, from Marcos to Arroyo, to build an export-oriented economy. And also due to the failure of these same presidents to conceptualize and articulate a Better Idea. Communism is an Idea. To defeat it, one must have a Better Idea.

In my article Why Are We Poor? of Dec. 14, 2004 and subsequent articles, all archived in www.tapatt.org, I listed down the economic missteps that successive Philippine governments committed in the past fifty years.

One. The passage of the Minimum Wage Law in the late 1950s, which discouraged American companies from locating their factories in the Philippines. They located them instead in Taiwan and Hong Kong because wages there were lower (believe it or not) than here and there was no statutory minimum wage.

Two. In the 1970s, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong (then a British colony) geared their economies towards the export of manufactured goods. The Philippines did not, content as we were with import substitution.

Three. In the 1980s, Malaysia, Thailand and Suharto’s Indonesia followed the original Four Asian Tigers above in gearing their economies towards the export of manufactured goods. The Philippines did not. What few export industries Marcos managed to set up were deliberately wrecked by the Communist KMU unions which staged strike after strike against them, until their owners got fed up and moved their factories to other countries.

When I started writing a column in 1987, I kept on hammering on the theme of export—oriented industries, but President Aquino and her group of allegedly 50 advisers ignored my counsel. It was President Ramos in 1992 onwards who seriously went into export industries., but by then it was too late: China was emerging as the dominant producer and exporter of manufactured goods. (FVR himself told me that he kept a file of my articles, which was confirmed by an American academic who was researching on the Philippine military.)

Four. President Ramos worked at cross purposes with his own export initiative by accepting the advice of Opus Dei economists Jess Estanislao and Bernie Vilegas, who pushed for an accelerated embrace of free trade and globalization, even ahead of fully developed South Korea and Taiwan. The resultant flood of imports drowned local producers, causing them to stop or reduce operations, forcing millions of Filipino workers to look for work overseas.

Five. In the 1990s, the Philippines failed to ride the tourism boom, just as we had failed to ride the export boom earlier. In 1991, Indonesia and the Philippines had exactly the same number of tourist arrivals :one million. In 2007, Indonesia had six million; we managed only three million. (Malaysia had 16 million, Thailand 13 million).

Six. The Philippines failed to manage its population growth. In the 1970s, Thailand and the Philippines had the same population size, 45 million. Because it had an active and successful population management program, Thailand’s population grew to only 65 million in 2007, while the Philippines’, which did not have one, grew to 89 million.

By any yardstick, it is easier to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide jobs for 65 million people than for 89 million.

Prosperity is about jobs. Let us not even talk about South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore because they are so far ahead of us, having embarked on the export of manufactured goods as far back as the 1970s. In 2006, South Korea’s exports totaled $326 billion, Taiwan’s $216 billion, Singapore’s $283.7 billion.

Let’s talk of Malaysia, whose exports in 2006 totaled $158.7 billion, compared to the Philippines’ $47.2 billion, or a difference of $111.5 billion. If we follow the rule of thumb that one billion dollars worth of exports create 100,000 manufacturing jobs, we can conclude that our failure in exports cost us about 11 million foregone jobs.

And consider also that in 2007, Malaysia attracted 16 million tourists, compared to our three million, or a difference of 13 million. If we follow the rule of thumb that one million tourists create 100,000 tourism-related jobs, we can conclude that our failure in tourism cost us another 1.3 million foregone jobs.

So our combined failures in exports and tourism cost us 12.3 million foregone jobs, one and a half times the number of Filipinos forced to work overseas because they could not find jobs here. It is the difference between prosperity and poverty and explains why a Communist insurgency continues to fester here, long after Communism became anachronistic. (To be concluded) *****

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

Who really got burned by the Senate coup?

AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR
By William M. Esposo

A good indicator on who got burned by the Senate coup is the STAR INBOX of November 24 about what readers felt about the ouster of Senator Manuel Villar as Senate President. Over 90% of the text messages — folks who pay to be heard — favored Senator Manuel Villar and were critical of the conspirators. Rarely does the STAR INBOX get such an overwhelming consensus.

Only the ignorant and the naïve would believe that the Senate coup last week that replaced Manuel Villar with staunch administration defender Juan Ponce Enrile was due to questions on the integrity of the deposed Senate President, as what the Cassius among the conspirators has been peddling.

Those who are wise to the ways of our traditional politicians know that the 2010 presidential elections — the fact that Villar’s star keeps shining bright despite the stabs in the back and up front that he has been getting — was what motivated the conspirators to install Juan Ponce Enrile as Senate President.

Immediately after the May 2007 senatorial elections, Senators Panfilo Lacson, Mar Roxas, Loren Legarda and Jamby Madrigal plotted like the envious cabal that assassinated Julius Caesar to oust Manny Villar as Senate President. Lacson, Roxas and Legarda being presidential wannabes, they felt that the Senate Presidency gives Manny Villar undue advantage.

In a way, they’re right. Being Senate President placed Villar as third in the line of presidential succession and that is added stature. It makes it easier to imagine Villar as president when the public mind has been conditioned to regard him as third in the line of presidential succession.
Had the conspirators succeeded then in placing Senator Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel as Senate President, there would have been less public outcry. The top Senate post would have remained in the hands of the Opposition — in keeping with the voters’ mandate to have an Opposition Senate majority.

In the recent coup that succeeded, had the conspirators placed Sen. Mar Roxas, the only one among them with the stature to sit as Senate President, the outcome would also have been less controversial. But it is unlikely that these conspirators would allow another presidential wannabe to replace Villar because that would bring them back to square one.

When the conspirators placed Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile as Senate President, despite strong signals that Charter change is on the move and Enrile’s pro-Charter change stance — that was when many Filipinos saw the conspirators in the worst possible light.

To many Filipinos, this act showed how the conspirators are willing to sacrifice national interest in order to serve their ambition. Not only that, this act showed terribly bad judgment on the part of the conspirators for them to think that they can manipulate Enrile to play their game. It is bad judgment just as it is narrow-minded and utterly stupid.

Do they think that they can offer Enrile more than what Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) gives to motivate him to push her political agenda? Do they really think that Enrile will value the Senate Presidency over what he and his wife had been getting from GMA?
Who among them will have the guts to face up to Enrile when he starts to throw his weight around and move things in accordance with the agenda of the administration? Just look at the committee distribution and how many chairmanships administration allies have gained.

The conspirators did not even figure out that even if Villar is no longer Senate President, he has already enjoyed the boost in stature from being third in the line of presidential succession. When the 2010 presidential campaign goes into full gear, Villar will still enjoy the stature that the Senate Presidency had already given him.

Envy, like blind rage, can really cloud a person’s judgment. The conspirators did not even think that the Senate Presidency restricted Villar’s political space for maneuvering. He could not take on issues that could further boost his presidential image for fear of upsetting the administration Senators who supported him. Now, thanks to the conspirators, Villar has all the political space to take on any position that enhances his 2010 prospects while still enjoying the image boost he got from being a former Senate President and House Speaker.

The narrow-minded conspirators overlooked all these. Because of the way they think, who in his right mind will feel confident electing any of these conspirators as president?

In the two recent SWS and Pulse Asia surveys on 2010 presidentiables, Manny Villar rose in ratings and practically tied Vice President Noli de Castro (who led by only 1%, a virtual tie when margin of error is factored).

The conspirators must have panicked when they saw that Villar even rose in ratings despite their ‘Road to Nowhere’ muck racking. The ‘Road to Nowhere’ demolition job on Villar happened in September — before the SWS and Pulse Asia October surveys.

In the SWS survey on Net Satisfaction Ratings of Top Public Officials (released to media on November 24) — Villar topped it with 43%, followed by Noli de Castro with 34%.

Parañaque Representative Ed Zialcita of Lakas told me at the Peninsula Hotel over a month ago that Villar already has over 100 congressmen committed to him in 2010. The Senate Presidency is the least factor that made them consider Villar a winner.

Villar has the popularity, a national party and the wherewithal to win the 2010 presidency. With so many factors going for him, does it surprise you that Filipino crabs — very green with envy — are trying desperately to demolish Manny Villar?
* * *
Chair Wrecker website: www.chairwrecker.com

Cha-cha: Train to Nowhere

PerryScope
by Perry Diaz

The recent coup that ousted Sen. Manny Villar from the presidency of the Senate and installed Juan Ponce Enrile — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s top political ally in the Senate — took a sudden turn of events when Gloria’s son, Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, made a preemptory move to get the Charter change (Cha-cha) moving again with a House Resolution to convene a Constituent Assembly. But to Gloria’s surprise, her followers in the Senate — including Enrile — balked at the idea of Cha-cha prior to 2010. She should know better that the Philippine Senate — just like Julius Caesar’s Roman Senate two millennia ago — doesn’t pander to dictators.

Emotions have been running high in the days following the Senate coup. Gloria’s son, Congressman Mikey Arroyo, was in flurry getting signatures from members of the House of Representatives to support constitutional amendment through a constituent assembly (Con-Ass) which is authored by Congressman Luis Villafuerte, KAMPI President and a close ally of Gloria. Within a few days, Mikey has gathered the signatures of 163 out of the 238 members of the Lower House. At first Mikey denied leading the signature drive but eventually he admitted it when several congressmen pointed their finger at him.

It is interesting to note that Mikey and his younger brother, Congressman Diosdado “Dato” Arroyo, were perceived as their mom’s “enforcers” in the Lower House. They’re known by their colleagues as the real “Speakers” of the House. And who would dare buck the First Sons? Their mom holds the key to the congressmen’s pork barrel funds. She’s the goose that lays the golden eggs. One of the rules in politics is the Golden Rule — he or she who has the gold rules.

To pass a constitutional amendment through Con-Ass, a three-fourth majority vote is required of both chambers of Congress. However, there are conflicting interpretations of what constitutes “three-fourth majority vote.” Is it three-fourths of the combined membership of the House of Representatives (238) and the Senate (24) or three-fourths of each chamber voting separately?

If the Senate succumbed to the “tyranny” of the House, then it’s a done deal: a Con-Ass will move forward, unhindered, to amend the constitution any which way the House leadership wants. However, if the majority of the senators would reject the notion of a combined three-fourth majority vote of both chambers, then the proponents of Con-Ass would have go to the Supreme Court for an interpretation of the constitution.

Given the current make-up of the Supreme Court — with at least nine of the 15 justices perceived to be pro-Gloria — the House Con-Ass resolution would prevail; thus, relegating the Senate to an inutile polyp-like adjunct of the House. However, should the High Court uphold the independence of the Senate making it a co-equal to the House, Gloria could wait until next year when at least seven Supreme Court justices are retiring. At that time, she will have a grand opportunity to stack the High Court with political hacks. And by that time, Gloria would wield near-absolute dictatorial powers — swift and bloodless.

But that scenario is predicated on what the Senate would do today. If the Senate would abdicate its role as ‘fiscalizer” of the Executive Branch, then all is lost — Gloria will reign beyond 2010 and could propagate her family dynasty for many generations to come. Remember, Gloria is already the second president in the Macapagal bloodline.

The question is: will the people accept another dictatorial rule, almost a quarter-century after the Marcos dictatorship was dismantled by the People Power Revolution of 1986? Ironically, the newly installed Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile — an ardent loyalist of Gloria — was the one who led the 1986 revolution. Now that Enrile is the Senate President, he is caught between his loyalty to Gloria and his sworn duty to protect the sanctity and independence of the Senate.

Enrile’s initial reaction — broadcasted over DwIZ — to the House Con-Ass resolution was: “I will tell you I will resist any effort on the part of anybody to make the Senate inutile as a junk of the House of Representatives. For me, whether it is term extension or no term extension, it is almost an impossible dream to bring about any constitutional change at this time.” He said that “almost all of the 23 sitting senators were against it.”

However, it is anticipated that Gloria’s henchmen are going to put a lot of pressure on Enrile. Would he be able to resist them? It’s interesting to note that in November 2006, Enrile filed Senate Resolution 580 calling for a Con-Ass in the Senate to counter a House Resolution that would leave the Senate completely out of a Con-Ass. Enrile said at that time that the Senate and the House should vote separately.

It remains to be seen if Enrile would sacrifice his principle for political convenience and… survival. But he is a survivor many times over and at this time — in the golden years of his life — he might just pull one more attempt to challenge a formidable and entrenched political machine. Can he unify and marshal the forces of the Senate to dig in and — in the words of Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. — “man Tirad Pass again”?

But it is the ominous words of rookie Senator Francis Pangilinan that have drawn the attention of many people: “If they think the people will eat any garbage they offer, they are wrong. This will spark an uprising against the Arroyo government.” And he warned, “they should never underestimate the awesome power of the disenchanted people, who have had enough of bankrupt leadership and governance.” Indeed, the biggest threat to Gloria is when her “Enchanted Kingdom” turns into a “Disenchanted Kingdom.”

It is sad that amidst the economic turbulence that is besieging the country today, Gloria’s unquenchable thirst for power and wealth continues to take its toll on the people. And if there is one lesson Gloria has to learn: history tends to repeat itself when certain conditions begin to happen. Déjà vu.

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

Rebel without a clue

Rage
By Patricia Evangelista
Philippine Daily Inquirer

THIS is the story of one Raymond Manalo, farmer, who disappeared on Feb. 14, 2006 with his older brother from their farm in San Ildefonso, Bulacan. Manalo was neither activist nor rebel when he disappeared. He escaped more than two years later. He says there are many, many more like him.

* * *

They put you in a cage four feet by one foot small, the height of an average man. There are hollow blocks to the side and iron grills in front. You sit with three other men, crouched in a line. There is no other way to fit.

Your brother is in the same cell. The door opens, more of them come in. More of them like you—beaten, bruised, helpless. They are put inside the next cell. This time there are two men and a married couple. The woman has burns all over her body. She was raped, they tell you. She was raped and beaten until she soiled herself. They say she has gone mad. They take her away.

This is where you shit, where you piss, where you wash if you still care. You do not feel the wind; you do not see the sun. Your food comes rarely, and what comes is rotten, leftover pig feed. Three men arrive, from Nueva Ecija. They are tortured. One of them has both arms broken. Bleeding.

Sometimes, when the soldiers are drinking, they take you out of your cage and play with you. The game varies, but it is usually the same. Two by fours, chains, an open gardening hose shoved down your nose. You crawl back to your cage, on your hands and knees. You wake up to screaming, to the sound of grown men begging, and you wonder which one it is this time. Sometimes, one of your cellmates will disappear. Sometimes, they don’t come back.

Then they take you away, and there is a doctor, pills, antibiotics, a bed. They tell you they are taking you home to see your parents. You meet the man they call The Butcher, and he tells you to tell your parents not to join the rallies, to stay away from human rights groups, that they would ruin your life and your brother’s. He tells you, this small man in shorts, that if you can only prove you’re on his side now, he would let you and your brother live. He gives you a box of vitamins, and tells you that they are expensive: P35 per pill.

They put a chain around your waist. The military surround your farm. Your mother opens the front door crying, and hugs you. You tell them what you were told to say. You hand them the money Palparan told you to give. Then you are told you must go.

Always, you keep thinking of escape. You make yourself useful, to make them trust you. You cook. You wash cars. You clean. You shop. No task is too menial. And one day, while you sweep the floor, you see a young woman, chained to the foot of a bed. Her name is Sherlyn Cadapan, she tells you, Sports Science, University of the Philippines Diliman, the same Sherlyn who disappeared from Hagonoy, Bulacan on June 26, 2006. She says she has been raped.

Later, you meet Karen Empeño, also from UP, and Manuel Merino, the farmer who rushed to save the two girls when they were abducted. Karen and Sherlyn are in charge of washing the soldiers’ clothes, you and Manuel and your brother Reynaldo wash the car and carry water and cook.

The five of you are taken from camp to camp. You see the soldiers stealing from villagers. You see them bringing in blindfolded captives. You see them digging graves. You see them burning bodies, pouring gasoline as the fire rose. You see them shoot old men sitting on carabaos and see them push bodies into ravines. And in April 2007, you hear a woman begging, and when you are ordered to fix dinner, you see Sherlyn, lying naked on a chair that had fallen on the floor, both wrists and one tied leg propped up.

You see them hit her with wooden planks, see her electrocuted, beaten, half-drowned. You see them amuse themselves with her body, poke sticks into her vagina, shove a water hose into her nose and mouth. And you see the soldiers wives’ watch. You hear the soldiers forcing Sherlyn to admit who it was with plans to “write a letter.” You hear her admit, after intense torture, that it was Karen’s idea. And you see Karen, dragged out of her cell, tied at the wrists and ankles, stripped of her clothing, then beaten, water-tortured, and burned with cigarettes and raped with pieces of wood. And it is you who are ordered to wash their clothes the next day, and who finds blood in their panties.

And you are there, on the night they take away Manuel Merino, when you hear an old man moaning, a gunshot and the red light of a sudden fire.

* * *

The day Raymond Manalo and his brother Reynaldo escaped was the day he promised himself they would pay, all of them who tortured Karen and Sherlyn, who killed so many, who tortured him and his brother until they begged and pleaded. They were pigs, he says, those men were pigs. If he escaped, they told him, and if they couldn’t find him, they would massacre his family. And if they do not answer to the courts here, they will answer to God.

They can still kill him, he says. But even if they do, it is too late. He’s told his story.