Only GMA will mourn the elder Ampatuan’s death

December 07, 2009 22:06:00

Ramon Tulfo

Philippine Daily Inquirer

NO MATTER WHAT PRESIDENT Gloria does on Maguindanao, like declaring martial law in the province supposedly to go after the Ampatuan clan, the fact remains that she was the one who made monsters out of them.

She’s like the fictional Dr. Frankenstein who destroyed the monster that he created.

The President armed the Ampatuans with sophisticated weapons, complete with ammunition from the Department of National Defense.

She allowed them to form a 1,000-strong private army.

Either upon her direct orders or with her tolerance, policemen and Army soldiers were assigned to act as squad leaders or platoon sergeants of the 1,000 militiamen or as bodyguards to the Ampatuans.

* * *

Now, she had to declare martial law to disband a private army that she allowed to be formed.

Her national police chief, Jesus Verzosa, had to relieve the entire police force of Maguindanao and replace it with a contingent from Metro Manila because the cops in the province were on the payroll of the Ampatuans.

The President is having difficulty undoing her years of playing footsies with the Ampatuans.

* * *

It has been a long-standing practice by Malacañang and Camp Crame to assign only Muslim officers to Muslim provinces, to the exclusion of non-Muslim officers.

That should be stopped.

The reason the Ampatuans held sway over the entire Maguindanao police force that was recently relieved is that the officers were mostly Muslims.

What’s wrong with assigning non-Muslim police officers to Muslim provinces?

Are Malacañang and Camp Crame afraid of displeasing the local officials in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)?

* * *

Time and again, this column has urged the government to assign Muslim soldiers and policemen in other places outside the ARMM.

The so-called integrees (former Moro rebels absorbed by the Armed Forces), especially, should be kept away from Muslim areas.

Muslim soldiers are torn between their loyalty to their comrades, on one hand, and their relatives or fellow Muslims, on the other, whenever fighting erupts in the South.

In many instances, Muslim soldiers shot their own non-Muslim comrades or superior officers in the thick of the fight with Moro rebels.

Muslim enlisted personnel and officers should be assigned to non-Muslim areas because they fight better outside their home grounds.

* * *

Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. is protesting his transfer to a military hospital inside a camp from the Davao Doctors Hospital.

The elder Ampatuan was confined at the private hospital after he complained of chest pains following his arrest.

Nag-aarte lang yan (He’s just acting). He’s just pretending to be sick.

Did he get sick when he learned about the murder of 57 unarmed and innocent civilians, some of whom were raped before they were butchered?

If the old Ampatuan dies pretending to be sick, that’s just too bad.

Only President Gloria will probably mourn his death.

Why Martial Law?

by Antonio C. Abaya
from Standard Today

Malacanang’s reaction to the Nov. 23 massacre in Maguindanao was at first slow and non-confrontational towards members of the Ampatuan political dynasty, who seem to have been the principal suspects for the grisly crime.

Presidential spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo’s statement that “I don’t think the President’s friendship with the Ampatuans will be severed…Just because they are in this situation doesn’t mean we will turn our backs on them…” (Nov. 27, Inquirer) sounded like she was assuring the Ampatuan political clan of President Arroyo’s undying loyalty to them, whatever their guilt or innocence may be in this multiple murder (57 dead) incident.

But public outrage, both here and abroad, has compelled Malacanang to change its softly-softly approach to the Ampatuans.

Gilbert Teodoro, presidential candidate and chairman of the PaLaKa ruling coalition, expelled the most high-ranking Ampatuans from the party, although it can be argued that PaLaKa needs the Ampatuans more than the Ampatuans need PaLaKa.

President Arroyo gave Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, whose office has jurisdiction over the Philippine National Police (PNP), authority to exercise administrative control over the entire Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with powers to suspend or replace local government officials, as well as military and police officers, found implicated in the massacre. (Nov. 28, Inquirer).

Acting Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales told the Inquirer (Dec. 1) that martial law need not be imposed in Maguindanao as government efforts to maintain the peace in the province were sufficient. “As of now, I think that whatever the government is doing is really effective….let’s see how the situation develops…”

But in the Manila Standard Today of the same date, Gonzales seems to be talking from another corner of his mouth: “We are open to all options, including martial law, for as long as these are within the ambit of the 1987 Constitution. We really need to take more drastic steps to really get the perpetrators of the massacre behind bars….I know some people have a negative perception of martial law, , but it will be more horrible if the masterminds of the massacre are able to get away because they are using our democratic processes and we did not do anything when our Constitution provides for an option….”

Armed with testimonies from witnesses, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the PNP, asked the Department of Justice to file multiple murder cases (25, so far) against Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. and four other members of his clan, as well as other officials of the local government. (Dec. 02, Inquirer).

While Ampatuan Jr is thrown into a detention cell of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Manila, the clan patriarch, Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., and seven other members of his clan are indicted for their participation in the massacre, while 1,092 members of local police units are put under investigation. (Dec. 03, Inquirer).

A huge cache of arms is unearthed in an empty lot a few hundred meters from the Ampatuan mansion in Sharif Aguak town, capital of Maguindanao Province. Some of the weapons are said to bear the markings “Department of National Defense Arsenal”, which means they are government-issue weapons. (Dec. 05, Inquirer). Fully armed troops and police have also descended on the various mansions of the Ampatuans in search of more weapons and other incriminating evidence.

Assuming these arms were not planted as evidence against the Ampatuans, it can only mean that whoever possessed (and buried) these weapons had acquired them illegally. This is not surprising. About three or four years ago, a European journalist who had the temerity to snoop around these dangerous places told me that one of his findings was that Philippine military personnel were selling their weapons to outlaws and private armies

At about the same time that these weapons caches were discovered, President Arroyo imposed martial law on Maguindanao Province, apparently without informing her point man in the field, DILG Secretary Puno, for the stated purpose of “arresting the Ampatuans.”. “I don’t know about that, unless they have done something that I don’t know,” said Puno, referring to the declaration of martial law. (Dec 05, Inquirer).

But as the above sequence of events shows, the government, acting through DILG Sec. Puno, has already done much of that. The suspected mastermind, Andal Ampatuan Jr. has been held in the NBI detention cell in Manila since Dec 01, together with four of his relatives. They have been, or are about to be, charged with 25 (so far) counts of murder. Without recourse to martial law.

The clan patriarch, Andal Ampatuan Sr., governor of the province, and seven other clan members have been indicted for complicity in the massacre, and 1,092 members of the local police are under investigation for possible involvement in the multiple murders.
Without recourse to martial law.

And all this was accomplished by Puno under his authority as civilian administrator of the province under emergency rule, without recourse to martial law. So why martial law at all?

Martial law seems to be the joint idea of President Arroyo and Acting Defense Secretary Gonzales. Which rings alarm bells all over the place. It was Gonzales, as National Security Adviser, who proposed on at least two public occasions in the past eight months
the formation of a “transition revolutionary government” that will take over the reins of government, with the knowledge and consent of key sectors of society, including the Churches, the military and police, the business community, civil society, etc, with the active presence and participation of President Arroyo.

With such a transition revolutionary government in place, President Arroyo would remain in power beyond her presidential term, which ends on June 30, 2010. In other words, No-El, or no elections in 2010. Gonzales also envisaged that under this transition revolutionary government, Congress would push through Charter Change to shift to parliamentary, thus paving the way for Gloria Arroyo to become Prime Minister for Life. Gloria Forever!

Would this devilish plot succeed? That remains to be seen.. Under the 1987 Constitution, the president can impose martial law in case of invasion or rebellion, but for only 60 days, and it has to be approved by a joint session of Congress. While the PaLaKa coalition controls the political prostitutes in the Lower House, the Senate, which includes several presidential and vice-presidential contenders, would vigorously object to it.

But, of course, any president who declares martial law is not likely to pay any attention to these constitutional niceties. He or she would go for broke and assume dictatorial powers, and to hell with the Senate and all who object to martial law.

Except that the Great Black Father in Washington DC would likely squash the Gonzales Plan right from the start. It is significant that US Ambassador Kristie Kenney has issued a statement the other day that the US government would closely monitor martial law in Maguindanao and that the 2010 elections should take place as scheduled.

The last time the US government issued a stern warning about these elections was last July when CIA Director Leon Panetta made a sudden flying visit to Manila to put his foot down on Oplan August Moon, under which PMA Class of 1978 was supposedly going to stage a military coup on August 06, to keep President Arroyo – an honorary member of Class ‘78 – in power beyond June 30, 2010.

President Arroyo’s visit to the White House, originally scheduled to take place “end of 2009″ was suddenly moved up to end of July, almost certainly also to warn her not to proceed with Oplan August Moon. There is no reason to believe that official Washington has become more benign towards her since.

So why martial law at this time and under these constraints, when there is clearly no rebellion and no invasion? Senator Rodolfo Biazon suspects that martial law is a way out for the Ampatuans. By charging them with rebellion, the Arroyo government gives them – her former political allies – wiggle room to wiggle out of multiple murders, which is legally absorbed by the higher crime of rebellion.

They can thus be acquitted of rebellion, which clearly does not and did not exist. Proof: the Ampatuans never raised the flag of rebellion, did not attack any offices of the provincial or national government, did not declare an independent state, did not foment street demos against the government in Manila. They are merely feudal warlords out to protect their turf against interlopers like the Mangudadatus.

Senator Nene Pimentel raised the possibility that martial was declared to enable the Arroyos to retrieve incriminating ballot boxes, possibly hidden in the Ampatuan mansions, from the 2004 and 2007 elections, which would prove massive cheating for her and her party in Maguindanao by the Ampatuans who have acquired notoriety as vote wholesalers. Maybe they will find Lintang Bedol’s head in one of the ballot boxes.

Whatever the real reason for its declaration, the case for martial law is inherently weak. The Supreme Court will likely rule against it. By now President Arroyo must be wishing she had not imposed it. *****

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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Gloria in excelsis Arroyo

Balitang Kutsero
By Perry Diaz

Before filing her certificate of candidacy for congresswoman of Pampanga’s second district, Prez Gloria Arroyo attended a special mass at the St. Augustine Church in Lubao, Pampanga which was concelebrated by 22 priests. During the homily, Fr. Roland Moraleja said that the people in Pampanga need the leadership of Arroyo. He likened Gloria to Jesus Christ who “went down to serve” the people. It sounded like the “second coming” of Jesus Christ… or is it the Anti-Christ?

Is Gloria the Anti-Christ? If you count the number of letters in the names of Gloria and her husband Miguel Arroyo, it’s “666” — the mark of the Anti-Christ or the Devil.

When Gloria took her communion, my investigative reporter James Macaquecquec, who was near Gloria, overheard her whisper to the priest, “Thank you father, when I win I’ll make sure that the “Jueteng Lord” will increase your jueteng payola.” Kurakot!

James told me that word is out that a new processional hymn has been composed which will be sung in masses at St. Augustine. The new hymn is titled, “Gloria in excelsis Arroyo” (Glory to Arroyo in the highest).

James also said that Gloria’s son Congressman Mikey Arroyo, who’s not running for reelection to make way for his “dear mama,” will be placed in charge of church collections and quarry fee collections. Not bad for the new “Godfather” of Pampanga. Wasn’t he the reputed “Lion King” as well? Sounds like a kid in a hurry. Pretty soon he’ll be “El Presidentito” (The Little President).

Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda, wife of the reputed “Jueteng King” and “kumadre” of Gloria, is running again for governor of Pampanga, and her son – “anak ng jueteng” (son of jueteng) — is running for reelection as mayor of Lubao, the “Jueteng Capital.” It’s all in the family, folks.

Nanay Baby, who was defeated by Gov. Fr. “Among Ed” Panlilio in 2007, thought that Among Ed wasn’t going to run for reelection. But to her surprise, Among Ed filed his candidacy for governor at the last minute. This is going to be an interesting rematch — Among Ed believes that the good Lord will be with him while Nanay Baby says that the Lord of Jueteng is behind her. Folks, it’s going to be “power of prayer” against “power of money.” Like someone once said, “prayer can move mountains” but Nanay Baby thinks that her money can buy mountains. Stay tuned, folks.

Former prez Fidel V. Ramos said that Gloria diminishes the stature of the presidency by running for a local office. But didn’t Gloria already diminish the presidency when she grabbed power from Erap?

Many people believe that Gloria is running for Congress because she has set her eyes on the speakership of the House of Representatives. Well, she’s going to have competition because Imelda Marcos is running for Congress to represent her late husband’s district. Although Imelda has no Ilocano blood, Ilocanos see her as an “Ilocano by injection” and that’s good enough for them. Ngarud!

The 2010 presidential election is going to be a “labo-labo” (free-for-all) among the 99“wannabes, maybes, and nobodies.” I counted five “wannabes” — Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar, Erap Estrada, Gibo Teodoro, and Dick Gordon. The “maybes and nobodies” include spoilers and nuisance (“salimpusa”) candidates. Unfortunately, there will only be one winner and 98 who will be cheated.

Villar will do whatever it takes to win the presidency. With more than P7 billion in his war chest, Villar recently compared himself to US President Barack Obama. He said that he would be better than Obama in governing the country. Well, he’d better be better than Obama, otherwise the Pinoys are in for the greatest recession in Philippine history.

Villar said that “the next president should start working from Day One, not merely “learning the ropes” because the government is expecting a budget deficit of more than P300 billion by 2010.” It seems like Villar may have copied Hillary Clinton’s “Day One” line. But Clinton lost to the “inexperienced” Obama. Likewise, Villar could also lose to the “inexperienced” Noynoy Aquino.

Among the “wannabes,” Noynoy leads with a stunning 44% approval rating. Meanwhile, his cousin Gibo Teodoro is struggling with an anemic 2% approval rating. I’m not sure how Gibo is going to catch up with his cousin… unless La Gloria helps him with a call to her “friends” in Maguindanao like what she did in 2004 and 2007.

And at the last minute, Dick Gordon decided to run for prez with Bayani Fernando as his vice presidential running mate. The call themselves the “transformers.” Dick said that he and Bayani are going to transform the country. Yep, they’re going to transform the country from the“disenchanted kingdom” of Gloria into the “make-believe world” of Flash Gordon.

When presidential wannabe Bro. Eddie Villanueva was asked what he’d do in his first 100 days in office, he said that he “would immediately issue a presidential proclamation thanking God for allowing a ‘miracle’ to happen.” Well, that would take care of the first day. How about the next 99 days? He calls his ticket, “Dream Team.” Yep, it’s been proven that miracles do happen in dreams. Keep dreaming, Bro. Eddie.

Ex-convict Mark Jimenez — who is running for president — wasn’t dreaming when he said that he “would unify and come up with an agenda to make the Philippines a better place to live in.” Well, any country is a better place to live in than a US federal penitentiary.

“Presidential candidates reject law against political dynasties,” says a news report. That just shows that the presidential candidates themselves belong to political dynasties. Watch out for Manny Pacquiao cuz this is one guy who would create the biggest political dynasty in history. Manny is running for a congressional seat in Sarangani province. Well, there is a second “Manny Pacquiao” who is running for Vice Mayor of Cebu City. Rumor has it that Manny II is a clone of Manny I.

(PerryDiaz@gmail.com)

GMA’s utterly self demeaning act

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

When my good friend Conrad de Quiros likened Madame Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) mouthpiece Serge Remonde to a Palace “Court Jester” – your Chair Wrecker immediately sent Conrad a text message expressing our personal approval. Every time yours truly sees Remonde on an ANC commercial utter (in reference to GMA) that “She does not stifle dissent” – Conrad’s characterization immediately comes to mind.

GMA does not stifle dissent, Remonde says. Under GMA, the Philippines had become the worst place in the world for journalists, even surpassing war-torn Iraq and our martial law track record. GMA does not stifle dissent, Remonde says. And yet, UN Human Rights Investigator Philip Alston pinned the murders of unarmed activists here on the GMA regime.

GMA does not stifle dissent, Remonde says. No wonder he was heckled and pelted during the Mendiola rally staged by journalists and activists last Monday over the Maguindanao massacre where 30 journalists were killed.

Another Palace mouthpiece, Lorelei Fajardo, has long been competing with Serge Remonde for the ‘who best puts foot in mouth’ award. With regards the state of GMA’s relationship with the Ampatuans after the Maguindanao massacre, Fajardo was quoted: “I don’t think the President’s friendship with the Ampatuans will be severed. Just because they’re in this situation doesn’t mean we will turn our backs on them.”

Huh? Hello? Is Fajardo working for GMA or against GMA? Did she not foresee the damage that her statement adds to GMA’s woes after the international condemnation which the Maguindanao massacre has generated? Did Fajardo not realize that her statement leads to the conclusion that GMA favors her relationship with the alleged beastly murderers over the outrage of every decent person to seek justice for the victims of the Maguindanao massacre?

Did Fajardo not observe that GMA’s own political party, the now crippled Lakas Kampi CMD, had expelled the Ampatuans even before the murder charges can be formalized for fear of the backlash that the incident could inflict on the already floundering Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro presidential candidacy?

Some folks might say that underlings like Remonde and Fajardo could be the result of Divine or Karmic forces now working against GMA. It does seem like an act of madness to appoint mouthpieces like these – like putting a stick of dynamite with a lighted short fuse in your mouth.

It is noted that the mark of great leaders and good managers is the ability to appoint people who are better than them. The weak leaders and insecure managers will tend to appoint people who are grossly inferior to them.

Other than the insecurity and lack of good leadership traits, we can also cite lack of class and good taste on the part of GMA for inflicting such appointees as Remonde and Fajardo. Other than the appointments of people like Remonde and Fajardo, GMA’s lack of class and good taste are reflected in her decision to run for a Congressional seat in Pampanga.

Many tend to focus on the legal issue to GMA’s running for a Congressional seat in 2010 after occupying the presidency for nine years. They overlooked that what may be legal could be demeaning, shameful and inappropriate.

Hey! It is perfectly legal to move your bowels. But will you do that in your host’s dining room after having been treated to a superb repast? Although it is legal, out of good taste and a sense of class and breeding – you simply won’t do that.

No self-respecting Chief Executive of a presidential system will run for a Congressional seat after occupying the highest position in the land. That is because you would want to be remembered in history for the highest position of public office that you once held – regardless if many people think that you merely stole it.

In a parliamentary form of government, you must be a Member of Parliament (MP) in order to be elected as Prime Minister (PM) and so it is normal for a Prime Minister to slide down to being an MP and aspire to occupy the PM post again when the political wind changes.

In a parliamentary system, sliding down to a lesser position is acceptable and practiced but in a presidential form of government – it is a self demeaning act which can only reflect a person’s lack of good taste, proper breeding and self respect. Even crooked past presidents did not do that.

To top it all, the possible political gain from such a demeaning act is unfathomable. If it is protection from prosecution that GMA seeks – a Congressional seat will not give her that. Being a Congressman only protects you from libel suits for what you utter while in the Halls of Congress but it is no armor of protection from other crimes committed.

If GMA is positioning for the post of Prime Minister in what she hopes will be a shift to a parliamentary form of government – that will never happen. Other than Gilbert Teodoro, who is committed to Charter change if elected 2010 president but is the least likely to be elected president, none of the leading 2010 presidential wannabes will allow their term to be abbreviated.

Chair Wrecker email and website: macesposo@ yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com

MUST READ: Gloria Forever!

by Antonio C. Abaya
from Standard Today

The following paragraphs are from my column of Sept. 22, 2009 titled Festung Gloria:

There is no truth to the rumor that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tells me in advance what she is going to do.

But I have a pretty good batting average when it comes to predicting what she will do.

After she promised on December 30, 2002, practically on the grave of Jose Rizal, that she would not run in the 2004 presidential elections, I wrote in my column of May 22, 2003 titled She Will Run, that she would. And she did.

Long before anyone thought of the possibility that President Gloria would use Charter Change to remain in power through a shift to the parliamentary system, I wrote in my column of May 17, 2005 titled Prime Minister Gloria? that she would. And she did.

In mid 2006, her then loyal ally, House Speaker Jose de Venecia launched two simultaneous operations to shift to parliamentary. One was a People’s Initiative, led by De Venecia factotum Raul Lambino and his Sigaw ng Bangaw to gather six million signatures endorsing a shift to parliamentary.

The other was a shameless attempt, led by JdV himself, to convene the Lower House into a constituent assembly, without the participation of the oppositionist Senate, to railroad a shift to parliamentary. Both attempts were shot down by the Supreme Court.

But how does President Gloria segue from president to prime minister? In my column of October 03, 2007, titled Dominatrix (referring to Gloria’s hold on the timid and mousy Romulo Neri), I wrote:

“A model (for GMA) may soon emerge in, of all places, Russia.

“Russian President Vladimir Putin was first elected in May 2000 from a field of ten candidates, with the support of the outgoing president, the late Boris Yeltsin. In March 2004, Putin was re-elected president with an astounding 71% of the votes. His presidential term ends in March 2008 and he is barred by the Russian Constitution from running for a third term.

“But – surprise! surprise! – he announced last Monday, Oct. 01, that he will run for a seat in the Russian parliament in the coming parliamentary elections on December 2, and that, as head of the ruling United Russia party, he had a `realistic’ chance of becoming prime minister……”

So as early as October 2007, I predicted that President Arroyo will follow the Putin Formula and run for a seat in Congress in May 2010 while she is still the sitting President.”

End of excerpts from my article Festung Gloria.

Now that President Arroyo has filed her certificate of candidacy for congresswoman of the second district of Pampanga, my predictions about her moves have come to pass with alarming – even to myself – accuracy.

Yes, there will be presidential elections in May 2010. No, she will not have her presidential term extended. But yes, she will run for – and win – a seat in Congress while she is the sitting president, like Vladimir Putin in Russia. But in practical terms how does she transit from president to prime minister?

There are two possible scenarios.

Scenario One. The elections in May 2010 will be the first ever computerized elections nationwide and there are just too many things that can go wrong. The more than 150,000 schoolteachers who will operate the system are totally unfamiliar with it. Many of them have never seen or operated a computer in their lives. Is there enough time to familiarize them with it? The system needs 80,000 technicians, one for each cluster of precincts. Do we have 80,000 computer technicians? The machines will not be ready until January 2010, at the earliest. Would there be enough time to train the 80,000 computer technicians in time for the May elections?

Many towns (and their voting precincts) do not have electricity or telephone connections. Even if the computerized counting machines were equipped with back-up batteries that will last supposedly for 18 hours, that may not be sufficient for remote communities that take hours to reach by foot, banca and/or carabao.

Keep in mind that there will be about 300 candidates’ names on the ballot. How long will it take each voter to go through such a long ballot? Is there enough time for 200 voters per precinct to go through 300 names, before the batteries go dead? This will not be like India where voters vote by party, and the parties’ easily recognizable symbols are what voters mark. Here voters choose individuals who most likely do not belong to the same party. Our electoral laws allow even our presidential and vice-presidential choices to come from different parties.

There are just too many things that can go wrong, or be made to go wrong, and likely will. That is Murphy’s Law, and it is in the Philippines, more than in any other country outside Black Africa and Haiti, where everything that can go wrong invariably does.

There is a strong possibility, therefore, that even if we do hold computerized elections in May 2010 and even if we assume good intentions on the part of the Comelec factotums and the schoolteachers, we would likely have chaos, real and/or manufactured, on May 10 that will result in a failure of elections.

This is especially true for the national offices at stake – president, vice-president, senator – because of the sheer volume of voters expected, 40+ million.. Even a ten percent failure rate would render the exercise a total failure that cannot be resolved by a back-up manual count because of the sheer number of voters and the geographical spread involved.

The situation is not so dire in the local offices at stake – congressman, governor, vice-governor, mayor, vice-mayor etc – in which a ten percent failure rate can be swiftly resolved by a back-up manual count, confined as it would be to small areas and their small local populations.

If because of even only a ten percent failure rate, there is no proclamation of a new president, a new vice-president, and 12 new senators by June 30, 2010, we will have no new government in place and we will have a constitutional crisis.

Section 7, Article VII of the Constitution says “Where no President and Vice-President shall have been chosen or shall have qualified, or where both shall have died or become permanently disabled, the President of the Senate or, in case of his inability, the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall act as President until a President or a Vice-President shall have been chosen and qualified.”.

In a failure of election scenario sketched above, there is no President or Vice-President proclaimed on June 30. There will also be no Senate President. The incumbent Senate President, Juan Ponce Enrile, is in office only up to June 30. He is running for re-election on May 10, but if there is failure of elections for national offices, no new Senate President will be chosen either because there will be no new Senate.

That leaves the Speaker of the House of Representatives as next in the line of succession, and I give you one guess as to who that Speaker is going to be. .

Scenario Two. If there is civil unrest and/or an insurrectionary situation before, during or immediately after the May 10 exercise, because of expectations of or the reality of failure of elections, then this would be a perfect justification for National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales’ transition revolutionary government to kick in.

On at least two public occasions, Gonzales floated this scenario in which a revolutionary government, with the approval and participation of key sectors of society – the Churches, the military, civil society, the business community etc – would take over the reins of government, with the active presence and participation of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and with the likely help of PMA Class of 1978, of which she is an honorary member.

Many Palace insiders, including Executive Secretary Eduardo Ertmita, feigned ignorance of and disdain for the Gonzales scenario. But the fact that President Arroyo appointed Gonzales acting defense secretary when Gilbert Teodoro resigned the post to run for the presidency, shows that Gloria implicitly approves of it. And why not?

Whether via Scenario One (constitutional) or Scenario Two (extra-constitutional), Gloria would remain in power beyond June 30, 2010. One of the first acts that House Speaker or Revolutionary President Gloria will predictably push will be to convene a constituent assembly (ConAss) – remember there will be no Senate in both scenarios – to shift to parliamentary so that she becomes Prime Minister, who holds that office as long as her party retains majority of seats in parliament.

In the Philippine context, that means she would likely be Prime Minister for Life. Gloria Forever!!! *****

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

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‘It’s like Rwanda’: UN expert on Maguindanao massacre

SOURCE: Ellen Tordesillas

by Romel Regalado Bagares

COTABATO CITY.–Peruvian forensic anthropologist Dr. Jose Pablo Baraybar didn’t like what he saw when he visited for the first time Sunday the massacre site in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town.

Take note of the backhoe with the marking 'Province of Maguindanao'

“It reminded me of something—it’s just like Rwanda,” said Dr. Baraybar after spending a few hours in the area in the company of Commission on Human Rights Chair Leila M. De Lima, British forensic investigator Chris Cobb Smith and lawyers from the Center for International Law (Centerlaw).

Baraybar said the “topography of the crime” in Ampatuan town is eerily similar to that he had found as a United Nations expert serving in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Barren hills, marked in places by an occasional clump of nipa huts, flanked a narrow dirt road that led to the scene of the carnage that claimed the lives of at least 57 people, including at least 29 journalists.

As he surveyed the area, Baraybar shook his head, remarking, “This is exactly the kind of topography that unfortunately provides an incentive for acts of impunity—its sheer remoteness keeps away public attention.”

In 1994, the genocide in Rwanda broke out and saw the systematic killing of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in less than 100 days by the Hutus. The East-Central African country, known as the “land of a thousand hills,” has an economy supported for the most part by subsistence agriculture.

The Peruvian expert and his British counterpart—both of whom also worked on the same cases for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia—are doing a preliminary assessment of what still needs to be done at the crime scene, following the evidence-gathering already accomplished by police and National Bureau of Investigation investigators.

Baraybar heads a team of forensic investigators and lawyers deputized by the CHR to conduct an independent parallel investigation on the Ampatuan massacre. He also directed the Office on Missing Persons and Forensics of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo.

The group flew from Manila to Cotabato City and then travelled in a convoy of cars to the site. After an hour they reached the capital town of Shariff Aguak. When they passed through the palatial houses of the Ampatuans which were situated near the provincial capitol, they saw Ampatuan supporters with banners and screaming at the convoy “We love the Ampatuans!,” “Stop Blaming the Ampatuans,” among others.

From the capital town, it took them only seven minutes to reach the town of Ampatuan where the massacre happened. From the Ampatuan town center, the group reached the village of Salman in just three minutes. In the village is a detachment camp reportedly manned by paramilitary and police auxiliary militiamen when the killings happened. It was at the said detachment where the Mangundadatu convoy was stopped allegedly by policemen and militiamen on November 23, 2009.

From the detachment, the group of Dr. Baraybay turned right on a dirt road and after travelling for five kilometres through undulating hills planted to corn, banana, and papaya, they reached the site of the massacre.

There are at least three dug up holes in the site where bodies and crampled cars were uncovered. Papers, shoes, car interior parts, eyeglass case, and bullet shells are scattered around the massacre site. Despite the application of lime strewn all over the site, members of the team still smelled decaying corpse.

Baraybar and Smith declared the need to conduct further forensic examination in the area, especially considering reports that there are still unaccounted persons who may have been on the site when the Mangundadatu convoy was stopped by armed men.

When the group went back to Cotabato City, they met with two police inspectors who briefed them about how the retrieval of bodies and evidence was conducted a day after the killings happened. The police inspectors recounted the position of the corpses and the bloodied condition of the cars when they arrived in the scene of the killings.

Baraybar first came to the country to lecture in an international conference on the investigation and prosecution of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture held in Davao last year under Centerlaw’s auspices.

(Romel Regalado Bagares is executive director of the Center for International Law, a member of the Southeast Asia Media Defense Network.)

Maguindanao Massacre: Cause and Effect

Theres The Rub
by Conrado de Quiros
from Philippine Daily Inquirer

I do not just mean that in the sense that the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao was an event everyone knew would happen. That it was just a matter of time, place, and scale of atrocity. I mean that in a larger sense. In the sense that there was something inevitable about it, given the signal, message, and example the national government had been sending all this time.

There are three of them. They bear directly on what happened in Maguindanao as cause does to effect.

The first is the theft of the vote in 2004. The coming to light of the “Hello, Garci” tape in particular, not least with its revelations of Virgilio Garcillano proposing the kidnapping of a public schoolteacher in Tawi-Tawi and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assenting by silence, sent forth a powerful message. Henceforth, the vote meant nothing. Henceforth, keeping power meant everything. Henceforth, doing everything in one’s power to win power and keep power, including stealing, kidnapping, and where necessary, killing, is perfectly acceptable.

The Ampatuans’ participation in the theft of the vote moreover guaranteed them impunity. It wasn’t just Garci who had made Arroyo win in Muslim Mindanao, it was the Ampatuans too. That Fernando Poe Jr. got zero votes in a place he was worshipped as hero was either a statistical impossibility or the product of fear so absolute no one dared signify otherwise. Either way, it encouraged the Ampatuans to up the ante on terror and violence, the two things the Arroyo and US governments pass themselves off as fighting.

Going further, Arroyo defended herself from threats of unseating by force. Specifically by investing in Hermogenes Esperon and Norberto Gonzales, and by threatening martial law then and threatening martial law now. Arguably it’s institutional violence and not bloodcurdling violence, but it’s violence nonetheless. Arguably it’s nothing like the biblical or Koranic smiting of enemies, but it’s a modern-day, efficiency-oriented, facsimile of it nonetheless.

The second is the killings of political activists. Arguably too, that was done over a period of time and a lot more invisibly. If Arroyo’s hordes hadn’t gotten carried away and made Jonas Burgos disappear for good, they themselves might have disappeared in the thicket of anonymity and public apathy. But for all that, it is far more bloodcurdling in a deeper sense. The quantity alone suggests so—more than tenfold the number of the Ampatuans’ victims. As to the quality, well, ask yourself who’s the more monstrous, Attila who swept over the countryside raping and pillaging, or Hitler who sent six million Jews up in smoke perfectly clinically.

The wholesale murder of political activists upped the ante even more on what was permissible under the new order of things. Such was the ease with which this could be done—not least because of the apathy that had settled on the minds of the populace, not unlike the dread that had taken hold of the hearts of the Maguindanaoans—the perpetrators no longer bothered hiding their hand.

Philip Alston did point to Jovito Palparan as the immediate culprit, while noting that he was merely carrying out a policy of the state. The military was just as quick to point to the New People’s Army as Andal Ampatuan to point to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after being caught pretty much in the act. If you were the Ampatuans, why should you think Arroyo has any right to prevent you from massacring your enemies? At least, praise the Lord, or Allah, you’re fanatically honest, or honestly fanatical, about it.

If the Ampatuans hadn’t gotten carried away, little caring whether they butchered partisan or journalist, who knows? For all its heinousness—done deliberately to dissuade the stoutest of challengers—the atrocity might have drawn routine condemnation but slipped into the night as just another one of those nasty things that happen down there, wreaked by Muslim and Christian alike, by Abus and warlords alike.

The third is a culture that rewards deviltry and punishes decency, which is the culture that underlies the culture of impunity itself. Why should the Ampatuans fear retribution, or imagine that Arroyo, who would not be there except for them—and who would no longer be there if they confessed to that earlier crime—would not protect them in their hour of need? Everyone who has done nasty things for Arroyo has seen his station in life improve.

Palparan, who carried out the execution of political activists with a zeal over and beyond the call of bloodlust, was promoted to general and thence to (party-list) congressman. Esperon, who betrayed his comrades-in-withdrawal-of-support and who thenceforth vowed death and destruction to Arroyo’s enemies, has seen his star blaze beyond the normal sheen of the cluster of stars on a general’s shoulder. Mike Defensor, Lito Atienza, and Avelino Razon, who helped kidnap Jun Lozada and cover it up, have gotten a joint venture with a Chinese company to mine nickel, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the post of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, respectively.

Arguably, the Ampatuans’ atrocity did not advance Arroyo’s cause, unlike the others’. And arguably what the Ampatuans did goes beyond “acceptable mayhem” even for an incontinently mayhem-filled place. But why shouldn’t they be allowed now and then to commit atrocity purely, simply and exclusively for themselves? Arroyo has. Why shouldn’t they be the epitome of warlordism, corrupting everything they touch, showing resolve of a scale, order and viciousness never known before, and plotting to rule forever by the threatened or real extinction of their enemies? Arroyo is.

Like I said, cause and effect.