Sen. Leila de Lima would be safest at home

e don’t know all the facts yet but we are very familiar with that all-too-typical situation: a high profile detainee gets an unscheduled visit in her detention cell and the situation always ends with people getting carried away in body bags.

In this latest redux, VERY FORTUNATELY one of the body bags did not contain former Senator Leila de Lima.

According to the official PNP narrative, three inmates attempted to escape from the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame and along the way stabbed a jail officer whose companion responded by shooting two of the assailants dead.

The third one managed to run away TOWARDS the cell holding Senator de Lima and held her “hostage.” Still according to the PNP, there was an abbreviated “hostage negotiation” which was in danger of “escalating” so they just decided to take out the last inmate. It’s a good thing they didn’t “miss” and hit her instead!

Like I said, we don’t know all the facts. So all we can do, for now, is just ask questions. We don’t know if we will ever get any answers.

1. How can there be “inmates” in a “custodial center” which is a temporary holding tank only for DETAINEES? The persons kept in a custodial center are NOT prisoners, they have not been convicted. They are there because their cases involve unbailable offenses but their cases are still being tried in court. That’s why they cannot be transferred to the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa to be comingled with hardened and convicted criminals SERVING FINAL SENTENCES.

2. If these “inmates” were trying to escape from the facility, HOW LONG have they been there? This sounds much too like ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ where those escapees were driven desperate by their longing for freedom, doing time longer than they can bear. Leila de Lima, arrested in the prime of her life and watching that life going to waste one day at a time, must be despairing too. But she hasn’t tried to commit suicide. These three unsuccessful escapees must have been in there LONGER than de Lima, which means they must be facing even more serious offenses and being tried for even more sensational cases. But who are Feliciano Sulayaw, Arnel Cabintoy and Idang Susukan? How come we’ve never heard of them or read about their presumably more serious cases in the news?

3. After Cabintoy and Susukan were felled in the first volley of “return fire” and Sulayaw ran towards the cell of de Lima, he immediately held her “hostage.” How was he able to do that if de Lima was in her own cell? Was that cell OPEN the whole time? Was it “pre-opened” or did somebody escort him to the cell and open it for him?

4. If Senator de Lima cannot even be safe in a CUSTODIAL CENTER right in the heart of the PNP’s national headquarters, where else can she be safe?

Senator de Lima should be released now. They can go ahead and continue trying that useless case if they insist. But I don’t see any reason why she could not be held under HOUSE ARREST even if they deny her bail.

We cannot bend the rules for anyone you say?

They let Erap Estrada “languish” in a luxury resthouse in Batangas AFTER he was CONVICTED and before she was pardoned by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Gloria herself spent the ‘darkest’ years of her not-so-solitary confinenent in a grandly refurbished private suite at the V. Luna Medical Center.

Not bend the rules for anyone? Listen, they RELEASED Juan Ponce Enrile on an unbailable offense of PLUNDER whose victims are all of us just because he was too “old and feeble.”

Now the walking dinosaur is Chief Presidential Legal counsel and from the looks of it is probably strong enough to knock out Manny Pacquiao in a friendly sparring session.

Leila de Lima is facing conspiracy to commit drug trafficking—a victimless crime—where practically all witnesses have not only recanted their testimonies but REVERSED the substance of these testimonies. They did not just say Leila is innocent, they said her ACCUSERS are the ones who broke the law by procuring their testimonies under duress.

Just let her go home. She’s not a flight risk. Why would she leave the country? She’s a strong contender for any national position in any future election. She damn near landed in the top 12 last May, if she had only been allowed to go out and campaign and not forced to write her little notes on the backs of napkins and just any other tiny scrap of paper she could scrounge up.

We are such a pitiful society for watching all this happen and timidly acquiescing to LET it happen.*

Who pays for government junkets IS relevant

xecutive Secretary Lucas P. Bersamin was a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and that could be a problem for him and President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.

As ex-Chief Justice, Bersamin is used to the terse unwritten legal philosophy that “the law is what the Supreme Court says it is.” Speaking to the Malacanang Press Corps, he answered the question “who paid for the President’s trip to Singapore to watch the Formula One races?” by simply saying, “It’s not relevant.”

Boom. Next question.

It’s not that simple anymore, Sir Luke. In the Court of Public Opinion, oral argument is unlimited. Free citizens exercising their constitutional right to demand that their president OBEY the Constitution cannot be overruled. You can give a gag order on litigants but, unfortunately, doing the same thing to the public is a suppression they will fight vigorously.

And history is on the people’s side. They ALWAYS win.

I get this sense that it’s probably the reason why President Bongbong Marcos chose a retired chief justice for his executive secretary. Presumably, a lot of people—lawyers and lawmakers especially—would politely defer to the former top magistrate. This professional courtesy would be an effective armor against, at least, the “academic” sort of criticism of the president’s actions and pronouncements.

There is an analogy to this about the State being immune from suit. After all, there can be no right against the authority that enacted the law that gave you the right. I’d say 99% of the time, the State can do no wrong so you cannot sue it. Just loosely speaking, for all practical purposes, you can interchange “State” and “Government.”

This is how the expression was born, “You can’t fight City Hall.”

But as always, there are exceptions—principally when the State gives its consent to be sued. In many cases the Supreme Court itself has cited numerous instances when the State “descends to the level of the ordinary citizen,” as when the State sues the ordinary citizen. Then justice demands that the citizen be able to SUE back.

When Lucas Bersamin dismounted the lofty towers of the Temple of Justice at Padre Faura, to comingle with the rest of us children of a lesser god, he became like one of us: fallible, error-capable and compelled to accept that not every pitch you throw will be conceded as a strike.

Therefore, when EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Bersamin thumbs the nose of media and dismisses a relevant question, he must expect the pushback and learn another valuable lesson: that unlike protected witnesses testifying in court, public officials who do not answer important substantial inquiries will find the public answering those questions FOR THEM.*

The Lost Dream of a "Filipino Car"

 

s father did love to go to the races—HORSE RACES.   The most prestigious trophy in Philippine thoroughbred horse racing from 1972 to until about 1985 was the annual Presidential Gold Cup that used to be hosted by the Manila Jockey Club (MJC) and held at the San Lazaro Hippodrome in Santa Cruz, Manila. It's not there anymore, replaced by SM-Felix Huertas.

Marcos prided himself with levelling his country up there with rest of the world and so the Presidential Gold Cup" was touted to be the Philippine version of the classic Kentucky Derby. Organized especially by the Philippine Racing Commission (PHILRACOM) to suck up to President Ferdinand E. Marcos, it was rumored he even owned the first horse that won it, aptly named “Ilocos King.”

But President Bongbong Marcos, Jr.’s father never went to car races. He certainly never went to a Formula One circuit as a live spectator. Neither was he a car enthusiast. People find it unusual that for all the Fort Knox-ish wealth of the former dictator, he didn’t own any “super cars” the way Middle Eastern Arab sheiks filled their garages with Porsches, Ferraris, Bugattis and McLarens.

But he had lofty ambitions for the Philippine automotive industry—and most especially for himself USING the automotive industry. All throughout the 1970s, he pushed local dealerships who were then importing completely built units (CBU’s) to shift to importing completely “knocked-down parts” (KDP) instead.

The idea was to bring in unassembled components and then assemble them here in the Philippines—not necessarily according to their original design. So while there were only one or two new models for each carmaker, you could find 3 or 4 variants of them here in the Philippines. Most of the time, they were street legal only in the Philippines, too.

To give credit where it is due, though, the Philippines was the inventor of a new class of functional machines called “Asian Utility Vehicles” (AUV’s), a category that still survives to this day.

It was the Philippines that produced the legendary Ford Fiera that even Ford engineers in Detroit couldn’t recognize. Similarly, Japanese engineers couldn’t remember designing the “Toyota Tamaraw” but at P12,000 apiece for a brand-new unit, it was outselling the Ford Fiera which retailed for P14,000. This was around 1974. Isuzu designers were scratching their heads wondering who of them greenlighted that ugly boxy Isuzu KC-20.

All of these were martial law era “cars” designed by “Filipino ingenuity,” Marcos bragged. They were ugly but sturdy. They won’t win many races but they’ll run FOREVER and they did! You can still see many of them on the road today.

The truth is, they were products of the Filipino’s propensity to steal intellectual property and violate patents, with the tacit approval and support of Malacañan. Marcos wanted to achieve “highly-industrialized” status for the Philippines by any convenient shortcut. If the Philippines could produce the “first Filipino car” the following day, he would be most pleased.

In fact, a local assembler Domingo Guevara was decades ahead of him. Owner of DM Guevara Motors which was the Philippine distributor of Volkswagen, he got some gauge 12 flat metal sheets, cut and folded them this way and that, and came up with the first “Filipino” car called “Sakbayan”--supposedly short for “sasakyan ng bayan.” Then he produced a larger beefier pickup version called the “Trakbayan” which was short for—ah, you get the idea.

The “Sakbayan” and “Trakbayan” were modest successes—maybe even less—because Guevara tried to remain “chill” about them. He knew that, in the same “original” tradition of the Ford Fiera and Toyota Tamaraw his creations were less than original inventions.

In fact, he left clues all over the place. He was exclusive dealer of Vokswagen, which is German for “people’s car,” which is the English translation of “Sasakyan ng Bayan.”

So, in reality, the Sakbayan was just a boxy version of the lovable little rave car of the 70’s—Walt Disney’s “Herbie, the Love Bug”—with a rear-mounted air-cooled 1300 cc engine stolen from a Volkswagen Beetle.

The Trakbayan was just a half-hearted work of metal origami with (again) a rear-mounted air-cooled 1600 CC engine stolen from the Volkswagen Kombi.

The “bayan” suffix was, however, Guevara’s original coinage. Unfortunately, it resonated too much with Marcos’ ultranationalist “pang-masa” theme. Marcos used the suffix for all his programs: Palayan ng Bayan, Gulayan ng Bayan, Bigasan ng Bayan, Bangko ng Bayan, Pagamutan ng Bayan, ad nauseaum.

Marcos was excited about Sakbayan and Trakbayan—if only they could be the technological signature icons of martial law. It was his dream come true! And it made the news headlines—primarily because all newspapers were state controlled back then. But he wanted the glory for himself, not for it to go to Guevara.

So he sent his emissaries to Guevara offering to “buy” his company but when Domingo Guevara quoted a price he was told, “No, you don’t understand. We just want to buy your company but we don’t want to PAY for it!”

In other words, these men from the Palace rock garden were there to exemplify the flagship program of the martial law regime--"PEACE AND ORDER."

"Hey, the Apo wants a PIECE of that and he said that's an ORDER!"

Guevara was actually a member of the 1971 Constitutional Convention and was one of the seven delegates who voted against the draft 1973 Marcos Constitution.

Being one of the first non-crony industrialists who resisted the dictatorship, Guevara refused to part with his Sakbayan and Trakbayan projects. That’s when Volkswagen Philippines and all his other companies—the most stellar of which was Radiowealth, maker of Filipino-designed and built radio and television sets--started getting the “friendliest” treatment from the BIR, the Bureau of Customs, and other agencies that he had to deal with.

Long story short, now you understand why Volkswagen disappeared from the Philippine market. And also Radiowealth TV’s.

When President Bongbong Marcos Jr., was reported to have flown to Singapore to watch a Formula One race, he was roundly denounced for being insensitive to the suffering of Filipinos just recenty ravaged by calamity back home.

So now-resigned Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles lost no time explaining that Junior went to Singapore to woo investors to the Philippines.

At a car race?

Oh, no, I thought. We’re gonna build a “Filipino car” again!*

The Low-techie with Anger Management Skils

 

hopped around to 5 branches of 7-11 in downtown Baguio last Sunday that had a “CLICQ” machine—you know, that harmless-looking machine that allows you to do all your e-transactions: GCash, bill payments, internet, prepaid cellphone loads and such.

I was going to drive to Quezon City for a hearing the next morning, Monday, so I needed to load my Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tollcards.

Loading the AutoSweep RFID was a breeze. You just tap your account information onto the touchscreen that displays a menu-driven dialogue between you and the machine. The machine coughs up a small sales invoice on thermal paper which you bring up to the counter. The sales clerk scans the invoice into the cash register, you pay the load amount plus P13-pesos “convenience fee” and you get a receipt. You are now ready to charge your next toll fee to your RFID account.

The EasyTrip RFID was a different story. Trying to load it is a daunting challenge to your anger management skills.

The first error message told me my account was invalid. Someone please tell me how that is even possible. I’m holding the damn card in my hand, so I must have an account. If I have an account, it HAS to be valid. Because if it isn’t, then I DO NOT have an account, do I? Then what am I holding in my hand, an apparition?

“Maybe you should try the machine in our other branch, sir,” the girl at the cash register suggested.

“Why, is it smarter?”

“I don’t know about these machines’ I.Q. levels, sir. It’s just that some machines seem to work better than others.”

“Why can’t I just bang this machine a few times, you know, shake it up a little bit, that works with my laptop!” I counter-suggested.

“I think it has a bomb inside that will go off if you tilt the machine, sir,” said the cheerful comely petite little miss with freckles. I thought she mustn’t be Filipino, maybe Fil-Am. Filipino girls don’t have freckles—they have pimples or acne.

So off I went to try CLICQ machine number 2, it’s in the 7-11 branch right across the hospital. I repeated the encoding procedure and this time I get an error message that said “selected option is invalid.”

I selected “bill payments” then clicked on the logo of EasyTrip. The darn machine even asked for my contact number and how much I wanted to load (“cannot include centavos” the machine warned). So I typed “1000” and clicked “NEXT.” It coughed up the thermal paper invoice. There were only TWO OPTIONS in the last screen menu: “NEXT” and “BACK.” How can anybody get THAT wrong?

The clerk scanned the invoice and asked me if I followed the procedure on the machine. I said, “Listen, I follow the Rules of Court. It’s a small book about two inches thick with over 138 Rules and 500 sections, so yeah I’m pretty sure I followed those two little sentences right. Is there any problem?”

“Maybe you should try the machine at our other branch, sir,” said the tall lanky fellow behind the cash register. This one had real pimples.

“That’s what they told me in your Session Road branch, they thought you might have a smarter machine here!” I said.

“It’s really not our fault, sir. I think the EasyTrip system is still down. People have been acting like YOU since yesterday,” Mr. Congeniality said.

Aha! Validation! So I wasn’t the only one acting like a moron. I tried to explain, “I really need to get to my hearing tomorrow and according to the news there are no more ‘CASH’ lanes in TPLEX, SCTEX and NLEX tollgates!”

“That’s what everybody’s been saying since yesterday too, sir. Did you people talk to each other to coordinate what to say?” the boy said with a grin.

“Never mind, I’ll try another branch,” I surrendered.

“We have over 500 branches nationwide--”

“Aw, shut up,” I interrupted, “I have GPS, I can find all your branches anywhere in the country if I can just get through the tollgate.”

“Right, sir. Good luck then!”

Luck didn’t help. Five branches yielded the same result and it was getting late, so I went home.

The following day, I slowed down as I approached the Toll Exchange at SCTEX (I breezed through TPLEX with my trouble-free AutoSweep).

There WAS still a cash lane, three of them in fact, and there was a long line of vehicles behind each lane stretching back at least fifteen cars.

But there were “RFID” lanes too—and they were empty!

I thought, “I DO have an RFID card, I’ve used it before, I just don’t know how much its remaining balance was and I did try to reload, but hey It’s not my fault the EasyTrip system was down!”

So I drove into the scanning bay, there was another young lady in the booth with real freckles. This thing must be an evolutionary development, or the latest cosmetic fakery.

As expected, the scanner rejected my card and a small screen display beside the toll booth said “BALANCE: -254”

“I’m sorry sir, but you don’t seem to have any remaining balance in your card. In fact, it says here your balance is—”

“I know! I know, I can see it. How can I have a NEGATIVE balance? Isn’t this thing supposed to stop at ZERO?? What are you, the stock market?” I exclaimed.

“What it means, sir, is you really just have SIX PESOS in your balance, but since you’re supposed to keep a maintaining balance of P300 on your card, the computer thinks you owe us P254-pesos,” the girl nicely explained.

“Tell your computer he doesn’t know a thing about legal accounting. The ‘maintaining balance’ is money belonging to the account holder, not you. I DON’T owe you P254, you just can’t let me through this toll gate cause I didn’t deposit more, or at least enough to pay for my toll fare,” I said.

“Why didn’t you do that then, sir, deposit more?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do for two days! But YOUR system is down..” I said flabbergasted.

“Oooohh… kaya pala mahaba ang pila namin sa CASH,” she slowly realized, “anyway, sir, you can just pay cash for now and I’ll let you through.”

I paid P311 and she let me through, I beat around a hundred cars queued at the TRUE cash lanes.

Modern technology is awesome, but being pushy even though you're a “techno-bobo” works even faster.*

How the world treats Marcos is how it they will treat the Philippines

saw those two photos posted side-by-side on Facebook, showing Cory Aquino addressing a jampacked joint session of the US Congress--and beside it the forlorn-looking image of President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. addressing a near-empty hall of the UN General Assembly.

No caption is necessary, the message is clear: pro-Cory quarters are proud to say their icon was more popular than the son of the reviled dictator she ousted in 1986.

I agree, and I didn’t even need to see those two photographs to think so. The unseen subtext to those two photographs, of course, is that Bongbong Marcos is not a worthy leader--the sparse audience being a reflection of the unflattering world opinion about him, notwithstanding the fact that 31 million Filipinos elected him their president.

I agree with that, too, but I’ll discuss that later.

First, the two side-by-side images. There is no fair comparison between them. Cory was invited by the Americans to address a joint session of the US Congress, so there had to be 100% attendance, it being obligatory on their part as hosts.

Not only that, but both chambers of the US Congress, the House and the Senate, combined and sat together in the Session Hall normally occupied only by the House.

Unlike our largely-ornamental Senate composed of only 24 people, the US Senate is a real working body composed of 100 senators elected by state (so they have REAL constituents), and for that audience with Cory, these 100 people had to squeeze between 435 members of their House. It was going to be a jampacked hall, in any case.

The little caption in the meme said that Cory was, thus, the toast of world leaders.

No, those are not world leaders. Those are politicians representing only one country, the United States.

Cory Aquino was never invited by the UN.

Cory supposedly addressed the opening of the 41st session of the UN General Assembly, too, on September 26, 1986. I found a transcript of her speech that she "delivered" but I couldn't find any footage of her actually delivering it, which is really strange. Were these videos all taken down? I'm curious to see how "standing room only" the UN crowd must have been during her turn, because to my best recollection, Cory did not even attend a single session of any UN body. We had a permanent Philippine representative to the UN who went to all these events.

President Bongbong Marcos went to the UN General Assembly to attend its opening session ahead of the international celebration of UN month in October.

I don’t know why.

To be sure, he was NOT invited to deliver that special address, either. Special invitations to address the UN’s General Assembly are voted upon by a special committee and ratified in the open plenary. If the general membership itself had petitioned to hear from the Philippine president, that hall would be bursting at the seams and filled to the rafters, too, trust me.

Weeks before Cory delivered her speech to the US Congress, the build-up in anticipation of the historic moment was unprecedented. We counted down the hours to THE MOMENT and regaled ourselves during the long wait with endless senseless trivia—what would she wear, who would she mention, will she blow a kiss, will she deliver from memory or read a script (she did) etc.

Contrast that with this unheralded speech of President BBM to the UN body, we heard practically nothing by way of advancer.

Some bobo in Malacañan thought it would be a brilliant idea to gatecrash a UN General Assembly to deliver a sunny speech about the Philippines’ pandemic recovery efforts, which is neither unique nor remarkable, by any stretch. The whole world went through COVID-19. So, yeah--a speech about that nasty virus the whole mankind is fed up with would be a hit.

What were they thinking? That a UN speech would be a cost-free way to get world publicity? They have a lot to learn.

Addressing the UN General Assembly is NOT is not some kind of People’s Choice award. It is not a way to measure the approval rating of the person addressing the body. Attendance bears a direct corelation with the stakes that audience nations hold on the issue being deliberated.

That hall was jampacked when the representative of the Palestine Authority essayed the squalid conditions in the occupied West Bank, certainly not because UN members approved of the involvement of the terrorist Hamas faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization. There was growing concern that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is becoming as big a human rights issue as the terrorist attacks that spawned the Jewish state’s arab containment policy in the first place.

I have watched televised UN events for years. Sparsely-attended sessions and near-empty session halls are not uncommon. There have even been meetings of the UN Security Council with only one or two members present, especially during the Cold War.

In this case, having to face an “audience” of 150 empty chairs and only 35 occupied ones is no big deal.

President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. facing “only” THIRTY-FIVE other heads of state is certainly not worthy of a toast, popularity-wise. But at least he WAS facing WORLD LEADERS (plural) few as they were—unlike Cory who only spoke to the Americans representing ONE country.

Mainstream media, acting juvenile, took shallow pleasure at mocking the sparse attendance, missing a golden opportunity to do their real job: WHO were these 35 heads of state who STAYED and LISTENED to Bongbong Marcos?

Nobody took note.

In fact, among the 35 were all representatives of the ASEAN plus Venezuela, Nigeria, Libya, Iran, Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

None of the countries from the European Union were present. That probably explains the uninspired coverage by media—none of the “glamorous states” were around, you know, your France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, or your North American marquee stars US and Canada.

But never mind the Europeans. The Philippines never belonged to that league.

Why not take a look at the unglamorous 35—especially the ones I named—what is common among these countries? They are are all OIL-EXPORTING COUNTRIES.

Members of the OPEC wanted to listen to the Philippine President. Why? What do these strategic oil-exporting countries know that WE do not know or are simply taking for granted?

I will certainly put in the manhours needed to ponder that question but the point is we all could have gotten a good headstart if only we were not focused on just deriving pleasure from pointing out how unpopular our president is internationally.

Of course he is unpopular. He is a Marcos. To me and to the international community that is just par for the course.

What is concerning is that while WE think we are on the same page as the rest of the world about Marcos, we evidently are NOT, after all.

Many who despise the new president doubt if those “31 million” votes were “organic” or the mere result of a clever manipulation of virtual election returns. So there is that lingering “Not My President” sentiment, a defiant declaration that BBM does not truly embody the Filipino people, or even honestly represent the Philippine government. We’re telling the world the guy is NOT the Philippines, and vice versa.

Well, guess what—the international community is not splitting any hairs about it. If you have really read their statements, they are not criticizing Bongbong Marcos for getting elected, they are criticizing all of us, the FILIPINO PEOPLE for electing him! So when they boycotted his speech, they were not boycotting HIM, they were boycotting the Philippines whose citizens they don’t particularly hold in the highest esteem.

And for a moment there you thought these mature international observers were our dearest friends. At the end of the day, the governments of nations do NOT really care about the peoples of nations, only with their governments whom they take to represent their people—whether that is true or not.

THAT is what representative democracy is all about. In other words, whether we like it or not, how the international community will treat our president is exactly how they will treat the rest of us AS A PEOPLE. Do NOT expect any difference. That BBM does not represent ALL of us—only some of us are still saying that and those of us who do are the only ones who still believe it. The rest of the world either do not believe it, or do not care. It is what it is.

And why should that be any surprise to anyone? When I think of Joe Biden, I think of him as representing ALL Americans, those who love him as well as those who don’t. I thought the same way of Donald Trump. I also thought, “how could America, home of some of the greatest intellectuals, ever ALLOW someone like Donald Trump to rise to become their NATIONAL LEADER?”

Thence, I considered Donald Trump the president of every Democrat who did not do enough to prevent the outcome that bedevilled them.

The same thing is true of President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. He was voted President in an election we all participated in and to which results we swore to be bound by.

I don’t care about the circumstances under which those “31 million” voted—in ignorance, in denial, under fraudulent solicitation, on bribery and other considerations—the fact remains our electoral system COUNTED their votes.

I’ve never conceded that the computerized election results were correct because we never saw the SOURCE CODE of the software program that totalled those votes. The problem is, no matter how shrilly I and countless others shouted “Check the source code! Check the source code!” the people in the Leni-Kiko camp did not even seem to know WHAT a source code was.

An examination of the source code HOLDS THE KEY to determining whether BBM really won or not. And the camps of Leni and Kiko are not without help available. They had computer experts with them—they MUST HAVE known.

But it is all on record for everyone to FACT-CHECK: despite the compelling and overwhelming mathematical and statistical improbability of a BBM win, Leni Robredo DID NOT FILE an election protest. She accepted the election results. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. is unequivocally Leni Robredo’s president, as he is mine. As he is yours, and he is everybody’s in the entire Philippines.

So watching the president receive so cold a reception from the international community should make every Filipino feel the shivers, too.

If you delighted over that, you are not a worthy Filipino and it makes no difference who you voted for president.*

Indulge in total freedom, otherwise 'the terrorists win!'

re you serious??” my friend Carlo asked.

“Totally!” I said. I was still in active professional journalism practice in 2001 when the boys of Osama Bin Laden crashed two jetliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Past the horrific grief and anger management that everybody went through that time, I realized one thing: the 4,000 or so victims who died in New York had PLANS—many wonderful plans for their lives they would now never realize. The terrorists brought all those plans to an abrupt stop—how dare they do that!

That’s what terrorism does to society: deprive every one of its victims the fulfillment of things they had studied for, worked hard for, saved up for, prepared for or simply hoped and aspired for in life. Then all of a sudden, in just one cruel moment of mass destruction, it’s game over for everybody.

At that time, I had been saving up money to buy my first DSLR. In fact, I had saved enough to buy one already but I always hesitated on the brink. Maybe I could use the money for something else? Is it a wise purchase?

Then I thought, suppose some wacko suddenly broke into the restaurant where I was having lunch, stripped off his jacket to reveal that he was wearing a vest of dynamites with the detonator in his trembling hands? I would never see that DSLR ever and all that working hard and saving up for it would be all for naught.

That afternoon, I bought a Nikon D90, blowing all my savings away. I still have the camera twenty years later and I lived every one of those 20 years photographing everything that moved or didn’t. My joy cannot be measured. In short, the terrorists did NOT win with me!

So go ahead, buy that expensive set of golf clubs. Otherwise, the terrorists win! Your wife wants you to buy her that 24-carat gold necklace, BUY IT, brother. Otherwise, the terrorists win. Skydiving lessons? Go for it!

There’s something liberating about this stupendous philosophy that I accidentally discovered. By and large, we live our whole lives “coloring inside the lines” and not doing anything irrational.

But try it. Do something that breaks all the boundaries of your reason and watch what happens. Let your hair down. Walk under the rain. Go up the escalator by getting on the side that goes down. Tell the guard, “Really?? No wonder it took me so long to get up here!”

Act juvenile. It’s fun, believe me.

I call it thumbing the nose of the terrorists—showing them that life in this civilized world of ours, even lived in the worst possible way, is still a million times more exciting that whatever cause they are fighting for. So they can blow themselves to smithereens all they want but so long as I’m beyond the effective destructive radius of the blast, I’m going to live my life AS A BLAST in my own free way.

I will celebrate life daily and thank God for my simplest joys, hallelujah!*

Would we remember Ninoy?

address the youth.

As soon as Ninoy stood up from his seat to be led off his flight that had just landed at the Manila International airport on August 21, 1983, he knew he was a dead man.

No way he was going to be allowed to live. He was too big a troublemaker. He was charismatic, sharp, articulate, witty, possessed of an encyclopedic grasp of Philippine political history and social issues—and he bubbled with an annoyingly irrepressible enthusiasm like the Energizer bunny that just goes on, and on, and on, and on…. Shove a microphone in his face and he can talk the wallpaper off the wall. All day long.

That’s not even his worst quality, as far as his political adversary is concerned. The worst thing about him is that he peddled hope and trafficked in optimism.

He saw the potential of Juan and Juana de la Cruz that Juan and Juana de la Cruz did not know. While some saw the Philippines’ prospects for growth and prosperity as a half-empty glass of water, and some saw it is as half-full, Ninoy would have gone, “Let’s have some more glasses! Where are the glasses! Bring out the glasses!”

The decade of the 80’s was a wobbly era of fitful change. The psychedelic 70’s are just out. Between the declaration of martial law in 1972 to Ninoy’s homecoming in 1983, the nation had just been through a decade of servile submission to autocratic rule. Depending on how far adrift you are from the center of the action, it might have even been benevolent at times—enough for some to reminisce them today in myopic terms as a kind of “golden age.”

But overall the nation was in decline. Poverty was on the rise, the pillaging of the national treasury so blatant, thorough and systematic. Official and private crony plunder was so rampant and pervasive that corruption was the new normal, and virtue became the new sedition.

The Philippines became the paradox of the richest country with the poorest masses. Stand in the middle of the posh financial district of Makati, and as you gaze from one street corner to the next you will realize you are standing on the patch of ground where the one percent of the population who control ninety-five percent of the nation’s wealth live and hold office. The space that divides the haves and the have-nots is a gaping chasm expanding wider everyday, with little hope of any change in direction.

The state of the populace was lethargic. Everyone saw what was wrong, everyone knew what could be done about it, but no one had the wherewithal and the strength left to do it. Cynicism led to defeatism and defeatism led to dynastic perpetuation. Eighty million Filipinos were acting monolithically like deer in headlights.

Oh, that someone would snap them out of it.

Someone DID come home to do just that.

Oh, but they snapped him out of it.

One bullet is all it took.

The millions of Filipinos who poured out into the streets in immeasurable outrage at the assassination of that man understood every strand of every fiber of every thread of that political issue. Nobody needed an explanation. Everybody understood what was going on so uniformly that they could mass together leaderless and yet still think, speak and act the same way as one wave of pure, unadulterated People Power never before seen, and never again perfectly replicated since.

I was a young man when Ninoy was assassinated four decades ago. I am an old man now, as old as those who were as young as me then.

I am too old and too tired to retell the story the umpteenth time. Like Forrest Gump would say, this is all I have to say about that: Ninoy died so that you would have freedom. If you don’t appreciate or even understand that, Ninoy died in vain. And you are still not free.

So don’t look to us who once understood it so well to explain it to you. Freedom and democracy were to be your inheritance from that tumultuous era of awakening, self-mobilization and freedom actualization which generation tried to hand over to succeeding generation—all the way down until it has gotten us this far, to touch YOUR generation.

You can speak freely today and have the liberty to mold your mind according to the virtue you choose, free from systemic supervention by the shackles of mind-slavery that the aftermath of Ninoy’s death dismantled.

Because of the enabling sacrifice that Ninoy made, many could now ignorantly criticize his legacy with the very voice of freedom that Ninoy bought with his life.

That freedom is your unearned inheritance, your lifetime insurance policy that never again would some glib-tongued demagogue control your mind while robbing you blind.

That inheritance from Ninoy, and the millions of us who followed him, is always yours for the taking.

If you don’t want it, that’s fine.*

Congress can resurrect ABS-CBN if it wants to

If this resolution filed last July 11, 2022 by Rep. Rodante Marcoleta is read in plenary session on First Reading on Monday--or anytime soon after--we would know for sure the trajectory of this latest move.

It's a RESOLUTION, meaning it will NEVER ripen into a LAW. That tells me this is NOT a new franchise application. A franchise application is a private bill, but its still a LAW--it has to be introduced as a House Bill.

But why introduce, let alone tackle, a Resolution regarding a FAILED House Bill that never became a law?

I'm sorry but here I have to talk legal gobbledygook--it cannot be helped.

The only explanation I could imagine is they're NOT regarding the rejection of the ABS-CBN franchise renewal as "finished business"--but one that the House really merely deferred to the next session "sine die" (as if done the "same day").

This Congress is no longer the 18th Congress because half of the senators--those who won last May 9--are not midterm electees. They won at the expiration of the president's full term. Their joining the remaining "senior" half of the Senate completes the replacement of all senators from the last full batch elected in 2016.

So this becomes the 19th Congress being entirely of a different composition--notwithstanding the comeback of familiar faces.

Since the non-renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise happened in the 18th congress--and this is now the 19th Congress--there would be a slight problem with this Congress revisiting its own action from its LAST session.

And "session" refers to its continuous convening--not referring to the daily roll call. That is to say, our Congress only holds ONE SESSION every year, although it is broken down into several adjournments from day to day, or even spanning long breaks like Lent, Christmas, etc.

But from the TECHNICAL point of view, the House CAN, in fact, reverse its non-renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise because in doing so they are NOT amending or repealing a law (it NEVER became a law, remember?) they are simply receiving new evidence in revived committee hearings--if they can just solve the challenge of correctly applying "sine die" continuance.

I can imagine them arguing that Congress is a body politic capable of self-succession--just like a private corporation whose directors come and go without the corporate identity being affected. I think that may even be the reason why the resolution was filed by Marcoleta--the same person who sponsored the committee report recommending non-renewal. It confuses me. If it confuses you too, then mission accomplished!

Did you get it?

Of course my assumption here is that the refiling of this resolution is fueled by newfound sympathy for the Lopezes--even though the average layman would think, "Joskoday, bakit ayaw nilang tantanan ang mga Lopez?"

Regardless how it looks like at first glance, this is a FRIENDLY move for the Lopezes.

If the motive is to heap more reprisal or sanction on the Lopezes, then the whole thing will fall flat on it face. There would be no basis for the House to give due course to this new resolution because the penalty for gross violation of the terms and conditions of a legislative franchise CANNOT GO BEYOND the revocation of that franchise. Any other liability arising from the violation would be either administrative (falling under the jurisdiction of the BIR or the SEC) or criminal (falling under the jurisdiction of the DOJ).

If Congress insists on exercising RESIDUAL jurisdiction over the supposedly "dead" ABS-CBN franchise, you have to learn how to read between the lines. They're saying, "Nope, we did NOT really REVOKE their franchise, we just haven't made up our minds FINALLY yet."

Believe me, that mind is easy to make up--if the price is right.*

Cory gave up power, a rare phenomenon

What are my thoughts as we observe Cory Aquino’s thirteenth death anniversary today, August 1?

At the height of the EDSA People Power fervor in 1986, Cory Aquino gripped the attention and held the support not only of millions of newly-awoke Filipinos but of the entire free world.

For a brief moment, as the tumultuous throngs of freedom-starved Filipinos put their trust in her hands, she literally became as totally powerful as the dictator she had ousted.

Suspending the moribund 1973 Constitution, which Ferdinand Marcos had mangled with numerous amendments to concentrate power in his hands, Cory quickly cobbled together a “Freedom Constitution” that would enable government to run on autopilot for at least a year.

From Batanes to Tawi-tawi, Cory replaced the entire grassroots political leadership across the whole archipelago—appointing Officer-in-charge (OIC) governors, mayors and Sanggunian councilors in every province, city and municipality in the entire Philippines.

She named a full Cabinet with a complement of fully-staffed regional offices, bureaus and agencies in every executive department. She revamped every branch of service in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and sent new ambassadors to all foreign consulates of the Philippines, including the United Nations and the Vatican.

She took control of the National Treasury and dispatched legal hounds to track down and recover all the ill-gotten wealth that was fleeing the country or finding shelter in dummy caches of cash and liquid assets hidden in the deepest bowels and recesses of the country’s banking and finance apparatus.

She did not enjoy strong support from government employees still largely loyal to Marcos—the only president they have ever worked for in the last twenty years. But Cory did not strip down the national civil service. She left it untouched.

The business, commercial and industrial sectors were four-square behind her, including many of the crony-owned industrial institutions who had made hay under the Marcos sunshine. Simply told, they knew that Cory represented a new era of honest capitalism--fitful and problem-plagued to be expected, but honest still.

To everybody, Cory was the national “reset button” and they were just willing to let her take a crack at re-launching our collective pursuit of the Filipino Dream.

If she wanted to—and everyone around her wanted her to want to—she could have made herself President-for-life. The economy had just improved so much that many sectors clamored for “sustainability.” They kept asking her, will she or won’t she run for a second term. Even the framers of the 1987 Constitution had left just a little bit of daylight to permit an interpretation that the single-term limit for President did not apply to her. It was all hers for the asking—would she run again?

Famously, Cory gave her answer to the tune of Nonoy Zuñiga’s famous ballad “I’ll never say goodbye” and sang to the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) her own retooled lyrics: “I’ll never run again…pang Snap-election lang ako!”

And thusly the legend was carved in granite: Cory Aquino who would have still been unbeatable in the 1992 election turned her back on active politics and resumed her austere life as the widow in yellow.

She did what no Marcos, then and now, could ever do—decline the opportunity to perpetuate herself in power. She oversaw the first successful peaceful transition of power in post-EDSA history.

She gracefully exited the national stage, making room for new voices, and giving generous limbering space for the slowly-strengthening muscle of Philippine democracy. Instead of growing moss permanently seated in power, Cory gave way to FIVE more democratically-elected, if questionably morally-qualified, popular presidents after herself.

Yet, up to the last minute, Cory was the consummate anti-trapo. All conventional wisdom expected her to anoint her closest ally, House Speaker Ramon “Monching” V. Mitra, Congressman of Palawan, as the official standard bearer of the party that had totally supported her throughout her administration: the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP).

For six years, Monching Mitra had pimped this political machine to Formula One invincibility. It would be a walkover for the candidate who held this party’s flag at the election—provided Cory gave her blessing. Mitra worked hard for that endorsement, he deserved it, the public expected it, the party demanded it.

Cory endorsed Fidel V. Ramos.

To a man, almost everyone said at the time that THAT was a colossal mistake.

Today, I have not heard anyone who said that was a mistake who has not recanted and said, instead, “that was a stroke of brilliance.”

This is who Cory Aquino was. If you were born after 1986 and you have an unflattering opinion of her, I don’t care how you got your education. You are ignorant.

If I hurt your feelings, I’m glad I did.*