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.*