Brion’s hand on Abad’s collar

By John Nery

Much has already been said about the incident involving Budget Secretary Butch Abad and a score of student protesters at the University of the Philippines the other week. Inquirer reporter Erika Sauler’s summary sentence, in a report she filed a few days after the incident, can serve as a helpful wrap-up: “As he exited the auditorium [and made his way] to his vehicle, a group of protesters from Stand UP (Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights in UP) ganged up on him, calling him a thief as they threw crumpled pieces of paper, placards and coins in his direction.” Other reports described one protester grabbing Abad by the collar.

Regardless of where one stands on the issue, whether the students were justified in their violent protest or not, the incident seems to me to demonstrate that words in fact have consequences in the real world.

When the Supreme Court released its decision finding parts of the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program unconstitutional, the following two paragraphs were immediately taken as justification for the anti-DAP position.

“Nonetheless, as Justice [Arturo] Brion has pointed out during the deliberations, the doctrine of operative fact does not always apply, and is not always the consequence of every declaration of constitutional invalidity. It can be invoked only in situations where the nullification of the effects of what used to be a valid law would result in inequity and injustice; but where no such result would ensue, the general rule that an unconstitutional law is totally ineffective should apply.

“In that context, as Justice Brion has clarified, the doctrine of operative fact can apply only to the PAPs that can no longer be undone, and whose beneficiaries relied in good faith on the validity of the DAP, but cannot apply to the authors, proponents and implementors of the DAP, unless there are concrete findings of good faith in their favor by the proper tribunals determining their criminal, civil, administrative and other liabilities.”

In other words, President Aquino, Abad and other officials were deemed guilty until proven innocent (or possessing good faith). I think there is a straight line from this extraordinary inversion, from Justice Brion’s hand, to Abad’s collar.

the anti-binay show

it’s interesting, no, intriguing, that we are seeing quite a parade of witnesses who worked with/for the veep back when he was makati mayor now testifying against him in the senate probe.  i wonder how much that’s costing whom.  what ex-deals, trade-offs, quid pro quos, are being transacted behind the scenes.  surely the binays are hurting, but is the veep going to blink and give up his 2016 run for the presidency?  hmm, sana, lalo na’t type pala niya i-chacha ang economic provisions ng constitution, and who knows what else, argh.   samantala, high na high naman ang tatlong senador na matatayog rin ang ambisyon, wheeee, nagbabaliktaran na!  i suppose they think this is winning them pogi points, i mean, votes for whatever whenever, but really it is also evoking reactions like, eh pare-pareho lang naman sila, nakakainis, nagmamalinis!  pro-chacha rin kaya?  i may not see it in my lifetime, but i’m hoping that when next the pinoy public is made to watch a spectacle like this ay tunay nang malinis at kapita-pitagan ang senadong naghuhusga.

free publicity?

lynda jumilla guesting the gatchalian brothers, anong point of giving them free publicity… replay pa nang replay.  emerging dynasty justifying their wealth and politics.  o baka naman hindi free, at binebentahan talaga tayo, tatakbo siguro ang isa sa senado sa 2016, with ANC‘s blessings?  nakaka-offend, when so much else is going on na dapat pinag-uusapan nang maayos para nagkakalinawan kung ano ba ang tama at ano ba ang mali.  hindi yung palakasan lang ng boses, o palakasan sa palasyo.

writing in a “climate of fear”

Speech delivered by National Artist Nick Joaquin at the Philippine PEN Conference, July 1983.

Let me show you fear in a handful of dust—or rather of press releases.

A PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) member took a handful of press releases to the newspaper offices. The press releases were about this conference we’re having today. But one look at the press releases and the editors froze. They had read the title of this conference.

Another look and the editors shuddered. They had read the list of speakers at this conference: names like professor Gonzales and Senator Diokno and Letty Magsanoc.

Needless to say, it was hard work distributing those press releases. They had generated fear in the offices of the principal newspapers of this country.

But why should such a fear be strongest and most prevalent among those who are, so to put it, on the side of the angels? Those on the opposite side, you would think, have more reasons to be afraid.

But it’s the oppositionists who display a most enjoyable recklessness. Ah, but even if they do not share that fear, they too must live in the climate of fear created by those who have to be oh so careful about what they write and what they publish.

Nervous is the word

This is the climate being created today by the press in the Philippines—not the press of the opposition but the conformist press. The conforming press is so powerful it should be fearless—and yet it doesn’t even sound comfortable.

Nervous would be the word for the principal newspapers today. They’re nervous about what they print and they’re nervous about what they don’t print. They’re nervous about what their columnists may say and they’re nervous about what their columnists don’t say.

And this general nervousness communicates itself to you when you try to visit any of the big newspaper offices: It’s like trying to break into an armed camp.

Now the so-called creative writer may ask what had he got to do with the conditions under which the newspaper writer must perform.

But if it’s the press that creates the cultural climate today, and that climate is one of fear, then even the creative writer, however independent he may think himself to be, is actually also suffering from the conditions that make the newspaper writer so nervous.

Neither safe nor free

The proposition that literature is automatically free, because written in the light of eternity, while journalism is necessarily enslaved to the concerns of the moment—that proposition is false. And even if not false, still indefensible.

No more than other republics can the Republic of Letters exist half-slave and half-free. While his brothers in journalism are in thrall, the creative writer is himself not whole, not safe and not free.