andy agonizes, to resign or not to resign

now that the impeachment process has started rolling in the House despite the majority leader’ objections, and now that his fellow commissioners have publicly asked him to resign or take a leave so he can attend to his troubles with family, SALN, atbp., comelec chief andy bautista has to decide soon, and he says he will, in the next few days.

In a radio interview, Bautista admitted that he has reached a crossroad in his life where [he] is now weighing the interests of his family, the Comelec, democracy, and the 2016 elections.

clearly, family is not the primary consideration or he would have resigned already. so it must be the 2016 elections.  the grapevine has always alleged that it was rigged, that comelec and smartmatic connived to make LP win (mar, leni, the senate slate) except that in mar’s case, duterte was so far ahead, naging imposible nang talunin, which of course puts leni’s win, and our so-called democracy, into question, along with: how many votes did every one get ba talaga?

andy bautista has always denied it: no evidence or proof of cheating daw.  if that is so, then what is it about the comelec and democracy and 2016 that weighs on his mind more heavily than family?

can it be na totoo ang chismis, there was cheating?  which could mean that andy has been hoping that the beneficiaries of the cheating would could move heaven and earth to foil an impeachment attempt dahil sasabit din sila?  and / or maybe andy has been hoping to strike a deal with the duterte admin — leave me be and i will make sure you win the plebiscite on charter change and federalism?  is that too wild a thought?

alas for andy, an impeachment complaint was filed august 23 by former negros oriental rep jacinto paras and lawyer ferdinand topacio.

Apart from alleged misdeclaration in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, the complainants also cited as ground for the criminal liability of Bautista the hacking of the Comelec website that led to the leakage of voters’ database as found by the National Privacy Commission.

They accused him of culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust in the complaint, which was immediately endorsed by three representatives… Gwen Garcia of Cebu, Abraham Tolentino of Cavite and Harry Roque of Kabayan.

the very next day, august 24, the house of reps’ secretary-general transmitted the complaint to the office of the speaker who has 10 session days to refer it to the rules committee that has three session days to refer it to the justice committee that has sole jurisdiction over impeachment cases.    

majority leader rudy fariñas, however, is being difficult.  puro hearsay lang daw, absent the personal knowledge of the complainants.

Fariñas underscored the importance of the verification portion of an impeachment document, which states that complainants must have evidence of their “own personal knowledge and/or culled from authentic documents”.

also, kailangan daw munang tapusin ng House ang budget deliberations, which he says wlll be around mid-september pa.  hmmm.  back in the time of corona, fariñas was part of a minority that didn’t sign the impeachment complaint.  today, it is said that it is he, not speaker alvarez, who calls the shots in the House.  read manolo quezon’s A Congress of cats

Today, the point person in the House is Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, arguably one of the most powerful holders of that position in living memory. This is because Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, even in his previous stint as a representative, was never a major mover or shaker and, aside from his closeness to President Duterte, lacks a track record of leadership or camaraderie, or a party franchise and independent means to quickly assert personal dominance in the House (in contrast to his predecessors and successors who were active party men before they assumed the speakership, like Manuel Villar Jr. who compensated for his lack of political ties with an immense personal fortune and by taking over the Nacionalista Party franchise).

in the year 2000 it took just 11 days from the chavit exposé that tagged erap as a jueteng lord (oct 7) for the house of reps to file a motion to impeach (oct 18).  in less than a month (nov 13) senate prez manny villar, upon obtaining the minimum one-third (73 of 218) votes, declared erap impeached and ordered the complaint transmitted to the senate without delay.  trial started dec 7 and abruptlly ended jan 17 2001.

in 2011 it took just six days since the PNoy speech (dec 6) savaging chief justice renato corona (seated just two meters away) for being beholden to former prez gma and for his foiled attempt to allow her to leave the country against the new admin’s wishes.  dec 12 iloilo rep niel tupas of the justice committee presented an impeachment complaint that a few hours later was signed by 188 of 284 reps and transmitted at once to the senate.  the trial began jan 16, ended may 29  2012.

in 2017 it’s taken 16 days for tish’s exposé to elicit an impeachment complaint. despite fariñas.  quick enough, considering that so much else is going on.  feels like a confluence of events coming up, and then again maybe not, yet.  the only thing i’m sure of is that we’re being asked to multi-task, to be vigilant on multiple fronts.  it’s a test.

aguirre’s anti-drugs rhetoric

At the Senate hearing on Delos Santos’ death on Thursday, August 24, Aguirre asked human rights groups why they are not as vocal whenever drug addicts kill or rape victims, echoing his statements at a House budget hearing on Wednesday, August 23.

“Bakit ‘yung sa Bulacan, mayroong ni-rape na babae tapos may 3 minor, bakit ni isa walang dumalaw? Even one from human rights. [But] the (human rights) chairman went to the wake of Kian yesterday. So ‘yun po disproportionate; parang ‘di pantay. Anong diperensya ng pinatay na bata ng mga adik sa pinatay na bata ng mga pulis?” (What’s the difference between a child killed by an addict and a child killed by police?)

the justice secretary is being the president’s lawyer, of course, defending duterte’s drug war and the besieged police, muddying the waters without compunction, and distracting from the real issue at hand.  on social media, the ka-DDS (duterte diehard supporters) have picked it up, echoing and affirming aguirre’s question as the correct response to bleeding hearts crying for an end to the killings of kids such as kian.

isang taon na tayong stuck sa usaping ito.  read marvin bionat’s PH social media drowning in fallacies and incivility posted 31 aug 2016.  even then, nakakanerbiyos na ang takbo ng isip ng maraming pro-duterte.

… supporters of extrajudicial killings often post on social media their now ubiquitous question: “Where is the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) when innocent civilians are murdered, raped and robbed by drug addicts?” There is a straightforward answer to that question—that is, the CHR’s constitutional mandate is not fighting crime but fighting human rights abuses involving civil and political rights, so they have nothing to do with daily crimes and police work. It is like asking where the nurses and doctors are (not the fire department) to put out a raging fire. But the emotion-laden rhetorical question suits those who would rather not see the CHR meddle in the government’s war on drugs.  

read too fr. ranhillo aquino’s Fallacy as the new normal, posted 25 august 2017.  

When bishops decried Kian’s murder only recently, there almost immediately followed a flurry of regurgitated issues about clergy abuse of minors. There was also posed what, I can only presume, was meant to be rhetorical question: “Bakit hindi kayo nag-ingay nung may pinatay ag ginahasa ang mga adik?”  It is not the fallacies that alarm me, because they can occur even in the discourses of the learned—of course, at a very high, almost indiscernible, degree of subtlety.  But the fallacies on Facebook and other social media sites are blatant and arrant.  What makes me quake in my shoes though is that they are no longer recognized as fallacies and have in fact been accepted as the “rhetoric” of the age.  Fallacy is irrationality and to make it the mode of thinking is pathetic, tragic even.

…When a bishop cries out “This is murder” and you answer “Direct your priests first who molest children”, the fallacy should be clear.  The question is whether the deed is murder or not.  The molestation issue is quite another — which is not to say that it is not a legitimate issue.

AGUIRRE:  Anong diperensya ng pinatay na bata ng mga adik sa pinatay na bata ng mga pulis?

may tama si aguirre: walang pinag-iba ang batang pinatay ng adik sa batang pinatay ng pulis.  if we’re talking about the bata as victim, well, they’re both dead. if we’re talking about the killers, well, parepareho silang nawala sa sarili, yung adik under the inflluence of shabu, yung pulis under the influence of the president’s kill kill kill orders — i have your backs, say niya, and that must be so nakaka-high.

and, hey, they all deserve due process and rehab options, crazed addicts and trigger-happy cops alike.

shabu, semento, senado

i started writing, thinking on, this post yesterday soon after senator panfilo lacson, in aid daw of the blue ribbon committee’s hearings on shabu smuggling sa customs, delivered that privilege speech accusing ex customs chief nic faeldon and his oakwood gang of being on the take, big time.  kararating pa nga lang, may pasalubong na.

“Loud whispers in the four corners of the Bureau of Customs compound tell of a 100-million-peso ‘pasalubong’ to the newly-installed Commissioner, a quarter of which, or 25 million pesos was retained as finder’s fee by his middleman named Joel Teves.”

what, “loud whispers” lang?  no documents, no affidavits by witnesses, no hidden CCTV that prove/show that money illegally changed hands?  interesting.  a former top cop playing like bato’s cops: “shoot” now, explain later.  but not too surprising, given senator ping’s long colorful history.  twice he was the accused in very high-profile cases — the kuratong baleleng shoot-out / rub-out in 1995 and the bubby dacer – alex corbito murders in 2000.

lacson pleaded innocent in both cases and in due time each was dismissed. kuratong baleleng was more easily won.  dacer-corbito was not; ping had to run for it, just before he was charged in court; he was a fugitive for 15 months, there was an arrest order out for him, even the interpol was on the lookout.  umuwi lang siya after the supreme court dismissed the case, affirming the court of appeals’ earlier ruling that the principal witness was neither credible nor trustworthy.  same witness recanted his testimony sometime in 2015.

i’ve always believed that lacson is one very powerful man.  back in the days of erap, when he was PAOCTF chief, there was a lot of talk that he had dossiers on everyone, which inspired fear.  he could be truly innocent of the dacer-corbito murders but i have no doubt that he knows more about these murders than he has ever let on, and that’s like being complicit in protecting the guilty, isn’t it?

but to get back to yesterday when he lashed out at faeldon.  kahit pa sabihin, for the sake of argument, na guilty as charged si faeldon, nagulat ako at the viciousness of lacson’s attack.  guilty until proven innocent.  bakit siya galit na galit kay faeldon? pareho sila ni trillanes, actually.  what do they know about faeldon that makes them so mad at him (or vice versa), but which the president either does not mind or does not know?  is it for PMA’er’s ears only?

this morning faeldon struck back at lacson with a vengeance, wondering what lacson’s motive was for accusing soldiers whom lacson himself knows daw are innocent of corruption.  and then he went on to make kuwento about a cement importer by the name of panfilo lacson jr. whose small company has been bringing in shiploads of cement, tone-toneladang semento, na misdeclared, undervalued (at $8/metric ton) by some 50 percent of market price.  106M pesos worth of cement in 3 shipments over 3 days in july 2016.  nakaka-67 shipments na daw by now.  and like tish, faeldon has documents.

tanong ni faeldon: alam mo ba ito, senator lacson?  kasi kung hindi, kung hindi mo alam ang ginagawa ng anak mo sa customs, then wala kang alam tungkol sa customs.

sagot ni lacson: it’s a big big lie …  i am not my son’s keeper … faeldon’s $16 for cement is too high.

also the senator said that he would not have made yesterday’s exposé re faeldon if he himself were involved in customs corruption in any way.  and anyway why did it take faeldon so long to make sumbong?

hmm.  it is not beyond imagination that lacson made the exposé — even if he himself was not beyond reproach — out of hubris, over-confidence, thinking no one would dare mess with him, or that faeldon in particular would not dare challenge him.  just as it’s perfectly understandable that faeldon was in no hurry to tangle with the senator, as who would be? until he had his documents in order.  and if he is NOT on the take, then it makes sense that faeldon would hit back at the senator with everything he’s got just about now.

it’s not quite as hateful or scandalous as the shabu smuggling — after all, di naman illegal substance ang semento — but undervaluation in aid of paying less in taxes is technical smuggling, a crime that cheats government of millions, maybe billions, in revenue, and which is punishable with fines and imprisonment.

hindi bale sana kung dahil nakamura sa customs ay mas mura nilang ibinebenta ang semento sa mercado.  asa pa.

meanwhile, senate prez pimentel and senators drilon and aquino were quick to express support for their colleague.

PIMENTEL. “We have to make sure that this is not pang lihis lang ng isyu. And Faeldon should state everything he knows about everyone involved in suspicious activities in Customs and not only concentrate his return fire on the person who exposed the tara system in BOC.”

DRILON. “I have full faith in the uprightness of Sen. Lacson and his family. Without any evidence other than Faeldon’s allegation, I will oppose any investigation. It will be a waste of time and will simply be used as a venue for character assassination.”

AQUINO said he is confident Lacson could defend himself against the allegations of Faeldon that his son’s company is the “number one cement smuggler in the country.”

if not for faeldon, we wouldn’t now know that senator lacson’s son is a  customs player pala.  nakakapagpaisip, di ba?  sino pa kaya sa mga senador ang may anak, kapatid, pamangkin, pinsan, at / o inaanak na customs players din.  imposible naman na si lacson lang.  time to circle the wagons indeed.

 

duterte’s drug war & the “hearsay” divide

recently the president admitted na nagkamali siya when he promised to rid the country of shabu in six months, imposible daw pala, even in the next five years, it just cannot be done, he says, by a single president over just one term.

i thought it might mean a CHANGE in strategy, from killing killing killing alleged addicts and pushers without due process to finally policing customs and coastlines and preventing the smuggling of shabu and it’s component chemicals into the country.  but no.

He [said] having a long coastline to watch over and thousands of islands to guard make it difficult to prevent the entry of illegal drugs.

“We do not have the equipment, kulang man (It’s not enough). And you know the coastline,” he added.

he made us a new promise instead:

“I assure you, by the time I make my—kung buhay pa ako (if I am still alive)—five years from now, drugs will be at its lowest,” he said.

too soon bato’s police were back on the streets big time, in multiple synchronous operations across bulacan, and later in manila.  killing alleged addicts and dealers without due process, puro hearsay, mostly info solicited from barangay peeps and neighbors, atbp., as if we didn’t know how easy it is to point fingers, especially if under duress of authorities with quotas to meet.  hearsay, sabi-sabi, is good enough in this environment, and once you’re on that list, it is said, you’re on the list forever, never mind if you’ve been rehabbed or you were clean to begin with at napagdiskitahan lang, which may have been the case with kian.

In an unusual move, allies of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Senate on Friday condemned the killing of a 17-year-old senior high school student in Caloocan City, with some pushing for a probe into the boy’s death and those of scores of suspects in the past bloody week described as the deadliest since the start of the government’s drug war in July last year.

This is one of the rare instances during which senators who belong to the majority caucus in the Senate have publicly spoken against the killings related to Duterte’s brutal and unrelenting war on drugs.

The policemen who shot to death Kian Loyd Delos Santos on Wednesday night were not only abusive but also “killers and criminals,” according to Sen. Francis Escudero.  “The CCTV footage and eyewitness account clearly show that the boy was killed.”

five more years?  we cannot have five more years of this.  it is too painful for the body politic, mr. president, sir.  and it is dangerous: what monsters are we turning our police forces into?  and we the people, do we really want to become desensitized to inhumane treatment by government?  read yen makabenta’s It’s not fun waking up in a ‘narco-state’.

When Duterte absolves the police of wrongdoing in the drug war, no matter what the abuses, I believe he is crossing a red line in constitutional government. It is dangerous to himself and to his presidency.

It is not explained away by protesting against due process of law and human rights.

The presidential rhetoric is both inflationary and demoralizing.

Believe it or not, the police profession is supposed to exercise intellectual leadership in the criminal justice system. The police must take the lead in the fight against crime and violence.

not all shabu addicts are bad people who get violent  and criminal under the influence and who deserve to be eliminated just like that.  and even addicts who do get violent and criminal do not deserve to be killed without due process and rehab options.  we are better than this.

but yeah our world would be a better place without shabu, and it’s weird that the president isn’t trying harder to turn off the supply.  the real job is to stop both the manufacture here and the smuggling-in of shabu and its components.  the customs shabu fiasco was the perfect opportunity for the president to demonstrate that all his tough talk vs. drugs and corruption is not just talk and empty threats.  instead he chose to prop up and make excuses for faeldon.

“But Faeldon, I will stand by him. He’s really honest. Kaya lang nalusutan siya because lahat diyan sa Customs, corrupt. My God,” Duterte said on Wednesday in his speech in Malacañang during the celebration of the 19th anniversary of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.

“I hope I would not offend any particular person but almost all [are corrupt]. Sila ‘yong magagandang bahay…magaganda ang kotse [They are those who have beautiful houses and beautiful cars] ,” he added.

he hopes he would not offend anyone in particular?  i am aghast.  seriously?  ayaw niyang maka-offend ng mga corrupt?  hindi siya nagagalit nang  bongga  sa mga corrupt na ito na tone-toneladas kung magpasok o magpapasok ng shabu?

it’s bad enough that hearsay is acceptable only in cases against the poor and powerless, not in cases against the rich and powerful.  what’s worse is, when they do have enough evidence and/or search warrants on the rich and powerful, the suspects end up dead.  as in, silenced forever.

in the bureau of customs naman, a different kind of silencing is going on.  in Have we truly become a full-blown narco state? kit tatad wonders what faeldon knows.

…something DU30 may not blithely ignore. Analysts close to this issue, however, believe Faeldon may be in possession of certain sensitive information, which makes it hard for DU30 to get rid of him, unless he volunteers to step down. …Amid the apparent efforts of some quarters to link DU30’s son Paolo, the vice mayor of Davao City, to the dangerous drugs shipment from Xiamen, Faeldon has not said one word clearing him of any suspicion. If Faeldon knows Paolo is not at all involved in any monkey business at the pier, shouldn’t he have come to his defense after the customs broker Mark Taguba mentioned his name, quoting wild rumors, in a congressional hearing? He did not.

…The problem is, a photo has surfaced in the social media showing Paolo in a friendly pose with Kenneth Dong, the alleged middleman in the illegal P6.4 billion drug shipment. And some people are giving undue importance to it. No one is saying the young man has any fascination for any narco king—whether it be Burma’s late opium king Khun Sa, or Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, or Mexico’s Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. But by linking him to Kenneth Dong and the rest of his narco chain, his enemies clearly want to show his guilt by association.

the president himself has minced no words about how much worse the corruption is than he thought, shabu-related corruption in particular.

He [said] that the war on drugs had exposed so many people involved in the business of illegal drugs, it was like pressing “worms out of a can.”

“I didn’t have an idea that there are hundreds of thousands of people already in the drug business. What makes it worse is they are cooperated now by people in government, especially those in elected positions. So, it will be government versus government,” he added.

there’s the rub.  government vs. government.  big shots vs. big shots.  tila nga napakaraming very-important-people and their networks ang tatamaan. napakaraming mawawalan ng trabaho (kawawa naman).  at magkakaalaman, mabubuking (sa wakas), kung sinosino nga ba sa mga honourable na iyan ang sinasandalan at dinadatungan ng mga drug lord.  sinosino ba sa mga honourable na iyan na nagmamalinis ang mga kalaban pala, mga kaaway pala, ng taong-bayan. clear lines would finally be drawn, and that would be oh so good for nation.

i’d have thought that a showdown was right up digong’s alley.  i thought he might be the anti-hero hero who would end narco rule and institute systemic changes, set things right, no matter what.  alas, our astig prez seems to be intimidated out of his wits.  too much baggage?

“I have to stop drugs, really stop. And it will stop,” he said in a speech during a tourism event in Davao City Friday night.  “I will kill you if you destroy my country and you start f****** with my children,” he added.

“my children”?  slip of the tongue?  or just another bad joke.