Category: martial law

red joktober

jok as in joke.  not to make light of the threat, because it IS  a threat, allegedly from the communist left in coalition with other leftists and oppositionists right and center.  but it is funny that instead of doing something about it, nipping it in the bud, ika nga, the military brass is making them sumbong to us, the public.  and it is funny that no one seems to know anything about a wondrous coalition happening anytime soon.  unless katrina and i are so out of the loop?  if yes, that’s really hilarious, and kinda pathetic.  if no, and wala talagang any opposition-coalition cooking, then we should wonder why the military brass refuses to drop it.  we should wonder why it is in the interest of the military to put us all on red alert, so to speak.

“Ang nakikita namin (What we are seeing) is the President is being dragged to declare martial law nationwide, [and] most probably a revolutionary government,” Galvez said during a Senate hearing on the budget of the Department of National Defense.

that’s afp chief of staff carlito galvez, PMA class ’85, who leads the intense information campaign vs all opposition to and criticism of the duterte administration, including film showings and plays depicting the military as killers and torturers.  galvez has no problem facing the cameras and spinning a tale of conspiracy and chaos to come, in effect telling us to brace and prepare ourselves, something’s going down.

i remember galvez from the 1989 coup attempt, one of the young officers who was with honasan (in coalition with marcos loyalists) in staging the bloodiest attempt to topple cory aquino.  reported were ninety-nine (99) killed and 570 wounded.

Participants of the December 1989 coup later blamed perceived deficiencies in the Aquino government in areas such as graft and corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and lenient treatment of communist insurgents as the reasons for the coup. [Davide Commission Report 470]

to my mind, every one of those coup attempts in the time of cory was either enrile-RAM and/or marcos-loyalist instigated to undo the mistake enrile made in EDSA of supporting cory’s claim to the presidency instead of just grabbing the power.  wala lang sa kanila ang bloodshed, okay lang, as we saw in ’89.  galit na, pa, rin sila noon sa komunista and they hated cory for not heeding enrile’s and FVR’s advice not to release all political detainees, joma and ka dante in particular.  and they hated that there were leftists in cory’s cabinet.

it’s been almost 30 years, the amnestied galvez is now AFP chief of staff in the time of duterte.  his latest sumbong is really a lament about the image of the military.

The propaganda that there is a “looming dictatorship” under Duterte is delivered to the students through film showings and plays in the campus, he said.

“Nakikita natin na parang they are branding the government. May dramatization na ‘yung martial law nung Marcos regime, then they associated it to the current administration,” the AFP chief said.

Galvez admitted that the military committed “many abuses during the 1972 declaration of martial law,” but assured the public that the institution has “changed a lot.”

“It’s very unfair for us. ‘Yung tinatawag nating martial law ngayon, pinag-iigi namin,” he said.

“Nakita natin during the Marawi crisis, we declared martial law Mindanao-wide. Talagang ‘yung rules of engagement, ‘yung human rights talagang we are promoting it,” he said.

so, is the good general advocating censorship?  and does he really think marawi is anything to brag about?  and what exactly is general galvez warning us about here in the metro?  expect a bombing here, a bombing there, an ambush here, an ambush there, that duterte will blame on the communists, sabay impose martial law nationwide, and declare a revolutionary government thereafter a la cory?  and then, what?  annoint a successor, and then step down?  bongbong takes over, backed by a military junta?  ito ba ang pinapangarap ni galvez at ng sandatahang lakas?

it’s like galvez and his ilk are caught in a time warp, aching for the good old marcosian days when the military reigned violently supreme.  as though EDSA never happened, as though we have not seen for ourselves that soldiers can be disarmed by great numbers of unarmed people ready to die for country.

galvez et al should have taken the cue instead from FVR who considered EDSA a way of atonement for his role in martial law.  EDSA could have occasioned a reinvention of the military as a force in the service of the people and not in the service of a repressive oppressive state.

level up naman, mga sir.  hindi komunista ang matinding kaaway kundi kahirapan at korupsyon, economic and environment policies that favor the rich, foreign policies that favor foreign interests, at kung anoano pang systemic flaws begging for change.

konting nuance please, mr. general.  ano ba talaga ang agenda?  ma-so-solve ba ang inflation, high prices, falling peso?  dumadaing na ang bayan.  pahirap nang pahirap ang buhay.  we’re not in the mood for bad jokes.

enrile’s endgame

in my last blog i opined, in a spirit of reconciliation, that martial law was not all bad, and EDSA was not all good.  let me qualify that.  martial law was not all bad but it was mostly bad.  EDSA was not all good but it was mostly good.

i came out of the enrile-bongbong tete-a-tete feeling a little dirty, complicit, because i stayed to listen kahit obvious naman that it was more of the same spin, painting marcos a super know-all president and cory a wicked know-nothing witch.  i had been hoping against hope that the old man, for the sake of nation, would level up the discourse a little, get beyond insisting that everyone had a wonderful time noong martial law and finally admit that many gross mistakes were made on every front that continue to fester and rankle the body politic.

alas, the old man continues to disappoint (as does the silent FVR).  read randy david‘s An interview in quest of an audience.

It …  comes as no surprise that he would willingly lend himself to a project to rehabilitate Marcos in the public memory. Perhaps he thought he owed the Marcos family something for contributing to their downfall. Without sounding as though he regretted his participation at Edsa, it was obvious he was trying to patch up his relations with the family by praising the regime of which, after all, he had been very much a part. With the passage of more than four decades, many of his contemporaries who might convincingly contradict his recollection of events have passed on.

… This particular interview, videotaped and posted on social media to coincide with the 46th anniversary of the imposition of martial law, is barefaced propaganda aimed at “millennials,” who, having been born long after the actual events, are presumed to accept without question so-called eyewitness accounts of historical events. As a teacher, I would not take it seriously.  Still, propaganda like this, formatted as public affairs material, offers important lessons on what to avoid in the teaching of history.

The impact could have been different, however, if an interview like this were to be conducted by a panel of respectable historians and journalists, and the principal subjects were individuals who had been detained and tortured or stripped of their properties by the regime but never allowed their sordid experience to cloud their view of events.  I’m not saying that their accounts would be entirely free of bias. But a good impartial interviewer would have had greater success in teasing out the truth from personal narratives.

it was therefore a joy running into pop historian lourd de veyra‘s sept 20 special on my facebook feed.  watch and listen and share Martial Law Myths Busted | History, exactly the kind of martial law info and assessment that i was wishing for from historians of the academe.  de veyra should do a series, let’s hear what the economists and political and social scientists, the lawyers and the military, the artists, the communists, have to say.  let’s not ask the trapos, of course.

EPISODE 2 of the tete a tete, like episode 1, was obviously edited down — time constraints? or did the old man tend to wander and say things inconsistent with, or unsupportive of, the official story?  whatever, the EDSA episode is worth transcribing.  it’s the first time ever that bongbong has said anything about the four days.  the first time, too, (correct me if i’m wrong) that enrile has spoken up and rubber-stamped the claim that marcos did not give orders to shoot.  sabay show ng TV footage of marcos forbidding ver from attacking crame.

it would be great if de veyra could focus on that question in a special episode for EDSA 2019.  as far as i can tell from my own research for the EDSA books, marcos issued 3 kill-orders, as in, never mind kung madamay ang civilians — feb 23 tanks were ordered to ram through the crowd in ortigas (tadiar refused), feb 24 air force strike-wing gunships were ordered to bomb crame (sotelo defected instead); a few hours later marines positioned in aguinaldo were ordered to bomb crame with howitzers and other hardware (balbas managed not to, his family was among the people in EDSA) — this last around the time that  marcos was on tv telling ver not to attack.

my theory is, marcos was just being his wily old self, making the best of a bad situation by pretending to be the good guy to ver’s bad cop, hoping to fool washington dc and the vatican, if not the filipino people, a little while longer.

and then, again, is it possible that the orders did not issue from marcos himself?  then who issued them?  ver?  imelda?  bongbong?  all of the above?

time to get the story straight.  #HindiPaTaposAngLaban

duterte shaking the tree — prelude to martial law and federalism?

Walden Bello
NO DOG IN THIS FIGHT
Since people have been pressing me for an opinion, I am briefly breaking my abstinence from Zuckerberg’s virtual evil empire, to say that while I find some of President Duterte’s policies murderous and reprehensible, when it comes to the conflict between God and Duterte, I ain’t got no dog in this fight, as someone famously said.  [93 likes, loves, haha. 4 shares]

Joel David Finally, a sensible position. I’d actually uphold a militant atheist call, but PRRD’s recent outburst isn’t really atheist, only militant in an awful manner.

exactly my sentiments.  it’s an argument that no one can win anyway, not duterte, not the church, not civil society.  duterte only has the upper hand because he’s president and also because all creation myths naman — such as adam and eve and snake in a paradise with a tree of good and evil — are the stuff of fairy tales and meant to be taken with a grain of salt.

JORGE ARAGO:  Those guys from the highlands say that long, long ago the gods came down to earth and found it a bore with no people around. So they scooped up some clay and moulded two figures, then plucked feathers off a chicken and tickled one clay figure until it laughed – that was the man. Of course the myth doesn’t say if the gods laughed with or after the woman and maintains a plucky silence about the chicken. [Pro Bernal Anti Bio. ABS-CBN publishing inc. (2017) page 35]

besides, the big bang and evolution make more sense to me now that i’m lightyears away from convent school.  but, yes, just the same, we humans like to do creation myths.  read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Creation_myth and other sources.

i actually have no problem with the adam-eve-serpent story that i grew up with, may pagka-cinematic pa nga, contodo plot beginning, middle, and ending.  but the bible is not clear about what life was like in paradise in the beginning, before the temptation — were adam and eve already having sex?  and all was good?  but no kids maybe?  or did the sex come after eve, and then adam, succumbed to temptation, and it’s been downhill since?

“Who is this stupid God? Estupido talaga itong p***** i** kung ganun. You created some—something perfect and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work,” he said in a speech in Davao City during the opening of the 2018 National ICT Summit.

Duterte found fault in the creation story in the Bible which said that the snake tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, then she in turn gave it to Adam. “So kinain ni Adam. Then malice was born,” he said.

… “So tayo ngayon, all of us are born with an original sin. Ang original sin—ah sin—ano man ‘yan? Was it the first kiss? O… What was the sin? Bakit original? Nasa womb ka pa, may kasalanan ka na,” he said.

the president asks, too, why god had to create eve.

… “Nandiyan na si Adam. Okay na sana ‘yun. Sabi ni God—God found that Adam will be lonely. So he took one of his ribs, bone, and created the woman. Na-l***** na. [laughter] ‘Di kung si Adam lang, mag-dumugan na tayo lahat ng lalaki dito. Okay na ‘yun. Okay lang,” he said.

believe it or not, he speaks from experience.

… ‘yung dalawang brother-in-law ko bakla. Ako noong sa high school pa hindi ko alam kung maglalaki ako, ‘pag magbabae. Eh parang gusto kong maging lalaki, gusto kong maging babae.  Kaya lang sa Philippine Women’s mas maganda talaga ang mga babae, marami doon eh. Kaya ako na-tempt… [17 dec 2017]

but to ask why god had to create woman pa, to scoff at the idea of man being lonely without woman — it is absurd, coming from one who will talk about women and sex every chance he gets, asking for a public kiss here and there, bragging about his many women, even raving about that little blue pill for sex-obsesssed old men, as though it were all some measure of macho cool.

“Sinasadya ko ‘yan eh [I’m intentionally doing it]. You know why? This country is in a doldrums. I’m shaking the tree para mabuhay lahat para makita ko [to wake everyone up so I can see],” Duterte said before an assembly of barangay captains in Zamboanga del Sur.

“Pati ‘yung mga salita ko bastos. I’m trying to go to the boundaries of hanggang saan [Even my words are rude. I’m trying to go the boundaries of how far I can go],” he added.

so.  the kabastusan on all levels is deliberate, to shake us out of the “doldrums”, and also, to test our limits.

“There would be a time to speak, and I will, maybe in the coming days. For now, I will just keep my silence for I want to see how the nation reacts. Kumbaga, I’m shaking the tree. If you’d notice me every now and then, either national or local, ginugulo ko talaga ‘yung puno (I’m really shaking the tree).”   

hmm, shaking the tree  — i.e., arousing to action or reaction, disturbing — but to what end?  to get us so angry that we take to the streets?  to  provoke us into actions that he can pronounce illegal, subversive?  to encourage a climate of violence and instability so he can declare martial law?

nade-deja-vu ako.  alam naman natin na the president is desperate for a shift to federalism — i’m not sure why — and the people are not.  so it’s like he could be taking a page from the marcos playbook —  declare martial law and THEN have the new charter ratified by citizens’ assemblies somehow, anyhow — kaya lang this time there is no threat from the communists to justify it, even now that the peace talks are off-again.  in fact, it’s mostly police operations that are freaking us out.  and the traffic, of course.  and rising prices.  and the falling peso.  and china.

the drama king, as calixto chikiamco now calls the prez, would need to come up with a major major event signalling a major major threat,  better than the alleged-and-denied ambush of defense minister enrile’s convoy in 1972.

and then, again, he might surprise us yet.  what if he’s being singularly offensive pala because he really does want us to oust him as in EDSA, pagod na pagod na kasi siya, ang hirap pala maging presidente, si leni na lang.  omg.  let us pray.

pepsi paloma and the senate president

The Internet is like quicksand. The more aggressively you fight to remove yourself from it, the deeper you’re going to sink down into it.
— John Oliver 

… Essentially, what John means is that asking news companies and tech companies to remove articles about yourself makes you more famous for not only those articles which you want to be removed but also for the fact that you want to have them removed. In this case, Sotto wanted to remove articles about his involvement in the rape of Pepsi Paloma but, in doing so, he launched more articles into the Internet.

so, what was tito sotto thinking when he recently asked inquirer.net to take down articles on the pepsi paloma rape case?

I am writing in relation to my earlier request to remove from your news website all the published articles implicating me in the alleged rape of Pepsi Paloma, particularly on the withdrawal of her case, that happened several decades ago. I believe there was malicious imputation of a crime against me.

apparently the request was first made sometime 2016…

Sotto said he has been asking the Inquirer to remove the article for over two years.

he was running for another term in the senate when in march he spoke up, finally, about the pepsi paloma case in a teleradyo interview.

“Hindi totoo ‘yan. Gimik yan ni Rey dela Cruz. (That wasn’t true. That was the gimmick of Rey dela Cruz.),” Sotto said

… Sotto, though he wasn’t involved in the alleged rape, was dragged into the controversy when he allegedly used his position in government to influence the court’s decision.

“It [alleged rape] happened in 1982. Eh 1988 ako naging Vice Mayor,” he told anchor Alvin Elchico on DZMM Teleradyo.

Sotto served as Vice Mayor of Quezon City before he was elected senator in 1992.

“In fact, Vic and Joey filed libel case against Rey dela Cruz. And there were reports in newspapers that time quoting Paloma and she said it’s not true,” Sotto said in Filipino.

“Kaya yang mga kumakalat sa Facebook, hindi totoo yan. Paninira lang mga yan. (Those [articles] circulating on Facebook, they’re false. They’re meant to malign me),” he added.

gimmick lang ng manager?  all just paninira?

he was re-elected, of course — eat bulaga! is a golden goose that lays golden eggs that the sotto brothers and joey de leon share generously with a gratefully adoring constituency who deliver the votes everytime: patronage politics, showbiz style.  two years later he sits as senate president, third highest post in the land, and he has asked inquirer, again, to take down the 3 articles.

To be specific, the following are the write-ups — with their corresponding publishing dates — I wish your company would delete:

The Rape of Pepsi Paloma by Rodel Rodis — March 05, 2014
Was Pepsi Paloma Murdered? By Rodel Rudis — March 15, 2014
Tito Sotto Denies Whitewashing Pepsi Paloma Rape Case by Totel V. de Jesus — March 03, 2016

These kinds of unverified articles have been negatively affecting my reputation for the longest time.  My efforts to clarify my side were somewhat ineffectual by reason of the afore-cited articles were shared by your readers to the social media, and those readers who knew nothing about the issue took them as version of truth considering that those reports came from a well-trusted company like Inquirer.net.

we might not even have heard about it — inquirer didn’t tell us the first time the request was made in 2016 — had not inquirer sent rodel rodis a copy of the senate prez’s may 29 letter that rodis posted on his facebook wall 15 june.

Sotto confirmed to Politiko that he has asked that the stories be removed because they were “libelous.”

“That issue was a rey dela cruz gimmick for soft drink beauties in 1982. I was not even involved. In fact i was not a public official then as alleged by the stories,” Sotto told Politiko in a text message.

june 19, rizal day, sotto sounded confident that inquirer would submit to his request and remove the articles.

That is the original fake news, so do not make a big deal out of it,” Sotto told reporters at the Senate on Monday.

Asked if he would file libel charges if Inquirer.net failed to remove the articles, he replied: “They will.”

Pressed to confirm if he meant the Inquirer would take down the stories, he reiterated that these were “fake news, it’s original fake news.”

so.  it would seem that the senate prez is denying all of it — no rape by vic joey and richie happened sometime july 1982, therefore there was nothing for him to make areglo, and he had nothing to do with pepsi’s death by hanging (some say by strangulation) 3 years after the rape that didn’t happen.  and he expects that inquirer will take down the articles just because he says it’s all fake news.

so.  we imagined it all?  including the public apology reported by the people’s journal on october 13?  but but but i have a “TV Junkie” column to show for it, published in Parade magazine (edited by fred marquez) soon after the apology:

Now that Pepsi has forgiven Vic, Joey, and Richie, it’s back to show business as usual for the three musketeers. How nice.

When the news of the rape case first broke… I expressed incredulity. I couldn’t believe that Vic and Joey were insane enough to jeopardize their careers for a momentary macho thrill.

On second thought I realized that Pepsi couldn’t have completely contrived the situation. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Obviously, at some point in time, Vic & Co. got together with Pepsi & Co. Who set the meeting up and what occurred, we don’t know. Among other things, Pepsi & Co. claimed it was rape; Vic & Co. claimed it was a photo session.

I tried to follow the case closely but the major dailies treated it like backpage news. I had to be content with the skimpy reportage of afternoon tabloids.

There was mention of a missing Sulo waiter, a crucial witness, but no follow through. I wondered where he might be, what his story might be, and why we didn’t have snoopy reporters a la Lois Lane ferreting him out of hiding.

All through August and September the Sotto camp issued nothing but denials. Vic even had an alibi: he and brother Tito were at their mother’s house in Ermita at the time of the alleged rape.

And then the bomb. A letter of apology. An admission of guilt. Implicit. Unmistakable. “Dear Pepsi . . . We hope that you will not allow the error we have committed against you to stand as a stumbling block to that future which we all look forward to. We therefore ask you to find it in your heart to pardon us for the wrong which we have done against you. Sincerely…” (People’s Journal 13 October)

i even remember eat bulaga‘s post-apology special that was held in araneta coliseum.  it was supposed to be a test.  kung mapupuno nila ang coliseum, ibig sabihin ay napatawad sila ng madlang pipol.  and fill the big dome to the rafters they did.  the high point of the show was dina bonnevie’s surprise appearance, complete with a smack for hubby vic, to show the world that she too had forgiven him.  at least that’s the message i got.  

we didn’t really know much more about the rape case until 2004 when FPJ ran for president and hired tito sotto as campaign manager.  fundy soriano of People’s Tonight wrote in his “Talk Show” column:

HINDI nagkamali ang aktor na kandidatong pangulo na si FPJ sa pagkuha sa komedyanteng naging senador na si Tito Sotto bilang campaign manager dahil sanay na ito sa pag-areglo ng gusot na kinasangkutan ng mga taong malalapit sa kanya.

Hindi talaga nagkamali si Poe sa pagkuha kay Sotto dahil hasang-hasa na sa pagtatanggol at pagtutuwid ng mga sitwasyong baluktot.

Unang nasubukan ang galing ni Sotto noong Oct. 1982 nang pangunahan niya ang pag-areglo sa kasong rape na isinampa ng sexy stars na sina Pepsi Paloma at Guada Guarin laban sa kanyang kapatid na si Vic Sotto at mga kasamang sina Joey de Leon at Richie D’Horsie. Sa record ng kaso, nabulgar ang rape case nang lapitan ng ina ni Pepsi Paloma si Atty Rene Cayetano (ama ng senatorial candidate na si Pia Cayetano) para hingan ng tulong para makamtan ng kanyang anak ang katarungan na umanoy minolestiya ng tatlong host ng Eat Bulaga.

Nang nabatid na ikinakasa na ng naging senador na si Cayetano ang kaso sa piskalya ng QC, biglang naglaho ang tin-edyer na starlet na hindi nagtagal ay nabawi ng mga tauhan nina Col. Rolando Abadilla at Capt. Panfilo Lacson (yes, si Ping na kandidatong pangulo) ng MISG sa kamay ng kilalang hoodlum na si Ben Ulo. Umalingasaw ang pangalan ng mga Sotto nang aminin ni Ben Ulo na tauhan siya ng mga Castelo, maternal clan nina Tito at Vic.

Ayon kay Pepsi Paloma, umano’y mismong si Tito Sotto ang pumilit sa kanya na pirmahan ang affidavit of desistance para hindi matuloy ang kasong may parusang bitay. Tuluyang napigil ang pag-inog ng katarungan nang nagpakumbaba ang mga komedyante at naglabas ng public apology sa husgado kung saan inamin din ng mga ito ang nagawang krimen sa starlet na nagbigti ilang taon ang nakalipas dahil sa umano’y hindi pa rin nakalimutan ang kahalayang ginawa sa kanya ng mga artistang kabilang ngayon sa likod ng kandidatura ni Poe.  (May 8, 2004)

i found the above in an online exchange forum on the pepsi paloma rape case, posted by commenter no. 9.  i quoted it in enrile, sotto, pepsi #RH at the height of the RH debates in 2011.  the site has since been taken down, alas.  buti na lang na-copy-n-paste ko.  [it is also cited in former senator heherson alvarez’s blog]

i wonder if the senate prez really thinks he can erase all texts and images re the 1982 rape of pepsi paloma by the accused vic sotto joey de leon and richie d’horsie, as well as all the stories about how big brother tito, now the senate prez, made it all go away, how galing.  and he wasn’t even a vice-mayor, much less a senator, yet!

but rodis is right:

Rodel Rodis
16 June at 01:35 · The Inquirer.net announced that it has not yet made a decision on whether to accede to Senate President Sotto’s “request” to remove my March 2014 articles implicating him in the 1982 rape of then 14 year old Filipino American actress Pepsi Paloma and in her subsequent murder two years later. Stay tuned. If Sotto succeeds, then Jinggoy Estrada, Bongbong Marcos, Duterte and even China will make similar demands that my critical articles about them should also be removed from the Inquirer website.

ito naman ang sey ni fr. eliseo “jun” mercado on his facebook wall:

I, too, wonder what the Pepsi Paloma and Tito Sotto issue was all about. Unresolved rape case?

thanks to the revisionist attempts of the senate president himself, the pepsi paloma rape case has finally become a cause célèbre.  it even trended on twitter, LOL, and the senate should be concerned about its steadily deteriorating image.  i would think this calls for a senate investigation, no kidding.  some of the personalities mentioned, said to have known about the case, are still alive.  juan ponce enrile.  panfilo lacson.  guada guarin.  fundy soriano?

googled guada guarin and found this on pinoyparazzi.com by RK Villacorta who chanced upon her in late 2015:

Masama ang loob ni Guada sa ilang mga taga-media na inungkat pa ang na isinampa nila na kaso noon ni Pepsi almost 35 years ago. “Tapos na yun, nag-public apology na sila sa amin,” kuwento ni Guada na ngayon ay isang spa manager.

too bad cayetano and abadilla are no longer with us.  but i sure would like to hear from JPE and ping lacson.  just to see whose side they’re on.