Category: noynoy

yellow naif disses land reform :(

nakakadismaya the 5-minute video produced and posted by newbie blogger felicity tan entitled Ang nangyari sa Hacienda Luisita, ayon sa mga magsasaka.   it’s a cut-to-cut talking-heads kind of quickie production featuring just 7 former farmworkers / laborers / tenants of the hacienda saying they miss the old feudal days when the cojuangco-aquinos took care of their needs — complete with free health care, weekly allowances for the kids — and that they went on strike not for land — what would they do with land without capital and knowhow — but for better pay, except that the likes of satur ocampo and teddy casino made pakialam and satur even made millions of bucks, so please, leftists, stay away, we don’t want you meddling in our affairs.

i could not but react when i first saw it posted in facebook via carlos conde:

the video by itself is rather slanted against land reform and against the left, almost like an advertisement for oligarchic rule.  but let’s rewind to the part where these few farmers are saying that they went on strike for better pay, so obviously things had deteriorated since the happy past when the hacienda took care of all their needs.  sana ilagay naman sa context.  oh and the accusation that satur got a lot of money out of some deal should have been followed by a statement from satur either denying or confirming, in fairness lang.

tan’s reply:

my purpose was just to air the other side para mailabas naman, yun lang, if you visit HL you will see it is impossible that the farmers demonize the cojuangcos as it is seen in the media.  in any case, i put in the UP clip from TV patrol because the general sentiment is “give what the farmers what they want.”  So I asked them.  We already heard the farmers who want the land.  How about the others?  Lahat ba sila land ang gusto?  Looking at reports, it seems that way. Inside  HL is a different story.  if you change your opinion on it or not is besides the point and not my purpose.  I think Caloy’s blurb above says it all: “the OTHER side that ought to be heard as well” (thanks again C!)

soon after, men sta. ana also posted the video in fb with a comment, and we had this exchange:

men : Sad to say, this cannot be the full story. Some Noy campaigners, specifically those who work with the farmers, even think that the video might have been produced by the Luisita management (which is not the case, I think). So whoever produced this video only complicated the issue even for Noy supporters. The story is more complicated than what the video offers. I myself went to Luisita more than a month ago, accompanied by a young academic researcher doing his postgrad in Australia, a local organizer, a national peasant organizer, and a farmer who heads a national peasant organization (they are all pro-Noy), and the stories we received from the farmers differ from those interviewed in this video. In other words, there are many voices in Luisita, which this video does not capture. But what is clear is that different forces have used the farmers as pawns. What a tragedy.

me : men, i so agree.  carlos conde also posted the video and i commented that it’s practically an advertisement for oligarchic rule, sabay banat kay satur.  the video producer says it is simply meant to air the side of luisita farmers who continue to be unemployed, as if there were only this one side and only these few farmers. and she claims to be a journalist, even blogs about ethics of journalism.   absolutely, support like this noynoy doesn’t need.

men : Oo nga, Angela.  She committed the mistakes that she was railing against.  Actually, I don’t have any problem re opinionated journalism.  Just be honest about it.  Hunter Thompson is my idol because of his gonzo journalism.  Problem here is she becomes holier than thou.

worse, she’s getting a lot of kudos in her blog, i assume from political naifs like herself, who are thankful that she has cleared the air, so now they get it, the farmers don’t really want land, they just want the good old feudal days back, so now they WILL vote for noynoy.   susmaryosep.   i don’t get it.    why isn’t she practising what she preaches re journalism ethics?  maybe she thinks these ethics don’t apply sa blogosphere?    she’s been blogging for just a month, so let’s give her the benefit of the doubt?  LOL

pero sige na nga, maybe she didn’t plan for the video to stand alone, maybe she thought her “blurb”, where she says she didn’t bother airing the other sides because they’ve had enough exposure in media, presuming, incorrectly, that her readers all know the big picture already, would be posted around along with the video.  still, the blurb said hardly enough.   and besides, that’s not the way it works in the blogosphere.   you have no say in what or how much gets picked up and posted around, so a video has to be complete in itself, airing all sides, unless hindi naman talaga credible journalism ang drama kundi partisan sensationalism.

salamat na lang at meron din siyang commenters na mas marunong sa kanya, like jonas and the penniless sitar player:

Jonas :  medyo may intellectual dishonesty dito sa ginawa mo, ms. tan.  una, binanatan mo ng todo ang report ng gmanews.tv dahil sa tingin mo mali-mali at iisang panig lang.  tapos sinabi mo, pupunta ka sa luisita para hanapin ang katotohanan.  pero ano ang ginawa mo?  you just presented a few farmers na kontra kina lito bais, at napaka-tendentious pa ng mga argumento at totally without basis or proof (lalo na ang akusasyong binigyan si satur ocampo ng 6m).

in the final analysis, propaganda din ang ginawa mo na ang makakabenepisyo ay si noynoy at mga kalaban ng ulwu at catlu.  true, pinresent mo ang side ng ilang mga farmers pero what they said didn’t help the discussion of the issue. they  merely vented their ire.

medyo tuso ang posisyon mo na ang ginagawa mo lang ay ang side ng mga farmers na di naririnig.  ok lang sana ito kung hindi mo pinipresenta ang sarili mo na journalist.  e kaso, napaka-self-righteous pa nga ng dating mo about journalism, as if you are god’s gift to journalism in this part of the woods.

hindi mo pueding sabihin na kaya di mo nilagay ang side nina lito bais ay dahil masyado na silang sikat sa media.  tusong pag-iisip yan.  kung totoo kang journalist, give us the complete picture.  otherwise, don’t pass yourself off as a journalist na walang kinikilingan kundi ang katotohanan.

in the final analysis, walang pinagkaiba ang ginawa mo sa mga puntong ayaw mo sa story ng gmanews.tv.  bagkus, mas maganda ang ginawa ni stephanie dychiu dahila at least mas throrough ang research, mas maayos at mas complete ang picture, kahit na sabihin mong one-sided. April 24, 2010 2:22 PM

penniless sitar player :  it only shows that redistribution should not be the only concern of land reform.  a finite resource such as land, should be managed sustainably (considering the economic, social and ecological dimensionsof it.)  unlike the virtual land in farmville (he he he) further subdividing it to smaller portions would not optimize its eco-social contribution. with the chains and layers of people and processes involved in production (farmhand, farmhelp, capital and service providers, irrigation providers, traders, buyers) agricultural production is actually one big enterprise. and with that, only a sustainable business model could answer the increasing needs of people dependent on it.  new forms of ownerships and/ or profit/fruit sharing should be set in place.  I also abhor the idea that control remains in the hand of a mega-family corporation but individually distributing it would even marginalize the people at the far end of the value chain.  the idea of setting up cooperative, interdependent structures and mutually reinforcing agro-enterprises, owned and managed by the farmers, could be explored and it should be coupled with efforts to build the capacity of farmers to deal with it in a businesslike way. April 26, 2010 3:47 AM

cory’s comprehensive agrarian reform program failed (and carper, its extension, will fail) because of loopholes designed to allow old-rich hacenderos to be creative about finding ways of holding on to their hundreds of thousands of hectares of land instead of being creative about sharing the bounty with landless farmers in national food production.   meanwhile, small middleclass landowners, like my nanay who inherited a mere 20 hectares or so of hard-earned riceland from her parents, had to give up all but 7 hectares some 20 years ago, ora mismo, agad-agad, grabe  :(

homestretch blues

dismaying but interesting.   our minds and communications are on mercury-retrograde mode for the next three, four weeks, right smack in the last three weeks of the presidential campaign, which means that instead of moving on to other important issues we’ll be going back over old ground, which means more of hacienda luisita, alleged psychological incapacity, lack of experience, etc. with regard to noynoy, and more of c-5-at-taga, landgrabbing charges, and the poverty spin with regard to villar.   we will see how low either camp would stoop to discredit the other all the way to election day.  mas madaling magsiraan (hindi mauubusan) kaysa magmagaling (mauubusan).

are we going to see survey kulelats gordon, bro.eddie, jc, perlas, jamby giving up the fight to endorse either noynoy or villar, erap or gibo?   i seriously doubt it just because, if memory serves, it hasn’t happened in recent multiparty history.   to the very end they all think they have a chance, surveys are questionable, anything can happen, never say die, not even when llamadong llamado ang mga kalaban.   a pinoy macho thing, i suspect ;)) but hey i’d love to be disproven on this, just because it could tip the balance one way or another, make for a most definite win for the lucky one.   and then, again, maybe not.

what we ARE likely to see, i’m afraid, even now, are all kinds of glitches with machines, esp. those that have to do with communications and transportation, anything that moves people and ideas around, including the machines for automated counting of votes and conveying of results.   sana hindi.   sana suwertehin tayo, for a change.   but the odds are against us, so dapat ay paghandaan by having plans B and C, just in case.

meanwhile i still don’t have a president.   and i haven’t stopped wishing, how retrograde of me, that it were mar running for president and noynoy for vp.   i disagree with the notion that if noynoy had run for prez later rather than sooner, he could not have counted on the same phenomenal love and energy a la edsa generated by (ninoy’s) cory’s death that birthed the clamor for the unico hijo’s candidacy last august.

i don’t see why not.   i think that noynoy as vp (mar would have won easily, with noynoy behind him) could have used the next six years to clean up his act, do the morally, and politically, correct thing with regard to hacienda luisita, AFTER reading of course ninoy’s testament from a prison cell and other writings that might enlighten him a little about the Left.   if there were no poverty and oppression, there would be no Left;  snubbing and demonizing the Left (instead of finding a way for Left and Right to work together for the good of the whole) would not have been ninoy’s way, is no way to honor ninoy’s legacy, in fact it dishonors ninoy’s legacy.   anyway, if he used the six years wisely andcreatively, maybe also studied the education problem thoroughly — an additional two years of schooling is not the answer —  i have no doubt that the cory-ninoy effect would have kicked in as powerfully, and there would not be so many undecideds in 2016.

for now hindi ko pa mapatawad si noynoy for the hacienda luisita killings and for being so anti-Left, or is it anti-poor.   i guess i’m still hoping to hear him say something reassuring, to the effect that he will prevail upon the cojuangco-aquino clan to follow the law and give up luisita to the farmers, and that he would snub the likes of palparan and get the military to produce jonas burgos atbpang missing activists.

lacking either or both, well, there’s villar, pero kahit kayanin ko siyang patawarin for c-5 at taga and, even, the obscene spending, ay di ko yata kayang patawarin his obdurate stand against reproductive health.   si erap, he got his turn already, and he botched it.   gibo looks good but he reeks of status quo politics.   amboy gordon i considered, but only briefly.   bro.eddie is too fundamentally religious, perlas too green, jc too sophomoric.   jamby at least has not only the best-looking FG (french gentleman), she has the best platform of the lot.   so hmm, if not noynoy, it could be jamby for me, a protest vote, on principle.

edsarevolution.com

finally gave up trying to get photos of EDSA 86 first, though some did come in — thanks, people — but not nearly enough.

anyway, like katrina says, it’s the text that’s important, a pdf file would do.   but joel, after reading my last post, surprised us with a cool website and a hot, as in, perfect! domain name, edsarevolution.com no less, that he had been saving pala for a moment such as this.

yes, a moment, a time, such as this, only two months away from presidential elections, with the aquino-villar race in a dead heat, neck and neck sa surveys, a statistical tie that could prove sustainable all the way to may, and the aquino camp threatening to do an EDSA if noynoy is cheated.

say ni de quiros sa facebook:

I believe it. If cheating happens again, Edsa will happen again.

seems to me what he’s really saying is:  if noynoy loses, it means he was cheated, and EDSA will happen again.   which is troubling.

if the race is this tight to the very end, the winner could win without cheating as long as he has the smarts and the logistics on may 10 to fetch rural voters, provide them with sample ballots, take them to polling centers, feed them and take them home, or give them pamasahe pauwi.   that’s the way it was in my lola’s time and that’s the way it still is in many many rural areas across the country, so i’m told.

of course it would be a different matter if noynoy were able to race ahead, surveys-wise, in the next sixty days so that losing means there’s cheating, which would be truly unacceptable.   then an EDSA scenario would indeed be called for.   but hopefully, not an edsa dos because that would mean noynoy plotting with, and being forever beholden to, the military, as in arroyo’s case.

rather, hopefully an EDSA 86, and therefore not just a gathering of noynoy crowds sa shrine or wherever because that’s not all it will take to win the battle decisively.   in ’86 it was cory’s and the people’s boycott campaign that figured significantly, i suspect, in enrile’s decision to break away from marcos; his fellow cronies must have urged him to act, to bolt, and stop the boycott somehow any how.    day one of EDSA was day 7 of the boycott.

but EDSA is not the answer if the race is tight all the way to voting day.   noong ’86 isa lang ang kalaban, si marcos.   ngayong 2010 ang daming naglalaban-laban.   it’s not black or white, it’s  various shades of gray.   also, what’s to prevent the contested winner from mounting his own edsa?   paano na ‘yon?   paramihan na lang ng tao?   and what’s to prevent the obvious losers from joining the contested winner’s camp and all of them ganging up on noynoy?   magulo ‘yon.

unfortunately noynoy does not have a franchise on EDSA.   unfortunate, because a villar presidency scares me.    he can’t be spending all that money out of the goodness of his heart, expecting nothing in exchange.

for now, misgivings and all, sisters and all, i’m beginning to think noynoy is the least “evil” and parang i’d rather live with him than with villar in the next six years.   though i still wish he’d get more resolved and creative about hacienda luisita and agrarian reform, and i still wish he didn’t count so much on kris and boy abunda to bring in the votes.

Midnight CJ and the Four R’s

Rene Saguisag

The framers could have said the position of Chief Justice (CJ) should be filled up immediately and that only the CJ could swear in a Prez. They did not. They said any judicial vacancy should be filled up within 90 days, which I suggest is even merely directory, not even mandatory. No way we can mandamus a Prez.

The case of Justice Minita Chico Nazario, where the vacancy was filled up six months later is instructive; she twisted in the wind that long before finally taking her oath and becoming a credit to the SC.

It took more than six months for CJ Querube C. Makalintal to replace CJ Roberto R. Concepcion. Thus, the virtue of collegiality. It also shows that when the Constitution gave the Prez 90 days to name a new Justice, the lack of urgency was seen. May the SC order the JBC, headed by the CJ?

When Marcos won, if my memory is true, I had at least two excellent teachers who had been named to the bench just before Macapagal himself was to step down. Seen as more than qualified, maybe, but no one in the judiciary, or elsewhere, is indispensable. The two had to go. In May, 1982, for a working week, we had no Supreme Court at all! All told, vacant days added together, we had no CJ for years. The nation moved on. There simply was no fire.

Now we have a golden chance for a transparent process in lieu of arcana. Justice Rene Corona must disclose in open hearing his suspicion that Justice Tony Carpio was out to smear him. Tony denied the charge, corroborated by Nanding Campos, who Rene had said tried to influence him improperly by using three ex-Justices to approach him (which those of us of the old school us would never do; it just was not and should not be done).

GMA acknowledged on December 30, 2002 that she divides our people. Now, she plans to continue in public life, and some salivate. Why? Are these but the noises of democracy we were glad to have again in 1986 after 15 years of coercive elimination of dissenters, leading to Jackson’s unanimity of the graveyard?

Charito Planas I first met in Washington, D.C. in 1982. She has chosen to be with GMA. The right to pick we cannot question, be it elixir or poison we choose. But, as in the case of Gary Olivar, what does she have to say about the Morong 43? The duo both courageously fought martial misrule. May God bless them both. But we in the human rights community need to hear them on the 43.

FOCAP (like our friend, Tony Lopez) could be naughty. Last Tuesday it held a forum entitled Who Will Fix the Mess? I saw no one take issue with the tendentious theme. All prez wannabes said No to operating the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Bravo! A Korean firm said it would need a billion pesos at least, which may yet double, or triple, to repair and upgrade it. But, we are pasable-OK-na-puede-na Pinoys. I hope Prez Cory and I would no longer be blamed for not operating the plant in 1986, when Chernobyl made it easy to mothball it. But, I had not realized I was so effective chairing the Cabinet and Senate Committees on it that here we are, 24 years after the event and no Prez or wannabe is for operating it.

This fact emerged with crystal clarity in the FOCAP affair. Nick Perlas was with me in the 1986-1992 effort.

Even Engineer FVR would not dare put the nuke plant on line (his home province is Pangasinan; I married one from there and it now welcomes nuke power in a nation where Murphy’s Law—if anything can go wrong, it will—prevails in rampancy: I am not sure we can be like Russia or Japan ably dealing with Chernobyl or Toyota’s recall). We need new energy plans. We need to know from the bets what their plans are, on top of their other sales talk, to pay public servants above the level of corruption by laying down the economic foundation of honesty. Dick Gordon would want school teachers to get P40,000 a month, less than the additional bonus of House employees last Christmas given by Congressmen: how much did they get for themselves?

There must be a better deal for employees, whether public or private, for them to compete for admission into public service.

On specifics, what do they have to say on senior citizens discounts where an employer’s profit is marginal and who will go under with the additional discount? Is this not confiscatory? Any subsidy? Else, the employer may fire employees to salvage the ailing business. There must be a health program too so one with a dollar (less than P50) can have dialysis monthly. More than Motherhood spiels we need from the leading bets. Those who have no chance should withdraw, to improve the chances of even a bad bet; else, by hurting him, we may get a worse, or even the worst one, in lying, cheating and stealing. Balzac said that behind every great wealth is a great crime. How many of the bets have no great wealth?

Anyway, I need to see in the text of the 1987 Constitution, or maybe, someone can show us that, in the debates, the intent was that in the judiciary “midnight appointments” are allowed, contrary to what the SC has nixed. I know how careful the JBC and SC are in observing the no-appointment rule during the critical two months. That was why the promotion of some RTC Judges created a hassle some years ago (even if admittedly, the nominees were good); there was static about antedating to make it appear as not falling within the interdicted two-month period. No transparency. Shielding the nomination process from scrutiny should go. If it would need a constitutional change so be it. Back to the Commission on Appointments? Noynoy I don’t recall ever having opposed any change in the 1987 Consti. He and his Mom, along with millions, simply wanted to do the Right thing in the Right way at the Right time for the Right reason.

Nothing says the CJ should administer the oath. Cory and Doy were sworn in on February 25, 1986 by “mere” Associate Justices, who used the rather unconventional formulation I rushed the night before in a rinky-dink typewriter. Indeed, an ordinary notary public can administer it. When we took power in 1986, I had no time to take it but then it was a risky revolutionary government we had inaugurated. Later, in a more normal time, I took it before a notary. It could not be said that I violated my Four R’s.

Today, what is not being violated in the violent time in the vilest possible way?