Category: politics

scandalous silence on sumilao

totoo namang nakakaiyak ang nangyari at patuloy na nangyayari sa sumilao farmers. malinaw ang karapatan nila to that agricultural land. kaya lang, talaga naman, iba kung dumiskarte ang big landowners tulad ni quisumbing. basta ayaw nilang mag-share, period. at ang ating gobyerno, ang ating mga presidente in particular, mas sympathetic to big landowners talaga, big contributors kasi sila to presidential campaigns? how else explain fvr’s overturning dar after the sumilao farmers had already been awarded certificates of land ownership? ang lakas lang talaga ni quisumbing, di ba?

and how else explain the findings of dar’s research team headed by the very credible arsenio balisacan, summarized by solita monsod for inquirer, that after almost two decades of the comprehensive agrarian reform program:

most private landowners, representing 82 percent of the lands that should have been given to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs), are still holding on to their land 19 years after the law was passed.

grabe. yan ba ang rule of law? obviously, rule of law does not apply when it does not serve the interests of the ruling elite, no?

The supreme irony is that landowners, having successfully staved off the compulsory acquisition, are demanding that CARP be terminated, since it is a failure (which means they get to keep their land). It is also clear that 72 percent of the ARBs are operating their farms with one arm tied figuratively behind their backs — since they don’t have individual titles; not only are the incentive effects of ownership not present, the farmers also have difficulty getting credit and are more prone to selling their rights or abandoning their lands.

so, wonder no more kung bakit di na umasenso ang pilipinas. talagang di tayo aasenso habang ang mayayaman ay puro tipong quisumbing at san miguel foods inc. kung dumiskarte. sa kanila, what’s good for (their) business is good for the country, which is pure hogwash, um, propaganda.

most scandalizing of course is the silence of the pork fiends in congress, particularly of the senator presidentiables and vice-presidentiables. nagkakabukingan tuloy. malamang, kabilang kasi sila o may pinoprotektahan silang campaign contributors na kabilang sa BIG landowners who just refuse to give up their land in the name of social justice. social justice? not in their vocabulary.

what say mar roxas and manny villar? what say jinggoy estrada and chiz escudero? what say loren legarda and ping lacson?

what kind of opposition party is it that remains silent on agrarian reform and the sumilao farmers? parang hindi opposition, di ba? more like the other side of a bad coin.

cheche & censorship

what does it say about philippine journalism when one of its top icons, a multi-awarded veteran broadcast journalist, producer, educator, and talkshow host (also maria ressa’s idol) says that art for art’s sake is secondary to the will of the man with the purse, and that artists give up freedom of expression when commissioned to do a work of art.

or something to that effect. cheche lazaro’s scripted wrap-up in the last 15 (10?) seconds of media in focus last thursday was so rushed, i may have heard wrong, i hope i heard wrong, because how could she be so okay about censorship?

says john silva, senior consultant to the national museum:

“The cavalier and contemptible manner by which the National Press Club blithely desecrated a work of art is evidence enough that these so-called journalists haven’t a clue about freedom of expression. In a free society, contending thoughts, contending works of art are allowed and respected despite its inherent inclinations and viewpoints. The National Press Club’s actions has just put their profession to ridicule, painted themselves as cowards, and now insinuates itself as being in-the-pay of the powerful. Fellow journalists who abide in the freedom of expression should call for the immediate dismissal of the club officers.”

says raul pangalanan, dean of the u.p. college of law:

“The National Press Club (NPC) apparently thinks that just because it paid for the mural, it has the power to alter it as it wishes. The NPC must realize that ownership of the thing does not mean ownership of the copyright. Granting that the work was commissioned by the NPC for P910,000 and assuming that there was no other agreement, ownership of the thing itself would belong to the NPC but copyright remains with the artists. The ownership of the NPC is limited to the physical thing, which it may sell like any other property — but only the artists, as copyright owners, have the right to transform their art work. The owner may only keep the work ‘as is.’ Transforming it is an exclusive ‘economic right’ of the artist.

“In addition, the artist has ‘moral rights’ to maintain the integrity of his work and oppose ‘any distortion, mutilation or other modification of … his work … prejudicial to his honor or reputation.’ Indeed, moral rights may not be waived entirely, especially if the effect is ‘to use the name of the author with respect to a work he did not create.’ The NPC may be liable for damages, criminal penalties and fines for the infringement of their intellectual property rights.”

says luis teodoro, former dean of the u.p. college of mass communication:

“The NPC leadership was not being ‘apolitical.’ It was being crudely, brazenly political – first, when it asked press freedom’s worst foe since Ferdinand Marcos to inaugurate the mural, and second, when it censored it. What’s even worse, what the NPC did was not to expunge ‘leftist’ elements from the mural, but to deface it so as to hide the truth.

“Truth-telling is the fundamental value and responsibility of journalism. But here’s the NPC suppressing such truths as that Jonas Burgos was indeed abducted by military agents, and that the anti-terrorism law, deliberately misnamed the Human Security Act, has grim implications for press freedom. These are neither leftist nor rightist claims, but facts – the very stuff of which competent practice and ethical journalism are made. Has the NPC leadership even heard of either? Anyone engaged in the suppression of facts has no business calling himself or herself a journalist, the appropriate word being ‘hack’ – preferably with the words ‘bought and paid for’ attached to it. ‘Quack’ also applies.”

ah, how i wish we had writers like john silva, raul pangalangan, and luis teodoro hosting tv public affairs talkshows, thinkers who as a matter of course go beyond he-said-she-said, truly probe into issues, and dare take a stand, no matter how anti-establishment.

but it ain’t gonna happen. they’re not pretty enough or popular enough, and they are neither hacks nor quacks.

ayala blues 2

jester-in-exile, like tongue’s wrath, doesn’t buy the accidental gas build-up/explosion theory propounded by gloria’s investigators. concludes jester:

…it takes a lot to ignite diesel and methane vapor, even in a confined environment, and the confined environment itself has factors that militate against the ignition of the flammable vapor (e.g., the velocity of the aircon exhaust roiling and disturbing the air inside the confined environment, the absence of any pressurization in the diesel tank or septic tank that would cause flammable vapor to accumulate much too rapidly for the vapor to be dispersed into outside air). Thus, it seems to me that it’s fairly unlikely that this was a simple case of an industrial accident. Okay, it MAY BE an industrial accident, but it was probably STAGED.

looking forward to jester’s follow-up episode of csi makati. meanwhile it’s been two weeks since the blast and according to the australian experts, there’s still this much to do:

To fully determine the cause of the blast, Australian experts also advised its counterparts to: examine the floor area of basement to determine the extent of the damage; engage independent appropriate engineers/experts to examine machinery including septic pump, exhaust system, diesel tank, control panel switches and pumps; examine CCTV footage; examine maintenance records of Glorietta 2; ensure that all relevant witness statements would be collected and evaluated for significant information; examine post-mortem reports, including location of deceased, among others.

and meanwhile, there’s definitely a karmic quality to the woes of the makati-based ayala conglomerate. it is no secret that the makati elite have long been trying replace mayor binay with one of their own, such as toro yabut in ’98 and edu manzano in 2001, to no avail. it is also said that mayor binay has been at odds with the ayala group over certain taxes that the ayalas refuse to pay, such as taxes on passive incomes generated by cash reserves.

a pity. this is a time when the ayala group and the mayor should be joining forces, get an independent probe going, let the chips fall where they may. kung gas explosion nga pala, na accident or due to negligence, which would mean city hall is liable, too, for giving glorietta 2 a clean bill of health, so to speak, then how great if they would also somehow share with ayala land inc. the costs of indemnifying the victims and their families than fight over who is more accountable.

but who knows, they just might surprise us, hope springs eternal.

ayala blues

oct 18. the good news. forbes asia names jaime zobel de ayala & family the richest filipinos, net worth $2B.

oct 19. the bad news. death and destruction at the ayala land inc.’s makati mall.11 dead, Php100M lost, and still counting. worse, the official finding is leaning toward some sort of gas explosion brought about by dysfunction in the bowels of glorietta 2.

what a double whammy for the oye-oye ayalas – major disaster na nga, baka daw kasalanan pa nila.

coming on the heels of being named the richest family hereabouts, the message depends on whether it was an accidental explosion or the handiwork of saboteurs.

if an accident, through no fault of ayala land inc. – nagkataon lang that conditions in the basement turned explosive just then, a technological- chemical snafu that couldn’t have been anticipated – then the message could simply be that even the rich suffer reversals, misfortunes.

if it wasn’t an accident, which means the explosion was intentional, then whoever the perpetrators – islamic terrorists, rebel military factions, the npa, or gonzalez & esperon, as alleged by trillanes – the message could be that being famous for being very rich can be dangerous to one’s wealth.

question is, why the ayalas? some, who suspect it’s a gonzalez-esperon operation, say the ayalas kasi are not sipsip to the palace, unlike the sys and the tans (2nd & 3rd richest).

or who knows, puwedeng nag-eenie-meenie-minie-mall lang ang perpetrators and minalas lang talaga ang glorietta?

but i’m not convinced that the blast was an industrial accident. i’m not convinced that the residues of rdx (royal demolition explosive) found were just by-products of some inadvertent chemical mix, or that it is found in cosmetics and deodorants and other everyday things. not so, sey ng newsbreak.

for sure ayala land inc. will contest any findings that blame them, one way or another, for the glorietta blast. so will makati mayor jojo binay. expect more fireworks, bloodless let’s hope.