Category: senate

sotto, the senate, the pits #RH

other than senator miriam, who is rather forgiving of sotto…

…this is not the academe where plagiarism is a mortal sin. We should give leeway in politics, as long as later on the source is acknowledged.

and senate president enrile, who started out agreeing with sotto that a blog can be copied, and is now saying that he does not know anything about blogging, but who is of course still defending his majority leader…

Ang sinabi ko, hindi ko alam kung totoo iyung akusasyon sa kaniya tungkol sa plagiarism, pero kung totoo man, marahil ang dapat nating isipin, totoo ba, tama ba iyung kaniyang sinabi upang suportahan ang kaniyang paninindigan tungkol sa panukalang batas (RH bill) na nakasalang sa ating Senado…

and senators pimentel and arroyo, whom sotto cited in an adlib (august 29 speech) to be in agreement with him on some technicality or other vis a vis plagiarism allegations — that makes 5 senators including sotto — there are 18 others in that august chamber who have been silent as mice on the issue.  hopefully it’s not because they’re as clueless about blogs and the internet and copyright as sotto and enrile, rather, that they know better and that the pro-RH among them, sponsors miriam and pia especially, are just biding their time, ready to pounce with a vengeance when it’s their turn to respond, before any talk of amendments.

i expect nothing less than the vigor and vitriol that miriam spewed out at the prosecutor-representatives in the impeachment trial of corona.  anything less would tell us that indeed the senate these days is nothing but an old boys club, and that it’s okay lang with all of them that sotto has pulled down senate discourse to the level of eat bulaga.  yuck.  that would be really really low, lower even than the lower house.

as for sotto’s and enrile’s claim that the we in blogosphere who have been attacking him for plagiarism have no answers to his assertions vs the RH bill, hmm.  this blog, for one, has responded to some of those points, but i guess i’m under the radar, ‘no?  maybe no one’s reading me, not even other bloggers or news websites, haha, how humbling (buti na lang i’m into weil’s gravity and grace, salamat kay jorge, and i’m happy to blog as much for readers as for the record).  but there’s also dr. alberto “quasi” romualdez, former doh chief, who has been quick to respond to every argument against the RH bill via his malaya column.  i suppose he’s under the radar, too?

anyway, lest sotto continue believing that his arguments are unassailable:

(1) says sotto, “the RH bill violates the constitution that protects the unborn child from the moment of conception.”  this is all about the question of when life begins, or when “conception” happens.  at the moment of fertilization ba or of implantation in the uterus?  try googling it and you will find that there are as many arguments for fertilization, as there are for implantation, as the beginning of human life.  quite weighty, to me, is the fact that only when the fertilized egg or zygote has implanted does a woman’s urine test positive for pregnancy. 

so who is to settle the debate?  sotto?  eat bulaga?  congress? the supreme court? the president?  science?  the church?  answer: NONE OF THE ABOVE.  i say, THE WOMAN DECIDES. 

(2) says sotto, contraceptives are “harmful to the health of the pregnant mother and the unborn child.”  sotto’s proof of the harm done to the mother is the gut dysbiosis theory of natasha campbell mcbride that he plagiarized from sarah pope’s blog.  he has ordered it stricken from senate records to resolve the plagiarism issue, he hopes, but it was a lame argument to begin with.  read sotto, guts, plagiarism #RH.  according to a doctor, an internist, who does a lot of research via the internet:

Googling, found an incredible dearth of studies linking oral contraceptives to gut dysbiosis, how long it takes to develop, how long it takes to resolve on discontinuance of pills. No comparative studies. Even searching studies on gut dysbiosis in infants and neonates; there’s no mention or an “also” mention of contraceptives as cause.

sotto’s proof of harm done by contraceptives on the unborn child is a report prepared for the Royal Commission on Population in Great Britain which found that the incidence of induced abortion as a percentage of all pregnancies was nine times higher for women using contraceptives than for women not using birth control. 

it was lifted from The Truth Of Contraceptives blog, which says:

In Great Britain, in 1949, a report prepared for the Royal Commission on Population found that the incidence of induced abortion as a percentage of all pregnancies was nine times higher for women using contraceptives than for women not using birth control. [emphasis mine]

wala pang pills noong 1949.  read sotto self-destructs, and find out what kind of contraceptives women were using then that were inducing abortions.

(3) says sotto, “we don’t need it because the DOH is already doing what the RH bill wants to do.”  really?  where?  when?  how?  there’s no info campaign going on, and there are no pills and condoms and i.u.d.s available, for poor couples who might want to practice family planning once they know what their options are.

(4) says sotto,  “the RH bill will cost too much money that could be used for schools, hospitals, and medicines.”  aha.  read Mulat Pinoy, a population awareness initiative supported by the Probe Media Foundation, Inc. and the Philippine Center for Population and Development which i cited in fudging the facts: sotto’s anti-RH sob story 

Investing in family planning services will save several billion pesos, which can be used for critical social services.

The latest US and Philippine research show that governments annually spend a minimum of Php 5.5 billion in healthcare costs to address unintended pregnancies and their complications.

By contrast, only Php 2.0-3.5 billion annually is needed to fund a comprehensive range of voluntary family planning services for the entire country, which also results in a more sustainable population to provide for.

(5) says sotto, “it is not in accord with Filipino culture.”  LOL.  as if filipino culture were a fixed, static, thing that doesn’t evolve.  the … argument is a matter to be studied by sociologists and other experts in culture and social attitudes, says dr. romualdez.  besides, the surveys are consistent: an overwhelming number of filipinos, 7 out of 10, want the RH bill passed into law.

over dzmm teleradyo, the same afternoon of his aug 29 rant claiming that he is a victim of cyberbullying, i heard sotto in a phone interview with karen davila and vic de leon lima insisting that when he cried over his dead baby son, the issue was not that his son had died, but that helen had gotten pregnant despite taking pills.  my answer to that is here.  he went on to say that this is precisely the reason why he thinks pill-popping will lead to abortion: because daw women who get pregnant even when they’re taking pills would be more likely to resort to abortion.  teka, helen obviously did not.  surely he’s not saying that helen’s different from, better than, the rest of us?  obviously it’s just another fallacious eat-bulaga kind of argument.

as fallacious as calling us cyberbullies, we who blog and tweet and facebook and who have been calling him out on his plagiarizing and eat-bulaga ways.

Ako yata ang kauna-unahang senador ng Pilipinas na naging biktima ng cyber-bullying. Mula sa blogs, Facebook, at Twitter, ginawa akong sentro ng mga mapanira at malisyosong atake ng iba’t ibang tao, lalo pa ng mga sumusuporta sa RH Bill. Bahagi siguro ito ng kanilang istratehiya, lalo pa’t may milyun-milyon silang pondo. “If you can’t kill the message, kill the messenger”. Mukhang ganito ang ginagawa ng aking mga detractors. 

as usual, sotto’s reasoning is twisted and self-serving.

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior manifested by the use of force or coercion to affect others, particularly when the behavior is habitual and involves an imbalance of power. It can include verbal harassment, physical assault or coercion and may be directed repeatedly towards particular victims, perhaps on grounds of race, religion, gender, sexuality, or ability.[2][3]The “imbalance of power” may be social power and/or physical power.

sotto is the one who’s being aggressive, lashing out at us from the senate on high, from a position of power.  sotto is the the one who is assaulting and harassing us verbally from that privileged podium, accusing us of malice and, even, of attacking him for the money, as in, may milyun-milyong pondo daw.  ganoon?  i certainly haven’t been offered any.  and, really, for certain may milyun-milyong pondo rin ang anti-RH.  can sotto be fighting the RH bill out of the goodness of his heart?  once upon a time he was all for family planning, along with his eat-bulaga pals.  was he doing it for the money then?  and what, who, changed his mind kaya?

what sotto really wants is for all of us to shut up, stop ganging up on him.  lol.  if you can’t stand the heat, mr. sotto, get out of the kitchen.  to think that you are a grandson, and namesake, of the original senator vicente sotto (1877-1950).  your lolo was a revolutionary and a writer, and as senator he authored the Press Freedom Law aka Sotto Law, “aimed precisely to protect press freedom and keep irate politicians from intimidating journalists and their sources if they do not like what they read.”  how ironic, and sad for nation, that you have turned out to be one of those “irate politicians” who can’t take criticism and who’s too macho to admit that you’ve made one big mistake after another, and who seeks instead to cow and intimidate us into silence.  shame on you, mr. sotto.

sotto self-destructs #RH bill

the senate should shut sotto up.  he has become a national embarrassment.  not only does he plagiarize bloggers and in the next breath disparage their work, his discourse vs. the RH bill also takes the low low ground, thanks to his incompetent staff, whose asinine research (include bad writing na rin) he takes for, and peddles as, gospel truth.  and this is the last straw: the punchline kumbaga, of his turno en contra part II:

Also in a report prepared for the Royal Commission on Population in Great Britain found that the incidence of induced abortion as a percentage of all pregnancies was nine times higher for women using contraceptives than for women not using birth control.

here is the original material from The Truth Of Contraceptives blog:

In Great Britain, in 1949, a report prepared for the Royal Commission on Population found that the incidence of induced abortion as a percentage of all pregnancies was nine times higher for women using contraceptives than for women not using birth control. [emphasis mine]

note that sotto’s press release does not enclose in quotes or attribute most of the sentence that is clearly lifted, copied, from the blog.  note, too, that “in 1949” was deleted, omitted, deliberately i would think, because it would have dated the “nine times higher” stats.  but using that data at all to convince pro-RH senators that contraceptives induce abortion was the most monstrous mistake of all.

the Pill was approved only in 1960.  what contraceptives were being used in 1949?  i googled “history of birth control” (which he or his staff should have done, too) and found this blog: MedicineNet.com.

Before the Industrial Revolution, birth control devices in America relied largely on condoms for men — fashioned from linen or from animal intestines — and on douches made for and by women from common household ingredients. Abortion-inducing herbs such as savin and pennyroyal also were used, as were pessaries — substances or devices inserted into the vagina to block or kill sperm.

The invention of rubber vulcanization in 1839 soon led to the beginnings of a U.S. contraceptive industry producing condoms (now often called “rubbers”), intrauterine devices or IUDs, douching syringes, vaginal sponges, diaphragms and cervical caps (then called “womb veils”), and “male caps” that covered only the tip of the penis. British playwright and essayist George Bernard Shaw called the rubber condom the “greatest invention of the 19th century.”

When these devices were declared illegal, the flourishing trade simply began selling them as “hygiene” products. For example, vaginal sponges were sold to protect women from “germs” instead of sperm. This led to misleading if not downright fraudulent advertising. From 1930 until 1960, the most popular female contraceptive was Lysol disinfectant — advertised as a feminine hygiene product in ads featuring testimonials from prominent European “doctors.” Later investigation by the American Medical Association showed that these experts did not exist.

so there.  hindi lang outdated ang stats, ni hindi birth control pills ang salarin.  what a howler of a screw-up, mr. sotto.  on the senate floor yet.  enough is enough, mr. senators, your time is up.  pass the RH bill, now na!

*

read, too, manuel buencamino’s Sen. Sotto busted for serial plagiarism 
and sarah pope’s On Plagiarism, the Pill, and Presumptuousness 

oh no, another VFA in the making :(

so.  the president has certified the ratification of the RP-Australia Visiting Forces Agreement as urgent, and the senate is called upon to approve and make it a binding agreement.

yesterday i caught senator miriam on the senate website’s livestream interpellating proponent senator loren on the infirmities of the agreement.  read Miriam slams Australia VFA where she points out the vagueness of certain provisions such as the “other activities mutually approved by the Parties,” the lack of specificity on the magnitude of the Australian military presence, the matter of tax exemptions that needs the approval of the majority of both houses of congress, and the rules on criminal jurisdiction that, she says, impinge on the supreme court’s exclusive powers.

nonetheless, today the senate passed the resolution on second reading, just before taking off for another vacation.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile -together with Senators Loren Legarda, Jinggoy Estrada, Franklin Drilon, Vicente Sotto III, Pia Cayetano, Bong Revilla, Teofisto “TG” Guingona III, Antonio Trillanes IV, Edgardo Angara, Kiko Pangilinan, Panfilo Lacson and Gregorio Honasan – voted to approve the measure on second reading.

Meanwhile Senators Joker Arroyo, Ralph Recto, Serge Osmeña III, Ferdinand Marcos, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and Miriam Defensor-Santiago voted against the passing of the SOVFA or Senate Resolution 788, which was certified by President Benigno Aquino III as urgent and was sponsored by Senator Loren Legarda on Monday. There were 21 senators present during the plenary session.

i suppose it will be first on the senate agenda when they resume sessions in august.  second lang malamang ang RH bill.   hopefully, mainstream and social media will be paying attention then and raising the questions that need to be raised.

for the record: the status of visiting forces agreement (SOFVA) was signed in australia on 31 may 2007 by then defense sec hermogenes ebdane jr and his counterpart defense minister brendan nelson in the presence of president gloria macapagal-arroyo and then australian prime minister john howard.

the curious thing is, president gloria sat on the agreement.  in october of that year, some 4 months after the signing, opposition senators mar roxas and jinggoy estrada were complaining that gma had yet to officially transmit for Senate concurrence the Visiting Forces Agreement signed between the Republic of the Philippines and Government of Australia on May 31, 2007.

“Australia is one of the largest providers of defense training to our soldiers, second only to the United States. It has also been generous in funding human rights projects in the Philippines. Certainly, a defense agreement such as this deserves urgent attention from the Philippine side,” Roxas and Estrada pointed out.

a month later, in november, it was gloria’s new defense sec who asked the senate to ratify the agreement with australia asap.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro on Sunday appealed to the Senate to immediately ratify the Philippines’ Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Australia.

“Well, as soon as possible. We (defense department) were hoping that they (Senate) review it and approve it as soon as possible because Australia has already done so,” said Teodoro when asked about the urgency of the SOFA ratification.

so why did the senate sit on it, too, in the time of gloria?  america did not approve, maybe?  or maybe because there were serious objections?  read Abu Sayyaf and US and Australian military intervention in the southern Philippines by carolin liss of murdoch university.

The proposed involvement of Australian troops has also already caused concern and protests. Some activists have, for example, questioned the motivation behind Australia’s proposed involvement in the southern Philippines, accusing the Australian government of instigating SOFA to protect Australian commercial interests in the Philippines. The interests of Australian mining companies are of particular relevance here, with numerous Australian companies already active in the Philippines. Furthermore, at the time SOFA was signed, Arroyo had been meeting with representatives of the mining industry, including executives of Melbourne-based BHP Billiton to discuss a multi-billion dollar nickel project in Mindanao.

and here’s blogger friend adebrux, very into foreign affairs, commenting in ellen tordesilla’s post back in 2007 on the very day the agreement was signed in canberra:

the SOFA that will be signed between RP and Australia under the auspices of the office of Gloria bruha should be examined with a fine toothcomb.

SOFA, Status of Forces Agreement was patterned after NATO-SOFA (I know coz the guy that negotiated the SOFA for Pinas talked to me about it at length); I reminded the this friend of mine that SOFA (the NATO one) has provisions in it allowing for foreign troops not only to do military exercises but to get stationed in the host country requiring the setting up of military bases for the visiting troops (therefore foreign) or that goes against RP Constitution.

Friend told me that he reminded then DND chief (Cruz) about it – he even snickered that Cruz was just immitating the SOFA (NATO) for RP without knowing the full substance of what he was copying implying that Cruz may be a legal eagle but was still short on the very fine lines in military treatises.

Of course, the Aussies would be in in high heavens – imagine they would be able to extend their tentacles and set up military facilities in Pinas that is if the SOFA they are signing with Pinas is NATO-SOFA carbon copied.

As I’ve said time and again, in this same blog, the Aussies have more intel assets parked in Pinas than US CIAs put together.

I alerted Sen Pimentel about this when the first draft of SOFA was submitted to Pinas. He said at the time that he didn’t know what the treaty contained yet and so he’d rather wait and see.

For all you know, the SOFA that Gloria is about to sign (her DFA chief actually) might be a trap – you might wake up being surrounded not only by American troops but by Aussie troops too and all in violation of RP Constitution. While these foreign troops might want to be helpful to Pinas, their presence could also spark an Iraq scenario in the Philippines, sort of an accident waiting to happen.

Anyway, Philippines beware! [May 31, 2007 7:18 am]

Oh btw, I have no doubt the the US urged Pinas to go for the SOFA treaty with Australia. Not that Americans couldn’t have twisted the arm of Gloria to sign a SOFA with them but with the VFA already going [up] in flames, they needed an ally to take the heat away and who better than Australia to do it for them – acting as surrogate SOFA signatory for the US?  [May 31, 2007 7:23 am]

Australian defence dealers have been some of the most corrupt of the corrupt – they made several commanders of the Philippine Coast Guard VERY VERY WEALTHY! Once a shipbuilding company tried to sell a project to Pinas and almost sold it to the Navy complete with equipment that were still on the drawing board had I not shown them evidence that the company in question was about to go bankrupt unless they signed the deal with the Navy (the deal would have given them a lease on life and would have been used in Australia to get new investors in their company.) They had a broker who was a former military officer living in Forbes park and who happened to be an excellent bosom buddy of a former Senator who was chairing the defence committee in the Senate. [May 31, 2007 7:32 am]

there is also, of course, the unconstitutionality of allowing foreign military forces in our territory.  palusot lang naman talaga yung konseptong “visiting”.  pero akala ko for america lang, because of our history, kasi “special” nga, di ba.  but for australia as well?  and then, maybe, israel?  germany?  uk?

hopefully the palace is not planning to ram this VFA-A down our throats without informed public discussion.  let not the senate vote on this in the name of their constituencies without first convincing us that it would be good for the country, especially at a time like this, when we have our hands full with america and china, and our notions of sovereignty and security are on the line.

media should start doing their homework and sharing whatever they learn with their public.  whichever way it goes in august, twill be a measure of mainstream and social media’s notions of nation.

‘I Told You So’ #cj trial

Teditorial: I Told You So

Can the chief justice be impeached for his interpretation of the law that his accusers completely agree with by not signing their own waivers?

By Teddy Locsin Jr.

I wrote this last night and for the past three weeks, I was predicting on Twitter 18, 19, even 20 will convict. For today was not the day of decision but the day the decision would be announced.

Like a bicameral conference for all the haste of this impeachment, it must have been discussed before it was filed. The decision of the Senate impeachment court making up a law as the trial went along and then convicting for it is the bill of attainder of which Enrile warned.

This was not impeachment as a political process, but a political assassination masquerading as a judicial procedure. An impeachment aspires to judicial procedure, ever mindful of judicial rules, above all respectful of due process that no citizen can be denied however high or low. That is why the senators wore the costumes of judges to look like judges. But this was not a trial but a long execution carried out by the legislature at executive behest.

The grounds for the chief justice’s impeachment were culpable violation of the constitution and betrayal of the public trust. Culpable means blameworthy that excludes unintentional wrong. (I was very good at Latin.) In this case, the act was not even wrong. The BIR says no taxpayer ever declared dollar deposits. Other grounds are treason, bribery, graft and corruption. The grounds differ. But all share a necessary quality. They must all be of equal gravity in being so obviously (note: obviously) wrong as to threaten the order of political society, making it pestilent and perilous for the perpetrator to stay in power.

Of what was the chief justice accused that made him pestilent and his tenure perilous? It is the chief justice’s accusers in the Palace, in the House, in the Senate and in the media who threaten democracy, the rule of law and the order of political society. The very allegations of culpable violation and betrayal of the public trust must already show what they did not in this case: a clear threat to the social order equal to treason.

Enrile made it clear. The chief justice was not charged with ill-gotten wealth, only of failing to declare all of his presumably honestly earned money.

Betrayal of the public trust does not mean “I don’t trust, honey,” like a politician’s wife says when she catches him in bed with someone else.

The constitution has a special definition. Betrayal of public trust is such gross irresponsibility, such brazen lack of integrity, such repeated disloyalty to duty, such heedless inefficiency and laziness in the public service, such glaring injustice and extravagant living as to pose a threat to the good order of society.

No real let alone legal proof showed of any of that. Such proof as the prosecution attempted did not approach the standard of clear and convincing evidence for conviction.

The chief justice was accused of culpable violation of the constitution. But in what regard? How culpable? What was the act or omission and how was it wrong? Can that be wrong which everyone does under a law and only one is accused of it? Signing the waiver acquited the chief justice and put all his accusers on trial.

The chief justice did not conceal his money. It is not concealment when law itself shields the money. The senators lambasted him for that but went along with the TRO. Their secrets had to be shielded but his could not be. They could convict him for hiding what they can keep hiding after all.

Then the chief justice did the unforgivable. He waived the secrecy of his dollar deposits. Now the senators are expected to declare their deposits also. Corona was dead. He was expected to lie down and die alone, not take the senators with him.

In the end, did the chief justice misdeclare all that he owned as public officers are required to report? But the remedy for misdeclaration is self-correction not impeachment as we shall see when a friend of the president is finally caught. Indeed, impeachment is always too grave a remedy. A reckless impeachment undermines the independence of the judiciary as it can weaken the energy of the president.

What the senate did today will decide whether ours shall thenceforth be a government of laws and of separated powers or a government of whimsy and one-gang rule; whether ours shall be a government of limited powers or of powers as far as a president’s ambition will go. Judicial decisions will change with time; political actions will harden with expedient repetion. And this is a government of expediency galore.

It all came down to the question: can the chief justice be impeached for his interpretation of the law that his accusers completely agree with by not signing their own waivers? That is hypocrisy and a violation of the equal protection of the law.

I therefore submit the answer is no. Yet the senate said yes. I told you so. Good night.