Category: senate

“actionable intelligence”

feb 11 i caught US president barack obama on CNN explaining his admin’s draft resolution to the US congress for authority to use force against ISIL.

OBAMA: If we had actionable intelligence about a gathering of ISIL leaders, and our partners didn’t have the capacity to get them, I would be prepared to order our Special Forces to take action, because I will not allow these terrorists to have a safe haven. [emphasis mine]

actionable intelligence!  it rang a bell.  i was sure i heard president aquino use the very same words to justify the mamasapano ops.  googled it and, yes, the very same words, when he addressed the nation for the first time 29 january re mamasapano.

“[N]ang nalaman ng ating kapulisan ang tutok na lokasyon nina Marwan at Usman, nagdesisyon silang kumilos upang ipatupad ang mga warrant sa mga ito. Actionable intelligence po ang nakalap ng ating mga awtoridad: Hindi lamang rehiyon, o probinsiya, o munisipyo ang natukoy nila, kundi ang mismong mga bahay na pinagtataguan ng dalawa. Kung hindi aaksiyunan ang kaalamang ito, maaaring makatakas sina Marwan at Usman, at kakailanganin na namang simulan ang mahabang proseso ng paghahanap sa kanila.

and just last wednesday feb 11, the very same day obama talked “actionable intelligence” vis a vis ISIL, palace spokesman edwin lacierda invoked the same to explain why presidential bff purisima remained in the loop despite his suspension from office by the ombudsman last december 2014:

He (Purisima) had the actionable intelligence. That was the role that he had,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said in a press briefing.

“actionable intelligence” was first used by presidential candidate obama in august 2007  amid debate in Washington over al qaeda and taliban resurgence in  northwest pakistan that president pervez musharraf was unable to control.

“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will,” Obama said. 

upon the killing of osama bin laden by US operatives in may 2o11, a senior administration official said in a press briefing:

I would also just add to that that President Obama, over a period of several years now, has repeatedly made it clear that if we had actionable intelligence about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, we would act. So President Obama has been very clear in delivering that message publicly over a period of years. And that’s what led President Obama to order this operation. When he determined that the intelligence was actionable and the intelligence case was sufficient, he gave us high confidence that bin Laden indeed was at the compound.

it would seem — given obama’s words to the effect that the US is prepared to take action should a “partner” prove incapable of acting on actionable intelligence — that president aquino really had no choice but to allow the mamasapano ops when he did, with purisima in the lead, since it was purisima with whom the americans were sharing the actionable info.  if the prez and purisima had waited too long, at naka-eskapo ang mga terorista, nagalit tiyak ang amerika, and who knows  how that would have affected our foreign and political and security affairs.

naka-eskapo nga si usman, pero patay naman daw si marwan, and the americans may be seeing the glass as half-full, but which brings us back to the finger.  i suppose that by now congress is privy to napenas’ story about why and how it was turned over to the americans almost immediately, it would seem, defying all protocol.  i suppose, too, that our senators and congresspeeps will not be sharing the transcript of those executive sessions with us ordinary citizens, which would mean that these allegedly honourable ones would be complicit in the cover-up.

a cover-up na nakaka-offend because it’s like they’re saying that we can’t handle the truth about america and our lopsided “special relations.”  as if we haven’t known all along.

they think we’re all idiots.  no actionable intelligence for us.

Why Senate should not allow the redefinition of savings and change the meaning of ‘errata’

By Leonor Magtolis Briones 

Last Monday, November 17, 2014 a number of interesting events happened in the Senate. In the morning, a necrological service was held for the much-loved Senator Juan Flavier. Two other related events took place: the referral to the Committee on Finance of the General Appropriations Bill (House Bill 4968) and a briefing by Social Watch Philippines on why the Senate should not allow the redefinition of savings and change the meaning of the word “errata.”

Read on…

the anti-binay show

it’s interesting, no, intriguing, that we are seeing quite a parade of witnesses who worked with/for the veep back when he was makati mayor now testifying against him in the senate probe.  i wonder how much that’s costing whom.  what ex-deals, trade-offs, quid pro quos, are being transacted behind the scenes.  surely the binays are hurting, but is the veep going to blink and give up his 2016 run for the presidency?  hmm, sana, lalo na’t type pala niya i-chacha ang economic provisions ng constitution, and who knows what else, argh.   samantala, high na high naman ang tatlong senador na matatayog rin ang ambisyon, wheeee, nagbabaliktaran na!  i suppose they think this is winning them pogi points, i mean, votes for whatever whenever, but really it is also evoking reactions like, eh pare-pareho lang naman sila, nakakainis, nagmamalinis!  pro-chacha rin kaya?  i may not see it in my lifetime, but i’m hoping that when next the pinoy public is made to watch a spectacle like this ay tunay nang malinis at kapita-pitagan ang senadong naghuhusga.

national security concerns

while i try to come to terms with rigoberto tiglao’s story that the prez rushed the crafting (behind closed doors) and signing of the enhanced defense ek-ek just so obama would drop by while he was in the neighborhood and not snub the philippines again as he did when he visited indonesia not once but twice… yeah yeah because if he had snubbed us yet again, china would have been delirious with joy…

and while i try to understand where the prez is coming from, giving american troops access to practically any place they might desire to occupy/locate themselves, almost any place — i assume the palace is off limits? — in the archipelago, rural and urban, civilian and military,  with the americans retaining jurisdiction, criminal and whatever, over everyone and everything they bring in and do wherever… i don’t get it, why do the americans want, need, to be all over the place?  what’s the real agenda?  why all the secrecy?

and while i wonder if government knows something we citizens don’t know regarding our status as sovereign nation, as in, we’re not pala, sovereign, akala lang natin, and we citizens are the last to know?  could this be america’s and the aquino admin’s way of telling us without saying it in so many words?

and while i wonder if senator miriam’s promised senate probe would could make any difference, and if taking the question of constitutionality to the supreme court would only bring on another double negative, as in, not unconstitutional, lol, and whether american soldiers are regularly tested for HIV-AIDS and have unlimited supply of top-of-the-line leak-proof condoms to keep our women and children safe from sexually transmitted diseases…

and finally there’s napoles and the pdaf scam, and talk that enrile, estrada, and revilla will be arrested soon.  talaga?  meanwhile i’m intrigued by this mother’s day tweet by malou tiquia :

@maltiq One flew over d cuckoo’s nest n landed on a sanitized list 2 b revealed next week. JN n Cam lost their aces! Circus coming! #pdafblues 

is d cuckoo who i think it is?  but isn’t that what sandra cam was warning about, a sanitized list that would not tally with napoles’s?

and what about ping lacson claiming in a radio interview that the napoles list is explosive, it could bring the senate down, and that’s a national security concern, therefore it can only be revealed to the senators themselves in a secret session.  big mistake.  keeping that list secret from the public would create more of a national security concern.  for sure it would infuriate and galvanize million-people-march-ers to storm the streets in protest, demanding that the list be made public, stop coddling the accused, or else!

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What should the Senate do?  http://opinion.inquirer.net/74438/what-should-the-senate-do 
The normalization of corruption http://opinion.inquirer.net/74408/the-normalization-of-corruption