Marcos cronies and the golden oriole of Isabela

…. Under Marcos, logging licenses and timber concessions were given out as gifts and favors to select family members, close friends, politicians, and supporters. Shared out like a great cake, the forests of northern Luzon were sliced up in unequal portions and distributed to the privileged few. Marcos’ mother, an uncle, a brother, a sister and her husband, were concessionaires to hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Aurora, Quirino and Quezon. They installed themselves as board members and shareholders of newly formed lucrative logging companies and timber processing plants….

Rachel AG Reyes

ousting duterte: ain’t gonna happen

nade-deja-vu ako with all the coup and impeachment talk.  it’s like in gloria arroyo’s time when we were forever attempting another EDSA to oust her, especially after the hello-garci i-am-sorry scandal.  but we never quite managed one, did we.  at the time, i figured that it was because there was no one to replace her with — vp noli de castro the media man simply didn’t measure up — unlike in edsa dos, when vp arroyo the economist was mostly acceptable and the Left was simply outmaneuvered (the militants were calling for a council of state).

this time we have a vp who basks in the support of a yellow camp that is rightly offended by duterte’s kill-kill-kill rhetoric in the war on drugs but who seems to be distancing herself more and more from a president who rightly and fearlessly calls out america on historical atrocities committed against filipinos in the course of colonizing our islands.  and this time we have a former justice sec, now senator, trying to distract us from serious allegations that she was the recipient of millions of bucks from the bilibid drug trade for her senatorial campaign and who’s making a lot of noise about “extrajudicial killings” that’s being echoed by pro-american international media, academe, and, even, an international court prosecutor.  and this time we have the many amboys and amgirls among us who simply can’t imagine life without american troops and aid, as though that didn’t always come with all sorts of strings attached, to put it mildly.

but is all that enough to oust a duterte?  i imagine that de lima is hoping praying for an edsa action that would be backed by the yellow camp and cardinal tagle’s church and rogue military forces loyal to america.  but do they have the numbers that the duterte camp has?  no, they don’t.  their best hakot efforts would be as nothing compared to the throngs that the duterte camp is certainly capable of mobilizing throughout the country.  of course they could also shoot for a “crony”-business boycott a la pre-EDSA 86, but the duterte camp could just as easily mount a counter-boycott of the vp’s business allies, and it’s easy to imagine kung sinong pupulutin sa kangkungan.

as for an impeachment ops a la pre-edsa dos, here’s ninez cacho-olivares:

The political reality today is that the masses of Filipinos are behind Duterte and the majority in the House today are not going to try and impeach him and if they try to replicate that which the House and the Senate did in 2000 against Estrada, they are likely to fail and will face political death. Duterte, despite his being a fatalist, won’t give up that easily. Blood will flow, that is for certain.

“blood will flow” is cringe-worthy, of course.  the original EDSA template was all about no-blood no-guns no-violence.  even the president himself might be called upon for “creative imagination.”

communication gaps galore: chacha, foreign ownership, federalism

on the occasion of president duterte’s first 100 days, ANC covered an event where finance secretary sonny dominguez talked about tax reforms.  i was only half-listening until suddenly — someone from the press must have asked him about charter change and foreign ownership — suddenly he was admitting that because of the chacha talk, he was being asked by foreigners if they would be allowed to own land na, and he said his response was:

Why? Can you buy land in Singapore? In Indonesia? … Why should you be able to buy land here?  Land is a sensitive issue in the Philippines.

or something to that effect.  not sure now if he said indonesia, could have been malaysia or another ASEAN nation.  i’ve googled the event, for naught.  have also hung around ANC waiting for a replay, also for nought.

i couldn’t have imagined it lang.  my first reaction was jubilant: surely sec dominguez is speaking for the president, hurray!  and then i wondered what it means for the charter change agenda.  puwede bang magshift from presidential to federal without touching the economic provisions?  or or or is it possible that even the federalism thingy has been shelved, and we’re back to forging by hook or by crook a constitutionally acceptable-to-all autonomous state for the moro people of mindanao?

alas, nothing, as usual, from the presidential communications operations office (PCOO) and it took that disgraceful near-brawl in the lower house of congress a whole week later (read Hotheads delay Cha-cha hearing) to tell us that the supermajority is still hellbent on convening as a constitutional assembly (read Time running out, Cha-Cha should start in Nov — Arroyo), never mind that there is no public support for it.

it does not help, of course, that the PCOO has yet to launch any kind of information campaign on the proposed shift to federalism.  as it turns out, sec martin andanar is such an intellectual featherweight pala, and it’s pathetic that all he can manage to put out for public consumption is a twice-a-week inquirer column that luis teodoro rightly disses as “masterpieces of fluff and personal glorification.”  LOL

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Federalism, for what by Florin T. Hilbay
Federalism project puts the cart before the horse by Yen Makabenta
Regional net worth in a federal structure by Philip Camara
What’s with ConAss? by Rita Linda V. Jimeno
Curb vested interests, so Con-Ass can work by Jarius Bondoc
Political dynasties doom Cha-cha: Monsod
do not delete (economic provisions)
do not delete 2
do not delete 3

from duterte to the coco levy

Like a warm bullet in my head:
How I was silenced by right speech fundamentalists in the Philippines
By Sass Rogando Sasot

I am a Duterte supporter. This declaration exposes me to a barrage of insults from the Filipino disente society. I’ve been labelled a cuckoo, fascist, a Nazi, a Dutertard, an idiot, a fanatic, a blind follower, an apologist, and a High Priestess of the Cult of Duterte. Even benign tags have been weaponized against me, such as “just a student in The Hague” and “Mocha Uson with a diploma.” My Facebook Page has been ridiculed as the “slums of Facebook.” A professor in a true-blue elite university in Quezon City even stripped me of my nationality, uprooting me from my origin. He called me a “European Dutertian.” Its purpose is to discredit my participation in the political affairs of the Philippines, akin to how Michael Ignatieff’s US residency was successfully used against him by his opponents when he ran as Prime Minister of Canada in 2011. Their rationale is that since I’m educated, they cannot understand why I’m supporting the monster they call Duterte. For them, there’s no ethical standpoint that could justify my support; if there is, they dismiss any explanation as mere apologetics for Duterte. They simply refuse to understand. Period.

Read on…