a sexist sandiganbayan

so why does gigi reyes deserve to be treated differently, i.e., so terribly misogynistically badly, with handcuffs yet!  compared to the machos revilla jr. and estrada jr. and the former’s chief of staff richard cambe?  is she allegedly more guilty than the two senators and their cohorts?  or is it, as i’ve suspected from the beginning, a strategy meant to pressure her into spilling the beans on boss enrile…  sometimes i wonder why she didn’t just stay away.  i suppose she was promised fair treatment and hearing?  or maybe she was promised that enrile was too powerful, no arrests would happen.  bum steer.

Gigi’s sorrows
by Rina Jimenez-David

The sorrows that Gigi Reyes faces would seem, to some, as simply just punishment for her role in the “pork barrel scam.” She had served as chief of staff of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, one of the three senators accused (and now held in detention) for their part in the diversion of public money into private hands.

Sometimes called the “25th senator,” Reyes was said to be particularly powerful during Enrile’s term as Senate president, when she held extraordinary sway in the running of the chamber, in behalf of her boss.

But regardless of her guilt or innocence in the scam, which should be determined in the course of hearings at the Sandiganbayan, does Reyes deserve the treatment she’s now getting in the hands of the antigraft court?

Friends and relatives raise concern about how Reyes is seemingly being singled out for tougher punishment than her coaccused. Enrile is confined in an air-conditioned room at the Camp Crame Hospital after being arraigned in private, away from the media’s prying eyes. The two other senators—Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla—are being held in a especially-renovated custodial center at the PNP compound, which a human rights lawyer described as akin to a “three-star hotel” for detainees. They are joined there by other coaccused in the case, including Revilla’s chief of staff Richard Cambe, who is Reyes’ counterpart. Even Janet Napoles, considered the “brains” behind the operation, has been “enjoying” a stay at stand-alone quarters at a PNP Special Action Forces camp in Laguna.
* * *
IN CONTRAST, Reyes has been ordered detained in a regular city jail, although she has since been staying in an “isolation room” in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig, a detention center for political detainees and certain criminals.

Recent reports said Reyes suffered an “anxiety attack” while being booked at Camp Bagong Diwa and had to be rushed to a nearby hospital and then transferred to the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City for a checkup. The court later ordered her return to the detention center.

…But if Reyes deserves to be treated like a criminal, then so should all the other accused in the crime—especially the principals.

Reyes’ camp points out a fact that many seem to have forgotten. Reyes, they said, came home from the United States where she could have stayed for as long as she wanted. “But she wanted to clear her name and trusted in the legal system,” a brother asserts. Why is she being singled out for “special” treatment? Is it in hopes that the harsh treatment would compel her to turn state’s witness, like Ruby Tuason, who was even allowed to travel abroad after she surrendered to authorities? Or are people pulling strings to scare her into silence? Your guess is as good as mine.

but wait.  here’s breaking news on @ ANC 24/7 

JUST IN: Sandiganbayan orders transfer of Janet Lim Napoles from Fort Sto. Domingo, Laguna to Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig. Sandiganbayan 3rd Division Clerk of Court Dennis Pulma says BJMP must immediately implement order to transfer Napoles.

so.  the question remains.  why the women only?  why not the men, too?  to think that the enrile cases are being handled by a woman, no less than the sandiganbayan’s presiding justice amparo cabotaje-tang who also heads the third division, and whom the president appointed to the graft court’s highest post last october, bypassing acting presiding justice gregorio ong (for alleged links to napoles) and other senior associate justices. what message are you sending, presiding justice, ma’am?  what message is the sandiganbayan sending?  parusahan agad ang mga babae, pero kaawaan, alagaan, alalayan muna ang mga lalaki?  what discrimination is this!  anti-woman much?

israel, palestine, america

Israel & Palestine: A Very Short Introduction
How Jon Stewart Made It Okay to Care About Palestinian Suffering 
The Guardian view on… a futile war in Gaza 
James Fallows: From Inside and Outside the Iron Dome, Once Again
Letter from Gaza by a Norwegian doctor
Report From Gaza: When My Son Screams
The Israeli offensive in Gaza isn’t an attack on Hamas, it’s an attack on peace
Glenn Greenwald: Why Did NBC Pull Veteran Reporter After He Witnessed Israeli Killing of Gaza Kids?
Gaza Is a Concentration Camp, And It’s an American Delusion Not to Recognize That—Weschler
Israel Is Simply Wrong This Time
Anthony Bourdain – Parts Unknown – Gaza and the West Bank (HD)
Stephen Hawking’s boycott hits Israel where it hurts: science
Naomi Klein: Enough. It’s time for a boycott

Dear Juan Ponce Enrile

By Sylvia Estrada-Claudio

I hope that after your conviction, all those you intimidated and harmed before, during, and after martial law will find the courage to tell their stories. I hope that you live to hear those stories. 

Last year, the 41st the anniversary of the declaration of martial law, I wrote a long post about you ending with, “Old as you are, you may never be brought to justice. And I doubt your conscience bothers you, enamored as you seem by unearned wealth and the pomp of your dishonorably gained positions. But I remember and will remember, with the hope that history will, like me, condemn.”

How much has changed in less than a year.

And now, as you, a 90-year-old, are confined to a hospital under arrest, let me charge you with what has been in my heart all these years. Because I do accuse you. And not just with the plunder charges the government has filed against you.

I accuse

I accuse you of torture and murder. Not just of people unknown to me, but also of my friends. I accuse you of having committed the crime of plunder long before you stole your PDAF as a senator.

I do this not out of vindictiveness, but out of a need for healing that you owe me and all those who passed through martial law. I do not do this in anger, but in order to share with those who did not go through those years. They need to understand why you and those like you should never ever be allowed to have power again.

Now is a good time. If we did not learn our lesson then, it is time to look back now – time to realize that those who betray the nation are likely to betray it again. As you have done after martial law.

Ah, what catharsis to write this! What a relief to be able to call you names. I remember how you would punish people who criticized you, Marcos, and your cabal. This is what you did to my friend and former Philippine Collegian editor, Abraham Sarmiento, Jr. You imprisoned him for writing editorials critical of martial law. You released him only after you personally expressed displeasure over the editorials. I know because he told me. He stuck to his principles after release. You imprisoned him again and kept him in a cell until his health had so deteriorated he died shortly after his second release. Even as you seemed to recover your career, I often comforted myself with the thought that at least the sacrifices of those who fought the dictatorship allowed me the freedom to criticize you. That I did not do so daily was merely because of my limitations and not out of new-found respect for you.

Do you think I have forgotten my mother’s years of excruciating worry as she watched me go deeper and deeper into the anti-dictatorship struggle? Oh, how her friends would comfort my mother, “Don’t worry, Rita. If she gets caught I will agree to his advances and spend the night with him in exchange for your daughter’s freedom.” Yes, even then we knew that you were a predator as well. You were so lascivious my humble family knew of two people whom you had propositioned. You abused power to the maximum. You made us see with clarity what Hannah Arendt calls “the banality of evil.”

Detention, torture during martial law

And I, like many who lived through those years, knew of your evil as a daily reality. My first job as a young doctor was with a health and human rights organization. I worked with those who had been tortured. Those days, detention and torture were almost a sure-fire combination. So I and a couple of colleagues would make the rounds of the detention centers with every new report of an arrest, hoping that, with a quick response, people would be tortured less, not killed.

We would present ourselves at the detention centers to any officer who would see us. (They never had a real system for us. That would mean some form of accountability.) We had to be brave because we knew at once this marked us as communist enemies. But they also had to have a semblance of regularity. So our requests would be considered. If the officer was a tough psychopath, he would just say “no” outright. But this would give us ammunition to go squealing to international human rights groups.

So we would often have to wait for hours for someone from the Judge Advocate General’s Office (JAGO) to make a decision. I never met anyone from JAGO then. I did often get turned away by that office. If the JAGO turned us away, we would write you. Very rarely, for reasons unknown, you or JAGO would agree to our visit, often after weeks of delay. We always thought the delay was to ensure the torture would continue. Marcos, you and your military believed in torture as an investigation technique. After the torture, you would have us wait a few more days until the physical evidence of torture had disappeared. If there was enough international pressure; if you wanted us off your backs; if our seeing the detainees would not cause you any harm, you let us see them.

But they would tell us their stories. A detainee was lucky if all he or she got was getting beaten within an inch of their life. (I guess they left that for the amateurs called fraternity boys.) Electrocution, water boarding, rape and other forms of sexual harassment, sleep deprivation, hearing your wife being raped, hearing your comrades being tortured, being asked to sit on a block of ice while naked – your minions were so depraved in what they created.

Six weeks ago, labor leader Romy Castillo died of lung cancer. In 1984 your military electrocuted his testicles, put a barbecue stick up his penis, repeatedly submerged his face in a feces-filled toilet bowl. They beat him and played Russian roulette on him. I cannot forget the day, shortly after his ordeal, when I visited him in detention. I will not let you forget his story nor escape your liability for it.

Your military killed my childhood friend Lorenzo Lansang when he was only 19 years old. He was summarily executed in a field in Quezon province. Your hands are smeared in his blood and I will always point out how bloody they are.

I blame you and Marcos for the corruption and brutality of the military and police today. I still keep abreast of the torture situation. And it looks like the police and military have no idea how to interrogate and investigate without varying degrees of torture and intimidation thrown in. They have become addicted to it. All those recent reports of human rights violations by state authorities? Your face is on the logo.

And I remember that your wealth came from the thievery of the martial law years. It does not therefore surprise me that you stole your pork barrel funds.

You find me too dramatic? I could fill entire pages with more stories. And I am not alone. How lucky that I am much younger than you. I and my cohort will live after you and tell our tales.

Karma

Dear Johnny boy, I bet you miss the days when you could have imprisoned me for this. When you could have had your military rape me as revenge. I, on the other hand, am so glad you are under arrest now. Defanged, at last. Hopefully forever.

Unlike you, however, I would not wish torture upon those I truly think are enemies of the people. In short, I would not torture you. I would not deny you seeing your lawyers or doctors or relatives as you did to so many during martial law. It is fitting though that you may suffer in detention more than usual. I do note that you may be experiencing pain because you are old and infirm. I note it.

Your conviction will be so good for our country. It will show that such diabolical behavior will not always be rewarded. That somehow power can end and then a price will have to be paid. It may deter future wrongdoing. It may convince a few more people not to value the things you value.

The only thing I am afraid of is that you are morally incompetent. So much of your record indicates “sociopath.” I fear that it does not matter to you what people think or will remember. It isn’t right that your punishment will be so short because you’re not likely to live 20 more years. That was the amount of time you kept our people subjugated to martial law. So I can only hope that you at least care enough so that the last days of your life can be lived in regret.

I am hoping you care about how history will remember you. You did write and spend for the publication of that lie of a memoir. So I hope that you live to see your conviction. That after your conviction, all those you intimidated and harmed before, during, and after martial law will find the courage to tell their stories. I hope that you live to hear those stories.

But for now, this is my story. And before you go, I want you to know that the other stories will come. It’s called History. It’s called karma.

An opportunity to ‘level up’

By Emmanuel S. de Dios

FUTURE HISTORIANS will ponder the curious chain of events that provoked profound political changes in the Philippines under Aquino III. The puzzle for them is to understand how formal rules came to be taken seriously and suddenly made to “stick.” From public outrage over the uncovered Napoles mafia, to the Supreme Court’s proscription of congressional pork barrel, down to its latest decision against the President’s power to reallocate funds — the rules of political behavior and engagement are being fundamentally changed.

On the surface, the effect is as if one was simply “restoring” order in the relations among the branches of government as intended under the Constitution. After all, Congress is supposed to have the “power over the purse,” and the President’s job is simply to implement legislative priorities. Hence, legislators should not select projects to implement ex post, and the President should not independently appropriate and allocate monies without explicit congressional approval. All neat and bundled, right?

Except, of course, the Philippine government has never functioned that way. Legislative pork has always existed under different names in all post-Marcos administrations and instituted in its current form under Cory Aquino’s budget ministry (a well-intended innovation by my colleague Ben Diokno). What’s more, until this year, this practice was twice rubber-stamped by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, all presidents, even under the present Constitution, have always effectively picked and chosen budgetary priorities. Especially when a fiscal crisis required deficits to be controlled, the President always decided which budget items should continue to be funded and which were to be abandoned, effectively performing the function of the legislature. Or then again through a re-enactment of the budget (which can be contrived by not passing a new one), the President disposed over all the funds artificially “saved” from already completed projects and was free to define new priorities. The Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was nothing new, from this viewpoint.

All in all, therefore, Philippine democracy has functioned up to now with an “imperial presidency.”

Which brings us to the point: if the Supreme Court is right about what the spirit and letter of the law say, why has practice deviated from it?

It is rooted in the fact that there are no long-lived organizations (read: political parties) capable of formulating national agendas and defining national priorities. In practice, only the President, controlling the large bureaucracy, can do that. It is then natural for the strategic function to devolve on him.

In the meantime, with their re-election based on local-level patronage, the focus of legislators’ attention is primarily parochial. Their function is reduced to that of fiscal brokers seeking to ensure their share of the national pie. This makes them uninterested in their responsibility for their theoretical “power over the purse” (except for the odd occasion it can be used to extort concessions from the executive). In current practice, for example, Congress hardly even knows how much “the purse” contains: laws are enacted without the funding needed to implement them; budgets are passed without legislative regard for expected tax revenues, or the debt burden, or the resulting size of the budget deficit — all those things are passed on to the executive. (Let him worry about it; I just need my convention center.) This, of course, is a flawed, imperfect order; yet it is order nonetheless — serviceable in the case of a good president, though a free ticket to abuse by a bad one.

Which brings us to the current pass. If, as expected, the Court reaffirms its decision on the DAP, then — together with the abolition of “pork” as we knew it — how shall Congress and the Executive henceforth relate to each other? On the one hand, the institutional dissonance will seem to have been resolved: government is then constrained to function more closely to what the Constitution envisions. On the other hand, one must ask whether political actors (not ideally, but as they exist) can fulfill the tasks assigned them by such formal rules.

Is Congress, for example, prepared to fully internalize all the cost and effort involved in the minutiae of budget preparation? Will it be nimble enough to adjust spending plans quickly, say within a year, in case of revenue shortfalls and delays in the implementation of spending? Or can the Executive and the bureaucracy improve their effectiveness enough to work according to the sluggish clock that Congress is inevitably bound to follow?

Now that lawmakers’ “pork” is gone and real political parties are nowhere on the horizon, what are the means to induce Congress to deliver budgets in a timely way? Shall we return (oh no!) to prolonged spells of reenacted budgets? If fiscal uncertainty is the result, what would be the effect on long-term growth and the people’s welfare?

Citoyens et citoyennes! We are in the midst of a revolution whose outcome is yet unknown — instigated ironically by a conservative and literalist Supreme Court. In a world of institutional dissonance, an insistence on strict formal rules can be disruptive. Indeed, seasoned union organizers know how a “work-to-rule” strategy can totally subvert production.

In a good scenario, all will turn out for the best. There may be a growth hiccup or two in the near term, but ultimately members of Congress will up their game and find common ground with some presidential vision and each puts his shoulder to the wheel. The exigencies of the situation may yet provide the needed spark for the formation of genuine program-based political parties.

The media and the growing middle class may yet become more focused on the quotidian business of politics and representation, progressing beyond their currently sporadic, scandal-driven interest. In short, the insistence on rules may yet provide a bridge to the country becoming a mature representative democracy. Who knows? The political class may yet “level up.”

As for the bad scenario… well, let’s not think about that right now. Let PNoy and Butch Abad worry about it.