noisy na, malicious pa

first time i heard “noisy minority” it was ballsy aquino talking and she was referring to leftists making kulit (if memory serves) about hacienda luisita.   so natawa naman ako when i heard that president aquino had used the same in a vin d’honneur toast to the new year in reference to the challenges ahead:

… from an uncertain outlook for the global economy, to a noisy minority who want to rekindle the malicious practices of the past.

bong austero was offended for the opposition in congress:

PNoy’s remark struck a raw nerve because of the lack of a suitable context. Taking potshots at one’s perceived enemies at a formal occasion one is hosting smacks of illegitimate political behavior, particularly if the people being targeted comprised majority of those who graciously lent their presence at the occasion and who were there apparently in the spirit of cooperation.

ninez cacho olivares was more candid as always:

But just who compose the noisy minority, and just who does he refer to as those who want to rekindle the malicious practices of the past — some of which, incidentally,have been rekindling, such as lump sum appropriations, to name just one.

Of course, Noynoy does not say, and won’t say who the noisy minority is either, because he is using the “noisy minority” to blame for his failureand zero achievement in his six months in the presidential office.

Yet the noisy minority that he speaks of can hardly be called a threat to his claimed reform program. The political opposition in the House of Representatives can hardly be seen as a stumbling block to his reforms, mainly because it is in the minority and therefore does not have the numbers with which to block Noynoy’s plans — if he even had one. Nor, for that matter, does the political opposition have the numbers to override the presidential veto. How then can the minority be a stumbling block?

His critics? But they have no power to stop any of his alleged reform plans or even stop the change he claims he wants to bring about but hasn’t.

The Supreme Court (SC)? But it is hardly noisy and if its majority members strike down Noynoy’s executive orders and memorandum circulars if it mainly because his fiats are constitutionally infirm. But just what does Noynoy want? A subservient SC, along with his already subservient Congress? Is this the change, as well as reforms he speaks of that he wants to bring about?

lol.  biglang magka-level na ang kaliwa, ang gma-opposition, at ang supreme court?   ay, teka, mali.   the left has been called a lot of things, but never “malicious.”

The birthing of the new

By Elmer A. Ordoñez

…  Our report on Philippine PEN’s resolutions calling for the release of imprisoned academic and writer Li Xiaobo and deploring President Aquino’s decision to follow China’s lead in boycotting the Nobel peace award rites for Li Xiaobo, elicited some comment from readers.

One irate reader from abroad, a good friend of long standing, asked in effect that while supporting a Chinese writer of conscience, what has Philippine PEN done for our own journalists who are killed? He was misinformed.

I had to point out that Philippine PEN has been consistent in following the PEN International charter upholding freedom of expression and of the press. Ever since the stories about extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances came out, the Philippine PEN has been passing resolutions at its annual conferences condemning the killings of journalists and the harassment of writers like Alex Pinpin (one of the Tagaytay Five) and more recently of PEN board Chairman and National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera and PEN board member Jun Cruz Reyes. The Maguindanao massacre of at least 58 civilians including 32 journalists was also condemned in PEN meetings.

During martial law, Philippine PEN led by F. Sionil Jose and Salvador P. Lopez solicited signatures of members and other writers for the release of fellow writers in prison. Among those imprisoned were Lumbera, Jose Lacaba, Boni Ilagan, Pete Daroy, Joma Sison, Dolores Feria, Ninotchka Rosca, Luis Teodoro and Mila Aguilar who were detained in various periods. Nick Joaquin, one of the signatories in the PEN statement, made it a condition that he would not accept the National Artist award unless poet Lacaba was released. Sison and Mila Aguilar were released along with other political prisoners by Corazon Aquino who took over as president after EDSA in February 1986.

Filipino writer Isabel Escoda, based in Hong Kong, shared Philippine PEN’s position in deploring President Aquino’s decision not to send a representative to Oslo’s Nobel peace award rites invoking national interest. The “inane excuse” (saving Filipinos caught in China for drug trafficking) of the President is “another case of obfuscation.” She added, “the president apparently forgot that his illustrious mother had once been nominated for the Peace Prize herself.”

UP professor Roland Simbulan wrote that Li Xiaobo is in prison “for his uncompromising stand on free speech, free expression and freedom to assemble, and yet we side with the position of those who put him in jail as a common criminal? He may be conservative in his political views but at this point in time, he had become a defiant symbol of non-violent resistance to autocratic rule in an emerging global superpower.”

Related to this issue of what I call “kowtowing” to China on the Nobel peace prize award is what Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China) wants regarding the hostage crisis that has already put the Philippines to worldwide shame. The Hong Kong coroner asks that 116 witnesses testify at its own inquest.

An expatriate professor teaching in Hong Kong thinks that sending witnesses would be another occasion for the Philippines to be humiliated—given the instances of how migrants or expatriates have been treated by police and justice officers. The hostage crisis has also provided an opportunity for the Donald Tsang administration to rehabilitate itself by channeling “the righteous anger” of the Hong Kong people (against Tsang over constitutional reform legislation) to the “corrupt and inept” government of the Philippines—stoked by the anti-Filipino media.

As we earlier said, these two incidents with China—the hostage crisis and the Li Xiaobo case—and how the P-Noy administration has handled them, do not augur well for an independent foreign policy. It seems that the P-Noy administration, save for Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, is inclined to ingratiate itself to China—for the “national interest” not so much to save the Filipino drug traffickers as to draw Chinese aid and investments. Time for us to recall what Senator Claro Recto said about “our mendicant foreign policy” in 1951 when he criticized the “panhandling attitude” of the Philippine government toward the superpower across the Pacific. Recto emphasized national self-reliance for a “dependent nation cannot expect respect from other nations.”

Without self-respect as a nation, the new order cannot be born.

eaordonez2000@yahoo.com

Philippines: ‘Live it, love it’

I AM an Australian who has been living in the Philippines for two years, and I found Ceres Doyo’s Nov. 25 column, titled “10 things that make PH ugly,” very interesting.

I am here running a 700-seat call center, but I have done my fair share of travelling and writing in the past about some 45-plus countries. I have the following commentary on the Philippines:

• Doyo’s points are very valid and the 10 points are things that need to be addressed but are not enough to deter the right people from visiting this largely untapped country.

• From an outsider’s perspective, the beaches of Palawan, Bohol and Boracay are world-class, without the hordes of people and the littering and saturation of competing hotels.

• Your nation isn’t defined by what you have or what’s wrong, but by the spirit of the people who live here. I know it sounds odd, but “Ondoy” was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed. The spirit, the courage and the willingness of Filipinos to unite and rebuild were truly one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

• People do walk away from the Philippines thinking of Manila as unclean and crowded with bad traffic, etc., but they still love its charm. One thing that’s hard to realize unless you’ve seen the Philippines from afar is that we in the western world are brought up thinking of the Philippines as a “sponsor child nation,” as a “Community Aid Abroad nation,” and we don’t realize what the country has to offer. It’s easy to change people’s perceptions if you market this wonderful country the right way.

• Your country (outside of Manila) has such rare unspoilt beauty and is a land rich in natural wonders. Your slogan should be “Philippines: ‘Live it, love it.’”

• I will leave your country very soon as my work here ends, but your country will never leave me. You need to concentrate on the draw cards, not the deterrents because they are far outweighed.

• When comparing somewhere like France to the Philippines, you could say that France charges $9 for a coffee, its accommodation cost is prohibitive, its public transport system is unaffordable for the people it is designed to transport, and the population is largely against tourism. But instead they say Paris is “the city of love.” Millions visit France each year because of word-of-mouth and great advertising. It’s an expensive and rich country, but this doesn’t stop people from going there. Why? Because people want to feel and live the countries they visit. You couldn’t feel or live a country more than this one.

BEN FAIRBANK
offshore operations manager
Virgin Mobile Australia, Ext 50068

rizal, tagalog, nation

it’s really too bad that we haven’t tried hard enough as a people to develop tagalog into a national language.   then maybe we would have a better sense of national interests as opposed to foreign interests, and we could be making decisions among ourselves first before outsiders with vested interests start weighing in.

read Rizal’s open secrets by john nery.   rizal and del pilar in their correspondence 1889 to 1890 turned from spanish to tagalog for a “layer of privacy”, “to wrap something in (or bind themselves to) secrecy”, and “to forge a unity of purpose” at a time when “the question of language was becoming more and more central to their attempt to found a nation.”

read too dr. pablo s. trillana III‘s Rizal and leadership.