why ping

almost everyone’s saying senator panfilo aka “ping” lacson should surrender and prove his innocence in court instead of forever playing the unfairly accused fugitive.   but when i think of the vizconde massacre and how there is so much reasonable doubt as to the guilt of hubert webb et al and yet they’ve been in jail for 15 years now and counting, i can’t blame lacson for staying away.   lalo na after rereading my september 2009 post, the dacer whodunit.   at the time there were still all sorts of questions and allegations re two ex-presidents who were known to be closely involved with dacer.   questions that have not been addressed or answered, at least not in public.   tipong bigla na lang, basta, si lacson ang mastermind, sabi kasi ni mancao.   but i find it hard to believe that ping acted on his own and not on orders of a higher-up, if indeed he had anything to do with the double murder.

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Antonio Carpio’s Dacer’s killers: Who and why?
politicaljunkie’s A few things you might find interesting about the Bubby Dacer case
Herman Tiu Laurel’s The forgotten angle
Fel Maragay’s Man in white
Michael Lim Ubac’s Lacson: Estrada, Palace want me in jail
Torn and frayed in Manila’s Were Ninoy Aquino and Bubby Dacer killed on presidential orders?
Ducky Paredes’ Ping Lacson ??!?
Newsbreak Online’s Timeline:The Dacer-Corbito Murders and the BW Scam
Asian Journal’s Dacers file civil case vs. Estrada, Lacson

RH hurrahs! and a boo

the first HURRAH! is for dr. sylvia claudio, director of the u.p. center for women’s studies, who spoke up in congress at the 2nd deliberation of the house committee of population and family relations on the critical question of when life begins, and fearlessly unequivocally contradicted the notion that life begins at fertilization.

I have a prepared statement today but let me respond to the questions posed to the medical doctors by Representatives Biazon and (Anthony) Golez on the issue of when life begins.

I note that the Chair called upon me because Rep. Biazon also asked who does not believe life begins at fertilization. I do not, for two reasons. The first reason is that as an agnostic I do not subscribe to the beliefs of the Catholic Church. In this regard I would like to remind everyone that the Constitutional provision on religious freedom protects not just the right to belief but also the right to non-belief. …

The second reason I do not believe that life begins at fertilization has to do with my expertise as a medical doctor. . . . I would like to note that “conception” is not a medical term. The terms fertilization and implantation are medical terms and we can describe and explain these processes to lay people. Any scientific discussion requires the precise use of terms. The Philippine Obstetrics and Gynecological Society is correct when it states that the mainstream medical and scientific community agrees that pregnancy begins at implantation.

the second HURRAH! is for dr. marita v.t. reyes, chair of the women’s health care foundation, who recently gave a talk on “Biomedical Ethics and RH” in a u.p. forum. reyes points out that only upon implantation does the woman’s urine test positive for the hormone that signals a pregnancy.

Conception is usually equated with fertilization described as the union of sperm and egg. Clinically, however,conception is synonymous with pregnancy and is established by a pregnancy test based on the presence of the human chorionic gonadotrophin in the blood and the urine. This hormone is secreted by the chorionic villi after implantation of the embryo.

… Implantation is completed 14 days (2 weeks) after fertilization. Studies have shown that 45-70 percent of fertilized ova do not successfully implant. It is after implantation that individuation may be said to occur since twinning and fusion no longer take place. Some books refer to the fertilized ovum prior to implantation as a ‘pre-embryo.’ After implantation, it is referred to as ‘an embryo.’ Sometimes, debates are unresolved because of differences in terminologies! It is at implantation that the hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin mentioned earlier, is secreted and is used as an indicator of pregnancy.

so there.   as far as these lady scientists are concerned, human life begins with implantation, which doesn’t happen until more than a week after fertilization, if at all there is an egg that is fertilized after unprotected (uncontracepted?) sex.   so what’s the harm of emergency contraception, or the morning-after pill, when one is not pregnant and just wants to make sure one does not get pregnant?

of course the anti-RH folks will insist that life begins with fertilization and any intervention in the reproductive process is morally wrong.   i say again, it’s for the woman to decide who to believe and what to do with her own body.

of course it would help if mainstream media would level-up the information-gathering, yes?   and lead discussions that would help women understand that they have options, and that would make the golezes and sottos in congress see that millions of impoverished men and women who may want to practice contraception (instead of having to resort to abortion) just can’t afford to buy condoms and pills when they can barely feed their families three meals a day.

this brings me to the BIG BOO! which goes to anc‘s the brew that guested paranaque representative roilo golez the other thursday but instead of truly grilling him on his anti-RH stance, the brewhas just let him go on and on — high population is good, contraceptives are already available, maternal deaths should be blamed on lack of doctors and midwives, at kung ano-ano pang kamachohan.   they should have posted a disclaimer: the opinions expressed herein are not those of the brewhas, or the network’s, unless of course anti-RH din pala sila.

sure they tried, pitifully unsuccessfully, to bring the talk to the level of the impoverished family, but golez was just too “good” — poor din daw siya noon but his parents had the right values, sent him to school, blah blah blah.   hay naku.   so the brewhas changed the subject na lang:  how daw kaya to produce more pacquiaos.

like i posted in facebook, the girls didn’t help the RH cause any.   they should stick to trivial issues for which knee-jerk reactions are good enough if they can’t be bothered to do their homework.   if they had bothered to check out golez’s website they could have at least maybe prepared an intelligent counter-attack.   or maybe not?

in last thursday’s episode the brewhas reacted to criticisms lightly, patawa effect — kesyo they didn’t wanna “mess with golez”…  he will “stoop to nothing”…   kesyo  it wasn’t supposed to be a debate, nothing wrong with letting the “charming” golez have his say…  maiba naman from “shrewish zealots” with “magical reasoning”…   ganoon?   ewww

so what do we make of one brewha’s  rant vs. tibaks and the suc budget protests.   i guess matapang lang sila vs. the left at pag di nila kaharap?   ‘yan ba ang girl power, anc style?   BOO!

abortion

it’s something women don’t really talk about, even among themselves, but if one needs that kind of help, it’s not hard to find out where to go, depending on one’s paying capacity.   there are crude back-alley operations (catheter style, the unsafest unkindest scariest), there are clandestine clinics (d & c, pain pain pain), there are even small hospitals (suction, painless, relatively).    also there are meds, pharmaceuticals, banned here of course but widely known about even in the provinces and can be had under the counter, or in quiapo, requiring little medical supervision.   but elizabeth angsioco is right, it is never an easy decision, rather always an agonizing one, and always out of desperation.   poor women.

The ‘A’ word
Elizabeth Angsioco

A stands for abortion.

Five hundred seventy thousand Filipino women underwent induced abortions in 2008. Around 90,000 of them were hospitalized, and 1,000 died from complications. Surely, these abortion figures (Guttmacher Institute) should be more than enough to shock people. But will these make us closely look at the problem? More importantly, will these data jolt the government into action? Or will we be like the moralists whose knee-jerk reactions are to condemn women and brush these numbers aside as untrue?

Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. The Constitution criminalizes it. Because it is also culturally taboo, abortion is rarely discussed and done mostly within the context of religion or morality – that abortion is a mortal sin. Opportunities to objectively, honestly and intelligently dialogue on abortion is severely lacking. There is virtually no venue for women to freely discuss abortion without the moral prescriptions and judgment from others. Because it is illegal and stigmatized, abortion remains hidden; the data are hard to come by.

Admittedly, the above-mentioned numbers are estimates. These are, however, intelligent estimates, and the result of a rigorous process of research and data extrapolation based on factors used in comparative estimations in other countries. Thus, these figures cannot and should not be disregarded as untrue.

These numbers show how critical and widespread the problem is. Despite its being illegal, more than half a million women undergo abortion a year. This is more than the entire population of Makati City in 2007. The number of women who are hospitalized as a result of the abortion is a few thousands more than Isabela City’s population. The number of women who died is comparable to the population of an entire small barangay. Such is the magnitude of the problem.

Abortions are performed clandestinely. In many cases, unsafe manners are used by those who perform them. They endanger women’s lives. There were cases of women who used barbecue sticks and clothes hangers to induce abortion. Highly dangerous ways such as these are more common for poor women. Their rich ‘sisters’ can pay for needed services, sometimes even getting the procedure (and vacation) in another country.

Profiling women having induced abortions will reveal that 68 percent are poor, 91 percent are married/in union, 57 percent have more than three children and 87 percent are Catholics.

When asked why they resorted to abortion, 72 percent cited poverty, 54 percent said they already had enough children, and 57 percent indicated that the pregnancy occurred too soon after the last one.

Therefore, contrary to popular notion that those who have abortions are young women who sleep around, the reality is that it is the poor, Catholic married women with several children who are forced into this situation. Moreover, it is clear from the women’s reasons that their pregnancies were unplanned or unwanted. Fifty-four percent of those who had abortion were not using any contraceptive when they got pregnant. Of those who were doing family planning, 75 percent were using a traditional method.

In my decades of working with community women, I have yet to meet one who is pro-abortion but have encountered many who said they had to resort to it out of desperation. Deciding to have an abortion is never easy. Women agonize over this and in most cases, make the decision not for themselves but for their families, especially the several children they already have.

Take D, for example. Now 48 years old and an ambulant vendor, she gave birth to her first child at 17 and was pregnant each year for the next five years. Thus, at the age of 22, she already had six children. A devout Catholic, D. had three abortions after her sixth child because her husband would not hear of pills when they could hardly provide food for their children. She said that the abortions saved her six living children. After, she decided to take the pill and only told her husband five years later. She now says that without the abortions and pills, she could have given birth to at least six more children, something that they definitely could not afford.

T also had an abortion. She and her husband used to work in the same factory but her man was retrenched and became seriously ill. T became the sole breadwinner and then she got pregnant. With four children, high medical costs for the husband, no savings and only her meager earnings to tide the family over, the couple knew that it was the worst time to have another child. They decided that an abortion was the only solution.

While invisible, women having abortions are real women with real stories to tell. Unfortunately, society seems uninterested.

In fact, the abortion scare is used by the Catholic hierarchy and its fundamentalist allies against the reproductive health bill. Virtually all anti-RH positions equate the bill with abortion. Particularly, the FP provisions are under attack. Let’s look at what House Bill 96 (Lagman) actually says.

Section 3, i. states that, “While nothing in this Act changes the law against abortion, the government shall ensure that all women needing care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counselled in a humane, non-judgmental and compassionate manner.” Clearly therefore, the RH bill does not promote abortion’s legalization but takes serious notice of and addresses abusive treatment suffered by poor women in the hands of medical practitioners even when these women are already suffering from complications.

The same section says that government shall promote, without bias, all modern natural and artificial, medically safe, legal, and effective family planning methods. The bill has related provisions that ensure access to family planning of those who need the services the most – those in poverty. Note that the unmet need for family planning of poorest women is 51 percent and; those who are not poor need much less. (National Demographic and Health Survey, 2008).

Addressing abortion necessitates dealing with unplanned, mistimed and unwanted pregnancies. Access to family planning programs is a must. Studies show that correct and regular use of contraceptives can bring down abortion rates by as much as 85 percent (Allan Guttmacher Institute). Therefore, contrary to what anti-RH groups say, the bill’s passage will bring down the number of induced abortions in the country.

Anti-abortion groups should actually support the reproductive health bill.

pilipinas, kay pangit? yikes, yoly ong!

yoly ong’s rant over the pilipinas-kay-ganda fiasco is remarkable for its vehemence and venom.   “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”?

… I would rather be stoned, flayed, crucified and burned at the stake, than be cowed into condoning travesty. I would rather stake whatever reputation, credibility and success I may have, than shy away from laying bare the aggressive metastasis of a cancerous psyche afflicting some Filipinos. In spineless silence, we abet ignorance and envy, the lynch mob mentality and orchestrated demolition.

Never has such coordinated online outrage been more violently expressed, eclipsing the anger over the Maguindanao massacre, Morong 43 or the unresolved murders of journalists combined! One friend accurately described it as mass hysteria over a test logo! People screamed, why was it in Pilipino when we’re talking to tourists? Actually, the logo included an English translation and pronunciation guide. Blinded by rage or possibly other motives, they didn’t see it. Or didn’t want to.

yoly ong is hysterical.   she exaggerates.   there’s no way that the online “outrage” over pilipinas-kay-ganda eclipses, or even equals, the continuing OUTRAGE over the maguindanao massacre.   maybe it eclipses the anger over morong 43, yes, and the unresolved murders of journalists, yes, but then these are issues connected with the left, and the online community, just like the mainstream, is mostly, unfortunately, wary and tends to stay aloof of leftist issues.   but maguindanao is something else, and it is sad that yoly ong does not know it.

twould seem that she’s just another oldie who has all the wrong ideas about social media and the internet community.   in the first place, the reaction to the pilipinas-kay-ganda logo/slogan, across blogs, facebook, and twitter, was more like plain disappointment dismay disgust because it just wasn’t great enough for a country brand.   if at all there was outrage, it was over the P5M spent on that premature flop of a preview.

in the second place, except for relief operations during and post-disasters, there is no such thing as a “coordinated online” anything, be it outrage (aug23 bloodbath) or anger disgust (maimislang-rickycarandang tweets) or even a rave review (pacquiao, charice).  yes we post blogs, shout-outs and links but “friends” are free to agree or disagree, repost or ignore.   there’s no one central network — with 10,000 friends that includes all of us who dissed pilipinas-kay-ganda — that dictates, much less orchestrates, anything.   facebook is a zone of free spirits, and thoughts ideas expressions live and die on their own merits.

ONG: In a democracy everyone is free to express his opinion. But not all opinions carry equal weight, not all reactions are intended to help. Not all objectives were about national branding, but aimed to achieve more sinister results.

in social media, all opinions carry equal weight, everyone is free to support or dissent, which sometimes makes for entertaining if not enlightening comment threads.   yes facebook can get toxic and virulent, especially about perceived injustices and incompetencies, but on the rare occasions when netizens happen to agree on something, well, that’s worth acknowledging and looking into, i think, rather than judging it sinister, which is just so praning, sabi nga ni butch dado, the warrior lawyer.

ONG: Right after the DOT event, a dyed-in-the-wool ex-cabinet member of the past regime called to “console” and probe me about the controversy. I immediately knew that the Gruesome Malicious Army will seize this golden opportunity to wreak havoc on the new, popular government. I was needled: Do I still support this “incompetent, weak and indecisive leader”? You mean will I always be on the side of an honest and incorruptible President? Absolutely YES! But my antenna was up. I knew a tidal wave of malevolence was about to hit.

But the bile that gorged out of faded advertising luminaries was too toxic even by industry standards. One accused us of being irresponsible for allowing the client to make us party to supposed plagiarism. That could have passed as a high-minded comment if his own brother wasn’t sued by a leading ad agency and ordered by the Adboard to cease and desist from airing a TV ad that was judged copied from Coke!

Then there was a former Creative Director for an airline account who mocked my Harvard degree as ironic under the circumstances. How quickly he forgot that he was fired by his Agency for allegedly receiving kickbacks from production suppliers!

salamat naman sa tsismis but really, the ad hominem blind-item attacks on the “gruesome malicious army” (gma! to the hilt!) out to “wreak havoc” on the popular aquino government AND on her fellow “faded advertising luminaries” belong more in a tabloid or the entertainment section of a broadsheet.   blind items are so showbiz.    next time, name names, dearie, go the whole hog, we like women with balls.

ONG: … what finally made me decide to write is this last item of iniquity.

When Undersecretary Vicente “Enteng” Romano exited with grace, he demonstrated a miracle of public office never witnessed in this country: a government official taking full ownership of a tempest-in-a-teacup-blown-up-into-a-Category-5-hurricane. Although his heroic gesture was praised by many, a malicious text immediately circulated: “Enteng Romano commissioned a company for P5M for the grand launch of the new DOT slogan. The company has reported ties to Enteng’s son. This is accdg to some sources in media.” I got this SMS three times.

What makes this so nauseating? First, the information is fundamentally wrong. Enteng has no son. Second, all the Media who attended the event said it was too lavish to be considered a “preview”. Therefore if P4.7M was really spent, every centavo must have gone to food, drinks, fireworks, talents, staging, etc. It didn’t line anyone’s pockets, much less an imagined son’s. Would a thinking man risk criminal jail-time to steal a paltry $105K? Were these braying critics just as indignant when “BurjerBen”, FG and cohorts were allegedly skimming $130M from NBN-ZTE?

this is the first i’ve heard about a son of enteng allegedly being involved in the launch.  i may have missed it lang or maybe it wasn’t picked up and bandied about so it died on its own demerits?   but hey $105K is not a paltry sum, and hey we brayed like anything over burjerben and nbn-zteFG.   did you?

ONG: Enteng cut a few corners because he instinctively saw what must be accomplished quickly. Last year, there were 3M+ tourists. Twenty-six percent were North Americans (60 percent of whom are FilAms), followed by the Koreans (20 percent), Chinese (13 percent) and Japanese (9 percent). Forty-two percent don’t speak English and couldn’t care less if the themeline was written in Aramaic.

ah, finally we get to the heart of the matter.   the question still is, why did ms. ong allow the client to break all the rules?   was it against her better judgement at all?   was she being experimental?   anything to make sure the account went to campaigns & grey and not to the competition?   this intense defense of enteng romano only makes me wonder if maybe ms. ong feels responsible for his resignation.   if she hadn’t condoned the corner-cutting, then maybe none of this would have happened?

as for using tagalog rather than english, i still don’ t buy it.   i’m convinced that instant recognition & comprehension are key.   specially post-pacquiao’s 8th wonder, wow philippines!   and even if it doesn’t matter to the 42 percent who don’t speak english anyway — except, that is, to the people of india for whom “ganda” means “dirty” or “crazy”, depending — what about to the 58 percent who do speak english?   okay lang to risk losing them with pilipinas kay ganda?

ONG:  If God gave the themeline in tablets, it still wouldn’t be accepted by the likes of net-dicts who fancy themselves divas of righteousness, but neglect to issue receipts for a lucrative pasta sideline. A Damaso-morality and a pathological need for attention? True, it’s all about you.

ah, a final blind item.   kakaintriga nga naman.   da who are dis net-dicts, dis divas of righteousness with a lucrative pasta sideline na di nag-i-issue ng recibo: kulang sa pansin na, isip-damaso pa?   hayyy.   what does this have to do with god, or a good themeline.

ONG:  Majority of 8000 tourists who were surveyed said they visited the Philippines for its beautiful scenery, good food, shopping and above all the hospitable people. Sometimes, it’s hard to see our innate kindness. Vileness overwhelms virtue. Tearing down is more fun than building up. Detractors impact more than supporters. Pilipinas, kay pangit!

sorry, but where in that logo does it suggest good food and shopping, hospitable people and innate kindness?   on the other hand, kitang kita, feel na feel, the vileness, the tearing down, right there in her rant.   kay pangit, yoly ong.   ang totoo, it’s all about you.

let winston churchill be a source of inspiration for people who, thinking they are god’s gift to the filipino people, feel demeaned, and are felled, by criticism:

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

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Pilipinas Kay Praning
Yolly Ong, former Usec. Vicente Romano III, and “Pilipinas kay ganda”
Social Media gave us a voice (No it wasn’t GMA’s fault)
Campaigns and Grey’s Ong in Defense
Are you a diva of righteousness?
Huling Kabit — Magapatuka na lang ako sa ahas