ninoy’s LP would have welcomed satur & liza

i’m not crazy about manny villar but he scores pogi points (with me anyway) for welcoming leftist lawmakers satur ocampo and liza masa as senatorial candidates of the nacionalista party.   this, even if villar knows (i’m sure) that the NP wasn’t satur’s and liza’s first choice, or even second, more like a last resort, and only after much ideological soulsearching re the bongbong marcos connection.   read jojo robles’s Missing out on history, referring to, who else, the LP’s noynoy aquino.

The latest significant political event is the decision of leftist lawmakers Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza to go mainstream by joining an established party in their historic run for the Senate, after serving three terms in the House as party-list representatives. Of secondary importance is the decision of the Liberal Party of Noynoy Aquino not to take in the two, allegedly because of the demands made by various leftist groups to distribute the land on which the Aquino family’s Hacienda Luisita stands to the farmers who work its fields.

… Villar’s NP was not the only party that was in talks to include Ocampo and Maza in their Senate lineups. Both Chiz Escudero’s Nationalist People’s Coalition (whom Ocampo and Maza supported early on) and the LP (when Mar Roxas was still its standard-bearer) had also wanted the two to become part of their own slates.

When they filed their certificates of candidacy, in fact, both Ocampo and Maza indicated their party affiliation as “independent.” Both said at the time that they were still undecided about which party to join, and that they were still in talks with leaders of these mainstream political groups regarding the compatibility of their respective platforms and other issues.

Of course, the virtual breakup of the NPC ticket with the withdrawal of Escudero from the presidential race and his resignation from the party (plus the decision of Loren Legarda to run as Villar’s running mate) effectively ended talks between the two prominent leftists and the coalition founded by tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. Villar and his group eventually filed their certificates, but left two slots vacant for Ocampo and Maza.

As for the two leftists’ plans of joining the LP ticket, that was decided during a meeting last month in Makati between them and party leaders Aquino, Franklin Drilon and Florencio Abad, among others. During that meeting, according to Ocampo, a “relaxed” Aquino declared his displeasure over the leftists’ efforts to have the land that his family owns distributed to the farmers there.

Over dinner, Aquino recalled a protest action staged several years ago by leftist groups who wanted the Luisita land given to the farmers outside the house of his mother, Cory.Noynoy apparently still harbored a grudge against the leftist organizations that have been blaming Mrs. Aquino for exempting her family’s plantation from her showcase land reform program and the death of militants during the Mendiola massacre outside Malacañang early in her term and at the plantation itself.

In a media forum shortly after the meeting, Ocampo recounted that he advised Aquino not to take the Luisita issue personally, since it had been festering even before he was born. However, Ocampo stressed that if Noynoy Aquino also became president, he would have the obligation to resolve the problems at the hacienda, which was “corporatized” through a stock distribution program instead of being divided among its tenant-farmers.

* * *

Ocampo, however, said that the Cojuangco family plantation was not the only stumbling block to their entry into the LP senatorial slate. They also noticed that Aquino and the other LP leaders did not seem too interested in taking in them in, allegedly because of the vast number of candidates who wanted to join Noynoy’s slate and the fact that decision of who gets in or not was not solely the standard-bearer’s to make.

“[Aquino] was silent about whether we would be included among those they would consider. There was nothing categorical like that. There was no statement that we could be considered,” Ocampo told reporters at the Serye forum. Instead, according to Ocampo, what they were told was that the applicants for the remaining slots in the slate were already too numerous as it was.

“They said there were many falling in line, more than double the number of slots, and there were special groups lobbying to be accommodated,” Ocampo recalled. Apparently, the LP had already found its “token leftist” in Rep. Risa Hontiveros of Akbayan, another party-list group that has broken away with Ocampo’s Bayan Muna, Maza’s Gabriela and the other left-leaning organizations that have gone “aboveground” in the House.

… Yesterday, in announcing the first-ever endorsement by the country’s major leftist groups of a presidential and vice-presidential tandem, Ocampo called the partnership a “mutual adoption” of platforms. Makabayan, he said, wil adopt the NP’s platform while the NP also agrees to accept Makabayan’s program of government.

… Of course, this is not really the first time that left-leaning organizations have attempted to barge into the elitist old boys’ club that the Senate is sometimes known to be since the ouster of Marcos. In the 1987 senatorial elections, the Left fielded an entire Senate ticket under the Partido ng Bayan coalition, but none of its candidates won.

What’s significant is that the Left is now attempting to win in the Senate through a “traditional” party like the NP, after shopping around for suitable groups among the current opposition field. This time around, after their long experience of harnessing the party-list system, the leftists seem to believe that they’re finally ready for political prime time.

It’s unfortunate that Noynoy Aquino and his traditionally bourgeois collection of yellow-clad supporters may have missed out on this major political development. And to think that he’s supposed to be the candidate who’s hell-bent on changing the status quo.

and, really, this antipathy towards the left is soooo NOT ninoy.   read The Filipino as Dissident from ninoy’s Testament from a Prison Cell.   is noynoy in denial about ninoy’s connection with joma sison and ka dante?   if ninoy were alive he wouldn’t think twice about having satur and liza run for the senate as LPs.   RAs and RJs welcome.   mar roxas, before he slid down, was on the right track.

miriam eyeballs, gloria blinks, ermita fumbles

interesting, the sudden lifting of martial law in maguindanao effective saturday 9pm.   what a relief, yes, but also what a surprise.   with hostage situations erupting in basilan and agusan del sur while congress was holding that joint session to vote on proc1959, all the signs pointed to a set-up to systematically desensitize first the people of mindanao, then maybe of the visayas and luzon, to military rule for the sake of peace and order in the run-up to the may 2010 elections.   and with gloria checking into st. luke’s for a check-up over the weekend, no one was expecting any kind of change in the new status quo.

so what are we to think?   are we to believe gma’s cohorts that suddenly it came to pass that the objectives of military rule were attained, mission accomplished, time to lift martial law, everybody happy?   parang fairy tale, if you ask me.    just yesterday, friday, press secretary cerge remonde was being nasty, accusing anti-martial law people in congress and in the streets of sympathizing with andal ampatuan jr. and warning that if the supreme court listened to them and ruled proc1959 unconstitutional, it would make the ampatuans very happy indeed.

UNFORTUNATELY, a vocal minority in the combined chambers of Congress have joined agitators outside the Batasang Pambansa Complex, in condemnation of the President. The crisis in Maguindanao, for them, has become fresh fodder for their political agenda.

Are they now shedding copious tears in sympathy with Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., others in the clan, and some 160 individuals who have been arrested or are about to be arrested for planning or for participating in the gruesome massacre?

It is understandable that the Ampatuan clan should petition the Supreme Court to declare the Maguindanao martial law unconstitutional. Their awesome power to defy lawful authority is slipping away, and their ability to evade criminal responsibility is in jeopardy. But what are we to make of the politicians who have taken the side of this powerful family?

They do not say it out loud, but a Supreme Court decision favorable to their cause could nullify the arrest of the suspects and may render the evidence against them inadmissible.

i wonder what it was like for gloria, having to leave st. luke’s for a couple of hours or so just to preside over that national security council meeting and act upon the recommendation to lift martial law.   she must have asked (if i were president i would have asked), why can’t it wait til monday?

why not indeed.   i think because the order came from obama on high, no less.   i think that miriam’s conspiracy theory, involving the notorious CIA, hit too close to home.

“This is part of a script. Who are orchestrating the events? It is obvious there is a conspiracy, a meeting of the minds. I have reason to believe that this (conspiracy) is not a random development. They’re not just happening. One, the timing is suspicious, second, there is no such pattern of one after the other in the history of this province,’’ she said.

…In a briefing for Senate reporters after attending the budget hearing of the Upper Chamber, Santiago said the conspiracy could consist of the beleaguered Ampatuan clan; the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); a cabal of a criminal group that would benefit the secretaries of the Department of National Defense (DND) or Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG); and the military establishment.

… Santiago said the Ampatuans, one of the two strong tribal clans fighting for supremacy in Maguindanao, could be working out a deal where in they would prefer to be charged with the crime of rebellion rather than multiple murder. Rebellion is difficult to prove and carries a lighter penalty. In case of conviction on rebellion charges, Santiago said the Ampatuans could be given parole or pardon.

She said the CIA could become a plain pawn in the Mindanao game “so they could do what the Philippine government is preventing them from doing so.”

and i’m not alone in thinking that obama had something to do with the lifting of martial law.   just saw this tweet by manolo:

mlq3 Billy Esposo thinks Madame had votes in SC and Congress to OK martial law, it’s Washington that made her revoke it.

and no doubt secretary ermita wasn’t too happy about it ’cause, well, he fumbled the announcement.    after his pasakalye, that things were returning to normal in maguindanao, the criminal justice system is now working, local government in place, armm governor replaced, he asked na for questions from the press, haha, someone had to remind him that he had forgotten “the most important item”: that gloria had agreed to lift martial law.   ano ‘yon, senior moment?   lol.    more like a freudian slip of the tongue, but in reverse, like selective forgetting?   a sign of subconscious, if fleeting, resistance, at the very least.

just goes to show what puppets gloria and her gang are, dancing to the beat of washington, ora mismo, like it or not.

TWIST OF FATE

Satur Sulit

if the poor inherit earth
and the rich inherit heaven
what great justice it is
when it proves to be
no heaven at all

have a joint (session;)

historic, precedent-setting, this joint session, so yes, medyo nakaka-high, haha, as in here are some highlights:

dick gordon asking, where is defense chief norberto gonzales, na nasa singapore pala for some conference or other, and oo nga naman, kung puwede siya umalis,ibig sabihin ay hindi maselan ang sitwasyon sa maguindanao?

didagen dilangalen asking, where is president arroyo, why is she not here?   ah, but her presence is not required, say ni executive secretary ermita.   she has more pressing things to do, say ni gary olivar.   yeah, like campaign in pampanga, and go shopping in eastwood’s cybermall where a little bird saw her, mwahaha.

teddy boy locsin taking on and accusing dilangalen of forum shopping, which of course dilangalen didn’t let pass, demanding that locsin be declaredout of order.   instead the speaker suspended the session.   in the end, locsin withdrew his remarks, but dilangalen was still on attack mode, i didn’t come here to be insulted ek-ek, which maddened locsin who threatened to change his mind if dilangalen didn’t stop, complete with fist-banging dramatics, haha, session suspended ulit.   until finally dilangalen cooled down, forgave a glowering locsin whom he loves dearly daw, ano ba yon, pataasan ng ihi, tapos plastikang katakut-takot, that’s entertainment?

noynoy aquino being first to interpellate gma’s gang but in that weird lowkey expressionless emotionless monotone, whether asking or reacting, like he was being careful not to be accused of grandstanding?   good questions as far as i could tell, but what a waste, sooooo boring i almost fell asleep.

satur ocampo speaking in tagalog / filipino, yey, and speaking from experience pointing out how difficult it is to prove rebellion, as in his case, the two times he was accused of rebellion, just because they couldn’t show that he had taken up arms against the government.   talaga naman.  where’s the proof of armed groups rising and fighting it out with government troops?  where are the photos, footages, witnesses?

teddy boy again, on day two, defending martial law, wtf, what happened to him?

and miriam rocking the hall!   SHOW ME THE REBELLION! … REBELLION: AN ARMED PUBLIC UPRISING … NO IDEOLOGY, NO REBELLION!

punchline.   my brother heard lawyer alan paguia on radio this morning saying that the joint session is (like some joints) ILLEGAL, the president’s report to congress which should have been signed by gloria was only signed by ermita.   i checked manolo’s blog and paguia’s right, wtfffffff!   how did that get past lawyers enrile and nograles?   well, nograles, i’m not surprised.   he didn’t even think a joint session was called for, never mind the constitution.   but enrile too?   hey hey hey wazzup wazzup?   martial law na rin ba sa palasyo?