on the sins of marcos #halalan 2022

in april 2016, on the vp campaign trail,  marcos jr. said he would only apologize for the sins he might have committed in his 27 years in office as former ilocos norte governor, congressman, and senator.  now on the presidential campaign trail he has yet to acknowledge and apologize for not paying his correct taxes while he was governor. most likely on the advice of his abogados de campanilla in the disqualification cases filed against him sa comelec.

meanwhile, as comelec takes its sweet time deciding the case, the question of whether or not the son, as beneficiary, is answerable for the crimes of the  father continues to be debated. Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino weighs in.

Mea culpa

… there is something interesting that we can learn from law. While criminal liability is extinguished by the death of the accused, civil liability devolves on his estate. There is nothing esoteric nor irrational about these propositions for while death causes the cessation of the existence of him who can say “I did it” of a crime, he leaves behind goods, money and property that can answer for any wrong or harm effected by his transgression. The duty to make amends therefore must be fulfilled in good faith by those who succeed when the wrongdoing of father, mother or relation is established. This demand can be rightly pressed and where the failings and faults of an ascendant have been duly proved, then must the descendants make just amends. Of course, it becomes more difficult to exact these when it is also required that a child repudiate his parent, or accept as his or her own the failing of an antecedent generation.

Some years ago, in his “Teditorials,” Foreign Secretary Teodoro “Teddy Boy” Locsin made the irrefutable statement that it is to demand something unnatural to require of a child that he characterize his own father as a thief, a murderer or a brigand. And it is, of course, as true of a son or daughter that though the guilt not be his or hers, when legally and morally justified, the obligation to restitute or to indemnify most definitely is!

#NeverAgain

bongbong’s crowds — the voice of god ?!?

vox populi, vox dei — the voice of the people is the voice of god — so say the arroyo-estrada-duterte-marcos gangs who are ecstatic at the optic message that the bongbong-sara crowds, hakot and / or not, are sending to a sadly easily impressed electorate.  inez ponce de leon rightly asks: which people and which god?

We… The Circus?

Ireland is experiencing a shortage of clowns.

This was trivia tweeted in late September. The response to it was universal: does Ireland want our politicians? We can send them over!

It’s a response that rings truer each day as the Philippines heads toward the 2022 elections. A former activist lawyer joins the senatorial slate of the son of the former dictator. A current senator withdraws his candidacy for president. Arroyo, Duterte, Estrada, and Marcos come together to form a mega-clan of political families, all with the purpose of backing the Marcos Jr./Duterte Jr. tandem.

This coalition boasts that it has the majority, and points to the shouts of the many crowds that greet it. Vox populi, vox Dei; the voice of the people is the voice of God.

But wait … which people and which God?

The Latin phrase has been invoked so often that it is in danger of being misused. It appears to allude to Cicero’s idea of the people with a voice. However, Cicero was not talking about all people and just any voice: His concept was reserved for those who carried out clear and informed argumentation, at venues that allowed introspection and reflection. The first known use of the actual phrase is in a letter to Charlemagne by Alcuin: “And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.”

The key, then, is not to simply believe in the crowds. Instead, there is a need to critically examine anyone who claims to be the majority. What exactly is this group doing that must merit a vote, regardless of how many people appear to support it?

This so-called “UniTeam” is led by politicians who promise to pull the country out of poverty, but have yet to answer charges of tax evasion, produce tangible proof of their education, or demonstrate ability to govern on the national level. This super-party has led caravans across bridges for dramatic meetings, or through a major highway where it held up traffic for hours. The voice of the people is assumed to be shouts, honking horns, crowds scrambling over each other for free t-shirts.

But what about the people handing out hot rice porridge? The people putting together meal packs for poor families? The people creating pink Christmas lanterns and selling them for charity? The supporters cleaning up parks, organizing free rides, listening to citizens who are not online? Are their voices any less loud because they aren’t shouting into a microphone? Are they any less united because they aren’t publicly signing coalition agreements?

The “UniTeam” seems to be yet another group that expects its followers to speak with one voice and espouse one belief. There is no space for dissent, no room for divergent thinking that will allow us to examine the many facets of our problems, no allowance for differing opinions that will help us have actual representation in government. This is not unity in diversity, or unity in allowing different groups with disparate interests to work together. This is a coalition that builds walls to close its ranks, and then delights in division.

This “UniTeam” has simply shown that it can attract attention, inconvenience motorists, and put people at risk during a pandemic. The caravan was not a show of support; it was a demonstration of how the candidates could manipulate crowds and exploit the desperation of people, and it sets a frightening scenario of what we can expect should we allow these candidates to win. To allow them space in our political arena would mean that we would willingly submit to be their monkeys, to play their games, to listen to the lies of a so-called voice of the people.

If we allow this to happen, then they are not the circus.

We are.

And we will continue to be the circus if we simply fall for the noise instead of recognizing the work of those who do good things quietly, who inspire many to goodness in silence.

Our vote is only the voice of God when it remembers history and accepts the truth: that we the people are not playthings for politicians. We will not be followers of a caravan whose red colors speak so clearly of the bloodshed during the Marcos dictatorship. We are people with dignity and compassion, and we will not fall for the madness of a circus yet again.

iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu

Bongbong’s agenda #Halalan2022

On this 89th birth anniversary of Ninoy Aquino — murdered at the Manila International Airport (MIA) in 1983 under the watch of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos — the son Ferdinand Jr. is shamelessly running for president, using all resources (read ill-gotten wealth) and connections (read cronies old and new) and internet platforms (YouTube & Tiktok & Facebook) to “slither” back to the Palace with the imeldific one in tow.

If we allow this to happen, Imelda will be the biggest winner of all.  I dare reckon that the “carefree and lazy” son will operate exactly like the dictator.  #LikeFatherLikeSon

1  He will get the Courts to overturn the 7 guilty verdicts sentencing Imelda Marcos to a total of 42-77 years in prison for graft and tax evasion.

2  He will permanently stop all investigations and court hearings of Marcos ill-gotten wealth cases still pending, so far involving at least P126 billion more in land, condos, apartments, resthouses, jewelry, paintings, and shares of stocks.

3  He will get the BIR to waive | forgive the Marcos Estate tax debt that started out at P23 Billion + when Marcos died, which Imelda refused to pay and so it has grown to some P203 Billion + because of aggregated penalties and interests over the last 32 years.

4  He will take back the royally awesome jewelry collections — appraised value P1 billion — that Imelda Marcos claims to be hers even if she bought them with ill-gotten wealth.

5  He will get the Department of Education to “fix” … revise … textbooks that paint the martial law years as abusive and corrupt.

6  Last but not least, he will get Congress to pass a law changing the name of the international airport — from NAIA to M.I.A. — Marcos International Airport.

#BlockMarcos #NeverAgain   

heber bartolome (1948-2021)

i met him in a Banyuhay concert tour, bicol to baguio, sometime in 1978 (if memory serves) but it was in ’79 that i sought him out because i read somewhere that he was an astrologer pala, founder mismo of the UP Astrological Society.

i had gotten into astrology in 1976 when my TM teacher dropped a pile of books on my lap.  he knew of my psych background (he was one of my subjects in a rorschach class), and he thought astrology would complement clinical personality tests.  among the books was a Julia & Derek Parker manual (fallen apart now) that taught me how to cast birthcharts.  i started with my own, of course, using a compass to draw the wheel and a protractor to get the 30-degree sections just right.

after a couple of years self-studying and finding astrology to be not just compatible with psychology but also revealing not only of personality but of karmic patterns, i found myself looking for a mentor of sorts, someone who would tell me if i was casting charts correctly and if i could ever be good enough at “reading” them for a living, or something like that, while  also writing on the side.

i don’t remember who gave me heber’s phone number, but by the next day i was on my way to his place somewhere in U.P. diliman, with my chart and notes, and feeling like a student again.  not that he treated me like one.

after some 15 minutes or so checking out my calculations, and cross-checking the data with his own ephemeris, he declared my casting correct and assured me that the exact conjunction of my mercury and neptune in libra in exact opposition to my moon in aries in the 8th was my window to the occult, so to speak.  praktis lang, sabi niya, darating ang araw, hindi mo na kailangan mag-notes.  he also warned me about my uranus-ruled 7th house, LOL.

in parting, he showed me a wheel template he had designed, offered me a ream for just a hundred bucks, and i grabbed it, of course. it was like an imprimatur from the pope!

salamat uli, heber, it was a privilege knowing you.