September surprises

THE MOST STUNNING was the Supreme Court decision, released on Wednesday the 4th of September, declaring void and unconstitutional a lease contract recognizing Marcos Sr. as the owner of a 57-hectare property in Paoay Ilocos Norte that includes the so-called “Malacañang of the North”.  The ruling, penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, noted that the land was never titled under the name of Marcos Sr.  https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1980549/sc-junks-marcos-family-claim-on-paoay-land

Napaka-good news. Diyatat this Supreme Court is kabalikat ng people of the Philippines in the continuing struggle to recover ill-gotten wealth? Ang saya naman, kahit pa it could be more a matter of who appointed them — the Chief Justice and 12 Associate Justices are Digong appointees, and the two others are PNoy’s. Whatever. Okey na rin.  Let’s see how they will rule on any cases brought against the Dutertes. https://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/incumbent-justices/

TWO DAYS LATER came the happy arrest of the fugitive Alice a.k.a. Guo Hua Ping (who disappeared in July), fetched from Indonesia and brought “home” by DILG sec Benhur Abalos on Friday the 6th of Sept at 1:30 a.m. — masked up and grimly refusing to show her face on cam, in stark contrast to photos of the first meet-up of the two in Jakarta, where they were all smiles, complete with handshake and “Ikaw talaga”, and you couldn’t help wondering, what’s up with these two?

ANOTHER TWO DAYS LATER, on Sunday the 8th, there was the very laudable capture of fugitive Apollo Quiboloy, the appointed anak ng diyos  (in hiding since February) — but  PNP Gen. Nick Torre, in command of the two-week ops would not could not make kuwento about how and where it happened, the story was for Sec Abalos to tell daw, except that Abalos was in Dubai that day, and you couldn’t help wondering why you had to wait and hear the story from someone who wasn’t around naman when the heaven-appointed Quiboloy walked out of his lunggâ into the arms of earthly authorities. Abalos must have known that Torre was was all set to move in on the cornered Quiboloy. Akala niya matatagalan pa?

“I have to fly back to Manila tonight after this event to present him to the public in a press conference,” said Abalos, who also initially disclosed Quiboloy’s capture through a Facebook photo that he captioned: “Nahuli na po si Apollo Quiboloy (Quiboloy has been caught).” https://www.expatmedia.net/abalos-trip-dubai-cut-short-quiboloy-arrest/2024/09/

Tuloy, dahil di agad nakapagkuwento si Torre, namayagpag ang mga spin ng DDS — kesyo being caught or being arrested doesn’t mean he surrendered, kesyo hindi siya sa loob ng KOJC nahuli, kesyo sa AFP siya sumuko at hindi sa PNP, therefore napahiya si Gen. Torre, at kung anoano pa.

Pero hindi naman nakakagulat that Abalos wanted, needed, to take credit for the stupendous success of the two-week ops of the PNP that’s under the DILG. Surely, para makabawi sa Alice a.k.a. Guo Hau Ping fiasco — baka sakaling matabunan at makalimutan na natin? Fat chance, Sec. Ikaw talaga.

THE LATEST STUNNER on the AliceGHP front is courtesy of Ping Lacson.

In a Radyo 630 interview on Wednesday, September 11, former senator Panfilo Lacson cited information from a Filipino-Chinese friend – with contacts to the First Family – who was allegedly approached by Guo for help.

Lacson said Guo was willing to pay P1 billion to fix her legal woes with the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission.

The Filipino-Chinese businessman did not help Guo with her request, Lacson clarified.

The former senator urged the intelligence community to look into Guo and her potential to be a national security risk because of her alleged use of her position as mayor to help a syndicate behind an illegal offshore casino. https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/09/12/2384735/guo-allegedly-offered-p1-billion-bribe-settle-legal-issues-ex-senator

Makes you wonder who she’s so afraid of, and who she’s protecting, other than herself, of course.  Kaabang-abang.

Can Quiboloy hide forever?

VP Sara doesn’t think Apollo Quibuloy is still in Davao City, that he has had enough time to think of leaving.

Personally, I think wala na siya dito sa Pilipinas. Ako, kung one guess, kung nasaan si Pastor Quiboloy, nasa langit.” https://mb.com.ph/2024/9/2/nasa-langit

By “langit” I assume that the VP doesn’t mean that the “Appointed Son of God” has died and joined his “Appointed Father” in KOJC heaven. I assume she means that Quiboloy is “in heaven” on earth, that is, just very happy to have  escaped to a safer place beyond the reach of the PNP.

The PNP, however, is certain that the fugitive pastor is still in the sprawling 30-hectare KOJC compound that holds more than 40 buildings, including a cathedral and a huge underground bunker, and that they are closing in on him, slowly but surely. Hopefully, the authorities are also watching, and/or have cut off, all avenues of escape so that he can’t do an Alice Guo, if he hasn’t yet.

He was indicted in the US for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion; sex trafficking of children; and bulk cash smuggling. A federal warrant was issued for his arrest on Nov. 10, 2021.

Meanwhile, the DOJ said it sees no legal impediment to the arrest of Quiboloy for violation of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 7610 or the “Anti-Child Abuse Law” after the Davao Regional Trial Court (RTC) issued a warrant of arrest against him last April 3 for sexual abuse of minors and maltreatment.

“The charges against Quiboloy are not simple. They involve serious and morally abhorrent offenses such as sexual assault of a minor and human trafficking,” (DOJ Sec) Remulla pointed out. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1222218

The game plan seems to be to do a Ping Lacson, as in, go fugitive until proven innocent.

[KOJC Law Dean] ISRAELITO TORREON. It is … within [Quiboloy’s] right to insist on his innocence without facing the rigors of trial. Why will you require him to go to trial when he honestly believes that the case need not go to trial knowing that he is really innocent in the first place. That was done before by former Senator Panfilo Lacson when a Double Murder case was filed against him in the RTC Manila and warrants of arrest were issued against him. He went into hiding and only surfaced when the Court of Appeals nullified the warrants of arrest on February 3, 2011 (please read Dacer versus Lacson, June 8, 2011 SC Decision, 3rd division).

Further, in Pastor Apollo Quiboloy’s case there is also a threat to his life and there is also a clear danger of being extraordinarily rendered to the US because his detractors likewise filed trumped up charges against him there. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php

But are the two cases even comparable? Unlike Lacson, Quiboloy is charged with multiple crimes in different courts here and in America. Clearing him of all charges could take forever. Unless, of course, he is counting on the Dutertes re-capturing power in 2028? He just has to hold out until then? Maybe even fund the campaign of some DDS candidates in 2025 for more allies in Congress?

In 2013, a press release from the office of Senator Loren Legarda tells of the weight of Quiboloy’s endorsement then.

Quiboloy’s endorsement means the votes of his more than six million followers not only in Davao City where his congregation is based but also in other parts of the country and abroad.

Legarda, for her part, said: “I thank Pastor Quiboloy and the leadership of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ for including me in the list of candidates that they are endorsing. This serves as a strong expression of support to the causes that I have been espousing and the programs that I plan to accomplish when I get reelected.”

Besides Legarda, also endorsed by Quiboloy were senatoriables Migz Zubiri, Chiz Escudero, Bam Aquino, Cynthia Villar, Grace Poe, Sonny Angara, Juan Ponce Enrile, Jr., JV Ejercito, Nancy Binay, Edward Hagedorn, and Richard Gordon. https://legacy.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2013/0510_legarda3.asp

Nota bene. In 2010 Quiboloy endorsed Gibo Teodoro and Mar Roxas, but they both lost to PNoy and Jojo Binay. In 2016 he endorsed Duterte and Cayetano; the latter lost to Leni Robredo.

Read also Tita C. Valderama‘s “The Curious Case of Apollo Quiboloy.”

In the 2022 elections, Quiboloy’s endorsement was not as sought after as in past elections in view of his indictment in the U.S. and the issuance of a warrant for his arrest in November 2021.

Even then, the self-styled pastor endorsed the tandem of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte for president and vice president, respectively.

But on Feb. 21, Quiboloy asked Marcos to resign, accusing him of conniving with the U.S. government to get him arrested and killed. He said he had gone into hiding because his life was in danger.

A week later, Marcos advised Quiboloy to come out, face the congressional inquiries into the allegations of abuses against him and the KOJC and seize the opportunity “to say his side of the story.”

“Hindi na kami kompiyansa sa gobyernong ito. Gagawa at gagawa sila ng paraan para kami ay bigyan ng kasalanan,” said Quiboloy, raising the possibility that the Marcos administration would resort to the planting of evidence to implicate him in criminal activities.

… He claimed that the government would “take over all our properties” and establish a corporation under which the KOJC assets would fall under. In what appeared as a preemptive move, Quiboloy appointed Durterte last Friday as administrator of the properties belonging to KOJC.

That was last March 9 when Dutz was appointed admin. Five months later, August 5, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) asked the Court of Appeals to freeze Quiboloy’s assets. The CA obliged on August 7, with a 20-day freeze order on Quiboloy’s bank accounts and real estate properties after finding merit in the sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and financial smuggling cases filed against Quiboloy and four others.

The Aug. 6 freeze order, which is effective immediately, covers Quiboloy’s 10 bank accounts with Banco De Oro and Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. and seven real estate properties located in Davao del Norte, Davao City, Davao Oriental, Mati, and Roxas City. The freeze includes five vehicles and one private plane owned by the fugitive pastor.

Also ordered frozen were 47 bank accounts, 16 real properties in the provinces of Laguna, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental and Iloilo, and Quezon City and the cities of Davao, Tagbilaran, Mandaue, and Butuan, and 16 vehicles of KJC.

This also freezes SMNI’s 17 bank accounts, five real estate properties (located in Cagayan, Isabela, and Cabanatuan and Makati cities), and 26 vehicles.

August 20, the freeze on Quiboloy’s bank accounts and properties was extended six months, until February 2025. That’s some three months before midterm elections. Enough time to influence the outcome, kahit konti? But does it mean there’s a chance that Quiboloy would be cleared of all charges by then and that he could therefore come out of hiding and openly endorse DDS candidates? Parang not likely.

And then again, who knows, ang dami pang puwedeng mangyari. There’s still the China card at play. Surely the Dutertes’ allies overseas (nandoon na kaya si Quibs?) are watching closely and liking the idea of a Sara-Digong tandem in 2028.  Ang problema na lang nila, kung paano makakaraos through the next three years without losing any more ground to the Marcos-Romualdez cabal.

As for us on the sidelines who are not enamored of either Marcos or Duterte and can only watch the two camps tear each other down, the challenge I believe is to turn 2028 into a serious three-cornered fight. But that’s for another blog.

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Will the Dutertes have their vengeance?
https://opinion.inquirer.net/176586/will-the-dutertes-have-their-vengeance

Inside ‘son of God’ cult leader Apollo Quiboloy’s sprawling underground lair with rooms for ‘most attractive sex slaves’ – as cops scour Philippines compound for preacher on FBI Most Wanted list for sex crimes https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13787593/apollo-quiboloy-bunker-compound-philippines-sex-slaves-cult.html

I miss being in a Cult. https://www.reddit.com/r/OffMyChestPH/comments/1axauod/i_miss_being_in_a_cult/

Why a Filipino Megachurch Founder Is on the Run, Claiming the U.S. Wants Him Dead https://time.com/6722170/apollo-quiboloy-fbi-us-philippines/

 

VP Sara’s offensive

It was quite a startling show of hubris and chutzpah, the way VP Sara Duterte (of the 32.2 million votes) went on the offensive in the budget hearing where the House Reps dared make her kulit about how she spent past confidential funds instead of just focusing on the 2025 OVP budget.

Sara was likely still smarting from the Senate hearing that surfaced her Php10million children’s book project which has since been the talk of the hard-up indie writing and publishing world. And the Reps’ public hearing was the perfect platform to show her disdain for Congress by refusing to answer questions from a “convicted child abuser” (medyo unfair), trading snide for snide, and venting her own grievances, among them the rumors of HOR plans to impeach her, never mind that certain Reps have denied it again and again.

At some point it was clear that the VP was baiting daring challenging the Reps to cite her in contempt but the Reps didn’t bite. I suppose because there are other ways to skin a cat? Read “Unhinged” by Philstar’s Ana Marie Pamintuan. https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/08/28/2381011/unhinged

The hearing was held on the same day that the second quarter OCTA survey results were released, showing BBM’s trust ratings rising and the VP’s falling, with the President rating higher than the VP for the first time.

If VP Sara’s game plan for the budget hearing was that the best defense is a good offense, it didn’t succeed. It was painful watching the VP in her bratty worst, answering questions about the budget with non-sequiturs, and showing zero respect for committee on appropriations chair Stella Quimbo.

Perhaps all the frustrations over the loss of the VP’s perks – the P650 million in confidential funds, her Cabinet portfolio and seat in the anti-communist task force, and likely rejection even of the P10 million for her children’s book project – had all boiled over.

In going ballistic, the VP came off unhinged.

Even folks who had no love lost for Quimbo and several of the lawmakers at the hearing found themselves cheering for the House members.

If the VP keeps this up, by the time the 2028 elections roll around, her ratings could be below zero like her staunch supporter GMA in the twilight of the Arroyo presidency.

Impeaching VP Sara won’t even be necessary.

Unless, of course, the BBM admin messes up on Quibuloy, the West Ph Sea, and the POGO ban. Then all bets are off.

Celebrating Ninoy #21Aug83

Sharing this excerpt from an essay by my favorite historian following Ninoy’s assassination that captures the temper of, and expands the thinking on, those agitated times.  

ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE PRESENT CRISIS
by Reynaldo C. Ileto
15 November 1983

The Philippines gives the image nowadays of a people suddenly galvanized into action by Aquino’s murder. There have been demonstrations, boycotts, marches, and prayer rallies. As one would expect, these started in the universities and public plazas, recalling the student-dominated displays of pre-martial law days. But now churches are very much in the center of protest. Add to that business districts like Makati, and the slums. The workers are moving, and every day one hears of strikes by this or that union or association. Even at the village level there is much agitation.

While the release of mass energies is noted by the media, the usual explanations for it invariably lead away from the experience to the stresses presumably causing it and to the instability it threatens. Marcos’ authoritarian rule and a deepening economic crisis, to cite Time, is fostering “widespread apathy and cynicism and [driving] young Filipinos into the country’s small but increasingly troublesome Communist movement.” Implied here is that the crucial, non-violent center is crumbling. This goes for the “legitimate” opposition as well: the murder of Aquino created “a serious leadership vacuum in the opposition.” This all raises the spectre of a military take-over on one hand, and communism on the other. (Time, Sept. 5) Newsweek summed up its distance from popular sentiments by lamenting that “in the long run [Aquino’s] death could only hurt the cause for which he had sacrificed himself.” (Newsweek, Sept. 5)

It is clear that for the Western press, stability and order are the main concerns. Instability and disorder (both internal and regional) are threatened by the impending fall of the center– Marcos– and so most scenarios dwell on his possible successors, hopefully the restorers of order. The assassination and subsequent mass actions are seen as aberrations, or interruptions best pushed to the background as soon as possible.

From another perspective, however — and this includes that of the participants in the rallies — a very different notion of what is “normal” seems to prevail. To put it another way, recent events are very much part of a certain rhythm of Philippine history, comprehensible in its own terms, and not necessarily a minor partner to the assigned “stable” order of things. The Aquino affair and its sequel provide us with a set of events to illustrate this point.

Probe into Aquino’s background and you find no revolutionary. He was a politician, a member of the ilustrado political oligarchy that was nurtured under the American regime. His father had been the chairman of the Kalibapi, the mass political party that the Japanese organized in 1942. Ninoy himself is said to have had connections with the CIA during his early career as a journalist. He was an exile in the U.S., the former colonial power that backed his rival, Marcos. His wife, Cory, is the first cousin of a crony from the Marcos camp. And some have speculated that he was returning in order to bolster the faction to which he was connected by kinship. (McCoy, Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 23)

Observers recognized that both protagonists emerged from the same scene, and were still playing the old game– thus the maze of contradictions surrounding the contest. According to a close Marcos aide, “Marcos and Ninoy were the most able intelligent pair of political strategists. There was a contest of wills between them. It was like the arms race. No one thinks that either side is capable of pulling the trigger. But they keep pushing each other to the limit, and suddenly it explodes.” It was “the tragic last act of a long, almost medieval drama.” (Time, Sept. 5)

The medieval drama is, indeed, a fitting analogy. Trouble is, attention has been fixed on the supposedly “real people” behind the masks and the costumes. What the study of Philippine politics often misses are the readings of the play by the various sections of the audience. Controversies in Philippine history have arisen out of the practice of locking events and personalities to singular, supposedly true and factual, meanings. Thus Rizal, to cite a well-known example, was the intellectual of Chinese-mestizo origin who inspired nationalism through his writings but condemned the armed uprising against Spain (thus speaking for order). We don’t see that Rizal was not always what he intended to signify, that he also was the magical curer and the Liberator returning from overseas, whose martyrdom inspired people to join the uprising. He is very much the emblem of disorder in this alternative reading of his life and work.

Aquino is just the latest in a series of figures whose meanings (not origins) have and will continue to inform popular responses to the present crisis. The fact that Marcos politics has been fundamentally de-centered (or de-stabilized) by the Aquino figure is more “normal” than it looks. Philippine history has generally been written in a linear fashion– it is the saga of a people coming into its own, discovering their identity through opposition to the various colonial powers.

Marcos in his multi-volume history Tadhana (Destiny) has himself rewritten this history in order to install himself as the successor to the series of fighters for freedom from the 16th century Lapulapu on. However, for each nationalist figure that appears dominant (and to which Marcos links himself) in this history, one can put forth either a contrary reading of this figure or another figure in opposition to it.

For example, during the American period dominated by “compadre colonial politics” opposition was represented in the schoolteacher and former revolutionary general Artemio Ricarte. Exiled in Hongkong, he promised to return as the liberator, he preached independence through struggle, and criticized the dominant politics as false and deceptive. His opponent in the drama was Manuel Quezon, the American protege who succeeded in 1916 (with the passage of the Jones Law) in displacing Ricarte as the Liberator who would gain independence. Historical writing, however, largely suppresses Ricarte, the radical “other” of Quezon. So does it suppress other figures who emerged to succeed Ricarte– some of whom were executed or given long jail sentences for “banditry.” The net effect is a coherent history dominated by first by nationalist rebels, then parliamentary politics, and progressing from the first or Malolos Republic, to the Philippine Assembly, the Commonwealth, and on to the New Society.

How does the Aquino affair relate to all this? It has thrust into the foreground a meaningful politics which previously appeared only in the gaps of this linear history. This politics represents an alternative to “pulitika” or the jockeying for positions among the old political oligarchy. To assert itself today, it has had to co-opt a traditional politician, Ninoy himself, and turn him inside out. Death made this possible. The old suspicion that somehow a politician’s fine words are not matched by sincerity and action, has melted in Ninoy’s case.

Ninez Olivares, viewing Aquino’s body recalled what Ninoy had said to her in New York: “And you doubt it?” According to her: “I doubted that because Aquino was a politician, he may not have had the interests of the Filipino at heart; that he may not have loved his country and our people. I looked at his ashen face, the bullet wound, and the blood all over hs shirt. No, Ninoy, I said to myself. I have no more doubts. You loved your country and your people. God be with you, always, wherever you may be.”

Words like these are usually thrown out by analysts because they belong to the realm of the sentimental or religious rather than real politics. But if the history of the 1896 revolution is at all useful as a guide, the break with Spain began precisely with a tearful, sentimental dialogue, expressed in popular poems and songs, between Mother Spain and daughter Filipinas over the bodies of three executed reformist priests. Andres Bonifacio terminated the dialogue by declaring Inang Bayan as the true mother. The spread of the Katipunan was facilitated by the appeal to remember and pity the suffering Inang Bayan. Something like this is happening today. After the common grief over Ninoy’s death, it appears that the bulk of the Filipino people have shifted their loyalties and are preparing for the next move. The memory of Ninoy is a crucial factor.

Like Rizal in the 1890’s, Ninoy scattered statements and signs that would become meaningful in the light of his death. “It’s time,” he said, “to be home with our people and suffer with them. And if you’ll remember, when I left home, I promised to return. I’ll be keeping that promise.” Then came his remark, said half-jokingly at that time: “I would rather die a glorious death than be killed by a Boston taxicab.” The imprisoned Rizal did something similar when he sent a sketch of the “Agony in the Garden” to his family, with the note “this is but the first station.”

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The construction of Aquino the martyr was almost too easily done. Quite common are passages like the following:

“Mourners comment on his smile and the sweetness of the face and the kindness there. That face with its singularly haunting look and the smudges that the final violence left on it will haunt the Filipino people for a long time. Like Jose Rizal’s final act of trying to defeat his killers by turning towards the sun and their bullets just before death, Ninoy’s enigmatic look may well be his final victory.” (H. Paredes, Mr&Ms, Sept. 9)

In a way this is literary overkill. But the reference to Rizal is not at all forced. For all the anting-anting (magical power) stories woven around him, Marcos has never aspired to Rizal status. Aquino has succeeded on this point. The juxtaposition is clear in the portraits of Rizal and Aquino carried side by side in street demonstrations underscored by the words “Great Men Sacrifice their Lives for Freedom.”

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