lost cause

THE cost of the guerrilla war the communists have been waging for four decades now is huge in terms of money, lives, and opportunities for development and peace.

How many billions have been spent on either side of the tracks to buy munitions and allied operating costs that go with a war? How many lives of young men and women have been sacrificed in the altar of ideology?

 

The money could have been spent to alleviate the plight of the poor. Bright young minds could have been channeled to nation-building instead of destruction.

Way back in college, when the blood was searing hot with ideals, I cannot count anymore how many mass actions I participated in – Welga Ng Bayan, picket lines, civil disobedience. That age was the time when dying for worthy causes seemed a better option than just being a bystander watching history unfolding.

Yet, for all the ideals, there was not an instance when I entertained the idea of embracing communism. Many student leaders who I knew then were already in the front organizations of the National Democratic Front goaded me to hop into the wagon of rebellion. Ironically though, most of the ideologues did not understand fully well the Marxist thought. What they had were slogans and sound bites.

The sounds never bit me though. Two years of reading the primary works of Karl Marx, Hegel, and even that of Lenin’s and Mao’s led me to conclude that yes, communism needed a leap of faith to hope for a classless society, a utopia, a promise of a Neverland much like religion which Karl Marx described as the opium of the people.

Equality among men can never be attained. What we can hope for is equal opportunities and equal treatment before the law. The latter is already enshrined in the equal protection clause in the bill of rights of our 1987 constitution.

But to hope for a classless society is more faith in content, much akin to the promise of afterlife. Always, there are always men of sterling character who will lead the masses, men gifted with charisma and leadership skills.

They may be men like Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, and to be current, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin who still calls the shots in the Russian politburo. You can find these men in the different echelons of society, men who are living witnesses that God did not actually create men as equals. This is a reality which we cannot deny.

Despite the hallow promises of communism, many of my brilliant friends indeed hopped into the wagon, and never to be heard again. There was this editor of Ateneo de Davao, a law student in Xavier University, and before I forgot, my literary editor who surreptitiously inserted in our publication the manifesto of the Kabataan Makabayan.

The burden of brilliance is that you cannot help but dream, and forge a vision of society. To the inquisitive mind, the status quo is always wanting. The tendency is to be non-conformists. During the Marcos regime, the universities were fertile grounds of idealistic and brilliant students who did not need convincing to join the underground movement.

History has unmasked the illusions communism promised. The 90’s saw the collapsed of the iron curtain, and with it the fall of East Berlin, Romania, and other communist regimes. Russia, under Michael Gorbachev, had to invent glasnost and perestroika; China, starting from Deng Xiaoping, opened her doors to the capitalist system.

Otherwise, these once two pillars of communism could not have survived the economic challenges the new millennium poses. [Content-wise, Russia and China are not anymore communist states but socialists with authoritarian rule.]

Yet, the Communist Party of the Philippines still continues to wage the guerrilla war. The tolls are beyond measure. The masses are still burdened with revolutionary taxes. The guns are still firing in the countryside. Even within the rebel movement, purges every now and then saw the excavations of mass graves, of skeletons piled atop the other in the name of an ideology.

And you cannot help but ask, for what cause and towards what end? Why fight to install a communist’s regime that has unmasked its falsity?

History has relegated the pretenses and illusions of communism in the dustbin. What are left now are the detritus of the ideological conflicts of the past century. History as it has unfolded simply cannot make communism a viable alternative. In fact, whenever the adjective “communist” prefixes an ideologue, one wonders what the adjective really means.

Communism is better put for good in the closet, a red-shirt once worn – a social experiment that never proved its hypotheses correct. Why wear the clothing when it has been shown that it does not fit the occasion? Why insist on an ideology that in the vast experiment called life, nothing has been proven right?

It is time for the Communist Party of the Philippines to re-invent itself. Insisting on pursuing a violent struggle is a blind pursuit of political power without a really strong ideological mooring. It is a walk in the dark without knowing where it should end.

Or, shall we ask, what for comrade?

 

vigilantism and death squads

What should distinguish the homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom is the respect for law and order. Although throughout human history, we have seen the erratic regard for the law, we still stick to the ideal that the nobler side of man is his capacity to comply with the norms and mores that society imposes upon him.

Society has evolved from the cave, to the tribe, to kingdom, to nation-state, to international groupings, and thanks to technology, to the global village. But although technology has developed in exponential proportions, the same cannot be said of our respect for law and order.

The bestial side of man manifests in terrorist acts, economic sabotage, neo-colonialism, and when all hell break loose, man’s ugliest side is seen in wars.

But nothing compares to the death squads that kill criminals summarily in the name of protecting the peace and quite of society. These groups engage in hypocritical discourse that they are needed in a society where the justice system fails. They take the law into their hands, and would want us to call them our defenders.

The death squads and whoever led them are playing gods, hypocrites and arrogant breeds who claim to weed out the scums of the earth. But when they operate beyond the law, who will now take them to account the many they killed who turned-out to be innocent? Or to render justice to victims who were killed simply due to personal spite?

Since 1998, more than 800 victims in Davao City died at the hands of vigilantes who usually ride in a motorcycle in a group of two using the high-powered .45 caliber pistol, then in the presence of witnesses, pump bullets into the victims. The perpetrators walk away from the crime scene as if nothing happened. And the police, true to the joke that they maintain the peace, come minutes after, when there is no more threat but the terrified but muted silence of the on-lookers.

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, with bravado, exclaimed that you should be afraid to live in Davao City if you are a criminal or a member of a syndicate. He points out to the relative peace in the City. But the Human Rights Watch, an international body, points out that according to statistics provided by the Philippines National Police, the number of annual crime incidents has increased some 219 percent in the last decade, while the city’s population rose only by 29 percent. An increasing number of death squad killings appear to have made crime rates worse in Davao.

In Cebu City, there have been reported killings perpetrated by the vigilantes. The vigilante-style killing has claimed 167 lives already since December 2004. Msgr. Achilles Dakay claimed that the vigilantes appeared well-trained, organized and well-paid. Yet despite the vigilante-style killing, crime rate in Cebu City has not abated.

In Cagayan de Oro City, vigilante-style killings have been reported. Usually, the victims are members of the notorious gang of hoodlums known as Batang Mindanao or simply B.M. These victims have been going in and out the jail and have their bodies tattooed with the initials B.M. Still, the killing is done by motorcycle riding men who use .45 caliber pistol in shooting the suspect.

Equally alarming to the spate of death squad killings is that no vigilante group has even been arrested and hailed to court to account for violating the penal laws of the land. The number of vigilante killing in Davao is now 800 or so, but no one has ever been caught. Mayor Duterte cannot take pride that the criminals live dangerously in that city. Even with the vigilantes, the crime rate there has grown exponentially.

Besides, as a lawyer and as a mayor, he should know that vigilantes violate the laws, and should therefore be arrested, prosecuted, and put to jail. Fact is no vigilante has been arrested. The Davao Death Squad has been associated with him, and if only to erase this stigma, he should rein on the vigilantes. Otherwise, he will forever bear the stigma.

The same is true with Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena. 167 vigilante-style killing since December 2004 is no joke. It will be good to the honor of the surname he carries if vigilantes will be caught.

Across the country, there has been a marked increase of reported vigilante killings that this practice of exacting justice, if it does at all, is becoming a counter-culture, that threatens to further undermine our justice system.

Every victim who dies in the hands of the vigilantes is one strand that is taken away from the fabric of our society. If this goes unabated, one day, we will realize that there is no more strand that binds us all. When that day comes, God forbid, the law of the jungle will reign instead of the rule of law. People will now take the law in their hands.

That day, we shall have retrogressed in the evolutionary ladder from human to beast, instead of the Darwinian model.

Labares shooting:twists and turns

Nilo Labares was shot on March 5, 2009 at Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro.  By stroke of chance he survived, and pointed the finger at the triggerman, a certain Bernardo “Nanding” Aguilar.  The suspect is charged with frustrated murder. He is out on bail.

The police work is closed.  The prosecution starts. Not really. When people are about to have a sigh of relief, the plot and sub-plots are unfolding.

Right after Felizar “Boyet” Caytor was cleared temporarily by the public prosecutor, he exposed the alleged payola involving personnel of DxCC-RMN. The media attention was successfully redirected from the frustrated murder to the alleged payola.

By March 11, 2009, Bombo Radyo allegedly received a letter from Ka Paris, a known leader of the CPP-NPA in this part of Mindanao, owning responsibility for the shooting of Nilo Labares.

Instantly, the shooting was transformed from the underworld of hoodlums, thugs, and gamblers to the underground rebel movement; from sheer crime and vice to something ideological in origin and cause.

The cloud of confusion was tossed in the air. Did Nilo correctly identify Bernardo Aguilar as the gunman?  If he did, then what has rebellion got to do with video karera?  Unless of course, the rebels, tired and emaciated, decided to play the gambler’s game.

Or perhaps, if we may be allowed to indulge in flights of fancy, Bernardo Aguilar may not be after all acting in behalf of the suspected mastermind – a certain Baby Chang – but upon instructions of Joma Sison.  This is not impossible given the state of the art communication that we have now. See how the spin doctors can get so naïve and moronic?

Before the cloud of confusion due to the Ka Paris brouhaha subsided, another person claiming to be the spokesman of the North Central Command of the CPP-NPA was interviewed over Bombo Radyo last March 16, 2009. This time, the spokesman, in behalf of the communist movement, disowned the shooting.

Who said that only novels have sub-plots?  Are not truths stranger than fiction?

Col. Antonio Montalba of the Cagayan de Oro Police Command filed a case of illegal gambling against Nilo Labares. Having allegedly received payola from the video karera operators, Col. Montalba would have him prosecuted for his complicity in the gambling syndicate. This is simply ludicrous.  Since when did the nemesis of illegal gambling become the protector?

Col. Montalba, I would have commended you for the effort. But before going after the heads of these media men, identify first the John Does involved in the shooting, and the hoodlums who harassed the witnesses of Labares’ shooting.  Consolidate your police work to pin down the alleged mastermind Baby Chang. 

Here is the wisdom of the age.  If you hold to many grains at one time and try to hold them tight in your hand, you end-up with nothing. Do not get your hands full at one time, or you end-up bungling your police work and blame the acquittal of your suspects on the prosecution.

Ah, do not shout expletives at me now.   Truth may not be stranger than fiction.  Spin masters, without them knowing, actually reveal the truth that they try hard to confound and confuse. When the smoke settles, and the fire-breathing mouths cool off, the particles of truth emerge in the very ground upon whom people try to muddle.

The particles of truth are emerging from the very cloud of dust that the real criminals are tossing in the air.

The alleged payola may be a diversionary tactic.  But the buzz in town is that some media men live in styles, that lifestyle checks should not be limited to the politicians.  Should I mention anchormen who strut around in flashy cars?  Or a mere reporter, without inherited wealth, nor lotto winnings, aping the life of the wealthy? 

As for Nilo, how I wish you were riding on a big bike when you were shot so that I could pillory you. But your motor scooter, and poor station in life, and the venom that comes out from your mouth when you assail these video karera operators, common sense dictates that I should spare you for now.

And where does the police force situate in these twists and turns?

Right there at the eye of the storm.  Video karera operations are within the striking distance of police stations and yet nothing had been done before the shooting. Col. Montalba, it would help your credibility if you hang the alleged mastermind first before you hang these media men on the strength on the affidavits of the underworld figures, Felizar Caytor and Bernardo Aguilar.  Nothing comes out clean from a poisoned source. Did you not know a principle on evidence in your schooling?

Or is the case filed against Nilo Labares has no other purpose but to hide the criminals under your gala uniform? Or is it a vengeance against Nilo for mentioning you as one of the protectors? 

Regional State Prosecutor Umpa, please come to the rescue, and restore sanity to the carnival of so-called police investigations. After my almost two decades of the private practice of law, I can smell the gun powder that points to the source.

Bombo Radyo, please. Ka Paris? CPP-NPA?  My foot! Investigate your anchorman who struts around in really flashy cars.  

Knowing Nilo

Another write-up on press freedom would be a ninth of a series. This column already discussed the different angles about the press, and the need to protect this freedom at all cost, being the priciest jewel in the many civil liberties under a democratic set-up.

 The temptation to forego another topic about muzzling of the media has been strong. But how one can let the issue pass, especially the frustrated murder of Nilo Labares, he who started his journalistic pursuits in the school paper I once edited.

When the news that Nilo was shot at around 8:30 in the evening of March 5, 2009 in Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro City, the flashback of our student days at Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan came racing in my mind.  

In 1984, Nilo was a seminarian.  He was not a familiar face in the campus, just like the rest of the seminarians who would come early and leave early the campus.  A vehicle would fetch the future ministers of the church. Their routine had to be followed.

 But his performance in one school activity changed all that.

He delivered an enchanting ode or “balak”, completely in the Bisayan dialect. It was an original composition written in lyrical and archaic words that one wonders why the native Bisayan tongue was adulterated with Tagalog, Spanish, and English languages. His performance was both entertaining and educational.  But more, the audience was transported back in time before the Spaniards came when we had our very own culture that we could be proud of.

He went on to edit one whole page of The Crusader, the official student publication of the students of Xavier University.  He wrote and edited poems, short stories, plays, and essays written in the vernacular.  Overnight, he was the go to guy to translate words in the vernacular.  Suddenly, the school paper was flooded with contributions written in the vernacular.  He stoked the fires for things “bisaya” in the campus.

Later, Nilo decided not to preach the Gospel, but decided instead to trumpet the truth.  He left the seminary and joined the press.

 He has been a broadcaster at a radio outlet, dxCC. Over the airwaves, you could hear his tirades against corruption, gambling, violence, and a host of issues.  Unlike other radio commentators who pick politicians to attack and even malign, Nilo picks on issues and discuss them.  His journalism is not selective nor, to use the cliché, “envelopmental”. Nor was his practice of the profession one of licentiousness, unlike the many who spews venom from their mouths, without the backing of hard facts.

Nilo’s shooting does not only deserve a write-up due to friendship.  The extra-judicial killings of media men deserve utmost discussion. A week before his shooting, the press organizations have been holding indignation rallies to protest the spate of assassinations of media men. Since 1986, when democracy was restored, there have been 64 extra-judicial killing of media people.  God forbid! Nilo could have been the latest in the statistics count.

What is peculiar about this extra-judicial killing is that most have been unsolved.  Meaning, we have yet to see a person finally convicted and put to prison.  The arrests have been sparse, and the prosecution minimal. Give me yet a name of the convicted felon.  In Nilo’s case, two out of the four suspects have been identified, so the police reports.

Police work however has always been wanting. The investigation goes full swing when the killing is still being discussed.  The moment media attention is redirected to other issues, police works slacken, and the pursuit for the criminals archived in the records.

 The Arroyo government has organized task forces to pursue the perpetrators.  “Oplans” after “oplans”  have been created.  Yet, if we calibrate the result as against the plans, we may safely conclude that these “oplans” have not been really well-planned at all.

 Media men are most vulnerable to assaults. They cannot afford to hire bodyguards nor do they strut around in cars, except those who opt for “envelopmental” journalism, or AC-DC, the idiom for attack and collect.

 When Nilo was shot, he was driving his scooter. That is what he can afford.  He was in for the taking by the assailants who were riding flashy bikes.  The angels at Carmelite Seminary protected their son.

 Fortunately, this write-up is not a eulogy.  Despite the serious wound, he survives to continue his crusade.  Go on my friend, and like a Don Quixote, fight the windmills.

 

Muzzling the press

AMONG the civil rights, freedom of expression should rank the highest. True, the sovereign people elect their leaders. This is the right of suffrage. But an election without the informed voters is a blind exercise of a right. It results to a non-exercise. It only functions to lend credence to an otherwise discredited government.

After democracy was restored in 1986, that is, after four presidents – Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Erap Estrada, and now Gloria Arroyo – 96 journalists have been martyred by assassins’ bullets. Of the 96, 64 have been killed during the Arroyo administration. Two-thirds of those martyred since EDSA revolution died during the present government.

Killing is definitely the worst form of muzzling the press. Less brutal, but no less effective form of suppressing the press is the legal process. There is really nothing wrong with availing of the legal remedies to redress grievance from media attacks. That is the function of democracy.

But where the legal process is wielded by the powers that be, then you send the strong signal to the press. Chilling still is that along with the legal process you see dead bodies piling up. In this case, the demarcation line between the judicial and extra-judicial remedies to silence the press becomes a blur. You can always suspect that the two processes are used in tandem by the administration, each remedy re-enforcing the efficacy of the other.

No other presidential spouse has filed more libel cases than First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. There is really nothing with this. But the string of cases already filed show how onion-skinned the present occupants of the seat of powers are. That is why, for every unsolved killing of a journalist, you can wonder, “Is the administration condoning the killing?” Wistful thinking it seems but there might be a grain of truth. How can you explain that despite the assassinations linked to General Palparan, he is still a free man?

There is a worse and insidious form of muzzling the press than libel cases. Pending in both houses of congress is the right to reply bill or SB 2150.

Essentially, the bill mandates that the media outlet must give the person attacked a chance to print or broadcast his side on the issue in the same forum.

At first glance, this seems to be a novel idea. Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr., who once sought refuge in the press when he was imprisoned during the martial law regime, is the principal author of the bill in the senate. How easily he could forget.

Perhaps, the good senator, despite his brilliance and expertise in constitutional law, missed more than what meets the eye.

The right of freedom of expression occupies a preferred position in the hierarchy of civil liberties. No law can be passed abridging this right. Nor the manner of exercising this right can be curtailed, prescribed, and limited.

The right to reply bill intrudes and prescribes the manner of exercising the right of expression and of the press. The moment a law is enacted directing the media to provide space or airtime for the person involved in a controversy, there is already a prescription on how the media should go about exercising the right.

Article III, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution states:” No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.”

Mandating the press to give space or airtime to the person involved in an issue may appear laudable and fair. Yet any way you look at it, this a form of abridging or curtailing press freedom. It is a way of telling the press what to broadcast and publish. This is infringement of the constitutional right.

Muzzling the press is suppressing the people from information for an enlightened exercise of their sovereign powers. Violating press freedom has no room in democracy.

Killing the messenger

The statistics are rising.  From the time she assumed office in 2001 up to the present, there has been 64 extra-judicial killing of journalists already.  The Arroyo administration it seems is racing to break the record of Ferdinand Marcos in terms of media people being killed, and of unsolved crimes.

It is easy to understand why many were killed during the Martial Law regime.  To elaborate on the reasons is stating the obvious.  But in an atmosphere of democracy which we as a people regained after the EDSA revolution in 1986, it is difficult to comprehend, must more accept, why the killing of messengers go unabated.

Incomprehensible still is why, despite the many witnesses, we have yet to forever lock in jail the perpetrators. The government cannot turn its eyes away from the assassinations. In the pole of responsibility, the buck stops at the top – the president.

Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Philippines is a dangerous place for journalists to live.  This notoriety of killing the messengers go along with another record of sorts: Philippines is gunning to top the world record in corruption.

Again, record of cronyism and corruption during the Marcos regime, is equaled, if not surpassed, under the Arroyo administration.

If you put the two records together – corruption and extra-judicial killing of journalists – you get to understand the entire picture.  You get to understand why in terms of the notorious records, Ferdinand Marcos has a rival in Gloria Arroyo.

The message is corruption.  In our society, the messenger is the journalist.  The more the message gets ugly the more journalists get killed.

Last November 17, 2008, radio commentator Arecio Padrigao from Gingoog City was gunned down in broad daylight.  His kid witnessed the killing. On January 22, 2009, in Cotabato city, another journalist, Badrodin Abas died of gunshot wound.  Barely a month later, on February 23, 2009, two days before the EDSA revolution anniversary, radio commentator Ernie Rollin  was shot to death in Oroquieta City.  Her lived-in partner Ligaya witnessed the incident.  Ligaya recalled:  “When Ernie was lying already in the ground, the assailant pumped into his head the fatal fourth bullet”. Chilling words.

Aside from their common profession, these journalists were killed when they tackled the common message: corruption.

Where there is rampant corruption, you could hear, read, and see journalists exposing the issue.  That is their function in democracy.  When the three branches of government fail to check each other, the fourth estate, is the last citadel through which the sentiments of the people are crystallized, and calls for reform take shape.

No wonder that the journalist lives a riskier life when corruption gets uglier.

Those hit by the exposes either try to silence the media by filing libel cases, or worse, hire hitmen, to forever mute the media.  But they are darn wrong.

These perpetrators do not read their history, or having read them, fail to grasp the lesson.  The lesson is clear.  You can kill the messenger but you cannot kill the message.

Marcos tried to silence the messengers of truth, freedom and democracy.  Ninoy Aquino was jailed, and having failed to silence him, he was assassinated. Evelio Javier died in the assailant’s hands. Lean Alejandro who championed the student’s rights was also killed. Marcos had tried all the menus to silence the people.  Yet, when the messengers died, the message was carried on not my individuals, but by the Filipinos as a race. The rest was history.

You kill Padrigao, Abas, Rollin and other journalists, but as long as the message remains, someone else will take the cudgel and expose the truth.  Listen to the successor of Ernie Rollin in his program in DxSY-AM. “You have killed Ernie, but you have to kill me too because I will continue exposing corruption in the government.”  These are words of anguish and at the same defiance of human tragedy if only to proclaim the truth.

The perpetrators have not learned another lesson in our recent history: you kill media men, and like sticks forming a broom, they unite, and their exposes more intense and daring.

You do not kill media men.  That is a wrong route.  Get your act together. Get rid of corruption. Imprison Garci, Jocjoc Volante, and Jose Pidal.  If there is no message of corruption, there is no need to kill the messenger because there will be none in the first place.  

The Encarta Dictionary simply defines the word as “supreme authority especially over a state”.  Without this authority, the state has no reason for its being.

The 1987 Philippine Constitution declared that “sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanate from them.” The Filipinos are supreme over their government, and yes, even the state known as Philippines.  The people, as the repository of all powers within the state can even choose to rename the state, change the government, impeach high official, and recall elected officials.  The 1987 Constitution even has a special provision on initiative and referendum, a political process which recognizes people’s power to directly legislate laws.

In a republican state, the people do not directly exercise government powers.  Otherwise, chaos will ensue. The authority is delegated through the governmental bodies, such as the executive, legislative, and judiciary.

There is however a chasm between the ideal and the actual, between theory and praxis, to borrow the language of dialectics.

The apparatuses of the state are mostly concentrated in one office, that is, in the Office of the President.  President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the Commander-in-Chief over the armed forces.  She therefore wields the sword, so to speak. 

The purse is supposedly in the hands of Congress too.  But the power to appropriate is more fiction than reality.  While the Congress approves the budget, the President can veto budgetary provisions.  If the budget indeed is approved, still the actually disbursement of funds could be released only by the President through her alter-ego, the Department of Budget and Management.  That is why legislators in the opposing camp end up fat in budget but hungry in actual cash.  They have to line up for ration in the Department of Budget And Management.

In the scheme of things, impeachment of the president is a long shot, except when the people, and not the tongressmen err congressmen, wash the corridors of power with the avalanche of protests, as what happened to Erap Estrada.

The final arbiter of constitutional issues, and the proper exercise of delegated sovereign powers reside in the Supreme Court.

Recent history reveals that the Supreme Court has not been consistent in upholding the majesty of the law.  During the martial law regime, then Chief Justice Enrique Fernando, despite the literary flourish of his decisions, but not necessarily the substance, gave imprimatur to the edicts issued by then President Ferdinand Marcos. He even stooped to his lowest low when he used to carry umbrella for Imelda Marcos.

There were shining exemplars though of what is it to be truly a magistrate, just like the blind-folded goddess of justice.  There was Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos who penned landmark decisions which have been the guide in the adjudication of rights. There was Chief Justice Claudio who had a direct, brief style of penning decisions, but what he lacked in literary flourish, he compensated it with what truly matters, substance, that is, fearless and proper interpretation of government powers and their limitations, despite the spectre of a prison cell or worse, a firing squad in a martial law regime.

But a truly independent judiciary cannot depend on the sterling character, or the lack of it, of the magistrates.  The system must create for an independent judiciary.  At present, the Judicial and Bar Council nominates at least three applicants and submit the list to the President, who in turn can choose any of the three nominees.  Here lies the clincher.  The President can easily play Mephistopheles and the new appointee, Faust. With the present Supreme Court set-up, the majority has been appointees of GMA, and God knows, how many of them made the Faustian pact already.

The sovereign will of the people can easily be muted, when the three estates – the executive, legislative, and judiciary – conspire, either by active participation or acquiescence, specially, when the pockets are full. In this case, the people’s sovereign voice can only be articulated through the media – the fourth estate.

At all cost, the freedom of expression must be respected.  When this right is restrained, all other rights become empty rhetoric. It is the media that crystallize the issues.  Remember that, each citizen is a particle of sovereignty.  It is easy for one voice to say that he is the voice of God; and still another voice, that of Allah.  But the discourse in the marketplace of ideas will filter the dross from the gold, and the true consensus of the many particles of sovereignty take form, and later on, translate into action, either by  impeachment, recall election, or even, revolution.

Last year, when the recall election of Governor Eddie Panlilio was initiated, the fourth estate became the only outlet by which the sovereign voices could articulate their disgust at the hands of power  that were behind the move to oust a truly dedicated and incorruptible official, a diamond in the political pit.  To parry the surging protests, the Comelec, by a stroke of pen, salvaged the situation by declaring that all recall elections are suspended due to budgetary constraints.  When the Panlilio brouhaha simmered down, the suspension of the recall election was lifted.

Indeed, the recall process should not be suspended, not even due to budgetary constraints.  There is no price tag for sovereignty.  The life and health of the state depend on the proper exercise of sovereignty.

Otherwise, we may have to redefine sovereignty.

Forgetting

There are medical terms for the word: Alzheimer, senility, amnesia. The medical equivalent for the word simply means a disease involving forgetfulness, the inability to recall even recent past events.  People who suffer the disease live in the here and now.

We seemed to be a nation short of memory.  Most of us have been part of the EDSA revolution in 1986.  Our roles may have differed. For sure, that event could not be easily obliterated considering that it was the people’s victory of unshackling from the Marcos dictatorship.  It was the first peaceful revolution that toppled a dictator, a historic event which was later on replicated in Germany, in Rome, and in other former communist’s regimes in Eastern Europe.

It was supposed to be the finest hour in our history.  Yet, we forget.

Just after three presidents – Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Erap Estrada – we again sulk in the corners and allow Gloria Arroyo to exercise emergency powers to smother her political foes, let General Palparan conduct extra-judicial killings, tolerate the PGMA cronies, notably the First Gentleman, to pillage our economy, and ratify the Anti-terrorism law which violates the fundamental freedom of liberty provided for in our charter.

The 1987 Constitution tried to exorcise and clip the draconian powers of the executive.  However, exorcism cannot be done in the books.  The charter is only the tool.  The people ultimately should wield the powers.

Yet we do not wield. We simply forget.

Before the senate, scams after scams have been investigated. The fertilizer scam, hello Garci tapes, the ZTE $300 million overpriced-contract, ad infinitum.  But where is Jocjoc Volante, Commissioners Garcillano and Abalos, and Jose Pidal now?  Instead of prison, they are just there in the golf courses, plotting for more scams.

Where is our initial howl of protest?  We simply forget.

More than a year ago, a law student from Xavier University, Tamtam Edpan was mercilessly killed.  Until now, the assailants are unknown.  Last year, and last month, our city was flooded, and during the calamity, the airwaves were shut with calls for saving the forest, and stop logging and mining in the watershed areas.  Last December, a civilian, Roberto Martinez was murdered, and Police Chief Genabe, even when the corpus delicti was found, refused to investigate because no one complained. We puked at the shallowest of excuse the police chief offered.

But easily, we forget.

Even as the proposed bio-ethanol plant in our watershed areas in barangays Mambuaya and Bayanga, was heavily criticized just last week, the issue is dying a natural death, and one day, we will wake up, with the ever present danger of cyanide contamination in our faucets.

Perhaps, our collective memory is bound to be short-lived. The Spaniards and Americans erased our common history, and cannibalized whatever national identity we had.  We are a smorgasbord of many cultures that ultimately, we are left with none.  We are little brown Americans but not quite.  Others ape the Spanish Dons but ended up being indolent.

The native culture which predated the coming of Spain and later by the Americans was supplanted by things foreign.  Even our history is written in the prism of two Americans – Blair and Robertson.

As a nation, we tend to forget easily the scams and scandals, and even the lessons we learned at Edsa.  Forgetting all things good and bad would lead us to nowhere.  If we have to move forward, we should learn from the lessons of the past.  Otherwise, we will be perpetually in the starting line.

The soul of a nation lies in the common history that we associate with and embrace together as our own, individually and collectively.  Our collective history is what makes us one nation.

As a person, what make us distinct would be our memory, a stream of consciousness from the past, present, and the projection of the future.  As a nation, have to remember our common suffering and our shared triumphs.  If we easily forget recent events, we cannot expect a recollection of the past.  Without this recollection, we are a group of people but not a nation. 

Honoring A Champion

Can you imagine life without sports?  Headline news without Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao?  What will remain are the scandalous details of corruption, killings, bank robberies, prostitutions.  All these news are chronicles of human follies and frailties, news that numb the senses instead of lifting the spirits.

When Manny Pacquiao gave boxing lessons to Marco Antonio  Barrera, floored on a rematch Erik Morales, and outclassed Oscar de la Hoya, we shouted in jubilation, not so much in celebration of the triumphs of a boxer, but an affirmation of the Filipino spirit, that yes, We can!

In brief fleeting moments, every time Pacman floors his opponent, there is a national amnesia, a time when we forget all the problems, the scandals and the scams.  Suddenly, we cast aside our divisions and instead clap as one nation.

For all the bad news in the local scene – the recent flood, the proposed bio-ethanol plant in Mambuaya and Bayanga, the snatching of cell phones in broad daylight – there is a reason for jubilation.

Francis Casey Alcantara catapulted in the tennis world when he won the Doubles Boys Junior Division in the recently concluded Australian Open held last January 2009 in Melbourne, Australia.  Champions in this division eventually become tennis greats in the mold of Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, and Roger Federer. 

Still 16 years old,  he  ranks  29^th in the world in 18-under category.  He is already playing against fully-muscled behemoths from other countries. Nino, as he is fondly called, is the first Filipino to bag a champion trophy in a tennis grand slam event.  At the age of 16, he played against the world’s best.  Essaying his tennis skills and mental toughness, the pair of Australians who was eventual runner-up, exclaimed: “Where did this kid learn his tennis?”

The world, Philippines, and Cagayan in particular, when the news was flashed in the internet and in cable television, wondered, where indeed this kid learned his tennis?

Unknown to many, Nino was born, raised, educated, and honed his tennis in Nazareth, this city.  At the early age of five, he had his tennis lessons in Nazareth Lawn Tennis courts.  He played against ball boys, and club players; while his competitors are trained in tennis academies.  Even without intensive training, he displayed a flair for the sports.

 He is a trailblazer in Philippine junior tennis circuit.  At the age of ten, he was the most feared player whenever he played in Manila.  Tennis players in the national capital who were under intensive training program were no match to the wonder kid from Cagayan de Oro.  He lorded over in the national scene. At the age of twelve, he was already champion in Asia in the 12-under category, later 14-under category.  He won in Malaysia, Australia, and other parts of the globe. 

Nino’s road to success has never been easy. He has been a victim of Imperial Manila.  There were several times when officials of the Philippine Tennis Association would inform him of the incoming tournament a day before the schedule to make his participation difficult, ostensibly to favor their own talents.

The tennis campaign outside the country has drained the resources his relatives could chip-in.  Tennis aficionados, notably members of the Nazareth Lawn Tennis Club, and few philanthropists helped in their own way.  Sorely absent was the support from the local officials whose sports they only know is perhaps snake and ladder.

Among politicians, anonymous talents yet do not deserve a penny.  They do not boost the politicians’ popularity.  In their road to success, sports heroes have been orphans.  But wait till they become famous, when suddenly, their success will be claimed by many fathers.

Sports’ heroes and their exploits are shots in the arm in the otherwise lethargic national scene.  They are welcome shots, a balm to massage our national psyche.  They have the effect of energizing the citizens, of lifting their spirits.  For these and more, we owe our salute to them.

The Filipino community in Australia reportedly took leave of absences to watch the championship match, to cheer on their compatriot.  Overnight, Nino was their hero.  As Cagayanons, the least we can do is cheer as he raises his trophy.

To Nino, you made as proud as a nation and particularly as Cagayanons.

Revisting Marxism

Then and now, I have never been convinced of the Marxist prescriptions of what ails our society.  Then and now, Karl Marx diagnosis of the capitalism has always been right.

    In the 90′ after the Berlin wall was pulled down, the collapse of the Eastern European nations exposed the inherent weaknesses of communism.  The communist ideology stifled the basic motivation for any human enterprise: reaping the fruits of your own endeavour.  The profit motivation in the capitalist system is absent in Marxism where production and the market forces are state-controlled. 

 What we saw in the 20^th century was the inevitable collapse of the communism.  Suppression of the basic freedoms of speech, assembly, and travel may be tolerated by the people. But where extreme poverty is shared by the people in then communist regimes, the ideology that brought them a shared misery has to be torn asunder.

 Besides, Karl Marx prescription was short of a prophecy, more of a religious leap of faith rather than realism.  His utopia of a society where everybody is equal is a dream detached from reality.  Amongst men, there are always who rise above the rest.  There are always men who are born leaders and charismatic who are destined to lead the proletariat – the politburo, a class of men who become the new elite instead of the bourgeois in the capitalist system.

But Marx critique of the capitalist system that he saw in the 19^th century rings true, then and now.  Germany, London, and France saw the birth of the industrial revolution.  There, feudalism which was agriculture-based gave way to capitalist system where industrial moguls built factories.  In these factories, men, women, children and adult had to literally swim in the dirt to propel the engine of growth: the industries. 

 The market forces though were owned by the capitalist.  Labor, and farm products were cheap.  On the other hand, processed goods, and services were expensive.  In the scheme of things, the poor get poorer and the rich, richer.

 Society then is propelled by one motivation: greed.  The need for more profit saw the dehumanization of man, and the estrangement of his labour.  Men are made slaves.  They work and are paid so they can eat, and survive for them to work in the factories.  Clint Eastwood in a movie puts this perfectly:  “I work in the gutter to give me money.  I need money to buy me food. I need food to give me energy.  I need energy for me to work in the gutter”.

Marx and the bible have one thing in common.  Both foresaw the destructive force of greed that is the prime motivation in the capitalist system.  Accordingly, for the Marx, greed which urges the capitalist to exploit labor is at the same time the reason for its growth and the seed of its destruction. 

Marx and the bible already predicted the collapse of capitalism.

 The present global financial crisis is rooted in greed.  Capital has been amassed and concentrated in the hands of the businessmen. This they achieved at the expense of the exploited labour.  This you saw in outsourced labor in China, Indonesia, India, and the poor countries in Asia, including the Philippines. In these countries, labor comes too cheap.

 Multi-nationals companies that amassed wealth through this scheme have to invest their wealth in the financial markets like the Wall street.  These investment houses in turn has to flood the market with excess cash by way of loans and mortgages. The financial schemes are designed in such a way as to rake more profits on the part of the capitalist, and squeeze the last drop of blood from the poor, and even the middle class.

 Overtime, the bubble collapses.

  In the scheme of things, this must be noted, the working class is never paid the true value of his labor.  Somehow, business takes away the large chunk of the fruits of his labor.  Business drinks the large volume of the workers’ blood, so to speak.  At end of the day, the working class is short-changed.

 In the exploitative relations of labor and capital, the working class wakes – up one day that he has no money to pay his gasoline, buy nutritious food, pay the medical bills, and pay the mortgages. 

 Without money, the working class defaults on obligations. At this stage in history, the capitalist class rattles and is shaken, terribly shaken, that among them they argue, and quarrel.  All that the capitalists have invested cannot be repaid. 

   Karl Marx, born two centuries ago, saw this collapse of the financial market coming. 

   The tension between labor and capital is only a part of the spectrum.  Labor produced the profits which capital enjoyed.  But when labor is pushed to penury, capital has to sink with the ship too.  Labor and capital must not be seen as opposing forces.  They compliment each other.

 Society must be organized based on the precept that labor and capital are only two sides of one reality, that the two are complimentary to each other, that too much exploitation of the working class would lead to the demise of capital.

  Karl Mar, two centuries ago, made a sound critique of capitalism.  Two centuries after, we saw the demise of communism which Karl Marx prescribed.

Two centuries hence, we need another intellectual giant to rescue us from the present collapse of the capitalist system.