PROGRESSIVE FASCISM UNDER DUTERTE
AN EXCRUCIATING EXPERIENCE
By: Isabel Escoda - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:18 AM December 21, 2018
Watching and listening to President Duterte give a speech is like falling down the rabbit hole. One is hurled down into a surreal state that can produce a kind of stupor.
…What was, and is, unbelievable about the whole experience of watching the chief executive talk is to see his audience laughing and clapping over such addlepated language while listening raptly to his crass pronouncements.
It’s not quite Adolf Hitler haranguing the masses, whipping them into a hysterical frenzy. It’s more like Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Great Dictator,” where he plays the despot in such a way as to elicit more laughter than horror among his audience.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/118304/an-excruciating-experience#ixzz5bgeitK7X
Chaplin was slapstick but not vulgar to the point of offense.
Chaplin was slapstick but not vulgar to the point of offense.
DUTERTE’S CALL TO ‘KILL BISHOPS’ HIT: IT’S FROM A ‘PSYCHOTIC MIND’
BLOOD ON THE PRESIDENT’S HANDS
By: Tina G. Santos - Reporter / @santostinaINQ
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:25 AM December 07, 2018
Catholic bishops on Thursday lashed back at President Rodrigo Duterte for urging the people to kill what he called “stupid” and “useless” prelates.
“This is worrisome coming from a psychotic mind. He is sick and a megalomaniac,” said Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes.
Speaking in Malacañang on Wednesday night, Mr. Duterte, who has been quarreling with Church leaders since the 2016 presidential campaign, lashed out at the bishops for criticizing his brutal war on drugs.
“Your bishops, kill them. Those stupid people are useless. All they do is criticize,” Mr. Duterte said.
…Bastes said Mr. Duterte’s remarks should not be taken lightly.
“His advisers must already give him advice never to utter such kinds of statement. He is really a murderous madman. No Filipino should take his statements lightly from this time on,” Bastes said.
‘Love your enemies’
Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David responded to Mr. Duterte’s latest attack on the clergy by posting biblical verses on Facebook.
One verse he posted was Luke 6:27-28: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
“We have already faced quite a lot of persecutions in the past 2,000 years of Church history. We always respond the way Jesus would,” David said.
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:25 AM December 07, 2018
Catholic bishops on Thursday lashed back at President Rodrigo Duterte for urging the people to kill what he called “stupid” and “useless” prelates.
“This is worrisome coming from a psychotic mind. He is sick and a megalomaniac,” said Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes.
Speaking in Malacañang on Wednesday night, Mr. Duterte, who has been quarreling with Church leaders since the 2016 presidential campaign, lashed out at the bishops for criticizing his brutal war on drugs.
“Your bishops, kill them. Those stupid people are useless. All they do is criticize,” Mr. Duterte said.
…Bastes said Mr. Duterte’s remarks should not be taken lightly.
“His advisers must already give him advice never to utter such kinds of statement. He is really a murderous madman. No Filipino should take his statements lightly from this time on,” Bastes said.
‘Love your enemies’
Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David responded to Mr. Duterte’s latest attack on the clergy by posting biblical verses on Facebook.
One verse he posted was Luke 6:27-28: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
“We have already faced quite a lot of persecutions in the past 2,000 years of Church history. We always respond the way Jesus would,” David said.
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said Mr. Duterte’s remarks made him less of a leader.
“Any leader who asks the others to be killed, not even bishops, is no leader at all. He is instigating people to go against the law. Is this not a work of a destabilizer against the social order?” Pabillo said.
Balanga Bishop Ruperto Santos said the President’s statement cost him his moral authority.
“This is a very heartless statement, very harmful to all. Not only attacking the Church but dividing our country and showing that there is only hatred in his heart. His statement disgraced himself and disappointed all God-fearing citizens of our country,” Santos said.
‘Clanging cymbals’
In his latest attack on the Church, Mr. Duterte also said 90 percent of priests were homosexuals “[s]o do not postulate on my morality.”…
— WITH REPORTS FROM CATHERINE GONZALES, NESTOR CORRALES AND DELFIN T. MALLARI JR.
By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:12 AM December 09, 2018
So often has President Duterte commanded others to kill that it has become the most ordinary thing to hear in his public speeches. Just last Wednesday, while addressing an audience of local officials from various cities and municipalities, he casually told his listeners: “Your bishops, kill them. Those stupid people are useless. All they do is criticize.” There was murmuring in the audience, but also some muffled laughter. How is one supposed to take what the President is saying?
…If, indeed, telling people to kill has lost shock value and has become merely a way of talking, then perhaps the late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman was correct. “Evil has been fully and truly trivialized, and what really counts among the consequences is that we have been, or are rapidly being, made insensitive to its presence and manifestations.”
In short, by its daily repetition as a threat and as an event, killing has made us numb. We are all becoming passive bystanders to its intrinsic horror.
In here, ironically, we might find the reason for Mr. Duterte’s continued popularity: that he is able to express without reservation the frustrations and resentments we feel when the world seems, in our view, incapable of solving its problems.
…nothing conveys a sense of finality more graphically than the language of killing. This was what made Hitler such a compelling figure — his ability to make mass extermination appear so ordinary. What the writer Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil” is exactly what it is.
It bypasses reason: People don’t feel obliged to offer logical accounts of their motives to justify doing evil. What is to be done about drug offenders? Just kill; they are not human anymore. What about suspected narcopoliticians? They’re destroying the country; kill them all. What is to be done about noisy critics and meddlesome priests? They’re hypocrites; just kill them. And the list gets longer. Even before we realize it, we have become its enablers.
…Every day, the killing of ordinary people continues. These are people whose humble circumstances and lack of prominence make them vulnerable, and dispensable. Their death, whether in the hands of the police or of so-called vigilantes, goes largely unnoticed and unlamented outside their circle of kin and neighbors. It is they — the poor and the nameless — who have become easy targets of the Duterte drug war’s killing machine.
By: John Nery - @jnery_newsstand
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:06 AM December 11, 2018
…“Itong mga obispo ninyo, patayin ninyo. Walang silbi ’yang mga gagong iyan. (These bishops of yours, kill them. Those bastards are useless.) All they do is criticize,” President Duterte, in taunting mode, said a week ago Wednesday.
This is an escalation from the President’s hostile rhetoric against the bishops in general and Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio “Ambo” David in particular. We have all heard him resort casually, cruelly, to his mantra of killing; we have also all heard him denounce all criticism against him as destabilization, stupidity, antinationalism. But last Wednesday was the first time we heard him call for the mass murder of some of the most influential personalities in the Philippines. (The irony is the membership of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, like many a religious congregation, includes fervent Duterte supporters.)
This murderous outburst cannot be taken as a mere joke (as many of his supporters say), or as a straining for “dramatic effect,” as his spokesperson said, as though the President were “killing them with kindness,” or (in the absurd, bend-over-backward rationalization of the national police chief) as a simple “personal” matter between the President and the bishops.
This completely unprecedented, unpresidential threat runs counter to everything good about the Filipino; it is an offense against the truth, because the reality is the Catholic Church is the principal supporter of the campaign to rehabilitate drug addicts; above all, it is an act of evil. It shows a man overwhelmed by pride, driven by wrath and consumed by envy; the President is not merely justifying the monstrous act of calling for mass murder, but reveling in it.
Two of the three times Mr. Duterte’s ratings took a hit, it was because he made shocking anti-Catholic statements. Late in November 2015, in the middle of his unconventional quest for the presidency, the so-called “Duterteserye,” he cursed Pope Francis for causing massive traffic jams during his visit to the Philippines. (It was a set piece designed to provoke, sketchy on detail but loud on attitude; if, as he tells the story, he truly did not know that the pope was in town, he would have been the only grown person in the Philippines who did not know that a rare papal visit was underway.) In 2018, he called the God of the Catholics a “stupid” God, and paid the price in survey ratings. (The third instance was the Kian delos Santos murder.)
Why does he persist in attacking the Church? Because he can’t help it (he has no message discipline); because the Church does not fight back — and because pride goeth before a fall.
On Twitter: @jnery_newsstand. E-mail: jnery@inquirer.com.ph
PHILIPPINE LAWMAKER, A DUTERTE ALLY, IS KILLED IN PRE-ELECTION VIOLENCE
By Jason Gutierrez
The New York Times
Dec. 22, 2018
MANILA — A Philippine congressman was shot and killed on Saturday, in an attack the police suspect could be politically related ahead of elections next year.
The lawmaker, Rodel M. Batocabe, 52, an ally of President Rodrigo Duterte, was shot eight times during a gift-giving ceremony for older Filipinos in the eastern Albay Province, according to Senior Inspector Mayvell Gonzales of the local police. A police escort was also killed.
Mr. Batocabe was the first member of the Philippines’ 297-seat House of Representatives to be killed in recent years, but he was the 21st official murdered since Mr. Duterte took office two years ago and began a brutal anti-narcotics crackdown.
At least three of those killed were on a long list of officials whom Mr. Duterte has accused, without providing evidence, of involvement in the drug trade.
According to Inspector Gonzales, who said a motive for the killing had yet to be established, the lawmaker was hit in the head, chest and abdomen, and pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital.
Mr. Batocabe, who was not standing again for Congress, was campaigning for mayor of the town of Daraga in Albay Province in the nationwide elections to take place in May.
Violence ahead of those elections had already claimed several lives. Six days ago, gunmen in the northern Philippines killed Benjamin Okulto, 47, a candidate for vice mayor in northern Pangasinan Province, just yards away from a church.
And last month, gunmen ambushed a convoy in the northern province of La Union, killing two people, including a vice mayor. Eight others, including the vice mayor’s daughter, who is the incumbent mayor, were wounded.
Duterte has incited and fostered the environment that encourages summary murders as a political strategy.
BIG BROTHER FROM BEIJING?
Opinion December 24, 2018 01:00
By Philippine Daily Inquirer
Asia news Network
A project to install 12,000 closed-circuit television cameras all over Manila looks like the kind of modern technology we need yesterday.
For any city that serves as the beating hub of government, economy and population, an integrated video surveillance system offers rich potential to curb crime and traffic congestion and boost connectivity.
But it took an eagle-eyed senator to sound the alarm on a 20-billion-peso project shrouded in secrecy, one that raises questions about risks to state security and discovered only during the Senate debates on the 2019 national budget. One of 29 agreements signed during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Manila last month, the project was awarded to another state-run Chinese company, leading Senator Ralph Recto to warn of a “security threat”.
The senator’s grilling brought to light the fact that a commercial contract had already been signed by Interior Secretary Eduardo Año and the chair of China International Telecommunication Construction Corp (CITCC). The project will be financed by a loan and implemented next year.
As it happens, CITCC is an affiliate of China Telecom, a partner of the Mislatel Consortium that recently won the contract to be the third telecom provider in the country. That’s another deal that many observers see as fraught with national security risks for the Philippines.
The supplier of the CCTVs, meanwhile, would be Huawei, a Chinese company that has been blacklisted by the United States, Japan and Australia and is under tight watch by a growing list of other countries such as Germany and France for alleged hacking and spying.
Many countries have blocked Huawei from building their next-generation 5G telecom networks over concerns that Huawei’s equipment has spyware technology that would be used to spy for Beijing. On top of that, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei chief financial officer and daughter of its founder, was recently arrested in Canada at the request of the United States, on charges of violating sanctions on Iran.
China, an authoritarian state, already leads the way in Big Brother surveillance of its citizens, with a disturbing system in place to reward or punish Chinese citizens based on their social behaviour as monitored through online surveillance and a legion of CCTVs everywhere in that country.
The chequered background of Chinese state-owned companies wanting to do business in the Philippines, and their role in what feels like the expanding incursion of China into Philippine politics and society, are causes for concern.
The choice of pilot areas for the project – Metro Manila and Davao City – is no doubt inspired by President Rodrigo Duterte’s cosy relationship with Beijing, but it also exposes the country’s current two seats of political and economic power to potential spying by China. The project’s technology will be China-designed, from the command centre to be established for the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s 911 hotline, the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, to the thousands of CCTV cameras with facial and vehicle recognition to be installed at a host of public and residential areas such as roads and crossings, business districts, stadiums, science and technology parks, etc.
Can we trust a China state-run firm with such a surveillance network directed at Philippine institutions and Filipino citizens? “China will have access on surveillance, the PNP database and big data on Filipinos, and we would be paying for it,” Recto warned.
Besides the lack of transparency, Recto said it appears it was the Chinese firms that solicited the project during Duterte’s visit to China in 2016. Worse, they also wrote the terms of reference of the agreement.
Besides the lack of transparency, Recto said it appears it was the Chinese firms that solicited the project during Duterte’s visit to China in 2016. Worse, they also wrote the terms of reference of the agreement.
Without thorough vetting and scrutiny of this project, the Philippines may well end up playing into the hands of an aggressive neighbour that has had no qualms undermining the Philippines’ international standing and violating its interests in the West Philippine Sea dispute.
An inquiry into both the cost and national security implications of this project deserves staunch public support, as does the Senate’s probe on the potential risks of the Mislatel-Chinese consortium’s third telco contract. It is incumbent upon senators to set aside political expediency to ensure that the country’s best interests are safeguarded. They owe it to the people to ask of a project called “Safe Philippines”: Safe from whom?
An inquiry into both the cost and national security implications of this project deserves staunch public support, as does the Senate’s probe on the potential risks of the Mislatel-Chinese consortium’s third telco contract. It is incumbent upon senators to set aside political expediency to ensure that the country’s best interests are safeguarded. They owe it to the people to ask of a project called “Safe Philippines”: Safe from whom?
Answer: Safe from the political opposition to Duterte the murderous fascist dictator.
Duterte is a traitor because he is using Communist China to oppress the Filipino people. He installs a CCTV surveillance system—what is in effect an electronic spy system engineered by Communist China—which is readily susceptible to the abuse of the constitutional rights of the Philippine people, in order to increase his authoritarian leverage in power and to maintain himself in his position. The surveillance system supports Communist China in its hegemonic strategy to dominate the Philippines—indeed, the entire Asian region—and furthers its aggressive plan to illegally annex the international waters of the West Philippine Sea, and the territories therein, especially by promoting vassalage among dictatorial Southeast Asian leaders and regimes. Furthermore, Duterte is doubly a traitor because he gravely compromises our nation’s legal claims to the maritime resources and territories of the West Philippine Sea.
PLAYING WITH CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
PLAYING WITH CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
By: Marjohara Tucay - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:18 AM January 24, 2019
It is assumed that no parent in their right mind will, in any way,
commit an act that will harm their children. The same goes for President
Duterte, who is even dubbed by his avid followers as “Tatay Digong.”
Yet as 2019 swept in, that parental assumption suddenly disappeared.
The President and his head honcho in the House of Representatives, Speaker
Gloria Arroyo, appear bent on bartering away children’s rights in hopes of
scoring good optics. The game: Pass a bill that would amend the current
provisions of Republic Act No. 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of
2006 (JJWA) to lower the minimum age of
criminal responsibility (MACR) from the current 15 to 9 years old. The prize: Prolong the illusion of the
incessant drug war’s effectivity.
Experts and child rights groups are united in their opposition to this
move, as it can invariably result in having more children sentenced for petty
crimes and placed either in jam-packed jails or dilapidated rehabilitation
centers. Still, despite these objections, Mr. Duterte’s stalwarts are
persistently following the script, even adding a little action.
The scene: a drug buy-bust operation in Navotas City on Jan. 16, where
agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) nabbed 16 people
suspected of selling drugs and “rescued” 12 minors aged 4 to 15 years old. The
PDEA then paraded the children in front of the media.
The next day, Jan. 17, House committee on justice chair and Oriental
Mindoro Rep. Doy Leachon announced that his committee would finalize the bill
amending the JJWA. Arroyo herself declared that she was in favor of the bill.
The brazen power play did not go unnoticed, as it faced massive
opposition even from international institutions. The United Nations
International Children’s Emergency Fund described the sinister move best: It is
“wrong from every angle.” Children in conflict with the law are victims of
circumstance, and proper rehabilitation, not criminalization, is needed, said
the experts. Lowering the MACR will also do nothing to stop drug syndicates
from using children as drug runners, as these syndicates will simply tap
younger kids to continue evading the law. Worse, given how Oplan Tokhang’s
infamous “nanlaban” excuse works, the bill
can even legitimize the killing of
minors.
Attention is now on the Department of Social Welfare and Development
and how the agency will stand on the matter, as it is set to play a vital role
in the proposed amendments.
Expectedly, the bill hurdled through the House justice committee with
ease. The committee passed it on Jan. 21, in less than an hour, voting 9-1. The
day after, Leachon introduced the consolidated version at the House plenary for
second reading. With the Senate also fast-tracking its version of the bill, the
Duterte administration is confident that the measure will be passed into law
before the 17th Congress adjourns.
Whoever wrote this narrative has a penchant for drama, as it appears to
be ending in Malacañang, with PDEA announcing that Mr. Duterte will invite the
children supposedly involved in the Navotas City operation any time soon. That
occasion will surely give Malacañang the convenient moment to cash in on the
good optics it has long sought after on this issue.
What Mr. Duterte doesn’t realize is that gambling the rights and welfare of children to score political gain is
the bellwether of a desperate, failing presidency.
As his administration flounders, the President has been called many names:
tyrant, dictator, chauvinist. If this law is passed, we can add another moniker
to that list: child abuser.
* * *
Marjohara Tucay is an independent public governance analyst and a
children’s rights advocate.
TAGLE CONDEMNS ABUSE OF POWER, BULLYING
By: Julie M. Aurelio, Tina G. Santos - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:24 AM December 17, 2018
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on Sunday condemned the abuse of power, saying no one should use it to intimidate others.
“St. John the Baptist said, ‘Don’t be a bully.’ Do not bully anyone. Don’t use your power as a license to be rude. Don’t use your power to coerce people. Don’t use arms to level false accusations against others,” the archbishop of Manila said in his homily during the first “Misa de Gallo” of the Christmas season at Manila Cathedral.
“Do not belittle others. That you are in high office does not mean you have the right to trample others. You will never be happy that way,” Tagle said.
“In truth, a bully, someone who uses his power to belittle others, is a fearful and insecure person,” he added.
Tagle did not name anyone but he was clearly referring to President Rodrigo Duterte, who had been attacking the Catholic clergy in recent days.
Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1063819/tagle-condemns-abuse-of-power-bullying#ixzz5bzPzUQWK
Recent studies show that there has been a general dumbing down of human intelligence. I think there has also been a gross loss of moral fiber, the capacity to tell right from wrong, and the NEED to do something about it. We are both dumb and numb. The zombies got us.
JoeAm, @societyofhonor
Condonation by the Philippine population of Duterte’s murderous fascist agenda has led to progressive moral degradation in the country.
DUTERTE RENEWS ATTACK ON CHURCH…
By: Julie M. Aurelio, Nestor Corrales - @inquirerdotnet
INQUIRER.net, Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:32 AM January 12, 2019
President Rodrigo Duterte has lashed out anew at Catholic church
leaders, denouncing them as “sons of bitches” and telling street bums to rob
and kill bishops.
“Only I can say bishops are sons of bitches, damn you. That is true,”
Mr. Duterte said in a speech on Thursday night during the groundbreaking
ceremony for a public high school in Bulakan, Bulacan.
In remarks he made during Gov. Antonio Koh’s birthday party in Masbate
a day earlier, the President urged the “tambay” to rob and kill bishops.
“Hey, you bums there when your bishop passes by, rob him. He has lots
of money—the son of a bitch. Kill him!” he said.
CEBU ATTACK ADDS TO LIST OF SLAIN PROSECUTORS
By: Ador Vincent Mayol, Nestle Semilla - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:04 AM January 19, 2019
CEBU CITY—The police have formed a special investigation task group to
quickly resolve the killing of Masbate City Assistant Prosecutor Mary Ann
Castro, who had also served Cebu for nearly two decades.
City police chief Senior Supt. Royina Garma on Friday said she was mobilizing
all available resources and directed the task group “to dig deeper into this
case” and probe all possible angles, including personal grudge and illegal
drugs, in the Thursday night attack on Castro.
Castro, 51, is the 10th state
prosecutor killed since President Duterte took office in 2016.
Lawyer pal earlier killed
She was a close friend of slain lawyer Jonnah John Ungab who was
gunned down by unknown assailants also in Cebu in February last year.
Ungab represented confessed drug lord Rolando “Kerwin” Espinosa Jr.
whose father, Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., was killed by the police
inside a Leyte jail in 2016.
“We are now doing a background check on Castro,” said Garma.
Castro had just left Ayala Center and was alone in a yellow Nissan
Juke, driving along Escario Street in Barangay Kamputhaw at 9:50 p.m. on
Thursday when she was shot through her car window.
“We received a report that there was only a lone gunman. But we also
received other information that there were at least two or three,” Garma added.
Investigators said witnesses heard five gunshots and then saw Castro’s
car swerve across the street and smash into a galvanized iron sheet fence of a
construction site.
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu chapter condemned the
killing and called on the authorities to give justice to the state lawyer.
‘A norm in Cebu’
“This act seems to be a norm in Cebu, is unjust, disrespectful and
inhumane. Justice cannot be attained by
another act of injustice,” said Mundlyn Misal-Martin, president of the IBP
chapter.
“Killing another person is not the resolution of a problem. Never can
it be and never will it be,” she added.
Martin urged law enforcers “to look at all angles and find the real
culprit.” …
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDeleteLET REASON PREVAIL IN DEBATE ON CHILD CRIMINALITY
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:12 AM February 07, 2019
The age of criminal responsibility must be based on evidence and not on mere whim: Bearing in mind that “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection,” the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, among others, has called on state parties for “(t)he establishment of a minimum age below which children shall be presumed not to have the capacity to infringe the penal law.”
Under our Revised Penal Code, that age is 9 years or less, where the child is presumed to be absolutely incapable of committing a crime and thus exempt from criminal liability.
Nine-year-olds and under 15 are likewise so presumed and thus exempt from criminal liability unless they acted with discernment.
This only means that the basis whether or not a child should be held criminally liable for his actions is his mental capacity to understand the nature of his actions (as to whether it is right or wrong) and likewise to fully appreciate the consequences of his unlawful acts.
Conversely, it is the absence of capacity to act with discernment that makes a child not criminally liable, or in the language of the UN Convention, presumed not to have the capacity to infringe the penal law.
BILLS, however, HAVE BEEN FILED in the House of Representatives seeking to LOWER THE AGE OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY by restoring the original AGE OF 9 provided for in the Revised Penal Code.
Apparently because of strong opposition to the proposal, congressmen AGREED to RAISE IT TO 12. But that age is not something that our legislators can arbitrarily agree on or so decide just because, as admitted by Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, that is what President Duterte wants.
Evidence must be presented to show at what age the child becomes equipped to act with discernment and thus can justifiably be held criminally liable for his actions.
That is precisely what Sen. Ralph Recto is looking for when he asked about the science pegging the threshold at 9; he called on his colleagues to BASE THEIR PROPOSAL on RESEARCH, FACTS AND STUDIES and NOT ON WHIMS and UNPROVEN THEORIES.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson was of a similar mind when he said he would support lowering the age of criminal liability “to a certain level” depending on “SCIENCE-BASED TESTIMONIES OF EXPERTS IN THE FIELD OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY.”
Sadly, many of our legislators, contrary to their protestations, SHOW UTTER DISREGARD for the WELFARE OF OUR CHILDREN, BASING THEIR DECISIONS solely on their WHIMS AND CAPRICES.
Arroyo, in utter subservience to President Duterte, admitted that she supports the proposal because that is what the President wants.
Sen. Richard Gordon was quoted as saying that, as justice committee chair, he will recommend 12 because that is how he feels.
I hope and pray that reason will prevail in the Senate, as I have already given up insofar as the House of Representatives is concerned.
SEVERO BRILLANTES, brillanteslaw@gmail.com
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119374/let-reason-prevail-in-debate-on-child-criminality#ixzz5lsXwCbnM
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDelete‘FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE JOURNALISTS…’
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:28 AM February 15, 2019
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. / Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. / Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. / THEN THEY CAME FOR ME—AND THERE WAS NO ONE LEFT TO SPEAK FOR ME.”
This “MOST FAMOUS HOLOCAUST POEM OF ALL TIME,” WRITTEN BY German pastor and Holocaust survivor MARTIN NIEMÖLLER, was recently given a 21st-century media-savvy spin by a protest sign that read: “FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE JOURNALISTS. WE DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT.”
…The Philippines is not exempt from this crackdown on free media. The most prominent example is MARIA RESSA, CEO of the news website RAPPLER, who was ARRESTED on Wednesday evening OVER A 7-YEAR-OLD LIBEL ALLEGATION that was REVIVED, like a rotting zombie, by the National Bureau of Investigation, which had previously dismissed the case.
Elements of harassment and state vendetta are so patently obvious in this case.
…TARGETING JOURNALISTS is TICK BOX NO. 1 in the AUTHORITARIAN PLAYBOOK, as the German philosopher Hannah Arendt warned in 1974: “The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
So for journalists who think Ressa and Rappler “were asking for it,” and for ordinary folk who think only journalists and bloggers need be scared, remember the protest sign’s words: “First they came for the journalists…” And WHEN THEY’RE GONE, WITHOUT A FREE PRESS, WE WON’T KNOW WHAT WILL HIT US NEXT.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119575/first-they-came-for-the-journalists#ixzz5mqclgnCG
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDeleteUNDERMINING THE RULE OF LAW
By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:10 AM February 17, 2019
What makes the law in a modern society a trustworthy arbiter of what is right and what is wrong is the consistency of its application and procedures. This is what guarantees the attainment of its basic societal function — the stabilization of NORMATIVE EXPECTATIONS.
Without NORMATIVE STABILITY, contracts will have no binding effect outside the tacit understanding of the directly involved parties. Society’s other function systems — education, the mass media, science, the family, religion, the economy, etc. — will be hard-pressed to secure for themselves the conditions necessary for their respective operations. People will seek redress for their grievances elsewhere.
SO IMPORTANT IS THE LAW to the functioning of modern society that ITS AUTONOMY MUST BE PROTECTED. It has to be insulated from the demands and whims especially of those who wield political power or have the means to buy anything. TO ALLOW THE LEGAL SYSTEM TO BE “WEAPONIZED” BY POLITICS, OR “COMMODIFIED” BY THE MARKET, is TO UNDERMINE ITS CAPACITY TO BIND MODERN SOCIETY TOGETHER.
… the urgent question we face today is the autonomy and institutional integrity of the legal system itself.
…With the advent of the DUTERTE PRESIDENCY, the ENTIRE JUSTICE SYSTEM appears to have WILLFULLY SUBORDINATED ITSELF to the logic and tempo of Dutertismo, shamelessly taking its cues from the undisciplined pronouncements of the strongman and DOING EVERYTHING TO PLEASE HIM.
RAPPLER AND RESSA are only the latest VICTIMS of this brazen display of political dominance that is calculated to teach them a lesson they won’t forget. Before them, there’s SEN. LEILA DE LIMA, a staunch critic of Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war. For daring to investigate him when he was Davao City kingpin, and for holding him accountable for the activities of the so-called Davao Death Squad, the feisty senator has languished in detention for two years now. As incredible as it seems, the charges against her are supported mainly by testimonies of convicted felons detained in the New Bilibid Prison. Three courts dutifully found probable cause and issued separate warrants for her arrest.
Then there is former CHIEF JUSTICE MARIA LOURDES SERENO, who drew Mr. Duterte’s ire after she admonished him to refrain from publicly shaming judges who landed in his infamous drug list. In courteous language, she had requested him to let the high court investigate members of the bench. The President publicly excoriated her for interfering in his duties as chief executive. In a move that was as surreal as it was laughable, Solicitor General Jose Calida filed a quo warranto petition questioning Sereno’s right to occupy her post for allegedly failing to submit all the documentation required of nominees for the office. She was subsequently removed from the Court by a majority of her own colleagues.
Of course, there is SEN. ANTONIO TRILLANES IV, another undaunted critic of Mr. Duterte. Prosecutors from the Department of Justice filed petitions in two separate courts seeking the revival of the cases of rebellion and mutiny against him, which had been previously dropped by virtue of the amnesty granted him years back. They argued that since his amnesty application could not be found, the amnesty granted to him was void from the start. One judge promptly dismissed the petition after the former military officer showed a video of him filing his application and presented the person who actually received the application. But another judge thought otherwise. Trillanes was arrested and had to post bail.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
UNDERMINING THE RULE OF LAW
ReplyDeleteBy: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:10 AM February 17, 2019
Continued
After the President repeatedly cursed the PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER for its reports on the drug war, the newspaper’s owners, the PRIETO FAMILY, found themselves summarily evicted from the land they had been leasing from a government agency. They are also being investigated for tax evasion in connection with their other businesses.
It is pretty much the same story with regard to the BROADCAST NETWORK ABS-CBN.
Mr. Duterte has accused the station of biased reporting and failing to air some TV ads he had already paid for during the 2016 election campaign. He has publicly vowed to block the renewal of the network’s franchise.
...This is not political will but the PETTINESS OF TYRANTS. It must be RESOLUTELY RESISTED.
public.lives@gmail.com
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119603/undermining-the-rule-of-law#ixzz5mw06ucG5
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDeleteASSAULT ON PRESS FREEDOM? Q AND A
By: John Nery - @jnery_newsstand
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM February 19, 2019
…In “How to Save a Constitutional Democracy,” the legal scholars Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq distinguish between two “pathways” leading away from constitutional democracy: authoritarian collapse and democratic erosion.
In Philippine history, the Marcos martial law regime (despite its legal trappings) is the paradigmatic example of a democracy collapsing into authoritarianism. If the Duterte administration manages to coerce the military into imposing a revolutionary government, we would be living through another hellish example.
But DEMOCRATIC DECAY is the road much traveled, and that is WHERE the PHILIPPINES UNDER THE DUTERTE PRESIDENCY FINDS ITSELF TODAY.
What is democratic decay?
Ginsburg and Huq write: “We define such erosion as a process of incremental, but ultimately still substantial, decay in the three basic predicates of democracy—competitive elections, liberal rights to speech and association, and the rule of law.”
The EVIDENCE IS THERE FOR ANYONE WHO IS WILLING TO LOOK: Misuse of government resources to make the President’s special assistant a senator (the marching orders are to make him place third); organized disinformation and attacks on the press (led by President Duterte, who violates both our history and our Constitution by insisting that press freedom is a privilege, not a right); the coercion of the courts and its agents. THE DECAY, THE ROT, IS REAL.
On Twitter: @jnery_newsstand
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119650/assault-on-press-freedom-q-and-a#ixzz5nZj8yTcn
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDeleteNO REBELLION CHARGES FILED IN 2018 MARTIAL LAW, YET SC ALLOWS 3RD EXTENSION
Lian Buan @lianbuan
Rappler.com
Published 2:08 PM, March 21, 2019
Updated 2:09 PM, March 21, 2019
MANILA, Philippines – As the Duterte administration insists on an existing state of rebellion in Mindanao, it turns out that the government failed to charge a single individual with rebellion throughout 2018 – or during the 2nd extension of martial law in the region.
The GOVERNMENT CLAIMED IT ARRESTED 5 PEOPLE IN MINDANAO in 2018 in relation to martial law.
…“The fact that the government has not charged any person of rebellion during the second extension militates against the presumption that these acts, on their own, constitute substantial evidence of a persisting rebellion in Mindanao,” said Associate Justice Benjamin Caguioa, whose original ponencia turned into a dissenting opinion when he lost to the majority, 9-4.
NINE JUSTICES VOTED TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTIONALITY of the 3rd extension of martial law in Mindanao which would last until yearend of 2019.
CAGUIOA showed in his dissenting opinion the GOVERNMENT'S INCONSISTENT AND INSUFFICIENT REPORTS OF VIOLENCE AND ATTACKS to support its assertion that a state of rebellion exists in Mindanao.
Reports of violence were either attributed to two terror groups, while some could not be pinned on anyone. In other cases, the government could not cite motives for the attacks.
Caguioa said that after oral arguments, the Court gave the government time to make further submissions to bolster their case that an extension was needed.
“Unfortunately, nothing in the Memorandum of the respondents was submitted to complete the incomplete entries. Neither did the respondents attempt to even explain how a fair amount of these incidents were attributed, or could be attributable, to what the respondents called 'rebels' – despite the fact that the reports do not identify the perpetrators or the motive, or supply the identity of the perpetrators, all of which point to the CONCLUSION that these are COMMON CRIMES COMMITTED FOR PRIVATE PURPOSES,” said Caguioa.
Senior Associate Justice Antonio CARPIO was straightforward in his short dissent, saying that the DUTERTE ADMINISTRATION FAILED TO PROVE A STATE OF ONGOING REBELLION.
“In fact, the Government has not named any province, city or municipality in the entire Mindanao where an actual rebellion by the Maute group is on-going,” Carpio said.
Defending the majority decision, Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin once told media that violence reports need not be accurate to validate martial law.
…President Rodrigo Duterte just needs to believe them, Bersamin said.
That reasoning is now enshrined in jurisprudence.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
NO REBELLION CHARGES FILED IN 2018 MARTIAL LAW, YET SC ALLOWS 3RD EXTENSION
ReplyDeleteLian Buan @lianbuan
Rappler.com
Published 2:08 PM, March 21, 2019
Updated 2:09 PM, March 21, 2019
Continued
“We must not fall into or be tempted to substitute our own judgment to that of the People's President and the People's representatives. We must not forget that the Constitution has given us separate and quite distinct roles to fill up in our respective branches of government,” said the 34-page ponencia written by newly-appointed justice Rosmari Carandang.
Caguioa called this “an unbecoming deference to the political departments so inconsistent with the provisions of the present Constitution.”
Caguioa said that what the court has done was to allow a “wholesale branding” of common criminals and terrorists as rebels.
Dissenter Justice Francis JARDELEZA, who was once with the majority during the first martial law petition in 2017, said that the recent decision shows “the COURT’S SEEMING ABDICATION OF ITS DUTY.”
“I submit this Opinion to reiterate my grave concerns over the Court's seeming abdication of its duty under Section 18, Article VII of the Constitution as a consequence of its adamant refusal to ‘substitute its own judgment’ over that of the President or Congress,” said Jardeleza.
In his usual strong tone, another dissenter, Associate Justice Marvic LEONEN, wrote: “With this fourth accommodation, we have become an enfeebled Supreme Court, far from what our fundamental law requires of us when the President exercises his commander-in-chief powers. What the majority has done disappoints a better reading of history. It all but REMOVES THE CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS against the RISE OF ANOTHER AUTHORITARIAN.”
Link: https://www.rappler.com/nation/226298-supreme-court-allows-3rd-extension-mindanao-martial-law-no-rebellion-charges
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDelete‘DESAPARECIDOS’ TWICE OVER
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:16 AM February 22, 2019
Since it was established by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1980, the WORKING GROUP ON ENFORCED OR INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES has received over 57,000 cases attributed to government forces from 108 countries.
Of the 786 “desaparecidos” reported in the Philippines, 131 have been found alive, including 19 in detention, and 30 found dead.
That leaves 625 CASES FROM 1975 TO 2012 OUTSTANDING in the records of the Working Group as of 2018.
The Working Group’s definition of enforced disappearance includes three elements: “deprivation of liberty against the will of the person; involvement of government officials, at least by acquiescence; and refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.”
…The five desaparecidos are among the 625 remaining cases in the Working Group’s list. But now, the Duterte administration wants to “delist” such cases from the records of the Working Group, despite the fact that the victims’ fates remain unknown to this day.
A DELEGATION LED BY UNDERSECRETARY SEVERO CATURA of the PRESIDENTIAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE, met with the Working Group last week in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to “clarify” the cases, with the AIM OF REMOVING THEM FROM THE UNITED NATIONS’ RECORDS. The 625 cases, argued Catura, have been “festering for so long,” and they happened during past administrations, not under Mr. Duterte, which, he said, has no record of enforced disappearances—a claim disputed by the human rights group Karapatan and other observers.
The military has tried to put the blame for involuntary disappearances on communist rebels, saying many of the cases happened in 1983-1986 during an internal purge that the Communist Party of the Philippines itself had acknowledged. However, former UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston reported in 2008 that the “purge theory” of the military “can only be viewed as a cynical attempt to displace responsibility.”
While the Commission on Human Rights welcomed the government’s rare engagement with an international human rights body, Commissioner Karen Dumpit said the 625 cannot be delisted so quickly. Each of the the victims’ families has to be consulted to agree on a resolution of the case of their missing loved ones. And “even if they delist a certain case, it does not mean that the enforced disappearance did not happen. The delisting is just a process, it does not erase the violation that occurred.”
An outraged Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, whose brother Hermon Lagman was abducted shortly before Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, said the government was “sweeping under the rug the ultimate truth about the victims’ fate and ensures their violators’ impunity.” The “sinister move” would be a “double atrocity” for the victims, he added.
Indeed, this move appears to be not only ANOTHER BRAZEN ATTEMPT TO WHITEWASH HISTORY and diminish the State’s responsibility for the country’s troubled human rights record; it also MAKES THE VICTIMS DESAPARECIDOS TWICE OVER—first snuffed out from the face of the earth, and now about to be erased from the only list that enshrines their memory.
Such willful forgetfulness is a folly, reminded the UN Working Group: “Truth and justice for enforced disappearances are a precondition for lasting peace, while a lack of action to address them fosters a culture of impunity, which—in turn—may encourage further human rights violations in the future.”
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119721/desaparecidos-twice-over#ixzz5nlkrKlk2
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDeleteWHEN OUR FAILING DEMOCRACY MOVES FURTHER TOWARD THE PRECIPICE
Inquirer. net
05:02 AM February 25, 2019
…In May 2016, 39 percent of the voters elected an antidemocratic and misogynist president.
In the three years since, a generation of children has been growing up in an atmosphere in which political and gender democratizations are disprized, turned backward, and threatened with termination.
The administration kills thousands of the poor without compunction, mocks human rights and civil liberties, and undermines democratic institutions. Government leaders and legislators erode gender equality by persecuting female defenders of democracy and by spouting demeaning statements about women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. Almost as painful is the indifference — worse, the applause — with which these developments are met by many Filipino women and men. Today, the 33rd anniversary of the Edsa uprising, we realize how little progress we have made toward full democracy, and how little our political and gender “revolution” has taken root.
…Elections are also an opportunity for educating our electorate—NOT JUST THE POOR, but the HIGHLY EDUCATED ELITES who voted in higher percentages than the poor for the current administration, and WHO, IN SURVEYS, HAVE CONSISTENTLY REGISTERED HIGHER SATISFACTION with its performance THAN THE POOR.
Let us use the elections as a forum for discussing what genuine democracy means, why our nation needs it, and why voting for the administration’s candidates brings our nation closer to ruin.
Then, whether or not we lose this next battle, we and our people will be better armed for long-term contention with the antidemocratic and misogynist forces that threaten our nation.
ANNIE SERRANO, National Chairwoman, Pilipina: Kilusan ng Kababaihang Pilipino
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119767/when-our-failing-democracy-moves-further-toward-the-precipice#ixzz5oFkLDpnm
Gonzalinho
ALL CAPS MINE
ReplyDeleteINSECURITY IN NEIGHBORHOODS RISES
By: Mahar Mangahas - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM February 23, 2019
Given the tremendous importance that the Duterte administration has placed on its war against illegal drugs, it is not surprising that, in the eyes of the general public, there has been a DECLINE IN DRUG USAGE (“Fourth Quarter Social Weather Survey: 66% of Filipinos say the number of illegal drug users in their area has decreased,” www.sws.org.ph, 2/16/19).
However, the administration’s success in reducing drug usage should be qualified by the UNIVERSAL PUBLIC DISAPPROVAL of the LETHAL MEANS used to enforce the President’s will. The December 2018 survey also found 95 percent calling it important that the police capture the drug suspects alive. The pro-life demand for the conduct of the war against illegal drugs has been intense since September 2017.
Furthermore, the success in reducing drug usage has come at the cost of a RISE in COMMON-CRIME VICTIMIZATION and in the INSECURITY OF HOMES AND NEIGHBORHOOD STREETS (“Fourth Quarter 2018 Social Weather Survey: Families victimized by common crimes rise to 7.6%,” 2/22/19).
Crime victimization. The percentage of families victimized in the past six months by any of four common crimes (robbery on the street, home break-in, physical violence, or theft of a motorized vehicle) was 7.6 when surveyed in December last year, compared to 6.1 percent in September, 5.3 in June, and 6.6 in March. As a result, the average rate of common-crime victimization for the full year rose to 6.4 percent in 2018, from 6.1 percent in 2017.
Note that this is victimization as recorded by the SWS interviewers, not as found in the police blotters. Most of these crimes are not even reported to the police.
For street robbery in particular (the most common of the common crimes), in Metro Manila, the most unsafe area, the average percentage of families victimized rose to 9.4 in the full year 2018, from 8.5 in the full year 2017. In Mindanao, the percentage rose to 5.5 from 3.1; in Balance Luzon, it rose to 3.9 from 3.3; while in Visayas, it was steady at 1.8.
Fear of crime. I recently wrote that, whereas the long-term trend of common-crime victimization is downward, the fear of crime has been steadily high (“Fear of crime stays high,” Opinion, 12/8/18). This is based on SWS’ quarterly tracking of three factors: (a) fear of burglary of the home, (b) fear of walking the neighborhood streets at night, and (c) visibility of drug addicts in the neighborhood.
In December 2018, a majority 61 percent of those surveyed said that most people in their neighborhood were fearful of burglary—a jump of 9 points from 52 percent the previous September. This is already the third time, in 10 quarters so far of the Duterte administration, that the fearful percentage has exceeded 60; it happened a total of only five times in the entire 24 quarters of the previous administration.
The percentage fearful of walking the streets at night jumped by 8 points to a majority 54 in December from 46 in September. This is its fifth time so far to exceed 50 during the current administration; it happened a total of four times in the previous administration.
However, the percentage noticing many drug addicts in the neighborhood fell to 39 in December from 41 in September. It has been in the 30s twice, in the 40s five times, and 50+ three times in the 10 quarters of the Duterte period so far. For comparison, it was in the 30s four times, in the 40s eleven times, and 50+ seven times in the previous administration (a total of 22 quarters; two were inadvertently skipped).
In sum, the SUCCESS OF THE WAR AGAINST ILLEGAL DRUGS COMES at a heavy, publicly condemned cost of human lives, and WITHOUT LESSENING THE PEOPLE’S ANXIETIES about the SAFETY OF THEIR HOMES AND NEIGHBORHOODS.
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/119734/insecurity-in-neighborhoods-rises#ixzz5oM25elrl
Gonzalinho
Photo labeled for noncommercial reuse
ReplyDeletePhoto link: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53275
Gonzalinho
WHY BRINGING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY IS NOT THE SOLUTION
ReplyDeletePhilippine Daily Inquirer
05:01 AM July 03, 2019
It is not surprising at all that Senators-elect Ronald dela Rosa, a former Philippine National Police chief, and Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go are inclined to restore the death penalty. They are just echoing what their boss President Duterte says.
Would judicial killings in the form of death penalty deter crimes, or is it intended specifically as a path to retribution? Death penalty is commonly understood as the legal execution of a punishment for a crime committed.
…the idea of reimposing the death penalty has been revived and championed. Sen. Manny Pacquiao even joked that death by hanging is easy, since all you have to do is kick the chair.
Why can’t the government choose to find ways to nourish life, rather than push for restoring the death penalty as a supposed means of deterring crime or exacting retribution?
A study by Amnesty International says the death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. Most of those penalized by the death penalty are victims of unfair legal systems.
Many death sentences are issued after so-called “confessions” have been obtained through torture; these confessions are unreliable, as they only show that victims of torture are compelled to say anything to make the torture stop.
…discrimination often influences court decisions. People are much more likely to be sentenced to death if they are poor or belong to a racial, ethnic or religious minority. This is further compounded by the reality that the poor and marginalized groups have less access to the legal resources needed to defend themselves.
The death penalty is also used as a political tool to punish political opponents. In the Philippines, we have more than 500 political prisoners facing trumped-up charges; their situation would be all the more difficult if they also faced a possible death penalty sentence.
…In the context of massive poverty and injustice, the death penalty only increases the victimization of the poor, while the rich continue to enjoy the advantage of saving themselves because of their privilege and wealth.
How can we deter crime? Ensure quality life for all. And how do we provide justice to victims of heinous crimes? Through restorative justice, which saves lives from guilt and hate, vengeance and retribution.
NORMA P. DOLLAGA
Kapatirang Simbahan Para Sa Bayan (Kasimbayan)
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/122344/why-bringing-back-the-death-penalty-is-not-the-solution#ixzz6P8lh7v1i
Under the Duterte administration, the death penalty is conceived as a quick, brutal fix to bolster an abusive and oppressive authoritarian regime. Unjust killing will be wielded as an effective—it is mistakenly believed—weapon to instill fear, diminish resistance, and silence dissent.
Under the Marcos regime, the murder and incarceration of the political opposition bred anger, multiplied resistance, and intensified political struggle.
Reinstating the death penalty is no solution to dealing with the political opposition. Advancing a more just regime is.
Our history teaches us lessons that we are so susceptible to forget.
Gonzalinho
MANDATORY ROTC
ReplyDeleteAs far as we know, ROTC is not mandatory in the Philippines, although Duterte has been pushing it, consistent with the obviously progressive fascism of his rule.
Ruth Abbey Gita-Carlos, “Duterte renews push for mandatory ROTC” (December 20, 2019), published in the Philippine News Agency website tells us:
“The House of Representatives in 17th Congress approved its measure reviving the mandatory ROTC for senior high school students, but the Senate failed to pass its version of the bill.”
The article relates that “President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday renewed his call on Congress to pass the mandatory Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program in public and private senior high schools nationwide, in a bid to promote ‘gallantry, bravery, and spirit of volunteerism’ among the Filipino youth.”
See: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1089271
Showing insight, Edilberto C. de Jesus, “Rizal Never Attended ROTC” (July 6, 2019), Philippine Daily Inquirer, writes:
“Neither rhetorical appeals to patriotism nor legislative compulsion will achieve the government’s ROTC objectives. If it is serious about ROTC reform, it must let the public know: (1) the substance of the program and how the training process leads to the knowledge, skills and values that cadets are expected to develop; (2) the resources in manpower and money committed for its sustainable support; (3) the institutional safeguards to prevent the abuses that ROTC suffered in the past. We need an evidence-based map of the path from lofty goals to measurable outcomes.”
Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/122414/rizal-never-attended-rotc#ixzz6RgGj0TcP
Reinstating mandatory ROTC hardly guarantees the cultivation of a self-sacrificing, patriotic spirit among the youth.
De Jesus is correct to advocate an “evidence-based map” to achieving the worthy goals of ROTC programs and not be deceived by motives or claims apparently fascist in inspiration.
Gonzalinho
This administration disrespects women, revises history, frees plunderers, jails journalists, compromises sovereignty, buries taxpayers in debt, displaces, harasses, and kills indigenous people, farmers, and the poor. How close should the damage be before you’re unable [to] look away?
ReplyDeleteJuan Miguel Severo, @TheRainBro
Philippine Daily Inquirer (April 5, 2019)
Progressive fascism under Duterte...
Gonzalinho
VP Robredo’s data: 156K kilos of shabu in our streets annually, but only 1,344 kilos seized by authorities. P1.3 trillion in street value of shabu annually, but only P1.4 billion apprehended. PLUS billions in intel funds, 30K slaughtered. Duterte’s War on Drugs IS a FAILURE.
ReplyDeleteThérèse, @Maree_Therese
Philippine Daily Inquirer (January 7, 2020)
We all know that Duterte’s Drug War is a pretext to murder thousands of the poor and thereby to intimidate the political opposition and to strike fear into the hearts of the population at large.
Gonzalinho