Get a grip

I have great respect for the people who write on Filipino Voices, and so it was with some trepidation that I set out to write this post. But still, freedom of expression and all that…

In Worst Case Scenario, Benj wrote:

With Bloggers’ Kapihan’s bold plan to launch blogs authored by Jun Lozada (yeah, remember him?!) and Ed Panlilio, the blogging community could be headed to a position that places is dead center in the cross hairs of the Arroyo government’s sights. Lozada was one of the most talked about personalities until recently due to his statements regarding the ZTE deal. He has been muffled in recent weeks because of high fuel prices and a looming food crisis that have dominated the headlines, effectively rendering people much less interested about a shady under-the-table deal with a Chinese firm.

First off, what’s so bold about a blog by Jun Lozada and Ed Panlilio? It’s the new millenium. A blog is like a radio talk show. Anyone with higher political aspirations gets one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gonna be a humdinger.

Second, Lozada isn’t being talked about because he’s pretty much run out of anything new to say. The whole topic has been talked to death, hasn’t it? Not even the pictures of the Prez in Shenzen were able to resurrect that dead horse. This isn’t to say that the issue is no longer relevant. Of course it still is; it’s just not interesting to the general public anymore, and so the media – ever the slave to the issue du jour – has moved on. So, why should a blog wrest the headlines back to Lozada?

The current administration has been very particular regarding keeping unnecessary information out of the press’ and public’s hands. Blogging has always been a viable platform that enables people to broadcast their message to an almost infinite audience but for some reason, those who have been muffled and disenfranchised in the past have chosen to just keep what they know to themselves. You can blame the technological divide and the generational gap, but you just know that these people who have been told to shut are probably just dying to get their side of the story. Opening the path to blogging to people like Lozada and Panlilio seems to be a double-edged sword.

Please. Blogs in the philippines – especially political blogs – rarely ever contain actual information not available in mainstream media. Blogs in the Philippines contain opinions and analysis. Sometimes, the opinions and analysis are truly worth their weight in gold (whoa! how do you weigh words in grams?), but alot of times, the opinions are just cobbled together from the opinions of other like minded individuals; and the analyses are uninformed musings of the lay mind that was given access to some colorful graphs or filled with tons of unsusbtantiated reports, rumors, and wild accusations.

Take Mon Casiple for instance. Mon Casiple has more political acumen in his little finger than Jun Lozada or Ed Panlilio combined. And yet, the admin doesn’t take him seriously enough to shut him down or shut him up. Because whatever he says, it’s just an opinion and he can’t sway the millions who don’t even know what a blog is. SUre it can be argued that Panlilio and Lozada are about a hundred times more famous than Casiple, but, at the end of the day, they still have to contend with the fact that even a blog will not reach the number of people they need to reach in order to make a dent in the way things are.

And even if we were to consider only appeal among fellow bloggers, Lozada and Panlilio will still have to measure up to a certain standard of interesting-ness in order to sustain the initial popularity. Lozada is like Brian Gorrel. He will probably be all spit-fire and confessions in the beginning, but after he runs out of things to say, he’ll start repeating himself and branching out into other areas of discussion where he will pretend to be a significant contributor of ideas. But he won’t be, and sooner or later, people will realize that. Just like they’re realizing that Brian Gorrel isn’t all that.

Panlilio, on the other hand, really rose to power simply on his charisma and what he represented: a new and untainted leader. Has anyone ever really heard anything new from Panlilio, other than the repeated claims of his new-ness. We get it. He’s not a traditional politician. But what else is he bringing to the table. Having a blog doesn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of things.

For one thing, blogs are not as commonly accessible as many bloggers think. Oh we have our circles that adore us and tirelessly comment on our blogs, but beyond those people, bloggers don’t really have a steady audience. SO, what kind of impact is to be expected from a Lozada blog? That’s the trouble with closed communities or organizations; it is so easy to imagine that an impact is being made because basically, you’re all just talking to each other.

Remember Malu Fernandez? Everyone was so het up about her, and someone even made a badge. In less time than it takes to say it, she was back as if nothing ever happened.

Ok, so a few more people will know about Panlilio. But these are likely to be bloggers themselves. In other words, people who already know anyway. What impact will he have on the thousands of Capampangans who aren’t wired?

Over-all, its a little too much to imagine that Lozada and Panlilio blogs will merit more than a passing glance from the administration. The blogosphere just isn’t the front line in the battle for power.

While the value of freedom of expression is undeniable and is arguably a concept that should almost supersede any other idea out there, this move also exposes the once sheltered community of bloggers to possible run-ins with the administration. If there are thousands of people who are willing to read to a heartbroken and vindictive man’s repetitive and poorly-written diatribe against the person who stole his money, could you just imagine how much more people would be interested in a blog written by cult figures like Lopez and Panlilio?

This is the kind of conditioning that really has me in stitches. “Exposes bloggers” indeed. Jaywalking exposes you to a possible run-in with the administration. And the only reason people like reading Gorrel is because he trades in gossip. Does this make Lozada and Panlilio gossips as well? Of course not (que horror!)! And I would agree. What Lozada trades in is possibly factual insider information; and Panlilio will most likely populate his blog with sermons. Neither can possibly be as interesting as the brand of who-does-who and who-does-what drivel that Brian Gorrel spews and recycles.

In countries like Egypt and China, bloggers have gone to jail because of the things that they wrote against the state’s official religion and elected leaders. It is not a far stretch to extrapolate such incidents to happen in the Philippines. Filipino political bloggers have always had their way all these years. No one has ever been charged and they could criticize using the strongest terms but what happens once the spotlight finally hits this corner of cyberspace.

The Boy Bastos incident of 2007 showed that the government can in fact do something that is remarkably similar to the beginning of a “cyber crackdown”. With more eyes and ears listening in to blogs, we may be just a few months away from seeing our first blogger arrest.

Melodrama much? Egypt and China isn’t the Philippines, and we’re not likely to head there anytime soon either. This kind of fear-mongering, to my mind, serves only one purpose. To generate sympathy – in advance – for the Lozada and Panlilio blogs. I can respect that, because of course, promoting the blogs in this way fits right in with the overall goal to make the blogs relevant. But, I find it to be a bit of over-kill.

There will be no cyber-crackdown in response to a Lozada or a Panlilio blog. ‘Course, if it makes you feel like a maverick to think that you might be engaging in some politically risky activity to be reading Lozada or commenting on Panlilio (oooh! you’re such a rebel!) well, hell, have fun. Otherwise, we should all just get a grip.

Filed under: blogging, Filipino Voices, politics, pop-culture, blogging, Lozada, Panlilio

The Two-Million Peso Man

The Senate says it has spent 2 million pesos for his security detail, but Jun Lozada has said that the religious – nuns and priests and what-not – have been paying for his expenses. Apparently, the same religious have also managed to raise 2.8 million pesos for Lozada. Isn’t that lovely?

Here, in my neighborhood, a hardworking carpenter died recently, leaving a housewife with no employable skills and no significant work-exprience, and three children, the oldest of whom is about to enroll in third year high school.

Emboldened by the local church’s very vocal support for Lozada and the Snactuary Fund, the wife pretty much begged for help.

“I don’t want to beg,” Lozada is reported to have said. “The day I beg is the day that I will be treated like a beggar.”

Well he got that right, and that was exactly how this poor woman was treated: Like a beggar. She was given 500 pesos and was asked: “Anung sasabihin mo?” The poor woman practically fell to her knees trying to express her gratitude.

I wanted to cry.

Filed under: church and state, church, Lozada, security

Article 12

Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks

Maribel Gaite’s letter reminded me that this right doesn’t just exist in my head. And we’re not just talking of Manny Gaite either. We’re talking about everyone, from the sainted Jun Lozada to the people everyone else would love to consider as being lower than pond scum.

In fact, the guarantee of the right is more essential for those who are hated by the public.

~

Three years after he defended the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, John Adams wrote in his diary:

March 5, 1773:
(The third anniversary of the Boston Massacre)

“The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.“This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing Armies.”

Everyone knew those Preston and those soldiers had killed the civilians. All of Boston wanted to see them dead for their actions. But Adams sacrificed a burgeoning legal and political career to provide these men a legal defense – an act which he considered “disinterested service to the Country.”

Obviously, Adams knew that ‘service to the country’ did not simply mean doing what the inflamed passions of the time required. It meant looking beyond that and adhering to the highest aspirations of the country as a whole, regardless of how un-politic it was at that time. This is why I, to borrow a phrase from a noted blogger, can’t help but cast a cold eye on people who insist that this whole NBN-ZTE thing is a political thing which has moved beyond “legalism.”

In Adams’ case, the issue was the righteousness of a death penalty for soldiers everybody knew were guilty. Adams argued that death was too harsh considering the circumstances (self-defense and all that). His determination to argue even that distinction, in the face of overwhelming rage from the public, puts to shame all those who are all for throwing away legal considerations of due process for people who’s guilt have not yet been proven, and solely on the word of one man who has never even been inside an impartial courtroom.

Filed under: musings, politics, Quick Posts, legalism, Lozada

Crying piggies

I don’t know how long this thing is going to stay up, so click it now.

The piggies are so cute!

Filed under: politics, Joey de Venecia, Lozada, video

La Sallian Brothers are hypocrites

Since this whole Jun Lozada affair broke out, the La Sallian brothers have been in the thick of things, coming out in vociferous support of Lozada based on nothing more substantial than the man’s word. This despite the fact that they maintain a Center for Social Responsibility. Is it responsible to condemn without hearing? Is it responsible to presume guilt and then to arbitrarily dismiss as false anyone who dares to contradict?

I hope this letter of Manny Gaite’s wife gives those ‘Brothers’ something to think about. More to the point, I think La Sallian parents should pull their kids out of LSGH while it is still being run by this bunch of hypocrites.

“Dear Br. Bernie FSC and my Lasallian family,

“I would like to respectfully furnish you and our community with a copy of the statement of my husband, Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite in the light of the repeated public allegations of Mr. Jun Lozada against him.

“The words of St. Augustine ‘No one can claim a monopoly of the truth’ are what have kept my husband and I going at this darkest hour of our family life. I fully stand by the integrity and honesty of my husband and I know he is not capable of doing anything as dishonorable as what Mr. Lozada have kept telling the senate and the media.

“It is very sad that when my husband finally got a chance to face Mr. Lozada in the senate and state the facts from his side, Mr. Lozada so easily got away with his very damaging statements in the previous days. I vividly recall how in a previous senate hearing before my husband was called to testify, not to mention in many media interviews, Mr. Lozada so freely maligned the name of my husband, saying among others, that it was my husband who told him to lie, go to Hong Kong to evade the Senate, and allegedly used the term “dilatory tactic” to orchestrate the entire cover up.

“When my husband finally got his chance to be heard in the senate, at one point, Mr. Lozada corrected himself, saying he must have confused my husband with another lawyer. And Mr. Lozada so easily got away with it, just like that, and still earned himself the description of a very credible and consistent witness thereafter.

“Last Saturday night, when my husband was not there in the “Harapan” to be able to promptly refute, clarify or correct Mr. Lozada’s heavy allegations, Mr. Lozada again so freely accused my husband, saying that the same gave him P 500,000 to keep him away from the Senate.

“The next day, which was the 100th year of our town Fiesta where my husband happens to be the parish centennial celebration president, was a very trying time for us as a couple, when he had to stand up in our parish and thank all those who have supported him for the celebration. Although I know how he must have been hurting inside, I never heard him utter any word to use the opportunity to air his side in the face of such damaging accusations. It was also the same time when my own La Salle community was hailing Mr. Lozada a hero in our nation’s search for truth, someone whose words cannot be questioned anymore, someone against whose words, a differing view would only be condemned.

“I have silently watched and listened to how our La Salle brothers and other members of our La Salle community, many other religious and former government leaders have repeatedly affirmed the credibility of Mr. Jun Lozada to a level seemingly beyond doubt, calling others whose words do not jibe with his story as corrupt and merely covering up for the President. Even then, I prayed I would not be tempted to pass judgment against the brothers although in my hearts of hearts, my question was how could some of the brothers whom I thought knew me personally and my husband quickly judge him purely based on the allegations of Mr. Lozada?

“During the MBC meeting the other week, I learned that Dean Juico stood up for my husband whom he had known since the time of Pres. Cory and asked the MBC to at least hear first what my husband had to say in the senate before asking him to resign based on Mr. Lozada’s very serious allegations). I was surprised to learn today from Dean Juico that it was only a couple of days ago when Bro. Armin was able to recall that Deputy Executive Secretary Gaite is my husband. It bothers me because I had thought that considering that if the allegations of Mr. Lozada are all true, the people charged would be punished; at least due diligence must have been done by persons supposedly discerning and courageously standing up for the truth.

“I know I’m not an authority in spirituality but many innocent people could be irreparably damaged through trial by publicity and even our own search for truth if our means are not as carefully consistent with our sincere ends. This is not to discredit anybody nor to criticize those who fully support the crusade for truth of Mr. Lozada as well as those who believed him completely but rather to contribute to our communal discernment of Truth for our country.

“The thing that get me going these days, as I have said, are St. Augustine’s words No one can claim the monopoly of the truth. Truth is neither yours nor mine. It is God’s. We all hold in our fragile hands a piece of Truth and I believe the call is for us to put those pieces together, humbly and with a readiness to hear other sides, even a contrary view, believing the best and not the worst in each other in order to build our country from where we are, however broken or in need of healing.

“This will be my first time to say publicly that my husband has served four presidents as an honorable man. And in all those times, not one president I recall can claim perfection nor freedom from any allegations. What if, by any chance, not all that Mr. Lozada are saying are true?  Can we still bring back the good names of people and their families should they be later proven innocent in the court of law, or completely erase the clouds of doubt that have been sown in the minds of people against them?

“All I ask is for you to give my husband and all others concerned the benefit of the doubt and the human right of presumption of innocence unless proven guilty. Loving my husband as much as I do, I would not in any way attempt to obstruct justice, if he has truly done anything unlawful or dishonorable.

“Since I am currently serving in your august school as Director of our Center for Social Responsibility and Human Development, which I consider the closest to a Center for Ethics that we have at the moment, I would understand it should you honestly feel I no longer have the credibility necessary for the good name of the Center.

“I have humbly attached for your kind attention the statement of my husband. In a way it’s our joint statement since a part of what was recounted there happened when I was there. While I informed him that I would send you a copy of his statement, I did not tell him anymore of this emotional transmittal letter from me, which I will also copy furnish him.

“I only wish good things for Mr. Lozada and the rest of us.

“Yours sincerely,

“(Signed) Mrs. Maribel R. Gaite”

Filed under: politics, Gaite, La Salle, Lozada, LSGH

Patriotic Fund

Please please please tell me that it isn’t okay to offer money to someone to testify against the government. Patriotic Fund is an oxymoron because a patriot does something for love of country, whether or not he has a golden parachute. Someone who does it for money is called a mercenary (pronounced merce-neri. LOL) . I imagine Neri would be capable of asking for something like that, but that isn’t really the point. The point is, if Neri was offered that and for whatever reason he refused, does it not follow that Lozada might have been offered that as well? And if Lozada did take the money, is it not possible that his constant stream of new revelations could be an attempt to earn his keep?

It is no longer enough, I think, to dismissively say that “we know he is not a saint.” I think it is time to seriously consider finding out if he is a man … a con man, that is.
~

Lozada is poor? Apparently not poor enough not to spring for dinner for two senators at the bistro of the Asian Institute of Management.

“We are friends and we help each other. This is very difficult,” Lozada said, adding he was even the one who paid for the dinner.

Maybe now his drum beaters can stop peddling that line about him being a simple man and the implication that he is somehow a victim in all of this.

He was, first of all, a willing participant in all the corruption he now denounces; And he did cast about for help to avoid having to testify before the Senate (whether that was because he didn’t want to lie – strange for someone in the corruption business – or because he didn’t want to ruin his reputation is really a matter of faith).

The way I see it, Lozada saw himself about to be checkmated. If he kept his mouth shut, the Senate’s persistence would eventually ruin him in the circles in which he moved. If he squealed, he would be ruined too. The only way out was to cast his lot with the people who wanted badly to boot Gloria by becoming the victim. He figured that people, already sufficiently agitated, would embrace him and provide him a soft landing when he finally bit the hand that he had drooled over when it was feeding him. He would fall out of favor with the clique in power, only to land in the perfumed lap of the clique that would come to power in 2 years anyway (after the debacle of 2007, did anyone really seriously think that any candidate endorsed by GMA would survive 2010?). And, he could even help cut that waiting time down to a few months if he made his story good enough. For all the CSI buffs out there, there’s your motive right there.

~

Supreme irony: a Council for Moral Revolution led by politicians. Not even a token SC justice can erase the absurdity of an “apolitical group … led by Joe de Venecia and Manny Villar.” That’s like saying when two rats boink with a cat watching, the babies will all come out doves.

~

Killer instinct. It’s that subconscious determination in all of us to go pedal to the metal when we sense an imminent victory. It is that rush of adrenalin that courses through our blood, blinding us to all danger and consequence in the heat of our zeal to finally deal the fatal blow. That is where we are now. We smell the end of the government from the pronouncements of the self declared savior of the Filipino soul; we can almost taste it, and the taste is driving us wild, goading us to the conclusion we feel inevitable. In the process, we undermine everything we have built. It’s like we’re so excited about killing all the rats that we don’t care anymore if we burn the house down to get them all.

There has to be a better way than this.

~

I once said I thought Lozada was telling the truth. I still do. Just as I think he still has to prove me right in believing in his stories and the tantalizing conclusions we can draw from them. There are far too many grifters and charlatans out there for us to start taking him on his word alone. There’s too much at stake and too little to gain from starting yet another bonfire of the vanities.

Filed under: musings, politics, Arroyo, broadband, Lozada, NBN, Neri, Senate, ZTE

Raised Fists

stuart-santiago tickled my imagination when she observed that leftists “raise left fists, burgis churchgoers raise the right.” It something I had never though about before and I found myself raising a fist. to my surprise, i raised the left one. Am I a commie? But I don’t even like pink! LOL.

So i tried raising my right fist. And then my left, and then my right again. Raising the right fist didn’t feel quite as right as raising the left.

Truly intrigued, I googled “raised fist” and, wouldn’t you know it, there was a wikipedia entry on the damned thing – they got wikipedia entries on pretty much everything, don’t they? ‘Splains why kids nowadays are getting lazier and dumber. Hah.

Anyway, as it turns out, stuart-santiago was right on the money!

There is no uniformity as to which arm is raised; in general, anarchists use the right arm while Marxists use the left arm.

‘Course, people would object to the use of the word ‘anarchists,’ since many – like Nelson Mandela – use the right fist but aren’t exactly anarchist. “Anti-establishment” might be a better term.

~

It just occurred to me that  La Sallites Sallians pump their fists too, whenever they sing that hymn of theirs.I wonder if they tell their students the significance of that salute. If they don’t, then it becomes nothing more than just another cool gesture of rebels without with a poorly defined cause.

Filed under: musings, Lozada, Mass for Truth, raised fist, salutes

The making of a hero

Watching Jun Lozada on tv tonight being faced off against all his counter-accusers, it kinda felt like ABSCBN has plans to buy the movie rights and is doing everything it can to sweeten Lozada’s stock. Heck, maybe ABSCBN’s bought the damned rights already.

It was, clear as day, a set-up. Kinda like that Einstein story. Lozada looking a little peaked in a white t-shirt, forced to face a phalanx of well-dressed newly made-up government men. The message was clear: here is David, forcibly taken from the simple life of a shepherd, to face the gigantic Goliath in a battle with nothing less than truth, justice, and motherland at stake.

What a steaming pile of bullshit.

I didn’t see the whole thing, but the parts that I did catch clearly showed that Lozada was in his element. He was cool and wisecracking all over the place, while the g-men were all getting hot under the collar and red in the face. He knew his story and he stuck to it like supahglue. That was when he was strongest. He had a moment’s slip up that I saw … after he riffed about how terrible it was that our very own negotiators were influencing foreign lenders to insist on tied loans in order to circumvent bidding rules. He goes on to say that it is the borrowers that should dictate the terms of loans.

Excuse me?

His reasoning goes: as borrowers, it’s our money that we’re using to pay back the loan, so we can dictate how we’re going to pay. He then cites China as an example.

First of all, if I were an economic behemoth like China and I was going to lend some ass-backwards filipinos some money, why the fuck would I let them tell me what to do? “You don’t like my terms, filipino, you go take a hike off my gorgeous Three Gorges Dam. When you’re drowning, try telling me how I should make sure that the fucking rescue rope I throw you should be made of egyptian cotton.”

Second, if I were a bank like the ADB, and potential MONSTER CONSUMER like China wanted some of my money so it can pump more money back into the fucking market, I’m gonna bend over backwards for it and thank it’s human-rights violating ass for patronizing my fucking bank. “You don’t like my terms, ADB, you go shoot yourself in one of my bajillion sweat shops and think about the money you’re never gonna see when I take my fucking business to some other usurer.”

Get the difference?

Obviously, Lozada was truly playing to his adoring masses, plucking at their heartstrings by playing the patriotism card.

Then there was that other moment where he wails on and on about using his credit card in HongKong for several days, being thankful that he received money from the government, and feeling oppressed that he tried a little retail therapy. “I wanted to see what it was like to live like a king, so I went shopping,” he said. “But when I got back to my room, I still felt empty. You just can’t get satisfaction from money you haven’t actually earned.”

That was laying it on thick. He wanted to know what it was like to live like a king? He plays golf at Wack-fuckin-Wack! His credit card is able to absorb several days of international spending! He’s being waited on hand and foot by his adoring nuns and living at a bloody retreat house that costs La Salle parents almost a million a year to maintain! I daresay he knows what it feels like to be a king. Hell, he even bragged about being asked by Cabinet over and over to present project proposals. Is he saying that was all gratis et amore? And if it was – if he were one of those one-peso a year consultants – how could he have managed to live if weren’t independently wealthy to begin with? Puh-leeze.

He can’t get satisfaction from money he hasn’t earned? Right. Can you say sweetheart loans from his agency to his own company? Can you say imported goats? Hypocritical much?

Then, in what seemed to be a moment of pique, he goes: “I’m giving the money back.” Half-a-second later, as if realizing what he’d just said, he goes: Oboy, I’m gonna be in trouble; I was saving that money to pay for my credit card bills. Oboy. Woe is me.

What a steaming pile of — well, you get the picture.

Still in all, it was the weasel whistle-blower’s night through and through

Jun Lozada’s bravura performance tonight served one purpose and one purpose only: to cement in the minds of the public his status as giant-killer; a brave David in the face of all the nasties in government. It was a public relations move that should never have been participated in by the g-men. If they thought they could convince the public of their honesty, ABSCBN’s vaudeville was not the place for it and yet they walked straight into the trap in an excruciating display of awesome stupidity. Razon saw it eventually, but too late. Worse, Razon lost his cool and started whining about how he sacrificed an evening just to come. Whatever points he scored when he correctly called ABSCBN’s play fizzled away into the hot lights when he turned petulant.

Formoso, ordinarily so cool, lost it too and started sniping at Lozada’s upbringing. He even retardedly muttered “well, you started it” when Lozada criticized him for the personal attack. The last word belonged to the unavenged aggrieved party; Lozada definitely scored mucho sympathy points for that.

As for Abalos, he was his usual oblivious self – hearing only what he wanted to hear, and going over and over the same tired old whines we’ve all heard about a million times. BooOOoooring! Nothing compared to the drama Lozada is capable of pouring out.

About the only laudable performance tonight, apart from Lozada of course, was Donald Dee’s refusal to say anything other than he was going to court. All those others should have followed Dee’s lead.

I’ll say it again: tonight’s face off between Lozada and the g-men served only to boost Lozada’s credibility exponentially. Nothing the public loves more than an underdog victory and that was exactly what ABS CBN provided tonight. Whoever is handling Lozada’s p.r. is worth his weight in gold. He’s just turned his boy into a bona fide hero.

Filed under: politics, television, Abalos, ABS-CBN, Broadband deal, Dee, Harapan, Lozada, NBN, Razon, ZTE

Jamby

Now that’s the thing to do.

Oh, wait.

It seems like I was too hasty in my decision to write this post in praise of Jamby Madrigal. The headline read:

Senator Madrigal to file case vs execs on Lozada

And yeah, that is the thing to do. But as I read on, I found out that she was only charging Ermita and company with obstruction of justice, “for preventing witness Rodolfo Lozada Jr. from testifying in the Senate hearing.”

Well, ok. That’s good too I guess. But when is someone going to file a graft case against Mendoza, or Neri, or Mike Arroyo or whoever the damned hell is supposed to be answerable for the acts of corruption committed in relation to the NBN-ZTE deal. When? In light of the gravity of the case that could be filed, Jamby’s light weight obstruction of justice suit seems more like a public relations stunt than an honest-to-god attempt at holding people to account.

Filed under: politics, Abalos, broadband, Lozada, NBN, Neri, Senate, ZTE

Stupid

How stupid is it for Ermita to be calling for an investigation of Lozada “to prove that there are no sacred cows?” Wake up, you greasy haired organ-grinder! The biggest sacred cow is the president herself. Bitch.

I hate it when you people make it so easy for the rest of us to hate you. Seriously. The only reason I haven’t yet surrendered to the siren call of just demanding the President’s resignation is that I see no good resulting from her quitting the post. The way I see it, a resignation now only satisfies the hunger for poetic justice – and for a lot of people, the banal satisfaction of having been able to hound a president out of office and in the process, getting a shot at grabbing power two years early.

Consider the only possible immediate outcome if Gloria were to resign this very minute (as a Valentine’s day present to all her haters, LOL!): Noli steps into her shoes. This is reality. Just as it is reality that Noli is not bloody likely to form a coalition government composed of all the power hungry oppositionists just itching to have their turn at the reins. These folks will, as in 2001, remain shut-out from the Palace. There probably won’t even be a honeymoon for Noli as these anti-Gloria cadres will most likely just shift the focus of their quit-calls from Gloria to Noli.

Gloria, if she’s stupid enough to remain in the country after resigning, will face a truckload of lawsuits: everything from complicity in the extra-judicial killings to plunder. But even that won’t heal the nation. Estrada’s ouster didn’t do that, what makes people think giving Gloria the boot will?

Noli won’t even be a strong President since most everyone will insist that he hold power only as a transitional figure. He’ll be forced into a position where all he will be allowed to do is maintain the status quo. There will be calls for him to not run for Prez in 2010 (to come, most likely, from those who intend to be presidential candidates themselves and who would love it if at least one potential rival is removed from the game early on).

Will Glo’s departure boost the economy? Not likely. Other countries will simply see how a President with an incipient economic turnaround under her belt was stampeded out of office on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations of wrong-doing by those around her. Remember that nothing that has been said so far can actually be laid on her shoulders. She is guilty only by association and the assumption that these jokers around her act with her presumed complicity. In such a political environment, large-scale investments become risky business and the market will probably be adversely affected.

(Incidentally, I just heard someone say things like she should be considered guilty of the acts of her department secretaries who are her alter-egos; and that this is supposedly what command responsibility means. Bull shit. The person who said these things either does not understand the doctrine of qualified agency or has taken it too literally.)

Gloria’s sudden departure will not result in extra-judicial killers suddenly surfacing belly-up. If anything, these goons will run to ground. People like Atienza, Esperon, Razon will stay in power. After all, the new President will remain an admin stalwart since if he flips to the other side, his new loyalties will force him to resign. Too many of the opposition powers that be distrust him; when Gloria flipped and came to power, there were enough people willing to gamble on her. Noli doesn’t have that core constituency outside the current crop of admin flunkies. If he abandons them, he abandons his power base and his new best friends will not give it back to him.

Over all, too little will be changed by a Gloria resignation; and the potential for economic disruption is too great to ignore. So, I don’t think resignation is a viable solution. Unless it is proven that her cronies have abused power, and that they did so with her consent. No, we don’t have to convict her to remove her, but removing her without totally obliterating any possible source of lingering legitimacy (kinda like in Estrada’s case) will only doom the country to repeating the last seven years with only minor changes in the roles played by the various dramatis personae.

The only way to ensure that she is finally and fatally stripped of all legitimacy is to convict those who can be convicted and in so doing link her clearly and unequivocally to their guilt. There are more ways than one to skin a cat. If she can’t be convicted, then convict those who derived their authority from her and show that she allowed the abuse to happen. That will work just as well.

Filed under: politics, broadband, Gloria Arroyo, Lozada, NBN, Neri, Senate, ZTE