Plastic, Climate Change, Earthquakes and “Go Home Yankees”

 Just as the Philippines  is reeling from the onslaught of  two deadly typhoons, Ondoy and Pepeng that killed about 600 people, damaged infrastructure and turned some Metro Manila cities into swamps of garbage and decomposing bodies, eathquakes shook  some parts of the world.  Climate change, or the continuing increase in atmospheric temperature caused by humans and other environmental factors that deplete the ozone layer, raises ocean level by sheer heat, creates precipitation  that translates into instant torrential rains,  destroys glaciers that adds up to more inland water.   More floods will come in epic proportion that may approximate the biblical forecast of Armageddon, but it may  not herald His second coming as of yet.

       Our contribution to this flood, aside from its chief culprit,  the “climate change” which the entire world population is responsible of,  is our antiquated drainage system; our lack of comprehensive urban planning; and our irresponsible waste management disposal.  Add to this problem the unabated destruction  of what used to be our pristine watersheds few years back by illegal loggers.

       In Metro Manila, during this flash flood, we saw garbage floating side by side with people and empty plastic bags entrenched like  “banderetas” in Meralco electric wires.  It is indicative enough of how high the water  that inundated our cities as well as how enamored we are with plastic that is non-biogradable and the irresponsible way we dispose of it after our trip to the septic wet markets to  the more elegant malls.  And while the plastic decorative flaglets that normally adorn our city streets during fiestas ushered in festive mood among our people, the recent   flaglets in our electric wires  heralded a chorus of wailing for lost lives and properties and the inadequacy of government response for tragedies as epic as this one. 

      Victims were trapped in their roofs, wet and hungry but were rescued only after several hours. The precipitous onrush of water swept some of  them from their homes and got drowned.  Not that it was entirely the fault of the local or the national government to act swiftly on life-threatening situations as these floods, but  some were so stubborn enough not to heed the call of their officials to leave their homes for safer grounds.  It all boils down to our attitude as a people, we won’t act least we see danger up close and personal and even if we act swift enough, people were simply have nowhere to go in this stampede to look for dry and safe lands.

         As the floods brought about by  Ondoy in Metro Manila and Pepeng in the provinces  started to recede, our politicians will vie for billings in the broadcast media and the press to pay lip service to our sufferings. Finger-wagging indignation of our politicians over the destruction of our watersheds and our lack of coordinative efforts to alleviate the sufferings of the flood victims will dominate the airwaves.  Relief goods will be distributed and photo-ops with grieving populace will be made by politicians and movie stars alike, and though these efforts will tide over hunger for a couple of days or even weeks, such will fall short of filling in the tremendous void in our populace.

       But tragedies like these always bring the worst and the best of our people.  Already, our merchants have trebled the prices of their products while the heroism of a young teenager who drowned after saving some of his neighbors in this stampede sent his grieving mother to appeal for help to bury her dead.  A hot cup of coffee or a warm blanket being extended by  those who were luckier to have avoided the flood to those who had been ravaged by it were poignant and  inspiring act of humanity that reminds us of the better part of our character as a people. 

       Meantime, several provinces up north were under water and a U.S. military contingent was seen helping stranded people  relocate to dry lands and distributing food to the victims using its helicopters, soldiers and other resources,  while the vociferous Anti-Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) groups in our midst,  were for the first time, mum and muted by this act of gallantry, and they were not about to shout, “Go Home, Yankees!!!”.

Erap and Lacson Should Be Behind Bars!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Westland, Michigan, Sept. 20, 2009, - Inside St. Theodore Church Sunday, September 20, our priest in his homily quoted someone who said that he read only the sports page of a newspaper because it chronicles  man’s success and triumphs while the front page chronicles man’s dismal failure.  It is too bad that Filipino Voices  (FV), though not a newspaper in its traditional sense,  has only its front page.

Accordingly, our newspapers or FV,  regale us  with the darkest of human endeavor.   We read a variety of news and posts about GMA and her family’s plunder and failed governance, our fear about the possibility of a massive brownout on election day, Senator Villar’s ethics probe, the failure of the owners of Hacienda Luisita to give up their farms and lately, of Senator Ping Lacson’s and Joseph Estrada’s involvement in the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito. 

As regards to the Luisita farmlands, one can see the failed logic in the concept of breaking up a huge viable sugar land into small chunks so the farmers who have no capital can  own them  and operate them at a profit.   Society is basically a component of capital and labor.  China and Russia, despite their claims to being  socialist/communist societies, have not achieved a classless society so far, and yet we still dream of a great rendezvous with  an equitable society by simply giving the poor their lands to till. This is a myth that up to now is being fueled by the most incorrigible dreamers of our society. The politburo of China and Russia remain the face of the ruling class and majority of their citizens, their working class and with the doors of both countries greased by the corrupting influence of capitalism, you can see some cities, especially in China, become overnight models of “laissez faire” and the new entrepreneur class in these cities, on the rise.

Plunder of the treasury by a government functionary is a failure in integrity and honesty.  And despite endless media’s barrage on the corruption in the highest level of the government, the public no longer feel any sense of outrage, frustration or anger because we look at every allegation of wrongdoing motivated not by a noble purpose of bringing sanity back into government bureaucracy but that of ill-will for not being part of those who are looting the treasury.  We see a grand spectacle of J.  Devenecia, Jr. and his son denouncing the present administration as corrupt which reduces the entire debate in what  BongV’s metaphorically described in another post as a case of the “pot calling the kettle black”.

But the worst of our failure is our inability to be outraged by the most outrageous murder  of our fellow human beings.   Weeks after ex-police officer Cesar Mancao executed his affidavit implicating both Senator Lacson and former President Erap Estrada for the  murder of Dacer and Curbito, the government has not put these two suspects in handcuffs.  One said that it was the other who ordered the victims “neutralized” and the other countered that it was his accuser who was  involved in the murder.  Year 2000 was highlighted by impeachment of Erap. Dacer who was about to meet former President Fidel Ramos with some  alleged “dossiers” on Erap suddenly disappeared with his driver, Curbito and later found dead, torched and ditched in  Maragondon, Cavite.  Erap  has the motive to silence Dacer and he could have ordered his dirty PAOCF hitmen, headed by Lacsson to carry out the job.

The government should charge them both with murders including all those former police officers who carried out the order. But the government dawdled in putting these two high profile suspects behind bars.  Obviously, the government has the gullibility of Kay Adams  of Mario Puzo’s Godfather, that Presidents and Senators don’t have men killed.

Michael Corleone:  “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a President or Senator”.

Kay Adams:  “Do you know how naïve you sound,  Michael?  Presidents and Senators don’t have men killed”.

Michael Corleone:   Who’s being naïve, Kay?

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A Warped Sense of Justice!

    The 144-page  Ombudsman resolution charging former election chief Benjamin Abalos and SSS Administrator Romulo  Neri with anti-graft law violation in connection with  the botched $329 Million ZTE-NBN broadband project while exonerating other most likely key players was a typical “out of the box” resolution,  predictable and foreseeable and nary  a soul should be surprised about the concoction.  The mighty and the powerful are always above the law and are immune from prosecution though our people remain as clueless as before.

          The Marcoses and their cronies were back in circulation after their grand plunder of the treasury and former President Joseph Estrada (Erap) is rearing for a comeback in Malacanang after being given a furlough for his own plunder.  These are grim reminders that justice in the country is meted out only to the powerless plebeians or expendable pawns of the powerful.  Secretary Neri and Ex-Chairman Abalos are lesser officials in this big power game. If someone is somewhat delighted that the Ombudsman came up with two people to charge with the purported offense, he will find that elation ephemeral, for in the labyrinth of judicial process, these seemingly deserted and lonesome pawns can eventually get cleared, or if misshapen mishap does occur, what is there to prevent  the new administration to extend them a “pardon?”.  But for now, we cheer or jeer depending on where we are in this great political divide at this crudest form of charade and entertainment.

       We are incorrigible gullible of the subtlety of court proceedings and have a fantastic   aberration for due process while other cultures, would resolve matters of this nature  through the ballots or in a more honorable way of “hara-kiri” or quitting the office.  Apparently we cannot trust the electorate to punish these deviant creatures in our bureaucracy because we keep electing them back to office.  Do not look now, but you may have Erap again as President  or Bongbong Marcos as your Vice President.  We cannot trust our politicians too to do a “seppuku” or simply resign the office because it is not part of our psyche  that we appease public outrage by doing the most honorable thing to do, quit our privilege position or end our shameful life.

       The motley of charlatans in our bureaucracy will swear to the bible that the uncharitable characterization of their persons were “trump-up” and “totally baseless” and would like to clear their names in a proceeding where honorable prosecutors and/or magistrates preside. Some good public servants suffer the same humiliation because of the perception that they all belong to the same genre of crooked office holders.   The prosecutors and the judges that will process those haled to court are themselves corrupt.  This provides  constant paradox that amazes us no end. If you were unlucky to find a corrupt prosecutor or judge that is looking into your case, you will be lucky enough to find that his virtue of predictability can work in your favor.

          In another sense, those who wanted the crooks in the government punished,  are not sinless angels with impeccable credentials either.  One, is a scion of a Marcos regular during martial law whose elder was dethroned from speakership and another who have milked the government too of some small change in the past who decided to make it big but for the sharing-of-the-loot  equation that went tawdry. They enlisted the support of a score of nuns and yes, bishops too,  to end  the rule of a very rapacious regime and offer substitute in the likes Erap, Escudero, Villar of the C5 fame or even a  Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Our concept of justice is an unending paradox.  We want a set of brigands punished by bringing them to court or to public ridicule so we can replace them with another set of brigands.

        Look at this as another paradox:  Erap was found guilty of plunder and the Marcoses were perceived to be plunderers.  Mssrs. Abalos and Neri were allegedly attempting at plunders.  Erap  and the Marcoses are riding the crest of public adulation while we excoriate Neri and Abalos for their attempt at plunder.  Our sense of justice is warped and we are very funny people!

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Judicial and Bar Council: A Malignant Tumor That Must Be Excised

       You have heard it. Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno would not add up any candidate to its short-list  of Supreme Court Justice aspirants. This is a blatant usurpation of the appointing power which the constitution vests in the President and placed the error of such appointment to a group of persons who are not accountable to the people, the  Judicial and Bar Council (JBC).  The council was envisioned to broker the well-intentioned aspirants to the judiciary by going into the labyrinth of the judicial gauntlet as way of recruiting the cream of the legal profession.

 

       The concept of screening judicial appointees through the JBC to ensure that only the good and the most fit are commissioned to serve is a myth.   After 22 years of its existence, the JBC had only succeeded in recruiting the most inept and the most corrupt in the judiciary.  You have only to look for the fund diversion of the Supreme Court which had been the subject of an impeachment in the House against its previous Chief, Hilario Davide, Jr., or the Meralco-GSIS row which resulted in a couple of heads rolling in the bastion that is supposed to be the stellar for dispensing justice, to find out that the JBC was an abject failure.

       The inability of the JBC to address the very issue it was envisioned to perform argues for its abolition. Like a malignant tumor, it has to be excised  from the body and rid its atrophied part from metastasizing.  The good intention in recruiting only the wise and the honorable in the judiciary is not assured by putting it in the hands of people who by nature belongs to  the same corrupt body politics in the approximation of a mob organization where enlistment of new members must be of the same mold and orientation of the people who recruited them.  New members of the judiciary must symbolically kiss the hand of the Mafioso ring leader and pledge allegiance to the preservation of the organization’s culture of corruption. Senator Miriam Santiago had put it more succinctly when she refused to subject herself from this hand-kissing ritual known as “JBC job interview” and thereby forfeited her opportunity to become justice of the Supreme Court, an entity she curtly described, the “old boy’s club”.

        If one examines the composition of the JBC, one would not fail to notice that it is a separate power enclave of the Supreme Court where the voice of the Chief Justice reigns supreme.  The Chief’s latest pronouncement that no more candidates for the Supreme Court coming from the President will be added to its “short-list”,  highlights this point. The JBC is a constitutional fiat which is  anathema to constitutional government.  The power to appoint justices and judges of inferior courts belongs exclusively to the President.  Providing her with a “short-list” from whom she can appoint a justice of the Supreme Court effectively short-circuited this power of appointment.  The JBC arrogates a power never intended by the framers of the constitution.

          Under the old set-up, the Commission on Appointment in Congress cannot provide the President a “short-list” from which she can appoint a justice of the Supreme Court and judges of inferior courts.  Congress is free to reject whoever is submitted by the President for confirmation but it is never allowed to determine which candidate the President must submit to Congress for confirmation.

       And while Congress can put a monkey-wrench on the appointment of the President for justices and judges, such behavior is tolerable under the principle of “check and balance” and the concept of accountability  enshrined in the constitution.  Members of congress who are stubborn and unreasonable in putting partisan politics over the common good are directly responsible to the people comes election in the same way that the President is held accountable for appointment of corrupt government officials and for her own corruption.  This  concept of accountability is lost on the JBC  because its members do not seek the mandate from the people during elections  and yet it exercises a tremendous power than can even hold the President’s appointment power hostage by sheer arrogance.  Make no mistake about it.  No group of particular government functionaries enjoy moral superiority than others.  George Washington makes a wise counsel: “ the love for power, and the pronness to abuse it predominates in every human heart”.

     The endemic corruption in the judiciary is never blamed on the JBC  and if ever it is blamed for it,  the people are powerless to tell its members to go and look for another job.  If the people must remain sovereign, any contrivance in the constitution that seek to create a mini-branch of government that is outside the oversight of the people must be excised and expunged.  There is little doubt that Cha-Cha proponents can wear their moral armor in splendid color fighting for the abolition of the JBC in the constitution.

       The greatest constitutional government of all times,  the United States of America, has not adopted in her constitution a parallel outfit as the JBC because she remains faithful to the concept of the Republican form of government where check and balance is in place and accountability of government officials is demandable by the sovereign people.  Under the submission that the JBC is a power-chute of the Supreme Court which is outside the sovereign will, Thomas Jefferson’s observation about the Supreme Court acquires a new dimension:

     “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is “boni judicis est ainpliare jurisdictionem,” and their power the more dangerous as they are in once for life . The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots”.
 

 

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Are Filipinos Worth Dying For?

        Corazon C. Aquino is dead and so was Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr.,  while we remain alive and myopic of their sacrifice and missed the golden opportunity to draw strength from their death. We remain fractious, divided, immature and greedy and offered cypress leaves to honor their graves instead of living out the ideals of their dreams and a vision for a prosperous country.  Alas, we have chosen to live a meaningless life than seek a glorious death.  In ‘Termites from Within’,  I wrote: 

      “One of finest 20th century heroes of the country went home in August 1983 from a 3-year exile from the US with a prophetic candor that the Filipinos were worth dying for. Few minutes after his plane had landed, his military escorts shot him at the back of his head,  few stair steps before his tired and weary feet longing for home touch the drab and irreverent dusty tarmac.

           A commission was formed headed by SC Justice Enrique Fernando,  to investigate the murder of Senator Aquino but due to the intense criticism from the public, he,  being identified as a Marcos lackey and an Imelda errand boy, the commission was disbanded, and its place another commission headed by Corazon Agrava was formed.  The Commission concluded in the minority report that was  submitted by Ms. Agrava to Mr. Marcos that it was the lone gunman,  Mr. Rolando Galman who killed Senator Aquino.  The majority report which was also submitted to Mr. Marcos found that it was his 26 military escorts that had conspired to kill him.

   A case for double-murder was filed against all the 26 military escorts in 1985  but they were all acquitted by the Sandiganbayan.   After Mr. Marcos fled to Hawaii in 1986, the Supreme Court declared a mistrial and another trial was conducted and found his 16 military escorts guilty of the murder.  The SC  which had been subservient to Mr. Marcos had found its  spine back under Cory’s  skirt of newfound freedom.

  The mastermind was never known, but the people had the right suspect in their collective minds. Before Marcos was forced out of power by the EDSA Revolution in 1986, he has called for a snap Presidential election. He was pitted against Senator Aquino’s widow, Cory, a nickname she was fondly called by her supporters.  She was backed up by the powerful Catholic Church under Cardinal Jaime Sin. After the nation has voted, both had claimed victory. Marcos was declared the winner by the Batasang Pambansa while Cory was declared the winner by the tumultuous crowds on the streets of Metro Manila. While the nation was polarized,  ambitious members of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement under Gregorio Honasan tried to stage a coup. One of his underlings spilled the beans over to Mrs. Marcos. She wanted to preempt the coup by looking for its most likely patron, Secretary of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile who, meanwhile, had talked with PNP Chief Fidel Ramos into staging a mutiny at Camp Crame at EDSA. Cardinal Sin called on the faithful to go to EDSA and lend support to the mutineers. It was during this time that Secretary Enrile when interviewed by the media said that Cory was robbed of her victory as President of the Republic because of the massive cheating during the snap presidential election. Cory meantime was in the Visayas under the care of some catholic nuns. Civilian protesters shouting  “Cory, Cory” along EDSA  had paralyzed Metro Manila while in the provinces people were glued to their televisions or their radios waiting with bated breath of what could happen with massive civilian protesters confronting military tanks and armed soldiers of the Marcos government in the streets of Manila.

 Time Magazine writer Pico Iyer wrote on January 5, 1987:

 Finally, the improbable became the impossible. Marcos’ tanks rolled toward the crowds, only to be stopped by nuns kneeling in their path, saying the rosary. Old women went up to gun-toting marines and  disarmed them with motherly hugs. Little girls offered their flowers to hardened combat veterans. In the face of such quiet heroism, thousands of Marcos loyalists defected; many simply broke down in tears.”

 The nation had a sigh of relief when Mr. Marcos, his family and cronies fled to Hawaii on February 26, 1986. Cory said after Marcos had fled the country that paved the way for her own rule over a very fractious society:

 “We have achieved our freedom with courage and determination, and most important, in peace. A new life starts for our country tomorrow. A life filled with hope and, I believe, a life that will be blessed with peace and progress.”

     Peace and progress that proved to be elusive as her six year term as President had been plagued by a series of military mutinies which had been staged by military personnel who had been sidelined from their previous lucrative assignments and have lost the their lifestyles under Marcos. These coup attempts had sent the economy in yet another tailspin.

       The nation was hopeful that the country would have moved towards economic prosperity under Cory because she owed no one political debts to pay. She was catapulted to power by the people and only the people she must listen to. But the adventurous  segment of the military had denied our nation the opportunity to achieve stability, progress and peace.

         Cory should have taken power as a popularly elected president of the Republic but the ambitious military who would like to be seen as part of Cory’s triumph would like her to serve as a President of a provisional government. Either as a provisional president or a regularly elected eleventh President of the Republic, Cory was sworn nonetheless as President by the Justice of the Supreme Court.

          The military mutineers were seen by some of us as heroes of EDSA while others saw them the way they should be seen: “plain opportunists.”  These personalities were martial law architects and implementers for 12 years who have seen the upsurge of civilian support for Cory and had decided to abandon their commander-in-chief in a fast sinking ship.

      Instead of looking at these coup plotters as villains we see them as the saviors of the Republic. We elected some of them to high government positions and they continue to derive benefits from the very institutions they had subverted in favor of a Marcos one-man rule and from the institutions they tried to subvert in favor of a military junta.  On the other hand, the coup plotters against Cory were punished with ten push-ups by her Chief of Staff, Fidel Ramos and some of those prominent coup plotters found their way back in the corridors of power as senators or as  executives of lucrative government corporations.

        The perception that most of those in power were guilty one way or another of subverting our democratic institutions had prevented us from imposing the full measure of punishment to those who openly committed acts of treason and subversion against the republic. To our minds, only the members of the New People’s Army, the members of the Moro National Liberation Front and the members of other left-leaning groups deserved to be punished by death or by outright execution. The most sinister plotters that had destabilized the nation and ruin our economy and the raiders and plunderers of our treasury do not deserve the kind of punishment meted out to other subversive elements of our society when in matters of degree, the latter wrongdoers have wrought more havoc and destructions to our motherland. This is the reason why after Mr. Marcos and his family had fled to Hawaii in 1986 and most of his kins and his retinue of crony capitalists had come back, we have yet to see them go to jail.

      Filipinos have short term memory and a very forgiving race. We do not know exactly whether these qualities underpin our vice or our strength as a nation.  But as of now, I am still muted if indeed, we are all worth dying for.  (amendment to “Termites  From Within”)

 

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Filipino Voices Is Shrilled Over HR 1109!

Writing at Filipino Voices  (FV)  is a time-consuming endeavor and I do not have the time.  But glancing at FV does not require so much time and glancing at it lately, I was shocked to find the collective “Voice”  shrilled and frayed over HR 1109,  a resolution that some say is a precursor to the extension of the reign of the queen at Malacanang. 

The conundrum of voices  at  FV over the resolution that convenes the lower house as a constituent assembly to propose amendments to the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of Tralala sent tremors to my self-absorbed activity and self-imposed furlough, and brought me back to punch my keyboard at the expense of my personal endeavor that requires my full and undivided attention.  I can only look with envy at some prolific contributors at this site  that can mass-produce literary pieces on a coffee-break, or others that can churn out articles after articles with classic  theme of “beating around the bush” and mindless of the footprint their masterpieces leave on the minds of  the readers.  I look at the readers with respect and studied caution and thus would think a while before I smoke my keyboard.

The Constitution is the law of the land.  Some say it is like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched and must be viewed with sanctimonious reverence.  [Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826)]  Some say  it was made by the people and the people alone can unmake it.  It is a creature of their own will and lives only by their will. [John Marshall (1755-1835)].

So if you were a Jeffersonian in thought, your protest against HR 1109 is justified.  The Constitution which is too sacred a covenant will be soiled  if the scoundrels in Congress will be allowed to touch it, but if you were of Marshall’s insight,  the constitution can be rewritten by the people, or by the people’s representatives in Congress.

But which  Congress constitutes ¾  that can propose amendments to the Constitution?  HR 1109 was quite certain that ¾ of congress is the total number of congressmen and senators minus 25%.  Or if there are 265 congressmen and 24 senators,  ¾ of that number is 217.  The Resolution which the House has portrayed to have been unanimously passed on June 2, 2009 with the “ayes” drowning the “nays” brings back to memory the 1973 Marcos constitution which was ratified by viva voce in the barangay halls of the Republic Tralala.  The House claimed that the vote constituted ¾ of Congress voting to constitute itself as a constituent assembly to propose amendments to the constitution.    Its leadership calls everyone to visit Art. XVII of the Constitution and be enlightened by the reality that the said article did not say that ¾ of Congress means ¾ of the House and ¾ of the Senate convening in a joint session or separately. 

The House reads Article XVII of the Constitution  to mean that ¾ of Congress is 217 all congressmen without Senators,  or 217  regardless of whether the number has congressmen and senators in them.

But take note that the FV writer that started this brouhaha in an Open Letter said that there were  170 Congressmen who approved the resolution and therefore the number is short of 47 votes to make ¾ that is authorized to make amendments to the Constitution.  He has not intimidated that he has inside information of the insidious plot in the house to present this Resolution as having been voted by at least 217 congressmen and therefore would force through the throat of the nation that it is now authorized to tinker with the Constitution and prolong the reign of the queen.

Except for a couple of Senators who twitted on the claim of the House about what constitutes ¾ of Congress, the general response of the Senate was totally dispassionate.  The general sentiment in the Senate is that the House is free to believe whatever legal nuances it has on the constitution, but the interpretation of the provisions thereof is lodged with the Supreme Court.   So expect a forthcoming saga being fought in the judicial trenches.

But are we not supposed to have faith in  the wisdom of our elected congressmen to amend the constitution for after all we elected them to the office to perform  precisely what they had been mandated to perform, to “sit as constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution?”  Or had we been affected so much by Benign0’s  old-familiar refrain, that these bozos are the representation of ourselves as a people and therefore they are as half-wits and dimwits as ourselves to be entrusted with solemn duty to tweak the fundamental law of the land?   Who then can we trust to rewrite the constitution?

Does anyone consider our present recriminations misplaced and premature because we have yet to see how the House will brew the constitution but we were already bellyaching on the treasonous sell-out by which our distinguished congressmen offered us HR 1109?

If the recipe is abhorrent to our taste, are we not supposed to spew it out and reject it in a plebiscite that is called to ratify the amendments?  Why do we have to protest so much on an issue the resolution of which lies within our sovereign  capacity to resolve?

Apparently our discordant voices foreshadow that lack of faith in the wisdom of our congressmen we elected to office.  We are the mirror of these bozos in Congress and feel a very nauseating discomfort of seeing ourselves as half-wits and yet rewriting  the sacred law of the land.
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The Sex Scandal Continues….

The  sex drama online between Ms. Katrina and Mr. Kho had spilled over the Senate floor and everyone got wet,  literally and figuratively.   The august chamber on cue from Senator Jamby Madrigal,  Committee Chairman on Youth, Women and Family Relations had summoned, on suggestion from Senator Bong Revilla, another movie actor,  both artists in the sex video to  bare it  all, entertain the public and to enlighten the distinguished lawmakers  so they can craft a  piece of legislation to address sex videos proliferating online involving our young adults as well as not too young adults.  It is indicative enough that the Senate has the fortitude and the resolve to address this one vexing issue of pornography online,  though hours earlier, the same body was at a loss on how  to interpret its ethics rule against one of its member Manny Villar, and would defer to the High Tribunal for guidance.  Proficiency in math seems to plague this chamber too  that it is likely to ask the same tribunal to determine what constitutes ¾ of the chamber to call for Con-Ass, though in the latter, it is losing steam as of now.  Imagine children in gridlock over whose turn it is to wash the dishes and whose turn to play the video games that they have to ask their parents to settle the matter.   The only difference is that our lawmakers were no longer immature children, though temperamentally they could still be.

That this august chamber is deficient on something else does not argue against its capacity to fashion a piece of legislation that will address the issue of “voyeurism” or “pornography” online.  There seems to be, in this regards, a unanimous perception that the Senate can handle this “sex” investigation in aid of legislation or in aid of its basal interest for raw and prurient desire to look at the “perpetrators” up close and personal.

Let us leave the Senate for a while and look for some substance.

If  adults had engaged in some kind of indiscretion, our reflex reaction is to find out if it was consensual on their part.   If  this encounter was captured digitally frame by frame, our instinctive  reaction is to ask if both knew of the capture.  If yes on both, we tend to brush everything aside and take a hike.  If there is no public interest that is involved, we can sleep tight at night.   But how about if this indiscretion was done in an awfully tasteless manner and the entire episode becomes an overnight sensation online as to provoke someone to cry in anger:  “masyado akong nababoy”.  Now we can see some public outrage, though mistaken and misplaced in part because it was snowballed by the TV-network and the movie industry that had packaged Ms. Katrina both as a sex symbol and a heroine out to save mankind.   If Ms. Katrina was advertised as a sex symbol, what is so wrong with her being seen performing  an act that she was packaged to deliver?   Was it because her director was a doctor and  she was unaware of the camera rolling? Was the outrage lies in part because she was not able to deliver her best worthy of a FAMAS title as she was unaware of the camera rolling?  Or was it because it was a one-sided portrayal of her as a  sex symbol and it was not balanced by her selfless  heroine character?

The perplexing personality of Ms. Katrina is only matched by his partner who now claims that his deviant behavior was a result of a childhood trauma. What childhood trauma?  He seemed to be upbeat and in high spirit sojourning with his girlfriend, Ms. Belo in another escapade in Singapore until the sex video with Ms. Halili had appeared online.  He did not appear to be suffering from any trauma before the video scandal. 

 The negative reactions from the public was fueled chiefly by GMA-7,  Ms. Halili’s employer, whose daily variety show features scantily clad young girls gyrating before TV cameras beamed throughout the country and other parts of the world, which announced that it was standing behind her highly-prized sex kitten, Ms. Katrina.  The entire movie industry had rallied behind her as well.

 Dr. Kho was overwhelmed by the negative reactions from the public about this video clip that he hired a lawyer to fight tooth and nail for his right over this video which he claimed was released without his permission.  He appeared on TV contrite though for  his behavior only after his doting mother had made a similar appearance earlier that turned out to be a complete disaster. 

The public are being entertained with the cheap kind of circus where one is  being portrayed as virtuous and another as a villain.  Her virtue centers around her being unaware of the camera rolling while doing sex act;  and his villainous act, that  of taping the sexual congress and releasing it thereafter.  We seem to wallow in the idea that had she been aware of the camera rolling and did not consent to it, it will cement a character in her  person which in the first place was not there.  For proper perspective though, the public should see them both as villains.

To illustrate this point,  let us put another face instead that of Ms. Katrina’s doing sex with Mr. Kho.  This other face is not also engaged to be married with Mr. Kho  either because he has his own girl Ms. Belo.  We have no problem conjuring up an image of what the local wags would call “Pok-Pok” but in the case of Ms. Katrina, we conveniently put a face of a “victim of injustice”.

In the case of Mr. Kho, the public can easily read  perversion from every copy of  sexual video he has with his partners to catalogue his  conquest and to make money in them in the future.

If you sympathize with either, then we have our priorities wrong and our morality totally upside down.  This could be the reason why we can only achieve so much as a nation.

 

 

 

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Katrina, Hayden In Pari Delicto!

          Katrina and Hayden were in bed sharing their tryst with no matrimonial bond but despite this, Katrina’s employer GMA-7,  was behind its  “shining  star” and so was the entire movie industry which tried to ram through the throat of the  public a misleading one liner that: “Katrina was the victim”.   

          She was not a victim, though both of them were abusers and the unwitting public, their victims.  Katrina to some, is a heroine of the telenovela, Gagambino who fought evil to save mankind.  She had victimized the public into believing that her persona  is virtuously  wholesome, sensually of course it is.   Dr. Kho is  a physician with some kinky habit of taping his every sexual encounter with his partners.  His previous talent manager,  Ms. Solis admits this in a television interview.    He had victimized the public into looking at him as a physician and not as a pervert.

        Katrina models see through lingerie and skimpy bikinis and when you go on ramp to sell these products, the model becomes the most desirable product,  the “band-aid” size bikini she wears is nowhere within the index of any consumer’s  preference.  If she advertises that much she could also sell.  Was the tryst with Hayden an acceptance of the product she was selling and the secret tape,  Hayden’s business concept of cashing on in an investment?   

       Was she wronged because her consent was absent on the taping though the sexual liaison was consensual?

        Indeed , she was robbed of her privacy.  But would  she be appeased with the other “disgorging” the profit of the sex videos in her favor or does  she desire more?  If all these brouhaha are geared towards making the other scoundrel pay-up for the “tarnished image” and “privacy violation”  of the “victim”, then the settlement along these gridlines becomes private affair and the public had been had once again.

       They were both in pari delicto and no one should be allowed to profit from each other.

        Public appeasement will only come if Mr. Kho is stripped off of his license as a physician being a purveyor of porn and Ms. Halili is sanctioned for her “indecorous” behavior by the very people behind her.  But her employer, as aptly observed by DJB,  has a daily variety show of scantily clad young girls gyrating in front of television cameras beamed throughout the country  and certain parts of the world.  This variety show could be the very backbone of its rating and therefore its huge source of income.  The paradox is, the more Katrinas  they have, the more the money and the fun.

       Let us wait and see how this scenario pans out in the next few days.  But the prediction of  DJB  entitled Live by Pudenda, Die by Pudenda  below only confirms that the public  will again be the helpless victims.

      “What Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili are suffering now is merely the consequence of that tragically false presumption. We owe them pity, but that is all. I don’t see why either of them should be held up as examples of causes worth fighting for. I’m cold to them both and am willing to predict that  Katrina Halili and Hayden Kho, and those behind, in front, under and over them both will all soon realize they ought  to just patch this all up quietly and continue in the business of making money by selling made up flesh doctored and dolled up for ramp, runway and studio.  The alternative of course is an escalating war of dueling videos,  in which videos of other famous people doing it could hit the World Wide Web”.
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Annika, (May 24, 2009)

      I shall call  you  “Kikay”.  Nobody in the family will call you Kikay except your grandpa.  Your would-be friend Kristina had been waiting for your coming and quite excited about it and she  would call you by your  sweetest nickname, “Annie”. Your aunt Kaycee and Loren or even your grandma will probably call you the same or simply Ann.

1-day old and 3 weeks early of her schedule, clutched in the arms of her dad, a poignant and yet powerful scene that can halt the pro-abortion group right in its track.

          But you shall remain Kikay to grandpa.  The name sounds so exotic and so endearing though had you been a boy, Kikoy could be the name for a clown.  But as a girl’s nickname,  Kikay  evokes some special kind of a bond.  A bond that  that distinguishes any other bond with others.  Your other grandpa would not be able to make any spatial bind with you, but later, you can search for his spiritual presence while I search for yours now.

         The family had waited for you for 4 long years now.  You seem to appreciate the gravity of those  missed years that you came  out 3 weeks  ahead of your schedule.   Everyone else in the clan has an attitude, but yours surpassed that of everyone else.  You are a textbook example of a paradox;  eager to face the world in an economic crisis while others were running away from it.   That’s my Kikay…

      I shall be your greatest grandpa because you have no other.  I am thrilled by the distinction.

      Meanwhile break the stillness of that early dawn with the shrill of your innocence. 

       Welcome to the World my little sweet angel ! ! !

        Those who are not thrilled with young infants can click here:

 

 
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Katrina Halili, God and the Church

        Ms. Katrina H. represents our today’s  confused or embattled generation.  In a telenovela, Gagambino with Dennis Trillo,  she was one of the heroines who battled the forces of evil  (Ms. Jean Garcia and one Harold) so she and others can save mankind from extinction, but in another dimension,  you saw her modeling see-through lingerie and skimpy bikinis on the ramp or posed in still lurid and alluring photos of flesh.

        In the first, she serves as role model for our young people to do what is good and resist everything evil yet  in another dimension you saw her sensual curvatures and contours sufficient to soak up one’s nocturnal fantasies.  Your vision of her in this dimension could lead you to an honest perception that if she  advertises that much, she could sell as much.  Did she sell this time around?  Or it was purely for fun?

        The young generation is lost on Katrina H.  She is a heroine who fights evil but she could  very well be the same forces that she was battling against.

       The Church was right all  along in its position that those pills and other contraception which the government had tried to sell to the public to address population problem could backfire and lead people astray towards promiscuity.   Ms. Katrina H and Mr. Kho,  and others could engage in this voyeuristic activity in a one-nightstand unfettered by the responsibility that traditional couple would assume when they engaged in this kind of intimacy. That they engaged in it for fun,  is entirely different from those who engaged in it as an expression of the oneness of their souls. They look at is as the primeval expression of basal instinct for flesh and sex,  while ideally, people should only engage   in it because they are in love with each other.  This is the Church’s  line which unfortunately, many have considered this to be primeval too.

       But Mr. Kho, who presumably had taped this lustful encounter with Ms. Katrina H. and leaked it to the media thereafter, should have taken clinical psychology first before cosmetic medicine so he could have his head examined before he is even allowed examine another person’s anatomy to perfect it.  And from where I sit,  Mr. Kho has the propensity of examining  a person’s anatomy which is already perfect and flawless and therefore does not need his expert intervention.  Apparently, the intervention was of different dimension using a probing scalpel that was  never sanctioned before by the medical board.   He is embroiled now in a “medical malpractice” .

       All these talks about sanctions and passage of a cyber-law to address privacy violation and pornography in the internet while laudable and appropriate,  had missed one larger issue:  We cannot legislate an acceptable standard of morality in our populace.  We have to instill that morality and virtues to our children direct from our homes and ask our children to emulate persons whom they know personally to be upright and virtuous  and not to emulate those movie personalities whose “virtues” were packaged commercially by media using flesh and skin as the basic framework.

      From my standpoint, we are losing our young generation because we have lost God in our own generation.
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