Klimt
And you call yourself the justice secretary
I can’t believe Raul Pangalanan actually agreed with this.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima rightly says: “To have [our legal system] depend on faith and on the goodwill of the defendant/respondent is to make our criminal justice system the laughingstock of the entire world.”
It makes me wonder. Shouldn’t our legal system depend on the competence of its administrators, and not on the willingness of people to be put in jeopardy just so those administrators don’t end up looking like idiots?
Ping Lacson was a different case, of course. There was a valid warrant out for the arrest of that ghoul and he ran. In this case, I don’t know that the preliminary investigation for any of the cases has even been completed.
In fact, if de Lima wanted to point out anything that might make our legal system look moronic, she need look no farther than Lacson again. Apparently, all it takes to beat a warrant of arrest is to come back, declare that the new dispensation is going to treat him fairly, meet the President, and maybe have an hour-long circle jerk. Never mind the legal system then, eh, Leila?
Not now though. Looked at from a different point of view, maybe the reason Leila is being so anal now is precisely because of the bitch-slapping she got from Lacson. Out to prove a point, this lady probably is.
Still, the point should be made that her reasoning is moronic.
Allowing a person to enjoy her constitutional rights, no matter how hated she is, does not mean you are subordinating the legal system to her goodwill. You are simply giving her what the constitution says is due her. It sucks for you coz you so desperately don’t want to lose your advantage, but that’s precisely what the constitution wants: to give the citizen - especially the accused - the advantage over the machinery of government.
That’s civic education 101, bitch.
And you call yourself the justice secretary.
Nostalgic
A conversation I had today reminded me of the heady days of Filipino Voices. So, I re-posted everything I ever posted over there; from the last one to the very first.
Now Ding’s dead, from the looks of it, FV is moribund, and I miss J from the Nutbox.
The last time J spoke to me, it was to tell me that he was disappointed about my comments on Venus Raj not being pretty. What a lousy thing to be remembered for by one of the best online writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
Nostalgia sucks.
At the Y
Thanks.
[February 3, 2009]
Dear Primer
As the intrepid DJB said, welcome to FV. And I must say, your comments have been like a jolt of coffee this fine morning.
Rom started a sub-column on a main one, if I may say, and then Ted and the rest registered their comments in Rom’s precious digital space.
Alright, uncle. Yours was the MAIN column, and mine just a sub-column. It wasn’t a reaction to your post, but a subordinate one – an inferior post. Which would make this post even more inferior to your SUPERIOR post because it’s what? thrice removed now? And since you mentioned it, that TED and the rest should register their comments in my precious digital space, I should prolly warn all commenters to comment on the MAIN post, not on the reaction subordinate post. :D
I don’t mind Rom’s rather protectionist attitude as blogger of Filipino Voices whenever they hear another voice vents a differing worldview.
Protectionist? And I would be protecting what exactly? More to the point, what do I have that I should protect against you? Why would I be threatened by your world view? I think, Primer, that you mistake disagreement for protectionism – an overly defensive way of looking of things and to be truthful, far more protectionist in tendency.
Clearly, Rom missed the whole point of my article, Anti-climactic US presidency. She created a kind of bandwagon effect when in her own article about somebody else’s article, other bloggers sided with her point of view.
And the point was … ? Going by the title itself, were you trying to point out that the Obama presidency would be disappointing in light of the impressive run-up to it? Because that’s what anticlimactic means. Well, if that was what you were going for, then you failed. Because we don’t know yet what the Obama presidency will be like. In fact, from the way he’s handled the transition, I’d say he’s already warming up to what may be a presidency as exciting as his campaign. Sure, people have disagreed with his choices – saying that they do not reflect the reformist tenor of his campaign, but ironically those in disagreement seem to be coming mostly from the conservatives who are, themselves, not particularly famous for being reformists. Tryin to be more Popish than the Pope, maybe? But that was prolly not the point you were trying to make.
And your point was … ? That Americans need to pressure Obama into revealing the ‘truth’ about his citizenship without recourse to pure legalese? If that was your point, then I think pointing out first, the absurdity of ignoring the law, and second, pointing out that the issue you are trying to fan into high flame has all but been resolved (apologies to the commenter Ted), should be considered responsive.
And about other blogger’s siding with me … that really burns, doesn’t it? :D
One thing characterized all the patronizing bloggers of Rom – they tend to feed me with comments that are ad hominem, not really to rebut certain points raised any more than attack or kill the messenger.
One jcc even calls it recycled garbage and a waste of digital space after merely saying albeit dogmatically that the issue hinted in my article has been settled.
As a ,matter of first principles, bloggers are not responsible for the comments made on their posts. Just ask Ellen and the noted blogger. Having said that, calling you assertions a waste of time do not exactly qualify as an ad hominem.
The closest thing to an ad hominem would prolly be my assertion that your post was calculated to drive home – albeit by a tortuously – a message that was relevant to the Philippine situation. Except that I took pains to show that your assertions held no water before I speculated about your intentions. So, I wasn’t using my observations on your motives as a prop for my argument. If you will, my observations about your motivations was icing on the cake.
Although to be fair – after reading your Karlpopper comments – I must say that I am now of the opinion that I was wrong about your motivations. The degree of subtlety needed to make that circuitous attack just isn’t there in Karlpopper. Oops. Was that an ad hominem? LOL!
I will be wasting my time if I have to deal with the comments individually since nothing has really been refuted. Rom’s style of writing can really mean to simply impress readers and I will leave her article without need to comment on it. In any case, this is what the so-called blogosphere is all about.
Heh. And yet your comment ran longer than many others. So much for not wasting time, eh? As for nothing having been refuted – errr… yeah. You said that citizenship would be an issue. I said it wasn’t. I pointed to results on testing of Obama’s birth-cert which showed the thing to be genuine; I argued that the law being cited by those claiming Obama’s ineligibilty didn’t apply to him; I showed that the US Constitution actually doesn’t care what nationality your parents are because of the jus soli doctrine. Right. None of that refutes your assertion. And yeah. That isn’t impressive either.
the rest of the pack,
thanks for your comments but i think that we tend to lower the bar here if we as much as allow bloggers to simply say whatever their nervous state dictates.
but then again, maybe something is culture bound.
The pack? Is that us? That would make me the bitch, wouldn’t it? LOL!
If you have something against “allowing bloggers to simply say whatever their nervous state dictates,” then you’re not getting the “so-called blogosphere.” If you’re going to cavalierly dismiss critical posts as an artefact of culture – were you thinking of ‘the crab mentality’ or something? – then you’re not getting the “so-called blogosphere.” And if you don’t think that you have been a beneficiary of the bar being lowered, then you must be some sort of small-person who still thinks that your computer monitor is a newspaper where space has to be parsimoniously distributed. It isn’t. The web is like a wide-open frontier where there is space for everyone. FV most especially because of its policy of letting anyone post. Witness yourself.
And one last thing, dear Primer. This?
It bears watching how Obama can clear his way out of the noose.
is racist.
Love,
Rom
[December 22, 2008]
Addicted to Crisis
Primer C. Pagunuran – some guy from UP – wrote in ‘An Anti-Climactic Presidency‘ that:
Nothing alters the fact that as soon as votes have been counted, the Americans have spoken – catapulting to power – one Democrat Barack Obama as the 44th US president. And few more days before Obama should assume office come January 20, 2009, a looming question on whether or not he is a natural born citizen to be an eligible president is gathering adherents in the internet by every tick of the hour to the point it is seen to end in a constitutional crisis.
Three things about this seemingly inocuous statement stand out:
First, that we are so addicted to crisis that even the supposedly smart guys among us tend to quickly jump on any ‘crisis bandwagon’ even if it involves other countries. And if it happens to be a ‘constitutional crisis’ as well, oboy. Yummy.
Second, that even the supposedly smart guys among us tend to be swept up unthinkingly into the latest internet fads. I’m surprised this Primer fellow hasn’t written about how George W. is a reptilian.
And third, since he’s basing his claim on what he’s read on the intartubes, shouldn’t Primer have bothered to exit his echo chamber and see what else is on?
Apart from the fact that Federal courts in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Washington state have already rejected challenges against Obama’s citizenship, Primer may want to consider:
First, that Obama was born in Hawaii and not Kenya, as claimed by a lot of conservative bloggers – echoing the ramblings of Jerome Corsi who has “been accused by the American press “of being anti-Islamic, anti-Catholic, anti-semitic and homophobic, and of exploiting racial prejudices in an attempt to ‘scare white America.’”
Second, the the claim that for a person with mixed nationality parents have to have a parent who has been a US citizen who has resided in the US for at least 10 years, 5 of which had to have been over the age of 16, does not apply to Obama.
To clarify: the claim being circulated is that Obama’s mama was 18 when he was born. This means that although she was an American citizen who had lived in America for more than 10 years, only two of those years had been after she turned 16. Therefore, so the claim goes, Obama doesn’t meet the requirements for being considered natural born.
The thing is, that requirement only applies to people born OUTSIDE the US. And since Obama was born (1961) in Hawaii (which became a State in 1959), then he is – under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution – definitely a natural-born citizen. This jus soli regime is, in fact, the reason why heavily pregnant women have lower chance of getting US visas than single women and why Pacquiao’s wife will be giving birth in the US altho she can very easily make it home before she’s due to pop.
Now, me, I cannot believe that Primer – apparently a lawyer – could have possibly ignored the fundamental doctrine of jus soli simply on the strength of how many people on the intartubes have parroted this ridiculous claim. This fellow can’t be that dumb or gullible, eh?
The idea that confronts every average American is the simple requirement that the truth be revealed since the issue has been thrown in the intellectual landscape. And it does not have to be mired in the realm of pure legalese as when it must compel the Supreme Court to rule over the case. In the end, the internet that is largely responsible for making sure Obama wins in this presidential election might be the same vehicle that could in fact, unmake Obama. But this is full of implications in the higher scheme of things.
Ah. There you go. The reference to Obama’s citizenship troubles is apparently a tortuous way of driving home the message that the Americans might choose not to be ‘mired in the realm of pure legalese’ in pursuit of some ‘higher truth’ that has to be revealed. In other words, let’s reduce the entire question to a yes or no proposition, without regard to how the LAW draws distinctions and qualifications. Now where have we heard that before?
So, if Primer isn’t dumb (I don’t think so) or gullible (god help him if he is), then he must think the rest of us are gullible or dumb. Or both.
That’s the way it is with people like him, see? People who seek the microphone on every issue and frame the discussion for the rest of us as loudly as they can. They trickle out the information necessary to foster a certain point of view, while ignoring all other information to the contrary. And if anyone stands up to contest them, well, often it’s too late because the die has been cast and people think that the contrarians are just covering up.
Posts like the one Primer put up on this page take advantage of the general public’s relative ignorance of the issues involved and offer up a custom made conclusion: one that supports their agenda and can be trumpeted high and low to great effect.
Caveat lector.
[December 21, 2008]
Purists
I had no idea there were so many purists among bloggers.
In a way, it’s pretty heartening. Especially Marocharim’s insistence that it’s all about the writing. I suppose some of us started that way. But as time wears on, I’m pretty sure that the number of people who continue writing for writing’s sake must dwindle. There will of course, be a privileged few will find that they can still afford to fan the flames of idealism – both financially and in terms of available time. But others will take different paths. Some simply lose the fire; others realize they need to have more time for financially rewarding activities; and yet others come to the acknowledgment that they have the skillz to make writing a financially rewarding activity.
What’s wrong with that? We all need to make a living. So there’s really nothing wrong with making money off of your blog; and bloggers who don’t make money do not necessarily occupy a higher moral plane.
And besides, who’s to say that a blogger has sold his soul? My own standards – standards I do not demand that others adhere to as well – are quite basic.
When a blogger tailors his writing to follow the money that I become comfortable believing that he has lost integrity. When he spouts drivel, for instance, that he does not believe in with moral certainty because he’s gonna get paid for it, I call that integrity-challenged. When he promotes stuff, or people, or places, or whatever simply because he expects money or stuff in return, I cringe – but (and this is important) I don’t care.
Like I tell people, you don’t like what I wrote, go find something else to read.
Sure, we all want a pristine blogosphere – but that’s not gonna happen. Hell. We don’t have a pristine blogosphere anymore to begin with. And guess what? The blogosphere will not implode even when the hacks outnumber the purists. Hell. Look at media. It’s still there isn’t it? And we bloggers still pull quotes from their newspapers and broadcasts.
At the end of the day, all it really boils down to is caveat lector. Reader be-fucking-ware.
Having said all that, I have to say that although I agree with what lies at the heart of Pat’s post – that bloggers should avoid selling-out – I need to agree also that the blogosphere cannot be policed. In fact, there is not even any need to police it.
The blogosphere is a dynamic environment. There may be times when the hacks gain the upper hand, but then even they will eventually suffer a backlash. At some point in the rise of hacks, the readers will realize that they’re being manipulated, and they will start seeking out the smaller blogs – the indies, if you will.
Inevitably, as these indies start attracting attention – kinda like the story of FV’s life eh? – they will themselves become a potential marketing tool. Hacks will again proliferate like wolves in sheep’s clothing and for awhile, the readers will eat it all up. But then, a tipping point will eventually be reached and the wolves will be exposed for what they are, and readers will again seek out the new indies.
And so the cycle goes on. The best we can hope for is to make the period of indie integrity last longer. And our best hope of doing that is to try to keep each other honest. Somehow, I suspect this is what Pat meant to say when he called for us to ‘police our ranks.’
No need, gentle-folk, to take the man too literally.
[December 14, 2008]
What’s Wrong With a GMA Term Extension?
What’s wrong with a term extension for GMA? Well, nothing – if you’re being totally objective about it. The problem is that, we may have passed the point where objectivity about GMA is still possible. And once you’ve crossed that line, you have to decide whether it is more important to have a technically competent president (which, itself, is a debatable statement) or a president with enough social capital – not to mention credibility – to inspire the people.
And this is one of those times when objectivity really becomes irrelevant and you start working with what you have. If you think about it, this is the same logic behind all those ‘move on’ arguments people like Bong Austero have been championing. Accept that GMA is prez, forget the cloudy legitimacy, and just move on. Turn that on its head and you get, ‘Accept that an extended GMA presidency will just bring more opposition and undermine her capacity to get anything done, forget that the extension can be done legally, and just move on.’
And that’s the reason why many people – most Filipino Voices bloggers included – vigorously oppose the idea of an extended term for GMA, as bombastically espoused by the the blogger HPoS. It’s not so much the process that is objectionable, benign0, as it is the intended beneficiary of the process that is so problematic.
Meanwhile a little detail was glossed over in this tirade — that the extension of GMA’s tenure in power will be facilitated by an exercise to amend the Constitution using legal means.
So, no detail was glossed over. It’s just that I thought everyone understood that already. But apparently, there is still some lingering misunderstanding.
This exercise will be executed using due legitimate process and either approved or rejected by duly elected representatives under our current system of government.
Now I don’t know when the law was changed – musta’ been when I was in Batangas or something – but what I know is that any amendment to the Constitution has to be submitted to the people for ratification in a plebiscite. As far as I know, this means that the exercise of amending the Constitution – executed using ‘due legitimate process’ will NOT be approved or rejected by “duly elected representatives under our current system of government,’ but by the people themselves – directly – in a plebiscite called for that purpose.
This fact alone shows that the authority we grant elected representatives remains limited. We do not, benign0, abdicate our sovereignty to the people we elect. Which means, quaint as you may think it, the power to decide who gets to be president – which includes the power to decide who doesn’t get a second chance to be president – is, in fact, reserved to the people.
And the people – though we agree that that they sometimes seem to behave like sheep – should nevertheless not be treated as sheep. In fairness to benign0, he never actually says that people should be treated like sheep. As he always does, he simply pointed out the obvious – that there have been numerous instances when people have behaved like livestock; as he always does, he lets your outrage complete the sentence for him, as it were. But his implication is clear enough. By saying that
Pinoys may not come across on the surface as docile sheep, but the way we move and the mentality that underpins said movement is not too different from the dynamics of how a flock of sheep behave.
he insinuates that since we act like sheep anyway, we shouldn’t take umbrage at being treated so. This, in turn, implies that people ought to fully and trustingly accept the actions of their elected representatives, on the theory that these representatives are only looking out for our best interests.
Sounds familiar? Yep. That’s what fathers and mothers always tell their children when they run out of reasons for saying ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you can’t do that.’ Nothing against parents, of course, but for an entire country?
Benign0′s apparent predisposition to accept this kind of pap shows that he thinks more like the Filipino he loves to excoriate than he might care to admit. Y’see, the Filipino is obsessed with leaders as ‘father figures,’ because among other things, believing that way makes it possible to shift all blame from himself to the ‘father figure’ who is responsible for him. Sheep are never at fault for straying into the mouth of a wolf; it’s always the shepherd who is blamed. And this, I have to admit, gives tremendous psychological comfort to the sheep.
So, while I freely admit that Filipinos do tend to sheepage, this is no excuse for elected representatives to agree, much less take advantage. If our elected representatives are, in fact, serious about acting in our best interests, then it behooves them to move us away from sheepage (which is an affront to the concept of full human freedom) and encourage the growth of a more participative democracy – one of the vanguards of which is the blogosphere – in which human freedom is more fully, albeit still imperfectly, realized.
Elected officials who, on the other hand, believe that once elected they are clothed with king-like powers over their constituents – remember what the HPoS wrote: “we will get what we want and people will just follow us” – are either not too interested in what their constituents think, or are arrogant enough to believe that they alone know best. Either way, these are not officials who should be allowed to stay in office, because – again as the HPoS clearly demonstrates – they do tend to want to perpetuate themselves in power.
Let us not forget that however benign shepherds are or appear to be, at the end of the day, they still lead their sheep to be fleeced. I, for one, think that I’ve been fleeced enough these past eight years. I can hold til 2010, but after that, enough.
[October 21, 2008]
Eid Mubarak
The headman of the village stood with his head bowed in the middle of the road, an island of stillness as his village erupted in chaos. The marines were coming and everyone knew that they would bring retribution with them.
Children sat crying in the dirt while their mothers and sisters ran around frantically stuffing clothes and instant noodles into plastic bags. Here and there, arguments broke out about what to take; a prized transistor radio, a broken mirror, a box of love-letters. All the while, the rumble of distant engines grew louder and louder.
The dirt road down the middle of the village ran fluid with women and children. The old men stayed in the shade, their eyes staring off into the distance. Soldiers didn’t hurt old men. Just the young ones, and the village’s young men were already dead or dying in the jungles and the rice paddies.
Suddenly, the noise from the engines stopped. The trucks had arrived. For a second, everyone froze in place gripped by the kind of panic that steals voices. Even the children fell silent.
From the lead truck, a man in fatigues stepped out and looked around. His eyes squinting against the noonday sun. He found the headman right away, and began striding purposefully towards the old man. Behind him, soldiers streamed out of the truck like startled ants. “Sarge!” they shouted.
At the sight of the soldiers, the women screamed and the mad rush to get out of the village resumed. But still, the soldier and his men pressed on. The soldier seemed oblivious to everything going on around him, intent on his quarry, while his men held their rifles close and pointed outwards, their eyes darting this way and that, waiting for ambush. But the ambush never came.
When the Sergeant finally reached the headman, he bowed his head and, over the din of the pounding boots of his men forming a ring around the two of them, said “Abu.”
“Iqbal is dead. I am sorry.”
For the first time, the headman looked up with tears in his eyes. “I should have never let my sons go.”
“I’ve brought the others. I know you will see to it that everything that needs to be done gets done.”
With that, the Sergeant turned around and walked back to the truck, shouting orders as he went. Tailgates clanged as the trucks were opened and the soldiers left behind started gently taking out bodies wrapped in brightly colored blankets.
When the women saw the bodies being carefully laid out on the dirt road, the flow out of the village swirled in on itself, a humann eddy, and slowly they inched their way back towards the trucks. From the crowd of women and the general murmur of anxious muttering, individual voices rose to the surface.
“Kasan?”
“Murad?”
“Boogie?”
By the time all the bodies had been laid down, the exodus had been forgotten and the wailing had started to reach for the heavens. Most found the men they had thought they would never see again. The others beat their chests so loudly it seemed like they would kill themselves. And maybe it would have been better if they had. Dead, they would not have to wonder what happened to their missing husbands and sons.
Leaving the grieving women, the soldiers quietly boarded the trucks again and soon, the signal to roll out of the village came.
The Sergeant sat in the front of the truck with his eyes firmly on the road out of the village. He imagined Iqbal walking the same road, and fought hard to fight down the bile that rose to his throat. The old man was right, he never should have let Iqbal go. Come to that, the Sergeant shrugged, he never should have let me go either. “Then maybe I could have greeted him eid mubarak instead of having to tell him that my brother was dead.”
The soldier driving the truck turned to him in mild surprise. “Sarge?”
“Wala. Bilisan mo. Malamit na dumilim.”
[October 1, 2008]
Yo, Jester!
Yo, Jester! Whatever gave you the idea that I was a peacenik? LOL!
My weapon of choice, mister.
Or in case he’s unavailable …
LOL!
[September 12, 2008]
