Our issue for July 15, 2006

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July 15, 2006 Issue

Main Features
 
On the cover: Manny Pacquiao whips Mexico’s Oscar Larios
 
          By Dominic Menor

1. Uncertainly Safe
 
When does the constitutional ban on bringing a new impeachment complaint against President Arroyo really end—June 26, 27, 28, 29? Or is it July 24? The House of Representatives’ rules do not make this clear, so the opposition is trying to cover all the possible dates with a surplus of complaints, including one coming from another member of the Catholic clergy on July 24, the day when Mrs. Arroyo faces Congress to make her State of the Nation report. House leaders are using the uncertainty for the advantage of Mrs. Arroyo and if they are successful all the complaints brought last week, even the strongest one brought by 300 private citizens led by Zeneida Quezon Avanceña, President Manuel L. Quezon’s last surviving daughter, are dead. They interpret the ban as ending on July 24, the date of last year’s impeachment complaint to the House justice committee. Or is it July 25, a day after the referral?  Maybe it’s September 7, a day after the shameless majority allies of Mrs. Arroyo threw out the first complaint last year? Or maybe after the Supreme Court has decided on Lakas Rep. Clavel Martinez’s petition for review of the House’s action on the first complaint? The picture is as uncertain as Limbo, which the Roman Catholic Church is considering dropping from its teachings because of the emerging theological view that innocent and virtuous but unbaptized people cannot be excluded from full blessedness and therefore should also be received in heaven. Given their political cupidity, Mrs. Arroyo’s allies will not accord the complaints this fairness. The only thing that matters is Mrs. Arroyo’s political survival, which means their own political survival. But even if one of the dates between June 26 and July 24 is correct, that is still no assurance that the House will impeach Mrs. Arroyo. Impeachment remains a numbers game and although some disgruntled members of the majority and some reelectionists who want to make political points ahead of next year’s congressional elections may support one of the complaints, it remains doubtful that the minority can get the 78 votes needed to hurdle the procedural barrier. 
 
            By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia
 
2. Double Standard
 
Malacañang has asked the Catholic bishops conference to sanction Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Yñiguez for bringing an impeachment complaint against President Arroyo. That’s politicking, says presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor. Church and state should be separate. But instead of even reprimanding Yñiguez, the bishops conference throws its full support behind the Caloocan prelate’s action. Yñiguez has brought the complaint as a citizen of the Philippines, not as a member of the clergy, and the Constitution is clear about this. Sure, Yñiguez is a clergyman, but his action is consistent with the conference’s exhortation to the Filipino people to continue their search for the truth about the 2004 election. The conference has declared 2006 “Year of Social Concerns,” urging Filipinos to speak more about social issues and participate more in actions that can change their society. Why restrain Yñiguez? Former vice president Teofisto Guingona is right: Why the double standard? Why talk about separation when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo actively sought help from the church when she was trying to unseat Joseph Estrada? When it’s Mrs. Arroyo who is seeking help from the church, there is no question of separation. But when it is a clergyman that’s speaking against Mrs. Arroyo policies or actions, there should be separation. And doesn’t Mrs. Arroyo say God placed her in the Philippine presidency? And hasn’t she just attempted to use Pope Benedict XVI to picture herself as having papal blessing in insisting on ruling the Philippines? She has been beaten to the Vatican by Dagupan-Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz, who traveled to the Vatican last year and reported the true social and political conditions in the Philippines.
 
            By Ricky S. Torre

3. Why Him Alone?
 
The Office of the Ombudsman, trying to beat a June 30 deadline imposed by the Supreme Court, has recommended the impeachment of Election Commissioner Resurreccion Borra for the irregular grant in 1993 of a contract to a private consortium for vote-counting machines. The Ombudsman also ordered the dismissal and criminal prosecution of eight members of the Comelec’s bids and awards committee and the criminal prosecution of the incorporators of the private supplier. A long-awaited decision coming as lame as this one causes great public disappointment, especially as Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez has promised to be merciless to grafters. Mercy the Merciless is not even sure whether she has jurisdiction over impeachable officials, so she is leaving Borra at the disposal of the House of Representatives. Maybe she also doesn’t know that the Comelec acts as a collegial body, so she is singling out Borra as if the guy had the sole decision to award the contract to the unqualified bidder and winner, Mega Pacific Consortium. Members of the House minority say they will bring a complaint for Borra’s impeachment, but they are not sure whether it is fair to move against Borra alone because they know that no single member of the Comelec can approve contracts on his own—the decision is always the act of the whole commission. Gutierrez’s office says the other election commissioners are still being investigated. How? They are already retired. All the Ombudsman investigators need to do is review the records of the case and the Supreme Court’s evaluation of the facts. They have been keeping the records sent to them by the Supreme Court for nearly a year now.
 
          By Guiller de Guzman

4. Beyond the Birds and the Bees
 
Are high school students ready for sex education? Shouldn’t this sensitive subject be left to parents to teach to their children? The Education Department has not even began introducing sex education in high school but the Catholic Church is already trying to block the new program, insisting that the subject be left a matter between parents and children. If it were only the church, which has a right to assert its teachings, the controversy will not be so scandalous. But self-appointed members of lay organizations are spreading lies about the program, claiming that the use of condoms will be taught in schools, complete with demonstrations. The program’s plan, however, does not include demonstrations and the word “condom” appears only twice in the text, cited only in the discussion of sexually transmitted diseases. The Education Department is going ahead with the program but for how long it can keep the subject up depends on Malacañang.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman

5. The Roots of the Education Problem
 
One reason why sex education must be taught in high school is the runaway population growth, which is also the root of the acute classroom shortage in public schools. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) has long warned UN member countries about the problems that overpopulation can cause but apparently the Philippines has ignored the agency’s warning. The Unesco’s records show that as of July 2005, 36 million, or 35.4 percent, of the Philippines’ population are children up to 14 years of age and 22 million of them are eligible for public education. The Philippine government has built only 36,000 schools for these children. 
 
            By Ramiro C. Alvarez
 

 

Our issue for July 8, 2006

FREE PRESS
 
July 8, 2006 Issue

Main Features
 
Cover: Parañaque Mayor Bernardo Bernabe (with 8-page full-color supplement, Parañaque City)
 
1. The People vs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
 
A group of citizens led by a daughter of President Manuel L. Quezon and a national artist for literature files a complaint for the impeachment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the House of Representatives on Monday. The complaint, signed by nearly 300 private citizens and endorsed by House Minority Leader Francis Escudero and PMP Rep. Ronaldo Zamora of San Juan, raises the same charges in the first complaint that the House majority dismissed last year on a technicality: electoral fraud, lying, cheating and breach of public trust, but adds violations of the Constitution using as evidence the Supreme Court rulings against Mrs. Arroyo’s mailed-fist policy on street protests without permits, prohibition to government, military and police officials to testify in any congressional investigation without her permission, and declaration of a state of national emergency in February to crush opposition to her rule. On Tuesday former vice president Teofisto Guingona files a complaint in intervention on behalf of the “people’s tribunal” that tried and found Mrs. Arroyo guilty of crimes against the people. At least two more complaints are expected to be brought in the House against Mrs. Arroyo, who is in the Vatican on the first leg of a European trip.
 
Malacañang is not at all disturbed, confident that Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in the House will protect the President as they did last year. Last week, Mrs. Arroyo’s lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, asked the House not to entertain any new impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo, saying that the first impeachment process is not yet over because the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on a petition brought last year by Lakas Rep. Clavel Martinez of Cebu asking the court for a review of the House’s action on the first complaint. Commentators say, however, that this is not a problem because the Supreme Court has not acted on the petition, and Martinez and her seven co-petitioners can just withdraw their petition if necessary. The bigger question for the new complaint is whether it can hurdle the procedural barrier in the House. At least 78 legislators (three-fourths of the remaining members of the House; Reps. Rolando Andaya and Ronaldo Puno have joined the executive) need to support the complaint for it to go the Senate. To be sure, the majority will again use sheer numbers to defeat the complaint.
 
            By Ricky S. Torre andWendell Vigilia
 
2. One Voice: Let the Constitution Alone
 
A new group composed of former election officials, Catholic bishops and prominent citizens has risen to try to stop the Arroyo administration from revising the Constitution to perpetuate current officials in power. The new group, Once Voice, will also try to stop the bogus “people’s initiative,” a signature campaign being undertaken not by the people but by the Department of the Interior and Local Government, to force the amendment of the Constitution by Congress. How? The group will conduct community discussions to explain to the people the country’s problems hoping that the people will understand that the solutions are not a parliamentary government run by the same officials and a unicameral legislature dominated by the allies of President Arroyo, but social and political reforms. This strategy will work in the referendum on the proposed new constitution, but will not stop President Arroyo and her allies from rewriting the Constitution, submitting a new one to a referendum, and rigging the vote to ensure the approval of their ticket to continued stay in power. The only way to stop the administration-sponsored “people’s initiative” is to challenge its legality in the Supreme Court, but if One Voice is planning to do this it is not saying at this point. Dropping all pretenses at noninvolvement, Malacañang says there is no turning back—the co-opted Commission on Elections will validate the signatures from the government-financed campaign, Congress will sit as an “interim parliament” in July, and the amendment of the Constitution will proceed in August. (Manolo, you’re a member of One Voice. Is One Voice going to the Supreme Court for a ruling on the people’s initiative?)
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

3. Can You Kill an Insurgency?
 
Can you kill the communist insurgency? Not with an army. You can shoot all the communist insurgents in the mountains and in the jungles, but others will take their place. To kill an insurgency, or to drive it away, a government must eliminate the social and economic ills that send people to the mountain to fight for justice. The Arroyo administration does not get, but the Commission on Human Rights does: the P1 billion that President Arroyo is giving to the military and the police is better spent to deal with the country’s socio-economic problems. But no one in the administration is listening.

4. Alms for the Poor
 
The Metro Manila wage board has approved a raise of P25 in the minimum wage for workers in private busineses in the metropolis. What will that amount buy? A kilo of rice, a couple of tins of sardines, but not a bus ride from Monumento to Makati or a lunch at work. But that’s all the employers can give, according to the wage board. Wage Order No. 12 takes effect in July. The approved raise is P50 short of the P75 moderate labor filed for and P100 lower than the raise militant labor groups are demanding.

5. Bloodthirsty
 
President Arroyo has signed a bill repealing the death penalty law, but this is not the end for anticrime activists. Dante Jimenez, head of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, has asked the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and the justices on the Supreme Court to find out if the tribunal indeed had made a judicial error in affirming the death sentence on Leo Echegaray in June 1996. Jimenez wants Panganiban and the justices who concurred in the court’s decision to be impeached.
 

 

Our issue for July 1, 2006

FREE PRESS
 
July 1, 2006 Issue

Main Features

Cover: Kate Bosworth plays Lois Lane in Superman Returns

1. War
 
Instead of halting the killing of leftists, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares a war to the finish with the communists by announcing P1 billion in new spending for the military and the police to wipe out the communist insurgency in two years. Her government is also bringing more than 860 charges all over the country and filing criminal charges in the Netherlands against the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison, in an apparent attempt to deflect blame from itself for the killing of more than 220 leftist leaders since she took office in 2001. The military has originally set a 10-year timetable for defeating the communist insurgency, but Mrs. Arroyo, needing to give the nation a reason to rally around her instead of kick her out of office, has ordered the deadline cut to two years, well ahead of the end of her term in 2010. She gives as reason for the all-out war the insurgency’s hindering of economic development in the countryside, although official corruption and political patronage in the local governments are behind economic disasters in the provinces, resulting in the worsening of poverty and driving rural folks to the side of the communist insurgents. She announces P75 billion for investments and development projects in rebel-infested areas of Luzon and gives the protection of these projects as a major reason for the war against the communists. What is Mrs. Arroyo counting on? No government previous to hers, not even the government of President Corazon Aquino, which honestly tried to deal with rural poverty, managed to dent the communist insurgency. It is not possible that Mrs. Arroyo does not know that the communist rebels will not stop fighting until they win and become the country’s rulers—that is the objective of any communist insurgency—and it is not possible that she honestly believes her government can set a record by defeating the rebels. It is more likely that she is trying to project her government as strong, determined, and deserves support from the people. She is wrong. The opposition is taking the case of the killings of leftists to the United Nations and with this, her administration will be drawing even more international attention for its being a violator of human rights. The war against the insurgents will certainly bring a lot of collateral damage, with that, increasing public anger. By choosing war instead of pressing the peace negotiations, Mrs. Arroyo may be hastening the demise of her own rule.
 
            By Ricky S. Torre
 
2. Take 2
 
The minority in the House of Representatives brings a new complaint for impeachment against President Arroyo next Monday, continuing its attempt to legally remove from power the leader whose legitimacy has become even more suspect with her prohibition of official testimony in congressional investigations without her permission and with her heavy-handed tactics in dealing with public calls for her resignation. Struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, together with a proclamation of national emergency in February that quickly turned out to be just a strategy to crush opposition to her rule, these policies have given the House minority additional evidence of violations of the Constitution against Mrs. Arroyo. Add to these testimonial and documentary evidence coming from the Senate defense committee’s investigation into the Arroyo tapes scandal and the minority has a stronger case against Mrs. Arroyo this time. But will the complaint hold this time? If 2007 were not an election year, the complaint would be dead outright. The government is operating on the reenacted 2005 budget, giving Mrs. Arroyo a free hand in juggling funds—she can simply raise her congressional allies’ share of the pork barrel by P30 million each to restore it to the original P70 and she’s out of danger. But 2007 is an election year. With about a half of the House up for reelection, Mrs. Arroyo’s allies will have to listen to their constituents’ demands for her ouster. Then again, they don’t have to. The administration’s political operators can handle the election question as ably as they did in 2004.
 
By Guiller de Guzman, Wendell Vigilia and Butch Serrano
 
 
3. Don’t Be So Sure
 
With the Senate leadership changing hands when the third regular session opens on July 24 comes the question: Is this the total end of congressional independence under the rule of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? Malacañang and the administration-dominated House of Representatives are looking forward to the subjugation of the Senate even with the incoming Senate president’s assurance of maintaining the chamber’s independence. Sen. Manuel Villar, the incoming Senate president, remains an ally of Mrs. Arroyo and that seems to be the basis of the Palace’s and the House’ optimism. But Sen. Franklin Drilon, the departing Senate president, is moving to the opposition’s side and he is bringing with him Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan and Sen. Juan Flavier, tilting the balance of power in the chamber to the opposition’s side. If Villar plays the administration’s game, he will find it hard to lead and deliver.             
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano

4. Nearing Confrontation
 
The Arroyo administration, through its surrogate Sigaw ng Bayan, is preparing to ask the Commission on Elections to validate 9 million signatures it has gathered in the campaign to force the amendment of the Constitution by Congress. The surrogate is not paying attention to former president Fidel Ramos’s advice to go to the Supreme Court first for a ruling on the validity of the people’s initiative, confident that in the event of a challenge, the administration will prevail. But the opposition is just waiting for the administration to take the signatures to the Comelec: the moment the poll body touches the signatures, the opposition goes to the Supreme Court.
 
By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
5. Is There a Price for Human Life?
 
How much is human life? In the absence of a law that allows compensation for the families of convicts wrongly executed, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales says the family of Leo Echegaray, erroneously executed for rape in February 1999, according to Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, can go to the Board of Claims and it can receive P20,000. Shocking, isn’t it?     
 
(This is supposed to be Nati Nuguid’s assignment. Unfortunately, she died on Monday. Guiller de Guzman takes over.)

6. We’re Vulnerable
 
The volcanic and seismic activity in the Pacific Ring of Fire is worrying scientists in the Philippines. They say that the restiveness of Mount Merapi on Indonesia’s Java island has no connection to the restiveness of Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon province here, but what worries them is not really the eruption of a volcano but the occurrence of an earthquake with magnitude great enough to generate a tsunami. The devastation from a tsunami, especially in the Manila Fault Line that runs from the Visayas to Manila Bay, would be much greater than the destruction from an eruption of Mount Bulusan. The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology has been warning about such a catastrophe even before the December 26, 2004 tsunami that killed more than 300,000 people in 12 countries on the Indian Ocean Rim, but nobody seems to have been listening. Neithern the national government nor any local government has drawn up plans for safety and reconstruction.
 
By Ramiro C. Alvarez
 

 

Our issue for June 24, 2006

FREE PRESS

June 24, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1. Cover: Manila Mayor Lito Atienza (with 12-page, full-color Manila City supplement)

            By Ricky S. Torre

            On the cover: Superman Returns

2. Freedom from Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Filipinos mark Independence Day on Monday protesting against the government’s bullheaded attempt to amend the Constitution and praying for freedom from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The Filipinos have freed themselves from the death penalty, says Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, but they have yet to free themselves from vice, corruption, exploitation of women and children, the killing of militants and journalists, torture and “subtle dictatorship.” They have freed themselves from foreign invaders and the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, but not from Mrs. Arroyo, says Bishop Teodoro Bacani. Mrs. Arroyo is trampling on the Filipinos’ freedoms by insisting on amending the Constitution, says National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera. The revision of the Constitution, he says, will “strengthen the rule of the few.” Those few have already made their decision: whether the people like it nor not, the Constitution will be amended for a change to parliamentary government and Mrs. Arroyo and her political allies will continue in power up to 2010. Refusing to accept that the question of her rule’s legitimacy is causing the deep divisions in the country, Mrs. Arroyo twists the charge and pictures the people opposing her as tearing the country apart and blocking progress. The day of reckoning is fast approaching, she says, referring to the forced revision of the Constitution through the government’s signature campaign that is being passed as a people initiative. She says the people will soon be called to “end the deadlocks that have stalled” her government’s efforts to bring progress to the Philippines—meaning the referendum on the proposed amendments. The people? Or her people? Staff at the House of Representatives report Speaker Jose de Venecia as saying that the government will force the victory of votes for the new constitution, that is, the government will rig the referendum, as it did the 2004 presidential election. The day of reckoning may be approaching, indeed.

By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

3. The Watch Changes

As they have agreed, Sen. Franklin Drilon hands over the Senate presidency to Sen. Manuel Villar when Congress returns on July 24. The change in leadership takes place just as the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and its allies in the House of Representatives are forcing the abolition of the Senate to remove checks and balances that deter executive abuse of power and corruption. The administration and the House are blaming the Senate for the six-month delay in the 2006 national budget and the stalling of what they claim are important legislation. But only the budget is important among those bills and the Senate is adamant in slashing the budget by P64 billion to remove from Mrs. Arroyo the means to bribe local officials and the poor to win support for her government’s fight to stay alive by amending the Constitution. There is no urgency in renaming streets in the provinces after politicians and in a terrorism bill that endangers the safety and freedoms of even the bill’s authors themselves. More urgent is the bill that would automate Philippine elections, but had Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. not shamed the House majority into voting on it last week, the second regular session would have ended without acting on the proposal. The majority are not interested in the bill because they are sure there will be no elections next year, or if there will be elections, these will be for an interim parliament. If the Senate spent more time investigating alleged irregularities in the government during the second regular session, it is because national interest demanded it. Is Mrs. Arroyo really the president of the Philippines or is she a usurper? Who are responsible for the diversion of P728 million in public funds to Mrs. Arroyo’s 2004 presidential campaign? Why is the government lobbying for US financial help in amending the Philippine Constitution? Villar is an ally of Mrs. Arroyo, and House Speaker Jose de Venecia is predicting improved relations between the two chambers and even between the Senate and Malacañang during the third regular session. But Villar vows to maintain the Senate’s independence, as he maintained the House’s independence in 2000, when he, as speaker, single-handedly sent the impeachment complaint against Joseph Estrada to the Senate, clearing the way for the president’s trial. That’s one tough speaker’s record that de Venecia has chosen not to duplicate, having pledged his loyalty to Mrs. Arroyo in exchange for a chance to become prime minister. But de Venecia may already be out of the running. The administration is dangling the premiership before Villar: he can have it if he can get the Senate to approve the 2006 budget without cuts.

By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

4. Error of Judgment

Leonardo Echegaray should not have drawn the death penalty, but he did and he was executed in 1999 because of a “judicial error.” Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban says it was proven during the trial that Echegaray was not the father of the girl he had raped; the girl was the daughter of his common-law wife. Despite that qualifying circumstance, the court sentenced him to death and, because of the absence of that information during the review, the Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence on Echegaray. The court can no longer correct its error because Echegaray has been dead all these seven years. Panganiban has disclosed the error as one more reason why the death penalty must be abolished. Judges, including the magistrates who serve on the Supreme Court, are just humans and being humans they make mistakes. And now that Congress has repealed capital punishment and the error of Echegaray’s execution disclosed, what now? Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. says the government must compensate the family of Echegaray for his wrongful death and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales seems to agree. The problem is, the Philippines has no law that requires the government to make restitution for judicial errors. Pimentel says he will remedy this situation by introducing legislation that would allow restitution. Panganiban’s comment, which he says is only his personal opinion, has started a new public debate centering on the question of wrongful execution. The Catholic Church is glad about the abolition of the death penalty, but anticrime groups are still insisting on it and warning of a surge in crime. They take Panganiban’s admission of judicial error as irresponsible and Pimentel’s proposal for compensation as an insult to the victims of heinous crimes—as if only they are right and all the rest of us are wrong.

5. Unkind Cut

The bill that would allow compensation for nearly 10,000 victims of human-rights violations during martial law cleared the House of Representatives last week, but not before the Committee on Human Rights agreed to accept a P2 billion cut in the proposed appropriation of P10 billion. Party-list Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales disclosed that Malacañang ordered the cut and gave instruction to the House leadership not to allow the bill to pass if the committee refused. The Senate version of the bill also sets the compensation at P10 billion.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

Our issue for June 17, 2006

FREE PRESS
 
June 17, 2006 Issue
 
Main Features
 
Cover: Department of Land Reform (with 8-page, full-color supplement)
 
            By Jing A. Mable
 
1. Educating the Government
 
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants to make it appear that her government is solving the classroom shortage, which hogs the headlines every year when school returns in June. Agreed upon last year as a solution to the shortage is packing 100 students in every classroom available and running classes in two shifts. But it is not a solution—it is a palliative, because even before Mrs. Arroyo’s college boys came up with the idea the student-to-classroom ratio was already running at 60-80 to 1 and classes were going on three shifts (three or four hours a shift—what do the students learn?). Adding a handful more students to the ratio is not solving the problem but worsening it. Packing students like sardines in dilapidated classrooms, fire exits and toilets is not dealing with the shortage but making it more pronounced. Whose stupid idea is that? Education Officer-in-Charge Fe Hidalgo, a professional educator who actually sticks her head into overcrowded classrooms, knows better—unlike Mrs. Arroyo, who is only taken to prearranged school inspections, seeing only what she wants to see and announcing “achievements” of her administration. Hidalgo makes a mistake by saying there is a shortage of 6,832 classrooms and gets bawling from Mrs. Arroyo who insists on 100-to-1 ratio so that the shortage will be wiped out. It turns out that even double the figure cited by Hidalgo is badly inadequate to ease the congestion in schools because the actual classroom shortage is 45,000. The embarrassment that Mrs. Arroyo has inflicted on Hidalgo touched the senators, who earlier had slashed the Education Department’s P108 billion budget for 2006 by P1 billion. Understanding the real situation, the senators restored the P1 billion and, unsatisfied, went for billions more when they went into conference with members of the House during the weekend. The result of the first reconciliation tussle over the budget: P4 billion more for the Education Department. Oh, how happy is Malacañang over the great news. This shows the Arroyo administration is giving top priority to education—you better believe that. If you don’t, you’re a “destabilizer.” Hidalgo’s days in Education are probably counted. Hidalgo talks about an ideal student-to-classroom ratio of 45 to 1. Achieving that will take not only building 45,000 classrooms more, but also slowing down the population growth, now 2.3 percent. To reduce population growth, the government needs to enforce an aggressive population management program, but Mrs. Arroyo is so scared of the Catholic Church she won’t touch any such program with a giant condom.
 
            By Ricky S. Torre
 
2. Tangle over the Budget
 
The Senate passes President Arroyo’s proposed budget for 2006, but slashes the P1.04 trillion spending approved by the House of Representatives
 
by P64 billion. Hardest hit is the Office of the President, whose suspicious development funds the senators see as pork intended to finance Mrs. Arroyo’s salvation program—amending the Constitution. The senators lop off Mrs. Arroyo’s P3.69 billion progress support fund for the villages, her P3 billion village freedom fund, and her P1 billion e-government fund. For printing propaganda materials for the government’s signature campaign for the instant amendment of the Constitution, the National Printing Office gets no budget this year. For insisting on a compromise deal with Imelda Marcos on her family’s ill-gotten wealth, the Presidential Commission on Good Government also gets no budget. Malacañang is protesting the deep cuts and Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in the House, expecting to make bigger killings this year when the opposition mounts its second impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo, are tangling with the senators in the conference for the reconciliation of the two conflicting versions of the budget for the restoration of the lopped-off spendings.
 
By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
3. Economic Lies
 
The bill that would raise the minimum wage by P125 clears the House of Representatives despite objections from business and Malacañang. As set by the bill, which goes to the Senate next, workers will get a raise of P45 on October 1, P40 on October 1 next year, and P40 on October 1, 2008. It has taken the bill six years to get to this stage and yet Malacañang, after saying it is leaving the question of a legislated pay increase to the decision to Congress, is balking, saying it prefers that labor goes to the regional wage boards, which it knows will give workers scraps that will not even ease a bit their economic woes. As usual, business warns of job cuts and closures. But perhaps it is true that businesses cannot afford a P40 increase, which means the government’s claim of a 5.5 percent growth in the economy is a lie and President Arroyo’s talk of bringing the country to the “Enchanted Kingdom of the First World” nothing but hot air. 
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigila

4. It’s Bad to be a Leftist These Days
 
The Justice Department has found a friendly judge, so Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran of Anak Pawis, 76 and ailing, is again under prosecution on rebellion charges that Ferdinand Marcos brought against him in 1985. How Judge Encarnacion Joya Moya of Branch 146 of Makati Regional Trial Court found probable cause in a case that became moot when President Corazon Aquino pardoned Beltran and other leftist leaders who fought Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 makes legal minds question the sense of justice and suspect the claims to democracy of the Arroyo administration. Beltran will be arraigned again on Thursday of the rebellion charges for which he was convicted and jailed in 1985. But even if he gets out of this return of Marcos rule he will not be safe out there. Two more leftist leaders were killed in another drive-by shooting on Sunday night and on Tuesday Malacañang released an alleged threat against President Arroyo and other government officials attributed to the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas. The purpose of the hit list is immediately clear: bolster the government’s claim that the series of murders involving leftists is a communist purge.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

Our issue for June 10, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
 
June 10, 2006 Issue
 
Main Features

1. Cover: Sen. Edgardo Angara (with 8-page LPD supplement)

On the cover:
 
                        666: The Devil and End Times (the remake of The Omen)
 
                        By Gerard Ramos
 
2. Dark Days for Human Rights
 
The warrantless arrest of five supporters of ousted president Joseph Estrada by military agents last week and the murders of Bayan Muna leader Noli Capulong on Saturday and former NPA peace talks adviser Sotero Llamas on Monday have worsened the image of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s government as a violator of human rights. The deaths of Capulong and Llamas take to 224 the number of leftists to be killed since Mrs. Arroyo assumed office in 2001. The killings have attracted the attention of international human-rights groups and on the initiative of Gabriela foreign human-rights lawyers have arrived in Manila to look into the murders. US Ambassador to the Philippines Kirstie Kenny also has expressed the American government’s concern over the killings of leftists. The killing of journalists has added to suspicions that the Arroyo administration is a human-rights violator, prompting an investigation by the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee headed by Republican Sen. Richard Lugar. The administration has told the US government that it is investigating the killings, but the deaths of Capulong and Llamas seem to show that nothing is being done to stop what appears to be a campaign to eliminate the leadership of the Left. Mrs. Arroyo has already tried to crush opposition to her rule by placing the Philippines under a state of emergency for a week in February, during which leftist leaders were arrested and charged with rebellion only to lose in the courts. The Supreme Court has struck down the emergency proclamation as unconstitutional and Makati Regional Trial Court has refused to accept the information against five leftist members of the House of Representatives. Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran remains under police custody, accused of rebellion, an offense he had committed against the Marcos government and for which he received pardoned from President Corazon Aquino in 1986. The arrest of Estrada’s supporters, meanwhile, shows the military and the police cannot be trusted, endangering the terrorism bill approved by the House of Representatives in April and its counterpart bill in the Senate.
 
            By Ricky S. Torre

3. New Defense Deal
 
The Philippines and the United States have signed a new security arrangement involving “nontraditional threats”: terrorism, transnational crime and disease that can spread across borders. The new agreement updates the 1956 Mutual Defense Treaty, which has alarmed the Senate—the country’s treaty-ratifying body—as the government has not disclosed the contents of the arrangement. Does this arrangement require the presence here of US troops other than those allowed under the Visiting Forces Agreement?         
 
            By Guiller de Guzman

4. See You in the Supreme Court
 
Some stupid members of the House of Representatives call last week’s meeting with members of the Senate on the administration’s persistence to amend the Constitution a “breakthrough” even though the two sides reached no agreement other than to meet again on June 8. Some House members, however, know that the senators are just playing for time. When the third regular session of Congress opens in July, any talk about amending the Constitution will be too late to serve Malacañang’s purpose: abolish the Senate to stop all investigations into irregularities in the government and, of course, prevent the impeachment of President Arroyo. Some of Mrs. Arroyo’s allies therefore prefer a confrontation with the senators in the Supeme Court over the correct interpretation of the constitutional provision on the congressional vote for amendments to the Constitution. They are taking a risk, because the bicameral division of Congress is clear in the Constitution. But, as in Mrs. Arroyo’s dictatorial policies that the Supreme Court had struck down, they seem not to have learned a lesson and counting on the magistrates’ gratitude to the President to win a ruling in favor of a single, majority vote. They can try.
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

5. Skin The Watchdog
 
It seems that the Arroyo administration has lost all sense of decency and morality. Despite calls for the abolition of the Presidential Commission on Good Government for trucking with Imelda Marcos, the Palace even has the gall to say that the first commission under former senator Jovito Salonga accomplished nothing. Well, who brought the more than 500 cases against the Marcoses that have led to the recovery of Ferdinand Marcos’s $600 million loot from Switzerland? The late, upright Haydee Yorac had laid down the policy of nonnegotiation with the Marcoses and their cronies, which she felt was the reason why the administration pushed her out of the PCGG. Camilo Sabio’s commission denies it has authorization from the Palace to strike a deal with Imelda Marcos, but Michael Defensor’s staunch defense of the compromise talks is nothing short of confirmation and proof of the moral bankruptcy of this administration.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid
 
6. Deposit on Jail Time
 
Ousted president Joseph Estrada may have irreparably damaged his defense by admitting in court that he signed bank documents using an alias. While there is no law in the Philippines prohibiting the use of fictitious names for bank accounts, the Jose Velarde account is the alleged depository of payoffs from gambling lords, illegal commissions and kickbacks from taxes paid to him during the first three years of his failed presidency. His admission of signing the name “Jose Velarde” on an authorization for a P500 million loan confirms the existence of the bank account, the strongest evidence of the prosecution against Estrada.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid
 

Our issue for June 3, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
 
June 3, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1. Cover: Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, president, United Opposition 

 
2. Mounting National Pride
 
To most of the world it is known as Mount Everest, named after a 19th century official in British Raj India. But the Tibetans who live under the shadow of the 8,848 m mountain’s North Face call it Jomolungma, which translates to “goddess, mother of the world,” and the Nepalese who live below the mountain’s South Face call it Sagarmatha, meaning “goddess of the sky.” She is a jealous goddess, blocking access to her secrets with a sea of ice—the Khumbu Icefall—5,800 m below, where avalanches come in ice boulders the size of office buildings, and with a “Death Zone,” 7,900 m above, where the rarefied air gives too little oxygen to sustain human life for long periods and where the weather could turn evil any moment. At this zone on May 9-10, 1996, eight members of two climbing expeditions perished in a snowstorm, taking the number of those who would dare reach the top to 142 since 1921. The dead in the 1996 disaster included the leaders of the expeditions who were among the most seasoned alpinist in the world, Scott Fischer of the United States and Rob Hall of New Zealand. What the mountain takes, the mountain keeps—and all those who perished lie buried under the perpetual snow. That tragedy has been blamed on “commercial climbing”—$65,000 can get even amateur climbers to the summit; guided by professional alpinists, all they need to do is hold to the ropes and breathe easily from their oxygen tanks. Few succeed; most turn back, stopped by foul weather or by their own limitations. But some people are really made of different stuff and they will persist in scaling the mountain any way they can just to get to the top of the world. For the First Philippine Everest Expedition, the objective of the climb is to put a Filipino, for the first time, on the summit of Everest. The Expedition succeeded: Heracleo Oracion, of Lucban, Quezon, summited on May 17, followed the next day by Erwin Emata of Davao. A third Filipino climber, Romeo Garduce of Balanga, Bataan, had broken away from the Expedition last year when the group could not give him assurance that he would be the lead climber. Garduce wanted to be the first Filipino on top of Mount Everest but although the most accomplished, was beaten to the summit by Oracion and Emata, reaching the summit three days later. Nevertheless he joins Oracion and Emata in the honor of putting the Philippines on the list of countries whose mountaineers have conquered the world’s tallest mountain.
 
By Guiller de Guzman
 
3. Truce and Powwow
 
Representatives from the Senate and the House meet on Wednesday to talk about amending the Constitution amid the insistence of President Arroyo’s allies in the House on a constituent assembly and a new debate on Sen. Richard Gordon’s proposal to amend the Constitution by legislation. Gordon has also introduced legislation that would enable the constitutional provision for amendments by people’s initiative. It is true that the term “constituent assembly” does not appear in the Constitution, but the concept is present in Section 1, Article XVII, which requires a three-fourths vote by all the members of Congress. Independent Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay agrees that Congress may amend the Constitution, but cites jurisprudence that distinguishes Congress’s legislative power from its constituent power. Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago is not far behind that argument, but she goes further by saying she will vote for the abolition of the Senate in the constituent assembly, which she now supports, together with the bogus people’s initiative mounted by the government, after accompanying President Arroyo on a trip to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago. Santiago, who brought the case against the Commission on Elections that led to the Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling that there is no law authorizing constitutional amendment by people’s initiative, has now turned against her chamber and, to be sure, she is not alone, although majority of the senators still oppose the constituent assembly proposal. 
 
            By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia
 
4. The Hell With You
 
Even before the House minority can put its new impeachment complaint against President Arroyo on paper, the majority is already serving notice that the complaint will go nowhere. The majority will block it no matter what evidence the minority presents—too hell with the law, to hell with the Philippines. Mrs. Arroyo stays and her allies in Congress stay: they will rule whether the people like or not. The majority, however, is not solid. Many who have yet to receive the promised bounty for voting against impeachment last year are prodding the minority to go ahead and bring a new complaint, promising their support. But the minority knows that these people are unreliable. All Malacañang needs to do to bring these people back into line is hand over the money. Of more concern to the minority is the unreliability of some of its members. At least nine of them disappeared during the vote on last year’s impeachment, most infamously KBL Rep. Imee Marcos of Ilocos Norte who, after blasting Mrs. Arroyo almost every day, flew to Singapore for a holiday. Now she is protesting Minority Leader Francis Escudero’s warning of expulsion for members who will not vote for the impeachment bill this time. That decision, however, was made not by Escudero alone, but by the minority bloc. Where was Marcos when the bloc met last week?
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
5. Let’s Just Fight It Out in Court
 
Imelda Marcos will not deal. If the Presidential Commission on Good Government wants to get her family’s wealth, the commission should prove in court that the Marcoses’ wealth is indeed ill-gotten. The staff of Mrs. Marcos has made this stand clear in reaction to the PCGG’s increasing talk of a settlement, annoying the Senate into striking out the commission’s appropriation from this year’s five-month late national budget. The PCGG’s new tack runs counter to the Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling prohibiting the government from entering into a compromise agreement with the Marcoses, but the commission says that ruling was limited to just one case, forgetting that it is a precedent. By the admission of commission chairman Camilo Sabio, the PCGG has no presidential authorization to deal with Imelda Marcos, only support from Palace officials. In that case, Mrs. Marcos will not even consider disclosing her family’s wealth knowing that she has no assurance that she can get away with some and walk free after a settlement. 
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid
 
6. No Place to Write
 
Burbank, California—United States Sen. Richard Lugar has started looking into the unpunished killings of journalists in the Philippines following the ranking of the Philippines by the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontieres’ as the second most dangerous country for journalists in the world after Iraq. Reports of the killings are embarrassing the Filipinos here: the murders are giving the Philippines the image of a country in the grip of a despot who doesn’t tolerate opposition to her  rule. Not helping the country’s image is last week’s watch-listing of Nelly Sindayen, Time magazine’s correspondent in the Philippines and Monday’s killing of yet another journalist in Puerto Princesa, a critic of President Arroyo’s ally Edward Hagedorn. The Philippine government’s answer to the international criticism involving journalist murders is that not all the killings are job-related and that some of the cases have been solved with the arrest of the killers and their being charged in court. The foreign critics’ response: the filing of charges does not solve the murders—the killers must be punished and the killings must stop.
 
            By Ramiro C. Alvarez
 
Two editorials

Our issue for May 27, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
 
May 27, 2006 Issue
 
Main Features
 
Cover story: The Da Vinci Code Controversy, by Kit Tatad
 
1. They’re Falling Everywhere
 
President Arroyo has ordered the National Police to investigate the murders of leaders of militant groups that are being blamed on the military and her administration. More than 120 militant leaders have been slain since Mrs. Arroyo took office in 2001, the last ones a day after Mrs. Arroyo ordered the investigation. The military denies having anything to do with the spate of killings, even though a survivor of an attack in Misamis Occidental during the weekend identified one of her attackers as a military agent. It is doubtful that the investigation will produce a credible finding. Already the police are singing the same tune as the military and the Justice Department: a purge in the ranks of the communist movement. Nobody believes them, least of all the leftist organizations that should know, if it is true that they are communist fronts, whether a cleansing of the ranks is going on. Domestic and foreign human rights groups have been pressuring the Arroyo administration to stop the murders, but not until the killings have become almost a daily occurrence that Mrs. Arroyo moves to do something. Police Deputy Director General Avelino Razon, head of the investigation, says soldiers and paramilitary forces are suspects in the murders, but attributes at least 13 of the slayings to a communist purge. Nothing is clear, and perhaps nothing will become clear unless last weekend’s gunman is arrested and he rats on the others. Neither the Communist Party of the Philippines nor its armed wing, the New People’s Army, has not confirmed that those killed or those the government is prosecuting (see No. 2) are rebels or members of front organizations. In the past, however, the NPA denied that the party-list groups are communist fronts. Of these groups, Bayan Muna has lost the biggest number of members to the killers—91. Party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, a former spokesman for the National Democratic Front, the communist movement’s political organization, denies there is a purge going on within the movement. If what Ocampo is saying is true, then the murders can only be the military’s work. But what does the military hope to achieve? Peace negotiations between the government and the communists, through the NDF, have been suspended because of mutual mistrust. The military’s warmongering, and now the killings, are not helping restore confidence to efforts to revive the negotiations. But then perhaps the military doesn’t want the negotiations to resume, much less a political solution to the communist insurgency. A settlement will end the counterinsurgency war; no war, no modernization of military armaments. No business, too. Could this be the reason for the killings?
 
            By Ricky S. Torre
 
2. Crushing the Left
 
How can the rebellion charges that the Justice Department is forcing on five leftist legislators prove that it’s the communist rebels themselves who are killing the leaders of militant groups opposed to President Arroyo? The charges, refiled after Party-list Representatives Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño, Joel Virador, Liza Maza and Rafael Mariano walked free last week, allege that the Communist Party of the Philippines carried out purges in 1982, 1985-86, 1988 and 1989. The Justice Department, however, offers no evidence of any kind that links any of the five to those purges. Neither does the department offer any argument to show that any of the five is responsible for the recent slayings of militant group leaders. How does the department expect the five to be convicted of crimes committed by the communists from 1969 to the present, including of the charge that the five conspired with the opposition and some groups in the military to overthrow President Arroyo? And why is the government going after leftists who, instead of taking up arms, have chosen to bring their struggle for social justice to Congress?
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
3. Population: The Growth Slowdown That Never Was
 
The advice from the National Statistical Coordination Board was very clear: “These values should be interpreted with caution as these are projections based on certain assumptions of fertility and mortality and are projected annual average growths for the periods given.” And yet the administration went ahead and declared that the population growth rate had slowed down to 1.95 percent, with Economic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri saying this was close to the growth rate that would allow the economy to sustain the entire population, and President Arroyo congratulating the Population Commission for the “significant drop” in population growth and claiming it as an achievement of her administration. They would have gone on trumpeting the lie had the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development not pointed out that the figure was only a projection and not actual growth rate. How could anybody have known what the real growth rate was when the mid-decade national census that was to have been taken last year fell through because it was not funded in the national budget? And how could the growth rate have slowed down when the national government had no population-control program? There is a responsible-parenthood bill in the House of Representatives, but it is gathering dust because the administration and its congressional allies won’t allow it to move for fear of the ire of the Catholic Church.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid
 
4. Mission: Possible
 
Only 12 session days are left before the second regular session of Congress ends. When Congress returns in July, Speaker Jose de Venecia hopes it will be as the “interim parliament” and its job will be to amend the Constitution. The administration is working for that, after deciding in Saudi Arabia last week that the bogus people’s initiative is too risky to push, by starting a civil war in the Senate with the intention of dividing the chamber and winning the majority to the side of the proponents of a constituent assembly. The administration has a henchman inside who has started the division: Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago. Her blood used to hit boiling point at the mere suggestion of a constituent assembly, but after accompanying President Arroyo to Saudi Arabia last week, Santiago, angling for an appointment to the Supreme Court, turned around. She now talks about an opportunity to help write a new Constitution and the likelihood of there being no more Senate by July. She has no problem winning over Sen. Edgardo Angara and there’s no question at all involving Sen. Lito Lapid. But the rest? Sen. Richard Gordon has said that the senators will agree to amending the Constitution, but only if the intention is not to keep anybody—meaning Mrs. Arroyo—in power. In the House, the resolution for a constituent assembly already has the required 182 signatures to pass. But the minority has already more than the required 42 signatures to defeat the resolution, so the majority’s is considered dead. This doesn’t mean, however, that it’s over. Santiago’s work is just beginning. But she must hurry. If the administration fails to stop the opening of the third regular session in July, a new impeachment complaint against Mrs. Arroyo goes up.
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
5. Call to the Unconcerned
 
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines has proclaimed 2006 as “Social Concerns Year,” urging Filipinos to speak out more forcefully about the issues affecting their lives and to participate more actively in reforming their society and restoring moral values and decency to public life. The proclamation is short of a call to people power, but Malacañang should get the drift, especially with the bishops’ call for the publication of the report on the Inspectorate General Office’s investigation into the alleged use of the military in rigging of the 2004 presidential election and the filing of charges against government officials who channeled P728 million in agricultural funds into President Arroyo’s campaign that year. Mrs. Arroyo, however, has nothing to fear because not very many Filipinos understand what the bishops mean. Subtle calls to action like this do not work on majority of a people who are too busy keeping body and soul together they don’t have time to even notice what’s going on around them. If the bishops want the people to take direct action and set things aright in the government, they should say call them out and, perhaps, they will drop everything and respond. 
 
By Guiller de Guzman, Butch Serrano and Wendell Vigilia
 
6. Pigs
 
In a visit to La Union on May 9, Canadian Ambassador to the Philippines Peter Sutherland showed to everyone that he, too, could eat with spoon and fork. It didn’t look bad, at all. And nobody told him to his face that he ate like a pig. Sutherland was only showing that Canada was not really intolerant of other culture’s etiquette, contrary to perception created by the punishment of 7-year-old Filipino-Canadian Luc Cagadoc at an elementary school in Montreal for eating with spoon and fork. His mother, Maria Theresa Gallardo complained to Normand Bergeron, principal of Ecole Leland, about the treatment Luc received in school, but Bergeron told her that the boy deserved the punishment because he ate like a pig. Gallardo’s complaint has drawn international attention and Canada has found itself in the center of a controversy in which it is pictured as intolerant of other culture’s practices. The controversy has reached the diplomatic level, with Vice President Noli de Castro instructing the Foreign Affairs Department to press the complaint against Bergeron and the lunch monitor who punished Luc. But don’t expect Canada to hang the two. At most, what we can expect here is an apology. Let this controversy be a lesson to all prospective immigrants. Most of these Filipinos have no information about, much less experience of, other cultures.  If you want to emigrate to some Western country, learn the ways of that country first before you go. Be prepared for assimilation. Since you are leaving this godforsaken country, don’t expect the government here to intervene for you when you get into trouble there.
 
By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid

7. Expulsion from the Promised Land
 
Burbank, California—Although driven out by economic difficulties and political crises in their own country in the past 30 years, the more than 1 million Filipinos who have illegally migrated to the United States are hardly disturbed by an impending overhaul of US immigration laws initiated by Congress. Only a handful of Filipinos are joining street protests against the bill that would expel all illegal migrants, with the Mexicans leading the almost daily demonstrations because they are the most affected. The Filipinos trust that officials and legislators in the Philippines will intervene on their behalf. Many just don’t care, foolishly believing that they can keep dodging immigration agents. But the US Congress is serious this time. The overhaul has been prompted not just by economic problems among Americans, but by national security concerns. All illegals must go, but will be given a chance to apply for immigration from their own countries. That’s out of the question for the Filipinos here. What will they do in the Philippines, where there are no jobs? For quite many, the problem is not just economic uncertainty, but they have nowhere to go—they sold all of their properties to finance their trip to America. And now this?
 
By Ramiro C. Alvarez
 
Two editorials

Our issue for May 20, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
 
May 20, 2006 Issue
 
Main Features
 
1.Cover: Lakas-CMD Rep. Faysah Dumarpa of Lanao del Sur 

2. The Spy Who Got Caught and Caused Trouble
 
Former president Joseph Estrada, Sen. Panfilo Lacson and San Juan Mayor all say that the information they received from former Federal Bureau of Investigation analyst Leandro Aragoncillo are not classified. The contents of the files they received, they say, are widely known here. What they do not know, or perhaps play down, in the case of Lacson, a former National Police commander, is that anything, even just a newspaper clipping, that the FBI holds as classified is classified and unauthorized disclosure is a violation of national security laws. Worse in the case of Aragoncillo is that he stole the files from the vice president’s office in the White House and the discovery of his illegal acts led to the discovery that the United States is, in the words of House Minority Leader Francis Escudero, digging up dirt on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. While that certainly is true, the White House surely does not want its allies to know that it is snooping on them. Aragoncillo has pleaded guilty in a plea agreement to lessen his sentence. His contact, former Police Senior Superintended Michael Ray Aquino, is fighting the charges against him. Another associate of Lacson, Police Senior Superintendent Cesar Mancao, was arrested in Florida last month, but there are no reports yet about his link to Aragoncillo’s case. If the decision is left to Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, the government would squeeze this scandal to the last drop to put Lacson, the Estradas and former House speaker Arnulfo Fuentebella, also named as having received classified information from Aragoncillo but who has not broken his silence on this case. But what Philippine laws have been violated here? The reports from the United States say Aragoncillo passed classified information to Filipino politicians who are trying to “overthrow” Mrs. Arroyo. Do the Americans mean “overthrow” the way Filipino politicians understand “overthrow”? To be sure, the White House and the United States Congress are aware that the opposition is trying to remove Mrs. Arroyo from office and factions in the military are trying to overthrow her. To be sure, too, the White House is aware of Mrs. Arroyo’s dictatorial tactics in trying to save her presidency. As in the 1980s, the opposition politicians today are patriots who trying to topple what they see as an illegitimate ruler who, like Ferdinand Marcos toward the end of his rule, may be losing support in Washington. For Gonzales, however, that’s rebellion, the case that he believes the government can bring against Lacson, Fuentebella and the Estradas. He is also talking of extradition for the four, although none of them has been indicted in the United States. But on what will the government rest a charge of rebellion against the four, receiving digests of the news in the Philippine Daily Inquirer from Aragoncillo
 
            By Ricky S. Torre
 
3. You’re Not Free Yet
 
The Justice Department never had a case against Party-list Representatives Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza, Teodoro Casiño, Joel Virador and Rafael Mariano. They are accused of rebellion, but the Justice Department could not cite a specific act against any of the five that support the charges—only narrations of events that happened during the time of Ferdinand Marcos and allegations that the five are aiding communist rebels. The stupidity of it all is they are being linked even to the Plaza Miranda bombing in 1970, an event that happened when some of them are too young to be involved. Casiño, for example, was only 2 years old at the time. The Justice Department, however, insists that because rebellion is a continuing crime, the five are responsible for acts that have been committed against the government since the communist insurgency erupted in 1969. That thing about a continuing act may be legally correct, but, except for Ocampo, who was pardoned by President Corazon Aquino in 1986, which of the five has been committing rebellion since 1969? No wonder the court refused to accept the amended complaint to implead the five and former senator Gregorio Honasan with Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran, whose case, too, may now be junked. Beltran also received presidential pardon in 1986, and Congress repealed the subversion law during the term of President Fidel Ramos. The five lawmakers walked to freedom on Monday. The Justice Department, however, is not accepting defeat. In yet another impolitic remark, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales told the five to “go back to the mountains” because the government would not stop until it could imprison them. 
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
4.It’s Not Over Yet
 
Contrary to the Free Press’s view, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales says the Supreme Court’s striking down EO 464, the “calibrated preemptive respons” to street protests, and Proclamation No. 1017 weakens President Arroyo. The administration will appeal the rulings. Why should the rulings weaken Mrs. Arroyo? She never had the power to conceal executive wrongdoings from Congress, or the power to prevent street protests, or the power to intimidate and prosecute the political opposition. Her powers are clearly defined by the Constitution and the laws. Ah, but then, Gonzales says the ruling on 1017 deprives Mrs. Arroyo the power to take over private business. Why does she want that power?
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid
 
5. Don’t Be Too Sure
 
For the minority in the House of Representatives, the three adverse rulings by the Supreme Court against President Arroyo are proof that Mrs. Arroyo repeatedly violated the Constitution. Her actions are impeachable offenses, the minority says, so come July she can expect another impeachment fight and this time, minority lawmakers say, the impeachment bill will go to the Senate. Oh? The opposition should study the rulings carefully. Parts of the orders that have been stricken down are legal, and this is Malacañang’s defense against any charge of violation of the Constitution against Mrs. Arroyo. And even if the policies have been struck down in their entirety, the House minority still has a solid wall to bust before they can transmit the impeachment bill to the Senate: greed.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
Two editorials

Our issue for May 13, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
 
May 13, 2006 Issue
   
Main Features
 
1.Cover: For Better Lives
 
Workers marched in anger around the world on Monday, demanding better working conditions and higher wages to keep up with the rising cost of living that is threatening to rise even higher as world oil prices soar, pulled up by tensions over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In the Philippines, workers march across the country demanding not only for a P125 raise in the minimum wage, but also for the resignation of the leader they did not elect. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo barricades her palace with barbed wire and giant cargo containers and spends the weekend threatening to reimpose a martial-law-type proclamation should the Filipinos insist on removing her from office, and on Monday tries to court state workers with a promise of a pay raise next year but offers nothing to workers in the industries that will help them cope with increasing prices of basic goods. Instead she offers to cancel penalties and surcharges on social security loans that they have not yet repaid. She also offers tax exemptions to the lowest-paid workers, even though the pay of these workers is not enough to keep body and soul together even without income tax. She offers them scholarships and government health insurance, even though what they need is food on the table every day. Scholarship is not open to all children and government health insurance is good only for one year—if funded. Mrs. Arroyo’s offers are not bad, but having been born rich and privileged, she has not experienced hunger and homelessness. She appeals to workers to ask for a “reasonable” wage increase because employers cannot afford P125. But the P125 the workers are asking for is based on the prices of goods five years ago—before she came to make life harder for the Filipinos. What is reasonable given the threats of higher prices, rent, commuter fares, college tuition? Would pulling her out of office make things better for them?
 
By Guiller de Guzman, Nati Nuguid, Wendell Vigilia and Butch Serrano           
 
2. Stopping Gloria’s Train
 
Former president Corazon Aquino, the political opposition and the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference have launched a new movement to counter the Arroyo administration’s attempt to force a shift to parliamentary government. Civic and Catholic lay organizations will help the movement educate the people on the proposal to amend the Constitution and, it is hoped, make those whom the government has duped into signing up for the change take back their signatures. How signatures can be taken back is unclear, but as it may already be too late to take back the signatures the battleground will surely be the plebiscite that seems to be inevitably coming.The opposition has brought suit in local courts against the Commission on Elections to block the verification of signatures gathered by the government and some courts have ordered the Comelec to stop the validation. But can local courts restrain a constitutional body like the Comelec from doing what it believes is its job? Or is it only the Supreme Court that can stop the Comelec from verifying the signatures. Add all blahs.
 
          By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

3. Indestructible
 
Malacañang says all the opposition forces combined cannot bring down President Arroyo. Given the apathy that has pulled down the Filipino spirit, the Palace may be right. But Palace officials should not be too confident.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano
 
4. Makati, Let’s Go to the Movies
 
President Arroyo thinks so low of the people of Makati. The elites are only a fraction of the city’s population. The poor and poorly educated are still the more numerous and they can be won to the administration’s side by putting a movie actor in the city’s mayoralty—Lito Lapid, who has been sleeping in the Senate since his election to that chamber of Congress in 2004. Mayor Jejomar Binay is guffawing at Mrs. Arroyo’s strategy. Lapid has confirmed that Mrs. Arroyo is pushing him to challenge Binay in next year’s election and he is willing to take her up on this one. In fact, he says, he is buying a house in Makati to establish residence there in preparation for his run against Binay.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano
 
5. Hardly Justice
 
The Presidential Commission on Good Government talks about a settlement with the Marcoses as if a deal were unstoppable. It seems that the ill-gotten wealth watchdog has forgotten that the Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot make a deal with the Marcoses. A settlement will naturallty allow the Marcoses part of their loot and include the dropping of all charges against them. Return some, keep some, and you’re free to go. That’s hardly justice.
 
          By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid