Our issue for April 25, 2009

Philippines FREE PRESS

April 25, 2009 Issue

Main Features

Cover: Speaker Prospero Nograles and Kampi President Luis Villafuerte

1. The Enablers

Speaker Prospero Nograles resigns as president of Lakas-CMD and Rep. Luis Villafuerte steps down as president of Kampi to give way to the merger the two parties of President Arroyo. But the merger is an old story and the resignations of Nograles and Villafuerte are only intended to project concentration on next year’s general elections. The two parties will still force passage of a resolution for a constituent assembly that will revise the Constitution for a shift to parliamentary government, which will enable Mrs. Arroyo to run for a seat in parliament, there to be elected prime minister. Their intention is to get a ruling from the Supreme Court by June on whether the House of Representatives can revise the Constitution without the Senate, which refuses to take part in a constituent assembly. With three new justices on the court by June, the administration believes the decision will go its way. If that happens, forget the presidential election.

         By Guiller de Guzman

2. Moral Force

Chief Justice Reynato Puno leads a new movement for the moral transformation of the Philippines, largely aimed at shaming the Arroyos and their allies into leaving public life after next year’s general elections. Supported by the Catholic Church and other religious denominations in the Philippines, civic, legal, and activist groups, the movement will define the characteristics of good leaders and muster 10 million votes to ensure the election of such leaders next year. But will there be elections?

         By Guiller de Guzman

3. The Killers

Human Rights Watch blames the continuing vigilante-style killings in Davao City on President Arroyo. By supporting the city’s tough-guy mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, Mrs. Arroyo, the group says, in effect sanctions the killings. More than 800 people, mostly critics of Duterte, according to House Speaker Prospero Nograles, have been killed since 2001, about the same number of activists, trade unionists, human-rights workers and lawyers who have been killed in various parts of the country since Mrs. Arroyo came to power in that year. But don’t expect anything to come out of the Human Rights Commission’s investigation: the National Police, though ordered by Mrs. Arroyo to support the probe, is daring human rights advocates to prove that there are vigilante killings in Davao.

         By Guiller de Guzman

4. Give Earth a Chance

April—Earth Month—is cruel to the United States, which insists predictions of catastrophes caused by climate change are based only on computer models and cannot actually happen. The out-of-season storm system and wildfires that swept from Texas to Tennessee on April really happened, and they were exactly the kind of catastrophes that Europe and Asia, including the Philippines, are asking the United States to help avert by joining the global effort to slow down climate change.

         By J. de Jesus

5. Features

Our issue for April 18, 2009

Philippines FREE PRESS

April 18, 2009 Issue

Main Features

On the Cover: Cavite Gov. Eugenio Maliksi

         (with eight-page, full-color supplement)

         By Dann Fabros and Ricky S. Torre

1.Rattled

With their plan to sabotage next year’s general election by revising the Constitution just waiting to be pronounced dead, the allies of President Arroyo are turning to Plan B: find a strong presidential candidate. But there is no one in their ranks. So Lakas-CMD is trying to pressure unaffiliated Vice President Noli de Castro, who is leading in the all polls, into running for the administration. Kampi, Mrs. Arroyo’s original party, has no one, and it cannot dare to play clown and offer its president, Luis Villafuerte, as even half a candidate. The Nationalist People’s Coalition is in disarray, with Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who is said to be Mrs. Arroyo’s choice, vacationing from the party because the boss, Eduardo Cojuangco, prefers to hand the banner to Sen. Francis Escudero for the race. Cojuangco’s choice could send Sen. Loren Legarda, in the top four in most polls, shopping her presidential ambition around for a backer, weakening some more the administration’s chances of retaining power. The worst-case scenario is drawing from the opposition, and here the ruling coalition’s target is Sen. Manuel Villar. But Villar does not need to cross over to the administration to run for Malacañang. If financing for the campaign is the problem, that is for other candidates to worry about, not his. A candidate must be found before November, the advanced deadline for candidates’ registration.

By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

2. Failed Again

If the House of Representatives fails to swing the revision of the Constitution before the end of the first regular session in June, that’s it for the ruling coalition. Speaker Prospero Nograles is giving the effort only up to the first week of June. After that, the coalition must seriously turn to finding a presidential candidate or Malacañang will go to the opposition, and everybody knows what that means—big trouble, especially for the crooks. But Luis Villafuerte, the Kampi president who reads only the letter of the Constitution and ignores its spirit, insists the revision is still possible if the House can force a confrontation with the Senate in the Supreme Court for a ruling on how a constituent assembly votes. He thinks the new justices on the Supreme Court will vote for the administration in gratitude to President Arroyo. Chances are they won’t, so the better minds in the ruling coalition prefer to allow next year’s general election to go through. After all, there is still Plan C: buy hackers to monkey with the Comelec’s computers if the House fails to pass Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia’s proposal for a hand count of the vote.

By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

3. Blacklisted

Good news: The IMF will provide $1.1 trillion to help struggling economies combat the global recession. Bad news: the Philippines will get very little, if not exactly nothing, of it. The Group of 20 major economies has blacklisted the country, along with Costa Rica, Malaysia and Uruguay, for its uncooperativeness in the international effort at transparency in tax information. This is going to hurt the Philippines, which is offering all sorts of incentives to foreign investors to come here and help the government deal with the worsening unemployment. Malacañang says the government is committed to comply with the international standards in tax information, and it is now calling on Congress to review the tax laws to speed up the country’s exit from the blacklist. Only the tax laws? How about the banking laws? The secretiveness of Philippine banking has always been an encouragement for offshore tax fraud and even local official corruption. This is not going to be easy. Never mind the foreign cheats. There’s nothing they can do to stop the revision. It’s the local crooks who will surely lobby Congress to go easy on this one—secretly, of course.

By Guiller de Guzman

4. Meaningful Darkness

The Philippines saved 611 megawatts of electricity by turning off the lights for Earth Hour on March 28. That will not dent the impact of global warming on the Philippine environment, but taken together with the energy savings of the rest of the world that switched off the lights for Earth Hour, the savings will add up to one big message for world officials going to the climate-change conference in Copenhagen in December: Act now and save Planet Earth.

By J. de Jesus

5. Features

Our issue for April 11, 2009

Philippines FREE PRESS

April 11, 2009 Issue

Main Features

On the Cover: Pampanga Gov. Eduardo Panlilio

1. Fr. Eduardo Panlilio, President of the Philippines

Filipinos fed up with politicians and hungry for good government are encouraging Pampanga’s priestly governor, Eduardo Panlilio, to run for Malacañang in next year’s general election. They suggest that he pick Isabela’s reformist governor, Grace Padaca, as his vice-presidential running mate. Panlilio, who has only one supporter on Pampanga’s 15-member provincial board, says he is open to a presidential run, but needs to go through a “period of discernment,” meaning he will study the matter. Meanwhile, he is campaigning for support among civil-society groups and nongovernmental organizations for a reform candidate—who can very well be him, as there is nobody around who can be seen as a real reformist, unless Pope Benedict XIV discovers that he is a Filipino and migrates to the Philippines tomorrow to meet the one-year residency requirement. Not all Catholic clerics are glad about Panlilio’s setting an eye on Malacañang. There are those who like the idea of a priestly president, like Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, who says canon law does not really prohibit priests from going into politics, and those who believe Panlilio must first leave the priesthood before running for the presidency, like Dagupan-Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz, for whom service to God is the sole vocation of a priest. But that is not really a problem, because if Panlilio really wants to serve as president, then he can leave the priesthood. The real question is his readiness to run the Philippines. As Sen. Manuel Villar, a declared presidential candidate, says, the presidency is not for OJTs.

     By Ricky S. Torre

2. Let the Debate Begin

The Commission on Elections can go ahead and automate next year’s general election—it will need the computers anyway. But the votes to be counted will not be for the usual local and national offices. They will be for local offices and members of parliament. As we have been saying in past issues, the allies of President Arroyo in the House of Representatives will force the revision of the Constitution before June, and sure enough Speaker Prospero Nograles has given approval for the start of the debate when Congress returns on April 13. Mrs. Arroyo says she wants the election to go through, but is doing nothing to stop her allies. Would she say no if this emergency project hurdles the Supreme Court?

         By Guiller de Guzman

3. See, She Is No Coddler

Facing impeachment charges in the House of Representatives, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez has brought corruption charges against 17 former officials of the Public Works Department for the rigging of bids for road contracts in projects financed by the World Bank. The impeachment complaint against Gutierrez has stemmed from her sitting on the investigation of this scandal for one year and the likely reason is the involvement of her friend, Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of President Arroyo. Now the complainants can withdraw the charges. She has brought charges against the corrupt officials. The contractors involved will be investigated separately, but, rest assured, charges will be brought against them, too. How about Mr. Arroyo? Well, Mr. Arroyo is a private citizen, right? Is there a complainant?

         By Guiller de Guzman

4. Leave No Trace

After the European Union raised a collective howl against the continuing political killings in the Philippines, President Arroyo ordered her security forces to stop unauthorized hits. More than 800 activists, trade unionists and human-rights workers and nearly the same number of journalists have been killed or kidnapped by the military or the police since Mrs. Arroyo came to power in 2001. In addition, more than 800 criminals have been killed in Davao City by groups believed to be vigilantes, although that city’s mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, and his hit men could behind the extrajudicial killings. Mrs. Arroyo’s order for a stop is more likely for the newspapers only. Her national security adviser, Norberto Gonzales, wants to know what killings the European Union is talking about. So don’t expect the abduction, rape and murder of an NPA commander’s daughter to be the last.

         By Guiller de Guzman

5. Holy Week Feature: Apostle to the Apostles

Chapter 20 of John’s Gospel has a literary anomaly. The race between Simon Peter and an unnamed disciple to the tomb of Jesus interrupts the narration of Mary Magdalene’s seeing the risen Lord. Scholars have been quick to notice the irregular position of the race to the tomb between Mary Magdalene’s going there and her seeing the risen Jesus and concluded that the present shape of chapter 20 is not its original form. The final redactor of John’s Gospel interpolated chapter 20 after the death of the evangelist (and also added chapter 21) for a particular reason, which had nothing to do with the Resurrection.

         By Guiller de Guzman

6. Features

Our issue for April 4, 2009

Philippines FREE PRESS

April 4, 2009 Issue

Main Features

On the Cover: Fighting Contraband (PASG chief Antonio Villar Jr.)

         With eight-page, full-color supplement

         By Pat Ruaya and Ricky S. Torre

1. Operation: Get Lacson

So, the administration has gotten to Cesar Mancao. Sen Panfilo Lacson has no doubt about that, and no matter what Palace officials say, Lacson sees Malacañang’s hand here. Mancao is pointing to Joseph Estrada as the mastermind and Lacson as responsible under the chain of command for the November 2000 murders of public relations agent Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito. It’s been eight years, not really very long, but Mancao, at least as suggested by his statement now in the possession of the Justice Department, appears to have forgotten protocol. He could not have ridden in the same car with the chief of police, so that the conversation about a hit on Dacer that he claims he overheard aboard Lacson’s car could not have happened. Also, nobody in the Presidential Antiorganized Crime Task Force referred to Estrada by his mustache. From Lacson to the lowest-ranking agent, Estrada was simply “Erap.” At any rate, Lacson and Estrada are definitely in trouble—Lacson for keeping on trying to nail the Arroyos for corruption, and Estrada for trying to unite the opposition for next year’s presidential election.

         By Guiller de Guzman

2. Their Hands Are Dirty

The independent group of investigators headed by former Supreme Court justice Carolina Griño-Aquino has reinstated the charges against three wealthy drug dealers that the Justice Department dismissed in December. It seems that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency has been right: Justice Department officials and prosecutors have been bribed to dismiss the charges. President Arroyo has ordered the Justice Department to bring charges against the three suspects and the Presidential Antigraft Commission to go after the Justice officials involved—Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor, Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño and Prosecutors Philip Kimpo and John Resado. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has already approved the prosecutors’ recommendation to dismiss the charges, but the Lady Boss, whose ratings are scraping the bottom, has hissed an order. Now he must reverse himself—or he might be suspected of being in on the corruption, too.

         By Guiller de Guzman

3. Still Lacking Power

Congress has approved amendments to the charter of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp., among which would raise the insurance on bank deposits from P250,000 to P500,000. The new charter, however, still does not allow the PDIC to determine which deposits are legitimate and may be insured and which are illegitimate and therefore may not be insured. And the PDIC is still not allowed to function as a “bridge bank,” that is, an entity that can run closed banks until they are rehabilitated.

         By Dean de la Paz

4. Features

Our issue for March 28, 2009

Philippines FREE PRESS

March 28, 2009

Main Features

On the Cover: Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim

         Cover story c/o Dann Fabros and Ricky S. Torre

         Manila City Supplement, six pages, full color

         C/o Dann Fabros

1.The Ghosts of Murders Past

The Justice Department has reopened the Dacer murders case with the expected return from the United States of one of the suspects, former senior superintendent Cesar Mancao later this month. Mancao, who has decided not to contest his extradition to the Philippines, claims to have witnessed the planning of the murder of public relations agent Salvador Dacer and is believed to know who ordered the hit, which also cost the life of Dacer’s driver, Emmanuel Corbito, in 2000. Expected to get in a grand tussle with the Arroyo administration when Mancao comes home is Sen. Panfilo Lacson, commander of the National Police and head of the police organized crime task force at the time. Lacson has been trying to remove President Arroyo from power and jail her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, for corruption since his election to the Senate in 2001. He says he has nothing to do with the murders and he believes Mancao has not implicated him. But the administration can do anything and make things happen, including the rehabilitation of Mancao, who has already asked to be made a state witness. Lacson is definitely in trouble here.

    By Guiller de Guzman

2. Ill Winds from the Sea

Calls from 20 of the senators for a review of the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the United States come at a time when China is flexing its muscles in the South China Sea. Angered by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s signing a law that defines the Philippines’s base lines as embracing the Freedom Group of islands in the contested Spratly archipelago and the disputed Scarborough Shoal, China has sent patrols to show who is the mightier one in the seas off the Philippines. New US President Barack Obama has finally called Mrs. Arroyo after dodging her for weeks and only because of the increasing clamor for a review of the VFA, an additional agreement to the Mutual Defense Treaty between the two countries. Obama sees the VFA as vital to the US war against terrorism in Southeast Asia, but most members of the Philippine Senate want the agreement renegotiated because of its unfairness to the Philippines. The United States is unlikely to agree to revising the agreement to give equal protection to Philippine troops and can very well cut military aid to the Philippines and leave this country to be bullied by China if Manila abrogates the VFA.

         By Guiller de Guzman

3. The More, the Merrier?

A year before the Filipinos return to the polls, the House of Representatives is considering expanding its membership from 250 to 300. But it seems that 50 more seats seem to be too few considering that the country’s population is now 90 million because Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has introduced legislation that would add 100 more seats to the House. The reelectionists in the House are jumping for joy. The creation of new voting districts will eliminate strong rivals, as the division will make both defender and challenger win without cheating or shooting each other.

         By Guiller de Guzman

4. Shedding Their Jewels

Saddled with billions of pesos in refunds to overcharged customers, the Lopezes sell 20 percent of their holdings in Manila Electric Co. to Pilipino Telephone Corp., the second wireless phone unit of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. The sale relieves the Lopezes of the pressure of having to fend off alone an expected hostile takeover bid by San Miguel Corp., which is aiming for Meralco’s power lines to diversify into broadband Internet. They plan to team up with PLDT chief Manuel Pangilinan to fight off a raid by San Miguel boss Eduardo Cojuangco. Cojuangco, however, appears to have been reviewing his options, as fighting for control of Meralco could prove quite costly and might affect San Miguel’s venturing into other fields, such as energy. An indication that Cojuangco is waiting for better times is a statement issued during the weekend by San Miguel president Ramon Ang saying that San Miguel is willing to let Pangilinan run Meralco. For now, that is.

         By Guiller de Guzman

5. Features

6. Che and Milk, film reviews

         By Makati Rep. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr.

Our issue for July 15, 2006

FREE PRESS
 
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
 

Our issue for May 6, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
 
May 6, 2006 Issue
 
Main Features
 
1.Cover:Lakas–CMD Rep. Faysah Dumarpa of Lanao del Sur
 
Rep. Faysah Dumarpa is a Muslim and she should be opposed to the broad coverage of the proposed terrorism bill because, among other possible applications, her people are vulnerable to the stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists. But she supports the bill. “Terrorism is the scourge of the 21st century,” she says. The Philippines needs a law that would make the country extremely effective in fighting this new enemy.
 
By Diony Tubianosa
 
2. Bitter Defeat
 
Malacañang is forcing a positive spin to its loss in the Supreme Court. Administration officials says the opposition won but the government also won. But how can the administration have won when it is the very reason for Executive Order 464 that the Supreme Court has struck down—the protection of government secrets by preventing government, military and police officials from appearing before congressional investigations without President Arroyo’s permission? Rarely are government officials called to the Question Hour in the House or the Senate and this has to do mostly with matters that involve congressional oversight. No fireworks there. The fireworks are in the investigations into alleged irregularities in the government that the House and the Senate hold for the maintenance of the checks and balances principle without which the administration can just do what it pleases as if it’s unaccountable to the people. Accountability is what the Senate is forcing on the Arroyo administration, but administration officials think the courts are in the government’s pocket so that they push their luck too far. Now listen to the words they say about the Senate investigations into the Northrail contract, the Venable contract, the P728 million fertilizer scam and the Arroyo tapes. Their bitterness show they are hurting and their promise of continuing to fight the investigations only say they really have something to hide. They lost the fight, that’s clear. With Executive Order 464 out of the way, those investigations will continue and all the officials concerned had better come forward with the truth.
 
            By Ricky S. Torre, Butch Serrano and Wendell Vigilia
 
3. Death to Death Penalty
 
Expanding her attempt at mollifying the Catholic Church, President Arroyo is certifying legislation that would abolish the death penalty. She won’t meet even a bit of resistance in Congress: the opposition in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate support the abolition of capital punishment. The division is in the public. The families of heinous crime victims and the Chinese community oppose the proposed repeal of the death penalty law. The Chinese fear that with the death penalty gone, the police will step up attacks on the children of wealthy businessmen or the businessmen themselves. With their income from illegal gambling seriously threatened, the police may indeed resume kidnapping wealthy people.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

4. Rebels
 
The Justice Department brings rebellion charges against former senator Gregorio Honasan and party-list Representatives Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño Rafael Mariano, Liza Maza and Joel Virador for attempting to overthrow the government of President Arroyo. Still developing. 
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia
 
5. How About a New Election?
 
With Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo controlling Congress and the people angry but not moving, the opposition is talking about forcing an early presidential election. But how do they go about it? There is no law that would allow unscheduled elections, although the Commission on Elections says it could be done through an amendment to the Constitution through people’s initiative. To be sure, the opposition can gather more than enough signatures for a people’s initiative and the exercise would be legal. With 12 percent of all voters asking for it, the Comelec could call a plebiscite for the approval of the amendment. But where would the money come from to finance a plebiscite? Even if the opposition can produce the money, how would they stop the fraud machine called Lakas-CMD from sabotaging the plebiscite? Joseph Estrada will surely run in an early election and the polls say he will soundly defeat Mrs. Arroyo. Malacañang, however, will never risk it. The remnants of the Marcos rule in the administration still remember the “snap” election that Ferdinand Marcos called as a fatal error. Mrs. Arroyo, Palace officials says, has snap election option. But maybe pressure is building from outside, as it did during Marcos’s time. After the New York Times’s pointing out what a danger to democracy Mrs. Arroyo is, here comes the Heritage Foundation attacking Mrs. Arroyo for her dictatorial strategies.
 
            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid
 
Two editorials
 

Our issue for April 29, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

April 29, 2006

Main Features

1.Cover: Constitutional Amendment (brought to you by Pag-IBIG Fund)

2. Politicizing the Death Penalty

In a clear attempt to appease the Catholic bishops, who have expressed alarm over her administration’s haste to amend the Constitution, President Arroyo announces that she is commuting all death sentences to life imprisonment. She times the announcement with Easter to conceal the political intention of her decision under a shroud of spiritual pretense. The bishops are glad, of course, but they are by no means fooled into dropping their uneasiness about what the administration is doing in the villages. Lipa-Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz says in a television interview that the purpose of Mrs. Arroyo’s announcement is clearly intended to mollify the church, but the church is not changing its stand that the nation should continue the search for the truth about the 2004 presidential election. In their Easter message, the only one besides the Pope’s that counts—politicians have no business issuing messages on religious occasions—the bishops carefully choose their words to send a real message to the nation and to Mrs. Arroyo: Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the bishops conference, says “forgiveness,” an “Easter fruit of the tree of the cross” will lead to “a birth of a new family in the risen Christ.” Filipinos, he says, “will taste the happiness of God, when we understand the meaning of Jesus eating and drinking with tax collectors and prostitutes.” He adds, “The fruit of repentance is peace and happiness with God.” Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, archbishop of Manila, calls on Filipinos to imitate Christ, saying, “His pursuit of good for humans was unchanging, because he was bonded with what was true, what was good, and what was honest.” Ouch. Do you think the Palace gets the message? The hides in this administration are too thick to even be affected. Mrs. Arroyo expects no political gains from her decision, Palace officials say. Respect the voice of the people, they say, as if the people were truly the ones behind the signature campaign for the amendment of the Constitution. Mrs. Arroyo’s decision to use the death penalty for political ends has led to the revival of the debate on the maximum punishment. Round up.

            By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

3. Brawl in the Courts

The government-sponsored group gathering signatures to force the amendment of the Constitution is taking the campaign to the Comelec on April 30, following an administration-set timetable. Under this timetable, the Comelec should be done with the verification of the signatures in May, call a plebiscite in June where the proposal to change the presidential system to parliamentary system would be approved—the administration would see to that—and an “interim parliament” would sit by July to work out the rest of the amendments to the Constitution. The Comelec has already said that it will verify the signatures, never mind the 1997 Supreme Court ruling that says the election agency is “permanently enjoined” from entertaining any petition for a people’s initiative the Constitution. That ruling distinguishes between “amendment” and “revision” of the Constitution, but the Comelec seems to be damned sure it can survive a challenge. The minority in the House of Representatives is ready for a brawl in the courts all over the country. When Sigaw ng Bayan goes to the Comelec, the minority, with the help of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, will file for restraining orders in the local courts, a fight expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

4. Untrustworthy Dog

Even President Arroyo’s allies in Congress support former chief justice Hilario Davide Jr.’s recommendation to overhaul the Commission on Elections. But would Mrs. Arroyo allow more than just “structural reforms” in the Comelec now that she enjoys the election watchdog’s full loyalty? Davide’s recommendations include changes in the commission, which has two vacant seats. If the nominees to those vacancies are coming from Davide, however, Mrs. Arroyo may not be willing to use her persuasive power to convince two from the current members to give way. Besides the sitting commissioners, especially the chairman, Benjamin Abalos, are resisting replacement, pointing out that they cannot be forced to leave office because their terms are set by the Constitution. But even a constitutional body that has lost the people’s trust needs to be reformed if it must regain that trust. The five committees of the House of Representatives that investigated the Arroyo tapes have recommended automation in the Comelec, and there is a bill in the Senate, introduced by Sen. Richard Gordon, that would modernize the commission. Gordon wants the Comelec to automate first before the government goes full blast into amending the Constitution. But automation is only a partial solution to the problem with the Comelec: the best computers may assure clean balloting, but not the vote count, which is presided over by election officials of questionable integrity. What are Davide’s other recommendations? The Palace is not saying.

            By Guiller de Guzman, Butch Serrano and Wendell Vigilia

5. Sanitized Report

Nobody was surprised when the military announced the results of its investigation into the alleged rigging of the 2004 presidential election because everybody expected the generals involved to be cleared. Even Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani, the only military official who appeared at the Senate investigation into the Arroyo tapes and admitted that President Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, went to Mindanao during the election and gave away millions of pesos for an illegal operation that would give the election to Mrs. Arroyo, was cleared. None of the generals allegedly involved was interviewed during the investigation. But 70 people gave testimony, and the military found nothing against the generals. Who were those 70 people? The political opposition is daring the military to release the full report, but the military’s answer is predictable: no clearance from Mrs. Arroyo, no report.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano

6. These Are Bad Times to Be Children

At least in the Philippines, where seemingly insoluble poverty forces parents to allow kids to work, often as beggars in the streets, or just neglect them, making them wander around the city in search of food. They are rounded up by police and taken to government-run shelters. If their parents cannot be found, they grow up in the shelters as government wards. Those lucky enough to be born to parents who can send them to public schools are still neglected, not by their parents or by their teachers but by the government, which spends more to pay its foreign debts than for education. Because the government spends too little for education, teachers are poorly paid. Teachers spend more time trying to earn extra on the side, neglecting their students, who, in turn, leave elementary school unprepared for high school. Gone are the times when the Philippine government really cared for children and their education. Children, we often say, are the hope of the Fatherland. Alas, that’s just a saying now.

            By Ramiro C. Alvarez

Two editorials

Our issue for April 22, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

April 22, 2006 Issue
 
Main Features

1.Cover: NPC Rep. Generoso DC Tulagan of Pangasinan

2. The Senators’ Initiative

Senate President Franklin Drilon, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., and Senators Panfilo Lacson, Jinggoy Estrada and Jamby Madrigal have launched a national movement to force President Arroyo to step down. They are going around the country rallying people to support the opposition in Manila with movements of their own. Their intention is to show the world the national outrage that the Palace claims does not exist, unlike the massive opposition to the rule of Thaksin Shinawatra that forced the Thai premier to step down last week.The United Opposition, led by Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, is adding to the pressure on Mrs. Arroyo by daring her to call a snap election, but the thick faces in the Palace say the answer to the country’s problems is not new elections but revising the Constitution. Only direct people’s action can break down this thick-hide resistance, but how? Mrs. Arroyo has the military, the police, and maybe the courts on her side and not even criticism in the international press can shame her. Her government is protesting The New York Times editorial about her heavy-handed tactics in dealing with opposition to her rule, even inviting the Times editors to come to Manila to see for themselves that the Philippines is a democratic country. Don’t Palace officials know that the New York Times has reporters and correspondents going in and out of the Philippines and seeing how riot police beat protesters out of the streets? It is possible that those journalists have already observed how the Arroyo administration is manufacturing a people’s initiative to force a revision of the Constitution, but we bet you the Palace will blame the unfavorable reports on the opposition. The Catholic Church has already noticed how the government is carrying out the signature campaign, expressing alarm over the haste with which the government is trying to amend the Constitution. But can the latest statement from the Catholic bishops galvanize the people to unite, as the Thais did, and join the senators’ initiative? It is a shame that the Filipinos, who invented people power, are not moving to use that power on an increasingly despotic ruler while the Thais have succeeded in forcing out of office a leader who is only accused of corruption.

            By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

3. What Are They Counting On?

The Arroyo administration is treading on a very thin line by launching a bogus people’s initiative to force the amendment of the Constitution for an immediate shift to the parliamentary system. Administration officials are aware of the 1997 Supreme Court ruling that there is no law that allows the people to initiate a revision of the Constitution but they are pushing critics of the government signature campaign to challenge the government in the High Tribunal. What are they counting on? PresidentArroyo’s latest appointee to the Supreme Court, Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., answered that question on Friday. The Court, he said, can reverse its 1997 ruling depending on the “wisdom of the times.” The opposition is right in deciding not to go the Supreme Court, but they will bring charges against any official or group that touches the signatures gathered from the campaign.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

4. Terrifying Bill

Would the Senate pass the terror bill? Written in atrocious English, the bill, as passed by the House of Representatives last Tuesday, is really designed for fighting terrorism, but it has provisions that the government can use to put down opposition to the rule of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The approved bill would penalize anybody, or any group of people, for inciting others to commit acts of terrorism through “speeches, proclamations, and writings.” Given the Arroyo administration’s twisted view of criticism, the opposition has reason to fear the use of the fight against terrorism on them.

          By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

5. Thievery Confirmed

The Commission on Audit has submitted its final report on the campaign finance scandal called “fertilizer scam.” The final audit report shows why farmers received no fertilizer when the Agriculture Department spent P728 million for fertilizer in 2004: the money went to people who were either dead or not farmers and to nonexisting organizations. It took a nationwide audit to determine what happened to the fertilizer fund, earmarked for a hybrid rice program named after President Arroyo, and the findings are as damning as the complaining farmers and the Senate investigators have expected. The operators who ran the scam using the rice program for cover overpriced supposed fertilizer purchases by as much as 682 percent, or by P128 million, not to line their pockets, as corrupt officials usually do, but to create a special fund to finance Mrs. Arroyo’s presidential campaign.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano

6. Easy Way Out

It has been 20 years since the government launched an effort to recover the ill-gotten wealth of  Ferdinand Marcos, but all that the government has gotten back is the equivalent of P35 billion from the late dictator’s Swiss bank accounts. Where’s the rest and how exactly how much is that? There is no way of telling. The ill-gotten wealth watchdog Presidential Commission on Good Government has filed 578 cases against Marcos’s widow, Imelda, involving P220 billion in stolen wealth. Those cases have been gathering dust in Sandiganbayan, the antigraft, for a good part of the past two decades, and the government is nowhere near winning any of them. It may be true that there is at least that much more to recover from the Marcoses, but the government is having difficulty proving it. It is clear from the start that the recovery effort is going to be a war of attrition between the government and the Marcoses, and, after two decades, it looks like it’s the government that’s losing the war. To save face, however, the PCGG says it is willing to initiate compromise talks with Imelda Marcos, who is only too willing to sit down with the government to put an end to all her troubles. The PCGG wants full disclosure, that is, Mrs. Marcos should disclose all other assets that the government has not identified. Does the PCGG really believe Mrs. Marcos and her children will do that?

            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid

7. Irrational

Impractical and economically disruptive, President Arroyo’s plan to move major departments of the government to the Visayas and Mindanao is probably dead. No department has moved and none is bold enough to take the lead. Mrs. Arroyo has probably realized the difficulties involved, but she still wants changes in the departments to improve public service. She has issued an order for the departments to “rationalize” their operations. “Rationalize” simply means “reorganize,” that is, shut down unnecessary operations and move staff around. It has been two years since the order to reorganize came down but only the Agrarian Reform Department has submitted a reorganization plan to the Budget Department. The employees of the other departments are resisting reorganization because the plan will surely lead to layoffs and demotions.

            By Ramiro C. Alvarez

Two editorials

Our issue for April 15, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

April 15, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Kampi Rep. Amelia Villarosa

2. Charter Express

In the 1997 case Santiago v. Commission on Elections, the Supreme Court granted the petition of Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, stopping the Comelec from verifying the signatures gathered by the supposedly private initiative Pirma, and ruling that “the Comelec should be permanently enjoined from entertaining or taking cognizance of any petition for initiative on amendments to the Constitution until a sufficient law shall have been validly enacted to provide for the implementation of the system.” That is very clear even to students of law. But the Arroyo administration doesn’t care what the Supreme Court ruling says. Confirming suspicions that her government is behind the signature campaign to force the amendment of the Constitution by people’s initiative, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo endorses the signature campaign as an expression of the “true power of the people,” but without admitting that her government is financing the bogus people’s initiative. “The old-time politicians of the status quo better stand back because this train has left the station,” she says. “It is time for politicians to stand back or get run over.” Her use of the train analogy is apt: her government is railroading the amendment of the Constitution to beat a July deadline for an “interim parliament” (see No. 3) where no complaint for Mrs. Arroyo’s impeachment can be filed because there is no impeachment in a parliamentary government. What the administration is doing is running over the rule of law; anybody who gets hurt can just go the Supreme Court to challenge the administration’s action. And that is exactly what the Comelec is doing, verifying the signatures despite the clear words of the 1997 Supreme Court ruling and daring the political opposition to question the verification in the high tribunal. The Senate is considering doing just that, but the minority in the House of Representatives is not stepping into the administration trap. Challenging the administration’s actions in the Supreme Court could result in a reversal of the 1997 ruling, and the administration is relying on support from the majority on the Court to reverse that ruling. Mrs. Arroyo has appointed former Court of Appeals justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr. to fill the 15th and last vacant seat on the Supreme Court. She now has 11 appointees on the Court, including Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban who, although appointed to the Court by President Fidel Ramos was appointed chief justice by Mrs. Arroyo. But the House minority’s fear is based on uncertainty about the judicial independence of the majority on the Supreme Court. What if the magistrates are determined to uphold the rule of law? Didn’t President Corazon Aquino and President Fidel Ramos appoint justices to the Supreme Court who ruled against them later? The House minority’s plan is to sue government officials who would violate the Supreme Court ruling.

            By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

3. ‘Interim Parliament’

The people’s initiative applies only to specific amendments to the Constitution? Okay. Since that’s what the Constitution says, then let’s turn to Plan B. According to a plan by Speaker Jose de Venecia, the Comelec can finish the verification of the signature’s gathered by the Interior Department by May. After that, the proposal to change the presidential system of government to the parliamentary system can be submitted to the people for approval in a referendum. By July there will be no more Congress. There will be an “interim parliament” composed of the present members of the House of Representatives and the Senate that will work out the rest of the proposed amendments to the Constitution. It can be done. It will be done, period. Those who don’t agree, just shoot yourselves.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

4. Yes, They Cheated

It has always been known that fraud marred the 2004 elections, but it is only on Monday that an official of the Commission on Elections admitted it. Answering questions during the continuation of the Senate Committee on National Defense’s investigation into the Arroyo tapes, Election Commissioner Ressurreccion Borra says there indeed was cheating in the elections two years ago, but not only one side did it. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that even a senior election official has confirmed before an investigative body that there was cheating during the elections. Malacañang may consider Borra’s testimony irrelevant, but the cheating in at least six regions of the country that Borra has confirmed makes the charge of electoral fraud against President Arroyo even more credible. To what will this disclosure lead?

            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano

5. Let’s Play Jue . .

The small-town lottery is a good idea to eradicate the illegal jueteng. It’s legal, it will be used for charity, and it will benefit local governments and even the police. But how sure is the government that it can successfully replace jueteng, that is, jueteng will be no more. Right now, the jueteng lords are lining up for permits, to be sure to use the lottery as cover for their jueteng operations. The police are unhappy, because their take will be limited. The local politicians, too.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid

Two editorials

Our issue for April 8, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

April 8, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Philippine Veterans Bank

2. Government’s Initiative

In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had failed to pass a law that would allow the application of the people’s initiative provision of the Constitution to changing the Constitution. The people’s initiative provision applies only to specific amendments to the Constitution and to local legislation, not to a total revision of the Constitution. The ruling frustrated President Fidel Ramos’s and Jose de Venecia’s attempts to force the amendment of the Constitution to extend their terms of office and those of all elective officials. That’s not too long ago, but the Arroyo administration seems to have already forgotten it, or perhaps is ignoring it, confident that it can win a challenge because 12 of the 14 magistrates on the Supreme Court are appointees of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Perhaps accepting that it cannot force the amendment of the Constitution without the Senate’s approval, the administration has turned to people’s initiative, with the Department of the Interior and Local Government issuing an order on March 10 directing local governments to call the villages to assemblies on March 25 and October 21 to gather voter signatures for a petition to amend the Constitution. No information campaign preceded the March 25 assemblies, so that people across the country went to the assemblies without knowing what it was they were signing. But perhaps it didn’t matter. Cash, rice, and groceries were given away in exchange for signatures, an exercise that Malacañang calls “democracy in action.” Private legal groups are expected to challenge the legality of the signature campaign in the Supreme Court. The minority in the House, which has already gathered more than enough signatures to block the majority plan to force a constituent assembly, has promised to question the campaign’s legality in the Supreme Court if the administration insists on using it to amend the Constitution. But the shameless allies of Mrs. Arroyo in the House are even challenging the Senate to a fight to the last man. The Constitution will be amended, whether the Philippines likes it or not.

            By Ricky S. Torre, Butch Serrano, and Wendell Vigilia

3. Connecting the Dots

A fake passport is no proof of electoral fraud, says Virgilio Garcillano. Well, not the passport itself, but its use to mislead investigators shows that indeed Garcillano had something to hide and he hid it by lying to House investigators. Only the most stupid sleuth will fail to connect the dots. Sen. Panfilo Lacson and three members of the House have already filed perjury charges against Garcillano, and other members of the House minority are filing more charges against him: 20 counts of perjury, based on the number of times he told the House that he never left the country at the height of the Arroyo tapes scandal last year.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia

4. Confirmed

The Commission on Audit has confirmed that P100 million in recovered Marcos ill-gotten wealth was used in Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s 2004 presidential campaign. The money was used in buying fertilizer at excessive overpricing that ran into the millions of pesos so that cash could be raised to push Mrs. Arroyo’s campaign in the countryside.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Butch Serrano

5. Continuation of Joseph Estrada’s testimony at Sandiganbayan

            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid

6. Intolerable Cruelty

On March 8, Maria Delmar Redota, 9, a second-grader at Silangan Elementary School in Upper Bicutan village, Taguig, came home obviously unwell. At first, she refused to talk or eat. Then she became feverish and all the more refused to eat. Her parents took her to a hospital and she was found to be suffering from tonsillitis. A week later, she was dead. It could not be tonsillitis that killed the girl. A classmate of Delmar told her parents that a substitute teacher, a Mrs. Brenda Elbambuena, punished Delmar and another girl for sharpening their pencils in the classroom and scattering shavings on the floor. The teacher, the parents had found out, stuffed the pencil shavings in the mouths of the girls and forced them to swallow them. The other girl, Justine Caraga, also 9 years old, pretended to swallow the shavings, then spat them out the moment Elbambuena turned her back. Delmar did not know what to do and swallowed the shavings. The shavings could have hurt her throat and the lead could have poisoned her, and that could have killed her on March 15. Elbambuena has been suspended and the Education Department will open an investigation into her intolerable cruelty. Also under investigation is Susana Quiambao, who forced quiz flunkers in her Grade 6 class in General Santos City to undress and swallow chili. The Education Department’s Order No. 92, issued in 1992, forbids teachers to use corporal punishment on students. The Revised Penal Code and the Child Abuse Law are also clear about physical injuries to minors. Not to some teachers it seems.

            By Guiller de Guzman and Nati Nuguid

Two editorials

Our issue for April 1, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

April 1, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, Day of Reckoning

The dismissal of the impeachment complaints, the mailed-fist policy against protest rallies, the obstruction of the Arroyo tapes investigation in the House, Executive Order 464, Proclamation No. 1017, the continuing harassment of opposition leaders, the intimidation of the press—all these will come to a confluence and, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon says, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will her “day of reckoning.�? The military is a veritable tinder box and despite Gen. Generoso Senga’s five-point “guidance�? Biazon, a former Marine commander and chief of the military who still has connections in the armed forces, knows the ranks are seething with anger. The administration had better be careful with handling the “case�? of former senator Gregorio Honasan who, according to Biazon, has a following in the military and in the civilian populace who may react if the government insists on putting Honasan away. Honasan has denied involvement in the July 27, 2003 junior officers’ mutiny, but he is a veteran of the coup attempts against the government of President Corazon Aquino and he has gone into hiding since the government brought coup d’ état charges against him in February. The military is bringing charges against Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim before a court-martial for planning to lead the Scout Rangers in a march with the people on February 24, an action construed by the military and the administration as a coup. Under investigation and possibly facing charges is Col. Ariel Querubin for leading the Marines in protesting the relief of their commander, Brig. Gen. Renato Miranda, on February 26. The military is investigating the extent of the action that had been planned against Mrs. Arroyo. Senga, who reportedly refused to join the march, says in his “guidance�? that the military should be apolitical and the troops must defend the Constitution. Biazon says Mrs. Arroyo, by proclaiming a state of national emergency and even after lifting it continues to intimidate the opposition and the press, has violated the Constitution. He says it is time to remind the soldiers that “anyone who violates the Constitution is your enemy.�?

By Ricky S. Torre

Our issue for March 25, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

March 25, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: The Constitutional Commission (with 10-page supplement, Office of the

President)

2. Abuse of Power

The Senate has opened an investigation into the acts of the government following President Arroyo’s declaration of national emergency. What has emerged from the investigation so far is that the government carried out the proclamation as if Mrs. Arroyo had declared martial law. Since the country was not under martial law and since the Bill of Rights had not been suspended, police should not have broken up protest rallies, arrested people without warrants, and intimidated the press. Former Supreme Court justice Vicente Mendoza, testifying at the hearing on Monday, said Mrs. Arroyo would be liable if it could be proved that she authorized these acts. A group of lawyers also warned Mrs. Arroyo that she could not escape responsibility should those acts turn out to have been arbitrary—which they appear to be because the emergency proclamation gave no orders to either the military or the police to do anything that would violate people’s rights. All the arbitrary acts of the military and the police appear to have been carried out on a misunderstanding of General Order No. 5 and General Order No. 6—or on direct orders from some administration official. If it was Mrs. Arroyo, can she be prosecuted? Nope. You cannot sue a sitting president. You must wait until after she leaves office before you bring your lawsuit. Impeachment? Hmm: the Constitution allows the president to place the country or any part of it under a state of emergency but unless it can be proved that Mrs. Arroyo used the proclamation to violate the Bill of Rights, she cannot be held liable for violating the Constitution. Proclamation No. 1017 and General Orders 5 and 6 seem to have been written as generalizations, that is, without specifics that, if violative of the Constitution, can be blamed on Mrs. Arroyo. Add roundup.

By Ricky S. Torre, Butch Serrano, and Wendell Vigilia

Our issue for March 4, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

March 4, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: 20th Anniversary, People Power Revolution (with 5-page supplement)

2. Buried Alive

Farmer Christopher Lipato was watching his carabao nibble at the grass in the rice field when he heard the roar of something coming from the mountain above the village. When he looked up, he saw a wall of mud speeding across the field and swallowing everything on its path. Lipato, 28, turned and ran like hell, pursued by the furious avalanche of mud and rocks. It was over in 10 minutes. Lipato survived, but lost his wife, son, and father. They were among more than 1,500 people still missing in the mudslide that buried the village of Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town, Southern Leyte, on February 17, a tragedy that geologists say had just been waiting to happen. The province sits on a fault on the earth where the ground is unstable. In December 2003, the top of Panaon Island collapsed, killing more than 100 people. In November 1991, landslides and floods caused by a tropical storm killed 6,000 people on Leyte Island. These were forgotten in the wake of last Friday’s tragedy in Guisaugon. Television talking heads kept asking about logging, mining, and quarrying until the weather bureau explained that it had been raining in Southern Leyte since February 1. The area has an average February rainfall of 127 millimeters in the past 30 years, but the last two weeks brought a rainfall of 500 millimeters. Two weeks of continuous rains softened the mountainside, planted to coconut trees whose roots cannot hold too much water, and at about 10:30 a.m. on February 17, gravity pulled down a part of the mountainside that had been so weakened. The avalanche of water, mud, rocks and coconut trees buried 300 homes and an elementary school. Reports say up to 3,000 people lived in the village. About 200 children and teachers were in the school at the time of the tragedy. An international rescue team, including 1,000 US Marines, is digging through the mud against wind and rain to find the buried homes and the school. More than 170 people have been rescued and 74 bodies recovered as of Tuesday. Text messages, probably coming from teachers in the buried school, give the rescuers hope that people are still alive under the mud.

By Ricky S. Torre

Our issue for February 25, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

February 25, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: EO 464

Anticipating a restraining order to come down from the Supreme Court, Malacañang has allowed administration officials to go to budget hearings in the Senate. The Palace has also let it be known that President Arroyo is willing to recall her controversial Executive Order 464 if the senators are willing to behave. This shows the Palace is no longer sure it can win this case despite its repeated assertions of confidence that the Supreme Court will decide for the order. Mrs. Arroyo may have the majority on the court—nine against four—but not the assurance that her appointees will deliver. What is at stake here is not the Senate’s pride, but the constitutional requirement of openness in government and the people’s right to know what their government is doing in their interest or against their interest. Mrs. Arroyo has issued the order prohibiting government, military and police officials from appearing before any congressional investigation without her permission supposedly to protect the officials from humiliation, following the experience of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales in the Senate last year. But the real purpose of the order is clear to the senators: Mrs. Arroyo has skeletons hidden in Malacañang. Her new chief of staff, Michael Defensor, has said it: the order is intended “to protect the administration.�? He does not mean the skeletons in Mrs. Arroyo’s closet, of course. But his choice of words is really descriptive of the order’s purpose. Without the order, the Senate will find more evidence and confirmation that P728 million in agricultural funds and P100 million in recovered Marcos ill-gotten wealth was channeled to Mrs. Arroyo’s presidential campaign in 2004. The Senate may also just succeed in squeezing an admission from some military official of unlawful surveillance of the opposition during the election, an operation that led to military intelligence agents’ tracking of Mrs. Arroyo’s phone conversations with her henchman in the Commission on Elections, Virgilio Garcillano—and the Arroyo tapes scandal. Satisfying the senators is dangerous to Mrs. Arroyo, who is invoking executive privilege in this controversy. But her privilege is hobbling legislative work and preventing the people to know what is going on in her government. And just as important, her executive privilege is keeping from the people the answer to their question, Is she their president or not?

By Ricky S. Torre, Butch Serrano and Wendell Vigilia

Our issue for February 18, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

February 18, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: “70 Lives to the Peso�?

The ABS-CBN program Wowowee was to celebrate its first anniversary on Saturday, but the crowds began gathering outside the Philsports Arena in Pasig City as early as Wednesday, hoping to be first at the gates and sure tickets. The lucky ones would get cash giveaways of P300 to P10,000. But the really big prizes were a home worth P2.5 million, P1 million in cash, and a public utility jeep. By Friday night, the crowds outside the arena had swelled to more than 30,000—too big for a facility that had a seating capacity of only 9,000 and field capacity of only 8,000. Yet the management of the network, the local government, and the city police sensed no danger. Police, though trained in crowd control and familiar with the lack of discipline of the poor, should have stopped the crowd buildup, told the people to go home and come back on Saturday. They did not. When the gate to the arena opened at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, thousands of people looking for a meal for even just one day, taking their chance own a house, maybe capital for a variety store, perhaps jeep to drive for a living, pushed and shoved, throwing hundreds of people in front down the ramp to the arena. People, mostly women, many of them elderly, were already getting crushed to death in front yet people on the street kept pushing and fighting for a way through. After police and arena security forces had quelled the crowd, more than 70 people lay dead or dying. The final death toll would come up to 74. Don’t ask how this tragedy happened. The investigation that President Arroyo had ordered had traced the stampede to lack of precaution on the part of the network’s management. The question is, why did this tragedy happen? Activist and civic groups and social commentators immediately saw why: poverty drove those thousands to Philsports Arena and to their deaths. While the Arroyo administration is trumpeting nice figures that are truly nothing but economic indicators, the majority of Filipinos are going hungry. “The Ultra stampede is the real state of the economy,�? says Sinlakas president Wilson Fortaleza. “It’s not 51 pesos to the dollar. It’s 70 lives to the peso.�? But Malacañang cannot see the connection. Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye says President Arroyo should not be blamed for the stampede because she works hard to improve the economy. How—by taking the last bite from the mouth of poor with her 12 percent value-added tax?

By Ricky S. Torre

Our issue for January 28, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

January 28, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Police Director General Arturo Lomibao (with 8-page Philippine National Police supplement)

2. You Don’t Have the Final Say

Now it’s coming straight from her. President Arroyo, addressing the Lakas-CMD national directorate meeting in Malacañang, says she is not stepping down until her term expires in 2010. She will be there even after the shift to parliamentary government and she will have more, not less, powers. That’s the decision of the party—dictated to be sure by Malacañang. Former president Fidel Ramos has not said anything since the Saturday meeting, but he has already made known his stand on the matter: Mrs. Arroyo must cut her term in June next year to clear the way for the transition to parliamentary government after the amendment of the Constitution. He has distributed to news organizations copies of Mrs. Arroyo’s political adviser, Gabriel Claudio, who has misled the press into believing that Ramos has agreed that Mrs. Arroyo should finish her supposed term. In his marginal notes Ramos says that no “win-win�? solution has been found to his differences with Malacañang’ position and that he holds following the Palace’s plan is just maintaining the “status quo�?—four more years of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, that is, four more years of political instability arising from the question of the legitimacy of Mrs. Arroyo’s rule. In an interview on television Ramos asks, “Can the economy stand it?�? The economy can pull through with great difficulty, as it has always done. What may not be able to hold is the Arroyo administration. Its strategy of scrapping next year’s midterm elections—which has turned out to be Speaker Jose de Venecia’s idea to save Lakas from annihilation, maintain Mrs. Arroyo’s support base in the local governments, and persuade opponents of constitutional amendments in Congress—is threatening to explode in its own face, with even Mrs. Arroyo’s fiercest supporters in the Senate, Senators Miriam Defensor Santiago and Richard Gordon, fighting it and insisting on leaving the Constitution alone, and junior military officers asking whether the people are willing to endure four more years of Mrs. Arroyo. As things stand in the Senate, whatever the Palace and Lakas have agreed to do to buy time for Mrs. Arroyo is nothing—the Senate will be the final battleground in the administration’s attempt to change the system of government. The Senate expects that den of traditional politicians, the House of Representatives, to raise the questions of the congressional vote on amending the Constitution and the people’s initiative to the Supreme Court, now dominated by Mrs. Arroyo’s appointees (9-4), but the senators believe the Court will not risk embarrassing itself by siding with the House or with the administation.

By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

Our issue for January 21, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

January 21, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Lung Center of the Philippines Anniversary (with 8-page full-color supplement)

2. Step Down, He Says

“I said this is what should be done, but it’s not being done,�? former president Fidel Ramos tells reporters in a news conference on Monday. What is it that he has told President Arroyo she should do to avoid being forced from office? Step down and run in parliamentary elections. If she is elected, very well. If she loses the election, that’s it. She’s out. But Mrs. Arroyo has cheated him. Sure, she is pressing for the amendment of the Constitution to allow a shift to parliamentary government, but she is insisting on staying in power even after the shift. And who’s behind this proposal of the Consultative Commission, which she appointed, to cancel next year’s midterm elections? That cannot be the commission’s own initiative. Dissenters in the commission say the people never recommended the cancellation and they do not even want the Constitution to be amended. They want to elect new officials. So this proposal is suspect. Mrs. Arroyo knows the elections will not go the way of her administration, so the elections must be scrapped. The sharp politician that is Ramos has quickly understood it and now he says he doesn’t like “this woman�? anymore. He has been meeting with political leaders, including leaders in the religious sector, for some vague project that involves “people empowerment and global competitiveness.�? His most recent meeting, with Senate President Franklin Drilon and former senator Vicente Sotto III, and talk from the camp of Joseph Estrada that the opposition is working out a joining of forces among Ramos, former president Corazon Aquino and the ousted president has set off alarms in Malacañang. Mrs. Arroyo is bringing in new political strategists, a move disguised as a Cabinet reorganization, and is calling the Council of State to a meeting set for January 24 and is inviting Ramos, Mrs. Aquino, but not anymore Estrada after the ousted president has said he, being the legitimate president, wants to preside over the meeting. Mrs. Aquino hasn’t said anything, but Ramos says he will go to the meeting. He says he still supports Mrs. Arroyo but his support is diminishing. He insists on his proposal that Mrs. Arroyo step down by 2007. Her making clear to the nation that she will relinquish power can help bring calm and stability as the nation waits for the elections. But that’s out of the question for Mrs. Arroyo. So what exactly is he doing? The opposition in the House of Representatives says the matter of unity among the three former presidents has been mentioned in a meeting last month, but just mentioned. There is no pursuit of that matter as a priority. Drilon has not yet spoken about what he, Sotto and Ramos talked about and Ramos, in his news conference Monday, is talking only about his own disappointment with Mrs. Arroyo. Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. believes Ramos is out for a bigger role in Mrs. Arroyo’s government and the opposition should not trust him. In Mrs. Arroyo’s government or in a new, parliamentary government?

By Ricky S. Torre, Wendell Vigilia and Butch Serrano

Our issue for January 14, 2006

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

January 14, 2006 Issue

Main Features

1. Cover: The Worst Is Yet to Come

“The worst is over,�? Palace officials say about President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s surviving in office in 2005. As Mrs. Arroyo gropes for a new groove, claiming credit for the continuing strength of the peso and insisting that is a sign of investor confidence in her government, the officials predict political stability and economic recovery this year and appeal for a truce with the opposition. But politicians, businessmen and clergy see this year as a continuation of 2005 for the Arroyo administration, with the President’s political troubles getting worse as she continues to resist resolving the question of her rule’s legitimacy. Malacañang’s rushing the amendment of the Constitution, with a plebiscite on the amendments early this year, and the proposed cancellation of next year’s midterm elections are raising even more suspicion that Mrs. Arroyo intends to stay in power whether the people like it or not. And if that is really the case, Malacañang should quit saying the worst is over because in fact the worst is yet to come.
By Ricky S. Torre

Our issue for December 31, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

December 31, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Man of the Year —Archbishop Oscar Cruz

When Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz launched his national crusade against jueteng in 2001, he did not set out to overhaul Philippine society. His goal was to save poor Filipinos from a vice in which they had been wallowing for generations. Neither did he believe he could eradicate jueteng. All he wanted to do was wake up the poor to their exploitation by the gambling lords and their political and police coddlers. To do that he needed to leave the sacristy and step out into the world to stand for morality, fast departing from the Philippines under the rule of politicians and their relatives who have no conscience. It was not difficult because he never believed that priests should confine themselves to their churches and leave the world to governments. His flock was out there, neither pulling themselves out of poverty nor being helped by the government to pull themselves out. Instead they were burying themselves deeper in poverty in trying to win a few hundred pesos and buy a good meal for one day—only a few were winning and just for show. Those who were getting rich were the gambling lords and their political patrons—mayors, governors, members of Congress—and corrupt police. The fall of President Joseph Estrada showed how high in the government the corruption had reached. But Estrada’s ouster did not even reduce official corruption from jueteng. Instead it worsened, the crusade found out. To carry out his self-imposed mission, Cruz would have to go up against the powers that be and work with their enemies. He would endanger many lives including his own. It didn’t matter. From talking to journalists about the wider spread of corruption from jueteng, Cruz went on to bring his crusades findings before an investigating committee in the House of Representatives, where nothing happened, and before two investigating committees in the Senate, where the bravest of his witnesses exposed the involvement not only of local government and high-ranking police officials but also of members of the family of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. None of the people whose greed had been exposed had been prosecuted, but two members of the presidential family had to leave the country for a while and jueteng lords had to rethink their illegal business. For a while, jueteng was reduced. President Arroyo appointed a jueteng fighter whose efforts might have helped a little to the reduction. Most of it was the result of Cruz’s fearless fight. He was not completely successful but he showed what determination driven by sincerity could do in fighting vice and corruption. For stepping out of the church and standing for morality on behalf of the poor, for fearlessly challenging the high and mighty, for showing that vice was never reduced but got worse under the Arroyo administration, and for creating a wider public awareness of the evil that is jueteng and its influence in the country’s corridors of power, Archbishop Oscar Cruz is the Free Press Man of the Year for 2005.

By Ricky S. Torre

Our issue for December 25, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
December 24, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: The Consultative Commission (with 10-page supplement on the constitutional amendment consultations)

After three months of consultations across the country, the 55-member Presidential Consultative Commission submits its report to Malacañang this week. The report contains the commission’s proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution that the Palace says it will respect. But the mood is different in the House of Representatives, which wants Congress itself to amend the Constitution. The House is waiting for the commission’s report and should this turn out radically different from the politicians’ plans, the House will challenge the legality of the commission in the Supreme Court. As of last weekend, the commission was redrafting the report to produce a compromise version free of the influence of the federalists in the consultative body. As it was, the draft report was partly based on the constitution of the Citizens Movement for a Federal Philippines and planned to be inserted into the Constitution. This will not do.

Our issue for December 17, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

December 17, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Twisted Key

Virgilio Garcillano faces the congressional investigation into the Arroyo tapes on Wednesday without even the slightest credibility. Sen. Joker Arroyo is unwilling to get the Senate involved in the proposed joint hearings with the five House committees investigating the scandal because the exercise will just be a waste of time. It is now clear that since his return last week with incredible tales about his nearly six months’ disappearance that Garcillano, once believed to be the key to explaining the tapes to the nation, did not come out to tell the truth about last year’s presidential election. He came out to force a closure to the scandal as Malacañang, which is now protecting him, has designed it so that the opposition will have no strong evidence to bring another impeachment case against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo next September. Garcillano will answer any question except about the tapes, central to the investigation and evidence of the fraud. His reason is that the tapes have been illegally obtained and cannot be used in any investigation. He is right under the law and that will be his shield during the investigation. But the Filipino people have already heard the tapes and no explanation by any legal light, even by the Supreme Court perhaps, will convince them that their votes were not stolen. And that is why no matter what Garcillano say during the investigation the people and even the investigators will not believe him. More important to the investigation now is Samuel Ong, the former NBI deputy director who knows the provenance of the tapes. Both houses of Congress want to talk him but his too scared for his life to come out.

By Ricky S. Torre, Wendell Vigilia and Butch Serrano

Our issue for December 10, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

December 10, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Pag-IBIG Fund Anniversary (with 8-page, full-color supplement)

2. Garci Talks

Virgilio Garcillano surfaces and claims he has never left the Philippines during the five months that he disappeared after the Arroyo tapes scandal broke out. Singapore’s Foreign Ministry must have been lying when it informed the Philippines that Garcillano transited Singapore on July 14 on his way to another country. He says he had been moving around fearing for his life because he had learned that Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s men were looking for him. Lacson? Why Lacson? That’s Malacañang, of course. Without Fernando Poe Jr. and Raul Roco, Lacson, the third-placer in last year’s presidential election, is the biggest threat to Mrs. Arroyo—as a possible alternative to her, that is. So Lacson’s men are no longer looking for Garcillano, that’s why Garcillano has decided to come out? No. He says that “after [he was] convicted before the bar of public opinion, the people are now ready to hear the truth.�? How’s that—after convicting him, the people are now ready to listen to him? To his lies, the opposition says. Opposition leaders says Malacañang is behind Garcillano’s return. That’s most likely true. Malacañang has been insisting on closing the book on the Arroyo tapes scandal, but has acknowledged that there can be no closure unless Garcillano comes out and tells all. So here is Garcillano saying Mrs. Arroyo did not rig the election and setting conditions for his appearance before the Arroyo tapes investigation in the House of Representatives: lift the arrest warrant issued against him, recall the bounty offered for his arrest, and he won’t talk about the tapes during his questioning. He has also asked the Supreme Court to quash the warrant and stop the House investigation because the tapes were illegally obtained. The man just doesn’t want to be investigated. Without discussion of the tapes, what will the congressmen discuss with him? If the investigation is not completed, the accusation of electoral fraud against Mrs. Arroyo remains and she will have to defend herself in another impeachment in Congress next September. It is doubtful, however, that the Supreme Court will meddle in the business of Congress, a co-equal branch of government. Besides, before Garcillano can complain of being the victim of illegal wiretapping, he first has to admit that he is indeed Mrs. Arroyo’s phone pal and they are really the ones talking about rigging the election on the tapes. If he does, he confirms the charges against Mrs. Arroyo. She faces impeachment, he faces six years in jail (for electoral fraud alone). The congressional investigators are willing to accommodate him: if he is willing to talk, the warrant and the bounty fly. His supposed fear for his life doesn’t sell: he is more valuable to the opposition alive than dead; the reverse is true for the administration. Lacson says it is to his interest that Garcillano lives so that he can tell the truth about the election. PDP-Laban Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. of Makati, chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage, says, “Everybody wants him alive so we can catch him in his contradictions.�?

By Ricky S. Torre, Wendell Vigilia and Butch Serrano

Our issue for December 3, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS

December 3, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1. Cover: Virgilio Garcillano—Hello, Garci, Where Are You?

A supporter of President Arroyo in the House of Representatives leaked to the Philippine Daily Inquirer a draft report by the five House committees that inquired into the Arroyo tapes hoping that the newspaper would highlight the finding that there was a conspiracy to embarrass Mrs. Arroyo. The implication would have been that the congressional investigators cleared Mrs. Arroyo of charges that she rigged last year’s presidential election. But it backfired: the newspaper highlighted Malacañang’s attempt at a cover up. PDP-Laban Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. of Makati says the report does not clear Mrs. Arroyo of the charges just as the September 6 congressional vote that terminated the impeachment process did not clear her of the same charges. The leak has prompted a review of the report, which now needs revision to correct any misimpressions that might have been caused by the premature disclosure. The findings are almost similar to the Free Press’s views at the time of the investigation: there was this tape on which somebody, probably from military intelligence, recorded wiretaps of Mrs. Arroyo’s phone conversations with Virgilio Garcillano; somebody reproduced the tape and leaked copies to disclose the secret of Mrs. Arroyo’s electoral victory—not to embarrass her—to draw charges of fraud or the people to force her out of office; the Palace obtained a reproduction of the tape on CD and, anticipating its being made public, disclosed it but with an accompanying reproduction that Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye claimed was tampered with; but how he knew which reproduction was original and which was fake he failed to make clear to the investigators; all that the administration and its allies did was to discredit the tapes, but the investigators, not having the expertise, were unable to make a determination, although Mrs. Arroyo’s June 27 apology to the nation is a clear admission that the tapes are authentic. The investigation is unfinished. Many questions remain unanswered and not the least of them are: Who bugged Mrs. Arroyo’s telephone? Where is former NBI deputy director Samuel Ong, who claimed he had he mother of all the tapes? Where is Virgilio Garcillano, whose disappearance speaks volumes about the charges against Mrs. Arroyo? The man is the answer to the question of the legitimacy of Mrs. Arroyo’s rule. Does he still live? The Palace insists on closing the book on the Arroyo tapes but the opposition refuses to drop it because the truth must be known. Is Mrs. Arroyo president of the Philippines or is it Fernando Poe Jr.? Wait for the worst, the opposition in the House says. The people hold the final judgment.

By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

Our issue for November 26, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
November 26, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1.Cover: Winners and Losers

President Arroyo wants all newspapers and radio and television stations to be like the Manila Bulletin, the only newspaper in the whole universe that runs such insignificant headlines as “GMA meets Bush at APEC�? and “10,000 jobs offered by trade fair.�? She wants to manage the news so that only what her administration is doing will make it to the front pages. She doesn’t want news about irregularities in her government, about allegations that she rigged last year’s presidential election, about her Marcosian tactics in dealing with opposition to her rule, about her investigation by the people’s court, about “losers,�? meaning the opposition. Imagine the gall of a leader who will say those things at a meeting of television journalists, and pulling reporters at a job fair and telling them to interview businessmen. For that she got a mouthful from both the opposition and her own allies and the press, at least the organizations that will not be dictated to. Mrs. Arroyo has been thinking dangerously since she imposed her rule on the Philippines last year, not unlike Ferdinand Marcos who after saying he was not running for reelection did not only stay but also canceled all elections and all freedoms in 1972 and went on ruling the losers—the Filipino people—until they decided to stop losing and gave him the boot in 1986. Maybe it is true that Mrs. Arroyo has a private army or she will not go on squandering her political capital and rolling back civil rights and liberties. But what can her private army do or the military, if she doesn’t have a private army, do when the people have summed up her sins against them? (Here, review from December 30, 2002 to attack on clergy-led rally on Mendiola.)

By Ricky S. Torre

Our issue for November 19, 2005

PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS
November 19, 2005 Issue

Main Features

1. Cover: Age of Majority (House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles)
By Ricky S. Torre and Wendell Vigilia

2. Sunset Joe
For the first time, House Speaker Jose de Venecia feels threatened. The majority in the House killed a motion to declare all positions vacant, but members of the ruling coalition are meeting in blocs and sharpening their knives and they will surely use those vile blades on him when they get the numbers. While Malacañang wants de Venecia out for insisting that President Arroyo must step down after the Constitution has been amended, the majority in the House feel de Venecia has sinned against them in many ways, not the least of them his frequent absences. He is always in the United Nations, they complain, neglecting his duties as leader of the House. But that is just a minor gripe. His mortal sin is agreeing to slashing the House members’ share of the pork barrel from P70 million each to only P40 million for this year, although all of them also agreed to the cut, sold as they have been to Mrs. Arroyo’s claim of a fiscal crisis in the government. But de Venecia is not following up the releases of funds in Malacañang, appearing to have lost interest in patronage since a shift to the parliamentary system is imminent. Well, that’s what he thinks. The Constitution may be amended, but if Mrs. Arroyo will still be there after the amendment, Filipinos will surely reject the proposed new constitution in the referendum and the presidential system will stay. Will there be pork for the MPs? Now that’s another thing that de Venecia has not made clear to the House members—because he is always in the United Nations. What the hell is he doing there? Why doesn’t he just ask to be appointed ambassador to the United Nations and leave the House to another leader who will mind the store full-time? And there’s the question of the bonuses for the maximum protection the majority gave to Mrs. Arroyo during the impeachment process in September. Where are the bonuses? The rattled de Venecia is trying to stamp out the fire, but he has already shown where his heart is and Malacañang, offended by his talking to foreign correspondents about Mrs. Arroyo not having any choice but to step down in 2007, is not helping him. Lakas Rep. Prospero Pichay of Surigao del Sur is the Palace’s choice for a new speaker. Unless de Venecia finds something in his hat in the next three weeks, he will just be Lakas Rep. Jose de Venecia of Pangasinan, a station not worth anything in the United Nations.
By Guiller de Guzman and Wendell Vigilia