09 APRIL 2019 - Copy

COMMENTARY
4 Tuesday, 9 April 2019
Daily Tribune
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WITHOUT FEAR • WITHOUT FAVOR
Money-making
fronts
“Pressure
on the
Philippines
through
US-funded
media is only
one of several
fronts the US
is using to
transform,
direct and
determine the
future of the
country.
Chito Lozada
Aldrin Cardona
Dinah Ventura
John Henry Dodson
Jaimes Sumbilon
Larry Payawal
Komfie Manalo
Geraldine Datoy
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
The media blitzkrieg on the Duterte family is meant to strengthen
the woeful chances of the Liberal Party candidates in the coming
polls amid the prospect of a shutout in May.
President Rody Duterte questioned a Philippine Center for
Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) report which directed its fire on the
President, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte and former Davao City vice
mayor Paolo Duterte, saying the trio became “mysteriously” richer.
Rody said money talks in some reports that come out in the
critical period prior to the
May polls, particularly in
the report he mentioned
in his remarks during the
25th National Federation of
the Motorcycle Clubs of the
Philippines Annual National
Convention in Iloilo City.
Presidential spokesman
Salvador Panelo also
questioned the timing of the
report’s release.
Just recently, political
analyst Joseph Thomas, in
a paper that appeared in
independent think tank Center
for Research on Globalization
based in Quebec, Canada
cited an interlocked, deeply
rooted and heavily financed
network of American-backed
agitators and propagandists
operating behind the cloaks of
journalism and rights advocacy
not only in the Philippines but
across Southeast Asia.
These organizations work
“to upend local, independent
political institutions and replace
them with a system created by
and serving exclusively the
interests in Washington that
created them.”
Among the media
outfits cited in the
paper were the
PCIJ, the Center
for Media Freedom and Responsibility and the Vera Files.
The paper noted links with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
in the flow of funding to these organizations.
A similar report pointed to the three “investigative” outfits’
sourcing of funds from CIA-linked funding agencies.
A suspected CIA front, the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), provided grants to the local media outfits notorious for
exclusive destabilizing reports against Rody and members of his
family.
The American analyst said pressure on the
“The
description
was quite
familiar
to many
Filipinos who
are used to
the Liberal
Party and its
groups, which
get huge
financial
backing from
rich Filipinos
based in the
United States.
Patricia Ramos
Board Chair
Willie Fernandez
Publisher and President
Executive Editor
Managing Editor
Associate Editor
Digital Editor
Central Desk
Advertising and
Marketing
Chair Emeritus
Philippines through US-funded media is only one
of several fronts the US is using to transform,
direct and determine the future of the country.
He said that the relationship of the US
government and its funding fronts also places
direct political pressure on Manila to cooperate in
confronting Beijing over the West Philippine Sea.
He also claimed that the US also attempted
“to use Saudi-funded terrorism in the Philippines’
south as a vector to reintroduce a significant
and expanding US military presence across the
archipelago nation.”
The “use of terrorism as both a pressure
point against Southeast Asian states and as a
pretext for a US military presence is a tactic
the US is attempting to reuse everywhere from
Indonesia and Malaysia, to southern Thailand
and neighboring Myanmar. So is the use of
NED-funded organizations operating under the
guise of independent journalism or rights advocacy,” his paper said.
“Thailand faces a similar landscape of compromised
opposition organizations posing as independent, yet entirely
funded by the US government and US-based corporate
foundations. These include Prachatai, Thai Netizens, the New
Democracy Movement, the Isaan Record, Thai Lawyers for
Human Rights and even the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of
Thailand,” Thomas said.
Thomas noted that like their Filipino counterparts, the US-backed
Thai groups pose as proponents of democracy and as human rights
advocates, but cover current events in a transparently one-sided
manner, excusing or omitting abuse and corruption among the
opposition and targeting only Thailand’s independent institutions,
particularly the military and the monarchy.
The description was quite familiar to many Filipinos who are used
to the Liberal Party and its groups, which get huge financial backing
from rich Filipinos based in the United States.
The network of the many fronts of the Communist Party of
the Philippines that pose as advocates of human rights which are
regularly funded by European agencies is also similarly structured.
Rody always hit it squarely on the head when identifying those
who are in the obvious service of interests who seek to destabilize
his administration.
Mind your effing business, US senators!
“These
American
senators
should
first bone
up on the
Philippine
Constitution
and our
laws as
interpreted
by the
Supreme
Court.
“Bullies
multiply
when
bystanders
let them.
American legislators
have no business butting
into Philippine affairs,
especially when it comes
to our Philippine justice
system, and especially
too when they don’t
even know the facts
surrounding the issues
they bring up.
United States
Senators Ed Markey,
Marco Rubio, Dick
Durbin, Marsha
Blackburn and Chris Coons recently
passed a bipartisan resolution
condemning the continued detention
of Senator Leila de Lima calling
for her immediate release, as
well as demanding that charges
against Rappler’s Maria Ressa be
dropped.
The same resolution also
condemned the “state-sanctioned
extrajudicial killings” in the
Philippines as part of the Duterte
administration’s war on drugs.
These meddling American
senators demand Leila’s release
from detention as De Lima for them
is a “prisoner of conscience,” who
was detained “solely on account
of her political views and her
legitimate exercise of her freedom
of expression.”
The resolution called for the
Philippine
government to drop all
charges against De Lima,
remove restrictions on
her personal and work
conditions, as well as
When we called the
attention of the school
authorities to the notorious
bullying incidents that
occurred within their
campus, whether in the
privacy of a high school
washroom or the very
public area of a canteen,
we focused not so much on
the protagonists, but on the
complicity of bystanders.
Promises were made
by the Jesuits, including the
Department of Education (DepEd)
for incidents under their ambit,
and the Commission on Higher
Education, for sexual predation
and harassment cases — variants of
bullying — at the tertiary level.
In some instances, as in the
cases brought before the DepEd,
the department was admirably
proactive and truly concerned. As
for the rest, the authorities needed
to be hounded, more concerned
as they were in maintaining
the status quo and protecting
exposed posteriors. Old teachers
were strangely defensive of their
colleagues. Had not videos of the
bullying gone viral, then, as they
sheepishly claim, they would have
not known about it.
It’s an indictment on the
detachment and alienation of the
authorities, heads and faculty, and the
failure of the systems they had put in
place following the statutes written
long ago that required these. Many
parried the controversy away from
issues to protect victims and instead
sought sympathy for the perpetrators.
We will include both the school
community and the families
concerned as bystanders. This
episode of bullying was plainly
public with bystanders around. The
cameraman included.
FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
allow her to perform
her functions in the
Philippine Senate.
Their defense of De
Lima and Ressa are
completely bereft of
any factual bases.
The fact is that
despite her detention,
Leila certainly has not
been restricted of her
rights to free speech
and free expression by
the Philippine courts
hearing her drug cases, as she has
her daily attack on President Duterte
peppered with insults which she
sends to the media that picks up her
daily diatribe. She is allowed visitors
and not even her legislative work as
a senator has been curtailed, as she
keeps on coming up with resolutions
and bills.
These senators demand the
release of De Lima, who has been
detained for two years, not in
the city jail, where other drug
detainees are housed, but in a
cell at the Philippine National
Police Custodial Center where the
three then opposition senators,
novenarian Juan Ponce-Enrile,
Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon “Bong”
Revilla, the court ordered detained.
These three senators were
detained for well over three years,
with two of them released
on bail while another was
acquitted.
These American legislators,
as well as the then yellow
colored senators who made
up the majority of the senators
then, denied the plea of the
three jailed senators to be
allowed to perform their
senatorial duties despite
their detention, which was
promptly denied by these
yellow senators.
Compared to them, Leila
has it easy as she was never
restricted by the court from
expressing herself freely. The
three then detained senators,
who have been tried and
convicted via the yellow media,
were ordered by the courts not
to talk to the media, denied
computers and telephones, and
any form of communications
and visits from friends were
curtailed by the custodial
police force.
Moreover, Leila, then
Justice chief, along with her yellow
Ombudsman who is known for
both their practice of selective
justice, came up with trumped up
charges against the three senators
all of whom were the political foes
of Leila’s political patron, with Leila
even coaching the witnesses, many of
whom have already recanted.
Bullies and bystanders
BYSTANDER
Dean de la Paz
In James
Michener’s Tales
of the South
Pacific, a fugitive
Frenchman fleeing
to the Polynesian
islands after
killing a bully in
France exclaims
that he’s seen how
bullies increase in
number when no
one does anything
about it, that “the bullies multiply if
the world sits by and does nothing.”
Bullies multiply when bystanders
let them.
A bystander is naturally a
witness. Should he remain a passive
bystander, a mere observer, where
an injustice compels an imperative
to correct a wrong, or at least to
attempt to mitigate it from getting
worse, then a bystander ceases
from being uninvolved and by both
active dereliction and by denying
both duty and decency, he turns
complicit.
It is admittedly
“We see that
authorities
effectively
nurture a
culture of
subservience
and
cowardice
when they do
nothing, thus
effectively
aiding and
abetting
bullying.
a naive notion
based on cockeyed
optimism
especially where,
on a daily basis,
we are constantly
confronted with
those imperatives
whether we are
at a mall or are
part of a bigger
nation confronted
by superpower
bullies.
About a month
ago in a mall we
witnessed a man
verbally abusing his wife in public.
When the woman told him to leave
he took with him his son, leaving
So where were these American
senators when the three opposition
leaders lost their freedom and were
denied their right as elected senators
to do their job as legislators?
These American senators should
first bone up on the Philippine
Constitution and our laws as
interpreted by the Supreme Court
before demanding the immediate
release and dropping of charges
against Ressa and their claimed
“prisoner of conscience,” who really
has little or no conscience in framing
innocent senators and presidents
they dislike and want ousted, without
first checking
“What
they cannot
do, they do
to Third
World but
independent
countries and
leaders who
do not toe
the American
line.
the facts.
Like any
democratic
country, the
Philippines
has a ratified
Constitution
with specific
provisions, one of
which Ressa was
charged with by
the Security
and Exchange
Commission for
violation of the 1987 Constitution,
which states very clearly that
Philippine media must be owned
100 percent by Filipinos.
In the case of Ressa, there was
a clear violation that she appears to
have violated deliberately, by having
a foreign investor, Omidyar, who is
known to fund media to blacken
the reputations of political leaders.
Omidyar, along with some other
foreign groups funding similar media
groups, want leaders overthrown
and replaced with leaders the
United States can control. Since
the Constitution has been violated
by Rappler, a media outfit, she
had to be charged in our courts of
law, which rejected her motion for
reconsideration.
Do these frigging American
senators, who apparently believe
that Philippine courts can be ordered
to drop all charges against Ressa,
think that they have the right to
demand the release and the dropping
of charges just like that as though we
were a colony of the US?
These senators know that they
can’t get away with demands for
their courts to order the release
of prisoners or even demand the
dropping of charges, because the
laws and the Constitution do not
allow them to demand such.
But what they cannot do, they
do to Third World but independent
countries and leaders who do not toe
the American line.
However, they can’t get away with
it — not this time around. President
Duterte is no US lackey like the
yellow ex-President Noynoy Aquino.
a daughter to his wife. The son,
who could not have been more
than 10 tried to drag his younger
sister with him. When she chose
to stay with the mother, the young
boy struck his sister so hard she
fell. The mother screamed. The
father then drew a switchblade
purchased from one of those flea
market stalls that sell “tactical”
playthings.
That was when we were
compelled to step in only to be
warned to stay away. When we
sought a security guard, the nearest
available said he could not intervene
since his station was the front door.
Instead we were advised to file a
formal complaint at the security
office downstairs. By then the man
who threatened everyone who tried
to intervene had left.
Generalizing we see bullying
parents beget bullying children.
We see how defensive weapons are
brandished principally at family
members. We see that bystanders
face the same threats when they
turn active. Worse, we see that
authorities effectively nurture
a culture of subservience and
cowardice when they do nothing,
thus effectively aiding and abetting
bullying.
The knife-wielding man who
would have immediately gone to
jail for what he did had gotten
scot-free. He will probably be
threatening more as he raises
another bully to exponentially
spread his kind.
The foregoing is a forgettable
incident that does not merit a
footnote on the security files of
the mall much less the long record
of our society’s continuing decline
into hate and violence, both grand
and incidental. Bullies rule because
bystanders let them.
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