09 APRIL 2019 - Copy

More documents

Recommendations

Info

COMMENTARY 4 Tuesday, 9 April <strong>2019</strong> Daily Tribune Tribune Daily 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. Published daily by the Daily Tribune Publishing Co., with offices at 3450 Concept Bldg., Florida Street, Makati City • Editorial: (02) 831-0496 • Administration: dailytribune@tribune.net.ph, (02) 833-7085 / (02) 551-5148. To advertise and subscribe: ads@tribune.net.ph, dailytribune@tribune.net.ph, (02) 833-7085 / (02) 551-5148. To submit an opinion article, email opinion@tribune.net.ph. To submit a letter to the editor, email: letters@tribune.net.ph • News: news@tribune.net.ph • Metro: metro@tribune.net.ph • Lifestyle: lifestyle@tribune.net.ph • Business: biz@tribune.net.ph • Sports: sports@tribune.net.ph • PR: pr@tribune.net.ph.
Tuesday, 9 April <strong>2019</strong> Daily Tribune COMMENTARY 5 “It would be a mistake for other countries to think that the Filipino people will succumb to bullying and intimidation in the long run. Exactly 77 years ago today, Bataan fell to invading Japanese forces. An estimated 60,000 Filipino and 15,000 American troops remained there when a Gen. Edward P. King negotiated their surrender. Some might wonder why we commemorate what is technically a defeat — the precursor to the inhumanities of the Death March and the horrors of occupation — every year on 9 April as Araw ng Kagitingan or the Day of Valor. What most historians know — and most people forget once they leave elementary school — is that the Fall of Bataan marked the end of the terrible struggle against the tide of imperialism. Japan had taken nearly all of Southeast Asia before it besieged Bataan and Corregidor, and by the time the Japanese came for the Americans entrenched there, the Filipino and American troops were already running low on supplies and had limited access to military support. Despite the unfavorable odds, the men at Bataan held the Japanese off for roughly three months. Corregidor lasted almost a month longer. It is that valor — that stubborn commitment to defending our nation in the face of overwhelming odds — that we celebrate today. Its significance should not be lost on us as we try to settle newer tensions between ourselves and other countries. Our Constitution decries war as a BRIEFING ROOM Harry Roque Remembering our heroes national policy and I believe that we Filipinos are by heart a peace-loving, nonconfrontational people. This is why we are committed to finding peaceful resolutions to disagreements with other nations, even though the diplomatic process can be frustrating. I am proud of the fact that we do not enjoy war, and that it has never “The Fall of Bataan marked the end of the terrible struggle against the tide of imperialism. historically been the Philippines that has displayed aggression towards its neighbors. That being said, it would be a mistake for other countries to think that the Filipino people will succumb to bullying and intimidation in the long run. We may not start fights, and we may not enjoy fighting, but I believe that if pushed most Filipinos will find it in themselves to face Concessionaires or public utilities? the trouble head-on. Even against the worst of odds, it has never been the Filipino way to just take it lying down — not when what is at stake is our nation. Our heroes at Bataan proved that. Those who carried on fighting even after Bataan fell proved that. We share in that same valor whenever we fight for the well-being of our nation, though the battles might be different. Ang kagitingan ay buhay na buhay sa puso ng bawat Pilipinong lumalaban para sa kalayaan, demokrasya at pagbabago laban sa mga mapang-abuso (Bravery is living in the heart of every Filipino who is fighting for freedom, democracy and change against oppressors). In the words of 3rd Lt. Norman Reyes: “Bataan has fallen, but the spirit that made it stand — a beacon to all the liberty-loving peoples of the world — cannot fall!” “It appears that the separate concession contracts entered into by the MWSS with the two concessionaires was approved by an executive order of a previous president. The summer heat seems unbearable, and has become even more unbearable upon hearing from the nation’s weather bureau that Angat Dam in Bulacan, from which Metropolitan Manila gets its water supply, will reach a critical level this month. Aggravating the bad news is the fact that half of Metropolitan Manila has been dry since the first week of March. That half pertains to the customers of Manila Water Company Inc., one of two water concessionaires the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) deals with. Manila Water caught everyone by surprise in early March when it announced that its customers will experience major water service interruptions due to the El Niño phenomenon which, in turn, means less water in La Mesa Dam, which is part of its water collection and distribution system. As a result, the last three weeks of March saw many people gathered in the streets of the Manila Water concession area, Mandaluyong in particular, all bearing empty pails and plastic containers and lining up for the precious water dispensed by fire engines and by the few water trucks of Manila Water. If that were not irritating enough, the news media announced that the customers of the other MWSS concessionaire, Maynilad Inc., which had the southern half of the metropolis for its concession area, were not experiencing the same inconvenience. Adding to the public’s annoyance was the discovery that Manila Water did not prepare remedial measures early enough to address the water shortage. What further angered the customers of Manila Water is the added discovery that both MWSS concessionaires drew their water from Angat Dam, which in early March still had a viable volume, and that, unlike Maynilad, Manila Water had the exclusive use of the La Mesa Dam, a reservoir which for mysterious reasons was already running low at a time when it should not. Under those circumstances, why did Manila Water go dry when Maynilad did not? Surprisingly, the MWSS practically admitted that it was powerless to do “It is also rather unusual that the MWSS is a regulatory agency, and yet it contracted away its power to impose fines on an erring public utility. anything about the situation. A very angry President Rodrigo Duterte summoned officials of the MWSS and both concessionaires to Malacañang for a meeting. In the end, the MWSS and Manila Water officials were scolded and told to fix up the mess. Thereafter, Manila Water officials apologized for the inconvenience and later announced that water service had been substantially restored in 90 percent of its concession area. For its part, the MWSS said that it will explore other possible sources of water. Despite those assurances, the water pressure of Manila Water remains weak. The temporary relief notwithstanding, there was the matter of the Manila Water bills for March. Customers demanded that Manila Water should not collect anything for that month because of its failure to provide the needed water. For this purpose, the help of the MWSS was sought. Inaction on the matter on the part of the MWSS prompted a militant group to file a complaint against Manila Water and Maynilad before the MWSS. The group demanded that Manila Water be enjoined from collecting on its water bills for March, and that the MWSS reconsider its earlier decision to allow both concessionaires to increase their service charges. To everyone’s surprise, the MWSS announced that it has no power to impose a fine on Manila Water for its improvident service because its concession contracts with both Manila Water and Maynilad do not allow the MWSS to impose any fine on the concessionaire. A water distribution business is a public utility. Being a public utility, it must obtain a legislative franchise to be able to operate. Under the law governing public utilities, the government is obligated to protect a public utility from competitors. In exchange for that protection, the public utility may only charge reasonable fees. It appears that the separate concession contracts entered into by the MWSS with the two concessionaires was approved by an executive order of a previous president. No legislative franchise appears to have been issued. It also seems like the concession grants did not undergo a public bidding. From all indications, the MWSS treats Manila Water and Maynilad not as public utilities but as private concessionaires. It is also rather unusual that the MWSS is a regulatory agency, and yet it contracted away its power to impose fines on an erring public utility. A contractual stipulation that does away with the inherent powers of a regulatory agency is void for being in violation of the law and public policy. President Duterte should take a second look at this mess. The public interest demands it. “Obviously, press freedom has nothing to do with the criminal cases against Ressa, who should know that journalists are not sacred cows exempted from complying with the Constitution and the law. On 9 April 1942, when World War II in the Pacific was four months old, Filipino and American troops defending the Bataan peninsula against Japanese invaders surrendered to the superior forces of the enemy. Thereafter, the Japanese forced their prisoners-of-war to trek the infamous Bataan Death March under extremely inhumane circumstances. Some of the Japanese soldiers took photographs of the Bataan Death March. A few of those photographs survived the war, and were confiscated from the Japanese by American forces who liberated the Philippines in 1945. One of those photographs was of Filipino soldiers carrying corpses wrapped in blankets attached to bamboo poles. Based on eyewitness accounts, that photograph was taken by a Japanese soldier days after the Bataan Death March ended, and the Filipinos in that photograph were part of a concentration camp burial detail headed to a makeshift graveyard. In other words, it was not a photograph of the Bataan Death March. Soon after the war, many of the photographs confiscated by the American liberation troops in the Philippines were acquired by Ressa’s reckless American media allies the Associated Press (AP), an American news agency. All the photographs were properly identified, given appropriate captions, and catalogued in the AP photo archives. The photograph of the burial detail was among those catalogued. In time, the photograph of the burial detail repeatedly found its way to many newspapers, history books and reputable publications. As a consequence, the photograph became an iconic symbol of the Pacific theater of World War II. There was one problem, though — the photograph mysteriously ended up with a wrong caption, identifying it as a scene from the Bataan Death March. Survivors of the death march were upset about the erroneous caption. That oversight remained unchecked until 2010 when the AP, acting on an overture from veterans of the death march who wanted rectification, conducted its own investigation. The AP eventually confirmed the oversight and announced the correction to the public. It took a famous American news agency 68 years to realize its error and to correct it. During those 68 years, the AP was unaware of THE SCRUTINIZER Victor Avecilla its misleading photograph, and was under the wrong impression that the information it had been disseminating all the while was correct and factual. That was not the only instance of erroneous reporting by an American media institution. In 1948, the US presidential election was tightly contested between the incumbent Harry Truman and his Republican challenger, Thomas Dewey, who the media saw as the voters’ choice. The Chicago Daily Tribune succumbed to the pressure of its publishing deadline, assumed that Dewey will be the winner, and announced Dewey’s victory in its headline the next day. It turned out that Truman won an upset victory, much to the embarrassment of the newspaper’s editors. As a consequence of an American media institution’s reckless disregard for accurate news reporting, many of the newspaper’s readers were misinformed. This brings the discussion to Maria Ressa, the controversial personality behind Rappler, and a known critic of President Rodrigo Duterte. Ressa is currently facing a number of criminal raps. One is for cyber libel filed by a private businessman. Another is a tax evasion case. One more is for a violation of the Anti-Dummy Law, lodged against her after the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Court of Appeals ruled that Rappler violated the constitutional ban against alien ownership and management of mass media in the Philippines. In all these cases, Ressa posted bail, and Rappler’s operations remain unimpeded. She is assisted by a battery of seemingly expensive lawyers. Obviously, press freedom has nothing to do with the criminal cases against Ressa, who should know that journalists are not sacred cows exempted from complying with the Constitution and the law. That notwithstanding, Ressa and her allies in the American news media have repeatedly branded “That oversight remained unchecked until 2010 when the AP… conducted its own investigation. The AP eventually confirmed the oversight and announced the correction to the public. the criminal cases against her as attempts by President Duterte to shut her up. Without even bothering to get the side of the government, Ressa’s American media allies have collectively portrayed Duterte as the villain. The AP took 68 years to realize its error. How long will it take Ressa’s American media allies to realize theirs?
Page 1 and 2: TRUMP’S REVOLVING DOOR SPINS ANEW
Page 3: Tuesday, 9 April 2019 Daily Tribune
Page 7 and 8: Tuesday, 9 April 2019 Daily Tribune
Page 9 and 10: SHE STEERS HER OWN LIFE ZION BAGS
Page 13 and 14: LLOYD POWERS U.S. TIES THAT OVERCOM

09 APRIL 2019 - Copy

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?