At the End of the Day

A RECENT INCIDENT in Davao City revealed the sneaky tactic that Muslim separatists use in claiming more and more lands in Mindanao as "their ancestral" land. Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte ordered on November 17 members of the Moro National Liberation Front-National Elite Security Unit to vacate areas in Sitio Agdao, Talomo and Mintal, which they claim as a land of their ancestors. True to form they have started harrassing those who are living there in order to have the place for themselves. This was not the first time in Mindanao. (By God, even nations around the world had similar problems with creeping Muslim communities amidst them that can become breeding nests for terrorist operatives.) Provinces like the Zamboangas also noted this kind of creeping dominion; although in certain areas families and relatives of separatists did the subtle presence in certain areas where they later would show no plan to leave. Good that in Davao City they  have a Duterte who cannot be bul

A 400-STRONG “Muslim separatists” against a team of 100 soldiers, most like a team of Army Special Forces (ASF), a news report went, and augmented by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), backed by bomber planes and artillery fire.  GMA News reported that the debacle resulted from “a military operation against a few fugitive MILF rebels and Abu Sayyaf bandits in Al-Barka town.” And when the firefight broke, the fugitives managed to increase their strength to 400 men, while the pursuing operatives failed to get theirs. And this resulted to the death of 19 soldiers, including four officers, and seven enemies after more than 10 hours of fighting.  But amid the calls of an all-out war against all separatists, including the MILF, there are a few lessons that the Philippine armed forces needs to learn in order to prevent deaths like these—a full-alert state of mind. Laxity on the part of military intelligence apparently has led into this unnecessary deaths, consid

IS IT MAKING judgment over the late president Ferdinand Marcos to not grant his burial with state honor? Is it arrogance to see him as a dictator when no court of law ruled on him as such? A Catholic Church worker even ventured to quote the Gospel of Saint Luke (6:41): “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?  First, it must be made clear that no judgment is needed of the late strongman because history, and the Filipino people, has already judged him. The fall of his regime is a proof in history that the people has passed judgment on the evils he spawned, and no single person of today can claim better judgment on Marcos than those who put him out of power. Second, in a perfect judicial system, anyone judged by law is presumed guilty; while anyone not judged by it is presumed innocent. Unfortunately, the Philippine judicial system is very far from perfect. In fact, no judicial system in the world can claim such p

SENATOR FERDINAND Marcos, Jr. seethed when he learned that President Benigno Aquino III made up his mind to not grant any state honor for the burial of his father and late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. In his mind, the decision foregoes a chance to unify the divided nation. This is a classic case of turning the table that lawyers know very well when trying to twist the facts of a case in favor of their clients when the truth would have been unfavorable. The Philippines has a long history of convicted criminals who insisted into their graves that they were innocent of their crime. If only the truth is more powerful than those who refused to accept it for defensive reasons, especially when admission can open floodgates for restitution. If only... But there will never be true unity when reconciliation remain famined from the withholding of the truth. Those who suffered the injustices of the Marcos regime will never be fully reconciled to the memory of those injustices, and ne

ONE OF THE MOST difficult Filipino mindset to change is that of entitlement without accountability.  Certain congressmen lately howled at the administration for requiring them to submit details of their projects for the 2013 budget. If you think of it, there is nothing wrong with that. If a lawmaker has projects for his district, what’s the big deal with submitting details? Are these details not needed before any projects get accepted by the congressman himself for the district? It is proper procedure that a study of a need first be taken before any project to meet that need be considered for financing using the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allotted to the congressman. So a valid project must involve a valid study to justify the funding. These study documents are simply what can be submitted to the Palace to justify the projects. The recent hullabaloos however tell us a lot of things. First, certain congressmen believed that their PDAF is their own personal fund that

THE MORO ISLAMIC Liberation Front (MILF) boldly declared that Muslims be allowed to run their government even "if they go to hell by their own making, so be it." I go for a lasting peace in Muslim Mindanao; but I have serious doubts on real peace when these armed Muslim leaders cannot accept the fact of life that Mindanao is no longer a Muslim territory after Muslim settlers took the land from the Lumads in the prehistoric Philippines. I came from Zamboanga, and grew there. Despite MILF's claim of representing the dream of Muslims in Mindanao, I have serious doubts if the leaders are merely using this separatist slogan for their own aggrandizement. Look at ARMM under MNLF's Nur Misuari who had nothing to show for the tax shares it received from the government. And reports had it Misuari kept a huge sum from this money for his own accounts. So I have so much reservations on the lasting peace settlement with the MILF can bring. First, how much really of our Muslim si

THE SECOND DEFINITION of the intransitive verb, "abort," in Merriam-Webster dictionary runs as "to become checked in development so as to degenerate or remain rudimentary." One characteristic of "development," aside from being an act or a result, is that it is also a process. Any process begins at the point of initiation, but not the generation of an idea, or the planning stage. And "rudimentary" inarguably means "of a primitive kind," or being in its fundamental form. This gives us a more fundamental definition of the term "abortion" as the "termination of the process of giving life to a human being through a natural, biological and developmental process of conception into a child ready for birth." Now, this definition is entirely different from the standard medical definition of "abortion." Merriam-Webster's standard definition of "abortion" is "the termination of pregnancy after, acc

SHOULD SENATE BILL 2497 becomes law, the Upper Chamber would once again distinguish itself as a bastion of rationality and moral discernment in a Congress that has been confused over whose right must be protected the most--that of the mother, or that of the unborn child? The mother bill House Bill 4244, sponsored by Representative Edcel Lagman, believes that mothers must be protected with the protection of the unborn child given only a lip service. While Section 3(i) recognizes that "abortion is illegal and punishable by law," it does, in a twist of linquistic doubletalk, not support the idea that such is a serious break of the law; and instead proposed that "all women needing care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled." It is like giving treatment and counseling to a serial killer after murdering a child, and then simply saying, "You may go now. Just come back to us for a regular check on your wounds." HB4244 is an all-mother bil

I AM LOOKING for proof otherwise but found none. Thus, I still fear that a government, and its laws, detached from the moral teachings of the Ancient Christian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, will eventually become a government who does not believe in a good God, and even takes a dangerous course of governing its affairs based on the often tainted and self-serving motives of those who interprete its laws. In the United States of America, such Godless government policies and laws have spurned the ghastly pro-abortion law through the historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on 22 January 1973 on the case of Roe v. Wade. Writing the ruling, Justice Harry Blackmun asserted that the "right of privacy... is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." One of the two dissenting justices to the ruling, Senior Associate Justice Byron White wrote: "I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution

AT THE ENTRANCE of the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery of the Heroes), you will see written on a black stone a statement that says,  I do not know the dignity of his birth, but I do know the glory of his death , to honor the memory of those who were buried there . The quote came from Gen. Douglas McArthur who came in 1960 to pay his respects to fallen comrades in World War II. It excuses the circumstances of their birth, but it honors the glory of their death. When first established in May 1947 the Libingan  was known as the Philippine Memorial Cemetery. Most of those buried in the cemetery are the defenders of Bataan, Corregidor and other battlefields of World War II in the country. On 27 October 1954, President Ramon Magsaysay renamed it to Libingan ng mga Bayani in order to emphasize the great honors that those who will be buried there deserve to get. A  website of Corregidor Island described the intention of the Libingan : "a fitting tribute to gallant Filipino men and wome

AT TIMES THE application of law can be so shortsighted it can lose the essence of why laws are made in the first place. Justice Secretary Leila De Lima is making a big deal on the mystery surrounding the travel document  that allowed Senator Panfilo Lacson to get back into the country from Hong Kong after 13 months in hiding. Of course, it is understandable that the Philippine Passport Act may have been violated. But the context of that potential offense was never to commit a crime but to avoid getting incarcerated for innocence of a crime that may have been made an excuse to persecute a critic of the past administration. If we understand a man who killed someone on self-defense, cannot we do the same on a person who wants to protect his freedom and the honor of the office he is serving? I would agree with PNoy that getting deeper into the matter in order to put a legal claim on Lacson would be a waste of resources. It is tantamount to a law which had lost its spirit--that spirit tha

SOMETIMES A DELAY can prove more efficient in the use of time and resources. The Senate Resolution 441 of Senator Francis Pangilinan may have been late for the adoption of Senate Resolution 432, otherwise known as the Rules of Procedures on Impeachment Trials, on March 23. But the senators may as well adopt it anyway to speed up the Gutierrez Impeachment Trial and save the country millions of pesos for the cost of an exercise that might not conclude earlier than a year. What is a two-month delay if a final decision can be made within the first two months of hearing? Since the Pangilinan proposal allows the senator-judges to remove current Ombudsman chief Merceditas Guttierez when proven guilty only on one article, the impeachment proceedings can be concluded even on the first impeachment article should the evidence allows. That will certainly cut on the costs, allow the Filipinos to get over the issue quick, and when the verdict is guilty let the government do away with Gutierrez fa

THE RECENT CONTROVERSY involving Willie Revillame brought to surface how sick this man is. And he should be banned completely from the entertainment industry in order to effectively avoid his sick mind from getting into homes through the tube. No amount of  apology can restore the damage he continues to cause through his TV programs. It is not the first time. And it will not be the last even with all his apologies. On its 12 March 2011 episode of TV5's "Willing Willie," Revillame abused a child on air without even realizing what he was doing. The early evening program allowed a six-year-old boy named Jan-Jan Estrada to perform dance moves like a male erotic dancer, and endure public redicule and banter from the audience. The boy already cried in embarrassment, and Revillame did not even have a clue on how much suffering the boy endured on the stage in the name of "his" brand of entertainment. Worse, he had the show's spinner repeat the song five more times

IT MIGHT APPEAR DECISIVE to disapprove plastic use in retail stores. It might even look consistent with the call to protect the environment, especially the waterways, from the litters of plastic. But passing a local law to outlaw plastic betrays the impulsiveness of local legislators in making such an important ordinance without giving enough time to pinpoint the real and underlying problem of current waste management and flooding problems, and to look for well-informed alternatives that both can meet the peoples' need for cheap bags while avoiding litters in the environment. And apparently business establishments are ignoring these local legislation for business reasons. Green bags and paper bags can be costly to produce, therefore for consumers to buy, and forcing customers to give up the use the cheaper plastic can prove an error that may cut down a big chunk of their foot traffic. So, what really is the problem here? No matter how you think of it, the underlying problem is

THERE IS SO MUCH to thank for in a second chance. But certain decisions and actions in life carry with it certain finality that once made a seal of fate closes other avenues but the one before the person. And he who learned from the evils of his past will be ready to face what might meet him in that road. At the time when Ramon Credo, Sally Villanueva and Elizabeth Batain decided to carry with them illegal drugs, and knowingly so as news reports indicated, they have made a decision, and followed it up with actions, that sealed their return path behind. Whatever circumstances that forced them to do it, they have made a decision to participate indirectly in the distribution of drugs that have killed so many futures, destroyed so many families, and took so many children away from the loving embrace of their homes. Without dipping their fingers into bloody wounds, they still have blood in their hands for the fee of thousands of dollars. It is like doing a Judas with a bag of silver coins

BEFORE THE ENORMOUS might of nature, mankind and its achievements are mere playthings, fully subject to its whims. This fact comes home to me while watching a photo of a ferry hanging on top of a two-storey building in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, and a train dismembered like trampled centipede among the debris that the recent tsunami in Japan left behind on its wake. It silenced the bloody disturbances in the Middle East, at least as far as local media coverage is concerned. It awakens the eyes of the world on how the technology that man created can turn against him with a simple nod from nature. Useful as they seem in powering up homes and industries, the destructive display of the forces of earth and water strikes home the fact that even Japan cannot master a human technology gone wrong. That will serve as a lesson that must be thought hard and long before our own Bataan Nuclear Plant be allowed to have its switch flipped on. Will the Philippines do better? Do we have the capability

THE THINGS THAT Ombudsman Chief Merceditas Gutierrez may have or have not done are finally catching up on her. Fact-finding hearings in Congress simply unearthed strong bases to believe that she may have betrayed the trust of the Filipino people. On 8 March 2011, the Committee on Justice at the House of Representatives overwhelmingly found probable cause to impeach Gutierrez. About the same time the committee had its voting, the Supreme Court issued its ruling refusing to grant her Petition for Reconsideration. And two days later, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee concluded its report on the Garcia Deal, and recommended that she "be held accountable for non-feasance." It is rare for a person guilty of a crime to admit so. So if Gutierrez betrayed the trust of the people, she can be expected not to admit so. That's obvious. But the outcome of the independent hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and the House Committee on Justice, tackling different issues, that

THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT to misinform the Filipinos, coming from the Supreme Court lately through its spokesperson Atty. Midas Marquez, its Acting Chief of the Public Information Office. Midas claimed that he had an affidavit signed ( reportedly under pressure ) from the person involved in the distribution of official case documents of Ombudsman Chief Merceditas Gutierrez in her petition to have the High Court stop the impeachment hearing against her at the House of Representatives by the Committee on Justice, docketed as G. R. No. 193450. One claim said that copies of the 65-page petition (248 pages, including the annexes) were distributed and placed on the conference table of teh en banc session conference room on 14 September 2010. In a press statement issued dated 9 March 2011, Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno put the facts clearly and unequivocally: "My office received the Petition on September 14, 2010, at 2:15 p.m. No other copy was received by me or by my staff either