NO WELLNESS
Alexander Martin Remollino

For Tweetie de Leon, Marian Rivera, and other Nestle product endorsers

There can never be wellness
in eating and drinking
the flesh and blood of workers
who fought for the good life.

ARROYO AND PEOPLE POWER
Centerstage / UPI Asia
Alexander Martin Remollino

Manila, Philippines, February 26 — "The world embraced Edsa I in 1986. The world tolerated Edsa II in 2001. The world will not forgive an Edsa III, but it will instead condemn the Philippines as a country whose political system is hopelessly unstable."

These were the words of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last Feb. 22 as she spoke at the opening of a four-day commemoration of the 1986 People Power revolt along Metro Manila's major thoroughfare Edsa, Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, which ousted the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The Edsa I revolt restored a semblance of democratic governance that had prevailed before Marcos declared martial law in 1972. The popular uprising of 2001 toppled then-President Joseph Estrada, whose family and friends were involved in several corruption scandals.

Arroyo was vice president when Estrada was booted out of office. She took over as the constitutional successor. Eight years after benefiting from a people-power uprising, Arroyo said another Edsa revolt would earn the Philippines "condemnation" from the rest of the world "as a country whose political system is hopelessly unstable."

She would do well to check out the results of the latest survey by the socio-economic think-tank IBON Foundation, which shows that the Philippine political scene is already very unstable, even without the country going through yet another Edsa uprising. IBON's survey shows that 66.7 percent of the respondents believe Arroyo should be removed from office.

According to IBON, its survey "was conducted on January 7-16 among 1,500 respondents across various regions and sectors nationwide, and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percent."

If the country is now reeling from a political instability that could explode anytime, Arroyo has no one to blame but herself. Her government's systematic sell-out of the country's sovereignty and patrimony, the denial of the people's basic right to live like humans, her family and political allies' involvement in no less than 10 big-time corruption scandals -- all these have created the climate of political instability that looms over the Philippines today. She has provoked the people by her overall mismanagement of the country's affairs.

The world "will not forgive" an Edsa III? That is not for her to say. And even if that were the case, the rightness of an act is not diminished simply because "the world" condemns it.

The Filipino people were right in toppling a tyrannical government in 1986. The Filipino people were right in toppling a corrupt government in 2001. They will be right when they decide to topple a government that is both tyrannical and corrupt -- whatever the world should later think about their doing so.

LAWYER SAYS GMA TO GAIN FROM PUNO IMPEACHMENT

For lawyer Theodore Te, the bid to impeach Chief Justice Reynato Puno smells of “political maneuverings” that would benefit the current Malacañang occupant.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

Does President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stand to benefit from the impeachment of Chief Justice Reynato Puno?

This is a question that has arisen amid alleged moves to impeach him, which were recently exposed by Supreme Court spokesman Midas Marquez. The impeachment bid against the Chief Justice reportedly stems from the non-promulgation of a ruling unseating an opposition member of the House of Representatives.

For Theodore Te, a law professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) and Metro Manila regional coordinator of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), the bid to impeach Puno smells of “political maneuverings” that would benefit the current Malacañang occupant. “At this point, Gloria stands to gain from any measure that would ensure that she is not prosecuted for the crimes she has committed – all the impeachable offenses she would have been found liable for had it not been for Jose de Venecia’s and later Prospero Nograles’ respective Houses,” Te told Bulatlat in an interview.

In a press conference last month, lawyer and businessman Louie Biraogo denounced what he described as an “irregularity” in the Supreme Court’s decision-making process.

He was referring to the non-promulgation of a July 15, 2008 draft decision unseating Negros Oriental Rep. Jocelyn Limkaichong, who had won by over 7,000 votes over her closest opponent, Olivia Paras, in the 2007 elections. The ruling upholds Limkaichong’s disqualification from holding office for being a Chinese citizen.

“My suspicion is the Chief Justice may have a hand in this irregularity,” Biraogo said. “These circumstances led me to believe the Chief Justice may have been dishonest in his dealings … and may prejudice the faith of people in the judiciary.”

Paras is the wife of former Rep. Jacinto Paras, a member of Arroyo’s Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi or Partner of the Free Filipino).

Penned by Associate Justice Ruben Reyes, who has recently retired, the July 15, 2008 draft decision on the Limkaichong case had been signed by all justices except Puno himself. But nine of the 14 justices who signed it concurred only “in the result” and did not agree with Reyes’s reasoning. Puno thereafter convinced his colleagues to reconsider the ruling, and subsequently, the Supreme Court “unanimously decided to withhold” its promulgation. The High Tribunal also scheduled oral arguments to be held last August.

“As Chief Justice, (Puno) has the function of ensuring that the decision would be authoritative, meaning it would be followed as law, not only by the parties to the case but also other parties similarly situated,” Te told Bulatlat in an interview. “Under these circumstances, it might have been necessary for Puno to step in considering that the Reyes ponencia did two things: 1. declare a candidate who had been allowed to run by the Comelec (Commission on Elections) as disqualified, and 2. declare a clear winner, by over 7,000 votes, as ineligible to occupy the office to which she was elected and to strike her off the rolls of the House of Representatives. Had the decision been promulgated with majority concurring only in the result, it would have been unclear, at least to Limkaichong’s constituents who had elected her to office, why their duly-elected representative was now disqualified.”

Te also noted that in his reflections on the draft decision, Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said that the Comelec resolutions of May 17 and June 29, 2007 disqualifying Limkaichong were rendered “in grave abuse of discretion” and pointed out his reasons for saying so. These were the same Comelec resolutions affirmed by the ruling Reyes penned.

Te said that a ruling where majority of the justices concur only “in the result” is worthless. “A ruling where majority concurred only “in the result” has no authoritative value. The latter feature is that which makes Supreme Court decisions part of the law of the land and that which makes its Decisions ‘precedent-setting’. Reyes’s reasoning was, to the mind of the majority, so bad that they could not accept it but they all agreed that the result was correct. A ruling that is not binding as precedent is a waste of time,” he said.

Previous non-promulgations

There have been similar incidents where Supreme Court decisions were not promulgated, Te said, citing the cases of Misolas v. Panga and People v. Caruncho.

Justice Abraham Sarmiento (now retired), in 1990, wrote in Misolas v. Panga:

It perplexes me why this dissent should first of all merit what appear to be repartees from the majority. I am but casting a contrary vote, which, after all, is in performance of a constitutional duty.

I am also concerned at how this case has journeyed from ponente to ponente and opinion to opinion, which, rather than expedited its resolution, has delayed it-at the expense of the accused-petitioner.

I was originally assigned to write the decision in this case, and as early as June, 1989, I was ready. On June 14, 1989, I started circulating a decision granting the petition and declaring Presidential Decree No. 1866, as amended by Presidential Decree No. 1878-A, unconstitutional and of no force and effect. Meanwhile, Madame Justice Irene Cortes disseminated a dissent. By July 18, 1989, my ponencia had been pending in the office of the Chief Justice for promulgation. It carried signatures of concurrence of eight Justices (including mine), a slim majority, but a majority nonetheless. Five Justices, on the other hand, joined Justice Cortes in her dissent. The Chief Justice did not sign the decision on his word that he was filing a dissent of his own.

Subsequently, and as events would soon unfold quickly and dramatically, the Chief Justice returned my decision to the Court en banc, and declared that unless somebody changed his mind, he was promulgating my decision. Justice Edgardo Paras, who was one of the eight who had stamped their imprimatur on my decision, indicated that he did not want to “clip the wings of the military” and that he was changing his mind. This sudden reversement under the circumstances surrounding its manifestation, took me aback for which I strongly voiced my protest for a case (although the majority is very slim) that I had thought was a settled matter.

I am aware that similar events in the Supreme Court are nothing uncommon. The following are the ringing words of my distinguished colleague, Justice Ameurfina Melencio-Herrera, but they could just as well have been mine, as far as the instant controversy is concerned, and I could not have put it any better:

“It has taken all of a year and four months to what, I hope, will see the final disposition of this case, notwithstanding periodic reminders for an earlier resolution. It is this delay that has caused me a great deal of concern. It is, to me, a crying example of justice delayed and is by no means ‘much ado about nothing.’ … Nor is the question involved ‘none too important.’ … The bone of contention is whether or not a criminal complaint, which is an offense against the State, may be dismissed on the basis of an amicable settlement between the complainant and the accused, who is a public officer.

“As assigned initially, I was to prepare the opinion of the Court. My original ‘ponencia’ annulling the Order of respondent Municipal Judge Eriberto H. Espiritu dismissing the criminal case against respondent Mayor Emiliano Caruncho, granting the petition for Certiorari and Mandamus, and ordering respondent Municipal Judge to reinstate and proceed with the trial on the merits of the criminal case against respondent Mayor without further delay, was circulated beginning July 30, 1982.”

Te said that stopping the promulgation of a Supreme Court decision does not fall under impeachable offenses – particularly betrayal of public trust, which Biraogo appeared to be alluding to in his statement during last month’s press conference. “I do not believe that the failure to promulgate, for so long as the reason is clear and is not intended to favor a specific party, would be actionable,” Te said.

Malacañang

Considering the legal basis for the non-promulgation of the July 15, 2008 draft decision on the Limkaichong case, the issue of the alleged impeachment moves against Puno has assumed political color. Suspicions are rife that Malacañang may have a hand in the impeachment bid against the highest official of the Philippine judiciary.

Malacañang, through Press Secretary Jesus Dureza, has denied having a hand in the alleged moves against Puno. “In fairness, that speculation is so unfair,” Dureza said in a radio interview last Jan. 11.

Asked whether Arroyo stands to benefit from Puno’s impeachment, Te replied in the affirmative. “At this point, Gloria stands to gain from any measure that would ensure that she is not prosecuted for the crimes she has committed – all the impeachable offenses she would have been found liable for had it not been for JdV’s (Jose de Venecia) and later Nogi’s (Prospero Nograles) respective Houses,” he said.

Te warned that even if Puno survives the alleged moves to impeach him, he should brace for more plots by those who want him out of the Supreme Court.

“Take note that it is not only through impeachment that Puno can be ousted,” Te said. “If he is forced to resign, same effect. If Puno weathers this, expect more to come out in the future because Gloria’s supporters might be hoping that Puno would find it untenable to continue.”

He said Puno should expect his connections with businessman Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco and his closeness to Estelito Mendoza during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos to be played up.

One of Puno’s sons is a top-ranking executive at San Miguel Corporation, where Cojuangco – a top Marcos crony – is the present chief executive officer. From 1971 to 1974, Puno was a solicitor at the Office of the Solicitor-General (OSG), which was then headed by Mendoza.

Te also said that those who want Puno out will not stop even if he will be the only non-Arroyo appointee in the High Tribunal by the time Arroyo completes her appointment of seven new justices later this year.

“One may ask, why the big deal?” Te said. “It is a big deal because the spectacle of a Puno and Carpio dissent every time would be a great blow to legitimacy. I think Gloria wants what Marcos never got – an exit into history without a cloud. Her last best chance is for a Supreme Court to rewrite history. With Puno and Carpio still there, I don’t think this would be possible.”

He also said the best way to maintain whatever independence the judiciary still has is for Puno to “stay put” until 2010, when he reaches the age of 70 – the mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices. (Bulatlat.com)

ISRAEL, THE OPPRESSORS OF YOUR PEOPLE ARE STILL ALIVE
Alexander Martin Remollino

Israel,
your soldiers today are the Romans and Nazis of old.
Listen to the wails of the women and men in Palestine
whose homes were reduced to rubble,
whose sons and daughters and brothers and sisters
were slaughtered like pigs --
these are the same cries
that burst forth from the mouths of your people
as Jerusalem's ruins were being buried
under Aelia Capitolina,
as their loved ones were being gassed to death
in the concentration camps.
Israel,
the oppressors of your people
are still alive --
daily uprooting and murdering the Palestinians.

PARALLELS
Alexander Martin Remollino

Sixty years have the Palestinians spent
away from Palestine,
herded into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
as the Jews were
in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe.
For sixty years they have been fleeing
from massacres against them,
which are not unlike the pogroms of the Holocaust.

With their homeland being chewed up almost daily,
the Palestinians are getting dispersed
throughout the world,
as the Jews were after Rome's pillage of Judea.
And recently they have been walled in
from what is now Israel --
suffering the same fate that the Jews did
when the Romans built Colonia Aelia Capitolina.

OBAMA AND FILIPINO MIGRANTS IN THE U.S.
Centerstage / UPI Asia
Alexander Martin Remollino

Manila, Philippines, November 06 — How will a Barack Obama presidency affect Filipino migrants in the United States?

This question has arisen following the election of Obama, in part because the U.S. president-elect’s father is a Kenyan who migrated to Hawaii and lived there for two years before divorcing his mother, a white American from Kansas, when he was two years old.

“The (Obama administration’s) policy on immigrants may be more relaxed,” said Philippine Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero. “He is the first U.S. president who has a non-American father, and he understands the situation of immigrants.”

Not only is the United States –- a nation largely peopled by the descendants of immigrants –- home to one of the largest Filipino migrant communities in the world. It is also the Philippines’ biggest source of remittances, with 51 percent of the latter’s remittances coming from the U.S.

These remittances are, for the most part, the life jacket that keeps the Philippine economy afloat even as it is perpetually ridden by deficit and debt.

How an Obama presidency will treat Filipino migrants in the U.S. will surely affect not only the Filipino-American community, but also the Philippines itself.

Escudero had a point in bringing up the issue of tight immigration policies, which have burdened those forced out of their homelands by the need to seek greener pastures abroad.

That, however, is just one part of the matter. The greater issue is how an Obama administration will respond to the needs of Filipino migrants who are starting to feel the effects of the U.S. financial crisis.

The U.S. has always beckoned to people across the globe with its promises of being a land of opportunity, and Filipinos have not been exempt from this. Since the first decades of the 20th century, ever-growing numbers of Filipinos have migrated to the U.S. in search of opportunities unavailable in the homeland largely due to the ravages of colonialism and neocolonialism. Confronting racism that lingers even today, these Filipinos spent the best years of their lives working to establish decent livelihoods in a country 10,000 miles away from their motherland.

Now the 4 million Filipinos in the United States are increasingly seeing the fruits of their and their forebears’ labor crumble to the ground –- with the country they have learned to also call home being in the grip of an economic crisis surpassed, in magnitude, only by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In 2001, U.S. financial institutions offered low interest rates for home mortgage loans; even those with low income or virtually no collateral were encouraged to apply for home loans. Their loans, which became known as “subprime mortgages,” accumulated in U.S. financial institutions, starting in 2001. To spread the risk exposure of banks for these subprime mortgages, there was a process of “securitization” in which home mortgage loan packages were combined with others, packaged and sold as bonds and securities called collateralized debt obligations. These were guaranteed in credit default swaps by insurance companies and sold to other banks, financial investment houses and companies in the U.S. that deal in speculative investments for high returns.

But since the last quarter of 2006, borrowers –- especially those with subprime mortgages – increasingly failed to pay their amortizations. This caused a ripple effect on the banks and investment houses holding both the mortgages and the CDOs, as well as those which issued CDs, leading to a series of bankruptcies of banks and investment houses which were touted as “too big to fail.”

The U.S. financial crisis has led to company closures and the subsequent losses of jobs. Various news accounts show that some 750,000 jobs have been wiped out in the U.S. as a result of the crisis.

Filipinos are increasingly among those finding themselves without jobs in the U.S. as the crisis goes on. This has resulted in reduced remittance flows, the adverse effects of which the Philippine economy is starting to feel.

The Obama administration should face not only the issue of tight immigration laws, but also the needs of Filipino immigrants in the U.S. who are increasingly being weighed down by the financial crisis.

It will be interesting to see how an Obama administration will respond to the U.S. financial crisis, given that both he and his opponent, John McCain, received campaign contributions from Wall Street. According to the Sept. 16 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Obama received $191,000 from Merrill Lynch, $361,000 from Lehman Brothers, and $80,000 from Fannie Mae –- to name only a few.

These are just some of the financial institutions that have put the United States and the American people into the mess they are now in, and which the U.S. government has had to bail out even as those who bear the brunt of the crunch –- including more and more Filipino migrants –- are left to fend for themselves.

SOLDIERS RAID EVACUATION CENTER IN N. COTABATO

Early last month, Rakman Suleik and his 17-year-old son Samsudin, together with a few others, fled from the fighting between government troops and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Aleosan, North Cotabato. They had evacuated, to safety or so they thought, at the house of a certain Colonel Maguid of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Barangay (village) Nalapaan in Pikit, North Cotabato. But even in the house that had served as their refuge, they would not be safe from atrocities by soldiers.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Early last month, Rakman Suleik and his 17-year-old son Samsudin, together with a few others, fled from the fighting between government troops and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Aleosan, North Cotabato. They had evacuated, to safety or so they thought, at the house of a certain Colonel Maguid of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Barangay (village) Nalapaan in Pikit, North Cotabato.

But even in the house that had served as their refuge, they would not be safe from atrocities by soldiers.

A few minutes past midnight on Oct. 16, the evacuees at Colonel Maguid’s house heard violent raps on the door. A man from outside gave them five seconds to open the door, after which, he threatened, the house would be fired upon.

Ustadz Omar Salasal and his wife opened the door, whereupon soldiers barged in bearing bolos. They threatened to hack the evacuees with the bolos, ordered them to lie on the floor face down, and started beating them up. “Inapakan ako sa mukha (They stepped on my face),” Salasal told the delegates of a recent National Interfaith Humanitarian Mission (NIHM) to Pikit, North Cotabato and Datu Piang, Maguindanao.

The women and children were then separated from the men and locked up in a room. One of the soldiers then asked Salasal’s wife if there was anyone upstairs. She answered in the negative, but the soldier refused to believe her and dragged her upstairs. The soldier saw Rakman there, hiding in the ceiling, and ordered him to go down.

“Kinaladkad si Rakman at tinadyakan noong pababa sila ng hagdan (They dragged Rakman and kicked him as they were descending the stairs),” Salasal told the NIHM delegates.

Samsudin said he saw his father being beaten up. “Binugbog ang tatay ko, pinilipit ang tainga niya, at napaiyak siya dahil sa paninipa sa likod niya (My father was beaten up, his ears were twisted, and he broke into tears because his back was being kicked)” he said.

A few moments later, Samsudin said, he was accosted by the soldiers, who asked him who his father is. “No’ng malamang tatay ko si Rakman, sinipa ako at inapakan sa ulo, at saka inilabas ako (When they learned Rakman is my father, they kicked me and stepped on my head, and brought me out),” he said.

As all these were taking place, Salasal said, Colonel Maguid’s mother was pleading with the soldiers not to hurt the civilians. A soldier responded by taking one of the flashlights in the house and inserting it into the mouth of Colonel Maguid’s mother.

After that, the soldiers took Rakman and Samsudin outside the house and beat them up some more before speeding away with them in an Army truck. When the soldiers -– whom Salasal had identified as belonging to the 40th Infantry Battalion by the lettering on the Army truck they had used in the raid –- had gone a considerable distance, the other evacuees fled.

Samsudin said they were taken near another evacuation center, where the soldiers tied them to an ipil-ipil tree and continued beating them up.

Rakman is now detained at the Aleosan Municipal Jail. The soldiers had brought them there after beating them up while tied to the ipil-ipil tree.

“Do’n na lang po namin nalamang may kaso sa kanya (It was only there that we learned there is a case against him),” Samsudin said. “Hindi po alam ng tatay ko na may kaso pala siya (My father didn’t know that there was a case against him).”

“Hindi ko po alam kung bakit kami ang tinatarget (I don’t know why we were being targeted),” Samsudin told the NIHM delegates.

As of Oct. 24, there was still no definite information as to whether or not Rakman had been charged with any offense. (Bulatlat.com)