I woke up today to my timeline exploding with the #MCHSDOBETTER hashtag. Current and former students from Miriam College High School (MCHS) were coming forward with stories of their high school teachers' predatory behavior. The hashtag gained traction. Even the singer Kakie Pangilinan and Kabataan Partylist Representative Sarah Elago tweeted in sympathy for the victims, while calling for the school's administration to listen to their students' complaints. (WATCH: Youth pushes PH anti-sexual harassment movement further)

The unearthing of these transgressions was a natural reaction to the anti-victim blaming movement sparked by Ben Tulfo's unsavory comments towards Kakie Pangilinan. Tulfo's comments placed the blame for rape and sexual harassment on the way victims dressed, rather than the perpetrators. The #HijaAko movement had multiple people coming forward with their own stories of sexual harassment and gender-based sexual violence, showing that what one wears does not have any bearing on one's victimhood. All it took was one tweet about teachers' behavior in one private and elite all-girls Catholic high school to spark the "outing" of predators.

Search the #MCHSDOBETTER hashtag on Twitter. You'll see stories of how teachers (mostly male) message their past and present students on different social media platforms and engage these young girls in conversations. While we welcome teachers showing compassion and care for their students, we must realize that constantly messaging them on social media, inviting them out to different establishments, and making sexist jokes, isn't care. A student has no agency in these interactions. 

The student is always the one with less power in the relationship. The intersection of age and gender adds to these students' powerlessness. While others may excuse university professor-to-student relationships (which I still find dodgy), it should be easy to condemn relationships with high school students because these students are adolescents, often aged 13-18. In high school, a girl navigates that awkward middle between childhood and adulthood, finding their identity, and exploring their sexuality. Adolescence is a very tricky time. And a time of high vulnerability for young adults. (READ: The many faces of sexual harassment in PH)

The students of MCHS are in an all-girls environment, meaning there are no male peers. However, there are male teachers and male staff. In an all-girl, single-sex school, exposure to men is often limited to outside interactions. While self and peer regulation concerning gender may exist on a larger scale in co-educational schools, the girls from single-sex schools have no chance to learn peer regulation on a day-to-day basis. Students can't learn their boundaries and negotiate what kinds of co-educational interaction they are comfortable with if they don't have peers. The lack of clear boundaries becomes problematic when male teachers start defining the limits of acceptable interactions. The limit then becomes dictated by the teacher rather than negotiated because the student has little to no power in this relationship. The girls, who are taught by the school to hold their teachers to a higher esteem, may not be able to ignore a teacher's late-night message, a simple invitation to coffee, or even state that the teacher's comments are sexist and offensive.

But again, this line of thinking places the responsibility on the student rather than the educator. Rather than asking why these girls continued to engage their teachers, why these girls didn't report, we should ask why teachers message their students on social networking sites in the first place. Why do they engage their students in a very personal manner? And if a teacher can't keep their professionalism, why be in this environment at all? A high school teacher isn't supposed to be the peer (or boyfriend/girlfriend) of someone they are supposed to be mentoring. Why can't they draw that line?

Hearing the stories of abuse the younger Knollers (or MCHS students) faced forced us older alumni to reflect on our own experiences. My batch grew up in a time when having a personal cellphone was still new, and before Facebook Messenger and Telegram were popular. There was more of a divide between teachers and students. Yet, did we have teachers that caused us this discomfort? Were there rumors that we brushed off? Or were we blind to what was happening? (LISTEN: [PODCAST] Making Space: Sexual harassment survivors 'fighting to fight')

That's the thing about harassment: it's hard to think of it as a problem if you do not have a name for it.

A day after the hashtag blew up on Twitter, more and more girls' schools are coming forward with their own stories of abuse and sexual harassment. Despite the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1997, the Safe Space Act, and the Magna Carta on Women, these abuses still happen.

We need to be wary of the danger of masking words for action. An institution that highlights its gender-responsiveness in education, which has produced numerous feminist and gender advocates, can still be home to sexual predators. Just because a space is supposed to be safe, it doesn't mean it is. We value the all-girls education because it gives girls a space to grow into young, strong women in a world that values men's opinions and voices. However, if the leaders of the institution itself do not follow this tradition, if these leaders do not listen to their student's concerns, then the institution replicates the oppressive conditions that it promised to shield its students against.

As someone who has spent a third of her high school life in the institution, I can say that I'm proud of the values it taught me. However, I feel I share my opinion with most former Knollers when I say that our education planted a desire to do better, and be better, hence the critique of our alma mater. We then call for our alma mater and all institutions of education to #DOBETTER, and for educators to #DRAWTHELINE. – Rappler.com

Leal Rodriguez is a gender justice advocate doing her PhD on Masculinities, Gender, and Higher Education at the University of Auckland. She’s always open for discussions, so feel free to send her a tweet at @AMLealRodriguez.

Higit na lumala ang masamang persepsyon ng publiko sa agham sa pagkapanalo ng mga populistang lider sa iba’t-ibang bansa sa mundo. Sa tingin ng marami, ang agham ay elitista – nakakubli sa tore ng akademya at pag-uusap ng iilan. Parang hindi malinaw ang kaugnayan nito sa pang araw-araw na buhay ng mga mamamayan. Mas lalong lumitaw ang persepsyong ito ngayong nangyari ang COVID-19. Maraming siyentista ang dismayado na hindi sila pinapakinggan ng wasto ng mga lider ng kanilang bansa. Isa na rito si Presidente Jair Bolsonaro ng Brasil na tinawag ang COVID-19 na isang maliit na trangkaso o ang Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte na kahit nagpahayag ng kumpyasa sa agham ay ipinagkatiwala ang estratehiya ng pamahalaan laban sa pandemya sa kamay ng militar. 

Marapat naman talaga ang kristisimo laban sa mga polisiyang taliwas sa agham. Subalit hindi rin dapat ipagsawalang bahala ang mga kritismo na kulang sa pakikipag-ugnay ang mga eksperto sa mga mamamayan. Totoong kumplikado na ang lenggwaheng akademiko ngunit mas napapalawak pa ang hindi pagkakaintidihan sapagkat Ingles ang ginagamit na wika sa akademya. Kaya naman ang mga diskyusyon ay limitado lamang sa iilan at hindi naibabahagi sa mga ordinaryong mamamayan. Imbes na maging instrumento ng pagkakaisa at pag-angat ng sambayanan, ang mga pamantasan pa minsan ang nagpapalala ng dibisyon sa pagitan ng mga taong marunong mag-Ingles at doon sa mga hindi. Sa lipunan ngayon, para bang ang kakayanan sa pagsasalita ng Ingles ang batayan ng katalinuhan at indikasyon ng marangyang pamumuhay. (READ: [OPINYON] Buwan ng Wika: Hindi bawal umingles, basta ayusin mo)

Hindi ibig sabihin nito’y hindi matalino ang mga Pilipino o ang galing sa pagsasalita ng Ingles ang batayan ng makabuluhang kaisipan. Alam ng mga batikang akademiko na lubog sa pagbaba sa laylayan na maraming matutunan mula sa mga tao sa pamayanan. Marami silang makabuluhang ideya na dapat ding pakinggan. Mahirap kunin ang tiwala ng mga tao sa lipunan kung mababa ang pagtingin ng maraming siyentista sa kanila. Marami kung bumaba sa komunidad ay parang sila lang ang magaling o sila ang tagapagligtas ng sambayanan mula sa dagok ng kahirapan. Hindi ito lapat sa kulturang Pilipino kung saan ang tiwala, kababaang loob at pakikisama ay mahalaga sa pakikipag-ugnayan sa kapwa. Pakiramdam din ng ibang mamamayan ay kuhanan lamang sila ng mga datos. Sa kabila ng maraming mga pag-aaral na ginawa sa kanila ay parang wala rin namang pagbabago sa antas ng kanilang buhay. Kaya hindi nakakapagtaka na mas may tiwala ang maraming Pilipino sa mga populista tulad ni Pangulong Duterte, Mocha Uson, at mga kaalyado nito dahil marunong silang makibagay at makisama sa mga ordinaryong mamamayan.

Malaking dagok ito sa isang demokratikong bansa kung saan mahalaga ang pagkakaroon ng mamamayang may kakayanang mamili gamit ang sapat na kaalaman. Ang kaalaman sa Agham Panlipunan at Makabayan ay makakatulong upang mas maging mapanuri ang mga mamamayan lalo na sa panahon ng eleksyon – kung ang mga pangako ba ng mga kandidato ay totoong makakabuti sa bansa o ito’y pawang kasinungalingan lamang? Mahalaga ang pratikal na kaalaman o “common sense” subalit marami sa mga suliranin ng mundo ay bago at kumplikado tulad ng COVID-19 at pagbabago ng klima na nangangailangan ng higit na pang-unawa mula sa agham. Hindi magkasalungat kundi magkatulong ang agham at praktikal na kaalaman sa pagpapalakas ng demokrasya at pag-unlad ng isang bayan. (READ: [OPINION] How our native languages benefit society)

Kailangan magkaroon ng intelektwalismong pampubliko sa Pilipinas kung saan naisasalin sa pang araw-araw na wika ang malalim na akademikong karunungan. Hindi ito tungkol sa isa o iilang intelektwal lamang. Kailangan itong maisa-kultura at maipalaganap. Ito ay hindi lamang boluntaryong gawain kundi obligasyon ng bawat intelektwal na maiparating ang mensahe ng agham sa kanilang kapwa. Ang multidisiplinaryong agham ay nakakahiyakayat tulad ng paggamit ng sining sa pagpapalaganap ng kaalaman tungkol sa agham. Subalit kung ang usapan ay sa pagitan pa rin ng mga disiplina sa akademya, ito ay gumagawa lamang ng mas maraming akademikong pag-uusap na wala pa ring makabuluhang partisipasyon ang masa.

Ang mga transdisiplinaryong agham ay isa sa mga posibleng paraan upang maiugnay ang akademya sa mga mamamayan. Sa pagtingin ng transdisiplinaryong agham, ang mga mamamayan ay hindi lamang pinagkukunan ng datos kundi kabalikat sa pagbubuo ng kaalaman. Ilan sa mga ito ang Ekolohiyang Pantao kung saan kinikilala ang papel ng mamamayan sa pagbuo ng mga konsepto tungkol sa kanilang pagkakakilanlan at pag-unawa ng mga kumplikadong suliranin sa lipunan tulad ng pandemya, pagbaha at pagbabago ng klima. Hindi lamang ito pag-aaral ng relasyon ng ugnayan ng lipunan sa kalikasan. 

Subalit ang mga ito ay hindi kayang gawin ng akademya ng mag-isa. Malaki ang papel ng midya, pamahalaan, pribadong sektor, mga komersyo, at lipunang sibil upang maisakatuparan ang mga ito. Totoong marami at kapuri-puri ang mga kolaborasyon sa pananaliksik at ekstensyon na nangyayari sa mga pamantasan na pinopondohan ng mga iba’t-ibang organisasyon. Subalit kailangang maipaunawa sa taumbayan sa wikang naiintidihan nila ang mga kaalaman mula sa mga laboratoryo, teknikal, at akademikong mga publikasyon.

Upang mangyari ito, kailangan na ma-intelektwalisa ang wikang Filipino. Tulad nga ng sabi ng batikang manunulat at kritiko na si Rosario Torres-Yu, mangyayari ito kung gagamitin ang Wikang Filipino ng mga Pilipinong intelektwal sa pagbuo ng mga kaisipan, kaalaman, at karunungan na nakabatay sa lokal na tradisyong intelektwal. Subalit mukhang hindi prayoridad ang Wikang Filipino sa ngayon. Kamakailan, ito ay tinanggal bilang kurso o sabjek sa kolehiyo sa ibang mga pamantasan sa bansa. Maling pananaw sa globalisasyon ang pagtalikod sa sariling wika. Ang totoo, habang mas lalong nauunawaan nating mga Pilipino ang ating sariling wika, mas lumalago ang ating pag-intindi sa mga kalakaran, konsepto, at pamantayan ng mundo. Maging ang pagkatuto ng ibang wika ay hindi lamang memorisasyon. Higit na mahalaga ang pang-unawa sa mga batas sa gramatika na mas mabilis matutunan gamit ang pang araw-araw na wika. Hindi pagtalikod sa pandaigdigang wika na Ingles ang pagkatuto ng Filipino. Magkatulong ang mga wikang ito upang higit na matuto at maging mapanuri ang mga Pilipino.

Malaki ang papel na ginagampanan dito ng midya. Upang masugpo ang mga kasinungalingan, short termism, at populistang naratibo, kailangang mailimbag ang mga komentaryong intelektwal sa wikang ginagamit ng masang Pilipino. Lalo na sa panahon ngayon na marami ang gumagamit ng internet, malaki ang ambag ng midya sa pagpapalaganap ng mga ideyang may saysay at makatotohanan na siyang gigising sa konsensya ng taumbayan na pinatulog ng maling impormasyon — na ang pasimuno mismo ay ang kataas-taasang sangay ng pamahalaan.

Hindi kayang baguhin ang demokrasya sa Pilipinas ng isang araw lamang, at mali rin na isipin na ang mga rekomendasyong ito lamang ang sagot sa malalim na mga problema ng lipunan. Subalit hindi tuluyang lalaya ang kaisipan ng taumbayan kung nakakubli ang agham sa wikang ginagamit lamang ng iilan. Hindi rin sapat ang intelektwal na naratibo upang baguhin ang isip ng bayang tulog sa katotohan. Kailangan ang agham ay tumagos sa puso ng mamamayan gamit ang wikang nagmula sa ating bayan. Marapat lamang na pagtibayin ang tulay ng ideya at mapagpalayang kaalaman na siyang magiging pundasyon ng bayang maunlad at may katuwiran. – Rappler.com

Si Ron Jay Dangcalan ay Ekonomistang Politikal at Katuwang na Propesor sa Departamento ng Serbisyong Panlipunang Pangkaunlaran, Kolehiyo ng Ekolihiyang Pantao, Unibersidad ng Pilipinas Los Baños. Email: rpdangcalan@up.edu.ph

Si Bryan Elijah Trajano ay mag-aaral ng MA Araling Filipino – Wika, Kultura, Midya sa Pamantasang De La Salle Maynila. Email: bryan_trajano@dlsu.edu.ph

On June 15, 2020, the country saw the conviction of Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa and former researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos, Jr for cyber libel penalized under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 – the first of probably many more to come.

Ressa’s and Rappler’s supporters rally that it is the death of democracy. Rappler itself issued a bold statement saying, “The decision today marks not the rule of law, but the rule of law twisted to suit the interests of those in power who connive to satisfy their mutually beneficial personal and political agenda.”

Others who sound to be more sympathetic to a businessman’s private interest, rather than knowing matters of public concern through critical reporting, say that justice had been served.

How can an offense deemed to be so minor such as libel and a right so fundamental such as the freedom of speech and of the press stir so much conflict and confusion? Are they not supposed to have, in a way, already settled into the bedrock of our society’s norms and collective consciousness?

Like a series of dominos for children, some sort of an intricate chain reaction project for engineers, or a slippery slope for philosophers, we are now faced with the convictions of Maria Ressa and Rey Santos.

Courts fall

From the convictions, the seemingly immediate cause is Manila Regional Trial Court – Branch 46 led by Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa. (READ: DOCUMENT: Decision on cyber libel conviction of Maria Ressa et al)

Various groups and individuals immediately deplored the judgment rendered by Judge Estacio-Montesa. She said in her decision, “The right to free speech and freedom of the press cannot and should not be used as a shield against accountability.” We reiterate that while the conviction seems to demand accountability from journalists on a supposed offense of cyber libel, the very decision itself removed the public’s opportunity to demand accountability from the greater and more powerful authority of government through the courageous press.

By convicting and further imposing a punishment of imprisonment, despite the Supreme Court’s 2008 guidance on the imposition of penalties for libel that “[j]udges concerned may […] determine whether the imposition of a fine alone would best serve the interests of justice or whether forbearing to impose imprisonment would depreciate the seriousness of the offense, work violence on the social order, or otherwise be contrary to the imperative of justice,” the judgment became questionable in the eyes of the public.

We believe that judicial decisions must not only be based on a prudent understanding of the facts and of the law, but they must have unimpeachable integrity, how unpopular they may be, such that they do not need a stretch of legal acrobatics to be acceptable. Alas, they result in what we see now in Ressa’s case like what we saw in the cases of the Sereno ouster, Marcos burial, and De Lima detention. (READ: LOOK: Maria Ressa, Leila de Lima, Maria Lourdes Sereno star in exhibit on courage)

Following the arguably unconstitutional judgment, a surge in condemnations towards Judge Estacio-Montesa herself triggered the Philippine Judges Association to issue a statement that “[t]he attacks on the judiciary are so vicious that (these) may lead to the public losing faith and respect in our judicial system.”

We hear the judges’ pleas, but we stand by the words of Justice Malcolm in the century-old case of US v Bustos, “The guaranties of a free speech and a free press include the right to criticize judicial conduct. The administration of the law is a matter of vital public concern. Whether the law is wisely or badly enforced is, therefore, a fit subject for proper comment. If the people cannot criticize a justice of the peace or a judge the same as any other public officer, public opinion will be effectively muzzled.”

With motions for reconsideration and appeals, if in any case the conviction is upheld by Judge Estacio-Montesa, there is still chance to undo the most immediate injustice.

Duterte flails

While the judiciary claims independence as it mechanically made a decision on the facts of the case and law applicable to it, the Duterte administration refuses to admit its hand in this case by diverting our attention to Wilfredo Keng, the private complainant, who seeks liability from Rappler for malicious publication.

We know that this is lip service and belief in such a tale is misplaced. Barely a year into his term, Duterte in front of the whole nation claimed that Rappler violates the 1987 Constitution. Starting then, Rappler earned the President’s ire and obviously became his target. After Rappler exposed then SAP now Senator Bong Go’s interference with the PH Navy’s procurement, journalist Pia Ranada was then barred entry into Malacañan. Maria Ressa has since been arrested multiple times.

It is not too remote to even think of the immense pressure brought about by Duterte’s acts on the Justice Department in prosecuting the case against Ressa.

The moment Duterte decided to repress dissent by attempting to silence Rappler, he, like the judiciary, caused these attacks against Rappler.

Congress fails

While the judiciary places the law as a shield to its complicity with the eventual degradation of civil liberties, the executive uses it as a justification for its witch hunt against dissenters. We now turn to Congress, where the law originated.

Notably, the leaders of Congress were eerily silent as to the conviction, primarily perhaps it does not concern them, but is that really the case? While they think that they could not be held to account, we submit that the enactment of the cybercrime law in 2012 haunts us today and will continue to haunt us in the future – if not repealed nor amended.

With Congress (save for some unsuccessful bills intended to decriminalize libel) conveniently neglecting the possible repercussions of the state’s policy on libel to the constitutional freedoms and to the human rights recognized by international law (as will be discussed in the next part of the series), it failed to act – and in fact slept on their sacred duty. This may also be likened as to how they slept on ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal. And look at its audacity to enact a law, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, that will further endanger our people’s rights to extents more unimaginable than what this cybercrime law brought us.

Falling dominoes

These convictions are a result of years of complacency and misguided policy direction. A good analogy is that of dominos falling. Our democracy is on the brink, the edge. We must push back. – Rappler.com

Tony La Viña teaches law and is former dean of the Ateneo School of Government.

Jayvy R. Gamboa is a student at the University of the Philippines College of Law and an advocate of youth formation.

It baffles us how issues so central to our existence (referring to libel as a crime, and freedom of speech and of the press as fundamental rights) can still be so polarizing. But the first part of this series sheds light on the not-so-straightforward task of tracing Maria Ressa’s conviction. As a result, we are certain that by now the public has already developed a clouded understanding-turned-delusion of what this really means for us.

The Ressa-Santos convictions transcend boundaries. Sadly, it is a reflection of the global trend – happening simultaneously in countries and communities – on repression of press freedom, on undermining the primacy of public interest for the benefit of some, and on creation of fabricated "truths" for historical revisionism.

Philippines, one with the world

Shifting to a much wider global perspective, we can then see that these convictions will neither be the first, nor the last. They are only one of many who have stood – fortunately, many are still standing, including Ressa and her Rappler colleagues – in the line of fire, always ready to call out abuses hidden from the eyes of the public.

In a forum organized on that fateful day, the gruesome feeling of being jailed for doing one’s job flashed before Peter Greste, a journalist detained in Egypt for 400 days, as the news of the Ressa-Santos convictions broke. 

We know that Ressa’s case is a cut above the rest, because of the international attention that it has gained: from an international legal team mapping remedies beyond the Philippine courts, to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Manila RTC by David Kaye, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. (READ: U.N. experts renew call for urgent probe into Philippines' human rights abuses)

As a State party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Philippines has the obligations to respect and ensure the right to freedom of opinion (Article 19(1)) and the right to freedom of expression (Article 19(2)). Article 19(3) established a three-part test for permissible restrictions on freedom of expression: such restriction must be (a) enacted by law; (b) for legitimate aims; and (c) necessary to meet the legitimate aims.

Kaye reiterating the 2012 UN report, “The Human Rights Committee has found the Revised Penal Code and the Cybercrime Prevention Act contrary to human rights law. […] [T]he UN Human Rights Committee declared Philippines’ criminalization of libel “incompatible” with the freedom of expression clause in the [ICCPR].” Eight years had passed, but no action has since been done by the government; rather these very laws were used to convict Ressa and Santos.

Kaye also observed: “Journalists and writers are regular targets of defamation prosecutions or civil lawsuits. In Angola, for instance, the Government charged and convicted an author of criminal defamation upon publication of a book on conflict diamonds and corruption in the country. Honduran officials have reportedly intimidated journalists and human rights defenders on charges of defamation.”

Public interest, not public figure

In libel law, malice is an element of the crime: this “connotes ill will or spite and speaks not in response to duty but merely to injure the reputation of the person defamed.” Malice has two types: malice in law, which is a presumption of law, and malice in fact, which must be actually proven. 

Judge Estacio-Montesa, we argue, wrongly used the case law in Disini v Secretary of Justice (2014), which states that “where the offended party is a private individual, the prosecution need not prove the presence of malice,” meaning malice in law applies. According to the judgment, “the prosecution sufficiently established that Keng is a private person being a businessman, with interests in several companies based in the Philippines and China” and thus Rappler’s article is automatically presumed to be malicious. (READ: DOCUMENT: Decision on cyber libel conviction of Maria Ressa et al)

Such interpretation of the law desecrates the public interest involved in this case and in future defamation cases involving journalists who endeavor to uncover the truth. A private individual must not be allowed to claim the benefit of malice in law in alleged defamations concerning matters of public interest, such as Keng’s involvement with the former Chief Justice – a public official and definitely of public interest. Once a person crosses the line of public interest, he may not anymore claim the benefits reserved for purely private individuals, e.g. malice in law.

The case of Borjal v Court of Appeals (1999) should be the lighthouse as to this matter. The Court warned that Wenceslao, the complainant in this case, cannot hide behind the fact that he is a private individual. “If a matter is a subject of public or general interest, it cannot suddenly become less so merely because a private individual is involved or because in some sense the individual did not voluntarily choose to become involved. The public's primary interest is in the event; the public focus is on the conduct of the participant and the content, effect, and significance of the conduct, not the participant's prior anonymity or notoriety.”

With this is a long standing precedent on libel law protecting journalists to make excusable errors as to publications of public interest, without fear of punishment and reprisal, as long as these are done in good faith and in response to civil duty.

Overflowing conviction

Looking at the Philippine press freedom situation during the Duterte administration, Ressa took the first fall. Of course, we gravely condemn the horrific violence directed to local journalists who were extralegally killed in this regime. But Ressa has been the first recipient of the total power of the State, with all the workings of the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary, used to purge a member of the press.

With this machinery is the equally dangerous efforts to discredit the press and the work that they do by groups who disrupt the information ecosystem and influence public thought.

To think that the conviction will only last for at least 6 years is wrong. This imprisonment will last for generations and lifetimes to come, and haunt the national memory. Unknowing Filipinos will then read Ressa and her imprisonment as an indictment against her and journalists who held the line, like how some Filipinos now think of Marcos era desaparesidos as rebels who deserved to have died and subjected to torture for the country’s peace and order.

The conviction is beyond Ressa. It permeates all of us, as individuals and as a people. It overflows from an exaction of liability to a stamp on historical revisionism, a stamp to what Ressa has been passionately fighting against – post-truth.

Finally, as a way to move forward, a play on the word "conviction" would lead us to "conviction" – not the court’s verdict, but the temperament of one’s soul, the magnanimity of one’s heart. With this, the Ressa-Santos convictions to fight for the truth must really transcend all boundaries and spread to all of us.

With such contagion of conviction, hopefully not of the former, but the latter, may we see that we are not mere dominos. We are not some tool nor toy to be lined up, to fall whenever some prime mover wills it. We are persons with agency capable of stopping the next fall. We are capable of holding the line. – Rappler.com

Tony La Viña teaches law and is former dean of the Ateneo School of Government.

Jayvy R. Gamboa is a student at the University of the Philippines College of Law and an advocate of youth formation.

In an essay I entered in a travel writing contest many years ago, I wrote that apart from visiting our beaches with sand as pillowy soft as baby powder and our dramatic sunsets that set the sky ablaze with orange, yellow, and purple, tourists should take the time to hop on a jeep and get to know our jeepney drivers. 

Our jeepney drivers, famous for being both the King and the Casanovas (basta dryber, sweet laber) of the road, are some of the nicest, most generous people I have ever met. 

The essay was inspired by my years of commuting as a university student in the 90s(!). 

Quick flashback: the MRT did not exist then, the flyovers that line the length of EDSA from Cubao were still being built, and there were no FXs or shuttles. Depending on my route, my daily commute of 15 kilometers would require 3 or 4 jeepney rides and would take about 2 to 2 ½ hours each way. 

Often I would fall into easy conversations with jeepney drivers. While the Philcoa drivers instantly knew what school I went to, the ones on the longer trips would ask me questions about my student life. When I shared that I was studying Journalism at UP, they would usually get very excited and start making bright predictions about my future.

“Naku, e, di ikaw na ang magiging susunod na Loren Legarda!” (I bet you’re going to be the next Loren Legarda.)

One slammed his steering wheel as if he had just discovered he had a winning lotto ticket, “Aba! Sigurado ako makikita kita sa TV balang araw.” (I’m sure I will see you on TV someday.) 

Like a child whose parents fawn all over them, I was touched at how genuinely excited they were and embarrassed by how effusive they were with their praise. I would always downplay or deflect their compliments. 

“Ang talino mong bata (You’re a smart kid)," they would say. 

“Hindi naman po (Not really)," I said, thinking about how I barely passed Math I.

“Diba sa UP nag-aral si Pangulong Marcos? Matalino yun ah (Didn’t President Marcos study in UP? He was smart)."

“Pero dictator naman (But he was a dictator)!” I said dryly, trying to crack a joke. 

I remember one jeepney driver lightly admonishing me for belittling myself, telling me that there was a difference between showing off and simply telling the truth. “Madaming gusto makapasok sa UP, hindi lahat pumapasa. Hindi ka naman nagyayabang, nagsasabi ka lang ng totoo. Walang masama dun.”

(There are many who want to study in UP, but not everyone passes. You’re not being boastful, you are being truthful and there is nothing wrong with that.) 

To an impressionable and very insecure 17-year-old whose family was still surprised that she had passed the UPCAT and questioned what kind of career she could make for herself as “writer,” their words of encouragement and wisdom made a great impact on me. 

Always, they would give me a free ride and it was their gift of generosity that touched me the most. My idle hours in the jeep taught me to count passengers and estimate how much a jeepney driver could made in a day. I would insist on paying, but they would hear none of it.

They had kids around my age and would never dream of asking their children to pay them for bringing them to school. “Para na din kitang anak. Sila ba sisingilin ko pag hinatid ko sya sa eskwela (You're like my own child. Would I make my children pay me to drive them to school)?" 

Others would make me promise to study hard, saying that keeping that promise was payment enough. “Sige na, galingan mo na lang ang pag-aaral mo (No need to pay, just study hard)."

Some reasoned that a free ride was the only thing they could give me in exchange for our pleasant conversation. 

Their goodbye would always be different versions of fatherly advice: study hard, put off having a boyfriend who would only disrupt my studies, and whatever I do, never ever marry a jeepney driver because “mahirap ang buhay” and “mahirap ang maging mahirap.” (Life is hard. It’s hard to be poor.) 

To me, the underlying meaning of their parting words was that I had a chance at a good future, a better life, and I shouldn’t squander it. 

Many years later, I am the journalist my tatay jeepney drivers predicted I would be, and a pandemic that none of us had foreseen has driven our jeepney drivers off the road. In the early days of the lockdown, I remember how eerily silent our streets were without the jeepneys. 

For more than 100 days now, our jeepneys have been banned from the streets. Among the other forms of public transport, the government has been most reluctant to allow jeepneys back on the road, citing health and safety protocols on social distancing.  

Our tatay jeepney drivers have not only been stripped of their livelihood, they have also been stripped of their dignity. For the first time, we are seeing our jeepney drivers begging on the street. Some have been evicted and have been living in their jeepneys with their families. 

Tatay Elmer Cordero, 72, and 5 other jeepney drivers staged a protest – a legitimate way to get the government to listen to their plea to allow them to resume their livelihood. Instead of listening to their plea, the PISTON 6 were arrested. Donations for their bail came pouring in from private citizens and the PISTON 6 were released after a week in detention. 

Despite the obvious hardships of our jeepney drivers, the administration has insisted on selective resumption of jeepney services, allowing only the modernized jeepneys back on the road. 

Jeepney drivers told Katrina Stuart Santiago and other members of concerned citizen group PAGASA (People for Accountable Governance and Sustainable Action) that they feared that the pandemic was going to be used to completely phase out the jeepneys, under the Jeepney Modernization Plan that the government has been pushing since 2017. 

The Jeepney Modernization Plan will phase out old jeepney units for more energy-efficient and environment-friendly units. However, with the cost of acquisition of the new units ranging between P1 million to P2 million, the initiative is being criticized for being anti-poor and anti-commuter.  

“Yes, there are arguments in favor of modernization. But now is not the time to argue about its merits. We are in a public health and economic crisis. People are going hungry. People are losing jobs. People are dying. The last thing anyone should be doing — the last thing any government should be doing — is striking this death blow on our jeepney drivers,” said PAGASA founder Stuart Santiago.

Transport group PISTON (Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide) estimates that there are more than 400,000 jeepneys nationwide that will be affected by the transport upgrade plan. 

“The Jeepney Modernization Plan will kill small jeepney operators and drivers and the thousands of small businesses that depend on them like the tire and repair shops and streetside canteens. It will also make passenger fare more expensive, punishing the ordinary commuters,” said Jerome Adonis, secretary general of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).

The push for the implementation of the Jeepney Modernization Plan during this pandemic shows “the cruelty of this government,” said Adonis.

Beyond sharing what you can with our jeepney drivers, here are other ways you can support our tatay jeepney drivers.  (READ: How to help jeepney drivers affected by the coronavirus)

• June 27 is the Day of Solidarity with Our Jeepney Drivers. “Use your platforms to talk about why it is just downright cruel that this government is using this pandemic to phase out our jeepneys when our jeepney drivers have not had a way to feed their families for almost 100 days and our commuters are suffering because of the lack of public transport,” urged Stuart Santiago.
  
  Artwork and infographics in support of our jeepney drivers are available on the PAGASA Facebook page and through this drive.

• Senators Grace Poe, Nancy Binay, and Franklin Drilon were among the legislators who questioned the “hodge-podge” planning and mismanagement of the PUV Modernization Program.
  
  Write, tweet, or post on their social media accounts and tell them you think our jeepney drivers should be allowed back on the road (while observing proper health and safety protocols) and oppose the Jeepney Modernization Plan in its current form.  

• Write to the Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur Tugade and urge him to suspend the implementation of the PUV Modernization Plan until there is an open and sincere dialogue with transport and commuter groups so the department can formulate a modernization program that is truly beneficial to driver and public welfare. 

– Rappler.com

Ana P. Santos writes about sexual health rights, sexuality, and gender for Rappler. She is the 2014 Miel Fellow under the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and a 2018 Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity in Southeast Asia. She has never forgotten the lessons and the kindness of her tatay jeepney drivers  who safely drove her to and from school during her university days. The tatays were the first to believe that she could ever be a journalist.

Follow her on Twitter at @iamAnaSantos and on Facebook at @SexandSensibilities.com

Lapit, lapit, mga kaibigan! May “eksperto” sa Cebu at sabi niya, gamot sa COVID-19 ang tuob or steam inhalation! Sabi rin niya, “Hindi naman pala kasing bagsik ng inaasahan” ang virus at “mas delikado pa ang dengue at TB!” 

Tuob ni Gwen Garcia

Ah…teka, fake news ‘yan. Hindi gamot sa COVID-19 ang tuob, at lalong hindi dapat ikumpara ang bagsik at pinsala ng coronavirus sa TB at dengue – dalawang sakit na may bakuna na.  

Ang problema, ang ekspertong albularyong ito ay si Gwen Garcia, ang gobernador ng Cebu.  

Paumanhin po sa mga albularyo. May angkop na paggamit sa tradisyunal na medisina. Lilinawin namin, hindi masama ang steam inhalation – huwag lang mauwi sa pagkapaso sa mainit na usok. 

Ang masama, kapag umasa kang panangga laban sa COVID-19 ang tuob. Ang masama, kapag ginamit ang pondo ng gobyerno upang bumili ng mga walang-silbing tuob kits. 

Anong nangyayari sa Cebu? Napakaganda na ng simula, bakit naging “2nd major battleground” o pangalawang larangan ng laban sa COVID-19 ang lungsod?

“Stubborn o matigas ang ulo” daw ng mga Cebuano, sabi ni Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte.  

Totooong nagsiksikan sila sa palengke noong Abril para bumili ng mga sahog sa binignit, ang tradisyunal na panghimagas sa Mahal na Araw. Pero bakit naging kampante ang mga Cebuano? 

Pinalabnaw ang panganib

Naging kampante sila dahil ipinangalandakan ni Governor Garcia, Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella, at Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino na “mababa ang death rates" at karamihan ng nag-positibo ay "mostly asymptomatic.” Dahil may tuob naman. 

Pero ang hindi nauunawaan ng mga pulitiko ay volatile o madaling pumihit ang sitwasyon. 

Mainam na sana ang nasimulan na mass testing. Siyempre, kung malawakan ang testing, mataas din ang resultang positibo. Ito ang kumabog sa dibdib ng mga lokal na opisyal – biglang itinigil ang araw-araw na briefing at pagre-release ng komprehensibong data sa midya. Imbes na magpaliwanag, dinaan nila sa spin.  

Inispin din ang datos. Ginagawang cause of death ang pre-existing condition ng mga may comorbidity (tulad ng sakit sa puso, atay, o baga). Kaya’t kapag may namatay dahil dinapuan ng coronavirus at mahina ang baga – itatala na ang ikinamatay ng pasyente ang lung disease. Ikinumpara din ang datos sa 7 milyong populasyon ng Central Visayas na walang katuturan dahil ang sentro ng pandemic ay ang lungsod.

Hindi kailangan ng Cebu ng mga lokal na opisyal na magmamasahe ng datos, magrerekomenda ng fake cure, at magkukubli ng katotohanan, upang hindi magmukhang malala ang sitwasyon. 

Ang kailangan ng Cebuano at ng lahat ng Pilipino ay tapat at tumpak na impormasyon. Ang kailangan ng Cebu ay transparency at lideratong hindi bulag sa realidad dahil kandarapa silang paligayahin ang mga negosyante. 

Si Garcia at Labella ay gobernador at mayor ng taumbayan at hindi ng big business lamang. Kung syensya ang pundasyon at sistematiko ang paglaban sa virus – lahat makikinabang, negosyante at ordinaryong mamamayan. 

Bakit dinownplay? Upang maisailalim sa general community quarantine (GCQ) ang Cebu. At dahil naibsan ang istriktong quarantine, hindi nakontrol ang mga hot spot.

Sa kabila ng optimism na wala sa lugar, madugo pa rin ang kuwentong isinisigaw ng mga datos: 33 sa 100 na na-test ay positibo. (BASAHIN: ‘Cause for concern’: Experts project 11,000 coronavirus cases in Cebu by June 30)

Ano ba ang plano?

Nagpasakalye pa si Ginoong Duterte na wala siyang sinisisi sa sinapit ng Cebu (maliban sa mga Cebuano.) Ibig sabihin, ayaw niyang pagalitan si Garcia, na isang mahalagang kaalyado lalo na’t malapit na ang eleksyon. Si Garcia nga, imbes na magpakalma, nang-alipusta pa ng frontliner na kumokorek sa fake cure niya.

Pero andyan na tayo: palpak ang lokal, enter ang mga heneral. Ano ba ang plano?

Rumesponde si Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu at ibang heneral sa sitwasyon alinsunod sa training nila: naglagay sila ng sangkatutak na checkpoints, nag-import na sandamakmak na pulis at nag-lockdown ng mga barangay nang walang kaabog-abog. Sakay ng chopper, nag-ocular sila na parang puwedeng i-mortar ang COVID-19 mula sa ere, tulad ng naging carpet-bombing sa Marawi. Sa ibang bahagi ng bansa, ipinamumudmod ang leaftlets at face mask mula sa mga sasakyang panghimpapawid ng Sandatahang Lakas.

Inilagay ni Cimatu sa total lockdown ang 12 barangay na parang sona nung panahon ng Martial Law.  

Biglang kinansela ang lahat ng quarantine passes. Apat na araw ding hindi makatapak sa labas ng bahay ang mga Cebuano sa lungsod ng Cebu. Napakalaking bagay ng quarantine pass sa buhay ng isang taong naka-lockdown: ito ang passes mo para mamalengke, bumili ng gamot, at maghanapbuhay. Samakatuwid, ito ang passes para mag-survive.

Pero teka, plano ba talagang gutumin ang mga tao habang iniisyu ang bagong quarantine passes? Sipatin ang kalabang virus gamit ang superior firepower?

Pastilan! Mukhang ganito na naman ang solusyon – hawig sa law and order na solusyon sa Kamaynilaan na ikinamatay ng isang ex-marine, ikinabugbog ng maraming face mask violator, at ikinakulong ng higit 2,800 noong Mayo.

Malupit na kalaban ang virus – pero may panangga at panlaban sa pandemic. Ilang bansa na sa buong mundo ang nagpatunay na puwede itong talunin habang hinihintay ang vaccine. 

Sabi ni Cimatu isantabi ang puliitka. Sa totoo lang hindi problema ang away pulitika. Ang problema ay incompetence, at walang bakuna laban sa incompetence. Wala ring bakuna para sa mga pulitiko at opisyal na tila nasobrahan 'ata ng hangin sa utak kaka-tuob. 

Ang tanging panlaban natin, mga kababayang Cebuano, ay ang sariling pagsusumikap na huwag mahawa, pagsunod sa alituntuning pangkalusugan, at paniniwala sa sariling kakayanang maigpawan ito, nang hindi umaasa sa pamahalaang pulpol. – Rappler.com

Professing her innocence, Senator De Lima filed on June 15, 2020 a Motion for Bail before the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court (RTC)-Branch 166 in Criminal Case No. 17-166 for alleged conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading. Since her arrest in February 24, 2017, the senator has been in detention at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City for more than 3 years and a quarter. 

In her bail application, the senator argues that the testimonies of the witnesses presented by the prosecution “gives a clear conclusion that there is no sufficient admissible evidence let alone strong evidence of guilt of accused...” (READ: [OPINION | NEWSPOINT] Leila de Lima, the missed tipping point)

In support of the bail application, Senator De Lima enumerates the following grounds for its grant: (1)  the existence of conspiracy between De Lima and Dera was not properly alleged in the information nor was established by the prosecution; (2) instead of proving her guilt, the prosecution`s evidence in fact established her innocence; (3) there is absolutely no admissible, credible, or direct evidence that the instant case even involves illegal drugs; and (4) the prosecution cannot make the Court rule on any conspiracy involving Peter Co, an unindicted co-conspirator, without violating its ethical and professional duties and Peter Co`s constitutional rights.  

Grounds for bail

On the first ground, Senator De Lima maintains that the prosecution failed to prove that there is conspiracy between her and a certain Dera along with Peter Co to commit illegal drug trading. According to her, the prosecution, despite numerous witnesses, failed to prove a verifiable link between the accused and Dera much less the conspiracy to commit illegal drug trades between her, Dera, and Peter Co. She insists that the alleged relation between her and Dera is plainly conjectural and outright unfounded. 

As to the second ground, De Lima posits that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, instead of proving her guilt, have instead proven the opposite – her innocence. 

On the third ground, De Lima points out that the prosecution has not presented a single gram of illegal drugs in relation to the case. In fact, according to her, the amended information merely states a general averment of “dangerous drugs” and no specific drug that she and Dera allegedly conspired to trade illegally, nor the kind of substance the accused is dealing with. 

As to the fourth ground, she says that Peter Co is an unindicted co-conspirator and not even discharged as a state witness, and as such the Court cannot decide much less ask hypothetical questions about his involvement in the illegal drug trade without violating ethical and professional duty, that the court cannot make a categorical factual finding that Co has committed a crime without him being able to refute the allegation made. She insists that the testimonies of ostensible complainants like Mr Jimenez are purely hearsay and speculative and that the testimonies of the other witnesses, such as that of Arile, an intelligence officer, who testified that he has no personal knowledge of the intelligence reports and that no validation was done, have no value and are patently incredible and conflicting.  

Clearly, the testimonies against De Lima are inadmissible, being hearsay, have little probative value, and are irrelevant, immaterial, and self-serving. 

In a dispatch from Camp Crame, Senator De Lima, reacting to a question from Secretary Guevarra as to why she only applied for bail now, said: “SOJ Guevarra should ask his own prosecutors, all 10 or 15 of them, what happened in this particular case: People v. De Lima and Dera. He should ask why the charges of conspiracy to engage in drug trading became, in the narrative of their own star witness Peter Co, one for kidnapping for ransom. It became clear that this case was about a ninja cop operation, of PNP officers kidnapping Co’s niece and companions and demanding for ransom. It had absolutely nothing to do with me or my job then as Secretary of Justice. It was purely a rogue PNP operation.”

No risk of flight

Finally, De Lima points out in the petition that her long years in public service, her social and political standing as a senator, indicate that the risk of flight is highly unlikely. In this regard, the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in Enrile v. Sandiganbayan is relevant:

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. The presumption of innocence is rooted in the guarantee of due process, and is safeguarded by the constitutional right to be released on bail, and further binds the court to wait until after trial to impose any punishment on the accused. 

It is worthy to note that bail is not granted to prevent the accused from committing additional crimes. The purpose of bail is to guarantee the appearance of the accused at the trial, or whenever so required by the trial court. The amount of bail should be high enough to assure the presence of the accused when so required, but it should be no higher than is reasonably calculated to fulfill this purpose. Thus, bail acts as a reconciling mechanism to accommodate both the accused’s interest in his provisional liberty before or during the trial, and the society’s interest in assuring the accused’s presence at trial.” 

In granting Senator Enrile’s petition for bail in that case, a decision which I agreed with and I think should in fairness be extended to others in the same situation of being physically challenged because of age or sickness, or someone who poses no risk of flight like Senator De Lima, the Supreme Court invoked both humanitarian considerations and human rights, saying:

“The Court is further mindful of the Philippines’ responsibility in the international community arising from the national commitment under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to: x x x uphold the fundamental human rights as well as value the worth and dignity of every person. This commitment is enshrined in Section II, Article II of our Constitution which provides: ‘The State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights.'" 

The Court concludes that the Philippines has the responsibility of protecting and promoting the right of every person to liberty and due process. It must ensure that those detained or arrested can participate in the proceedings before a court, to enable it to decide without delay on the legality of the detention, and order their release if justified. Our government, according to the Court, is obliged to make available to every person under detention such remedies which safeguard their fundamental right to liberty, the right to be granted bail. – Rappler.com

Tony La Viña teaches law and is former dean of the Ateneo School of Government.

The idea for this article came from doing a whole lot of nothing. I was running laps on social media like a hamster in a wheel and finding the usual culprits of self-promotion, ironic protests, and celebrity-adjacent minions with enough self-conceit to brand themselves as public figures. I was mining through a lot of nothing. My hamster high landed on an image of a young woman seated next to a table of papers meticulously fanned out. The message was clear: look at me, look at my many accomplishments.

This was hardly new. The internet is an excellent stage for our bravura performance. I went for a closer look. The curated display was of certificates from online courses and webinars she had attended during quarantine.

I have since felt exceedingly conscious of these things — or more accurately, that I have not attended any. In the last 100 days, I have indulged in a handful as a resource speaker but have not myself been a participant. I can claim no online certificate. I have accumulated zero.

And I am beginning to wonder, should I be optimizing?

Between March and May of this year, Coursera, one of the pioneers of massive open online courses (MOOCs), saw a seven-fold jump in its class rosters. Udacity, edX, and Khan Academy are also seeing big jolts to their enrollment. UP Open University is offering free bridging courses. De La Salle University is bringing its showmanship game and proving to be the model for local online courses. The democratization of learning — social inequity and class differentiation included — is the rare good news for our times.

I want to be clear that I am not dismissing online learning and credentialing platforms. Downplaying the inevitable is futile. Digital services are the future, and the future is here. Almost every aspect of the classroom is being reconsidered. The workplace desk is now also the place for the flag ceremony, break room, department meeting, and team-building. (READ: [OPINION] Futures on the line: Why learning through screens won't work in the PH)

Whether that future is bright is less certain. An uncritical tolerance and acceptance of digital services are equally harmful. We could take a pause and reflect on why we glorify what, in the CliffsNotes version, boils down to the monetization of our waking hours.

I see the virtual colonization of productivity and efficiency. The pursuit of growth is not through a deep self-examination as human beings but through a shallow economic venture as market assets. Online courses, webinars, and certificates are the non-rivalrous goods that keep on giving.

The webinar is eroticized by so-called experts as a necessary and legitimate qualification. The certificate becomes the cult-favorite signal of self-improvement. In this economic downturn with job insecurity, these credentials are the competitive edge that necessitate winners and losers in the capitalistic marketplace. 

No one can force you to participate in these things. We have the freedom to get the certificate and the freedom not to. But this pronouncement is not rooted in reality. We are not immune to the built-in performance and reward mechanisms of the internet. Our digital connectivity is highly and aggressively sensitive to likes, hearts, and retweets. And the pandemic has only accelerated this. The online reward system will soon overtake the offline one.

We also situate doing nothing within the pathology of doing something. Self-care, for instance, is no longer about deepening our connections to ourselves and to those who matter to us. It is no longer about reengaging with playfulness or silence. Self-care is now: what do I need to do so I can be more energized, more motivated, and more productive when I go back to school, work, or other responsibilities? Self-care is enshrined as an instrument of productivity.

And so, it is hard to believe that the viral accumulation of online courses and webinars is entirely, or even mostly, about wanting to “learn and grow”. For me, they are instead the digitization of rote learning, technical education, and career-specific skills. If our motive is profit and economic success, we would do well with these narrow tools. If our motive is nation-building, democracy, and empathy, then we need a recalibration of what it means to be capable citizens and how digital services can play a supporting role.

My concern is that the future is here. We are not so much adapting to the change as we are merely transferring the status quo to a different place. We are, as usual, optimizing our material value as assets of capitalism and patriarchy.

This is not the new normal. It is the old normal, in virtual space. – Rappler.com

Dr Ronald Del Castillo is a consultant on social and behavior change communication. He was professor of psychology, public health, and social policy at the University of the Philippines. The views here are his own.

The US military command’s pushback against President Donald Trump’s attempt to use the military against people demanding racial justice has received a lot of good press. But let’s not overdo the praise. For most of their existence, the Armed Forces were racially segregated, and it was only in the 1950’s that the slow process of integration began, with racial discrimination still a major problem today. (READ: Black lives should matter to us too)

While the race issue has been widely discussed with respect to the composition and organization of the military, much less attention has been paid to the way racism has been a central feature of the way the United States has waged its wars.

The military is an institution of American society, and as such its origins and development have been centrally influenced by the political economy of US capitalism. The political economy of the US is built on two “original sins.” One was the genocide of Native Americans, the main function of which was to clear the ground for the implantation and spread of capitalist relations of production. The second was the central role played by the slave labor of African Americans in the genesis and consolidation of US capitalism.

These original sins have had such a foundational role that the reproduction and expansion of US capitalism over time have consistently reproduced its racial structures.

So powerful were its racial impulses that providing the legitimacy necessary for capitalist democracy to function necessitated the radical ideological denial of its racial structures. This radical denial was first inscribed in the Declaration of Independence’s message of radical equality “among men” that was drafted by the so-called Founding Fathers that included slaveholders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and later in the ideology that the mission of US imperial expansion was to universalize that equality among the non-European, non-white societies.

Why do we focus on war-making?

First, because war is an inevitable event in the political economy of capitalism. Second, because it has been said that the way a nation wages war reveals its soul, what it’s all about, or to use that much derided term, its “essence.”

The deadly interplay of racism, genocide, and radical denial at the heart of American white society has been reproduced in that society’s military, and it has been especially evident in America’s Asian wars.

Bringing 'Injun fighting' to Asian 'niggers'

Racialized warfare was practiced in the Philippines, which was invaded and brutally colonized from 1899 to 1906. In charge of the enterprise were the so-called Indian fighters like Generals Arthur MacArthur and Henry Lawton, who fought against the Apache fighter Geronimo, that brought to the archipelago the genocidal mentality that accompanied their warfare against Native Americans in the American West.

Filipinos were branded as “niggers” by US troops, though another racist epithet, “gugus,” was also widely used for them. When Filipinos resorted to guerrilla warfare, they were dehumanized as barbarians practicing uncivilized warfare in order to legitimize all sorts of atrocities against them. The war of subjugation was carried out without restraints, with Gen Jacob Smith famously ordering his troops to convert Samar into a “howling wilderness” by killing any male over 10 years old. (READ: Anti-Black attitudes among Filipinos, in the context of the U.S. Empire)

But at the same time that it was waging a barbaric war that took the lives of some 500,000 Filipinos, Washington was justifying its colonization of the archipelago as a mission to extend the benefits of democracy to them. Rudyard Kipling’s “Take Up the White Man’s Burden,” written in 1899 to glorify the American Conquest of the archipelago, resonated throughout white America.

War in the Pacific: Racism unbound 

The war in Europe waged by the US during the Second World War from 1939 to 1945 was promoted among the American public at the time as a war to save democracy. This was not the case in the Pacific theater where all the racist impulses of American society were explicitly harnessed to render the Japanese subhuman. There was a racial side to the Pacific War that gave it an intense exterminationist quality.

To be sure, this was a face-off between two racist militaries. Both sides painted the other as barbarians and people of inferior culture, in order to license atrocities of all kinds. Violation of the rules of the Geneva Convention was the norm, with neither side preferring to take prisoners, or when prisoners were taken, they were subjected to systematic brutality.

Even as the US waged war against Japan, it waged a domestic war against Americans of Japanese descent, declaring them outside the pale of the constitution and incarcerating the whole population, something that was unthinkable when it came to Americans of German or Italian descent though Germany and Italy were enemy states.

But perhaps the most radical expression of the racial exterminationist streak of the American war against Japan was the nuclear incineration of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August 1945, an act that would never have been entertained when it came to fellows of the white race like the Germans.

Korea: 'Everything is destroyed'

The Korean War of 1950-53 also saw the dialectic of racism, genocide, and denial come into play. The war was justified as one of saving Koreans from communism but it came close to exterminating them. Gen Douglas MacArthur, who was supreme commander, advocated the use of nuclear weapons.

His plan was to use atomic bombs against the Chinese and North Koreans while retreating and then spreading a belt of radioactive cobalt across the Korean peninsula to deter them from crossing into South Korea. This was disapproved by Washington in favor of unlimited aerial bombing using both conventional blockbusters and the new terrifying napalm bombs.

The result was the same. The US dropped more tons of bombs in Korea in 1950-53 than in the Pacific during the whole of World War II. The result was described thus by US General Emmett O’Donnell, head of the US Air Force Bomber Command: “Everything is destroyed. There is nothing left standing worthy of the name.”

Before Congress, General MacArthur unwittingly admitted the exterminationist quality of the war he waged when he said, “The war in Korea has almost destroyed that nation of 20 million people. I have never seen such devastation.”

It was in Korea that the marriage of racism to advanced technology to produce the overwhelming devastation that is a central characteristic of the American Way of War was perfected. Precious white American lives had to be expended as little as possible while taking as many cheap Asian lives as possible through technology-intensive unlimited aerial warfare.

Vietnam: 'Bomb them back to the Stone Age'

The streak of racial exterminationism emerged again during the Vietnam War. Labeling the Vietnamese as “gooks” — a term derived from the term for Filipinos,”gugus,” in an earlier colonial war—dehumanized them and made all Vietnamese, combatant and non-combatant, fair game.

As in the Philippines at the turn of the century, the Vietnamese’ conduct of the war as a guerrilla war frustrated the Americans, and the racist underpinnings of the American military mind allowed Washington to wage a war without restraint in a desperate effort to win it, one that ignored all the principles of the Geneva Convention. As in Korea, the US waged in Vietnam a “limited war” in the sense of confining it geographically so that it would not escalate into global war, but it waged this limited war with unlimited means.

The racial dehumanization of the Vietnamese in the American military mind found its classic expression in the words of Gen Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, who said that America’s aim must be to “bomb the Vietnamese back to the Stone Age.” And Washington did try to do just that: From 1965 to 1969, the US military dropped 70 tons of bombs for every square mile of North and South Vietnam, or 500 pounds for each man, woman, and child.

At the same time that they were killing them indiscriminately, Washington was insisting that its mission was to save the Vietnamese from communism and bring American-style democracy to them just as it had brought it to the Philippines, Japan, and Korea, and that it would not take no for an answer.

Again, US political and military strategy cannot be understood without reference to the subliminal racial assumptions that guided it. The costs exacted by a war marked by a racist and exterminationist streak were devastating: some 3.5 million Vietnamese killed in less than a decade.

The American Way of War

In sum, what we might call the “American Way of War” has emerged from a convoluted historical and ideological process wherein:

• War-making cannot be divorced from the racism that is fundamentally inscribed in the capitalist political economy of the United States and is structurally reproduced in its growth and expansion.
• This structural inscription stems from two original sins: the genocide of Native Americans to clear the social and natural path for the rise and consolidation of capitalism and the slave labor of African Americans under plantation capitalism that played an essential role in laying the foundations for industrial capitalism.
• Owing to the foundational role of genocide and racism, the ideological legitimation necessary to make the system function has involved their radical denial in the form of a declaration of equality “among men” and the claim that the aim of US imperial expansion is to extend this equality throughout the world. (READ: Dear white people in the Philippines)
• This tortuous dialectic of genocide, racism, and radical denial gave America’s imperial wars in Asia an exterminationist streak.
• Finally, the American Way of War is marked by the marriage of advanced technology and racism that is intended to limit the expenditure of lives on one’s side while inflicting massive devastation on the other side under the guiding assumption that white lives are precious and colored lives are cheap. – Rappler.com

Walden Bello is the Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton, co-founder and senior analyst at the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, and National Chairperson of Laban ng Masa, a progressive coalition of organizations and individuals in the Philippines. This article was originally delivered as a lecture in the webinar "Political Crisis in the United States and the Need for Internationalism,” sponsored by Global Justice Now UK!, June 20, 2020.

When we see society as structures of oppression rather than as clusters of people, it becomes easier to understand why the biggest battle is about changing how the system works instead of fashioning exemptions that work well within the system.

Violence in our culture and climate: All cops are bad, all coal is dirty

When we say “All cops are bad,” we hope to show how police brutality is central to the system. The killing of George Floyd captured on camera is not law and order in action, it is murder carried out by our state. The narrative that there are good cops makes not only justice difficult to chase, but removes the necessity of changing a system by citing a few exceptional performers.

Violence, however, is not only in the police system, it is entrenched, reflected, and largely reinforced in our economic system. When indigenous peoples claim that “coal kills,” coal corporations that take social responsibility seriously provide a counterexample only to debunk minorities. This is a reinforcement of the dominant violent system using the cloak of exemptions.

It is not a coincidence that petrol companies set up their plants near black communities. The coal plants and mines in the Philippines are owned by foreigners who erect them in underdeveloped areas. Garbage dumpsites are situated in urban poor communities. Capital expansionists target ancestral lands. (READ: Amazon indigenous land loss threatens climate – study)

Climate violence is linked to racial inequality. The violence inflicted on our environment affects us disproportionately, and it affects the culturally marginalized the most.

Racial supremacy is eco-imperialism

The idea that one race is superior than another can be traced back to the period of colonialism and slavery. In our context, the Spanish Mestizos and the “indios” were polar opposites in society. A high regard for white skin and blue eyes as measures of universal beauty are vestiges of the deep roots of colonialism in our consciousness.

Who should have access to resources?

The colonizers believed that their existence was more important than that of the slaves; hence, the resources of their colonies are all for them. Eco-imperialism goes hand in hand with colonialism as imperial powers control and manage natural resources outside of their own.

This dominant culture of eco-imperialism persists even in our modern times. Racial supremacy still bubbles up to the surface as evident in the Rohingya and issues of stateslessness in Southeast Asia, in the refugee crisis all over Europe, in the abuse of migrant workers in the Middle East, and in how white people’ trash are shipped to developing countries.

The global eruption of the Black Lives Matter campaign is an encapsulation of years of issues of racial supremacy.

While BLM and other racial issues are cultural, these are also economic (who has the access to resources) and these are also ecological (whose resources can they extract).

In the picture of how racial supremacy and environmental decay are put together, violence is front and center. A classic example is the case of blood diamonds mined in Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa.

The diamonds are mined by local slaves who are coerced to dig into the mud using their bare hands. In their uncut raw form, these diamonds are shipped to rich white people, often sold illegally to fund war chests of invading foreign countries, civil wars, or tyrannies such as those alleged of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

But more than this trade, the ecological cost includes damaged river systems that led to deforestation, forcing local populations to relocate, and killing its fish and other wildlife. Some river systems are re-directed into topsoil areas that causes their erosion, and later on when pits are created by this re-routed stream of water, it becomes infested with mosquitoes that causes malaria and other diseases. 

“I can’t breathe” is a cry for help from black communities who are choking under colonial powers, capitalists, and military forces while affluent white people comfortably wear shiny diamonds around their necks.

No climate justice without racial justice

The concept of an "environment" was made to externalize the accountability of historical oppression in our ecologies so that environmentalism pertains only to making your surroundings clean and green. Environmentalism has historically been the agenda of white people to clean their parks, green their communities. 

Climate justice, on the other hand, goes above that by calling to account white people for the damage they have inflicted on the ecology – not only our natural resources, but our culture, our history, our peoples. (READ: Indigenous peoples to world leaders: We carry burden of climate change)

The call to transition to renewable energy from coal is not just ecological. This also means ending the life-threatening health risks to indigenous communities where coal plants are situated, to start democratizing energy.

The call to divest in fossil fuels is also a call to prioritize the safety and health of black communities that suffer the most the harmful effects of coal yet benefit the least from fossil fuel industries in their communities.

Climate justice cannot be without racial justice. The cultural is ecological. – Rappler.com 

Chao Cabatingan is a young socialist leader of Akbayan Youth and a founding member of the EcoSocialist Working Group. He is currently working in an NGO. All views in this article are solely his. 

The following was first published in Analyzing War. 

The appointments of Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, and Peace Process Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr as chair, vice chair, and chief implementer, respectively, of the National Task Force against COVID-19 reignited discussions on civil-military relations in the Philippines. Together, these 3 civilian officials oversee the strict compliance by both the public and private sectors to the guidelines and protocols issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID). Furthermore, Lorenzana, Año, and Galvez all share similar ethos, training, and mindset of having spent careers in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and rising to ultimately serve as General Officers.

The selection of retired military personnel for civilian positions is not unique to the Duterte administration. Most Philippine presidents in the post-World War II period have appointed veterans to fill cabinet positions. They do, after all, return to civilian life with the same duties and rights as other citizens and are free to take part in partisan politics. They bring useful expertise and experience to management roles across the government. However, in other important ways, they differ from their counterparts who bring civilian professional backgrounds to government service. In the United States, there is a debate on whether a significant difference can be observed between civilian and military inclinations over policy issues.  

Mobilizing the Armed Forces

Events such as natural disasters and pandemics have often generated demand for civil-military cooperation in the Philippines. To many Filipinos, the use of the military during a crisis is not new. The AFP, despite its logistical limitations, has extensive experience in responding to typhoons, earthquakes, and landslides. The AFP, likewise, has unique capabilities and resources, including a national command and control network with manpower as well as reserves that can be mobilized to supplement civilian frontline services. It can provide a more rapid response with its C-130s, utility helicopters, trucks, as well as landing and logistic vessels for relief operations especially in areas that are more difficult to access. AFP units are often the first ones to reach people struck by calamities, delivering food and medicine when local government resources are inadequate. Troops also remain involved during reconstruction efforts, such as the Army’s Engineer Brigades which have contributed to the construction of classrooms, bridges, and clinics in relocation areas.

On the other hand, some are concerned that giving the AFP a leading role in the pandemic response could threaten civil liberties. Fears of a “martial law-like” approach were triggered when President Rodrigo Duterte chose to be flanked by uniformed AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP) officials when he announced the decision to raise the alert system to Code Red Sublevel 2 on March 12. This was exacerbated with his “shoot them dead” order to the police and military if people do not follow orders. Similarly, statements from public officials regularly described COVID-19 using war metaphors, further reinforcing perceptions of a militarized approach. In a democratic society such as the Philippines, the use of the military and militarized language to combat the spread of COVID-19 speaks volumes about the state of the country’s civil-military relations, which appears to be more heavily weighted towards the military than the civil. Now, more than ever, a deeper conversation of civil-military relations is critical. (READ: Robredo to police, military: ‘Coronavirus is the enemy, not Filipinos’)

Points of friction and convergence

The AFP is consistently rated as one of the most trusted public institutions in the Philippines. Since 2015, public satisfaction of the AFP has been on the rise. In the last Social Weather Stations poll, conducted in December 2019, 79% of respondents expressed “satisfaction” with the performance of the AFP. Filipinos’ confidence in the military is important for healthy civil-military relations. However, for a country that has experienced 3 periods of martial law and several coup d’états in recent decades, this delicate line has been tested and weakened on many occasions. While it is reasonable to say that the role of the AFP in the government’s COVID-19 response has been substantial, there are two risks that could affect civil-military relations during this pandemic period.

First is the military’s expanding role in the pandemic response. Upon the reactivation of IATF-EID, the AFP was directed to supplement the PNP and other law enforcement agencies to support the effective implementation of the community quarantine. By and large, this “supporting” role conforms to the prevailing pattern of civil-military relations. As the situation worsened, however, the AFP operational tempo increased, and so did the warlike narrative discourse which spoke in terms of “defeating the invisible enemy,” “lockdown,” and a “national security threat.” Such additional requirements on the AFP come with an opportunity cost as these resources and units cannot be tasked to traditional missions including territorial defense and counter-terrorism. (READ: [OPINION] The Philippine military and its hypocrisy)

The second involves the danger of “groupthink.” Malacañang’s decision to appoint the 3 retired General Officers to lead the government’s plan in battling the health crisis came from the belief that members of the AFP and the PNP are “silent workers and follow orders without question.” Broadly speaking, this view might generate patterns of behavior detrimental to sound decision-making. In his 1972 seminal work Victims of Groupthink, Janis Irving referred to the term as “a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.” In order to mitigate this, it is important to ensure that policymaking and implementing groups are heterogenous in terms of experience, background, and expertise.

All of these are part of a broader tendency to think that the military can solve wider societal problems. While interagency coordination is vital, greater focus must be on building civilian capacity and having Filipinos look to their civilian elected leaders — in national and local government — to help deal with the public health crisis and, ultimately, invest in relevant solutions. – Rappler.com 

Ava Patricia Avila is Strategic Fellow at Verve Research, an independent research collective focused on the relationship between militaries and societies in Southeast Asia. She holds a PhD in Defense and Security from Cranfield University, UK. She is based in Washington, DC.  

Dali mo sa duol, mga higala! Aduna’y “eksperto” sa Sugbo og ingon pa niya, tambal kuno sa COVID-19 ang tuob o steam inhalation! Matud pa usab niya, “Dili man diay kaayo kini makapatay, sukwahi sa gikalauman na,” ang bayrus ug mas delikado pa kuno ang dengue ug TB!

Tuob ni Gwen Garcia

Ah…kadiyot lang, fake news na. Dili tambal sa COVID-19 ang tuob, ug samot dili kinahanglan nga ikumparar ang kusog ug kadaot sa coronavirus sa TB ug dengue – duha ka sakit nga aduna na’y bakuna.

Ang problema, kay kining ekspertong albularyo, mao si Gwen Garcia, ang gobernador sa Cebu.

Pasayloa mga albularyo. Mao kini sila ang aduna’y kahanas sa paggamit sa tradisyunal nga medisina. Klarohon ni namo, dili dautan ang steam inhalation – dili lang unta moabot sa pagkapaso sa init nga aso.

Ang makadaot, mao ang pagsalig nga depensa kini batok sa COVID-19 ang tuob. Ang makadaot, kung gamiton nimo ang pondo sa gobyerno sa pagpalit sa mga wala'y kapuslanan nga tuob kits.

Unsa’y nahitabo sa Cebu? Nindot na unta sa sinugdanan, nganong nahimong “2nd major battleground” o ikaduhang panggubatan batok sa COVID-19 ang dakbayan?

“Stubborn o gahi’g ulo ” kuno ang mga Sugbuanon, matud pa ni Presidente Rodrigo Duterte.

Tinuod nga nagguot sila sa merkado kaniadtong Abril aron mopalit og mga sahog sa binignit, ang tradisyunal nga pagkaon sa Mahal nga Adlaw. Apan nganong nagsalig ang mga Sugbuanon?

Gilabnawan ang kakuyaw

Nagsalig sila kay gipasaligan ni Governor Garcia, Mayor Edgar Labella, ug Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino nga “mubo ang death rates" ug kadaghanan sa mga nag-positibo kay "mostly asymptomatic.” Kay, lagi, naa baya’y tuob.

Pero ang wala nasabtan sa mga pulitiko nga volatile ug daling mausab ang sitwasyon.

Maayo na unta ang nasugdan nga mass testing. Siyempre, kung para gyud sa kadaghanan ang testing, taas usab ang resulta nga positibo. Mao kini ang nakapakulba sa dughan sa mga lokal nga opisyal – kalit nga giundang ang inadlaw nga briefing ug pag-pahibalo sa komprehensibo nga data sa midya. Imbes na magpasabut, gipaagi nila og spin o lansis.

Gilansis usab ang datos. Gihimong cause of death ang pre-existing condition nga aduna’y comorbidity (ingon sa sakit sa kasingkasing, atay, o baga). Mao na nga kung aduna'y mamatay kay natakdan sa coronavirus ug huyang ang baga – ilista nga ang gikamatyan sa pasyente mao ang lung disease.

Gikumparar usab ang datos sa 7 milyon nga populasyon sa Central Visayas nga wala’y gamit kay ang sentro sa pandemic anaa man sa dakbayan.

Dili kinahanglan sa Sugbo ang mga lokal nga opisyal nga magmasahe sa datos, magrekomenda og fake cure, ug motago sa kamatuoran, aron dili madagway nga seryoso na ang sitwasyon.

Ang gikinahanglan sa Sugboanon ug sa tanang Pilipino mao ang ang matinuoron ug tukma nga kasayuran. Ang kinahanglan sa Sugbo mao ang transparency ug pagpangulo nga dili buta sa kamatuoran kay nagkapuliki sila nga malipay ang mga negosyante.

Si Garcia ug Labella mao’y gobernador ug mayor sa lungsuranon ug dili sa dagkong negosyo lamang. Kung syensya ang patukoranan ug sistematiko ang pakigbugno sa virus – tanan matagbaw, negosyante ug ordinaryong lungsuranon.

Nganong gidownplay? Aron mapailalum sa general community quarantine (GCQ) ang Sugbo. Ug tungod kay nikunhod ang istriktong quarantine, wala nakontrolar ang mga hot spots.

Sa likud sa pagkamalaumon nga wala sa lugar, madugo gihapon ang istoryang gisinggit sa mga datos: 33 sa 100 nga na-test kay positibo. (BASAHA: ‘Cause for concern’: Experts project 11,000 coronavirus cases in Cebu by June 30)

Unsa man ang plano?

Nagpasakalye pa si Ginoong Duterte nga wala siya’y gibasul sa nahiaguman sa Sugbo (gawas lang sa mga Sugboanon.) Buot ipasabot, dili niya kasuk-an si Garcia, nga iyang usa ka importanteng kaalyado labi na kay hapit na ang eleksyon. Si Garcia nga, imbes nga magpakalma, nangasaba pa og frontliner nga mitul-id sa fake cure niya.

Apan ania na kita: palpak ang lokal, enter ang mga heneral. Unsa man gyud ang plano?

Niresponde si Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu ug ubang heneral sa sitwasyon abi pagsunod sa ilang training: nagbutang sila og daghan kaayo nga checkpoints, nag-import og daghan usab kaayong pulis ug nag-lockdown sa mga barangay nga wala intaw’y kalibutan. Sakay sa chopper, nag-ocular sila nga morag puwedeng i-mortar ang COVID-19 gikan sa panganod, pareho sa niaging pag-carpet-bombing sa Marawi. Sa ubang bahin sa nasud, gimudmuran og leaftlets ug face mask gikan sa mga sakyanang pang-panganod sa Armadong Militar.

Gibutang ni Cimatu sa total lockdown ang 12 barangay nga morag sona sa panahon sa Martial Law.

Kalit gikansela ang tanan nga quarantine passes. Upat ka adlaw na pud nga dili makalakang sa gawas sa balay ang mga Sugboanon sa dakbayan sa Sugbo. Pagkadako nga butang niining quarantine pass sa kinabuhi sa usa ka tawong naka-lockdown: kini mao’y passes nimo para mangompra, mopalit og tambal, ug ubang mga essential travel. Buot ipasabot, kini ang passes aron ka mabuhi.

Apan kadiyot lang, plano ba gyud nila nga gutumon ang mga tao samtang mag-isyu og bagong quarantine passes? Awayon ang kaaway nga virus gamit ang superior firepower?

Pastilan! Mora man og kini na usab ang solusyon – pareho sa law and order nga solusyon sa Manila ug sikbit nga dapit nga mao’y gikamatyan sa usa ka ex-marine, pagkulata sa daghang face mask violator, ug pagpriso sa sobra 2,800 kaniadtong Mayo.

Bangis ang kaaway nga virus – pero aduna’y panalipod ug pagkontra sa pandemic. Pila na ka nasud sa tibuok kalibutan ang nagpatinuod nga mahimo kining pildihon samtang gihulat ang vaccine?

Matud pa ni Cimatu ipadaplin ang pulitika. Sa tinuod lang dili problema ang away pulitika. Ang problema mao ang incompetence, ug wala’y bakuna kontra sa incompetence. Wala pu’y bakuna para sa mga pulitiko ug opisyal nga mora man og nasobrahan sa hangin sa utok kay nagsige’g nag-tuob.

Usa ra ang pangontra nato, mga kanasud nga Sugboanon, mao ang kaugalingong pagtinguha nga dili matakdan, pagsunod sa mga panudlo sa kahimsog, ug pagtuo sa kaugalingong abilidad nga mabuntog nato kini, nga dili magsalig sa pagpangulong pulpol. – Rappler.com

The verdict passed down last Monday, finding Ms Maria Ressa and Mr Reynaldo Santos, Jr of Rappler guilty of cyber libel has been very worrying, to say the least.

On top of the passage of the Anti-Terror Bill by Congress, and the thousand different ways that the law has been weaponized against critics of the government, including members of the media that report on the acts and omissions of public officials, I fear the chilling effect that such guilty verdict will have across all sectors that serve as key pillars of democracy, and in keeping our society safe and free. (READ: [OPINION] Martial rule without martial law: An anti-terror bill subtext)

From members of the media, to public servants who still place “service to the Filipino people” above partisan politics, to members of civil society organizations, and to even individual citizens who wish to speak about what they see, hear, feel and think, without fear of reprisal – I fear that they will feel less secure doing so because of the guilty verdict. And I fear that our democracy is in greater peril because of it.

But fear is not what we need at this time, of all times. Especially if fear tricks us into seeing enemies where there are only fellow Filipinos and fellow human beings, and tempts us to claw and scratch at each other.

Fear is the weapon of those who wish to divide us; of those who want us to rip our nation apart from the inside; of those who want us to tear away our own civility if only to prove that we have not “earned” the right to be free because we are incapable of exercising our freedoms responsibly. All the easier to conquer and subjugate us.  

Fear will destroy what we are fighting for quicker than any enemy could.  

What we need is cool sobriety. And fiery courage.

Because if we look closely, there is a challenge here that we can easily win. We just have to see what it is.

I want to focus on what Judge Rainelda H. Estacio-Montesa herself said in her Decision:

“The right of every person to freedom of speech is a right guaranteed by our Constitution. It is a right to speak freely without fear of retribution or retaliation. The right of the press to freely report news and opinion without undue restraint is guaranteed no less. These rights are imbued with vast powers to advance the COMMON GOOD, TO EFFECT change and influence the minds of others IN THE HOPE OF BUILDING A SOCIETY where every person can be free….

xxx     xxx    xxx

“THERE IS NO CURTAILMENT OF THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND OF THE PRESS. Each person, journalist or not, has that constitutionally guaranteed right to freely express, write, and make known his opinion. But with the highest ideals in mind what society expects is a RESPONSIBLE FREE PRESS. It is in ACTING RESPONSIBILY that freedom is given its true meaning.”

As someone who herself has been the subject of false accusations, of fake news, of trial by publicity, and of rampant, systematic, unyielding, and merciless political and character assassination: I agree with Judge Estacio-Montesa’s eloquent words about freedoms and the duty of the court towards every person. And in that sense, this is an important Decision. (READ: DOCUMENT: Decision on cyber libel conviction of Maria Ressa et al)

I wish I had read those very same, well-written words in the Decision of the Supreme Court resolving my Petition for a Writ of Habeas Data. For that is all I have ever asked the courts to do: to stand as protector against false, malicious, and defamatory imputations, acts of persecution, and threats to my security and well-being.

So at least insofar as those particular portions of the Decision are concerned, I believe we can all find something there we can all agree with: these freedoms are guaranteed by the Constitution. They are needed to build and maintain a society where everyone can be free. The government, including the courts, are bound to uphold and defend them.

I think the challenge here has been delivered: it calls on us to prove that we can exercise our freedoms responsibly “in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

So this is not the time to be afraid to speak out. In fact, this is exactly the time to prove that we can and do exercise our freedoms responsibly; that we choose to do so precisely because we want to protect and enhance the freedom of others.

As more and more people get to read closely the fairly exhaustive Decision of Judge Estacio-Montesa, debates on the merits and demerits thereof are inevitable, particularly on the key legal issues, namely, on the applicable prescriptive period, republication, and whether or not the complainant is a private person within the definition of the crime of cyber libel. These contentious issues cry out for definitive rulings from the appellate courts.  

What I clearly see is that the judge resolved doubtful and novel questions of law against the accused, which is contrary to the hornbook rule of lenity, which requires a court to apply any unclear or ambiguous law in the manner most favorable to the defendant. This glaring failure on the part of the judge is made even more dubious, given her choice to impose imprisonment, rather than just a fine as sanctioned in a Supreme Court Circular, which discourages jail term in libel cases.

Yet, over and above these important legal intricacies – made more important because liberty of persons are on the line – what most people see is the pattern of oppression that belies the denial by the Duterte Administration that the libel case against Maria Ressa is not an attack against the freedom of the press.

As early as 2016, the assault against Rappler was initiated by this administration when the Office of the Solicitor General sought the investigation of the Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs) issued by Rappler. This would be followed by a plethora of cases against Rappler’s officers, including tax evasion, cyberlibel, and violations of the Anti-Dummy Law. In 2018, Malacanang barred Rappler’s reporters from attending the press briefings and the events attended by Mr. Duterte. 

Rappler is not the only media entity so-oppressed by this administration. After a series of tirades against ABS-CBN for allegedly publishing unfair news articles against him, Mr Duterte, in December 2019, threatened ABS-CBN and said that he will see to it that they are out. The franchise of ABS-CBN has expired with his allies still doing the best they can to delay the renewal.

Indeed, the bigger picture here is press freedom.

For more than a decade now, I have been a vocal advocate for press freedom. I have never wavered in my belief that self-regulation and responsible reporting are the key, not only to keeping the media free but, more importantly, in ensuring that it consistently serves as a productive pillar of our society. Back in 2009, as CHR Chairperson, I joined the position of members of the press that opposed any attempt to censor or impose prior restraint on the freedom of the press, and the freedom of speech and information, as I had faith that the media industry – especially in the field of journalism – has in place mechanisms such as ethical codes, media ombudsmen, or correction boxes that enable them to self-regulate.  

So I have great faith in members of the media that they can respond to this challenge.

I have great faith that Ms Ressa and Mr Santos will be able to adequately address all the issues they are facing as they move forward with their appeals and other legal remedies. Knowing Rappler, I have faith that they, as an organization, will vindicate themselves, proving themselves equal to their own high standards of journalistic core values of accuracy, truth telling and balance, over and beyond arguing the technical legal issues.

I have great faith that responsible and professional media organizations in general, and especially those beleaguered by threats, will rise to the occasion and prove that they can, and they will wield their freedom and their duty with the high degree of diligence demanded by their profession and calling.  

Make no mistake, there is an implicit threat here: if we don’t exercise our freedoms, they, too, in a way, may prescribe. We cannot sleep on our freedoms, anymore than we can sleep on our rights. For if we cower in fear now, we may never have the chance to fight for them again.

So this is not the time to fear. Nor is it the time to stop fighting.

This is the time to continue speaking up.  

Just as Ms Ressa’s and Mr Santos’s fight continues as they move their case to the appellate courts, so does our fight as a collective and as individual defenders of freedom and democracy from all sectors – in public service, in civil society, in media and as individuals.

I know from first-hand experience that it won’t be easy.

I, myself, am committed to fighting an uphill battle defending myself against these cases filed against me. I will never, ever, tire of defending my complete and unconditional innocence, and I will exhaust all avenues available to me.  

As I have always believed, nothing worth doing is ever easy.  

Defending innocence is worth it. Defending human rights is worth it. Defending press freedom is worth it. Defending democracy is worth it.  

And just as Judge Estacio-Montesa laid down this challenge for media to exercise its freedom responsibly (“in the hope of building a society where every person can be free”), I also lay down a challenge of equal (if not even greater) importance to all the members of the judiciary: Prove that justice is for all, and not just for some. Prove that your courage to stand as protectors of the Constitution and the Rule of Law goes all the way, and not only as far as it does not offend powerful people. Prove that no legal or mental acrobatics will be resorted to in order to weaponize the law against those who are legitimately and responsibly exercising their civil, political, and constitutionally protected rights. 

Because Justice that is reserved only for (or against) some is no justice at all. It is tyranny dressed in black robes. – Rappler.com

Senator Leila de Lima, a fierce Duterte critic, has been detained in a facility at the Philippine National Police headquarters over what she calls trumped-up drug charges.

A man in his late twenties tends to a bright yellow wooden cart, displaying assorted street food and plastic containers of spiced vinegar, outside the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman’s Shuster gate. Students and workers alike flock the cart, pointing to their choice snacks on wooden skewers, which will be deep-fried in a steel wok.

Trodding Palma Hall (AS) grounds in his flip-flops, a six-year-old boy rests a plastic tray of food on his head. He offers students turon (banana spring roll), lumpiang togue (beansprout spring roll), and karioka (sticky rice ball). Nearby is his grandmother, Nanay Celia, tending to the same food in a small wooden kiosk. Adored by AS regulars, it is common to see class-bound students and faculty greeting her. The mother of the boy, Ate Amor, was a vendor too. Multiple organizations pitched in for her bypass operation. She passed last year.

Manang Sol, a sweet elderly woman, sells a wide range of skewered snacks in her kiosk. Beside her sits a cloth-lined basket filled with balut and penoy (both variations of incubated duck egg). Kuya Bon sells taho (soy bean curd) – often with a generous serving of arnibal (molasses syrup) – and bottled soy milk. He and Manang Sol have been a mainstay for whole batches of student-athletes looking for a quick bite before training in the College of Human Kinetics gym.

I’ve depended on them on an almost daily basis, and so have many others. Before the pandemic broke out, I would routinely buy food from Nanay Celia between classes. When my day concluded, I would stop by Manang Sol’s to grab a snack before crossing over to the other side of Commonwealth Avenue for my commute back home. I’d buy bottled soy milk from Kuya Bon for the road, too.

I cannot imagine UP without these people, and I’m sure neither can my fellow Iskos.

Beyond UP, you will find many others like them: along busy highways, in narrow residential alleys, underneath footbridges, in public markets. People from all walks of life depend on these workers.

They are our informal sector.

The International Labor Organization defines the informal sector as “independent, self-employed small-scale producers and distributors of goods and services.” According to the Labor Force Survey, actors in the informal economy make up 38.3% of all workers. Most of these people have no access to social protection and benefits afforded to workers in the formal economy. This means no “work injury, sickness, disability, maternity, retirement, and death benefits.” No safety nets, in short.

This leaves them vulnerable to shocks: COVID-19, for one. (READ: Over 1 million Filipino workers displaced due to coronavirus)

To be fair, we do have comprehensive social protection programs in place. To name a few: the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), a conditional cash-transfer program for poor households which provides subsidies for rice, health and nutrition, and education; the Kabuhayan Program, which provides capital to kickstart small businesses; and the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens, which provides a monthly stipend of P500 to the elderly indigent. (READ: When cash aid is not enough: Helping displaced farmers, informal workers)

The problem is not lack of well-structured programs per se, but lack of coherence and inclusive coverage. Faulty inter-agency coordination has led to duplication of data and ineligible beneficiaries instead of coherent and cohesive efforts targeting intended beneficiaries. In 2017, 31,389 households received benefits from the 4Ps program despite being non-poor, thanks to data errors. Completely preventable bureaucratic mishaps like these ultimately spoil good intentions.

But these fall on deaf ears.

Make no mistake: the representative form of government we have is not truly representative. How could it be, when many of our congressmen hail from political dynasties holding on to familial privileges? According to the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center, members of political dynasties occupied 33% of party-list seats in the 17th Congress. How could it be, when government officials rarely see abject poverty firsthand? (READ: 29% of local posts now occupied by 'fat' political dynasties)

True democratic governance encourages participative decision-making. It lends an ear to those on the fringes of society, and works alongside them in crafting solutions to address problems long present. It does not merely toss half-baked solutions from official chambers.

We talk about our new reality in terms of wearing face masks, observing social distancing, business operations, and switching to cashless payments. These are well and good, but let’s delve deeper. Let’s talk about a new reality where an elderly street vendor need not worry about funding their daughter’s bypass operation. Let’s talk about a new reality where our elected officials meet them eye-to-eye, converse with them, grant them a proactive role in the policymaking process, and address their immediate needs.

Informal workers are key players in the urban ecosystem. Many, myself included, depend on them on a daily basis. It is only right that we stand alongside them to topple towers of old, and atop the rubble, build a kinder normal. Our informal workers deserve better.

After all, tao rin sila katulad natin. – Rappler.com

Jay Sebastian is a journalism student from UP Diliman whose research interests include: sustainable development in the Global South, human rights, social movements, and social protection. He hopes to foster discourse on social inequalities through his writing. 

It’s now the 107th day of our stay-at-home order in Los Angeles, California. This means more video games than usual for my kids while my wife and I work from home. One of the games that my 14-year old son plays is Civilization 6, sort of a historical take on empire building and cultural development. Since I am an archaeologist, my son usually asks me questions about some of the themes in the game. Recently, he asked about how archaeologists know what they know and if we ever change our perspectives if new information arises. So, the question was about knowledge production, data analysis, and changing attitudes – all because of Civ6 .

In the age of COVID-19, science and data have been thrust into the limelight as they guide our government officials in making effective decisions to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. There is, however, a common misunderstanding about the nature of science: that science seeks that truth. Questions regarding authenticity have been around for thousands of years, and people did use the scientific method to try to find the truth. Still, we know now that scientific knowledge is only good as the data that support it — walang forever (there is no forever).

Science does not really provide an answer to what the truth is. It gives us tools to understand observable – even intangible – phenomena, but it never commits to offering the truth. Instead, it tests hypotheses, which, if supported, become the best explanation until refuted by a new set of data or models. So, science is a method for asking and answering questions. And it relies on data, testability, and replicability. (READ: Filipino scientists abroad join PH frontliners vs coronavirus)

As an example, our current theory of evolution is not Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection; it is now the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. Darwin’s model was not able to explain trait inheritance. It was only after the discovery of Gregor Mendel’s publications on pea plants that Darwin’s theory became viable. The Synthetic Theory of Evolution that we follow today emerged in 1930 and has incorporated genetic inheritance into Darwinian evolution.

Thus, science is dependent on data. Without data to support them, explanations are just anecdotal or hearsay in legal speak. COVID-19 has once again exposed us to the nature of science. In the absence of data (or rejection of data), COVID-19 was dismissed as similar to the flu and no big deal. Even if history has given us fair warning about pandemics, particularly the 1918 Spanish Flu (which was first documented in the United States), misunderstanding or sheer ignorance of how science works have contributed to the unabated spread of the virus, particularly among vulnerable populations around the world. For now, there is much that we don’t know about COVID-19. Scientists are working around the clock to help us understand the disease by gathering data, developing hypotheses, and running experiments. That is science: it starts from observation, hypothesis, testing that hypothesis, then providing explanations. Without this process (scientific method), elucidations are just anecdotal thoughts. (READ: What science tells us about COVID-19)

Dating of the Ifugao Terraces

We recently wrote about the dominant narrative of the 2,000-year-old origin of the Ifugao Rice Terraces and the Waves of Migration Theory. We showed that these were examples of anecdotal modeling – they are not testable nor replicable. They are devoid of testable data. To argue for the inception of the terraces, you need data to develop a model.

To date the rice terraces we developed a testable model, support or disprove the hypothesis with actual contextual data, and link it with prior explanations (60+ years of data including 50 radiocarbon dates from Kiangan, Banaue, Hapao, Burnay, Nabyun, Poitan, Lugu, Banghallan, Bintacan, and Bontoc). However, radiocarbon dating does not date a historical event. It dates when an organism died, and that specimen becomes incorporated into the archaeological record. 

As such, we do not just look for organic samples for radiocarbon dating. The context (the three-dimensional context, including location and stratigraphic relationships to other samples) has to be established to determine the probable utility and relative age of the sample. For us to use radiocarbon dates, it means that we have to explain the circumstances of when, where, what, how, and potentially, why that sample was used as a specimen for dating. We record this contextual information because archaeological excavation is destructive by nature and the result of radiocarbon dating in a contextual vacuum is invalid.

That is the reason why we dig as slowly and carefully as possible to observe and record any changes in the soil layers, their constituents, and the finds that we uncover. This contextual record, in the form of maps, images, and field notes, is the basis of our reports. Reviewing such documents and maintaining the collected finds and samples make archaeological research replicable. It is a methodology that provides you with data. What you do with that data (interpretation) is the more significant part of science; facts do not speak for themselves – scientific rigor does.

Modeling from contemporary terrace constructions also gives us a glimpse at the speed with which the terraces expanded in the region. Jared Koller’s spatial and energetic model is based on a combination of the number of workers, the workdays, earth moved, stone-walling, and construction. When applied to Batad, the model suggests that the whole system could have been constructed within 180 years by 4.5 persons, working 7.5 hours a day, 6 days a week. Of course, more than 4.5 people would have been working in Batad. 

More importantly, community memory appears to support scientific datasets. Time reckoning and genealogical reconstruction are valuable tools in understanding the Ifugao since time reckoning is by generation and not by years. An example of this is the origin story of Batad. The story goes that Batad was discovered by brothers from Cambulo (a nearby village) while hunting. One of the brothers started a swidden field and subsequently brought his family to Batad. The terraces were constructed soon after.  This origin narrative presumably occurred within the last 6 generations. To say that oral history is not a valid source of data is a severe misunderstanding of ethnographic methods and disrespectful to Ifugao community stories and heritage.

Tentative truth

The recent discoveries of evidence of early hominin presence in Callao Cave, Cagayan, and Rizal, Kalinga, also correspond to the rigorous scientific reasoning. Researchers analyzed multiples datasets to explain the data recovered from these two sites. In the case of Callao, a detailed analysis of skeletal morphology suggested an early hominid form. The identification of stone tool cutmarks on rhinoceros’ bones from Rizal, Kalinga, also indicates the presence of hominins in Luzon as early as 700,000 years ago. Clearly, these new datasets offer fresh information that changes our ideas of how humans arrived in the Philippines.

For the terraces, the current modeling and interpretation of the archaeological data from the Cordillera are the closest we can get to the truth. Unless new data refutes the model, it stands as the most plausible explanation. Practitioners of science do not feel sad when their models are disproven. It means that their experiments were not replicable or that new data has arisen. It means that scientists need to address the failures of their model, re-analyze, and re-interpret the available data to get as close to the reality that we perceive. 

For COVID-19, there is still a lot that we don’t know about the disease, but that doesn’t mean that our scientists are wrong. Every bit of new information gives us hope that we will gather enough data to develop ways to eventually defeat the virus. But for now, what we know is that we should all wear masks, avoid crowds, wash our hands, and listen to science as it develops. Even if there is no forever truth in science, it reflects the truth as we know it, for now. – Rappler.com

Stephen Acabado is Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of California, Los Angeles. He directs the Ifugao Archaeological Project and is an advocate of a community-engaged archaeology. He can be reached at acabado@anthro.ucla.edu.

Marlon Martin is the Chief Operating Officer of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Ifugao, Philippines. He is on the forefront of Ifugao heritage conservation and has spearheaded the establishment of the Indigenous Peoples Education Center in Ifugao. He can be reached at marlon.martin12@yahoo.com.

I recently read Dr Del Castillo’s piece “On hoarding certificates from online courses and webinars,” and can’t help feeling a certain insecurity. Since April, I have been taking an online course, having felt overwhelmingly unproductive during my quarantine days. 

I enrolled in an "Intro to Shakespeare" course on edX. It was a topic I had not tackled during my undergraduate degree, and it would complement my current graduate studies in Creative Writing. It was a free course, but to get a certificate, I needed to pay the equivalent of P2,000. It was a hefty sum, but I chose to pay it so that I would finish the course throughout and have the proof to boot. But after reading Del Castillo's essay, I pondered: was my decision ill-advised? 

Perhaps the pursuit of certificates and awards are, in some form, a vanity. We strive to achieve honors in school so that we might feel accomplished, and we then pass these pressures on to our children. Admittedly, this illusion of a reward for being academically superior creates a hostile and toxic environment. I have seen individuals beg college and university professors for grades to reach the cum laude threshold, for instance. 

Nonetheless, I do believe that certificates attained in online courses are different. Those were gained without the pressure of academic grades. Ratings in these courses, rather than the awarding of medals, are also used as a measure of mastery instead.

Additionally, while we do see many online posts featuring people who've accomplished these courses, which I often think are very in-your-face, especially if the said course is hosted by an Ivy League school, I dare do not discredit the happiness and pride people gain in finishing courses. Most of us will never set foot in Harvard, Yale, or some other internationally renowned school, so this is the closest most of us can get. Also, there is a sense of satisfaction we should feel when we see peers trying to learn by themselves. (READ: CHED launches web-based platform for free college learning materials)

I am also not blind to the capitalistic tendencies of these online courses. RA 10912 or the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act of 2016, for instance, has been such a hotbed of issues that some professions have sought to suspend it. One major issue is the saturation of so-called CPD granting events that only care about profits, not learning. But these should be mostly addressed by the various boards, councils, and employers that recognize these points and merits. We should not automatically assume that learning equates to using knowledge for capitalistic gain. 

For now, what I can say is that during this time of quarantine, learning online, like cooking, writing, drawing, or any other skill or hobby, can help better a person and can sometimes become a coping mechanism. 

In the forum section of my online course, I met a couple of Filipinos who said that they wanted to reconnect with Shakespeare’s works because they had an awful time learning them in high school. The pursuit of learning just for the thrill of it, then, is a decision that we must normalize. We should start to see the value of learning something new just as a way to better ourselves, since we have so much room to grow. – Rappler.com 

Gillian Reyes is a registered librarian who works at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He often writes stories for children, and hopes to build a library for kids someday.

The painful part of being a government worker in the time of Duterte is that you are expected to be either neutral or loyal to your employer. At the same time, however, you owe it to yourself to speak freely and stand up for truth. 

One year before Rodrigo Roa Duterte assumed presidency of the Republic of the Philippines, I entered the civil service as a college instructor in a state university in La Union. Many people embrace the notion that civil service is an honor. For me and my family, who for the longest time were fed by years of civil service thanks to my father’s work in the military, it has always been the wiser choice. 

Job security, generous compensation and benefits, and an excellent opportunity for personal growth and development. Who would not want these boons of working in the government? But at what cost? 

In September 2018, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque reminded Mechanical Engineering professors of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, who called President Duterte a “tyrant,” not to forget that while freedom of expression is a right, state university professors are still government employees and are bound to follow civil service laws. 

Early this year, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources released a memorandum advising their employees, including contractuals, “not to comment or post negative in (sic) the social media against the government.” It further reads: “As a government employee, we should exemplify discipline to (sic) the community and promote cooperation to (sic) the government.” For contractuals, obedience to this kind of memorandum is crucial to their survival. 

Roque and the DENR’s messages are the same, and both are clear. They insinuate that government employees must respect their employer: the very organization that hires them, pays them, and feeds them. Never bite the hands that feed you, they say. Respect those whom you depend upon. But I find this problematic, especially in the context of free speech.

Our right to free speech is guaranteed and protected by the Constitution (Art. III, Sec. 4), which posits that “no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for redress of grievances.” Government employees being asked to filter their thoughts or mellow their criticisms against the government or the president means they have to surrender their freedom of speech the moment they enter civil service. (READ: [EXPLAINER] Can government employees post criticism of the anti-terror bill?)

It alarms me how certain government agencies make efforts to stop civil servants from airing criticism. But what bothers me more is how these efforts try to equate being a civil servant with being a loyal, faithful servant of the government, and most especially the president. In the fundamentals of political science, it is clear that the government and the state are two different entities. In fact, the government is just one of the 4 basic elements of the state, together with territory, people, and sovereignty. As civil servants, our loyalty lies with the state, in the service of the public, and not with the current government. My political science lessons also remind me that governments can change after every election, but not the state. This basic differentiation somehow informs my decision to speak my mind sometimes, including criticizing the government and even the president. 

For a rank-and-file civil service employee like me, conversations about Duterte’s government are hard conversations. Duterte is the Lord Voldemort (he-who-must-not-be-named) of our institution. Nobody dares to discuss him, unless it is about something positive. Sometimes, there is also a moral agency that keeps me from posting my thoughts against the government or the president.

Plus, in our family of civil servants, it is imperative not to criticize the very agency that feeds us and gives the family dignity. My last debate with my family regarding the ABS-CBN shutdown did not end well. I was reminded that I must respect the government’s decision because it is from working for the government that we were able to graduate from college. Politics must be the Lord Voldemort in every home. 

It is difficult not to speak up in the face of a bloody drug war; of the President's obscene language towards the UN, his critics, the Pope, and the Catholic Church; of the lack of transparency and accountability; of the special treatment and double standards that prevail; and recently, of the glaring incompetence in our COVID-19 response. It is especially difficult not to speak in these weird times, because we owe it to ourselves to speak up and defend our rights. We owe it to ourselves and our future as a country that we do not condone and sponsor violence, profanity, double standards, and incompetence. And it is especially hard and challenging because I am an employee of the government I bash. (READ: Tony Leachon miffed Duterte himself)

I have always believed there is prudence in silence, but never speaking up about anything at all is not prudence, but fear. When we choose to remain silent despite threats to our democracy and rights, we choose for injustice to grow and propagate. (READ: Dismay, disgust, dissent: How Filipinos online reacted to issues during Duterte’s 4th year)

Borrowing the words of Justice Marvic Leonon in the 2020 virtual oathtaking of new lawyers, “Our silence, when we fall victim or after we serve as accomplices to corrupt acts of the powerful, is also our own powerful political act. Our silence maintains the status quo. It ensures that others will also be victimized. Our silence in the face of abuse skews power to the system in favor of those with resources and against those who need the law more. Our silence legitimizes greed and undermines the power of public trust. Silence about corruption and abuse of power is not only in itself unjust; our silence when we have the ability to speak is in itself a cause of injustice.” – Rappler.com

Ronald Bracero Bustos is a college Social Science instructor at Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University-South La Union Campus. He holds a Master of Arts in Social and Development Studies from the University of the Philippines-Baguio and a bachelor's degree in Secondary Education, Major in Social Studies from Saint Louis University. His views here do not reflect those of said institutions.  

As the country enters a post-lockdown phase, the new normal for the economy, it seems, is not to "build back better."

Rather, the thrust is just to return to pre-crisis levels of growth; enhanced fiscal, monetary, and central bank interventions to bring back aggregate demand. (READ: What the Philippine economy could be like after the coronavirus)

In a May 2, 2020 briefing, the Economist ranks the Philippines 6th among selected emerging economies in the world, and the best among those ranked from Southeast Asia, in terms of economic, fiscal, and financial management measures. 

It may be argued that our COVID-19 economic response strategy is not to weaken further this macro-fiscal framework. This means preventing at all costs the ballooning of our debt-to-GDP ratio. Hence, incurring more debts and downgrades in credit ratings are frowned upon. 

According to BSP Governor Diokno, the country is technically in a recession with possible zero to negative growth this year. The economic managers and ADB forecasts 3.4% and 3.8% contractions, respectively, while World Bank projects a 1.9% contraction. (READ: Bangko Sentral sees sharper GDP contraction in Q2 2020)

In capitalism, two key principles are at play – nothing is free from heaven and everything is a trade off. 

Our economic managers are not keen on expanding borrowings to finance public and merit goods. Two stimulus measures passed by the House before it adjourned was thumbed down as "unfundable." The Bayanihan 2 bill passed by the Senate providing an additional P140-B fund got a lukewarm response. 

Economists tell us that consumption is the engine that drives economic growth, as it makes up 70% of GDP.  If you want your economy to grow, you have to press fully the economic pedal by revving up consumption.  

That was true in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis when consumption spending went up to an all-time high in 2011. But investments remained at decades' low, while millions were jobless. Economists describe this as the worst growth recovery and unemployment since the Great Depression. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic, consumption drastically went down due to demand and supply shocks. The poor, who are disproportionately affected, have nothing to spend as businesses are closing and workers losing jobs. Boosting consumption now is illogical.  

The common measure of economic growth is a country’s GDP. GDP is an accounting summary of final sales for new goods and services. It adds consumption and investment spending together. As a result, GDP reveals nothing about what grows an economy. At best, it demonstrates how large the economy is and not whether it’s growing or shrinking.

The country’s service sector, industries ranging from retail and business services to education and health, is the biggest contributor to the economy. However, the sector has an uneven performance at the regional and subsector levels, according to a 2019 service sector analysis by the Philippine Institute of Development Studies.

The study showed that our service sector is critical in the production process, hence developing human capital as well as enhancing the quality of life through healthcare and education expenditures have to be expanded and not reduced, especially in a recession.  

Technological innovation, human capital formation, labor productivity growth, and gross capital formation are the drivers of economic growth, not consumption.  

The impact of COVID-19 on the Philippine economy is significant, as the country will suffer its worst economic slump since the 1985 debt default.  

COVID-19 impacts developing economies in at least 3 ways: by locking down their populations (consumption), damaging exports earnings (remittances), and deterring foreign capital (investments).

The Philippine Statistics Authority’s latest report showed the country’s total merchandise trade contracted by 59.8%, reaching $6.1 billion in April 2020, its lowest monthly decline since 1991.

Both merchandise exports and imports went down by 50.8% and 65.3%, respectively. Global trade flows remain hampered by lockdowns and reduced external demand.

In April 2020, some 7.254 million workers lost their jobs, or 4.987 million more compared to April 2019. As a result, the unemployment rate rose from 5.1-17.7%. Underemployment also increased from 13.4-18.9%, even with a massive social amelioration rollout.

The consumer and retail sectors were the hardest hit by the lockdowns in Luzon, where 57% of its population resides and which accounts for 73% of the country’s GDP. This is further aggravated by the extended lockdowns in Central Visayas, the second biggest island economy.

Our economic managers fiscal policy response is to attract investments and impose additional tax measures.  

This is done by further opening up our economy to foreign investments such as the proposed amendments to the Public Service Act, the Foreign Investment Act, and the Retail Trade Liberalization Act. 

Government is pushing for the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE), with provisions that reduce corporate income tax to 25% from 30% in 2020, hoping to attract foreign investments.

It assumes that these tax incentives turn to savings of corporations to fund their operations and retain employees as their Covid-19 response. NEDA estimates P42 billion in savings this year and a total of P625 billion till 2024, if the measure is passed. But actually these are foregone revenues!

Would investors bite the bait especially in a time when global investments are contracting?  

Investments have been down before the COVID-19 outbreak amid global protectionism and rising uncertainties. More so this time as the pandemic disrupted supply chains, drained revenues, and led to drastic declines in production.   

The pandemic also intensified tax competition between countries to attract investment, with the risk of a global race to the bottom. ASEAN countries, having an average of 23.1% CIT with Singapore lowest at 17%, are cutting it down further.

Even if we do attract multinational corporations, these entities are adept in exploiting arbitrage opportunities. Arbitrage is profiting by way of exploiting the price differences of identical or similar financial instruments by trading in different markets. 

Companies also declare profits but after doing cross-border tax avoidance. In the so-called base erosion and profit shifting, strategies of MNCs that exploit gaps and mismatches in tax rules of countries, the IMF estimated $650-B annual revenue losses.

A World Bank report noted in a recent poll among business executives that more than low taxes and labor costs, investment decisions are made based on supportive political environments and stable macroeconomic conditions. Corollary to such factors would be a predictable legal and regulatory environment.

Alas, with the Rappler cases and ABS-CBN shutdown, made emphatic with the passage of a draconian anti-terror law amid still rising COVID-19 cases, the Duterte administration’s bait for investors is laced with poison. (READ: Maria Ressa, Rey Santos Jr convicted of cyber libel)

As the economy reopened, we need a better normal, not a return to a bleak normal. We need to care for our people more, mindful of climate change and wellbeing, and still be on high guard to stop the spread of the disease.  

In a United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2020, governments should prioritize people and the planet over economic recovery. Business-as-usual cannot continue in the face of a long-standing climate emergency, said Shuvojit Banerjee, the economic affairs officer. 

For businesses, they have to incorporate environmental, social, and governance considerations into their decision-making process. Consumers have to shift toward sustainable lifestyles focusing on food, transportation, housing, and clothing.

During the pandemic lockdown, studies from Harvard University and the University of Siena have linked a strong correlation on urban pollution to soaring rates of pneumonia and other respiratory diseases, co-morbidities that increase the severity of COVID-19. 

Thus we need more investments on health of the physical and mental variety, the quality of life and relationships, access to green spaces and sense of security.

Global lessons from the pandemic showed that government measures are better implemented when there is public participation and solutions are well communicated. Those that fail loses people’s trust and support. – Rappler.com

Tom Villarin is former congressman of Akbayan Party List in the 17th Congress. He authored the law Institutionalizing the 4Ps and the Safe Spaces Act, co-authored the Universal Health Care Law, Expanded Maternity Leave Law, Free Tertiary Education in Public Schools, and the vetoed Anti-Contractualization Law, among others.

Harry Roque was ecstatic the other day. He realized that June is ending and the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was still a couple of thousand less than what the UP modelers have forecasted. He was genuinely very happy about it that I, for a moment, even thought I was watching him cheering for UP in the UAAP Basketball finals. But no, it was a press conference by the Presidential Spokesperson of the Republic of the Philippines. The presidential spox was talking about data, epidemiological data. He was doing statistical inferencing of sorts. And that juvenile smile, that authentic joy Roque radiated, was symptomatic of a persistent pandemic in the Philippine political leadership. (READ: Roque spins again: 'We beat the UP prediction…Congratulations, Philippines!')

Data and policymaking

Public policymaking is probably the most recognizable function of the government. It may very well be considered as the overarching reason, the raison d’etre, behind the very existence of governments. But what makes good public policy? 

In the past several decades, public policy has become an interdisciplinary intellectual pursuit — mathematicians, statisticians, economists, sociologists, political scientists, and psychologists have extended their scholarly turfs toward improving analyses and designs of policies. This is so because of the critical importance of policies in maintaining a social order, improving living standards, and addressing the persistent plight and emerging challenges of humanity (e.g. poverty, injustice, climate change). Public policy is so important that its practices and methods have become mostly grounded on solid theories of sciences. Good policies are not anymore what the good politician thinks and feels is the right thing to do. The consensus among scholars is clear: sound, responsive public policies are products of rigorous empirical analyses. Simply put, good public policies are data driven. (READ: [OPINION] Scientists and politicians should break out of their bubbles)

There is certainly no dearth of brilliant staffers in government departments who can perform rigorous analysis of data and deliver evidence-based design of policies. The PIDS, NEDA, DOF, PCC, BSP, DOST, among many others, have very qualified people — most of them earned postgraduate degrees from top universities in the country and even abroad. We can trust them to do the legwork or, more appropriately, the “brainwork” for policy design. But at the end of the day, as in most systems of government in the world, it is the elected — the politicians — who get to decide on the fate of policies. 

The pandemic in the political leadership 

Here, dear Brutus, is where the fault lies – the quality of politicians we elect to office. 

The pandemic in political leadership is the prevalence of overconfident politicians who think that with the prenominal “Hon.” – worthiness is an issue for another day — and a microphone and podium, they can already deliver their on-the-spot analysis of the problems and challenges we face. Pretty much like what Roque did. He was not reading the script, if there was one, which should have been prepared by the epidemiologists. This equally worrisome pandemic makes everything about public policies political, when they should not be. 

A case in point is a committee hearing in the Senate which I watched months ago; it is still available in the Senate’s YouTube channel. It was a committee hearing with some Finance officials last year. The discussion at one point was about the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program of the government. One senator expressed his misgivings about the CCT so confidently. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Then the brilliant (former) Finance official with a doctorate in Economics responded, “Your honor, there is actually plenty of empirical evidence which tell us that the CCT works.” The senator felt challenged by the response, and the committee chair had to come in and remind them that it should not be discussed in that forum. I was amazed by the Senator’s willingness to debate, on the spot, about the empirical evidence of a social assistance program, against a person with a PhD in Economics. See the pandemic that I am talking about? I would be convinced that the Senator will stand a chance against the official if he could recognize the following:

All these images are telling of the kind of rigorous analysis that sound policies require. The first image is from Usui’s (2011) ADB-commissioned study about the CCT in the Philippines. The figure illustrates a simulation of how two poor households maximize utility given budget constrains under two conditions: cash transfer with and without conditionalities. The second image is taken from Tutor’s (2014) study on the impact of the CCT on consumption. That is an example of an estimation model to measure the impact of the program on a particular variable, in this case consumption. The third image is a statistical summary table of the results taken from Kandpal, et al.’s (2016) study on how the CCT reduces severe stunting in the Philippines using randomized control trial (RCT). See, your honor? It looks like it works. 

The point of showing these images is to show that the problems that the government ought to address, like poverty and this pandemic, require from political leaders an instinctive understanding and informed appreciation of data. Sure, let the well-trained staffers do the brainwork. But the politicians who get to decide on the fate of the brainwork shouldn’t be lacking brains. Otherwise, like what we see rather so often today, they just get to say whether a policy works because they feel or think so. Otherwise, we will keep having political leaders who politicize data, like what Roque did, not only because it is politically expedient to do so, but because it is likely that they are just plain ignorant of how to make sense of data. (READ: [OPINION] Speaking truth to power: Why the government should listen to scientists)

In my conversations with elder fellows about politics, I always get the impression that some Filipinos have the tendency to associate being a lawyer with the best qualification of, say, a congressman. That is at best laughable, and at worst plainly stupid. Irrespective of education and professional training, I believe that the best qualification of politicians should be the instinctive understanding of the scientific method. If they know the logic behind that and how it works, we will surely elevate policy discourse in the country. Of course, I am being idealistic. But now we have Rep. Stella Quimbo who has a PhD in Economics and has an extensive research portfolio on economics and public policy. We have Rep. Joey Salceda who can run the numbers and explain rather well the concept of elasticity vis-à-vis imposing sin taxes. Is it too much to ask for a little more of their kind? – Rappler.com 

Tristan Piosang is currently doing his master’s degree in Public Policy with a specialization in Economics at the Wellington School of Business and Government, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He is a recipient of the New Zealand Scholarships Award under the NZAid Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Prior to his postgraduate studies, he served as a Research Associate at the Center for Bridging Leadership of the Asian Institute of Management. 

Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr’s conviction by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 presided by Judge Rainelda H. Estacio-Montesa dismayed many. Criticisms were irreverent, some snarky, others calm, coming from members of many sectors: journalist-organizations, academicians, legislators, and students.  

Retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio likewise chimed in. CNN’s Amanpour and Hillary Clinton twitted their concerns. 

Observations, whether based on evidence, law, or mere perceptions were posted on social media. There were all sorts of reasons, ranging from the misapplication of prescription rules and  cyberlibel to the threat against freedom of expression and the press.      

Caustic reactions were aplenty considering that the case has also been perceived as a highly political and persecutory one, given President Duterte’s vocal and public animosity toward Rappler.  

But the judges resented the uproar. Unprecedentedly, through their association, they issued a statement saying that “personal attacks, criticisms laden with political threats, those that misrepresent and distort the nature and context of judicial decisions, those that are misleading or without factual or legal basis, and those that blame the judges for the ills of society, damage the integrity of the judiciary and threaten the doctrine of judicial independence. xxx” (READ: Judges' group cries foul over bashing of judiciary after Ressa conviction)

But, instead of stemming disapproval, the statement’s castigatory and lecturing – some say pompous – tone may have fueled the fire. Are judges very special public servants beyond public scrutiny?

The official statement failed to stress a fundamental point: public office is a public trust. Magistrates are also accountable to the citizenry. They cannot just blame people for making negative outbursts regarding their decisions. The very nature of their work is polarizing. Judgments inevitably produce clashing emotions: a winner’s joy and a loser’s disgust, which may even be justified. Such is simply human nature. It is unbecoming of judges not to transcend these various emotions, especially when human imperfection can make them commit mistakes resulting in the most irreparable, physical, financial, psychological, and/or devastating damage to individuals and their families. Their job demands no room for error.   

An untouchable judiciary beyond critical scrutiny belongs to a bygone era. Former US Supreme Court Associate Justice, Mr Justice Brewer, said: 

"It is a mistake to suppose that the Supreme Court is either honored or helped by being spoken of as beyond criticism. On the contrary, the life and character of its justices should be the objects of constant watchfulness by all, and its judgments subject to the freest criticism. The time is past in the history of the world when any living man or body of men can be set on a pedestal and decorated with a halo. True, many criticisms may be, like their authors, devoid of good taste, but better all sorts of criticism than no criticism at all. The moving waters are full of life and health; only in the still waters is stagnation and death." (Government by Injunction, 15 Nat’l Corp. Rep. 848,849)

Thus, inquiries regarding possible reasons influencing the outcome of decisions, whether pursued or merely posted, are justified. In fact, it is necessary. For instance, can a judge’s decision be a payment for a previous favor given by some officials? Justice Leonen’s speech at the oath-taking for new lawyers laments: “They mistake the public interest with debt of gratitude to the elite and the powerful that continue to provide their wealth and create their careers. Expediency overwhelms conscience.” Are there conflicts of interest? In describing government officials, the Supreme Court said that “the private life of an employee cannot be segregated from his public life. Dishonesty inevitably reflects on the fitness of the officer or employee to continue in office and the discipline and morale of the service." (Nera vs Garcia G.R. No. L-13160 106 Phil 1031)

For people to respect judges and to accept their decisions, albeit grudgingly, every aspect of their lives must be open to scrutiny, if only to make sure that they are uprightly and intelligently qualified to render justice for all.

Another important point: judges have no direct mandate from the sovereign people. Though unelected, they are conveniently tenured with very good salaries and allowances. Upon retirement, a comfortable pension awaits them. Powers are granted to them to adjudicate cases covering private concerns to  public interest involving constitutional and human rights issues. They have contempt powers exercisable against people in and out of a case. 

Not only that: judges are, generally, accorded immunity from liability resulting from an erroneous judgment. Notwithstanding a serious violation of a litigant’s constitutional rights, indemnity such as moral and exemplary damages “is not demandable from a judge unless his act or omission constitutes a violation of the Penal Code or other penal statute." (Article 32 of the Civil Code)

So much authority and privilege given and yet so little means directly provided to the people to make  judges feel accountable. 

And there lies the immeasurable value of public opinion and the press. To keep judges on their toes, people must be encouraged to openly criticize their proceedings and decisions if warranted. The press must report them. Stirring up arguments is not innately prejudicial. In a democracy, there must be a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials” (Terminiello vs. Chicago 337 US 1, 4). Awareness of  the public’s disquietude makes a judge circumspect in resolving cases. 

Undoubtedly, the Ressa and Santos convictions have an effect on freedom of expression and the press. All must be free to expose wrongdoings if factual or legal proofs exist. Not even the pendency of a case should unduly restrict this constitutional right. The Supreme Court said: "A public utterance or publication is not to be denied the constitutional protection of freedom of speech and press merely because it concerns a judicial proceeding still pending in the court, upon the theory that in such a case, it must necessarily tend to obstruct the orderly and fair administration of justice.” (Marantan vs. Diokno G.R. No. 205956 February 12, 2014). The sub judice rule, if arbitrarily applied, is prior restraint on speech. (READ: Dismay, disgust, dissent: How Filipinos online reacted to issues during Duterte’s 4th year)

And even if judgments are reached, they should not be excused from critical debate. For citizens to be deprived of their freedom of expression in matters of injustice can be an irresistible lure to the abuse and misuse of powers by those to whom they are given.

Judges, being “property of the public,” must learn to suffer criticism emanating from taxpayers who provide financial sustenance to them and their families. Being onion-skinned has no place in the judiciary. If they cannot stand the heat, as the saying goes, better get out of the kitchen.  

Finally, some humble introspection on their part may be the beginning of genuine respect. The destruction of the judiciary’s integrity and independence may very well come from within. Even Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta made it his mission “to get rid of the misfits and those not conforming with the standards” – proof  that the predilection of many to blame “judges for the ills of society” is not entirely  unfounded. – Rappler.com

Mel Sta Maria is dean of the Far Eastern University (FEU) Institute of Law. He teaches law at FEU and the Ateneo School of Law, hosts shows on both radio and Youtube, and has authored several books on law, politics, and current events.