MANILA, Philippines - It's hard to believe that 15 years have passed. Perhaps it's because it's best to imagine the sands in our individual hourglasses being infinite, or we don't like to feel so distant from memories we've romanticized as being happier than they really were.

When I think back to that day, the only thing I can idealize is how, in spite of my feelings on that day, the world kept turning. It was a while before I could feel reassured of even that small staple of regularity. On the morning of September 11, 2001, a total of 2,996 lives were lost due to the largest terror attack before or since on American soil.

For those who lived on, something less tangible than life was lost. That's the story I want to tell from my perspective.

I was 14 at the time and lived on Mountain Road in Union City, New Jersey on a hill overlooking Manhattan's financial district. Our apartment was bare-bones simple but I felt lucky to have a view of the Twin Towers from my balcony. I spent many nights out there with my boom box radio listening to CDs and watching the lights go out each night on the Towers. I just assumed they'd light up every night for the rest of time.

I remember watching the Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons on UPN 9 while waiting for the school bus, and when it didn't come I walked to the nearby Board of Education to inquire about why I wasn't picked up. Everyone in the basement office at Emerson High School was fixated on the television as news broke of an airplane crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers.

I rushed back home, no longer caring about school for the day. I walked out onto the balcony and saw that, by this time, a second plane had struck the other tower. I then thought of my mother, who worked right in the shadow of the World Trade Center at Cafe World at 50 Trinity Place. I peeked into her room and was relieved to find her there, still sleeping. I guess she didn't have work that day. I took one last look from the balcony, the last time I'd see the Towers standing.

I jumped on a mini van to to my sanctuary, the Cliffside Park Public Library. On the way there the driver stopped suddenly as the Spanish language radio station broadcasted hysterical screams which I assumed were from a newscast. The driver told me he was canceling his trip and I disembarked. Walking past Lincoln Elementary School on Anderson Avenue in Fairview, NJ, I heard over the speakers through a woman's tearful voice the news that the towers had collapsed. 

I went home shortly after and woke my mother, informing her of what had happened. She became disconsolate and left down the hill to Hoboken to check on coworkers who were covered from head to toe in ash. That left me alone, at home, to look at the dust cloud which settled over the Hudson River, and a void where just earlier the two tallest structures in the New York skyline stood.

Darkness crept in as the night approached, as if the sun had set on a period of American life. Us 90s kids had seen war and mass death as something that happened in far away countries. The major news stories I had known centered around presidential sex scandals and the Yankees winning the World Series. Life suddenly became very real in a way I wasn't able to comprehend.

I wandered the streets that night, afraid to be alone. I recall hearing someone play Only Time by Enya through a radio in their window, a sound out of place in a Hispanic neighborhood known more for the blaring Bachata music of summertime parties. While U2's Walk On and Superman by Five for Fighting became popular anthems for dealing with the tragedy, the Enya song summed up my feeling of emptiness. 

"Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows, only time?"

 I sank into a long depression, and the burning smell which wafted across the river caused my asthma to act up. There were few feel good stories coming out of this tragedy, most centered on the bravery of the police and fire personnel who rushed up the stairs and never came out. There were few survivors from the collapsed towers. The stories of abandoned cars at parking lots were haunting.

While all of the television channels replayed the video of the planes striking the towers, I found an escape by listening to the Howard Stern Show on 92.3 K Rock. He remained the same old asshole, which I found stangely comforting.

What I sensed that day, and has proven true, was that this conflict would not be a short one. Terrorism would hang over life as an American teenager like that burning smell which choked my lungs. A perpetual state of war with no end in sight.

When I think of what was stolen from me that day, that right I felt irrevocable to grow up with reckless optimism, the view I had from my balcony, I clench my teeth. To me, life is classified by what happened before 9/11 and everything since then. If there was a vendor who sold bottles of life pre-9/11, I'd give all of my earthly possessions for even just one. 

What I've come to appreciate in the years since is the value of the small things, the time spent with family, the crisp smell of autumn air, a walk in the park with a loved one. Just like the lights of the Twin Towers I took for granted, we don't know when the good times may come to an end. – Rappler.com

Ryan Songalia is the sports editor of Rappler, a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) and a contributor to The Ring magazine. He can be reached at ryan.songalia@rappler.com. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanSongalia.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken his “bad manners” – having gained global notoriety with his election campaign insults earlier this year – to a new level.

At a press conference at Davao International Airport on Monday, September 5, on his way to meet US President Barack Obama and other leaders attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, Duterte muttered a few short words in Filipino at the end of a lengthy and irritated reply to a local journalist. (TRANSCRIPT: Duterte on Obama)

With those words, he again made international headlines.

If that were all there was to it, we could rightly roll our eyes and move on. After all, Duterte’s language is vulgar; his slander of people and groups is liable to incite violence; and his determination to kill drug pushers (to fight “crime with crime”) an abuse of power. He should not be defended for any of this.

But as someone who has spent a long time studying US-Philippine relations, I think there’s something more for us to see here.

And if we want to judge the Philippine President (and, by default, the nation for electing him) from high moral ground, I think we have a responsibility to pay attention to it.

Restoring an invisible history

Who is he to question me about human rights and extrajudicial killings?

So asked Duterte on Monday. It’s actually a very good question, and one long overdue from a Philippine president. The extent to which the violence of US relations with the Philippines has been made invisible by a history written predominantly by Americans themselves cannot be overstated.

It began with a three-year war (1899-1902) that most Americans have never heard of. The war overthrew a newly independent Philippine republic and cost between 250,000 and a million Filipino lives – only to be called “a great misunderstanding” by American colonial writers.

After all, the US had chosen the Philippines to be its great Asian “showcase of democracy.” The invasion was a benevolent act. Hence the complete erasure of acts of American violence from the Philippine national story.

You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to smell something rotten.

Since the 1950s Philippine writers, academics, journalists and so on have been trying to reframe the historical narrative to point out this fact: to be invaded by a military power, told you don’t possess the character or capability for self-government, and then controlled by another nation for 4 decades, to the occupier’s lucrative commercial benefit, was not to be the recipient of a benevolent act.

Even at the time the war was taking place, one of America’s best-loved authors was writing just as much. Mark Twain was prolific in writing about the paradox of the “democratizing mission” to the Philippines.

Penned in 1901, but still stunningly poignant, is this extract from his essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness":

The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: "There is something curious about this – curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land."

In America, these remain Twain’s least-known works.

Neocolonialism

Before his (now regretted) distasteful remark, Duterte had much to say in response to the question about being confronted over human rights by Obama. He was responding to murmurs from critics that, if he wouldn’t listen to anyone else about the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, just wait until he meets the US president.

No-one seems to have listened to or cared much about the other 6 minutes of Duterte’s reply. So let me tell you something about it.

It was a reclaiming of the historical narrative of Philippine-US relations, a holding up to the US of the hidden “looking glass” Mark Twain had written about 100 years earlier.

Calling out the hidden insinuations, as Duterte did, that the US continues to have authority over the politics of the Philippines, is bold and brazen, but reasonable. Consider his statement: "I am a president of a sovereign state. And we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master but the Filipino people."

These words are less evidence of his demagoguery or an intention to personally disparage Obama than a reference to history, and are more accurately read as such.

After the second world war, colonies of any sort, even the so-called “democratic” US one in the Philippines, were on the nose. But this didn’t stop Washington officialdom from continuing to claim the right of access to the Philippines' political and economic realms.

When the US finally granted the Philippines its (second) independence in 1946, it required the new republic to amend its constitution so a bill could be passed that, as well as legislating preferential trade conditions for the US, would grant American citizens equal rights with Filipinos to Philippine natural resources.

It was the beginning of a new phase: neocolonialism.

It was not just a matter of political interference and the power to make or break Philippine presidents with endorsement and strategic financial support. In a visceral sense, the nation was always being watched and judged by its democratic “teacher”.

Asked about being confronted with human rights concerns by Obama, Duterte said:

You must be kidding. Who is he to confront me? America has one too many to answer for the misdeeds in this country … As a matter of fact, we inherited this problem from the United States. Why? Because they invaded this country and made us their subjugated people … Can I explain the extrajudicial killing? Can they explain the 600,000 Moro massacred in this island [Mindanao]? Do you want to see the pictures? Maybe you ask him. And make it public.

'Why are they so angry?'

I'm reminded of a comment by Alicia Garza, a founder of the Black Lives Matter movement ignited by police killings of black Americans. Speaking in Sydney last weekend at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, she related how, when civil rights protests get uncomfortably heated, she is often asked: "Why are they so angry?"

Why is the Philippine President so angry about the prospect of the US president confronting him about human rights abuses?

History. As Duterte said himself on Monday, violent acts of the past don’t stay in the past. They get passed on from generation to generation, especially when the injustice goes unacknowledged and unaddressed.

It is difficult to stomach Duterte’s style. It certainly is difficult to look past the serious issues raised by his administration’s “war on drugs.” We should condemn his misuse of power.

But if we condemn the president for his recent remarks because we claim to be concerned about the rights of Filipinos while showing no interest in acknowledging the past crimes and injustices against the Philippines, we fall into our own sort of hypocrisy.

Let’s be honest, if Duterte didn’t curse and swear and offend our sensibilities, would we be paying so much attention to the Philippines? For once, I heard a Philippine president holding the US to account for all its doublespeak and hypocrisy in US-Philippine relations. And I couldn’t help but appreciate that.– Rappler.com

Adele Webb is a PhD researcher in the Department of Government and International Relations, Sydney Democracy Network, at the University of Sydney. She does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

This article, which was first published in The Conversation, is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.

In the 12th Media Nation, an annual gathering of journalists to exchange views and air pressing concerns, some facts stood clear: 

• An organized campaign to discredit mainstream news organizations is alive and well in social media.
• Online bashing and intimidation of individual journalists and media organizations is unrelenting.
• Facts have become a casualty.
• The role of media as an independent voice and watchdog is forgotten, buried in the political hyper-partisanship.

Held on September 9 and 10, the 12th Media Nation is the first under the Duterte administration. Participants included editors and staff of ABS-CBN, CNN Philippines, GMA7, Inquirer, TV5, Rappler, and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility and Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication.

Organized by a civil society group, pagbabago@pilipinas, Media Nation has tackled subjects such as corruption, killing of journalists, impact of new technology, and professional safety.

In times past, Media Nation gathered in momentous times, like in the lead up to the 2013 elections, when news organizations and political parties signed a covenant to curb corruption, and in the aftermath of the Maguindanao massacre when the dark clouds of impunity hovered.

Today, the media operate in new conditions brought about by the polarized environment. Many supporters of Duterte regard any reporting that is critical of the new president as biased. In fact, BIAS! was their battle cry during the election campaign – and continues to this day.

They conveniently label legitimate media organizations which do their job to chronicle events, no matter that they hurt the powers that be, and fact-check official claims as Yellow, meaning partisans of the Aquino administration. (Yellow was the campaign color of Benigno Aquino III when he ran for president.)

In the light of all this, participants in this last Media Nation recognized the need to reach out to the public and engage them through a media literacy campaign. We have to inform and remind the readers and viewers about what to expect from news organizations: independence is our hallmark and a source of credibility. We do not report to please our leaders. We are not part of the official echo chamber.

Already, some of the news organizations are addressing the new normal by providing space for reasonable discourse and edging out the trolls and haters. GMA7, for example, has its Heart over Hate campaign against cyber bullying and Rappler recently launched #NoPlaceForHate.

In moments of self-reflection, Media Nation participants also talked about not letting one’s guard down and hewing to strict standards of accuracy and fairness because facts are easily disregarded these days. 

Equally important was the realization that we need to tap into to our reservoir of vigilance. We will not let the mobs, partisans, and vested interests drown out our voices. – Rappler.com

Decades ago, I decided that if I was ever going to live outside my beloved Quezon City, I would live in Davao.

In the late 1980s, fate shoved me into the women’s movement. I had been in community-based and human rights health organizations almost throughout the Marcos dictatorship. But for reasons too long to tell, I ended up working with Gabriela. (For reasons also too long to tell, and merely to make an ethical disclosure, I left Gabriela later.)

It was a lucky thing, being brought into the women’s movement. The political Left I had come from was splintering. It was going through a rethinking and reorganization. So there was an ebb in its external work as it looked internally for ways to move forward. But the women’s movement flourished in this period.

Davao upsurge

In my mind, Davao was one of the leading centers of this upsurge. As an activist, I was called, not to lead or stay, but to do grunge work. I was called to assist the women leaders when they needed a young and exploitable someone from Metro Manila. And I was “exploitable” to the max, because the real women leaders of Davao where “exploiting” themselves and creating wonders from nothing. Yes, we used that term on each other. Exploitation.

Being quite the foodie, my only honorarium was durian and marang. How much I would get paid depended on how busy we would be. On the night of my arrival, I would be taken for dinner to the durian vendors (marang too if in season) where we would sit in the open air, complain about cholesterol, and eat. I never learned to distinguish colors and varieties and ripeness. Being the guest and the fool from Manila, my hosts did all the talking and haggling for me. I just took advanced payment on the work for the coming days.

If there was time before I was put back on the plane, I would be taken for the second tranche. If not, I would get back on the plane hoping they would exploit me again.

What was it that the women were doing then in Davao? I am wary of my weak memory because I cannot possibly name the women’s organizations that exploded in number. General political organizations. Sectoral ones for the urban poor, the workers, teachers, etc. Many were already strong during Martial Law but some were new or expanding. Rape crisis centers, income generating projects, women’s health organizations, an academic consortium. In the women’s movement, Davao was rocking and rolling.

Women activists

It was also laughing and rejoicing. If my main honorarium was durian, my secondary honoraria was staying in the house of our perpetual host, Lyda Canson. The woman was running a free inn for all us visitors. I still owe her 100 pesos for a massage I had in her home while waiting for my delayed flight. She lives near the airport and I never had to wait at the airport because she would have me driven when the plane was truly ready to leave. (This means that I had been checked in already and often when my luggage came out in Manila, I would have been given additional goodies to take home. This is not because I was a particularly important someone. Just a someone who had a place in the humongous hearts of the women activists of Davao.)

But that was only the beginning of this long and lucky streak of mine. Which city was the first to adopt a comprehensive women and development code? Davao. Maybe because it was that women like Luz Ilagan and Cora Malanyaon decided to invade the local government and get elected councilors. 

Were the women and the local government officials happy with the code? No. The document had to be implemented effectively. To this day, Davao’s allocation and use of its gender budget is better than the national average. With that kind of a budget, with the political wisdom of a strong LGU-NGO alliance, things get done. Programs to prevent trafficking and violence against women, rape crisis centers, reproductive health, social benefits for women of various needs. They trained women and  men in the bureaucracy, constantly. I have had nothing but the highest admiration for Lorna Mandin and the women  of Davao City’s Integrated Gender and Development Division, an office directly under the mayor.

Strong social institutions

As I myself moved into academic life in the 1990s, I met the irreverent women of that Jesuit institution called “Ateneo de Davao.” Ah, Professors Rose Sanchez and Bing Chan! What can I say? In my files I still have the documentation for one of the research meetings held in Manila for our national research consortium on reproductive health. “A marang break was had as the Ateneo de Davao group arrived,” says our minutes.

The smartness of our repartee! Ateneo de Davao professors were bragging about how cheap the marang was that they had brought for us. (Parenthetically, I cannot help but note the fine detail of how difficult it is to transport marang as opposed to durian.) And someone said, “You should have pretended it was so expensive so we would be even be more touched.” And they answered, “But where is the wisdom in that? We could have brought you expensive fruit from Davao but the marang is best this week because it is ripe and plentiful. And that is why it is cheap.”

I remember the incredible, scholarly and groundbreaking work. This work came gift-wrapped in stories like how Bing and Rose had to take baths to calm themselves after the intense sharing of sex workers/ women in prostitution.

Then there is Brokenshire Memorial Hospital with its sterling reputation for high medical standards and community activism, a renowned name for community health dreamers even during martial law. In 2001, the national government had effectively banned the importation of the emergency contraceptive, Postinor, used for various reasons including the prevention of pregnancy after rape. Dr. Darlene Estuart of Brokenshire, in cooperation with Isabelita Solamo Antonio of PILIPINA Legal Resources Center and  the Davao City Office, sponsored an international conference on Postinor in December 2006. It is a drug recommended to be on a country’s essential drug list by the World Health Organization.

So we were hailed to Davao. Activists, academics, international and local experts, we all came. And, we had the kind of scientific meeting I wish would be the standard.

Meet the mayor

It was the first time I met and listened to Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte. I admired him already because talking about Postinor, which had been wrongly labeled an abortion drug, was a scary proposition for activists like me. But we were his guests. Our opening dinner was by his sponsorship. The opening ceremonies of the conference, arranged by the mayor, was an exposition of Mindanao culture. Davao was a safe space for this conference, as it could not be elsewhere, because of his blessing.

Mayor Duterte gave us a keynote address. I remember how amazed I was that he did not talk about the medication itself, but how all the brouhaha was a failure to understand the importance of a positive approach to sexuality. He understood this!

And when he talked about sexuality, it was funny and earthy. And often he came to the edge of what was uncomfortable. Sexuality is either macho, emphasizing only men’s privileges. Or it is egalitarian – accepting women not merely as men’s sexual objects but as sexual beings also. A positive sexuality also means though that women need not be measured as merely sexual, as men are also not always sexualized. Indeed the mayor talked mostly about men’s sexuality. But he said nothing derogatory about women. And often, when his humor was bordering on raunchy, I would hold my breathe wondering what the international guests might think. Maybe some of them found him too much. But I always thought he would come just right up to the line of the decent, and then stop right there. To me he was so Davao. Purposely simple, rough and gritty but sincere and authentic. 

Later when my friends asked me what I thought, I gave my assessment. And I said that they should continue to talk to him and maybe “genderize” him even more. Because I wasn’t sure what he thought of the women’s side of sexuality. And I was hopeful I would hear more stories of the mayor, because I told he was an accessible man. I was confident my friends would get him to see their feminist views.

More praise

So many memories. Good ones. 

I cannot help but think of all the women and men I value because we met in Davao. Many are still there, while others are scattered all over Mindanao, holding true to the values Davao nurtured for them and for me.

Though I have my beloved Kyusi, there will always be something in me that presses my nose at the window glass of Davao, in envy.

A postscript

I started this hoping not to add a BUT. I was thinking not to address the current political situation because I wanted a plain and simple expression of admiration. But there is so much misunderstanding now. In the light of the toxic and threatening atmosphere that has pervaded our national debates, I thought an explanation is better than none.

So first, I must also mention that I haven’t talked recently to any of the women I have mentioned here. I have no idea who they voted for and what their current take on the political situation or the administration of President Duterte is. Perhaps they disagree with me completely. But that will not diminish my respect for a shared past. And, for many mentioned, it will not diminish my affection and respect. I do not, however, wish them tagged or associated with any of my political sentiments.

I have indeed been critical of President Duterte’s  drug war, the killings in police operations, the extrajudicial killings, the Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Thus, I have been accused of hating him, of not knowing Davao, of being a ivory tower academic, of not giving him a chance, of being an elitist imperialist from Manila, of not wanting him to succeed. 

But I believe that citizenship demands that we remain critical. To speak up when something is wrong. Everywhere I have gone, including Davao, I have seen that differences are valuable because contradictions, handled with acceptance and humor, create miracles. I have learned that we are never just fully supportive nor never just fully critical. And it is crucial to our national life that we acknowledge this as our fundamental strength.

For those who say that I dishonor Davao and its people because of my opposition to its former mayor –  I am ready to yield. I know I am an outsider. And perhaps I am now persona non grata to a city that once held me in its grace.

But before I yield, I write this homage.– Rappler.com

Finally we have a president who dared to publicly declare that we are no longer a colony of the United States of America and that he will only answer to the Filipino people.

But instead of recognizing this amazing and historic display of truth-telling from our head of state, President Rodrigo R. Duterte is being criticized for being “undiplomatic” and “unstatesmanlike.”

First of all, if you watched the entire video clip, President Duterte did not actually curse US President Barack Obama just like he did not also curse Pope Francis. I believe he is not a disrespectful person, just an angry one. He has explained his cursing many times before. He curses because he is mad on behalf of the millions of Filipino masses who have long endured a culture that tolerates and rationalizes their oppression.

Second of all, being diplomatic — that ability to avoid offending others or hurting their feelings — is not a trait usually associated with President Duterte. That is not to say he is not capable of being diplomatic or tactful because he is. But he does not deliberately offend everyone, just those whom he thinks are too callous and insensitive to the realities of life. Particularly the pretenders, the hypocrites, and the self-righteous.

The Filipino people know how offensive his mouth can be and they still embraced him despite that. Maybe that is what they want from their leader — the ability to cut through the bullshit and tells it as he sees it. Besides, diplomacy is not the tool to use if you want real and immediate change.

Third, statesmanlike is defined as “a person who is experienced in the art of government and exhibits great wisdom and ability in directing the affairs of a government or in dealing with important public issues.”

There is also a definition of a statesman as “a political leader regarded as a disinterested promoter of the public good.” Most Filipinos will argue that President Duterte is the most statesmanlike president we ever had using the above definitions.

In less than 100 days, he made significant progress in bringing down the crime rate, cutting down red tape, getting all revolutionary groups to stop fighting and start talking with the government, and energizing the whole bureaucracy and inspiring Filipinos to contribute to the process of social change.

Only an experienced and wise leader can do that. And many of his supporters believe that President Duterte is able to make these changes happen in just a short period of time precisely because he is not being very polite. In fact, he’s very rude about shaming corrupt government officials and terrorizing criminals to emphasize how serious he is about making significant changes in the government and the whole country.

Historic

Unprecedented and historic things happened under the two-month old Duterte administration. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Communist Party of the Philippines /New People's Army/National Democratic Front (CPP/NPA/NDF) all expressed their appreciation and admiration for the man and his leadership.

They all credit him for their faith in the peace process now. They all believe things will be different under this watch. They all share the same optimism and hope that they are dealing with a leader who understands the root causes of the armed conflict and therefore knows how to correctly respond to them. (VISIT: #TayoAngKapayapaan)

They know President Duterte is not talking peace to them just to look good. He is really determined to end the war once and for all under his administration.

We now have a president who seriously talks about historical injustice, about the oppression of colonial and imperialist powers, about the role of the oligarchs and the intellectual elite and the institutional church in perpetuating injustice and poverty in this country, about the futility of war, and, yes, about how the US is the leading terrorist with the most number of human rights violations in the world.

'Rock star'

And people still wonder why he is a rock star in the Philippines and in other parts of the world? He is a rock star because of that. Because finally there is a Filipino who refuses to be bullied by the US, by criminal syndicates, by corrupt officials, by the Church, by big business, and by corporate media.

Called the world’s bully, the US promoted the phrase and practice of shock and awe. It is a military doctrine based on “the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.”

Princeton University professor Bernard Chazelle said that “Shock-and-Awe” was used to bomb the hell of Iraq to avenge 9/11. “The goal is to use violence to inspire fear in a way that will shut down all or part of society. The objective is the same as that of 9/11 — bring society to its knees using terror,” he explained.

And, true enough, the rest of the world was in shock and in awe of the power of the US. It reminded us what the US can do to any nation that defies their will. Yes, we get the point and we are afraid, we are very afraid.

Then here comes this foul-mouthed guy from a “remote and dusty” city in Mindanao saying all these things against the US and accusing them of human rights violations. How dare you, Digong!

And when Digong’s beloved Davao City was bombed last Friday night, September 3, his critics, who have appointed themselves as the guardians of morality and models of decency in this country, mocked him and described the terrorist attack as “karma” — payback for his alleged violation of the human rights of those killed in relation to the war against illegal drugs.

When you are being criticized by powerful forces like the US and the elites are ganging up on you, you must be doing something that is threatening their interests and tarnishing their well-preserved public image. Otherwise, these forces usually just ignore you.

Goliath, meet David. His “shock and awe” might just be more effective than yours. So be afraid, be very afraid. – Rappler.com

Patmei Bello Ruivivar is the Communications Director of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. She has served under 3 Philippine Presidents in various capacities including her stint as chief-of-staff of the Executive Office of the President of the Philippines. She's the first woman as well as the youngest and longest-serving chief-of-staff of the former Mayor of Davao City, now the 16th President of the Philippines, Rodrigo R. Duterte. 

(Editor's note: This first appeared in the author's blog. We are reprinting it with her permission.)

Eksaktong 20 araw matapos na magdeklara si Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte ng “giyera” laban sa mga sindikato ng droga sa buong bansa, isang grupo ng mga aktibong pulis na binansagang mga “ninja” mula sa Metro Manila ang sinibak sa kanilang mga puwesto at ipinatapon sa iba’t ibang lalawigan at mga isla sa Mindanao.

Wala ni isa man sa mga pulis na ito ang kasama sa listahang isinapubliko ni PRRD na may mga pangalan ng 5 heneral, local officials, at pulitiko, mga piskal at huwes sa korte na umano’y mga taong may kaugnayan at protektor ng mga sindikato ng ilegal na droga sa Pilipinas.

Nguni’t natatangi naman ang pagbanggit ni PRRD sa grupong ito – na mga pulis daw na nagre-recycle ng kanilang nakukumpiskang mga ebidensiyang droga sa mga nasasakote nilang mga tulak. Kaya nga sa sobrang galit ni PRRD sa mga pulis na ninja, inanunsiyo niya na magbibigay siya ng reward na P2 milyon sa anumang impormasyong makakatulong para mahuli sa akto ang mga scalawag na pulis na ito. 

Nagsimulang mabanggit ang grupong Ninja sa imbestigasyon ng isang bagitong police na nahulihan ng mga droga at nakumpiskahan ng cash ng P5-milyong sa kanyang magarbong bahay sa Sampaloc, Maynila. Dito muling pumutok ang grupong “ninja” na sinasabing yumayaman dahil sa pagbebenta nila ng mga nahuhuling ebidensya.

Kung inyong natatandaan, sila rin ang grupong pinagbantaan ni PDG Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa – chief, Philippine National Police (PNP) – na “magbi-birthday sa Nobyembre 2 kapag hindi tumigil at sumuko sa kanilang illegal na mga gawain.” Ang petsang ito ay ang araw nang pag-alala sa mga kaluluwa ng mga yumao.

Ambush

Ito naman ang mahirap arukin kung sinasadya o hindi – ilang araw lamang matapos ideklarang may reward na P2 milyon sa bawat ulo ng mga pulis na ninja, dalawa sa 11 pulis na mga idinistino sa Mindanao ang na-ambush habang papunta sila sa kampo ng PNP Regional Command headquarters ng Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) sa Parang, Maguindanao.

Sakay ng van ang mga suspek na nagpaulan ng putok sa dalawang pulis na magka-angkas sa habal-habal na sinasakyan nila. Patay agad sa naturang pag-ambush si SPO4 Marcelo Villagracia Alcancia Jr, samantalang nasa kritikal na kondisiyon naman si PO3 Rolando Tabanao Yulo na kapwa tadtad ng tama ng bala sa katawan. 

Hindi lang masyadong nabigyang pansin ang pagputok ng balitang ito dahil natabunan marahil ng mas malaking balita na halos kasunuran lang nitong naganap – ang pagsabog sa Davao City na ikinamatay ng 14 na tao at ikinasugat naman ng halos 70.

Ang tanging update na narinig ko hinggil sa grupong ito ng mga pulis ninja ay “nawawala” na 'yung karamihan sa natitirang 9 dahil sa nagkanikaniyang pulasan at tago na raw sa takot na sila na ang sumunod na ma-ambush at masama sa bilang ng mga tinakpan ng diyaryo sa mga bangketa at kalsada.

Ang reklamo pa nga raw ng mga ito ay ramdam nilang sadyang inilalantad sila sa “disgrasya” dahil obligado raw silang bumiyahe nang malayo araw-araw, na ang tanging p’wedeng sakyan ay mga habal-habal mula sa kanilang mga inuupahang maliliit na kuwarto hanggang sa PNP regional office para lang magpa-check ng attendance.

Bukod pa raw ito sa pakiramdam nilang sadyang pinahihirapan sila para mapilitang di na mag-report sa duty at makasuhan ng Absent Without Official Leave (AWOL) at tuluyang nang makasama sa mga “Wanted List” at “Order of Battle” ng PNP laban sa mga miyembro at protektor ng mga sindikato ng droga.

Nakakuha ako ng kopya ng isang kalatas na may petsang Hulyo 20, 2016, at may titulong SPECIAL ORDERS NOS. 5795, REASSIGNMENT. Dito ay ipinag-uutos ni CPNP Dela Rosa ang pagre-relieve sa 11 police na ito mula sa kanilang mga assignment sa National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO) at ang paglilipat sa kanila sa ARMM.

Hindi ko na babanggitin ang mga pangalan ng 9 pang pulis na ito na kasama sa listahang aking nakuha habang wala pang pormal na kasong isinasampa sa kanila ang PNP, maliban lamang sa intelligence report na nagsasabing mga miyembro sila ng Ninja dahil sa kanilang pagre-recycle ng mga nakumpiska nilang ebidensiya.

Sa aking pagkakaalam ang grupong ito, maliban lamang sa dalawang pangalang medyo pamilyar ako, ay hindi ang orihinal na grupo ng mga pulis na binansagang Ninja dahil karamihan kasi sa mga ito ay nagretiro na at walang balita kung nagpatuloy pa sila sa kanilang mga ilegal na gawain.

Sa ngayon kasi parang naging generic na lang ang katawagang ninja sa mga pulis. Kapag may intelligence report na nagsasabing ang isang pulis ay nagre-recycle ng mga nakumpiska niyang ebidensiya, miyembro na agad siya ng grupong Ninja.  

'Ninja' evolution

Iba ito sa alam kong kuwento hinggil sa grupo ng mga pulis ninja na unang sumikat noong kalagitnaan ng dekada '90 dahil sa galing nilang mag-operate laban sa mga sindikato ng ilegal na droga sa Maynila.

Matagal na ring nabaon sa limot ang grupong ito ng mga batang pulis ng Manila Police Department (MPD) na naging bukambibig ng mga kapwa nila nasa serbisyo noong panahong ang district director ng MPD ay si Chief Superintendent Sonny Razon. Sobra kasing malalim magtrabaho ang grupong ito na mga operatiba ng District Anti-Narcotics & Intelligence Division (DAID) kaya’t kinaiingitan ang grupo sa kanilang malalaking accomplishment.

Ang kanilang pakikipaglaban sa sindikato ng ilegal na droga sa Maynila ay walang sinisino at sinasanto. Basta’t may kaugnayan ang suspek sa ilegal na droga, siguradong asunto at kulong agad ang mga ito. Ito ang dahilan kaya sila nabansagan mga ninja – hango sa katawagan ng mga dakilang mandirigmang Hapones na dalubhasa sa lahat ng uri ng pakikipaglaban.

Kapuri-puri sana ang mga accomplishment ng grupong Ninja, pero naging kapansin-pansin din ang biglang pag-angat ng estado ng kanilang pamumuhay. Mamahaling service pistol ang nakikitang nakasukbit sa kanilang mga holster; magagarang sasakyan at bahay; mamahaling alahas; bukod pa rito ang pagkahumaling nila sa mga bisyo: sugal, alak, at babae. 

Ang mga karangyaang ito ay kaalinsabay ng pagiging malapit nila sa ilang pulitiko, mga opisyal ng pamahalaan, at mga opisyal ng PNP na nasa matataas na puwesto. Panalo sila sa bata-bata system sa PNP dahil nakapagdidikta na sila sa mga nagiging boss nilang mga kurap na heneral ng pulis at ilang militar. 

Dahil dito unti-unting sumingaw ang impormasyong may kinalaman sa mga ilegal nilang gawai, lalo na ang pagre-recycle nila ng mga kumpiskadong ebidensya. Hindi sila halatang mag-recycle ng droga dahil sa palaging kumpleto pa rin naman ang idinedeklara nilang kumpiskadong ebidensiya sa korte. 'Yun nga lang, malaking bahagi ng kanilang mga nakukumpiskang shabu ay pinapalitan nila ng tawas na siyang isinusumite nila bilang ebidensiya. Dahil may kahalo namang totoong shabu ang mga tawas at kakutsaba na rin nila ang ilang laboratory technician ng PNP, nakakalusot silang palagi. 

May ready buyer na agad ang grupong Ninja ng mga recycled drugs nila. Ayon sa intelligence report na aking nabasa, isang negosyanteng naging councilwoman sa Maynila – na kung tawagin nila ay si Miss Guia G – ang pumapakyaw sa mababang halaga ng mga recycled na droga ng grupong Ninja, at siya naman ang nagbabalik nito sa mga drug lord na nagtutulak dito sa Metro Manila.

Dahil sa kontrobersiyang ito, pinaghiwahiwalay sila ng bagong pamunuan ng PNP, kaya’t sa pagpasok ng bagong millennium nakakalat na ang grupong Ninja sa iba-ibang distrito ng PNP sa ilalim ng NCRPO. Walang maisampang kaso laban sa kanila dahil wala namang ebidensiya kundi mga intelligence report lang na hindi naman ma-validate.

Dito na nanganak ang grupong Ninja matapos matutuhan ng bagong henerasyon ng mga scalawag na pulis 'yung ilegal na pagre-recycle ng mga drogang nakukumpiska. Karamihan kasi sa mga orihinal na pulis na ninja ay biglang nawala sa eksena – may mga nagretiro na, may mga nasa serbisyo pa nguni’t nanahimik na, at 'yung iba nawala na lang bigla na parang mga bula.

Sa kabila ng walang humpay na kampanya ng administrasyong ito laban sa mga sindikato ng ilegal na droga, patuloy pa rin ang pamamayagpag ng mga bagong sibol na mga pulis na ninja – nguni’t sobrang ingat na sila, dahil sumisikip na ang mundong kanilang ginagalawan. – Rappler.com  

Dave M. Veridiano has been a police reporter for 30 years. He is a former senior news desk editor and currently writes a column for a daily tabloid. Email: daveridiano@gmail.com. Call or text him at 09195586950.

I don’t remember anything more revealing of the pathology of official power than the insider testimony given today at a Senate hearing on a reign of murder and terror in and around Davao City under Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, now the president.

Whistleblower Edgar Matobato has told in detail stories of how Duterte has turned members of the police and other security forces and some captured or surrendered communist rebels into a death squad under him and ordered them to kill more than a thousand suspects and personal and political enemies since 1988. He has himself confessed to taking part in at least 50 of these murders.

Among the victims, he has named Jun Pala, a radio news broadcaster critical of Duterte who was ambushed on the street in 2003. Matobato has spoken of a quarry that has served as a mass grave for more than a thousand victims, some of them chopped up presumably to make their identification difficult. According to him, there are other gravesites.

Explosive as it is, Matobato’s testimony, to be sure, has yet to be put through a more rigorous credibility test, but it should be revealing to know how his testimony will be taken by the public at large, though more revealing by the working allies and supporters of Duterte’s – members of the Cabinet and the Congress in particular.

Cayetano's reaction

If the reaction of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, as gleaned from his questioning at the Senate hearing, is any indication, Matobato, to them, is being used as a tool in a Liberal Party conspiracy to discredit and in the end force Duterte out of the presidency and to install its own Leni Robredo, the vice-president, in his place.

Cayetano’s position in fact has been the stock position taken lately by the Duterte camp toward just about any round of criticisms thrown at the President. And if Cayetano’s persistence in that position is shared by his camp in the face of such damning testimony as Matobato has given, the nation may be in for an even more worrisome time than it already is: Where the position becomes desperately untenable, martial law may well be a recourse.

Indeed, a mere month into his presidency, Duterte himself dropped the dreaded phrase, after the chief justice had reminded him of the democratic arrangement in which each of the three branches of government is left to its own role and powers – his (the executive), hers (the judiciary), and the legislature.

Obviously, the chief justice concerned herself more with the relationship between the first two branches. She was reacting to a public announcement by the President naming judges among public servants as being involved in drugs without, for the moment in any case, the flimsiest evidence to show.

Resenting what he took to be a suggestion that he had crossed the line – if not altogether flouted the rule of law, an accusation actually laid thick on him from many sectors, including international rights institutions and foreign officials – the President asked if the chief justice had rather that he declared martial law.

The warning has been dismissed widely, particularly in Congress, though, only predictably, given its all-too-obvious tendency to play ball with the Duterte regime.

It’s not at all surprising: the threat had been aired, dismissed, and shockingly fulfilled before – on September 21, 1972, thanks to Ferdinand Marcos. (READ: Martial Law: Here we go again)

History may well be returning for its unlearned lessons and, as is history’s wont, with a vengeance. Duterte’s own silence about martial law since he mouthed it for the first and only time is not at all reassuring.

And, if anything, Matobato’s testimony does not help. – Rappler.com

On September 15, 2016, the Senate committee on justice and human rights reconvened to continue the legislative inquiry into the alleged extrajudicial killings surrounding the ongoing war on drugs of the Duterte administration. To date, 3,526 people have been killed from drug-related police operations and vigilante killings.

In the hearing on Thursday, Senator Leila de Lima, committee chair, presented a new resource person by the name of Edgar Matobato.

Matobato claims that he was a former member of the "Davao Death Squad," a vigilante group based in Davao accused by human rights groups of killing hundreds of suspected criminals in Davao during the time of Rodrigo Duterte as mayor. Note that Matobato was enrolled in the Witness Protection Program (WPP) in 2014. The program does a background check before they take anybody in.

Inquiry, not a trial

We need to be clear about one thing: trial is one, inquiry is another. The Senate is conducting an inquiry, not a trial. The Senate is not inquiring to determine who is guilty or not. It is inquiring in aid of legislation.

An inquiry is like a research. In research, how do you validate your facts? One way is through triangulation. Validate the information you already have by checking other sources: related literature or secondary materials, other key informants.

Because the Senate is conducting an Inquiry, Matobato is a resource person or a key informant. The fact that he is an assassin makes him a good resource person to understand vigilante killings.

When one is doing a research, you do not start from scratch. You read materials about what you are researching. If you read related literature/secondary materials like reports, what Matobato shared fits the narrative. You take it in as a lead to get more information to understand the problem and post solutions. Related secondary materials like reports of human rights groups, papers on Davao/Mindanao history, and the study we conducted that I mentioned in this post are additional points of reference in inferring these points.

Leads to policy recommendations

The testimony of Matobato is rich with information that have policy implications and can therefore aid future legislation. The testimony, for one, is very useful in terms of understanding the anatomy of gun-for-hire groups using as a case the Davao Death Squad (DDS). If analyzed more carefully, it can give us an idea of how to more effectively stop the creation and operation of death squads: what are the gaps in our laws and the capacity needs of relevant institutions.

Below are some points from Matobato's testimony that can be looked into more closely in coming up with possible policy or institutional reforms moving forward:

1. A death squad is able to operate without being caught nor reprimanded by the police with its goals aligned with that of the government's (e.g. summary execution of criminals). This is because it is usually headed by a security officer, who is close to the big boss, who in turn is a government official with a vision or policy to carry out. In the case of DDS, it is reportedly headed by a police officer in Davao and the big boss was the mayor, former mayor, and now president, Duterte. It is good to review the generic appreciation of command responsibility and what level of vigilante killings can already be taken against  the duty-bearers in a given constituency.

2. There are death squad members who are police officers, but the other members are civilians who usually come from civilian auxiliary units/militias and rebel returnees. In a study conducted by the Ateneo School of Government (ASOG) on election-related violence in 2009, we already noted that private armed groups get their recruits from these civilian auxiliary units/militias and former rebels, hence the need to study the relevance of government programs targeting these players.

3. Death squad members can be financed through public funds by becoming ghost employees of the government. According to Matobato, DDS members are "ghost employees" of Davao City Hall receiving between P15,000 to P30,000. Note that some time last year, the Commission on Audit (COA) reported that there are about 11,000 employees in Davao City Hall that could not be accounted for. This shows the link of violence and corruption, with one feeding into the other.
 
4. In the case of DDS, according to Matobato, there were more people who got abducted and salvaged than those who got killed/assassinated. The number of casualties of the current war on drugs could be more, and the reporting should also include missing people.

5. The police in Davao never successfully investigated/prosecuted any of the killings despite reaching thousands in numbers. There should be clearer and stronger accountability for government's failure to investigate and prosecute.

6. Death squad members are doing multiple jobs for their bosses, including as household helpers, couriers, bodyguards, etc. Whenever they have no killing assignment, they do other things. They are all-around. This is consistent with our election-related violence study in Abra in 2009. In our study, we noted that the situation of private armed groups can be traced to lack of employment opportunities especially in conflict areas.

7. Those involved couldn't get out anymore because they will be hunted down by their own comrades. Matobato wanted out and he was targeted. We need to improve our witness protection and ensure that those who will leave their illegal activities can be given due support and if possible, opportunities for redemption.

Systemic solution to violence

A recent article of the New York Times explains that countries fall into vigilante violence because of "a combination of ordinary human desire for security, coupled with weak institutions and desperate short-term thinking." The problem is systemic requiring reforms in the system. Reforming and strengthening our justice system is an indispensable solution to it.

Accountability processes like the Senate hearing on extrajudicial killings can help us get to long-term systemic solutions. While politics is part of it, we will not be able to move forward if we focus only on the politics, while leaving behind the substantive policy-making part of the process. – Rappler.com

Joy Aceron is Director of Government Watch (G-Watch) and Political Democracy and Reforms (PODER), programs that aim to strengthen democracy in the country.

In the past week, international media attention was fixed on President Duterte for reasons we already know. Despite reassurances that Philippine-US ties remain strong, the incident calls into question what kind of relationship the Duterte administration will have with Washington.

Plus, its choice not to raise July’s arbitration ruling in the ASEAN Summit and acquiescing to China’s terms of bilateral negotiations have observers talking about a rapprochement with Beijing. However, placing the Philippines in a spectrum with the Americans on one end and the Chinese on the other is not an appropriate way of analyzing the foreign policy options of our country. We are not playing a zero-sum game where warmer relations with one side must come at the expense of our relationship with the other.

Dividing the region into pro-China and pro-US sides is a superficial practice lingering from the Cold War. Doing so denies the agency of countries caught in the middle and grafts Western security agendas on Southeast Asia. Instead, these smaller states seek autonomy and flexibility in their foreign policies to pursue their national interests. Yet how is this done despite the overwhelming mismatch in material capabilities Southeast Asian states face compared to China and the US?

Prof. Brantly Womack of the University of Virginia talks of a "mature asymmetry" to describe a negotiated and stable relationship between two countries of unequal size and power. Many of our neighbours are already in such a situation.

Myanmar, Indonesia examples

Take a look at Myanmar which throughout the 1990s and 2000s has been labelled as a client state of China. Its fraternal relationship with Beijing was due to its need for diplomatic protection from international interference and pressure as a result of the military junta’s authoritarian and draconian domestic policies.

Dr. Jurgen Haacke of the London School of Economics and Political Science points out that Myanmar’s relationship with China was at most a "limited alignment," ensuring that it did not get too dependent on the Chinese. In recent years, Naypyidaw has re-leveraged its relationship with China by seeking closer ties with the West but still able to keep huge Chinese investments like the Kyaukpyu-Kunming pipeline.

Vietnam went to war with both the US and China but today enjoys a relatively good relationship with both countries. Despite the friction over the South China Sea dispute, Vietnam is able to maintain close economic and a level of strategic ties with China.

Prof. Carlyle Thayer of the University of New South Wales explains that Hanoi disaggregates the actions of external states into "points of cooperation" [doi tac] and "points of struggle" [doi tuong]. By doing so, the Vietnamese are able to compartmentalize and respond to different aspects of Chinese influence preventing friction in one category from causing sparks in another.  Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in June was able to meet with his Chinese counterpart and talk about further enhancing ‘mutual cooperation’. Put that in context with a visit by President Obama to Vietnam in May and we see how flexible Hanoi’s foreign policy actually is.

Meanwhile, Indonesia has practiced the policy of bebas aktif [independent and active] over the past 60 years.

This principle has been broad enough to allow the anti-Western stance of Suharto as well as Yudhoyono’s internationalism. Indonesia’s diplomatic handbook advises its readers to ‘paddle between two corals’ [mendayung antara dua karang] in order to pro-actively avoid conflict. Today, Jakarta enjoys a strategic partnership with Washington and participates in the American’s Cobra Gold exercises while President Widodo also vocally supports the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) which he sees as an important source of development funds.  The Indonesian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Dr. Rizal Sukma, stated that his country does not intend to perpetuate ‘Pax Americana’ but nor is it keen on contributing to ‘Pax Sinica’.

Similar to her neighbors, the Philippines cannot afford to antagonize anyone especially China as it does not have the luxury of distance. As Fareed Zakaria points out, containment is inappropriate because China is not the Soviet Union – it is an important trading partner of the US and ASEAN countries. Likewise, it would be against our interest to see a retreat of the US from the region as it acts as an important security guarantor and counter-weight to Chinese influence.

Thus, the choice of the Philippines is not between China and the US but between engagement and isolation. 

No to demagoguery

At the closing ceremony of the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, President Duterte accepted the chairmanship of the organization and promised that next year’s meetings in the Philippines will "set the tone" for decades to come. His administration must make full use of this unique opportunity to enmesh regional powers and other ASEAN states into a web of stable and cooperative relationships by working on common interests. It is also a chance to strengthen the regional bloc institutionally – something supported by the late Domingo Siazon Jr. in the 1990s. 

Our foreign policy must not be politicized or tampered with by demagoguery. It is not the place for emotions and prejudices. Prudence, not populism, ought to navigate the country. The continued professionalization of the foreign service ensures that best practices will be adopted, but the public must hold our head-of-state accountable for the impact he has on our bearings abroad. There is a glaring difference between pursuing an independent yet cooperative foreign policy and a belligerent nationalistic one akin to North Korea’s juche.

Filipinos are known for their friendliness and their hospitality towards people from all over the world; it makes sense that the Philippines should set an example for the peaceful resolution of disputes and earn a regional role as a responsible and respectable player on the global stage.

We must actively create the conditions for our nation and economy to thrive. Picking fights with giants like a self-styled David would be foolish. Treading carefully on tiptoe would not be the best option either. Befriending the giants in order to stand on their shoulders would allow us to achieve new heights. – Rappler.com

Carlo Fong Luy is pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). He recently wrote a dissertation on the foreign policy of Southeast Asian states and works as an intern at the Philippine Trade & Investment Centre in London.

This week, two dates stand out in our history: September 21, when President Ferdinand Marcos signed Proclamation 1081 declaring martial law throughout the country, and September 23, when he actually ordered it, unsheathing the sword of authoritarian rule that would last 14 years.

Marcos lifted martial law in 1981, but it was only in name. The essence of a dictatorial regime remained—until Marcos was deposed in the 1986 People Power uprising. 

During this harrowing period, statistics tell our nation’s story: 3,257 killed, 35,000 tortured, and 70,000 incarcerated.

As for our economy, “the average GDP growth rate from 1972 to 1985 (Marcos’s last full year) was all of 3.4% per annum. Per-capita GDP grew annually at less than 1% average over the period -- more precisely 0.82%. Hardly a roaring-tiger performance. At that rate it would have taken 85 years for per capita income just to double,” wrote economist Emmanuel de Dios.

Apart from that, the country was mired in debt, “which grew by an annual average rate of 25% from 1970 to 1981.”

In other words, the martial-law economy was a man-made disaster.

All these historical facts, we need to burn into our memories in the face of efforts to recast the Marcoses in a positive light. After all, building our young nation partly rests on the solid foundations of our memory.

It has been 44 years since the imposition of martial law.

Yet today, no less than President Duterte reminded us that he could bring the country back to this dark state. “Would you rather I declare martial law?” were his famous words at a military camp, addressing Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, who aired her concern about the absence of due process in the drug war. 

What is disturbing is seeing our democracy being assailed by the wave of violence unleashed by the state against suspected drug users and traffickers. As of the 2^nd week of September, more than 3,000 have been killed both in police operations and by vigilantes. That’s more than 40 deaths a day. 

Government is abandoning the rule of law in its gruesome war on drugs.

But that is not the reason the country is under a state of national emergency. Rather, it is the “lawless violence” in Mindanao, triggered by the bombing of the Davao City night market which killed at least 14 and injured more than 60.

Warrantless arrests are allowed under certain circumstances, as the implementation guidelines for the Armed Forces and Philippine National Police show.

We cannot not let our guard down.

As The New York Times wrote, “Democratization is a process…forever in danger, forever evolving, forever in need of vigilance and repair.”– Rappler.com

With more than 3,000 drug war-related killings and counting, there is no doubt that President Rodrigo Duterte is continuing the unwritten state policy of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) against perceived “enemies of the state.”

Whereas before, the policy was directed against suspected rebels or political dissenters, this time it is against suspected illegal drug users and traffickers.

It was the fascist Marcos dictatorship that institutionalized EJKs and other human rights violations as a means to silence the political opposition, including activists and members of the revolutionary underground. Historian Alfred McCoy cites 3,257 victims of such killings under the Marcos regime, earning a common term for it that is still in use today: “salvaging.”

Post Marcos, it was the Arroyo regime that blatantly implemented this Marcosian legacy. From 2001-2010, human rights group Karapatan documented 1,206 EJKs committed by state security forces and state-backed para-military and vigilante groups. In her State of the Nation Address, then President Arroyo even praised the notorious retired general Jovito Palparan, who admitted to having inspired the killings, for his excellent work.

In a 2008 report, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston concluded that the EJKs under Arroyo were tolerated by the authorities and formed part of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) counter-insurgency program. He lamented that the killings were being done with impunity due to the government’s failure to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators.

Alston also looked into the killings attributed to the “Davao Death Squad” (DDS) and concluded that such vigilante killings, mostly of petty criminals, appeared to be officially sanctioned by the police and the city government then under Mayor Duterte.

While the number of EJKs decreased under former President Benigno Aquino III, they were by no means less alarming. In its 2015 year-end report, Karapatan claimed to have documented 307 victimes of EJKs from July 2010 to December 2015, including those killed in 17 massacres related to counter-insurgency operations.

To be sure, no government in its right mind would openly admit employing EJKs against its own people. However, EJKs as state policy have manifested itself in the following ways:

1. Rampant and widespread summary executions and the impunity by which such killings are committed, especially by the police, military and state-backed vigilante groups.
2. Systematic violation of due process rights and other civil and political liberties in the course of law enforcement or internal security operations, including witch hunting, public vilification and use of raw information to publicly accuse persons of a crime, making them vulnerable to attack;
3. Massive failure to investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators;
4. Top officials not only tolerate but actually encourage the killings through the offer of rewards, support and protection to those who commit them.

EJKs under Duterte

What makes the EJK policy under Duterte different from the past are its targets and the breathtaking magnitude of the killings.

While criminals have long been the subject of salvagings by the police (as former Manila police chief Alfredo “Dirty Harry” Lim would cryptically say, “Dalhiin na sa Tondo ‘yan”), the rate by which drug users and pushers are killed today, either in police operations or vigilante killings, are unprecedented in Philippine anti-crime history. (READ: In numbers: The Philippines' 'war on drugs')

An EJK is often justified by making it appear that the victim deserved it. During Arroyo’s time, the AFP came up with a powerpoint presentation titled “Knowing Thy Enemy” that labelled activists and their organizations as “communist front organizations” and “enemies of the state.” Local area commands would come up with an “Order of Battle,” a list lumping together names of activists, suspected NPA rebels and their sympathizers. Many of those on the list eventually ended up dead, missing, arrested, tortured or forced into “surrendering.” Military officials would later blame the communists themselves for the killings, saying it was the result of an internal purge.

Nowadays we have that ubiquitous cardboard saying “Drug pusher, huwag tularan.” Like the activists during Arroyo’s time, suspected drug users and dealers are subject to public villification through “Oplan Tokhang.” They are forced into surrendering and admitting guilt on the basis of a nebulous list drawn up by the police and barangay officials. In fact, many of those who surrendered have succumbed to vigilante killings. Police say the killings are part of the drug syndicates’ effort to cleanse its ranks.

Alleged criminals killed in police operations are another disturbing matter. The rise in incidents of drug suspects reportedly killed while trying to resist arrest are too dramatic to be given a presumption of regularity. A number have telltale signs of a rubout as acknowledged by the police themselves.

What makes today’s EJKs particularly complicated is that the victims are considered undesirable members of society. Unlike activists or revolutionaries, drug addicts and pushers have no redeeming quality. These are not idealists being killed for exercising their constitutional rights or addressing legitimate social grievances. Druggies, for most people, are the scum of the earth that should be wiped out from existence.

Notice that when activists or rebels are summarily executed, their families and the communities that they have served immediately demand justice. Human rights groups, whose orientation has traditionally been, and for good reason, to protect the rights of political dissenters immediately investigate and act to prevent more killings. Networks of organizations are easily formed to hold the perpetrators to account.

On the other hand, when drug dealers are killed, their families hang their heads in shame and the community silently rejoices at the loss of another troublemaker. Everything is accepted as a consequence of the victims’ alleged illegal activities.

The challenges

If we are to stop the killings, the first challenge is for the public to denounce it. Like in so many issues, public opposition, or better yet outrage, is needed for the government to change its policy.

Unfortunately, whenever people are painted as rebels, terrorists or criminals, it becomes difficult to denounce their killing. The initial indifference when activists started getting killed during the Arroyo regime is similar to today’s ambivalence in the face of the killings of suspected drug addicts and pushers. Oftentimes it is only when the obviously innocent are killed – like children and nursing mothers – that the public is moved to denounce EJKs.

Denouncing the killings should not mean condoning the alleged illegal activities of its victims. What it should translate to is a demand for the police and military to follow the law and respect due process and human rights, so that criminals can be properly punished in accordance with what is in the law.

The second challenge is for the families and friends of the victims of EJKs to stand up and demand for justice. It is understandable that many of them would rather sweep the killings under the rug, considering the stigma of being linked to suspected drug criminals. However, it would be difficult for government agencies like the Commission on Human Rights, National Police Commission, Department of Justice, or human rights organizations and civil society organizations, to be taking up the cudgels for people who do not want to be helped in the first place.

The third challenge is for human rights groups to expand their advocacy to include those whose rights are violated on the basis of purely criminal, non-political offences. While the traditional political orientation of human rights advocacy is as important as ever, urgent attention is needed for atrocities committed in the course of Duterte’s war on drugs and other anti-crime campaigns. Such a challenge will not be easy, considering that most human rights groups are already so stretched in terms of resources and manpower in dealing with political and counter-insurgency related human rights violations.

Because the use of EJKs is an unwritten state policy in the Philippines, the only way to prevent it is for the people themselves to demand a stop to the practice. – Rappler.com

The author is a former representative of Bayan Muna in the House of Representatives. He first wrote this piece on his blog. We are republishing it with his permission.

I have repeatedly professed my support for President Digong's drive against criminality, particularly his unrelenting pursuit of peddlers and pushers. While I do not like it that the bodycount rises each day, I still think he can carry on with the hunt and still keep within the confines of the law, for life – all life – does matter!

But what happened at the Senate on Monday, September 19, is just brazen, and there is no excuse for it. I am not blaming Digong for it. But I think his supporters have just done him tremendous disservice. It looks now like his crew is determined to silence Matobato and all others with stories like his to tell. Why not allow Matobato to testify, just as Ernesto Mercado was given almost a year to destroy the Binays and to ruin their reputation, and then subject him to as withering a cross-examination as possible?

Now, it will look to many like there are acres of killing fields to conceal because the controlling bloc in the Senate has gone the length of changing committee chairmanship just to prevent Edgar Matobato from further testifying.  

It would serve the President well to call his hounds back to their kennels and to restrain them. If Matobato is lying, he will implode while testifying. The more intricate a lie is, the more difficult it is to be consistent. And he has told quite a long story with many details. In the philosophy of science, a more informative theory is the preferred theory not necessarily because it is the right one but because it makes more predictions that allow for more rigid testing.

Matobato has said so much that can be checked, should be checked – and if he has perjured himself he will have sown the seeds of the destruction of his own credibility. But he should be heard, and the nation has the right to hear, just as Cayetano and Trillanes have the right to grill the witness while sparring with each other!

Why silence him?

I do not know if this has happened at any time before: the committee chairmanship is declared vacant to prevent a witness from testifying. Dick Gordon is an achiever, but he is not reckless. Will he be eager to continue with the hearings that de Lima started and to summon Matobato and other witnesses lined up? Well, he assumed the chairmanship hot on the heels of one who had been booted out because of the proceedings. Why would he be eager for the chair to be unceremoniously withdrawn from beneath him?

But for the sake of the nation, for the sake of President Digong, for the sake Matobato, I hope we have not heard the last of him. And he should be cared for to: he has admitted to crimes – no less than fifty murders, by his own reckoning, and he has named highly placed people, either truthfully or falsely.  

Does anyone bother? Sandra Cam says that she is not willing to consider him a whistleblower.  Last I checked, no one appointed Sandra Cam to the position of "censor of witnesses.”  Much besides, she has long had a chip against de Lima.  They should just slug it out in some mud fight without involving the nation!

I should reiterate my point: Let Matobato continue testifying. Let all the EJK witnesses continue to take the stand. If any is lying, it will not be long before the lie is brought to light for what it is. But if any has spoken the truth, then we shall have done ourselves a tremendous disservice – and an unspeakable injustice – by silencing him. – Rappler.com

The author is Dean, Graduate School of Law, San Beda College and professor at the Cagayan State University

The Department of Energy has said it is considering revisiting nuclear power in general, and rehabilitating the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in particular. Yet important questions persist, particularly since the BNPP remains one of the most glaring examples of white elephant projects.  

Large scale government projects that turn into heavy burdens for society are often called “white elephants.” Legend has it that the term emanated from the King of Siam who gave white elephants as gifts to obnoxious courtiers. The white elephants are costly and less productive, imposing a burden on their new owners. 

Similarly, white elephant megaprojects impose a severe burden to society in different ways – crowding out other investments, imposing severe damage on the reputation of government institutions, and debilitating public trust.

And the BNPP fits the bill. 

The Philippines paid BNPP-incurred debt annually from 1987 to 2007, totaling roughly US$2 billion. The entire debt was finally retired in 2007, over three decades since the project was initiated in Morong, Bataan. This plant failed to generate even a single watt of electricity for commercial use.

In this article I argue that the discussion on the BNPP should not be equated with the discussion of nuclear power feasiblity. Yet we should still acknowledge that the weak governance and obvious state capture associated with the BNPP leaves many unanswered questions regarding the country’s ability to manage nuclear power.  

Corruption and rent-seeking

Despite the promise of boosting the country’s energy supply, the BNPP from the very beginning was hounded by anomalies. Reports suggest that the selection of the BNPP contractor, Westinghouse Electric, did not follow the proper bidding process. Perhaps part of the reason was that Westinghouse hired Herminio Disini, golfing partner and crony of former president Ferdinand Marcos, as their sales agent. Thanks to Disini's political connections, Westinghouse eventually clinched the contract for the BNPP in 1976. 

Originally, Westinghouse proposed to build two nuclear reactors for a reported cost of US$500 million (US$200 million less than competitor GE's proposal). However, by the time the contract was signed, the cost escalated to US$1.1 billion for a single reactor so the cost balooned to more than twice its original value. Calculations of the National Computer Center revealed that the single BNPP reactor was overpriced by at least US$75 million compared to similar Westinghouse plants being constructed at that time in Yugoslavia, South Korea and Taiwan.

Damaging national psyche on debt and nuclear power

As I noted in an earlier article, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) filed corruption charges against Herminio Disini, whose wife is the first cousin of first lady Imelda Marcos, and whose firm brokered the BNPP project. Westinghouse later testified in a US court that they paid Disini over US$17 million to help acquire insurance, telecommunications and civil works subcontracts for the BNPP without competitive bidding. Later, Disini’s cousin, Jesus Disini, also admitted to the same court that President Marcos himself received part of this pay-off because he was co-owner of the group of companies headed by Herminio Disini. (READ: Ferdinand Marcos' economic disaster)

In 2012, the Sandiganbayan finally ruled on the matter and held Disini accountable for approximately USD50 million and asked to reconvey such amount, which was further affirmed by the Supreme Court. But by 2014 Disini passed away, leaving the reconveyance of this amount in uncertain terms. 

The corruption case behind BNPP was one of many filed in the country to no avail, reflecting what some analysts consider to be low conviction rates against large scale graft and corruption. Based on recent estimates using data from the PCGG, only about 40% of the Marcoses’ estimated US$10 billion ill-gotten wealth has been retrieved by the Philippines. 

Reviving the BNPP?

A geological study by Professor Alfredo Lagmay and colleagues published in 2012 by the Geological Society of London found evidence that possible volcanic activity in the vicinity of the BNPP could definitely affect its operations. They further concluded that: “According to the IAEA draft guidelines, there is no engineering design that can address this type of hazard for a nuclear power plant.” 

Furthermore, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission notes that in case of an accident: "the 'plume exposure pathway' has a radius of about 10 miles where there could be an exposure to radioactive materials. The 'ingestion pathway' is about 50 miles in radius to prevent potentially contaminated food, water and vegetation from being consumed." Given this radius, many heavily populated cities (including those in Metro Manila) remain within or very near the possible ingestion pathway. Makati City, for example is within the 50 mile radius of the BNPP.

Should this be cause for concern, if the plant is rehabilitated and activated? If we consider other locations, will the benefits from operating nuclear power far exceed the risks involved? 

Indeed, a seemingly strong case can be made to revisit nuclear energy as a reliable and more cost-effective alternative energy source for the country. Professor Nani Roxas of AIM, an energy policy expert, mentioned to me that nuclear plants are now available in modular 20 MW units that can be connected to a grid and that can start generation within as short as 6 months of delivery. These modular units fit our country’s archipelagic nature (characterized by fractured demand) that is relatively more costly to serve with a comprehensive submarine cable network. 

As regards safety, millions of people in industrialized countries live near nuclear power plants. In the US alone, almost one-third of Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. So perhaps the issue is not about nuclear power per se.

The real question is whether government bureaucracy (if state owned and operated), a private sector partner (if PPP), and state regulatory institutions (for either scenario) can be trusted to operate and manage this energy source with the highest safety standards and accountability. Therefore, how the BNPP case was handled and the continued lack of accountability of the chief architects of this white elephant project is instructive. 

Put more simply: if government institutions can't even put the thieves who set up the BNPP in jail, then can we really expect our people to trust government institutions to revive plans for nuclear power and this time execute it well? – Rappler.com

Ronald U. Mendoza is the Dean of the Ateneo School of Government. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ateneo de Manila University. Readers may wish to learn more about the BNPP by turning to the full case study available here.

Allow me to give a different view on the Martial Law era. One, Martial Law did not happen in the Philippines alone but also in many parts of the world. Though it happened in the Philippines quite early, others followed suit, notably in Chile in 1973 and Argentina in 1976.  

Two, unlike martial law in other countries where generals or military chiefs took over power from civilian leaders, Ferdinand Marcos was a politician for a long time, having been elected to Congress, the Senate, and finally the presidency. Though it may be conceded that he imposed Martial Law with the aid of his top generals (the so-called Rolex 12 with the exception of Danding Cojuangco, who was not part of the military establishment), the military was not the sole power holder. There were equally powerful sectors within the government such as the so-called crony capitalists and the technocrats. 

And three, Martial Law, as we know it, was not conceived by Marcos and his close advisers alone. Rather it was a development plan aimed to leapfrog laggard and stagnating economies of many Third World countries into modernity in the mold of East Asian economic tigers like Taiwan and South Korea. 

After the Second World War, there were attempts to reconstruct poor countries (LDCs or less developed countries as they were called then) by replicating the Western model. This was the heyday of "modernization" where LDCs were to follow the organizational structures along with the political and social values of the West. Economically, LDCs were to be assisted by international financial institutions and multilateral aid agencies through grants, aid, and loans to make them into attractive havens for foreign investment, for this model required massive doses of capital infusion.  

By the mid-60s, however, the reverse was happening. Economic growth was nowhere to be found as the economies of LDCs languished. It was at this point when the Dependency School led by Andre Gunderfrank was gaining currency for they had a very convincing explanation for this phenomenon. As they claimed, the very model of growth prescribed to poor countries was the culprit because it mired them in debt (Development of Underdevelopment).

However, critics and non-believers called attention to a weak state that was being buffeted by strong social forces such as rent-seeking elements (oligarchs) and armed insurgency. The model, so they say, could not thrive on political instability.

What was needed, Samuel Huntington and his colleagues argued, was a strong state that can produce a controlled political environment for the economy to grow. Thus the antidote was the type of capitalism prevalent in East Asia that came to be known as the developmental state.

One important feature of this model is authoritarianism or the presence of one-man or one-party rule.  

Bold, grandiose plan

In short, Martial Law was a bold and grandiose plan to steer the Philippines into a developed country in the mold of the East Asian economic tigers. As a highly intelligent person and brilliant lawyer, Marcos was not only well prepared to handle this task, he was the most qualified. Given the violent nature of local politics in Ilocos, Marcos' propensity to combine outright violence on his opponents (his entry into politics was the Nalundasan murder case) with persuasion and coercion made him a cut above the rest of other postwar presidents. Except the current one. 

Marcos addressed the concerns of foreigners wary of the uncertainties of doing business in the country by changing the regulatory regime – in ownership, requirements to do business, repatriation of profits, etc.

At the same time, the government pushed for a strong manufacturing sector with cheap and abundant labor, long working hours and a ban on unionism. The venture paid off.

For example, from a paltry P1.68 million in 1968, Japanese investments ballooned to P639.511 million in 1976. Also, the early years of Martial Law coincided with a boom in agricultural export crops, the country’s top earner then. Sugar prices in the US shot from a mere 2 to 3 US cents per kilo to 67 cents. Coconut, which sold at $120 in 1972, jumped to $223 in 1973 before attaining an all-time high of $535 in 1974.

Even the heavens seemed to cooperate. Good weather conditions in 1974 and 1975 made possible the remarkable entry of high yield varieties (IR8 or the miracle rice) that enabled the Philippines to attain self-sufficiency.

Everything seemed to be going well that it galvanized support for the Martial Law regime. Supporters of the regime were quick to deduce that human rights abuses were a small price to pay for this economic windfall. Many turned a blind eye to the plight of political prisoners, from traditional politicians like Ninoy Aquino to CPP-NPA members, and other victims of human rights violations for they were, after all, a reminder of the anarchy that characterized the old society!

Many, it seemed, were willing to forego political rights for the sake of economic benefits. 

Economic hardships

But then the bubble burst. Commodity prices for agricultural export crops suddenly plummeted. Oil prices spiraled out of control, raising the prices of basic goods as well as transportation. These economic hardships only underscored the contradictions of the Marcos regime and its vulnerability.

Take for example the case of land reform. One of the first decrees Marcos promulgated after the declaration of Martial Law was the emancipation of farmers from the bondage of the soil.

A few weeks later, Presidential Decree 27 took effect. It would finally make farmers owners of the land they tilled. Never mind if the law covered only tenanted rice and corn lands, that the retention limit was 7 hectares, later revised to 5 hectares if non-irrigated and 3 hectares if irrigated, that dispossessed land owners were paid in full by the farmers, and the titling process was tedious. The change from share cropping and leasehold systems to ownership was, in itself, a milestone. 

But by the late 70s, the contradictions were becoming apparent. The high-yield varieties introduced by the Masagana 99 program were highly dependent on fertilizers and pesticides (derived from both petroleum and chemical derivatives and manufactured by mostly multinational companies and marketed by Filipino partners), so much so that when oil prices spiraled, the cost of production was so high that farming no longer became a profitable enterprise. 

The Marcos regime also introduced a cooperative system called the Samahang Nayon, a prerequisite for becoming a beneficiary of land reform. Similar to the Saemaul Undong movement in South Korea, collective action on farming activities was seen as desirable and also necessary for borrowing money from a rural bank, for example.

But a good number of peasants backed out of the program when they learned that each member had to assume the payments of a defaulting member. Soon they realized that while the Samahang Nayon had good intentions, the real objective was to ensure loan payments to banks. 

Philippines: 'devastated, bankrupt'

It may be argued that these are design flaws which could not be blamed on Marcos. But then in 1974, Marcos signed into law General Order 47 and PD 472 which promoted corporate farming. Under the guise of self-sufficiency in rice and corn, big business companies could now involve themselves in farming to feed their employees.

Consequently, they competed for arable lands with farmers and undermined the land reform program. As it turned out, rice and corn farmers were in a better situation than those outside the coverage of land reform. From 1971 until 1982, coconut farmers were taxed 4 types of levies, all with the intent of improving the copra industry.

The levies were however used by Marcos' cronies to purchase holdings in some of the most profitable companies in the Philippines. Bowing to the sugar barons' argument that their lands could not be covered by land reform due to the country's obligation to meet its quota in the international market, the Marcos regime turned a blind eye to the plight of sugar workers. The images of sacadas when sugar prices plummeted became one of the most effective leitmotif against the Martial Law regime. 

PD 27 may have ameliorated the plight of peasants in Central Luzon, long the hotbed of peasant revolts. But Marcos' governance saw the intensification of agrarian unrest in other areas – the coconut producing provinces in Southern Luzon and sugarlands in Negros. These examples point to failures not of design but to the depravity of crony capitalism.     

By the time Marcos left Malacañang in 1986, the Philippines was devastated and bankrupt. The legacies that Martial Law left behind still reverberates today. It was not too long ago that a huge chunk of the government's budget had to be allotted for debt repayment than on needed infrastructure and basic services.

Kleptocracy became the new norm in government service, and when you steal, steal big so you can turn the law in your favor. Extrajudicial killings also became the preferred mode of settling disputes.     

In the end, this development plan could have made us an economic tiger. For this was the order of the day and Marcos, with his vast array of powers and resources, was the one leader who could have pulled it off.

We paid a heavy price, and after all the sacrifices, we found ourselves consigned to the dustbin. The Koreans sacrificed a lot too in this quest, paid a heavy price and in so doing, attained First World status.

This is the tragedy of Martial Law. – Rappler.com

Roy P. Mendoza is a former History teacher and is now an independent historian. (Mendoza's profile photo courtesy of www.ateneo.edu.)

One of the points that emerged clearly from the Philippines’ Senate hearing on extrajudicial killings held on September 15 was that the Philippines must get rid of its militias immediately. These dangerous, government-sponsored armed groups must be abolished and their existing members demobilized.

During the hearing, the Committee on Justice and Human Rights called Edgar Matobato as a witness, who claimed to be a former member of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU) when he was selected to join Davao Death Squad (DDS) and told to kill – extrajudicially execute – suspected criminals in Davao City when President Rodrigo Duterte was the city’s mayor.

Immediately after the Senate hearing, the spokesperson for the armed forces denied that Matobato was ever a member of the CAFGU. He said that they could not find his name in their database. Because recruitment policies are not standardized and are often very informal, it would be easy for the military to repudiate claims of membership with the CAFGU.

The CAFGU is an irregular auxiliary group for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), one of the militias operating in the country today. It was created in 1987 through Executive Order 264 issued by President Corazon Aquino. It was justified as a ‘vital tool’ in the government’s counter-insurgency measures. Another militia group in the Philippines is the Civilian Volunteer Organization (CVO), which is meant to assist barangay officials in maintaining peace and order in the community. While the CAFGU is controlled by the AFP, the Philippine National Police (PNP) controls the CVO.

Matobato’s profile is typical of that of the many individuals who comprise these militias. Upon Senator Sonny Angara’s questioning, Matobato revealed that he had not completed his elementary education and had been working as a subsistence farmer when he was recruited to join CAFGU. He disclosed that he did not have any knowledge or training about the legal processes involved in apprehending criminals and did not have any understanding of how the justice system works. 

Easy, attractive option

Joining the militias is an attractive option for people like Matobato who have a difficult time getting a job to feed their families. Members of CAFGU receive a subsistence allowance of around P4,600 per month (approximately US$96), which is a reasonably attractive salary for people in situations of hardship. They also receive other benefits, such as scholarships for their dependents and health insurance.

Joining the militias is also very easy. For instance, to join the CAFGU, one only needs the approval of the local military head. In some areas, one may also just present a recommendation from a local chief executive – whether the barangay captain or the mayor.

The CAFGU was formed as “force multipliers” for the AFP, to help the army in counter-insurgency activities. One of the main tasks of CAFGU members is to assist the military in fighting the New People’s Army (NPA). They participate in offensive operations against the NPA and act as local guides during military patrols. In non-conflict areas, however, CAFGU members are used to act as guards for military installations or sometimes even private businesses.

Militia recruits do not receive the rigorous training given to personnel of the armed forces or the police. At most, they are given very basic weapons training, enough to enable them to handle the firearms they are given from the Government’s arsenal. Militia recruits certainly do not receive training on basic military discipline or law enforcement practices, much less on general human rights principles.

The lax recruitment practices and the lack of training, especially on basic policing principles and applicable human rights standards, have resulted in numerous human rights abuses committed by militias, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

For decades, human rights groups have raised serious concerns about these abuses. In 2015, CAFGU members, along with several military personnel, were alleged to have been involved in the extrajudicial killing of three human rights defenders from the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) in Surigao del Sur.

Bills were presented in the past seeking to repeal Executive Order 264 and demobilize these militias, but these were never passed.

Government commitment

During the second cycle of the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2014, the Philippines Government committed to take measures to exert more control over these militias. The government also committed to holding these militias accountable pursuant to the Philippines’ obligations under international human rights law.

The 2015 General Appropriations Act provides that no new CAFGUs shall be recruited in anticipation of the planned demobilization of the group “as a result of the implementation of the Revised AFP [Armed Forces] Modernization Program”. That is indeed an important step. However, to accelerate the demobilization of these groups and solidify the commitments made by the Philippines during the UPR, lawmakers should pass a law repealing Executive Order 264 and demobilizing all militias in the country. 

Demobilizing the militias should not only mean formally disbanding the groups and requiring their members to turn in their firearms. The law should also provide for the practical implementation by the Philippines of its international human rights obligation to investigate all allegations of human rights abuses made against members of these groups so that the perpetrators of such abuses are brought to justice. Reparations for victims and their families must also be provided under the law.

Enacting this law would be one positive outcome of these hearings. The Senate must indeed continue to address the crisis of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines under President Duterte so the killings will stop and the killers brought to justice. 

But if one result of the hearings would be to abolish militias and properly demobilize the current members of these dangerous institutions, it would be an important step towards ending the human rights violations and abuses committed by militias and Government-sponsored death squads in the Philippines. – Rappler.com

Emerlynne Gil is a Senior International Legal Adviser of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). Her work at the ICJ involves providing legal analysis to human rights cases in Southeast Asia, particularly focusing on national security laws, counter-terrorism and human rights, and women’s human rights issues.

Every 3rd week of September, members of the community press in Cebu come together to celebrate Press Freedom Week. Joining this year's celebration are journalists from Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, the Freeman, Rappler, and TV and radio journalists who are members of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP).

The following is a pooled editorial written by the editors of Cebu's print newspapers on Sunday, September 18.

Journalism is probably one of the few human endeavors where the greatest challenge to a practitioner is not a test on skills. In most professions, it is often this test of skills that makes or breaks a career. Not so with journalism. In this profession of serving as mirror to society, it is credibility that mainly measures a journalist to the very last ounce of his true worth.

Journalism is not an exact science. In the daily struggle to mirror society, i.e. to report the truth, human limitations are bound to cause some problems. But these are not without remedies that are equally immediate and substantive. If errors are discovered, in either grammar or fact, these are edited out or corrected in the shortest time afterward, much like cleaning a real mirror and repositioning it to get rid of blurry images and warped reflections.

In most cases, the public can be quite forgiving over patently unintended lapses and credibility remains largely unsullied and intact. But sometimes there are instances when journalists and even entire news organizations cross the line between reporting fact and reporting what they imagine fact to be. Worse, stepping out of bounds is sometimes not only deliberate on its face, it also seems laced with motive and malice.

One foreign news organization that fancies itself the global news leader has lent itself to the candidacy of one against another in an upcoming election that its name has been given an entirely different meaning in the country of its origin. Clearly, this news organization has one huge credibility problem to deal with after the election. But if you think its credibility problem is its own, think again.

Any credibility problem involving one member of the media has a way of infecting the rest of the media. It is a kind of sectoral thing that perhaps only the sociologists can explain.

But in the same manner that one bad cop makes all other cops look bad, so does one journalist or one news organization falling into disrepute making the entire media universe seem disreputable.

In a manner of speaking, it is very ironic that a sector that makes it its calling to mirror the truth about society does not really know what that society is saying behind its back, and it is only to its credit that the balm of a clear conscience still works to assuage any doubts about its individual and collective sense of credibility.

To come to the point, the media can be its very own worst enemy if it does not guard its values zealously. And that is why credibility is guarded like a heavenly treasure by every journalist who values his name, and every news organization that puts a premium on its reputation. But that is no longer as easy to do as just saying it.

Times have changed. Even values probably have, too.

The challenges facing media and every media practitioner have become more than just a balancing act between credibility and losing it. It is the very act of surviving itself. There was a time when technology used to be viewed as a boon to everyone who embraced its benefits. Technology allowed people to do things faster and cleaner, and more at the least time. It opened up possibilities nobody thought were even available before.

But technology introduced dangerous pitfalls as well, dangers that if not guarded well, can threaten journalism where it matters the most – its credibility. The biggest assurance for credibility in traditional media is its verifiability.

You know the journalists in your neighborhood and the media outlets they work for and represent.

And even when traditional media eventually embraced technology and went online, they were still verifiable.

But cyberspace is almost limitless in scope and availability. Where before huge amounts of capital went into media production, today anybody with a cellphone or similar device can be a dispenser of news or information by a wide variety of means – tweets, posts, emails, even pictures and videos.

There is an entire universe of sources out there that, by sheer volume, makes them impossible to track and subject to the same verifiability that makes traditional media accountable.

This is not to say that cyberspace and social media are unreliable. Far from it. The fact alone that traditional media have taken to cyberspace and social media is a validation of everything positive about this new platform.

Still, all things being equal, not everything in this new environment is positive. There are in fact sources in cyberspace that are not only unreliable, they are malicious and created mainly to sow disinformation and deceive.

Sadly, they cannot be isolated to their own esoteric formats or platforms, there to suffer what there is to suffer when credibility flies out the window.

As specialized as they are in their own cyber world, they can and will infect all other mediums, including traditional media, which will probably not know what hit them. And if something hurts most to traditional media, it is to have its credibility doubted, for no stronger reason than one bad egg renders all other eggs suspect.

This Press Freedom Week, the media in Cebu would like to appeal to its public for greater understanding. The men and women who work night and day, rain or shine, to bring you what you need to know about your community and your world, are not the perfect personalities they sometimes appear to be.

That perception is just the sheen from a profession that is as noble as it is plain. We take pride in our work and value credibility more than anything else. We hurt too, when we mess up. – Rappler.com

There seems to me every reason to feel unnerved these days; it feels as though things have been turned upside down. But numerous others don’t seem to mind. Could it be age?

I myself belong to a naturally thinning minority, an all-senior minority who have lived through and seen or otherwise known enough to feel unnerved indeed, seniors whose grimmest collective memories are of the war (which I missed) and Martial Law (which I didn’t). 

As it happens, it’s precisely for our age and those memories that we are looked upon, even sneered at, as passé, behind the times, as if life did not proceed from progenitor to progeny, and history from past to present to future; as if life and history stopped once their mortal time stopped.

The sneerers’ self-contradictory argument is Rodrigo Duterte himself, the President himself, a very senior citizen himself; in fact he belongs in history himself, not just by age – he’s 71 – but as a character in scenes not unllike those that precisely left us traumatized. 

Duterte is thought new by those too young to have lived life long enough; he is thought, on the other hand, suitable by those who, I imagine, have managed to live life easily enough in the worst of times. 

But Duterte a fresh breath of air? It’s an absolute joke. Just listen to him; he speaks a profane, demeaning, and bellicose language, a language that mocks every norm of civility and decency. If that reflects authenticity, as his adorers say, then virtue itself has been turned on its head. And that’s where perhaps lies the twisted sense of freshness ascribed to him.   

Out of incredulity, desperate hopes were raised that this was all a campaign stunt, one that proved to work for the moment, and these hopes were buoyed by a promise by the president-elect himself of a “self-metamorphosis”.

If any metamorphosis has at all transpired, it’s not any change in character – he is in fact looking more and more like he’s set in it, unable to help himself; rather, what has transpired is a change from dreadful promise to dreadful fulfillment. 

Duterte, in other words, has moved beyond words – although that is not to say he has stopped foul-mouthing and being threatening. In less than 3 months in office, he has gone from, to take one particular promise, “I will kill you” to netting about 2,000 drug dealers and users, and some mistaken targets killed on his inspiration or authority, if not on his orders. 

A war on drugs has in fact been the centerpiece of both his campaign platform and his agenda of government, although it now looks more like the only trick the pony knows. In any case, his style – impulsive and imperious, very much in the character of the dynastic patriarch that he himself is (a daughter is mayor in their native Davao City, a son her own vice-mayor) – has necessarily defined every facet and course of his administration. 

Shortcutting the judicial process in the anti-drug campaign is just one case, although it’s the one that has been provoking the most criticisms. And when the United Nations expressed alarm over it, Duterte verbally savaged its secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and threatened to take the Philippines out of his organization. Over the same issue, he did the same thing to the president of the United States, Barack Obama, although his resentment toward Americans is confessedly singular and more deep-rooted.

“I’m anti-West; I hate the Americans,” Duterte has declared, citing cases of colonial atrocities at the turn of the 20^th century.

On the other hand, for all its intrusions on waters declared by a UN international arbitral court to be part of the Philippine territory, China is indulged. So as not to provoke the intruders themselves, Duterte has decided to pull out the Filipinos from the joint force patrolling those waters and leave the job to the Americans. 

Diplomacy is thus taken out of its very essence, and conducted mutually exclusively. 

The favor to China appears, moreover, to extend to its local surrogates, the communist party and its New People’s Army. With them, Duterte has made a deal for a ceasefire on terms much more relaxed than laid down by previous administrations: the other side does not have to give up its arms; neither does it have to stop collecting revolutionary tax from the communities in which it holds sway; it also gets all its comrades in government prisons freed.  

Patriotism has suffered the same perverted fate as diplomacy; Duterte is burying the plundering, murdering dictator Ferdinand Marcos as a hero. He is such a Marcos idolater he has himself betrayed a taste for Martial Law.

But, without having to declare Martial Law, Duterte has managed to undermine freedom enough. His freedom-of-information proclamation, with its 166 restrictions, makes freedom the exception and suppression the rule.

Duterte is not simply different; he is upside-down different. And, only naturally, he throws us off who are accustomed to living right side up. – Rappler.com

I came across this Huffington Post article and just had to stop and read. It said: “Marriage is not an Accomplishment”.

Normally, I would have dismissed this article with a quick upward swipe because it just seems so obvious. Getting married is not an accomplishment. We’re long past the days when women were not allowed to work, borrow money or own property and needed a man for everything from financial security to a roof over her head. So while marriage is still a milestone worth celebrating, it is not an accomplishment precisely for the reason that the writer cites: for marriage, you only need a willing partner.

Two events made me stop and read the article and a third prompted me to write about this column about the persistent notion that getting hitched is an achievement.

From Denmark

On assignment in Denmark last May to look into the au pair cultural exchange program, I was asked if I would (also) like to focus on the more positive side of the program where former au pairs have gone on to get higher education, for example. Of course, I said, can you refer me to a respondent?

And on more than one occasion, the default answer to my questions was a referral to a Filipino woman now married to a Danish man. Full stop. 

I blinked. Seriously. Being married to a Danish man qualifies as a success story? My feminist heart winced, cringed and bled as I smothered the instinct to respond with snark or snarl.

I was not always successful.

At one point, I actually blurted out, “Getting married to a Danish man hardly qualifies as an achievement” -- to two Danish men who I was interviewing.

I quickly followed up with an attempt at mollification: “I’m sure you’re very nice gentlemen and all but marriage in itself is not an achievement. It’s 2016!”

My unsuspecting targets raised their arms as a sign of truce and assurance that no offense was taken. (READ: A Filipina au pair's success story)

To South Africa

The marriage equals achievement conversation followed me months later in South Africa. I was having dinner with two twentysomething journalists who were trying to process their ambivalent feelings.

Their friends were getting married or getting engaged and pictures of engagement rings, babies and weddings were inundating their feed. They were happy for their friends, truly. But they wondered why their friends didn’t seem as happy for them when they talked about their master’s degree or a major story they broke.

They were beginning to question themselves and wonder if their life had any direction.

Again, I blinked.

Two decades ago, the conversation about life’s accomplishments was more monotonous. Everyone was living up to the expectation to follow the Life 101 Playbook: Get a job, get married, have a baby.

My twentsomething phase was marked by a thinly veiled mad rush to get on the matrimonial bandwagon or risk being left behind.

Twenty years later, with so many more options open to them, women are still feeling the same pressure and are still facing the same expectation.

Whether she’s living in Denmark or the US (where the two young journalists are from),

no woman is exempt from the notion that personal validation and fulfillment rest on her finding a man to have and having children to hold.

How could I tell them otherwise?

I felt lame telling the girls that it was a phase and that at some point, they will realize that life’s validations don’t come from another person but from yourself.

They nodded in the same polite way the two Danish men did and our dinner conversation moved to another topic.

And then Angelina happened.

The end of Brangelina

If you’re like me, you are saddened by the divorce of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Other celebrity marriages hitting splitsville made the headlines this week but none got the same reaction as Brad and Angelina. The public is simply not as invested (ok, fine, interested maybe) in the marriages of other celebrities. This was Brangelina, they were the gold standard for fighting for love (Team Jolie), for progressive parenting (who else has such a diverse household) and social awareness (Brad’s comment on marriage equality and Angelina’s involvement with the UN).

They weren’t supposed to break up -- ever. But they did and as I gobbled up the news to find out why, certain details caught my attention.

First, the terms of the separation: no spousal support needed. And second, the headline of another publication: London School of Economics lecturer to divorce actor husband.

It was subtle but oh, so clear. The marriage failed but Angelina will not be seen as a failure. She and her six kids are going to be just fine because her marriage to Brad Pitt, her being a mother to 6 children are not the only things that define her.

Whether or not you examine this as masterful PR spin, you have to know that this is another defining moment for women.

The lesson here is: Marriage is not an achievement. But being the kind of woman who takes charge of her own narrative is. – Rappler.com

Let me begin by asserting that US-China relations will define the future of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. And as power relations go, a nation’s location in the global pecking order will be determined by what it believes is worth fighting for – its core values, way of life, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the like. 

The challenge in our part of the world is: who will control the South China Sea/West Philippine Sea (SCS/WPS), or more specifically, will China be allowed to control the SCS/WPS? 

Two questions        

To appreciate the challenge, two questions are in order: Will America go to war over the SCS/WPS? and similarly, will China go to war over them?

On the first question: If China controls the SCS/WPS without fighting or firing a shot but by merely using sand, water, and patience, the negative impact on America’s global leadership will be immense and irreparable. It will trigger a fundamental reexamination of the basic security and political assumptions of its allies, partners, and friends in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, and may even spill over beyond it – a global game changer.

There is no doubt America has the capacity to undertake any action anywhere in the world to protect its core interests. But winning a war with China may even be as great a challenge as waging one – a tantalizing possibility that has to be addressed with great courage and vision.

On the second question, the answer is clear: China’s leadership has made clear to the world that the People’s Republic of China (PROC) has indisputable sovereignty over the SCS/WPS within its so-called 9-dash line, and will defend it by any means possible.

China also declared that it does not recognize the July 12, 2016 ruling made by the international arbitral tribunal in The Hague which, among others, invalidated its so-called nine-dash line.

China’s actions are consistent with its dream which aims to recover its dignity from the hundred years of humiliation inflicted by the western powers by working to the top of the global pecking order. The SCS/WPS are an integral part of the China dream not only for their resources but a secure nuclear submarine pen for a second-strike capability.

China has recently initiated the beginning of a geostrategic arc connecting China to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe by land and sea through its One Belt One Road (OBOR) project. The ports, airports, energy centers, and the like that will be established along OBOR will be supported by its newly created Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB).

Philippines vs China

This is the context where the Philippines – weak as it is – rose to protect and defend its core interests, including its maritime entitlements.

It may be recalled that the US earlier brokered a deal which provided that the Philippines’ and China’s vessels simultaneously withdraw from the Scarborough Shoal. The Philippines complied with the deal’s provisions but China did not.

Subsequently, the Philippines – which earlier had engaged China in long and exhausting bilateral talks that produced no positive outcome – filed a case in The Hague regarding China’s illegal claims and activities in the SCS/WPS.

With the support provided by the US, Japan and Australia together with other allies, partners, and friends in the world, the Philippines overwhelmingly won its case.

When the tribunal ruling was released on July 12, 2016, the US leadership cautioned the littoral countries involved in the SCS/WPS dispute – the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia – to handle the ruling with restraint.

Need for an independent foreign policy

Beyond the policy of restraint, President Duterte later declared the need for an independent foreign policy – which to my understanding is not for or against anybody but equidistant to everyone.

Of course, this was preceded by Duterte’s colorful language in reaction to a reporter’s query on human rights, which President Obama, during the Laos ASEAN + Summit, deftly handled, truly worthy of a great leader.

While recognizing President Duterte as a colorful person, he nevertheless cancelled their scheduled one-on-one meeting because – according to President Obama – no positive outcome may come out of it given the strained circumstances.

President Duterte deliberately omitted mention of the arbitral ruling during the ASEAN + Summit in Laos but made clear in earlier statements that when the time comes to negotiate with China, he will not go out of the four corners of the ruling.

Only time can tell which approach will better serve the nation’s interests: the hardline approach of former President Benigno Aquino III or Duterte’s soft landing.

Anti-drug campaign

Let us not forget the reality that our domestic situation is tightly linked to foreign policy which is only as strong as the people it represents.

The Duterte government has been in office for barely 3 months but it is already beleaguered because of the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in its anti-drug campaign. To date more than 3,000 have been killed but more than 700,000 have surrendered, indicating the gravity of the nation’s drug problem.

While I agree with the government’s anti-drug campaign, we have to accept that since everyone cannot be killed, we should avoid creating conditions where, over time, justice will be defined by vengeance.

Making of an enabling environment

But beyond our legitimate concern about EJKs, the Duterte government has initiated a national reform program which promises to create an enabling environment that will provide the context for the nation to become rich, prosperous, and strong.

If successful, it will make this nation and the national leadership that made it possible great.

If successful, it would lay the foundation for making the shaping impulse of the Filipino in terms of: who he/she is, what he/she can be, what he/she can do, and what he/she can give. These will embody the formation of a new Filipino personality, a new identity of an empowered Filipino enabled to build a strong and respected nation.

We can become wealthy and strong, capable of building an independent foreign policy – a nation that is dependable and worthy as a partner rather than an unhelpful and dependent ally.

      The enabling environment consists of:

1. The program to end the nation’s internal war by appointing known personalities from the Left to government Cabinet positions, and establishing an indefinite ceasefire while pursuing peace negotiation with the leaders of the longest communist insurgency in the world. Similarly, Duterte is personally talking with the separatist movements – the MNLF and MILF – using his previous investments of goodwill with them.
2. Actions to reform the nation’s political system where national policies are formulated by special interest groups and implemented to serve their interests rather than the common good. His method is to change the form of government: from presidential to parliamentary, and from unitary to federal. 
3. Indications the Duterte government will begin to level the playing field in both the nation’s land and non-land sectors.

But if all this fails, the judgment may be harsh and primarily in terms of the EJKs committed in the anti-drug campaign. This would be a terrible loss of opportunity because it will negate what could be bigger and bolder gains for the country. – Rappler.com

A retired military general, the author is the former national security adviser of the Ramos administration.

Although national attention is currently focused on the war on drugs, the Duterte administration is quietly making gains in another policy area – rice policy.

Recently the Duterte Cabinet, led by its economic team, agreed to lift restrictions on the importation of rice by 2017. This would usher in greater volumes of rice imports that the government has been trying to put off for more than two decades now.

On the one hand, local rice farmers are naturally worried. They say that this policy will hurt them in the same way that other farmers have been hurt by the influx of cheap imported agricultural goods (like onions).

On the other hand, some say that this policy will help promote competition, lower prices, and benefit several millions of Filipino rice consumers.

Some groups are already hailing the Cabinet’s rice policy as one of its first major economic reforms. To appreciate how exactly this policy can benefit the country in general, it may help to step back and look at key facts about rice consumption and production in the Philippines.

How affordable is rice in the PH?

Figure 1 shows that the Philippines has always had some of the highest rice prices in Southeast Asia. As of August 2016, Filipinos are paying more than twice for a kilo of rice compared to their Thai and Vietnamese counterparts.

These high rice prices harm poor Filipino households more than anyone else. Based on recent data, while the poorest households spend around 20% of their income on rice alone, the richest households spend just under 5% (Figure 2).

Rice prices are harmful not only when they are high, but also when they are volatile. Figure 3 shows that since 1991 we experienced three major spikes in rice prices: 1995 (a 45% increase in price prices), 2008 (60% increase), and 2014 (20% increase).

Such significant jumps in rice prices can have devastating impacts on the poor. A 2015 study found that at the height of the 2008 rice crisis, the inflation rate faced by the poorest 30% of the population was about twice the inflation rate faced by the general population. This significantly eroded the purchasing power of the poor and led more households into hunger and poverty.

Some studies also show that poor rice farmers are, in fact, net consumers (rather than net producers) of rice, meaning that they consume more rice than they produce. Hence, poor farmers are hurt by high rice prices as well.

What makes rice extra expensive for Filipinos?

High and volatile rice prices in the Philippines are borne by a myriad of factors, but largely geography and policy.

On the one hand, the Philippines has a relative disadvantage when it comes to rice production because of our peninsular geography. Unlike Vietnam and Thailand, we do not enjoy as much vast, uninterrupted rice plains and access to natural irrigation at the scale of, say, the mighty Mekong River.

On the other hand, expensive rice is also due to government policies, particularly the National Food Authority’s (NFA) status as the sole importer of rice in the country.

Every year the NFA decides how much rice to import in a given year based on forecasts of domestic rice demand and supply. This heavy-handed tinkering with the market, however, can occasionally lead to disaster when planning becomes faulty.

Specifically, the NFA may at times fail to import sufficient quantities of rice, leading not only in smuggling (which is really a manifestation of a large unmet demand for rice) but also in catastrophic shortages and price spikes.

Our last two rice crises attest to this. In 1995 and 2008, erroneous supply forecasts, external factors, and badly-timed imports led to massive rationing and queues. These were relieved only through belated importation of massive amounts of rice.

In the aftermath of these events, a select number of private agents have been allowed to import rice, but with a collective limit of 805,000 metric tons per year and levied with 35% tariff rates.

It is these import restrictions that the Duterte Cabinet is seeking to abolish by next year. By allowing more private agents to import rice, the NFA need not second-guess domestic demand and supply conditions, thus avoiding over- or under-importation of rice in any given year.

More importantly, this policy also means more competition in the domestic market that could lead to lower and less volatile prices, as well as food security for the vast majority of Filipinos.

This is not to say, however, that the NFA no longer has any significant role to play. For instance, it could focus on maintaining a buffer stock of rice to prepare for emergency shortfalls and provide immediate relief to avoid events like the violent Kidapawan protests last March. The NFA could also maintain a small tariff from which it can earn revenues to support farmers adjusting to this new era of freer rice trade.

Conclusion: Good rice policy as a low-hanging fruit

The Duterte Cabinet’s proposal to lift rice import restrictions promises to benefit millions of Filipino rice consumers, especially the poor.

However, rice producers have already protested the Cabinet’s recent pronouncements. There are even renewed calls to reestablish the NFA’s status as the sole importer of rice. Hence, the Duterte Cabinet’s success in bringing rice policy reforms is yet to be ensured.

Such policy could arguably enjoy more success if it found support in the President himself. After all, there are about 101 million rice consumers in the country. In contrast, there are just 1.8 million drug users in the country as of 2015. Hence, shifting even a bit of attention away from drug policy and into rice policy can potentially benefit a far greater number of Filipinos.

Of course, it seems that the current drug war is here to stay. But given the potential benefits, here’s hoping that the present leadership brings at least as much interest and enthusiasm into rice policy. In the vast tree of social policies, this could very well be one of the lowest-hanging fruits out there. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD student at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations. Thanks to Kevin Mandrilla (UP Asian Center) and Ammielou Gaduena (UP School of Economics) for valuable comments and suggestions.