In his latest effort to fulfill his campaign promises, President Rody Duterte recently ordered a crackdown on people involved in so-called “5-6” moneylending.

5-6 involves lenders – many of them Indian nationals – issuing small loans at a 20% interest rate or so. Payments are typically collected on a daily or weekly basis.

In last Monday’s (January 9) Cabinet meeting, Duterte ordered the arrest and deportation of such 5-6 lenders. Although their high interest rates are not illegal per se, they were deemed by the President “usurious” and “burdensome” to the people.

This directive has resulted in a flurry of government actions. For instance, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre claimed that such arrests could, in fact, be executed without warrants. Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr has already discussed the matter with the top Indian diplomat.

In this article we put the 5-6 lending scheme in context by situating it in the country’s broader financial system. We show that its enduring popularity stems from its ability to address certain limitations of our formal credit markets. In other words, 5-6 is but a symptom of a larger problem at play.

Overview of lending in the PH

First, let’s review some facts about Filipinos’ ability to access credit. Data from the Bangko Sentral show that as of 2015 around 47% (or nearly half) of all Filipino adults had an outstanding loan.

But a vast majority of them did not borrow from formal sources like banks or cooperatives (see Figure 1). Instead, they borrowed more from informal sources: 62% borrowed from family members, relatives, and friends, while 10% borrowed from informal lenders like loan sharks and 5-6 lenders.

Why is informal borrowing so popular? Although 84% of adults acknowledged the importance of loans in their daily lives, only 56% said they wanted to borrow from formal lenders.

One key reason for this is that borrowing from formal lenders remains to be costly and inconvenient. Among those who said they had difficulties obtaining credit from formal lenders, 28% cited high collateral requirements as their main problem, while 20% cited the numerous documentary requirements.

Credit market failures

Filipino entrepreneurs have an especially difficult time obtaining loans from formal lenders to start or expand their businesses.

Today around 99.6% or nearly all business establishments in the Philippines are classified as “micro/small/medium enterprises” (MSMEs). These are firms with less than 200 employees or assets less than P100 million. Of these, 90.3% are “micro enterprises”, or those with less than 10 employees or assets less than P3 million.

The small scale of these businesses hinders entrepreneurs from easily accessing credit from formal lenders. One study found that, indeed, high collateral requirements have become a “major impediment” for the development of MSMEs. Many MSMEs are also unable to satisfy other requirements, such as business plans and proofs of financial recordkeeping capabilities.

For their part, lenders are also reluctant to issue loans due to inadequate information about borrowers’ credit history and creditworthiness. As long as lenders and borrowers cannot be brought to the same page (and trust between them is hard to establish), then lending will become near-impossible and formal credit markets may fail altogether.

Enter informal lending

These difficulties give rise to informal lending mechanisms, which have their own pros and cons.

One advantage is that informal lenders accept non-traditional forms of collateral (such as retail goods or labor services) or even no collateral at all (as in the case of 5-6).

A second advantage is that trust is easier to establish between informal lenders and borrowers. For instance, in rural settings loans are often tied to existing economic relations, such as those between sari-sari owners and their suki (patrons), landlords and their tenants, and traders and farmers. When borrowers fail to repay their loans, they jeopardize their other important economic ties.

But to compensate for the larger risk they are taking, informal lenders usually impose higher interest rates and monitor payments more frequently. Most people are familiar with the 20% interest rate in 5-6 arrangements. But in Nueva Ecija, for instance, informal interest rates as high as 60% are not unheard of.

It is therefore no wonder that informal lending schemes are often accused of causing further financial distress to the poor who rely on them the most.

Microfinance revolution

In the presence of credit market failures, the government has taken several steps to help increase people’s reliance on formal credit.

For example, in 2007, Congress passed the “Magna Carta for MSMEs” which required banks to allocate at least 8% of their loan portfolio to micro and small enterprises, and 2% to medium enterprises.

However, Figure 2 shows that compliance with this law has been mixed: banks have underprovided loans to micro and small enterprises, but at the same time have overprovided loans to medium enterprises. This attests to the continuing difficulties in bridging the information gaps between banks and small borrowers.

Another way to improve access to formal credit is by promoting the growth of community-based microfinance institutions (MFIs). By making use of existing community relations, MFIs can afford to lend with minimal requirements. This model, pioneered by the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank, has been particularly successful in South Asia.

President Duterte’s support for this type of microfinance – through the DTI’s new program called P3 or “Pondo sa Pagbabago at Pag-asenso” – is a welcome development. However, such programs will work best when complemented with comprehensive financial literacy programs.

Finally, new technologies can improve the growth of microfinance. Latest innovations include “credit scoring” (which helps lenders distinguish between good and bad risks) and “digital microlending” (which makes use of SMS messaging and social networks to expand the reach of formal credit).

Conclusion: Let’s not mistake the symptom for the problem

5-6 lending is but a small part of the country’s informal credit system, which is essentially a reaction to the difficulty of accessing loans from banks and other formal credit institutions.

Worldwide, the role of informal credit generally diminishes as countries progress. With the continued growth of microfinance in the Philippines, our people will come to rely less and less on informal schemes like 5-6. In fact, the Philippines is already making impressive strides in the pursuit of greater financial inclusion.

But moving forward, the government ought not to mistake symptoms for our problems. In the same way that a cold won’t go away instantly just by sweating it out, we won’t achieve 100% financial inclusion just because we arrest and deport all 5-6 lenders.

As in many other aspects of development, shortcuts and magic formulas are often a poor substitute to careful thought and hard work. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliations. Thanks to Kevin Mandrilla for helpful comments and suggestions. 

Two names explain Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's current tour of Southeast Asia: Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump.

Just a year ago, things were, as the British would put it, "going swimmingly" for Abe.  He had rammed through his unilateral interpretation that "Collective Defense," which would involve Japan in military operations with allies outside its home territory, was not a violation of Article 9 of the Constitution. He had faced down domestic opposition to Japan's participation in the regional free trade arrangement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In both enterprises, Japan had acted, in the traditional fashion, as Washington's junior partner.

Collective Defense was Japan's contribution to President Obama's vaunted strategic reorientation that came under the rubric "Pacific Pivot." The TPP was the geoeconomic counterpart of the Pivot, with the world's biggest national economy teaming up with its third biggest, to contain the second biggest, China.

The Duterte surprise

Then in mid-year the regional design that Washington and Tokyo had painstakingly patched together began to come apart, totally unexpectedly. Shortly after assuming office, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte went on a surprising, unprecedented offensive against Washington, culminating in an October visit to Beijing, where he declared "independence" from the United States and waxed melodramatic about "the Philippines, China, and Russia against the world."

Since the Philippines functioned as the "southern anchor" of the US military presence in the Western Pacific, of which Japan was the "northern anchor," Abe was alarmed. The strategic implications for Japan of a breakaway Philippines was what led to Abe's invitation to Duterte to make Tokyo the site of his first state visit outside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Beijing brusquely cut in, however, and Duterte, recognizing the regional power hierarchy, went to China instead.

The Trump shock

After the Duterte surprise came the Trump shock. During the campaign, Trump had made noises that seemed to point in the direction of a more isolationist US. Where Japan figured in Trump's speeches, it was mainly as a country that enjoyed US protection without paying for it. Once he got elected, he promised, he would collect protection money from Tokyo and other allies. Trump's isolationism was more pronounced on the economic front. He denounced the TPP that Obama and Abe had so painstakingly promoted as contrary to US interests and spoke about retaliatory tariffs against "unfair traders."

Tokyo took Trump's campaign statements to mean he would erect a tariff wall around the US that would screen out cheap imports in the same way that his planned Wall on the Rio Grande would keep out Mexican migrants. They were confirmed in their suspicions recently when, just as Abe set out on his Southeast Asia tour, now President-elect Trump tweeted that he would impose a "big border tax" on Toyota if the Japanese carmaker went on with plans to build an assembly plant in Mexico to produce cars to export to the US.

The end of the post post-World War II order

To Tokyo, old certainties that underpinned the post-World War II order were suddenly melting, and rapidly. The base of this power structure was what the historian James MacDonald described as the great "unspoken bargain." That is, "the United States would exercise a near monopoly of force. However, it would use its force not to gain exclusive economic advantages, but as an impartial protector of Western interests." Japan was part of the Western bloc that benefited from US military protection and US-supported global free trade. However, as a defeated power in World War II, it settled into the role of semi-sovereign state, whose basic strategic and foreign policy choices were made in Washington.

With the future of the ancient regime suddenly in question, Abe has felt compelled to take on the role of being the pro-active partner in the US-Japan alliance. Commentators in Japan think that he accomplished his main mission in Manila, which was to get President Duterte to officially state that his country's alliance with the US was important. That concession is not, however, going to get in the way of Duterte forging closer ties with Beijing and Moscow, which sent a destroyer on a goodwill visit to Manila a week before Abe's arrival.

Equally important is the economic part of Abe's mission, which is to ascertain whether there remains interest in resuscitating the TPP even if the US withdraws from it, which Trump has announced as one of his priorities upon assuming office. Two of the countries he is visiting, Australia and Vietnam, are members of the TPP, while Indonesian President Jokowi had expressed interest in joining the body before Trump's electoral triumph.

Abe’s trip is taking place under the shadow of China, whose maritime claims in the Western Pacific worry Tokyo and whose economic clout now outweighs that of Japan, which has not really recovered from 25 years of stagnation. On both military and economic fronts, it will not be easy to convince Southeast Asia to support his strategy of containing China if the US is not seen as solidly behind it.

From semi-sovereignty to splendid isolation?

It's all so bewilderingly new for Tokyo. A center-right figure, Abe has always stated that his mission was to make Japan a full-fledged sovereign state, free of the vestiges of wartime defeat, like Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which banned war as an instrument of Japanese foreign policy. Moving away from the US alliance was not, however, one of his priorities; rather, his strategy to use the alliance with the US to rearm Japan and enable its military to play a greater regional role in containing China, which is the key aim of Japan's Grand Strategy.

Now, suddenly, owing to the unpredictable nature of democratic politics in its key allies, Abe and the Japanese elite are being forced to confront fundamental issues that had long been decided by Washington: Tokyo's relationships with China, Korea, Russia, and Southeast Asia.  

For Japan's elite, it was humiliating to be a semi-sovereign state. But it had its benefits. Among them was Japan's being able to become an economic superpower in the 4 decades since the end of the war, partly because it invested very little in defense. And it was comfortable. When things went right, like the US-China rapprochement in the 1970's, Japan could share in the benefits. When things went wrong, like the war in Vietnam, Washington was there to blame, even as Japanese businesses made money from the war.

The Japanese are beginning to realize that being fully sovereign means dealing with headaches that someone else had to take prime responsibility for over 70 years. And the biggest challenge of all, they are beginning to realize, is, with the US under Trump slouching towards isolationism, what will happen to Washington's principal ally in Asia? Will it be reduced to an isolated offshore state in the post post-World War II Asian order? – Rappler.com

A former member of the Philippine Congress, Walden Bello is currently a visiting senior researcher at the Center of Southeast Asian Studies of Kyoto University.

Personal relations matter in the stratosphere of world leaders.  

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saw to that, beating other heads of state, notably its rival China, to be the first to visit the country under the administration of President Duterte.

The optics show that Abe and Duterte have reached a significant comfort level – breakfast in the President’s Davao home and tour of the innermost sanctum, the bedroom – that will make communication easier in these uncertain times.

Two big things matter to Japan: its security alliance with the US and rule of law in maritime disputes, particularly the enforcement of the international arbitral ruling on the South China Sea that trashed China’s historical claims.

When Duterte visited Tokyo last year, these were on the agenda and both leaders appeared satisfied with the outcome of the talks.

But Abe cannot rest easy. Duterte, after all, is known for his volatility and shifting views. He once said he wanted the US forces out of Mindanao and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) scrapped but later backtracked. The latter, which he declared on the eve of his visit to Japan last year, made Tokyo nervous.

Faced with this new reality, Abe has adjusted well.

His smart diplomacy is the result of mixing 2 tracks: the personal – he has designated his adviser Katsuyuki Kawai to be his emissary to Duterte – and the institutional, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Japan is known for its formal, protocol-strict way of doing diplomacy but Abe is changing this. A prime example was when he allowed a businessman friend of Duterte, Sammy Uy, to attend the 2 leaders’ summit in Tokyo in October.

Soon after, Abe flew to New York to meet with US President-elect Donald Trump, the first head of state to do so.

On the ground, Japan enjoys advantages. It is our top trading partner and largest source of aid. For many years, Japan has been supporting peace efforts with Muslim rebels in Mindanao, a presence Duterte saw when he was Davao mayor.

Abe has kept mum about the extrajudicial killings here, steering clear of trouble. And an add-on is Japan’s new support for drug rehabilitation.

In terms of people-to-people relations, a recent poll by Pulse Asia shows that many Filipinos (70%) trust Japan in contrast to their huge distrust of China (61%). The anti-Japanese sentiment that engulfed the country after the war has ebbed.

Clearly, Abe scores a win with President Duterte. We hope this translates into strategic goals of letting The Hague ruling prevail and keeping the US forces in the region to balance off China. – Rappler.com

Was the threat for real or not? Hermeneutics has become a very practical discipline in the administration of President Digong, but, unfortunately, Secretary Andanar is definitely no Hermes. 

What we get from the good Secretary of Clarification and Qualification is not what the public hears from the President nor what the ordinary processes of communication and exchange allow us to grasp. When President Digong warned the nation that he was quite prepared to declare martial law if the drug menace turns virulent, Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, Senate President Koko Pimentel, Mr. Andanar and some other administration oracles told us something else!

But is it wrong for a president to warn the nation that he is poised to declare martial law?  My answer is unequivocal: No.  

The Constitution gives the President the right to declare martial law – and those who get into fits of paroxysm and froth in the mouth like persons possessed by some malevolent spirit are the purveyors of that reading of martial law, Marcos-era, that paints it all in hues of black and that would impose their version of history on an entire nation. 

I have repeatedly maintained that a historical event admits of different interpretations – which is not to argue for a relativist concept of historical truth. But it is a definite rejection of pretensions at the absolutist claims of those for whom martial law was unqualified evil!

Shackled commander-in-chief

Whenever my students and I reach the part of the Constitution on the emergency powers of the President, I always point out the congenital deformity of provisions crafted in dislike for Marcos and for martial law. Under the present provision, a president’s hands are not only tied. The commander-in-chief is in fact shackled: Congress has the power to review the declaration of Martial Law, and even set it aside, and any interested citizen may question the factual basis for its declaration before the Supreme Court that may also nullify it. 

These restrictions, I have insisted, are a disservice in fact to the Constitution, for it can so easily occur to any president faced with a grave peril to the nation, that the most expedient recourse left to him protect the Republic without being stymied in his efforts by restrictive provisions is by sweeping aside the entire Constitution – and then of course, it is “anything goes” in a revolutionary, extra-constitutional situation!  The point is to keep the Constitution – and its interpretation by our courts – sufficiently pliant so as to keep executive (and all government action) within its bounds!

Whether or not the conditions laid down in the Constitution for the declaration of martial law now exist is a different question, and I do not think they do. And I roundly reject the proposal to characterize the operation of foreign drug syndicates in the country as “invasion.” There is a legally accepted definition of “invasion” as of “rebellion,” and it never serves the purposes of law well to trifle with terms and their definitions.

Martial law need not be evil. The abuse of freedoms and liberties can, especially when such rambunctiousness becomes pernicious to the viability of the Republic and a threat to the rights of others. It is they who steadfastly reject the possibility of martial law and would stay the hand of a president poised to declare it under all circumstances who must learn the ways of the Constitution again. 

There is, after all, an irreplaceable role of force in the rule of law. – Rappler.com

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

The Duterte show is back on the road after a Christmas break. It was mounted last week in its home stage, in Davao City, in Marco Polo, the hotel owned by Duterte's finance secretary.

I caught a good part of it on television. I don't recall any president coming on TV half as often as Duterte, but the more singular distinction is he manages to do it saying and showing scarcely anything new. And, true enough, nothing notably fresh was added to his act this time around; it was the same old song and dance. 

But why change anything? The original has regaled national audiences all these first six months of its run, registering a 73% approbation, which is "very good" by pollsters' standards, the equivalent, I suppose, of four thumbs up.

There was some ad-libbing here and there, but it was merely flavoring, which Duterte, I'm sure, the sensitive performer that he is, puts in as he goes along. 

Still, nothing special about it, just one and the same phrase, but I saw from the reaction of his formal-dress-dinner audience in Davao that it was a hit, such a hit it inspired a crisper delivery from Duterte with each utterance, and he sprinkled his speech with it generously that night. 

It was his favorite – everyone's favorite – motherhood cuss phrase.  

Perhaps being a largely home crowd, the audience also got a not-so-routine treat from Duterte – a mention of "the wife, the mistress, and the other mistress" in that mockingly confessional tone that always works with a Duterte crowd.

But lest Duterte be presumed to have nothing else to say, he is less benign than that. He seems to me more like Winston Churchill's fanatic: ". . . someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

The nature itself of Duterte's subjects – his war on drugs, his tolerant view of authoritarianism, his rabid espousal of federalism – serve as a warning that we should not be incautiously presumptuous. In merely six months his war on drugs has left 6,000 dealers and addicts dead. 

The number is shocking enough by itself, but, put yet in the context of Duterte's count of the drugged population of four million, it inspires unspeakable dread. And what has Duterte to show for justification? A probably 10-pound directory of names and pictures, his own Yellow Pages, which he lugs around to frighten his audiences. And who wouldn't be fightened of such mortal efficiency!

Authoritarianism is here

As for authoritarianism, which we've seen before and somehow beaten and survived after its 14 years of murder and plunder, and federalism, which we are in the dark about, these are watery graves we traumatized, blind mice are being led to by the pied piper Rodrigo.

Authoritarianism is betrayed not only in his strongman rhetoric and express idolatry of Ferdinand Marcos but in his ways – in his coddling of the police and the military, in his flouting of the universal norms of civility and diplomacy, in his constant challenge to the rule of law. 

Authoritarianism is in fact observed to obtain now, effectively. But Duterte wishes it yet set down in the Constitution as a more readily available emergency recourse, something that can be seized and implemented without the legislative and judicial checks that stand in the President's way today.

A federal union of autonomous states is meanwhile promoted simplistically as a political system made precisely for an archipelago like us. Ignored altogether is the danger of the local dynasties – like Duterte's own – further consolidating power and the culture of patronage perpetuating itself.

No red flags are raised at all. All there is, for now, is a harmless song and dance. – Rappler.com

Sometime last year, my usual trip to the pharmacy to refill my medicine cabinet became a cause for worry. My birth control pill was out of stock.

We hear “out of stock” or “not available” a lot in various situations such as in a restaurant, for example, but in this case, the availability problem could not be solved by ordering something else on the menu.

The first time it happened, I still had back up stock to fall back on, but when I was down to my last box of pills and only got another apologetic, “Sorry po” from the pharmacist, my anxiety morphed into panic.

My choices were limited to buying a more expensive brand or risking an unplanned pregnancy. But since I also use the pill for hormone regulation, I had to buy another brand – one that was four times more expensive than the brand I had been using for years.

The incident brought to mind all the community women I had talked to who had to resign themselves to the possibility of another pregnancy all because the rural health clinic in their village had run out of contraceptives or did not stock up yet.

As it turns out, this erratic supply of contraceptives is likely to continue or become even worse under the Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) on the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law (RH Law).

The RH Law was passed last December 2012 but in the four years since then, its full rollout has been aggressively blocked by opposition from groups bent on keeping the law from being implemented. (READ: RH Law: The long and rough road)

Last year, the health department’s contraceptive budget was cut and the Supreme Court issued a TRO on the government procurement and distribution of Implanon and Implanon XT, matchstick-like rods that are inserted in the upper arm that offers three years of contraceptive protection.

The Supreme Court first issued the TRO in June 2015 before the DOH had procured 400,000 contraceptive implants for release and distribution to poor communities. The implants are expected to expire in 2018.

When the DOH appealed for the lifting of the TRO, the Supreme Court rejected the motion in August 2016 and issued new orders to the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) and the DOH.

Penned by Associate Justice Jose Catral Mendoza, the SC order directed the FDA to do the following:

1. Come up with rules and procedures for registration and recertification of contraceptive commodities to determine whether they are abortifacients or non-abortifacients.
2. Allow opponents of the RH Law to participate in the processing of registration and certification of contraceptives through public hearing.

“The wording of the decision seems to have declared previous decisions of the FDA as contraceptive registration as void and seems to have expanded the prohibition from only Implanon and Implanon NXT to other contraceptives,” said Elizabeth Angsioco, national chairperson of women’s health group Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines and part of the RH Law National Implementing Team (NIT).

In her column on January 14, Angsioco explained, “Decisions of the FDA are now appealable to the Court of Appeals...The FDA is a regulatory body and its decisions were deemed final. The Courts had nothing to do with the performance of its responsibilities as this office is supposed to decide based on scientific evidence and medical findings.”

Gradual phaseout

Under the TRO, either commodities themselves expire or certifications that allow for their sale and distribution lapse. The total effect is the gradual phasing out of contraceptives from government clinics and pharmacy shelves as the registration/certification of new contraceptive brands and recertification of existing brands is suspended until the FDA can comply with the SC’s demand to come up with rules and procedures for registration and recertification of contraceptives.

According to data provided by the DWSP and Commission on Population (Popcom), 31% (or about 15 brands) of contraceptive certifications expired as of December 2016.

“Another 31% will expire in 2017, 29% in 2018 for a total of 91%. By 2020, only 2% of certifications will be valid. That is the schedule of the gradual elimination of contraceptives from both government clinics and commercial drug stores as a result of this TRO,” said Dr. Juan Antonio Perez, Popcom executive director.

Perez noted that one progestin-only pill brand usually prescribed for breastfeeding mothers who want to space their pregnancies has been affected by the TRO.

“Pharmaceuticals who sell contraceptives will lose their license to sell and can no longer import these commodities anymore. There will be nothing to sell,” added Perez.

Women who freely buy their contraceptives at the local drug store will not be able to buy them because they will no longer be available.

The Supreme Court through, spokesperson Theodore Te, insisted that there is no TRO on the RH Law and the government’s implementation of the law.

In a statement released to the media, Albay Representative Edcel Lagman, one of the principle authors of the RH LAW answered, “While there is no direct injunction against the implementation of the RH Law, the Supreme Court has pierced the heart and soul of the RH Law by making the certification, procurement and access to contraceptives more difficult and cumbersome. When the Supreme Court halted the certification and re-certification by the FDA...the Supreme Court practically derailed the enforcement of the RH Law so much so that by 2018 contraceptive supplies are expected to dry up,” 

Duterte's EO

But what about the executive order that the President just signed?

President Duterte’s signing of the EO 12 calling for the full implementation of the RH Law is a step in the right direction that serves several purposes but the fact remains that the only way the RH Law can fully be rolled out and for thousands of Filipinos who to benefit from its promise of enabling them to plan their family size is for the TRO to be lifted.

“The President signing the EO sends a policy message and a clear endorsement of the the RH Law. Helping the poor with their family planning needs, along with job creation and economic growth is outlined as a key strategy to reduce poverty,” said Rom Dongeto, Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) executive director. 

“The EO also supports the NEDA and DOH’s lobby to call for the immediate lifting of the TRO,” said Dongeto.

The phasing out of contraceptive supplies will not eliminate the need for birth control. The continued demand for birth control will fuel the supply for it through the black market where buyers risk buying counterfeit contraceptives of dubious formulation. Those with resources will need to secure their supplies from overseas.

Support for the RH Law and demanding that its provisions be carried out is needed now more than ever. Advocates have started an e-signature campaign calling for Supreme Court to lift the TRO on the RH Law and is planning for other initiatives in the coming months.

“All of us must raise our voices and let the Supreme Court know that we want the justices to respect reproductive rights and lift the TRO. All of us who have a voice must continue to do this for ourselves and those among us who have no voice until we are heard,” said former DOH secretary and chairperson of RH NIT Esperanza Cabral.

– Rappler.com

(Ana P. Santos is Rappler’s sex and gender columnist and Pulitzer Center grantee. In 2014, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting awarded her the Persephone Miel fellowship to do a series of reports on Filipino migrant mothers in Dubai and Paris.)

The international Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) supports the ongoing peace negotiations between the Government of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). We commend the efforts of both parties toward an agreement on social and economic reforms.

We note with high appreciation the efforts of the NDFP to hold consultations with indigenous peoples' (IP) organizations and communities in the past months. These have resulted in provisions upholding the rights of IPs to their ancestral lands and territories.

The consultations also ensured that IPs benefit in national economic development programs, industrialization, and agrarian reform in the NDFP's comprehensive agreement in social and economic reforms. (READ: #TayoAngKapayapaan: Gov't, NDF should learn from indigenous peoples)

Recognizing and respecting the right to ancestral lands, territories, and resources are key to IP's right to self-determination and identity.

The right to self-determination guarantees the participation of IPs in governance and policy-making from the village to national levels.

With their indigenous knowledge and practices, IPs in the Philippines have so much to contribute to sustainability and environmental protection, among others. Their contribution will be beneficial not only to their communities but also to other Filipinos and the world.

The right to self-determination also allows affirmative action for IPs who have long suffered from government neglect, discrimination, and commercialization and debasing of thier culture. 

However, we express concern about the continuing militarization and increasing deployment of military forces to IP communities that result in rights violations. 

We are also concerned that the government, despite previous pronouncements, has failed to release political prisoners. There are 24 indigenous political prisoners – 14 are Lumad, 4 Igorot, 3 Aggay, and 3 Dumagat.

We urge the government to heed the call of IPs to stop the militarization of their communities and to grant political prisoners unconditional amnesty.

We urge both parties to continue the consultations and target efforts to reach out and engage more IP organizations and communities until they sign a comprehensive agreement on social and economic reforms, and on political and constitutional reforms.

We also call on IP organizations and communities to continue and actively engage both the government and the NDPF. – Rappler.com 

Beverly Longid, a Kankanaey from Cordillera, is the global coordinator of the International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL). 

From being the ruling party to the party at the margins, we at the Liberal Party are currently undertaking a process of deep consultation with our members and other stakeholders in order to determine together our strategic direction.

These are my initial thoughts as we go through this crucial exercise in introspection and subsequent future action. 

Across the world, the culture of democracy – tolerance, debate, and unarmed truth – is on the decline and authoritarian tendencies are on the upsurge. In the Philippines, this is partly due to the collective failure of society’s leaders (political, religious, business, and other civic groups) to free the country from the clutches of entrenched political and economic dynasties, and to transform our inchoate democracy into one that addresses the unfulfilled promises of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolt.

Despite economic recovery from the methodical Marcos plunder of the national treasury, the major problems of poverty, inequality, and exclusion remain. Amid massive joblessness, workers are forced to work in dirty, dangerous, difficult, and mostly temporary jobs (many abroad) even as their labor rights to organize, security of tenure, and decent work are suppressed. The agrarian reform program is a big let-down, with peasants hungry, poor, and dispossessed of land and/or earning subhuman wages. Millions live in squalid conditions with hardly any of the essentials to a life of dignity. Many turn to scavenging and drug peddling as a means of survival. Tax and other economic policies remain largely skewed (especially in the implementation) toward the super-rich and unfairly against the middle class and further below. Systemic corruption continues to bankrupt the nation’s coffers and morals.

Government after government failed to secure job, food, shelter, health care, education, and other social services for the ordinary Filipino. Philippine society has failed to redistribute resources and give equal access to income, opportunities, and services.

All throughout the post-EDSA period, the Liberal Party has been part of revived democratic institutions, largely ideologically indistinguishable from other political parties, with most of its leaders removed from the dangers that common folk face every day.

Moreover, technology, globalization, and climate change are rapidly transforming the world as we know it. Robots and artificial intelligence portend a new realm for work -- and the class and identity attached to it. Wealth and thus power are increasingly concentrated on so few, imperiling fragile social cohesion and economic stability. Clean air, clean water, and arable land – most basic for human survival – are becoming scarce and precious commodities.

A combination of these has fundamentally changed the political landscape worldwide. The mix of cheaper phones of and social media access has allowed interest groups to produce troll armies and fake-news websites that amplify opinions not facts, as well as influence crucial issues like Brexit and climate-change denial and events like some national elections.

New context

Populism and its kin – racism, fascism, and extremism – are arising from this troubling new world. In desperation, people have turned to the old, familiar, and more tyrannical ways of political leadership, falsely thinking that this will save them from a dark future.

Powered by social media, time-tested propaganda rules are blurring the lines that divide truth and lie. For one, this new technology is creating a more impatient if less discerning public that embrace “tough” leaders who make things happen in place of polite, “decent” ones who tend to be more circumspect. For another more dangerous effect, it creates filter bubbles of prejudice and hatred, not solidarity and common humanity.

Against this backdrop, the Liberal Party must redefine itself.

The Liberal Party was part of the broad socio-political movement that fought the Marcos dictatorship. But his legacy of deception and corruption continues. Thirty years since strongman Marcos fled the people’s wrath in 1986, his remains now lie beside the nation’s real heroes, upon orders of President Rodrigo Duterte. The Liberal Party was among the first to express the nation’s collective outrage at this insult to our history.

But more than taking on a possible resurgence to power of the Marcoses in particular, or of authoritarianism in general, the challenge to the party is to pursue social justice in its entirety. This means urgently stopping and correcting the historical impacts of patronage politics and more so, the dominant socio-economic geopolitical system that proved indifferent to the people’s needs and the planet’s future.

As the party in power six years prior, the first time in close to 50 years since it had a member serve as President of the Republic, the Liberal Party leadership was able to grow the anti-dictatorship, pro-democracy (anti-patronage) seeds planted throughout post-EDSA.

It addressed extreme poverty and lack of access to health and education services through, among others, the expansion of the Conditional Cash Transfer program, and the enactment of the Reproductive Health Act and the Sin Tax Law, the revenues of which continue to fund the Universal Health Care program. Its strong institutional anti-corruption, pro-accountability, and participatory democracy campaigns produced unprecedented budget increases for social services without income tax hikes and the revolutionary and empowering Bottom-Up Budgeting program. It also put known plunderers in jail, including a former President. Its bold peace efforts with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front earned the respect and participation of the international community. Its practice of clean governance made the Philippines the darling of foreign investors and tourists.

How should LP move forward?

Unfortunately, these successes were just saplings when the leadership turned over power to the new government. Democracy is a continuing process. These reforms needed time to grow for a significant if relatively stable harvest of economic growth and political stability to create substantial if not irreversible inroads to poverty, inequality, and exclusion – across administrations.

The Liberal Party cannot do it alone. Beyond national borders, it must join the global democracy, climate defense, and similar activist movements that tackle humanity’s borderless problems, starting with the siege on truth, the all too important foundation of justice and peace.

How should the Liberal Party leadership now move forward?

Toward a clear path to the future, the party and its leadership need to look back to its past. We need to go to the grassroots, engage with the marginalized sectors, and become a genuine people’s party. We need people to inspire our young people, including the so-called millennials, to become more pro-active citizens willing to collectively shape a kinder tomorrow.

We need to know and understand the people's misery and poverty, and transform these into peace and prosperity. We need to empower people to become more upwardly mobile and expand the middle class. We need to use the principles of participatory democracy and solidarity, human rights and social justice, ecological wisdom and sustainability, and respect for diversity.

And in this our post-truth, volatile, and complex reality, we fight together trolls, fake news, and lies with a clear and convincing vision of the future, with relentlessness and dogged determination, and with the truth told a thousand times.

The Liberal Party must aim to pursue and strengthen collective strategies and actions toward people-centered democracy, that is, democratic ownership and control of those that are central and crucial for sustaining life: air, water, land, energy, jobs, housing, health care, education, transport, etc. It must work to present an alternative socio-economic system that provides for the needs of person and society, taking into account the regenerative capacities of the environment.

A system that satisfies the fundamental rights of citizens and actualizes their stewardship of nature. A system that realizes that the survival, dignity, and development of the person is connected to the life of the community, and fundamentally to the very life of the planet. – Rappler.com

The author is president of the Liberal Party of the Philippines. For those who wish to join the conversation on and journey toward redefining the party, please e-mail kiko@kikopangilinan.com, with subject heading “REDEFINING LIBERAL”.

President Duterte’s plan to overhaul our tax system is arguably his most highly-anticipated and consequential policy thus far into his term.

The plan, originally crafted by the Department of Finance, aims for a "simpler, fairer, and more efficient" tax system that will promote investments, create jobs, and reduce poverty. Many sectors have expressed support for it, including a group of former DOF and NEDA secretaries.

But some lawmakers have branded the tax proposal as "heartless" and "anti-poor" because of, say, the planned increase on fuel taxes. Others have also questioned certain spending items in the General Appropriations Act of 2017 that do not merit the additional revenues that tax reform will yield.

In this article, we step back from the politics of it all and look at the current state of the Philippines tax system. We focus on 5 issues which, to our mind, demonstrate best the present deficiencies (or "structural weaknesses") of our tax system. In each, we show how the current state of things deviates from well-known principles of taxation.

1. We have some of the highest income tax rates in the region.

Principle of taxation: High income taxes could discourage firms from producing more goods or employees from working more hours. Hence, a good tax system makes sure that income tax rates are not too high so as to discourage economic activity.

The problem: The Philippine tax system currently has some of the highest income tax rates in this region. Compared to our major ASEAN counterparts, our corporate income tax is the highest at 30%, a rate that "turns off" foreign investors who prefer to do business in our low-tax neighbors.

Meanwhile, our maximum personal income tax rate of 32% is not the highest (it’s 35% in Vietnam and Thailand), but we certainly don’t want the government to eat away P32 for every P100 earned by ordinary workers.

2. Too many goods and services are not being taxed.

Principle of taxation: A good way to reduce high tax rates is to expand the tax base, or the set of goods and services which are taxed. The same (or even a larger) tax revenue can be collected as before by imposing a lower tax rate on as many goods and services as possible.

The problem: In the Philippines, too many goods and services are exempted from taxes. For instance, our value-added tax (VAT) law has 59 lines of exemptions – more compared with the VAT laws of our neighbors. The plethora of exemptions partly explains the relatively low tax revenues we get. If only fewer goods were exempted – or if only the exemptions were limited to essential goods like raw food and medicines – then the government could boost its revenues.

3. Too many people are evading the tax system.

Principle of taxation: Another way to widen the tax base (in order to reduce tax rates) is to tax as many people as possible. But the more people can get away with not paying their taxes (or otherwise hide their income), the more difficult it will be to reduce tax rates.

The problem: Too many Filipinos can get away with not paying taxes. Obviously, there are the tax evaders who are nearly impossible to catch and prosecute given our overly strict bank secrecy law. In addition, "compensation earners" or those who earn salaries or wages, end up paying more in taxes than the self-employed and the professionals (who have some ability to hide part of their incomes). As a result, from 2010 to 2013, compensation earners earned 60% of total incomes in the country but paid as much as 80% of all taxes.

4. Our tax system is too complicated.

Principle of taxation: The rules of the tax system should be as plain and simple as possible. Not only will it be easier for taxpayers to understand their liabilities and to comply, but it will also minimize the administrative costs of collection.

The problem: Our tax system is overly complicated and burdensome, especially for small taxpayers. A 2015 study found that the Philippines ranked 127th out of 189 economies in terms of ease of paying taxes (we ranked below Iraq and Afghanistan). Another study revealed that the “complexity of tax regulations” and our “high tax rates” are some of the most problematic factors for doing business in the country.

5. Rich Filipinos are not paying their fair share of taxes.

Principle of taxation: Finally, a good tax system levies more taxes to people who can afford to pay more. One way to do this is to make the rich pay for a larger fraction of their income than the poor; that is, by making the tax system "progressive."

The problem: The Philippine tax system is only "mildly" progressive, and even borderline "regressive" – in many instances, poor Filipinos effectively pay a larger fraction of their income in taxes.

For example, tax rates on dividends and other forms of capital incomes (which are earned mostly by the rich) are so low compared to the tax rates of ordinary workers. Increasing these capital income tax rates will certainly help make the rich pay more in taxes.

Also, taxes on petroleum products have been constant for many years. Aside from being a lost opportunity to combat pollution and congestion, it’s also a lost opportunity to tax the rich who consume petroleum products more.

Conclusion: The time is ripe for tax reform

Tax policy is essentially a balancing act between efficiency and equity. We want to impose progressive taxes to make society a fairer place to live in. But at the same time, we want to make sure that such taxes do not reduce economic activity so much.

Unfortunately, the Philippine tax system is currently deficient in both respects. Not only do our taxes disproportionately burden the poor and benefit the rich, but they also yield too little revenue given the distortions they create. Needless to say, both problems need to be resolved soon. Comprehensive tax reform in the country is long overdue.

It so happens that the early days of the Duterte administration – when political capital is fresh and popular support is robust – offer a crucial window of opportunity to pursue tax reform. That is why the filing of House Bill 4774, or the proposed "Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act," could not have been timed better.

But while most would agree that the time is ripe for tax reform, there is currently no consensus yet as to how exactly to pursue it. This in itself is a fascinating discussion that deserves another article. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliations.

Calypso plastic. It is same plastic that is used to make iced candy. That's what the teen fathers had used as condoms.

"We were conducting a focus group discussion among teen mothers on youth attitudes towards sex and sexual practices and we saw the young teen fathers close by. We asked them what they used for condoms and they replied, 'Calypso',” said Perci Cendana of the National Youth Commission.

The young men were too shy to buy condoms and thought that Calypso plastic which retails for about P12 for a pack of 100 was a more cost-efficient – but obviously – a less effective alternative.

“This improvisation reveals low level of awareness on safer sex and lack of access to information, services, and commodities,” said Cendana.

It has  also resulted in skyrocketing numbers of teen pregnancy and HIV among young people.

According to official government statistics, one in 10 Filipino women between the ages 15 to 19 is already a mother or pregnant with her first child. According to a United Nations report, around the world, teen pregnancy rates have been declining – except in the Philippines. The Philippines has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some girls like 15-year-old May Sanchez have been pregnant 3 times. She had her first child when she was 13, miscarried her second child, and at the time this video was taken, she was 9 months pregnant for the third time.

“It's like a floodgate. Since they still do not have full access to products and services, adolescent mothers have multiple children while they are still in their teens,” said Cendana.

Based on the Department of Health's (DOH) November 2016 data, about 27% of the 38,872 people living with HIV (PLHIV) are between the ages 15 to 24. This number is likely understated because current laws ban minors for getting tested without parental consent.

Against a general global trend of HIV rates that have either declined or plateaued, the Philippines has one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the Asia Pacific region. At this rate, the DOH estimates that HIV rates may go up to 133,000 by 2022.

Preventable

With the right information and health service, both teen pregnancy and HIV are preventable so the question now is how do we break down the barriers to access?

It is within this context that the DOH and the Department of Education (DepEd) are discussing strategies that will address the glaring information gap in sexual literacy among the Filipino youth.

One of the strategies they are studying is the possibility of using schools as access points for both condoms and education or counselling.

On the phone earlier today, January 21, DOH director Dr Eric Tayag clarified that having schools as access points for condoms is still a plan that is carefully being evaluated by both the DOH and the DepEd.

“When we speak of access points, we are talking about two things: information and services. The DepEd and DOH are looking at the readiness of the sexuality education (rollout) and balancing education and values of students, teachers for the services – we can't take values education for granted,” said Tayag in a mix of Filipino and English.

According to Tayag, the government investment in a balanced school program that combines services and information is a sound one.

“To stop and reverse the (rising) trend of HIV infections now...is an investment in our youth,” said Tayag.

Why schools?

But let’s pull back a bit to see why schools were even considered for such a program. Well, first of all, there is basis for doing so. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) cites the role of schools as “critical settings...also vital partners in helping young people take responsibility for their own health.”

CDC research shows that HIV prevention programs in schools can significantly reduce risky sexual behaviors among teens by as much as two-thirds.

Under the Reproductive Health Law of 2012, the DepEd is already mandated to carry out age-appropriate sexuality education in schools.

An HIV education material was already piloted in 4 public schools in Quezon City and is poised for a general rollout in the city's public schools during the next school year.

The various aspects of sexuality education can also be weaved into school subjects. Reproductive health is already discussed in biology, consent and the importance of abstinence and delaying sex in values formation classes, and the impact of a fast-growing population and its relationship to development issues in economics or social studies.

An opening for The Sex Talk

While the DOH and the DepEd are discussing how schools can be utilized as access points, the interest in the subject presents an opening for parents to talk to their kids about sex.

According to the most recent Young Adult Fertility Survey (YAFS), teens want parents to be their primary source of information of sexuality education.

I remember hearing this and being mind-blown. Our kids actually want us to talk to them about sex! (It also made me think of students who are OFW kids and have one or both parents working abroad. Do they have someone to go to? But that’s for another column.)

As I’ve said many times, The Sex Talk is so much more than what body part goes where. It is about consent, what it is and how it is never to be assumed. It’s about framing the concept of physical love around respect for personal boundaries and space. It is about having the foresight to understand that the sexual decisions you make now are equal to life choices that may have long standing ramifications.

I may also add that it is an opportunity to discuss what feeds our country’s rape culture and every person’s role in preventing it and standing up to it.

The Sex Talk is an on-going open dialogue between parents and their kids and – if you haven’t already – now is good time to start it.

The way I see it, parents, the DOH and the DepEd all have the same goal: prepare our young people to face the future and that includes lessening their risk to anything that will get in the way of achieving their dreams like a mistimed pregnancy or late diagnosis of HIV.

The future of millions of young Filipinos – a future that is full of promise – is at stake.

Have we stepped back to ask them what they think?

Certainly, parents, legislators, and schools can put the quibbling on hold and take a moment to ask our Filipino youth what they want and need when it comes to sexuality education. Then we can all come together with a solution that at its core will truly benefit our young people. – Rappler.com

Ana P. Santos is Rappler’s sex and gender columnist and a Pulitzer Center grantee. In 2014, the Pulitzer Center awarded her the Persephone Miel Fellowship and reported on Filipino migrant mothers in Paris and Dubai.

The new US president, Donald Trump, ushers in uncertainties for the Philippines and our part of the world, leading us into dark, unsettling times.

These are primarily driven by two archs:

• Trump is a challenge to democracy, the solidity of institutions, and the values of inclusion and tolerance. 
• Unfolding US policy toward China: skating around the one-China policy will reverberate in the region, put us on edge as it will impact the security situation on the contentious South China Sea. 

Many countries have looked to the US for lessons on keeping democracy robust, political institutions strong, and free speech alive. We’re no longer sure Trump’s America will beam these lights to the rest of the world. 

Trump has no respect for facts and has maligned the press, showing he is poised to “punish journalists for doing their jobs.”

He relates to autocratic leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin,Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and our own Rodrigo Duterte.

In their 1st telephone conversation, the two leaders hit it off well. Duterte claims that Trump told him he was “doing great,” apparently referring to the war on drugs which then President Barack Obama had criticized because of the enormous cost on human lives (over 7,000 killed as of January 17, 2017).

On the foreign policy front, we have yet to see if what Trump says goes.

Rex Tillerson, his choice for secretary of state, took a strong position versus China , calling for an end to China’s building of artificial islands in the South China Sea and denying them access.

James Mattis, defense secretary nominee, also took a hard line on China. Both have contradicted Trump on foreign policy.

Is the one-China policy in peril? Trump has said it will be a bargaining chip with China in negotiations over its “unfair trade practices,” displaying a transactional rather than strategic mindset. Rumblings over this “non-negotiable” position of Beijing will roll over to the region.

It is vital that the Philippines navigate this uncharted territory to keep peace and stability. And overall, to fight impulses destructive of democracy. – Rappler.com

The murder of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo should rank as the most brazen crime in the Duterte regime.

Done, as state agents have found out, right inside Camp Crame, the national police headquaters, that's Murder in the Cathedral; it cannot be taken outside the context of President Duterte's war on drugs and his authoritarian inclinations. (READ: Murder in Camp Crame: A tangled tale of crime)

The agents, from the National Bureau of Investigation, said Jee had been picked up on the made-up accusation that he was involved in the drug trade, taken to Crame to maintain that pretext, and detained and strangled there. All that, according to the agents, happened on the same day – October 18, 2016. Jee's widow said she did not know she had paid ransom for an already dead husband.

Given the horribly agregious circumstances of his kidnapping, what chance, indeed, did Jee have? How could he have hoped to be kept alive? In fact, the agents said, he was reduced to ashes.

Rogue cops

Jee's case was pieced together by investigators only recently. Unlike in the run of innocent victims these days, Jee was not mistakenly accused or targeted, and definitely not accidentally killed. But one factor is common to his and certain other cases: rogue cops. Their breed has figured in not a few cases, but two would seem the most suspicious, if not obvious: the targets were killed in police custody. 

One victim was Rolando Espinosa Sr, the provincial town mayor jailed on suspicion of dealing in drugs and whose son, himself arrested later, confessed to big-time dealing. The second case involves a father and son from a Manila slum colony – Renato and Jaypee Bertes, both users, the latter also a dealer, if a small-time one, of the locally popular shabu (metamphetamine).

A different though not altogether irrelevant category of crime is vigilante killing. Although today's vigilantes also target drug dealers and users, Duterte and his police chief, Director-General Ronald de la Rosa, are always particular and emphatic in disowning them every time the all-too-reasonable question is raised as to their role in the war on drugs. How often does Duterte have to say "they are not state-sponsored"?

Not even the pair of policemen in disguise, one wearing a woman's wig, caught motorcycling away in tandem from their victim, a young man lying lifeless on a street in Antipolo, are by any means official warriors; by Duterte's discriminating rules, they just had to have been operating on their own.

Police or vigilante killings, state-sponsored or not, there just have been too many of them – more than 7,000 as of January 22, 2017 – to escape suspicions that they have been carried out summarily, extra-judicially.

But why this brazenness, why this air of impunity, why this roguery? Maybe not state-sponsored, but Duterte-inspired.

It's hard to believe that the President does not realize the power of his words, how that power is increased with its every repetition – and how he loves to repeat! To his targets: "I will kill you!" And to his men: "I will protect you."

Those words necessarily carry a weight that corresponds to the 73% approval rating of his leadership, not to mention the force of his strongman personality and the influence inherent in his office.

Well known for punishing their own wrongdoers, including presidents, the South Koreans had interceded diplomatically in Jee's case. Well, they – and Mrs. Jee – now have General de la Rosa's apology, which he has given for himself and his president, who may have been too preoccupied to make the time to offer his apology himself. That's the ultimate least he could have done in exchange for a life taken so brutally for money by men the likes of whom he precisely vows to protect.– Rappler.com

(Ito ay talumpati ni Dr Claudio, miyembro ng executive committee, sa ika-19 anibersaryo ng partidong Akbayan noong Enero 20, 2017.) 

*** 

Nang imbitahan akong magsalita [dito], agad akong pumayag. Karangalan para sa akin ito. Nguni’t ilang araw na akong tulala.

Una, hindi ko naman kayang panindigan ang 19 na taon ng Akbayan; 7 taon pa lamang akong miyembro. Pangalawa, sapul nang maging miyembro, napansin kong magkaiba ang ilang teorya ko sa ilang miyembro, mga lider, at founder ng Akbayan.

Matagal akong nawala sa mga pulitikal na pakikbaka at sa halip ay nakibaka para sa karapatang sekswal at reproduktibo. O di kaya’t mas mabuting sabihin, na nawala ako sa mga pakikibakang pangunahin at pangkalahatan ayon sa mga dating teorya. Sapagka’t sa aking pananaw ang mga kilusan para sa kababaihan, karapatan ng mga LGBT, para alagaan ang kalikasan atbp, ay pantay sa mga tinatawag na batayang pagkilos para sa lupa, sa karapatan ng manggagawa, sa pagwasak ng imperyalismo at burukrata-kapitalismo.

Ang pagliban ko sa mga sentrong pulitikal ay dala ng panahon ngunit dala rin ng pagkadisilusyon sa mga teorya ng mga puwersang kaliwa. Bago tayo tumuloy, lilinawin ko lamang na ang ibig kong sabihin sa salitang “kaliwa” ay ang lahat na binabansagan ang sarili nila ng terminong ito – yaong mga miyembro ng CPP-NPA-NDF, yaong handang makipag-alyado sa atin basta lamang hindi sila madungisan ng pultika natin, yaong mga alyado natin, at tayo na rin mismo.

Siguro ang kuwento ng aking pagkabigo sa pulitika ay pareho lamang ng kuwento ng marami sa inyo. Di ba’t ito ang isa sa mga dahilan na nabuo ang Akbayan? Ngunit ang natutuhan ko nang ako’y sumali sa Akbayan ay, kahit tayo’y lumisan na sa mga dating grupo, iba-iba pa rin ang naging pakahulugan natin sa pagiging rebolusyonaryo o sosyalista.

Teorya

Sa puntong ito, dapat lamang na ako’y magpakumbaba. Nakatayo ako rito hindi dahil nanaig na ang aking mga pananaw at teorya sa Akbayan. Nandito ako dahil sa kakulitan ko – at dahil hindi ako umaalis, nagtatampo, at nagpapaka-diva – ay naisip ninyo na maaari naman siguro akong pakinggan. Sa dahilan lang na ito ako nanaig sa aking pulitika. Hindi ako mapanghusga dahil ang teoryang pinanghahawakan ko ay isang teoryang handang tanggapin ang hilig, hangarin, at kagustuhan ng kapwa. Mamaya tatalakayin ko sa inyo kung bakit hindi ito nangangahulugan na isakripisyo ang ating mga prinsipyo at “anything goes” na lang.

Kaya rin naman ako nakadikit pa rin sa Akbayan ay nakikita ko ang lakas ng isang partido na handang makinig sa mga suwail at makulit. Nakakita ako ng pag-asa dahil tanda ito ng isang bagong pulitika na akin ngayong pinaniniwalaan. Ang pulitikang ito ay iba sa pilosopiyang dialektiko na minana natin kay Marx. Nguni’t hindi lang ang pilosopiyang dialektiko ang tradisyon ng sosyalismo. At ang ibang pilosopiyang ito ang tila umaayon sa aking realidad at mga hangarin ngayon.

Sa isang article ko sa Rappler, ipinaliwanag ko ang kakaibang pananaw kong ito. Ipinaliwanag ko kung bakit  mahalaga pa ring panindigan ang atin koalisyon sa pamahalaang Aquino. Ingles ang sinulat ko kaya’t pinasasalamatan ko si Kasamang Bernie Larin sa kanyang pagsalin:

Para madaling maunawaan, tatawagin kong pulitika ng “either / or” ang pulitika ng dayalektiko. Ito ay paniniwalang kung hindi ka kakampi, ikaw ay kaaway; kung hindi ka sosyalista, ikaw ay kalaban. Dalawa lang din ang pagpipiliian: konsensiya ng isang nilamon na ng sistema o konsensiya ng isang purong progresibo. Ngunit may ibang pampulitikang pilosopiya para sa mga progresibo. 

Muli para sa madaling pag-unawa, tatawagin ko ang mga pampulitikang pilosopiyang ito na “pulitika ng gayundin, ng pagdagdag, at saka s'ya nga pala.” Hindi katulad ng “either/or” o ng dayalektiko na dapat laging may proseso ng tunggalian at resolusyon, ang pulitika ng “gayundin” ay nagbibigay diin sa ebolusyon.

Ang tawag ni Foucault dito ay pinapalitan ang dayalektikal na lohika ng istratehikong lohika: ‘Ang istratehiya ng lohika ay hindi nakatutok sa mga kontradiksyon sa iisang simplistiko at payak na larangan at umaasam ng resolusyon ng mga ito sa pamamagitan ng pag-iisa. Ang gamit ng istratehikong lohika ay upang hanapin ang posibleng koneksyon sa mga magkakaibang termino kahit manatili pa silang magkakaiba.’”

Dahil sa pagbabago ng aking pilosopiya sa pakikibaka, inaamin ko ngayon, guilty ako sa napakaraming kasalanan. Hindi ko na pinipili kung anong isyu ang bibigyan ng prioridad sapagka’t sa akin walang herarkiya ang mga isyu at pakikibaka. Hindi na rin malinaw sa akin kung ano ang proletaryado at sino-sino ang mga ito. Sa karanasan ko, marami sa mga nagsasabing sila ay proletaryado ay gusto lamang magyabang, agawin ang kapangyarihan, ipagpilitan na unahin ang mga hangarin at kagustuhan ng kanilang grupo o sektor.

Sa aking karanasan, ang politika na tinatanggap ang kagustuhan ng  bawat grupo ay isang pulitikang malawak. Isang pultikang nakakahimok sa karamihan. Isang pulitikang galing sa pakikiisa at hindi ipinipilit na maging magkakapareho.

Isa siyang pulitika na hindi mapanghusga. Hindi handang kagalitan ang kapwa na parang tayo ay napakabusilak. Isang pulitikang tinatanggap na lahat tayo ay produkto ng sistema, at mula sa loob ng sistema manggagaling ang bagong kaayusan. Ito ang ibig sabihin sa akin ng konspeto ng “hegemony” – na walang kaayusan na nasa labas ng kasalukuyang kaayusan. Walang kaayusan kung saan ang mga mulat na proletaryado ay nakatayo at pilit na hinihila ang masa at kasaysayan upang lumipat mula sa bulok na sistema tungo sa isang utopia. Natatawa nga ako sa mga Marxistang ganito mag-isip, sapagkat ipinagmamalaki nila ang kanilang materyalismo habang ilusyonado naman sila tungkol sa kanilang kinatatayuan sa hegemonya.

Pagsusuri

O siya, titigilan ko na ang tungkol sa teoryang pampulitika. Ang gamit naman sa akin ng teorya ay upang mapalawak ang mga porma, paraan, at larangan ng kinikilusan. Kaya’t pag-usapan natin ang naging lawak ng ating pagkilos sa Akbayan.

At tutukan ko ang bagong larangan na pinasok natin – ang pakikipagkoalisyon sa pamahalaang Aquino.

Siyempre pa, ang mga panginoong may hawak ng moralidad ang galit na galit sa atin dahil sumama tayo sa naghaharing kaayusan. May mga nagalit sa atin sapul sa simula, at may nagalit naman na pinanindigan natin ito hanggang sa kadulu-duluhan.

Alam na natin ang bintang: na ang rehimeng Aquino ay elitista, neo-liberal, at kasangkot ng mga panginoong may lupa. Sa katwirang dialektiko, ang sinumang sumanib ay samakatuwid kaaway. Maaari lamang sumama kung may makukuhang ganansya para sa mga batayang sektor ngunit dapat humiwalay kaagad kapag ubos na ang ganansya. At kapag hindi ka umalis, pansarili mo na lang ang iniisip.

Oh no, really?

Totoong wala pang sektor ng mahirap o ng panggitnang uri man lang ang naging mayor na partido sa bulok nating sistema.

Nguni’t hindi lahat ng elite ay magkakapareho. Hindi lahat ng panginoong may lupa o komprador-burges ay magkakapareho.

May paksyon ng elite na naghirap sa panahon ng diktadurya at naranasan nito ang kawalan ng pribilehiyo, kapangyarihan, at yaman. 'Ika nga ni Mila Aguilar, kahit sa simpleng Marxistang pananaw, kailangang tanggapin na ang kamulatan ng tao ay maaaring magbago dahil sa mga ganitong karanasan.

Sumama tayo sa LP ni PNoy dahil sila ang paksyon ng naghaharing uri na may higit na paninindigan para sa mga demokratikong karapatan. Maaaring hindi malalim ito dahil hindi naman sila sosyalista. Ngunit tiyak naman na malayo ito sa kasalukuyang presidente, na nagsasabing siya ay sosyalista, nguni’t 6,000 nang mahigit ang pinapatay na walang imbestigasyon o paglilitis. Tiyak na malayo ang demokrasya ni PNoy sa paulit-ulit na banta ng kasalukuyang presidente na magdeklara ng martial law dahil lamang naiinis siya sa mga kritiko niya. At kung patronage politics ang pag-uusapan, tiyak namang kikiling ako sa mga patron ni PNoy sa halip na tanggapin ang pagbabalik ng mga Marcos at ni GMA.

At nakakatiyak ako na ang mga pinatay sa ilalim ni PNoy ay kakaiba sa 6,000 na pinatay sa ilalim ni Pangulong Duterte. Hindi kinunsinti ni PNoy ang patayan nung panahon niya. Totoo, may impunity ang mga landlords, warlords, at druglords nung panahon niya. Ngayon at noon, palpak ang mga pulis sa paghuli ng mamamatay-tao. Ngunit ang impunity ng pulis ngayon ay galing mismo sa Malacañang at sa mga salita ng Presidente na binibigyan sila ng layang pumatay sa mga umano’y nanlaban. At yaong mga nagbubulag-bulagan na lamang ang magsasabing walang kinalaman ang mga pulis sa mga naglipanang death squads. Iba ang walang political will. Iba ang isang taong hindi kayang kontrolin ang lokal na mga pulitiko at mga pulis. Iba ang isang presidenteng sinusuportahan at kinukunsinti ang patayan.

Sa ilalim ng gobyerno ni PNoy at mga gobyernong katulad niya – na kung gusto ninyo ay tawaging “elite but liberal democratic somewhat” – may pag-asa pang umayos ang pulis. Sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang administrasyon, hindi ko na maiisip kung saan pupulutin ang PNP matapos silang magpadanak ng ganitong kadaming dugo.

Naririnig ko na ang trolls: dilawan ang Akbayan! Kakampi ni PNoy. Para namang pagkasama-sama ni PNoy at busilak si PDu30. Para namang lahat nang hindi naniniwala sa drama nilang mahusay si Pdu30 at palpak si PNoy ay LP. At parang ang LP ay biglang naging kuta ng mga demonyong trapo. Ano'ng tingin nila sa PDP-Laban? O di kaya Lakas o di kaya NP o PMP? Hindi ba’t lahat naman ng tradisyunal na partidong pulitikal ay pugad din ng mga trapo?

Saan ka ba nakakita ng panahon kung saan nagbabayad ang naghaharing grupo ng mga BPO upang murahin ang mga kritiko nito sa social media? Kailan pa tayo nagkaroon ng sitwasyon na ang gobyerno mismo ang naghahanap ng paraan na pag-awayin ang mga tao at himukin ang prejudice natin sa isa’t isa – laban sa mga “disente” (sinuman 'yon) o mainstream media (sinuman 'yon) o mga intelektwal (kung galit talaga sila sa mga intelektuwal, pumunta sila sa Cambodia na ngayon pa lamang umaahon sa pagpatay ni Pol Pot sa lahat ng intelektuwal tulad ng mga guro at iba pang propesyonal). Higit sa lahat, galit sila sa LP, sinuman ang mga 'yon, dahil – pasubali na sa mga kagalang-galang na miyembro ng LP na nandito – hindi ko na rin alam kung sino ang LP ngayon.

Galit din sila sa mga nanawagan ng pagbibitiw ni PDu30 tulad ni Loida Nicolas Lewis. Sedition daw. Di ba’t nasa Konsitusyon ng Pilipinas ang pagbibitiw? Di ba’t sa lahat ng demokrasya sa mundo ang pagbibitiw ay isang panawagan ng mga mamamayan sa kanilang mga lider na sa tingin nila ay walang kakayanan o integridad na mamuno? Di ba’t may pag-intindi na kapag nanawagan ka ng pagbibitiw sa isang lider, nangangahulugang tiwala ka pang mayroon siyang delikadesa at kakayahang isakripisyo ang kanyang kapangyarihan para sa sariling integridad? Naalala ko pa ang panahon na hindi mo puwedeng punahin ang presidente dahil sedisyon na kaagad ito. Ang panahon na iyon ay ang martial law ng diktador na si Marcos.

Idaragdag ko pang ngayon pa lang ako nakakita ng isang administrasyong ipinagmamalaki pa ang kawalan nila ng respeto sa kababaihan. Ngayon pa lang ako nakakita ng administrasyon na inaatake ang pagkababae ng mga kritiko at tinuturuan ang publiko na karapatdapat ang ganitong klaseng kabulastugan.

At kapag sumalungat ka sa mga defenders, ang lakas pang sabihin sa iyong ikaw ang hindi pumapayag sa malayang pagpahayag ng damdamin. Linawin natin. Sa isang demokrasya hindi dissent ang sumang-ayon sa makapangyarihan at sambahin si PDu30. Ang maging oposisyon sa gobyerno, 'yan ang dissent. Ang mga kritiko ang siyang may karapatan sa higit na proteksyon. Hindi ang mga trolls and defenders.

Idagdag pa natin sa kritisismo ng rehimeng ito ang paggamit ng lahat ng seksismo, kasinungalingan, black propaganda, at kapraningan upang protektahan ang sarili. Oo, may diperensya ang paksyon ng mga elite. At ang naghaharing paksyon ngayon ay ang pinaka-reaksyonaryo. Ang tema ng anibersaryo natin ay “ipaglaban ang demokrasya.” Ngunit sa panahon ngayon, dapat ipaglaban ang simpleng lohika, ang simpleng pakikipagkapwa.

At hindi naman mas progresibo ang kasalukuyang administrasyon sa mga pang-ekonomiyang patakaran. Walang pagbabago. Ang pangakong tapusin na ang “endo” ay naging paghahanap na lamang ng “win-win’ solution sa pagitan ng employer at manggagawa. Narinig na natin yan!

At huwag nating kalimutan na, tulad din ng ibang trapo, isa-isa nang naglalaho ang pangako. End drugs in 6 months. Bokya. Solve criminality in 6 months. Kalabasa. Solve traffic problems? Wala lang. 

Pagpapalakas

Sabagay, tapos na ang panahon na tinatawag tayong reaksyonaryo dahil lang sumanib tayo sa gobyerno. Yaong mga mahilig na tumawag sa atin na coopted ay nakikisali naman ngayon sa gobyerno. Ang mga pinakamatindindi ang galit sa Akbayan ang siyang unang sumanib.

Kaya ano kaya ang pamantayan ngayon ng pagiging coopted? Dahil ba sa pansariling interes lang natin nung nakipagkoalisyon tayo, habang para sa masa ang pakikipagkoalisyon nila ngayon?

Ang masasabi ko lang ay, nang tayo ay nakipagkoalisyon sa elitistang paksyong Aquino, wala tayong yabang na ang ating ginagawa ay para sa bayan lamang at hindi para sa sarili rin. Bilang isang partido, pinagsisikapan nating maiangat ang mamamayan, ngunit hindi tayo nagkakamaling isipin na tayo ang masa at lahat ng gawin natin ay para sa masa. Hindi tayo nagkakamaling isipin na tayo lang ang may puso para sa masa. Ow, c’mon. Lahat ng tao, kahit mga rebolusyonaryo, ay kumikilos para rin sa sarili. Ang kawalan ng integridad ay kapag itinatago natin, pati na sa ating sarili, ang mga motibong personal.

Dapat ba hindi tayo makikisama sa mga tradisyunal na partido at politiko habang hindi tayo ang nagdidikta ng tamang patakaran at programa? Kailan naman mangyayari 'yon? Kapag tayo na ang mayorya? At paano mangyayari 'yon kung hindi tayo nakikikoalisyon kapag may pagkakataon at kapag ang higit na progresibong paksyon ng elite ang makakasama natin?

Malinaw at tapat ang hangarin nating baguhin ang bulok na sistemang pulitikal ng Pilipinas sa pakikilahok sa mga eleksiyon, sa pagpapanalo ng kapangyarihan sa iba’t ibang sangay ng burokrasya, sa pakikitungo sa ibang politiko. Tapat tayo dahil hindi tayo lumalahok sa sistema upang pabagsakin ito at agawin ang kapangyarihan sa pamamagitan ng extra-constitutional na paraan tulad ng ilehitimong pagdeklara ng martial law o armadong pakikibaka. Hinding-hindi tayo ang seditious, anupaman ang pagiging oposisyon natin.

Balak nating magpalakas at maging isang tunay na partidong pulitikal. Isang partidong hanggang ngayon ay hindi pa nakikita sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Isang partidong may platapormang magbibigay ng lupa sa magsasaka, trabaho, benepisyo at proteksyon sa manggawa, respeto sa karapatan ng mga kababihan, LGBT, IPs at lahat ng nasa laylayan. Isang partidong wawakasan ang korupsyon. Isang partidong ipaglalaban ang mga karapatang pantao at tatangklikikin ang demokrasya. 

Balak natin maging isang partido na may kakayahang ipatupad ang mga hangarin na ito sa isang lipunang may iba pang partido, may ibang mga pananaw, may mayorya at may tunay na oposisyon. Isang partidong mananalo lamang dahil tinatangkilik ito ng mga mulat na mamamayan na may tamang impormasyon at malalim na pagsusuri. 

Sa kasalukuyan may plataporma tayo, may kakayahang ipaglaban ito, nguni’t halos walang kapangyarihang ipatupad ito. Kaya’t ang tanong ko ay, nakatulong ba sa atin na umusad patungong majority party ang ating pagkoalisyon? Nagbago ba ang ating plataporma at hangarin nang magkoalisyon tayo, at tinalikuran ba natin ito? Nagkulang ba tayo sa disiplina ng lumihis ang mga kasama? Natuto ba tayo kung paano magpatakbo ng gobyerno sakaling maging karapat-dapat tayong magpatakbo nito? Batay sa pamantayang ito, tama ba ang pakikipagkoalisyon natin sa gobyernong Aquino? Alam ninyo na ang sagot ng iba sa atin. Ang sagot ko ay, “oo,” more or less. Maraming mali, maraming bukol, maraming kapalpakan. Pero, oo pa rin.

Pag-asa

Kaya’t pag-usapan natin ang pag-asa. Mahirap ang katayuan natin ngayon. Nasa opposition tayo at kakaunti pa lamang ang kasama natin. At habang nasa panahon tayo ng kahinaan, kinukutya pa tayo ng iba dahil hindi raw natin pinangungunahan o kayang pangunahan ang laban. Sa kabilang banda, tinitira tayo ng mga makapangyarihan dahil tutol tayo sa EJKs, sa war on the poor na tinatawag nilang drug war, sa war on women na tinatawag nilang “being friendly with the VP” o “investigating Senator De Lima.” Tutol tayo sa sapilitang paglibing kay Marcos sa Libingan ng Mga Bayani.

Kung lumala pa ang pasismo, kung magdeklara ng martial law, tiyak na ibibilang tayo sa oposisyon. At kung ngayon pa lang ay tinatawag nang sedition ang democratic and principled opposition, ano pa kaya kung martial law na ulit?

Huwag lang tayong bibitiw sa prinsipyo at sa isa’t isa. Huwag tayong magduda na hawak natin ang tamang plataporma. Tuluyan tayong magpakabaduy sa platapormang ito, na ang ibig kong sabihin ay seryosohin natin ito, di tulad ng trapo parties.

Asahang hindi sa lahat ng panahon ay mamamayagpag ang kasinungalingan, ang poot, diskriminasyon, pagkakahati-hati. Lilipas din ang panahong ginagawang demonyo ang ilang tao at nanawagan ang may kapangyarihan na saktan o patayin sila. Alam na natin ang ilan sa mga diumanong demonyo – drug addict, reaksyonaryo, komunista. Taktika ng mga diktador na ipatanggap sa atin ang kamatayan ng mga kinamumuhian upang palawakin ang kanilang kapanyarihan, upang isuko natin ang karapatang pantao. Taktika ng mga pasista ang hatiin ang  mamamayan at palawigin ang poot at galit upang pumayag tayong gamitin ang mga kamay na bakal upang maiayos ang gulo. Mahilig ang mga pasista sa away at giyera dahil ibebenta nila ang sarili bilang solusyon at tagapagtanggol. Ito ang lohika ng either/or. Ang lohika ng “dialectics and moral outrage.”

Nguni’t matatalo ito ng isang pulitika ng “and also” na nakasalalay sa hindi maubos at hindi makaahong pasyon ng masa. 

Tumagal man o bumagsak kaagad ang namamayagpag na mga killer na ito, matatapos din ang kanilang panahon. 'Yan ang hindi matatakasang leksiyon ng kasaysayan. At kapag dumating ang panahon, maalala ng taumbayan ang mga nanindigan para sa demokrasya, karapatang pantao, due process, sa malaya at mahinahong pagpapalit ng opinyon, sa proteksyon ng dissent at buhay. Kapag nanumbalik ulit ang paghanap ng katotohanan, ang pakikipagkapwa, at ang pakikiisa, aalalahanin ito ng taumbayan.

Sa panahong darating maaalala nila kung sino-sino ang indibidwal at grupong nanindigan. Maaalala nila hindi ang ating kahinaan, hindi ang ating kawalan ng kapasidad, kawalan ng tiyaga, o kawalan ng lakas at katalinuhan.

Ang maaalala nila ay kasama nila tayo. Maalala nilang hindi natin hinangad na pangunahan sila sa pamamagitan ng pagpataas sa sarili o sa pagdikta sa kanilang mga kagustuhan. Maaalala nilang hindi natin hinusgahan ang kahinaan nila at hindi natin nilimitahan ang kanilang mga kakayahan. Maaalala nila na hindi tayo ang gumawa ng hidwaan at gulo sa hanay ng mga inosente anupaman ang pagiging oposisyon natin, anupaman ang pagkakaiba natin ng saloobin. Maaalala nilang hindi tayo ang pumatay, at kahit kailan, kahit tayo na ang nasa kapangyarihan, hindi tayo papatay.

Kung tama ang paghawak natin ng pulitika, maaaring maisip ng masa na hindi lang tama ang ating pagususuri at teorya, tama rin ang ating mga kaparaanan.

Kung maharap natin ang mga panibagong hamon, maaaring ang Akbayan ay maging isang partido na kayang makiisa sa lahat ng iba’t iba at walang hangganang aksyon ng masa, habang nangangarap at umaaksyon din para sa isang malaya, mapayapa, at maunlad na Pilipinas. – Rappler.com 

The Catholic Church is now under attack. President Duterte, Mocha Uson, and their many allies have rallied together to shame religious leaders.

The President questioned the clergy's moral ascendancy in the midst of corruption and sexual abuse. In her viral column, Mocha Uson suggested that the CBCP is the anti-Christ.

These remarks are, of course, misleading as they assume that the Catholic Church is a uniform institution across its ranks. Nevertheless, these attacks are to be expected. More so now that its priests and bishops have become vocal about killings happening around the country.  

How the clergy must proceed, however, is not an easy feat.  

Filipino Catholics do not like it when priests politicize the pulpit. Their response to what was then the Reproductive Health Bill, for example, alienated many parishioners who simply wanted to be edified at church. Also, many Catholics do not think that priests are credible on marital matters because of their celibacy. Many might have agreed too that priests, given sexual allegations, do not have moral ascendancy.  

The message is very clear: the Church, represented by its clergy, is all talk. And so its priests need to shut up. But should they?

Credibility

My view is that the response of the Catholic Church cannot solely rely on the courage of its leaders. The Catholic Church, as a community of believers, has a collective contribution to shaping the quality of conversations in the public sphere.  

We have to admit that vitriol has already hijacked the way we talk as a society. It has come to this: might is right. The more curses we lodge at the other person, the more righteous we feel we become.  

This explains why the death of drug addicts has not engendered public resistance.

And so virulent resistance cannot be the message of the Catholic Church, or for that matter, the wider community of believers. There is no better time for faith, reason, and wisdom to come together.

Right now, some of the clergy's statements, while noble, may sound moralistic to the public. And the public trusts the President. It needs to be recognized too that people are generally satisfied with the war on drugs.

No wonder then that the PNP can claim that people feel safer and that everyday crime has declined.  

In other words, the moral message of religious leaders does not resonate with the public's captivation with safety and the President's willpower. Only time will tell whether this sense of security translates to lasting peace and progress.

At the same time, the credibility of the Catholic Church is called into question. 

Collective response

While it is relatively easier to take to the pulpit, confronting a triumphalist government in this manner only backfires.  

It is for this reason that the response of Catholics – ministers and ordinary believers – must go back to what they are good at. The relevance of Christianity, as its long history demonstrates, still lies in its small communities.  

And many of its communities are now affected by both illegal drugs and killings.  

Should the Catholic Church then shut up?  

Not quite. But its response needs to be a little wiser.  

Its communities at this point need more than just encouragement.  More than ever, Catholics need to demonstrate that they are the light of the world.  For this to happen they must go back to their communities - to bring back drug users and support families of murdered individuals.  But at the same time they must not forget that illegal drugs have also destroyed families.  

In the face of the enemy, Catholics cannot keep quiet. But they cannot just be noisy.  Otherwise their message will fall on deaf ears and rendered invalid by the antagonistic figures they seek to critique.

The struggle ahead is going to be long and arduous. To fight back, the credibility of the Catholic Church must be unassailable.  

Not just against its critics. But for people who have been rendered helpless by many. – Rappler.com     

Jayeel Serrano Cornelio, PhD is a sociologist of religion at the Ateneo de Manila University and St Vincent School of Theology.  He is the author of "Being Catholic in the Contemporary Philippines: Young People Reinterpreting Religion" (Routledge, 2016).  He is also one of the authors of "Introduction to World Religions and Belief Systems", a worktext for Senior High School published by Rex. Follow him on Twitter @jayeel_cornelio.

ASEAN. Journalists and editors might love it, hate it – or flee from covering it. But it is around to stay, so we might as well know the beast better, so to speak.

This year, 2017, offers more the usual amount of news pegs to covering issues and events related to ASEAN. ASEAN marks its 50th birthday this year. It is the turn of the Philippines, whose new government has made key shifts in its foreign policy, to chair ASEAN during this golden year. The South China Sea disputes raise the question of how ASEAN can deal with it without breaking apart.

And the backdrop for all these: The ASEAN Community has just turned one year old, but did anyone notice?

Here are some tips for framing reporting around ASEAN issues - and enjoying the storytelling too.

1. Redefine what ‘ASEAN news’ is. ASEAN summitry is a magnet for media coverage, but it is only one facet of the story. In a sense, summits are the easiest events to cover – one wonders how useful it is to be locked in the media room anyway, to watch a summit on close-circuit TV.

Look beyond ASEAN events around high-profile summits, (mostly) men in suits, and state pronouncements. While summit-shaped stories that look into how declarations are decided, what language was changed, pushed or objected to, say a lot, the story is not complete because the impact of ASEAN’s decisions are to be seen and felt outside the airconditioned summit venues. Frame a story by asking what our audiences need to know and investigate from there, instead of getting stuck only in what the heads of state and ministers said. ASEAN is often faulted for being a talkshop – but could this also be because media themselves take the easy way and cover, judge ASEAN only by its declarations and do not go beyond the summit corridors to cover these from the ground?

2. Whose ASEAN? This isn’t a rhetorical question, but a news one. Perspective is everything. But ASEAN stories are dominated by the voices of heads of states, ministers or diplomats, and at times, think tanks and civil society, but lack those of citizens affected by ASEAN’s policies or decisions. Talking to other sources, such as business people and others affected by ASEAN’s work, makes it a multi-sourced story and gives it a human face – and helps hold ASEAN and its member states accountable at the everyday-life level.  If ASEAN’s ultimate goal is the improvement of its citizens’ lives, we should hear from those who are meant to reap the dividends of integration. Editorially, they are often a missing link in stories.

3. ASEAN-related stories aren’t only for foreign-policy junkies. As ASEAN carries out its regional integration experiment, it is no longer just a foreign-policy story that falls neatly into the ambit of the foreign office beat. Because the ASEAN Community touches on the political, security and socio-cultural spheres, it is fair game for journalists in other beats as well. It can be a labor rights story, a culture story, a political story, or a mix of several angles. Regional ASEAN issues easily cross the traditional division of news in newsrooms, and require a broader-viewed news approach.

4. Break ASEAN down. ASEAN can be many things or nothing to media audiences. As a news topic, it is not possible or pragmatic to cover all of ASEAN or the ASEAN Community, or any of its three pillars, in one go. So. collapse ASEAN’s work or declarations and action plans into digestible chunks by taking time to research and narrow the angle down to a story you can dig into instead of an over-arching topic. Does it work to pinpoint and analyse an ASEAN policy, point of disagreement, committee, document, action plan?

5. Avoid getting swallowed by the news pack. The bustle of events at ASEAN ministerial meetings and summits has a way of making journalists feel they are being scooped if they don’t go to every briefing or be part of as many ambush interviews. Some of the information and soundbytes from these will indeed be very useful, but get back to the center of your journalistic being, stay focused and grounded in the angles you came to develop. Step back from the din of soundbytes and examine what’s different, what changed from the past, what disappeared or was added onto an ASEAN document, or identify what could be a story to follow up after summits.

6. Translate ASEANspeak. Media stories bridge policy and everyday lives. The most effective ones relating to ASEAN and foreign policy are able to translate diplomatese and big concepts into everyday language that is equally accurate and faithful to their nuances. Develop this skill to not only relay to your audience what others said, but to provide perspective and explain critically the reasons and implications of an ASEAN-related issue, ASEAN ways of working and processes. And no, producing stories peppered with alphabet soups of acronyms, which ASEAN has a penchant for, do not impress.

7. Know what ASEAN is - and isn’t. Junk the misperceptions about ASEAN that have led many a journalist astray. ASEAN is an association and grouping of nation-states. Thus, it cannot be different from the governments that comprise it. It is not supragovernmental; it is not an Asian United Nations and does not pass judgement or rate member states. From its creation, and with the ASEAN Charter that entered into force in 2008, ASEAN was not meant to formally settle inter-country disputes. Beware the pitfall of holding ASEAN up to a “role” it was not meant to do and then criticizing it for its ‘failure’ in that area.

8. Don’t rely on the ASEAN bureaucracy for your ASEAN story. It is not second nature to the ASEAN bureaucracy and member states, even their public affairs offices, to tell journalists what they want or need to know to relay to their publics. They might not even say much even if you wanted to give them space. This mentality is part of why the ASEAN secretariat does not have a spokesperson, and will never have one. So while ASEAN may be a source of information – and sometimes quite needed – develop other sources like those in ministries apart from the foreign office, researchers and think tanks, statistical centers,

9. Read, read, and read. A journalist needs to know something well enough to tell a story about it, and the same goes for ASEAN issues. Learn how to read and interpret ASEAN documents – yes, even those ASEAN Community blueprints, so you can identify your concrete story angles. With this degree of confidence comes the ability to pick up the scent of a story and a fresh angle, ask better questions and generate sound analyses. Covering ASEAN is an investment over time, instead of from a few ASEAN meetings and documents. – Rappler.com

Johanna Son is the Bangkok-based editor and founder of the Reporting ASEAN media program, hosted by Probe Media Foundation Inc. A journalist for over two decades and former director of IPS Asia-Pacific news, she has covered ASEAN and regional issues, foreign policy and development, designed media capacity-building programs and edited books.

The latest scandal in the Philippine National Police (PNP) – of cops killing a “tokhang for ransom” victim right in the premises of the police headquarters in Camp Crame – is the latest in an endless litany of horror stories about police incompetence, corruption, human rights abuse and involvement in criminal activities.

This is not a simple problem of misfits and scalawags infiltrating the police force. Apparently no amount of screening, reorganization, revamp, reshuffling, or strike one policies have weeded out the undesirables. They continue sprouting all over the place.

It’s not a lack of training, orientation or institutional checks on corruption and abuse either. We have reams of laws, guidelines, circulars, memos, operations and training manuals that are supposed to ensure professionalism and integrity in the police force. There are redundant checks and balances, oversight mechanisms, disciplinary procedures and safeguard mechanism that should be enough to prevent corruption, abuse and incompetence in the PNP. There’s the National Police Commission (Napolcom), the Internal Affairs Service (IAS) and the People’s Law Enforcement Board (PLEB), among other institutional checks. Add to that scores of human rights education seminars, moral recovery campaigns, even waist-trimming programs. But still. 

Some say the problem is low salaries or lack of benefits. But on the contrary, our police and military have among the best salaries and most comprehensive benefits in the government service; better than our teachers, health workers, and rank and file office workers. It definitely wouldn’t explain why the corruption goes all the way to the PNP’s top echelons, who earn more than enough to keep a comfortable life.

The problems are clearly deep-seated, historical, structural, and systematic.

It involves cultural and orientational flaws in all levels of the force. Idealistic, right-minded young recruits into the service are eaten up and mangled by this monster of an institution and converted into the anti-theses of what professional law enforcers should be. And it seems to have gotten worse.

Instrument of oppression

Today’s PNP has a long history and tradition as an instrument of oppression against our very own people. Its roots can be traced to the Philippine Constabulary created by the US government in 1901. The PC was formed primarily to suppress the country’s revolutionary movement that defeated Spain and turned to resist American colonial rule. 

Much like the Spanish Guardia Civil, the PC was used by the American colonialists and their favored oligarchs (most of whom were also friendly to Spain) to impose their own brand of corrupt and oppressive rule over the local population. 

After the Japanese Occupation in 1946, the PC turned its attention to the Hukbalahap guerillas who fought against the Japanese but opposed the return to US colonial rule. Once again, the PC was used to destroy our people’s capacity to fight the status quo.

To complement the PC, municipalities and cities were provided their own local police forces under the control of the mayors and governors through the Integrated National Police (INP). The localized INP ended up as private armies and adjuncts of the political dynasties and warlords that lorded over most of the country’s towns and provinces.

In 1975, the biggest warlord of them all, Ferdinand Marcos, merged the PC and the INP into one branch under the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The PC-INP played a key role in the dictatorship’s brutal counter-insurgency operations. It also made the police even more powerful and notorious in serving as thugs of the Marcos dictatorship and its favored dynasties and warlords. In tandem with other branches of the AFP, the PC-INP became a pillar of open fascist rule. It was used to crack down not only on criminals but on ordinary citizens who dared to oppose Marcos. 

Under martial law, the military and police establishment reached the pinnacle of its power. It lorded over everyone and was answerable to no one. PC-INP officials eventually took over the vacuum left by the criminal syndicates supposedly dismantled by the Marcos regime. Thus did the culture of impunity spread like a virus infecting the highest to the lowest ranking member of the PC-INP.

Unfortunately, the crucial participation of the AFP in the ouster of Marcos in 1986 ensured its insulation from public accountablity in the post-dictatorship years. Succeeding regimes allowed the AFP, including the PC-INP, to remain intact and essentially pardoned for its numerous crimes against the people. Hardly any of its officials and personnel were charged, much less punished, for their involvement in 14 years of fascist atrocities.

The so-called abolition of the PC-INP in 1991 and its transformation to a civilian PNP did little to change its deeply ingrained traditions and practices, including its involvement in criminal activity and human rights abuses.

To this day, the PNP continues to play a key role in internal security operations that target patriotic and progressive groups that form the backbone of our civil liberties and human rights movements. It is also the main player in Oplan Tokhang and Oplan Double Barrel that have resulted in the killing of more than 6,000 suspected drug users and dealers.

With President Rodrigo Duterte covering their backs, today’s cops have become greatly emboldened in playing their traditional role as the people’s oppressors.

(Next: Why not abolish the PNP?). – Rappler.com

Teddy Casiño served as the partylist representative of Bayan Muna for 3 terms, from 2004-2013. Prior to his stint in Congress, he was secretary-general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and was a columnist for BusinessWorld. He earned his degree in sociology from the University of the Philippines at Los Baños in 1993.

It's not every day that a Philippine presidential spokesperson holds up a print-out of an article you have written, and one's writing becomes the topic of a Malacañang Palace press conference.

So was the case for my co-author, Southeast Asia anlayst Jose B. Collazo, and me when our annual year end wrap-up for CNN of "Asia's winners and loser" had Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte topping our 2016 recap of who had it good in the year that was.

Our list "perks up Palace," reported GMA News. "Palace welcomes Duterte accolades as 'Asia's Big Winner'" read, in part, another headline. On social media, from Twitter to YouTube, our selection garnered praise, surprise and disdain. 

"It's heartening to know that certain media agencies are able to notice the good things the President is doing," Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said at the news conference.

A clip of his comments was soon posted online, and clarifications followed that it was not CNN but CNN contributors Collazo and I who had made the selection. From the Twittersphere came comments and questions about alleged human rights violations and a weakening Philippine peso, as well as praise for our selection.

But just as now President Donald J. Trump had been named "Person of the Year" by Time Magazine last December, our opinion piece for CNN made no judgment as to whether Duterte's leadership to date has been for good or for bad, or somewhere in between. I believe that ultimately that is up for the Filipino people to decide.  

What was clear though in our deliberations was that the new Philippine president is a leader to be noticed, and one that clearly the leaders of the largest economies in the world, the United States, China and Japan had taken note of in 2016.

For the prior year, 2015, Collazo and I had taken to CNN and awarded "best year in Asia" to China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The newly created international financial institution was then well on its way to being a future challenger to the Manila-headquartered Asian Development Bank, on whose Board of Directors I had served for nearly four years.

We awarded "worst year in Asia" 2015 to "Asia's lungs." From north China to tiny Singapore, and India's capital city to Indonesia's Kalimantan, burning forests and factory smokestacks darkened skies and threatened to shorten lives across the region.  Sadly, they still do. But in the year that was, we looked further east, across the Pacific, to an outgoing US president and a pivot and partnership that were not to be in choosing who had the worst year in Asia. 

As the lunar new year arrives – the Year of the Rooster – this January 28, we take one last look at the Year of the Monkey, 2016 and the rankings that got Malacañang talking.

Best year: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

Not without controversy, Philippine President Duterte topped our CNN list for “best year” in Asia by winning his nation’s presidency in a landslide last May 2016 and subsequently upending, rethinking and reshaping the state of affairs – for good or for bad – at home and abroad.

Since taking office last June 30, 2016, the former mayor of Davao City has launched an unsparing, and bloody, war on crime and drugs that has brought mounting human rights criticism and concerns over extrajudicial killings. The tough-talking leader also has declared a "separation" from the United States, its long-term ally, and moved to put aside territorial disputes in favor of business deals with China – this, despite an international tribunal ruling in the Philippines’ favor in July over territories in the South China Sea.

In early December, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey firm had Duterte enjoying a 77 percent approval rating as Filipinos continue to put their trust in their controversial president. For now, the Philippine leader’s unconventional moves seem a harbinger of things to come.

This is no pivot to China, but a disruption of the old normal. Duterte ends 2016 seeking to rebalance his nation’s ties, improve the life of the average Filipino and make the Philippines – a one-time economic and trade powerhouse – great again. And for that, Asia’s best year went to Duterte.

Good year: Asia's digital disruptors

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos may well be a household name in America, but how about Wei Cheng, co-founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuai), the multi-billion dollar Chinese ride-sharing app that beat Uber Technologies at its own game in China. In September, Uber surrendered in its costly battle for riders in China and swapped its operations there for a minority stake in Didi Chuxing.

Cheng is an example of Asia’s Digital Disruptors who came into their own in 2016. Like Jack Ma of Alibaba Group, these new titans are embracing disruptive business models and leveraging local knowledge and connections to win customers and investments.  For them, 2016 was most definitely a good year, even if some are still struggling, as are their Silicon Valley role models, to turn a profit

Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial, the parent company of the Alipay online payment service, was valued alone at about $60 billion last June when it raised $4.5 billion. Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma of India is one more digital disruptor. His and others’ e-commerce and digital wallet offerings are likely to benefit from India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing efforts to “demonetize” and “digitalize India.”

With Forrester research projecting the Asia-Pacific e-commerce market to reach US$1.4 trillion in 2020, these and other digital disruptors are likely to see many more good years ahead.

A mixed year: Asia's webizens

When their smartphones did work, increasing mobile adoption and internet penetration in 2016 gave Asia’s webizens the tools to connect and share information and opinions as never before. Unfortunately, for many in Asia, if an increase in freedom of on-line expression is the metric, the year was mixed at best.

The 2016 Freedom on the Net report by US non-governmental organization Freedom House rates only two of 15 Asian countries – the Philippines and Japan – as having an internet that is assessed as "free."  Webizens were "partly free" in South Korea, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Cambodia and Bangladesh, and "not free" in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Pakistan.

From outright censorship or arrest in China or blocked access to social media platforms and communication apps such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, to the murder of bloggers in Bangladesh, for Asia’s Webizens the power of technology also brought new risks in 2016.

Bad year: South Korean President Park Geun-hye

In South Korea, it has been a bad year for embattled President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached over a still unfolding scandal that could well have been penned by a Hollywood screenwriter. Allegations of corruption and slush funds mix with tales of cult-like rituals and influence linked to a mysterious, close friend now on trial, Choi Soon-sil, daughter of a deceased religious figure. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets calling for the president’s resignation.

Park barely beat out another contender from South Korea for “bad year” in Asia – Samsung Electronics for its now discontinued Galaxy Note 7.

The smartphone was seen as a worthy challenger to Apple's iPhone. Any such aspirations in 2016, literally and figuratively, went down in flames. Battery problems causing some Galaxy Note 7s to spontaneously combust put the "must have" phone on a permanent “no fly” and then “don’t buy” list.

Worst year: The US pivot to Asia

The dubious distinction of worst year in Asia went to former US President Barack Obama for a “US pivot to Asia” that was increasingly seen as more rhetoric than reality even before November’s elections.

A central Obama foreign policy initiative, the pivot was described as a strategic rebalance, shifting U.S. diplomatic and military resources to the world’s most dynamic economic region. At its economic heart would be an ambitious trade deal, a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) linking 12 Pacific Rim nations accounting for 40 percent of world trade. The U.S., not China, would help “write the rules,” Obama declared, through this “gold standard” of trade deals.

All that was not to be. First, one-time TPP proponent Hillary Clinton turned her back on the deal. And then, Trump’s election drove a stake into it. The now inaugurated U.S. President had said among his first actions in office will be to withdraw the United States from the TPP in favor of “fair bilateral trade deals.”

Oversold, under-delivered and now trumped: the Pivot to Asia.

So endeth the Year of the Monkey. And so now begins a new year, if not a new era, as President Trump – dare I say America's Duterte – begins a four-year term as US president. – Rappler.com

Curtis S. Chin, a former U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC. J Follow Curtis on Twitter at @CurtisSChin.

Recently, the talks between the Government of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) have been in the news as peace negotiators gather in Rome for the third round of the negotiations which started last July 2016.

Since 1969, the Communist Party of the Philippines has waged an armed struggle rooted in political, social, and economic inequalities prevalent in the country, manifested to majority of the people as poverty, hunger, lack of social services, and joblessness, among others. For more than three decades, the GRP and the NDFP have been engaged in negotiations that seek to address the root causes of the armed conflict.

The GRP-NDFP peace talks have gone on and off in the past 30 years, and only recently, have resumed following the election of President Rodrigo Duterte. Although this is the longest that mutual declaration of unilateral ceasefires has lasted, the discussion on bilateral ceasefire should not be treated as the priority agenda.

As both parties tackle social and economic reforms, at least 392 political prisoners are still in jail, military encampments in communities remain, and extrajudicial killings continue, victimizing innocent ones like the peasant leader from Negros who was only fighting for genuine land reform.

For the Filipino people, the most crucial part of the peace process is the negotiation on the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) as it seeks to address the root causes of the armed conflict. The recent round of talks also seeks to address the gut issues faced by the people — problems caused by underdevelopment, exploitation, and widespread poverty.

AGHAM has always seen the peace talks as an avenue to discuss much-needed changes in the country’s social and economic framework. The present defective structure of Philippine society, crafted by our imperialist colonizers through policies and other means, has disregarded the objective of economic prosperity for national development. It has anchored our economy on false measures of development such as an economic growth rate that does not reflect equitable wealth distribution. Ultimately, it has adversely affected the lives of millions of Filipino people, forcing many to live their lives in poverty despite being the prime movers of the economy.

These structural problems in our society are manifested in different ways. One of these is the backward state of agriculture in the country. More than the low level of agricultural mechanization, farmers and peasants face the basic problem of landlessness which hinders their productivity and subjects them to the whims of landlords. Due to policies that prioritize what is deemed profitable and not what is needed, the food growers – the farmers – are unable to put food on their own tables.

Advocating for national industrialization 

Another is the lack of basic industries which can pave the way for genuine development. In advocating for national industrialization, we have worked with various sectors who bear the brunt of our dependency on foreign capital: unemployed laborers, scientists, engineers, and technologists who are forced to acquire positions that do not match their skills, and even small Filipino-owned companies that are threatened to be eaten up by bigger and more powerful corporations.

Although differing in perspectives and outlooks, those who support the peace talks share the common vision of reforming the current system which benefits only a few. We believe that as long as the unjust conditions existing today persist, peace cannot be attained.

The slogan “peace based on social justice” is exactly the main goal of CASER. The negotiations on social and economic reforms seek to establish the basis for a just and lasting peace – a sovereign economy that benefits the majority of Filipinos.

In endeavoring for national economic development, CASER seeks to enact agrarian reform and rural development while simultaneously pursuing national industrialization, based on both parties’ agreed framework last July.

It is important to note that these two parts of this strategy depend on each other: without industrialization, agriculture cannot be sustainably and effectively managed. Without land reform and rural development, a steady source of raw materials for domestic needs will not be available. From these two main programs, the basis for a self-reliant economy should be set in place.

Genuine land reform and national industrialization will push for the development of agricultural modernization, making the sector more efficient in producing products. The surplus products of agriculture will then serve as raw materials for the industries we will build.

Millions of jobs for Filipinos both in urban and rural areas will be created. The products we will create will be products that we will be able to buy and use. We can also create various machineries to sustainably utilize and develop our natural resources. This is the kind of development that we want: a development that serves the interests of the people.

Today, the third round of peace talks will reach its conclusion, but the aspirations of the Filipino people for a better tomorrow will prevail. As long as CASER remains a framework, the road to genuine change that the Filipino people has long been wanting will be rough.

We call on fellow scientists and the Filipino people to support the peace talks. – Rappler.com 

Feny Cosico is the secretary-general of the sicentist-activist group AGHAM Advocates of Science and Technology of the People. She is an agriculturist and an environmental resource management major.

On January 24 Kabayan Partylist announced the decision of its board of trustees “[immediately removing] Atty. [Harry] Roque as member of Kabayan Partylist…and consequently, from representing Kabayan Party List in the House of Representatives.”

The controversy arose from the November 24, 2016, congressional inquiry in the House of Representatives, where several lawmakers, including Roque, have asked Ronnie Dayan, Senator Leila de Lima's former lover and alleged bagman, several questions which were strongly criticized for being lewd and inappropriate.

Roque expectedly was not happy with the party’s decision, claiming that he was not given any prior notice about the decision. He filed a petition before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to order the party to convene its members to settle the issue legally and to nullify the board's resolution. 

Will his expulsion from his party-list group Kabayan – assuming that it is valid – automatically remove him as member of the House of Representatives? Is Roque correct in seeking refuge before the Comelec? 

This case is definitely not new. Since the adoption of the party list system in 1995, there have been recurring cases of infighting, usually involving scuffles over the party’s slot in the House of Representatives. This usually arises from term-sharing arrangements among the nominees, which actually prohibited now by Rule 4, Section 7, of Comelec Resolution 9366).

When term sharing was still allowed, sitting nominees usually ended up reneging on the agreement to step down mid-term to give way to the other nominee on the list. One curious case is that of the Senior Citizen Party List, which, despite having won a seat in 2013, was not able to sit in Congress – ultimately wasting the votes cast for them – because of the intense legal battle between the group’s two factions as to the right to fill the slot won. 

Roque is like district congressman

Going back to Roque’s case, to understand the problem, we need to understand the nature of the party list seats in Congress.  

In Abayon vs. HRET (GR Number 189466, February 11, 2010), the Supreme Court clarified that it is the party-list representative who is elected into office, not the party-list group or organization he represents. This means that, for all legal intents and purposes, it's Harry Roque, not Kabayan Party List, who is the member of the House of Representatives. Kabayan has no direct or any vested interest over the seat, except inchoately, as when Roque dies, withdraws in writing his nomination (i.e. resignation), or becomes incapacitated. Kabayan will then have the right to submit new nominees to Comelec.

The intention is to afford the representative independence, expecting him to be directly accountable to his sector and the people in general, rather than to his party. It also shields him from the internal politics of the party and the whims of the party leadership. 

Roque, being a member of the House of Representatives, enjoys the same deliberative rights, salaries, and emoluments of a district representative. He can participate in lawmaking and is equally subject to the term limitation of 3 years for a maximum of 3 consecutive terms. Like a regular district representative, he can only be removed from office through the two ways prescribed by the Constitution: 

• By expulsion with the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members of the House of Representatives (Article VI, Section 16.1.3)
• By the Electoral Tribunal, either through an election protest or quo warranto proceeding (Article VI, Section 17)

With these two grounds, the obvious intention of the Constitution is to vest on the House of Representatives and its electoral tribunal the exclusive jurisdiction to decide issues relating to its membership. Thus, it becomes clear that Roque cannot be ejected out of Congress by his own party by simply recalling his nomination or by cancelling his party membership. 

This, however, should not be taken to mean that the Constitution leaves no remedy to party-list groups to go after their erring members. What is being emphasized is that there is no shortcut in removing a member of the House like Roque. Kabayan has to go through the prescribed routes. 

Kabayan's options

If it is confident that it can muster the required two-thirds vote to oust Roque, then it can argue that his “inappropriate line of questioning” constituted a punishable “disorderly behavior,” and commence an expulsion proceeding following the House’s rules of procedure. 

The less stringent way is to file instead a quo warranto case against Roque before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) on the ground that he ceased to possess all the qualifications for party-list representatives. It must be noted that one of the qualifications set by Section 9 of Republic Act 7941 is that the party-list representative must be “a bona fide member of the party or organization.”

In the recent case of Lico vs. Comelec (GR Number 205505, September 29, 2015), the Supreme Court ruled that bona fide membership in the party-list group is a continuing qualification. Meaning, a party-list representative, must remain a bona fide member of his party-list group or organization throughout his entire term. Those who ceased to be bona fide members can be a subject of a quo warranto proceeding before the HRET. 

The Lico case is also important as the Supreme Court finally clarified the delineation of jurisdictions of the Comelec and the HRET regarding intra-party disputes. It explained that when the intra-party dispute affects the title of a sitting member of Congress, jurisdiction is indisputably with the HRET. Meanwhile, disputes or controversies affecting non-sitting nominees remain with the Comelec, following the earlier ruling in Lokin vs. Comelec (GR Number 193808, June 26, 2012). 

Should Kabayan choose to pursue a quo warranto case, this would mean that it has to go through the “whole nine yards” of litigation before the HRET, and possibly even a certiorari proceeding before the Supreme Court. Anyone familiar with these proceedings would know that this takes a long time. Until that time, Roque get to retain his seat. 

While this difficulty can be unreasonable under legitimate cases, this calls upon party-list groups to be more prudent and circumspect with their choice of nominees. – Rappler.com 

Emil Marañon III is an election lawyer who served as chief of staff of former Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. He is candidate for LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice at SOAS, University of London, as a Chevening scholar. 

Ariston Estrada, one of the iconic figures of the UST’s Faculty of Arts and Letters in a bygone age – when I did my AB Philosophy there – had an uncomplicated definition of a fact: anything that is or that happens.

The revered Ariston may have been a staunch, intractable Thomist, and his definition of a fact was definitely scholastic. But it was not a bad definition. In fact, it was good ontology. One line from the cryptic but dense Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of Ludwig Wittgenstein leaps at the reader from the very first lines of the slender volume: “The world is the totality of facts and not of things.” 

That, of course, is a statement of an ontological atomism that corresponds to the logical atomism he advocated. Every atomic proposition pictured an atomic fact, Wittgenstein maintained in the first phase of his philosophizing, and a proposition made sense even to one who had never encountered it earlier, because, like a picture, it showed its sense. 

So every proposition was a picture of a state of affairs. “Donald Trump will lead the gay pride parade this year” pictures a possible state of affairs – one that most likely will never to come to pass.

Now some states of affairs are facts, others are not. Predictably, Wittgenstein advocated a strict correspondence theory: Any proposition P is true if and only if p. That is to say: “Strawberries are red” is true if and only if strawberries are indeed red – where the key to the whole assertion is “indeed.” If one proceeds in this fashion, of course, then the whole talk of “alternative facts” is consummate nonsense! If “S is P” is a fact, then “S is not P” cannot be equally factual, not even as an alternative fact. It just is not!

But the very moment we grant, as we should, that all knowing is interpreting, and that all knowledge is mediated by language, things cease to be as neat and as straightforward: the very reason there is such a thing as a Later Wittgenstein who realized that “picturing” was not the only thing that language did. 

Plurality of profiles

First, there is the important point contributed by a phenomenology of perception that because everyone perceives from a particular standpoint – his physical posture and location, his affective history and disposition, everything that has entered into the fabric of his familiar world – what the perceiver has is a “profile” that by no means falsifies alternative profiles. Then we must grant the possibility of a plurality of profiles, because persons do have different standpoints. 

And many a quarrel – domestic and otherwise – arises from this pathetic inability to grant to the other’s profile the validity one asserts as one’s own! 

But there is a limit to this. Two visitors to a gallery can debate the particular hue found in a painting, but when both stand in front of the Mona Lisa and one says he sees a woman with an enigmatic smile, but the other strenuously insists that he sees a statant, guardant unicorn, then clearly, the first would be well advised to keep a safe distance from a clearly delusional companion, or more charitably, invite him for a visit to a shrink! 

There remains an objective world against which our propositions and assertions run.  Some interpretations just do not “work”! If this is what “alternative facts” means, then there is some plausibility to the claim, except that while one profile opens up to other profiles, it also excludes others as being incompatible. After all, perception is perception of something! 

Textuality poses its own challenges. Is there such a thing as “the” correct reading of Plato’s Crito, or Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias or Sartre’s Being and Nothingness or of the Sermon on the Mount? 

And if one is willing to find textuality even in events, was it Catholic zeal that moved the Catholic monarchs to approve of expeditions to what was then the unknown world or plain and simple expansionist greed? Are these even alternatives? Given the independence of a text from authorial intent, a point Gadamer convincingly makes, then one must grant the possibility of different “readings.”

Meaning will therefore be context-dependent, and when context has changing boundaries or porous frontiers, then many “meanings” will be possible, expected even and justice will demand that marginalized “readings” be allowed a hearing as the more dominant ones. 

This is the essence of the post-modern quarrel with grand narratives. 

So there are contexts within which “alternative facts” would be utter nonsense. Given our usual counting pattern, there can be no alternative sum to 7 and 5 than 12.  Whoever introduces an “alternative fact” just does not know how to add! 

But there are legitimate, even necessary, references to “alternative readings,” “competing narratives” and to a “conflict of interpretations.” But I wonder if those who have popularized “alternative facts” in these our ambivalent times are really possessed of that measure of thoughtfulness! – Rappler.com

The author is vice-president of the Cagayan State University and Dean of the Graduate School of Law, San Beda College.