I have been doing a lot of radio and TV interviews these past days, especially with provincial radio stations hungry for analysis, on the De Lima case. Below are my propositions:

1. The De Lima prosecution and arrest is a travesty of justice. There is absolutely no basis for the case. This is a political vendetta and intended to silence dissent. De Lima will eventually be released by the courts, if not soon, by the end of the Duterte administration. I hope it will be sooner and she does not have to wait as former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had to. 

2. It is not right to say De Lima is the first political prisoner of the Duterte administration as there are many already from the ranks of social activists, militant farmers and workers included, and revolutionaries who preceded her. The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers is right and we must remember them. But De Lima does have the honor to be the first politician to be detained by this government.

3. The complaint, and the resolution on which it was based, on its face, is fatally defective in that it is not understandable and written in such bad English that the ultimate facts alleged cannot even be established. Such poor quality of work must make veteran prosecutors of the Department of Justice, and I know many of them to be very good, cringe.

3. Using guesswork to understand what the prosecutors are alleging, the cases against De Lima are based on the testimonies of convicted drug lords. There is no way any court would allow immunity for these witnesses and their testimony will surely be treated as trash. Giving them immunity is a very bad precedent and will wreak havoc on our criminal justice system. Political personalities will be targeted and made vulnerable by the threat of criminals to turn witness against them. It could also be a form of revenge against crusading officials.

4. There is a real question of jurisdiction here, on whether the primary jurisdiction of the Ombudsman is exclusive of the Department of Justice. There have been cases when the Supreme Court has allowed the DOJ to file these cases but never in a case involving a Cabinet official. It all boils down to whether she was performing her duties when she allegedly trafficked in drugs. If she did the latter, it could only be in the context of the former. Thus, my view is that jurisdiction here is exclusive to the Ombudsman.

5. The speed with which Judge Juanita Guerrero issued the arrest warrant disturbs me. The Constitution and the Rules of Court require personal determination of probable cause. It is a valid question to ask how much due diligence she applied here to make such a determination. I respect her authority of course and will expect her to listen to the pending motions filed by De Lima's lawyers.

6. On whether Senator De Lima is just getting a taste of her own medicine, karma as some would say, I make distinctions. 

a. I have always been vocal that the Aquino administration, through then Secretary De Lima's actions, was wrong about GMA. They violated GMA's rights to due process and presumption of innocence. The election sabotage case was nonsense from the very beginning and, at some point, when the evidence could not be found proving plunder (it requires appropriation for personal use), they should have dropped the PCSO case or downgraded it to technical malversation or other similar lower crime, allowing GMA to be freed on bail. There is no justification for what the Aquino administration did to GMA. It should never happen again.

b. The Corona impeachment is a bit different. It was railroaded by the House of Representatives, with the complaint drafted over a weekend. The whole process became a fishing expedition. In that case though, Corona made admissions that led to his conviction. Still, the use of funds from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to obtain the votes of senators was terrible and should be condemned by everyone. It was not right for the Daang Matuwid (Straight Path) administration to do what they did. It's sad because the DAP later on would taint the record of that administration. 

c. The case against Senator Enrile seems to me to be weak as there is no documentary and testimonial evidence linking him to Napoles. It seems he was included principally for political reasons. That should not be done.

d. The cases against Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla seem to be airtight and completely above board. This is true for most accused in the PDAF cases, although I would take exception to those filed against Budget Undersecretary Mario Relampagos and other DBM personnel.

e. For sure, De Lima's DOJ, as in all previous administrations, violated the human rights of political prisoners wantonly, filing and prosecuting common crimes when the cases should be rebellion. Such an evil and legally incorrect practice continues under the present administration. 

f. Nevertheless, as wrong as she was in some cases, a wrong never justifies a wrong. Because then we will end up with all wrongs and never with a right.

7. Going forward, I propose that the standard of probable cause should now be brought higher so that criminal prosecution cannot be made a political tool. People should not be charged for crimes where the chances of getting a guilty verdict is none to slim. The standard of prima facie evidence has been so distorted in this country and an accusation alone, plus political or other considerations, leads to prosecution. This is also the reason why so many Filipinos are detained without trial even as conviction rates are very low.

8. A reform of the justice system requires also an independent Secretary and Department of Justice, and we have not had that for a long time. In fact, I would say that Jose W. Diokno under President Diosdado Macapagal was the last such secretary. Diokno defied his President on the Stonehill case, although in that case, the former was accused of violating the rights of the American tycoon accused of corrupting government officials. Thankfully Diokno learned the right lesson from that experience and became, after he too was subject to such violation by Marcos, the greatest human rights lawyer or this country. 

To sum, this can be a good experience for De Lima, as it was for Diokno and for Ninoy Aquino. I wish she comes out of this not angry, but purified to do the right thing at all times for all people. Doing the right thing the right way, always the right way and consistent with the human rights of every individual, is the only rule that people who have power must follow. I wish the same for her supporters who are upset and even full of hate (according to one friend, more like indignation) right now. 

This sad episode can also be good for the country if we finally reform our criminal due process system. Let's all work together so that an Arroyo or De Lima injustice will never happen again. – Rappler.com

These remarks were delivered at a forum on the EDSA People Power Revolution at the School of Economics, University of the Philippines, Diliman, on February 24, 2017.

With your permission, I will begin from the beginning.

I was trained as a professional soldier at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) beginning in 1952, or 75 years ago.

I left the portals of the PMA with the knowledge that as a professional soldier in a democratic polity “mine was not to reason why, but only to do and die.”

My original sin was that I violated this dictum soon after I was deployed in the Sierra Madre mountains to fight the Huks in 1956.

I questioned why our political leaders were ordering us to hunt and kill the very people who paid for our education.

I accepted the rational that the Huks have risen to bring down the government by force, and it had no choice but to exercise its constitutional and legal duty to call on the armed forces and the police to suppress their rebellion.

But I had another question: Why were they rebelling against the government?

Since 1956, when I first asked this basic question, I have dedicated myself to find an answer/solution to this compelling issue but up to this day, or 71 years later, I am still groping for a satisfactory answer.

Duterte's reforms

That is why I was relieved to note that of all the presidents after former president Ramos, only President Duterte is trying to continue the basic reforms initiated by the Ramos government for the purpose of establishing a national enabling environment.

The thesis of the Ramos government was that only within an enabling environment can our people develop the capability to solve the nation’s perennial problems of inequality, poverty, corruption, injustice, criminality, drugs, and other problems associated with underdevelopment.

The elements of the radical national reform which aims to establish an enabling environment being continued by President Duterte are:

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

Clamor vs EJKs

If the above elements are put in place, we will be able to effectively enforce our Constitution and our laws, and our national development plans can succeed. But there are indications that these basic enabling reforms may be derailed in their implementation in the midst of national and international clamor against extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the war against drugs.

In any event, regardless of whatever other purposes the government may have in the brutal war against drugs, EJKs have limits especially when applied with impunity. EJKs create conditions where vengeance defines justice. The same conditions create a moral command – a compelling moral imperative according to the late Jaime Cardinal Sin – where disobedience binds all (citizens, soldiers, police) together unconditionally, irrevocably, universally.

It may be recalled that the 1986 People Power revolution was not merely a people’s collective exertion against a tyrannical regime. More importantly, it was a people’s war to recover their dignity and freedom ensuring that as life comes from God, only God can take away.

If the 1986 People Power revolution is being argued as the nation’s contribution to world culture and civilization, it is primarily because it brought down an entrenched predatory and cruel regime without assaulting the life and dignity of anyone, friend or foe alike. It became a world model for political change without bloodshed.

To me, this is the relevance of the 1986 People Power Revolution today, 31 years later. – Rappler.com

Retired general Jose T. Almonte served as national security adviser to President Fidel V. Ramos.
  

I thought that I would be applauding when this day would come. After all, I was full of loathing for Leila de Lima when she all but snubbed the Supreme Court, shoved her own reading of law and procedure in the face of the President who had plucked her from a rather lackluster election law practice for the Commission on Human Rights, instructing her minions at the airport to pay no heed to the Supreme Court.  In those unfortunate days, Leila was very powerful and highly favored.  She was PNoy’s lackey.  And of course, the tide has turned, as it is always bound to turn. Those who want to play God had better learn this well: that their pedestals have a life-span of only 6 years! 

The day I thought I was waiting for eagerly came. Leila was served with a warrant of arrest and she dutifully surrendered.  But truth to tell, I am downcast, as I was when GMA was arrested and booked, like I was morose when JPE, Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada were arrested.  And even if I joined the crowds that howled for Erap’s ouster, I knew I had matured when I rued that day because I caught the hint that it was the beginning of a not too cheerful trend: unseating presidents.  I was certainly outraged when the Senate convicted Chief Justice Renato Corona on a supposedly falsified SALN, because it is a matter of general knowledge that more SALNS are falsified than are veridical!

But I am not unaware that many are cheering, and that too troubles me.  We take perverse delight in a reversal of fortunes, not so much for the better – because this is always worth cheering – but when a cruel turn of events sends the mighty tumbling down, groveling in the dirt, then I ask myself: Why should there be glee in this, unless we are really perverse?  It is like we want them to pay for having attained the high office, the position of privilege, the niche of distinction that, very often, they worked hard to achieve.  It is even more puzzling when we cheer the downfall of one we elected to high office. 

How many ran for the office of Senator of the Republic?  In fact, that was what made the election more complicated than they should have been.  Many had thrown their hats into the political ring without really intending to – with the result that we had quite a long list of candidates.  Leila de Lima was among the few who made it to the Upper House of Congress of the Philippines. And so why are we in glee at her arrest?  We know that she has been charged with many offenses, many of them too ridiculous to pass any laugh test.  What we do not know – and what really matters – is whether she is guilty or not.

When the Ombudsman inflicts an administrative sanction on a public officer it finds guilty of trespassing the law, or the Sandiganbayan sentences an erring official to suffer a stiff prison term, we are usually convinced that what were meted out were just deserts. But when GMA suffered at De Lima’s hands – following adverse orders of the Ombudsman – it was what went before that obscured the figure of lady justice wielding her awesome sword with veiled eyes so that she would be no respecter of persons but the embodiment of the law’s impartiality. 

Before the former president’s arrest and speedy detention, largely on De Lima’s orders, PNoy had practically made it an election vow to send his predecessor to the slammer.  When this happens, one is convinced that it is not justice that is served, but the victor basking in his victory!  It was the same thing with Corona, for before he faced the ordeal of trial at the Senate, he was dressed down in public by the President of the Philippines, after having been snubbed at the inauguration rites. And so, when, from a litany of supposed crimes, the House Managers had to admit that they had evidence for only a paltry items that remained after the scathing and vitriolic assaults of the incomparable Miriam Defensor Santiago on the prosecution’s case – including her chastisement of Vitaliano Aguirre II that sent him scurrying away from the Senate floor – and still got a indubitable majority of votes for conviction, it was very hard to doubt the common conviction that PNoy was getting his way, through his minions at the Senate.

De Lima – not without reason – was the object of many of Digong’s choicest epithets in his very colorful oratorical repertoire, and the cheering squad in the Lower House looks days to live out their fantasies of being prosecutor in some thrilling courtroom battle by cross-examining “guests” and “resource persons” whom they grilled over impertinences – like the fruit that Dayan and De Lima supposedly shared in one out-of-town trip.  Is it comeuppance, then, that has now befallen De Lima, or is rather the visitation of arrogance upon one who, as Commission on Human Rights chairman, had to do what she had sworn she would do, and risk the wrath of a mayor who had – and still has – virtually nonexistent tolerance for opposition?

And, no, I will not join in the demand that she be thrown in with “common criminals” in the dank, dehumanizing pit that our prisons in fact are, because we do not yet know whether she is a criminal or not.  In fact, I maintain the proposition – on the basis of the Constitution’s own text – that the only legitimate reason for denying a person bail as a matter of right is when such a person is charged with an offense punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, AND when evidence is guilt is strong.  At this stage, we do not know that – not the judge, at least, whose task it is to make that determination.  And so absent a finding that the evidence of guilt is strong, how does one constitutionally defend the denial of the right of one accused to temporary liberty under bail?

Archbishop Soc was once more his prophetic self.  Siding with none, neither prematurely acquitting, nor pre-empting the courts, he prayed as every priest prays – and invited Catholic Philippines to do the same: “Lord, heal our land”.  And the despicable chorus of trolls derided him for even praying.  We are close to being, as a nation, completely bankrupt in spirit. – Rappler.com

Fr Ranhilio Callangan Aquino is Vice-President for Administration and Finance, Cagayan State University; and Dean, Graduate School of Law, San Beda College

A lot has been said about the apparent collapse of the peace negotiations between the Philippine government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front (NDF) following the declaration of President Rodrigo Duterte that negotiations with the communist-led rebel forces are deemed terminated. At least for now.

For now – because the President provided a window for the resumption of the peace negotiations should “compelling reasons” move him to again talk peace with the NDF.

The last 6 months of the Duterte administration have generated so much optimism for a final negotiated peaceful solution to the decades-old armed conflict in the countryside, that the abrupt termination of the peace talks left many dismayed, including the negotiating panels from both sides.

Indeed, the peace negotiations had a promising start.

A president who professes friendship and kinship with the Left and a rebel force that sees an opportunity for advancing the revolution by forging peace with Duterte. The equation was perfect for a negotiated political settlement.

Only that, there exist conditions that led to its momentary collapse.

At this stage, it may be too early and premature to enumerate these conditions and to assess where the talks failed or put blame on anybody.

What should be highlighted are the gains and the goodwill these talks generated over a brief period of productive negotiations.

Once nameless, faceless

For the first time in the history of the peace negotiations with the communists, government peace negotiators faced a counterpart surrounded by newly released consultants who, at one point or another, were at the helm of the communist movement.  

The NDF consultants were headed by the Tiamzon couple– Benito and Wilma – who, at the time of their arrests in 2015, were the chair and secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), respectively.

They were joined by former party secretary general Rafael Baylosis and, if reports are true, several other former members of CPP’s central committee – the likes of Vic Ladlad and Alan Jazmines, and key party cadres Randall Echanis, Tirso Alcantara, Armand Silva, Concha Araneta Bocala, and Alfredo Mapano, to name a few.

These party cadres had spent decades in the field and, as such, hold a vast reservoir of experience, commanding respect from the so-called foot soldiers of the armed wing of the CPP and NDF, the New People’s Army (NPA).

Today's rebel panel, in fact,l holds the distinction of having the most number of rebel leaders on its roster. 

On the side of the Philippine government, it also organized a contingent of consultants to help the re-organized GRP peace panel that matched the number of NDF negotiating team.

Paradigm shift

There was clearly a paradigm shift in the tact and approach of the President Duterte, who named veteran peace negotiators Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III as panel head again, as well as former Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza and former Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento as senior members of the government peace panel.

They were joined by former Regional State Prosecutor (XI) Antonio Arellano and human rights lawyer Angela Librado-Trinidad. The last two government negotiators are both from Davao City and are personally known to the President.

Underscoring the importance of the peace talks with the communists, the GRP panel enlisted the best legal minds in the Philippine academe.

Invited to join the government peace panel as consultants were Julio Tehankee, dean of the La Salle University College of Liberal Arts; longtime consultant and Ateneo de Manila University Law School Dean Sedfrey Candelaria; UP Professor Julian Prospero de Vera; and a contingent from the Department of Justice.

The Rome round of talks also brought in 9 members of the House of Representatives and at least two other Cabinet members, aside from Bello and Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza.

Of course the Philippine military and police also sent their rising strategic planners as part of the technical support group of the panel.

Wasting no time

Indeed, both parties appeared to be serious in proceeding to the more substantive agenda that have been left behind following the 2011 collapse of the peace talks.

Reminding themselves that the last agreement between the GRP and the NDFP came in 1998 yet, during the Ramos administration, negotiators wasted no time in affirming all previously signed documents during the historic reopening of the formal peace talks under the Duterte government in Oslo, Norway, in August 2016.

The formal opening was earlier preceded by confidence-building measures and exchanges of goodwill. Foremost is the unprecedented release of top NDF leaders to enable them to participate in the peace negotiations.

The circumstances and raison d’ etre behind their release – some 21 of them – were a first in the history of the GRP-NDF negotiations.

Building on the historic importance of the peace talks, both parties to the armed conflict also separately declared their own unilateral and indefinite ceasefires.

The respite in armed confrontation went on to become the longest running in the history of the communist insurgency until it was effectively broken when NPA spokesperson Jorge Madlos (alias Ka Oris) announced a unilateral withdrawal of its ceasefire declaration on February 1.

Rome showed promise

The two succeeding rounds of peace talks also yielded a vast reservoir of mutual respect and understanding between and among members of the negotiating panels.

The third round of talks in Rome, despite it being the immediate round before the negotiations were brought to a screeching halt, was by far the most promising.

Both parties signed two documents that would have accelerated the peace process.

One was the supplemental agreement on the Joint Monitoring Committee that activated the monitoring mechanism for the first substantial agenda – the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) – that was agreed on in 1996 but was only signed in 2004.

The other was the signing of the ground rules for the discussion on the social and economic reforms (SER) – the heart and the main agenda of the peace negotiations.

In addition to these major breakthroughs, both parties also exchanged drafts on the political and constitution reforms (PCR) and more importantly, agreed to meet on February 22-27 in The Netherlands to discuss and possibly sign a bilateral ceasefire agreement.

The panels also agreed to resume formal talks in April in Oslo, Norway.

Distrust persists

Clearly, the peace process was gaining momentum and proceeding with great promise.

But it cannot be denied that the animosity built over more than 4 decades of internecine war between armed components of the contending parties, as well as the distrust, are far from over.

It will take more than 6 months of intense negotiations, exchanges of drafts and documents and a long period of lull in the fighting before both camps could give each other some measure of trust and respect.

At this point, however, both parties will have to come to terms that each other’s positions on various issues are not cast in stone.

And that, in the words of Special Envoy Elisabeth Slattum of the Royal Norwegian Government, peace negotiations are not a zero-sum process.

It is a difficult process of resolving contentious issues – especially with both parties in armed and in combat situation.

Issues will have to be negotiated, pared down or added to. And each side will have to concede at one point or another without losing too much ground. 

Because at the end of the day, they have already come a long way in so short a time. The gains and the headway in the last six months under the Duterte government are far too historic, too productive and too promising to abandon. – Rappler.com

The author is a member of the delegation of the government panel. 

In one recent photo on her blog, Mocha Uson is wearing a print of Senator Leila de Lima's mug shot on her t-shirt. It's a strange move. Usually, you wear the figures you admire. Their image on your body becomes an extension of yourself and an expression of your position. Here, she is wearing, and thus iconizing, someone she obviously holds in contempt, and without any hint of irony. After all, only the mug shots of admired political prisoners or noted celebrities who have stood up to injustice ever make it to this level of commemoration. You wear Malcolm X or Maya Angelou, not Hitler or Pol Pot.

So what do we make of Mocha's unironic wearing of De Lima? It seems to me that here she displays a mixture of envy and hatred. She establishes a certain intimacy with her enemy's face and so exhibits a perverse love for De Lima in the same way you cherish your enemies because they give you something to live for, to focus on, to channel your energy. Thanks to them, you now have a platform on which to refashion yourself (here, literally).

And so, too, with President Rodrigo Duterte who loves his enemies even more deeply, all 7,000 plus, because it enables him to create objects on which to erect his power. He's invested in the fiction of a drug-deranged population, for without them, whom would he kill? And as he has said on many occasions, he must kill because that is the most direct and dramatic way he can assert his authority.

The arrest and detention of De Lima has been lustily celebrated by the DDS (Duterte Diehard Supporters). According them, she got her comeuppance, her just deserts. They're happy not so much because she's guilty of all those charges of profiting from and abetting the drug trade (charges which are yet to be proven in court and at the moment exist as a series of allegations from the most dubious of sources – convicted drug lords themselves).

Rather, it's because she dared challenge Duterte for his human rights violations and thus humiliated him. "Pinahiya niya si Digong, 'tang ina niya," they might say, relishing their freedom to use cuss words with abandon. On top of it all, she dared to investigate and prosecute other senators and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo while she was Secretary of the Department of Justice (hence, the charge that she's being a hypocrite by decrying her arrest).

For the DDS, then, it's all about payback, with interest. In other words, her guilt or innocence is beside the point, since she has already been judged guilty by Duterte, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, and the rest of the President's followers. What matters is that justice is being served. And justice here is about revenge: the visceral and immediate humiliation of the person, regardless of the legality or illegality of her actions.

We could thus think of De Lima's arrest as a kind lynching where popular justice is administered by the DDS, or more precisely by their representatives. As with any lynching, the crowd gathers (in this case on social media), cheering the hanging and disfigurement of the guilty.

The populist exercise of justice is certainly not exclusive to the DDS, as it has long been characteristic of the revolutionary left as well as the reactionary right. It is well worth remembering that alongside the peaceful and prayerful massing of people at EDSA, there was also the gleeful mob who burst into Malacañang Palace, pillaging and defacing the living quarters and the photographs of the Marcoses which was as close as they could get to violating their bodies.

What we're seeing among the DDS is thus nothing new. It is the practice of scapegoating that grows out of an ancient economy of revenge (in Tagalog, "gantihan", which nicely sums up in one word the relationship of equivalence and exchange in acts of revenge: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, until we all go blind and toothless).

Revenge, in turn, is fueled by the mirror (and so reverse) identification with the figure of the beloved enemy. Perhaps this might explain (though, of course, it does not exhaust) the exultant feelings and expressions of satisfaction characteristic of the DDS response to De Lima. For them, her fate is a kind of allegory for the "change" that Duterte promised, though in fact that change is simply a matter of exchanging one accursed figure for another. – Rappler.com

Vicente L. Rafael teaches history at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“No single party, ideology, religion, or individual could claim credit for the bloodless revolution at EDSA, in the same way that no single party, ideology, religion, or individual could claim a monopoly of patriotism,” said President Rodrigo Duterte in his message marking the 31st anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

I heartily agree with him. People Power in 1986 was made up of people from all walks of life, and its having been reduced to a protracted family feud – or a political melee – does injustice to its full meaning and proper legacy. Similarly, out of the countless politicians who have professed love for our country, how many actually acted on that love and worked for our nation’s good?

But the President’s statement also holds true for many other claims over certain ideas and values. I think now is a good time to be reminded that, similarly, no one has the right to claim a monopoly over the banner of change. The notion that we need an all-powerful and wise messiah to transform us into great nation has failed us in the past, and it is naive to think that the present or the future will be any different. 

Change (that is, development and progress) and the spirit of EDSA (that is, freedom and democracy) are larger than individuals, and we can only realize their promise if we will move beyond our personalities-based politics into one that is based on principles. Why? For the simple reason that, in one way or another, all our political actors have fallen short of the ideals they themselves have claimed to espouse. Blind allegiance to those people, even when they transgress these ideals, advance their interests – not our nation’s.

The Catholic Church, for instance, has had a mixed record insofar as their role in our politics is concerned. While the choice was clear in 1986, it was less so in 2001, and the church’s participation in the latter somehow diluted the exceptionalism of the former, much to be detriment of the whole idea of “people power.” The Church’s obstinacy on the reproductive health bill, amid uncontrolled population growth and rising HIV prevalence, has likewise done them no favor. (I say this even when I greatly appreciate the church’s work in disaster relief and its firm stance against the death penalty.)

The Liberal Party, too, has largely disillusioned people via two Aquino administrations which, despite some good intentions, proved themselves to be far from immune to our dirty politics. Lest we forget, P-Noy’s administration was no golden age, marked as it was with favoritism and lack of empathy. We call out Duterte for vindictiveness against Leila de Lima, but P-Noy was no less vindictive to GMA and the late Renato Corona. The Liberal Party’s progressive and technocratic impulses – still carried today by the likes of Leni Robredo and Risa Hontiveros – have thus been unfortunately overshadowed. 

Misguided conviction

But if the Liberal Party failed to deliver on the promises of EDSA, Duterte and his allies have also largely failed to deliver on the promise of change. While claiming to fight corruption, he has openly sided with most corrupt family in our history. His professed love for country has been overshadowed by his hateful rhetoric – and his misguided conviction that death can solve our problems. Sure, it’s just been 8 months since he took his oath of office, but he himself raised people’s expectations by making outlandish vows, include ridding the nation of drugs and crime within 6 months.

Even so, there are some sectors where the winds of change can be felt. Gina Lopez’s DENR, for instance, is revolutionary in its willingness to combat environmental destruction, against all political odds. The Department of Agriculture under Manny Piñol seems truly earnest in revitalizing our much-neglected agriculture sector. And, to her credit, DepEd’s Leonor Briones has vowed to educate today’s youths about human rights and the true legacy of Martial Law. 

These bright spots, and the country’s sustained economic growth, however, are undermined by two vexing issues: that of the extrajudicial killings, which the President has, at least in rhetoric, endorsed, and the specter of the Marcoses returning to power. 

In this political climate, EDSA has taken a renewed significance. For many EDSA veterans, Duterte’s rule – including the deadly drug war and Bongbong’s ascendancy – is reminiscent of Martial Law. Meanwhile, for Duterte’s supporters, where EDSA failed, they think Duterte can succeed. Duterte’s election did not magically solve our problems – that is beyond denial – but perhaps, they think, giving him even more powers can. Ironically, 31 years after we drove away the dictator, the dictator’s son is part of many people’s hoped-for vision of a better tomorrow. 

Personally, I do not want the status quo to continue, but nor do I want a revolutionary or authoritarian government in its stead. I want our democracy to stay the same – even flourish and mature, but I also want our country to change and progress in a way that respects the rule of law and takes into account people’s aspirations. I want strong leaders, but I want them to be equally compassionate; humble as they are proud of the dignity of the offices they bear; able and willing to live by the standards they set for others. 

None of our political actors today seem to offer these choices – and part of it, I suspect, is because there is little clamor for them. Many Filipinos, indeed, are content to leave it to the likes of P-Noy or Digong to decide for us what is best, for the Miriams of the Senate to react to them, and when all else fails, expect someone like FVR – or worse, the US – to bail us out.

Like an audience of a “teleserye” with no control over the plot, spectatorship is our default mode of involvement: we take sides, oftentimes with fanatic intensity, without demanding active participation. 

For me, what EDSA represents is the hope that such passivity has not always been the case. In those fateful moments in 1986, the idea of democracy became greater than the people who claimed to be its champions. 

And so the millions came; numbers far greater than Saturday’s crowds in Luneta and EDSA combined. – Rappler.com

Gideon Lasco is a physician, medical anthropologist, and commentator on culture and current events.

Defend the Republic! One Flag, One Nation! No to Destabilization!

Funded by wealthy and bored Fil-Ams, various sectors have put in place a series of exposés against the Duterte administration with one goal: bring down Rodrigo Duterte at all costs.

Driven by hunger to regain power, the ragtag Liberal Party – or whatever is left of it – has been meeting every day to map a sophisticated, fool-proof plot to install Leni Robredo as president. 

Agent provocateur Senator Antonio Trillanes IV has been tasked to take care of the foot soldiers who will agitate the military camps and connive with the yellows for a Yellow Revolution. (At least before he himself gets jailed, as promised by the justice secretary).

The war on drugs must resume, because the drug dealers and drug lords – previously killed or arrested or killed – have crawled back to our streets like zombies threatening to exploit the President’s magnanimity.

The war on corruption must run full speed, especially the type committed by those who had wronged Janet Napoles and by the has-beens in politics who are sitting on a mountain of cash, ready to donate millions to drug convicts just to save an already disgraced lady senator.

This is the world according to the bumbling alter egos of the President.

But this is not the real world we live in.

Here are the undisputed facts:

At no other time in recent history has a Philippine leader enjoyed so much popularity among his constituents even in the midst of controversial policies.

At no other time in recent history has a Philippine leader so scared the rest of the world with his ability to reverse his country’s longstanding commitments and shame – hell, even jail – his enemies.

The Duterte administration passed the biggest national budget in history – a whopping P3.35 trillion – which gives it the wherewithal to provide more services to Filipinos and buy loyalty in the process.

The Office of the President allocated for itself the highest “confidential expenses” budget in history – P1.25 billion – which would allow it to not only monitor threats to the presidency but anticipate and prevent people from even thinking about it.

Outside Malacañang, what do we have?

A Senate and a House controlled by allies of the President who tolerate only token dissent from within their ranks. A Supreme Court that will soon be dominated by appointees loyal to the President and his friends. A military that's constantly rewarded, a national police that's been disempowered.

If the country is under siege at all, it is under siege from the likes of Vitaliano Aguirre II and Martin Andanar, who have mastered the art of peddling lies and brewing conspiracies just so they can mask their own inadequacies and justify their huge expense accounts. 

They are the real and present threat to the presidency, not to mention our collective sanity.– Rappler.com

On July 19, 2011, three of my colleagues in Congress and I landed on Pag-asa Island in the Spratlys. Our mission: affirm our country’s sovereignty over nine islands and maritime formations in our possession amidst China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the area.

In the days before our trip, Beijing condemned the mission and warned then President Benigno Aquino III to order us to cancel it. The Chinese Ambassador went to the Department of Foreign Affairs to lodge a protest. To his credit, President Aquino made no effort to stop us. Instead, Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told the Chinese our government practiced the separation of powers and, besides, we were not doing anything wrong since we were visiting Philippine territory.

A few days ago, President Rodrigo Duterte announced to the world that he would go to Pag-asa to raise the Philippine flag on June 12 this year. Then, he did the unthinkable: fearing Beijing’s displeasure, he abruptly backed off. Duterte violated the basic rule of diplomacy when a small country faces a big country: you don’t allow yourself to be intimidated.  

Practically the whole country supported the President’s initial decision to raise the flag at Pag-asa. There was great relief that the policy of appeasing the beast was finally over. Of course, if there were a credible Chinese threat to prevent Duterte’s visit by force, the President’s retreat would have been understandable. But there was no such threat; the Chinese were not so foolish as to  threaten the use of force to prevent Duterte from visiting an island that has had a Filipino community since the late 1970s, when Pag-asa was made a municipality of the province of Palawan. The reason for the presidential retreat was more ignominious: Duterte  backed off because he was worried Chinese President Xi Jin Ping might be offended.

Born to resist

Our visit to Pag-asa lasted no more than four hours. But it was hugely symbolic. The military garrison and community of about sixty people welcomed the congressional party, composed of myself, Representative Teddy Baguilat, and two other members of the 15th Congress. We also had with us then Palawan Governor Abraham Mitra, Pag-asa Mayor Eugenio Bito-onon, and Major General Juancho Sabban, the commander of the Western Command, who was one of the strongest backers of our visit.

We brought two Philippine flags, one of which was hoisted in a flag ceremony under a fierce noonday sun. Asked to speak, I remember saying, “"We come in peace.  We support a diplomatic solution, but let there be no doubt in anybody’s mind, in any foreign power’s mind that if they dare to eject us from Pag-asa, if they dare to eject us from our rightful territories, Filipinos will not take that sitting down. Filipinos are born to resist aggression. Filipinos are willing to die for their soil."

After hiking around the island, enjoying its white sandy beaches, swimming a bit, and posing with the islanders behind a huge banner that read “West Philippine Sea,” we took off at around 4 pm.  Our visit had made three firsts: Our flight was the first commercial plane to land on Philippine territory in the Spratlys. Ours was the first congressional delegation to visit the area.  But the third was the most important: our mission was the first act of official defiance of China’s aggression into our national territory.

President Duterte had the opportunity to accomplish a far more significant assertion of our national sovereignty than ours.  For he is not just an ordinary individual but the principal representative of a country that is being kicked around by a bully. 

When he said he would go and raise the flag on Pag-asa, he made us all proud; when he turned tail, he shamed our country before the global community.  

He still has a chance to salvage the national honor by proceeding with his original plan. – Rappler.com

Former Congressman Walden Bello led a congressional mission to affirm Philippine sovereignty over its possessions in the Spratlys in July 11, 2011. As congressman from 2009 to 2015, he championed an independent foreign policy, criticizing both China’s aggressive moves in the Spratlys and the United States’ drive to make the Philippines’ its military satellite to contain China. Bello authored House Bill 1350  renaming the South China Sea the West Philippine Sea. He made the only recorded resignation-on-principle in the history of the Congress in 2015 owing to principled differences with the Aquino III administration, one of which was Aquino’s concluding the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States. 

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As with any form of populism, Dutertismo divides the world into the elite and the everyday person. During the campaign, this division was relatively easy for a Mindanao mayor, an outsider from politics as usual, to foist on the electorate. Mar Roxas and his yellow ilk were hopelessly out of touch, and what the country needed was someone who swore like a sanggano. But the narrative of Duterte as defender of the downtrodden is belied by the fact that Duterte kills the downtrodden.

Dutertismo has an elitism problem, and various mental gymnastics will be necessary to maintain the elite vs. masses binary so essential to populist politics. To continue the fiction of being simple folk, the Dutertians must consistently conjure an upper crust for them to demonize. How far can they go? 

If it wasn’t obvious last year, it is now plain that a violent war on drugs disproportionately affects the poor – a likely reason why Duterte’s popularity has dipped in the two lowest classes. As the police brutality continues, the elitism of Duterte’s authoritarian project will become more pronounced. As it stands, the Dutertians cannot be ordinary since, as the recent Pulse Asia survey shows, the majority of them are increasingly clustered in the middle and upper classes. They also cannot be ordinary, since Pulse Asia also shows that “criminality” is primarily the concern of that same upper crust. The rest of the country is thinking about economic issues like jobs.  

Those who once complained about their foes being tone deaf (“Do you dilawans know what it’s like to be a victim of crime? Do you know what it’s like for a family to be shattered by drugs?”) are now the ones detached from everyday reality: Do they know what it’s like to fear for one’s life because of police brutality? Do they know what it’s like to lose a family member from Tokhang? They call the media useless, yet do they know what it’s like to be a beat reporter who has to talk to grieving families in slum areas almost every night?  

Similar questions can also be asked of the original Dutertians. Once upon a time, Duterte’s most hardcore, his Davao constituents, could claim to know more about the effects of Digong’s policies than the imperialist Manilenos.  So if they said their mayor’s intentions were pure and not psychotic, the rest of us could believe them; they brought to the table the insights of “ordinary” citizens from an underrepresented region.  But, now that the terror of the war on drugs has been clustered among the poor of Metro Manila, can they continue to insist on a privileged insight into the effects of mayor-president’s policies on the average Filipino? Duterte affects everyone now. 

Being an ordinary citizen is, of course, relative: One is only an average Juan in relation to a not-so-average Juan. Many Dutertians will tell you that, the stats notwithstanding, they feel ordinary. Mocha Uson, for example, is educated and did not grow up in utter poverty, but still styles herself as a voice of the masses.

And, indeed, many other Duertians, though not poor, rightly feel excluded. As a ka-DDS interlocutor of mine on Facebook told me, a young professional, sent to university belt college by OFW money, may not be begging in the streets, but nevertheless experiences struggles that someone like me – a graduate of Ateneo – cannot understand: finding a sustainable job, fending for relatives who are poor, feeling like the ginhawa gained could evaporate anytime soon. He added, further, that he was proud of all the San Beda lawyers in the administration, who showed that virtuous public servants could not be limited to graduates of elite, “yellow” law schools like Ateneo and UP. He then chastised me for making fun of Solicitor General Calida’s English (in my defense, his prose is a testament to vacuity of ‘Panyero-speak). 

Precarious middle class

There are certainly many kinds of Dutertians, but a significant number of them view themselves as part of a large, emergent, but precarious middle class. As early as the campaign period, Julio Teehankee already pointed out that Dutertismo is the “angry protest of the new middle class: BPO workers, Uber drivers, and OFWs.” He added that this class works hard, yet suffers from poor public services and feels vulnerable amid deteriorating peace and order. 

This same class that Teehankee describes also consists of people like my Facebook commenter, who resent those of us educated in elite universities. Why should graduates of a few schools get to run the country when others are also educated, love their country, and even work harder than students Loyola-Diliman? Relative to these spoiled brats Dutertians may, indeed, view themselves as ordinary. 

So fair enough; I am a member of an educated elite, and should check my privilege. But am I the only one who should reflect on my life’s advantages? Some of us may have less than others and some of us will have problems. Some of us will be angry because of these problems. But none of this means we should give up on imagining what life might be for fellow human beings who suffer. This act of imagining is called empathy. And when you stand idly by as thousands die because of ill-conceived government policies, it’s empathy that you need more of. – Rappler.com

Lisandro E. Claudio (Leloy) is completing his final weeks as Assistant Professor at the Development Studies Program, Ateneo de Manila University. Next month, he will be Associate Professor at De La Salle University's History Department. 

Cracks have begun to show in the coalition government of Rodrigo Duterte, the last thing he needs at this time. With criticism of his high-handed presidency mounting and his popularity declining, he can ill afford to be distracted by house repair. But he doesn’t seem to have a choice; the damage has occurred in the most delicate of places.

On April 3 Mr. Duterte fired his interior and local-government secretary without warning over anonymous insider allegations of corruption. The surprised secretary protests his innocence and blames ambitious deputies.

An odd mix of characters has indeed produced volatile relationships inside the Cabinet.

Two are fighting over turf; one, the Cabinet secretary, is a former communist and the other, the secretary of agriculture, is an extreme ideological opposite – a farm owner in the south who has violently opposed political accommodation for Moro rebels.

A more open rift involves a finance secretary whose family has had strong links to the mining industry and a natural-resources secretary who is an environmental activist. In patent disregard of fraternal courtesy, the finance secretary testified against his Cabinet colleague at her own confirmation hearing in Congress. She was bypassed.

In the House of Representatives, Duterte lieutenants are also feuding.

Pantaleon Alvarez sits awkwardly in the Speaker's chair after being revealed, and forced to admit, he has a mistress and, from yet other past liaisons, also children. Amid the moralistic noise stirred up by the revelations, undertones of intrigue have surfaced promoting Gloria Arroyo, the former president, to replace the Speaker. Ms. Arroyo says she is not interested, but a loyalty issue with Mr. Alvarez depreciates the credibility of her disavowal. As majority leader, Ms. Arroyo had been deputy Speaker to Mr. Alvarez until he sacked her, along with more than 20 others holding leadership positions in the House, for voting against Mr. Duterte’s pet bill reinstituting the death penalty, abolished in 2006, during Ms. Arroyo's presidency.

The dissenters from the majority, however, are too few to make a difference even if they vote with the minority, who are even fewer.

But one oppositionist, Gary Alejano, a retired Marine captain once jailed for rising up against President Arroyo, felt inspired all the same to file an impeachment case against President Duterte, accusing him of corruption and of promoting death-squad-style murders in his war on drugs. Only a third of the House vote is needed to impeach him and send his case to the Senate for trial, but even that is a long shot. At any rate, the more urgent issue is death penalty.

Crucial bill

The bill passed the House easily, 216 votes to 64, but it appears in for a rough sailing in the senate, raising the prospect of further division in the coalition. Elected nationally and given to independent-mindedness more than the district delegates to the Lower House, the senators are predicted to turn in a vote so close it may even defeat the bill.

Before the Senate went on summer recess in late March, Mr. Duterte had gathered 15 senators in the presidential palace for a courtship dinner. It is doubtful, however, whether the undecided among them became impressed enough to ensure the bill's final passage into law.

Senator Panfilo Lacson, the former police chief, who co-authored the bill, himself doubts it. But Sen. Francis Pangilinan, whose opposition Liberal Party accounts for even less than a third of the senate members, says, "It's too early to say." The Senate will take up the bill as soon as it reconvenes on May 2, but the vote, Pangilinan points out, will not come until after weeks of deliberations. He only hopes, he says, that by then the protests against Mr. Duterte's draconian ways in general and against the death penalty in particular will have snowballed enough to influence the senate to kill the bill.

Much, indeed, rides on that vote. It is the first one to be taken in Congress on not only a major issue but a moral one. The death-penalty bill, complemented by another that lowers the age of criminal liability from 15 to nine, is linked to the war on drugs, which, since it was launched upon Mr. Duterte’s accession to the presidency in July, has taken the lives of between 7,000 and 8,000 alleged drug dealers and users, many of them young. Western governments and international rights groups have criticized Mr. Duterte roundly for those deaths, many of which bore signs of summary executions – "extrajudicial killings", as they have come to be more known.

Philippine human rights lawyers, meanwhile, have organized themselves to seek out survivors of Mr. Duterte's war and offer to take up their case.

Given his autocratic predilections, Mr. Duterte must have been anxious to impose martial law, as he has repeatedly threatened to do, but apparently he is not prepared to risk being overturned by Congress or the Supreme Court.

Unknown factor

Another unknown factor is the military. Mr. Duterte has been curiously deferential toward it. After he had ordered that Chinese encroachers be left alone in South China Sea waters declared by an international arbitral court as part of Philippine territory, his defense secretary sent out a patrol ship. Apparently to redeem himself and not seem so helpless in the face of such defiance, he made a bold and dramatic assertion of sovereignty; he ordered the military to occupy the remaining empty islands in the disputed waters and announced he would himself plant the Philippine flag on them, an unfulfilled promise resurrected from his electoral campaign.

The most striking indication of military ascendancy may perhaps be gathered from the President's reaction to his generals' opposition to the communist rebels' demand that all their comrades in prison be freed as a condition to peace talks. He said that, if he didn't go along with the generals, "the military might not like it . . . [and] oust me."

Mr. Duterte is not accustomed to being contradicted. Before his election to the presidency, he ruled his native southern city of Davao for two decades as a strongman mayor. Ghosts from those years have now appeared to haunt him. Two professed assassins testified in a congressional inquiry that they had taken part in hits ordered by Mayor Duterte and that the mayor himself had taken lives by his own hands. The later testimony, given by a retired police officer to corroborate the earlier one, has figured among the reasons cited in a Pulse Asia survey for the 7% dip in Mr. Duterte's approval rating to 76% in March, from 91% when he took office in July to 86% in October to 83% in December. The lawyer of the two whistleblowers is now preparing to file a case against Mr. Duterte with the International Criminal Court.

Not in the best of health by his own admission, Mr. Duterte, who turned 72 this month as he began his 10th month in office, would sometimes let on his doubts about finishing his term. "Will I survive the six years?" he asked on one occasion. "I'd make a prediction: maybe not."

The intimation takes on a graver significance today. – Rappler.com

The Philippine Senate recently received advice from a UN monitoring office that it could not, without violating international law, pass a bill that would return the death penalty into the country’s statute books. I have repeatedly pointed this out. 

We became parties to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 1 of the Protocol cannot be any clearer than it is succinct: No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed. By virtue of the Executive’s ratification and Senate concurrence, the Protocol entered into force for the Philippines.

Of course, statutes can always be amended and repealed by subsequent acts of the legislature of equal rank. But treaties are not the same thing, because they are covenants we enter into with other States and, as in the present case, establish a regime that cannot be left to the unilateral disposition of one of the State-parties.

Treaties (and protocols are essentially treaties) are entered into by the sovereign power of a State to bind itself, in what can be reasonably characterized as auto-limitation of power.  That, social contract theorists have always taught, lies at the heart of any organized society – whether it be a domestic society or a community of nations: auto-limitation of individual autonomy. So there is really no reason for us to be bawling about a derogation of our “sovereignty”, and whining that our “freedom” has been compromised!

The incorporation clause of Article II of our Constitution makes the generally accepted principles of international law part of the law of the land. This is not empty rhetoric. It is a constitutional provision, and it has been held to be one of the self-executing principles found in Article II. One of the accepted principles of international law is that a treaty can be denounced (the “opt-out” mechanism) only when the treaty provides for it, otherwise, there is no way that a State-Party, having acceded to a treaty, can extricate itself from its obligations.  Once more, this quite clearly results in a limitation on what our Legislature may or may not pass – but it is a limitation we took upon ourselves by acceding to the treaty.

In respect to human rights treaties (as well as in the case of other treaties, such as the settlement of territorial boundaries) there are no provisions for treaty-denunciation and it should not be too difficult to see why: Human rights have attained a status both of importance and urgency that they did not have prior to the Second World War. 

It took the egregious violation and the shocking transgression of human rights on a scale that remains shocking to awaken the world to the primacy of human rights. And when States freely take upon themselves the obligations imposed by human rights treaties, then it is the better policy to disallow them from going back on their word.

Of course, the Philippines can strike a cavalier pose and pass a death penalty bill anyway. And under the flow of the municipal law system – the domestic laws of the Philippines – the trial courts will then sentence some persons to death and, after the exhaustion of all post-conviction remedies, the Bureau of Corrections will inflict the awful sentence. 

Interdependent world

We can then congratulate ourselves about having dutifully executed our laws – except for one thing: We remain bound by our international obligations and fortunately, it is a highly interdependent world in which we live, the loud mouths of boastful leaders who claim we do not need the rest of the world notwithstanding!

Should we insist on passing a death penalty law and executing condemned persons under its provisions, we will then be in violation of our international obligation not to execute. This will allow the relevant monitoring Committee to receive reports of our violation and to require comment on the part of the government. If the international community is met with contumacy on our part, it has an arsenal of enforcement mechanisms. Iran heaved a tremendous sigh of relief after sanctions against it were lifted because whether autocrats accept it or not, sanctions can be burdensome, painful and really punishing.

No, it never makes good sense to flaunt our violation of international law. After all, when rapacious neighbors who are armed to the teeth dig into our pie and leave not even the crust to us, we seek relief by invoking our rights under international law. We take umbrage because our rights under international law shall have been violated.  

But we cannot engage in double-speak. If we desire the guarantees and the protection of international law – and the world order it endeavors to establish – then it should not be one of our legislature’s options to doggedly pass a bill that diametrically negates an international duty.  This is no time to play the childish role of neighborhood toughie. This is the time to manfully stand by our word! – Rappler.com

The author is vice president for administration and finance of the Cagayan State University and Dean of the Graduate School of Law at San Beda College.

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"Publicity is like peanuts. Once you start, you can't stop." – Andy Warhol 

Flying above the country last month, I gazed at an endless expanse of ocean, deep cobalt dotted by turquoise reefs and marred only by ochre plumes discharged by rivers.

From our plane, the puffy cumulous clouds we were avoiding – everything was dwarfed by the big blue. 

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in it – visiting coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove stands as part of environmental group WWF. I know little, but I know our oceans mean a lot.

Now I’ve joined Oceana, an international organization fighting to keep seas as productive as they once were. 

Overfishing is the main issue, with today’s fishers ranging farther and trying harder to catch more – but there are too many fishers and too few fish. The global fishing fleet is estimated to be 250% bigger than it should be to keep fisheries sustainable. Whole schools are scooped up before they reproduce, leaving fewer fish each cycle.

“Due to overfishing, scientific reports have shown that we are catching less than we have in the past. The global catch hit peak fish in 1996 and has declined ever since,” warns  Oceana CEO Andrew Sharpless.   

Mouths to feed

What’s tougher than feeding a billion people? Feeding 9 billion.

Many of the 7 billion people today (including you hopefully) will share the world with another two billion by 2050. Theoretically, it’s a simple equation: we must produce enough food to feed everyone three squares daily. 

The problem is that 925 million or about one in 7 mouths are already going to bed hungry tonight. The natural systems we rely on for food are assailed by overuse, pollution and climate change. 

Take farming, humanity’s main food generator. It requires water, fertilizer and farmland – something we’re running out of unless we cut down our remaining forests. It is also a major driver of climate change – emitting more greenhouse gases than all the world’s cars, trains and aircraft combined.

Aquaculture is a solution, but still requires copious amounts of feeds and can introduce ravenous invasive species like tilapia and golden kuhol which can wipe out native aquatic life. 

So which food production system requires no fresh water, fertilizer or farmland? 

Blue food factory

From the plane, I gazed down at the ocean. And I knew. 

That oceans can turn sunlight and nutrients into plankton, fueling the creation of vast shoals of fish. Enough to feed ocean giants like tuna, sharks, and whales. Enough to feed you and me with leftovers aplenty. 

“Wild fish are the world’s most cost-efficient protein source. They are renewable, low-carbon and much cheaper to produce than chicken, pork or beef,” explains Oceana Philippines head, lawyer Gloria Estenzo Ramos. 

Oceana was created from the realization that the big blue produces food for free – and that 25 nations produce 90% of the world’s seafood. “If we can reduce overfishing, prevent bycatch and protect vital marine habitats in these 25 countries, then we can rebuild the world’s fish stocks,” added Ramos. 

By protecting fisheries with science-based policies and empowering coastal communities to defend their home waters, humanity can raise yearly wild seafood yields by 100 million metric tonnes – enough to feed a billion people every day, forever.

I’ve already seen this work in the Tubbataha Reefs, where strong leadership from the public and private sector doubled fish biomass in just a few years. There, clouds of fish pulsate over sprawls of coral and sponge. 

Oceana’s famed battle-cry, a clarion-call for good fisheries governance, is now heard in boardrooms, fishing villages and other hubs in a hundred nations: save the oceans, feed the world.

So this is how we can feed a billion people – and it comes with a big plus. Seafood is healthy, being high in protein, low in fat and loaded with beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. By switching to a seafood diet, you’ll save money and shave off that muffin-top. Proof? Check out the abs on those canned tuna models. Rock-hard. 

Log on to ph.oceana.org and know how to help save our oceans this Earth Day. – Rappler.com

Gregg Yan is the new Director for Communications of Oceana Philippines. Oceana is Earth’s largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to marine conservation. 

If you’re a couch potato, you may have already seen the hit Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why. There's been a lot of debate on whether this highly polarizing show is sending a good, important message or an incredibly dangerous one. I think it does both.

It is President Rodrigo Duterte’s turn to play host to an international event, and the world will be watching.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gather in Manila this week for their first of two summits here. This will be the Philippines’ 3rd time to host an ASEAN summit, and it’s auspicious since the regional bloc is also celebrating its 50th founding anniversary this year.

It’s the perfect perfect time to take stock of how ASEAN has struggled with the old world, and how it intends to deal with the new. It’s the perfect time to assess if its conduct in the last 50 years has helped the region and its peoples, or has in fact delayed resolution to their long-festering problems.

Beyond the challenge of economic integration are cross-border concerns that ASEAN nations can resolve only through cooperation and information exchange: the exploitation of labor, the transit of illegal drugs, the breeding of terrorists, the yawning gap between the capital and the communities in the margins.

ASEAN members have done steps to address these, but they’re not enough – as proven by the resilience of the people and sectors that are causing these problems. Let us not forget that the same issues have caused the breakup of regional unions in other parts of the world. 

The things that have made ASEAN last this long are also what, observers say, have stunted its growth and muted its relevance: consensus, non-interference, the preference for dialogue over confrontation.

Truth be told, President Duterte is a stranger to these principles. The host of this year’s regional event is a leader in a hurry to implement change in a country that he feels has been delayed by too much consensus, too many points of view, and endless dialogues.

But as this year's summit chair, he will have to ensure the protocols are honored, time limits allotted for leaders are followed, and that they are – including himself – present in all the sessions where they're needed. More importantly, President Duterte will learn to help fellow leaders arrive at a consensus, and shepherd them to a common understanding.

It's a good lesson in leadership. And the theme is most appropriate both for the host country and the region: "Partnering for change, engaging the world."

As he hosts this summit, we hope the Philippine president comes face to face with the value of consultation, of listening to views contrary to his, and of spending time to talk to people. 

These processes slow down decisions, yes, but they also provide leaders a better understanding of the complexities of societies, the challenges of governance, and the stubbornness of deep-seated problems that outlive presidents and their slogans. – Rappler.com

Does it help to point out that, true to form, the swaggering and aggressive Du30 is a coward?

He makes bold promises in front of adoring crowds but dithers about inviting a petite and simple woman named Agnes Callamard to the country. 

He and his supporters take on defenseless women like dead Australian missionaries, the gentle Vice President Leni Robredo and the less powerful Senator Leila de Lima. But he fails to take on Senator Antonio Trillanes IV who still has influence in the military.

And oh, the position of surrender he has taken on China! This man who has sworn to protect our sovereignty, who is all bluster in front of 4 year-olds, cannot raise a single "putang ina" when China shoots at our fisherfolk who are in OUR territories.

He goes after and kills low grade and desperate pushers and addicts but never the big pushers and the rich. And he has not the fearlessness to realize that his overuse of Fentanyl is drug abuse, which is the basic problem of addiction. He lacks the moral courage to realize from his own flaws that we are all flawed like the addicts he despises. 

The authoritarian father

I wonder about the psychology of many who voted for him. How many of his supporters see him as an aspirational figure? Brave and macho and living large like Clint Eastwood. He is what they want to be or the Daddy they wish they had.

Perhaps many are like him. Boys and girls from families run on machismo. That is, they believe that an obedient and cohesive family is necessary to survival and that one must be aggressive towards who threaten it. Thus, any criticism must be muted and kept under wraps. They want a father to protect them. Someone who cares for his bakuran but fights the neighbors we despise (addicts) or envy (elitists) and then toughs it out when they complain. The one who would defend family honor (how dare you foreigners criticize us!) at all costs. This kind of father is aggressive and authoritarian. In exchange for adulation and obedience he offers protection and prosperity. The classic patriarch. The builder of dynasties.

Children raised by such fathers or who envy those who have such fathers, hate it when their authority figures are called out. They wonder why the rest of us refuse to join their family when the patriarch has been kind enough to invite us. They look at the rewards of being with him as proof of his beneficence and not his patronage. They believe that those who refuse to obey the father imperil us all. This is why they accept that a harsher discipline like martial law is the proper response to those of us who refuse to obey.

Little wonder that they also believe in love of nation. The question is really what we believe is the way to uplift ourselves. Would it decrease their support to point out his shortcomings? 

Immovable support

From social psychological studies we get the figure of 1/3rd. Trump's immovable 30 percent support who believe and will always believe in the authoritarian father. In our case, their Tatay Digong.

They will win elections for the demagogue. They will seem louder than their numbers. They will see all critcism as betrayal and a threat. Added to this the use of governmental resources to drum up the sense of adoration that legitimizes the patriarch to his followers, and this dynamic feeds itself.

But what of the rest?

I believe in the objectivity of everyone else. Whether they are rich or poor, educated or not, most will decide on the basis of a different morality. Many will decide on the basis of their own early experiences in families with different power structures.

We all long for protection by a strong father. But many are raised knowing the difference between moral and physical courage. Many were raised by parents who understood that they must teach their children to break away from them. Raised by fathers who had the humility to know that they could not be everything to their children. Raised by parents who understood that each child needs to be encouraged to become a unique and different self. That the strength of the family is that its members are different and to a certain extent, disobedient, because they must be creative. It is love and tolerance, and not obedience, that saves. Those whose fathers loved us because of, not despite, our mistakes may be less emotional about Duterte.

I have faith that most who voted for him are of this type – whether their fathers taught them about power through their benignity or their dominance. In short, the ones who have the ability to learn from their parents’ positive and negative examples.

Those to whom the politics of the country cannot be seen as a family feud between “us” and “them” are the backbone of the country. And my faith with our people lies in that belief. I believe in the capacity of people to reassess beyond personalities. I believe in their ability to nuance and modulate. Similar in our ability of thinking beyond ourselves, our own families, our own bakuran. We understand that we can never be one family. Indeed we recoil in horror at the incest implied by a large community made up of relatives.

These are the ones who, for other reasons, voted for Duterte. The ones who then and now do not believe in social cleansing. Those who hoped his statements about women and killing were mere bluster and are upset that they have truned out to be authentic. I remember the difference between the OFWs who asked me for news of the changes in the country. When I mentioned extrajudicial killings, one noted with satisfaction “naglilinis na si Duterte” and the other who said with equal passion, “dati akong pulis at hindi namin trabaho ang pumatay ng tao.” Both had voted for him, they confessed. But the latter is like those did not vote for him but hoped to be proven wrong. The ones who gave him a chance and now find him wanting.

The 11-point drop in support for the drug war is one clear indication of this objecivity. An indication of a process that has happened before, is still happening, and will continue as long as this administration sticks to its guns.

Bury our fathers

My own father was both protective and magnanimous, but he did not expect adulation nor obedience from his wife and children. He was a man who did not just impart lessons to us but also learned from us. A man who had the courage to be both gentle and humble.

He believed that physical courage, as demonstrated by those who wanted to kill and maim the different and threatening other, was often merely an indication of moral cowardice. The man who said, “The reason I give you all this security is so that you will have compassion for others who are unlike you, instead of being fearful that they will take away from you what you have.” The same man who, in the light of our relative comfort, called on us to seek no further material or egotistical aggrandizement, “to whom much is given, much is to be expected.” The doctor who kept telling me, as I myself became a doctor, that we took our Hippocratic oath so seriously that the duty to “do no harm” was a command not to minimize any form of cruelty.

My feminism was very easy for him to understand because he took it as my way of applying his morality. One had to go beyond family. Not just his daughters and his women were to be protected and respected. But all women.

Duterte and the weak

I was ambivalent about who to vote for in 2016. Duterte was on my shortlist until he made that appalling statement about rape, refused to apologize for it, and then continued to make more statements that showed his disdain for women.

My lived experience is that those who disdain women (and anyone who calls attention to Duterte’s numerous girlfriends and that he loves his daughter can reserve a space in any gender sensitivity session with our Philippine Commission Women), disdain all those of whom they can take advantage of. Thus all the weak – the poor, the addicts, women, the LGBT – are a threat. For my parents it was our defense of those who were not our intimates that was the expression of family honor.

In his last years my father also said, “Don’t think about me when I am gone, I won’t be worried about you.” A final exhortation to bury our fathers and all the family issues that are inevitable hurts to those who grow up in a society marked by class and gender inequity. An admonition to live bravely by my own morality without seeking protection.

I have buried my father and need no other. Rodrigo Roa Duterte is the President of the Philippines, indeed. But he is not my Tatay Digong. He does not command my obedience nor adulation. It is the nation, and not one person, that commands me. – Rappler.com

If you tried to buy your birth control pill and were told that it’s out of stock, get ready for the possibility of contraceptives being out of stock – permanently.

We are running out of birth control and we are running out of time. A temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the Supreme Court that has been in place since 2015 is causing birth control pills and other hormonal contraception options to disappear from drug stores and pharmacies.

If the TRO remains in place, there will be a total contraception ban.

In June 2015, a the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Department of Health from procuring, distributing the hormonal contraceptive Implanon and Implanon NXT.

The TRO was in response to a petition by the conservative group Alliance for the Family Foundation Philippines who claimed that implants cause abortion.

The following year when the Department of Health (DOH) filed a motion to lift the TRO, the Supreme Court expanded the coverage of the TRO and effectively suspended product registrations on contraceptives.

The impact is that product registrations (which functions as a license to sell) for all hormonal contraceptives certified by the Food and Drug Authority, cannot be renewed nor can product registrations for new contraceptive brands be applied for. 

The Commission on Population (Popcom) estimates that 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.

If the TRO remains in place, the only remaining birth control options will be condoms, surgical procedures like vasectomy or tubal ligation, and abstinence. (READ: When you run out of birth control pills)

(*allow for minor discrepancies due to rounding)

What you need to do

An estimated 13 million women – which may include you – will be affected by a looming contraceptive stock out. The first thing you need to do is see your doctor then do the folllowing:

1. Talk about alternative birth control methods now

• Don’t wait until your pill can no longer be found on shelves. Talk to your doctor and explore other birth control options. If you prefer the pill, get ready with your medical history and how your body has reacted to your current pill so that your doctor can prescribe a brand that will work best for you. If budget is a concern, take note of the price point of the pill that your doctor will prescribe.

• At this point, where contraceptive supplies are dwindling, you may want to explore long-term birth control. For example, you can ask your doctor if an IUD is a viable option for you. IUDs can offer about 5 years of contraceptive protection. Implants, which are effective for 3 years, are another option. (The first TRO on implants applied only to DOH clinics and hospitals where implants are given for free. You can still get an implant from your private doctor but be ready to hand over a couple of thousand pesos for doctor’s fees and the implant itself.)

• If you are a breastfeeding mother taking a progestin only pill and are finding supplies erratic, consider using condoms as a back-up option. Talk to your doctor about other progestin-only options.

• If you are taking birth control pills for other medical conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), consult your doctor as soon as you can.

2. Make your own appeal for the TRO to be immediately and unconditionally lifted

If you are outraged about the possibility of no longer having birth control options available in the Philippines, make your voice heard. Call for the TRO to be lifted immediately. Here are some things you can do:

• Help gather 1 million signatures

Sign this petition making an appeal to the Supreme Court to lift its TRO. Once you have signed, pass on to at least 10 of your friends when you sign so you can help spread the word. 

Use the hashtag #DontTakeAwayMyBirthControl when you post this petition or any articles related to the Supreme Court TRO.

• Write to the Supreme Court

Tell the the High Court why you need birth control. Are you a woman who needs to take birth control pills to manage a medical condition? Are you a woman who can manage her budget and take better care of her family because she can manage the number of children she has? Are you a person who thinks women should have the right and the freedom to choose to use birth control because among other things? It’s 2017!

      Send a letter to the Supreme Court at pio@sc.judiciary.gov.ph

• Engage with your local municipal health authorities

There are reports that certain municipalities are moving to file their own resolutions to appeal for the lifting of the TRO. Check on the efforts of your local municipality and see how you can help or participate. Maybe they are doing their own signature campaign, see how you can help gather signatures.

What you can’t do is do nothing. The health and well-being of millions of Filipino women are at stake. The country is running out of birth control options. We are running out of time.

– Rappler.com

Ana P. Santos is Rappler’s sex and gender columnist and independent journalist. In 2014, she was awarded the Miel Fellowship by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C. 

To many, Regina Paz “Gina” Lopez is one of the bright lights in the Cabinet of President Rodrigo Duterte. Now, if the powerful mining industry has its way, this light could be extinguished on May 2 or 3, when the Commission on Appointments (CA) will convene once more to decide whether or not to confirm her as secretary of environment and natural resources.

To block Lopez, the industry has mobilized its friends within the administration, foremost among whom is Finance Secretary Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez. At a meeting of the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) on February 9, 2017, Dominguez sponsored a resolution authorizing the MICC to conduct an evaluation of all mining operations in the country. The proposed investigation was obviously meant to supersede and reverse an exhaustive study already conducted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that had resulted in the closure of 22 mines, suspension of 4, and the issuance of show-cause orders to 77 others.  

Apparently not fully aware she was being snookered into endorsing a compromising document at the time, Lopez attached her signature to the Dominguez-inspired resolution.  Then, as one DENR executive describes it, Dominguez went on to “wave the document as proof that Lopez admitted ‘violating due process’” in conducting the DENR study and ordering mine closures and suspensions based on it at a CA confirmation hearing on Lopez on March 14.  The finance secretary’s openly discrediting a fellow Cabinet member in a CA session was an unprecedented breach of intra-Cabinet etiquette, all the more so since Lopez was not there to defend herself.

Dominguez’ attack on Lopez followed her retracting her prior approval of the MICC resolution.  Feeling she had been duped, Lopez disowned her initial endorsement of the memo, writing to President Duterte on March 6, 2017 that though she had at first concurred with the MICC resolution, she had had strong misgivings about it and had come to the conclusion that the proposed MICC review “is not only [not] authorized by EO [Executive Order} 79 and its IRR [Implementing Rules and Regulations] but constitutes an undue usurpation of the authorities and functions of the DENR.”  There was no need for the MICC study, she argued, because “the DENR has…completed the required review of existing mine operations.” Moreover, “the P50 million budget for the review is better spent for the welfare of the people affected by any closures and for alternative employment projects on their behalf.”

The finance secretary is more than a friend to the mining industry. He was a director of the mining and energy conglomerate Alsons Consolidated Resources from 1995 to 2016. While he claims to have divested himself of his shares in the company in 2016, his brother Paul continues to be a central figure in the company and is heavily involved in the leadership of the consortium behind the controversial Tampakan copper-gold project in South Cotabato. 

Nor is Dominguez a simple Cabinet appointee; his friendship with Duterte goes back to their high school days at the Ateneo de Davao and he was the chief fundraiser and campaign finance manager of the Duterte for President Campaign.

But then neither is Lopez just another Duterte appointee that can be dusted off, as was done to Perfecto Yasay Jr, the tainted secretary of foreign affairs nominee who was denied confirmation by the Commission on Appointments for lying about his citizenship. 

Lopez represents a cause, and one that Duterte apparently supports. The President has repeatedly publicly endorsed Lopez, saying he admires her singlemindedness and “passion” when it comes to curbing mining, which, in his own words, has brought “environmental devastation,” especially to Mindanao. He has time and again said it’s “over” for Big Mining and told the miners that “we can live without the P70 billion in taxes that we get from you.” Even among those who strongly condemn Duterte’s policy of extrajudicial execution of drug users, there are those, like the author, who concede that he seems to have a progressive agenda when it comes to mining.

Gina’s bliltzkrieg

Duterte might not have anticipated, however, how rapidly Lopez would move to close down mines that were not following the law, in particular Executive Order 79, the comprehensive interim code issued by the Aquino III administration that governs mining until new legislation is passed.  Her sweeping blitzkrieg on mining has not been matched in any other agency, and it left the miners stunned.  

Lopez is not anti-mining; she simply wants radical reform in an industry that has severely damaged the environment, especially watersheds, and walked away from their contractual obligations to rehabilitate and compensate the areas and communities negatively affected by their operations. Her case for stricter regulation is based on the argument that the widespread environmental and social costs of mining far outweigh the less than 1 percent the industry contributes to GDP and the less than 0.4 percent to employment.  Indeed, one month’s worth of OFW remittances is greater than the annual contribution of mining to the Philippine economy.  

Reform will have to include investment and tax laws because, as one of her close associates says, “It greatly pains her to see a mine closing operations after a mine life of 7 years without paying income taxes because it was able to secure a tax holiday of 7 years!” The tax holiday loophole and other incentives have been abused not only by Filipino-owned firms but also by foreign investors. 

One of the firms receiving a suspension order from Lopez is OceanaGold, a foreign-owned enterprise accused by Nueva Vizcaya Governor Carlos Padilla of leaving his province “with crumbs and almost zero share” in revenues, enjoying as it did a tax holiday for 6-8 years out of the 17 years of mine life.  

Another key foreign-controlled firm, Silangan Mining Corporation, got a show-cause order from the DENR for a project in Surigao del Norte that is in a watershed.  Silangan is controlled by Philex, which, in turn, is controlled by the Indonesian Anthoni Lim group that is fronted by business personality Manny Pangilinan, a bitter enemy of Lopez.

OceanaGold and Philex are members of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, which has formally opposed Lopez’ confirmation and engaged in full-throated scaremongering, warning the president that the Philippines could lose as much as $16 billion in compensation and damage payouts should interests whose mines are closed or suspended bring their case to international courts and win.

Professors and students on the frontlines

The Lopez blitz has left the industry scrambling for counter-arguments.  

Sensing that academics could make a better impression in televised hearings than corporate executives, the industry has deployed geology students and professors, especially from the National Institute of Geological Sciences (NIGS) and the University of the Philippines’ Department of Mining, Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering (DMMME). 

Some observers feel this was unfair manipulation of students and academics since the mining industry provides the bread and butter for these professionals and thus they cannot be expected to support reforms that could result in diminished employment opportunities.  As one student admitted, “Geologists are the ones who are facilitating the 1st stage of Mining which is Exploration. Sila ang unang aakyat sa bundok para tingnan kung viable ba yung area for Mining, e.g., magdedetermine ng grade ng ore deposit. If such mining permits and agreements will be cancelled, walang pagtratrabahuhan ang mga ga-graduate.”

That people from the UP mining/geology academic complex would play a prominent role in the assault on Lopez does not surprise Leo Jasareno, one of Lopez’ main advisers. “By the nature of their profession,” he says, “geologists find professional opportunities in the mining industry. Thus, they render services to that industry. The very classic example is Dr. Carlo Arcilla. His CV will easily show that he has worked a lot for the mining companies, with very good pay.”

Discrediting mining audit

In their counterattack, the mining experts have deployed a number of arguments. 

On the environmental front, for instance, they have tried to downplay the enormous damage done by mining to watersheds by promoting a very narrow definition of a watershed and arguing that government could not act to prevent or limit mining operations in those sites that had not yet been proclaimed watersheds by the state when a permit was granted to mine them. In other words, if a mining corporation obtained a permit before an area was declared a watershed, then the corporation had “prior rights.” 

This legalistic approach to watersheds, says responsible-mining advocate Jaybee Garganera, “is short-sighted and detrimental to national environmental security.” The watershed issue has become a matter of bitter contention since 75 of 77 MPSA’s (Mineral Product Sharing Agreements) issued show-cause orders were for being in watersheds and could likely impair the ecological and social functions of watersheds.

DENR Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Maria Paz “Ipat” Luna says that, in fact, had the miners been assessed on the full range of negative environmental impacts, there may have been more closures and suspensions in the recent mining audit. There wasn’t much time for in depth investigation especially into ecosystem services and biodiversity impacts, but just on legal compliance they were already found wanting. If the teams had more time, it is not impossible to expect that there will be more found out.”

Not surprisingly, the industry has lost no time in discrediting the DENR mining audit, alleging among other things, non-transparency, bias, an unfair focus on mining when biodiversity loss may be related to other activities like deforestation, and “ambiguity” about what Lopez means by responsible mining, which one geology student caricatured as the “Gina Standard.”

There is very little basis for these accusations, say those involved in doing the audit.  There was great care to cover all dimensions relevant to mining by having a diverse group of scientists and other professionals carry it out.  As one of those who organized the audit asserted, it “was not done solely by the Mining and Geosciences Bureau (MGB). It was done by a multi-disciplinary group composed of the following: MGB, Environmental Management Bureau, Forest Management Bureau, Biodiversity Management Bureau, Ecosystem Research and Development Bureau, DENR Regional Offices, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Health, Social Action Center and Civil Society Organizations. No single person could have influenced the results of the audit given this multi-disciplinary nature of the audit teams.”

As for process, DENR lawyer Luna said that Finance Secretary Dominguez’ claim of lack of due process has little merit and can only come from someone who has not read the detailed audit reports. “The process took eight months,” she said, “with multi-stakeholder teams (16 of them) going down to the field and gathering information. Each team then filed a report which was sent to the mining company with a show cause order for them to reply. They replied (some with voluminous documents) and all the reports and replies were reviewed by a Technical Review Committee in the DENR. These, along with community reports and complaints, her [Lopez’s] personal inspection and meetings with communities and with mining companies, became the bases of her decisions.”

Luna concedes that there were some disagreements between Lopez and the Technical Review Committee on the penalties imposed on those who failed the review, with Lopez generally favoring the heavier penalties. But the old mining law specifies penalties that are so light they have little deterrent effect. 

Moreover, a Secretary has wide discretionary power and, in general, “[v]iolations of any conditions of the MPSA [Mineral Production Sharing Agreement] can result in its suspension or cancellation by the Secretary.” There is a process of appeal to the Office of the President, and some of those companies closed or suspended have already taken this route. That they have done so shows that the charge of violation of process does not hold water, she says.

Amateur among experts?

With little support – either on substantive or procedural grounds – for their complaints against a tough crusader, the industry has taken to spreading personal, ad hominem attacks, the main aim of which is to paint Lopez as an inept amateur in a game of professionals. While most acknowledge that the unorthodox scion of one of the country’s richest families, who spent 11 years living in voluntary poverty in Africa as a religious Ananda Marga missionary, is motivated by good intentions, they say mining is a complex field that only experienced professionals can really understand. 

In this regard, the comments of one student from UP’s DMMME are Illuminating: “She is a former yoga enthusiast, Pasig River rehabilitation head (na wala namang nangyari), and no college degree, tapos bigla kang magiging Sec ng DENR? One of my professors in NIGS said he gets too emotional when they talk about Gina kasi my PhD siya tapos ganun na lang ni Gina sirain yung Mining Industry. At least naman lang kahit sinong taong may idea man lang sa Mining yung pwedeng maging DENR secretary or at least man progressive mag-iisip ung inappoint in Duterte.”

Yet this image of Lopez directly contradicts the impression she has given at the CA hearings.  “Her powerpoint presentation was very professional. I was impressed,” admitted one congressman close to the mining industry. One DENR insider said that “Sec Lopez has seen more mines than most, if not all, of the past DENR Secretaries. The only DENR Secretary that may have seen more mines was Sec Horacio Ramos but this is because he is a mining engineer.”  While she might not have a PhD in geology, it is difficult not to acknowledge that Lopez has done her homework.

Gina’s 'Rasputin'?

When miners are not attacking Lopez, they are lashing out at one of her key advisers, Leo Jasareno, whom they paint as Lopez’ Rasputin, the half crazed mystic who held the ear of Russia’s last czarina. 

“Practically all the anti-Gina witnesses at the CA hearings attacked Leo,” said one DENR official.  The reason for this hostility, said another, “is the perception all the knowledge of Sec Lopez on mining comes from him, so that if he is removed or destroyed, Sec Lopez will run out of ammunition against the mining companies. As one miner said, remove Leo Jasareno and Gina Lopez will fall.”

Jasereno is controversial. The miners hate him but neither does he have an easy relationship with the NGOs critical of mining, who find dealing with him bumpy. They acknowledge, however, that there are few who know the industry better than he does, meaning not just its  technical side but also its seamy side. 

Some miners have accused him of corruption, even of being the “bagman of [former] Secretary [Ramon] Paje.” Lopez has told them that if they have any proof, they should give this to her, so she can fire him as her consultant. So far, none have taken up her challenge.

Jasareno was head of the strategic Mining and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the DENR before Duterte replaced him last August with Louie Jacinto. The move was seen by many as a case of Duterte placating mining interests, among whom Jacinto, who used to be regional director of the MGB Davao region, is popular. Since Jacinto was also the former City Planning and Development Officer of Duterte in Davao City, the move was interpreted by others as Duterte’s move to keep an eye on Lopez, who, the miners had warned the President was a wild-eyed radical who would kill the industry.

Jasareno was, however, retained by Lopez in another capacity, his current designation being “Special Assistant for Mining.” 

Asked why he was resented so much by the industry, he surmised that probably the key reason was that during his term as MGB Director under the previous Aquino administration, “many policies and actions were pursued which were not popular with the miners.”  This included, he claimed, the issuance of EO 79, which “imposed a moratorium in the grant of mineral agreements until Congress has passed a law increasing the share of Government from mining, and declared No-Go Zones that expanded areas closed to mining, stopped the black sand mining in Cagayan, Ilocos Sur, and other parts of the country, cancelled more than 20 mineral agreements, suspended 14 large-scale mining operations… and required all operating mines to secure ISO 14001 certifications.” All of these actions, Jasareno asserts proudly, “were unprecedented and hurt the miners.”

The man, it is clear, shares Lopez’s passion to discipline a wayward industry, and is the kind of independent-minded guy that acts as a natural magnet for charges of bias, arbitrariness, egotism, bad judgment, and corruption. With such determination for reform wedded to his intimate knowledge of the industry, one can understand why Jasareno is seen by the miners as a dangerous man. Indeed, with the hundreds of billions of pesos at stake, one wonders how he has managed to stay alive up to now.

Decision point

The confirmation process, everyone will tell you, is one where politics, not merit, is in command.  In this arena, where many speak with forked tongues, it is difficult to know until the vote itself who is your friend and who is your enemy.  Here the very strengths of Lopez in dealing with the miners may become points of vulnerability in relating to politicians.

For instance, a more ambitious or cautious bureaucrat would most likely have waited for his confirmation before making such a decisive move as issuing some 103 closure, suspension, and show-cause orders. Or he would have devoted time to lobbying the members of the CA. 

“Yasay visited me several, maybe four times,” said one congressman on the Commission, referring to the Duterte nominee who was ultimately turned down for the post of Secretary of Foreign Affairs.  “Gina did not request even one meeting with me, and I doubt if she did with the others,” he commented, saying this not because he was peeved but out of admiration. Likewise, during the second round of hearings on her confirmation in March, Lopez turned down a strong request by the Commission that she postpone her departure for the US so they could act on her confirmation. She refused, telling the CA she had to attend a retreat, communicating in no uncertain terms that her spiritual regeneration took precedence over ambition.

With less than two weeks remaining before the May 2 or 3 meeting, when the CA is likely to decide on Lopez’ fate, the only certainty as to the outcome, say observers, is that the vote will be close. Senator Loren Legarda says “Hati ang Senado. Hati rin ang House,” referring to the numbers game among the 13 senators and 12 congresspersons that compose the Commission. 

There are, however, two developments that could affect Lopez negatively. 

Counting the votes

One is the decision of the House contingent, which is perceived by some to be one where pro-mining votes have the numbers, to adopt a rule that its members would vote in the full Commission as a bloc for the majority position that emerges from their caucus. The Senate members have not adopted this rule.  

Another ruling that could have more of a negative than a positive impact on Lopez’ chances is the Commission’s adoption of the three strike rule, that is, deferment of an appointment – what the CA calls a bypass – can be done only three times, after which a presidential nominee will no longer be considered. 

Senator Panfilo Lacson thinks the rule is not retroactive, in which case, Lopez, if bypassed again, will still have two chances. If a majority, however, interpret the ruling to apply retroactively, a failure of the CA to rule on Lopez’ confirmation on May 2 or 3 would, in effect, kill it.

Civil society advocates and many DENR people are especially concerned about the House side of the equation. They claim that there are two clear cases of conflict of interest.

One involves Congressman Ronnie Zamora, the vice chairman of the CA, whose brother, Manuel Zamora, is a major owner of Nickel Asia Corp, the country’s biggest nickel miner, with five nickel mines.  One of these mines failed in the DENR’s mine audit and was served with a closure order.  The other relates to Congressman Wesley Gatchalian, whose family owns Wellex Mining Corporation, which also failed to make the grade and also got a closure order. 

Both within the DENR and civil society, there is strong sentiment that the two should inhibit or “recuse” themselves from the deliberations of the CA. (Attempts by the author to reach both congressmen, with whom he had good working relationships when he was Congress, to ask them whether they thought this position was justified were unsuccessful.)

Will he or won’t he?

What everyone agrees on is that President Duterte will be the decisive actor. 

A DENR insider says the feeling within the agency is that “the President fully supports Sec Gina but he is surrounded by many officials who are supportive of the miners, and in many times these officials act without the knowledge of the president.” 

This assessment seems to be borne out by Duterte’s remarks when asked about whether he continues to support Lopez.  In one of his latest statements, he said, ““You cannot ignore the cries of Gina Lopez.” He asked the Commission on Appointments, “Tingnan nilang mabuti [“They should look closely [at what she’s saying”]. She would show you how devastated the environment is.”  He said he ignored the requests of classmates for him to call Lopez and tell her what to do.

More than publicly stated support is needed, however, if Lopez is to be confirmed. In a close fight, personal lobbying members of the CA by the president will spell the difference. As one pro-mining member of the CA told me, “If the President of the Philippines were to personally call me and ask me to vote for Gina, do you think I would be able to refuse?  Would you?”

Break-up or compromise?  

The reality is that between Lopez and the massive firepower of the mining industry, it is only Duterte who can tilt the balance in Lopez’s – and the environment’s – favor. But that would mean his breaking with Dominguez and other members of what one might call the “Mindanao Mining Mafia” that played such a vital role in his reaching the highest post in the land.  

But, as the Neil Sedaka song goes, breaking up is hard to do…either with Dominguez or with Lopez. 

And as the countdown to confirmation day begins, Malacañang might be trying to work out some sort of compromise between Dominguez and the miners and their nemesis. A high-level source says that the latest development is that Lopez has agreed to the controversial MICC review proposal, “but on condition that this does not encroach on the authority of the DENR.” 

If true, would the quid pro quo be Lopez being confirmed as Secretary? And how would such a deal affect Lopez’ ability to curb the miners in the future? We might have our answers on May 2 or 3. – Rappler.com

Walden Bello was co-author of the Mineral Management Bill in the 14th and 15th Congresses. He made the only recorded resignation-on-principle from Congress in March 2015 owing to principled differences with the Aquino III administration.  He is the author or co-author of 20 books, the latest of which is State of Fragmentation:  the Philippines in Transition. He is currently International Adjunct Professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Jude Sabio, a Mindanawon, UP Law graduate and lawyer of Edgar Matobato, has submitted to the Office of Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) information that alleges that crimes against humanity have been committed by President Duterte and 11 other individuals. At this early stage, these considerations might help people understand what is happening and what could happen next.

First, there is no case or complaint yet. What Jude Sabio has filed is a communication of information in the Office of the ICC Prosecutor that alleges Duterte and 11 others have committed crimes against humanity and that the ICC should initiate proceedings against the 12.

Second, the alleged facts communicated include acts from the time of the President as mayor to the present. The language, which can be interpreted as admissions, of the President is now turned against him.

Third, the facts, if proven, do constitute crimes against humanity (acts of murder targeted against a segment of the population). Here, the distinction between drug pushers (criminals) and addicts/drug dependents is crucial. The President's lack of distinction when he says to kill all addicts could doom a defense of lawful enforcement. Personally, I have no opinion yet regarding guilt here, but I believe a preliminary examination and a full investigation could be valuable.

Fourth, the ICC rules do not require strict exhaustion of remedies. The spirit of the Rome Statue is that it is a last resort remedy but it does not require all remedies have been taken. Perception that there is no will to move forward on a remedy is enough to move a case forward. The ICC is a complementary – it is not exclusive and can co-exist with ongoing domestic processes. I think the fact that people are dying in the thousands without adequate investigation could be fatal for the Duterte 12.

Fifth, I honestly do not understand why Senators Gordon and Cayetano would be included in this communication. I do not interpret their defense of Duterte as instigating the killings. There are many more who have been bloodthirsty in justifying the killings. 

Sixth, the ICC receives thousands of these communications. Around 10,000 have been submitted already since it was created in the early 2000s, 23 cases have actually been filed with 9 convictions and one acquittal. All the cases have been against Africans. Duterte and his men would be the first non-Africans. One must note though that there are several special international criminal courts on the Balkan war crimes.

Seventh, after a communication is received, several things could happen – including the possibility that no action will be taken at all by the ICC Prosecutor. Perhaps, we might hear a press statement acknowledging the submission. Maybe not even that will happen. For sure, lawyers will be assigned to do due diligence on this, especially on jurisdiction. At some point, a preliminary examination could be launched. Only then would indictments be handed down and arrest warrants issued. At that point, it becomes politically interesting because the ICC would require the help of its State Parties to move forward on such arrests. Trial in The Hague would follow after arrests are made. The accused would be detained in special facilities in this legal capital of the world. It’s also in that facility where they will serve sentences.

Eighth, it takes years before a case can move forward from submission of communication to examination to the filing of charges. Trial and conviction could also last for years. My educated guess though is that the Duterte 12 case might move forward faster because the ICC Prosecutor herself had warned the government last October that its war against drugs, and especially the language of the President, could constitute a crime against humanity.

Proper case for ICC

I would also add that the Philippine situation is a top-of-the-mind issue for many international law and human rights experts, and that includes, I suppose, the Judges and Prosecutors of the ICC. I must say that among academics, the weight of opinion is that this is a proper case of the ICC. Among activists, this is obvious as well. I have seen some debate in legal articles but have never met an international law and human rights expert that have argued that the ICC cannot take cognizance of this case. In fact, for some, this is actually an ideal case as its filing can still prevent deaths.

There is also a lot of media attention on this, and that means there is interest to get a proceeding launched. That is always a factor even as the legal and judicial system tries to act rationally and independently.

Finally, there is a value in initiating the proceedings early in order to save lives. Some people are arguing that tens of thousands of lives of poor people could be saved if this process were accelerated,

Overall, this means there is immense interest in moving this forward and I think we will get some traction soon. My advice to government – our diplomats and lawyers – is to prepare for the next stage, which could come in a few months rather than years. There is no excuse for not being prepared and for being surprised here.

Damocles sword

Ninth, if no examination is announced nor indictments laid down soon, then this is a perpetual Damocles sword on the Duterte 12. The examination or indictments could be announced next year, 5 years from now, or even 10 years from now. As far as I remember, crimes against humanity are imprescriptible. In a sense, liability for crimes against humanity is forever – criminally until you are alive and can stand trial, morally even after one's death. And for those who believe in a just God, there is accountability before that Absolute Being as well.

Tenth, I continue to be against an ICC case because I would rather we address the EJKs ourselves through our procedures. I wished the President and his people listened to advice to be more circumspect in language and to be discerning in targeting people in the war against illegal drugs. A change in strategy, along the line suggested by Vice President Leni Robredo, would actually be mitigating and probably avoid a case. Unfortunately, that advice seems to be falling on deaf ears and prosecution could be inevitable. 

Eleventh, it's critical how the government responds to this latest development. Some humility – listening to international law experts for example – will help. Overreaction and counter attacks will be harmful to the cause of the Duterte 12.

Twelfth, with this latest development, withdrawal from the Rome Statute is no longer an option as that withdrawal can only take effect after one year. Such withdrawal might in fact precipitate the filing of the case. Once indictments are handed down, withdrawal from the ICC is irrelevant and immaterial. – Rappler.com

You've heard it before – in speeches, commentaries, and talk shows.

"If you are born poor it's not your mistake, but if you die poor it's your mistake." It's a quote often attributed to Bill Gates himself, the self-made man who, with the wealth of his business empire, is now helping the world through his philanthropic work. 

Such feat should inspire all of us. 

The only problem is that while meant to inspire, this quote is used by some to talk about themselves and their achievements. They often begin with the hardships they encountered in life. Millennials call this humble-bragging. 

But there's another big problem here. 

How I wish poverty were a choice for one-fifth of the population who fall below the poverty threshold.  But it is not. Poverty is beyond one's choice.  

Structural roots of poverty

My fellow faculty in my department, Dr Leland De La Cruz, once explained to his students the structural causes of poverty. He does not remember the lesson anymore but for some reason I still do. It was for my class when I was his undergraduate student in development theory. He rephrased the old saying about poverty: "Give a man and fish a you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. But what if he were swept aside by big fishing vessels?"

We can learn a thing or two from this rephrased adage. These lessons unpack for us how unsophisticated blaming the poor is.

First, the poverty of other people is often a result of self-serving interests on the part of the powerful. Businesses – big and small alike – take advantage of surplus labor to cheapen their costs of operation. The endgame is to maximize profit at the expense of the ordinary worker, many of whom are impoverished to begin with. 

Such, of course, is the intentional logic of capitalism. This logic is what Karl Marx referred to when he described capital as "dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks." 

Travesty then is the generosity of corporate owners toward each other when they fail to raise the wages of their people. Travesty is the failure to recognize workers as human beings with dignity.

Second, people's life chances are generally shaped from the time they are born.

This idea is different from fate as a divine mandate. Life-chances, for sociologists, refer to the opportunities people could access based on their socio-economic background. 

Opportunities are already structured given the quality of life of one's parents: the kind of schools children could get into, their chance at making it to university, and then the job that would redeem the entire family from poverty afterwards. Include here too the nutrition one receives at childhood. 

These limited life-chances are so palpable that the enduring narrative of contestants in various TV shows is about how they want to get their families out of poverty. Joining Tawag ng Tanghalan or The Voice, if successful, bypasses their limitations.

Third, some interventions do not systematically address the state of the poor.  

We think education is the great equalizer, for example. Parents strive hard to give their children the gift of education. 

The state recognizes too that it needs to have a highly educated population to keep the engines of growth running. CHED has identified that some of its priority courses, for example, are agricultural economics, petroleum engineering, multimedia, and teacher education. These courses anticipate the emerging needs of industries in the country.

The main caveat though is that education is an expensive feat. The obvious intervention is to make it cheaper or even free, even tertiary education. That is most noble, no doubt. 

But the ones who make it to universities around the country tend to come from capable families. One big reason why students drop out of school is not only the expensive fees. It's the complete package that makes education prohibitive: uniform, books, projects, board and lodging, and transportation. 

If these concerns are not addressed systematically, the ones who would benefit from the free fees are those who already have the means to begin with.   

Remove the barriers

The challenge for the state and the development field is to remove these barriers. At one level it is about empowering communities to speak louder and fight harder so their concerns are heard. That's why efforts at fostering participatory governance are important.  

But at another level it is also about challenging institutions to recognize these barriers.

These barriers are what people forget when they hold the poor solely accountable for their poverty, like in the case of Kadamay's homelessness. 

Many have argued that what they are doing is illegal.  

But one thing is clear. They are simply fighting for the right to lead better lives – with a roof over the head for starters. 

That's an indication that nobody wants to be poor. 

In contrast to accusations hurled at them, the poor are most likely the most hardworking people around. Think of our garbage collectors, janitors, tricycle drivers, and ice cream vendors. If they even attempted a day with these folks, the bourgeois would simply melt in the sun.  

We who are privileged need to be considerate.  It is irresponsible to blame the vulnerable for their mishaps in life. 

That is because nobody wants to die poor. – Rappler.com

Jayeel Serrano Cornelio, PhD is the Director of the Development Studies Program, Ateneo de Manila University. He is most emotional whenever he teaches the sociology of development - just ask his students. Follow him on twitter @jayeel_cornelio.