Two decades of bilateral talks, negotiations, and deadends, starting from 1995. Then, in 2016, an overwhelming legal victory for the Philippines in an arbitration case that was novel and historic in a number of ways—but a decision that China refuses to abide by. In sum, that’s our country’s difficult relationship with the regional hegemon in resolving our dispute over parts of the South China Sea.

All these happened not so far back in our history, while President Rodrigo Duterte was Davao City mayor and Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano a local politician who later became congressman and senator. Tensions with China over scattered rocks, reefs, and islands in what is now called the West Philippine Sea may have been far removed from these two men’s consciousness. But as the country’s leaders, they have a responsibility to protect the national interest, with history as their guide.

Sure, Benham Rise is not disputed territory. The 13-million-hectare area off the coasts of the provinces of Aurora and Isabela, larger than Luzon, is unambiguously part of the Philippines’ continental shelf, as declared by the United Nations in 2012. 

But letting China conduct maritime research there, while allowing it to ignore our country’s sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea and militarily dominate the area, is deplorable. It is Stockholm Syndrome at its fullest: the more the Philippines is abused, the more it gives in to China.

To refresh the memories of our leaders, here’s a short timeline: 

• 1988 – China occupied Fiery Cross Reef (Kagitingan Reef), Cuarteron Reef (Calderon Reef), and Subi Reef (Zamora Reef). Fiery Cross Reef and Subi Reef have been transformed into military bases, while a high-frequency radar installation was built on Cuarteron Reef.
• 1995 – China grabbed Mischief Reef (Panganiban Reef) and built certain structures which, they said, were shelters for their fishermen. Look how Mischief Reef is today: it is a military base complete with underground storage for ammunition.  
• 2004-2005 – The Philippines and China entered into a Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking (JMSU) to do a 3-year research of petroleum resources in parts of the South China Sea. Vietnam protested this controversial deal so it became a trilateral agreement. China, which used its ship, collected the data, and Vietnam supposedly processed it, and the Philippines interpreted it. The survey results, some of which were blurred, have remained confidential. China, it is said, controlled the process. A case questioning the constitutionality of the JMSU is pending with the Supreme Court.
• 2011 – China stopped the Philippines from exploring for oil and gas in Reed Bank. 
• 2012 – China took control of Scarborough Shoal.
• 2013-2014 – China attempted to prevent Philippine ships from delivering supplies to and rotating personnel in Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal).

Sneaking into Benham Rise

Recently, in another part of the Philippines, a Chinese survey vessel hovered in Benham Rise for 3 months, a fact Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana revealed last year. The DFA, then under Secretary Enrique Manalo, said China had not been issued any permit to research. Why then was China there and what was it doing?

Despite this breach, which happened on Duterte’s watch, Cayetano has blithely given the go signal to China to survey the country’s coral-rich eastern seaboard. The DFA, however, has not released details of the permit given to the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The approval process was likewise not transparent. Usually, it is a multi-agency team – including the DFA, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Department of Agriculture (particularly the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources) – that reviews research requests such as this. 

Damage to coral reefs

Forgotten is this race to study Benham Rise is China’s plunder of the coral reefs in the West Philippine Sea and the massive damage it has done to the marine biodiversity of the area. The construction of artificial islands in features that China had occupied, turning these into fortified military bases, had impacted reefs on a “scale unprecedented in the region” and which will take decades to centuries to recover.

The international tribunal that heard the Philippine maritime case versus China ruled overwhelmingly against China on environmental issues. Among others, the judges said China engaged in – and tolerated – the harvesting of endangered species on a significant scale and in a manner that was destructive of the coral reefs. Its land reclamation has caused irreparable harm to the environment. Studies by experts proved this.

While China’s intentions in Benham Rise, as the scientists from the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute (UP-MSI) explain, has everything to do with ocean currents and understanding climate change, there is concern that China will collect information on the marine wealth and eventually use it to exploit the area, just like it did in the West Philippine Sea. 

Filipino scientists from UP-MSI are reportedly on board China’s ship, Ke Xue Hao, to participate in the research, a requirement for any foreign country doing marine scientific research in Philippine waters. Their presence may serve as check on the Chinese.

But with 20 years of experience dealing with China behind us, the Philippines should not let its guard down. This is not just about science. It is also about trust. – Rappler.com 

The author, editor at large of Rappler, is writing a book on how the Philippines won its maritime case versus China. 

On February 6, the government announced that the country’s “inflation rate”– which measures how fast prices are rising – reached 4% in January 2018, its highest level in more than 3 years.

While government officials and private sector economists projected inflation to pick up this year, nobody expected it to be this fast: January’s 4% exceeded everyone’s expectations.

In this article we try to explain the causes of this surprise uptick. Many blame the new tax reform law called TRAIN. But it’s more likely caused by a triple whammy of profiteering, higher oil prices, and the peso’s weakness.

Beyond expectations

Figure 1 shows the historical trend of the country’s inflation rate. Inflation is “too high” or “too low” depending on how it compares with the Bangko Sentral’s targets. For 2016 to 2018, the Bangko Sentral targeted an inflation rate between 2% and 4%.

Note that when President Rodrigo Duterte came into office, we were at the floor of this range (2%). Today, just 19 months later, we’ve reached the ceiling (4%).

Figure 1.

Which commodities saw the fastest rise of prices in January, and where? Although media outfits usually report just one inflation figure, there are actually several inflation figures across different commodity groups and regions.

Figure 2 shows that the prices of alcohol and tobacco products rose fastest (at 12.3% or more than 3 times the overall inflation rate). This is followed by food and beverages (4.5%), utilities like water and electricity (3.7%), and restaurant meals and miscellany (3.7%).

Meanwhile, at 5.4%, the inflation rate for NCR was higher than the national figure. Alcohol and tobacco prices also rose the most here (12.2%), followed by restaurant meals and miscellany (9.8%), and transportation (8.9%).

Figure 2. Note: I put a line on the 4% level to mark the overall inflation rate.

But we don’t consume goods and services equally. If we take into account the relative importance of the commodity groups, data show that food and beverages accounted for 50% of the increase in January, utilities 19%, and restaurant meals and miscellany 10%.

Triple whammy

What caused this spike in inflation? Many blame TRAIN, which took effect on January 1.

But TRAIN’s new taxes can’t explain all of it. Sure, the tax on sugar-sweetened beverages might explain the huge contribution of food inflation. But TRAIN also included but a modest increase in the excise tax for cigarettes (from P30 to P32 per pack). Alcohol taxes weren’t even touched in TRAIN. So TRAIN alone can’t explain the double-digit inflation of alcohol and tobacco prices.

Instead, the inflation spike was likely borne by the combined effects of profiteering, higher world oil prices, and the peso’s depreciation – a veritable triple whammy.

First, TRAIN’s new taxes took effect on January 1, but sellers can apply them only to new stocks of goods, not old ones.

Many sellers reportedly cheated on this policy and engaged in illegal profiteering. Energy regulators, for instance, were on the lookout for gas stations that prematurely raised their gas and diesel prices. (READ: DOE to gas stations: Don’t take advantage of tax reform law)

Second, on top of TRAIN’s new excise taxes, petroleum products are becoming more expensive in the world market.

Figure 3 shows that the world price of oil is reaching record highs. In late January, the price of “Brent Crude” – a benchmark kind of crude oil – reached $70 per barrel, the highest in more than 3 years.

Figure 3.

Third, the peso’s continued weakening is making imported products even pricier. Figure 4 shows that in January the peso settled around P51 per US dollar, a continuation of the peso’s long-term depreciation since mid-2013.

When the peso weakens (say, from P47 to P51 per dollar) we have to pay more pesos for the same imported product. This partly explains why gasoline prices, for instance, now range from P50 to P52 per liter.

Since petroleum products are used throughout the economy, a weaker peso spells costlier production across many industries, thus contributing to overall inflation.

Figure 4.

In sum, we haven’t yet seen the full effects of TRAIN’s new taxes. Instead, what we saw in January was likely a combination of profiteering, higher world oil prices, and the peso’s depreciation.

What’s next?

Throughout 2018, this triple whammy might persist. 

First, profiteering is likely to continue unless the government dedicates a chunk of its resources to go after profiteers. In a recent Senate hearing, an assistant secretary of the Department of Energy admitted there is no mechanism in place to monitor and prevent abuse in all gas retailers.  

Second, oil will likely become even more expensive this year, owing to strong global demand and OPEC’s decision back in November to cut its production throughout 2018. Brisk oil production in the US, however, might counter this.

Third, the peso is expected to weaken further against the dollar, on expectations that the US Federal Reserve will raise its interest rates 3 to 4 times this year to stem the US economy’s renewed growth. When it does so, it will attract investments from the Philippines, flood our market with pesos, and lower the peso’s value relative to the dollar.

On top of this, we will witness the full effects of TRAIN in the coming months, adding to the inflationary impact of the triple whammy.

What can we do? Our best hope in these tough times is the Bangko Sentral. Its primary role in economic policy, after all, is to keep inflation in check.

With the January figure already hitting its upper target for the entire year, the BSP is likely to rein in inflation by raising interest rates throughout the year. Some economists expect this to happen as early as Thursday, February 8.

Not the best time for TRAIN

It’s easy to blame TRAIN’s new taxes for the fast rise of prices seen in January.

But we really haven’t seen its full effects yet. Instead, the surprise inflation uptick is likely due to a triple whammy of profiteering, higher world oil prices, and the peso’s weakening.

In all this, one can’t help but think that TRAIN’s timing seems to be off. It would have been better to enact the tax reform law when world oil prices are falling rather than rising, or when the peso is strengthening rather than weakening.

Truth to tell, TRAIN’s passage was partly motivated by President Duterte’s immense popularity. Tax reform is contentious and divisive by nature, and TRAIN’s proponents hoped that a popular leader like Duterte would make it more palatable to the masses, and thus easier to pass.

But is Duterte popular enough to withstand the increasingly manifest costs of TRAIN? – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations. Follow JC on Twitter: @jcpunongbayan.

MANILA, Philippines – In this week's episode of Basagan Ng Trip, history teacher Leloy Claudio talks to Florin Hilbay, former Solicitor General and University of the Philippines College of Law professor. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the 1987 Constitution and what historic event shaped it? – Rappler.com

MORE ON 'BASAGAN NG TRIP'

• On using the term 'Filipino'
• Is human rights relevant to Filipinos?
• Whom to trust – journalists or social media stars?
• What liberalism, LP, and yellow really mean 
• Is Islam violent?
• Why a depreciating Philippine peso might be a good thing
• What's the government's problem with ride-sharing companies?
• Ferdinand Marcos’ great ideas, bad executions
• Was Martial Law needed to defeat the communists?
• On 'The Duterte Reader' and identifying Digong
• On Filipinos' obsession with titles
• The case for a biased, honest media
• Is Duterte a dictator, a fascist, or a populist?
• 5 tips when writing in English
• 5 ways to shield yourself from fake news
• Why political participation matters

Two major government agencies – the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) and National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) – will play big regulatory roles on the much ballyhooed entry of the still unidentified third telecommunications player in the country.

Broadly, the PCC will have to address the competition issues confronting the third telco player, while the NTC will have to ensure that the new entrant will meet the required regulatory and corporate issues before it could penetrate the market and go full blast in its operations.

Questions: Are the PCC and NTC fit enough to fulfill their regulatory mandates under the law? Could they thoroughly evaluate the soon-to-be identified third telco player?

Rush for entry

Department of Information and Communications Technology officer-in-charge Eliseo Rio Jr said the Duterte administration would announce either by late May or early June 2018 the winning bidder to become the third telco player. That is after accepting the bid documents from the telecommunications firms on or before March 27.

Displaying optimism, Rio said the third telco player could commence operations within 4-6 months from the date of announcement, or either in October or December 2018. Rio did not explain how the third player would commence operations. Neither did he indicate the infrastructure requirements to start.

Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said President Rodrigo Duterte had earlier offered to the Chinese government the entry of the state-owned China Telecoms to the country. The local partner of China Telecoms was not immediately known, although it was said the PT&T group lead by businessman Salvador Zamora has the upper hand.

From their statements, it could be surmised the Duterte administration was rushing the entry of the third player. Considering the unparalleled magnitude of the investments the third telco player would have to sink to compete against the two giants – the PLDT Group and the Globe Telecom Group, the rush to complete the deal or circumvent the usually tedious and burdensome regulatory processes is surprising, or mindboggling.

For instance, Rio was quoted as saying the government, through the NTC, is inclined to grant radio frequency spectrum and the license to operate by end-May of 2018, or a month after the announcement of the third telco player.

Rio’s statement indicated the Duterte administration was willing to accommodate the entry to the domestic market of the joint venture firm of the state-owned China Telecoms and its local partner in the soonest time possible even to the extent of cutting corners and railroading the regulatory processes. 

Competition policy

The country’s economic life is enhanced by competition and the existing competition policy. Competition leads to a market driven economic environment, where economic players compete to provide the best products and services to the consuming public at the lowest possible prices. The competition policy maintains, enhances, or even strengthens the competitive environment.

The competition policy is embodied in laws, state policies, and regulations that seek to establish and enhance competition. It includes measures to keep, promote, and ensure competitive market conditions by the removal of controls and restrictive practices.

As a rule, the promotion and protection of the competitive environment and processes ensures market stability and efficiency to avoid market failures and trigger higher economic growth. Essentially, the competition policy addresses issues of monopoly, mergers, restrictive, and anti-competitive practices, state entry barriers, consumer protection, and policies on liberalization, deregulation, and privatization

Republic Act 10667, or the Philippine Competition Act of 2014, puts in place the nation’s overall competition policy and establishes PCC mainly to promote the state competition policy. It empowers the PCC to review economic and administrative rules to determine their relevance to market conditions.

The law empowers PCC to stop abuses by dominant players, which include uncompetitive acquisitions, mergers, selling goods and services below cost, tie-in sales, predatory pricing, among others.

As the chief implementer of RA 7925, or the Public Telecommunications Service Act of 1995, NTC, on the other hand, is empowered to pursue the state policy to provide the people with “viable, efficient, reliable, and universal telecommunications infrastructure using the best available and affordable latest technology.”

It is mandated by law to pursue fair interconnection among service providers, provide telecommunications services to unserved and underserved areas, assign frequency spectrum to service providers, and ensure the private sector’s participation in the country’s telecommunications sector.

As the administrator of RA 7925, NTC, a quasi-judicial body, is mandated to conduct a thorough evaluation of prospective telcos and other service providers to determine their economic fitness, technological capacity and capability, and financial muscle to enter the Philippine market, perform full blast operations, and offer efficient and cost effective telecommunications services.

It is empowered to impose fees and penalties to erring service providers, protect consumers from predatory pricing and other market manipulations, and decide on revenue sharing among service providers.

Balisacan’s case

Although PCC was created only in 2014, its first chief, development economist Arsenio Balisacan, is not new to public service. Balisacan was director-general of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and concurrent socio-planning secretary, when then president Benigno Aquino Jr named him its first head.

His stint at NEDA was somewhat tarnished by recent Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings, showing Balisacan as having received what was considered unlawfully granted incentives casts. COA has asked Balisacan and other NEDA officials to return to the government P73.64 million in employee incentives unlawfully granted from 2010 to 2012. 

This order is contained in a 6-page decision, where COA directed its prosecution and litigation office to forward the case to the Office of the Ombudsman for investigation and the filing of appropriate charges. COA has no prosecutorial powers.

The COA order seems to cast doubt over his authority to head the PCC, particularly his moral ascendancy to lead aggressive, high-profile attacks against what he deems as “anti-competitive” behavior by corporations.

COA said NEDA’s grant of the cost economy measure award (CEMA) – a reward for personnel who propose time-saving measures – was not reviewed by the Department of Budget and Management.

“All told, the grant of CEMA is not clothed with authority, considering that it lacked review by the DBM and the eventual approval by the President. Hence, its disallowance is proper,” the decision said.

Besides the failure to secure the DBM and the President’s authorization, COA noted that NEDA Office Circular No. 03-2005 did not even set the criteria for entitlement to the incentive. While NEDA said it managed to meet or exceed its target accomplishment despite only having 64% of the manpower requirement, COA said it did not specify or quantify how man-hours and costs were saved with enough evidence.

Regulatory capture

In his paper presented during the 2017 Telecommunications Summit, Dr Epictetus Patalinjug, a scholar on economic and business issues, cited the consultative document on competition policy that recommended that NTC assume what he had described as a proactive regulatory stance on competition-related issues.

Patalinjug also cited a World Bank study that concluded NTC has limited capacity and resources to set and implement spectrum management policies. This lack has led to a largely passive mode of regulation.

Such institutional passivity in NTC’s official regulatory functions could be a factor in the long-standing perception of regulatory capture, where NTC appeared to have kowtowed to the wishes of the big guys in the telecommunications sectors, including the two biggest conglomerates – PLDT and Globe Telecom.

Hence, its institutional lack of official capability to appraise service providers could be aptly used to railroad the entry of the third telco player. – Rappler.com

There are many reasons to think we are a divided nation. Dutertards versus Dilawan, Thinking Pinoy versus Pinoy Ako, the majority versus the silent majority – these are some of the ways we categorize social divisions today.

The labels are both convenient and disturbing. They are convenient, because they provide cognitive shortcuts by telling us which blogs to avoid, and which friends to hide in our newsfeeds.

They are disturbing, however, because these labels obscure the complexity of people’s views today.  

I have come to this realization after 4 months of the Duterte Reader conversation series.

The Duterte Reader is a collection of essays on President Rodrigo Duterte’s early presidency, published last September by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. As the book’s editor, I had the privilege of attending 14 book launches in the Philippines, the United States, Japan, Singapore, and Australia.

In each of these events, I, together with some of the book’s contributors, had the chance to talk to students, university professors, senior high school teachers, OFWs, call center agents, public servants, and young entrepreneurs about their views on the Duterte administration.  

There were many surprises in these conversations. It was the range of views – many of which could not be boxed into the pro- or anti-Duterte – that struck me the most.

In the last leg of the conversation series, I met students from Mindanao State University in Iligan who found the President’s language disturbing. They were concerned that his demeanor was a poor representation of Bisaya identity. The same students, however, appreciated having the first Mindanaoan president in Malacañang after the long rule of Imperial Manila.

There were others who found the President’s language less disturbing than his disregard for Lumad voices in current debates on peace and federalism.  

Overseas, I engaged in discussions with members of the DDS (Digong Duterte Supporters). In public forums, they explained the hypocrisies of the human rights discourse, the failures of the EDSA regime, and how President Duterte restored their esteem as Filipinos working overseas.

This, however, did not mean their support for the President was unqualified. There were many who expressed concern that the promised reforms have not come fast enough, or that Duterte seemed to be cozying up to the same traditional politicians who stole from the nation.

These are anecdotal evidence, but they offer some lessons about the character of public conversations today.

First, I realized that the extreme division we often talk about is more imagined than real. Our political conversations are not limited to two poles. A good amount of the discourse happens in between. Weighing, reflecting, and negotiating are very much part of citizens’ assessments of the regime. We need to curate spaces where these considerations can be articulated.    

Second, there is value in resisting the temptation to presuppose what others think. While the architecture of social media is designed to appeal to our instincts, we can foster a counter-culture of asking questions, instead of rendering unconsidered judgments. Asking “what do you mean” or “can you explain” instead of hitting the unfollow button can create opportunities for further conversation. This, of course, requires patience and an open mind.

Third, I find that having different political views does not necessarily get in the way of wanting the same things. I learned this lesson from DDS Canberra, who, despite our political differences, did not hesitate to collaborate with a fund-raising project for displaced communities in Marawi.

My colleagues refer to this as meta-consensus – recognition of the legitimate range of views and disputed value. We don’t need to agree, but we can work together.

Finally, it is important to reflect on who exactly benefits from creating artificial political divisions. Someone stands to gain from cultivating the impression that our only options are DDS or dilawan. Someone stands to gain when we get the impression that talking politics can only be toxic and therefore withdrawal is our best option.

It would be a shame for the nation to fall into this trap. There are many other of better ideas out there. – Rappler.com

Nicole Curato (@NicoleCurato) is a sociologist. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in Canberra.  

I've done a good number of journalism talks/workshops over the years, but the 2015 Palarong Pambansa Move.PH workshop in Tagum City, Davao del Norte, touched my soul differently. I had never met a group of kids who so badly wanted to learn something that they traveled some two to 3 hours on dirt road just to get to the workshop venue. These kids wanted to learn sports journalism – to write, to shoot pictures and videos. Their effort floored me and the strength of their dreaming made all of us in the room soar that day.

During the workshop, I asked the kids to write a game story based on some facts from an actual basketball game. These are some of what they wrote. Take a look. These are some 10- to 12-year-old kids writing actual articles – really good ones.

When I was around 10 to 12 years old, I was enthusiastic about school because I wanted to play, not to listen to teachers. I was certainly not writing anything beyond the occasional "dear diary." And I was definitely not taking any meaningful steps towards my future at all at the time, unlike these kids. What were you doing when you were 12?

Rappler's partnership with the Department of Education for Palarong Pambansa has, for many years, given kids a platform to let their voices be heard. It has long been about the dreamers and their journeys – from campus journalists to student-athletes alike. After the workshops, the kids would get to cover Palaro and their work would be published and shared on Rappler, bylines and all. A portfolio of work for pre-teens. Many adults struggle with a portfolio, imagine how big that is for a grade schooler?

To learn that the partnership has been terminated is heartbreaking. Many stories that deserve to be told might no longer see the light of day – that includes the stories of student-athletes who compete for more than just a game. Many dreamers might never have such opportunities to learn, grow, or be heard. Many dreams might never come true anymore. (READ: Campus journalists to cover Palarong Pambansa) 

We can argue endlessly about the why's behind this decision. But we would never really achieve anything meaningful, because at the end of the day, this is simply about the recognition that the only losers here are the kids. Not you or me, not Rappler or the government. Lost in all of the bickering on social media is the devastating effect of such decisions made by those high up in the pyramid of society for all those at the bottom. For however way we got here, the point is this: Filipino kids are once again an opportunity short of carving a better future for themselves.

Think of some of the dream-come-true stories you've heard or witnessed, or your own story. What did they have in common? Opportunity. Someone somewhere took a chance on a person who worked hard and dared to aspire. Without that chance, dreams die. The Rappler-DepEd partnership gave these kids a fighting chance to make their dreams a reality. What now?

For those of you who believe this is all about money, or the comments I've seen from others who say it's about training future corrupt or biased journalists – I implore you to read these articles written by young dreamers. Is that what you really think these kids are trying to become, or being taught to be?

How could you be so heartless? – Rappler.com 

Jane Bracher is a former Rappler sports reporter. She is currently studying in London. 

In these times, when justice and politics mix almost as a matter of course, the Ombudsman, Conchita Carpio Morales, is the rare, admirable dissident.

Under threat herself of being removed through the pseudo-judicial process of impeachment, for allowing an investigation of President Duterte, she won’t be intimidated. In fact, she met the threat in its very first airing with a challenge of her own: "Bring it on!" And at another time she threw back at Duterte the line he likes spouting himself whenever he is criticized for his high-handed ways: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

Crying “selective justice,” Duterte accuses the Ombudsman of picking on him, thus betraying his own convenient sense of judicial priorities: he hogs the great powers due a president, but rejects the concomitant responsibilities – he refuses to be investigated.

Unable to impress Morales, he switched targets and ordered the suspension of her first deputy, Arthur Carandang, whom she had put in full charge of the investigation. But, by doing so, Duterte gave Morales an airtight reason to step in and block his order being unconstitutional, which the Supreme Court spokesman, Theodore Te, forthwith affirmed, citing a Supreme Court decision that has stood to this day as the precedent. The decision struck down a section of law that empowered the President to discipline a deputy ombudsman.

Rooted in principles that delineate and balance out powers in a democracy, the ruling shields our prosecutorial watchdogs on official wrongdoers from the sort of undue interference that Duterte, a potential target himself, is precisely guilty of. But what does Duterte care? Neither reason nor law seems to matter to him, anyway; only power.

In this case, at any rate, neither reason nor law is on his side. Still, Duterte’s Solicitor General, Jose Calida, hung up apparently on rising to the occasion of his title, would not be caught doing nothing. Twisting and stretching things around, he rationalized that, when Morales, being aunt to Duterte’s son-in-law, inhibited herself from the case, she lost every right to have anything do with it, including the right to insert herself between Duterte and the deputy she had appointed in her place.

With absolutely no valid point to make, Calida managed only to be illogical and irrelevant, a feat comparable to missing the wrong bird with two stones. Surely, it’s not that easy to find a solicitor – let alone a solicitor general – who cannot make the elementary distinction between making a concession to propriety – in other words, choosing to be mannerly – and heeding a call to constitutional duty.

But Harry Roque, the President’s spokesman and top toady, knows better than to argue the inarguable. He brazens it out, typically, and puts everyone on notice that the “Office of the President is confident” (note that he is not referring to the President exclusively, but to the supreme entity in which both he and the President belong) that it can get the Supreme Court to revisit and overturn the legal precedent that favors Morales – for now.

Duterte and Roque, parasitically, do have every reason to feel confident. The Supreme Court has never displeased Duterte with its decision on any case in which he was known to have a stake. That most of those magistrates owe their appointments to him and a chief political partner, ex-President Gloria Arroyo, is definitely not anything to discount, too. Arroyo herself was acquitted of plunder  by that court.    

But let’s not get distracted by side issues and non-issues. The core issue is hidden, possibly ill-gotten, wealth. It began hounding Duterte during the electoral campaign, although it did not stop him being elected – obviously. During his presidency it has been overshadowed by other, graver, issues he can’t seem to stop provoking.

Anyway, every time it resounds he is reminded of the waiver he had promised but never got to sign that would open his bank accounts to official investigators. It was the sort of situation Carandang inspired when he revealed that his investigation had traced P100 million to secret bank accounts in Duterte’s and his daughter Sara’s names.

But Carandang got a suspension order, instead of the long-overdue waiver.  And so, Ombudsman Morales' haunting words persist: Does Duterte have anything to hide? – Rappler.com

This year was off to a turbulent start for Rappler. In a span of two weeks, their license to operate was revoked by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and they now face the National Bureau of Investigation over a strange case of cyber libel. 

"Hold the line" has become the mantra of many who find these developments troubling. To hold the line is to insist that there are boundaries of democratic politics that no regime can cross. It expresses a sense of urgency that the values we cherish are under attack and must be defended. 

I too support this mantra. I stand with colleagues and close friends working in Rappler, as well as journalists who are harassed, online and offline, simply because they are doing their jobs. (READ: 'Rappler now, who's next?' – netizens)

To join the fight in holding the line, however, does not preclude us from asking critical questions. We say hold the line, but hold the line for whom? Who benefits from keeping this line? Whose line is it anyway? 

Battle lines

There are various ways of answering these questions. Supporters of press freedom would say the nation benefitted from the line our heroes drew between colonial subjugation and independence, between censorship and free speech, between arbitrary arrests and fair trial.

We hold the line today because our nation has witnessed what happens when the powerful is not held into account. They steal, they kill, and they make the next generations pay. 

For others, however, holding the line means making excuses for the system that has failed many. The line has to be crossed, just like the President who publicly embarrased his enemies, just like DDS bloggers who snatched the center of public conversation away from corporate media. 

Crossing the line is an experiment. It shows us what happens when the nation's sacred cows are shamed, and what happens when the Duterte regime raises sacred cows of their own. 

Standing with Rappler while criticizing Rappler

Fortunately, we do not have to a pick a side. Our choices are not limited between supporting Rappler or supporting the regime. We can demand accountability from both the state and the media. 

We can defend press freedom while calling out questionable media practices of spin, sensationalism, and clickbait. We can fight for free speech as we demand thoughtful and credible stories from our journalists. We can stand with Rappler while still criticizing Rappler.

Shrinking space for speech

This, of course, is only possible if we have a public sphere that is hospitable to the exchange of such ideas.

But this space is slowly shrinking. In the past few years, we have seen many lines crossed.

Each time a critical voice gets a death threat, each time a government official brazenly lies, and each time a fake account is created to spew hateful propaganda, our public conversations get a degree more toxic. We are still free to speak, but only in the context of a savage environment. 

Things could only get worse if there are more lines we cross today. – Rappler.com

Nicole Curato (@NicoleCurato) is a sociologist. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in Canberra and the editor of the Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press.

While the Philippine public’s moral panics about fake news focus on notorious celebrity influencers such as Mocha Uson and their avid followers – derogatorily dubbed as "troll armies" – our latest research funded by the British Council reveals that the real chief architects of disinformation wear respectable faces as leaders in the ad and PR industry, hiding in plain sight while sidestepping accountability.

In a 12-month project conducted by researchers in the University of Massachusetts, University of Leeds and De La Salle University Philippines, we conducted in-depth interviews and online observation with operators of fake Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the strategists who provide them the detailed scripts and schedules to follow.

We gained unprecedented access to the digital underground, with informants supplying us with passwords of fake accounts used to seed divisive memes and revisionist history narratives in the lead-up to the 2016 Philippine elections up to this day.

We found that disinformation production is a professionalized enterprise: hierarchical in its organization, strategic in its outlook and expertise, and exploitative in its morality and ethics.

Our report, "Architects of Networked Disinformation: Behind the Scenes of Troll Accounts and Fake News Production in the Philippines”, thus argues that the problem of fake news and disinformation production goes much deeper than exceptional, individual villains. Addressing the problem means challenging the system that has not only normalized political deception, but made it financially rewarding – especially for people at the top.

Ad and PR strategists as chief architects

Occupying the top level of the networked disinformation hierarchy, ad and PR executives play the role of high-level digital strategists. They hold leadership roles in "boutique agencies", handling a portfolio of corporate brands while freelancing for political clients on the side.

Motivated by the challenge of proving their clout in a new political and professional arena, "chief disinformation architects" use professional tools of the trade to fulfill their political clients’ needs. With their track record for launching Facebook business pages, trending hashtag campaigns worldwide, and building engaged communities for household brands, telcos or celebrities, tried-and-tested industry techniques of spin and reputation-building acquire new power and momentum in their hands – and these skills are for sale.

To quote one of the strategists we interviewed: “The only difference is that you’re a high-class prostitute in advertising, but in political marketing you’re a low-class prostitute.”

“Brand bibles” and “campaign objectives” in hand, chief architects of disinformation then assemble teams of anonymous digital influencers and fake account operators, on whom they rely heavily to execute their disinformation designs on social media.

Anonymous digital influencers gaming trending topics

Bridging the gap from strategy to the streets, anonymous digital influencers usually operate one or more Facebook pages or Twitter feeds that have anywhere from 50,000 to two million followers.

Their purpose: to hack attention with a specific brand of humor, widely appealing “inspirational” quotes, or astute knowledge of pop culture – and slip in the occasional undisclosed paid post into their feed. They are crucial agents who amplify and reinforce the core communication messages set by the high-profile bloggers and influencers we refer to as "key opinion leaders" in our report.

Hiding behind colorful social media personas, anonymous digital influencers have their fingers on the public pulse, from social media behaviors to political sentiments. Translating campaign strategies into shareable content, they post content for or against particular politicians, often anchored on a hashtag set by the chief architects. They use these to create viral Facebook posts, game Twitter trending rankings, and influence the way mainstream media covers a story.

They work part-time and per project, alongside day jobs in IT, corporate marketing, or online community management for celebrities’ fan clubs. They are the Philippines’ precarious, aspirational middle-class, taking on freelance digital work to achieve a certain kind of lifestyle. They are an organized, skilled, and digitally savvy labor force, or as one chief strategist describes them: “a stockpile of digital weapons” that the Philippines isn’t aware of.

Fake account operators creating illusions of engagement

At the bottom of the hierarchy, community-level fake account operators do what we call script-based disinformation work – the grunt work. Fake accounts post pre-made content on schedule and actively like and share posts to meet a daily quota. More importantly, they create the illusion of engagement – a bandwagon effect that affirms and amplifies the key messages of a political campaign, and encourages real people (i.e., unpaid grassroots supporters and political fans) to openly express their support for a particular politician.

Most of the fake account operators we met were in it for the financial rewards – freelancers paid on a daily basis for hitting their quota of social media activity, or who worked in “call-center” type arrangements in the politician’s hometown. Others were junior employees of politicians’ own administrative staff, assigned to operate fake accounts off hours – work that they did not expect and were not paid extra for.

Understanding and challenging the system

Understanding that fake news is the outcome of a professional and hierarchical work structure rooted in the promotional industries of advertising and PR tells us that we need to be more creative and collaborative in addressing our current toxic climate of information pollution.

While media and civil society initiatives to blacklist fake news websites, expose fake accounts, and fact-check the divisive celebrity influencers may be well-meaning, they do not treat the underlying causes of the problem.

It’s an open industry secret that ad and PR executives take on political sideline jobs. How can their industry peers hold them accountable for the impact of their actions? The development of a self-regulatory commission that requires disclosure of political consultancies is a step towards encouraging the traceability and accountability of these digital campaigns within the ad and PR industry.

New national campaign finance legislation – what we call a Political Campaign Transparency Act – to finally get a clear picture of what politicians spend on digital campaigning is what we strongly recommend. During elections for example, politicians are required to disclose campaign spends on traditional media like TV and radio, but not for online and social media. The public has the right to know the quantity and quality of politicians’ television and radio advertising materials but also the viral videos, trending hashtags, and Facebook advertisements they purchase.

We encourage journalists, civil society leaders, and academics to go beyond selectively shaming notorious influencers and exposing troll accounts while conferring hero status on others.

Beyond high-profile targets, we need to collaborate toward solving the bigger problem at hand: "paid troll" work is an offer that has simply become too good to refuse. While addressing the top of the fake news production hierarchy, we also need to look out for the precarious creative workers who might sign up for this kind of morally questionable work, by creating industry sanctions and safety nets that prevent them from slipping into the digital underground.

To quote one of the "chief architects" that we interviewed: “Every time you see a comment, a post, and everything else, don't just see a screen. There's someone warm behind that screen, who's looking for empathy, who's looking for a solution, for understanding.”

We hope to have helped open a discussion by attempting to understand the people behind the screen: who they are, how they operate, what motivates them, and what affects the content and narratives they spread. Now, we pass the challenge on to the Filipino public – because the stories they shape may become our own. – Rappler.com

Jonathan Corpus Ong is Associate Professor in Global Digital Media at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (USA). He is the Convenor of the Newton Tech4Dev Network and author of the book The Poverty of Television: Mediating Suffering in Class-Divided Philippines (2015). Jason Cabañes is Lecturer in International Communication at the University of Leeds (UK). As part of the British Council funded Newton Tech4Dev Network, he co-leads the digital labor research stream.

The report is available for free download at Newton Tech4Dev Network.

In any scandal, there are always grandstanders, ambulance chasers, and opportunists.  The Dengvaxia mess is no exception, with Senator Dick Gordon milking it for what it’s worth to advance his political career, Public Attorneys’ Office head Persida Acosta brazenly using it as an opportunity to get a plum appointment in the Duterte administration, and many Duterte partisans seeing it as a heaven-sent opportunity to score points against the previous Aquino administration.

Pests, not principals

But Gordon, Acosta, and other opportunists are minor actors in the Dengvaxia drama. They are pests, not principals. One hunts in vain in the so-called “Doctors for Truth” statement signed by selected medical professionals for a condemnation of Sanofi Pasteur and present and past top executives of the Department of Health (DOH) for what former Department of Health secretary Enrique Ona has called “a major health nightmare in the country today." 

In releasing for a mass immunization program a vaccine against dengue that had failed clinical trials for both effectiveness and safety, Sanofi Pasteur, Janette Garin, and some present and former top officials of the DOH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were guilty of reckless and criminal endangerment of the health of over 800,000 children. Yet there is no acknowledgement of this in the statement.

Defending the principals

Instead there is in the “Doctors for Truth” position paper an implicit defense of the principals on the grounds that “there is no perfect vaccine.” The doctors conveniently forget that the purpose of rigorous clinical trials before a drug is brought to market is to reduce to as close to zero as possible the likelihood that a) the drug will not work, or that b) it is dangerous, or that c) it has destabilizing side effects. 

Measured by the yardstick of accepted statistical probabilities, Dengvaxia failed resoundingly, an event that is rigorously documented and explained in a research report that appeared in one of the leading journals of medical research, New England Journal of Medicine (Vol 373, No. 13, Sept 24, 2015), about half of whose authors were connected with Sanofi Pasteur. 

The report, which appeared before the Sanofi contract was made and the vaccination program was implemented, revealed that clinical trials showed thatpreviously uninfected children of a certain age group showed a disturbingly higher risk than previously infected children to contract severe dengue after being vaccinated.

Indeed, so concerned were the editors that they accompanied the article with an editorial titled, “A Candidate Vaccine Walks a Tightrope.” According to the editorial, which hit the dengue research field like a thunderbolt, “Most eye-catching is the suggestion that CYD-TDV [Dengvaxia] vaccination was associated with an elevated risk of hospitalization for dengue among children younger than 9 years of age (but most markedly, among those 2 to 5 years of age) when they were naturally infected in the third year after vaccination.” [emphasis mine]

It concluded that “we still lack definitive immune correlates of protection or vaccine-associated disease risk. A lesson from these trials, and from our understanding of the natural history of dengue epidemiology, is that partial, waning immunity is a particularly unwelcome outcome after vaccination…Live vaccines need to be sufficiently potent in their infectiousness and replicative capacity to initiate immunity in both unexposed recipients and those with partial immunity…The bumpy road to a vaccine-based solution for dengue continues.” [emphasis mine].

Despite this red light from a high-powered research team that included its own researchers, Sanofi Pasteur rushed a flawed product to the market to beat the competition and the DOH authorities pushed the vaccine on over 800,000 children in 2016, with no investigation of whether or not they had been previously exposed to dengue. One does not need to be a medical expert to come to the conclusion that the haste with which this vaccine was brought to the field was simply inexplicable from a public health point of view.

It’s a safe bet that very few of the doctors who signed the statement took the time to read the New England Journal of Medicine research report and editorial, for no self-respecting medical professional with the least bit of acquaintance with these documents would have attached his or her signature to a statement that blithely defends the principals on the ground that “there is no perfect vaccine.” 

The precautionary principle and Dengvaxia

The signatories compound their irresponsibility by saying that “we urge the DOH not to remove the vaccine from the market altogether,” allegedly to provide protection for those not yet found to be at risk of severe dengue infection stemming from vaccination. But contrary to its previous claim that Dengvaxia provided “consistent efficacy and longer-term safety profile in a study population 9 to16 years of age," Sanofi retreated from this assertion and attached no age exemptions in its later, November 29, 2017, statement as to who should not be administered the vaccine.  

Moreover, in banning the vaccine from the market altogether, the current DOH leadership is not panicking but simply adhering to the time-honored precautionary principle, which says, in this particular instance, that just because severe dengue infection has not yet surfaced in some categories of tested subjects that have been vaccinated does not mean that it is safe for the people in the same categories in the general population to use it.  

The finding that those vaccinated who had no previous dengue infection could incur severe dengue demands that administering the drug to all age categories in the population, whether they have been previously infected by dengue or not, should be immediately withheld on the grounds that loss of immunity and susceptibility to severe dengue might take longer to emerge among some categories of the tested subjects. 

This does not mean a permanent ban, but one that can only be lifted after more rigorous trials carried out over a long period of time prove that the vaccine is safe for all age groups of previously infected or non-infected people.

Experts betray public trust

The signatories bemoan the “expert bashing” that is taking place in public hearings. Have they asked themselves why this bashing is taking place in the first place? The distrust of experts stems from the fact that in the case of Dengvaxia, the experts have so spectacularly failed the people on a matter of public trust: the experts in Sanofi for rushing a dangerous vaccine to the market, and the experts at the DOH for carrying out a mass vaccination program that they knew – or should have known, given the published findings – carried grave dangers for many of its intended recipients. 

Yes, grandstanders like Gordon or ambulance chasers like Acosta must be criticized for brazen opportunism, but parents don’t need Gordon or Acosta or Mocha to tell them to withdraw trust from medical experts who have endangered the lives of their children instead of prolonging them. One can understand if it will take a long time before the DOH and its program regain the trust of thousands of mothers. 

Circling the wagons?

This brings us to the question of what really is the aim of the statement. The ostensible goal of the signatories is to prevent panic from spreading and affecting all immunization programs. Undoubtedly, many of them signed on with this in mind.

But with the absence of even the slightest criticism of the principals and the misplaced focus on the opportunists, one might legitimately bring up the question whether the statement is not really an attempt by some in the medical profession to circle the wagons to protect colleagues who are likely to be guilty of criminal endangerment of public health. And given the lack of any criticism of Sanofi’s breath-taking wrongdoing, one might further raise the question if the “Doctors for Truth” statement is not really an attempt by the same people to also come to the defense of the pharmaceutical industry. 

This is a legitimate issue since the industry’s relations with the medical profession everywhere in the world is very tight, with doctors and hospitals enjoying perks and donations from members of the pharmaceutical cartel that is cynically called “Big Pharma.” 

Medical professionals serve on the international and local boards of the drug giants, and there is a revolving door between private practice, public health service, and corporate employment. For those passing through the revolving door, this translates into very lucrative income indeed, one that could be threatened by a more guarded public response to the products of the multi-billion-dollar industry.

Transparency

It is unfortunate that the signatories to the “Doctors for Truth” statement withheld their professional affiliations. One cannot but have the suspicion that one of the reasons for this might have been to not call attention to the links of many of the signatories to Sanofi and others in the pharmaceutical cartel, their local affiliates, and marketing arms. 

In the interest of transparency, it might be good if the public were to demand that the “Doctors for Truth” fully disclose their professional associations, if any, to Sanofi and other members of the global pharmaceutical cartel, including their local affiliates and marketing arms. – Rappler.com

Walden Bello, PhD, is International Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and the author or co-author of 20 books. A member of the House of Representatives from 2009 to 2015, he made the only recorded resignation on principle in the history of Congress owing to principled differences with the administration of former president Benigno Aquino III on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), the Mamasapano Raid, and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States.

It’s been more than two months since the dengue vaccine controversy broke. Amid congressional hearings on the issue, investigations by executive agencies, complaints filed in court, and the spins of interest groups, it’s easy to lose sight of what set off this public policy maelstrom. 

In late November 2017, the French company Sanofi Pasteur, which manufactured Dengvaxia, released an update on its years-long clinical tests. If the vaccine is given to a child who had not had dengue before, it said, the vaccine would even increase his risk of contracting a more severe type of the mosquito-borne infection. 

The pharma giant released that latest finding more than a year after hundreds of thousands of Filipino children aged 9 and up had received Dengvaxia, in a mass vaccination campaign by the health department under the Aquino government. 

In the war of words, these stories dominate now: 

• At least 29 of the children who received the vaccine have died. UP-PGH doctors say only 3 could be possibly linked to Dengvaxia, but nothing is conclusive, and more tests are needed. But the Public Attorney’s Office insists on doing its own autopsies on all these dead, while its chief attends gatherings where relatives display the enlarged photos of the victims and light candles while crying they are certain Dengvaxia killed their children. 
• Some health professionals, in an attempt to arrest parents’ sudden distrust of vaccines in general, are coming to the defense of Sanofi, asking government not to withdraw the vaccines from the market. (READ: Malacañang: Except for Dengvaxia, other vaccines can protect your kids)

While experts debate these two issues, we forget what brought these about was the Aquino government’s seeming rush to enter a deal with Sanofi, pay the multibillion-peso billing, and roll out the massive immunization campaign – skirting rules and taking shortcuts to make it possible. 

In our editorial last December, in time for the resumption of Senate and House probes into the Dengvaxia mess, we already listed questions that these investigations should find answers to. Our point then, which remains so now, was to identify liabilities and make the accountable officials of the Aquino administration and the current one (if warranted) face the consequences. (READ: #AnimatEd: Somebody has to answer for the dengue vaccine disaster) 

From the hearings conducted by Senator Richard Gordon, we see other red flags:  

• The Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) made a purchase request for Dengvaxia on January 21, 2016, even without approval from the Formulary Executive Committee. In 4 days, more than 145,000 doses of Dengvaxia already arrived. 
• By February 11, 2016, the second batch of doses arrived, yet it was only on February 19 that the memorandum of agreement between the Department of Health (DOH) and the PCMC for this deal was signed. 
• On March 2, 2016, the budget department issued to the DOH a Notice of Cash Allocation amounting to P4.5 billion. Six days later, only P3 billion was transferred to the PCMC. What explains the difference of P1.5 billion? 

We also gather that:

• At the time Sanofi was aggressively trying to convince the DOH under then secretary Janette Garin to purchase Dengvaxia, the pharma company was racing against time: there were other dengue vaccines in the US that were in a more advanced stage of trials, and which could have been released commercially ahead of Sanofi.
• There was no allocation for the Dengvaxia purchase in the 2015 and 2016 budgets, but savings from within the department were realigned to fund the purchase. This practice was very similar to the Disbursement Acceleration Program, parts of which the Supreme Court had already declared unconstitutional. 
• The dengue immunization program, which was targeted for school children, was rolled out during the summer vacation, when children were not in school. April 2016 was also well within the campaign period, when an election ban on the release of government funds was in place.

Let medical experts debate and resolve the issue of Dengvaxia’s efficacy. Let public health advocates help in allaying the fears of parents toward other kinds of vaccines. 

But let’s also do a special audit of this deal. File cases against past officials who rushed the purchase and rollout of Dengvaxia, and broke rules and laws in the process. The spotlight, the public scrutiny, should train on them again. – Rappler.com 

Nababahala ang higit sa 600 na eksperto, siyentipiko, doktor at iba pang manggagawang pangkalusugan sa patuloy na takot ng marami sa bakuna laban sa dengue o Dengvaxia.

Ayon sa mga ekspertong nabanggit, higit na nakababahala ang sakit at pinsalang idinudulot ng kasalukuyang pagkabalisa ng marami sa bakunang laban sa dengue.

Halimbawa, hindi na lamang ang Dengvaxia ang tinatanggihan kundi pati na ang iba pang bakuna at kahit na ang gamot laban sa bulate. Ayon sa Department of Health (DOH), ang pagtanggi sa bakuna laban sa tipdas ay isang sanhi ng pagsiklab ng tipdas sa Davao nitong nakaraang buwan.

Ayon din sa mga eksperto may lugar pa rin ang Dengvaxia sa programa ng pagbabakuna ng DOH, at ang pagtanggal nito sa merkado ay hindi nakabubuti.

Hindi tuloy mawala sa isip kong may masamang motibo ang mga pulitiko, ilang media, at ilang pariwarang doktor sa tuluyang panggagatong nila sa takot at balisa sa Dengvaxia. Tila handa nilang isakripisyo ang kalusugan ng bayan para sa sariling yabang o ganansya.

Walang ibang magagawa ang mga tunay na may puso para sa mahihirap kundi maglabas ng mga datos at maayos na paliwanag na nawa’y pakinggan ng tao. Pangalawang artikulo ko na ito tungkol sa Dengvaxia.

Sa una kong artikulo tinalakay ko kung safe at epektibo ang bakunang ito. Ang maiksing sagot ay “oo”. Nguni’t upang higit na maintindihan kung bakit hindi dapat mag-panic, pakibasa na lamang po ang artikulo.

Tinalakay ko rin kung dapat ikatakot ang report ng Sanofi na sa bawa’t 1,000 kataong hindi pa nagkaka-dengue bago mabakunahan, maaaring madagdagan ng 5 katao ang maoospital at dalawang katao ang magkakaroon ng “severe” dengue.

Ang sagot ay napakaliit ng tsansang mangyayari ito sa mga anak ninyong nabakunahan, at ang “severe dengue” na nireport ng Sanofi ay hindi yung tipong nakamamatay. Lahat po ng nagkaganito ay naka-recover.

Kaya’t hindi kataka-taka sa aking pinasubalian ng mga eksperto ng PGH ang karimarimarim na balita ng PAO na 14 na ang napatunayan nilang namatay dahil sa Dengvaxia. Ayon sa PGH panel, 3 lamang sa 14 ang nabakunahan at hindi ito nagpalala ng dengue nila. Malamang, anila, hindi naging epektibo ang bakuna. Malayo ito sa sinasabing ang bakuna ang naging dahilan ng pagkamatay.

Kaya din naman ako tuluyang nagtataka ay kahit anong paliwanag, ano mang pruweba ang ibigay, tuloy pa rin ang fake news at dinadagdagan pa ang isyu.

Ang bagong isyu naman ay tungkol sa kung tama ang testing ng Dengvaxia. Ang simpleng sagot ulit ay: “oo”.

Babalikan ko ang paraang ginamit ko sa naunang artikulo: isang tanong, isang sagot tungkol sa paano tumutuklas ng mga bagong bakuna.

Tanong: Ano ang 'clinical trials'?

Sagot: Ginagawa ang mga clinical trials upang maalaman kung ligtas at epektibo ang isang bakuna, gamot, o teknolohiyang pangkalusugan. Taon, kundi dekada, ang testing na nagaganap sa laboratoryo bago humantong ang isang gamot sa clinical trials kung saan tao na ang lumalahok sa testing.

T: Ilan ang mga yugto (o phases) ng clinical trials?

S: Apat po ang phases. May 3 yugto ng testing o clinical trials bago payagan ang isang manufacturer na ibenta ang gamot sa publiko. At ang huling yugto naman ay dapat gawin kung nais nilang mabigyan ng patuloy na permisong magbenta.

T: Ano ang phase 1?

S: Isang maliit na grupo (20 to 100) ng malulusog na indibidwal na kusang pumapayag (volunteers) ang binibigyan ng gamot upang malaman kung makapipinsala sa kanila ang paggamit nito. Inaalam din kung ano ang mga posibleng side effect kung tinataasan ang dosage ng gamot. Kadalasa'y ginagawa ito sa loob ng ilang buwan. Maaring hindi na po bigyan ng permiso ang drug company na tumuloy sa phase 2 kung hindi pumasa sa phase na ito.

T: Ano ang phase 2 clinical trials?

S: Sa phase 2, higit sa maraming tao ang dumadaan sa higit na matagal na testing. Maaring umabot ng 1,000 katao at dalawang taon. May standard na paraan na po ito. Hinahati ang dalawang grupo ng mga volunteer. Isa ay binibigyan ng bagong gamot at ang isang grupo naman ay hindi binibigyan ng kahit anong gamot o ng kasalukuyang gamot na tinaguriang pinakamahusay para sa sakit. Hindi alam ng lahat, ng mga doktor, at ng mga pasyente, kung alin sa dalawang grupo ang nakakatanggap ng bagong gamot. Sa ganitong paraan nalalaman ng drug company at ng FDA kung higit na mabisa at ligtas ang gamot na bago kumpara sa mga dati nang ginagamit.

Maaring hindi na po bigyan ng permiso ang drug company na tumuloy sa susunod na yugto (phase 3) kung hindi pumasa sa phase na ito.

T: Ano ang phase 3 clinical trials?

S: Tuloy po ang testing nguni’t higit na matagal na panahon at sa 1,000 tao. Tulad ng phase 2 sinisigurong hindi alam ng mga kalahok kung sino ang nabibigyan ng gamot at sinisigurado ring hindi pinipili ang mga tipo ng kalahok na tiyak na gagaling at hindi magkakaroon ng side effects. Ibig sabihin, ang mga kalahok ay may iba’t ibang klaseng pangangatawang kahalintulad ng milyon kataong bibigyan ng gamot. Kapag pumasa sa phase 3, bibigyan na ng FDA ng pahintulot ang drug company na ibenta ang bakuna o gamot sa merkado.

T: Ano ang phase 4 clinical trials?

S: Tuloy po ang pag-monitor ng gamot habang ginagamit na ito ng publiko. May ilang layunin ang monitoring na ito. Nguni’t para sa isyu ng Dengvaxia, ang mahalaga ay ang patuloy na pag-alam kung ito ay may side effects na makikita lamang kapag ilang daang libo o milyong tao na ang gumagamit nito sa mahabang panahon. Samakatuwid, hindi naman malalaman ang tunay na bisa at panganib ng gamot hangga't hindi ito gagamitin ng mga ordinaryong tao sa loob ng mahabang panahon.

T: Dumaan ba ang Dengvaxia sa lahat ng phases ng clinical trials?

S: Opo. At hindi lang FDA ng Pilipinas ang nag-certify kundi ang FDA ng 18 pang bansa.

T: Ginawa bang optional ng FDA ng Pilipinas sa ilalalim ni Dr Kenneth Hartigan Go ang Phase 4 trial?

S: Hindi po. Sa halip ay hinigpitan pa ito ng FDA. Hinigpitan ng 2013 circular ng FDA ang phase 4 clinical trials. Inilabas ang circular na ito nang dalawang taon bago pa man nag-apply ang Sanofi para sa Dengvaxia. Malinaw na pagsisinungaling na binago ang batas para sa Sanofi.

Mahaba ang circular na maaaring basahin dito. Para sa isyung ito kailangang malaman ng publiko na sa halip na humingi ng report ng 3,000 pasyente, yung tinatawag na post marketing surveillance, humihingi ang FDA ng periodic safety update report na sinasakop ang higit na nakararaming pasyente at pinauulat din ang findings sa ibang bayan.

Hindi tinanggal ang Phase 4 na post-marketing surveillance at hindi ito “parallel phase 4”, tulad ng sinasabi ng ibang komentaryo sa social media. Ito po ay higit na mahigpit na monitoring ng mga gamot sa merkado, kasama na ang Dengvaxia.

T: Binabayaran po ba ang mga doktor at scientists upang gumawa ng clinical trials?

S: Opo. Pati po mga volunteers ay may bayad.

T: Bayad po sila, samakatuwid may interes silang palabasing epektibo at safe ang gamot?

S: Sa proseso po ng clinical trails (tingnan ulit ang phase 3 and 4) hindi po malalaman ng mga doktor kung alin sa grupong tinesting nila ang nabigyan ng bagong gamot. Dahil hindi nila alam kung alin sa mga grupo ang kanilang papaburan, wala silang kakayahang lutuin ang datos.

T: Hindi pa rin ba higit na mabuting hindi ang mga drug company ang gumagawa ng clinical trials?

S: Sa isang perpektong mundo, dapat siguro, gobyerno ang nagpapatakbo at magbabayad. Nguni’t sa tagal at gastos ng proseso ng pagtuklas ng bagong gamot, wala pong pag-unlad ang mangyayari ngayon kung hindi magtutulungan ang drug companies at gobyerno. Gayun pa man, hindi naman tamang lahat ng mga doktor na nag-testing ng gamot, partikular ang Dengvaxia, ay agad pagsususpetsahan na may masamang motibo.

T: Nguni’t sa Phase 3 pa lamang, lumabas na ang posibilidad na hindi ito dapat ibigay sa hindi pa nagkaka-dengue. May ilang doktor na nagbigay ng warning tungkol dito. Hindi ba ito pruwebang naging pabaya ang World Health Organization at gobyerno?

S: Hindi po. Sa pagsabi kung ano ang aaprubahan na gamot at kung paano ang tamang paggamit nito, ang tamang paraan ay ang paggawa ng “cost-benefit analysis”, kung saan inaalam natin ang maaaring pinsalang dala ng gamot at tinitimbang natin ang maaring benepisyo nito. Kung ang isang tao ay nagsasabi lamang ng tungkol sa pinsala ng isang bagay, lalabas ngang tama siya. Pero hindi siya ekspertong nagbibigay ng impormasyon upang gumawa ng mga tamang desisyon ang gobyerno at taumbayan. 

Halimbawa, may panganib naman talaga ang sumakay ng kotse, jeep, at bus. Noong 2015, may 10,012 na namatay sa mga aksidente sa daan. Higit sa 500 nito ay mga bata. At tumataas ang bilang bawa’t taon. Gagamit ka ba ng sasakyan?

Kung sabihin kong, “Huwag! Huwag na magbigay ng pahintulot ang gobyernong gumamit ng sasakyan. Nagbabala akong may mga mamamatay dahil sa aksidente sa sasakyan. Maglakad na lang!” Pupurihin mo ba ako at sasabihing, “Huwaw, ang galing mo, dok,” kapag nabalitaan mong marami nga ang namatay dahil sa aksidente?

Di kaya ang higit na magaling na payo ang sabihing kung lumabas ka ngayon at sumakay ka ng jeep, ano ang tsansa mong maaaksidente – maliit, malaki, o halos wala? Di ba higit na makatutulong kung sabihin kong, “Dahil sa kanto lang naman ang punta mo, kahit malamang na hindi ka naman maaaksidente, mabuti pa ring maglakad ka na lang. Makabubuti ito sa iyong kalusugan at tiyak na iiwas ka sa pinsala ng aksidente sa sasakyan. Pero kung uuwi ka ng probinsya dahil gusto mong makita si Nanay, sumakay ka ng bus pero piliin mo yung kompanyang maganda ang safety record at magsuot ng seatbelt sa biyahe.”

Alam niyo ba kung paano tayo nagkaroon ng payo at batas para sa seatbelt? Dahil sa karanasan ng maraming sumasakay. Sa lahat din ng teknolohiya, nagbabago ang paraan ng paggamit habang inaaral natin ang “side effects” nito sa tunay na mundo.

Uulitin natin. Nang inirekomenda ng WHO at ng gobyernong bakunahan lahat ng batang higit sa 9 na taong gulang sa mga lugar na mataas ang rate ng dengue, ginawa nila ito dahil sa tamang cost-benefit analysis. 

Uulitin natin na kahit may panimulang datos na maaaring hindi ito dapat ibigay sa hindi pa nagkakadengue, batay sa hawak na datos, may sapat na batayang sabihing hindi malaking pinsala ang mangyayari. Uulitin ko rin na hanggang ngayon, kahit anupaman ang sinasabi ng mga nagmimistulang eksperto, wala ni isang kasong napatunayang may namatay. Hindi po totoong sinugal ang buhay ng kahit isang bata sa cost-benefit analysis na ginawa sa bakuna laban sa dengue.

T: Ano po ang dapat nating gawin ngayon?

S: Ipagpatuloy po ang pagbabakuna sa mga bata at sa sarili sa ilalim ng programa ng DOH sa bakuna. Kasama na po ang deworming. Gamitin ang pagkakataong ito upang higit na maintindihan ang tungkol sa mga bakuna at gamot. Matuto rin nang mga tamang paraan ng pagpili ng ekspertong papaniwalaan.– Rappler.com

Si Sylvia Estrada Claudio ay isang doktor ng medisina na doktorado rin ng sikolohiya. Bilang isang ordinaryong manggagamot na ilang dekada nang bumababad sa mga mahihirap na pamayanan, nakasanayan na niyang ipaliwanag ang mga sinasabi ng mga eksperto sa ordinaryong mamamayan. 

Walden Bello misses the point altogether. (READ: Circling the wagons: The 'Doctors for Truth' and the Dengvaxia scandal)

Those of us who signed the Statement in the "doctorfortruth" website did so because we wanted to mitigate the dangerous repercussions of the actions and words of the people Mr Bello refers to as "pests" and the other personalities he describes in his piece as "grandstanders, ambulance chasers, and opportunists". 

They are far from "pests" given their stature and access to media. Whether they realize it or not, they have great influence on the minds and attitudes of our people.

It is not the intention of those who signed the Statement to defend Sanofi or those who were responsible for the government's Dengvaxia program. We have said time and again in subsequent statements that "let charges be filed where they should be filed. But spare the country."

Neither was it the intention of the doctors and non- doctors to "circle the wagon" just to protect physicians.

The Statement was meant to implore everyone involved to pause and to realize that all the grandstanding and the antics were causing an erosion in our people's confidence in almost all healthcare programs of the government; not just vaccinations.

As those on the ground will attest to, even deworming programs and things as innocuous as vision screening programs of the DOH are now looked upon with suspicion. In some areas, less than 1% of parents are consenting to having their children vaccinated or dewormed because of the actions of the people Mr Bello refers to as mere "pests". 

This situation, if not halted, will lead to a resurgence of deadly epidemics of preventable diseases like our country has never seen since the advent of vaccines. And in a global society, what happens in the Philippines affects the world.

Think of the measles epidemic in Davao City and multiply this a hundred fold around the country to include other preventable diseases such as pertussis, mumps, rubella, typhoid, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the long eradicated polio; all happening simultaneously because of the dismal rate of vaccinations. 

This will happen with certainty if the present trend is not reversed. And this will happen within the Duterte administration and beyond. This prospect is far more dreadful than the increased risk by 0.2% of getting grade 1 and 2 dengue that may occur after Dengvaxia vaccination in seronegatives compared to those vaccinated after having gotten dengue before, and from which all have been reported to recover. This is according to the latest available worldwide scientific data.

But it is not the purpose of this reply to argue the real versus the hyped statistics of dengue risks or to hair split the conditional recommendation given by the WHO for the use of Dengvaxia in May 2016. We leave that to the policy makers who made that decision.

It is simply to clarify the main reason why over 600 people composed of concerned citizens, teachers, physicians and nurses who have direct contact with patients and parents, have signed the statement thus far.

It is not necessary for the persons who have signed the Statement in "doctorfortruth" to disclose if any are connected with Sanofi. This is not the point.  

Although for the record I state that I have no professional or financial relationship with Sanofi. The persons who signed the statement despite their fear of being bashed in the aftermath should not be put on the defensive for giving a voice to the thousands who have been feeling helpless and have been suffering in silence for over two months in the face of all the sweeping statements and cruel accusations flying all over the place which we know in our hearts are wrong and harmful, and which have brought only more confusion, panic, and anger to an already agitated public.

It would have been a sin not to speak out.

Now that we have said our piece, we leave it up to our government, the public and media to either listen or ignore our message. We are not here to pick a fight.  We come in peace. As healers we will continue to try to prevent the impending disaster by educating and calming our people even if we have to do it one patient at a time. And this is no easy task.

Mr Bello can Google us one by one if that is his pleasure. – Rappler.com

Dr Minguita Padilla (Ma. Dominga B. Padilla, MD, FPAO) is an ophthalmologist. She is a clinical associate professor of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital. She is also an active consultant at the St Luke’s Medical Center, Global City. She has no financial or professional relationship whatsoever with Sanofi. 

Dread. And a disturbing sense of déjà vu. Those are my gut reactions to hearing about the Supreme Court’s 10-5 vote to uphold the validity of the second extension of martial law over the entirety of Mindanao, this time for another whole year. 

Surprise came when Duterte first sought the extension for such a long period of time (twice as long as the original extension, which all adds up to 565 days of martial law over the entire Mindanao since its first declaration on May 23, 2017), especially after the AFP and PNP have been unqualifiedly successful in responding to the threats posed by the Maute group. 

Shock came when Congress approved the request for a second extension, seeming to prove that Congress, as an institution, has become a mob-ruled rubber stamp for Malacañang. Had I been there and able to ask my questions of the resource persons, I would have asked the government, and especially the AFP, what it thinks “martial law” means. 

Because if they can’t even define martial law and state what martial law powers they’ve been using thus far and seek to use in the future, how can they reasonably expect Congress – the representatives of the people – to grant their request? No self-respecting Congress would hand over to the military the authority to wield a power that the latter does not even understand. That’s a recipe for abuse and disaster.

Hence, the dread. Dread because the Supreme Court could have stopped these excesses, as the Constitution intended it to do. 

Note, as was pointed out by the petitioners, the Constitution requires two things: (1) the presence of invasion or rebellion; and (2) that public safety requires the declaration of martial law. 

Actual rebellion, and not imminent threat, is required. Do we see now any actual rebellion in Marawi City, or any part of Mindanao? Besides, the mere existence of rebellion is not sufficient to serve as basis for the declaration of martial law (otherwise, we would have been in a perpetual state of martial law since there is always a rebellion, or some form of it, somewhere). That is not enough; in addition, public safety must require its declaration. 

And the role of the Supreme Court is clear. It is empowered – nay, obligated– to determine the sufficiency of the factual basis of the proclamation of martial law or its extension.

Sapat ba? Ibig sabihin dapat may magaganap na pagtitimbang. When we measure what is “sufficient” minimum wage for a family’s subsistence, we weigh several factors, including the average size of the family and the prices of commodities. Ganun din sa batas militar. Sapat ba ang basehan para sa hinihinging lawak at tagal ng deklarasyon ng martial law? May sapat na dahilan ba?

Yes, martial law is so extreme that its proclamation or extension is one of the instances when the Supreme Court does become a trier of facts.

It will be interesting to see how 10 justices justified finding sufficient factual basis for such a long period of martial law over such a large geographic scope for the extension. 

I use “interesting” euphemistically because the truth is, I am afraid. Afraid that the reality is that the Supreme Court only functions as it should under “fair weather” administrations – when leaders of the other branches respect the law and the Constitution.

I am afraid because, ironically and unfortunately, it is precisely when fair weather passes into foul weather that we need them to be at their strongest. Hindi puwedeng matapang lamang ang Korte Suprema 'pag marunong sumunod sa batas ang ibang sangay ng gobyerno. By definition, dapat mas marunong at handang manindigan ang Korte Suprema kapag pasaway ang nasa Malacañang at Kongreso.

I am at least still hoping that the reasoning of the majority maintains some standards that will ensure that future excesses will be avoided. Otherwise, all the safeguards that the Constitution has put in place will be for nothing, and all bets are off with this administration.

Depending on how carefully written the Supreme Court’s ponencia would prove to be, I fear that this could stage the possibility of declaring martial law over the whole nation on the whim of a president who is faced with a problem that could easily be addressed by measures less drastic than martial law, such as resorting to his power to call out the military to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion.

This is especially necessary because this administration is pushing for so many drastic changes, including Charter Change. Can you even imagine being an ordinary Juan dela Cruz having to go out and cast a vote in a plebiscite for a Charter Change backed by the administration, while there is martial law? Actually, we don’t have to imagine, not even those who couldn’t remember the last martial law. 

Just 4 years ago, the Crimean legislature held a referendum asking the local population whether they wanted to join Russia as a federal subject, or if they wanted to be a part of Ukraine – a referendum that took place during a Russian military takeover of Crimea. Obviously, the referendum was a resounding “success” in favor of Russian annexation. 

Yes, I am afraid. The Supreme Court is our last bastion for the Rule of Law – but it has now surrendered 1/3 of our country to martial rule for an entire year, even when the AFP and the rest of the government itself has conceded that the threat is far from being as great as it was before. 

There is also a disturbing sense of déjà vu because there was a time when the Supreme Court was a rubber stamp for a dictator. We thought those days are behind us. Or are they? What if it's true what they say, that the past has a way of not staying in the past?

Or, perhaps, this is the Supreme Court’s – and, in fact, our entire nation’s – chance for a do-over. Our very own “Groundhog Day: Martial Law Edition”. Where we are all Phil, who has to live the same day over and over again until he – we– get it right. Will the Supreme Court get its role right this time? Or will we have to live through another dictatorship that a High Court, by its actions and inactions, will legitimize? 

Dread and déjà vu. Two hard-to-define sensations that have probably helped our ancestors avoid or survive dangerous situations. Do we heed them or do we stubbornly ignore them? – Rappler.com

Sociology’s task is to destroy society’s last acceptable prejudice.

We are inspired by this duty today, the 14th of February, as we challenge the tyranny of couple culture. (READ: #LoveWins: The tyranny of intimacy)

We do not take the word tyranny lightly. In fact, we find this to be the most suitable term to describe the dominance of couple culture for centuries.

From the romanticism in the Victorian era to the aspirational hashtag #couplegoals, romantic relationships are celebrated as the most profound embodiment of love, fidelity, and devotion.

Deconstructing couplehood

We find this problematic. Idealizing couple culture obscures relations of power that can be dangerously oppressive.

Sociology has a lot to say about this. 

For Friedrich Engels, couplehood, formalized through marriage, is a means of regulating private property through inheritance. Inasmuch as marriage is between contracting partners, commitment is also an ideological tool that conceals class interests.

For Talcott Parsons, intimacy is not only romantic. It is also moral. Its normative power lies in keeping a couple together and their nuclear family. Bound up within this intimacy is the (hetero)sexual division of labor: the husband as the hardworking breadwinner and the wife as the caring mother. Nuclear families, in order for them to be considered "functional", must have both, and if they don’t, they are judged as broken.

Zygmunt Bauman perhaps is the most pessimistic. As we live at a time of rampant individualism and technological development, postmodern love has become a commodified game of swiping left and right, of finding a partner, an act that is comparable to shopping for "mundane objects of utility". Emotional attachments are thus fleeting.

Powerful fantasy

And yet, couplehood remains to be a powerful fantasy today. "Destiny", "couple goals", and "forever" are some of the ways we portray couplehood as the embodiment of completeness.

How can anyone fault couples who bask in the glorious rays of the sunset, one's head on the other's shoulder?

It is improper to fault them. Romantic relationships, after all, can be empowering. They may inspire us to be the best versions of ourselves.

But it is also unfair to think that only couples can love and be truly happy in this world.

To glamorize coupledom is to foster a sense of inferiority among those who opt for other ways of organizing their lives, as if something is missing, as if there is something wrong with them.

At the same time, to glamorize coupledom is to deny that there are those among us who have to deal with the reality of abandonment. They chose to love but have been left behind anyway. In a culture that celebrates coupledom, they are failures. (READ: The pain of being alone)

Nothing could be more tyrannical than this.

Democratizing relationships

We must stop considering couplehood as the pinnacle of love and devotion. It’s 2018. It’s time to democratize our view of relationships to something more inclusive and less hierarchical.

We often forget that people who are not part of the couple culture are also engaged in meaningful relationships anchored on virtues of love and devotion. Solo parenting, serial monogamy, full-time care roles, committed, long-term friendships, and deliberate singlehood are life choices that are not of lesser status than coupledom.

There are also those who manifest their love as a lifelong commitment to a cause. They belong to communities – political, ethical, and even religious – through which they are making a difference. These are the teachers, activists, counselors, and social workers in our midst. Expressing concern for those around them, their “radical happiness” is a far cry from romantic love.

Couplehood, in other words, is not the pinnacle of love. It is just one of love's many possibilities.

On Valentine's Day, it pays to be reminded that love, in the words of Vincent de Paul, is "inventive, even to infinity". It's time that we embrace love in all its colors and inspiring diversity. – Rappler.com

Nicole Curato and Jayeel Cornelio are sociologists. They are engaged in a relationship of mutual care and constructive criticism. They are not a couple. 

Another Filipino woman has come forward to share her #MeToo experience.

Assumption College president Carmen Valdes said she was first sexually abused by an older cousin when she was 6 years old. He went on to “share” her with another older cousin. The abuse went on for two years. Years later, she was abused by a family friend.

Valdes disclosed the abuse for the first time in a book she had written. It took her 60 years to actively speak about it. To this day, she says, she can still smell her abusers. “Just the memory of the scent turns my stomach. One never forgets.”

Her disclosure moved one of her sisters to speak about her own encounter with sexual violence. Her sister had been raped as a child by a carpenter who worked in their home. 

Sexual violence in the Philippines

The first national study on violence against children conducted by the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) showed that 17.1% of Filipino children experience some form of sexual violence while growing up.

These forms of violence range from unwanted touching, having sex videos or photos taken without their consent, and severe sexual violence, like forced consummated oral, anal, or vaginal sex. The usual perpetrators are relatives: brothers, cousins, older sisters or stepmothers/fathers. It is usually someone who is known to and trusted by the family and the victim.

One person is raped every hour in the Philippines.

#MeToo has moved far from being a hashtag to a force that had taken down men from their once untouchable perches of power, compelled companies to re-evaluate corporate policies on what constitutes acceptable workplace behavior, and made individual men and women re-visit and re-assess their past sexual encounters.

#MeToo has sparked conversations and heated debates even among women about the painful but necessary discussions we need to have. In one way or another, it has driven us to examine questionable behavior we may have been guilty of and its impact on others.

But in the Philippines, stories like that of Valdes, of Judy Fugoso, and the various revelations of sexual misconduct in the music scene have done little but ruffle a few features and trigger a few angry whispers in the small circles of the art and music community. There's nothing yet that could be used as a galvanizing force to overhaul the cultural and social norms that enable sexual violence and allow misogynistic views that fuel it.

Duterte afraid of strong women

Whatever attention and traction our own #MeToo movement may have gotten has been muzzled by President Rodrigo Duterte and his complicated love-hate relationship with women.

Running two years into this “relationship,” we know the playbook by now.

Inappropriate statement about women. Citizen indignation. Feeble attempt at a spin by current spokesperson. Repeat.

And the gaslighting continues.

The inappropriate statements run the full spectrum of lewd compliments to rape jokes and the latest, incitement of violence when he encouraged (or is "ordered" a better term?) soldiers to shoot female communist rebels in the vagina because “they are nothing without it.” (READ: From 'fragrant' Filipinas to shooting vaginas: Duterte's top 6 sexist remarks)

Most of womanity would appreciate it if the President kept his filthy mouth away from our vaginas.  But the President continues to be obsessed with women and their body parts, reserving his most vile and repugnant comments for strong women who aren't afraid to challenge him or tell him off. 

A strong woman doesn't need balls. She has a vagina and is like a man in every way except that she has a different body part.

Maybe that’s why Duterte is so scared of strong women that he doesn’t know what to do with them, except degrade, insult, and strip them of their character by reducing them to nothing more than body parts.

Leni Robredo is but a pair of legs and nice smooth knees. Leila de Lima is but a sex tape and a lover. And NPA women rebels are nothing without their vagina.

The frequency and the regularity of his statements have sent us reeling in perennial reaction mode, sending out angry statement after angry statement, posting enraged Facebook update after Facebook update. Personally, I don’t have enough middle fingers for the kind of verbal abuse and degradation we have been subjected to by this president the past months.

We’re too incensed over the President’s latest outlandish statement about women that we don’t have time to process and think about what it is collectively doing to us as a people.

On the surface, the laughter his statements generate point to a desensitization and normalization. It also gives credence to callous statements, like that of Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque about feminists just being “OA” or over acting.

Is that the kind of environment we want for our girls? Is that what we really want to tell our boys?

If it is, then we resign ourselves to living in a toxic culture that permits sexual violence and verbal abuse.

Women like Valdes will be heard but not listened to. They will be pitied but not understood. They will be acknowledged but not helped. Nothing will be done to take on the long, tediou, and iterative process of creating and sustaining positive change.

It certainly will not help that some women – even those who once had the temerity to call themselves women’s rights advocates – rise to Duterte’s defense. They will echo the call to just “ignore it” and choose to look at all the good things Duterte is doing for women. They completely and conveniently overlook the fact that the many (but still limited) liberties Filipino women enjoy today is borne from the pains of women who came before usm the ones who found the courage to speak out and say, “I’m not taking anymore of this shit.”

I am reminded about a man I was meeting with. Over lunch, a man told me that Filipino women had it all. We could go to school, work, dress, and do whatever we want.

“You’re already empowered. What more do you want?” he asked.

That was before the Duterte era, so I gave him a list: divorce, birth control, rights for single mothers. "The Filipina is empowered to decide on most things except when it comes to matters of her heart and her vagina. That is legislated by the State, the Church, and family."

If he had asked me that question today, I would have answered him with one word: respect.

And our own Philippine #MeToo Movement. – Rappler.com 

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

Breakups are the worst. For 3 years and 9 months, I struggled for true love.

The long-term relationship that ended was toxic. I lost myself along the way and for sure it damaged him too. I fought for the relationship because of how long it had lasted, not for how good it was. 

Good thing you and I broke up. You and I had to save ourselves from a hell that I don't want to experience again.

No so-called "3-month rule," no mourning period. There was no better time to move on than right after you and I gave the final closure. 

I have always believed that for every loss, there is someone new to be found. It was a choice to stay optimistic. I had to pick myself up, sort out the good pieces that were left, and open my world to meet new people. I needed a breath of fresh air and asked myself, when was the last time I did something for the first time? I then turned to dating apps.

It started with Tinder, then I downloaded Bumble after, tried Coffee Meets Bagel, and checked out OK Cupid. I juggled 4 dating apps at once.  

Tinder 

I learned how swiping left and right worked on Tinder, matched with people close to my location, chatted with a number of guys, and met someone. 

We matched on a Saturday morning, talked the whole day, then thought of meeting the night after. He's a German-Filipino guy who was here in Manila for vacation. Setting the meet-up worked because he was only 3 kilometers away from my house.

He brought his cousin with him (trust issues and safety purposes, for sure) and we talked for hours at the bar until it closed. I felt he was shy yet interesting. We talked about politics, life abroad, and our interests. We said our goodbyes and at least promised we would meet again.

Nice try, though. Little did I know that telling white lies was his nature. Then the swiping went on.

Bumble

Thank you, little sister, for giving me good advice when it comes to flirting – above all else, ask for someone's birthday. It's all about the zodiac signs and warning signs. If the compatibility fails, walk out as soon as possible.

I was learning better as I swiped more. "Hey, when is your birthday?" "Why?" "Oh, I like asking people their birthday. It's just that." Then the guy gives his birthday. Is the compatibility level good? Or should I keep swiping? Here on Bumble and moving forward, I did this trick over and over. 

Bumble isn't as big as Tinder yet here in the country. Guys are still tolerable here but after a few swipes past nearby people, guys from the provinces are then lined up. There's also a BFF version in case I want to be friends with any gender and take a break from dating. But then again, I opted to focus on the dating side. 

When I match with someone on Bumble, I have to message the guy first in 24 hours. The match expires if the guy doesn't reply 24 hours after my message. 

I matched with a radio DJ, a rugby player, a media partner, a guy who's working in the same building as I do, and a few others who aren't memorable enough to mention. 

I didn't feel any connection with anyone on this app. Talks were casual, short, and boring. Then, friends recommended other dating apps for me to download.

Coffee Meets Bagel

This was the lamest.

I had to pick from a set of guys that CMB randomly chose for me, then I had to wait until noontime the following day to get a new set of guys. It was slow-paced, the guys weren't my type, and the setup wasn't for me. 

Less than a week after downloading this, I knew I was only wasting my time. 

OK Cupid

Finally, OKC was a blessing in disguise for me.

At one glance, each guy's profile is pretty much complete and straightforward. It has their zodiac sign (which sets this apart from the other apps), self-summary (beware of reading long essays), compatibility percentage, and what they're looking for (friends, hookup, or dating).

It didn't take long for me to find my match. Three days after talking from OKC to Telegram, we met in person. Meeting this architect for the first time felt like we knew each other all along in another life. Since then, we were inseparable. 

We talked consistently everyday, met a number of times every week, did new things together, and planned to do more moving forward, until it became official that we're exclusively dating. There's no need to rush because what's important is that we know we're in a state of bliss and beyond. 

Here we go again, feelings. I know it's a risk but sometimes I have to take a leap of faith and trust that it's going to be different this time.

I am thankful the worst things ended to give way for the best one. To meet someone who appreciates me effortlessly, makes me feel alive, and loves me to the point that I never have to beg again. 

He made me feel like I deserve to be happy after all these years. It is surreal to feel something I haven't felt for so long. He made me realize I've been missing so much and that it's never too late to live life without holding back.

We lose track of time when we're together. He saved me when everything was a blur. Thank you for being around and for being you. 

Here's to better days with you, Miguel. We met each other at the right time. Whatever happens, I'm grateful I swiped right for you.– Rappler.com

Sa kahit anong eskandalo, may mga pabida, mga gumagatas sa pagdurusa ng iba, at may mga oportunista. Hindi naiiba ang eskandalo sa Dengvaxia, na ginagatasan ni Senador Dick Gordon para itulak ang kanyang karerang pampulitika, at lantaran namang ginagawang oportunidad ni Persida Acosta ng Public Attorney’s Office para makakuha ng magandang puwesto sa administrasyong Duterte, at nakikita ng mga tagasunod ni Duterte na oportunidad para makaiskor laban sa dating gobyerno ni Aquino.

Mga esktra lang, hindi bida

Sina Gordon, Acosta, at ang mga oportunista ay mga ekstra lamang sa drama tungkol sa Dengvaxia. Hindi sila prinsipal na tagapagganap. Naghahanap tayo ng pagkondena sa statement na inilabas ng tinaguriang “Doctors for Truth” – na pinirmahan ng ilang mga propesyunal sa larangan ng medisina – laban sa Sanofi Pasteur at mga dati at kasalukuyang opisyal ng Kagawaran ng Kalusugan o DOH dahil sa tinatawag ni dating Health Secretary Enrique Ona na “bangungot sa kalusugan ng bansa.”

Ngunit wala tayong matatagpuang ganito sa nasabing statement, kahit pa nga nagkasala ang Sanofi Pasteur, si Janette Garin, at mga opisyal ng DOH at Food and Drug Administration dahil sa pagiging iresponsable at sa paglalagay sa malaking panganib sa mahigit 800,000 batang Pilipino.

Pagdepensa sa mga pangunahing tauhan

Ang makikita sa position paper ng “Doctors for Truth” ay pagdepensa sa mga prinsipal na may kinalaman sa eskandalo ng Dengvaxia, sa pamamagitan nang pagsasabing “walang perpektong bakuna.” Nakalimutan – o kinalimutan? – ng mga doktor na ito na kaya nga nagkakaroon muna ng matinding clinical trial ang mga gamot bago ilabas sa merkado ay para matiyak na gagana at epektibo ang gamot, maiiwasan ang malaking panganib na maaaring dala nito, at mababawasan kung di man mawala ang mga side effect nito.

Di nakapasa ang Dengvaxia sa mahigpit na pamantayan ayon sa “statistical probabalities.” Nakatala pa ito sa isang masusing pagsasaliksik na ang resulta ay lumabas sa isa sa mga pangunahing medical journals, ang New England Journal of Medicine (Volume 373, No. 13; September 24, 2015). Halos kalahati ng sumulat ng research ay may kaugnayan pa mismo sa Sanofi Pasteur.

Lumabas ang report bago pa pumirma ang gobyerno ng Pilipinas ng kontrata sa Sanofi at bago ilunsad ang programa sa pagbabakuna. Ayon sa ulat, nakita sa mga clinical trial na mas mataas ang panganib para sa mga batang di pa nagkaroon ng dengue na nasa isang partikular na gulang nang bakunahan kaysa mga batang dati nang nagkaroon ng dengue.

Dahil sa seryosong implikasyon ng report na nakabahala sa mga editor ng journal, naglabas pa sila ng kasabay na editoryal na may titulong “A Candidate Vaccine Walks a Tightrope.” Ayon sa editoryal, na malaki ang naging epekto sa larangan ng pagsasaliksik, “ang kapansin-pansin ay ang suhestiyon na ang CYD-TDV (Dengvaxia) ay maiuugnay sa mataas na panganib ng hospitalisasyon ng mga batang may dengue, edad siyam at pababa (ngunit mas higit ang panganib sa mga may gulang na 2 hanggang 5 taon) kung magkaroon sila ng dengue sa ikatlong taon matapos mabakunahan. (Sa akin ang paglalagay ng diin.)

Ang kongklusyon ng editoryal: “Kulang pa sa katiyakan ng immune correlates ang bakuna upang maiwasan o mapangalagaan sa panganib ang tatanggap nito. Ang aral na makukuha, at ang intindi namin batay sa kasaysayan ng epidemiology ng dengue, ay hindi katanggap-tanggap ang mahina o papawalang imunidad lang na dulot ng bakuna. Kailangang matindi o ubod ng lakas ang bisa ng bakuna laban sa impeksyon para sa mga nagkaroon na ng sakit at hindi pa…. Patuloy ang paglalakbay sa mabakong daan para sa paghahanap ng bakunang lalaban sa dengue.” (Sa akin ang paglalagay ng diin.)

Sa kabila ng ganitong mga babala mula sa isang mahusay na research team, kasama ang mga tagapagsaliksik mismo ng Sanofi Pasteur, minadali ng kumpanya ang produkto sa merkado para maunahan ang kumpetisyon. Itinulak naman ng DOH ang paggamit ng bakuna sa mahigit 800,000 mga bata noong 2016. Wala man lang imbestigasyon kung ang mga batang ito ay nagkaroon na dati ng dengue o hindi. Hindi kailangang maging eksperto sa medisina upang maintindihan na di katanggap-tanggap sa punto de bista ng pampublikong kalusugan ang ginawang pagmamadali.

Maipupusta ko na hindi nabasa ng mga doktor na pumirma sa statement ang report sa New England Journal of Medicine, dahil walang doktor na may respeto sa sarili na nakabasa ng report ang pipirma sa statement bilang depensa sa kadahilanang “walang perpektong bakuna.”

Ang prinsipyo ng pag-iingat

Idagdag pa sa pagiging iresponsable ng mga pumirma sa statement ang paghiling na huwag alisin ng DOH sa merkado ang bakuna para umano mapangalagaan yaong mga hindi pa napapatunayang nanganganib sa matinding dengue dahil sa bakuna. Taliwas sa naunang sinabi ng Sanofi na mabisa at ligtas ang bakuna para sa mga batang may gulang na 9 hanggang 16, bumawi ang Sanofi at inalis ang exemption sa edad sa kanilang statement noon Nob. 29, 2017.

Sa pag-alis sa bakuna sa merkado, sumusunod lang ang DOH sa matagal nang prinsipyo ng pag-iingat para makatiyak. Hindi sapat na sabihing ligtas na sa matinding dengue ang mga nabakunahan at di sila kabilang sa nanganganib dahil lang wala pang lumilitaw na kaso.

Batay sa mga ulat na mahaharap sa matinding panganib ang mga nabakunahang di pa nagkakadengue, di dapat ipagpatuloy ang pagbabakuna kahit sa iba pang tao, nagkadengue man o hindi pa, dahil mas matagal ang paglabas ng epekto sa iba pang kategorya ng mga pasyente. 

Hindi naman ito nangangahulugan ng permanenteng ban; bago alisin ang ban, kailangan muna ng masusing trials sa mahabang panahon para matiyak na ligtas ang lahat ng kategorya o uri ng tao na tatanggap ng bakuna.

Pagtraydor sa tiwala ng publiko

Nagpahayag ng pagkalungkot ang mga pumirma sa statement ng “Doctors for Truth” dahil umano sa pagtuligsa sa mga eksperto sa mga public hearing. Natanong na ba nila ang mga sarili kung bakit may ganitong pagtuligsa? Nawalan ng tiwala ang mga tao sa mga eksperto sa isyu ng Dengvaxia dahil mismong mga eksperto ang bumigo sa mga tao – sila na mga naturingang eksperto sa Sanofi na nagmadaling ilabas sa merkado ang delikadong bakuna; ang mga eksperto sa DOH na nagsagawa ng malawakang programa sa bakuna sa kabila ng babalang lumabas tungkol sa masamang epekto ng bakuna.

Oo, dapat punahin ang mga pabida na tulad nina Gordon at oportunistang katula ni Acosta. Pero hindi kailangan ng mga magulang sina Gordon, Acosta, o maging si Mocha para sabihan silang mawalan ng tiwala sa mga eksperto na naglagay ng kanilang mga anak sa panganib sa halip na pangalagaan at pahabain ang buhay ng mga ito. Dapat maintindihan kung matatagalan bago muli bumalik ang tiwala ng libo-libong nanay sa DOH at sa programa nito. 

Depensa sa industriya? 

Ano talaga kung gayon ang layunin ng statement? Iniisip ng mga pumirma ang magiging epekto ng eskandalo sa Dengvaxia sa iba pang programa sa pagbabakuna, na ayaw nilang madamay sa panic.

Ngunit dahil sa kawalan ng kahit kaunting pagpuna sa mga prinsipal na may kinalaman sa eskandalo at ang wala-sa-lugar na pagbaling ng atensyon sa mga oportunista, hindi maiiwasang maitanong kung ang layunin ba talaga ng statement ay protektahan ang mga kasamahan sa larangan na malamang ay kasama rin sa paglalagay sa panganib sa pampublikong kalusugan. At dahil wala man lang banggit sa responsibilidad ng Sanofi, maitatanong din natin kung ang statement ba ng “Doctors for Truth” ay pagdepensa sa industriya ng gamot. 

Isang lehitimong isyu ito dahil alam naman kahit saan sa daigdig ang mahigpit na ugnayan ng mga doktor at ng industriya ng gamot. Alam natin ang tungkol sa benepisyo at donasyon na nakukuha ng mga ospital at doktor sa kartel ng mga gamot na kung tagurian ay “Big Pharma.”

Nagsisilbing mga miyembro ng lokal at internasyonal na board ng mga higanteng korporasyon ng gamot ang mga doktor, at ang mga nasa pampublikong kalusugan ay nagiging mga pribadong doktor o kaya’y naninilbihan sa mga korporasyon. Malaking kita ang dala ng paninilbihang ito na maaaring manganib kung hindi dedepensahan ng mga doktor ang mga produkto ng malalaking korporasyon. 

Kung walang dapat itago

Sa kasamaang palad, hindi inilagay ng mga pumirma sa “Doctors For Truth” ang kanilang propesyunal na koneksiyon; di tuloy maiwasang isipin na ginawa nila ito para di matunton ang kanilang kaugnayan sa Sanofi at kartel sa industriya ng gamot, at ang koneksyon nitong lokal, at sa merkado.

Kung wala namang itinatago, makakabuting ilantad ng mga pumirma kung saang ospital o kumpanya sila may kaugnayan, kung meron man sa Sanofi at iba pang miyembro ng global na kartel sa gamot, at ang mga kakampi nilang lokal.

(Basahin ang bersiyon sa Ingles dito.)
(Sagot ni Dr Minguita Padilla, isa sa Doctors for Truth)

– Rappler.com 

Si Walden Bello ay kasalukuyang international adjunct professor sa sosyolohiya sa State University of New York at Binghamton. Siya ay author o co-author ng 20 libro. Siya ang kaisa-isang nagbitiw dahil sa prinsipyo sa buong kasaysayan ng Kongreso ng Pilipinas dahil sa pagkakaiba ng posisyon sa dating Pangulong Benigno Aquino III sa isyu ng Disbursement Acceleration Program, Mamasapano, at ang Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement ng Pilpinas at Estos Unidos.

Call him womanizer or misogynist, call him killer or dictator, and he doesn't seem to mind.

In fact, he even brags about his own women, and he chases prospects impudently. Where the distance prevents him from making a touching pass, he sends out lewd remarks.

He demonstrated his misogyny most perversely in a recent exhortation to shoot the women of the communist New People's Army in the genitals; that, he said, should end their “only usefulness”; he meant child-bearing.

He habitually sprinkles his speech with a cuss phrase that condemns mothers to the oldest profession, although at times he spouts the phrase with a vicious deliberation betrayed in the crispness of the utterance.

By his own admission, dictator is his nature: “If you say dictator, I am really a dictator.” And he did rule as such when he was mayor of Davao City, for more than two decades, and, as president, he has managed to do the same to no small extent.

He has confessed to 4 kills by his own hand, half the number recalled by a man who confessed, at a Senate hearing, to being an assassin on his Davao death squad. "Kill" is in fact his standing order to the police prosecuting his brutal war on drugs, and, with help from vigilantes, they have responded with more than 12,000 kills to date, by modest estimates.

Call him killer, dictator, womanizer, misogynist, whatever, but don't you call him thief. After all, more than president, he is dictator, remember? If he can do what he wants, take what he wants, he does not have to stoop to the level of thief.

That’s how the aberrant mind of Rodrigo Duterte the supreme narcissist works. Except for thief, those things he’s called are exactly the sort that swell his sense of power and machismo. But thief? It does not suit his type. What train of sense he makes, if he makes any, can only be discerned and followed within the context of his disorder – he thinks the way he does because he’s a case.

In his own mind, Duterte will doubtless be able to square his avowed aversion to theft with, say, the kind of company he keeps. But, for now, never mind how he does it – leave that to the clinicians. Let’s just focus on that curious company, for our own normal, useful, and relevant purpose.

Duterte is the presumed leader, being president, of a gang of 4 whose other members are themselves tainted by thievery, by plunder in fact: Joseph Estrada, the former president and now mayor of Manila, is a plunder convict; Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an ex-president, too, and now Deputy Speaker, was accused of the same crime; and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has carried the stigma from the 14-year dictatorship of his father, whom Duterte expressly, avowedly idolizes.

To be sure, Duterte is neither a maverick nor an eccentric. The nuance of unorthodoxy that those descriptions carry does not apply to him; he’s neither admirable nor harmless. At any rate, however superior and different, or even unique, he thinks he is, he has been unable to escape accusations of, if not stealing per se, something that suggests it. What he’s being accused of, for now, anyway, is simply hiding wealth, but wealth that, precisely because it’s hidden, inspires suspicions it was ill-gotten.

The Office of the Ombudsman has reported tracing at least P100 million to secret bank accounts in the names of Duterte and his daughter, Sara, his own successor as mayor of Davao. These findings match some of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s own. It was Trillanes who brought the case to the Ombudsman. He alleges a total hidden wealth of P2 billion. Just this week, he reported uncovering, through his own investigation, bank accounts holding P200 million in Duterte's common-law wife’s name.

At the rate things are turning up, Duterte will be less and less able to avoid being portrayed in terms his ego cannot take – being reduced to a common criminal. In a panicked effort to do something, his enforcers are throwing threats and twisting the law around. But only one way will stop a further cheapening of the President, and he has to do it himself: he must come clean with a waiver.

But, again, there had better be no less than P2 billion in those secret accounts. Nothing cheaper will do it. – Rappler.com

A few days before Valentine’s Day, Duterte again demonstrated that he is a gift that keeps on giving – a gift as unwanted as misogyny, pointless violence, and assault against law, human rights, and human decency inflicted upon an unwilling audience.

It was reported that Duterte recently boasted that he had, in the past, ordered soldiers to shoot female communist rebels in the genitals. It seems to be implied that it’s but a fitting punishment because such women preferred joining rebel forces over raising children. He even allegedly went on to point out that “if there is no vagina, it would be useless.”  

Kung ang isda ay nahuhuli sa bibig, it should be too easy now to catch what this man is all about.  He is a sex-obsessed sociopath who thinks women are only useful if they can give birth and raise children, and it is manly to promote sexual violence.

What Duterte said in the past, and to echo it again now that he has terminated peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines, is a threat. It isn’t a threat against the rebels. It is a threat against the soldiers he purports to lead, and it is a threat against us, the Filipino people.

It is a threat against soldiers because they are being “led” by a person who is unworthy of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them, much less as their commander-in-chief. Why? Because this is a man that would take the honor, dignity, integrity, patriotism, and professionalism of a Filipino soldier, and manipulate it to satisfy his own brutality and bloodlust.  

They will be weaponized to become the very monsters and inflict the very same horrors that they have sworn to protect the state against. He is a corruption that will destroy the institution and the very essence of being a Filipino soldier. I will go out on a limb and say that is not what they are sacrificing their lives and their family’s happiness for.  

Dear soldiers, brave men and women of the Philippine armed forces, let it not be.  

This President is a threat against us, the Filipino people. He is no protector. He is no leader. He is no “strong” man. He is a damaged man. I even pity him, because the damaged person he has become could not have come from healthy experiences. The man needs to seek professional help.  

I know that by expressing all these I risk calling to mind, once again, the misogynistic attacks I suffered at the hands of Duterte and his minions. I will be abused all over again, and my humanity and womanhood attacked and demeaned.  

The most advantageous path for me to take is perhaps to keep quiet and not draw more attention than has already been paid upon me and my personal life. But to do that is to accept the role of a victim – bowed, bent, broken, and silenced.

But that is not who I am. I am whole. I am not just a survivor, I am a warrior. I am a woman, and I refuse to be silenced. Certainly, I will not be cowed because there is more at stake here than my own personal comfort and interests.  

I will speak up for other women and say that we are more than the sum of our reproductive organs. We are human beings deserving of respect for our rights and dignity.  

I will not meekly sit in my detention cell and allow a vengeful, abusive, and ill-minded person to make his brand of violence, brutality, and sickness to become the “new normal” in Philippine society.  

No, this is not normal. This is not right. And people should speak up and say so. – Rappler.com