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Clik here to view.May isang pulitiko. Siguro nakapanood siya ng demo ng pagsulat ng Baybayin sa kung saang high-art at high-heeled cultural event sa Intramuros o Makati. Hayun siya, pinong-pino sa suot na amerikana, holding a goblet of what seemed to be some top-of-the-line bubbly champagne, kasama ang mga amigo at amigang produkto ng mga naglipanang political dynasty na anay ng bansa. 

So, hayun, matamang nanonood si pulitiko, tangan ang goblet. Hindi pinapansin ang amigo na kanina pa tanong nang tanong kung anong oras sila magma-mahjong sa hapong iyon.  

Napamangha si pulitiko sa demo ng isang full-time researcher ng isang inaamag na government agency at part-time Baybayin script demonstrator, na binabayaran ng P300 kada oras kasusulat, gamit ang pinsel, ng pangalan ng kung sinong gustong makitang nakasulat ang pangalan nila na parang kumikislot na bulate. 

Ginagawa ito ni part-time Baybayin script demonstrator tuwing Sabado lang o Linggo, lest mag-absent siya at mabawasan ang kinikita niyang nasa ballpark ng SG 12 na narating lang ng kaniyang matatapos nang MA History sa University of Tabi-tabi.

Nagtaka si pulitiko, puwedeng napabulalas: “Uy, hanep o, ang gandah. Parang.... Basta, ang galing.... Wow, atin ’yan? Weh? Bakit di ko alam?” (Siyempre hindi niya alam. Kakaunti lang ang alam niya, like, minimal na kaalaman, kaya nga ang sagot niya kapag tinatanong ng pinuno ng House ay “aye” lang, lalo kung botohan.)

Tapos siguro nagpademo pa siya nang nagpademo ng Baybayin. “Isulat mo nga ang pangalan ko? Wow! Iyan na ba ’yun? Cooool. Eh ’yung sa asawa ko? Ang galeeeng! Sa mga anak ko? Panalo! Isulat mo nga pangalan ng biyenan ko? Panget talaga kahit sa Baybayin pa.”  

Hawak niya ang pricey pulp paper kung saan isinulat ni part-time Baybayin script demonstrator ang kanilang pangalan. Mamasa-masa pa ang tinta. “Ipapa-frame ko ito, maliban ang sa biyenan ko,” sa isip-isip siguro ni pulitiko. 

Habang pauwi, sakay ng kaniyang SUV na may V8 engine, at habang hawak ang smartphone na may unli-internet service, siguro nag-Google si pulitiko tungkol sa Baybayin. “Wow, ancient Tagalog script pala. Ang lupit! Bakit hindi ko ito alam?” Tapos siguro na-realize niya na kakaunti lang talaga ang alam niya. Kaya tumahimik na lang siya. 

Siguro, habang nananahimik, muling inalala ni pulitiko ang trip niya sa Bangkok last month, nang mapadaan siya doon habang papunta sa Phuket. Tuwang-tuwa siya na hindi niya naiintindihan ang mga nakasulat sa billboard. Ang ganda ng sulat sa Bangkok. Hindi niya maintindihan. Naisip niya, “Sana meron ding ganito sa bansa ko.” Nang bigla siyang napatingala habang nakaipit sa traffic ang SUV niyang may V8 engine. 

Nakita niya ang billboard ng fruit juice na gawa sa kemikal. Pamatid-uhaw. “Awww, sayang, maganda sana kung meron din tayong parang sa Thailand,” napabulalas si pulitiko, “Maganda sana kung marami tayong hindi naiintindihan sa mundo.”

“Teka, meron nga pala tayong Baybayin.” Tinawagan niya ang chief of staff kahit Linggo. 

“Oy, nasaan ka? Ano? Binyagan? Gusto ko ng Baybayin. Oo, Baybayin, ’yung sulat-sulat natin na ancient na parang bulate.... Oo, hinde, oo, basta, ’yung napanood ko kanina. Ang ganda, parang kakaiba na kapareho ng sa Thailand at script-script ng Sanskrit at Chinese. ’Pakita ko sa iyo bukas. Oo, Baybayin. I-Google mo, tatanga-tanga ka. Ha? May nag-file na sa Kongreso? Naunahan ako? Ano ang bagong pagbobotohan? Sige, mag-a-‘aye’ na lang uli ako kapag tinanong. K, thanks, bye.”

Kinabukasan, nakahanda na ang papel-papel tungkol sa Baybayin. Naks. May quote-quote pa galing sa kung kani-kanino. Ayos. Mukhang seryoso. 

“Pirmahan ko ito,” isang dakilang mithiin ang natupad ng pulitiko.  

***

Pero siyempre, hindi ito totoo. Ang mahalaga lamang ay iyong totoo, na aprubado na komite ang House Bill 1022 o ang “Declaring ’Baybayin’ as the National Writing System of the Philippines, Providing for Its Promotion, Protection, Preservation and Conservation, and for Other Purposes” o mas higit na kikilalanin kung ganap na magiging batas bilang “National Writing System Act.”   

Iyan, malapit-lapit na iyan sa katotohanan.  

Kung ano itong Baybayin, one just needs to do a bit of Googling. I-type mo lang ang salitang “Baybayin.” O ha, ang ganda ng pigura, di ba? Meron pala tayo nito. Puwede ka pang magpasalin ng salita mula sa alpabetong kinasanayan natin patungong Baybayin. Hindi ko nga lang alam kung reliable. I-type mo lang sa Google ang “Baybayin translate,” at tadaaaaah, ang ganda ng kulot-kulot at kurba-kurbadang salitang katumbas ng gusto mong ipasalin. 

Bueno, maganda naman yata ang hangarin ng batas. Huwag ’nyo na lang masyadong pansinin ang un-Congress-like explanatory note na nagpapanggap na academic paper ng isang iskolar na mahilig mag-quote ng kung sino-sino. Heto, binabasa ko ngayon ang pdf file na matatagpuan sa website ng Kamara. 

Gustong ipatanghal sa atin, sa bawat pagkakataong pupuwedeng itanghal, ang Baybayin script para sa “respect and pride for the legacies of Filipino cultural history, heritage, and our authentic identity.” Ano man ang ibig sabihin nito.  

Tatawaging “National Writing System” ang Baybayin, at para palaganapin ito, lahat ng etiketa, opisyal na ngalan ng mga pampublikong tanggapan, ngalan ng kalye, at mga pahayagan ay dapat na mayroong salin sa Baybayin. 

Ipinagkakatiwala ng panukala sa mga ahensya at sangay ng pamahalaan ang pagsasalin, pagpapatupad, at pagtataguyod ng Baybayin sa kani-kanilang nasasakupan. So? 

Wala naman. Hindi ko matawag na pangangailangan ito maliban siguro sa isang malaking hakbang na gawing novelty at i-trivialize ang Baybayin higit sa silbi nito bilang tattoo sa maraming culturally-inclined na rakista at privileged upper middle-class tambay: “Look how cool my tattoo looks oh, that’s my pet’s name in Baybayin.... Cute, ’no?”

Oo, masayang makita ang kikislot-kislot na simbolo ng tunog ng iyong pangalan ng iyong alagang aso, o tunog ng mga sikat na tatak ng toyo o sardinas o fruit juice na kemikal (auditory ang pagsulat ng Baybayin, sa tunog nakabatay ang baybay), pero higit sana dito ay bigyan muna ng prayoridad ang iba pang mas mahalaga. Pagbibigay ng premium sa sektor ng edukasyon, halimbawa.  

Dahil bukod sa minamadaling mangmangin ang taumbayan buhat sa naglipanang pabrika ng disinformation, dapat ding turuan ang marami sa atin na hindi lang dapat sana puro “aye!” ang alam. Alam ’nyo na, parang ’yung pulitiko kanina. – Rappler.com

Bukod sa pagtuturo ng creative writing, pop culture, and research sa Unibersidad ng Santo Tomas, writing fellow din si Joselito D. De Los Reyes, PhD, sa UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies at research fellow sa UST Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities. Board member siya ng Philippine Center of International PEN. Siya ang kasalukuyang tagapangulo ng Departamento ng Literatura ng UST. 

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Back in college, my thesis professor required us to write a term paper in Baybayin.

It was not that hard to learn. I initially wrote down my thoughts using the Latin/Roman script, the one we have been taught to use since childhood, and then translated those into Baybayin script.

I would not say I would be able to read what I wrote later with the same ease with which I read typical articles and books in English and even Filipino now (since even Filipino language content is typically written in the L script). I write this to illustrate what process this country has to go through in order to actualize a law that prescribes the use of Baybayin as the national writing system.

First: Who will be able to read and write in Baybayin?

Current literacy rates in the Philippines, based most likely on the Latin/Roman writing system, is over 90% of the population.

I guarantee you though that the percetage of those who can read, much less write in Baybayin, is much, much lower – probably less than 1%.

I am not sure that the Philippine Statistics Authority even measures knowledge of this ancient script.

I certainly would not count myself in that 1%.

My own very meager experience in its use does not make me totally literate in this system of writing. My literacy level in Baybayin is probably no more than a child just learning to put together letters to form words, or to make out words out of a string of characters.

Imagine the kind of struggle that somebody who has not even gone beyond writing or reading sentences in the more prevalent systems of writing, will have to go through.

Second: What will you read in Baybayin?

People are compelled to learn to read content written in certain writing systems if there is enough literature written using those systems to begin with. Is there enough literature in Baybayin to motivate people to read in it?

If there is none, why would a child who is having enough difficulty learning math or writing legibly even begin to start developing this skill? What is the point of adding that to an already overloaded curriculum?

The idea to start with signages seemed laudable. But would this not simply add to the clutter that is already out there?

Consider: Our road signages are already too wordy to begin with that they are not readable and effective anymore, road safety advocate Vince Lazatin points out.

Don't let me get started on who will pay for new ink, new paint, and new designs needed just so that these signages will conform with the provisions of the law.

Who will write, edit, and make sure that these are accurately written? And after all that effort, who will read them? 

Finally, you have laws and regulations. When you say Baybayin will be the national writing system, does that mean our laws will be written in Baybayin? We do not even legislate in Filipino. We legislate in English. Some of our legal terms are in Latin. How do you translate all of that to Baybayin?

Are any of the legislators who voted for this proposed measure even literate in this writing system?

My point is that there are better ways to encourage literacy in a language or a writing system than legislation.

For instance, why not encourage creative writers to write unique content in Baybayin?

Why not provide incentives for literature in this writing system to flourish? 

Filipino poetry written in this ancient Filipino text would make lovely decorative pieces. I personally would love to display verses from Florante at Laura in Baybayin script. 

Since we are in the digital age, it might also be good to incentivize the development of digital tools, keyboards, or devices that can allow people to write in Baybayin in the same way people are able to type in Chinese and Arabic fonts. In fact, even without legislation, you see quite a lot of tools online already that allow people to type content in Baybayin script.

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts – if it is not already doing so  – may want to hold contests in best Baybayin calligraphy.

I know young Filipino kids who learn Japanese on their own because they like anime written in Japanese. If we want Baybayin to flourish, would this not be the better approach? – Rappler.com

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It's no secret where Ferdinand Marcos Jr  Bongbong falls more or less in the scheme of things: he represents his family in the reigning Gang of Four, with President Duterte and former Presidents Gloria Arroyo and Joseph Estrada. Duterte himself has acknowledged the collaboration.

During the electoral campaign of 2016, without caring to embarrass his own running mate – who seemed himself beyond embarrassment, anyway – he repeatedly declared his preference for Marcos, a rival party's candidate, for his vice president. 

Then, upon his election, just as unembarrassed for himself, he acknowledged an indebtedness to the Marcoses for having accepted money from them for his campaign; he made no mention, of course, of the corresponding impoverishment suffered by the nation for the plunder perpetrated by the Marcoses and their cronies. And, soon after taking office, Duterte began paying back by getting Supreme Court approval for his wish for a hero's burial for his professed idol, Ferdinand Sr, the Marcos patriarch and martial law dictator.

But Duterte got neither Bongbong nor his forsaken partner, Alan Peter Cayetano, as his vice president; he got someone out of left field instead, someone who he knew for certain would be a spoiler of the plots he and his gang intended to hatch. He got Leni Robredo. 

Duterte quickly shut her out of his government, and kept her office on a shoestring. Even so, she has managed to do work that makes a difference in the lives of many of the neglected poor, mostly poor in remote island communities, by providing rudimentary amenities of life – small boats for fishing and transportation, artesian wells, ambulances, school materials. She is able to do this through complex arrangements of trust made necessary by laws that restrict dealings between state officials like her and philanthropists.

Her profile thus remaining respectably high, the Duterte regime is not stopping to get her out of the way, completely. Actually, she has been one of Duterte's 4 misogynistic targets, 4 women with whom his own gang suffers dismally in comparison in character and quality of public service:

• Senator Leila de Lima, the human-rights champion who has hounded Duterte since even before he became president, has been disposed of to jail to await trial on a trumped-up charge. Still, she could not be stopped firing off her criticisms of the Duterte regime, and, like Robredo, she gains in esteem from her continuous persecution. 
• The young, assertive, and reformist Chief Justice, Maria Lourdes Sereno, after blocking Duterte’s incursions into her jurisdiction, has found herself fighting off her own court's Duterte-coopted majority, now out to oust her. 
• The ombudsman, Conchita Carpio-Morales, a former Supreme Court justice herself, and a well respected one, has been threatened with impeachment. Her office is investigating Duterte and some of his family on suspicion of ill-gotten wealth. If he’s not moving on his threat, it’s probably because he reckons time is on his side – Morales’ term ends in 3 months. 

But Leni Robredo is not going away soon or on her own; she has more than 4 years yet on her term, like Duterte. That’s why all sorts of machinations are employed to get her out – out, that is, in favor of Bongbong. 

Driven by a habit of power cemented during 14 years (1972-1986) of family autocracy and by its attendant hatred to lose, he lost no time in taking Robredo to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, accusing her of – irony of ironies –  cheating him out of the vice presidency. With a suitable gang, a suitable court, indeed a suitably pathologically hospitable setting, how can one lose? 

Made up of the same justices of the same conniving Supreme Court, the Presidential Electoral Tribunal has been quick to indulge him: it not simply bent the rules of the game; it changed them, and changed them not in the middle of the game – which would have been criminal enough, though impossible, the game being long over – but after the game.

The new rule is that the vote does not count if the circle designated for it on the ballot is less than half-shaded. The old rule, applied during the election, required quarter-shading at least. Since the contested votes are those cast in Robredo's bailiwicks, she has naturally far more to lose than Bongbong under the contrived rule.

Since Robredo and Sereno are fighting their battles in the same theater, it’s easier to detect the conspiratorial hands at work in their cases. 

On April 17, I went to a rally for Sereno in front of the Supreme Court. As early crowds collected on the partly shaded sidewalk by the court's fence, policemen walked up and down asking that room be made for innocent pedestrians – apparently, the protesters were presumed the guilty ones. Someone from among them pointed to the hordes of red shirts lounging and snacking under sheds along the totally blocked-off sidewalk across the street, Ilocano tunes blaring from their sound system. The reply was that they had a permit and the Sereno partisans had none. 

But it looked to me more like a franchise than a permit. The red shirts actually had been camped there for some time – around 3 months, I learned. Obviously, they were the typical hakot crowd, fed by the same caterer and dressed by the same clothier. And they were shielded from the sun by canvas roofs stamped with the seal of Lungsod ng Maynila, apparently provided by City Hall.

Amid condemnatory conversations among the Sereno crowd, a voice from the red shirts rose, "Hoy, inarkila 'yan!" Those were rented sheds, he meant, as if that did anything to set anything right: City Hall and those red shirts are run by Mayor Estrada and Bongbong. – Rappler.com

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The deployment of over 600 police and 200 military personnel to Boracay to enforce President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial closure and rehabilitation order of the island is a fascist overkill. Since when did bullets and bombs become cleaning agents for coliform, or conservation tools for flying foxes, sea turtles, and coral reefs?

Ironically, this is done under the pretext of “providing security and peace” and “making tourists feel safe.” In reality, we found out in a Fact Finding Solidarity Mission held by our local affiliated organizations from April 18 to 20 that police threatened residents that they will turn Boracay into a “new Marawi.”

What the island needs instead are environmental specialists who could actually study the concrete ecological situation and properly implement the rehabilitation of the island. The coliform outbreak, coral reef bleaching, and habitat loss of important flora and fauna cannot be driven away by riot drills and live-fire exercises.

The people have suffered enough already from the loss of their livelihood and neglect by the government to the tune of 36,000 lost jobs. Now they are faced with virtual Martial Law with restriction of movement and even suppression of media coverage. Locals have been forced to flee the island by the hundreds.

Why is Duterte not deploying these armed forces instead to West Philippine Sea, Benham Rise, and other areas where our national patrimony and sovereignty are being blatantly undermined?

Chinese poachers plunder our coral reefs with reckless abandon while their military forces destroyed over 800 hectares of centuries-old coral reefs to build military bases on top of them. Chinese science vessels have already surveyed maritime features of Benham Rise.

Why are Duterte’s bullets and bombs reserved instead for the likes of Boracay? Or in previous cases, for the schools of indigenous Lumad and just about any Filipino that Duterte’s coterie labels as "drug addicts" or "terrorists"? 

This “gunpowder mentality” even in environmental programs is not surprising but still appalling. Former military officials Roy Cimatu and Eduardo Año, both with track records of militarizing community resistance within natural resource hubs, are at the helm of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Interior and Local Government, respectively. 

The Duterte government should penalize erring establishments and declare a moratorium on new construction projects, including the mega casinos. It should implement an environmental rehabilitation program informed by science and guided by democratic and humanitarian principles. A de facto Martial Law with no concrete and appropriate rehab plan is only a waste of taxpayers’ money and will only terrorize the local populace. 

Boracay needs scientists, engineers, development planners, social workers, and community organizers, not the hundreds of troops and police. These armed personnel must be pulled out of the island immediately. – Rappler.com

Leon Dulce is the National Coordinator  of the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment

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Four years ago, I wrote an Ispeak article for Rappler on taking a detour from the nursing profession to enroll in law school.

I attempted to soothe creased foreheads and raised eyebrows of practical skeptics with appeals and arguments that were yet to be sharpened by legal technique. Nevertheless, it drew a number of social media shares and messages from yuppies telling me that they were inspired to take a left, on full steam, towards unlikely career routes. Just a little over 4 years later, I found my name on a list of passers for the second time. Just a little over 4 years later, the nurse became a lawyer. (READ: IN PHOTOS: 2017 Bar exam results announcement)

But the shifting of gears was not always well-oiled. It had its fair share of creaks and clunks. Latin honors in college and writing abilities failed to ensure my survival even in the first 3 hours of Taxation Law.

Even in my first semester, there were episodic doubts just as when it dawned on me that Javellana vs Executive Secretary was not in any universe, a light read. Similar to lining up in a fast food chain while hungry at lunchtime, I struggled. I wondered whether I made the right decision to leave one slow-moving queue and line up for another in the hope of a faster serving time. But, what if the cashier closes the register right when it is my turn to order? What if law school was not meant for a nurse like me? (READ: Bar exam 2017 topnotcher is also a registered nurse)

Studying law with a health sciences background only gave me an edge in Legal Medicine which weighed one course unit. I had minimal to none exposure to legal concepts during college. The closest training I had was to memorize the titles of health-related legislation for our Nursing Jurisprudence lecture. I was naively confident that I soon realized that knowing Executive Order 51 is the Milk Code wouldn't get me anywhere in law school.

I was intimidated by my classmates who were either Political Science or Business course graduates. Seeing them nod along to legal jargons during our first few meetings, I felt I was the dunce of the class. (READ: 'Try and try': Bar 2017 takers say failure is not the end)

But my lack of familiarity was not and should not be an excuse. And so, I studied more. I studied longer. I cannot do anything to the fact that my classmates are more oriented and more familiar. It’s either I cry, sulk, and waste golden minutes just to end up looking like a foolish cymbal-playing monkey, or I stay awake for a few more hours, and read a few more chapters but end up nodding along in class. I chose the latter. In addition, it became a pleasant surprise when the critical thinking and organization skills I developed in nursing while attending to acute and emergency care patients became my cornerstones in law school.

These nursing skills assisted me in fighting off cold sweat and jitters during the infamous Socratic Method recitations and constructing a time-bound and comprehensive study habit.

Surviving law school, and more recently the Bar Exam, led me to conclude that you need not answer "because I have always wanted to be a lawyer" to the question, "Why did you take up law?" The law, despite being intricately worded and thus intimidating at first impression, remains a common encounter for any person. Hence, studying the law is not designed exclusively for a certain group of predestined legal luminaries.

The law deals with all facets of life – marriage, mortgage, maternity leave. You name it. So, a budding law student will necessarily find some sort of connection one way or another. This connection, if found, can perhaps ignite the spark within him or her to grasp the wisdom of the law and if fortunate, fall in love with the rest of its attractive logic and reason – VAT, Special Complex Crimes, and FRIA included.

My unusual career shift would have been a smooth excuse had I given up and quit law school. There is indeed truth to the Filipino cliché, “'Pag gusto, may paraan; 'pag ayaw, maraming dahilan.” Cultivating excuses only shows that one probably doesn’t want it that bad. While I had my doubts as to whether the court acted with grave abuse of discretion or not, I was certain that I wanted to graduate from law school, pass the Bar exam, and become a lawyer badly. I was certain that I wanted to prove my self-worth of surviving an unprecedented challenging career shift badly.

And so excuses cannot simply co-exist with blistering ambition. Excuses must not remain as excuses but rather hurdles to overcome in order to finish stronger than when we less bravely began.

It was a long race, but I was able to reach the finish line. The nurse finally became a lawyer. – Rappler.com

Maria Reylan Garcia, 27, passed the Nursing Board Examinations in 2011. She cried for 30 minutes when she found her name on the list of passers of the 2017 Bar Examinations.

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Bakit takot sa media ang administrasyong Duterte? 

Sa maraming pagkakataon, umiiral ang phobia nilang ito, na kitang-kita sa paggamit ng gobyerno ng kamay na bakal laban sa Fourth Estate. 

Sa Mababang Kapulungan, magiging bawal na ang kritikal na istorya tungkol sa mga mambabatas kung maaaprubahan ang bagong patakaran para sa media. (BASAHIN: PH lawmakers seek to ban reporters who 'besmirch' them) 

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Sa mga press conference ng Departent of Labor at ng Department of Foreign Affairs, ipinagbawal na magtanong ang mga banyagang mamamahayag kahit na accredited sila ng International Press Center. (READ: PH bars int'l journalists from press conference in Singapore)

Sa Boracay, tinangka ng komite roon na ilimita sa 9 am-5 pm ang coverage ng media. 

Sa Palarong Pambansa sa Vigan, hindi binigyan ng Department of Education ng accreditation IDs ang mga journalist galing sa Rappler. Hindi rin sila pinapasok sa opening at closing ceremonies, pati na sa press conference. Bawal ding tumapak ang mga mamamahayag ng Rappler sa media center. Ito’y sa kabila ng pagpulot ng Palaro newsletter ng DepEd sa inspirational stories na inilathala ng Rappler. (BASAHIN: DepEd restricted Rappler's access to Palarong Pambansa 2018)

Dating partner ng Rappler ang DepEd sa Palaro at sa National Secondary Schools Press Conference, pero pinutol ng kagawaran ang pakikipagtulungang iyon kahit na aminado itong naging pabor sa departamento ang mga aktibidades sa ilalim niyon.

Sa Malacañang, umiiral pa rin ang ban kay Rappler reporter Pia Ranada at maging sa CEO nito na si Maria Ressa. (BASAHIN: Rappler's Pia Ranada barred from entering Malacañang Palace) 

Kasali na rin ang mga mamamahayag ng Rappler sa probinsiya sa ban na ito ng Palasyo – basta nandoon si Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte, haharangin ang kahit na sinong may kaugnayan sa Rappler. (BASAHIN: Rappler provincial reporters barred from covering Duterte's events)

Ayon sa media watchdog na Reporters Without Borders, bumagsak nang 6 na puwesto ang Pilipinas sa 2018 World Press Freedom Index. “The dynamism of the media has also been checked by the emergence of a leader who wants to show he is all powerful," ayon sa RSF.

Kinikitil daw ng liderato ng Pilipinas ang “dynamism” ng media. Ang lideratong tinutukoy ay si Pangulong Duterte, at nais daw niyang ipamukha sa lahat na siya’y “ganap na makapangyarihan." (BASAHIN: Philippines down 6 spots in 2018 World Press Freedom Index)

Gugunitain sa buong mundo ang World Press Freedom Day ngayong Mayo 3. Ang tema ay "Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law" (Pagpapanagot sa Makapangyarihan: Media, Hustisya at Pangigibabaw ng Batas). (BASAHIN: #25SecondsForPressFreedom: Journalists explain why press freedom matters)

Ayon kay Christiane Amanpour ng CNN: “If we’re not free to report the truth, what fills the vacuum? Lies, fake news. And when we don’t have the truth, we have dictatorships." (Kung hindi tayo malayang makakapag-ulat ng katotohanan, ano ang pupuno sa kawalan? Kasinungalingan at fake news. At kung wala tayong katotohanan, mayroon tayong mga diktadura.)

Bakit takot ang mga diktador sa mga mamamahayag? Sinagot ito ni Amanpour: “The difference between democracies and dictatorships is truth and lies. That is what press freedom is all about.” (Kung paanong magkaiba ang katotohanan at kasinungalingan, ganoon ding magkasalungat ang demokrasya at diktadura.)

Ayon naman kay Femi Oke ng Al Jazeera: “Without safe journalism, there is no information. Without information, there is no freedom.” (Kung hindi ligtas ang pamamahayag, walang impormasyon. Kung walang impormasyon, walang kalayaan.)

Bakit ikamamatay ng kalayaan ang pagkitil sa pamamahayag? Dahil ang kalayaan mong ihayag ang iyong pananaw ay kakawing ng kalayaan naming maghayag ng katotohanan.

Ipagtanggol ang malayang pamamahayag. #DefendPressFreedom – Rappler.com 

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“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values...His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.”

If you thought I was describing Duterte with this quote, you would be wrong but also right. It actually describes Donald Trump in a just released book by former FBI director James Comey. You would also be right because it describes Duterte as well.

Identifying similarities between the Duterte and Trump personalities and regimes should help us understand the uncomfortable spot that Americans and Filipinos find themselves in. Even more useful would be to contrast how resistance has developed in the two countries.

I could write a whole book on Rody Trump. They are uncannily similar in so many ways. I want to focus on their disgusting treatment of women. We could start with Jojo Abinales’ angry eloquence. (READ: Duterte and Trump: Dirty Old Men)

“Sexual reprobates like their women weak and submissive to hide their impending impotence but, more importantly, because they want to conceal what they are terrified of: strong women. They reserve their venom on those women because these women’s ability, intelligence, standing, and grace bring into stark contrast these scalawags’ ignorance, pettiness, narcissism, and their paranoia.”

This is not just a matter of their expletive-laced language. Senator Liela de Lima has been in jail for more than a year on trumped-up charges. Chief Justice Sereno is about to be railroaded out of the Supreme Court. Vice President Leni Robredo and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales have been threatened with impeachment. Senator Risa Hontiveros has two pending cases filed by Duterte minions. The latest victim is Sister Patricia Fox, a frail, 71-year-old ailing nun, jailed overnight on Duterte’s orders.

Senator Sonny Trillanes and Commission on Human Rights Chair Chito Gascon, consistent critics of the Duterte administration, have only been treated to verbal attacks. Do you see the logic here? Hindi kaya dahil ang macho natin na presidente ay takot sa lalaki? Dapat matakot siya sa babae.

What Digong and Donald do not understand is that popular beliefs, a country’s culture, is constantly, if unevenly changing. Part of Philippine and American culture is backward, sexist, violent, racist. A president’s responsibility is to represent, to advance, the best elements of a country’s culture, respect for other people and their communities, in the end, decency. What is disgusting about these two is not just that they encourage the worst instincts of people, they themselves are stuck in the mire, the stinky bottom.

In what other ways are Donald and Rody similar? The numbers supporting Digong’s violence do not just come out of his mouth. The numbers blazing out of the barrels of police guns and their hirelings mount to scandalous levels. Donald cannot out-violence Rody. He cannot encourage extrajudicial killings. At best he sends his planes to target Assad in Syria and support the violence of fascist fringe groups in the US.

Fact is, both regimes are weak and incompetent. Both have ramshackle Cabinets with high turnover. Digong makes things worse with his penchant for “shoot from the hip” positions, later revised or explained away, making life extremely difficult for those who have to implement them.

Uncertainty in personnel and policy creates opportunities for corruption. There are more than enough syndicates moving quickly into these spaces. Both have children and in-laws widely rumored to head syndicates.

Digong has already done irreparable damage to painstakingly-built political institutions. Because he and his legal advisers disregard the law, Digong has left our judicial system, starting with the Supreme Court, in shambles. American political institutions have shown more resiliency. Trump has had great difficulty with the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Special Prosecutor appointed by the DOJ might still succeed in laying the groundwork for Trump’s impeachment.

Opposition to Trump has gone much further than opposition here. This is not just because American political institutions provide a stronger base for resistance. In the Philippines, only the Senate has provided an institutional base for opposition. The party-based opposition, led by the LP and Akbayan, is still in its initial stages. I am envious of the dynamism and energy of the women’s movement, striking public school teachers, and amazingly, teenage-led mass movements in the US. Anti-Duterte mobilizations have been sporadic and do not yet have the momentum of the American resistance.

Trump may be closer to being removed than Duterte. The mid-term elections in the US in November will surely turn Trump into a lame duck president. We will have to wait till May 2019.

Instead of the possible opposition majorities in both the House and the Senate in the US, the best we can hope for is a stronger opposition minority in the Senate. We need to support the groups building up opposition to these two.

In the meantime, we need to suck it up, limit the nausea our “leaders” provoke. – Rappler.com

 Joel Rocamora is a political analyst and a seasoned civil society leader. An activist-scholar, he finished his PhD in Politics, Asian Studies, and International Relations in Cornell University, and had been the head of the Institute for Popular Democracy, the Transnational Institute, the Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party, and member to a number of non-governmental organizations. From the parliament of the streets, he crossed over to the government and joined Aquino's Cabinet as the Lead Convenor of the National Anti-Poverty Commission.

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At no other time since the light of democracy shone on our shores more than 30 years ago have we experienced unrelenting threats to our freedoms. Today, more than ever, journalists like myself find renewed meaning in World Press Freedom Day, an annual commemoration of this profession – more like calling – not only in the Philippines but in countries similarly situated, ruled by strongmen and leaders with vehement anti-democratic tendencies. 

May 3, 2018 marks the 25^th year of World Press Freedom Day, with a theme so apt: Keeping power in check: media, justice and rule of law.

At this time, it is useful to reflect on how it was to be a journalist when there was a drought of democracy during the martial law years under Ferdinand Marcos and how it is today under the autocracy of Rodrigo Duterte. These eras share basic similarities but the conditions that enveloped them have changed.

I started out as a reporter during the dying years of Martial Law in the early 1980s. Then, we lived in a world that was black and white. The enemy of the media was clear: it was Martial Law. It was the authoritarian rule of Marcos. It was the state.

The single biggest threat to press freedom was the dictatorship. State censorship reigned. The rules were set in stone: no one was to write critically of the president, the first lady Imelda Marcos, and the military.

Media organizations were shut down: TV, radio, and print. Propaganda sheets took over, a monotone of government-friendly news and commentary. Opposition leaders, activists, including journalists, were jailed.

The lines were drawn between the enemy and the journalists.

1983: watershed year 

When Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino was assassinated in 1983, a storm of protests washed over the country. The silence and docility of many years gave way to a flood of tears and anger.

That was when the international community began to pay attention to the Philippines. The US, which was backing Marcos, started to distance itself from its ally.

This gave the media some space: the alternative press or mosquito press – noisy, buzzing in many people's ears – was born. These newspapers covered the opposition extensively, reported on stories that were critical of the Marcos regime.

Xerox journalism – photocopied stories in the foreign press about the Philippines – thrived.

Duterte playbook 

Today, underneath the trappings of a democracy such as free elections, an ostensibly free media, and the absence of martial rule (except in Mindanao), the media are under siege. The threats to a free press have returned, in different forms, with a vengeance.

This is the first time, since Marcos was deposed in 1986, that we are losing our grip on democracy, courtesy of an autocratic president who is using state agencies to weaken the media.

Here’s how his playbook works. He threatens the news media on two fronts through vile public statements: the owners and the reporters. Then he lets loose government agencies like the Bureau of Internal Revenue on media organizations he hates. Add to this the use of state resources for disinformation to spread untruths about news outfits and undermine their credibility. 

Duterte was still president-elect when we saw a foreboding of what was to come.

The case of the Davao reporter who asked a straightforward question to Duterte about his health – and a copy of his medical certificate – stands out. In a victory rally, the president-in-waiting poured his ire on the reporter saying he should have asked him the condition of his wife’s vagina.

His most recent attack on the press was the banning of a reporter, Pia Ranada of Rappler, from covering him not only in Malacañang but in all events he graces in any part of the country, whether organized by the private sector or government. This was expanded to include other provincial correspondents who had ties to Rappler.

BIR, SEC, DOJ, OSG

Not far behind are government offices that either do the President’s bidding or scramble to please him. The Bureau of Internal Revenue has filed tax evasion cases against the owners of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Prieto family, and Rappler.

The government has charged the Philippine franchisee of Dunkin Donuts, owned by the Prietos, for not paying over a billion pesos in taxes in 2007. In the case of Rappler, the BIR says that it hasn’t paid P133 million in taxes, a claim that has been disputed by the company.

What was more menacing was the order of the Securities and Exchange Commission to shut down Rappler. This came after prodding from the Office of the Solicitor General.

The hand of the justice department, then under former secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, was apparent in the filing of a cyber libel case against Rappler for a story written in 2012, months before the cyber libel bill became law. 

As for ABS-CBN, Duterte has vowed to block the renewal of its franchise in Congress which expires in 2020, two years before he steps down. 

Philippines is not alone

The wave of attacks on the media is happening elsewhere. Look at our neighbors Cambodia and Myanmar, and farther away, Turkey, Russia, and the US.

In 2017, The Cambodia Daily was shut down by Prime Minister Hun Sen after it was charged with evading taxes reaching $6.3 million and given a short deadline to pay it. The Cambodia Daily was critical of Hun Sen.

In Myanmar, two reporters of Reuters were detained last year after they investigated the killing of Rohingya Muslims. 

Turkey’s tax ministry imposed a $2.5-billion fine for alleged tax evason on a media conglomerate whose reports were critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The owner of this conglomerate was forced to sell to loyalists of Erdogan. (Does this sound familiar? The Inquirer is currently negotiating to sell to Ramon Ang, an ally of Duterte.)

In Russia, the same thing happened. President Vladimir Putin unleashed the tax authorities on the owner of an independent TV network. The owner sold his media network to a government-owned company.

In the US, Donald Trump has trained his sights on Amazon, owned by Jeff Bezos, for tax evasion. Bezos owns The Washington Post which has been unrelenting in its reporting on Trump.

It is a different world, a scary one. Time to dig deep into our reservoir of courage. There is no other way ahead but to stay the course. – Rappler.com

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Bar 2014. I was overconfident. I knew I was going to pass the Bar exams.

I did not.

I wailed but I didn't give myself enough time to grieve. I was too proud as I knew that I was smart and intelligent as what has been ingrained in my brain for being a graduate of the Philippine Science High School, Ateneo de Manila University, and San Beda Law. I also know that I wrote and spoke English well.

Preparing for the 2015 Bar exams, I resigned from my underbar associate job and studied a week after finding out that I failed. I got my hands on everything I had not read in the previous year’s bar review, thinking that I only lacked the ammunition. (FAST FACTS: Philippine Bar examination)

I blamed the 2010 Bar exam blast for making me one of its victims – how it derailed my law school curriculum and how, because of it, my foundation was shaky. In short, I tried to blame everything but my flawed strategy.

I went home to my province and lived a life in isolation from my law school batchmates. I studied 8 to 13 hours every day and I did not seek and receive help constructively. I punished myself and gave up the comforts (hot shower, makeup, TV, internet, iPhone) that I felt took away time meant for studying. 

I only came back to Manila a month before the November 2015 Bar. I did not feel confident and, definitely, I was not emotionally stable. Deferring crossed my mind but my pride would never allow me to take that route. ‬

Second take

During the 2015 Bar exams, I didn't finish the test on Political Law. That was 3 blank pages on my exam booklet.

I also came out of Remedial Law and Ethics knowing for sure that it was not my time yet. I broke down in the Abbey completely resigned, unapologetically wiping my tear-stained face with my San Beda Law hoodie.

The rest of the exam month was a blur. I just knew that I was exhausted, thin, and extremely underweight. 

Waiting for the 2015 Bar exams results, I went home to my province a few days after the exams. I was devoid of any desire to look for work. I slept at 3 am every day, binge-watching anything and everything on YouTube and always waking up at noon.

I only felt a little better when we went out of the country in February that year and after I got a little distracted from the hospitalization of my 96 year-old grandmother the following month. Somehow, I also felt useful again after I was consumed by my election tasks and maid of honor duties. 

On May 3, 2016, I failed the Bar for the second time.

I cried the whole day.

Third take

I started preparing for the 2016 Bar exams. On May 9, 2016, both my siblings won the local elections. A few days later, on May 13, my grandmother passed on. Her burial was scheduled on May 21. My cousin's destination wedding happened on May 26.

In between all this, I didn't lift a single page. Instead, I took a step back, assessing and reassessing my strategy and what I needed to change. I reflected on my study habits, my attitude, my disposition, and the way I presented my answers. 

I focused on my mindset. I decided to totally and completely surrender to a system that I thought would help me through. I researched on personalities who failed but tried again and succeeded on their next tries: Jack Ma, Elon Musk, etc. I imbibed the “don’t give up on the goal, change the strategy” mindset. I enrolled in Jurists Classic and Online but did not start studying on my own until the 2nd week of June.

I looked into my strategy. I thought that maybe I was too verbose or that I did not write the keywords. I submitted to the mentoring system. Buying new codals were my ceremonial start-refresh button. I studied smart, not hard.  I took the Commercial Law Mock Bar without having read anything. For the first time since I started law school, I had my way of answering exam questions scrutinized by a person other than myself. During this time, I was still looking for my confidence to return. 

Finally, I tried not to pressure myself as much as before. I took advantage of my good days while I did not study on my bad days. I went to an out-of-town birthday party. I drank tequila. I had my nails done. I did not feel sorry for doing these things that would feed my soul, albeit superficially. I prayed every day. I prayed a lot but I did not badger Him. “God, I want this but Your will be done.”

I studied and I made sure I enjoyed doing it. I felt much lighter, open, and ready to take in any blessing. I let go and blamed no one for my fate, even myself.

When the 2016 Bar exams happen, it did not automatically sink in that I was taking the exam again on my third try.

I cried many times – hours before taking the political law test, after taking the test on tax, and after taking the test on remedial law. 

I started crying because I was scared that it could be my last chance. I prayed the rosary during each 30-minute lull before every exam. Again, the feeling of self-doubt creeped in. I asked God: “If my efforts still aren’t enough, I’m sorry. Lord, magiging abogado pa ba ako (Will I ever become a lawyer)?"

Fast forward to May 3, 2017. My name was on the  list of successful examinees for the 2016 Bar exams. 

Takeaways 

We each have our own stories of failure. This is mine. I am not ashamed to say that I took the Bar exams 3 times because knowing and being reminded of this keeps me grounded. (READ: 'Try and try': Bar 2017 takers say failure is not the end) 

While the process was daunting and arduous, I acknowledge that I needed to go through it to learn and re-learn not only the legal principles that would qualify me to become a lawyer but also the valuable life lessons that would help me become a better person.

To you who haven’t made it yet, don’t give up. Seek and welcome help. There is no harm in acknowledging that you don’t know everything about the law, about life, and about decoding “Pass Philippine Bar Exams 101." (WATCH: 'Anak, pasado ka!' and other victorious 2017 Bar moments) 

Do not mind the stigma. Those who will judge you for not making it the first time or the second time are those who know nothing of the rigors of studying law.

In the end, it will not matter whether you made it on the first, second, third, fourth or fifth try. What will matter is what you will make out of that title when – not if – you get it. We, who have been there, will tirelessly remind you that you are worthy of that title. – Rappler.com 

Camille Villasin is a Junior Legal Associate of Delloro Espino and Saulog Law Offices. She practices  Corporate Law and Civil Law but is interested in venturing into Energy and Environmental Law. The original version of this post appeared on the author's Facebook account.

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“...Kayong mga andiyan lahat sa Kuwait, for those who are not really household helpers, I now appeal to your sense of patriotism: come home, tutal marami nang trabaho sa Pilipinas.”

(Those of you in Kuwait, for those who are not really household helpers, I now appeal to your sense of patriotism: come home, anyway, there are many jobs in the Philippines.)

Speaking to a Filipino audience in SIngapore, President Rodrigo Duterte announced a total deployment ban to Kuwait and urged Filipino migrant workers in Kuwait to come back home. He promised that he would find them jobs and take care of them even if it meant robbing a bank or borrowing money.

Daddy D, there you go again. Playing the earnest suitor who will make all the bad stuff go away, saying all the things we want to hear. You are wooing more than 200,000 Filipinos working in Kuwait to come home, promising to provide for them without telling them how you will do it. Robbing a bank, borrowing money, and re-allocating funds from China are not humorous or sustainable solutions.

Honey, to your bouquet of flowery promises, I offer a short checklist of realities.

Under the Kafala sponsorship system that governs employment in the Gulf countries, an employee cannot leave, resign from or transfer employers without the permission of his/her employer. (READ: Reform the Kafala System)

While the application of the Kafala system varies across the different Gulf states, one thing is clear: leaving your employer is not as easy as handing in your resignation or making “paalam”.

Even if they could leave their work premises, say, the house they work in, in the case of our domestic workers, some Gulf countries will ask for an exit permit at the airport before being allowed to board a plane.

This, of course, assumes that the workers have their passport with them. Some household employers confiscate passports and cellphones. Our migrant men who work in the construction sites hand over their passports to their employers to process or secure government documents like health cards. Passports are not always returned to them in a timely fashion.

Then there are those Filipinos who are undocumented migrants, working under the radar in Kuwait.

And what about our countrymen who have mid- to high-level jobs in Kuwait? We have architects at construction sites, engineers in oil fields, nurses in hospitals, staff at hotels, restaurants and shops. Many have made a good life for themselves there. They and their families back home are enjoying the purchasing power of their salaries where one Kuwaiti dinar is equal to P171.

We imposed deployment bans to Iraq, Libya, and Lebanon during wartime, but still our countrymen found their way there. As Ellene Sana of the Center for Migrant Advocacy put it, “Our workers will go where the jobs are.”

Your pronouncements have caused more anxiety and tension not just between our two countries but also among members of the Filipino community in Kuwait.

“Many here are concerned that the Kuwaiti government could make life difficult here for OFWs by, for example, not renewing works permits for those that are nearing expiration. So far everything here is still normal, but you never know for sure in the near future,” said Al Manlangit, an architect who has been working in Kuwait for more than 30 years.

“This issue should be resolved amicably even through back channel diplomacy. Issuing fiery statements that just exacerbate the problem won't do any good. Especially if it's just empty rhetoric,” Manlangit added.

Labor rights group Migrante International pointed out that unless the root cause of migration is addressed, Filipinos will continue leaving the country and their families to work.

“Duterte cannot expect our OFWs to come home if the root case of their migration – poverty due to landlessness and lack of decent jobs – still exists. We want our families to be whole again but we are forced by our economic condition to be torn apart,” said Arman Hernandez, spokesperson of Migrante. 

What will they be coming home to?

You promised them jobs waiting for them here, but currently minimum wage is P512. With contractualization still in place, many workers can hold on to a job for only 5 months. The latest government data shows that more than two million are unemployed.

As Senator Risa Hontiveros said: "Are we even talking about the same Philippines? President Duterte is promising our OFWs jobs back in our country when he can't even sign an Executive Order (EO) to address labor contractualization and protect the workers' security of tenure. His administration doesn't even have an alternative economic strategy to the country's labor export policy.”

You appeal to our countrymen’s patriotism, but darling, patriotism doesn’t pay the bills, feed our families, or send our kids to school.

I am not asking you to let your OFWs stay in Kuwait (or any other country for that matter) and endure abuse and maltreatment. Improving labor safeguards and working conditions is a better short-term solution, with the creation of favorable working conditions in the Philippines so workers won’t have to leave, being the long-term goal.

It actually looked like we were on our way to improving working conditions. Inter-country cooperation resulted in the arrest in Lebanon of the couple suspected of killing Joanne Demafelis.

Bilateral talks to improve working conditions for our domestic workers were underway – and then that rescue video was uploaded on Facebook and now, everything is a mess. If other Arab countries band together in solidarity with Kuwait, there will be more ramifications and a bigger mess to clean up.

So, I will ask you again, sweetheart, what will our OFWs come home to? Most likely, an unpaid loan they took out at exorbitant interest rates to pay for recruitment fees and the chance to work in Kuwait. (READ: The Debt Trap) A low-paying job that they can barely survive on.

It’s not employment per se that is the problem. There are all sorts of odd jobs that we Pinoys will take on to live another day.

It’s finding a steady job that pays a decent living wage that has always been the problem.

This is not the time for pronouncements sweetened only by your saccharine but empty rhetoric. The lives of thousands of Filipino workers and their families are at stake.

Sit down with our seasoned diplomats who have worked and lived in Kuwait to better understand the delicate and culturally nuanced courtship that is foreign relations, have a dialogue with labor groups, explore other back channels to carry out negotiations. Only a failure of imagination should prevent us from finding a diplomatic sustainable solution.

Our penchant for telenovelas predisposes us to fall for the theatrical bravado of an ardent lover. But baby, sweetheart, darling, what we really need now is for you to be our president. – Rappler.com

Ana P. Santos writes about sex and gender issues. Her Rappler column, DASH of SAS, is a spin-off of her blog, Sex and Sensibilities (SAS).

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Clik here to view.Like many things that happen in this administration, Boracay's closure started with a presidential rant.

Speaking at a business forum in his home court Davao City last February 9, President Rodrigo Duterte called Boracay a cesspool, saying its waters smelled like shit. He then threatened to close down the island and ordered Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu to “clean the goddamn thing” in 6 months.

Duterte's anger was not misplaced. Boracay's problem is not only its lack of adequate sewage and wastewater treatment facilities. Also glaring is the rampant violation of zoning rules, particularly the required 30-meter setback for structures along the shore and 6-meter setback from the center of the island's roads. Then there's the illegal reclamation of the island's wetlands and occupation of designated forest lands.

All this, plus the unregulated entry of residents, temporary settlers, and tourists have imposed a heavy toll on the island's ecosystem, making it unsustainable and dangerous.

It's a problem that's long been identified but ignored and made worse by corrupt officials from the barangay to the national agencies, all colluding to feast on Boracay's estimated P56-billion annual income.

A solution without a plan

But just like any rant, Duterte's threat to close down Boracay was an off-the-cuff remark. Surprised Cabinet officials found themselves scrambling to interpret, justify, and operationalize something they were not prepared to do. (READ: Enough of policymaking without planning}

As late as April 4, when Duterte announced that Boracay would be closed starting April 26, he admitted that there was no masterplan for the 6-month closure. His boast of subjecting the island to agrarian reform was another shocker, as data from the Department of Agrarian Reform showed that there was no land under agrarian reform coverage in Boracay. DAR officials from the national office had to rush to the island to conduct an ocular inspection to search for patches of land to distribute.

On the eve of the closure itself, there was still no executive order, proclamation, or any official document from the Palace laying down the legal basis for what was turning into a lockdown. Details were murky on the rehabilitation plan or the supposed assistance to be given to around 50,000 workers and residents dependent on the island's tourist industry.

Apparently, the various national agencies involved – the environment, tourism, local government, public works, labor, and social welfare and development  – were formulating plans on the fly, trying to fit in with Duterte's rant-turned-policy. The confusion was evident and certainly felt on the ground. Many asked: was the closure simply a pretext to facilitate the construction of a big casino complex on the island? Was it a ploy to wipe out the little guys and allow the bigger players to cash in on the island's huge tourism industry?

Through it all one thing was certain: the impending, albeit temporary, dislocation and loss of livelihood of thousands in and out of the island.

Disregarding the stakeholders

Most stakeholders and even Duterte's Cabinet officials had recommended fixing Boracay's problems step by step, dealing first with the non-compliant establishments. It was suggested that the demolition of illegal structures and the construction or expansion of sewage and wastewater facilities be done in 3 or 4 phases, with each phase requiring a corresponding closure only of the affected portion of the island.

Closure was always considered a last resort and, if ever, was to be done during the lean tourist season between June to November. The main consideration was the social and economic costs of such a move.

A 6-month closure would simply be too costly. The government itself projected a loss of ₱18 billion-P20 billion worth of gross receipts from tourism. Industry players estimated the figure could go as high as ₱30 billion, with an estimated 700,000 bookings by foreign tourists cancelled.

But more than the figures would be the impact on the island's residents, employees and service providers. Boracay's tourism industry employs around 35,000 service workers coming from as far as Mindanao and Luzon. The loss of jobs alone would be catastrophic for families dependent on their daily income from Boracay.

In addition to this, Boracay's closure would have a dire impact on the regional economy and provincial government services. 45% of the provincial government's income for health and social services comes from taxes, fees, and licenses generated from the island. Electricity consumers in the region would have to shoulder the additional cost of Boracay's unused contracted power supply. The country's economic managers predicted a 5.7% decline in the region's gross domestic product due to the 6-month closure.

In the end, Duterte decided that such social and economic costs were secondary to the need to rehabilitate Boracay at the quickest possible time. Stakeholders, including local government officials, resort owners, residents and workers were never consulted on the closure. Sober calls for a partial closure or rehabilitation in phases, articulated even by a number of Cabinet members, were eventually ignored. (READ: INSIDE STORY: How Duterte decided on Boracay closure)

Duterte's rant had opened the door to giving government absolute control and unhampered operations in the island. Closing Boracay would bring business activity to virtually zero, greatly reduce the population, and control movement in the island, giving the regime a free hand to do whatever it wanted but at great cost to so many people.

Overkill

As if this was not enough, government's takeover of Boracay was emphasized by the vivid sight of armed police conducting mock crowd control and anti-terrorism operations on the island's glistening white sand, even as Coast Guard and Navy assets patrolled its sparkling waters. There were even attack helicopters. For this to happen on an island paradise was simply shocking and mind boggling. 

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In fact, Boracay is such a benign place. There has never been any terrorist attack or threat in Boracay. Activist groups are practically non-existent. There are no labor unions or mass organizations. Resort owners and business establishments are actually supportive of the rehabilitation efforts, with many demolishing their illegal structures on their own.

And yet there they were: 630 additional police personnel, elite Navy SEAL units and naval crafts, Air Force and Coast Guard patrols “protecting” Boracay like in a Bourne Identity movie. What was the threat? Where was the enemy? Nobody knew. It was all for show. (WATCH: Gov't simulates terror attack, hostage-taking in Boracay)

The Duterte way

The Boracay closure follows the familiar pattern of Duterte's approach to addressing complex crisis situations.

Step 1 is to exaggerate the problem: the country is turning into a narco-state, terrorists are taking over Mindanao, Boracay is a cesspool.

Step 2 is to create straw men: 4 million drug-crazed addicts, ISIS and communist terrorists, greedy resort owners and leftist agitators.

Step 3 is to propose a dramatic, out-of-the-box solution: kill the drug addicts and pushers, bomb Marawi, declare martial law over the entire Mindanao, and close down Boracay.

Step 4 is to show political resolve at the expense of human rights and the rule of law: commend and reward perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, extend martial law for another year and intensify military operations in Mindanao, send in the cavalry to threaten and intimidate those affected by Boracay's closure.

Step 5 is to redistribute the spoils: the Davao Group, Chinese contractors in Marawi, Chinese casino and resort operators in Boracay.

This approach plays on popular sentiment and public cynicism of institutions and processes, relies heavily on police and military action, projects Duterte as a tough, no-nonsense leader, and enriches his own set of cronies and sycophants. It's a formula taken out of every strongman's rule book. – Rappler.com

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One evening last January brought back old feelings and memories. It was also an awkward moment, when journalists raised their arms, carried placards, chanted slogans, and became the news – beamed live on primetime TV.

In that rally for press freedom, activists and students’ groups joined journalists from various Philippine media organizations to protest government attacks against the media, specifically what happened that month – the Securities and Exchange Commission’s closure order against Rappler, which we have appealed in court.

It seemed like the old days, we told ourselves, when media groups would band together to protest the killing of journalists, attacks by public officials, or the layoff of media hires.

Yet, these are not the old days.

I became a reporter more than 3 decades ago, when press freedom (or its absence) meant many things but was clearly black and white. The freedom to cover public officials and their activities unhampered. The freedom to scrutinize them without fear of retaliatory attacks. The freedom to expose a private company’s wrongdoing, even if that company was your advertiser. The freedom to ask, to verify, to probe, without fear of being padlocked or branded fake.

It’s easy to tell ourselves now that we journalists are sitting on old problems. 

It’s easy to embrace this fallacy that we are dealing with the same public. 

We’re not.

Networked spaces

As we celebrate World Press Freedom Day this Thursday, May 3, we try to take stock not only of our freedom to tell stories and speak truth to power, but also of our new world that we assume appreciates such freedom.

What does press freedom even mean in a networked public space that enables anonymity and masks accountability? Journalism as we know it thrives in the opposite – where reporters put their names on the line and public officials do not easily get away with their lies and peccadillos.

What does press freedom even mean to a generation that has come to learn that they can be their own authority or, not preferring that, can google their own authority? Journalism as we know it privileges us to make judgment calls for the reader or viewer – which news deserves their attention, which stories they ought to immerse in, which opinions should matter. 

We had the freedom to choose for them. They, in turn, enjoyed the option of choosing which newspaper to read, which pages to skip, which channels to watch or listen to.

But what does it even mean to be free when platforms and algorithms now make these choices for the journalist and for the reader?

Do not fret, say the purists among us. Credibility eventually wins the day.

Indeed, journalism as we know it banked on that. You want to build a name? Build credibility, one that’s earned over time and through the fire of getting the facts right, verifying claims and accusations, and standing one’s ground in the face of pressure. 

Yet who needs to do all that in this networked age? Thinking Pinoy certainly did not build a mass following on the bank of credibility. He has none of that, as he earns his keep spreading lies, hate and propaganda.

The cynic would ask: in a world that rewards cheerleading, swarm thinking, and anonymity, who needs credibility?

Propaganda everywhere

And how can press freedom thrive in a terrain that facilitates – with lightning speed – state harassment of its critics and the propagation of its preferred truths?

Back in the day, one would dismiss news as government propaganda when it was aired on government-run airwaves or published by government-controlled media.

Today, who knows what propaganda is when it’s even more ubiquitous than Kris Aquino’s latest rants?

Who knows when governments are playing fair or playing rough, when they legislate laws ostensibly to fight fake news but in reality use them to silence dissent? (READ: Malaysia convicts first person under fake news law)

Why would journalists – but not the architects of disinformation – enjoy the freedom of speech? The answer is obvious to us, but is it to others? When these architects operate in the same labor economy that we all belong to, what can stop them from claiming the same space that we used to dominate?

What is fueling hostility and animosity toward journalists, aside from political leaders and authoritarian regimes? (READ: RSF Index 2018: Hatred of journalism threatens democracies)

These are questions we constantly ask ourselves as we come to grips with new norms that have been shaped by technology and as we try to serve a public that is changing in the way it seeks to view – and deal with –  the world. 

I raise these questions not to demean the people and companies that thrive in this new environment, but precisely to force me to better understand it. 

And I raise these questions today, as we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, in hopes that things do not move too fast while we’re still struggling with the answers. I hope that we do not wake up one day in a world where everything has been completely redefined in a space too polluted for reason to survive, and in a country whose stories we could no longer tell the way we knew how to.

The press freedom that we struggle to keep today demands that we find ways to make sense of these vast and fast changes, that we do more, and that we do better. That we do not deny that the old is being rewritten, and that the new is being constantly reborn. So help us God. – Rappler.com

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“Singko” is the number given you when you fail your class at the University of the Philippines (UP). It means you have to re-enroll in the course, or, in the broader view of your academic path, change majors, or relieve Filipino taxpayers for paying another "iskolar ng bayan" by being kicked out of the State University.

In the heydays of student radicalism, getting “singko” was a badge of courage for would-be radicals. For instead of it being an indicator that you had failed, it was in their eyes, evidence of just how much you had come to appreciate what real education is – you learn it on the streets, not the classroom.

I was always suspicious of this rationalization. The political cynic in me saw it as just one of the baby steps that the communist underground in UP encouraged recruits to take to leave the university and work in the urban underground or with the maquis. The cynical academic in me thought it was hilarious: what do physicists and engineers learn about atoms and structures by marching on the streets?

This mentality reached grotesque proportions when some old friends and comrades who were in the sciences ended up in the jungle, spent an inordinate amount of time discussing where in “Mao Tse Tung’s Thoughts” one could find the right solution to repair a radio. But we are veering a bit far the reason why “singko” is worth our time: the grade that Tatay Digong deserves so far.

If you are really honest about it and sit back to evaluate Mayor’s presidential run so far, if you sift through all the narratives and remove the fake and the irrelevant, to concentrate on what is actual, you have to reach the conclusion that he has been a failure.

Consider his central campaign issue – the elimination of droga. As a candidate, he vowed to achieve this goal in 3-6 months. By the middle of his first year he had backpedaled and asked Filipinos to give him until the end of his term to erase this alleged scourge of our lives. He finally admitted that his crusade was not a failure; worse, it was a fiasco! And sadly, it took thousands of lives, mainly those from the poor and marginalized who adored him (his DDS!), before Mayor acknowledged this.

In April 2016, candidate Digong promised to defend the poor’s livelihood by ending contractualization. He sounded like a genuinely populist president, vowing to eliminate this ruse that employers use to keep labor cheap, temporary, and disorganized.

This month he gave up, declaring that this issue may best be resolved in Congress, of course conveniently forgetting how much the second branch is peopled with corrupt bosses and dynasts concerned foremost about their spoils than the people’s welfare. Hence, another “singko” when it comes to improving the poor’s livelihood.

Then there are the OFWs who cast their votes for Tatay D because he supposedly knows their dreams and aches. The ignorant people running the Foreign Affairs office and his Communications agency have just caused over 260,000 Pinoys working in Kuwait to lose their jobs. Mayor’s Solomonic moment (which the Presidential Mouth with the toupee-fetish announced) was to tell them to come home, vowing to pay for their plane fare even if he has “to rob” from a central bank (there is only one) just to get them home.

He promised them local jobs, and if these will not pan out, there is China seeking Pinoy and Pinay labor. Of course, he does not tell the Kuwait OFWs how much China will pay them and how its autocratic state deals with workers who protest too much. So when it comes to OFW’s welfare, Mayor earns another “singko”.

How about the economy? Tatay’s economists are giving themselves high-fives for the 6.7% GDP growth and pooh-poohed fears about a spiraling indebtedness to fund the government’s ambitious infrastructure development plan. Tatay and his technocrats do not seem to mind that the infrastructure budget will rely mainly on high-interest loans from China despite warnings by observers in-country and abroad.

And if they think we can pay for all these with revenues from investments, they should consider what the smart young economist JC Punongbayan warns: that a more significant chunk of this source of largesse has been leaving the country than coming in.

And now that Tatay has banned working in Kuwait, take out another $800 million from the total $28.1 billion worth of remittances, money that could go to paying the debt. Too early to tag another “singko” on Tatay D, kamo? Nah, the way to corruption is spreading across the regime – the latest of which is the Commission on Audit’s exposé of the Tulfos– there is no way that one cannot think of the 1981-83 Marcosian plunge into the economic abyss. I am confident Mayor deserves another failed grade here.

So what is left? Mindanao? Yes, Davao is experiencing phenomenal growth, but the blight of Muslim Mindanao remains. The Chinese were given the go-signal by Tatay to rehabilitate Marawi, but unless the configurations of political power are changed and the illicit sector – to which a majority of the area’s populace is dependent on – is displaced, there is nothing to look forward to regarding genuine Mindanao-wide progress.

Here maybe Tatay deserves a “kuwatro”, i.e., in UP parlance, a provisional grade which could either lead to a “tres” (low average but passable average) and a “singko”.

The rating so far is on the economy. What about politics and culture? Abangan. – Rappler.com

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This is a pooled editorial of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, and the Philippine Press Institute on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2018.

Rodrigo R. Duterte’s presidency has altered and controlled the public discourse so radically in its favor in ways rude and bold. One tragic result: it has restricted and narrowed the celebrated freedom of the Philippine press and the people’s cherished right to know. 

In his first 22 months in power, Mr Duterte has earned the dubious honor of logging 85 various cases of attacks and threats on these dual values that the Constitution upholds as inalienable rights of the citizens. The number far exceeds those recorded under 4 presidents before him.   

Separately and together, these 85 cases have made the practice of journalism an even more dangerous endeavor under Duterte.

From June 30, 2016 to May 1, 2018, these cases include the killing of 9 journalists, 16 libel cases, 14 cases of online harassment, 11 death threats, 6 slay attempts, 6 cases of harassment, 5 cases of intimidation, 4 cases of website attack, revoked registration or denied franchise renewal, verbal abuse, strafing, and police surveillance of journalists and media agencies.

These cases project the force of presidential power dominating the political sphere, with zealous support from Duterte allies and appointees, and their sponsored disinformation army online and off. They have hurled at members of the press insults and unfair labels, and allegations of corruption and misconduct without firm basis in fact or in law.  

These cases linger amid effete efforts at solution by state agencies, and in the context of the hostile and vicious discourse against the administration's critics and the critical media.

The President, Cabinet members, and the House of Representatives have imposed and proposed unprecedented restrictions on journalist access to official news events. Congress and executive agencies have denied or delayed the corporate registration or franchises required for operation of media companies.  

Some journalists and media groups have also reported police surveillance of their movement and their places of work. 

Attacks on press freedom diminish not just the news media. These weaken the capacity of the news media to sustain the people’s unfettered exchange of ideas about public issues. Presidential intolerance of criticism is now a well-established aspect of Duterte’s leadership. While he is not the only chief executive who has become sensitive to press criticism, Duterte has made sure that everyone understands that misfortunes could hound and befall his critics.  

And yet Duterte had promised change; his government should thus tell the people when and where change has come to fruition, and whether it has triggered better or worse results. By keeping citizens and voters fully informed about what and how those they have raised to power are doing right or wrong, a free press sustains and strengthens democracy. 

That is not quite the situation under Duterte as yet. Intimidated, restrained, and threatened with consequences, the news media have been significantly constrained to report well and fully on the war on drugs, the siege of Marawi, cases of alleged corruption in high office, questions about the wealth of the Duterte family, the public debate on Charter change and federalism, the shutdown of Boracay, and not the least significant, the incursions of China in the West Philippine Sea. 

Rodrigo R. Duterte has brandished the power of fear. His threats and attacks bear the full weight of his office, the highest in the land. No need to test constitutional limits. All he seems to want to do is to make enough journalists understand that they should be very afraid.

But, like fear, courage could be contagious. And unlike fear that disempowers, courage built on the power of truth and the unity of all in media is a force that empowers. 

To stand firm and to stand united for press freedom and democracy, to speak truth to power and to keep power in check – this much the press owes the people. And whoever is president, the paramount duty of a free press in a democracy is to defend and uphold the people's right to know, with unqualified courage and unity. – Rappler.com

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Clik here to view.On April 30, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency released a list of barangay officials, which it claims are linked to illegal drugs. In a press conference, PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino and Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Officer-in-Charge Eduardo Año said it was intended to guide the public on who to vote for in the coming barangay and Sanggunian Kabataan (SK) elections.

According to the two officials, Malacañang gave them the directive to publish the names of the barangay officials. Recall that, before this, there had been attempts by President Rodrigo Duterte and his allies to postpone the May 14 and let him appoint barangay officials because he didn't want candidates financed by drug lords to win.

While the Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesman, Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao, gave assurances that the names went through a strict vetting process, PDEA chief Aquino admitted that the list, based on intelligence reports, couldn't be taken as “100% true or accurate,” and that the agency had yet to gather enough evidence to become the basis for formal complaints. (Immediately, the next day, the media uncovered names of persons who have long been dead or imprisoned. A lot of names of were mispelled.) 

Even assuming that PDEA has strong evidence against the persons on the list, tagging them as being “involved in illegal drug activities” without the benefit of trial or, at least, a fair opportunity to defend themselves is a violation of their constitutional rights to due process and presumption of innocence.

Apart from obviously prejudicing their chances at winning in the barangay elections, the revelation of the list has other terrible and more serious consequences. Since the string of drug-related killings started in July 2016, there has been an apparent correlation between the inclusion of one's name in ther Duterte goverment's narco list and being extra-judicially killed either by masked riding-in-tandem or in suspicious police operations.

If we follow this correlation, then the published list of barangay officials by PDEA could actually be a kill list (although PDEA denies it), and personalities named there should be take it seriously.

Ground for disqualification?

Another question emerges in relation to the list, which was released two weeks before the elections: are the persons whose names are in the PDEA list disqualified from running? (The campaign period started Friday, May 4, for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections .) 

Indeed, one of the accessory penalties for those convicted under Section 35 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 is the denial of one’s “political rights, such as but not limited to the right to vote and be voted for.” The operative word however is “convicted” – it presupposes conviction or final judgement by a trial court, meaning the accused is found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. 

The same requirement of conviction is required before those “elective local or national [officials] found to have benefited from the proceeds of the trafficking of dangerous drugs” can be “removed from office and perpetually disqualified from holding any elective or appointive positions in the government.”

So those barangay officials on the list who have not yet been convicted for their “links” to the drug trade cannot be disqualified. Accusation is not the same as conviction. Not even close to it. 

Electioneering by those in gov't

Yet, considering the official statements and side comments of Aquino and Año, as well President Duterte, it is clear that the intention of releasing the list is to portray those on it as law breakers and undesirables. It is to sway voters not to choose them come election time.

Now, our laws prohibit civil service officers and employees from engaging in electioneering or partisan political activity. But the release of the narco list falls within the legal definition of “election campaign” or “partisan political activity” under Section 79 (b) of the Omnibus Election Code: “an act designed to promote the election or defeat of a particular candidate or candidates to a public office.”

Some of the acts covered are the following:

(3) Making speeches, announcements or commentaries, or holding interviews…against the election of any candidate for public office;

(4) Publishing or distributing…materials designed to…oppose the election of any candidate; or

(5) Directly or indirectly soliciting votes, pledges or support…against a candidate.

It is clear that the act of PDEA, the DILG, and the PNP, following the definition of the Omnibus Election Code constitutes as “election campaign” or “partisan political activity” aimed at promoting the defeat of these alleged drug personalities. 

This primarily violates Section 2 (4), Article IX-B, of the 1987 Constitution, which provides that “no officer or employee in the civil service shall engage, directly or indirectly, in any electioneering or partisan political campaign.” 

This prohibition on civil service officers and employees from engaging in any electioneering or partisan political campaign is also reflected in Section 46(b)(26), Chapter 7 and Section 55, Chapter 8 both of Subtitle A, Title I, Book V of the Administrative Code of 1987, which provides: 

No officer or employee in the Civil Service including members of the Armed Forces, shall engage directly or indirectly in any partisan political activity or take part in any election except to vote nor shall he use his official authority or influence to coerce the political activity of any other person or body. 

Apart from violating the Constitution and civil service rules, the act of PDEA and PNP in releasing the list could constitute a punishable election offense: 

Section 261. Prohibited Acts. - The following shall be guilty of an election offense:

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(i) Intervention of public officers and employees. - Any officer or employee in the civil service, except those holding political offices; any officer, employee, or member or the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or any police force, special forces, home defense forces, barangay self-defense units and all other para-military units that now exist or which may hereafter be organized who, directly or indirectly, intervenes in any election campaign or engages in any partisan political activity, except to vote or to preserve public order, if he is a peace officer.

The release of the drug list by PDEA and PNP deliberately to sway voters not to vote for persons included there clearly constitutes intervention in an election campaign and engagement in a partisan political activity, as defined by Section 79 (b) of the Omnibus Election Code.

It must be noted that Section 261 (i) specifically exempts “political offices.” In Quinto vs. Comelec (GR Number 189698, February 22, 2010), “political offices” were interpreted to mean “elected public officials” as “by the very nature of their office, [they] engage in partisan political activities almost all year round, even outside of the campaign period.”

Following this definition, it means that any other civil servants holding apolitical or non-elective offices or those serving in all branches, subdivisions, instrumentalities, and agencies of the government, including government-owned or controlled corporations with original charters, are covered by Section 261 (1). This, therefore, unqualifiedly covers all the officials of PDEA, PNP, and DILG. 

It should be further noted that while “political offices” seem to be exempted from Section 261 (1) of the Omnibus Election Code, the applicability of this provision in the context of the barangay elections is blurred by the fact that Section 38 of the same law mandates that “the barangay election shall be non-partisan.”

In the landmark case of Occeña vs. Comelec (GR Number L-60258, January 31, 1984), the Supreme Court noted that the purpose of this is to “insulate the barangays from the influence of partisan politics.” It is envisioned that the absence of political attachment would “promote objectivity and lack of partisan bias in the performance of their duties.”

In the controversy, allowing national elective officials and political personalities like President Duterte, PDEA Director General Aquino, and DILG OIC Año to intervene in barangay election political activities by campaigning against certain candidates is antithetical to the non-partisan nature of the barangay elections. To be consistent with this non-partisan policy, the exempting clause covering political offices should be deemed inapplicable in the case of barangay elections.

Another anticipated defense of these government officials is that the list was released on April 30, 2018, which is before the start of the May 4 campaign period, citing the case of Penera vs. Comelec (GR Number 181613, November 25, 2009). In Penera, the Supreme Court held that a person who files his certificate of candidacy shall only be considered a “candidate”at the start of the campaign period. Therefore, the barangay officials in the “drug list” are not yet “candidates” when it was released on April 30, as the campaign period was yet to start on May 4.

It must be noted, however, that the coming barangay election is a manual election. The modification of the word “candidate” in Penera was brought about by Republic Act 8436 or the  Automated Elections Law, which obviously pertains to an automated election. Its provision therefore has no application to a manual barangay election. For all legal intents and purposes, for the May 14, 2018 elections, one becomes a candidate upon filing of the certificate of candidacy last April 14 to 20.

If found guilty of intervention under Section 261 (i) of the Omnibus Election Code, PDEA, PNP and DILG officials could face imprisonment of not less than one year but not more than 6 years, and shall not be subject to probation. – Rappler.com 

Emil Marañon III is an election lawyer. He served as chief of staff of retired Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. He graduated from the SOAS, University of London, where he studied Human Rights, Conflict, and Justice as a Chevening scholar. 

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Though I now work as a product manager for analytics at Manila-based HR-tech company Sprout Solutions – a role that involves many data science tasks – I never planned to develop this expertise. Data science, as we know it today, only came into being around 2013, when you can see Google searches about the field and the profession spike sharply upward, like a hockey stick.

In the Philippines, data science still remains largely unknown outside the realm of tech, and this needs to change.

I believe data science is the key to our nation’s future, and I’m here to make a pitch for its merits, no matter who you are. If you’re a business leader, you need to incorporate data science into your products and services. If you’re a young professional, you need to add data science to your skill set.

Data science at the workplace

Data science can help us solve the biggest problems facing the Philippines. The country is already one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and we can continue this rise if we address some of the long-running inefficiencies that have plagued our nation – a task that data science is naturally suited for.

Take my work at Sprout as an example. One of the main products I’ve worked on is Sprout Insight, a solution that brings tools from data science – artificial intelligence and predictive analytics  – to the world of human resources.

By tracking different metrics like demographics, compensation, and attendance patterns, Sprout Insight can make powerful predictions for client companies, ranging from the employees who are likely to resign within 3 months to those who will not report for work in the event of flooding. Such details may seem benign, trivial even, but they have powerful implications for the business.

Now companies can curb attrition by focusing on at-risk employees and improve business continuity planning (and safety!) in extreme weather conditions. If knowledge is power, data is its most important asset.

Solving the country’s major problems.

Take the case of traffic. When we speak of fixing traffic in Manila and other cities, we usually do so in the context of adding things, be they carpool lanes, toll roads, highway on-ramps. (READ: On the MRT: A capacity conundrum) 

Applying data science to road congestion is far less resource-intensive than adding infrastructure because it enables us to make better use of what is already there. 

After collecting data on traffic patterns in the metro, for example, we can find ways to optimize usage of our on-ramps, so that vehicles do not congest only a few of these entry points but distribute more evenly in usage.

Between human resources and traffic congestion, there is no problem in the Philippines that would not benefit from the application of data science. To this notion, the skeptic might ask, “With which data scientists?” The Philippines, after all, is not known as a haven for data scientists, as I myself have noted.

Though this may sound counter-intuitive, the fact that the Philippines is a laggard in data science is actually an advantage.

Opportunities for data science in PH

Because companies, organizations, and government agencies in the Philippines are far behind their counterparts in North America – where leveraging data sets for competitive advantages is already the norm – we can organically build a pool of data scientists from the ground up. (READ: Data scientists call for responsible use of data in analysis, reporting) 

They can learn the basic languages essential to data science, such as python, R, and SQL, that will enable them to help organizations optimize and automate their processes. As the data science industry matures, our professionals can then pick up the advanced skills that will enable them to do higher level work for their organizations.

Some may assume that this kind of upskilling in data science would require advanced formal education,  but it does not. (READ: Big data could be big business for PH – expert) 

All one needs is a sense of curiosity and a knack for perseverance, for everything you could possibly need to know about the field is available online on YouTube, through massive online open courses (MOOCs), and other tutorials.

Since companies have a vested interest in you learning data science, most provide resources to this end. For example, companies can hold regular brown bag sessions like we do at Sprout Solutions. These sessions may include topics that relate to analytics and data science and are open to anyone interested in developing their knowledge and expertise.

We should all be motivated by the fact that one of the fields that can most improve the Philippines is just within arm’s reach, ready for the taking. The hungry Filipino today can be the upstart data scientist of tomorrow. – Rappler.com 

Erny Nazario is a product manager at Sprout Solutions. He believes in harnessing the power of analytics in solving real-life problems. 

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On Wednesday, Budget Secretary Ben Diokno made a very controversial claim when asked about the prospects faced by OFWs in Kuwait once they come home to the Philippines:

“Alam mo, sa tingin ko kung masipag ka lang, hindi ka magugutom sa Pilipinas. Kung masipag ka lang (You know, I think if you’re hardworking, you won’t go hungry in the Philippines. If you’ll just be hardworking)."

As a student of economics I find it particularly objectionable on 3 counts.

First, not only does it give economists a bad rap by being callous and patronizing, it also misrepresents economists’ current thinking about the nature of poverty and income mobility.

Second, it hides the fact that the labor situation in the Philippines is not as rosy as what the government claims.

Third, it neglects the fact that the Duterte government itself is the promulgator of policies that bring down the poor and the working class, rather than improve their plight. 

Hard work is enough? 

Economists have long been unfortunately stereotyped as cold, unfeeling number crunchers often out of touch with reality. 

But rather than debunk the perception, some top officials in government only further cement such notions in the public’s mind. For instance, another economist in Duterte’s Cabinet was previously quoted as saying that drug-related killings are a “necessary evil.”  

Diokno’s recent statement, for the record, is a gross misrepresentation of economists’ contemporary thinking about the nature of poverty and “income mobility” or people’s ability to move from low to high income groups. There’s definitely more to beating poverty and hunger than just hard work. 

To illustrate, let me share some findings of a recent World Bank study.

First, although Filipinos are becoming more and more productive over time, their wages (once you remove the effect of inflation or the rise of prices) have not kept pace. This disconnect between productivity and wages – which defies the trends seen in neighboring ASEAN countries – is a puzzle that has long baffled economists. 

Second, contrary to common belief, data show that the poor are seldom unemployed: they cannot afford to be jobless for too long. It is the middle-class (like new college graduates holding off work to get their desired jobs) who are more likely to have no work at any point in time.

Third, although the poor have jobs, they also express greater willingness to work more hours. Chronic underemployment – decreasing but still one of the highest in Southeast Asia – suggests that the poor cannot work more hours even if they wanted to.

Fourth, although education could serve as the “great equalizer” in Philippine society, studies suggest that performance in school is often a function of (and correlated with) one’s family income and socioeconomic background. This is true even in some of our elite public high schools and universities. 

Granted there are more things we need to learn about the nature of income mobility in the Philippines. For example, we should be able to say which percent of poor Filipino children stay poor (or become rich) once they are adults. But, alas, economists often cannot freely explore these issues due to severe data constraints. 

Nevertheless, the available evidence is enough for any self-respecting economist to avoid the simplistic argument that hard work is enough to escape hunger and poverty.

More jobs at home? 

Diokno made his statement in line with Duterte’s appeal for OFWs to come back home, following the diplomatic row with Kuwait. Duterte appealed to OFWs’ “sense of patriotism” and boasted, “Marami nang trabaho sa Pilipinas (there are now many jobs in the Philippines)."

But latest data show that the labor market is not as rosy as Diokno or Duterte would have it.

To wit, there were actually 663,243 fewer jobs in 2017 than in 2016, and most of these job losses were in agriculture. In contrast, NEDA expects the creation (not destruction) of 900,000 to 1 million new jobs every year, from 2017 to 2022. 

At the same time, the unemployment rate in 2017 rose to 5.7% (from 5.6% in 2016), higher than the expectation of government planners of between 5.1% to 5.4%. 

Given the tight job market, government officials are therefore being disingenuous when they say it’s perfectly okay to go back home now.

Is it possible Diokno is misreading labor market figures? 

Back in 2015, he was called out by a fellow economist at UP when Diokno wrote in a BusinessWorld column that, in 2010, “there were some 7.3 million unemployed…and 18.8 million underemployed” Filipinos. 

In fact, the statistics referred to a 7.3% unemployment rate and an 18.8% underemployment rate. For some reason, “percent” became “millions.” (READ: Dear Ben…)

Diokno later published a reply saying: “I have no excuse for the obvious misreading of some labor numbers. However, my commentaries are intact.” 

Government pro-worker? 

Finally, Diokno’s remark omitted the fact that the government has not been exactly pro-worker of late, despite Duterte’s promises and pronouncements. 

In the wake of the 6-month Boracay shutdown, for instance, government had no problem decimating the livelihood and incomes of as many as 36,000 people. Until now, no proper plan has been laid down to justify such a policy or compensate Boracay’s residents for the damage he wrought. 

Palliatives to help the affected workers include tapping into the national calamity fund, providing emergency loans from the SSS, and repurposing the Pantawid Pamilya program from conditional to unconditional cash transfers. But these are insufficient, ill-thought, or both. 

On Labor Day, Duterte also greatly disappointed workers far and wide by failing to double down on his campaign promise to put an end to abusive forms of contractualization.

Finally, the Duterte government also expects to create 1.1 million jobs related to the infrastructure spending spree called “Build, Build, Build.” Diokno said we need more warm bodies for this, and urged welders, electricians, and engineers overseas to come home and get these new jobs. 

But not every OFW is a welder or electrician or engineer who will automatically fit the bill. In fact plant and machine operators and assemblers comprised only 13.7% of OFWs as of 2017. Around a third of our OFWs remain employed in “elementary occupations” like domestic help.

In addition, “Build, Build, Build” has experienced such great delays that the jobs being promised might not immediately absorb returning OFWs.   

Check your privilege

Based on his campaign as candidate and rhetoric as president, you’d think that Duterte loves OFWs. Indeed, some of Duterte’s most avid and fervent supporters today are OFWs.

But, as illustrated by bungled “rescue missions” of domestic workers in Kuwait that led to the expulsion of our ambassador, perhaps it’s time to rethink if President Duterte really has the interests of OFWs at heart. 

Now, government is imploring OFWs to return home despite net job losses in 2017, the lack of any coherent plan for their employment and security of tenure, and with veiled assurances that they won’t go hungry as long as they work hard enough.

But our OFWs left the country in the hope of achieving so much more than not being hungry: they seek larger incomes abroad not just for their families to survive, but to thrive and enjoy much higher standards of living than what they currently have.

Some economists in government will do well to check their privilege from time to time. – 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. 

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Not two years into Rodrigo Duterte's 6-year presidency, 9 press practitioners have been killed, in the manner of assassinations mostly – masked gunmen riding a motorcycle in tandem. The latest victim was Edmund Sestoso, a broadcaster in Dumaguete City; he was gunned down on May 1. 

Little perspective is gained by comparing that number with those in previous presidencies for these reasons among others: one, with more than 4 years to go in his term, Duterte has all the time to make up; two, press freedom, as critical as it is to a democracy, is but one of the freedoms he wants to kill– he wants to kill them all; and, 3, his regime, even compared with others of similar high-handed predispositions, is precisely incomparably demented and harsh.    

Upon taking office, he put the news media on notice that he was brooking no criticisms – he characterizes them in general as untruthful and corrupt. Still, he tried to coopt them, and those who proved unyielding he tried to intimidate. He has targeted Rappler in particular. First, he set loose the Securities and Exchange Commission on it for some questionable infraction. Then he banned its reporter, Pia Ranada, from covering his office, and, when she insisted on doing her job, she was forced out and warned she could have suffered worse. 

The government and the press being natural adversaries as democracy goes, Duterte has found conspirators among official institutions, and a particularly sycophantic one is the House of Representatives. Only recently, it warned that it, too, was banning reporters who “besmirch the reputation of...its officials or members" – an offense that, needless to say, it will call arbitrarily.

In the meantime, Duterte has his army of trolls, bloggers, and coopted and pseudo practitioners deployed to savage the proper press as well as other vocal dissenters. The Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders), the Paris-based organization watching the observance of press freedom in 180 countries that pretend to it, has rated the Philippines 133rd, down 6 places from last year, settling in the bottom fourth. 

Under the Duterte regime, the prognosis for press freedom has never been direr, indeed. It’s no longer content to use subterfuge, stonewalling, cooptation, and threats on the media; it is shutting them out as a matter of policy. 

All this is part of a drive toward dictatorship. And it's not as if Duterte made any pretentions about it. He stood for president preceded by a reputation built over two decades of an autocratic provincial-city mayor; and, upon ascending to the presidency, he warned repeatedly of the prospect of his ruling by martial law, in fact mouthing the very phrase.

Dictatorship is something he may not even have to declare. In fact, it’s already in operation to an extent made possible by the enlistment of the right political and security forces. That has been most manifest in his virtual cession of sovereignty to China over Philippine territorial seas and subsequent suspicious dealings with it in business, trade, and loans; his brutal war against illegal drugs, in which more than 20,000 were killed in just about a year; his bombing war against a band of brigands and supposed separatists and Islamic State terrorists in Marawi City, in Mindanao; and his martial rule over the whole island of Mindanao, which has gone on for a year now on various pretexts with congressional and judicial approval.

Most recently, Duterte suspended freedom of the press and of movement in Boracay, the world renowned white-beach island in central Philippines, ostensibly to cleanse it of pollutants and corrupt local officials and their private corruptor-partners, although more likely to allow, unnoticed, the construction of Chinese casino facilities there.

Indeed, China is emerging as the Duterte regime’s ultimate patron – as investor, infrastructure builder, labor and material supplier, and money lender – in a modern-day sort of colonial arrangement.

Not to mention, on islands, both natural and Chinese-built, in and around the Philippine waters Duterte ceded to China have sprouted military installations, complete with missiles, that now arouse perfectly reasonable anxieties, especially among nations using those waters as an international passageway.

Press freedom may be a perfectly legitimate critical cause, but to be fixated on it is to miss the forest for the trees: The forest is the death of democracy – by foreign subjugation. – Rappler.com

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I have been a teacher for a year now. When I entered this profession, I already knew that I would encounter a lot of struggles, and I was correct: teaching in a public school is not that easy. 

I am not sharing this because I am complaining about my situation as a teacher. I just want to share what a teacher like me goes through every day. Let's begin with the classroom. Ideally, there should be a maximum 40 students in a well-ventilated classroom but in reality, there are more than 50 students in a room that has no ventilation. Yet, the government has allotted a huge amount for the improvement of our classrooms. (READ: I am a teacher)

Some say teaching is a lucrative job compared to other kinds of work in government. But that's not the case. We receive  a salary of more than P20,000,  but this is not enough for our daily needs. We do not only spend on our personal needs, but we also help out our students, particularly those who need money so they can get to school.

Love of the job

We even allot part of our salary to contribute to some school activities, and also to buy bond paper, ink, school supplies, and ICT resources so that we can provide an excellent learning environment for our students. (READ: How is education being disrupted by technology?)

Teachers get the blame whenever we have students who lack certain required documents, such as birth certificates. Since this would affect our perfomance evaluation, teachers would rather spend their own money to help students get their authenticated birth certificates so that the students can have complete requirements. (READ: Teachers making a difference in a 21st century way)

Since we don't have transportation allowance, we have to shoulder the expenses for the required visits to homes of students who usually live in far-flung communities. After teaching more than 200 students a day, we also have to perform our responsibility of knowing the parents of our students. This way, we become better acquainted with our students.

With the no-collection policy, money for classroom supplies like brooms, floor wax, and other classroom decoration materials sometimes come from our pockets. Expenses for photocopying of examination papers, handouts, and other learning materials are usually shouldered by the teachers. This makes it hard for us to budget our monthly income. 

The current system has continually disheartened us but somehow, we just keep on going because we love our job and our students.

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Support teachers' professional growth

We love our profession so much that sometimes, we just choose to keep silent. But it's difficult. If teachers will not say what is truly in their hearts, we, the teachers, will be on the losing end. If we complain, higher authorities would say that we are free to leave because there are hundreds of others who would quickly take our place. READ: FAST FACTS: What you need to know about the PH education system)

Teachers should focus on teaching but we have so many other administrative tasks. Because of the nature of the profession, teachers are supposed to be precious. Their professional growth must always be the priority. However, in our country, the education system does not give full support for the professional growth of us teachers. There is no scholarship available for teachers who wish to finish or pursue a graduate degree. There are only seminars which, for us, are not effective because the topics are too ideal – they only apply the idealistic approach to teaching, without taking into consideration realities in the Philippine education system.

Then, there is the performance evaluation. There are so many indicators that try to measure the work we do. Some teachers become too conscious about this evaluation, too busy working on their accomplishment report, that it has kept them from truly embodying what a teacher should be. In our profession, every accomplishment must be supported by corresponding papers. In compiling all these documents, some of us forget that we are here for the nourishment and empowerment of our students, not for the recognition we can get.

We are teachers who teach from the heart. Teaching is the noblest of all professions, as the adage says. But despite the nobility of the profession, some are forced to leave out of practicality, and because of the unjust education system. If only teachers are treated properly, with respect, and our government is supportive of our professional growth, quality education will be at hand.

We all hope for a better future for our students but we should also hope for a better education system. If the youth is the hope of our future, the kind of future that awaits us lies in the hands of the teachers. So please. Treat us better. – Rappler. com

Robinson B. Valenzona is a senior high school teacher at Munoz National High School-Main, Science City of Munoz, Nueva Ecija.

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As a journalist, it sounds weird to write about myself. But the story of sexual harassment has to be told, as it affects almost, if not all, women. Some even have to endure it in silence. (READ: Why it is not okay to catcall women)

You'd think you can be spared this trouble if you live in a quiet, peaceful, and gated area, such as Kawilihan Village. It turns out, that is no assurance. (READ: Catcalling: The hidden threat and prejudice)

Two months since I was catcalled by a construction worker in our area, the village board of directors has not taken a stand on such a serious matter – it was sexual harassment. The boss of the culprit, who is also a resident of the village, happens to be Senator Nancy Binay's brother-in-law. He has acknowledged the incident but refuses to act on it. Now, he is trying to sue the village guards who responded to my call.

I have repeatedly asked the village association for updates over the past weeks, but the last message I got from village president Flor Bañaga was, there is no clear evidence against the culprit. So does this mean she and the board would not take action against him?

What happened: My harrowing experience happened on the night of March 7. I was jogging at around 10 pm, when a construction worker whistled at me from the view deck of the house they were building. It was dark at the construction site, but there was enough light from the street lamp to expose his skin color, hair, forehead, built, and bright shirt. (READ: The streets that haunt Filipino women)

I'm not one to back down from such types of men. So I shouted back, "O, ano'ng tinitingin-tingin mo?" He laughed and said something I could not understand. When the guy saw I would not let his action pass, he left his post and hid. (READ: 'Hi, sexy!' is not a compliment)

I immediately called the village guard and we went to the worker's location. I waited on the street while the guard told us he would knock on the door. Shortly after, he came back with 3 men, all saying they were asleep in the room when it happened.

I did not see the exact face of the man who catcalled me, but when I saw the 3 construction workers, I knew which one of them was the culprit, based on the skin color, forehead, hair, and built that I saw.

What the worker's boss did: On March 10, the village board called a meeting between me and the construction worker's boss, a contractor. He was on the defense and kept saying he knows the law. 

Because it's second nature to a journalist like me, I asked permission to record the whole conversation and he agreed to it.

First, he said he could not reprimand his men because I was "just 80% sure" about the identity of the culprit. He said he could not act on it.

At this point, I could not help my tears. The harassment happened. He himself even said he does not contest it – yet here he was, seemingly defending his worker, telling me he could not do anything. As if it's okay for a woman to be harassed if and when the suspect cannot be identified.

This incident happened inside a gated village. Can you imagine what happens in the streets outside?

I told the contractor that when his worker catcalled me, the latter became two things: a sexual harasser and a threat. After doing that to a woman, who knows what he could do next – to me or any other woman in the village?

It turned out it was not the first time the contractor's workers committed such an offense. The village administration secretary was herself a victim of sexual harassment just a few months ago, with workers on this same property "complimenting" her "nice ass."

I insisted that I want the man out of the village and transferred to another project. I did not even ask for the worker's termination. But for the contractor, it was not an option. 

Instead, he wants the guard, who responded to my complaint that night, fired for alleged trespassing. What's worse, he was practically forcing me to "support" the guard's removal from his post in exchange for the transfer of his worker. I don't know what's fueling this logic.

"Kung natanggal 'yung sa akin, dapat matanggal 'yung guard (If my worker is going to be transferred, the guard should be sacked).... I want the same justice…. That is trespassing of private property," he said firmly. "'Yung sa iyo sinutsutan ka lang, ito trespassing (You were just catcalled, what the guard did was trespassing)."

"Kung tatanggalin ko 'yung tao ko, na matagal na sa akin at first time ito nangyari, na 80% lang, paano pa itong guard na 100% trespassing? (If I remove my worker, who has been employed under me for a long time and this is the first time this has happened, and you're just 80% sure, how about the guard who committed 100% trespassing)?" he continued.

Of course, I refused the compromise. Who, in her right mind, would do that? And here's where he turned the tables on me. He alleged that I was washing my hands off the issue and that I was an "accomplice" to the crime of trespassing. 

The guard even volunteered to resign just to appease this man, whose worker clearly committed harassment.

I sought Senator Binay's office on the incident and her relative's action, but I have yet to hear from them.

What the village administration did and did not do: More than a month after the incident, the president of the village association wrote to request that the two parties meet for a "neutral ground," notwithstanding the fact that a meeting already occurred 3 days after the incident. In her letter, she said there was no irrefutable evidence of the culprit's identity.

"The Kawilihan Village Board empathizes with your experience. We do not wish such incident on any of our residents. Rest assured, we at the KVHA are working towards tightening security measures within the subdivision. If the incident was adequately captured by the available CCTV then we have irrefutable evidence of the culprit's identity. Nevertheless, we assure you and other homeowners, that we will continue to pursue initiatives which will best promote peace and order within the subdivision," Bañaga, the village president, said in a letter dated March 27.

On the surface, it may look like a well-meaning letter.  But here is where the problem lies: there was a violation inside the village, the worker's boss himself acknowledges it, yet not one of the 3 men would admit to it. So does this mean the village board cannot, and would not, address a sexual harassment case?

"In this regard, you might want to pursue talks with the other homeowner, not to exacerbate the incident but to find a neutral ground since we are neighbors after all, supposedly looking out for each other," she said. "He told me that all his workers are strictly reminded to observe their company policy and etiquette."

I replied to her letter. But to this date, there is still no response to that – more so a decision on my complaint.

What sexual harassment is not: We should not take sexual harassment lightly. If violators go scot-free in places where people thought they would have a full sense of safety, what message does it send to every woman, some not as fortunate to have the recourse I had? And what message does it send to the harassers, that what they did is no big deal?

All I want is for the worker to be transferred to another project, for my and other residents' security and peace of mind.

In her letter, Bañaga said, "We live in the same community and we encourage each to be guided by a sense of family as we maneuver through our misunderstandings."

I tried to get where she is coming from. But sexual harassment is never a "misunderstanding"; it is an offense.

It would greatly help if, like Quezon City, other cities would pass ordinances banning catcalling and other forms of harassment. (READ: Garbage collector fired for catcalling female student in QC)

We are all for good community relations, but we cannot let this sexual harassment incident go. Neighbors do not harass neighbors. The perpetrator will get away on a technicality. Who is to say that this leniency will not embolden him and others to do the same or even worse, considering this is the second time it was committed by a man or men from the same stable of workers?

I am raising this question not just in relation to my case but to other similar cases in other places.

There is no "neutral ground" when it comes to sexual harassment. There is a perpetrator, a victim, and, in cases like mine, some enablers. – Rappler.com

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