Asked what made him think 12 is the Solomonic minimum age of criminal liability, Senator Richard Gordon, whose committee has been hearing the issue, replied, in his now characteristically peremptory manner, "That's what I feel."

The original bill calls for a lowering of the age limit from the 15 set in the present law to 9. It passed the Lower House easily, despite a strong popular opposition. Obviously, Gordon was trying to strike a compromise with his middling number. 

Still, I see neither rhyme to nor reason for it that might soften the opposition– an opposition not just to the bill, by the way, but to the very idea that children themselves should be prosecuted as criminals. If any sense is made it's made on the opposite side – and made morally and expertly, and forcefully.

One argument should do it: The human brain does not become fully developed until age 16, a fact of science acknowledged in law by categorizing anyone around that age and younger (under 18 in our case) as a "minor," thus requiring guardianship. That fact alone puts into question the sensibleness, let alone the sense of justice, in the existing law itself.

And to harshen it even more! 

But that’s in precise keeping with the character of the Duterte regime, of which Gordon is perhaps its most forcible – no doubt its most loquacious – enforcer in the Senate, a role made perfect for him by his chairmanship of the Blue Ribbon Committee. The committee decides what cases of official wrongdoing to investigate – and what cases to ignore – and sets the terms of the investigation. The record speaks for itself.

Two confessed assassins for Duterte, presumably credible and materially informative being complicit insiders, were shut out of Gordon's committee after brief and severely regulated appearances. They have now gone into hiding.

Against Senator Leila de Lima, the human rights champion and arch critic of Duterte's, the committee went to town pursuing an incredible case of illegal drug trafficking. By the prosecutors’ own admission, the case has no concrete evidence to stand on; it in fact hangs on no more than the word of convicts serving life terms for that very crime and now testifying for no other reason I can think of than a deal for some leniency. At any rate, the coopted courts have taken up the case from there, ordering her detained without bail and proceeding to drag out her trial. She's been in jail for two years now. 

On the other hand, Duterte disciples implicated in the drug trade have had an easy pass with Gordon’s committee. Notable for their fleeting, concessionary appearances were a Duterte son accused as a connection for the Chinese crime syndicate Triad, an alleged bigtime drug trafficker who also happens to be a big political funder of Duterte's, and customs officials given what may well be history’s biggest drug slip through the ports – more than P6 billion worth!

Meanwhile, Duterte's war on drugs, which accounted for more than 20,000 kills in its first year alone, has gone on for nearly two years without any big catch. And, as part, I suppose, of both an effort to deflect attention from the real, adult culprits and the drumbeating for the bill, the enlistment of children as street runners for drug gangs is now being highlighted.

To manage the issue, Gordon has offered what he promotes as a "win-win" deal. With a higher criminal threshold for children – higher than the proposed 9, yes, but lower still than the now prescribed 12 – he said he "can go all out and ask the different departments to cooperate and make the child the principal focus of our efforts at nation building." 

He was alluding to budgetary appropriations for facilities for the rehabilitation of child criminals, making it all sound like some special concession, as if children make up the only category of criminals deserving rehabilitation. All criminals deserve it, but children don’t deserve at all to be categorized as criminals. 

Here lies the basic senselessness, ludicrousness, indeed immorality in Gordon’s proposition: How could a nation get built at the cost of the very future, if not the very lives, of its own children?

That only suggests the worst portrayal Gordon can make of us Filipino parents: users and sacrificers of our own children! – Rappler.com

Valentine’s Day has become an annual commemoration of love that unites people together. Loving and being loved by someone could be the most wonderful feeling in the world. Lovers are excited to celebrate. Historically, singles are a part of this celebration, but are unintentionally excluded.

If that’s not the case, why do singles mourn this celebration? Some singles may feel the social pressure to find someone to date.

This celebration as a tradition has shaped human social realities which want us to believe what they want us to believe. Believing the ideas of this celebration could be empowering or devastating. Is this celebration really uniting or dividing us?

With today’s capitalized standard of beauty, stereotypical definitions of Mr and Ms Right, “follow your dream” philosophy, rampant individualism, the hookup-crazed culture, and the KonMari Method (Does this relationship spark joy?), commitment becomes difficult and obscure for those who want to find true love and continue being in love.

Romantic relationships become a struggle. How could someone be committed and stay committed today? Being single could be one's best option. (READ: Date night suggestions for any relationship status)

In a society that glamorizes romantic relationships, I find this view problematic. Assuming someone’s life is lonely and miserable just because they're single is an unfair conclusion. People must also realize the consequence of this belief as a harmful coercive label as it changes how people view their self-identity. It results in resentment towards couple culture.

During Valentine’s Day celebrations, one may notice the retaliations posted on social media or in personal conversations about #WalangForever and other ways to invalidate couples.

It is true that it is hard to find the right person to share our lives with. Others prefer to wait for the right person than to waste time with the wrong one. But society doesn’t understand this. In fact, society has a notion that single people are lonely, miserable, and incomplete.

There’s an assumption that those who engage in romantic relationships are happier because they have someone to share their lives with. It’s like having a romantic partner is far more meaningful. This powerful narrative invalidates the happiness of singles.

Despite the pressure of couple culture, #MayForever, and relationship goals, singles remain single because of diverse reasons. Others may prefer being single, or others prefer to be like the inspiring Ms Vietnam H’hen Nie who said, “I was told to find a husband, but I had to follow my dreams.”

One might have this kind of thinking: Once you know how to take care of yourself, company becomes an option and not a necessity. (READ: Things I’ve learned about love)

Singles may not be committed romantically, but are committed to other meaningful relationships – family, work, advocacy, or religious life – that require full-time commitment. One should understand that singlehood is not a disability but a deliberate life choice. Besides, who wants to live a life being stigmatized and discriminated?

Society should not consider couple culture as superior and others as inferior. As much as we celebrate romantic relationships, we should also celebrate singlehood.

Love may have different forms but it still is love. No one monopolizes it. (READ: Life was hard, love was easy)

To quote the Dalai Lama, “Compassion is the wish for another being to be free from suffering; love is wanting them to have happiness."

May this season of love remind us all to free everyone from suffering and spread happiness in the world, to set aside our differences, and to love. The world needs it as much as you do. – Rappler.com

Jade Harley Bretaña is a college instructor teaching sociology subjects at Bukidnon State University. He is also a volunteer at Diocesan Commission on Youth and a member of Diocesan Youth Formation Team – Bukidnon.

In a senior high school philosophy class on intersectionality, students were determining their “race”.

One student asked me about what her race ought to be. I asked, "Which ethnicity or culture or tradition do you identify more with?"

She answered, “Chinese.”

“Oh well then,” I replied. “Your race is yellow.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief. She was clearly taken aback by my response. She had not equated colors to and with race. Because I had said it aloud, it sounded very ridiculous. Truth is indeed ridiculous, but it does it not make it any less true.

“Yellow” is a color; what does it have to do with race? (READ: [Dash of SAS] Brown is the color of my skin and passport)

For many people, race is often understood as having some biological basis such as having a certain shape of the nose or having certain DNA type, and they classify humans accordingly. The biological basis also includes the color of the skin.

Notice that in an ordinary use of the word, race often refers to people being white, black, brown, red or yellow. Interestingly, for many people, white is understood as a non-color, so all other “non-whites” are “colored”.  (READ: Learning to embrace my dark skin in a society where white is beautiful)

Because the color of one’s skin is also taken as a biological given, hence, an objective “fact” about people, many do not question the conflation of the color of the skin with race.

Let us assume, for the sake of moving forward, that more or less, the color of the skin is a fundamental property in people; that it has in fact, a biological basis.

However, does it qualify as an identity marker with which to classify people, according to race, which is a construct that is based on the color of the skin?

One does not have to be a social constructivist to realize that those people who argue that “biological basis” ought to be the non-negotiable element with which to classify people – according to gender, race and class – are often those who have something to protect: power, social and economic leverage; access to intellectual properties, and so on and so forth.

Racism operates from a rhetorical sleight of hand. Classifying people according to their racial profiles, which are supposedly based on the color of their skin, suggests that this objective fact points to either the superiority or inferiority of certain groups of people.

The unjust language of kinds and types

Essentialism, at the core, revolves around a fundamental belief: There is something irreducible in every being that makes it as is, regardless of the passage of time.

Scholars for centuries had debated on what this “essence” is or the irreducible or the eternal that makes one as is. Interestingly, when it comes to human beings, there is no consensus on what makes us fundamentally and irreducibly human. If there was, slavery would not have happened and racism would have not occurred.

Is there such a thing as a human nature? Curiously, the “thing” connotes that there is an essence that one can identify in order to classify a thing as of this kind (and not of the other kind) and does so with precision.

Peter Singer, a utilitarian, pointed this out, and he got bashed and ridiculed for being anti-human. Singer pointed out the utter randomness of the supposed essential human nature, regardless of differences in skin color and other biological givens in humans. The fact of the matter is, humans discriminate against other fellow human beings, most of them in horribly cruel ways (such as slavery).

Let us for a moment imagine that one fundamental property of being human is material. By material, I mean, that which is the opposite of non-material such as intelligence or consciousness.

I can think of one example: the color of the skin. (READ: Culture shock: Does it matter if you’re brown or white?)

Already, even without an introduction to Epistemology, or Metaphysics, you can dismiss the utter ridiculousness of such a proposition. Theoretically, yes, black is black, and white is white. Commonsensically, maybe, and maybe not. 

The persistence of the idea that there is such a thing as race, and that it is objectively rooted in something that is observable and measurable, and that race is a useful device to classify humans into certain kinds or types is unjust.

Racial stereotypes are cruel and discriminatory primarily because of what they are communicating: that the inferiority of a certain group or class of people is not only because of the inferiority of their skin color (like black vis-a-vis white), but that they are inferior all the way down to the very fundamental nature of their membership in a certain kind or type of human being. (READ: #StopColorism: Panawagan ng isang babaeng kayumanggi)

Race is a constitutive social construction because highly complex social structures, including habits and practices, are built firmly on the usefulness of race as a tool to keep those in power firmly in their positions in society. (READ: Racism in the Philippines: Does it matter?)

Is race real? In so far as it is a social construction, it is not. However, racism is real because its effects are demonstratively real. – Rappler.com

Jeane C. Peracullo is a full professor of the Philosophy Department at De La Salle University. 

I have been in the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA) several times to do coastal cleanups as part of the environmental efforts of the university I am affiliated with.

LPPCHEA is considered as a wetland of international importance under the Convention on Wetlands. It functions as a natural barrier against storm surges, protecting many barangays in Las Piñas and Parañaque from severe flooding. But now, it is threatened by reclamation as it is part of the 26,230 hectares of Manila Bay approved for reclamation under President Rodrigo Duterte's Build, Build, Build program. (LOOK: Which part of Manila Bay is swimmable?)

Recently, the results of the Manila Bay cleanup and photos of its "transformation" led to strong support for complete rehabilitation. But there are fears that such rehabilitation would actually lead to reclamation, and the government is not denying this, even saying that it would benefit the entire country. (READ: Makabayan lawmakers want Manila Bay rehab postponed)

However, I argue that reclamation will only benefit a privileged few. Here are 7 reasons why reclamation of Manila Bay is bad for all of us:

1. Wider gap between the rich and the poor. Should reclamation projects be done, who would have access to the services and ownership of industries? Just like Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, majority of Filipinos cannot afford them while only foreigners and the privileged few can. Definitely, this would just be another case of how the rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer.

2. Unequal access to jobs and the evils of contractualization. Who will benefit from the jobs as a result of reclamation projects? With the way things are going now with the government's Build, Build, Build program, construction work has become the domain of the Chinese who enjoy high pay, while the rest of our skilled construction workers only get the minimum wage. After the project is done, white-collar workers would have access to jobs, get a regular position, and enjoy decent pay. How about the majority of blue-collar workers who still suffer from the horrors of contractualization which is an issue that we haven't addressed yet?

3. Urban-centric development. What happened to the promise to decongest Metro Manila and bring "development" to the countryside? Reclamation would only bring in more people, more cars, and eventually more wastes to Metro Manila. We're already finding it hard to solve such problems, and now we're looking for more?

4. Misallocation, misuse, and corruption. They say revenues to be generated from reclamation projects would be used for social services. Oh come on, this has always been an excuse to make people bite the bait. Looking at how the government allocates national and local budgets, we see that majority of the funds do not go to basic social services. Where do they go? They go to the pockets of our elected and appointed officials. Meanwhile, a huge chunk of the budget goes to controversial intelligence funds which cannot even trace high-profile drug lords or prevent terrorists from entering the country.

5. Destruction of the environment. What will happen to the wetlands, endemic and migratory birds, and the rich marine biodiversity of the bay? How many mountains will be destroyed so their rocks and soil can be used for reclamation? They say reclamation projects would have to undergo strict environmental compliance before they are given a permit to operate. Are we sure we can trust this given that destructive mining companies still operate in many parts of our country?

6. Exclusive and anti-poor development. What will happen to thousands of poor settlers along Manila Bay? Will they just be sent to a place where they are out of sight and mind? Based on my experience whenever I visit relocation sites, and as confirmed by studies, many of the areas are disaster-prone. Many are bereft of access to jobs and social services, and because of these, majority of the relocated go back to Metro Manila to again live in informal settlements.

7. Vulnerability to disasters. Studies have shown that reclamation projects lead to flooding, and in the event of an earthquake, the danger of liquefaction. Here in Metro Manila, we face the frequent menace of flooding. We are also waiting for the Big One, which we pray will never occur. We would be digging our own graves if we let reclamation push through – it would be the pinnacle of our craziness!

Given these reasons, I firmly stand against reclamation and I encourage everyone to oppose it. Instead, let us all support the rehabilitation of Manila Bay and the whole of Metro Manila.

Let us use government funds and donations from the private sector for better projects that will benefit everyone and not only the privileged few. I tell you, the money has always been there. We should just stop putting into power morally corrupt and spiritually bankrupt politicians. – Rappler.com

Mark Anthony Abenir is an associate professor and director of the Simbahayan Community Development Office of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He is also a development worker and serves as chairman of the Community Development Society of the Philippines. 

Ano ba ang ginawa ni Bong Go para makaangat mula sa dati niyang nakakaawang posisyon sa senatorial surveys? 

Sa pagsukat ng Pulse Asia nitong Disyembre 2018, malapit na sa Go sa Magic 12. Gumanda nang halos limang ulit ang rating niya sa loob ng 9 na buwan. Kaunti na lang, abot kamay na.

Sa kanyang pag-iikot sa Pilipinas, dalawang mensahe ang paulit-ulit niyang ipinapaabot. 

Una, na siya gatekeeper ng Pangulo. “Ako po ang magiging tulay ninyo kay Pangulong Duterte.” Kahit daw mga anak ni President Rodrigo Duterte at mga miyembro ng Gabinete ay dumadaan sa kanya.

Pangalawa, na siya ang promotor ng one-stop-shop ng gobyerno sa pagbibibgay tulong sa mga mahihirap na maysakit – ang Malasakit centers. Sa katunayan, nasa sentro si Bong Go sa lahat halos ng photo-op ng Malasakit Centers mula nang buksan ang mga ito noong Setyembre 2018. 

Ano ba ang Malasakit Centers? Kung ika’y mahirap na pasyente, hindi ka na kailangang mag-ikot sa iba’t ibang ahensiya ng gobyerno at pumila sa bawat isa. Isang pilahan na lang, at Malasakit Center na ang mag-aasikaso ng mga pondong maaaring hugutin mula sa mga ahensiya ng pamahalaan para ibigay sa iyo. 

Simpleng solusyon sa masalimuot na burukrasya. Pero hindi ito idea ni Go.

Ang nagtutulong-tulong – ang nagmamalasakit – para magbigay ng serbisyo at pondo sa mahihirap na kababayan natin ay ang mga ahensiyang tulad ng Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Philippine Amusement and Games Corporation, PhilHealth, Department of Health, at Department of Social Work and Developent.

Nakakaeksena lang si Go dahil tuwing may pasinaya ang Malasakit Centers, nakikiputol siya ng ribbon tulad ng executive secretaries ng mga presidenteng nauna kay Duterte. Andoon si Go, representante umano ng kanyang amo.

Marami nang mga naging "alter-ego" ng mga presidente: sina Peter Garucho, Teofisto Guingona Jr, Ruben Torres, at Alexander Aguirre noong panahon ni Fidel Ramos; Ronaldo Zamora at Edgardo Angara noong panahon ni Joseph Estrada; Renato de Villa, Alberto Romulo, Eduardo Ermita, at Leandro Mendoza noong panahong ni Gloria Arroyo; Paquito Ochoa Jr noong panahon ni Benigno Aquino III.

Pero wala sa mga opisyal na ito ang katulad ni Go na nakaagaw ng papuri para sa mga proyektong di naman siya ang nag-isip, nagsimula, o nagpapatakbo. 

Kahit nga ang executive secretary ngayon na si Salvador Medialdea, ang siyang tunay na "little president," ay hindi nagawang angkinin ang takak ng Malasakit Centers.

Nakikigatong pa ang iba pang opisyal tulad ni Commission on Higher Education Chairman Prospero de Vera, na tinawag si Go na “secret weapon” sa pagsusulong ng libreng tertiary education. Sandali lang, maraming lehislador na nagpursigeng ipasa ang batas na 'yan!

Siyempre, ang pinakamalakas na megaphone ng kandidato ay walang iba kundi ang kanyang amo, na buong pusong bumabanggit sa ngalan niya sa halos lahat ng talumpati, at nagtaas ng kamay niya sa Comelec noong nag-file siya ng kandidatura.

Hindi na bagong diskarte ito ni Go. Bago nagdesisyon tumakbo, sumikat siya bilang "pambansang photobomber" – nagpo-post ng mga litrato ng world leaders, tulad ni Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, at Xi Jinping, dahil may access siya sa mga engrandeng okasyon bilang buntot ng Pangulo.

Gumamit din siya ng pribadong pondo at mamahaling billboard isang taon bago ang eleksiyon – na maaaring paglabag sa government ethics code.

Pero hindi lamang sa ganitong paraan nagagamit ni Go ang kanyang koneksiyon. Ayon sa Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, nabakuran ng kumpanya ng kanyang ama ang malalaking kontrata mula sa Department of Public Works and Highways sa Davao Region. Ang pangalan ng kompanya: CLTG Builders – initials para sa Christopher Lawrence T. Go, ang special assistant ni Duterte. 

Mula sa isang tahimik na assistant, nagpalit-anyo ang special assistant to the president sa isang mapapel na alipores na feel-na-feel ang reflected glory ng kanyang amo.

Ano’ng aasahan natin sa administrasyong salat sa propesyonalismo at delikadesa at hanggang leeg sa patronage politics? Ito'y nakalikha ng isang media credit grabber na nag-ambisyong maging senador, kahit walang isang hibla ng ebidensiya na siya'y kalipikado. – Rappler.com

It has brought down two chief justices already and continues to be the bête noire of many a public official. “It” is, of course, the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth or SALN, a requirement imposed on all public officers and employees by Article XI, Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution and implemented by Republic Act No. 6713, Section 8.

Very recently, the House of Representatives, led by no less than the Speaker herself, passed H. Reso. No. 2467 adopting the “Rules of Procedure in the Filing, Review, and Disclosure of, and Access to, the Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) of Members, Officers and Employees of the House of Representatives.”

The short story behind the long title is that access to House SALNs is now subject to a majority vote by the House in plenary session under Section 14 of the proposed Rule.

We take a Deep Dive into House Resolution No. 2467 and the parallel measures in the two other branches regulating access to SALNs.

Presumption in favor of access

Both the Constitution and the law establish a presumption in favor of access to information on a public officer or employee’s state of wealth.

Article XI, section 17 of the 1987 Constitution requires every public officer and employee to submit a SALN “upon assumption of office and as often thereafter as may be required by law.” Section 8, RA 6713 provides that public officials and employees have an obligation to accomplish and submit their SALNs including those of their spouses and of unmarried children under eighteen (18) years of age living in their households but, more importantly, that the public has the right to know.

The law also provides that SALNs shall be made available for inspection at reasonable hours. They shall also be made available for copying or reproduction after ten (10) working days from filing, subject to the payment of a reasonable fee to cover cost of reproduction and mailing, as well as the cost of certification.

The only constitutional limitation to this access would be with regard to SALNs filed by specific officers, namely, the President, the Vice President, Cabinet members, Congress, the Supreme Court, the constitutional commissions and other constitutional offices (such as the Ombudsman and the Commission on Human Rights), and officers of the armed forces with star or flag rank, where limitations on disclosure may be provided by law.

The Implementing Rules and Regulations to RA 6713 provide that access to official information, records, or documents shall be provided to any requesting member of the public, except if:

• such information, record or document must be kept secret in the interest of national defense or security or the conduct of foreign affairs;
• such disclosure would put the life and safety of an individual in imminent danger;
• the information, record or document sought falls within the concepts of established privilege or recognized exceptions as may be provided by law or settled policy or jurisprudence;
• such information, record or document compromises drafts or decisions, orders, rulings, policy, decisions, memoranda, etc;
• it would disclose information of a personal nature where disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;
• it would disclose investigatory records compiled for law enforcement purposes, or information which, if written, would be contained in such records or information that would  interfere with enforcement proceedings; deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication; disclose the identity of a confidential source and, in the case of a record compiled by a criminal law enforcement authority in the course of a criminal investigation, or by an agency conducting a lawful national security intelligence investigation, confidential information furnished only by the confidential source; or unjustifiably disclose investigative techniques and procedures; or
• it would disclose information the premature disclosure of which would (i) in the case of a department, office or agency which agency regulates currencies, securities, commodities, of financial institutions, be likely to lead to significant financial speculation in currencies, securities, or commodities or significantly endanger the stability of any financial institution, or (ii) in the case of any department, office or agency be likely or significantly to frustrate implementation of a proposed official action, except that subparagraph (f) (ii) shall not apply in any instance where the department, office or agency has already disclosed to the public the content or nature of its proposed action, or where the department, office or agency is required by law to make such disclosure on its own initiative prior to taking final official action on such proposal.

In view of the presumption in favor of access, any restriction or regulation bears a heavy burden of justification.

Judiciary, executive and the Corona lesson

Parallel to H. Reso. No. 2467 are the guidelines provided by the Supreme Court in 2012 for the release of the SALNs of justices, judges, and court officials.

In 2012, fresh from the removal of former chief justice Renato C. Corona for his failure to disclose specific information in his SALN, the Court provided guidelines for access to the SALNs of judiciary members. The guidelines provided a procedure for access with specific exceptions, with the final determination being left to the Supreme Court En Banc.

The Supreme Court would later, in a Resolution dated July 3, 2018, authorize the posting of summary reports of the SALNs of the Justices starting from 2017, subject to specific guidelines contained therein. The Court would also later provide for updated guidelines on requesting information, including requesting for SALNs, in its “Rule on Access to Information About The Supreme Court.”

For the Executive Branch, the latest policy directive on access to SALNs is found in Executive Order No. 2 (S. 2016), which provides that SALNs shall be made available for scrutiny subject to any of the exceptions enshrined in the Constitution, existing law or jurisprudence.

A legal presumption in favor of access to information, public records and official records is expressly provided and “(n)o request for information shall be denied unless it clearly falls under any of the exceptions listed in the inventory or updated inventory of exceptions circularized by the Office of the President provided in the preceding section.”

House's more burdensome guidelines 

Similar to the guidelines issued by the judiciary and executive branch, the House guidelines on access to SALNs provides for regulation of access to the SALNs on file.

Unlike, however, the two other branches, the procedure in the House is much more stringent. 

Under the judiciary guidelines, it is only the Clerk of Court of the particular court that makes a preliminary determination and only to forward it to the Supreme Court En Banc. Under Executive Order No. 2, any requests shall be received by the specific government office with a tracer to track the status of the request and a deadline to respond to a request that is considered fully-compliant with the requirements for access.

The House guidelines provide for a three-step process starting with a preliminary determination and evaluation by the SALN Review and Compliance Committee Secretariat, which determines if any of the limitations under section 12 (7) of H.B. 2467 exist.

In specific instances, the Committee Secretariat may even require the House Member to provide a comment to the request. The Secretariat then recommends the appropriate action to SALN Review and Compliance Committee itself, which may grant or deny access to the filed SALNs. It is the House, in plenary, which determines if access to the copies of the SALN will be provided. 

There are no timelines provided in the House guidelines, unlike in Executive Order No. 2. There are also no standards for the members of the Secretariat to act in the event that  specific House Member disagrees with the request. Instead of providing for greater access, the House guidelines make it more difficult to gain access.

And because any decision to release copies is left to the vote of the House in plenary, this would subject the request to an unduly burdensome and unreasonable requirement of obtaining a majority of members of the House voting to release copies to those requesting.

In view of the presumption in favor of access, H.B. No. 2467 might appear to be in conflict with the Constitution, something which even the President’s spokesperson has noticed.

The guidelines limit access to SALNs of members, officers, and employees of the House and impair transparency and, ultimately, accountability. – Rappler.com

For the first time in almost 20 years, the United States has authorized the release of US$1.5 billion a year for the next 5 years – until 2023 – to allies and friends in the region and help them improve their defense capabilities. 

Unlike US President Donald Trump’s controversial wall along the border with Mexico, the legislation went smoothly for the package of security and economic under the 2018 Asia Reassurance Initiative Act  (ARIA).

Trump signed ARIA into law on the very last day of 2018 amid the longest shutdown in the United States government.

But treaty allies and strategic partners in the region remained unconvinced. Is this for real? 

They would rather wait for Washington to take steps to show it is really committed to help address security concerns in this part of the world, including North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in Northeast Asia and the rise of Islamist militancy in Southeast Asia – the two other objectives behind ARIA aside from countering China's aggressiveness. (READ: China deploys militia as Philippines builds on Pag-asa Island)

Perhaps the loudest reaction from the region came from its oldest alliance partner, the Philippines, when Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, in December last year, called for a review of the Philippines-US 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty  (MDT), a pact made at the height of the Cold War.

Lorenzana said he has asked his lawyers at the Department of National Defense to examine the  relevance of the MDT in light of the evolving security landscape as well as the emerging security challenges and threats that the Philippines now faces after China’s island-building in the South China Sea.

Diplomatic sources in Washington said Lorenzana’s call barely made a ripple in the US capital despite noise from some opinion-makers on both sides of the Pacific. American politicians were busy quarreling over Trump’s wall and policymakers in Pentagon and in the State Department would rather leave the MDT vague and broad than get sucked into a bigger conflict in the region.

The US is happy and satisfied with conducting more frequent freedom of navigation patrols and flights, testing how effective China’s anti-access and area denial efforts are and challenging its claims on almost the entire South China Sea. 

Only Taiwan is rejoicing because the new law allows arms sales to it. The law also authorizes an exchange of high-official visits, something that Beijing frowns upon because of the One-China policy.

Right direction

Lorenzana’s call is a step in the right direction. He wants to know if the new song in Washington is in tune with developments in the long-neglected region.

Since its independence in 1946, the Philippines has not been treated fairly by its former colonial master. For a long time, it remained a dumping ground for old, worn-out military equipment – World War II vintage vessels and Vietnam War-period helicopters.

During the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration, a former senior defense department official familiar with the deal said the US even forced the Philippines to acquire “as is, where is” UH-1H helicopters in exchange for an end-user certificate to purchase well-refurbished UH-1H choppers from Singapore, which was acquired at a friendly price. The number of delivered junk helicopters from the US was even reduced, from 10 to 7, due to inflation.

Between 2010 and 2016, under then-president President Benigno Aquino III, when the Philippines was getting huge military aid from the United States, some American lawmakers even tried to block the transfer of precision-guided bombs to destroy Islamist militants in the South, according to a retired general who was involved in the negotiations for the transfer of smart munitions.

From Obama to Trump

The current senior defense and military establishment officials are hoping that Trump’s Asia Reassurance Initiative Act will bring change in the region because former President Barack Obama’s “rebalance to Asia” has very minimal impact on the security environment in the East Asia and Pacific region. 

In fact, it did not stop China’s island-building in the South China Sea nor put to a halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as U.S. paid more attention to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine in the last two to three years.

At present, US security aid remains the lowest for East Asia and Pacific region despite Washington’s “ironclad” commitment, a rhetoric unmatched by action.

For 2019, the Philippines will get about $58 million in total security assistance (see table below), but zero amount was allocated from the Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, the centerpiece program in the former Obama administration’s “rebalance to Asia” policy.

For instance, only $42 million in foreign military financing (FMF) will go to East Asia and Pacific region this year, or less 1% of the US State Department’s total $5.3 billion FMF budget for 2019, according to Eric Sayers of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). The Philippines will get $30 million and Vietnam gets $12 million. Indonesia and Mongolia, which used to receive FMF assistance.

FMF funds are a form of security assistance mechanism by the State Department to build the military capacity of front-line ally and partner states. The transfer of three Hamilton-class cutters, the most powerful ocean-going vessels in the Philippine Navy. were funded by FMF funds

The amount pales in comparison with the volatile Near East region with over $5 billion ($3.3 billion for Israel, $1.3 billion for Egypt, $350 million for Jordan, $50 billion for Lebanon) and Pakistan with $80 million. Thus, the Philippines is the only non-NATO major ally with the least military support. FMF funding in the region has been falling despite Obama’s “rebalance to Asia” policy.

In terms of military training and education, Sayers said the East Asia and Pacific region will get only $9.8 million this year, the lowest allocation compared to other areas – Europe and Eurasia get $26.1 million; Middle East has $15.1 million; South and Central Asia receive $11.1 million; and the Western Hemisphere has $11 million.

Jordan and Lebanon alone were expected to get $6.5 million, the same amount allocated to Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam combined. The Philippines will get $2 million, again the least amount for any non-NATO ally.

Although there is growing acceptance that the Indo-Pacific and US-Chinese competition represents America’s most pressing long-term challenge, Sayers said there remains a stark contrast between how the administration and Congress continue to budget for Asian security matters compared to other international issues.

He said the priorities in Europe are quickly resourced, supported, and even expanded, while similar actions in the Indo-Pacific are increased modestly and under tight budgetary scrutiny. An example is the Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, which was allocated with $84 million for the entire region in 2019, slashed by both the Senate and House of Representatives from Pentagon’s request of $98 million.

In an attempt to correct the inequity of funds and reflect US security priorities, both houses of Congress came up with ARIA, but Sayers said it remains unclear if the $1.5 billion a year funds for the legislation will be made available. 

It appears that the United States has not moved on from its Cold War approach, which was to take on Russia’s challenge in the European theater but neglect its allies and partners on the other side of the globe.

Lorenzana’s call for a review of the treaty is relevant and timely. Obama’s “ironclad” commitment and Trump’s recent reassurance are empty rhetoric until the Philippines gets what it deserves as America's longtime partner and only non-NATO major ally in Southeast Asia. – Rappler.com

A veteran defense reporter who won the Pulitzer in 2018 for Reuters' reporting on the Philippines' war on drugs, the author is a former Reuters journalist.

Improving the poor’s access to quality tertiary education is far from being a done deal.

The free tuition law (Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act) signed by President Duterte in August 2017 subsidizes the tuition of all students in public higher educational institutions (HEIs). 

Public HEIs include state universities and colleges (SUCs), local universities and colleges (LUCs), and technical-vocation education and training (TVET) programs. 

While the free tuition law was lauded as “pro-poor,” a deeper examination shows that it is not. It’s even demonstrably pro-rich. 

In this article we review the economics of the free tuition law and explain why it’s not as pro-poor as it seems. We also discuss ways by which we can make it work better for the poor.

Who benefits?

The law is not so equitable for two main reasons.

First, a lot of its subsidies accrue to the non-poor rather than the poor.

Figure 1 shows that as much as 17% of public HEI students (or 4 out of 10) came from the richest fifth the population as of 2014. In contrast, only 12% came from the poorest fifth. The same pattern was observed back in 1999, and was even worse.

This implies that the free tuition law involves giving considerable sums of money to rich students whose parents are otherwise capable (and very much willing) to pay for their children’s public tertiary education. 

With a P40-billion budget last year, this is tantamount to writing a P7-billion check to students belonging to the richest fifth of the population.

 Figure 1

There are many reasons for this overrepresentation of the rich in public HEIs. 

For example, admissions policies tend to be biased toward the rich, richer students have easier access to tutors and other resources in basic education, and review centers are more affordable for them, too. 

It’s therefore no surprise to see that richer students are much likelier to proceed to tertiary education (and graduate) than their poorer counterparts (see Figure 2). 

Hence, if we want more poor students to benefit from public tertiary education, a free tuition policy, by itself, clearly won’t suffice. (READ: Free tuition alone won’t make college any more accessible)

 Figure 2.

Second, the free tuition law is also not so equitable because its costs are borne mainly by poor and middle-class Filipinos.

Who pays?

Data show that as much as 80% of income taxes in the Philippines are paid for by workers who earn wages and salaries. Only 20% are paid for by professionals and the self-employed, people who don’t only earn higher incomes on average but also find ways to hide part of that from the authorities.

The TRAIN Law (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) promised to remedy this by placing a heavy tax burden on the richest members of our society. 

But another study said that TRAIN might fail to do so. For instance, we saw last year that TRAIN’s excise taxes on petroleum products, sugar-sweetened beverages, and other goods hurt the incomes of the poor the most via higher inflation (inflation is like another tax on people’s incomes).

In addition, the simplified payment scheme for estate and donor’s taxes also likely benefitted a lot of the elite. 

So, all in all, not only do the poor and middle class pay for a bulk of the country’s income taxes, but the free tuition law’s subsidies also disproportionately benefit the rich. In this sense, the free tuition law can be seen as a reverse Robin Hood scheme.

Some people argue that we can give subsidies to both rich and poor students if only Congress allocated more money for these subsidies. But remember that it’s the Filipino taxpayer who ultimately pays for these sums, and right now the rich are not paying for their fair share. 

Instead of the poor paying for the tuition of the rich, should we not push for the opposite?

What can we do?

How then can we make public HEIs more accessible to the poor?

• We can push for tax reform measures that go after the incomes of the rich more aggressively. In other words, we need to see a much more “progressive” tax system than what we currently have. 
• Some economists have proposed that government can bolster programs that target subsidies to the poor.

Not many people are aware, for example, of the UniFAST program (Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education), which consolidates all forms of government scholarships and financial assistance for tertiary students under one roof.  

UniFAST relies on the government’s comprehensive database of the poor, otherwise known as Listahanan. Through this, it’s much easier to identify and transfer money to poor students unlike your typical scholarship or student loan program. 

To see the superiority of targeted subsidies in general, consider the following back-of-the-envelope calculation. 

Right now Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno estimates that the budget of the free tuition law in 2019 will be P51 billion. Assuming there are around 1.5 million students in public HEIs, this means each student will get P34,000 this year.  

But say we let the richest 20% of students pay for their own tuition, so we only have to cover 1.2 million students. Then with the same P51-billion budget – financed by taxpayers in the end – we can now give as much as P42,500 to each student. 

For each of those 1.2 million students, this translates to 25% more subsidies which they can spend not only on tuition but also on living allowances and miscellaneous expenses. 

In sum, a targeted scheme does not at all get rid of the subsidies to poor students. Instead, by making the rich pay (since they can and will), we free up even more subsidies to aid poor students most in need.

Room for improvement 

The free tuition law is here to stay. Any politician who dares question it (or propose its repeal) will be committing political suicide. 

But this should not stop us from seeking ways to improve the law and help it achieve its avowed objective of making tertiary education accessible to as many Filipinos, especially the poor. 

Along with this, I think we must simultaneously confront the deep-seated inequities in our basic education system.

But how can we do this if this year the Department of Education is actually facing its largest budget cut in years, to the tune of P51 billion?

We cannot truly reform the higher education sector without also reforming the rest of the education sector. 

Is the current leadership up to this task? Are they paying enough attention to the education sector? – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD candidate at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations. Thanks to friends for valuable comments and suggestions. Follow JC on Twitter (@jcpunongbayan) and Usapang Econ (usapangecon.com). 

I have enormous respect for the work you do as journalists: your ability to produce coherent reports and analysis under extreme time pressure often in uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous, circumstances always impressed me. I consider it a privilege to have got to know your profession well.

I also attach great importance to the role you play in free, democratic societies. I am proud of the United Kingdom’s long history of standing up for media freedom around the world. Holding the powerful to account, speaking up for those who have no voice, ensuring the proper application of the fundamental principles common to any free society – including the rule of law, protection of human rights and freedom of speech. 

These are all responsibilities that you bear. As the great British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill said, “A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.” 

So I am delighted that the British Government will this year be leading a global campaign in support of media freedom. In the coming months you will see us in the embassy very active on this issue. We will be working with the government, business and civil society. I hope we can also work in partnership with you.

You will see us standing up for media freedom where we see it under threat. You will see us sharing our experience of how a free media is an essential element of any genuine democracy. You will see us launching activities to foster improved media literacy, support professional journalism and to encourage the exchange of views on media regulation. 

Serious threat

Why now? 

Because the freedom of the media is under serious threat. 

2018 was one of the deadliest years ever for journalists. At least 80 were killed (including 6 from the Philippines). A further 348 were detained. Around the world, we see journalists and media organizations targeted and harassed, often under the thin veneer of due process. They are prevented from going about their legitimate work. Legislative and practical barriers have increased. 

The collapse of traditional business models is being aggravated by the undue influence of wealthy political actors. Media institutions are increasingly vulnerable to political and economic influences that limit their capacity to work independently and in the public interest. 

A free media is an essential ingredient to a well-functioning democracy and the rules-based international system. Without it there is no accountability. A free press is bound up with good governance, democracy, equality and poverty reduction. 

Just by way of example: the evidence shows a clear overlap between the countries with the least corruption and the countries with the freest media. Those countries near the top of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index also appear near the top of the Press Freedom Index. And the correlation holds at the other end of the scale. Of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world, 4 are also in the bottom 10 when it comes to press freedom.

In the era of fake news and propaganda, supporting a free media also means countering the incoming tides of disinformation. While it has never been easier to publish and receive information, it has also never been easier to spread lies and conspiracy theories.

So the professional standards of courageous, objective, fact-based journalism have never been more important. The UK is committed to media freedom and the protection of journalists across the world. 

Throughout the year the UK government will shine a spotlight on media freedom issues and increase the costs to governments that impinge on those freedoms. In the longer term, we want to see a reduction in state barriers to a free media, countries living up to their international commitments and the taboo on attacks against journalists re-gaining widespread acceptance. 

There is important work for us all in the months ahead. I do hope you will be able to join us as we take it forward. – Rappler.com

The author is ambassador of the United Kingdom to the Philippines. These are excerpts from the speech that Ambassador Pruce made on February 7 at the Philippine launch of the UK's global campaign on media freedom in Makati. 

Marie Kondo has been in the “tidying up” business since her university days when she was only 19 years old. She continued building up her business and published her best-selling book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up in 2012.

Kondo maintained her business course by finalizing a deal with one of the biggest streaming services at the moment, Netflix, to produce Tidying Up with Marie Kondo which premiered on January 1, 2019.

The “business material” that Kondo sells worldwide is actually based on a simple premise: Tidying up.

For some people, this concept might seem so simple that they often take it for granted. It starts with sorting your things into categories, folding clothes with the “KonMari” method, and ends with “throwing your things.”

Frankly, as someone inspired by her method (I've read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up twice, and as soon as I finished reading, I was eager to clean my room), I never found her to be as ruthless as some people might claim. (READ: Marie Kondolences)

The way Kondo writes her books is mostly telling the “don’ts” first and the “dos” later.

When she grew tired of her siblings’ cluttering habit, she threw out their things without their permission. That is an invasion of privacy but Kondo is a mere human; she’s not faultless. The good thing about her is that she learned from the mistake and made that a lesson in the book: not to control other people’s cluttering habit, however bad it may be.

If we are truly bothered, or if we feel our sense of privacy is disturbed, we should take a different approach to help them tidy up.

Kondo's non-authoritarian method is seen in her show. In her pilot episode, we’re introduced to the Friend family, Kondo’s clients who got bothered by their pile of stuff at home, adding to the stress of raising two toddlers.

Kondo told them the lessons that made her book famous: categorize your things, separate clothes that don’t spark joy, and say farewell to things that have finished their tasks.

Kondo shows them how to actually do this, but she doesn’t control and force the family. She lets the family to declutter by themselves, while she just shows the way. The one time Kondo interrupts their decluttering session is when Mrs Friend throws out clothes that have lost their spark without expressing gratitude.

Kondo also guides the Friend couple to focus on the task of categorizing clothes.

When Mrs Friend gives her opinion on Mr Friend’s confusion on whether to keep a certain t-shirt, Kondo asks her to be focused only on her task.

The Tidying Up show pilot lasts for 30 minutes. It’s compact and introduces all the things we need to know about the KonMari method. It basically features some of Kondo’s clients who have problems with decluttering. Kondo and her translator or assistant then shows up to help them solve their problems.

When I finished the pilot, I am certain that Kondo appeals to so many people because she crafted her method of tidying as something that can solve other worldly problems.

When we have a problem and feel hopeless, it’s not unusual for us to seek experts to help us solve them. We meet the experts, they analyze our problems, they try to offer advice and solutions, and we follow them. Kondo does the same thing. Both the experts and Kondo have their own methods; it’s up to us whether to follow or not.

Another thing special about Kondo is that she brings an unusual approach to her method such as expressing gratitude to things we don’t want to use anymore. By expressing gratitude, we say thanks in a literal sense. “Thank you for being there when I was in the university.” “It’s time to say goodbye and I really am grateful you were there” and so on.

Marie Kondo is an expert on decluttering but she will never be free from making mistakes. She never throws the fact that she has made some mistakes, yet she tries to repackage it as something to relieve her clients, readers, and followers. Once again, Kondo is just a mere human being like we all are. – Rappler.com

Novia Riani Putri graduated from French Studies program at Universitas Indonesia. She is currently working in financial industry, and is based in Jakarta, Indonesia.

This was delivered at the Conference on Democracy and Disinformation of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines in Iloilo City on February 8, 2019.

I became a lawyer in 1998. I belong to the generation of lawyers that has witnessed the exponential advances in communications technologies. While 20 years ago we had to endure long lines to the pay telephone to be able to speak to our girlfriends, now our sons have the luxury of communicating with their buddies in ways we never imagined possible at the time. Now they can text, Viber, or Telegram 3 girlfriends  – all at the same time. That is change partnering with progress.

The present is a far cry from the past. Young people are communicating on platforms we older folks can only pretend to be able to keep up with. Lawyers are among the very few who continue to use the post office for registered mail, and only to comply with legal niceties, but really, we can now get our messages across at the speed of light via this wonderful progeny of the internet – the social media.

But it is not all a bed of roses. We gladly embraced Facebook when it made Friendster obsolete, but what used to be a platform to update ourselves on relatives and friends, has become a medium of false information, misleading opinions, and hate speech. People will say anything, without regard of personal sensibilities, and oftentimes in utter ignorance of the very subject matter that they discuss. 

Today we are faced with the reality of hate speech being hoisted in social media as a weapon against judicial independence. Speech that incites hatred or violence against judges. Speech that glorifies rape and murder. False statements that are proffered as facts, calculated to injure the reputation of a person or organization. Profanity that is integrated into opinion, as a means of hiding behind the protection provided by the Constitution on freedom of expression.

Clearly, the internet has become the new enabler. Discordant, sometimes disturbing views, previously kept out of the mainstream, are dominating and shaking the very foundations of our institutions.  

The Fourth Estate – the Press – previously, the sole gatekeeper of popular thought, is currently under siege. Journalists gathered here today are in a struggle for survival against an unexpected new enemy – Fake News. Under traditional logic, fake news should be easily defeated by the truth. But we are now witnesses to how opinion may be manipulated through the constant bombardment of lies and propaganda passed on as correct information. 

When I look at your battle, I see the possible future of lawyers. For as journalists were seen as the sole gatekeepers of “truth,” lawyers are seen as the sole gatekeepers of “justice.” 

I emphasize the word “sole” because it is precisely that characterization of exclusivity which is being undermined today. This is an age where information – not service- is the prime commodity. Most of this information is freely accessible online, and we face the prospect of the role of lawyers in society being tested, and challenged, in a manner no different from what you journalists are facing today. 

We lawyers have seen the signs of this happening. For instance, a political science professor was engaged in a fierce online debate against several lawyers about what a provision of the Constitution means. Hundreds of people “liked” and posted “comments,” a good number of them siding with the professor, some of the commenters even disputing the lawyers' premises. Obvious expertise on the subject was not decisive. 

Sometime late last year, a highly partisan broadcast journalist who used to have a blocktime in a government channel, was seen on Youtube castigating a regional trial court judge somewhere in Mindanao for the latter’s decision acquitting a supposedly notorious drug queen. The expletives and unprintables flowing out of this broadcaster’s mouth would have certainly merited contempt in more enlightened times. But short of actually offering this judge to the mercy of anti-drug vigilantes, the broadcaster called him an imbecile who was either grossly ignorant of his law, or deliberately ignored evidence and rendered useless the efforts of law enforcement agents who had daily been risking their lives in the anti drug war. To this Youtuber, subtlety is out of vogue and libel is not a crime. This judge is corrupt, period. 

But which judge would endanger himself by coddling drug offenders at this time? May I say that despite the risks, there remain judges who maintain close fealty to the Constitution. and that includes the decision issued by the Mindanao judge who upheld the primacy of the Constitution by quashing the search warrant utilized  by the police operatives in securing the evidence they presented in court. 

The search warrant was illegally implemented. The alleged contraband was found in a house that was not so specifically identified in the warrant. Meaning, the wrong house was searched. Worse, the occupants of the house were herded outside in pre-dawn darkness and not allowed to get back in while the operatives declared themselves free from restraint in violating their domicile. This is in serious violation of the law that provides that no search may be effected without the presence of the lawful occupants or their counsel. This should guarantee, among others, that no conrtaband or illegal artifacts are planted in evidence.

A couple of hours later, media representatives and village officials are summoned and a search is conducted. And guess what. Illegal drugs are found in evidence.

What is alarming is that this appears to have become the template in search warrant implementation. A trial judge in Manila recently acquitted another drug queen, publicly characterized as such by the authorities. In his decision, the judge decried the admitted testimony by the police themselves that a “clearing team” was sent into the premises and was free to roam around for at least half an hour without the presence of independent witnesses, and while waiting for the media and the village officials to arrive at the scene. That window was sufficient time to destroy the integrity of the premises being searched.  

Various chapters of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines have strongly protested this predilection of highly opinionated individuals to publicly shame judges who acquit drug suspects on constitutional grounds. Notoriety as a drug lord should never be a license to perverse or relax constitutional standards on search and seizure operations. 

Just recently, IBP Bataan decided to conduct an inventory of the cases being handled by one of its RTC judges in reaction to suspicions being publicly raised in social media that there had been indiscriminate and wrongful dismissals of the drug cases initiated by the police. 

After such investigation, IBP Bataan concluded that there was solid ground on which to anchor the acquittals rendered by the judge. The circumstances leading to the acquittal have been very similar:

• There were material inconsistencies in the testimonies of prosecution witnesses, mostly police officers involved in the apprehension and investigation of the accused.
• There was failure to comply with the requirements of Section 21 of the anti-drug law regarding chain of custody.
• There were unexplained lapses of time between confiscation, marking, inventory and turnover of drug specimen.
• There had been discrepancies in testimonies in such matters as time or place or manner of apprehension.     

The judges who continue to stand for the rule of law must be extolled as modern-day apostles of lady justice who is not only blind to the gravitas of the personalities appearing before her, but must be deaf as well to the loud voices of the many in social media who advocate legal shortcuts at the expense of the Constitution.  

As students of the law, we know the rationale behind not subjecting members of the judiciary to popular vote. This is because they should not be swayed one way or the other by public sentiment. 

Decisions we have studied and committed to memory uniformly dictate that the Judiciary must not allow itself to be involved in politics. This means that judges must not be impelled by political considerations in adjudication. 

The Constitution and our laws are skewed in favor of insulation through provisions expressly mandating the independence of the Judiciary. As the unelected branch of government, the judiciary’s sole standard of action is the rule of law rather than the public pulse. This is an essential democratic counterweight to the popularly elected officers of government.

Unfortunately, while there continue to be courageous judges, judicial independence appears to be among the first casualties in this social media empowered populist sentiment to rid our country of illegal substances. – Rappler.com

Abdiel Fajardo is the president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

Anyone who knows me can attest that I enjoy travelling and exploring places. While every journey is beautiful in its own way, there are some that leave a lasting impression in your mind and soul. I experienced this in July 2017 when I visited the historic city of Nagasaki in Japan. I was there to lecture on international humanitarian law (IHL) and nuclear weapons at the Atomic Bomb Museum. I had, previously, read about nuclear weapons and their horrific effects, but I had never had the opportunity to visit a place where such a weapon was used and witness its impact firsthand.

To be honest, I had been under the impression that nuclear weapons explode upon impacting the ground (just like what we often see in movies). In Nagasaki, however, I learned that nuclear weapons detonate 500 meters above the ground. The atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 were so powerful that anyone present within the 1.2-km radius of where the bomb detonated had almost zero chance of survival. Bodies recovered within this zone were burnt to such an extent that they looked like charcoal. It is estimated that approximately 340,000 people died immediately and within the five years following the bombs being dropped.

During my trip I was able to meet and learn from two hibakusha (survivors) of the Nagasaki blast. Dr. Masao Tomonaga, a medical doctor and the honorary director of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital, was only two years old when the blast happened. His experience strengthened his resolve to become a doctor and help the blast survivors. The second hibakusha was a worker from the Mitsubishi Arms Factory in Nagasaki.

The full extent of the horror and destruction caused by nuclear weapons hit me when they started sharing their stories from the blast. Not only did the atomic bomb attacks result in the killing of thousands of people, a large number of the current 154,000 survivors continue to suffer even decades after the blast.

Many of the survivors lost their loved ones and had to endure the painful process of dealing with grief. In addition, many sustained horrific injuries. Dr. Tomonaga told us that their hospitals have treated survivors who suffered from five different kinds of cancer. When I saw some images of the survivors I was shocked at how they have managed to live with the level of injuries they sustained from the blast.

Many hibakusha have been stigmatized by society. We were told that some families would not want their children to marry a hibakusha out of fear that the genetic effects believed to have been caused by the bomb will be passed on to the next generation.

The experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrates that the use of nuclear weapons causes destruction, death and injury on an unimaginable scale. Nor are there any effective means to provide adequate life-saving medical and humanitarian assistance in the aftermath.

Seventy four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we now face a world where nuclear weapons have become even more destructive. I cannot even begin to imagine the magnitude of devastation should an intentional or accidental detonation occur today.

Fully aware of their catastrophic humanitarian consequences, 122 States adopted a treaty banning nuclear weapons on 7 July 2017. The treaty was opened for signature on 20 September 2017.

The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons comprehensively prohibits nuclear weapons on the basis of IHL – the body law that governs the use of all weapons in armed conflict. It bans any development, production testing, stockpiling, use or threat to use nuclear weapons. It also contains strong commitments to assist victims of nuclear weapon use and testing and to facilitate the remediation of contaminated environments.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement more broadly, have long called for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons from exclusively humanitarian perspective. This historic treaty is an important and essential step towards achieving these goals.

All States have an interest in the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons– as does all of humanity. At present, there are 70 signatories to the treaty and 21 of those States have ratified it.

I am happy to say that Philippines has signed the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty and is in the process of ratifying it. Through its ratification, the Philippines can become a leader in the prohibition against the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will likely suffer the devastating effects of the blast for the rest of their lives. Even today, the Japanese Red Cross hospitals continue to treat several thousand victims for cancers and illnesses attributable to the 1945 atomic bombings of these cities.

My firm wish is for our world to never again experience such a catastrophic event.  – Rappler.com

Evecar Cruz-Ferrer is a legal adviser with the ICRC in the Philippines working with national authorities on the implementation of IHL treaties in the country. She also teaches IHL and public international law in De La Salle University College of Law and Arellano University School of Law.

Last week I was touring Nat, an American friend, around Maginhawa when we hit upon the bright idea of watching a movie. We decided to watch Rainbow’s Sunset at Cinema Centenario. It would be a nice way to end his visit by letting him learn a few things about the local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community before he left for Singapore in a few days. Yet, by the movie’s end, I had a distinct feeling Nat had learned about something entirely different instead: Filipino families and family politics.  

Rainbow’s Sunset is still an LGBTQ film. The story revolves around the love between aged gay couple Ramon and Fredo during the latter’s final struggle against cancer. With his old lover fading fast, Ramon packs up and moves in with Fredo to accompany him in his last days.

Surrounding the terminal romance between the two is the conflict it triggers within Ramon’s family. Ramon has been married to wife Sylvia for over 50 years. Luckily she’s understanding, even supportive, of Ramon’s decision to accompany Fredo. But not Ramon’s 3 middle-aged children who all have their own families, and had no clue about their father’s sexuality. It’s hard to believe, as Ramon’s only son Emman says, when your father comes out at the ripe old age of 84.

And therein lies the problem. Because Ramon’s family isn’t just any family, oh no. It’s a budding political dynasty. Ramon – full name Ramon Estrella – is a retired 3-time senator.

As much as Emman is horrified by his father’s sexuality, all the more so is Georgina, Ramon’s second child, who is also the newly elected mayora of a quiet provincial town. Her main gripe against her father is the scandal his newly revealed sexuality will cause because everyone knows the revered senator.

Everyone knows the Estrella family car. The family’s status is in full display when Georgina casually orders Fredo’s nephew to curtain up his uncle’s house – best not to let the neighbors notice them cuddling in the bedroom. Things get even more explicit when Georgina’s husband, a businessman, asks his brother-in-law Emman to tinker with land prices. Just a bit, he says, so he can sell them to a third party for greater profit.

It’s a confusing blithe display of traditional family politics. Emman’s role in corruption is treated as a side plot, a joke, and its consequences are never mentioned again after the deal’s conclusion.

Something of how the movie treats the Estrella family can be seen in its portrayal of Marife, the youngest daughter, who works at Gabriela. She’s the only one among her siblings open to her father’s sexuality. She’s also regularly, and conspicuously, shown working under a large Gabriela banner. It’s almost as if the organization’s name was being used to emphasize this "one good seed" among the Estrella siblings, whose kindness is meant to sanitize her family’s antics.

Rainbow’s Sunset is still a nice movie. Humor infuses most scenes despite, or because of, the near soap opera levels of drama. The 3 starring elderly actors, Eddie Garcia, Tony Mabesa, and Gloria Romero – Ramon, Fredo, and Sylvia, respectively – tell with grace this strange story about love at the terminal stages of life. And the movie mocks other aspects of Filipino conservatism just as well. (It’s probably just a phase, says Emman, who also cannot believe he has a lesbian daughter.)

Perhaps it’s just me. It was a strange experience in the cinema, like having two people watching the movie in my head. There was the part of me that just wanted to enjoy, and another that couldn’t help but wonder what Nat was learning about the country from his visit. Waving him goodbye, I think Rainbow’s Sunset helped show Nat a fuller picture of the Philippines, giving a glimpse into the centrality of family in Filipino life, and how that same centrality lies at the heart of our distinctive brand of oligarchic corruption, than he otherwise could have hoped for. – Rappler.com

Rio Constantino is a sleepy college student who wants to be a biologist someday. Like many others his age, he constantly searches for naps, alcohol, and an internet connection, in that order.

Why are our government officials afraid of children? They are seeing them as future criminals instead of having the hope that they will become great leaders in the future.

If I may ask, with due respect: Do our lawmakers know that they are trying to pass a law that would demonize angels? Do they know what they are doing?

Last January 28, legislators approved House Bill 8858, seeking to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 years old.

The measure mentions the word "discernment" in one of its provisions. It states that if proven that children in conflict with the law acted with discernment, they would be subjected to the "appropriate intervention and diversion" proceedings.

But how can a child act with discernment when minors need guidance every step of the way?

Here's why I oppose the move to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Section 6 of Republic Act No. 9344, known as the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, states:

"Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility - A child fifteen (15) years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability…. A child above fifteen (15) years but below eighteen (18) years of age shall likewise be exempt from criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention program, unless he/she has acted with discernment, in which case, such child shall be subjected to the appropriate proceedings in accordance with this Act."

In the Batas Pinoy website, discernment is defined as "the mental capacity of a minor to fully appreciate the consequences of his unlawful act…. The surrounding circumstances must demonstrate that the minor knew what he was doing and that it was wrong…."

Out of sheer ignorance and innocence, children are unable to "appreciate the consequences of their unlawful act." Untaught and unguided, they may do wrong without regard for laws. They may even have zero knowledge of Congress' current shenanigans involving their future.

Children are children. This is the reason why the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board has age rules for certain movies and television shows that are supposed to be just for adult viewing. Why is parental guidance required?

The government cannot say it is concerned with children's welfare when it is the same government wanting to detain kids.

Our government does not have a heart for children who need parental guidance and understanding. Children commit mistakes for reason of failure which is not their own, but of their parents, elders, government, church, and society. (READ: Children in conflict with the law: Cracks in Juvenile Justice Act)

Even adults may "not know" that they are committing wrongdoing. As Jesus Christ lamented before He breathed His last, referring to Roman soldiers who mercilessly nailed Him on the cross and those who wanted Him crucified: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Are we, as a people and a nation, really getting the "promised change" we have been longing for?

Why make children suffer as criminals when they don't have the slightest right of suffrage to vote for candidates who will protect their rights and well-being? Did any of our children today vote for these legislators who have such a heartless agenda?

Are they trying to amend Republic Act No. 9344 to terrorize children? – Rappler.com

Reni Valenzuela is a businessman, writer, author, painter, songwriter and preacher of God's Word. He is also a former sports columnist and boxer.

Curating a museum around the word Bangsamoro meant diverging from the typical inclinations of museum makers. 

It could not be a museum of antiques. Filipinos have lost nearly all refined examples of traditional art to collections overseas; the Muslims, in the past copious makers of exquisite stuff, losing much more, earlier. A Bangsamoro Museum would have to make present the absence of these materials. 

It could not be a museum of "tribes"—an inappropriate term in any case in the Philippines. That aside, a Bangsamoro Museum cannot traffic in simplistic, stereotypical identity pegs, as many museums have to, in order to appeal to audiences impatient with complexity. On the other hand, Bangsamoro is precisely a marker for an especially passionate politics of identity.

It could not be a museum that severs art and culture from political process and, in fact, war. 

This last idea is self-evident in tenacious, creative acts encountered everywhere in the territories that are now, collectively, Bangsamoro. The Maranao women refugees from their destroyed Marawi homes, who started weaving for survival income, also found weaving to have helped them tune out the sound of constant bombardment, and emerge psychologically unscathed. In the 1970s, Yakan women in Basilan did the same under the sound of bombing from the air. They, too, emerged unscathed, but had to cope with wholesale death. 

Iranun kulintang makers took to melting spent brass shells from guns of myriad calibers, and have persisted with the instrument tradition. Tausug kissa chanters sing of the 1906 Bud Dajo massacre, the Japanese occupation, the 2013 Zamboanga siege, and other experiences of war. Oral tradition indeed remembers that the kissa chanter chanted through the Bud Dajo carnage, and was among the last to perish.

What the Bangsamoro Museum needs to do, therefore, was clear at the outset. It should bear witness to endurance through imaginative expression, through centuries of prejudice. The museum should honor the humblest of the Muslims of the Philippines – not just their leaders, nor only the principals of the protracted peace process.

When Mujiv Hataman thought to initiate this Bangsamoro Museum to give a final punctuation mark to his tenure as the last regional governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), it was to complete the construction of a house in order. The new political entity, Bangsamoro, created by law in 2018 and ratified in January this year, receives a museum-scale précis of the many dimensions of the fight for self-determination.

The focus is unusual: the cultural underpinnings of warfare and political process to unite as a cluster of Philippine peoples whose commonality is Islam, and to then be recognized as Bangsamoro, the political entity. 

The Maguindanao awang – a boat hydrodynamically designed for wetlands where water levels change daily – was one key to the longevity of the formerly secessionist movement, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF dominance in their homelands, featuring the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Marsh, was supported by water-based warcraft. 

Maritime abilities with long-duration travel in the seas internal and outside the Philippines have sustained both armed struggle and the cultivation of a sense of identity larger than villages. 

The peace process between the Philippine government and the MILF-led leadership worked at the most particularized levels of language. The details of the negotiated agreement had to rest on the capacity to wield nuanced language for political purpose. It helped that the Muslims of the Philippines have long enjoyed both literacy in jawi, Arabic script for local languages, and oral tradition that operates on precision speech. 

It is not necessary for the Bangsamoro Museum to pitch hagiographic narratives to demonstrate the shared tenacity that succeeded in the creation of Bangsamoro. This museum only needs to maintain focus on the integration of culture and politics in the story of Bangsamoro emergence. – Rappler.com

Marian Pastor Roces is an independent curator and institutional critic. She curated the establishment of the Bangsamoro Museum and its Permanent Exhibition, and many other museums over the last 40 years. 

The campaign period for the May 2019 elections is nearing and a lot of trapos (traditional politicians) are on the prowl again, imitating hungry wolves hunting for a herd of lost sheep.

In general, election season is the time when politicians try to win the hearts of Filipino voters by making sweet promises. Like how their promises continuously fall from the sky, so do the funds they use to buy votes.

In the Philippines, vote buying is prevalent in poverty-stricken areas such as those alongside skyscrapers, industrial estates, haciendas, and gated communities. (READ: No poor Filipino by 2040: Can Duterte gov't set the stage?)

How many poor people do we have in the country? If we go by the subsistence minimum approach, which is less than $1.90 a day, 2015 data from the World Bank show that around 22 million Filipinos or one-fifth of the country's population still live below the national poverty line, while 1 in 10 individuals are vulnerable to falling back into poverty.

Meanwhile, when it comes to self-poverty ratings, the results of the Social Weather Stations survey for the last quarter of 2018 showed that 50% of Filipino families think they are poor. (READ: More Filipino families considered themselves poor in 2018 – survey)

Although poverty incidence in the country has significantly improved throughout the years, poverty in aggregate numbers remains high and the pace of poverty reduction has been slow. The poor, who make up a significant chunk of our population, have the ability to elect either seasoned or rookie politicians into positions of power. This is understandably why politicians do their best to appeal to the masses, and in most cases, they make claims that they too were once poor, hence they supposedly have the best interests of the poor in mind.

Poverty by design

But why are there so many poor people in the country in the first place?

Social scientists have answered this already, but the myth of rich thinking vs poor thinking, and industriousness vs laziness keep on getting stuck in people's minds. This is because we get bombarded with rags-to-riches stories in popular media, making us believe that the key to living a comfortable life is the mindset of rich thinking coupled with perseverance and patience.

But when we are confronted with facts that show there is global inequality where about only 10% percent of the global population own 90% of the global wealth, while 3.7 billion people are living a life of poverty, then we get to realize that this is not just about rich thinking vs poor thinking but poverty by design.

In the Philippines, this poverty by design is played out in political dramas. When trapos get elected, they do their best to recover the money they spent in bribing the masses by pocketing government funds and accepting bribe money from dubious government transactions. These malevolent schemes adversely affect budgeting and effective delivery of urban and rural social development projects. The numerous fund scams such as those involving the Priority Development Assistance Fund, coco levy, and Malampaya prove that corruption is happening.

These scams are one of the major reasons why in the Corruption Perceptions Index, the Philippines, with a score of 36 out of 100, was ranked 99th out of 180 countries surveyed in 2018.

There is a significant relationship between high corruption and high poverty rates in the country. For trapos, poverty is good news, since people who remain poor tend to accept everything coming from politicians.

New face of vote buying

Nowadays, trapos have become innovative in their strategies to buy votes. They claim government projects as their own, acting as if these services were funded with money from their own pockets. They are also wise in scheduling the delivery of such social services, usually when elections are near. (READ: The many ways of buying votes)

When people say that poverty breeds criminality as crimes in the country are often committed for survival, we can also conclude that poverty breeds trapos since a lot of people who need to survive allow their votes to be bought.

Indeed, poverty is the bread and butter of patronage politics. If we want to prevent trapos from holding public office, we should do more to address the root causes of poverty, instead of blaming the poor and branding them as "bobotante." – Rappler.com

Mark Anthony Abenir is an associate professor and director of the Simbahayan Community Development Office of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He is also a development worker and serves as chairman of the Community Development Society of the Philippines.

This week – on Tuesday, February 12, to be exact – the campaign period starts for those seeking seats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives through the party list. There will be 63 candidates contesting 12 vacant senatorial seats, and 134 party-list organizations vying for 59 slots in the lower house.  

The candidates for national positions have only 90 days to court voters, although a number of them had their promotional materials on billboards and buses, on TV and radio, and on our social media feeds for months now, having taken advantage of a loophole in the law about premature campaign. 

Tight race, limited time – what can we expect of political camps and interest groups in such a situation but to bombard us with projections, spin, and propaganda until all we hear is only noise? By late March, it will even be noisier as the local campaigns start. 

Ninety days is also the time what we – voters, election watchdogs, the media – can put the candidates on the spot and force them to address what really matters to us. The aim is to rise above the din to afford ourselves the space to think our votes through. 

Various surveys show that voting-age Filipinos are most concerned about keeping prices of commodities down, getting or staying employed, getting better pay, having access to education and health care, and combatting corruption in government. 

Yet how do some senatorial candidates market themselves to the voters? I’m your kuya. I’m the idol. You can mark my word. By the way, I eat saluyot and read books, so I’m still fit for the job. Still, others – almost all who are within the so-called Magic 12 in surveys – have not bothered to attend forums and debates to present themselves to the voters. Why face the public and the risk of saying the wrong things (or not being able to say anything) when you’re figuring well in surveys anyway? 

Candidates will be waging their campaigns on 3 fronts: ground, air, and cyberspace – the last one having increased in necessity in the last two general elections. As a social news network, Rappler will be the voter’s partner in reclaiming the conversation on this fast-evolving front, online.  

As early as October 2016 – fresh from the presidential election and far away from the 2019 midterms – we exposed the propaganda techniques that the Duterte administration had used to shape or shift public opinion on key issues. (READ: Propaganda war: Weaponizing the internet | How Facebook algorithms impact democracy | Fake accounts, manufactured reality on social media)  

From 2018 to 2019, we pointed out early indications of links to Russia of their propaganda machine, raising the red flag on the possibility of it being used to sway – even poison – the election-related conversation on social media in the Philippines. (READ: Bots, Assange, an alliance: Has Russian propaganda infiltrated the Philippines? | Is the Philippines in step with Russian online propaganda warfare? | Russian disinformation system influences PH social media) 

In the months leading to the filing of candidacies, social media influencers, bloggers, and partisan groups had started their subtle and not-so-subtle push for certain aspirants – as well as their aggressive attacks on people and organizations they perceived to be threats to their principals. In more recent weeks, we’ve received reports of owners or administrators of popular social media pages getting offers to have their accounts rented for a set number of posts within specific periods. 

Those are the online armies that the media and the conscientious voters have to contend with.  

And this is our battleground: 41% of Filipinos now use the internet – up from the 34% or so who were online a month before the 2016 presidential election, according to the Social Weather Stations. The figures are higher in the Pulse Asia poll, which was also done in September 2018: internet users are at 47%. It also showed that while only 29% “read, watch, listen to the news,” 98% check social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where they will inevitably find news on their feeds. 

Among the 46% who use the internet to check their social media accounts, majority (51%) have changed their views about politics and government because of something they saw on social media. That’s a huge leap from the 39% who did back in June 2017. Of this 46%, most (88%) say they have been exposed to “fake news” on social media, up from 74% in 2017. Of those who are aware of fake news on social media, a big majority (79%) agree that it is widespread.  

Here’s a possible indication of the confusion that these false information and disinformation campaigns are causing: in December 2018 – 5 months before election day – more than half of voters had yet to complete their list of 12 senatorial candidates they would vote for. In comparison, in 2015, also 5 months before the elections, majority of voters had already made up their minds.  

Individually, we can start with something small and basic: resist the temptation of sharing the candidates’ posts showing their antics or incredible claims just so we can comment on how stupid or epal they are. That provides them chain exposure that can influence the impressionable. Post instead something truthful about the candidates you are rooting for. 

Then let us ask the hard questions of candidates and their parties. What do they know about legislation? What have they accomplished in their past career or term in public office that equip them for lawmaking. How aware are they of concerns and needs of our communities, our society at this particular time? (Remember that there are no perfect candidates, but there must some who are perfect for the call of the times.) Are they aware of Congress’ role as a counter-balance to the executive branch? How do they intend to exercise this? How much are they spending for their campaign? Where are they getting the money? Would these sources of campaign donations present any conflict of interest when the candidates get elected? 

Lastly, the Commission on Elections is embarking on a difficult but necessary step of regulating the use of social media in the campaigns. Among those it will monitor are social media influencers who are campaigning for candidates: how much are they getting paid? Since when? By whom?  

On the surface this would serve only to track whether the candidates’ expenses are within the limits prescribed by law. In fact, this should help unmask influencers who claim to be doing things voluntarily because they believe in this or that, but are actually getting paid for building up one candidate and destroying another. This would expose tainted content. 

Here, the poll body will need the netizens’ and the media’s vigilance. We doubt that it has enough people monitoring whose ads are popping up how many times and for how long on countless sites. We all can be the army that would help the authorities: voters can report, poll watchdogs can expand or shift the focus of their monitoring, the media can amplify the initiative. 

Together, we can – and should – help lessen the noise, so that what’s right, sensible, fair, and truthful will ring true. 

We have to reclaim social media. We have to take hold of the conversation. We have to own these elections. – Rappler.com 

Gusto kong samantalahin ang pagkakataon. Narito ako sa isang bagong puwesto para makapagsulat. Sa isang sulok ng bagong-gawang bahay dito sa lalawigan ng Quezon. Kapritso itong sulok na ipinagawa ko. Bago ang lahat ng gamit maliban sa laptop. Nilalaro-laro ko ngayon, habang tumitipa, ang kabibiling office chair na may arm rest. Taas-baba, taas-baba. Ikot-ikot. Galaw-galaw. Ang ginhawa. Ang saya. 

Sandali lang, sinasamantala ko kasi ang sandaling ito. Gusto kong itanim sa memorya – virtual and biological memory – ang alaala ng sandaling ito. Ito ang una kong maisusulat na artikulo sa bago naming bahay sa bagong 'hood. Heck, ito ang una kong maisusulat na kahit ano sa ipinangutang na bahay na babayaran ko hanggang bago ako mag-senior citizen. 

Linggo ng umaga ngayong isinusulat ko ito. Nakatanaw ako sa bintana mula rito sa aking writer’s nook. Wala namang matatanaw na kakaibang tanawin. Tanaw lang ang mga kapitbahay. Mga naglisaw na bata at manaka-nakang pagdating ng mga sasakyan. Pagkaraniwan. Basta, gusto ko lang damhin ang bawat sandali bago bumalik sa nakasusulasok na Maynila kinalunesan.

At ngayon ngang umaga, habang isinusulat ko ito, narinig ko ang standard na sigaw na iba nga lang ang timbre ng boses hindi gaya ng nakasanayan: dumaan ang resident magtataho sa bago kong 'hood. Teka, bibili muna ako. <kinain/ininom ang mainit-init na taho, ang sarap>

Okay. Napag-uusapan din lang, alam kong naliligalig na naman ang news feed ninyo hinggil sa usapin ng ating lowly caramelized sucrose-laced silken soya extract with tapiokas, o mas kilala bilang taho.  

Ilang araw lang ang pagitan, bumandera ang taho sa ating news sites at news feeds. 

Una ay noong Martes, Pebrero 5, nang makuhanan ng video ang komosyon ng isang magtataho at kawani ng gobyerno sa Baguio City. Mapapanood sa nag-viral na video ang sapilitang pagkuha at pakikipag-agawan sa tindang taho dahil bawal diumano ang pangangalakal ng taho sa nasabing lugar.

Ang ikalawa ay nito lang Sabado, Pebrero 9, nang mag-viral naman ang mga larawan ng isang pulis na halos maligo sa isinaboy na taho ng isang dayuhang Tsino. Naganap ang insidente nang hindi papasukin sa sakayan ng MRT sa Mandaluyong ang dayuhan dahil may dala-dala itong taho

Dati nang bawal ang kumain papasok sa loob ng estasyon ng tren, lalo na sa mismong pagsakay sa loob ng bagon. Nadagdagan pa ang pagbabawal na ito nang maghigpit ang pamunuan ng LRT at MRT sa tulong ng Philippine National Police na hindi papasukin ang sinumang may dalang likido dahil sa banta ng terorismo.  

Ayoko nang isa-isahin ang nangyari. Kalat na kalat naman sa internet ang balita, detalye, status, at meme hinggil sa mga insidente, pati na ang opinyon ng samot-saring politikong gustong makakuha ng media mileage dahil sa papalapit na eleksiyon. Bahala kayo kung ano o sino ang paniniwalaan ninyo. 

Ang mas pinag-iisipan ko kasi ngayon ay kung bakit biglang naging bida ang pangkaraniwang taho sa mga balita. Magiging ganito rin kaya kung, halimbawa, mamahaling whiskey ang isinaboy sa alagad ng batas? O kung walis tambo o barrel man imbes na taho ang itinitinda ng mangangalakal sa Baguio? Bakit taho? Ano ang meron sa taho? 

Wala namang masyadong hindi natin alam. Taho pa rin naman ang taho (hindi ko alam iyong nangyaring insidente sa Baguio, may malaking tsansang strawberry taho ang involved – tsk, ang sarap pa naman) maliban sa mga pagkakataon ngang kasangkot ang taho sa nakuhanan ng video o retrato, tapos ay nag-viral; na-pick-up ng media kaya lalong kumalat hanggang sa, well, tulad ng lagi nang trending na paksa, lahat ay nagnais nang magbigay ng opinyon kahit hindi hinihingi. 

Taglay naman kasi ng social media ang panghihikayat sa netizen na magbigay ng opinyon at makialam sa kahit anong usapin. Makipag-away kung minsan. Makipagmurahan. Mag-insultuhan.  

Perfect mix ng viral na video ng magtataho o ang viral ding larawan ng tinapunan ng taho na nangyari ilang araw lang ang pagitan. Idagdag pa ang inaakalang pang-aagrabyado at, 'yun na, sikat na ang taho.  

Maganda ang narrative arch. Taho bilang platform ng pagpapakita ng kapangyarihan. Naks, power relations. Kung isang academic paper ang isusulat ko, iyong babasahin ko sa isang international conference na magbibigay sa akin ng certificate para ma-promote at kilalanin sa larangang itinuturo ko, pop culture at research, papamagatan ko ang akademikong papel na ito na: “Taho as a platform for domination and subordination of social classes.” At dahil naglilingkod talaga ako sa akademya, hindi malayong isulat ko nga ang papel na ito at pakinabangan sa promosyon.  

Pangkaraniwan kasi ang taho. Mura, mabibili kahit saan. Mayaman man o mahirap, tumatangkilik. O, sa lagay ng ikalawang insidente, kahit ang dayuhan, tumatangkilik (oo, alam ko, sa Tsina nagmula ang taho pati na ang pagtangkilik nating mga PInoy sa taho ay impluwensya ng Tsina). 

Napakabisang platform para tunghayan at pag-usapan ang taho ngayon. Taho bilang equalizer ng lipunan pero naging platform din ng dominasyon. Ang una, marahas na pagpapatupad sa batas. Ang ikalawa, tolerance ng dapat sana ay magpapatupad ng batas, silang mga inaakala o inaasahang marahas dahil sa kaliwa’t kanang engkuwentro at insidente ng “nanlaban.” (BASAHIN: Police want Chinese woman deported over taho incident) 

Puwede ring angguluhang ang unang insidente ay nangyari sa pagitan ng kapwa Filipino, thus the full force of the law; ang ikalawa naman ay sa dayuhang maaaring ituring na mikrokosmo ng higit pang malaki, komplikado, at nagaganap na intimidasyon sa ugnayan ng bansa natin sa Tsina, namely, issue ng West Philippine Sea, pagpapautang nang may mataas na interes sa pamahalaan, malawakang pandarayuhan dito sa atin, importasyon ng ilegal na droga, at iba pa. 

Sa ikalawang insidente, nasabi ko ito bilang status sa Facebook nitong Sabado:

Hindi lang naman talaga tungkol ito sa isinaboy na taho. Wala naman 'yun. Matamis pa nga. Hindi naman mantsa. Hindi naman makakasakit. Tungkol naman talaga ito sa temerity ng dayuhan. Kung gaano kalakas ang loob manaboy ng taho sa isang pulis. Subukan mong isang Pinoy ang magsaboy ng taho na iyan. May kalalagyan. 

Temerity. Brazenness. Dahil marahil alam niyang sa bansang ito, walang papalag sa kaniya. Nangamkam ng isla, pinalagan ba? Tapos ito taho lang? 

Temerity. At siguradong hindi pa ito ang huli. 

Minsan lang magtagpo-tagpo ang elementong nagpapasukal sa dibdib at nagpapasigabo sa opinyon ng maraming nakasawsaw sa isyung panlipunan. Mamaya o bukas, o sa susunod na pagdaan ng sumisigaw ng “Taho! Taho kayo d’yan!” sa inyong lugar, bumili. At bago ubusin sa ilang lagukan, isipin: hindi ito taho lang. Minsan, may malalim na usapin din dito ng kapangyarihan. – 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. 

Manila Bay has long been a symbol of the environmental degradation that has plagued the Philippines for decades. Despite a 2008 Supreme Court ruling ordering government agencies to clean it up, the bay's water quality remains poor. The seemingly conflicting agendas of reclamation and rehabilitation, both being pushed by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte and some local governments, have sparked a debate about the fate of the area. 

However, pollution is not the only environmental problem to be dealt with. Manila Bay and the communities and ecosystems around it are becoming more vulnerable to natural hazards, especially those intensified by climate change.

Highly vulnerable

Currently, 1.2 million people and 55,000 hectares of farmland near the coastal zones of Manila Bay are susceptible to floods. A 4- to 5-meter-high storm surge would endanger 2.8 million people in 31 cities and municipalities.

Recent projections by PAGASA suggest that the Manila Bay area would experience an increase in rainfall, while the Philippines would observe an increase in the frequency of strong storms by 2050. This could mean an increase in occurrences of floods and landslides, which damage agricultural, commercial, and residential areas. This, along with sea level rise and land subsidence from excessive groundwater withdrawal, would threaten an additional 2.5 million people.

Such changes may also cause soil erosion, which worsens the sedimentation of coastal and marine ecosystems, as well as rivers flowing into Manila Bay. Compounded with massive land reclamation and waste pollution from nearby communities, this would make mangroves, coral reefs, and mudflats more vulnerable. (READ: [OPINION] In defense of Manila Bay)

Today, only 1% to 4% of the mangrove forests along Manila Bay from the past century remains. A large portion of seagrass habitat has already been lost due to sediment deposition and land reclamation. Coral reefs are not only being damaged by destructive fishing techniques and construction activities, but also affected by ocean warming.

Protecting what remains of these ecosystems is important to regional development. Failing to do so would not only cause a decline in fisheries, but also deprive coastal communities of ecosystem services such as mangroves as an adaptation measure to sea level rise and saltwater intrusion.

The loss of nearby forests also contributes to the degradation of Manila Bay. From 2003 to 2015, more than 41,000 hectares of forest cover were lost. The absence of trees makes these areas more prone to soil erosion, which releases sediments into rivers and streams that eventually end up in the bay. Without strict enforcement of forest management laws, even communities close to deforested areas would be adversely affected.

Choose rehabilitation

Rising sea levels may also have a significant impact on reclaimed land. These areas are highly prone to liquefaction, a phenomenon where soil stability is reduced due to environmental stress such as an earthquake. Sea level rise can result in saturation of the sandy soil usually found in coastal areas, making the lands even more prone to liquefaction.

While the planned massive reclamation along Manila Bay promises to create jobs and generate income for the government, these lands are also exposed to natural hazards. Around 5.5 million people would be affected by high liquefaction under current conditions, a figure that would increase as the coastal population, economic activity, and intensity of climate-related hazards rise in the next few decades.

Potential losses from the environmental hazards enhanced by climate change may offset the economic gains provided by reclamation-based development in the Manila Bay area. No sector would be hit harder by losses than the poor. By 2016, more than 180,000 families classified as informal settlers were living near the waterway easements in the Manila Bay area, which are prone to floods and their associated impacts. In Metro Manila alone, 20,000 families need to be relocated, many of them living along the coasts. (READ: [OPINION] 7 reasons why we should oppose Manila Bay reclamation projects) 

The day Manila Bay would be fit for swimming will not come right after removing garbage along the coasts and closing down establishments with inadequate environmental compliance. Its rehabilitation is a continuous endeavor that will only succeed if policymakers have the patience and a collaborative mindset to deal with long-term issues the area is facing, such as climate change and environmental pollution. (READ: Fecal coliform levels in Manila Bay still high – DENR) 

The economic growth the Philippines has experienced in recent years has not significantly reduced poverty. Reclamation projects are poised to benefit only the privileged few, while the underemployed Filipinos of today would remain stuck in unideal working conditions.

It is not only the environmental framework for rehabilitating Manila Bay and other critical areas that needs to be changed; the existing socioeconomic policies must also be modified to promote sustainable, inclusive growth that the country needs. Given the current situation, reclamation and rehabilitation of Manila Bay simply do not complement one another. The Philippine government must choose rehabilitation. – Rappler.com

John Leo Algo is the science policy officer of Climate Reality Project Philippines. He earned his MS Atmospheric Science degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in December 2018. He is also a citizen journalist.

The 2019 elections will be our 4th automated one.

In 2010 the country implemented its first automated elections using Smartmatic’s voting machines called the Precinct Count Optical Scanner or popularly (or infamously, depending on which side you are on) known as the “PCOS machines.”

The 2010 PCOS machines were reused in the 2013 elections.

In the 2016 elections, the PCOS machines were replaced by newer and updated optical mark reader, relabeled as the Vote Counting Machines or the “VCM,” which were also supplied by Smartmatic.

The same VCMs will be used in the 2019 elections.

This may be the 4th automated elections, but many have yet to understand that our Automated Election System or “AES” is not a “fully” automated election system, contrary to what its name suggests. What has been automated are merely the:

• Appreciation and counting of ballots
• Transmission of the precinct results to the Boards of Canvassers
• Ladderized consolidation of results and their canvassing

All other aspects of the election process have remained manual. Voters, for example, still manually cast their vote by shading the ballots instead of, say, touching buttons on a computer screen to register their vote for their chosen candidates.

Verifying the voters' identity

Another crucial aspect of the AES that has remained manual is the “voter verification.” This is the part where the members of the Electoral Boards (EBs) ascertain whether the person before them is the same voter who registered to vote in that precinct. Presently, when a voter presents himself to vote, he will be verified by asking his name and by counterchecking it with the the Election Day Voter’s List (EDCVL). When there is a challenge as to his identity he will be asked to produce a proof of identity, registration, or qualification. Under the General Instruction, it is at this point where the EB “shall identify the voter’s specimen signature and photo in the EDCVL.” If the members of the Electoral Board are satisfied, he will be given a ballot and be allowed to vote.

The voter verification process is supposed to screen illegal voters and impostors. This aspect of the AES is the only discretion left to the members of the Electoral Board and, consequently, the automated system’s weak point. Members of the Electoral Boards can be forced, intimated, bribed or can simply collude with politicians and that’s it! This vulnerability has been exploited by election operators and cheaters since the 2010 elections.

This vulnerability is worsened by the voting machines’ inability to tell whether the person feeding the ballot is really the registered voter who cast the vote. This allowed the cheating scheme of “shading by one” or “feeding by one,” where one or few persons can technically vote for the whole precinct. In some instances, politicians would simply hijack all the ballots and shade them en masse, ending with a 100% turnout and with 100% of the votes cast in his favor!

After the 2010 automated elections, after my law firm boss Sixto Brillantes Jr took the helm of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), one of our immediate priorities was to address this vulnerability by automating voter verification and remove the Electoral Boards’ discretion. This, however, would require a separate voter verification machine that would be integrated into the voting machine – at that time, the estimated cost was P25,000 per unit.

This was how we envisioned it to work: the biometric information (that is, fingerprints) of all the registered voters of a particular precinct would be pre-loaded onto the precinct’s voter verification machine. Persons presenting themselves as the voter would be asked to input their fingerprints, and if there was a match, they would be given a ballot. A biometrics match would also be required before a filled-up ballot were to be accepted and read by the PCOS machine. 

This would have easily eliminated the practice of “shading by one” or “feeding by one.” At the very least, it would have made it very difficult for election cheaters to do their thing because the system would require them to produce warm bodies to cast the votes. Unfortunately, our budget proposal for the 2013 elections was stricken down as early as the level of the Department of Budget and Management. Thus, the planned improvement was never implemented. It also did not happen in the 2016 elections.

Partial implementation of verification system

In the 2019 elections, with much credit to the present chairman and commissioners of the Comelec, biometrics-based voter verification will finally be implemented…but with a catch!

First, it will be implemented partially, not in all voting precincts in the country. Of the total of 92,509 clustered precincts that will operate in the 2019 elections, only one-third or a total of 32,000 clustered precincts will have a Voter Registration Verification System (VRVS). According to various Comelec releases, these 32,000 clustered precincts will more likely be in “in selected areas of Mindanao and practically for the entire ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao).”

Interestingly, ARMM, now the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), will once again be the testing ground for the VRVS, like in Comelec’s past electoral experiments. However, to me, it is ripe for judicial determination whether imposing an additional step or requirement or condition on the voters from these 32,000 clustered precincts (while not applicable to the rest) will pass the “equal protection” test of the Constitution.

Unlike the 2013 plan, the 2019 VRVS will not be integrated or connected to the voting machines, but will merely “compliment” them. Biometric matching will not be required before the VCM will accept and count the ballots as envisioned by Comelec in 2013. Also, per Comelec press releases, not passing the VRVS’ verification does not mean a voter won't be allowed to vote. The Electoral Board will retain “discretion” to let the rejected person vote despite failing the verification test. This then begs the question: what will the verification be for? What added value will the machines give to the voting system?

As I understood it, this partial implementation of the VRVS is meant as a “trial” in preparation for its full implementation in the 2022 elections. But is the Comelec even ready?

Quality of biometrics database crucial 

One of the major issues that the Comelec will face is the quality and integrity of its biometrics database. The Comelec has been gathering biometrics data for more than a decade or perhaps longer. In that period, different biometrics capturing machines running on different software and from different suppliers had been used. Expectedly, they are of varying performance or accuracy. Also, different people had captured and handled the voters' data, and different suppliers had been in charge of their storage, custody, and analysis.

During my time at the Comelec, we constantly received reports that a significant number of fingerprints in the former ARMM areas were found to be “smudgy” or intentionally made smudgy. There was also the prevalent use of the middle, ring, or pinky fingers, instead of the required thumb and index fingerprint to trick the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), which could detect duplication. Migration from one technology to technology supplier, if mishandled, could also affect data integrity. In other words, the inconsistency of the “quality” of the biometrics data is foreseeable and, in fact, confirmed by multiple sources.

To address or compensate for the problematic biometrics database, the Comelec or its VRVS supplier is expected to lower the so-called “Biometric Match Threshold” or BMT. This threshold pertains to the minimum degree of similarity between a pattern (biometric information of the person attempting to vote) and the biometric template preloaded in the VRVS that it will accept before declaring a “match.” The industry uses the word “scores” (or weights) to express the similarity between a pattern and a biometric template. The higher the “score” is, the higher is the similarity between them. The higher the score or similarity required, the higher the certainty that the person attempting to vote is really the voter registered in that precinct.

The quality of Comelec’s biometrics database will be crucial in setting this threshold. The dilemma is that imposing a higher threshold could lead to a higher rejection rate or prevalence of false rejections if Comelec’s biometrics database are of poor quality. The other option is to lower the threshold, but this could mean poor detection, thus a higher acceptance rate (or false acceptance). In a worst-case scenario, with a system adopting a low threshold, impostor patterns could be falsely accepted.

To address this, two steps are necessary. First, the Comelec should conduct an inventory, assessment, and quality check of its biometrics database. Second, for transparency, it should publicly announce the “Biometric Match Threshold” that it will adopt for its VRVS, so as to prevent any surprises or unintended controversy like the shading threshold which exploded out of proportion in Bongbong Marcos’ election protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

An accurate VRVS can only achieve so much with a poor database; it might even fail. Comelec’s VRVS supplier can simply pass the blame on to Comelec, and that would be like flushing a lot of money down the drain!

If Comelec gives the public a clear and honest assessment of its database and makes the biometric match threshold known, then we can temper our expectations and have a sounder assessment of the 2019’s automated voter verification system. This sound assessment of the efficacy of the 2019 VRVS is crucial for us to know whether it can be expanded nationally or implemented fully in future elections. Or, it can tell us what intervention can be done before 2022? Is there a need to nationally “redo” Comelec’s biometric database?

Personally, I believe in the necessity of a VRVS and think that its full integration into the voting machines is the only solution to close any vulnerabilities and solve many electoral fraud that subsisted in automated election system like the shading and feeding by one. Further improvement of our automated election system should go towards this direction and I congratulate the Abas Commission for taking this bold step! – Rappler.com  

Emil Marañon III is an election lawyer specializing in automated election litigation and consulting. He is one of the election lawyers consulted by the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo, whose victory is being contested by former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Marañon served in Comelec as chief of staff of retired Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. He is a partner at Trojillo Ansaldo and Marañon (TAM) Law Offices.