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Streetwise: Aquino’s SONA, what legacy? By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

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This year’s state-of-the-nation address (SONA) is President BS Aquino’s last.  He is expected to deliver a powerful speech replete with his regime’s achievements for the last 5 years with a summation of the legacy he will leave behind as he winds up his term. The Palace is agog about the Aquino regime’s  so-called “legacy of reforms”.  Speculation is rife, less than a year before the 2016 presidential elections (no doubt stoked by the “yellow” media to dispel the fact of a lame duck president with not much political capital remaining) about who will be his “anointed” to “continue the legacy”.

But the smoke-and-mirrors presidency that this column described upon its inauguration in 2010 has run out of magic tricks especially when it has to make something big out of basically nothing much. All the catchy, folksy slogans, in Filipino even, have boomeranged because they have been unmasked as empty or false and merely calculated to deceive and disarm.

The hard sell is that the Aquino presidency is qualitatively different, especially from the one that preceded it, that of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  Former president Arroyo is the proverbial whipping girl as far as Mr. Aquino and his coterie are concerned, for all things wrong in government before Mr. Aquino, an erstwhile non-performer in Congress, arrived on the political scene.

But unlike the Arroyo regime that at least saw the successful prosecution and conviction for plunder of Mrs. Arroyo’s predecessor, Joseph “Erap” Estrada, the cases against GMA have either been set aside, dismissed or are languishing in judicial limbo.  The student activists have a term for it: Mr. Aquino has been “Noynoying”, content with keeping GMA under hospital arrest and somewhat constrained from plotting against him, the ends of justice be hanged.

In reality Aquino’s campaign for good governance against abuse of authority, corruption, obstructionism and incompetence have been exposed as mere demagoguery, tokenism, selective prosecution of those in the anti-Aquino Opposition, and sometimes petty vindictiveness sparing the truly accountable from among the “kabarkada, kaklase, kabarilan”. Police General Alan Purisima, Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno, Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala, LTO Assistant Secretary Virginia Torres, Budget Secretary Butch Abad and Presidential Peace Adviser Ging Deles come to mind.

The Malacanang propaganda line is that the Aquino regime made a real difference to the hardscrabble lives of the majority of Filipinos.  But the reality is more entrenched poverty and economic backwardness; unprecedented inequality marked by healthy profitmaking for multinational corporations and the local elite; untouched feudal relations in the countryside; auctioning of the national patrimony and unabated environmental destruction.  This in the midst of impressive growth rates, credit-rating upgrades, and high scores in “competitiveness” by foreign and local big business and the World Bank. (For a more comprehensive analysis see “SONA 2015: A Legacy of a Disconnected Economy” http://ibon.org/ibon_features.php?id=517)

The illusion that the Aquino regime has been trying to conjure is that it has championed national sovereignty and defended territorial integrity pointing to the government’s filing of a case in a UN arbitral tribunal and appeals for support in other international venues with regard to the heated West Philippine Sea dispute with China over maritime rights and territory.

The Aquino government’s acquiescence to the lop-sided Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) on top of the obsequious implementation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) in order to allow the permanent stationing of troops and war materiel and unhampered operations by the US military on Philippine territory (nothing less than the return of US military bases as part of the US “pivot” to the Asia Pacific region) is covered-up as a necessary adjunct to building a “credible external defense”.

The abject lack of an independent foreign policy — in the process placing the country in the crosshairs of the actual and potential enemies of the lone Superpower — is passed off as pragmatism, or worse, an alignment of national interests.  The latter has historically been proven as completely false: from the devastation of World War II brought on by being the lone US colony in the region; to the economic losses, social degradation and political costs of hosting the two biggest US bases outside the US mainland; and to the decrepit and weak state of the Armed Forces of the Philippines under US tutelage — with its long-standing orientation towards counterinsurgency rather than national defense and its hand-me-down equipment purchased at supposed discounts according to the terms of lopsided military assistance pacts.

The big picture moreover shows the surrender of economic sovereignty to the international financial institutions dominated by the US, EU and other advanced capitalist countries, to their governments especially the US, and to the powerful lobby of foreign chambers of commerce in favor of neoliberal policies and programs.  Such policies as liberalization, deregulation, privatization and denationalization akin to the punishing conditions that Greece has recently been placed under have actually been implemented continuously since the late seventies by Philippine governments.
Under Aquino, the Philippine economy and people are further squeezed to favor monopoly capitalist impositions like never before, e.g. regulatory risk guarantees for foreign investors in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) that go even farther than sovereign guarantees for foreign loans.  What’s more, the refusal of the Aquino regime to support domestic agriculture and build a genuinely Filipino industrial base — the true “sound fundamentals” of a self-reliant economy — is consistent with its subservient economic policies.

The lie that the Aquino has been peddling, with some success in the beginning, is that his “bosses” are the Filipino people, especially the poor and disadvantaged.  But as he readies his last SONA and prepares to exit from Malacanang (no doubt to continue his carefree, bachelor’s pursuits as a privileged scion of big landlords) the main thoroughfare leading to the Batasang Pambansa looks like a war zone fortified with concrete barriers, concertina wire, container vans etc. to be secured by 6,000 strong police force and standby military contingent.

Mr. Aquino’s real bosses have clearly emerged – foreign multinational corporations, the US Superpower, the domestic comprador capitalists (by definition, “agents for foreign organizations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation”) and the big landlords.

On the human rights front, Mr. Aquino will not tire of crowing about the law passed to compensate human rights victims of the US-backed Marcos dictatorship, the arrest of the murderous General Jovito Palparan and the counterinsurgency (COIN) program deceptively dubbed “Oplan Bayanihan” that pretends to uphold the pursuit of peace, human rights and development while militarily crushing the “insurgents” and “terrorists”.

Mr. Aquino however will not admit to supporting incessant efforts to deny compensation to Marcos victims that are identified or associated with the local communist-led revolutionary movement; the coddling of the retired Gen. Palparan by the military establishment before and even after his arrest and the climate of impunity that cloaks human rights violators then and now.  Military officials implicated in the torture, disappearance and extrajudicial killings of activists have been promoted and appointed to sensitive and top positions of the defense establishment to the chagrin of the families of their victims and human rights defenders.

Gross and grievous violations of human rights under the aegis of Oplan Bayanihan, the hallmark of all COIN programs, are now papered over with references to “human security”, “whole-of-nation” approach, etc. and are even peddled as the military’s contribution to community development.  But the effect on the communities of indigenous peoples, landless farmers and farm workers is the same: massive displacement with entire families evacuating from their homes to escape militarization; extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances; and illegal arrests with prolonged detention on the basis of trumped-up charges in connection with the ongoing armed conflict.

Most recently, there is the stepped-up and brazen harassment of activists, union organizers in the private and public sector, progressive church people and even health professionals coupled with the filing of a slew of baseless criminal charges in the months leading up to Mr. Aquino’s SONA.  Alarmingly, charges such as human trafficking, illegal detention and the violation of children’s rights, etc. in connection with the sanctuary and support given to lumad evacuees fleeing military and paramilitary violence are being used to justify violent assaults on church institutions and personnel as what happened last week in Davao City.

Mr. Aquino is trying mightily to salvage the GPH-MILF peace negotiations (after the Mamasapano fiasco) by pushing for the passage of a version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law that has little resemblance to the terms of political settlement the two parties had already reached and hold little promise for achieving the aspirations of the Bangsamoro for self-determination.

He is also trying to pass off as his peace program what in truth is his program to defeat the CPP/NPA/NDFP militarily — with a huge dose of psychological warfare and the targeting of non-combatants for “neutralization” — in order to make completely unfounded claims of leaving behind the legacy of “a just and lasting peace”.

What Aquino leaves behind is a bloody human rights record, peace agreements reneged upon, and promises broken.   Indeed it is a legacy of more unjust war against a people rising up to assert their democratic rights; to defend themselves from elite depredation and state terrorism; from imperialist plunder and war. #

Published in Business World
27 July 2015

P1NAS: Hands off Philippines, independence day twin rally

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A twin rally was held last June 12, 2015, independence day in front of China embassy at Makati City and US embassy at Manila, to calls on the Filipino people to stand in defense of national sovereignty and territorial integrity against the foreign powers that seek to tear the Philippines apart.

Chinese Consulate to US Embassy
June 12, 2015

LARAWAN: Defend Philippine Sovereignty

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Chinese Consulate to US Embassy
June 12, 2015

The only real deterrent to China’s aggression by Carol Pagaduan-Araullo of Streetwise

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In recent months, China’s flurry of reclamation work and building of military installations on several of the islets and reefs in the disputed portions of the West Philippine Sea (WPS)/South China Sea (SCS) have set alarm bells ringing about China’s aggressive design to claim almost the entirety of the area as part of its national territory. The Philippines, being one of the parties to the disputes over maritime rights and territorial claims in the WPS/SCS, is rightfully aggrieved.

The WPS/SCS encompasses traditional fishing grounds not only for Filipino fisherfolk but those from several other ASEAN countries. (China has been denying their access to these fishing grounds.) The bountiful marine resources and rich marine biodiversity of the WPS/SCS is nature’s endowment to our peoples; it should be wisely conserved while being sustainably exploited. (Chinese fishing vessels are well known to be engaged in destructive overexploitation of the marine environment.) There is substantial, commercially-valuable petrochemical and gas deposits in the underlying seabed that would be a much-needed boost to the economic development of any of the claimant nations. (China is suspected of wanting to hog these resources.)

The WPS/SCS is a geopolitically strategic and sensitive area. It contains vital sea lanes for much of the global trade in the region. Historically, it has been a stepping stone for western imperialist inroads into China. Currently, it is a critical part of the Asia Pacific where US military might is being shifted to contain a resurgent China and maintain the US’ unchallenged dominance in the region.

The Filipino people must see through the geopolitical power play between the declining but still militarily superior US and its rival China, the new economic powerhouse, albeit with a far distant offensive military capability. The Filipino people must not allow the country to be used as a pawn in big-power competition, collusion and confrontation. Unfortunately, there is the widespread yet dangerous thinking, reinforced by a lingering colonial hangover, that the best, if not only, way to defend our sovereignty against any foreign country’s encroachments is to call on Uncle Sam for help.

The conventional wisdom is that the Philippines, being a poor, backward country has no capacity to defend itself against China’s bullying and anticipated worse depredations to come; neither now nor in the foreseeable future. Besides, it is argued, hasn’t the Philippines always been under the US security umbrella through long-standing military agreements?

What is undeniable is the fact that the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and other such lop-sided pacts have not resulted in the promised modernization of the AFP, ergo our external defense capability is one of the weakest among claimants. The year-round Balikatan joint military exercises that are supposed to be improving “interoperability” between the state-of-the-art war machinery of the US and the decrepit, outdated equipment of the Philippines merely reinforce the Philippine military’s state of awe, dependence and subordination to the US armed forces.

With the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the Philippines’ role as provider of forward stations aka “agreed locations” for the basing of the US military troops and materiel is sealed. Once more the justification is EDCA will cover the gaping holes in our external defense, acting as a deterrent against China based on the groundless presumption that the US will go to war against China in our behalf.

Philippine authorities and other wishful thinkers mindlessly cling to the illusory notion of Big Brother immediately coming to our defense despite the fact that the US has repeatedly stated that it will not intervene in the territorial disputes in the WPS/CHS. They also ignore the reality that the US has far bigger, more important stakes in its relations with China — trillion of dollars in trade and trillion more in loans — than it has with its former colony.

This was made clear by no less than US President Obama when he declared during his visit in April 2014, at the height of the tensions over the WPS/SCS, that US-PH military agreements, such as the MDT, do not bind it automatically to take military action to defend the Philippines in the event of a Chinese attack. Moreover, the presence of US troops, war materiel and facilities on Philippine territory, especially on the basis of a military alliance, could only serve as a magnet for attack from the enemies of the US, as in WW II when Japan attacked the Philippines which was then a US colony.

So if the Philippines cannot rely on the US against China’s aggressive posture and actuations in the WPS/SCS where can it turn to? Many foreign policy experts have pointed to the need for ASEAN countries to unite and pressure China to agree to a binding Code of Conduct in settling WPS/SCS disputes. Other opinion makers call for strengthening ties with India and Japan as a counterpoint to both China and the US. However this ignores the fact that Japan remains more than ever the US fugleman in Asia while the US has, in recent years, forged closer economic and diplomatic ties with India.

Others call for quiet diplomacy at government-to-government and people-to-people levels with China geared towards minimizing frictions and increasing understanding and cooperation. While beneficial, it would be naïve to think that such diplomacy will, by itself, temper China’s aggressiveness. The logic of China’s burgeoning capitalist economy fans its expansionist ambitions despite declarations of its intention to a “peaceful rise” as a global power.

Still others say the thing is to be able to beat the two contending powers at their own game by playing off one against the other utilizing a battery of experts in various fields to craft and implement such strategy and tactics.

All these approaches however overlook and grossly underestimate the power of a united people rising in mass protest and pushing the government to do what is necessary to uphold national interests including imposing economic sanctions on Chinese enterprises in the country such as in construction, real estate, agribusiness, import-export, power generation and transmission, mining, banking, etc.

The Vietnamese people angrily took to the streets to denounce China’s grab of its claimed territory and exclusive economic zone in the WPS/SCS. In the past the Vietnamese navy has dared to confront the far stronger Chinese navy. Such courageous and defiant acts have stymied China’s intrusions to a significant extent. China has been given notice that Vietnam is no pushover.

The Filipino people need not feel helpless in the wake of stepped-up Chinese aggression in the WPS/SCS. Building a revitalized patriotic movement that draws its strength from its own people, neither taking sides nor relying on one power to defend itself from the other, is the key to the assertion and defense of our national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The time to build such a movement is now. #

Published in Business World
8 June 2015

Organizations and personalities launch alliance for sovereignty

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In light of Chinese incursions into Philippine territory and proposals from the Aquino government that US military bases should again be allowed in the Philippines, various organizations and personalities formed and launched an alliance to defend Philippine sovereignty at the National Press Club this morning.

This video shows Bayan Muna representative Neri Colmenares explaining the basis and objectives of P1NAS – Pilipinong Nagkakaisa para sa Soberanya (People’s Unity for National Sovereignty).

He is joined by former Senators Rene Saguisag, Leticia Ramos Shahani, and Victor Ziga. Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila College of Law Dean Ernesto Maceda Jr represented his father, former Senator Ernesto Maceda who, like Senators Saguisag and Ziga were part of the so-called Magnificent 12 who voted against the extension of the US Military Bases Agreement in 1991.

Organizations present in the launch included Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Pamalakaya, Migrante International, the National Union of Students of the Philippines, the College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines, the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, and others.

Artists Bibeth Orteza, Mae Panel, and Heber Bartolome were also present.

Mary Jane Veloso is Flor Contemplacion Part II

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The story of Mary Jane Veloso is Flor Contemplacion Part II but for the much happier ending: her execution by firing squad for drug trafficking having been held in abeyance by Indonesian President Jokowi Widodo at the eleventh hour. In the case of Contemplacion, which by the way happened twenty years ago, last ditch efforts by volunteer lawyers led by the late human rights lawyer Atty. Romeo T. Capulong failed to save her from the gallows what with Singapore’s unbending justice system and Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy of authoritarianism.

Since the hanging of our kababayan, Contemplacion, one would think the government would have learned its lessons. After all heads rolled – not just embassy officials but the labor and foreign affairs secretaries were forced to tender their resignation – when it became clear that the mother of three from San Pablo, Laguna had been tortured by police to admit to murdering her friend, a fellow Filipino domestic worker, in order to cover up for the culpability of the victim’s Singaporean employer. Subsequently Flor was convicted and sentenced to death, a victim of gross miscarriage of justice, while embassy officials twiddled their thumbs and did close to nothing.

The explosion of public outrage against the Ramos government and sympathy for the doomed Flor and her hapless family was unprecedented. Flor’s wake in her hometown and the funeral cortege that wound through the streets of Manila drew hundreds of thousands with houses along the route dotted with improvised streamers or placards denouncing the government and expressing sympathy for the plight of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Avowals by foreign affairs and labor officials that they did “everything” to try to save her life could not placate the public, many of whom have relatives who have migrated abroad to find better-paying jobs in order to support their families and therefore could easily identify with Flor’s travails and be filled with dread by her tragic ending.

We saw how President Gloria Arroyo handled the Angelo de la Cruz case to avert a potential source of political instability even before she could be sworn into her controversial second term of office. De la Cruz was a truck driver who had been taken by Iraqi rebels fighting against US armed occupation of their country and held hostage till their demand that Philippine soldiers deployed in Iraq as part of the US-led “coalition of the willing” be pulled out. Arroyo agreed to the pull-out in exchange for De la Cruz’s freedom in spite of US pressure (for after all, her political neck was at stake) even as mass actions calling on her government to do precisely that were violently suppressed. (This columnist has a three-inch scar on the scalp courtesy of the police who dispersed a demonstration at Plaza Miranda while she and other leaders tried to negotiate a peaceful and orderly retreat.)

The point was made. Government’s labor export policy, of promoting Filipino brawn and brain as a major dollar-earning commodity for export, should at the very least be accompanied by all the diplomatic, legal, financial and moral support that government can muster to protect our countrymen overseas.

As for the policy itself that dates back to the Marcos martial law era, then Labor Secretary Nieves Confessor quite candidly, if lamely, justified it by saying labor export served as a “safety valve” given the high unemployment rates in the country; otherwise, there would be unmanageable social unrest. She even cited labor export as a vital part of the government’s counterinsurgency program as it dissuaded job-hungry malcontents from joining the New People’s Army!

Two decades have passed and currently more than 800 OFWs are languishing in prison in several countries, with 41 of them on death row. Most are drug trafficking-related, a testimony to how the risks for OFWs have grown in such dangerous and complex ways. Unfortunately, save for cases where the impending execution of a Filipino becomes a national issue with adverse political implications for certain government officials or for the entire government itself, help for the doomed OFW always comes too little and too late. Sometimes, the attempts are dramatic, i.e. special diplomatic missions of high public officials to appeal for clemency, but nonetheless futile, as more vital legal and political measures had not been taken much earlier. In too many instances, the condemned OFWs are unceremoniously executed and bereaved relatives are left only with the task of picking up the remains of their loved ones if by luck these are repatriated.

Did the Aquino government indeed do everything that they could to save the life of Mary Jane Veloso? And with the happy outcome that her execution was eventually stayed, doesn’t that prove irrefutably that President Aquino no less deserves accolades and not brickbats since he personally intervened with President Widodo? For those interested there is a timeline of events regarding Mary Jane’s five-year journey to the brink of death and her close-to-miraculous escape. (Please search #SaveMary Jane TIMELINE OF EVENTS: Let the facts speak for themselves)

In brief, it shows clearly that Mary Jane did not have a lawyer when she was tried and convicted; she was provided an Indonesian student interpreter whose English she couldn’t understand. Upon conviction the Philippine embassy hired an Indonesian law firm that appealed her case. The Indonesian lawyer had already advised Philippine authorities to run after Mary Jane’s recruiter. Proof that she had been a victim of human trafficking and was merely duped into becoming an unwitting drug mule would be crucial in proving her innocence. But the Philippine authorities did not take that critical step until days before her scheduled execution.

Meanwhile the parents, who had initially been threatened into silence by Mary Jane’s recruiter (they were told that the drug syndicate was powerful and that it would go after them if they approached the mass media or government officials and that the syndicate would get Mary Jane off the hook) started knocking on the doors of the DFA and PDEA when they learned she was on death row but their appeals received only scant and diffident attention.

It was only when sympathetic media persons alerted Migrante International of Mary Jane’s plight and connected them with the family did the campaign to save Mary Jane begin in earnest starting with heroic efforts to draw government and media attention on her case. Pro bono lawyers were mobilized who immediately got in touch with their Indonesian counterparts. Indonesian migrant advocates and human rights activists were alerted and also took action including gaining an audience with the Indonesian president himself. OFW communities the world over and their allies among international social movements also sounded the appeal to save Mary Jane’s life.

In short, the Aquino government took notice and went into high gear for Mary Jane only when it loomed as a possible public relations disaster not just domestically but internationally. It is important to get it straight that government is in fact one of the main reasons OFWs find themselves in their dire predicaments even if it is true that they “voluntarily” sought to work abroad. To obscure or muddle this would undermine any real effort to remedy the situation of our OFWs on the short and long term. #

Published in Business World
4 May 2015

The personal is political

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Readers of this ten-something-year-old column have likely observed that the essays I write are mostly political in nature; an outcome of my being a social activist from way back when. But once in a rare while yet for good reason, the theme becomes more personal. Then again as the feminists of the late sixties phrased it so elegantly — the personal is political. And so here goes.

Someone once asked me, intrigued by the last part of the blurb accompanying this column that describes me as a “doctor by training, activist by choice, columnist by accident, proud mother of two and happy partner to a liberated spouse“ what that meant.

I wish today, on the 70th birthday of the “liberated spouse” to expound on what that means for a radical reformer such as myself. In the process I wish to publicly give credit where it is due, something that has truly been a long time coming.

I met my future husband, Miguel “Mike” Araullo, as I entered the State University, a wide-eyed and eager ex-colegiala. He was on his way out, prolonging his stay in Delaney Hall (DH), the hang-out of members of the UP Student Catholic Action, only because he was reviewing for the engineering board exams. As an old Filipino adage goes, a bit paraphrased, “Papunta pa lang ako, pabalik na siya.” (I had just embarked on this journey; he was on his way back.)

Having been born “old” – I was given the moniker “granny” for having an over-sized super-ego and constantly reminding all the kids to behave – I didn’t mind the age gap at all. Of course his being good-looking caught my eye; more than that he struck me as a mature, kind-hearted person with a straightforward, even mockingly honest manner, that I found refreshing compared to the self-conscious cockiness of the younger males at the DH.

In time his perseverance in courtship paid off despite the physical distance (by then he had started to work in Laguna) and my growing involvement in radical student politics (which meant interminable discussion groups, non-stop teach-ins, and a constant stream of protest rallies and marches on and off campus).

Our relationship withstood the sudden separation from my going underground when martial law was declared and my arrest upon re-enrollment at UP. Still he did not join the revolutionary movement just to be closer to me; he knew that decision had to come from one’s own conviction and commitment. But he respected me enough and was sufficiently progressive politically himself not to dissuade me from acting in accord with my beliefs.

After release from detention, he patiently waited for me to finish an extended Bachelor of Arts course, then another four years of medicine (with summer vacations spent in “social immersion” among peasants in the countryside) while he continued to seek economic stability, first as an employee then an independent, small-scale entrepreneur.

At last upon graduation we agreed to get married although I managed to irk him by a sudden attack of panic that neither of us knew how to cook so how could we embark on our own away from his and my mother’s reliable kitchens. But that was to be the least of our problems. He readily assumed the role of breadwinner while taking up the slack from the untalented and perfunctory homemaker that I turned out to be.

Mike’s progressiveness was certainly tempered by his determination to have a viable family life amidst the trials and tribulations of an economy in doldrums and a spouse whose promising professional career wasn’t meant to be; more so, of a politically repressive martial law environment and even more terror and harassment under the supposedly liberal democratic regime that followed forcing me to once again go underground for a time leaving behind two bewildered young children.

Many times he was mother and father to our kids especially when I was wont to be hard pressed by the demands of being a full-time activist through the ups and downs, ebbs and flows of the movement. Through his dedication and perseverance (and to be fair, my wholehearted cooperation) our two children grew up to be well-rounded, self-assured and disciplined individuals with athletic, theatrical and other extra-curricular accomplishments to boot.

Mike has largely been the “invisible” partner, quietly in the background while wife and kids drew some kind of limelight for achievements or, in some people’s eyes, notoriety. A couple of years ago, our daughter surprised him with a text message on his birthday saying “you are the wind beneath my wings”. And he is affirmed each time he reads in published interviews of our son that the latter credits his father for the solid values he imbibed as he grew up and the opportunities to develop whatever God-given talents he had.

We had tried not to be defensive about our being “economically challenged” especially when hard times hit his fledgling business and our kids had to wear their cousins’ hand-me-downs. A proletarian lifestyle, while not being philosophically averse, was still a source of tension and instability in the family. Happily, we never really quarreled about money or the lack of it.

Mike suffered silently through my mother’s harangues about why he would let his wife pursue risky even dangerous, time-consuming and time-away-from-kids kind of “work”, instead of hunkering down to a respectable medical practice but he never actually pressured me to stop my activism. He not only resigned himself to the fact that a large part of what defines me as a person is my activism, he grew to love and respect me all the more for it.

Mike is a spouse who is most of all a dear friend, and always will be. He is great to have light, silly chats with in early morning jogs and late night telenovela-watching bonding time; as well serious conversations whenever this activist needs a sounding board, especially a contrary but nonetheless thoughtful and honest view about controversial issues of the day.

What is so much clearer to me now, as we grow mellow in our senior years, I would never have been able to pursue a life of dedicated activism and somehow still manage to have happy, healthy and level-headed progeny and a reasonably functioning home were it not for a partner who has been supporting me through thick and thin, good times and bad.

He has been the more mature, the more understanding, the more forgiving, the more accommodating, the less bull-headed of the life partnership and for that I am most blessed, a truly “happy partner to a liberated spouse”. #

Published in Business World
6 April 2015

Aquino’s “last word” on Mamasapano, the writing on the wall?

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President Benigno S. Aquino III’s speech at the PNPA graduation was meant to write finis to the public uproar over the bloody, botched counterterrorist operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao. Instead it only managed to further rile a people sick and tired of the finger-pointing, the obfuscation and lies about what really happened, the stonewalling about key factors that caused the failed operation and, to top it all, the pathetic excuse that the president is, after all, only “human” and also makes “mistakes”.

But the only mistake Aquino admits to is the total trust he conferred on the sacked SAF Commander Napenas (who he says “fooled” him about the seemingly foolproof design of Oplan Exodus and his capability to lead it) and on suspended Chief PNP Purisima (who he says failed to follow his order to coordinate with the AFP and who failed to give him accurate updates on the progress of the operation). The question he refuses to answer: why didn’t he, as Commander-in-Chief/Chief Executive, ensure that AFP chief Catapang and the OIC PNP Chief Espina were in the loop from the very beginning? Why did he rely on a suspended general with no authority whatsoever, and a lower level PNP officer whose authority is not at par with either Catapang or Espina, to call the shots in this complex, high-level and high-risk operation?

What Aquino is still trying to obscure is the fact that he authorized Oplan Exodus including the so-called “time-on-target coordination” with the AFP, meaning the AFP would only be informed when the operation was already under way. He also agreed to set aside the ceasefire protocol with the MILF which meant the SAF commandoes would enter MILF territory without any prior coordination whatsoever with the joint AFP-MILF bodies overseeing the ceasefire. These two factors are what led to the Mamasapano fiasco: the lack of proper and timely coordination with both the AFP and the MILF.

Aquino stonewalls about his authorizing the setting aside of the ceasefire protocol with the MILF despite knowing about the dangers of fully armed contingents of MILF, BIFF and PAGs (private armed groups) in the area and the likelihood of the “pintakasi” phenomenon (where the armed community unites to resist any armed intruder) as clearly pointed out in the BOI report.

According to the BOI report, Aquino never gave any guidance as to how Oplan Exodus would take into consideration the ongoing GPH-MILF peace process. Aquino obviously agreed with the assessment that the MILF was coddling Marwan and was not to be trusted on that score. He apparently did not consider weighty the ensuing fall-out on the peace process should anything go wrong. Aquino does not admit to any of these and still pretends to be the leader who would do everything to achieve “peace” in Mindanao, even if it only means getting Congress to pass a watered down Bangsamoro Basic Law that he wagers the MILF will nonetheless accept.

These two fatal errors sealed the doom of the SAF troopers who in effect walked into a death trap: there was no escape and no rescue until it was already too late.

What stands out in Aquino’s speech is that he was most silent about US involvement in the Marwan operation. The Foreign Affairs department had all but exonerated the US by testifying in the Senate hearings that they accepted hook, line and sinker the US embassy’s declaration that US involvement was limited to the medical evacuation of the trapped SAF troopers.

That claim by the US embassy was proven to be a big lie when a video taken by a SAF commando of a drone flying just overhead and monitoring the battle surfaced. This validated reports from independent fact-finding missions of the presence of drones days before and on the night of the SAF operation.

Forced to amend its statements, the US and some Philippine government officials subsequently admitted that they helped in intelligence gathering (which is allowed under PH-US agreements such as the VFA) but continued to insist that US forces were not otherwise involved, especially in combat operations.

However, SAF commander Napenas testified under oath during executive sessions of the Senate hearings that there were six US officers, three of whom arrived with him, at the Tactical Command Post along with other SAF commanders. The presence of the six Americans, one of whom was even reported to have issued an order to an Army brigade commander to initiate artillery fire, speaks not only of the high interest the US had in the operation but the hand that they were allowed to have by the Philippine government — Aquino no less — in directing the operation.

Did the American “advisers” lead Aquino to believe that they had such reliable intelligence information, and they had trained and armed the SAF commandos so well, that arresting Marwan and Usman would be a walk in the park and that there would be no need to inform the AFP and MILF?

Was BSA so enthralled by the thought that personally turning over “international terrorists” Marwan and Usman to the FBI would be a publicity coup without equal? Coupled with the capping of the Bangsamoro peace process with the imminent passing of the BBL, would this not make him a shoo-in for the Nobel Peace Prize which had eluded his mother? The thought that he could even surpass his revered mom’s record and name must have been so titillating, the other side of the coin — the high probability of a firefight and costly casualties — was completely overlooked or shunted aside in his calculations.

As a bonus, a successful operation would redeem the name of his BFF (best friend forever) General Purisima, justifying his decision to allow the latter to direct the entire operation despite his suspension from office on corruption charges.

Some quarters continue to press the question of where funding for Oplan Exodus could have come from. If the US funded it, then Aquino, Purisima and the SAF could be considered as mercenaries doing the US bidding. But if not, then Aquino and Purisima could be criminally liable for misusing the SAF personnel and related resources outside of the authorized government budget and chain of command and thereafter for bringing about the unnecessary death of the SAF 44, MILF 17 and several civilians.

For the nth time, Aquino dissembles and stonewalls on the full extent of his and US complicity in engineering the Mamasapano disaster. The lid on this political can of worms is off and all attempts at a cover-up by Aquino and his apologists are failing.

The political demise of the Aquino regime is all but written on the wall. #

Published in Business World
30 March 2015

Venezuela stands up to US bullying

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The failed coup in Venezuela last February and US President Obama’s declaration this March that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a “national security threat” to the US have escaped most Filipinos’ notice. Understandably so, with the entire country preoccupied with another monumental blunder by the Aquino government that has cost scores of lives including elite police forces and has undermined the GPH-MILF peace negotiations.

Yet Filipinos should sit up and take notice. These recent events in Venezuela underscore hard lessons learned by the Venezuelan people and its democratically-elected government as they try to chart their nation’s destiny towards greater equity, social cohesion and national progress. In the process they find themselves continuously, systematically and violently opposed by the small but still powerful socio-economic elite with the solid backing of the US government.

Fifteen years ago, under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan society underwent sweeping reforms that aimed to redistribute the revenue from its oil wealth for the benefit of the greater majority. This entailed nationalizing the oil industry and utilizing its earnings for government programs to make basic goods and services such as food, housing and education universally accessible and affordable. The Chavez leadership also pushed aggressively for genuine land reform. It capitalized on its huge popularity with the masses to build grassroots-based people’s organizations such as worker-managed cooperatives and community councils. All these galvanized the popular will behind Chavez and his reform programs.

The Chavez government prevailed over unrelenting destabilization moves by its opponents including an army coup d’état in 2002 that deposed Chavez for 48 hours, until millions of Venequelans poured into the streets to demand his release and loyal officers of the armed forces restored him to power. He ruled from then on winning a series of democratic elections until his death from illness in 2013.

The Maduro government that took over and has carried on the sweeping reforms of Chavez (dubbed the Bolivarian Revolution) has been met from day one by a new round of attacks from the US-backed right-wing forces code named “El Salida” or “The Exit”.

The elements of the plot are: 1) sabotage of the supply and distribution chain for food and other basic goods in order to induce artificial shortages and run-away inflation; 2) widespread, violent “protests” that would cause chaos in the streets; 3) systematic and sustained anti-government reportage by the elite-owned private mass media outlets beamed to global media; 4) vilification of President Maduro and his government and the projection of unrepentant coup plotters as representing the legitimate political opposition and deserving international support 5) military actions such as assassinations of government officials, bombings of government centers and false flag operations such as the assassination of some rightist leaders and deaths in violent street protests blamed on state security forces.

For two years now the government has been exerting every effort to overcome the economic sabotage measures. According to reports, while scarcities and inexplicably inflated prices are being fought back through government police action such as forcing stores to lower their prices and raiding warehouses to flush out hoarded goods, the economic warfare continues. But the disturbances have not resulted in the kind of mass unrest they were meant to incite; Venezuela’s poor hold fast to their experience of much better times under the Chavez and Maduro governments.

The so-called mass protests have died down despite the efforts of opposition leaders holding the reins of local government in rich enclaves to sustain these with sporadic thrashing of public parks and government buildings by hoodlums. The destabilizers have been trying to project the image that the Maduro government is unable to enforce basic law and order, much more, is violating its citizens’ right to freely assemble and express their grievances. But this has not been able to stick despite willful media manipulation echoed by imperialist-controlled global corporate media.

What has become more starkly clear is that the right-wing opposition is resorting to the more dangerous option of military actions up to a full blown coup d’état to bring the government down. It would appear from the account of the latest attempt in February of this year that the plan was to conduct aerial bombings of the Presidential Palace, the government media center Telesur, the Ministries of Defense, Interior and Foreign Relations, the Department of Military Intelligence and the Attorney General’s Office. The publication of a manifesto in a national newspaper calling for a transition government would be the plotters’ signal fire. There would be a call for street protests once more with intentions of fomenting wanton violence and confusion in order to portray the events as the result of government repression. A video of a detained general, a confessed coup leader in an earlier failed attempt, would be repeatedly shown to agitate members of the armed forces. Failing this, a video of men in the uniforms of the different services of the military would be shown to announce to the country and to the world that the armed forces had risen up against the Maduro government.

This plot was nipped in the bud and fell apart when a recidivist coup-plotting general was turned in by another officer he was trying to recruit. The government acted quickly to preempt any of the plotters moves. According to Mark Weisbrot (Al Jazeera), “The Venezuelan government has produced some credible evidence of a coup in the making: the recording of a former deputy minister of the interior reading what is obviously a communiqué to be issued after the military deposes the elected government, the confessions of some accused military officers and a recorded phone conversation between opposition leaders acknowledging that a coup is in the works.

The government also categorically accused the US embassy in Venezuela of direct involvement in this latest as well as previous attempts to topple it. It pointed to the “close relationship” of the political and military figures at the core of the February attempt at another putsch with US embassy officials.

After the standard US denial of any involvement, came in quick succession US President Obama’s declaration that the Venezuelan government is a “national security threat” to the US and that US sanctions would be imposed on seven Venezuelan officials. This is indeed ironical given the long history of US political interference up to armed intervention not only in Venezuela but the entire breadth of Latin American countries to remove governments not to its liking or to prop up those that are its vassal states.

Aside from being a defensive reaction to the revelation of US complicity in attempts to subvert and overthrow the Maduro government, Obama’s declaration of Venezuela being a threat to US national interest is primarily due to Venezuela’s continuing key role in building and strengthening alternative political and economic alliances among Latin American and Caribbean states such as Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and Petrocaribe. These alliances further the interests of these states and their peoples more than the traditional US-initiated and dominated alliances such as Organization of American States (OAS) and the so-called “Caribbean Initiative”.

Rather than isolate Venezuela, Obama’s move to attack and isolate Venezuela is yet another futile attempt to stem the decline of US global supremacy in its own hemisphere. #

Published in Businessworld
23 March 2015