6 lame excuses used to protect PNoy from liability for the SAF44 massacre

February 28, 2015

by Ilda

 

President Benigno Simeon (BS) Aquino and his allies would like the Filipino people to move on from the January 25 massacre of 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mamasapano. In particular, Senator Franklin Drilon doesn’t think “there is anything more to explain”. Senator Chiz Escudero for his part says he doesn’t think the President is liable for the deaths of the SAFs. It is worth mentioning that BS Aquino was the best man in Escudero’s recent nuptials to actress Heart Evangelista. Meanwhile, Drilon has been a staunch Aquino supporter dating back to the Cory days.

President BS Aquino should practice what he preaches and move on from his habit of looking back to his parents’ suffering.

It’s not surprising they would say that. There’s nothing they would rather see more than Filipinos moving on to the usual mundane issues because BS Aquino’s popularity is suffering from a barrage of criticism no matter what he does to try and redeem himself from what the public perceives as whitewashing and betrayal of public trust regarding the Mamasapano clash.

It’s actually quite hypocritical of President BS Aquino and his allies to expect the public to get over it considering Aquino ascended to power by blaming previous presidents. In fact, he takes every opportunity to bore the public with narrations of his father’s death and how his family “suffered” under the Martial Law years every chance he gets.

Calls for BS Aquino’s resignation or ouster are steadily growing. What was supposed to be a secret operation — so secret that even Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas was not aware of it — has taken on a new life. It is something that the Malacanang propaganda machine cannot control anymore. Their attempt to distract the public with the resumption of Senate hearings against Vice President Jejomar Binay’s allegedly overpriced building hasn’t worked to divert people’s attention away from the issue and neither did the arrest of Makati Mayor Junjun Binay and his forced appearance in the Senate hearings make a difference to the growing public outrage. It is worth mentioning that despite the number of months the Senate has devoted to the investigation against the Binays, the senators from the Opposition are not ready to say, “there is nothing more to explain”. But I digress…

BS Aquino and his allies have been trying to downplay what happened between the SAF and the MILF at Mamasapano since Day One. The public has heard some of the lamest excuses from not only those involved in the operation, but also from BS Aquino’s cabinet members who try to save the President from any liability during the tragic event. Here are some of them:

1. Simply a misencounter

After news broke out about the deaths of the 44 SAFs, DILG Secretary Mar Roxas quickly described what had happened as a “misencounter”. Political pundits and netizens alike were quick to look up the meaning of the word but found to their dismay that the word doesn’t exist in the English vocabulary. That set off the alarm bells to what the public thinks was the initial whitewashing. For someone who claims to not have known about the operation, Roxas didn’t have a basis for saying it was simply a “misencounter”.

Will BS Aquino’s endorsement in 2016 make up for Mar’s being left out of the loop?

Frankly, for someone who was kept out of the loop of a major operation, Roxas is acting strangely forgiving and seems to have moved on very quickly. Some expected him to resign from his post as a statement of indignation. Perhaps it was a matter between “friends” after all and nothing that an endorsement from BS Aquino as the Liberal Party’s candidate for the Presidential Election in 2016 cannot fix. So it seems Roxas was happy enough to treat it as water under the bridge.

2. It was merely an “advice” not an “order”.

Former PNP Chief Alan Purisima was the next one to engage in word play. Despite confirming through a text message to sacked PNP-SAF head Director Getulio Napeñas Jr that the “plan is a go on the timeline, Jan. 23 to 26″, he denies giving the order for the operation to arrest international bombmaker Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan and his Filipino protégé Abdul Basit Usman insisting that what he gave was just an “advice”.

Suspended PNP Chief Alan Purisima: Feeder of lies?

Whoever gave him the advice to use that advice defense probably thought everyone would be stupid enough to buy it. The public will have to give him credit for trying though. The operation was supposed to be his ticket to redemption after his suspension for corruption charges. Had the operation been 100 percent successful with zero casualties from the government troops, he would have been proud to say he was in charge of the operation and that he had ordered the go ahead. It is hard to take credit when things turn out bad.

3. The chain of command does not apply to the Philippine National Police.

Moving on from word play, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima tried confusing the public with jargon. Her move left some people speechless. How can any organization, whether private or public, military or civilian function without following a chain of command? If we follow De Lima’s logic, it’s a miracle lower ranking police officers haven’t conducted their own covert operation considering they do not have to answer to anyone at the top. This attempt to rescue BS Aquino from any liability for the deaths of the 44 SAF troopers is so lame. It ranks right up there with the classic “my dog ate my homework” excuse.

Justice Secretary Leila De Lima does not believe in command responsibility.

De Lima should resign from her post for shamelessly being ignorant of EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 226 that states:

SECTION 1. Neglect of Duty Under the Doctrine of “Command Responsibility”. Any government official or supervisor, or officer of the Philippine National Police or that of any other law enforcement agency shall be held accountable for “Neglect of Duty” under the doctrine of “command responsibility” if he has knowledge that a crime or offense shall be committed, is being committed, or has been committed by his subordinates, or by others within his area of responsibility and, despite such knowledge, he did not take preventive or corrective action either before, during, or immediately after its commission.

I would have recommended her to be sacked for deliberate cover-up but she was trying to protect the very person who could fire her.

4. It was self-defence.

That was the excuse chairman of the peace-negotiating panel of the MILF, Mohagher Iqbal used to justify the execution style killing of the SAF. 27 of the 44 fallen troopers were shot in the head at close range with one commando shot 14 times. If that is their style of “self-defence”, I am curious to know how they kill their enemies during an “official” combat. ISIS-style killing comes to mind.

Sincerity in question: Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace panel chairman Mohagher Iqbal

Iqbal has done well in his efforts to humanize the animal-like behavior of the MILF rebel forces. He even attracted kudos from a bleeding heart columnist who praised him for being “a picture of wisdom, restraint, dignity and depth” during the Senate hearings. It’s quite funny to read such compliments from an academic like Randy David even when there was no assurance from Iqbal that they will surrender the killers to the Philippine government so they can face the justice system. One can’t help but question if people like David has the country’s best interest at heart.

To further fuel the speculation that the MILF is just Malaysia’s front in the latter’s quest to colonize Mindanao, Iqbal confirmed that the MILF report on the Mamasapano clash will not be given directly to the Philippine government. He said it would have to pass through Malaysia first since they are the third party facilitator in the peace negotiations. His statement is so reassuring that the Filipino people will get the unedited version after Malaysia sifts through the report. Not.

5. SAF should be held accountable.

Presidential Peace Advisor Teresita Deles: Whose side is she on?

That was the recommendation of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Teresita Deles. According to her, the PNP-SAF should be accountable for the massacre of the 44 SAF troopers for storming the rebel lair. She was sticking by the notion that they should have coordinated the operation using the “ceasefire mechanism”. For an academic, Deles seems clueless. Either that or she is deliberately ignoring the fact that BS Aquino knew about the operation but didn’t bother to tell her. If she wants to blame it on someone just to protect the MILF from liability and save the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, she should blame BS Aquino for authorizing the Mamasapano operation and putting a suspended PNP Chief in charge of it.

The people are getting confused over why a government official like Deles would even say government troops should not have gone into certain areas of Mindanao to conduct an official operation. In the words of Iqbal, the MILF will remain a revolutionary organization unless the BBL is implemented.

6. I was fed lies.

The ever-changing statements from BS Aquino came down to a simple “I was fed lies”. After his recent meeting with some lawmakers, the President managed to convince them that he was given inaccurate information during the Mamasapano clash and that his order to coordinate the operation to get Marwan with the military was “disregarded”. That is what you call a convenient excuse. We just have to ask: how come BS Aquino never said these things during his press conferences?

Now that Purisima has resigned, President BS Aquino is now free to call him a liar.

If it is true that the President was fed lies or given inaccurate information by then suspended PNP Chief Purisima, who was his first point of contact and who was overseeing the operation, and why didn’t he fire that person immediately? BS Aquino was even sad to accept Purisima’s resignation after the public uproar. No, BS Aquino’s excuse just doesn’t make any sense.

Recall the first time he addressed the nation about the Mamasapano clash, he said to a reporter, he didn’t think he was ever asked the question, “Sir, can we have the go-signal?” All the while his buddy Purisima met with him weeks prior to the operation and was updating him about the Mamasapano clash as early as 5 a.m.

Now BS Aquino would like us all to believe that had Purisima given him accurate information, he would have done everything to save the lives of the fallen SAFs. In this particular case, BS is indeed short for bullshit. The public should not move on from this issue until President BS Aquino owns up and tells the truth.

[Article thumbnail photo courtesy Inquirer.net.]

The 20 Fastest-Growing Countries In The World

Lucas Kawa Jan. 29, 2013, 4:20 AM

 

Mongolian stock broker

This month, the World Bank cut its 2013 global growth forecast to 2.4 percent (from 3.0 percent), its 2014 forecast to 3.1 percent (from 3.3 percent), and it introduced its 2015 forecast calling for 3.3 percent growth.
The country-specific economic projections in the World Bank's Global Economic Prospects are clear about one thing: advanced economies won't be driving global growth.
We pulled the 20 countries with the highest projected compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2013 through 2015, based on the World Bank’s estimates.
A caveat – this isn’t a list of the world’s best economies, or countries with the highest standards of living. In fact, income inequality plagues many of these nations, which have extremely low levels of GDP per capita.  Some of these countries are 'frontier nations'  – with extremely low levels of GDP –  and as such have an easier time attaining a high growth rate over this selected period.
Most of the countries are underdeveloped, as evidenced by little infrastructure or mass subsistence farming. Five derive the majority of their export value from minerals; and four rely upon oil or gas as a key export.

#20: Uganda

2012 GDP: +3.40%
2013 GDP: +6.20%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.27%
Economy: About 80 percent of Uganda's workforce is employed in agriculture, though the country has significant mineral and oil reserves. Reforms instituted in 1990 continue to provide a sound foundation for growth, limiting inflation while enhancing earnings and production.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#19: Cambodia

Flickr/victoriapeckham

2012 GDP: +6.60%
2013 GDP: +6.70%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.39%
Economy: Cambodian textiles amount to over 70% of the nation’s exports. Recent oil discoveries and continued development of mineral resources will have a positive impact on GDP growth. A potential long-term barrier to growth remains: educating and creating jobs for Cambodian youth, as the majority of its population is under 25 years old.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#18: Tanzania

Wikimedia Commons

2012 GDP: +6.50%
2013 GDP: +6.80%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.43%
Economy: This 'frontier' nation is among the poorest in the world in terms of GDP per capita. Agriculture accounts for over 25 percent of GDP and 85 percent of exports while employing approximately 80 percent of the workforce. The country does possess significant stores of diamonds, gold, and iron.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#17: Zambia

AP

Farm workers weed a maize field on a farm near Lusaka, Zambia

2012 GDP: +6.70%
2013 GDP: +7.10%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.46%
Economy: Privatization of copper mines provided an impetus for growth since the 1990s. Economic growth is vulnerable to price shocks in copper. The IMF forgave $6 billion of Zambia’s debts in 2005. The nation struggles to keep inflation in check.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#16: Panama

Javier Losa via Flickr

2012 GDP: +10.00%
2013 GDP: +7.50%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.50%
Economy: The services sector accounts for more than three-quarters of GDP. The capacity of the Panama Canal is set to double by 2014, the culmination of a 7-year project that cost $5.3 billion. Unemployment in this Latin American nation dropped to a minuscule 3 percent in 2011.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#15: Sri Lanka

Wikimedia Commons

2012 GDP: +6.10%
2013 GDP: +6.80%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.54%
Economy: GDP has been buoyed by the reconstruction of Sri Lanka after decades of war. Growth is hampered by high debt payments, but the nation's income per capita is among the highest in the region.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#14: Uzbekistan

Henrike Moltke via flickr

2012 GDP: +8.20%
2013 GDP: +7.50%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.62%
Economy: The former Soviet satellite state exports natural gas, gold, and cotton -- but has received international criticism for the amount of child labor used production of the latter. Income inequality has actually increased since the nation's independence. Its relative isolation from the global economy left Uzbekistan insulated from a major downturn resulting from the financial crisis.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#13: Gambia

flickr www.flickr.com

2012 GDP: +3.90%
2013 GDP: +10.70%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.85%
Economy: Gambia has few natural resources and an underdeveloped agricultural sector. The country is reliant upon transfer payments from abroad and foreign aid. Its position on this list is due to low base GDP, which artificially skews growth projections upwards relative to other nations. Tourism, particularly eco-tourism, is booming.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#12: Rwanda

IRRI Images / Flickr

2012 GDP: +7.70%
2013 GDP: +7.5-%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.88%
Economy: Rwanda has an easier time attaining high growth rates due to its low starting GDP, relative to developed European economies or the United States. Over 90% of the workforce is engaged in subsistence farming. The Rwandan government has invested in information technology as well as education in efforts to promote sustainable economic growth.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#11: Democratic Republic of the Congo

AP Photo/Melanie Gouby

2012 GDP: +6.60%
2013 GDP: +8.20%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.92%
Economy: Though the nation has vast potential wealth, growth has been limited due to corruption and war. The mining sector provides for the majority of the nation's exports, and includes diamonds, gold, and copper. The DRC received debt relief from the IMF in 2010.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#10: Ethiopia

Uncharted Africa Safari Co./Ralph Bousfield

2012 GDP: +7.80%
2013 GDP: +7.50%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +7.96%
Economy: Coffee has been a major export for the nation. While GDP growth rates are high, GDP per capita remains among the global laggards. In Ethiopia, the state owns all land, which is significant since agriculture accounts for over 40 percent of GDP.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#9: Angola

Angola / Facebook

2012 GDP: +8.10%
2013 GDP: +7.20%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +8.08%
Economy: This OPEC member has 85 percent of its GDP come from oil production and related industries. The nation remains marred by corruption and the land mines left over from decades of civil war. Most Angolans practice subsistence farming to make a living.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#8: Laos

Wikimedia Commons

2012 GDP: +8.20%
2013 GDP: +7.50%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +8.08%
Economy: 75% of Laos’ workforce practices subsistence farming, which accounts for around 30% of GDP. Foreign investment in hydro, mining, and construction has spurred Laos’ growth and reduction of poverty over the past two decades. Laos’ debt burden is modest compared to many of its Asiatic counterparts.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#7: Ghana

flickr / Ben Sutherland

2012 GDP: +7.50%
2013 GDP: +7.80%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +8.15%
Economy: Ghana’s developed Services sector contributes 50% of GDP, while oil, gold, and cocoa production provides the basis for future growth. Inflation is expected to outpace even robust real GDP growth over the next two years, and reducing the debt load remains a challenge for this middle-income African nation.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#6: Mozambique

Maputo, Mozambique

2012 GDP: +7.50%
2013 GDP: +8.00%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +8.73%
Economy: The majority of Mozambique’s population lives below the poverty line, and foreign aid accounts for half of its government’s budget. Aluminum comprises a third of the nation’s exports, and volatility in the commodity’s price has an impact on GDP growth.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#5: China

cowyeow / Flickr

2012 GDP: +7.90%
2013 GDP: +8.40%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +8.77%
Economy: The world’s largest exporter and second biggest economy has gradually transitioned from an isolated, state-planned economy and introduced elements of free markets. An aging population, decreasing farmland, lack of domestic consumption, and reducing regional imbalances are downside risks to Chinese GDP growth. China is on the forefront of alternative energy development, particularly in solar.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#4: Sierra Leone

flickr www.flickr.com

2012 GDP: +25.00%
2013 GDP: +11.10%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +9.54%
Economy: Nearly half of the workforce engages in subsistence farming, which leaves the nation's substantial mineral reserves relatively underdeveloped. Diamonds account for about half the value of Sierra Leone's exports. In the past, these were primarily 'blood diamonds', though the nation has worked hard to repair its image.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#3: Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste

Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network via Flickr

2012 GDP: +10.00%
2013 GDP: +10.00%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +10.63%
Economy: Offshore drilling for oil and gas is the principal source of government revenues. The government has increased spending on infrastructure to continue to repair damages caused by Indonesian troops in 1999. Unemployment and dependence upon O&G are roadblocks to growth.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#2: Iraq

AFP

2012 GDP: +11.10%
2013 GDP: +13.50%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +12.23%
Economy: Foreign investment inflows are expected to increase in the wake of US Troop withdrawals. Oil exports, the impetus for the nation’s wealth, have returned to pre-war levels. Adoption of free market principles, strengthening the legal framework for businesses, and developing Iraqi infrastructure are keys to the country’s growth.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

#1: Mongolia

China Photos/Getty Images

2012 GDP: +11.80%
2013 GDP: +16.20%
2013-2015GDP CAGR: +13.60%
Economy: Mongolia successfully transitioned from a Cold War Soviet satellite state into semi-modern, mixed capitalist economy. Mineral deposits of copper, gold, coal, uranium, tin, and tungsten are the major sources of Mongolia’s wealth. Commodity exports – overwhelmingly to China – and foreign investment will drive GDP growth.
Source: World Bank, CIA World Factbook

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fastest-growing-economies-through-2015-2013-1?op=1#ixzz3SriRbIX9

Why democracy does not work in the Philippines

February 26, 2015

by Ilda

The 1986 EDSA “People Power” revolution has been credited with bringing democracy back to the Philippines. However, three decades after the historic event, it seems majority of Filipinos still do not understand what democracy is about. The system of government is there in principle but Filipinos do not know how to use it properly. Worse, Filipinos do not realize that democracy involves hard work for the system to work. Recent events prove this.

Hanging by a thread: President BS Aquino

 

The deadly clash between members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Forces (PNP SAF) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebel group on the 25th of January has exposed not only President Benigno Simeon (BS) Aquino’s treacherous agreement with the rebel group, it also exposed the Filipino people’s weakness, specifically their lack of courage to take matters into their own hands.

BS Aquino has been marketing the deal his government has negotiated with the MILF rebel group under the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law as the key to lasting peace in Mindanao. The massacre of 44 SAF troopers has proven that the deal is anything but. As previously mentioned, under the deal, the MILF will get billions of pesos on an annual basis from the national government to assist the group in creating their sub state. Aside from that, all their previous atrocities including the above-mentioned massacre of the fallen troopers will be “pardoned” after the bill is passed. The national government does not even have a say in how the funds given to the MILF will be spent. They could simply spend it all on upgrading their weapons.

 

Why BS Aquino has crafted a deal that would burden the taxpayers and threaten the country’s sovereignty remains a mystery. Some people have speculated that his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize has been his primary motivation. To be sure, before the tragic event, majority of Filipinos did not realize that BS Aquino negotiated such a terrible deal and, with a rebel group who cannot even convince other Muslim rebel groups to join their cause and lay down their arms. Considering Muslims in Mindanao are still a minority in the region, a lot of people are baffled as to why BS Aquino seems cool about giving away parts of the Philippines that are abundant in natural resources. There are even unconfirmed reports that Malaysia could be using the MILF as a front in its pursuit to colonize Mindanao.

 

Up until the recent tragic events, majority of Filipinos did not question BS Aquino’s policies. They trusted him too much. That was a bad thing. Filipinos did not realise that in a democracy, they had to be consulted first prior to any deal being made. Filipinos did not know that they should have a say in how public funds will be spent. Likewise, Filipinos were ignorant of the fact that they can participate in policy deliberations through their representatives in Congress prior to any bill being passed. More importantly, Filipinos were not aware that the Philippine government should not even be dealing with a rebel group particularly one that has committed atrocities against the public.

Democracy involves using critical thinking to evaluate candidates for leadership and holding them accountable once in office.

 

I suppose Filipinos are not used to participating in crafting of policies because they see their President as a father figure. They are accustomed to showing deference to their “leader”. Yes, questioning the President’s decisions is still frowned upon in Philippine society. This is probably a legacy from years of being ruled by a strongman. It does not help that the incumbent President is the son of a revered political couple and so-called “democracy icons”. The mind conditioning is made worse by the constant reminder of the Aquino “legacy” and the family’s “sacrifices”, none of which resulted in any significant improvement to the country and its people.

Sadly, Filipinos have been made to believe they owe the Aquinos for the freedom they enjoy today. Never mind that that notion isn’t even true. It was the people who marched down the streets of EDSA to rally against former President Ferdinand Marcos. Cory, Ninoy or Noynoy weren’t even present during the three-day revolt. However, the propaganda to keep Filipinos beholden to the Aquino name makes some people uncomfortable about criticizing BS Aquino despite his irrational behavior and the lack of progress in the country today. Ironically, freedom of speech has not given Filipinos a strong enough voice to air their grievances. As Voltaire once said, “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”

 

To be fair, after news broke out about the massacre of 44 SAF troopers in the hands of MILF rebel forces, public outrage was slow but eventually erupted. BS Aquino’s dishonesty about his role in the lead up to the tragedy and insensitivity towards the grieving families of the fallen have contributed to the feelings of anger of the public who sympathize with them. The President’s two speeches addressing the nation and subsequent meetings with grieving families could not make up for his diplomatic faux pas – being absent for the arrival of the bodies at Villamor Air Base to pay his respect.

 

Despite the public uproar, calls for BS Aquino to step down have been met with some opposition from those who are afraid of Vice President Jejomar Binay taking over his post. This has put Filipinos between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they know BS Aquino has betrayed the people’s trust but on the other hand, they do not like the prospect of having someone they know they cannot trust to replace him either. This dilemma is quite unique only to Filipinos because the Vice President is from another political party — the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). Had Binay belonged to the same political party as BS Aquino, members of Liberal Party would not have engaged in negative propaganda against Binay and Filipinos would hardly worry about the succession. In any case, the fear of Binay is mostly justified because BS Aquino set a precedent for acting with impunity.

Lurking in the shadows:
Vice President Jejomar Binay

 

The Filipino people’s problem with BS Aquino’s replacement has certainly exposed another flaw in the country’s system of government. Likewise, it has exposed the lengths to which the incumbent will go to, including subject his opponents to political persecution, just to ensure his political party remains in power in the next election. If Filipinos want to lessen the political bickering, the candidates for the Vice Presidency and Presidency should be voted for as one team rather than separately like the way it is done in the United States. Better yet, the Presidential system should be replaced with a parliamentary system of government under which the leader of the ruling party could be replaced anytime. Unfortunately, both solutions will require amending the Constitution and are not things that can be done overnight.

In the absence of a perfect system of government, Filipinos will have to rely on vigilance and hard work to keep their public servants honest. If they want the next President of the Philippines to develop a conscience and prioritize the country’s interests over his own, they have to hold BS Aquino accountable for the indiscretions he committed during his term. Holding him accountable includes asking him to step down for lying to the public about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the 44 SAF troopers. They have to ask him to step down even when they know Binay will take over. This will prove to the next in line that he too can be asked to step down if he does not shape up.

 

Democracy is hard work. It means Filipinos have to be involved in nation building and be more critical about how the country is being run by their public servants. Most of all, it means using their critical analysis in voting for the right person to avoid another disastrous President like BS Aquino. The real question is: are Filipinos up to the challenge?

The Philippines is too big a country for Filipinos to govern on their own

February 26, 2015

by benign0

It’s no wonder the government fatally screwed up to the tune of 44 dead Special Action Force police officers last January — and even more baffling that Filipinos are actually shocked that such a monumental foul up could actually occur in the Philippines of all places. The operation involved lots of coordination, up-to-the-minute planning, and lots and lots of communication. Does the Philippine government and the bigger Philippine society that it both governs and is a reflection of actually possess a strong track record of organising things at that scale?

Hardly.

Look no further than the traffic armageddon that happened as a result of yesterday’s celebration of the 29th anniversary of the 1986 ‘people power’ “revolution”. Total chaos all over the city. Each agency did what it thought was right — each action an outcome of the internal thinking process within each bureaucracy. Malacanang had its fear-of-the-boss agenda. The police had received its myopic orders. Businesses went on with the business of making money. And various ‘activist’ movements went off to what they thought was going to be an open street party.

That’s just Metro Manila, where, to begin with, traffic is always gridlocked thanks to Filipinos’ aversion to the obvious solutions staring them in the face.

If you think about it, nobody really expects much of anything conceived, planned, and executed by Filipinos. You can see it in the way everything organised and built in the Philippines become crumbling derelict monuments to stupidity within just a couple of years. Roads are potholed within months of their construction. Buildings and infrastructure all over the city are gray eyesores coated in foul soot. Public facilities like airports and train stations are just a couple of notches above public latrines in terms of pleasantness. Sidewalks are cracked urine-stained impromptu public markets and squatter hotels.

Politics are another example. In most normal countries, a common enemy or a nationwide disaster is often enough to get all parties whether in power or in Opposition singing off the same page and taking up unified positions to respond to the threat. Not in the Philippines. Tribal affiliations and deals amongst chieftains hands down trump state interests any time.

Nick Joaquin in his timeless piece A Heritage of Smallness summed up the historical roots of the Philippine Condition quite eloquently…

The barangay settlements already displayed a Philippine characteristic: the tendency to petrify in isolation instead of consolidating, or to split smaller instead of growing. That within the small area of Manila Bay there should be three different kingdoms (Tondo, Manila and Pasay) may mean that the area wa originally settled by three different barangays that remained distinct, never came together, never fused; or it could mean that a single original settlement; as it grew split into three smaller pieces.

Philippine society, as though fearing bigness, ever tends to revert the condition of the barangay of the small enclosed society. We don’t grow like a seed, we split like an amoeba. The moment a town grows big it become two towns. The moment a province becomes populous it disintegrates into two or three smaller provinces. The excuse offered for divisions i always the alleged difficulty of administering so huge an entity.

Even amongst the country’s relatively more disciplined communities in its police and armed forces, this Filipino condition manifests itself — an aversion to working together that often proves appallingly fatal.

Not surprisingly, Nick Joaquin’s prognosis is quite dim…

Because we cannot unite for the large effort, even the small effort is increasingly beyond us. There is less to learn in our schools, but even this little is protested by our young as too hard. The falling line on the graph of effort is, alas, a recurring pattern in our history. Our artifacts but repeat a refrain of decline and fall, which wouldn’t be so sad if there had been a summit decline from, but the evidence is that we start small and end small without ever having scaled any peaks. Used only to the small effort, we are not, as a result, capable of the sustained effort and lose momentum fast. We have a term for it: ningas cogon.

And so, in the aftermath of yet another vastly-diminished EDSA anniversary celebration, we ask ourselves again…

What specifically can our hopes for a better Philippines in the future be pinned on?

The recurring theme no longer seems to be “freedom”. The Philippines’ decline to the wretchedness of its present state since 1986 proves that a lack of “freedom” had nothing to do with Philippine poverty. More to the point, freedom has only made Filipinos inherent divisiveness even more stark — as if the 1986 “revolution” had undone almost two centuries of unification, first under the Spaniards, then under the Americans.

Indeed, in the hands of Filipinos, the Philippines came apart within several decades despite centuries as a unified colony under Spain and the United States.

Analyse that.

It is time Filipinos learn to understand what it means to be truly MINDFUL

February 24, 2015

by benign0

 

Your stuck with it so you might as well defend it. That’s the sort of loser attitude that’s at work in a lot of the apologism we see nowadays. I’m fat. Deal with it. I’m poor. Deal with it. I’m a Catholic. Deal with it. I can’t speak English. Deal with it. I voted for BS Aquino. Deal with it. We’re dealing with it alright. It’s called Human Nature. Once a belief or a group affiliation has been ingrained in our psyches, we defend it to the death.

 

Only a special breed of people possessing a rare level of self-awareness can see past the quaint cognitive constructs that imprison their minds. And even those ones will have undergone a hell of a journey to get to that level of thinking ability. Indeed, the latest trending buzzword we see a lot of today is “mindfulness”. The term gets bandied around quite a lot nowadays, but I doubt many people really understand what being really mindful entails.

 

A truly mindful person possesses the ability to step outside of themselves and see the world as it really is, unencumbered by the biases they normally see it through. Some people call that having the right perspective. When we are able to frame an issue from the proper perspective we stand a better chance of thinking things through a lot more clearly. It takes a lot of smarts to do that — because emotions, impulses, instincts, and reflexes are very powerful motivators that higher thinking constantly battles (and often loses to).

 

Imagine yourself walking on a foot-wide girder at the 100th story of a building under construction. You’d probably be paralysed with fear seeing the fall beneath you. But our ability to effortlessly skip across a floor while keeping within a foot-wide row of tiles proves that there really is very little to fear about walking across that 100-story-high girder. That is, of course, an extreme case. But there are many other more moderate examples in our day-to-day lives that illustrate the way our intellectual faculties are held hostage by irrational ideas.

 

Within the Philippine setting, alone, excellent examples abound of how an entire society can be imprisoned by old, flawed, but sticky ideas. Government “peace” negitiators, for instance, who have been schmoozing for years with the terrorist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are now feared to be suffering from a bizarre form of Stockholm syndrome. They are now seen to be negotiating on behalf of the MILF rather than from the side of the Filipino people who employ them. Desperate groups and movements that were legacies of the days when “people power” and its Yellow-branded ideology “inspired” nationalistic fervour in “reform”-minded Filipinos continue to hang on to the tired old songs and slogans despite an avalanche of evidence that that era has come to an end thanks to an abject failure of the Second Aquino Administration to live up to the lofty ideals it espoused.

 

The path to enlightenment has become an easy hop out from inside the little square that frames typical Pinoy thinking. It is as easy as snapping out of the delusion that things will be “ok” just because old relics of 1980s thinking remain in power. Yet people continue to be afraid of what, to them, is the big unknown that lies outside that little square that imprisons the popular sentiment in Filipino society.

 

What happens when we abandon the dysfunctional “peace deal” our government has supposedly “worked hard” negotiating with terrorists to cobble together? What happens when we simply all turn our backs on a president who has evidently failed to step up to world-class standards of what it means to be a true leader?

 

Filipinos are afraid to consider alternatives?

And that is why the Philippines will never change. It will never be a different but bettter nation because Filipinos would rather do the same things over and over again.

 

Filipinos fail to see the stupidity of remaining in bed with terrorists despite losing 44 good men to their treachery. Filipinos fail to see the idiocy of continuing to apologise for an administration that counts only evading accountability as its governance skill. Filipinos fail to appreciate the moronism of continuing to vote for people who promise everything then go on to deliver nothing for years.

 

The solutions are obvious.

It was not colonialism nor authoritarianism that enslaved Filipinos. No. It was their own adolescent emotionalism that turned Filipinos into slaves. An entire society that dances to the same silly tune for decades can’t ever be seen to be a promising one.

 

Perhaps one thing Filipinos can do differently this time is to allow modern thinking to prevail over emotionalism for a change — by being more mindful and less sheep-like.

The Idiocy of… duh… Idiocy

Posted by BongV on Aug 18, 2009

Names of Moros etched on the walls of Corregidor, a reminder of the Jabidah Massacre.

The Indio PoV

A recent blog post by Blackshama on “Another example of Philippine Idiocy” encapsulates the historical amnesia in the artificial Philippine state

The Inquirer even in its editorial silliness  at least has got one thing right. A solution to the Mindanao conflict involves a grand strategy  which includes political and increasingly a military solution unless the insurgents realize the futility of their position.  This is something like the total destruction of Nazi Germany and Militarist Japan by the allies in World War II.  While political solutions and peace talks may be attractive, a Commander-in-Chief should know when such are futile. A Commander-in-Chief should not hesitate to use the appropriate response and firepower to secure the peace and Harry Truman did it in 1945 and nuked Japan.  Similarly this Republic should not hesitate to destroy its enemies in order to secure the Philippines peace. Who is the Inquirer trying to scare?

The Moro PoV

Compare this to the position Michael Mastura’s piece on The Belfast Agreement: A Lesson in Political Maturity.

A sovereignty-based conflict normally involves two parties on a collision course: on one hand is the nation-state with its ‘ideology’ of ‘national sovereignty and territorial integrity’; on the other is the captive nation with its claim to right of self-determination. These colliding principles and interests inevitably end up in a violent conflict between the state and the captive nation.
The Bangsamoro Problem is one such sovereignty-based conflict. In this case, the Philippine nation-state, a creation of foreign colonialism and imperialism, claims sovereignty over the Bangsamoro homeland, once the territory of independent Moro sultanate states. The Moros have invariably contested this claim ever since the Bangsamoro Homeland was incorporated into the Philippine nation-state without the plebiscitary consent of the Bangsamoro people. The Moros were never conquered militarily by the Filipinos or, before them, by the Spaniards. It was the United States, with its technological superiority, that subdued the Moros militarily and later on, over the protestations of the latter, handed them over to the Philippine nation-state initially in 1935 and finally in 1946 when independence was granted to the Filipinos. The Moro Homeland, thereafter, became part of the national territory of an independent Philippine nation-state but is treated more as a colony by the latter. The Moros, however, have resisted Filipino colonial rule, and through various forms and means have reasserted their separate identity as a nation; hence, the sovereignty-based conflict in Mindanao.
The conflict in Northern Ireland, like the Bangsamoro Problem, is a sovereignty-based conflict. Both are multi-dimensional in character: political, nationality-based, and compounded by social, cultural and religious undertones. Both are also profoundly violent. But, what made Northern Ireland more complicated is that the conflict was not merely a ‘one state-versus-one captive nation’ configuration. There were two nation-states (‘sovereignties’) and two peoples/communities involved with each of the latter claiming right of self-determination – a right that was defined by and viewed from political positions diametrically opposed to each other and by intense loyalty  to one of the two sovereign states in question.
Yet, for all the complexities involved, the Northern Ireland problem has been resolved – or rather, the armed conflict that characterized it – when all the parties to the conflict decided to end the vicious and debilitating violence that plagued the province since the 60s. The political formula that came out of the negotiating table is in itself a unique political arrangement that brought hitherto bitter foes together to settle a long-standing political-cum-religious dispute through peaceful democratic processes that would allow the people of Northern Ireland themselves to chart their future.
***
There is one important aspect of the Northern Ireland peace process which we found to be relevant. The objective of the Belfast Agreement is to end the violence and allow the most bitter of political foes to work together through electoral democracy and run a government that would pave the way for the final determination of the political future of Northern Ireland. This would not have been possible without the parties to the conflict agreeing to “decommissioning” or the disarmament of the paramilitaries on both sides.
But unlike the Philippine government which is demanding that the MILF disarm before a comprehensive peace agreement is inked on the negotiating table, “decommissioning” in the context of the Northern Ireland peace process came as a result of the Belfast Agreement in April 1998. In fact, “decommissioning” has taken a gradual approach, a long process that keeps step with the progress of the devolution of political power to the Northern Ireland government. When we were in Belfast the “decommissioning” of Unionist paramilitaries was not yet complete, and given the fact that the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, one wonders why it would take more than ten years for “decommissioning” to be completed. That is, if one were totally ignorant of the complicated and difficult process that “decommissioning” entails.
There are, of course, recalcitrant minority factions on both sides of the political fence who refuse to recognize the Belfast Agreement or wait until the latter succeeds or fails. But these factions remain isolated and efforts by the mainstream Unionist and Republican groups to bring them into the fold or rein them in continue.
One important lesson is drawn from this Northern Ireland experience though. “Decommissioning” or disarmament can only be done if a comprehensive peace agreement between the parties to the conflict is concluded. It cannot come before that. Otherwise, it would be putting the cart before the horse. No revolutionary liberation movement would ever agree to “decommission” until the other party, which is normally the state, settles for a signed political agreement which would, by logic, include withdrawal of state security forces from the occupied territories. Less than that would be tantamount to surrender.
After our educational trip to London and Belfast, we could not help but compare our peace process in Mindanao with that of the one still taking place in Northern Ireland. There are similarities and dissimilarities and many can be cited. But for the sake of brevity, we can only mention a few.
As already mentioned and explained, the sovereignty-based conflict in Northern Ireland is more complex than the Bangsamoro Problem. Two sovereign nation-states and two communities of people are involved in Northern Ireland. In Mindanao and Sulu, the conflict is between the Bangsamoro nation and the Philippine nation-state.
In terms of the magnitude of destruction quantified by the number of lives lost, material losses, and human displacement in Mindanao and Sulu, the Mindanao conflict is considered more devastating than the Northern Ireland conflict. This is not to say that the Northern Ireland conflict is not devastating. All armed conflicts are destructive. And that is what the Northern Ireland conflict had wrought on the people of Northern Ireland for three decades. However, figures would show that the level of destruction is very much higher in the Mindanao Conflict. In the recent fighting in Mindanao since August of 2008, no less than 600,000 people were displaced and over 2,000 Moro homes were destroyed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). During the MNLF-led war in the 70s, more than 200,000 people were killed, over one million were internally displaced, and about 500,000 Moro refugees had to flee to the neighboring state of Sabah, Malaysia. This would be replayed in the all-out wars against the MILF in 2000 and 2003 when again millions would be displaced and thousands would perish.
Whereas on record, conflict-related deaths in Northern Ireland from 1969-1994 numbered 3,173.
Nonetheless, we are not concerned with comparing levels of destruction between the Northern Ireland conflict and the Mindanao conflict. Figures could never really measure the detrimental effects of war, particularly the psychological aspect, on the lives of the people concerned.
Our purpose here, which was the objective of our journey to Northern Ireland, is to draw lessons from the experience of the latter in its peace process and use these lessons to validate our own experience in the Mindanao peace process.
Indeed, there are very important observations we were able to draw from our exposure trip to Northern Ireland. But to say it again, the most profound lesson we learned is the pivotal role that political maturity plays in resolving sovereignty-based conflicts. In the Northern Ireland conflict, the political maturity of all the actors involved – state and non-state – was the ‘blade’ that unknotted the Gordian knot, so to speak.
Unfortunately, in our engagements on the negotiating table with the Philippine government, we do not find even a semblance of political maturity on the side of our adversary.
There is no political maturity when the Philippine government invariably turns its back on political compromises and reneges on its commitments to signed agreements with the Moro liberation movement as what it did to the MNLF in 1976 and 1996 and recently to the MILF in 2000, 2003 and 2008.
There is no political maturity when the Philippine government embarrasses itself before the international community by aborting an initialed MOA-AD  with the MILF on the very day that such a conflict-resolving compromise political agreement was about to be signed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
There is no political maturity when the Philippine government does a Pontius Pilate by disowning and scuttling its own peace panel, renouncing an agreement that it jointly crafted with the MILF for almost four years, and subsequently announcing its total withdrawal from the negotiating table.
There is no political maturity when key officials in the Philippine government cannot put their acts together and exercise a strong collective political will to resolve the Mindanao conflict through a negotiated political settlement with the MILF.
There is no political maturity when the Philippine government reverts to military solutions and resorts to repressive counter-insurgency measures and propaganda demonization of the Moro nation to resolve the almost five-century old Bangsamoro Problem which even the Spaniards and the Americans were unable to put an end to during their stay in the Philippines.
There is no political maturity when the Philippine government undermines the role of the third party facilitator to the peace negotiation, Malaysia, whose role as such the former officially requested for in 2001.
And, if I may add, there is no political maturity when Filipino government officials involved in the peace process shed crocodile tears in front of the media over the misery and sufferings of Moro refugees while the Philippine military keeps up with its relentless operations in Moro areas.
This is not political maturity but deception shamelessly being played out before the eyes of the world.
Such deception will never put an end to the sovereignty-based conflict in the Bangsamoro Homeland.

Society-wide Stockholm Syndrome

Blackshama’s point of view (PoV) is not surprising – one which glorifies the Spaniards landgrabbing, murder, and destruction of the indio way of life. it appears that the collective indio memory is similar to abducted hostages, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger or risk in which they have been placed – a Stockholm syndrome of epic proportions.

As described in the open source reference:

The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological shift that occurs to captives when they are threatened gravely but shown acts of kindness by their captors. They tend to sympathize with their captors and think of them highly because they believe that their captors are showing favor because of their inherent kindness and thus might not be as bad as they look. Unfortunately, they fail to recognize that their captors are making choices based on their own discretion. When subjected to these situations for a period of time, the captive develops a strong bond with the captor and in some cases (especially with a captor of the opposite sex) develops a sexual interest.
According to the psychoanalytic view of the syndrome, the tendency might well be the result of employing the strategy evolved by newborn babies to form an emotional attachment to the nearest powerful adult in order to maximize the probability that this adult will enable — at the very least — the survival of the child, if not also prove to be a good parental figure. This syndrome is considered a prime example for the defence mechanism of identification.
This syndrome has also been explained in evolutionary terms, which highlights the fact that our ancestors sided with the tribes that captured them. In many cases, the capture may also involve the killing of the captive’s relatives, thereby isolating the captive. The captive is subjected to isolation and so sees even a small act, such as providing amenities, as a great favor. They may side with their captors since they think the captors gave them great importance and love. This effect also stems from the fact that everybody other than the captive may have been killed, and thus the captive tends to think that (s)he is shown a special interest.

Three hundred years as a Spanish colony, and the colonial subjects have forgotten who they are, the sacrifices of their ancestors for their way of life. And, they now try so hard to emulate the former colonizers – the Filipino is an indio afflicted with the Stockholm Syndrome.

The Fabricated Philippine State

Not surprisingly, it is amazing how much is being left out in classes on Philippine history. Joseph Fallon’s article on the Fabricated Philippine State was on point, however, his thoughts have slim chances of finding its way into the indios’ classrooms. Fallon points out in his piece on Igorot and Moro National Reemergence:

Created in 1946 – the result of a series of negotiations conducted between Filipino nationalists and the U.S. government – the Republic of the Philippines is an arbitrary amalgamation of a multitude of diverse islands and peoples.
This political entity is not a nation-state; neither is it a voluntary multinational association. Rather, it constitutes a new, post World War II, colonial order centered in Manila, and dedicated to the political and economic hegemony of the local Christian-Europhile community over the entire territory of the former American colony. That which separates the Philippines from all other multi-ethnic states in Asia is its unique nationalism.
Although distinct Cambodian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, and Thai countries had emerged by the time of the onslaught of European imperialism in Asia during the late 19th century, there never existed a Filipino nation.
While other heterogeneous Asian countries can seek to legitimate the existence of their states by declaring a continuity – however dubious – with indigenous kingdoms or empires that flourished in their lands before European domination, Filipino nationalists cannot.
No single political entity ever ruled the entire archipelago, and those states which did arise to govern significant portions of these islands, including the area around Manila, were Muslim. Unlike other Asian nationalisms, for Filipinos history is an enemy, not an ally.
The Nations Within
Filipino nationalism is an artificial, non-Asian construct with no existence prior to and separate from the Spanish invasion of 1565. The extent of its dependency on European colonialism for its very identity is seen by the nationalists embrace of The Philippines as the name for their country, a name given to the islands by the Spanish in 1542 in honor of King Philip II of Spain – a tyrant, and a racial and religious bigot.
Originally, Filipino nationalism did not even seek independence for the Philippines but rather its complete cultural assimilation and total political integration into Spain. The goal was equal representation with “the other parts of Spain” in the Cortes at Madrid. To these Filipino nationalists, Filipinos were just eastern Spaniards, as Majorcans were western” Spaniards, as Andalusians were southern” Spaniards.
Only when this aspiration failed to be realized did the objective of Filipino nationalists shift to political independence – but not to decolonize. If they could not be an integral part of Spain, then the Philippines would constitute a second Spain – one which would complete the hispanization of the islands.
The commitment to this non-Asian identity is so intense that in 1962 then President Macapagal warmly embraced the suggestion of Spain’s dictator, Generalissimo Franco, that the Philippines should initiate the creation of a political-cultural bloc consisting exclusively of states sharing a common Spanish- Catholic heritage.
As a result, Filipino nationalists view the rest of Asia with ambivalence and as somewhat alien. Like Israeli and Afrikaan nationalisms, Filipino nationalism considers itself as culturally and spiritually separate from, and in fact superior to, the region and peoples in which it is geographically situated.
The failure of the Philippines to develop into the Southeast Asian showcase for democracy and economic growth which was anticipated for it by both Filipino and U.S. politicians is a direct consequence of this nationalism. For the indigenous nations in the Philippines, especially, the Igorots and the Moros, this assumed nationalism has endangered their continued cultural and physical survival.

The Petraeus Doctrine and Mahinda Rajapaksa

Thus far, the Mindanao issue has become Asia’s Palestine. The Philippines is what China is to Tibet, what Israel is to Palestine. It is rather ironic, that the Philippines supports the Tibetans and Palestine – and yet has hypocrisy bullcrap all over its backyard and front yard. It becomes poetic justice if one takes into consideration that the Philippines had the gall to hatch Operation Merdeka –

The strategy will be determined by the unique nature of each theater. In the 1990s, the Powell Doctrine, with its emphasis on overwhelming force, assumed that future American wars would be brief, decisive, and infrequent. However, a decade ago, the Army corp of officers that took its cue from Powell is now increasingly identifying with Petraeus.

According to the emerging Petrae­us Doctrine, the Army (like it or not) is entering an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous—with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire. A more detailed discussion is provided in The Petraeus Doctrine. Petraeus strategy in Iraq boils down to this — protecting the population while cleaving apart the insurgency through reconciliation efforts to crush the remaining hard-core enemies.

The indio PoV espouses the Sri Lankan model as the way to go. The moro PoV is looking at the Belfast model. The Philippine government tried the Rajapaksa option in Erap’s time. Fast forward, Erap has been convicted and pardoned, the Bangsa Moro is still a force to contend with.

Going into ARMM guns and galore without addressing the core issue of economic and government negligence is a guarantee that doing a Rajapaksa will lead to more LTTEs – the very reason why this issue cropped up and has never been resolved up to the present.

Continuous Scuttlement of a Comprehensive a Fair and Just Solution

There have been many attempts to find a solution that recognizes the historical facticties. However all of this efforts have become a farcical cycle of negotiations, peace talks, peace agreements, ceasefire violations, and resumption of hostilities. On one side, is the demand for self-determination and on the other hand the natural tendency of a state to protect what it considers its “territory”.

Fallon lists some of the following reasons that underlie the thinking about the preservation of the Philippine state:

1. The boundaries of the Philippines constitute internationally recognized borders which were officially delineated nearly a century ago during the colonial era.
This rational is a paradox. Philippine independence bases its legitimacy on a passionate repudiation of European colonialism, yet it ardently champions and defends the fruits of that colonialism, the territorial boundaries. The essence of this argument is that political borders are legitimate if they have been accepted by the world community of states. But, for its proponents, the logic of this position is self- defeating. For if international recognition confers legitimacy upon political borders, then all decolonization – including Philippines independence – becomes illegitimate. After all, the borders of the various, colonial empires had been accorded such recognition by their peers. If accepted as a general principle, this argument would deny national self-determination to Tibetans and Turkestanis, to Ukrainians and Byelorussians, to Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, to Irish and Kanaks. Each nation is part of a state, much against their wishes, whose boundaries are internationally recognized — de jure or de facto — by most states.
2. Preservation of the Philippines existing borders is supported by Third World concepts of the sanctity of the territorial integrity of post-colonial states.
This belief has only been advanced by the Organization of African Unity in Articles 2 and 3 of its charter. According to this document, in any conflict between the principles of territorial integrity and national self-determination, the former takes precedence. This situation is unique to Africa and has no real bearing on Asia. Asia has no equivalent to the OAU or its charter.  On the contrary, borders, more often than not, have been altered from their colonial boundaries. States have been enlarged, others reduced, and still others obliterated from the map.
— China invaded and annexed Tibet (1950), later seized parts of the disputed territory of Kashmir (1959-1962).
— India and Pakistan were established in 1947 through a dual process of partition and annexation. The British Raj was partitioned into two successor states, while the legally separate entities known as the princely states were annexed to either India or Pakistan.
— India annexed the French enclaves of Karikal, Mahe, Pondichey, and Yanam in 1954, the Portugese colonies of Dadra, and Nagar Aveli in 1960, and the last Portugese strongholds of Damao, Diu, and Goa in 1961. The Kingdom of Sikkim was annexed in 1975.
— India and Pakistan have fought two wars for control of Kashmir in 1947-48 and again in 1965. The result has been Kashmir’s partition between the two rivals.
— The eastern wing of Pakistan seceded to form Bangladesh in 1971.
— Dutch New Guinea was transferred to Indonesian rule in 1963. East Timor was invaded and annexed by Indonesia in 1975.
— The British colonies on Borneo, Sarawak and Sabah, were united with Malaya to create the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Singapore was expelled from the federation in 1965.
— The United Nations Strategic Trust Territory of Micronesia administered by the United States was partitioned into four separate political units — Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas, and Palau — during the late 1970s, early 1980s.
3. The Boundaries of the Philippines form “natural” borders for they enclose a distinct, geographic archipelago.
The Philippines, however, do not form a single archipelago. It is part of the Malay, or East Indian, Archipelago which includes Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea as well as the Philippines. According to the logic of this argument, the states’ borders should be expanded to include the entire archipelago — islands, states, and peoples. The division of this archipelago in to various states was arbitrary based on European needs not “natural” criteria. A variation of this theme is to stress the “natural” compactness of the state. Yet the distance between Manila and Sibutu Island is almost the same as between Manila and Taipei. Should the Philippines, therefore, claim Taiwan, in part or in whole, as belonging to it?
4. The borders of the Philippines enclose a racially homogeneous Malay population.
This is a variant on the “natural” border theme. Malays, however, are not restricted to the Philippines. They constitute the majority of the population of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. If the borders of the Philippines are legitimate because they unite the Malays in one state, then logically these borders should be expanded to include Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. If, on the other hand, the proponents of this argument accept these three, other Malay states as legitimate (and they do), then there is no reason why two additional Malay states — Igorot and Moro — could not be accepted as well.
5. The boundaries of the Philippines have been established in accordance with democratic principles. The state’s borders have been endorsed overwhelmingly by Filipinos at the voting booths.
From 1903-1946, the Moros demonstrated to Washington their consistent and universal opposition to incorporation within an independent Philippines. The argument seeks to deny the ethnic realities of the Philippines and to conceal the colonial domination of the smaller Igorot and Moro nations by the larger, Filipino community behind the democratic facade of majority rule. The implication of this “majority rule” argument is dangerous. It rationalizes the annexation of smaller nations by their larger neighbors and condones the subsequent colonization of the former’s land by the latter. If accepted as a general principle, this argument justifies Chinese occupation of Tibet, Soviet occupation of Lithuania, and the French occupation of Kanakia.
6. Independence for the Igorots and the Moros is without historical validity since neither ever succeeded in establishing a unified state encompassing all of Moroland or the Mountain Province.
This is perhaps the most bizarre reason advanced by the supporters of the Philippine state. The argument undercuts their own position, since there never was a Filipino state that ruled all the 7,100 islands. Even the notion of a Filipino identity is non-indigenous. Of the three groups, Igorot, Moro, and Filipino, it is the Filipino which is the most historically invalid.
7. If the Philippine state is broken up, the resulting successor states — Igorot and Moro — would be unviable.
Both an Igorot state and a Moro state would be politically, and economically viable. Each in terms of territorial and population size would be larger than a number of independent countries of Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Pacific. Freed from Filipino occupation, the Igorots and the Moros could devote their resources to establishing, or re-establishing, stable independent states. Having successfully defended their national existence for over 400 years against military assaults by Spaniards, Americans, Japanese, and Filipinos, the goal should not be impossible to realize. It is precisely because the lands of the Igorots and the Moros are rich in natural resources — and economically viable as states — that the Philippines wishes to retain possession of them. The price which Manila is paying to hold on to these lands, however, has been costly. The true expense can be seen in the resulting political turmoil and economic decline.
8. The breakup of the Philippines would de-stabilize the region.
The threat to regional peace comes from the attempt by the Philippines to dominate two, small nations — the Igorots and the Moros. Especially the latter. Manila’s obsession with retaining Moroland has lead it to lay claims to Sabah province of Malaysia. Alleging that Sabah was an integral part of the Sultanate of Sulu, and that the sultan had transferred his patrimony to the Philippines, Manila nearly went to war with Malaysia for control of this territory in the 1960s.

The MoA-AD was Doomed From Day One or The 1987 Constitution is “Damaged Goods”

Fr Bernas SJ, explains, essentially, why the MoA-AD was but another episode of taking the Bangsa Moro for a ride.

Aside from the 90-page main opinion, there are 11 other pieces, some concurring and others dissenting. Going through them one will find that there really is more unanimity than what the 8-7 count might indicate. There is a clear majority which would agree that there are provisions in the MOA-AD which depart from the present Constitution. The most notable of these would be the powers envisioned for the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE). The powers envisioned go beyond those possessed by local governments and even by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The MOA-AD speaks of the relationship between the BJE and the Philippine government as “associative,” thus implying an international relationship and therefore suggesting an autonomous state. This goes beyond what the present Constitution has set up. Clearly, the MOA-AD authors were willing to try untested approaches and to operate “out of the box” as other peace negotiators in other places have done.
If one sees that the signing of the aborted MOA-AD would have had the effect of making it a “done deal,” a finalized MOA-AD would indeed have been unconstitutional.
It would, however, be unconstitutional not necessarily because it contained provisions which departed from the current Constitution but because these provisions would have been given life without following the constitutional provisions for achieving change in the Constitution.
Thus the underlying assumption in the majority decision seems to be that, if the draft had been signed, it would have disastrously contained government commitments which, even if not self-executing, would have disastrous implications.

Taken within the Constitutional framework, it was a bum deal from the get-go. Though, a case can be made that the 1987 Philippine Constitution promulgated by the EDSA state didn’t just give lemons to the Moros but to the general Philippine population as well. As the local economic elite institutionalized protectionism in the Constitution, the opportunity for Arab investors to invest in Mindanao (and any foreign investor for that matter) ) didn’t have the pull of ASEAN’s Indonesia and Malaysia.

Prospects for the Moro Agenda within the EDSA State

The issue still goes back to economics, jobs, property, and public services – or the near complete absence of such. Behind the morass lies a silent player, it does not help the Moros or the Indios that, the EDSA state is

A carbon copy of the electoral democracy that was the country’s system of governance before it was destroyed by Ferdinand Marcos in September 1972, EDSA has reproduced most of its faults of the former: it has encouraged maximum factional competition among the elite while allowing them to maintain a united front against any change in the system of social and economic inequality. (Walden Bello, A Requiem for the EDSA System)
Two Sides of the EDSA System

The staying power of the EDSA system is that, in contrast to the Marcos regime, it is democratic. Yet it is democratic in the narrow sense of making elections the arbiter of political succession. In the principle of o­ne man or woman, o­ne vote, there is formal equality. Yet this formal equality exists cannot but be subverted by its being embedded in a social and economic system marked by great disparities of wealth and income. Like the American political system o­n which it is modeled, the genius of the EDSA system, from the perspective of the Philippine elite, is the way it harnesses elections to socially conservative ends. Running for office at any level of government is prohibitively expensive, so that o­nly the wealthy or those backed by wealth can usually think about standing for elections. Thus the masses do choose their representatives, but they choose from a limited pool of people of means that may belong to different factions—those “in” and those “out” of power—but are not different ideologically. The beauty of the system is that by periodically engaging the people in an exercise to choose among different members of the elite, elections make voters active participants in legitimizing the social and economic status quo. Thus has emerged the great Philippine paradox: an extremely lively play of electoral politics unfolding above an immobile class structure that is o­ne of the worst in Asia.
Throughout the EDSA years, the Filipino masses were largely a force that was manipulated electorally to achieve the political ends of competing elite alliances. Yet coexisting with the electoral tradition of the EDSA system is another o­ne–an insurrectionary dimension that derives its legitimacy from the manner in which Ferdinand Marcos was ousted from power. In the last 18 years, it was through an appeal to this insurrectionary tradition that the masses occasionally erupted o­n the national scene, bursting the electoral parameters to which the elite wanted to confine them. In January 2001, the middle class, driven by anti-corruption sentiment, served as the base for the extra-constitutional removal of Joseph Estrada from the presidency in what is now known as EDSA II. Then three months later, in what is now known as EDSA III, the lower classes, particularly the urban poor, came together in a mass uprising that was o­nly dispersed by the military at the gates of Malacanang.
Especially in the case of EDSA III, elite personalities were o­nly nominally at the head of an angry class-based urban insurgency that took the form of a movement to restore to power a defrocked leader who, despite a record of corruption, was seen as a man of the masses. After each insurgency, however, politics settled down to a normal electoral competition managed by elite politicians.
The Anti-Developmental State
While entrenched corruption is the feature of the EDSA system that has elicited loud protest from the middle classes, it has been the utter failure of the system to deliver economic prosperity and reduce inequality that is the greatest source of mass alienation. Close to 10 per cent of the Filipino nation, or over seven million Filipinos, now work or live abroad, and, according to recent surveys, o­ne out of five Filipinos wants to migrate. The sense of frustration is deepened by the widespread sense that our neighbors in Southeast Asia were achieving “economic miracles” while we were paralyzed by factional politics and mistaken policies. However much we may decry its authoritarian policies, it is hard to deny that Singapore, with its controlled competition, prosperity, and security, has become to many Filipinos the ideal polity, the anti-thesis of an EDSA system that has become deeply dysfunctional.
Economic stagnation, according to some analysts, may be related to the political system’s focus o­n elite representation and the parliamentary mechanisms to assure this rather than o­n the development of a strong central bureaucracy that is relatively autonomous from the private sector. The influence of the pre-1930’s American model of governance that guided the formation of the colonial and post-colonial state in the Philippines is again evident here. With the rationale of discouraging tyranny, the American pattern of a weak central authority coexisting with a powerful upper class social organization (“civil society,” in today’s parlance) was reproduced in the Philippines, creating a weak state that was constantly captured by upper class interests and preventing the emergence of the activist “developmental” state that disciplined the private sector in other societies in post-war Asia.
In his influential book o­n contemporary politics in the US, Daniel Lazare says, “Government in America doesn’t work because it’s not supposed to work.” For much the same reason, the subversion of the democratic potential of the masses by the realities of concentrated wealth and power, o­ne can say the same thing of the Philippines.
How long such a state of affairs can persist is anybody’s guess. But the really deep sense of frustration, bitter electoral competition, and EDSA’s insurrectionary tradition can interact in volatile ways. EDSA III showed how this mix can produce a lower-class insurgency, something that can be set off by a concatenation of events. To many observers, the question is not if EDSA III can happen again but when.

Within that backdrop, a resolution of the Moro agenda will not happen, unless a rewrite of the Philippine Constitution takes place. The Charter Change debate has become an emotional landmine as the left and the landlord classes have come into an alliance to keep the economy closed. While lip service is being given to how open the Philippine economy is – the fact of the matter is that the local elites have been very lazy in developing strategic industries which are vital to national development. Opening up the economy will allow new players to fill the gap not being met by the domestic players.

Scenarios for Change

The different strands of seemingly unrelated issues are converging towards a conclusion that social and economic change in the Philippines needs a dismantling of the dysfunctional elite democratic regime – the EDSA state. As to how this change will happen, Walden Bello, goes through the following scenarios:

• Scenario 1 – Charter change – Any calls for charter change will be easily sabotaged by the elite – as it is being sabotaged now.
• Scenario 2 – Military coup – led by “Young Turks” – models could be Singapore or South Korea
• Scenario 3 – Communist revolution – has limited appeal but will not go away and will maintain significant presence in the marginalized areas of the country
• Scenario 4 – EDSA IV – the road not taken after EDSA I.

Hitting the Reset Button – EDSA IV?

A wide disparity in income in the Philippines is an established fact. The seeming Gordian knot known as the Mindanao issue boils down to economics. Providing political and military solutions to an economic problem simply stoked the embers of a resurgent Moro nationalism.

The anemic economy and the Moro issue have  a score to settle with the  1987 Constitution in many fronts. Clearly, the 1987 Constitution needs to be revised to  a more participatory  democratic  government  while addressing historical wrongs – federalism, a blend of open markets and strategic protectionism. There was talk of change in 1986, in 2004, and now, 2010. But it was all talk and the fundamental economic relationships that make for a dyfunctional uncompetitive Philippine economy remain the same. For now, the Filipinos are still under the sway of the landed classes –  a captive audience for the game of musical chairs played by the oligarchs.

The Moro masses are no different as their feudal elites have also taken on the behaviors and mannerisms of their indio counterparts. The cries of the moro and indio masses are no different – economic prosperity, the rule of law, freedom of belief.

What will a “reset” look like? Walden Bello describes the hypothetical future state as:

The fourth route would derive inspiration from that “other” dimension of the EDSA system—its insurrectionary side.
Both EDSA I and EDSA II began as mass mobilizations that developed into insurrections. Owing to the threat that prolonged insurrection posed, however, the dominant faction of the elite quickly pushed to normalize politics by asserting the continuity of the elite democratic tradition and institutionalizing elections.
In contrast, an “EDSA Four” might have two stages.

• First is the displacement of the old system via an mass insurrection in which the working classes and the middle class are the central actors, the key partners of an alliance built o­n that potent combination of tremendous class resentments of the poor and the disgust of the middle strata with corrupt elites.
• In the second stage, the new configuration of social power gives rise to a democratic state, but o­ne that is more thoroughly democratic than the EDSA state in that it institutionalizes effective mechanisms of asset and income redistribution and the methods of participatory democracy.

These institutions would serve as the pillars of a strong state that would make national development o­ne of its priorities. This would, in short, be the “road not taken” after the EDSA uprising of 1986: a truly democratic state oriented to development.

I would further argue that an EDSA IV, can be an opportunity to do things right this time around. It can address the unresolved historical demands of the Moros and the Indios, it can put a federal state in place – one that is reflective of the multicultural modern state. Or, it can affirm the Moros clamor for self-determination.

The alternative is the idiocy of more bloodshed.

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