Duterte's former ICC accuser dances around case's veracity | ANC

Historic president, historic times

By Rigoberto D. Tiglao       January 24, 2020

LOVE him or hate him, the opinion polls, especially the most recent one by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), inarguably show that President Rodrigo Duterte is now the most popular president ever in our Republic’s history.

This conclusion was prodded by the December 2019 SWS poll, which found that 82 percent of Filipinos are satisfied with his performance, the highest ever rating for any president in the post-EDSA period.

His rating has risen from the 76 percent in the first SWS poll during his presidency in September 2016.

Of course we don’t have similar data about the popular support for pre-EDSA presidents, but it is safe to say that all these presidents — even the CIA-backed Ramon Magsaysay, whom the elites disdained — couldn’t have had such a phenomenal 82-percent satisfaction. I suspect though that support for the strongman Marcos in 1976, four years after he imposed martial law when the economy surged at an average of 7 percent, approached that of Duterte now.

Add the 10 percent “undecided” on his performance — which means they’ll likely go with the majority when push comes to shove — Duterte has the backing of 92 percent of the nation. This is nothing short of phenomenal.

One way of putting Duterte’s 82-percent satisfaction rating in context is to compare this to the SWS net satisfaction ratings of all presidents since Cory Aquino at similar periods of their presidency, at their midterm. (Net satisfaction is percent of those satisfied minus dissatisfied. However, this psychologically underestimates popular support. For instance, while 82 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with his performance, 10 percent were not, so his net rating is 72 percent. This, however, could be easily mistaken that only 72 percent are satisfied with him.)

Cory

Three years and three months into her presidency, in April 1990, Cory’s net satisfaction rating was just 37 percent, plunging six months later in November 1990 to just 7 percent. Her son Benigno 3rd was more popular, with 49 percent net satisfaction in December 2013. Ramos’ was at 2 percent in December 1995.

Another way of putting Duterte’s rating in context is to compare it to those of leaders of other countries. US President Trump had an approval rating (conceptually only a bit different from the SWS “satisfaction” rating) of 40 percent at his midterm. The two most popular US presidents in the post-war era, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy, both had only 61 percent approval at midterm.

While strictly not precisely comparable, Duterte’s satisfaction ratings are way above those of leaders of other major countries: Europe’s most popular politician, Germany’s Angela Merkel, has an approval rating of 48 percent; Japan’s Shinzo Abe has 52 percent; France’s Emmanuel Macron 40 percent.

What all this means is that Duterte’s presidency is historic, in that we are in moment in our history when a huge 82 percent of Filipinos are united behind the nation’s elected leader. That means that we are in historic times, as such unity has been so rare, if it ever there was ever one.

History

Western media has portrayed the 1886 EDSA uprising as our moment of history when we were united as a nation. However, the coup attempts that started just a year later to culminate in the 1989 putsch that nearly toppled Cory’s presidency proved that that People Power Revolution was a chimera. Huge sectors of the country that were against the uprising — the Ilocano north, Imelda Marcos’ eastern Visayas, the military and perhaps half of Mindanao — weren’t just given the venues to express their protest against EDSA.

What does such unity and support for a President mean?

First, it means that Duterte has the mandate to undertake even the most radical reforms the country needs. Indeed, his moves against “oligarchs” reflect his courage — and assessment that he has the nation’s backing — to go against sectors of the economy that have the resources, such as media, to even topple him violently.

From the Social Weather Stations press release.

Source: Social Weather Stations press release

Second, it means that, even as they get hoarse protesting, Duterte can undertake his reforms, even those that Congress, the judicial system, media and the elites don’t like.

The way is now open for abolishing a bilateral Congress and replacing it with the historically and globally proven more efficient single-chamber parliament. This is the first time that this can be done since this idea was broached. Indeed, how could any president without Duterte’s popular support ask the House of Representatives, who mostly control the voting population, commit political suicide?

And third, with such phenomenal popular support at his mid-term, when those of all past presidents steeply fell in a similar period of their presidencies, it will be Duterte who will determine his successor. Except for that continuity Marcos had when he ruled for two terms (and another extra-constitutional term that was martial law) and that of Fidel Ramos who was anointed by Cory, the nation’s leadership has been characterized by so much discontinuity, with one president disregarding the thrust of his predecessor.

Despite their obvious faults, the Marcos and Ramos regimes had proven that continuity is so important for a nation’s stability, and, therefore, economic growth.

The downside for Duterte though, he will not have any excuse if he fails to undertake a major reform of our country.

We seldom realize we are living in historic times, and political scientists of the future, especially those in the West, will be wracking their brains figuring out how Duterte, a few years ago just a mayor in some city in the south, whose rule has been painted as a “presidency bathed in blood” by American journalists could have led the Philippine breakthrough as nation and as an economy.

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com

Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao

Twitter: @bobitiglao

Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/01/24/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/historic-president-historic-times/676759/

Mark 16:15-18 | Caravaggio | The Conversion of Saint Paul

Mark 16:15-18   The Conversion of Saint Paul

The Conversion of Saint Paul,  Painted by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), Painted circa 1601, Oil on cypress panel © Odescalchi Balbi Collection, Rome Jesus showed himself to the Eleven and said to them: ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.’   READ MORE     Reflection on the Painting Caravaggio died as a young man. He was only 38. Our painting is one of at least two paintings by Caravaggio of the same subject, the Conversion of Saint Paul, which we celebrate today. Another is the Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus, which is in the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Populo. That version has the classic depiction of Paul being knocked off his horse, his arms outstretched to heaven. Our painting today is a lesser known painting, but in my view, even more dramatic. The painting shows the moment when Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to annihilate the Christian community there, is struck blind by a brilliant bright light and hears the voice of Christ saying ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me’? Indeed, the light is the main feature in our painting too: the irrational light coming from multiple sources, highlighting details for their dramatic impact. We see Saint Paul being blinded by the light. Christ is in the top right corner (held back by an angel), talking to Saint Paul.  Paul’s Roman clothes are already stripped of him, signalling his conversion. I think there is no better way to illustrate what ‘conversion’ truly means than in the life of Saint Paul. Conversion signifies a total change. Paul’s identity, purpose, motivation, attitude and entire way of life were completely changed in this very moment. His purpose of destroying those who believed in Christ shifted to making known Christ’s message to all unbelievers. His attitude of hatred changed into love and compassion. Paul’s life and conversion are even more poignant for me, as our seminary is located right in front of the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura, where Saint Paul is buried. Every other day I go to his tomb to pray. A powerful moment each time and a true inspiration... Sanctus Paulus, ora pro nobis! by Patrick van der Vorst

DEAR YELLOW GROUP MAG BIGTI NA KAYO DAHIL SI PRESIDENT DUTERTE NA INVITE NI US PRESIDENT

Pass Disaster Resiliency bill now!

By Rigoberto D. Tiglao       January 22, 2020

Phivolcs not an NDRRMC member

IF there’s any big lesson from the Taal Volcano eruption, and the continuing threat of a bigger one, it is this: Congress must pass asap the Disaster Resiliency bill that President Duterte endorsed in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July. Duterte’s words in that SONA seem a bit prescient now:

“I am calling on Congress to expeditiously craft a law establishing a new authority or department that is responsive to the prevailing 21st-century conditions and empowered to best deliver an enhanced disaster resiliency and quick disaster response.”

The utter failure of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) to issue an emergency alarm in the early hours of January 12, which I wrote about last Monday, is just one symptom that this entity is so unwieldy and has little authority to confront what has been our country’s geological bad luck.

We are in the so-called “Ring of Fire (its scientific term, the Circum-Pacific Belt), a major area in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. The majority of the earth’s volcanoes and earthquakes take place along the Ring of Fire. We are also smack in the path of typhoons generated in the Pacific Ocean, that a 2006 United States government study concluded that our country is the worst hit by this terrifying natural phenomenon, in terms of both frequency of occurrence and extent of destruction.

With natural disasters so obviously the biggest, really inescapable, threat to our people, guess what has been the state agency assigned to tackle this?

Committee

A committee, glorified as a “council,” or the NDRRMC, consisting supposedly of 40 heads of government institutions that includes nearly all departments and even the “president of the Liga ng mga Barangay.” And as happens in such committees, the heads of the institutions attend its first inaugural meeting. Later, the ranks of those attending become lower and lower, that the council is unable to make any major decision.

Quite strangely and a huge oversight of the 2010 law creating the NDRRMC, the two agencies that could tell it that a natural disaster is looming in the horizon and it should prepare for it — the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) — are not members the council. While 15 department secretaries are in the NDRRMC, the Science and Technology department secretary who supervises these two forecasting agencies is not a member of the NDRRMC.

I suspect this could be the reason why the NDRRMC didn’t issue an alarm on January 12 that Taal was on the way to a major eruption.

Guess who officially chairs the NDRRMC? It is the Defense secretary who is one of the busiest department officials, what with a communist insurgency still alive, a huge modernization challenge prone to corruption, and the enforcement of our rights in our exclusive economic zones demanding his constant attention. I may be wrong, but I haven’t seen in TV news the face of this guy in charge of disaster management since the volcano erupted last January 12.

Civil defense

Guess who runs the NDRRMC on a daily basis? The Defense undersecretary in charge of the Department of National Defense’s Office of Civil Defense, a small agency that had actually been intended as the link between our military and the civilian population in all things involving our soldiers’ interaction with civilians, which in the past decades involved training and supervision of paramilitary units in conflict areas.

The current NDRRMC executive director is Ricardo Jalad, who I’m sure has been working his butt off to run this really weak institution. But when he retired, Jalad’s Army rank was that of a brigadier general, the lowest general rank. Jalad’s Army experience has been in anti-insurgency operations, leading battalions fighting communists and Islamic insurgents. He may be a man of integrity, but he just doesn’t have the stature nor experience in running a body tasked with such a huge, complex task as disaster management.

A proponent of the bill, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, has pointed out: “Five years after Republic Act 10121, known as the ‘Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010,’ was enacted, a special report prepared by the Commission on Audit in 2015 tells us that: ‘The government’s response and recovery efforts in Yolanda-ravaged areas already showed that the implementation of RA 10121 still leaves a lot to be desired,’’’ he said.

“The recorded below par performance was primarily attributed to the multi-sectoral, multi-organizational structure of the NDRRMC,’’ he explained.

“Experience tells us that creating a task force or an ad hoc body every time a disaster strikes is deemed ineffective and inefficient, especially now that scientists postulate that we are entering a time of climatic uncertainty, also tagged as the ‘new normal,’’’ he added.

Resilience

The House of Representatives had passed the Disaster Resiliency bill last November, but the Senate has dilly-dallied on it.

Under the bill passed by the House, the entity in charge of confronting disasters will have the status and funding of a department, will also be headed by a secretary supported by undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and directors. Albay Second District Rep. José María Clemente “Joey” Salceda, one of the main proponents of the bill, said that the new department would need an initial budget of P10 billion from the national budget.

The new bill also adopted a “joint operational supervision” provision over four agencies vital to a Department of Disaster Resilience — which are Pagasa, Phivolcs, the Geo-Hazard Assessment and Engineering Geology Section of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the Bureau of Fire Protection — instead of making them attached agencies of the department.

Such an approach would be similar to that of another disaster-prone country, Japan, which has a minister for disaster management who runs the Disaster Management Bureau. The bureau acts as secretariat of the Disaster Management Council, which formulates and undertakes long-term plans to prepare for and confront disasters.

Countries classified as high-risk in disasters, such as Pakistan and India, have created strong institutions for disaster management. Why can’t we?

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com

Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao

Twitter: @bobitiglao

Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/01/22/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/pass-disaster-resiliency-bill-now/676307/

Mark 3:13-19 | Twelve Apostles on the facade of St Peter’s Basilica | Jesus chose the 12 Apostles

Mark 3:13-19   Jesus appointed the Twelve Apostles

Statues of the Twelve Apostles on the facade of St Peter’s Basilica,  Facade designed by Carlo Maderno (1556-1629), Sculpted in 1612-1613 © Christian Art Today Jesus went up into the hills and summoned those he wanted. So they came to him and he appointed twelve; they were to be his companions and to be sent out to preach, with power to cast out devils. And so he appointed the Twelve: Simon to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges or ‘Sons of Thunder’; then Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the man who was to betray him.   READ MORE     Reflection on the Twelve Apostles on the facade of St Peter’s Basilica We may think that we have chosen Jesus, but in fact He chose us first! Just like with the twelve apostles. He chose them, as per today’s reading… For today’s art illustration, there was no need for me to look much further than the facade of St Peter’s Basilica here in Rome. The statues, all sculpted in 1612-1613,  show Jesus with the Twelve Apostles, or to be precise eleven apostles and St. John the Baptist. The missing apostle is St. Peter, because he was given (together with St. Paul) a separate statue in St Peter’s square in front of this very facade. To make it easier, I have marked all the Apostles on the photograph and herewith a small synopsis of who they were (from left to right): St. Thaddeus: Jude, also known as Judas Thaddaeus. He is patron saint of ‘lost causes’. St. Matthew: was a tax collector and wrote one of the four gospels St. Philip: preached in Greece, Syria, and Phrygia. He is patron saint of hatters.  St. Thomas: often referred to as ‘Doubting Thomas’ because he doubted the resurrection but then followed later by his confession of faith, ‘My Lord and my God’ St. James the Elder: considered the first apostle to be martyred. He is patron saint of Spain. St. John the Baptist: prophet preparing the way for Christ to start his ministry St. Andrew: first called apostle and brother of Saint Peter. Crucified on X-shaped cross St John the Evangelist: Patron saint of writers. Particularly loved by Christ. Often depicted holding a chalice.  St. James the Younger: Brother of Saint Jude. Jerusalem's first bishop. Killed by being hurled down from the Temple roof.  St. Bartholemew: suffered and died in Armenia. Depicted with knife, the instrument which was used to flay him alive. St. Simon: depicted with saw, since, according to legend, he was martyred by being sawed into pieces St Matthias: followed Jesus from John’s baptism to the Ascension. Attribute is the lance since he was killed by one.  The word apostle means ‘those who are sent’. Today’s reading is where they actually became apostles… from then on they are sent out on ministry… by Patrick van der Vorst

Mark 3:7-12 | Palestine Cartography | Jesus travelled in Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania...

Mark 3:7-12   Jesus travelled in Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania...

Map of Ottoman Palestine in 1851,  Maps drawn and engraved by J. Rapkin, H. Warren, J. Rogers, J. & F. Tallis, Page from The Illustrated Atlas, And Modern History Of The World Geographical, Political, Commercial & Statistical Edited By R. Montgomery Martin, Published in 1851 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lakeside, and great crowds from Galilee followed him. From Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania and the region of Tyre and Sidon, great numbers who had heard of all he was doing came to him. And he asked his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, to keep him from being crushed. For he had cured so many that all who were afflicted in any way were crowding forward to touch him. And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, would fall down before him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he warned them strongly not to make him known.   READ MORE     Reflection on the Palestine Cartography We sometimes tend to forget how much Jesus travelled in order to spread the Good News. Today’s  short Gospel reading starts with telling us that Jesus travelled to Judaea, Jerusalem, Idumaea, Transjordania and the region of Tyre and Sidon. That is a lot of traveling! Looking at this map of Ottoman Palestine in 1851, we see most of these places on the map. And it is a rather large area! Yes Jesus traveled extensively. We don’t know exactly all the places he went to or how many miles He walked, but it was substantial territory that He covered during His three year ministry. Today’s reading is a good witness of that. He was keen to spread the message everywhere around Him. Yes, people were flocking to Him to hear Him speak. So He could have easily found a base somewhere and let people come to Him. But no, He wanted to get up, travel, explore new countries, new cities, new people and make the point that He came for everyone. This is a major point as well for when early debates were arising in the Early Church to resolve the question: did Jesus come just for the Jewish people or also for the non-Jews, the Gentiles? The travels of Jesus and His relentless marching towards new people proves the point that the Christian faith was there for everyone, not just for the Jewish people. Our image of today, a beautiful map, is a great example of cartography. Cartography is the art and science of making maps. The oldest known maps are preserved on Babylonian clay tablets from about 2300 B.C. Whilst cartography was considerably advanced in ancient Greece, it was during the Medieval period, that maps were dominated by religious views and Christian centres were highlighted. With the invention of printing, maps were much more widely available from the beginning in the 15th century, and the art form boomed. The creative interplay between map making and the Christian faith is a whole fascinating area of study in itself. Jesus travelled without any such maps, finding His way. We now have Him as our map, our compass… to find our way to our Ultimate Destination… by Patrick van der Vorst