A Caveat to the Global Era of Post-Truth Politics

an international magazine acknowledges the phenom
as worthy of a cover treatment

NOONG mailibing ang supposedly mga buto ni Ferdinand Marcos sa Libingan ng mga Bayani mid-November, nagkaroon ng ineskedyul na malalaking rali laban dito, mainly ng mga ngayo'y oposisyon nang paksyon ng mga dilawan ng Liberal Party at ng mga pulahan ng Left na kaalyado ng Big Tent ng ruling party. Ngunit sa sidelines ay may mga nagkumento---kasama na rito ang isang Trotskyist at anarchist communist kong kaibigan. Aniya noong Nobyembre 25:
    "Mapapangiti at mapapakamot ka talaga sa salimuot ng realpolitik kung makikita mo ang mga nangyayari sa likod ng entablado. Halimbawa, ngayong araw ay may mga belated rallies sa Luneta o sa Plaza Miranda o sa Mendiola Street o sa kung saan man laban sa pagbabalik ng mga Marcos, at ang rali ngayong hapon ay pinangungunahan ng Makabayan group. Alam na natin ang conflict between the Left at ng Marcos family, obvious naman iyon, di ba? Pero mapapangiti ka sa sitwasyon na silang dalawa---ang Left at ang Marcos party---ay kapwa kaalyado ng business interests ng mga lider ng Nacionalista Party at ngayon ng Big Tent government ni Duterte, at diumano ay pareho sila mga benepisyaryo ng Generous Patronage at global neoliberal business interests ng Communist State of Imperialist China. Hehehehehehe. Sino kaya ang mangingibabaw? Ano kaya ang magiging desisyon ng kanilang mga Tatay?  :)"
    Now, of course it may be that the voice of the anti-Marcos rallyists, both from the Left-hating yellows and the yellow-hating Left, together might not reflect the majority's voice, which had yet to be polled during that period of the month and year (in lieu of an absent or inaccessible direct democracy instrument for a referendum call) on the issue of Marcos' burial post-burial. You may aver that rallies are not so much proper democracy as instruments of mob rule. But, you see, democracy also provides individuals the choice to participate or not to participate, to vote or not to vote, and only those who cry are heard. And rallies may prompt people to put up more rallies everywhere else.
    But as regards the Marcos issue or even simply the Marcos burial issue, I do not think democracy (through a majority or a minority) can help this anymore since it has not really been a conflict of beliefs on facts open to the possibility of one side being able to convince the other side of the latter's beliefs' or gathered facts' wrongness; from the git-go, this has always been nothing other than a conflict of faiths (beliefs, period) by the contending parties, faiths akin to religious faiths wherein there is no possibility of one side being able to convince the other side to change its perspective. This is a closed issue to all parties concerned that democracy can judge as a hopeless conflict that only needs a little push to be escalated to the level of war as the only resolution. According to Karl Popper, democracy requires an open society, and the Marcos issue has not for a moment been open to openness from either side.
    And, seemingly, the same might apply for many other issues under the Duterte government (care of its propaganda machine) in this same era that Donald Trump won the US elections (care of its own alt-right and neoconservative propaganda machines) and China's historical claims on the West Philippine Sea that has had an upper hand as another truth contrivance in today's world.

    Welcome to the global era of post-truth politics, the resolution for which set of problematics may not be found in a democratic battle of persuasive reasoning but in the power of propaganda to manipulate the psychology of crowds' or nations' propensity for confirmation bias as well perhaps as in the power of facilely resorting to brutal force. [S / -I]

Isang Maiksing Reminder Tungkol sa Anatomiya ng Pilipinong Botante at ang Ugat ng Abuse of Power sa Ating Bansa

ANO ang mali sa pronouncement na ito?
    "Jojo, di ba ibinoto mo rin si Duterte? Tapos wala pa yatang isang buwan ay kung anu-ano na ang pinagsasasabi mo tungkol sa Duterte government na binoto mo? Kung gago nga ang Duterte government, ayon sa punto ng ilang kritisismo mo laban dito, aba, isa ka rin sa mga dahilan kung bakit ganito ang nangyari sa bansa natin under the Duterte government. Kaya ang masasabi ko sa iyo ay ito: dun ka na lang sa binoto mo, gago ka! Panindigan mo na lang, punyeta ka!! Di ka namin kailangan sa panig namin!!!"
    Obvious naman na ang nagsulat nito ay hindi bumoto o nangampanya kay Duterte. Dahil ang bumoto kay Duterte ay ganito ang isusumbat:
    "Ang problema sa atin, boboto tayo, tapos sa huli tayo ay magrereklamo. Ganun ba parati? Di ba dapat suportahan na lang kung sino man ang nanalo dahil yun ang pinili ng tao? O totoo nga bang mahilig lang talaga tayong maging parating opositor? Kaya siguro hindi umuunlad ang ating bayan."
    Hokey. At ngayon, ang sagot ko sa mga mungkahi na yan, na ilalatag ko ng mahaba at ng ganito:
    "Ser, ma'am, ang pagkakaalam ko po, lahat po tayo ay nalalagay sa single-issue activism o single-issue politics tuwing eleksyon. At least sa case ko ganun ang tingin ko sa sarili ko bilang botante. Ibig sabihin, binoboto ko ang tao na nagmumungkahi na gagawa ng solusyon sa single issue na nasa tuktok ng aking listahan. Oo nga't marami tayong nasa ating mga listahan na di angkop sa kandidatong iboboto natin at maaaring angkop dun sa kabila, kaya lang hindi iyon ang nasa tuktok sa listahan natin, at kahit man marami tayong magkakaparehong causa sa ating mga listahan ay magkakaiba tayo ng piniling issue na ilalagay sa tuktok ng ating kani-kaniyang listahan. At dahil alam ko iyan, ser, ma'am, nung ako'y bumoto, pinangako ko sa aking sarili na hindi ako magiging loyalista ng sinumang pulitiko at ng kanyang mga pagpangako kundi ng pagtupad sa mga issues sa aking listahan. Kaya . . . dun sa sinasabi niyong pareho na dun na lang ako dapat sa binoto ko parati, nagkakamali po kayo sa inyong pag-iisip na ang binoto ko ay yung tao at hindi yung causa na nasa tuktok ng aking listahan (na maaaring tinupad niya o tinupad niya ng mali o sinuway niya o iniwan na sa daan). Alam niyo, hindi lang naman ang kandidatong binoto ko ang nangako. Ako rin ay nangako. Pinangako ko sa aking sarili na lalabanan ko ang aking piniling kandidato sa ibang issue sa aking listahan na hindi siya angkop. At, alam niyo, ganun din naman ang pinangako ko sa aking sarili pagdating sa ibang kandidato, na kung sila ang mananalo ay hindi ko sila lalabanan sa lahat ng issue, dahil hindi sila ang kinalaban ko kundi ang maraming issue na hindi angkop sa kanila. Susuportahan ko naman sila sa mga issue sa listahan ko na angkop sa kanila. Muli, . . . sa mungkahi niyo, ser, na doon na lang ako parati dapat sa binoto ko dahil di niyo ako kailangan sa panig niyo, at sa parinig ninyo, ma'am, na tila adik na ako sa pagiging kontra parati, hindi po ako pumapanig sa inyo, ser, o sa kabila, ma'am, dahil sa tao ninyo/doon kundi dahil sa causa ninyo/doon kung saan kaisa ninyo/nila ako, dahil nasa listahan ko rin ang causa na iyon. Ser, kung ayaw niyo akong tanggapin sa rally niyo dahil binoto ko si Duterte, aba, okey lang. Kikilos ako nang hindi ko kayo kasabay, dahil hindi ako lumalaban sa ngalan ng isang pulitiko kundi sa ngalan ng mga causa ko. Hindi ko kayo kaisa sa inyong loyalismo, ser at ma'am, dahil tinuturing ko ring kalaban ang anumang uri ng loyalismo sa tao o partido."
    At dito ay biglang paakbay na pumasok ang aking Facebook friend na si Bert David ng may ganitong mga salita ng pagsuporta sa aking posisyon. Aniya: "Baluktot pa kasi at dapat itama ang pag-unawa ng mga kababayan natin sa kung ano ang demokrasya. Akala pa rin ng ilan, ang inihahalal sa mga eleksyon ay kundi man inihalal upang maging diyos, ay hinalal para maging hari o reyna o diktador, kung kaya't ang mga itoy ay nagiging mandarambong o manggagantso o mamamatay-tao nila. Di pa rin maintindihan na ang ibinoboto at dapat ibinoboto ay ang mga mabuting tao na makagagawa ng mabuti sa bansa at sa kapwa. At lalong di alam na sa demokrasya, kabahagi ang botante sa pang-araw-araw na pamamahala kung saan tinatalakay ang mga bagay-bagay na ginagawa para sa ikabubuti ng madla (hindi para sa ikabubuti ng mga ibinotong akala nila'y dapat lang na naging diyos o hari o reyna o diktador na naging mandarambong o manggagantso o mamamatay-tao ng botante."
    Mismo. Dahil kung ito nga ang anatomiya ng ating pagboto, totoo nga ang kasabihan na ang karapatang bumoto ng tao sa isang representative democracy ay isang karapatan nilang pumili ng kanilang susunod na magiging diktador.
    Matagal ko na ring sinasabi na tae talaga ang isang purely representative democracy na walang kasama o kaakibat na direct democracy instruments para sa tao. Hindi ito totoong "demos kratos" (democracy) o people's rule, dahil madalas rito, ang ibinoto mong tao ay nandun na, nagsisimula nang umalis sa kanyang ilang mga pangako at umabuso na rin sa kapangyarihang ibinigay sa kanya at di na mabawi ng mga bumoto sa kanya, salamat sa pribilehiyong ito na bigay ng taeng pure representative democracy.
    At kahit pa matagal na akong nagdadadaldal tungkol diyan, walang nakikinig sa kuto na tulad ko, dahil buo na ang paniniwala ng sambayanan na ang ating kaligtasan ay nasa mga inihahalal, mga inihahalal na sana ay maging mabuti at hindi masama. Buo na ang kanilang paniniwala na ang ating kaligtasan ay hindi nasa pagpalit o pagbago sa sistemang nagbibigay ng pribilehiyong bukas na bukas sa temtasyon ng pag-abuso. Kaya walang natututunan ang bansang ito tungkol sa kasamaan mismo ng sistemang bukas sa abuso ng masama (at ng mabuting maaaring maging masama), dahil sa kanilang malakas na paniniwala na ang taong inihalal lang ang maaaring maging masama (at mabuti), na ang taong mabuti ay di magiging masama sa loob ng ganito kalaking pribilehiyo at poder. At ako'y naging pessimist na tungkol sa future ng bansang ire na reklamo nang reklamo ngunit ayaw umalis sa sistema ng pure representative democracy na siyang ugat ng lahat ng abuse of power ng mga pulitiko. [S / -I]

THE PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM AND KARL POPPER'S OPEN SOCIETY

photo from bandera.inquirer.net

IF YOU'RE anti-Marcos, you should thank the campaign culture of Bongbong Marcos' camp in the last vice-presidential contest for instigating anger in the people (towards those who ousted Bongbong's father's regime) through the spreading of shady "facts". Anger births insults, hostility, the birthing of which left the new Marcos' camp with nothing more to work with outside of same anger, rendering it unable to convince people with sympathies for the other camps to consider the logic of the new Marcos' camp and thus join what might have been shaped as an open force.
    But it was not surprising, of course, since a presidential system based on cult personalities for its maintenance, as against a parliamentary system based on a culture of constant debate, is a ready landscape for anger and hostility, anger and hostility deriving from all the personality-based camps towards their enemy camps. Besides, a Marcos position can really do nothing much else, unless it distanced itself from the policies of the father and promised to open its offshore accounts to public access.
    But, just for the sake of argument, imagine a Marcos campaign that did expand its culture of hostility to the area of amiable persuasion, even aggressive persuasion sans the option to lie. It just might have surprised the Leni Robredo camp with a convincing win.
    But, as I said, it's not surprising that followers of camps in our nation, any camp at all, would carry this culture of cult personality-based hostility towards the other. Like we said, the presidential system insists on this culture for the maintenance of its star system. It would even, as is often the case, insist on every individual's being either of one camp or another. It might even insist on loyalism.
    So it was not surprising that every opposition to a Noynoy Aquino decision was met by the Aquino regime with the notion that it was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo camp-deriving, just as it is not surprising now that Rodrigo Duterte's regime and loyalists paint every opposition to the government's many decisions as an opinion of the "dilawans".
    Is it possible to remain a citizen within a presidential system while absorbing parliamentary systems' culture of constant amiable debate (or hostile debate, but real debate, as against the non-debate of mere exchanges of expressions of hostility between the colored camps)? I don't know.
    But if an opposition to the current Duterte government is to grow, it must first learn the Bongbong Marcos campaign shortcoming. Shielding itself from the other's anger through its own anger at those who voted for Duterte would make the presidential system mistake all over again, a mistake of taking another cult-persona's position of distrust towards the other.
    For instance, if millions of Duterte supporters are to withdraw their support for the president they voted for today, an occurrence that often is not surprising in countries with recall elections for presidents, you can only credit it to people's having gone beyond the mere culture of hostility between cult personality camps and having learned to imbibe the more democratic, perhaps wiser, or smarter, virtues of openness to facts and the other's power of persuasion. [S / -I]

THE PERFECT VISION OF HINDSIGHT UPON A DEVELOPING BLINDNESS

photo from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/324877/news/regions/davao-mayor-duterte-moonlights-fights-crime-as-taxi-driver

THE faults and loopholes in plans are always clearer in hindsight. And it is from this perfect angle within the present that you might grant me the indulgence to find out where the presently-perceived progressing wrongness in Rodrigo Duterte’s national war on drugs may have started, going even beyond its practical launch during the transition period prior to his inauguration.

    I won’t get into the good things the war brought out from the dark as it exposed to national attention a problem already so huge that the gravity of the situation in solving it seems almost unimaginable now. I’m sure Duterte’s defenders can enumerate quite well enough some of those good things.

    But if the world and a growing number of Filipinos have perceived some things going wrong with the Duterte approach to the problem, so have I, and—thanks to the beauty of hindsight—I may now proceed to venture into where those mistakes may have been lurking prior to and during implementation:

1. First, it seems to me now that when Duterte made his drastic solution to the drug problem as one of the highlights, if not the sole highlight, of his presidential election candidacy and campaign, that was perhaps also when he practically started to shape what would later be his impending war on drugs’ problem with critics (perhaps also this war's later-found difficulty in quickly and efficiently obliterating the menace). True, Duterte the candidate might not have been the Duterte candidate that many wanted to see blossom, though we don’t know that, if he had not harped too much on that subject (or on that solution of his to that subject). But Duterte is Duterte, and if everyone has an obsession, this was his.
       But one thing for sure now, well at least now looking back, is that the loquacity of the campaign rhetoric on it as a problem needing a drastic solution, while it served his campaign was also already paving the way for its potential unraveling. For it was simply by announcing this solution of his to the nation, and consequently to the world of criminals (and to the parallel universe of policemen frustrated with the requirements of the law and the corruption in the judiciary) that he may have unwittingly planted the seeds of the war’s own defeat.
       We might remember that the death toll from this war actually already started during the transition period when Noynoy Aquino was still commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Duterte was still the president-elect with diktats in waiting. When, during this period, Duterte made speeches encouraging police to kill drug criminals who opted to fight it out with arresting officers, the encouragement certainly sounded like an offer to policemen to use that scenario as their perfect alibi for the summary execution of confirmed drug dealers that the President might have wanted done (as per some other contents of his speeches). The encouragement would likely also have been useful to erring or criminal cops friendly to drug lords, who may have used the same scenario as the same perfect alibi for the elimination of would-be-whistleblowers (small pushers, runners, client users).
2. The garrulousness of Duterte’s anti-illegal-drug campaign never changed its ways after his inauguration, maintaining a high profile via its appetite for loudness. That practically functioned as a warning to big drug criminals of their impending arrests. In fact, Duterte and his henchman, newly-installed Philippine National Police chief Gen. Bato de la Rosa, would state very explicit warnings to those drug lords on broadcast TV, saying, clearly or in effect, “get ready, we’re coming for you”. This ill-advised loudness defeated the potential of getting to the big drug lords through the quiet use as assets of small dealers (and client users). Instead, the government practically encouraged and aided the elimination of these small dealers, in the process eliminating their potential use as assets and witnesses necessary for getting to the big drug lords and necessary for the latter’s later ultimate conviction in the courts. In short, the Duterte proclivity for braggadocio made it possible for the program to only get the small fry as it practically warned the medium and big fish to get out of the way, even aiding the latter in eliminating elements in the equation who would potentially rat out on them. Thus the so-called “vigilante killings,” which, for all we know, may likely have been killings of simple users who necessarily knew who were who in the trading of the drug supply. These “vigilante killings” by drug dealers would be exacerbated by such programs as 1) Oplan Tokhang that encouraged the surrender of runners and users for listing and 2) mandatory drug testing that announced results: these two programs exposed users to the world of drug dealing as potential testifiers, which would be reason enough for their later or immediate assassination/elimination by the drug dealers. The programs' ultimate accomplishment? These eliminated the witnesses, setting free the drug lords. 
3. Another offshoot of Duterte’s loud campaign (which might have been frustrating to the PNP’s quiet spies and assets) was its susceptibility to being used by the regular murderers for hiding the real motives of their murders. It’s not unlikely that some policemen frustrated with the law and the justice system might have been easily taken in by the cardboards laid on top of murder victims' bodies announcing an anti-drug-pusher motive for their killing, a reaction that would lead these policemen to dismiss any enthusiasm to investigate further other possible motives behind those killings. And when one such occurrence multiplies itself to a horrific number that may trouble the media and human rights organizations as well as the rest of the relatively civilized world, then the war on drugs starts to move on its way to defeat. Instead of gathering more fans (in the manner it gathered fans during the enthusiasm of the election campaign period), it accumulated critics.
4. I need not say much about the potential of Duterte’s approach—along with any killings via vigilantism that may likely have been encouraged by Duterte’s passion—to eliminate wrongfully-accused persons (innocent persons) or persons adjudged as guilty by the verdict of mistaken identification.
5. Much of the enthusiasm for and loyalism towards Duterte’s war on drugs seems to have derived from a mythical appreciation of its beauty, lacking any favor for a delicate treatment of the problem. This kind of enthusiasm would necessarily churn out more good-looking braggadocio (bravado) instead of more scientific thinking towards winning the war. The potential unraveling of the still-continuing war (for which the President has asked for another six months to complete) could start precisely from this seeming waylaying of any delicate treatment of the situation in favor of the charismatic carelessness of the drastic, thanks to the penchant for sweeping obsessive thinking in the President himself. Thus his announcements (after the Davao explosion that some have begun to regard as an experimental false flag) that the military might have to be hauled in into this war, without weighing the fact that this solution could bring in more problems (via evolution) instead of real closure. We’re not even talking yet about the announcements that seem to be jeopardizing a long-time alliance with the relatively more democratic West (that has been critical of his war) in favor of a sweet-talking trickster called China (that has offered him rehab centers allegedly already under construction). This obsession by Duterte with one single personal interest (the dreamy utopia of a drug-free world) seems to have become so emotional to him that it has placed the drug problem in a pedestal worth any sacrifice, even the sacrifice by a leader of his country’s national sovereignty, thanks perhaps to a blinded confidence that he will not be deceived by his new like-minded allies from the lands of Qin Shi Huang and surviving KGBs.
6. The recently-accumulating careless statements of the President have made people nervous, primarily of the fact that he may have used this bottom-up war on drugs not for the serious elimination of the trade and drug lords but merely as a casus belli for the establishment of a culture of fear and obedience, fear of and obedience to a loved leader, after which establishment he can perhaps impose whatever personal utopia he has had in that strange 71-year-old brain of his, and likewise place in power the friends and institutions (local and foreign) that he wanted placed in lieu of the old friends his 71-year-old memory had come to hate.

    Sadly, all this developing blindness or myopia (in government or in the people) may perhaps only be proven true when it’s already too late and the only redeeming solutions available are already hidden in the tears of hindsight. [S / -I]





P.S. October 4, afternoon: If I may be allowed to speak in the language of divination priests, I'd bluntly say this to you now, Mr. President: "Here you are again, sir, deciding out loud, making all your thoughts known at a local leaders' congress. Sure you're telling them truths, collective truths and personal truths, but isn't the habitual or continuous screaming out of extemporaneous, lecturing truths risky when you are telling these to the populace yourself, touting yourself as your own best communication expert? Isn't it a disadvantage when you are being heard in the battlefield of your war, consequently warning the enemies you shouldn't be handing the benefit of a warning? Might it not be better to tell all these to key people in your team, giving them the blunt truths they might already know that yet need to be quickly and aggressively addressed? Might not the communication of a positive purpose or goal work better for the people's collective listening ears? Can you come up with a better communication plan than the non-plan you now have of making criminals daily hear your ever-present anger that's enabling them to adapt or be ready for?"
    Here's my joke about you to counter your Hitler rant:
    Kung si Rodrigo Duterte ang naging Hitler ng Germany at si Bato de la Rosa ang kanyang naging Goering, hindi na kakailanganin ni Churchill si Turing dahil walang magiging Enigma.

MORE BIG TENT BULLSHIT THAN SOCIALISM, REALLY

photo from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/570094/news/nation/duterte-s-inauguration-to-be-held-in-malacanang-over-500-invited

OUSTED THAI Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vaunted his Thai Rak Thai party, during its rise from 1998 to 2001, as a populist party that culled its support from farmers, small villages, and small businesses in contrast to its big rival, the Democrat Party, which prided itself with classical liberal rhetoric that would readily find friends in big business and among ordinary worshipers of trickle-down economics. I'd leave it to you to research on how populist Shinawatra remained or whether later political parties that pronounced loyalty to his principles had the same populist motives.

    Let's fast-forward to today and move to the Philippines, where during the Philippine presidential campaign of 2015-16, candidate Rodrigo Duterte declared not a few times—to the delight of those disillusioned with the preceding Noynoy Aquino administration’s combo meals of neoliberal focus—, "I am a socialist."
    Both men, the one populist and the other one a self-described socialist, launched their own respective wars against drugs, particularly against methamphetamine. I don’t know if populism has got anything to do with Shinawatra’s war on drugs, given that his strong campaign was at the instigation of the King, or if Duterte’s socialism has any bearing on his anti-meth passion. But, sure, one can easily look for links—the Thai majority was probably likely waiting for just such a war to happen from the top, and probably Duterte for his part is worried that the lower classes’ welfare is going to be eroded fast by the effects of the meth supplied by rich importers and distributors of the drug. We’ll get back to this later, after the next paragraph.

INDEED, as Marvin Bionat of Inquirer.net’s US bureau reports, the current Philippine war on drugs launched by Duterte is not the first of such magnitude in Asia, and points to the similar Thai war on drugs launched by Shinawatra in the early 2000s. Interestingly, Shinawatra’s war resulted in the killing of more than a thousand innocent Thai citizens picked through blacklists drawn by eager participants in his campaign, this as per findings by a post-Thaksin Shinawatra government enquiry that was reported in 2008 by the international media. Shinawatra was overthrown by a coup in 2006 during the second year of his second four-year term. The populist party that he founded, Thai Rak Thai, was soon banned by the junta.
    Here are my questions concerning Shinawatra’s war on drugs and how it might signal something to Duterte’s present one: Is it possible that what happened to Shinawatra’s campaign (thousands killed, almost half of the specific number of which were soon found by that abovementioned subsequent enquiry to be innocent) is precisely what happens when one does a fascistic (far from socialist) bottom-up type of war against such a criminal menace as the illegal drug trade? And could it be that it is only through a coup that a country can stop that war? And if such inevitability of a coup is already what some may presently be mulling as a possible way out of the current momentum of killings, what non-mercenary faction would even attempt to deliver such a now-possibly-not-so-sinister-plan? Could a coup be a recipe possible to, say, anti-Marcos military factions within the Armed Forces of the Philippines averse to the President's (far from socialist) unabashed embrace of the Marcoses, assuming such factions exist at all? Or by anti-NPA military groups averse to Duterte’s openness to the Communists, who possibly number a lot? Well, . . . sigh, . . . we ordinary citizens can only brace ourselves for a possible rough ride, and brace ourselves tightly as we wait on the sidelines.
    But, first, why does this war on drugs have to be called a “war”? Is this by a wording strategy that would semantically excuse that war, qua war, from the usual “peacetime” legal due processes required of democracies? If so, then isn’t it rather unfair that a leader can declare a “war” on drugs anytime, but over which program none can prosecute him later for “war crimes” committed?

I WOULD declare now that Duterte really has no ideology that one could comfortably categorize as either left or right or, even, safely, as center.
    And, likewise, what is complicating critics’ checks on Duterte’s war on drugs is Filipinos’ ideology-less tendency to be mere loyalists and partisans. For instance, what's this proliferating bullshit about defending the politician you voted for (since “you’ll only be heckled for having voted, and possibly campaigned also, for the leader you’re now criticizing”)? My usual answer to this political myopia is this: I don't vote for politicians, my countrymen, I vote for promises upon certain serious causes. True, it’s sad that every time I vote for those promises, inevitably through politicians, I would often end up disappointed. And sometimes it would take me three years to get out of my confirmation bias and bias blind spot to get deeply disillusioned (which disillusionment would then be met by both heckles and hugs from the loyalist partisans of the opposition). I confess that today it has taken me less than two months.
    So here’s my prayer: Lord God, I pray that every Filipino would stop being a politician- and party-worshiper and will remember henceforward his primary loyalty: to his more/most important causes (which ought to be the sole recipient of his loyalism).

WHAT ought to be checked in Duterte’s war on drugs? Well, in the August 25 issue of Time.com, Rishi Iyengar published a long story on this war. Comprehensive enough for a good appreciation of what’s going on in it and to introduce questions that must be raised against the same, the article quotes jarring realities such as this one emailed by Richard Javad Heydarian, a professor of political science at Manila’s De La Salle University: “There is also deep shock at the drug war’s financial implications: Duterte has given huge funding boosts to the police and military by slashing the country’s health budget by 25%, and reducing expenditure on critical sectors like agriculture, labor, employment and foreign affairs. On the other hand, the budget for the presidential office has increased tenfold, and now includes a provision of $150 million for 'representation and entertainment'.”
    And it is not as if troubling reports like this can only come from Duterte detractors with an ax to grind or political analysts with career points to push. Duterte himself would provide the media with explicitly discomforting proposals. Last week, for instance, Duterte—irked by “criticism” or reports from UN rapporteurs concerning his war on drugs—showed his exasperation by threatening to withdraw Philippine membership from the UN. That is not likely to happen, of course, but such surreal outbursts have now been deemed typical of Duterte. Surreal, since it goes without saying that should such a position be taken seriously qua a position of exit it would mean that the Philippines would have to deem itself able to afford consequent exits from programs the UNDP and the UN system have been providing many member states (through such agencies as the Asian Development Bank and the Food and Agriculture Association—check here), not to mention decisions by arbitral tribunals within the UN system. Not even the left-of-socialist (communist) states of China and Cuba would want to be out of the UN today.
    Duterte has in fact been his own detractor since his route to the presidency began. Comedian John Oliver’s pre-election skit about him as being the Donald Trump of the East has had 1+ million views on YouTube, and this comparison is not exactly loose—Trump’s propensity to say “Believe me” for his facts-telling (as compiled in this video and as caricatured by Tim Kaine at the US Democratic National Convention) does find an exact parallel in Duterte’s own presentation of alleged facts through recurrent “maniwala kayo sa akin pag sinabi ko” (you all believe me when I tell you) or the Tagalog-Bisaya “sus, ginoo, maniwala ka” (Lord Jesus, believe you me).
    And millions of Filipinos believe in Duterte.

STILL, how believable, really, is the President?

    "I am a socialist," said he not a few times during the Presidential campaign of 2015-16, to the delight of those disillusioned with the preceding administration’s combo meals of neoliberal focus.

    However, when he won the presidency, the new President rolled up his sleeves to quickly show us his brand of socialism. And surprise, surprise, not really a center-left sort of socialism was seen in the unveiling, nor even a center-center social liberalism or social democracy. What gradually came out of the caterpillar cocoon was a butterfly’s lip service to socialism for a . . . Big Tent absorption.
    Sure, Duterte has appointed leftists to anti-poverty, agrarian reform, labor and social welfare posts in his cabinet; placed a stalwart anti-unlawful mining activist from the big business class to the government’s environment and natural resources department; announced pro-people policies against red tape and a labor force-favoring stand against employment contracts; reluctantly appointed a freedom-of-information and participatory democracy and participatory budgeting advocate of a vice president to the housing post (reluctantly, she being from an opposing party); and started as well conciliation talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines. That's about it so far.
    Meanwhile, for the other side of the big tent, he has brazenly held close the Marcos family as if he were a part of it; has slashed—as per Heydarian—more or less 25% of the public health, labor and foreign affairs budgets in favor of military and police budget increases; has started a bloody bottom-up (I repeat, bottom-up) war on drugs (that look a lot like Thailand's Shinawatra's) that has yet to see a drug lord's head roll; and has ejected a form of public transport (the UV Express) from Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in favor of the city bus lines, Uber, Grab, and slippery "colorums" (with nary a groan of sympathy for this policy's impact on working-class commuters walking the distance to a connecting MRT station and nary a finger on private users of the avenue despite the new transport secretary's repetition of that oft-quoted Gustavo Petro socialist quote—"a developed country is not where the poor have cars, it's where the rich use public transportation"); and is even now intent on seeking emergency powers for traffic policy-making in Metropolitan Manila for anti-delayed procurement reasons the Supreme Court Chief Justice says is inspired by a myth.
    I don't now believe Rodrigo Duterte is a socialist. I see him now as a big tent figure intent on achieving all sorts of reforms, socialist and otherwise, in an autocratic way that everyone who has come to his Big Tent will be expected to kowtow to and defend.

RECENTLY, poet, conceptual artist, young socialist and extreme commuter Angelo V. Suarez, known for his “#MRTBulok” Facebook posts against the management of the Metro Manila Metro Rail Transit System by both the Aquino government and the system’s private co-owner as well as the incursion of money-making by the Pangilinan Group and the Ayala family into the system’s ticketing, seems to have been a victim of an alleged set-up. He arrived at the usual MRT station he starts his hypermobility with, and, voila! He witnesses a part of an awry MRT train part with the Suarezian tagline “MRT bulok!”, whereupon he finds himself quickly taken by the station’s security guards for detention at the station’s office, which lasted for two nights, accused of having written the marker’s marks on the bulok (rotten) MRT part. Here’s what Suarez later posted about it (also published here with his permission):
    “I feel bad having been detained for word against me by a fellow worker who relies on public utilities and infrastructure as much as I do, who has been let down by the MRT even worse than I have.
    “The allegation against me was made by a guard under pressure to find 'vandals' who have been writing, posting, and stickering their grievances on the MRT. According to her fellow guards—many of whom agree with me that the MRT is rotten—the pressure on them to find these people has been incredible, having been on the receiving end of reprimand by management. One even whispered to me that, as a guard, he knew even more than the average passenger cld how rotten the MRT truly was.
    “Big compradors like MRT Corp. Chairman Robert Sobrepeña and bureaucrats like General Manager Roman Buenafe who enable them play this sick game of pitting workers against workers for their profit or pleasure. This shldn't have been my word against the guard's words; this shldn't have been a matter of me combating policemen, tho there is much to be said about the police being an institution for the protection of private property despite its impact on public interest. I wasn't the only one deprived of sleep and time; so too were these fellow workers—MRT personnel caught between their job and our protest, policemen whose cramped office my friends and I made even more cramped because of my detainment—instrumentalized by corporate interest to suppress dissent from their logic of accumulation thru dispossession.
    “Bulok ang MRT, pero bulok lamang ito dahil nasasadlak sa bulok na estruktura ng estadong kinakasangkapan ng kapitalismo. Umaasa akong magkakaisa ang uring manggagawa para patumbahin ang tunay nating kaaway.”
    Suarez, after his detention, had a talk with the Gustavo Petro-quoting transport secretary, Arthur Tugade, and I can only wonder what socialist exchanges they had during those minutes of discourse and counter-discourse.
    Days after, Suarez would tell friends of emails sent his way via Facebook. He writes:
    “The things you find in your filtered messages inbox after 2 nights of police detainment for alleged vandalism:
    “1. Dick pics –‘sulat-sulat ka pa diyan, chupain mo na lang 'to!’
    “2. Charges of idiocy – ‘bulok na nga ang tren, susulatan mo pa! tanga!’
    “3. Accusations of being a 'yellowtard' – ‘bakit ngayon ka lang nagsasalita? dilawan ka kasi!’”
    Ms. Caroline Arellano, a friend of Suarez, commented on Suarez’s post: “Basta kinalaban mo ang administration na ito yellowtard ka o addict.” To which Suarez replied: “(Here’s) the funny thing: the general manager who delayed my release and was insistent on getting me detained was an Aquino holdover from (Jun) Abaya's time in the DOTC. Duterte supporters of this sort are weird.”
    Which brings me to my three reasons for dragging Suarez’s episode with mysterious forces into this essay: One, to ask the question as to whether turncoating for job security or protection could also be another psychology behind some of the killings by police of drug-trade and drug-use suspects, essentially for demonstration of competence and self-assigned quota, this apart from the elimination of links by drug-involved police. Two, to ask whether those messages sent to Suarez’s inbox does not show us enough why loyalism and politician-worship is so dangerous not only to others but to the health of our nation's brain cells. And, three, to perhaps show that many if not most Duterte supporters are far from socialist. [S / -I]

A CARPET BOMBING PRAYING FOR GOOD LUCK

photo borrowed from http://pcij.org/stories/duterte-revisited-what-he-said-in-2001-on-drugs-vigilante-killings/

HE ALSO said once: “At kayong mga drug lords, magtago na kayo kasi papatayin ko talaga kayo kapag ako naging Presidente.” Something to that effect.
    Hmm. At tila nagsipagtago nga. Dahil ngayon, ang tila kawawa ay ang maliliit na drug runners lamang na walang ibang makitang trabaho, sila nalang ang pinagpapapatay. Parang Pilipinas lang din, kung saan ang maliliit na napilitang maging kriminal lang ang naipatutumba at ang biggest criminals ay labas-pasok sa bansa at may mga offshore accounts na nga, may mga libingan pang mararangya na aakalain mong minsan sila ay naging bayani.
    You could say one ought not to shed tears for even the smallest drug runners or pushers, approaching all this from a position of retribution against the evils these people have also brought upon their barangays. But if I am to take the same approach, I would actually still say “enough with the drug pushers dying, I’d want to see the biggest drug lords’ heads swinging from EdlSA MRT poles, including those of their brokers on the Ilocos shorelines that have served as these drug importers’/exporters’ ports!”
    On this approach of retribution as social cleansing, the National Economic and Development Authority chief socio-economic planning secretary, Ernesto Pernia, recently called the President’s war on illegal drugs “a necessary evil” for long-term economic gains. Well and good. Pero huwag naman evil. Dahil wala namang matinong kritiko ng war na ito ang nagsasabing evil ang Duterte anti-illegal drug campaign. Ang sinasabi lang nila ay tanggapin sana ng Presidente at ng Philippine National Police chief na mayroon marahil nangyayaring execution ng ilang apprehended suspects committed by police, o on-location execution ng mga lower echelon dealers and runners and users committed by police, with links to the illegal drug trade (as police under drug lords’ payroll or as secondary drug dealers of confiscated drugs), executions all done in the spirit of eliminating possible whistleblowers on these police elements. Kung maluwag daw sanang tatanggapin ang reyalidad na ito ng civilian at police leadership, marahil ay maaari na nilang mabawasan ang lumulobong numero ng “drug-related deaths”, not to mention deaths due to possible wrongful accusation or mistaken identity or as collateral damage.
    But here’s where the problem is. One thing that attracted a lot of Filipinos to the Duterte team (as against the Mar Roxas team) during the 2015-16 election campaign was its image of being so grounded in reality, its being streetsmart, almost defiant of academicism. But how grounded in reality was it really? It’s been so right about the enormity of the problem, that’s for sure! But it also comes as a surprise that PNP chief Bato de la Rosa would now come out surprised at this, to him, news of so many policemen involved in illegal drugs. His attitude surprises us because it’s “news” that the general public have already been treating for a long time as common knowledge! Kung ganito ngang nasosorpresa pa si Chief de la Rosa sa bilang ng mga pulis na sangkot sa using at trading of illegal drugs, aba, hindi nakapagtataka na tila di matanggap-tanggap ni Tsip na may summary execution nga talaga ng lower echelon links committed by cops involved in the drug trade (who’ve also likely used the “nanlaban” alibi and an evidence-planting habit)!
    The intent of the shooter to prevent the suspect from spilling the beans, that’s the overwhelming suspicion among critics of the ballooning number of anti-drug-campaign-related deaths. The overwhelming suspicion among these critics is that some of these “operations” have actually been done by police elements trying to erase links or tracks that would lead to them in any investigation. In short, preemptive strikes against would-be whistleblowers.
    The PNP has been defensively arguing that its operations follow the laws of the land to the letter. But here’s the thing. All the critics need is one to two anecdotal evidence of extrajudicial killing or vigilante killing, or a simple execution by police allegedly linked to the drug trade, for the critics to qualify the argument that says such killings exist. In contrast, the PNP cannot present an anecdotal evidence of a legitimate and clean arrest, and consequent killing in a shootout, of a dirty narco-cop by his fellow cops to qualify an argument that says all its operations are similar to this operations. The single evidence presented by the former already contravenes the evidence presented by the latter.

ALL THIS actually started when the President introduced a loophole in the law to the most law-ignorant of policemen when he publicly pronounced: kapag nanlaban, you have all the right to shoot the suspect in self-defense. That could have paved the way for executions hinged on the self-defense alibi, which would not be hard for perpetrators to contrive, given that it’s been a PNP personnel habit to plant evidence on unwanted elements of society (or unwanted elements of police scalawags’ kind of society).
    The problem is also on the bottom-up approach of Duterte’s war on drugs, the rationale for which can vary. As of the moment this approach is not giving the campaign the 100% social support it ought to get, even from anti-drug activists. Some among the latter actually could be seeing this bottom-up approach as worrisome for the campaign in that it could work against it instead of gather the much-needed 100% support for it. . . .
    Unless the President is not interested in any 100% support, now that he’s President with so much power. In which case all we can do is wish him and all of us good luck, about all the things that may come in the wake of this carpet bombing when the dust settles. [S / -I]

An Open Letter to a Socialist President

DEAR President Rodrigo Duterte:

Sir, for describing yourself as a Socialist I already salute you. Not many in our country have a proper appreciation of the word/concept “socialist”; most equate it with being a “revolutionary communist,” even as armed revolutionary communists regard mere socialists as lame while the socialists regard the armed revolutionary communists as party fascists. I salute you for the boldness in your unabashed self-tagging using that word, Mr. President, the same way that I continue to salute Ninoy Aquino for calling himself a Christian Socialist during that time when “confessing” to being a socialist was equal to confessing one had leprosy.

Pero ito lang, Mr. President. For almost a week now the UV Express-using commuting working class has been made to suffer by a memo made by your LTFRB chair appointee, Martin Delgra, care of a legalist rationale. The memo banned UV Express vans from using the length of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue immediately after its release. The objective of the memo? To relax the heavy traffic along EdlSA—as if the UV Express vans ply the entire length of EdlSA and number in the thousands. Mr. President, who are profiting from this memo? There are the bus lines, of course, who now have to carry the UVE passengers from the provinces dropped off by their UVEs at an EdlSA or near-EdlSA corner 200 meters away from their connecting MRT stations. (Some would take the bus for such a relatively short distance to avoid perspiring on their office clothes in a 200 meter walk). And right now, colorum vans (even cars) have cropped up along the highway in question to exploit the shortage of a faster alternative to the slow buses and the cramped MRT (the faster alternative, the UV Express with licenses, are now missing). These colorums don’t have to pick up passengers at UVE terminals, and their passengers don’t have to walk 200 meters to get to them.

In short, Mr. President, the objective of the memo is not at all accomplished by its targeting the UV Express as a culprit, especially since the number one and number two culprits for the heavy traffic along EdlSA are the staggering number of private vehicles and buses plying the route, as well as the taxis and gentrified Ubers and Grabs.

Mr. President, the legalist rationale used by Atty. Delgra has not only resulted in working class commuters’ equating their current suffering (at the heavier traffic now traversed by the UVEs and at their having to walk 200 meters to their connecting MRT train stations) to what they’ve suffered in the long MRT queues from the start of DOTC Sec. Jun Abaya’s secretaryship in the Noynoy Aquino government. And they now equate Atty. Delgra’s use of the law with the Aquino government’s use of the law in relation to laglag-bala victims (which, you'll remember, victimized the victims twice and supported the extortionists).

Therefore, Mr. President, Atty. Delgra’s seeming insensitivity to the working class commuters’ suffering, a suffering produced immediately after his memo’s diktat, does not seem to reflect your Socialist sensibility. In fact, it seems to negate it, defy it, and defame it.

I have no connection with any UV Express operator, Mr. President. I merely have relatives and friends who belong to the UV Express-using working class who have suffered enough, Mr. President. And—like you—I too have claims to a Socialist sensibility.

And speaking of Socialist sensibilities, Mr. President, I would not be surprised if—by your Socialism—you were to nationalize the EdlSA bus route, Mr. President, as well as limit the number of private vehicles using the highway during the rush hours, instead of continue to allow Atty. Delgra to sacrifice one mode of public transport (some of which have ceased to invest in trips) in favor of another public transport (the buses, and the new colorum vans and cars along this route) in order to indulge his mysterious understanding of EdlSA traffic.

Mr. President, I believe that if there is one leadership that can stop the long-standing Filipino culture of favoring the private vehicle over the public transport vehicle, the favor for the vehicle over the pedestrian, as well as a ludicrous favor for a public transport over another public transport, it is your Socialist presidency, Mr. President.

The working class commuters of our republic have suffered enough, sir. That is why we rely on your socialist awareness and here hope and pray that Atty. Delgra will imbibe the same amount of empathy for such suffering that you have used to express yourself through this past year, Mr. President.

We thank you in advance,

Respectfully and humbly yours,

Jojo Soria de Veyra
Citizen

ANG ATING LABAN SA ARAW-ARAW

from http://quotesgram.com/joseph-brant-quotes/

BAKIT daw ba ako nagrereklamo sa ilang mga pangyayari sa ilalim ng pamamahala ng gobyerno ni Rodrigo Duterte, gayung ibinoto ko ito at tila ikinampanya pa sa Peysbuk.
    Ang kritisismong ito laban sa kritisismo ko sa ilang hakbang ng gobyernong Duterte ay nagpapatunay lamang na may tatlong prinsipyong umiiral sa ating kultura:

1. Na ganun kalalim ang kumpyansa o tiwala natin sa ating mga manok sa eleksyon, na para bang sila'y walang magiging dungis kung sila ang nanalo at siyang magiging tunay na messiah tungo sa mas magandang umaga;

2. Na ang ating kaligtasan ay nasa isang presidente at hindi nasa mamamayan;

 At, finally,

3. Na ang ating kaligtasan ay nagmumula sa boto natin sa ating mga eleksyon.

KATANGAHAN.
    Dahil ang ating kaligtasan ay hindi nasa mga panginoong matatalino, kundi nasa patuloy na tunay na kritisismo nating mga tao, ayon sa ating kolektibong talino, laban sa mali ng alinmang manok na nanalo sa ating mga eleksyon, maging sila'y manok mo man o manok ko. Dahil sa paniniwala nating nasa kanila ang ating kaligtasan at nasa kanila lamang, diyan tayo patuloy na tinutuka ng garapata ng mga hayop na 'to na tinuturing ng ating representatibong demokrasya na siyang tanging may talino para sa milyun-milyon.
     Oo nga't dapat may binoboto tayo tuwing eleksyon. At oo, yaong sa palagay natin ay may mas magandang plano, isasakatuparan niya man ito o babaliktarin. Pero yan ay eleksyon lamang ng mga lider, mga kababayan. Nakakalimutan natin na ang lider ng mga lider ay tayo, at ang pamamahala ng mga lider ay dapat pumapangalawa lamang sa ating mga kagustuhan bilang pinakamataas na lider ng demokrasya, demokrasyang di sana humihinto pagkatapos mahalal ng inihalal. Kung patuloy nating kakalimutan ito, aba'y ano ang pinagkaiba ng kultura ng demokrasya natin sa royalistang kultura ng fans ng naglalaban-labang mga hari ng mga monarkiya?
    Sa tingin ko, kaya tayo di umuunlad o may mabagal na pag-unlad sa ating pulitika ay dahil tayo ang nag-aaway-away sa sabungan ng ating reyalidad na pinapatakbo ng partisanong confirmation bias na itinanim sa mga utak natin ng ating mga pinanigang partido. Tila ayaw na nating harapin ang katotohanan na ang dapat nating sinasabong ay ang ilang mga polisiya ng mga manok nating tila'y wala pa ring humpay ang katutuka sa atin sa araw-araw.
    Sabi pa nga ni Dana D. Nelson: ". . . our habit of putting the president at the center of democracy and asking him to be its superhero works to deskill us for the work of democracy. . . . the presidency itself has actually come to work against democracy."


ANG lalim ng ating kumpyansa o tiwala sa ating mga manok sa eleksyon, na para bang sila'y walang magiging dungis kung sila ang nanalo at siyang magiging tunay na messiah tungo sa mas magandang umaga, ay nagpapatunay lamang na di pa rin tayo makaalis doon sa ating paghahanap ng ideyal na lider sa katauhan ng mga manok natin. Ito ay nagpapakita rin na sa pamamagitan ng patuloy nating pagsandal sa ideyal na lider sa ating nanalong manok, o sa ideyal sanang lider sa ating natalong manok na sa ating paniniwala ay siyang may dalang liwanag ng umaga, ay nananatili tayong nakakulong doon sa mito ng "ideyal na lider" sa katauhan ng mga elemento ng plutokrasiya na may mga sagot sa problema na para bang hindi natin kaya.
    Nakalulungkot na ang ating mga laban ay, bagamat para sa atin din, unang-una ay para sa kanila.
    How I wish that every political critic (professional and not) owned this sub-definition of "politician" or "government official"---as one who is a friend in a cause and an enemy in another. It's sad that politicians and political parties or factions have become many of my friends' political end-causes themselves.  [S / -I]

THE LONG ROAD TO LIBERATION

photo from http://www.philstar.com/metro/2016/07/31/1608339/ltfrb-bans-uv-express-vehicles-edsa

IN 2010, Noynoy Aquino's party intimated, that is to say by implication, the rise of a wangwang-less social liberal society. This social liberal society, so the message went, should constitute the President's bosses, not his subjects. However, as the years progressed, people saw more neoliberal and corporate liberal interests in the "liberal" of the Liberal Party than social liberal ones. Sure there were social liberal directions that remained, the CCT (qua CCT), for instance, as well as the expanded TESDA skills program (very social liberal, being in the service of both the working class and the employers' class at the same time). In the long run, though, what remained embedded in people's minds were these: hardly could someone see a social liberal direction in the elitist DAP arrangements with politicians, as against what they might see had it been a participatory DAP arrangement with the people (the former produced such crap as a convention center, while the latter might have produced such useful efforts as a market bazaar space for vendors, more mangrove projects, or solar power for villages). . . .

    But that's the past, and now we're in the present. So now let's talk about the election campaign of 2016, wherein Digong Duterte did not just imply, but explicitly described himself as, being a Socialist. He boasted of his projects in Davao City as manifestations of a Socialist mayor's sensibility in relation to choosing which provisions are priority to his community (sophisticated healthcare, women's centers, heavily-protected LGBT rights, etc.).

    So when Duterte won the Presidency and we saw such appointments as Lisa Maza's for the Anti-Poverty Commission, no one was shocked. Nor that another leftist was given the post of Agrarian Reform secretary to hasten decades-old go-aheads for land redistribution. Nor were the leftists among his supporters shocked to witness the appointment of a scion of a wealthy family who now mans the Department of Natural Resources, because her profile as a pro-people anti-mining activist seems to go beyond mere show for "corporate social responsibility" and is familiar to all as being so (moderate though it may be to the radicals).

    There are other sensible little diktats that display this Dutertean socialist sense, as when the President messaged NAIA people to avoid another case of laglag-bala victimizing ordinary passengers (or be ready for airport personnel cleansing). That diktat was a breath of fresh air from the era of Noynoy Aquino that kept on denying that such a racket existed at Aquino's cousin's turf, that kept providing everyone in the process the legalist argument that there are existing laws governing such cases and that all that needed to be done was merely to follow what the laws said.

    A breath of fresh air. Until yesterday, when this news came out.

NOW under the Duterte government, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), along with the traffic-planning and -enforcing Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), announced that all UV Express vans would henceforth be banned from Epifanio de los Santos' avenue because, as legalism goes, the UV Express franchise does not include the vehicles' entry into Epifanio de los Santos' avenue of traffic ill-repute.
    Now, I remember the time when, despite the Aquino government's neoliberal lack of empathy towards the common commuter, we would still be shocked by a Mar Roxas blurting out such classic lines as "heavy traffic is a sign of industrial progress", or something to that effect. Discussions during that time, especially among socialists, touched on the ultimate solution: the nationalization of the EdlSA bus route and the provision of a ceiling for the number of private transportation using the main avenue during the rush hours.

    One would have expected such an ultimate nationalization solution to come from a socialist Duterte. Surprise, surprise. Instead, the UV Express of the lower-middle and upper-lower classes are taken out, so that the cars and Ubers of the middle and upper-middle and upper classes can continue to hog the traffic of EdlSA. Meanwhile, we can only conjecture on why the buses---also the mode for the lower-middle and upper-lower and lower classes---are being permitted to remain on EdlSA (and remember that buses use the entire length of EdlSA). We can only think of two reasons: there's the legalist rationale (the buses' franchise do specify where they are allowed to roll), and then what the rumors say (that the buses are mostly franchises owned by retired generals and reigning politicians friendly to the Duterte government). Totoo kaya 'tong rumor na 'to? Sana naman hindi.

    Pero the basic question for now is this: what comfort does this memorandum provide to the UV Express-using working class? Well, this niche of the working class would now have to ply the heavier rush hour traffic of other avenues, and then be dropped off corners or UVE stations 200 meters or more away from their connecting MRT stations. Thank you, LTFRB, for the Aquinoesque inconvenience.

    Isn't it funny? Aquino would start his administration with a lie using elements of public transport as overall metaphor: that his social liberalism would be displayed through a non-elitist wangwang-less and counterflow-less traffic. Duterte just started his public transport administration with a truth: that his lopsided socialism would be demonstrated through a traffic legalism one can't make heads or tails of---if it is, on the one hand, indeed socialist and pro-working class commuter, or, on the other hand, pro-bus owners and car-owners or what. Have the buses and some colonels' taxi lines become the newly-reborn wangwangs?

    On this uncategorizable memorandum, at least, I suspend my labeling pen till the next shocking (mostly to the socialists) public transport diktat. [S / -I]

REMINDING THE PRESIDENT OF THAT DISTRUST THAT PRODUCED "IN DIGONG WE TRUST"

photo from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2011_Philippine_State_of_the_Nation_Address.jpg

THE President is giving us a dressing-down for flagging his statements that favored a Con Ass over a Con Con for the drafting of a new Constitution. He says that this distrust towards our senators and congressmen in Congress is too much. And he says nobody has a monopoly on good wisdom.
    We understand the President's concern about the huge resources that would be needed for a Con Con. However, the President must indulge us our continuing distrust of these people in Congress along with their wisdom. We might like to note that they mostly derive from the wealthy class of our Republic, as do their wisdom (or wisdom absent from their knowledge).
    As a self-described Socialist, the President might understand where people's distrust is coming from. In fact, he might recall that his campaign leaned on this very distrust towards the wealthy political class. He used this distrust to push for a more trustworthy alternative, and in fact continues to use it as a rationale for many of his freshly-launched new or rehashed policies, the anti-illegal drugs drive being one of them. After all, this is the same wealthy political class that would never give up its access to the pork barrel (of whatever name) and rid us of a pork-barrel-run system of executive-legislative governance. This is the same wealthy political class that would like to continue to use the "epal" tradition of putting their names on every government project or vehicle or structure that they can appropriate as products of their generosity. Therefore, it is this very same wealthy political class that would likely avoid a furtherance of power-sharing areas with the people through stronger direct democracy instruments such as the initiative, the right to call for referenda, the right to recall elections, among others. Thus our fear that this Con Ass could very well decide to get rid of the people's initiative clause in the 1987 Constitution (instead of strengthening it).
    Sure, it's possible that delegates to a Con Con might be just as suspect to our nation's eyes. There would be the gamble. But the President must understand that our fears in relation to most politicians in Congress are not totally without grounds. The President might remember that most, if not all, of his new policies, and the people's support of them, all come from fears. So that if he can trust that our larger fears against the proliferation of illegal drugs in our neighborhoods are what is keeping us from fearing his police state methods against illegal drugs more, then he must trust our expression of fears in other areas.
    Who knows: he who rules by fear just might be able to help this nation further in exploiting and defeating one other fear: the fear of reinvigorated old privileges among wealthy political class elements when they go unchecked by the people who may have just been further excluded from their government via a more fake democracy in a new Constitution. [S / -I]

Alam Mo Ba Ang Ibig Sabihin ng Quid Pro Quo?

photo from http://thesource.com/2015/12/17/happy-37th-birthday-manny-pacquiao-top-5-humanitarian-movements/

SO, dahil alam mo naman pala, ano kaya, Senador, kung ang binabalak mong gawin sa trabaho mo sa Senado ay gawin din ng mga katulong at hardinero mo sa iyo, magustuhan mo kaya?
     Ano kaya kung ang tao nalang ang maging Senado sa isang direct democracy para makapag-sports nalang ang political elite ng ating plutokrasiya o walang kuwentang representative democracy? [S / -I]

ANOTHER RANT AGAINST LEGALISM IS NOT A VOICE FOR LAWLESSNESS; IT'S LEGALISM THAT UNWITTINGLY IS

photo from http://www.elitereaders.com/naia-source-disclosed-how-scammers-pick-their-targets-at-the-airport/

PRESIDENT Duterte's order to stop all "tanim-bala" arrests comes from the presumption that all past instances of finding single bullets in passengers' luggage came from an extortion scam practiced by airport personnel (with likely consent from their officials). Will the order stop the scam? No. The extortionists at the NAIA will move on to harder methods: planted drugs, for one.

Duterte's order, which some legalist media elements and anti-Duterte citizens would point out as ignoring a law (never mind that they didn't holler a bit about Aquino's having ignored a thousand laws, the anti-DAP ruling chief among them), is---I believe---just a temporary fix and a probe. I believe that Duterte knows that the ultimate solution to the complex set of NAIA's problems is to replace the very elements that man this airport's security department and its systems, or replace the system that doesn't allow this police to be policed. Sure, erring personnel (and their defenders sympathetic to the previous government) can cite once again certain laws that may legalistically protect their positions. But we should remember that toying around with legalism is playing with fire, with the possibility that some people's frustration with laws that seem to only protect the erring will birth the death of Law itself.

Simply because the intelligent powerful have been more concerned with the letter of the law (the intent of which concern had been to protect certain interests) more than with the spirit that birthed good laws (the intent of which had been to protect the people) does not mean that that is the only way to treat laws and keep ourselves from getting into utter trouble. In fact, we ought to be careful with what we're sowing by that very legalist culture. For when people get frustrated with laws, because our legalist thinking have been turning a blind eye to the legalist effects of these laws' usage (waiting for Supreme Court rulings to reprove those legalisms), God knows if it might be too late to realize that it had been our very legalism that farmed that crop that cropped a lawless monster. [S / -I]

My amendment proposals to the Initiative and Referendum Act (RA 6735)

DESPITE my being a part of the convenors' team of ePIRMA (the Empowered People's Initiative and Reform Movement Alliance instigated by Manny SD Lopez with my help) that later joined forces with the Cebu Catholic hierarchy-backed Cebu Coalition and the Makabayan Coalition in a largely evolutionary effort to draft the 2014 People's Initiative Against Pork Barrel, it’s true that I had reservations about the viability of the Philippines’ initiative process as avowed by the existing initiative-enabling law (RA 6735). Assuming that my reservations were loudly expressed and not merely kept to myself, you could say now that my hangup was proven correct. In this video clip from a GMA News coverage of an October 2013 forum at Hotel Rembrandt on Tomas Morato Avenue, watch from 1:46:

     I am not, of course, Joey de Veyra (I'm Jojo de Veyra), and I was not trying to "batikos" (criticize) the proposition campaign during the time of this news clip. In fact, despite my being identified as the convenor of a different group (the Facebook group called Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines), I (armed with the FDDP's cause) was among those very individuals trying to convene more people to join in ePIRMA's effort, efforts that culminated in a "people's congress" held at the Asian Institute of Management convention center in December 2013. If you are to get access to a coverage video of my entire speech at that forum---and my answer to a journalist's question on how ePIRMA proposed to do the signature-gathering realistically---you'd see where I stood in that whole affair, despite a supposed ambiguous position I carried according to that very brief portrayal of my voice in that news clip by 24 Oras. But that's immaterial now. The point is that I did, somehow, express reservations about the potential of the effort to succeed, which was a reservation shared by many in the group that also pushed the group to join forces with the Cebu Coalition (which was then loudly doing a parallel campaign in the Visayas) for a more united front.

     In August 2014, the initiative was formally launched in Cebu City. I was there as part of ePIRMA. But as regards to what happened soon after the launch, I'd here confess that the signature gathering was mostly left to certain parishes of the more organized Catholic Church, the primary backing of the Cebu Coalition. Sporadic rallies of support were organized by the Makabayan group and provincial groups. In contrast, other members of ePIRMA were seen to have moved on to various other national concerns. Manny SD Lopez---ePIRMA's leading convenor and most active campaigner on the road---would also busy himself with organizing the Christian Peace Alliance, one of the groups advocating for a drastic review of some provisions of the then-in-its-final-thrust Bangsamoro Basic Law. Lopez would also form the EdlSA 2.22.15 Coalition, a group that called for President Benigno Aquino III's resignation after the Mamasapano mishap. I myself soon became part of an online art magazine. So, I submit that in this latter period I was not privy anymore to how the signature-gathering for the initiative on the pork barrel was progressing. I did hear of some pockets of resistance to the initiative, as well as the Comelec's seeming lack of enthusiasm towards verifying the signatures, but that's about it. . . .

     Then came the various noises leading to the 2016 general election, within which any news concerning the initiative's progress was nowhere to be found on Google. Not anymore.

     Then came the elections. And, guess what: Rody Duterte became our new President, and Leni Robredo our new Vice President. What do these names mean? Or, rather, what---ideally---should these names mean to us?

DUTERTE belongs to the PDP-Laban, a political party that claims to be for popular democracy (populism) and participatory democracy. Robredo, in turn, is the wife of the late Jesse Robredo; Jesse made a name for himself as a stalwart of participatory governance in his capacity as mayor of Naga City before he became the Interior Secretary of Noynoy Aquino. Leni, as Jesse's widow, was soon drafted by the Liberal Party to run for Congress; she won and became a vocal campaigner for participatory democracy and, as a priority, participatory budgeting (you can read my worldview on Leni Robredo's decorative role within the Liberal Party government by clicking here).

     What, to me, the whole situation means to signal is this: that perhaps the time is ripe for a more realistic RA 6735, one that would provide the people a usable initiative instrument in lieu of the existing one that simply provides a semblance of direct democracy that ultimately ends up as short (because near impossible to fulfill the requirements of).

     Thus, for us to truly provide a usable instrument for a participatory government of the people, by the people and for the people (as against the continuance of our present purely-representative democratic governance by the prescriptive representatives of the people, of the prescriptive representatives of the people and ultimately for the interests of these supposed representatives of the people), let me now propose the following amendments to RA 6735 (even before that new federal-parliamentary Constitution being proposed by the Duterte government arrives). My proposed amendments are here below, in red, which a lawyer out there could perhaps to more properly articulate:

Section 5. Requirements. — (a) To exercise the power of initiative or referendum, at least ten per centum (10%) of the total number of the registered voters, of which every legislative district is represented by at least three per centum (3%) of the registered voters thereof in the case of Constitutional amendment, and of which every region is represented by at least three per centum (3%) of the registered voters in the case of national statute initiatives, shall sign a petition for the purpose and register the same with the Commission.

(b2) A petition for an initiative on a new national statute, or one on an initiative seeking to amend an existing statute, must have at least twelve per centum (12%) of the total number of registered voters as signatories, of which every region must be represented by at least three per centum (3%) of the registered voters therein. Initiative seeking to amend an existing national statute may be exercised only after three (3) years from the ratification of the same and only once every three (3) years thereafter.

Section 7. Verification of Signatures. — The Election Registrar is obligated to verify the signatures on the basis of the registry list of voters, voters' affidavits and voters identification cards used in the immediately preceding election within twenty (20) days from receipt of the petition.

SECTION 8. Conduct and Date of Initiative or Referendum. — The Commission shall call and supervise the conduct of initiative or referendum.
     Within a period of thirty (30) days from receipt of the petition, the Commission shall, upon determining the sufficiency of the petition within fifteen (15) days from receipt of the same, publish the same in Filipino and English at least twice in newspapers of general and local circulation and set the date of the initiative or referendum which shall not be earlier than forty-five (45) days but not later than ninety (90) days from the determination by the Commission of the sufficiency of the petition.

     My arguments-cum-reasons for these amendments, should they appear to be not so obvious, I shall provide later in other essays. For now let me say that the signature requirement of 3% of the registered voting population per legislative district is, while required by the Constitution for Constitutional amendments, is just too steep for the creation of new statutes and initiatives seeking to amend existing statutes. Furthermore, with that requirement, it is possible for one legislative district to hostage the national interest, which definitely runs counter to the tenets of democracy and plurality. Furthermore, the period required for the Comelec to do its job in the management of this process must be accompanied with administrative penalties to avoid any inside filibustering of this democratic process. . . . [S / -I]