A VOZHDIST VERSION FROM MESSIANIST AVERSION

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ronald_dela_Rosa_073116_(cropped).jpg

ENOUGH already with this propaganda crap shit that argues thus, to brainwash us all into the supposed virtue of leaderism:
    "Magpasalamat kayo dapat sa amin kaysa mag-criticize sa War on Drugs kasi nakikinabang din kayo sa new peace and order situation. Huwag maging ingrato."
    Unang-una po, criticizing a manner of fighting the illegal drugs industry is not necessarily a criticism of the overall rationale for fighting the illegal-drugs trade. . . .
    Pangalawa, pointing out consequences of a certain manner of fighting the illegal-drugs trade may be meant to be corrective for that fight, not destructive to the same. . . .
    I hope malinaw/maliwanag.
    In short, magpasalamat dapat tayo sa kritisismo sa mga prosesong ginagamit sa War on Drugs dahil ang mga kritisismong ito ay maaaring makatulong sa paghubog (o pagpanatili man) ng isang magandang imahe para sa giyerang ito; ito ang imaheng makapagbubuklod sa lahat ng ayaw sa illegal drugs.
    Conversely, ang pagiging averse sa kritisismo ay pagsang-ayon sa konsepto na dapat sumunod na lang ang lahat sa iisang matalinong nag-iisip na hari para sa giyera "niyang" ito, kahit pa nakikita ng marami (o ng iilang kritiko) na ang proseso o metodolihiya ng hari ay nakasisira sa sarili "niyang" giyera.
    Unless of course ang totoo ay hindi seryoso sa pagpuksa sa illegal drugs ang giyerang ito at may ibang objective, say, creating a culture of fear lamang for the attainment of an obedient (because frightened) nation. If that is the case kasi, then dapat nga natin maintindihan kung bakit tila may bersyon na ganito sa war on drugs, isang bersyon na marahil ay anak ng isang aversion sa kritisismo na may pagkiling din sa isang vozhdist o messianist na uri ng gratitude para sa iisang nag-iisip para sa lahat. [S / -I]

Duterte-phobic Notes of the Week

1. ONE basic thing you need to know about history deniers (historical negationists), fact deniers, fake news writers, and their ilk. They will name anything and anyone as a case to study and confront it/them so to avoid focus on themselves. Don't fall into this trap. They are the cases that you need to examine and confront! The focus ought not to be on anything or anyone other than them! They are the basic issue! Expose everything there is to know about them!!

2. Degrees of Corruption
    True, if you're a media or religious institution or persona fixing every now and then the function of your privilege in order to serve the interests of holding companies or specific corporations or of political factions, you deserve to be called corrupt by the President of the State.
    Then again, if you're a President of the State who has devoted himself to the facilitation of another state's natural resource and market interests in his state, you are not just displaying corruption of the third or second degree, but absolute treason, one being committed by no less than You as the leader of the government of this State. That is corruption of the supreme or highest universal degree.

3. Planning a Novel
    What if I explore this premise for a novel's plot?---
    The 21st century. China would only have to look at its history where, once upon a time, there was this British-instigated Opium War against it designed by Britain to get its silk, porcelain, and tea. In that looking back would be born enough inspiration for a now-rich China to plan a 21st-century fear-farming War on Drugs false flag on a neighboring state. They will have to do this through---or care of---a potential puppet in that state that they can sponsor and install as that state's new leader. Once installed, that leader can farm all the fear he wants through that new "Opium War", through which fear-farming war the leader can facilitate China's slow and smooth entry into the leader's state, not just to get this neighboring state's silk, porcelain and tea but resources more precious and ready for a hefty harvest. Does that sound like a good plot for a fiction novel to you? Or would I be plagiarizing life for a historical one?

4. In the Era of Simplified Psychometrics
    Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell have provided a concise, workable definition of the term "propaganda," viz., "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."
    Following that definition, it should be easy for us to see why government would be busying itself presently with the labeling of everyone in the divided opposition as "bobos" (stupid people), most especially the Vice-President, Leni Robredo, in recent days.
    Is the intent of this propaganda move to shape the manipulable public's perception that it is the critics of this government's policies who are bobo, in order to hide its own series of boo-boos?
    Is it to manipulate cognitions that everything that it is doing is the smart thing, if not the only smart thing, which process of manipulation may involve the hyping up of the truly smart it's done and hiding beneath the quilts all the stupid moves it had committed?
    Is it to direct behavior towards a derogation of critics and the celebration of this government's supposed revolutions?
    I think we're all intelligent enough to know when propaganda is twisting us or sucking us in. Or are we?
    And if we are, or suspect we are, being sucked into it, how do we fight it? Do we fight by throwing the same techniques it is using? Or do we fight it by exposing its lies? By exposing all the truths behind its lying?
    Do we expose the whole anatomy of processes in its propaganda that aims to "achieve a response that (will further) the desired intent of the propagandist"?
    What are those desires?
    Are we as a nation intelligent enough to in turn desire answers to these questions? Or are we truly bobos enough to desire nothing, simply wallowing in never-ending trust?

5. THE argument that says Duterte's spitting on due process ought to be thanked because the drug pusher and his addicts that used to be the kings in one's neighborhood are now all gone . . .
    is no different from the argument that says Hitler's regime should be thanked because it furthered the popularity of Wagner.
    Or don't you see the similarity? If you don't, well, . . . perhaps you never will.
    Perhaps you never will see that that legitimization of Hitler by one's deep love of Wagner is the same sort of legitimization that you are placing on Duterte's aggressive wariness towards all his critics, in this republic and outside, a legitimization motored by your understandable love of peace in one particular anecdotal neighborhood.

6. UNTIL that day comes when good people in a land start invoking violent resistance in order to protect rights, violent evil will continue to prosper in that land and in other lands. That is not inciting rebellion. That is a mere articulation of a historical truism operative among frightened peoples in repressive, suspect regimes.

7. ARE we afraid? My friends: government is excited about, and not wary of, creating a fearful people, for the fear-farming reasons we articulated above.
    But it, government, seems to be ignorant of the fact that courage is actually 100% fear. Let us rejoice, then. For as government makes progress in creating more frightened people, its hold on the people is not strengthened, it is lessened. Fear pa more! [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.

DUTERTE'S CLUSTER BOMB

photo from http://www.redthreadinc.co/red-thread-blog/2015/4/2/dyi-cyber-vigilantism-the-heroes-we-need

I'D AGREE that when you let calls and checks for human rights work for the criminals, as criminals have no concern for human rights, then human rights end up benefiting criminals, to the disadvantage of anti-criminal enforcement (which is usually the only present subject for human rights calls and checking).
    However, I also buy the fact that when due process that is meant to protect the wrongfully accused is removed from the equation of going after criminals, the absence of that process also successfully removes from the face of the earth both 1) the criminals and 2) the wrongfully accused . . . having both been summarily executed by the judge, jury and executioner-cleaner who implemented their removal. And should we ignore the collateral damage that these executions produce? One wonders if the absence of due process is truly the only way to successfully clean a dirty street, or if there is a more precise way with almost no collateral damage.
    Could there be a cleaner with a cleaning plan better than what the Duterte/de la Rosa cleaning theory boasts as being the only plan sure to successfully clean streets? Could a denial of an alternative plan be due to an attitude indifferent to collateral damage? [S / -I]

ANG PULISYA AT ANG DIWA NG KARTON

photo from https://twitter.com/biancadava/status/749329266139992064

SABIHIN na natin na ang mga nasa larawang ito ay totoo ngang methamphetamine drug pushers na direkta o di-direktang may kinalaman sa maraming krimen na nangyayari sa ating lipunan. Malamang totoo ngang pusher sila, dahil . . . may tattoo.
    Pero paano, halimbawa, kung ito ang nangyari? May mga akyat-bahay na pumasok sa isang shop at naabutan sila ng dalawang may-ari ng shop kaya pinatay na lang ng akyat-bahay ang dalawang may-ari ng shop at nagsulat ng "pusher, huwag tularan" sa isang nahanap na karton at itinabi ang karton na ito sa mga bangkay ng kanilang napatay na mga may-ari ng shop. Ano sa palagay ninyo ang gagawin ng pulis ukol dito? Iimbestigahan ba nila ang marder na ito? Maaaring hindi. Dahil maaaring maging malakas ang dating sa superintendent nila ang diwa ng karton. [S / -I]

BINABARIL BA KAYA NG BARIL MO ANG SARILI MONG PAA?

photo mula sa http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/07/07/16/3-lalaking-nanlaban-sa-mga-pulis-maynila-patay

ILAN sa mga napabalitang napaslang (sa ilalim ng anti-drug drive ng gobyerno) ay anti-drug activists na pinaslang ng mga drug trafficking organizations? Ano ang ginagawa ng gobyerno para di na dumami pa ang mga anti-drug activists na mapapaslang ng mga organisasyong ito?
    Ilan sa nabalitang mga napaslang ang napaslang dahil sa mistaken identity? Ilan na ang nadampot dahil sa mistaken identity?
    Ilan sa napabalitang mga napaslang ang wrongfully accused o biktima ng wrongful execution (na tinaniman pa ng ebidensya at baril)?
    Ilan sa napabalitang mga pulis na nakapaslang ng diumano'y nanlaban na mga suspek ang bahagi o nasa payroll ng drug trafficking syndicates at maaaring napag-utusan ng sindikato na paslangin ang lahat ng may nalalaman tungkol sa kanilang druglord? Ano ang ginagawa ng gobyerno sa pag-usisa tungkol sa usaping ito? Naniniwala ba talaga si General Rock ofthe Rose (Bato dela Rosa) na hindi ito posible, ayon sa sabi niya sa panayam sa kanya ng TV5 tungkol dito, dahilan kung bakit walang pag-usisa sa usaping ito?

KUNG walang ginagawa ang gobyerno para maprotektahan ang mga anti-drug activists na may kaunting alam tungkol sa ilang public figures sa illicit drug trade, ano ang impact nito sa anti-illegal drug drive ni Presidente Duterte?
    Kung walang gagawin ang gobyerno tungkol sa mga napaslang dahil sa mistaken identity, kung totoo ngang mayroon, o nadampot dahil sa mistaken identity, kung totoong mayroon, ano ang impact nito sa anti-illegal drug drive ni Presidente Duterte?
    Kung walang gagawin ang gobyerno sa mga kaso ng wrongfully accused at mga kaso ng wrongfully summarily executed, ano ang magiging impact nito sa anti-illegal drug drive ni Presidente Duterte?
    Kung walang gagawin ang gobyerno sa mga problemang nabanggit, dahil lamang sa kaniyang paniniwala na hindi posible maging totoo ang mga problemang ito, . . . dahan-dahan bang pinapatay ng gobyerno ang sarili niyang anti-illegal drug drive?
    Abangan na lang siguro natin kung saan ang lahat ng ito ay patutungo, at kung tataas nga ba ang bilang ng mga napaslang na di dapat napaslang. [S / -I]

On Presidents as Executioners (or, The Reason Why We Have Courts)

WHAT'S the difference between self-proclaimed champion of socialism and presidential aspirant Rodrigo Duterte and other political leaders, most of whom are members of Philippine oligarchies that created a Philippine plutocracy and corporatocracy?

photo of Rodrigo Duterte borrowed from http://www.mb.com.ph/duterte-shrugs-off-calls-to-run-for-president/

     Duterte, Davao City's mayor for seven terms, admits to having taken into his own hands, out of frustration with our national criminal laws, the execution of allegedly-criminal elements and syndicates that had purportedly hounded the peace and order of his city or, in later years, would try to ruin Davao's peace and order that he had supposedly taken pains to establish. After all, a local government that made it its policy to invite representations from the Lumad and Moro and communist camps---rampant in Mindanao---ought already to have peace as a given. Sure, it remains to be proven whether these executions really happened or are a mere part of his myth or scare tactics for peace and order's sake. It remains to be seen if someone will come out crying Duterte as mayor had executed an innocent man, in the way an article titled "You Can Die Any Time" did, or even harassed a political opponent. But here's what ought to be said: no other leader has admitted, seriously or in jest, to doing (in the past or in the planned future) such deeds as take into his own hands the salvaging of a gonner case. And the reason for it? Well, it might not be because other leaders never did (or would never do) anything like what Duterte claims to have done; it could be because what they have eliminated (or will soon choose to eliminate) in their own time as leaders were not (would not be) criminals or even perceived criminals but lawful members of society who just happened (would happen) to be in the way of their projects.
     You're all right. Duterte as future President of the Republic of the Philippines must submit to legislative bodies the job of debating on what ought to be the wisdom around certain laws he deems needful of amendments. For although it may be true that Duterte had executed criminals that the people of Davao are allegedly happy to be rid of, what if, as President of our republic, he has to delegate the implementation of this wisdom-cum-policy? The debate on capital punishment aside, would his army and police goons or executioner-governors and executioner-mayors always be right about their own final judgments as judges and jury over an archipelago of criminality---as Duterte probably was lucky to always be right as mayor-executioner, or so his supporters tend to believe?
     The subject of corrupt judges aside, the reason why we have courts---and precisely the reason why courts are public---is so that all judgments can be made transparent. For it certainly cannot be left to either a socialist president or a plutocracy president-puppet (and his apologists on TV) to judge whether, say, Lumad leaders, for instance, ought to be executed with impunity (as they seem to have been under the Aquino government) just because they seem to interfere with the national policy on making work for miners and keeping investment ratings high. . . . [S/-I]

photo of Lumad protesters borrowed from http://www.rappler.com/nation/104433-school-head-lumad-leaders-killed-surigao-del-sur