Angelo Suarez Charged

AS a sort of follow-up to my posts regarding the government's traffic management efforts or shortcomings (read them here), we're giving way to this announcement posted on Facebook by a Facebook page titled MRTBulok Resbak (which translates to "RottenMRT Revenge") regarding the arrest of Angelo Suarez.
    We will be observing how the chain of events that culminated in this charge unfolds in the days to come and what that unfolding might/would signify in terms of being a manifestation of government's real management ideology (not to mention its overall political ideology beyond its lip service).
    We would also welcome any input from government in relation to its stance towards Angelo Suarez, whose initial case we mentioned in the closing paragraphs of our earlier blog titled "More Big Tent Bullshit Than Socialism, Really".

AND now to that Facebook post, which we are here reposting verbatim:

photo from https://www.facebook.com/mrtbulokresbak/posts/1418481751513573:0

#MRTBulok Resbak!

Sa gitna ng kabulukan ng MRT, nagbitiw sa posisyon si DoTr-MRT3 General Manager Roman Buenafe. Sa araw na inanunsiyo ang kaniyang pagbibitiw, ipinagmalaki ng DoTr ang kaniyang “achievement of 20 running trains.” ISa mismong araw ng pagmamalaking ito, nagkaproblema sa riles ng MRT, tatlong beses napilitang huminto ang operations, at naipon sa mga nagsarang estasyon ang mga agrabyadong pasahero. Na naman.

Malinaw na malinaw: Wala sa lugar ang pagmamalaki ng DoTr sa bulok na serbisyo ni Buenafe, dahil bulok pa rin ang MRT. At ang kabulukang ito, dulot ng pribatisasyon sa mga tren kung saan inuuna ang interes ng mga negosiyante bago ang kapakanan ng mga mamamayan. Ang MRT, kabilang ang LRT, itinuturing na negosyo, hindi serbisyo.

Inaresto noong Agosto si Angelo Suarez, isang miyembro ng Train Riders Network (TREN) dahil sa pagsisiwalat at pagpoprotesta sa kabulukang ito. Pinakasuhan at pinaaresto ng DoTr-MRT3 sa ilalim ni Buenafe, batay sa eye-witness account ng isang guwardiya na nagbandalismo raw siya ng “MRT bulok” sa isang bulok na tren. Matapos salubungin ang kaarawan sa presinto, nakalaya lamang siya dahil dismissed ang kasong nagpiit sa kaniya—kasong di dapat natuloy kung pinili na lamang makipagdiyalogo ni Buenafe sa mga tulad ni Suarez na nagpoprotesta sa kabulukan ng MRT dulot ng pribatisasyon.

Sa araw ng kaniyang paglaya, sa isang meeting kasama ang Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), nagbitiw ng salita si DoTr Sec. Arthur Tugade na bagaman kinokondena nila ang naganap na bandalismo, hindi sila interesadong ipagpatuloy ang kaso. Mas interesado silang buksan ang diyalogo sa pagitan ng gobyerno at ng mga nagmomobilisa laban sa pribatisadong MRT.

Kaya kagulat-gulat na matapos ang isang buwan, nakatanggap si Suarez ng subpoena. Noong September 28, nalaman niyang hinahabla siya ng gobyerno, matapos sabihang di interesado ang gobyerno sa habla. Kasinglinaw ng pagkabulok ng MRT ang kagustuhan ng pamunuan ng DoTr-MRT3 mang-harass ng mga militante sa kabila ng sinabi ni Sec. Tugade.

Para sa damages na naghahalagang P380 dulot ng bandalismong ginagawa lamang ng mga nagpoprotesta sa kawalan ng alternatibo para sila pakinggan ng mga awtoridad, nahaharap si Suarez sa posibilidad ng kulong hanggang 6 na buwan, dagdag sa multang aabot ng P3,000.

Sa October 12, haharap siyang muli sa Office of the CIty Prosecutor ng Quezon City para maghain ng counter-affidavit. Sa gitna ng pagbabago sa liderato ng DoTr-MRT3, walang pagbabago sa kaniyang kaso. Batay sa pagtuloy ng DoTr-MRT3 sa habla, tila sarado pa rin sa diyalogo ang gobyerno; ang bukas lamang ay ang posibilidad na ikulong si Suarez at iba pang militanteng lumalaban sa pribatisasyon ng MRT at iba pang public utilities.

Sa bagong pamunuan ng DoTr-MRT3—sina Cesar Chavez at Deo Manalo—ito ang panawagan namin:

—Drop all charges against Angelo Suarez: Umiba sa landas ng nakaraang lideratong nakagawiang mang-harass ng mga militante. Pakawalan na ang kaso at tanggaping hahanap nang hahanap ng paraan para magprotesta ang mga mamamayan hangga’t nananatiling negosyo, hindi serbisyo, ang trato ng gobyerno sa public utilities gaya ng mga tren.

—Dinggin ang mga militante: Maraming taon nang paulit-ulit ang sigaw ng mga nagmomobilisa—balikan ang onerous contracts na pinasok at pinabayaan ng mga nakaraang rehimen, at usigin ang rehimeng Duterte na panindigan ang pangakong #ChangeIsComing pagdating sa kasalukuyang pribatisadong mass public transport.

—Rescind onerous contracts: Panahon na para bawiin ng gobyerno ang mga pribatisadong tren. Unang-una ang MRT sa mga dapat isauli sa taumbayan. Suportado ito ng mga mamamayan, at tamang suportahan ng DoTr-MRT3 ang panukalang ito bilang #PartnerOfChange. Makiisa sa tulak tungong pambansang industriyalisasyon! Magsisimula lamang ito sa nasyonalisasyon ng public utilities gaya ng mga riles.

Umaasa kaming hangad din ng bagong liderato ng DoTr-MRT3 ang pagbabago sa mga tren. Masisimulan ito sa pagbitiw sa kaso ni Suarez.

—————

Inaanyayahan ang lahat ng nakikiisa sa protesta na lumagda sa online petition na bitiwan ang kaso sa http://www.ipetitions.com/…/mrtbulok-resbak-mrtbulok-fight-…

at paki-share ito nang may sumusunod na mga hashtag: #MRTBulok #PPPBulok #DropAllCharges #SerbisyoHindiNegosyo [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

Why perfect crimes worry democracies

photo from http://www.philstar.com/nation/2016/07/14/1602788/top-drug-personality-killed-oriental-mindoro-raid

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte's announcement of his goal to “really go after” illegal-drug traders and illegal drug-manufacturing lords has produced one seemingly desired effect: the illegal-drug “companies” were seen quickly initiating the elimination of their own armies consisting of small drug-pushing armed gangs. This quick decision by the “companies” is understandable, considering that these armies’ elements also function as smell tracks for the police dogs now let out to hunt for the sources of the illegal-drug menace. The Philippine National Police, especially now under anti-illegal drug advocate Bato de la Rosa, would be quick to admit that sometimes the companies would do this elimination process through their own assets within the PNP ranks.

     Now, this is not what President Duterte should allow to happen if he wants to gather whistleblowers who 1) could point to drug-manufacturing lords he doesn't know yet and 2) could testify against these lords in court. But that's if the President doesn't know these lords yet and has any intention of bringing any of these lords to court.
     Now, the reason why I call the ongoing spate of drug-pusher killings a “seemingly desired effect” is because the government doesn’t seem interested in putting a stop to it or in investigating the legitimacy of all these so-called “encounters with police raiders”. You would wonder why the government is leaving the momentum to consume its own fire, so to speak. You would wonder if it already has a plan for the next scenario.

     My theory is that the reason why the government is allowing all these “fatal encounters” and “discovered bodies” to proliferate is probably because it's precisely those little armies that shoot down police, lawyers, and judges, and journalists mind you, who are not aligned with the lords. And so, by allowing the "companies" to eliminate their own armies—presumably as they try to cover their tracks—the government is simply paving the road for government authorities to later operate clear of these armies. Once the fire has consumed itself, as it were, government can then proceed to go after the lords it had already known the names and whereabouts of since the day of Adam and Eve, now absent their armies that they eliminated by themselves. It will be smooth-sailing thence.
     But here's the downside to that plan. Because of Duterte’s announcement of his desire to clean up the streets on Robert de Niro’s behalf, which seems to have been taken by the illegal-drug industry as a serious pronouncement, the industry didn't just end up eliminating its own armies qua links; it also initiated a program of eliminating anyone who could point to industry lords, and this includes anti-drug activists who (may) have information on them. Thus the assassination of that Ateneo de Manila teacher, who seems to have been involved (as per circulating information) in anti-drug campaigns as an anti-illegal drug activist. Now, if this goes on until all the hovels in the barangays grow silent, it's likely that we won't be left with any whistleblowers or witnesses around. Whistleblowers and witnesses with strong testimonies, whether from the bad side or from the good side, whom we could tap to testify against the apprehended lords the day they appear in court, could all be gone soon.
     So, here’s my question: I wonder if it is indeed better to let the illegal-drug industry keep at it, in this ongoing elimination of its own armies that the government is standing down against, than have those armies largely around for use as testifying witnesses. Because the latter option, given that the members of drug-trafficking gangs number in the thousands, does run the risk of leaving elements that could still (as they definitely would) start killing police, lawyers and judges and, I almost forgot, journalists who know much about or have an inkling on who's who in the trade. True, lawyers and judges (and journalists) won't like it that the Duterte government, as per its recurring pronouncement, won't be coursing the elimination of the lords through their much-avowed space of usual due process; they won’t like it for the traditional reasons why one shouldn’t like it. This, even if the Duterte government’s decision to go in this path of “letting the fire consume itself” is what would give those very lawyers, judges and journalists the safety of their lives, a possible fact that these lawyers, judges and journalists might find hard to accept or not have the capacity to appreciate.
     Now, in case you’re  starting to read me as a total advocate of the Duterte government’s procedure, let me tell you that what I’m interested in right now is the availability of alternatives. Thus, now, my quick question: How would you do it? If you were appointed head of the Commission on Human Rights, with a mandate to protect the human rights of all, and concurrently head of the government's anti-drug trade agencies, tasked with the objective of the total-if-possible elimination of the illegal-drug trade, and concurrently a court judge, tasked with the legalist ethos to look at the evidence solely . . . how would you do it? For, evidently, the task and mandate of the President of the Republic cannot be any less than of those three. So, in case the President was you and not Rodrigo Duterte, what would you seek to achieve with your alternative? Which of these three departments’ concerns would you most likely put prior focus on and likely be more successful at? Which of these three departments would you be most likely to fail in?

     It's a comfort to think that we live in a democratic world with absolute respect for due process, which process—I'd like to believe—is largely aimed at protecting the innocent, the wrongfully accused. But, correct me if I’m wrong, there’s a reality that stares us in the face, a reality also telling us that the demos of democracies (which includes their lawyers and judges) have not been able to fix certain menaces through the available due process precisely because the menaces have had—from the git-go—a direct handle on it, in short have hijacked that process almost completely, rendering the crimes of drug trafficking perfect crimes. It’s a sad truth there, but it’s a 3D truth, and the only available options are for one to either deny or accept its being true.
     Now, from the point of view recognizing the truth of the fact, it’s absolutely sad that due process in democracies has been failing at protecting the innocent victims of a certain menace and have been succeeding more at protecting the industry stakeholders of that same menace. We could choose to simply live with that paradox for a very long time and not do anything about the legalism, and certainly students of democracy and democratic jurisprudence would be debating on the born issues decades from now.
     But that doesn’t mean that, within this sadness, there’s nothing we can do except watch the police up their game. For, even now, that point of view can pray that a Senate investigation—meant to be launched anytime soon on the currently growing number of “assassinations” and “police raids resulting in deaths”—does us all a great favor by focusing on this sad truth, to thereby look for a resolution that might harmonize the true objectives of the anti-illegal drug agencies and those of the authorities of democratic law. [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]

Starbucks Politics

PARA sa akin, less na nakakatakot sa panahon natin ngayon ang diktaduryang hayagan, dahil madali na itong makontra ng isang resistanteng kilusan. Sa katunayan, mas lalago ang resistensiya sa namamahala kapag ito ay mamamahala sa ilalim ng hayagang diktadurya; mawawala halos ang apatiya (kawalang-pakialam) ng madla, madla na matututong lumaban nang hayagan man o mapagkubli.
     Mas nakakatakot ang diktaduryang suwabe, kung saan ang lahat ng dikta niya ay dinadaan sa legalismo (kung ano ang nakasulat sa batas) at negative legalismo (kung ano ang di pinagbabawal ng anumang batas o ng absent na batas).
     Ang mga pagpatay na nangyayari sa unang uri ng diktadurya ay kinokondena. Ang mga pagpatay na nangyayari sa huling uri ng diktadurya ay bagamat nasa harap ng dyaryo ay dinadaan-daanan lamang ng mga may-dalang baso ng Starbucks na employed-but-underpaid-ngunit-kuntentong burgesya. [S / -I]

Salamat, semiotics

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

PAANO mo masusukat kung gaano katanga o ka-switik ang isang rehimen? Simple lamang.
     Halimbawa, sa ngayon, sa pamamagitan ng science and art of semiotics, malalaman nating ang napakaraming stretch-wrapped na luggage sa isang airport ay simbolo ng isang pagkatakot at kawalan-ng-tiwala ng mga mamamayan sa kanilang airport personnel at executives. At kung matatandaan natin na anumang posisyon sa gobyerno ay position of bestowed trust, nangangahulugan lamang na ang kawalang-trust ng mga pasaherong ito na may stretch-wrapped luggage ay kawalang-trust sa mga nasa kanilang mga posisyon.
     Ngayon, pinansin o pinapansin ba ng gobyerno ang simbolong ito? Well, oo naman. Paano?
     Ito nga lang ang difference. Imbis na ituring na symbol of distrust ang stretch-wrapped luggage, itinuring itong signifier ng need at mabilisang ikinonnect sa neoliberal motto na nagsasabing “where there’s a need, there’s a good business opportunity.” Kaya imbis na magkumahog ang gobyerno na mawala ang symbol of distrust na ito, dahil itinuring niyang signifier of need lamang, nagkumahog siyang i-facilitate ang need na ito.
     Ano ang resultant, mga kababayan? Ang resultant ay ang nakita natin, na may gobyernong nag-facilitate hindi lamang sa pagdami ng simbolong ito (sa pamamagitan ng paglagay ng entrepreneurial stretch-wrapping services sa airport mismo), finacilitate din niya ang threat ng mga extortionists na nagsasabing ang di-pagbigay ng extorted money ay tutungo sa arraignment ng isang kakasuhang biktima.
     Semiotics, may tanong uli ako sa iyo. Paano mo nasusukat ang lalim ng pagkatanga o di kaya pagka-switik ng isang rehimen? [S / -I]

Diktats, Laws, and the People's Representative

AND why all this trembling around an imagined dictatorship under the presidency of one candidate with a perceived political will and a disgusted mouth against narcopolitics, criminal syndicates, and elitist governance? It seems we have lost our talent to verify meaning in our own use of words, so much so that even that candidate uses that word in the same light.

photo borrowed from http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/11/22/1524725/dutertes-presidential-bid-now-table

     Dictatorship. A condition where one cannot move freely or progress to other desired outcomes due to stifling diktats. As if that can only occur under martial law or a police state.
     Dictatorships are created not solely by a giver of diktats but by the reception of them as well. And diktats need not come in the form of commands under threat of a gun bullet wound.

IN all past regimes including the present, there has always been a dictatorship of legalism we hardly ever noticed. The stifling of the citizenry's freedom by laws that do not serve the people and serve the leaders or managers more or solely, the reason precisely why they would remain untouched by legislation, is already a diktat by itself against which we find ourselves helpless. All we could do face to face with them is rally for change, and when the judiciary area of government happens to side with the side of the people the managers would always find a way to go around the text of the new judicial law by the sheer genius of their legalism.
     The mother of this dictatorship is actually simple to see. Since the start of this century, we have actually been suffering from the dictatorship of the laws of representative democracy that have limited the people's voice to their right to vote for political stars alone, stars who will then decide for us and our lives every step of the way during their term according to the laws of the representative-democratic system. We have been disallowed from voting on laws and policies, by diktat of the law of the land, as against what other parts of the world with direct democracy instruments offer.
     Dictatorship is also coursed through enforced laws, not through appearances or tough talk. We have forgotten to look at the dictatorship of our present laws, the reason why we seem to believe there is no dictatorship in the present as you read this.
     Well, remember this. The next time a government official gives you the alibi that certain things could not have immediate solutions or cannot be changed or are slow to change because of certain laws and procedures that we have to follow, even while that official has legislators under his control for being with his ruling party, you can be sure that he is serving you nothing less than a platter of dictatorship.
     Never mind the pork barrel that can change names under the genius of legalism. Never mind all the public information that cannot be viewed through a law we've been clamoring for, since all we can really do in a purely representative democracy is clamor to our legislators. Never mind an "anti-epal" law that can go no farther than be a short-term soundbite from the attention-seeking proclivity of some politician's lip service. The management of the laglag-bala scam alone that we the people could only be helpless against, except perhaps with the aid of a new airport cellophane industry that wraps our luggage with the only possible medium of trust for now, is already quite a manifestation of the sort of dictatorship of inutile or uncaring governance that we've continued to suffer even under the present regime of Benigno Aquino III.
     We haven't even started to talk yet about the traffic problem on EdlSA that Mar Araneta Roxas has told us to accept as a byproduct of progress, or the dismissal and replacement of maintenance companies for deteriorating MRT 3 the selection of which has been deemed a prerogative of Department of Transportation secretary Jun Aguinaldo Abaya, or the failure to distribute sacks of relief for Typhoon Haiyan's victims that we could only gawk at in disbelief, all of which have been managed by the texts for legalist diktats that we could do nothing against except grumble on the spaces offered by cathartic social media. We haven't even started to talk yet about the Lumads' displacement from their lands that are now inhabited by Armed Forces of the Philippines-defended paramilitary groups servicing in turn multinational mining interests. All defended by the diktat of press secretaries' and apologist Winnie Monsod's words that we can only swallow without question or with silence.
 
THE Aquino sort of legalist dictatorship did not come to exist because of Aquino alone. It exists because we collectively chose and continue to choose to accept it and its words. Or could do nothing but accept it and its words, because of the enforcement of laws via the legalist use of them.
     And so it'll be the same henceforward. The dictatorship of any future president will happen when we accept its words the way we accepted Aquino's. And the only way that acceptance could be good is if that dictatorship serves diktats against our corporate enemies and oppressors alone and none against us, serving the will of the people thus, even if still only via one's socialist representation. [S/I]