Freedom under siege

Keynote Address by Vergel O. Santos during the 5th National Congress of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines

If Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales knows about this assembly – and in all probability he not only knows but finds a way to eavesdrop somehow – he will feel entertained by the thought that here, under one roof, indeed, in one room, sits invitingly, like a paddling of ducks, the densest collection of journalists and communists.

We may find that funny, but the joke is a serious one, and on us: in fact, it has proved deadly in not a few cases. Your own union should know best, having religiously kept count. If I’m not mistaken – and it’s easy enough to be mistaken since the count has been rising all too fast lately – your count of dead ducks among us in this season – the administration of Gonzales’s boss, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – is, as of the hour, about 50; that’s two-thirds of the total, counting form 1986, when democracy supposedly was restored upon the defeat of Ferdinand Marcos’s 14-year dictatorship.

Do you realize that 50 journalists are enough to staff one national daily and that, therefore, their murder means the silencing of one potential collective voice of public conscience? And silenced for what? Silenced for precisely doing what is in its perfect nature to do – speak.


To be sure, civic and political activists have suffered worse. Their own death count is from six to 14 times more – from 300 to 700. Two official theories have been advanced in their case: first, the murders have been the result of a purge inside the communist movement and, second, they have been timed with the term of a government for which anti-communism has become a matter of reflex, the easier to deflect suspicions toward it. Both theories fly in the face of actual communist practice, which sensibly and quite mercifully, confined purges to the leadership. The supposedly purged communists were actually civil-society advocates and community workers.

On the other hand, the authorities have been as quick to blame the journalists’ murder on corrupt and abusive media practice – murder is murder however well, or even nobly, intended – as they have been slow to act against the murderers themselves. At any rate, this official cold-bloodedness and twisted sense of retributive proportion cold only have created an atmosphere friendly to assassins. Its most voluble promoted has been the secretary of Justice himself, Raul Gonzales, although his nominal junior, Norberto , seems upstaging him lately.

Just a few nights ago I caught him on television raising with an audience of journalists the possibility of communists having infiltrated the news media.

“Just the possibility,” he was outwardly careful to say, although in the very next breath he invested possibility with a ring of reality, saying that communists do infiltrate the media as a matter of standing strategy- to give their propaganda a semblance of legitimacy.

If Norberto Gonzales thinks so cheaply of both the press and the communist movement – the first as easily duped, the second as recklessly presumptuous. And both possibly guilty of some crime or other against a state – we news practitioners are in as much, if definitely undeserved, trouble as the communists. We may even be in bigger trouble than we think, for not only is Gonzales someone out of an old dangerous mold of official enforcers – those programmed to feel more insecure- he also happens to work for one evidently desperate president and himself commands a hierarchy of generals. Of these generals, an apparent favorite of both his and his president’s is Jovito Palparan Jr., an army major general who seems to relish being called “executioner” as an affirmation of efficiency- efficiency in a barbaric sense. Palparan has encouraged his troops to “take the law into theor own hands” and people who feel victimized by them “to get even.”

Such as the characters that come with territory in which we operate today. How then can the territory be reasonably safe and free, never mind friendly or hospitable? How indeed can it satisfy even the barest requirements of democracy and the civilities of democratic relationships? In fact, for all the praises that it is paid in law and doctrine and on the lips of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, democracy is an ideal never more remote now than at any other time that this nation has pretended to it.

We certainly don’t deserve the aggravation, but before we begin to feel sorry for ourselves and risk losing perspective, let us put aside our own stakes for the moment and look at the territory as the beat and examine the quality of the two basic citizen entitlements that essentially define democracy: free voice and free vote. Until we have done that I don’t think we, as journalists, will be able to set our priorities, focus and approaches right.

But how do measure the true quality of freedom? Surely neither by the paper guarantee offered by law nor even by judicial affirmation which necessarily comes after the fact, with the victim sometimes simply to dead to appreciate the gesture. Rather, freedom is measured against the risk taken in its exercise.

In the case of free voice, the operative question is this: Is the citizen able really to speak his mind without any fear of reprisal?

The democracy deal is plain enough: Once a group of protesters decides to exercise that freedom, say, by street demonstration, it is supposed to just do it. All that it is expected to have done beforehand is give notice to the authorities, the police specifically. The point is not to seek their permission, but to simply alert them so that they can make the arrangements that will ensure order during the demonstration, all the time keeping in mind the primacy of the freedom being exercised. Those arrangements may consist in rerouting traffic and waning workers and students to start early for the day, their own right to choose to get to work or school on time having been outranked.

Alas, in reality, it is the authorities who decided, and they decide not only when and where the demonstration should take place, but also whether it should take place at all; sometime they prescribe even the colors of the shirts the demonstrators should wear and the flags and streamers they should bear, and also the markings they should have on them. Non-compliance – never mind resistance – is met with a whack on the head with a police club or bombardment with a water canon or arrest.

Thus, the principles of democratic justice are turned upside down: Where democracy is meant to err on the side of rights, freedom, and presumption of innocence, it in fact errs on the side of power, suppression, and presumption of guilt.

As for free vote, all elections have shown in varying extents that while the vote may have gone in as a free choice it does not come out the same; something invariably happens between the casting and the tallying. But the last time around the phenomenon reached such height of insult to human intelligence and of assault on morality as to break the nation’s level of tolerance: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was caught on tape in several telephone conversations desecrating the vote by intervening with an election commissioner, Virgilio Garcillano, for her own presidential victory. She refused to deny or confirm the voice as hers but by invoking her right against self-incrimination she effectively confessed. For how could she incriminate herself if it was not her voice in the first place?

All the same, she managed to sit herself as president and has remained sitting to this day, her time largely spent feeding the public with incredible promises and claims to achievement and downright misrepresentations to divert its attention from the desecrated vote and her desecrating voice.

That is the territory; that is our beat. And lying there hidden is the free vote and lying suppressed, the free voice. Whether we like it or not, we must find the first and free the second, for we are freedom’s last line of defense.

We simply can’t escape Arroyo, Gonzales, and Palparan without shirking our constitutional and moral duty. Indeed, if necessary we should take the fight to them – an aggressive exercise of freedom is democracy’s match to suppression and intimidation.

CICC is ready for the 12th Asean Summit

ITS architect made it as the construction of the Cebu International Convention Center finally completed in time for the 12th Asean Summit on December 12-15, 2006 in Cebu City, beating the deadline and leaving the critics and cynics scratching their heads.

His Highness

HEAVENLY, this pose after packing a knockout punch: an oblation of hands inverting the "V" of victory, of eyes rapt with gratitude. Such gesture, such grace of humility before a higher power, would have been out of sorts for one who rules in a sport steeped in machismo and vainglory. But there he is, showing us the stuff true champs are made of. Alleluiah, indeed! (Michael U. Obenieta)

Politics, Philippine style

Here is a piece by Al S. Mendoza, one of the country's topnotch journalists and literary artists. He was formerly Sports Editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and is now writing a column for The Sunday Punch in Dagupan City and Sports Editor of the newest broadsheet The Philippine Chronicle. We at The Midweek Herald do agree with him that in the Philippines, elections is without education. Read:

The lure of Lomibao

By Al S. Mendoza

OUR LOVE affair with elections is as old as your town cemetery. That’s why when Marcos killed elections with his martial law in 1972, the people hated him.

They didn’t show it, but deep within their hearts, they mourned the death of the holding of elections. It was as if a member of their family had died.
When Marcos was ousted by People Power in 1986, happy days are here again.

The restoration of elections was greeted with fiesta-like atmosphere, as though a long-lost son had finally come home.

The barber shops are the best gauge. Linger around there and you will readily notice customer and kibitzer alike in animated talks about election possibilities in most times of the day.

Those present there playing dama, the Pinoy version of chess, are easily lured to joining any fray regarding election discussions.

Debates on elections, on who could be the top contenders, or who would be the possible candidates, can last forever.

Once it’s begun, the debate will go on and on and on till the last customer is serviced.

For example, here in Pangasinan, several names had been floated around already to aspire for the seat to be vacated by the graduating Gov. Agbayani.

The latest is Art Lomibao, the former national police chief.

The Mangaldan-born Lomibao, just recently appointed electrification boss, is now being considered defense secretary to replace Avelino Cruz, whose resignation shook the already fragile Arroyo administration.

That’s good news to Lomibao’s gubernatorial foes.

Lomibao becoming DND chief means one man down to Lomibao’s political rivals.

Lomibao would be a formidable aspirant if he’d truly run for governor. His network, erected when he was police boss, might spell the difference should he decide to toss his hat into the political arena.

Notice that Lomibao has been going around the province, testing the waters so to speak. He has anchored his “feeling the pulse” sorties on giving free telephone calls to barangay residents who have relatives abroad.

In this country, politics is doling out freebies.

You don’t give, you don’t receive.

I know of one candidate for mayor in 2004, who was miles ahead at the start, only to lose steam when he held back on expenses in the homestretch. He lost badly.

Said one voter I had talked to, “We were for him, until he held his miting de avance in our barangay. All he distributed to the folk after his speech were candies and that disappointed us a lot. Because his rival gave us sandwiches and tetrapak juice during his own miting de avance, we switched to him.”

If you think that’s funny, think again.

Among political animals, what they receive profoundly matters.

In this country, election is without education.

Only donation.

It’s fair enough, Kagay-anons say of new fair market values

THE City Council assured Kagay-anons it will take note and consider their reactions, suggestions and comments on the proposed new schedule of fair market values and building permit fees and other charges.

At the public hearing Thursday morning at the City Tourism Hall, Vice Mayor Michelle Tagarda-Spiers said the adoption of both schedules is long overdue, even as she thanked civic groups, nongovernment organizations, landowners, developers, barangay officials, regional offices and other sectors for attending the public consultation.

“It is not only mandated by law. It is long overdue,” she said, stressing that under the 1991 Local Government Code, local government units are mandated to revise fair market values every three years. “Since 1997, there were no changes. We should have done three revisions already.”

“If you compare Cagayan de Oro City between 1997 and 2006, there is a world of difference. Cagayan de Oro has boomed, bloomed and blossomed so much,” the vice mayor pointed out.

Vice Mayor Spiers said the adoption of the new fair market values is necessary to enable the city to “keep pace with the changes” of time.

“We will consider your proposals before we will finally approve the schedule,” she added.

City Assessor Atinodoro Asequia pointed out that under Sections 219 and 212 of RA 7160, also known as the 1991 Local Government Code, each LGU is authorized to revise fair market value schedule every three years.

In the proposed schedule, the City Assessor claimed that the increase is very minimal.

Based on the figures presented by the City Assessor, the increase is pegged at the average of 20-percent from the existing rates, except in posh housing subdivisions.

“The increase is arrived at after making consultations with the realtors and other sectors. It is fair, just and reasonable,” Asequia said, adding that the valuation is based on the actual use.

Assessment officials said the city’s assessment level is lower than Cebu’s and Iligan’s.

Barangay kagawad Camilo Sario of Bugo said the new valuation is fair enough. “It means 2 percent a year,” he said, referring to the number of years the city had not effected changes in the fair market value.

After the presentation of the fair market values by the City Assessor, officials of the City Building Office presented the new schedule of building permit fees and other charges based on the new provisions of the IRR of the National Building Code.

The public hearing was presided by Councilor Juan Sia, chair of the City Council committee on finance, and attended by Vice Mayor Spiers, Councilors Maryanne Enteria, Reynaldo Advincula, Ian Mark Nacaya, Alexander Dacer, Caesar Ian Acenas and Alfonso Goking. (Raul G. Moldez)

Brgy execs complete computer literacy training

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Most of the barangays officials here, particularly those from mountain barangays, have not yet keyed in words in computers. Neither have they any inkling as to how to turn it on, operate it using the mouse and write a letter in the Microsoft Word.

But now, however, such ignorance could be considered as ‘a thing of the past,’ thanks to the training jointly sponsored by the Rotary Club Centerpoint, STI College and the Mindanao Polytechnic State College.

The three pooled their resources together and offered the barangay officials with a one-week hands-on training dubbed as Computer Literacy Program. The training was held at the two STI campuses in Cogon and in Kauswagan and at the MPSC on October 31-November 6, 2006.

Councilor Alexander Dacer, president of the Association of Barangay Councils, said the program is aimed at enhancing the capability of barangay officials.

“This is also in preparation for the adoption of the e-governance next year,” he added.

During the training, the 240 participants were exposed to internet system teleconference, tutorials on operations of word processing, Excel and Power Point presentations.

At the culmination program on Nov. 14, MPSC president Dr. Ricardo Rotoras, who is also the president of Rotary Club Centerpoint, pointed out that the computer literacy course was part of the state college’s extension program.

He expressed optimism that through the computer literacy training, barangays officials will be able to deliver basic services to their constituents faster and implement various project efficiently.

Rotoras said MPSC, STI and Rotary Club Centerpoint shared one goal, that is, to uplift the lives of the people in the barangays through the computer technology.

STI College president Colbert Rabaya, for his part, said its being a proponent of the project is one way of expressing the school’s social responsibility.

As this developed, Dacer urged his colleagues to include in their 2007 budget allocations for the purchase of computer units and accessories.

In a related developed, Dacer exhorted his colleagues to attend a seminar on Systems and Procedures Manual in Monitoring Barangay Funds and Properties slated on the last week of this month.

At the recent ABC general assembly, City Auditor Olivia Flores said the seminar is aimed at familiarizing the barangay officials on the new procedures, even as she added that barangays will enjoy full fiscal autonomy starting next year.

She said that starting 2007, barangays will be the ones managing their funds, subject however, to existing laws, rules and regulations of the Commission on Audit. (Raul G. Moldez)

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