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Hell awaits Gloria successor EDITORIAL Click to enlarge 12/07/2009

Monday, December 7, 2009


Hell awaits Gloria successor



EDITORIAL

Click to enlarge
12/07/2009

The most enduring legacy that Gloria Arroyo will definitely leave the administrations to succeed her is the huge level of debts, primarily incurred in the last two years of her administration when record-setting fiscal blowouts, more than P300 billion this year and around P250 billion next year, are set.

The historical budget deficits would necessarily require.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

ALTERNATE URL: http://www.classicposters.com/commentary/20091207com1.html

Could London lose ‘libel capital of the world’ crown? FEATURE 12/07/2009


Could London lose ‘libel capital of the world’ crown?



FEATURE


12/07/2009

LONDON — The world’s rich and powerful have long chosen London to defend their interests in court, but pressure is mounting for an overhaul in the English laws that saw it named “libel capital of the world.” Lawyers, freedom of speech campaigners and even members of the government are questioning whether legislation designed to protect people’s reputations is now being used to silence criticism, especially by scientists.

“What concerns me.... MORE


SourceThe Daily Tribune

ALTERNATE URL: http://www.classicposters.com/commentary/20091207com2.html

Erap pacified Mindanao sans ML DIE HARD III Herman Tiu Laurel 12/07/2009


Erap pacified Mindanao sans ML



DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel
12/07/2009

President Joseph Estrada, in his short two-and-a-half-years as president, used the powers vested in him by the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief to subdue the MILF, then numbering an estimated 12,500 men. In fact, Erap had already sent its leader, Hashim Salamat, scurrying to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia .

Yet today, while the Ampatuans probably have only a tenth of that armed force, Gloria Arroyo, her Executive Secretary Ed Ermita, and the AFP generals expect us to believe that martial law is necessary to suppress this miniscule group? “Go tell that to the Marines!” as some would say.

The Ampatuans’ force may be menacing to ordinary citizens but for the AFP, which has an overwhelming force, the Ampatuans are easy target. Martial law against the Ampatuans is not just overkill; it is a clearly overacting.

The acting secretary of National Defense, Norberto Gonzales, is the actor-director of many-a-crises cum mass beheadings. His every tenure at the DND has always tended to create an atmosphere conducive to “transition government” scenarios. I therefore wasn’t surprised when Annie Geron of the government workers’ organization, Public Service Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINC), said there were texters and callers lauding the martial law declaration for Maguindanao allegedly to suppress “warlordism,” clamoring for the same in their provinces (Abra, Isabela, and others).

On the flipside, some people’s alarmism also aids the spin, with texts like, “Mag-escalate kaya kaguluhan sa Maguindanao sa buong bansa?” That text, which I received from an activist leader, inadvertently helps the government create a climate of panic that can lead to a justification for anti-democratic plots. Such alarmism will then spread the state of insecurity and make authoritarian rule acceptable in the minds of ordinary folks.

Instead of engaging in such alarmism, the more enlightened sectors should expose the regime’s ridiculous justification of using a shotgun approach against a force so puny that it can even be described as a fly.

I therefore ask readers of this piece to go around and echo the message of this column: Erap didn’t need martial law to subdue the MILF (at least 20 times larger than the army that the Ampatuans can ever put together).

But the more worrying aspect to this unfolding scene in the martial law imposition in Maguindanao is the exemption of MILF-controlled areas from the said order. Isn’t this an obvious appeasement of the MILF armed terror force and a step toward the yielding of Maguindanao as part of the MoA-AD’s (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) BangsoMoro Juridical Entity?

While we understand that the AFP and the GRP want to avoid conflict with the MILF at this time, it still looks obviously incongruous to impose martial law on one part of the province and exempt the others. There would be no such contradiction if martial law was not imposed in the first place, for it exposes this ridiculous situation of the openly-declared rebel force, the MILF, being exempt from the rule of law.

The reference to Erap’s tenure cannot be avoided whenever the deteriorating situation in our country is the subject of discussion. Erap’s governance was the last time that presidential and institutional declarations depicted congruity of reality and action, and the spirit and letter of the law.

After Gloria took over, words of the law have become a smokescreen for opposite actions and intentions. When Erap maintained “only one Republic; only one Flag,” our soldiers went into Camp Abubakkar to take down the MILF posthaste. Furthermore, Erap rejected the warlord Ampatuan from the grounds of Malacañang.

Today, anyone with a modicum of political discernment knows that Gloria and the powers behind her (the US and British embassies — the latter just announced joining the peace process after the latest Exxon Sulu Sea oil strike) are just waiting for the opportunity to fully implement the MoA-AD.

The last time “sovereignty” was a meaningful word, too, was when Estrada was president. Under Gloria and the oligarchs, everything has been done to adhere to the globalist agenda — from the import-dependent, foreign-controlled economy to the Balkanization of Mindanao, and now, the installation of a parliamentary system.

Meanwhile, the two-stage sleight-of-hand change in the election law ban on elective and appointive officials from running in elections without resigning first is only a prelude to the shift to a parliamentary system. As lawyer Luke Espiritu, spokesman of Partido Lakas ng Manggagawa, reported in our upcoming Tuesday GNN TV episode, the changes began with the “fair election” law surreptitiously passed by the Edsa II congress in 2001.

A parliamentary government is distinguished by the fusion of the executive and legislative functions under a strictly representative system, i.e. no popular and direct election of the chief executive. The global oligarchy has always preferred this because it is predictable and easy to control due to the limited numbers in any parliament. A simple “vote of no confidence” can be obtained by hook or by crook to remove any chief executive.

The presidential system, in contrast, is too unpredictable because a popularly-elected chief executive gets his mandate direct from the people, who empower him to do revolutionary acts as what great presidents in history have done: Abraham Lincoln, winning the Civil War against the southern aristocracy; Franklin Delano Roosevelt, overcoming the bankers in the Great Depression; John F. Kennedy, who would have avoided the Vietnam War; Charles de Gaulle, leading France out of colonialism; Hugo Chavez, freeing Venezuela from US control; Nestor Kirchner, leading Argentina out of depression; Ferdinand Marcos, fighting against the right-left-MNLF conspiracies; and President Estrada, opposing “sovereign guarantees” for Big Business and almost ending the Hundred Years War in Mindanao against the wishes of Bill Clinton.

(Tune in to 1098AM, Sulong Pilipinismo, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21, Talk News TV, Tuesday, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m. on “Double Trouble: Appointive Officials Running Without Resigning;” also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)




SourceThe Daily Tribune


ALTERNATE URL: http://www.classicposters.com/commentary/20091207com3.html

(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)

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