Little Notes

In my mind, the mid-term elections is already hobbling along – like a maimed beggar seeking alms of credence; like that famous race between a tortoise and a hare except the tortoise was given an invisible skateboard, rather than wit and perseverance, to win the race.

The Commission on Elections ruined it for me when they accredited party-lists with hidden roots emanating from the Office of External Affairs of the Office of the President. That they had to be told by the Supreme Court to reveal the names of the nominees tell us that this is one agency that will not go out on a limb just to prove its competence and credibility.

Then a Comelec division composed of Commissioners Brawner, Ferrer and Borra rendered a decision declaring Magsaysay Awardee and Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo as an alien citizen. This despite a decision written by the Comelec en banc on August 5, 2003 declaring Jesse Robredo as a Filipino citizen. To his credit, Borra dissented from the opinions of Brawner and Ferrer, law classmates of KAMPI President and CamSur Gov. Villafuerte. Villafuerte’s son is Robredo’s opponent. One plus one. Do the math.

Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay was taken aback by a preventive suspension served by the DILG between 8 to 9 pm last Friday. According to DILG Undersecretary Marius Corpuz, their office had no choice but to implement the order issued by the Office of the Ombudsman. Waiting until Monday would give the city mayor little time to prepare for a hearing scheduled by the Ombudsman on Tuesday of next week. How fast the hands of justice move — when applied with remarkable tenacity backed up by a sizeable police contingent. On my radio program (‘Global Pinoy’, every 5.30 to 6.30 pm, DWIZ 88.2 AM), Usec Corpuz said the order means that Mayor Binay must now turn-over the mayorship to his vice-mayor unless the opposition leader is able to secure a TRO.

It also bears watching that while on the surface this election is still the opposition versus the administration, the ideological undercurrents have also converted the polls into a Left vs Right boxing match – hence, the AFP’s advocacy campaign versus the insurgents & vice-versa.

All the disappearances, unsolved killings, harassments and inconsistent application of election laws tell us that May 14 will not likely go down like a spoonful of sugar. More likely, it’ll be the bitter pill that will make us gag and sweat and ponder and fret and ask — what the heck is happening to our country? I hope the heavens will intervene and prove this trend wrong.

Eight days to go. Watch and pray. After you vote, stick around with phone cameras handy. Be alert and remember, evil will flourish only if good people let it.

I’m baaaack!

And I credit the Yoda of Blogs, Yuga, for this digital reincarnation.

So much has happened since my last post. So many people have died or disappeared since then.

I share in the prayers for Jonah Burgos – may he be found soon, alive even if a little shaken and hurt.

I share in the outrage over a Comelec division’s decision to unseat Magsaysay Awardee and Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo as a mayoral candidate due to a citizenship issue. Jesse bestowed honor to the country as a Ramon Magsaysay Awardee. He has represented the Philippines in prestigious international fora. He was my classmate at the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University where he wowed the teachers and our fellow students with his well-engineered mind. And now they are saying that this inspirational Filipino is an alien? Didn’t the Comelec en banc declare him as a natural born citizen in a resolution dated August 5, 2003?

I share in the disgust over how the party-list system is being bastardized. How those already in power see it as a vehicle to aggrandize more power, more money, more prominence – all in the name of the marginalized sector they have not even considered helping before.

So yes, I’m happy to be back, blogging on a rant, ranting as I blog.

Thanks, Yuga!

 

 

Reminders to vote wisely have become a cliché, if not an old joke. With sarcasm, one is tempted to reply, yes, of course, but who’s Wisely? Still, it is a reminder worth passing on especially to the young people of today.

There is much to be concerned about in the coming polls.

First, it seems there is an over-reliance on political advertising and media by the national candidates. Unlike in previous elections where senatorial candidates traversed the entire archipelago by car, plane and boat, today’s competition is all about whether one’s political ad is working hard enough. In which case, the candidate, true to his or her role as an advertising creation, is spared the true grit of a passionate, 24/7 campaign, where a handshake is more than just skin contact. He or she is associated with soundbites rather than homegrown, core beliefs and principles. And because it was so easy, the candidate feels just as grateful to the creative genius behind his or her ad campaign rather than the awe-struck balut vendor waving from a dusty sidewalk.

Second, the political arena that should be frontier of the candidates has been taken over by non-political players that have suddenly gone political. For instance, the platforms, ideas, and advocacies of mainstream politicians are drowned out by the ongoing battle between the Right and Left. Whereas initially the public anticipated the conversion of this campaign into a referendum between the administration and opposition, what has emerged is a real war between the military and Leftist party-list groups.

Third, because of the two points above, more people are tuning out rather than listening in with keen interest on what ideas these candidates espouse. The disengagement of the voters makes it easier for massive cheating to take place. If the May election bears this out, then we are bound to see the gathering clouds of political chaos in the national horizon.

It does not help that there seems to be weak party identification among candidates and their supporters. That one is with LAKAS rather than KAMPI is more a product of local politics than principled choice. That a candidate has signed up with GO may also not mean a heck of a lot at the local level, except that the first two camps have chosen their candidates, and the third one has nowhere else to go. Every voter would likely disregard party affiliations and simply vote for the candidate with a track record of serving or having the best potential to serve the community, and the country well..

To vote wisely is a given, but what about ensuring that our votes are counted? Here I take my hats off to my colleagues at One Voice for volunteering their time and effort to undertake this important service. Atty. Chochoy Medina of the Ateneo Human Rights Center, Professor Benjie Tolosa of the Political Science Department of Ateneo University, political analyst Mon Casiple, Atty. Guia of Libertas, Vince Lazatin of the Transparency, Accountability Network, with former Comelec Chair Christian Monsod and so many others, have been doing their best to form a national coalition to protect our votes.

The objective is to cover all 1,600 canvassing points, which neither the government nor the opposition has been able to do all these years, with about 3,500 lawyers and paralegal volunteers.

Atty. Christian Monsod, in a recent speech before the joint general membership meeting of the Makati Business Club, Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Management Association of the Philippines, said,” The numbers are formidable. Forty-four million voters, over 250,000 precincts, and 1,600 canvassing points, which imply mobilizing over 500,000 volunteers, including some 3,500 lawyers to monitor the canvassing, and raising total resources of up to P50 million in case and in kind, partly by local chapters.”

Those who wish to serve as a volunteer or donate whatever modest amount you have to this national coalition may get in touch directly with the Ateneo Law School’s Human Rights Center at the Rockwell campus. Atty. Monsod’s statement before the business community is worth revisiting: “(But) the fact is that after we brought our nation to glory in EDSA and accomplished the first peaceful transfer of power in 27 years in 1992, we folded up our banners, we put away the t-shirts with the imaginative slogans that brought humor to the seriousness of the time, and we went back to wearing our business suits and to monitoring the stock prices of our companies or focusing on our narrow sectoral advocacies. And as we went our separate ways with our separate causes, we lost something of the dream of a nation and the significance of our interconnected lives. Perhaps it is time to go back to our beginnings for the 2007 elections.”

Very soon, Filipino travelers would no longer have to suffer the embarrassment of being made to wait until the immigration officer inspects the antiquated Philippine passports issued by the government.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, a temporary restraining order issued by a Pasig City judge against the e-passport program of the Department of Foreign Affairs has been lifted. This means that by the third quarter of the year, the DFA will now start issuing the e-passports, which bear an IC chip and additional security features.

Senator Mar Roxas, an ardent supporter of the e-passport program, said the transition from manually-processed, tamper-friendly passports to the modern, electronic passport is a leapfrog from the Jurassic Age to the Matrix Era.

“More than the Anti-Terror Law, modernizing our passports is a concrete step towards protecting our national security without any diminution of our civil liberties,” he said. I accompanied the senator during his walk-through at the DFA’s passport division with Acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Rafael Seguis. We saw how a room of employees spent the entire day writing the names of passport applicants and attaching photos to the passports by hand.

Assistant Secretary Doy Lucenario said the new passports will be in maroon color and would have more pages. It will also cost a little higher because of the IC chip that will be embedded in every e-passport. The cost, however, is not expected to surpass the P1,100 approved amount for the doomed machine-readable BOT project that was initially proposed by a private consortium known as BCA International/PhilPass.

I remember when my late father was Secretary of Foreign Affairs, he assigned our legal counsel to examine the BOT agreement guided solely by the people’s interests. Our lawyer, Atty. Rey Robles of ChanRobles & Associates, recommended to Secretary Ople that the contract be sent to the Department of Justice for legal opinion. This request was acted upon because the BOT agreement was not as favorable to the people as some projected it to be. Soon enough, the DOJ rendered an opinion supporting my father’s position but by then he had passed away. My father’s good friend, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo did the right and noble thing of rescinding this BOT Agreement.

Global Filipinos now found in every nook and corner of the world have long made the transition from mediocrity to world-class excellence. Certainly, our citizens deserve to have the best and most modern passports available. Unfortunately, this legal battle over a grossly disadvantageous BOT contract proved to be a stumbling block over the years. With a pro-active decision by the Supreme Court, this stumbling block has now been removed.

Around 95% of the countries of the world use machine-readable passports. We belong to the 5% that still have scripted passports – but only up to June or July of this year. Henceforth, the DFA in partnership with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will be offering these new e-passports to the public.

This corner congratulates Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo for his moral decision to rescind the disadvantageous contract and pave the way for the E-Passport Program to become a reality. It also salutes the consular office of the DFA for taking bold steps to protect the Philippine passport. Kudos also to Senator Mar Roxas for elevating this issue to the public’s consciousness.

When my father died, my mother and siblings agreed to make me the guardian of his office things which include his entire book collection, some paintings, the office furniture and a dozen ashtrays. Because he was a very honest man, our greatest inheritance is the legacy and good name that my dad left behind.

Part of that legacy is a little party known as Partido Nacionalista ng Pilipinas. This was a political party that he formed together with Rustico delos Reyes, Teodulo Natividad, and Regalado Maambong and several others (Willie Villarama, Arturo Brion, etc.) way back in 1986. Everytime my father ran for political office, he would register under the PNP. The PNP is much older than the Philippine National Police.

Noted labor lawyers and professors, Atty. Joselito Chan and Atty. Rey Robles, who continue to safeguard the party’s interests and are directly in touch with its network, suggested the PNP’s entry to the party-list. I was asked to be one of the nominees, but I declined. My uncle, Bernie Ople, is a nominee of AhonPinoy. However, I did help them in putting together a concrete legislative agenda to safeguard the interests of our OFWs.

Now, the PNP party-list campaign is in full swing. They have a HQ at 95 EDSA, near the Tulay of Guadalupe. It has a big billboard which is covered by yet a bigger billboard so for you to see it, you’d have to pass exactly in front of the building. If you’re driving from Makati, slow down when you see the Jesus Saves in neon lights. The PNP HQ is almost underneath its spiritual glare.The PNP holds office at the second floor. The ground floor is occupied by Mega Trophy, Inc. The campaign HQ is being run by member of Romblon’s Asi Tribe, fellow blogger, Nicon Fameronag (Lilac Republic). Our first nominee is Atty. Joselito Chan of ChanRobles & Associates. He is a long-time labor lawyer, professor, and author of books on labor law. I encourage those who wish to dip their feet in political waters but don’t know how, to sign up with the PNP.

The PNP advocates the following:

1. Using a portion of the RVAT revenues to institutionalize specific programs for the reintegration of OFWs including seafarers upon their return, and to strengthen the bonds between the OFW and his/her family while the worker is away.
2. Amendments to the Labor Code and Migrant Workers’ Act to update these laws on the new types of jobs in the local and global market, and current realities abroad.
3. Ensuring through the budget process that education gets the highest funding priority as enshrined in the Constitution.
4. Reforms in the Professional Regulation Commission to prevent a repeat of the nursing exam scandal, and a review of the system of accreditation for review schools to prevent more diploma mills.
5. Decriminalization of the libel law, and strengthening oversight functions even at the local levels on human rights.

The PNP is very much against the imposition of all kinds of fees on household workers undergoing training and assessment under TESDA’s SuperMaids program.

The PNP is also against the entrenchment of escort-for-a-fee operations at the international airport which makes it possible for illegal recruitment and human trafficking to flourish.

The PNP favors a complete review of the location, budgets, and staffing of our embassies and labor posts, with the end view of beefing up and strengthening consular operations in countries where we have a sizable population of OFWs.

For more info, visit www.partidonacionalista.net. Good luck to all party-list groups!

Let me write this as I think things through.

The arrest of Ka Satur for a crime which he purportedly committed during the martial law era is but one leg of what reporters would call a “running” story. First, the accountability blockades: CPR, PP 1017, EO 464. Second, and on what appears to be parallel tracks – the abductions, killings, and tortures from the Erap 5 to the so many nameless others. Third, Ka Bel was arrested, and now Ka Satur was brought back to Manila from a chartered trip to Leyte. There were other stories in between, involving journalists and an anti-terror law.

During the activist days of my eldest brother, he witnessed the First Quarter Storm. Today, we have its second wave, in reverse. What a tiny cluster now in power seeks to do is to extinguish the Left in the name of democracy and perhaps, even good governance. They do so because the opposition by itself is really not a potent force. The opposition + militant groups provide the optics that make other nations sit up and take notice of current events in the Philippines. Scan the newspapers, rewind what you see on primetime news – the photos and videos that stick to one’s mind are those contributed by the militant groups.

In the current propaganda war, it is they who are able to go neck-and-neck with the government in terms of soundbites, visuals, and symbols. Is all this tension caused only by the need to win the air war? No, it’s much deeper than that.

All throughout the countryside are widows and orphaned children caught in the longest insurgency that Asia, if not the world, has ever known. There is anger on both sides. The government side, however, has always been restrained or constrained by the need to observe human rights and legal procedures. That’s what the civilian leadership is for. But what if legal shortcuts are allowed and propaganda is employed to assure everyone that this equation has stayed the same?

One would argue – these people are communists. They support the NPA. They bomb Globe and Smart towers. They kill people. They extort money and sell drugs to buy arms to kill our soldiers. They are baaaaad. Why should I, a call center agent or a simple housewife or a minimum wage earner, even care what happens to these cretins of the Red?

Because if your own government spearheads the perpetration of injustice as a means to justify the end, then all else is subjective. The rule of law guarantees authenticity of the process. Without it, all else is subjective, with those in power gaining the supremacy to decide when and where the law must and should apply.

Judges and justices beware. If you fall, then this new ideology in the military, as authored by an anonymous cluster in the Palace will prevail.

We as a country are not rich. We are stable, because we are free. Our economy is growing because we remain free. The threat to our stability does not come from the opposition–because like all other members of the political class, they are all words and bluster. Nor does it come from the insurgents — they continue to try, but our people have long ruled against them. No, the real threat comes from within. And that is why what is happening to Ka Satur and everything else in the here and now, should matter. Not because he’s with the Left. But because he is a Filipino.

And because, those within have ideas and the means that to their mind, we, their fellow Filipinos, don’t even need to know about or agree with. Now, that’s what I call real power.

Senatorial candidates and party-list organizations should consider overseas Filipino workers as a potential swing vote sector in the May elections. As breadwinners, their “referrals” to the family are bound to be the best sample ballot of all. As a voting bloc, overseas absentee voters have enough voting power to grant a party-list group a single seat and a senatorial candidate from the 9th to 14th slots, a much-needed boost.

In a tight race, the half a million votes to be cast by overseas absentee voters that include Filipino seafarers do matter. I was at the DFA yesterday to attend a briefing on the OAV Act and was pleasantly surprised to learn that voting by mail has been expanded to include 42 countries and 60 posts.

These countries include: Chile, Cuba, Czech Republic, East Timor, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Thailand, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom and Venezuela.

Per the records of the Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat, a total of 504,331 overseas Filipinos have approved registrations and are thus entitled to vote this year. The breakdown of this voting universe is as follows:

Middle East and Africa 218, 209
Asia Pacific 191, 760
Europe 27, 247
Americas 48, 711
Seafarers 18, 404

What is surprising is that only 500,000 overseas Filipinos out of an estimated 12 million global Pinoy expat/OFW community have taken concrete steps to be politically engaged. Will this number change in 2010? I hope so. Just as their remittances alter the landscape and fortunes of the Philippine countryside, the OFW votes are entitled to affect and help shape Philippine politics as well.

I just learned that the Supreme Court lifted the TRO issued by a Pasig judge on the e-Passport Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs. This is huge! It means that within the year, the Philippines will join the rest of the world in having machine-readable passports with an electronic chip embedded for data capturing including the latest on biometric technology. No longer does a Filipino traveler or OFW be asked to go to a different counter where immigration officers would have to use a different computer to encode passport data. All around the world, we are among less than 10 countries that still use primitive passports. With the SC decision, the DFA and its institutional partner, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, can now make our passports more compliant with international standards. Hooray!

Thank you, Supreme Court justices. Special mention goes to Senator Mar Roxas who brought out the issue of a looming passport shortage in June because of the TRO. To Asec. Doy Lucenario of the Office of Consular Affairs of the DFA, your determination to see this E-Passports Project through is amazing! Congrats to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Bert Romulo for rescinding the original contract and making this simply a government-to-government project.

I’m a nominee!

Not bad for a blogger Mom! Ehem, for this nomination, I would like to thank the academy of bloggers, my parents, my daughter Estelle, my partner Fort, my five brothers and sister, my nephews and nieces, my relatives and friends, my dogs: Monet, Picasso and their five children: Suzy, Mig, Marty, Joey and Chandler and three grandchildren: Oprah, Heidi, and Tyra, special thanks to those who drop by to comment on this blog, and my blogging barkada, my co-workers, my favorite DVD vendor, the people of Hagonoy, Bulacan, my neighbors in Pasig, all my classmates since grade school, …

Seriously, I do thank those behind the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards and all the people who visit this site. Congratulations to all the nominees. May our blogging tribe increase!

Senator Mar Roxas appealed to the Supreme Court to act with dispatch on a pending petition filed before it by the Department of Foreign Affairs to enable government to jumpstart the modernization of the Philippine passport and prevent a looming passport crisis.

This legal battle stands in the way of our national dignity with Filipino tourists and overseas workers having to suffer the embarrassment of extraordinary scrutiny in all major international airports because of our primitive passports, Roxas said.

He said that the Philippines is the only country in Asia without a modern passport and is included in a very short list of countries still with non-machine readable passports: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Mauritania, Nepal, Chad, Togo,Tunisia and Guinee-Bissau.

This list includes the poorest African countries. For example, Chad is a conflict-ridden country, affected by drought and armed rebellion, with hundreds and thousands of Sudanese refugees crossing into their borders. What is our excuse?he said.

Roxas also noted the DFA statement that unless the legal battle is resolved in favor of the government, the country faces a looming passport crisis in June.

My concern is based on the testimony of Assistant Secretary Domingo Lucenario during the court hearing where he clearly stated that the passport supply is only up to June this year. It takes at least seven months for the BSP to deliver new passports. During this hiatus, and unless there is a contingency plan, the constitutional right to travel of thousands of Filipino travelers and sanctity of job contracts of our overseas Filipino workers could be seriously impaired, the senator added.

The senator said he is raising this possibility to the public not to create panic, but to underscore the urgency of the DFA petition before the Supreme Court.

This legal battle is not just over an ordinary travel document, but about our dignity as Filipinos.

BLOGGER’S NOTE: When my late father was still at the Department of Foreign Affairs, he was asked to sign a document that would execute the BOT agreement between BCA International and the DFA on a machine readable passport/visa project. Secretary Ople called his private counsel to examine the agreement. The lawyer, Atty. Rey Robles, pointed out several flaws in the agreement that were disadvantageous to the Filipino people. This prompted the Office of the Secretary to seek the opinion of the DOJ and DOF. My father died before this passport issue was resolved. Yesterday, I had coffee with Assistant Secretary Doy Lucenario of the DFA. I wanted to interview him regarding our passports for Panorama Magazine. It turned out that the DFA had already pre-ordered around 4 million e-Passports that would bring us to world standards. The BSP was already scheduled to hold a bidding when BCA International sought a TRO from a Pasig judge. Though clearly a government project of paramount value, the judge issued a TRO. Our passport supply runs out in June but because of the court case, the DFA and BSP cannot proceed with its plan to offer e-Passports to the public. Ordering the green passports take seven months before delivery. Let’s hope that the SC heeds the DFA petition and listens to Senator Roxas’ urgent appeal. Otherwise we will be in passport limbo – without both a scripted, tamper-friendly passport and a modern one to boot!