tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-98322152024-03-08T12:39:25.264+08:00Carol P. AraulloStreetwise: Progressive views on Philippine and international issues published in BusinessWorld, the Philippines' leading business newspaper, and more.Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.comBlogger460125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-20656607432286490142018-03-28T12:19:00.002+08:002018-03-28T12:20:17.173+08:00CARHRIHL at 20<br />
March 16 marked the twentieth year of the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) by the peace panels of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). It culminated a series of formal talks held over eleven months (excluding suspensions and indefinite recesses) in The Netherlands.<br />
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CARHRIHL became binding and effective on the two Parties when it was signed by Mariano Orosa, NDFP chairperson on April 10, 1998, and President Joseph Estrada on August 7, 1998.<br />
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It is living proof that with the mutually agreed upon goal of attaining a just and lasting peace, together with enough goodwill and earnest effort on both sides, and despite seemingly irreconcilable positions -- a bilateral agreement of far-reaching import as well as immediate benefit can be achieved.<br />
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This landmark Agreement seals the first of the four substantive agenda laid out by the two Parties; that is, human rights and international humanitarian law, socio-economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms, and end of hostilities and disposition of forces. It has led to accelerated negotiations on the remaining items, in consecutive order, albeit haltingly and with great difficulty.<br />
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It may well be asked by well-meaning, if by now cynical, observers of the on-and-off peace talks between the GRP (now termed GPH) and the NDFP, what is the point of celebrating an Agreement that has been for the most part either ignored or observed in the breech?<br />
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In light of the thousands of alleged extrajudicial killings, displacement of civilians and illegal arrests in the course of the Duterte administration's "war on drugs", "all-out war" against communist rebels, and no-holds-barred military operations against supposed Isis-inspired terrorists, of what use is CARHRIHL in rendering justice to victims of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law?<br />
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No matter how edifying, comprehensive and with actual mechanisms for implementation to boot, CARHRIHL appears now to be just a meaningless scrap of paper with little or no benefit to the people so long as it is not upheld by both sides.<br />
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Especially with the peace negotiations currently at an impasse, with the GRP saying that these are in fact terminated, what hope is there that the beneficial provisions of CARHRIHL can still be availed of by those adversely affected by the armed conflict and by those whose socio-economic and civil and political rights are being trampled upon?<br />
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Peace advocates from a broad array of organizations -- the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP), Pilgrims for Peace, Sulong CARHRIHL, Philippine Peace Center, Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation (OSB) and ACT for Peace -- together with enthusiastic students of St. Scholastica College took the time last Friday to find answers to these questions as they commemorated this historic event.<br />
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In his keynote speech, staunch peace advocate Bishop Emeritus Deogracias Iñiguez, gave voice to his fellow advocates' unequivocal stand that CARHRIHL remains relevant to the situation of armed conflict and rampant violations of HR and IHL in the country today. He underscored the view that the people stand to gain much from CARHRIHL's implementation by both Parties. He also emphasized that CARHRIHL has an important role to play in breaking the current impasse in the peace negotiations.<br />
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Bsp. Iñiguez reminded everyone how, in the past twenty years since CAHRIHL was inked, it has served as an instrument to strengthen trust and confidence between the two Parties, generate goodwill and a conducive climate for the peace talks, and thus pave the way to fruitful negotiations on basic social and economic reforms.<br />
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Concretely, under the auspices of CARHRIHL, the GRP has released political prisoners (including NDFP consultants) while the NDFP has released captive police and military personnel in order for the peace talks to get back on track and overcome obstacles or deadlocks and even suspensions.<br />
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An example of an actual benefit derived from CARHRIHL is the indemnification of tens of thousands of human rights victims under the Marcos fascist dictatorship that the NDFP had consistently and persistently championed. The GRP delivered on its commitment to pass a law providing for such.<br />
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Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that there remains a huge gap between the good provisions of CARHRIHL and what is happening in actuality. And while its implementation has served as a confidence-building and goodwill measure for the peace talks and is beneficial to the people, the opposite is also true. Non-adherence to CARHRIHL and continuing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have served to poison the atmosphere for peace talks. Neither has such helped to resolve the roots of armed conflict; instead, it has only exacerbated the sufferings and calamitous situation of affected communities.<br />
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The head of the NDFP peace panel, Fidel Agcaoili, sent a message to the commemoration while the GRP was no show. Mr. Agcaoili highlighted, among many violations of CARHRIHL by the GRP, its petition to proscribe the CPP and NPA (component revolutionary organizations under the umbrella of the NDFP) as "terrorist organizations", the inclusion of more than 600 individuals in the DOJ "terrorist list" together with the arrest and continuing detention of NDFP consultants on trumped-up charges of common crimes. Agcoaili welcomed the call for the full implementation of CARHRIHL and the resumption of peace negotiations.<br />
A 14-year-old girl named CAHRIHL capped the program with a strong appeal for a return to peace talks to arrive at a just and lasting peace. When she was much younger, she confessed, she didn't understand why her parents gave her the name and what it meant. She lamented that her friends mispronounced and misspelled her name all the time. Only when she herself became a youth activist did she begin to appreciate CARHRIHL and to learn the importance of fighting for human rights. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
19 March2018<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-82846889860836519652018-01-26T21:21:00.004+08:002018-01-26T21:21:46.104+08:00Connecting the dotsThe revocation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration of online news site Rappler is being passed off as a simple case of an independent government agency implementing the Constitutional ban on foreign ownership of a media organization. It has nothing to do with media freedom. It has no implications to other media outfits. And most important of all, the Duterte administration claims it has nothing to do with it.<br />
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The facts and circumstances surrounding the SEC decision, however, are in glaring contravention to such a benign argumentation. Duterte wants to shut down Rappler because he cannot stand its criticism of his regime.<br />
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Firstly, President Rodrigo Duterte had repeatedly threatened Rappler, along with ABS-CBN and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, for being unfairly critical of his administration, imputing various motives. In the case of Rappler, that it is “fully owned by Americans” and is part of a CIA plot to bring him down. Duterte has not been able to disguise his utter contempt for these three media organizations and his intention of going after them to stop what he considers scurrilous, slanted if not fabricated, reportage meant to undermine his presidency.<br />
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Secondly, it was Duterte-appointed Solicitor General Calida who got the SEC to conduct its investigation against Rappler. In record time, the SEC handed down its decision cancelling Rappler’s corporate registration on the basis of a legal technicality without giving Rappler the opportunity to correct its ownership structure as it had done for other business entities similarly situated.<br />
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Thirdly, it is hypocritical of the Duterte administration to utilize the Constitutional ban on foreign media ownership to silence Rappler while it pushes for Charter Change that will do the exact opposite – allow 100% ownership of public utilities, mass media and educational institutions by removing the remaining protectionist provisions in the 1987 Charter.<br />
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As pointed out by many legal experts, the Philippine Depository Receipts (PDR) held by Rappler's foreign investors (Omidyar Network and North Base Media) does not vest them with ownership over Rappler or Rappler Holdings. In fact, PDRs are resorted to by companies seeking substantial foreign investment in order to precisely skirt such strict prohibitions against foreign ownership. <br />
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Duterte poses as the one who is aggrieved in all this. That his administration is merely defending itself from unfair criticism by an intemperate and elitist media outfit with a hidden agenda, that of toppling him. But in truth the Duterte regime is using the instrumentalities of the state to shut down, one by one, those media outlets it considers to be inherently biased against his regime.<br />
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Some say there is nothing wrong with this. That the state, helmed by Duterte, is justified in defending itself from irresponsible media and other kinds of destabilizers.<br />
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Unfortunately for Duterte, the Philippine Constitution states: “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for redress of grievances.” Duterte is wrong in saying press freedom is a “privilege”. It is a right on the level of freedom of speech and expression, that the state can only curtail in cases of libel or proven use for seditious purposes.<br />
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Therefore, this SEC ruling, no matter how Duterte denies shaping or influencing it, is itself unconstitutional. There can be no justification for government closing down a media outlet, no matter under what alibi, just because the President doesn’t like what it publishes.<br />
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In truth, the Duterte regime is not without less obviously tyrannical means to counter Rappler. Duterte and his minions, including his social media horde, have blasted Rappler non-stop for publishing supposed “fake news” (while expertly churning out fabrications packaged as news themselves). He has also use paid hacks masquerading as veteran journalists to mount a more sophisticated smear campaign against Rappler.<br />
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If a substantial number of people can be convinced then they will stop reading Rappler, its advertising and other revenue will go down alongside its declining credibility, and Rappler will find itself struggling to survive. Libel cases can always be resorted to and in fact the National Bureau of Investigation is handling a current cyberlibel case against Rappler.<br />
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The SEC decision on Rappler steps up the Duterte regime’s attempts to gag mass media. It is intended to have a demonstration effect on the rest of the mass media organizations from owners to editors to reporters. Meanwhile the regime perseveres in going after its staunchest critics through a squeeze on franchises, corporate takeovers by businessmen allied with the President, and always, the resort to harassment suits, while turning a blind eye to the unflagging killings of media practicioners.<br />
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Recently, Duterte was positively frothing in the mouth when he was asked by Rappler reporter Pia Ranada regarding his hand in the SEC decision. Apparently whatever satisfaction he derived from it was drowned out by the Rappler expose on his right hand man, Bong Go, “intervening” in a P15.5-B project to acquire the Command Management System (CMS) to be installed in brand new Philippine Navy warships.<br />
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It is not as if the story has no basis. A note tacked on to an alleged white paper favoring a certain CMS supplier that was forwarded by Defense Secretary Lorenzana to Navy Chief Vice Admiral Mercado cites Bong Go as the source. This was denied by Go then also later denied by Lorenzana who said he was mistaken about the paper’s source. But there are plenty of suspicious facts and circumstances, enough to raise serious doubts about Malacañang’s intervention in the project.<br />
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This is the proverbial “whiff of corruption” that Duterte promised he would not tolerate. Instead of initiating an investigation, checking the paper trail for this document, finding out who from the Presidential Management Staff met with the Navy official in charge of the project and what was discussed, Duterte mysteriously fired Vice Admiral Mercado for “insubordination”, exonerates Go with a non sequitur comment that Go is already a billionaire (ergo he can’t be corrupt) and then goes ballistic in denouncing Rappler for throwing “shit” at his regime.<br />
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Or perhaps Duterte is so incensed he could not control his rant against Rappler and Ranada because this is the sort of “whiff of corruption” that could generate disgruntlement in the military. Well this time, Duterte can blame no one but himself. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
23 January 2018<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-29071672627681216672017-12-29T10:06:00.005+08:002017-12-29T10:06:42.580+08:00Method to the madnessNowadays President Rodrigo Duterte is wont to take every opportunity to accuse the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) of the vilest atrocities he can think of (or invent) as his regime goes into high gear in its counterinsurgency war, perversely codenamed Oplan Kapayapaan. The latest is at a speech he gave to the annual gathering of LGBT in Davao City where he accused the NPA of going around “molesting or sexually abusing” women in the countryside and even “stealing” the women from their husbands. <br />
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But how can a home-grown revolutionary movement comprised mainly of peasants, waging guerilla warfare in the rural areas, survive for close to five decades if there is any truth to this outrageous accusation? One might conclude that Mr. Duterte has lost it. (Some say too much Fentanyl). Then again, there seems to be method to the madness: the terror tagging of the CPP-NPA is a glaring example.<br />
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Mr. Duterte has flip-flopped more than once but this is major. From an avowed fellow socialist and Leftist who understood the social roots of rebellion; who considered a renowned NPA commander murdered by the military as his close friend; who gave support and succor to beleaguered NPA fighters; and who promised to end the longest running armed conflict in Asia through peace negotiations – Mr. Duterte now has nothing good to say about the CPP-NPA.<br />
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It is as if all he has to do is change his mind, or his rhetoric, to change the highly political, in fact revolutionary, character of the CPP-NPA overnight.<br />
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Thus upon his declaration that he was scuttling peace talks with the revolutionary umbrella formation, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), Mr. Duterte announced he would deny the CPP-NPA any political legitimacy by following the US lead in labelling the movement as “terrorist”. He issued Proclamation 374 declaring the CPP-NPA a “designated, identified terrorist organization under Republic Act (RA) No. 10168.”<br />
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Since the “terrorist” label has been attached of late to the likes of the dreaded ISIS, successor to the infamous Al Qaeda that presumably had been degraded by the US commando killing of Osama Bin Laden, and with supposed ISIS-inspired counterparts most recently defeated in the Marawi siege, Proclamation 374 effectively demonizes the CPP-NPA to the politically uninitiated and conservative sectors of the public, not least of which are Mr. Duterte’s rabid followers.<br />
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It serves to terrify them and bids them follow blindly Mr. Duterte’s admonitions about crushing alleged “terrorists”. The “terrorist” tag is once more used as a convenient, if worn out, justification for pursuing the failed policy of using armed might exclusively or primarily in dealing with rebellion.<br />
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It didn’t take long for Mr. Duterte to issue a shoot-to-kill order to the AFP against suspected NPA “so long as they are armed”. This is eerily similar to his order to the PNP to kill drug suspects “so long as they fight it out” or “manlaban”. The order amounts to instructing the military to plant guns and explosives against anyone they kill in the counterinsurgency war to take away accountability for extrajudicial killings carried out in the name of counterterrorism. This Duterte order gives license to inflict mass murder on indigenous people and peasants fighting against land grabbing and other forms of exploitation and oppression rampant in the countryside.<br />
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From hereon Duterte is poised to have the CPP-NPA proscribed by a Regional Trial Court as a “terrorist” organization so that he can go about using a dormant ten-year-old anti-terrorism law, the Human Security Act of 2007, as well as the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 (RA 10168) to undertake a massive crackdown on legal progressive organizations specially those who espouse a similar program of socio-economic and political reforms as the CPP-NPA-NDFP. (It would not be a surprise for the regime to also use these draconian laws to terrorize ordinary citizens pining for his promised “pagbabago” and shake down businesses in the guise of going after “terrorism” financiers.)<br />
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What this portends is mass arrests and the wholesale filing of trumped-up terrorism and other criminal charges against social activists, critics in the academe, mass media or the arts, human rights advocates, grassroots organizers and any and all who the Duterte regime labels as “enemies of the state” and/or “destabilizers”.<br />
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Duterte didn’t skip a beat when he asked Congress for approval of another extension of martial law and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao by a year. Even as the magnified threat from remnants of the Maute, Dawlah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf Group as well as the BangsaMoro Islamic Freedom Fighters was cited as reason enough to extend martial law, this time it is clear that the target is the CPP-NPA and its mass base of support among the landless peasants and indigenous people of Mindanao called Lumad.<br />
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Malacañang and the AFP want the public to believe that martial law under Duterte is benign in so far as non-rebels are concerned. But numerous incidents involving civilians tagged by the military as NPA have resulted in grave human rights violations among the most vulnerable sectors of society. Take the case of the massacre of eight Lumad in Barangay Ned, Lake Sebu. Aldina Ambag, sister of slain Lumad leader Datu Victor Dayan, says a sniper killed her brother and that seven other slain men were farmers harvesting and planting corps when soldiers entered the village. They are filing complaints with the Commission of Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, as well as the Joint Monitoring Committee for the implementation of the human rights agreement in the derailed GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.<br />
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The AFP knows that the NPA draws support from rural folk thus their solution is to deny the NPA this support by militarizing communities. In the process the thousands of civilians are displaced and rendered victims of grievous human rights violations such as EJks, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests and de<br />
tention and torture. These civilian communities’ legitimate struggles are branded as NPA-instigated and their leaders themselves branded as NPA, ergo “terrorist” and deserving of “neutralization”, military-speak for physical elimination.<br />
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Those who come to their rescue – human rights defenders, church workers, land reform advocates, or even plain humanitarian organizations -- are also immediately branded as NPA supporters deserving of the harshest measures available under martial law. When they invoke their civil and political rights such as the right to due process or their right to avail of the services of legal counsel, the military simply answers, “It is martial law and therefore what we say goes.”<br />
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Those who think that curtailing the rights of suspected NPA and their alleged supporters is justified in the fight against rebellion better think again. Marcos became the number one NPA recruiter when he declared martial law to keep himself and his clique in power indefinitely. The closure of all legal and peaceful avenues for the people to seek redress of grievances from government and to pursue much-needed reforms became the clarion call for the youth of the land to join the NPA or establish it where it did not yet exist. #<br />
Published in Business World<br />
18 December 2017Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-31929882494044231872017-11-28T08:12:00.003+08:002017-11-28T08:12:22.802+08:00 Duterte’s 180-degree turnIn a matter of days, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, has made a 180 degree turn in policy regarding peace negotiations with the revolutionary movement represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines or NDFP that probably left even the government negotiating panel dumbstruck.<br />
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In a series of statements starting November 18 Duterte declared that he would call off the GRP-NDFP peace talks, tag the CPP/NPA as “terrorists” and order the rearrest of NDFP consultants who had been released from prison to participate in the talks. By November 22, OPAPP Sec Dureza announced that all meetings with the NDFP peace panel were called off. And by November 23, Duterte issued Proclamation 360 “terminating” the peace negotiations.<br />
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Unknown to most, the 5th round of formal talks, aborted last May in the wake of the declaration of martial law in Mindanao, was slated to resume November 25 to 27 in Norway. Before this, the two parties held backchannel meetings in the first week of October on how to restart the formal talks. The only hint that Duterte was entertaining a possible resumption was a casual remark to this effect upon the the release of a police office by the NPA in Mindanao.<br />
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In October bilateral teams of the Reciprocal Working Committees (RWCs) worked double-time on the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-economic Reforms (CASER). Had the 5th round pushed through, an unprecedented breakthrough would have taken place: a draft joint agreement initialed by the GRP and NDFP CASER-RWCs covering agrarian reform and rural development (ARRD) as well as national industrialization and economic development (NIED) would have been approved by the two peace panels. If all went well, the entire CASER would be fast tracked to completion by the first quarter of 2018, to be closely followed by accelerated negotiations on political and constitutional reforms (PCR), and a common draft General Amnesty Proclamation, something already dangled by Duterte to the NDFP even before he was sworn into office and which the NDFP had always made clear was their highest priority.<br />
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On top of these, stand down orders of both government and NPA forces would have been enforced, while earnest discussion on coordinated unilateral ceasefires would take place, the parameters of which would be less prone to violations, sabotage or provocations from either side than in the previous 6-month ceasefire.<br />
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To protect the delicate status of the negotiations from “peace spoilers”, the two sides agreed not to make any statements to the press until substantial progress had been achieved. In the face of such a looming advance in the peace talks, why did Duterte torpedo all the painstaking efforts of his own peace panel by issuing such seemingly rash and brash statements?<br />
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Duterte blamed the CPP/NPA for continuing attacks against the AFP and PNP that victimized civilians caught in the crossfire. But since there is no existing ceasefire of any kind, such clashes are bound to happen. Objectively speaking, there are ongoing peace negotiations precisely because there is an ongoing armed conflict.<br />
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NDFP pointed out that so many innocent civilians, accused to be NPA or supporting the NPA, had been killed in the course of the GRP’s counterinsurgency campaign but the NDFP had never made this a reason for abandoning the talks.<br />
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Subsequently Duterte said that the CPP/NPA/NDFP were making demands that he could not accede to. He made reference to how his order to release 19 NDFP consultants had been very generous and had been met with stern disapproval by the AFP and DND top officials. (Duterte had earlier said that he could not release a significant number of political prisoners since he would lose bargaining chips in the peace negotiations.) Duterte’s reneging on his promise to release political prisoners as repeatedly discussed and agreed upon in the first to the fourth round of talks, stands as the major obstacle to the implementation of what had been agreed upon in the most recent backchannel talks.<br />
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On November 21, Duterte issued Memorandum No. 16 directing the NEDA to “exert utmost efforts to lift or ease restrictions on certain investment areas … with limited foreign participation”. This memorandum goes against the CASER provision on national industrialization agreed upon in the bilateral meetings. So it would appear that the GRP’s economic managers, with Duterte’s approval, have never had any intention of being bound by the CASER.<br />
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Duterte’s latest explanation is that the NDFP was demanding that the GRP form a “coalition government” with it, something he could not give as this would be tantamount to an infringement on the sovereignty of the GRP. A quick fact check however shows that it was Duterte who first made mention of his willingness to offer a “coalition government” with the NDFP as an outcome of the peace negotiations. Moreover, in none of the drafts on PCR that the NDFP has submitted to the GRP does the term “coalition government” ever appear.<br />
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In reality, Duterte’s explanations as to why he has cancelled talks with the NDFP just don’t wash. One must look at other developments and context to find the answers.<br />
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For one, Duterte has unfolded as completely reactionary despite his posturing as a Leftist and a socialist and lately, his threat to impose a “revolutionary government”. He has not implemented a single one of the socio-economic reforms he promised. He has upheld the vested interests of the oligarchs and foreign big business. Despite sidling up to China and Russia to ask for economic and military aid, Duterte’s “independent foreign policy” has not changed lopsided economic, political and military relations with the US. And his much vaunted “war on drugs” has only served to satisfy his bloodlust for small time drug users and pushers while suspected drug lords like his son go scot free.<br />
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For another, Duterte’s authoritarian bent and militarism has become fully unmasked. He brooks no criticism. He is vindictive and uses his vast powers as president to go after his perceived enemies. He would use the state’s full coercive powers – the police, the military, the justice system – in a spree of extrajudicial killing, in declaring an unwarranted martial law, in destroying Marawi City purportedly to crush ISIS-inspired terrorists, in ratcheting up counterinsurgency operations against the NPA and in cracking down on activists and all opposition. His solution to deeply entrenched social problems is a mailed fist.<br />
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Duterte is now itching to declare a “revolutionary government” that is nothing but an open fascist dictatorship. It stands to reason that there is no room for peace negotiations in such a dire scenario. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
27 November 2017<br />
<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-8170429334520499062017-10-17T12:53:00.000+08:002017-10-17T12:53:02.391+08:00 “Modernization” for whom?When once Philippine jeepneys were iconic testaments to Filipino ingenuity, resourcefulness and folk art, the erstwhile “King of the Road” is now derided by government as a backward and inefficient mode of mass transport, polluting and unsafe, their drivers an undisciplined lot commonly viewed as perennial violators of traffic rules and regulations.<br />
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Thus the need for a modernization program to phase-out old, smoke-belching, unroadworthy jeeps to make way for new versions with safer design and up-to-standard engines that emit less air pollutants. In tandem with the replacement of the old public utility vehicles (PUVs) will be a “fleet management system” wherein a minimum of 10 PUV units and operators will be consolidated under a single franchise to make operations more efficient.<br />
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Sounds rational and laudable. Why then the stiff opposition from a majority of jeepney drivers and operators?<br />
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For one, the threat of economic dislocation is real for hundreds of thousands of jeepney drivers and operators nationwide who have depended on this mode of transport for decades to earn their livelihood and support their families. <br />
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Very few operators will be able to raise the PHP 1.2 to PHP 1.6 million-peso investment in the new PUV units required under the modernization program. With the added requirement of 10 units per new franchise, all the more the cost will be prohibitive for existing small-time operators, many of whom are driver-operators of single units. On top of all this, the new PUVs are required to use beep cards and install a Global Positioning System or GPS, CCTV, Wi-Fi, dashboard camera and speed limiter – gadgets that many private vehicles do not have.<br />
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Jeepneys are actually a legacy of the post-WWII recovery period when mechanics like Leonardo Sarao thought of retrofitting US Army jeeps into passenger jeepneys. They are a vestige of the backward preindustrial economy that exists to the present. <br />
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While private cars have always been for the use of the well-off, jeepneys and tricycles are not primarily for personal use but as an income-generating venture. Diesel engines can be maintained indefinitely so long as properly done. The jeepney is a hardy vehicle that can withstand the rigors of unpaved or potholed roads, extremely hot weather or typhoons, perennial flooding and overloading.<br />
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In an economy that cannot generate sufficient jobs with decent earnings that can support a family, driving a jeepney has become an attractive and viable option for many of the unemployed or underemployed. For those with some savings such as overseas Filipino workers, operating one or two jeepneys as PUVs, has been an affordable micro enterprise.<br />
If the LTFRB could sympathize with the plight of driver-operators of Uber when it imposed an order on the company to temporarily cease operations because of violations of government regulations, why can’t it sympathize with the plight of hundreds of thousands of driver-operators of jeepneys who have it even worse since most live hand-to-mouth.<br />
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Any attempt to improve and upgrade the jeepney as a mode of transport can not be premised on destroying the livelihood of drivers and operators then leaving them and their families to somehow fend for themselves. But there’s the rub. The modernization progam is actually a plan to junk jeepneys and to render their drivers and operators extinct. <br />
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The program is matched to government’s Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) Program started during the last months of Benigno Aquino and continued by Duterte. CARS aims to revitalize local car manufacturing by giving PHP 27 billion in tax credits to 3 selected foreign car manufacturers who will invest in assembly plants in the country. The tax incentives will be indexed on how much of the car components are sourced locally and on the volume of cars to be produced. Two Japanese multinational firms have already been chosen, Toyota and Mitsubishi. The CARS program is expected to roll out 600,000 cars over a six-year period. <br />
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So it appears that government is actually creating a market in the public transport sector for multinational corporations and their domestic partners engaged in the local assembly of foreign-branded cars and the marketing of assorted electronic gadgets.<br />
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At the same time the “fleet management system” lends itself to the take over by companies with big capitalization of what used to be a viable enterprise for small entrepreneurs such as driver-operators. Of course, cooperatives can also be formed by the latter but it appears that government is not making this option attractive nor easy for them.<br />
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Thus the oft-repeated complaint that mass transport in the Philippines is rapidly being “corporatized”, i.e. gobbled up by private corporations and run for profit, in line with government policy of privatizing what should be state-run and subsidized public services. The thing is, our experience with the badly-run train systems in Metro Manila – the MRT and LRT – gives the lie to unwarranted claims that the privatization cum corporatization thrust will give the commuting public a safe, reliable, affordable and comfortable ride. <br />
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If the forced displacement of transport workers is not a socially just solution to the problem of mass transport, what is? We opine that the answer is a public transport system set up and run by government to provide an essential social service and not as a profit-making venture of private companies. <br />
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The transition to this system should absorb those adversely affected by reforms in the transport sector such as jeepney drivers and operators. It will create a market for locally manufactured vehicles, particularly those intended for mass transport, as part of a genuine national industrialization program that envisions forward and backward integration, not just the assembly or reassembly of knocked down vehicle parts imported from abroad. And last but not the least, it includes the rationalization, if not regulation, of the sale of private motor vehicles that are increasingly clogging the streets of Metro Manila and other major urban centers.<br />
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The traffic congestion and anarchy in our streets can not be blamed solely on jeepneys. Car sales have been boosted by easy financing for use in Uber and Grab and private car owners trying to get around the color coding system. Meanwhile there is still no well-thought out and efficiently-run public transport system using modern and affordable technology what with the current short-sightedness, corruption and for-profit orientation of government.<br />
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The 2-day jeepney strike being led by PISTON and its affiliates nationwide this Monday and Tuesday is a legitimate form of protest for a legitimate grievance. It may be disruptive and a bane to commuters but it can also serve as wake-up call for policy makers and managers of the transport sector, traffic management, and even economic managers to come up with socially just solutions to real problems. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
18 October 2017<br />
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<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-13394567354101764562017-10-03T23:30:00.003+08:002017-10-03T23:30:38.303+08:00Authoritarian creep (pun intended)*When President Rodrigo Duterte says something really outrageous then it backfires or he is proven to be lying or at least dissembling, he uses several tricks to get away with it.<br />
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He or his apologists say he was just joking and because we are so gullible, we are asking for it. Or they say he just loves to use hyperbole to stress a point and his listeners should learn to discern when to take his word for it and when not to.<br />
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His damage-control crew says he was merely misunderstood and taken out of context. So Duterte modifies his previous statements with qualifiers to make what was patently unacceptable, even illegal and morally reprehensible, pass for a justifiable position or policy pronouncement.<br />
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He or his alter egos may simply say the exact opposite of what he previously said, without batting an eye, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for the highest official of the land to make contradictory statements. At one point, Duterte was forced to admit that he manufactured supposed foreign bank accounts of Senator Trillanes, an unmitigated lie that he lamely excused as a “bait” to catch his tormentor.<br />
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When all else fails, he and his henchmen resort to bullying, Duterte style.<br />
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The president and his copycat officials use abusive and insulting language and character assassination to brutalize their targets into fear and submission. This also works to distract people’s attention and muddle the issues.<br />
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He and his subalterns accuse those who point out his inconsistencies, factual errors and even outright falsehoods as being biased or just plain stupid.<br />
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Those who criticize Duterte’s “war on drugs” because of wanton human rights violations are either harebrained coddlers of illicit drug users and traffickers or perpetrators of such unsavory activities themselves deserving of the same deadly treatment.<br />
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Those wary of the Duterte regime’s use of strong-arm tactics to solve pockets of armed rebellion in Muslim Mindanao and the long-running communist-led armed struggle nationwide, as well as his open admiration for the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and complicity in the political rehabilitation of the Marcoses, are labelled either “reds” or “yellows” out to destabilize his regime and ultimately oust him from Malacañang.<br />
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Duterte taunted organizers of the huge protest demonstration held last September 21, on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of Marcos’ declaration of martial law, as either “yellows riding on reds” or “reds riding on yellows”. He then ended up declaring a “National Day of Protest” where he ludicrously claimed he was one with the protesters (against himself?).<br />
Not only did Duterte cancel classes and close government offices to prevent any massing up of students and employees that could be mobilized for the protests that day, local government officials were told to hold a counter rally at Mendiola near Malacañang while rabid pro-Duterte groups held another one at Plaza Miranda. The government-organized rallies were small and anemic compared to the tens of thousands of impassioned demonstrators gathered at Luneta Park and many other cities all over the country.<br />
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Duterte’s creeping authoritarianism consisted first and foremost in ensuring the military’s canine loyalty by plying them with funds, perks and privileges, awards and personal visits. He keeps a tight rein on the police forces by a system of rewards and promotions and promised impunity for extrajudicial killings committed in the course of the “war on drugs”.<br />
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The overwhelming dominance of Duterte’s henchmen and lapdogs in Congress and in local government units was only a matter of Malacañang paying each opportunist politician’s price for their blind obedience and cooperation.<br />
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Duterte has also packed the civilian bureaucracy with retired generals and lower ranking former military men to the extent that he wryly quipped there was actually no need to declare martial law because the military was already very much in control of his government.<br />
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Now Duterte is after the remaining pillars of the remaining liberal democratic façade. His business cronies are extending their tentacles onto the mass media even as he threatens with closure those outlets he considers anti-Duterte. His supermajority in the Lower House attempted to emasculate the Commission on Human Rights (chaired by a known ally of former President B.S. Aquino and vocal critic of the “war on drugs”) by giving it a measly budget of 1000 pesos. This craven move was only defeated by a strong public outcry.<br />
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Two Supreme Court justices have been the objects of Duterte’s ire. One is Justice Carpio for his sharp criticism of Duterte’s policy of appeasing China by reneging on the assertion of Philippine sovereignty over disputed areas in the West Philippine Sea. Another is Chief Justice Sereno over her being perceived as another “yellow” loyalist what with her speeches critical of the Duterte regime’s lack of adherence to the rule of law. The latter is the subject of an impeachment move and Duterte is slyly utilizing contradictions within the Court to further pressure Sereno.<br />
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Most recently, Duterte renewed his verbal attacks against the Office of the Ombudsman, not only because Ombudsman Morales is another “yellow” appointee but her office has acted on the complaint of Senator Trillanes regarding the alleged ill-gotten wealth amassed by Duterte and his two children, Davao Mayor Sara Duterte and Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte.<br />
Duterte has gone ballistic, threatening to set up a so-called “independent commission” that will investigate alleged corruption in the Ombudsman’s Office.<br />
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It now appears that Duterte is not just “onion-skinned” as some critics say, but highly vulnerable to charges of graft and corruption himself. He was able to skirt this issue during the presidential campaign. Now his carefully crafted image as a longtime mayor who was incorruptible and maintained his modest means may be blown apart if he is unable to stop the Ombudsman’s investigations. Even though Duterte may not be charged while in office, the political damage caused by these investigations could impact on the stability of his regime.<br />
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Such an outcome could be anybody’s guess but it will take more than Duterte’s bluster this time around to save his fast ebbing credibility. #<br />
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*Thanks to Sonny Africa who first used the term in his blog post.<br />
Published in Business World<br />
3 October 2017Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-28721836661733773592017-10-03T23:29:00.004+08:002017-10-03T23:29:27.112+08:00Clearing the airOn the eve of the September 21 protests against the Duterte regime, it has become necessary to clear the air of certain misconceptions as well as false judgments against the Left that stand in the way of forging a broad unity across the political spectrum.<br />
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To those who denigrate the Left, or more specifically, the national democratic movement, for having given Duterte the benefit of the doubt in his claim to being a Leftist and a socialist despite a checkered record as Davao City mayor, allow me to say this.<br />
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There was good reason to do so: Duterte’s solemn promise to release all political prisoners through amnesty; the resumption of peace talks; the appointment of four progressive, competent and upright individuals to the Cabinet; his stance on ending contractualization, upping SSS pension for seniors, land to the tiller, prioritizing public spending on education, health care, and other social services; his openness to dialogue with the Left on various issues; and his pronouncements to pursue an independent foreign policy.<br />
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On the other hand, there was also Duterte’s mailed-fist policy on crime and drugs; his sexism; the preponderance of crooks, militarists, neoliberals and pro-US imperialists in his Cabinet; more-of-the-same neoliberal economic policy frame, policies and programs; and not least of all, his alliance with the Marcoses and former President Gloria Arroyo.<br />
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The Left decided to gamble on Duterte, to give him time to deliver on his promises and to prove his Leftist leanings. But the leeway that the Left gave to Duterte did not preclude sharply criticizing and vigorously opposing his administration’s anti-people, anti-national policies and programs.<br />
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The open democratic mass movement was unrelenting in doing so in several venues -- the parliament of the streets, the mass media, the courts and even in the Lower House of Congress where the Left has a miniscule number.<br />
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Restraint was shown only by distinguishing between Duterte and the ultrareactionaries in his Cabinet especially his economic managers and the triad of Lorenzana- Año-Esperon. For more than a year no effigies of Duterte were burned at demonstrations. Instead the Left met with him on several occasions to bring up the grievances of urban poor, the lumad of Mindanao, striking workers and land reform beneficiaries.<br />
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The armed revolutionaries under the CPP-NPA-NDFP continued to wage people’s war – armed struggle, agrarian revolution, and a shadow people’s government operating in the countryside. While initially expressing willingness to contribute to Duterte’s campaign against drug trafficking by interdicting drug lords, the CPP-NPA declared early on that they would not be a party to the kind of brutal war being waged against hapless drug addicts and small-time drug pushers.<br />
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In a short period of time, the true character of Duterte begun to reveal itself.<br />
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Duterte veered more and more to the Right: EJKs galore combined with impunity for the police and military perpetrators; all-out war against the CPP-NPA with bombardments and displacement of thousands of peasants and indigenous peoples; a militarist response to the Marawi crisis leading to the city’s destruction, civilian casualties, the exodus of the populace; the extension of martial law in Mindanao; political persecution of critics and oppositionists; attempts to neutralize government institutions that can act as a check to his tyrannical rule; the scuttling of peace talks; kowtowing to China and maintaining a modus vivendi with the US; a humongous budget going to the failed “war on drugs”, counterinsurgency, the president’s intelligence fund and building a grassroots spy network while gutting the budget of the Human Rights Commission; looming mind-boggling corrupt infrastructure deals with the “build,build,build” frenzy; coddling of pork barrel-hungry legislators; cover up of billions worth of smuggling of shabu involving his son and son-in-law; and the list goes on.<br />
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Things finally came to a head leading to the NPA’s intensification of armed tactical offensives against the military and police upon the declaration of martial law in Mindanao. This year’s State-of-the-Nation protests denounced the US-backed Duterte fascist regime. Duterte’s effigies are being burned without remorse in demonstration after demonstration.<br />
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The brazen summary execution by the police of several youths in urban poor communities sparked public outrage. Progressive church organizations and other national democratic mass organizations mounted mass protests, gave succor and sanctuary to victims, their families and witnesses.<br />
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The rejection of Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano by the Commission on Appointments (CA) manifested Duterte’s utter lack of support for them. He just let the CA do the dirty job of kicking them out.<br />
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This was the last straw that led to the decision of the Makabayan Coalition of progressive political parties to bolt from the Supermajority of Duterte allies in the House of Representatives. Nonetheless, even before this move, the Makabayan congresspersons had consistently stood their ground on contentious issues such as martial law, the death penalty, lowering the age of criminal accountability of minors, oppressive tax reform measures, and many, many more.<br />
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There are those who want to place the onus of a fully evolved corrupt, puppet and fascist Duterte on the Left. In doing so, they wish to put the Left on the defensive. The charge or innuendo that the Left “enabled” the Duterte regime is patently wrong even if it appears to be a backhanded compliment to the capability of the Left to shape a reactionary ruling regime.<br />
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There are those who honestly disagreed with giving Duterte the benefit of the doubt that he could or would go in a progressive direction. Yet they acknowledge the reasons for the Left doing so; recognize the Left’s sustained, principled position on issues; and their never giving up the fight for genuine change. They are not making puerile demands that the Left apologize for having been duped by Duterte and they welcome the Left’s earnest efforts to build a strong and broad opposition against the Duterte regime’s EJKS and rising tyranny.<br />
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To the former, we say good luck to your demolition job. To the latter, see you in Luneta on September 21, 4pm. Please wear black, bring an umbrella and your own scathing placards. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
19 September 2017<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-81230103441144215432017-09-10T11:45:00.004+08:002017-09-10T11:47:21.517+08:00 Stirrings<div class="Section0">
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.6667px;">As a political activist, sometimes life seems to be one long meeting, or more precisely, an unending series of meetings. Not that I am complaining. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.6667px;">Last Saturday’s meeting was a good one by the standard of one who has been in countless meetings to discuss issues, analyze problems, decide on a course of action, formulate calls, distill demands and make concrete plans on arousing, organizing and mobilizing as many people as possible to take action.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">This was a meeting of the movers and shakers behind the Movement Against Tyranny that aims to galvanize public sentiment against the epidemic of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the so-called war on drugs and the predilection for strong-arm, tyrannical rule by no less than President Rodrigo Duterte himself.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">There was a good mix of people: a former senator, a bishop and several other men and women of the cloth, traditional and social media practitioners, theater and film artists, human rights defenders, student leaders, teachers, lawyers, physicians, street parliamentarians and plain concerned citizens. Many of them veterans of the struggle against the US-backed Marcos fascist dictatorship. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">The assessment: public outrage over the recent cold-blooded killings of young people by the police marked a qualitative change from the seeming acceptance of the EJKs as par for the course in government’s heightened anti-crime drive. Standard police cover up for the summary execution of their victims – that those killed are drug pushers, they resisted arrest or tried to escape – no longer wash. People are just not buying it anymore. The credibility of the police has hit an all time low.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Malacañang is clearly on damage control mode after attempts by Police Chief De la Rosa, DOJ Secretary Aguirre and even Public Attorney Office (POA) Chief Acosta to discount any pattern to the killings, that these may be the result of state policy. The official line has now evolved from attributing the Kian de los Angeles and Carl Arnaiz cases to police abuse by a “few, rotten eggs” to a grand conspiracy of anti-Duterte forces to sabotage his anti-illegal drugs campaign, much more destabilize the Duterte regime itself.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Paid hacks of the Palace are chortling with glee on the President’s public relations coup in meeting with the parents of Kian and Carl, commiserating with them and promising to render justice, then concluding with hugs and smiles all around. The Duterte Damage Control Team must be congratulating themselves in being able to put out that fire by coopting the victims’ families through fair means and foul. But just as they thought they had things under control, and given the unrelenting pursuit of Oplan Tokhang, new dead bodies come up to rile the public once more.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Meanwhile more crucial witnesses have come forward. The taxi driver who, according to the police, was held up by 19-year-old, former UP student, Carl Arnaiz, later killed in a shoot out with responding police, has surfaced. He sought sanctuary with human rights groups. Now that he is no longer under pressure from Caloocan police, he may be able to tell us what really happened and how Carl was involved.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Other witnesses to the Kian killing (there were plenty because the police did their dirty work in a densely populated, urban poor community) are being actively sought by the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in tandem with the PAO and the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC). Over the weekend, a stand off took place in the residence of Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David when the CIDG-PAO-VACC attempted to take custody of a witness being given sanctuary by the bishop. The witness and family members opted to remain under the protection of Bishop David.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">The Movement is gearing up for a big rally at the Rizal Park, with a broad representation of different classes and sectors in society, on September 21, the 45thanniversary of the declaration of martial law by the Dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. Malacañang has taken note of this mass protest action and is trying to besmear it as part of the moves of the Opposition against Duterte in order to dissuade people from joining.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">The Movement is undeterred and is counting on the coming together of different, even disparate forces and groups, to take a stand and fight a common, malevolent and dangerous enemy – rising tyranny under Duterte.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Slowly, people are waking up from the stupor of demagogic promises that Duterte will resolve the festering problem of drug trafficking in 3 to 6 months especially after his admission that he may not be able to lick the problem even in his remaining 5 years in office.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">One measure is the timely staging of a compendium of plays including musicals on the theme of human rights and civil liberties this month of September. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Taking a break from my regular round of meetings, I watched “Tao Po” a play consisting of four monologues by Mae Paner aka Juana Change, popular actress cum change agent, much sought after for her one-woman tragicomic political satire. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Journalist Inday Espina-Varona’s writes a capsule review: “Mae Juana Change Paner’s ‘Zumba’ segment in ‘Tao Po’ (ongoing at the Cultural Center of the Philippines) will linger in the minds and guts of audiences for a long, long time. The comic touches only leave us wide open to the tragedy of a woman who lost husband and son to ‘Tokhang.’ Playwright Maynard Manansala did a fantastic job there. But it is Mae who carries it off, in a performance of extreme physical, cerebral and emotional challenges. It is ‘Zumba’ that highlight’s ‘Tokhang’s’ real cost to humanity. It is ‘Zumba’ that delivers what Cardinal Tagle wished for – the ‘real face’ of the greatest injustice.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">I personally was struck by the segment on the “double life of a policeman, sworn to uphold the law, and a hitman, paid to violate it.” The irony is that this killer’s class origin is not much different from those of his dirt-poor victims. He is inured to violence at an early age and is recruited into what closely resembles the notorious Davao Death Squad because of the good pay. Part of his indoctrination is the belief that his victims are society’s dregs and are dispensable to make society “safe”. This helps to assuage what little remains of his conscience but he knows the blood of innocents is on his hands even when they are dismissed as nothing more than “collateral damage”.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Perhaps more than the impunity that Duterte promises for those who kill “in the line of duty”, it is the demonization of impoverished drug addicts and small time pushers that impel policemen sworn to “serve and protect” to have such little regard for the sanctity of life. # </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">Published in Business World</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 12.6667px;">11 September 2016</span></span><br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-90562020898748257732017-09-10T11:44:00.001+08:002017-09-10T11:44:48.568+08:00 Justice for Kian, justice for allThe cold-blooded murder of 17-year-old senior high school student, Kian Loyd de los Santos, by Caloocan police, in what President Rodrigo Roa Duterte loudly proclaims as his administration’s unrelenting “war on drugs”, has unleashed a firestorm of protest.<br />
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No, Justice Secretary Aguirre, people are not buying your line that Kian’s killing is an “isolated case” that has been “overblown” by the mass media. Coming on the heels of a spate of killings (74 in just 3 days) in “one time, big time” police operations in the slum areas of Bulacan and Manila, Kian’s death is only unique in that CCTV footage and eyewitnesses point unerringly to his merciless beating and execution by policemen in plainclothes.<br />
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Neither are they buying the incredible story dished out by the police, without an iota of evidence except their say so, that Kian was a drug courier for his father and uncle. After the fact of his killing in the hands of the police, an alleged drug pusher who claims to have had dealings with Kian is trotted out together with allegations of nonspecific incriminating evidence police investigators discovered, again incredibly, in social media.<br />
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Authorities cannot even claim Kian to be the unfortunate but inevitable “collateral damage” of their determined efforts to stamp out the illicit drug trade. Unlike scores of other minors mowed down in Oplan Tokhang and its reinvigorated version, Oplan Double Barrel, who supposedly died in the cross fire, Kian was fatally shot twice in the head, at close range, while prostrate or kneeling, according to official forensic findings.<br />
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Yes, oh yes, President Duterte, this one is on you. You egged your police (actually, even your military, but they are too busy with counter-terrorism cum counter-insurgency operations) to “kill, kill, kill” as your administration kept missing your self-imposed deadline for eradicating the drug problem in three months, then six months, and now you admit, maybe not even till the end of your six-year term of office. (Was it just another foot-in-mouth gaffe or were you dead serious when you lauded the Bulacan police for killing 32 drug suspects in 24 hours and called for such a “fine” example to be emulated by the rest of your police forces.)<br />
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The more the police killed those who they claim to be in some “drug watch list”, Duterte could unabashedly claim progress, if not success, in his brutal “war on drugs”. <br />
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But in light of international criticism of the mounting body count, the police have whittled the official number of police kills down to around 2500, with a similar number being “deaths under investigation” (police speak for killings attributed to vigilantes and/or drug gang rivalry). Nonetheless, mass media and other independent tallies have the running total anywhere between 7000 to more than 10,000.<br />
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A system of quotas and rewards for eliminating small-time drug addicts and pushers apparently is in place thus the propensity for periodic raids on urban poor communities to flush them out or to out rightly kill suspects without affording them any kind of due process.<br />
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Duterte provided the perfect alibi: the police have the right to employ lethal force in self-defense should a suspect resist arrest or is armed and dangerous. The police picked up the cue from their Commander-in-Chief and so invariably, suspects are reportedly killed in a gun battle with the police, the former initiating the encounter by firing a gun. The police in turn are such sharpshooters no matter the lighting or spatial conditions that suspects always get fatally shot. Or if they are brought into custody alive, they invariably try to grab a police escort’s gun and end up getting killed.<br />
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Duterte then promised that with this role play of the police “merely doing their job”, he would protect them from legal prosecution and if convicted, he would pardon them. Such presidential cloak of impunity was proven in the case of Superintendent Marvin Marcos, head of the raiding team that killed alleged drug lord Mayor Rolando Espinosa while in jail. Marcos was reinstated upon Duterte’s direct order to PNP Chief de la Rosa.<br />
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This impunity apparently is also operative in the case of the slaughter by police of the notorious Mayor Parojinog and 14 others, in a shadowy operation to serve a search warrant on a “narcopolitician”. There has been no serious investigation on this case and Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido who led the assault team will likely get a promotion in short order. (He already enjoyed being lionized in the media as someone who got some big fish in the anti-drug war.)<br />
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Duterte has been encouraged by the seeming general public approval, if not praise, for his actions. He hit on a nerve -- society’s fear of heinous crimes being committed by shabu-crazed addicts or even just neighborhood addicts cum toughies lording it over their unpoliced communities. He had promised to end it swiftly, if brutally.<br />
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But only the bad guys were supposed to bear the full brunt of the Duterte regime’s “war on drugs” and maybe an acceptable number of “collateral damage”. And even if disturbing evidence of the extra judicial killings were splashed on television screens, the front page of newspapers and the internet, the public was lulled into thinking that the victims were society’s dregs and were thus dispensable.<br />
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Until the killing of Kian Loyd de los Santos. A teen-ager who had dreams of being a policeman someday. The eldest child of an OFW mother slaving away in Saudi Arabia to support her children and a father tending a small sari-sari store to make ends meet. A grade 11 student who begged the plainclothes policemen who were beating him up to please stop as he had an examination the following day. An ordinary fellow with no record and no reputation in the neighborhood of being involved with illegal drugs in any way. A right-handed person who supposedly shot at the police with his left hand.<br />
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Whose ordeal was caught on CCTV and seen by several witnesses.<br />
Thus he became Everyman – any poor but struggling parents’ son – minding his own business yet finding himself in the crosshairs of the Duterte regime’s “war on drugs”. This is exemplified in the social media post #IAmKian.<br />
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All of a sudden there is widespread outrage and dismay. Kian’s murder has unlocked the Pandora’s box of official deception about the effectiveness of the “war on drugs” and of the official cover-up of the horrible crimes being committed in its name. <br />
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The public outcry is simple and straightforward: Stop the killings! Justice for Kian, justice for all! To achieve these demands there is the urgent need to expose the mastermind and make him ultimately accountable. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
28 August 2017<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-77831256701559184072017-08-15T18:51:00.000+08:002017-08-15T18:51:21.950+08:00No love lost between Duterte and the LeftOne need not be such a keen observer of Philippine politics to note the quite dramatic deterioration in the relationship between the Left and President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, self-styled “Leftist” and “socialist” president of the Philippines.<br />
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At the beginning, a de facto tactical alliance existed between the two. It was premised on Duterte’s promise that he would bring about a real change in government. For the Left, foremost was the release of all political prisoners, peace talks to arrive at fundamental socio-economic and political reforms and an independent foreign policy to reverse decades of US neocolonial domination.<br />
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A year later, Duterte has reneged on his promise to amnesty all political prisoners and has practically, if not formally, scuttled the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. He is brandishing what he thinks is a more formidable “all-out war” against the CPP-NPA-NDFP topped by a martial law declaration in Mindanao, targeting what the AFP claims to be the movement’s strongest base of operations.<br />
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For the Left, Duterte has emerged as a full-blown reactionary president, a fascist defender of the exploitative and oppressive status quo, while still trying to deceive the people with token, populist measures and an image of being tough against corruption and criminality.<br />
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The signal fire, in retrospect, was when Duterte collapsed the 5th round of GRP-NDFP peace talks saying that he would not pursue negotiations unless the CPP-NPA-NDFP entered into an indefinite bilateral ceasefire. Echoing the hawkish line of his security officials, Duterte said talks can not go anywhere if the NPA continues to launch attacks against the AFP and engages in “criminal extortion” or what the CPP-NPA calls “revolutionary taxation”.<br />
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But what supposedly got Duterte’s ire was the directive of the CPP leadership to the NPA to intensify its tactical offensives against the military and police upon the declaration of martial law in Mindanao. Glossed over is the fact that no ceasefire was in effect at that time because the Duterte government failed to declare a unilateral ceasefire before the 4th round of talks even though the two sides had earlier agreed upon a simultaneous declaration of unilateral ceasefires.<br />
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The preconditioning of the peace talks to an open-ended ceasefire before any bilateral agreement on socio-economic reforms had been reached not only violates previous agreements that the Duterte government affirmed when it revived talks with the NDFP, bottom line is that the GRP wants the revolutionary movement to agree to its voluntary pacification in exchange for nothing. In effect, to surrender on the negotiating table as a prelude to surrendering in the battle field without achieving any meaningful reforms through a supposedly negotiated political settlement.<br />
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It appears that the NDFP Negotiating Panel tried its best to salvage the situation by proposing ways of easing pressure on the Duterte government with the onset of the Marawi crisis.<br />
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Unfortunately, Duterte quickly swung Rightward. He allowed the militarist troika of Lorenzana-Año-Esperon to lead the way, not only in dealing with the ISIS-inspired Maute rebellion in Lanao province by aerial and artillery bombardment leading to the destruction of Marawi City, but in pursuing the government’s counterinsurgency program against the CPP-NPA-NDFP, this time utilizing the vast powers of martial law in all of Mindanao to tamp down any opposition.<br />
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Flush with the imprimatur given by the Supreme Court to the imposition of martial law in Mindanao, Duterte railroaded its extension until yearend via a pliant Congress. Independent reporting on the continuing devastation of Marawi City and its after effects is virtually impossible with the military controlling all sources of information. Heightened human rights violations in other parts of Mindanao have been swept under the rug.<br />
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The direct involvement of the US Armed Forces in the military campaign against the Maute Group has been welcomed and justified by Duterte despite his posture that he is against US intervention in the country’s internal affairs. (Apparently he was only referring to US criticism of his bloody anti-illegal drugs campaign).<br />
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His anti-US tirades have softened of late and been replaced with friendly meetings with the US ambassador and US Secretary of State; echoing the US line against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; and reports of an agreement to allow armed US drones to strike at ISIS and other “terrorist” targets.<br />
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Clearly the ISIS “threat” is being overblown as an excuse to prolong martial law and possibly even expand it outside Mindanao. It is also providing the rational for expanding US military presence in the country and steadily growing US military involvement in armed conflicts labelled as “terrorist”.<br />
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Duterte’s attempt to appear conciliatory when he addressed the Left-led SONA protest failed to mollify the protesters who persistently chanted their calls for genuine reforms, an end to martial law and the continuation of peace talks. Duterte was forced to end his pretense at openness and departed in a huff.<br />
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Duterte’s speeches have become consistently virulent against not just the revolutionary Left but also political and social activists who are leading the fight for reforms. He threatened to bomb lumad schools that he said were NPA schools. He said he would not hesitate to use violence against militant urban poor if they again tried to occupy abandoned public housing. He rained invectives on activists and said he would not heed their demands even if they resorted to non-stop protest in the streets. <br />
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In response, activists are stepping up their opposition to what they now call the “US-Duterte fascist regime”.<br />
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What is interesting is that Duterte has not fired 3 Leftist Cabinet members despite the downward spiral of relations with the Left. For one he has no basis to kick them out except that they are identified with the Left. For another, they are no threat to him; in fact, one might say they are objectively helping to deodorize his regime by just doing their jobs competently and consistent with their pro-people stand.<br />
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Neither have the 3 tendered their resignations to the wonderment of those who tend to think the Left one-track minded and monolithic. Perhaps this is all that remains of what once was a promising alliance between Duterte and the Left. A tenuous bridge for communications before all hell breaks loose.<br />
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# Published in Business World<br />
15 August 2017<br />
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<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-65383271399488201782017-07-30T15:26:00.004+08:002017-07-30T15:26:28.439+08:00Unmasking DuterteThese days, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is turning out to be his own worst enemy. <br />
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He cannot keep himself from rambling on and on, revealing his bloodlust, megalomania, contempt for objectivity and truth, small-mindedness and bigotry, gullibility for the “intelligence” briefings by the AFP and the propensity for using strong-arm techniques to get his way.<br />
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A year ago, at the beginning of Duterte’s presidency, his crassness seemed to be just an idiosyncratic style born of his being an uncouth politician from the boondocks, used to the rough-and-tumble and straight-talking ways of those who are reared in the frontiers of Mindanao. <br />
Many ordinary folk found him engaging, even refreshingly tactless, hence appearing to be honest and sincere. <br />
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What was important is that he promised to wipe out the illicit drugs trade in 3 to 6months by means of a bloody “war on drugs”; zero tolerance for graft and corruption; a stop to the practice of “endo” (end-of-contract) that undermined workers’ security of tenure; easing the burden of taxation while spending more on social services for the poor; siding with landless peasants in their fight against the landed oligarchy; an end to the despoilment of the environment through large-scale mining; to release all political prisoners and stop the policy and practice of criminalizing political offenses; and to top it all, bring about a negotiated, peaceful settlement of armed conflicts by engaging in peace talks. He also did the unexpected by appointing 3 avowed Leftists in his Cabinet.<br />
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High hopes abounded as well as serious misgivings. The revolutionary and progressive forces on the Left of the political spectrum decided to give Duterte a chance to prove his claims to being the first “Leftist” and “socialist” President.<br />
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While long-time mayor of Davao City, traces of his Leftist background surfaced in so far as 1) he acknowledged the CPP-NPA as a political entity born of endemic poverty and oppression; 2) he had a modus vivendi with the CPP-NPA with regard to their de facto existence as a shadow government, including their collection of revolutionary taxes and punitive actions against exploitative and oppressive businesses; 3) he did not consider “all-out war” as the correct or even viable solution to insurgency; 4) he maintained open lines of communication with the CPP-NPA 5) he upheld the human rights of rebels and political activists; 5) he asserted political independence versus US military intrusions in Davao City; 6) he welcomed peace negotiations as a means of resolving armed conflicts by addressing their root causes in unjust socio-economic and political structures.<br />
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A short year later, Duterte is close to fully unfolding towards the Right. Whatever background of activism in his youth has become overwhelmed by the conservatism of his adult years as a politician in the mold of a bureaucrat capitalist until winning the presidency and becoming CEO of the reactionary state.<br />
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President Duterte has scuttled peace talks by insisting on an indefinite, bilateral ceasefire even before reaching a comprehensive agreement on socio-economic reforms (CASER). Duterte not only failed to fulfill his promise to amnesty and release all political prisoners, he continued his regime’s brutal counterinsurgency program including the bombardment of civilian communities suspected to be supportive of the CPP-NPA and the targeted killings of unarmed activists.<br />
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He resorts to lies and ad hominem attacks on NDFP Chief Political Consultant and CPP Founding Chairperson Joma Sison to belittle, insult and dismiss him as a revolutionary leader. He parrots the worn-out AFP line demonizing the CPP-NPA as terrorists and plain criminals extorting from the people and businesses.<br />
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Duterte is in over his head. His conceit is that his overrated stint in Davao City provides him the blueprint for dealing with the complexities of the country’s historical ills. He misrepresents authoritarianism for political will and resort to mass murder and bullying tactics for decisive leadership. <br />
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Duterte’s opportunistic alliances with the Marcoses and ex-President Gloria Arroyo, his over dependence on the pro-US, militarist troika of Lorenzana-Año-Esperon and pandering to the AFP and PNP to preempt a coup attempt by his rivals — all these reveal that he is indeed an ultra-reactionary contrary to his self-delusional pose as a “leftist”. <br />
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But as a Marcos wannabe, Duterte lacks sophistication. His expressed intention to bomb lumad schools as a counterinsurgency measure makes him vulnerable to charges of genocide and other war crimes. His demagoguery is repetitive and tiresome. His resort to martial law in Mindanao and the destruction of Marawi City to deal with the disastrous Mamasapano-like police operation against Isnilon Hapilon is a testament to his incompetence and brutality as a commander-in-chief.<br />
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Duterte’s “war on drugs” is an unmitigated failure. It’s outcome: an unending body count of alleged small-time drug users and dealers, victims of extrajudicial killing by police and touted vigilantes incited on their murderous killing spree by no less than President Duterte. Impunity reigns with Duterte shielding the police establishment that he once described as “rotten to the core” from investigation by the Commission on Human Rights and the Ombudsman. A police official, coincidentally surnamed Marcos, who stands accused of murdering a suspected drug lord while in jail has been reinstated and will soon be eligible for promotion upon the specific instruction of no less than President Duterte.<br />
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Duterte’s economic policies and programs have not departed from the failed policies of his predecessors in keeping the economy backward and the majority of the people eking out a precarious existence with no stable sources of livelihood or forced to take their chances working overseas. His resort to dole-outs, including one-time subsidies for higher education, is unsustainable. Social services like housing and health care remain unaffordable, of poor quality and inadequate. Whatever economic growth benefits foreign multinationals, their domestic business partners and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.<br />
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Finally, Duterte has maintained his off-and-on diatribe against the US, citing its track record as a brutal colonizer of the Philippines and as an exponent of wars of aggression against sovereign countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. His tirades intensify as criticisms from US quarters of his regime’s bloody war on drugs intensifies and as the US government hedges on the delivery of armaments and other forms of military aid. <br />
But as the US well knows, Duterte is not about to touch any of the lopsided military agreements such as EDCA and the VFA that allows US military presence on Philippine soil and power projection in the Asia Pacific region.<br />
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Meanwhile, Duterte’s courtship of China for loans and investments is leading us to debt peonage to a new master and abandonment of our sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea.<br />
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The Duterte regime is headed towards complete unmasking and isolation as anti-people unless it drastically changes course. Unfortunately, there are few signs that this can or will happen. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
31 July 2017<br />
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<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-91427511939870234602017-07-11T09:10:00.002+08:002017-07-11T09:10:12.608+08:00Repeating history“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” - George Santayana<br />
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There are those who want us to forget the bitter lessons of martial law and the Marcos dictatorship. They say these hard-earned lessons should be discarded as irrelevant to our current situation because the threat of ISIS-inspired extremism is real and only martial law can stop it.<br />
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There is also the claim that President Rodrigo Duterte is motivated only by the desire to save the country from “terrorists” and the menace of illegal drugs. To do so, he has not hesitated in using the full might of the state — martial law — in order to finally slay these evils as no other previous administration has been able to.<br />
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We go back to the first lesson of martial law under the Marcos dictatorship: a mailed-fist approach to quash rebellions, much more revolutionary struggles, espousing causes that resonate with and draw support from the people — is bound to fail.<br />
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Even as we condemn terrorist activities that do nothing but violate human rights and harm civilians, we cannot turn a blind eye to the historical, socio-economic and political roots of the armed conflicts among the BangsaMoro.<br />
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Assuming for the sake of argument that ISIS-inspired or even ISIS-funded rebel forces are active in Mindanao, it still cannot be denied that these are the offspring, albeit illegitimate, of the centuries-old oppression and discrimination suffered by the Moro people. <br />
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It is well known that some of them, such as the Maute Group and the BangsaMoro Islamic Freedom Forces or BIFF, broke away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), because they perceived the latter as abandoning the fight for self-determination in exchange for a flawed peace agreement with the government.<br />
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The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) initially also claimed to have a political agenda akin to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the oldest armed secessionist force in Muslim Mindanao, but eventually deteriorated into a bandit group notorious for its kidnap-for-ransom activities. Recall that Senator Aquilino Pimentel had exposed the dubious origins of the ASG, a likely creation of the AFP and CIA in order to sow dissension among the MNLF as well as to undermine its political legitimacy. <br />
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Curiously, the government, especially the AFP, has always diminished the threat posed by these groups. We were told that these are small groups operating in circumscribed areas with narrow support from the Moro populace. At the onset of the operation to capture alleged ASG leader Isnilon Hapilon in Marawi City, the connection of these groups with the dreaded Daesh or ISIS in Iraq and Syria, was at best tenuous. (The AFP repeatedly said these groups merely claimed allegiance to ISIS in a bid to boost its fearsome reputation and perhaps acquire foreign funding.)<br />
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President Duterte says he recognizes the legitimacy of the MILF and MNLF as representing the nationalist aspirations of the BangsaMoro. He has nothing but contempt for the combined Maute Group/ASG/BIFF forces he categorizes as “terrorist” with no redeeming value.<br />
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Unfortunately he had been led to believe that the latter exist in a vacuum or have sprung up out of nowhere due to an evil, fanatical, foreign-inspired ideology. In the beginning of the Marawi siege, it appears he had been led to believe that these groups were an inconsequential number and could be crushed militarily in a matter of weeks so long as the armed forces of the state are given free rein.<br />
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But this was not to be. The ferocity and protractedness of the fighting shows how much the AFP had underestimated the rebel groups in Marawi City. The recourse to bombardment of the city to flush out what seems to be an elastic number of rebels has led to its destruction and depopulation with hundreds of casualties and no clear end in sight.<br />
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These subsequent developments served to bolster the argument for martial law in Marawi City and even adjoining provinces, but why the recourse to it in the entirety of Mindanao?<br />
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Defense Secretary Lorenzana admitted at the press conference in Russia that “other rebel groups” including the New People’s Army was also a target. GRP chief negotiator Bello countered Lorenzana’s seeming slip of the tongue only as a prelude to chastising the CPP-NPA’s call for intensification of tactical offensives against government forces in response to martial law.<br />
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This was followed by a chorus of peace spoilers questioning the NDFP’s sincerity in the ongoing peace talks. It is a line repeated ad nauseam in the mass media as the trigger for Duterte’s decision to withdraw the GRP negotiating panel from the 5th round of talks. It conveniently obfuscates the fact that martial law was indeed intended and in actuality is being used against the CPP-NPA and communities suspected to be under its sway. <br />
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In fact, with the acquiescence of Congress to Proclamation 216 and the imprimatur of the Supreme Court, the AFP has become more openly assertive about targeting the NPA. While Duterte has not withdrawn his “all-out-war” declaration against the CPP-NPA since February and has now cloaked the military’s abuses with the “legality” of martial law, Lorenzana has the gall to call for the collapse of the peace talks citing recent NPA tactical offensives.<br />
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Duterte’s martial law is actually the anti-thesis of his touted “movement for change”. In the hands of the pro-US militarists in the Duterte regime, it is being used as an extraordinary tool for fascist repression. The thousands of extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s ruthless “war on drugs” is a portent of what is bound to happen in the intensified “war on terror” under martial law.<br />
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It would be foolhardy to think DUterte was merely engaging in hyperbole when he said that like Marcos’s martial rule, his would be just as “brutal”.<br />
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Should Duterte extend martial law beyond 60 days and/or expand its coverage to the rest of the country, he will be dooming any remaining reformist impetus in his regime. In so doing, he will also doom the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations already in limbo because of the GRP’s insistence on a premature bilateral ceasefire before any agreements on basic socio-economic reforms and Duterte’s policy of holding political prisoners hostage to the NDFP’s capitulation.<br />
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And yet the second major lesson from Marcos’ martial law comes to the fore. Rather than douse the flames of rebellion and revolution, martial law can only fuel more armed and unarmed resistance.<br />
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In fact, Marcos’ martial law was said to be the number one recruiter of the New People’s Army. <br />
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The US-backed Marcos dictatorship was eventually ousted from power by a people roused by its rapacity, brutality and mendacity.<br />
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Martial law could indeed be the harbinger of a revolutionary upsurge that could seriously challenge, weaken and even bring down a completely reactionary and isolated Duterte regime. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
10 July 2017<br />
<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-247395006599569402017-07-11T09:08:00.003+08:002017-07-11T09:08:40.199+08:00Dealing with DuterteWe have been getting “I-told-you-so” and “why-do-you-still-put-up-with-him” reactions from quite a number of well-meaning people here and abroad after President Rodrigo Roa Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao and withdrew the government negotiating panel form the 5th round of peace talks with the NDFP effectively causing its collapse.<br />
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As far as they are concerned, President Duterte and his regime are not so much as “unfolding” but more of “unravelling”. Now a quick explanation on the difference between the two as applied to the Duterte phenomenon and as it is currently being used in the Left’s parlance.<br />
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“Unfolding” essentially means Duterte can either turn more to the Left or the Right in so far as his policies and actuations depending on several key factors and developments. “Unravelling” means he is what he is - a conventional/traditional politician who has managed to reach the top of the heap and is now the CEO of the reactionary ruling system - ergo he will inevitably reveal himself as such despite his claim that he is “Leftist” and “socialist”.<br />
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The implications of whether one leans to the “unfolding” or the “unravelling” scenario is crucial because it informs one’s attitude towards the Duterte regime and how one deals with him.<br />
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After Duterte’s one year in office, it is clear that the national democratic movement in the country - ranging from the revolutionaries waging armed struggle to the political activists leading the struggle for basic reforms in the legal arena - have no illusions about the current regime. <br />
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Duterte’s rise to power has not made a dent on the semifeudal, semicolonial character of Philippine. The local oligarchy of big landlords, big comprador and bureaucrat capitalists still lord it over society, tightly controlling the levers of power. The country’s former colonizer, the US of A, still dominates and interferes in all spheres of national life - economic, political and cultural. This despite Duterte’s rant spiced with curses against the US and the oligarchy in general (and some specific ones he just can’t abide), and grand promises of socio-economic reforms to benefit the people.<br />
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All the statements coming from the Left of the political spectrum on Duterte’s first year are highly critical and on many policies and programs, even denunciatory - martial law; the Marawi siege; the so-called war on drugs; the counterinsurgency program against the CPP-NPA-NDFP; political repression of peasants, workers and urban poor fighting for their rights; the continuation of anti-people/pro-elite and anti-national/pro-foreign monopoly capitalist economic policies; US military presence and involvement in internal armed conflicts; persistence of corruption, bad governance, patronage politics and impunity for grievous human rights violations.<br />
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But still the Left is giving Duterte some benefit of the doubt mainly because of two major policy changes - the resumption of peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP and the appointment of their nominees in three Cabinet positions. This is what is being referred to as significant and concrete evidence of the “unfolding”.<br />
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To some this would appear to be self-serving but in reality, there is sound basis for giving weight to these hallmark decisions of President Duterte. If the peace negotiations are to be pursued by both sides in earnest in order to address the underlying roots of armed conflict and thereby arrive at a negotiated settlement on the basis of fundamental socio-economic and political reforms, then we are looking at the dawning of the just and lasting peace our people have been longing for.<br />
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In the same vein, the appointment of outstanding and competent leaders from the Left in the Duterte Cabinet is an unprecedented move that is in tandem with his peace initiative. It is a grand confidence-building measure that gives credence to his idea of “inclusivity” in his government. Moreover, given the integrity, commitment and hard work the three Cabinet officials have consistently demonstrated in the last year - they are a boost to the Duterte regime in more ways than one.<br />
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Too bad the GRP-NDFP peace talks have been subjected to a lot of delays and now, a major impasse, because of the countervailing pressure of the right-wingers - pro-US militarists and rabid anti-communists - whose idea of the peace negotiations is providing a graceful exit for the surrender and cooptation of the revolutionary movement but without conceding any significant socio-economic and political reforms.<br />
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This has translated into the insistence on putting the cart before the horse; that is, getting the NDFP to agree to an interim, bilateral, open-ended ceasefire ahead of inking the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-economic Reforms (CASER) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms (CAPCR).<br />
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The GRP insists that a bilateral ceasefire complete with terms of reference as to buffer zones, what constitute violations, third party monitoring, etc makes for an “enabling environment” for the peace talks. This goes along with the notion propagated in the mass media by the GRP and so-called peace advocates that ceasefires are sine qua non to peace negotiations between two warring parties.<br />
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The NDFP for its part will only enter into a bilateral ceasefire, even an interim one preceding a Comprehensive Agreement on End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces (CAEHDF), when the CASER is signed and all political prisoners are released in accord with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).<br />
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The NDFP sees a premature bilateral ceasefire as anathema to the objective of achieving a just peace. They anticipate that the GRP will lose all interest in negotiating, much less implementing, CASER and CAPCR once it gets a bilateral ceasefire. The revolutionary forces are admittedly on the strategic defensive because of the huge disparity between the strength of the Armed Forces of the Philippines versus the New People’s Army. A bilateral ceasefire would put it on the tactical defensive as well, tying the NPA’s hands in terms of defending territory under its shadow governance and protecting the gains of its revolutionary programs in the countryside.<br />
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The CPP-NPA-NDFP knows from experience that the GRP will not cease its counterinsurgency operations that wreak havoc on peasant and indigenous peoples’ communities even when short-term, unilateral simultaneous ceasefires are in place as in the 5-month period spanning the resumption up till the third round of peace talks.<br />
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Too bad as well that the confirmation of the progressive Cabinet officials, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael “Ka Paeng” Mariano and Social Work Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, hang in the balance certainly not because of any charges of corruption, incompetence or partiality but because Duterte’s enlightened policy in dealing with the Left is steadily being undermined as he swings to the Right.<br />
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Meanwhile, the Left as a whole is not passively watching Duterte and events unfold. The task of exposing and opposing the anti-people policies of his regime is firmly being carried out. All forms of struggle - armed and unarmed - are being pursued in order to defend and uphold the people’s rights and welfare. Through the peace talks, the progressives in the Duterte Cabinet and most especially the democratic movement of peasants, workers, urban poor and the middle forces in society, the Left continues to engage - unite and struggle as the case may be - the Duterte regime.<br />
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It is a complex, difficult and often dangerous approach but must be done if the Left is to seize and maximize all openings for pushing truly meaningful change in this country, with or without Rodrigo Roa Duterte. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
3 July 2017<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-68215665994110326282017-06-11T21:46:00.000+08:002017-06-11T21:46:27.953+08:00A cure worse than the diseaseIt has been close to three weeks since a botched police operation against Abu Sayaff leader Isnilon Hapilon evolved into a shooting war with his supporters in Marawi City, the Maute Group, and the subsequent declaration of martial law in the entire Mindanao. The historical Islamic City of Marawi is being reduced to rubble by aerial bombardments and is a virtual no man’s land.<br />
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Majority of its 200,000 inhbitants have evacuated for fear of being caught in the crossfire leaving behind all their worldly possessions. Some two thousand individuals are feared still trapped in their homes unable to get out, starving and gripped in terror. The military says there are still several hundreds of the Maute Group fiercely fighting government forces.<br />
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The government claims to be in control of 90% of the city but are unable to decisively take down the remaining holdouts of the Maute Group. US Special Action Forces (US SF) have been sent into the fray upon the request of the Duterte government, their involvement allegedly limited to giving “technical support” to combat operations.<br />
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Are these not the same US forces “invited temporarily” by the Arroyo government in 2002 to help the AFP crush the alleged Alqaeda-affiliated Abu Sayaff Group then reputed to be only 100-strong? Fifteen years hence the ASG are still thriving and nobody remembers US President Bush declaring the Philippines as the second front in the “war on terror”. The Special Forces never left the Philippines but rather got enmeshed in the botched Mamasapano operation where they trained and provided “technical assistance” to the massacred PNP SAF. With that record behind them, it appears that the US SF as well as the Maute Group are here to stay.<br />
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Considering President Rodrigo Duterte’s public excoriation of the US in the past over its brutal suppression of the Moro people when it colonized the Philippines and its bloody record of armed intervention in the Middle East, this development indicates the level of desperation of his government in dealing with the situation. Or perhaps it reflects the long-time dependence of the Philippine military on “assistance” by the US Armed Forces for its counterinsurgency/counterterrorism operations.<br />
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Since returning from Russia, Duterte has been making the rounds mainly of military camps trying to boost the morale of soldiers by assuring them that he has their back (in case they are accused of criminal abuse such as rape and other human rights violations) and of generous financial aid should they get killed or wounded in action.<br />
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Human rights group Karapatan has reported on the worsening human rights situation in Mindanao as a result of Duterte’s martial law declaration and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The military and police have been given the green light to carry out counterinsurgency operations with renewed gusto under the cover of martial law and sans legal niceties such as the bill of rights getting in their way. <br />
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In rural areas, extra judicial killings, illegal arrests and detention, aerial bombardment, displacement of communities, military and paramilitary encampment in schools and other civilian centers — all of which had been taking place even before martial law due to the Duterte government’s declaration of all-out war against the communist-led New People’s Army — have escalated and hapless lumad and peasant folk are bracing for the worst.<br />
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In urban centers of Mindanao, added to the unrelenting extrajudicial killings in the government’s “war on drugs” mainly targetting the urban poor, are the arbitrary check points, arrests of ordinary folk who cannot produce identification cards, the police profiling of Muslims, violent dispersals of workers’ strikes and the banning of protest actions. Duterte has warned — or is it threatened — to expand the coverage of martial law to the rest of the country should the problem of “terrorism” spill over from Mindanao.<br />
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What is truly worrisome is that the military’s version about what is happening in Marawi City in terms of the “terrorist” threat has grown by leaps and bounds. It is worrisome because the ISIS connection seems to be gaining credence, at least in the public mind if not in actuality, ergo providing the necessary conditioning for the extension of the duration of martial law or even its expansion outside Mindanao.<br />
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From earlier official statements minimizing the capabilities and denying the links of the Maute Group/Abu Sayaff to the dreaded ISIS, the military is now say that there are “foreign fighters” among them and that they are well funded from foreign sources.<br />
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A video has been released by the military purportedly showing Hapilon, the Maute brothers and several others plotting the take-over of Marawi City that they would then supposedly declare as part of the ISIS caliphate-in-the-making. Assuming this video is bona fide, it bolsters the government’s claim that the ensuing firefight in Marawi, when security forces attempted to capture Hapilon, was part of a rebellion hatched by the unified enemies of the state in that part of Mindanao.<br />
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Adding to the ISIS scare are newspaper reports that Indonesia warned the Philippine government that a thousand “Islamist extremists” have entered the country. Subsequently news reports on the ongoing crisis in Marawi have repeated the speculation that ISIS has decided to shift its base of operations from the Middle East to South East Asia because of their alleged setbacks in Syria and Iraq.<br />
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Another video supposedly downloaded from the ISIS website no less, shows armed men trashing a church that the CBCP has confirmed is a Catholic church in Marawi City whose parish priest the Mautes have taken hostage. Add to this earlier reports that Christians in Marawi were being mercilessly killed by the group for merely having a different religion.<br />
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The discovery of tens of millions of cash and bank checks in an abandoned house in Marawi City seems to be a fit to the big puzzle the military is trying to piece together. Duterte himself provides the clincher by his emphatic assertion that the Maute Group is allied with drug lords who in turn are being coddled by or are in fact powerful local politicians. “War vs terrorism” meets “war on drugs”. Perfect.<br />
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Several petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the imposition of martial law in Mindanao. Most notable are the two that raise doubts on the factual basis of Proclamation 216. They emphasize that the current fighting in Marawi CIty was government-initiated, in a failed bid to capture or neutralize Hapilon, and the armed clashes resulted from his followers resisting such attempt. To them, this does not constitute an actual rebellion of such magnitude that it endangers public safety, most especially in the entirety of Mindanao.<br />
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The President’s Report to Congress justifying martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus has subsequently turned out to be inaccurate, false, or overstated. Nonetheless the ferocity of the ongoing armed conflict in Marawi CIty, the resulting humanitarian crisis for the civilian population and the threat of an ISIS foothold in Mindanao fanned by government and “terror experts” are muting opposition to martial law. <br />
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It is only recently that grave abuses perpetrated by military and police forces in the course of their supposed mopping up operations are being brought to light. The Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Lanao del Sur, in an open letter to President Duterte, condemned “illegal searches and seizures in Marawi City by military men, police and other law enforcement agencies which results in rampant loss and deprivation of properties and possessions of innocent civilians.”<br />
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Coupled with the aerial bombings of Marawi CIty, it now appears that the “cure” provided by the Duterte regime has become worse than the “disease” of the ISIS-inspired terrorist acts by the Maute Group/ASG. What else can anyone expect from a Commander-in-Chief whose values could make him candidly declare that “Marcos’ Martial Law was good”? #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
12 June 2017<br />
<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-40405734563692530332017-06-04T21:41:00.002+08:002017-06-04T21:44:30.206+08:00 Precarious times for GRP-NDFP peace talksThe GRP-NDFP peace talks appear to be hanging by a thread. The GRP delegation withdrew from participation in the fifth round of talks scheduled to open last May 27 in Noordwijk,The Netherlands, upon instructions of their principal, President Rodrigo R. Duterte. Despite frenzied attempts to prevent the cancellation of the fifth round, or salvage it by means of informal talks to try to iron out differences, achieve some progress, even if tentative, in the substantive agenda so as to make good use of the time and resources, Duterte chose to scuttle it. <br />
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More ominously, while GRP chief negotiator, Sylvestre Bello III, stated categorically that only this round would be aborted while the peace talks would continue, Duterte subsequently said in a speech he gave at the founding anniversary of the Philippine Navy that he would order the rearrest of the NDFP consultants out on bail to participate in the peace negotiations because, to put it mildly, he questioned the sincerity of the NDFP side in negotiating peace. <br />
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In response, NDFP Chief Negotiator Fidel Agcoaili stated in no uncertain terms that should the GRP disregard and set aside the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), then the peace talks could no longer continue. Both the JASIG and the peace negotiations would in effect or de facto be terminated.<br />
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What brought about this unexpected impasse considering that the mood going into the fifth round was quite upbeat with the success of four rounds of formal talks and progress in the work of reconciling the drafts on CASER through unilateral meetings and bilateral consultations between rounds? <br />
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Unfortunately, intervening events - the Marawi crisis and the declaration of martial law in Mindanao - served not only to complicate and confound the situation, the related subsequent actions and counteractions of the two sides have set into motion a train of events that could end up torpedoing the GRP-NDFP peace talks all together.<br />
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According to the GRP panel, Duterte and the entire Cabinet Security Cluster took umbrage at the call of the CPP to the NPA to intensify armed offensives against military and police forces in response to the declaration of martial law in Mindanao. This, they said, was despite unprecedented and bold steps that Duterte had taken to push the peace talks forward.<br />
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According to the NDFP, the CPP order was in response to heightened military offensives and mounting human rights violations before and after the martial law declaration coupled with the statement of Defense Secretary Lorenzana at the very outset that the NPA was also targeted by the Mindanao-wide martial law. Moreover, notwithstanding the clarification of GRP Chief Negotiator Bello that this was not the case, field reports continued to be sent to the NDFP belying his claim.<br />
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Secretary Dureza spoke of returning to the negotiating table only when “there are clear indications that an enabling environment conducive to a just and sustainable peace…shall prevail”. In effect, the GRP continues to demand no less than an indefinite bilateral ceasefire even before any agreement has been forged on the substantive agenda of the peace talks, most especially on socio-economic reforms, and before the issue of the release of political prisoners has been squarely addressed by the GRP in accord with its obligations under the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).<br />
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Moreover, the GRP panel made it clear at the very beginning that their principal would only allow the fifth round to open if the CPP leadership retracts its order to the NPA to conduct more offensives, even after the Chief Political Consultant and the NDFP Negotiating Panel had publicly announced that they had asked the CPP leadership to reconsider the order. The NDFP panel replied that it had no mandate to itself retract the order, and that it was impossible to receive an immediate reply from the CPP leadership, especially with intensified AFP operations targeting CPP-NPA units in the countryside. <br />
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The GRP Panel instead proposed that the two panels issue a joint statement condemning terrorism and the Maute group and for cooperating on countermeasures against the Maute attack in Marawi. The NDFP Panel promptly crafted its draft for said joint statement and submitted this to the GRP Panel. But rather than give the NDFP its corresponding draft, the GRP Panel announced that they had been ordered to pack up and go home, and not to engage even in informal talks. <br />
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With each passing day, the humanitarian crisis escalates in Marawi City where an estimated two thousand civilians are still trapped inside without food and the military’s aerial bombardment has killed or wounded not just civilians but even soldiers. The military’s claim that it has contained the Maute group and is now engaged in mopping up operations appears so far to be an overstatement. The GRP seems caught between having to justify martial law by amplifying the terrorist threat from the Maute/ASG in the entire Mindanao while claiming to have everything under control by utilizing its draconian measures.<br />
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The GRP is also in a curious bind with contradictory statements being issued about whether the CPP-NPA forces are also the object of martial law even as the military is emboldened to prosecute its “all-out war” against the NPA with complete disregard for human rights and international humanitarian law resulting once more in mass evacuations of civilians, extrajudicial killings and illegal arrests. Meanwhile, workers on strike, peasants struggling to reclaim land grabbed farms, activists protesting martial law and ordinary folk who happen to be Moro or who are unable to produce an identification card are subjected to harassment, warrantless arrests and detention.<br />
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There is anxiety and dread over terrorist threats spilling over to other parts of the country. Equally, or even more so, there is anxiety and dread over martial law being extended to the Visayas and Luzon or to its prolongation beyond sixty days. In Manila, panic over a possible ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in a luxury hotel and casino, apparently prevented employees and guests from escaping deadly fumes from fires ignited by a lone gunman who police now aver was unlikely to have been a terrorist.<br />
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The economic toll of Duterte’s martial law declaration in MIndanao and nationally has yet to be taken into account.<br />
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In these most unsettling of times, the GRP-NDFP peace talks hopefully will not be an unintended casualty.<br />
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The talks now appear to be where they were at between the March backchannel communique and the eve of the 4th round, when the NDFP was waiting for the signal from the GRP for the two sides to simultaneously announce unilateral ceasefires.<br />
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The difference is that now, the NDFP has proposed instead some form of cooperation with the GRP in fighting terrorism and the Maute group in particular, and the response of GRP President Duterte, despite acknowledging this in passing as a goodwill measure, is that the NDFP should first unilaterally and formally declare that they will stop fighting the government before he sends back his negotiators to the negotiating table.<br />
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This is definitely a backslide from the fourth round and into the situation where the status of the peace negotiations and the JASIG are both unclear. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
5 June 2017Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-59648112828231108512017-05-17T11:39:00.001+08:002017-05-17T11:39:23.440+08:00Finding Rody, a year after.A year ago I described President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as a conundrum. Is he a “Leftist” or “Rightist”; a democrat or disguised autocrat; pro-people or wily demagogue; reformer or defender of the establishment? Is change really forthcoming or is this another empty slogan, the latest version of the politician’s con game?<br />
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Whimsically, I compared him to the smelly but heavenly durian fruit of Davao because of his foul mouth, sexist comments and general crassness while making refreshing, if progressive and radical, political statements unheard of from any previous Malacanang occupant.<br />
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The reactionary character of the Duterte administration is defined by the fact that there has been no radical rupture from the “nature” of the Philippine state as protector, enabler and promoter of foreign and domestic elite interests in a highly inequitous social system. Perhaps to underscore this point, Duterte has stated matter-of-factly that as Chief Executive, he is now “The Enemy” because he is “sworn to” preseve the ruling system. At the same time, the self-proclaimed “Leftist” and “socialist” says the CPP-NPA-NDFP is presented with a golden opportunity to arrive at a negotiated political settlement with the Philippine government precisely because he is the current president. <br />
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Duterte is a political maverick to say the least. For the first time, the country has a president who was once a radical student activist under the tutelage of Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the CPP. He has a history of pragmatic, some say quite friendly, relations with the CPP-NPA during his decades-long stint as Davao City mayor. Duterte stood up to the US government on matters of security and national sovereignty while mayor. He even agreed to be an NDFP consultant in the peace talks until he was reminded he could not do so being an incumbent government official.<br />
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But Duterte is also quite within the bureaucrat capitalist mold having had a long, successful career as a local politician enjoying the perks and privileges of office while defending the status quo. What is unusual is his being catapulted to the presidency of the land without having previously held national office; being from far-flung Mindanao considered the country’s backwoods; and not at all endowed with the traditional political pedigree.<br />
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While Duterte’s win was somewhat of a fluke, then again it is not so unfathomable. Every election time, candidates project their being the harbinger of change, the champion of the poor and downtrodden, with vastly different leadership qualities compared to the outgoing president. <br />
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Duterte’s “kanto boy” demeanor coupled with his bold pronouncements and promises of eradicating the drug menace, criminality, and corruption; his simple, no-nonsense manner of speaking peppered by curses and off-color jokes; his touted executive ability that transformed Davao into a progressive, safe and peaceful city; even his “promdi” persona — all these captured the imagination of the electorate fed up with the rule of the the old rich and the political dynasties. Duterte's election was clearly a stunning rebuke of the administration of Benigno Aguino III.<br />
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So what has Duterte got to show for his first year in office? We daresay, a mixed bag of surprisingly good and outrageously bad.<br />
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Top of the list for the good is peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP going on its fifth round end of this month. Difficult, contentious, and at one point on the brink of a complete breakdown, nonetheless the peace negotiations are still on track, making significant and unprecedented headway on the substantive agenda of socio-economic reforms; not least of which is an agreement on the principle of free distribution of land to the tillers as the basic land reform policy. All these have been made possible by Duterte's decision to affirm the validity of all bilateral agreements with the NDFP, including the JASIG, and releasing detained NDFP consultants so that they could participate in the talks.<br />
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It remains to be seen whether government negotiators will continue to insist on placing the cart before the horse; that is, on an open-ended, bilateral ceasefire agreement before a pact on socio-economic reforms and before general amnesty or release of all political prisoners.<br />
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It also remains to be seen whether the militarists and rabid anti-communists inside and outside government will succeed in sabotaging the talks through intrigues, labelling revolutionaries as “terrorists”, and the continued surveillance, harassment and arrests of NDFP peace consultants and other JASIG-protected personnel.<br />
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Closely related to the peace talks are the presence of three progressives in the Duterte cabinet nominated by the NDFP — Social Work Secretary Judy Taguiwao, Land Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano and National Anti-Ppverty Commission head Liza Maza. All of them have proven themselves highly competent, hardworking and with nary a whif of corruption. They are key to the implementation of whatever socio-economic reforms will be agreed upon in the GRP-NDFP peace talks. <br />
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Unfortunately, the rejection by the Commission on Appointments (CA) of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Gina Lopez due to a powerful pro-mining lobby and the obvious lack of support by Duterte raises questions about the fate of Taguiwalo and Mariano who will also need to hurdle the CA. Will Duterte weigh in and prevail on his Congressional allies to confirm the two or will pork barrel-hungry legislators and landlord interests win the day?<br />
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On the other hand, top of the terribly bad, are the grievous human rights violations, most especially the extrajudicial or summary killings by government security forces, of the poor and powerless, in its brutal anti-drugs and bloody counterinsurgency campaigns.<br />
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Duterte has displayed an unmistakeably fascist bent by publicly inciting the police and other law enforcement agencies to resort to extreme measures in dealing with suspected drug pushers and users, then promising to shield them from any accountability whatsoever. He has also given the military the go signal to bombard mountainous areas to flush out and decimate the NPA regardless of to the death and destruction these indiscriminate attacks inflict on civilians. <br />
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The wholesale militarization of the civilian bureaucracy with the appointment of several generals to top posts — Cimatu to replace Lopez at DENR; Año as DILG secretary; Esperon as National Security Adviser; and Lorenzana as Defense Secretary —along with scores of military officers in other civilian posts is alarming.<br />
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And who can forget Duterte’s unabashed admiration for the dictator Ferdinand Marcos; his connivance with the Marcos family to bury the dictator’s remainds in the Libingan ng mga Bayani; and his repeated threats to declare martial law to silence his critics and pursue his “war on drugs” unimpeded by the Bill of Rights and due process.<br />
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As to unfulfilled promises like ending labor contractualization, boasts like zero tolerance for corruption, and fearless pronouncements such as pursuing an independent foreign policy — Duterte’s limits, weaknesses, lack of political or all of the above are proving to be formidable.<br />
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Some of the leading lights of the CPP-NPA-NDFP who face government negotiators in peace talks abroad continue to describe Duterte as “unfolding”, meaning it is too early to dismiss or judge Duterte as a die-hard reactionary disguising himself as a Leftist, and that the basis for an alliance with him on just grounds remains despite unfulfilled promises and other drawbacks .<br />
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"Unfolding" does not discount exposing and opposing the "bad" and reactionary, anti-people and anti-national policies, statements and actuations (or sins of omission) of the Duterte regime. It incorporates supporting and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by it while opposing its reactionary side. So that the unfolding of Duterte can be pushed towards being more progressive. And so that the Filipino people benefit somehow or somewhat in ways not available prior to this administration, whichever way it finally unfolds. #<br />
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Published in Bsuiness World<br />
15 May 2017Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-2281471909447453012017-05-01T21:08:00.000+08:002017-05-01T21:08:05.018+08:00High stakes confirmation hearingOn Wednesdy 3 progressive cabinet members — Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Gina Lopez, Social Welfare Secrtary Judy Taguiwalo and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano — are up for confirmation by the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA).<br />
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They have been twice bypassed by the CA and subsequently twice reappointed in the interim by President Rodrigo Duterte. But because the current CA has approved a rule that a cabinet member may only be bypassed three times after which the CA will have to reject or confirm the concerned official, it appears that Wednesday will be the final showdown.<br />
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The backstory to this is very interesting if only because it is so unusual. Newly elected President Duterte surprised everyone when, even before he was sworn to office, he offered the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) four Cabinet positions.<br />
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Pres. Duterte said the four departments he offered to the CPP - Labor, Agrarian Reform, Social Welfare, and Environment and Natural Resources - dealt with the “most oppressed” and that the Left was known to be “the most vigilant” when it comes to pressing national issues. He also related his offer to restarting peace talks with the revolutionary movement under the umbrella of the National Democratic Front of the Philipiines (NDFP).<br />
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In response, NDFP Chief Political Consultant and CPP Founding Chairperson Jose Ma. Sison welcomed the offer but said the CPP could not accept any position not until the peace negotiations had reached the point of a comprehensive peace settlement. In the meantime, Sison said the NDFP could nominate people who are patriotic, progressive, competent, honest, and diligent but not necessarily communists.<br />
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Upon the NDFP’s recommendation, Pres. Duterte appointed University of the Philippines Professor and former political prisoner Judy Taguiwalo as secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Long-time peasant leader and former Anakpawis Party List representative Rafael Mariano became secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). The labor portfolio eventually went to former Justice Secretary Sylvestre Bello III, concurrent head of the government peace panel negotiating with the NDFP, while that of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) went to Gina Lopez, a known environmentalist and scion of a wealthy business clan.<br />
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The appointment of Leftists and social activists, including former Gabriela Party List prepresentative Liza Maza to the National Anti-poverty Commission, lent credence to President Duterte’s avowal that he too was a “leftist” and a “socialist” even as this became fodder for accusations of his political enemies that the Duterte administration had betrayed the country to the communists. <br />
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Policy differences surfaced when the burial of the so-called remains of the Dictator Marcos was allowed by President Duterte at the Libingan ng mga Bayani setting off a torrent of mass protests wherein victims of martial rule and anti-dictatorship activists from the Left figured prominently. Taguiwalo, Mariano and Maza stood their ground in opposition to the Marcos burial but asserted that this was not sufficient basis for them to resign their posts. <br />
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While snide remarks surfaced in social media intimating that the three had sold their souls to the devil, these accusations of cooptation did not gain much traction. The three have proven to be one of the most hardworking, competent, and upright in the Duterte Cabinet. They have navigated the perilous course of holding top government positions and being subjected to myriad pressures and enticements while remaining true to their Leftist principles and continuing to serve their “most oppressed” constituents.<br />
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The lines began to be drawn for Sec. Taguiwalo during the budget hearings last year. Many congresspersons, not least of which were those in the leadership of the House of Representatives, objected to and resented the attempts of the DSWD to ensure that the department’s beneficiaries are those truly in need and not merely “lucky” recipients of patronage politics. A compromise was eventually hammered out: congresspersons’ recommendations would be taken into account and given weight by the DSWD even as the set of qualifications specified by the agency would prevail.<br />
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But that wasn’t the end of it. The “honorable” congresspersons wanted ironclad assurances from Sec. Taguiwalo that certain funds they had earmarked for the DSWD would only be spent in their districts in accord with their wishes. In other words the old pork barrel system was alive and well albeit disguised as an informal arrangement between the head of agency and the “honorable” congresspersons. When Taguiwalo refused to play along, her confirmation in the CA was placed in jeopardy.<br />
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As for DAR Secretary Mariano, one of his orders that raised the hackles of his fellow Cabinet members particularly the economic managers, was the DAR proposal for a two-year moratorium on land use conversion. Mariano wanted to put the breaks on rampant conversion of farmlands for residential, industrial, commercial or mixed-use purposes. Not only has land use conversion been a tried-and-tested way to go around land reform, it has even been used to cover up landgrabbing itself. But apart from frustrating the ends of social justice as envisioned by a series of failed land reform programs, this proposed moratorium is in line with ensuring the country’s food security what with the rapidly shrinking agricultural land devoted to food production.<br />
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Needless to say, the big landowners in the country especially the owners of sprawling haciendas and corporate farms are literally up in arms over Secretary Mariano’s unflinching support for the right of the tillers of the land - tenants and farm workers - to own their own plots of land. Recent attempts of DAR to install agrarian reform beneficiaries in land awarded but forcibly taken from them have met with armed resistance from private security guards and hired goons. In some instances, the police have averred that they cannot help DAR enforce its orders because they are outnumbered and outfirepowered by private security forces.<br />
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DENR Secretary Lopez’ decision last February to close 23 mines and suspend five others for breaching environmental standards together with the cancellation of 75 contracts for mining projects located in watersheds constituted a declaration of war against large-scale corporate mining in the country. For this the country’s mining firms banded together to not only oppose her confirmation, but to file corruption charges against her before the Ombudsman.<br />
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Too bad Lopez’ anti-mining stance is popular among a public reminded of the horrendous toll on the environment and affected communities from mining accidents and the over-all destructive effects of large-scale mining operations. Moreover her boss, President Duterte, has continued to back her.<br />
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For its part, the NDFP recently stated that it views “in very positive terms the presence of (the three) in the Duterte cabinet”. Fidel Agcaoili, NDFP Panel chair said, “Ka Paeng will play an important role in implementing a program of free land distribution for poor peasants. Ka Judy will likewise play an important role in implementing expanded social services for the people. Gina Lopez meanwhile has expressed willingness to work with the revolutionary forces in protecting the environment against destructive mining operations. They will no doubt be helpful in implementing a Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER) that may be agreed upon by the GRP and NDFP.”<br />
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The stakes are truly high in the confirmation hearing of the three officials on Wednesday. Will the people’s clamor for meaningful reforms be dealt another serious blow by reactionary interests through their front men in the Commission on Appointments? #<br />
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Published in Business<br />
1 May 2017<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-27856288056386498722017-04-12T21:03:00.002+08:002017-04-12T21:03:59.121+08:00 Fourth round of GRP-NDFP peace talks defies spoilersThe fourth round of formal peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) got off to a halting start last April 3, a full day after the scheduled formal opening. For a while, it was unclear whether the talks would open at all or just fizzle out unceremoniously leaving both sides frustratingly empty handed. <br />
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In truth, dark clouds remained despite the breakthrough achieved in the March 10-11 informal talks wherein the two sides agreed that the fourth round would resume in The Netherlands and that the simultaneous unilateral ceasefires of the two Parties would be reinstated.<br />
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For one, the GRP did not declare anew its unilateral ceasefire in contravention of the GRP-NDFP March 11 Joint Statement. This prompted the NDFP to withhold its own unilateral ceasefire despite a public announcement that it would declare one before the beginning of the fourth round. <br />
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Consequently, the GRP principal, President Rodrigo Duterte, announced four conditions for the GRP’s returning to the talks with the NDFP: 1) a signed bilateral ceasefire agreement; 2) that the revolutionary movement desist from claiming any territory; 3) a stop to the collection of “revolutionary taxes”; 4) release of all the soldiers, policemen and others held captive by the New People’s Army (NPA).<br />
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A few days before the formal talks, Defense Secretary Lorenzana issued a vitriolic statement labelling the CPP-NPA-NDFP as “terrorists” and declaring ex cathedra that the talks would not happen unless the NPA complies with Duterte's conditions.<br />
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Only after getting a firm assurance from the NDFP peace panel that an interim joint ceasefire agreement would be in the agenda of the formal talks did Mr. Duterte give the definitive green light to the formal opening. The matter of ceasefire became the de facto primary item on the agenda of the fourth round. An inordinate amount of time and shuttling back and forth between the two sides eventually produced the Agreement on an Interim Joint Ceasefire.<br />
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What does the agreement amount to? For one, it does not mean that a bilateral ceasefire is already in place. It does not even mandate the two Parties to declare the restoration of their respective unilateral ceasefires. It does however bind them “(to) direct their respective Ceasefire Committees to meet even in-between formal talks to discuss, formulate and finalize the guidelines and ground rules for the implementation of this agreement.”<br />
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In other words, the Parties agree to forge the interim joint ceasefire in the near future by hammering out the ground rules and guidelines governing the aforesaid ceasefire. But while it is not explicitly stated, the NDFP has made it exceedingly clear that such a bilateral ceasefire can only be signed consequent to or simultaneous with the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-economic Reforms (CASER). Otherwise, the NDFP fears, with due cause, that the GRP will no longer be impelled to address the root causes of the armed conflict with needed social, economic and political reforms.<br />
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As of today, sans a return to the simultaneous unilateral ceasefires, the mode is “talking while fighting”.<br />
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But once in place, the interim joint ceasefire is a prospective advance on the previous five-month unilateral ceasefires declared by the two sides. The latter are by nature generally more unstable because of the absence of bilaterally agreed terms of reference like buffer zones and zones of safety, hostile acts and the like; that is, each side can set the parameters for a unilateral ceasefire according to its own political and military imperatives thereby blunting or forestalling possible complaints of violations of the ceasefire.<br />
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Concretely, while armed clashes between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the NPA went down drastically, the AFP continued to militarize the countryside. The AFP set up encampments in schools and other civilian infrastructure in the barrios; conducted intelligence and psywar operations disguised as "peace and development” operations including anti-illicit drugs and other anti-crime operations; provided security for big mining operations and plantations; as well as penetrated deep into territory where the NPA forces have established a shadow form of government.<br />
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The interim joint ceasefire agreement is different from and “shall be effective until a permanent ceasefire agreement is forged as part of the Comprehensive Agreement on End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces (Final Peace Agreement).” It should therefore not be mistaken for the end point of the peace negotiations.<br />
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What of the matter of claimed NDFP territory and revolutionary taxation that President Duterte so roundly denounced as unacceptable? With much flexibility and skillful language engineering by the negotiating panels, the sticky points were relegated for discussion and resolution to negotiations on political and constitutional reforms as “matters of a single governmental authority and taxation” and “within the framework of the proposed Federal Republic of the Philippines”.<br />
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All in all the Reciprocal Working Committees on Socio-economic Reforms (RWC-SER) met and held discussions bilaterally for only a total of some six to seven hours during the four-day formal talks. As validated by unofficial explanations from the GRP side, negotiations on CASER could not substantially proceed whilst an agreement on a joint ceasefire had not been signed. In a manner of speaking, the talks on CASER were effectively preconditioned and held hostage to the inking of a ceasefire agreement acceptable to Mr. Duterte.<br />
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Having said that, it is noteworthy that the Parties “firmed up their agreement on distribution of land for free as the basic principle of genuine agrarian reform.” This achievement is a solidification of the breakthrough reached in the third round of talks in Rome. It was overshadowed and almost went unnoticed due to the resumption of armed hostilities between the AFP and NPA almost immediately with Mr. Duterte’s declaration of “all-out war” against the CPP-NPA-NDF.<br />
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They also agreed to speed up the pace of exchanging drafts, identifying contentious points and proposing formulations that are deemed to be acceptable to both Parties. In this regard, bilateral teams under the supervision of their respective RWC-SER are to meet in between formal talks prioritizing Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ARRD) and National Industrialization and Economic Development (NIED). A work schedule was approved in sync with the fifth round of talks slated to take place once more in The Netherlands from May 26 to June 2.<br />
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If one were to assess simply and forthrightly what was achieved in the fourth round of talks, it is this: that the GRP-NDFP peace talks have been brought back on track and successfully concluded with positive outcomes despite all the efforts of peace spoilers to sabotage and torpedo them. <br />
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As much as the GRP and NDFP panels and their principals, the RNG Third Party Facilitator deserves credit for having exerted extra effort to help bring the Parties back to the negotiating table.<br />
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Royal Norwegian Government Special Envoy to the Philippine Peace Process Elisabeth Slattum succinctly put it in her opening statement, that the fourth round pushed through as agreed upon last January shows the Parties’ determination and capacity to surmount obstacles, break the short impasse in February and March and move the peace process forward. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
10 April 2017<br />
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<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-71516066105214928722016-12-12T23:41:00.002+08:002016-12-12T23:41:21.193+08:00Reaping the whirlwind"...in the end you cannot cheat history. History will not err in its judgement because no matter how you fabricate achievements, glorify events or conceal truths, a true people's history will eventually unmask the fake heroes and the judgement on them will be harsh and severe." - Renato Constantino, 24 September 1975<br />
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Finally, the Marcoses have had their way, a hero’s burial for their despot-patriarch at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB), but without the pomp and grandeur of a state funeral that they had been dreaming of for decades. On the contrary, they had to settle for a simple military funeral and an elaborate subterfuge - false public announcements about funeral arrangements; the secret airlifting of the Marcos remains from Batac, Ilocos Sur to Manila courtesy of a military chopper; and a formidable police security cordon to prevent anticipated protesters, the mass media and the general public from entering the LNMB during interment rites. <br />
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So why didn’t the Marcoses choose to churn out a grand palabas out of the event, Imeldific no less, complete with a horde of Marcos loyalists, to lend it a semblance of popular acclaim?<br />
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The obvious reason was to throw off those vehemently opposed to such a travesty - martial law victims, human rights advocates, civil libertarians, advocates of clean government and mass organizations of the Left that have persistently thrown legal and political obstacles in their way.<br />
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The lifting of the status quo ante order of the Supreme Court was seized by the Marcoses and their political patron, President Rodrigo Duterte, to hurriedly and sneakily carry out the fait accompli, despite a 15-day period in which petitioners could have filed their motion for reconsideration.<br />
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The collusion between the Marcoses and President Duterte is clear and can no longer be denied nor downplayed. The latter justified and cleared the way to the hero’s burial by whitewashing Ferdinand Marcos’ brutal one-man rule and its legacy of gross human rights violations, grand larceny of the public coffers, destruction of the national economy and treasonous puppetry to foreign dictates. To top it off, Mr. Duterte deliberately glossed over the judgement of history - a history made by an aroused and enraged people - of ousting the hated tyrant.<br />
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After the fact, Imee Marcos once more calls for healing and unity ad nauseam. Mr. Duterte’s spokespersons pretend that he did not know that the burial would be taking place so soon. AFP and PNP officials pretend they merely took their cues from the Marcos family. And President Duterte for his part wants people to believe that he merely did his legal duty, smugly confident that his current popularity would weather any consequent political fallout.<br />
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With the dastardly connivance of Mr. Duterte, the Marcos family is attempting nothing less than the rewrite of history. The same-day-video of the burial released by the Marcoses flaunt for all to see that indeed he received the full trappings of a hero’s burial. Years from now, it will be the only extant documentation of that infamous event.<br />
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But the people see through the charade. The explosion of protests as news of the Marcos burial broke is a portent of what lies ahead. The expressions of rage and condemnation were widespread both in Metro Manila and in other urban centers where people massed up and held protest actions. <br />
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All were one in saying “Marcos is no hero” and decrying the indecent haste with which the Duterte administration carried out the bidding of the Marcoses. Some people felt duped; some betrayed. All were visibly angry and vowed to exact some form of retribution including disinterring the Marcos remains from its undeserved resting place. There were spontaneous expressions of solidarity from motorists and other passers by who made impromptu placards or honked their horns.<br />
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Prominent were not only human rights victims or their families and those who lived through the horrors of martial rule but many students from various university campuses as well as young professionals. This youthful character of the protests seems to belie the notion that “millennials” are tuned out to the issue and just don’t care.<br />
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The activists in the crowd took pains to highlight the real heroes who fought against the dictatorship including the thousands of young people who went underground to join the revolutionary resistance. They organized in the slum areas, among striking workers and dispossessed peasants. They joined the New People’s Army and the Moro National Liberation Front to wage an armed struggle to weaken the fascist military as well as the dreaded constabulary force. As they were in the forefront of the anti-dictatorship struggle, they bore the brunt of the fascist state’s repression. They constitute the overwhelming majority of martyrs as well as victims of enforced disappearance, torture, and illegal arrest and detention.<br />
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The Marcoses and their cohorts, most especially Mr. Duterte, may think all these protests will blow over consistent with the conventional wisdom that Filipinos have a short memory or are prone to amnesia. <br />
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On the contrary, they themselves provide the reason why these protests are only the beginning.<br />
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The Marcoses will not stop at historical revisionism. The Marcoses' real goal is not so much to establish Marcos' heroism – for the Marcoses know best the lies behind this – but to bury the truth along with the dictator's corpse, erase from our national psyche the nightmares of the Marcos era, and clear the grounds for a Marcos Restoration. Their next stop is Malacañang Palace no less. As many have correctly surmised, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos sees himself as the rightful successor to his father and the anointed one to carry on the Marcosian legacy. <br />
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As for Mr. Duterte, this shameful episode of willful, premeditated complicity with the Marcoses will have its political costs. His authoritarian slip is already showing what with his undisguised admiration for the dictator Marcos; his propensity for legal short cuts that not only mean lack of due process but a rising pile of dead bodies in his vaunted “war on drugs”; his unqualified backing for and granting blanket impunity to police and military operations masquerading as counter-drug/counter-terrorist that are part and parcel of abusive counter-insurgency operations or even hit jobs by questionable quarters; and his threat to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and resurrect the Philippine Constabulary or a militarized police force.<br />
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Mr. Duterte’s credibility as a reforming president is steadily being eroded especially with no real headway in basic socio-economic reforms; his flip flopping over his foreign policy pronouncements; the continuing militarization of the countryside; and the non-release of over 400 political prisoners crucial to progress in peace negotiations with the NDFP. He has not taken a single step to stop the government policy of criminalizing political offenses such as rebellion three months after he declared he would do so, “otherwise we will never have peace because there will always be in injustice.”<br />
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There are attempts to reduce the Marcos hero’s burial as part of the continuing rivalry between the Marcoses and the Aquinos. Unfortunately, the attempt of the Yellow Crowd to write history from the narrow perspective of those who gained the most from EDSA1, the Cojuangco-Aquinos and their retinue, fuels this false dichotomy. And the narrative, discredited and hollow as it is, is the kind that the Yellows are trying to recycle even now. Their obvious agenda is to bring about the failure and eventual downfall of the Duterte presidency, and the return of the Liberal Party to power.<br />
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In the final analysis, history eventually gets to be written by those who make it - by the masses of people who decide to take their destiny into their their own hands. They are the real heroes, and they know full well who stands with them and who does not. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
21 November 2016<br />
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<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-45716333050386005562016-12-12T23:35:00.002+08:002016-12-12T23:37:26.123+08:00The people say “Enough”President Duterte had it coming. <br />
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Yes, Virginia, in a country rife with continuing human rights violations, the annual International Human Rights Day on December 10 is invariably marked with protests and mass demonstrations. <br />
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Public anger over the secret burial of the remains of the Dictator Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani and all that it implies still smolders necessitating the highlighting of wholesale human rights violations under martial law and Marcos one-man rule. Yet the Duterte regime’s disturbing human rights record in the brief period it has held power (coupled with his most recent outrageous pronouncements and decisions on related issues) has managed to overtake the Marcos burial issue. Unsurprisingly, it occupied center stage in this year’s traditional protests.<br />
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That the killing of an alleged drug lord, Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinoso would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back was a surprise of sorts. After all, critics of the government’s “war on drugs” kept asking why only drug users and small-time pushers from slum areas were getting hit.<br />
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The truth of the matter is that Duterte brought it on himself.<br />
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His early pronouncement defending the police CIDG team that raided the jail and killed Espinosa and another inmate despite obviously questionable facts and circumstances; the revelation that he prevailed on PNP Chief “Bato” de la Rosa to assign Superintendent Marvin Marcos to CIDG Region 8 despite his tainted record of involvement in illicit drug trade without a credible explanation; and his persistence, nay bull headedness, in clearing Marcos and his men despite Senate and NBI findings pointing to a likely “rub out” scenario — all these actuations piled up inexorably as the dead bodies of victims of extrajudicial killings to shock even those inured to Duterte’s penchant for saying dumfounding things.<br />
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Duterte’s handling of Mayor Espinosa’s brazen and pre-meditated killing at the hands of the police while already in detention serves as unmistakeable red flag in his “war on drugs”. An unrelenting pattern — police raids on suspected lairs of drug pushers, alleged shoot-outs with a unbelievably high rate of sharpshooting by police, and dead bodies beside shabu sachets and alleged weapons — has emerged as nothing less than a license to shoot-to-kill people who have yet to be proven guilty or even to have anything to do with the illicit drug trade. Coupled with Duterte’s vigorous defense of his men, it amounts to presidential condonation of summary executions and impunity for their perpetrators.<br />
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There is growing unease over this kill-and-take-no-prisoners solution to a social scourge with complex causes requiring a multifaceted approach that puts rehabilitation of drug dependents and addressing underlying social ills at the forefront. There are growing reports of innocents being killed; communities terrorized; and the use of “Operation Tokhang” for counterinsurgency purposes against grassroots organizers and activists. Meanwhile there is the Duterte regime’s own admission that many policemen and government officials are deeply involved in the drug trade even as no purported big fish amongst them are being properly prosecuted to effectively dismantle the drug mafias.<br />
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Even the killings ascribed to “vigilantes” cannot remain unaddressed and unsolved for they contribute to the climate of impunity. It consigns their poor victims to oblivion as involved in some way or as “collateral damage”. Some police officials have claimed that these killings could be the result of a war among drug lords. If true, it only confirms that the way the “war on drugs” is being conducted allows it to be used as a convenient cover for inter-drug cartels’ killing frenzy as well.<br />
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The issue of political prisoners, more than 400 of them as of last count by human rights organization, KARAPATAN, has festered for so long despite attempts of supposedly democratic regimes post-Marcos to sweep them under the rug. <br />
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The Arroyo regime’s counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, involved not only the targeted assassinations of leaders and members of legal progressive organizations (not armed combatants of the New People’s Army, take note), but also what government dubbed as a “legal offensive”. A task force of public prosecutors worked hand-in-glove with police and military intelligence officers as well as pliant judges to illegally arrest, detain, prosecute and convict hundreds of perceived Leftists on the basis of trumped-up common crimes (multiple murder, arson, robbery in band and so forth) not even the political crimes of rebellion or sedition.<br />
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As part of a bold move to talk peace with the revolutionary forces of the CPP-NPA-NDFP, President Duterte offered a general amnesty as the swiftest way of remedying this patent injustice. <br />
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To jumpstart the formal peace negotiations, Malacanang worked with the political prisoners’ lawyers for the grant of bail to 17 NDFP consultants and 2 personnel. The ensuing effect on the peace process was unprecedented — a simultaneous unilateral ceasefire of indefinite duration and acceleration of the negotiations over socio-economic and political reforms. A bilateral ceasefire was in the works pending the release of all political prisoners and progress on a Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER).<br />
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Sadly, Duterte has steadily backtracked from his earlier enlightened position regarding the political prisoners.<br />
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Apparently upon the advise of militarists and rabid anti-communists in his Cabinet and the military top brass, Duterte now says he will not release more political prisoners unless a bilateral ceasefire is signed arguing that to do so would mean he will lose bargaining chips in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.<br />
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Moreover, while Duterte gives blanket immunity for police, he undertakes the blanket labelling of political prisoners as members of the New People’s Army, to justify his hardline stance and in the process underscoring his utterly distorted sense of justice and the rule of law.<br />
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These shocking statements are especially unjust for the 130 of these political prisoners who are elderly, sick, women (especially those whose husbands are also in jail), or have been imprisoned for more than ten years. The government peace panel has repeatedly promised to expedite their release on humanitarian grounds considering 13 have already died in detention. They and their families have been undergoing a see-saw of emotions in the wake of government flip flops between announcing their impending release and then pronouncements that amount to their being held hostage to the peace negotiations.<br />
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The continuing militarization of the countryside, state terror inflicted on the peasantry and lumad in the form harassment through encampment in their communities, interrogations and up to summary executions by military and paramilitary elements, are ongoing despite the existence of unilateral ceasefires on each side of the protagonists in the armed conflict. This reality is rendering the current situation more and more untenable and could spark clashes in the near future.<br />
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The appointment of a general implicated in the enforced disappearance of Jonas Burgos, the son of Joe Burgos, an icon of the fight for press freedom during martial law, and other human rights violations to the top post of the AFP; the threat to suspend the writ of habeas corpus as part of government’s anti-terrorism efforts; the moves to restore the death penalty and to revive the notorious, martial law-vintage Philippine Constabulary — are among the Duterte regime’s actuations that are undermining whatever claims he has made to being a progressive and a harbinger of change.<br />
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The effigy burned at last week’s Human Rights Day was that of a skeletal monster with the face of the Dictator Marcos but with unmistakeable referencing to Duterte’s troubling human rights record.<br />
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“Never again!” clearly not only referred to the restoration of the Marcoses to Malacañang but to signs of the growing resort to fascist measures by the Duterte regime. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
12 December 2016<br />
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<br />Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-57427041912777743572016-12-06T00:38:00.001+08:002016-12-06T00:38:29.241+08:00A fitting farewell to “El Comandante”What a world of difference. Cuba, a small Latin American country struggling to overcome several decades of a crippling US embargo, has just solemnly buried a hero of their country, of their Revolution (yes, with a capital R, because it is a real social revolution) — “El Comandante” Fidel Ruz Castro. In the Philippines, a “hero’s burial” was surreptitiously rendered to the plasticized remains of a brutal despot, a certified plunderer and human rights violator, a traitor who sold national economic and political sovereignty to foreign, principally US, imperialist interests.<br />
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Many young people were roused from political apathy by the burial of the Dictator Marcos on supposedly hallowed ground. They displayed their rejection of the political rehabilitation of the Marcoses in two big mass demonstrations held in the span of less than two weeks. They, and for that matter all Filipinos, have much to learn from and be inspired by the example of the Cuban people and their genuine, modern-day heroes.<br />
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Fidel Castro has been eulogized by countless writers as the icon and incarnation of the Cuban revolution. This is in reference not only to the daring overthrow of the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in a guerrilla war that lasted six short years but also to more than half a century of building a socialist society and system of government in the face of unrelenting US attack. This includes more than 600 CIA-hatched assassination attempts, an economic blockade that the UN General Assembly has repeatedly voted to be put to an end, and counter-revolution including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 that Castro roundly defeated.<br />
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Fidel Castro’s life has been full of color and drama intertwined with the writing of his nation’s spectacular history. Immediately after the overthrow of the Batista government, Castro began Cuba’s transformation by ending Batista’s rule of terror, carrying out land reform and wealth redistribution. He incurred the ire of the USA by nationalizing US-owned companies and land.<br />
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Cuba’s elite left the country in droves and settled in Miami, Florida. To this day the Cuban emigre community serves as a bulwark of anti-Castro sentiment, the base of a powerful political lobby for continuing the US embargo and recruitment for CIA plots to assassinate Castro and overthrow the Cuban government.<br />
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On the other hand, Castro won the overwhelming support of the Cuban people by expanding social services and eventually eliminating illiteracy, making higher education accessible to all, realizing universal health care of high quality and providing affordable housing to more than two thirds of the population. <br />
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Cuba’s disaster prevention, mitigation, relief and rehabilitation programs are a model for other poor, underdeveloped countries because of the way it is anchored on the mobilization and organization of the people at the grassroots level to lessen the impact of the typhoons that annually slams the tiny island nation.<br />
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Cuba has sent its doctors and other health personnel to developing countries especially those reeling from disasters such as Haiti, those struggling to sustain its pro-people programs and policies against elite and US sabotage such as Venezuela, and many other countries in Latin America and Africa. As of January 2015, more than 51,847 Cuban medical personnel, half of whom are physicians, were working in 67 countries, mainly in the developing world.<br />
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According to the International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS), “Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary proletariat and people of Cuba have stood out as the most formidable revolutionary force inspiring the people of Latin America to fight for national independence, democracy and socialism against US imperialism.”<br />
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Even during the “special period” when the Cuban economy was devastated due to the disintegration of the USSR (the country lost approximately 80% of its imports, 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped by 34 percent) the Cuban government and people did not waver in their anti-imperialist resistance.<br />
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Most recently, Cuba has worked closely with Venezuela and other Latin American countries in building the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) according to the principles of social welfare and mutual economic aid and in opposition to imperialist and reactionary policies, especially neoliberalism, subversion and military intervention.<br />
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Much earlier, Fidel Castro and the Cuban people had demonstrated their boundless internationalism by playing a major role in the tricontinental movement of anti-imperialist governments and peoples earlier inspired by the Bandung Conference and then by the Non-Aligned Movement. Castro sent Cuban troops to Africa to fight South African apartheid armed forces and helped paved the way for the liberation of South Africa and several other African countries.<br />
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Castro governed Cuba for 47 years as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2006. He relinquished his presidential duties to the Vice President, Raul Castro, his brother and revolutionary comrade, when he became gravely ill in 2006 but continued to write on global issues and major developments and to influence Cuban policy.<br />
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Addressing the final session of the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party on April 19, 2016, Castro declared, “This may be one of the last times that I speak in this room, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof that on this planet, by working with fervor and dignity, we can produce the material and cultural wealth that humans need”.<br />
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Inspired by their leader’s fighting slogan “Socialism or Death!”, the Cuban people have united and resisted in their millions to defend Cuba against US intervention and aggression and to carry out the social transformation of Cuba even in the midst of the most difficult internal conditions and most unfavorable external conditions.<br />
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The ILPS, in its highest tribute to Fidel Castro, stated, “(He) will always be remembered as a great revolutionary leader who held his ground in Cuba, accomplished what was possible and continued to fight for the cause of national and social liberation, for socialism and for the ultimate goal of communism despite the dismal conditions resulting from the betrayal of socialism by the modern revisionists, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent ideological, political, economic and military offensives of the US and its imperialist allies.”<br />
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Fidel Castro has been hailed as the most influential Latin American leader of the 21st century. After a four-day “Caravan of Liberty” starting with a massive gathering in Havana’s Revolution Square where Castro delivered his rousing, marathon speeches, and tracing in reverse order Castro’s journey from Santiago de Cuba to Havana in 1959 to mark the triumph of the Cuban revolution, his ashes will be laid to rest at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, which houses the remains of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti and other national heroes.<br />
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It is a fitting farewell to a quintessential revolutionary leader beloved by his people. And according to Dr. Helen Yaffe, a specialist on Cuban and Latin American economic history, “Somewhere, rising up through their grief will be a sense of pride; that nature took el Comandante, and not the enemy.” #<br />
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Published in Business World <br />
5 December 2016<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-18645933599869225472016-11-13T19:24:00.002+08:002016-11-14T07:18:13.030+08:00The looming Marcos restorationThirty short years after the downfall of the dictator Marcos, the Marcoses are back with a vengeance.<br />
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And soon, they hope, all traces of their disgraceful exit from Malacanang will be expunged from public memory. The hated despot — the villain who wrought so much suffering on our people, the crook who sold the country down the river so he and his family could live like royalty — will be given a burial that befits a national hero. <br />
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Certainly not because he is a hero; he was the epitome of a heel. Marcos will be buried as his family and loyal followers wish, with the dignity and honor they claim he deserves, because the time is ripe, so they say, for “moving on”, for “national unity”, for “healing”. Or is it ripe because finally, a close Marcos ally is a popular yet maverick President?<br />
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According to the ones most immediately responsible for this looming despicable deed - the majority in the Supreme Court and President Rodrigo Roa Duterte - 1) Marcos was a former bemedalled soldier and president of the republic no less; 2) the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) is reserved for one such as he; 3) the president has the power to order Marcos’ burial at the LNMB. And all else is irrelevant. <br />
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Rather than be a balm for healing, Marcos’ impending burial in LNMB has only opened festering wounds and stirred up unsettled questions. <br />
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And well it should. For the greater tragedy would be to allow the Marcos family and their political cohorts to pull a fast one. That once the dictator’s touted remains are buried at the LNMB, the way forward to retaking Malacañang Palace will be all clear for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.<br />
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One obvious question, wasn’t Marcos an unmitigated evil that he managed to impose martial law, usurp all power and call it a “constitutional dictatorship”, suppress all dissent with an iron hand, monopolize business for his clique and still gain the backing of the US of A, the so-called citadel of democracy itself?<br />
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To say yes to that would be to give Marcos too much credit. Philippine society pre-martial law was in one of its paroxysms of social and political crises. The social volcano was threatening to erupt due to the sharpening contradictions between the oligarchy of big landlords and comprador bourgeoisie versus the broad masses of the Filipino people - peasants, workers, urban poor, youth and students, low-earning employees and small business folk.<br />
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The political duopoly of the Nacionalista and Liberal Parties alternated in deceiving and repressing the populace and in using their official positions to fatten their pockets and perpetuate their political dynasties.<br />
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The air was rife with social discontent and revolution. The Communist Party of the Philippines had been reestablished, soon to be followed by the founding of the New People’s Army, both dedicated to overthrowing a decaying semicolonial and semifeudal order. The times also saw the birth of the Moro National Liberation Front with the objective of liberating the Moro people from national oppression by means of secession.<br />
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Competition among the factions of the political elite was turning more violent and irreconcilable. And Ferdinand E. Marcos was on his last term in office.<br />
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In sum, the ruling classes could no longer rule in the old way and needed to resort to martial law to preserve and bring stability to the moribund status quo. Marcos provided the brains and evil design to pull it off. He led his faction of the elite, with its hold on the military and constabulary generals, to establish authoritarian rule. He got the backing of big business, the Catholic church hierarchy, the foreign chambers of commerce and most important of all, the US government. <br />
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All sources and avenues of dissent, he simply shut down in the name of “saving the republic” from invented Left and Right conspiracies. Martial law heralded the coming of a “new society” supposedly marked by discipline and progress. Remember the “new society” anthem with its promise “Magbabago ang lahat tungo sa pag-unlad”? (All things will change for the better.)<br />
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Why, even much of the public was initially duped (of course, most people found it less dangerous to simply acquiesce and hope that even only half of the martial law propaganda of good things to come would turn out to be true.)<br />
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It took 14 years for the fascist dictatorship to become fully exposed for what it was. It took an armed revolution in the countryside to shatter the illusion of its armed invincibility. The broad anti-dictatorship movement grew by leaps and bounds bringing hundreds of thousands out into the streets by the time of the assassination of Marcos’ nemesis, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino. <br />
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The political spectrum ranged against Marcos included the communist-led and Moro liberation movements, the legal progressive movement of democrats and human rights advocates, the conservative Catholic hierarchy led by a wily Cardinal and the various anti-Marcos reactionaries who wanted to remove Marcos so that they could take over. <br />
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A failed coup d’tat attempt by disgruntled military officers sparked an unarmed people’s uprising that precipitated the downfall of Marcos. EDSA 1 was hailed as a “people’s revolution” that was unique because it was non-violent. It catapulted Corazon C. Aquino to the presidency and allowed her to declare a “revolutionary government”.<br />
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However EDSA 1 was not a social revolution by any stretch of the imagination. It merely restored the old ruling order with its trappings of democracy - Congress, the courts, non-government mass media and periodic elections where the different factions of the ruling classes could contest whose turn it is to screw the people. The system of feudal land ownership, neocolonial domination by the US and anti-people regimes run by bureaucrat capitalists that nationalists and democrats had been denouncing and calling for a complete overhaul continued unimpeded.<br />
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EDSA 1 didn’t even achieve the minimum post-dictatorship imperative to completely hold Marcos and his ilk to account for crimes against the people and against humanity (given the scale and gravity of human rights violations). There was no thoroughgoing investigation and a definitive historicizing of the Marcos legacy. The pursuit of ill-gotten wealth was mired in legal tussles not to mention questionable concessions and under-the-table wheeling dealing with the Marcoses and cronies. The Marcoses themselves managed to reinvent themselves — from complicit perpetrators to hapless victims of injustice, no less! — and mounted a horrific political comeback that is causing nightmares to their victims and the rest of the Filipino people.<br />
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Political accommodation has taken over. The politicians and bureaucrats complicit in propping up the dictatorship have gotten a new lease in life. It is business as usual with the competing factions obsessed with taking power and keeping it. Imelda Marcos and her children, heirs to the Marcos loot and residual clout, have proven too enticing as political allies for anyone who would aspire for the highest post of the land. <br />
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Over time, Marcos' crimes would gradually be obscured in the collective amnesia of a population inured to rampant and high-level corruption, impunity in human rights violations, shameless puppetry and subservience to foreign interests. Widespread desperation over continuously worsening living conditions have made people susceptible and vulnerable to the canard that "things were better during Marcos' time”.<br />
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But it would take a boldfaced Marcos ally and chief executive to take advantage of this and dare to declare: it's time to bury Marcos along with all his crimes and our bad memories of him. #<br />
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Published in Business World<br />
14 November 2016<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-11770545079116668072016-10-31T23:55:00.004+08:002016-12-12T23:43:59.892+08:00 Restoring a people’s dignity<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 11px;">I watched the cultural show “Hugpungan” (“encounter” ) mounted by the national minorities — Moro and indigenous peoples — together with UP students at the Diliman Theater last week and was at one point moved to tears. A powerful choreography performed by youngsters, lumad from different tribes in Mindanao, depicted their pride in their culture, forces attempting to grab their ancestral lands, their determined defense as well as assertion of the right to self determination. The word that crossed my mind was “dignity” and the beauty of their struggle to uphold their dignity as distinct peoples.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Filipinos from the national majority, most especially those who consider themselves modern and urbane, have much to learn from our sisters and brothers from the mountains. Those who joined the Lakbayan 2016, a long journey to the National Capital Region bringing their issues and struggles combine the native wisdom and feistiness of their elders with the socio-political activism of the later generations.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Most of us grow up looking down on the national minorities as backward, uncouth and uncivilized although they are considered picturesque in their colorful “costumes” (actually their native wear) and their innocence is appealing to jaded souls from the metropolis. (The Moros, on the other hand, with their history of armed resistance to colonialism and post-colonial national chauvinism and oppression, have been caricatured as shrewd traders if not conmen and prone to violent reprisal for perceived grievances.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">How to “integrate” them into mainstream society and “improve” their lot has been the battlecry of succeeding governments. When a few of their young people are able to get higher education, they inevitably melt or are swallowed into the dominant culture and society losing their identity and distinctiveness.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">The ruling elite in this country, those who partner with foreign mining companies, agricorporations and the like or are in their pay, are incredulous that these “natives” know and assert their rights. They conclude that these people must have been “indoctrinated” by “outsiders” (the communist New People’s Army or NPA, to be more specific). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Ergo the problem is the NPA and the solution is a counterinsurgency program to drive out the NPA by entrenching soldiers inside their communities and recruiting paramilitary groups from their ranks to terrorize them into submission. When “peace and order” is restored, the military and other government agencies come in with social services to win back the national minorities’ “hearts and minds”. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">A simple and straightforward “solution” that has failed again and again. It is anchored on the objective of perpetuating exploitation and oppression and denying the national minorities their inherent right to determine their own future. Counterinsurgency programs no matter their “peace and development” guise only engender resistance. Having somehow retained or, perhaps, rediscovered their dignity and strength as a unified people, the national minorities are fighting for their lives and their very existence.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">We now reflect on President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncements and moves to leave the US sphere of influence in the light of our most recent encounter with our national minorities. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">What is most striking is that Mr. Duterte is the first president since independence who has explicitly stated he will not be a US lapdog. He is bringing back our pride and dignity as a people when he says the Philippines will no longer be a “doormat” of the US. Under his watch, the country will hew to an independent foreign policy, an aspiration enshrined in the Philippine Constitution yet consistently observed in the breach by the political class who rule this country.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">A senior citizen expressed the sentiment thus, “I never thought I would see the day when a Philippine president could say ‘F—k you!’ to the leaders of the Western powers and the international institutions they control for their brazen and hypocritical denunciation of the body count in Mr. Duterte’s campaign against addictive drugs. They have the blood of countless Arabs, Africans, Asians and black and native Americans on their hands because of their wars of colonization, aggression and plunder.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Mr. Duterte is using the presidency as a bully pulpit to awaken the people’s patriotic sentiments buried under an avalanche of US colonial miseducation, lies and distortions of history, mass media-fed taste for US commodities including cultural goods, and non-stop propaganda about the US being the epitome of modernity, progress, democracy and the good life.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">I was pleasantly surprised when the police officer assigned to negotiate with demonstrators at the US embassy last Thursday said another clash between protesters and the police should be avoided at all cost since it would only please the Americans. He also grumbled about the US giving crumbs to the country, its supposed long-time ally, when it allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel. (It appears that all the public discussion generated by Mr. Duterte’s bold, and to some, outrageous statements, had filtered down even to the men in uniform.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">The White House, the US State Department and neoconservative US political pundits are getting very worried that Mr. Duterte’s anti-US tirade, including dredging up almost forgotten historical atrocities against the Filipino people that would be considered crimes against humanity today, are going to be backed by official action. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">President Duterte has said he wants US troops out of Mindanao nonetheless a new batch of “rotating” US Special Forces numbering more than a hundred recently arrived in Zamboanga City. He has announced that joint military exercises this October would be the last during his term but military and defense officials have countered his pronouncement by saying such exercises have been scheduled ahead of time and cannot just be cancelled without doing damage to the two countries’ military alliance. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">In response to veiled threats by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russell about the possible consequences of Mr. Duterte’s turning his back on the US and embracing China, the Commander-in-Chief said that he could very well scrap the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a lopsided bilateral agreement that allows the de facto setting up of US military installations inside so-called Philippine bases, crucial to the US “pivot to Asia”. Having been upheld by the Philippine Supreme Court as an executive agreement, it is well within the power of the Chief Executive to rescind EDCA. But Mr. Duterte has backtracked and said he will consult the DND and AFP top brass before making such a decision since it is a “national security” concern.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">What is clear and categorical by now is that the Duterte administration is moving farther away from the ambit of US domination economically and militarily with his recent state visit to China where he was warmly received and purportedly brought home a bonanza of economic investments, soft loans and outright grants. Without giving up the favorable decision rendered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the Philippines’ maritime entitlements in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea), Mr. Duterte was able to arrive at a peaceful settlement of the Scarborough Shoal stand-off with the immediate effect that Filipino fisherfolk are again able to fish there without being chased away by Chinese coast guard ships.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Mr. Duterte’s pursuit of an independent foreign policy is eating away at one of the biggest factors pushing China’s aggressiveness in the disputed areas of the West Philippine Sea; that is, the Philippines’ identification with US geopolitical imperatives and kowtowing to US dictates. # </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">Published in Business World </span></span><br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-14069865303080075032016-10-25T07:20:00.003+08:002016-10-25T07:20:39.315+08:00Palovian reflexIt was shockingly painful to watch the video footage of a police van mowing down protesting indigenous and Moro people in front of the US embassy last Wednesday. The rabid zeal and brutally with which the police used their might to inflict injury on anyone they could lay their hands on and arrest as many as they could (including those already hurt and the First Aid team of doctors and nurses attempting to attend to the wounded) was all too familiar yet still disturbing if not revolting. <br />
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Another case of police over zealousness in protecting the US embassy? The usual small, unruly crowd of youth activists getting out of hand and requiring more stringent and forceful police crowd management? In fact, no. <br />
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The demonstrators easily numbered more than a thousand composed of the different tribes of Lumad and Moros from Mindanao, Igorots from the Cordillera, Dumagats from Southern Tagalog, Aetas from Central Luzon and even Tumandok from Panay. They were joined by a smaller number of supporters from Metro Manila coming from different sectors including students, workers and urban poor.<br />
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They caught the police contingent providing perimeter security for the embassy by surprise and were able to maneuver to get as close to the embassy walls as possible, of course with a lot of shoving and shouting. They painted the pristine walls red with slogans such as “Go Duterte! Junk EDCA!” and “Yankee go home!”<br />
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When the dust had settled, the police, some of them splattered with red paint, resigned themselves to the situation and allowed the demonstrators to hold their almost 2-hour long program in peace.<br />
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As the protesters wound up their program of speeches and cultural numbers, a certain Col. Pedroza arrived. He berated his men for allowing the demonstrators to get the better of them without putting up a fight and allowing him to lose face with US embassy officials. He then ordered a completely unwarranted violent dispersal of the protest action that was already about to end without further incident.<br />
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Several questions have come to fore as culled from social media. The standard one, “Weren’t the demonstrators asking for it? Didn’t they ‘provoke’ the police?” From many witnesses and raw video footages, it is clear that the initial confrontation occurred when the demonstrators asserted their right to bring their message to the very threshold of the embassy. They succeeded to do so by overpowering the police phalanx with their sheer size and militance.<br />
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Immediately they were able to splash red paint on the US embassy seal and paint their slogans on the embassy walls as an expression of rage and protest at the Almighty US of A — self-appointed global policeman and number one instigator of wars of aggression and intervention worldwide — again despite the efforts of the police to prevent them.<br />
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Having done so and entrenching their ranks in front of the embassy, the demonstrators quieted down and held their protest program. The police too settled down, held their peace and watched the demonstrators from where they had ensconced.<br />
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So what had “provoked” the police was the order of their commander to unleash their maximum intolerance for citizens exercising their right to air their grievances so that US embassy officials could be reassured the police were doing their job. The Pavlovian reflex took over the police forces, having been oriented, trained, equipped and constantly sicced on protesting citizens to protect the status quo, the oligarchy and their foreign overlords. The real nature of the PNP as protector of the neocolonial state, especially its power centers like Malacañang and the US embassy, was on full display.<br />
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But aren’t the police under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte even faintly aware that their Commander-in-Chief is no longer the unmitigated “Amboy” (American Boy) that all previous presidents since so-called independence have been? At the rate Duterte has been raining expletives on the mighty USA, including its President and the US State Department, while elucidating his concept of an independent foreign policy, more mass protests at the embassy should and could have been anticipated and police response adjusted accordingly. <br />
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Unfortunately, the puppet and fascist character of the PNP is so ingrained, it will take a major and determined overhaul to change it. (It doesn’t help that the PNP is getting carte blanche in the Duterte administration’s war on drugs where abuse of power, extrajudicial short cuts, corruption and impunity are still very much in evidence.)<br />
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But there are netizens who are alternately perplexed and aghast why there were indigenous people and Moros demonstrating against US imperialism at the embassy. Was that their issue? Weren’t their legitimate issues about defending their ancestral lands from interlopers or even the killings traced to paramilitary units and even military forces themselves. Shouldn’t they be at the<br />
DENR protesting corporate mining or at the AFP camps calling for en end to militarization. Why the US embassy? (They, in fact, had already been to the DENR and Camp Aguinaldo military camp.)<br />
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There were even some who imputed that the Left, perennial protestors at the US embassy, had hoodwinked and somehow manipulated the contingents of national minorities to do their bidding and “riot” at the US embassy. <br />
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They who had trekked thousands of miles from north to south of the archipelago in what they had dubbed “Lakbayan ng Pambansang Minorya para sa Sariling Pagpapasya at Makatarungang Kapayapaan” (Journey of National Minorities for Self-determination and a Just Peace) were presumed too politically naive and shallow to grasp how US imperialism affects them and so they had to be “tricked” to protest at the US embassy.<br />
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Wrong. Contrary to the common city goers' misconception, the lumad for one have educated themselves, primarily by their own efforts, setting up at least 146 schools in various communities all over Mindanao. These schools have been targets of brutal attacks by the military mainly because they have effectively equipped the lumad with the tools to study and understand their situation and to fight for their rights.<br />
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Speaker after speaker from among their ranks have clearly articulated the relationship between the encroachments on their lands by multinational mining companies and agribusinesses, the plunder of natural resources and wanton destruction of the environment, and the grievous violations of their rights to US imperialism and its strongest tentacles among the AFP and PNP.<br />
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They spoke of the US-patterned, instigated, funded and directed counter-insurgency programs, including the latest Oplan Bayanihan, as behind the militarization of their communities, the divide-and-rule tactic of arming paramilitaries recruited from among them to do the dirty work of<br />
terrorizing their communities in order to drive them away from their communal lands so that the foreign corporate interests and their domestic partners could take over.<br />
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The indigenous peoples and Moros have the historical and practical experience of struggling against colonial subjugation and neocolonial oppression and exploitation. Thus they have sharpened their understanding of the root causes of their abject condition and what they must do to regain their dignity as a people, to exercise their right to self-determination and to live their lives under the ascendance of a just peace. #<br />
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Carol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9832215.post-19524151245345785232016-10-19T22:57:00.001+08:002016-10-19T22:57:06.926+08:00 Thorny issues emerge in Oslo peace talksThe second round of peace talks in Oslo, Norway between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines(GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) ended on a noticeably less upbeat tone compared to the resumption in August. The weather seemed to forebode such an outcome with the sunny days at the start giving way to overcast skies and a gloomier atmosphere.<br />
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There was a listlessness in the air as the two peace panels strived to come up with their joint statement. Down the wire there were changes to the working draft and much shuttling back and forth resulting in a longer final panel-to-panel meeting. When the time for signing came, there was a collective sigh of relief instead of the unqualifiedly cheery reception at the conclusion of the first round.<br />
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To be fair, the Parties had achieved the objectives they had set for this round, arriving at common outlines for the substantive agenda on Social and Economic Reforms (SER), Political and Constitutional Reforms (PCR) and End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces (EHDF). For the PCR and EHDF, work was easier, smoother and therefore quicker as the Reciprocal Working Groups (RWGs) on both sides generally were well prepared and in agreement on the general topics to be covered. Moreover, they reaffirmed that the agreements on PCR and EHDF could not run ahead of that on SER. The latter must set the pace and content of any agreements to be crafted on PCR and EHDF.<br />
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The Reciprocal Working Committees (RWCs) on SER had a much more difficult time getting their act together despite working overtime and holding many one-sided caucuses in between. <br />
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Negotiations on SER are facing serious if not overwhelming odds beginning with a whale of a difference in the two Parties’ appreciation of what is wrong with the system and ergo what reforms are needed to address the roots of the armed conflict. For the GRP, it is a matter of making the system work better, to be more “inclusive”, be less bureaucratic or more responsive to the poor and underprivileged sections of society, and, perhaps, more accommodating to the demands of the NDFP forces that have been fighting for major reforms.<br />
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On top of contrasting if not diametrically opposed points of view, was the seeming lackadaisical preparation of the GRP RWC-SER. They did not even have an honest-to-goodness draft outline comparable to the fleshed-out one submitted by the NDFP. They insisted on adding a section entitled “Outcomes” that they said was in consonance with the way the GRP organized its executive departments and would make it easier for these departments to see their role and function in a Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER).<br />
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The GRP panel seemed to expect the NDFP to agree to the premise that socio-economic reforms should dovetail the way the GRP is organized. The current panel apparently has not discarded the framework of its predecessors in keeping reforms strictly within the bounds of the GRP Constitution and legal processes. This contravenes the guideline clearly enunciated by no less than their principal, President Rodrigo Duterte, in the presence of the GRP panel and NDFP panel members and consultants last September 26 in Malacanang. Responding to NDFP Panel Chairperson Luis Jalandoni’s statements on the need for land reform and national industrialization, the President said he welcomes reforms “as long as these are achievable within the Constitution, or achievable through amendments to the Constitution.” <br />
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In contrast, the NDFP presented a radically different analysis of what ails Philippine society and consequently what are the major socio-economic reforms needed to solve these ills. The NDFP-proposed outline reflected this in terms of highlighting the long-standing problem of land monopoly by a few, necessitating a genuine land reform program anchored on the principle of land to the tiller. <br />
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The NDFP draft also confronted the backward, pre-industrial, dependent character of the national economy undergirding poverty and joblessness. The NDFP contended that no less than a comprehensive overhaul of the GRP’s policy framework is needed. This would encompass dismantling its neoliberal economic framework and pursuing national industrialization to meet the basic needs of the people, harness the country’s abundant natural and labor resources, and lead the way towards a pro-people, sustainable development.<br />
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That a unified CASER outline was eventually arrived at speaks of the remaining goodwill and earnestness on both sides to find common ground considering they are just at the very early stages of negotiating on this key agenda.<br />
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Thornier still is the matter of GRP’s release of more than 400 political prisoners including three remaining JASIG-protected NDFP consultants who are serving time in the National Penitentiary after having been convicted on trumped-up common crimes. The “legal offensive” undertaken by the GRP since the Arroyo regime is clearly intended to harass, arrest and indefinitely detain dissidents - whether armed revolutionaries or plain activists - and keep them from effectively opposing government policies and programs they deem wrong and anti-people. <br />
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This GRP continuing practice is a clear travesty of justice, contravenes the GRP’s established jurisprudence that prohibits the criminalization of political offenses (Hernandez doctrine), and also violates the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). Again, President Duterte had unequivocally stated before the GRP panel and the NDFP panel members and consultants that he would “stop this policy (of charging and detaining suspected revolutionaries with criminal offenses… otherwise, we will never have peace, because there will always be injustice.”<br />
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Unfortunately, GRP’s promises to effect the release of all the political prisoners are appearing to be more and more unreliable, uncertain and perhaps part of a ploy to keep up the hopes of the political prisoners, their families and comrades while being utilized as bait for the NDFP to enter prematurely and unjustifiably into a bilateral ceasefire.<br />
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Based on the GRP’s conduct at the second round of formal talks, it has become increasingly obvious that it remains fixated on “reducing the levels of violence” by clinching a bilateral ceasefire and giving this primacy over the negotiations on basic social, economic and political reforms. Like its predecessors, it justifies or rationalizes this track with the worn-out argument that violence or armed conflict is the root cause of non-development, poverty and social inequities.<br />
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The NDFP, on the other hand, has repeatedly and forthrightly stated that the progress of negotiations on the CASER and the release of all political prisoners through general amnesty would serve as a huge incentive for the NDFP to work on a bilateral ceasefire with the GRP. The NDFP had in fact declared an unprecedented indefinite ceasefire simultaneous with and in reciprocation of the GRP unilateral ceasefire as a goodwill and confidence-building measure along with measures to accelerate negotiations on the substantive agenda.<br />
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The unstated implication is that a bilateral ceasefire would be less feasible, if more grossly disadvantageous to the NDFP, should the GRP fail or fall short in its share crafting the CASER with the NDFP, and in its commitment to release the political prisoners through amnesty or other efficacious means. Even with the ongoing simultaneous unilateral ceasefires, numerous reports indicate that the AFP and PNP have continued the GRP’s counterinsurgency operations under Oplan Bayanihan. True, there has been a marked decrease in armed encounters between the New People’s Army (NPA) and state security forces. But the attacks by AFP-led paramilitaries on communities, especially in the hinterlands such as the lumad areas, are unabated, again despite Pres. Duterte’s order to the AFP to disarm and control these paramilitary forces.<br />
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The GRP’s mixed signals threatens to confound and complicate the GRP-NDFP peace process. #<br />
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Published 17 October<br />
Business WorldCarol P. Araullohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11858327993829917923noreply@blogger.com0