Left Flank

Attempting to follow the constitutional struggles between RP President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Senate, and the Supreme Court is like witnessing a family feud where no one can recall the genesis of the dispute, but everyone is certain their escalating barbarity will keep the family together.

The Senate rejected Wednesday a Supreme Court proposal which, while allowing former Socioeconomic and Planning Secretary Romulo Neri to testify at the upper chamber's broadband investigation, barred senators from asking questions involving Neri's conversation with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

After the caucus among the senators, which lasted a couple of hours, Senate President Manuel Villar said most senators believed that the proposal would diminish the powers of the Senate to call any witness or resource person to an inquiry, or to ask certain questions.

«We strongly feel about this…We are doing this not only for us but for future senators,» he said in Filipino.

Villar said: «We cannot agree to a compromise. We reached a consensus to reject the offer. I am really against that because it would show the Senate has no balls, we don't want to look like we're being trampled on.»

As much as I respect Manuel L. Quezon III's opinion on the NBN-ZTE scandal, it seems other Filipino voices have lost faith in the "family", the government, and also have lost faith in their role to exert extra-constitutional pressure on the government through the hackneyed device of a popular revolt. Lest I sound like the NDF, let's take some radical thoughts to heart:

Clearly there is nothing wrong with the Filipino. What is wrong is this nebulous, amorphous "system." I hadn't thought of it before, and previously it had no name. The system is our public life - how we behave in public spaces. What I meant by "civilising" Philippine politics is the creation of civility in our society - the lack of this feeling that we need to eat or be eaten. That we can let go of our guard and live relatively safe lives in public because we have trust that public institutions will work for (more or less) the majority. Isn't this what we mean by justice?

Seriously, I find a lot that's notable in Benjamin de la Pena's Design of Our Democracy and these critical comments.

This revision of the Micro-ocracy proposal (which I shall now call the Micro-Federal Democratic System), seeks to alleviate the following problems: eliminate the Manila monopoly, as since the Congressional vote is province-wise, and the Manila area is one province, it is only the national government capital, but not the economic and social one; avoid a «Serbian mistake», by making sure that no one region or ethnic group has the majority in provincial council vote. Incidentally, AHYH made sure that the «one-man autocracies» would diminish, as the one-man offices are taken from Councils: district, provincial, and then Congressional. Most importantly, no one faction has power. Not the media oligopolies, or the election barons. The elite would be regionally limited. And because, hopefully, secessionist and ideological rebellions would finally be discouraged by giving them a piece of government, military spending would decrease, and the budget would focus on better things, like education, and alternative fuel research, and medicine.

Again, this is just another proposal, coming from one proposal. I am encouraging criticism from various sectors, and their own offers of revisions. In this way, through constructive argument, and the sharing of opinions, we would finally be able to get to a working manual, something that we can thrust on the oligarchs and their elected monarchy and say—this is what it's all about. Not personalities, and not parties. A real, substantial, structural reform, different from the American, different from the Marxist. One that is a balance of the two. And, hopefully, one that works.

But, beware the Philippine version of the politics of "The Wire".

Manuel L. Quezon, III has a biting satire of a commentary about Philippines' President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's plight (the only female politician in the world more conflicted about her marriage than Hillary Clinton), as her advisers and the First Husband testify to Congress over the NBN-ZTE scandal. Quezon subjects her administration to Confucian judgment.

Confucius rejoined: Ch'iu, an honest man hates your hypocrite who will not openly avow his greed, but tries instead to excuse it. I have heard that the ruler of a state or of a clan is troubled not by the smallness of its numbers but by the absence of even-handed justice; not by poverty but by the presence of discontent; for where there is justice there will be no poverty; where there is harmony there will be no lack in numbers; where there is content there will be no revolution. This being the case then, if outlying communities resist your authority, cultivate the arts of refinement and goodness in order to attract them; and when you have attracted them, make them happy and contented. Now you two, Yu and Ch'iu, are aiding and abetting your master; here is an outlying community which resists your authority, and you are unable to attract it. Partition and collapse are imminent in your own State, and you are unable to preserve it intact. And yet you are planning military aggression within in the borders of your country! Verily I fear that Chi-sun's troubles will come, not from Chuan-yü, but from the interior of his own palace.

GMA's authority in Mindanao ('outlying community'?) is questioned. Troubles might come from inside her palace, but GMA is severing her lifeline to PRC.

«It's an offshoot of the political fallout from the kickbacks controversy,» said Benjamin Diokno, a former budget secretary and now professor of public finance.

Mrs Macapagal scrapped the telecommunications project last year but recent allegations that the government tried to abduct a witness in a Senate probe on the kickbacks scandal gave fresh impetus to the controversy. Last week, up to 10,000 people gathered in the Makati financial district to call for Mrs Macapagal's resignation. Former cabinet members are calling on incumbent officials to quit the government.

About half of the $2.6bn total worth of the 11 projects were meant to be funded by China. These included a $660m project to build video links to more than 26,000 public schools throughout the Philippines and a $380m project to upgrade rail services to towns and cities south of Manila.

Mr Diokno cast doubt on the government spokesman's claim that it has enough money to fund infrastructure projects, pointing out that government had been failing to meet tax collection targets.

The Philippines, which used to be Asia's second-largest issuer of sovereign bonds after Japan, had planned to borrow $1.6bn in official development assistance and $500m in sovereign bonds to meet its $2.1bn external financing requirement this year.

In the end, Quezon has another devilishly clever quote to complete a delightful essay full of opposing viewpoints: "Where graft is informally institutionalized in this way, it provides the basis for state organizations that are effective at collecting taxes, maintaining public order, and repressing political opposition but that may undermine the development of liberal politics."

If you take Chinese money, the RP won't be liberal anymore.

Rina bravely admits to a praiseworthy perplexity and skepticism about the constitutional fracas occurring around the NBN-ZTE scandal in The Philippines. I'll join her in that predicament, and, as a non-Filipino, I think I need more help than she does.

ZTE Corp. issued a statement denying allegations by witnesses testifying in a Philippine Senate anti-corruption hearing that a former elections chief and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's husband were promised huge commissions to clear a national broadband contract with the Chinese company.

Both men have denied the accusations, and the deal was scrapped last year. But the scandal and nationally televised hearings have continued, threatening Arroyo's administration with fresh opposition protests and coup rumors.

(…)

Last year, a Filipino businessman who lost to ZTE the bid for the project to link online all government offices told senators the US$330 million (€225 million) ZTE proposal was overpriced by US$130 million (€89 million) to accommodate kickbacks demanded by ex-elections commissioner Benjamin Abalos and the president's husband, Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo.

Former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri testified that Abalos offered him a bribe to approve the ZTE proposal, which he refused. Neri stopped short of linking Arroyo or her husband to the scandal.

Last week, Neri's former consultant, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., surfaced in the Senate after claiming he was held for two days by government agents to prevent him from speaking.

He said he discussed the deal with ZTE officials but failed to "moderate the greed" of brokers like Abalos, who last year quit as the elections chief. He also claimed Abalos threatened to kill him if he did not secure a kickback for him.

Obviously, ZTE, and the PRC government, will plead its innocence, and make threatening noises about not spoiling the business environment.

The problem is, that business and constitutional issues are intertwined. On the one hand, there's what actually might have happened between Chinese and Filipino businessmen and the two governments related to broadband companies. But then, because the scandal snared congressional figures, there's the constitutional relationship between Congress and the president. There's also President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's lack of popularity, which doesn't stop her from fighting.

President Arroyo spoke yesterday for the first time about the NBN issue after Lozada's explosive Senate testimony, saying she trusts the impartiality of the Ombudsman in its probe.

«We want to fight corruption.  The Ombudsman, who is constitutionally independent, has announced that she will carry out a review of this issue and the related allegations,» Mrs. Arroyo said in her speech at an economic briefing jointly organized by the Investor Relations Office, the Manila Overseas Press Club, and the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. Lozada told the Senate last week that her husband and Abalos demanded kickbacks from the ZTE deal.

«We take the ZTE issue very seriously,» Mrs. Arroyo said adding that she «moved quickly to cancel the project as soon as I could after proper consultation with government of China, our biggest export market.»

She said she has instructed Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez to investigate the others implicated in the deal who are not within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. «We do not tolerate corruption,» she said.

«I trust that the Ombudsman will investigate this issue thoroughly and that she will ensure a transparent process in doing so.  I instruct the Secretary of Justice to likewise be thorough and transparent in his investigation,» Mrs. Arroyo said.

The President noted that allegations of corruption «have regularly emerged even in previous administrations as part of our less-than-impressive political culture.»

«I just hope this set of charges will not be a political football,» Mrs. Arroyo said. She said there's no way she could eliminate the «legacy of political corruption» overnight but stressed her administration has achieved great strides in its battle against well-entrenched grafters.

She said fighting corruption is one her administration's major goals.

Even if the NBN-ZTE scandal is like Watergate, Rina, just keep repeating, "Bring It On!" (So, for Rina, a little musical relaxation—more available, but it's in Tagalog)

It all looks good in dreams before the dawn:

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has declared an all-out war on the communist insurgency and set a 2010 deadline for the AFP to defeat the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Through «Oplan Bantay Laya,» the military's counterinsurgency blueprint, the AFP chief of staff, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., said there would be only 25 guerrilla fronts left by 2010, making the NPA an «inconsequential group.»

Esperon had said that from the existing 87 guerrilla fronts, the military aims to dismantle 17 in the first quarter of 2008.

The military is also tossing some bones to a very sophisticated menu of psy-ops, public diplomacy, and legal weapons. I especially liked this statement: «Our operations are only against the enemies of the state and not civilians. They don't have to leave their homes because they are not being targeted,» he said.

Manuel L. Quezon, III's sociological insight is a fitting rejoinder to both an apoplectic denunciation and a detached examination of why The Philippines' President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pardoned her convicted political rival and predecessor, Joseph Estrada.

In a nation where symbolism trumps substance, Estrada never had to suffer for his rhetoric, the President never gave the legal process to reach its final conclusion; there wasn’t even a token effort at proving justice could be tempered with mercy; instead, mercenary calculations were passed off as executive mercy. But, as Amang Rodriguez so famously said, â€ūin the long of time, we shall success.â€?

Can I even ask that the victory go to the Filipino people, and not Arroyo or Jose De Venecia, III?

With only one group claiming responsibility, a non-event no one takes seriously, the most generous conspiracy, the Glorietta mall bombing as boon for the Arroyo administration meme, is hardly a compliment for Filipino politics.

(View photos at Glorietta Blast.)

Only slightly less appealing are either the «fire insurance» theory:

Does that mean that the government set the fire itself? Not necessarily, it would be premature to conclude that. However, the situation today can be likened to a case where you have roaming bands of arsonists. Given that terrorist threats are commonplace today, any President in a pickle and interested in self-preservation can simply relax his/her vigilance and let the terrorists do what comes naturally to them, knowing full well that the political windfall would go to him/her. He/she knows that in matters involving National Security where secrecy is involved, negligence is hard to detect.

Or, the puppet-master theory (a version of which Manila Bay Watch espouses, too):

It is more believable to suppose that another force is trying to exploit the growing rifts between President Arroyo and Speaker Joe de Venecia.

From my observations of the country?s political scene, it is clear that the aim of the bombing is the turning of the political crisis currently enmeshing the nation into real chaos.

This kind of situation has more benefits to terrorist groups or ultra-Rightists.

The goal of these groups is to hasten the polarization of the different political forces.

But, it's war-gaming as usual for US troops, even if shopping is curtailed.

«It will not affect our exercises. We will continue with the bilateral relationship that we have established. We will continue to do things in a normal fashion and continue our training,» Colonel Ben Mathews II, commander of the Marine Aircraft Group 36 and Talon Vision 08 exercise co-director, said on Saturday.

«Again, it was sad that this occurred but I don't think this should stop the continuing exercise,» he said.

«My concern is, of course, the welfare of my marines and sailors and our Philippine counterparts. We will take appropriate measures. We need to ensure we are safe and that we continue to do our bilateral exercise,» said Colonel John Mayer, commander of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and amphibious landing exercise co-director.

The venues of the exercises as well as humanitarian missions -- held inside the Clark and Subic freeports, Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Crow Valley reservation in Tarlac, Ternate in Cavite and Laguna -- are not going to be changed.

US troops based in Clark will be restricted within the economic zone during the 15-day exercise until October 30 but this, said Mathews, has always been the policy from the start of ground-air integrated training under Talon Vision.

Asked if he was allowing any troops to go out of Clark, he said: «Well, no. We are keeping our marines and sailors here in Clark. But we have been doing that since the start.»

«There are so many opportunities for our marines and sailors here to buy things and to eat at the nice restaurants and to enjoy the facilities that we don't really see the need for them to go out,» Mathews said.

Yet, the FBI is helping Philippines authorities nonetheless. Such official nonchalance in itself could be significant.

The most ridiculous commentary on Filipino politics, though might be this: «An alternative theory in the investigation into the Makati bombing is that it was accidentally set off by incendiary material inside the building.»

Make that clumsy employee president!

The Arroyo administration is blaming Abu Sayyaf for a bomb blast at a upscale shopping mall in Manila because of an investigation revealing the presence of a military-grade explosive, RDX. Speculation is increasing, including plenty of theories and eyewitness accounts from MLQIII and Postcard Headlines.

Caffeine Sparks also has plenty of eyewitness videos.

For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

My heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the victims.

Implausibly, from a country like the Philippines, comes not one, but two suggestions about how to improve Myanmar's plight.

Firstly, RP President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo believes «woman power» will do the trick, and puts in a good word for perennially detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

But, yesterday Fr. Robert Reyes extolled the «activism» of the Philippines' catholic hierarchy, and recommended that Myanmar's «quiet» Buddhist monks » '...work against oppression and violence' «

Quoting a story from the Ucan Catholic news service, Reyes said a Burmese Catholic nun tried to organize her fellow religious but no one responded because they were «afraid to tell the truth.»

According to the report, the nun said in a text message to her friends in Manila that she hoped Church leaders in the Philippines and other countries would lead the universal Church «in prayer and in action, since the Church in Myanmar is so afraid.» «Our Catholic Church is so quiet. Our people do nothing but pray individually, privately,» the nun reportedly said.

The Catholic bishops' conference in Burma issued a statement on Sept. 26 saying that it had been praying for peace and urging the people to offer prayers and sacrifice for the peaceful resolution of the situation in the country.

The Burmese bishops' conference said that while its priests and religious were not involved in party politics and in the recent protests, Catholics were «free to act as they deem fit.»

Reyes said Filipinos were molded by an «active Christian ethic against corrup