Moronic Justice

In any transaction where something is to be obtained or availed off, the availing party is often required to fill up an application form where the information relevant to what is being sought is provided, including in some cases attachments or documentary evidences for those claimed in the application sheet. For instance when you apply for graduation in a university, aside from your personal information,  you have to specify the degree sought, together with an evaluation sheet detailing all the mandated courses you have taken and passed, as well as a certification that you have submitted bound copies of your defended thesis  to your college.

When you apply for membership with the GSIS, your application details, among others, your appointment status and your length of service in the government unit you are serving. Photo copies of the documents you claimed in the application form – your appointment paper and service record,  need to be appended to the application sheet.

You will not be allowed to graduate and given a diploma if you cannot comply with all the requirements for graduation.

You cannot be a member of the GSIS if you cannot comply with all the requirements for membership as spelled out in the application form.

Meanwhile, it is the responsibility of the party that receives and processes the application to check the accuracy and completeness of the information provided in the application form.

An application once submitted becomes the property and at the disposal of the receiving party. Suffice it to say that the application document is for the receiving party to keep and secure because the information provided thereat is the primary basis in granting or denying the applicant of what is being sought.

For an applicant, the application form is no longer of much or any value at all once it left his hand and has served its purpose. Say, in our example, he was allowed to graduate and has received his diploma or he now is a regular member of the GSIS.

Proclamation 572 nullified the amnesty granted to Senator Antonio Trillaness IV on account of a certification from a certain  Lt Col Thea Joan Andrade of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel JI that there is no available copy of his application for amnesty in the records.

On that basis President Duterte ordered the Senator’s immediate arrest by the PNP and the AFP. When his arrest order could not be implemented in the absence of valid warrant, the President backpedalled and ordered his minions to revive the dismissed cases of Sen. Trillanes at the Makati regional trial courts.

Come to think of it, is mere certification from a staff at the DND, who might  not have even been involved in the processing of amnesty applications, a sufficient basis  to nullify an  amnesty granted by the President of the Republic and concurred by the two houses of Congress?

Does it follow that if an application form  is not found in the records, no application was ever filed?

Anyway, the Makati Reg. Trial Court Branch 150  accepted as immutable truth the allegation of the President that indeed Trillanes has no application  for the amnesty he was granted in as much as the Senator could not submit to the court any. Hence, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Since when does our justice system revert from the English to the Roman system of antiquity where the burden of proof in a judicial case lies in the accused and not in the accuser?

 In our traditional English justice tradition, which the Makati court was supposed to uphold, the burden of proof lies in the accuser not in the accused. And the proof must not simply be alleged but must be proven beyond reasonable doubt in court. The court ought to have ordered the DND  to produce the missing  copy of the application form which was in its custody or to explain why it cannot produce, rather than demand it from the accused Trillanes.

What proof can the accusers of Sen. Trillaness present in court to support their allegation? None. In such case, the amnesty granted to Sen. Trillanes holds and is presumed valid from the beginning.

There could be one and  thousand reasons why the DND cannot produce or locate the application form of Sen. Trillanes. After 7 years from the processing of said application, it may have moved from one hand or office to another and is already difficult to trace. Or, it was already physically disposed because its purpose has already been served: the Senator was already issued a Certificate of Amnesty. Another reason could be that the application form was deliberately lost or hidden so that Proclamation 572 can be promulgated to harass, torment and silence the irrepressible Duterte critic. It’s difficult to find something when those who are looking for it are the ones hiding it.

Sen. Trillanes could not also present a copy of his application form, if ever he bothered to have a copy of the same after the submission. At any rate he produced for the court testimonial affidavits from certain DND officials who processed his application that he indeed submitted application for the grant of amnesty. Moreover, he presented to the court a copy of his certificate of amnesty – the end result of his application, which the court apparently did not bother to give a glance

Sen. Trillanes got what he applied for- the certificate of amnesty which evidences the perfection of the Proclamation of Amnesty affecting his person. Is this certificate of less probative value vis the DND certification on his missing application form?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

A 3-in-1 Response to the Calamitous Econom

The cab driver who took us to our hotel from the airport was like a July downpour in dropping on us his resentment on the chocking economy and his ire to the senseless  people who have irresponsibly pushed the country to starvation.

The people are slowly dying from hunger, he wailed. The prices of everything have flown high beyond the reach of many. The adjustment made to those who are still able is like drinking a 3-in-1 coffee, which means a cup of coffee today have to be shared by 3 drinkers to warm their stomach before they scramble to foray for anything to ward off hunger and survive the day.

Indeed, the economy is in a disastrous twist. The purchasing power of the peso has dipped to a precarious low The inflation has hurt the poor more than any other sector, crippling, for instance the poorest region of the country like Bicol that hits an annual rate of 9% and the ARMM at 8%.This means that the income of a wage earner that remains the same, can no longer buy the same amount of food and other basic necessities it used to do a year ago.  A year ago a kg of rice was around P40; now it hovers between P50 and P60 or more depending on locations, if ever still available. In Basilan, one of the depressed areas in  Mindanao, a kg of rice is reportedly P80.

With the prices of commodities going up and  the purchasing power of the peso going down, the demand  consequently goes down and production logically dips, driving  workers from production and distribution out of job reducing further production and  demand. With less supply the price of commodities rises higher, wrecking the capacities of fixed salaried and wage earners, and devastating the lives of the expanding unemployed and the penniless.

 With the demand becoming unprofitable, production may eventually stop, throwing many further out of job and more families becoming more hungry and angry every day.

For one, the rice shortage is hitting the people  real hard. Even the weevil-infested grains that DA Sec. Pinol wants us to stomach are becoming invisible in the market.

A 3-in-1 coffee can only do much to quell a grumbling stomach. After a while the monster that hunger creates in the mind may eventually find release in the streets as historically shown in food riots and violent upheavals in many countries in time past.

Unless the government and its economic planners immediately correct the course of the politics and the economy of the nation we might fall to quagmire that we may have extreme difficulty of crawling back.

It’s time for President Duterte and the wise guys around him to stop blaming the external world for the current economic malaise. No doubt the trade war in the international arena had sent to our shores shock waves in the devaluation of the peso and the spiralling cost of imported fossil fuel. Incidentally, before it happens, the trade war had loomed for some time in the horizon and yet our policymakers and planners had done nothing to avert its likely consequences to the country. Instead it has imposed more taxes on the people that wreaked more havoc to everybody.

We should not be duped by word play and diversionary tactics. If there is group or force  that is threatening the political stability of the country and the administration’s grip on power, it’s not the political opposition and the critics of the regime but the worsening economy which is the administration’s brainchild.

Successfully Lewd

Many are asking: will Uson be booted out from her government post because of the lewd federalism video controversy attributed to her creative juice?

No way.

Amorous Tatay Digong is so enamoured with Mocha because she is one of the rare mammals who can read his mind. In other word, they are in the same operating frequency. Both think and act Machiavellian. They do not care about the negative reactions to what they say and do as long as they get what they want. DU30 became so popular and landed as tenant of the palace along murky and stinking Pasig  precisely by making unprecedented controversies, cursing the pope, claiming  he had killed and will still kill, regretting about not being in the queue over the ganged-rape Ausie missionary, offering  the improvable but titillating promise, which captured millions voters,  to end  the drug menace, corruption and criminality in 6 months’ time, and now has remained popular and continued to have a  tight grip of power by  creating enemies with church authorities and calling God stupid.

And Uson, meanwhile was trolling, diverting or fogging issues, maligning everyone perceived against her patron and  has become so successful and popular and for that was made the queen of the social media of the Presidential Communications Operations Office of the Palace.

So how could the President kick out such a wonderful asset? Forget the upset party-mates in Congress. Blabber as they may they will still remain nearby to lick his butt; they had nowhere to go.

Anyway, minus the ethical and morality issue, from communications campaign standpoint, Mocha was right. One of the objectives of the operational campaign on federalism was to create or raise awareness on the subject.  The video has achieved that, and, in her words, “it is now the task of the experts to provide the substance.”

Theoretically, the target of a communication campaign passes through the process or stages of awareness, interest, knowledge, decision-making, and action. The boundaries are of course imaginary but for the purpose of planning, they are presumed to exist to determine the strategies in maximizing the end results. Each stage requires different message types and media of communication.

In awareness, the communicator works to make his product familiar and recognizable by the target audience.  Naturally, the message is one that can attract and immediately capture the attention of the audience and the media to use are those that can reach the widest target. In the past, the radio dominated, still does apparently, in awareness campaign because radio receiving sets are available even in the remotest of barangays. And catchy 30-seconder radio jingles are easy and cheap to produce. Remember the jingle” sa ikakaunlad ng bayan disiplina ang kailangan” to sell and embed in the consciousness of the people the Marcos Martial Law?

Mocha is not in the mass media. She has a different platform and is concerned and focused on  her accordingly 5 million or so followers in the social media. She did what she had to do and succeeded: her lewd video became viral in just a few minutes from posting. Federalism is now made familiar to everyone , not just in her turf but outside. There was, in fact, an overflow that reached unnecessarily even to  the territorial Senate, creating a ruckus that further enhances far and wide the awareness drive on the subject. What is now needed is for the intended population to really know and understand federalism, sustain their interest, and eventually internalize and accept it. This may require new platforms,   more cerebral workers, and different strategies and messages.

Will the experts succeed in selling finally federalism to the Filipino people at the same level with Mocha’s success in raising awareness about it?

Whatever,  PCOO Asec. Mocha Uson has already done her part. She may now have her vacation, basking in glory on her accomplishment.

The Finite Sea

We often come across the old saying that you “give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Not anymore.

This adage in its literal sense was applicable to Confucius’ time when the sea was so huge and was an inexhaustible source of fish. Thus even, if more fishers were added to the existing hands, there would still be fish for everybody.

In the Philippines, the  government in the Department of Agriculture Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources  still believes in the adage and behaves accordingly. That is why it has been distributing   fishing boats and nets to fishers new and old under their anti-poverty and food security program, notwithstanding research reports on the deplorable conditions and the plummeting catch in the country’s fishing grounds.

Truth to tell, the capacity of the sea to replenish whatever resource extracted from it has been compromised by a lot of things –  by the rapid change in information and extraction  technologies  that has shrunk its size resulting to over-exploitation and destruction; by pollution, and by climate change.

 There is, for instance, no international law enforceable in the community of nations that regulate the extraction of fishery resources. Thus commercial fishing vessels of wealthy nations employ fishing nets of several kilometres long to maximize catch haul all over the globe. Unfortunately, during extremely foul weather, these nets are severed from the fishing vessels to save the vessels and the crew. Here was born the phenomenon of ghost fishing, where several nets of hundreds of kilometers long are drifting in the oceans catching and killing whales,  sharks, turtles, cow fish and other big sea organisms their harvest of which does not benefit anyone.

At the archipelagic level, destructive fishing undermines the natural capacity of the fishery resources to replenish extraction. The situation is made worst by the spiraling number of poor who join the fisher population in order to survive.

The sea is the last refuge of the very poor. Without a farm to till and employable skills, the sea, which does not require any qualifications, accommodates anyone interested to engage in fishing as a livelihood, unreliable it may be as a source of income to feed a family. To increase declining harvest, fishers employ destructive fishing methods like blasting, the use of fine-mesh nets and poison which at the end only diminish further their catch.

Moreover, pollution from various sources is smothering fish nurseries and other habitats that further worsen the productivity of the marine waters.

The advent of climate change has increased the temperature in tropic waters forcing fish to migrate to  cooler regimes up north of the equator, impoverishing, thus the areas left behind.

Hence, what is imperative today is not simply to teach a man how to fish but also  to teach him and everybody in this planet to protect and save the sea.

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Freedom of Spit: On a Perfect- Intelligent God and a Stupid God

 President Duterte’s concept of a perfect and intelligent God who created the cosmos and holds the heavenly bodies together is a concept  that doesn’t come  from empty space but apparently originate from his exposure to the bible and, perhaps, with  the Quran’s account of creation, the two accounts of which  hardly vary in substance.

When he said” Your God is stupid,” “your” logically refers not just to Catholics but to all his Filipino audience or listeners when he said it, to everyone for that matter who believes in the God of creation as narrated in their holy books.

Mr. Duterte lambasted  the God of  holy-book believers  for this God’s  stupidity in creating man as a perfect being and then making him imperfect by temptation.

The President owes us an account how his perfect God created humans. Did his perfect God create  humans or  did he not at all to avoid imperfection?  Duterte publicly admitted that he is imperfect and only his God is perfect.  His logic in castigating the Abrahamic God , that Jews, Muslims and Christians revere, runs  that a perfect God could not have an imperfect creation, say, in man.

Why not if it’s God’s purpose to remain supreme above everyone.

Is the President not a hard evidence in this regard - his perfect God creating an imperfect Rodrigo Duterte?  Otherwise, if he is not his God’s creation nor of the God of Abraham, whose stupidity and association he abhors, then whose product is he?

 Everybody is entitled to freedom of expression and freedom of religion, to his belief or unbelief; but to glorify one's belief and mock what others believe is uncouth. It is self-righteousness and meanness in the highest order.

Of Making Choices

All of life is about making choices.

What you chose in the past made you what you are today. Do not blame your parents, genetics and the environment nor fault destiny. You are what you decided or not decided to be.

If you are not happy and satisfied with the way you are, you can still make new choices to change things. It is never late to choose wisely and responsively to deserve a rich and meaningful life.

Choose health. Eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, and have an ample rest. Do not overindulge in anything you do.

Choose truth. Take time to study, contemplate and discern the truth from lies and appearances. Do not be trampled and be swept away by the conviction of the mob. Stick to the truth however it may inconvenience you at the moment because it will ultimately set you free.

Choose courage. Do not be afraid to take risks because risks are actually opportunities to enrich life. Stand for causes that are moral and noble which affect the people you love, society and the world at large.

Choose freedom. Do not sulk in a corner and let things you do not like happen. Get out from your comfort zone now and then and be counted in making a difference.

Express yourself. Make a statement and never be silenced by the cowardice, the apathy and the indifference of those around you.

Choose love. Free yourself of hatred and vindictiveness; they are a burden to your spiritual journey. Instead, spread love and compassion to all around you, most especially to those who suffer from social injustice and from the tyranny of those in power. If you have not much to share, just listen to their cry. Say some kind and comforting words. The gesture would mean a lot to them.

Show understanding and kindness, too, to those who are lagging behind in the spiritual journey. They might have hurt and caused you pain along the way, but they now are also suffering from the fruit of their choices. Taunting them and ridiculing their plight does not offer anything good to anyone.

I Survived

On this day three years ago at around 9:30 in the morning, I figured in an accident while attending a national church (UCCP) planning conference at the First Pacific Leadership Academy in Antipolo, Rizal. I tripped and I heard people shouting: It’s a stroke! They rushed me to a hospital, and the physicians after some tests confirmed it was, indeed, a stroke -  a cerebro-vascular accident.

 Great Thanks to God, I survived the accident.  My gratitude is beyond words to those around who extended  all possible support and assistance to help me overcome those moments of  helplessness.

The accident, like many other accidents, happened without any signs or warning. I experienced no bodily pain or discomfort before and when it happened. The stroke cut off the power supply to my left extremities to this day. I can’t move my left leg and arm. My vision gets a little blurred, and I lost strength and control in my speech. I notice I talk rather fast and tire immediately.

After three months of physical therapy I was able to rise from bed unassisted and walk with a cane inside the house. In a little while I managed to walk some few meters without a cane. The progress was disrupted by a sudden inability to pee.  My left extremities convulsed in excruciating spasms. I thought my left arm and leg would break and separate from my body. It was torture for some 5-6 days before and after a ureteroscopy to remove a kidney stone from my bladder.

Indeed, when it rains it pours. I was back to square one  in my walking exercise. It was never the same again because the drop foot seems to have worsened. Nonetheless, I am back with a cane. But I weigh 53 kg. Imagine dragging a sack of rice to move a distance with a cane.

The struggle continues with the encouragement and support of my loved ones and friends;  I thank everyone for this.

Life is still good despite some piercing bouts of depression now and then.

I am grateful to the Lord for not repossessing my mind. This frees me from the prison of my body and allows me to move far and wide in time and space.

Life is beautiful.