LAST week, my two grandchildren visited us in Davao for a few days at the start of their school summer break. Sylvie just turned 4 and Oliver is 21 months. I think of them in light of what’s happening in the land of their birth, America. They are of the same age as those South American children, from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, who were forcibly separated from their parents at the Mexican border and “locked up in cages for processing before they are sequestered to at least three ‘tender age’ shelters” (Associated Press/ Inquirer.net, June 21, 2018).

Trump last April proclaimed his “zero tolerance” policy against illegal immigrants, chiefly from South American countries. Since the first week of May, close to 2,300 children, some as young as eight months, were taken into US government custody. As children are separated from their families, law enforcement agents reclassify them as “unaccompanied alien children.” Videoclips showing images of children in cages inside US Border Patrol processing stations, and of crying kids looking for their parents, barely able to talk much less speak English went viral in social media. I can’t separate the images of Sylvie and Oliver in the shoes of those young South American waifs. And I cringe at the cruelty of it all.

Trump promulgated an executive order interpreted by the US Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the US government would criminally prosecute migrants crossing the US-Mexican border illegally. But the separation and detention of their children, dispersing them to 13 states is unprecedented; causing the breakup of families, traumatizing the children is downright inhumane.

What is inconceivable is that Trump’s decree was precipitate. His bureaucracy was unprepared for the influx of migrants with children and the three centers holding the children were repurposed hastily. “The shelters aren’t the problem; it’s taking kids from their parents that’s the problem,” said Dr. Marsha Griffin, a South Texas pediatrician who has visited many. To add to this tragedy, US officials from the Border Patrol and the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) “at a press briefing were repeatedly asked by reporters for an age breakdown of the children who have been taken. Officials from both law enforcement said they didn’t know how many children were under age 5, under age 2, or even so little they’re non-verbal” (Associated Press). In short, these inept and incompetent bureaucrats don’t have working data on which separated child belongs to which illegal immigrant.

This inhuman and insane policy, which Trump has instituted, has the whole world in uproar. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that the American Association of Pediatrics has called it a cruel practice of “government-sanctioned child abuse” which may cause “irreparable harm” with “lifelong consequences.” (The Island/Asia News Network, June 21, 2018.)

What the American President did was not far off from Nazi Germany’s abomination during World War 2 where countless numbers of Jews were packed into cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau, etc. Parents with children did not know where they were being taken. Similarly, at the processing center, the kids were cruelly separated from their parents and were led to the gas chambers for “showers and cleaning.” It was at the processing centers were parents saw their kids for the last time.

Trump may not have ordered the South American children to be separated from their families for “showers and cleaning” but there is a real possibility that these distressed kids – especially those babies and toddlers who can barely speak and are now interned in the “tender age shelter,” a euphemism for a children’s internment camp – will not see their parents soon, if at all.

It is bad enough that Trump has brought America to a new nadir by instituting such a policy but he had to lie to the American people that “he can’t do anything about it, as this is the fault of the Democrats and needs US Congress reversal, not an EO.” (Last June 21, Trump amid mounting world pressure, issued another EO reversing himself.)

Apparently, he was holding these children hostage merely for political reasons: to force Congress, especially the Democrats, to fund his Mexican wall as part of a deal to fulfill his election promise to his “electoral base.” What is even more unconscionable was the depraved and incompetent handling of the situation by those responsible on the ground, Kirstjen Nielsen of Homeland Security and especially Alex Azar head of the HHS who are actually clueless on the magnitude of this crisis.

This shameless act by an American president was in total contrast with cherished American values and the obvious fact that America is a land of migrants. America’s greatness and true genius lie in its diversity, glorified by a famous 1883 sonnet by Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore…”

Despite Trump’s late executive order to reverse himself (six weeks after), this crisis of his own making is far from over, and a great harm has been inflicted on the reputation of America. But the bigger damage is to the Latin-American children cruelly wrenched from parents.

In retrospect and looking at the current Philippine situation, DU30’s pivoting the country away from the US may have been a serendipitous move. Trump’s imprimatur on this immigration fiasco, his comportment on the world stage, unilateral retraction of agreements and whimsical withdrawal from international partnerships and boorish demeanor has marked him as an ugly American gone rogue.

True, the Deegong and the Donald have some unnerving similarities conferred solely upon political leaders of their caliber. Both possess oversized egos and are beguiled by world autocrats, possessing dictatorial tendencies themselves. They have the same proclivity and appetite for women and do not countenance being upstaged by subalterns. They come unprepared for important public addresses, preferring to wing it. Both elicit utter blind loyalty from their base – the DDS and fist pumpers for the Deegong, and the red necks at the fringes for the Donald. Both apply unorthodox communications and message delivery mode, the Donald through his tweets and the Deegong through his spasmodic TV addresses. The similarities end here.

The Donald tells lies; it is second nature to him. And when caught in a lie, will lie some more. His threats are implausible and he is tentative in sacking people; he lets others do the firing for him.

The Deegong is too transparent to lie. He will shame personally a miscreant underling while firing him. He rarely threatens; but if the same is not taken seriously, he will kill. Or so he claims!

I SPENT some of my best years growing up in a place called Calinan. It was not exactly a barrio but a city district of Davao. Before the Davao-Bukidnon road was constructed in the 1970s, opening up Northern Mindanao, Calinan was literally the end of the road. It was a small sleepy logging town then and a farming community where rice, corn, coffee and various fruits – and the famous durian—were cultivated. I was not born in Calinan but I grew up there. It was a melting pot of migrants from other provinces in Luzon and the Visayas. Tagalog, Ilocano, Ilonggo, Kapampangan, Leyteño languages and dialects were spoken. The Cebuano and Tagalog vernaculars were largely dominant.

I retain and cherish the remembrance of the quintessential image of a village regularly depicted in bucolic paintings of the Philippine Masters – rolling hills, fat farm animals, swaying golden rice stalks and virgin maidens clad in patadyong frolicking by a singing brook. This vista has long ceased to exist.

This was an era (1950s-1960s) where the town’s solitary juke box at Pacing’s Carinderia epitomized the apex of technological breakthrough. The chap who can afford to incessantly plunk in 10 centavos per 45 rpm record of Frank Sinatra or Elvis songs could be deemed a promising member of the cultural literati. TV sets were unheard of and the lone movie house, Aragon’s Cinema, attracted a diverse audience of bagobos and the indigenous tribes of nearby hills, tree cutters and logging equipment operators, assorted farmers and the hoi polloi. They all paid 20 centavos each for general patronage. For 30 centavos, you get seated at the balcony and 40 centavos in the loge section, favored by lovers, where cockroaches, rats and assorted crawling creatures were not as obtrusive as those in the orchestra. Non-poisonous snakes, of the constrictor variety, usually kept the rat population low at the balcony.

At least once a year, during the two-day fiesta celebration, in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, our lone cinema would host a bodabil, where actors and actresses coming from faraway Manila came to town for a personal appearance. They stayed and performed for the eve and the night of the fiesta, the first Friday in August.

Never on the lips
This type of entertainment featured a mixture of specialty acts, magician shows and new dance steps from the city, but the culmination of the bodabil was the burlesk show with scantily dressed women prancing around onstage teasing the men in a slow striptease. And the audience participation, especially the male audience, was fantastically loud and lecherous “…hubad! hubad! (Take it off! Take it off!). The girls, master of timing, would indeed take them off at the exact moment when the stage lights went off, and just the silhouette of the naked ladies are seen running to stage left.

The curtain opens for the next acts and the screen idols perform scenes of popular movies, most especially love stories depicted by onscreen lovers in the flesh. In the mixed variety show, the cinema reverberates with swoons of the teenyboppers when their current male idol requests for volunteers to the stage. And the house falls down when he either sings and flirts and does monologues pregnant with inuendo to the lucky girl volunteer; culminating in the idol asking the audience for permission to kiss the lucky lass. The mob lustily eggs them on and the cinema goes wild when a kiss is proffered. But never, never on the lips!

Thus, the famous presidential kiss bestowed on a certain married Filipina OFW in Korea this week was in stark contrast to the cultural phenom of the Filipino audience and a study of the comportment of a powerful man. We have the macho idol, the eager lady from the audience and the egging on of the licentious rabble. It was a vulgar, garish display of presidential machismo of which DU30 has become a master. He understands the psychology of the crowd and knows how to manipulate it and squeeze the last ounce of indiscretion. This was “in-your-face braggadocio!”

We from Davao and the Bisaya call this disconcerting spectacle “Kahilas oy!” There is no appropriate translation but the gist is that “it is cringe-inducing” behavior. Malacañang’s defense that this was part of “Bisaya culture and Bisaya humor” is not only demeaning to us but downright stupid.

The Deegong from the very start of his candidacy was always transparent. He bares his soul to the public; one who utters p****g i** to whoever strikes his bad side and utters vulgar phrases like “…pusila sa bisong.” Our President never minces words and tell it like it is, except that like a tape recording, it goes on and on; rewind and play, rewind and play. And we all just cringe at these antics as some members of cabinet were seen to do during that infamous Korean kissing incident. The highbrow in the audience and in social media, where “the kiss” became viral, found this to be ‘nakakahiya’ ‘nakakasuka’ but none among his close coterie really had the balls to confront him directly. And the general attitude is simply to let it go, until the next loutish antic.

Still their SOB
His avid supporters, the DDS and the fist pumpers who have always allowed him a very wide latitude, look on it as “joke lang” and somewhat endearing. But some social media postings in defense of DU30 showing a photo of Ninoy Aquino being kissed by a female passenger before he disembarked to a heroic death, juxtaposed with that of the Korean kissing incident, was simply in bad taste, crossing the line of decency. This government bureaucrat’s posting was not even in the right context and was nothing more than a grand “sipsip” showing a puppy dog’s loyalty to the President.

Having said all that, let me offer my 10 cents. Many of us who come from Davao and have been subjected to such exhibitions by our mayor through the years, have always tolerated such improper display. We may have become callused but generally, we Davaoeños are not like him. The Deegong is one of a kind. Many of us will not act inappropriately whether in public or private. On the other hand, warts and all, DU30 is loved by the masses, and by many of the middle class and even some of Davao’s elite. This uncouth leader’s stint as our mayor has caused the resolution of major social and economic problems brought about by criminality, illegal drugs and a communist insurgency. He eliminated in his two decades of governance the climate of fear and instilled a glimmer of hope. For us Davaoenos, these are more important considerations, with long-lasting effects, and trump the crudeness and the indelicacy of the man.

Today, the greater majority of people in the country, though they flinch in embarrassment, still gives him their full support – a full 80 percent.

If I might use the presidential lingo: “True, he is a sonnnofabitch, but he is OUR sonnofabitch!”

LAST week, I wrote about the emerging Resistance Coalition, a reinvention of the Yellow Army, led by their generals in Congress, Senators Pangilinan and Hontiveros and several talking heads at the House of Representatives. Apparently, they see Solicitor General Jose Calida as an appropriate and easy target, after the shellacking they got at the Supreme Court. The high-profile quo warranto case projected Calida as the “second most powerful man” in government after The Deegong. And I thought that this honorific belongs properly to the “little president,” Executive Secretary Bingbong Medialdea.

Calida was a marked man from the time he assumed the role of presidential avatar in a series of legal battles, winning cases and accumulating enemies—the drug cases against Sen. Leila de Lima, handmaiden to PNoy and the yellow mob; booting out the Prietos from Mile Long; the decision to bury the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos among Filipino heroes. And the biggest prize was the quo warranto petition that took out CJ Sereno. The last was particularly bad for PNoy as Sereno had been purportedly placed there to protect him from the coming deluge of plunder cases that could very well condemn him to play digital and video games for years within the confines of a prison cell.

To recaptulate, the SolGen is facing a complaint filed by a certain Jocelyn Acosta accusing him of graft and corruption for owning a security agency company that did business with several government departments and bureaucracies. Apparently the SolGen retained his 60 percent ownership although he resigned from the company prior to his government appointment. Totaling P260 millions, the contracts are not exactly peanuts; although the SolGen admitted most of these go to the salaries and wages of security guards, staffing and other costs.

Calida has denied violating any existing laws, explaining that “…the law only prohibits a government official from owning or having shares in a private firm with any transaction that requires the approval of his government office or a company that is regulated or licensed by the same office”. The contracts are not with his office, nor does he have any say in the awarding of those contracts.

The first salvo of attacks came from the opposition in the Senate, now more emboldened since Koko Pimentel, the President’s loyal and trusted but meek lieutenant, gave up his cushy seat.

“Senator Risa Hontiveros said Section 3(i) of Republic Act 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, spelled out conflict of interest as a situation where a public official ‘is a member of a board, an officer or a substantial stockholder of a private corporation or owner or has a substantial interest in a business, and the interest of such corporation or business, or his rights or duties therein, may be opposed to or affected by the faithful performance of official duty.’”

“By saying that he has not divested himself of his majority shares from a family business that has snared millions of pesos worth of government contracts, Mr. Calida has virtually admitted to allegations of corrupt practices and conflict of interest. Case closed. Game over,” Hontiveros said. (Philippine Star, May 31, 2018)

I don’t think so. The game has just begun. Hontiveros who is not a lawyer decidedly is at a disadvantage pitted against a sharp legal mind like the SolGen. But she is not a spring chicken in political infighting. Together with her allies in the Senate, she will bring the issue to a not exactly level playing field– the Senate hearing. Here the SolGen will be out of his element, thrown into a den of wolves whose primary purpose even among DU30’s allies are to preen before the TV cameras. The campaign for re-election indeed has begun.

Another somewhat irrelevant issue is the allegation that Calida is having an extramarital affair with a 22-year-old law student. So, what! On this he will have the grudging but jealous support of the “macho” Filipino male who sees nothing wrong with public servants having extra-marital affairs: witness the House speaker and even the pronouncements of our President.

But the Resistance Coalition’s primary target in such hearings is not Calida. He will be used as a political sandpaper, merely an abrasive tool to eat away at the enormous prestige of the presidency. Even now, other attacks are coming from within the bureaucracy: “COA flags P10-M excess allowances paid to OSG,” screamed a Philippine Star headline (June 2, 2018).

And the Deegong, ever loyal to his chosen people took the bait and jumped into the fray:

“Calida, his security firm has been around for a long time. Why should I fire him? He is good, he is also from Davao but he is an Ilocano…Why? Don’t we have the right to own a business?” he added, referring to the Calida family’s Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Inc. (VISAI).”

“Duterte said it’s all right for officials to be owners of businesses with contracts with government “as long as you do not participate” directly. “The fact that you have divested, you have retired… So why do you have to impute or attribute malice there?”

“The president claimed that Calida is just lucky and that being in government service does not mean one cannot make money on the side.” (Philippine Star, May 31, 2018)

Yes indeed, money can be made on the side as bureaucrat or even as Cabinet member. On the same day, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said at a confirmation hearing: “Nobody has come up with allegations, now that there’s sort of questions about the validity (of the contract), the DOJ will take a look now that it’s brought to the fore already. To satisfy everyone, we’ll just take a look,” he said. (Philippine Star, May 31,2018)

The President virtually cleared Calida, who is yet to be investigated by the justice secretary. This nuance apparently escaped the President who as always, commits faux pas when he does things off-the-cuff.

We will know in the next few days what other worms will come out of the woodwork, but one thing is clear. The Resistance Coalition of the yellow cohorts are now in full play, flexing their muscles to engage the Deegong. In a blog from John Rana, an avid supporter of DU30, he revealed a similar group, Silent No More Movement. From its name, this could be composed of the allies of the old regime still occupying government positions, the holdovers ensconced in the cracks and crannies of this administration. Now, the yellows have activated their own quislings within.

The swords on both sides are drawn. The muckraking has begun. SolGen Calida’s carcass is conveniently thrown in. I hope my Davao friend will survive this.

IN a real war, organized resistance after a defeat takes a little while. During World War 2, when Hitler overrun Poland, France and the low countries in Europe, only Britain was left standing. The British isles, protected by the English Channel, became the lone European country to withstand continuous pummeling by Hitler. With the sea route from America, the Atlantic, eventually controlled by the Allied forces, Britain became the springboard from whence Europe was eventually liberated.

But what was really heroic was the home-grown resistance by the people in German-occupied Europe, particularly in France. La Resistance was in the early years of the occupation a motley group of Frenchmen who fought not only the German forces but also their own collaborationist Vichy regime in the “unoccupied” part of Southern France. The French resistance played a significant role in the eventual liberation not only of France but the whole European continent and eventually the defeat of the Nazi forces.

The analogy of a heroic World War 2 resistance in this article ends here. In the Philippines, we have today the formation of a so-called Resistance Coalition to the Duterte regime. This is ostensibly one that grew out of the traditional power alliance of the old political and economic elite, the oligarchy and the church. This group, mutant of the Yellow Army, is a permutation of the “same old, same old” led by remnants of the Liberal Party of the President PNoy faction.

This group has formed itself “…into an alliance of Liberal Party (LP), party-list groups, Akbayan and Magdalo, and Tindig Pilipinas…Sen Francis Pangilinan said (they) would highlight a number of issues against the administration” (DJ Yap, Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 22,2018).

Resistance to DU30 started when he precipitated a political blitzkrieg that trounced the Liberal Party, majority of whom shamelessly gravitated to the PDP Laban, and who were likewise brazenly accepted. This is nobody’s fault really as our dysfunctional political system allows “turncoats and butterflies” to float toward the winning brand every time there is a change in administration. This sordid feature of a unitary presidential system is one reason we want a parliamentary federal system.

From the very start, the elite and the political cognoscenti did accept this brash promdi mayor from the south. Howevr, the masses love his foul-mouthed lingo, his demeanor and his populism. One third of the voters, mostly the masa, was enough to propel him to power. The rest is history.

No, we were not attacked by any outside force though in effect Duterte did the attacking. But what is the Resistance Coalition (ResCoal) resisting? To be fair, we have two opposing points of view. Naturally, the allies of the Deegong, the DDS and the fist pumpers would generalize proclaiming that ResCoal is simply resisting change (pagbabago), the rallying cry of candidate DU30 that propelled him to power. But it is not that simple.

ResCoal’s pique and disgust have always been directed toward the personality of PRRD, an uncouth politician and an outsider. But both sides want a solution to the proliferation of illegal drugs that has threatened to make the Philippines a narco-state. But the past administrations, particularly the PNoy regime, was never serious about eliminating it. Duterte never did mince words on his intent: “You destroy my country, I will kill you. You destroy our children, I will kill you!” The Deegong reduced the problem and solution to their simplest form. The Yellows, now out of power, want a different route; one that inputs into the equation, the safeguarding of human rights implemented through the government’s justice system.

This is where DU30 differs. For him, the past governments were corrupt and inept; and they spilt over to his regime. He must use every tool available at his fingertips. “But like any reforming politician, he faces a great tautology. The tool at hand to reform a corrupt state is a corrupt state.” (The Weekly Standard, Christopher Caldwell, May 22, 2018)

Foremost of these weak institutions is the corrupt police. Many are perceived to be partners of the drug lords and protectors of the dealers. But the Filipino masses, with their native wisdom perhaps understand this better than the elite, perforce handing PRRD 80 percent support. And the purging continues.

On another issue, ResCoal is crying out against “weaponizing” the Solicitor General, using the quo warranto case to smite CJ Sereno and quite possibly other DU30 enemies, instead of ousting her through impeachment. Here, the President understands the process only too well and will not go this course. It will be bloody expensive. The word in the street is that convicting the ousted chief justice would have cost billions of pesos, as PNoy showed in the Corona impeachment. The DAP funds paid to the jurist-senators bear witness to this.

Lastly, the ResCoal is condemning DU30 for kowtowing to China in the West Philippine Sea. This issue strikes close to the presidential psyche. His appreciation of China’s bullying act is seen through the prism of the Deegong as a bully too. His sees the encroachment of China on Philippine sovereignty as a “zero-sum-game” and blames, illogically, America: “…the moment to contest China’s occupation had been when it happened and that this was something only the Obama administration could have done. ‘At the time, who could have stopped it?’ (Duterte) asked. ‘Tell me. Philippine Navy? Marines? There would have been a massacre.’(Caldwell)

Right or wrong, the Deegong opted for a “build, build build” strategy. “His country needs train networks, roads, new factories, and mines for extracting its rich mineral resources… These are projects the United States has long been disinclined to pursue. Under the circumstances, it would be natural if the Philippines looked increasingly towards China, which has made ‘build, build, build’ the cornerstone of what it offers its allies, and less towards the United States, which in recent years has contented itself with ‘nag, nag, nag.’” (Caldwell)

The strategy by the Yellow Forces of re-inventing itself as the Resistance Coalition could yet become a legitimate tool to magnify the weaknesses of the regime, turn the masses around and arouse their passion against this interloper. Or they could all end up as a parody.

Vive la Resistance!

When he campaigned for president, Rodrigo Roa Duterte liked to make a ritual out of kissing the Philippine flag. Two years after his election, he cannot be bothered to pay even lip service to the defense of the country that the flag represents.

And the country needs defending, now that an aggressive China has landed bombers in the Paracels and completed the militarization of the reefs it occupies in the Spratlys, encroaching on the West Philippine Sea.

“At this time, I am really playing geopolitics,” an expansive President Duterte said in another free-association speech on Sunday. In between long asides on the sorry state of our military’s rifles, which he compared to “battle-weary” soldiers, and the hypocrisy of Americans, who he said “adopted the garbage of the left and the yellow,” he explained his policy toward Beijing in terms of a diplomatic friendzone. “So kaibigan lang tayo (we are just friends). Pero (But) not that close, making it public because I cannot allow one country to — since we do not have the manufacturing enterprise, talent, but we don’t allow one country to arm us, because if you allow it, automatically, in geopolitics, you become a colony.”

The President talks a good if rambling game. He has come to accept that the armed services have a strong bond with the American security sector that even he cannot break. “Most of our military men and police, most of them who graduate, go to America to take special courses there. Sa police, investigation, they go to Quantico. Of course, I realize that.” He (rightly) calls out the Americans for their sense of exceptionalism. “They think that they are a separate kind from the rest of the world.” And he speaks proudly of traveling to China and Russia to buy arms—again because, he explains, using his theory of geopolitics, “if you agree to that (having only one source of arms), your country becomes a colony of that powerful country.” (In truth, several countries, not including China and Russia, already supply arms to the AFP and the police.)

But then he says something only the defeatist, defeated leader of a colony would say: “Kaya itong China Sea, wala na rin akong magawa (That’s why in this issue of the China Sea, there is also nothing I can do). Do not believe in that s*it that it was during my time that this arbitral ruling was handed down. Of course, it was not. The fate of that started two months before, three months before akong pumasok (I entered office). Because it was already announced there was the arbitration decision.”

This is a lie; worse, this is a lie easy to prove (not even the almighty Chinese were prepared for how sweeping the Philippine legal victory was); worst of all, this is a lie that aligns with Chinese, not Philippine, interests. It puts the blame where China wants it, on the lap of the Philippine president who brought it to court and on the American officials who took Chinese diplomats at their word.

But there is an even more terrible lie: “I am faced with the possibility of a barbaric war. Hindi ko naman kaya ito, ipadala ko yung mga sundalo ko (I cannot do it, to send my soldiers). I will not embark on something, on a war that or battle that I cannot win, hindi ako g*go (I am not an idiot).”

Beijing would like Manila to believe that only one alternative to the Chinese position exists, and that is war. Tragically, the President has completely embraced this wrongheaded, and indeed unpatriotic, view.

On Sunday, we got another glimpse — despite the President’s attempt at geopolitical explanation — of his attitude of surrender. “Anuhin ko man ito, China (What will I do with China)? Justice Carpio keeps on [pushing?] be assertive.”

That’s the problem right there. The President thinks that being assertive can only be expressed in physical, military terms. But he has other options. Forceful diplomacy; close collaboration with allies such as Australia, Japan, and the United States; renewed partnership with Indonesia, Vietnam, and other allies in Asean; the strategic use, as former national security adviser Roilo Golez suggests, of what is called “lawfare”; not least, the use of presidential rhetoric directed against Beijing. Ah, but nothing.

What was it Sun Tzu taught? “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”



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China lands bombers on SCS isles” was the headline that greeted us on Sunday.

These landings took place on a reclaimed feature in the Paracel Islands, which is within our neighborhood, thus bringing Chinese militarization closer to our backyard.

What else can we do to defend and advance our lawful position in the West Philippine Sea?

As a reminder, the Philippine Constitution mandates that our President defend what is lawfully ours. Our government should also be mindful that, as early as 2016, a Pulse Asia survey indicated that more than eight in ten Filipinos believe we should assert our rights as awarded by the arbitral tribunal in The Hague.

However, since the incumbent administration made the early decision to shelve the arbitral outcome, not only have we lost opportunities to advance our position, we have also found ourselves thrown into reverse gear, our position fully disadvantaged.

Would it make a difference if we all spoke loudly, clearly, and with one voice to fight for our national security? Should we be more helpful to our government as a proud people of a sovereign democratic nation?

Yes, for obvious reasons.

Our government needs to listen to its people. Our northern neighbor needs to listen to the Filipino people. And, finally, all our traditional partners and friends who are waiting for a united voice need to hear from us.

Nearly all Filipinos, I believe, would agree that our foreign policy should be revisited. Let us say this so loudly.

Is it high time for our government to assert our rightful position by utilizing the experience and diplomatic expertise of the Department of Foreign Affairs? If we believe this, let us say so.

Is it high time for our government to defend our rights by relying on the skill, courage and patriotism of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which is capable of developing a credible minimum defense posture against any bully or aggressor, whoever that might be? If we believe this, let us say so.

As we had previously said, we are opposed to war, as we should be. But if threatened by the use of force, we should be ready to inflict, at the very least, a bloody nose on any attacker who is out to harm us.

For example, it is my understanding that this capacity, which may be provided by Bramos missiles that the AFP can acquire from India, would be a good starting point.

With the President’s thoughtful leadership, and with the coordinated execution by the DFA and AFP under Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano and Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, respectively, we can stand together more firmly in defending what is ours and upholding the security of our people.

Inquirer columnist Solita Monsod also suggests that all of us take a few minutes to write our President. I humbly suggest that we all ask him to be more proactive and assertive in defending our territory.

Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, a learned and patriotic advocate, believes that a diplomatic protest should be urgently filed, and that we should take our assertive and lawful stand to the doorsteps of our northern neighbor’s embassy.

I fully agree with these suggestions, and trust that many others will share the sentiment.

The President believes, however, that those of us who endeavor to speak in the spirit of being helpful are not prepared to sacrifice ourselves.

We ask our leadership to have more confidence in our people.

To support our President, to secure our nation and to ensure the future of all Filipinos, we need to believe that there are many of us who are prepared to make the supreme sacrifice for our country, especially when called upon.

Many Filipinos want to be of help. Let us respectfully convey to our President that we eagerly await his inspirational leadership by doing what is right for our country.

* * *

Albert del Rosario is chair of ADR Institute. He is formerly secretary of foreign affairs and ambassador of the Philippines to the United States.



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Part 1 – A discordant foreign policy
“IF rape is inevitable, you might as well enjoy it.” This just about sums up our foreign policy with regard to the West Philippine Sea (WPS). But the inevitable has happened. We are already being raped by China. And our leadership has decided to struggle and complain only half-heartedly. In fact, our leadership has gone out of its way to convince us that: a) we can’t do anything about it; and b) we might as well make the most of the situation.

Others will probably contradict me and say, this is not rape. This is plain and simple prostitution, a degree of perversion that is much, much lower. We are therefore reduced to defining our relationship with China as either rape or prostitution.

During PNoy’s watch, the Philippines formally brought an arbitration case against China’s territorial claims, based on the so-called ‘nine-dash line’ encompassing almost the whole of the South China Sea, turning the SCS into in effect a Chinese lake, transgressing territories of several countries: Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Our country went to seek relief from the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague as any civilized country would do. On July 12, 2016, at the start of President Duterte’s term, the tribunal decided in the Philippines’ favor, saying that China’s claims exceed the limits of maritime entitlements permitted under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

In short, China’s claim to “historical rights” has no legal basis whatsoever and that China has violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights. China did not participate in the proceedings and rejected the ruling declaring. According to UNCLOS, nations have sovereignty over waters extending 12 nautical miles from its land and “exclusive control” over economic activities in an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) 200 nautical miles out.

The disputed territories include Pag-asa (Scarborough Shoal) in Luzon and the bigger Kalayaan island group off Palawan in the southwestern Philippines. For decades, these islands, islets, keys and reefs were haven for fishermen from different nationalities containing no large settlements, until one country after another countries laying claim on these territories, either by including them in their national maps or occupying the place physically and declaring ownership outright. The Philippines was not entirely innocent in this matter as a Filipino lawyer Tomas Cloma declared the “Free Territory of Freedomland” in 1956. This declaration triggered unfriendly actions from other countries, notably China.

But we did go to the Hague and the PCA decided in our favor. The ruling placed the Philippines on a moral high ground. This helped enhance Philippine credibility when the governemnt executed a pivot to China away from America in 2016 signaling “an independent foreign policy.” This was regarded as a wise move as this acknowledged the formidable economic behemoth with almost 1.4 billion people as a trading partner and the emerging superpower. The Deegong’s gesture endeared him to China and she gladly reciprocated with economic incentives the Philippine badly needed, impelling the ‘build, build, build’ protocols. It was also made clear to America that our century’s old special relations must undergo changes that must respond to the ever-changing geopolitical realities. But the close family ties will not be broken.

But the Deegong, armed with the righteousness of the arbitral ruling and his preeminence as head of the Asean for the year we hosted the summits, failed to rally the other countries fretting over China’s 9-dash line claims. He instead declared expansively that the Philippines, China and Russia now formed the new triumvirate—whatever that means. This naivetè may just have emboldened China, a bully in the playground, to read very well the actuations of a neophyte in geopolitics. A stern warning that China will not recognize the arbitral ruling and will not back down on the 9-dash line caims, risking war on one hand but appeasing the Philippines with large amounts of economic incentives, on the other, sealed the fate of the conflict territories. Thus, China embarked on a massive build-up of its occupied territories in the Kalayaan island group.

DU30, now deep into his bromance with Xi Jinping and protecting his role as a partner to China and the promise of economic goodies has been profuse in his praise and admiration for the China strong man.

From the time the arbitral question was decided in our favor, China has strengthened its hold on the Kalayaan group in the Spratlys, Fiery Cross, Subi Reef and Mischief Reef, expanding their areas by several thousand meters. Hangars along airstrips; underground structures for munitions and essential materiel; hardened missile platforms and radar and communication facilities were installed. Satellite photos from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) show short-range missiles in place and aircraft flying in and out ferrying personnel and materiel. There is no doubt of China’s ongoing militarization of the islands that the Philippines lay claim to.

But what has been the Philippines’ response? They range from the pathetic to the bizarre. Duterte said the Philippines cannot stop China from building on (the islands), adding that he cannot let soldiers die in a war that the country is certain to lose. (Rappler, March 20, 2017)

The President is unable to or refuses to see options other than of a “butangero” in the streets is inured to. Reduce the alternatives into a fist fight or flee.” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 16 November 2017).

And the bizarre.

“Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque even said that the time will come that the Philippines will thank China for the artificial island they’ve built ‘if we can ask China to leave the islands’.” (PDI, 8 February 2018)

In the assessment of one expert, Gregory Poling, director of the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, the DU30 administration’s WPS policy as seeking to avoid war with China and wanting Filipino fishermen to be able to fish is “…well-intentioned but naïve. I don’t think that’s practicality. I think that’s defeatist. But the only options here are not surrender or war. There is a whole spectrum of ways to impose costs on the Chinese for being bullies and outlaws, that we haven’t yet tried. It’s a little early to fly the white flag and surrender now.” (Rappler, March 20, 2017)

IN the Requiem Mass said on All Souls Day, we normally hear the Latin hymn which describes the Last Judgment:

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus!
(The day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes
As foretold by David and the Sibyl [the prophetess]:
How much tremor there will be when the Judge will come investigating everything strictly!)

This hymn is variously attributed to St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), the Franciscan Thomas of Celano (1200-1265), and the lector Latino Malabranca Orsini (d. 1254) at the Dominican stadium at Santa Sabine, forerunner of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas or the Angelicum in Rome. It is one of the most profoundly moving Catholic hymns which draw our hearts and minds to the Last Things.

They played God
I have not heard this hymn in a little while. But for some strange reason, I suddenly, mysteriously heard it playing inside my ear on Friday, May 11, 2018. On that day, eight justices of the Supreme Court arrogantly played God and claimed, in obedience to President Rodrigo Duterte’s stern orders, a right they did not have, to declare Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno “disqualified from and guilty of unlawfully holding and exercising the office of Chief Justice” during the last five years.

Five of the justices had become Sereno’s accusers when they appeared before the House committee on justice to support an impeachment complaint against her, and four of them are appointees of the President who had proclaimed Sereno as his “enemy” and asked for her immediate ouster.

Every ruling of the high court is supposed to add to the law, not diminish or degrade it. However, as a plain citizen, I cannot in conscience bow to the validity of this particular ruling. Even if all 14 other justices had ruled to oust the Chief Justice, I would have to beg off from joining the bandwagon. What makes a law valid is not the number of those who have enacted it, but the undeniable quality of justice. The law must be just. Such a law would be valid whether promulgated by one or by many, in a democracy or in a totalitarian order, while an unjust law can never be valid, whether promulgated by a landslide democratic majority, or without a single dissenting voice in a totalitarian order.

The Court vs its members
The late Alan F. Paguia (1954-2015), a formidable lawyer and professor of law, who was suspended by the Supreme Court for eight years for asking the justices some uncomfortable questions on the 2001 ouster of former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, used to argue that the justices do not always represent the Supreme Court even in their majority decisions. When they speak according to the Constitution, they do; when they speak for themselves alone, they don’t.

Within that context, we will have to ask whether Associate Justices Teresita de Castro, Lucas Bersamin, Francis Jardeleza, Samuel Martires, Andres Reyes Jr., Alexander Gesmundo and Noel Tijam are speaking for the court or for themselves alone in their quo warranto ruling. Their violation of the Constitution is as clear as the clearest glass and not all their fallacious arguments are able to muddle it.

The basic and all-encompassing issue is jurisdiction. The Supreme Court as court and the justices as justices do not have the right, the duty or the power to try and remove an impeachable Chief Justice, especially one who is already under impeachment, by any other means than that of impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by no less than two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court.

A cowardly response
The offending justices acquired the right, the duty and the power to try their own Chief Justice not from the Constitution or any law, but from a president gone mad who had barked his order against the Chief Justice, whom he wanted destroyed. In cowardly acquiescence, the justices decided to become his proxy and surrogate in his fight against the respondent.

Justices do not have the duty nor the competence to review the validity of the President’s appointment of any SC justice. Such power of review was once reposed in the Commission on Appointments; it now resides in the Judicial and Bar Council, which recommends all judicial appointments. Once appointed, and qualified into office, justices may be removed only on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of public trust.

The House committee on justice has already voted to impeach Sereno. But the process stopped when it became clear that there were not enough votes in the Senate to convict the respondent. So, Solicitor General Calida led the charge by filing a quo warranto suit, and the eight justices dutifully fell in line. It is not too late to ask the justices if they would have done what they did if DU30 had not gone on a rampage against the Chief Justice. So, I am asking the question now.

False precedents
In a foolish attempt to defend the indefensible, Tijam’s ponencia invokes two false precedents to justify the justices’ action: the quo warranto petition filed against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2001 after she assumed the presidency following the judicially assisted coup against Estrada, and the quo warranto petition against Commission on Audit Chair Reynaldo Villar in 2008. These are false precedents because they are not on all fours with the quo warranto petition against Sereno.

In the petition against Arroyo, the question sought to be resolved was whether she had taken her oath as President, as she claimed, when she took over from Estrada, or merely as “Acting President,” as Estrada’s camp claimed. There was no effort to remove Arroyo. In the case of Villar, the question sought to be resolved was whether he could serve for seven years as COA chair after he had served for four years as member of the COA. There was no move to remove Villar.

In both cases, there was no question of the quo warranto petitions being filed after the one year-period had expired, from the time the cause of action arose, as required by the Rules of Court. In Sereno’s case, the one-year reglementary period expired in 2013.

Flawed argument
The ponencia further argues that Rule 16 of the 2010 Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal provides that “a verified petition for quo warranto contesting the election of the President or Vice President on the ground of ineligibility or disloyalty to the Republic of the Philippines may be filed by any registered voter who has voted in the election concerned within ten (10) days after the proclamation of the winners.” This, in the ponente’s view, serves to point out that if a President and a Vice President, who are both impeachable officers, could be subjected to a quo warranto proceeding, why not a Chief Justice?

The argument is flawed. Someone who has been proclaimed president or vice president 10 days ago is only a president-elect or a vice president- elect, and not yet an impeachable officer who may be subjected to impeachment; he may be subjected to quo warranto only.

More flawed analogies
Outside of Tijam’s extended ponencia, a distinguished advocate argues that supposing the President appoints an incompetent bar flunker as chairman of the Commission on Elections, will he Supreme Court be prevented from hearing a quo warranto petition against him or her? The construction is materially flawed.

In the case of the hypothetical Comelec chair, the language of Constitution is precise: the President shall nominate, and, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments, appoint a chair of the Comelec. If in spite of this screening process an incompetent bar flunker is appointed as Comelec chair, then the Commission on Appointments should be held accountable, if not the President himself.

Tijam’s ponencia argues that when Article XI, Section 2 of the Constitution says, “The President, the Vice President, and the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust,” the use of the word “may” means quo warranto action may be used against an impeachable officer. The word “may” denotes discretion and admits of an alternative mode of effecting an impeachable officer’s removal, the ponencia says; ergo, quo warranto action is authorized.

Non sequitur
The word “may” simply means that the officers so named who all have a fixed term of office may still be removed on impeachment for, and conviction of, specific crimes, with the concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court. If the Constitution had meant to authorize their removal by quo warranto, on grounds lesser than those required for impeachment, it would have said so categorically and clearly. And it would have specified the number of votes needed to nullify an impeachable officer’s right to his office. But the Constitution did not and does not.

Balderdash
Much of Tiijam’s ponencia is balderdash. We may be able to overlook that offense, except that unless the abominable ruling is changed, there would be no appeal from it. We are sure to enter a period of legal chaos. The people will have to judge the justices. Physical challenges to political authority will rise, even the physical safety of justices could be at risk. And some people may want to apply the quo warranto reasoning of the eight justices on the moral, intellectual and mental fitness of our strongman-president. The withdrawal of allegiance by the military to their Commander in Chief may no longer be a taboo subject.

I did not see the puffed-up faces of the justices as they pronounced their verdict. But their ruling transported me, as I said in the beginning, to an eerie world where I saw their corrupted bodies curled on the wreckage of our Constitution and the Supreme Court while an all-powerful judge pronounced his sentence on our mortal justices. Clearly it was a fantasy, or a trance. But I suspect my conscience was trying to assure me that despite the obscene hosannas from the rented crowds and the lack of offended justice from the various faiths and the constitutionally upright, no one gets away with an injustice as gross and as life-threatening as this. In the end, justice will have to be restored. As Christians and as Filipinos, we have to believe in it. We will have to work on it.

IN MEMORIAM. I was deeply saddened to learn that while I was on a brief trip abroad, my dear friend, the National Artist for literature Cirilo F. Bautista passed away after a lingering illness at 76. He was a poet par excellence and was richly loved both for himself and for his poems. We first met at the University of Santo Tomas where, as literary editor of the Varsitarian, I had the privilege of publishing his prize-winning poems. He was already a giant oak presiding over a forest of gentle saplings even then. Some of his best Varsitarian friends had preceded him on this journey home—Benjamin Afuang, Ophelia Dimalanta, Bayani Mendoza de Leon, and Jose “Papen” Flores. I ask the gentle reader to pray for the repose of their souls. Thank you very much.

Former Senate President Edgardo Angara, 83, joined his Maker yesterday morning after a heart attack. Details about his wake and funeral arrangements will be announced later. Let’s pray for him. Thank you very much.

IN the Requiem Mass said on All Souls Day, we normally hear the Latin hymn which describes the Last Judgment:

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus!
(The day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in ashes
As foretold by David and the Sibyl [the prophetess]:
How much tremor there will be when the Judge will come investigating everything strictly!)

This hymn is variously attributed to St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274), the Franciscan Thomas of Celano (1200-1265), and the lector Latino Malabranca Orsini (d. 1254) at the Dominican stadium at Santa Sabine, forerunner of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas or the Angelicum in Rome. It is one of the most profoundly moving Catholic hymns which draw our hearts and minds to the Last Things.

They played God
I have not heard this hymn in a little while. But for some strange reason, I suddenly, mysteriously heard it playing inside my ear on Friday, May 11, 2018. On that day, eight justices of the Supreme Court arrogantly played God and claimed, in obedience to President Rodrigo Duterte’s stern orders, a right they did not have, to declare Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno “disqualified from and guilty of unlawfully holding and exercising the office of Chief Justice” during the last five years.

Five of the justices had become Sereno’s accusers when they appeared before the House committee on justice to support an impeachment complaint against her, and four of them are appointees of the President who had proclaimed Sereno as his “enemy” and asked for her immediate ouster.

Every ruling of the high court is supposed to add to the law, not diminish or degrade it. However, as a plain citizen, I cannot in conscience bow to the validity of this particular ruling. Even if all 14 other justices had ruled to oust the Chief Justice, I would have to beg off from joining the bandwagon. What makes a law valid is not the number of those who have enacted it, but the undeniable quality of justice. The law must be just. Such a law would be valid whether promulgated by one or by many, in a democracy or in a totalitarian order, while an unjust law can never be valid, whether promulgated by a landslide democratic majority, or without a single dissenting voice in a totalitarian order.

The Court vs its members
The late Alan F. Paguia (1954-2015), a formidable lawyer and professor of law, who was suspended by the Supreme Court for eight years for asking the justices some uncomfortable questions on the 2001 ouster of former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, used to argue that the justices do not always represent the Supreme Court even in their majority decisions. When they speak according to the Constitution, they do; when they speak for themselves alone, they don’t.

Within that context, we will have to ask whether Associate Justices Teresita de Castro, Lucas Bersamin, Francis Jardeleza, Samuel Martires, Andres Reyes Jr., Alexander Gesmundo and Noel Tijam are speaking for the court or for themselves alone in their quo warranto ruling. Their violation of the Constitution is as clear as the clearest glass and not all their fallacious arguments are able to muddle it.

The basic and all-encompassing issue is jurisdiction. The Supreme Court as court and the justices as justices do not have the right, the duty or the power to try and remove an impeachable Chief Justice, especially one who is already under impeachment, by any other means than that of impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by no less than two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court.

A cowardly response
The offending justices acquired the right, the duty and the power to try their own Chief Justice not from the Constitution or any law, but from a president gone mad who had barked his order against the Chief Justice, whom he wanted destroyed. In cowardly acquiescence, the justices decided to become his proxy and surrogate in his fight against the respondent.

Justices do not have the duty nor the competence to review the validity of the President’s appointment of any SC justice. Such power of review was once reposed in the Commission on Appointments; it now resides in the Judicial and Bar Council, which recommends all judicial appointments. Once appointed, and qualified into office, justices may be removed only on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of public trust.

The House committee on justice has already voted to impeach Sereno. But the process stopped when it became clear that there were not enough votes in the Senate to convict the respondent. So, Solicitor General Calida led the charge by filing a quo warranto suit, and the eight justices dutifully fell in line. It is not too late to ask the justices if they would have done what they did if DU30 had not gone on a rampage against the Chief Justice. So, I am asking the question now.

False precedents
In a foolish attempt to defend the indefensible, Tijam’s ponencia invokes two false precedents to justify the justices’ action: the quo warranto petition filed against Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2001 after she assumed the presidency following the judicially assisted coup against Estrada, and the quo warranto petition against Commission on Audit Chair Reynaldo Villar in 2008. These are false precedents because they are not on all fours with the quo warranto petition against Sereno.

In the petition against Arroyo, the question sought to be resolved was whether she had taken her oath as President, as she claimed, when she took over from Estrada, or merely as “Acting President,” as Estrada’s camp claimed. There was no effort to remove Arroyo. In the case of Villar, the question sought to be resolved was whether he could serve for seven years as COA chair after he had served for four years as member of the COA. There was no move to remove Villar.

In both cases, there was no question of the quo warranto petitions being filed after the one year-period had expired, from the time the cause of action arose, as required by the Rules of Court. In Sereno’s case, the one-year reglementary period expired in 2013.

Flawed argument
The ponencia further argues that Rule 16 of the 2010 Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal provides that “a verified petition for quo warranto contesting the election of the President or Vice President on the ground of ineligibility or disloyalty to the Republic of the Philippines may be filed by any registered voter who has voted in the election concerned within ten (10) days after the proclamation of the winners.” This, in the ponente’s view, serves to point out that if a President and a Vice President, who are both impeachable officers, could be subjected to a quo warranto proceeding, why not a Chief Justice?

The argument is flawed. Someone who has been proclaimed president or vice president 10 days ago is only a president-elect or a vice president- elect, and not yet an impeachable officer who may be subjected to impeachment; he may be subjected to quo warranto only.

More flawed analogies
Outside of Tijam’s extended ponencia, a distinguished advocate argues that supposing the President appoints an incompetent bar flunker as chairman of the Commission on Elections, will he Supreme Court be prevented from hearing a quo warranto petition against him or her? The construction is materially flawed.

In the case of the hypothetical Comelec chair, the language of Constitution is precise: the President shall nominate, and, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments, appoint a chair of the Comelec. If in spite of this screening process an incompetent bar flunker is appointed as Comelec chair, then the Commission on Appointments should be held accountable, if not the President himself.

Tijam’s ponencia argues that when Article XI, Section 2 of the Constitution says, “The President, the Vice President, and the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman may be removed from office, on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust,” the use of the word “may” means quo warranto action may be used against an impeachable officer. The word “may” denotes discretion and admits of an alternative mode of effecting an impeachable officer’s removal, the ponencia says; ergo, quo warranto action is authorized.

Non sequitur
The word “may” simply means that the officers so named who all have a fixed term of office may still be removed on impeachment for, and conviction of, specific crimes, with the concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court. If the Constitution had meant to authorize their removal by quo warranto, on grounds lesser than those required for impeachment, it would have said so categorically and clearly. And it would have specified the number of votes needed to nullify an impeachable officer’s right to his office. But the Constitution did not and does not.

Balderdash
Much of Tiijam’s ponencia is balderdash. We may be able to overlook that offense, except that unless the abominable ruling is changed, there would be no appeal from it. We are sure to enter a period of legal chaos. The people will have to judge the justices. Physical challenges to political authority will rise, even the physical safety of justices could be at risk. And some people may want to apply the quo warranto reasoning of the eight justices on the moral, intellectual and mental fitness of our strongman-president. The withdrawal of allegiance by the military to their Commander in Chief may no longer be a taboo subject.

I did not see the puffed-up faces of the justices as they pronounced their verdict. But their ruling transported me, as I said in the beginning, to an eerie world where I saw their corrupted bodies curled on the wreckage of our Constitution and the Supreme Court while an all-powerful judge pronounced his sentence on our mortal justices. Clearly it was a fantasy, or a trance. But I suspect my conscience was trying to assure me that despite the obscene hosannas from the rented crowds and the lack of offended justice from the various faiths and the constitutionally upright, no one gets away with an injustice as gross and as life-threatening as this. In the end, justice will have to be restored. As Christians and as Filipinos, we have to believe in it. We will have to work on it.

IN MEMORIAM. I was deeply saddened to learn that while I was on a brief trip abroad, my dear friend, the National Artist for literature Cirilo F. Bautista passed away after a lingering illness at 76. He was a poet par excellence and was richly loved both for himself and for his poems. We first met at the University of Santo Tomas where, as literary editor of the Varsitarian, I had the privilege of publishing his prize-winning poems. He was already a giant oak presiding over a forest of gentle saplings even then. Some of his best Varsitarian friends had preceded him on this journey home—Benjamin Afuang, Ophelia Dimalanta, Bayani Mendoza de Leon, and Jose “Papen” Flores. I ask the gentle reader to pray for the repose of their souls. Thank you very much.

Former Senate President Edgardo Angara, 83, joined his Maker yesterday morning after a heart attack. Details about his wake and funeral arrangements will be announced later. Let’s pray for him. Thank you very much.

Vietnam has requested China to withdraw its weapons from disputed territory in the South China Sea, while security experts have urged the Philippine government to upgrade the country’s defenses in the Spratly archipelago in response to China’s militarization of the strategic waterway.

“Vietnam requests that China, as a large country, show its responsibility in maintaining peace and stability in the East Sea, do not carry out militarization activities, withdraw military equipment illegally installed on features under Vietnam’s sovereignty,” international news agencies on Wednesday quoted Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson Le Thi Thu Hang as saying in a statement on Tuesday, using the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea.

The statement came after US news network CNBC reported on May 2 that China had installed antiship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three Philippine-claimed reefs in the Spratly archipelago that it had seized and transformed into artificial islands then developed into military outposts—Kagitingan (international name: Fiery Cross), Zamora (Subi) and Panganiban (Mischief).

“Vietnam is extremely concerned about the information [as reported] and reaffirms that all militarization activities, including the installation of missiles on Spratly islands, is a serious violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty,” Hang said.

China has earlier deployed similar weapons on Woody Island, the biggest feature in the Paracels archipelago farther to the north that Vietnam considers part of its territory.

No word yet from PH

While Vietnam has protested China’s missile deployment in the disputed waterway, the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte has yet to say what it intends to do about the installation of high-tech weapons on Philippine territory.

Several lawmakers have urged the Duterte administration to protest the missile deployment, but presidential spokesperson Harry Roque has said the government has yet to verify the information because it does not have the technology to do so.

The government, however, is acquiring equipment that will enable it to verify the missile deployments, Roque told reporters on Tuesday.

China has neither confirmed nor denied the installation of weapons on the three Philippine reefs.

The Philippines’ defense treaty ally, the United States, warned that China would face “consequences” over its militarization of the strategic waterway.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said “China’s peaceful construction in the Spratly archipelago, including the deployment of necessary national defense facilities, is aimed at protecting China’s sovereignty and security.”

Naval battles

Vietnam and China have fought naval battles over their conflicting claims in the South China Sea, while the Philippines has taken—and beaten—China to the UN-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to resolve their own maritime dispute.

But instead of asserting the Philippines’ legal victory, the President, who came to power shortly before the tribunal handed down the decision in July 2016, mended fences with China and wooed the economic giant for aid, loans and investments.

China pledged to give the President billions of dollars in investment and aid. Beijing then proceeded to develop its military outposts on Philippine territory, which was discovered with the Inquirer’s publication of surveillance photos in February and April showing nearly finished bases with airstrips, at least one with two military transport planes on the tarmac.

Alarmed at the Duterte administration’s lack of initiative, lawmakers have called for legislative inquiries into China’s actions in the South China Sea.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday called for a meeting of the National Security Council to tackle China’s deployment of missiles on Philippine territory.

“If up to now the government still has not confirmed the presence of a foreign country’s missiles [on three] of our islands, we may have a serious national security problem. Convening the National Security Council is the least that we should do, given the situation,” Lacson said in a statement.

‘Be not timid’

Security experts also urged the administration to upgrade the country’s outposts in the Spratlys, after the Inquirer reported that the Philippines has been left behind by its rivals in development of their claims in the South China Sea.

“It is not fair to our [troops at] hardship posts in [the Spratlys] that the government is hardly upgrading our facilities there, yielding to China’s objections,” former National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said on Wednesday.

The Philippines has stopped developing its outposts in the Spratlys to keep a 2002 claimants’ agreement  to maintain the status quo in the South China Sea.

But Golez said the government was “overdoing” its “act not to antagonize China by not reinforcing” the country’s defenses in the Spratlys.

Golez cited Vietnam’s development of its defenses in the South China Sea, saying Hanoi has demonstrated that “a good defense capability buildup is not incompatible with a vibrant economy.”

Despite past violence in their maritime dispute, Vietnam and China maintain economic ties, though Hanoi continues to oppose Beijing’s aggressiveness in the South China Sea, Golez said.

“The message: Be not timid in facing China,” he said.

‘For greater survivability’

Defense analyst Jose Antonio Custodio said the Philippines’ defenses in the Spratlys must be improved “to allow for greater survivability” in case of “any eventuality such as hostile incidents or even natural calamities.”

“Now, given that China has upped the ante by deploying missiles [on Philippine territory in the Spratlys], it becomes imperative to increase our defenses,” Custodio said.

Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said upgrading the Philippines’ outposts in the Spratlys could serve a “symbolic purpose.”

“[It’s] demonstrating resolve even in the face of China’s intimidation. To do nothing would be to signal that we concede the South China Sea to China,” Batongbacal said. —With reports from Leila B. Salaverria and the wires



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