Lakas: we’re still strong

Jove Francisco’s entry on how Lakas-CMD seems out of the loop when it comes to senate slate formations, reminds me of an old entry in Katataspulong’s blog titled May Asim Pa.

The moneyshot:

But really, what’s the reaction of LAKAS after many of its members (mostly locals) jumped ship and are now sailing with PGMA’s KAMPI? He has no clear cut reaction.

And why is LAKAS seemingly being left out of the 3rd force? Save for Zubiri, of course, given if it is INDEED TRUE that he’s being wooed or invited.

All ES said is that “everything is still fluid” and that they are open to any proposition.

Right after the presscon, I called up the people behind the 3rd force.

I asked, why there is an impression that LAKAS is out of the loop?

The answer?

“Nobody likes bullies.”

Today Jove continues with the latest on the Palace spin on things: “Team Unity.” Also known as “The New Frontier” (shades of the 1st Macapagal administration’s being known as the “New Era” in 1961). It even includes blog-snatching, see Yuga.

Anyway, the Palace begins rolling out the red carpet for its new recruits. Or to be precise: announces the carpet may be rolled out, if it sees the public won’t mind.

Marichu Villanueva on Chinese gamblers who are then held hostage by local tour operators.

Jarius Bondoc says the mudslinging, if it turns into rock throwing, could assure mutually-assured destruction:

But then, a lot will depend on the tenor of the senatorial campaign. If the Estrada ticket happens to uncover too much corruption in Malacañang, then it can provoke retaliation. This could mean counter-exposés — of drug trafficking and summary killings — long overdue but held back for political convenience.

In the blogopshere, over in Pajamas Media, Richard Fernandez (more famously known as Wretchard) begins has a special report on conflict in Mindanao, Islands in the War, Part 1 and Part 2. An interesting neoconservative look at what’s going on, with which I have this reservation: he does not look into more recent scholarship into the origins of the conflict that’s taken place there since the 1970s. Wretchard believes that Nur Misuari and the MNLF are part of an older nationalism; but if he were to refer to Patricio Abinales, who is from Mindanao and has written extensively on the nation-building efforts of the 1930s to 1950s, and the origins and ideology of the Bangsamoro, he might find useful ideas to modify his own. As I understand it, Abinales argues that traditional Muslim society was generally pro-American; that like the princely states in India, these traditional leaders at first felt wronged by their being made part of the Philippines and not a separate American protectorate; that the traditional leaders thereafter adapted themselves and were fairly successfully integrated into national politics from the Commonwealth onwards.

What emerged with the Leftist-influenced generation of Muslims represented by Misuari was a new, non-traditional Muslim nationalism, the idea of a Bangsamoro, a new idea and one dependent on the ideological development of other Muslims in the Nasser era: a break with traditional Muslim political and social behavior. That, in turn, was challenged by the militant Islam that challenged the secular pan-Arab nationalism of Nasser, again first in Egypt and which has since spread and is espoused as the idea of a new caliphate by Al-Qaeda, etc. See this article, in Slate: Is Osama the Martin Luther of Islam?

Torn & Frayed looks at a photoblog, My Sari-Sari Store, which he says is simply brilliant. He also notes that one of my favorite authors, and one who influenced me deeply, the Polish journalist Ryzard Kapuscinski, has passed away.

blurry brain warns that embracing Asean too tightly economically might not necessarily be in the national interest. Mongster’s Nest ponders the daily messages our roads send out -if only people would pause and be receptive to such messages.

In other matters, Stylus Magazine on marketing music for independent labels.

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Manuel L. Quezon III.

12 thoughts on “Lakas: we’re still strong

  1. But then, a lot will depend on the tenor of the senatorial campaign. If the Estrada ticket happens to uncover too much corruption in Malacañang, then it can provoke retaliation. This could mean counter-exposés – of drug trafficking and summary killings – long overdue but held back for political convenience.

    sure the admin can throw mud too to muddle the issue. but erap’s already in jail.

    in the end, it’s really about the Hello… Garci… and her admin’s legitimacy problems.

  2. The Bangsamoro aspirations must have been tough for Misuari to sell because general acceptability required that these be reduced into writing. The Chairman, unfortunately, was not standing on the shoulders of giants. Just a handful of materials from the institutions was available then. Worse, he was attempting to put forward higher ideals which, in any society, exist only in the heart but are contrary to the observable.

    Only genuine concern, which we are not giving, could have unearthed the truth or falsity of his works. Whatever the final finding may be, however, its relevance could already be lost today. After Nur’s long struggle, his MILF finally obtained acceptability by Public International Law but it is the unworthy MNLF that is reaping the benefits.

  3. “Gma-Erap” frame is a Palace creation. The real frame is “people of the philippines versus gloria arroyo”.

  4. oops…made a basic booboo there…Nur’s with the MNLF, not the MILF…got it backwards…it’s the latter that is piggy-backing on the Chairman’s gains

  5. can understand the expose on summarily killings against a certain candidate but drug trafficking? can you give me a hint?

  6. mlq3,

    “Lakas-CMD is the most corrupt political party in history.”, Rep. Teddy Locsin had often remarked about the party of FVR who, himself, still has to account for several billions.

  7. 29 January 2007

    The raid of the lakas just shows that gloria is solidifying thru her minions her party “KAMPI”. Too bad JDV never learned his lesson/s.

    prans

  8. Was it the late Amang Rodriguez who said that ‘Politics is addition’? That is certainly how Lakas is defining its politics.

  9. FVR and Erap control the goings on in Philippine politics. The real showdown, as in 2001 and 2005, will be between the two. They are the ones who are in conflict, from national policy and administration, down to lifestyle. GMA is just an instrument of FVR. If she seems to possess power, it is only because FVR allows it; perhaps as compensation for getting him off the hook.

    The opposition’s chances this May might get a boost if this truth is brought out in the open. No matter what people think of Erap, it can never be as bad as the devil himself.

  10. Too many political parties, can’t tell the difference of one from another. Or they are just the same, led by different personalities, with no ideologies, principles, programmes, but just that, personalities? It is only fit for local municipal politics where parties are not that necessry and is irrelevant to municipal governance.

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