It’s official: One more time for ‘Cha-cha’: House committee revives talks on Charter Change. Once more unto the breach!
Similar points were apparently raised a year ago, see Information Processing, but here’s an article that caught my eye: The Battle for Brainpower. And serendipitously, after encountering the article in Fortune this appeared in Inquirer.net: World’s leading schools set up campuses in Singapore. And to think that last year, at a discussion in Miriam College, Atom Henares Araullo lobbied against constitutional amendments because it would open up Philippine schools to foreign ownership (the students, to put it mildly, gave Atom skeptical looks).
We’ve made some modest gains in terms of attracting Korean students, but have obviously lost out in that our neighbors used to send their talent to Philippine schools in the 50s to the 70s but don’t do so, now; I understand the Asian Institute of Management, a pioneer in MBA’s in our region, is faring pretty badly because Singapore can boast of tie-ups with foreign schools and (for a time, though I suppose, not now) the weakness of the peso versus the dollar.
Schools are shutting down long-established departments, many survive on the cash cow that is nursing or IT; others have trouble keeping faculty though I suppose it isn’t as bad as grade school and high school, where in too many cases teaching is a “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach” option.
Update on the signature campaigns: Expel Tonyo Trillanes From The Senate (42 on December 3, and 154 today); Condemn the Mutiny at the Manila Peninsula (132 on December 3, and 193 today); Calling for the immediate resignation of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Noli de Castro and for the Holding of Special (“Snap”) Elections within 60 days (3,469 on December 3, and 3,500 today). This is interesting to me, because efforts have been made to get those anti-Trillanes campaigns to snowball -but why haven’t they?
Conrado de Quiros, who writes,
They didn’t particularly like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, they said, but surely better to have civilian rule than a military one?
My answer then, as now, is that I’m not so sure that Arroyo naturally represents civilian rule and the restive sectors of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) the military one. At the very least, my impression is that there has been a sea change in the thinking of rebellious military groups since 1986. I have no doubt that had military rebel group RAM won in the latter half of the 1980s, RAM leader Gregorio Honasan and company would have held the reins of power. I am not so sure Trillanes and/or Lim would have done the same thing. RAM labored from a praetorian mentality — one that said the military should take over to end corrupt rule — while the “Magdalo” (a loose term for a loose association) labors only from the belief they can midwife a civilian regime that would end corrupt rule. At least, their articulated sentiments proclaim so; whether you believe them or not is another matter entirely.
More importantly, while that may be debatable, another point is far less so. That is the question of whether the Arroyo government represents civilian rule or not. My contention has always been that it does not, and the real danger is to imagine it does. No wolf has more successfully worn sheep’s clothing. That regime is the product of a seizure of power, defended by the military top brass against those sectors within the AFP that have tried to protest it.
And Filomeno Sta. Ana III, who says,
The train of thought from these two statements troubles me. My fear is that the ideas they disseminate can be more dangerous to democracy and its institutions than the action taken by Mssrs, Trillanes and Lim and their civilian supporters.
Let’s return to the Satinitigan statement that the rule of law should prevail.
In invoking the rule of law against Trillanes, Lim, Guingona, et al, he reveals his bias. His concept of rule of law is no different from GMA’s rule of law. And why not state explicitly that GMA has to be punished for breaking the law?
The action taken by the Peninsula actors cannot be separated from the stark fact that GMA has broken the rule of law–the Garci tape speaks for itself. GMA, too, has committed numerous impeachable acts. But the impeachment attempts could not prosper because of sinister reasons: the insidious filing of weak complaints by shady characters like Lozano and Pulido and the overgenerous bribes given to the members of the House of Representatives.
To quote the psychologist Steven Pinker, “we frame a situation in different and incompatible ways.” For George Bush, US presence in Iraq is to liberate the country. For the majority of peoples all over the world, it is an invasion. For neoliberals and conservatives, higher taxes are confiscatory. For progressives, higher direct taxes are redistributive.
For some, GMA is the president of the Philippines. For many, she is an illegitimate leader who should be made accountable for impeachable offenses.
It was GMA who committed the original sin of flagrantly breaking the rule of law. It is her illegitimacy that leads to militant acts of defiance like the Peninsula episode. And GMA has continually violated the rule of law. By doing so, the rules of the game have changed. Anyone is justified to pursue his own set of rules.
And it is this frame that GMA opponents can invoke what my colleague Manuel Buencamino describes as the “fountainhead of modern democracy,” found in the American Declaration of Independence. Mr, Buencamino, in his BusinessMirror column (Unbowed and undefeated, 5 December 2007) quotes an important passage in this Declaration: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
make similar points. I find my article Who Will Use the Filipino Soldiers First? from 2005 validated, though.
People in business I’ve talked to say the Peninsula caper has had absolutely no effect on business, which is good. But, Net FDIs fall 77.3% in Sept, dragged by US credit woes. Good news, though: October merchandise exports up 10.5% on electronics rebound. Oh, and RP living standards below Asia’s.
A sobering reflection in “A nation of highwaymen” by Juan Mercado.
Overseas, Thousands in emotional farewell to daredevil Evel Knievel (I didn’t know he was still alive; as a kid I had an Evil Knievel lunch box). The Costs of Containing Iran: Washington’s Misguided New Middle East Policy. A truly appalling development is this: Ifs and Buts: If the CIA Hadn’t Destroyed Those Tapes, What Would Be Different?
That means the two biggest terror trials we’ve had since Sept. 11 were predicated on torture evidence that was then destroyed. The government has argued that al-Qaida operatives cannot be tried because the evidence against them is secret and threatens national security. But the real rationale is much worse: The evidence against them is wholly unreliable…
…Kevin Drum started asking the questions we are posing over the weekend. He pointed out that the tapes would have revealed “not just that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative, but that we had brutally tortured an al-Qaeda operative who was (a) unimportant and low-ranking, (b) mentally unstable, (c) had no useful information, and (d) eventually spewed out an endless series of worthless, fantastical ‘confessions’ under duress.” Those confessions, and others like them, have been the underpinning for much of the government’s legal assault on the rule of law in recent years, from free and open trials, to secret expansions of executive powers. Certainly Drum is speculating, just like we are. It’s impossible to say for sure what the tapes would have revealed, much less how such revelations might have changed all these recent events. But it’s worth trying to refit the pieces, because this evidence was deliberately obliterated. Otherwise, the CIA’s act of destruction wins.
Closer to home, India’s Press Comes Under Fire. In our region, Malaysia Gets Tough. And all isn’t hunky dory in virtual worlds: Computing: Virtual worlds are being put to serious real-world uses–and are starting to encounter some real-world problems. This part of the article is very exciting:
With the popularity of virtual worlds such as Second Life and games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Sims Online”, companies, academics, health-care providers and the military are evaluating virtual environments for use in training, management and collaboration. Superficially, such uses look a lot like playing a video game. “The thing that distinguishes them from games is the outcome,” says Mr Wortley. Rather than catering to virtual thrill-seekers, the aim is to find new ways for people to learn or work together.
Imagine a virtual Congress, or baranggay! This reminds me of proposals in the past that local government officials be required to play SimCity. But then, there’s this:
Bad behaviour is not the only problem. The growing value of commerce in virtual worlds has provoked interest from the taxman, too. Governments in America, Britain and Australia have all said they are considering a new tax on real-world profits from virtual trade. Mr Castronova is aghast. “Monopoly is not a very fun game if I have to pay a tax every time I buy Boardwalk,” he says. South Korea actually imposed such a tax in July.
One way to deal with unwanted activity, in virtual worlds as in the real one, is to decriminalise and regulate it, rather than trying to outlaw it altogether. That is the approach taken by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), the company that runs “EverQuest II”, a fantasy world of dragons and busty blondes. It found that some 30-50% of customer-service calls concerned scams relating to real-world trade in virtual items. So it divided the game world in two and made trading legal in one part but not the other; players can choose which to play in. As a result, says Greg Short of SOE, the share of calls relating to scams is now less than 10%.
I wonder: there’s surely a large Filipino presence in such virtual worlds, and we have our domestically-popular games like Ragnarok. What sort of participation is there, by Filipinos? Serendipitously, here’s an article giving an overview of the Philippine gaming industry: IP e-Games sees growth, consolidation, in RP online gaming:
Citing industry figures, Tsao said that about 23 to 25 percent of the Internet user base in the Philippines is now playing online games. He stressed that the number could become higher next year since growth is now coming from outside Metro Manila and other key cities in the country.
For IP e-Games, Tsao said it has about 5.5 million subscribers to its online games and about 2.5 million active users. It currently has more than 50,000 concurrent users for its various online games in the Philippines.
In 2007, most of the games that were launched in the Philippines have become free-to-play, which means people could play games for free and pay only if they want to buy items and other in-game requirements to “level up” characters.
And happiness is a Majestic ham! Happiness is also the Christmas bonus, but as quintessentially I blogs, not if heavily taxed.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Charter Change, constitution, economy, history, ideas, internet, journalism, law, media, military, philippines, politics, president, society, war, Washington DC
buencamino,a malicious “parody” coming from an apparent adult is not at all funny and irresponsibly childish. as a 5-year old, i used to play that with playmates of same age group and the dumbest of us would use that when running out of tease to annoy an antagonist. i guess we have a few of those 5-year olds in big boys’ clothing in this blog. the only difference is that this plagiarist is trying to give a message but couldn’t express him/her/itself on his/her/ its own and had to use somebody else’s work product to do it.
manuelbuencamino: “Why is the peso overvalued? Because it is not backed up by a solid economy (production of goods) as you yourself pointed out. The peso is strong because of remittances and hot money to a much lesser extent. The big investments coming in are for extractive industries, The long term economic development prospects of those are zilch because it’s no good to extract minerals unless you are going to use them for your own industries. If you export raw materials, then you’re selling the family silver just to stay afloat.”
That’s right. It takes a decent amount of IMAGINATION and INNOVATION to turn raw materials into high-added-value products — e.g. timber into high-quality furniture, farm products into branded consumables, and people into trusted service brands.
But because Pinoys utterly LACK imagination and innovation, we simply export our resources RAW instead of PROGRESSIVELY investing in an industrial capital base to process these resources into finished products (we’d rather spend the money on celphone trinkets, jeepneys and ohner-type jeeps, karaoke machines, and ocho-ocho parties).
.
BrianB: “The main problem, I’ve observed, is that capitalists do not think Filipinos are creative or are capable of innovations that can be competitive. It’s not the pricing per se but the actual product. Too bad we are not so callused as the Chinese and simply crank out copy cats on a massive scale”
There are very few design-added-value operations in the Philippines. Most of the facilities built by multinationals are mainly geared towards harvesting the labours of our CHEAP workers. The tragedy is that even our competitiveness in providing CHEAP is already being eroded as well as we write.
Ambeth Ocampo described how a lack of an ability to imagine and dream is readily evident in Philippine industry in an Inquirer article he wrote in September 2005 after a visit to the marble-producing Philippine island of Romblon.
Of this island’s craftsmen, he wrote:
What did the people in this sleepy town do with their marble? They made
them into tombstones, mortar and pestle. As a tourist, I asked myself: How
many “lapida” [tomb markers] and “dikdikan” [pestle] do I want? How many
lapida and dikdikan do I need? Come to think of it, how many lapida and dikdikan do they sell in a year? Here is a region that has skilled manpower and an almost inexhaustible natural resource, but their products are unimaginative. If culture comes in to introduce new designs and new uses of Romblon marble, that would go a long way in developing the industry and the province.
it’s still parody–a literary device. lighten up, bencard: you have arrived.
“where do you think these ‘dull bozos’ came from? another race? they’re from OUR society. we created them. THEY are US. the moment we gave that policeman/guard/govt employee/teacher/immigration officer P50/$5/$10 para hindi tayo ‘maabala’, we are actually creating another bozo and in the process, we become bozos ourselves.”
This is a sad reality lost in the vacuous collective intellectual faculties of Pinoy society. It is a simple formula most Pinoys fail to grasp.
oh, inodoro, suppose i replicate en toto mlq3’s column “the long view”, change the names of the subjects, and adjust relevant portions to fit my own purpose, what do you think he would do if i say to him “relax, it’s parody – a literary device, don’t you know that?”
I should try that with Krip Yuson’s column, he’ll go insane.
bencard,
who’s stopping you from replicating mlq? but have you ever thought why dirk’s snipping method of re-placing your template works more effectively than regurgitating a long essay? even if you do so, that would still not be plagiarism because your parody is intended for mlq (the context of which is known to many readers here who can be humored) as much as dirk’s was for you.
inodoro, who’s stopping me? it’s my sense of decency and professionalism, if not the law, which i’m not sure the troll or you have. i assure you, i can find more effective ways to express my opinions than to shamelessly plagiarize for self-serving motives someone else’s work.
That sounds like fun, you can call your column “the wrong view”.
“That sounds like fun, you can call your column “the wrong viewâ€Â.”
Very funny title — hahahha
Parodying Manolo’s title for this thread wouldn’t be as funny though: “Brainy in battle”
“maybe bec only dull bozos run for office?”
Maybe because politics in a democracy is the only profession where dull bozos can actually succeed. That’s probably the reason why politics is the career path of choice of showbiz bozos.
… not to mention coup-addicted morons.
benignO, now i’m beginning to be convinced of the “vacuous(ness)” of some pinoys. just look at the last 3 preceding posts here (lol).
“benignO, now i’m beginning to be convinced of the “vacuous(ness)†of some pinoys. just look at the last 3 preceding posts here (lol).”
Certainly a beginning of a long journey of discovery. The society may be vacuous, but there are multiple layers of this vacuousness we can delight in exploring.
sorry, benigs, wrong timing. i meant the last 3 posts before yours at 9:29 am.
I know one who chose an alternative profession:
http://www.getrealphilippines.com/
“The anti Trillanes campaign did not snowball”
While some did not approve Trillanes move, that didnt mean they support Gloria Arroyo either.
People support Trillanes advocacies but not his means to achieve it.
I would just like to comment on the whole parody thing if you dont mind. Bencard, isnt it that for an accusation of plagiarism according to the [drum roll] Rule of Law, the plaintiff has to show damages or loss of revenue from the stealing of intellectual property? In my unsophisticated legal opinion, your charge of plagiarism against Dirk Pitt is just… Im struggling to find a word… whining.
Bencard: that explains my trepidation about setting-up my own blog.
It’s really as simple as commenting in MLQ3’s blog. There are ready-made templates for you to use. Im sure your blog would be a welcome addition to the community.
stretching the rule of law too far, bencard. look, you still hold the mirror, what dirk was doing is to show you its flip side, without claiming the mirror has his own. which makes parody an effective literary device.
unfortunately, bencard, there is no cyberlaw governing anonymous handles criticizing other anonymous handles. unless you unmask your real identity (or some semblance of it), your handle and your views [and whatever sense of decency and professionalism you profess] shall–and this is the unwritten law in cyberspace!–always be taken with heaps of grain of salt. or heaps of dung.
“sorry, benigs, wrong timing. i meant the last 3 posts before yours at 9:29 am.”
No problemo. I gathered as much. 😉
parody, a form of flattery? (or mockery?). at least your posts are being read by dirt prick.
Bencard:
if you’ve a google account, you can get onto blogger, it’s easy. you don’t have to add a lot of bells and whistles like cvj and dean, just start it up, pick a template, and write.
okay, there has been a lot of mudslinging as of late. especially against our resident sniper benign0. i know his style is abrasive, but let’s not forget that despite the self-promotion and the reductionism, he does have points.
off topics, but you guys heard the news Newspaper Magnate Conrad Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, A Canadian who renounced his Citizenship to join the House of Lords was sentenced by Judge Amy St. Eve in Chicago for 6 l/2 years, fine 215 thousands dollars $6.l forfeitures for frauds and obstructions for milking his own business? We’ll he paid the Price.. you can clik my handle as I have appropriate links and up-to date entry about the Man…
I am referring to the spoiled media people who covered the Trillanes caper at the Peninsula. Medial people (most of home are not even graduates of Journalism!) have grown so rash, arrogant and impulsive. The media people who went there were expecting a greater scoop that went pfffft. They were looking forward to another EDSA uprising that would topple another president. They wanted to be there with the thoughts of the organizers for posterity sake – news as secondary goal.
Videomen, cameramen, newscasters and all the works were left to fend on their own by their so-called media executives who lashed out only after the military made a successful mission destroying their hopes and maybe aspirations for a bigger scoop – EDSA 4 standoff. The so-called “right for the public to be informed†is an over-used media cliché which Maria Ressa, head of ABS-CBN’s news and current affairs department, employed as reason for her media people to be at the Peninsula. What a gross understatement on her part as newscaster who’s not even telegenic!
Veteran media personalities were at their worst exploiting their overexposed faces in our over-commercialized news media. Filipinos are known to be copycats or if not plagiarists; however, they lose their touch in news frenzy covering events such as the Trillanes caper. Our media personalities copy American CNN newscasters. However, they lack the finesse, academic and training background of the US newscasters who can react without losing their unbiased stance and emotions. We can always review the 911 coverage and the Iraq news reporting and compare the Trillanes caper on-the-scene news reporting to the public “for its right to be informedâ€Â.
It’s good our military are not gung-ho enough to stop this kind of event – like what the Russians did bombarding a building with artillery shells during the rebellion in 1993. If ever so-called media people were caught in the crossfire between Trillanes and the military they had it coming. It was good Trillanes tail curled at the eleventh hour and found a way to “save†his face by saying he did not want the media hurt if ever he fought it out. If he was the hero type or the brave enough as he was reading and pronouncing anti-incumbent slogans he could have asked the pesky media people to clear out so that he could resist those out to get him and die trying. He did not because “the media was thereâ€Â.
What the military did for all mediamen to be brought for de-briefing is a standard police and military process regarding these events. Manhandled, handcuffed or not, they had it coming. Veteran media personalities should not have been spared with these processes. There had been already so many events in the Philippines that had been mishandled by the media just to gain newsworthy momentum – some bordered on swaying public opinion.
If ever a repeat of similar event will take place Malabanan tanks should first be used at the media people. Tear gas is just too dignified.
We do not have coal.
We do not have oil.
We have abandoned coconut plantations because of fats and cholesterol.
We are in the calamity zone.
We have our regions and provinces are segregated by sea water then have a constitution that requires a president or senator to campaign from Aparri to Sulu. They should be supermen.
We had a colonialist who has no intention of improving our country unlike Hongkong, Singapore and Malaysia which are still managed by Great Britain. Thanks to Pinatubo Americans evacuated in just a day.
We are still a young nation considering that majority of adult men died during Phil-Am War(1998-1916) and Japanese occupation.
Do not compare us with the Indians, Chinese and Japanese who had culture and civilization already before Christ.
We have neighboring countries like Singapore and Hongkong who are happy to see us poor as we are considered their competitor.
We have UP engineers who want to be bosses after graduation instead of inventing or innovating or trying to improve rural lives.
But we have still have “brainless” people working for the country.
jeg, re yours at 9:45 am, that’s why i said sense of decency and professionalism, IF NOT THE LAW. btw, thanks for your tip at 9:46 am.
same response to you, inodoro. that’s why i address my concern to mlq3, the owner of this blog. whatever you know about cyberspace practices, you still cannot second guess manolo who calls the shots around here, and who knows the real identity of “anonymous” commenters. he has the right and the power to keep this blog on a higher level, free from “heaps of dung” and malicious pranksters.
tonio, thanks also for the heads up. i’ll consider it.
imagine that. malabanan tanks for crowd control. the police having a huge ‘MALABANAN’ sign on the sides of their fire trucks (trick only). human rights advocates will surely cry foul but everyone will not miss the foul odor.
“The Wrong View”…hahaha … that sounds Japanese.
@ GENGHIS2510
It was not a coup, nor a planned military takeover by Trillanes. If it was, the media shouldnt been able to get close to trillanes and be in the frontlines, literally speaking.
But the problem is the military overreacted and maybe, just maybe find an excuse to finish off trillanes and co. right there.
Too bad, media is in the way!
i think media was intentionally in the way arrogantly presuming the law enforcers would not shoot them because they were above the law. i think by “shield(ing)” the perps, media thought they could ensure the rebels impunity for whatever lawless thing they wanted to do.
i found their antics (raising their hands to show off their plastic handcuffs) annoying and contemptible. they sure didn’t get my sympathy for doing that.
I didnt think media harbored the idea that they are above the law. The government was just trying to portray them as nuisance because they are so frustrated that they were not able to accomplish how they would neutralize Trillanes and General Lim according to their plan.
The Wrong View: Near-Sighted Poh Ako — I love to read that column/blog the soonest. Please get it going asap Bencard! — with Benigno as your sidekick. I’m sure mlq3 won’t mind if you parody him. Wehehehehe.
Who is above the law?
“Walking out of the court in the midst of trial and having themselves surrounded by armed men [apparently their military escorts] in public†is the Justice Department’s idea of “public uprising and taking arms against the government.†(See the Resolution of the Justice Department in I.S. NO 2007 -1045 in PNP – Criminal Investigation and Detection Group vs. Senator Trillanes, et. al.)
The following facts as narrated by former Armed Forces Chief of Staff and General Lisandro Abadia during EDSA II which swept Arroyo into power neither constituted rebellion, inciting to rebellion nor any crime whatsoever but ruled by the Supreme Court as mere exercise of free speech and peaceful assembly:
“It was surreal. I felt like I was Chief of Staff again, but this time, conferring with and giving instructions to a rainbow army. The Left and the Right seemed to be marching in perfect cadence.
“Who were in that room? Apart from myself, the agreed overall planner and commander, there were Metro Manila police chief Edgardo Aglipay, Western Police District chief Avelino Razon Jr., Teddy Casiño of Bayan, Nathanael Santiago of Bayan Muna, Dinky Soliman, retired Vice Adm. Armando Madamba, Fr. Robert Reyes and their assistants.
When I asked Nathanael and Teddy for the strength of their forces, they gave figures from a low of 50,000 to a high of 100,000. Then I asked Generals Aglipay and Razon for the number of police troops they would commit to the area. They assured me of 1,200, with reserves on standby. When I asked about the whereabouts of the pro-Estrada forces, they answered that they would be at Mendiola.â€Â
And before “(going) for the jugular by marching to Malacañang,†Gen. Abadia further recounted:
“There are things that are not quite clear to you, and so you have to make assumptions. And one must anticipate the enemy’s intentions using intelligence information. All of these data and assumptions are analyzed until one finally forms a course of action. I’ve been retired for nearly seven years but the military planning habit has not left me.â€Â
abe, were those “facts”, as given by abadia, on the record of the case reviewed by sc before rendering its ruling? was abadia’s narration actually testified to by him and properly admitted and adjudicated upon by the court?
It seems for many here they would have rather seen the police gun down the media people in the Pen much like that solitary Japanese camera man during the demonstrations in Myanmar. He knew the risks and he paid for it with his life. The government of Myanmar was enforcing their version of the rule of law.
The policeman in Alabama during the Selma marches wherein they let loose their dogs onto the demonstrators were recorded by the media. That made King and the marchers national icons. It made the Selma freedom march the icon of the civil rights movement in the U.S. It moved then JFK to act. Alabama was acting based on their rule of law. The Soweto uprising in S. Africa against an established white racist state again under their version of the rule of law.
I personally believe that media even ABS-CBN are more mercenary than they are not but that is the state of our society so I will take the less good with the mostly bad rather than nothing at all which is the rest of the stations which is almost entirely all bad. (Local stations only)
am guilty of plagiarism by naming myself, tadah! Manong bencard, maybe you should watch bubble gang. maybe i should rename me as beencured? all right, let me address the question to the right person: mlq3, is there plagiarism in my name or a parody?
sorry manong ben, i just can’t help it.
definitions (from my computer’s Oxford American Dictionaries):
In view of the above, I believe everyone has acted within their rights, and that those who have offended Bencard are urged to take his feelings into consideration, and modify their future comments if they’re willing to grant him that consideration. For example, while you have the right to parody his comments, it might be better to begin by saying, “if bencard says this, let me modify his statements to say this…”
berncard is neither a government spokesman nor a paid hack, he does not say anything out of any consideration aside from personal conviction. on the other hand, what he says here and anyone else does, should be governed by the rather feeble limits i impose. no one, to my mind, has actually taken someone else’s statements or opinions and tried to pass them off as their own, which is plagiarism. but everyone does view the contents of comments as something which can be repurposed and refashioned to make their own point, which is acceptable.
On another note, i am just as ignorant as anyone else here, as to the identities of people who choose to post under pseudonyms.
“In view of the above, I believe everyone has acted within their rights, and that those who have offended Bencard are urged to take his feelings into consideration, and modify their future comments if they’re willing to grant him that consideration. For example, while you have the right to parody his comments, it might be better to begin by saying, “if bencard says this, let me modify his statements to say this…†– mlq3
But, Manolo, Bencard’s offended feelings were the result of his mistaking parody for plagiarism. Instead of sounding righteous, he should have felt ashamed of his ignorance.
“take his feelings into consideration”? How many people’s feelings have he offended with his own past comments in this blog, in the first place?
Let’s understand that in this blog there will always be clashes of ideas and the clashes can be bruising. So, everyone should expect to come out with bruises, including emotional ones. Anyone who can’t stand them, I suppose, is free to get out.
shaman, but its xmas, so… group hug.
Okay, mlq3, if you say so.
Shaman: So, everyone should expect to come out with bruises, including emotional ones.
If anyone is emotionally scarred by participating in an online forum, the state of the emotional health of that person has to be questioned in the first place. [Oh, allright, insert smiley here.]
Remember, freedom from being offended is not an inalienable right.
Group hug!
(ABS-CBN did do a good job of reporting. I just wish they’d man up next time. Now theyve created a self-praising ad about the whole thing, even with a close-up of the upraised fists bound by handcuffs. We get it. Youre heroes on the side of truth. Sheeesh.)
aww. such joy-joy feelings. im almost tempted to join in. Benigno should be here to join the fun 😀
happy happy joy joy~
Come on, Devils, the water is fine.
mlq3, thanks much for the solomonic resolution. however, my “feelings” are beside the point. i just find it a little harder to argue against my own words and ideas that have been swiped, er “parodied”, by some brainless, desperate contrarians.
shaman, by your standard, i’m “ignorant”. why should it bother me coming from the likes of you?
“aww. such joy-joy feelings. im almost tempted to join in. Benigno should be here to join the fun”
Sige na nga, maki-hug na rin ako. 😀
abe, were those “factsâ€Â, as given by abadia, on the record of the case reviewed by sc before rendering its ruling? was abadia’s narration actually testified to by him and properly admitted and adjudicated upon by the court? – Bencard
Ben,
Sorry, I didn’t see your above post right away. Anyway, as you will recall we have had exchanges on this matter sometime ago in here.
The narration of facts given by General Abadia was published in Philippine Inquirer in March 2001, the same broadsheet that has serialized Senator Angara’s diary on the basis of which the SC has deemed President Estrada to have “constructively resigned,†thereby allowing the succession of Arroyo to the presidency. Neither Abadia’s narration nor Angara’s diary has been formally introduced in evidence. In the case of the diary, the SC has simply taken judicial notice of it.
One purpose of my post is also to give a new dimension to the debate in terms for instance of “probable cause†determination. I’d like to advance the argument this time that by a simple stretch of the prosecutor’s imagination there’s obviously more reason to initiate rebellion, conspiracy to commit rebellion or inciting to rebellion charges against, for example, GMA, Abadia, Reyes, Davide and Mike Arroyo based upon the scope of the “public uprising and taking arms against the government†involved during EDSA II as compared to the commotion created by the walkout from the court and then the press conference at the Manila Peninsula by Trillanes, et al. last week.
Given the prompt action by the Justice Department to file charges against Trillanes et al. for rebellion and inciting to rebellion, under the same rule of law, the filing of rebellion, conspiracy to commit rebellion or inciting to rebellion charges against GMA et al. are long overdue (note: any of those crimes have not prescribed as yet).
Sige na nga, maki-hug na rin ako. – benigs
i luv that benigs, you got me rofl.