Out of commission

As Inq7.net explains it, PLDT DSL interruption in Makati leaves Internet cafes empty. PLDT called to tell me the breakdown was due to “a power brownout” in the area.

The Garcillano grilling at the House will resume on January 25, 2006.

Meanwhile, Police convene crisis committee amid coup rumors . Maybe they just went to Starbucks? After all, Arroyo spokesman dismisses coup rumors as ‘coffee shop talk’.

Regarding my post quoting a Philippine Star article, read the report penned by Jesuit priest Romeo Intengan, Jr.: ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES:  DEFENDER OF THE NATION,  GUARDIAN OF DEMOCRACY,  AND SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE. No coincidence, I think, in the paper having been written up on a weekend scuttlebutt had it that military moves were possible. Plus, I have it on very good authority that Fr. Intengan visited former president Joseph Estrada last Saturday in his detention estate in Tanay, Rizal: that’s more or less around the time the report must have been “leaked” to the Star. Reading the paper will explain why it may have been felt useful by some, to give the paper some sort of publicity last weekend.

Intengan’s paper is essentially a manifesto in support of Social Democracy, written from a Socialist perspective a few decades out of date (its insistence on feudalism, for example, doesn’t take into account the groundbreaking thought of former Communists like Rigoberto Tiglao, for example, that Philippine society is no longer strictly feudal). It calls for the reexamination of the repeal of the Anti-Subversion Law, and the replacement of the National Defense Act (Commonwealth Act No. 1), with a new law that has more internal security aspects to it. It also warns of the infiltration of the Armed Forces of the Philippines by the Communist Party of the Philippines through such front organizations as the “Lt. Crispin Tagamolila Movement”.

More on the paper in a future entry.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Avatar
Manuel L. Quezon III.

21 thoughts on “Out of commission

  1. mlq3, regarding Tiglao’s point i.e., ‘Philippine society is no longer strictly feudal’, if you can point me to the source article, it would be greatly appreciated. (tried to google for ‘Rigoberto Tiglao’ and ‘feudal’ no direct hits)

  2. Coffee shop rumours

    I would rather stay home
    Everytime the Australia New Zealand chamber of commerce panicks the firt one they call is my dad…..

    I did coffee shop rumours myself to see if I could get people’s attention with my loud voice.

    NAH !people enjoy their Mocha Latte…

  3. I should correct myself, Fr. Intengan is with the SOCIAL DEMOCRATS, not the NATIONAL DEMOCRATS. These are the guys, as he says on page 30, who want the Philippines to become like Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Germany. (But not Netherlands, of course). How curious, I can’t tell the two apart in their common hatred of the United States, or their concepts of revolution and social change. It’s that fatal need to be UNIQUE…

  4. mlq3, pldt called you?

    my my, looks like your getting preferential treatment from the guys down there. well, after your article on them, they probably want to keep another one from coming out!

  5. grabe, the real characters behind the tape just won’t give up! don’t think they have nobel reasons but just another agenda, just one of the so many there are in this godforsken country!!!!

  6. grayspectrum, they did call me, and i regularly forward complaints people send me. they’re rather scared of the class action suit i proposed.

  7. A coup d’état will be the last resort when the good people of the republic can no longer take in the crap being fed them by Gloria’s government.

    I am a bit perplexed that is in spite of the plethora of strong and undeniable circumstacial evidences and hearsays surrounding the commission of a crime against election rigging by Garci, Congress is still turning around like a headless chicken and is letting Garci, the election cheat get away with “virtual murder”against the Republic of the Philippines.

    No wonder, Secretary Bunye whom I used to know quite well and respected, is now telling the oppostion (presumably that includes members of the Opposition party in Congress and the likes of whoever cannot accept Gloria’s illegitimate government) to accept defeat. Well, he’s wrong! He’s just making an ass of himself when he says that! The war ain’t over yet. Defeat in one or two battles doesn’t mean the war’s lost.

    There’s enough circumstancial evidences and hearsays to indict Virgilio ‘Garci’ Garcillano, and by extension Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, of an outrageous crime committed against civilization and against a nation, its people and its institutions – stealing the citizens’ votes.

    REMEMBER: President Estrada, the duly elected and Constitutional president of the Republic of the Philippines was stripped, judged inapt, constructively resigned by no other than the Supreme Court of the Philippines headed by Chief (In)justice Davide based on pure HEARSAYS & CIRCUMSTANCIAL EVIDENCES. Therefore it is but right to charge and convict Garci and Gloria based on the same elements! And where did it all start? Congress! So, Congress must initiate criminal proceedings against Garci illico!

    Why are the members of the ‘august’ chambers allowing an election criminal to literally ‘shit” on their heads? Why?

    P.S.: On the subject of the former president, I strongly believe that Estrada must be freed even as he answers the charges against him. Estrada should be informed that he could file a lawsuit against Gloria who should be charged in the International Tribunal Court in Europe for violation of human rights!

  8. “election rigging by Garci, Congress is still turning around like a headless chicken and is letting Garci, the election cheat get away with “virtual murder”against the Republic of the Philippines.”

    Didn’t you read the news? Not only Gloria called.
    I am sure there are more what you call “murderers” among the prosecutors.

  9. a de brux, your outrage comes from GMA’s attempt at “depriving millions of the country’s voters their rights…” so it would be ironic if this is the very issue used as justification for taking away what’s left of our democratic space.

  10. DJB, there are legitimate reasons for favoring aspects of another country’s system to that of the USA. Canada, for example, has a superior health care system. Income inequality is also less pronounced in those countries cited. That being said, given the current low level of tax collection, i don’t think our government can afford to offer the same level of social benefits as those countries. I would have rather the paper cite successful examples from countries closer to our level of development such as India, Malaysia or Brazil. Comparisons to first world models in a working-level paper amounts to nothing more than writing up a wish list.

  11. MLQ3,

    I didn’t quite get what cjv wrote. Did he equate Garci’s taking the nation, the legislature, the media for a ride with ‘democratic space’?

    I don’t suppose cjv is one of those people who don’t believe in circumstanical evidences as proof that a crime may have been committed.

    In that case, all is lost…

    Now, I wonder what cjv’s stand is on the ouster of a sitting president, duly mandated by the Filipino voters to be their president yet was summarily stripped of his constitutional mandate and declared CONSTRUCTIVELY RESIGNED by no less than the Supreme (almost typed monkey) Court’s Chief InJustice Davide et al based on hearsay and circumstancial evidences.

    I repeat, there’s enough circumstancial evidences to warrant the filing of charges against Garci, and by extension, Gloria Macapagal for rigging the elections that even an extremely cautious and cynical Potius Pilate would have been hard put not to consider those evidences.

    Let’s put it this way, sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. Either charge Garci and Gloria for committing a crime against the nation or hang them by their ears from the highest lamppost illico!

  12. A Jesuit priest trying to refocus the nation and to its enemies within is a good selling point for imposing emergency rule.

    A presciption pill from the religious right is worth examining by itself. The country which is predominantly Catholic and all its leaders coming from Catholic schools is perpetually mired in graft and corruption. The church receives money from its gracious patrons from the high offices with open arms and remitted to Vatican. A priest who can quickly see a communist as godless and an enemy of state but can’t see its followers and students corrupting its own social system. The Catholic church is critical of the efficient elite with less children and supportive of the majority poor with many children that overwhelms government service. And yet opposed any population control program when faced with disproportionate large burdens it has helped created. A church which turns blind to the illigitimacy of children without means to secure child support to remain as one of the only two Catholic countries without divorce. A church which espouses women’s subervient role to their husband had helped the patriarchal society that the country has become.

    Father Intengan’s prescription is a narrowed picture of its own serving only the church’s interest.

  13. a de brux, to clarify – i think we still would have more democratic space today compared to what our situation would be under military rule. That was the lesson i learned from our experience with Martial Law. Even if unsuccessful, any disturbance coming from the military would further derail our economy. That’s the lesson i got from the coup attempts of the 80’s.

    I never argued against the admissibility of circumstantial evidence. Did not even know that such an argument existed.

    Erap was legitimately elected in 1998. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that he constructively resigned. I was happy with the decision, but that is just my opinion.

    I agree that charges should be filed. I hope Garci is convicted, and that GMA would resign in favor of the VP.

    You and i have our positions on the matter but we only get one vote each and so should the rest. Holding a gun does not entitle anyone to change that equation.

  14. I would have rather the paper cite successful examples from countries closer to our level of development such as India, Malaysia or Brazil. Comparisons to first world models in a working-level paper amounts to nothing more than writing up a wish list.

    Karl
    December 1st, 2005 13:11 2One thing economics teachers (at least mine) blame is our real estate over assessment….

    Since were into Thailand might as well make full use of the issue in relation to the topic…

    Tje Thais overttok us in rice..before they were just students in the UPLB and the PMA

    they even have good or better generals

    traffic..before I was glad that we have company in the traffic mess in our region ,but taking a look at their skyways..no comparison..

    before we were the Detroit (literally) of SEA
    now we lost that too

    They even have a better jeepney combined witgh tricycle called the TUKTUK were even Pierce”James Bond” was willing to have a visa commercial on…

    One similarity is they too target low inflation

    but they have high economic growth, they check their interest rates

    Us we ar satisfiered with low inflation even with smuggling,dumping of goods.food.agi,etc

    we check interest rates but only inreaction with the movement of the FED

    We misreport GDP by having a flawed Trade deficit data as awork inprogress reporting
    I know this because for six months I have been giving Inward Foreign manifest data of the South harbor to the NSO and after six months I learn that they cannot read the data because it wa in the ACOS format, they only know how to use the DBF files

    OUCH why did they not tell me I was with the IT departmentn of Asian Terminals…well at least we helped even one year late…

    what do we export elctrinics…

    its time for ethanol and ccocodiesel and agribusiness

    we should get our acts together in order to catch up with our apprentice….Darth Vader

  15. cvj wrote on December 13th, 2005 at 5:58 pm: mlq3, regarding Tiglao’s point i.e., ‘Philippine society is no longer strictly feudal’, if you can point me to the source article, it would be greatly appreciated. (tried to google for ‘Rigoberto Tiglao’ and ‘feudal’ no direct hits)

    CVJ, apart from what Manolo will send you, here are additional sources worth exploring:

    R. Tiglao, “Non-Progress in the Periphery,” Diliman Review January-March 1979. This was a response to Roland Simbulan’s lazy defense of the CPP’s semi-colonial, semi-feudal repost to the essay below.

    R. Tiglao, “Critique on Studies of Transnational Corporations,” Diliman Review, April-June 1979 – Bobi hints at the disappearance of feudalism here.

    R. Tiglao., The Philippine Coconut Industry: Looking into Coconuts (Davao: Afrim Publications, 1981) — here Bobi debates with Edjop and the CPP Mindanao Commission over the political economy of Mindanao

    Happy reading

  16. CVJ, I stand corrected a bit: the coconut piece of Bobi was not exactly a debate. It was the result of an understanding between folks like him who argued that “feudalism” was not anymore present in the Philippines, and Ed Jopson and the Mindanao CPP, to shift the discussion to undertaking empirical research to prove their positions, then meet after the research had been done to continue the debate. Bobi finished the coconut study (one of the best still on the industry under Marcos; very Marxist) but I am not sure what happened to the Mindanao CPP’s study. It was probably uncompleted because Jopson was killed. But then again I may be wrong. Maybe a draft of it can be found at the UP Main Library archives which, I heard, is now in the process of micro-filming and making available to the public primary documents from the Mindanao Commission era.

  17. Jojo, appreciate the pointers. I ordered the ‘Looking into Coconuts…’ book, hopefully it arrives by year-end.

  18. PLDT sucks big time just like most of our politicians! If you have the chance, avoid any of PLDTs services.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.