The path to unity for President Marcos
Analysis and Opinion
By JoeAm
I think the Marcos campaign call for unity was very effective. Now that he’s in office, though, he is more absorbed with practical matters like food, getting in foreign investments, and handling Rodriguez. Also, his definition of unity seems to be a loyalty obligation on citizens rather than an earned joining of interests among all Filipinos.
Demanded loyalty is not democratic, not real bonding, and unsustainable in most cases.
Wars bind but there is no war. The two possible binding crises today are poverty and global warming.
My definition of unity is earned togetherness. It is good works, good communication, respect for all segments of society, an a diligent gathering of citizens toward the same goal, under the Constitution.
Here’s what I think President Marcos could do to bring Filipinos together:
- Create more jobs and higher salaries as the nation’s highest mission. Extend forward from his remarks to US filipinos in New York that seeks to bring the brains home. Heavy tech focus.
- Bring justice to the forefront. Free De Lima. Free prisoners who should not be in jail. Fire corrupt judges. Investigate EJKs. Freeing De Lima would be an easy and profound statement.
- Get Sara Duterte out of the picture. Off the front pages. She is divisive.
- Settle that tax case. Work out a reduced amount and long term payment plan. It’s a burr under the saddle of tax-paying citizens and they are tired of being bucked.
- Require agencies to automate and adopt a customer service model. Promote people who are good at this. Pay top people at agencies well to suppress corruption.
- Challenge LGU’s to modernize and clean up. Reward the mayors who do both with performance awards and bigger budget allotments. Call it the Jesse Robredo plan and watch pinks cheer.
- Don’t do business with China. China is not interested in Filipino well-being. China divides.
- Stop revising history. Set it aside and work.
- Make response to global warming the second highest national priority. Food, water, energy. Preparation. Recovery.
- Set aside divisive proposals like rewrite of the Constitution, ROTC, death penalty, secret budgets, and any other programs that host corruption. Help people trust and appreciate the Administration.
________________
Photograph from Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/blog/what-can-be-learned-ferdinand-marcos-jrs-first-weeks-office
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
The government is still the largest employer. Automate and make sure the rationalized attrites have somewhere to go to in the private sector.
I know some prefer a large government, but I have to say that the private sector is not evil at all.
Nothing to add..give chance to others.
here’s my chance: give four a chance! settling the tax case is pbbm’s biggest step forward and most notable of all notables: pay his tax in arrears kahit patigi-tigi man lang, BIR would accept installments in case of utter financial hardship so long as pbbm showed commitment to pay.
the way pbbm parties and party hard, he ought to pass donation hat for his tax purposes. and in no time, his tax problem is gone to heaven and dead as a dodo, lol!
also give 8 a chance! maybe a priority chance – “Stop revising history. Set it aside and work.”
if pbbm knows how to set priorities, he’ll do the most important thing first. and put the nation above his want to sanitize past history that belong to the rattling skeletons of his family’s past, he might just rise above himself, surprise!
but nah, he is afraid of success!!! so afraid to be his own man able to discern between imee and imelda’s and the nation’s want. he maybe a president in name only, but those two are his rocket boosters and the real propellers and he is just, maybe a putty to be molded.
so prioritize then, history can wait. as president, bbm ought to prioritize the needs of the country and see to its success, giving the country his utmost care and attention.
the maid in malakanyang can take her place down the line and wait for her turn, lol! and if the maid really is supportive of bbm, she will not burden him with her extemporaneous!
The peculiarities of people’s judgments, that Mar Roxas’ wife pissed them off but Marcos’ wife is non-threatening. Go figure.
I like mar’s wife! she knows how to dress at angayan kaayo, whereas the other one looks vapid and wears her designer clothes like house dresses, kulang ng lang ng apron, lol!
Agree. I refrain from commenting on women’s looks or attire because that is dangerous ground, but I do know the difference between a pumpkin and a Porsche.
our country is top in asia in producing beauty queens! and if the lady puts in the time and effort and ask her friends in the bb pilipinas pageant among them margie moran, ex ms universe, to teach her how to walk with poise, grace and dignity, instead of stomping on stage like a truck driver to meet foreign dignitaries and their wives, the lady could well be asset to this admin.
Descriptive. She does stomp. Good advice.
He wants BIR to reopen the case so they could argue then the next sentence said he has no legal aptitude.
pbbm has the reptilian enrile and the eggnog what’s his nombre, ah, just remember – roque! as legal advisers. both can argue on pbbm’s tax woes.
Yeah those two maybe they are daring BIR if they want to…dare.
he is also immune from attendance and ought to smack new dfa chief for failing to hakut crowd o round up philippines consular staff sa buong estados unidos and invite them to hear muscles speak sa unca. alam nila days before hand he was coming and should have acted accordingly.
or maybe, they were there present at the speech, but in spirit only. muscles kasi would not have noticed they were absent, coz he has habit of looking at the ceiling, lol!
now that muscles has changed tack . . . audience beware! absent one too many times and muscles may well cut them off from grace!
no trash talking or else I might too
He is immune from suit but not his family.
1. Too big a problem.
2. Not necessary, no one’s clamoring.
3. This, BBM can do right now within his power, very easy. Shuts down DU30 block, increases Marcos party power. BBM should do this now.
4. Tantamount to guilty plea, a trap. Nice try, Joe.
5. Complaints system. Related to 3. get Inday Sara to do her job stay in her lane, but cleaning up DEPED. Focus there.
6. Good plan, but too big. Politics still politics there.
7. China’s got the cheap goods and the programs for infrastructure, what does US bring to the table that compares to China? Do business with China, have US military, win-win— just make sure you don’t get duped by China, Chinese good business people they are.
8. This process is beyond BBM’s scope, but it doesn’t hurt his cause so revise away.
9. Requires foresight, Philippines will follow but if US and the West aren’t leading, no one to follow, so we keep going towards MORDOR.
10. You’re telling BBM to go the PNOY route, when he should be striking that balance between PNOY and DU30. drama is good, Filipinos like drama, just ensure youre seen as the hero in said drama.
—————————–
My point, 3 and 5 are your best and most feasible of the 10, Joe. It’ll surely also piss off inday Sara cuz no body puts baby in the corner, so the road to 2028 will be fun.
“Wars bind but there is no war. The two possible binding crises today are poverty and global warming.”
come to think about , Joe. the LGUs run by prominent families like the Ecleos and the Maute (Marawi) but criminal and irrelevant to the Marcos power structure can totally take the place of this binding war you’re describing. poverty and global warming too abstract. too big, generational issue. another type of EJK though is what
Filipinos want.
So 6. is definitely doable, shows power and knowledge and determination to clean up. Hell I’d add Quiboloy and Brother Mike to that list too, joe. If you’re a preacher and have a plane and or helicopter as your private ride, even a yacht , you should be EJK’ed.
That would be fun. Little wars on LGUs, but won’t happen, I think. They are the people who brought in all those votes.
Poverty and global warming are nebulous until someone finds a way to crystallize why they are important. Marcos is a bit of an orator so he can do it. Take poverty. Rant about being tired of being Asia’s poor man, Asia’s orphan. Tired of kids not eating right and suffering in school. “We gonna fix that, and I mean business.” Then focus, PR the hell out of it.
“Marcos is a bit of an orator so he can do it.”
I guess I’ve believed Pinks/Yellows so long that I just figured he was just good for motor skills and getting special degrees, Joe.
But if he is an orator, I’ll have to sit and study he speeches now, then like Brother Mike and Quiboloy, the sky is the limit. DU30 wasn’t much and I’ve poured over his speeches, every Toastmasters how-to DU30 screws up as a rule, but he said some pretty real stuff, like EJKs and promising regular filipinos to take down corruption one manager at a time. So it wasn’t in oratating he was good at, but in making things happen (good or bad, he said and he made happen).
If BBM is an orator in the making, I hope he does more speeches, Brother Mike and Quiboloy know what the gift of gab brings you— all sorts of things! ladies and lambs.
As for the LKY and Park Chung-Hee stuff , if BBM is an orator then he can also get stuff done just by saying it will happen, nay will it to happen. of course theres managerial stuff too that needs to happen to get stuff done, but oration is one big piece, Joe, Adolf Hitler comes to mind, plenty of big talkers in history too.
maybe a blog on BBM’s prowess in speaking, I’m sure you’ll get BBM advisers here for that. then we can drown them with Micha’s MMT, karl’s military pension system and automation, Ireneo’s German sensibilities, kb medical and OFW insder stuff, my focus on gut health = brain power plans, and for sure will get the newbie raya to puke all his lunch with said BBM orator blog, Joe and piss off more Pinks and Yellows… LOL!
That’s a good idea. I’ll work on it.
I don’t see it in the English speaking speech, too formal like he’s having trouble squeezing words out of his mouth; but his Tagalog/English speech (i know totally different speeches, one to foreign investors the other to his base fans in the US) you can see it. Orator.
DU30 spoke in sentences, but BBM speaks in paragraphs. i’m seeing now his popularity and potential. Looking forward to the blog, Joe.
@Lcx
Even though it was not published, I saw that you turned down my request for you to write about degrowth and tweak my regenerative development article.
Yeah, in place was my plan to get out of dodge away from the equator and to the northern parts, in the US the Salish sea, Lake Superior and St. John river watershed in Maine/Canada.
But the twist was to take advantage of Biden’s invite to go to the US/Mexican border where he’ll take you on as asylum seeker. Reason is persecution thru climate change and fault is Western countries and the US.
here: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-asylum/asylum/the-affirmative-asylum-process (first step is to physically arrive in the US).
Had Joe published it , karl, my idea might have made it to BBM’s UN speech, instead of this:
“When future generations look back, let them not ask why we did not take this opportunity to turn the tide, why did we continue in our profligate ways, until it was too late? This threat knows no borders, no social class, nor any geopolitical consideration. How we address it will be the true test of our time.”
delete all that, and he shoulda said,
“We are not going to wait for future generations, fuck that, this is your fault and since its pretty much open borders in your Mexico/US border right now, effective immediately our PAL will be flying 2 plane loads of Filipinos a day affected by climate change and needing refugee status. Until you guys unfuck this whole climate change stuff and with China, we will continue to send you our poor tired huddled masses yearning to breathe free!!! We Filipinos just want equitable access to your asylum process, one you’ve afforded everyone else it seems.”
(I shoulda been a speech writer, karl ) 😉
Comedy speeches, perhaps. “fuck that” lol lol.
Thanks for the clips. I may use a few excerpts. He is good at reading via paper or teleprompter, making good use of the pause. He holds eye contact. He speaks well extemporaneously, although occasionally getting lost in his context. His main vulnerability is a tendency to over act, put too much pump into things. His rich voice is excellent.
Geez, I’ve got half the blog article done already! 😁
I guess we kinda overlooked him by comparing him with his father.
Same voice and one can feel the energy and control of the dictator.
Compared to that the son is more of the jovial type as Lance noted.
One can see that the father was more structured, being a lawyer.
One doesn’t have to like Sr. to know what attracted people to him.
Thanks. I can use those, too. The structure of the old man. Good point.
@lcx hahaha
I’m looking thru youtube videos of Marcos Sr. being funny or just fun, and I’m not seeing it, but there’s a bunch of BBM laughing and just being light not too serious. I’ve always liked people with sense of humor especially in leaders.
I hope you include sense of humor too, Joe.
Him picking on his son is cute, Filipinos love this shit i’m sure.
Yes. Dynasty rising.
The first time I heard about BBM ‘s son was from Micha, and I thought it humorous, but I’m seeing dynasty now as well. BBM and sons are a great act, funny and loving. the wife too. Its a great family dynamics really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liza_Araneta_Marcos#Career I’m curious now how long exactly she practiced as a lawyer in NYC. but the account on Wiki is very confusing, saying she graduated NYU but that she’s not on record as member of the NY Bar. And her NYU degree is on Criminal Procedure, what kinda degree is that? NYU Law you graduate you get law degree. you specialize later on with specialty here and there, but Criminal Procedure I don’t think is a degree, sure you can focus on Criminal law, but you don’t get a criminal law degree you get a law degree. I’m looking at the NYU Law School website and there are special degrees in taxation and int’l law, dual degree programs, etc. but not criminal procedure cuz that’s just court proceedings! it would be so weird if there was a degree on court proceedings.
The First lady of the Philippines
His son pacute
The Philippine delegation at UNGA, listening or not to Marcos Jr.:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0251k97jKYCJtSMgezsJC2kYu8VsuFZfDUNGHSRY1k9bbj4tPe582RR27ycfjbM6Q6l&id=100000229924529
Unga lang sila ng unga habang nag games at iba logtu
Four are listening, one got a text he’s attending to, one is writing. Wholly normal. These kinds of posts are so petty. This is the state of internet trash talk. People blaming Marcos for the empty room, fulfilling their fantasy that the world hates Marcos. Germany, Japan, and Italy had even emptier rooms. A lot of Pinks have turned into angry blithering idiots as far as I can tell.
That kind of stuff is heckling and I guess normal if it isn’t overdone.
Kasambahay also mocks the way the First Lady walks for instance.
Karl and myself are now both over 50 so we will become like those below.
.
If one misses the actual point because of that kind of stuff it isn’t good of course.
Questions like the one below should still be asked:
https://m.facebook.com/nowyouknowph/photos/a.378512869556154/1340617083345723/?type=3
Heckling being insincere trolling. The problem is that it presents a false narrative. Fake news. Dirrrrrty play. I’ve concluded that the bitterness among pinks is so intense that they will do exactly as DDS and Marcos Trolls have done, package up their angers as projections they ardently promote as the only truth. But it’s all distortion or outright lies.
That is why I feel my partial socmed hiatus is a good thing.
One can easily go down all sorts of rabbit holes on social media.
Atty. Leni is also doing the right thing concentrating on social work.
The group archiving Martial Law history is also being productive.
Those who stick to “we were cheated” are on a dangerous path.
So are those who think “Marcos Jr. will crash sooner or later”.
Those who took vacations like the Robredos did the right thing.
Heckling from time to time still is fun though, I must admit.
That tongue sticking happens around 2:49:40 time stamp, Ireneo. and before that just before it, she appears to be telling BBM that she was crying and BBM gives here his handkerchief, then she wipes her eyes and maybe sees someone specific i dunno and sticks her tongue out. I think she was just embarrassed to be seen crying, kinda normal thing to do, I saw bar girls did this all the time when they got barfined to each other, playful way not mean. its rather common in Asia this sticking out of tongue.
I doubt she was sticking her tongue out to the “Filipino nation”, that’s a weirder interpretation IMHO. context is everything.
Ooooops, sorry it was karl who posted it, i addressed to Ireneo. to everyone then. LOL!
Well, it was Raissa who made the original Twitter post.
I kinda get why Raissa is hopping mad after growing up fighting Marcos Sr.
As for the rest of the Pinks I see the “schoolyard” dynamics a bit like this:
Trolls have been telling Pinks “hey forget your Madumb’s Harvard stint, our BBM will talk at the UN which is something she will NEVER do!” Lance you were right comparing this to schoolyard situations, bullying etc. so they laugh “hey look how empty the UNGA hall”.
The mostly “nerds” that Pinks are very often now are in counter-attack mode after losing by being too passive and nice. Well, one very well known Pink FB poster does it with humor:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02egK4HEE6Wogc9bswe4c3WnUBXHLqz8xHibFmLNdX2P93EqVVq739FAZg2s3fQMDZl&id=631171910
She is emotionally intelligent enough though to acknowledge how it makes her sad and mad.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02aPK7V9RwqCP5nKWM85cnmE6E1RskJmwtLhNz3N8MAK2k1EFgVw78Az5j24eNvUbbl&id=631171910
Raissa these days is a troll influencer of the cast of Sass and Thinking Pinoy. Everything she dies is premised on destroying Marcos.
On the other hand, re Aniela Tolentino and Sando,
how many young Congressmen/women are there in the Philippines? i know i know most will be sons and daughters of Filipino big shots, but just seeing young people being young is a breath of freshair, IMHO. over here its AOC and others, but they’re like 30 somethings, there should be more 20 somethings in National politics,
back in the American revolution it was the 20-somethings that moved heaven and earth, and created the USofA, with Ben Franklin as their granddaddy kinda like mascot, but he fucked in Paris. he was big pimpin’
I hope to see more young Filipinos in politics being young. Thanks, karl!
“Lance you were right comparing this to schoolyard situations, bullying etc. so they laugh “hey look how empty the UNGA hall”.
Well thats the thing about bullying, Ireneo , it has to stick
and make sense too. Like for that tongue sticking out, if you can simply Google & youtube and verify the context of said act, then it blows back as a meme, because the act was kinda sweet really, with BBM giving wife a hankerchief and she because of her crying stuck her tongue out, but without context as just photo it looks like she was being mean, but
upon light investigation just simply watching the moment, the meme helps those the Pinks are trying to disparage, so My advice as Chief Troll here is find real stuff to criticize like that NYU and being a lawyer in NYC concurrently, that just doesn’t add up, contact NYU contact NY bar, contact Bar in the Philippines if she took the bar there like ever, etc. etc.
get her for something real and not something imagined. Or else these memes backfire!!! its amateur hour, childish even to be spreading ill thought out memes, Ireneo.
As for empty seats, hell Harry himself couldn’t even fill them!!!
AGAIN these things have to stick, Ireneo.
The empty seats weren’t my thing even as Pinks shared them the whole day, though I found the picture showing the First Lady sleeping or so I thought as Marcos Jr. spoke a bit funny.
But in the end it’s the same level of humor as laughing about Mar Roxas falling from a bike.
Many Pinks are still basically venting within their own echo chambers at this point, only a few have engaged or are actually engaging the other side. Well at least now the mostly stupid bickering between Pinks and Leftists has ended, it was awful during the campaign period.
The motorbike and similar humor is what got Mar Roxas defeated, so it was bad jokes. It’s serious stuff. Are we going to debate our leadership in an arena of honor and truth, or in the trollish mudpits of deceit and slander?
When a respected DFA diplomat and respected blogger “J” explains that the auditorium is empty because diplomats are out hosting people, and most speakers face empty arenas, you know that attaching the empty arena to Marcos being a bad president is either ignorance or deceit. Even MLQ3 did it, illustrating the descent of Pinks into trollish nonsense.
And this one,
again every Pink and Yellow has complained about revisionism, but they fail to give physical proofs or their own personal stories of the Marcos injustices, other than Marcos stole their taxpayers money, which begs the question what politician doesn’t. the name of the game in politics is embezzlement, even here too. about diverting other peoples money really. only here we get roads and services, which means some tax money does get to where it needs to be.
So for instance this woman you’ve shared , Ireneo:
Okay, she’s a “martial law baby”, I ‘m thinking the same age as you and karl here, where’s the Pol Pot proof? it was nothing like Pol Pot then as a 5 year old, so did your parents get sent to Camps A-B-C ? were any friends and family EJK’ed under Martial Law? if its just curtailing of truths and human rights (with no actual personal stories), then we have to conclude that the Marcos martial law year wasn’t really that bad, i mean comparatively I’m sure if you were a dissident, a communist, a rebel, Moros, poor,
maybe martial law was something bad but that s a very small percentage,
So,
that’s the thing with history, when people forget its because people cannot recall personal stories anymore. its a statistic thing, like for example the east coast of northern Japan 20,000 or so were killed from that tsunami, then thousands more displaced, that’s all still in popular consciousness, whereas Martial law nowadays its just truth and human rights, see the difference, ones abstract wher e the other is still physically remembered.
Any PR student would tell you that’s a flaw, when all you can muster is abstract thoughts and memory on pass history, is not convincing. Like my talk with Micha and raya, one’s sensibilities have to be explored, and if you’re simply remembering Martial law years as something abstract, then you’re not convincing anyone anymore. that’s the honest truth. So unless you personally suffered real suffering not imagined, then you shouldn’t get to complain about
Martial law. BBM is president now create other real time grievances. The 2022 election means Filipinos have not only forgotten but forgiven. So move on. IMHO, Ireneo.
Well, today is the 50th “anniversary” of ML so there are those who choose to remember.
As for being personally affected, it is interesting that Pink majority provinces aside from Bikol which is the regional factor are parts of Samar, Iloilo etc. were many people do remember.
Re the elections, Manolo Quezon did say that they were a referendum on history, but that Marcos Jr. cannot revise the present like the past, effectively saying the same as you Lance.
I’m starting to like this MLQIII fella, Ireneo. makes a lot of sense. sure remember, but just realize that most Filipinos have chosen to move on.
@LCpl_X
Lance, here is a statement from Clarita Carlos, current National Security Adviser, regarding “proof” (which may not stand in court as proof without further elaboration, I grant). Please read the finer print.
The statement of Clarita Carlos was included in a post by one on Twitter who calls himself “Grandmaster.” He posted the message: So how can Marcos’ apologist counter Clarita Carlos’s statement?
To which the “apologist” ( 😂 ) rightly replied in the image I post below.
Wha, NH, you read EVERYTHING? Geeez! haha
LOL! that apologist needs to get with the program, NH!
That’s a good premise that military and police participated in Martial Law, as they should have that’s the definition of martial law after all.
And Ireneo brings also a good point that the reason for Martial Law was manufactured and contrived, but in the 70s at the height of the Domino Effect thinking, it was just good policy all together to hunt down communists. Again context.
But Ireneo brought other points specifically those deaths that I suspect were not police or military related, so we know that there were civilian defense forces especially in Mindanao at that time (Ilagas, etc.), I’m not sure if Imee s KB was one a paramilitary though non official outfit,
under that case that Ping Lacson investigated he faulted a UP fraternity, so were fraternitie s also utilized or participated as an arm of the military or police, or thru their own
initiative partook in the climate of Martial Law, or maybe because they had police military connections felt they could get away with it, this grey area would be a great study on Martial Law.
Just like DU30 EJKs maybe Filipinos participated happily like the Purge. So maybe thats the bigger talk we need to have re Martial Law years, about how Filipinos did enjoy cleaning, because for sure that same feeling and thinking we
saw again in DU30 EJKs, Filipinos love seeing blood it seems. Like institutional running amok, NH.
Which all goes back to having good gut health and varying your food intake so you’re not just eating rice all the time. Maybe if you have good food and gut health, Filipinos won’t be so prone to violence.
Americans are too, to be fair, NH, but we shiver when we see actual dead bodies in person, but could careless when we see it on TV. Filipinos in person and on TV they enjoy it. And maybe that’s why Martial Law is largely forgotten now.
OT: NH, i just saw an interview of their own anchor on KTLA channel 5 this morning here of this woman who I never suspected of being Filipina but she is and her dad was an actor there, do you know her dad, was he a big actor in the Philippines? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher_Calvin
“Born Cherlynn Calvin on August 1, 1974 in New York City, she is the daughter of the former Filipino actor Roger Calvin. She graduated from the Marymount School of New York in 1992, a college preparatory Catholic high school for girls on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She is a New York University graduate with a BA in broadcast journalism and a minor in political science.”
“National amok..” amok comes from the Malay language and Indonesia had its national amok in the 1965 military coup, also part of anti-Communist drives. “The Act of Killing” movie shows a grandfather who is totally matter-of-fact about what he did. Trigger warning for all readers. Though exactly this kind of look at such matters may help in gaining understanding. The recent movie Katips about ML era activists has torture scenes which are hard to bear, I was told.
Oh, man… I gotta watch this tonite, Ireneo thanks for recommending it.
from Wiki:
“The film focuses on the perpetrators of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–1966 in the present day. The genocide led to the killing of almost a million people, ostensibly for belonging to the local communist community. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno, the President of Indonesia, following the failed coup of the 30 September Movement in 1965, the gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry in Medan (North Sumatra) were promoted from selling black market movie theatre tickets to leading the most powerful death squad in North Sumatra. They also extorted money from the ethnic Chinese as the price for keeping their lives. Anwar is said to have personally killed 1000 people.
Today, Anwar is revered by the right wing of a paramilitary organization, Pemuda Pancasila, that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers who are openly involved in corruption, election rigging and clearing people from their land for developers.
Invited by Oppenheimer, Anwar recounts his experiences killing for the cameras, and makes scenes depicting their memories and feelings about the killings. The scenes are produced in the style of their favorite films: gangster, Western, and musical. Various aspects of Anwar and his friends’ filmmaking process are shown, but as they dig into Anwar’s personal experiences, the reenacted scenes begin to take over the narrative. Oppenheimer has called the result “a documentary of the imagination”. “
Thanks for the bounceback. The matters you say are two big are just one Lee Kuan Yew courageous decision away. then the brains and hard work necessary. The alternative to number one is continued corruption because people are going to find a way to be middle class or upper class if it take cheating or going overseas to get there. So it is failure NOT to build hope and opportunity into jobs.
I thought giving them a chance to redeem their name is the hope given by those who voted for him.
I thought BBM and Imee and the rest of their family were all together to do just that in winning this Presidency.
6 years from now , we would know what has become of the Philippines. Our native land.
they are given chance to redeem their names by doing what is good and beneficial to the whole sambayanan.
they should not use this chance to plunder the nation, again!
An important reminder that it happened on the 23rd.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/116178/september-23-not-21
I don’t grasp why people are on a frenzy about the dates. It was signed on the 21st and declared on the 23rd.
50yrs on and emotions are strong as ever! pbbm cannot change the past and any justification he says falls on deaf ears. best for him to lie low and do what he is mandated to do: put the nation’s interest above all, solve food crisis, save the peso and protect livelihood.
It was actually smart for him to be out of the country during these days.
Questions like “do you remember” are in the air and emotions are high.
Also interesting that he commemorated Sept. 11, his father’s birthday, in Batac.
He could have gone “whole hog” and made Sept. 11 and 21 national holidays.
Of course there is enormous distrust that he might still go for full restoration.
full restoration is maybe too risky an undertaking. he has two sons to succeed him and if he muddle the field anew, his sons will be where he is now: fending off the sins of the father!
my guess is pbbm will lessen the traction of the past and remove some of its lingering sting not by application of brute force and indifference to the sufferings of many but by letting their fire and fervor burn itself out.
Well, those who are preserving the truth in that case should continue, so that history does not repeat itself. In fact attempts to revise like MiM have only led to a reopening of many nearly forgotten events, not a wrong thing per se.
yes, so true and every year and all the years hereafter, the malagim na event is commemorated.
para sa akin, the past is not to be afraid of, but to be remembered; lessons learned, tears will be shed and prayers will be said, but no more bloodshed, please.
MLQ3 just posted this link to a playlist full of historical newsreels:
Monson, one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, rejected giving the right to declare Martial Law back to the President alone. Seems Enrile – and Imee – had suggested it.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/09/22/22/constitution-framer-absolute-power-shouldnt-go-to-just-one-person
Imee and Chel Diokno have an altercation and Tarantadong Kalbo mocks her:
imee seems to have forgotten she is not the president and ought to follow her brother’s example of lying low and letting the blast of the prior martial law years pass over them. otherwise, nakakapangit talaga yan maybe that is why she had her face done, complete with make-up lol!
her brother is seemingly doing right, he has bigger problem governing a decaying nation and stopping it from decaying further, without taking on more of the much weltering burden of their father’s martial law mishaps. her brother could well be putting the past where it belonged: in the past, and not putting it in front to cloud the present, and obscure the past. ah, he is mayhap seeing a therapist to help him heal – for that would most likely be the advise given, i. e. lie low and let the blast of the past blew over him.
the past has habit of coming back and traumatizing people again during anniversaries, making them re-live past trauma sustained, opening old wounds and previous hurts. and if that define their lives, pbbm is best advised not to be confrontational, to back off and maybe have a stiff drink! tomorrow things will be calmer.
Yep, the 50th anniversary of ML is full of remembering including those who are afraid the Marcos restoration could erase their memories:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02YWYK5kzcrZkZLA6HniFm7G62tFWmF4DCp1pN8pwna3qQFDbEt65dQ3GNTdQF85GAl&id=617646935
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0UkLfi3w5QGRtKmneBFQaSu5NA5FmYeHbEvrguB66rgYW8h8knrn8CoRjstugP6NMl&id=617646935
Now that BBM is president , can he just EJK Imee? and make her the sacrificial lamb from which all sins of his family is cleansed? I say yeah!!!
if imee has really moved on, she ought to turn her back and walk away from martial law mourners and let them grieve in peace. instead of insinuating herself into the thick of it, giving hurtful statements and belittling mourners. apparently, she is still very much stuck in it and has not truly moved on, still expressing the same views as she did many years ago!
if she has moved on, really moved on, she wont be issuing anymore statements and distanced herself from controversies by saying, I’m sorry, I have put my father’s martial law behind me and I nothing more to say or add about the matter. thank you.
Here’s my take on your suggestions:
1. It will eventually happen if you read my take on #10.
2. This would be a political version of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). BBM would lose his core supporters and at the same time, it would an admission of guilt for De Lima.
3. This would be a political version of seppuku at least right now. Sara is not a liability right now and getting rid of her would be foolish as he would cut his support base in half and he would be shitting his message of “Unity”.
4. Another political seppuku.
5. Feasible
6. This is another version of political patronage. The LGUs would have to do Malacañang’s bidding to get that “sweet-sweet” cash from the National Government.
7. Economically infeasible. China is the 2nd biggest trading partner of the country. Not doing business with them hurts the country more than it hurts China.
8. Both sides are guilty of historical revisionism. The history being told by both sides just scratches the surface. The Left thinks they are the good guys but the reality is that both sides engage in atrocities against each other.
9. Feasible
10. The current Constitution needs to be changed. It has never been amended let alone changed. We have a lot of dumb provisions like the 60-40 rule for FDI, The President and VP elected separately, A single 6-year term for the President etc. I would elaborate more on this once you reply on my comment @Joe.
Thank you.
Thank you for the thoughtful response, Carlo. Discouraging in the main because you make such good sense.
Please do elaborate on the Constitution, and how to get past the mistrust hurdle that has blocked prior efforts.
Thank you.
@Joe:
I believe that the Philippines should change from a Unitary Republic to a Federal Republic because of the fragmented geography and culture of the Philippines. It’s the best compromise of forging a national identity without compromising it’s regional ties. I envisioned the country to be like the USA (since we like to copy them the most). The States of this Federal Republic would be the current regions of the Philippines, each will have its own Governor, Legislature and Supreme Court where they have their own constitution and can legislate its own laws. They would also send representatives and 2 Senators to the national government just like in the USA.
The 60-40 FDI provision should be removed from the constitution since it discourages investment from other countries on our industries we need the most like manufacturing.
And lastly, the President and VP should be elected together on a 4 year-term and eligible to be re-elected once. The VP should automatically be the Senate President. It encourages coalition-building and fill-in the gaps of the President’s resume whether it will be Geographical, Ideological or Work Experience. The Senators should be elected to a 6-year term and the Representatives should elected to a 2-year term.
As for the mistrust issue, its just a matter of timing, political capital and clear details. FVR and GMA got their “cha-cha” torpedoed because of mistrust as it’s been portrayed as a ploy to extend their stay on power as FVR launched it towards the end of his term while GMA is too unpopular at that time.
Duterte meanwhile, has the political capital but he is lacking in detail. He has campaign on it but he hasn’t worked on the details of his “cha-cha” which led to his people squabbling on the details.
As for BBM, he has the political capital but he hasn’t committed to anything yet. If he will commit, he should do it early to avoid drying-up his political capital. He should also invest a lot of time on it as changing a constitution is hard and delicate work. He should work with 2 of the most vocal Senators on this issue in Koko Pimentel and Robin Padilla. Having Koko onboard should ease the issues of mistrust and he’s no doubt more intellectually capable than Robin but just as passionate as him on the issue.
Reasonable. Good approach. I’ve argued lately that corruption is the problem, not the form of government. Focus on the corruption first because it kills everything. Maybe things would work fine. No need to bother about form.
I am of the same belief. Substance over form. Rid of as much corruption as possible as the executive and things will fall in place without “cha-cha”. It can be done with political capital and will. The question is: Does he have the gumption to do it?
The gumption, the brains, or the emotional ability. He’s doing fine so far but it’s mostly in the easy arena of public show. But he’s doing fine there.
he has a step learning curve and seems to be learning, going in the right direction maybe not like the speed of a bullet train, but moving alright.
Makes good sense with the caveat that there should be a functioning anti-trust body watching market concentrations and unfair practices. Also, two years is a very short term.
I beg to differ on Federalism.
It would mean more bureaucracy, devolution would be turned to dilution.
Left to their own devices, the new regions would ask for more central government help, they would have to train more people unless there would be a balik probinsya program that would make former residents who migrated to imperial Manila come home, even so I still do not see the viability of a federal government for us.
Same war lords, same rebels. same dynasties.
A few days ago on the eve of Baby M’s trip to New York, I’ve made a short parody (sort of) predicting that he will be summoned by officials of Commerce Dep’t and the US Chamber of Commerce. Well, what do I know, he didn’t need to be summoned, he apparently made arrangement to visit the lair of American eagle itself – the NYSE.
While the official itinerary is UNGA, it’s that side trip to the stock exchange and the speech that he made there which really defines (for now at least) the terms and policy direction of his administration.
What that signifies is, one, in contrast to Duterte, he is pivoting back to mother America. That will earn wide approval from those who are of course partial to the US but he is making the re-connection not with the politicians in Washington but with the corporate titans of Wall Street – perhaps a recognition and belief in the primacy of money over anything else. A conjecture gathered most likely from the wisdom and advice of Mom Imeldific herself.
Two, the policy speech he laid was a neoliberal wet dream – offering 100% foreign ownership of the country’s crown jewels (toll roads, telecom, water, electricity etc.), granting corporate tax breaks, PPP’s galore, and assuring them availability of pliant, trainable, low wage workers. This arrangement will be spectacularly bright and beautiful for the CEO’s and their few enablers but will, at the same time, be spectacularly miserable for the peons.
Three, there’s power behind the throne and it’s that consortium of local executives (mafia bosses really, when you think about it) led by Sabine Aboitez. I still think that’s the kind of unity he’s talking about – the unity of mafia bosses screwing the rest of population.
Exciting times.
@ Micha,
Instead it s Trump that got pinched, LOL! but for friggin’ civil lawsuit, LOL! what a waste of time.
I watched the press conference, and essentially the ATTY. GENERAL was basically saying how Trump knows how to make a profit. thus the civil lawsuit. LOL!
Please get out of this thread. You’re hijacking it with an OT. Why not start your own thread and we’ll discuss Trump to your heart’s content there.
Fair enough?
“Well, what do I know, he didn’t need to be summoned, he apparently made arrangement to visit the lair of American eagle itself – the NYSE.”
Irony is Trump got “summoned”, Micha. Where NYSE is probably more culpable criminally speaking in general, and NY Atty. General can only indict Trump in a civil lawsuit! that’s connected. Its all about the hypocrisy of democracy. a joke really. all of it.
At one point the Atty. General stated how Deutsche Bank was tricked by Trump when he inflated worth of his hotel, and I’m like hmmmm I’m pretty sure Deutsche Bank was in on it and was no victim, this is the game played at the highest levels of neoliberal fiat system, Micha.
==================
here:
“Mr. Trump’s Statements of Financial Condition were repeatedly and persistently submitted to banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for the purpose of influencing the actions of those institutions. The Statements were used to obtain and maintain
favorable loans over at least an eleven-year period, including:
(a) Deutsche Bank’s extension of a $125 million loan (or combination of loans) in connection with the Trump Organization’s purchase of the property known as Trump National Doral;
(b) Deutsche Bank’s financing of up to $107 million in debt in connection with the Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago, in
2012, as well as a $54 million expansion of that loan in 2014; and
(c) Deutsche Bank’s financing of up to $170 million in funds in connection with the Trump Organization’s purchase and renovation of the Old Post Office property in Washington, DC.
As to each of those loans, the truthfulness and accuracy of the pertinent
Statement, as certified by Mr. Trump, was a precondition to lending. Moreover, pursuant to the covenants of those loans, each year Mr. Trump or the trustees would submit a new Statement and certify its accuracy. Material misrepresentations on any loan document, including the Statements or the certifications as to their accuracy, would constitute an event of default under the terms of the loan agreements.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/21/politics/read-civil-fraud-trump-family-lawsuit/index.html
___________________
So I’m agreeing with you Micha, this is all really dirrrty and BBM is jumping into it all, I’m pretty sure not knowing how to play the game since this is a very American game, so the Philippines is better off balancing off the Chinese loans with these American loans, they’d probably get a better deal, while enticing the American military to stand closer.
But you’re right, BBM at NYSE is the real news, I was listening to the speech and I was thinking the whole time, Micha’s correct.
Here’s more on Deutsche Bank and Trump, Micha, and surprise surprise…
___________________
“The son of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was leading a real-estate division of Deutsche Bank as it gave President Donald Trump over $1 billion in loans to finance his real-estate projects when other banks wouldn’t, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Justin Kennedy, the former global head of Deutsche Bank’s real-estate capital markets division, was one of Trump’s close business associates, The Times reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
Because of Trump’s inconsistent track record in business, which included multiple bankruptcy filings and frequent lawsuits, most other major banks would not lend to him. Deutsche Bank loaned Trump the funds to construct and renovate skyscrapers and other developments in New York City and Chicago, The Times reported.
After Trump’s first address to Congress, in February 2017, he reportedly stopped to chat with Anthony Kennedy, saying: “Say hello to your boy. Special guy.”
If Bernie Sanders was younger or has a vocal pupil that would voice out democratic socialism.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/path-democratic-socialism-lessons-latin-america
“Sanders defines democratic socialism by pointing to Denmark, Sweden, and Norway—societies with low income inequality, high-quality education, and the universal provision of social services, including healthcare. Nearly all American leftists would consider bringing the United States up to Scandinavian standards a major advance, and most would agree that no better model currently exists. But Sanders’s definition has the potential for terminological confusion. Historically, capitalism tempered by an extensive welfare state has been called “social democracy,” while “democratic socialism” has referred to a more decisive break with capitalism. For most democratic socialists, the goal is not just relative equality and generous social spending, but a radical, democratic, and participatory reorganization of economic control.
It is a lovely vision and a powerful standpoint from which to critique actually existing capitalisms and socialisms. But it remains an ideal: there are no national-level examples to point to with admiration. When political scientists Adam Przeworski and John Sprague published their classic Paper Stones in 1986, they pointed out that no political party had ever won an electoral majority promising a socialist transformation of society. “Given the minority status of workers,” they observed, “leaders of class-based parties must choose between a party homogeneous in its class appeal but sentenced to perpetual electoral defeats or a party that struggles for electoral success at the cost of diluting its class orientation.” Does this mean democratic socialism is impossible to obtain?”
====
meanwhile back to class wars.
Fidgeting with semantics. Call Bernie’s vision Socdem if it helps with precise definition because fairness and a more equitable society is all he wants – not a state takeover of factories.
Better yet, call it Canada. I love Canada, been to Vancouver and Calgary, I heard east coast Canada with all the french talking sucks though. But Canada works just fine.
Have you tried their free healthcare? Wish we could do that eventually.
No but I had a family member in their late 60s, basically had a heart attack while taking a cruise thru the British isles , it happened as they ported in Edinburgh Scotland, so was taken to ER then like a 3 night hospital stay. missed the cruise, but left in awe of the healthcare system, karl.
She ‘s a staunch Republican, has money and after her hospital stay wanted to pay the hospital. Cuz she’s American and good Americans pay for healthcare was her rationale.
Scottish doctors and health care professionals, were like you had an emergency and we had to take care of you, the gov’t pays us, you don’t pay us. And we wouldn’t even know how to process your payment if we did agree to accept your payment. So that’s how ER and life threatening emergencies are treated , karl.
Though I read some where non life threatening and optional healthcare stuff you’d have to wait in line for, like weeks and months. But universal health care when it comes to Emergencies works really well. cuz its well subsidized.
Same with Canada I heard, but I don’t know anyone who’ve actually experienced Canada healthcare, but i’d imagine it would be like Scotland’s and the rest of Wester Europe, karl.
Pretty good system, ours suck, ER visit will be top notch, but they’ll hit you with so many bills, you’ll just end up having another heart attack, karl, if no insurance. and if you had insurance, then insurance companies will nit pick and say nope we don’t cover that, nor this. etc.
Ireneo, how’s Germany’s healthcare work there?
I once had a bargirl collapse on me due to anemia, karl, then turns out they found bleeding in the appendix which became a big deal. and turns out she had no family in Cebu, so I ended up paying for her appendectomy. it was only like $300 bucks i think karl, but i remember I had to buy each item individually, and if your card doesn’t go thru
you’re out of IV bag, or this medication or that. so cumbersome, in the end it ended well and we were in fuck heaven for a month, LOL! “Are you sure this isn’t going to bust the stitches?”, “I don’t know but you owe me!” LOL!
Thanks for your response LCX.
That British NHS is still free for everyone is something that has survived Thatcher..
German Healthcare isn’t but every employed person has mandatory health insurance deducted from the paycheck, half is payed by the employer. You can either have public or private insurance with a choice of providers. The unemployed and those on welfare are insured too. Foreigners coming here either have travel health insurance packages or are rich and pay by themselves like the many Arabs that flock to Munich for different treatments.
The rich medical tourists keep the somewhat understaffed and underfunded clinics afloat. Privately insured people have more options and better care but pay first then get reimbursed.
WESTERN Europe still has good public health care in spite of constant cost cutting meaning more and more optional stuff has additional costs but we basically are still cared for. EASTERN Europe went very neolib just after Communism and gutted public healthcare.
One reason for migration from East to West including England was sick parents with med bills.
“EASTERN Europe went very neolib just after Communism and gutted public healthcare.”
Fuck neolibs!!! thanks Ireneo i just assumed Germany would be like UK, but seems like a better system than here still, I wonder now of France, or Belgium, Scandinavia, etc.
Thanks and that is what you want as well.
OT but important in light of today’s interest rates hike (again) by the Fed.
A dangerous contagion is spreading from the U.S. Federal Reserve to the European Central Bank and the rest of the world. The Fed has been raising interest rates, three-quarters of a point at a time.
All this depresses economic activity, which is precisely the Fed’s intention. As an even more dangerous side effect, the higher U.S. rates have pushed the dollar to its highest exchange value against other currencies in decades, as investors move their money into dollar assets.
This, in turn, has a domino effect. On September 8, the European Central Bank raised euro interest rates by three quarters of a point, to protect the value of the euro, which had fallen to a bit less than a dollar. It didn’t work. The euro rallied for a few days and then settled back down to right around a dollar.
The rate hikes will damage the U.S. economy, but will do even more to harm the European economy, which is in worse shape to begin with. Unemployment is above 6 percent compared to under 4 percent in the U.S., and Europe faces a crisis of rising energy costs and fuel shortages.
Even more than in the U.S., Europe is not facing a general inflation that would justify rate hikes, but rather price increases concentrated on one sector due to sanctions imposed on Russian gas and oil. The ECB policy makes no economic sense.
Europe has been struggling to fashion a common energy policy. A recession will make this even more costly and difficult. There are huge gaps between the prosperous EU member nations, such as Germany, where unemployment is below 3 percent, and poorer member nations such as Italy, Greece, and Spain. Recession will also help the European far right.
And if rate hikes by the central banks of the two largest economies are perverse domestically, they are even worse for the rest of the world. A stronger dollar is the flip side of weaker Third World currencies. So poor countries end up paying more for their imports. Thus does the U.S. export its inflation to the Global South.
Countries with debt denominated in dollars face higher interest costs on their debt, and the principal amount of the debt also increases. The Wall Street Journal reports that 32 countries have a total of $83 billion in dollar debt coming due next year. As they have to spend more to pay off or refinance that debt, they spend less on health, education, and public services. Last Thursday, the World Bank warned of “a string of financial crises in emerging market and developing economies that would do them lasting harm.” (Robert Kuttner)
Where’s the link?!!!
But inflation has also affected airline prices, I just checked and its like $2,000 bucks for a round trip. There’s Taiwan planes but stop like 4 times at different airports. those are like $1,500. But at P65 to $1 that should be a trip worth it.
Interest rates here have been adjusted to another 50 basis pts. That is supposed to curve inflation but it does not stop the Forex rates.
https://www.bsp.gov.ph/SitePages/PriceStability/VisualMPR/MonetaryPolicyReport_August2022.aspx#:~:text=to%20higher%20inflation.-,The%20BSP%20decided%20to%20raise,policy%20interest%20rate%20to%203.75%25.&text=On%2018%20August%202022%2C%20the,inflation%20target%20range%20in%202023.
Because we might do what the FED does but we can not control the chain reactions
https://www.rappler.com/business/philippine-peso-us-dollar-exchange-rate-september-21-2022/
I think when I was there it was around P45 to $1, karl. And I had cash with me, so every time I needed money i’d go to underground money changers (they gave best rates) and changed $100 to P4,500. I don’t think if ever got 50 to 1. barfines was P1,500 and a meal a good meal out was like P75-P100 pesos. That would be drastic if it all went up, karl.
All to follow the Feds, what a screwed up system it is, I’m glad Micha’s outing this system for what it is. I hope BBM’s people read this. they’ll only screw up the Philippines more. barfines should not exceed P1,500!!! LCPL_X (that asshole) will only stand to benefit!
When was that the 70s? joke. I still think you are less than 70 a septugenarian not an octo..maybe I am wrong and Micha is right.Who cares?
If I go to Mango Ave now as a 70 , or 80, or as NH suggests 90s years old, I’ll never return, karl. it would be a suicide mission of pure pleasure!!! but i’d rather die in a nursing home here choking on Jell-0 , karl, go out with a bang!
Never go back to Cebu or California?
Cebu, the island, has water problems until they build more dams to catch water. That’s in the hopper, along with desalinization plants. Energy a problem. Not much ag done but plenty of space for it. But . . . water.
Biliran is perfect. Tall mountains catch the rain for year-round running water, and catch the cool air off the oceans. Plenty of room for growing food. Plenty of sources of self-contained energy once corruption is outted and need takes over. Sun, wind, thermal, tidal, hydro. I suspect there are other places just like it. Canada is too cold for me. Been there, done that.
But don’t let anyone know about Biliran. We don’t want no stinkin’ congestion. Naval is already a pain some days. So keep it a secret and peddle Canada.
Biliran will be our secret.
Thanks. There’s room for cows here to address LCX’s vitamin D theory, although I do confess I’ve never seen a cow here or a horse even. There are caribao but their milk is for the little ones I think. The wild creatures here, aside from humans, are on the small side now that I think about it. No lions, tigers, bears, rhinos, or crocs, outside government. We do have poisonous snakes, lizards, spiders, and relatives.
The last one is of the poisonous variety?
Yes indeed. 🤣😱😱
Neither, karl. You gotta make your way up to the 45th parallel:
Anywhere near or on the equator es no bueno , karl. north of 45th is a start. but… Make your way up north. ASAP.
And if it feels to cold and gloomy, just dance Bhangra.
I’ve never lived that far up north myself, karl. Ireneo can give more pointers. But been reading up on it, and realizing UV light might be a necessity. Vitamin D for you especially, karl.
By the way there is no need for a wall if moving Brazillians to Portugal and Spanish speakers to Spain works. You solve the Iberian Penninsula’s labor shortage and there would not be any language barrier at all. The thing is the Latin Americans must expect to do the jobs the natives are avoiding.
That’s because when the Philippines raise its interest rates there’s really no significant movement of money market to Philippine treasuries. Not so with the dollar. When dollar rates are up, investors move from stocks to treasuries expecting greater gain.
The dollar is, de facto, the world’s gold standard.
Many thanks Micha
So you would not raise rates, or ease them up? Maybe shock is a part of the plan.
@Micha, a hanging question.
The Fed cannot contain this inflation with interest rates hikes because it’s supply side driven – shortages brought first by pandemic disruption and made worst by the war in Ukraine.
Jacking up interest rates only induces recession.
Solve the shortages and you solve this inflation.
You have to sign up for Google Gmail for youtube, so i’ll not be watching that video you shared , Micha.
But can it be that the Feds want to induce a recession, and all this is calculated gamesmanship, brinksmanship. end game I dunno what. But recession is their way of resetting, but not fixing inherent problems that exist in the fucked up system.
And why we need Bitcoin?
Those who have personally experienced — or via their close relatives and friends — the hurts brought about by the father, exacerbated by the continuing lies of the family before the election; compared to those of us who haven’t had those experiences, will express different reactions to the rational approach of Joe towards Pres Marcos. As these are expressed in the series of articles in TSOH and in his Twitter postings. I can understand the different sentiments because of different circumstances. Those in the first group are not all forgiving Saints.
I thus believe that it behooves Pres Marcos Jr. and his family to show actions, behaviors, and statements that will not only bring about genuine unity but persuade the first group of people — even grudgingly — to acknowledge that Pres Marcos Jr. is doing good for the country. Doing this by prioritizing the important items expressed here and not spending time and efforts on revising history and working against an already decided issue about paying taxes due as assessed by BIR. The latter, especially since it has an effect on how citizens view and act about the payment of taxes, a country’s financial lifeline.
Boy, you nailed that, NH. Best post I’ve read in three days since I was labeled an apologist.
Welcome. Still taking the view from outside the country, I am.
Atty. Leni’s only tweet today after a long time is an important statement.
As part of the commemorations today, people have among other things been watching movies like 11,103 – the title of the movie being the official number of ML victims who received state compensation from seized Marcos wealth. The movie Katips is going around the world, a musical about Martial Law era activists, but also including some hard torture scenes – on the other side, there is the revisionist movie Maid in Malacañang, including the disgusting arrogance of its director Darryl Yap who has labeled respected historians as “Yellows”. Xiao Chua has been called Hao Xiao, baboy, siopao etc. by trolls for daring to criticize Yap. He did avoid hitting back even now and has just continued his life mission of popular history.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02PDoiqXcBXckJbzir9mNa8vbT1ioCnwGFpD4wNpWP776rUo7MjDmgRH5dtNyB7sDyl&id=100255975924135
I understand where Joe is trying to get at, I understand the side of the 11103 too as I know a few of them personally. Raissa Robles might not be one of them, not sure, but she grew up with her lawyer father defending a number of them or keeping many from becoming one of them.
Joe of course kind of waded into the wrong side of Jerusalem in the last few days, asking the people there to not demonize the other side, during a major feast commemorating its victims. Somehow not surprising that he has received some wild-eyed yelling and maybe a few stones.
I am happy to be WITHOUT a voice on Twitter now, as every statement is easily misunderstood in the rush of emotion. As Israeli humorist Ephraim Kishon said, the safest thing for a foreigner to say in his country when there is controversy is simply “David Ben-Gurion”.
What is 11103?
This:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02vifzPkp9HxyBjnYfMytgnA8YxJT1zPaqrZUgcqaVcCW3dFKwk5McGomZ5ja3X8dDl&id=100000229924529
and this:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02tbbMyME929Qe1Tya9iLRTyEbEfyABaexGHqtSP6Kj2KDjVcttpznLjG38hXwfo54l&id=120381934641445
The number of officially recognized and compensated ML victims and a movie about them.
I see, the number of victim claimants
It’s settling down now. Dozens unfollowed me and I muted or blocked dozens. I like that expression “Wrong side of Jerusalem”, like a Muslim walking through the Christian gate, or vice versa? Heh heh. When I was there, I was a tall white tourist ducking through the alleyways of the old city. No trolls noticed. We stayed in a hotel in Palestinian territory, kinda weird.
Jerusalem is meant allegorically so any of both sides is possible, or maybe it is also the Jerusalem of “The Life of Brian”. Or Northern Ireland.
Will has also made a comment tagging you on FB, BTW.
And you’re left w/out a chair, Joe!!! LOL!
I’ve always known this game as Musical Chairs, thought it was funny as Trip to Jerusalem by Filipinos. Office parties with single Filipinas was fun, they treated it almost like coed Twister!
“Chancing” was the verb used a lot by the guys. LOL!
I looked for John Cleese, but didn’t see him.
“, I understand the side of the 11103 too as I know a few of them personally.”
Ireneo, okay I understand there were plenty of salvage operations EJKs at that time, but as I understand it similar to how shabu addicts and pushers were the target of DU30, Martial Law years it was the communists, rebels, dissidents, etc. who were the target.
They were the point of Martial Law.
So since you know these folks, Ireneo, what injustices are we talking about, is it torture, killing of family members, EJKs, work camps, and most importantly were these folks you knew innocents who just got accosted by military police, or were they dissidents, communists, rebels, separatists, etc. (again the point of Martial Law)
Theres snippets in youtube of 11,103, and the ones i saw were NPA or NPA affiliates. also some of Muslim separatists. Well that was the whole point of the Martial Law, right?
Counter-insurgency is sometimes clean, but most times its messy. That’s a good video on Lansdale. sword vs. scalpel.
And this is a good tit for tat on revisionism (video below). Don Lemon’s an idiot, I’m on the record here on Don Lemon. But, my point here is yeah there was Martial Law, but if you were part of the NPA or Moro separatist movement you were kinda the point of Martial Law, so getting reparations is kinda weird circular justification.
All the injustices on your list happened, add rape, mutilation after death and maybe even cannibalism. There were innocents and and an entire spectrum seen as enemies of the state, just like red-tagging today in the Philippines goes against mere critics at times.
A lot of UP students and staff were detained. There were military spies at UP Campus and there was snitching within as well. Sometimes innocents got snitched on because of envy or intrigues and ended up in jail.
Ateneo also had its share of student leaders who were detained and or killed.
Major Liberal Party personalities like Ninoy, major press people like Teodoro Locsin Sr., oligarchs who had pissed of Marcos like the younger Lopez also ended up detained.
People sometimes ended up jailed, tortured or killed because they had pissed off especially Philippine Constabulary members or cops. A cousin of someone I know from Samar was killed because he won against PC in basketball, that is the story I was told.
In some places Martial Law atrocities proved to be the best recruiter for the NPA and MNLF. Especially the NPA was just a fringe group with at most 50 members in the early 1970s.
The main goal of Martial Law was power. Marcos Sr.’s second term would have ended in 1973. With Martial Law and amendments to the 1973 Constitution done with very dubious referenda, he has able to retain power and even lift Martial Law on paper in 1981.
Bush Sr. as US VP in fact praised him for his “adherence to democratic values” after that..
The story of Liliosa Hilao is not one of the 11103 who still lived.
https://fb.watch/fHxerwb_EM/
Neither is the story of Archimedes Trajano.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02FYZF9FZ2ZnMgK5jqy1wy7ziuGzpvxsWXKZ7NC3rfv7EEVGSjxYjZ3YfbQ14TjzXXl&id=2341522659429217
The latter story has Imee playing a major role.
It looks like Liliosa Hilao’s death was mostly due to her school newspaper writings unless there were more covert NPA stuff, but they said she wasn’t into protests (Wiki).
Archimedes Trajano, sure could be the Imee Marcos stuff, or maybe he was a known trouble maker (even NPA, etc.) so it looks like the guy didn’t know his audience, these types usually go first,
but his death is reminiscent of the Mark Chua ROTC death which kb shared and both were wrapped in cloth, I’m thinking if you’re a cop and a regular at salvage ops, you’ll not bother wrapping your kills up, you’ll just leave them there to be viewed by the public, since thats the point of salvage ops, as calling cards, Look what I can do to you.
Where I can see Liliosa’s death at the hands of dirrrty cops who were stupid and/or over eager where their mission was probably just to scare her, the whole wrapping up dead bodies is too much work, I’m not so sure it was cops or even body guards of Imee (assuming her body guards would be cops too?)
with Archimedes Trajano, maybe he pissed off other folks?
Don’t have more infos on Trajano.. this is about Boyet Mijares.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1049419025861213/permalink/1160603908076057/
Boyet’s father Primitivo Mijares was a former Marcos propagandist who went against him.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0ZYw9opd3qHBxxTP389wT3VrYyKXUQHpf8iEUCwNNSZPEd9hWeWv9bezeCGJFqEskl&id=1478721492
I have read Mijares’ “Conjugal Dictatorship” and it should indeed be taken with a grain of salt as the personal settling of scores with the former boss is obvious. Still, Mijares disappeared. And “The Boy who Fell from the Sky” is at the start of Raissa Robles’ “Never Again” book.
@Irineo:
I think the best book about Martial Law in my opinion is the late Reuben Canoy’s “The Counterfeit Revolution”. I think Canoy is the most objective of them all because he has both served and fought Marcos.
There is a new book coming out with multiple POVs.. well, there will hopefully be more stuff to come as it is important to find out why ML happened and what the failures of the post-ML years were that lead to Marcos Jr.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0xAL4XTUmhTeTMEtREUBcNnJPp8MxFQvgV3YeL4jxENoHVuBS9gzmxWAs6ZScFu1sl&id=132418343634212
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitivo_Mijares#Early_life_and_education
“Mijares made his final phone call to his family on January 23, 1977. Mijares was last seen in January 1977, boarding a flight from Guam to the Philippines with General Fabian Ver and a nephew of Querube Makalintal. Later attempts at finding him failed as there were no more traces of Mijares found. Urban legends claim that Mijares was forced off of a flying chopper midway through Guam and the Philippines, although his family has denied such claim.
Months after Mijares’ disappearance, their youngest son, Luis Manuel “Boyet” Mijares, was kidnapped, brutally tortured, and killed. The Mijares home was wiretapped, and the police called Boyet to tell him to meet his father. He was later found in an open field with his body completely mutilated. During this time, the assigned police officer, future presidential candidate Panfilo Lacson lied to Priscilla Mijares that her son was just joining a fraternity at the University of the Philippines.”
_______________________
Ireneo, I see your point about the father, but the son seems over kill. But did fraternities pro-Marcos partake in all this? Did this happen in your neck of the woods, on UP campus then?
I don’t speak Spanish but i enjoy these typa songs, and as I’m reading thru these atrocities, this is what I’m listening to:
https://www.openculture.com/2020/06/john-cleeses-comedically-explains-the-psychological-advantages-of-extremism.html
I recall reading something from him about how our tribal human nature is useful, for instance, when we are fans at football matches and such, but that we should know when to get off that trip when we head for home. Though what the Philippines might have in common with Jerusalem and Ulster is extreme mutual distrust between groups, something hard to forge even by Filipinos themselves and a minefield for outsiders – or even former insiders like me.
Haha, sounds like him.
Comedians are fighting back on PC and Woke-ism and Cancel culture, he’s in the forefront:
I posted on FB years ago that my son laughed at a couple o watch your language episodes and I got PC and Woke heat from that post
Forget about the UN speech, despots from all over get to address that body too to grandstand and make motherhood statements. The real meat of Baby M’s trip to the US is to cement his neoliberalized economic plan for the country, getting nods of approval from the Washington Consensus guys and enabled by his economic team led by Diokno and Balisacan.
With him as agriculture secretary, his idea of food security is not to make our local farmers increase productivity but by partnering with US agri business giant Cargill. We will be having plantation crops and poultry mills run by private equity investors.
Ditch the rice. Filipinos should instead get used to eating bread, pasta, and cake from wheat flour imports. Our ricelands will be converted to Villar’s subdivisions and SM malls.
It’ll be a happy glittering Disney wonderland.
I eat rice two meals a day. It won’t change. Nor will neo-liberalism. You are probably right about the speech. A superb statement read by about 500 people around the world. Marcos has met several top leaders and evidently will meet with Biden tomorrow. China will not be able to pry him free from the halo of being a mover and a shaker. Good. Ag here is a mess and will get messier. Fortunately, I like ampalaya, so we’re set. We have hillsides of rice near us, housing encroaching on the edges. The planet is doomed.
I agree with Micha on rice,
rice is no good if you only eat rice day in day out. Variety is key here. sweet potatoes and yams, then lentils and beans will fill you up good plus more nutritional value than rice.
But copy European model when it comes to bread, don’t add yoga mat softener compounds into your bread like we do in America:
“Azodicarbonamide itself is safe at the levels used in bread (45 ppm). There are a few toxicology reports, but these are mainly associated with respiratory hazards as a bulk chemical. Part of the reason it is so safe is it reacts rapidly with the bread to form biurea, which is even less toxic. However, there are more substantive concerns around some further breakdown products, semicarbide and in particular, urethane (ethyl carbamate). In a controlled baking study the FDA tested showed urethane is higher in bread made with azodicarbonamide (2.4 vs 5.4 ppm).
You have to eat huge amounts of urethane to get any toxic effects, but at lower levels it is a known animal carcinogen and reasonably expected to be a human carcinogen. Alcoholic drinks often contain high levels of urethane; cherry brandy is particularly bad (~2000 ppm) but we (hopefully) don’t drink too much cherry brandy. Other fermented foods contain urethane at lower levels and bread is of special concern as we eat so much of it. Indeed the National Toxicology Program considers bread as one of the major sources of population exposure to urethane. “
https://www.popsci.com/blog-network/taste/yoga-mat-chemical-bread/
Nice words coming from PBBM, huge difference from Rodrigo duterte .
Thanks for providing that video, isk. President Marcos is indeed an upgrade, both in words and policy. He came across to as sincere and genuine.
At the start of his tenure people said he stuttered and had dead air most of the time. He learned to get over those quirks fast. Duterte was the one mumbling and talking none sense.
The contrast: night and day. Careful, folks. We may be overdoing it. But it is refreshing — so far so good.
I like too, the warming up to the US, de-warming with China.
If I may, keeping Enrile, Roque, Calida — letting Sis yap the way she does, and the VP act the way she does — make for contrast too. Makes the grey-white that much whiter. If it is the strategy then good. Then jettison them sometime? That will be brilliant.
I wonder who advises Pres Marcos Jr — one who is doing both country and him a good service?
Those who trust Marcos Jr. less might say he is just the good cop and deodorizer in a good cop, bad cop scheme with the others as bad cops.
Or that he is the one cooking in the clean kitchen with Trixie and a few while the dirty kitchen is occupied by Enrile, Roque, Calida, Remulla, Imee, Sara etc etc and there are even some vicious dogs in the veranda near the dirty kitchen named Badoy et al.
We really don’t know yet so we have to just wait and see.
Yes!
Badoy is already on the rampage on that RTC decision not to label CPP-NPA as terrorists and the reducing of those red tagged in number.
Why is so Badoy so obsessed with this red-tagging there must be a method to this madness?
I think Tarantadong Kalbo portrays best what Badoy really could be.
So long as Enrile breathes, I guess Marcos listens to him more than Roque, Remulla, Calida, and Vergara
You’re welcome Sir.
Yes, he sounds sincere and genuine , but the Philippine alliance of corrupt political clans is very worrisome. They are like pirates, like piranhas, they gabbled anything.
Yes.
Bye, bye , Inday Sara, this fuckers presidential as fuck!!! Move over Duterte, more Marcos coming. LOL!
Too young even for Senate in 2028 (min age 35, he’s 28 now) and way too young for Presidency which has minimum age 40, unless the Constitution is changed to accommodate the clan..
Do not ruin the Bye bye Inday Sara Moment. Hehehe
Haha, methinks your allegiance to Sara was not very deep. She has come across as a militaristic, insecure battleaxe I might add.
A good-looking battleaxe, nevertheless. Do you agree, LCpl_X?
Make no mistake , everyone , I am still true to my Inday Sara, I just want the Pinks/Yellows to point out the most obvious already that soon the Marcoses will detach from my Inday Sara. she still is a firebrand, and I wouldn’t expect less.
So although I requested Joe for a blog on BBM’s oratory skillz and Sando’s cuteness is my focus of study now, I am still very much in Leni-Sara mode in that I still see BBM as the bigger Evil, than Inday Sara (although again she’s an Amazon queen or like Galadriel of the Eldar).
My Inday Sara is still your salvation. IMHO.
You are just smitten right now by BBM and maybe Sando’s beautiful eyes and smile because they talk good English more better than Papa Duterte ever did. But again talk is cheap. Punch is better. j/k but yeah, I am still for Inday Sara.
I just want to encourage the Pinks and Yellows to still drive a wedge between Inday Sara and BBM, for example by maybe calling on BBM to do a referendum on Presidential candidates’ age from 40 (per Ireneo) to 30. that will surely break the bonds of BBM and Inday Sara,
and although according to my calculus Inday Sara will still be on top come 2028, the wedge created will afford Pinks and Yellows a chance. I want you guys to have a chance. 😉
So on the contrary I am no BBM apologist like Joe. LOL!
And I am still very much pro-EJK, and anti-neolib BBM policies (w/ Micha), and no I don’t think Sando is really cute, although if Pinks and Yellows ride on the band wagon and feign infatuation of Sando, this will create farther divide of BBM and my Inday Sara.
You guys should be calling for Sando to be next President in 2028, thus creating friction.
I’m still trying to get inspired to write that blog. If you want to do one, please do.
I imagine myself as that stuff toy every night.
As axes go, you are correct.
“I’m still trying to get inspired to write that blog. If you want to do one, please do.”
I kinda agree with you Joe, he’s not really that inspiring.
After watching that Biden photo op, Joe, I’m not convince he’s an orator, or conversationalist, he speaks English with his teeth together, kinda annoying,
maybe that’s just a confidence with a foreign language issue, I can’t judge with his Tagalog. but I notice him not speaking with his teeth together. so what’s that about?
I have no idea.
I think though that you can still hope for the best re BBM, but still drive a wedge between him and Inday Sara as a strategic point for 2028. the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
He’s nervous? But overcame it with that Marcos gloss and high-sounding words. He did great. Only perfection police or pinks or Sara-lovers would complain.
“Sara-lovers would complain.”
That’s me!!! But that’s not undermining, that’s pointing out personal mannerisms, nothing to do with the nation and policies, but if memes starting sprouting with BBM’s teeth talking style like a fucking ventriloquist then it will only help come 2028.
I think most reviews are positive, except for pinks who won’t watch because they hate it when he’s competent.
But competence is measured thru deeds, Joe.
Not talk, although if he starts talking like Hitler or even a little like Obama but gets deeds accomplished thru said oratories then yeah you can count that as competence.
Absence of that you have nothing yet, just talk. You can hope, but hope is like assholes everyones got one.
Yes, putting my apologist sombrero aside and picking up my analyst’s beret, I note that he is right now a showtime President, a jet-setting, smooth talking tap dancer. The show is good, really, but he’s got to put meat on the tap dancing potatoes. He has squashed the death penalty, easy as pie. No one noticed. He is getting hammered on food shortages and prices. Pointing to global issues is a weak response. He could free De Lima, boy that is action. He somehow needs a plan for his two big financial cases, PCGG recovery and taxes. But a big plate will be served when NEDA presents his master plan in Dec. It’s still words but with specific deeds attached. And he needs to be seen as commanding better order to his staff. Lorraine Badoy no longer works for him but he could jail her. Rodriguez. Toning down the nepotism of his son claiming Bong Go’s role. Those things.
@JoeAm, superb analyst’s beret.
And if I may —
The goal, of course, is to do the optimum for the country and its people — using the important variables mentioned by JoeAm, to be done under critical constraints. The constraints of time, Constitution, resources, his and his family’s desires, behavior and actions of Cabinet officials, and others working in the Administration are to be managed effectively — there is no escaping that if even minimal success is to be achieved — by him and his most trusted and capable adviser who has the least personal agenda.
Thanks. Well, you zero in on Junior’s key weakness, that his words paint pretty pictures for the country, but we don’t yet know if his motivator is himself, or the country. The Russian deal, for example, makes so little sense as a national posture, but if he can sell it, it’s great for him. Aquino wouldn’t do it, I’m sure. He was totally for the nation, not self.
Will Villanueva was wrong on his definition of trolls to be just anonymous and paid. LCX keeps trolling us for free and sometimes we troll him back though he is jus another anonymous corporal or he could be King Elvis for all we care. It his right to comment against BBM, but Will did not see where Joe came from, he was wrongly labelled as an apologist, who would want that, what if he and the other pinks were labelled as such by fellow pinks or kakampinks then it would be also be war or something.
Its part of our hymn, karl. LOL!
Even the familiar names who commented on Wil’s post said trolls can just be rude people in the internet and it does not matter if they are paid or not but they are adamant that kakampinks are no trolls and there are no trolls who are kakampinks. That maybe hard to prove and hard to sell.
Maybe we could agree that there are four levels of discourse:
1. Trolls (paid)
2. Closed minded advocates
3. Open minded advocates
4. Open minded non-advocates
Most pinks seem to be 2 to me. I try to explain and it makes them angry, so as far as ability to teach or learn, it’s not worth the effort. I think what happened is several pink advocates set up troll pyramids during the Robredo campaign, and became influencers or message masters. Those networks exist today, hordes of unread and youngish denizens of social media, and they are bent on undermining President Marcos. They are category 2. Effectively unpaid trolls.
Agree on parameters set.
Parameters eventually it boils to perimeters, karl. About gatekeeping hence the cartoons above, if you have the resources then post gatekeepers everywhere outside the perimeter , if not then the best place to put them is inside not outside, so teach others to gatekeep for their own minds, and that should effectively counteract 1-4, karl. easy peazy.
Again Schopenhauer’s 38 stragems is the most useful.
I will be Morpheus and defy all the gate keepers then out wit Lucifer by invoking hope to beat Lucifer’s: I am anti-life. Lucifer lost because that is Darkseid’s line.
LOL! did you finish the season, karl? there’s an extra episode 11 that they put out like 2 weeks after the season finale. E6 and E11 are my favourites.
With the cats?
yeah, but the cats in cartoon were just the first 10 minutes of it, the rest was about the muse,
I slept ok I will watch it.
Thanks , Ireneo, for recommending this film, by far its my favourite documentary film right now. It was “HyperNormalisation” 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis, but “Act of Killing” knocked it out of its number one spot by a huge margin!
Main take aways for me (for me):
1. Physical emotion always betrays psychological. Your body no matter how much your mind tries to lie will betray you.
2. If you kill people for a living, always close their eyes, or else they’ll haunt you forever.
3. Don’t talk openly to European documentary film makers espousing to fund and direct your movie projects, unless you wanna be therapeutically cured of your sins, somehow.
With that said, historically speaking it wasn’t a historical documentary, but for anti-Marcos proponents they would really love this documentary and try to unearth for themselves these folks who were responsible for atrocities in the Martial Law years. the people that actually did the killings.
But the wider meta interpretation also is its all a crap shoot really, because Indonesia or the Philippines could’ve been won by communists, like Vietnam, or Cuba, or the USSR at the turn of the century or China post WWII, and their atrocities would be similar to the atrocities covered in this documentary. if not worst.
Same coin, flipped.
The setting is north Sumatra, I don’t think the city was specified. But I visited Bali Indonesia before and talked to someone similar boasted killing communists in Bali, but he described it more as invasion of outsiders from Bali (other Indonesian and Chinese) coming in to disrupt their system (because Bali is like Buddhist and Hindu hybrid, cuz those who came to colonize were Buddhist and Hindu before separated, i guess in India awhile back Buddhist and Hindu were seen as inclusive, not exclusive, then they split).
but that guy and many Balinese really were anti communist. Described more as an existential threat to their way of life communism and communists, whereas the “freemen” (gangsters) in Sumatra were just pissed that Communist were banning American films.
Theres also a big anti-Chinese and pro-American undercurrent going on, so its racial or ethnolinguistic (although the “hero” of the film looks really Aeta, that was also another interesting detail, i’ll have to research if theres Aeta type folks in Sumatra , I always thought they would be found closer to Papua New Guinea region) which makes sense cuz Americans were funding much of these anti-communist oppositions world wide. Money was thrown at this problem.
I have done somemore Googling and now see that there is a Part II to “Act of Killing”, titled “The Look of Silence” (theres a full film in youtube but no English subtitles). I’ll have to look for that to watch. But one last thing, I like this film because you do the bulk of the interpreting and thinking. Lots of grey area, no narration, just the film subjects talking (confessing really). But its for sure a film Filipinos should watch. its free on youtube, just 2 hours.
You watch this film and you really do see Filipinos. same way of talking same mannerisms, event they way the drink and sing when drunk, same same.
Oh, and its also an allegorical look of what can happen if sigas and stand-by’s have power. So in a way you can also interpret it as This is why EJK is needed. And DU30 was right. Cull them.
Thanks for checking out the movie. I wasn’t able to yet.
Anyhow as you know I don’t agree WITH EJKs or even death penalty.
But Martial Law in the Philippines had a lot of siga istambay types with power.
A DDS and son of a cop told me on FB years ago don’t worry PNP today have to be at least high school graduates. So imagine PC soldiers with just Grade 4 for example accosting students and getting provoked when they feel “talked down to” and shit already might go down.
OK high school requirement didn’t prevent the likes of Nuezca (some years ago, the killer cop provoked by K-Pop I wrote about) and many other abuses but maybe it was indeed different.
The prevailing feeling among many with university degrees whether academics or office workers during Martial Law was fear of impunity caused by envy. Stories even existed of a young man in a sportscar riddled with bullets for merely overtaking a Constabulary car. Actually videos of people discussing with cops during the pandemic surprised me, what we learned during Martial Law was better not look at cops, avoid them if possible and ALWAYS call them OFFICER if one had to talk to them for any reason, so democracy made Filipinos bolder.
AZ for Aetas on Sumatra, haplogroup sequencing has kind of found out that they came to the Malay triangle pretty long ago, even as the related Papuans and Native Australians crossed over to where they are now at lower sea levels around 40K years ago and stayed there.
Anti-Chinese sentiment you mentioned has always been strong in Indonesia. Many were accused of being Communist, many were killed and many left, for example for Australia. Many changed their surnames to something that didn’t sound Chinese after 1965 I also heard.
Many Chinese in Indonesia were and are also Christians. Indonesia is mainly Muslim except for Bali. East Timor which is no longer Indonesia now is Catholic and I think part of Flores. The fusion of Hindu and Buddhist is the original idea of Pancasila, the Indonesian “unity” concept.
It was politically extended to include Muslims later and Christians much later, any believer. The Pancasila group shown in the movie is a right wing group though. Gangster is “preman” in Indonesian, opkors dey also make ep into pee there jess like in da Pilipins.
Yes, I guess those who want a more democratic and just Philippines need to have a look at stuff like that, or Raissa Robles’ “Never Again” book. Those who want to fight for good have to have a basic understanding of “the enemy”. Just being good oneself and praying doesn’t cut it.
On a ship from Zamboanga to Cebu once, I was on a bunk and happened to walk by two girls (provincials) who were interrogated by crew members, and from the looks of it they had no tickets or were missing something documentation wise,
so they came to an understanding, wherein the two girls followed this crew member into a storage room it was pretty obvious what was going on, the girls were probably in high school not too worldly and this crew member had them agree on a deal. The two girls were shooting each other glances like are we really gonna do this?
Yeah, there’s just people who like to take advantage of other people. Don’t matter what ideology really, and its been happening ever since. and will always happen, so long as theres weak and theres strong. Happy ending i guess cuz those two girls were giggling after.
So negotiations seeming uneven can also turn out to be win-win for all parties involve. i guess.
OT
The bottom half of the global population holds just 2% of all wealth, while the top 10% earns 76%.
Bottom 50% — 02% of the wealth
Middle 40% — 22% of the wealth
Top 10% — 76% of the wealth
I wonder if the PH is better or worse. Even if the inequality percentage is the same as the global statistics, I hope Pres Marcos Jr’s Administration can make it less unequal by the end of his term.
According to Ruben Carranza, formerly PCGG, 25% of Filipinos are below the poverty line. Marcos Jr. staying at the most expensive NYC hotel and of course bringing his entire family with him could be Imeldific days returning..
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0aqR7kWdYfN7wzPbJEAFkbMZULmCqMdZxg47W5V31qDdsvTLSPCA1SFDa45AaBHwNl&id=597159670
usually, on state visits, the host country pays for the expenses. it may well be na sagot ng estados unidos ang travel expenses at accommodation ni pbbm.
incidentally, there is a limit of how many times a visiting president can have state visits overseas.
personal visits ni pbbm to filipino communities abroad, the expenses incurred would have come from his own pocket, maliban lang if his visit was sponsored by ofws, sila ang gagastos.
I never knew that. Thanks.
Who would go against promoting the Philippines as the destination to be for investors?
The investors are no fools that is why they just invest in stocks or anything that can be pulled out quickly to cut losses.
Sure measures are done to prevent red tape and have level playing field, the investors would not give an eff about 60-40 ownership.
If they sense landmines they go.
In the meantime Zubiri said Marcos hit the homerun let us wait for the touch down and we will see.
Regarding the home run, Zubiri must have in mind the Amazing Trump way of declassifying documents by merely thinking about it. 😂
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NZPG7ANC3RGTNIC4BAAIMHI5QY.jpg&w=916
Haha, or the hole in one.
That one too
I think it is still too early to declare a win when we talk about unity. There’s still a lot to untangle and settle before we can say that unity is upon us. It may sound appealing, especially as a campaign slogan, but one may ask, what will it take to make it happen? What does BBM really mean by that? Do the loyalists and yellow camps have the same definition of what unity means?
I say, things are too complicated to have a unity fest just because one party candidate says so. I even doubt if we can achieve anything that has relation or resemblance to unity in six short years. The country has been fractured and damaged beyond recognition for a long time. Political and social fissures has been lingering for years. The continuing animosity between the loyalists and the yellows remains to be the order of things. Hostility from both camps remain in high gear although appears to have subsided while both sides take a hiatus.
My guess is, the call for unity is just a passing fancy. A slogan meant to last until the next election. I am a pessimist by nature and it continues to prevail as I analyze the political situation in the country. Why? Well, unity means there was disunity in the first place and a need arises to set it aside or remove to attain calm and balance. And to do that one party, particularly the one calling for it, should initiate the first move.
Question: What has BBM done to prove his call for unity is genuine?
If Joe’s being won over by BBM’s good English speaking. Then don’t hate Joe for it, get even with BBM, and the best way to do so is still to drive a wedge into the BBM and Sara tandem.
VP Leni lost, so she’s not in the picture anymore , why not use the cuteness of Sando’s eyes and smile? Drive a wedge , start calling for a referendum to bring down the age of presidential aspirants from 40 to 30! Call for Sando to run in 2028.
Pinks and Yellows wanna troll BBM , do this!!! use his son’s cuteness against him.
I’m not won over by Marcos. Please don’t go there. I’m won over by trying to figure out what is good for democracy and the nation when it’s citizens have elected a thief as President. I don’t see how undermining Marcos before he has even begun helps much. Not everyone is as shallow as you seem to think they are.
As Chief Troll here, I do get it Joe, you’re trying to make lemonade,
And I agree oppositional or just undermining for the sake of undermining is unwise, but think 2028 and start undermining that, not BBM specifically but figure out various calculus for 2028. Six years, time flies.
uy, be careful with xandro, he’s not just a pretty face but could also pbbm’s vital wingman. though sometimes xandro divides the audience listening to pbbm’s speech, coz they not only have to listen to pbbm, they also kept on glancing at xandro, wondering why he is there listening when he damn well know what the speech is about having heard papa practising, and may even be able to recite the speech word by word!
and if the audience is cautious not to say anything inflammatory within xandro’s hearing for he could well be reporting back to the father, the audience could be onto something!
xandro is new blood, got fresh eyes and fresh view of the world, having finished his studies not long ago. and if xandro is giving pbbm advice, trumping all the advice given by pbbm’s gabinete, he’s not alone in that regard. ivanka had also been giving advice to her dad, donald trump, and also very much part of trump’s landscape.
“If Joe’s being won over by BBM’s good English speaking. Then don’t hate Joe for it…” – LCpl
– – – – – –
You missed my point by a mile. I really don’t care whoever BBM is winning over and I don’t know the relevance of it as to the kind of leader I perceived him to be.
The center point is unity and I’m of the opinion that BBM’s call for it, in the absence of actual and active effort to accomplish it, is not really genuine. A lip service if you may.
That’s my point, Juan.
Your point is rather abstract, where do you place the marker of unity accomplished, it ll be an arbitrary marker, no?
So Joe’s point is more interesting, because its not lip service, Joe’s actually putting lipstick on the pig! that s how Joe’s prosecuting “unity”.
You have to get your methodology in order, because Joe’s working up to something, i dunno what, but I am still very much Inday Sara for president mode, and if my intentions coalesce with Joe’s
then this convergence deserves further analysis. Don’t you think? so what’s your methods here?
Clarification, I’m different with Joe in that I wanna put lipstick on Sando and not the father.
Not much, nor has he been unduly autocratic. His plan will be conventional, I would imagine. If he tilts autocratic, he blows everything he is trying to do right now, which is show competence and stature. My main pessimism is that tough issues will keep coming at him and he may not be able to keep pace. There are too many scoundrels around him and critics screaming.
“My main pessimism is that tough issues will keep coming at him and he may not be able to keep pace. There are too many scoundrels around him and critics screaming.” – JoeAm
– – – – –
We are perceiving the same possibility but thinking differently as to why it would come to fruition. BBM, in my estimation, will surprise a lot of people and be exposed of having a feet of clay after all. He is really not what they imagined him to be. I don’t think he is capable of doing and accomplishing big and colossal things his admirers expects him to be. Call me negative but because of a lot of distractions and cuteness projection (his son, Sandro, always tags along which he never did to his father) I suspect that he’s trying to cover up his flaws and consistently defend on how people sees and imagined him to be: a Macoy clone, physically and intellectually. He is not.
Tough political issues and complicated social problems a president has to confront will test BBM to the hilt and given his non-sterling performance in the past as a legislator and chief executive, I’m really convince that we have a substandard kind of a leader. I seriously mean it not as a partisan but as an independent observer.
And he needs to enunciate open his mouth and project his words when speaking to the US president, Juan! looked like he was chewing on malungay leaves!!!
Lol! But in fairness, I want to be fair to the guy. I wish him success with fingers crossed. It’s like watching Buboy Jaworski play. You know he cannot be his dad, the great Robert Jaworski, the Big J, but you still watch him and pray that he makes decent plays and not embarrass himself.
The nickname of Jaworski Jr. is Dodot or Dudut. He did well in marrying Mikee Cojuanco. Still beautiful the last time I saw her.
The Loyzaga brothers were not that good too if what they said about Caloy Loyzaga was not urban legend.
I stand corrected Karl, you are right it’s Dudut and not Buboy Jaworski. There is no other reason for that mistake other than old age.
It happens to the best of them.
He’s not substandard so far.
“If he tilts autocratic, he blows everything he is trying to do right now, which is show competence and stature.” – JoeAm
– – – – – –
And that is another thing. People didn’t realize that Macoy was not able to ‘accomplished’ and realized all those big things he has done by just being an effective chief executive and a good president. No, he has to turned dictator to be able to twist and force everything his way with the means he thought will achieve the ends he’s pursuing.
If a brilliant and savvy leader like Macoy has to avail of extrajudicial means and run around the constitution to will his way, how can an average Joe, like BBM, handle intricate and convoluted issues that will make or break the country?
I wish we have a rabid pro-Marcos here to liven up the conversation and see how we can digest everything in proper context.
Hmm I just remembered what I like to put in history quizzes as a trick question is “under what political party did Marcos Sr. run for Senator..” HE WAS “Yellow”!
I’m probably as close as you will get, being a famous Marcos apologist on Twitter. The guy is doing excellent, fine cabinet with strength in vital agencies, hoisting up the arbitration win, switching the US to a favorite ally and friend, seeking investments, squashing the death penalty. His full plan will be out in December. That will give details. He’s got to deal with powerful forces, rich people, Duterte, Arroyo, ICC, US, China, Reds, rabid yapping Pinks . . . doing fine so far. Good speech writers and close-in staff. Standing equal to Biden, Blair, Macron and other global big shots. Moving and shaking! Yeah bah!
“I wish we have a rabid pro-Marcos here to liven up the conversation and see how we can digest everything in proper context.”
Oh I can do this, Joe’s kinda tepid in his apologitics with BBM. Just remember though I’m pro-Inday Sara through and through. My apologetics for Marcos Sr. will make Imee fall in love with me.
Let us begin…
His first term was 1965 to 1969
Then 2nd term was 1969 to 1972, then
after Martial Law, 1972 to 1986.
“No, he has to turned dictator to be able to twist and force everything his way with the means he thought will achieve the ends he’s pursuing.”
So,
I will just focus on his senate years and his first term and years 1969 to 1972, before Martial Law. and with Ireneo’s help historically my Googling should show that you’re wrong, Juan.
1972 to 1986 should in fact show less achieving in “the ends he’s pursuing” due to Martial Law.
So from the git-go, Micha is again right IMF/WB is the culprit like Sri Langka and other 3rd world countries,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Marcos#1969_balance_of_payments_crisis
But what happened in 1965-1969? The key i think and its not in Wiki is with this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_P._Romulo
Who remained a loyal Marcos Sr. supporter til the 1980s after Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. I guess he felt the tides going a different way and jumped ship.
So what happened under DEPED during the Marcos years and specific with Romulo at the helm, and before Martial Law.
Lots and lots of programs, the condoms distribution program was done by teachers, teachers from the city were sent like an invading army into the provinces to teach nutrition, productive health and planned parenthood, and teach English good to Pilipino kids.
Marcos Sr. thru Sec. Romulo used the DEPED to entice and encourage Filipinos in the provinces as well as in towns and cities to do better by sending out teachers en mass to poor Filipinos.
So , Juan, your canary in the coal mine is Sec. Romulo. He also tied the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to teachers in the Philippines effectively teaching Filipino kids survival and evasion via Filipino teachers. Where they also learned teamwork and good eating thru this program,
and I suspect maybe kids who then grew up to vote for BBM, were weened from this very program. equating Marcos and now BBM to a full stomach and good fun memories. thus the BBM win.
LCpl, I was looking for a Marcos loyalist and not a Romulo factotum. Anyway, I get what you’re saying but, still, it did not equate with the issue of BBM’s mediocrity.
Your premise was that Marcos Sr. only did the stuff he did after Martial Law and my point was there’s stuff he did before Martial Law that reverberated and got BBM’s win decades after. That’s just one re DEPED and Sec. Romulo. And if you look at the age and economic breakdown of those who voted for BBM based on the pollings , its this very demographic that carried him. I would also assume that these teachers would be very much pro-Marcos they had a purpose and their mission was funded. Not only that they were seen as professionals by the provincial folk, so they had status during this time. This was prior to Martial Law.
Maybe karl can talk about the military, I’m Googling military and Marcos prior to Martial Law, and like the teachers, he was fattening them up as well, but their work would not engender the same loyalty as the teachers, the teachers are more a soft power instrument more a bottom approach towards loyalty whereas military is more of a top down instrument thus loyalty is coerced unlike teachers with students thus parents that’s trust and loyalty combined a stronger combination than fear and loyalty, Juan. which connects to what Ireneo’s comments below. Soft power.
“Your premise was that Marcos Sr. only did the stuff he did after Martial Law and my point was there’s stuff he did before Martial Law…”
– – – – – –
Nope, that is not exactly what I said. Macoy was a competent leader and proof of that was he got re-elected for a second term. I also believed he was one of the best if not the best president the country ever had. So competent was he that he was able to counter the growing internal as well as external problems and be able to bounce back and put the country in order when he declared martial law. Only problem was, it took him forever to end the military rule. Staying too long to power, even if you’re a genius, will ruin everything for you.
Good thing that will not happen today. Nobody has the brains of Macoy to pull off that kind of feat.
“Only problem was, it took him forever to end the military rule. Staying too long to power, even if you’re a genius, will ruin everything for you.”
Oh, you’re talking about the Batman, Juan.
That’s a totally different point now from your initial one. New one I totally agree with, like a guest smelling of fish after 3 days.
It is not a state visit (to Washington) it is a UN visit and UN won’t pay for all those coming.
Cory when she visited West Germany in 1989 stayed at Gymnich Palace which was the guest house of the Federal Government at the time. Including all her entourage and some reporters.
She had only ONE family member with her, her daughter Ballsy who happened to be her secretary as well. Col. Gazmin was head of PSG and also went along. I was a temp (still student) at the Embassy then and state visit staff so I stayed in Gymnich two nights.
Of course I did not have dinner with Cory, she had dinner upstairs with Manglapus etc. while I had dinner with the PSG and the reporters, sharing a room with the latter. During breaktime in the Palace gardens I talked to TBL. There also was a incident I found curious.
He asked me to ask the driver to take him to the next town to buy some writing supplies. He was genuinely surprised that the roads outside the official route were also clean and orderly. Cory proceeded from Bonn Airport to Paris BTW for the 200 year French revolution anniversary.
That was meant as answer to kasambahay but got misplaced.
It can also happen BTW that entire groups of politicians get privately invited.
Some years ago VP Leni and an LP delegation were in Berlin invited by the Naumann Foundation which is affiliated with the German “Free Democrats”, also liberals, for a conference – of course the one inviting pays for the trip, books the hotels.
VP Leni was transparent about that as there were of course trolls insinuating she went on a junket with the people’s money – transparency is always best in such situations.
Energy Sec. Cusi was also here at some point, also invited by a political foundation I think. These foundations don’t support unlimited entourages but only politician and spouse/partner, sometimes just the politician(s) themselves depending on the budget of course.
presidents and politicians have ample budget to cover travel and miscellaneous expenses, and some of them are already ‘suki’ of big hotels via flybuys discount.
pbbm must have spent big wining and dining foreign investors and luring them to invest in our country, helped by our consular offices and staff. they would have to give away promotional gift bags filled with phillipines products, like virgin coconut oil, barong tagalog, glossy brochures of travel destinations, etc. and if pbbm is innovative, he will include testimonials of foreign companies already doing business here, how well they thrive, and how conducive to business our country is. and of course, he’ll present economic data not only to back up his claims but to reiterate as well.
OT two people some of us know have appeared in the news recently:
https://www.rvasia.org/feature-story/filipino-devotee-says-rosary-live-social-media-two-years
https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/Esquire-100-Powerful-People-Wielders-of-Soft-Power-a1502-20220923-lfrm5
Will Villanueva and Prof. Xiao Chua.
Though the soft power list has some troubling entries like Darryl Yap as well.
Lance, CPR or Carlos Romulo was DFA. He served eight Philippine Presidents and was big at the UN also. Small in size, they joke he had the water up to his shoulders while McArthur was up to his knees during the Leyte landing.
If you are looking for more personalities in Marcos Sr.’s cabinet look up Blas Ople, DOLE, also was active at ILO. And also check out Beth Day-Romulo and a book she wrote, gotta go now..
Thanks, but I’m more familiar with DEPED stuff, will prosecute these other dudes if Juan wants to continue (but will definitely read up on it for myself thanks!), for now I just wanna make the point that Marcos Sr. did do stuff prior to Martial Law.
RE DepED secretaries, Marcos Sr.’s go to dudes were Juan Manuel and Onofre Corpuz, but Romulo was 1965-1967 sec. DEPED so i think he set the stage, but yeah he served Marcos Sr. thru and thru til Ninoy’s assissination.
here’s the Wiki on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_Education_(Philippines)
You might be unto something with DepEd. Manolo Quezon mentioned that the first batch of teachers that had started in the 1930s went into retirement and that in Marcos times the recruitment of teachers became highly politicized.
Now the soft power of these teachers didn’t reach the private schools, which explains the Pink majority among the college educated crowd whether academics or professionals.
Even if UP is public at some point public school kids rarely passed its exam. MLQ3 says the politicization of DepEd thru Marcos wrecked public schools. But seems he missed the possible soft power imprint they had on their pupils.
And I’m thinking the whole strategy was with Sec. Romulo , Ireneo, due to his military and diplomatic know-how, and probably why DEPED is where much of gov’t funding goes, all remnants of Romulo. This part I’ll have to do more digging as to Romulo’s part in all this. But Juan’s changed his tune, so we’ll have to see another path to investigate all this further, because w/out the contest i really don’t like to do the research.
I will just leave here for further reference by whoever is interested this analysis of why Marcos was able to pull off Martial Law, by Manolo Quezon.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid05sL3Z94tJbCEbh62E5jp2W9Dj1wk611jtnKKcPmtqm48utC5iNqigveGagnnPL77l&id=100000543177156
“legions of parents freaked out by hippies, priests and bishops freaked out by Reds, ditto businessmen big and small.”
Oh, this part is probably most related to DEPed and Marcos, Ireneo. Not to mention Cubans under Castro, and the Chinese under Mao, then I dunno if they’d be keeping up with Indonesia but the stuff going on in Indonesia then, then of course Vietnam with the Philippines as R&R for the US troops, that Domino Effect wasn’t just theory, they were seeing if unfold.
So the teachers reaching out to Filipinos in the province in the boondocks were essentially doing their own teach-ins but in the guise of planned parenthood, teaching how to use condoms, nutrition, which won’t undermine the NPA teach-ins, so i’m sure the NPA held the teachers with no contempt, didnot see them as competition or threat. since they were just doing their jobs, teaching;
while the military and police were going after them. it s the Thomasite model, Ireneo.
Quite a number of Marcos sycophants will be heralding the triumph of his visit to the US. Zubiri in particular said it was a homerun – meaning he covered everything : UN, Wall Street, World Bank, Chamber of Commerce, White House, Cargill, Bank of America.
For the relief of those who hated Duterte’s total devotion to China short of literally lying prostrate before Chairman Xi, this is indeed welcome news.
But parsing through the speeches and the body language (excepting the one at the UN), what we’re seeing is not so much a sovereign head of state but a pimp trying to make a hard sell for his ward. “We’ve carpeted the entrance, the lady is gorgeous and will settle for the lowest bargain price.”
He of course did not fail to mention by impulse the 100+ year history of friendship, partnership, and cooperation between our two countries.
Problem is, he seemed to forget that that historical relationship has not always been friendly or in terms of equal partnership. We were (and continues to be) the imperial outpost of the US in this part of the world. It’s more like a vassal-protector relationship, a dominion and a dominant.
On the part of the US, the nature of that relationship will always be extractive and exploitative. The banks, the corporations, and the vast MIC will dictate the terms of that relationship. Therefore, on the part of the Philippines, it will always be net negative.
That’s what empires do throughout history – extract wealth and resources from their extended territories.
In this regard, we are not like Japan and South Korea who somehow managed to protect the dignity of their people.
So the claim by Marcos that, with this pivot towards the US as initial maneuver, he will create a Philippines that is on the high middle income level is both naïve and delusional.
Cargill, Bank of America, and other Wall Street corporations might be tempted to set up shops in Manila (the lady is gorgeous and cheap) but they’re doing so not because they want to help create a progressive high middle income Philippines but to extract as much wealth and profits as possible only for themselves.
They’re going to pay her of course but the pimp is going to get his cut too.
And for those who had the temerity to deflate imperial capitalist desires, they have this secret tool to make you change your mind.
Nice analysis, one of your best missives ever in my book.
As for the CIA video, I wonder who attached the two unnecessary and misleading “inappropriate content” warnings. Inappropriate for violence, or criticizing the CIA?
I did find this comment worth mentioning:
zlamskyisky
1 year ago
If a US citizen can make a video like this, there is hope for the future. Keep up the amazing work.
You have to have a youtube account to watch it?
I’m guessing both the violence and criticizing part.
“We’ve carpeted the entrance, the lady is gorgeous and will settle for the lowest bargain price.”
I’ll have to create a youtube account to view this video. But that right there was basically my experience on Mango Ave. , Micha.
“On the part of the US, the nature of that relationship will always be extractive and exploitative.”
Which begs the question, Micha.
When you decide to leave the Philippines, why didn’t you immigrate to Russia or China, or Cuba? i read somewhere that they still read Jose Rizal’s novels there in their original Spanish.
Well, there are two Americas actually. One is decent and compassionate. The other is cruel and exploitative. I thought then that the former will prevail over the latter.
Still hoping at this time it can be goaded to being what the founding ideals originally envisioned.
Ireneo always goes back to the cowboy, the preacher and the businessman as the three main American archetypes.
The cowboy seeks adventure.
The preacher seeks to proselytize.
And the businessman seeks to sell (open markets).
the last two I think seek to dominate, while the first can see people as equals, since needing adventure does not preclude dominanting people.
I would just add the 4th archetype is the coach potato,
and I think this last one is who the 1st 2nd and 3rd are attempting to win over, if 2 and 3 win over the coach potato then you get your cruel and exploitative, if the cowboy wins then your cause for compassion wins, though some 2 and 3 can be compassionate too, just that their ideology seeks to expels competition. where 1 has no ideology.
The cowboy I would lump in with hippies, environmentalists, survivalists, Luddites, etc. Quakers and Shakers and Menonnites and Amish too, they don’t proselytize so they are no preachers.
Rule of law folks and human rights, I lump with Reds, they proselytize and seek to dominate, my way of the highway types. Like Russians and Chinese communists. Like evangelicals.
“We were (and continues to be) the imperial outpost of the US in this part of the world.” – Micha
– – – – – –
I say, that was an accurate description when the US was still maintaining military bases in the country. And it would not only be accurate but also beneficial because the country gets something out of it, a pittance or not. But now the world has changed. We are no longer of use to the US. With the world shrinking, she has no need for an outpost, a relic created by the old military thinking in the past.
But the gist of the entire post simply makes sense. We cannot have equality in a relationship between a former vassal and a colonizer. The only thing we can ask for is be respected and treated just and right.
But we still have that Mutual Defense Treaty and regular hosting of military exercises, don’t we? We’re back to the old world military thinking because we have a raging not-so-cold war in Ukraine now and Taiwan might be next. God forbid but it’s highly likely in a year or so we’ll be having hot thermo-nuclear war if the superpower leaders are not careful.
Besides, what do you do when your own President is acting more like a vassal than a sovereign?
That’s a good documentary of what Micha’s talking about just 40 or so minutes. I fucking hate golf by the way.
My draft for Navy bases
The Need for Bases and sea control is just the tip of the iceberg.
In the 90s President Ramos decided to have a long term AFP modernization program and as funding source the sale of Fort Bonifacio became the main source. Then the bases conversion authority was created in order to proceed with the endeavour.
Fast forward to the present.
The intended transfer of internal security operations to the police never happened.
Though we had successful peacetalks with the MNLF, we never had success with its splinter groups the smaller the splinter, the harder and that is just our endless wars with the Moros.
Our peacetalks with the left also seemed to have gone nowhere so the resources of the Armed forces of the Philippines was poured to the Philippine Army.
The Navy and the Airforce have their particular long term goals with the Navy having their Sail Plan 202(?)
Then with a weird twist of fate Shipping Titan Hanjin which operated on Subic defaulted on their loans, then an American company was allowed to lease part of it and most importantly our large naval vessels will no longer have to squat in South harbour and other ports because our Navy will finally have a home for her Large vessels.
Though our internal security threats seem to be forever that does not mean we forget External security and just rely on diplomacy.
Aside from implementing the Modernization program, if Hanjin did not go bankrupt our recent frigate and other large vessel acquisitions will have no place to call home.
Still that solves part of our west coast issues, what about the east coast?
The eastern seaboard development ha long been stalled.
During the time of FVR, the tycoon Romeo Roxas had a dream to develop Aurora and the Quezon province, but it seemed to go nowhere because for one environmentalistswill never allow a record number of Sierra Madre trees to be cut down and a lot more reasons.
Good thing Ayala land had a Joint Venture with the Roxas group but the Socio-political–economic-environmental factors that hinder the fruition of eastern seaboard development stays.
We are just covered West and East Luzon, but the NEWS is not just another acronym it always means North,East,West and South it should cover all the bases so to speak.
For the South we have the national coast watch south to cover the bandits, the poaching, dynamite fishing and everything but it will always be a big challenge like the ASG was still able to commit banditry in Bohol even during their watch.
That event is not reason to sulk and not proceed with preventive measures, it is also not reason to put everything under the rug and react on every travel advisory of several embassies to be over-kill.
Transferring naval Operations from Cavite to Subic is a very good move, though certain unfortunate incidents like the fall of Hanjin had to happen.
Once our economy improves and a green way to proceed with eastern Luzon development with out exacerbating our lost of forest cover though I have no idea how, I wish people will find out a win-win solution.
We also need a base in Eastern Luzon to protect the pacific side.
I hope we the BCDA will convert other private and government properties to bases like the Marine base in Bataan,the Army base in Nueva Ecija, a futire Naval and Coast guard base in Aurora, Isabela and Bicol and the rest of the Philippines.
We need conversion of land to bases and not bases to other purposes and a national land use law will also help big time.
For the East coast why not use Legazpi City like the Spaniards did? The bay there is a natural harbor. The access to Benham Rise, called Kapulingaw-an in old Bikol language, is given.
Good idea
“We need conversion of land to bases and not bases to other purposes and a national land use law will also help big time.”
Why not just accept the fact that Philippine Navy will always be a green water navy, never a blue water navy (green water ops close to shore, while brown water ops is rivers and deltas).
Let Americans handle the blue water stuff, but maybe tag along, for training and familiarity.
But the bulk of planning should be green water stuff. And since you’re not really contesting waters with other powers inside the Philippines, i know there s NPA bangkas and smugglers, etc. why not focus the Philippines Navy into ferries and protection of ferry routes.
Which can then be converted in times of emergencies as means to move people and food and water and supplies.
This is a ferry terminal in Vancouver CANADA,
Now imagine theres a war, the US is handling blue water ops, the Philippines does green/brown water ops, with these ferries moving troops and materiel, while also moving civilians and supplies, then if the Philippines just focuses on fast cutter and riverine type crafts they can intercept and protect these ferries.
Then in peace time, instead of Chinese bridges, you’ll have more versatile ferries you can move around as mission requires, and these ferry terminals will make great bases from which to conduct military ops.
If we want to have a decent navy, we should go for blue. Now I understand why the riverine warfare is left to the Army.