Martial Law: We Don't Really Matter At All

After all the delays it appears that the rehabilitation of Marawi is finally on schedule and rebuilding is about to get started.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/246022-task-force-marawi-begin-construction-december-2019

The government will begin the construction of public infrastructure in Marawi City by December, the chief of Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) said on Thursday, November 28. 

Secretary Eduardo del Rosario, who also chairs the Housing Urban Development and Coordinating Council (HUDCC), announced the timeline of the construction of vertical public infrastructure in Marawi's Most Affected Area (MAA) in a news briefing on Thursday. 

Del Rosario said that the clearing operations in the area were nearly complete, and that the task force was almost done in debris management, paving the way for the construction of government infrastructure projects inside the MAA between December 2019 to March 2020. 

Among the first priority projects to begin construction between December 2019 and March 2020 are the following: 

• 200-classroom schoolbuilding

• 24 barangays halls with health center and Madrasa

• Grand Padian Market

• 50-bed hospital

• Peace Memorial Park 

The task force said it prioritized the construction of the market because the Maranao are basically traders. 

"Also by December, we will be groundbreaking for the sports complex for Marawi as it is easy to construct and to really boost and show that the rehabilitation is moving forward," Ibañez said. 

The second and third priority projects will include the Marawi City Police and Bureau of Fire Protection headquarters, respectively. 

Del Rosario said funds for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Marawi would come from the national budget." At the moment, it's coming from the GAA (General Appropriations Act; we don't have foreign funding," he added. 

Del Rosario said the task force will get around P3 billion from the GAA in 2020 to fund the construction of public facilities.

Prioritising the building of a sports complex over a police and fire headquarters seems pretty backwards. What does Del Rosario mean by "we don't have foreign funding?" Many nations have sent billions for the rehabilitation of Marawi.  Where is it? Back in May Duterte said the money is in the bank but there have been discrepancies with the use of funds appropriated for Marawi.

https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/philippine/marawi-update-06072019143943.html

Duterte, during a trip to Japan last week, assured donor countries that their financial contributions to the rebuilding of Marawi remain intact in the bank. 

But just days later, government auditors released their 2018 report that flagged the government’s housing development council for transferring about 5 million pesos (U.S. $96,000) to the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), purportedly for expenses of a few Marawi evacuees during their travel to the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Those evacuees have not been identified. 

The Department of Finance reported aid pledges from China, Japan, Australia, Germany, Thailand and the United States, among others, has reached U.S. $670 million as of November 2018. Demolition of blast-riddled buildings began in February, but officials said rebuilding would not be completed within two years. 

But Duterte on Thursday defended the head of the agency tasked to rehabilitate Marawi, as he asked state auditors to reconsider the diverted funds for rehabilitation. 

“It’s not about financing a religious journey. Do not take it in that sense. Take it as a pacification campaign,” Duterte said during Eid al-Fitr celebration in his hometown of Davao City. “After all, natives and, we, were subjugated,” he said, referring to the historical sufferings of Muslim minorities in the south. 

He said putting the agency’s chief, Eduardo Del Rosario, behind bars could trigger a fresh round of revolt in the south, explaining that a “simple token of generosity” such as funding the Hajj pilgrimage went a long way in ensuring peace in the south. 

“We are helping our own people whose religion is Islam,” he said. “Let us invest in peace.”

Where is the $670 million? And what about the funds earmarked for this year which have yet to be released and are in danger of disappearing forever. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1187520/execs-in-charge-of-marawi-rebuilding-told-door-closing-on-p4-4b-in-funds

It was learned during a meeting of the House subcommittee on Marawi rehabilitation last Tuesday, Nov. 5, that P4.4 billion of the P10 billion allocated in the 2018 national budget for Marawi City’s rehabilitation will already expire by yearend as they remain unreleased despite the two-year validity of these funds. 

At the hearing, legislators noted that only P5.5 billion in special allotment release orders (Saros) had been released by the DBM as of end-October.

Data on the DBM’s website showed that at end-September, only P554.5 million out of the P5.1 billion included in the 2018 National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund (NDRRMF) for the Marawi Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program (MRRRP) had been released. 

Among the releases, P67.1 million went to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) through the Department of National Defense (DND); P2.3 million to the National Youth Commission (NYC); P213.4 million to the National Electrification Administration (NEA); P244.9 million to the Department of Health (DOH); and P26.9 million to the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

The Marawi Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program (MRRRP) was allotted P10 billion but only have of that has been released and we are given no explanation as to why. Why would the MRRRP be given only P3 billion in 2020 to build when P10 billion was earmarked for the project when no building had even begun? And why are the AFP, the NYC, the NEW, the DOH, and even the PCOO receiving any funds earmarked for the Marawi reconstruction? That makes no sense. What role is the PCOO playing in the rebuilding of Marawi? Propaganda outlet?

Equally senseless is Duterte's statement defending the misuse of Marawi funds by using them to send people on the Hajj by saying, "Let us invest in peace" when he wants to build a military base in Marawi.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/245412-duterte-creates-group-study-military-camp-marawi

Despite strong opposition from thousands of people in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur, President Rodrigo Duterte formed a technical working group (TWG) to study the establishment of a military camp in Barangay Kapantaran, Marawi City. 

Duterte ordered this through Memorandum Order (MO) No. 41 signed on Friday, November 15, and released to the media on Wednesday, November 20, laying down members of the TWG along with its powers and functions. 

"To reinforce current efforts of the government to secure Marawi City and its neighboring areas, the President has directed relevant government agencies to study the establishment of a military camp therein," reads the memorandum.

It's just a study but the conclusion already seems to be written since the DND has been pushing the idea of building a military base in Marawi since the siege. Maranaos are not pleased at the prospect.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/245202-maranao-petition-halt-military-camps-marawi

More than 100,000 people from Marawi City and Lanao del Sur province signed a petition asking President Rodrigo Duterte to halt the government's plan to build new military camps in the war-ravaged city. 

Marawi-based civic groups SAKSI Radio Forum and Ranaw Confederation for Peace brought their petition to the Office of the President in Malacañang late afternoon on Friday, November 15. 

The petitioners were still waiting for a response from the President on Monday, November 18, their spokesperson Abo Hayyan Malomalo told Rappler. 

The petitioners warned that increasing military presence in Marawi would go against the Maranao's cultural and religious sensitivities, and could lead to unrest. 

"We are all one and united in our stand that establishing a new military camp could bring about social and political repercussions or spark cultural sensitivity that may possibly lead to social unrest or chaos if adverse effects arise [from it], not to mention the ultimate plan to institutionalize it as a military industrial base," the groups said in their petition. 

"The Maranaos vehemently oppose or resent the idea," they added.

Seeing as Duterte signed MO 41 on the same day that these people brought their petition it's a safe bet that he does not care what the Maranaos have to say. That is a problem. Throughout this process the Maranaos have been left out of all decision making when it comes to rebuilding the city.  They claim they have been ignored by the government.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/blogs/opinions/11/08/19/opinion-the-president-wasnt-jokingmarawi-rehab-monitors-bare-painful-truth-about-slow-pace-of-recovery

To MRCW members, the Meranaw of Marawi are not just displaced. They have been dispossessed. 

Even those back in “cleared” areas struggle to return to old livelihood, work and education. There has been little financial aid for residents. The bureaucratic tedium of reconstituting permits and licenses bears down heavily on people still dealing with the effects of trauma. And now the military wants to build a 10-hectare camp on disputed land. 

Government officials insist they just want to build a better Marawi. But that vision—which has yet to be fully explained—is being created without the Meranaw, Tawagon said. 

“We are from the ground. Why don’t you listen to us?” asked the exasperated educator. 

Pacasum said they learned some hard answers while talking to legislators. The biggest, most painful realization: “We don’t really matter at all.” 

President Duterte’s allies see passage of the compensation bill as an admission of accountability for the devastation. 

The biggest blow was learning that Duterte was not joking when he blamed Marawi residents for their destruction.

"We don't really matter at all." Even if that were not true that is the perception and perception is everything. Maranaos are still living in temporary shelters and have received little to no financial assistance from the government all the while surrendering NPA soldiers are receiving millions in money, housing, and training via E-CLIP. Some cities are even building expensive halfway houses for them.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1087251

With many rebels surrendering to the government, another half-way house is set to be constructed in Sorsogon province to help them in rejoining mainstream society. 

In an interview on Wednesday, Army Major Ricky Aguilar, spokesperson of the Philippine Army's 9th Infantry (Spear) Division, said the facility will serve as temporary shelter for rebel returnees as they undergo the process of reintegration. 

“The PHP5 million worth half-way house for the Happy Home Project in Barangay Cogon in Juban town can accommodate at least 100 rebel returnees,” he said.

Aguilar said the facility will be the third in the Bicol region. 

“We have a five-story half-way house building in Masbate and one ongoing construction in Camarines Norte,” he added.

Aside from the 3 halfway houses in this area one is also going up in Zamboanga Sur.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1087240

A PHP5 million-halfway house will rise in Guipos town to serve as a temporary shelter for former communist rebels as they prepare to return to the mainstream of society. 

Gov. Victor Yu led Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony along with the officials of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), signaling the start of the project. 

The halfway house is located inside Camp Sabido, which houses the headquarters of the Army’s 53rd Infantry Battalion (IB) in the municipality of Guipos.

At least this halfway house is located inside a military camp.  All the better to keep a watch on them. Seeing all this how can Maranaos not get upset and think the government has abandoned them?  Ex-rebels have even been gifted infrastructure projects worth millions!

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1087259

The Kapatiran para sa Progresong Panlipunan, Inc. (Kapatiran), which is finalizing a closure peace agreement with the Philippine government, has received PHP25.181 million worth of infrastructure projects from Negros Occidental’s provincial government.

Kapatiran was the name assumed by the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa - Pilipinas/ Revolutionary Proletarian Army - Alex Bongcayao Brigade (RPM-P/RPA-ABB) as part of its institutional transformation. The RPA-ABB is a breakaway group of the New People’s Army (NPA). 

“For peace to be real, we must address, preserve and respect the core of humanity and human dignity and it must be the kind that leaves no one behind,” Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said in his message during the turnover of projects held on Tuesday. 

Funded under the 2011 Development Acceleration Program (DAP) are the construction of four classroom school buildings amounting to PHP3 million; construction of a day-care center, PHP1 million; construction of a multi-purpose building, PHP1.5 million; construction of a health center, PHP1.5 million; construction of one phase line and installation of two 15KVA transformer and accessories, PHP2.278 million; and rehabilitation of the Locotan-Mambinay Road, PHP11.4 million. 

Funny that the Governor says human dignity and must be respected in order to ensure peace when the government has apparently forgotten all about the Maranaos. But they do have one thing.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/243959-residents-hold-first-islamic-friday-prayer-ground-zero-marawi-after-2-years

For the first time since the Marawi Siege of 2017, residents of the city were able to hold again the Islamic Friday prayer inside the former battlefield or “Ground Zero” on November 1. 

Hundreds joined the Jum’ah congregational prayer organized by Saksi Islamic Radio Forum Incorporated, a radio station based in Marawi. With the ruins just behind them, emotional survivors prayed for forgiveness and for a war not to happen again in their community.

It's better than nothing, right?

How Google Classifies Certain Filipinos

I noticed something very interesting when searching Google for Joma Sison.

Rather than labelling him a politician or a terrorist or the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines Google refers to him as a Filipino writer. Just like national hero Jose Rizal.

Sure Rizal was an ophthalmologist but doesn't his literary talent overshadow his medical practice?What about the organisation Sison founded? The CPP is considered a terrorist organisation by many governments. What does Google say?

A political party? Absolutely not. Certain party-list groups not withstanding no one in any office in the Philippines is a member of this "political party."  What about their armed wing the NPA?

Armed service? That is rather close to armed force. Which is what Google labels the Philippine Army. Google's algorithm says the NPA and the Philippine Army are basically the same.

Let's try some other famous Filipinos and Philippine groups and see what Google has to say about them.

Nur Misuari, founder of the MNLF, is a mere politician.  Just like Risa Hontiveros.

If Nur Misuari is a politician then what does that make his group the MNLF? 

A political organisation obviously. And just as obviously this is all wrong. The MNLF is a Muslim separatist group formed in the 70's. It has never been and never will be a political organisation. The MNLF is without question a terrorist organisation who fought against the Philippine government and is still at odds with them after they were ousted from the ARMM and the BARMM was put in place. The Zamboanga siege of 2013 was the MNLF's last big operation. 

What about other people who are terrorists and the groups they are connected with?  How does Google classify them?

None of these men are listed as terrorists nor are these groups listed as terrorist organisations. Why? Actually if you search for Bin Laden, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, ISIS, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and many others none them are labelled either terrorist or terrorist organisation. In fact they have no label at all. Why does Google refuse to label these men as terrorists and these groups as terrorists organisations? I don't know.  But I do know Google manipulates search results.

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-manipulates-search-results-report-2019-11

But a new Wall Street Journal investigation found that Google manipulated search algorithms in some worrying ways, including prioritizing large businesses over smaller ones, removing autocomplete results that involve sensitive topics like immigration and abortion, and even outright blacklisting some websites.

Is that what is going on here? IS terrorism to sensitive to call out and label? Again I don't know but it is a little strange.

Let's try just a few more. What does Google think of the MILF and its current chairman who is head of the BARMM?

The MILF is just an armed force like the NPA and the Philippine Army while Murad, who is a terrorist heading the BARMM, has no label. I could fill up this page all day with anomalies like the ones above but I will leave you with two more. Two very well known politicians. Senators Vic Sotto and Grace Poe. How does the Google algorithm categorise them?

Senate President Sotto is a mere actor and Senator Poe is a businesswoman. What business does she own?

Try it yourself with other personalities. See what you come up with.

Retards in the Government 130

It's your weekly compendium of foolishness and corruption and murder in Philippine politics. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1192750/govt-sets-one-time-big-time-ops-vs-overloading-over-speeding-vehicles

Transportation and law enforcement agencies will conduct its “one-time big-time” nationwide crackdown against traffic violators, especially overloading and over-speeding vehicles, on Friday, November 22. 

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) said this activity is meant to “prevent more road crash incidents in the future” as well as comply with President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to strictly enforce the country’s traffic laws. 

According to an LTO letter to the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), the President’s “instruction” during a November 4 Cabinet meeting “as relayed by (LTO) Usec. Mark Richmund De Leon” was for the agency and the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) to “not to go into corruption” and “strictly enforce the law.”

This is ridiculous and all the comments on this article are spot on.  The PNP is mandated to enforce traffic laws and they should be doing that 24/7 not just for one day! Then there is the problem of no speed limit signs so there can be no enforceable speed limit.  And what is overspeeding!?  You are either speeding or not.  Just more nonsense from the PNP to make it appear they are doing their jobs when they are doing nothing of the sort.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1193444/duterte-says-he-believes-quiboloy-stopped-mindanao-quake

Duterte, who has publicly admitted his close ties with Quiboloy, said that he believes the Pastor’s claim and see nothing wrong about it. 

“I believed in Pastor Quiboloy,” Duterte said in the launching of a hotel in Davao City.
“When he said stop eh kung nagstop eh di what’s the trouble?” he added. 

The President even claimed that he is hoping he could also possess Quiboloy’s “power” so he could order corrupt government officials to stop.

Is Duterte a true believer or just joking? Maybe both?

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/11/24/19/duterte-sorry-to-robredo-for-believing-fake-news-that-she-invited-un-probers

President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday apologized to Vice President Leni Robredo for assuming that she had invited United Nations probers to look into his drug war as co-chair of the administration's anti-narcotics body. 

"And I am sorry because I said you only realize that it is false news when the news comes out. And you hear it and you talk about it, you react to it, that is the problem," Duterte told ABS-CBN News. 

The President earlier threatened to slap a human rights advocate in front of the vice president if she brought him over to the Philippines. 

Duterte, meantime, said Robredo can "never" earn his trust. 

"There can never be a trust that can be nurtured between the two of us for the simple reason that Leni Robredo is with the opposition, ako andito sa kabila," he said.

Rather than figure out if something is true or not Duterte reacted very publicly  saying he would slap  a man that Robredo did not even invite to the country. Meanwhile he says Robredo will never earn his trust. So why keep her on his team?

https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/271805/bong-go-challenges-robredo-kill-the-drug-lords-if-you-can

Senator Christopher “Bong” Go urged Vice President Leni Robredo to work hard as the anti-illegal drugs czar so that no new drug lords can take root in the country under her leadership. 

The senator even challenged Robredo to “kill” the drug lords, if necessary, and inform the administration if she can’t do so. 

“Kung kaya mong patayin ang mga drug lord, patayin mo. Kung hindi, sabihin mo sa amin. (If you can kill the drug lords, kill them. If you can’t, tell us),” said Go. 

This was the senator’s challenge to Robredo 16 days after the Vice President accepted the appointment of President Rodrigo Duterte to make her the co-chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs on November 7, 2019.

In a press conference, Go said that Robredo should aim to improve the campaign against illegal drugs that “82 percent of Filipinos approved of.” 

(Maybe she can increase to 90 percent the approval rating of the Filipinos on the campaign against illegal drugs, why not? As for me, I only hope she won’t let the drug lords proliferate. Don’t let their number grow, and don’t let the number of victims of illegal drugs grow.)

It's a stupid challenge from Go. Killing people is not part of Robredo's job description. But then he shows his cards by mocking her saying maybe she can increase the approval rating from 82% to 90% meaning 82% is so high already that Robredo should quit with her criticisms of how the drug war is being waged.

http://www.manilastandard.net/news/national/310752/solon-du30-s-war-on-drugs-more-successful-than-predecessors-.html

A leader of the House of Representatives on Friday commended President Rodrigo Duterte’s unprecedented success of the administration’s war against illegal drugs. 

Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. said that as compared to his predecessors, President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs is more successful that his predecessors. 

“The records of all the previous presidents in solving the drug problem in the country pale by comparison with the performance of President Rodrigo Duterte is much more successful.” 

Barzaga, president of the National Unity Party, said Duterte is the first Chief Executive to expose a list of narco-politicians ranging from congressmen to mayors; and even naming some members of the judiciary, as well as the so-called ninja generals and cops. 

“That is a bold and brave move of the President to make such public declaration considering that drug problem is a complicated social problem involving powerful syndicates.” 

The third quarter 2019 survey of the Social Weather Stations showed that the President maintained his “very good” satisfaction rating. In this survey, 78 percent said they were satisfied, while 13 percent told SWS that they were dissatisfied with Duterte,  

The rest or 9 percent were undecided. 

“This rating is exceptional considering that performance ratings of former presidents typically decline after the first half of their term. The good rating of the President largely reflects the accomplishment of his war on drugs which is the centerpiece of his administration,” Barzaga said.

Despite Duterte himself calling the drug a failure and despite narcopoliticians and drug dealing cops being called out many times over the years this Congressman still calls Duterte's drug war a major success. He also is using the SWS survey as proof as if public opinion is the true test of any program's worth.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1195043/fwd-dela-rosa-stop-fooling-filipinos-that-drug-war-is-a-failure

“As far as Filipino standard is concerned, 82 percent are satisfied with the war on drugs as reported by a survey of the Social Weather Stations for the second quarter of 2019,” said Dela Rosa. 

“Let us stop fooling the people. ‘Yung iba gustong lokohin ang tao [na] failure daw ang war on drugs. Anong standard ninyo ng failure [Others want to fool the people that the drug war is a failure. What is your standard of failure]?” he said during the program of the Dangerous Drugs Board for the Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Week 2019 held in Quezon City on Monday. 

“Bakit 82 percent ang approval rating ng mga tao [Why is that the people gave an approval rating of 82 percent (in the war on drugs)]? So huwag nating lokohin ang taumbayan [So let us not fool the people]. Let us give them the real numbers,” the former PNP chief said.

Bato is also using the SWS results to say the drug war is a success. Does he not know that Duterte said unequivocally that the drug war is a failure?  That there are now 7-8 million drug users nationwide? Is Duterte fooling the people? 

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/11/25/1971638/duterte-sacks-robredo-drug-czar

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Robredo’s services were “terminated” after both she and Sen. Francis Pangilinan, head of the opposition Liberal Party, “taunted” Duterte to fire her. 

Panelo said all that Robredo had done as ICAD chief was to “embarrass the country.” 

“The Palace is announcing the termination of the services of Vice President Ma. Leonor Robredo as co-chairperson of the (ICAD),” Panelo said. 

“This is also in response to the taunt and dare of VP Robredo for the President to just tell her that he wants her out.” 

Panelo lamented that Robredo blew an “offer to make the campaign against ille­gal drugs better,” wherein the opposition and administration could have united in fighting a common scourge. 

“Unfortunately, she wasted such op­portunity and used the same as a platform to attack the methods undertaken by the administration,” Panelo said.

Last week I wrote, "Could it be that Duterte will dismiss her from the post as drug czar on a pretext?" Now it appears the is just what has happened since Panelo admits Robredo was fired in response to a dare. However her statement was far from a dare.

“He should tell me directly. I’m easy to talk to. If he doesn’t want me here (ICAD) in the first place, why did he appoint me? If he thinks he committed a mistake in appointing me and wants to revoke it, he should just say so,” the Vice President told reporters after a meeting with officials of the Dangerous Drugs Board in Quezon City. 

“But as long as work is expected of me, I’ll do it,” she added.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/11/21/1970624/robredo-duterte-just-tell-me-leave

If Dutere really fired her for that "dare" then why did he wait 3 days before doing so and why did he do it just before he left for South Korea?  Pundits and politicians will be flocking to this circus and we all know what each side will say but the only response needful to hear is that of Robredo's.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1194289/breaking-a-day-after-being-fired-robredo-asks-ano-bang-kinatatakutan-ninyong-malaman-ko

(What are you afraid of? What are you afraid that I might discover?) 

This was the question posed by Vice President Leni Robredo a day after President Rodrigo Duterte sacked from her post as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD).

(What are you afraid that the people might find out?)

(Mr. President, I did not ask for this position. But I took the job you passed on to me seriously. What the people wished for is a government that truly champions the fight against illegal drugs.) 

She further said she would soon report to the public what she has discovered during her 18-day stint as co-chair of the government’s anti-drug body.

(In the coming days, I will report to the public. I will reveal what I discovered and my recommendations. I can assure you: even if I was stripped of the position, my determination will never waver). 

Robredo also reminded the Duterte administration that she is not the enemy in the campaign against illegal drugs.

(Let’s remember that illegal drugs and drug lords are the enemy—not me, and most especially not the Filipino people.)

(If we have the same objective, why can’t we just help each other? Are they really serious in this fight? Or have we tromped on somebody’s interest?)

What will she reveal?  And will Duterte attempt to accuse her of revealing state secrets if she does in fact reveal anything?

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1194022/duterte-says-politics-dirty-ok-with-opening-everybodys-account

President Rodrigo Duterte has floated the idea of lifting bank secrecy and order the opening of “everybody’s accounts” as he lamented how politics in the country has become a dirty game, especially during the election period. 

“Public office is a very honorable thing but politics, well, everywhere is always dirty,” Duterte said in an interview on Saturday in Davao City. 

“If you want — anybody who is interested could always go to me and tell me — tell me publicly and I will ask the Central Bank governor to open everybody’s account, my account, your account, lahat ng Pilipino na may bangkong — pera sa bangko, (every Filipino who has a bank account)” he said.The President even recounted how he has been accused of having amassed billions during the 2016 presidential elections, which he claimed was baseless but was still carried by some networks.

This is very insincere. The legislature would never repel the Bank Secrecy law.  Why would they? Does he really want people looking in his accounts?

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1194485/local-execs-charged-over-open-dumps

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Monday filed complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman against the mayor of Tabaco City, Albay province, and a former mayor of Limay town, Bataan province, as well as four others for allegedly violating the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, or Republic Act No. 9003. 

Undersecretary for Solid Waste Management and Local Government Unit Concerns Benny Antiporda, who led the filing, said that while “the penalty is light” for violation of the Solid Waste Management Act, he expressed the hope that preventive suspension may be applied as penalty to serve as a deterrent to future offenders. 

“What is important is that local government unit heads are aware that if they have a hand in destroying our environment, we will really go after them, no matter how heavy or light the sentence,” Antiporda said in an interview after the filing. 

“The fact remains, during his tenure as mayor, Limay used its purported transfer station as an open dump site,” the four-page complaint read in part. 

“Worse, after the closure of the open dump site at Sitio Mamala, Barangay St. Francis I, Limay, Bataan, the municipality opened another dumpsite at Barangay Alangan, Limay, Bataan,” the complaint added.

The DENR had charged the Mayor of Tabaco City for running an illegal dumping site and they hope that the charges will be a deterrent to other potential offenders.  As if!!

https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/11/27/bureau-of-corrections-officer-gunned-down/

A Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officer was gunned down in broad daylight by motorcycle-riding gunmen just near the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City on Wednesday morning. 

Initial information reaching BuCor spokesperson Maj. Albert Tapiru identified the victim as CO1 Porferio Bergula. 

Police investigation showed that the incident happened just about 400 meters away from the national penitentiary’s main building at around 10:30 a.m. 

Police said that Bergula was in front of the Poblacion Market when two motorcycle-riding assailants approached and shot him.

Another Bureau of Corrections officer shot dead near New Bilibid. Nothing new here!

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1087083

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has indefinitely suspended one of its personnel here who was arrested for illegal drugs. 

LTO-9 director Aminola Abaton said effective Monday, Abdulrauf Mutin has been placed under indefinite suspension “prior to the filing of an administrative proceeding for his eventual dismissal” from the government service. 

“There is a process we need to observe. But in so far as LTO is concerned, it is clear that under the leadership of Asec. (Assistant Secretary Edgar) Galvante, in no way that we will tolerate at any given time any of our personnel to be involved in any irregularity,” Abaton said Tuesday. 

Police arrested Mutin together with Saudie Hairul, 42; and Gairel Tacurian, 38, in an anti-drug operation on November 22 in one of the hotels here. 

Mutin is the LTO operations officer assigned at the agency's Zamboanga Economic Zone and Freeport (Zamboecozone) office.

Another government employee suspended for drug use. Nothing new here.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1195518/cayetano-to-unmask-people-behind-smear-campaign-vs-him-sea-games

House Speaker Alan Cayetano on Thursday said he would “unmask” the individuals who were allegedly behind a smear campaign against him and the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. 

“Basta’t handa ako sa imbestigasyon after the SEA Games, humanda rin kayo sa imbestigasyon kasi i-unmask ko rin kayo (I am ready for any investigation but those behind the smear campaign should also be ready because I will unmask you, too),” the chair of the Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) Foundation Inc. said in an interview in San Juan. 

“I will also unmask those people who shameless[ly] o mga walang hiya na gusto talagang sirain ang ating bansa (wants to divide our nation),” he added. 

Cayetano claimed some members of the opposition are trying to pin him and the Duterte administration down for the controversies hounding the country’s hosting of the biennial regional sports meet. If backed by other members of Phisgoc, the head of the SEA Games organizing body said he may also file libel and cyber libel cases against those who are peddling “fake news” against him and the competition’s hosting.

There has been a lot of controversy over the SEA Games. Allegations of wasted money and athletes waiting for hours to be picked up at the airport and dropped off at the wrong hotel. This story about Cayetano is representative of the situation. Instead of dealing with the snafus he has blamed other people, is claiming he will unmask those who are accusing him, and that he might file a bible case. To top it off he equates criticism over the handling of the SEA Games with dividing the nation. It's the typical way Filipino politicians deal with controversy. Deny, deflect, accuse the opposition, and threaten to sue all the while the original problem, in this case the handling of the SEA Games, remains in the same messy state.

The Philippines' Place On The Pentagon's New Map

I came across an interesting quote the other day purported to be from the book "The Pentagon's New Map" so I downloaded a PDF and scoured the book. It seems the quote was fake. But good news! This book from 2004 about globalisation has relevant items about the Philippines.  

Before diving into what Thomas Barnett has to briefly say about the Philippines it would be good to take a look at the Pentagon's new map.

Can you read that map all right? 

Yet a pattern did emerge with each American crisis response in the 1990s. These deployments turned out to be overwhelmingly concentrated in the regions of the world that were effectively ex­cluded from globalization's Functioning Core—namely, the Carib­ bean Rim, Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and much of Southeast Asia. These regions constitute globalization's "ozone hole," or what I call its Non-Integrating Gap, where connectivity remains thin or absent. Simply put, if a country was losing out to globalization or rejecting much of its cultural content flows, there was a far greater chance that the United States would end up sending troops there at some point across the 1990s. But because the Pentagon viewed all these situations as "lesser includeds," there was virtually no rebal­ ancing of the U.S. military to reflect the increased load. We knew we needed a greater capacity within the ranks for nation building, peacekeeping, and the like, but instead of beefing up those assets to improve our capacity for managing the world as we found it, the Pentagon spent the nineties buying a far different military—one best suited for a high-tech war against a large, very sophisticated military opponent. In short, our military strategists dreamed of an opponent that would not arise for a war that no longer existed.

Page 4

Basically everything outside the dotted line (North America, Europe, Australia, and surprisingly Brazil and Argentina!) are functioning countries with robust economies. They are they engine drivers of the world.  Everything inside the dotted line is the complete opposite. In fact they are chaotic and often at war and most US military deployments have been to countries which compose that large region which Barnett terms the Gap. The Philippines is inside the Gap. In fact it is right at the very edge which makes it a Seam State.

On a more practical level, it is also important for us to realize that in this global war on terrorism, while many of the political grievances associated with the most prominent transnational ter­rorist networks are now centered in the Middle East, the operating environments of such groups span the Gap as a whole. The real seam we need to be working lies not just along that Muslim arc, but around the entirety of the Gap. In reality, one of the least-told sto­ries of our global war on terrorism involves just that—the signifi­cant increase of bilateral security relations between the United States and a host of countries, or Seam States, that ring the Gap. 

What are the Seam States? Classic examples include Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Why are they important? Whenever you look at global maps of where terrorist networks are centered, invariably all the ones we care most about are located inside the Gap. Moreover, as we track their movements, or what the military would describe as their "interior lines of com­munication," these too lie overwhelmingly inside the Gap. How those terrorists access the Core is through the Seam States. This is sort of like the September 11 terrorists who hijacked the planes fly­ing out of Boston boarding those planes previously at a regional airport in Maine. In that instance, Maine, with its looser security rule set, was the "seam state" that was exploited. Since security tends to be higher in the "deep" Core states, terrorists invariably seek ac­cess through the Seam States, or gain access to the United States by transiting through Mexico or some Caribbean island nation, as op­posed to walking through security at JFK Airport in New York City. 

The U.S. security strategy vis-à-vis these Seam States is simple: get them to increase their security practices as much as possible and—by doing so—close whatever loopholes exist. This is what gets the U.S. government involved in helping Brazil achieve better transparency throughout the Amazon Forest, South Africa get a better grip over its banking networks, and Indonesia clamp down on rebels across its far-flung archipelago. Other countries where the Pentagon has increased security assistance since 9/11 include the Philippines, Algeria, Djibouti, Pakistan, and India. All these efforts would have made sense—and in some instances did make sense— on some level prior to 9/11, but thanks to the global war on terrorism all such bilateral security assistance expands with far greater speed and urgency. 

This assistance is not so much purposefully focused on these Seam States as it is simply drawn to them by the circumstances of how terrorists seek to avoid our efforts at prosecution. A transna­tional terrorist organization like al Qaeda will exploit the Gap's disconnectedness to do things like disperse its gold throughout Africa, shift training activities to Asia, obtain guns from Latin American arms smugglers, and tap sympathetic financial networks embedded across the Middle East and—increasingly—Southeast Asia. But in the end, if al Qaeda really wants to bring its war home to America, it will need to exploit globalization's seams, like the In­ternet, commercial airline networks, and banking networks—plus the Seam States that mark the geographic dividing line between the Gap and the Core. So if America is truly going to wage a global war on terrorism, it needs to work the Gap as a whole and the host of Seam States that surround it.

Page 187-189

The Philippines, according to Barnett, is a Seam State which terrorists can use to easily access the Global Core, or the Western nations. I don't think many Filipino terrorists have used the Philippines to access the West but the Philippines was used as a base of operation for Al-Qaeda in the 90's. It was in Manila where the Bojinka plot was hatched. The plan was to assassinate the Pope, blow up airplanes, and crash an airliner into CIA headquarters. By sheer accident the plan was discovered before it could be put ton action. But the two planners, Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, would become the architects of the September 11th attacks.

If anyone is moving around it is foreign terrorists who are moving to the Philippines. The ease with which terrorists can enter and exit the Philippines puts the nation in danger and SEA at risk. Barnett says:

The U.S. security strategy vis-à-vis these Seam States is simple: get them to increase their security practices as much as possible and—by doing so—close whatever loopholes exist. 

That would describe exactly the what the US has been doing in the Philippines for the past two decades first with Operation Enduring Freedom and now with Operation Pacific Eagle. As well as with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) which allows the US military  to operate out of Philippine military bases. The Philippines' status as a seam state the and the US military's role of assisting with the security situation has not changed in twenty years and will likely not change in the foreseeable future.

The next mention of the Philippines comes in Barnett's discussion of the movement of labour from the Gap nations to the Core nations. I think you can guess he is writing about OFWs.

Given that a lot of people will have to move from the Gap to the Core to keep globalization on track, the question becomes, How can this massive shift be achieved? Immigration is the obvious— and most socially challenging—route, but there are two promising trends that we'll need to promote in addition to permanent immi­gration: the "virtual migration" of jobs from the Core to the Gap, exemplified by India becoming a "back office" for the U.S. econ­omy; and a "global commute," best displayed by the Philippines' amazingly mobile workforce. 

Virtual migration has been around for a while, we just hadn't no­ticed it. When my wife, Vonne, was working as a unit secretary in a major Virginia hospital in the mid-1990s, she helped send the doctors' audiotaped medical chart logs to India via the Internet for over­ night transcription. Instead of paying more to have it done in the United States by non-medical experts, the hospital ended up paying half as much for Indian medical professionals to perform the ser­vice outside of their day jobs. It's not just the back office-type jobs that have migrated to India and elsewhere, but virtual face-to-face service jobs like customer call centers, where the "Susan" who ends up taking your complaint is really Nishara working in Bangalore. Then there is the huge role Indian software companies have played in the rise of Silicon Valley over time. In effect, India has become the overnight software patch that keeps our information technology industry humming on a daily basis: tasks that would have sat over­ night in America are now beamed to India for resolution by the next business day. It is often said that Indian information technology workers, the largest single pool on the planet, write half the world's software. Most will never see America, and yet they are an integral part of our nation's computer-fueled productivity gains. 

The other positive trend is the emergence of the global commute, and no country exemplifies this development better than the Philip­pines. The government there has systematically facilitated two-year deployments around the world by a major portion of its labor force (roughly 10 percent of its total population of 76 million). These global commuters are specifically recruited by the government for this pro­gram, which mobilizes the OFWs, or Overseas Filipino Workers, in significant numbers for temporary labor duty all over the planet. In 2001, these workers sent back in remittances $6.2 billion, constitut­ing almost a tenth of the national GDP. Factor in the multiplier effect on the national economy (every dollar sent home generates three to four dollars of growth), and you're looking at a flow that shapes a significant portion of their domestic market demand. 

Not surprisingly, of the top twenty nations frequented by Fil­ipinos in their global commute, fifteen are Core states (U.S., Japan, Hong Kong-China, U.K., Taiwan, Italy, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Greece, Guam, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, and Aus­ tralia). The rest are rich Gulf states plus Malaysia and Singapore two of the most Core-like states in the Gap. The difference in wage- earning potential is huge: nurses in the Philippines average $15,000 a year, but close to $50,000 in the United States, which has accepted so many of these global commuters as to trigger a nursing shortage in the Philippines. 

Making this global commute possible are low airfares and new telecommunications advances, like inexpensive text-messaging, which acts as a cheap but essential lifeline between parents working over­ seas (two-thirds of OFWs are women) and their families back home, where the government goes out of its way to support OFWs with special events promoting free medical care and celebrating their role as bagong bayani, or "new heroes," of the Filipino economy. Filipinos were prominently represented among the first foreign workers rushed into Iraq as part of the postwar rebuilding process. Why? Ninety percent of Filipinos can read, compared with just two-thirds of Iraqis, and most Filipinos learn English in school as a legacy of a long American occupation in the first half of the twen­tieth century. As the Philippines' secretary of labor and employ­ment declared in the weeks leading up to the war, "If they're looking for skilled workers, they'll come to us." Wired magazine has described the program as "an example of socioeconomic engi­neering on an unprecedented scale," arguing that the Philippines is doing nothing less than "creating the world's most distributed economy, where the sources of production are so far-flung it bog­gles the mind." 

The aging Core will need to accept the Gap's desperate ambition for a better life, because in doing so, we shrink the Gap one moti­vated worker at a time. The importance of this flow of remittances to the Gap is hard to overstate. Latin American workers toiling overseas send home roughly $15 billion a year, or more than five times what the region receives in foreign aid from the Core. Any connectivity that facilitates this flow, whether on a permanent or temporary basis, expands globalization's reach. Conversely, any re­strictions placed on such movement in the name of a global war on terrorism will end up doing more damage to America's long-term interest in seeing globalization succeed than any number of suicide bombers can ever hope to achieve. 

In effect, this flow of labor from the Gap to the Core is global­ization's release valve. With it, the prosperity of the Core can be maintained and more of the world's people can participate. With­out it, overpopulation and underperforming economies in the Gap will lead to explosive situations that spill over to the Core. Either way, they are coming. Our only choice is how we welcome them. 

Page 212-214

The comments about India apply equally to the Philippines. Much labor has been outsourced here from the West. Particularly business process outsourcing the most common example of which are the numerous call centres.

One of the most dynamic and fastest growing sectors in the Philippines is the information technology–business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry. The industry is composed of eight sub-sectors, namely, knowledge process outsourcing and back offices, animation, call centers, software development, game development, engineering design, and medical transcription. The IT-BPO industry plays a major role in the country's growth and development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_outsourcing_in_the_Philippines

Barnett notes that OFWs are lauded as the "new heroes" of the Filipino economy and that in 2001 remittances totalled $6.2 billion making up 10% of the GDP. In 2018 remittances totalled $32 billion and accounted for 9.7% of the GDP.

Further, personal remittances, which grew by 3.0 percent year-on-year, reached US$32.2 billion in 2018, the highest annual level to date. The growth in personal remittances during the year was driven by remittance inflows from land-based OFs with work contracts of one year or more and remittances from both sea-based and land-based OFs with work contracts of less than one year, which rose annually by 2.8 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively. Personal remittances is a major driver of domestic consumption and, in 2018, it accounted for 9.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.1 percent of the gross national income (GNI).

http://www.bsp.gov.ph/publications/media.asp?id=4940&yr=2019

Things aren't going to be changing here anytime soon. Filipinos will continue to search for work overseas where they can earn more.

Barnett's last observation "they are coming" is a right on the dime. Since 2004 the amount of people leaving the Gap for the Core has increased exponentially. All that growth is driven by economic factors meaning not necessarily people looking for jobs but people looking for freebies and handouts. He is right that they are coming. He is right that the only choice is how to welcome them. The fact that countries like Sweden, the UK, Germany, and France have welcomed them with open arms and persecuted those who would speak out has been devastating to the economy, safety, and culture of each of those countries. The USA has also been affected by not just welcoming these stragglers with open arms but actively importing them in large numbers which has resulted in Minneapolis becoming a little Somalia complete with all the crime. The Core was prosperous without migrants from the Gap. It is actually the massive spillover which is what is dragging down the Core nations to the level of those in the Gap.

Stray Dogs and Garbage at the Graveyard

I went to a funeral service, sorry I mean Necrological service as that was what was printed on the program, and it was just as the title of this blog post says. First there were stray dogs roaming all over the place.

This little pupper was busy walking all over and rolling in the grass. Worn out he decided to a take a rest on this woman's grave. Surely she won't mind. But it was just a short rest because snack time was almost upon us. Everyone was scattered around the area munching on their cupcakes and sipping their mini Coke bottles. That was the cue for all the dogs to come out of hiding and begin begging for food and searching for scraps.

Of course a wheel barrow full of garbage is the jackpot for any discerning dog. These dogs are not discouraged from hanging out in the cemetery.  Here are the gravediggers feeding one of the dogs.

They probably have some comically morbid name for him.  Maybe Yorick? 

Second of all there was garbage.  I don't mean the garbage from snack time. I mean in the soil in which the man was being buried. Take a look for yourself.

I have no idea how that garbage got there because it is embedded in the dirt 4 or 5 feet down. How did it get there?  This cemetery is only a few years old. Before the cemetery it was just brush. Maybe the Philippines is just that dirty? 

Seeing this reminded me of some pictures sent to me a few months ago which I have refrained from publishing because I did not have enough information about them. A reader of this blog was at a funeral and noticed there was trash in the soil and he discreetly took a few pictures.

The first picture has very recognisable bits of absolute trash. There's glass bottles, shoes, and concrete (maybe rocks?). There is more garbage in the pictures he took than in mine and I do not understand how the garbage ended up in the grounds of either cemetery.

The person who sent me these pics thought perhaps the cemetery, Forest Lake Maa in Davao, used to be a landfill. It's possible. I don't think that's very likely though. A few months back I wrote Forest Lake an email which included the pictures but I never heard back. 

Could it be that years of open dumping have thoroughly polluted the soil of the Philippines? That somehow the trash made it's way into the earth through some slow process of pedogenesis (that means soil formation)?