BULUAN, MAGUINDANAO — Once peace in Mindanao is achieved, President Duterte will declare the whole island a land reform area and distribute government land, including military reservations, to the people.
“I’ll give it all to you. You find public land, including those where military camps are situated, that’s yours,” he said on Wednesday during the turnover of some 900 surrendered firearms from various Maguindanao towns.
Large tracts of government lands, he said, have remained idle and have not contributed to the economy. “Nothing will happen to it,” he said. “I will give it all. You plant rubber. You plant palm.”
The President said that in order to achieve peace, the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) had to be accelerated.
“Let us fast-track the [passage of the] BBL. The BBL does not mean all of Mindanao will be Moro. (BBL) would be like the Liberal or (Nacionalista) Party. It will amplify the voice of the Moro for the national government to listen to,” he said.
Before May ends
President Duterte said he was trying his best to have the BBL passed. “I am promising you, it will pass before May [ends]. If not, I will resign from the presidency,” he said.
Congress will resume sessions on May 14.
The chief executive said he would be a “useless President” if his administration could not solve the country’s problems, particularly the Moro problem.
“I want you to be established. I will talk to Nur (Moro National Liberation Front founding chair Misuari) on what the arrangement would be,” he said. “But you will have a definite Moro territory. All the government land, that’s yours.”
President Duterte also asked all Moro people to seek peace.
“Let’s continue to talk because if you shoot a policeman or a soldier, they will take up revenge. It will never end and nobody will win. Believe me,” he said.
Trouble will only further drag the country down if such incidents persisted, he added.
“We will end up a poor country forever, fighting each other,” he said. “And neither will firearms do any good for the Moro people.”
‘No one like me’
“What can it provide your family? Can you educate your family with it? Can you plant your livelihood with it?” he said.
Mr. Duterte said the Moro people should believe him because he was one of them and “because no one like me would probably come again.”
Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, said the surrender of the firearms was a manifestation of the people’s support for the Duterte administration’s campaign against loose weapons.
Mangudadatu, who lost his wife and several loved ones in the so-called Maguindanao Massacre on Nov. 23, 2009, agreed that guns would not do good to Moro families.
“It will only cause trouble and we have seen that for many years now,” he said.
Mangudadatu said the provincial government would continue to convince people to surrender their guns in exchange for livelihood and the education of their children.
“We have started sponsoring students from families who do not have guns under the Maguindanao scholarship program,” he said.
Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/985694/duterte-eyes-land-reform-areas-in-mindanao#ixzz5DqqrjKmP
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
Journalists who “besmirch the reputation of the House of Representatives, its officials or members” may lose their credentials to cover the chamber, according to new ground rules for the media set by the House leadership.
The tough rules for Philippine media formulated by the House came as media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said that hostility toward journalists was growing worldwide, often encouraged by political leaders — even in democratic countries.
The group’s annual global index of press freedom released on Wednesday found an overall rise in animosity toward reporters and a drop in freedoms, notably in former Soviet states but also in countries from the United States to the Philippines.
The House Press and Public Affairs Bureau (PPAB) released this week “institutional codified rules for media coverage” of the House in an apparent move to toughen policies on news reporting and limit access by reporters to lawmakers.
Congress is in recess, but will resume session on May 15. The House is expected to tackle the impeachment of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and pass urgent measures, including the Bangsamoro Basic Law and the federalism bill.
In formulating the new rules, the House media office cited “a need to give more teeth to the House’s efforts of ensuring a systematic and orderly media coverage that will be beneficial to both the House and the media, and ultimately to the citizenry.”
Media-bashing
PPAB said the press card of a House-accredited reporter may be revoked “if the bearer besmirches the reputation of the House of Representatives, its officials or members.”
Reporters Without Borders said many democratically elected leaders “no longer see the media as part of democracy’s essential underpinning,” singling out US President Donald Trump for his media-bashing.
The group also noted the recent killings of reporters in European Union members Slovakia and Malta.
Authoritarian regimes are trying to “export their vision” that the media should be compliant, according to the watchdog.
Other revocation grounds
It said hate speech targeting journalists was amplified on social networks by government-friendly trolls in India, Russia and elsewhere.
In the House of Representatives, other grounds for revocation of media credentials are the following:
The new media code includes guidelines on which gate news vehicles may enter the Batasang Pambansa compound (where lawmakers hold sessions) in Quezon City, the areas that accredited reporters and photographers may access, and rules governing live TV recording of plenary sessions and committee meetings, and interviews with House members, including the Speaker.
As the purchasing power of their wages gets eroded by a jump in prices of basic goods over the past few months, Filipinos across all socioeconomic classes have identified raising workers’ pay and curbing inflation as their most urgent concerns, according to a recent Pulse Asia survey.
Changing the Constitution, a priority of the Duterte administration, which is pushing for a federal form of government, is the least of their concerns, the poll showed.
The Pulse Asia survey of 1,200 respondents nationwide, conducted from March 23 to 28, also found that reducing poverty and creating more jobs — two issues related to low pay and rising cost of living — were the other urgent concerns.
The survey also showed that, at this time, Filipinos were least concerned about population growth, national territorial defense and terrorism.
Rising prices
A majority of those belonging to Socioeconomic Class ABC — the rich and the middle class — considered inflation their top concern, followed by criminality and workers’ pay.
The top concern of Class D respondents was workers’ pay. For those belonging to Class E (the poorest), it was inflation.
Prices of consumer goods have surged and the country’s finance managers have attributed this to the faster price increases of so-called sin products.
The inflation rate in March rose to 4.3 percent, the highest since 2013 and faster than the government target of 2 to 4 percent.
The jump in prices came in the wake of the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law, which lowered the personal income tax of salary earners but raised the excise tax on a host of goods and services.
Insufficient safety nets
A labor group said wages and high prices remained top concerns of the people because of inadequate protection against profiteers, insufficient safety nets and government failure to curb contractualization work arrangements, like “endo” contracts.
Endo workers are contractual employees who get fired after five months so companies will not pay them benefits.
“If these endo workers are directly hired and become regular workers, at least they would be able to cope with inflation because they would be paid with lawfully mandated wages and benefits,” said Alan Tanjusay, spokesperson for the Associated Labor Unions–Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.
The daily minimum wage in Metro Manila ranges from P475 to P512. The floor pay ranges from P243 to P380 in Luzon outside the metropolis; P245 to P366 in the Visayas; and P255 to P340 in Mindanao.
“Wages have been devalued for the past decade,” Julius Cainglet of Federation of Free Workers said.
“The insignificant increase in the regional minimum wages and the small increase in the take-home pay from the reduced personal income tax would not be enough to cover the increase in prices of basic commodities, especially as a direct or indirect result of the TRAIN law,” he added.
A Filipino needed at least P1,813 while a family of five needed at least P9,064 monthly to meet basic food and nonfood needs in 2015.
Malacañang said on Tuesday that President Rodrigo Duterte shared the Filipinos’ most urgent concerns.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the President wanted to give Filipinos a more comfortable life and was working toward this.
Cut poverty, more jobs
Poverty incidence and unemployment rates have declined, but these are not enough for Filipinos, who still see the need to reduce poverty and to create more jobs.
One in five Filipinos was poor in 2015—a poverty incidence of 21.6 percent, down from 25.2 percent in 2012, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Despite the decrease, the poverty incidence translated to 21.93 million Filipinos who couldn’t afford to buy basic food and nonfood items.
Unemployment
Unemployment rate in January fell to a decade-low 5.3 percent (2.3 million people) from last year’s 6.6 percent (2.8 million).
The underemployment rate, however, rose to 18 percent (7.4 million) in January from 16.3 percent (6.4 million) last year.
Because of low pay and lack of jobs in the country, many Filipinos still leave to work abroad.
Results of the Pulse Asia survey also indicated that the Duterte administration scored majority approval ratings, ranging from 53 percent to 86 percent, in handling 11 of 12 selected national issues.
The administration, however, got a 39-percent approval rating in controlling inflation.
It got 86 percent in responding to the needs of those affected by calamities and 84 percent in protecting the welfare of overseas Filipino workers. —REPORTS FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH, TINA G. SANTOS AND LEILA B. SALAVERRIA
Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/985131/wages-prices-jobs-top-filipino-concerns-says-poll#ixzz5DeQsV7Ug
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
The Philippines must protest China’s landing of military aircraft on Panganiban Reef or its silence may be taken as implied consent, according to acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio.
“If we don’t protest, we acquiesce. We consent impliedly, [we lose],” Carpio said in an interview on Saturday.
[It’s] to preserve our rights: No, we don’t agree [to the landings]. That’s ours [Panganiban Reef]. It remains [disputed]. If we don’t protest, [for them] it’s no longer disputed,” he added.
The Inquirer published last week surveillance photos obtained from a source that showed two Xian Y-7 military transport planes on the tarmac of Panganiban Reef (internationally known as Mischief Reef), which is located within the Philipppines’ 370-kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea. The photos were taken on Jan. 6 this year.
To hear Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano talk about Philippine-Chinese relations is to hear the whiny sound of surrender and subservience. In Cayetano’s view, the landmark arbitral tribunal ruling in 2016 that gave the Philippines a sweeping legal victory over China over disputed parts of the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea is not a sign of strength but, rather, a source of weakness.
After all, what does the following statement, from the former senator with a reputation for articulate rhetoric, really mean, but that smoother relations with China are a higher priority than defending Philippine sovereign rights? “As of now, if we compare the Aquino administration strategy and the Duterte strategy, we simply are making do with a bad situation but we have stopped the bleeding.” Only someone who sees the strain in bilateral relations because of the filing and the winning of the case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration as more important than the actual legal victory itself would think that the Philippines was in “a bad situation” post-July 12, 2016.
The exact opposite is true: Our side in the dispute with China was never stronger than on the day the arbitral tribunal issued an award that was an almost complete vindication of Philippine claims. Only someone who thinks that pleasing China meets a greater public interest than enforcing the legal victory so painstakingly won at The Hague would say that, today, “we have stopped the bleeding.” There is a term for this, and it is appeasement.
The foreign secretary makes the situation worse, undermines even further the Philippine position regarding its own rights to the West Philippine Sea and its jurisdiction over parts of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, by adopting the Chinese perspective hook, line, and sinker. “Yes, we want to fight for what is ours but we don’t want a war. And no one in our region wants a war because no one will win.” This is the Chinese view, that the only alternative to settling the disputes is through a war. This is simply not true; it is also, essentially, un-Filipino. Which makes us ask: Whose interests does the Honorable Alan Peter Cayetano, secretary of foreign affairs of the Republic of the Philippines, really represent?
There is an alternative to war, and that is the process which the Philippines helped set up: a regime of international law governing maritime and territorial disputes. That is the process which the Philippines won, despite China’s bullying and its demonization of the international law system. That is the process which allows smaller countries an almost equal footing with the great powers. And that is the process which, unaccountably, this administration’s lawyers shortchange, subvert, sell out.
Consider these words of wisdom from Cayetano: “China has not asked us, and I can tell you this very honestly whether closed door or in open, they have never asked us to give up our claims. They have simply asked us to put some order in how we will discuss these claims and where we should discuss these claims.” He speaks, not as a public servant of the Filipino people, but the servant of the Chinese government.
Assume for the sake of argument that what Cayetano said is in fact the case; why should we follow China’s proposed order in discussing our rights? Indeed, why should our foreign secretary mindlessly repeat the Chinese line that our claims are still in dispute—when the arbitral tribunal has already and convincingly ruled in our favor? (Let Beijing say these are mere claims; Manila should assert them as vindicated rights.) Even more to the point: Why privilege what China wants (“China has not asked us …”)? The real question is: What does the Philippines ask, when it meets with China?
If it’s only money, through expensive loans or dubious investments, then we really should all
worry that Beijing has landed military cargo aircraft on Mischief or Panganiban Reef. We are trading our sovereign rights, inch by inch, for the proverbial filthy lucre.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/112597/whose-foreign-secretary#ixzz5DCPGnXqo
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
IN the Philippines, scandals, tsismis and fake news (STF for short) are part of the daily news diet. I have no idea how many of our citizens care to read the papers or how many are active in social media. For the majority, word of mouth is an effective carrier of STF, and travel faster and farther. There is that symbiotic relationship between word of mouth and media. Sourced from either platform, these raw morsels of STF are then either distorted, embellished and presented to the public as truth. In social media, internet trolls on both sides of the argument or advocacies are then engaged in a frenzy of spin, effectively taking over the political conversation.
More often than not, this job is assigned to favored stooges with government sinecures who have large social media following; talking heads and lawyers with the leash tightly held by Malacañang. They then proffer these fables to the public in double-speak.
Take the example of the quo warranto petition against beleaguered Chief Justice (on leave) Maria Lourdes Sereno brought by Solicitor General Jose Calida. Ordinary Filipinos take this simply as “lawyer’s mumbo-jumbo.” According to Calida’s suit, Sereno’s appointment as Chief Justice is not valid “ab initio” (from the very beginning) and “…requires her to show by what authority she exercises her assumption to public office.”
Sereno opined: “If they succeed [in removing]an impeachable officer nearly six years after her appointment, then every sitting justice will no longer be independent.” (PDI, April 12, 2018)
True enough! Why only now, after six years? The ordinary Filipino would rather not participate in this “moro-moro” and with a mind of his own prefer a narrative which is simple, linear and honest.
President Duterte wants her ousted. She has provoked the anger of the President. Many believe this started when she clashed with the Deegong early in his administration in August 2016. Du30 made the mistake of naming judges allegedly involved in illegal drugs, some of whom had long been retired and one long dead. DU30 backed down from a confrontation with the feisty lady who insisted on her prerogatives and the independence of the judiciary. But she had drawn first blood. The President’s disdain for the chief justice could have started at this point.
Rubbing salt on the wound, she has consistently voted against Duterte’s policies that have been elevated to the high court: a hero’s burial for the dictator Marcos, and the declaration of martial law in Mindanao to contain the IS rebellion, among others.
And lately, Sereno lashed out at DU30’s perceived drift towards authoritarianism. “The current state of the nation is one where perceived enemies of the dominant order are considered fair game for harassment, intimidation and persecution, where shortcuts are preferred over adherence to constitutional guarantees of human rights, including the denial of due process,” Sereno said.
“Coarseness, including the denigration of women, rather than civility, mark the language of the podium,” she added. (Nikkei Asian Review, March 8, 2018)
This could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Who is this
Lourdes Sereno who has the balls to stand up to the macho president?
Sereno had been chief justice for five years prior to DU30’s ascendancy. She took her position seriously as head of the judiciary, co-equal to the executive and legislative branches of government. She was installed as chief justice after the impeachment of CJ Corona and after having been scrutinized and recommended by the Judicial and Bar Council.
Corona himself earned the ire of the Aquinos on some high court decisions against the Aquino/Cojuangco interests. PNoy used his office to allegedly bribe the senators with DAP money to impeach Corona.
PNoy’s inexperienced niña bonita , appointed at a very young age (57 in 2012), will be sitting as CJ for the next several years (70 years old in 2030) outliving those in the current bench. This did not sit well with the other justices, all senior to her, drooling over the CJ post.
A quo warranto petition was filed by the Solicitor General. Knowing how the DU30 can be intimidating to his cabinet, no way will Calida act without the Deegong’s imprimatur. DU30’s assertions that he did not have a hand in this is simply not plausible.
Sereno took the bait, asking the Deegong publicly to show his hand. This allowed DU30 to accommodate her challenge, thus his declaration: “I am putting you on notice that I’m now your enemy and you have to be out of the Supreme Court.” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 10, 2018)
There is no mumbo-jumbo in the PRRD’s language. Sereno, the head of another co-equal branch, became an enemy once she stepped on the almighty’s toes and he wants her head.
What next? Sereno could be booted out by her peers on this quo warranto petition, but this would look funny. She has been a member of the bench for a good part of a decade. Would these good justices now “require her to show by what authority she exercises her assumption to public office”?
The success of this quo warranto petition will have a lasting effect. A precedent having been established, any SolGen in the future will have the ability to bring quo warranto petitions against any of them. This in fact is a hanging sword of Damocles of their own making.
The issues of Sereno’s alleged corruption, profligate lifestyle and imperial tendencies will not be taken up in this quo warranto petition. These are issues rightly lodged in an impeachment proceeding against impeachable officials.
If Chief Justice Sereno’s peers will shamelessly abide by the dictates of their personal agenda, they will boot her out on this quo warranto petition. But their reputation will be left in tatters as they shall have been reduced to mere lap dogs of the executive branch.
Impeach her, if you must! But go through the proper constitutional process.