When things are difficult, you laugh and you sing.
Those are coping mechanisms that Filipinos have developed into art.
There’s a song going around social media that is so much fun. It’s a new version of an old game song “May Pulis sa Ilalim ng Tulay.”
The song is usually sang in a party where each one adds a line to the original sentence about a policeman under the bridge. Often, as each one adds a sentence depending on his or her views and wit, the song becomes a sharp commentary.
It was not surprising that the Malacañang-friendly congressmen killed without much fuss the impeachment complaint against President Duterte filed by Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano Monday.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, also a member of the Magdalo group (which started as a group of young military officers advocating for reforms in the military), lamented the quick dismissal of the impeachment rap saying that the members of the House Justice committee didn’t even study the content of the complaint when they decided that although it was sufficient in form, it was not sufficient in substance.
But Trillanes, one of the few who dare oppose Duterte, said it’s not the end of the quest for a better government for the Filipino people.
In fact, the dismissal of impeachment complaint would even bolster the communication filed by lawyer Jude Sabio against Duterte before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Update: SC issues writ of amparo in favor of kin of slain drug suspects
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/597757/news/nation/sc-issues-writ-of-amparo-in-favor-of-kin-of-slain-drug-suspects
There’s a part in the narration by the surviving victims of Oplan Tokhang in Payatas in Quezon City last August 21 that sends chills down one’s spine.
In the petition for Writ of Amparo filed by Centerlaw before the Supreme Court last Thursday, it related that a few days after the killings, a television reporter and his crew came to Area B, Group 9, Bgy. Payatas to interview witnesses. “However, no one agreed to speak with him or even come near him because unbeknownst to him, the police escort he took with him to the area is PO3 Allan Formilleza, one of the policemen involved in the killings.All the members of the community were terror-stricken at the sudden appearance of Formilleza that day.”
That was frightening.
Update: Duterte admits ordering Marcos re-instatement
http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/12/02/16/duterte-admits-ordering-marcos-reinstatement
If Police Supt. Marvin Marcos has long been identified as a protector of drug lords, why is somebody high up in Malacañang protecting him?
What does this make of President Duterte’s bloody campaign to eliminate illegal drugs in the country which has claimed the lives of some 3,000 and still counting?
Marcos has been under protective custody at the Philippine National Police in Camp Crame in Metro Manila together with his team involved in the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr in the wee hours of Nov 5 while imprisoned in Baybay Provincial Jail in Leyte.
Every Undas or All Souls Day (Nov. 2) when Filipinos troop to cemeteries to remember departed loved ones, I always think of the families of desaparecidos.
Where do they go to offer flowers and light the candles for their dead whom they didn’t bury? I think of Edith Burgos, whose son Jonas was last seen on April 28, 2007 at the Ever Gotesco Mall. I think of University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno who were last seen on June 26, 2006 in Hagonoy, Bulacan.
There are many more: Father Rudy Romano, a Redemptorist priest who served landless peasants and displaced settlers and the six workers of Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines namely Joseph Belar, Jovencio Lagare, Romualdo Orcullo, Diosdado Oliver, Artemio Ayala Jr. and Arnold Dangkiasan.
The list is long according to Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND).
In the traditional first 100 days assessment of a President’s performance one does not really expect concrete results knowing the complexities of governance but within the first three months, the public should have an idea the direction that the president is leading the country to.
Duterte has made clear what the public can expect in the coming months: there will be more killings.
The numbers vary and are difficult to ascertain but the figure being mentioned in news reports of illegal drugs related deaths under Duterte’s rule range from 1,500 to 300,000. The numbers continue to increase every day.
Do you feel sick watching daily images on TV and newspapers of people killed, lying lifeless on the sidewalks covered with newspapers or plastic with only their dirty feet and worn-out rubber slippers seen?
And of course near the corpse, the cardboard sign “Drug pusher ako, huwag tularan”, which has now become a standard accessory in President Duterte’s war against illegal drugs.
Studies have shown the ill-effects of being exposed to traumatic images.
In an article in the website of Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientist Roxane Cohen Silver of the University of California, Irvine and colleagues said “repeated exposure to vivid traumatic images from the media could lead to long-lasting negative consequences, not just for mental health but also for physical health. “
The article said Silver and her colleagues “speculated that such media exposure could result in a stress response that triggers various physiologic processes associated with increased health problems over time.”
That’s for those who are exposed to disturbing images in media. How much more with members of media who are up close to those gruesome scenes to capture them for the people to know what’s happening in the country.
A drug user who is rich is not necessarily a pusher because he has the money to buy the illegal substance. But if the drug user is poor, he is also a pusher.
That’s according to President Duterte.
In the President’s meeting with soldiers and policemen in Camp Nakar in Lucena City last July 28, he said “But a user is a pusher. Pwera na lang kung anak ka ni Ayala o ni Consunji o ni Gokongwei, ‘pag nalulong ka sa droga eh maghanap ka ng tao na isusuporta rin ang — sa bisyo mo. Then the other idiot will also contaminate and this must not happen.”
That explains why those killed (465 since Duterte assumed the presidency on June 30, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer) were all wearing rubber slippers. Too poor to even afford shoes .
Press Secretary Martin Andanar, who said he cried when he read the draft of President Duterte’s first State of the Nation Address, was not being melodramatic.
I, too, cried listening to the President’s speech.
I don’t know which part made Andanar cry. As for me, it was the part when he lambasted media for likening to Michaelangelo’s “The Pieta”, the heart-wrenching photo of Jennelyn Olaires cradling the dead body of Michael Siaron, a 30-year-old pedicab driver, who was shot dead by motorcycle-riding men while he was waiting for passengers past midnight last Friday in Pasay City.
The unidentified gunmen left a cardboard sign, “I’m a drug pusher, do not emulate me.”
Inspired by the spate of killings which is an offshoot of President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs, three congressmen proposed building a crematorium in every legislative district.
The proposal, contained in House Bill No. 135 authored by AKO Bicol party list Representatives Rodel Batocabe, Alfredo Garbin, and Christopher Co, is reminiscent of Nazi Germany more than 80 years ago, when Adolf Hitler waged a campaign to eliminate the Jews.
More than 20 million were killed in the 12-year reign of terror. Gas chambers and crematoriums were built to hasten the killings and the disposal of dead bodies.
News reports about the bill quoted Batocabe as saying, “Should President Duterte stay true to his mission to eliminate drug pushers by hook or by crook, our cemeteries will definitely be filled to the brim and the crematories will greatly help in this regard.”