The Makati Business Club in a statement on Thursday said it “expresses its concern about the (Feb. 13) arrest of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa.” ‘Especially while there are questions about whether the law is applicable, we believe the authorities should err on the side of freedom of the press that is a bedrock of all our rights and liberty,” the business group said. “A brave and free press is an ally in the fight against corruption that we and the government espouse in order to encourage investment badly needed to generate employment and wealth creation that is truly inclusive.”
Former Bureau of Customs (BoC) chief and now Technical Education and Skills Development Authority Director-General Isidro S. Lapeña appeared before a panel of the Department of Justice (DoJ) and submitted his counter-affidavit to a complaint by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). The complaint is in connection with the P2.4-billion shabu shipments kept in two magnetic lifters and found at the Manila International Container Port in August 2018 and the P11-billion worth of the same illegal drugs placed in four magnetic lifters found in Cavite. Mr. Lapeña is charged with two counts each of graft, dereliction of duty, and grave misconduct. 50 others were also charged by the NBI. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
Malacañang on Thursday said the United States supports President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s anti-drug campaign. In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador S. Panelo said United States Ambassador Sung Y. Kim and the US-Philippine Society had met with Mr. Duterte at the Palace last Wednesday. “The conversation centered on the President’s narrative telling them how the drug war affected him and this country; and that he had to declare war on drugs. And he had to do it because he wants to protect and preserve this nation,” Mr. Panelo said. “In response, the US Ambassador said that the US government supports the fight against drugs.”
The Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) has filed three more complaints before the Department of Justice (DoJ) in connection with the deaths linked to the Dengvaxia vaccine. This brings the total number of Dengvaxia-related complaints to 35. PAO recommended the charging of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide and violations of the Anti-Torture Act and Consumer Act of the Philippines against former health secretary Janette P. Loreto-Garin, other health officials as well as officials of Dengvaxia manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur and distributor Zuellig Pharma Corporation. The Food and Drug Administration on Feb. 19 permanently banned Dengvaxia following Sanofi’s noncompliance in submitting required post-approval commitment documents. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
News stories from across the nation. Visit www.bworldonline.com (section: The Nation) to read more national and regional news from the Philippines.
TODAY, February 22, is the first of the four days of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. The Revolution against the Marcoses officially ended on February 25, when Corazon Cojuangco Aquino took her oath as President of the Republic. Her oath of office was administered by Supreme Court Justice Claudio Teehankee at what is now called appropriately the Kalayaan (Freedom) Hall of Club Filipino in San Juan.
Many of those who were at EDSA have long since gone ahead. President Cory passed away on August 1, 2009. Vice-President Salvador Laurel, Senate President Jovito Salonga, Speaker Ramon V. Mitra, Senator Lorenzo Tañada, Senator Jose W. Diokno, Senator Neptali Gonzalez, Jose Mari Velez, Maximo Soliven, Chino Roces, Bobbit Sanchez, Senator Ernesto Maceda, Mayor Mel Lopez, and Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma have all died. And many more less known but just as courageous heroes have come and gone, many of them unnoticed and unrecognized.
Many of the millions who were at EDSA are however still around and join us in the struggle not to forget and to keep the fire of EDSA alive. Certainly there are efforts to revise history—as if EDSA did not happen or that if it happened at all, only a few people were around.
I’m reminded of an interview I had with a professor at one of the international schools in Manila. He was researching the execution of Ninoy Aquino, the nationwide mass demonstrations the execution triggered, and the events snowballing into the Presidential snap elections called at the behest of Ronald Reagan (one of whose advisers then is the infamous Paul Manafort of Donald Trump), the withdrawal of the support to Marcos by Juan Ponce Enrile, Vice Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos and the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), the call by Jaime Cardinal Sin which resulted in millions pouring out into EDSA and finally, victory.
This professor asked me the same questions he asked political players during that time in Philippine history. One politician who managed to cling onto power regardless of who was president after Marcos, perhaps in a moment of bitterness and envy, even remarked, that whoever killed Ninoy did the Filipino people a favor. It was a remark, if quoted correctly, that stood in contrast to what he had said about Ninoy when he was in good graces with the then political dispensation.
And another remark that should also be at the top of the list of the lie of the century (if there were ever such a compilation) was that of Imelda Marcos who reportedly said, that “at the height of the so-called EDSA Revolution, I rode in my car and drove along EDSA and there was nothing there, only a few people, ordinary passersby. No traffic, it was an easy, smooth ride.”
Now, these two remarks are vicious and unkind attempts to rewrite and revise history. They could be called outstanding examples of illusion management.
Aware of these attempts, it is the obligation of those of our generation who were around in the Martial Law years, the years immediately preceding those days of infamy, and the years after the execution of Ninoy Aquino to resist all these attempts to rewrite history. We must do battle for the hearts and minds of the young and the millennials who are now in college or early in their professional careers.
It offers very little comfort that aside from the usual obligatory messages, we do not hear of any organized and institutionalized effort to commemorate and honor an event in Philippine history that fulfilled the aspirations of the Filipino people. EDSA should be no different from the liberation of the Philippines during World War II (WWII). The only difference is that in the case of WWII, we were freed from a foreign invader while in the case of EDSA we got rid of a local homegrown tyrant.
One can only imagine if those who wished to remain in power during the Martial Law years, did remain in power. The development of new Philippine leaders steeped in democracy, peace, accountability, and transparency would have ground to a halt. New leaders would not have emerged: from President Cory, to Fidel Ramos, to Joseph Estrada, to Gloria Arroyo, Noynoy Aquino, and Rodrigo Duterte. Gone too would have been the likes of Serge Osmeña, Chel Diokno, Erin Tañada, Bam Aquino, Sonny Angara, Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, and many others.
Thirty three years have passed since the EDSA Revolution, but we have vivid memories of what transpired and who were the culprits. Let us use the following days to relive and retell those stories so that the young will better appreciate what their elders did and hopefully, they can learn and continue the struggle not to forget.
Philip Ella Juico was dean of the De La Salle Graduate School of Business from 2002 to 2008. He was agrarian reform secretary from 1987 to 1989 and chairman of the Philippine Sports Commission from 1995 to 1998. Dr. Juico remains active in sports and solar energy.
ASKED if he caused the February 13 arrest of Rappler CEO and editor Maria Ressa, President Rodrigo Duterte said he had nothing to do with it, and that he did not “relish picking on her.” He also said he did not know Wilfredo Keng, whose complaint that he had been libeled by the online news site led to the Ressa arrest.
Duterte spokesperson Salvador Panelo took a more belligerent tack. He accused Ressa of abusing her power by supposedly mobilizing media organizations in her defense. Ressa had described her arrest as an abuse of government power.
Panelo’s attempt to turn the tables on one of his principal’s perceived enemies was as clumsy as it was typical. Journalists do have powers, among them that of convincing others of the truth or falsehood of certain claims, and contributing to the shaping of public opinion. But these powers are not in the same league as those of governments to arrest individuals and detain them, to the legal use of force, and, as the entire world has witnessed in the last two and a half years, to torture, maim, and kill with impunity. Power is not surprisingly often defined as a State monopoly, in comparison with which the power to inform pales into insignificance.
But journalists are nevertheless charged with the responsibility of monitoring the powerful and holding them to account. The obsession of governments with controlling journalists and their media organizations is based on the fear that while the threat and use of force can compel obedience, information can be liberating. It explains why governments often look at independent journalists with suspicion and as enemies to be vanquished.
Regime hostility to Rappler became apparent two years ago in Mr. Duterte’s 2017 State of the Nation Address. He claimed then that it is foreign-owned and threatened to have it investigated. Its Malacañang reporter was subsequently barred from the presidential presence. The cancellation of Rappler’s registration by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in early 2018 was also widely interpreted as part of Mr. Duterte’s making good on his threat, as was the filing of five tax evasion charges against it late last year.
In the context of that troubling history, the arrest of Ressa on cyber libel charges could not have been otherwise interpreted than as part of a government campaign against Rappler in which all the powers of government are being mobilized.
Both the Presidential Communications Operations Office and the National Press Club dismissed that interpretation, with the head of the first lecturing Rappler to confront the charges, and the second arguing that libel is part of the risks journalists must accept as part of the territory, although it did say that it was “in bad taste” for the government to arrest Ressa at the end of office hours so she could not immediately post bail.
To describe the timing of Ressa’s arrest as merely “in bad taste” is to ignore that practice’s capacity to intimidate practitioners and frighten them into silence at the prospect of spending even a single night in one of the disease-infested, overcrowded and hellish prisons for which this country is noted. Ressa was detained at NBI headquarters, but could have been held in a municipal jail, as others similarly accused have been.
From the US colonial period to the present, the 87-year-old criminal libel law has been among the means the powerful have used against journalists for either being critical or merely reporting the truth. In 2018 dozens of libel suits were filed all over the Philippines mostly by government officials against a number of journalists. During the problematic presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her husband filed 11 libel suits against 43 reporters, editors and publishers.
Libel is indeed a common enough accusation against journalists. But just because it has become a weapon of choice of those in government and outside it who have secrets to keep doesn’t make it acceptable. Hence the decades-old campaign to decriminalize it, which assumes that while media abuse should be checked, imprisonment should not be the means to do it.
Because it is a criminal offense, anyone convicted of libel can be imprisoned for six months to four years per count. But that’s only for libel in print, as mandated by the Revised Penal Code of 1932. In 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council described the Philippine libel law as “excessive.” But instead of reviewing and decriminalizing libel, Congress passed the Cyber Crime Prevention Act (Republic Act 10175) in September, 2012, in which the penalty for libel via any computer-based medium (the Internet, cell phones) was increased to four to eight years per count.
In his previous life as a human rights and press freedom defender, former Duterte spokesperson Harry Roque opposed the Cyber Crime Prevention Act for being unconstitutional, pointing out at one point that it is so repressive that under its provisions, one could go to prison for cyber libel for as long as 12 years.
The date of the passage of RA 10175 — September, 2012 — is crucial to Ressa’s case. The complaint for cyber libel against Rappler was filed in May, 2012, which means that by filing it the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is making the application of the law retroactive, in defiance of Article III, Section 22 of the Constitution which bans the passing of any ex post facto (after the fact) law. But the NBI cyber crime unit says that the crime Ressa is being charged with is a continuing offense. The Department of Justice also claims that the prescriptive limit of one year after the offense of libel is committed does not apply to cyber libel, and that the prescriptive period for it is 12 years.
Both claims if upheld will endanger not only press freedom, but also everyone else’s liberty and right to free expression. Not only does this interpretation make the Cyber Crime Prevention Act applicable retroactively. It would also establish a precedent. If a law were passed prohibiting, say, the posting of anything critical of government online, anyone who did so in the past can be retroactively prosecuted for it, and even 12 years after. This would apply to anything conveyed via computers — Facebook, email, and even text messages.
The inevitable conclusion is that not only Rappler is likely to be targeted. Mr. Duterte has indeed threatened to block the renewal of ABS-CBN broadcast network’s franchise. He has accused the owners of the Inquirer of tax delinquencies and threatened to “expose” them. But several online media sites (Bulatlat, Kodao, AlterMidya, Pinoy Weekly), as well as the website of the National Union of Journalists of Philippines (NUJP), are already being systematically taken down in a series of unrelenting and well-funded cyber attacks.
There is no smoking gun to prove that the latter is the government’s doing. But the fact that all the news sites that have been and are still being attacked are critical of government, and that NUJP has borne the brunt of an obviously government-orchestrated campaign of vilification, lead to no other conclusion.
What’s next in the regime agenda of quelling dissent and criticism? The passage of an openly ex post facto law? A bill of attainder? (Such a bill would punish without trial.). Both are expressly prohibited by the 1987 Constitution. But the entire country should know by now that the Duterte regime wants to replace that Charter with one not as protective of those rights that despite Constitutional protection are almost daily being violated in this country today. The attack on Rappler is not just an attack on press freedom. It is also an attack on free expression, and therefore on every one.
Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).
www.luisteodoro.com
“Socialist governments make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. They then start to nationalise everything, try to control everything by other means.”
— Margaret Thatcher (TV interview February 5, 1976,
3 years before she became UK Prime Minister)
MODERN day socialists and populists in governments, explicit and implicit, are aware of the limits of governments giving all sorts of endless, no timetable subsidies, discounts and other welfarist programs. So they invented a new form of welfarism — forcing private corporations to give mandatory discounts (restaurant food, medicines, fare in public transportation, etc.) to people, rich and poor no distinction. Politicians and governments get the credit while corporations get the financial burden as those forced discounts cannot be used for tax deduction.
There are two existing laws that force and coerce private corporations to give mandatory 20% discounts on fare, medicines, all-year round: (1) RA 9994 “Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010,” and (2) RA 9442 (2007) “Amending RA 7277 ‘Magna Carta for Disabled Persons.’” Both laws do not allow the fare discounts, medicines discounts, food discounts, etc. for tax deduction. Only the private corporations will shoulder the full cost in the form of lower revenues.
Now there are bills in Congress, House Bill (HB) 8885 and Senate Bill (SB) 1597 “Student Fare Discount Act,” both passed on third reading, forcing all public transportation operators to give all Filipino students from elementary to tertiary, technical and vocational, a 20% mandatory discount all-year round including weekends and holidays, and covers all means of transportation — buses, jeepneys, tricycles, taxi, TNVS, TNCs, trains, airplanes and passenger ships.
HB 8885 has two compensatory and relief provisions for public transportation operators: (1) tax deduction from gross income for the same taxable year, and (2) reduction or exemption from some regulatory fees and charges. SB 1597 has none.
A bicameral committee meeting will be set after the May elections and guess what bill will prevail when the DoF comes in? Very likely the Senate version because the DoF just wants tax-tax-tax and dislikes tax deductions.
Fare control and price control without tax deduction are wrong and socialistic because they distort pricing by private enterprises. In the case of mandatory fare discounts say for airlines, poor students may travel and avail the discount only once or twice a year. Rich students (and senior citizens) can travel 10, 20 times a year or more and avail more discounts while earning more air mileage.
The price distortion can be represented by the graph here. If there are no laws on mandatory and forced discounts, the equilibrium price or fare will be at point A and buslines, taxis, airlines, shipping lines can make money subject to competition.
With mandatory 20% discount, the demand curve shifts to the right, there will be more travels by students, senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs) as their fare goes down to point B. Some or many transportation companies will risk going bankrupt if they will endure this, so they have to raise the price for the regular passengers to point C so that the composite or weighted average fare can go back to point A.
So the mandatory price discount has created a new inflationary pressure, higher prices and fares for non-students, non-senior citizens and non-PWDs.
Mandatory discount is fare control, price control and profit control. The government wants to control how much revenues the corporations can make. Private enterprises adjust and raise the price for everyone else.
A good way to avoid this price distortion is to junk these two bills but this is impossible now because they have been passed on third reading. A compromise is to adopt the House version, the cost of all student fare discounts will be credited for tax deductions and reductions of other regulatory fees and charges.
In case DoF will prevail and the Senate version will be adopted, then ordinary passengers will endure the cost of higher fares and they can demonize the DoF for causing another round of consumer inflation via higher fares — in buses, taxis, TNVS, airlines, shipping lines.
Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Minimal Government Thinkers
minimalgovernment@gmail.com
