THE UNITED States Embassy Civil Affairs Team has donated five intensive care unit beds to Batanes, the northernmost islands in the Philippines, in support of the provincial government’s coronavirus and disaster response efforts.
The hospital beds, amounting to about P589,000, follows the provision of personal protective equipment in November last year.
“The ICU beds we received from the US Embassy CAT will surely be of great help to our continued COVID-19 (and disaster) response,” said Governor Marilou H. Cayco in a statement on Thursday.
“It is my fervent hope that this undertaking will open more windows of opportunity between the people of Batanes and the US Embassy,” she added.
Batanes, given its remote location, was among the last areas in the country to record coronavirus cases. It is frequently hit by typhoons and occasional earthquakes.
In September last year, the province saw a spike in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmissions after super typhoon Kiko, with international name Chanthu, struck.
Provincial Health Office Director Allan M. Sande said the US assistance remains timely and relevant.
“We have been truly impressed by the compassion and resiliency of the Ivatan people. On behalf of the US Embassy, we look forward to our continued collaboration and partnership,” said US Army Capt. Arthur Kim, leader of the Civil Affairs Team. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan
PAMPANGA Governor Dennis G. Pineda has issued a directive to stop all online cockfighting in the province as he emphasized that he was among those who appealed to President Rodrigo R. Duterte to end the gaming operations.
Pampanga-based firm Belvedere Vista Corp. is one of the biggest operators of e-sabong, the local name for online cockfighting, with a license from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
“I myself appealed to our President to stop online sabong that is why I expect our mayors, barangay officials, police and other law enforcement agencies to implement the order of President Duterte,” Mr. Pineda said in Filipino in a statement released on Wednesday by the provincial information office.
The statement included a copy of the governor’s Executive Order No. 16 dated May 4, which directs “all e-sabong operators, their agents and any and all persons acting on their behalf” to immediately stop all related activities.
The order covers “all gaming websites and cease gaming operations, including all accredited auxillary operations and off-cockpit betting stations.”
Mr. Pineda warned that those who violate the order will face criminal charges.
The President announced on Monday his order to terminate all online cockfighting, citing the recommendation of Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año based on a survey indicating that the social costs far outweigh the generated income from these gambling operations. — MSJ
SENATOR Richard J. Gordon, Sr. has denied the renewed appeal for release by two detained officials of a controversial company that allegedly sold overpriced medical supplies to the government.
“They have no one but themselves to blame for their continuing detention in the same manner that only their action, their compliance with just directives can pave the way for their release,” Mr. Gordon said in a statement on Thursday
The senator explained the clear violations made by Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. Director Linconn Ong and Corporate Secretary Mohit Dargani that serve as grounds for their detention.
“Only clear violators of the rules are subject to contempt: lying before the Committee, refusing to answer a valid question asked of the witnesses, and refusal to bring to the Committee documents required to be submitted, among others,” he said, adding that the Blue Ribbon Committee, which he chairs, only “sparingly and rarely” uses its powers to declare others in contempt.
During a hearing last year, the two officials were given the opportunity by the Senate body to locate and submit documents regarding Pharmally’s dealings with the budget department’s procurement service. However, on the set date of submission, they took back their claims by saying the documents did not exist.
In a written letter to Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III, Mr. Ong and Mr. Dargani noted their suffering in Pasay City jail as they pleaded for release. They accused Mr. Gordon of using their detention to further his “political ambitions.”
“There is no bigger lie,” the senator, who is running for reelection, said.
“On the contrary, I was aware from the start that the hearings on Pharmally could hit many personalities and thus could animate those adversely mentioned into campaigning against me.”
“And, that is exactly what happened. I have suffered from negative campaigning, especially in social media, where trolls were organized against my candidacy. Powerful men have publicly issued statements urging our constituents not to vote for me,” he added.
The two said that Mr. Gordon had stolen their lives by bending the truth in the Pharmally case. They noted their respect for Mr. Sotto’s “fair judgement” on the issue.
“I haven’t read the letter yet,” Mr. Sotto told reporters on Wednesday. “What I read was the report in the newspaper that they were suing me at the CHR (Commission on Human Rights) as the role of the SP (Senate President) is ministerial when a Committee has an approved motion.” — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan
THE MAKATI City Prosecutor’s Office has resolved to press charges against a Filipino returning from the United States who skipped the mandatory five-day quarantine in December and attended social gatherings during the supposed isolation period.
In a statement on Thursday, the office said it found probable cause to charge the respondent for not staying in the designated quarantine facility.
The case involves a Filipino woman who traveled to the United States and returned to the Philippines on Dec. 22. She was booked for the coronavirus-related mandatory quarantine at the Berjaya Hotel in Makati until Dec. 27 but left 15 minutes after checking in and attended a party in the city’s Poblacion district.
She went back to the hotel on the night of Dec. 25 and tested positive for the virus the following day.
The government prosecutor said the security guard of the hotel will also face charges for knowingly assisting her to leave.
“As to the other employees of the Hotel, the Makati City Prosecution Office did not find the probable cause as the evidence failed to show that they knowingly allowed Gwyneth to leave the hotel premises,” it said.
The complaint against her boyfriend and her parents was dismissed due to insufficient evidence of a violation, the prosecutor’s office added.
Local police filed charges against the quarantine violator and several others for violating Republic Act 11332 or the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act.
The Department of Tourism temporarily suspended in January the accreditation and multiple-use permit of the Berjaya Hotel. — John Victor D. Ordoñez
Taiwanese multinational technology company Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. (MSI) unveiled on Wednesday new laptop lines tailored for business and productivity, aiming to add office workers and home users to a Philippine market that is composed primarily of gamers.
“There is now one MSI business and productivity laptop for everyone who seeks the optimum productivity in these challenging new normal times,” said Rhyan Sy, MSI Philippines product sales manager, at the in-person launch on May 4.
Already an established brand in the gaming community, MSI wants to pivot to the enterprise segment, especially where the market is growing amid the continuation of remote work and learning in the pandemic, he added.
The new lines are: the Summit series for business professionals and elites; the Prestige series for artists and content creators; and the lightweight Modern series for workers and students.
The three product lines will be available locally this May through Techtron Systems Corporation, MSI’s new distribution partner.
“Techtron’s key expertise and experience in the enterprise market … will help leverage our position in the Philippines in the future,” Mr. Sy said.
Powered by 12th generation Intel Core processors, the new laptops answer the needs of users such as “device responsiveness from anywhere, long battery life, fast-charging support, and robust security and safety features,” according to MSI’s press release.
GP Padit, country retail marketing manager of MSI Philippines, explained at the launch that these processors were developed with a focus on performance and efficiency.
“This time, we focused more on the hybrid performance technologies,” he said. “Imagine thin and light laptops that can display multiple screens at 4k resolution.”
Both the Summit and Prestige series will also have enterprise-grade security, according to MSI Philippines’ product marketing manager Ira James Garcia. This includes smart sensor software Tobii Aware, which blurs the screen when you step away from your laptop or when it detects someone peeking from behind.
The Summit E16 Flip A12 UDT-057PH, the Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT-072PH, and the Summit E14 Flip Evo A12MT-074PH cost P124,995, P89,995, and P79,995 respectively.
The artist and content creator-friendly Prestige 15 and 14 series laptops will have five price points: P109,995, P99,995 P89,995, P69,995, and P59,995.
Meanwhile, home users can find the Modern 15 B12M priced at P48,995; and the Modern 14 C12M, at P46,995.
“Business and productivity laptops are not designed for gaming, but they can handle it,” Mr. Garcia added, “It’s useful for professionals and students who are also gamers.” — Brontë H. Lacsamana
The US State Department has been issuing its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices since the 1980s, with special emphasis on the recipient countries of US economic and military assistance. A series of laws passed by the United States Congress in the latter part of the 1970s, during the James Carter Presidency (1977-1981), makes respect for human rights a condition for such aid.
The Reports are issued annually in furtherance of US foreign policy, and were in response to criticism that the United States was fomenting military coups against democratically elected, “unfriendly” governments, while supporting brutal dictatorships such as those of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines (1972-1986) and Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1981).
US military and economic assistance did help keep those tyrannies and others in power because of their anti-communism and allegiance to the former’s economic and strategic interests.
Nevertheless, State Department analysts say the Reports are meant to “name and shame” violators and encourage respect for human rights in exchange for US assistance. But the US record has not been consistent with that supposed principle (it supported Marcos Senior up to the last minute in 1986).
US President Joseph Biden promised that he would make human rights “more central” in US foreign policy and would hold violator regimes to account. But in June, 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that the Biden administration had notified the US Congress of the sale to the Duterte regime of some $2.5 billion worth of sophisticated weaponry. HRW demanded that the sale be stopped because it would reward and encourage the police and military minions of the “increasingly abusive” regime to continue committing the human rights violations that characterize its “drug war” and anti-insurgency program.
Neither the alleged centrality of human rights in its foreign policy nor the Reports’ criticism had prevented the US from selling weapons and providing military and economic assistance to a succession of Philippine regimes from that of Marcos Senior’s to Rodrigo Duterte’s. The Reports’ 2022 edition on the human rights situation in 2021, which again names security forces as the worst violators of human rights in the Philippines, would very likely have minimal impact on such military sales and assistance.
Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) head Martin Andanar described as “baseless,” “rehashed,” and “recycled” the allegations in the Reports that numerous human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detention, and torture occurred in the Philippines in 2021, that conditions in its prisons were “life-threatening,” and that police and other security forces were responsible. Department of National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana for his part labeled them “innuendoes,” and the Philippine part of the Reports a “witch hunt,” and “black propaganda.”
Though once again named, the regime is apparently far from shamed. But Andanar is partly correct about the “recycled” part. The Reports have made the same allegations in its past editions.
However, their being “rehashed” suggests that they have not been sufficiently addressed and are continuing.
Lorenzana is also only partly correct. The propaganda part of the Reports is not so much against the subject country as for the US to appear to be committed to the protection of human rights despite its military aid and sale of weapons not only to the Philippines but also to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries that are hardly paragons of democracy.
Although it can eventually be established, the exact number of human rights violations in the Philippines is still in dispute. But the grief and outrage of the families, friends, and communities of the victims of the violations cited by the Reports cannot be denied.
The survivors of those victims lament and have been demanding justice for those killed during the “war on drugs” that President Rodrigo Duterte himself has admitted is a failure (his pledge to end the drug problem was merely “campaign hubris,” he recently said), and for the social and political activists who have been imprisoned on fabricated charges, abducted, or shot dead in the streets.
In a continuing demonstration of the persistence of the culture of impunity, only in a few instances have erring police and military personnel, including those guilty of the most heinous crimes, been penalized, in most cases by merely being suspended, re-assigned, or dismissed from active service. Indeed, despite the possibility of his being prosecuted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), in a statement that in effect validated the claims of the State Department Reports, Mr. Duterte even proudly declared last March that while Russian President Vladimir Putin “kills civilians,” he himself “kills criminals.” But the so-called “criminals” killed, among them minors, were in fact civilians as well, and were alleged suspects whose guilt no court had established.
A report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) equally validated the Reports’ findings that the perpetrators of the crimes it noted have mostly escaped punishment because of the inefficacy of police internal cleansing mechanisms.
PCIJ’s “The Desaparecidos of Duterte’s Drug War” is on a little known aspect of the “Tokhang” terror campaign. In addition to outright killings, the Duterte police also abducted and forcibly disappeared not only suspected drug pushers and addicts but anyone else who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
PCIJ reporter Aie Balagtas interviewed a mother whose son had gone out to buy a soft drink but who has since been missing, and a police asset who alleged that he and other mercenaries had abducted individuals including minors, and brought them to a police safe-house called “compac” where they were killed, without their families’ ever knowing where they were and whether they were alive or dead.
The uncertainty has made the life of the mother of the missing boy sheer agony. She has consulted fortune tellers in the vain hope that she would be told that her son is still alive, and, in the hope of running into him, has frequented the streets he used to walk through when coming home. But the police asset told PCIJ that her son was among those he and his companions had abducted and killed, supposedly on police instructions.
An anonymous source, said PCIJ, had later tipped off journalists on a dozen killings that were to take place in the same vicinity as the missing boy’s neighborhood, although no news account mentioned it. But the fact remains that most of those targeted for killing, abduction, or enforced disappearance were from the poorer sectors of society to whom security forces could do anything without fear of accountability.
What to make of the State Department Reports then, given their being in the service of US foreign policy, but in the context as well of the validity of their claim that the same human rights violations are still occurring in the country of our sorrows while the perpetrators are still free to harass, torture, abduct, and kill again?
The Reports do give a voice to the victims of human rights violations and adds to that of their families’ and communities’. They are also a reminder of the imperative of holding the guilty to account, and added pressure on the Philippine National Police — which does have procedures on, among others, the investigation of the cases of the many poor people who go missing — to observe those protocols.
Perhaps those named can eventually be shamed into observing their own rules? In the present lawless circumstances in these isles of fear, that is probably the most that anyone can hope for.
Luis V. Teodoro is on Facebook and Twitter (@luisteodoro).
PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANT Vice-President Leni Robredo waves to supporters during a campaign rally along Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in Pasay City on April 23. — PHILIPPINE STAR/ MIGUEL DE GUZMAN
Some commentators have started to talk about GOTV — get out the vote. It was grueling, but now we are in the last week of the 90-day campaign period. This is inexorably the culmination of the whole process of the political campaign. True, the message to the electorate is key to building the base, but actually bringing this base to the precinct is indeed the litmus test of how those mammoth rallies and endless caravans managed to connect to the hearts and minds of the electorate. Converting them to votes is tough.
Winning pre-election surveys or even Goggle trends is one thing, but inspiring people to go out, queue at the polls, and deliver the votes is primordial. Vice-President Leni Robredo’s unquestionable momentum should now spill over to the polling places, on to the undecided among our registered voters.
There are still a great many of them, the undecided among us.
Ten days ago, Inquirer reported Jean Franco, a UP political science professor, saying that in 2016, 45% of voters chose who to vote for president only in April and May, and even waited until the day of the election itself. This would contextualize some comments in media that recent endorsements of some candidates from major groups are just too late. The exit poll of the Social Weather Station (SWS) back in 2016 in fact would support the observation that the number of the undecided rose as the D-day approached: 12% decided in April, 15% in May and 18% on the day of the election.
No less than Mahar Mangahas, then SWS president, confirmed that “taking time to decide is a characteristic of the voters.” If those who made up their minds only on election day were to be the gauge, we are seeing more of them recently. The share of the undecided to the sum of the voters rose from 15% in 2010 to 18% in 2016.
What is the political significance of this enormous number of the undecided?
For one, this could be the missing link between the seeming contradictory results of pre-election surveys and what Google trends suggests.
Marcos Jr.’s dominance of the surveys derives from his heavy use of social media after his 2016 loss to VP Leni. With no small support from Cambridge Analytics, he has managed to rebrand the Marcos name while his troll farms have propagated a thousand urban legends about the family gold and his achievements. His campaign continues to directly access civil society through social media which has practically no filters against disinformation. By calling for unity and sobriety in this campaign, he managed to condition the minds of his supporters and would-be supporters to avoid mounting personal attacks against any one candidate — including Marcos Jr. himself. That call works for him because of the skeletons in his closet. There are the troll farms to demolish the other contestants. He ends up holier than the Pope. He is Teflon, nothing seems to stick to him.
Disclosures of the truth about his father’s Martial Law brutalities and plunder of the country’s treasury, even as confirmed by the Supreme Court and Congress, were easily dismissed as “politically motivated.” TikTok and YouTube and Tweeters are cheap vehicles for disinformation. Avoiding public debates is convenient, and patently consistent with this ingenious public relations coup. This is where Marcos Jr. is coming from each time he declines an invitation to a public debate.
Thus, those high survey results simply reflect the reward to this protracted social media exposure and disinformation.
But this large margin also cuts the other way.
Notwithstanding the many reservations about their sampling design and methodology, these survey results were enough of a challenge for VP Leni to intensify her campaign and the results are astounding, quite obvious from the ever-increasing groundswell of support in all the “Olympink” rallies from Luzon, to the Visayas and Mindanao. This is called momentum. Tsunami, if you will. Marcos Jr.’s camp has a serious handicap battling volunteerism, a spontaneous response of goodwill to an inspiring cause. It’s tough even to equal the size and energy of the pink crowd. The top three areas in NCR south — Pasay, Batangas and Laguna — alone turned out nearly a million people. Tomorrow’s Miting de Avance in Makati promises another million people.
But the Filipino people are not content with what they see and hear from Marcos Jr.’s website and other social media uploads. They search the internet, and, finding the truth, they also search for alternatives.
If there is one person who was diligent enough to do her own homework before she decided on her presidential choice, it is Jean Christine Armas, a young economist. No, she did not engage in any partisan politics but she conducted a good objective research of the top two contenders for the presidency by assessing their respective platforms of government through searching the internet, among other resources, as well as their track record. She uploaded her research on her Facebook page.
A good summary of her findings should be helpful to any one of those over 40% undecided. On their overall policy statement, JC concludes: “The country’s macroeconomic framework is unlikely to change drastically regardless of who between the top two aspirants wins amid policy continuity from the incumbent administration, with focus on job creation, agriculture, MSMEs, foreign direct investment, and agriculture.” This is something one should expect, especially when both candidates are expected to depend on economic managers of a generally liberal market-friendly persuasion. It is wisdom, too, to build on their predecessor’s accomplishments.
Beyond this similarity, JC distinguishes between the two by saying “on investor/market perception, Robredo’s presidency is deemed to be more favorable than Marcos’ administration amid the former’s initiatives aimed at improving governance and transparency.”
JC subscribes to that virtuous cycle of transparency and accountability leading to enhanced competition and investor perception, which actually encourages higher investments, employment, and income generation. In turn, this is expected to drive higher spending and higher economic output. Marcos Jr., by his pronouncements favoring the reversal of the rice tariffication law and reviving the regulatory powers of the National Food Authority, shows his bias to policies that are both populist — mandating lower rice prices at the expense of the farmers — and statist — more government intervention in the market. This has a chilling effect on any businessman.
Finally, and the most significant aspect of JC’s research, what would assure us that the candidate will deliver as promised?
She invokes a basic human resource principle that “past behavior predicts or determines future performance.” On paper, both candidates appear impressive, but taking a deep dive into Marcos Jr.’s legislative performance, it was rather sloppy and hollow. JC also cited the following cases that continue to haunt Marcos Jr: “(1) Ill-gotten wealth cases => Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has recovered P174.2 billion as of March 2021. P125.9 billion in Marcos ill-gotten wealth has yet to be recovered and remains under litigation; and (2) Six convicted cases on tax evasion => Convicted on 27 July 1995.”
JC anchors her choice on May 9 on three H’s: history of care, heart with character, and hand of competence. Hands down, JC is writing Leni Robredo, number 10, on the ballot.
JC is only one perhaps of a thousand or a million Google users to search and find the truth in this pandemic of lies and disinformation. The alternative is VP Leni and she has scored almost the same rating as Marcos Jr. in the lagging indicators of the survey results.
The big difference between VP Leni and Marcos Jr. in either of the survey results or Goggle trends could be the size of the undecided and how each camp intends to convert them on May 9. One thing we know, the pink wave has gone on house-to-house campaigns all over the Philippines, in both the High Street of Bonifacio Global City and Divisoria on Juan Luna. “Heneral” Arcilla stopped traffic in Tondo to address the people directly to endorse tropa rather than trapo.
For the undecided reading this column, you may wish to consider the road taken by JC. She concludes her research by expressing her choice of a leader as one “who can represent our country with integrity, honor and excellence.”
VP Leni is not banned from traveling in the US or in Switzerland. She has no criminal or civil case against her. She wears her badge of excellence with degrees in economics and law. She will have no trouble being addressed as “Her Excellency.”
Bayan, may pag-asa tayo! (My country, we have hope!)
Diwa C. Guinigundo is the former deputy governor for the Monetary and Economics Sector, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). He served the BSP for 41 years. In 2001-2003, he was alternate executive director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. He is the senior pastor of the Fullness of Christ International Ministries in Mandaluyong.
May, when we honor and celebrate our Blessed Mother Mary and hold beautiful festivals like the Santacruzan, is also Heritage Month. The prolonged COVID-19 pandemic cancelled and altered many of the plans for this wonderful month over the past two years. However, resilience is the quality that characterizes the Filipino spirit. The show must go on, albeit on a smaller scale and online to protect the people.
The Filipino Heritage Festival, Inc. (FHFI), though the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), has produced activities and events that give Filipinos “the opportunities to take pride, know, experience, and value the heritage we call our very own,” Armita Bantug Rufino said.
“I have been with FHFI for 17 years (as president) and I don’t regret it, even if, at times, funding is difficult to get. Our Senator Serge Osmeña and Senator Edgardo Angara (+) extended their support whenever NCCA could not give us the funding. And our great appreciation goes to our partners Security Bank, SM, City of Makati, Philippine Postal, Intramuros Administration, National Museum, Metropolitan Museum and other LGUs. Without them, we would not have lasted this long. Mabuhay ang lahing Filipino (Long live the Filipino people)!”
“Heritage is what we inherit from those who came before us, it is the legacy of our community that binds us, roots us, and gives us a sense of who we are, where we came from, and what makes us unique. Preservation requires us to remember and celebrate our heritage, ensure that we treasure it, and ensure that the future generations enjoy the wealth of our community’s heritage and pass on who we are,” said Representative Francisco “Kiko” Benitez.
This year the Filipino Heritage Festival will be honoring cartoonist and National Artist for Visual Arts Larry Alcala with an exhibit, Larry Alcala: Slices of Life, Wit and Humor at The Metropolitan Museum of Manila (The M) from May 19 to June 19. There will also be the release of commemorative stamps featuring illustrations from Alcala’s Slice of Life cartoon series, and a tribute to him on May 19.
“The M will join hands with FHFI, NCCA, and other partners in paying tribute to National Artist Larry Alcala who distinguished himself as the dean of illustrators and cartoonists,” said Tina Colayco, Metropolitan Museum president. “He was a beloved art educator during his lifetime. For more than a decade, Alcala humored and amused audiences with his daily illustrations of everyday local neighborhood scenes called Slice of Life. His exhibition underscores the theme of 2022 Heritage Month that focuses on promoting and preserving the Filipino heritage within the community’ which is strongly aligned to the museum’s thrust to bring ART for ALL.”
This year’s theme, “Pamanang Lokal,” is simple yet full of depth as it encourages each one of us to know oneself, our family, our community, and our environment. “Our heritage is our pride, our wealth our joy, our dignity, our ‘binhi ng kulturang Pilipino,’” Ms. Rufino emphasized.
Mabuhay and Congratulations to the FHFI trustees, partners, performers, participants and sponsors.
Maria Victoria Rufino is an artist, writer and businesswoman. She is president and executive producer of Maverick Productions.
The big news, of course, is the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade, what with the leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s ponencia in Politico magazine. The ramifications of that will be discussed in a later article. The other big news, coming earlier, of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, led to absolutely deranged breakdowns from woke progressives.
And the reason for the leftists meltdown, complete with gnashing of teeth? Because apparently Elon Musk promised that Twitter will be a platform for “free speech.”
Now in normal, saner times, that comment would not have raised an eyebrow. Much less mass hysteria. But these are not normal sane times (e.g., see lockdown and mask fanatics, as well as vaccine adverse effects deniers), so the idea of upholding free speech is now considered anathema to the woke crowd.
For them, free speech is an avenue for hate and intolerance. It gives the bigoted and the uneducated the freewheeling capacity to spew their misogyny and medieval beliefs (e.g., Christianity).
But the problem with that mindset is that it’s utterly self-serving, baseless, and self-destructive.
First of all, who decides what is hateful, intolerant, and misogynistic? And who decides what’s to be done with the hateful, intolerant, and misogynistic?
It can’t be those woke progressives with a clear ideological agenda on those matters. Their obvious bias can’t possibly reasonably lead to the common good. Because, actually, no one can. Because everyone has a self-interest: we all have wants, purposes, and beliefs. But society cannot cater to each individual’s wants, purposes, and beliefs. Rather, society seeks to uphold those shared characteristics, culture, interests, and beliefs, which free speech allows us to identify. That’s the point of free speech. Woke cancel culture is the reverse of that.
Princeton professor Robert George laments: “Secular progressive ideology is ascendant in the elite institutions of our society: the federal government, many state governments, universities, news and entertainment media, the arts, professions and professional associations, labor unions, charitable foundations, major business corporations, and on and on. [Wokeism has a] near monopoly on cultural power. Obviously, it enables the transmission of Woke ideology — a fundamentalist and increasingly militant pseudo-religion — to rising generations and makes it difficult for dissenters to challenge that ideology and, indeed, to survive without being subjected to discrimination and even ‘cancellation.’” (“Can We Still Reason Together?,” Serena Sigillito and Robert P. George, Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, Dec. 30, 2021)
Hence why it is absolutely vital for free speech to be upheld. A vibrant and dynamic society needs diversity of thought, which can only be achieved through voluntary and honest exchange of divergent ideas.
Political commentator Arthur Milikh writes: “Restriction of free speech… will cause a decline in these moral and mental prerequisites to self-rule. The loss of the capacity to think for oneself and form rational judgments about the common good and human merit will give rise to the rule of anger, resentment, and force.” (“Why Identity Politics’ Speech Controls Will Cancel Self-Government If We Don’t Resist,” The Federalist, Dec. 3, 2020)
News and social media are definitely to be blamed in this censoring of divergent views. And yet, universities are also hugely at fault for the rise in cancel culture mentality in the young: university professors trying to relive their glory days of 1970s activism, academics forcing their views on defenseless students dependent on them for grades, and — as we have seen recently — universities effectively campaigning for specific political candidates. This is all contrary to the idea of what a university should be.
Professor Lucas Morel, Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University, points out that: “College campuses have to be in the vanguard of protecting the right of diverse thought that is uttered in good faith and civility. But even civility is being challenged now as, ‘Oh, if you’re in favor of civility, you’re in favor of the status quo, and therefore, you’re in favor of white supremacy.’ xxx [if on] college campuses you cannot be free, your students cannot be free, and if we are self-censoring to avoid challenging situations, then both hands are practically tied behind our backs in terms of trying to figure out what’s true, right, beautiful, and noble in the world.” (“Fighting for Free Speech on Campus,” Howard L. Muncy and Lucas Morel,Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, Aug. 28, 2021)
Universities serve as microcosm of the greater world. What happens to universities translates outside to the public. And, of course, those former students will eventually take over the country. Thus, Professor George says: “Where there is a mutual commitment to truth and truth-seeking, relationships can be built between religious believers and secularists, and they can indeed reason together. The minimum condition is this: interlocutors, however wide and deep their substantive philosophical or other differences, need to share the conviction that business between them is to be conducted in the proper currency of intellectual discourse — namely, reasons, evidence, and arguments.”
Indeed, after two years of pointless COVID measures, it would be nice for society to return to “reasons, evidence, and arguments.”
Jemy Gatdula is a senior fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence
A MAN wears a protective mask as he walks on Wall Street in New York City, New York, US, March 13, 2020. — REUTERS
THE US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) added over 80 firms, including China’s JD.com, to a list of entities facing possible expulsion from American exchanges amid a long-running auditing standoff between the United States and China.
On Wednesday, the SEC expanded the list on a provisional lineup under a 2020 law known as The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA), which aims to remove foreign-jurisdiction companies from US bourses if they fail to comply with American auditing standards for three years in a row.
In the long-drawn dispute, US regulators have been demanding complete access to audit working papers of New York-listed Chinese companies, which are stored in China.
The request has so far been denied by China on national security grounds, but regulators in the two countries are discussing operational details of an audit deal that Beijing hopes to sign this year.
JD.com said on Thursday it is aware that the company has been identified by the SEC under the Act, and that it has been actively exploring possible solutions.
“The company will continue to comply with applicable laws and regulations in both China and the United States, and strive to maintain its listing status on both Nasdaq and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange,” JD.com said in a statement.
Other large Chinese companies that were added to the SEC’s list were JinkoSolar Holding Co Ltd., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Bilibili Inc., and NetEase Inc., among others.
Sources had told Reuters in March Chinese regulators had asked some of the country’s US-listed firms, including Alibaba, Baidu, and JD.com, to prepare more audit disclosures.— Reuters
THE OMICRON variant of the SARS-CoV2 virus is intrinsically as severe as previous variants, unlike assumptions made in previous studies that it was more transmissible but less severe, a large study in the United States has found.
“We found that the risks of hospitalization and mortality were nearly identical between periods,” said four scientists who conducted the study based on records of 130,000 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, referring to times in the past two years when different variants were dominant across the world.
The study, which is undergoing peer review at Nature Portfolio and was posted on Research Square on May 2, was adjusted for confounders including demographics, vaccination status, and the Charlson comorbidity index that predicts the risk of death within a year of hospitalization for patients with specific comorbid conditions.
The studies that assumed that the Omicron variant was less severe were conducted in various places including South Africa, Scotland, England, and Canada, said the scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital, Minerva University and Harvard Medical School.
They said their study could have several limitations, including the possibility that it underestimated the number of vaccinated patients in more recent COVID waves, and the total number of infections, because it excluded patients who performed at-home rapid tests. — Reuters
ABUJA — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday the problem of global food security could not be solved without restoring Ukrainian agricultural production and Russian food and fertilizer output to the world market.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has added to volatility in financial markets, sending commodity prices higher and affecting logistics, potentially derailing the economic recovery from COVID-19 in many countries including Nigeria.
“Our analysis indicates that the war in Ukraine is only making things worse, setting in motion a three-dimensional crisis that is devastating global food, energy and financial systems for developing countries,” Mr. Guterres told reporters in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
“There is really no true solution to the problem of global food security without bringing back the agriculture production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia and Belarus into world market despite the war,” he said.
Mr. Guterres said he was determined to facilitate dialogue to help achieve those goals.
Nigeria had to buy emergency supplies of Canadian potash in April after the country was unable to import the key fertilizer from Russia due to the impact of Western sanctions, the head of Nigeria’s sovereign investment authority NSIA said.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund said the Russian invasion of Ukraine had delivered a further “huge negative shock” to sub-Saharan Africa, driving food and energy prices higher and putting the most vulnerable people at risk of hunger.
The extra pressure comes as many countries are still reeling from the protracted COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need to ensure a steady flow in food and energies through open markets by lifting all unnecessary export restrictions, directing surpluses and reserves to those in need and keeping a lead on food prices to curb market volatility,” Mr. Guterres said. — Reuters
