149 Minutes

Nervous, I inserted my ballot into the PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scanner) machine. I was nervous because what if the PCOS would reject my ballot like it did to the woman before me. The PCOS didn't reject her ballot at all. But she inserted it six times before her ballot was counted. Less than a minute passed, the words, "Congratulations! Your ballot has been counted." appeared. I sighed.

What the COMELEC (Commission on Elections) say is really true. With the automated elections, the counting of the ballots will no longer take a long time, unlike the manual elections. But it's too early to celebrate.

Lest we forget, the searching of polling precinct, the lining up---all that, too, is part of the election. And there are so many things that can be said of them. So many, in fact, that I don't know where to begin.

Perhaps I'll begin with my arrival. If the election were manual, I would have arrived at the polling precinct very early. But no, the election is now automated. Which, as the COMELEC promised, is faster and more efficient. There is therefore no need for me to hurry.

When I woke up in the morning, I turned on the TV, watching what's going on in other parts of the Philippines, instead of preparing to leave for the polls. Over at ABS-CBN, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was shown voting. Per ABS-CBN's calculation, GMA took only six minutes to vote. If it's that fast, I figured I would go to the precinct at 8:00 in the morning.

The night before the election day, I had planned what would I wear and what would I bring. To warn the voters that if they thought only for themselves when they vote, if they wouldn't think of future of the country, they would get nowhere, I would wear my T-shirt with a quote by Conrado de Quiros: "You don't have national pride or a sense of country, you'll get nowhere." Sadly, however, I would find out that the voters were too busy to even bother to look at my T-shirt, let alone contemplate the profundity of what's written on it. To monitor the time and see if the election is faster than before, I would wear a wrist watch, although I'm not used to wearing it because it annoys me.

At 8:45, I arrived at the polling precinct. Already, the entrance to the Cabantian Elementary School, where I would be casting my vote, was dominated by "poll assistors" (poll assistants would be much simpler) distributing sample ballots, vendors selling mineral water, Max and Snowbear, teenagers and bystanders doing...nothing.

Then I went to my precinct: 1808C. Like all the other precincts, mine was already crowded. There were those who were looking for their names on the list pasted on wall. Some were asking for priority numbers. There were also the omnipresent "poll assistors," struggling to get inside, or at least get close to, the precinct.

I searched my name on the list to double-check if my precinct was really there. I'm glad I did, because when I found my name, it was listed under a different precinct: 1808E. But that was no matter. I was still on the right precinct. The COMELEC, I discovered, put the five precincts in one cluster. For instance, the precincts from 1808A to 1808E were put in cluster 545. Hence, the overcrowded precincts.

The polling precincts were replete with posters informing the voters of the six things they need to do to cast their votes. The procedure looked good---on paper. It was not followed. I don't know if the same procedure was followed in other places, but the actual voting procedure in Brgy. Cabantian went like this: First, the voter would fall in line to get a priority number. As for me, I started to fall in line at 8:50. I received my priority number at 10:24. After the voter got his priority number, he would again fall in another line that which led to the precinct. Once the voter got inside, he would tell his precinct number to the BEI (Board of Election Inspector). If his name is on the list, the BEI would ask for his signature and thumb mark. All that that took me no less than 50 minutes.

At 11:14, I was done casting my vote. All in all, it took me 149 minutes (2 hours and 29 minutes) to vote. I can say that I'm lucky to have just been inconvenienced for 149 minutes.

Some of you would say that 149 minutes is too much. But come to think of it. This was no ordinary day. We are talking about election here. It is the time when we choose our next leaders. It is the time when we decide not only the fate of our country, but also our fate.

If it takes only 149 minutes to choose leaders who would help our country better again; if it takes only 149 minutes to undo all that GMA did; if it takes only 149 minutes to reclaim what this country has lost; if it takes only 149 minutes to save us from another six years of felony, perfidy, and larceny----if it takes only 149 minutes to achieve all that, then we should be more than willing to spare 149 minutes of our time.

It cannot be denied that we have this tendency to inflate our own misery. But as the man, who tried to organize the disorganized voters at my polling precinct, said, "Kini na ang panahon para mag-sakripisyo lang ta gamay" (This is the time that we have to sacrifice a little).

CHR's 'unfinished' investigations

Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 13, 2010.

WHEN THE COMMISSION ON Human Rights (CHR) started looking into the extrajudicial killings in Davao City, I was one of those who cheered. At long last, I thought then, we have started talking about it publicly.

In my blog (killthesilencenow. blogspot.com), I even defended that CHR initiative from criticisms. “Some people do not get the point why the CHR had to investigate what CHR Chair Leila de Lima described as ‘one of the most audacious violations against the right to life in our times,’” I said. “Critics of the CHR construed the commission’s move to investigate the spate of killings as coddling the criminals. They narrowly perceived it as only favoring the rights of the criminals and ignoring the other side of the equation, which is the rights of the civilians. The public inquiry the CHR initiated struck them as disturbing the city’s serene status quo, which Davaoeños enjoyed. They even branded the CHR chair as pakialamera. These critics, however, are off the mark. The CHR is first and foremost for human rights. Its job is to ensure that human rights are always respected and protected, regardless of whose human rights it is. It is thus unwise to berate the CHR when it’s merely doing its job.”

Today, however, I begin to wonder what the CHR is really up to. The CHR inquiry, it seemed to me, produced only more heat and less light. The CHR said it is going to release its report after it is done with the inquiry. But until now the report is still to be released.

And yet, where’s the CHR now? Off it went to Maguindanao, investigating another incident. After that, it is now poised to inquire into the case of the “Morong 43.”

I don’t have a problem if the CHR will investigate here and there. It is, after all, its job. But my only question is: Why can’t it seem to finish what it has started? I need an answer. The people need an answer—and fast.

Retreat

Starting today until Saturday, I'll be leaving the blogosphere to attend the annual Student Assistant Scholars Organization (SASO) retreat at the Benedictine Retreat House, Ulas, Davao City.

The objectives of this retreat are (1) "to strengthen our relationship with God and with one another, and (2) to recharge for us to become more effective in our workplace."

To me, however, there is one more objective: To catch up some sleep and live like a señorito even just for three days.

A night with Cathy

[caption id="attachment_1198" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="Tionko Ave.---one of the places in Davao City where prostitution is thriving."][/caption]

“While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”— Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Why not child prostitution?” my research professor asked me and my two group mates, Adam and Mark.

There was a silence. I didn’t know what to say. Adam and Mark didn’t say a word either. They just looked at me, as though they were telling me not to accept our professor’s suggestion. I knew then what they meant, so I told our professor, “We’ll think about it, Sir.”

My group mates handed over me, being the leader of our group, the decision to choose a subject for our research. Early on we decided that we would be doing a research on street children. After all, they are easy to find. They are everywhere. But our professor told us that it’s very common. “Choose something that’s least studied,” he said, “a subject that’s novel.”

When we couldn’t think of a subject aside from what we proposed before, I asked our professor what he could suggest. He suggested child prostitution. “But Sir," I protested, "it would be very difficult for us to do it."

The 21st century slavery

[caption id="attachment_1148" align="aligncenter" width="405" caption="On Tionko Avenue near the Central Bank, street-level prostitution is thriving."][/caption]

Among the places in Mindanao, Davao City is lucky enough to have been spared from the wars that continue to ravage its neighbors. But it has not been spared from what Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist in The New York Times, dubbed as the 21st century slavery—prostitution.

Today, October 5, Davao City is celebrating the “No Prostitution Day.” This is the fifth time that the city is celebrating it.

Does the celebration mark the end of prostitution?

Come out in the open

When I established Silence Kills, a blog dedicated to the issue on extrajudicial killings in Davao City, I thought I would be a voice in the wilderness. I thought no one would give a damn with what I say.

But when I started to receive comments from the readers (there are only few), I realized I'm not alone. I'm happy to note that there are people who share my views regarding extrajudicial killings in Davao City. Take this comment from Anonymous on my post about Mayor's Duterte challenge to CHR Chair Leila de Lima:

Even if Duterte ostentatiously relinquished his supervision over the DCPO, no policeman would dare disobey his orders – legal or otherwise. And the beauty of it is that he can actually sabotage Davao's peace and order by allowing crimes to happen so that the Davaoeños will blame the CHR for attacking their mayor and causing his 'resignation' as deputized Napolcom representative, resulting in criminals gaining courage to walk the streets again. Who are you kidding, Mayor?

But I'd be happier if those who speak against Duterte won't hide from the cloak of anonymity. I know it's not easy to be identified as anti-Duterte. It's like going against the tide. But this is not about who's  pro-Duterte and who's anti-Duterte.

It's about fighting for our deeply held principles: truth and justice.

'Exile from human memory'

[caption id="attachment_885" align="alignleft" width="188" caption="Clarita Alia"][/caption]

What are the perils of indifference?

That was the question around which Elie Wiesel's speech, “The Perils Indifference,” revolves. “The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees —not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory…,” Elie Wiesel said at a Millennium series lecture held in White House and hosted by then US first couple Mr. and Mrs. Bill Clinton.

When Wiesel, a 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, spoke those words, he had in mind the victims of the tragic episode in humanity's history that was the Holocaust.

But it is not too far off the mark to include Clarita Alia among those exiles from “human memory.” Call it inflated, but that is where Clarita Alia is right now: Gone from the memory of the people. Her cries remain unheeded; her demands seemed to fall on deaf ears. Over the years, Clarita Alia has been clamoring that justice be served for the death of her four children: Richard, 18; Christopher, 16; Bobby, 14; Fernando, 15—all were knifed to death. But she seemed clamoring in vain.

Already in her 50s and now a widow, she single-handedly raised her eight children by selling vegetables at Bankerohan, one of Davao City’s largest public markets. Like all mother, she dreamed of giving her children a bright future. But the environment Mayor Rodrigo Duterte created would make that dream just that: a dream.  

Birds of the same feather won't catch each other

Now this one is really De Lima’s dilemma:

In the September 6 episode of “Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa,” where Mayor Rody Duterte sometimes settles scores with his enemies, Mayor Duterte urged the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to come back and investigate the resurgence of killings in the streets.

“Wala na ko mogunit sa pagkasupervisor sa DCPO [Davao City Police Office],” Duterte said. “Though my resignation was not accepted, I told them that I consider myself resigned. Sukad sa CHR inquiry, wala na ko misulod sa DCPO. Pero natingala ko ngano man padayon gihapon ang patay?”

On March 30, 2009, the CHR conducted a highly publicized public inquiry into the killings in Davao City that have gone unabated since 1998. Leila De Lima, the CHR’s feisty chairperson, squarely put the blame on Mayor Duterte’s shoulders for his failure to stop the killings, if not for his tacit support to the DDS.

To give the CHR a free hand in its inquiry, Mayor Duterte resigned as a supervisor of the DCPO on March 31, the second day of the public inquiry. His resignation, however, was rejected by DILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno, saying it’s against the mandate of the law.

Now five months after the CHR started the public inquiry, it seems Mayor Duterte is laying the blame at the feet of CHR Chair Leila De Lima.

In August alone, there were 13 people killed; in September, seven. Mayor Duterte asked the CHR to explain the killings. Surely somebody else is responsible for them, and, contrary to popular belief, it certainly not him because he has already given up control over the police.

“Mangutana ko karon, ngano man padayon lang gihapon ang patay?” Mayor Duterte asked. “Is there somebody behind it? Is there somebody trying to create a chaotic condition? Is there somebody who wants to pain a picture of Davao City as killing fields?

“I leave it to the CHR to please come back to Davao City and investigate more. I’d like the human rights to come back and tell us what is this all about?”

It’s clever of him to say those words because it effectively cast the CHR in a bad light. It’s as if Mayor Duterte is saying that the commission made a wrong decision by asking him to distance himself from the police, from whose ranks the DDS gunmen allegedly come. It’s as if he’s saying that the commission should let him do his own thing because it’s the only way to deal with the city’s criminality. Otherwise, the situation just might go berserk.

Yet Mayor Duterte’s remarks have only exposed an anomaly in his administration. The City Mayor’s Office has at its disposal a P450 million budget for Peace and Order. If needed, the mayor can disburse as much as P1.2 million daily. “With this enormous sum of public funds given to…the city mayor to maintain peace and order in the community,” said Mindanao Daily Mirror columnist Bert Tesorero, “there is no reason why street killings would go unabated for almost a decade now without a single case solved by the police.”

The police cannot be accused of ineptitude, either.

I can think of only one reason why the police find it hard to stamp out the killings. According to the report of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, “You Can Die Anytime,” most members of the DDS are policemen, ex-policemen, rebel returnees, military personnel, and jobless youths who were involved “in a bit of drug pushing.”

“The DDS…,” it further noted, “is run by handlers. Such a handler is called the amo (boss). The amo is usually a policeman or ex-policeman, and in some cases, a barangay official…A local journalist, who has been investigating extrajudicial killings in Davao City for almost ten years, believed that all handlers report to the police precinct commander in their area who distributes money for “operations” and reports, in turn, to an official in the city government—‘the big boss.’”

Despite these damning revelations, police and military officers denied that they are by no means involved in the killings.

If, however, they are involved in the killings, as claimed by the Human Rights Watch, then how can we expect them to get after the criminals if the criminals themselves come from their own ranks?

More than a political harassment

Although the mayor can very well defend himself and dodge critics, local and foreign alike, with such ingenuity, he has found an additional support in the person of 2nd District Councilor Danny Dayanghirang.

In his Op-Ed pieces, which appeared yesterday and today in Mindanao Times, Councilor Dayanghirang extolled, among others the virtues of the Dutertes---from the late Gov. Duterte down to Mayor Duterte to Inday Sara Duterte to Polong Duterte---and proceeded to say that the continuing investigation of the CHR is but politically motivated.

Reason? The 2010 election is drawing near and those who have plans to take over Duterte's post, which will likely be taken by another Duterte, are scrambling to find ways on how to break the Duterte dynasty. To Councilor Dayanghirang's logic, the spate of killings that have taken place under Duterte's watch might be one of the issues Duterte's political opponents are using to carry out their demolition plan.

That the Dutertes are virtuous, ably handled the city government throughout the years, bring the city to where it is today, is no matter. No question about that. In fact, I wrote an Op-Ed piece some months ago, praising "...the seriousness and conscientiousness with which he takes his job as mayor of Davao City..."

What matters, however, is how Councilor Dayanghirang and indeed the apologists of Mayor Duterte perceived the CHR investigation on extrajudicial killings. To them, this is nothing but a handiwork of people envious of Mayor Duterte's remarkable feat.

I'm sorry, but, as I said somewhere, "This...is not just a political criticism being leveled against Mayor Duterte by his political opponents in order to upset his long-standing domination of Davao politics. It’s more than that. It’s a very serious issue..."

Extrajudicial killings in Davao City: A timeline

There have been many developments since the Commission on Human Rights came here on March 30 to look into the flagrant extrajudicial killings in the city. But I wasn't able to blog about them because I have been up to something else lately. I am glad, though, that I was still able to keep track of them, thanks to the ever-reliable Google Alerts.

Here then is an attempt to put together the events that ensued since the CHR's visit:

Carlos Latuff on DDS

Carlos Latuff--yes, the controversial Brazilian political cartoonist--has made a cartoon on Davao Death Squad and the public's response to the mayhem this ghostly group is sowing.

Back on the fringe, again

Published in Mindanao Times 06/02/09

Davao City’s problem on human rights has been around for a long time now, but one that’s often left unnoticed. Fortunately, it was pulled out on the fringe and brought into the mainstream when the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) launched a widely publicized public inquiry on the unchecked killings. But from the looks of it, it seems to be back again to where it was before: on the fringe.

Just two months ago, when the CHR came here to investigate the series of killings in the city allegedly done by the Davao Death Squad (DDS), Davao City became the talk of the town. National broadsheets ran headlines regarding the CHR investigation. Newspaper columnists and cartoonists, human rights advocate and full fledged activists, street philosophers and street sweepers also joined the fray.

What do we stand for?

From Mindanao Times 5/24/09

Since the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) began on March 30 its investigation on the extrajudicial killings in Davao City, a cloud of doubt hung over the CHR. Many Davaoeños cannot seem to understand why the CHR is investigating the killings in Davao City that, according to the latest count, have claimed more than 800 victims—most of whom have criminal records.

They can’t help asking: Which human rights is the CHR favoring? Is it the human rights of the criminals or the human rights of the innocent civilians? Why shine a bright light on the killings when the city and its citizens are enjoying peace and prosperity? Can the CHR not leave this dark side of the city since Davaoeños can live with it anyway? Don’t these criminals deserve to be killed in the first place?

Shutting the 'Davao Death Squad' down: A wild goose chase?

All eyes are now on Davao City, as the public inquiry, which is spearheaded by the Commission on Human Rights, over the extrajudicial killings opened last Monday. “The killings have gone on for too long and it’s time to hold those responsible to account,” the INQUIRER report says. “With this message, Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chair Leila de Lima is set to open on Monday a public inquiry into a wave of unexplained killings of more than 800 people in Davao City since 1998.” (See INQUIRER’s CHR probes 800 kills by Davao death squad)

This isn't the first that a move to hold those behind the extrajudicial killing accountable has been made. As The Mindanao Daily Mirror noted, "Throughout the past decade there have been a number of times in which so-called civil society has risen up to denounce the long series of summary killings that have victimized hundreds of people in Davao City."

This renewed invigoration over the unsolved killings in Davao City spurred me to re-read that part of Alston Report, “Davao: Vigilantism or Death Squad,” which talked about the death squad justice in the city.

Two years ago, Professor Phillip Alston, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, visited the country to investigate the rampant extra-judicial killings in the Philippines. After spending ten days in the country in February 2007, he made a report, titled “Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development,” which came to be known as simply the Alston Report.

In the Alston Report, a portion can be found as regards the notorious “death squad” in Davao City, locally known as “DDS” (Davao Death Squad). Following is an excerpt of the Alston Report regarding Davao City’s “death squad justice,” as Alston phrased it.

Sex in the city

On October 5, 2008, Davao City celebrated the “No Prostitution Day” for the fourth time. In deference to the celebration, Mindanao Times, a local daily, ran an editorial entitled “Day of No Prostitution campaign.” “A day of no prostitution,” Mindanao Times noted, “includes…no prostitution occurring in massage parlors, on the streets, in hotels or everywhere else.” But it was ironic that as the city was celebrating the No Prostitution Day, one sector seemed oblivious to it: The sector of the prostitutes.

How have I come to know this?

Inday Sara: Not the best choice, but the only choice

If the 2010 mayoralty race will be a tossup between incumbent Vice Mayor Inday Sara and Speaker Prospero Nograles, I will go for Inday Sara.

In election, the rule of thumb is to choose the more experienced over the inexperienced. But it does not apply here. Voting for the inexperienced Inday Sara over the experienced Speaker Nograles may not be the best choice, but it is the only choice.

I've seen how the experienced Speaker Nograles leads the House. It's far from satisfactory. He flounders as a House Speaker, how else will he fare were he to lead this city?

It's not the Constitution, idiots!

[caption id="attachment_228" align="aligncenter" width="324" caption="Proponents of Cha-cha must be cooking something besides further opening up our economy to foreign investors. (www.bulatlat.com)"][/caption]

If we were to believe our venerable Representatives, the only reason they want to change our Constitution is to further open up our market to foreign investors. No more no less. It isn’t a ploy to extend GMA’s or any other incumbent officials’ terms. By opening up our economy, foreign investments will be flooding in.

“I am asking for an economic provision na 60-40 tatanggalin natin dahil ito palagay ko naiiwan tayo ng ibang Asian countries dahil sila open for foreign investment samantalang tayo limited ang foreign investments natin,” Speaker Nograles, the pride of Davao, was reported to have said. Apparently, he’s trying to allay fears that the administration-sponsored Cha-cha is a pretext to further GMA’s hold on power.

What a noble cause!

But the recent Cha-cha moves provide excellent case study of dogs (read: sleazy Representatives) barking up the wrong tree.

Rex C. Drilon II’s exposition (Cha-cha and foreign investment) said it all: The idea that opening up our economy so foreign investments may flow is a wrong notion. Proof of this is that Philippines has neighbors with far more restrictive economies but whose foreign direct investments are far higher than ours:

The Philippines has a neighbor, a non-English speaking, communist country where there is no freedom of speech nor free press, no religious freedoms, no judicial and legal system as we know it, no code of commerce nor code of corporate governance. It received more than $9 billion in foreign direct investments (FDIs) last year. It is a restrictive economy.

The biggest country in the region with similar sociopolitical and economic environment received $60 billion last year in FDI in spite of human rights violations, use of child labor, tainted products and is probably the world’s biggest violator of intellectual property rights. This year, its FDIs are expected to reach $115 billion. It, too, has a restrictive economy.

On the other hand, we who have been christened as the bastion of Christianity in Asia, praised for our Edsas, proficiency in English etc. only received “a little over $2 billion in 2007 and as of October 2008, we are told we are down 58 percent and will be lucky if we get $1 billion.”

So why is Philippines so aloof to foreign investors?

Our venerable Congressmen want us to believe it’s the Constitutional provision that restricts foreign investors from investing. But people like Rex C. Drilon II thought otherwise. “Corruption, uneven playing field, ineffective governance and leadership, changing rules, no sense of urgency for reforms and a negative country image, among others, are the reasons why.”

Can Cha-cha solve them all?