bayan – Page 22 – Katrina Stuart Santiago

It was a little over a year ago, in July 2016, when President Duterte first talked about pardoning policemen in the name of the drug war. He had been turning defensive because of constant criticism about the human rights violations of his war on drugs and its contingent, growing body count.

In a speech in front of San Beda batches 1971 and 1972, Duterte spoke of how he is the President and therefore is not required to respect due process. And instead of addressing questions about human rights violations, he talked about how the police could point a finger at him for whatever crime they commit in the name of the drug war, and as long as they did not lie to him about what they’ve done, he would pardon them. (more…)

Here’s the thing with DSWD Sec. Judy Taguiwalo’s pending confirmation at the Commission on Appointments: it makes no sense anymore to deny her this position, given that she has already been working the post for a year, has served in it effectively, with nary a controversy, no questions about her integrity, and having transformed our sense of what the Department of Social Work and Development is actually about.

It is relief goods and funds on-the-ready, in anticipation of that next storm. It’s the prompt release of goods for those affected by unexpected natural disasters. It’s assistance for families in idle and decrepit housing projects, for Lumad students camped out in UP, for the disenfranchised and hungry and in need in the Marawi evacuation centers. For once, DSWD is working at delivering services to the people it is supposed to serve, and there is little reason to believe any of this to be wrong — no matter what those Congressmen at the CA would like us to believe.

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It escalated quickly and shows no signs of stopping, but the past three days of the Andres and Patricia Bautista show, with a cast of characters of lawyers and banks and bank owners, and don’t forget social / media that can’t quite keep its hands off the oh-so-juicy details slowly being revealed, is just too exciting to let go of.

Or ask questions about.

After all, there is nothing like the unraveling of the elite, this one with millions in their bank accounts, not to mention wads of cash on hand. Tish is almost the archetypal kolehiyala, no strand of hair out of place, speaking eloquently about what she had discovered, issuing warnings to an ex-husband about how much more dirty laundry she’s got on him, while also playing the victimized wife, who knows not what her husband’s been doing. And then there is Andy, the portrait of the government official as husband, powerful and well-connected, articulate and self-assured. He who pushed Smartmatic despite all protests, who was charged for being biased, and whose leadership of the COMELEC was questioned by his own commissioners.

The possibilities for this story’s unraveling are multifarious, but of course while we’re all waiting with bated breath for the next juicy tidbit, one realizes that the question we do not ask is who stands to gain from this scandal at this point in time? (more…)

I have absolutely no reason to like House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez — in fact he has fashioned himself as one of the worst Presidential allies, who spreads about as much false information as government’s social media army, and lays it on even thicker by being an unapologetic misogynist boor.

Now, I do not doubt that he has pushed for Congress to work on the dissolution of marriage bill so that he can get out of his own marriage, and continue living with the woman / women he so chooses — he has after all admitted to having fathered eight children with three different women. But that’s just it: without meaning to, and no matter what he says, Alvarez has revealed how he is in fact the best example of why women need a kinder, more compassionate, way to end marriages that have long been dead. (more…)

President Duterte has made a big deal about how his government is transparent and incorruptible. We have proven the former false. Given a toothless Freedom of Information (FOI), the threats and attacks on media and critics, and the all-around culture and rhetoric of violence and propagation of fear – we all now know that transparency is nothing but a soundbite.

The latter? Well, as with the previous government, we are seeing how sometimes, it’s not even corruption that is the problem as it is selfish interests that serve no one but the elite in government and the oligarchs they protect. Case in point: an anti-people tax reform policy and PUV modernization, an infrastructure program that will bring us “hell” (according to Sec. Ben Diokno) and fatten up our foreign debt, the militarization of Lumad communities, the protection of military and police officials – including those that do wrong.

Ah, but as with Daang Matuwid, President Duterte insists that corruption is one of our biggest problems, and as such, he has said often that just a “whiff of corruption” and a government official would be fired.

One wonders when he’s going to smell the stench of what’s allegedly going on at the Department of Tourism (DoT). (more…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Category Archive for: bayan

Emily Alvarez: The case for dissolution of marriage

A whiff of corruption at DoT