sometimes one becomes unclear about whether or not the presidential spokespersons are actually on the President’s side, painting as they do some of the more unstable images of PNoy.
with regard the question of the President seeking and listening to advice of a suspended official like ex-PNP Chief Alan Purisima, for something as critical as the Mamasapano operation at a time of peace negotiations with the MILF, Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda is quoted to have said:
today, the nation watched and cried and grieved as the 42 slain police commandos of the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police arrived in Manila in coffins.
the members of the cabinet were present, as were Senators Bongbong Marcos and Nancy Binay, former First Lady Imelda Marcos, former President Fidel Ramos, and Vice President Jejomar Binay.
President Noynoy Aquino was nowhere in sight. there was no member of the Aquino family representing him. there is no valid reason for this absence.
yes, a statement, not a question. because there’s just too much not being said, or being spun? about the Mamasapano clash that has killed 50 policemen (as of last count) 44 police commandos of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force and an unreported number of MILF and / or BIFF fighters. and yet there is also an overload of information — such is the nature of social and online media in this country — and some of the more basic questions and answers get lost in the noise.
and so this is me, trying to make sense of it all. (more…)
Today you arrive in Manila.
Unlike Sri Lanka, there will be no elephants dressed in fancy garb to welcome you on our streets.
But I hear the President himself is set to welcome you at the airport, refusing as you have to do a State Dinner at Malacañang Palace. While he might invoke his Catholic upbringing, there have been many instances when he seemed to lack compassion and kindness, when often that is what this struggling and exhausted nation needs.
You might also meet his more famous sister. She will invoke her Catholic upbringing as well. But she has also single-handedly created a celebrity culture in this country that is about all things superficial, and she has made a career out of a shameless display of her wealth.
You will meet, too, the every-politician. In this country, religion can be a matter of convenience – if it can win them elections they will wear their Catholicism on their sleeve. It is not a measure of how well they serve the people.
Today you arrive in Manila and all the streets you pass will have been cleared of dirt and debris. You will see a Manila and later a Leyte Province that have no semblance of the cities we live in dangerously every day. That can only be a measure of how well our leaders have been able to hide what ails this nation. It’s a measure of how well they have silenced the people. (more…)
Matuwid na daan—the righteous path—has always been more than a campaign slogan for this government. It is the frame for the image(s) of nation that it seeks to sell to the world. It is the ideological backbone of its belief in itself and all the good that it does.
But of course at some point it will seem almost delusional, because there is real life and real people and real injustice that will prove matuwid na daan wrong. This is especially true if what we are looking at are issues related to human rights, and I don’t just speak of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, not just Hacienda Luisita and the military deployment in Mindanao. Though of course we can but start with these. (more…)