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Joe, it is refreshing to read your essays and the commentaries from your readers. Restores my faith in intellectual honesty, logical thinking and moral imperatives. I cannot say as much to those who follow Duterte like the modern Pied Piper. And those who see extrajudicial killings as inevitable. Too many people here have no sense of empathy for anyone outside of their clan.
But with killings surpassing the worst of the Marcos years, the moment of critical mass will come sooner than later. I doubt Duterte will last 6 years, and I think there will be many recriminations when he falls. For unleashed beasts that went uncontrollable,there was project Hulkbuster and Project Anomaly. Maybe it worked the hulk formed his own team. The comment is satirical. I am not saying that we are in the same boat, but there is some parallelism in the way things are happening and how complacent we are with what is happening in the current war on drugs.
Today, our leaders consider those who use illegal drugs and those who peddle them as parasites, like a foul fungus destroying the culture of a healthy but ignorant people and the only way to deal with them is to cut them out! The same way Goebbels thought of the Jews then. But social hygiene entails not only removing these addicts, it also will target those with differing flow of thought, those who are physically lacking, those who do not conform to the perfect idea of pure race.
I am reminded of pastor Martin Niemoller, his poem, now made famous as a protest against all types of social and racial attacks. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. Ever so slowly, our people are beginning to find their voice, Lawyers, priests, educators, students, the man on the street. Can a crescendo of protest in social media be able to stop the carnage?
Let us all pray. Right, people disenfranchised by the social conditions of the Philippines, namely poverty, and who have turned to drugs to get some promise into their life, are defined as parasites, as the cause of the problem, by the new order. It consists of the Duterte Administration, his police, his legislative puppets, his 16 million followers, and anyone of voice who allows that voice to be silent.
They already have the clenched fist. Probably they will use this when greeting each other. But what was the real cost to create this momentum? It seems that the majority wants to listen to there biological call and neglect whatever evidence there is that revenge and killing is not the most effective way to address the problem.
Look at insurance policies what they pay for a fatality, look at the extreme high rate of abortions, look at the attitude of the road rage killer, look at Ampatuan, SAF 40, work safety…. The brakes were bad, as if the brakes were the cause of it all. Well, I remember them, too, for whatever good that does. For peace and order some say deputizing tanods will be a big plus. Arming them without training not to be trigger happy would make the current situation worse,where those supposedly trained when to use a gun,not only how to use it becomes trigger happy.
But Bill in Oz says it worked in Oz. Maybe we could make it work. If the so alled untameable politicians,another seemingly simplistic solution like anti dynasty law,must take place.
I suggest,not to arm the tanods,but once there is a policy change of stop killings,then a retraining program of our police must happen. Agree on all counts. The job should be seen as a peaceful problem-solving function, not an enforcer. Struck by something I just read from Peter Strasser, an Austrian philosopher: It seems that some are intentionally? A great experience NOW and the possibility to share instantly is what motivates the millennials.
Hard work in research, intelligence gathering, judicial reform, education… does not. Makes a good deal of sense, although I think education can lay the bed of intelligence for later real-life experiences. But it is not a quick fix. Killed himself when the cops were about to get him, probably his conscience came too late, just like the Quiapo road rage suspect who regrets. No reboot for the dead. They grew up in a boring democracy. Bakit wala yatang pakialam si Duterte sa Jueteng? A good point, for sure. Betting seems to be a craze or addiction for many, in many lands.
It is perceived to be more self-contained, perhaps, than harmful to others. It would make a good discussion point for a separate blog. Some of the ideas expressed here do not resonate with mainstream Filipinos, particularly if they are lengthy or numerical or esoteric philosophical. But our readers have been around, for the most part, and can roll up their sleeves to deal with issues and concepts. Thanx much for the warm welcome! Where we immigrated from, with all its imperfection especially with the sudden unlikely emergence of Trump , elections and their aftermath seem an eternity, but mostly free from violence.
US campaigns started during the primaries a long time ago, yet real elections are still three 3 months away. Meanwhile, the Philippine counterpart had ended last May, with official campaign supposedly lasting only a short while. Ang galing ng paandar ni Andanar!
Cataracts can cause blindness, but fanaticism is really the top philosophical reason behind it! I do agree with you that the fight is probably not about the whole of the Philippines. Again, it may just be a figment of our imaginations. The bipolar characteristics are kinda hard to discern for the common tao, but with careful analysis, they become all too apparent: Never mind other crimes, rapes, carjackings, muggings, etc. Addiction can only be solved by science and medicine. Smoking is an addiction — cessation therapies abound. Alcoholic Anonymous, step programs have been existent since time immemorial.
Even gambling and sex addicts can be medically helped. Rehabilitation institutions for addicts are available, in addition to prison. The 6 million Jews, most of who got incinerated mercilessly including Anne Frank were their sacrificial lambs. Most of them remained silent throughout the massacres. The rest is shameful history! It amazes me, the justifications of slaughter, now approaching 1, from early May.
Count to 1,, then do it again 10 times as an estimate of immediate family touched by grief. If it continues, the nation will have reached that point of deadened soul that I write of. Within each of us sleeps a bloodthirsty butcher. A monster who will slay all our better angels. And whose name is depravity. Our great sin, which the future will likely discern, is allowing a raving, narcissistic sociopath, under color of law, to awaken him. So now, the end begins. Meanwhile, a freed Arroyo and her most influential friends, managed to enjoy Sunday mass together somewhere in Pampanga….
I am trying to be a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubter but my sense of it from historical record is that it is difficult to climb down from a high horse once started on this path. And so we, who do not have an interest to protect, such as the whole lot of them — the congressmen, senators, the police, the judiciary, the media, the businessmen — must keep on.
The phrase, not the abbreviation, seems to have been the running joke between yourself and Joe. If I sound like I am HF, so be it. The men found their target sleeping on a cot next to his daughter and year-old son. Myrin Rodriguez had just stepped out of the bathroom when the three intruders pointed a gun at her and the two children. One of the masked men then grabbed Lamberto and dragged him out to the alley just outside the house, where a fourth accomplice was waiting. The police arrived less than 30 minutes after the gunmen had fled.
Rodriguez said she knew her husband had been a drug user even before they got married 17 years ago. Leopoldo Bernabe, deputy chief of the barangay police assigned to Southville 3, confirmed that Lamberto had surrendered and agreed this was a possible factor in his death. He could have submitted names of people also involved in drugs who could have gotten word about it.
Maybe he failed to pay off a debt. If it was a drug-related incident, Bernabe could not say. Rodriguez, however, said her husband turned himself in with the intention of turning over a new leaf. The night before he died, Lamberto even cracked a joke about finally taking a bath because he was starting a new life. We are [members of] Iglesia ni Cristo, so we followed what our church told us to do. My husband was guilty of a few sins.
When not working as a tricycle driver, Lamberto watched over the children while she was at the market.
Lamberto was laid to rest on Tuesday at a nearby cemetery; Rodriguez said her in-laws preferred to have the funeral done quickly. As a simple tribute, a lone photo of the deceased now sits next to the TV set. However, her son, who was lying on the same cot where his father slept next to him for the last time, has since kept asking: But say — that that is a very very sad story especially for the family of Lamberto. Likewise, I think it will be difficult for President Duterte to back down from his vicious anti-drug campaign.
Here is one example of how to find out scientifically, how big the drug problem is: Being done in Australia. Link is for Perth which just did it.. Then the Philippines government would have an accurate idea of the real scale of the problem. Machiavelli notes in The Prince: One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved. Duterte seems to have picked the path of being feared, which is very odd, since many people already love him…..
As a little boy I was enthralled everytime I walked my Lola says umahon sa bukid, bumaba sa bayan to the city from a sleepy barrio in Laguna. I was watchful under those congesting coconut trees waiting for the earth shaking sounds. Over many decades, now an ancient boy, I no longer pass that way again. But I still do it stuck in my old mind: But it is there to warn me of the possible lost of everything for me. EJK at anytime in any place everytime and in every place violates the single Commandment that stands for all Ten. It took a God to be a mortal man to demonstrate the eternal wrong, the sufferings and agony of Death; how unparalleled wrong it is to extinguish a life of a saviour or two criminals.
With an old brain so full of sense and nonsense, there must still be one best way to macro or micro manage the nihilist problems of governance. A new search must be done. HOW CAN the authorities and populace stop or eliminate the supply of drugs; how can the source or the manufacture of illegal drugs be eliminated?
It is surely not about the impossbility of obliterating chemistry. Countries with borders and wide frontiers Mexico and USA would like to build a wall physically or whatever. A few countries resort to the merciless death penalty. It is farfetched but how did they eliminate small pox, the bubunic plague, the HIV?
Can we really not focus on the drug s itself? With dangerous drugs offering different effects namely downers and uppers. The vaccine eliminated one plague after the other,I do not know if it can eliminate drug addiction. Senator Riza Hontiveros urges the president to consider the drug problem as a major health concern. Related is the great initiative and work of Justice Antonio Carpio, President Aquino, Albert del Rosario, the approving role of the NSC, meeting for the purpose of deciding the course to take. Give in to the hawks and risk war at a time when its economy has slowed and will slow down disenchanting the many poor Chinese workers who have funded the Leadership and the Military.
Editorial Reviews. About the Author. information. Dame Barbara Cartland (9th July - 21st May ) was the world's most prolific author and is still. Solita and the Spies (The Eternal Collection) (Volume 31) [Barbara Cartland] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. After her father's heroic.
Indeed very easy to mount the High Horse; not too easy to dismount it. I hope the Filipino youths heard the admonition of the Pope in Krakow, Poland to engage in politics and social activism:. No, we came for another reason: It is very sad to pass through life without leaving a mark. But when we opt for ease and convenience, for confusing happiness with consumption, then we end up paying a high price indeed: This is itself a great form of paralysis, whenever we start thinking that happiness is the same as comfort and convenience, that being happy means going through life asleep or on tranquilizers, that the only way to be happy is to live in a haze.
Certainly, drugs are bad, but there are plenty of other socially acceptable drugs, that can end up enslaving us just the same. One way or the other, they rob us of our greatest treasure: Jesus is not the Lord of comfort, security and ease. Following Jesus demands a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths. To take the path of our God, who encourages us to be politicians, thinkers, social activists. I hope and pray that they will be heard and not punished like the vocal Martial Law youths.
I can see that the Student Council Alliance of the Philippines were in attendance at the privilege speech of Senator Hontiveros.
I will add as more titles become available. Love is a Maze Notify me of new comments via email. If you have trouble with it, I suggest you take it up with the Author. Lucky Logan Finds Love As a little boy I was enthralled everytime I walked my Lola says umahon sa bukid, bumaba sa bayan to the city from a sleepy barrio in Laguna. The Love Trap
I have always admired your essays. This is among your best, and one I agree with entirely. As we speak the misguided majority, whether actively, reluctantly, or indifferently, is ushering in the arrival of — thinly disguised as the Age of Reform — our very own Reign of Terror. Oh the senselessness, severity, and savagery of it all. Where do I ship it? I appreciate the thought, David. It is best if you just refer me to the book and let me hunt it down. Ah, I see the difficulty. If you had one important lesson you wanted readers to take away from your book, what would it be?
A fabricated national identity, a fictive history, and a recurring failure of leadership have combined to ensure our permanent decline. You are talking about the US? In either case, I agree with the trend, but not the finality that there is no return to healthy, vibrant governance and participation in governance by people. Democracy will always be messy as the extremes push the nation this way or that, but its tendency toward self discovery and the center line still exist, I think.
Duterte has turned the Philippines as the murder capital of the world. The worse part is that the Police who are tasked to serve and protect the citizens, are the one executing the killings which makes them the criminals, because there is no death penalty under the Law or the Constitution. I hope somebody, a concerned citizen, a politician, a church leader or a lawyer will file charges to the Supreme Court against these illegal killings…..
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor is any man deny equal protection of the laws. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or warrant of arrest shall issue except on probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be look at the people or things that should be taken.
Indeed, I wonder if there are any activist attorneys in the Philippines who could take up this cause. I was thinking of exactly that yesterday, about how just the number of deaths of itself is a clear fact that excessive force is being used. There is a group of lawyers that have come out with a statement against the extra-judicial killings. No mention though of future legal actions but I would think that this can be a direction that might be be pursued by this group eventually.
The statement is published in their Facebook page: They are also entertaining queries from the general public. We make a public stand against the bloodbath involving the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug criminals. Since President Rodrigo Duterte won the elections in May during which he made an electoral promise that , would die in his war on drugs, more than suspected drug pushers have so far been reported killed by police and death squads.
The extrajudicial killings are likely to continue to intensify after President Duterte promised during his SONA that there would be no let up to the campaign to kill drug pushers. As lawyers with a duty to uphold the law, we assert that extrajudicial killings have no place in a democracy like ours that is founded on the rule of law and not of men. Extrajudicial killings have no place in a democracy that constitutionally guarantees against the deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and the presumption of innocence.
Extrajudicial killings have no place in a democracy that gives to the courts the sole power to adjudge guilt and mete out punishment. Extrajudicial killings have no place in a democracy founded on the principle of legality that requires that the government act only according to law. The bloodbath must stop.
The extrajudicial killings must stop. From May 10 — August 01, But around this week, the Showbiz General just brought out a mascot for the national police — except that it bears his likeness. Reply edgar lores says: August 2, at 5: I suspect the families of all executed with wanton and spiteful disregard for common decency, due process, and that most precious jewel in our crown of human rights — the right to life itself, will find anything resembling humor in the sad, sickening depravity infecting the nation. De Lima takes back at her detractors; I am just as disgusted by the agitprop.
An intruding country transforms reefs into islands: The blood of the unarrested, uncharged, undefended, unconvicted and unsentenced begins to flood our streets: Before we get too deep into this, David, I would note that I moderate the blog with an awareness that it is easy especially for non-Filipinos to criticize the Philippines and hard to build.
Why are you contributing here? It is a question I ask of a lot of new visitors who seem to come in with a hard viewpoint or even agenda, rather than with the inclination to listen as well as talk. Well, in the case of the raft of killings, it is easy to be negative. But I wanted to make sure we have an understanding that this blog, for the most part, is a building place. Having lawyered for peasants, among various other seditious crimes, I was among the very first arrested and detained the day martial law was actually imposed — Sept.
Sorry for the long story, but yes, I was a Filipino when democracy, or the dream of democracy, died. Later resettled in the U. Worked very closely with Salonga, Pimentel, Osmena, and Aquino opposing the regime from abroad.
And saw that they, too, had feet of clay. That road once morphed into foot walls of agitated, nearly upright water that almost pummeled our fragile, creaking kumpit into smithereens. You got it right, Karl. Some, of course, more wild-eyed than the rest. And they all took, without exception, after their role models. Not so for the Carls. Only one of which, as best I can recall, rose to the level of the Karls. Which meant, of course, earning my admiration. Which I pretty much keep locked up and hidden in between those rare occasions when a worthy recipient comes around.
If you have trouble with it, I suggest you take it up with the Author. Not a ramble to be found, Fedelyn. To the atheist, the agnostic, and the believer. I know you were afraid. They were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. I suspect there might be a lesson or two there, as well. Not men prepared to kiill, but rather prepared to die, for their convictions. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account.
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Posted by Rhonda at 7: Sunday, May 20, Cleaning up and adding photos. Posted by Rhonda at 2: Posted by Rhonda at 6: