Friday, September 6, 2013

ANL July-Aug 2013 Issue

E  D  I  T  O  R  I  A  L

“Sona ma gun 2013!” [The “Recital”]  

State Of the Nation Address”,  SONA for short. This pivotal act of the country’s chief executive is delivered yearly third week of July as enshrined in the fundamental law of the land; or two months after the equally mandated national elections. See your president “reporting” to his avowed “boss”—live on radio and television—the overall situation of the nation in accordance to his own perception, if not in lieu of some vested interests.

Lest we forget, a SONA won’t stand without the promises yet again to lighten up the long wait and anxieties for next year’s barb. SONA after all is a rosary of “I did-I do-I promise!” And, have they prayed pretty well?

Listen to a virtual religious recital from the podium of “matuwid na daan”  [“straight  path”].  Only the major items for this limited editorial page.

One. The economy is going great at 7.8% growth during the first quarter of the year.  “Show me the money,” cracks up former president Erap’s budget and management secretary, UP professor Benjamin Diokno.

The good professor knows only too well that the money goes up the purses of the country’s  billionaire taipans  [big Chinese businessmen];  to the landed gentry like the Cojuangco-Aquino clique; to giant monopolies and foreign-owned transnational corporations [TNCs].   Hardly a morsel  trickles down the lap of the jobless and the poor.

And where did the money came from? It was election time and “grease money” flooded the “market”. Remittances from overseas Filipino workers flowed in abundantly for Christmas and the new year.  


“SONA  MA  GUN 2013!”

[On items P-Noy’s 2013 SONA missed—wittingly or unwittingly—to divulge in his well-polished and lengthy report are enumerated below @ Punchline.]

Two. Rather awkward for a leader to be so shallow, Aquino dismisses the likes of solar and wind as alternative sources of power supply. He reasons out that a cloudy period does not fit well for solar cells while a no-windy day is no good for wind power mills. The president is simply innocent of the fact that the Philippines is endowed with sunlight and wind most times of the year. He proves to be an “indoor man” even as he offered no other clean, safe and potent alternatives.

Three. Clearly in haste, P-Noy signed the “Wealth Sharing Annex” of the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement few days prior to July 22 obviously to spice up his SONA report. This was done with nary a critical third party review-consultation on the matter prompting various sectors to dub the 75-25 percentage sharing as a “sell-out” favouring heavily the Muslim rebel faction, Moro Islamic Liberation Front. This is not even a 70-30, or 60-40 modification from the original 50-50 sharing demand by government. Why the capitulation? Only a narrow, moronic vested interest knows where the booboo lies.

Four. Mr. Aquino castigated in his SONA three government bureaus under him for ineptness yet he was not able to clean up these agencies in over three years as chief executive. No less than Bureau of Customs chief Ruffy Biazon and his deputy Danilo Lim admit that politicians and their wards at said agency are putting the bureau into a bad light and yet the palace is obviously mum on these politician-godfathers. Shade of political patronage and corruption?

Five.  P-Noy must be telling a lie when he stated that Hacienda Luisita is now being distributed to qualified tenant farmers when in fact the so-called “land distribution” was soon stalled a day after it started when the farmers learned that they were signing  a fraudulent document stipulating payments for the land that is supposed to be given back to them for free. A tricky way employed by the recalcitrant hacienda owners to circumvent the orders of the highest court, even using police and military force to coerce the farmers into accepting a farcical paper.

Six. The Philippine Medical Association [PMA] is wondering where did Aquino got his SONA data on the expansion of Philhealth coverage and its benefit package.

Seven. The president must be outdated re: “intercropping” technology that he sounds so  aghast at “hitting it first” for the coconut farmers as a means to augment their income. Said technology is over half a century in use already but it hardly makes a dent on the life of the Filipino farmers simply because the incentives and built-in support mechanisms were never there. Most of them are tenant-tillers and the fruits of their toil go mostly to the absentee landlords and usurers.

Moreover,  the costs of  farm implements and inputs such as  fertilizers,  pesticides  and weedicides are prohibitively high while the prices of their produce are exceedingly low courtesy of rapacious middlemen.  Aside from all these, farmers should be trained to harness such farming technologies and provided market support by government.  

Eight.  Aquino’s SONA puts accolades to its “Conditional Cash Transfer” [CCT] program as a major arm to eradicate poverty. A rehash of the former Arroyo regime’s “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino” program, CCT provides funds ranging from PhP 300 to PhP 500 to qualified poor households with a maximum of three children up to age 14, or a total of PhP 1,400 per month to at least tide these children up past elementary grade.

Having had a share of “likes” and “dislikes”, the CCT’s mechanism and huge budget amounting to PhP 44 billion for the current year is seen as wide open to abuse and corruption aside from the uncertainties on its “dole-out” concept—that is—if it can effectively bail out the beneficiary families from poverty in due time.

Realizing perhaps that funding the education of poor kids through elementary  is merely enhancing literacy at best, the government’s 2014 budget is set to expand the CCT’s  assistance to poor high school-bound children 15 to 18 years of age  aimed at qualifying them for gainful employment with this higher level of learning. Still, critics say that high school graduates or, for that matter, even college graduates can hardly look for jobs in their own country.

Moreover, the budget woe is tremendous for the CCT. The PhP 44 billion 2013 budget was raised to a whooping PhP 62.6 billion for next year.  This new budget for a dole-out is so huge that it dwarfs all three combined allotments for irrigation systems at PhP 21.1 billion; the PhP 12 billion for farm-to-market roads; and the PhP 27 billion for PDAF [priority development assistance fund, or pork barrel].

Nine.  And more. But in sum, most are promises. Others are miscellaneous for a decor.  Rigoberto Tiglao, a Manila Times columnist and former cabinet official of Gloria Arroyo, castigated P-Noy for being a liar, deceptive and boastful for reporting some achievement not solely his own; half-done projects and/or ongoing ones; hardly verifiable items; and even dubious ones. Quite minimal in the list can be credited as his own even as he recited it all in 105 long minutes to set a record. –editorial board, anl


N   E   W   S   L   I   N   E

Philex Mines contaminates Agno River, San Roque Dam

Asingan, Pangasinan. - Most likely, mining destructs!” Almost by instinct, this is how the late anti-mining activist Maita Gomez reacts whenever confronted with the issue on mining in the Philippines until her passing late last year. “The perils are a million times greater than whatever profit the country is squeezing from it,” she hastens to add—referring to the tiny 2-5% share the government is getting from the huge profits of mining companies operating on Philippine soil and waters.

Exactly a year ago this August 2013, the worst and biggest mine tailings spill the country ever had occurred in Itogon town, Benguet province right at the Padcal mining site of the Philex Mining Corporation owned by businessman Manny V. Pangilinan.

Alarming in magnitude, the disaster was a series of five incidents that started August 1 and end up September 13  spilling more than 26 million metric tons of mine tailings and sediments into Itogon’s 2.5-kilometer Balog creek, down to the 30-kilometer upper Agno river and into the huge San Roque dam down south in Pangasinan province. The lower Agno river basin—slicing the mango-shape province from San Manuel town in the east—catches   the polluted dam water that finally flows out into Lingayen Gulf at the west end

BALOG RIVER HEAVILY CONTAMINATED WITH MINE TAILINGS

of Pangasinan. [To be continued: Other details on the what’s and how’s on this tragic incident including the extent of damages for Benguet and Pangasinan provinces shall be tackled on the ANL’s Sep-Oct Issue, coming next]. –engr. joe sevilla, asingan correspondent, anl

--o0o--

Most  mining  firms  have no environmental work program — Chief Justice Sereno

By:  MARK MERUEÑAS, GMA News July 16, 2013


[Manila]. - Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on Tuesday slammed the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for failing to ensure that mining firms in the Philippines have measures to protect the environment from their mining activities.

Sereno, reading from a list submitted by the DENR to the high court, revealed that most of the 350 registered mining companies in the country apparently do not have or have not indicated any "environmental work program" (EWP) in their mining concessions with the government.

Sereno added that for the small number of mining firms that have EWPs, the budgets allotted for them have had "minuscule" discussion.

For instance, Sereno cited the Nationwide Development Corporation (Nadecor), which only has a budget of P765,000 for environmental protection.

Celestial Nickel, meanwhile, only has a P20,000 environmental protection budget for the 2,800 hectares of land it is mining.

The chief justice slammed the DENR for being "an agency which is not even able to share to the court how much is being spent to protect the environment."

                         Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. Photo by INQUIRER.net’s Noy Morcoso lll
"Data submitted to us [so far] does not give this court comfort that the posterity of the country is being taken care of [sufficiently]," Sereno told Assistant Solicitor General Magtanggol Castro, who is representing the government in the case.

The oral arguments stemmed from separate petitions filed by former Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño and Akbayan Rep. Risa Baraquel-Hontiveros in March 2008, contesting Sections 80 and Section 81 of the law on the government's share in mining operations.

Making things worse during Tuesday's oral arguments, Sereno found out that Castro has not gone over the data from the DENR.

"You had gone here very strongly defending what has been happening and you haven't looked at data of the DENR? How can we say you are credible," Sereno asked.

"If this is the kind of data coming to this court, [then] we have no basis to believe you," she added. "This has been disastrous for you because you are not looking at the facts and you want us to turn a blind eye."

She said there was a need to review what has happened to the mining industry since the high court in 2004 ruled that the Mining Act of 1995 was constitutional (La Bugal et al vs. Ramos).

"You convince this court to restrain itself but we don’t have anything to hold on to," Sereno said.

"Assumptions of La Bugal are out the window. They don't hold," she said.

Castro insisted there was no "viable reason to revisit" the La Bugal decision.

Upon questioning from Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Castro expressed fears that mining companies might pull out if the high court strikes Section 80 and 81 as unconstitutional.

Associate Justice Roberto Abad emphasized that the high court was not concerned with economics but with the constitutionality of laws.

"The Constitution did not define equitable share. Congress has passed a law to implement it, but it has not fixed a permanent ratio of mining," he said.

Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro told Castro to include in the memorandum that his camp should later submit to the SC ways on how the government could monitor compliance of the mining firms with the mining law requirements.

--o0o—

“Horrendous August”
  
Typhoons with accompanying southwest monsoon rains—or “habagat”—were most punishing this August 2013 as was the case in the past two years. Four typhoons breached through the country during the month alone with cyclones “Labuyo” and “Maring” as major shockers costing billions of pesos in damages to crops, properties and over a dozen fatalities.

A series of five bombings rocked Mindanao during the period with two major incidents claiming 16 lives; eight in the July 26 Cagayan De Oro City blast and another eight in the August  6  Cotabato City explosion. Sixty people were wounded in these attacks. Three more minor bombings occurred after Cotabato with no death or casualty reported.

Two major disasters occurred at sea during the month; the August 9 oil spill in Rosario, Cavite and the August 16 passenger ship-and-tanker collision off port of Cebu with 111 dead bodies so far recovered as of this writing. A minor oil spill from the tanker was likewise observed. The Rosario oil spill was so extensive that it affected three more nearby towns and portion of Manila Bay on the north.


The month was capped by an equally explosive bang of people’s anger on the lingering graft and corrupt practices of elected government officials and their salacious greed for people’s money notoriously known as “pork barrel”. A “Million-People March” was held on National Heroes Day, August 26, with over a hundred thousand marchers converging at Luneta until 3pm denouncing shenanigans in government.

It was a horrendous August with equally horrible manmade and natural tragedies gripping the country at a time of turmoil in the socio-economic and political fields. It is even more disastrous to think that each time the country tries to rise up with the likes of EDSA 1, and so forth and so on, we fail to learn as we seem to be forgetful and overly forgiving even to the wicked in sacred robes. –wena agaton-balino . lay-out/photo artist, anl


P   U   N   C   H   L   I   N   E

“The people’s ‘sona’ 2013” [The “Hidden Icons”]

At the tail-end of President Noynoy Aquino’s fourth SONA speech we heard the melodramatic lines: “SONA po ninyo ito,” [“This is your own  SONA”] sort of dedicating his lengthy barb to the listening public. Then the finale for an icing: “At talagang napakasarap maging Filipino sa panahong ito!” [“Feels great to be a Filipino at this point in time!”] stressed he.

From the looks of it, Aquino’s SONA is obviously tailored to lift his sagging leadership image and not exactly to present the objective condition of the country along people’s expectation and wellbeing on the ground and not on the drawing board.     

Consider what the Asingan NewsLine  refers to as “hidden icons”, or the real  major issues skipped by P-Noy in his boring SONA.

“Quo vadis OFW’s?” Aquino’s SONA took no token glance at the embattled overseas Filipino workers especially those in war-torn Middle East where a “sex-for-flight” syndicate thrives in our very own embassies out there devouring on hapless Pilipino women workers.

No mention was made on an old and vital bill—the Freedom of Information Bill—hoped    to deter to a great extent the pestering graft and corruption that is eroding not only the nation’s values and morality of elected leaders but the country’s economy and competitiveness as well.


How’s the infamous Maguindanao massacre? No one heard it. P-Noy’s camp seems too  remote to remember; much less dare to pursue it more vigorously. It’s a lapse like leaving behind the bungled Luneta hostage taking that happened barely two months into  Aquino’s assuming the presidency. And yes, this hostage booboo is yet to be settled conclusively three years after Aquino’s rule. Sheer incompetence of the nincompoops!

How about the debt standing of the country? P-Noy’s SONA is won’t to delve on accounting the country’s debts as he himself goes borrowing more bucks and bury us deeper to indebtedness. Government’s total foreign and domestic debts hit PhP5.325 trillion [US$ 129.2 billion] as of end February 2013. Said amount is 8.4 percent higher than the PhP4.913 trillion [US$ 119.2 billion] at same period in 2012 due to double-digit rise in domestic debts. [philstar.com/18apr’13] This despite the boisterous claim of P-Noy’s economic managers that the economy is growing robustly.

Not a news from P-Noy’s SONA on the country’s environmental situation particularly on issues of illegal logging; on the NGP [national greening program]; and the very vital issues on climate change and alternative source(s) of energy supply. None, whatsoever. Seems busy cooking up spices for the boiling pork barrel scam that eventually erupted towards the end of August.

No updates either on the row between the Philippines and China re: occupation by China of the Philippine-claimed Panatag and Ayungin shoals. Neither a bit of progress on a murder-shooting spat with Taiwan re: shooting by a Philippine coastguard personnel of a Taiwanese fisherman north of Batanes in July.

President Aquino failed not to scare our pockets when he warned us in his SONA of impeding increases in MRT fares as well as hikes in both power and water supply rates. And yes, what is this we heard of a presidential sister and brod-in-law who allegedly dipped their fingers in an MRT supply deal with a Zech company Inekon for a multi-million dollar “commission”? Well, the talk seems to have died a natural death along the corridors of power.

And more to make the list long. But at this point, the prime occupant at the snake pit called Malacanang has a lots ‘a nonsense explaining to his avowed “boss”. That is, if skipping such major issues is pure intent at hiding something in somebody’s skirt. –ticong diaz, manila correspondent, anl


F   E   A   T   U   R   E

“Inclusive growth”:  Is it attainable under the “system”?
By:  RUBEN M. BALINO .  Editor, ANL

Of   late, the phrase “inclusive growth”  has been a by-word among technocrats in IMF-World Bank client states like the Philippines. It’s the latest of highfalutin terms coined by these foreign usurer-banks to impress upon debtor nations on their monopoly not only of cash but of technology as well. Reminds us of earlier terminologies such as “paradigm shift”  that is more of an abstract for the ordinary stomach.

Digging deep into Wikipedia’s pages, this authoritative online encyclopedia says, and we quote:  “Inclusive growth  basically means a broad-based growth,  a shared growth,  and a pro-poor growth.  Aimed at arresting the rapid growth of poverty in a country, inclusive growth involves people in the growth process. Inclusive growth by its very definition implies an equitable allocation of resources  with benefits accruing to every section of society.

But the allocation of resources must be focused on the intended short-term and long-term benefits of the society such as availability of consumer goods, people’s access to employment, good standard of living, etc.. Inclusive growth sets a direct relationship between macro and micro determinants of the economy and its growth.

The micro dimension includes the structural transformation of the society and macro dimension includes the country’s gross national product [GNP] and gross domestic product [GDP].

To maintain rapid and sustainable growth is some time very difficult because resources vaporize during the allocation and may give rise to negative externality such as rise in corruption which is a problem in developing nations. But however it had created an environment of equality in opportunity in all dimension of livelihood such as employment creation, market, consumption, production, and has created a platform for people who are poor to access good standard of living.

If we focus on the inequality between poor and rich household in a country we can reach to an optimal solution so that we can minimize the difference.”

Wikipedia  further explains:  “Inclusive growth has created a platform to create market, or rather inclusive marketing. This is because there is a huge competition in regular market, or rather a saturation point has been reached where no further growth can be achieved. But there is a huge consumer base in the rural market that remains unexplored.

Corporate in India shows interest to explore this consumer base by their corporate social responsibility  [CSR] projects. It is a new business strategy emerging in India. It offers economic value to goods and services produced in the rural area.

ITC’s e-Choupal is the best example re: inclusive marketing. This business model  offers farmers better price for their produce while providing technological and financial assistance to increase their productivity. Once the business model starts the company channelize their consumer product into the new market.

Is inclusive marketing efficient enough to eradicate poverty? It is the only way to reduce the difference, or rather minimize the gap.”

But perhaps a missing link or an intervening point  wasn’t dealt with more clearly at Wikipedia’s discourse. Take back the macro-micro determinants to the economy’s inclusive growth. Macro refers to the country’s GNP-GDP factors of the economy, on the one hand; whilst micro tackles on the very ticklish issue of structural transformation  of society, on the other.

Wikipedia has this to say on structural transformation :  It boldly stress the meaning-definition, “large-scale transfer of resources from some sectors to others in a system, necessitated by fundamental changes in its policies or objectives.” The big-propertied landlord-compradors, taipans and multi-national corporations never had a bit of pleasure hearing such a definition that entails partaking their wealth and power to the vast majority poor.

Much less the rich and the mighty agree to the very essence, or honest-to-goodness definition of inclusive growth as the “equitable allocation of resources with benefits accruing to every section of society “. For them, genuine structural transformation of society and equitable allocation of resources are socialist doctrines that send shivers down their spines to their balls.

In conclusion, for a nation buried perpetually deeper into trillions of both domestic and foreign debt;  in a country governed by well-entrenched oligarchs in cahoots with big foreign monopoly interests, the so-called inclusive growth  floated by such a syndicated elite group is a mere lip service to an actually fledgling  “paper tiger”  of an economy. [some emphasis mine –author]

--o0o--

US, the real global terror
A man stands in a sea of rubble in Hiroshima on September 8, 1945
Tue / Aug 6, 2013 / 3:6PM GMT / Press TV

By:  Finian Cunningham

Sixty-eight years ago this week, the United States wiped out more than 200,000 people when it dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.


Tens of thousands more victims were to die over the ensuing years due to slow, painful deaths from cancers and birth defects.

Yet the US - the only state to have ever used atomic weapons - has never apologized or made any atonement for this singularly horrific crime. Officially, the US justifies it as a legitimate attack during war even though many historical sources show that there was absolutely no military necessity for the bombings.

Even former president and top military commander Dwight Eisenhower would later go on record as saying that the A-bomb attacks on Japan in August 1945 were completely unnecessary.
The unleashing of the atomic infernos on mostly civilian populations was simply this: an act of supreme terrorism. It was an act of barbarity callously calculated by the US planners to demonstrate their country’s demonic power to the rest of the world - and the Soviet Union in particular. This premeditated rationale makes it an unpardonable crime of the highest order.

Fast-forward sixty-eight years on, the US government has this week issued a global terror alert, closing down more than 20 diplomatic sites across the world and vacating staff from various countries. Following suit are the British and French governments who have shut their embassies in Yemen on the basis of an unspecified, secret terror alert issued by Washington.

The rest of the world is thus obliged to believe the word of Washington over this unverifiable warning.

Of course, it is a propaganda stunt, aimed at renewing the whole fraudulent ‘war on terror’ charade and distracting from recent politically embarrassing developments, such as the vast scope of illegal surveillance against US citizens and the rest of the world; or the increasing public awareness of the collusion between American and Western intelligence and regime-change terrorism in Syria.

This is the same American political establishment that launched wars on Afghanistan and Iraq on the back of spurious and outright mendacious claims over the alleged 9/11 terror attacks and weapons of mass destruction.

This is the same government, along with Britain and France, that secretly claims the Syrian armed forces of President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons - when the hard evidence is that it is actually the US-backed foreign mercenaries who have launched these weapons to kill civilians.

This week, the US military killed more people in Yemen with its assassination drones under presidential executive orders, just as it has done every week over the past 10 years as it wages covert and overt criminal wars in several countries simultaneously.

These US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Syria have caused as many as two million, mainly civilian, deaths. 
And yet ludicrously, the US government is putting the world on alert against terrorism. Even more ludicrously, the Western news media are amplifying this warning from the world’s biggest terrorist state as if it is a benign service to international public safety.

In this awful anniversary week of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it is rather astounding that the perpetrator of that genocide is still strutting the globe as if it is God almighty. On a global terrorist offender list, the United States is the paramount offender without compare.

In a saner world, the US should be a pariah state, shunned and sanctioned, its government leaders past and present locked away for life.

Perhaps, the world is finally beginning to wake up from the illusory spell that it has been kept under till now, to realize that humanity’s security is threatened not by states such as Iran or North Korea, but by the one whose president is a Nobel Peace laureate. 
The US terror state slaps sanctions on Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe and others, causing women and children to die from medial and other basic deprivations. But what we should realize is that this is not depraved double standards or hypocrisy. No, such criminality is simply consistent with the actions of American state terrorism.

Iran does not have any nuclear weapons, yet it is being strangled with illegal trade sanctions by the world’s number-one nuclear terrorist - the US - and its rogue partners, Britain, France and Israel.

Today, there are some 17,000 total nuclear weapons in the world. About half of them are possessed by the US. The other major holder of such weapons is Russia.

In Russia’s defense, it would most likely not have this atomic stockpile if it were not for the fact that the US embarked on the Cold War with its act of genocide at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Stalin knew that that act of terror by US President Truman was aimed at Moscow by way of demarcating the post-war lines of global hegemony. By 1948, the Soviet Union had acquired the A-bomb and the world was then well on the road to mutually assured destruction - in direct consequence of the US original act of nuclear terrorism on Japan. 
[On the same year, the US-controlled United Nations created Israel by supplanting what was then Palestine. --ANL Editorial Board]

Perhaps more frightening than the planet-destroying power of US-held nuclear weapons is the monstrous mentality of the American ruling class that wields them, including its mass media propaganda system.

In the same week that the world should be mourning the death of Hiroshima,
Nagasaki and many other victims of US state terrorism, we are instead expected to pander to the “terror warnings” of American politicians and their media as if they should be taken seriously and virtuously.

These American leaders should be in prison, not promulgating to the rest of the world.

The truly appalling thing is that the world’s number one nuclear-terror state is still at large. 


L   I   T   E   R   A   R   Y

Thoughts and images…

Talkies…talkies…
                                                           ...lots ‘a nonsense!

--o0o--


    “Reign of impunity…then and now”. [ U S  OF  A … ]

While Syria is “burning”, Iraq slides to genocide courtesy of the Zonists!

[Middle East]. – The so-called rebellion now raging in Syria for over two years now is said to be a home-grown ire of its own people aimed at toppling the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Independent observers, however, say otherwise. The war in Syria—at the moment tickling like a bomb that likely will signal World War III—is actually a “Proxy War”, that is: By and between the government forces of Syria, in the one hand; and the Al Qaeda-led mercenary-terrorist group financed and armed by Zionist warmongers and expansionist conduit USA-Israel, on the other hand.

But while waiting US folly in Syria to explode on its face, lets report back some recent woes the US/NATO-wrecked Iraqi land and people are suffering right now.

Yet again, the “mass murder-killing” going on in Iraq is a fallout of the “Dessert Storm” invasion of this former sovereign country by a US-Briton war machine hungry for oil rather than serious about ferreting out WMD’s [weapons of mass destruction] suspected to be at Saddam Hussein’s disposal which, of course, the war crooks themselves and the United Nations—know there is none in the very beginning.

Reason why the US and Britain went on anyway with the illegal invasion [and occupation] of Iraq as the pretender’s pretext for war was kaput and the real agenda is to get Saddam killed and the oil fields seized. Now, it sounds even more familiar accusing Syrian President Bashar Assad having an arsenal of deadly chemical weapons [CW’s] so he must face Saddam’s fate.

The infightings in Iraq is no less a proxy war, too, say politico-military analysts and observers familiar with the Middle East as a distinct region. Although largely vacated now by US and its allied forces, the unending conflict here is being fanned by the conflict in Syria wherein Shite and Sunni Muslims in contention are virtually in a political divide wherein at the back of one side is the US-Israeli cabal.

In less than a dozen of violent incidents for July this year, more than 600 casualties were recorded—one of the highest in the over ten-year war. Incidents for August slowed down but still quite a number of deaths were reported. Several attacks by US drones were included in these violent incidents where mostly civilians, children, women and the old are the usual victims in lieu of their vulnerabilities.

One analyst surmised: “As long as there is one single free and independent Arab nation-state remaining, the US and it’s client state Israel won’t rest on their laurels. Dangerous premise, indeed. –rudy antonio . vancouver correspondent, anl.


--o0o--

“OFWs:  Forgotten…forsaken?”



--o0o--

     “Meme na  aming  bunso…”

meme na, bunso…

meme na aming bunso
ang dilim sisirin mo
yumupyop ng mahigpit
nang sikmura’y maidlip
meme na bunsong mahal
ang bukas mo’y nasasakdal

maglakbay-managinip
sa banig na gulanit
paggising ‘wag iiyak
muli tayong sasabak
sa masungit na buhay
na ating ginagaygay

meme na bunsong mahal
mag-ipon ka ng lakas
maglakbay at mangarap
maalwang  hinaharap
bauni’y tibay-dibdib
prinsipyo’y halukipkip

maglayag-pumalaot
sa matarik na gulod
magsikhay at usigin
ang  taksil  at  salarin
kipkip-pusil at  tabak
tutugisin ang kidlat!

rmb . 05agosto’13




E  D I T O R I A L     B  O A R D


MEMBERSRudy D. Antonio [Canada Correspondent];  Engr. Silver Casilla  &  RN Merly Grospe-Mayo [U.S. Correspondents];  Ronilo R. Corpuz [Vienna Correspondent];  Fely Dumaguing-Malgapo [Milan Correspondent];  Engr. Joe  L. Sevilla [Asingan Correspondent];  Col. Lalin Layos-Pascual;  Ross C. Diaz;  Engr. Lorie  dG.  Estrada;  CPA Rod A. Layco;  Wena Agaton-Balino [Photo & Lay-out Artist];  Ruben “Bencio” Balino [ Editor-In-Chief].