E D I T O R I A L
“Karma” of the year?
For a deposed and jailed former president Joseph “Erap” Estrada, his nemesis Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo—he breezes off with that trade mark grin—has caught up with “karma”.
This much-abused word “karma” is being tagged on Gloria when she had to seek treatment in hospital repeatedly this year for a rare illness affecting her spinal cord. Her brand of politics aside, she looked emaciated unlike her presidential savvy when she pronounced “I’m sorry!” on television some forgettable years ago.
The lead actress and suspect mastermind [producer-director?]of the outlandish “Hello, Garci!” political chicanery is in a bind. Meaning, besides the “electoral sabotage” case she was recently charged—albeit hastily, says her attorney—she is expected to be torpedoed with an avalanche of other cases like plunder, all heinous crimes with no bail or legal remedies than be incarcerated with a modicum of respect accorded a former president as enjoyed by Erap himself.
Apparently though, Erap’s charm and Gloria’s magic were not of the same stock. Erap survived it all with a vengeance. He was upbeat upon release from more than six years of house arrest for plunder. Won his legal argument allowing him to run for the second time—not for a second term—as president; virtually scaring candidate Noynoy down his spine with not so wide a margin separating them in the May 2010 presidential derby.
Here now comes a Gloria not “en excelsis Deo” but another former president said to be a plunderer like her predecessor, charged with “electoral sabotage” and likely with more cases to rain down as it pours. Good at drama or not, the diminutive Nora Aunor look-alike and former chief executive of the land was visibly glam and shrunken off her former self used to be clothed with immunity and bloated ego. Now, all-too-suddenly, she looks gawky in those therapy gadgets wrapped around her neck and top even as she begs pity in her eyes while being hauled to a hospital arrest this very Christmas season.
ANL is not so much amused at the so-called “karma” as it is less impressed with an accuser who himself had been accused, convicted and jailed; whose charm was a derision to being a gambler, womanizer, corrupt and plunderer of peoples’ money, and a midnight cowboy drunken on the draw. Nor ANL is pitiful to a remorseless cheat who says sorry and asserts non-guilt to capital sins of massive human rights abuse, graft and corruption, nepotism, and electoral fraud.
The vital issue here is the “karma” unjustly slapped on a weary nation that wrongly produces one corrupt president after another. When shall we ever learn to exorcise “karma” out of our back? We must dare learn and act soon enough before we are damned as simpletons by our very own sons and daughters. rmb . anl
F E A T U R E
Celebrating yuletide and yearend 2011*
*wena agaton-balino
Perhaps worth a penny to quietly reflect on by ourselves at this time of year is such simple query as: “What have we to celebrate this yuletide season and yearend 2011?”
Responses will naturally be varied depending on who, or what we are. Nonetheless, the question above wishes to address it for the general sentiment of a troubled nation reflecting on it purposely, incidentally, or otherwise, regardless of age, race, religion and political belief.On the level of humanity, we celebrate age as it comes and passes through one more year virtually unnoticed for the likes of us Filipinos who are uniquely forgetful and forgiving. God’s graces, we forgive those who trespass against us and yearn in prayer for their delivery from evil.
We forget and forgive Marcos and rapacious wife “Imeldific” for their martial law terror only to welcome them back from self-exile a few years later and install them again to pompous comfort and power while getting scot-free from monumental cases they were embroiled in. We forget and forgive the 21 long years of plunder; the terror effect of martial rule and the blood debts that go with it; the cronyism; the gargantuan foreign debt; and a nation laden to shame and perdition.
We forget and forgive Cory’s ineptness as a leader wasting down the “revolutionary period” of her rule failing to institute meaningful changes allowed legally under such circumstances including her veiled resistance to subject her own Hacienda Luisita to genuine agrarian reform. We forget and forgive her genocidal anti-insurgency campaign notoriously known as Low Intensity Conflict even while her penchant for nepotism reared its ugly head on the infamous Kamag-anak, Incorporated that sprouted during her weakling governance rocked by seven military coup de ‘tats. We forget everything and everyone of the powers that be on their devious schemes as corrupt, inept and utterly insensitive rulers of the land. We forget everything, forgive and soon welcomed back an ex-convict former president who is a macho gambler-womanizer, drunken midnight cowboy, and plunderer—he insists—of jueteng money, not the people’s.
Again, by God’s graces, we are bound to forget and forgive another “scoundrel” of a woman who looms next to Marcos as overstaying president and whose husband is just as doggedly power-struck and corrupt as the infamous Imelda. Will a stockpile of cases slapped on the scheming Gloria assures that justice be served to this nation fooled by its own rulers one after another? If Marcos and family end up happily ever after plausibly avoided being axed in this Philippine justice system, why not a Gloria who conveniently planted stooges at the Supreme Court before stepping down from power? Gloomy a prospect for this lumbering nation, the more we have to celebrate the yuletide season and new year’s eve to commune with ourselves in deep reflection.
We celebrate our pliancy, our dexterity to withstand crises both man-made and natural. We celebrate our growing enlightenment and evolving collective resolve to face squarely the enemies of change and supplant their narrow self-interests with that of the people’s common good. wab . anl
N E W S L I N E
001. “ Maguindanao carnage, a couple of years after…”
By: Joe L. Sevilla . Correspondent, Asingan
MASALAY, Ampatuan. It was supposed to be a pleasant Monday morning of 23 November 2009. A convoy of several vehicles containing 58 people were on their way to Sharif Aguak [capital town of Magindanao] to file the certificate of candidacy for governor of then Buluan Vice-Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu.
Until that fateful moment when heavily armed men waylaid the group, catapulting traditional Philippine politics to global infamy. The marauders flagged down the convoy along a road in Sitio Masalay, Ampatuan town; ordered passengers to alight from their cars; sought out the Mangudadatu’s and paraded the victims before mowing them down with automatic rifle fires like rats nowhere to run nor hide but to face brutal death.
Vice-Mayor Mangudadatu—an opposition stalwart—was up to challenge in the then upcoming May 2010 elections no less than his incumbent cousins and powerful Ampatuan clan of the impoverished province of Maguindanao in southern Philippines. He was not in the convoy himself but his wife and two sisters fell dead in the first volley of fire. He is now governor of this same province.
All but one of the 58 have their dead bodies exhumed later from shallow improvised graves dug up by backhoes and bulldozers. One body—that of journalist Reynaldo Momay—remains missing as of this writing. One entirely innocent victim hit by astray bullet is a young boy Anthony Ridao who was not with the convoy but was then passing through the highway blocked by the killers. Of the 58 fatalities—except Momay though now presumed dead—33 of them were mediamen. Indeed, a bloodbath and a blood debt of historic proportion!
A couple of years after the carnage many of the killers are still roaming around free. The witnesses for the prosecution are being eliminated one after another. Only two of the suspect masterminds and participants to the massacre are in jail albeit treated like monarchs of a kingdom that is Maguindanao. And the victims kin who commemorated the death of their loved ones on-site at the infamous killing zone November 23 this year just wept in silence and pained hearts.In light of the pain and shame this dastardly crime had wrought to a nation long forlorn of fair and swift justice, Asingan NewsLine calls on peace and justice loving peoples of the world not to let go our guard and condemnation of the Maguindanao massacre as the highest act of infamy and mockery of justice. Hereabout is a selective justice for the rich and justice for the poor; the turtle-pace justice delayed, justice denied; or the elusive light of justice that will never come along even in a lifetime!
So aggrieved is our past that it rises on occasion grumbling bitterly, “who masterminded the killing of Ninoy?” Of Atty. “Ka Lando” Olalia? Of “Pangat” Macliing Dulag? Of “Ka Lean” Alejandro? Who’s the brain behind NBN-ZTE scam? The “Hello Garci” Electoral Fraud? Who ordered the abduction and killing of Jonas Burgos?
And a million-and-one queries unanswered in this filthy corner of planet earth. jls . anl
002. RA Class ’68 member “storms” Vancouver
By: Rudy D. Antonio . Correspondent, Vancouver BC
“IT WAS AN amazing grace,” gladly quips Armando “Arno” Bautista when queried by this correspondent on his sudden arrival here at Vancouver, BC [British Columbia, Canada] early October 2011.
Arno is first cousin to this writer. Neighbors in our native barrio and birthplace Carosucan Norte, Asingan, Pangasinan, PH; highschool buddies together with two more cousins Danilo Antonio who is now a “shadowy” character somewhere in Metro-Manila; and Ronilo Corpuz who works and lives in Vienna, Austria for over three decades in the running.
The Antonio’s and the Carosucan boys were somehow known in campus due to sheer number though skinny and diminutive guys most. The “big plus” for us were “big guns” Isidro Aguilar and Norito Colobong whom we count as childhood buddies at home in Carosucan and members of Rizal Academy Class ’68 to boot. Sad note, Norito was reported to have died of accident years ago.
“Amazing grace” was how Insan Arno describes the rather swift [and “generous”] approval of his tourist visa for Vancouver, Canada where a father-side cousin of his also works like this correspondent. In a sweep-of-luck, so to speak, his tourist visa application was approved in just over a couple of months and his two-month request for vacation was given an additional nine months for almost a year of stay putting him now on a dilemma whether to stay put and work or go back home to his family in due time.
Insan Arno hit the jackpot of his life being both a good and lucky guy. A gentleman and officer of the Philippine Air Force, he had just retired a few years back from active duty. His good record in the “service”, his education and mature age, plus a good contact abroad made it all easy, clear and fast for him to hurdle the requisite criteria.
“I stormed Vancouver by surprise,” Arno revealed on email to an equally surprised friend and ANL managing editor Bencio Balino when this writer tipped-off the former’s sudden arrival in Vancouver for still no definitive plan.
To friends, classmates and relatives like Arno who wish to see and visit Canada: Come over to Vancouver—one of the world’s best and safest cities to inhabit! rda . anl
L I T E R A R Y
001. “Cheers! It’s the first Christmas for ANL!”
By: The BOARD OF EDITORS
Asingan NewsLine
Yeah, it’s the first Christmas for ANL. It was rough sailing all the way, even vicious. Indeed, giving birth sheds blood. For the first three months starting June 2011, it carried the name Asingan Online until August.
Birth pains prompted it to change name the following month September into a more distinct media tone, Asingan NewsLine. Basically though, the two are one and the same except for some people in the Board going out and coming in.Asingan NewsLine is one of four major by-products of the April 2011 Grand Reunion and Homecoming of the Rizal Academy Class ’68. One, the putting up the RA Class’68 Alumni Association. Two, the putting up of this newsletter in June. Three, the establishment of the non-government organization Asingan Development Forum in July. Four, the initial phase of organizing the RA Class’68 Multi-Purpose Cooperative started in August.
Lack of dedication and ideological aptitude in some leaders, the lack of personnel and initial fund somehow stunted some of the ventures started. The ADF was sidelined and the Cooperative is on hold. The RA Class’68 Alumni Board is gearing for its first general meeting and ANL had stabilized itself for the next year. Hopefully, rescue efforts from some alumni members within reach will definitely keep the ball rolling. And there are quite some hereabout.
It is suggested here that we let go of ADF even for the meantime and concentrate on the Alumni Association and its Cooperative while Asingan NewsLine shall help drum up everybody’s initiative either to help from a distance or participate on-site.
What happened with Asingan Online and the Asingan Development Forum?
Not much fuss. Rest these minor kinks for the next year. It’s Yuletide Season and we’re bent on counting more friends rather than venturing unto hostile territories. Let’s not make our world shrinks into as tight as the guillotine!
For Christendom—and outside of it—ANL wishes you the most and the best this Christmas and the coming New Year! GODSPEED!
002. Pasasalamat!
To the members of the BOE, namely: Rudy D. Antonio # Col. Lalin Layos-Pascual # Engr. Joe L. Sevilla # Rod A. Layco # Engr. Lory G. Estrada # Ross C. Diaz. To the Photo/Lay-out Artist Wena Agaton-Balino. To the entire membership of RA Class’68. To our readers, supporters and detractors. At higit sa lahat, Makabuluhang Pasko at Mabungang Taon ng 2012!---ruben “bencio” balino, managing ed.
