It looks like the new U.S. ambassador Kristie Kenney has a good grasp of the root of the crisis hounding Gloria Arroyo.
In her statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for her confirmation last January, she said: "Our bilateral relationship with the Philippines is based on a deep affection between our peoples and shared democratic values. We each have the goal of making our democracies strong and stable so that every citizen’s vote has meaning."
She got it right. She should be able understand why those who are pursuing the truth about the alleged rigging of the 2004 elections won’t stop despite water cannons, warrantless arrests, CPR, EO 464, and Proclamation 1017.
Before her Manila assignment, Kenney was ambassador to Ecuador. She has also served at overseas posts in Geneva, Argentina and Jamaica, and held senior positions at the State Department and the National Security Council in Washington.
She presents her credentials in Malacañang today against the backdrop of reduced assistance to the Philippines which is seen as an indication of the Bush administration’s waning support for Gloria Arroyo.
The Manila Mail DC Online (www.manilamaildc.net) has a news item that says: "President George W. Bush has slashed American economic and military assistance to the Philippines from $87.8 million in 2006 to $83 million in fiscal year 2007, or a slash of $6 million."
There must be an error in the computation because $87.8 million minus $83 million is $4.8 million. Anyway, it is still a decrease.
The on-line newspaper further said: "In his budget proposal submitted to Congress last month, the US President reduced funding for the various assistance programs to the Arroyo government by six percent.
"The bulk of the cut will be made on the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) from $20 million this year to $17.6 million next year, or a reduction of more than $2 million.
"In contrast, military and economic aid to Indonesia and other Asian countries have been increased instead of reduced.
"Another big slice was made on Development Assistance, from $21.5 this year to $19.6 million next year, or a reduction of nearly $2 million.
"In 2005, a year after the withdrawal of the small Philippine contingent from Iraq by President Arroyo, US aid to the Philippines was reduced by 30 percent, from $125.6 million to $87.6 million, or a reduction of $37.8 million.
"In the current budget of Mr. Bush, the Economic Support Funds (ESF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET) remained the same as that of last year of $20 million and $2.9 million, respectively. Slight reductions were made in the Child Survival & Health Funds, from $21.4 million to $21 million."
Last week, BrooksBowerAsia, a top advisory firm for multinational companies in the United States, told a group of mediamen that they find the political situation in the Philippines "alarming".
Unlike in Thailand, where the monarchy provides a stabilizing force, the US is worried that the political crisis in the Philippines could turn violent. A source who was in the meeting said, "The assessment on the Philippines that I got was that they find the situation in Manila much more volatile than in Thailand. They feel that Arroyo has nowhere to go. She is finished but they expect her to dig in. That’s why they are alarmed because things could get bloody."
The source said they asked Ernie Bower, former president of the US-Asean Business Council, and a partner of BrooksBowerAsia, what advice he would give Arroyo if he were asked. Quoting Bower, the source said, "She has to take care of her legacy and how she will be remembered in history."
That’s another way of saying, "Cut and cut clean" – the very memorable advice that US Sen. Paul Laxalt told the beleaguered Ferdinand Marcos prior to his downfall.
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PDI Editorial: When evil is good
In “1984,” Doublethink is a manipulation of the mind; it makes people accept contradictions and makes them think that it is only the Party that can distinguish between what is right and wrong. When you listen to the pronouncements of the President, her spokespersons and political lieutenants, don’t you get the uneasy feeling that you are being subjected to Doublethink? You are told that everything is fine and dandy, when in fact you know that it is not. Newspeak is nothing but the contemporary “spin” being given to stories to portray the administration in a positive, favorable light.
Many critics believe that in Orwell’s generation, no other novel than “1984” stimulated so much loathing for tyranny and so much desire for freedom. In our present stage of political instability and turmoil, when there is undeclared martial law and a creeping movement toward authoritarianism, it would be well for the people to keep the lessons of “1984” in mind and strongly resist the totalitarian actions and rules of the administration. If we remain too long in a state of apathy and inaction, we may wake up too late, when we have already lost our freedom.
War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery.
And State-sponsored Abductions are called Rescue Operations
Massive Corruption is Good Government and Economic reforms.
Election Cheating equals Legitimacy.
Arroyo also said she's tired of chasing "bullies" around the schoolyard.
At ang opposition naman ay mga "power grabbers" raw at matakaw sa kapangyarihan. Heh.
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Black-and-white Movement blog is still having blog problems.
PATALSIKIN t-shirts available here.
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Estrada supporters face CPR during testimony
THE government’s calibrated preemptive response policy will be applied on supporters of President Joseph Estrada if they insist on holding a rally sans a permit at the Sandiganbayan building in Quezon City today, presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor said yesterday.
Estrada will testify starting today before Sandiganbayan Special Division on the charges of plunder and perjury he faces.
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And finally, from Rizalist:
THE SEEDS OF THE MORAL DILEMMA which has engulfed and paralyzed the Philippine Miitary were sown on 20 January 2001 by Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr., in the acts and decisions of the Supreme Court itself -- before, during and after that decisive moment in Philippine history five years ago called Edsa 2. By declaring the Presidency VACANT on that bright Saturday morning and at high noon swearing in Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the Edsa Shrine, the Davide Supreme Court effectively LEGITIMIZED MILITARY MUTINY as an acceptable means for forcing a PRESIDENTIAL REGIME CHANGE.
OBJECTIVE EFFECT OF LEGITIMIZING WITHDRAWAL OF SUPPORT There is one undeniable and objective consequence of the Edsa 2 Supreme Court decisions which has nothing to do with Erap's guilt or innocence as such, but with a new standard of behavior on the part of the Philippine Miitary that has been established by the Davide Supreme Court when it found the events of Edsa 2 -- "CONSTITUTIONAL THROUGHOUT"-- with no HIATUS whatsoever in the operation of the Constitution, on the part of anybody (including themselves of course.) A retrospective and Chronology of Events on the Angelo Reyes Mutiny is in When Last the Military Withdrew Support.
THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS By legitimizing the END RESULT of Edsa 2, the Davide Supreme Court also blessed the ILLEGAL MEANS employed -- including Angelo Reyes' Military Mutiny, still perniciously referred to in respectable society as "a withdrawal of support" when he himself had called it a Mutiny. Indeed, it was only because the Armed Forces Chief of Staff Angelo T. Reyes had declared and executed a mutiny against President Joseph Estrada on 19 January 2001, that Davide could even have considered doing what he did. A most important vestige of that highly immoral legitimization of plain and simple Mutiny may be found in the term "WITHDRAWAL OF SUPPORT" which, in this context, reveals a Supreme Court assiduously creating a category of acceptable mutiny. It is Davide's Chicken, which wrongly declared the Presidency vacant at noon on that bright Saturday morning, which has come home to roost in the Philippine Military as a logical brain twister that subverts the Articles of War, idiotizes the Chain of Command by confounding office-holders with positions of public trust, and indeed declares EVIL to be GOOD, as a recent PDI editorial Orwellianized.
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