Michelle Malkin on being discriminated against in the Philippines

Tuesday Bullets:

• If this is true, then this is very damning against the US servicemen in the Pinay rape case. I still think matatalo ang victim sa kaso na ito, dahil malalakas ang kalaban nya. I'm thinking a slap on the wrist or outright acquittal for Keith Silkwood and his gang of thugs.


• Although I disagree with Conrado de Quiros's views on the WOT, I think his article is spot on as to why Arroyo is recently so atat-na-atat about starting a New War against the Left and Commies.


• Lito Banayo remembers 27 June 2005, when we all had a laugh on national tv.


• Has GMA really lost the support of the Catholic Church?


• PNP: Taking to the streets? Show permit! Pero hindi ba under BP 880, automatic na pwede ka nang mag-rally if the mayor's office fail to take action on your rally permit request after 2 days? Makakaasa ba tayo kay Lito Atienza na mabigyan tayo ng permit para sa mga rally sa Mediola, katulad ng panahon nina Cory, Ramos at Erap?


• JB Baylon on the chismis and talks surrounding Ate Glue's recent trip to the hospital.


• Baka sabihin ng iba na hindi kami "fair and balanced" sa Philippine Politics 04. Eto naman ang panig ng kabila. Fel Marangay, who is a reporter and a columnist for the Manila Standard Today, puts out the latest Malacanang talking points. Top story for the Standard Today, bylined by Marangay too is: Malacanang to critics, show respect while GMA is away.
  
  O, eto pa, from column-mate Bong Austero, who thinks we should give the group behind the GMA-backed People's Initiative a chance. (off topic: wow, mas matanda pa pala si Austero sa akin. akala ko 24-25 years old lang siya. LOL.) Here's his pic:
  
  


• Hello Garci operator Lintang Bedol to be promoted as judge?


• Garci General Esperon to become the next AFP chief? HU-AH!
  
  More from the PDI Editorial: Wanted: Generals
  
  

  Will she appoint ideological generals to head the AFP or the PNP? This will be the surest sign that the Arroyo administration’s new hard-line position is not merely rhetorical, but real. It is one thing when, say, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye avoids making a distinction between a communist rebel and a street protester; it is altogether another thing when someone like Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan blithely assumes that a militant activist peacefully demonstrating for human rights and an armed insurgent planning an ambush are one and the same.



• Top Asian, European liberals alarmed at militants’ murders
  
  

  The Arroyo government received another black eye, this time coming from Asian and European delegates to a conference of Liberal Democrats that convened yesterday. They condemned the non-stop political killings of leftists in the country.
  
  But even as a former German Liberal Party leader pointed out that President Arroyo’s all-out war against local communists is not necessary as top liberals from Asia and Europe expressed alarm over the increasing number of militants being killed in the Philippines, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) started its investigation and armed push to determine the possible involvement of government officials, particularly party-list congressmen identified with the Left who it said are providing support to the New People’s Army (NPA).
  
  According to Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., 7th Infantry Division commander who has a reputation of being a “butcher” of leftists, the partylist congressmen, standing as a support system for the armed rebels, must be stopped and not allowed to sit in Congress.
  
  “It’s clear that the partylists groups are part of the armed rebellion as they serve as a support system for the armed groups”, Palparan was quoted as saying.

  
  No wonder isa-isa silang pinapatay...
  
  More from Ninez Cacho Olivares:
  
  

  If Gloria and her aides think that by abolishing the death penalty, she will be strengthening European diplomatic support and recognition of her presidency whose legitimacy continues to be doubted both here and abroad, they certainly have another think coming.
  
  While the European governments may express satisfaction over the death of capital punishment in this country, they are just as uptight in matters of summary executions that are happening much too frequently in the Philippines, where too many leftwing militants and journalists are being murdered, and by military and police people, even if they keep on denying this.
  
  Even more worrisome for the European governments is the dismal country state on the blatant violations of human and civil rights.
  
  For the European audience, hearing or reading about Gloria’s all-out war against the Left is anathema, since leftists — whether socialist or communist — are recognized in their democracies in their parliamentary struggle.
  
  Not so in this country, as evidenced by the Arroyo officials slapping rebellion charges on elected congressmen with the leftist bent. Gloria, her aides, her military and police generals, do not make a distinction between the armed communist group and the above ground leftists or militants. To them, they are part and parcel of the communist movement and must therefore be jailed or even summarily executed. A general even says they should not be made to sit in Congress.



• “WHERE are all the good leaders?” “Who is the alternative to the present leadership?” “Yes we believe that the Gloria Arroyo cheated, lied and stole her way to the presidency, and we believe that the stealing goes on, but will fighting the present wrongs, resisting the present injustice, bring us anything better?”
  
  These are some of the questions from the "Arroyo stay" people that Dr. Maria Padilla tackled.


• Michelle Malkin on color discrimination in the Philippines, in her old 1998 Seattle Times article:
  
  

  MY skin is light mocha brown.
  
  Growing up in rural South Jersey, it always seemed darker than it really was. To the pink-necked bigots who couldn’t tell Philadelphia from the Philippines, the light mocha brown skin of the Maglalang family and the caramel skin of the Patel family and the deep ebony skin of the Jackson family were indistinguishable. We were all equal, all right. Equally non-white. Equally “Niggers.”
  
  On a recent vacation, my naturally burnished hide once again invited the kind of circus-freak scrutiny I’d grown indifferent to since childhood. A genteel lady from rural Virginia had been chatting vacuously with my husband (who happens to be a person of pallor). When I joined him casually and slipped my hand in his, the curious belle interrupted herself to squint closely at my brown visage. In the lilting, exaggerated manner of a civilized explorer trying to
  communicate with a deaf barbarian, she asked me: “AND . . . WHAR . . . ARE . . . YEW . . . FRUM?”
  
  I’ve been called every racial epithet in the book. But whites aren’t the only ones who pass ill judgments based on color.
  
  Within my own ethnic group - within my own family - there is shade-based bigotry. Back in the Philippines, upscale restaurants refuse to hire natives with skin darker than sand. The movie industry promotes model “mestizos” and “Maria Claras” - pale as paper due to the blanching effect of Spanish blood. Lighter-skinned cousins mocked me as “The Brownie.” Pitying aunties suggested rubbing my skin with pumice stones for a more desirable complexion.