Antonio Trillanes, failed mutineer turned Senator of the Republic, has decided to play for all the marbles. After holing up in the Manila Peninsula with about 30 soldiers, he has asked the public to choose between him and the President.
I get the sense that this pseudo-mutiny or quasi-coup will not end peacefully.
December 26th, 2007 at 4:52 am
“So you think the best and most moral way to handle it is to decline accepting the money? Tell me how does that stop that same vote buyer from offering the money to someone else more amenable? The fact is it doesn’t. The vote buyer is inconvenienced slightly but ultimately gets what he wants.”
Under the Omnibus Election Code, the vote buyer gets prosecuted and if found guilty jailed. Jail is not an inconvenience if crimes are properly prosecuted. The problem is the people who are supposed to enforce the law are the violators of it. The Comelec is supposed to be an independent constitutional body. It is supposed to be independent from the President. But since Marcos bastardized the entire electoral system which GMA and her cohorts learned from, the system has ceased to work. So the best think is to fix the system Constitutionally by amendment and clip the powers of the President by taking away her appointment powers of independent bodies especially investigatory ones. We lack the necessary laws because your congressmen would rather go on a junket with the President than enact laws. Here to curb the powers of the President, the democratic Congress passed the Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994 whose office is responsible for prosecuting the President of the U.S. The independent counsel (last one was Judge Kenneth Star) is appointed by the Attorney General (Secretary of Justice in the Philippines). But because there GMA controlls the Secretary of Justice it will not work. Congress should pass a law creating an office of the independent counsel and insulating the Office of the Ombudsman (prosecutor of public officials). But the sad fact remains that Merceditas Guttierez, your present Ombudsman, is a close associate of Mike Arroyo. So, we are sure that she won’t lift a finger to prosecute Mike Arroyo and his cronies.
Doing an act which is moral does not require congratulations. A person who has a conscience will inform himself that what he has done is right in the eyes of the God, the law and the people. His congratulations is possessing a good character which is beyond reproach. (God will surely reward you in the end if you did and punish you if you did not).
Anyone who expects to be congratulated for doing what is right and requires payment needs to think more. You are doing what is moral not only for yourself but also for other people, your country, your children and their future. The public officials you place in power today will affect the national economy, our way of life and our children’s future. We are only in this world temporarily, we are not owners of this world. In whatever we do, we have to think beyond our times because decisions that we make now will affect future generations. Case in point is the environment. If we dump our garbage in our waters, the only ones we will be hurting is ourselves and our children. Another is population. If we do not encourge people to control their unabated procreation, there will come a time that there won’t be any resources left for everyone because its either destroyed by pollution or consumed by overpopulation. It doesn’t take a genius to understand this, however, it will require a little vision and consideration of other people.
“The truth is the best and most moral thing to do is to take the money, vote for someone else, report the vote buyer, then donate the money.”
In taking the money, you become a co conspirator in the crime. Because you have profited in the crime you are equally guilty of it. You won’t even qualify as a credible witness on the witness stand against the vote buyer because he can always claim that you asked him for the money to vote for his candidate. He has evidence to back that up because you are in possession of the money. Even if you donate the money, the law does not distinguish. “Ubi lex non distinguit, nec nos distinguere debemus,” (what the law does not distinguish we cannot distinguish). I understand where your coming from…ala Robin Hood. But if you rob a bank and give it to the poor, you’ll still get prosecuted and jailed because you violated the law. The law will not care about your motives. At most it will mitigate your sentence but it will not exempt you from being prosecuted and jailed. The politican-crooks will be in a better position than you becasue they won’t serve time even if they committed a graver crime than you did.
You have a penchant for branding people “hypocrites.” A hypocrite is a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion or a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings. I have been accused of a lot of things but hypocrisy is not one of them. Especially coming from a person who doesn’t even know me personally. You are engaging in personal atacks on people you don’t even know. That’s reckless, irresponsible and hateful. It shows that you have a maturity level of a 12-year-old who cannot even engage in a civilized exchange of ideas without resorting to name-calling.
I don’t only believe in my religious and moral beliefs but I ACT ON THEM. A hypocrite is a person who says one thing and acts contrary to his beliefs.
“They are fed a bunch of lies and deluded by easy answers.”
It’s each person’s look out to determine if what he or she is fed is true. The only easy propaganda I have heard is from GMA’s government. People are being fed with false economic data, cover-ups and white washes of graft and corruption. Even the World Bank suspended lending to the government for certain projects becasue they know that the money is being stolen. Whatever economic data you put out there, and even if most Filipinos believe in it, the world knows otherwise. That is why we have become the laughing stock of the entire world. An example of this when GMA pulled out Philippine troops out of Iraq because one Filipino got kidnapped. That just shows she values her PR to pinoys more than her word or commitments to other countries. That does not only show she is weak but that she lacks character to honor her commitments.
“People think they are being moral but in truth they are not.”
You do not seem to know how to read. As I said and quoted from the Bible NO ONE IS GOOD. ALL HAVE SINNED. THEREFORE ALL ARE IMMORAL. But having a good government doesn’t even have to touch on morality. Even if you just require PROFESSIONALISM and ETHICS (which is not necessarily based on what is moral), the GMA government has failed and it has failed big time! A trully professional public servant does NOT steal or lie to the people. Example if you work for a stock brokerage firm and you start churning your client’s accounts without authorization you are being UNPROFESSIONAL and UNETHICAL.
“That’s why problems remain and don’t go away. Filipinos aren’t willing to face reality.”
The problems are present because people who steal money and work for themselves instead of the people on whose behalf they SWORE to work for are doing what they are not supposed to be doing. You can’t commit crimes and blame another person for your crime! You can’t blame a powerless Juan de La Cruz for Malacanang’s fault. That’s dumb. The solution is to indentify the criminals and take them out. Example, if you are a doctor and your patient has a brain tumor, you don’t cut off the leg and hope your patient will get better. You go after the source of the illness and take out the tumor through surgery.
December 25th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Tama lang ang pinaglalaban ni Trillanes, Faeldon at Lim. Nakakakita sila ng corruption kaya gusto nilang mabago ang pamamalakad. Ang tao kasi hindi magising lalu na at mahimbing na ang pagkakatulog sa konting nalalasap na kaligayahan. Marami ng pera ang Pilipinas. Gumising kayo mga kababayan. Ang buwis na nalilikom ng Gubyerno ay matagal na dapat na nakatulong sa milyon nating naghihirap. Tama ang ang huwag pagkuha na pork barrel as a demonstration of etiquette. Tama ang hangarin nila Lacson, Joker Arroyo, at Trillanes. Gising na mga kababayan maikli lang ang buhay natin sa mundo at marami sa mga kababayan natin ang nalubog na sa kahirapan at walang sapat na programa para mabago ang buhay nila. Gising Gising
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:29 pm
[quote from Jossher]
Well first and foremost, if you are a law abiding citizen you would refuse it because giving (and receiving) of money for electioneering purposes violate the Omnibus Election Code. I don’t think following the law is hypocrytical. Anyone who thinks otherwise has a questionable sense of right and wrong and shouldn’t probably be allowed to vote in the first place (actually the Omnibus Election Code does disqualify election law violators from voting). I don’t think I even need to elaborate more on whether it is immoral or not. Of course engaging in vote buying is not only illegal it is immoral. Do we really need to discuss the morality of vote buying? I think your smart enough to know the answer to that one. Even your former Sen. Tito Soto said, “Kung sino man ang nagbenta nang kanyang boto ay wala nang karapatang humingi pa nang serbisyo mula sa ibinoto dahil nabayaran na ito.”
[end quote]
So you think the best and most moral way to handle it is to decline accepting the money? Tell me how does that stop that same vote buyer from offering the money to someone else more amenable? The fact is it doesn’t. The vote buyer is inconvenienced slightly but ultimately gets what he wants. I will agree that declining the money is probably the most prudent thing to do. It is probably what I’d do. But here’s the thing. I will not delude myself into thinking that that is the most moral thing to do. I will not congratulate myself for being a moral person. Because what I will know is that I settled for a pragmatic compromise. The truth is the best and most moral thing to do is to take the money, vote for someone else, report the vote buyer, then donate the money. That is the most moral answer. If everyone did that no one would engage in vote buying. But Filipinos are not taught to think like that. They are fed a bunch of lies and deluded by easy answers. People think they are being moral but in truth they are not. That’s why they are hypocrites. That’s why problems remain and don’t go away. Filipinos aren’t willing to face reality.
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
juan dela cruz:
You are correct. Prayer works. That’s why I pray for the Philippines.
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
abbygail (correct spelling: abigail)
“re cleaning up our ranks and not to wait… i don’t suppose you are suggesting toppling a govt?”
No, I am just making a point. The point being that waiting for PERFECT people to shout at government oppression will never come because people aren’t perfect. However, note the Cory government was initially a REVOLUTIONARY government. GMA attained power similarly through Edsa 2. So if there is a way to topple the government through similar but peaceful means which the Philippine Supreme Court has impliedly legitimized by way of legitimizing Cory Aquino’s and GMA’s government, I do not see anything wrong with it. Are you really sure that GMA won in the last elections? Not that I am a fan of FPJ, but from what the Garci scandal reveals there are a lot of evidence pointing to the allegation that she cheated. Governments come and go but the people and their dispair remains.
“it is easy to say that if you are not here in this country, living someplace else.
do not be an armchair leader, be where the action is…and bear the hardships too, like us.”
We’ll I have been there for 30 years. I’ve been at EDSA 1 (lying in front of tanks) and EDSA 2. I pay correct taxes, follow the law and SEND MY OFW dolllars there. I think that is more than what a lot of people do there. A lot of people are there physically present but mentally and conscienciously absent. Looking at TFC, the traffic and congestion in Metro Manila and highly urbanized areas means that the place is overpopulated. Does the physical presence of an overpopulated people help the country? I don’t think so. Armchair leader? How can I be an armchair leader if I am not a leader (yet).
I am a writer so I write. You think working from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. everyday earning dollars to send to the Philippines is easy? So you think life for the 11 Million OFWs all over the world is easy? OWFs get raped, assaulted and abused so that they can send money to their family. You should count yourself lucky you have not experienced that in a foreign land far away from your love ones. We OFWs are away because there are NO JOBS THERE. It doesn’t take a genius to know that. Or would you prefer that we stay in the Philippines and watch our families starve to death.
Why would I want to bear harsdship with people who do not even know that suffering and harship are not an end in themselves but a means to achieve something better? Sorry but I don’t think I’d want to suffer with people who think sacrificing democratic freedoms just to get along with the wrong and unjust status quo is ok. That’s what conquered people do. Are you agreeing that Filipinos like you are conquered and have no voice? Losers? No rights? No freedoms?
Life is hard being away from one’s family my dear. The bearing of hardship is only beneficial if it has a purpose or it means attaining a common goal such as seeing a plan come into fruition. (e.g. Christ dying for our sins to save us) Bearing hardship for harship’s sake is not sensible. “Misery loves company,” but don’t force people to suffer with you if those people have better things to do. That’s crab mentality. You want other people to suffer just because you are suffering too? What kind of thinking is that? If I see my fellow Pinoy doing well, I am happy for him or her. I wish him or her well. I won’t wish that he suffer too just because I am suffering. I won’t wish his or her kid’s starve just because my own children have nothing to eat. That’s un-Christian. That constitutes hate and hating other people is a sin which Jesus equates to murder. “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.” 1 John 3:15 which in turn violates the 10 commandments “Thou shall not kill.”
I don’t mind dying for a good cause…dying for my country. Life is overrated anyway. But dying to serve people who are LORDING IT OVER (people who think what they are doing is right) so they can get rich at the expense of the populace is obtuse and inane. As the late Pugo (in a refrigerator commercial) said, “That’s a lotsa nonesense!”