IT challenges reflection that a lawyer, instead of a doctor, is the chief architect and single strong advocate of House Bill 5043 which actually consolidated into one, House Bills 17, 812, 2753 and 3920 in this 14th Congress. The simple idea of gender equality easily permits room for women proponents themselves, in either House or Senate, to be the mouthpiece as well as the voice behind such a now controversial bill that is met with so much opposition from not few traditional groups — not Rep. Edcel Lagman — unless otherwise no other proponent from the female species is available. Women issues are the exclusive domain of women, or so I thought?

Offhand, HB 5043 pretentiously placed reproductive health, responsible parenthood, and population development under its policy framework. Good. But let us be reminded that a single legislative measure such as HB 5043 that carries more than three subject matters is actually “violative” of “overloading.” Bottomline: that is the way professors of law teaching on “How a Bill becomes a Law” always teach us. Where will HB 5043 all transport us to? Such a would-be law that prohibits and in fact penalizes any healthcare service provider who refuses to perform medically safe reproductive health care services in the absence of spousal consent or authorization is revolting. What is this?

Boldly, the bill claims the policy is anchored on the rationale of sustainable development with a manageable population of healthy, educated and productive citizens. Truly, this carries some kind of racist bias against those otherwise unhealthy, uneducated, and unproductive in our realpolitik. Is this Hitler’s idea of a “super race?” What about China with approximately two billion in population that has managed equitably well without compromising its position as the next economic superpower? I say as anecdotal the sweet claim of a population management stratagem of a two-child policy. The proponent himself has more than two of his own, doesn’t he?

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IT is lamentable (to borrow the word of Senator Pangilinan) that Mon Tulfo would call Ermita and Atienza “decent men,” while branding Jun Lozada’s claims “exaggerated.”

Now we see why the country is in a lamentable state. We glorify those people who never manifested “decency” when the NBN-ZTE scandal was a hot item, while the person who risked everything is being crucified.

At least I’m basing what I’ve written here from their previous actions and not based on their personality. Let me remind Mon Tulfo that even family and friends of criminals say that those criminals are “mabait” and not capable of committing crimes.

Lamentable!

Robert C. Garcia, via reader’s blog comment

By Soliman M. Santos, Jr.
Contributor

THE government has not only set aside the initialed but unsigned final draft of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD); it has also dissolved the GRP Peace Panel which negotiated the MOA. With the way things are working in this country, this can only mean that they (the panel) must have done something good. I therefore wish to give them some tribute.

In the Harvard Negotiation Project’s now classic book “Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In” by Roger Fisher and William Ury, the first of four main points of method here is to “Separate the People from the Problem.” One of the notes under this is that “Negotiators are people first.” In negotiations, one is dealing not with abstract representatives of the “other side” but with human beings. They have emotions, deeply held values, and different backgrounds and viewpoints. That’s why one basic rule in negotiations is “Be hard on issues but be soft with people.” And who are these people whom many in the Filipino Christian mainstream are being so hard with now?

The GRP Peace Panel Chairman was retired Gen. Rodolfo Garcia from San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan. When he retired from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in 2004, he was Vice Chief of Staff. His military service in Mindanao dates back to 1970, after graduating from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). He was a platoon leader and later Executive Officer in the 26th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army (PA), covering Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato and Zamboanga del Sur. He rose to become the Commander of the 6th Infantry Division, PA in Central Mindanao in 1999. His transition from man of war to man of peace was made in 2003 when, while still AFP Vice Chief of Staff, he concurrently becomes Chairman of the GRP ceasefire committee for the peace process with the MILF. After the military retirement, he joined the Office of the Presidential Adviser of the Peace Process (OPAPP) as an Undersecretary, was appointed a member of the GRP Peace Panel and later became its Vice-Chairman. He took over as Chairman only in July 2007 after the stint of Secretary Silvestre C. Afable, Jr. who oversaw most of the ancestral domain negotiations up to June 2007.
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally written by the author for his blog. We’re posting it with his permission.

By Doy Cinco

Nakakalungkot isipin na kung sino pa ang “nagsusulong, nagtutulak at nananawagan ng good governance, moralidad at responsible citizenship, krusada laban sa jueteng at kurakot” ay siya pa ngayon ang iniipit, pinapatanggal sa pwesto at kinakasuhan ng katiwalian at kabuktutan.

Ano ang layunin at bakit gustong patalsikin sa pwesto bilang gubernador si Among Ed? Ang recall petition ba’y interest ng nakararaming Kapampangan, para ba ito sa kaunlaran, good governance at para sa pagbabago? Dahil ba sa plataporma at prinsipyong ipinaglalabang political reform, pagwawaksi ng kabulukan ng pulitika, pagwaksi ng guns gold at goons at sistemang padri-padrino? Ano ang political agenda, ano ang ALTERNATIBA?

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Editor’s note: We love a good conversation. So starting this week, we will be highlighting readers’ comments we deem interesting and relevant to this blog. Readers must identify themselves and not use anonymous names to get higher chances of being picked out from the crowd. Also, best to say where you’re from and put a link to online articles you wish to comment on. Here’s one we picked for this week.

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I am so appalled at how the Inquirer editorial on September 7, 2008 can be so careless and wrong about its facts despite its vast network of reporters and contacts who can do even a cursory verification.

The Consortium on Electoral Reforms or CER is not composed of lawmakers from both Houses of Congress. It is purely a civil society network of electoral reform workers and it definitely cannot “railroad” the passage of a bill.

With all due respect, the tone of the editorial makes it look more like a hatchet job against groups that supports reform in our political party system, than one that would encourage debate on this important issue. Where did this piece come from? I understand that Inquirer has to take strong positions on important issues, and although I do not agree with all of them, they are generally well written and informative. This editorial is different.

All that Inquirer should have done was to talk to Mon Casiple, the CER Chair, who is anyway very visible in the media, to ask CER’s positions on the political party reform bill. Inquirer may disagree, but at least it would be an informed position.

The insinuation of malice and sinister motive on CER is a grave insult to its network members who have selfishly worked for electoral reforms for a number of years now. This is plain irresponsible journalism that must be rectified.

I have made it a daily habit to read the Inquirer and its editorials over that of the other papers. Now I am having second thoughts about your paper.

Luie Guia, via readers’ comment.

I really admire the order imposed against cutting trees by Mayor Lim. Definitely, deforestation and land degradation are serious problems in our country, which explains the worst floods in Metro Manila during heavy rains. This act may decrease the effects of the natural calamities and if we do not act on this, perhaps in the next 10 years, illegal logging will be so rampant that the local and national government will not be able do anything to stop it. Although they may have millions of reasons for cutting the Mahogany and Narra trees, this is does not make it right. Illegal loggers should be punishable by law if the case becomes legitimized.

Pircelyn B. Pialago, Bacoor, Cavite, via e-mail

By Atty. Soliman M. Santos, Jr.
Contributor

THE initialed but unsigned final draft of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), the subject of much current controversy at the national level and of fighting in Central Mindanao, has been “set aside for all intents and purposes” by the Philippine government, at least by its Executive Department (we have to be clear these days which of the three departments is actually acting). The matter is still pending in the Supreme Court but the Executive has announced:“No matter what the Supreme Court ultimately decides, the government will not sign the MOA… in its present form or in any form.” In so many words, the MOA is dead. Those who were so worried about what they thought as the MOA giving away national sovereignty and territory to a new Bangsamoro state, in grave violation of the Constitution, need not worry anymore. The MOA is dead. What they should perhaps worry about now is whether the peace process with the MILF is also dead or at a dead end, where the detour taken could lead to a full-blown war.

The peace negotiations were meant to resolve the armed conflict on the Moro front through a negotiated political settlement for a just, lasting and comprehensive solution of the Bangsamoro problem. The ancestral domain aspect of that problem was lined up as the penultimate substantive agenda heading before finally working out the political solution and the legal modalities in a Comprehensive Compact. But this mutually agreed process has reached a dead end of sorts with the non-signing of the MOA, as far as the MILF is concerned. It remains to be seen whether this deadlock can be unlocked. The logic of the whole process would seem to dictate that, since the peace negotiations cannot proceed for the MILF, then it can be expected to consider “alternative means to achieve freedom and justice for the Bangsamoro people” (from an official statement of MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal). These other options include a return to armed struggle which the Moro liberation fronts had waged in the first place to achieve political objectives. And when this rebellion is met by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in order to suppress it, then you have an armed conflict. This could go back in some ways to the situation during the early years of martial law before the 1976 Tripoli Agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

The Executive Department had announced that it will not sign the MOA due to “changed circumstances” like the ongoing controversy at the national level and the precarious ground situation in Central Mindanao, in effect saying that the MOA issue had become more political than legal. Stated otherwise, the MOA has become politically untenable to sign as far as the government’s own Christian majority constituency is concerned. The non-signing the MOA was calculated to give the Executive some space to engage in various political efforts to defuse the political situation as well as address the ground situation. As for the peace process, the Peace Adviser and the GRP Peace Panel Chairperson have mulled continuing this through “further negotiations” that already “move towards a Comprehensive Compact,” of course coupled with “consultation with various stakeholders” — the major lesson from the aborted MOA experience.
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