The list redux

THE police here is kind of antsy these days.

Police officials now understand the horrors and paranoia that comes with dealing with the prospect that they could be in a supposed kill list circulating from within their own ranks.

This comes at the heels of an exposé of a former city police director in Northern Mindanao. The source claimed that the daring daylight ambush on Supt. Michael John Deloso was the handiwork of a shadowy group that is executing a kill list of superintendents suspected of being involved in criminal activities. Digong Dada called this kind of police officers as “ninja cops.”

The source added that there are at least two more police superintendents in the list of suspected ninja cops targeted for extrajudicial killing or to be politically correct, serial murders.

On one hand, police officials are denying there is such a list. On the other hand, they are not taking chances either. As one official puts it: “Duna gani uban nga gabaton nag security escort kay delikado baya mapagkamalan ka.”

The official even goes on to call the liquidation of supposed ninja cops as “very unlawful and barbaric.”

I don’t mean to gloat when I say that these are the things that we have been telling the police with their Badac lists of drug personalities. How sure are you that the person who drew up that list included you just out of spite or jealous of how your career has been going?

The official also said that a position in government does not give one the right to trample on the law. Correct, sir. No one should be above the law, even law enforcers should not be above the law.

Now, this officer is on the side of law and order. He said: “Let everyone be heard in a court rather than take shortcuts.”

Well, boo-freaking-hoo, sir. Were the 22 thousand drug suspects who were killed on mere suspicion heard by a court of law? The answer to that is an echoing “no.” Most of them were killed inside their homes while sleeping.

Please don’t start with that pro-forma reason that they tried to shoot it out with the arresting cops. That’s just lazy, not to mention, lousy police work. It is ridiculous to think that the 15-or-so drug suspects killed all used caliber .38 revolvers, had a grenade, and worse, had no money in their pockets except for the buy-bust cash? C’mon, sirs. You can do better than that.

At least, now that you are relatively on the same rut as the drug personalities, I think you’d be more discerning in waging Digong Dada’s “war on drugs.” Let these drug suspects have their day in court.

If there’s anything the police should learn from all of these is that shortcuts, such as kill lists, in law enforcement is untenable.

Any workable list needs a minimum of three items. It doesn’t need due process, supporting evidence or any modicum of rule of law. These three items, by the way, is a workable list. A list of things which we direly need in government right now.

Asserting our rights

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1776 US Declaration of Independence

THE Universal Declaration of Human Rights is as relevant and important today as it was when it was adopted by 48 countries, the Philippines included, 70 years ago yesterday.

Human rights watchdog Karapatan has documented that from May 23, 2017, to November this year, there were 88 victims of political killings, 128 cases of frustrated killings, and 186 victims of illegal arrests and detention in Mindanao alone.

On Sunday, a group of farmers and indigenous people from Bukidnon, numbering to about 2,000, were held up by the armed police at Patpat, Malaybalay in Bukidnon. The contingent was on its way to the city to commemorate the 70th Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Not to be deterred, the contingent staged a picket rally where they were held, and the police released them 30 minutes after.

One of the delegates observed that as soon as they were returning to their buses, the police officers started dismantling their supposed checkpoint.

“Clearly, the holding point was set up waiting only for the delegates,” reports one of the delegates.

The United Nations’ Human Rights Commission, through its special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, has warned that the ongoing militarization of Mindanao will have a massive and potentially irreversible impact on the human rights of its tribal communities.

“We urge the Philippines to observe its obligations under international law to protect the human rights of indigenous peoples, including in the context of armed conflict. The authorities must ensure that all human rights abuses are halted and that there are justice and accountability for past attacks,” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, reported to the UN’s human rights high commissioner last year.

The figures are alarming in that since last year, there have been 2,500 lumad people displaced, and the number is rising. With yet another extension of martial rule across the island, these figures will most definitely rise some more.

The UDHR is not just some mundane covenant of 48 countries. It is a document that encapsulates the age-old question, What makes one human? We must continue to assert this declaration as this administration continues to trample the very essence of what makes us humans.

Just as libertarians before us fought tooth and nail to assert their rights for a morally upright society, it is incumbent on us to take the cudgels once again during these dark days of our country.

Of religious nuts and Dodo birds

(Note: This article first appeared Mindanao Gold Star Daily's Dec. 8, 2015 issue.)

“I was a Catholic until I reached the age of reason.”–George Carlin

MY beef with religion and blind faith is that these stop human beings from being critical with the world around them. It makes them accept things that aren’t really there. It is manipulative.

Having the power to question things around us is why our species is still here. When things go bump in the night, cavemen before would check it out and protect the “herd.”

I was saddened at how the mass media covered the San Bernardino shooting in the US. Couldn’t they have been just delusional or psychotic Americans? Do they have to be “Radicalized Muslims?” When a Christian starts shooting people in a mall, do you report that the perpetrator did so because Jesus Christ somehow whispered into his ears that shooting people would be a good idea?

Our desk editor Dave Achondo aptly posted on my wall over the weekend: “When a person talks to a god, that person is religious. But when ‘god’ talks back to them, that person is psychotic or delusional.”

When we stop questioning things because an invisible guy up in the sky has predetermined your life, then we, as a species, stop evolving and are resigning our fate to the elements of nature. Religious people would say things like, “God sent this rain today so we have to be grateful for his ‘majesty.’” But when a thousand people die in a train wreck, do we exalt god’s name because he sent the angel of death to collect all those innocent people? When I use the pronoun “he” for god, it is simply because no woman would f@#$ up the world and its people this bad. I borrowed that line from humorist George Carlin, by the way.

Who do you think brought you your warm bath, irrigation of farmlands, and vaccines? Certainly not the religious nuts. They were too busy burning scientists at the stake. It was the scientists that brought us all out from the dark ages.

As I have said before, religion does not have a monopoly of morality. Religious people would argue that distinguishing good from bad is inherent with religion. No, it most certainly does not. Religion labels people. It divides us into groups when we actually belong to the same species.

If you examine world history carefully, you will see that religion is the foremost cause of genocides and ethnic cleansing.

Many would argue that the crusades don’t count because it happened hundreds of years ago. The religious killings that are happening now–conveniently labeled by the US as “terrorism without borders”–is a direct retaliation of what the Christians did to Muslims before. That’s the danger of religious bias because it has no expiration date. It is passed from one generation to another. It is simply physics at work: For every action, there is an equal amount of reaction.

I could almost hear my relatives say that it is easy for me to say such things because I’m an “atheist.” I say, there goes another label. We are all, simply, human beings. Why the compulsion to label people into groups is beyond me.

If we stop being critical then we lose that edge to evolve as a species, we will simply go extinct like the Dodo bird. So I call on people not to lose that evolutionary edge and start questioning things around us lest we become complicit to the extinction of human beings.

The genius of all of these is that you can choose to agree or disagree with me. That is not the “free will” that a god bestowed among human beings. That is the human genome’s imperative to be inquisitive, curious, and critical. That, by the way, is the self-preservation imperative at work imprinted in our genes through millions of years of evolution–not by an invisible guy in the sky.

Homecoming

“Woe unto you when men shall speak well of you.” — Unknown

HERE in the city, the last days of November mean a flurry of high school homecoming celebrations. Of all the high schools in the city, guess which school did not allow its high school alumni to hold their homecoming inside its campus — Xavier University High School.

We are or were the only high school alumni in the city to hold their homecoming inside a mall.

Unlike the college alumni, who spent only four to five years at the university, most of us, high school alumni, spent at least 12 years. The word “spend” doesn’t only mean time. It also means money spent on tuition and what-have-you.

The XUHS homecoming used to be held at the tennis court at the rear portion of the main campus. It was the infamous guesting of one Maui Taylor that changed all that. The priests were reportedly scandalized with the girl gyrating on stage. The crowd got so loud that it disturbed the residents at the Loyola House.

The Cambridge dictionary defines homecoming, a noun, as a “celebration at a school or college, usually including a dance, when people who were students there at an earlier time can return to visit; a celebration at a school or a college to honor people who were students there earlier.”

I understand homecoming as a way for those who (read: Jesuits) got our money to welcome us and thank us for the money well-spent in their fine educational institution.

I know the alumni association has been continuously pleading our case with the priests. I have heard that these relics, who for the most part exist because of their flock, would not budge an inch and restore celebrating XUHS homecoming in the campus. I say, shame on them.

We are asking only one night every year to use a small portion of the main campus for homecoming. For most of us who spent most our time and a butt load of money on you, Jesuits, that’s not really a big thing. Our homecoming is not even close to the kind of debauchery priests did in the Middle Ages.

If anything, these priests are ungrateful, selfish, and privileged relics.

Upping the Ante

LATE last week, a politician ranted on a live Facebook session about trolls, allegedly maintained by city hall, who were attacking him. It was surreal.

On one hand, it was interesting to see the man, fairly or unfairly referred to as the “father of trolls,” squirm at the proposition that his group is getting a dose of its own medicine — trolling. For the politician to go online and preach about the ills of trolling is nothing short of a standup comedy. It was full of irony, not to mention, nonsequiturs.

I doubt if we can trust anyone seeking an elected government position who spends a lot of time lurking on social media platforms than engaging people in the real world setting. I’ve always found that sinister. Case in point: The Donald.

On the other hand, you have a mayor wannabe who has all the time in the world to be concerned with the social media buzz about him.

I’d like to point out that the man has been referred to as the social media director the President’s cyber-troops during the 2016 presidential campaign.

No less than a study of the University of Oxford found that the President’s group spent around P10 million to hire trolls who would spread propaganda for the then-presidential candidate and to target those who were against him.

The study, titled “Troops, trolls, and troublemakers: A global inventory of organized social media manipulation,” found that the poison of choice of trolls and their handlers involve “verbal abuse, hate speech, and discrimination against the values, beliefs or identity of a user or a group of users online.” Netizens were dumbfounded and couldn’t help but be silenced online.

I found the rant of the “social media director” last week to be ironic. Given what his group’s social media operators did in 2016, he should be the last entity to lash out at trolling.

I have always believed that negative or “black” campaigning will never prosper in a relatively small town of electorates. This scheme of deception online might have worked in the national scale as we have seen in the last national elections, but I doubt it would work in a more intimate and constricted space like Cagayan de Oro, a city where almost everyone is either related or at least knows everybody in government service.

It is what I love about this city. Although it has been included in the Top 10 list of the most competitive cities in Mindanao (ranked second), it has managed to maintain its “barriotic” character. While it has become a relative metropolis, one could still ask a neighbor for cooking oil, salt, and other mundane domestic needs.

In the end, what matters is how well our politicians have presented themselves in the real world because, by now, people have realized about the machinations in the social media platforms.

The city electorate cares much more about how these candidates are going to forge a better city than to listen to or read their mudslingings. That is why we have launched the “100% Politics” in our paper.

Through that democratic space, we do not write about what the candidates intend to do once in office but their group’s representatives do. Through this space, voters would see which group has the intellectual stamina and zest for public service.

One editor puts it this way: “If the groups cannot present and articulate their ideas, more so submit articles about what they stand for and about their platforms of government, then why are they running in the first place?”

I agree with that. So far, at least two groups have articulated their visions for the future of the city and the province based on my own scorecard. The others have contained their articles to praising the exploits of their individual candidates.

The city’s or the province’s experiences have shown us that it doesn’t take one individual but a collective effort of a group to realize their vision of development. It is elementary to deduce that without a clear vision, mission, and goal, these groups could be bereft of public service in mind but individual political ambition. In both characteristics, by the way, the city or the province lose.

Ever hopeful as I am, I am looking forward to more substantial and intellectually stimulating articles in this paper’s “100% Politics.” Anyway, there’s still time to make a turnaround and show their respective constituents what they’re made of.

I’ll be crossing my fingers and toes.

Strangers in the mirror

“The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.” — Mark Twain

WITH what his operatives have been doing to the people they have sworn to serve and protect, a fictional character and plot of a television series should be the least of Philippine National Police Chief Oscar Abayalde’s concern.

It boggles the mind that Abayalde is so concerned with his perceived blowback with Ang Probinsyano to his organization’s integrity when his own personnel is doing a bang-up job tainting their organization themselves.

The fictional Cardo Dalisay, like most of the characters in Philippine cinema and television, acts as a mirror to the harsh realities of society. Television series, like most expressions of art, is included in the right to free expression — a right enshrined and guaranteed in our Constitution. Abayalde would do well not to shut down the show just because he doesn’t like what he sees in that mirror.

He should, instead, concentrate on working towards redeeming his organization’s reputation that, no less than, the President has labeled as “corrupt to the core.”

Why don’t we, in the spirit of public service, list PNP’s “greatest hits.” This list is not to demoralize our police but to point Abayalde to where he should focus on and not waste his time picking on a television show. Besides, from the looks of things, he has been watching way too much television.

For full disclosure, this list of crimes allegedly perpetrated by police officers has been culled from a simple Google search. However, it should be noted that these have been reported by reputable news organizations and some were reported by PNP top brass themselves.

Theft of electricity

Yesterday, GMA News reported that in Cagayan de Oro City, a police station has been using an illegal jumper cable to provide electricity to its camp.

Rape

The PNP’s Internal Affairs Service reported that they have since filed a total of 31 rape cases committed by 43 police officers from 2012 to 2018.

What’s more disturbing is that 2017 marked a stark increase in incidents of rape involving cops, at 15 rape cases. This year, PNP-IAS has been investigating cops involved in nine rape cases.

Kidnapping

In his report to Abayalde, Chief Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said eight cops assigned at the Muntinlupa City Police Station-Station Drug Enforcement Unit were involved in a kidnap-for-ransom case. They have since arrested four. The other four cops, however, are still at large.

Illegal drugs

Lawyer Alfegar Triambulo, inspector general of PNP-IAS reported in June this year to Abayalde that there have been 349 of its personnel who tested positive for illegal drug use. It is worth noting that the drug of choice of these police officers is shabu. The very substance the organization is supposedly sworn to eradicate.

Equally disconcerting in Triambulo’s report is the fact that of the 349 who tested positive for drugs use, 341 are uniformed personnel. Eight are non-uniformed personnel. The figure is 341 too many for an organization mandated to stamp out illegal drug use.

Extortion

The PNP’s Counter Intelligence Task Force arrested two cops caught extorting P250 in an entrapment operation by another cop who posed as an ordinary motorist on Feb. 12 last year.

As if the amount these cops extorted from a poseur-motorist is not embarrassing enough, the public knows this modus only too well. Where do you think the terms “kotong cops” and “scalawags” come from? These terms did not come out of thin air. It has been happening that is why this modus has been named.

Since the PNP has been ordered to focus on internal cleansing, the organization has received more than a thousand text messages reporting cases of scalawag cops.

Torture

Let’s not forget the 10 police officers who were suspended for running a secret prison where they illegally detain suspects and beat the living daylights out of them.

The detention facility, by the way, is not officially listed in the PNP’s detention facilities. It is a converted house in a residential area in Biñan, Laguna. It has been known to have used the infamous “Wheel of torture,” where different kinds of torture were written on a wheel and what the inmates spin for the choice of the kind of torture to be done to them.

Murders

This May, PNP reported that the organization killed 4,251 drug suspects in anti-drug operations between July 1, 2016, and April 30.

However, Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay refutes the figure since this conflicted with another report the PNP bared to the public before.

Palabay pointed out that last December, the PNP reported at least 20,000 extrajudicial killings in anti-drug operation from July 1, 2016, to September, last year.

Talking of extrajudicial killings, this week we will be commemorating sans justice the Ampatuan Massacre.

Nine years ago on the morning of Nov. 23, 58 people, including lawyers and 32 of whom were media practitioners, were killed on a hilltop in the village of Masalay in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province. Nine years since the victims’ families have yet to exact justice from the most gruesome election-related violence in the world.

With all these cases hounding the PNP, it seems Abayalde has so much in his plate that the Cardo Dalisay, a fictional character at that, is much more threatening to the image and credibility of the police force of the country.

Here’s an unrequited advise to the good general: Lay off the boob tube and get your house in order.

Raising the level of discourse

METHINKS the biggest losers this election season will be politicos who hired trolls to either promote them or slander their opponents — like in the 2016 national elections — and ultimately, the voting public.

I admit I was among the netizens who were dumbstruck by the attack of the trolls in 2016. It was something new. People were actually silenced by the bullying of trolls.

However, more and more people, actual social media users, are getting back at the trolls. As I have observed in some city-based Facebook groups, people are directly calling out trolls.

I based this observation on the threads of local group “Bantay Kagay-an.” I have been a member of the group even when it was called “Bangon Kagay-an.” It sprang up as a direct response to the devastation of Typhoon Sendong.

I must say first that it is unfortunate that this group has become a cesspool of trolls and its owner has not been forthright with his group members. The group is supposed to be an independent group.

The owner is running for a seat in the city council. He filed for a mayoral position but withdrew and posted a statement of sorts on his reason for his withdrawal to the mayoral race. He said he was waiving his candidacy to a person who supposedly bedazzled him in a brief encounter at a hotel lobby.

In its declaration of group rules, Sec. C: Values and Principles #2, it states that members must “be fair and balanced (in contrast to lap-dogging or doing a PR for somebody).” A cursory scan of the group posts now will show that it has since broken this rule.

The group page is being held hostage by a troll named “Jose Ma. Guerrero.” Since the filing of certificates of candidacy, this troll has regularly and consistently posted slanderous statements against the incumbent administration while bolstering how immaculately clean its principal is.

The funny thing is, real users are openly commenting against the troll’s ad hominem and non sequitur posts. Before, it was unthinkable that you would berate a troll online considering they are masked in anonymity. I guess real social media users have had enough of the toxic discourse if you call it that.

Other Facebook groups are even worse. Case in point is the group called “Ang Baruganan.” If you scan the posts in the group page, you will realize that no real users are commenting or posting on the page. It has been completely taken over by the trolls of all candidates of the city and the province.

It seemed that raising the level of public discourse is becoming less likely on social media. We have to face the reality that it is a practice in futility to be debating with a person cloaked in anonymity. There is no accountability and responsibility with what they post on social media.

Fortunately, my editor-in-chief thought of something that will benefit the electorate. He decided to give all the local political parties a space in the opinion pages of this paper — one day for every group each week. He named it “100% Politics.” This new sub-section within this paper’s opinion pages aims to raise the level of issue-based and fact-based public discourse on matters of politics and governance while the competing political groups keep with good taste and propriety, things that have been lost and which many people no longer value in other public discussion social media groups recently.

All the political groups have agreed and picked a day for their group columns. “100% Politics” started yesterday with city administrator Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr. writing for the incumbent administration (as expected, of course). In the coming days, we, the electorate, would witness a battle of ideas sans ad hominems and non-sequiturs.

The political groups should be able to present their respective development plans and reform agenda. They will have to convince the voting public who deserves to be supported and why the other groups are less deserving.

In the end, the voting public will benefit from this healthy but highly competitive public discourse.

The mystery of the script

“Impunity thrives not so much through actively putting up obstacles to accountability. More than anything, it is nurtured by apathy and inaction of governments and people.” -Nonoy Espina, chairman, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines

IT is good that the city council’s committee on police and public safety would finally be looking into the spate of anti-drug operation killings here. Hats off, also, to Camp Alagar for admitting there is something amiss when deadly force seems to be the response of choice of its operatives. They are, after all, law enforcers.

This show of concern happened after, more or less, 10 people have been killed here in the city.

Camp Alagar spokesman Supt. Surki Sereñas said all of the officers involved in the anti-drug operation killings are undergoing investigation and could be slapped with administrative cases. He said their Internal Affairs Service would be recommending to the top brass of Camp Alagar after its investigation.

However, Sereñas said the IAS recommendation for the anti-drug operation killings in the city would be based on the reports from the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office.

This means that internal affairs investigators will be depending on what the post-operation reports say, which have been filed by the anti-drug operatives. Yes, I know. This almost sounds like a conflict of interest but we have to give our police force the presumption of regularity.

Presumption of regularity, by the way, is a legal precept that assumes government bodies have properly discharged their official mandates. In this case, we assume that the anti-drug operatives followed the protocols in the conduct of anti-drug operations to the letter.

So, let’s look at the post operations report of the operatives. This paper found disturbing and uncanny similarities in almost all of the anti-drug operation killings in the city.

“The similarities in the cases are striking. In nearly all the shooting deaths, the slain suspects had no cash except the marked money of P500, more or less, had a few sachets of suspected shabu, were armed with caliber .38 revolvers or, at times, caliber .45 pistols and/or grenades. According to the police, those killed allegedly fired shots but missed after sensing that they were dealing with undercover cops, and then got shot and killed,” this paper reported.

In the spirit of logic and public service, join me as we deconstruct this narrative. Let’s dissect it.

First, the slain drug suspects (emphasis on suspects) had no cash with them. Most of them only had the buy-bust money, usually amounting to P500. Keep in mind that these buy-bust operations usually happen at night or in the wee hours. This tells us that these poor unfortunate souls are crappy at what they do — selling drugs. If they were any good, they should have at least P1,000 cash in them at the time of the bust. Drug dealers, as we’ve seen in movies and read in books, are movers. They move illegal merchandise as fast as they can.

However, I understand the part were operatives find only a few sachets of suspected shabu. Common sense will tell you that it wouldn’t be sensible to be lugging around kilos of illegal merchandise as they sell on the streets. As we’ve seen kilos of illegal merchandise are the customs’ cup of tea.

Second, and to me, the most disturbing part is that these slain drug suspects, armed with either a .38 caliber revolvers, .45 caliber pistols and/or fragmentation grenades, have the lamest aims.

Let’s consider the narrative that the armed drug suspects supposedly fired shots at the poseur-buyer cops they were dealing with but missed and were killed as the police returned fire since their lives were endangered.

We have seen how small a sachet of shabu is based on the post-operation photo documentation. It is so small you have to be at least a foot away to be able to hand it. To be able to shoot the poseur-buyer, one has to whip out their concealed weapon, aim, and shoot the undercover cop.

During these flurry of actions, the drug suspect and the undercover cop are standing only a foot away from each other. Can’t the poseur-buyer grapple from the drug suspect’s gun as the latter is whipping it out? How can a drug suspect shoot the poseur-buyer, again a foot away from them, when a human arm when it is aiming is at least three feet in length? Don’t our cops train in hand-to-hand combat?

It is almost the same series of movement when it is a grenade. The drug suspect has to get the grenade out of the pocket, pull the pin, and lob the grenade.

An M67 fragmentation grenade, for example, has a killing radius of five meters and a casualty-producing radius of 15 meters. Its fragments could spread to as far as 230 meters. With this in mind, shouldn’t the cop wrestle the drug suspect before he could take the grenade from his pocket?

Deadly force should be the cops’ last resort. I remember a raid in Sto. Niño, years back. Now that operation needed deadly force since the narcotics agents were fired upon from a distance.

These dead sad sacs must be the worst drug dealers in the illegal drugs trade. It is either that or our police need to revise their seemingly “pro-forma” post-anti-drug operations reports.

Words matter

“And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control.” – Killing in the Name, Rage Against the Machine

WORDS can have consequences especially when a hate-laden speech is spoken by an influential public figure. Words matter. These can rouse an apathetic crowd to action or an angry mob. These can even spur a solitary loon to action.

These can validate deep-seated biases and bigotry. Our freedom of expression is not absolute because along with that freedom comes the responsibility with what we espouse publicly. One cannot just spew hate rhetoric and wash their hands once their avid audience takes action on what they said.

As I was watching the news over the weekend, one particular item caught my attention. It was about the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting. On Sunday morning, Robert Bowers opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, USA. He killed at least 11 people.

He was single-minded in purpose. Prior to the shooting, he wrote on a right-wing social network: “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.” Apparently, Bowers is under the impression that a Jewish nonprofit organization that supports refugees have been smuggling in “invaders in that kill our people.”

World history taught us that toxic politics, along with the hate rhetoric and black propaganda that goes with it, never ends well. A hate speech told over and over again can escalate and, as we’ve seen in the past, result in mass murders.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker hit the nail in the head when he wrote: “They are the toxic politics of the President (Donald Trump), and the racist, nationalist fervor that has been inflamed by his rise, and the success and the militancy of the gun lobby…”

“The moral inadequacy is vast. Murderous acts of hate have occurred, on a national scale, several times this week. It is a tragedy that the President is not able to see them for what they are,” Wallace-Wells concluded.

Here in the Philippines, also on Sunday, we witnessed a less dramatic but nevertheless equally reprehensible behavior from people who have sworn to protect us.

National Capital Region Police Office’s Director Guillermo Eleazar “reprimanded” Police Officer 1 Eduardo Valencia for allegedly raping a 15-year-old daughter of a couple arrested in an anti-drug operation.

Valencia responded by saying: “Sir, may pamilya po ako. Sir, hindi na po bago sa ‘ting mga operatiba ‘yung gano’n kapag may nahuhuli po tayong drug pusher, sir.”

When our President beams on stage saying: “Dapat mayor ang mauna” as a quip  to a jail rape of a foreigner in a hostage incident and the audience laugh at the morally corrupt joke (if you call it that), you can pretty much expect the police officer thought he could do it and get away with it.

What’s worse is that from Valencia’s response, raping minor children of drug suspects have been going on now since Oplan Tokhang started.

Hate speech fuels the culture of impunity. We should know better. Make no doubt about it but our President’s toxic politics will escalate into a full-on national rift between those who are in power and those whose rights have been trampled on. Sooner than later, this will happen. History has shown us that.

Game of trolls

I ADMIT I was overwhelmed by how troll farms and their handlers took social media platforms in the 2016 national elections by storm. It was anything short of “shock and awe.” They dominated discussion boards, bullied thought leaders and mainstream news media into virtual silence, at least for a while.

But like my friends and colleagues, I was unprepared then. I didn’t know that there were people who would go to any lengths just so their principal would win. I didn’t know they would co-opt and sully free speech on the Internet. I admit I was naive.

With the mid-term elections just around the corner, we can be sure trolls will come out of the woodwork and go into hyperdrive again as they are wont to do. Even though its main handler has yet to come out (pun intended), we need to be ready for the expected coming onslaught of trolls in our social media accounts.

So, for those of you who have been hiding under a rock, this is how these vile creatures operate on social media platforms.

Trolls and their handlers employ a two-pronged approach against critical discussions — stifling dissent through fear and scripted messaging through fake news and black propaganda.

They stifle dissent through fear and intimidation. It got to a point where people were afraid to register their critical observations lest they would be the subject of a coordinated troll attack and be branded “delawan,” “adik” or terrorist protector. Obviously, there are people who have been exempt of this fear. Some of my colleague-friends fought toe-to-toe with these trolls. Still, a significant number of them just resigned not to engage the trolls.

They drown out public discussions with their slew of ad hominems, non-sequiturs, and other fallacious arguments that don’t have Latin names.

You may be tempted to dismiss these trolls as a bunch of uncouth and unloved creatures, most of them may well be but that’s not the point. Never make the mistake of underestimating these trolls. If there’s anything these trolls have been doing, it is anything but disorganized and uncalibrated.

My friend BenCyrus Ellorin has encapsulated their modus operandi on his wall quite brilliantly.

Step 1. Trolls would populate Cagayan de Oro social media groups–they have already begun. A case in point was when a Facebook user suddenly engaged my sarcastic comment on a thread at Bantay Kagay-an Facebook group.

I got this troll’s panty in a twist because I like the critical thinking La Viña brother over its principal. For context, this troll asked me to prove that I’m a real “real” Kagay-anon because it took my sarcastic quip as questioning the lineage of its principal in Cagayan de Oro.

I replied that I didn’t have to validate my lineage to something that is called a “Flick-g Spot.” It has since changed its handle to “Taga CDO Ka.”

When I first checked out the troll’s account, I found that it joined Facebook on Oct. 7, 2018. However, when I checked it again yesterday, it somehow turned the social media clock and now appears to have joined Facebook in July of 2015. It has 119 friends, all of whom (I should say “which”) have dubious names and equally suspicious profile photos.

Of the 12 pages it “liked,” eight were Cagayan de Oro-based and one page of a government official, Pompee La Viña.

Although I have responded to his attacks about me being an “impostor Kagay-anon,” it has nevertheless used my account as click-bait to create online noise.

Step 2. These trolls will create “click-bait” posts to generate traffic. This will then lead to the propagation of fake news.

So, despite my knowledge of trolls, I admit I fell right into its trap. I am now its click-bait to generate traffic since I am a legit netizen of Facebook with real people as friends. As my friends react to his ridiculous post on my thread in the group, this legitimizes its account, and by extension its dubious network of friends.

This troll can then start propagating fake news on the different Facebook groups of Cagayan de Oro City. Aside from Bantay Kagay-an, Taga CDO Ka has now joined Ang Baruganan Region 10, Ang Baruganan Philippines, and Iligan City “a walk to be remembered” v1.

According to Freedom House, the Philippines is among the other 30 countries across the globe that has deployed “manipulation to distort online information” (read: fake news).

These trolls don’t operate out of loyalty or dedication to their principals. Troll farms are big business.

A study by Chay Hofileña entitled “Fake accounts and manufactured reality on social media” shows these trolls are getting paid.

“In one page for commercial purposes, for example, repeated call-outs were made for ‘business partners’ who were required in 2015 to spend three to five hours daily on Facebook. Payment was supposed to range conservatively from P1,000 a day to P10,000 a month, with training provided,” Hofileña’s study reads in part.

There are even reports that some trolls even get paid as much as P2,000 to P3,000 a day just to copy-paste content. As Rappler has uncovered recently, trolls have uniform posts or comments on social media platforms.

“Different versions of what is supposed to be the one true fact can be manufactured, creating confusion and deep-seated schisms among groups who get to believe that their version of the truth is what is real and correct,” Hofileña’s study further reads.

So, how do we combat these trolls and their brand of twisted reality?

• Be critical with every post on social media. Use Google to vet, validate, and corroborate what is being asserted in a post or comment.
• Expose and oppose fake accounts, trolls, and bots. Bots are bits of code designed to mimic human users. They sound high-tech but believe me when I say these have been deployed in the country’s social media platforms as early as 2014.
• Actively reclaim your social media space by using apps that automatically label fake news and fake news websites as such. Let me plug the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines’ award-winning “fakeblok.”

Fakeblok is an extension app for Google Chrome web browsers and calls your attention when links from websites that tend to post fake news appear on your Facebook newsfeed. The app uses the database by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.

Again, let us not fall for fake news and reclaim our social media space. Good day and good luck, Kagay-an.

Making October red

“This is not about terrorism. Terrorism is the excuse. This is about economic and social control.” – Edward Snowden on government eavesdropping

AUTHORITARIAN governments around the globe almost always have insecure yet narcissistic, not to mention megalomaniac, leaders at its helm and people scared into submission under the bow.

Here in the Philippines, you’re either a fanatical follower of this administration or a “delawan,” drug addict, or worse, a terrorist. For despotic rulers, there can be no tolerance for dissent no matter how legitimate these may be. The fanatics would say they have nothing to fear because they have not done anything illegal. Well, what do you say when you’re tagged as a terrorist even if you are not? What will you do then?

I’m sharing My Wit’s End space today with an important message from a church that has been vilified recently — the Iglesia Filipina Independiente. Please, read on.

A Message of The Most Revd Rhee M. Timbang, Obispo Maximo, Iglesia Filipina Independiente

To all IFI clergy and faithful and all people of goodwill:

I am furnished here at Kuching, Malaysia (while attending a consecration event with a sister Church) with a very disgusting if not revolting report about the labeling and tagging of the IFI and its clergy, specifically, Bp Antonio Ablon as NPA. The Incident Report documented deliberate acts which (1) vandalized the church fence in our Gatub Chapel in Zamboanga del Sur located along the national highway towards Zamboanga City with markings tagging the IFI as NPA; and (2) serialized the red-tagging of the IFI and Bp Antonio Ablon, together with UCCP and other legal sectoral organizations as NPA through markings along the various points in the national highway of Zamboanga del Sur particularly at Brgy Lacupayan in the Municipality of Tigbao and at the Municipality of Kumalarang. Zamboanga del Sur is part of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the IFI Diocese of Pagadian shepherded by Bp Antonio Ablon as being its diocesan bishop.

This incidence is highly alarming considering that this tagging and labeling do not only grossly malign and vilify the IFI and its ministry, they likewise irresponsibly place the life and security of Bp Antonio Ablon and other IFI bishops and clergy in danger. Red-tagging and labeling serve to harass, intimidate and threaten persons who are considered as enemies of the state, but worst these serve as license for their liquidation or neutralization, to borrow military terms, as state security officers (or the organized rogue military/police elements under their command) are given the open permission to shoot and kill those who listed in their order of battle. This is frightening because the red-tagging and labeling justify the killings since church people like Bp Antonio Ablon and many others in and outside the IFI are unjustly grouped and lumped up together as one and same with the NPA which the government through the AFP and PNP is waging war for almost a half-century now!

This is terribly fearsome because the government and the AFP and PNP since from the very beginning of the insurgency campaign have always demonstrated their incapability to know and determine who are their real enemies in this long protracted war on-going in the country. The government and state security officers only see red, and their temerity to vanquish the NPA includes eliminating or silencing the church and church people and other legal organizations which are only advocating in behalf of the struggling Filipino people. Instead, the government’s insurgency campaign has been littered by the waste of innocent lives way-laid due to red-tagging and labeling.

This incidence strikes as highly unjust and uncalled for the IFI and for Bp Antonio Ablon. These red-tagging and labeling discredit and undermine our precious sacred ministry as a Church – a ministry that serves only to be faithful to the mission entrusted by our Lord Jesus and articulated in his liberating gospel, a ministry that serves only to be consistent with our history following the examples and witnesses of Bp Gregorio Aglipay and Isabelo de los Reyes Sr. and their likes in the nationalist and revolutionary tradition of the Filipino people. Our mission and history as IFI predated the NPA and our ministry and prophetic witness is sourced up in the loving, life-giving and liberating gospel of our Lord Jesus, a ministry which tries to live out the faith and heritage of the “patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and those of every generation who have looked to God in hope.” These red-tagging and labeling are therefore misplaced and ridiculous in one sense and baseless and preposterous in another.

These red-tagging and labeling of the IFI started to become obvious during the time of President Gloria Arroyo when the AFP/PNP classified the IFI among many others as “Enemy of the State” and cause its popularization in the countryside and urban poor. The practice continued in President Noynoy Aquino’s time and obviously, this malicious propaganda has been intensified in President Duterte’s regime. Today, several IFI clergy and lay from the north down to the south are harassed, intimidated and threaten; a number of them are being placed under military and police surveillance or tailed upon by unidentified armed persons. Today has become a full season of red-tagging and labelling, and of harassment, intimidation and threat just because the IFI and its bishops, clergy and lay leaders are firmed in their vocation and witness and prophetic advocacy to criticize the government against its anti-life, anti-poor and anti-people policies, to promote people’s rights and defend civil liberties, to protect national sovereignty and patrimony, to seek for a just and lasting peace and to struggle with workers, farmers, urban poor and the lumads for their self-determination and defense of ancestral lands. These incidences of red tagging and labeling and of harassment, intimidation are threats against the IFI and its ministers do need to be exposed and opposed and denounced! These acts are highly atrocious and condemnable! We suspect that these acts do only originate from those who are in power in the government, in the AFP and PNP. They have all the manpower, the funds and the technology to launch deliberate and serial efforts. These acts are perpetrated by those who are anti-peace and those who refuse to let justice reign in our land.

We ask IFI members to pray for the safety and well being of Bp Antonio Ablon, and other clergies whom we know who are in similar situation, and together with other Filipinos of good-will condemn these acts. We ask everyone to be vigilant and exercise militancy on their own rights as well as of other people by holding prayer and discernment groups and by speaking up loudly against abuses. We ask everyone to support the continuing appeal for the GRP and NDFP to resume the peace talks and end the armed conflict by addressing the root causes that spawned insurgency in our midst.

We task every IFI members and people of faith to reflect upon and take a lesson on the words of our Lord Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). These words are calling us for a life of faithfulness and blessedness. As his followers in today’s time, the Lord has called us to walk on his way:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for, in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

In these critical times in our national life, this call requires a bold, faithful and courageous witness from among us. But this also demands vigilance and militancy in us so that forces which are anathema to justice and peace cannot deceive and cower us to walk on the other way.

May God guide, protect and embolden us as we persevere walking faithfully and vigilantly on his way.