Justice for Butch Rosales

"If you should go skating on the thin ice of modern life. Dragging behind you, the silent reproach of a million tear-stained eyes." ― Pink Floyd, The thin ice

AS if the spate of extrajudicial killings wasn’t real enough for us here at Crow’s Nest, the culture of impunity victimized one of its long-time residents.

Last Wednesday, a gunman shot Butch Rosales several times to his head. Butch was riding a multicab on his way to Mandaue, Punta Engaño in Lapu-Lapu City. Butch was sitting at the front passenger seat while the gunman sat at the back with the rest of the passengers. Butch died on the spot on broad daylight. He was 45 years old.

He died a volunteer of Rise Up for Life and for Rights. Rise Up is a network of volunteers and rights defenders committed to working in the defense of life and protection of human rights against drug-related extrajudicial killings and violations under the Rodrigo Duterte government.

Before he became a volunteer for victims of Duterte’s war against drugs, he used to be the development worker of the community extension program of Visayas Community Medical Center in Cebu City. VCMC is a member-organization of the church-run non-government organization called the Consortium of Christian Organizations for Rural and Urban Development where I used to work as its information management officer.

Whenever there was consortium-wide gathering, which usually takes at least a week, Butch would opt to stay at Crow’s Nest rather than in the dormitory beside our office in Barra, Opol.

I knew him to be an efficient yet “cool” community organizer. Butch used to quote Pink Floyd songs to point out social injustices.

He used to cook at Crow’s Nest. Butch was an excellent cook. He talked to my children while they were preparing the ingredients, where the stories always had morals in them. He wasn’t religious but he was a morally upright person.

In one of the posts on social media about his killing, someone commented that his being an activist and human rights advocate has been maliciously played up so that people could then attribute the killing to the Duterte administration.

I say all extrajudicial killings, be it by rogue men in uniform or vigilantes, should rightfully be attributed to this administration.

This administration breathes and breeds the culture of impunity since day one. Hell, the President started his call for impunity even when he was still campaigning for the presidential seat.

We have been witness to a lot of killings across the country. Most of its victims can be categorized in one word: poor. As long as this administration let those in power, its oligarchs, and cronies, get away with its culture of impunity against the poor and disadvantaged, this administration is accountable.

The blood of Butch and the thousand others are on Duterte’s hands. Justice for Butch Rosales and all victims of Duterte’s war against the poor!

Kill lists

IF THERE'S one thing we ought to know by now is that this administration is spectacularly bad at making lists.

Remember Digong Dada’s list of judges, mayors, police officials who were supposedly involved in the proliferation of illegal drugs in the country? To help you jog up your memory, he presented the list of more than 150 names to media last Aug. 7. The list included a judge who has been dead since 2008.

Let’s not forget Digong Dada’s drug matrices. He had the Marawi drug matrix and the matrix on the drug network operating in the country. Among those named in the top rung of that matrix were Peter Co, Peter Lim, and Herbert Colangco.

These lords, except for Colangco, will be exonerated. The country’s very own Department of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II chalked it up to “weak evidence.” Even the self-confessed drug trafficker Kerwin Espinosa was also off the hook. Yes, the guy who testified in front of the senators that he made at least P40 million to P50 million a year dealing drugs.

What does their exoneration tell us? It confirms our suspicion that Digong Dada’s war on drugs is really just a killing spree of those who are in the lowest rung of the drug syndicate ladder while those on top enjoy the “assumption of innocence until proven otherwise.”

Currently pegged at the tens of thousands, if that’s not a killing spree I don’t know what is. Let’s use this administration’s list of killings lest I’ll be branded as a purveyor of “fake news.”

In the Presidential Communications Operations Office’s accomplishment report, under the section “fight against drugs,” some 3,967 people were killed in anti-drugs operations and 16,355 homicide cases under investigation from July 2016 to Sept. 30 last year. That’s 20,322 persons killed.

With that disappointing denouement of the drug list, Aguirre submits yet another list  — a list of people the government wants to be branded as “terrorists.”

Filed Feb. 21 before the Regional Trial Court Branch 19 in Manila, Aguirre submitted a 55-page petition, 21 pages of which consists of the actual list of names. The petition seeks to have the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army declared as “terrorist and outlawed organizations, associations and/or group of persons” under the Human Security Act of 2007.

Like their drug list before, this administration has also listed people who have long departed this realm (read: dead). In a Bulatlat.com report, at least eight persons in the list have long been dead while two others have been missing for years.

It even listed Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples in the list of supposed Maoist groups. This administration sure has a weird way of cozying up to the International Criminal Court, huh?

Why should this list be relevant to us, here, in Mindanao? Well, it should be because of the 657 people listed, some 364 are from Mindanao. Here’s the scary part, of the 364 people listed, some 162 names are aliases. Let that sink in for awhile.

Anybody and I mean anybody who unfortunately falls from grace with Digong Dada could just as easily be branded as one of those 162 aliases in the list.

Mindanews quoted Lt. Col. Emmanuel Garcia, chief of the Public Affairs Office of the Armed Forces as estimating the strength of the NPA, as of last year, at 3,700 armed guerrillas.

It would be safe to assume that Aguirre lists the “brains” of the so-called terrorist movement in the Philippines with 3,700-foot soldier strong to carry out its terrorist acts. Then, why haven’t we witnessed at least one “terrorist attack” each week since this administration started? One would think that many “brains” could have expelled this administration by now.

This list, like all the other lists of this administration in the past, is nothing but another veritable kill list. This administration’s lust for blood wasn’t sated enough with the ongoing killing spree under the pretext of a drug war, it has now created another kill list. Pfft.

The cost of war

"Our so-called leaders speak with words; they try to jail you. They subjugate the meek but it's the rhetoric of failure." ― The Police, Spirits in the material world [1981]

WITH all the warmongering that has been going on the past days, the war-hawks are sure going to make a killing this coming Christmas ― pun intended.

Many pundits of different political persuasions have already weighed in on Digong Dada's supposed revolutionary government come Nov. 30. Needless to say, I am not joining the fray anymore lest My Wit's End will end up dishing out an analysis paralysis on the subject.

Instead, let's say that this column will be sort of an advanced statement of billing to the cost of what will inevitably be a full-scale nationwide war. Yes, you read it right. We are going to discuss the cost of war ― the monetary and social costs.

How are we going to do that, you ask? We will base our calculations from the available data of the recently concluded Marawi campaign of this administration. We will also include the data of former President Ejercito Estrada's all-out war in Mindanao. It might not arrive at an accurate figure, in terms of monetary cost, but at least we can get a clearer picture of how much this looming all-out war against the communist insurgency across the country would cost.

We, however, might have to multiply the estimated cost three-fold to account for the other two island groupings of the country.

Right out of the bat, no less than Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana gave an estimated cost of P3 million but that was in August. The Philippine Daily Inquirer cited Lorenzana as saying that the Army alone spent P1.3 billion midway into the supposed liberation of Marawi.

That figure is not hard to imagine considering they were successful in bombing Marawi to smithereens. During the Marawi campaign, we saw the extensive use of free-fall bombs from F-50 fighter jets. The military opted bombardment because they weren't know how to fight in close quarter battles.

In his column in Mindanews, Maki Datu-Ramos pegged the cost of each bomb at P150 thousand to P200 thousand. You only need to multiply this amount by the number of bomb-runs each day from May 24 up its supposed liberation to get a close estimation how much taxpayers' money spent to pulverized the city.

"To sum up, Mindanao wars for a period of 1970 to 2001 had cost the Philippine government a staggering P2 trillion an amount nearly equivalent to our past P2.6 trillion 2015 national budget," Datu-Ramos wrote.

It was also during the Marawi war that we saw our Army use rocket-propelled grenade launchers. We saw the Scout Rangers use them in news photos and video clips. These RPGs are courtesy of Philippine's old friend Uncle Sam.

Supposedly under the US Foreign Military Sales project, the government had an Approved Budget of Contract of P94.98 million for the purchase of 355 RPG-7s and 4,813 rounds of assorted ammunition. The final approved contract amount, however, was set at P81.73 million. You can check out the figures out at https://maxdefense.blogspot.com/2017/07/philippine-army-finally-receives-atgl-l.html.

"Based on (feedback) we receive from MaxDefense community members from the Army, the RPGs were already used in combat as early as last year against Maute terrorists in Western Mindanao," Max Defense group blogged in July, this year.

If we recall Estrada’s all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2000, the government coffers coughed up some P6 billion. Ed Lingao, who was writing for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism then, estimated that the government spent P76 billion in the war in Mindanao from 1970 to 1996 alone.

Now, we go and examine the social cost of the Marawi war. According to the latest figures monitored by the Department of Social Welfare and Development, a total of 77,170 families (353,636 individuals) evacuated Marawi City. The DSWD further broke it down to 38,949 families fled to northern Mindanao, 33, 221 families fled to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, 2,386 families fled to Soccsksargen region, and the rest to the regions of Davao, Caraga, and the central Visayas.

To date, DSWD said there are 4,668 families (20,639 individuals) still crammed in evacuation centers and an estimated 75,502 families still living with their relatives outside of Marawi City.

As I’m writing this column, Karapatan Caraga issued an alert that residents from 12 tribal communities in Barangay Diatagon, Lianga and Barangay Buhisan, San Agustin in Surigao del Sur evacuation their homes due to military operations.

At least 706 students and 51 teachers of nine Lumad schools are affected, Karapatan Caraga pointed out in their alert.

Expect this figures ― both monetary and social costs ― to triple or even quadruple when Digong Dada starts his war of attrition against the communist insurgency.

Ever since its founding in 1969, each president has taken a stab at quelling the communist insurgency through military might. For almost half a century, each president of the republic has taken the more expensive route in addressing the civil war rather than negotiating for peace and truly address the roots of the unrest in the countrysides. Why would Digong Dada change that tradition now, because he promised change? Pfft.

The United States is still very much in power in the Philippines, oligarchs are running high at the Batasan Hills, and a fickle man-child, with bouts of temper tantrums, is in the Palace. We are, figuratively, back where we started.

So much for change huh?

The list

“There are three kinds of people in this world: 1) People who make lists, 2) people who don’t make lists, and 3) people who carve tiny Nativity scenes out of pecan hulls. I’m sorry, there isn’t really a third category; it’s just that a workable list needs a minimum of three items, I feel.” – Mary Roach, American author

AS promised, my column this week will be about the mystery of Digong Dada’s ever-changing list of narco-politicians or illegal drugs trade matrix or whatever it is now.

Don’t get me wrong. I, too, hoped the list would usher in an honest to goodness change. I thought the way the executive deals with politicians and technocrats who have been wheeling and dealing in the illegal drugs trade was about to change.

I bet everybody was as shocked as I was when Digong Dada started naming generals, judges, and politicians. When the President started bandying the list to the public eye last year, I thought, here’s a President who isn’t afraid to take on the cabals of corrupt bureaucrats.

However, when people started to inquire who helped the President draw up such list, he was suddenly withdrawn, secretive, and most often irked by the mere mention of such inquiry.

It didn’t help either that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Bureau of Investigation admitted that they were not, in any way, involved in the preparation of such list as reported by GMA news online on Aug. 30 last year.

Then PDEA Director General Isidro Lapeña (now Bureau of Customs top honcho), emphatically told a congressional hearing at the Lower House that they did not give any inputs which form part of the President’s list. NBI lawyer Henry Canapi, on the same congressional inquiry, sang to the same exact tune. Canapi said they did not submit any “subject personalities, politicians or otherwise.”

By the way, Lapeña doubled-down by saying he was unsure whether other agencies have been advising the President on the alleged drug lords in government, including the Philippine National Police.

Let’s fast-forward to the present. The question still remains. If PDEA, NBI, and the PNP didn’t help the President in drawing the list then who are these supposed intelligence consultants who helped draw up that list?

If the President’s list is to be believed, then how come the shady characters behind the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that passed through the Bureau of Customs weren’t on that list? Why is the President suddenly mum on the list?

Last week, he even advised his son to remain silent should the circus show, led by The Dick, summon him to explain the supposed role of the Davao Group in what could very well be the largest drug bust this administration’s war on drugs has ever carried out.

If the President’s list is to be believed, then why is he not helping the Senate committee investigate the butt-load of shabu that inexplicably passed through people who are highly motivated and passionate in ending the drug scourge that has gripped the nation?

As I have said before, anybody can draw up a list. Hell, even our emotionally detached, spectacularly inefficient, and grossly ineffective barangay chair drew up such a list. The bigots at our local church even contributed to the list. The list, I was told, is based on “common knowledge” which I take as a euphemism for grapevine or chismis.

I have a friend who is a member of a local intelligence unit. For obvious reasons, I will not name him. As he told me, he’d have to kill me if he gets “burned.” This friend showed me their list as well.

It is a list of local drug personalities who are under surveillance. It could have been a veritable kill list, he added. But in the wake of the incorrigible murder of 17-year old Kian Loyd delos Santos, he said they have to extend the time frames of their surveillance on these individuals. He said they wanted to be sure that when not if, they do “neutralize” these drug personalities they have more than sufficient evidence to do so. He added they will not base their decision on a Facebook post like what the Caloocan police did.

The list holds some familiar names. It has former city councilors, former mayors, and former house representatives in it. Curiously, the list even has a columnist in it, a very vocal supporter of his Excellency. My friend said they have been on to him for quite some time now.

Whether my friend’s list or that of the President are credible will remain questionable at best for as long as the people behind the drawing of such lists remain shady and unnamed. For as long as the process behind the drawing of those lists remains questionable, these will remain as such.

I repeat anybody can draw up a list. If I were to draw up such a list, I would list first all the people who have wronged me or pose a threat to taking away my power to draw up a list.

Just consider the quote above: 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.

Road to perdition

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” – Saint Bernard of Clairvaux [c. 1150]

AS if the execution of 17-year old Kian Loyd delos Santos, under the pretext of this administration’s bloody war on drugs, is not enough, Education Secretary Leonor Briones still pushed on to issue Department Order No. 40, Series of 2017 — the “Guidelines for the Conduct of Random Drug Testing in Public and Private Secondary Schools.”

I find it hypocritical when Briones issued a statement condemning the murder of delos Santos and 29 other minors before him when the drug testing will seriously undermine the safety and the right to education of all the other minors. (Yes, other minors have been killed under Digong Dada’s so-called war on drugs.)

Look, I understand that we need to stop illegal drugs from destroying the youth. Let me extend an olive branch then. I think it is accurate to say that most, if not all, Filipinos want to see the end of the drug menace that has gripped this country.

However, even if we declare this as our “basis of unity,” there are still two schools of thought on how to go about ending the drug scourge to contend with. These are through rehabilitation and by a war of attrition.

I’d like to state upfront that I’m for rehabilitation because for me substance abuse is a health problem. You may not agree with me but that’s that.

It’s not that I can’t break it down for you but if you’re one of the zombies who is pissed off because the Commission on Human Rights isn’t investigating crimes committed by drug addicts and other mentally ill people, none of what I write here will make sense to you anyway. So, I’ll cut to the chase because I’m digressing already.

As New York-based Human Rights Watch’s Phelim Kine statement: “Imposing mandatory drug testing of students when Philippine police are committing rampant summary killings of alleged drug users puts countless children in danger for failing a drug test. Education officials should be protecting students, not putting them in harm’s way through mandatory drug tests.”

Although Briones assured the lawmakers during the hearing on the Department of Education’s 2018 budget that the results of the random drug testing will be kept confidential, the schools are still empowered to impose sanctions on the students who will test positive which includes expulsion or denial of admission.

Let me digress on this for a while. My friend Rhona Canoy, who runs the International School in Kauswagan, told me they also conduct drug tests. It is random and is not mandatory, she tells me. Failing their drug test, she said, will not be a reason for expulsion since they have rehabilitation in mind.

Now back to the point I was making. So the government, in effect, will not only push the troubled youth out of school but will also put them in the crosshairs of the overzealous police and their community assets. It will create the impetus of a whole new wave of other “delos Santoses” in its wake.

Like in delos Santos’ case, we have seen how the police did their “intelligence gathering.” They killed him first and then looked for pieces of “damning evidence” to justify their kill. They even scoured through Facebook for that “damning evidence.”

So even if Briones assures parents that the list of the drug test results would be kept confidential, what’s to keep the police from getting their hands on this list when push comes to shove? You ask how? The Deped order is based on Republic Act 9165, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs of 2002. Who enforces this law? You’re correct — the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the police. You can be sure that they will have access to this list. Even barangays have their own list, for crying out loud. I will discuss this administration’s penchant for “lists” next week.

I fear that if this administration will stubbornly continue on this path, we will be counting more dead bodies of our youth in the days to come.

Yes, we all want the drug scourge to end. That is a good and noble intention — to protect what Dr. Jose Rizal called the “hope of our nation.”

However, this war on attrition against drugs will kill the youth much faster than the drugs themselves will destroy their future if we continue to tread this road. And yes, Secretary Briones, their blood would be on your hands, too.

Try again, Cayetano

“Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.” -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi party propagandist

APPARENTLY, only Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano believed in his presentation of the human rights situation in the country before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

On May 8, Cayetano faced the rights council in Geneva for the country’s Universal Periodic Review. As state-member of the United Nations, each member country’s human rights record is reviewed every four years.

Without batting an eyelash, Cayetano lied through his teeth when he said that the more than 7,000 killings, most of whom belong to the urban poor sector, happened because they tried to shoot it out with authorities (read: nanlaban).

Picture this: A man living in the slums, armed with a rusty caliber .38 “paltik” revolver, shooting it out with a squad of anti-drug special unit with assault rifles in tow and clad in bullet proof vests. Does that ring true to you? If it does, then I’m a monkey’s cousin.

Let’s go back to Cayetano who is clearly in denial. Nobody… err… except of course the president’s new bestie, China, believed in his obvious lie.

What was he thinking? Did Cayetano really think the member countries of the council didn’t have cable news or Internet, and so be gullible as to believe his report?

His principal has been quoted numerous times, goading his gestapos to kill and even assured them he has their backs when the “pesky” human rights advocates come a-calling. His principal’s hate-mongering is on tape which have been transcribed for chrissakes!

Some 45 member countries expressed concern and recommended an inquiry into the extrajudicial killings in the country. As to what countries these are, trolls, you’ll have to Google that on your own. I don’t have the space in this column for such list.

So it is not surprising that 45 member countries of the UN human rights council didn’t believe Cayetano. By the way, what a way to start his career as a foreign diplomat, huh?

As the “pesky” Human Rights Watch Geneva director John Fisher puts it: “The government’s denial and deflection of criticism shows it has no intention of complying with its international obligations.”

“The Human Rights Council should establish an international inquiry and, if killings without accountability continue, reconsider the Philippines’ council membership,” Fisher further recommends.

Now that Cayetano is the country’s foreign affairs secretary, he might want to change his tact at diplomacy. He wouldn’t want to be the foreign affairs secretary  of the Philippines when it is unlisted from the United Nations. Pfft.