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.

Just thank the lord

“People, get ready. There’s a train a-coming. You don’t need no ticket. You just get on board.” –Curtis Mayfield, People get ready

I STILL can’t get the grip of how the number of “ingrates” in this country has grown in just two short years.

Imagine the gall of these fault-finders. Can’t they see that Digong Dada is hard at work? Can’t they see that now, because of the 16 million “enlightened” citizens, we are better off, as a country and as individuals?

Don’t you believe me? Let me enumerate at least three things this administration has been “astonishingly good” at the past two years.

This regime has been busy unclogging our swamped out court dockets. It has been busy helping the judicial branch. The Philippine National Police puts the number of drug personalities killed in legitimate operations at 3,451 as of July 26 last year.

This figure, the police say emphatically, does not include the vigilante killings. Other human rights advocacy groups have their own number of drug suspects killed but what do they know, right? It’s not like they can actually count how many people have been killed simply because they didn’t kill them. So, I’m sticking with the PNP figures. Now, that is reliable data.

Imagine how liberating this 3,451 deaths to the lower courts are? Judges can now schedule more important cases. They don’t have to settle cases regarding drug use. Kudos!

On another front, didn’t the President promise a train system for Mindanao? Well, he did one “better”. He gave us the Train (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) for the entire archipelago to “enjoy”.

Look, with this Train, the government does not only make your take-home pay tax-free, it also helps you watch your blood sugar. It doesn’t matter if it’s your only source of energy because you don’t have a regular income on account of having absolutely no job security being contractual, this regime will tax your sugar anyway.

Under this Train, drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup are levied at P12 per liter while excise rate on drinks containing caloric or non-caloric sweetener is P6 per liter.

Isn’t that great? With or without you meaning to shape up, this government will do it for you by raising the tax on sugar. The same thing could be said for the sugar barons, but to hell with them. This regime doesn’t care for them. Digong Dada has said over and over again that he hates oligarchs and the elite.

This Train simplifies the estate and donor’s tax, increases the excise tax on petroleum products, as well as with automobiles, and expands the value-added tax. Let’s see the oligarchs and elite claw their way out of that! Woot woot!

Don’t you believe me? You can check it out for yourself at http://www.dof.gov.ph/taxreform/. There, you could see that I used the same exact words they used.

This regime’s propaganda team (read: PCOO) even touted it as the “best Christmas gift to Filipinos ever.” Now, these people wouldn’t lie to our face, would they? What with their stellar embodiment of the truth.

Okay, that may be taking it too far. There have been instances where this team of intellectuals and pundits have spun the President’s pronouncements in the past. But hey, they do it so we, the people, could understand what Digong Dada is actually saying. They are looking out for us, that way.

Speaking of propaganda, if it hadn’t been for PCOO assistant secretary Margaux Uson’s booboo on the location of Mt. Mayon, our visual artists would not have been able to flex their creativity with photo editing software that much. See? The faux pas ushered in a massive interest where the friggin’ volcano really is from this generation of entitled half-wits and meme-dependent truth-seekers.

Palace spokesman Harry Roque eloquently argued this point by saying last Sunday: “Kung walang fake news, hindi natin malalaman ano ang true news. Let there be a free marketplace of ideas.”

I didn’t know that Roque is heavily into dialectics. Like, how would you know white if you haven’t seen black? How would you thresh out the truth if you haven’t heard the lies surrounding that truth? This argument makes perfect sense. Sieg Heil!

The killings, the Train, and this regime’s propaganda team are all for the “benefit” of every freedom-loving Filipino to enjoy.

Going back to my opening quote from Curtis Mayfield’s “People get ready, I suggest we stop our whining and just enjoy this regime’s Train ride to, err, somewhere. Let’s forget about critical thinking and what it’s for. Hell, let’s just give up thinking altogether and just thank the “lord.” Pfft.

Doggone year

“Dogs lick their balls because they can.” -Bill Burr, You people are all the same

SINCE it is the year of the dog, I think it’s only fitting that my first My Wit’s End will discuss the dogs of war, hound politicians, and its loyal mutts barking in their respective home fronts.

This is going to be a fun blind item article because I don’t even have to give you a clue who these people are in this administration. Somehow, you’ll supply your own in your head. They are that prevalent in this administration.

To be fair to Digong Dada though, these kinds of people were also present in the past administrations, even during the Commonwealth days of what would be the Republic now. So much so, that after at least a full year under his administration, I am wondering about the change he promised.

All the bluster during the campaign of eradicating drugs and corruption now appear to be just an intestinal gas from a publicity hound.

Let’s start dissecting these kinds of characters with a sort of glossary. The fun part will be, you, my dear readers, supplying who specifically these people are in your head. Whether they are the same people I have in mind does not really matter.

These characters: dogs of war, hound politicians, and their mutts can be collectively called pimps. However, there are certain subtleties or nuances, if you will, in how they operate.

The phrase “dogs of war” was first spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.”

For the Trekkies, the exact same Shakespearean line was uttered by the character of Odo played by Rene Auberjonois in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Since the term was used first by a British bard, it is only fair that we start with how the English Oxford dictionary defines the phrase.

“The dogs of war (phrase), literary: The destruction accompanying military conflict.”

However, we are not using this phrase in a literary context. For the purpose of this article, we are using this phrase as a type of language that is more common in speech than writing and more specifically restricted to a particular context. Hence, we will use the English dictionary of Slangs.

Online Urban Dictionary defines dogs of war as “A somewhat derogation term used for mercenaries, or soldiers for hire. Generally describes ex-soldiers or combat experts that offer either direct service or military training in exchange for money.”

I know what you’re thinking right after you read that preceding paragraph. You are probably thinking “Marawi City.” The supposed liberation of Marawi City was P3 billion to P4 billion easy. I didn’t pull this figure out of thin air. This figure is based on actual pronouncements of people in government.

This administration’s penchant for waging “wars” on almost anything the dogs of war cannot help it.

Now, where do you think the commission of all those purchases of bullets, ordnance, rockets, bombs, the fuel for tanks and fighter jets, to name a few, go? Katching!

Let’s go to the next character, the hound politicians.

Merriam-Webster defines a hound politician as “a mean despicable person.” While Online Urban Dictionary defines it as “a man-whore, pimp, or player.”

Anent to the hound politicians is that they are, for the most part, also publicity hounds which are a slang for someone who seeks to have the attention of the public constantly focused on him or herself, typically by means of attracting media coverage. A hound politician is also a compulsive womanizer, an inveterate schemer, and thinks only for its own agenda.

Now, I wonder who could these people be? There are so many people in Barong nowadays seeking public approbation without practically anything to back it up (read: the war on drugs and corruption).

These people are usually in the limelight of national polity. That leaves us with the last character in our list — the hound politicians’ mutts.

Again, using the Online Urban Dictionary, a mutt is an informal noun. It is defined as “humorous derogatory or a person regarded as stupid or incompetent.”

My late father Emilio used to define these people as “persons who are too big for their britches.”

Now, I need not name names here but we see these people on TV, hear them on the radio, and see and hear them online.

These are the apologists. The supposed “translators” of what their hound politicians’ pronouncements actually mean, like we are the stupids in this equation.

I have a deep connection with these politicians’ mutts. For those who are following me on social media platforms, you can see them expertly hounding almost anything I post. They screen capture it and put their own twist on what I posted. These people are not your average garden-variety trolls, mind you. These mutts employ trolls. In a way, they are slightly further up the leash of command.

There you go. The characters that will regale us with their antics and stunts during this dog show of a year. They may not be pedigree but still, I regard these people as wayward souls who had pathetic pasts and are only making the most of what these recent doggone years could offer.

So, here’s to the dogs of war, hound politicians, and mutts: Raise the woof!

Narcos and corruption

“But it (war on drugs) can’t be won. It’ll never be won. At least not until people see it for what it is. Not until they know the truth.” – DEA agent Javier Peña, Narcos season 3, episode 10

AT the base of any successful illegal trafficking, be it in the flesh or drug trade is a cabal of corrupt elected politicians and bureaucrats. That is what agent Peña realized by the end of season 3. He had been fighting the government’s war on drugs which has long been bought and paid for by the drug cartels in Colombia.

In Narcos 3, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Colombian government are hot on the trail of the Cali drug cartel led by the Rodriguez-Orjuela brothers. These drug traffickers were different from Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel in that they operate with precision like a multinational corporation.

“Another deal. A compromise. A charade. A way for governments who don’t give a s**t about the war they’re supposed to be fighting, to go on pretending they’re winning it,” Peña’s soliloquy at the season ender rued.

In the series, Peña was getting more and more frustrated since he couldn’t seem to pin down the Cali cartel. As it turned out, the cartel “owned” the Office of the President of Colombia.

Ironically, Ernesto Samper won the presidency by campaigning against cocaine trafficking with campaign funds paid for by the Cali cartel. Although Peña and the US Embassy in Colombia had a taped conversation between Miguel Rodriguez Orjuela and Samper and the ledger which proved the existence of offshore shell companies, they were not able to pin down Samper even for charges of collusion to traffic drugs.

My take away lesson on this particular TV series is that no matter how hard and bloody you fight against illegal drugs if the system in government is vulnerable to corruption, the war on drugs will never be won.

A case in point is the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that breezed through the Bureau of Customs. One can easily be confused with the smokescreens of those who do not want the truth to be out. Guilty people can and have always hidden behind technicalities and legal loopholes. But the fact of the matter is, a butt load of illegal drugs was able to enter the country from the People’s Republic of China.

Like what Peña did, one need only to examine the supply chain and its subsequent flow of grease money to understand that the bigger scourge gripping a country is not the drugs itself but the rampant corruption, the wheeling, and dealing, the compromises, the charades, in the very halls of power.

Until this administration realizes that, we will continue to witness bodies of young and old, mostly poor, pile up.

Shrifts

“Is it so difficult for alleged lawyers to understand that the mandate of CHR is to check state abuses?” – Prof. Luis V. Teodoro, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication

THERE have been many things that unfolded last week that I have decided to adapt my late father Emilio’s column template — shrifts. Even though the incidents are all political in nature, I cannot weave them into one narrative prose. I do not have the academic smarts to pull that one through. So, here goes.

Change has come indeed.

Now, in the Philippines, when you say “you weep for the youth,” you’ll be branded by the President a pedophile or straight-out homosexual.

“You are so fixated with the death of young males, kaya nagdududa ako na pedophile kang gago ka,”Digong Dada said of Commission on Human Rights chair Chito Gascon on Saturday as reported by GMA News Online.

Using your (demented) logic, Sir, what does that make you then — somebody who is “fixated” with illegal drugs? Aren’t you also “fixated” on branding people you disagree with as gays?

***

After more than a hundred days of being held captive by Isis-inspired Maute Group, Fr. Teresito “Chito” Suganob was supposedly “rescued” by military forces.

Opapp Secretary Jesus Dureza broke the news on his Facebook wall, without any regard to what might happen to the other hostages left behind. Maybe Dureza didn’t want to be “out-scooped” by other government agencies circling around Marawi City.

Like my former editor at Mindanews, Carolyn Arguillas, I ask: “Escaped? Released? Abandoned? Rescued?” I ask the same questions because these are four vastly different scenarios. So, which is it? One might retort that the most important thing is Fr. Suganob is safe.

An assault ops on the mosque is vastly different from a rescue op for Suganob. Both have different scenario settings and different outcomes.

Still, if he escaped and you insist that you rescued him, that’s a whole different ball game, all together. That’s not information. That’s propaganda.

I could almost see another “rescue” of the rest of the hostages in the future when this administration stumbles upon, yet, another political faux pas.

My last question on this: Sirs, are you hard of herring, the red kind?

***

The Davao City Social Services and Development Office was only implementing a city ordinance that is supposed to curb human trafficking when they caused indigenes to miss their Saturday flight to join other “Lakbayanis” in Manila.

“The implementation of the Children’s Code of Davao is something that we always do (every day) and this is to protect our children from possible incidents of trafficking,” reads the statement of Malu Bermudo of Davao’s CSSDO on the incident.

The last time I checked, the Constitution trumps any city ordinance, all the time. Yes, freedom of movement and travel is guaranteed under the 1987 Constitution. More importantly, the children are not residents of Davao City. Why should they be required to secure a permit from CSSDO?

If that’s how it is in Davao City, I’m never flying out from that city whenever I have my kids in tow. Even if, say, I’m from General Santos City or Cotabato City.

And what’s with the problem of Cebu Pacific’s ground crew?

Interaksyon.com reported: “Even ground staff of Cebu Pacific, said Trenilla, ‘took a hostile attitude towards us when they learned we were attending the SOS conference, claiming that the children were only being ‘used’.”

Is it the airlines business now to know what you’re going to do when you reach your destination? Did the pilots of Cebu Pacific Flight 387 tell the passengers what they will do with the plane as it circled its way around Mt. Sumagaya back to Cagayan de Oro?

That’s right. It is none of your business. Your business is to take people where they want to go, period. Focus on that, Davao ground crew of Cebu Pacific, because I’m sure the passengers of flight 387 didn’t want to arrive at their untimely “final destination.”

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.

EJKs and tourism

“If you feel like there’s something out there that you’re supposed to be doing, if you have a passion for it, then stop wishing and just do it.” -Wanda Sykes, comedienne

LAST week, Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Teo zeroed in on the media for making it hard for her to sell the country to tourists by the latter’s “pesky” reportage of the extrajudicial killings. To be fair to her, she also mentioned Vice President Leni Robredo for mentioning the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs in a taped video message to the United Nations.

I say Teo zeroed in on media because Robredo only mentioned this administration’s bloodlust once in that taped message while we, the media, apparently won’t stop reporting on the killings.

In an interview, Teo asked media to “tone down statements and coverage on EJKs… It’s making my job of selling the Philippines more difficult.”

I commiserate with the good secretary. I can only imagine the difficulty of the position she’s in. How do you entice tourists to visit the country when Filipinos are getting killed left and right? So, let me extend an olive branch then.

Since the good secretary has identified the media as the culprit, methinks it’s only befitting that we in media should help her out. I launched a crowd sourcing of sorts on Facebook. I asked colleagues how they would sell the Philippines to tourists through an advertisement pitch or blurb.

Mine was, “Philippines: Where you can rest in peace.”

I even posted a caveat telling them that by posting on my crowd sourcing post, they give me expressed permission to quote their ad blurbs on my next column. So here are what my colleagues in media offer:

“We’ll love you to death.” –Nonoy Espina

“Live your (after) life to the fullest in the Philippines.” – Chino Gaston

“There’s more fans in the Philippines, where people can easily rest in peace.” – Chris Panganiban

“Enjoy Boracay! It’s (war) free.” – Froilan Gallardo

“Come to the Cordilleras and have a taste of heaven.” – Kimberlie Quitasol

Meanwhile, Erwin Mascariñas took it to another level and submitted a suggested copy for an entire brochure: “Up for an adventure? Experience real-life death-defying tours. Join our Tokhang urban slum adventure raids and get a chance to see and experience a turkey shot like no other. Book now and avail our special riding in tandem promo.”

Meanwhile, Rigoberto “Bobi” Tiglao just commented that “actually our infrastructure can’t accommodate any tourists anymore.”

The one to beat, however, was from my igso Elson Elizaga – “p***ng ina, bumalik kayo dito!” It encapsulates the kind of vocabulary the president uses and it has a macho ring to it, much like the president’s default posture.

I know the ad-blurb suggestions are sarcastic and borders on snarky. But what kind of answer does one get with a ridiculous request?

In that same interview in Thailand, by the way, the good secretary also mentioned that her department is finding it hard to sell the country because of the President Digong Dada’s proclivity to bash the major sources of tourists – the United States and the European Union.

Teo admitted in the interview that they get nervous “every time he (Duterte) opens his mouth.” She said every time that happens “they release a press statement on the developments in our agency, just to distract the public from what the President said.”

I actually feel sorry for Teo. I know how it’s like to have a lippy boss who is not afraid of running it to the chagrin of the subordinates.

So, what she’s actually requesting media is not only to “tone down” reportage of the killings but to “distract the public” from what is really happening across the country.

Nobody is painting anything. It’s this regime that is painting itself into a corner. Journalists are not out to “destroy” this country’s reputation. This regime is doing a banged up job all on its own.

I’d like to end by quoting the statement of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines: “It would be better if, instead of asking us to ‘tone down’ the killings, you ask the President to order an end to them. That way, we could truthfully report that the killing season is over and the Philippines is, well, ‘more fun.’”

Shock over Sandy Hook shooting tragedy

Peoples from across the world are still reeling from what may well be the worst tragedy in the history of public school shootings in the United States of America. Here, in behalf of the Filipino people, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III extended sympathy and solidarity.

In an emailed statement, Saturday evening, President Aquino enjoined the Filipinos to pray for healing and that the senseless carnage in the Sandy Hook Elementary School—where 28 were killed, 20 of whom were children—should never happen to any community.

“We stand beside you with bowed heads, yet in deep admiration over the manner in which the American people have reached out to comfort the afflicted and to search for answers that will give meaning and hope to this grim event,” the President's statement reads.

On morning of December 14, Adam Lanza, 20, allegedly killed his mother, Nancy, in her home. Riding his mother's car, Lanza then went to the school where his mother taught kindergarten and indiscriminately fired over a hundred rounds—18 of the 20 children were pronounced dead on the spot—US law enforcement sources said.

Authorities said they found three firearms in the car: a .223 caliber “Bushmaster” rifle, a Sig Sauer and Glock pistols. Lanza later killed himself, US authorities added.

The slaughter, US pundits posited, has surpassed the 1999 Columbine shooting incident that left 19 killed and 24 wounded and comes terrifyingly close to the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 where 32 lives were lost.