Common scenes in a “smiling martial law”…

Police (smiling): Disperse or I will arrest you for sedition! (gleefully hits rallyists with truncheon)

Soldier (smiling): You are under arrest for rebellion, by an arrest warrant issued a century ago. (Gleefully points an M-16 at the face of the poor folk)

Gloria Arroyo (smiling): I extend the hand of reconciliation to you. (Pointing a dirty finger at opponents while police smilingly arrests them)

Gloria Supporters (smiling): Bravo! (claps hands while soldiers are happily creeping up in their backs)

Speaker of the House (smiling): The bill “An Act Requiring Citizens to Smile at All Times” is approved, with no dissention nor abstention (since the opposition were arrested earlier).

Gloria Supporters (smiling): Bravo! (claps hands with soldiers in their backs pointing M-16s at them)

I hereby declare that all those open letters from so-called middle class who don’t know how to think are considered SPAM, and will automatically be deleted from my mailbox. This is the same action that I do when I receive email messages about jokes, images, etc.

I have no time reading rehashed lines and repeated propaganda statements, and it clogs my mailbox.

If you have nothing better to do, just scratch your butts. And please spare me your holier-than-thou statements; after all, the road to hell is wide.

Gloria Arroyo’s verbal ammo launched against her enemies had garnered mixed emotions from blog comments, but most of the blogs that I read view that episode negatively:

• Village Idiot Savant’s breakfast ruined
• Atty. Theodore Te has decided never to listen to Mike Enriquez, ever
• Jove Francisco says GMA is suffering from selective amnesia
• Philippine Politics asks what’s the deal with Mike Enriquez?

One of the Fortress by the Pasig’s time-tested tactic is distraction; I believe that the tirade was made to distract the people from what would happen later after that interview – the Supreme Court hearing on 1017. It was effective in several ways. One, it has distracted people from the real issue of the day, whether the SC will declare 1017 as unconstitutional. Second, after scaring the news industry, she is now trying to divided them. Brilliant!

By the way, Philippine Commentary posted an analysis by the intelligent but unfortunately-discredited Atty. Alan Paguia about 1021 not lifting the military aspect of 1017.

It seems that Manny Pacquiao is no different from his political backers.

Gloria Arroyo plays a cat-and-mouse game with the law, preferring stonewalling, EO 464, and withdrawing questionable edicts when the courts are about to strike them as illegal. Pacquiao had decided not to appear in the preliminary hearing of the case filed against him by a woman whom he allegedly had a child. Shades of what Gloria would do.

Then, he acted as if he is the King of the Philippines, causing an airline flight to be delayed, without even giving a simple apology.

Has all that adulation already gone up to his head? He badly needs a lesson in humility; a good knock down will do.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about the petitions to declare Proclamation 1017 as unconstitutional.

Philippine Commentary predicts that the SC will dismiss all the petitions. Atty. Lacierda even have the numbers: 8-6 in favor of 1017. And of course, my prediction is that all petitions will be dismissed for two reasons: (1) 1017 is within the bounds of the Constitution, and (2) they are rendered moot by the lifting of 1017.

But, like DJB, I am willing to be surprised. Who knows?

Today, all eyes and ears will be at the events as SC. Me, I’m on a hearing, too – hearing students defend their software projects, that is. Good luck to every one.

A very “anatomical” column by MLQ3 here discusses the stunt by candidate-for-senator Lito Atienza. In trying to position himself as a politician ready for the national stage, Mr. Atienza chose to posture himself – with the usual tacky flower shirt (I’m not sure if he was first or he just copied Roco; BTW Fred Lim also used to sport flower shirts when he was mayor of Manila) – despite the problems of Manila still unanswered.

I lived in Manila for more than 20 years. And the mayor that I remember is Mel Lopez (one term), followed by Fred Lim (2 terms), then by Lito Atienza (now on his 3rd and last term). Among the 3, the best was Lim, though he was crucified and lambasted. In the last 16 years, the general clean up began with Lim, who closed down the Red District at Ermita, started a shame campaign against drug pushers, closed the Smoky Mountain, cleaned up the streets of grime. His disastrous run in the 98 presidential elections had Atienza taking the mayoralty post. He engaged in cosmetic beautification of Manila (which was concentrated in District V, his district), destroyed some old and historical buildings, plastered his face and name on all possible places (billboards, notebooks, t-shirts, school IDs, walls, barangay halls, pedicabs), managed to cause the daily horrible traffic jams in the Sta. Cruz area by closing down Carriedo; and he manages to show that he is working but not really solving the problems of Manila.

And now, he is beginning his campaign to national prominence. He chose to cast his lot with Gloria Arroyo – an act which shows he is still a local politician; after all, almost all local politicos chose to support Arroyo. Also, they say that all politics is local, a saying that Arroyo plays to the hilt. The fertilizer fund mess is a nod to this saying.

Anyway, what we need next year is an impeachment Congress. So if ever he runs, Atienza will not get my vote. Not in a long shot.

By the way, a nod to MLQ3’s blog entry.

Update: Gloria Arroyo has lifted 1017 March 3, 2006, start of weekend. Previous timestamp of this entry is February 28, 2006 @ 22:31.

Barring any untoward incident, Proclamation 1017 will be lifted on Monday, March 6, 2007. The reason: to preempt the Supreme Court from passing judgment on the proclamation. It is a tried and tested tactic.

When the news item that the proclamation is up for review on the coming weekend, and the Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments on the proclamation on March 7, I made up my mind – the Fortress at the Pasig will indeed lift the proclamation, Monday, March 6, at the latest.

The SC said that due to its urgency, it has scheduled oral arguments a week from now. If it is urgent, why not two days from now? The Fortress can defend its position, thank you; the complainants must be, or they should have not filed in the first place if they are not ready. Too bad, I cannot expand anymore about the said urgency; I don’t have the money to pay as fine, like what the SC did to former Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.

Again, all those suits filed at the SC are futile. Number 1, the proclamation itself is constitutional – Franklin Drilon, Miriam Santiago, and Katrina Legarda all said this is so. Number 2, the proclamation will be lifted before March 7 (boy, how I hope I am wrong, for it is hard to be right). Number 3, look at the timing of the lifting and the schedule of oral arguments.

What they should have asked the SC to do is to declare the actions made by the government in the name of Proclamation 1017 as unconstitutional. The incident at The Daily Tribune is a case in point. In all angles, what the police did was unconstitutional – no search warrants, no probable cause. There might be probable cause, but that is shot down by the pronouncements of the PNP Chief. And any case that they file against the paper will be useless, save for rebellion. Why? All evidence that they have taken from the Daily Tribune offices will be inadmissible, since they were taken without any search warrant. They should file rebellion charges if they want to throw the book at the paper.

Nachura et al are correct, but they are just playing semantics. Their actuations speak for themselves. They are pushing the legal envelop too far, and the judiciary will be the next casualty in Gloria’s undeclared war against our government institutions.

I would like to repost this article by Ellen Tordesillas of January 16, 2002 (sorry, no official link from the Malaya Web site), which was reposted for posterity by John Marzan:

Credit should go to Mike Arroyo

THIS is a season of remembering those exhilarating days in January last year when Joseph Estrada, accused of betraying the trust of the Filipino people who elected him president, was ousted three years and five months short of his term.

Believing in giving credit to where credit is due, we are reprinting here again excerpts of the interview with Mike Arroyo by the eminent Nick Joaquin on his role in the ouster of Estrada, which paved the way for his wife’s takeover of the presidency. The interview appeared in the March 5, 2001 issue of Philippine Graphic.

“She had really left the Cabinet at the right moment: the timing was perfect. If she had tarried a moment longer, she would have been too late for EDSA: she would have made it there as an opportunist. And as for the ill-feeling in Metro Manila, we tackled that by going back to the door-to-door campaign: she went from barangay to barangay explaining her motives, outlining her program. And it worked. Then came the impeachment trial, and from there, tuloy-tuloy na.

“There was a time honestly, when I felt I erred in advising her to resign from the Cabinet. The masa in Manila apparently wanted her to stick it out with Erap. And when she started attacking him, everything fell on us – grabe!- everything! But I told myself: it’s now or never; if we lose here we’re totally destroyed and it’s goodbye to her political career – but if we win here, she becomes President! So we really fought.

“We got all those Erap tapes from Ramon Jacinto and distributed them all over. We bought one million and a half million copies of Pinoy Times to give away so the public could read about the Erap mansions and bank accounts.

“And when EDSA happened, we texted everybody to go running there. EDSA, EDSA: everybody converge on EDSA! Panalo kung panalo. Patay kung patay! Jinggoy had already announced what they would do to us if they won.

“Chavit Singson had Plan B involving elements of the military to strike the first blow. They would kindle the spark by withdrawing from the government, and one by one others would follow: Class ’71 would also withdraw, then Class ’72, and so forth. But General de Villa warned that the timing had to be precise because one untimely move against the government and the military would automatically defend it. The move must be made at what De Villa called a ‘defining moment.’

“You see, General De Villa had his Plan A, which was better than ours, because his was focused on the Chief of Staff and the Service Commanders. At past one o’clock p.m. January 20, Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes defected but we knew that already the night before, when negotiations had lasted until the small hours. By past 2 a.m. we knew Reyes had been convinced to join. His only condition was: Show us a million people on EDSA so it will b easier to bring in the service commanders.

“And they asked when the crowd was thickest; we told them: from three to five in the afternoon. So they agreed to come to EDSA at around that time. But while hiding in their safehouse, they got reports that General Calimlim could not be located and their first thought was: “He’s out looking for us!” So they decided to rush to EDSA right away. When they got there, why there too at the Shrine was Calimlim! He had been looking for them all right, but join to join them, not to arrest them!

“Our group there was a back-up strike force. In fact, it was our group that won over to our side the PNP first. If Panfilo Lacson had resisted, he and his men would have been repelled: there would have been bloodshed, but not on EDSA. In every place where Erap loyalists had a force, we had a counter-force to face it, with orders to shoot. And not only in Metro Manila. Carillo had already been sent to the provinces; and in Nueva Ecija, for instance, we had Rabosa. This was a fight to the finish. That’s why those five days that Erap was demanding were so important. He was counting on counter-coups and baliktaran.

“I was negotiating with Pardo up to three o’clock in the morning: niloloko lang pala kami. But I told him point-blank: “If by six o’clock this morning you haven’t given us the resignation letter, we will storm the gates of Malacañang!’ But they insisted on more talk: with De Villa up front, and my back channel debate with Pardo, which even became a three-way contest, with Buboy Virata pitching in.

“But the threat to march to Malacañang was for real. And so was the danger of bloodshed. I wasn’t telling Gloria everything: I didn’t want her alarmed. So she didn’t know about the orders to shoot.”