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the history of pork barrel in the philippines, according to wikipedia:

Philippines
Main article: Priority Development Assistance Fund

In the Philippines, the term "pork barrel" is used to mean funds allocated to the members of the Philippine House of Representatives and the Philippine Senate to spend as they see fit without going through the normal budgetary process or through the Executive Branch. It can be used for both "hard" projects, such as buildings and roads, and "soft" projects, such as scholarships and medical expenses. The first pork barrel fund was introduced in 1922 with the passage of the first Public Works Act (Act No 3044). This pork barrel system was technically stopped by President Ferdinand Marcos during his dictatorship by abolishing Congress. It was reintroduced to the system after the restoration of the Congress in 1987. The program has had different names over the years, including the Countryside Development Fund, Congressional Initiative Fund, and currently the Priority Development Assistance Fund. Since 2006, the PDAF was ₱70.0 M for each Representative and ₱200.0 M for each Senator.

Congressmen and senators cannot explain themselves. To avert any more public discussion of their lard, they chatter about delayed government projects and salary increases due to prolonged budgeting. Worth recalling, when the SC banned pork barrels in Dec. 2013, the slabs were P200 million each for 24 senators and P70 million each for 255 congressmen – P22.65 billion.

Today, five years later, pork is 14 times larger.

All experts know that good governance is the only solution to terrorism. Equality, justice, education, sustenance, contentment lessens the chances of fringe obsessions and violent extremism. With porky lawmakers, there won't be any of those: terrorism will reign.

https://www.philstar.com/

Sadly they were not. That provided congressmen with ammo to accuse senators of inserting P190 billion in all.

In truth, as Lacson discovered at the bicameral conference, his Senate colleagues did have their own lump sums totaling P23 billion in all. And the congressmen's counterpart minimum pork was not only P60 million but P160 million each. This consisted of P70 million each in "hard projects" (roads, flood controls, buildings) and P30 million in "soft" (medicines, books, scholarships), plus the P60 million each redistributed by Arroyo and Andaya upon their accession, Lacson said.

Added to the initially discovered and admitted pork of P270 billion, the lard is now worth at least P305 billion.

Diokno disavowed knowledge of the in-laws' businesses, and justified the flood controls in this onset of climate change. He did admit, though, that the outlay not only was P52 billion but P71 billion. In chorus congressmen and senators denounced that P19-billion extra. They moved it to health services, but kept quiet about their individual pork barrels.

Came the time last week to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the 2019 budget. Lacson proposed open conferences by the bicameral committee. For, in that committee is where funds are juggled or inserted post-legislation – another of the SC's definitions of forbidden pork. Congressmen and senators made a show of inviting the press in the earlier hours, but closed the doors by nightfall. The House panel publicized that they'd scrutinize the senators' own lump sum and post-legislation insertions. That was the signal for horse-trading to begin.

Beforehand Lacson smartly had detailed to the Senate President amounts that certain agencies requested as additional funds. Totaling P30,497,826,800, only P3,965,935,000 was for drug enforcement reviewed by his sub-committee; P26,531,891,800 were for others, stated in open plenary deliberations. He posted them on his official pinglacson.net website while challenging other conferees to be as transparent.

As that unfolded the House of Reps summoned Budget Sec. Benjamin Diokno for questioning. The House leaders knew he had allotted P52 billion in the 2019 budget for public works of the faction they had just deposed. Part of that, in fact, was the P60-million pork reward each to the 195 congressmen who went along with the leadership coup d'état. Those clearly were "lumps sums", one of the Supreme Court's definitions of pork in outlawing it in 2013. But that's of no worry to the lard-greedy. What they demanded to know was why Diokno had "parked" most of that P52 billion in Bicol region. Was it for his in-laws there, a vice governor and a mayor, allegedly to commission as usual from bogus flood control projects? So were divulged new ruses for pork barrels. Billions of pesos were being thrown into dikes, ripraps, and canals whose dimensions were easy to fake and costs to pad. And while the projects mostly were in Bicol, the parked funds were in the names of congressmen as far north as Luzon, west as Visayas, and south as Mindanao.

GOTCHA

Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

Jarius Bondoc
The Philippine Star
February 4, 2019

As Filipinos were securing their locales from terrorists the past week, lawmakers were busy securing personal pork barrels. Pork plunder is as heinous a crime as mass murder. Both fetch life sentences. Yet terror bombers and lawmakers fear not the consequences. All believe in impunity to do wrong – and even go to heaven for it. Pork barrel partakers have a clear edge over terrorists, though. None of the former goes to jail.

In recent days individual lawmakers' pork barrels were found to be larger than earlier reported embedded in the 2019 national budget. Lone anti-pork senator Panfilo Lacson at first discovered P2.4 billion for Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo alone, plus P1.9 billion for then-House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya. In defense, the latter spread the guilt around that 99 other congressmen had pork slabs bigger than Arroyo's. Two of those favored congressmen even got P8 billion and P5 billion, Andaya said, while the 195 others P60 million each. Even the senators had about P8 billion.

That's around P270 billion, exposed or admitted at the start of Senate hearings on the national budget.

Pork barrel originally came from storing meat. By the 1870s, references to "pork" were common in Congress, and the term was further popularized by a 1919 article by Chester Collins Maxey in the National Municipal Review, which reported on certain legislative acts known to members of Congress as "pork barrel bills". He claimed that the phrase originated in a pre-Civil War practice of giving slaves a barrel of salt pork as a reward and requiring them to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout. More generally, a barrel of salt pork was a common larder item in 19th-century households, and could be used as a measure of the family's financial well-being. For example, in his 1845 novel The Chainbearer, James Fenimore Cooper wrote: "I hold a family to be in a desperate way, when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel." (wikipedia)

pork barrel
noun, INFORMAL

-used in reference to the utilization of government funds for projects designed to please voters or legislators and win votes

History and etymology

The term pork barrel politics usually refers to spending which is intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, either in the form of campaign contributions or votes. In the popular 1863 story "The Children of the Public", Edward Everett Hale used the term pork barrel as a homely metaphor for any form of public spending to the citizenry. However, after the American Civil War, the term came to be used in a derogatory sense. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the modern sense of the term from 1873. (wikipedia)

and can a banana really be arrested?



https://theeditorsjournal.wordpress.com/

other notables

21 Sinking Ship


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20 Red Dawn


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19 Man vs. Clown


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18 Claus for Concern


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17 Polar Express


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16 Mouse Trap


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15 Take Me to Neverland


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14 O Captain! My Captain!


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13 Cuffed by an Angel


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12 Web of Lies


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11 Snow Problem at All


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10 Monkey Business


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9 Peace of Mind


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8 Well, Pooh


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7 Would You like to Build a Snowman... In Jail?


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6 Not Loving It


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5 Goodbye, Kitty


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4 Udder Disaster


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3 A Very Hairy Situation


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2 Weathering the Storm


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1 McArrested


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21 Hilarious Pictures of People Being Arrested in Costume

Nathan Davidson

If you're going to be arrested at some point in your life, you should do your best to try and coordinate so that it happens on a day you're wearing a costume of some sort. These are funny photos of people arrested in costumes, and boy are they lucky - well, as lucky as someone on their way to jail can be.

With all of the scary clown business going on in America these days, you have to feel for cops dealing with people in costume. So before you witness these photos of people in costumes going to jail, make sure you put on your favorite costume. Come on, you know you have one hanging in your closet for costume emergencies.

hairstyle diay na? what's so weird about baldness?

Even though, as explained by Ms. Lohman, "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome was thoroughly debunked by large-scale clinical trials at Harvard University, Northwestern University and the University of California."

The truth is, less than 1 percent of the worldwide population has glutamate sensitivity. People with glutamate sensitivity are clinically tested to have short-term, adverse reaction not just to MSG but also other sources of glutamate like tomato, mushroom, cheese and other proteins. The rest of the world can freely enjoy MSG and other glutamate-rich food!

Other than enhancing flavor of food, umami/MSG has benefits that cannot be simply ignored. Umami taste promotes satiety and intake of nutrients for children and elderly. MSG can help reduce sodium intake up to 30 percent which is a useful intervention to control high blood pressure. MSG and other glutamate-rich food promote protein digestion and absorption in the human body.

The World Umami Forum was also a gastronomic showcase as famous chefs prepared umami food to the delight of the attendees.

https://www.philstar.com/

A panel discussion cited the challenge of addressing the MSG controversy because for some, it is not solely a discussion about science but about an identity shaped by personal beliefs and experiences. When these beliefs are challenged, some people take it as a personal attack and would usually voice out negative opinions about the matter.

Historic Gastronomist Sarah Lohman traced back the MSG rumors in April 1968. This was when a physician by the name of Robert Ho Man Kwok suggested, without any study or proof, that the widely used MSG in Chinese restaurants is a possible cause for "numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitations." He coined this string of symptoms as "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome."

This opinion letter by Dr. Kwok was later published at the New England Journal of Medicine and fueled rumors about MSG. The rumors stuck with people especially older generations, who were told in the '70s and '80s that MSG is bad.

Umami, the fifth basic taste that we often hear from chefs nowadays, is likewise described as savory, mouth-watering, lingering sensation, delicate and subtle or a pleasant aftertaste with satisfaction. This taste was discovered alongside the invention of MSG in Japan. However, while umami gains popularity as the sought-after universal taste, the stigma in using MSG persists.

The World Umami forum brings together food, nutrition and science experts to discuss and establish science-based facts about MSG, hoping the world will be rid of apprehensions in using this umami seasoning.

While facts presented about umami and MSG during the event was a review of my previous knowledge, I was fascinated to learn about the reason and psychology behind the MSG paranoia existing despite the overwhelming scientific evidences of its safety.

Filipino nutritionist-dietician and food scientist clarifies MSG fallacies

Celeste C. Tanchoco
January 28, 2019

(As Released) As a nutritionist-dietician and food scientist, I welcome opportunities to clarify myths and fallacies surrounding food and nutrition. I believe that misconceptions can often lead to incorrect diet practices and pose serious health risks.

One of the most common topics I encounter is the fear of using Monosodium Glutamate or MSG. Even though many credible organizations and scientific studies affirmed MSG's safety for decades, this seasoning ingredient continues to be the target of many false claims.

I recently attended the World Umami Forum presented by the Ajinomoto Group at Manhattan, New York City.

pandemic 
/panˈdɛmɪk/

adjective
1. (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.
synonyms: universal, global

noun
1. an outbreak of a pandemic disease

When an epidemic spreads throughout the world.


epidemic
/ɛpɪˈdɛmɪk/

adjective
1. of the nature of an epidemic
synonyms: rife, rampant, widespread

noun
1. a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time
synonyms: outbreak, plague, scourge, infestation

An outbreak of disease that attacks many peoples at about the same time and may spread through one or several communities.


endemic
/ɛnˈdɛmɪk/

adjective
1. (of a disease or condition) regularly found among particular people or in a certain area
2. (of a plant or animal) native and restricted to a certain place

noun
1. an endemic plant or animal

A disease that exists permanently in a particular region or population.

i've got to send that last one to my hubby.

ayaw na lang mog apil-apil kay wa moy chance ana.

Those medical experts correlate age, brain development, and mental state. Through centuries of knowledge they know the interests and motivations of infants, toddlers, pre-pubescents, pubescents, adolescents, and adults. Those include developing, in stages, of motor senses, child skills, play, inquisitiveness, boy-girl consciousness and orientation, rebelliousness, independence, initial and deeper sensing of right and wrong. Those stages can be disrupted by neglect, abuse, abandonment, psychological traumas, or brain damage. Adult standards do not all apply to minors.

The rush to lower the age of criminal liability to 9 is related to the scourge of drugs and other heinous crimes, like plunder and terroristic murders.

Yet it is not the 9- or even 15-year-old who sneak 605 kilos, then 11 tons of shabu past Manila Customs through printing cylinders and magnetic lifters. Those are the handiwork of sophisticated criminals with extensive contacts. Go after them, along with heartless lawmakers preoccupied only with pork and power.

https://www.philstar.com/

In that case, there's no need to change present laws. The Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (R.A. 9344) already sets the age of criminal liability to 15. Meaning, offenders 15 or younger are not prosecuted but rehabbed in community-based Bahay Pag-asa. Instead of stigmatized for life, they are afforded a second chance. In 2013, R.A. 10630 strengthened the Juvenile Justice System by transferring the Bahay Pag-asa from the Justice to the Social Welfare department.

Whether the Bahay Pag-asa nationwide receive adequate funding is another story. The problem with Philippine criminal and reformative justice is that there are too few rehab clinics, say, for drug addicts, much more too little jail space for recidivists.

Take it from the Philippine Pediatric Society and the Philippine Society of Adolescent Medicine specialists, which state: "We strongly oppose the bill to lower the minimum age of criminal liability to nine years old! Scientific studies clearly demonstrate that generally children aged 15 years and below lack discernment in distinguishing right from wrong due to the immaturity of the developing brain. Instead of punishment and retribution, our government and society should provide the means to capacitate our children to develop themselves into responsible, morally upright, and productive members of society."

Then the presidential spokesman butts in: "If you have a law that will criminalize this particular age bracket, they will no longer be used by criminals. They are using them now because they will be freed, they can get out."

Thus, he too blames criminals who use minors they know won't be jailed. Following his illogic, should not infants and toddlers too be "criminalized"? After all, they are used as props in drug peddling, with sachets of shabu hidden in their diapers. As well, they are used in child porn. If the age of criminal liability becomes nine, will not determined criminals then employ children as young as six, seven, or eight?

Leachon rebounds: "Let it be understood that, with the bill, we are not putting these children in jail but in reformative institutions to correct their ways and bring them back to the community. They are not branded as criminals but as children in conflict with the law. Reformative institutions do not punish individuals but instead, were established to help children be integrated back to the community after they have committed criminal acts."

Here's what Rep. Salvador Leachon (Mindoro Oriental) says as head of the sponsoring House justice committee: "The bill was brought about by the alarming increase in the number of criminal syndicates using minors to carry out criminal acts, based on recent news reports."

Clearly, he sees crime gangs as the culprits and kids the unwitting accessories, or victims. The news reports are about tots being used as drug couriers, attention diverters in thefts, or window sneak-ins of porch climbers (akyat-bahay). Some gangsters even cunningly put birth certificates in the minors' pockets – proofs of "doli incapax" (incapable of wrong) for instant release when caught by the cops. But think about it: would a nine-year-old be so devious as to carry a birth certificate and plot a crime – or would he rather have candies in his pocket?

Another issue with Leachon: Did he bother to find out the statistics and modus operandi of crime syndicates using minors? Or was he just carried away by the recent spate of news reports which, as a lawyer he should know, are not primary evidence?

Not to forget, those are the same reps who granted themselves outlawed pork barrels in the 2019 national budget. The amounts are plunderous, by the House Majority Leader's own disclosure: more than P2.4 billion each for a hundred favored reps, and P60 million each for the 196 others.

That illustrates what goes on in their mind. That also explains why they have the wrongest reasons to set criminal liability at age nine.

In fact, their reason for punishing offenders as young as nine is that the youngsters are being used by elders for crime. In short, they know – or think they know – that the problem is with adults – yet want to take it out on the innocents.

GOTCHA

What's needed is a law against heartless officials

Jarius Bondoc
The Philippine Star
January 23, 2019

Engrossed with pork barrels, lawmakers forget the recently retold atrocities in 1901 Balangiga. What Filipinos find most abominable about US Army Gen. Jacob Smith's retaliatory order was the slaughter of all male Samareños from age 10. Thus did he "transform the island into a howling wilderness"; "Sunugin ang Samar," a movie depicted it.

Now those lawmakers would lower the age of criminal liability to only 9. They might as well gloat, "Sunugin ang Pilipinas."

The House of Reps rushed the bill this week. Those are the same reps that hurriedly inserted in a farcical draft federal constitution self-serving provisos. All were despicable: removal of their term limits, perpetuation of their political dynasties, continuation of their political turncoat-ism.

Quote from: hubag bohol on June 02, 2012, 03:29:54 PM
Heaven can wait...

...for a few dollars more.

In her opening statement during the Miss Universe 2018 pageant, Catriona gray said, "We owe it to our children to believe in them."

We owe it to them to make sure they get the chance to realize the potential that we know they have. This means looking into the wider realities that beset their lives, not zeroing the blame on them. This means addressing the social structures that maintain inequalities among them and force some of them into deviance. – Rappler.com

Athena Charanne "Ash" R. Presto graduated summa cum laude and teaches at the Sociology Department of the University of the Philippines, Diliman. She is currently taking her MA Sociology at the same institution. She tweets at @sosyolohiya.

https://www.rappler.com/

Our social lives are riddled with double standards that are doubly problematic when they target our children. We say that they are too young to vote, too young to drive, too young to drink alcohol, too young to know what is good for them, and so the list goes on. It does not make sense, then, to claim that they are old enough to go to jail.

When I was 9, there were a lot of things I did not understand—not only within the prescribed curriculum for my grade, but also concepts even adults find difficult to grasp.

Given all these, how can we expect our children to navigate their way into the complexities of justice? How can we see them as able to traverse the gray areas of right and wrong? How can we believe that they know what and what not to do when their everyday reality includes the normalization of crime among the officials who are supposed to be their role models?

Youth and justice

The fact that children as young as 9 can be arrested for a committing a crime is labeling them as criminals in all but name. It is unacceptable to tag a child as a criminal as if we adults and this society have no accountability for their actions. Moreover, it is cruel to look at them as failures when we are the very ones failing our children. If we find it okay for them to undergo trial, a situation not at all child-friendly, this says a lot more about us than about their behavior.

We are robbing them of their right to grow in a nurturing environment. We are killing their potential to actualize their greatest abilities. We are taking them away from contributing to nation-building.

It is offensive that this move is backed by the likes of House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who has been charged and then cleared for electoral sabotage and plunder. This is moreso because juvenile crimes, which mainly consist of theft, only take a little part of the total crimes in the country. These children did not commit murder nor corruption that many officials and high-ranking people do but get off scot-free.

These children have suffered enough from consequences not of their own choosing. We must therefore not fall prey to the blunder of projecting the role of an actor, whatever age, to such a large extent that we fail to acknowledge the interplay of social structures that shape the conditions of these actors.

They are in a pit and this administration is digging the pit deeper. The aforementioned amendment may actually encourage syndicates to abuse younger children, since the capture of these children would mean that a criminal has already been apprehended. Worse, this might even be used to justify the already horrendous treatment children experience under the Duterte administration's war on drugs.

While officials maintain that children will be convicted not to punish but to reform them, and that they will be called "children in conflict with the law" (CICL) instead of criminals, the proposed amendment still begs to be challenged.

'Anti-poor and elitist'

Today, the House committee on justice approved an unnamed bill amending Republic Act 10630, which will lower the minimum age of criminal liability from 15 to 9 years old.

According to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Philippines, the usual profile of children in conflict with the law includes: being neglected by parents, living in poverty, residing in high crime areas, not having the means to go to school, sporting low educational attainment, and being exploited both by adults and syndicates.

This information makes lowering the age of criminal liability anti-poor and outright elitist. These children are victims of socio-economic inequality—victims who are penalized too much simply by being born into an oppressed class.

However, instead of protecting them, this State chooses to oppress them further.

OPINION

Criminalization is not what we owe our children

'It is unacceptable to tag a child as a criminal as if we adults and this society have no accountability for their action.'

Athena Presto
January 22, 2019



When I was 9 years old, I was about to finish 4th grade but had to fight my way through bureaucratic and social judgments just to make sure I advanced to the next grade. My teachers felt I was too young to appreciate fractions and decimals, changes in matter and energy, and conjunctions in the English language.

Looking back, I did have a hard time keeping up with our lessons. But curiosity and imagination always thrived at the young age of 9 so I came through. After all, children and the ones in awe of the workings of nature and the social environment should always be given space and opportunity to grow and understand their own setting.

But what if they are robbed of these?

wow. i like it that it means respect for other people.

But Soriano deemed the prosecution's evidence "equivocal." That no record of the application could be found in the DND files did not mean that no such document was ever submitted, he said. Indeed, he added, the prosecution witness who certified the unavailability of the application record "testified that she did not intend to state thereby that Trillanes did not file an amnesty application."

On the other hand, Trillanes submitted in his defense eyewitness testimonies, authenticated photographs, and other evidence, which the prosecution failed to rebut, Soriano wrote. His ruling in the senator's favor was based on this "unrebutted evidence, both preponderant and secondary."

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/

In Proclamation 572 issued on Aug. 31, 2018—which Mr. Duterte candidly identified as Solicitor General Jose Calida's idea — the government states that Trillanes failed not only to file an application for amnesty but also to admit participation in the Oakwood mutiny, etc.

The prosecution's fundamental point was that there was no record of Trillanes' application at the Department of National Defense (DND), and presented witnesses testifying to that effect.

The DOJ had filed motions at Makati RTC Branches 148 and 150 (under Judge Elmo Alameda) seeking the reopening of the coup d'etat and rebellion cases against Trillanes, on the basis of the President's Proclamation No. 572 declaring the senator's amnesty void.

Soriano's decision was in stark contrast to that of Alameda, who, ruling in favor of the DOJ in September, ordered the senator's arrest for rebellion but allowed him to post bail. (Soriano, however, did not agree with Trillanes' contention that Proclamation 572 was unconstitutional, stating that it was "purely an executive act and prerogative in the exercise of the President's power of control and supervision" over the executive branch.)

Soriano

After all was said and done in the case brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the Makati RTC Branch 148, Presiding Judge Andres Soriano concluded simply on Oct. 22, 2018, that Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV had filed a proper application for amnesty and had admitted guilt for mutinous behavior in 2003, 2006 and 2007.

Having concluded thus, Soriano denied the DOJ's "very urgent" motion for a hold-departure order on Trillanes and a warrant for his arrest for coup d'etat, effectively blocking what was then perceived as Malacañang's unseemly efforts to decommission, as it were, another one of President Duterte's ardent critics. And preferably, it was suspected, in time for the President's arrival from an official visit overseas.

Wrote the judge in his decision: "The court commiserates with our policemen who regularly thrust their lives in zones of danger in order to maintain peace and order, and acknowledges the apprehension faced by their families whenever they go on duty. But the use of unnecessary force or wanton violence is not justified when the fulfillment of their duty as law enforcers can [be] effected otherwise. A shoot first, think later attitude can never be countenanced in a civilized society. Never has homicide or murder been a function of law enforcement. The public peace is never predicated on the cost of human life."

Azucena's ruling is the first conviction in the war on drugs — proof positive, according to some quarters, that extrajudicial killings by agents of the state are marking the campaign.

It engenders hope among bereaved families and rights activists that other law enforcers and state agents involved in such murders will ultimately be held accountable despite the apparent mantle of immunity draped on them as primary fighters in the "war."

They drag Kian toward the basketball court. They stop at the dark end of the Tullahan River. After a short conversation, in which Kian begs his tormentors to stop — Sir, huwag po, sir — they drag him near the pigpen. Shots are fired by Oares and Pereda, with Cruz standing guard.

Kian had two gunshot wounds, "fracturing his skull and temporal bone and lacerating the cerebral hemispheres as well as the cerebellum."

The trajectory of the bullets showed that the killers were standing over Kian, who was in a kneeling or sitting position. A paraffin examination administered on the teenager's hands showed that he had not fired any gun.

On Nov. 29, 2018, Caloocan RTC Branch 125 Presiding Judge Rodolfo Azucena Jr. sentenced PO3 Arnel Oares, PO1 Jerwin Cruz and PO1 Jeremias Pereda to up to 40 years behind bars, with no possibility of parole, for killing Delos Santos. The trial took six months — a rarity in a country where court cases drag on for years.

From eyewitness accounts and other evidence presented at the trial, Azucena pieced together the circumstances behind the murder of the young man who, it was reported, had poignantly begged the cops to release him because he had an exam the next day to study for:

With a police "asset," Oares and Pereda accost Kian at a "sari-sari" store cum pharmacy. Cruz appears and asks where they are taking the teenager. Their answer is ominous, stating an intent to do him in: Ibaba na lang natin ito.

Azucena

The terrible toll of the Duterte administration's war on drugs appeared to have gradually lost its capacity to shock, but the killing of Kian delos Santos at Barangay 160, Libis Baesa, Caloocan City, on the night of Aug. 16, 2017, along with the killing of other youngsters at about the same time, provided a jolt that soon morphed into clangorous protest.

The usual "nanlaban" narrative of perp resistance — that the 17-year-old was a drug courier who had engaged police raiders in a shootout — did not gel; rather, the resulting public outcry over the manner of Kian's death moved Malacañang to soften its hard-line approach and to (temporarily) take the Philippine National Police off its lead role in the antidrug campaign.

In finding Anotado, Osorio and Palparan guilty beyond reasonable doubt and sentencing them to life imprisonment, Tamayo wrote: "Viewed in its totality, the witnesses' positive identification of the three accused and their respective participations and roles in the commission of the crimes charged against them, which, after close analysis, show their connections with each other and the common design aimed toward the attainment of the same unlawful purpose, more than satisfies the judicial mind and conscience."

He continued: "It is immaterial whether any or all of the accused herein acted as a principal or as an accomplice because the conspiracy and the participation of each of them in the commission of and/or furtherance of the crimes for which they stand charged ... have been established. In conspiracy, the act of one is the act of all and the conspirators shall be held equally liable for the crime."

At the promulgation of his decision on Sept. 17, 2018, Tamayo cited Manalo's testimony that "included some horrifying bestial acts done on Karen and Sherlyn, replete with details that he could not have simply concocted." Yet it was with "macabre silence" that Palparan acted in relation to the "most degrading and inhumane tortures repeatedly done to Karen and Sherlyn" at the 24th Infantry Battalion camp in Limay, Bataan, the judge noted.

It was with this silence that the commanding general "loudly expressed his assent to, approval of, and community of purpose in the crimes ..."

Tamayo cited the "unassailable fact" that Palparan knew of the abduction of the two women activists by those under his command. Yet "he not only acquiesced to their unlawful captivity but also gave his imprimatur to their inhumane treatment at the hands of his men," the judge wrote.

Karen and Sherlyn were 22 and 29, respectively, when taken by unidentified men from a house at Barangay San Miguel in Hagonoy, Bulacan, on June 26, 2006.

Before the trial of Palparan, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, Staff Sgt. Edgardo Osorio and (the still-at-large) Master Sgt. Rizal Hilario that took seven years to conclude, the mothers Concepcion Empeño and Erlinda Cadapan engaged in a search in a manner that any parent would dread but fully understand — with grim determination and mounting fear that they would never see their children again.

To their enduring sorrow, they have yet to find their missing children to this day.

Tamayo

Then Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, commander of the Army's 7th Infantry Division, earned the tag "The Butcher" from human rights advocates for the number of activists killed in the areas where he had been assigned.

But despite the odium attached to his name, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo found his counterinsurgency tactics so impressive that she plied him with praise at her State of the Nation Address in 2006, where, having been named, he rose from among the audience and basked in the applause with an aw-shucks grin.

The attentive observer would recall that grin in the awful light of the "quite unnerving" testimony of the farmer Raymond Manalo, as recalled in the decision of Judge Alexander Tamayo of Bulacan RTC Branch 15, at the trial of Palparan and his coaccused for the kidnapping and serious illegal detention of University of the Philippines students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

But when hours passed and there was no compliance on the government's part, Palabrica was prompted to issue a supplemental order saying that while the performance of the police force, as well as Padillo's arguments, was admirable, "we must rule in favor the respondents."

The judge reiterated that the respondents, with no information filed against them in court, were "presumed innocent," and that the posted bail applied to all charges.

"Their supreme right to liberty must be upheld," she declared.

On Dec. 1, 2018, Tagum RTC Executive Judge Arlene Palabrica ordered the release of Castro, Ocampo and the 16 others — nine and five of whom were being detained in the towns of Talaingod and Kapalong, respectively, and four in Tagum.

She pointed out that they had posted bail and that no information had been filed against them in court.

Police officer and lawyer Louie Padillo balked. He met with Palabrica in chambers and said the 18 accused would not be released because 1) they were still undergoing preliminary investigation and 2) the recommended bail of P80,000 each was for one charge only. In response, the judge told Padillo to file a pleading on the issue and for the matter of the bail to be clarified.

True to its mission, the group gathered resources and headed in a convoy to aid the beleaguered teachers and students.

This is the way things are in the lives of the lumad in Mindanao.

As early as July 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte had expressed more than displeasure toward lumad schools, saying these were "operating illegally" and "teaching children to rebel against the government."

"Get out of there," he had warned the lumad. "I'll have those bombed, including your structures."

The school is one of two being run by Salugpongan Ta'tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center. In her narrative, its president, Lolita Muya, said soldiers and militiamen had ordered school officials and teachers to leave the premises in Sitio Nasilaban on Oct. 25.

A week later, the militia threatened murder if they did not comply.

They gathered their students and fled to the other Salugpongan school in Sitio Dulyan, but militiamen also shuttered it days later.

The school officials, teachers and students sent a distress call to the 75-member group that was then in Tagum City.

Palabrica

Martial law being in force in Mindanao for the second straight year, it seemed like par for the course when a 75-member group bringing food and other supplies to a school for the "lumad" (indigenous Filipinos) in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, was stopped and held by the military late in November last year.

It wasn't much of a surprise when 18 in the group, comprising ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, Bayan Muna president Satur Ocampo, other activists and teachers, were subsequently arrested, although the charges — kidnapping, trafficking and abuse of children in a lumad school that had earlier lamented harassment by military men — bordered on the absurd.

(Foreign Secretary Teddyboy Locsin, showing flashes of his old reputation for calling things as they are, described the charges as "b***.")

The decisions of Judges Azucena, Soriano and Tamayo and the release and supplemental orders of Judge Palabrica chip away at the perception of an intimidated judiciary.

Collectively, they represent a bracing breeze emanating from musty courtrooms. They speak truth to power in an era that badly needs a principled stand.

"They" are Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judges Rodolfo Azucena Jr., Arlene Lirag Palabrica, Andres Soriano and Alexander Tamayo, who, by their decisions on certain critical cases, have fired up the despondent imagination and provided leeway for the public to think that things can possibly get better, that there might be a way out of this slough.

Three of the cases involve uniformed men, active or retired, representing the might of the state that, as in the bad old days of Ferdinand Marcos' martial law and continuing into the Duterte administration's centerpiece war on drugs, appears to allow the military and police to get away with murder.

The fourth involves a senator of the realm, himself a former military man and longtime critic of the administration that by its behavior seems to view him as an enemy of the state.

FILIPINOS OF THE YEAR 2018

Judges who gave hope in the fight against impunity

By their decisions on certain critical cases, Regional Trial Court Judges Rodolfo Azucena Jr., Arlene Lirag Palabrica, Andres Soriano and Alexander Tamayo have fired up the despondent imagination and provided leeway for the public to think that things can possibly get better, that there might be a way out of this slough.

January 06, 2019


Arlene Lirag Palabrica, Alexander Tamayo, Rodolfo Azucena Jr., Andres Soriano

In the vote for the Inquirer's Filipino(s) of the Year 2018, one cited reason seemed to sum up the final results: "They give us hope amid the darkness descending upon the country."

Indeed, "they" stand out in an era where the Supreme Court deems the remains of a dictator fit for burial in a cemetery for heroes, and where, on another plane, cops converge on a provincial jail in the dead of night, gun down a suspected drug lord right in his cell, and ultimately not only get their jobs back but are promoted as well.

"They" upend weary expectations in a society where might has come to mean right. "They" give breath to the faltering idea that even those with neither wealth nor power can receive fair treatment in a court of law.

17. SORIANO, AZUCENA JR, DELA CRUZ, AND ESTOESTA.
These are names of two Regional Trial Court judges and two Sandiganbayan justices who stood out because they decided to go against the grain.

Judge Andres Soriano of RTC Makati, Branch 148 resisted the pressure to issue a warrant of arrest against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV arising from the President's Proclamation No. 572 (contrasted from the warrant of arrest issued by his RTC neighbor, Judge Elmo Alameda of Branch 150).

Judge Rodolfo Azucena Jr of RTC Caloocan, Branch 125 convicted the murderers of Kian Delos Santos and sent a strong message against those who would carry out EJKs.

Justices Efren Dela Cruz and Ma. Theresa Gomez Estoesta of the Sandiganbayan dissented from the majority in its acquittal of former Senator Bong Revilla for plunder. Both submitting separate dissents, Justices Dela Cruz and Estoesta argued that the evidence against Mr. Revilla was sufficient to convict him. Notably, Justice Dela Cruz is the chair of the First Division and is the only justice among the 5 who ruled in the Revilla case who has heard the case since it started. He is also an aspirant for a Supreme Court seat.

18. WAR
The war in 2018 was not just against illegal drugs, it was also against free speech and expression, and many other forms of dissent. Rappler reporter Pia Ranada was barred from covering the President in Malacañang – a ban that apparently is not territorially-confined, but extends to any activity where the President is present. Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa has been charged with tax evasion, with Rappler itself facing legal action for corporate ouster. ABS-CBN has been threatened with denial of its franchise by no less than the President. Journalists have been killed and continue to be killed. Paid internet trolls continue to attack legitimate forms of dissent expressed on social media.

There was also a war against legal representation, specifically through the killing of lawyers who would dare to take a side against the establishment. NUPL's Benjamin Ramos was one in a growing list of lawyers whose advocacy for the poor and voiceless made him an "enemy of the State."

19 words for 2019

These are not, by any means, the only words to describe 2018. These are just 18 of the many words that describe my 2018.

As a new year approaches, I want to jumpstart the next Deep Dive and 2019 with 3 of 19 words that I hope will describe 2019.

Resilience. Courage. Hope. – Rappler.com

Theodore Te, Ted to many, is a human rights lawyer and advocate, law educator, font geek and comic book fan, occasional movie and music reviewer, a life-long Boston Celtics fan and a loud opponent of the death penalty, violations of human rights, government abuse, and social injustice. Deep Dive is his attempt at probing into issues of law and rights, politics and governance (and occasionally entertainment and sports) beyond the headlines, the sound bites, the spin, and the buzz.

15. ACQUITTED
Former Senator Bong Revilla made this a trending word after the Sandiganbayan acquitted him for plunder but nonetheless found that he was civilly liable. The plunder acquittal by a divided Special Division of the Sandiganbayan was significant as it was the first high-profile acquittal of one of those charged under the so-called PDAF scams after a full-blown trial on the merits. The question now on the minds of many is whether 2019 will bring at least two more acquittals based on the same legal theory as applied to Revilla.

16. JUSTICE
At least for Kian Delos Santos, an EJK victim whose murderers were convicted and sentenced to reclusion perpetua by Judge Rodolfo Azucena Jr on November 29, 2018. Whether 2019 will make this a trending word for more victims of EJKs remains to be seen.

13. SPOKESPERSONS
2018 saw the departure of the President's spokesperson Harry Roque, appointed in November 2017, who resigned in October 2018 and his replacement by an acting spokesperson, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo. While ordinarily, the appointment and departure of the President's spokesperson isn't significant, Roque's was notable because of the manner by which he was replaced. Both spokespersons – Roque and Panelo – were also notable for the propagation of the "he was just joking" line as a catch-all explanation for every outrageous statement of the President.

14. ICC
This acronym for the International Criminal Court practically became a buzz word, especially after the Philippine withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the treaty which created the ICC. Generating legal controversy and a challenge before the Supreme Court, oral arguments were heard and the matter has been submitted to the Supreme Court for decision. The question that is on everyone's minds is whether the Philippine withdrawal from the Rome Statute which created the ICC will affect the ICC's jurisdiction to take cognizance of the EJKs that are still being committed with impunity.

11. CHARTER CHANGE
2018 saw two drafts to revise the 1987 Constitution in order to put in place, among others, a federal system of government – a campaign promise of the President. Both drafts were diametrically opposed and textually inconsistent with each other. The first draft submitted by a Consultative Committee formed by the President and headed by former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno came up with a total overhaul not only of the form of government but of the 1987 Constitution itself. The second draft came into the national consciousness more surreptitiously, through Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 15 filed and shepherded by no less than the Speaker of the House of Representatives and former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Where the first draft Constitution was a bludgeon, the second was a scalpel. The Puno Commission draft has essentially been forgotten, while the Arroyo-led RBH 15 has already passed the House of Representatives and is awaiting Senate action.

12. VOID AB INITIO
This 3-word phrase came into the public consciousness as a result of the quo warranto action initiated by the Solicitor General to remove the former Chief Justice. This became the preferred legal theory of the administration to remove dissenters. After Sereno, the "void ab initio" theory was applied to Senator Trillanes, whose grant of amnesty under a former administration and a previous Congress was revoked by Proclamation No. 572 signed by the President on August 31, 2018. This was challenged by Mr. Trillanes before the Supreme Court in a matter that remains pending.

9. CHIEF JUSTICES
A direct effect of the quo warranto decision is that 2018 saw 3 Chief Justices taking the helm of the judiciary. After Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno was ousted by the SC's decision in May 2018, Teresita J. Leonardo-De Castro, retiring in October 2018, was appointed in August 2018, as the 24th Chief Justice. Upon her retirement in October 2018, she was succeeded by Lucas P. Bersamin, who was appointed as the 25th Chief Justice in November 2018.

10. MARTIAL LAW
In 2018, the Supreme Court sustained Congress' green light to the second extension of martial law in Mindanao, first declared on May 23, 2017 through Presidential Proclamation No. 216, first extended by Congress on July 23, 2017 until December 31, 2017, and again on December 13, 2017 until December 31, 2018. The second, year-long extension of martial law was challenged in the Supreme Court and resulted in a decision promulgated on February 6, 2018 sustaining Congress approval of the President's request for a second extension of martial law. On December 12, 2018, Congress, in joint session, approved a third extension of martial law in Mindanao for another year.

7. AMNESTY
A legal term that again came into the public consciousness due to the ham-handed attempt to arrest a dissenting senator on the basis of a legal theory that is, charitably put, unfounded. This resulted in a petition filed with the Supreme Court (still pending), and two long-dead cases being resurrected by the Department of Justice with diametrically-opposed results.

8. QUO WARRANTO
An obscure technical term then known only to lawyers (literally meaning "by what right") but which became a much-used term and the subject of intense discussion and debate. This, thanks to a petition filed by the Solicitor General with the Supreme Court against then-sitting Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno and a judgment by the Supreme Court ousting the Chief Justice through a mode other than impeachment.

3. BULLY
China in relation to the Philippines as far as our territorial claims are concerned. Ex cathedra statements from the rostrum, given behind the Seal, painting political opponents and dissenters in the worse possible light, frequently accompanied by curses and other coarse language. A 14-year old with martial arts training picking on those bigger than him, in full living color.

4. GOD,
5. CATHOLICS, AND
6. BISHOPS.
Frequently the target of presidential ire in his speeches, either collectively or individually. Often described in condescending, often coarse, language, God, the Catholic Church, and its bishops have apparently become the President's preoccupation in his public speeches, something that is difficult to understand. Notably, his spokespersons have never characterized these statements as jokes.

OPINION | Deep Dive

18 words

These are just 18 of the many words that describe my 2018

Atty Theodore Te
December 27, 2018

If the best thing you can say about 2018 is that it's about to end, then you probably have more than 18 words that would capture your 2018. This week's Deep Dive focuses on 18 words that best sum up my 2018 (they are not arranged in any particular order).

1. TRAIN
The acronym for Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act, signed into law as Republic Act No. 10963, has become not only a word but, for many, a bad word. Signed into law in December 2017, it impacted almost everything in 2018. TRAIN reduced personal income taxes but increased those on cars, tobacco, sugar-sweetened beverages, and fuel. While it resulted in a higher take-home pay for most consumers, the law also brought about adjustments in prices of commodities affected by the TRAIN law, with a trickle-down effect to consumers.

2. JOKING
As in, "he was just joking." Practically, the first thing the President's spokespersons would say to explain outrageous and contradictory statements made by the President, which was quite often and quite a lot. While a folksy sense of humor might win campaigns, it's not the best way to govern. Memo to the spin machine: handle policy with gravitas and criticism with levity, not the other way around.

ah layk dat!

That reddish tint of Ultima Thule? Scientists aren't sure what causes that either, Singer added.

Stern said any new discoveries from Ultima Thule will help unlock mysteries of the solar system's history.

"This is a time capsule that we've never seen before that's going to take us back four and a half billion years to the birth of the solar system," he added.

https://www.space.com/

"Very few teams have had this experience and this privilege of crossing the entirety of our solar system on a mission," Stern said in the webcast. "Really only the Pioneers and the Voyagers that came before us."

Not a lot is known about Ultima Thule. It is much smaller than Pluto, but its exact size and shape are unknown. It may have a reddish tint, but it isn't reflecting light like scientists initially expected, raising eyebrows ahead of Tuesday's flyby.

"We don't have a lot of information on the composition," said mission co-investigator Kelsi Singer of SwRI. "That's one of the things we're really excited to learn."

The stakes are high. It takes 6 hours and 8 minutes for a signal to reach Earth from New Horizons. A roundtrip for a signal is just over half a day: 12 hours and 15 minutes. So New Horizons will have to work on its own during the actual rendezvous, just as it did at Pluto.

"Because this is a flyby mission, you only get one chance to get it right," Alice Bowman, mission operations manager for New Horizons, said in the webcast.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft launched on its initial mission to Pluto in 2006, making a flyby of the dwarf planet on July 14, 2015. A year before that historic encounter, astronomers discovered Ultima Thule, giving the mission team a tantalizing second target to visit.

An artist's illustration of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it flies by Ultima Thule (2014 MU69) in the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto on Jan. 1, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

That focus is key because Stern and the New Horizons team are attempting something that's never been done before: the farthest flyby of an an object in history, a record last set by the same team in 2015 at Pluto.

Ultima Thule — officially known as 2014 MU69 — is 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion kilometers) from Earth. That's about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, Stern said in the webcast.

If all goes well, New Horizons will zip by Ultima Thule on New Year's Day at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) at a whopping 39,000 mph (62,764 km/h). At its closest point, New Horizons will be 2,200 miles (3,540 km) from Ultima Thule. That's about the distance between Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., with Ultima Thule appearing about as large to New Horizons as the full moon does to observers on Earth, Stern said.

Because of a partial U.S. government shutdown that began Dec. 22, some of NASA's public outreach feeds were initally silenced. JHUAPL has taken over mission briefings (like today's webcast) and will provide live updates via the JHUAPL YouTube page for flyby events on Monday and Tuesday (Dec. 31 and Jan. 1). You can see a full schedule here.

Today, NASA began carrying the JHUAPL briefings on its NASA.gov/live page and posting Twitter announcements via @NASANewHorizons and other accounts. But the agency's website continues to point visitors to JHUAPL for the latest mission updates and photos.

"The primary effect has been a loss of NASA public affairs, which has made our public engagement much more challenging," Stern told Space.com in an email. But, he added, the mission team isn't distracted. "We're focused."

NASA's New Horizons Ready for Historic Flyby of Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt

By Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor
December 28, 2018

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will ring in the new year with an epic flyby at the edge of the solar system, and the stage is set for a truly historic encounter. And it's happening amid a partial government shutdown that initially threw a curveball into how the New Horizons team will share the flyby with the public.

On New Year's Day (Jan. 1), New Horizons will fly by the distant object Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt, a realm of icy objects that orbit the sun well beyond the dwarf planet Pluto. The flyby is a second for New Horizons, which flew by Pluto in July of 2015, and will mark the first-of-its-kind close look at a Kuiper Belt object forged during the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

"It's electric, across the whole team," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) said in short flyby preview webcast  today (Dec. 28) on YouTube and Facebook Live hosted by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel Maryland. JHUAPL oversees the New Horizons mission for NASA. "The people are ready. We can't wait to go exploring."

Arugay says the continuing presence and activity of social media networks supportive of the administration even after the elections could mean that their usefulness lies not only in getting votes. "The would-be government was not simply trying to win votes - they were trying to create a support constituency," Aru gay said.

And, Arugay added, it appears once people have been roped into this constituency, online disinformation only fuels more of the same support such that "it's path-dependent, there is no turning back."

"Cold hard facts don't really elicit much emotional response," he said. "It's really 'fake news' that translates to freezing of political lines, that translates (into) selection bias, because fake news always somehow elicits an emotional response - anger, passion, support, fanaticism."

Explained Arugay: "Political mobilization is often driven by non-rational considerations more than rational ones."

(This story was produced under the Southeast Asian Press Alliance 2018 Journalism Fellowship Program, supported by a grant from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [OHCHR]. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of OHCHR.)

http://verafiles.org/

"We used social media because we did not have the money," Nic Gabunada, who headed the social media campaign of Duterte, had told Vera Files in an earlier interview.

"I know there are shortcomings," Gabunada said in response to accusations of online abuse and bullying that occurred during the 2016 election period. "Since this is a movement, you cannot control everybody."

That proactive social media strategy paid off. Pledging to kill drug dealers and criminals, Duterte won the presidential vote with more than 16.6 million votes, edging out his closest rival by more than 6 million votes. But in the years since that victory, the social media campaigns around the President have not waned – and have in fact metamorphosed into a continual wave that defends and promotes him across social media spaces.

Cold hard facts don't elicit much emotional response, 'fake news' does

Disinformation is a political exercise, says Aries Arugay, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines. The fact that most of his happens online, especially in Facebook, does not mean that its effects are limited only to consumers of social media.

"Facebook has a ripple effect," Arugay explained, saying there is a certain "mysticism" around disinformation even for those who are not active on social media, but who have heard of such from others. "It's like my father. Every time I hear him say 'Oh, I heard that this was on Facebook. So it must be true.' In a way, there's some mysticism and that contributes to fake news," he said.

The Duterte camp confirms that its use of social media strategies for the presidential campaign in 2016 set him apart from his opponents. These offered his election team a relatively less expensive mode of courting votes in a country where poll campaigns rely heavily on the ability to hold rallies crisscrossing this archipelago of 7,100 islands and to place expensive political ads in different media.

Some 1.8 million social media users could have seen the false report in their feeds, according to CrowdTangle's analytics.

After videos that are uploaded on Youtube, the second most popular source of material used in disinformation are manipulated reports from no less than mainstream media in the Philippines.

YouTube videos are the most popular sources of disinformation

YouTube 76
Manipulated reports from mainstream media 53
Facebook 20
Blog 13
Fabricated information 9
Government website 4
Twitter 3
Instagram 2
Other 13

In September, the website Balita Online (News Online) published a false story claiming that the Magdalo group of soldiers led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, which had staged mutinies in 2003 and 2007, was preparing for another coup.

The post carried a 10-minute clip, which was lifted from an almost two-hour Facebook Live video clip by Duterte promoter Maravillas, but provided no support to the claim against the supposed coup plotters. The video thumbnail was manipulated, splicing old photos from the foreign wire agencies Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.