i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
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i REPORT<br />
July-September <strong>2005</strong><br />
P75<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>Investigative</strong> Journalism<br />
THE PRESIDENTS<br />
AND THE<br />
(JUETENG) LORDS<br />
Special Focus<br />
on Filipino<br />
Youth: The Lost<br />
Generation<br />
IMPEACHMENT: WILL IT GET ANYWHERE?<br />
CHARTER CHANGE: WHAT NOW?<br />
SHADOWY CAMPAIGN: WHO CHEATED?<br />
2004 ELECTIONS: WHO SPENT?<br />
NOLI DE CASTRO:<br />
WILL<br />
HE BE<br />
PRESIDENT?
C O N T E N T S<br />
OVERVIEW<br />
ANAK NG JUETENG 2<br />
Sheila S. Coronel<br />
Like Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo<br />
has been accused of accepting money from illegal<br />
gambling.<br />
THE CAMPAIGN<br />
JEKYLL-AND-HYDE CAMPAIGN 6<br />
Yvonne T. Chua<br />
Alongside the official Arroyo campaign was a<br />
parallel structure that operated secretly and with<br />
little accountability.<br />
PRESIDENTIAL MAKEOVER 10<br />
A <strong>for</strong>eign PR firm is re-engineering Mrs. Arroyo’s<br />
image.<br />
CAMPAIGN FUNDS<br />
RUNNING ON TAXPAYERS’ MONEY 12<br />
Luz Rimban<br />
Billions of pesos in government funds were<br />
used to pump prime Arroyo’s candidacy.<br />
THE VICE PRESIDENT<br />
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE PRESIDENT<br />
16<br />
Luz Rimban<br />
<strong>No</strong>li de Castro has come a long way from his<br />
days as a broadcaster; he may even end up in<br />
Malacañang.<br />
CHARTER CHANGE<br />
SOS: SYSTEM UNDER STRESS 20<br />
Sheila S. Coronel<br />
Can Congress be trusted to hold a credible impeachment<br />
trial and to change the constitution?<br />
IMPEACHMENT<br />
LIGHTS, CAMERA, IMPEACHMENT! 24<br />
Alecks P. Pabico<br />
The impeachment proceedings should be the<br />
best show in town, but so far, it’s been a sleeper.<br />
VOICES FROM THE PERIPHERY<br />
FOR VISAYANS,<br />
THE CENTER DOES NOT HOLD<br />
Resil Mojares<br />
THE MORO PEOPLE CAN BE PART<br />
OF A PLURAL SOCIETY WITHOUT<br />
LOSING THEIR IDENTITY<br />
28<br />
Omar Solitario Ali<br />
THE TIME FOR FEDERALISM<br />
IS NOW<br />
29<br />
Rey Magno Teves<br />
TWO AT EDSA<br />
“WHEN THE WHEELS OF HISTORY<br />
TURN, YOU HARDLY EXPECT THE<br />
WORLD TO TURN UPSIDE DOWN”<br />
Ed Lingao<br />
“I WAS AT EDSA OUT OF<br />
PURE DISGUST” 32<br />
Mylene Lising<br />
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH:<br />
THE LOST GENERATION<br />
FINDING SPACES 33<br />
Katrina Stuart Santiago<br />
They are the hi-tech generation, at ease with<br />
technology but otherwise lost when it comes<br />
26<br />
31<br />
to dealing with the complexities of a globalized<br />
world.<br />
SO YOUNG & SO TRAPO 36<br />
Avigail Olarte<br />
The Sangguniang Kabataan, training ground of<br />
future leaders, has fallen into the grip of traditional<br />
politics.<br />
TEEN & TIPSY<br />
40<br />
Vinia Datinguinoo<br />
More and more adolescent girls are drinking<br />
alcohol.<br />
PERILS OF GENERATION SEX 44<br />
Cheryl Chan<br />
Filipino women are having sex earlier, but are<br />
seldom aware of the risks, including sexually<br />
transmitted diseases.<br />
THE BEAUTY BUSINESS 46<br />
Cheryl Chan<br />
Shampoos, skin whiteners, and assorted other<br />
beauty products find a ready market among<br />
young women.<br />
MACHOS IN THE MIRROR 48<br />
Dean Francis Alfar<br />
Filipino men are spending millions to look—and<br />
feel—good.<br />
MALE & VAIN 50<br />
Photos by Jose Enrique Soriano<br />
Men are lining up to get facials, foot scrubs, and<br />
even dips in bathtubs filled with rose petals.<br />
GROWING UP FEMALE & MUSLIM 52<br />
Samira Gutoc<br />
Moro women still value religion and tradition,<br />
but are also responding to the challenges of<br />
modernity.<br />
VIRTUALLY YOURS 56<br />
Alecks P. Pabico<br />
Technology has redefined the barkada.<br />
Cover: Jueteng scandals have rocked two<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> presidents, Joseph Estrada and<br />
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.<br />
Photo Credits: Malaya provided the photos<br />
<strong>for</strong> pages 2, 3, 4 (top photo), 10, 12, 14, 16-<br />
18, 20-22, 24-25, 35-39, and 46. Photos on<br />
pages 15 and 26 are by Laurent Duvillier. Joe<br />
Galvez took the photo of the jueteng gaming<br />
table on page 4. The photos of Ed Lingao on<br />
page 30 are courtesy of the author; that of<br />
Mylene Lising on page 31, also courtesy of<br />
the author, while Sid Balatan took the Edsa<br />
2 photo on that page. Sonny Yabao took the<br />
photos on pages 33 (top photo) and 34. The<br />
bottom photo on page 33 is from the National<br />
Youth Commission. The photos on pages 40-<br />
41 are by Vinia Datinguinoo; those on pages<br />
48-49 are by Jose Enrique Soriano; on page<br />
52 by Rick Rocamora, and on pages 56-58 by<br />
Alecks P. Pabico.<br />
CONFUSED CONFESSION<br />
Some of readers may be confused about<br />
our size. This year, i <strong>Report</strong> has come<br />
out two sizes: the book-sized version <strong>for</strong><br />
<strong>No</strong>.1 and 2 and the magazine-sized version<br />
you hold in your hand. The reason is<br />
simple: we started out thinking that we<br />
could stray away from the news and focus<br />
instead on long-term social, political,<br />
and lifestyle trends. But then Gloriagate<br />
broke out and we were proven so wrong.<br />
The tempo of the times required that<br />
we keep our readers abreast of current<br />
events. That entailed giving up the less<br />
timebound, book-sized i in favor of the<br />
more current, newsmagazine <strong>for</strong>mat.<br />
Our dealers have also asked that we<br />
keep to this size, as it is more visible<br />
on the newsstands and easier to sell.<br />
We will oblige them. Our apologies <strong>for</strong><br />
the confusion. We assure our readers<br />
that there will be no resizing of i in the<br />
<strong>for</strong>eseeable future. We know that you<br />
can take only so much uncertainty in<br />
this uncertain times.<br />
Feedback on the magazine is welcome.<br />
Email us at imag@pcij.org or fax us at<br />
929-3571.<br />
EDITOR Sheila S. Coronel<br />
DEPUTY EDITOR Cecile C.A. Balgos<br />
STAFF Yvonne T. Chua, Luz Rimban,<br />
Vinia M. Datinguinoo, Alecks P.<br />
Pabico, Avigail Olarte<br />
OFFICE MANAGER Fausta Cacdac<br />
BOARD OF EDITORS <strong>Philippine</strong> <strong>Center</strong><br />
<strong>for</strong> <strong>Investigative</strong> Journalism<br />
Lorna Kalaw-Tirol, Sheila S. Coronel,<br />
Marites Dañguilan Vitug, Malou<br />
Mangahas, Howie G. Severino, David<br />
Celdran, Ma. Ceres P. Doyo<br />
BOARD OF ADVISERS Jose V. Abueva,<br />
Jose F. Lacaba, Cecilia Lazaro, Tina<br />
Monzon-Palma, Sixto K. Roxas, Jose<br />
M. Galang<br />
Published by the <strong>Philippine</strong> <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>Investigative</strong><br />
Journalism; 3/F Criselda II Building, 107 Scout de Guia<br />
Street, Quezon City 1104<br />
T 4194768 F 929-3571<br />
Email: Pcij@pcij.org; imag@pcij.org<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
1
SHEILA S. CORONEL<br />
NO TWO presidents<br />
could be<br />
more unlike each<br />
other. She is a<br />
workaholic with a<br />
PhD in economics.<br />
He is a college<br />
dropout and a movie actor<br />
who gets up at noon. She is most<br />
com<strong>for</strong>table speaking in English<br />
and spouting economic jargon.<br />
He grunts rather than speaks, and<br />
when he does, he prefers Tagalog<br />
of the kanto<br />
boy variety. But<br />
then he has a natural charm and<br />
is ef<strong>for</strong>tlessly popular; his mass<br />
appeal is undeniable.<br />
She, on the other hand, is<br />
charisma challenged. While<br />
he acts like one of the boys,<br />
she behaves like an unpopular<br />
schoolmarm. Low on mass appeal,<br />
she projects herself as a<br />
skilled, hands-on executive, an<br />
image attractive to the middle<br />
class and the business community,<br />
but otherwise unappealing<br />
to the skeptical masa.<br />
In terms of style, personality,<br />
career track, and even linguistic<br />
preference, no two presidents<br />
could be more different from<br />
each other than Gloria Macapagal-<br />
Arroyo and her predecessor Joseph<br />
Estrada. But there is one thing that<br />
they have in common: jueteng.<br />
The scandals that have rocked<br />
both their governments involve the<br />
illicit numbers game, and no matter<br />
what they do, they will never live<br />
down their association with it.<br />
Nearly four years ago, Ilocos<br />
Sur Gov. Luis ‘Chavit’ Singson<br />
told a stunned nation that Erap<br />
was the “lord of all jueteng<br />
lords,” setting off street protests<br />
and a compromised impeachment<br />
trial that led to the president’s<br />
ouster. Today Arroyo is<br />
also facing impeachment, accused,<br />
among other things, of<br />
using jueteng money to bankroll<br />
her campaign and to bribe election<br />
officials.<br />
One would think that history<br />
would not repeat itself so crudely,<br />
or so soon. But then a closer look<br />
at history reveals the deep roots<br />
that jueteng has in <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
social and political life. Jueteng<br />
thrives in the murky underworld<br />
where crime, politics, and poverty<br />
meet. It lives in the spaces where<br />
the rule of law is weak, where<br />
those who hold power are in the<br />
thrall of illicit money and wealth,<br />
and where the poor are made<br />
complicit in the structures that<br />
keep them powerless.<br />
Today we have, by all appearances,<br />
a very modern president,<br />
a Georgetown classmate of<br />
Bill Clinton who comports herself<br />
more like a technocrat than a politician.<br />
But the reality is that our<br />
politics has deep, feudal roots<br />
and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is<br />
as immersed in the sleazy world<br />
of traditional <strong>Philippine</strong> politics<br />
as her predecessor was. Despite<br />
the talk of re<strong>for</strong>m and the ability<br />
to appeal to the urban middle<br />
class and the globalizing sectors<br />
of the business community, she<br />
has done little to yank the political<br />
system out of its feudal roots.<br />
It now looks that she is as trapo<br />
as they come. Like Estrada, she<br />
is anak ng jueteng, the child of<br />
a political system as tired and as<br />
old as that illicit numbers game.<br />
Jueteng there<strong>for</strong>e is at least<br />
100 years old. Its language alone<br />
betrays its age. The word itself is<br />
Chinese, deriving from the characters<br />
hue<br />
(flower) and<br />
eng<br />
(to<br />
bet). But because the game was<br />
probably introduced by Chinese<br />
traders during the Spanish colonial<br />
era, its vocabulary is in Spanish:<br />
cabo<br />
<strong>for</strong> the chief collector,<br />
cobradores<br />
<strong>for</strong> the bet collectors,<br />
cobranza <strong>for</strong> the collection.<br />
Jueteng’s links to local politics<br />
is probably as old. In 1929, <strong>for</strong><br />
example, Mariano Arroyo, then<br />
the governor of Iloilo and the<br />
most powerful man in the province,<br />
was accused of coddling a<br />
Chinese jueteng lord and of operating<br />
a gambling den himself in<br />
order to raise money <strong>for</strong> the 1931<br />
VERY OLD AND VERY<br />
LUCRATIVE<br />
The first jurisprudence on jueteng,<br />
says lawyer Sonny Pulgar, dates<br />
back to 1905, when a U.S. judge<br />
in the <strong>Philippine</strong> Supreme Court<br />
upheld a lower court’s decision<br />
that found two individuals guilty<br />
of “unlawful gambling” in Malabon.<br />
The tribunal upheld the<br />
sentences: a fine of 625 pesetas<br />
and imprisonment of two months<br />
<strong>for</strong> the owner and “banker” of<br />
the gambling establishment and a<br />
325-peseta fine and a prison term<br />
of one month and a day <strong>for</strong> the<br />
woman caught betting there.<br />
2 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
O V E R V I E W<br />
Jueteng keeps the police<br />
running as well: police officers<br />
use bribes from gambling<br />
lords to buy gasoline <strong>for</strong> their<br />
vehicles, office supplies, even<br />
medicine <strong>for</strong> sick cops. In addition,<br />
jueteng provides jobs—one<br />
estimate is that it employs close<br />
to 150,000 people throughout<br />
Luzon. Its grassroots base includes<br />
millions, many of them<br />
poor people who bet P1 or more<br />
in a game of chance that has<br />
deep roots in popular folklore.<br />
In short, jueteng is a parallel<br />
government, funding the social<br />
services that government, if it<br />
were working properly, should<br />
be delivering. Jueteng may be<br />
the most organized and the most<br />
public racket in the country, but<br />
it serves a social function, too.<br />
For sure, it preys on the poor<br />
and keeps them trapped in<br />
relationships of patronage, but<br />
it also provides them with temporary<br />
relief from their misery.<br />
Jueteng is not a victimless crime.<br />
As the parade of witnesses in the<br />
Senate hearings since May have<br />
shown, jueteng corrupts, and<br />
corrupts absolutely, including<br />
possibly even the presidency.<br />
TWO OF A KIND? Both the<br />
Arroyo and Estrada presidencies<br />
have been tainted by their<br />
association with illegal gambling.<br />
JUETENG<br />
elections. Because of exposés that<br />
ran in a local paper, Arroyo was<br />
investigated and subsequently<br />
dismissed from his post. Mariano<br />
had a brother, Jose, whose<br />
grandson is Jose Miguel Arroyo,<br />
the president’s husband.<br />
This is by no means unusual.<br />
Over the years, the names<br />
of politicians who have been<br />
linked to jueteng reads like a<br />
who’s who of <strong>Philippine</strong> political<br />
families. The names of<br />
the Singsons of Ilocos, the Cojuangcos<br />
of Tarlac, the Josons<br />
of Nueva Ecija, the Villafuertes<br />
of Camarines Sur, the Lees of<br />
Sorsogon, and the Espinosas of<br />
Masbate have all been tainted,<br />
whether rightly or wrongly, by<br />
jueteng. Some of these families<br />
have been accused of protecting<br />
illegal gambling operators. Others<br />
have been known to operate<br />
jueteng networks themselves.<br />
Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward<br />
Hagedorn, one of the<br />
president’s staunchest supporters,<br />
is a self-confessed <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
jueteng big boss. The current<br />
Batangas governor, Armand<br />
Sanchez, now also an Arroyo<br />
loyalist, was on the list of gambling<br />
operators who regularly<br />
gave Estrada a cut from their<br />
collections. More recently, the<br />
Lapids of Pampanga—action<br />
star Lito, now senator, and his<br />
son Mark, the provincial governor—have<br />
been linked to illegal<br />
gambling as well, not so much as<br />
operators but as protectors and<br />
beneficiaries of one particularly<br />
notorious jueteng lord.<br />
In most of Luzon, jueteng is<br />
the lifeblood of local politics.<br />
It is a source of campaign contributions.<br />
During elections, its<br />
network of collectors doubles as<br />
a campaign machine. It is, more<br />
importantly, also a well of money<br />
that allows local officials to deliver<br />
patronage. A significant cut<br />
of jueteng profits passes from the<br />
gambling operator to the mayor,<br />
congressman, or governor, who<br />
in turn doles out some of the<br />
money to his or her constituents.<br />
For generations, voters have<br />
brought their supplications to<br />
politicians, who are seen as the<br />
local DSWD (Department of Social<br />
Welfare and Development).<br />
A MULTIBILLION-PESO<br />
INDUSTRY<br />
In 1995, Rep. Roilo Golez estimated<br />
that jueteng was an P18-<br />
billion-a-year industry. In 1999,<br />
retired <strong>Philippine</strong> National Police<br />
(PNP) Gen. Wilfredo Reotutar<br />
put the daily bets placed with<br />
jueteng operations in Luzon<br />
and the Visayas at P84 million<br />
a day, or about P30 billion<br />
a year. About a third of this<br />
amount—P25 million daily or P9<br />
billion a year—goes to protection<br />
money paid to government<br />
and police officials, Reotutar<br />
reported. In 2001, when Chavit<br />
Singson exposed his pal Erap’s<br />
jueteng links, the Ilocos Sur politico<br />
estimated the total jueteng<br />
collections from just 22 Luzon<br />
provinces at about P50 million a<br />
day or P18 billion a year.<br />
Wenceslao Sombero, a retired<br />
police colonel who was<br />
once chief of the Detective and<br />
Special Operations Office of the<br />
PNP’s Criminal Investigation<br />
and Detection Group (CIDG),<br />
estimated that in the post-Estrada<br />
era, jueteng had expanded to 27<br />
Luzon provinces, with operators<br />
raking in about P75 million in<br />
bets a day or about P27 billion<br />
a year. This is almost equal the<br />
2004 gross revenues of Fortune<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
3
Tobacco, the country’s biggest<br />
cigarette manufacturer, and is<br />
more than half the total sales that<br />
year of the country’s two biggest<br />
mobile-phone-services companies,<br />
Globe and Smart, which<br />
are roughly in the P50-billion<br />
range and are among the top 10<br />
companies in the country.<br />
Unlike the corporate Top<br />
1000, however, jueteng lords<br />
have low overheads, don’t pay<br />
taxes, and get cash collections<br />
on the spot, thanks to a network<br />
of cobradores. Jueteng is also<br />
a low-capital, low-tech operation;<br />
little investment in product<br />
innovation and research and<br />
development is needed. <strong>No</strong> advertising<br />
is required. Aside from<br />
its collectors, all it needs is the<br />
protection of officials.<br />
Although it had fallen into the<br />
pits of disrepute after Estrada,<br />
JUETENG WHISTLEBLOWER.<br />
Chavit Singson exposed<br />
Estrada’s jueteng links in<br />
2001, but the numbers<br />
game (below) still flourishes<br />
in many parts of the country.<br />
jueteng thrived in the post-Edsa<br />
2 period, when a few gambling<br />
lords, most notably the Pampangueño<br />
jueteng boss Rodolfo<br />
‘Bong’ Pineda, expanded and<br />
consolidated their operations.<br />
The complicity of the police and<br />
of local officials is partly to blame,<br />
because jueteng cannot operate<br />
without the tacit cooperation of<br />
law en<strong>for</strong>cers. But, police sources<br />
say, Pineda and the others were<br />
able to operate freely because<br />
of the perception that they were<br />
close to Malacañang and that the<br />
Palace was giving its blessings<br />
to their operations. Until the<br />
recent police crackdown in the<br />
wake of the Senate hearings, the<br />
signal being sent down the line<br />
was apparently that the present<br />
administration was okay with<br />
jueteng.<br />
JUETENG AND LOCAL<br />
POWER<br />
Jueteng’s intimate relationship<br />
with local power stems from its<br />
decentralized operations. The<br />
activities of a jueteng lord are<br />
confined to a town or a province;<br />
gambling operators do not cross<br />
jurisdictions, where they risk<br />
incurring the ire of rivals who<br />
have already been operating<br />
there <strong>for</strong> years. Moreover, jueteng<br />
is based on local knowledge:<br />
operators rely on a long-established<br />
network of cabos, usually<br />
respected local people whom<br />
they personally know and trust.<br />
It is hard to do that if one is an<br />
outsider or unable to speak the<br />
local language. Jueteng operators<br />
also invest in relationships with<br />
local officials and other local influentials,<br />
including parish priests<br />
and journalists. Outsiders would<br />
find it difficult to penetrate these<br />
local networks of trust.<br />
Unsurprisingly, the two presidents<br />
who have been linked to<br />
jueteng—Estrada and Arroyo—<br />
are also those with firm roots in<br />
small-town politics. Estrada was<br />
a longtime mayor of San Juan.<br />
He was mayor in the sense of<br />
a small-town boss, who took<br />
cuts from the illicit trades in his<br />
municipality, jueteng included.<br />
For Estrada, the presidency was<br />
the mayoralty writ large. This<br />
was why, according to Singson,<br />
just barely two months into his<br />
presidency, Erap already arranged<br />
to get a three-percent<br />
share from the collections of<br />
jueteng operators throughout<br />
the country. He apparently did<br />
the same <strong>for</strong> smuggling, according<br />
to his <strong>for</strong>mer finance secretary,<br />
Edgardo Espiritu. Estrada<br />
looked, and played, the part of<br />
gangster-president, and it was<br />
this that caused his ouster.<br />
While Arroyo herself did<br />
not spring from local politics<br />
as Estrada did, she has roots in<br />
Lubao, Pampanga, her father’s<br />
hometown and also the home<br />
base of jueteng uberlord Pineda,<br />
whose wife Lilia, a <strong>for</strong>mer Lubao<br />
mayor, is said to be a close presidential<br />
friend. <strong>No</strong> one can spend<br />
time in Lubao and not be aware<br />
of the tremendous hold that the<br />
Pinedas have there.<br />
Estrada’s relationship with<br />
jueteng operators was more<br />
like that of a mafia lord. It<br />
was a relationship motivated<br />
by pure greed: Estrada apparently<br />
thought that since jueteng<br />
bosses were making tons of easy<br />
money, there was no reason the<br />
president should not share in<br />
the loot. From the testimonies<br />
so far presented against her,<br />
Gloria Arroyo appears to have<br />
related to jueteng more like a<br />
politician than a godfather like<br />
Erap. Determined to contest the<br />
presidency in 2004 and anxious<br />
about her popularity, Arroyo,<br />
like many other politicians,<br />
apparently saw jueteng as a<br />
hard fact of <strong>Philippine</strong> political<br />
life—and that it could be used<br />
<strong>for</strong> electoral purposes.<br />
Unlike Estrada, who insisted<br />
on a share of gambling collections<br />
being delivered to him<br />
regularly, the testimonies so far<br />
given in the Senate hearings on<br />
jueteng point to presidential<br />
relatives—not President Arroyo<br />
herself—receiving far smaller<br />
(P500,000 monthly), but still<br />
regular, shares of jueteng collections<br />
from selected areas.<br />
Moreover, the collections were<br />
not aggregated nationally like<br />
they were during the Erap era<br />
(Estrada was alleged to have<br />
amassed P500 million in jueteng<br />
funds over a two-year period).<br />
There is there<strong>for</strong>e a difference in<br />
scale as well as purpose.<br />
To Arroyo, there is a difference<br />
in style as well. In 2001, after<br />
she assumed the presidency, she<br />
famously insisted in interviews<br />
that she was different from Estrada<br />
because she didn’t socialize<br />
with gamblers. “Is my social life<br />
entwined with their social life?”<br />
she asked in an Asiaweek inter-<br />
view. “Do I play mahjong with<br />
them, travel with them, drink with<br />
them? I am a godmother of one<br />
of (Pineda’s) children, but that is<br />
the custom, to have the highest<br />
official in the town be a sponsor.<br />
And I even asked Cardinal Sin<br />
about the propriety of accepting<br />
being godmother of a child of<br />
somebody with a dubious reputation.<br />
Cardinal Sin told me it is my<br />
obligation to accept because the<br />
sin of the father is not the sin of<br />
the child.”<br />
Despite her religious denials,<br />
the association with Pineda<br />
persists. The most damning<br />
accusation against the president<br />
so far is that she allowed<br />
jueteng money to be used <strong>for</strong><br />
her campaign and to bribe<br />
elections officials. This was the<br />
gist of the testimony given on<br />
August 1 by political operative<br />
Michaelangelo Zuce, who said<br />
he witnessed payoffs to elections<br />
officials made in the Arroyo<br />
home by Lilia Pineda. <strong>No</strong>t only<br />
that, Zuce said that the Pinedas<br />
bankrolled other expenses of<br />
elections officials.<br />
Be<strong>for</strong>e that, Lingayen Archbishop<br />
Oscar Cruz had accused<br />
the president of receiving support<br />
“in kind” from the Lubao jueteng<br />
lord. Much earlier, when she ran<br />
<strong>for</strong> the Senate in 1995, politicians<br />
like Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr.<br />
already accused Arroyo of having<br />
her famous <strong>No</strong>ra Aunor look-alike<br />
posters printed by Pineda. Some<br />
senatorial candidates also said<br />
that Pineda’s jueteng network<br />
were mobilized <strong>for</strong> the Arroyo<br />
campaign that year.<br />
THE PROBLEM WITH<br />
PINEDA<br />
What rouses the suspicions of<br />
jueteng watchers is that Bong<br />
Pineda has done exceedingly<br />
well during the Arroyo presidency,<br />
faring much better than he did<br />
during the Estrada era, when he<br />
had the president in his pocket,<br />
in a manner of speaking, being<br />
one of the main contributors<br />
listed in Chavit Singson’s famous<br />
ledger. Ex-cop and avid gambling<br />
watcher Sombero reckons that<br />
Pineda probably nets close to<br />
P2 billion a year from jueteng<br />
operations in 10 areas. These include<br />
his home base Pampanga,<br />
Pangasinan, Isabela, Bulacan,<br />
Bataan, Zambales, Camarines<br />
4 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
O V E R V I E W<br />
Sur, Camarines <strong>No</strong>rte, Albay, and<br />
parts of Metro Manila, a lucrative<br />
territory that Pineda reportedly<br />
shares with his <strong>for</strong>mer boss and<br />
mentor, the now aging jueteng<br />
lord Tony Santos.<br />
<strong>No</strong> one else in the history of<br />
jueteng in the country has been<br />
able to expand and consolidate<br />
illegal gambling operations as<br />
Pineda supposedly has. He is a<br />
jueteng franchisee, the Jollibee<br />
of jueteng according to Sombero,<br />
who was also vice president of<br />
the gambling firm BW Resources<br />
during the Estrada period. There<br />
are maybe half a dozen jueteng<br />
franchise operators in the country.<br />
These are the entrepreneurs<br />
and financiers who link up with<br />
a local jueteng operator, paying<br />
<strong>for</strong> the costs of protection to<br />
provincial, regional and national<br />
government and police officials,<br />
thereby allowing local gambling<br />
networks to operate free from<br />
official harassment.<br />
Sombero says local operators<br />
pay a one-time franchise fee of<br />
about P500,000 to P1 million<br />
each, and also shoulder the<br />
payoffs to the winning bettors.<br />
In a fairly large province, total<br />
bet collections would amount to<br />
about P5 million a day or P150<br />
million a month. By Sombero’s<br />
calculations, which jibe with<br />
testimonies made by several<br />
witnesses in the Senate investigation<br />
on jueteng, the national<br />
operator or franchise holder<br />
shoulders the following:<br />
• the salaries of cabos (average<br />
15 per town) and cobradores<br />
(15 per cabo) - 12<br />
percent of total collections<br />
or about P18 million monthly<br />
(in a province with 30 towns,<br />
this is about P2,500 monthly<br />
per person);<br />
• the payoffs to local officials<br />
- eight percent or about P12<br />
million monthly, including<br />
payments to the mayor,<br />
vice mayor, and sometimes<br />
councilors as well as chief<br />
of police; also includes contributions<br />
to the church and<br />
other charities as well as<br />
bribes to local media; and<br />
• the payoffs to higher-level<br />
officials and the media—10<br />
percent or about P15 million<br />
a month, including<br />
the governor (P1 million<br />
to 3 million), congressman<br />
(P1 million or less), board<br />
members, the head of the<br />
PNP regional (P1.5 million)<br />
and provincial commands<br />
(P2 million), the CIDG in the<br />
region and in the province<br />
and CIDG headquarters.<br />
The national franchise holder<br />
nets about five percent of the<br />
total collections, about P7.5 million<br />
monthly per province, and<br />
it is from these that payoffs to<br />
presidential relatives are made, if<br />
needed. But he could earn more<br />
if, like Pineda, he finances the local<br />
operations himself. The local<br />
operator, according to Sombero,<br />
gets 65 percent of the total collections,<br />
but has to pay the winners<br />
from this amount as well as<br />
personnel and other expenses,<br />
which could add up to about<br />
five percent of the collections.<br />
Local operators are dispersed; one<br />
working in just one town like Senate<br />
witness Wilfredo ‘Boy’ Mayor<br />
who operated in Daraga, Albay,<br />
would net P100,000 to P300,000<br />
a month. Someone who operates<br />
in an entire congressional district<br />
or province could net P1 million<br />
to P2 million monthly. The operators<br />
earn more if they cheat the<br />
winners and rig the bola, or the<br />
raffle where the winning numbers<br />
are picked.<br />
BULGING CASH COW<br />
In other words, jueteng is as<br />
big a cash cow as they come.<br />
And since the Estrada era, officials<br />
have wizened up to how<br />
much they can actually squeeze<br />
from gambling operators. Ten<br />
years ago, according to Mayor,<br />
the payoff to a congressman<br />
was only P25,000 a month; to a<br />
governor, just P100,000. Today<br />
Mayor says a governor would<br />
ask <strong>for</strong> at least P1 million. The<br />
amounts of bribes vary, though,<br />
and some officials do refuse to<br />
accept jueteng payoffs.<br />
But the trend throughout<br />
the country is that of ballooning<br />
payoffs. The increased demand<br />
is driven by the fact that<br />
elections—and the day-to-day<br />
doleouts that are required of<br />
patronage politics—are now<br />
more expensive. Because government<br />
finances are tight, there<br />
are fewer opportunities to make<br />
money out of public works and<br />
other contracts. The private sector,<br />
too, is feeling the pinch, and<br />
there<strong>for</strong>e not inclined to top up<br />
political contributions. At the<br />
same time, the demands <strong>for</strong> patronage<br />
are rising, as constricting<br />
economic opportunities leave<br />
more and more voters with few<br />
options left except relying on the<br />
tender mercies of politicians.<br />
For all these reasons, including<br />
the fact that politicians<br />
now have a clearer idea of how<br />
much gambling operators make,<br />
jueteng has emerged as a stable<br />
source of political funding at the<br />
local level, on top of traditional<br />
sources like Chinese-Filipino<br />
businessmen and government<br />
contractors. There is also now an<br />
evident phenomenon of jueteng<br />
operators running <strong>for</strong> local office.<br />
Apart from Pineda’s son (and<br />
the president’s godson) Dennis,<br />
who is now mayor of Lubao,<br />
there’s Armand Sanchez, who<br />
was elected Batangas governor<br />
in 2004. Liberal Party officials say<br />
that Arroyo herself interceded<br />
with the LP to adopt Sanchez a<br />
few months be<strong>for</strong>e the elections,<br />
so he could contest the governorship<br />
as a member of the party.<br />
At the national level, jueteng<br />
funds were supposedly mobilized<br />
<strong>for</strong> at least one particularly<br />
favored senatorial candidate in<br />
2004. And if the testimonies of the<br />
likes of Zuce are to be believed,<br />
jueteng funds were also used <strong>for</strong><br />
“special operations” linked to<br />
Arroyo’s 2004 presidential campaign.<br />
As a source of campaign<br />
contributions, however, jueteng<br />
lords are still dwarfed by the<br />
Chinoy tycoons, among them the<br />
likes of Lucio Tan, who supposedly<br />
gave Estrada P1.5 billion in<br />
1998. While Pineda is swimming<br />
in cash, it is unlikely he can<br />
cough up that much even <strong>for</strong> a<br />
favorite president. Capt. Marlon<br />
Mendoza, the ex-security aide<br />
of <strong>for</strong>mer election commissioner<br />
Virgilio Garcillano, alleges that<br />
DEATH BY EXPOSÉ.<br />
Arroyo beams as Estrada’s<br />
vice president at a public<br />
function be<strong>for</strong>e jueteng<br />
brought about his fall.<br />
he heard the official saying that<br />
Pineda had given P300 million to<br />
the Arroyo campaign.<br />
If these charges are true, then<br />
it is clear that the one danger of<br />
accepting that kind of money<br />
is discovery. The expansion of<br />
the Pineda jueteng empire was<br />
achieved by crushing rival operators.<br />
Apparently, these rivals<br />
were only biding their time. “He<br />
(Pineda) edged out everyone<br />
else,” Senator Panfilo Lacson told<br />
reporters in June. “He is the reason<br />
cited by many operators who<br />
have offered to be witnesses in<br />
the (Senate) investigation.”<br />
If this plot sounds familiar, it’s<br />
because we’ve heard and seen this<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e. In 2001, Chavit Singson<br />
revealed all about Erap because<br />
he felt edged out of the gambling<br />
racket. <strong>No</strong>w the small jueteng<br />
operators are ganging up against<br />
Pineda by surfacing witnesses attesting<br />
to the possible involvement<br />
of the president and her kin in the<br />
illegal numbers game.<br />
In 2001, we wrote of Estrada,<br />
“Death by exposé: this is the<br />
danger of treating presidency as<br />
a protection racket.”<br />
For sure, Estrada is suffering<br />
the consequences of his jueteng<br />
misdeeds. But everyone else, including<br />
Pineda and the two dozen<br />
or so jueteng operators who made<br />
Estrada rich, remain in business.<br />
Today is another day, another<br />
presidency. Jueteng is still going<br />
strong, and not only because it is<br />
a lifeline <strong>for</strong> politicians. It persists<br />
because of the failure of state and<br />
society to en<strong>for</strong>ce the law, deliver<br />
services, and provide <strong>for</strong> the needy.<br />
All of us are anak ng jueteng.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
5
THE TWO FACES OF GMA.<br />
Aides say that while the<br />
president has a re<strong>for</strong>mist<br />
side, she has also accepted<br />
the realities of trapo politics,<br />
including paybacks and payoffs.<br />
JEKYLL-AND-HYDE<br />
CAMPAIGN<br />
YVONNE T. CHUA<br />
I<br />
N THE<br />
May 2004 elections,<br />
President Gloria Macapagal<br />
Arroyo maintained a<br />
campaign organization so<br />
elaborate it even included<br />
a group dubbed “Special<br />
Ops,” an infamous abbreviation<br />
<strong>for</strong> “special operations” that<br />
many equate with “dirty tricks,” or<br />
cruder still, poll cheating.<br />
What the “Special Ops” group<br />
under then presidential liaison<br />
officer <strong>for</strong> political affairs Jose<br />
Ma. ‘Joey’ Rufino was tasked<br />
to do—or did exactly—was not<br />
known to the president’s official<br />
campaign advisers. Up to now,<br />
many of them are still clueless<br />
about that group’s tasks.<br />
Former presidential peace<br />
adviser Teresita ‘Ging’ Deles<br />
can only say that Rufino’s activities<br />
were never taken up in<br />
the meetings of the executive<br />
council Arroyo convened to take<br />
charge of plotting and directing<br />
her campaign. Deles was part of<br />
that council, also referred to as<br />
the advisory council.<br />
“We thought we were running<br />
the campaign,” says another<br />
council member, <strong>for</strong>mer social<br />
welfare secretary Corazon ‘Dinky’<br />
Soliman. “We thought we were in<br />
the inner circle of the box.”<br />
But since the wiretapped<br />
conversations between Arroyo<br />
and Commission on Elections<br />
(Comelec) commissioner Virgilio<br />
Garcillano became public on June<br />
6, and the subsequent sworn<br />
statement issued on August 1 by<br />
Garcillano nephew and Rufino<br />
subaltern Michaelangelo ‘Louie’<br />
Zuce, Deles and Soliman now<br />
know better. Quips Soliman: “Inside<br />
the box was a smaller box.”<br />
Apparently working alongside<br />
Arroyo’s official campaign<br />
team was an in<strong>for</strong>mal network<br />
that included Garcillano, Comelec<br />
field personnel, the police<br />
and the military, freelance political<br />
operators, and perhaps<br />
a banana-chips processor and<br />
assorted businesspeople in<br />
Mindanao and elsewhere. Said<br />
to be on top of it all was First<br />
Gentleman Mike Arroyo, ably<br />
assisted by now Antipolo Rep.<br />
Ronaldo ‘Ronnie Puno, a veteran<br />
campaign strategist who was<br />
part of the Marcos, Ramos, and<br />
Estrada campaigns.<br />
These “backroom operators,”<br />
as one ex-Palace insider describes<br />
the motley team, made up<br />
several groups whose functions<br />
ranged from the seemingly mundane,<br />
such as quick-counting<br />
votes, to more questionable tasks<br />
that could have had electoral<br />
manipulation among them.<br />
These parallel operations<br />
seem to come as little surprise<br />
to those who have worked <strong>for</strong><br />
the president, given what some<br />
describe as her “dualistic” nature.<br />
A <strong>for</strong>mer aide notes that<br />
during the canvassing, Arroyo<br />
was going around the Carmelite<br />
convents, including those in Bacolod<br />
and Iloilo, even as she was<br />
then placing “improper” calls to<br />
Garcillano. “It’s like Jekyll and<br />
Hyde,” says the ex-aide.<br />
At the height of the political<br />
crisis, even her Cabinet split into<br />
two groups: one concerned with<br />
the president’s “survival at all cost,”<br />
the other pushing <strong>for</strong> “re<strong>for</strong>ms.”<br />
Soliman, a <strong>for</strong>mer Arroyo<br />
confidante, says of the president’s<br />
personality: “She was exposed<br />
and has accepted the practices of<br />
traditional politics such as paybacks,<br />
payups, operations of dirty<br />
tricks. At the same time she also<br />
believed in instituting re<strong>for</strong>ms in<br />
the economic, social and governance<br />
spheres using principles of<br />
transparency, accountability, and<br />
service to the people. She believed<br />
that both worlds can exist<br />
in one person and the dissonance<br />
and disconnect will not clash in<br />
her and in her actions.”<br />
Soliman says that in a crisis,<br />
such as now, when the two parts<br />
of the president become dissonant,<br />
Arroyo is more com<strong>for</strong>table<br />
with traditional politicians<br />
and reverts to the old world of<br />
wheeling-dealing and compromises<br />
that she knows so well.<br />
THE OFFICIAL COUNCIL<br />
When she was with her executive<br />
council during the campaign, it<br />
was the no-nonsense technocrat<br />
Gloria Arroyo that presided over<br />
the meetings. The council shared<br />
with the president the top rung<br />
of her official campaign organization.<br />
From January 2004 to the<br />
elections, the council met weekly<br />
to hear and analyze Palace pollster<br />
Pedro ‘Junie’ Laylo’s report<br />
on the province-by-province<br />
surveys he was running. It identified<br />
strategies <strong>for</strong> Arroyo in areas<br />
where her showing was weak, to<br />
turn “swing” votes among the undecided<br />
voters to her favor, and<br />
to maintain her showing in places<br />
where she was likely to win.<br />
Former President Fidel V. Ramos<br />
co-chaired the meetings with<br />
Arroyo. Aside from Ramos, council<br />
members included Deles and Soliman<br />
(both of whom represented<br />
civil society), campaign manager<br />
Gabriel Claudio, and campaign<br />
spokesman Michael Defensor. Also<br />
part of the council were the leaders<br />
of the political parties that made up<br />
the administration K-4 (Koalisyon<br />
ng Katapatan at Karanasan sa<br />
Kinabukasan) coalition: Speaker<br />
Jose de Venecia and then Defense<br />
Secretary Eduardo Ermita of the<br />
Lakas-CMD, Senate President Franklin<br />
Drilon and then Batanes Rep.<br />
Florencio Abad of the Liberal Party,<br />
Sen. Manuel Villar of the Nacionalista<br />
Party, and National Security<br />
Adviser <strong>No</strong>rberto Gonzales of the<br />
Partidong Demokratiko-Sosyalista<br />
ng Pilipinas.<br />
Businessman and <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
National Oil Company president<br />
Paul Aquino occasionally sat in<br />
the council meetings in his capacity<br />
as K-4’s consultant. Then<br />
presidential adviser <strong>for</strong> media<br />
and ecclesiastical affairs Conrado<br />
‘Dodie’ Limcaoco, who was in<br />
charge of the K-4 senatorial slate,<br />
was also in the meetings.<br />
Initially, the council met at the<br />
Palace. But when Cabinet meetings<br />
became irregular in the runup to<br />
the polls, the council would get<br />
together at the old Macapagal family<br />
residence in Forbes Park, Makati.<br />
Drilon also took over in the latter<br />
part of the campaign, says Deles.<br />
At the Cabinet, then Executive<br />
Secretary and now Foreign<br />
Secretary Alberto Romulo was in<br />
charge of how members were to<br />
6 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E C A M P A I G N<br />
“CONSULTATIONS”<br />
WITH CASH<br />
Apparently more focused on<br />
their “tasks” were Garcillano and<br />
his cohorts. Indeed, Garcillano<br />
already seemed to know what he<br />
would be doing when he applied<br />
<strong>for</strong> the post of Comelec commissioner.<br />
In his <strong>No</strong>v. 11, 2003 letter<br />
to the president, Garcillano<br />
reminded Arroyo that he was<br />
among those approached by<br />
her husband when she ran and<br />
topped the 1995 senatorial polls.<br />
He also underlined his role in<br />
monitoring and protecting the<br />
votes of the Lakas senatorial candidates<br />
in 2001. Garcillano was<br />
<strong>for</strong>merly the Region 10 (<strong>No</strong>rthern<br />
Mindanao) Comelec director.<br />
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel called<br />
him a “dagdag bawas” (vote-padding<br />
and shaving) operator, but<br />
he was named elections commissioner<br />
anyway in February 2004.<br />
The burly Zuce says he was instrumental<br />
in bringing Garcillano<br />
to Rufino’s —and consequently<br />
the president’s––attention. In his<br />
sworn statement, Zuce says Garcillano,<br />
with Rufino’s blessings, in<br />
2002 organized three “consultation<br />
meetings” with Mindanaobased<br />
Comelec officials in Lanao<br />
del <strong>No</strong>rte and General Santos City<br />
during which he solicited their<br />
support <strong>for</strong> the president’s candidacy<br />
and gave out cash ranging<br />
from P5,000 to P20,000.<br />
A year later, says Zuce, Mindanao<br />
regional directors and procampaign<br />
<strong>for</strong> the president. Cabinet<br />
members, <strong>for</strong> example, were<br />
told to make a pitch <strong>for</strong> Arroyo<br />
when they distributed Philhealth<br />
cards. “We asked if we could<br />
campaign and they said we could<br />
legally because we were political<br />
appointees,” says Soliman.<br />
On election day onward,<br />
Cabinet members fanned out<br />
to the provinces to gather the<br />
provincial certificates of canvass<br />
and the accompanying statements<br />
of votes. This time they<br />
took their cues from then presidential<br />
legal counsel and now<br />
Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz,<br />
who had set up a quick-count<br />
center at the basement of the<br />
Olympia Towers in Makati.<br />
Cruz also headed a legal panel<br />
assembled <strong>for</strong> the president’s<br />
election bid. Operating out of Olympia<br />
Towers as well, the panel<br />
included <strong>for</strong>mer local governments<br />
undersecretary and now<br />
Government Corporate Counsel<br />
Agnes Devanadera, ex-Comelec<br />
Commissioner Manuel Gorospe,<br />
and election-law experts Romulo<br />
Makalintal and Al Agra.<br />
A BIG WINNING MARGIN<br />
Like any candidate, Arroyo<br />
wanted to win. That much was<br />
clear to all the president’s men<br />
and women. Actually, says<br />
an ex-Cabinet member, “she<br />
was obsessed with the idea of<br />
winning. She (couldn’t) stand<br />
a loss….(She) felt she had to<br />
redeem her father (the late president<br />
Diosdado Macapagal) who<br />
lost in his reelection (bid).”<br />
That the president should<br />
win by at least a million votes,<br />
however, was never made<br />
known to most members of her<br />
Cabinet. Yet it apparently was<br />
common knowledge among the<br />
other groups working <strong>for</strong> her.<br />
A handler of a K-4 senatorial<br />
candidate says that two weeks<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e the May 10, 2004 elections,<br />
a campaign operative had<br />
said the president would win by<br />
800,000 votes. “Plantsado na<br />
raw<br />
(It was already arranged),”<br />
the handler says. That statement<br />
would make sense to the handler<br />
only after the “Hello, Garci”<br />
tapes controversy broke out.<br />
More interestingly, however,<br />
is that other campaign insiders<br />
say First Gentleman Mike Arroyo,<br />
Kampi stalwart Ronaldo ‘Ronnie’<br />
Puno, and a top government official<br />
met regularly at the Wack Wack<br />
Country Club be<strong>for</strong>e the campaign<br />
to discuss ways to ensure not only<br />
the president’s victory, but also a<br />
huge winning margin.<br />
As campaign manager, presidential<br />
political adviser Gabriel<br />
Claudio was the K-4’s public face<br />
in last year’s elections. But those<br />
with the administration party say it<br />
was Mike Arroyo who was the de<br />
facto campaign manager, and that<br />
he got a lot of help from Puno.<br />
At the peak of the political<br />
crisis, the president herself told<br />
some Cabinet members that<br />
she had called in the Antipolo<br />
congressman to help. But during<br />
the campaign, he had no official<br />
role in the Arroyo camp. “He was<br />
never mentioned, he was never<br />
seen,” says Deles. “I would even<br />
deny his involvement in the president’s<br />
campaign. Even the First<br />
Gentleman was not visible.”<br />
Some Palace insiders, however,<br />
say Puno was working<br />
quietly behind the scenes with<br />
the First Gentleman and had recommended<br />
“unorthodox” means<br />
to clinch Arroyo’s huge winning<br />
margin over her opponent, actor<br />
Fernando Poe Jr.<br />
A campaign strategist who<br />
was part of the K-4 coalition<br />
also recalls a K-4 lawyer assuring<br />
them that they were certain to get<br />
help. “The same operations as<br />
Sulo Hotel and Byron Hotel,” the<br />
strategist was told, apparently in<br />
reference to Puno’s operations at<br />
Sulo Hotel in Quezon City when<br />
he helped Ramos’s 1992 presidential<br />
campaign and at Byron Hotel<br />
in Mandaluyong when he backed<br />
Joseph Estrada’s presidential bid.<br />
The strategist says, “DILG<br />
(the Department of Interior and<br />
Local Governments that Puno<br />
headed under the Estrada presidency)<br />
people in the provinces<br />
were used as listening posts.<br />
They even knew who drug and<br />
jueteng money were funding.”<br />
Both Claudio and Puno were<br />
with the Ramos campaign. In a<br />
2003 interview with PCIJ, Puno<br />
scoffed at allegations that he was<br />
the architect of Ramos’s supposed<br />
dirty-tricks department based at<br />
Sulo Hotel. He said he delivers<br />
because he has the science, citing<br />
his experience a campaign<br />
consultant <strong>for</strong> the U.S. lobbying<br />
firm Black, Mana<strong>for</strong>t, Stone, and<br />
Kelly, which has strong links to<br />
the Republican Party.<br />
In 2002, Puno supposedly set<br />
up camp again at Byron Hotel<br />
to build a comprehensive elections<br />
database <strong>for</strong> Arroyo. A K-4<br />
campaign strategist says Puno<br />
disbanded the group when President<br />
Arroyo announced on Rizal<br />
Day in 2002 she was not running.<br />
But he quickly got the group<br />
back together in April 2003, long<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e the president announced<br />
her candidacy. The strategy, this<br />
source says, was to use the database<br />
to pinpoint places where Arroyo<br />
was strong and employ “all<br />
means” to increase her votes.<br />
Malaya columnist and opposi-<br />
tion stalwart Lito Banayo, quoting<br />
Loren Legarda’s electoral recount<br />
consultants, says Byron Hotel was<br />
the “headquarters of choice in the<br />
2004 electoral experience of a<br />
coven of pre-fabricators of election<br />
returns” used to ensure the president’s<br />
landslide victory in Pampanga,<br />
Cebu, Iloilo, and Bohol.<br />
One member of the K-4 campaign<br />
says Puno oversaw the<br />
Mindanao canvassing after being<br />
proclaimed Antipolo City’s congressman.<br />
This source asserts that “Ronnie<br />
Puno played a big role,” although<br />
he was “distracted because he was<br />
running at the same time.”<br />
vincial election supervisors met<br />
at the Grand Boulevard Hotel on<br />
Roxas Boulevard to discuss the<br />
president’s candidacy. Envelopes<br />
containing P17,000 each were<br />
distributed to the participants.<br />
On Jan. 10, 2004, Garcillano,<br />
through Rufino’s office, organized<br />
yet another meeting with<br />
23 Mindanao election officials,<br />
again at the Grand Boulevard.<br />
This time, each Comelec official<br />
got P25,000, Zuce says.<br />
But Zuce’s most damning allegation<br />
so far is that President<br />
Arroyo hosted dinner <strong>for</strong> 27 Mindanao-based<br />
Comelec officials at her<br />
La Vista residence in Quezon City<br />
four months be<strong>for</strong>e the elections,<br />
and that envelopes containing<br />
P30,000 each were distributed by<br />
Lilia ‘Baby’ Pineda, wife of jueteng<br />
lord Rodolfo ‘Bong’ Pineda, to<br />
her guests in her presence. Zuce,<br />
who was invited to the dinner<br />
and got an envelope himself, says<br />
Garcillano and <strong>for</strong>mer Isabela Gov.<br />
Faustino Dy were also present.<br />
Zuce told the PCIJ as well as<br />
the Senate later that the president<br />
hosted another dinner that same<br />
month <strong>for</strong> about 20 Comelec officials<br />
from Luzon and the Visayas.<br />
Baby Pineda again distributed<br />
money to the officials be<strong>for</strong>e they<br />
left Arroyo’s home.<br />
Malacañang has issued no<br />
categorical denial about the dinners,<br />
although the president herself<br />
has said, “Ang masasabi ko<br />
walang nagbibigay ng suhol sa<br />
harap ko (All I can say is no one<br />
gives out bribes in front of me).”<br />
The now ailing Rufino’s own<br />
statement said, “I and my office<br />
have never been involved in influencing,<br />
much less bribing,<br />
Comelec officials to support Lakas-NUCD<br />
candidates including<br />
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”<br />
Comelec officials led by<br />
Region 4 Director Juanito ‘Johnny’<br />
Icaro, who allegedly distributed<br />
the envelopes at La Vista, have<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
7
likewise rebutted Zuce’s charges.<br />
But Comelec regional director<br />
Helen A. Flores, who was not in<br />
any of the meetings Zuce said<br />
took place from 2002 to 2004, says<br />
Garcillano, through his security officer<br />
and nephew Capt. Valentino<br />
Lopez, had offered her P50 million<br />
to rig the 2004 polls. Flores says<br />
she spurned the offer. Four days<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e election day, she was relieved<br />
as regional director <strong>for</strong> the<br />
Autonomous Region of Muslim<br />
Mindanao and moved to Region 9<br />
(Western Mindanao). Lopez, now<br />
with the Army Headquarters Support<br />
Group, denies involvement<br />
in the bribery attempt.<br />
ZUCE’S MINDANAO<br />
TRIPS<br />
On August 10, Capt. Marlon Mendoza,<br />
a <strong>for</strong>mer Intelligence Service<br />
officer assigned as Garcillano’s<br />
chief security officer during the<br />
polls, surfaced to say he flew to<br />
Mindanao on May 11, 2004 on<br />
Garcillano’s order, and accompanied<br />
Zuce when the latter visited<br />
Lanao del <strong>No</strong>rte and Cotabato<br />
City. Mendoza told the Senate<br />
he saw Zuce handing Lanao<br />
provincial election supervisor Ray<br />
Sumalipao a “large amount of cash<br />
in an envelope” on May 12. A<br />
Comelec director in Cotabato City<br />
also received cash from Zuce on<br />
May 14, he said.<br />
Mendoza said that by May 16,<br />
he and Zuce were in Iligan City.<br />
As their group was having lunch in<br />
a restaurant there, he heard someone<br />
say, “Huling binibilang ang<br />
balota sa<br />
area ng Lanao del <strong>No</strong>rte<br />
at Lanao del Sur para makakuha<br />
ng dagdag (The ballots from Lanao<br />
del <strong>No</strong>rte and Lanao del Sur will be<br />
the last to be counted so we can<br />
increase these) if GMA will lose in<br />
other areas in the country.”<br />
In a recorded May 29 conversation<br />
with Garcillano, the president<br />
had asked pointedly, “So will<br />
I still lead by more than one million<br />
(votes)?” The commissioner<br />
replied that her rival’s count was<br />
high but “mag-compensate<br />
po<br />
sa Lanao<br />
‘yan (that will be com-<br />
pensated in Lanao).” At the time,<br />
the counting of votes from seven<br />
towns in Lanao del Sur’s 39 provinces<br />
was far from over.<br />
Zuce says his uncle sent him<br />
to Mindanao to coordinate with<br />
the Comelec personnel there. He<br />
says the region’s “special operations”<br />
headed by Ernesto ‘Butch’<br />
Paquingan, a political consultant<br />
based in Cagayan de Oro City,<br />
helped in ensuring Arroyo’s victory.<br />
Zuce says Paquingan was<br />
reporting directly to then Executive<br />
Secretary Romulo.<br />
Paquingan has called Zuce<br />
a liar. Zuce, he added, told him<br />
the opposition had offered him<br />
P4 million to P5 million to testify<br />
against Arroyo.<br />
But an old hand in electoral<br />
RIGGING THE COUNT.<br />
“Special operations” in<br />
Mindanao supposedly<br />
widened Arroyo’s lead.<br />
campaigns says Zuce worked<br />
with Paquingan in previous polls,<br />
including the 1998 elections. Many<br />
candidates <strong>for</strong> national position<br />
also engaged Paquingan’s services<br />
to help them win in Mindanao,<br />
says the campaign veteran.<br />
In his Senate testimony, Mendoza<br />
said Garcillano sent him<br />
to Cagayan de Oro on May 11,<br />
2004 as security officer <strong>for</strong> Zuce,<br />
Paquingan, “King James,” and a<br />
certain “Jun L. Bamboo” of the<br />
Presidential Management Services.<br />
He identified Paquingan as<br />
“a consultant related to DFA Secretary<br />
Romulo” and “King James”<br />
as George Goking, whom he said<br />
was Arroyo’s close friend.<br />
In the “Hello, Garci” tapes,<br />
there are two recorded conversations<br />
between the Comelec commissioner<br />
and Zuce. The first<br />
was on May 28, 2004 when Garcillano<br />
asked Zuce and Goking,<br />
a Cagayan de Oro businessman<br />
who is also a director of the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
Amusements and Gaming<br />
Corporation (Pagcor), to come to<br />
his house <strong>for</strong> a meeting.<br />
Zuce, who confirmed to the<br />
Senate that he was among those recorded<br />
in the “Hello, Garci” tapes,<br />
called the commissioner again on<br />
June 16 to say he and “George”<br />
(apparently Goking) were at Harrison<br />
Plaza. In both conversations,<br />
Zuce addressed Garcillano as<br />
“’cle,” short <strong>for</strong> uncle.<br />
The campaign veteran says<br />
Mindanao is home to many freelance<br />
operators, including businessmen,<br />
who help candidates<br />
by buying votes <strong>for</strong> them. Zuce<br />
had been Garcillano’s conduit<br />
to some of these key players,<br />
according to the source.<br />
“(The operators) join Senate<br />
party coalitions if not hired by<br />
a senatorial candidate,” says the<br />
campaign expert. “Then they<br />
moonlight toward the finish line<br />
either buying votes or doing<br />
presidential campaigns. After<br />
the campaign, they are hired as<br />
political officers.”<br />
The campaign veteran says<br />
the operators have long been<br />
in existence; all a candidate has<br />
to do is tap into the existing<br />
syndicates and networks.<br />
“OPLAN MERCURY”<br />
Businessman Rodolfo Galang,<br />
however, says it is also important<br />
to ensure the “cooperation” of local<br />
officials and political rivals <strong>for</strong><br />
a candidate to win. Galang says<br />
he volunteered to do this <strong>for</strong> the<br />
president in parts of Mindanao<br />
during the 2004 elections.<br />
Galang, who co-owns a banana<br />
chips processing plant in<br />
Maguindanao with Paulino Ejercito,<br />
brother of ousted President<br />
Estrada, says he decided to help<br />
the Arroyo camp because he<br />
believed the country would not<br />
benefit from a Poe presidency.<br />
Galang had also been eyeing a<br />
slot machine franchise from the<br />
Pagcor. He never got it.<br />
Soon after the polls, Galang<br />
changed his mind about Arroyo<br />
and executed on June 21, 2004<br />
an affidavit he later filed with the<br />
Office of the Ombudsman. His<br />
affidavit charged the Arroyo administration<br />
with buying off local<br />
officials and opposition candidates<br />
in Romblon and certain areas in<br />
Mindanao under “Oplan Mercury.”<br />
These were Lanao del Sur, Davao<br />
City, Davao del <strong>No</strong>rte, Maguindanao,<br />
Cotabato City, Davao Oriental,<br />
South Cotabato, Davao del<br />
Sur, Sulu, <strong>No</strong>rth Cotabato, Sultan<br />
Kudarat, Tawi-Tawi, Samal, Compostela,<br />
Sarangani, Zamboanga<br />
Sibugay, and Bukidnon.<br />
Galang says his conduit to the<br />
president was Limcaoco. A March<br />
28, 2004 memorandum <strong>for</strong> Arroyo<br />
purportedly coursed through<br />
Limcaoco identified the political<br />
leaders who Galang said he could<br />
convince to pledge their support<br />
<strong>for</strong> the president, paving the way<br />
<strong>for</strong> the conversion of about a third<br />
of Poe’s projected votes to Arroyo’s.<br />
He estimated this roughly<br />
to be 1.6 million of the 5.5 million<br />
votes in the “Mercury” areas.<br />
The “conversion,” according to<br />
Galang, could be made by using<br />
the carrot of fund releases to convince<br />
local government officials to<br />
mobilize support <strong>for</strong> Arroyo. Thus,<br />
in his affidavit, Galang implicated<br />
the officials who made those fund<br />
releases possible: Nena Valdez,<br />
the president’s <strong>for</strong>mer Assumption<br />
Convent classmate who reportedly<br />
took charge of the funds released<br />
<strong>for</strong> Oplan Mercury; then Agriculture<br />
Secretary Luis Lorenzo <strong>for</strong> approving<br />
the release of the fertilizers<br />
given to Mindanao officials; then<br />
National Food Authority director<br />
Arthur Yap <strong>for</strong> the rice distributed<br />
to them; Pagcor chair Ephraim<br />
Genuino <strong>for</strong> the capital equipment<br />
that was also given out; and then<br />
Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit <strong>for</strong><br />
the medicine. (See “Running on<br />
Taxpayer’s Money.”)<br />
Be<strong>for</strong>e the March 2004 memo,<br />
Galang says he submitted to the<br />
president, again through Limcaoco,<br />
analyses of the political situation<br />
these places, including in<strong>for</strong>mal<br />
surveys assessing the chances of<br />
Arroyo and local candidates. The<br />
document on Maguindanao projected<br />
Poe would win 70 percent<br />
of the votes, or about 284,310.<br />
“Oplan Mercury” would pad the<br />
votes to ensure that Arroyo got<br />
262,2440, leaving Poe with only<br />
43,740 votes. (PCIJ has copies of<br />
the Maguindanao document and<br />
the March 2004 memo.)<br />
Right after Galang disclosed<br />
“Oplan Mercury” in a press conference<br />
last year, Limcaoco dismissed<br />
his allegations as hearsay<br />
and baseless. He said Galang had<br />
volunteered to campaign <strong>for</strong> K-4<br />
but “he was never my employee<br />
or political operator. <strong>No</strong>r did we<br />
authorize or support any illegal<br />
operation.”<br />
Former Cabinet members<br />
say it was unlikely Limcaoco<br />
had time to mount such an operation.<br />
They say taking care of<br />
the K-4 senatorial candidates<br />
was a full-time job.<br />
Still, the president did post one<br />
8 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E C A M P A I G N<br />
of her biggest winning margins<br />
in the congressional count <strong>for</strong><br />
Maguindanao, garnering 193,938<br />
votes against Poe’s 59,892. The opposition<br />
considers the outcomes<br />
in eight towns there as highly<br />
dubious. Poe scored zero in Ampatuan<br />
and Datu Piang, and got<br />
as little as five to 174 votes in six<br />
other towns.<br />
In their June 6 conversation,<br />
the president sought Garcillano’s<br />
assurance that the documents in<br />
Maguindanao were consistent.<br />
The commissioner had replied<br />
that Maguindanao wasn’t really<br />
much of a problem.<br />
Four days later, Arroyo expressed<br />
concern over the local<br />
canvassing in South Upi town,<br />
where Comelec had proclaimed<br />
different winners. But she told<br />
Garcillano that the important thing<br />
was “hindi madamay ‘yung sa<br />
taas<br />
(we don’t get affected at the<br />
top).” The commissioner assured<br />
her that he had control there.<br />
A SHADOW QUICK<br />
COUNT<br />
Like the other Cabinet members<br />
gathering certificates of canvass,<br />
Deles brought the documents<br />
she had collected to presidential<br />
legal counsel Cruz, who ran the<br />
K-4’s official quick-count center<br />
at Olympia Towers. But that was<br />
not the only Arroyo quick-count<br />
in town. K-4 campaign handlers<br />
now speak of another done with<br />
the help of the <strong>Philippine</strong> National<br />
Police (PNP), then under<br />
Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane. <strong>No</strong>w<br />
public works secretary, Ebdane’s<br />
name was mentioned in the<br />
“Hello, Garci” tapes.<br />
The PNP appeared to have<br />
instructed some of its members to<br />
get copies of precinct-level election<br />
returns. These were <strong>for</strong>warded to<br />
the K-4 headquarters <strong>for</strong> senatorial<br />
candidates and their handlers to<br />
monitor. On the count’s third day,<br />
however, the Senate tally was canceled,<br />
<strong>for</strong>cing the candidates to get<br />
their own precinct count.<br />
A consultant of a K-4 senatorial<br />
candidate was told the PNP<br />
received word to send the results<br />
straight to Malacañang. The consultant<br />
was then asked to call<br />
two phone numbers to check<br />
the count’s progress: one number<br />
was a phone at the Olympia Towers;<br />
the other was picked up by<br />
someone at the Department of<br />
National Defense or DND.<br />
Soliman recalls that as election<br />
day neared, then Defense Secretary<br />
Ermita increasingly took the<br />
lead among the Cabinet members<br />
in the president’s campaign. But<br />
Deles says Arroyo had stressed the<br />
need <strong>for</strong> Ermita, a Lakas regional<br />
chairman known <strong>for</strong> his good political<br />
instincts, to stay “behind the<br />
scene.” Neither Deles nor Soliman,<br />
though, remembers any instructions<br />
given to the DND.<br />
The K-4 candidate’s consultant,<br />
however, says ex-elections<br />
commissioner Gorospe, who<br />
reportedly had his own group<br />
besides being in the K-4 legal<br />
team, was often at the DND during<br />
the counting. A <strong>for</strong>mer DND<br />
staffmember also says access to<br />
the Defense Intelligence Service<br />
Group (DISG) compound at the<br />
back of the DND building in<br />
Camp Aguinaldo was prohibited<br />
during the elections. The DISG<br />
primarily provides the security escort<br />
of the defense secretary and<br />
pursues intelligence projects.<br />
Heavily tinted vehicles were<br />
GUIDE TO NAMES IN THE CAMPAIGN CHART<br />
Silvestre Afable: then Arroyo’s communications<br />
director; chief government negotiator<br />
with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front<br />
Al Agra: elections and local governance<br />
law expert<br />
Amable Aguiluz: founder and chairman<br />
of the AMA Education System; special<br />
envoy to the Gulf Cooperation Council<br />
Tomas Alcantara: businessman, <strong>for</strong>mer trade<br />
undersecretary; now presidential chief of staff<br />
Paul Aquino: <strong>Philippine</strong> National Oil Co.<br />
president and CEO<br />
Hernani Braganza: mayor of Alaminos,<br />
Pangasinan; a Lakas stalwart<br />
Gabriel Claudio: political adviser<br />
Avelino Cruz: then presidential legal<br />
counsel, now defense secretary<br />
Angelo Tim de Rivera: commissioner,<br />
Commission on In<strong>for</strong>mation and Communications<br />
Technology<br />
Michael Defensor: then housing chief;<br />
now environment secretary<br />
Rodolfo del Rosario: Davao del <strong>No</strong>rte<br />
governor; also presidential adviser <strong>for</strong><br />
New Government <strong>Center</strong>s<br />
Agnes Devanadera: <strong>for</strong>mer local government<br />
undersecretary, now government<br />
corporate counsel<br />
Marita “Mai Mai” Jimenez: <strong>for</strong>mer presidential<br />
assistant on appointments and<br />
<strong>for</strong>mer secretary <strong>for</strong> special projects and<br />
overseas development assistance; now<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> representative to the Asian<br />
Development Bank<br />
Pedro “Junie” Laylo: <strong>for</strong>merly with Social<br />
Weather Stations; now Palace pollster<br />
Conrado Limcaoco: then presidential adviser<br />
on media and ecclesiastical affairs;<br />
now Cabinet Offi cer <strong>for</strong> Provincial Events<br />
Edgardo “Ed” Pamintuan: presidential<br />
adviser on external affairs<br />
Abraham Purugganan: <strong>for</strong>mer deputy<br />
presidential adviser <strong>for</strong> special concerns;<br />
now <strong>Philippine</strong> National Construction Corp.<br />
director<br />
Jose Ma. “Joey” Rufino: then presidential<br />
liaison offi cer <strong>for</strong> political affairs<br />
Corazon “Dinky” Soliman: then social<br />
welfare secretary<br />
Patricia “Pat” Sto. Tomas: labor secretary<br />
seen coming in and out of the<br />
DISG, even at late nights and<br />
early hours in the morning, according<br />
to the ex-DND insider.<br />
New computers were moved<br />
there, along with Arroyo election<br />
paraphernalia. Ermita’s<br />
head executive assistant Alfredo<br />
Bunye, the presidential spokesman’s<br />
brother, was said to have<br />
held office at the DISG during<br />
this period as well.<br />
Requests from local goverment<br />
officials <strong>for</strong> election materials were<br />
directed to the DISG. On occasion,<br />
DND soldiers and personnel<br />
were used to distribute the materials<br />
to requesting parties, says the<br />
<strong>for</strong>mer DND staff member.<br />
<strong>No</strong>n-party Mobilization<br />
Grassroots Sector<br />
(Abraham Purugganan)<br />
Political Bureau<br />
(Gabriel Claudio)<br />
Overseas Ops<br />
(Amable Aguiluz)<br />
Speakers Bureau<br />
Campaign Spokesman<br />
(Michael Defensor)<br />
Legal<br />
(Al Agra)<br />
MIS / Database<br />
(Angelo Tim de Rivera)<br />
Political Intelligence<br />
Admin and Logistics<br />
Parallel/Support Groups<br />
(Hernani Braganza /<br />
Edgardo Pamintuan)<br />
Presidential Candidate<br />
(Gloria Arroyo)<br />
Executive Council<br />
(See Story <strong>for</strong> List)<br />
General Campaign Manager<br />
(Gabriel Claudio / Paul Aquino)<br />
Nena Valdez: <strong>for</strong>mer classmate of Arroyo<br />
at Assumption College; <strong>for</strong>mer presidential<br />
assistant on internal household affairs in<br />
charge of the president’s personal finances<br />
Communications<br />
(Silvestre Afable)<br />
FACT-FINDING BODIES<br />
AND ANTIDOTES<br />
After the “Hello, Garci” tapes<br />
revealed what appears to be military<br />
involvement in manipulating<br />
last year’s elections, the military<br />
<strong>for</strong>med a fact-finding board to<br />
investigate four senior officers<br />
mentioned in the conversations:<br />
Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon of<br />
the Special Operations Command;<br />
Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon of<br />
the 1st Infantry Division; Brig.<br />
Gen. Francisco Gudani, assistant<br />
superintendent of the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
Military Academy; and retired<br />
lieutenant general Roy Kyamko.<br />
During the 2004 polls, Kyamko<br />
was Southern Command<br />
chief. Esperon was the deputy<br />
chief of Task Force HOPE, Gudani<br />
the <strong>for</strong>mer chief of Task<br />
Force Ranao, and Habacon chief<br />
of Task Force Comet.<br />
In a statement last August 4,<br />
a group calling itself “The Young<br />
Officers Union of the new generation<br />
(YOUng)” sought the investigation<br />
of other officers <strong>for</strong> their<br />
supposed part in the alleged electoral<br />
fraud: Brig. Gen. Nehemias<br />
Pajarito, chief of the Army’s 104th<br />
Brigade based in Marawi City;<br />
Brig. Gen. Nelson Allaga, 3 rd<br />
Marine Brigade commander; Navy<br />
Capt. Feliciano Angue, then head<br />
of Naval Task Force 62 operating<br />
in Tawi-Tawi and now Navy operations<br />
chief; Marine lieutenant<br />
colonels Melvin Pelonia and Elmer<br />
Estopin based in Tawi-Tawi and<br />
Sulu, respectively; Army Colonels<br />
Rey Arde and Aminkandra Undug;<br />
and a certain Colonel Pereno and<br />
Captain Perez.<br />
It’s uncertain if there was a<br />
military component to the socalled<br />
“Antidote Group,” which<br />
a senator’s adviser first heard of<br />
weeks be<strong>for</strong>e the polls. While<br />
fretting over the absence of a<br />
K-4 senatorial campaign plan,<br />
the adviser was assured by a<br />
presidential consultant, “Don’t<br />
worry, there’s an antidote.”<br />
Rufino also referred to an<br />
“Antidote Group” in his marginal<br />
note to Arroyo when he<br />
endorsed Garcillano as elections<br />
commissioner. Wrote Rufino:<br />
“He (Garcillano) will be a great<br />
asset to you. He has proven<br />
track record and can deliver!<br />
Part…The Antidote Group.”<br />
The senator’s adviser says the<br />
Antidote Group was often offered<br />
as the solution whenever the<br />
campaign had problems. Whoever<br />
made up the group remains a<br />
mystery to the adviser, but its purpose<br />
has since become clear. “Our<br />
own quick count showed some<br />
election returns did not match<br />
the certificates of canvass,” says<br />
the adviser. But many of these<br />
somehow got “cured.”<br />
Finance Committee<br />
(Rodolfo del Rosario)<br />
Events and Appointments<br />
(Tomas Alcantara / Paul Aquino<br />
Budget and Accounting<br />
(Nena Valdez)<br />
Governance Liaison<br />
(Marita Jimenez / Patricia Sto. Tomas)<br />
VP/ Senatorial Coordinator<br />
(Conrado Limcaoco <strong>for</strong> Senatorial)<br />
Rallies and Sorties<br />
(Corazon Soliman / Pearl<br />
Viernes)<br />
Sample Ballots<br />
Poll Watch<br />
(Avelino Cruz / Agnes<br />
Devanadera)<br />
Operations<br />
Operation Quick Count<br />
Special Ops<br />
(Jose Ma. Rufino)<br />
Strategic Research &<br />
Surveys (Pedro Laylo)<br />
Merchandising Production<br />
and Distribution<br />
Pearl Viernes: professional events organizer<br />
in charge of recruiting showbiz<br />
personalities <strong>for</strong> the campaign<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
9
T H E C A M P A I G N<br />
Presidential Makeover<br />
ELLEN TORDESILLAS<br />
WHEN TV and newspapers<br />
carried images<br />
of President Gloria<br />
Macapagal-Arroyo<br />
and some members of her family<br />
taking a Sunday morning stroll<br />
along Baywalk on Roxas Boulevard<br />
last July, those who had<br />
witnessed the dying days of the<br />
Marcos regime were reminded<br />
of a presidential family photo in<br />
1985, showing the Marcoses relaxing<br />
on Malacañang grounds.<br />
The Arroyos’ Baywalk stroll<br />
and the Marcoses’ Malacañang<br />
garden picnic both tried to give the<br />
impression that they were spontaneous,<br />
casual activities. In reality,<br />
however, both were well-planned,<br />
serious undertakings that were<br />
part of high-budget communication<br />
plans hatched with the help<br />
of international public-relations<br />
companies.<br />
During the critical Marcos<br />
years, Black, Mana<strong>for</strong>t, Stone<br />
and Kelly was directing the show.<br />
This time around, Arroyo is being<br />
helped by Burson-Marsteller, a<br />
leading global communications<br />
company that lists among its<br />
capabilities, crisis and issues<br />
management, reputation management,<br />
and media relations.<br />
For what could be as high as $2<br />
million, the president is getting<br />
a service that Press Secretary<br />
Ignacio Bunye says is aimed<br />
primarily at communicating “to<br />
international audiences that the<br />
economic team is promoting economic<br />
re<strong>for</strong>m and actively managing<br />
a growing economy.”<br />
Bunye, however, says Burson-Marsteller<br />
does not advise<br />
“on the president’s image, (and)<br />
neither are they involved in domestic<br />
communication issues.”<br />
It was in fact the late Benigno<br />
‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr.’s sister,<br />
director Lupita Kashiwahara,<br />
who hovered over the Arroyos at<br />
Baywalk and gave instructions on<br />
each shot. But as a local publicrelations<br />
expert points out, even<br />
if Burson-Marsteller is supposed<br />
to ensure a good international<br />
image <strong>for</strong> the Arroyo administration,<br />
that would still mean it has<br />
to help package the president <strong>for</strong><br />
the Filipino audience.<br />
That could be a real challenge.<br />
Since 2001, when she took over<br />
ousted President Joseph ‘Erap’<br />
Estrada, Gloria Arroyo has undergone<br />
so many makeovers she<br />
could make Oprah Winfrey’s head<br />
spin. From Iron Lady to Dolorous<br />
Mother of the Nation, Arroyo has<br />
done it all. Yet the president still<br />
can’t seem to connect with the<br />
public, especially the masa, and<br />
often ends up being perceived as<br />
insincere.<br />
Indeed, when her <strong>for</strong>eign PR<br />
consultants sat down with her early<br />
last year, “lacking in charisma”<br />
and “perceived as untrustworthy”<br />
topped their list of her liabilities.<br />
Husband Mike Arroyo was also a<br />
negative factor, they said.<br />
On the plus side were her being<br />
an economist and her unassuming<br />
only daughter, Lourdes Evangeline,<br />
better known as Luli.<br />
It may seem precious dollars<br />
were wasted <strong>for</strong> an assessment<br />
that could have been obtained free<br />
in coffeeshops. Although Roberto R.<br />
Romulo, presidential adviser <strong>for</strong> international<br />
competitiveness, denies<br />
the supposed $2 million price tag <strong>for</strong><br />
Burson-Marsteller’s services, local<br />
PR people say it’s not unheard of <strong>for</strong><br />
a hotshot global PR firm. Says one<br />
public-relations executive: “I imagine<br />
that (Burson-Marsteller) would be<br />
charging the Arroyo premium rate<br />
considering that it includes crisis<br />
management.”<br />
In 2002, when Burson-Marsteller’s<br />
ties with the Arroyo administration<br />
first became public, Presidential<br />
Management Staff head<br />
Rigoberto Tiglao said its fee was<br />
$800,000 <strong>for</strong> a one-year contract<br />
paid by a group of businessmen.<br />
In any case, Arroyo’s business<br />
relationship with Burson-Marsteller<br />
allowed the consultants to be frank<br />
with her, something no Palace official<br />
would dare do. A Malacañang<br />
insider says Arroyo just listened as<br />
the <strong>for</strong>eign PR experts talked.<br />
Apparently, her domestic handlers<br />
had their ears pressed<br />
against the wall. Even if Burston-<br />
Marsteller’s assessment was <strong>for</strong><br />
a PR campaign abroad, Arroyo’s<br />
local team used it to craft her<br />
political strategy. Mike Arroyo<br />
deliberately kept a low profile<br />
during the election campaign.<br />
Luli, meanwhile, was featured in<br />
at least two of the president’s<br />
campaign ads, with mother and<br />
daughter talking about leadership<br />
and governance.<br />
Last June, as the twin issues<br />
of jueteng and election fraud were<br />
pummeling the president, Burson-Marsteller<br />
representatives<br />
discussed with some Cabinet members<br />
ways to promote a “soft image”<br />
<strong>for</strong> Arroyo. Social Services Secretary<br />
Dinky Soliman submitted her “Bright<br />
Child” campaign aimed at producing<br />
healthier, brighter Filipinos with<br />
programs starting from prenatal<br />
care to high school education. Soliman<br />
resigned on July 8, along with<br />
nine other key officials. On July 29,<br />
Arroyo launched the “Bright Child”<br />
campaign, followed two days later<br />
by a breastfeeding project.<br />
Soliman says the <strong>for</strong>eign consultants<br />
had also suggested a<br />
more prominent role <strong>for</strong> Luli. Sure<br />
enough, after the Baywalk stroll,<br />
the First Daughter was interviewed<br />
on TV and in newspapers<br />
and was soon being called her<br />
mother’s “secret weapon.”<br />
But Luli is not the only family<br />
member Arroyo has mobilized to<br />
win the public over. In her speeches<br />
and inter views nowadays,<br />
Arroyo often invokes the memory<br />
of her father, the late President<br />
Diosdado Macapagal. “I talk to<br />
my father, ‘Dad, please intercede<br />
with God <strong>for</strong> me,’ “she said in a<br />
recent TV interview.<br />
Toddler Evie, daughter of Arroyo’s<br />
younger son Dato and his<br />
wife, Kakai, has also been popping<br />
up in presidential photo ops.<br />
Just recently, the Palace released<br />
a picture of her straying into her<br />
grandmother’s office while the<br />
president was having a meeting.<br />
A smiling president had cuddled<br />
the child at Baywalk, and later at<br />
nearby Aristocrat restaurant, where<br />
the family stopped <strong>for</strong> a bite.<br />
“She is now smiling a lot,”<br />
says Campaigns Advocacy and<br />
PR’s Ramon R. Osorio. He says<br />
there has been a marked improvement<br />
in Arroyo since her<br />
disastrous “I am sorry” speech.<br />
Osorio says it’s <strong>for</strong>tunate that her<br />
favorite color is blue, which lightens<br />
her otherwise steely aura.<br />
Arroyo, however, used to relish<br />
her Iron Lady persona, which she<br />
has donned a few times in the last<br />
four years. One of her first images<br />
as president was as a Tough Mama,<br />
perhaps to compensate <strong>for</strong> her lack<br />
of an electoral mandate. “Strike<br />
now so I can crush you,” she had<br />
dared Estrada’s followers, who took<br />
up her challenge and tried to storm<br />
Malacañang on May 1, 2001.<br />
“Isang bala ka lang (You’ll fall with<br />
just one bullet),” she taunted Abu<br />
Sayyaf bandits. Tons of bullets and<br />
millions of dollars in U.S. aid later, the<br />
bandits have become terrorists.<br />
For a time, Arroyo seemed unfazed.<br />
To underscore her fight against<br />
crime, she posed with criminal suspects<br />
in the Palace. When a notorious<br />
convict was slain, she motored<br />
to Cavite to have her picture taken<br />
viewing the fly-infested corpse.<br />
The public, however, remained<br />
unimpressed. And so she turned<br />
into “Ina ng Bayan” asking <strong>for</strong> the<br />
people’s help. She also became a<br />
tricycle-riding Ate Glo who even went<br />
to market in flip-flops.<br />
But the image she is most com<strong>for</strong>table<br />
with is as a working president.<br />
As a strict chief executive, she<br />
scolded officials in front of TV cameras.<br />
Today the working-president<br />
image has been resurrected, but<br />
she has not snapped at an underling<br />
in public since the controversy<br />
over the tapes broke out.<br />
Admittedly hardworking, Arroyo<br />
has been doing overtime in trying<br />
to make herself more appealing to<br />
Filipinos. At the beginning of her<br />
unelected presidency, she held a<br />
weekly press conference telecast<br />
live. Her messages, however, were<br />
often overshadowed by her smirks,<br />
frowns, and dismissive replies<br />
when provoked with questions not<br />
to her liking.<br />
She tried weekly lunches with<br />
small groups of reporters without<br />
TV cameras, and then a radio program<br />
every Saturday. Neither lasted<br />
long. Malacañang tapped actresssinger<br />
Jolina Magdangal to host<br />
the “The Working President” on<br />
government-controlled TV stations.<br />
But Arroyo continued to post dismal<br />
approval and trust ratings.<br />
Ironically, Arroyo has the<br />
most competent media team<br />
ever assembled in post-Marcos<br />
Malacañang. It is headed by two<br />
ex-journalists, Bunye and Tiglao.<br />
Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo<br />
is also a <strong>for</strong>mer journalist.<br />
Since August 2004, there<br />
has also been the Office of Communications<br />
Director, which has<br />
a Crisis Communicating Team “to<br />
assist in meeting extraordinary issues.”<br />
But when the “Hello Garci”<br />
issue exploded, Arroyo imported<br />
Kashiwahara from San Francisco.<br />
When that still wasn’t enough,<br />
Mai Jimenez, who took charge<br />
of media <strong>for</strong> the Arroyo camp<br />
during the 2004 polls, re-entered<br />
the scene. Last July 5, Jimenez<br />
presented a communication plan<br />
meant not to makeover Arroyo but<br />
to “stress on programs, projects<br />
and re<strong>for</strong>ms to show that the<br />
government is committed.”<br />
Be<strong>for</strong>e the current crisis, Arroyo<br />
had scheduled <strong>for</strong>eign trips<br />
starting with Hong Kong and<br />
Singapore to sell what she called<br />
“an economy about to take off.”<br />
She pushed through with the<br />
Hong Kong leg in June, but all they<br />
wanted to hear from her there was<br />
about the “Hello, Garci” tapes.<br />
The Singapore visit, scheduled<br />
<strong>for</strong> July, was moved to August.<br />
It has since been postponed<br />
indefinitely. Says a <strong>for</strong>eign affairs<br />
official: “What is she going to tell<br />
<strong>for</strong>eign investors when she doesn’t<br />
even know if she is going to make<br />
it to the end of the year?”<br />
And that’s why Burson-Marsteller,<br />
Arroyo’s PR <strong>for</strong> an international<br />
audience, should and<br />
could be concerned as well with<br />
her domestic survival.<br />
10 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
RUNNING ON<br />
TAXPAYERS’ MO<br />
LUZ RIMBAN<br />
HOW MUCH does<br />
it cost to become<br />
president? Seasoned<br />
politicians<br />
and political observers<br />
say the<br />
price tag of the<br />
presidency these days could be<br />
anywhere from a low of P2 billion<br />
to a high of P8 billion. That’s<br />
how much is needed to finance<br />
nationwide campaign rallies over<br />
a three-month period, produce<br />
assorted election paraphernalia,<br />
fund multimedia advertisements,<br />
subsidize the campaigns of senatorial<br />
and local candidates, pay<br />
campaign staff, commission surveys,<br />
and, if there’s enough left,<br />
feed election watchers and volunteers<br />
<strong>for</strong> the duration of the count,<br />
which could last <strong>for</strong> weeks.<br />
Where in the world does<br />
anyone get that much money?<br />
<strong>No</strong> wonder the country went<br />
broke after the 2004 polls,<br />
with a fiscal crisis threatening<br />
the economy a mere few<br />
months after the elections. But<br />
then it’s always been that way.<br />
Most incumbents who ran <strong>for</strong><br />
re-election have made Filipino<br />
taxpayers foot their campaign<br />
expenses. In 1969, in what is<br />
still touted as the costliest and<br />
dirtiest of <strong>Philippine</strong> elections till<br />
then, the incumbent Ferdinand<br />
Marcos spared no expense to get<br />
himself re-elected. Massive election<br />
spending that year triggered<br />
a balance of payments crisis and<br />
a currency devaluation.<br />
Fortunately, the 1987 Constitution<br />
banned presidents from<br />
running <strong>for</strong> a second term. An<br />
incumbent, after all, has power<br />
over the government’s vast<br />
organization and resources, including<br />
the funds in the national<br />
treasury intended <strong>for</strong> government<br />
services. He or she there<strong>for</strong>e<br />
has a built-in advantage no<br />
other candidate can equal.<br />
Traditionally, the biggest donors<br />
to presidential campaigns<br />
have been Chinese-Filipino businessmen,<br />
but even they put<br />
together are unlikely to come up<br />
with all the billions needed to fill<br />
a campaign chest. The biggest<br />
donor to the 2004 presidential<br />
campaign could have been none<br />
other than the Filipino taxpayer.<br />
This was where Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo<br />
edged out her<br />
rivals. In the weeks be<strong>for</strong>e and<br />
during the campaign, billions in<br />
government funds were released<br />
as doleouts to local officials,<br />
signaling that the incumbent<br />
was giving out largesse to those<br />
who would support her, amounts<br />
that the opposition could not<br />
possibly equal. Large sums were<br />
also made available in thinlydisguised<br />
projects to promote<br />
Arroyo’s candidacy, including the<br />
dissemination of millions of government-funded<br />
health-insurance<br />
cards (with the president’s photo<br />
imprinted on them), the distribu-<br />
12 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
C A M P A I G N F U N D S<br />
Buying votes. In<br />
the 2004 elections,<br />
President Arroyo used<br />
government funds<br />
to win the loyalty of<br />
local officials and the<br />
affection of voters.<br />
NEY<br />
tion of free rice and fertilizers, the<br />
emergency employment of thousands<br />
of street sweepers, and the<br />
nationwide display of road signs<br />
bearing the president’s name.<br />
Today the public is being<br />
treated to the spectacle of witness<br />
after witness spewing out<br />
exposés about the president and<br />
her family using jueteng money<br />
to fund the election. In reality,<br />
the state funds used <strong>for</strong> Arroyo’s<br />
election campaign dwarf the alleged<br />
jueteng contributions. By<br />
our estimates, at least P5 billion<br />
could have been pooled from<br />
various government agencies to<br />
oil Arroyo’s campaign machinery.<br />
Farmers’ groups allege that even<br />
part of the confiscated Marcos<br />
wealth was used <strong>for</strong> projects to<br />
advance the president’s re-election.<br />
In comparison, the most<br />
sensational claims so far have<br />
been that jueteng lord Rodolfo<br />
‘Bong’ Pineda contributed P300<br />
million to the Arroyo campaign.<br />
It took years to lay the<br />
groundwork <strong>for</strong> mobilizing government<br />
resources <strong>for</strong> the president’s<br />
re-election. It entailed,<br />
first of all, the appointment of<br />
allies to government agencies<br />
with pots of funds that could<br />
be tapped <strong>for</strong> the campaign. It<br />
also entailed the identification<br />
of those funds and their release<br />
at the right time. Such strategic<br />
planning, in the words of Senator<br />
Sergio Osmeña III, “was so<br />
systematic, it’s mind boggling.”<br />
WHERE THE MONEY<br />
CAME FROM<br />
Most of the fund releases began<br />
in early February, just be<strong>for</strong>e the<br />
start of the 90-day campaign <strong>for</strong><br />
the presidency, and continued<br />
till April. But huge chunks of<br />
money were already released<br />
to local officials even in late<br />
2003. The amounts involved<br />
are huge, and they included the<br />
following:<br />
● On February 2, 2004, Labor<br />
Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas,<br />
in her capacity as chairperson<br />
of the Overseas Workers’<br />
Welfare Administration<br />
(OWWA), along with then<br />
OWWA Administrator Virgilio<br />
Angelo signed a resolution<br />
transferring P530 million<br />
from the OWWA medicare<br />
fund to the <strong>Philippine</strong> Health<br />
Insurance Corporation. This<br />
amount was used to subsidize<br />
the Philhealth cards<br />
given away in places where<br />
Arroyo campaigned.<br />
● On February 3, 2004, Budget<br />
Secretary Emilia Boncodin<br />
signed a Special Allotment Release<br />
Order or SARO addressed<br />
to the Office of the Secretary of<br />
the Department of Agriculture<br />
(DA) <strong>for</strong> P728 million. The<br />
amount was “to cover the<br />
purchase of farm inputs,” and<br />
was classified as an additional<br />
program. The amount was distributed<br />
to mayors, governors,<br />
and congressmen.<br />
● On February 11, 2004, Boncodin<br />
signed another SARO<br />
<strong>for</strong> the DA, making available<br />
P1.1 billion “to cover the GMA<br />
Rice and Corn and Livestock<br />
Program.” Again, the amount<br />
was disbursed to mayors, governors,<br />
and congressmen.<br />
● On March 23, 2004, the Department<br />
of Budget and Management<br />
(DBM) released to<br />
the National Irrigation Authority<br />
(NIA) P541 million from the<br />
Marcos wealth supposedly <strong>for</strong><br />
activities in connection with<br />
the Comprehensive Agrarian<br />
Re<strong>for</strong>m Program. That fund,<br />
which was allegedly used <strong>for</strong><br />
the campaign, has yet to be<br />
accounted <strong>for</strong>.<br />
● On April 10, 2004, the<br />
president issued an executive<br />
order instructing that the<br />
poorest families be identified<br />
and that those with college-age<br />
children be given<br />
P10,000-vouchers each that<br />
they can use <strong>for</strong> technical or<br />
college education.<br />
● On April 28, 2004, the DBM<br />
also in<strong>for</strong>med the Department<br />
of Agrarian Re<strong>for</strong>m (DAR), of<br />
the release of P544 million<br />
“to cover funding requirements<br />
<strong>for</strong> the Ginintuang<br />
Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice<br />
Program.” This amount, too,<br />
came from the Marcos wealth.<br />
This fund was more than what<br />
was actually needed <strong>for</strong> the<br />
purpose. The program has yet<br />
to be completed, and farmers’<br />
groups suspect that a large<br />
portion of the funds was diverted<br />
<strong>for</strong> election purposes.<br />
● As early as <strong>No</strong>vember 2003,<br />
Arroyo and then Public Works<br />
Secretary Florante Soriquez<br />
began what is known as the<br />
“Kalsada Natin, Alagaan Natin”<br />
program, from which numerous<br />
posters, billboards and<br />
road signs bearing Arroyo’s<br />
In aid of re-election.<br />
Philhealth cards (above) were<br />
given out during elections so<br />
poor voters can get medical<br />
services <strong>for</strong> free.<br />
name and face were funded.<br />
Opposition leaders are saying<br />
P1.4 billion from the Motor<br />
Vehicles’ Users Charge was<br />
used <strong>for</strong> election purposes.<br />
(An interesting aside: on January<br />
14, 2004, Secretary of<br />
the Cabinet Ricardo Saludo<br />
issued a memo instructing<br />
cabinet secretaries “to change<br />
the word PGMA to ‘President<br />
Gloria’ in all billboards and<br />
notices of the president’s<br />
programs and projects.” Apparently,<br />
many people didn’t<br />
know what PGMA stood <strong>for</strong>.<br />
Saludo warned, “The PNP<br />
shall monitor and validate the<br />
change within the next two<br />
weeks.”)<br />
● In mid-2003, the Department<br />
of Agriculture headed at that<br />
time by Luis Lorenzo transferred<br />
P423 million in funds<br />
to the National Food Authority<br />
then headed by Arthur Yap to<br />
buy fertilizers under the Ginintuang<br />
Masaganang Ani (GMA)<br />
Rice Program. Some of the<br />
disbursements from this fund<br />
were given in cash to congressmen<br />
and local officials.<br />
It is hard to make an exact<br />
accounting of other government<br />
funds used to finance Arroyo’s<br />
campaign. For one, it is difficult to<br />
tell which expenditures were incurred<br />
in the natural course of her<br />
work as president and which went<br />
to promoting her candidacy.<br />
For instance, cabinet secretaries<br />
were actively involved in<br />
the Arroyo campaign. Former<br />
Social Welfare and Development<br />
Secretary Corazon ‘Dinky’ Soliman<br />
herself admits the town hall<br />
meetings dubbed “Pulong Bayan”<br />
that Arroyo conducted during the<br />
campaign were organized by the<br />
DSWD from funds provided by<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
13
the Office of the President. Those<br />
town hall meetings would have<br />
been part of the normal discharge<br />
of the president’s functions,<br />
except they also became automatic<br />
public relations events that<br />
upped Arroyo’s visibility.<br />
In the scheme of things, however,<br />
the DSWD was not that vital<br />
to the campaign. For fund-raising<br />
purposes, the agencies that mattered<br />
were those awash with cash<br />
and could serve as channels of patronage<br />
from Malacañang to local<br />
officials who could be called upon<br />
to marshal the votes <strong>for</strong> the president.<br />
In fact, early in the Arroyo<br />
presidency, some government<br />
officials were already saying that<br />
Gloria and Mike Arroyo were strategically<br />
placing their most trusted<br />
lieutenants in the most cash-rich<br />
and well-positioned government<br />
agencies in preparation <strong>for</strong> a 2004<br />
campaign.<br />
AGRICULTURE FUNDS<br />
Among the first of the Arroyo<br />
couple’s friends given a crucial<br />
government position was Jocelyn<br />
Bolante, friend and confidante of<br />
First Gentleman Mike, who was<br />
named undersecretary <strong>for</strong> finance<br />
of the Department of Agriculture<br />
soon after the government came to<br />
power in 2001. In October 2002,<br />
the president appointed her <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
student, Arthur Yap, administrator<br />
of the National Food Authority, an<br />
agency under the DA.<br />
In July 2004, DA whistleblower<br />
Marlene Esperat filed charges<br />
against Yap and Bolante <strong>for</strong> allegedly<br />
conniving to defraud the<br />
government of P428 million. The<br />
amount was to be used to purchase<br />
fertilizers under the 2003<br />
GMA Rice Program. Esperat questioned<br />
the huge amount that had<br />
been released, considering that the<br />
program’s officer in charge had requested<br />
only P28 million. The contract<br />
was also given to a favored<br />
company to purchase fertilizers at<br />
a cost Esperat said was bloated.<br />
Esperat did not live long enough<br />
to see the case prosper. She was<br />
gunned down in her home in<br />
Sultan Kudarat last March.<br />
The fertilizer fund was not the<br />
only questionable transaction at that<br />
time at the DA, a huge organization<br />
with huge allocations, regional offices<br />
and decentralized operations,<br />
and a variety of programs and<br />
projects whose expenditures were<br />
difficult to account <strong>for</strong>.<br />
Some of those expenditures<br />
include allocations <strong>for</strong> the use<br />
of congressional districts, towns,<br />
and cities. According to <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
solicitor general Frank Chavez,<br />
there were two huge amounts<br />
funneled to local governments<br />
just as the election campaign<br />
was getting underway. One was<br />
the P728-million-fund supposedly<br />
intended <strong>for</strong> farm inputs,<br />
while the other was the P1.1 billion<br />
fund <strong>for</strong> the GMA Rice and<br />
Corn and Livestock programs.<br />
The two amounts were released<br />
within eight days of each<br />
other, the smaller amount on<br />
February 3, 2004, and the bigger<br />
one on February 11.<br />
Chavez said that the P728<br />
million was disbursed to 105<br />
congressmen, 53 governors, and<br />
23 city and municipal mayors.<br />
He also revealed that some of<br />
these recipients received actual<br />
cash and not the farm inputs<br />
they were intended <strong>for</strong>.<br />
“It appears that the modus<br />
operandi is this: there is a ranking<br />
official in the DA who is linked<br />
to Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo’s husband,<br />
Jose Miguel Arroyo. This<br />
DA official has ‘runners’ who approach<br />
local government officials<br />
who will extract a commitment<br />
from the local officials that they<br />
should get these ‘fertilizers’ in<br />
liquid state from them,” Chavez<br />
said in the plunder case he filed<br />
against the president last year.<br />
Chavez added that the amount<br />
is shared among the DA officials,<br />
Mike Arroyo, farm input suppliers,<br />
and runners. The Arroyos<br />
and the DA denied these allegations<br />
last year.<br />
In response to the plunder<br />
charges, the Ombudsman has<br />
asked the Commission on Audit<br />
Praying <strong>for</strong> victory. El<br />
Shaddai leader Mike Velarde<br />
(in checked skirt) supported<br />
the Arroyo campaign,<br />
which was oiled by massive<br />
infusions of state funds.<br />
(COA) to report on how the DA<br />
funds were spent. COA sources<br />
say they are still tracing the flow<br />
of money and are trying to determine<br />
which officials did get<br />
their shares and how. COA’s 2004<br />
annual audit of the DA, however,<br />
was already peppered with comments<br />
of undocumented expenses<br />
and unliquidated cash advances.<br />
“Disbursements out of (Priority<br />
Development Assistance Fund allocated<br />
to members of Congress)<br />
and GMA Rice Program totaling<br />
P41.2 million and P6.250 million,<br />
respectively, were irregular and<br />
excessive,” said COA.<br />
When she started her new term<br />
of office in July 2004, Arroyo promoted<br />
Yap first as undersecretary;<br />
in 2004, he became agriculture<br />
secretary. Bolante, meanwhile, was<br />
named to the board of the Government<br />
Service Insurance System. In<br />
July, Yap quit his post after the Bureau<br />
of Internal Revenue charged<br />
his family with tax evasion.<br />
MARCOS WEALTH<br />
The Department of Agrarian<br />
Re<strong>for</strong>m was another agency<br />
with money that made disbursements<br />
during the campaign<br />
period. DAR is the lead agency<br />
implementing the Comprehensive<br />
Agrarian Re<strong>for</strong>m Program<br />
(CARP), and money <strong>for</strong> this<br />
program comes from portions of<br />
the Marcos wealth that had been<br />
returned to the government.<br />
On January 30, 2004, the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
National Bank remitted<br />
to the National Treasury $624<br />
million, equivalent to P35 billion,<br />
representing the biggest amount<br />
recovered so far from the Marcoses’<br />
wealth. Just days earlier, the<br />
Supreme Court had declared with<br />
finality that the amount belonged<br />
to the government, denying an appeal<br />
from the Marcos family. Under<br />
the law, this money is to be used<br />
only <strong>for</strong> CARP and specifically <strong>for</strong><br />
land acquisition and other activities<br />
to help farmer beneficiaries. Part of<br />
it eventually went to the DA.<br />
A hearing conducted by the<br />
House Oversight Committee<br />
earlier this year found that as of<br />
October 2004, nearly P9 billion<br />
of the Marcos money had already<br />
been spent. The bulk of this went<br />
to buying land from landowners,<br />
while the rest went to program<br />
beneficiaries and expenses under<br />
the nebulous DAR-Fund 101.<br />
Farmers’ groups, however,<br />
say there were two questionable<br />
disbursements made from the<br />
Marcos wealth.<br />
On March 8, 2004, then DAR<br />
officer-in-charge Jose Mari Ponce<br />
signed a Memorandum of Agreement<br />
with Agriculture Secretary<br />
Lorenzo allowing the DA to use<br />
P544 million from the Marcos<br />
wealth supposedly <strong>for</strong> “seed assistance”<br />
to agrarian re<strong>for</strong>m beneficiaries,<br />
again under the Ginintuang<br />
Masaganang Ani (GMA) Hybrid<br />
Rice Commercialization Component.<br />
On April 28, the amount was<br />
released by the DBM.<br />
14 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
C A M P A I G N F U N D S<br />
On March 18, the Presidential<br />
Agrarian Re<strong>for</strong>m Council (PARC)<br />
asked the DBM to again draw from<br />
the Marcos wealth, again <strong>for</strong> the<br />
DA. The amount was P541 million<br />
and the ultimate beneficiary was<br />
supposed to be the DA agency, the<br />
National Irrigation Administration.<br />
“The amount shall finance<br />
various on-going and new CARP<br />
irrigation projects,” said the<br />
Presidential Agrarian Re<strong>for</strong>m<br />
Council. Although Ponce’s name<br />
appears as signatory, being DAR<br />
officer-in-charge and PARC vice<br />
chairman, the letter did not bear<br />
his signature. It had only that of<br />
Jeffrey Galang, a PARC secretariat<br />
member Ponce supposedly<br />
authorized to seek the release of<br />
P500 million in CARP funds.<br />
Farmers’ groups say strange<br />
things seem to be happening<br />
with the Marcos wealth and<br />
they even fear the money might<br />
already have disappeared. But<br />
they suspect that both amounts,<br />
totaling over P1 billion, were<br />
spent <strong>for</strong> the campaign.<br />
The P544 million was meant<br />
<strong>for</strong> buying seeds <strong>for</strong> 600,000<br />
hectares of land <strong>for</strong> 2004. Yet<br />
when the money arrived, the<br />
target coverage was slashed to<br />
300,000 hectares. As of March<br />
<strong>2005</strong>, says Manuel Quiambao of<br />
the farmers’ group Peace Foundation,<br />
only 162,000 hectares<br />
had received the GMA seeds.<br />
As <strong>for</strong> the P541-million fund<br />
meant to benefit small, communal<br />
irrigation projects, Quiambao says<br />
that to this day, the NIA has been<br />
unable to furnish them with a list<br />
of farmers who benefited from the<br />
project. “We’re reviving the ‘Bantay<br />
Marcos Wealth’,” he says. “Stolen<br />
money has been stolen again.”<br />
OVERSEAS WORKERS’<br />
FUND<br />
Early in the presidential campaign,<br />
Sto. Tomas, with OWWA’s Angelo,<br />
signed a resolution transferring<br />
P530 milllion from the OWWA<br />
medicare fund to the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
Health Insurance Corporation. The<br />
amount came from the OWWA<br />
Medical Health Insurance Fund or<br />
OM-HIF, a fund built from contributions<br />
of overseas workers.<br />
What made this possible was<br />
an executive order signed by<br />
President Arroyo on February<br />
14, 2003, transferring OWWA’s<br />
medicare functions to Philhealth.<br />
Dr. Francisco Duque, a close<br />
friend of the Macapagal family<br />
and neighbor of the Arroyos at<br />
La Vista in Quezon City, was<br />
Philhealth head at the time. He<br />
is now the health secretary.<br />
That P530 million was, according<br />
to Philhealth, just 15<br />
percent of the entire OM-HIF. As<br />
of June 2004, the remaining OM-<br />
HIF fund stood at P3.5 billion.<br />
During her campaign sorties,<br />
President Arroyo gave away<br />
Philhealth cards valid <strong>for</strong> a year<br />
to people in the places she visited.<br />
What riled migrant groups<br />
was that at that same time, the<br />
OWWA was turning down the<br />
health claims of hundreds of<br />
overseas workers, ostensibly<br />
because the OWWA medical<br />
program was put on hold.<br />
According to the Migrante<br />
party-list group, 461 overseas<br />
workers who either had medical<br />
reimbursements pending or<br />
checks <strong>for</strong> pick up at OWWA<br />
were told the agency was not<br />
going to process the claims. The<br />
group says OWWA stopped all<br />
medical reimbursements in a<br />
meeting on January 16.<br />
This was just one of the many<br />
complaints migrant groups had<br />
against OWWA. In 2002, Sto. Tomas<br />
issued a resolution changing<br />
the guidelines <strong>for</strong> the use of the<br />
OWWA fund, limiting it only<br />
to overseas workers who had<br />
valid contracts. Be<strong>for</strong>e that, any<br />
overseas worker who had made<br />
contributions to the fund could<br />
avail himself of it, even without<br />
a valid contract.<br />
ROAD PROJECTS<br />
In <strong>No</strong>vember 2003, just three<br />
months be<strong>for</strong>e the presidential<br />
campaign began, Arroyo launched<br />
her “Kalsada Natin, Alagaan Natin”<br />
project in which she involved the<br />
barangays in the task of maintaining<br />
and protecting national roads.<br />
With her during the launch was<br />
then Public Works Secretary Soriquez.<br />
An Office of the President<br />
press release said that project funds<br />
would come from the Motor Vehicle<br />
Users’ Charge (MVUC), or the<br />
road users’ tax.<br />
The MVUC is the tax imposed<br />
on vehicle owners by Republic<br />
Act 8794. The law specifies that<br />
the money can be used <strong>for</strong> only<br />
three purposes: <strong>for</strong> road improvement<br />
and drainage repairs, <strong>for</strong><br />
traffic lights and safety devices,<br />
and to control air pollution. Vehicle<br />
owners pay the fee each time<br />
they register with the Land Transportation<br />
Office (LTO). How the<br />
fund is used is up to the National<br />
Road Board, where the public<br />
works secretary sits as ex-oficio<br />
Farmers’ funds. Large<br />
amounts of money<br />
used in the 2004<br />
campaign came from<br />
the Departments<br />
of Agriculture and<br />
Agrarian Re<strong>for</strong>m.<br />
member. Sen. Sergio Osmeña<br />
estimates the total amount collected<br />
from motorists since 2001<br />
has reached P16 billion.<br />
At the height of the presidential<br />
campaign, <strong>for</strong>mer LTO<br />
chairman Mariano Santiago filed<br />
a case be<strong>for</strong>e the Commission<br />
on Elections seeking President<br />
Arroyo’s disqualification. He argued<br />
that she used government<br />
money to fund her campaign<br />
and cited the “Kalsada Natin”<br />
program funded with P1.4 billion<br />
drawn from the MVUC.<br />
Santiago and members of the<br />
opposition said they noticed the<br />
program had morphed into a vehicle<br />
to promote Arroyo’s candidacy.<br />
Billboards announcing the project<br />
bore Arroyo’s face and name,<br />
while street sweepers hired under<br />
it wore uni<strong>for</strong>ms touting it as the<br />
president’s employment project.<br />
In March 2004, newspapers<br />
reported that Soriquez had signed<br />
Memoranda of Agreement (MOA)<br />
with barangay captains all over<br />
the country allowing them to hire<br />
street sweepers <strong>for</strong> the “Kalsada<br />
Natin” program. These sweepers<br />
were to be provided with two T-<br />
shirts and a hat. When the uni<strong>for</strong>ms<br />
were delivered, they bore the text:<br />
“Programang Pantrabaho ni GMA.”<br />
In effect, the MOA between the<br />
Department of Public Works Department<br />
of Public Works and Highways<br />
(DPWH) and barangay captains<br />
turned the fund <strong>for</strong> road repair into<br />
a job-generating program.<br />
The <strong>Philippine</strong> In<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
Agency defended the president by<br />
saying, “The present brouhaha of<br />
allegations that revenues were spent<br />
<strong>for</strong> the thousands of blue-shirted<br />
road laborers along with the ‘Kalsada<br />
Natin, Alagaan Natin’ signage which<br />
appear to be campaign propaganda<br />
can be explained by the fact that the<br />
Road Board has decided to shift to<br />
community-based road maintenance<br />
rather than contracting the road<br />
maintenance works.”<br />
As it turned out, the DPWH<br />
by April 2004 had installed some<br />
44,325 portable signages and 682<br />
billboards. The figures excluded<br />
4,963 billboards put up in school<br />
buildings. All of these signs carried<br />
the president’s name and<br />
face. Carlos Mutuc, then acting<br />
director of the DPWH’s Bureau of<br />
Maintenance said the department<br />
had agreed to include the phrase<br />
“Project ni Pangulong Gloria Macapagal<br />
Arroyo” on these signs.<br />
<strong>No</strong> audit of the MVUC has<br />
been done <strong>for</strong> 2004. The DP-<br />
WH’s internal audit office says<br />
the department has been administering<br />
the fund <strong>for</strong> only two<br />
years, and is the responsibility of<br />
the National Road Board.<br />
In 2003, however, COA already<br />
passed judgment on the MVUC<br />
used by the DPWH that year. Using<br />
the fund <strong>for</strong> purposes other<br />
than those specified in the law is<br />
illegal, COA said. It noted that the<br />
DPWH had used P9 million from<br />
the fund to pay casual employees<br />
and to fund the operations of various<br />
DPWH offices, violating Republic<br />
Act 8794. “We recommend<br />
that management should stop the<br />
practice of charging expenditures<br />
of other DPWH offices to the<br />
MVUC fund, which is tantamount<br />
to juggling of funds,” COA said.<br />
COA’s audit of the DPWH <strong>for</strong> 2004<br />
remains unfinished.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
15
THE MAN<br />
WOUL<br />
PRESIDEN<br />
LUZ RIMBAN<br />
LIKE IT or not, Filipinos<br />
will have to<br />
accept the fact that<br />
<strong>No</strong>li de Castro might<br />
just be president<br />
one of these days.<br />
It could be sooner,<br />
if President Gloria Macapagal-<br />
Arroyo suddenly gets stricken<br />
with delicadeza and resigns,<br />
or later, if Congress eventually<br />
decides to put an end to the<br />
crisis and impeach her. Either<br />
way, Filipinos will have to get<br />
used to the idea of a de Castro<br />
presidency, especially if they<br />
don’t want Susan Roces heading<br />
a caretaker government or<br />
Jose de Venecia becoming prime<br />
minister <strong>for</strong> life.<br />
Filipinos don’t seem to have<br />
much of a choice. Being vice<br />
president puts <strong>No</strong>li de Castro<br />
next in line and just a breath<br />
away from being the 15th president<br />
of the republic. The middle<br />
class may not relish having<br />
another celebrity in Malacañang,<br />
and traditional politicians may<br />
be gritting their teeth over a neophyte<br />
having it quick and easy.<br />
But no matter what they say, if<br />
Arroyo falls, de Castro will have<br />
to rise to the challenge.<br />
That will be some déjà vu. De<br />
Castro would become the third<br />
consecutive vice president elected<br />
after 1986 to have ascended<br />
to the top, following in the<br />
footsteps of Joseph Estrada and<br />
Gloria Arroyo. The two are not<br />
particularly pleasant precedents.<br />
One was ousted in the middle<br />
of an impeachment trial, while<br />
the other appears headed in the<br />
same direction. Unless he breaks<br />
the jinx, de Castro just might end<br />
up like his predecessors not too<br />
far into the future.<br />
That is why he is playing it<br />
coy and cautious these days.<br />
He keeps a low profile, hardly<br />
gives any interviews, and rarely<br />
opens his mouth. His friends say<br />
he does not want to be branded<br />
power-hungry or to be seen as<br />
a deserter. In July, at the height<br />
of the “Hello, Garci” controversy<br />
when 10 cabinet and sub-cabinet<br />
members cut ties with Arroyo, de<br />
Castro refused to seize the position<br />
that was his <strong>for</strong> the taking.<br />
“He will never be party to<br />
the ouster of President Arroyo<br />
whether extraconstitutional or<br />
contra constitutional,” says Cesar<br />
Chavez, a <strong>for</strong>mer newsman who<br />
was de Castro’s campaign manager.<br />
“Ayaw niya maging traydor.<br />
Ang sa kanya, ituloy ang proseso,<br />
ano man ang prosesong ‘yan,<br />
kung impeachment man o ano<br />
(He doesn’t want to be a traitor.<br />
The way he sees it, we must let<br />
the process continue, whatever<br />
that process is, impeachment or<br />
something else).”<br />
“He had good judgment,”<br />
says Senator Ralph Recto, a<br />
friend and <strong>for</strong>mer colleague of<br />
de Castro. “He’s not a traitor, and<br />
16 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E V I C E P R E S I D E N T<br />
WHO<br />
D BE<br />
HEADED FOR<br />
MALACAÑANG? <strong>No</strong>li de<br />
Castro has come a long<br />
way from his beginnings<br />
as an unknown radio<br />
broadcaster.<br />
T<br />
that’s a value Filipinos cherish<br />
as well. He could have easily<br />
grabbed the opportunity to become<br />
president, I suppose, but<br />
he’s not like that.”<br />
ICON FOR THE MASSES<br />
What exactly is he like then?<br />
To the public, <strong>No</strong>li de Castro is<br />
the Joseph Estrada of the 1990s,<br />
an icon <strong>for</strong> the masses of his<br />
generation. People know his TV<br />
image too well—the guy who<br />
appeared on nationwide television<br />
night after night <strong>for</strong> close to<br />
20 years, the news anchor who<br />
practically held the patent to the<br />
phrase “Magandang Gabi, Bayan<br />
(Good evening, <strong>Philippine</strong>s).”<br />
The nation also knows him as<br />
the candidate who topped the<br />
2001 senatorial race and won 15<br />
million votes in the vice-presidential<br />
contest in 2004.<br />
But de Castro has something<br />
Joseph Estrada didn’t<br />
have: a college degree. And he<br />
has something Gloria Arroyo<br />
doesn’t: a feel <strong>for</strong> the public<br />
pulse borne of years as a broadcaster.<br />
His friends and supporters<br />
insist these and other traits,<br />
plus knowledge of the basics,<br />
more than make up <strong>for</strong> de Castro’s<br />
inexperience and lack of<br />
political savvy.<br />
“He listens attentively….He<br />
knows how to ask questions,”<br />
says Recto. “Sometimes I listen to<br />
him during his Saturday programs.<br />
He makes sense naman.”<br />
Former social welfare secretary<br />
Dinky Soliman says practically<br />
the same thing. “<strong>No</strong>li asks<br />
if he doesn’t know what’s going<br />
on. He doesn’t pretend that he<br />
knows things,” she says of de<br />
Castro, her seatmate during<br />
cabinet meetings.<br />
Having a vice president<br />
who might be clueless about a<br />
lot of things isn’t a particularly<br />
com<strong>for</strong>ting thought; elevate that<br />
person to the presidency and<br />
chances are there will be a lot<br />
of handholding going on. But<br />
presidents were never meant to<br />
have all the answers, de Castro’s<br />
supporters say. That’s where his<br />
friends and advisers come in. In<br />
the event of a de Castro presidency,<br />
what the people will get<br />
is Team <strong>No</strong>li.<br />
“<strong>No</strong> single person is the<br />
answer to all our problems” is<br />
Recto’s reply to those who expect<br />
de Castro to be the nation’s<br />
savior. “It’s always a team,” the<br />
senator insists. “That’s why you<br />
have political parties….There is<br />
no messiah. <strong>No</strong>li’s not a messiah<br />
definitely.”<br />
“PLUS-PLUS” AND<br />
MINUSES<br />
If <strong>No</strong>li de Castro becomes president,<br />
Soliman says, Filipinos will<br />
be getting a package deal: de<br />
Castro, plus the support of at<br />
least four major political blocs,<br />
plus immediate economic and<br />
political re<strong>for</strong>m. She calls it the<br />
“<strong>No</strong>li-Plus-Plus” scenario. “The<br />
challenge is convincing people<br />
that the <strong>No</strong>li-Plus-Plus scenario is<br />
a better deal than we have now,”<br />
says Soliman who was one of the<br />
cabinet members who quit last<br />
July. In this scenario, pushed by<br />
some NGOs, <strong>No</strong>li would be a<br />
transition president who would<br />
preside over a process of charter<br />
change and pave the way <strong>for</strong> new<br />
elections and a new government.<br />
He would also govern with a<br />
council of advisers drawn from a<br />
cross-section of political groups.<br />
It’s going to take a lot of<br />
convincing. Right now, what<br />
people are thinking when they<br />
see de Castro is not the possibility<br />
of a top-notch team working<br />
<strong>for</strong> the good of the country.<br />
Instead, what most likely comes<br />
to mind is a pack of friends waiting<br />
<strong>for</strong> their turn to ravage it. In<br />
classic Erap lingo, it’s “weatherweather”<br />
all over again.<br />
The danger really is that there<br />
are far too many people who<br />
see de Castro as a blank slate on<br />
which they can write whatever<br />
they want. Actually, perhaps the<br />
better metaphor <strong>for</strong> a <strong>for</strong>mer “talking<br />
head” is a puppet that moves<br />
only according to the pulls of the<br />
puppeteer – or in this case, puppeteers.<br />
Harsh as that may sound,<br />
it is nevertheless apt <strong>for</strong> a person<br />
who has yet to be portrayed as<br />
making a decision on his own, or<br />
at least against the interests of his<br />
supposed handlers.<br />
Former University of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s president Francisco<br />
Nemenzo, convenor of the<br />
democratic-left alliance Laban<br />
ng Masa, summarizes the apprehensions<br />
over a <strong>No</strong>li presidency:<br />
“De Castro’s track record<br />
as an envelopmental journalist<br />
and short stint as senator with<br />
no real credentials or evidence<br />
FAMILIAR FACE. De Castro, shown with coanchor<br />
Korina Sanchez in the early 1990s,<br />
read the primetime news <strong>for</strong> nearly 20 years.<br />
of competence has shown him<br />
to be simply an all too willing<br />
pawn of elite interests, especially<br />
the Lopez oligarchy.”<br />
The Lopezes, of course, own<br />
the giant media organization<br />
ABS-CBN, de Castro’s <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
employer. Rumors of de Castro’s<br />
so-called envelopmental journalism,<br />
or his “attack-and-collect,<br />
defend-and-collect” (ACDC)<br />
style of reporting have hounded<br />
him and ABS-CBN <strong>for</strong> years. In<br />
the 2004 elections, reports surfaced<br />
that he took money from<br />
subjects of his investigative reports<br />
who wanted certain stories<br />
quelled. The payoffs were reportedly<br />
in cash or in kind.<br />
De Castro has denied them<br />
all, but the rumors persist. Charges<br />
like these, though, are difficult<br />
to prove. To some, it may have<br />
been simple just to point to de<br />
Castro’s P51.3 million net worth<br />
declared in his 2004 Statement of<br />
Assets and Liabilities that included<br />
choice real-estate holdings.<br />
Or cite as evidence the fact that<br />
in the 2004 polls, he declared to<br />
the Commission on Elections that<br />
he put in P59.3 million of his and<br />
his family’s own money into the<br />
campaign. But then it shouldn’t<br />
be a surprise that de Castro has<br />
that much wealth. He worked <strong>for</strong><br />
one of the country’s most generous<br />
employers <strong>for</strong> decades, after<br />
all, and he was even ABS-CBN’s<br />
highest-paid news anchor <strong>for</strong><br />
several years. He held the title<br />
vice president <strong>for</strong> news <strong>for</strong> quite<br />
sometime, too, and owns, along<br />
with his wife Arlene Sinsuat, the<br />
production outfit that produces<br />
the weekly investigative program<br />
“Magandang Gabi, Bayan.”<br />
THE LOPEZ FACTOR<br />
But perhaps more than the reports<br />
of unethical journalistic<br />
practices, it is De Castro’s Lopez<br />
connection that is the public’s<br />
unspoken fear. Long a fixture<br />
in <strong>Philippine</strong> politics and business,<br />
the Lopezes preside over<br />
an interlocking web of business<br />
interests that range from power<br />
generation to power distribution,<br />
telecommunications to water concessions,<br />
infrastructure, to broadcasting<br />
and publishing. Because<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
17
T H E V I C E P R E S I D E N T<br />
of some of their companies’ histories,<br />
the Lopezes are perceived<br />
by many as having monopolistic<br />
tendencies and prone to ruthless<br />
business tactics.<br />
Numerous focus-group discussions<br />
conducted by the TV<br />
industry show that the viewing<br />
public perceives the Lopezes<br />
to be using ABS-CBN to further<br />
their interests. The question<br />
many Filipinos have now is<br />
this: Would they likewise use de<br />
Castro <strong>for</strong> their own ends if and<br />
when he becomes president?<br />
The group Freedom From<br />
Debt Coalition (FDC) says the<br />
Lopezes already have done that<br />
with the vice president. They say<br />
that President Arroyo, through<br />
de Castro, allowed the bailout of<br />
the Lopezes’ beleaguered Maynilad<br />
Water company by allowing<br />
the government water agency<br />
Metropolitan Waterworks and<br />
Sewerage System (MWSS) to<br />
shoulder some of the Lopez<br />
company’s debts.<br />
Aside from this, the government<br />
allowed not only Maynilad<br />
Water to charge higher rates, but<br />
also let the Lopezes’s Manila<br />
Electric Company (Meralco) do<br />
the same.<br />
But Chavez insists, “<strong>No</strong>li<br />
will never compromise or sacrifice<br />
the national interest to big<br />
business.” The vice president,<br />
says Chavez, understands these<br />
things and is aware of the<br />
country’s political and economic<br />
history and the role cronyism<br />
played in the past.<br />
DE CASTRO’S INNER<br />
CIRCLE<br />
Friends like Recto are also trying<br />
to correct that impression. Recto<br />
says de Castro isn’t the type “to<br />
favor anyone….He understands<br />
that <strong>for</strong> business it’s leveling the<br />
playing field (that’s important).<br />
He understands (the need <strong>for</strong>)<br />
equal protection of the law.<br />
Simple naman ‘yun di ba (It’s<br />
simple, isn’t it)?”<br />
Well, not really, at least not<br />
<strong>for</strong> de Castro. One of de Castro’s<br />
<strong>for</strong>mer media colleagues says<br />
that Eugenio ‘Gabby’ Lopez III,<br />
President of ABS-CBN Channel<br />
2, is the one person closest to<br />
de Castro, the person whose<br />
voice is the most often in the<br />
vice president’s ear, closer even<br />
than his friends in the so-called<br />
“Wednesday Group.”<br />
The Wednesday Group is de<br />
Castro’s political gang, made up<br />
of four other senators he struck<br />
a friendship with when he began<br />
his political career in 2001.<br />
They are <strong>for</strong>mer human-rights<br />
lawyer Joker Arroyo, businessmen<br />
Manuel ‘Manny’ Villar and<br />
Recto, and ex-student leader and<br />
lawyer Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan.<br />
The group meets at least once a<br />
week to exchange political gossip,<br />
give each other advice, and,<br />
since June, help de Castro prepare<br />
<strong>for</strong> bigger things ahead.<br />
Recto describes how the<br />
group came together: “Joker<br />
became somewhat of a Yoda—<br />
considering his age and experience,<br />
he’s the eldest in the<br />
group. Manny and <strong>No</strong>li are of<br />
the same age. Me and Kiko are<br />
of the same age. Joker, Manny,<br />
and I all came from the Ninth<br />
Congress so we’ve been together<br />
since 1992. <strong>No</strong>li was a neophyte<br />
as well. We had good rapport in<br />
the session hall.”<br />
But de Castro’s <strong>for</strong>mer media<br />
co-worker describe them this<br />
way: “Ralph and Kiko are the<br />
outer flank, Manny and Joker are<br />
the inner circle, and right beside<br />
<strong>No</strong>li is Gabby Lopez.”<br />
A “PROBLEMATIC”<br />
FRIEND<br />
De Castro, however, has friends<br />
of his own outside the realm of<br />
politics and big business, and<br />
one of them actually put him in<br />
a bad light.<br />
When de Castro was named<br />
head of the Housing and Urban<br />
Development Coordinating<br />
Council (HUDCC) and given<br />
the Housing portfolio after becoming<br />
vice president last year,<br />
he brought with him his friend<br />
Celso de los Angeles.<br />
In September 2004, de los<br />
Angeles was appointed chairman<br />
of the National Home Mortgage<br />
Corporation (NHMFC), the<br />
agency that provides community<br />
mortgage programs to urban<br />
poor groups. De los Angeles<br />
didn’t last a year in office. He<br />
filed sick leave prior in mid-July,<br />
to going on terminal leave.<br />
<strong>No</strong>ngovernmental organizations<br />
in the housing sector say<br />
that the few months that de los<br />
Angeles headed the agency was<br />
a time of “flagrant and brazen<br />
graft and corruption” at the<br />
NHMFC. By the last few weeks<br />
of de los Angeles’s term, these<br />
NGOs were asking President<br />
Arroyo to kick him out.<br />
“We believe that one impediment<br />
in your housing program<br />
<strong>for</strong> the poor is Mr. Celso de los<br />
A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS<br />
FRIENDS. The vice president,<br />
shown here during his days<br />
as a radio broadcaster, has<br />
strong links with the Lopez<br />
family which owns ABS-CBN.<br />
Angeles,” said the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
Undertaking <strong>for</strong> Social Housing<br />
and other groups working in the<br />
area of Community Mortgage<br />
Program (CMP), in a paid print<br />
advertisement addressed to President<br />
Arroyo on July 1, <strong>2005</strong>. “We<br />
urge you to remove him from<br />
office because he is not morally<br />
fit to be in government.”<br />
Their reasons had nothing<br />
to do with the fact that de los<br />
Angeles got into a very public<br />
fight with TV starlet Regine<br />
Tolentino over the P8 million<br />
worth of jewelry he supposedly<br />
gave her. Neither did they have<br />
anything to do with the fact that<br />
Ilocos Sur Governor Luis ‘Chavit’<br />
Singson, in his testimony during<br />
the impeachment trial of <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
President Joseph Estrada, described<br />
de los Angeles as “isang<br />
jueteng operator din noong araw<br />
(someone who used to be a<br />
jueteng operator).”<br />
INSTITUTIONALIZING<br />
PATRONAGE<br />
What the housing NGOs had<br />
protested was the culture of<br />
palakasan<br />
and alleged increased<br />
incidence of extortion that prevailed<br />
at the NHMFC during de<br />
los Angeles’s watch. A turning<br />
point in the campaign against<br />
de los Angeles was the arrest of<br />
Nestor Favila, head of the Task<br />
Force Community Mortgage Program,<br />
on June 24, <strong>2005</strong>.<br />
Favila was caught in an entrapment<br />
operation accepting<br />
P85,000. The sting operation had<br />
been prompted by several complaints<br />
against Favila <strong>for</strong> allegedly<br />
extorting from landowners<br />
selling land to the NHMFC.<br />
On top of this, say organizers<br />
of the National CMP Congress,<br />
NHMFC officials encouraged<br />
urban poor residents’ associations<br />
to seek the intercession of<br />
congressmen, senators, and local<br />
officials in following up their<br />
community mortgage programs.<br />
The result: the institutionalization<br />
of patronage politics in the<br />
housing sector.<br />
<strong>No</strong>body in de Castro’s circle of<br />
close advisers seems to know anything—or<br />
wants to talk—about his<br />
relationship with de los Angeles.<br />
Recto says he never heard of de<br />
los Angeles be<strong>for</strong>e, while Chavez<br />
would only say that de los Angeles<br />
was someone whom his staff saw<br />
in the 2004 campaign sorties twice<br />
or thrice. Yet he is apparently<br />
close enough <strong>for</strong> de Castro to<br />
have endorsed as head of a crucial<br />
government agency.<br />
But de los Angeles did not<br />
seem that indispensable to the<br />
vice president. To de Castro’s<br />
credit, says Soliman, the vice<br />
president immediately took heed<br />
when told of reports of controversies<br />
de los Angeles found<br />
himself in. “Alisin na natin kung<br />
ganun (In that case, let’s take<br />
him out of that post),” Soliman<br />
quotes de Castro saying.<br />
Hopefully, de Castro has no<br />
more friends like de los Angeles<br />
and Lopez waiting <strong>for</strong> him to<br />
be president. For sure, to most<br />
Filipinos, that would hardly be<br />
a “plus-plus.”<br />
18 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN? In 1998,<br />
Gloria Arroyo, shown here with running<br />
mate Jose de Venecia (left), ran <strong>for</strong> vice<br />
president with the endorsement of the<br />
incumbent, Fidel V. Ramos, who rescued<br />
the embattled Gloria when she faced the<br />
worst crisis of her presidency in July.<br />
SOS<br />
System under Stress<br />
SHEILA S. CORONEL<br />
Gloriagate has<br />
put all our<br />
institutions<br />
under scrutiny,<br />
perhaps<br />
more scrutiny<br />
than they can<br />
w i t h s t a n d .<br />
C e r t a i n l y<br />
more scrutiny than they had<br />
been subjected to in the past.<br />
Since the scandal over jueteng<br />
broke out in May and the “Hello<br />
Garci” tapes were made public<br />
in June, the spotlight has been<br />
on the presidency. Accusations<br />
of bribery and election fraud<br />
have soiled the integrity of the<br />
president and of the office she<br />
holds. While Gloria Macapagal<br />
Arroyo has put up a valiant ef<strong>for</strong>t<br />
to fend off these accusations<br />
and has tenaciously hung on<br />
to power despite the odds, her<br />
credibility has been damaged<br />
severely, putting her continued<br />
stay in office in great doubt.<br />
For now, her biggest ally<br />
is not really, as some assume,<br />
<strong>for</strong>mer president Fidel Ramos. It<br />
is public cynicism. Ramos should<br />
of course get the credit (or the<br />
blame) <strong>for</strong> rescuing President<br />
Arroyo on July 8, when her<br />
government was shaken by the<br />
resignations of eight Cabinet<br />
members who also asked that<br />
she leave. Malacañang insiders<br />
say that in the late afternoon of<br />
the same day, Arroyo came very<br />
close to resignation.<br />
But the truth is that she remains<br />
in office not just because<br />
Ramos rushed to the presidential<br />
palace with his rescue remedy<br />
of charter change. She is there<br />
largely because the public is<br />
skeptical of everyone else who<br />
aspires to replace her. There is<br />
a sense among many Filipinos<br />
that our politics is so damaged,<br />
removing Arroyo will not make<br />
much of a difference.<br />
Gloria Arroyo is there<strong>for</strong>e<br />
president not by virtue of the<br />
public trust. On the contrary, the<br />
opinion polls show her trust rating<br />
dropping as the crisis drags.<br />
She remains in Malacañang<br />
largely because there is a dearth<br />
of public enthusiasm <strong>for</strong> the<br />
alternatives to her presidency,<br />
whether it is Vice President <strong>No</strong>li<br />
de Castro, people power, or a<br />
revolutionary government run<br />
by either the Left or the Right.<br />
As some analysts have astutely<br />
pointed out, the crisis of the Arroyo<br />
presidency also exposed a<br />
much deeper malaise: a vacuum<br />
in political leadership that leaves<br />
many Filipinos in a bind—dissatisfied<br />
with the president they have,<br />
but equally antsy about those who<br />
hope to succeed her.<br />
We are at the moment not so<br />
much in an impasse, but in the<br />
painful process of <strong>for</strong>ging a consensus<br />
about the president and<br />
her future. The anti-Gloria <strong>for</strong>ces<br />
in both Congress and outside are<br />
hopeful that the impeachment,<br />
with its menu of scandal and<br />
more scandal, will lead toward a<br />
broad public agreement that the<br />
president is guilty as charged.<br />
They think that as more witnesses<br />
emerge from the woodwork,<br />
attesting to bribery and electoral<br />
fraud, the public—especially<br />
the politicized and influential<br />
sectors that make up the Edsa<br />
constituency—will arrive at the<br />
moral certainty that the president<br />
is culpable, thereby compelling<br />
Congress to convict her, and<br />
failing that, setting off an Edsa 4<br />
that will <strong>for</strong>ce her ouster.<br />
At the same time, the president’s<br />
supporters are hoping<br />
that the impeachment will acquit<br />
her, thereby restoring trust in the<br />
presidency and allowing her to<br />
serve out the remaining fourand-a-half<br />
years of her term.<br />
They are keeping various other<br />
options open, including charter<br />
change, which, if successful,<br />
would divert the energies of<br />
legislators from impeachment<br />
and if needed, pave the way <strong>for</strong> a<br />
graceful exit <strong>for</strong> the president.<br />
The outcome can go either<br />
way. The president may fall.<br />
But she can also survive, if not<br />
till the end of her term, at least<br />
a bruising impeachment trial<br />
that will lead to her acquittal<br />
and eventual, if premature, exit<br />
from power.<br />
Whatever the outcome, the<br />
crucial question is whether our<br />
institutions can survive the journey.<br />
Can they live up to the expectations<br />
of most Filipinos—a<br />
credible process that holds a sitting<br />
president accountable, and<br />
if it takes place at all, a process<br />
of constitutional change that is<br />
20 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
C H A R T E R C H A N G E<br />
driven not so much by narrow<br />
and short-term interests but the<br />
bigger, longer-term interests of<br />
the nation?<br />
The burden now is on Congress.<br />
Whatever the result of the<br />
impeachment, the key question<br />
<strong>for</strong> both Houses is whether they<br />
can rise above partisan and pecuniary<br />
interests and the temptation<br />
to play up to the gallery in<br />
order resolve the issues linked<br />
to alleged presidential wrongdoing<br />
in a manner acceptable<br />
to the majority of the people.<br />
Otherwise, this latest episode<br />
could result, if not in an outburst<br />
of people power, then with the<br />
already tattered credibility of<br />
Congress in shriveled shreds.<br />
Without a credible impeachment<br />
process, other sectors—the<br />
military, the Catholic Church,<br />
and the middle class—may once<br />
again be <strong>for</strong>ced to resolve the<br />
impasse through extraconstitutional<br />
means. More than the<br />
fate of the presidency, there<strong>for</strong>e,<br />
what is at stake in the current<br />
crisis is the credibility—and the<br />
future—of democratic institutions,<br />
and of democracy itself.<br />
DAMAGED CONGRESS<br />
The problem begins with Congress.<br />
Since the fall of Marcos<br />
in 1986, the history of that body<br />
has been far from stellar. Instead,<br />
the legislature has been a<br />
disappointment on many counts,<br />
including in its ability to hold<br />
other institutions to account.<br />
Indeed, the outcomes of previous<br />
impeachment processes<br />
initiated by the House raise serious<br />
doubts about congressional<br />
independence and efficacy.<br />
In 2002, the compromised<br />
Ombudsman Aniano Desierto<br />
was let off the hook twice by<br />
the House justice committee. The<br />
first time involved a complaint<br />
alleging that Desierto received a<br />
bagful of cash from a banker and<br />
real-estate developer who had a<br />
pending case in his office. The<br />
businessman wrote the justice<br />
committee denying the charge.<br />
The committee promptly threw<br />
out the complaint as “sufficient<br />
in <strong>for</strong>m but not in substance”<br />
and refused to take in any more<br />
evidence from the complainants.<br />
The second complaint, alleging<br />
that the Ombudsman bungled<br />
its investigation of the multimillion-peso<br />
tax credit scam, was<br />
dismissed on the ground that no<br />
complaint could be filed against<br />
an official within the same year.<br />
Thanks once more to the<br />
justice committee, Commission<br />
on Elections commissioner<br />
Luzviminda Tancangco, whose<br />
many lapses are blamed <strong>for</strong><br />
the ill-starred modernization of<br />
elections, also survived impeachment<br />
in 2002, despite compelling<br />
evidence showing she approved<br />
an overpriced and questionable<br />
voter-registration contract.<br />
In both these cases, the<br />
House was judged by civil-society<br />
groups and the media as acting<br />
in a scandalously self-serving<br />
way. It was accused of clearing<br />
powerful officials who were well<br />
connected to the leadership of<br />
the legislature. The acquittals<br />
also got legislators into the good<br />
graces of powerful executive<br />
officials, one of them charged<br />
with investigating graft cases<br />
(of which congressmen have<br />
many); the other, with running<br />
and adjudicating elections (in<br />
which legislators regularly and<br />
enthusiastically take part).<br />
Chief Justice Hilario Davide<br />
Jr., meanwhile, was publicly seen<br />
as the victim of a congressional<br />
lynch mob that put together<br />
a questionable impeachment<br />
complaint in 2003, accusing him<br />
of anomalies in the use of the<br />
Judiciary Development Fund.<br />
The charges against Davide were<br />
viewed not so much as part of<br />
an earnest desire to hold the<br />
highest court to account, but as<br />
an attempt of the faction aligned<br />
with beer magnate Eduardo Cojuangco<br />
Jr. to pressure the high<br />
tribunal to rule in Cojuangco’s<br />
favor in the long-running coconut<br />
levy cases.<br />
Earlier in 2003, Davide and<br />
seven other justices had already<br />
been the subject of an<br />
impeachment complaint, which<br />
questioned the constitutionality<br />
of their action in swearing in<br />
Arroyo as president in the heat<br />
of Edsa 2. That complaint was<br />
dismissed by the justice committee.<br />
Within weeks, the committee<br />
began hearing another<br />
impeachment complaint against<br />
Davide, even if it was the second<br />
filed against the chief magistrate<br />
in the same year.<br />
The impeachment was allowed<br />
to prosper, with the tacit<br />
approval of House Speaker Jose<br />
de Venecia. In just over a week,<br />
the complaint already had over<br />
80 signatures, more than enough<br />
to <strong>for</strong>ward it to the Senate <strong>for</strong><br />
an impeachment trial. President<br />
Arroyo kept mum on the issue<br />
<strong>for</strong> some time; only after protests<br />
from business, Church, and civil<br />
society groups, did she speak<br />
out, urging the House to drop<br />
the complaint and to instead<br />
<strong>for</strong>m a body to investigate<br />
the charges. The impasse was<br />
broken by the Supreme Court,<br />
which ruled the complaint unconstitutional<br />
because of the<br />
one-year prohibition. The House<br />
soon followed with a resolution<br />
to dismiss the impeachment<br />
complaint. The resolution was<br />
signed by the majority of congressmen<br />
led by de Venecia,<br />
who sensed that public opinion<br />
was turning against Congress.<br />
Then of course there was<br />
Estrada’s aborted impeachment<br />
trial in 2001, when public outrage<br />
over what it deemed was<br />
the Senate’s partiality toward<br />
the then president spilled out<br />
into the streets and catalyzed<br />
People Power 2. This time, the<br />
blame was heaped on the Senate,<br />
rather than on the House.<br />
ARE HER DAYS NUMBERED?<br />
Anti-Arroyo protesters say<br />
the president has to go or<br />
she will be ousted.<br />
Several pro-Estrada senators<br />
were accused of receiving payoffs<br />
in the tens of millions of<br />
pesos to ensure the president’s<br />
acquittal.<br />
Given all these, the skepticism<br />
about Congress’ capacity<br />
to carry out an impeachment<br />
process that will produce a just<br />
result is understandable. The<br />
track record is simply not there.<br />
The first obstacle Congress faces<br />
is its own past.<br />
A STRING OF FAILURES<br />
The legislature’s other failures<br />
are also to blame. Congress<br />
fails in terms of efficiency: the<br />
12 th Congress, which ended its<br />
term in 2004, passed all of four<br />
laws and could not even pass<br />
the national budget, <strong>for</strong>cing it<br />
to reenact the old one. Most<br />
days, there isn’t even a quorum<br />
in the House, making it difficult<br />
to deliberate on laws and other<br />
pending business. The slow burn<br />
of the impeachment complaint in<br />
the House committee of justice<br />
is not unusual: the normal pace<br />
of Congress is glacial.<br />
Congress also fails in terms of<br />
costs: Congress gets more expensive<br />
every year, even as it passes<br />
fewer laws. Already, Economic<br />
Planning Secretary Romulo Neri<br />
says that the stupendous sum of<br />
P6.4 billion may be set aside <strong>for</strong><br />
the expenses of Congress if it is<br />
convened as a constituent body<br />
to amend the constitution.<br />
More importantly, Congress<br />
fails in terms of representation.<br />
If there needs to be proof that<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong>s is an oligarchy,<br />
one only has to look at the<br />
composition of the legislature.<br />
As the PCIJ book The Rulemakers:<br />
How the Wealthy and<br />
Well-Born Dominate Congress<br />
shows, nearly all the members<br />
of both Houses are millionaires;<br />
most are also part of political<br />
families whose members have<br />
held public office <strong>for</strong> two or<br />
more generations. Through the<br />
years, legislators have tended<br />
to stay longer in office, despite<br />
term limits, making it difficult <strong>for</strong><br />
new entrants, especially those<br />
who do not come from political<br />
families, to get into Congress.<br />
In the House, two of every<br />
three congressmen are part of<br />
political clans. In the Senate,<br />
the average assets of members<br />
is growing every term, with an<br />
increase by P27 million between<br />
1998, when the 11 th Senate assumed<br />
power, and 2001, when<br />
the 12 th Senate took over.<br />
Congress likewise fails in terms<br />
of accountability: accounting and<br />
auditing rules are honored more<br />
in the breach in both Houses,<br />
as shown in The Rulemakers.<br />
Moreover, through the years,<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
21
legislators have given themselves<br />
privileges—<strong>for</strong> travel, district<br />
expenses, and other perks—that<br />
they would have never allowed in<br />
other agencies of government.<br />
STATE OF THE NATION. Opposition<br />
congressmen (above) filed an impeachment<br />
complaint against Arroyo, as crowds, including<br />
children, massed up outside the House.<br />
THE STRUGGLE FOR<br />
SPOILS<br />
Most spectacularly of all, Congress<br />
has failed in its primordial duty<br />
to advance the national interest,<br />
which is often sacrificed <strong>for</strong> the<br />
narrow, short-term interests of<br />
legislators. The organizing principle<br />
of Congress is the struggle <strong>for</strong><br />
spoils. Legislators have used their<br />
powers to make laws, to conduct<br />
inquiries, to examine the national<br />
budget, and to vet presidential<br />
appointments to get benefits <strong>for</strong><br />
themselves, their allies, and their<br />
kin. Spending on pork barrel has<br />
increased dramatically through the<br />
years, declining only last year and<br />
only because of severe budgetary<br />
constraints and a Senate that was<br />
eager to embarrass the House.<br />
There is also more than ample<br />
evidence to show that the business<br />
and proprietary interests of<br />
lawmakers and their families and<br />
friends have benefited greatly<br />
from preferential legislation, tax<br />
exemptions, and less-than-partial<br />
government regulation.<br />
In short, the majority of legislators<br />
in the last two decades<br />
have behaved like trapos, political<br />
mercenaries concerned<br />
mainly with delivering patronage<br />
to their districts, ensuring their<br />
families remain in power, and<br />
getting as much benefit as they<br />
can from their seat in Congress.<br />
Like the presidency, Congress<br />
has been hounded by scandal.<br />
A few random examples should<br />
suffice: in 1993, House Speaker<br />
de Venecia convinced a number<br />
of representatives to vote against<br />
a bill that would put a ceiling on<br />
<strong>for</strong>eign-debt payments by promising<br />
to release P200 million of<br />
their pork barrel. In 2000, partylist<br />
representatives exposed how<br />
congressmen were being offered<br />
P500,000 each by House leaders<br />
to vote <strong>for</strong> the controversial Electric<br />
Power Industry Re<strong>for</strong>m Act or<br />
Epira. In 2003, National Electrification<br />
Administration chief Manuel<br />
Sanchez also confirmed that he<br />
had authorized the release of P2.5<br />
million each to 150 congressmen<br />
who had voted <strong>for</strong> that law.<br />
The recent reports on how<br />
some congressmen have each<br />
been offered P500,000 not to<br />
sign the impeachment complaint<br />
against President Arroyo only rein<strong>for</strong>ce<br />
the people’s worst suspicions<br />
about Congress. Even the opposition<br />
is tainted, if only because not<br />
too long ago the shoe was on the<br />
other foot. Four years ago, when<br />
Estrada was on the verge of impeachment,<br />
the likes of Ronaldo<br />
Zamora, Rolex Suplico, Imee Marcos,<br />
and Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero,<br />
now at the <strong>for</strong>efront of the anti-<br />
Arroyo opposition in the House,<br />
were on the side of the disgraced<br />
president. Can Filipinos, there<strong>for</strong>e,<br />
be blamed if they think the game<br />
of presidential impeachment is<br />
much like musical chairs?<br />
And given this, should it be<br />
any wonder that the president,<br />
in order to survive, has struck a<br />
Faustian bargain with the most<br />
trapo elements in Congress, promising<br />
them the parliament of their<br />
dreams, one that will finally enable<br />
one of them to be the head of<br />
government? Having been deserted<br />
by the re<strong>for</strong>mist, civil-society<br />
elements of her government after<br />
the resignation of the Hyatt 10,<br />
the president now seeks, through<br />
the promise of charter change,<br />
to consolidate her remaining<br />
constituency: the patronage-and<br />
spoils-oriented local officials and<br />
members of Congress. <strong>No</strong>w that it<br />
is her presidency that is at stake,<br />
Gloria Arroyo is mobilizing not<br />
people power as she did in 2001,<br />
but trapo power.<br />
THE GRAVEST DANGER<br />
In a speech broadcast in the<br />
evening of July 7, when she announced<br />
that she was asking all<br />
her Cabinet secretaries to resign,<br />
the president said, “Over the<br />
years, our political system has<br />
degenerated to such an extent<br />
that it’s very difficult to live<br />
within the system with hands<br />
totally untainted.”<br />
It is a theme she would repeat<br />
in subsequent speeches,<br />
most famously in her July 25<br />
State of the Nation Address. The<br />
message is clear: the problem is<br />
not me, it is the system. Many<br />
Filipinos will agree that the country’s<br />
political system is as tainted<br />
as the president has painted it.<br />
This is why, as the article in this<br />
issue, “So Young and So Trapo,”<br />
shows, even young people who<br />
are elected to the Sangguniang<br />
Kabataan end up being sucked<br />
into corruption and wheelingdealing.<br />
But Mrs. Arroyo is also<br />
being disingenuous. By scapegoating<br />
the system, she hopes to<br />
evade her own culpability.<br />
For many on both sides of<br />
the political spectrum, the problem<br />
is not just the system, but<br />
the people the president says<br />
should be entrusted to re<strong>for</strong>m<br />
it. They object to convening<br />
Congress as a constituent assembly.<br />
To them, it is like giving<br />
the most retrograde elements of<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong> polity the power<br />
to craft a new constitution<br />
that would only buttress their<br />
powers and further entrench<br />
patronage politics. Or, to put it<br />
somewhat differently, it’s like<br />
letting serial killers draft the<br />
Penal Code.<br />
It is interesting that the critics<br />
of cha-cha from both the Left and<br />
the Right are one in sensing this<br />
danger. “The biggest flaw” in the<br />
charter change proposals, writes<br />
conservative columnist Antonio<br />
Abaya of The Manila Standard,<br />
“is the fact that the constitutional<br />
amendments will be drafted by a<br />
constituent assembly made up of<br />
trapos and political dynasts who<br />
now control the present Congress<br />
and who will do everything to<br />
retain their positions, power and<br />
privileges in the new Parliament.”<br />
On the opposite end of the<br />
political spectrum, Satur Ocampo,<br />
representative of the leftist<br />
Bayan Muna party-list group<br />
says cha-cha “will not solve but<br />
even make matters even worse<br />
as they only promote cosmetic<br />
change, keep the status quo,<br />
and offer no new solutions…<br />
At the core of these proposals is<br />
the undemocratic idea of keeping<br />
Filipinos farthest away from<br />
instituting political, electoral,<br />
economic, and social re<strong>for</strong>ms.”<br />
In 1986, the 48-member<br />
commission that drafted a new<br />
constitution was made up of<br />
representatives of the Edsa constituency.<br />
They were lawyers,<br />
scholars, NGO activists, street<br />
parliamentarians, a priest and a<br />
nun, anti-Marcos politicians, even<br />
those from the radical Left. These<br />
were, broadly speaking, the<br />
re<strong>for</strong>mist elements of <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
society that were mobilized in the<br />
struggle against dictatorship. The<br />
constitution they drafted may be<br />
flawed but it had strong provisions<br />
<strong>for</strong> human rights and civil<br />
liberties. It made the president<br />
still powerful, but less powerful<br />
than it previously was, with presidential<br />
arbitrariness held in check<br />
by a powerful judiciary, an even<br />
more powerful legislature, and<br />
independent commissions and<br />
offices like that of the Ombudsman.<br />
Moreover, that constitution<br />
had provisions designed to allow<br />
broader representation, especially<br />
in Congress, through the election<br />
of party-list representatives, the<br />
imposition of term limits on all<br />
elected officials, and a curb on<br />
political dynasties.<br />
The truth is that Congress has<br />
been notoriously slow in enacting<br />
the laws that would breathe<br />
life into these provisions. It took<br />
years to pass the party-list law,<br />
and a ban on political dynasties<br />
has yet to be legislated.<br />
If Congress is left alone to<br />
think about charter change,<br />
22 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
C H A R T E R C H A N G E<br />
chances are our lawmakers will<br />
write a more regressive constitution<br />
than the one we already<br />
have. How can a body that has<br />
benefited so much from the<br />
system be expected to re<strong>for</strong>m<br />
it? The legislature has not even<br />
passed long-standing proposals<br />
<strong>for</strong> political and electoral re<strong>for</strong>ms<br />
that would, among others, place<br />
a ban on party switching, provide<br />
subsidies <strong>for</strong> political parties, and<br />
regulate campaign finance.<br />
QUICK FIXES<br />
The real impetus <strong>for</strong> the drive to<br />
change to a parliamentary system<br />
is that the trapos are threatened<br />
by the rise of media and movie<br />
celebrities and their possible<br />
dominance of the commanding<br />
heights of political power<br />
in the <strong>Philippine</strong>s—the Senate<br />
and the presidency. The quick<br />
fix they propose to this is quite<br />
simple: establish a unicameral<br />
legislature (thereby doing away<br />
with the Senate) and changing to<br />
a parliamentary system (thereby<br />
eliminating a president elected<br />
by popular vote).<br />
But the problem with beginning<br />
what Arroyo calls “the<br />
great debate on charter change”<br />
is that it could also open the<br />
floodgates <strong>for</strong> real re<strong>for</strong>ms that<br />
would threaten trapo power.<br />
And so when the president said<br />
she preferred cha-cha through<br />
con-ass (constituent assembly),<br />
de Venecia was clapping wildly.<br />
It meant a process that could be<br />
contained, as the speaker and<br />
his allies had contained similar<br />
processes in the past, within the<br />
halls of the legislature.<br />
The parliamentary system as<br />
envisioned in House Concurrent<br />
Resolution 004 passed earlier<br />
this year will pave the way <strong>for</strong><br />
trapo consolidation of political<br />
power vis-à-vis celebrities and<br />
the middle-class, modernizing,<br />
and re<strong>for</strong>mist elements that have<br />
managed to crash into the halls of<br />
power since 1986. This proposal<br />
does away with party-list, sectoral,<br />
or proportional representation.<br />
Term limits are similarly removed,<br />
while each term of elected officials<br />
will be four years instead<br />
of the current three. All members<br />
of a unicameral parliament will<br />
be elected at the district level,<br />
meaning that the power base of<br />
political families, which lies in<br />
single-member legislative districts,<br />
will remain unchallenged.<br />
In the face of resistance<br />
to the idea of constitutional<br />
re<strong>for</strong>ms, the president subsequently<br />
said she would also<br />
<strong>for</strong>m a citizen’s commission on<br />
charter change. This, as well<br />
as pressure from the outside,<br />
could <strong>for</strong>ce Congress to make<br />
more progressive constitutional<br />
changes. After all, the proposals<br />
<strong>for</strong> constitutional re<strong>for</strong>m of the<br />
likes of scholar Jose V. Abueva<br />
advocate more far-reaching<br />
changes that lie beyond the<br />
imaginings of de Venecia and<br />
his allies. (See table showing a<br />
comparison of various proposals<br />
<strong>for</strong> constitutional change.)<br />
The citizen’s commission,<br />
however, is largely intended to<br />
generate popular backing <strong>for</strong> the<br />
notion of charter change. As the<br />
May <strong>2005</strong> survey of the Social<br />
Weather Stations indicated, only<br />
about a third of Filipinos were<br />
open to the idea of cha-cha.<br />
Such indifference is also<br />
the reason why the president<br />
has endorsed a federal <strong>for</strong>m of<br />
government, which has wider<br />
support from various sectors<br />
around the country. (See “Voices<br />
from the Periphery.”) In comparison,<br />
the proposed shift to a<br />
parliamentary system has been<br />
met with far more skepticism<br />
and suspicion.<br />
THE GREAT DEBATE<br />
But all this is speculative. The<br />
main obstacle that faces cha-cha<br />
now is the Senate. Unless the<br />
Senate agrees to a con-ass, it will<br />
never happen. So far, it doesn’t<br />
seem likely that the Senate is<br />
willing to dance to the cha-cha<br />
beat. The reason is plain to see:<br />
many senators have presidential<br />
ambitions and are not about<br />
to abandon these, or <strong>for</strong> that<br />
matter, their powers and privileges<br />
as members of the “Upper<br />
House.” Moreover, many of<br />
them are looking <strong>for</strong>ward to the<br />
impeachment, if only because it<br />
will provide the senators more<br />
television time than a dozen<br />
high-profile “investigations in<br />
aid of legislation.” They would<br />
thus likely prefer to go through<br />
the impeachment trial first, be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
even discussing cha-cha.<br />
Despite this, the charterchange<br />
proponents remain<br />
hopeful. Ramos, <strong>for</strong> example,<br />
has proposed a fast track to<br />
cha-cha that would allow a<br />
referendum on the constitution<br />
in early 2006. The House timetable<br />
proposed by the likes of<br />
Rep. Constantino Jaraula sees a<br />
referendum taking place the second<br />
quarter of next year. Both,<br />
however, see a new parliament<br />
in place by 2007. This is also<br />
the graceful exit option <strong>for</strong> the<br />
president: she bows out of office<br />
and is home free of the charges<br />
she now faces.<br />
But this <strong>for</strong>mula will work<br />
only if the president is genuinely<br />
willing to cut short her term<br />
and to push <strong>for</strong> charter change<br />
as a real option, rather than as<br />
a diversion from impeachment.<br />
If cha-cha is the delaying tactic<br />
Arroyo critics say it is, then the<br />
president could just be stringing<br />
Ramos and de Venecia along.<br />
Joel Rocamora of the Institute<br />
<strong>for</strong> Popular Democracy points<br />
out that the president knows<br />
very well that by next year, legislators<br />
would be too consumed<br />
by preparations <strong>for</strong> the 2007<br />
elections <strong>for</strong> them to pay too<br />
much attention to constitutional<br />
changes. If cha-cha is delayed<br />
beyond 2007 and she is not<br />
impeached, then Gloria Arroyo<br />
remains president until 2010, he<br />
says. This is precisely the kind<br />
of brinksmanship game that Arroyo<br />
likes to play, say those who<br />
know her well.<br />
Some cautionary notes as the<br />
great debate begins: in a country<br />
with a sophisticated and resilient<br />
political elite, institutional<br />
change or shifts in the <strong>for</strong>m of<br />
government may not change<br />
very much. Our elites have<br />
shown great capacity <strong>for</strong> reinventing<br />
themselves. They adapt<br />
easily to new political circumstances<br />
and have mastered how<br />
to talk the talk of re<strong>for</strong>m, without<br />
actually walking the walk.<br />
The flaws of our political system,<br />
there<strong>for</strong>e, can be remedied<br />
not merely through a change in<br />
institutions; re<strong>for</strong>ms should include<br />
measures that would open the way<br />
<strong>for</strong> major changes in the kinds of<br />
people elected to public office. If<br />
the same families dominate political<br />
power, then nothing changes very<br />
much. If the trapo political culture<br />
of patronage and spoils remains ascendant,<br />
then it will be more of the<br />
same. The cha-cha rescue remedy<br />
could end up a mere placebo that<br />
provides temporary relief but not a<br />
lasting cure.<br />
PROPOSALS FOR CHARTER CHANGE<br />
Proposal of Jose V. Abueva*<br />
Bicameral Parliament,<br />
with Upper House<br />
composed of representatives<br />
chosen from states<br />
assemblies<br />
80% of about 300 Lower<br />
House seats elected by<br />
single-member districts;<br />
20% by proportional<br />
representation<br />
Prime minister as head of<br />
government, elected by<br />
Parliament; <strong>for</strong>ms Cabinet,<br />
mostly from members<br />
of Parliament<br />
President as symbolic<br />
head of state, elected by<br />
Parliament from among its<br />
members<br />
Federal government to be<br />
installed 5-10 years, with<br />
11 states. Federal government<br />
to have powers over<br />
defense, <strong>for</strong>eign relations,<br />
currency & monetary<br />
policy, human rights and<br />
Supreme Court & Court of<br />
Appeals. All other powers,<br />
including taxation, to be<br />
devolved to states.<br />
House Proposal**<br />
Unicameral Parliament<br />
called the National Assembly<br />
All seats to be elected by<br />
single-member districts,<br />
assembly members to serve<br />
4-year terms, no term limits<br />
Prime Minister as head of<br />
government, elected by<br />
Parliament; <strong>for</strong>ms Cabinet,<br />
majority of which should be<br />
from Parliament<br />
President as symbolic<br />
head of state, elected by<br />
Parliament from among its<br />
members<br />
Federal government to be<br />
installed in 10 years, with<br />
the National assembly to<br />
decide how many independent<br />
states there would be,<br />
and their powers<br />
Coalition <strong>for</strong> Charter Change <strong>No</strong>w***<br />
Unicameral Parliament<br />
300 seats in Parliament, 240 <strong>for</strong><br />
district representatives, 60 <strong>for</strong> partylist<br />
representatives serving 5-year<br />
terms. <strong>No</strong> party-switching 1 year<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e election. Only those who are<br />
members of a political party <strong>for</strong> at<br />
least 1 year are qualified to run.<br />
Prime Minister as head of government,<br />
elected by Parliament; <strong>for</strong>ms<br />
Cabinet, majority of which should be<br />
from Parliament<br />
President as symbolic head of<br />
state, elected by direct vote <strong>for</strong> a<br />
5-year term<br />
Federal Parliament to enact a law 1<br />
year after new constitution, to create<br />
11 states, most of which will be<br />
established within 5-6 years. Federal<br />
government to have powers over<br />
defense, <strong>for</strong>eign affairs, currency,<br />
<strong>for</strong>eign trade, public debt, transport<br />
& communications. All other powers,<br />
including taxation, given to states.<br />
*Abueva is on the board of the Citizens’ Movement <strong>for</strong> a Federal <strong>Philippine</strong>s and has been named<br />
member of a citizen’s commission on constitutional re<strong>for</strong>ms that will be convened by the government.<br />
** The House proposal is contained in House Concurrent Resolution 004 filed earlier this year. According<br />
to Rep. Constantino Jaraula, this resolution will be the basis of discussions to be undertaken<br />
by Congress once it is convened as a constituent assembly to amend the constitution.<br />
*** The Coalition is nongovernment, but its members are closely associated with House Speaker<br />
Jose de Venecia.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
23
LIGHTS,<br />
CAMERA,<br />
IMPEACHMENT!<br />
ALECKS P. PABICO<br />
as<br />
WW H E N<br />
MILLIONS<br />
of Filipinos<br />
were glued<br />
to their TV<br />
s e t s d u r -<br />
ing the impeachment<br />
trial of President<br />
Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada almost<br />
five years ago, the leader on the<br />
dock was decidedly even more<br />
colorful than the characters he<br />
used to portray in his old action<br />
flicks. In terms of sheer showbiz<br />
value, the Estrada impeachment<br />
did not disappoint.<br />
The opposition today says an<br />
impeachment trial starring President<br />
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo<br />
would also be the best show in<br />
town. But all they are eliciting<br />
so far are yawns. It’s not just<br />
because Arroyo as a subject is a<br />
bit of a snore or even that we’ve<br />
all been there and done that.<br />
More than anything else, it has<br />
just become too obvious that the<br />
opposition has yet to get its act<br />
together. Many also find themselves<br />
overpowered by a sense of<br />
moral ambiguity at the sight of an<br />
opposition cast of characters that<br />
includes the “usual suspects,” that<br />
is, politicians who are perceived,<br />
rightly or wrongly, to be at least<br />
villainous as the person they<br />
are trying to impeach.<br />
Throw in enough legal questions<br />
and gobbledygook to slow<br />
the process and you might just<br />
as well turn off all the lights and<br />
send everyone home.<br />
The administration’s gameplan<br />
is quite obvious. Unlike in<br />
Estrada’s case where he had the<br />
numbers in the Senate to block his<br />
conviction, Arroyo is not assured<br />
of such a balance of <strong>for</strong>ces in the<br />
current composition of the upper<br />
chamber to snare an acquittal <strong>for</strong><br />
herself. Hence, the impeachment<br />
promises to be a fierce battle over<br />
technicalities to be fought in the<br />
arena of the House.<br />
But the opposition in the<br />
House insists the show will go<br />
on, even though its “creeping”<br />
impeachment complaint is at<br />
a standstill at the moment. It<br />
has even begun picking who<br />
among its legislators could be<br />
part of the House prosecution<br />
panel, which it has decided will<br />
be headed by San Juan Rep. Ronaldo<br />
Zamora. And of course it<br />
insists that there were only two<br />
complaints filed, one of which<br />
has already been withdrawn.<br />
NOT ONCE, BUT<br />
THRICE?<br />
Political analyst Ramon Casiple<br />
of the Institute <strong>for</strong> Political and<br />
Electoral Re<strong>for</strong>m (IPER) says he<br />
had this sneaking suspicion early<br />
on that the issue of multiple<br />
complaints would be brought<br />
up, since there is a Supreme<br />
Court ruling that allows only<br />
one impeachment case against<br />
impeachable public officials in<br />
a year. He was proved right;<br />
the question regarding “three”<br />
impeachment complaints has<br />
been raised.<br />
The first impeachment complaint<br />
against Arroyo was filed<br />
by Marcos lawyer Oliver Lozano<br />
on June 27. This later evolved<br />
into the amended complaint<br />
filed by the minority and initially<br />
endorsed by 41 congressmen<br />
when the 13th Congress<br />
opened <strong>for</strong> its second regular<br />
session on July 25. The amended<br />
complaint expanded on Lozano’s<br />
lone charge of betrayal<br />
of public trust arising from Arroyo’s<br />
alleged taped conversations<br />
to include two other impeachable<br />
grounds—culpable<br />
violations of the Constitution,<br />
and bribery and graft and corruption.<br />
Among the charges under<br />
these grounds are:<br />
• undermining the independence<br />
of the Commission on<br />
Elections (Comelec),<br />
•-cover-up of evidence of<br />
electoral fraud,<br />
• overpricing of the <strong>No</strong>rth<br />
Rail and Piatco airport terminal<br />
projects,<br />
• releasing Philhealth cards<br />
and use of other government<br />
funds <strong>for</strong> electioneering,<br />
• benefiting from jueteng<br />
payoffs,<br />
• hiding real estate in the<br />
United States, and<br />
• complicity in the murder of<br />
political activists.<br />
On July 5, a second complaint<br />
also accusing Arroyo of<br />
betraying the public trust was<br />
filed by a private citizen, lawyer<br />
Jose Rizaldo Lopez, and was endorsed<br />
by Palawan Rep. Antonio<br />
Alvarez of the Lakas-CMD. It<br />
has since been withdrawn, but<br />
now the amended complaint is<br />
being considered as a separate<br />
or third complaint. That’s because<br />
Alagad party-list Rep. Rodante<br />
Marcoleta, who endorsed<br />
the Lozano complaint, says he<br />
was not consulted about the<br />
amendments.<br />
Iloilo Rep. Rolex Suplico,<br />
however, argues, “An endorser<br />
does not become the complainant<br />
by his mere endorsement.<br />
As such, he acquires no rights<br />
over the complaint. His prior<br />
consent need not be obtained<br />
if the complainant (Lozano)<br />
desires to amend the original<br />
complaint.”<br />
“CREEPING” COMPLAINT<br />
QUESTIONED<br />
But whether or not the amendments<br />
should be considered a<br />
separate complaint is only one<br />
in a growing list of legal issues<br />
pro-administration lawmakers<br />
have put on the table. Another<br />
concerns the “creeping” impeachment<br />
adopted by the opposition<br />
and which was also the<br />
route taken by those who had<br />
pushed <strong>for</strong> the impeachment<br />
of President Estrada in 2000.<br />
At the time, fewer than 20 congressmen<br />
filed the complaint<br />
against Estrada. Once it had the<br />
needed number of signatories,<br />
though, then House Speaker<br />
(now Senator) Manuel Villar<br />
Jr. immediately transmitted the<br />
articles of impeachment to the<br />
Senate without waiting <strong>for</strong> the<br />
report of the justice committee.<br />
When it was filed, the<br />
amended impeachment complaint<br />
against Arroyo had only<br />
41 congressmen endorsing it.<br />
As of this writing, it has 10 more<br />
signatories. But now some lawmakers<br />
like Davao Rep. Prospero<br />
<strong>No</strong>grales say the rules do not<br />
24 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
I M P E A C H M E N T<br />
allow <strong>for</strong> a “creeping” impeachment.<br />
Justice committee chair,<br />
Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong<br />
of Lakas also says<br />
that the complaint stays with the<br />
committee and can no longer be<br />
transmitted to the Senate.<br />
Opposition legislators and<br />
the private lawyers working<br />
with them of course beg to<br />
disagree. They say the resolution<br />
of impeachment is different<br />
from the resolution of endorsement<br />
by congressmen.<br />
“Anytime during the process,<br />
once they have the numbers,<br />
congressmen can just file a<br />
resolution saying that they are<br />
endorsing the complaint so it<br />
can immediately be transmitted<br />
to the Senate,” says University<br />
of the <strong>Philippine</strong>s law professor<br />
Ibarra Gutierrez III.<br />
Actually, the minority and the<br />
other impeachment-complaint<br />
endorsers had wanted to avoid<br />
a confrontation at the justice<br />
committee where the odds are<br />
definitely stacked against them.<br />
But they found themselves with<br />
no option other than filing the<br />
amended complaint even with<br />
less than the 79 signatures to<br />
avoid, ironically, being slapped<br />
with a technicality.<br />
“For the amendment to be<br />
included, it had to be filed be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
the referral of the complaint<br />
to the justice committee,”<br />
says lawyer H. Harry Roque Jr.,<br />
another UP law professor and<br />
private counsel <strong>for</strong> the House<br />
prosecution panel.<br />
Congress insiders reveal that<br />
there were at least a dozen congressmen<br />
who committed to<br />
sign the complaint but whose<br />
signatures were missing when<br />
it was filed. Some of these are<br />
members of the majority who<br />
could just be waiting <strong>for</strong> the<br />
right moment to affix their signatures.<br />
Others are said to be<br />
wary of being lumped together<br />
with the minority, and want<br />
to distinguish themselves from<br />
the bloc led by Sorsogon Rep.<br />
Francis Escudero, the House<br />
prosecution team’s designated<br />
manager and the opposition’s<br />
most credible face.<br />
IPER’s Casiple notes that during<br />
Estrada’s time, there were<br />
also fencesitters who adopted<br />
a wait-and-see posture. “Villar<br />
did not sign until the count<br />
reached 68 and needed only 10<br />
more votes,” he recalls. “When<br />
he finally signed, it served as<br />
a go signal <strong>for</strong> his allies in the<br />
House <strong>for</strong> them to also affix<br />
their signatures.”<br />
A HOUSE REHASH<br />
So let’s say the complaint survives<br />
what seems like an attempted<br />
murder by numbers in<br />
the House. To many, the first<br />
few scenes of the main act at<br />
the Senate may not look that<br />
different from the prologue now<br />
being played out in the House.<br />
Even Gutierrez, who will work<br />
as a private lawyer <strong>for</strong> the<br />
prosecution, says, “I anticipate<br />
that they will raise all sorts of<br />
technical questions and insufficiencies.<br />
Like in Erap’s trial, the<br />
defense won’t immediately file<br />
an answer. They will probably<br />
file a motion to dismiss or motion<br />
to quash like what (Estrada<br />
lawyer) Estelito Mendoza did.”<br />
He also says part of Arroyo’s<br />
legal strategy could be to try to<br />
suppress as much evidence as<br />
possible without turning the<br />
proceedings into a “second envelope”<br />
situation. “They will be<br />
more conscious of that now,”<br />
says Gutierrez. “But they cannot<br />
af<strong>for</strong>d to let it get out of hand<br />
to the extent that all sorts of<br />
charges will come out in open<br />
court. It would be very politically<br />
damaging.”<br />
Some observers are already<br />
anticipating that debates would<br />
break out over whether the<br />
“Hello, Garci” tapes are admissible<br />
as evidence or not. Should<br />
they be suppressed, there could<br />
be a replay of the “second envelope”<br />
scenario, albeit with<br />
many people knowing this time<br />
around what the tapes contain.<br />
But Gutierrez argues, “If they<br />
object and invoke the right to<br />
privacy, in effect they admit that<br />
it was her. That would be very<br />
damaging, maybe not in terms<br />
of the trial, but in the public<br />
perception.”<br />
“The bar against using<br />
wiretapped conversations<br />
clearly applies in courts, in<br />
nonconstitutional processes,”<br />
he concedes. “(But) since the<br />
impeachment trial is sui generis<br />
(of its own kind), constitutionally<br />
mandated, the implication<br />
is the Senate can come up with<br />
its own rules, including making<br />
the wiretapped conversations<br />
admissible <strong>for</strong> purposes of<br />
this particular process, without<br />
violating the nature of the impeachment<br />
trial.”<br />
Since impeachment proceedings<br />
are also not criminal<br />
in nature, and in fact constitute<br />
a political process to determine,<br />
in this case, whether or not Arroyo<br />
is fit to remain in office,<br />
the prohibition can be waived.<br />
Cases decided in the United<br />
States have admitted wiretapped<br />
material when there is a<br />
public interest involved.<br />
BEYOND THE TAPES<br />
Then again, Roque says their<br />
legal strategy is not limited to<br />
the tapes, anyway. “If at all, the<br />
tapes are only third on our list,”<br />
he says. “Our first and strongest<br />
ground is that President Arroyo<br />
talked to a Comelec commissioner.<br />
The fact that she violated<br />
her duties to execute all laws,<br />
undermining the constitutional<br />
independence of the Comelec<br />
is itself a culpable violation of<br />
the Constitution.”<br />
As to the second ground<br />
concerning election fraud,<br />
which was detailed in the tapes,<br />
Roque says they can prove it<br />
through independent evidence<br />
like tampered election returns<br />
and witnesses (including Garcillano’s<br />
nephew and self-confessed<br />
bagman Michaelangelo<br />
‘Louie’ Zuce). “All the events<br />
in the tapes actually happened,”<br />
he adds. “It’s as simple<br />
as subpoena-ing the individuals<br />
involved to reconstruct the<br />
contents of the tapes. Besides,<br />
there’s the admission that she<br />
talked to a Comelec official.”<br />
Such words may not com<strong>for</strong>t<br />
those who already think<br />
the opposition has been too<br />
obsessed with presenting witnesses<br />
and doing public exposés<br />
instead of devoting their<br />
time to hard, honest-to-goodness<br />
research. Some veteran litigators<br />
have also pointed to the<br />
THEN AND NOW. (Above)<br />
Senators opening evidence<br />
during the Estrada impeachment<br />
and below, opposition legislators<br />
gear up <strong>for</strong> Arroyo’s trial.<br />
relative court inexperience of<br />
the prosecuting team. That includes<br />
one-time bar topnotcher<br />
Zamora, who has admitted that<br />
if the impeachment trial pushes<br />
through, it would be his chance<br />
to finally take part in an actual<br />
trial.<br />
Yet in the end, the real<br />
drama may unfold not at the<br />
Senate, but elsewhere. As in<br />
Estrada’s case, events around<br />
the trial could determine the<br />
outcome and resolution to this<br />
long drawn-out, mind-numbing<br />
political serye. As Casiple<br />
sees it, the impeachment is only<br />
meant to buy Arroyo some time<br />
so her wards could turn around<br />
the adverse public opinion<br />
against her.<br />
“Unless the opposition or the<br />
people develop the capacity to<br />
get her out, it’s just going to be<br />
a political stalemate,” predicts<br />
Casiple. But if there is an obvious<br />
failure of the process, an extraconstitutional<br />
backlash in the<br />
<strong>for</strong>m of another “people power”<br />
revolt may become imminent.<br />
When that happens, Casiple says<br />
people will have a higher moral<br />
reason to do so “because they<br />
think she already cheated, and<br />
now she’s cheating again.”<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
25
For Visayans, the<br />
center does not hold<br />
RESIL B. MOJARES<br />
T<br />
HE IDEA of a Fed-<br />
eral Republic was<br />
already raised at<br />
the time of the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
Revolution.<br />
In 1898, when the<br />
Aguinaldo government<br />
had not yet established its<br />
presence in the Visayas, leaders<br />
in Iloilo took the initiative of<br />
<strong>for</strong>ming “The Federal State of<br />
the Visayas,” anticipating the<br />
<strong>for</strong>mation of a federal republic<br />
with three states: Luzon, Visayas,<br />
and Mindanao.<br />
In 1899, a group of “eminent<br />
Filipinos” submitted to the US<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> Commission a draft<br />
<strong>for</strong> a Federal Republic of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s, which proposed<br />
to divide the country into 11<br />
regions or states. In 1900, the<br />
maverick Ilocano intellectual<br />
Isabelo de los Reyes also published<br />
a proposal <strong>for</strong> a federal<br />
constitution that would divide<br />
the country into seven states.<br />
These ideas were not developed<br />
because of the Aguinaldo<br />
government’s need to create a<br />
unitary state with strong central<br />
powers to fight a war. The federal<br />
alternative was also rejected by<br />
the US <strong>Philippine</strong> Commission<br />
(on the grounds of Filipino<br />
unpreparedness <strong>for</strong> the system)<br />
and the idea was completely<br />
swamped as the United States<br />
consolidated its rule and set the<br />
country on track toward a unitary<br />
<strong>for</strong>m of government. The<br />
goal of federalism, however, has<br />
persisted as a recurrent theme<br />
in debates on the best structure<br />
of government <strong>for</strong> the country.<br />
In the 1971 Constitutional<br />
Convention, <strong>for</strong> instance, the<br />
shift to a federal system was<br />
strongly supported by many of<br />
the Muslim delegates as well<br />
as other Christian and Muslim<br />
leaders and intellectuals. In the<br />
1980s, Reuben Canoy’s Mindanao<br />
Independence Movement<br />
proposed a “Federal Republic<br />
of Mindanao” and produced as<br />
part of its propaganda campaign<br />
a constitution, passports, and the<br />
Mindanao dollar.<br />
The accumulation of experiences—enabling<br />
as well as disabling—under<br />
the 1991 Local Government<br />
Code and the creation<br />
of autonomous regions has built<br />
a consensus that decentralization<br />
GOING FEDERAL. Those living<br />
in the country’s periphery,<br />
like these Negros sugarcane<br />
workers, have always felt<br />
neglected by “imperial” Manila.<br />
has to be pushed <strong>for</strong>ward. There<br />
are those who hold the view of<br />
“maximum decentralization short<br />
of federalization” and there is<br />
genuine anxiety over the prospect<br />
of such a radical structural shift<br />
as federalization. There is lack of<br />
consensus about the exact shape<br />
of federalism to be adopted, and<br />
the discourse has stayed largely<br />
at the level of leaders rather than<br />
among the people themselves.<br />
Yet federalism has moved<br />
clearly to the center of discussions<br />
on constitutional re<strong>for</strong>m.<br />
It has become even more urgent<br />
because of today’s crisis at the<br />
center. At no other time has the<br />
level of public frustration about<br />
how our unitary presidential<br />
system works been highest as<br />
now. Disillusion with the system<br />
is such that there are leaders in<br />
Davao, Cebu, and the Ilocos who<br />
have publicly declared that if<br />
the present crisis in Manila spins<br />
out of control, their respective<br />
regions will “withdraw” from<br />
Manila and declare their “independence.”<br />
This is not just political<br />
theatrics but an expression of<br />
deep frustration over the central<br />
government. This has made federalism<br />
a vital concern.<br />
A CENTRAL VISAYAN<br />
STATE<br />
Central Visayas may be among<br />
the best positioned <strong>for</strong> a transition<br />
to a federal state. This is<br />
because it is a fairly definable,<br />
self-conscious unit on linguistic<br />
cultural (high degree of homogeneity<br />
in language and religion),<br />
geographic (it is internally well<br />
connected), economic, and political<br />
grounds.<br />
Cebu, the region’s de facto<br />
capital, has a tradition of local<br />
autonomy supported by such<br />
factors as geographic location<br />
(distance from Manila, strategic<br />
location in the South), cultural<br />
difference (chiefly, language),<br />
and economic and political base<br />
(southern economic hub, Cebuano<br />
cultural “homeland”).<br />
Its leaders have built on Cebu’s<br />
reputation as a rival center<br />
to Manila and styled themselves<br />
political vanguards of “local autonomy.”<br />
This is clearly illustrated<br />
by the Osmeñas, the region’s most<br />
influential and enduring political<br />
family. In the early 20 th<br />
century,<br />
when unitary state-building was<br />
the imperative, Sergio Osmeña<br />
Sr. styled himself as the “apostle<br />
of national unity.” In the postwar<br />
period, when the inefficiency<br />
of central government was the<br />
popular lament, Sergio Osmeña Jr.<br />
(gearing up <strong>for</strong> a national position<br />
as chair of the League of Provincial<br />
Governors and City Mayors in<br />
1957) billed himself “champion<br />
of local autonomy.” With the<br />
distrust of central government<br />
heightened by the experience of<br />
martial rule and the perceived<br />
weakness of the post-EDSA governments,<br />
other Osmeñas put<br />
themselves at the <strong>for</strong>efront of the<br />
local autonomy movement. In<br />
1991, Emilio ‘Lito’ Osmeña, running<br />
<strong>for</strong> vice president under Fidel<br />
Ramos’s Lakas-NUCD, <strong>for</strong>med the<br />
Local Autonomy Movement of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s. In the same election,<br />
his brother John, also eyeing the<br />
vice presidency (later settling<br />
<strong>for</strong> a senatorial seat), <strong>for</strong>med a<br />
registered political organization,<br />
Pilipinas 1992, that advocated<br />
federalism.<br />
Yet while the relation between<br />
the region and the center<br />
is contested, the discourse on<br />
politics in the region has always<br />
been one of local power in the<br />
context of the unitary state. The<br />
region has never harbored a<br />
secessionist movement; it is the<br />
seat of what may be called “conservative<br />
anti-centralism.”<br />
26 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
V O I C E S F R O M T H E P E R I P H E R Y<br />
SHIFTS IN THINKING<br />
Over the past century, claims<br />
on local power by Cebuano<br />
leaders have been expressed in<br />
three ways: exercising control<br />
over local territory, usually limited<br />
to a municipality or district<br />
(classic “bossism”); carving out<br />
a base to leverage national influence<br />
(which includes alliance<br />
building and indirect power<br />
over a more extensive territory<br />
like a region); or building “autonomous<br />
regions” (in relations<br />
of avoidance or negotiation<br />
with the central government).<br />
I would like to think that there<br />
has been through time a shift<br />
from one pole to the other (at<br />
least in Cebu’s case), a shift<br />
among local and regional leaders<br />
from “thinking nationally”<br />
(using a local base <strong>for</strong> a raid<br />
on national power) to “thinking<br />
regionally” (seeing the region<br />
as itself a meaningful, sufficient,<br />
and effective arena <strong>for</strong> political<br />
action). It is a sea of change that<br />
fosters political conditions more<br />
favorable to federalism. This is<br />
true not only of the Osmeñas. It<br />
may be noted that major political<br />
leaders in the region are supportive<br />
of federalism.<br />
We are speaking not just of<br />
the self-interested maneuvers<br />
of political leaders. “Regional<br />
thinking” is part of a public,<br />
region-based consciousness of<br />
separateness and difference.<br />
Regional autonomist sentiment<br />
is illustrated, <strong>for</strong> instance, in the<br />
Pusyon Bisaya phenomenon of<br />
the martial-law period. In the<br />
1978 elections <strong>for</strong> the Interim<br />
National Assembly, 13 seats were<br />
contested in the Central Visayas.<br />
A ragtag opposition group called<br />
Pusyon Bisaya fielded a slate of<br />
relative unknowns against a stellar<br />
ticket of Marcos’s Kilusang<br />
Bagong Lipunan that included<br />
the biggest political leaders of<br />
the region (Osmeña, Durano,<br />
Cuenco, Gullas). In a wave of<br />
popular, anti-dictatorship sentiment,<br />
Pusyon Bisaya wiped out<br />
Marcos’s candidates, 13 to 0. An<br />
observer at that time said, “Even<br />
if the opposition had fielded a<br />
dog against the Marcos candidates,<br />
the dog would have won.”<br />
This was in 1978, at the height of<br />
martial rule. What has not been<br />
well noted is that the first public<br />
manifestations of middle-class<br />
protest against the dictatorship<br />
took place in the Central Visayas<br />
even be<strong>for</strong>e the 1983 Aquino<br />
assassination.<br />
Autonomist sentiments became<br />
pronounced in the late 1980s<br />
during the so-called “Ce-Boom”<br />
when, in a national context of<br />
negative growth, Cebu became the<br />
country’s fastest growing economy.<br />
The Central Visayas gross domestic<br />
product posted an average growth<br />
rate of 17.4 percent from 1987 to<br />
1991. Though this tapered off to<br />
11.5 percent in 1992-1997, it fueled<br />
a can-do attitude among Cebuano<br />
and other Visayan leaders.<br />
This show of autonomy began<br />
even be<strong>for</strong>e martial rule when<br />
Cebuano leaders tried to build on<br />
self-initiative to develop the local<br />
economy independent of Manila.<br />
An example is the “Island in the Pacific”<br />
tourism promotion campaign<br />
that marketed Cebu as though it<br />
was not part of the <strong>Philippine</strong>s.<br />
After the fall of Marcos, riding the<br />
crest of market optimism, Cebuano<br />
and other Central Visayan leaders<br />
BITING THE BAIT. Many in the<br />
provinces support the president’s<br />
suggestion to shift to a federal<br />
<strong>for</strong>m of government.<br />
launched initiatives to promote<br />
the regional economy independent<br />
of Manila, even envisioning<br />
(in a flush of hubris) Cebu as a<br />
global city (“like Hong Kong or<br />
Singapore”) delinked from the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s. The attitude of Manila-defiant<br />
entrepreneurship is<br />
expressed by a Cebuano leader<br />
who, when warned that a project<br />
may not get Manila’s approval,<br />
said, “If Manila does not approve,<br />
we’ll go ahead anyway.”<br />
CENTERS AND<br />
ENCLAVES<br />
A major concern in the creation<br />
of federal states is that this will<br />
lead to the entrenchment of<br />
bossism and dynastic enclaves.<br />
<strong>Center</strong>-periphery conflicts will<br />
also persist, although relocated<br />
to the regional level.<br />
Bossism will continue to be<br />
a problem. There are factors,<br />
however, that will contribute to<br />
its enervation or mutation: the<br />
strengthening of state institutions,<br />
regional economic development,<br />
and continued ef<strong>for</strong>ts in decentralization<br />
and development initiatives<br />
that give primacy to community<br />
mobilization and participatory approaches.<br />
These factors will have<br />
greater efficacy or <strong>for</strong>ce if played<br />
out in a federal (rather than unitary)<br />
context where negotiations<br />
are close range rather than long<br />
distance, external interventions are<br />
held in check, and demands <strong>for</strong> accountability<br />
and transparency can<br />
be exercised more effectively.<br />
Consider the current controversy<br />
over the division of<br />
Cebu province into four separate<br />
provinces. Spearheaded by three<br />
congressional representatives<br />
who want to carve out their<br />
districts into separate provinces,<br />
the bill to create “four Cebus” has<br />
been filed in Congress and set<br />
<strong>for</strong> committee hearings in July.<br />
Here one has a case of districtlevel<br />
bosses who aim to combine<br />
local control with access to the<br />
national legislature (with its traditional<br />
practice of horse trading<br />
on bills of “local application”)<br />
in order to gain greater share of<br />
local and national resources and,<br />
in the process, carve out local<br />
fiefdoms. A federal system will<br />
not <strong>for</strong>estall conflicts of this kind<br />
but may provide a better context<br />
in dealing with the problem.<br />
In Central Visayas, centermargin<br />
tensions have already<br />
been manifested in complaints<br />
about “imperial Cebu.” In the late<br />
1980s, Negros Occidental Gov.<br />
Emilio Macias II, smarting at Cebu’s<br />
dominance, demanded that the<br />
province pay “tribute” <strong>for</strong> its use<br />
of power from a geothermal plant<br />
in Negros Oriental. In 1995, Boholanos<br />
resisted a Cebu-initiated plan<br />
to build a 30-km undersea pipeline<br />
that would pump water daily from<br />
the Inabanga River in Bohol to<br />
storage facilities in Mactan.<br />
INTERDEPENDENCE<br />
DESPITE IMBALANCE<br />
While these examples point to<br />
intraregional imbalance, they<br />
also underline the reality of intraregional<br />
interdependence. Despite<br />
its primacy, land-poor, water- and<br />
energy-deficient Cebu needs, to<br />
put in crudely, a “hinterland.”<br />
(Shopping malls in Cebu, <strong>for</strong><br />
instance, have profited from highspeed<br />
ferries transporting shoppers<br />
from neighboring islands.)<br />
Moreover, economic changes<br />
like improved transport and communications,<br />
greater capital mobility,<br />
and flexible business siting<br />
(as the new economy opens up<br />
new production sites, e.g. from<br />
coal mines to call centers) will<br />
affect the base of local bosses by<br />
allowing new areas to be opened<br />
<strong>for</strong> development and hence be<br />
empowered politically. The expansion<br />
of tourism in Bohol and<br />
plans to market Negros Oriental<br />
as an in<strong>for</strong>mation technology hub<br />
will empower these provinces in<br />
relation to Cebu. Some Cebuano<br />
leaders have already put <strong>for</strong>th<br />
the idea that if a “Federal State<br />
of Central and Eastern Visayas”<br />
were to be created, they would<br />
support locating the state capital<br />
in Leyte to prime development in<br />
eastern Visayas and open a new<br />
corridor connecting the region to<br />
both Luzon and Mindanao.<br />
All this may be an overly optimistic<br />
view but when one does<br />
not find much cause <strong>for</strong> optimism<br />
looking toward Manila, one has<br />
to look <strong>for</strong> it elsewhere.<br />
Over 100 years ago, Jose Rizal<br />
had a vision of the country as a<br />
single, healthy, vitally functioning<br />
nervous system, a highly intricate<br />
but wonderfully coordinated network<br />
in which neurological impulses<br />
travel throughout the body,<br />
to and from the cortex, the stem,<br />
the senses, processing what comes<br />
in from outside as well as what<br />
happens within the body itself.<br />
This centralized, unitary system<br />
is not working. The <strong>for</strong>ebrain<br />
is diseased, the spinal<br />
column eroded, the senses disoriented<br />
or deadened. There is a<br />
nervousness coursing throughout<br />
the system, a chronic state<br />
of instability, but parts of the<br />
body are not quite sure what is<br />
happening, and are not moving<br />
according to the same signals.<br />
Today it seems the body<br />
politic is all “nervousness” and<br />
no system. It is time the body is<br />
reconfigured.<br />
Resil Mojares is based in Cebu<br />
and has authored several books<br />
on <strong>Philippine</strong> politics, history,<br />
and literature.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
27
The Moro people can be<br />
part of a plural society<br />
without losing their identity<br />
OMAR SOLITARIO ALI<br />
T<br />
HE 500 years of virtu-<br />
ally continuous war<br />
against the Moro<br />
people—launched<br />
in the beginning by<br />
the Spaniards, the<br />
Americans, the Japanese,<br />
and then the <strong>Philippine</strong> government<br />
<strong>for</strong> the last 58 years—is<br />
proof enough that the Moro cannot<br />
be annihilated through massacres,<br />
using paramilitary marauders<br />
(Ilaga), depopulating communities<br />
and grabbing land, establishing<br />
Christian settlements in Moro areas,<br />
burning whole villages, hamletting,<br />
ear-cutting, and other inhuman<br />
methods. Up till now, the Moro<br />
stand tall despite heavy battering<br />
by mighty <strong>for</strong>ces.<br />
Some elements of the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
military, some political leaders,<br />
and some business groups had this<br />
notion that the insurgents should<br />
be terminated by <strong>for</strong>ce; that there<br />
is no way to lick them through<br />
peace; that they are a negligible<br />
portion of the population—15,000<br />
armed followers, 2,500 full timers,<br />
40,000 mass support or roughly<br />
one percent of the five million<br />
Muslims in the <strong>Philippine</strong>s. But<br />
that is oversimplification. There is<br />
no way to terminate that 55,000 or<br />
so without collaterally damaging,<br />
affecting, or converting the entire<br />
Moro population, thereby making<br />
the war mutually destructive and<br />
unending.<br />
Conversely, after five centuries<br />
of Moro resistance to <strong>for</strong>eign domination,<br />
after 33 years of the latest<br />
phase of Moro conflict that began<br />
in 1970, the Moro insurgents and<br />
the people in general should by<br />
now accept the fact that there is no<br />
<strong>for</strong>eseeable victory in the coming<br />
century if the goal remains carving<br />
out a portion of <strong>Philippine</strong> territory<br />
to establish an independent republic<br />
ruled by Muslims. If victory were<br />
really possible then they should<br />
have won in the early 1970s when<br />
they were a united front; when<br />
the Organization of the Islamic<br />
Conference (OIC) was extending<br />
unlimited financial, material and<br />
political support; when the Moro<br />
masses were solidly behind them;<br />
when the United States was pinned<br />
down by détente or the Russian<br />
factor and unable to declare itself<br />
the policeman of the world.<br />
FACING HARD REALITIES<br />
Today Moro insurgents are deeply<br />
fragmented. A great number of<br />
them are with the government or<br />
have decided to lie low. The OIC<br />
will no longer support armed<br />
struggles. The Moro people as a<br />
support base has tremendously<br />
weakened or lost hope in the<br />
Moro insurgents. <strong>No</strong>w the United<br />
States as the self-declared antiterrorist<br />
crusader of the world is<br />
alert and eager to go after Muslim<br />
insurgents wherever they may<br />
be, and especially if they can be<br />
declared terrorists.<br />
The Moro Islamic Liberation<br />
Front’s (MILF) desire <strong>for</strong> a United<br />
Nations-supervised referendum is<br />
actually not feasible. That worked<br />
in East Timor because the Christians<br />
there were united and firm<br />
in their desire to secede from Indonesia.<br />
The Moro people are not<br />
that united in a desire <strong>for</strong> secession<br />
and the MILF will surely not<br />
be allowed to coercively influence<br />
the outcome of a referendum.<br />
The hindrances to peace are<br />
tremendous. Our constitution is<br />
deemed sacred even if fighting<br />
can be avoided just by restructuring<br />
the system of government as<br />
allowed and provided <strong>for</strong> in that<br />
same charter. There are some<br />
influential chauvinistic Filipinos in<br />
Luzon and especially in Mindanao<br />
who want nothing less than continuing<br />
and completing the crusade<br />
to terminate Islam and Muslims<br />
in this country. They think<br />
that after five centuries, success<br />
is near, with the Muslims driven<br />
from Luzon and the Visayas and<br />
now restricted to only a third of<br />
Mindanao. For full political and<br />
economic takeover of Mindanao<br />
to happen, what remains only is<br />
to finish Muslims off.<br />
It will take a strong-willed<br />
and broader-thinking <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
leader to go beyond the subjective<br />
analysis and recommendations<br />
of interest groups and<br />
reverse our maladies. We must<br />
begin by accepting the hard fact:<br />
there is no military solution to the<br />
conflict. The antidote is peaceful,<br />
political and diplomatic.<br />
AN ACCIDENTAL STATE<br />
Our policy makers must make<br />
a delicate and radical decision.<br />
They must re-diagnose this country<br />
in order to affirm the fact that<br />
it is pluralistic. This is one state<br />
by accident of history but not<br />
one nation because nationhood<br />
is ethno-linguistic, religious,<br />
cultural, historical, artistic, and<br />
serial. The Moro as far as nationhood<br />
is concerned is truly distinct<br />
from that of the Filipino.<br />
The Cordillera people, the<br />
Bicolanos, the Ilocanos, the Cebuanos,<br />
the Ilonggos of Western<br />
Visayas, the Warays of Eastern<br />
Visayas, those of the Cagayan<br />
Valley, the Tagalogs, those in<br />
Eastern Mindanao and <strong>No</strong>rthern<br />
Mindanao—all of them are<br />
lumped under one system and<br />
one rule of conduct. But they are<br />
all basically different. In each of<br />
their habitats, there are traditions<br />
and commonly accepted norms<br />
which other areas or regions<br />
might consider unacceptable.<br />
The <strong>Philippine</strong> government<br />
and the MILF are negotiating and<br />
talking about cessation of hostilities,<br />
ancestral domain, economic<br />
development, demilitarization<br />
and rehabilitation. But there has<br />
been constant violation of past<br />
agreements because there are no<br />
broad parameters, political systems,<br />
or structure of government<br />
that will give way to mutual tolerance,<br />
coexistence, productive<br />
competition or unity in diversity<br />
tailored to the temperament,<br />
ethnicity, and plurality of <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
society.<br />
Federalism is thus proposed as<br />
possible savior of the peoples of<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong>s. Federalism is the<br />
embodiment of unity in diversity of<br />
productive competition, of mutual<br />
tolerance and coexistence, of giving<br />
way to plurality yet not giving<br />
away belongingness, of encouraging<br />
the optimum use of latent skills<br />
and resources in every region, of<br />
allowing the free advocacy and<br />
practice of distinct cultures and<br />
religion, of self-determination and<br />
autonomy in every region, of making<br />
each region responsible <strong>for</strong> its<br />
own future instead of relying and<br />
then blaming an overburdened<br />
central government.<br />
A TRIPLE SUCCESS<br />
In a federal <strong>for</strong>m of government,<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong>s will be subdivided<br />
into states, each of which will have<br />
a state constitution providing <strong>for</strong><br />
laws in consonance and complementary<br />
with a federal or national<br />
charter. Each state will have its<br />
own Supreme Court, legislature,<br />
and executive branch headed<br />
by a chief minister. All states will<br />
be contributing portions of their<br />
income to sustain the efficient<br />
functioning of the country, such<br />
as national defense, finance, and<br />
<strong>for</strong>eign service. But instead of the<br />
national government distributing<br />
IRA (internal revenue allotment)<br />
shares, congressional countryside<br />
funds, and the like, the states will<br />
be in control of their regional resources.<br />
The national constitution,<br />
promulgated and affirmed by the<br />
whole <strong>Philippine</strong> population, will<br />
give sufficient consideration to<br />
generally acceptable principles,<br />
but will leave local issues to be<br />
shaped by peculiar state policies.<br />
With a state of their own<br />
(which they may call an Islamic<br />
State), where they may adopt<br />
the Qur’an and Hadith as main<br />
features of their state constitution,<br />
whose land and resources Muslims<br />
will effectively control, the<br />
pledge of the Moro mujahideen<br />
<strong>for</strong> the liberation of the homeland<br />
and firm establishment of Din El<br />
Islam will have been achieved. It<br />
will be a strong and progressive<br />
state because it will be a component<br />
of a bigger and mutually<br />
supportive <strong>for</strong>mation. This is also<br />
an honorable way out <strong>for</strong> the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> government, which just<br />
has to be open-minded so that this<br />
country remains intact, united, and<br />
progressive. All of us may then<br />
declare triple success: we gain<br />
what we want, we won it fast, and<br />
we won it through peace.<br />
May the MILF and the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
government be divinely<br />
guided so that they will not give<br />
up on peace and consider alism as a win-win<br />
feder-<br />
option.<br />
Omar Solitario Ali, a <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
MNLF commander, is mayor of<br />
Marawi city.<br />
28 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
V O I C E S F R O M T H E P E R I P H E R Y<br />
The time <strong>for</strong><br />
federalism is now<br />
REY MAGNO TEVES<br />
where<br />
MAKE NO mistake<br />
about<br />
it. While the<br />
packed gallery’s<br />
enthusiastic<br />
applause<br />
<strong>for</strong> the president’s<br />
last State of the Nation Address<br />
reeked of hakot (paid audi-<br />
ence), there was some measure<br />
of spontaneity particularly from<br />
the promdis—also known as lo-<br />
cal government officials —who<br />
were dressed to the nines.<br />
The grins were genuine when<br />
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo<br />
said it was time to start the charter<br />
debates. Bigger cheers came<br />
when the president announced<br />
her preference <strong>for</strong> a shift from the<br />
unitary system of government to a<br />
federal one. There was also loud<br />
clapping when she mentioned a<br />
change from the presidential to a<br />
parliamentary <strong>for</strong>m.<br />
But it’s safe to assume that the<br />
idea of federalism resonated better<br />
among the local government<br />
executives than the notion of<br />
parliamentary government. After<br />
all, the local governments would<br />
be clear beneficiaries of a federal<br />
system that by definition disperses<br />
political power to the regions.<br />
Under the present system,<br />
regional development has been<br />
uneven and inequitable, and there<br />
has been creeping realization—especially<br />
in the countryside—that<br />
it is no longer just a question of<br />
having good and effective leaders.<br />
We’ve had dramatic leader changes<br />
in the past two decades, but there<br />
seems to be no parallel profound<br />
trans<strong>for</strong>mation in the lives of the<br />
people. Most of us are still in a<br />
rut, and the way out looks like it<br />
involves a change in the system.<br />
Which is probably the reason<br />
why the current brouhaha seems<br />
confined in the National Capital<br />
Region. Even civil society groups<br />
in the Visayas and Mindanao<br />
who were active in Edsa 1 and<br />
Edsa 2 have been conspicuously<br />
silent. They’re apparently done<br />
with just leader changes, and<br />
personality-oriented politics<br />
controlled by imperial Manila.<br />
That’s coming from places<br />
poverty and deprivation<br />
are deepest. Indeed, areas farthest<br />
from the capital experience more<br />
savage poverty and injustice. The<br />
Autonomous Region of Muslim<br />
Mindanao (ARMM), Caraga (Agusan<br />
and Surigao provinces), Bicol,<br />
Samar, and Leyte are among the<br />
regions that bear the brunt of the<br />
center’s neglect. These are also<br />
the areas that have bred numerous<br />
insurgents and continue to<br />
fuel uprisings and rebellion.<br />
MINDANAO AND<br />
SEPARATISM<br />
Of course, when it comes to rebellion,<br />
Mindanao is the first that<br />
comes to mind. It is the home<br />
of the Moro National Liberation<br />
Front (MNLF), which fought <strong>for</strong><br />
independence until it agreed in<br />
1996 to a measure of autonomy<br />
under the Southern <strong>Philippine</strong>s<br />
Council <strong>for</strong> Peace and Development<br />
framework. Today the MNLF<br />
is somewhat disjointed, with some<br />
elements tending back toward<br />
separation even as many of its<br />
leaders (or <strong>for</strong>mer leaders) sit in<br />
Congress, as well as in local governments<br />
as governors and mayors,<br />
and also in jail (specifically<br />
founder-chairman Nur Misuari).<br />
Mindanao is home as well to<br />
the presently more potent Moro<br />
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),<br />
which has carried the torch of independence<br />
since splitting from<br />
the original MNLF in 1976. Four<br />
years ago, it began engaging<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong> government in a<br />
peace process. It didn’t drop its<br />
demand <strong>for</strong> independence, but<br />
it has expressed willingness to<br />
discuss other options “short of<br />
outright independence but more<br />
than autonomy.”<br />
The MILF, though, has rejected<br />
the current movement <strong>for</strong><br />
a Mindanao Republic, particularly<br />
that version being espoused by<br />
the group called One People<br />
Mindanao (OPM). In a recent<br />
official statement, the MILF said,<br />
“We cannot endorse anything that<br />
we are not a party to, and where<br />
the programs <strong>for</strong> the Bangsa<br />
Moro people are not clear.”<br />
Be that as it may, Muslim<br />
rebels and activists have long lost<br />
their monopoly on separatism.<br />
Although the latest Bright Idea is<br />
not directly connected with two<br />
previous Mindanao Independence<br />
Movements (MIM One under<br />
the late Datu Ugtog Matalam<br />
in the 1970s, and MIM Two under<br />
Reuben Canoy in the late 1980s),<br />
it certainly draws from the same<br />
logic and circumstances that propelled<br />
those MIMs. It there<strong>for</strong>e<br />
cannot be dismissed easily.<br />
Then there’s Davao Ciy Mayor<br />
Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncement<br />
that he is ready to set up a separate<br />
Mindanao Republic. It may not<br />
be a serious, organized challenge,<br />
but it’s not exactly an empty<br />
threat, since it is premised on the<br />
possibility, remote or otherwise,<br />
that President Arroyo would be<br />
removed from office unconstitutionally.<br />
It’s even been adopted<br />
by the Confederation of Mindanao<br />
local government executives, and<br />
then echoed in Ilocos by Gov. Luis<br />
‘Chavit’ Singson and in the Visayas<br />
by a convention of leaders. Which<br />
means Mindanao itself cannot<br />
claim to have a monopoly on having<br />
separatist sentiments.<br />
CITIZENS FOR<br />
FEDERALISM<br />
Federalism, however, offers<br />
another alternative to those of<br />
us in the peripheries who have<br />
suffered because of policies<br />
emanating from a callous center.<br />
It seems to be a no-brainer. Yet<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e the Citizens Movement<br />
<strong>for</strong> a Federal <strong>Philippine</strong>s (CMFP)<br />
was launched in February 2003<br />
in Marikina City, there seemed to<br />
be no nationwide ef<strong>for</strong>t toward<br />
federalism. Instead, many of the<br />
calls came individuals.<br />
During the 1970 Constitutional<br />
Convention, several proposals<br />
touting federalism were submitted.<br />
Oldest delegate Antonio<br />
de las Alas proposed a Federal<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s with 20 autonomous<br />
states similar to Swiss cantons. UP<br />
professor Leopoldo Yabes, meanwhile,<br />
called <strong>for</strong> the creation of 10<br />
states with smaller units patterned<br />
after the U.S. county system. Yet<br />
another suggestion was <strong>for</strong> three<br />
main geographical subdivisions:<br />
Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.<br />
<strong>No</strong>ne of the proposals, however,<br />
went beyond committee.<br />
In 1982, a new national political<br />
party spearheaded by Mindanaoan<br />
Aquilino Pimentel Jr. had<br />
federalism as part of its main political<br />
plat<strong>for</strong>m. This was the Pilipino<br />
Democratic Party or PDP, which<br />
later merged with Benigno ‘Ninoy’<br />
Aquino Jr.’s Lakas ng Bayan or Laban<br />
to become PDP-Laban. But the<br />
party has not really pushed hard<br />
<strong>for</strong> federalism, not even during the<br />
drafting of the 1987 Constitution,<br />
which eventually rein<strong>for</strong>ced the<br />
unitary system.<br />
In the 1992 national elections,<br />
a group called PILIPINAS 92<br />
espoused federalism. But the organization<br />
proved to have a short<br />
life, partly because it got identified<br />
with an aborted presidential<br />
bid of then Senator John Osmeña,<br />
who was its founding chair.<br />
In 1998, Senators Pimentel,<br />
John Osmeña, and Francisco Tatad<br />
filed a joint resolution calling <strong>for</strong><br />
a constitutional convention or<br />
con-con to adopt a federal system<br />
of government. It also did not go<br />
beyond committee. Pimentel is the<br />
only one among the three left in<br />
the Senate. He continues to champion<br />
federalism all by his lonesome<br />
there, yet he has now taken a stand<br />
as well against charter change.<br />
Because it is citizen-led and<br />
citizen-run, the CMFP believes it<br />
has a good chance of keeping the<br />
idea of federalism alive. It will also<br />
be able to spread the word faster<br />
across the country. Organized<br />
by the Lihok Pideral Mindanaw<br />
(LPM), the CMFP’s basic strategy is<br />
networking and alliance building,<br />
including with elected leaders and<br />
politicians. It now has core groups,<br />
chapters, and allied networks in all<br />
of country’s 17 regions. It has also<br />
helped <strong>for</strong>m a national alliance<br />
<strong>for</strong> the establishment of a Federal<br />
Parliamentary <strong>Philippine</strong>s through<br />
a constitutional convention. It is<br />
this mode of charter change, and<br />
not via a “con-ass” or constituent<br />
assembly, that the CMFP and its<br />
allies are fighting <strong>for</strong>.<br />
<strong>No</strong>w more than ever, the CMFP<br />
slogan is apt: Federal <strong>Philippine</strong>s,<br />
Panahon Na (It’s Time)!<br />
Rey Magno Teves, a longtime<br />
advocate of federalism, is chair<br />
and convenor of Lihok Pideral<br />
Mindanaw.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
29
TWO AT EDSA<br />
‘When the wheels of<br />
history turn, you hardly<br />
expect the world to<br />
turn upside down’<br />
ED LINGAO<br />
DURING THE last<br />
Edsa anniversary<br />
celebrations, we<br />
thought of having<br />
a reporter find out<br />
what the younger<br />
generation knew of Edsa.<br />
Some excerpts:<br />
Question: What was Edsa ’86<br />
about?<br />
Answer: …it was a massacre,<br />
right?<br />
Question: What was Edsa ’86<br />
about?<br />
Answer: A strike?<br />
Question: When did the 1986<br />
Edsa revolution occur?<br />
Answer: Sometime in 1989… Oh<br />
no, it was in 1990.<br />
The event that made a generation<br />
so proud to be Filipino, made<br />
us stand straighter when we heard<br />
the national anthem, that one event<br />
that defined us in the eyes of the<br />
world, may as well have been,<br />
<strong>for</strong> a different generation, another<br />
episode of “Wow Mali!”—except<br />
this was a lot funnier than anything<br />
Joey de Leon could cook up. It<br />
would have been hilarious had it<br />
not been so sad.<br />
What makes it so painful is the<br />
fact that these interviewees were<br />
not comedians or bums hanging<br />
out at the neighborhood sari-sari<br />
store. They were Metro Manila<br />
college students from private<br />
schools. These were the crème de<br />
la crème. One shudders at what<br />
the rest of the crop thinks.<br />
I was among those massed at<br />
Edsa in 1986, a dot among a couple<br />
million other Filipinos. I was<br />
still a junior at UP at the time, and I<br />
had come with a few of my college<br />
buddies. But we soon lost each<br />
other in the crowd and I found<br />
myself near some praying nuns.<br />
That’s when Times<br />
photographer<br />
Pete Reyes snapped that photo<br />
that would be the iconic image<br />
of that one hot Sunday afternoon<br />
in Ortigas when nothing mattered<br />
more than standing still.<br />
The expressions on the faces of<br />
the nuns froze a precious moment<br />
of terror and fright as the marines<br />
started the engines of their LVTs,<br />
those huge, boxlike amphibian<br />
tanks. Everyone sit, someone shouted,<br />
and everyone in front did. Some<br />
rushed <strong>for</strong>ward to put their hands<br />
against the hot metal, only to feel<br />
how frighteningly solid and heavy<br />
eight tons of armor must be. The<br />
marines gunned their engines, and<br />
the exhaust pipes spewed black<br />
against the sky. Suddenly, the tank<br />
jerked <strong>for</strong>ward, and the marine on<br />
top of the tank begged everyone to<br />
clear a path or be crushed under the<br />
tracks. People were screaming and<br />
crying. But the line stayed. The tank<br />
jerked <strong>for</strong>ward again, and we shut<br />
our eyes and prayed that the driver<br />
had children of his own. And still<br />
the line stayed.<br />
Nineteen years later, the line<br />
was broken beyond repair. In fact<br />
the line had changed so many<br />
times that it was hard to recall<br />
who stood with you then. Post<br />
Edsa, Cory went one way, Enrile<br />
went the other; the Marcoses came<br />
back, not to be prosecuted, but to<br />
Ed Lingao (in dark<br />
glasses) faced the tanks<br />
in Edsa 1. Above photo<br />
shows him posing in<br />
front of a tank while<br />
covering the Iraq war.<br />
be icons of the new young (“Aiii,<br />
ang pogi- pogi ni Bongbong! [Ay,<br />
Bongbong is so handsome!]”) or<br />
fashion statements. Imelda was<br />
allowed to be herself, which was<br />
perhaps as good a punishment as<br />
any. <strong>No</strong> one, whether coup plotter<br />
or plunderer or human-rights abuser,<br />
was sent to jail. Those rounded<br />
up were the usual suspects—the<br />
activists, the strikers, the eternally<br />
discontent. It all sounds so trite,<br />
yet it all sounds so true. Colors<br />
changed so blindingly fast, and the<br />
rainbow coalition soon saw <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
street parliamentarians rubbing<br />
elbows with some of the biggest<br />
Marcos cronies. Ninoy’s Laban became<br />
the LDP, which was soon led<br />
by those who laughed in Ninoy’s<br />
face a decade be<strong>for</strong>e. Later, the parliamentarians<br />
would become the<br />
cronies, and the dictator’s cronies<br />
would act like persecuted activists.<br />
When the wheels of history turn,<br />
you hardly expect to see the world<br />
turn upside down.<br />
We were under no illusion<br />
that the revolution was over<br />
when Marcos left. But we never<br />
thought that people would <strong>for</strong>get<br />
EDSA. Sometimes it seems they<br />
never even heard of it at all.<br />
The author is a TV journalist who<br />
covered the Iraq war and the conflict<br />
in Mindanao. He is now head<br />
of news operations of ABC-5.<br />
30 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T W O A T E D S A<br />
TWO AT EDSA<br />
‘I was at Edsa out of<br />
pure disgust’<br />
MYLENE LISING<br />
MY H U S B A N D<br />
Dino tried to dissuade<br />
me from<br />
holding it up.<br />
It was, after all,<br />
supposed to be<br />
a moment of triumph <strong>for</strong> all of<br />
us: Erap had been <strong>for</strong>ced to step<br />
down, and now Gloria Arroyo<br />
was at the Edsa shrine, taking<br />
her oath as the 14 th president<br />
of the Republic. Everywhere<br />
one looked there was palpable<br />
jubilation. All my husband<br />
was asking was <strong>for</strong> me not to<br />
spoil the moment. But I really<br />
wanted her to read my message.<br />
If not right there—maybe she<br />
wouldn’t be able to see over<br />
all those heads and would be<br />
busier getting her oath right than<br />
scanning the swollen crowd <strong>for</strong><br />
streamers—then maybe later, if<br />
my handmade poster attracted<br />
some person’s camera.<br />
Mylene Lising never<br />
attended rallies until she<br />
went to Edsa 2 to display<br />
this prescient placard.<br />
True enough, my poster<br />
caught Sid Balatan’s eye and<br />
was recorded <strong>for</strong> posterity. It<br />
was actually more a reminder<br />
than a threat. And it was really<br />
addressed to whoever would<br />
have taken the place of Erap. It<br />
just happened that it was Gloria<br />
who was there. All I wanted to<br />
say was, gone are the days when<br />
you can get away with murder.<br />
Well, now I’m not so sure about<br />
that. But I’m still certain that it is<br />
our responsibility to get involved.<br />
My poster was also a reminder<br />
to the rest of the citizenry that<br />
we cannot just keep saying our<br />
leaders should take care of us.<br />
We should do our part.<br />
To think that at the time of<br />
Edsa Dos I had started out so<br />
apathetic. I was 30, married,<br />
and an Ateneo graduate. Hindi<br />
uso sa Ateneo<br />
ang pakikibaka,<br />
we don’t just take to the streets.<br />
Edsa Dos was the very first time<br />
I ever did anything remotely<br />
resembling activism.<br />
During the 1986 EDSA revolt,<br />
I was still in the province. But I<br />
also wasn’t old enough then. I<br />
was about to graduate from high<br />
school, and my only concern<br />
was whether or not there would<br />
still be a senior prom.<br />
But on the night of January<br />
16, 2001, we were watching<br />
television at my in-laws’. We<br />
saw the impeachment court vote<br />
down the opening of the second<br />
envelope. I’d been watching the<br />
impeachment from day one, although<br />
there was a time when I<br />
tuned out. But by then I’d heard<br />
enough, even Clarissa Ocampo’s<br />
testimony. The vote on the envelope<br />
made me really agitated. It<br />
only took an SMS from a friend<br />
<strong>for</strong> me and my husband to go<br />
out in our bedroom slippers to<br />
join people who had started a<br />
noise barrage along Katipunan<br />
Avenue. They were mostly Ateneans,<br />
by the way. <strong>No</strong>t too long<br />
after, we would all proceed to<br />
Edsa where people had started<br />
to gather.<br />
I was at Edsa out of pure<br />
disgust. I campaigned <strong>for</strong> Estrada<br />
in 1998. I can’t even call<br />
that hard work because the<br />
candidate was so popular. I<br />
campaigned <strong>for</strong> him because I<br />
had hope. Here was a guy who<br />
Filipinos felt—whether rightly<br />
or wrongly—was one of them. I<br />
harbored the hope that he would<br />
be able to inspire Filipinos to become<br />
better citizens and help us<br />
become the democracy that we<br />
want to be. But it soon became<br />
clear Estrada was failing my<br />
hope. At Edsa, I kept thinking, ‘I<br />
have every right to bitch.’<br />
Four years later, I’m having<br />
déjà vu. I remember looking at<br />
Gloria while she was taking her<br />
oath, surrounded by her family.<br />
I’d kept thinking to myself how<br />
paper-perfect this new president<br />
was. She’s educated, she’s intelligent.<br />
But I knew that coming<br />
from a privileged background,<br />
she could very easily disengage<br />
from what’s going on around<br />
her. That’s also why I held up<br />
that poster. <strong>No</strong>w look what she<br />
has done. She should have kept<br />
the integrity of the Office of the<br />
President intact. It was her duty<br />
as president. But now, whether<br />
guilty or not, her credibility is<br />
shot and so is the credibility of<br />
other institutions around her.<br />
The scenarios all look bleak<br />
to me. I want to pack up and<br />
leave! That’s a feeling shared<br />
by a lot of people, but can you<br />
blame us?<br />
Sure, I still have hope. But I<br />
am also more cynical because I<br />
don’t trust any of our politicians.<br />
All this talk about changing the<br />
Constitution doesn’t reassure<br />
me. I agree there is a need to<br />
change the Constitution, but<br />
who will gain? I have my doubts<br />
about how it’s going be done<br />
considering JDV almost levitated<br />
clapping during Gloria’s SONA. I<br />
have never trusted the guy and<br />
I still don’t.<br />
The author is an interior decorator,<br />
entrepreneur, and <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
Senate staffer.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
31
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
DEFYING THEIR ELDERS.<br />
Today’s youth confound their<br />
parents because they enjoy<br />
more freedom and are so at<br />
home with technology.<br />
Finding<br />
Spaces<br />
T KATRINA STUART SANTIAGO<br />
Tthe TOO OFTEN<br />
Filipino and cellphones, but unable to<br />
Tyouth is viewed with the con- communicate well without a<br />
Tventional eyes of our elders: keypad or a clicking mouse.<br />
Twe are the future of the nation,<br />
Our relationships are charac-<br />
Twe are the agents of change.<br />
terized by, even built on, text<br />
The government counts on<br />
messages and electronic mail,<br />
Tus to help save the country, impersonal as these may be.<br />
Tcivil society exhorts us to be We conspire with piracy and<br />
Tvigilant, the media remind us<br />
free Internet downloads with<br />
Toften enough that we are the<br />
gleefully open eyes, morality<br />
Thope of the nation. For the and ethics aside. We sit be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
Tmost part, however, they are<br />
our computers to find our-<br />
Tdisappointed. Especially when selves, if not in writing, then in<br />
Tit’s convenient, we remain in-<br />
creating websites, or in looking<br />
Tcomprehensible to our elders,<br />
<strong>for</strong> jobs, friends, a community<br />
Tand it’s easy to see why. we might belong to. For many<br />
We are the high-tech generation,<br />
adept at computers best friends, personal<br />
of us, our computers are our<br />
exten-<br />
32 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
tion have brought us the call<br />
centers where half our youth<br />
are employed, changing their<br />
biological clocks, messing up<br />
relationships, and creating demand<br />
<strong>for</strong> 24-hour McDonalds<br />
and Jollibees in the strangest<br />
street corners. A small percentage<br />
of the other half are selfemployed,<br />
given rich parents<br />
who are only too happy to put<br />
up seed money and get their<br />
kids started on the capitalist<br />
course. Others with moneyed<br />
parents have the luxury of doing<br />
volunteer and NGO work,<br />
moved as they seem by a need<br />
to “give something back to the<br />
country” without necessarily<br />
seeing the big picture in which<br />
rich (probably their) families<br />
are the oppressors. Many are<br />
still part of the <strong>Philippine</strong> Left,<br />
confusing as that label has<br />
become, in all its denominations.<br />
At least those of us who<br />
are part of the different leftist<br />
movements have a better sense<br />
of what ails this country, even<br />
when we have to go from<br />
simple terms like poverty and<br />
corruption to the abstract levels<br />
and jargon of imperialism, busions<br />
where our work, our<br />
studies, our lives are conducted—if<br />
not created and re-created—as<br />
frequently as we find<br />
the need <strong>for</strong> it, which is quite<br />
often.<br />
Our dependence on computers<br />
and cellphones is not<br />
only an indication of our aptitude<br />
<strong>for</strong> high-tech tasks and<br />
processes, it’s also an indication<br />
of our need <strong>for</strong> something<br />
we can hold on to, something<br />
that somehow defines us, and<br />
only us. We love being incomprehensible<br />
to our elders because<br />
of this technology, and<br />
we revel in it. Un<strong>for</strong>tunately,<br />
a lot of the time we also reveal<br />
our incapability at discernment,<br />
as we unthinkingly <strong>for</strong>ward<br />
ill-in<strong>for</strong>med text messages or<br />
emails, upload pictures on<br />
the Internet without realizing<br />
the probability of its distribution,<br />
take stolen videos with<br />
our phones and think nothing<br />
of it. We have a hard time<br />
deciding whether something is<br />
right or wrong, dangerous or<br />
not; worse, we are unable to<br />
discern just what role technology<br />
is playing in our lives, or<br />
why it has become so important<br />
to us.<br />
This lack of clarity about<br />
the things that define us may<br />
be the only thing that we of<br />
this generation have in common.<br />
Born in the late 1970s to<br />
early 80s to possibly activist<br />
or hippie parents, or to the<br />
straight conservative ones who<br />
stayed aloof of either extreme,<br />
ours is a generation that can’t<br />
seem to find a reason <strong>for</strong> its<br />
existence. At least our activist<br />
parents had the Left to believe<br />
in and the Marcos regime to<br />
struggle against; our hippie<br />
parents had the liberation of<br />
sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll<br />
to live up; our conservative<br />
parents had the Church and<br />
the institution of family to hold<br />
on to. By comparison, we are<br />
faced with nothing but the<br />
dregs of these institutions, now<br />
all unstable, often unintelligible,<br />
usually in the process of<br />
compromise. It’s practically a<br />
nonspace of resistance and liberation,<br />
with uncertain enemies<br />
and even less certain ideologies<br />
to back us up.<br />
<strong>No</strong>t that all of us are having<br />
a difficult time finding the<br />
right spaces within which we<br />
may exist, if only to survive.<br />
Cheap labor and globaliza-<br />
AT A LOSS. For all their worldliness,<br />
young people are not<br />
clear about where they want<br />
to go and the sort of future<br />
they should aspire <strong>for</strong>.<br />
reaucrat capitalism, and fascism.<br />
But so many more of the youth<br />
have left, or are set to leave.<br />
Our prospective teachers, doctors,<br />
nurses are on a constant<br />
exodus to different parts of the<br />
world, with a small middle to<br />
upper class percentage leaving<br />
in disgust what they think is a<br />
sinking boat. The bigger chunk<br />
of those who say goodbye<br />
though are of the lower classes,<br />
and they’re the ones who say<br />
that they shall return, when<br />
they’ve ensured their futures<br />
with the dollars they will earn.<br />
BUT MOST, if not all of us,<br />
are at a loss. It’s not clear why<br />
we’re living our lives the way<br />
we do, doing the things that<br />
occupy us. There’s always<br />
a sense of uncertainty, not<br />
about the future, but about the<br />
present: What exactly are we<br />
doing? Why is this what we<br />
do? Whereas the generation<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e us always had a sense<br />
of a future—with family, with<br />
career, with house and lot and<br />
what-have-you—we are always<br />
looking at a future that’s closer<br />
to the present, where we may<br />
finish our studies, find a job,<br />
write a book, or just simply<br />
see the month’s end and decide<br />
then what’s next.<br />
This is not to say that we<br />
aren’t enjoying ourselves,<br />
uncertainties and all. Thanks<br />
to the fruits of our hippie and<br />
activist parents’ labors, we<br />
live at a time when there’s<br />
freedom in the music we hear,<br />
the books we read, the television<br />
shows and movies we<br />
watch. We are liberated from<br />
the strict rules of the Church<br />
and the institutions of family,<br />
school, and employment.<br />
Freed from the stereotypes our<br />
parents rebelled against, we<br />
think nothing of reconfiguring<br />
our roles to suit our needs.<br />
We are redefining relationships<br />
as often as we redefine<br />
ourselves—literally with vanity,<br />
or figuratively with spiritual or<br />
religious beliefs, and the next<br />
hip ideology. Homosexuality in<br />
all its dimensions has become<br />
our norm. Easily accessible<br />
organic herbs, designer drugs,<br />
and expensive alcohol are<br />
inanimate friends we can count<br />
on. And then there’s the sexual<br />
freedom we are heir to, which<br />
most of the time we abuse, misuse,<br />
and unthinkingly tie our<br />
lives around. Our liberation,<br />
handed down as it was, has<br />
become the freedom we can’t<br />
quite live up to. We wear what<br />
we want, we can be what we<br />
want, and do as we please. But<br />
that doesn’t mean we’re actually<br />
doing something.<br />
For the most part, we are<br />
easily satisfied with ourselves,<br />
and that’s where the problem<br />
lies. We can do volunteer work<br />
<strong>for</strong> an NGO by day and party<br />
with abandon by night without<br />
feeling conflicted—we deserve<br />
it, we think, because we’re doing<br />
something <strong>for</strong> the country.<br />
We can sit at a café all day and<br />
talk about what ails our lives,<br />
our relationships, our country,<br />
and think that this is productive.<br />
We go to a token rally<br />
“<strong>for</strong> the truth to come out” and<br />
imagine ourselves socially relevant.<br />
We look at EDSA 2 and<br />
think: hah! that was my doing,<br />
without a sense of what it has<br />
truly brought this country,<br />
which isn’t much.<br />
FOUR YEARS ago, tasked to<br />
teach critical thinking and the<br />
essay to college sophomores<br />
eight to 10 years my junior, I<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
33
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
decided that the only way they<br />
could learn to think critically<br />
would be to show them where<br />
exactly they were coming<br />
from, and where they should<br />
speak from, given the state of<br />
the nation. I wanted to help<br />
them realize that in everything<br />
they said, did, or thought, they<br />
were speaking, doing, and<br />
thinking as Filipinos, whether<br />
they liked it or not. With that<br />
realization would come the<br />
responsibility not just to speak<br />
as Pinoys and Pinays, but to<br />
be Pinoys and Pinays in their<br />
analysis of everything from<br />
soap operas to <strong>for</strong>eign critical<br />
theories, from current events<br />
to the clothes they wear.<br />
Of course given that we all,<br />
young and old alike, continue<br />
to be messed up about our<br />
identity as a people, I could<br />
only ground them in certain<br />
realities about our country that<br />
we manage, consistently, not<br />
to confront. Realities that we<br />
keep in check because we can,<br />
since we are not directly burdened.<br />
The most basic of these<br />
that needs to be acknowledged,<br />
I found, is the fact<br />
that we are an impoverished<br />
country, never mind that we’re<br />
driving the newest cars, or that<br />
we have the latest cellphones,<br />
or that we are not the poor. It<br />
does not mean that everybody<br />
else is as well-off—because<br />
not a whole lot are. Only upon<br />
realizing this can we raise the<br />
question: Why are we poor?<br />
A question that can only be<br />
answered by history, hopefully<br />
a Constantino history, which<br />
tells of how we have been<br />
oppressed <strong>for</strong> centuries and<br />
by what, and how we have<br />
always fought back.<br />
A SENSE OF history is a good<br />
beginning, I believe, <strong>for</strong> those<br />
of us in this generation, students<br />
and teachers alike, seeking<br />
a reason <strong>for</strong> our existence<br />
at this point in time. Because<br />
we may be hi-tech and all, free<br />
to make life choices, and liberated<br />
in the way we dress, think,<br />
and do things, but in truth, we<br />
are misplaced and displaced by<br />
a lack of consciousness about<br />
where we truly come from in<br />
the context of the country we<br />
irrevocably belong to. When<br />
the poverty is acknowledged,<br />
our enemies become obvious.<br />
Ours is a long history of<br />
governance that has not had<br />
the interests of the majority of<br />
this country in mind, allowing<br />
globalization to eat us alive,<br />
allowing the elite to continue<br />
owning more and more of this<br />
country’s money and natural<br />
resources <strong>for</strong> themselves,<br />
allowing booty capitalism to<br />
prosper at the expense of the<br />
poor and hungry majority. And<br />
then there’s us, the educated<br />
middle class, some of whom<br />
choose to remain complacently<br />
uncertain about what we may<br />
do, and some of whom choose<br />
to take off, in search of happier<br />
spaces.<br />
But the space we search <strong>for</strong><br />
can only be here, in the one<br />
country we are born to and can<br />
truly call ours. Whatever we do,<br />
whether we’re leaving or staying,<br />
taking to the streets <strong>for</strong> the<br />
masses or going to the countryside<br />
and joining the armed<br />
DOOMED GENERATION? Perhaps the<br />
young people of today are condemned<br />
to an endless process of searching <strong>for</strong><br />
the truths that will lead them toward real<br />
freedom and genuine understanding.<br />
struggle, whether we’re writing in<br />
English or living up the Filipino<br />
language, teaching in a university<br />
or answering complaints at a call<br />
center, we make our decisions<br />
in the context of the state of<br />
this nation, as we know it. This<br />
is all the space we need, and<br />
the space where we are most<br />
needed. We only need to know<br />
enough to see it.<br />
Meanwhile, we wander<br />
among the spaces we create<br />
and wonder what it will take<br />
to knock some sense into our<br />
heads about the changes we<br />
have the power to effect. Quite<br />
possibly, we are a generation<br />
doomed to an endless process<br />
of searching—in denial about<br />
this country’s truths, not ready<br />
to give up our lives <strong>for</strong> the bigger<br />
battles, uncertain of what<br />
exactly it is we can do. Probably,<br />
we are a transition generation,<br />
finding and making spaces<br />
in the strangest of places—be<br />
it in the technology we so love<br />
or in the bars of Malate, be it in<br />
waging war or in observing the<br />
peace, in writing or in taking to<br />
the streets—living out our contradictory<br />
lifestyles and values,<br />
creating an open space <strong>for</strong> the<br />
time when we may all agree<br />
on what we stand <strong>for</strong>, and find<br />
it in ourselves to fight the real<br />
struggle <strong>for</strong> country vs. poverty,<br />
enemies and all.<br />
Hopefully we see that this<br />
time can be now.<br />
The author is currently doing<br />
her thesis <strong>for</strong> an M.A. in<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> Studies at the U.P.<br />
Departamento ng Filipino at<br />
Panitikan ng Pilipinas. She<br />
does freelance writing and<br />
editorial work on the side. Her<br />
passion is teaching.<br />
34 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
So<br />
Young<br />
& So<br />
Trapo<br />
AVIGAIL OLARTE<br />
HE WAS the man who would<br />
be president, or so Romanne<br />
Posadas thought at age 10,<br />
when he walked up to his<br />
father and asked what it would<br />
take to be one. Good-looking,<br />
bright, and highly ambitious,<br />
he was the personification of<br />
Joseph the Dreamer, who as a<br />
boy knew he would one day<br />
be king.<br />
Years later, Posadas took<br />
the first step toward his dream.<br />
He won as Sangguniang<br />
Kabataan (SK) chairman in his<br />
barangay, the largest in the<br />
town of Urbiztondo, Pangasinan.<br />
So glorious was his victory<br />
that one of the first things<br />
he did afterward was to hold a<br />
great feast <strong>for</strong> the people who<br />
had helped him clinch it.<br />
“Gusto ko (<br />
dati)<br />
sikat ako<br />
(I wanted to be famous),”<br />
Posadas, now 26, says with a<br />
wicked smile. A homeroom<br />
president from grade one and<br />
an excellent orator, he was<br />
“the perfect candidate.” But<br />
Posadas quickly adds that he<br />
also had a desire to serve, figuring<br />
he had talents he could<br />
use to help others.<br />
Like most greenhorn politicians,<br />
the newly elected Posadas<br />
worked enthusiastically and<br />
STARTING EARLY. Quezon City<br />
vice mayor Herbert Bautista<br />
began his political career with<br />
the Sangguniang Kabataan.<br />
delivered the kind of projects<br />
expected of him: sportsfests,<br />
fiestas, and barangay beautification.<br />
He was particularly proud<br />
of the basketball court that was<br />
built on his first year. But it was<br />
also this project that introduced<br />
him to another kind of “reward”—10<br />
percent from the<br />
contract price that, a barangay<br />
councilor told him, represented<br />
his part in awarding the deal to<br />
a contractor the councilors had<br />
recommended.<br />
The unexpected windfall<br />
must have been most welcome<br />
because succeeding projects<br />
found Posadas anxiously waiting<br />
<strong>for</strong> the “SOP,” also known<br />
as standard operating procedure<br />
or rebates or kickbacks.<br />
“Kinain ako ng sistema<br />
(I was<br />
devoured by the system),” he<br />
now says with a sad, strained<br />
voice. “We were exposed to<br />
the wrong kind of politics at a<br />
very young age.”<br />
As the breeding ground <strong>for</strong><br />
the next generation of leaders,<br />
the Sangguniang Kabataan was<br />
supposed to be an instrument<br />
<strong>for</strong> moral recovery. But the<br />
early assimilation of young,<br />
idealistic aspirants like Posadas<br />
into traditional politics has led<br />
many to conclude that SK is<br />
failing miserably in fulfilling<br />
that vision. Instead of creating<br />
a new breed of politicians, the<br />
SK seems to have fallen into<br />
the grip of traditional politics,<br />
complete with patronage, corruption,<br />
and inefficiency.<br />
As the country reels from<br />
a political crisis that is threatening<br />
the credibility of key<br />
institutions, the SK hardly offers<br />
a beacon of hope. Instead,<br />
what should ideally have been<br />
a portent of a brighter political<br />
future has wound up reflecting<br />
almost everything that is wrong<br />
with <strong>Philippine</strong> politics.<br />
There are those who say<br />
that could only be expected<br />
of a body patterned after the<br />
Kabataang Barangay (KB), a<br />
brainchild of the late strongman<br />
Ferdinand Marcos. The<br />
36 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
KB was meant to counter the<br />
growing popularity of the Left<br />
among the youth but soon<br />
became a tool to perpetuate<br />
the Marcos regime and deprive<br />
his enemies of recruits. But<br />
those who created the SK years<br />
later apparently saw something<br />
in the KB structure that made<br />
them appropriate it <strong>for</strong> the<br />
new youth organization. That<br />
wasn’t what made it open to<br />
corruption, though. Rather,<br />
it was the new components<br />
that exposed the Sangguniang<br />
Kabataan to the possible penetration<br />
of trapo<br />
ways.<br />
IT TOOK<br />
six years after the fall<br />
of Marcos be<strong>for</strong>e the KB was<br />
revived under a new name, the<br />
Sangguniang Kabataan, and<br />
only after the creation of the<br />
Local Government Code made<br />
such a resurrection possible.<br />
Like in the case of the KB,<br />
the law allowed the elected<br />
SK chair in each barangay to<br />
sit as an ex-officio member<br />
of the council, af<strong>for</strong>ding him<br />
or her the power to legislate.<br />
The same would follow <strong>for</strong> the<br />
elected SK federation president<br />
in a town or city (as councilor)<br />
and in a province (as board<br />
member).<br />
This one seat, which meant<br />
one vote, made the young<br />
ex-officio lawmakers “potent<br />
conduits of power.” But there<br />
was more: under the new law,<br />
the SK heads would receive<br />
regular compensation and allowances.<br />
And at the barangay<br />
level, the SK representative<br />
would have the discretion on<br />
how to spend the organization’s<br />
10-percent share from<br />
the general fund <strong>for</strong> youth-related<br />
projects and programs.<br />
That discretion has since<br />
been abused. Just this summer,<br />
in a barangay in an eastern<br />
Metro Manila city, a local<br />
DEVOURED BY THE SYSTEM. Young<br />
people vote <strong>for</strong> representatives to<br />
the Sangguniang Kabataan, which<br />
has fallen into the grip of corruption<br />
and traditional politics.<br />
official says the SK spent its<br />
P2.2-million budget in a barangay-wide<br />
sportsfest that cost<br />
them P1 million in uni<strong>for</strong>ms<br />
alone and P500,000 in referee’s<br />
fees. The barangay captain and<br />
the SK chair, he says, wanted<br />
such an elaborate event that<br />
they paid <strong>for</strong> the uni<strong>for</strong>ms of<br />
over 2,000 players and even of<br />
the cheerleading competition<br />
contestants.<br />
A supplier says he sold<br />
each basketball uni<strong>for</strong>m to<br />
the barangay <strong>for</strong> P450 even if<br />
he could have settled ordinarily<br />
<strong>for</strong> P350. He says he had<br />
to factor in the cut of the SK<br />
chair and the whole barangay<br />
council. “In each project in<br />
this barangay, whether the<br />
money came from the SK fund<br />
or not, the whole council gets<br />
its share,” says the supplier.<br />
“So if it’s worth P100,000, they<br />
divide the P10,000 among<br />
themselves.”<br />
Another supplier, who has<br />
sold sports and office equipment<br />
to the six barangays of the<br />
same city, says SK officials have<br />
been receiving kickbacks from<br />
projects since she began doing<br />
business there in 1999. The cuts<br />
start at 10 percent; not one SK<br />
official has turned down his or<br />
her share in all six barangays,<br />
says the supplier. One particular<br />
SK chair—a 19-year-old—has<br />
even gained notoriety <strong>for</strong><br />
demanding SOPs in advance.<br />
Says the supplier: “We give it<br />
after the barangay has paid<br />
us, not be<strong>for</strong>e. Pero makapal<br />
talaga mukha nito (But this one<br />
is really something else). Yet<br />
since we also want to continue<br />
doing business with them, we<br />
have to do what they want.”<br />
The supplier adds that the share<br />
in SOPs had even caused a<br />
dispute in the SK council; apparently,<br />
the chair had not been<br />
giving the other members their<br />
own share.<br />
Overall, the amounts<br />
involved are staggering. This<br />
year alone, P2.9 billion went to<br />
SK funds, representing 10 percent<br />
of the total Internal Revenue<br />
Allotment (IRA) distributed<br />
among the 41,885 barangays<br />
across the country. With SOPs<br />
said to range from 10 to 20<br />
percent, a total of P290 million<br />
to P580 million could be ending<br />
up as mere grease money<br />
<strong>for</strong> young politicos throughout<br />
the country.<br />
That’s the big picture. Yet<br />
even the amount of money<br />
entrusted to each SK is nothing<br />
to scoff at. Aside from its percentage<br />
from a barangay’s IRA, an<br />
SK’s money pot also includes the<br />
group’s share of the taxes and<br />
dues collected in a barangay.<br />
In rich and commercial areas in<br />
Metro Manila, an SK’s annual<br />
budget could even run into several<br />
million pesos. (See Table 1)<br />
BECAUSE OF the large<br />
amounts of money allocated to<br />
the SK, debates have broken<br />
out over how the fund should<br />
be handled. Some have argued<br />
that an SK should be guided by<br />
other officials in the barangay.<br />
That is assuming, however,<br />
that these officials are wise and<br />
beyond reproach.<br />
That certainly couldn’t<br />
be said about the barangay<br />
captain that Carlo (not his<br />
real name) found himself up<br />
against in 2002, when he was<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
37
(top and bottom) YOUTH FOR MARCOS.<br />
In the 1970s, presidential daughter Imee<br />
Marcos led the Kabataang Barangay, the<br />
precursor of today’s Sangguniang Kabataan.<br />
just 15, the minimum age<br />
requirement <strong>for</strong> an SK aspirant.<br />
Carlo had wanted to make<br />
a difference, noting that his<br />
predecessor spent six years in<br />
the SK without any project to<br />
show afterward. Carlo planned<br />
to put up a library <strong>for</strong> the<br />
youth and have a computer in<br />
the SK office. But the barangay<br />
captain said no. “Ayoko (I just<br />
don’t want to), ” was the kapi-<br />
tan’s<br />
explanation.<br />
The kapitan, however, had<br />
more to say after Carlo posted<br />
a “Walang Ku-Corrupt” advocacy<br />
sticker used during the Edsa<br />
2 revolution on the SK office’s<br />
door. That night, the kapitan<br />
called an emergency meeting<br />
with the whole council and<br />
several people present. Carlo<br />
was being accused of, of all<br />
things, vandalism. “Pinapar-<br />
inggan mo ba kami<br />
(Are you<br />
implying something)?” the enraged<br />
barangay chief asked. After<br />
that incident, all of Carlo’s<br />
proposals were rejected. Had it<br />
not been <strong>for</strong> the barangay accountant<br />
who helped him push<br />
<strong>for</strong> the release of his funds,<br />
he would not have even been<br />
able to implement his projects.<br />
“The SK needs protection,”<br />
says the Institute <strong>for</strong> Popular<br />
Democracy’s Francis Isaac,<br />
who was elected SK councilor<br />
in Pasay in 1992. “The first protection<br />
it needs is protection<br />
from the barangay chair.”<br />
The barangay, in fact, is just<br />
the first and lowest level of the<br />
power hierarchy. SK officials<br />
have to deal with mayors,<br />
governors, and congressmen as<br />
well. But with the SK’s influence<br />
over a large number of wouldbe<br />
voters, politicians have keen<br />
interest in SK affairs. There are<br />
even those who go to the extent<br />
of having key people—preferably<br />
a close relative— become<br />
part of the SK.<br />
Crucial SK posts invite<br />
rather heavy-handed ways.<br />
Posadas, <strong>for</strong> instance, recalls<br />
how no one dared to nominate<br />
another candidate as SK<br />
federation president apart from<br />
the mayor’s daughter. Posadas<br />
was himself eyeing the seat,<br />
but everyone fell silent when<br />
the nomination was closed<br />
immediately after the name of<br />
the mayor’s hija<br />
was entered.<br />
In Zambales, meanwhile,<br />
SK chairs each received<br />
P3,000, a 3310 <strong>No</strong>kia phone,<br />
and an SK jacket from the<br />
mayor’s nephew be<strong>for</strong>e one<br />
particular SK poll. “He was just<br />
15 years old,” says one of the<br />
recipients. “Three days be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
the election he and his father<br />
came to our homes and offered<br />
us the ‘gifts.’ Of course,<br />
most accepted the offer since<br />
they couldn’t af<strong>for</strong>d a phone. I<br />
only got the jacket since it had<br />
my name on it. Bigay daw ni<br />
mayor<br />
(They said the mayor<br />
gave it). It was at that point<br />
that I lost all hope.”<br />
Some say the “bargaining”<br />
is even worse during the election<br />
of the provincial SK federation<br />
head in some areas. Gari<br />
Lazaro, president of the <strong>Center</strong><br />
<strong>for</strong> Youth Advocacy and Networking,<br />
has worked with the<br />
youth sector long enough to<br />
know that even the “kingmakers”<br />
who put the youngsters in<br />
power have vested interests.<br />
“Whatever their motives,” he<br />
says, “it will surely affect the<br />
per<strong>for</strong>mance (of the SK).”<br />
“Our culture is subversive,”<br />
he adds. “The no.1 rule is<br />
obedience. And if you can’t<br />
assert yourself, you won’t win<br />
in the battle.”<br />
In a barangay in Manila, a<br />
20-year-old SK chair can barely<br />
concentrate on her work. “I<br />
think I won only because my<br />
aunt (the barangay captain)<br />
wanted me there,” she says.<br />
“She makes me sign papers I<br />
never get to read. Employees<br />
at the city hall kept telling me,<br />
‘Makukulong ka na lang ‘di mo<br />
pa alam<br />
(You’re headed <strong>for</strong> jail<br />
and you don’t even know it).’”<br />
These days the city government’s<br />
Youth Bureau is waiting<br />
<strong>for</strong> her to file a complaint<br />
against her aunt, who apparently<br />
made it appear on paper<br />
that several donated medals<br />
and trophies had been purchased.<br />
This is just the latest<br />
among the accusations hurled<br />
her aunt’s way. The SK chair<br />
fears that she, too, might soon<br />
be implicated in one of her<br />
aunt’s alleged shenanigans.<br />
Iloilo Rep. Janette Loreto-<br />
Garin, who used to be Leyte’s<br />
SK federation head, says it’s<br />
not easy <strong>for</strong> an SK official to<br />
have relatives in government.<br />
Herself part of a political clan,<br />
Loreto-Garin says, “You have<br />
to consider your relatives so<br />
that they won’t be offended.”<br />
But Richard Alvin Nalupta,<br />
commissioner-at-large of the<br />
National Youth Commission<br />
(NYC), says this isn’t necessarily<br />
true. Another scion of a<br />
political family, Nalupta was<br />
provincial SK head in Ilocos<br />
<strong>No</strong>rte while his father was<br />
the vice governor. He says his<br />
father never attempted to influence<br />
his stand on issues. “He<br />
didn’t impose,” says Nalupta.<br />
“In fact, we even debated (during<br />
sessions).”<br />
Former Pasay SK member<br />
Isaac, however, wants a clean<br />
break from the old order, which<br />
includes political dynasties. “SK<br />
is an arena of struggle between<br />
the kind of trapo politics<br />
that we have and the kind of<br />
politics we want to emerge,”<br />
he stresses. The clamor <strong>for</strong> new<br />
politics, he says, comes with<br />
the need <strong>for</strong> autonomy. “It has<br />
no dynamism of its own,” says<br />
Isaac. “The older people have<br />
no real appreciation of the SK<br />
as an institution <strong>for</strong> good governance<br />
and democratization.<br />
To them, it’s all about politics.”<br />
THE CALL<br />
<strong>for</strong> re<strong>for</strong>ms in the<br />
sector came as early as 1996,<br />
when there was news that the<br />
first batch of SK was not per<strong>for</strong>ming<br />
and had been taken<br />
over by trapolitos<br />
or young<br />
traditional politicians.<br />
“Walang pingakaiba ‘yan<br />
sa gusto mong maging artista<br />
at pipila ka sa<br />
Starstruck (They<br />
were chosen in the same way<br />
votes are garnered by contestants<br />
in Starstruck),” Lazaro<br />
POLITICAL INITIATION.<br />
Mikee Cojuangco,<br />
<strong>for</strong>mer movie star and<br />
member of a political<br />
clan, was introduced<br />
to politics through the<br />
Sangguniang Kabataan.<br />
38 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
says. “They (the youth) vote<br />
whom they think is popular,<br />
who looks better than the<br />
other candidate, and friendlier.”<br />
Rather than just orienting<br />
the youth about their rights as<br />
voters, his group decided to<br />
launch a political education<br />
campaign. Recounts Lazaro:<br />
“We wanted them to know<br />
how the system worked, how<br />
to recognize the motives of<br />
each political player, and to<br />
exact accountability from the<br />
people they voted <strong>for</strong>.”<br />
The NYC, created in 1994<br />
to establish programs on youth<br />
development, also proposed<br />
an SK Re<strong>for</strong>m bill in 1997. But<br />
up to now, Congress has yet<br />
to pass one. HB 3592, which<br />
was introduced last year by<br />
party-list group Akbayan is an<br />
improved version of the earlier<br />
bill. It seeks oversight powers<br />
<strong>for</strong> the Katipunan ng mga<br />
Kabataan or KK (youth in the<br />
community) to make SK officials<br />
accountable and transparent<br />
in planning projects, budgeting,<br />
and disbursing funds.<br />
The KK is actually the SK<br />
electorate, or youths between<br />
the ages of 15 and 17 in a<br />
community. SK officials are<br />
supposed to convene the KK<br />
at least every three months<br />
and present accomplishments<br />
and consult it regarding<br />
projects. But getting a considerable<br />
number of youths<br />
together to listen to a report is<br />
tricky to say the least. Nalupta<br />
points out that most of those<br />
who make up the KK are in<br />
school. And in really poor<br />
places, he says, youths would<br />
rather attend to their family’s<br />
needs, such as scrounging <strong>for</strong><br />
their next meal, than listen to<br />
a bunch of their peers.<br />
Nalupta says the NYC<br />
favors the Akbayan bill, but<br />
they received feedback recently<br />
that it may not stand a chance<br />
since Congress wants a radical<br />
change in the SK. Nalupta says<br />
they might just go <strong>for</strong> the bill<br />
filed by Cavite Rep. Gilbert<br />
Remulla. That bill, perceived<br />
by many as a move to abolish<br />
the entire SK body, allows one<br />
youth representative per barangay.<br />
Nalupta says removing the<br />
collegial body would save the<br />
government a lot of money.<br />
He says it might be the right<br />
step to take since most of the<br />
time the council fails to meet<br />
because its members are busy<br />
with their studies.<br />
Since any of the bills might<br />
not be passed anytime soon,<br />
many are calling <strong>for</strong> Congress<br />
to at least revert the age bracket<br />
of those qualified <strong>for</strong> SK to<br />
the original 15 to 21 years old.<br />
In 2002, Congress limited SK<br />
candidates’ maximum age to 17.<br />
“There are criticisms from Congress<br />
that the SK is too young,”<br />
says Nalupta. “It’s ironic because<br />
it was the same institution that<br />
reduced the age bracket.”<br />
Lazaro, <strong>for</strong> his part, thinks<br />
there should be a body to review<br />
and assess the SK be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
any change is made. He says<br />
the study’s outcome would be<br />
a better indicator of the kind<br />
of re<strong>for</strong>ms SK needs. Right<br />
now, he says, “there are no<br />
hard data, only perceptions.”<br />
Raine Arandia, SK president<br />
in Botolan, Zambales,<br />
says be<strong>for</strong>e he was elected<br />
in 2002, he also had negative<br />
views about the SK. “I might<br />
not have been as open-minded<br />
about the SK if I hadn’t been<br />
a part of it,” he says. “Others<br />
think it’s just nothing. But I<br />
learned many things.” He has<br />
also been busy; among his<br />
projects have been marathons<br />
<strong>for</strong> the anti-drug campaign,<br />
as well as clean- and-green<br />
programs. He has even put out<br />
newsletters on the pitfalls of<br />
smoking and drinking. But he<br />
admits that half of his budget<br />
went to sports, explaining,<br />
“As SK chairmen, we head the<br />
youth and sports development<br />
committee and that’s what we<br />
try to deliver.” Some of his<br />
SK colleagues, though, have<br />
spent considerable amounts on<br />
beauty and bikini contests.<br />
Arandia says if he had more<br />
funds, he would hold symposia<br />
<strong>for</strong> the youth on moral values<br />
and the Zambaleño culture and<br />
identity. “Values have eroded,”<br />
he says. “The young people<br />
today are apathetic and have<br />
no concern <strong>for</strong> issues.”<br />
Lazaro, though, says Edsa<br />
2 gave the youth a chance to<br />
fight <strong>for</strong> good governance and<br />
accountability. “It was,” he<br />
says, “the peak of the political<br />
awareness of the youth.” And,<br />
he says, it made the government<br />
see the youth as a <strong>for</strong>midable<br />
mobilizing <strong>for</strong>ce.<br />
“HISTORICALLY,” SAYS<br />
Nalupta, “the youth have been<br />
fighting <strong>for</strong> empowerment.”<br />
In theory, the SK gives them<br />
that. This may be why people<br />
like Nalupta refuse to give up<br />
on it that easily. Says the NYC<br />
official: “There may be failures<br />
(in the SK). But the frustrations<br />
and disillusionment could be<br />
responded to by bold changes.”<br />
Nalupta himself tried to<br />
implement some re<strong>for</strong>ms as<br />
national SK federation head.<br />
Under his leadership, the SKs<br />
were provided guidelines in<br />
allocating their budgets, making<br />
them more capable in addressing<br />
the needs of the youth.<br />
Nalupta also partnered with<br />
agencies like the Office of the<br />
Ombudsman <strong>for</strong> anti-corruption<br />
trainings and with ABS-CBN<br />
<strong>for</strong> disaster relief assistance and<br />
Yes to Clean Air campaigns,<br />
among other things. He set up<br />
the SK Academy, which now<br />
serves as a training center and<br />
youth hostel.<br />
Several SKs have also been<br />
making a difference in their<br />
respective communities. In San<br />
Fernando, La Union, the SK<br />
has put up a Teen <strong>Center</strong> that<br />
has a mini library, as well as<br />
recreation and sports facilities.<br />
It also offers peer counseling<br />
and a youth-registry system<br />
that aims to compile youth<br />
profiles. In addition, the San<br />
Fernando SK launched an<br />
adolescent reproductive health<br />
program along with values education<br />
and campaigns against<br />
substance abuse. In Olongapo<br />
City, the SK set up readingand-learning<br />
centers in several<br />
barangays. SKs elsewhere have<br />
conducted feeding programs,<br />
medical and dental missions,<br />
and even livelihood programs<br />
<strong>for</strong> the youth.<br />
Indeed, although many have<br />
been disillusioned with the SK,<br />
it still has its believers. Isaac says<br />
“one more soul shouting <strong>for</strong><br />
re<strong>for</strong>m” is already a big achievement.<br />
“We should learn from<br />
our mistakes,’ he says. “Who<br />
knows? The next generation<br />
might just give us surprises.”<br />
Posadas, however, seems to<br />
have had enough. He says the<br />
country’s political framework<br />
isn’t ideal. He can still hear the<br />
call of public service, but he is<br />
no longer eager to answer it,<br />
even though he knows many<br />
others have parlayed their SK<br />
past into bigger political <strong>for</strong>tunes.<br />
(There are about 212 <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
SK members who were elected<br />
into higher public posts in 2004,<br />
including Iloilo Rep. Garin and<br />
<strong>No</strong>rth Cotabato Rep. Emmylou<br />
Taliño-Santos. (See Table 2.)<br />
The rather jaded Arandia of<br />
Zambales can probably commiserate<br />
with Posadas. Yet unlike<br />
Posadas, he is still hoping <strong>for</strong><br />
better things to happen. His<br />
mother, a dedicated community<br />
worker, had told him not to allow<br />
disillusionment to overshadow<br />
his passion and willingness<br />
to serve. “She reminded me,” he<br />
says, “that my per<strong>for</strong>mance in<br />
office largely defines the kind of<br />
person that I am.”<br />
Table 1. Barangays in Makati with the largest general fund<br />
Barangay<br />
Bel-Air Village<br />
San Lorenzo Village<br />
Forbes Park<br />
Urdaneta Village<br />
Dasmariñas Village<br />
Source: City budget office, Makati<br />
Representative<br />
Governor<br />
Vice governor<br />
Provincial board member<br />
Mayor<br />
Vice Mayor<br />
Councilor<br />
Barangay Captain<br />
Total<br />
General fund (IRA<br />
+ taxes, dues, and<br />
fees)<br />
104,600,000.00<br />
89,508,587.00<br />
18,139,551.00<br />
18,372,028.39<br />
16,023,131.00<br />
SK fund (10-percent<br />
share)<br />
10,460,000.00<br />
8,950,858.70<br />
1,813,955.10<br />
1,837,202.84<br />
1,602,313.10<br />
Table 2. Elective positions (2004) held by <strong>for</strong>mer SK officials<br />
Position<br />
Source: NYC<br />
<strong>No</strong>. of seats<br />
occupied<br />
2<br />
1<br />
1<br />
22<br />
10<br />
11<br />
160<br />
5<br />
212<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
39
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
INTOXICATION 101. More<br />
young people are drinking<br />
alcohol now than ever be<strong>for</strong>e.<br />
Teen<br />
Tipsy<br />
&<br />
VINIA DATINGUINOO<br />
RONA AND her friends don’t<br />
want you to know their real<br />
names, although their favorite<br />
pastime is no secret among their<br />
own families. Well, at least Rona’s<br />
mother knows about it, even let-<br />
ting the girls indulge in it in the<br />
family home. That way she also<br />
knows they are safe, even if she<br />
figures that at 21, the girls already<br />
know what they’re doing.<br />
But she worries nonetheless,<br />
and constantly tells Rona and her<br />
katropa, which includes Marissa<br />
and Jenny, to go slow. When she<br />
was their age it wasn’t common<br />
to have girls enjoying drinking<br />
sessions. These days it apparently<br />
is, and it may not even take too<br />
long be<strong>for</strong>e the girls match the<br />
boys bottle <strong>for</strong> bottle.<br />
“It is increasingly becoming<br />
more acceptable among young<br />
people to drink alcohol,” says<br />
demographer Grace Trinidad-<br />
Cruz of the University of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s. She also says that<br />
while in absolute numbers<br />
there are still more young<br />
males than females who are<br />
drinking, the gender gap is<br />
narrowing with the faster rates<br />
of increase among girls.<br />
Cruz was part of the team<br />
that worked on the 2002 Young<br />
Adult Fertility and Sexuality<br />
Survey (YAFS), the third in a<br />
series of nationwide surveys<br />
on adolescent sexuality, fertility<br />
and reproductive health.<br />
The first YAFS was done in<br />
1982. Two decades later, data<br />
showed drinkers as starting<br />
younger, drinking more, and<br />
less likely to drop the habit.<br />
Nearly 42 percent of 15- to<br />
24-year-olds drank alcohol, up<br />
from 37 percent in 1994, when<br />
YAFS2 was conducted. That<br />
increase in drinking prevalence<br />
among young people was<br />
traced mostly to females. Between<br />
the two survey rounds of<br />
1994 and 2002, the proportion<br />
of young females who drank<br />
rose by a huge 65 percent;<br />
among the males, the increase<br />
was a much lower 10 percent.<br />
YAFS says it’s a pattern that<br />
is evident not only in drinking,<br />
but in other risk behaviors, too,<br />
both sexual and nonsexual.<br />
More girls are smoking, more<br />
girls are trying illicit drugs, and<br />
more girls are having early sex.<br />
According to Cruz, these are<br />
manifestations of girls “becoming<br />
more liberal,” shedding<br />
themselves of inhibitions. For<br />
Dr. Cecilia Conaco, a psychologist<br />
and adolescence expert<br />
from the University of the Phil-<br />
ippines, it’s “parang<br />
what boys<br />
can do, girls can also do.”<br />
Jang, who also wants<br />
to hide her identity, readily<br />
admits to drinking, which<br />
she says she started doing in<br />
first year high school. She is<br />
now a nursing school freshman.<br />
She is also only 16 years<br />
old, which means she began<br />
drinking when she was about<br />
12 or 13.<br />
Rona and her group began<br />
even earlier, when they were<br />
all in fourth grade. The father<br />
of a fourth common friend<br />
always had a stock of San<br />
Miguel at home, and the girls<br />
would raid the fridge whenever<br />
they were over <strong>for</strong> a visit. “It<br />
was so bitter we’d take sugar<br />
after every gulp!” recalls Rona.<br />
Since then, they have tasted all<br />
sorts of alcoholic drinks, from<br />
wine to tequila, to brandy and<br />
vodka. They say there is no<br />
special reason why they drink.<br />
They just like drinking, period.<br />
“Trip lang<br />
(We just like to),”<br />
Jang says as well, when asked<br />
why she and her friends—also<br />
16-year-olds—drink. But she<br />
also says alcohol enables them<br />
to open up more and tell each<br />
other about their problems.<br />
They drink “twice, maybe three<br />
times a month…or anytime<br />
we feel like it and we have<br />
money,” says Jang. San Miguel<br />
and the stronger Red Horse<br />
beer are their favorites. But if<br />
money is tight, they settle <strong>for</strong><br />
fiery Gilbey’s gin, which comes<br />
out cheaper because they can<br />
share a bottle.<br />
DRINKING has become so<br />
ordinary among many youths,<br />
girls included, and it is not only<br />
surveys and tongue-clucking<br />
adults saying so. Jang echoes<br />
other youths in saying, “Tala-<br />
mak na ‘yan (It’s widespread).”<br />
But perhaps this shouldn’t<br />
be surprising in a country where<br />
beer is the unofficial national<br />
40 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
drink even as the biggest local<br />
brewery says about 22 bottles<br />
of its gin are consumed by<br />
Filipinos every second. Numerous<br />
provinces also boast of their<br />
own potent local brews, which<br />
are imbibed by both men and<br />
women in great quantities.<br />
Yet as late as a generation<br />
ago, drinking among the youth<br />
was not seen as hip and desirable,<br />
although then as now,<br />
the ability to hold a drink was<br />
taken as one of the signs of<br />
growing up. But even that was<br />
true only <strong>for</strong> the boys.<br />
These days there are still<br />
“coming of age” beer and brandy<br />
commercials aimed at young<br />
men. There are, however, now<br />
also advertisements where<br />
young women are the featured<br />
drinkers. One commercial <strong>for</strong> a<br />
gin brand, <strong>for</strong> example, features<br />
starlet Anne Curtis, who looks<br />
16 but is actually 21. The ad<br />
has her sauntering in a dance<br />
club full of gyrating young bodies<br />
and pouring herself a glass<br />
of gin on the rocks. In the past,<br />
that commercial would have<br />
had her pouring that drink <strong>for</strong><br />
her date.<br />
While alcohol ads have<br />
always had women in them,<br />
they used to be mere props,<br />
sometimes appearing as if they<br />
were meant to be among the<br />
pulutan<br />
enjoyed by the men<br />
along with their beer, brandy,<br />
rum, or gin. Today the ads<br />
show young women drinking<br />
with equally young men, either<br />
in trendy clubs or parties.<br />
“They’ve shifted from sleazy<br />
to hip,” anthropologist Joyce<br />
Valbuena says of the alcoholicdrink<br />
makers’ latest marketing<br />
strategies. “The message is, it’s<br />
cool to drink.” Even <strong>for</strong> young<br />
women, apparently. And the<br />
companies have not stopped<br />
at just placing youth-andwomen<br />
focused ads. They also<br />
sponsor events like musicfests<br />
that feature whatever bands<br />
are most popular among the<br />
young. There are even annual<br />
drinking festivals inspired by<br />
Germany’s Oktoberfest where<br />
beer goes <strong>for</strong> a peso per glass.<br />
In its reports on the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
alcoholic-drink industry<br />
in the last two years, marketing<br />
research company Euromonitor<br />
noted how companies<br />
such as San Miguel and Asia<br />
Brewery have begun targeting<br />
“entry drinkers” and women<br />
to expand their markets. The<br />
strategy made sense since,<br />
Euromonitor pointed out, the<br />
mean age in the <strong>Philippine</strong>s<br />
is 21. More women are also<br />
entering the work<strong>for</strong>ce, giving<br />
them “the predisposition,<br />
the money and the urge to<br />
spend on alcoholic drinks.” In<br />
other words, said Euromonitor,<br />
“drinking to unwind after<br />
a hard day’s work is no longer<br />
just limited to men.” Conaco<br />
agrees that the alcoholic-beverage<br />
industry has noted the<br />
rise in the number of working<br />
women. “So they’re thinking,<br />
‘let’s tap into that’,” she says.<br />
The fact that more women<br />
are earning their own keep and<br />
may have even become the<br />
family breadwinners could also<br />
have something to do with the<br />
changing attitudes among young<br />
Filipinas. Younger women now<br />
thus have role models (among<br />
them <strong>for</strong>mer-First-Daughterturned-TV-host<br />
Kris Aquino)<br />
who have not only kept pace<br />
with the men, but have sometimes<br />
even outdone them. If<br />
men drink, then so can women.<br />
DEMOGRAPHERS AND health<br />
experts, though, stress that the<br />
rise in popularity in drinking<br />
among the youth is something<br />
to be very concerned<br />
about, and not only because<br />
there was once a time when<br />
“proper” young girls would not<br />
be caught dead with a bottle<br />
of beer or gin in their hands.<br />
“We are alarmed because now<br />
we know better,” says Dr. Lynn<br />
Panganiban of the National<br />
Poison Control and In<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
Service (NPCIS) at the UP-<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> General Hospital.<br />
We know now, she says,<br />
that alcohol is toxic. “The least<br />
amount has the potential to<br />
kill,” she adds. She isn’t exaggerating.<br />
There are people who<br />
are predisposed to have allergic<br />
reactions to alcohol, but are unaware<br />
of such until they drink.<br />
There are also those who drink<br />
beyond their individual tolerance<br />
limits, causing their bodies<br />
to react as if these were under<br />
siege. Other experts stress as<br />
well that youths normally have<br />
lower tolerance <strong>for</strong> alcohol<br />
compared to adults.<br />
From January to March<br />
alone the NPCIS treated 11<br />
youths between the ages of 13<br />
to 19 <strong>for</strong> alcohol abuse. If that<br />
trend keeps up, NPCIS could<br />
be looking at a total of 44 <strong>for</strong><br />
TARGETING<br />
THE YOUNG.<br />
Beer companies<br />
are gunning<br />
<strong>for</strong> the youth<br />
market.<br />
the whole <strong>2005</strong>, a big jump<br />
from last year’s 27 and 2003’s<br />
24 cases of young people—<br />
boys and girls—brought in<br />
by their friends after imbibing<br />
more alcohol that their systems<br />
could take. “These are teenagers<br />
who go out, sometimes on<br />
a weekday, they binge, one<br />
of them ends up unconscious<br />
or vomiting violently and they<br />
panic,” says Panganiban.<br />
In many other parts of the<br />
world, the practice of heavy<br />
alcohol drinking among young<br />
people has been a problem <strong>for</strong><br />
many years now. In the United<br />
States, binge drinking has<br />
been the bane of many college<br />
campuses since the 1970s. In<br />
Britain, doctors’ groups have<br />
started to engage the advertising<br />
industry in a battle, calling<br />
<strong>for</strong> a ban on alcohol advertising<br />
to contain what they call<br />
a “binge-drinking epidemic”<br />
among their young.<br />
Here in the <strong>Philippine</strong>s,<br />
binge drinking—or as medical<br />
anthropologist Michael Tan<br />
and the British magazine New<br />
Scientist put it, “drinking to get<br />
drunk”—has yet to be as widespread<br />
among the young, partly<br />
because even if beer and gin are<br />
relatively cheap, Filipino youths<br />
just don’t have that much money<br />
to spare. A store-bought bottle<br />
of beer, <strong>for</strong> example, could take<br />
20 percent of the daily allowance<br />
of a middle-class college<br />
student. But experts warn that<br />
the smaller quantities being<br />
imbibed by young Filipinos<br />
don’t necessarily rule out serious<br />
consequences. The brain goes<br />
through dynamic changes during<br />
adolescence and alcohol can<br />
seriously damage long-term and<br />
short-term growth processes.<br />
Damage from alcohol during<br />
adolescence can be irreversible.<br />
Even short-term drinking<br />
impairs learning and memory far<br />
more in youth than adults, and<br />
adolescents need only to drink<br />
half as much to suffer the same<br />
negative effects.<br />
Health experts add that<br />
long years of alcohol use affect<br />
the liver in the long term, until<br />
the organ simply gives up. And<br />
while alcohol facilitates blood<br />
circulation in the heart, in the<br />
long run the heart muscle is<br />
weakened, leaving it unable to<br />
pump blood efficiently. This,<br />
in turn, affects the lungs, liver,<br />
and brain.<br />
For females, alcohol poses<br />
more danger because of their<br />
lower physiological thresh-<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
41
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
olds. As women metabolize<br />
alcohol differently than men,<br />
they reach higher peak blood<br />
alcohol levels with the same<br />
amount of drink, making them<br />
at higher risk <strong>for</strong> medical<br />
problems.<br />
ACCORDING TO NPCIS, the<br />
accepted universal definition of<br />
moderate drinking is, <strong>for</strong> males,<br />
no more than three standard<br />
drinks per session or 15 per<br />
week; and <strong>for</strong> females, no more<br />
than two standard drinks per<br />
session or 10 per week. “Standards”<br />
vary by drink; one regular<br />
320-ml beer bottle is standard<br />
and so is a glass of wine. Ditto<br />
with a shot of gin. Beyond<br />
these standards, the behavior is<br />
considered “at risk.”<br />
“Tama lang naman ang<br />
pag-inom namin<br />
(We drink<br />
just right),” fresh college graduate<br />
Marissa insists. Her friends<br />
say the same thing; they set<br />
limits. Rona, <strong>for</strong> example, will<br />
have no more than two bottles<br />
of San Mig Light or a bottle<br />
and a half of the stronger Red<br />
Horse in one sitting. Using the<br />
NPCIS definition, they would<br />
seem “moderate” drinkers.<br />
In general, local experts<br />
define drunkenness at a blood<br />
alcohol level of 0.1 percent<br />
or 100 mg/dL. The amount of<br />
alcohol that one needs to take<br />
in to be intoxicated actually<br />
varies, and depends on factors<br />
such as gender, age, body<br />
weight, and metabolism rate.<br />
For a normal, 15-year-old girl<br />
who weighs 50 kgs., <strong>for</strong> example,<br />
intoxication can come<br />
after she drinks nearly three<br />
320-ml bottles of pale pilsen,<br />
or just a smidgen more than a<br />
365-ml bottle of strong beer, or<br />
two 50-ml jiggers of gin.<br />
Elsewhere, experts define<br />
binge drinking as having a<br />
blood alcohol level of 0.08<br />
percent or 80 mg/dL. Tan<br />
quotes New Scientist<br />
as saying<br />
that “on average, males taking<br />
in five or more ‘standard<br />
drinks’ or females taking<br />
in four or more ‘standard<br />
drinks’ in two hours send<br />
blood alcohol soaring to that<br />
80-milligram level.” But he<br />
notes that since the magazine<br />
is talking of Western bodies,<br />
Filipinos would probably need<br />
less than that in less time to be<br />
considered “binge drinkers.”<br />
Panganiban herself is not<br />
at all reassured with all this<br />
talk of moderation. “Thresholds<br />
are naturally pushed up,”<br />
she says. Jang, <strong>for</strong> instance,<br />
began drinking with a limit<br />
of two Red Horse bottles per<br />
session. <strong>No</strong>w she can drink<br />
three bottles and not even feel<br />
slightly tipsy. Her friends have<br />
an even higher tolerance—or<br />
so they think. MJ, also 16,<br />
can drink up to eight bottles<br />
of beer in one sitting without<br />
feeling drunk. But experts<br />
have repeatedly emphasized<br />
that there are people who do<br />
not show or feel the effects<br />
of having dangerous levels of<br />
alcohol in their systems. More<br />
often than not, the realization<br />
comes only after they have<br />
already figured in an accident<br />
or wake up in a hospital.<br />
MJ, though, is unperturbed.<br />
“Sometimes, my drinking buddies<br />
are my aunts,” she says.<br />
“They say it’s okay so long as I<br />
don’t drink too much.”<br />
College lecturer Carole<br />
Diamante, who teaches at an<br />
exclusive girls’ school, feels<br />
habitual drinking may have<br />
harmful consequences. But<br />
she says she tries to understand<br />
her students who drink.<br />
“I guess I’m just indulgent by<br />
nature,” she says, laughing at<br />
herself. Diamante says students<br />
like drinking because “alcohol<br />
brings out the spirit.” She’s a<br />
theology teacher, and she and<br />
her students have noted that<br />
Jesus shared a goblet of wine<br />
with the Apostles, urging them<br />
to drink in His memory after<br />
His death.<br />
To Diamante, the students’<br />
drinking is akin to the way<br />
ordinary wage earners turn to<br />
bottles of beer to relieve their<br />
workday aches and pains. She<br />
says academic life can be just<br />
as stressful. “So they binge,”<br />
she says of her students.<br />
“(They) enjoy the moment<br />
because they know they will<br />
(soon) go back to reality.” She<br />
says her students even drink<br />
with their parents, a setup that<br />
she believes helps rein in the<br />
youngsters. “They tell their<br />
daughter, ’O, not the very hard<br />
drink ha,’” says Diamante. “Or,<br />
‘On the rocks lang ha.’”<br />
THERE ARE indeed several<br />
youngsters who are drinking<br />
openly with their friends at<br />
home. But many times, adult<br />
supervision is lacking because<br />
both parents are too busy either<br />
with work or attending to<br />
the rest of the family. Meanwhile,<br />
outside, the drinking<br />
continues in bars and restaurants,<br />
especially <strong>for</strong> college<br />
students, who imbibe even<br />
during lunch and merienda.<br />
There are schools that have<br />
had to ask nearby restaurants<br />
not to serve alcohol during<br />
the day so that their students<br />
will stop showing up in class<br />
tipsy—that is, if these show<br />
up at all. Apparently, the<br />
restaurants assume college<br />
students are all at least 18,<br />
the legal drinking age, and it<br />
is there<strong>for</strong>e okay <strong>for</strong> them to<br />
drink.<br />
College teachers also say<br />
there are students who bring<br />
alcohol-filled thermoses, the<br />
contents of which are usually<br />
chugged inside the rooms of<br />
the various school organizations.<br />
Teachers who pick up<br />
on the distinct smell of beer<br />
reprimand the students, who<br />
appear contrite and swear<br />
never to bring the brew to<br />
school again. But that is a<br />
promise writ in air, and it<br />
quickly dissipates even be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
the teachers’ backs are turned.<br />
“Our society,” says anthropologist<br />
Valbuena, who is with<br />
the Health Action and In<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
Network (HAIN), “has<br />
yet to regard alcohol drinking<br />
as a problem.” This is despite<br />
a high awareness that those<br />
who drink are more likely to<br />
engage in other risk behaviors.<br />
Alcohol impairs decision-making<br />
abilities and reflexes; studies<br />
done abroad have shown<br />
alcohol as a factor in as much<br />
as 30 percent of all vehicular<br />
accidents.<br />
In HAIN’s own focus-group<br />
discussions <strong>for</strong> the qualitative<br />
component of YAFS3, participants<br />
said they were more<br />
likely to have sex after drinking.<br />
In the United States, it<br />
is estimated that teenage girls<br />
who binge drink are up to 63<br />
percent more likely to become<br />
teen mothers.<br />
“It’s not automatic,” cautions<br />
adolescence expert Conaco.<br />
“But you’re drinking, your<br />
inhibitory senses are depressed,<br />
and you’re fooling around with<br />
your boyfriend? The same way<br />
you say do not drink and drive?<br />
Do not drink and date.”<br />
Marissa says this is why<br />
she puts limits on her drinking<br />
and stops be<strong>for</strong>e she becomes<br />
unable to think clearly. “We’ve<br />
had friends who became<br />
pregnant because they were<br />
drunk,” she says. Stories of<br />
date rapes also abound.<br />
Jang and her friends tell<br />
similar tales. “When you’re<br />
drunk, you don’t know what<br />
you’re doing,” Jang says.<br />
That’s why she says she and<br />
her friends are careful. Whenever<br />
her parents scold her<br />
about her drinking, Jang also<br />
tells them that she knows the<br />
consequences of drinking too<br />
much, and that they need not<br />
worry.<br />
“They’re not ignorant,” demographer<br />
Cruz concedes. It’s<br />
just that they have been unable<br />
to resist the call of the bottle, a<br />
call magnified as much by the<br />
desire of alcoholic-drink manufacturers<br />
to increase profits<br />
as it is by changes in societal<br />
attitudes.<br />
42 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
Stay, serve poor first,<br />
Stay, serve poor first,<br />
Health Secretary Duque appeals to doctors<br />
Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III, <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
President and CEO of the <strong>Philippine</strong> Health<br />
Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) recently<br />
appealed to accredited doctors to stay and serve the<br />
country’s poor first befre pursuing a more lucrative<br />
career overseas.<br />
Duque called on<br />
PhilHealthaccredited<br />
doctors<br />
to pool their<br />
resources and<br />
render their<br />
services to needy<br />
communities. He<br />
said that recent<br />
reports of doctors<br />
studying to become<br />
nurses overseas have alarmed the health sector. He<br />
said the impact of this exodus of health care<br />
professionals is also felt by PhilHealth.<br />
“Ang health insurance program ay umaasa sa mga<br />
doktor at nars na nagbibigay ng serbisyong kalusugan<br />
sa ating mga miyembro,” Duque said, adding that if the<br />
exodus continues, “...mawawalan ng saysay ang health<br />
insurance.” Instead, Duque called on fellow doctors to<br />
put up small hospitals in areas that badly need medical<br />
care services. He noted that there are a lot more areas<br />
in the archipelago that lack quality medical assistance.<br />
Duque also said that Congress’ move to require new<br />
doctors to render in-country service be<strong>for</strong>e going<br />
overseas is not a novel concept. He cited that he was,<br />
in fact, one of those who were required to render<br />
community service first by virtue of a Decree issued<br />
by then President Marcos. “Siguro imumungkahi ko sa<br />
mga mambabatas na kanilang repasuhin ang mga<br />
polisiya noong mga nakaraang taon,” noting that if the<br />
government continues to allow doctors and nurses to<br />
leave the country, “sino na ang magbibigay ng<br />
kinakailangang serbisyo sa ating mga mamamayan?”<br />
He said that an increase in the salaries of health<br />
care professionals in government might be a solution,<br />
given that doctors invest so much in their education<br />
and yet some are not compensated well <strong>for</strong> their<br />
services.<br />
“Ito nga ang maganda sa PhilHealth,” he said, “dahil<br />
malaki na rin ang bahagi ng binabayad ng PhilHealth<br />
sa mga doktor at ospital.” Through the benefit package<br />
provided by PhilHealth to its members nationwide,<br />
accredited doctors are compensated based on the<br />
relative value unit of surgical procedures per<strong>for</strong>med on<br />
patients, as well as in their daily visits to patients.<br />
“Talagang kinakailangang pakiusapan ng<br />
pamahalaan ang mga doktor at nars, kung hindi,<br />
babagsak ang kalidad at antas ng serbisyong<br />
pangkalusugan,” he said.<br />
To date, there are<br />
18,955 PhilHealthaccredited<br />
doctors<br />
that include general<br />
practitioners and<br />
specialists<br />
nationwide.<br />
PhilHealth continues<br />
to call on doctors and<br />
other health care<br />
professionals to be<br />
part of its service<br />
delivery network to ensure that the medical care benefits<br />
are available and accessible to members.
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
CHERYL CHAN<br />
Generation Perils of<br />
Sex<br />
UP A FLIGHT OF<br />
stairs, in a<br />
room with red, yellow, purple,<br />
and green walls, the talk is all<br />
about sex, all of the time. This<br />
is, after all, the hotline center of<br />
the Teen Foundation <strong>for</strong> Adolescent<br />
Development (FAD), an organization<br />
dedicated to adoles-<br />
cent health. In this room, among<br />
a few potted plants, counselors<br />
are always ready to answer calls<br />
from youths and discuss with<br />
them the consequences of premarital<br />
or unprotected sex.<br />
In the past, typical hotline<br />
questions involved girl-boy relationships<br />
and family, school, and<br />
peer issues. But in the last year<br />
alone, the number of inquiries<br />
about sexually transmitted infections<br />
(STI) has soared. It now<br />
ranks third among the top five<br />
most commonly asked issues.<br />
“It’s very alarming,” says<br />
Cecilia Villa, president of FAD,<br />
which has its offices right smack<br />
in the heart of Manila’s university<br />
belt. Awareness is higher<br />
now, she explains, but very<br />
few people realize they can be<br />
infected with a disease because<br />
of one mistaken assumption or<br />
a momentary lapse of judgment.<br />
With the invincibility characteristic<br />
of the young, they “know<br />
about it but don’t think it can<br />
happen to them.”<br />
Dr. Rosendo Roque, head of<br />
adolescent health of the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
Obstetrical and Gynecological<br />
Society (POGS), is himself<br />
quite worried. There is a lack of<br />
statistics and woeful underreporting,<br />
but based on feedback<br />
from obstetricians and gynecologists<br />
across the country and<br />
from his private practice, Roque<br />
believes STIs among youth is a<br />
growing health concern.<br />
STIs are infections of the<br />
reproductive system, transmitted<br />
through sexual contact generally<br />
through warm, moist mucous<br />
membranes such as the vagina,<br />
anus, urethra, and the mouth.<br />
“STI” is used interchangeably<br />
with the more common term<br />
“STD” or sexually transmitted<br />
disease. Some organizations,<br />
including the Department of<br />
Health (DOH) and the World<br />
Health Organization, are now<br />
using the more politically correct<br />
STI. The most common<br />
STIs diagnosed are gonorrhea,<br />
known in the vernacular as tulo,<br />
chlamydia, trichomoniasis, genital<br />
herpes, and genital warts.<br />
There are many factors behind<br />
the increase of STIs, says<br />
Dr. Teresita Brion, an ob-gyn at<br />
St. Luke’s Hospital in Quezon<br />
City. “There’s the media.<br />
There’s the barkada. There’s<br />
the breakdown of families. You<br />
don’t need hormones surging<br />
to want to experiment.”<br />
There is certainly no lack of<br />
stimuli either. Today’s youth are<br />
exposed to sex and sexuality<br />
earlier and in larger doses. There<br />
may still be the constant nagging<br />
of elders about sex being a sin,<br />
but between advertisements us-<br />
ing sex to sell products, double<br />
entendres on noontime variety<br />
shows, and pirated pornographic<br />
DVDs sold <strong>for</strong> less than P80 in<br />
Quiapo to gyrating MTV starlets<br />
and explicit lyrics of hip-hop<br />
songs, young people are constantly<br />
bombarded with messages<br />
about sex. These contribute<br />
to a shift in cultural values that<br />
makes casual sex more permissible<br />
and traditional preconditions<br />
<strong>for</strong> sex such as marriage or true<br />
love increasingly irrelevant.<br />
As a result, Filipino youths<br />
are having sex earlier. Last year,<br />
Roque’s youngest patient was all<br />
of 14. This year he has a 12-yearold.<br />
Brion sees patients who are<br />
sexually active even be<strong>for</strong>e their<br />
first menstrual cycle. According<br />
to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility<br />
and Sexuality (YAFS) survey of<br />
the University of the <strong>Philippine</strong>s<br />
Population Institute, the average<br />
age <strong>for</strong> the first sexual encounter<br />
<strong>for</strong> both men and women is 18.<br />
About 55 percent of these first<br />
sexual experiences were not<br />
planned or were something the<br />
teenagers did not want to happen<br />
at that time.<br />
Premarital sex is also<br />
becoming more accepted,<br />
its prevalence rising from 18<br />
percent in 1994 to 23 percent in<br />
2002. But the sex is often unplanned,<br />
sporadic, or a product<br />
of either being nadala (carried<br />
away) or peer pressure. It often<br />
takes place be<strong>for</strong>e teens learn<br />
about STIs and other health<br />
risks. “They still don’t know<br />
what is going on in them,”<br />
says Roque. “Most of them are<br />
getting into it because of peer<br />
pressure or experimentation.<br />
They are not well-guided.”<br />
He also cites the impact<br />
of broken families, absentee<br />
parents, and lack of role<br />
models created by the mass<br />
exodus of Filipinos overseas.<br />
Parents abroad shower their<br />
children with gifts in order to<br />
compensate <strong>for</strong> their absence,<br />
so the children grow up in an<br />
environment of material excess<br />
without proper guidance.<br />
In today’s sexually charged<br />
landscape, there is a surfeit of<br />
teenagers left on their own to<br />
figure out their own values.<br />
Dr. Brion suspects that<br />
experimentation on bisexuality<br />
and homosexuality, as well as<br />
one-night stands and having<br />
sex “<strong>for</strong> old times’ sake” or<br />
“just because” have become increasingly<br />
common. And while<br />
the dominant practice is still to<br />
have a single partner, there is a<br />
trend toward multiple partners,<br />
especially among young men.<br />
YAFS data show that about 50<br />
percent of men have had multiple<br />
sex partners compared to<br />
about 11 percent of women.<br />
THE CALLERS of FAD’s phonea-friend<br />
hotline are a good mix<br />
of students and young professionals.<br />
Most are male. One<br />
possible reason is because males<br />
are more likely to have multiple<br />
partners and are there<strong>for</strong>e more<br />
vulnerable to contracting an STI.<br />
At the same time, some STIs<br />
tend to be asymptomatic among<br />
women. Only 20 percent of<br />
women, <strong>for</strong> example, exhibit<br />
symptoms of gonorrhea; just half<br />
show symptoms of trichomoniasis,<br />
which is marked by painful,<br />
burning urination and a yellowgreen<br />
discharge among females.<br />
The rest are thus unaware of the<br />
ticking time bomb in their bodies<br />
until it is too late, or when<br />
too many complications have<br />
already set in.<br />
STIs become a serious<br />
public health concern when<br />
ignored: in women, gonorrhea<br />
can lead to pelvic inflammatory<br />
disease, which increases<br />
the risk of infertility and ectopic<br />
pregnancy. Chlamydia, left<br />
untreated, can spread to the<br />
upper reproductive tract and<br />
in women, infect the uterus,<br />
fallopian tubes and ovaries,<br />
44 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
leading to infertility. Untreated<br />
syphilis may lead to nerve damage,<br />
mental disorientation, and<br />
eventually death. Yet approximately<br />
80 percent of men and<br />
women who experience reproductive<br />
health complaints such<br />
as painful urination, abnormal<br />
vaginal/penile discharge, genital<br />
warts, or ulcers do not even<br />
consult a health professional.<br />
This may be partly why the<br />
official number of STI cases in<br />
the country seems deceptively<br />
low. The 2003 National Demographic<br />
and Health Survey, <strong>for</strong><br />
instance, says only 7.6 percent<br />
of men aged 15-19 and less than<br />
2.2 percent of those aged 20-49<br />
reported an STI or STI symptoms.<br />
But underreporting may be<br />
at work here; while public health<br />
centers usually report the STI to<br />
the health department <strong>for</strong> statistical<br />
purposes and the necessary<br />
contact tracing, private clinics are<br />
not obliged to do the same.<br />
Even patients of private<br />
clinics rarely openly acknowledge<br />
their sexual practices or<br />
articulate the suspicion they<br />
might have an STI. And the<br />
young, <strong>for</strong> instance, would not<br />
tell their parents they think they<br />
may an infection because of<br />
what this may imply about their<br />
sex lives (which their parents<br />
often assume they don’t have).<br />
But they also might be too embarrassed<br />
to tell their barkada<br />
so they go on the Internet and<br />
self-medicate. The good news<br />
is that some STIs like gonorrhea<br />
and chlamydia are responsive<br />
to antibiotics. The bad news is<br />
that with self-medication, these<br />
drugs have been abused by<br />
over medication, under medication,<br />
wrong dosage, or prematurely<br />
stopping medication<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e the required time frame.<br />
As a result, doctors say they are<br />
beginning to see strains that are<br />
resistant to antibiotics.<br />
When Lina (not her real<br />
name) experienced a burning,<br />
itching sensation while<br />
peeing two months ago, the<br />
first person she consulted was<br />
her yaya. The 18-year-old’s<br />
trusted nanny told her to use<br />
a feminine hygiene wash and<br />
put a hot water bottle on her<br />
tummy be<strong>for</strong>e sleeping. But<br />
the symptoms—which by then<br />
included an abnormal yellowish<br />
discharge—did not ease;<br />
Lina thought it was time to<br />
consult a doctor, by herself.<br />
Lina was shocked when the<br />
doctor told her she had gonorrhea.<br />
She is sexually active, she<br />
admits, but has been with only<br />
one partner, her high school<br />
sweetheart. They have been together<br />
<strong>for</strong> four years. <strong>No</strong>w she<br />
believes he has been unfaithful<br />
to her and gave her gonorrhea.<br />
Lina says she had planned<br />
to wait until marriage to have<br />
sex but college, with its accompanying<br />
independence, freedom,<br />
and openness of thought,<br />
challenged her long-held<br />
traditional beliefs. “Suddenly it’s<br />
ok to be affectionate with your<br />
boyfriend,” she says. “It’s ok to<br />
have sex with your boyfriend<br />
because everyone is doing it.”<br />
They did not use condoms.<br />
“I’m not an idiot,” she says. “I<br />
know I can get pregnant but he<br />
did not want to use one…” Her<br />
voice trails off, and then she says,<br />
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.<br />
Di naman ako nabuntis, ‘di ba<br />
(I didn’t get pregnant, did I)?”<br />
FAD’S PHONE-a-friend hotline<br />
is one of the few venues that<br />
young people can anonymously<br />
call and ask about questions<br />
about relationships and reproductive<br />
health. One hotline<br />
counselor there says that young<br />
people are likely to have many<br />
misconceptions and few facts.<br />
For example, she says, they will<br />
judge reproductive health on<br />
mere appearance. “They think if<br />
someone is beautiful or sexy and<br />
looks rich and clean, he or she<br />
is healthy,” the counselor says.<br />
“They say you can get STIs only<br />
from nightclub workers.”<br />
Sometimes, she says, callers<br />
reason, “Kilala ko naman siya.<br />
‘Di siya gano’n (I know the per-<br />
son. He/She is not like that.).”<br />
But it is precisely knowing<br />
their partner in the biblical sense,<br />
unarmed with the knowledge<br />
of the consequences, that gets<br />
these teens into trouble in the<br />
first place. Some other common<br />
misconceptions include drinking<br />
Coke to prevent STIs and jumping<br />
up and down steps to regulate<br />
the menstrual cycle. There<br />
are even those who believe one<br />
can’t get pregnant from one’s<br />
first sexual intercourse or if the<br />
woman is on top.<br />
Two of three respondents in<br />
the YAFS study said they know<br />
about STIs in general. Awareness<br />
of HIV/AIDS is near universal<br />
at 95 percent, yet only 27<br />
percent think there is a chance<br />
of them getting AIDS. Also,<br />
the misconception that AIDS is<br />
curable has worsened from 12<br />
percent in 1994 to 28 percent<br />
in 2002. Predictably, HIV/AIDS<br />
and STI awareness is higher in<br />
urban areas, among better-educated<br />
classes, and among older<br />
youth (20-24) vs. the younger<br />
(15-19), and those with more<br />
exposure to the media.<br />
The hotline counselor says<br />
that some teens are unfazed when<br />
they test positive <strong>for</strong> an STI. Adolescent<br />
males may even consider<br />
STIs to be “warrior marks,” proof<br />
of their sexual prowess. The first<br />
concern of younger callers—those<br />
16 and below who consult the<br />
hotline because they suspect<br />
they have been infected—is not<br />
their own health but how they<br />
could win back their girlfriends<br />
or boyfriends. “They don’t see<br />
it’s a serious problem,” notes the<br />
counselor.<br />
Indeed, they don’t. The<br />
YAFS study says only 80<br />
percent of young people used<br />
contraception the first time they<br />
had sex. Unsurprisingly, 74<br />
percent of all estimated illegitimate<br />
births are by 15-24 year<br />
olds. There are 400,000 cases<br />
of illegal abortions every year,<br />
and young women account <strong>for</strong><br />
nearly four out of 10 cases of<br />
abortion complications.<br />
WHO IS supposed to teach<br />
young people about sex?<br />
Some experts believe schools<br />
should. They say many parents<br />
lack the knowledge and may<br />
even be the ones perpetrating<br />
misconceptions. In addition,<br />
studies show young people do<br />
not talk to their parents about<br />
sex. In<strong>for</strong>mation from family is<br />
often limited to ideal gender<br />
roles and lectures about<br />
refraining from sexual activity.<br />
Most teens get their in<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
from peers, movies, television<br />
shows, and books.<br />
While the government has<br />
opened its doors to talking about<br />
adolescent health, it is unable to<br />
do this enough. There are NGOs<br />
that try to fill the gap but, as<br />
FAD’s Villa says, “we have limited<br />
reach.” The government, by comparison,<br />
“can be everywhere.”<br />
Un<strong>for</strong>tunately, the government<br />
can also block in<strong>for</strong>mation.<br />
Without a clear national<br />
population control program,<br />
local health workers are obliged<br />
to obey municipal officials who<br />
impose personal beliefs on state<br />
policy. With Mayor Lito Atienza’s<br />
staunch stance against artificial<br />
birth control, <strong>for</strong> example, the<br />
city of Manila has become a<br />
hostile place <strong>for</strong> NGOs. Clinics<br />
are discouraged from promoting<br />
family planning and safe sex and<br />
from distributing condoms.<br />
Dr. Carolyn Sobritchea, director<br />
of the <strong>Center</strong> <strong>for</strong> Women’s<br />
Studies at the University of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s, is aghast. “The right<br />
to reproductive health is a human<br />
right,” she says. “Governments<br />
must provide all the in<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
<strong>for</strong> individuals to make the right<br />
decisions <strong>for</strong> themselves.”<br />
She adds, “I don’t look at it<br />
from a moral dimension. That’s<br />
not my place. As a teacher, I<br />
would like to imbue them with<br />
the knowledge and skills to<br />
protect themselves.”<br />
She calms down the fears<br />
of officials who think that more<br />
knowledge about sex could<br />
lead to promiscuity. “It’s simply<br />
not true,” she says. “I can cite<br />
the statistics of Japan and other<br />
countries where you have condoms<br />
and pills in dormitories.”<br />
Most health workers support<br />
sex education in schools although<br />
they unanimously stress<br />
that abstinence remains the best<br />
protection. But they reiterate<br />
that balanced teaching is key.<br />
Although in<strong>for</strong>mation should<br />
never be withheld, it should be<br />
balanced with responsibility.<br />
FAD, <strong>for</strong> one, has produced<br />
“STI Confidential,” an educational<br />
video with popular<br />
young star Judy Ann Santos as<br />
host. POGS launched two years<br />
ago an STD awareness program<br />
aimed at schools, starting<br />
from Grade 5 onwards.<br />
Some schools have also taken<br />
steps toward more in<strong>for</strong>mative<br />
and grounded discussions<br />
on sex. Incoming freshmen at<br />
the University of the <strong>Philippine</strong>s<br />
now have to take a mandatory<br />
course on gender, sexuality,<br />
and culture. The class tackles<br />
issues such as STIs, unwanted<br />
pregnancies, boyfriend battering,<br />
and sexual abuse.<br />
The likes of Sobritchea<br />
remain hopeful. “Young people<br />
today are very responsible,” the<br />
professor says. “They just need<br />
the proper in<strong>for</strong>mation.”<br />
Cheryl Chan is Chinese-Filipino<br />
and moved to Canada in her<br />
teens. She is currently completing<br />
a master’s degree in journalism<br />
at the University of British<br />
Columbia in Vancouver.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
45
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
real impact, especially among<br />
more impressionable youth. A<br />
2003 study by advertising giant<br />
McCann-Erickson found that media<br />
have become “surrogate parents”<br />
to the country’s youth. The<br />
media act as arbitrators of right<br />
and wrong, hip and cool, what’s<br />
in and what’s as passe as last<br />
year’s ponchos. TV viewership<br />
especially rates high among the<br />
youth who spend about eight to<br />
14 hours a week watching TV.<br />
CHERYL CHAN<br />
THE QUEUES<br />
in mall bathrooms<br />
attest to our national vanity.<br />
With all the women putting on<br />
lipstick, powdering their noses,<br />
and whipping their dangerously<br />
long, buhaghag-free hair be-<br />
tween vigorous brushstrokes, it<br />
is nearly impossible to get to the<br />
sink to wash hands. Whether the<br />
vanity is cause or effect, I’m not<br />
sure. Probably a little of both.<br />
Cutting una bella figura, as<br />
the Italians say, is important in<br />
the <strong>Philippine</strong>s. Filipinas pride<br />
themselves on their looks and<br />
deservedly so. Filipinos are a<br />
beautiful people, a product of a<br />
beautiful heritage. Even the men<br />
haven’t been spared the urge to<br />
look good, and in recent years<br />
they have become increasingly<br />
willing to splurge on beauty<br />
products. But the majority of<br />
buyers is still female—and, it<br />
seems, getting younger. A quick<br />
browse in “Primp and Prettify”<br />
<strong>for</strong>um on GirlTalk, a popular<br />
message board dedicated to<br />
young women easily turned up<br />
threads on facial and underarm<br />
whitening, rebonding, dieting<br />
pills, and make-up brands. I can<br />
empathize. Being vain can be an<br />
empowering experience. As in: I<br />
am woman. I exfoliate.<br />
In the <strong>Philippine</strong>s, manufacturers<br />
and advertisers are eager<br />
Business<br />
of Beauty<br />
to tap into the youth market,<br />
especially when it comes to<br />
personal care products. After<br />
all, the youth market is huge. In<br />
2001, about 57 percent of the<br />
population was under 25; 15-24<br />
year olds made up almost 20<br />
percent. Also, “me” products<br />
such as cosmetics, haircare,<br />
and beauty products do better<br />
with youth who are increasingly<br />
savvy, product-aware, and more<br />
willing to pamper themselves.<br />
And they also have more disposable<br />
income than older demographics.<br />
Plus, their being Pinoy<br />
means they will spend more time<br />
on their looks than most other<br />
people on the planet.<br />
If much of that marketing<br />
is still geared toward young<br />
females, well, girls have always<br />
been assumed to be conscious<br />
about their physical appearance.<br />
But these days it seems even<br />
those who are not yet quite in<br />
their teens are already worrying<br />
about how they look. Recently,<br />
our family was enjoying a<br />
birthday feast in honor of my<br />
grandfather when we noticed my<br />
12-year-old cousin just picking at<br />
her plate. It turned out she had<br />
put herself on a diet. I remember<br />
when my girlfriends and I were<br />
the same age and we thought<br />
nothing about stuffing our faces<br />
The<br />
with French fries and chocolates.<br />
Back then, only moms and much<br />
older sisters struggled with diets<br />
and exercise regimens.<br />
That wasn’t so long ago,<br />
yet things seem to have really<br />
changed since. Today the pressure<br />
to look good starts years<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e girls even hit puberty.<br />
The other day, my friend’s<br />
niece wistfully said she wished<br />
she were more maputi (fair-<br />
skinned). She is only six years<br />
old. Perhaps she aspires to be<br />
Snow White and she wants her<br />
very own set of seven dwarfs.<br />
Or she may have just walked<br />
away from the television set in<br />
which ads were extolling the<br />
virtues of fair skin and the other<br />
supposed standards of beauty.<br />
It seems we believe beauty<br />
is an ideal—especially when<br />
we leaf through glossy fashion<br />
magazines and see photos of<br />
gorgeous models. Or turn on<br />
the TV and wait eagerly <strong>for</strong> that<br />
magical moment when the kam-<br />
panerang kuba (hunchbacked<br />
bell ringer) is trans<strong>for</strong>med into<br />
a beautiful mestiza. Incidentally,<br />
that’s a teleserye that has kids<br />
among its target audience.<br />
Billboards, radio jingles, television<br />
commercials, magazine<br />
flyers, newspaper ads, and press<br />
releases—media exposure has<br />
NOW MAYBE it’s easy to make<br />
a six-year-old believe she has<br />
to be maputi to be considered<br />
pretty, but have that kid grow<br />
up a bit and she may not exactly<br />
be snapping up just any beauty<br />
product that promises to make<br />
her fair-skinned. Teens are a<br />
fickle market with no brand<br />
loyalty, says Art Ilano, assistant<br />
marketing professor at the<br />
University of the <strong>Philippine</strong>s in<br />
Diliman. They switch products<br />
easier, unlike older markets that<br />
tend to settle <strong>for</strong> certain brands.<br />
Because of this, companies have<br />
no choice but to bombard the<br />
youth market with constant reminders<br />
to “Buy me! Buy me!”<br />
And boy, do they bombard.<br />
According to market research<br />
company AC Neilsen, the personal-care<br />
industry poured P23.4<br />
billion in advertisements in 2004,<br />
a quarter higher than in 2003. In<br />
comparison, telecommunications<br />
is a distant second at P13 billion,<br />
and we already know how ubiquitous<br />
mobile-phone ads are.<br />
At P6 billion a year, skincare<br />
is second to haircare in<br />
ad expenditures, which stand<br />
at P10 billion (oral care is third<br />
at P3 billion). These numbers<br />
probably come as no surprise<br />
to people who drive down<br />
EDSA or read newspapers and<br />
magazines, and especially not<br />
to those who watch television,<br />
the most popular ad outlet.<br />
But it’s the skincare ad category<br />
that has seen the highest<br />
rate of growth. This is largely<br />
attributed to the increasing popularity<br />
of whitening products.<br />
According to a 2004 Synovate<br />
survey, skin-lightening products<br />
are popular across Asia. Some<br />
38 percent of women surveyed<br />
in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Korea,<br />
Taiwan, and the <strong>Philippine</strong>s use<br />
skin-lightening products.<br />
Filipinas, however, are the<br />
most avid consumers with 50<br />
percent of respondents reporting<br />
current use. My neighborhood<br />
46 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
Watson’s store displays shelves<br />
upon shelves of skin whitening<br />
products. Most companies now<br />
include a whitening component<br />
in their entire product line, from<br />
soaps and moisturizers to toners<br />
and sunblocks and creams.<br />
Having fair skin, though, is not<br />
enough to be called a real beauty<br />
these days, at least based on the<br />
nonstop ads. At any given time<br />
of the day—and night—there is<br />
bound to be a shampoo commercial<br />
extolling the virtues of<br />
having long, shiny tresses. Once<br />
primetime hits, suds and bubbles<br />
practically spill out of the TV sets<br />
with all the hairwashing going on.<br />
On ABS-CBN between 6:00-<br />
6:30 pm, a shampoo commercial<br />
comes on air like clockwork.<br />
“Bounce!” it exhorts, “Freshness!<br />
Bounce!” while yet another<br />
mestiza model sashays around<br />
a basketball court bouncing her<br />
hair all over the place. Fifteen<br />
minutes later, there’s another<br />
shampoo ad, this time done like<br />
a bad MTV video with an inanely<br />
catchy refrain, dancing girls and<br />
a storyline that goes, girl wants<br />
boy, boy snubs girl because she is<br />
bruha-looking<br />
, girl uses shampoo,<br />
boy falls in love with girl, and<br />
they live happily ever—or until<br />
she stops using the shampoo. The<br />
commercial seems to last five long<br />
minutes. The tagline: instant ayos,<br />
parang magic<br />
talaga, kinamay<br />
lang inayos na (perfect hair<br />
instantly, just like magic, just with<br />
the fingers).<br />
A confused confession:<br />
I use that brand but my hair<br />
doesn’t ayos in a similar manner,<br />
instantly or even after I tug at it<br />
with my fingers <strong>for</strong> an hour. I still<br />
need to use a brush or a comb. I<br />
concede an advertiser’s creative<br />
and artistic license, and the small<br />
print does say “results may vary.”<br />
But I’d like to do a real-life test<br />
and see if any girl can attain a<br />
perfectly straight, perfectly shiny<br />
‘do just by running her fingers<br />
perfunctorily through her hair.<br />
ALA PAREDES, 22, host of<br />
IslaMusik on ABC5, as well as<br />
writer and model, is the proud<br />
owner of a crown of curls. She<br />
finds the current crop of haircare<br />
and skincare commercials<br />
“abominable” because they<br />
don’t promote uniqueness or<br />
diversity. “Instead of celebrating<br />
physical differences,” she<br />
says, “they make people think<br />
you have to look a certain way<br />
to be beautiful.”<br />
She should know. In an<br />
industry that prizes fair skin and<br />
straight hair, her morena skin<br />
color and loose, voluptuous<br />
curls are considered unconventional.<br />
This demand <strong>for</strong> an<br />
“ideal” look has cost her jobs,<br />
she believes, because casting<br />
people who deviate from the<br />
norm is risky. To think she already<br />
has a perceived edge, being<br />
the daughter of Jim Paredes<br />
of APO Hiking Society fame.<br />
People who look “different”<br />
are usually given character<br />
roles, while the lead goes to a<br />
fair, straight-haired girl. Curly<br />
hair may look gorgeous on Jericho<br />
Rosales but put the same<br />
mop on some girl’s head and<br />
there will be people thinking<br />
she could be Valentina’s longlost<br />
sister. Curly hair is often<br />
associated with messiness or<br />
wildness while straight hair is<br />
more malinis or neat to look at.<br />
Similarly, when it comes to skin<br />
color, white is associated with<br />
cleanliness and purity.<br />
Of course one can argue<br />
hair and skin color is a matter of<br />
preference. But you will almost<br />
never hear a person say about<br />
an actress or model, “I don’t like<br />
her because she has straight hair”<br />
or “Yuck, look at her, ang puti<br />
niya (she’s so fair)”—unless we<br />
are talking Sadako-white (then<br />
again, she was more on the gray<br />
shades). Obviously, says Paredes,<br />
a norm has been set.<br />
Some companies are not<br />
even above using blatantly<br />
discriminatory or politically<br />
incorrect methods to sell their<br />
products. Paredes cites a whitening<br />
product ad where a mestiza<br />
couple is having their baby<br />
baptized. The priest smiles at<br />
the couple but when he pulls<br />
the baby’s blanket back, he<br />
looks aghast. The camera then<br />
zooms in on the baby who has<br />
dark skin, and then zooms out<br />
to show the mother’s relatives<br />
having brown skin. Translation:<br />
mommy used the product. Says<br />
Paredes: “I felt they were presenting<br />
the baby in a ridiculous<br />
manner. The majority of Filipinos<br />
have dark skin, including<br />
me. I felt personally offended.”<br />
She’s not the only one. From<br />
talking to my young cousins and<br />
their friends, there seems to be a<br />
consensus that the marketing of<br />
these skin-whitening products is<br />
vaguely disturbing and occasionally<br />
offensive on some level. It<br />
raises many questions. What is<br />
wrong with our skin color? Why<br />
are we trying to look different<br />
from what we are?<br />
UNCONVENTIONAL<br />
LOOKS. Model<br />
Ala Paredes has<br />
curly hair in a<br />
country where long,<br />
straight hair(left)<br />
is considered the<br />
epitome of female<br />
beauty.<br />
TO ME the culprit is the plethora<br />
of advertisers imposing a lanky<br />
model with abnormally bouncy<br />
hair and porcelain-white skin on<br />
us hapless mortals. But Art Ilano<br />
disagrees. He says advertising<br />
isn’t really to blame <strong>for</strong> our seeming<br />
fixation with straight hair and<br />
white skin. According to him, “it’s<br />
ingrained in our culture.”<br />
Ilano argues that advertisers<br />
only ride trends; they don’t create<br />
them. “Someone somewhere tried<br />
skin whitening and saw there is<br />
a market <strong>for</strong> it,” he says. “Papaya<br />
soap used to be a niche market<br />
with no budget <strong>for</strong> advertising but<br />
people liked it. It had strong sales<br />
in the provinces. That’s when<br />
ads come in.” Advertising only<br />
does the market research. It does<br />
not trans<strong>for</strong>m people’s opinions<br />
but it serves to accelerate trends.<br />
“Besides,” Ilano adds, “marketers<br />
aren’t that creative.”<br />
Well, neither is the popularity<br />
of skin-whitening products caused<br />
by colonial mentality alone. Other<br />
countries like Korea or Japan<br />
which haven’t been colonies of<br />
Western powers also go ga-ga<br />
over whitening products. So if<br />
“culture” is to blame, that may really<br />
mean our Asian culture.<br />
As <strong>for</strong> long, straight hair, there<br />
used to be a time when this was<br />
associated with those who came<br />
straight from the provinces, or<br />
people who wanted to look “ethnic”<br />
or had ambitions of marrying<br />
<strong>for</strong>eigners (hence the phrase “export<br />
beauties”; <strong>for</strong> some reason,<br />
most Western men seem to pick<br />
women with long hair whenever<br />
they go hunting <strong>for</strong> a partner in<br />
Asia). Once upon a time, the<br />
mark of a mestiza was a head<br />
of wavy locks. It was the indios<br />
or natives who had straight hair.<br />
Actually, either that or kinky<br />
hair. Anyway, all these make it<br />
hard to argue that culture led to<br />
our present obsession with long,<br />
straight hair.<br />
But maybe it’s not a matter<br />
of culture vs. advertising.<br />
For all we know, they could<br />
be mutually feeding on each<br />
other. Un<strong>for</strong>tunately, we’re<br />
stuck with just the obvious: a<br />
constant assault of images and<br />
products promoting only one<br />
type of beauty and leaving little<br />
room <strong>for</strong> diversity. (Where<br />
is Benetton when you need it?)<br />
Yet despite the double-digit<br />
growth of skin whiteners and<br />
the prevalence of shiny, longhaired<br />
artistas<br />
in the country,<br />
many teens are aware, at least<br />
in theory, that beauty comes in<br />
many shapes, colors, and sizes.<br />
Sometimes, a company<br />
comes along believing that, too.<br />
In 2003 the local girls’ clothing<br />
line Bayo launched Kat Alano in<br />
its “A Girl Like You” campaign.<br />
An EDSA billboard depicted a<br />
pretty girl with a mop of curls.<br />
The emphasis was on being different.<br />
The campaign was a great<br />
success and today Kat Alano’s<br />
career is thriving. Perhaps this<br />
means that young Filipinas, as<br />
personal care consumers, are<br />
open, if not eager, <strong>for</strong> different<br />
types of beauty on our billboards<br />
and television screens.<br />
<strong>No</strong>w if only more advertisers<br />
and marketers become a little bit<br />
more creative and take note.<br />
Cheryl Chan was an intern at the PCIJ<br />
and is currently pursuing a master’s<br />
in journalism at the University of<br />
British Columbia. She shakes her fist<br />
at the television every time a shampoo<br />
commercial comes on.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
47
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
Machos<br />
in theMirror<br />
I FEEL PRETTY.<br />
Filipino men<br />
are splurging<br />
on looking—and<br />
feeling—good.<br />
DEAN FRANCIS ALFAR<br />
I DON’T generally think of<br />
myself as vain, but then there’s<br />
this incident I remember from<br />
high school: some friends and I<br />
were assembled at my house so<br />
that we could all ride together<br />
to a party. As we were getting<br />
dressed in our Spandau<br />
Ballet-inspired finery (then the<br />
height of fashion), one of the<br />
barkada produced, from out<br />
of the depths of his bag, a can<br />
of mousse, which none of us<br />
hapless males had ever seen or<br />
even heard of be<strong>for</strong>e. Naturally,<br />
we all had to squirt some into<br />
our hands and smear it on our<br />
hair. <strong>No</strong>t knowing that we were<br />
then supposed to blow-dry or<br />
otherwise style it, we left the<br />
house feeling snazzy, while<br />
looking pretty much the same<br />
as we had prior to applying the<br />
mousse—at most, our hair was<br />
a little damper, vaguely crispy<br />
in texture, and certainly stickier<br />
than be<strong>for</strong>e. But we felt utterly<br />
trans<strong>for</strong>med. We felt guapo.<br />
These days (long past high<br />
school, thanks), I don’t exactly<br />
wander around feeling guapo,<br />
but according to a survey by<br />
global research firm Synovate<br />
last year, a good many Filipino<br />
males do—48 percent of us, in<br />
fact. This is just a slightly lower<br />
percentage than males in the<br />
United States at 53 percent, and<br />
considerably higher than our<br />
Asian neighbors: 25 percent of<br />
Singaporean men think they’re<br />
sexy, and only 12 percent of<br />
guys from Hong Kong.<br />
Moreover, while less than<br />
half of us (which is already a significant<br />
figure) think that we’re<br />
God’s gift to Pinays, a whopping<br />
84 percent of Filipinos rate their<br />
looks as “quite” or “very” important<br />
to them. Assuming that the<br />
survey is accurate, this means,<br />
statistically speaking, that there<br />
is no male racial group on earth<br />
vainer than Filipino men. And,<br />
to my shock, I am one of them.<br />
I have the uncom<strong>for</strong>table<br />
feeling that female readers will<br />
not be surprised to learn that<br />
Pinoys are full of themselves. I<br />
myself was astounded by these<br />
figures, and I don’t think my<br />
wife has stopped laughing yet.<br />
If you think about it, really,<br />
the evidence is all around us,<br />
and has been <strong>for</strong> decades. Way<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e the term “metrosexual”<br />
was ever coined (in 1994, by<br />
British journalist Mark Simpson,<br />
in case you’re interested),<br />
Filipino businessmen were<br />
going around toting clutch<br />
bags—which I’m told are meant<br />
to hold guns or money, but<br />
which also frequently contain<br />
combs and the occasional small<br />
mirror. Your average Pinoy traffic<br />
cop, while likely to sport an<br />
enormous gut that completely<br />
engulfs his regulation belt, is just<br />
as likely to brandish gleaming,<br />
rosy-hued, meticulously manicured<br />
fingernails. And practically<br />
everyone has at least one uncle<br />
or other older male relative who<br />
keeps his hair so slickly brilliantined<br />
that everyone else can<br />
conveniently fix his or her own<br />
hair by merely glancing at its<br />
mirror-like surface.<br />
Those are just what we’ll<br />
call the “traditional” examples.<br />
Among the younger set, I recall<br />
a time when you couldn’t walk<br />
into a classroom of boys without<br />
nearly asphyxiating on the<br />
overwhelming communal scent<br />
of Drakkar cologne. <strong>No</strong>wadays<br />
the choice of fragrance is more<br />
varied, but the rabidly enthusiastic<br />
application of cologne,<br />
aftershave, or that hybrid substance<br />
strangely labeled as “deocologne”<br />
remains constant. The<br />
Synovate survey tells us that Filipino<br />
men bathe an average of<br />
1.5 times a day. (I’m not really<br />
sure how one takes half a bath,<br />
but I’m told by in<strong>for</strong>med sources<br />
that such regular male hygiene<br />
is a source of relief and delight<br />
<strong>for</strong> Filipino women.) Since the<br />
1970s, the majority of <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
beauty salons have become<br />
“unisex,” resulting in a large and<br />
growing number of young men<br />
who have never even set foot in<br />
a barber shop, which means that<br />
most of us go to salons—every<br />
three weeks or so, according to<br />
salon magnate Ricky Reyes, “<strong>for</strong><br />
pampering.”<br />
<strong>No</strong>t that barbershops themselves<br />
are exactly bastions of<br />
simplicity and pure functionality<br />
anymore. High-end ones offer<br />
“personal care” services ranging<br />
from facials to foot scrubs to<br />
ear cleaning. (Does ear cleaning<br />
count as vanity?) Men also<br />
go to massage parlors—real<br />
ones, not quote-unquote massage<br />
parlors—not just to soothe<br />
their tired muscles, but often <strong>for</strong><br />
skin-improving treatments like<br />
mud baths and herbal wraps.<br />
And speaking of skin treatments,<br />
more and more cosmetics<br />
companies are coming out with<br />
“just <strong>for</strong> men” lines of grooming<br />
products, including face scrubs,<br />
lotions, and astringents. What’s<br />
significant is that more and more<br />
Pinoy men are actually buying<br />
them: just 10 years ago, men<br />
accounted <strong>for</strong> only 10 percent of<br />
the total <strong>Philippine</strong> beauty care<br />
buying public. That figure has<br />
now mushroomed to 40 percent,<br />
48 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
meaning that there are nearly<br />
equal numbers of Pinoys and<br />
Pinays out there, snapping up<br />
creams and cleansers.<br />
Even cosmetic surgery has<br />
become not just acceptable,<br />
but desirable <strong>for</strong> many Filipino<br />
men—from standard dermatology<br />
<strong>for</strong> simple problems like<br />
acne, to unapologetic vanity procedures<br />
such as liposuction and<br />
“age-defying” Botox injections.<br />
Dr. Vicky Belo of the popular<br />
Belo Medical Clinic confirms,<br />
“Be<strong>for</strong>e, (men) only accounted<br />
<strong>for</strong> one-fourth of my total<br />
clientele. <strong>No</strong>w they are about<br />
one-third.” It’s gotten to the point<br />
where “Who’s your derma?” is<br />
a topic that can actually enjoy<br />
lengthy discussion time in a manto-man<br />
conversation, and surgical<br />
treatment has become something<br />
of a mark of status in <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
showbiz. Actors Albert Martinez<br />
and John Lloyd Cruz, as well as<br />
singer Janno Gibbs, among others,<br />
readily (and proudly!) admit<br />
to being regular clients at the<br />
Belo Medical Clinic.<br />
CAN ALL this male vanity be<br />
laid at the door of celebrities like<br />
these and metrosexual poster<br />
boy David Beckham? Apparently<br />
not. For one thing, as I mentioned<br />
earlier, the Filipino trait<br />
of being vanidoso well predates<br />
Becks and his ilk. Besides, a metrosexual,<br />
by definition, is “a male<br />
who has a strong aesthetic sense<br />
and spends a great deal of time<br />
and money on his appearance.”<br />
While it seems that we Pinoys<br />
certainly do make the time and<br />
shell out the cash <strong>for</strong> our looks,<br />
we don’t always have enough of<br />
an aesthetic sense to know what<br />
we’re doing… unless there actually<br />
is a segment of the female<br />
populace I don’t know about<br />
that really does swoon over pink,<br />
manicured fingernails on a man.<br />
I can’t be sure there isn’t, having<br />
never tried the look myself.<br />
As <strong>for</strong> why we’re willing to<br />
spend so much time and money,<br />
it may, surprisingly, be a product<br />
of social and economic factors.<br />
During the U.S. recession, it was<br />
observed that lipstick sales shot<br />
up, only to taper down again<br />
once the recession was over.<br />
Consistent repetition of this phenomenon<br />
led economists to conclude<br />
that, when consumers feel<br />
less than confident about the future,<br />
they tend to purchase small,<br />
com<strong>for</strong>ting indulgences such as<br />
lipstick rather than splurging on<br />
larger items like appliances and<br />
electronic gadgets. Correspondingly,<br />
Ricky Reyes has noted that<br />
more customers flocked to salons<br />
during the 1997 economic crisis<br />
in the <strong>Philippine</strong>s, turning to<br />
relatively low-priced services like<br />
haircuts in order to make themselves<br />
feel better in an unstable<br />
living environment.<br />
While the purchase of<br />
lipstick per se may not exactly<br />
be applicable (so far!) to the<br />
Filipino male, we can obviously<br />
draw a corollary with your<br />
average Pinoy, who might be<br />
understandably reluctant to buy,<br />
say, a flat-screen TV in a country<br />
where coup d’etat rumors circulate<br />
at least twice a year. Instead,<br />
he might choose to spend his<br />
money on his appearance,<br />
perhaps subconsciously reasoning<br />
that his shiny, bouncy hair,<br />
glowing, healthy skin, and, yes,<br />
tidy pink nails are all conveniently<br />
portable in the event that<br />
he should need to duck and run<br />
<strong>for</strong> cover. And these are straight<br />
guys we’re talking about here.<br />
According to <strong>No</strong>el Manucom,<br />
head of planning and strategy at<br />
Splash cosmetics, the quest <strong>for</strong><br />
beauty may also be perceived<br />
as a quest <strong>for</strong> social equality.<br />
“Filipinos, especially those in<br />
the C and D (classes), are still<br />
influenced by their colonial<br />
mentality that white skin and a<br />
tall nose are what those in high<br />
society have,” Manucom says.<br />
“They may not be able to af<strong>for</strong>d<br />
to have their nose done, but the<br />
desire to have a fairer skin can<br />
be met by buying… products.”<br />
In fact, the double-digit<br />
growth in skin care popularity<br />
among Filipino males over the<br />
last six years is largely attributable<br />
to skin-whitening <strong>for</strong>mulas.<br />
Pinoys are still devoted to hair<br />
care products and fragrance<br />
above anything else—with<br />
growing interest in bath washes,<br />
oral hygiene, and weight loss or<br />
gain—yet skin care is acknowledged<br />
to be the main fuel of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> beauty industry. This<br />
has led to some very disturbing<br />
(to me, at least) TV ads, particularly<br />
the one where a twentysomething<br />
young man testifies,<br />
with evident smugness, that his<br />
male friends have been telling<br />
him, “Pare, pumuputi ka yata,<br />
ah (Man, you look fairer)!”<br />
NOW PERSONALLY, I have<br />
never had a verbal exchange like<br />
that with any of my friends, male<br />
or female. But I am beginning to<br />
dread that I just might someday.<br />
<strong>No</strong>t that I use whitening products,<br />
but, given the evidence<br />
from that time in high school up<br />
to the present, it seems irrefutable<br />
that I am, contrary to my<br />
previous belief, vain.<br />
I visit my barber in Greenhills<br />
once a week—and while<br />
this does, indeed, occur at a<br />
barbershop, I not only have my<br />
head shaved and my beard and<br />
moustache trimmed, I have my<br />
feet tended to, as well. When<br />
I feel particularly filthy, I have<br />
a facial. Once in a while, my<br />
barber takes it upon himself to<br />
shape my eyebrows with a razor—I’m<br />
still not sure I approve<br />
of this, but I’ve never stopped<br />
him, either. And that’s not all<br />
my barbershop offers. I can opt<br />
<strong>for</strong> an Iontophoresis, Deep Laser<br />
Cleaning, Skin Bleaching, Skin<br />
Whitening, Underarm Whitening,<br />
Wart Removal, Paraffin Waxing,<br />
Hair Dyeing, Hair Rebonding,<br />
something called “Kilay,”<br />
and a host of other services I<br />
never thought would be found<br />
in a bastion of manliness.<br />
These days, most women<br />
will tell you that they don’t<br />
necessarily pamper and primp<br />
in order to please men; they do<br />
it to please themselves. Most<br />
vain men, I think, will tell you<br />
exactly the opposite: we like to<br />
look good because women like<br />
men who look good. Because<br />
when all is said and done about<br />
socio economic factors, media<br />
proliferation, and all that, what<br />
we Pinoy peacocks really have<br />
in common, be<strong>for</strong>e anything<br />
else, is that we are romantics.<br />
Unlike males of many other<br />
ethnicities, we still take courting<br />
seriously. Even married<br />
men like me still make ligaw,<br />
in a sense, and we go whole<br />
hog when we do it: we buy the<br />
flowers, we pick up the check,<br />
we open doors and pull chairs<br />
out <strong>for</strong> the objects of our affections.<br />
Heck, many of us would<br />
probably still be willing to whip<br />
our name-brand jackets off our<br />
backs and lay them across mud<br />
puddles so our women wouldn’t<br />
have to step 10 measly inches<br />
out of their way. Compared to<br />
that, what’s a little extra ef<strong>for</strong>t to<br />
smell nice and try to look like<br />
someone they’d actually be willing<br />
to be seen with in public?<br />
So what I’m saying is, when<br />
you get right down to it, Filipino<br />
male vanity probably stems from<br />
one unifying cultural imperative:<br />
to woo women (or, well,<br />
men, depending on your gender<br />
preference). Even women we’re<br />
already married to, women<br />
we have no actual romantic or<br />
sexual interest in, women we<br />
know we don’t have a chance<br />
in hell of even speaking to at all.<br />
It’s not just to get someone into<br />
bed (not that we’d mind); it’s to<br />
merit, at the very least, that look<br />
in a woman’s eye that says, “You<br />
know, that guy’s not bad.” Because<br />
this is what we’re thinking<br />
(well, let’s just say we’re a little<br />
more visceral about it) when we<br />
look at women all the time. And<br />
it’s simply nice to have the positive<br />
appraisal reciprocated once<br />
in a while.<br />
There<strong>for</strong>e, ladies, when<br />
you see men like me preening<br />
or looking bewildered yet<br />
grimly determined in the facial<br />
cleanser aisle of your favorite<br />
personal care store, remember<br />
that we’re most likely doing it,<br />
ultimately, <strong>for</strong> you.<br />
<strong>No</strong>w will you please stop<br />
laughing?<br />
Dean Francis Alfar is a husband,<br />
father, playwright, fictionist, comic<br />
book creator and businessman.<br />
He is a 7-time Don Carlos<br />
Palanca Awardee,recipient of the<br />
National Book Award, and an<br />
internationally published author.<br />
His nails are never ever pink.<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
49
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
Male<br />
PHOTOS BY JOSE ENRIQUE SORIANO<br />
50 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
and Vain<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
51
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
SAMIRA GUTOC<br />
BEFORE ME<br />
was an Islamic<br />
religion studies graduate, an al-<br />
eema<br />
who divorced her<br />
aleem<br />
(Islamic learned man) husband<br />
<strong>for</strong> beating her up. She was<br />
lecturing on significant Muslim<br />
women in Islamic history. So far<br />
she had taken up the Prophet<br />
Muhammad’s wife Khadija<br />
and daughter Aisha. Today’s<br />
topic: Madina’s Umu Sulaim<br />
Rumaisa. All were women of<br />
virtue whose lives could give<br />
us insights on what a Muslim<br />
woman should aspire to.<br />
Every Sunday, a few of us<br />
women and girls in the barrio<br />
would gather in a small shop<br />
of a lady leader to read the<br />
Qur’an and listen to aleemas,<br />
who would arrive garbed in<br />
traditional dress, with only their<br />
eyes peering out of their veils.<br />
But once they were in front of<br />
us, they would shed their facial<br />
covering and discuss themes<br />
ranging from women heroes to<br />
marriage and women’s obligations—basically<br />
all things domestic.<br />
Through an association<br />
of women “seeking faith,” the<br />
seminars provided us a place<br />
to rest, as well as to bond and<br />
learn with other women.<br />
My village at Buadi Sacayo,<br />
one of the homes of the old<br />
sultanates, has held on to many<br />
traditions. It is a close-knit community<br />
where residents, especially<br />
the young, congregated in the<br />
street or during Friday prayers.<br />
People here are proud of their<br />
roots, a pride they made evident<br />
through their colorful homes<br />
decorated in the traditional style.<br />
Across this village, at the other<br />
end of the highway, is Mindanao<br />
State University (MSU),<br />
where the more Western-educated<br />
reside and teach. While my<br />
barrio provides spiritual congregation,<br />
it is on the secular, modern<br />
campus that I meet a host<br />
of other highly educated and<br />
“modern” women. Our most<br />
recent topic was women’s rights<br />
and all the rah-rah of promoting<br />
it. The context: cleaning up the<br />
elections, especially the ARMM<br />
polls in August.<br />
Despite living away from<br />
the metropolis <strong>for</strong> the past year,<br />
I find staying in the Islamic<br />
city of Marawi refreshing <strong>for</strong><br />
I see the best of two worlds:<br />
those who gave up on the old<br />
ways and those who live it. At<br />
one end is the sandal-and-backpack<br />
crowd, people who live<br />
on just the basics and whose<br />
ultimate activity is prayer. At<br />
the other end are those who<br />
push <strong>for</strong> material success and<br />
crave recognition—the professionals,<br />
politicians, and yes,<br />
NGO workers. One fact ties<br />
each extreme to each other:<br />
both are made up of Muslims.<br />
I myself feel I am between<br />
both worlds. Sometimes, I even<br />
feel like an interloper. Having a<br />
hijab (veil) on and having non-<br />
Muslim friends makes me feel<br />
half-Muslim and half-Christian<br />
(or mestiza). It is not the religion<br />
that makes me feel like I always<br />
have to be in the middle of a<br />
religious discourse. Instead the<br />
feeling arises from the curiosity/<br />
half-acceptance I encounter in<br />
both Muslim and Christian circles.<br />
When I am with Muslims, I<br />
have to defend my “liberal” media<br />
profession. When I am with<br />
Christians, I have to explain<br />
Islam’s practices.<br />
But what is being Muslim<br />
anyway? Was it all about the<br />
five pillars, about the sayings<br />
of the Prophet and the<br />
Qur’an? What of the women,<br />
like me—had we rights, could<br />
we speak out? And how about<br />
pop music, my favorite, was it<br />
haram<br />
(<strong>for</strong>bidden)? Was living<br />
all about following rules?<br />
These were among the questions<br />
I had while growing up,<br />
and I have been asking even<br />
more questions since. I had been<br />
brought up to be conscious of<br />
my heritage, to always protect<br />
our maratabat, our good name,<br />
to avoid overexposure to the<br />
outside world. This was my culture<br />
as a Maranao. My religion, at<br />
least as taught to me, said almost<br />
the same thing—to observe the<br />
rituals, to lead a structured life.<br />
But I have since realized that<br />
religion is actually dynamic and<br />
that it was only the elders who<br />
had interpreted it otherwise.<br />
As postmodernist author Akbar<br />
Ahmed says, Islam and balance<br />
are compatible, meaning Muslims<br />
are not prohibited from embracing<br />
principles such as tolerance,<br />
democracy, and justice. So<br />
could a Muslim have a Christian<br />
as a best friend? Can we sing and<br />
dance? Could Muslim women<br />
wear jeans? And how do we see<br />
the Pope and Madonna?<br />
I THINK Muslim communities<br />
have yet to confront questions<br />
Growing<br />
Fema<br />
&<br />
Mus<br />
52 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
le Up<br />
le lim<br />
CHANGING FACE. Muslim<br />
women are slowly moving out<br />
of the safe cocoons of clan<br />
and community.<br />
like those I have, and so have yet<br />
to bridge a generational gap that<br />
has <strong>for</strong>med. During the National<br />
Muslim Youth Summit held at the<br />
Asian Institute of Management in<br />
2003, “confusion” was the catchword<br />
in the workshop discussions.<br />
The speakers were learned<br />
elders. The participants, meanwhile,<br />
were part of Generation<br />
M(uslim). Although they came<br />
from different cultural communities,<br />
they were all multilingual<br />
and educated in some of the top<br />
schools around the country and<br />
even abroad.<br />
One of the speakers<br />
crowed that this was the “new<br />
generation of future Muslim<br />
leaders”—mobile, techie, and<br />
assertive. But some of the participants<br />
expressed disappointment<br />
at their elders’ lack of<br />
sympathy <strong>for</strong> their “confusion.”<br />
“I don’t wear a veil but no<br />
one can question my faith,”<br />
said 24-year-old Maguindanaon<br />
<strong>No</strong>ra, a Manila-based nurse.<br />
“We are confused because we<br />
are curious.” She raised the<br />
issue of smuggling by a few<br />
Muslim entrepreneurs to which<br />
some elders had been willing to<br />
turn a blind eye, so long as the<br />
proceeds were given as zakat<br />
or charity. “Can (smuggling)<br />
be made permissible by giving<br />
(the proceeds) as zakat?” an<br />
incredulous <strong>No</strong>ra asked.<br />
“Have you read the whole<br />
Qur’an?” posed Lucman, offering<br />
advice from the elders. “Pray<br />
five times and affirm yourself<br />
with the graces of Allah.”<br />
All the speakers had advised<br />
us to “learn Islam.” Former MSU<br />
regent Ansary Alonto also said,<br />
“Islam is a system, a way of life.”<br />
But the older yuppies among<br />
the participants advised the<br />
youngsters to maintain an open<br />
mind. Said Aldean Alonto, who<br />
had gone to Ox<strong>for</strong>d University<br />
on an interfaith event: “Islam is<br />
a process, and (acknowledges)<br />
an ef<strong>for</strong>t to find yourself.”<br />
For me, that process is still<br />
ongoing. When I was a child,<br />
I thought I would end up as a<br />
singer. I had been starstruck as<br />
a kid and was a big movie fan;<br />
I loved per<strong>for</strong>ming as well. Yet<br />
being Maranao—and a girl—<br />
meant there were many things<br />
I could not do. Interest in the<br />
arts was discouraged because<br />
of its perceived anti-Islamicism.<br />
Even today many of us<br />
are still unable to deviate from<br />
professions chosen <strong>for</strong> us, like<br />
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
nursing, medicine, engineering,<br />
and law. I took up law at the<br />
behest of my parents, although<br />
my heart wasn’t in it. It was<br />
only when I failed major prelaw<br />
courses that I allowed myself<br />
to follow my desire, which<br />
by then was no longer singing,<br />
but journalism.<br />
As the eldest of five, I had<br />
learned early on to be conscious<br />
of the larger group, to<br />
sacrifice and put the group’s<br />
interests first. Following tradition,<br />
we girls had to be very<br />
careful in choosing our friends.<br />
While my brothers had girlfriends,<br />
my sisters and I were<br />
chaperoned to avoid “developing”<br />
our crushes. We weren’t<br />
allowed to date or sleep over<br />
at other people’s houses. Contrary<br />
to what many outsiders<br />
assume, however, we girls—at<br />
least those in my family—were<br />
made to excel in academics.<br />
Mother wanted to be sure that<br />
if we were to marry and then<br />
were left by our husbands, we<br />
could use our education to<br />
survive on our own. (Mother’s<br />
own father had left their family<br />
<strong>for</strong> another woman.) Father,<br />
too, put a premium on education<br />
<strong>for</strong> his children. He was<br />
from a clan that placed professionals<br />
on pedestals and was<br />
himself an inspiration to many<br />
of his relatives to acquire an<br />
education and land a good job.<br />
Yet <strong>for</strong> all the restrictions and<br />
expectations put upon us, I still<br />
managed to have fun in high<br />
school. I was lucky because Father<br />
was a career diplomat and I<br />
was exposed to Western education.<br />
Traveling was an eye-opener.<br />
I learned to be sensitive and<br />
be open to other cultures aside<br />
from my own. Practicing my<br />
faith had its ups and downs, but<br />
I was soon to learn that to know<br />
my religion, I had to experience<br />
the lack of it.<br />
THAT CAME when I reached<br />
college. I suddenly had the<br />
freedom to party and socialize.<br />
That freedom, however, also<br />
brought me one dilemma after<br />
another. While my upbringing<br />
taught me precaution, the<br />
ethos on campus was to live<br />
life. While I was boxed in by<br />
rules be<strong>for</strong>e, I was now being<br />
urged to make my own rules.<br />
My response in part was to<br />
widen my search <strong>for</strong> myself. I<br />
met atheists who questioned<br />
God and all the fundamentals<br />
of existence. I attended masses,<br />
learned of the Christian faith. I<br />
read alternative literature aside<br />
from the religious text. Yet as I<br />
searched, I had one tangible evidence<br />
of my Muslim identity: my<br />
hijab, which I began wearing at<br />
age 17. I had made the decision<br />
to wear one on my own, without<br />
any parental prodding, without<br />
a mullah lecture, without<br />
pressure from my peers. I had<br />
read through the Qu’ran and<br />
saw in there the rationale <strong>for</strong> the<br />
veil. Rather than being segregationist<br />
or purist, the hijab is an<br />
acknowledgement that women<br />
can work alongside any individual,<br />
male or non-Muslim. I do<br />
not have to be judged based on<br />
my physical appearance, even as<br />
my hijab makes me aware that<br />
I have to be “good” to earn my<br />
keep <strong>for</strong> the afterlife.<br />
I have since noticed that<br />
others wear the veil as a matter<br />
of convenience or culture,<br />
with the hijab taking on different<br />
nuances, depending on the<br />
wearer’s community or tribe.<br />
Women of the Tausug tribe wear<br />
their caps with sequins, those<br />
in Maguindanao prefer colored<br />
nets, and the Maranao go <strong>for</strong><br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
53
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
the full triangular cover. Others<br />
match their veils with eyes<br />
heavy with eyeliner. Western<br />
Muslim ladies I have met seem<br />
more conservative alongside our<br />
own; they have no colored veils<br />
and there is no strand of hair<br />
peeping out of their hijab.<br />
Wearing the veil, of course,<br />
is just one symbol, just one of<br />
the many experiences, of being<br />
a Muslim woman. Yet public<br />
discussions regarding Muslim<br />
women rarely go beyond our<br />
head covering. And in public<br />
discussions, we are usually<br />
rendered voiceless.<br />
It’s a given that there seems<br />
to be a segregation of the sexes,<br />
where women are defined and<br />
respected <strong>for</strong> their role in the domestic<br />
sphere. Even those who<br />
are educated and well-traveled<br />
among us find that when they<br />
speak outside of that sphere,<br />
their voices are not always heard.<br />
Sometimes that may be because<br />
they are put in “their place.” In<br />
Maranao public events, <strong>for</strong> instance,<br />
young women are usually<br />
found in the kitchen, in another<br />
side of the room separate from<br />
the men, and are rarely part of<br />
political discussions.<br />
In a way, someone also tried<br />
to put me in my place, or at least<br />
what he thought that should be,<br />
on a business trip I took to Baguio.<br />
One bearded religious leader<br />
there asked me why I travel<br />
without the traditional mahram<br />
(a chaperone, because women<br />
are discouraged from traveling<br />
alone). I told him that if men<br />
were doing my media work, I<br />
need not do this. I was trying<br />
hard not to retort rudely.<br />
BUT THINGS may be starting to<br />
change. Just last March, a young<br />
women’s <strong>for</strong>um was held <strong>for</strong> the<br />
first time at MSU to celebrate<br />
BUILDERS OF PEACE. Muslim<br />
women can become pillars<br />
of harmony in communities<br />
ravaged by war and conflict.<br />
international women’s month.<br />
Many young women and even<br />
men came to listen to women<br />
speakers and students in veil<br />
talk freely about sex—and the<br />
lack of knowledge about it.<br />
Gender and sex were differentiated.<br />
Social stereotyping and<br />
assigning of roles was exposed.<br />
We even shook our body and<br />
exercised to let loose. For once,<br />
we were having something<br />
besides the traditional seminar/lecture<br />
that has become the<br />
most acceptable <strong>for</strong>m of public<br />
discourse among Muslims.<br />
So there we were, even<br />
talking about early and arranged<br />
marriages. I felt thankful<br />
<strong>for</strong> my open-minded parents,<br />
who consulted us if they<br />
were choosing partners <strong>for</strong> us.<br />
In Maranao tradition, the parents<br />
do the search <strong>for</strong> prospective<br />
spouses <strong>for</strong> their children,<br />
and arrange the unions among<br />
themselves, often without asking<br />
the ones who are to be<br />
married. Oftentimes the couples<br />
are not prepared emotionally<br />
and intellectually <strong>for</strong> the<br />
kind of responsibility marriages<br />
entail, but that does not seem<br />
to matter to the elders.<br />
Someone I know married<br />
at 18; she is now 31. She managed<br />
to finish college, but has<br />
been unable to use her education<br />
to have a career of her<br />
own. She thought she would<br />
be happy taking care of her<br />
family, but she lapsed into<br />
depression. I think because of<br />
an overdose of cultural obedience,<br />
she simply <strong>for</strong>got all<br />
about herself.<br />
Muslim youths today—male<br />
and female—aspire to be educated<br />
and useful to their communities<br />
and beyond. Medical student<br />
Naheeda Dimacisil of Laguna<br />
expresses her distaste over some<br />
Muslim men who still do not<br />
see the “equality with women in<br />
responsibilities,” which includes<br />
seeking knowledge.<br />
A study done by Xavier<br />
University found that religion,<br />
family, education, and work,<br />
were the top priorities of Muslim<br />
youths. It further found that<br />
young people thought that education<br />
is important because it is<br />
seen as a vehicle <strong>for</strong> social mobility,<br />
a way to escape poverty,<br />
and a means to help others.<br />
Many also want to become<br />
among the best in their fields to<br />
“dispel the negative image of Islam.”<br />
Ateneo de Davao freshman<br />
law student Sahara Aliongan says<br />
she hopes to become the first<br />
Muslim woman to top the bar<br />
exams. Then she plans to “write<br />
a book and change the negative<br />
views of people about Muslims.”<br />
Many Muslims criticize the<br />
media <strong>for</strong> the negative and simplistic<br />
portrayal of their communities.<br />
For many Filipinos, it would<br />
seem “Muslim” has become<br />
synonymous with terrorists, criminals,<br />
bandits, and the Abu Sayyaf.<br />
Many among our countrymen<br />
ignore the complexities of tribal<br />
differences, the difference between<br />
a religion and its followers,<br />
and other such nuances.<br />
For us Muslim women, the<br />
struggle is twofold: we struggle<br />
against the discrimination<br />
foisted upon us within our own<br />
communities, and we struggle<br />
against the Muslim stereotype<br />
when we step out of the confines<br />
of our family and tribe.<br />
MARAWI CITY Council Jehan-<br />
ne Mutin-Mapupuno says part<br />
of the problem is the lack of a<br />
Muslim role model. “There are<br />
no successful Muslim personalities<br />
featured on radio or TV,”<br />
she says. “Young Muslims don’t<br />
have positive (role) models to<br />
identify with or an association<br />
of peers they can relate to.”<br />
She’s not really off the<br />
mark. After all, the top broadcast<br />
news organizations have<br />
just begun adding knowledge<br />
of Muslim concerns among<br />
their criteria <strong>for</strong> new recruits.<br />
And there is still that pressure<br />
from elders <strong>for</strong> youths to pursue<br />
non-arts courses.<br />
But while the media have<br />
yet to offer a model <strong>for</strong> Muslims,<br />
there are already the likes of<br />
women’s rights activist and cancer<br />
survivor Yasmin Busran-Lao<br />
of Lanao del Sur to show us the<br />
way. Busran-Lao is a recognized<br />
advocate <strong>for</strong> re<strong>for</strong>ms in the Shariah<br />
legal system, where men<br />
have interpreted the laws. She<br />
has received the Ninoy Aquino<br />
Public Service award, and was<br />
featured not only on the Sunday<br />
Inquirer but also on CNN.<br />
There is also Sulu’s Warina<br />
Jukuy, an outspoken spitfire,<br />
who filed <strong>for</strong> candidacy <strong>for</strong> the<br />
gubernatorial post of the Autonomous<br />
Region <strong>for</strong> Muslim<br />
Mindanao although she thinks<br />
her chances of winning are<br />
.00001 percent. So why even try?<br />
Her response: just to show the<br />
corruption within the system.<br />
Peace advocate Minang<br />
Sharief Dirampatan, meanwhile,<br />
is a professor and theater artist<br />
who has become a fixture at the<br />
MSU, which she has called home<br />
<strong>for</strong> the last 25 years. She has also<br />
served as mentor and guide to<br />
many outstanding MSU youths.<br />
Dirampatan and Busran-Lao<br />
were of a generation that segregated<br />
Muslim men and women<br />
in communities and prioritized<br />
men over women when it came<br />
to schooling. They broke tradition.<br />
They have also nurtured<br />
a new generation of thinkers<br />
and idealists among Mindanao’s<br />
youth. Though Dirampaten at<br />
58 may not be as mobile as be<strong>for</strong>e,<br />
she mentors others so that<br />
the ideas of peace and human<br />
rights trickle down to younger,<br />
more energetic advocates.<br />
Women like Dirampatan are<br />
in my thoughts as I continue my<br />
journey. I also think, since most of<br />
the world’s conflicts today involve<br />
Muslims, it is imperative that Muslim<br />
women become promoters<br />
of peace even at the village level.<br />
They should direct their energies<br />
to peacebuilding, which includes<br />
conflict resolution, advocacy, and<br />
governance. Working <strong>for</strong> peace<br />
can also include teaching the values<br />
of peace, promoting interfaith<br />
dialogue, and peace journalism<br />
and research.<br />
It is work worth devoting<br />
one’s life to.<br />
Samira Gutoc, a freelance journalist,<br />
is a Sagittarian and one of the founders<br />
of Young Moro Professionals.<br />
She obtained a fellowship at Ox<strong>for</strong>d<br />
University and has represented the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s in international conferences<br />
on women, youth, and minorities.<br />
She is secretary general of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong> Muslim Women Council<br />
and chairs the National Youth<br />
Parliament Alumni Association.<br />
54 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
FOCUS ON FILIPINO YOUTH<br />
ALECKS P. PABICO<br />
I’M A CERTIFIED Nethead<br />
and I can get down and talk<br />
digital with the best of them.<br />
But Rochelle Lazarte and her<br />
five friends make me feel as<br />
ancient as a rotary phone.<br />
Formed only seven months<br />
ago, their barkada is basking<br />
in its newfound friendship that<br />
traces its beginnings—the same<br />
way that many relationships<br />
among young people are being<br />
born and nurtured today—in<br />
cyberspace.<br />
With today’s fast pace, my<br />
own friends and I have found<br />
ourselves relying on technology<br />
to keep in touch, too. But our<br />
friendships were <strong>for</strong>ged long<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e PCs and the World Wide<br />
Web. Born in the late 1960s, our<br />
peer interaction was primarily<br />
face to face, complemented<br />
by letters and telephone<br />
conversations—well, that is if<br />
your family was among the<br />
<strong>for</strong>tunate lot to have acquired<br />
a landline connection in the<br />
pre-“zero backlog” era of a<br />
telecommunications monopoly.<br />
These days, people still<br />
meet each other face to face.<br />
But new technologies, very<br />
much an indispensable part<br />
of our daily social life, have<br />
significantly influenced and<br />
altered the way we interact and<br />
communicate with each other.<br />
a universe of possibilities<br />
regarding a lot of things, it<br />
hasn’t really changed the<br />
nature of friendships and how<br />
these are maintained. Which is<br />
quite com<strong>for</strong>ting <strong>for</strong> not-so-old<br />
fogies like me.<br />
Take Rochelle—better<br />
known as Roch—and her<br />
cyberkada. They may have<br />
been all strangers pre-chat, but<br />
except <strong>for</strong> Lei Cruz, they did<br />
have something in common<br />
from the start: they all went<br />
or are still going to the St.<br />
Joseph’s Academy in Las Piñas.<br />
Roch is now a sophomore<br />
English major at the <strong>Philippine</strong><br />
<strong>No</strong>rmal University. July Tan<br />
is in his freshman year at the<br />
University of Santo Tomas.<br />
Jeff Din is a senior at the<br />
academy, while Jeric Aragon<br />
and Margo Flores are both<br />
juniors there. Only Jeric and<br />
Margo were already friends<br />
be<strong>for</strong>e that, although they had<br />
been introduced to July when<br />
he was still the editor of the<br />
academy’s school paper and<br />
they were contributing artists.<br />
Actually, they have seen<br />
each other only twice since<br />
they officially became a<br />
group—the second time being<br />
when they had a physical gettogether<br />
<strong>for</strong> this piece (minus<br />
Jeff, who couldn’t make it).<br />
But just like any other barkada,<br />
they are in constant touch. The<br />
twist is they do so virtually,<br />
CYBER BARKADA. Teenagers (left to right) Jeric<br />
Aragon, Lei Cruz, Roch Lazarte, Margo Flores,<br />
and July Tan are the best of friends. They rarely<br />
see each other, but the Internet and mobile<br />
phones keep their friendship alive.<br />
Virtua<br />
This is especially true among<br />
the so-called Generation Y,<br />
or those born after 1979, who<br />
have been “the first to grow<br />
up in a world saturated with<br />
networks of in<strong>for</strong>mation, digital<br />
devices, and the promise of<br />
perpetual connectivity.” Yet<br />
while technology has opened<br />
meeting daily via the Internet<br />
Relay Chat (IRC) in a chat<br />
room called #rochy.<br />
Begun in the chatter’s realm<br />
of IRC’s Undernet late last year,<br />
#rochy is obviously named<br />
after Roch, who at 17 is one of<br />
the oldest in the group and is<br />
regarded as the ate, a role she<br />
takes rather seriously. But it was<br />
really the bubbly chinito July<br />
who gave the channel its name,<br />
which he says was inspired by<br />
a lengthy private chat with Roch<br />
via Yahoo!’s instant messaging<br />
service about her musings on her<br />
trip to her hometown in Batangas<br />
during the last Christmas break.<br />
Be<strong>for</strong>e that, most of what would<br />
later make up their group were<br />
only faceless denizens lurking<br />
in #josephians, the chat channel<br />
set up by members of Batch ’99<br />
<strong>for</strong> fellow students—<strong>for</strong>mer and<br />
current—of their beloved alma<br />
mater.<br />
“When she came back, she<br />
immediately started chatting.<br />
She sent me a PM (private<br />
message) telling me about her<br />
problem...something about a<br />
budding romance. She met a<br />
guy, two boys actually,” reveals<br />
July half in jest.<br />
In truth, the source of<br />
Roch’s melancholy was her<br />
pining <strong>for</strong> the extremely<br />
Y<br />
56 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
lly<br />
ours<br />
wonderful time she had<br />
(including perhaps meeting<br />
some boys on the side) during<br />
her stay in the province. Her<br />
mood was even spelled out in<br />
her online status in Yahoo!—<br />
“Ibalik niyo ako sa Batangas<br />
(Bring me back to Batangas!!!)”<br />
Because he had to pick up<br />
something from Margo’s place,<br />
July had to momentarily excuse<br />
himself from the sharing session<br />
with Roch. Somehow he and<br />
Margo got to talking about<br />
Roch’s “problem.” So the next<br />
thing July did was to create a<br />
channel that <strong>for</strong> reasons only<br />
known to him was named in<br />
Roch’s honor. That night till<br />
the wee hours of dawn the<br />
following day, he and the rest<br />
of the boys would also listen<br />
to each other’s thoughts and<br />
feelings.<br />
IT MAY seem odd that Roch<br />
and company prefer the<br />
Net over mobile phones,<br />
the gadget of choice of<br />
many Filipinos, young and<br />
old alike. But the group<br />
does use cellphones as a<br />
secondary communication<br />
tool. In fact, once they go<br />
offline, they make the most<br />
of their common telco’s offer<br />
of unlimited call and texting<br />
among its subscribers.<br />
Anj Heruela, a 17-yearold<br />
second year broadcast<br />
communication student at the<br />
University of the <strong>Philippine</strong>s in<br />
Diliman, has not exactly sworn<br />
off the mobile phone either.<br />
She still uses it but mainly <strong>for</strong><br />
the “practical uses” of calling<br />
or sending SMS.<br />
But when she was younger,<br />
the cellphone was her lifeline.<br />
Originally from Iloilo, Anj went<br />
to the <strong>Philippine</strong> High School<br />
<strong>for</strong> the Arts in Los Baños,<br />
Laguna. During her freshman<br />
year, she got a text message<br />
from an anonymous texter,<br />
who turned out to be a friend<br />
of a grade school classmate’s<br />
friend. Their relationship<br />
began with the usual exchange<br />
of <strong>for</strong>warded “Hallmark”-<br />
type messages, witty quotes,<br />
and jokes. Much like what<br />
sometimes happened between<br />
phone pals in pre-digital times,<br />
Anj and her textmate soon had<br />
a romance going. At its most<br />
intense, it had Anj consuming<br />
P250 week with her prepaid<br />
subscription. Yet Anj and her<br />
cyberboyfriend never had a<br />
chance to “eyeball” (meet), and<br />
it was all over in eight months.<br />
While it lasted, though, the<br />
romance gave the homesick<br />
Anj the attention and company<br />
she craved.<br />
Anj now has a real<br />
boyfriend. But she also chats<br />
on occasion, as well as blogs,<br />
which she says is more about<br />
“wanting people to read what<br />
I write,” which is essentially<br />
poetry and other stuff out<br />
of spontaneous bursts of<br />
creativity. So far, she has<br />
authored four blogs.<br />
The yearning <strong>for</strong> attention<br />
and recognition is of course<br />
inherent in the youth, who find<br />
in the new media the venue<br />
<strong>for</strong> exploring and defining their<br />
own identities, and establishing<br />
their independence. That is<br />
why teeners have populated<br />
the blogosphere in droves,<br />
using blogs, being essentially<br />
personal online diaries, as their<br />
podium <strong>for</strong> self-expression.<br />
At the same time, blogs<br />
are also becoming hubs of<br />
virtual communities of friends.<br />
One Filipino collective blog<br />
of adults is aptly named<br />
blogkadahan. Teen blogs in<br />
Live Journal, <strong>for</strong> instance, are<br />
only accessible by bloggerfriends.<br />
Members of the<br />
Rochy gang are themselves<br />
bloggers who make it a point<br />
to visit and post comments<br />
on each other’s blogs as a<br />
way to maintain the flow of<br />
communication.<br />
WHAT MAKES in<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
and communication<br />
technologies (ICTs) alluring<br />
to children and teenagers,<br />
says Kathryn Montgomery,<br />
co-founder of the Washingtonbased<br />
nonprofit group <strong>Center</strong><br />
<strong>for</strong> Media Education, are three<br />
basic elements: interactivity,<br />
convergence, and ubiquity.<br />
Indeed, as a more interactive<br />
medium, the Internet provides<br />
several ways <strong>for</strong> young people<br />
to communicate with each<br />
other, interact with what is<br />
on a site, and create their<br />
own content. Combining new<br />
technologies with existing<br />
ones are also expanding the<br />
scope of computer-mediated<br />
communications to include<br />
personal and professional<br />
interactions. And the new<br />
media are becoming more<br />
pervasive, touching all aspects<br />
of the lives of the younger<br />
generation.<br />
But the young are also using<br />
ICTs far differently from the<br />
ways they have interacted with<br />
the old media of television,<br />
radio, and newspapers. They<br />
are likewise relating to the new<br />
technologies in a manner that<br />
their parents never did—keen<br />
about the complexities and<br />
challenges of the technologies,<br />
as well as about being able<br />
to learn them. This attitude<br />
Idit Harel, a noted new media<br />
expert <strong>for</strong>merly with the Massachusetts<br />
Institute of Technology’s<br />
Media Lab, has summed<br />
up in the phrase “High tech is<br />
now my tech.”<br />
Since they themselves are<br />
helping define the uses of the<br />
new digital media, teenagers<br />
like Roch, July, Margo, Jeric,<br />
and Lei are really adept at—<br />
and com<strong>for</strong>table—conducting a<br />
great deal of their lives online.<br />
For most of them, computers<br />
were already a fixture at home<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
57
T H E L O S T G E N E R A T I O N<br />
and in school at an early<br />
age. Jeric, Margo, and July<br />
were sixth graders when they<br />
first experienced surfing the<br />
Internet to do research <strong>for</strong><br />
their homework, as well as<br />
acquiring their first cellphones.<br />
Jeric and Margo derived so<br />
much satisfaction just from<br />
getting cheat codes <strong>for</strong> the PC<br />
games they were playing then<br />
until they discovered IRC.<br />
They were introduced to<br />
chatting only in their third or<br />
fourth year in high school,<br />
SO YOUNG AND SO HI-TECH.<br />
These teenagers have only<br />
met each other twice, but<br />
their gadgets ensure they<br />
remain the best of friends.<br />
with July confessing to<br />
developing an addiction to it<br />
just last year. In a week, he’d<br />
be online <strong>for</strong> 50 hours, costing<br />
him P200 in prepaid Internet<br />
cards. There came a point,<br />
though, when he got bored of<br />
chatting. But then he met his<br />
new gang.<br />
Lei, the only one in the<br />
group without any connections<br />
to St. Joseph’s, also started<br />
chatting last year, initially with<br />
the chat rooms in Yahoo!.<br />
Then she found her way to<br />
IRC and stumbled upon Roch<br />
in #makata.<br />
“I met Roch when we took<br />
turns composing lines <strong>for</strong> a<br />
poem in #makata,” recounts<br />
Lei, a psychology sophomore<br />
at Polytechnic University of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s. “Then, someone<br />
using the nick (alias) ‘anak<br />
ko’ entered the chat room.<br />
That prodded me to ask Roch<br />
to become my virtual mom<br />
and adopt me. She took me<br />
to #rochy and that’s where I<br />
eventually met the others.”<br />
Roch and July’s friendship<br />
started out through an even<br />
more peculiar encounter.<br />
Narrates Roch: “I came to<br />
know July when I commented<br />
in the main channel how ugly<br />
the current issue of Josephian<br />
was. I was expressing concern<br />
because I also wrote <strong>for</strong> the<br />
paper be<strong>for</strong>e.”<br />
July replied to Roch in<br />
private, agreeing with her<br />
comment but without telling<br />
her that he was the paper’s<br />
editor. “She eventually learned<br />
who I was,” he says. “After<br />
that, we arranged a meeting<br />
at the school patio. We have<br />
become close since then.”<br />
OUTSIDE OF the church<br />
confessional, baring one’s soul<br />
in a faceless encounter may<br />
seem unimaginable to many<br />
grown-ups. Today’s youths,<br />
however, are at ease with<br />
such a situation, and take<br />
advantage of the “always on”<br />
peer interaction allowed by<br />
the technology. As Roch puts<br />
it, “It’s easier to open up when<br />
there’s no eye-to-eye contact.<br />
When the exchange becomes<br />
very personal, you can cry to<br />
your heart’s content without<br />
the other person seeing you.<br />
That way, you don’t embarrass<br />
yourself.”<br />
The others agree. “As far<br />
as I’m concerned,” says July,<br />
“I hate to approach somebody<br />
and cry on that person’s<br />
shoulder. It’s fine with me<br />
to just have someone there<br />
listening to me, even if it’s not<br />
personal, only technological.”<br />
Yet hearing him and the<br />
rest of the rochy barkada<br />
attest how they have known<br />
each other more intimately,<br />
becoming closer than siblings<br />
from their online interactions,<br />
gives me the impression that<br />
there is more to the social<br />
networking than just the<br />
technology. Of course, ICTs<br />
are helping them a lot to keep<br />
in constant touch with their<br />
intimate community. But these<br />
young people are also seeking<br />
out those in whom they find<br />
a genuine interest, individuals<br />
with whom they have<br />
something in common, people<br />
who are much like them.<br />
In this regard, they are no<br />
different from us who made<br />
friends in a pre-networked<br />
world. Only that in <strong>for</strong>ging<br />
their cyberfriendships, they<br />
don’t check out someone’s<br />
physical attributes first, though<br />
they may send each other<br />
scanned images of themselves<br />
later or post avatars on their<br />
instant messengers and blogs.<br />
So who are we to argue<br />
that our generation nurtured far<br />
more meaningful and dynamic<br />
relationships only because ours<br />
did not need the intervention<br />
of machines? Of course, some<br />
may argue that relationships,<br />
whether of the filial, fraternal,<br />
or romantic kind, require the<br />
personal, face-to-face, human<br />
touch <strong>for</strong> them to endure the<br />
test of time. But even without<br />
this, relationships may thrive<br />
if there is one remaining<br />
constant: communication in<br />
whatever <strong>for</strong>m and manner<br />
that generations may choose.<br />
That is why I can’t say I still<br />
have a relationship with<br />
my friends in high school.<br />
We haven’t been in touch<br />
<strong>for</strong> a long time, despite the<br />
emergence of the cellphone,<br />
the Net, the virtual chat rooms.<br />
The communication lines have<br />
been broken. The technology is<br />
there, but we have simply not<br />
used it.<br />
All these have led me<br />
musing over how technology<br />
would figure in my two<br />
young daughters’ future<br />
relationships. My eight-yearold<br />
and three-year-old will<br />
be teenagers sooner than I<br />
expect and will be exposed<br />
to a digital culture even more<br />
different from what we have<br />
now. Roch herself says that<br />
while relationships of all sorts<br />
are still possible offline, “it’s<br />
hard to communicate and<br />
maintain them without the use<br />
of new technologies because<br />
they are a major part of our<br />
generation.” If that’s the way it<br />
is today, my daughters could<br />
be looking at relationships<br />
that are highly wired—and<br />
wireless—and “<strong>for</strong>ever on.”<br />
Well, so long as they don’t<br />
get too tied up as to greet their<br />
parents “good morning” in a<br />
chat room.<br />
58 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
“Buti na lang<br />
SSS member<br />
ako”<br />
SOCIAL<br />
SECURITY<br />
SYSTEM
GRASSROOTS GAME<br />
Jueteng has deep roots in <strong>Philippine</strong> village life. Its<br />
network of collectors come from the community, so<br />
do the cabos or chiefs who supervise them. It has<br />
existed <strong>for</strong> more than 100 years, and be<strong>for</strong>e the recent<br />
police crackdown, millions were betting on the illicit<br />
numbers game everyday.<br />
At the village level, jueteng is not seen as a syndicated<br />
crime, but as popular entertainment and distraction.<br />
Bettors make their wagers based on dreams, omens,<br />
and premonitions. In jueteng, numbers take on a<br />
mystical quality: the heavens send signs and favor<br />
those who read them well.<br />
Joe Galvez’s photos on this page show how jueteng<br />
bets are collected and added up in a small village<br />
somewhere in Central Luzon. There is nothing<br />
extraordinary about these scenes. Jueteng is in the<br />
realm of the everyday: to the plain folk who wager<br />
a few pesos on the game, it is both ordinary and<br />
magical. At the national level, though, jueteng is<br />
fodder <strong>for</strong> political scandal and ammunition that can<br />
be used to oust presidents.<br />
Finally, an attempt at an explanation. Some readers<br />
may be confused about our size. This year, i <strong>Report</strong><br />
has come out in two sizes: the book-size version <strong>for</strong><br />
<strong>No</strong>.1 and <strong>No</strong>. 2 and the magazine-size version you<br />
hold in your hand. The reason is simple: we started<br />
out thinking that we could stray away from the news<br />
and focus on long-term social, political, and lifestyle<br />
trends. But Gloriagate proved us so wrong. The tempo<br />
of the times required that we keep our readers abreast<br />
of current events.<br />
This is why we are giving up the less timebound,<br />
book-size i in favor of the more current, newsmagazine<br />
<strong>for</strong>mat. Our dealers have also asked that we keep to<br />
this size, as it is more visible on the newsstands and<br />
easier to sell. Our apologies <strong>for</strong> the confusion.<br />
BACK COVER PHOTOS: JOE GALVEZ<br />
FRONT COVER:<br />
ESTRADA PHOTO BY EY ACASIO/<br />
MANILA STANDARD TODAY