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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| How Now, Brown Maos? (3)
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Sept. 04, 2006 For the Standard Today, September 05 issue Isn�t anything sacred anymore? Last month, the much vaunted Israeli Defense Force lost its veneer of invincibility and turned out to be, not the fabled David that it has always built its mythic reputation on, but a bumbling Goliath bull that managed to break all the dishes in the china shop without crushing the rabid rat that it had set out to exterminate. Then a heavenly icon was knocked out of the cosmos when the killjoy International Astronomical Union, voted in Prague to demote tiny Pluto � since 1929, the ninth planet in our solar system � into just a �dwarf planet,� one of several, just because it does not have enough mass and enough gravity to clear the debris in its path as it orbits around the Sun. There must be at least a dozen jokes going around cyberspace asking how many votes it would take to demote a �president� into a �dwarf president� just because he/she/it cannot clear the air of static about legitimacy. Comes now news of an even more earth-shaking demotion. According to an article by Joseph Kahn in the Sept. 1 issue of The New York Times, high school history textbooks in Shanghai , considered the urban elite region of China , have just been revised for the incoming school year, and the revision could send the Great Helmsman, Mao Zedung, turning in his grave. �Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in (one) sentence. The text mentions Mao only once � in a chapter on etiquette.� Etiquette? Was it about spitting in public? The Chinese communist government did wage public campaigns against this revolting habit, and it seems to have been effective with the younger generations. But the old folks, Mao�s Generation X, have not given up the disgusting practice. My daughter was in Beijing last spring and she came home with tales about how elderly Chinese folks would summon up all the mucous in their sinuses and esophagi � and, it seems, even in their brains � in one regurgitating haaaawk of at least 100 decibels, and unerringly expel the slimy discharge into a spittoon meters away, or on the floor if no spittoon is in sight, while foreigners, taken aback by this war-like display of belligerent hygiene, scamper out of harm�s way, their hankies to their mouths, to keep from vomiting. Continued Kahn: �The one-party state, having largely abandoned its official ideology, prefers people to think more about the future than the past� �The new text focuses on ideas and buzzwords that dominate the state-run media and official discourse: economic growth, innovation, foreign trade, political stability, respect for diverse cultures and social harmony�.. �The French and Bolshevik Revolutions, once seen as turning points in world history, now get far less attention. Mao, the Long March, colonial oppression of China and the Rape of Nanjing are taught only in a compressed history curriculum in junior high�.. �Socialism is still referred to as having a �glorious future.� But the concept is reduced to one of 52 chapters in the senior high school text. Revolutionary socialism gets less emphasis than the Industrial Revolution and the information revolution. �Students now study Mao � still officially revered as the founding father of modern China but no longer regularly promoted as an influence on policy � only in junior high. In the senior high school text, he is mentioned fleetingly as part of a lesson on the custom of lowering flags to half-staff at state funerals, like Mao�s in 1976.� What a demotion this has been. One recalls that during the height of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, the Red Guards rampaged in their hundreds of thousands, waving Mao�s Little Red Book, as they intimidated even faithful party members for their perceived failure to wage the permanent revolution that Mao had prescribed in his pronouncements. Mao Zedung�s thoughts were credited with having inspired the Chinese masses to solve their most pressing problems, from the building of their nuclear bombs to the collection of human excrement (euphemistically called �night soil�) for use as fertilizer in the communes. Now Mao is mentioned only in a chapter on etiquette, and in connection with the custom of lowering flags to half-staff during funerals. How the mighty have fallen. Are Filipino Maoists like Satur and Teddy and Liza and Ka Bel and Ka Roger taking note? One recalls that Filipino Maoists, led by the Last Great Maoist, Joma Sison, once obligingly donned Mao caps and Mao jackets and parroted the obligatory Mao lines to show their admiration of and loyalty to The Great Helmsman. Several dozens of them made the pilgrimage to Beijing in the 1970s. When they could not return home as a result of martial law, they showed their true colors by hiring themselves off as stringers, correspondents and translators to capitalist/imperialist media outfits like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. In my article How Now, Brown Maos (Nov. 28, 2002), I mentioned that the then recent 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party under Deng Xiaoping urged the Party faithful �to embrace not just the workers but also the managers, the entrepreneurs and the capitalists as fellow builders of socialism with Chinese characters, and that the elimination of class struggle as an element of what socialism is about is really fundamental.� This was a direct repudiation not only of Marx and his strictures against the profit motive, but also of the contrived anthill egalitarianism of Mao. Yet neither Joma in Utrecht nor the columnists in Metro Manila who had applauded and defended Joma�s Maoist revolution � Luis Teodoro now in The Tribune, Argee Guevara in BusinessWorld, Conrado de Quiros in the Inquirer � saw fit to comment on this radical ideological turnaround. I wrote in 2002 that �their silence constitutes intellectual dishonesty. Having misled thousands of young minds down the path of socialist revolution, they now say nothing when no less than the direct inheritor of the mantle of Mao Zedung in effect says: �It was all a mistake, and we had it all wrong, comrades.�� In my succeeding article How Now, Brown Maos, Part 2 (May 04, 2005) I noted the lament of an unnamed Filipino communist rebel, in the May 04 issue of the Inquirer, that Filipino communist leaders �felt hurt and orphaned by the sweeping changes in China� and that �Beijing�s shift to a capitalist economy had undermined revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia.� But I took the Inquirer to task for �having given its editorial nod of approval to Joma�s Maoist revolution., especially in the 1980s and 1990s� which because of the paper�s wide circulation �gave Maoists an inflated sense of their strength, righteousness and importance, and thereby prolonged their revolution.� Now that Mao is mentioned in Shanghai high school text books only in connection with etiquette and the lowering of flags to half-mast, can the Brown Maos finally be cured of their silly infatuation? ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to �How Now, Brown Maos? (3)�
Dear Tony, It is quite amazing how those "brown Maos" could still persist in their pursuit of socialist transformation when even in communist China itself Mao Zedong has already been consigned to the dustbin of history! They must know, on the basis of empirical evidence, that communism is not the wave of the future. Private capitalism, with effective democratic checks on man's natural tendency towards greed and aggrandizement, promises to be that wave of the future. Mariano Patalinjug, [email protected], Yonkers, New York, Sept. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya, I think the leaders of the National Democratic Front are open to a dialogue and a ceasefire and a permanent settlement, perhaps like what happened in Malaysia . My gut feeling is that the leadership are getting worried that future generations of Filipinos -- if we can think of a future generation of Filipinos -- will consign them to a polluted kangkongan ng kasaysayan in some garbage heaps in Metro Manila. But if the Malaysian model can be used, there is one crucial difference. The leadership in Malaysia at that time were real statesmen and leaders and really cared for their own people, even if some, like Chin Peng, were valiantly trying to follow in the footsteps of Mao because what Mao, etc were doing was the "wave of the future" and was written in the stars. If they had to use force, it was not arbitrary. (As far as I know, there was no �settlement� in Malaysia [or Singapore]. All communists and communist sympathizers were thrown in jail, indefinitely and without trial, under the Internal Security Act. Chin Peng, head of the Malayan Communist Party, was released from detention on condition that he went into exile abroad, but there was no �Philippine Daily Inquirer� in Malaysia to turn him into a conquering hero or media celebrity. ACA) On the other hand, in the Philippines , those associated with the NDF and are easily killed -- even the women -- are killed just like that! Logically, after the NDF and Bayan Muna leaders have been attended to, they will go after those in Akbayan, in Dr Nemenzo's Laban ng Masa, in the Partido ng Manggawa, among the more militant Catholics, among the Protestants, among Kapatid Eddie's friends, and so on and so forth. Are the killers being encouraged and supported by the gunmakers, the Evangelicals, and the owners of multinational corporations in America and Europe ? Or are they doing this because God created them to control population growth in the Philippines . After all this general was singled out as a model of a nation builder. Anyway, the 1.3 billion Chinese may not be living in a capitalist paradise, but at least they are not like Filipinos. I wonder if they are eating "pagpag" and fighting over garbage. Cesar Torres, [email protected], San Francisco , Sept.05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Silly infatuation? More than 2.5 million starved to death or were killed in Southeast Asia , and 20 million died in famines in China , as a result to Mao-type Communist regimes. You are far too kind in your words. Ideas have consequences! Eldridge Wood, [email protected], Sept. 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Time wounds all heels or heals all wounds... Tocayo Tony Joaquin, [email protected], Daly City, California, Sept 05, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww One thing though-- without the communist and the like of Mao who ousted the western toadys of Chiang Kai Sheik and company-- China could still be a client state of USA just like present day RP . So now China is evolving from the stronghold of the Communists to what-appear to be a capitalist market oriented economy-- good for them. Payback time for the Chinese. The communist party had their uses. Sure enough, civil liberties were quashed and blood were spilled under the rule of the communist--but the same thing happened and still happening in present day RP-- and yet RP is still poor and a convenient doormat in the USA policy in Asia. Alexander �Plaridel Joaquin� Po , [email protected], Sept.06, 2006 MY REPLY. But if it is all right to �quash civil liberties and spill blood� as long as a capitalist market economy is the result, then Malaysia and Singapore had the right formula: they jailed all communists and communist sympathizers, indefinitely and without trial, under the Internal Security Act. According to this logic, Indonesia was also on the right track in summarily executing communists and communist sympathizers, numbering anywhere from 300,000 to two million. In all three countries, a capitalist market economy emerged from the rubble. Maybe Gen. Jovito Palparan should be the next president of the Philippines . wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Great seeing you again and thanks for the email - you remain the intellectual, but I am not crazy about the graphic spit-pix (ikaw naman!)... and to this non-intellectual, Pluto will always be a giant... JOMA - let me tell you something about him another mail. Stay terrific - will get a copy of the Standard on Thursday... best Marla Y. Chorengel, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Great article, Tony. Not to be read before any meal! Jayjay Calero, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww This packs a wallop! Share with me the quick response and thoughtful reactions of the Brown Moaists. Cesar Sarino, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 MY REPLY. See the e-mail above from Alexander Po. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi! Tony It takes genuine sense of sincerity to depart from a long-held but mistaken paradigm, especially, if it has already provided substantial personal benefits. St. Ignatius has a proper line for this: detachment from material benefice. What then would you have Joma do if he abandons his political ideology, get back to his old job as interpreter for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal? No way. Joma's going to live and be buried in style in Utrecht as an unshakeable icon of Communism. It doesn't matter if it's false glory for as long as he brings his ego to his deathbed intact. It's a classic human folly specially afflicting ideologues with bloated egos like Mao Zedong. Nilo Tayag, our former KM Chairman, has had better luck. He has been able to continuously reinvent himself and is now a Bishop of the Philippine Independent Church. This way, he continues to be useful to society. Regards, Gico Dayanghirang, [email protected], Davao City, Sept. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, Good piece! Poch , [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 Dr. Federico M. Macaranas Executive Director, Asian Institute of Management Policy Center wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thank you for your interesting article. I could not agree more. Theo Arnold, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 Executive Director, Asia Society wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thanks for the enlightenment. I always did wonder what the Filipino exponents of Mao/communism felt when China turned capitalist. As for the spittoon in China, we were exposed to that in the old Singapore in the early 70�s in the Chinese shop/tea houses. By this time, I suppose they (Singapore) have discarded those metal/porcelain receptacles under the tables, due also to etiquette, perhaps? Thanks for keeping me abreast on what�s happening. Maria P. Almeda, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Forwarded) Many thanks, Lester, for the above article. As always, Antonio C. Abaya is excellent. Madmen like Stalin and Mao are now consigned to the dustbin of history, thank goodness ! However, far more difficult to achieve will be the removal of dictatorships feeding on religion. While Marxist socialism claimed to be "scientific" and communist leaders promised bliss on earth, the mere observation or recognition of economic failure was enough to cause the scales to fall from the faithfuls' eyes. Ayatollas have a much easier job ahead. They don't have to prove anything. Thriving on irrationality, they can so easily send wave upon wave of "martyrs" to blow themselves up by just promising them 72 virgins and material abundance in heaven.. Jose Kostenbaum, Sept. 07, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, Just letting you know that I resigned from Standard Today last September 1 due to health reasons. I will no longer be editing your columns, so please send them to [email protected]. But please do send me your columns because my departure from the newspaper does not diminish my admiration for your columns. It was nice working with you. Chris Soler, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Thank you for letting me know that you received my last message to you. I must have deleted your article by mistake when I cleared messages in my computer when I came back from my trip to the Philippines . So, please send me a copy of your article - "No to ChaCha" that I intend to publish in our website and to make printed copies for those who have no access to the Internet. By the way I am sorry that I did not have the time to meet you in Manila during my last visit to the Philippines last month. I really planned to stay a few days in Manila before returning to the U.S. so I could meet you. But instead, I had only six hours in Manila before my flight due to unforeseen circumstances in Tacloban where I stayed almost two months. I still plan to meet you in my next visit to the Philippines hopefully soon. Bart M. Saucelo, [email protected], Sept. 07, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony-- It's extremely rare that I disagree with you, but this time I do. Embracing free trade and globalisation is, I believe, the only way to go. I agree it may incur some initial job loss and difficulty, but it will create an economy that is competitively productive and, therefore, able to compete in the world. Leading to a more rapid growth of the economy and subsequent faster job creation. I think world experience has shown this pretty well, protectionism just doesn't work - except in the short-term. It's a long subject to maybe discuss one day. Cheers, Peter Wallace, [email protected], Sept. 06, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww FALSE WITNESSES MAKE OPPRESSIVE LEADERS The recent Presidential denial of an opposition congressman�s allegation that her family has a German bank account once again brings to the fore our urgent need to bring back sanctity to our word! It did nothing to help clear her and her family of any impropriety because she had not been true to her word in the past (having reneged on her promise not to run in the 2004 Presidential elections, among other instances). The young congressman on the other hand should have presented proof of the existence of said account (if at all it ever existed) together with his allegation. This would have avoided the impression that his expose was just a childish or cheap ploy to get back at the First Family for the shameless, high-handed dismissal of the impeachment complaint. Gone are the days when a man�s words were his very honor! Politicians as well as some media practitioners are prone to make irresponsible, unverified exposes to gain public attention and promote their careers. Their lawyers and supporters insinuate and allude to alleged or past misconduct of the critics of their bosses in order to sidestep valid issues. The strategy of casting aspersions on the character and motive of messengers/ witnesses in order to muddle and negate their message/testimony has utterly been misused and abused. I had long been puzzled about the real reasons why our people have stagnated even deteriorated in terms of social, moral and economic well being while our neighbors have zoomed ahead of us under a more peaceful atmosphere of greater economic prosperity. This sad reality becomes stunning and confounding when we consider that we enjoy relatively wider political, educational and religious freedom than our neighbors have been granted. Even more amazing is the fact that the Philippines is the sole predominantly Roman Catholic country in the region! Recently, I have been convinced that one of the reasons if not the biggest reason for our failure to move forward is our propensity to deliberately make misleading declarations or bear false witness against others and treat the lie nonchalantly!!! Notice how easy it is for many Filipinos to tamper and falsify birth certificates, school diplomas, police clearances, employment records, income tax returns, car registration, land titles, ad infinitum/nauseam! No wonder consul officials of many foreign embassies here do not even bother to look at the documents we present in support of our travel visa application. Surely, many crimes would be solved more so prevented if all of us were to be held responsible, accountable and liable for even the slightest distortion of truth. I have been taught from childhood that white lies are merely venial sins compared to the mortal sins such as murder, adultery, etc. They may be easily forgiven when upon confession to a priest, penance is rendered by the sinner and absolution bestowed by the priest. With respect, I now beg to disagree with the teaching of venial sins as differentiated from mortal sins and the subsequent pardon granted by a priest. A sin is a sin, period! True forgiveness comes only from God as He alone sees man�s contrite heart! The truth is there is no such thing as a white lie or a harmless lie. It is when we get away with these lies that lying becomes second nature to us. The Filipino tends to forgive and forget in our leaders what he himself is inclined to treat as valid excuses. In effect, he is saying is that he himself expects to be pardoned for the same offenses under similar circumstances. Many of us are no longer outraged by the lie of an ambush on himself, a former Defense Minister (which precipitated Martial Law declaration) that we have even elected him many times as Senator. The irrepressible, unrepentant widow of the late dictator has now set her sights on the Mayoralty of the City of Manila. How can she be penitent when she has adamantly refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on their acquisition of such wealth? This habit of lying has become acceptable to man as he condones it as part of his sinful nature. This is certainly not so with God who is the truth! A lie is a deviation from truth or a misrepresentation of it. An excuse however justifiable can never turn the lie into truth! Therefore, we must never treat a lie lightly because of its grave consequences for us and for others! The war in Iraq was waged on the allegation that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. US and British troops should have pulled out soon after it was proven to be a lie. This Iraqi war will prove to be the costliest misadventure that the Americans and Britons have ever gotten into, courtesy of their leaders! It is said that Christian liars are no better than the Muslim terrorists who kill indiscriminately because they both sin against God and man. The Ten Commandments in the Bible embody God�s eternal law of love! A lie is as grievous to Jesus Christ as idolatry, blasphemy, Sabbath desecration, parental disrespect, murder, adultery, theft and covetousness! �For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.� (James 2:10) Please remember that the fall of man started with a lie! The serpent�s lie as described in Genesis 3: 4,5 states that when Eve eats the fruit of the forbidden tree, she shall not surely die and shall be like God! Unless we realize the seriousness of a lie, we shall be condemned to an increasingly miserable life under a regime of compulsive, incurable false witnesses who have turned into impenitent, oppressive political leaders! : By Antonio Nantes Guevara 103 Flanders St. Santarosa Village 2, Barangay Don Jose, Sta Rosa City Laguna 4026 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The Best Antidote to Government Graft The anti-dote against government graft to bring order and decency in the government service is the creation of the GRAND JURY System in the Philippines inasmuch as we have copied mostly the American Bill of Rights. This discussion is all about the GRAND JURY and it has nothing to do with the well known Trial Jury or Trial By Jury . The Grand Jury System has nothing to do with court trial proceedings because it is NOT A COURT - not even a physical part of a court. The Grand Jury system is unknown in most countries around the world and even only few Americans know about it because it is made to function with strict secrecy to prevent it from acting like a stupid hunter and there are, unfortunately, just so many of them in the various instrumentalities of the Philippine government today. Having a Grand Jury system in which citizens in the private sector have the right to participate in its functions is one of the most important procedural enforcement BILL OF RIGHTS of the ordinary people or private citizens of a country that wish to emulate the American-Government-Presidential Type Democratic Society such as ours in the Philippines. There is no other country in the world that employs the Grand Jury system today, except the USA. The Philippines is likewise the only country on earth that I know of whose people eagerly want to enjoy the U.S. or �Stateside� type of government but its government uses the hybrid dictatorship "doctrine" of "Utos Ni Mayor" (which is now about to graduate into "Utos Ng Parliament" JDV style, or "Utos Ni Gloria" PGMA style) in governing its citizens and people that includes parading crime suspects in public to highly demonstrate accomplishments of the �Bolinao� system of justice by an otiose government. Fundamentally, a Grand Jury is a powerful device by a peaceful armless group (I did not mean people without hands or arms but they can too) of 23 PRIVATE CITIZENS to independently investigate in a SECRET and NEUTRAL way any commission of serious crimes by �saintly� public officials (aka: �Holy Cows�) as well as crimes committed by private citizens in its jurisdiction. Why such a group could be so powerful in spite of the fact that it is not even equipped with a 22 caliber pistol? Yes, it is powerful because when organized by law in its proposed draft as substantially patterned after the U.S. Federal Grand Jury System, the following are the acts that it can do: 1. Its members cannot be intimidated to decide in making their indictment against any high official because: (a) They are private citizens; (b) Their private employment cannot easily be sabotaged by a government official; � They are pre-qualified to serve by law and chosen by lottery and their appointment as jurors does not require approval by any public official. (d) They are totally independent from any type of control by the government in making their collective decisions. (e) It can secretly investigate and indict in court a president and put him to trial before a Trial Jury for arbitrarily ordering the bombing of an alleged lair of dissidents or so-called community of outlaws. 2. When a Grand Jury issues a summons or subpoena to a witness in its investigation of the commission of a serious crime and the witness disobeys or refuses to appear before this Body of Private Citizens, it can file an indictment or accusation in court for Obstruction of Justice against that witness even if such witness is the president. This offense is punishable by as much as 5 years of imprisonment in jail. The U.S. Federal Grand Jury was the means by which U.S. President Clinton was forced to testify in an exceptionally and publicly video taped deposition in his Monica Lewinsky hooky pooky affair. "Exceptionally" because Grand Jury proceedings are normally held officially in secret. Also in the Watergate scandal, it was the Grand Jury that forced Mr. Nixon�s �handymen� to testify against him that further led to his forced resignation from office. 3. When a witness appears but testifies falsely, a Grand Jury can criminally indict or accuse in court such a witness for committing the crime of PERJURY which is likewise punishable by as much as 5 years of imprisonment in jail and also end up additionally charged with obstruction of justice for flagrant lying regardless of whether that witness is a President of the country. It was in fact, again, the U.S. Federal Grand Jury that forced President Clinton to testify the truth about his romantic misadventures with Monica Lewinsky. 4. When a Grand Jury files its accusation or indictment in court against a serious crime offender, IT NEED NOT SEEK FOR APPROVAL from any government prosecutor or ombudsman or the president. To the contrary, as a general rule no indictment or accusation in court by any government official, prosecutor or police authority can be acceptable in court for filing over an alleged serious offense against the alleged suspect and cannot be tried in court UNLESS it is approved by the Grand Jury of private citizens. This is where the doctrine of the �System of Check and Balance of Powers� comes into play between the People and the Government in the presidential type of government. This is what we �dearly� miss in our �Strong� Banana Republic. 5. Investigations by the Grand Jury is STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. Violation of this rule, even by a grand jury member, is a serious crime called Obstruction of Justice and, as mentioned earlier, punishable by imprisonment. No member of the public or the media, or any government official or employee, is ever allowed to watch grand jury proceedings. Its investigation room is usually unmarked somewhere in the back of a court house. Names of witnesses, or statement of witnesses, and summons of witnesses cannot be divulged by any member of the grand jury or by the witness himself (who is clearly instructed) from speaking about his testimony to anyone outside the Grand Jury Investigation Room. The name of the crime suspect is not, and cannot, be revealed by Grand Jury members to the witness. Another important purpose of its secret investigation is to preserve the constitutional innocence of the suspected offender and the obvious purpose of preventing him from hiding. Another important purpose of its secret investigation is to preserve the constitutional innocence of the suspected offender and the obvious purpose of preventing him from hiding. It keeps the identity of witnesses away from public eye for their protection and prevent tampering with evidence by the contending parties in a case. Because of this secrecy rule, no suspect could easily escape from arrest. Usually, the first time the indictee (accused) learns of the accusation against him is when the arresting officer is already about to take him into custody at his doorsteps early in the morning when he wakes up from a nice dream. How would you like if a certain �Garci� could have been easily arrested in this �gentle� manner? 6. A Grand Jury will not allow any lawyer to accompany a witness inside the Grand Jury room. If that witness wants to confer with his lawyer, he must speak with his lawyer outside the grand jury investigation room. If a lawyer (who may in fact may be a spy trying to secretly protect someone else such as a corrupt president, and not the witness) insists appearing before this body, he could end up being charged for obstruction of justice by the grand jury. 7. A Grand Jury cannot be forced to permit the intended subject of its investigation to appear before this body to watch its proceedings because a Grand Jury is not a court which has no power to try his case. It cannot convict a person for committing a crime. The person and object of investigation cannot plead jeopardy of his rights or violation of due process of law before a Grand Jury because it has no power to convict a suspected offender. It can only stand to investigate in behalf of the crime victim and to file an appropriate indictment in court. It is not created as an accuser and defender of the accused at the same time. It is only in a court of law that the rights of an accused person can be jeopardized because that is where he can be officially pronounced as a guilty party for allegedly committing an act defined by law as a crime. 8. The Grand Jury is like a "Good Neighbor" that protects the people within its territorial jurisdiction from crime offenders. As proposed by this author in his Grand Jury draft law, titled �People�s Action Against Corruption Act� or �PAACA� for short, every congressional district will each have at least one Grand Jury organization whose members are entirely replaced every start of the calendar year. Grand jurors will be compensated for their jury service. One with a very legal mind may ask: The Philippine Constitution does not declare the creation of the Grand Jury system. What will be the legal basis of creating such an entity in the Philippines? ANSWER: Article 2, Section 1, of the Philippine Constitution states that: "Sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them." There is no prohibition in the constitution that says: "No law shall be passed abridging the creation of the Grand Jury system." In fact Article 3, Section 8 of the Constitution says: �The right of the people, including those employed in . . . private sectors, to form . . . associations . . for purposes not contrary to law shall not be abridged.� In the hierarchical position of constitutional powers in the Philippine Constitution, which one is more superior? The sovereign people power clause in Article 2, Section 1? or the government powers clauses in Articles 6, 7, and 8? It clearly implies that Article 2 is more of the master "head clause" and Articles 6, 7, and 8, are mere �servant-subordinate clauses". Common sense will tell us that the "head" clause is more superior than the "servant-subordinate" clauses. The People as masters of their democratic society through their Grand Jury can thereby investigate and indict any of their corrupt public servants who operate their government in Article 6, 7, and 8, of the Constitution. The Grand Jury, representing the sovereign people in its district, cannot bound by the so-called "Inter-departmental courtesies", EO 464 or Memo Circular 168, among the grafters in these government branches. Whenever a public official commits a crime, he acts personally and privately per se. He steps out of his official powers and thereby legally and morally strips himself by his own voluntary act from the immunities of a criminal prosecution over his illegal deeds even if he may be the highest public servant of the land. The Grand Jury System is the convenient device for the people to control their democratic presidential-type of government. Without it, the people end up with a runaway democratic government. The Philippines is a perfect example of such a runaway democratic government. The moral pecking order of authority is that the creator must always have control over his creation or invention. God has control over us because we are his creation, We created our government and by moral authority, we must, of necessity, have control over our government and not the other way around. To allow the government to control us is a violation of that moral order of authority resulting in a natural chaos. We will then suffer from such anomalous order of authority where the creator is being controlled by his own invention. To prevent this anomaly, we must set up the Grand Jury System to avoid the consequential chaos and social harm arising from that anomaly. The draft of the proposed Jury System Law by this writer can be found in this web site ->http://anticorruption.homestead.com/Steps.html< for People�s Initiative purposes. WHO OR WHAT IS THE PROTECTIVE MOTHER SUPERIOR OF GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION? Far from the wild imagination in attempting to answer in advance the foregoing question, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not the protective mother superior of government corruption - not even its mother-in-law. She is not the main cause of government graft. The real cause of government graft had long existed before she was born - to strongly stress my point. It goes back to the time of PMLQ. Practically, all actions today by the people and our leaders in their attempt to reform Philippine Society or its government either by charter change or removal of PGMA are all but a futile exercise because none of them will solve the real cause behind the chronic and perennial problem of government corruption and disunity of the Filipino people. That disunity has now resulted to the secession movement by Filipino Muslims in the South as well as the rebel movements of a disgruntled population which has now formed many rebel organizations against dirty national and local governments and against government officials around the country. The main culprit of the social instability of the Philippine Government is JUSTICE. Justice reform is what we need and do to solve the complex problems of our comatose banana Republic - not short sighted �Cha-Cha Rigodon� or �Oust Gloria Movements.� As U.S. President Thomas Jefferson said it: "Justice is the fundamental law of society." In the Philippines today, there is no justice. Its foundation could not exist because its officials, except some few weaklings, that run its government branches, commissions, bureaus, and offices, have no incentive (or because they are brainless or scared that their own corrupt practices may be exposed) to set up the essential devices in which society can use to enforce justice. Philippine Justice is a GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY and every character who is elected President becomes the main untamed controller of that monopoly. Once he goes berserk, he unwittingly leads in converting justice entirely into a FAKE AND BOLINAO JUSTICE SYSTEM to fool ALL the people ALL the time. Charter Change or forcing PGMA to resign without Justice Reform would be meaningless, a waste of public funds and a false hope for the people. This fake justice system is the primary �protective mother superior� of all high government grafters. The main trouble or basic cause is that when a person is elected President (in any country for that matter), whether a �saintly� person, he is bound to suffer over-intoxication of presidential powers and we need to create an anti-dote to prevent this to happen. Bright lawyers call this anti-dote the �System of Check and Balance of Powers� between the people and the government. When the President happens to have committed a �Mortal Sin�, past or present, such as stealing votes in winning in the last elections, misuse of public funds, instigating murder of people branded as �government destabilizers�, or assassination of media members critical of his illegal acts in office, etc. the first natural and convenient thing such a President do is to manipulate the Justice System to shield him from criticism or prosecution. Since the President is the principal appointing authority of all judges and justice officials, it is very easy for him to simply order his appointees (underground and in �cellphonic� whispers, of course) to stop the investigation of any matter that will lead to pinpoint him as a responsible culprit, a common �official practice� which we call with a fancy name, �Cover-Ups� to protect a master mind from criminal prosecution. Government efficiency thereby suffers and thereafter blames the people for their non-cooperation with government programs. The cancer of government corruption has metastasize all over the country because government monopoly of justice is not confined only in the office of the President. Other powerful officials such as Governors, Mayors and high legislative officials also share and practice this monopoly in their own jurisdictions. In most cases, they are the natural recommending authority of judges and prosecutors who are assigned in their own �little kingdoms.� They provide security protections for the lives of those judges and prosecutors and their families. And so, judges and prosecutors have no choice but accede to the �demands of justice� of such public officials, i.e., to stop investigations of their own illegal acts, such as: stealing votes in the elections, buying mansions or SUVs, or going to foreign junkets, using public funds and likewise in ordering the murder of people they don�t want to exist. Marlowe Camello, [email protected], Homestead , California , Sept. 05, 2006 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |