Category: Culture

‘No turning back’ for MILF talks

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

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THE EXTENDED SIEGE of Zamboanga City by supporters of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founder Nur Misuari may have delayed the peace process with the rival Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but the Philippine government and the MILF both agree that there is no turning back in the formation of a new BangsaMoro entity to replace the current autonomous government.

“There’s no turning back—both panels agree. Na-delayed talaga but we’re doing parallel tracks where we have discussed the putting up of structures for the normalization component,” GPH Panel Chair Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said in a press briefing, Tuesday.

The Normalization Annex will address the security concerns of both the government and the MILF such as the decommissioning of weapons and combatants, and measures which will usher in reconciliation and justice.

MNLF rebels identified with Misuari laid siege to Zamboanga City beginning September 9, the eve of the peace talks between government and the MILF in Kuala Lumpur. Misuari’s group has been complaining that it has been sidelined in the talks with the MILF, a rival group that broke away from the MNLF in 1979.

Misuari had also complained that the government had reneged on commitments it had made to his group in the Final Peace Agreement it signed with the MNLF in 1996.

The government declared the Zamboanga siege resolved over the weekend wit the rescue of the remaining civilian hostages in the hands of the MNLF. Clearing operations continue however for possible rebel holdouts in the city.

Interestingly, the MILF and the government are currently engaged in talks on the ‘normalization’ component, a critical phase of the talks which was largely left unresolved in the case of the MNLF peace talks in 1996.

While the 1996 peace agreement with the MNLF provided for the integration of several thousand qualified MNLF fighters in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, the question of how to deal with thousands of other unqualified MNLF fighters and their firearms had been largely left hanging. As a result, the MNLF fighters continue to hold on to their firearms and maintain camps 17 years after the MNLF peace agreement was signed.

Coronel-Ferrer said that they have set a “working date” sometime on November where they will meet again and define functions and representation of the new Bangsamoro Government in Bandung, Indonesia.

She also said that it is natural for people to be disappointed with the delay in the completion of the Annexes and even the “rise in violence in-between.”

“This expressed hope motivates the parties to work harder in order to reach common ground on the remaining issues in the Power Sharing and Normalization Annexes,” said Coronel-Ferrer.

The Annex on Revenue Generation and Wealth Sharing was eventually signed in July.

Coronel-Ferrer said they had a hard time reaching consensus on the Power Sharing Annex. The Power Sharing Annex provides a list of powers that will be devolved to the Bangsamoro Government or exercised jointly or concurrently with the Central Government.

“(Ang) mahirap na part (ay ang) Power Sharing. We made sentences out of the list,” she said adding that they did this “to better define the terms.”

Also, Coronel-Ferrer said that the MILF has introduced some statement(s) on the structure of government and that the government panel supported it.

When asked on the prospects of the enactment of the Bangsamoro Government Organic Law in Congress, she said that they have maintained close links with members of the Lower House to ensure the passage of the Organic Law which “at the earliest would be January to March, next year.”

MindaNews: ‘Walang armas-armas’ dialogue reunites mom, 4 children

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A MOTHER and her four children aged seven to 18 walked to safety and freedom on Monday, past the police checkpoint at the boundary of barangays Mampang and Talon-Talon in Zamboanga City, as guerrillas of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) kept their guns silent.

The family of Merceditas Hasinon and her three daughters and a son was among several families held hostage during the standoff between government forces and the MNLF forces loyal to Nur Misuari that began last Sept. 10.

The story of Merceditas, reports Carolyn O. Arguillas, editor of MindaNews, “stands out among the thousands of narratives in this eight-day standoff has spawned.” Amid the conflict, she says, comes this story of the triumph of dialogue.

“The combatants who talked ‘walang armas-armas’ demonstrated that civilian hostages need not be collateral damage in war, that in life-and-death situations, dialogue can save lives,” Arguillas adds.

The PCIJ is reposting this outstanding story of Merceditas, with permission from MindaNews.

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REUNITED. Merceditas Hasinon and her son Mubrid are reunited after six days. Merceditas’ family was among those held hostage by MNLF forces in Zamboanga City. The women and children were freed September 10 morning while Mubrid and his father were freed in the evening. But no one knew the fate of the other until the reunion on Monday. MindaNews photo by Erwin Mascarinas

Cop and MNLF guerilla lay down arms briefly
for dialogue to free hostages

By Carolyn O. Arguillas, MindaNews
September 17 2013 8:39 am

ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews/16 September) — They laid down their firearms briefly — a policeman and a Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) guerrilla — to talk “walang armas-armas” (without firearms) early Tuesday morning at the checkpoint at the boundary of barangays Mampang and Talon-talon and when the MNLF guerrilla returned to where he and about 19 other comrades held hostage 12 residents, all the women and children were set free.

As the 45-year-old Merceditas Hasinon and her four children aged between 7 and 18 (three daughters and a nine-year old boy) walked to freedom towards the police checkpoint, the MNLF held on to the remaining seven male hostages, among them her husband Yassin, 47, and their eldest son, Mubrid, 22.

Merceditas’ family was among several families held hostage during the standoff between government and MNLF forces loyal to founding chair Nur Misuari which entered its eighth day on Monday.

Although they were held hostage briefly, her story stands out among the thousands of narratives this eight-day standoff has spawned because of what the policeman and the MNLF guerrilla did; the combatants who talked “walang armas-armas” demonstrated that civilian hostages need not be collateral damage in war, that in life-and-death situations, dialogue can save lives.

Merceditas’ story begins at 1 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10, when an armed man in uniform knocked on their window in the mangrove area in Barangay Mampang to ask for water.

Speaking in Chabacano, Merceditas, a Catholic who married a Muslim, told MindaNews on Sunday and Monday that when she gave the man a small pitcher of water, he told her it was not enough as there were many of them.

When she looked outside, she saw about 20 armed men in uniform. Thinking they were soldiers on patrol, she handed them a bigger water container.

Initially, one of the armed men told her and her husband to accompany them to the roadside, which is quite far from the mangrove area. To reach it, she said, they usually ride the sikad (foot-pedalled tricycle). In the early hours of Tuesday, they walked.

‘Puso ng saging’

The men, most of them in their 30s and 40s and a few in their 20s, carried long firearms including those she described as having muzzles that looked like “puso ng saging” (literally heart of the banana; apparently referring to RPGs or rocket-propelled grenades).

Strangers to the area, the armed men wanted to proceed to Barangay Sta. Barbara, the village next to Barangay Talon-talon, where their comrades were reportedly waiting for them.

The day before (Monday, September 9), MNLF forces had laid siege on at least four of the city’s 98 villages, including Sta. Barbara. Merceditas and Yassin thought they were out of harm’s way.

Besides, she said, her husband, a seaweed farmer like herself, was also worried over the seven cows and a goat that he was tasked by a cousin to watch over. They found no reason to leave.

Until that knock on the window shortly after 1 a.m. rudely interrupted not only their sleep but their lives.

Merceditas said the armed men got them in twos and threes and except for the two children under ten years old, tied their hands, using a thin nylon rope. “It was not tight, though,” she recalls.

The armed men neither introduced themselves nor explained their presence. All they wanted was to be escorted to Sta. Barbara.

Her 18-ear old-daughter Normina noted there were “MNLF” patches on the right breast pocket of the armed men’s uniforms.

Normina said the MNLF warned them not to attempt to run or they will be shot. The armed men spoke Yakan, an indication they were from Basilan and may have been sent over as reinforcement troops to the main group from Sulu under Ustadz Habier Malik, having arrived in the city only on Tuesday.

‘Walang armas-armas’

Merceditas said the walk to the direction of Sta. Barbara took long because helicopters would occasionally hover. She said the MNLF forces did not point their gun at them while walking but did so when they reached the police checkpoint at the boundary of Mampang and Talon-talon at around 5 a.m.

Merceditas said the hostages shouted at the police, “we are Zamboanguenos.”

The distance between them was about 20 meters, with two roadblocks between.

One of the policemen later shouted to the MNLF initially in Tausug and later in Yakan, to meet midway and talk “walang armas-armas.”

The MNLF guerilla left his weapon with a comrade and both moved to meet each other midway.

But the two could not understand each other because the policeman spoke Tausug and a little Yakan while the MNLF guerrilla spoke Yakan and a little Tausug. The policeman said they would find someone else who spoke Yakan.

At around 6 a.m. a Yakan-speaking man clad in white shirt with some stripes arrived. Merceditas said she is not sure if he was also a policeman but the MNLF refered to him as “pulis”. But he and the MNLF guerrilla also met midway, for yet another “walang armas-armas” talk.

‘Like brothers’

Merceditas could not recall how many minutes the talk took but when the MNLF guerilla returned to them, he informed his immediate superior about the demand to release the women and children. The superior then asked their commander if he would allow and the commander approved. The women and her two teenage daughters were untied.

The Yakan-speaking man walked towards where the hostages and the MNLF were to fetch Merceditas and her children. She said the two who spoke “walang armas-armas” treated the other like they were brothers.

Three plastic bags of bread were distributed for the hostages which they shared with the MNLF.

Merceditas burst into tears as she narrated how her husband and son assured her to go ahead and not to worry about them because they can take care of themselves.

Yassin instructed his wife and children not to attempt to run as they may be shot and to make sure they would duck should there be a firefight.

There was no time for an embrace. All that Merceditas could tell her husband and son was to pray that the minds of the armed men would be enlightened.

Before 7 a.m. on the same day, Merceditas and her daughters were free.

But not completely as both mother and daughters, were not quite sure they would still be reunited with Yassin and Mubrid.

Worst case, best case

The worst-case scenario, however, did not happen.

On Monday, September 16, Normina arrived at their temporary refuge at around 1:30 p.m. with the good news: her father was, indeed, alive and was staying in a relative’s house in their barangay and her brother, Mubrid, was a few steps away.

Normina had borrowed a mobile phone Sunday afternoon and texted a relative in Mampang who informed her her father and brother were back home. Normina dared to return to the village Monday morning and returned to where her mother and siblings were, early afternoon, with her brother.

By chance, MindaNews witnessed the reunion of mother and son.

When Normina left to fetch her brother at the gate, Mercedita’s face lit up and she excitedly chattered in Chabacano to MindaNews even if she was communicating previously through an interpreter. There was no need to translate the message she was conveying. Joy was written all over her face.

When Mubrid entered the hall at 1:35 p.m. Monday, mother and son embraced each other tightly, both of them in tears. Mubrid’s siblings cried with them as well.

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SAFE. Merceditas Hasinon and her son Mubrid (right) were reunited on Monday, September 16, after six days of not knowing each other’s fate. Merceditas, the two young children (in photo) and two other daughters were freed early morning of September 10 following a dialogue between a policeman and an MNLF guerilla. MindaNews photo by Erwin Mascarinas

‘We’re just guides’

Mubrid narrated that when his mother and sisters were freed, the MNLF retreated a few steps and instructed them to take another route to Sta. Barbara. He said the MNLF had untied them when they untied his mother and two sisters but warned that if one of them would run, none of them can return home. The armed men again warned they would be shot if they run.

One of the seven actually did run but Mubrid said the MNLF may not have noticed because the escapee was walking behind them. The remaining six were Mubrid, his father, barangay tanod (village guard) Nonito, Estrada, a cousin and uncles.

They reached Sta. Barbara in the evening, and another group of armed men asked them if they were “bihag” (hostages). Mubrid said he explained to them that they were just guides. They were allowed to leave.

But one of the six “guides” — the barangay tanod — asked if he could get back his short firearm and a cellphone, apparently irking the leader of the other group who ordered all six of them to proceed to the interior of the village.

Mubrid said they were being led to the two-storey house where the hostages where reportedly brought but they couldn’t see because there were no lights. Again he managed to convince them they were just guides.

The leader of the other armed group then told them they could go home but Estrada would be sent home the next day.

Mubrid said they have yet to find out if Estrada has been freed.

The five of them who returned to Mampang passed through the mangroves, walked through waist-deep mud to reach home.

Yassin sent Mubrid to join his mother and siblings to ensure their safety but opted to stay in Mampang. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)

MindaNews Essay: Zamboanga Dreams: Freedom from Fear

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IN THE HEAT of conflict, the back story of the people caught in the crossfire is often forgotten or overlooked.

The communities now under the grip of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) faction of Nur Misuari, had actually served in the last 40 years as sanctuaries for families fleeing from armed conflict in other parts of Mindanao. Their common wish, then as now, freedom from fear.

What follows is a personal essay by Jowel F. Canuday, one of the journalists who set up MindaNews. He later became an anthropologist and conducted his ethnographic fieldwork in 2009-2010 in Zamboanga City.

While working with MindaNews, Canuday finished his MA in Anthropology at the Xavier University. He recently finished his doctorate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford. He is the author of “Bakwit: the Power of the Displaced,” which won the National Book Award in the Social Science category of the 29th National Book Awards in 2010.

Personal Essay: Zamboanga Dreams: Freedom from Fear
By Jowel Canuday, MindaNews

FOR DECADES, the string of communities at the center of conflagrations in Zamboanga had served as sanctuaries for families displaced by long-standing wars off the shores of the city. Now, the war and the armed men from which they fled has once again caught up with their lives and forever shattered that veneer of security.

My thoughts of the coastal barangays of Mariki, Rio Hondo, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, Kansanyangan, and Talon-Talon as peace enclaves were formed by a yearlong ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted from the tailend of 2009. In these neighborhoods, I made friends out of my Tausug and Sama informants who took me to practically every nook and cranny of their place and into their lives. The pattern of stories I gathered offer a picture of a people inextricably bound by a violent fate, as well as a pragmatic vision of a community free from fear.

The sites of conflagrations covered no more than four square kilometers but densely packed with a population of nearly 73,000 people, a number of them Muslims who had rebuilt their lives far from their troubled hometowns in the Sulu Archipelago and the Zamboanga peninsula.

Some were teenagers when they and their families fled the burning streets of Jolo on February 7, 1974 at the height of MNLF and military confrontations. One of the survivors described how he and his extended family — clutching each other’s hand — sprinted their way to the wharf, with gunfire zinging above their heads, for the last boat bound for Zamboanga. Others were no older than innocent infants who had learned about their horrid flight from the tales passed on by their parents.

Since then and periodically from the 1980s through the 2000s, fresh waves of refugees fleeing recurrent armed confrontations between the soldiers and the rebels as well as horrendously destructive clan conflicts in nearby areas would come seeking for a space and a chance of forging a new beginning in the streets of coastal Zamboanga.

Barangay Mariki, a three-hectare community on stilts that was among those razed on Friday, was established in 1976 as part of a broad package of housing, livelihood, and reforms from the government and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation.

The community, which was then sparsely populated by Sama families, was transformed from a small sleepy settlement into a bustling “Sahaya Village” — the Enlightened Community — for MNLF fighters who ended fighting. Later, non-fighters also took refuge in the place transforming it into a sprawling self-reliant slum with a market, schools, welfare offices, and half a dozen mosques.

People who failed to avail themslves of any help went on eking a living as porters or ambulant vendors at the wharf and market, setting up homes in the margins of Rio Hondo, Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina, Kansayangan and Talon-Talon, living alongside Christians and fellow Muslims who had long settled in the neighborhood.

Some of the refugees managed to prosper and pull themselves out of poverty by becoming themselves prosperous traders at the city’s barter bazaars and later as stall owners at the downtown market.

Others continued to struggle as sidewalk vendors, port helpers, or candle and flower sellers at the nearby Christian Shrine of Fort Pillar, trapped in dire straits. A few more fell victim to the life of crime, turning Rio Hondo and Mariki into a gangster’s haven. Yet just the same, many would say that while the hardness of life locked them up to a lifetime of poverty, they could at least comfort themselves by the fact that in the streets of Zamboanga, they are kept far from the heartland of conflicts.

Over the years, many of the younger refugees grew up not only integrated into the fabric of Zamboanga life but becoming themselves productive and respected members of their communities. Some served for elective barangay posts while others joined the police, themselves leading the task of keeping law and order in their community. Several more partnered with policemen in fighting crime as barangay tanods (security officers), taking crucial roles in flushing out drug dealers, gunrunners, robbers, and thieves that stained the dignity and name of their neighborhood.

A few went on to study Islam in Middle Eastern universities, returning as spiritual leaders whose passionate emphasis on appending Muslims in Mindanao into the global Islamic ummah, inadvertently stamping the fervor for ethno-nationalism or romantic notion of becoming a jihadist warrior. The teachings they imparted celebrate not the heroic imaginaries of a fearless Muslim on a warpath but the calm pious followers of Islam whose sweet rewards for piety would come in the life hereafter.

Still, others lived their lives carrying out the artistic traditions of Sulu by working as professional wedding performers, adept and skilled in dancing the pangalay, playing the kulintangan (laid-in-a-row gongs), biyula (horse-stringed violins), and composing new Tausug or Sama pop music.

These differences in fate ushered a community of great contrasts. A walk on its narrow streets exposes walled mansions around the outer ends of Santa Catalina and Kansayangan areas, and sprawling slums in the interior of Santa Barbara, Rio Hondo, and estuaries of Mariki. Interspersed these sharply contrasting homes are decaying buildings and ancestral houses, and small newly built housing and apartments funded by hard-earned money of relatives in the diaspora.

In almost every block stands a mosque, big and small, grandly and nondescript, nearly all of which offering a path to salvation — not to a new imagined nation – but the afterlife. As thriving communities, life in coastal Zamboanga comes alive with wedding celebrations, cottage industries, small trading, and commitment to peace.

In the past week, many of the people of coastal Zamboanga would have relived the old war but this time with their children and grandchildren experiencing the trauma that they would not have wanted them to go through.

Life and violence has come full circle for a people who had fled a troubled homeland and now trapped in a new episode of trepidation. Yet notwithstanding the dissolution of that facade of invulnerability, knowing the spirit that drove them to rebuild their lives in Zamboanga, it is not difficult to imagine the wellspring of resource that they would be bringing in healing and crafting a new community truly free from fear.

MindaNews: Zamboanga bleeds

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IT IS DAY SEVEN of the siege of Zamboanga City by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) faction of Nur Misuari.

By official count alone, the numbers continue to rise, and Zamboanga continues to bleed — at least 51 dead, including 17 hostages; at least 78 wounded; at least 500 houses razed to the ground; and at least 62,000 evacuees now cramped in shelters.

Yet still, there’s no ceasefire in sight.

The media’s boots on the ground, notably those raised, born and living in Mindanao, offer perhaps not just quick but also correct reports. We offer you the stories of our esteemed colleagues from MindaNews, a cooperative of independent professional journalists who constantly strive to resist “the daily slide to sameness.”

Guns not silenced; civil society pushes for ‘humanitarian ceasefire’

By Carolyn O. Arguillas, MindaNews
September 15 2013 12:16 am

ZAMBOANGA CITY – No ceasefire.

Day Six of the standoff between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) loyal to founding chair Nur Misuari began with a midnight announcement that a ceasefire had been forged followed by an early morning clarification that no ceasefire was in place and an afternoon urgent appeal from civil society to the government and MNLF to “immediately effect a humanitarian ceasefire to allow the release of civilian hostages, especially the children, the elderly, the persons with disabilities, the curing of the sick, and the burying of the dead.”

Day Six also raised the death toll to 51 as of Saturday noon from Friday’s 18: three each from police and civilians; two from the military and 43 from the MNLF although military spokesperson Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala was quick to say the actual body count was 21 and the 22 others were “based on reports from our units.” Still, if actual body count were to be used, the death toll rose from 18 on Friday (two each from the military and civilians, three from the police and 11 from the MNLF) to 29 on Saturday.

There is no report, however, on how many hostages had been killed and neither the police nor the military could confirm when a reporter asked if it was true that 17 hostages had been killed.

At the press conference at City Hall on Thursday noon, the Crisis Management Committee put the number of hostages at 170 and the number of MNLF forces holding them hostage, at 180.

The number of wounded also rose from Friday’s 52 to Saturday noon’s 78: 12 from the police, 38 from the military and 28 from the civilians. On Friday, the figure was six from the police, 18 from the civilians and 28 from the military.

Read the full report of Carol O. Arguillas of MindaNews here.

Check corruption in pork, pass FOI law for all citizens

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THE RIGHT TO KNOW is the bedrock of the fundamental freedoms of all citizens, and without further delay, Congress must pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, according to a statement read by PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas on Wednesday at the Senate.

FOI, she said, enables and promotes the citizen’s rights to health, education, land, livelihood, and life — as well as to know how government is spending taxpayer’s money, and to censure officials for corruption, plunder, and betrayal of the public trust.

The PCIJ was among the resource groups invited to the first public hearing on FOI bills conducted by the Senate Committee on Public Information chaired by Sen. Mary Grace Poe.

More than just journalists, Mangahas said, all citizens have need and demand for public documents in the custody of public officials and agencies.

The immediate passage of an FOI law has become an imperative, she said, in light of the “token transparency” initiatives of the Aquino administration that have proved ineffective in checking the flaws and corruption of the pork barrel system.

“It is a kind of transparency according to the terms of the leaders, and not true transparency from the perspective, and according to the needs, of the citizens.”

“Transparency and accountability are inseparable values,” Mangahas said. “We need to know more than just the list of pork-funded projects, how taxpayer’s money was spent, who or which contractors got or pocketed the money, and whether or not the projects had been completed, according to contract terms.”

The full text of the statement follows:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate. On behalf of the editors and staff of the PCIJ, thank you for this opportunity to address the Senate Committee on Public Information.

We would like to make three points.

ONE. We in the mass media stand together, indivisible, and absolutely firm that the Freedom of Information law must pass now.

We are one with our colleagues in the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, the Philippine Press Institute, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, the Center for Community Journalism and Development, and many other media agencies, behind a common cause — the immediate passage of a Freedom of Information Act.

We take this stand not because FOI will benefit journalists alone but most importantly, because all Filipino citizens have need and demand for public documents and information in the custody of public officials and agencies.

The right to know is the bedrock of most other fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution — the right to health, the right to education, the right to land, the right to seek gainful employment, the right to security of abode, the right to know how government is spending taxpayer’s money, the right to participate in governance, and yes, the right to censure and bring to justice public officials for corruption, plunder, and betrayal of the public trust. Most important of all, the right to information protects and promotes the citizen’s right to life.

The PCIJ has had a long history of accessing information, notably public finance documents (budget, audit reports, PDAF menu lists, civil works contracts, etc), SALNs, records covering graft cases and investigations, etc.

Based on the PCIJ’s experience, indeed some agencies are more open than others. Some do test the limits of the patience of the most diligent reporters. Many agencies, in the absence of uniform, standard procedures for dealing with requests for documents, generally take token action on such requests. They would pass around our requests among four or five departments or officials, or say that they must first clear the release of documents with their bosses — typically political appointees — or tell us that they simply cannot release the documents at all.

In the absence of such clear and uniform procedures for the release of documents, the citizen’s right to know and transparency will always be tested paradigms from one to another political administration.

TWO: We stand vigorously against an FOI law that has a right-of-reply rider, even as we fully respect the right of private persons to be heard and to challenge unfair or inaccurate news reports.

In the case of public officials, however, the greater principles in the Constitution and the law are: One, that a public office is a public trust; and two, that no law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech and of the press — fundamental freedoms of all citizens that the mass media hold and exercise only in custody.

While the right to reply to unfair or inaccurate news reports must be respected as a principle and obligation of journalism ethics, inserting a right of reply provision in an FOI law with procedures requiring the media to print or air any length of reply, is a certain abridgment of the principle and practice of self-regulation as a pillar of an independent and free press.

Self-regulation mechanisms are in place and working with modestly good results in individual media agencies with codes of ethics, as well as in the PPI (press council) and the KBP (standards authority). While we acknowledge the wayward, unethical ways of some of those in the media, a right of reply provision will not translate to their good behavior automatically.

In the same breath, the absence of a right of reply provision will not compel good behavior among bad politicians and political leaders, hence the media must not stop probing and prying into their misdeeds.

The pork barrel scam and the public outcry it has ignited are most instructive about the effete or questionable value of a right of reply clause. A bounty of information about PDAF disbursements had been made by the Commission on Audit, but to this day, most of the nearly 200 senators and congressmen who had been named as the sources of the questionable PDAF and projects do not want to reply, even with the media seeking their side ever assidiously.

THREE: Time and the numbers make the passage of an FOI an imperative today.

About 100 nations have FOI laws, many of them among the most developed and the most mature democracies in the world. To be sure, FOI has not proved to be a magic bullet against corruption even in these democracies. But FOI has certainly gone a long way in promoting two major pillars of good government — good record-keeping by public agencies, and good citizenship among people who are better informed and thus better prepared to participate meaningfully in governance.

In light of the pork barrel scam, government now says that it has promoted transparency by the online disclosure of the list of projects that lawmakers had proposed for funding, according to a limited menu allowed in the national budget. That is clearly token transparency; it has proved unable to correct the flaws and the corruption of the PDAF system. It is a kind of transparency according to the terms of the leaders, and not true transparency from the perspective, and according to the needs, of the citizens.

Transparency and accountability are inseparable values. We need to know more than just the list of pork-funded projects, how taxpayer’s money was spent, who or which contractors got or pocketed the money, and whether or not the projects had been completed, according to contract terms.

Finally, the FOI law is a reform legislation that has long been overdue, according to the Constitution, the fundamental law of the land.

The Constitution that passed in 1987 guarantees it. That was 26 years ago. The Constitution summoned Congress to enact a law to implement the spirit and letter of the guarantee — pass a Freedom of Information Act now, in the best interests of all our citizens, and not of our leaders.

Thank you and good day to you all.