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Don’t close Ampatuan case yet, private prosecutors tell DOJ

July 31, 2014July 31, 2014 Ed Lingao Leave a comment

PRIVATE PROSECUTORS involved in the Ampatuan massacre case are protesting a decision by the Justice Department to end the presentation of evidence in the multiple murder case, warning that this was premature and driven by political pressure.

Attorneys Prima Quinsayas and Nena Santos, who represent 44 of the massacre victims, said they had more witnesses and evidence to present before the court. The DOJ decision however closes the door to the admission of more evidence from the prosecutors.

“We have so much to lose if they do this,” Quinsayas said.

Quinsayas added that it was unusual for the prosecution panel to end its prosecution of the murder case, when the case was really just in the bail proceedings. The Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 has been hearing the bail proceedings for the Ampatuan case for more than four years because of repeated delays in the trial. Both prosecution and defense lawyers have however agreed to adopt the evidence from the bail proceedings as evidence in chief, or as evidence for the main murder case.

interview with Justice Ussec. Francisco Baraan III in November 2013

Quinsayas said Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes, the judge in the murder trial, even pointed out that the proper procedure would be to resolve the bail proceedings first before resting on the main murder case. However, the DOJ panel still insisted on filing its manifestation to rest its case on both the bail proceedings and the evidence in chief at the same time.

Quinsayas stressed that this move would be irrevocable.

“Bakit tayo nagmamadali ngayong alam natin na one shot deal lang ang criminal case,” Quinsayas said. “That’s like tying our hands. Kumuha ako ng tali at tinali ko ang sarili kong kamay, and why would I do that?”

(Why are we in a rush when we know that a criminal case is a one-shot deal. This is like tying our hands. We got a rope and tied our own hands, and why would we do that?)

Quinsayas said it appears that the DOJ panel is under pressure to rush the case because President Benigno S. Aquino III has publicly said he wants a conviction in the Ampatuan case before he steps down in 2016.

“If I listen to the President, he says he will ensure conviction by 2016, so possible explanation yan na magmadali para bago matapos ang term mayroon nang conviction,” Quinsayas said. ”

(If I listen to the President, he says he will ensure conviction by 2016, so that is a possible explanation for why they are rushing so there would be a conviction before his term ends.)

“If we rest in the evidence in chief, there is no more second chance to present evidence that would mean whatever evidence was rebutted by the defense,” Quinsayas said.

Santos for her part said that she has additional witnesses that she wants to present in the main murder trial. The DOJ decision effectively closes the door to her witnesses.

“May bala pa ako, at mas matindi pa,” Santos said. (I have more ammunition, and they are more powerful.)

“Marami pa akong witnesses, di pa mapresent dahil iniintay ang ebidensya ng kabila bago mailabas,” Santos said.

(I have more witnesses, and I cannot present them because we want the other side to present their evidence first.)

Quinsayas said that it was also unusual that the government prosecutors would rush to close the case even before the defense lawyers are able to present their rebuttal evidence on the bail proceedings. Quinsayas said the defense was given the chance to present rebuttal evidence on the bail proceedings as early as February. Curiously, defense lawyers have not presented their evidence yet.

Media groups said that while everyone wants a speedier trial, this should not come at the expense of true justice.

“The desire for speed is there, but we will not sacrifice speed if we fail in this advocacy,” said Melinda Quintos de Jesus of the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, a media group helping fund the prosecution of the case.

“Speed is not the same as haste,” Quinsayas said. “There is a difference between a speedy trial and a trial done in haste.”

“Our concern is there will still be a lot of evidence that will not be presented if you rest at this point,” de Jesus added. “If the result of the trial is not satisfactory, and the families do not feel that they have won, then it will be an empty achievement of speed.”

PNoy delivers 5th SONA amid street protests

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014 Ed Lingao Leave a comment

PRESIDENT BENIGNO S. AQUINO III delivered his fifth and penultimate State of the Nation Address Monday amid moves to impeach him for his administration’s controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), portions of which were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Aquino, who was swept into power under a banner of transparency and good governance, faces his biggest challenge yet after several groups filed three impeachment complaints against him for the DAP, a stimulus program which involves pooling money saved from government programs to fund other unprogrammed activities, and for the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement which allows US forces greater access to Philippine facilities.

The President delivers his second to the last State of the Nation Address during a joint session of Congress at the Batasang Pambansa complex in Quezon City at four in the afternoon Monday.

The President is expected to make a pitch for his legislative agenda for the last two years of his term. However, many also expect the President to again defend the controversial DAP program.

Below is a streaming live feed from Radio Televison Malacanang of the President’s full speech.

As the President gave his address, thousands of people took to the streets on Monday in what has already become a yearly SONA refrain, this time to register their protest over controversies rocking his administration. Chief among the issues was the DAP controversy.

The biggest group that assembled belonged to groups allied with the Makabayan block in Congress, composed of groups such as Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anakpawis, and the Kilusang Mayo Uno.

The protesters were blocked by several layers of riot policemen along Commonwealth Avenue several kilometers from the Batasan Pambansa. However, a small contingent of protesters, mostly belonging to an urban poor community, was able to sneak past security checkpoints and staged a lightning rally just 50 meters from the Batasan gate. The protesters were later joined by legislators from the Makabayan block, who staged a walkout just before the President gave his address.

While the smaller rally dispersed peacefully, the main contingent along Commonwealth clashed with riot police just as the President wrapped up his speech.

Policemen arrayed behind layers of riot shields akin to a Roman Testudo trained water cannons at the protesters as the activists pushed against concrete barriers and razor-sharp concertina wire, toppling several of the barriers.

The confrontation played out in the streets, military helicopters clattered overhead to monitor events on the ground.

Cooler heads however prevailed, preventing a riot from erupting.

Several injured people were seen being rushed away by paramedics.

The protesters dispersed peacefully by six in the evening, as the President finished his speech, with a threat that they would be back next year with a bigger contingent.

Farmers hungry while world eats beyond its means

July 17, 2014July 17, 2014 Ed Lingao Leave a comment

by Julius D. Mariveles

THE WORLD is already eating way beyond its means, yet those who produce the food barely have enough to eat.

This dual layer of ironies was highlighted during the Responsible Business Forum on Food and Agriculture in Manila this week, as experts from around the world emphasized how growing consumer food demands are far and fast outpacing the ability of the world’s natural resources to provide this need.

The challenge, says World Wildlife Fund-Philippines president Lory Tan, is to find ways to produce more food while using up even less resources such as land and water.

Tan cited the country as an example in showing the pressure that people are placing on the natural resources of the world that would be compounded by problems brought about by climate change and water scarcity. In the face of the need for food, participants discussed the need to improve agricultural productivity while improving rural livelihood and reducing its impact on the environment.

“We are eating ourselves up; (the Philippines) sits 117 percent beyond our natural capital,” Tan said as he opened the two-day forum that gathered representatives from various agricultural sectors and business leaders throughout Asia.

Resources persons underscored the need to rethink food production. Jason Clay, senior vice-president, Markets and Food of the World Wildlife Foundation-USA cited as an example the growing of cattle for beef, which takes up 60 percent of land yet only provides for 1.3 percent of the total needed calories.

Tan and Clay said the answer to this problem is not to use more resources such as land for food production, but rather to find more efficient ways to produce the food that more people really need. In addition, both cited the need for people to be more efficient in their consumption of food, as a significant percentage of the food produced is really just wasted because of the nature of a consumer-driven society.

At the same time, experts noted how this growing food consumption is not reflected in the plight of those who have a direct hand in food production – the farmers.

Sec. Francis Pangilinan, presidential assistant on food and agricultural modernization, pointed out that Philippine farmers remain among the poorest of the poor.

Coconut farmers, for example, earn only an average of P23,000 a year, or not even P2,000 a month.

This, even as food prices have risen by 7.4 percent, or well above the inflation rate of 4.4 percent, Pangilinan said.

Even as the Gross Domestic Product of the Philippines rose last year, the second fastest-growing in Asia next to China, 20 out of 100 Filipinos remain hungry while four million households or at least 20 million Filipinos cannot feel the growth and do not have enough food, he added.

“We should treat our farmers like our parents,” Pangilinan quoted his own young daughter as saying. Pangilinan said people should place more importance on farmers, perhaps even more than lawyers and engineers, since people rely on the output of farmers three times a day, compared to the few times that people need lawyers in their lifetime.

Among the agricultural commodities addressed during the open and working group discussions were rice, poultry, fisheries and aquaculture, palm oil, coffee and cocoa, and sugar.

Juan Farinati, vice-president for Asia of Monsanto Corporation, said that there should also be a focus on “innovation and partnerships” that would lead to producing more food with less resources.

He cited the case of Vietnam where farmers have shifted to corn from other crops and were able to export it only a year using Monsanto bio-engineered seeds that increased the income of farmers to more than US$400 per hectare.

Aside from the shift to other crops, Matthew Morell, deputy director general for research of the International Rice Research Institute, said there is also a need to improve production systems like moving to mechanized farming to boost yield.

He added genetics would play a “strong role” in improving rice strains that would have higher yields.

Guy Hogge, head of sustainability of Louis Dreyfus Commodities, on the other hand, said farmers in rural areas might not have access to markets as he raised the need for government intervention in agriculture.

Sugar, on the other hand, once the biggest export commodity of the Philippines, was described by Sugar Regulatory Administration Gina Martin-Bautista as a “game changer” because it can be used to branch out to other industries like bio-water and bio-plastics because it is a “green commodity” or environment-friendly.

Bautista, however, pointed out that Thailand, which learned sugar production from the Philippines, has outstripped the country in terms of production.

Second only to Brazil in terms of sugar production, Thailand now has more than one million hectares planted to the crop compared to the Philippines’ 420,000 hectares.

Yet while Thailand only has double the hectarage devoted to sugar compared to the Philippines, it is producing more than four times the sugar output, or 11 million metric tons for Thailand compared to the Philippines’ 2.5 million metric tons.

Amid the problems posed by climate change and limited resources, Pangilinan said, using the words of his then nine-year-old child, that “we must treat farmers like our parents” because “we need them on a daily basis” for us to eat.

He also said that if the country’s framework for sustainable agriculture must put farmers, fisherfolk, and agricultural first, integrated environmental care and preservation and must show “new way of doing things” while going back to basics.

Fun, selfies, and a pitch for FOI

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014 Ed Lingao Leave a comment

They came, they had fun, they had selfies. Over the weekend, however, concerned members of the country’s youth came together to take a serious position that had nothing to do with having their best angles to the camera.

Participants in the First National FOI Youth Congress called on lawmakers to hasten the passage of the Freedom of Information bill during a three-day gathering at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance.

Some 300 members of the FOI Youth Initiative (FYI) also called on their fellow youth to join in the fight to transform the government “into an institution that is worthy of the trust of the people that it serves”.

Youth leaders noted how the older generation tends to brand today’s youth as self-absorbed an apathetic. But in this particular issue, FYI leaders said, the youth are really taking the initiative.

“Apathetic and selfish – that is how some older people view our generation…(but the) youth of today can actually be passionate about something socially relevant”, Allan Pangilinan, lead convenor of the FOI Youth Initiative said.

The three-day event gathered youth and student organizations that supported calls for the immediate passage of a Freedom of Information Law that they hope would institute more transparency and accountability in government. The bill has is still mouldering at the House committee on public information even though as Senate version has already been passed on third reading.

Jeff Crisostomo, one of the founders of the network, pointed out that the FYI has grown today into a national network of more than 200 youth and student groups, four time larger since its founding at least three years ago when it only had 50 member-organizations.

Crisostomo, who is now the legislative and media officer of Rep. Kaka J. Bag-ao, called on members of the FYI to come up with “creative means” in pushing for the passage of the FOI as he pointed out that it is necessary in ensuring more transparency in public services especially education.

He also said that the push should include encouraging local government officials to come up with their own local Freedom of Information ordinances.

“Let us show (President Aquino) that we mean business”, he added.

Lawyer Nepomuceno Malaluan, lead convenor of the Right To Know, Right Now! Coalition said the FYI is a “testament to the power and essence of FOI” because it “bridges generations” who want to hold their governments “accountable and to be informed to enable the effective exercise of rights”.

PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas, who delivered a talk on the practice of accessing information, said the push for an FOI is not only based on whims by its advocates but is grounded on declarations by the United Nations that the right to information is the foundation of all rights.

She also underscored the fact that this is not a special law for journalists, and accessing information is being done by reporters acting as trustees of public interest. If there is no right to information, for example, it is impossible for the public to know about contracts being entered into by the government that would impact on their lives.

With the absence of an FOI, persistence is important in getting information or documents from the government. “Whoever blinks first loses; it is the coping mechanisms that make a difference in the Philippines, not because of the FOI”, she said.

Mangahas also pointed out the difference between the open government policy and a rights-based freedom of information regime.

The open government policy means that agencies and offices would be putting out their information on the Worldwide Web but this would depend on the terms of the government and not on the demand of people for information.

“Government’s voluntary disclosure is not good enough; if it is really, then why did the (Disbursement Acceleration Program) happen? Open data is not a bypass solution for an FOI Law.”

Among the organizers of the activity are the University Student Council of the University of the Philippines, the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy Student Council, and the UP Economics Towards Consciousness.

Senator Grace Poe, main author of the Senate version of the FOI and chair of the Committee on People’s Public Information and Mass Media, lauded the FYI as she pointed out the urgent need for an FOI.

“The attainment of a just, progressive, and lasting peace greatly depends upon the free flow of information to the public”, she said. Julius D. Mariveles

Students produce primer on FOI

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014 Ed Lingao Leave a comment

LEAVE IT to the youth to produce a catchy and easy-to-understand primer on the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill, that controversial measure whose importance some government officials apparently still can not or will not comprehend.

The 7-minute video was produced by the University of the Philippines student group Economics Towards Consciousness (UP-ETC), a university-wide student organization based in the UP School of Economics.

The video was first made public during the FOI Youth Congress at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG).

Feel free to share the YouTube video with your friends and colleagues.