Saraah!

Philippine elections in recent years have seen a major shift from a benign exercise of the right of suffrage to a dynamic exercise of the right of freedom of speech and of the press. What was then held as a monopoly by the powers-that-be over the national political and socio-cultural climate is now a matter of public scrutiny and opinion.

Everyone participates in the decision-making intimately, such that the results of the elections merely reflect months of debate and sizing-up the electoral candidates that represent different platforms and agendas. Come Election Day, people flock the precincts to cast down their final adjudication as a result of a deliberate and painstaking mental process of deciding who to vote.

Put simply, the ballot is a culmination of a protracted, in a manner of speaking, argument between choices incipient from the first day of election campaign and perhaps even before the electoral race has started.

A neophyte candidate, who has not been so exposed to public opinion and scrutiny, shall first learn that it is difficult to crunch the decided advantage of reputation and familiarity just several months prior to the elections. No amount of campaign or propaganda will overcome the obstacle of convincing the compact majority merely on one’s objective merits.

To say nothing of the fact that the Filipino voter is no longer ignorant of current events and issues, therefore is much keener in analysis and informed with regards his choice; which choice requires a period of incubation quite unlike certain institutions where one is readily identified as either republican or democrat.

The Filipino voter is an undecided voter right to the very day he sits to write down his final decision. Precisely on this point, the issue of constitutionality of state regulation viz. prior restraint on surveys and exit polls, to prevent the perils of band-wagon effect, trending, last minute junking of weak candidates and dagdag-bawas, among a few, is raised on these cases.

In fine, respondent COMELEC argues that the exit polls will unduly hinder free thought during elections, and the surveys will exploit the susceptibility of the voter to popular opinions. The main idea is to bar the publication of surveys during the proximate periods to which the voters are likely to be cramming frantically who to put into office.

Likewise, the result of the exit polls are to be held at bay until such time authorized tabulators namely, NAMFREL and COMELEC, have signed and sealed the final results as to avoid confusion. As a response, petitioners ABS-CBN, a media magnate, and Social Weather Station, a non-profit organization specializing in demographic, political, economic and social condition surveys, invoke the right to freedom of speech and of the press against the prohibition.

Public respondent argues that the regulations on both instances are pursuant to a valid state interest to maintain the credibility, integrity, secrecy and sanctity of the elections. As such, the constitutionally protected freedoms invoked by both petitioners “are not immune to regulation by the State in the legitimate exercise of its police power”, ABS-CBN v. COMELEC G.R. No.133486.

In addition to the supposedly valid exercise of police power, public respondent argues that the prohibition applies only to the element of time and is thus far removed from a discussion on the content and import of the surveys and polls, id. Lastly, the institutions that wish to conduct and publish the results of the surveys are private and independent entities to which the government has no means to control or supervise. There is the danger of manipulation and fabrication of data calculated to jeopardize the independence of the electorate to think or undermine the credibility of the election results.

Petitioners, on the other hand, aver that 1) the surveys are objective analyses of statistical data produced by a thorough and unbiased application of statistical theories under rigorous and established scientific methods, SWS v. COMELEC G.R. No. 14571, and 2) the publication thereof is not tainted with malice or bad faith to sabotage the elections or favor/endorse certain candidates, ABS-CBN v. COMELEC.

In other words, the petitioners wish to conduct and publish the surveys as part of their responsibility to report the motley running events of the election. It is not to compete and interfere with the duties of the COMELEC nor fashion the general opinions to suit a specific end, rather it is to supplement the information that is otherwise already and should be available to everyone anyway.

Supreme Court subsequently struck down as invalid the issuance and resolutions that enjoin the petitioners from doing the surveys on the ground that these violate the constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and of the press. Perfunctorily applying the doctrine of the dangerous tendency rule: words thus uttered, which have a dangerous tendency to bring about a substantive evil which the state has the right to prevent, are punished, the Court did not find, rightly so, any of that sort to justify the restrictions.

Under heightened scrutiny viz. the clear and present danger rule, the said resolutions also fail to pass muster. There is no ineluctable danger imminent and substantive as to warrant the curtailment of the freedom to speak out. At any rate, the Court a priori leans in favor of the freedom of speech and is highly doubtful of the validity of any state restraint to such a right.

In the same vein, where the danger and the state interest to prevent it do not outweigh the constitutionally protected rights much less should go off on a tangent between the suppression and the ideas suppressed or is too overbroad to step on domains other than the one sought to be stopped, the two COMELEC resolutions are unconstitutional and hence invalid.

It can not be gainsaid that the integrity and independent nature of elections must be held sacrosanct and inviolable. The electorate must be free from undue influence following their decisions and must not be coerced to think and decide against the core of their beliefs. Anyone who is about to exercise the right to suffrage must not be exposed to any form of violence, intimidation or manipulation.

The state, in fact, encourages the entire voting population to take part in the elections so that the results shall credibly support the claim that a decisive plebiscite has indeed taken place. It does so by ensuring that the precincts are safe and conducive to free thought. Likewise, whatever the person writes down, it is held secret so as to prevent a possible reprise from those who rely and seek his approval in the ballot but did not get it.

In the most basic sense, insofar as the voter is concerned, the election ritual comprise of these two tenets: 1) full and voluntary participation which must be free from violence and intimidation and 2) secrecy of the choice. Anything that goes beyond these becomes incidental adornments and socio-political consequences to the sacred right. On the other hand, insofar as the election per se is concerned, whereat the process of tabulation and the results are in question, only one thing must be born in mind: credibility.

Nowhere, therefore, can the surveys or the exit polls intrude into any of the basic principles of the elections and the electorate. First, the surveys and exit polls are no different from actual ratiocinations of public figures and opinion makers who have no qualms in endorsing a candidate or forecast the results of the election. Indeed, as if it were likely to be believed that the two things to all intents and purposes appear exactly alike, arguing without conceding that the surveys do in fact favor a few candidates, in relation to giving a premium to a popular side, should gain differential constitutional treatment born out of arguably the same effects.

Second, the results of such surveys are much the same as covering an event replete with details culled from the point-of-view of a responsible journalist. Surveys that report random statistical samples must receive the same protection as with a video or a picture which has the same power to change even the most steadfast opinions about a candidate. It would certainly run afoul our notions of freedom of the press to inhibit a display of pictures that would materially alter the stature and reputation of a candidate. The same way that the opinions of a select region show just how much a candidate is received variable to the programs and agendas he so proposed. A congressman of a district, for instance, may garner pre-election survey approval or disapproval based on real achievements and progress in his district.

On local levels, survey results that show a person with the highest approval rating usually have been a providential agent of change within the polled locality thus the rating. The trend on candidates, both winning pre- and post-election (dis-)approval respectively, makes further proof unnecessary.

Similarly, exit polls that tender post-election results are most likely indicative of the voting pattern in a precinct. The results become at the very least complementary to the tally of the official tabulators. If not, however, then contradicting reports, a discrepancy between polls and official count on the results are just as volatile as allegations of fraud and cheating by losing candidates, but not as repugnant to the exercise of the right of suffrage, speech and of the press.

In other words, endorsement, trending, dagdag-bawas etc. have been a problem or a phenomena in Philippine national elections even before the issues on surveys were raised. Perhaps the unique and novel introduction of surveys, a recent addition to the extant election culture in the country, has elicited strong dissent among the conservatives against its application. The argument is that conducting surveys is similar to riffling through the pages of a, let us say, a thick and unabridged Don Quixote book and randomly picking entries and passages to quote from. Thus, following this logic, it is an attempt to understand the entire work with just a few words and paragraphs lifted here and there. Indeed, a person with some knowledge of high school statistics will support the same conclusion about collected and mathematically processed data.

However, the surveys do not offer an exhaustive summary of the national sentiment like haphazardly reading broken pages of a magnum opus. Rather, these merely suggest a tendency of the population to go one way than the other. It is after all an exercise of scientific probability and it would be a dream of any statistician to be able to predict future results accurate to the dot.

Surveys are not reductionist nor deterministic in nature that would rob the voting population entirely of the freedom to choose and be heard. If it were so, then the moment that news of increase in hunger incidence viz. 9 out of 10 hungry people, nine people in a room would suddenly grumble for food to munch on.

Like every news item or opinion published everyday in papers or broadcasted in television, the information must be taken with a grain salt. The way that political participation, even by an undecided voter, has matured, the ordinary Filipino is more than capable of deciding and taking responsibility for his decisions.

Still, it is the Filipino people who shall suffer the consequences of a poorly contemplated choice of candidates. Even so, the right to make wrong decisions in the ballot is, after all, a constitutionally protected right.

They say I’m too serious with my blog. I write serious topics seriously. I have no room for humor. Let me disabuse you for a minute. If there’s any seriousness about this blog and me is that I am serious about making people think and laugh (at me).

There is no need to elaborate facts and details further.

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Case is dismissed for lack of merit.

There can only be one. So many survey companies and surveys going about recently and not a single one has come up to me to ask what I think. Imagine the absurdity. Tsk! To think that my opinion counts a million more than those who think through their lung.

Surveys are like this: riffling through the pages of a, let’s say, thickish don quixote book and randomly picking entries and passages to quote from. Thus, it is an attempt to understand the entire work with just a few words and paragraphs lifted here and there.

Elections are like this: reading from cover to cover, careful not to miss a dot, and after relishing the full flavor of the entire magnum opus, measure its worth or understand the story.

Okay. Surveys have some probative value at the least. The scientific method, by which surveys are conducted with rigorous discipline, gives the assurance of veracity and authority because it is scientific. Thus, I beg the question. Understandably, a person with some knowledge of highschool statistics will support any result from collected and mathematically processed data.

A survey is rather useful to companies that wish to ascertain the probability that their line of products will succeed in a specific market. But where the survey pertain to issues that affect the nation, asking a little more than 2,000 people around for their opinions, is stretching the powers of statistical theory too far and thin. Really, relative to the 60 or so million thinking majority, 2,000 represent meager instances to come up with a convincing scientific conclusion about how the entire nation thinks and breathes and runs.

The words used to carry the weight of the conclusion is likewise misleading. To say that 50% of Filipinos believe in so and so, or that 30% are this and that, is to give the apperance that everyone in the entire country took part in the survey. What happened to the more cautious phraseology, to wit, one out of ten Filipinos in a test sample of 2,000 respondents in places purported as the bulwarks of anti-government groups, believe that they are not so sure what is exactly on their minds?

Better yet, why not say, Carl, the respondent of great authority, believes 120.23% that people need to calm down. He also 120.23% believes that the search for truth will not reveal the corruption of the current administration, because obviously there abound a-plenty at present (such facts are not in dispute of course) but shall lead to the discovery of a bigger truth that our current governmental structure is founded on a pile of goo and tripe, and political personalities have taken the system hostage for all their self-serving interests and needs. Each so(u)l(-e)d separately.

Indeed, so much so, totally in fact, quite absolutely and damnedly irrefutably, that it is virtually impossible for anyone, not even the most well-intentioned president, to escape the filth and grime of immoderate greed, or whatever, the moment he steps into of(fece[s]). Because there is no revolution where we just keep on changing the people on top but keep the rest of the beast’s (reference to beast of golgotha, fictional character in Dogma. Dir. Smith, Kevin. Damon, Affleck, Morissette. Lions Gate Films, 1999.) body thrashing about. Silly, it will just grow another head.

Arroyo is corrupt for sure. But that is hardly surprising. She merely inhereted an already desecrated and decaying institution. What else can you expect but for her to try to survive for six-years until expiration of term? And to do so would mean that she kiss a lot of asses and parry away eager sharks that threaten to bite her off her seat: while she swims with them in a pool of vile filth (what worser punishment than that can one possibly think of? Ipso Jure). Hence, EO 464 et als.

If anything, let’s give her a little credit for innovation and creativity in leadership and politics. Let’s make her a professor emeritus or grant her honoris causa doctorate degrees on philippine politics, dodgeball and creative non-fiction after her term ends.

Meanwhile, survey as you will and as often as you want, but it won’t be legitimate until you ask me to fill one out, the definitive one, for you.

I will be extra gracious on the seventh of march because is my birthday. I will use a special pen too. Or if it is done verbally, I shall dress befitting the status of my acclaim.

Wherefore, reversed and remanded, affirmed and denied. etc. etc.

I have a few things to say about our presidential system and democracy.

First, our legal history, since American colonization, has always leaned towards a strong chief executive. This has never been more felt than during the Marcos era.

The president is the representative of the majority. He is a symbolic figurehead of the nation backed by popular mandate. He has powers only the congress can legitimately veto namely, the declaration of martial law, suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, declaration of war or a state of emergency. Even with the existence of the legislative branch, he has an array of peculiar prerogatives to stand against the dissonance of the 180 or so members of congress.

Second, each presidential term can be rightly called an era-of-its-own in Philippine political history. This is to say that every president has programs, socio-political agendas and economic policies different from those of his predecessors. Sometimes the gains of the previous terms are improved and sometimes disregarded.

There is only a continuity and uniformity of policies during the incumbency of a president. Every thing that came before and will come after are frangible. The incumbent president is the sole author and navigator of the nation’s course and history. He owes nothing in the past neither does he invest heavily in the future. His only concern is to make sure that the nation does not fall apart during his six-year term. Whereat (hehehehe), we can cut up 30 years of history neatly so: Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo. That’s acing Philippine History in a line.

Third, the President is chosen by the majority. But winning the highest number of votes during election does not mean winning the majority votes. It happens that the margin between the winner and the runner-up is sometimes so slender to support any claim that a decisive plebscite has indeed taken place (Linz, 57, 1.1, 1990). The Estrada and Gloria electoral contests have been popularly referred to as the battle between minorities, what with a slew of presidential aspirants who joined in the race. This explains why no President of this country has ever been perfect much less satisfactory in the eyes of plurality. Well, partly also because the bitter losers still sue for president.

Fourth, following Nixon’s “the Great Silent Majority”: in a very plural state, those who scream and shout the loudest get attention. Usually, the volume of their protestations is indirectly proportional to their numbers. In other words, the smaller the group, the louder and rowdier they get. Put differently, the bigger the group, the more they become silent to the point of being totally unheard. Imagine the insecure kid who dresses up a storm. (See scene kids: urbandictionary.com). He overcompensates in how he looks and how he acts in a desperate attempt to mute his insignificance. On the other hand, the cool ones don’t have to make any effort at all.

The first People Power was cool. Those that came next merely pass hype for substance.

Fifth, EDSA I is momentous. I have no doubts as to its importance in our history. Without EDSA I we shall have never known the meaning of liberty, freedom and democracy. EDSA I revised our sacrosanct notions if not fixation for and about the Presidential System too. Unfortunately, we have taken little steps to prevent further abuses of power by the chief executive. The changes made in our constitution are minor repairs informed only by our mistakes and experiences in the past.

I guess the writers of the present constitution were forced to come up with a new manuscript with such deliberate dispatch, they had no time to stop by for details along the way. If constitutions were computer programs, we are still at the beta-testing stage of Philippine Constitution version 1973.2 (2 refers to our present 1987 const.).

Sixth and conclusion. The president is very powerful. He can create and realize good programs that will redound to the country’s benefit. But even with all the best of intentions he still can never meet the satisfaction or approval of the entire majority.

So the president spends a large portion of his tenure with compromises to opposing political parties or other influential interest groups. Appeasing them most of the time in the six years he serves as president. Yet everytime that the president incurs the wrath of a few, he faces the power of despotism under the color of a legitimate people power. What has been the course of last resort becomes the immediate and ready-made solution to any problem–by way of muscle memory and reflex perhaps?

Dude, it is okay to commemorate EDSA I once in a while but it is not okay to relive it everyday.

If we accept the premises stated here, then the problems are but natural to a plural, democratic, presidential system. We can’t expect presidents to please everyone. If he ticks off a few, and the few make noise, then that is just normal. People power must not be oft and easily hailed. The frequency shall only abate its significance and the hastiness by which it is called for shall only wear it down.

Corollary, I must say this to myself, who at present has overextended his welcome in this entry, and for those who make casual and irresponsible calls for people power: shut up.

People Power of 86 will turn 22 in two days. Yet I am not so certain that the lessons of the past have firmly taken root. During the heyday of the first EDSA revolution we’ve seen a motley exercise of direct democracy. Filipinos wanted a revolution of sorts, and revolution they did. We had more than the usual dose of liberality and people sovereignty that we can ever hope to handle.

From a surfeit of democracy in the last twenty years, people power spills over the streets today just as it had before. Only this time it is more of a shallow talismanic attachment to nostrums unaligned with present contexts than it is sincere. The slogans are repetitive. The ideas bland and uninspired. The calls mute and dismal. The participants unimanigative hypocrites. Talk the talk, but talk pro forma not with substance. I wonder whether there’s a default template of the expedited logic that if X is bad, X must resign written in our genes. Is the ability to jump to hasty conclusions hereditary? Or has EDSA I nurtured us to think and act that way?

I find that saying gloria resign grates my throat. Not because that I shout it often but saying it once is already one too many. Gloria resign: what silly subterfuge! As if the minute phrase carries the power to fix our problems in one deft stroke. I would sooner spend the saliva on a bad recit in class than on silly one-liner-whiners.

Gloria resign. It’s not so easy as that. We take one step forward, we take a million steps back. That does not make sense. It’s a poor trade-off of efforts if you ask me. Whereas, the nexus between gloria and all our current misery is broken and vague but why persist on drawing the connection? There is not the necessary link that sets the motion to an unbroken chain of events from gloria to why there are snatchers in the UP fair or why on earth people are rude.

GMA is to the Philippines as the godfather is to the mafia is poor syllogism. I’m sorry UP Law. I’m afraid I can not join you in your grand parade this once. I break out steam by reading funny stories like why druglords still live with their mothers. As such, I do not just take to the streets because the posters say that I should. There are other forces at play here. To look for these forces in the streets is an exercise in futility.

And come on. If gloria is really the problem then why can’t we hire someone to snuff the life out of her? Let’s go find out how much truth there is in the gloria rhetoric. But I guess no one’s that convinced to do such a thing. Of course I’m BEING stupid. Well, I can’t say that most of us aren’t.

By Leila Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:03:00 01/13/2008

MANILA, Philippines–The Supreme Court has designated 117 trial courts as “environmental courts” to hear cases involving violations of laws protecting the country’s natural resources and to speed up their resolution.

In a resolution, the tribunal approved the recommendation of the Philippine Judicial Academy to designate such courts “for improved environmental adjudication” in the country.

The resolution, dated Nov. 20, 2007, was received by the Supreme Court’s public information office only on Jan. 9, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

Of the 117 environmental courts, 45 were earlier designated as forestry courts.

Forty-eight “first-level” courts and 24 “second-level” courts will handle all types of environmental cases, including violations of the Fisheries Code and the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act, which establishes national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.

[...]

Climate change has been negatively affecting developing countries that relied on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and fishing..

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2007 along with former US Vice President Al Gore, has warned that rising temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions will cause widespread drought, floods, higher sea levels and worsening storms..

In the Philippines, between 1980 and 2002 alone, 19 severe tropical storms and typhoons each caused damage of more than P1 billion and deaths of at least 100 people, according to the Greenpeace report, “Crisis or opportunity: Climate change impact and the Philippines.”.

The report said another 10 storms during the period caused either more than 100 deaths or at least P1 billion in damage.

[...]

—.Philippine Daily Inquirer. 13 January 2008. Philippine Daily Inquirer.net. .

Lobsters are a very interesting species. They reflect much of our attitudes as human beings when it comes to dealing with environmental problems. Lobsters would gladly boil in hot water if the temperature is increased gradually. They do not take alarm for they do not know at which point the heat becomes dangerous. It is that same gradual yet exaggerated and abnormally accelerated accumulation of greenhouse gases that we are in danger of extinction by ignoring the problem until it is too late.

What do we do about the problem of climate change depends largely on how much we are willing to revise our thoughts on such an important issue. My head hurts to talk of climate change as if it were ambiguous and esotoric to warrant further explanation. The horrors of its consequences should automatically register in our consciousness the moment we speak of climate change. I don’t know, but I guess for most people the exact opposite happens. Instead of stark images of future doom, we play mental clips of the things we like to spend our time, effort and money on while planetary temperatures reach fever pitch.

Let’s let the world spin and forget about the brouhaha of global warming shall we? Sweeny Todd needs our full attention.

Unbelievable.

it’s that time of the year again. yeah. carols, xmas lights and such, what else that go about and pepper the streets at night. definitely magic is afoot. happy holidays to everyone including mes enemies. i’ve made a lot this year. haha. i’m kidding. or am i? yes, no? maybe? who cares. this is my last entry for the year, and that’s why reading this should make your christmas and new years a little more special. mm hmm.

There were so much things I had to do the past few days, actually work load has been up to my ears lately, so to speak, that I had no time to blog about. I’m sorry to keep my fans waiting but there were other pressing concerns that needed my full attention. Not to worry. I will make up for lost time by writing in twice the usual furious anger.

Besides, I know that my blog means a lot to everyone that the increased frequency of the posting would only spoil the fun of eager anticipation. Like they say, keep the best things at a time of suspense to heighten the intrigue and interest of those who want them.

To those who have been tossing and turning at night figuring out what GW means in my last post, today’s your lucky day. My present mood is such that I am now and actually willing to reveal the secret of secrets I intend to disclose publicly next year. Yeah. It means, you guessed it right!, global warming.

Again, my sincerest thanks to those who waited.

Stay locked in. Great things are about to happen and shall be written.