I learned blogging because of Sheila Coronel

I have always been a fan of PCIJ since Estrada’s corruption was made public by it. The rest is history. Then I came to know that without a Sheila Coronel there could not have been a PCIJ. Without her, I could not have learned to use “blogging”. I owe it to her.

I started to blog because of a post in Philippine Center of Investigative journalism about a CBCP’s pastoral letter. I was quite worried that some would misinterpret the bishops’ letter. So a learned how to comment, and from there, I learned about free blog pages.

But more than everything else, the country and the whole Filipino nation owes a debt of gratitude to this strong and principled lady. In the rare times that I open our TV, I sometimes had a chance to see her. She always appears with her intellegent wits and a shows a moral strength that comes from a good character. Our nation benefitted a lot from her “truth” that caused this country continue in a journey towards a more just, human, truthful society. Now she will work to serve other journalists in the US for a greater universal mission! It is our pride that we have a woman like her, a modern patriot. Surely we will miss her.

I wish her all the best with my prayers and congratulations! It is my convictions that she will have many followers here to fight for the truth, justice and freedom and attract others to the same. God bless you, Sheila!

Walls will be written with spilled blood!

Another militant killed in Negros Oriental: Eladio Dasi-an! This latest killing is said to bring to at least 232 the number of militants killed since President Macapagal-Arroyo took office in 2001, and to 44 the number of media people murdered during that period. This makes all the more the letter of Archbishop Lagdameo, the present president of CBCP, relevant!

One could readily conclude that this wave of unprecedented killings is reinformed by Gloria's misadvised policy against the rebels. (See previous blog). This is even reflected by an off-tangent appeal of Secretary Bunye, calling on the public "to lend its full cooperation to the campaign against terror and graft by acting as the eyes and ears of the government. In a statement, Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye pointed out that "the fight against terror and graft are both indispensable elements of the country’s political stability." Although I agree that graft should be addressed, the fight against terror is always to eleminate the causes of terrorism or rebellion.

Doronilla's editorial could give us some revealing light. According to a disclosure, the upsurge of killings of Left-wing militants since 2001, totals more than 200 members of the legal Bayan Muna party-list organization. "The principal suspects behind these killings are paramilitary death squads." According to an Inquirer source, documents “don’t say that members of sectoral groups are to be killed but they do use the term neutralize — a term implicitly understood by the underworld of Philippine politics as a go-ahead for death squad assassinations.”

He continues. . ."The emphasis of this strategy on “neutralizing” sectoral/front/legal organizations helps explain why most of the victims of the past five years have been non-combatants and defenseless members of the Left. During that period, the number of murdered aboveground members of the Left has far exceeded fatalities of the New People’s Army in armed encounters with security forces."

Death penalty was officially abolished! Really? Or there is another death penalty the continues to bleed our country and blood of our countrymen is offered as a sacrifice to the gods of this present government: power, money and corruption. Let us not wait that these spilled blood will be written on the walls!

This war policy of President Gloria Macapagal would lead more people to take arms. It will militarize our government. It makes more and more evident that the military is over the civilian authority or it allows itself to be ruled by these "death squads".

The people will be alienated more from its own government when the same allows them to be killed rather than defend and seek justice for them. Justice to a husband and wife also recently killed in Kidapawan: George and Mazel Vigo and to all the defenceless journalists!

Let first justice reign in our land and peace will surely flourish! For there cannot be peace without justice!

Murder, Anyone? Cheap Killings in the Philippines

Nowadays, I have learned that it needs only as low as P 5.000.00 to hire somebody to kill a person. This shows that aside from many reasons given why in our country there are ramphant killings, poverty could be the main one. Many of our people are so poor that just to survive one could be tempted easily to accept a considerable amount for survival to kill a person, especially if the one who conspires murder is very powerful and is assured of protection!

Ideologies, even if already passe, kindle the fire of our oppressed people to see that killings or violence could be the only solution for structural change.

Unless, this country learns to love its own people as themselves, all the evils – to the point of murdering a fellow Filipino would only be as normal as to struggle for survival.

Sociologically, one could view root cause: poverty caused by non loving and therefore corruption and the affirmation of ones own power and egoistic identity without considering that we belong all to to same human family.

in PCIJ