ellen tordesillas – Page 4 – Making life worth living.

2022 Go-Duterte tandem: another way for Duterte to cling to power

Published by Ellen on March 16, 2021

Senator Bong Go holds cellphone for President Duterte

Amidst the disaster of unabated rise of COVID-19 cases (breaching the 5, 000 mark last Saturday, the highest daily increase since Aug. 26, 2020), the Filipino people are being set up for another tragedy: an attempt to bastardize the Constitution for President Duterte to continue being in power after his term ends on June 30, 2022.

Last week, the government Philippine News Agency (PNA) and a few other news outlets carried a story about the result of a privately-commissioned Pulse Asia survey showing that if elections were held today, the winning tandem would be Christopher “Bong” Go for president and Rodrigo Duterte for vice president.

Guevarra’s speech reveals concern on ICC probe of Duterte

Published by Ellen on March 7, 2021

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra (inset) addressed the U.N.Human Rights Council.

Despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s bravado that he is not worried about the complaints of crimes against humanity filed before the International Criminal Court (ICC) against him and officials involved in the government’s bloody drug war, the speech of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last Feb. 24 betrayed the administration’s concern about it.

Toward the end of Guevarra’s speech delivered online, he enumerated what the Philippine government has done on the human rights aspect of Duterte’s brutal war on drugs. He said: “The PH strongly emphasizes its legal and judicial system, its domestic accountability mechanisms are functioning as they should. We reject any attempt by any external entity to assume jurisdiction over internal matters which are being addressed more than adequately by our national institutions and authorities.”

Are they concerned that outgoing ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s report expected to come out before the end of her term on June 15 would recommend investigation of the more than 50 communications that her office had been examining since 2018 and from which it has found “reasonable basis to believe” that crimes against humanity were committed in Duterte’s drug war?

Two case dismissals but no release order

Published by Ellen on February 21, 2021

Senator Leila de Lima and journalist Lady Ann Salem

The case of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against journalist Lady Ann “Icy” Salem of Manila Today was dismissed last Feb. 5 but she continues to be in jail in Mandaluyong City.

A drug case against Sen. Leila De Lima was dismissed last Feb. 17. She, however, remains in detention at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City because she still faces two other cases.

Salem’s lawyer, Kristina Conti of the Public Interest Law Center, speaking at a rally of the journalist’s supporters in front of the Mandaluyong City Regional Trial Court, said last Friday that the Feb. 5 dismissal of the case against Salem and trade unionist Rodrigo Esparago was not accompanied by a release order.

Sara Duterte plays ‘jele jele bago quiere’

Published by Ellen on February 8, 2021

Sara does the traditional “mano po” to her father, President Dutere. Malacanang photo.

The title of this column is borrowed from Jose Rizal’s masterpiece, Noli Me Tangere, which historian Ambeth Ocampo best explained in his 2016 opinion piece to mean “one is pretending not to appear interested in something, though in reality one is desperate to have it.”

In just two weeks, the response of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, to groups urging her to run for president next year has changed drastically. On Jan. 15, she said: “I am not being coy nor am I doing a last minute. If the whole country doesn’t want to believe that, then I can’t do anything about it. Not everyone wants to be president. I am one of them.” On Jan. 31, she was singing a different tune, saying she was willing to run if the opposition supports her.

This was how news reports quoted Duterte-Carpio as saying when asked to comment on the “Run, Sara, Run” activities: “I am always grateful that I have their trust and confidence. I am pleading to them to please allow me to run for President on 2034, if at that time there is something I can do to help the country. Thank you.”

NTF-ELCAC’s continued red-tagging makes AFP apology deceptive

Published by Ellen on January 31, 2021

NTF-ELCAC Spokesman Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. PNA photo

Alex Padilla, one of the 28 University of the Philippines students and alumni in the list of the Armed Forces of the Philippines “who became NPA (died or captured),” noted that the unsigned apology of the AFP Information Center that released the erroneous and egregious list is” hardly one.”

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, whose image as one of the decent few in the Duterte cabinet has been dented with that list, has relieved AFP’’s Deputy Director for Intelligence, Major General Alex Luna for what he called, “an unforgivable lapse.”

“It is a good first step but it may not be nearly enough,” said Padilla whose stint with the government includes having been Philhealth president and chief executive officer and chief negotiator in the peace process with the communist rebels.

What’s the Duterte government up to with AFP’s reckless red-tagging?

Published by Ellen on January 25, 2021

Journalist Roel Landingin and lawyer Alex Padilla

Journalist Roel Landingin, one of the 28 named in the latest red-tagging offensive of the Duterte government, expressed concern over the credibility of information that the military has and uses.

“It’s concerning because it’s the type of info they use for military operations,” Landingin said in an online press conference on Saturday afternoon. “Imagine if nag-reunion tayo (we hold a reunion) and they misconstrued it as an NPA assembly and pwedeng maging subject ng military operation (it could be subjected to a military operation),” he added.

The presence of Landingin in the online presscon, along with five others in the list — lawyers Alex Padilla and Raffy Aquino, playwright Liza Magtoto, development worker Marie Lisa Dacanay, former journalist and government official Elmer Mercado — effectively debunked what was posted last Friday, Jan. 22, on the Facebook wall of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Information Exchange.

That post, which was taken down later but not after it had been widely shared, carried the heading: “Some of the UP students who became NPA (died or captured).”

Cha-Cha revival betrays Duterte’s desperation

Published by Ellen on January 17, 2021

Listening to President Duterte say that he is not interested in staying beyond June 30, 2022 reminds us of his denials about running for president in 2016. He didn’t even file his certificate of candidacy before the deadline set by the Commission on Elections, remember? He had to go through all the drama of substitution.

The proponents behind the renewed efforts for Charter Change in both the House of Representatives and the Senate are his minions. Would anyone believe that House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Senators Ronald de la Rosa and Francis Tolentino would do anything as serious as changing the Constitution without their Master’s imprimatur?

No to Mikey Arroyo’s not-so-bright idea of postponing 2022 elections

Published by Ellen on September 27, 2020

Preparations for the 2022 elections have started.

Mikey Arroyo, son of former president Gloria Arroyo, is seldom heard since his mother left Malacañang in 2010. Currently a member of the House of Representatives representing the second district of Pampanga, Mikey Arroyo said something dumb last week, it became news.

At the House deliberations on the proposed 2021 budget of the Commission on Elections Thursday, Arroyo floated the idea of postponing the May 9, 2022 elections if the Covid-19 continues to be a threat to the public by that time.

Arroyo said he has been reading a lot about the Covid-19 pandemic and he asked the Comelec officials: “Assuming for the sake of argument that nothing goes wrong, the earliest that the vaccine will be available in our country for everybody, maybe September or October next year. The thought that we will postpone the elections, has that ever triggered in your mind?”

The folly of tampering with nature

Published by Ellen on September 21, 2020

Dolomite sand-covered beach front of the Manila Bay to impress visitors but waters are not safe for swimming.Photo by George Calvelo of ABS-CBN News.

Pictures indeed speak a thousand words.

The government opened its showcase Manila Bay white beach Saturday to impress the public with the beautification that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had done to the historic harbor.

What we saw were hypocrisy and inconsistency.

The Desaparecidos; Disappeared but not forgotten

Published by Ellen on August 30, 2020

Families of desaparecidos marked the International Day of the Disappeared August 30 with deeper concern and sadness as the list has become longer in the last four years of the Duterte Administration.

Erlinda Cadapan, Desaparecidos chairperson whose daughter Sherlyn has been missing since June 26, 2006, expressed the fear that the newly signed Anti-Terrorism Act “will serve as a fertile ground for increased cases of enforced disappearance.”

“We fear that Duterte’s terror law will enable State forces to resort to extraordinary measures such as abductions and enforced disappearances like what they did to my daughter to instill fear on its critics and activists as the government spins out of control because of the pandemic and the ailing economy,” Cadapan said during a virtual forum organized by Karapatan, an alliance for the advancement of people’s rights.

ellen tordesillas Posts