Backing down from confrontation

By Amando Doronila |Philippine Daily Inquirer

1:28 am | Friday, August 1st, 2014

CANBERRA—President Aquino’s fifth State of the Nation Address last Monday signaled a back-down from the confrontational course on which his administration set out starting in mid-July against the Supreme Court. It embarked on that course after the high court struck down as unconstitutional on July 1 the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program, or the presidential pork barrel.

In his Sona, the President not only did not defend the DAP but also refrained from raising it as an issue worthy of national debate in his annual report to the nation. His speech was notable for its conciliatory tone, in stark contrast to his pugnacious defense of the DAP in two nationally televised speeches two weeks ago, which locked the two constitutionally independent branches of Philippine democracy, the presidency and the judiciary, in conflict. The omission of the DAP issue from the Sona defused the tensions between the two great institutions.

Whatever prompted the President to change his confrontational course, it cannot be said that it was due to his deep-seated devotion to the system of checks and balances. He had, after all, warned in his TV speeches that the Supreme Court’s decision invited intervention from the third branch, Congress, to overrule it. It was not an empty warning because the President’s coalition in the House of Representatives led by his Liberal Party, controls the majority in the chamber.

The presidential tour de force in the Sona appears to have reduced the risk of a constitutional stalemate over the DAP. The President has indicated that he is not taking an activist stance to retaliate against the Supreme Court, to the extent of instigating administration allies in Congress to file bills transferring the administration of the high court’s multimillion-peso Judiciary Development Fund to the Bureau of Treasury. The fund was created 30 years ago under a Marcos-era decree that authorized the judiciary to generate its own funds in order to help augment its budgetary requirements for the benefit of its personnel and to help ensure its independence.

Opposition lawmakers noted the conciliatory tone of the Sona, which made no mention of the plunder and graft cases filed against three of their own—Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla, who are all in detention. The cases had been held out as a trophy of the administration’s “daang matuwid” campaign. The three senators have been charged in connection with the P10-billion scam allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim Napoles, in which their pork barrel allocations were supposedly funneled to a syndicate of fake nongovernment organizations operated by the businesswoman in exchange for hefty kickbacks.

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In explaining the President’s change of focus in his Sona from highlighting corruption and emphasizing his administration’s accomplishments in economic growth and poverty reduction—about which the administration has come under growing criticism for giving priority to the criminal prosecution of officials involved in corruption cases—Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said Mr. Aquino “wanted to show he was a statesman.” Although the President has downgraded his bashing of the Supreme Court and of the previous administration, Malacañang admitted that criticisms had taken a toll on the administration’s popularity ratings, which plunged to record low levels in the past few months.

The criticisms have centered on the DAP, which is seen as an abuse in the disbursement of public funds that were claimed to have served as stimulus to economic growth. This argument was earlier shot down by Senator Estrada who, in a privilege speech, charged that millions of pesos in DAP funds intended to ramp up economic growth were used to provide additional allowances to senators who voted to convict Chief Justice Renato Corona during his impeachment trial in the Senate.

In glossing over the mention of the DAP in his Sona, Mr. Aquino removed the fund from public scrutiny, into which Budget Secretary Butch Abad, its ingenious architect, has been drawn as the official accountable for the unconstitutional program. There is public demand for the dismissal of Abad. Mr. Aquino has rejected his resignation and Abad hangs on to his post, saying he still had the confidence of the President.

The removal of the DAP from the hot seat is thus a self-serving act of political survival.

The Sona, through its nonmention of the DAP, has become the crucible on which the administration’s self-righteous declarations of transparent governance are being tested. It was clear that the President is smarting from criticisms, and referring to those who air them as “those who have turned public service into business” and “those who have no other goal but to overthrow government.”

There is very little in the Sona to justify accomplishments in poverty alleviation and job creation beyond the overzealous criminal prosecution of officials accused of corrupt practices. Governance is more about productive activities and creating jobs to bring incomes to the poor. It is less about not being nasty to the critics of government.

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/77038/backing-down-from-confrontation#ixzz39Hg6LYkO
 

Out of context

By Luis V. Teodoro | Posted on 17-03-2014

http://www.cmfr-phil.org/inmediasres/out-of-context/

 

PROVIDING CONTEXT is not a strong suit of the dominant media,* whether in the form of  a few paragraphs recalling the background of events,  a sidebar,  or an entire article recalling the history of the public issues they report on. Context is often glaringly absent even in reports on the most complex  and  publicly-relevant events and issues.

Providing the context of the news is universally understood as a necessary component of the journalistic responsibility of truth-telling.  The five Ws and the H (Who, What, Where, When, Why and How) can answer only the immediate questions media readers, viewers and listeners ask about an event, but cannot provide the history or background that can make it understandable. Context serves not only the individual need to understand the complex events and issues that at the personal level can make the difference between ignorance and knowledge; it is also crucial to the shaping of the informed public opinion crucial to the decision-making duty of citizens in a democracy.

The lessons every generation learns it also has to pass on to the next if only for the sake of developing the collective awareness a society needs to arrive at a consensus on the issues that concern it, and to move forward.  While the responsibility of making sense of their experience and imparting the lessons they’ve learned from it is primarily that of the antecedents of the men and women upon whom the shaping of the future depends, in societies in crisis that duty is increasingly being neglected, as the stresses of living divide and even break up families, and arriving at any consensus on the meaning of the past becomes more and more difficult.

That burden is increasingly being thrust on the schools and the media, on which now depend the transmission of the knowledge and insights of past generations.  The failure of both institutions—the schools are arguably even more deficient in imparting the lessons of history to the children and youth under their tutelage—has resulted in the making of a population largely ignorant of the lessons the experience of past generations can teach. No issue is ever really settled in the Philippine public sphere: in what is supposed to be a democracy, practically the same arguments raised years earlier are raised for or against public policy.  But what‘s even worse is the lack of debate and discussion on matters of vital public interest.

Illustrative is the absence of public discussion over the Aquino administration policy of “inviting” US troops to use Philippine bases on a “temporary” basis.  The terms in which the policy is being described and framed seek to avoid a clash with the Constitutional prohibition on foreign military bases and the presence of foreign troops in Philippine territory.

The linguistic legerdemain aside—the “invitation” is being issued in the context of the US “pivot” to Asia, while the supposedly temporary presence of US troops has been going on for well over a decade—the policy has vast implications on Philippine sovereignty, politics and society.  Despite its expected and other possible impacts, when it was first proposed the dominant press provided neither the historical nor current context that would have provoked public debate on the basis of the lessons the country learned from the 90 years during which foreign troops were based in several US military installations in the Philippines.

Only in the past few days has some of these implications found space in one broadsheet. In an attempt to put in context the refusal of the Senate to approve a treaty extending the lease on US bases in 1990, and to provide a background on the deployment of US troops in Philippine bases, the Philippine Daily Inquirer looked into the possible resurgence of prostitution in and around the “facilities” where US troops would be based.  The networks have so far not bothered to recall history and the lessons citizens may learn from it.

While some senators are likely to question the constitutionality of the Aquino administration “invitation” to US troops and its coyly deceptive description of their presence in Philippine territory as “temporary,”  most citizens are likely to ask what the fuss is all about. It’s not a Senate debate over the Aquino policy that’s the danger, but the lack of public discussion over an issue that can have far-reaching consequences on Filipino lives.  For that appalling state much of the blame must be laid on the dominant media.###

 

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*Mislabeled the mainstream, corporate media dominate the Philippine press and media landscape in terms of size and reach, but it is the alternative press, with its over a hundred years of history and relevance—from La Solidaridad, Kalayaan and El Renacimiento to We Forum, Veritas and Bulatlat– that constitutes the mainstream tradition in Philippine media. 

Pissing on the party-list

BY KATRINA STUART SANTIAGO

April 17, 2013

The Manila Times

http://manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/columnist1/45678-pissing-on-the-party-list

What is painfully true about the party-list system is that what it stands for, what it is truly about, is clear to most all of us, and yet—and yet—we decide to read between the lines, we demand that words like marginalized, and underrepresented, mean more than they should. We also mess with the idea of representation.

Mikey Arroyo, former congressman, now running under party list.

Because in whose crazy head does it make sense that Mikey Arroyo, former congressman, could stand as security guard representative in Congress? In what world can someone like convicted rapist Romeo Jalosjos run as representative of those who have been falsely accused? This is a former congressman who was convicted on two counts of statutory rape and six counts of acts of lasciviousness.

And remember Jovito Palparan, he of Oplan Bantay Laya fame? He is responsible for the disappeared activists and extra-judicial killings from 2004-2010. He who says he is innocent of the murders and disappearances, even as he is in hiding and on the run, refusing to prove his innocence.

In whose crazy head does it make sense that these three men are running as party-list representatives? In whose head does it make sense that those serving time in Muntinlupa on a false conviction must warrant congressional representation? In whose head would Palparan’ Bantay—“a union of pro-democracy advocates committed to save the Philippine Republic against communist terrorism”—be a valid party-list organization that deserves a seat in Congress?

In whose stupid head?

Welcome the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn the Comelec’s disqualification of 52 organizations wanting to run for party-list seats.

Welcome a Supreme Court for which it makes absolute sense that someone like Palparan, someone like Jalosjos, someone like Mikey Arroyo, might vie for a party-list seat.

Welcome a Supreme Court that has effectively put these three men in Congress.

Because that is what it has done, and right there is the Supreme Court’s and Comelec’s—the party-list system’s – crisis. These guys are shoo-ins and that’s not because they are worthy of those Congress seats; it’s because they are in a position to already get these seats, they are already part of the political machinery that will ascertain for them these wins.

The Supreme Court’s new guidelines for the party-list elections has effectively allowed for every rich mainstream powerful politician and political party to take on seats in Congress, as if those halls weren’t already full with the cohorts and every-other-tuta of political dynasties and Malacañang itself.

But of course we’re in denial, and we’d rather spin this with a dash of democracy, some Constitutional gobbledygook, too. Louie Guia of the Legal Network for Truthful Elections asserts that “This new ruling is more in line with the 1987 Constitution. If the intent of the Constitution was for the party-list system to be sectoral representation, it should have said so. Instead, the Constitution says the party-list system is for proportional representation. “

Which of course begs the question: how in the world would an anti-communist organization like Bantay be about proportional representation? Palparan, as its representative already holds power, member of the military as he is. And no matter that he is in hiding, Palparan trained his people well, with the likes of Col. Ricardo Visaya who has been able to place towns in Legazpi City in Bicol under close AFP watch. Certainly Col. Visaya is already doing what Bantay promises to do?

Certainly, the Visayas and Palparans should not be given a congressional seat to continue doing what they do: that is, sow fear in communities and make everyone collateral damage in the task of red baiting?

Certainly an organization like this, which is nothing but advocacy, one that can only be premised on the violence of Palparan, cannot be about proportional representation?

And what of Jalosjos? Convicted of the rape of an 11-year-old girl, how can he even be allowed to represent the cause of the falsely accused who are doing their time in jail? How can he be representative of innocence, when he’s been convicted of his crime? And what exactly is an organization like this one supposed to be doing in Congress, when it seeks to do nothing but support the cause of those who are innocent-but-jailed? And how, pray tell, would Jalosjos’ presence—questionable as it is—mean proportional representation?

And then we ask: proportional to what exactly? Because if the goal is to try and create a balance between the powerful political families that riddle our local governments and our Congress, then why would Jalosjos, Palparan and Arroyo be about creating proportion?

Justice Marvic Leonen meanwhile asserts that this will make the party-list system more inclusive, as it allows those with advocacies and causes to vie for a Congress seat. Well, I am all of inclusivity, but why allow the powerful and moneyed, those groups that already have the support of say, PNoy’s Liberal Party, to make a mockery of the party-list and its task of creating proportion by engaging the marginalized and underrepresented in the task of lawmaking?

Also there is this: how does allowing these causes and advocacies create proportion? Causes and advocacies are such because they are generally taken on by those who have the time and money for them. They are also already generally the moneyed class, the ones who are already represented by the larger political parties.

In effect, Leonen is saying that by virtue of inclusivity, party-list organizations need not be about a sector that has yet to have representation. He is saying that every cause, including the task of ridding this side of the world of communists, deserves a seat in Congress. He is saying that this cause that has killed and disappeared members of left organizations, deserves a seat in Congress.

He is saying that this is but equal to organizations that actually have a constituency, one that is made up of the members of the particular sector each organization seeks to represent. He is saying that it doesn’t matter anymore whether these organizations are for and of the marginalized and underrepresented sectors, because every Tom, Dick, Harry, every Arroyo, Jalosjos, Palparan, can find a cause and run for party-list.    

This of course includes, oh I don’t know, business owners who decide to band together and protect their interests. Interests that are already mostly protected by this political system, if not interests that ultimately oppress those who are truly economically and politically marginalized. And no, this is not about whether or not a sector is “poor.” It’s to insist that a sector has to be underrepresented in government and mainstream society, and the needs of its members silenced by the big shot machinery of the moneyed and powerful.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was Treasurer of ACT Teachers Party-list when the organization first ran (and won) for Congress in 2010. The time I spent as a member of this organization was time spent reckoning with the little that I knew of the plight of our public school teachers, hailed as important, but never appreciated enough. The time spent was crucial to my sense of why the party-list system can work: here, there is a chance at change from within, there is a possibility of working for the protection of a sector that would otherwise be considered irrelevant, or unimportant, or just not worth listening to.

The party-list, to me, was always a beautiful thing, because it allowed for the likes of Satur Ocampo and Liza Masa and the late Ka Bel, to be in Congress, to engage in its travesties, and ultimately to reveal to us an alternative to the existing system, and the possibilities that navigating the system bring. It shows us how engaging with government through the party-list system need not mean selling out to, and becoming mere puppets of, the larger political parties.

But here we are, 15 years since the 1998 elections when we first worked with the party-list system, and here is government and the Supreme Court pissing on it.

We, meanwhile, refuse to engage in this discussion. Maybe we think it small compared to say, the issues of political dynasties and faulty PCOS machines. Maybe we think the way Retired Justice now Vicente Mendoza thinks, where he asserts that if existing party-list organizations of the past nine years have yet to gain political strength, then this means they are “weak and not chosen by the people to represent them.”

On the contrary, the fact that these party-list organizations with constituency and membership, have yet to go beyond Congress, is telling of the real condition of our national politics. You do not become a large political party, you do not gain political strength, when you are truly and really an organization that is about representing the marginalized and underrepresented. You create alliances, yes, but you do not sell out to the President’s political party. Neither do you merely watch as the Supreme Court messes with the Constitution in order to put the powerful in the party-list.

That’s pissing on what it means. That’s pissing—bright yellow—on what the party-list stands for.

Pera, pulitika, at eleksyon: Comelec lays down rules

BY MALOU MANGAHAS
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism  

January 16, 2013

THE ELECTION campaign period is on and in the nick of time, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has spelled out in no uncertain terms the rules of the game on election spending and donations for all candidates, political parties, service contractors, election personnel, and voters.

Campaign finance has always been a muddled issue in these parts, the laws observed largely in the breach. Except for a few thousand pesos of finest hat had been imposed on a handful, not a single candidate, party leader or voter had been jailed for the most gross and the most willful violations.

On Jan. 16, 2013, the Comelec en banc issued Resolution No. 9616, or the General Instructions for the Implementation of Campaign Finance Laws, as well as the relevant provisions of the Omnibus Election Code and The Fair Elections Act.

Please go to http://pcij.org/blog/2013/01/16/pera-pulitika-at-eleksyon-comelec-lays-down-rules

 

Model politician: An austere life for Uruguay’s president

Here is a politician who walks the talk.

Excerpted from early January's The New York Times...

BY SIMON ROMERO
The New York Times
January 4, 2013

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Some world leaders live in palaces. Some enjoy perks like having a discreet butler, a fleet of yachts or a wine cellar with vintage Champagnes.

Then there is José Mujica, the former guerrilla who is Uruguay’s president. He lives in a run-down house on Montevideo’s outskirts with no servants at all. His security detail: two plainclothes officers parked on a dirt road. In a deliberate statement to this cattle-exporting nation of 3.3 million people,

Mr. Mujica, 77, shunned the opulent Suárez y Reyes presidential mansion, with its staff of 42, remaining instead in the home where he and his wife have lived for years, on a plot of land where they grow chrysanthemums for sale in local markets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/world/americas/after-years-in-solitary-an-austere-life-as-uruguays-president.html?smid=fb-share

Remembering Father ‘Pops’

A Maryknoll priest pays tribute to fellow missionary murdered in Philippines

By Jeremiah R. Burr, M.M.
Reprinted from Maryknoll Magazine, July-August 2012

We were all shocked to hear of the murder of Father Fausto Tentorio, the most gentle and humble of missioners. He had been in the same area of Kidapawan Diocese since coming to the Philippines in 1978, and was dedicated to the indigenous peoples of Mindanao.

News reports said at least 10,000 people turned out for the funeral of Father Tentorio, 59, who was riddled with bullets at point blank range as he was about to get into his car the morning of Oct. 17, 2011. Known affectionately by the local people as “Father Pops,” Father Tentorio had been a tireless defender of the people’s struggles to preserve their ancestral land from the logging that has decimated the country’s once lush tropical forests, and more recently the mining industry, which has left a trail of pollution, ruining streams, farmland and even ocean bays. Initial speculation was that his opposition to mining may have been the reason for his killing.

Father Tentorio’s murder created such furor in the Philippines, from President Benigno Aquino on down, that a serious investigation was ordered. After an uncooperative local police commander was removed from his post, people began to open up. They told of two men seen fleeing by motorcycle and waved through a police checkpoint without being stopped. As of this writing, unofficial reports say the investigation is focusing on a disgruntled local politician as a suspect.

For the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME), the Italian counterpart of Maryknoll, Father Tentorio is the third of their priests to be murdered in Mindanao, following the killings of Father Tullio Favali in 1985 and Father Salvatore Carzedda in 1992. Maryknoll has long had a close relationship with PIME missioners. We worked with them in Hong Kong for years, and they study at the Maryknoll language school in the Philippines. Maryknollers respect that for the most part PIME missioners choose needy, difficult areas for their work.

At Father Tentorio’s funeral, Kidapawan Bishop Romulo de la Cruz recalled the Italian missioner’s response to Father Favali’s death 26 years ago: “He could have changed course then, packed up his bag, and headed for a safer and kinder place on the missionary map. But he did not. He had fallen in love with his people.”

The bishop quoted from Father Tentorio’s own last will and testament, written in the indigenous Bisayan language to his people: “Your dream is my dream.Your struggle is my struggle. Therefore, you and I are one, companions in constructing the Kingdom of God.”

Noting that Father Tentorio disliked ceremonies that drew attention to himself, the bishop said the missioner had to endure in death the notoriety he eschewed in life, as he is called “an environmentalist-priest, a human rights defender, the anti-mining activist, the protector of cultural minorities.”

“Father Fausto’s death is simply an emulation, a following and imitation of Jesus’ own death on the cross,” Bishop de la Cruz said.

The overall theme of the liturgy was “while we seek justice, we do not seek revenge.” The procession of thousands to the burial grounds was no easy hike, three miles in the noonday sun. Father Tentorio was buried beside Father Favali.

In closing his homily, the bishop addressed our departed friend, who “must be fidgeting in spirit,” waiting for the ceremony to end: “So, I shall be brief. ‘Father Fausto, rest in peace. Your labors have ended. With your prayers, we will take up and continue your work.’”

—Father Jeremiah Burr from Helena, Mont., is local superior of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in the Philippines.

8 Ways to Commit Grand Corruption (Part 1)

Frederick Chiluba, who was Zambia’s president for most of the 1990s. was convicted of corruption. Investigators seized his wardrobe, which included 100 pairs of handmade shoes. (Photo from Ghanian Chronicle)



BY SHEILA S. CORONEL

Posted: June 21, 2012

Having grown up during the Marcos era, I have a morbid fascination with corruption that takes place on a grand scale. By the time their 20-year reign ended in 1986, Ferdinand Marcos and his glittering wife Imelda had amassed a fortune estimated at $10-$20 billion dollars and stashed in Swiss banks, artwork and real estate, including buildings in Manhattan….Please go to http://watchdog-watcher.com/2012/06/21/8-ways-to-commit-grand-corruption-part-1/

Maguindanao: The Quest for Justice, A PCIJ Documentary

BY ED LINGAO

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

MAGUINDANAO:The Quest for Justice is a documentary produced by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism on the second anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre.

After two years, the Ampatuans have allegedly ramped up efforts to reach a settlement with the families of the victims. The families of the victims continue to hold out against the proposed settlement, even as they try to survive from day to day. In the meantime, the Ampatuan clan
continues to wield clout in the region with its vast resources and continuing political influence.

View trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fg3TsGzIA4o

Please go to http://pcij.org/stories/maguindanao-the-quest-for-justice/

Ampatuans tried to secure amnesty for cache of guns

Maguindanao Massacre, Year 2
http://pcij.org/maguindanao/

BY ED LINGAO

Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 

First of Two Parts

JUST A few weeks after the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre, where 58 people including 32 journalists were executed in a remote barangay in Ampatuan town, officials of the Firearms and Explosives Division (FED) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were surprised to receive a deluge of applications for gun amnesty from one particular province in Mindanao.

Every once in a while, the national government offers a gun amnesty to the general public. These amnesty offers are a general pardon of sorts, where people with loose or unlicensed firearms are allowed to have illegal guns licensed and registered in their names.

But this batch of applications raised a red flag among officials of the PNP-FED, the agency tasked with regulating gun ownership and use in the country.

First of all, almost all the new applications originated from Maguindanao province, where the massacre occurred.

Second, the applicants were mostly members of the local civilian volunteer organizations, or CVOs, the local militia. Interestingly, members of Maguindanao’s CVOs who owed loyalty to the Ampatuan clan, had been implicated in the massacre.

Third, many of the firearms were the highly-priced Bushmaster M4A3, a variant of the M4 carbine used by many special forces units. Just a few years earlier, the Ampatuan clan, through the Maguindanao provincial government, had purchased 50 Bushmasters through gun trader Crisostomo Aquino, allegedly to fight the terrorist threat in the province. The end users of the Bushmasters, priced at P120,000 each, were supposed to be members of the Maguindanao PNP.

Sr. Superintendent Danilo Maligalig, then operations chief of the PNP-FED, recalls that this batch of amnesty applications, “numbering around a hundred,” immediately caught the attention of firearms regulators.

The gun amnesty, provided for through Executive Order 817 signed by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in June 2009 as part of the National Firearms Control Program (NFCP), had expired on Nov. 30, 2009, or a few days before this batch of amnesty applications swamped the FED.

From cops to CVOs

“Sinubukan nilang ipahabol ang mga ito (They tried to get this past us),” Maligalig recalls.

Maligalig says investigation by the FED later showed that these firearms were the same guns issued to the Maguindanao PNP to fight the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other armed groups in the region.

But police officials were puzzled how these firearms found their way to the CVOs, who then tried to acquire legal possession of them through the firearms amnesty program. What made the applications all the more unusual was the fact that the guns had never even been declared lost by the local PNP in the first place.

To Maligalig and other FED officials, this much was clear: firearms meant for the government arsenals had found their way to armed groups loyal to the Ampatuans.

Too, the clan appeared to be scrambling to save its arsenal and retain its armed might in the wake of the government crackdown against the firepower of the Ampatuans.

But more importantly, it was an sign of how the Ampatuan clan, like other well-armed political families, may have mastered the art of finding and taking advantage of apparent loopholes in firearms laws and amnesty programs in order to build, arm, and maintain a parallel arsenal that rivals even that of the national government’s.

At the same time, it put into question the entire firearms regulation system, including the fact that some state agencies such as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) deem themselves exempt from such rules.

Alarming findings

Maligalig says that FED officials immediately suspended that batch of firearms amnesty applications while a probe was underway.

The results of the probe were alarming.

Maligalig, who acted as vice chairman of the investigating committee formed by the FED, said they found that many of the firearms bought with government funds supposedly for the local PNP were really meant to be used by the Ampatuan militia.

Under PNP rules, local governments may purchase firearms for the use of the local police force. These purchases are, however, covered by an end-user certificate, which specifies who is the firearm’s real user. In the case of the Bushmaster carbines, the guns were supposed to go straight to police officers assigned in Maguindanao.

“The guns were meant for the local police of Maguindanao, in fact the memorandum receipts (MR) were in the name of the policemen assigned,” says Maligalig. “Pero pirma lang ‘yun (But these were just signatures on paper.) The actual distribution of the guns was made to the militia members.”

He says that a closer scrutiny of the firearms applications showed that some of the CVO members applying for gun amnesty were in fact implicated in the Maguindanao Massacre itself.

Wanted-list pics

“If you look at the pictures on the wanted list,” says Maligalig, “these were the same pictures in the amnesty applications application.”

A number of these CVO members were later arrested and have been included in the Maguindanao Massacre case now pending before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

Maligalig says it appeared that the clan had ordered militia members to have these high-powered firearms placed under the amnesty program, in order to spare them from confiscation by the government.

“When things got hairy, they (the Ampatuans) attempted to have their firearms placed under the amnesty program,” Maligalig tells the PCIJ. “Pinangalan lang ang mga baril sa mga militia (They just tried to have the guns registered in the name of their milita members).”

In all, some 1,200 firearms were reported by the AFP to have been unearthed, confiscated, or recovered in Maguindanao province following the Maguindanao Massacre, according to AFP spokesmen in 2010.

Most of these firearms were old and obsolete firearms usually issued to members of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs) and CVOs, the so-called force multipliers authorized through Executive Order 546 signed by then President Gloria Arroyo in July 2006.

High-powered metal

A number of these recovered firearms, however, are clearly high-powered and high-end. Among the firearms recovered, as listed by the Mindanao-based news cooperative Mindanews, were:

■Four 60-mm mortars with ammunition;

■Two 81mm mortars;

■A 90mm recoilless rifle (actually a misnomer. The recoilless rifle fires a shaped charge that can punch a hole through armored vehicles);

■A 57-mm recoilless rifle;

■One Barrett sniper rifle (a specialized sniper weapon that delivers a half-inch slug with an effective range of 1.8 kilometers. The model recovered was a civilian version, although Barrett sniper rifles are normally not sold to private individuals but only to governments);

■Three M60 light machine guns (the standard machine gun of the AFP and the PNP);

■One .50 caliber heavy machine gun, also capable of punching holes in armored vehicles; and

■Various high-powered rifles and hand guns

Of these firearms, some 300 guns were turned over to the PNP Region 12 crime laboratory in General Santos City on suspicion that they were directly involved in the Maguindanao Massacre. So far, four of these confiscated guns have already been matched with slugs recovered from the victims and the site, according to Task Force Maguindanao head Chief Superintendent Benito Estipona. It is not clear if any of these firearms were part of the batch that CVOs tried to have registered under the amnesty program.

One long, one short

As a general rule, the country’s laws regulating firearms ownership limits the number of firearms owned by private citizens to “one long, one short,” or one rifle and one pistol.

In addition, private citizens are only allowed to own bolt-action or semi-automatic rifles with caliber no larger than .22 of an inch. The usual exemption is for gun club members, who are allowed a maximum of 10 rifles, but only “for sporting use.”

Yet according to the findings of the lifestyle check conducted by Deputy Ombudsman Humphrey Monteroso on the Ampatuan assets and submitted by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to the Court of Appeals, the Ampatuan clan has at least 157 firearms of various calibers registered in the PNP-FED’s Firearms Identification Management System (FIMS) masterfile.

Of these 157 registered firearms, 23 are listed under the name of Andal Salibo Ampatuan Sr., and 26 under the name of Zaldy Uy Ampatuan. Eighteen guns are registered under the name of Andal Uy Ampatuan Jr., while another 15 are registered in the name of his brother Anwar.

(An earlier report by the PCIJ, quoting PNP-FED officials, pegged the number of firearms registered to members of the Ampatuan clan at 271, distributed among 103 persons with the surname Ampatuan.)

How then were the Ampatuans able to register so many firearms under their names?

Big cache of guns

Current officials of the PNP-FED refused repeated requests by the PCIJ for an interview. But Police Chief Superintendent Ricardo Marquez, executive officer of the Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, says “the only way I can think of” how the clan was able to pull off such a feat is through the numerous amnesty programs offered over the years. This is because under the amnesty program, an applicant can register any number of firearms.

Marquez says even long firearms are included in the amnesty program. “The (limit) of only one-long, one-short is effectively overruled (by the amnesty),” he adds.

Since 1992, the government has offered at least 12 amnesty programs that would enable holders of loose firearms to have them registered and legalized for a fee.

But there is yet one more apparent loophole in the amnesty program that allows gun owners to collect and legally own high-powered firearms. Under the country’s gun laws, private citizens are not allowed to own high-powered rifles of 5.56 mm or 7.62 mm. These are the calibers of the standard M-16 rifle and the M1 Garand or the M14 rifle used by the police and the military.

The various amnesty programs, though, allow applicants to own high-powered rifles so long as they do not exceed 7.62mm. This means an applicant for amnesty can, once approved, legally own his own arsenal of high-powered firearms that are not available to ordinary citizens.

‘Designer guns’

A quick inspection of the list of firearms registered under the names of the Ampatuans, meantime, also reveals a proclivity, not just for high-powered firearms, but for “designer guns,” as described by one security consultant, as well.

Of the 23 firearms listed under his name, Andal Sr. owns an Israeli-made 5.56 Negev light machine gun, a belt-fed or drum-fed machine gun that is hardly for sporting use. The Israel Weapon Industries website describes the Negev as “a small, light weight advanced machine gun” that allows “accurate and fast controlled fire for close quarter battle or an automatic mode that allows maximum firepower.”

In addition, Andal Sr. owns a Heckler and Koch MP7 submachine gun, a new generation of submachine guns whose 4.6mm bullets can punch holes through bulletproof vests. Manufacturer Heckler and Koch’s official website describes the MP7’s ammunition as capable of penetrating a bulletproof vest “comprised of 1.6mm titanium plates and 20 layers of Kevlar, out to 200 meters and beyond.”

Andal Sr. also owns 18 pistols and three other high-powered rifles.

Not to be outdone, Zaldy Ampatuan owns a Negev light machinegun, two HK MP7 submachine guns, an HK UMP40 submachine gun, and two Israeli-made Tavor assault rifles, the same rifle now being issued to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). This is aside from the 11 pistols and one shotgun that he owns.

Andal Jr., for his part, has 18 registered firearms, according to PNP records. These range from an OAR 556 rifle to a 5.7 caliber Fabrique Nationale submachine gun.

Expensive buys

A gun expert consulted by the PCIJ calls these “designer guns” that are very expensive, and hard to come by. An MP7 can be purchased in the Philippines for P 700,000 to P900,000 each because it is so rare, the expert says. The Tavor, with its bullpup design and built-in illuminated sights, can fetch anywhere from P600,000 to P700,000. A Negev light machinegun, because of its functionality, would be worth around P 1.2M in the Philippine market, he says.

In an email reply to PCIJ’s written queries, Andal Ampatuan Sr.’s lawyer, Sigfrid Fortun, dismisses suggestions that the Ampatuans had used the amnesty programs to build up their weapons arsenal.

“Whether they used the Amnesty Program to legitimize their possession of these weapons is arguable,” Fortun writes. “One thing is certain, though, when an unlicensed firearm is brought to the fold of the law and the PNP accepts it to license it, is this not far better than having loose firearms where the government does not even know exactly how many firearms one has in his possession? Now how can this submission to the fold of the law be immoral or illegal?”

Indeed, the argument is echoed by some police officials who see no problem with the liberal application of gun amnesty proclamations.

Marquez and Maligalig, for instance, both say it is better to encourage gun owners to have their loose firearms licensed, than to have these floating around unregistered.

Maligalig says the PNP-FED purposely made the amnesty proclamations more liberal “to ferret out” the loose firearms. He notes, “It was needed so that we could account all of those unrecorded.”

“The aim is to get the firearms registered, get their ballistic characteristics, and stencil them so that when they are used in a crime, they can be traced to their owners,” Marquez points out. “What’s the better situation, more guns that aren’t registered or have an amnesty program that has loose guns registered and stenciled?”

But he says there is an aspect of gun control that does need immediate attention. Over the years, he says, only civilians have been strictly following the letter of the law on firearms purchase and ownership. The likes of the AFP, effectively the biggest armed group in the country, apparently do not believe they have to follow such rules on firearms.

For example, Marquez says that firearms acquisitions made by AFP units outside of the regular arms dealers have largely been unregistered and unlicensed. Maligalig also says that AFP arms purchases go “undeclared.”

Floating around

For this reason, there are firearms floating around in the grey area between formal military units and the local government militias that the government has no records of. As such, it is much easier for high-powered firearms supposedly destined for the AFP to disappear into a black hole of sorts.

“When firearms are bought from a dealer, they are automatically registered,” says Marquez. “But when firearms are not acquired through that process, they are not registered. Some of the firearms of the AFP were through foreign military sales, so these were given directly to the AFP.”

“Our suggestion,” he says, “is for everybody’s firearms, especially government firearms, to be registered, and their records kept by the PNP, meaning ballistics records, stencils, etc.”

But the paperwork for such a process would probably have to compete with those from local officials who seem to believe they have to have a formidable arsenal in order to govern.

They fancied guns

Lawyer Fortun, for one, describes that the Ampatuans are “public officials who, during their incumbency, fancied guns (like most Alpha males). This was public knowledge.”

Yet he also defends the large number of firearms registered under the names of the Ampatuan family members by saying that the clan “was used by and had assisted the Government to fight the MILF.”

“Unsay (Andal Jr.) was in the forefront of these armed encounters,” Fortun says in his email reply to PCIJ’s queries. “They were the ‘stay-behind units’ after the army completed its assault on known MILF territories. They took over and held the ground after the army had returned to their secure camps, and they kept the area they held MILF-free.”

According to Fortun, though, many of exotic firearms listed under the names of the Ampatuans were actually “gifts from constituents and others.”

Curiously, a PCIJ report on the guns of the Ampatuan clan published in 2010 also mentioned the fondness of some Ampatuan family members to give guns as gifts as well. Former Maguindanao Martial Law administrator Lt. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer had told the PCIJ that he had been offered one of the Tavor assault rifles of Zaldy Ampatuan as a gift a few weeks after the Maguindanao Massacre.

“Sir, kunin mo na lang, sa iyo na lang daw ang Tavor ni RG (Sir, just get it, RG’s Tavor is yours),” Ferrer recalls the aide of Zaldy as telling him over the phone.

 On another occasion before the massacre, Ferrer recalled having received a brand new M4 assault rifle as a gift after a meeting with Zaldy Ampatuan. Ferrer said the gun was thrust on him by an Ampatuan aide while he was leaving.

A basic M4 assault rifle, without accessories, costs from $2,000 to 2,800 when purchased in bulk. —PCIJ, November 2011

Justice and Rule of Law in the Philippines, Maguindanao Massacre, Zaldy Ampatuan