AFTER MARTIAL LAW IN MAGUINDANAO, WHAT?

+Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Cotabato
December 11, 2009

Martial Law in Maguindanao will accomplish some objectives: the arrest, detention, and prosecution of clan members suspected of perpetrating the horrendous massacre in Ampatuan town last November 23, 2009; the definite inevitability of justice for the victims; the successful search and confiscation of many legal and illegal weapons from police, CVOs, and some soldiers under the control of powerful clan members; the disempowerment of local authority and power in various municipalities that are subservient to the ruling clan. People feel a greater sense of relief and freedom while traveling on the national highway between the two cities of Cotabato and Tacurong. Gone are the many armed escorts and bodyguards protecting officials and clan members against similarly armed enemies.

Deeply rooted in Maguindanao is a culture of dominant clan power. A false reading of the situation results in a truncated view of Maguindanao political history. This view sees the phenomenon as the product of one government period, the decade of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Arguably a greater share of the blame could be laid at the door of the present government. But the culture of dominant and changing local power has been with us in the once “empire province of Cotabato,” which included the present Maguindanao, since at least the 1950s. To my knowledge, no government from the 1950s to the present did anything serious to root this out. In the past 60 years, all governments and many politicians from all parties wanting to get votes have cultivated this culture and ignored the periodic violence that erupted. It was a case of mutual political exploitation and expediency. We ourselves, ordinary citizens, have kept quiet in the past 60 years and learned the art of accommodation.

But of course criticism of Martial Law in Maguindanao is really based on total distrust of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Survey after survey is paraded to say that this is the pulse of the people, The stand of small protesting “militant” groups is given disproportionate media exposure. Political oppositionists and personalities from “militant” organizations are interviewed again and again to give their expected negative views on actions of government. In a very real sense the extraordinary amount of media exposure that is given to the opposition in Manila provides a distorted view of the country as a whole.

But given all the above it is now clear that the peoples’ hopes and expectations in Central and Central Mindanao regarding Martial Law will not all be realized. Some of these are: the disbanding of all private armies in Maguindanao; the identification and arrest of members of kidnapping and drug syndicates; the restructuring of legislative, judicial, and executive units so as to be more democratic, independent, trustworthy and pro-common good; and the assurance that elections would be honest, clean, and peaceful.

What might be the reason for the failure to meet expectations? Martial Law by its nature as a last resort should be of short duration. But precisely because of its brevity, the following will result: one clan will be significantly disarmed; the balance of political and armed power will shift to other clans; private armies will remain though possibly less visible and probably more sophisticated in behavior; the deep trauma resulting from the massacre will persist; rido is not going to be stopped; the legislative, justice, and executive – and electoral – mechanisms will still be in the hands of those related to or have debts of gratitude to various families; and if a member of the rival clan will somehow gain the top post of the province, do we in Maguindanao really believe that the provincial capitol will remain in Shariff Aguak? Even the peace process will be affected by the loyalties of local rebel commanders to their own clans. Hence, the fundamental dysfunctions in Maguindanao will remain after Martial Law.

What do I see as a possible solution? Even now sentiments are strong in Central and southern Mindanao that elections for local offices in Maguindanao should be deferred. Or at least the term of Martial Law should be extended till after the elections. The fundamental suggestion is for us to move forward from partisan political criticism to collective constructive thinking and effective action on this central issue of Maguindanao dysfunction. I respectfully address this to all concerned, particularly the Senate, House of Representatives, the judicial branch and the Arroyo administration, as well as to all of us Maguindanawons.

Martial law

by Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino
Manila Standard – www.manilastandardtoday.com
Monday, December 14, 2009

Almost as soon as the Maguindanao massacre occurred, TV and radio commentators commenced their usual routine of shadow-boxing. They started mouthing phrases like “white-wash”, “cover-up” and “term extension” even before investigators could announce preliminary results. I think that much of the discussion is muddled by a priori imputations of malice, ill-will or ulterior motive on the part of the President. The legal presumption of regularity in the performance of official duties should be translated into civic culture and, in relation to the ongoing legislative debate on the presidential proclamation, legislative attitude. A lucid discussion of the important constitutional issues cannot proceed if we start with the very opposite of what is known in the theory of discourse as the benevolent a priori—the attribution of sincerity on the part of the other party.

I am not privy to the information that may have been available to the President when she declared martial law. Definitely she has access to information that the intelligence community makes available to her to which the general public has no access and to which it should have no access. It is information though that must be made available to Congress as it deliberates on either the revocation, continuance or extension of martial law, and to the courts, when an appropriate case is brought, raising the issue of the validity of the proclamation. It is therefore not for me to preempt Congress (that did not comply with the period the Constitution prescribes for it to convene after martial law is declared) and the Supreme Court before which, I understand, cases questioning the imposition of martial law are now pending.

Such positions as “Never more to martial law!” are to my mind unconstitutional. They are sentimental; they have the power to stir the uncritical to frenzied support and they are not difficult to memorize, but they really fall short of the measure of rationality. The power to declare martial law is a power expressly granted the Chief Executive by the Constitution of the Republic. To maintain such a position as “Never more to martial law!” is to deny the President the exercise of a power granted her, and, more importantly, to deprive State mechanism of a weapon it has in the face of rebellion or invasion.

Whatever may be our feelings about the late President Ferdinand Marcos, he was correct in his statement of political theory as well as constitutional law when he asserted that a constitutional democracy provides an in-built mechanism to the State by which to defend the institutions of democracy when these are threatened. One of these is martial law.

While Congress does indeed possess the power to revoke or to extend the proclamation of martial law, the exercise of such power should be with due deference to the role of the Executive in the constitutional structure and organization of our Republic. The power to revoke is a check against arbitrariness; it should not be used to negative the powers of the Executive in the face of a pressing national crisis, a task the Constitution assigns to the Executive.

In fact, there are now so many limitations on the President in respect to the declaration of martial law that it is difficult to determine exactly what powers she wields under martial law. Obviously there is jurisprudence, both local and foreign (the latter, more important to my mind) on the powers of the Executive. The very fact that the Constitution is silent as to the exact powers a President wields under a state of martial law indicates to my mind the juridical and constitutional tradition of allowing the President the latitude she needs to cope with the emergencies of rebellion or invasion.

As for the complaint of the military that detentions or arrests they make are neutralized by petitions for the issuance of the writ of amparo, although the Constitution is clear that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is not automatically suspended with the declaration of martial law—and therefore, neither the writ of amparo—it is also clear from the rule on the writ of amparo that its reliefs will not lie when there is a legal basis for the apprehension or detention of a person. It is my position that an arrest or a detention under the martial law powers of the President is one such legal basis.

It is not correct to limit martial law to “calling out the armed forces” to suppress lawless violence. The “calling out power” is a distinct power one of the grounds of which is “lawless violence”—that, in itself, is not a ground for the declaration of martial law. I have no doubt that the declaration of martial law, ipso facto, is an exercise of the calling out power but it should be more—and what this more is should be a matter of constitutional theory and tradition, political practice, as well as jurisprudence insofar as this is not incompatible with present constitutional provisions.

What constitutes a rebellion? There is, to be sure, a definition of rebellion provided by the Revised Penal Code but I am sure that no one will insist that the elements of rebellion as so defined must be proved beyond reasonable doubt to justify the declaration of martial law. There are some matters that must be left to the appreciation of the President as well as to her discretion. This is not a question of power, principally. It is a question of allowing government to operate within constitutional parameters. On several occasions, I have expressed the fear that the very fetters that the crafters of the 1987 Constitution have placed on an incumbent president who declares martial law constitute a singular threat to the continued existence of a constitutional regime. When a constitution makes it difficult for a political leader to hold on to the rudder of the ship of state amid turbulent waters, the temptation is great to dismantle the fetters that the constitutional safeguards constitute. And there is historical proof of this. Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia, for example, found that judicial review was the ready weapon of those who opposed his blueprint for the development of his country. He took the detour—and caused the powers of the judiciary to be re-defined to exclude judicial review. I am not commending his action. I am only pointing to the danger of confining executive action inordinately. And how often has Thailand re-written its constitution after each coup? Democracy survives when it makes available to those who tend it the means of its own survival.

Before we start yakking about cover-ups, white-washing (white-washes?) and term-extenders, let us have the reasons of the Palace first and, when the Court so orders, for the arguments of the Republic in support of the declaration of martial law.

MARTIAL LAW IN MAGUINDANAO: A PASTORAL PERSPECTIVE

“Bishop, what is the Church’s position on Martial Law in Maguindanao?” Muslims and Christians have asked me this question. I have reflected on the question in the light of the situation in Maguindanao and of the social teachings of the Church. It is difficult to provide an indisputable answer. I can only provide some prudential pastoral guidelines for our faithful to consider.

The situation of injustice and unpeace in Maguindanao is very complex. One has to consider the incredible proliferation of firearms, legal and illegal, throughout the province – and these not only in the hands of so-called warlords, CVO’s and police. Liquidations by motorcycle-riding men, kidnapping by armed groups, despite deterrence provided by the army’s Operation Tugis, still occasionally take place. Rido between some MILF commanders and the Ampatuan clan has been going on since Datu Saudi Ampatuan, the young enlightened mayor of Datu Piang, was killed some years ago. This cycle of violence has affected the peace process in that area and its surrounding municipalities. Guns seem to be everywhere. The functioning of courts of justice and of election bodies have been highly suspect for a long time partly due to the political allegiances of court officers. Competence, transparency, and accountability in political governance in many places have to be significantly improved. In Maguindanao, family name and relationships is most important.

The aftermath of November 23, 2009, that day of infamy, shows how slow government reaction can be, given all the above circumstances. Media and politicians from far away Manila do not seem to be familiar with these social, political, and cultural situation in Maguindanao. They seem to think that the police and the military can easily go into an area and just arrest the suspected culprits. Even a “state of emergency” did not seem adequate to cope with the situation.

Thus, a declaration of martial law. What do I think about it? Having reflected on the social, political, and cultural situation I have described above in the light of the social teachings of the Church I offer the following prudential guidelines for our faithful in the Archdiocese of Cotabato:

1. Martial Law is a last resort. I am not a lawyer and a constitutionalist. I shall leave the legal and constitutional debate to them. I do not know if all other recourse to resolve the above situation, particularly the appalling and most dreadful crime of November 23 that cries out to heaven, would be adequate. The complexity and the abnormality of the situation and the need for swift justice for 57 brutally massacred innocent civilians would dictate an extraordinary measure. Since Martial Law has been declared. Let it be. I let the lawyers debate it. I pray that Martial Law resolve the abnormal situation and deal swift justice for the victims.

2. Martial Law is double edged. Military rule is out of the ordinary. The use of weapons to impose that rule is very risky for human rights. We know that even the suspects in the massacre have human rights. Therefore, even as justice for the victims is to be pursued, it should not be by doing injustice to the accused. A wrong cannot be made right by another wrong. Justice is to be pursued in a just way.

3. Martial Law, as a last resort, may be necessary only for the decisive resolution of the problems in Maguindanao I have described. Once it is no longer necessary, it must immediately cease. The shorter the time, the better. This is because of the double-edge nature of Martial Law. The longer it is exercised, the more likely it would be for human rights to be violated and for weapons to be used for evil.

We continue to pray for the victims and their families, some of whom are our own friends. We pray for the quick apprehension and fair trial of all suspects. We pray for the disbanding of all armed groups, the confiscation of all illegal arms, the reform and restructuring of electoral, peace and security agencies. We pray for the arrest and prosecution of kidnapping and liquidating bandits groups. We pray for the return of functioning governing municipal and regional agencies not beholden to any political name. We pray for all the people of Maguindanao, Christian, Muslims, Lumads, Buddhists, Confucianists, etc. that all may live in peace together as brothers and sisters, with leaders that are, in a very true sense, public servants.

+Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I.

Archbishop of Cotabato

December 6, 2009

SOMEONE ELSE’S WINDOWS: A failed state.

by H. Marcos C. Mordeno/MindaNews
Wednesday, 25 November 2009 23:04

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/25 Nov) – National and international attention is now riveted on the Philippines after the Monday massacre of the wife of a gubernatorial bet in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao, two female lawyers and several journalists, in what could be a foreshadowing of how violent next year’s elections would be in that war-torn and warlord-dominated province. Aside from expressing shock over the sheer insanity of the tragedy, the condemnations coming from media groups, religious leaders and bodies like the United Nations and European Union also carry a common message and demand: bring the perpetrators to justice.
Never have the country’s law enforcement and justice system under Arroyo been put to such a daunting task. Daunting because these are among the government’s weakest points. It wasn’t long ago that the government found itself in the eye of the storm created by the unsolved killings of Left-wing political activists. And all it did was dismiss the United Nations’ report on the killings as a bunch of lies. Months later, General Jovito Palparan stood amused, grinning to the ears, as the President and her allies in Congress applauded the military official who always left a trail of blood in every place he was assigned. Message sent: don’t prosecute Palparan, he’s our man.

Efforts to get to the bottom of the Ampatuan Massacre may yet suffer the same setback. For even if Malacañang feigns seriousness in dealing with the carnage it is doubtful it would apply the full force of the law against the suspects, the Ampatuans, who are known allies of the administration. For sure, Arroyo must have been saddened and angered by the mass murder. But her grief and anger will not necessarily result into a firm resolve to give justice to the victims. Her political indebtedness to the Ampatuans will stand in the way of justice. The most that the law enforcers can do is look for fall guys and buy time until the public reverts to a state of gradual amnesia about the incident.

In retrospect, the massacre was just a tragedy waiting to happen. It’s part of the cumulative effects of warlord politics which successive governments have failed or refused to confront head on. Administration after administration chose to ignore the practice of politicians in the region of amassing firearms (mostly unlicensed) and building private armies to ensure victory in elections until it reached a level which the state finds impossible to stop. Add to that the police personnel who have become personal bodyguards of these politicians.

In a talk before youth leaders in Mindanao in Davao City on November 29, 2008, Secretary Norberto Gonzales said there are some 200,000 loose firearms in the island. He hastened to add however that in Sulu alone the military estimated that there are already 200,000 loose firearms.

Gonzales declared in the same forum that the government would not ask for the surrender of these firearms, only to have them properly accounted and registered. Registration, he said, would enable the government to know how a particular firearm is being used. After so many kidnappings, political killings, rido (vendetta killings) and other forms of lawlessness, the government, speaking through the secretary, pretended it did not know how these weapons are being used. Maybe the Ampatuan Massacre has given Mr. Gonzales an idea?

Gonzales’ statistics on the loose firearms suggests that the problem has reached a tipping point. Assuming a 1:1 man-firearm ratio, the number of loose firearm holders in Mindanao (presumably most of them in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) is roughly the equivalent of the entire armed forces. One can only wonder how it has mutated to such stage considering the huge budgets for the military and police.

The problem can only be expected to worsen in the coming years given the laxity in imposing the rules on loose firearms, the reality of patronage politics, corruption, culture of impunity and resignation to violence, compelling factors that have contributed to the Philippines’ gradual yet steady decline into a failed state. Maguindanao signals that regression.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. H. Marcos C. Mordeno may be reached at .This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

SMS Statement of Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo

Cotabato Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, OMI
Position on Martial Law in Maguindanao
(short text message)
5 December 2009

(1) Let the lawyers debate about martial law in Maguindanao. Meantime let it be. Legal problems were posing obstacles to arrests and searches. I hope martial law can facilitate the pursuit of justice.

(2) While pursuing justice for the victims, martial law should not do injustice to the accused. One should not correct a wrong by another wrong.

(3) I hope that martial law will only be for a short period. The longer it is the more likely that human rights would occur.

END WARLORDISM!

END WARLORDISM!

THE Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas condemns in the strongest possible terms the Ampatuan (Maguindanao) massacre in which some 60 people were slaughtered, around half of them members of the media and many of them women. The barbaric violence jolts us to the dark reality that in some areas of the country, there is virtually no state as warlords rule by terror with their private armies. The darker truth is that national politicians help these warlords rise in power and maintain their power by seeking alliance with them to access the votes that the latter can command during elections. The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) represents the worst of areas in the grip of warlords.

The Ampatuan massacre also highlighted the danger of arming civilians for helping fight rebels without the right orientation, proper training and effective supervision. Reports point out that among the some 100 armed men who perpetrated the unimaginable crime were members of civilian volunteer organizations (CVOs) armed and mobilized by the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police to help government in its anti-insurgency drives. These civilian volunteers’ involvement in the mass slaying confirms fears that many of militiamen end up being part of warlords’ private armies. Our security forces, which are overextended, need the support of the citizenry in pursuing their manifold missions. The building of military reservists and other auxiliaries is in line with the building of citizens’ army which is mandated by our Constitution. However, if armed civilian units are to be effective support guardians of democracy—and not otherwise—they should be properly motivated, adequately trained and well supervised.

The Ampatuan massacre should serve as a wake-up call for the nation to start putting an end to warlordism. Doing so requires swiftly bringing the perpetrators of the heinous crime to justice, disarming the CVOs and rethinking the proper role of civilians in the government’s anti-insurgency campaigns, and working towards dismantling all private armies. The loud outcries against the mad violence in Maguindanao, both inside and outside the country, provide a favorable environment for the nation to strike against warlordism. There is an urgent need, in particular, to bring back government in ARRM where people do not trust government because its face are the warlords.

PDSP Secretariat
2 December 2009

After the Massacre By Charlie Avila

Background Thoughts and Debates

The Ampatuan massacre has provided the incoming political season the kind of start that may never be forgotten decades upon decades hence as an all-time mark of infamy. Even now it beggars Philippine memory in cruelty and insanity.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. This is the first time the Philippines has bred its own version of an Idi Amin wantonly committing crimes against humanity. Surely the ogre is not an orphan but traces its being to many parents: presidents and cabinet secretaries, Generals and Napolcom officials, even media cohorts and a long list of the bribed and the terrorized.

The world has witnessed at last the evil that the licentious and the privileged are capable of doing when they are allowed to internalize a culture of impunity.
For, no doubt about it, the Ampatuan massacre is rooted in the evolution of new-type warlords essentially related to a weak state’s willingness to grant politico-military dominance to political thugs and armed militias (versus decent politicians and democratic forces) lazily to “secure” far-flung territories, fight “separatists”, and hope somehow to extend government’s administrative reach – all the while disdaining revenue generation, the development of strategic stability through authentic autonomy and serious efforts to rise out of the Third World doldrums.

Because of being allowed control of vast shadow economies (including drugs and other mala prohibita) and an ever-growing slice of internal revenue allotments (IRA) the new-type warlords in turn develop a violent addiction to political office. The Ampatuans exemplified this socio-political insanity to the max until, mad as the gods had allowed them to become, they literally went over the edge – and fell. For, truly, whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

Their would-be replacement by the Mangudadatus is no solution. That would be the most superficial dismissal of the massacre as “election-related”, totally missing the fundamental political and economic implications of a deed so foul and an incident so unusual.
To repeat: political office has become more attractive due to the billions of pesos in IRA remittances that electoral victory provides – a victory always “symbiotic” between new-type warlords and central government power-holders, military and civilian. The “winner-takes-all” nature of these electoral games also means that competition has become costlier and bloodier. The overall result is that central State is less and less able to deal with lawlessness and conflict.

In this context, political legitimacy ceases to be a univocal term and becomes an analogous one. It has very little to do with protecting people’s rights or providing basic services. It’s all about providing protection to your fellow clan members by trumping the firepower of your competitors, ignoring the needs of the people, and forgetting about taxes. People actually expect local leaders to pocket government resources, and are willing to look the other way so long as their clans dominate and they are given a small slice during elections, or after victory.

The sad thing about the recent massacre is that it could have been avoided. Everyone in Central Mindanao knew about the looming violence months if not years before as everyone knew the rise and rise of the abusive character of the Ampatuan ogre.
Yet, except for the futile efforts of National Security Adviser Norberto B. Gonzales, neither Malacanang nor the COMELEC, the PNP, and the AFP made any attempt to monitor warlord activities, disarm their private security, and demobilize their loyalists within the police and military. There is even ample evidence that PNP appointments of new recruits were bought by the warlords for huge amounts per appointment, which they considered worthwhile in order to build an army legitimately. The perpetrators of the Ampatuan massacre were almost all 100% “legit”.

Muslim Mindanao is known for a long history of electoral fraud. It has often had the ability to provide the millions of votes that can overturn the results of national electoral contests, reinforced by the sort of democratic political competition in the post-Marcos era that makes local bosses more powerful and national leaders more beholden to them. This was the case in the presidential elections of 2004 and the senatorial race in 2007. What about 2010?
Following the Ampatuan infamy, many are – again – suggesting loudly that there should be a moratorium on elections in Muslim Mindanao. In those areas, as many good people now firmly believe, no elections can only mean change for the better. The rule of money is one thing. The rule of the gun, which is still the rule of money in a more lethal form, is another thing altogether.

In Muslim Mindanao, elections are simply not good for human health, or for human dignity, or for the country’s image as a whole – if this is something that still matters. In those areas, elections mean goons or “strikers” of Maguindanao’s ruling mafia entering precincts in broad daylight and erasing the names of candidates people voted for and changing them to the mafia’s unpopular choices. Elections are the impotence of the Comelec and the boastful media to do anything about crass terrorism. There elections are not people-empowering: they are a waste of time, a waste of money and an awful waste of precious life.

Wanted Now

We badly need immediately a concerted effort of a realistic inter-faith nature to bring out the most courageous and the most enlightened, the best in the community, to overcome defeatism, encourage bold thinking into the causes of our malaise, and make proposals that the people can collectively act on.

This interfaith effort will promote among groups a readiness to accept past and present hurts and a commitment to explore new ways of building peace, including new ways to prevent the recurrence of ogre-size Ampatuan clones.

There could be consultations reaching grassroots communities and diverse sectors of society. All affected by the new warlordism have something to say to their peers and must be encouraged to tell their tale.

The interfaith effort will ask people to dream, to envision new arrangements, and learn new lessons to enrich our common peace efforts.

The interfaith effort must reach the whole of Mindanao and more – Central Mindanao, Basilan – Sulu – Tawi-tawi, Zamboanga peninsula, Davao region, Caraga, Socsksargen, Northern Mindanao and Lanao region.

In addition we must have a web-based means to reach our brothers and sisters in diaspora.
The Imam League, the CBCP, the UCCP, the like must all be approached for participation even as everyone is encouraged to keep an open mind, an open heart and the realization that it takes all kinds – of people and action ideas for the common good.

A CRIME THAT CRIES OUT TO HEAVEN

A CRIME THAT CRIES OUT TO HEAVEN

To all People of Good Will:

Last Monday, 23 November 2009, the shocking news of a horrifying massacre began circulating through radio, text messages, and word of mouth. Twenty four hours later, there were still no complete and accurate reports on what really happened along the highway between Shariff Aguak and Kauran, Ampatuan, Maguindanao. The number of people massacred continues to rise even now, family-members, friends, legal advocates, journalists, and civilians who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

From the beginning there was no doubt that we were hearing or reading of a tragedy unprecedented in the history of the once empire province of Cotabato, unprecedented in its ferocity, brutality and brazenness.

People cry out to God and to one another, “How could this thing happen?” And as more and more bodies were unearthed from that now infamous “killing field,” the wailing and grieving of hundreds of families related to the victims as brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, nephews and nieces, in laws or friends are turning into righteous rage and the natural desire for vendetta. For the sake of humanity we must not give in to this desire to seek vengeance that can so easily spiral into a cycle of violence.

From the depths of my soul as a religious leader, I condemn in the strongest possible way this barbaric act of massacre as a conscience-less crime that cries out to heaven.

As a citizen I demand that the government, without fear or favor, use all its powers and decisively act to identify and arrest the perpetrators and apply the full force of the law on them.

As a believer in the God of all, I pray for the souls of the victims and ask the Lord to console, comfort, and give strength to their families. I grieve with them and express my deepest sympathies.

Many politicians and non-politicians have quickly blamed others for this shocking tragedy. This is only partly right and conveniently absolves us from any culpability. My sense of history leads me to believe that somehow we all share the blame to a certain extent. A culture of impunity has, indeed, grown through the years. Political administrations and officials from all parties from the 1960s to the present have cultivated and exploited to their own advantage a social structure of traditional leadership that was meant to be for the good of the people. This was so with powerful political families in other parts of the country. We have not tried to change this culture of political convenience and thus allowed a culture of impunity to endure through successive administrations. Elections have not and will not change this situation. We simply get more of the same.

We need to change from the bottom-up, from individuals to families, from families to communities. We need to change our values that tolerate evil or choose the lesser evil. We need to learn new values that will transform our cultures from within. For Muslims the Koran, faithfully and correctly followed, will be a guide. For Christians, the Holy Bible, also faithfully and correctly interpreted, will provide direction for value transformation.

Beloved People of Good Will, yes, indeed, we must condemn. We must demand decisive action for justice. We must pray. But we also must begin to change. With the grace of God, we can.

+Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Cotabato
November 26, 2009

Creating Hunger – can it be stopped? – Charlie Avila

Disaster-Prone

We probably took it lightly then but it was a fact –the Philippines was the highest placed country in the Global Climate Risk Index

announced at the 2007 Bali UN Climate Change Conference. It was a way of recognizing that in those years extreme weather events already accounted for 3,000 deaths and widespread destruction by mudslides and typhoons in the Philippines.

Apart from extreme weather, there was concern that increasing temperature would affect agricultural yields and food security, even as rising sea levels threatened over 40 million people or that half of our total population who lived in coastal areas.

The prophets of global warming spoke clearly: warmer water in the top layer of the ocean drives more convection energy to fuelmore powerful typhoons and hurricanes in increased frequency. As water temperatures go up, wind velocity goes up, and so does storm moisture condensation.

Global warming would cause more of both floods and droughts. Also, it would suck more moisture out of the soil and, as a consequence, increase desertification, and diminish agricultural productivity. Oh, but such talk was only for scientists and social activists – until Ondoy, Pepeng, and Lupit Ramil decided to visit and linger a little while to teach us a few lessons.

Ondoy was particularly nasty for bringing down some extras – mud and garbage. The mud came from the mountains, washed down by rainwater that had free flow because no roots of trees were around to hold the soil together. The garbage, on the other hand, was added instructional bonus, coming as it did from the trash we so arrogantly threw around – clogging the waterways, making them so shallow and smelly and narrow and all-too-ready to overflow during heavy rains and to come back to haunt our houses and neighborhoods with old and new diseases for our endless discomfort.

Most important, however, would be – again – a looming food crisis arising from typhoon-related greatly diminished rice production and worse-affected food-price behaviors due to road-and-bridge destruction and heavy damage to pre-and-post-harvest facilities. Instead of this year’s hoped for 17.5 million metric tons of rice production, it is now accepted we would, indeed, be lucky if we could even reach 17 million MTs (metric tons) flat, thanks to the angry weather and our perpetual lack of disaster-proof civil infrastructure to deal with it.

A government report has already initially estimated rice losses to have reached 560,000 MTs or a monetary value of some 10-billion pesos. Record volumes of rice importation had reached 2.3 million MTs last year, enabling us to keep our dubious distinction of being the biggest rice importer in the world. The year before our violent guests came around we had already imported some 1.775 MMTs of rice. The plan was, by end-October, we would import a quarter of a million more from either one or some or all of the following countries – Thailand, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, Australia, USA, and India.

Given, however, the typhoon damage to the last quarter production whose estimates have not yet been completed, we may even have to import much more – on the uncertain premise that the world has enough of our staple to sell to us. Rice is thinly traded–only 27.5 million tons or 6.4 percent of world supply was traded last year.

At the same time, fortunately, some leaders saw that no harm could come from focusing on reconstruction of typhoon damaged infrastructure. The damage inventory and needs assessment may take about a month to complete but, already, the World Bank (WB) and other multilateral institutions said they will use their own damage assessments in considering Manila’s requests for realignment of some slow-moving loans already available to the Philippines.

Identified were some $400 million in previously approved program loans that could now support reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts of the instantaneously formed “Special National Public-Private Reconstruction Commission”. The need to “disaster-proof” government’s development policies, plans and programs became rather quickly the need of the hour. But is it that simple? When it comes to hunger and food insecurity, what is the bigger picture?

The bigger picture – the big land grab, the massive conversions

The United Nations has identified climate change, pollution, urban migration, poverty in rural areas and lack of sound agriculture policies by nations as the biggest threats to food security.

Declining agriculture labor force is also slowing down food production. More and more rural folk move to cities for better paying jobs. This is already happening in the Philippines where the exodus of rural folk to the cities has been unprecedented, lured by job prospects not only in local cities but also overseas, leaving their farms for more promising firms.

Confident that developing nations will continue to produce food for them, highly developed countries also convert lands to urban and industrial zones with the enticement of profits much greater than what agriculture can offer.

Or, alternatively, they go for the big land grab. More than 20 million hectares of farmland in the Third World countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia are now held by foreign governments and companies. Rich countries with not enough land think they could always buy their way into their poor neighbor’s properties.

Earlier this year, for instance, President Arroyo warmly announced that China was interested in leasing 1.2 million hectares of land in our country! She had also said late last year that her government would explore the idea of leasing at least 100,000 hectares of agricultural land to the emirate in Qatar. The Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. (PADCC), a government corporation attached to the Department of Agriculture, has been tasked with identifying suitable lands for agribusiness development and assisting prospective investors who are keen on forging “the right deals” with local groups and companies.

Thus, only lately there were reports that a company from South Korea had leased 94,000 hectares of farmland in Mindoro for 25 years to grow 10,000 tons of corn a year for feed production and another 60,000 hectares were given over to the Pacific Bio-Fields Corp. of Japan.

One can’t blame farmer leaders who say that before we know it, we may already have been taken over by other nations. These leaders may have heard the recent public announcement by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that over 20 agribusiness firms had met with nearly 200 Philippine companies to form partnerships and joint ventures in fisheries, biofuels, processed goods, meat and poultry, dairy products, etc.

In the wake of recent typhoons, it is these farmer leaders who feel more urgently the need to ensure adequate land for food production, and to slow down on setting aside more hectares of agricultural land for use of foreign agro-corporations. Anyway, this kind of practice might be quite illegal in the first place.

The DAR and similar agencies can’t even be sure, conveniently, how many thousands upon thousands of hectares have been converted over the past 22 years for uses other than food production. Since the 1990s, farm area planted to palay shrunk by more than 87,000 hectares while that of corn was reduced by almost 300,000 hectares. Can anyone deny that such decrease in farm area had to spell both massive displacement of Filipino farmers and dramatic decline in domestic food production?

The violent typhoons that recently hit us had the tendency also for going after Vietnam and Thailand, where we import most of our rice. One could not help but ask: how greatly was those countries’ rice harvest reduced? Can they still sell us rice, and at what steep price? To which another countered: what about a widespread El Nino, which, for all we know, is just lurking around, waiting for the typhoons to leave? If it hits Vietnam and Thailand and the Philippines, all at the same time, which is not at all unlikely, where do we buy rice and at what steep price?

Food prices

Food costs in developing countries now seem more expensive – 24% higher in real terms by the end of 2008 compared to 2006. As a new crisis of rising food prices takes hold following recent natural disasters, food-importing governments will find it more difficult to cope. Engulfed within a vortex of energy shortage, price inflation and climate change, food security will remain the most intractable challenge for those who criminally neglected to focus on food self-reliance and food self-sufficiency. They may begin to realize at last – or did they know it all along – that “free” trade rules have a way of undermining domestic food production when we engage in the global market game without first strengthening our own domestic players.

It may soon become harder and harder to deny that authoritarian Philippines followed a more patriotic line on food policy than subsequent liberal democratic administrations. Of many accusations hurled against the authoritarian regime, one thing it could not be accused of is starving the agricultural sector. If only to head off peasant discontent, the authoritarian regime provided farmers with subsidized fertilizer and seeds, launched credit plans and built rural infrastructure. Following the common sense policy of rice self-sufficiency, it did not have to import rice; it even achieved surpluses for export and in 1986 when the regime came to an end there were 900,000 metric tons of rice in government warehouses.

Liberal democratic Philippines chose to follow a “debt-service payments first” rather than a
“food first” policy. The World Bank and its Philippine think-tanks assured government and people that State belt-tightening would motivate the private sector to make the countryside prosperous with their hoped-for investments.

The painful truth was that spending on agriculture fell by more than half – resulting in quickly diminished agricultural capacity, stagnation of irrigation, and generally anemic crop yields with the average rice yield way below those in China, Vietnam and Thailand, where governments actively promoted rural production, more often than not using Philippine-generated rice technologies.

Deprived of funding for support services, agrarian reform focused not on appropriate land use but on so-called “land acquisition and distribution” schemes that were quite often merely cover for a massive land-conversion program. After all, the objective eye cannot argue with the results especially in Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog whose peasant struggles made it possible to have “land reform” legislation in the first place.

Even before the floods, one no longer saw as much farms and farmers in those places as before but subdivisions and tracts of lands lying fallow, thanks to the actions of speculators precisely made possible by unintelligent “agrarian reforms”. If agrarian reform were such a big success, why did we become so shamefully the biggest rice importer on the face of the earth? Or are we ready to say we became No. 1 rice importer precisely because of the roaring success of our agrarian reform program?

It can no longer be denied: Filipino peasants distrusted the liberal democratic state even more because of its full-scale retreat as provider of comprehensive support – a factor that was found key to the successful reforms in Taiwan and South Korea. In the matter alone of market roadwork paved, both Thailand and Malaysia beat the Philippines hands down or an eight-to-one ratio.

On A Global Scale

The very first question in the FAQ of the United Nations’ World Food Program is: “(1) Is there a food shortage in he world?” And their blunt answer is: “There is enough food in the world today for everyone to have the nourishment necessary for a healthy and productive life.” Yes, indeed, enough food can be produced but it still must be bought. And if people are too poor to buy food at unaffordable prices, it will follow that they will also be hungry.

But, then, they also say in Number (3) that “despite the impression you often get from the media, emergencies account for less than eight percent of hunger’s victims. Few people realize that there are over 1 billion hungry people in the world who don’t make the headlines. Number (4): Of the total number of over 1 billion chronically hungry people, over half are in Asia and the Pacificand a quarter is in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Does this include the Philippines?

In their Global Hunger Index (GHI) report released a couple of weeks back, the hunger problem in the Philippines was categorized as “serious” and the country ranked 34th among 84 countries in the Index.

In the SWS studies, for whatever they are worth, just before the three strong typhoons visited us, the proportion of families experiencing involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months had eased a little bit – down to 17.5 per cent or about 3.2 million families, from 20.3 per cent or 3.7 million families in the previous quarter. Hunger, however, has consistently been in double-digits for five years, since June 2004, the SWS said.

In SWS lingo, the overall average of 12.6 percent is a rough measure of the “hunger climate” from 1998 to the present. The quarterly and year-to-year percentages, on the other hand, refer to the “hunger weather.”

On the world level, one billion hungry people – is a first in human history. If anyone asks whether it is within our power and not beyond our expertise to consign this suffering to history, we must welcome the query warmly, immediately, with a clear resolve that we have to do what we can.

With the global financial crisis not going away soon enough, hunger is likely to increase as the purchasing power of the poor diminishes due to reduced incomes and higher unemployment. It is simply not fair but the fact is that the poor, who were least responsible for setting the financial crisis in motion, are now the least protected from its negative impact.

While more than one billion people experience the hardship that hunger imposes, the obvious may easily escape us, namely that the cost of alleviating world hunger is negligible compared to the trillion dollar rescue packages designed to save financial institutions and stimulate economies in the imperial world.

In the longer term, investment in agricultural development in food-insecure countries is essential. As FAO’s Mr. Diouf said, “”Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth.”

Agriculture will need to double food production in 40 years but in a way that reduces its big environmental impacts on a changing climate.

We have doubled production before but in ways that use more water, more land, and more fertilizer. Agriculture hasn’t always been as soft on the environment as we will need to be in the future. From hereon, ecological agriculture is key. We must never think of operating apart from but always as part of nature.

WHAT IS A FOOD SECURE ECONOMY?

First of all it is one that is engaged in agricultural transformation.

What is meant by agricultural transformation?

It is the shift from subsistence-oriented production, no matter how seemingly modernized in

tools, to market-oriented production, i.e. to secure systems of exchange (e.g. long-term contracts), no matter how less advanced in field technology.

Not production, but post-production defines agricultural modernization.

This means integrating agriculture with other sectors of the economy – such as transportation, education, construction – ironically making the economy relatively less agriculturally oriented but with a food system that grows in an absolute sense and generates important growth linkages.

This outlook takes into account in agriculture and food both on-farm and off-farm elements, both production and post-production or even pre-next-production processes.

The idea is to help both producer and consumer develop low-costs means of exchange, thus ensuring the miracle of increased productivity AND decreases in the real price of food to consumers.

A disorderly, “chamba-chamba” system of food production and distribution is the real cause of food insecurity.

We have traditionally focused almost all our efforts on better farm-level technologies. We brag about Los Banos. We are proud of all our graduates teaching Asia Pacific to produce. This is an undeniable fact.

But to attain food security, that is not enough. What is needed is increased productivity throughout the food system; that is, improved marketing with increased access to knowledge systems of the wider world than just the immediate subsistence ambit; improved storage and processing, and input delivery technologies and institutions.

In sum:

What we should establish is a food system that helps people help themselves, true enough, either directly or through income generation (jobs creation).

The food system must produce affordable new products and services in response to urbanization and income growth. Over-investment in any one item may lead to high costs and thus slow down economic growth that in turn leads to decreased incomes and chronic hunger.

Chronic hunger is a problem of low real incomes, in both rural and urban areas. Thus we need to increase real incomes and expand employment. This is best done through a structural transformation of the economy integrating agriculture with other sectors. Crucial to this transformation is awareness, knowledge, information – the AMS (or Agricultural Marketing Service).

How will the AMS function? What should be its programs? It will have to focus on activities that make marketing more orderly and efficient, competitive and fair. As the process of moving food and farm products from producer to consumer becomes complex, the producer’s knowledge of the consumer’s demand must become simply accurate and up-to-date.

The producer must be informed ahead – what to plant, how much to plant, where, on what soil, when, what prices to expect, where to bring his produce fast. Thus, the AMS pays attention to who needs what and how much; provides risk management information and analysis, price outlook information, farm financial analysis – the like.

And because information is tendentious to action, the AMS produces: not just an electronic daily, or a weekly magazine, a monthly review or an annual report but also and even an hourly bulletin and up-to-the-minute flash reports.

Additionally, it intervenes in market linkages, mobilizing both government and private entities to that purpose.

The USA, the PRC, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, ROC Taiwan and all of the EU – to mention a few – all have organized their food systems with an AMS for a “pituitary gland”, i.e. providing the mechanism for feedback, to regulate, to monitor, to link the various levels of activity in the total organism – in short to create a food system that can, because all the stakeholders are aware and take part.

The Philippines is the SMS or TEXT capital of the planet. There is simply no excuse for ignorance. On the contrary, the CARP, the AFMA, what have you – there are enough excuses to succeed if clear thinking can be attained by that newly announced government-private initiative that can map out what needs to be done, and done quickly – with the purest of intentions, and therefore, too, with the real power of serious intent.

-30-

Palace defends Gonzales’ DND appointment

Malacañang today said the track record and government service of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales will serve him well as the acting Secretary of National Defense.

In a radio interview over DZRB Radyo ng Bayan, Presidential Spokesperson for Economic Affairs Gary Olivar said Gonzales will assume the post effective tomorrow to allow Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. to focus on his campaign for the 2010 presidential elections.

He added the Armed Forces of the Philippines looks forward to working with Gonzales.

Olivar also defended Gonzales from critics who claim the new defense chief is involved in human rights-related cases.

Olivar said there is no case involving Gonzales among the 253 extra-judicial killings being handled by the Department of Justice.

This is not the first time Gonzales holds the top defense post.

In 2007, before Teodoro was appointed to the post, he was designated officer-in-charge of the Department of National Defense. (PND)

Next Page »