Purblindness

SHORT-SIGHTED. That is how the Hon. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao, 1^st District-Pampanga, found the traffic impact assessment conducted by the University of the Philippines’ National Center for Transportation Studies on Clark and its environs.

This, after the Coach got a negative answer from the UP-NCTS “experts” to his question if the expansion of the Clark International Airport – to start this year with the P1.2-billion for a new terminal – was factored in their study.

A basic question which non-answer now belied the expertise of those experts, doubted the intent, and negated whatever the recommendations rising out of their most obviously incomprehensive, if not definitively flawed, study.

How, indeed, can any traffic study on Clark assume any viability, much less validity, without factoring the 10 million annual passengers expected to start passing through the airport terminal in three years’ time!

The study that was precisely – if belatedly – commissioned by the Clark Development Corp. to determine the impact Capilion Corp.’s Clark Green Frontier project would have on traffic, located as it is right at the very entrance of the Clark Freeport which likewise serves as the main entry too to the Clark airport. 

“Looks good on paper, but in reality it’s not really good,” rightly dismissed Guiao.

An even more immediate, and equally telling, blow on the feasibility of the UP-NCTS study was delivered by City Councilor Amos Rivera.

In a meeting on Capilion last year with CDC President-CEO Arthur P. Tugade where Guiao was also present, Rivera asked how many parking slots would be available at the Capilion site.

Tugade replied 1,200.

So, how many will work there, Rivera asked.

Tugade answered 25,000. 

“Only ten percent of those workers owning vehicles will be more than twice the capacity of Capilion’s parking slots,” said Rivera. “Workers pa lang yan, e yun pang mallgoers?” It is to be remembered that Capilion will also engage in commercial retail aside from BPO.  

Tugade did not answer. A stinking, albeit golden, silence there, if we may say.

The fact that the UP-NCST study was commissioned only after opposition to the Capilion project was raised – with vehemence by the Angeles City Council, with denunciation by the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement – already conjured malice as to its intent, if not maleficence.

Thus, Rivera – himself having had traffic studies at UP – bewailing the study as being “after the fact, a reverse of the usual process in building and construction.” 
“You make the traffic impact study before designating the site, to really gauge the effect on time and motion around the area,” so we quoted Rivera in a story here. “As it is now, it would look like the study is being customized to fit and rationalize the Capilion plans and show mere compliance, not to really assess the impact.”

Which lends credence to claims – principally from the PGKM – that the study is being “doctored” to suit the interests of CDC and Capilion, especially as, despite demands from the stakeholders, the study has not been made public eight months since the CDC promised to do so.  

Myopic goes Casanova too

And then there’s Atty. Arnel Paciano Casanova, president-CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, calling for the inclusion of the Metro Manila’s decongestion as “one major political discourse leading up to next year’s presidential election.”

"The respective platforms for next year's elections will surely point to improving the lives of Filipinos. But if we truly wish to achieve quality of life, let us work toward easing the congestion in Metro Manila." So was Casanova quoted as saying, and offering the 9,450-hectare master-planned Clark Green City as ready response.

"Our future national leaders need to initiate efforts to arrest urban decay, to resolve a host of perennial traffic and transportation challenges, and to develop another metropolis which is sustainable and disaster-resilient in the face of the global threat of climate change," added Casanova, further citing how the Clark Green City can accommodate a projected population of 1.2 million, combining new and existing settlers as well as resettled residents.

"We look forward to the Green City as the focal point in plans to ease the congestion in the metropolis. This will be the catalyst for economic growth of surrounding localities leading to an enhanced equitable distribution of development across the country," cackled Casanova, impressing how the Clark Green City is expected to generate some 800,000 new jobs.

Long in words, short in sight too is Casanova.

Sans any ingress-egress to the Clark Green City other than through the Clark Freeport, Casanova is either playing stupidly blind, if not being plainly stupid, in missing to address the looming traffic gridlocks at Clark’s gates with the Capilion project. Given the 1.2 million population, 800,000 workers projected at the Clark Green City.

You call for the decongestion of Metro Manila, you offer Clark as a most viable alternative, yet you accept, without the slightest whimper, the congestion of the way to Clark.

Aye, it may not be simple myopia but advanced dementia obtaining there.  

  
 

Vote nut

GAINING RE-CURRENCY every election year are some pieces that have appeared here in pre-polls past.

This one from February 7, 2013, assuming even newsier value in the context of the lamentation of expelled church worker Lowell Menorca II and expelled minister Isaias Samson Jr. that, in the words of the latter: “Politicians now will allow themselves to be used because they want the Iglesia vote.” 

Vote nut

THE INC vote is a certainty.

The Iglesia ni Cristo brethren vote as one. More from personal reading now – as I am no INC affiliate – than hermeneutics is that one church, one-vote dogma grounded on Romans 15:6: “That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In all things, not the least in choosing the people’s leaders, is God glorified. Alleluia! 
No certainty though – in winning, is the INC vote.

The INC bloc went to Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, Jr. in 1992 but Fidel Valdez Ramos won the presidency. The Amba falling even behind the feisty Maid Miriam in the final rankings.

In local contests, the bloc votes are no surefire for electoral success. A case in point is Oca Rodriguez’s victory in his congressional rematch in 1995 against the INC-backed Didi Domingo. 
And then, there was the incumbent INC-propped Mark Lapid finishing dead last in the 2007 gubernatorial polls against proclaimed winner Eddie Panlilio, and recount victor Lilia Pineda.
Elections being a matter of addition and multiplication makes the INC vote a plus-plus factor nonetheless. Thus, its being a much-coveted prize among all candidates.
The Catholic vote is an improbability. Not the nullity it was readily dismissed to be after the bishop-blasted Joseph Estrada handily won the presidency in 1998. 
“Vote for persons who morally, intellectually, and physically show themselves capable of inspiring the whole nation toward a hopeful future.” So reverberated the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ pastoral statement from pulpits throughout the land. 
The not-so-subtle inference of moral wrongs on the womanizer, gambler, drinker and uncolleged Estrada not so much fallen on deaf ears as glossed over by the sheen of the Erap persona on the silver screen.
But there is such a thing as “Catholic influence” – that which Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile raised at the time of the deliberations on the Reproductive Health Bill.
This is much pronounced at the parish levels, especially in the rural areas where the cura parocco exercises the highest moral ascendancy and thereby the greatest influence in community life.   
So who among the cerrado Catolico would dare even to conceive a questioning thought against the very voice of God emanating from the pulpit? 
Roma locuta est, causa finite est. Rome has spoken, the case is closed. The definitive end to all arguments of the medieval era is not extinct as the Borgia pope but as much extant today as Benedict’s infallibility. 
To a considerable majority of the Catholics, that is. That which so-called freethinkers have long ridiculed and despised as the miserably blinded faithful and unthinking fanatics.
Think and rethink: The intelligent vote is a fallacy.   
Why do we vote for those whom we vote? 
Family. The candidate is mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, cousin to the nth degree of consanguinity dating to the discovery of the Philippines.
Friendship. The candidate is a childhood friend, barkada, friend of the wife, friend of a brother, friend of a cousin, friend of an uncle, friend of a friend, friend of a friend of a friend…
Face/Fame. The candidate is pogi or maganda – a celebrity. 

Favors. The candidate paid for the hospitalization of a family member, funeral expenses for a kin, school tuition of a child. Whence rises too the commodification of the vote, of the right of suffrage reduced to the transactional, to buy-and-sell, to trade or pawn.                  
Always visceral, very rarely cerebral. That’s the vote hereabouts. 
So we ask again: In the pursuit of our electoral exercises do we ever, as we should, to quote Baruch Spinoza, “… use in security all (our) endowments, mental and physical, and make free use of (our) reason”?
So we vote nut. So we are the nut. 

Back to GI Joe

THE SUPREME Court voted January 12, 2016 to uphold the constitutionality of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed in April 2014 between the Philippines and the US governments.

EDCA allows the US to build structures; store and preposition weapons, defense supplies and materiel; station troops, civilian personnel and defense contractors; transit and station vehicles, vessels and aircraft for a period of 10 years. 

No surprise there actually as the nation has long been primed for this: not so much the return of the US forces as their re-occupation of the country.

This, we wrote here on July 11, 2012.  

Back to GI Joe

"YOU’VE JUST mentioned Subic Bay. Clark Air Base, we -- we do maritime domain awareness flights monthly with the Philippine armed forces. That might be a potential.”

Potential. The operative word for US forces re-basing in the Philippines, highlighted in a Pentagon media briefing two weeks ago by Admiral Jonathan Greenert, US Chief of Naval Operations.

Actual. Greenert’s conceding that the US has present "access to an extraordinary number of places" in the Asia-Pacific and is considering the procurement of supplies, repair and maintenance services for US ships, aircraft, and troops visiting countries in the region, not the least of which is the Philippines.

Supplies and services. The R&R kind, most definitely included, if not topmost priority.

"I think in the best interest of each nation, we'll continue to -- to work on and see where that might go," furthered Greenert.

Where it will – not might – go. Why, the re-establishment of the American military bases, not in any place in the Asia-Pacific other than the Philippines, dummy. The strategic importance of the Philippines in geopolitics, an unvarying given.      

Thus, in the current scheme of things – as in the past – the Philippines best serves American interests in the Asia-Pacific.

The row with China over the Panatag/Scarborough Shoal and the uneasy waters of the West Philippine Sea while still far from a casus belli is already enough cause for US intrusion.

The US not the least assuming an aggressive stance or a posture of belligerence. What with the President of the Philippines practically begging for US intervention in his appeals for America to launch surveillance and monitoring flights over the West Philippine Sea, as well as for military hardware. The latter, the US readily answered with an aged naval vessel. (Two more at the APEC Summit, plus some 100 armored personnel carriers just last December).

There is a twist though in America’s re-establishment of itself in the Asia-Pacific. This time around it comes not as the lonesome Imperial Eagle of old, but – just like in Iraq and Afghanistan – in some sort of collegial fraternity, read: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or in George W. Bush’s time, the Coalition of the Willing.

NATO’s Asian counterpart, SEATO – the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization – long dead though, its last gasps heard at the height of the Vietnam War yet, the US needed to craft a similar alliance that need not be formalized and therefore required to pass congressional approval in the US as well as in the other countries joining such alliance.

All the US had to do is work on existing treaties and re-purpose them to the issue at hand, to current needs, with the Philippines, of course, as focal point. And US interests as express goals.  

Thus, the “Statement Of Intent On Defense Cooperation And Exchanges” between the Philippines and Japan signed last July 2 in Tokyo.

Thus, Australia’s avid pursuit of a Status of Forces Agreement with the Philippines, nothing more than a copy-paste of the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US.

Thus, South Korea likewise expressing interest in some bilateral defense cooperation with the Philippines. Recent recollections in the media of the Philippine participation in the Korean War serve as mind-softeners to generate acceptance and ultimate approval of some SoKor-PHL defense pact. While at it, throw in the exploits of the teen-aged Ninoy Aquino as the youngest correspondent in that war, to tug at the heartstrings of his son. 

South Korea. Australia. Japan. All staunch allies of the US. All serving US intent to put in place what the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan termed a “seamless interface” among all its treaty partners.

Furthered Bayan Secretary General Renato Reyes, Jr.: “With Japan now wanting to do port calls and military exercises in the Philippines, and with Australia seeking a Status of Forces Agreement to be able to conduct military exercises, our country becomes one giant military hub for the US and its treaty partners.”

Re-balancing of US forces in the Asia-Pacific. Re-basing of US forces in the Philippines. Back to us being a vassal state of America.

Back to Clark and Subic then.

Thus, Santayana: “Those who do not remember the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.”

Thus, and better yet, an old Irish maxim: “There is no present. There is no future. Only the past happening over and over, again and again.”

What the heck, GI Joe’s back. Happy days are here again.

We are ever f**ked up.

Xxxxxxx

INDEED, Heneral Luna: “Para kayong mga birhen na naniniwala sa pag-ibig ng isang puta.”

Spooked

WISH YOU may, wish you might, but you won’t have the wish you have for Clark.

So spake a CIA – civilian in Angeles, of the CIA – the Clark International Airport. Some cloak-and-dagger credential did indeed obtain in the CIA, having worked in and retired from naval intelligence. So indulging in his take of the CIA – the airport, is no waste of intelligence or time.

The CIA as the premier international gateway of the Philippines will never fly. So he says, with the conviction of Thomas having touched the pierced side of the Risen Christ.

How so?

America will not allow it. Else it would be deprived of its best military training facility. You think good old USA will just let go of its investment in the space shuttle-ready runway at Clark, of the incomparable Crow Valley for bombing and strafing runs of its warbirds? Nothing comes close to Clark for the American eagle to sharpen its talons, so to speak.

And, as it was then so it is moreso now with Chinese belligerence in the Scarborough, er, Panatag Shoal, America’s wish is the Philippine government’s command...

Didn’t I tell you so?

Asked me the CIA in an email with my column of May 10, 2012 titled “Clark conspiracy” attached, the above passages highlighted for effect.

Yeah, the spook reacting there to the Philippine government offer of Clark – along with Subic and six other sites throughout the country – to the United States, pursuant to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement upheld last week by the Supreme Court as constitutional.

Under the EDCA, the US is allowed to build structures, store as well as pre-position weapons, defense supplies and materiel, station troops, civilian personnel and defense contractors, transit and station vehicles, vessels, and aircraft for a period of 10 years.

And here is where the desirability of Clark comes in, opined the CIA:

For one, in the matter of economics. There is nothing for the US to build anymore as it is all there, the most valuable requisite of long and wide twin runways having been built by the Americans themselves.

Two, Clark’s – Subic’s too – strategic location fits perfectly in the US’ “Pacific pivot” shift in its global posturing, er, positioning.

Three, Clark has been tried and tested for its suitability as jump-off point to rapid deployment of US forces, as proven in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

Fourth, the all-important R&R for troop morale readily available, easily accessible, and very affordable at Fields Avenue.

Yeah, those itemized arguments all coming from him.

While he expressed sympathy with the militant Pamalakaya lamenting the Supreme Court decision upholding EDCA, the did not buy the group’s sentiment that “the US through its puppet-RP government wants to convert the country into a sole US-military annex under the guise of military modernization and external conflict protection.”

He simply cited what was part of our May 2012 column, to wit: Actually, there’s no need for the US to re-base its forces here. Notwithstanding the closure of its base in Okinawa. All that matters – in the American interest – is unrestricted access to Clark. Thus, the imperative that it should remain at most a limited-service airport, as it is now, with a few domestic flights and some budget carriers. 

With the current of events flowing out of the EDCA ruling and the long-running Clark conundrum, as I have never stopped writing about, I can only take back what I wrote then that the “real plot” of the CIA story – the ex-operative’s and the airport’s -- can never get any spookier than that.

It is getting frighteningly real.

It’s getting a lot like GI Joe’s being back to base. And we’ll be seeing more F-15s, V-22 Ospreys, C-130s, AH-64 Apaches and CH/HH-3 Jolly Green Giants, lesser and lesser Airbuses and Boeings at the Clark airport.

Shame.   

The other Rizal

NO NATIONAL hero like his namesake, but a hero in his own right is our – Pampanga media’s – own Rizal. Policarpio, that’s who.

He was a man with many muses, just like Luneta’s bronzed resident. So fabled in the affairs of the heart to merit a chapter in my first book Of the Press (1999), detailing but the most special of the lot, three reprinted here in abridged form thus:

No other newsman in Pampanga has a love life as colorful, as varied, as multiple, as poignant, as…whatever as Rizal’s…That Rizal has remained unmarried after all those loves – more unrequited than otherwise – is proof positive of his greatness as a lover…

The Greatest 3. For the love of Rizal, Department of Public Information Dir. Ric “Kapitan Gigil” Serrano played Cupid to every woman the ageing bachelor fancied.

First it was Miss Bunny of Bacolor. To Baguio, Gigil took his staff with Rizal in tow for a hoped-for romantic interlude with his ladylove. It was not meant to be. Even with Gigil’s promise of three lechon baka for the wedding.

Second was Miss Erlie of Sto. Tomas. Everybody’s Café failed to open Erlie’s heart to Rizal. No matter Gigil’s pleadings and raising to five lechon baka Rizal’s dowry.

Third was Miss Nona of Malolos. Gigil raised the marriage ante to five lechon baka, 10 lechon de leche, and 100 lechon manok, prodding Miss Nona to elope. Not with Rizal, of course.

Lady with factory. One day in the marrying month of June 1985, a notice was posted on the Orders’ List at Bankers Press: 100 wedding invitations c/o Rizal Policarpio.

The news spread like brushfire. Rizal was getting married at last, at long last. But, who was the bride?       

Ram Mercado sourced deeply and widely, finding: “The bride is rich. Bulacan-based with a factory to boot.”

So happy we were all for Rizal that we made our own wedding plans for him: Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz as Mass celebrant and officiating priest, principal sponsors: Labor Sec. Blas Ople, Justice Sec. Estelito Mendoza, Ambassador Danding Cojuangco, Media Affairs Sec. Greg Cendana, Public Works Usec Aber Canlas…among others, reception at Shanghai de Luxe Restaurant, honeymoon in Hong Kong.

One week after, the wedding was off. It was Ram again that sourced and searched for the cause: The bride-to-be did not have a factory. She had factory-defect.

The woman who loved Rizal. He met her – call her Uriang – through Philippine News Agency chief Fred Roxas at the time he was courting soon-to-be wife Violy Puno in the ‘70s.

Attraction was instant. At the backseat of Fred’s ’59 Ford Falcon, Rizal and Uriang savored the sweetness of the first kiss atop Baluyut Bridge under the noonday sun. Rizal was a bit tipsy with Uriang cuddled in his arms. In a sudden dash of machismo, he grabbed her by the hair and smacked her with a French kiss.

“Tinatalaban na, Rizal,” prodded Fred from the wheel.

Rizal intensified his smooches and, yes, Uriang got so excited she started shuddering all over. So convinced was Rizal of his kissing power until he noticed Uriang frothing in the mouth, her eyes wide open but only with the whites, her body all tensed up. What Rizal thought to be the height of ecstasy was in fact a fit of epilepsy.

Much as he loved women, he loved his country even more. Rizal was among those who bore the brunt of Martial Law, right after its proclamation: detained at the Camp Olivas stockade and subjected to the standard torture test of the time.

His activism undiminished, Rizal was among the first to raise his voice at the dictatorship in the aftermath of the Aquino assassination, distinguishing himself in one massive rally in Candaba town when he called the still-well-entrenched Marcos a cowardly traitor.

It was to the utter loss of his beloved masa that Rizal was deprived of the opportunity to serve them in an elective position: for Mabalacat councilor in 1971, Mabalacat Mayor in 1980, Angeles City councilor in 1988, even after his campaign leaflet was hailed the “most creative” – a blow-up of the P2 bill with the picture of Rizal, the national hero.

It was journalism that he loved most, investing therein his heart, his mind, his life. Thus, his bachelorhood – “Journalism is a jealous wife,” as he put it. Thus, his only source of livelihood – “You stop being a journalist, once you engage in any other field of employment,” as he lived it.

Rizal was among the very few who served as president of the Pampanga Press Club, the Angeles City Press and Radio Club – for which he was expelled from the former but was later readmitted, and the Central Luzon Media Association. He led too for a time the association of provincial correspondents of Balita, the vernacular tabloid of Manila Bulletin.

In the history of journalism in Pampanga, arguably in the whole of Central Luzon, Rizal holds the distinction of going through the full legal course in a libel case that spanned all of three years. Again, as narrated in Of the Press:

In 1981, a story found print about four fishpond caretakers killed by unidentified gunmen in Candaba town, with a ranking municipal official implied as the mastermind. That was how the news went in the other papers. But Rizal went further – he named the official in his story in Balita.

The official sued and the prosecutor’s office found merit in his complaint and elevated the case to the court. After two years of hearing, the official died. But his heirs pursued the case.

What was also interesting here was that Rizal’s editors were not included in the charge sheet. Rizal fought a lonely battle in court, at times acting as his own counsel.

Lack of malice saved Rizal from conviction. So, three years after he was – in his own words – “demanded for libel,” Rizal proclaimed he got back “my justice, my freedom, my right, my voice, my pen to push again” after Judge Pedro Lagui acquitted him.   

Rizal was also among the pioneering bi-media personalities in Pampanga – delving in both print and broadcast at the same time, for some years: The Voice, DZAP, and DZYA for the longest time, DWGV later and Angeles Observer until of late.

He was at his best though with his column “Tapik Lang” (Slight Tap) and his radio show “Pisaasabyan Tamu Mu” (Just Talking), if only for the fun they generated with Ody Fabian’s anagram on them as “Pitaklan” (Asshole) and “Pisasabyan tamumu” (Hornets’ Talk) in Kapampangan.        

Ah, how agreeably raucous and merrily riotous Rizal meeting Ody anew. And all those who have preceded him to the editorial desk up there: Ben Gamos, Sonny Lopez, Toy Soto, Jerry Lacuarta, Lito Pangilinan, Rolly Lingat, Boy Sagad, Don Armando Baluyut, Don Tomas San Pedro, Ric Serrano…

Have a blast, Zayk. “Supersonic, oomph, oomph.” As you were wont to exclaim – complete with two pelvic thrusts – whenever caught up in the joy of the moment.      

Libel, again

OUT ON bail. That’s me since November last year. Owing to a libel case I have always known to have been withdrawn soon after it was filed at the Angeles City Prosecutor’s Office way back in 1997.

So confident with that knowledge that I included the case in the chapter “The Libel Tradition” in my 1999 book Of the Press, to wit: “…lodged by the Mabalacat Water District over an article that alleged anomalies in that office ranging from nepotism to incompetence…Toy Soto, a consultant of the water district office, intervened in our behalf and the complaint was promptly withdrawn.”

It has now turned out, the case was simply archived, never withdrawn. I got to know of its continuing pendency when I applied for an NBI clearance relative to the renewal of my gun permit. Indeed, the case carried a warrant for my arrest, prompting the NBI agents to offer custody, which I courteously declined, saying – only half-jokingly – I preferred to be detained at the Pampanga Provincial Jail with its most celebrated inmate.

Seriously, I hastened to Angeles City RTC Branch 62 to post bail and seek the reopening of the case. As RTC 62 is now dedicated to drug offenses, my case had to be raffled off to some other court. Yeah, and I posted P2,000 in cash for my provisional liberty. And now wait for summons from the court.

Come to think of it, since 1997 until last November, I was on the lam, open to immediate arrest by the police! Lucky that my haters were as clueless as I on the case, else I would have fondled the cold bars of a detention cell.

More seriously now, this libel case makes one more indictment of our (in)judicial system. It’s been all of 18 years since the case was lodged in court, through all those long years, nothing was heard of the complainant. Ain’t that enough to warrant the dismissal of the case for utter lack of interest?

The complainant, Rowena Domingo, had long migrated to Canada, per reports in Mabalacat. Two of my co-respondents, and co-editors, Joe Pavia and Ody Fabian, had long gone to the Great Beyond. Still, the case lives. Because I still live? Wow!

The ink on my fingers and my palms from posting bail had yet to be completely scrubbed off when I got a subpoena from the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for another libel complaint.

A Guagua cop felt maligned by a story here last August written by the erudite Ding Cervantes alleging irregularities in the handling of evidence obtained in drug buy-bust.

I will not dwell on the complaint’s merits, what with our counter-affidavits yet to be filed. This constrains me though to re-state my position on libel:     

I HAVE had no problem with libel, notwithstanding the seven cases I had faced in my almost 40 years of writing. No bragging there, just being matter-of-factly.  

I have always considered a libel case as par for the course in the journalism field.

As a recourse – the only legal one – of anyone who felt maligned in print, broadcast, or personal utterance, to seek redress for her/his grievance. Indeed, the exercise of a civil right in our democratic state.

It is precisely owing to this core belief that I never begrudged all those people who took me to court – okay, to the prosecutor’s office – crying, at times ululating, that I libeled them.

I respected their right to seek my comeuppance for whatever perceived and felt wrong I did them. I respected them for their civility – of going the judicial course instead of taking the extra-judicial route with extreme prejudice.  

It is precisely because no libel complaint bearing my name as respondent ever prospered, finding closure at the prosecutor’s office – except for this lately discovered Mabalacat Water District case – that I have lived well with the reality of libel all these years.

Any dismissal of a libel case is a cause for grand celebrations, as much for the personal triumph of the writer-respondent and his paper or radio-TV station, as for the victory of justice, and the supremacy of press freedom.

In our time, not too long ago, libel cases were never considered swords of Damocles hanging over our heads in our daily journalistic grind, but areas of opportunity to test the bounds of the freedom of expression. The possibility of libel cases never deterred us from the pursuit of the story, any story fit to print, to appropriate the hallowed motto of The New York Times.

No fear factor, no “chilling effect” then as now did a libel case serve as prior restraint in our exercise of this profession.

Feeling safeguarded as we were by Justice Malcolm, writing in United States v. Bustos, 37 Phil. 731, 740, 741, to wit:

“The interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the wound can be assuaged with the balm of clear conscience. A public officer must not be too onion-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus can intelligence and dignity of the individual be exalted. Of course, criticism does not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as an individual is less than the state, so must criticism be borne for the public good.”  

Indeed, there was this somewhat perverted sense we held then – a number of us still holds to this day – of libel cases as badges of honor, aye, journalism’s very version of the Medal of Valor, to be worn and displayed with pride. So the more libel complaints, the more effective, if not better, the journalist.

Once upon Emirates

STARTING MARCH 30, 2016, Emirates Airlines resumes daily flights at the Clark International Airport.

Coming at the tail end of the holiday season, that announcement by the Clark International Airport Cor. had all the trimmings and tinsel of a package coming from Santa himself.

Enthused CIAC President-CEO Emigdio Tanjuatco III: “After a series of negotiation with Emirates, we are glad that they have now finally agreed to resume their flights at CRK this year. This is a fruit of CIAC’s efforts in continuing to attract more airlines to choose Clark.”

“A game changer,” Tanjuatco effused pa more: “I need not stress the relevance, or the kind of quality that Emirates will contribute to the Clark airport. Presently we are engaging the national government to show them that Clark is willing and able to be that airport to help decongest the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.”

Short, but sweet enough, was the say of the other party – Jie Zhu, Emirates’ senior regional manager for airport services Asia: “I am impressed with the improvements done at the terminal. We are very happy that finally we are back at Clark International Airport.”

Not meant to be a wet blanket thrown on Tanjuatco’s hotness over Emirates’ comeback, but his predecessor, now Civil Aviation Board Director Victor Jose Luciano, actually beat him to the draw.

In a pre-holidays banter with the local media, Luciano made public a letter from Salem Obaidalla, senior vice president on aeropolitical and industry affairs of the United Arab Emirates, that said: “We plan to commence operations from 30 March 2016, with a 2-class 777- 300ER.”
Confidently: “I am sure you will join me in welcoming this fantastic news for the Philippines, which should be a hugely positive development for tourism, trade and the ongoing development of the Philippines’ regional economies.”

Not meant to rain on CIAC’s parade of Emirates’ return, but we have this feeling  of having been there, having heard and seen all that. And ended up frustrated.

Travel in time now, through this take of a piece dated March 30, 2014:

Cancelling Clark

"EMIRATES CAN confirm that it is suspending its daily, non-stop service between Clark International Airport and Dubai from 1st May 2014. The decision was made after a review of the airline’s operations to ensure the best utilisation of its aircraft fleet for its overall business objectives.”

Direct from Doha, Qatar, straight out of a story in Gulf Times bylined Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter, did I get my first read of the decision of Emirates Airlines to stop operating at the CIA. Joey, if you still recall, was Punto! editor, the first one, before love summoned him to come and live in the gulf state.

Anyways, what was couched in diplomatese in that statement from the Emirates spokesman was translated in the local press – in all brutal frankness – to low passenger volume, stiff competition and the excise tax on jet fuel for international flights as the reasons for Emirates cancelling out Clark.

Reasons unquestionably acceptable, were it Asian Spirit or Zest Air or Seair, or even AirAsia Philippines doing the decamping. As indeed, they all did.

Reasons really incredible, given Emirates’ global stature – “one of the fastest growing airlines in the world, has received more than 500 international awards for excellence and has over nine million members worldwide of Skywards, the airline’s frequent flyer program…flies to 134 destinations in 76 countries and operates 203 wide-bodied Airbus and Boeing aircraft…has orders for an additional 190 aircraft, worth more than USD$71 billion…holds an impressive array of prestigious awards most recently including, the ‘Best Airline Food and Wine’ by Frequent Business Traveler and the highly coveted 2013 ‘World’s Best Airline’ award presented by Skytrax...etcetera”

An airline CV that really shocks and awes. So that at the press launch of Emirates’ Dubai-Clark-Dubai flight only last October 1, 2013, Business Mirror’s Joey Pavia was nearly laughed out of the air-conditioned, carpeted tent at Holiday Inn-Clark’s parking lot when he asked Mohammed Mattar, Emirates divisional senior vice president: “How deep is your pocket? Will you not pull out (of Clark) once your planes fly way below their passenger capacities?”    

No straight answer given as we heard Mr. Mattar tell the story of Emirates’ maiden flight to Mumbai with only five passengers and the low, low pax volume in the succeeding flights, only to culminate to the now fully booked, five-times-daily Dubai-Mumbai flights.  

As it was in Mumbai, so it shall be in Clark, Mr. Mattar so implied. And leaving no space for doubt, sayeth thus: "We are sure that we will do good in Clark after many studies in the market. We are not worried and we will do good here in Clark just like in Manila."

Confidence certified by Gigie Baroa, Emirates Philippines country manager: “The renewed and increased economic activity and the positive future of tourism up north of Metro Manila make investors bullish about investing.”

Bullish as the airline can ever be, with a great percentage of the OFWs scattered all over the Middle East coming from these parts, thus Baroa: “We at Emirates have always seen the need of our kababayans from Northern and Central Luzon who have to travel three or more hours just to get to Manila. So we decided to open up a new hub at Clark International Airport. Whether they are business savvy individuals or OFWs, they are now assured of the convenience of our flights through our new route.”

Low passenger volume now? What happened to Emirates’ “many studies in the market”?

And while at it, did those studies fail to consider too the excise tax on jet fuel for international flights, another reason given for Emirates getting out of Clark?

The (in)validity of that (un)reason is like sieve holding water: Ain’t that excise tax imposed on NAIA-based airlines too?

A smartass of a pal even advanced some perceived advantage to Emirates over other airlines when it comes to jet fuel: “As Emirates enjoys Dubai’s oil, so its fuel expenses are half of those other airlines, having to pay for gas only in its destination.”      

And with Emirates having the Dubai-Clark-Dubai route all to itself, where’s the stiff competition? From the Ninoy Aquino International Airport? Ain’t happening here given Baroa’s point of “our kababayans from Northern and Central Luzon who have to travel three or more hours just to get to Manila.”  

Baroa, we learned some months back, had ceased connections with Emirates. It should have rung alarm bells at the Clark International Airport Corp. but it did not. Only last February 27, CIAC sent photo releases of its officials led by President-CEO Victor Jose I. Luciano warmly welcoming Emirates new Area Manager Abdallah Alzamani at their corporate offices. Absolutely not the slightest inkling of the impending Emirates departure then…

Fine print

Hidden– if not intentionally understated – in the enthusiasm over Emirates’ return is what could be the proverbial fine print of the deal – it ain’t the once  direct Dubai-Clark-Dubai flight, it’s Dubai-Cebu-Clark-Dubai this time around.

A triangular, if circuitous, route that may dampen the excitement of the homesick OFWs being with their families again, or of the tourist agog at taking in the sights of Central and Northern Luzon.

What’s the point of going all the way to Cebu – okay, if only for stopover – from Dubai when one’s destination is way up North Luzon? Just to skirt the congestion of Manila? The time spent for the former may even be longer than that wasted in the latter.

What’s the point for the airline to fly to Cebu from Dubai when it cannot pick up passengers there bound only to Clark? Cabotage, it is called.

Conspiracy theorists will instantly see this as another sabotage of the Clark airport from becoming the country’s premier international gateway. Sensing that allegation of low passenger volume is already shaping up anew as cause of the next abandonment of Clark by Emirates.

Call this unguarded pessimism. Déjà vu, rising.

Practised (s)kill

NEVER SHALL I pass by the gates of the Clark Freeport again without some trepidation.

Aye, never shall I look at the Clark Development Corp. Security Police again without sensing sudden cold chills running down my spine.

Once the harmless, if clueless, sekyu boringly going through the motions of securing the Freeport, the CDC police have in one single instant morphed into trigger-happy killers. Going by the accounts rising out of the Christmas Eve shooting death of PO1 Jomar Batul at the parking lot of SM City Clark, that is.

“…[M]araming putok, Sir may nakadapa dito na SM guards, tapos may kasama ako na isa di ko alam kung gumanti ng putok (Because there’s a lot of gunfire, Sir the SM guards were lying on the stomachs and I also have a companion that I don’t know if he also fired back).” So was quoted Jake Machinal, Area 1 Commander of the CDC Public Safety Department (PSD), in the police spot report as pieced together by Ashley Manabat in his news story here last week.

More chillingly telling is CDC-PSD Manager and VP for Security Services Ricardo C. Banayat quoted thus: “Inabutan ko nung nagpuputukan pa sila … buti nalang praktisado ako (I was able to catch up with the exchange of gunfire…it’s a good thing I’m practicing).”

The blaze of glory at the thought of having neutralized a carnapper – what the ill-starred Batul was initially taken to be – turned to vehement denial when found he was a policeman.

Banayat: “Hindi e, hindi ako nakatama (No, I did not hit him).”
Machinal: Hindi rin, Sir, hindi namin alam kung sino nakatama doon (No I did not, we don’t know who was able to hit him).”

A “spot report” of PNP Station 4 said Batul sustained “two gunshot wounds on his head, one on his right shoulder, one on his left arm and one on his foot.” A policeman who asked for anonymity as he was not authorized to speak on the case said the “entry points of the head wounds were at the back (of the head).”

Instantly, conjuring there the coup de grace in gangster movies.

That the gun Batul supposedly had in his possession, used to “hijack” the food catering van in going to SM City Clark, and fired at the CDC police, remained missing had all the markings of the usual police rub-out. In this case, the policeman in a role reversal as the victim rather than the perpetrator. Made moreso, with Batul having been found negative of powder burns.  

Further, the absence of an official autopsy report spills all the makings of a cover-up.       
Whatever. Per Ashley’s news story, police said four CDC police and security guards – including Machinal and Royal Security guard Wilson Laza who was assigned to the main gate – who figured in the incident refused to undergo paraffin tests reportedly upon the advice of the CDC Legal Department.

Which, though within their legal rights, further stoke the simmering rage in the police brotherhood, notably Central Luzon top cop Chief Supt. Rudy Lacadin who was reportedly contemplating of pushing murder charges against the CDC police, their boss Banayat not excluded.

Even as media eagerly await the next turn in the Batul case, the CDC police have already impacted a chilling effect on the general public going through the freeport, whether for fun or business. The mark of the killer now obtaining among  the officers and the rank and file of the CDC Security Police .

On perfect hindsight now, we could have seen that coming. Of the CDC security police being praktisado, in the words of their bossman Banayat: practiced in assault and terror tactics, as it has turned out.

Was it only last year that we read of the complaints of some Aeta tribesmen who were manhandled by CDC security police for refusing to cease and desist from their hollow block-making enterprise along the Sacobia River?

Then, there is the case of the Clark investor Steve Kim.

Last October, CDC security police in five vehicles and backed up by a CDC special weapons and tactics team swooped down on his rented house at Redwoods Villas to enforce a “persona non grata” order of the CDC Board.

It was providential for Kim to have had his lawyer at the time of the assault, else, he said, he could have been bodily removed or worst by the CDC security police.

Much earlier, the same Kim was successfully evicted from his Hollywood Park Development Corp. site by CDC executives “backed up by 30 heavily armed CDC security police” despite a temporary restraining order from the court.

Cannot help but see from here what the CDC security police practised with Kim, they put into deadly effect in Batul.

Yeah, they have the capacity to kill. Be scared.