Lest We Forget

PROCLAMATION No. 1081 September 21, 1972

PROCLAIMING A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW IN THE PHILIPPINES

x x x

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested upon me by Article VII, Section 10, Paragraph ('2) of the Constitution, do hereby place the entire Philippines as defined in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution under martial law and, in my capacity as their commander-in-chief, do hereby command the armed forces of the Philippines, to maintain law and order throughout the Philippines, prevent or suppress all forms of lawless violence as well as any act of insurrection or rebellion and to enforce obedience to all the laws and decrees, orders and regulations promulgated by me personally or upon my direction.

In addition, I do hereby order that all persons presently detained, as well as all others who may hereafter be similarly detained for the crimes of insurrection or rebellion, and all other crimes and offenses committed in furtherance or on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto, or in connection therewith, for crimes against national security and the law of nations, crimes against public order, crimes involving usurpation of authority, rank, title and improper use of names, uniforms and insignia, crimes committed by public officers, and for such other crimes as will be enumerated in Orders that I shall subsequently promulgate, as well as crimes as a consequence of any violation of any decree, order or regulation promulgated by me personally or promulgated upon my direction shall be kept under detention until otherwise ordered re- leased by me or by my duly designated representative.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Republic of the Philippines to be affixed.

Done in the City of Manila, this 21st day of September, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy two.

FERDINAND E. MARCOS
President
Republic of the Philippines

Amen! (3)

By now you all know that former President Joseph Estrada was found guilty of plunder. I was going to comment on the events that happened since the verdict, particularly on what's been said in many quarters. However, my thoughts were exactly captured by the Inquirer's editiorial today. Usually I just give the link when I make one of my Amen! posts, but this editorial merits a full paste.
---
Legal Insanity
Philippine Daily Inquirer Editorial, 17 September 2007

MANILA, Philippines - Those who choose to view the Estrada verdict as a half-empty glass of dubious water are not doing the country any favors. Yes, other plunderers continue to roam the land. Yes, Mr. ex-Marcos justice minister Estelito Mendoza, other public officials continue to rake in enormous amounts of commissions from jueteng, and plunder cases can be filed against them. (Would you like to start the ball rolling?) And yes, certain scandals since Joseph Estrada fled Malacañang call for the most severe legal accounting.

But do these extraneous facts diminish Estrada’s guilt one whit?

Lawyers who think so are indulging a form of legal insanity. They taint the legal process with innuendo or outright contempt, unmindful of or uncaring about their impact on the rule of law itself. What do they want to do, run themselves out of a job?

As we have said time and again, both the Arroyo administration and the Estrada camp have sought to politicize the plunder trial. But the conduct of the Sandiganbayan justices themselves and their measured decision prove that the anti-graft court’s Special Division confined itself to the facts and the law of the case at hand.

To be sure, the stature of the principal defendant was not lost on the justices; the decision unfailingly refers to him as “FPres. Estrada,” apparently a new honorific. And as we saw on live television, the division’s three justices were ready to allow Estrada’s continued detention, pending final conviction, in his Tanay, Rizal rest house even before his defense counsel raised the possibility (or even after Estrada lawyer Rene Saguisag pandered to the off-site gallery by declaring, airily, that his client did not want special treatment). But we do not believe the rule of law suffered when the former president was accorded these minor courtesies.

It needs to be stressed: the court’s independence, as evidenced in its decision, is triumph enough. Its well-tempered decision on the plunder case, however, is a true legal landmark.

Those who insist that Estrada’s guilt is contingent on the sins, perceived or real, of the Arroyo administration are preaching a false and cynical faith. Not because these sins do not exist; they do, and the administration’s continuing refusal to testify in Congress about various scandals is the surest proof that it has something to hide. But because those who insist are attacking the very rule of law they claim to defend.

To use an unsavory but necessary analogy: Do we stop ourselves from pursuing a case against a rapist, because other rapists have gone scot-free or because other rapes have not been reported? This is not legal realism, or even the realpolitik of law; this is “weather-weather” defeatism, a cynic’s formula for anarchy.

Other plunderers roam the land? Then let’s throw the book at them too. The good thing is, now we can apply the vital lessons learned from the Estrada plunder trial.
Perhaps first on the list: Involve private lawyers in the preparation and the prosecution. Private law firms can bring otherwise unavailable financial resources and litigation expertise to bear on the case, complementing the work of government prosecutors.

Support government lawyers to the hilt, not least in the matter of which state witnesses to use (necessarily a decision with political considerations). Over-prove the charges, not only through the use of incontrovertible documentary evidence but also through redundant corroborative testimony. And while landing a Chavit Singson is both distasteful but necessary, build the real case with the help of a Clarissa Ocampo—upstanding witnesses with unimpeachable credibility.

It’s tough work—and therefore all the more reason to praise the government prosecutors led by Dennis Villa-Ignacio (and spearheaded once upon a time by then-Solicitor General Simeon Marcelo). Tough and—if you listen to the snide Saguisag—fundamentally thankless. Estrada’s lawyers believe they had a monopoly not only on the truth of the case but even on sincerity of conviction. It is our duty to disabuse them of their final illusion.

9/11

I was in America when 9/11 happened. Not in New York but on the other side of the country: the San Francisco Bay Area. It was a sunny Tuesday morning, I remember, and as usual I woke up around 8:15 in the morning to prepare for work which was just a 20-minute bus ride away. I was living with my cousin then, and usually by the time I wake up he has already left for work; that day, I saw him watching the news with a grave look that will only be clear to me in the moments to follow.

"Planes crashed into the World Trade Center," he said. "The towers are gone." He had just visited the towers a few weeks back, bringing me a souvenir keychain.

"What do you mean they're gone?" I asked. "How could they be gone?"

"They're gone. They fell into the ground. Like in the demolition movies," he replied.

By the time I woke up it was already 11:15 in New York and all the events of 9/11 had transpired. Details were still hazy-- there were rumours that bombs detonated all over Washington, that the Air Force just shot down another plane, that around 10,000 people may have died.

Before I got the complete picture I took my usual bus ride to work. No one made a sound in the bus that day-- no chatty old men, no teeners tapping their cd-man-- but the mood was electric. Everyone was aware of what happened and the shock was at its strongest.

My officemates and I immediately talked about what happened and all the theories of who did it. We learned that the best friend of one of my officemates worked in WTC-- she made it out. We watched footages via video streaming, which was still very low quality those days. Over and over, we watched as UA175 hit the South Tower-- there were no footages of the other attacks yet. Airplanes usually pass over our office building, which is just a 15-minute drive from the San Francisco Airport. That day there were no flights and silence replaced the usual roar of passing planes.

By lunch time, our boss allowed us to go home. There was less traffic than usual along El Camino Real that day, so it took longer to get a bus home. While waiting for a bus I saw a lone young man-- maybe in his late teens or early 20's-- walking the length of the thoroughfare waving the American flag. I saw more flags on the way home, and even more being put up. I decided to get a flag myself.

Looking back after six years, nothing really compares to the mood and electricity of that day. Even I, whose politics you all know, proudly waved the Stars and Stripes. It was a shared feeling of shock and anger at what happened, tempered by the empathy one felt for his community and his country. Politics was set aside, replaced only by the oneness that can only come after a shared jarring experience. As famously written by Jean-Marie Colombani in Le Monde: Nous sommes tous Americains. We are all Americans.

Looking back after six years, I am truly saddened that things turned out the way they did. How, from a point of almost unshakeable unity, policy after disastrous policy has given us the utterly polarised world and America we now see. How the world's compassion and support was met with arrogance and contempt.

We were all Americans.

Woman on Top

Due to insistent public demand (you know who you are)...

Dana Marie Perino
Deputy Press Secretary
United States of America

• Born in 1972 in Evanston, Wyoming
• Graduated in 1994 from the University of Southern Colorado with a bachelor's degree in mass communications, minor in politics and Spanish.
• Obtained her master's degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois in Springfield.
• Began her career in Washington, DC, by working in Capitol Hill, first for Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colorado) then Rep. Daniel Schaefer (R-Colorado).
• Served as the spokesperson for the Deprtment of Justice in 2001, then as Director of the Council on Environmental Quality in the White House.
• Appointed by President George W. Bush as Deputy Press Secretary on 31 March 2006.
• Less irritating, less condescending, and less obfuscating than Tony Snow.
• The only good thing to come out of the White House press room these days.