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Founded in 1986
Founding Publisher/Editor:
Lito A. Gajilan
Columnists:
Atty. Michael J. Gurfinkel
Joseph G. Lariosa
Gani P. Tolentino
Ted L. Reyes
Atty. Reuben S. Seguritan
Photographers:
Butch Gata
Sheryl Garcia
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not reflect the opinion of the paper nor that of the publisher
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For the past 20 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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To tell us what you think about Filipino Express Online or to comment on the stories published here, E-mail us at Filexpress@aol.com
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Time to think post-election
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WE are trying hard not to succumb to a sense of gloom as the nation went to the polling places on Monday. The bastards are sure of being returned to the office. We mean the local officials and members of the House who, administration propagandists never tire of are telling us, are running without serious opposition. The opposition is on the verge of capturing a majority of the Senate seats, but President Gloria Arroyo’s machinery is intact and her candidates may yet steal the elections.
The likely consequences we dread to contemplate. The opposition would not be able to muster the one-third vote needed to impeach Arroyo. The Senate would be turned into a mute and powerless witness to the stepped up plunder and more vicious repression by this administration. We cannot even take comfort in Arroyo’s exit from power in 2010 as mandated by the Constitution. Three more years of Gloria is a blink in the eye of history. We have survived the last six years. We can live with the worst she could dish out in the remaining years she would be in power.
The danger facing the nation after tomorrow is the very real possibility that Gloria would not cede power when the time comes. Remember charter change? This abomination, sure as Mike is the name of the husband of Gloria, would surely be resurrected between June 30, when a new Congress is installed, and 2010.
There will be enough opposition members to block charter change via a constitutional convention or a constituent assembly in the Senate. The House going it alone, as earlier proposed by Speaker Jose de Venecia, however remains a live option. People’s initiative cannot also be ruled out; Gloria’s appointees are now the majority in the Supreme Court.
The threat of a coup using questionably constitutional means, therefore, is real. The grounds for one-party rule under Gloria are being laid. The coup would be pulled off in the name of a unicameral parliamentary system.
This scenario assumes Gloriaís pretended commitment to constitutionalism and democracy. The pretense, however, is already wearing thin and we would not be surprised if one of these days she would dispense with the niceties of constitutional forms.
There is a growing delusion in Gloria, her political subalterns and her military minions that it is only they who are keeping this nation from disintegrating. This proto-fascist mentality has given rise to the cheating and terrorism in the elections, and the extra-judicial killing of critics and dissenters.
At its full-flowering, this mentality will brook no opposition. That is where the country is headed. The electoral exercise, we fear, would prove to be just a way station in the descent to tyrannical rule.
(Guest editorial from MNS)
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Editor’s Note: REUBEN S. SEGURITAN has been practicing law for over 30 years. For further information, you may call him at 212 695 5281 or log on to his website at www.seguritan.com
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2 Fil Am families differ on death penalty
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CHICAGO, Illinois – The two Filipino American families, who lost their sons in a massacre of seven people at a suburban Palatine, Illinois restaurant more than 14 years ago, are not looking on the same page whether to impose death penalty on their sons’ killer or let him suffer in prison for the rest of his life.
Jade Solis, younger sister of Rico L. Solis, one of the massacre victims, told this reporter outside the courtroom of Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan (pronounced, GUN) May 16 that her family is not joining the call of the family of Michael C. Castro, one of the massacre victims, to spare the life of convicted mass murderer Juan Luna.
Earlier, Evelyn L. Urgena, the widowed mother of Rico Solis by her first husband (Gregorio Solis), of Makati City in the Philippines, was so frustrated with the snail pace of the trial, telling this reporter, “why do we even have this trial?” The trial has been going on for the last five weeks.
At a news conference last May 15, Mary Jane Crow, whose brother, Michael Castro suffered the most bullet wounds in the 1993 Brown’s Chicken murders, joined Luna’s relatives outside the Cook County courthouse to protest the convicted killer’s possible execution. The press conference was arranged by the De Paul Students Against Death Penalty led by Elliot Slosher.
“Violence does not end violence”
Saying that taking Luna’s life will not lessen her family’s anguish, Ms. Crow said, “it doesn’t kill our pain. It only kills one person. Violence does not end another violence.”
When Luna and his friend, James Degorski, were charged with multiple murder in 2002, Ms. Crow’s father, Manny Castro of Bulacan in the Philippines, vowed to “pull the plug” if Luna and Degorski were convicted of murdering her brother, Michael, and six others. Degorski is going to be tried separately.
But a day after 12 jurors found Juan Luna guilty last week, Manny Castro said his son’s convicted killer should rut in jail—alive!
Last May 15, the jury ruled that Luna is eligible for death penalty after it was established that the killing was attended by two of the four aggravating circumstances to merit death penalty – one was the multiple murder was committed while committing another felony – robbery – and the other was the death of more than two people. The jury could not come to an agreement whether the two other aggravating circumstances -- “cold and calculated” and premeditated – were present.
Prosecution rests
The prosecution led by Cook County State’s Attorney Richard A. Devine rested their case May 16 after presenting two more witnesses – Anne Lockett, the girlfriend of Degorski, who testified that Luna once electrocuted a cat with a car battery and another former friend, Eileen Bakalla, who described how Luna killed a kitten by tossing it on a leash from a car while another drove at 55 mph. She said Luna had thought it would be funny to watch the kitten try to run alongside the car.
Dana Sampson, a daughter of the Ehlenfeldts, spoke directly to Luna, asking, “I wonder, Juan, what do you tell your son?
Defense Attorney Clarence L. Burch told this reporter the defense started presenting May 16 their witnesses, among them were Brenda L. Sanchez and Jorge Luna, sister and brother, respectively, of Juan Luna, who testified on the impact of the loss of Juan Luna; a prison coordinator (Roger Cowan) and a psychologist (Bruce Frumkin).
Luna is charged with the seven counts of first-degree murder in the Jan. 8, 1993 shooting slaying of Richard Ehlenfeldt, 50; his wife, Lynn, 49; Tom Mennes, 32; Marcus Nellsen, 31; Michael Castro, 16; Guadalupe Maldonado, 46; and Rico Solis, 17. Luna, 33, allegedly also slit Lynn Ehlenfeldt’s throat. Degorski, 34, faces the same charges but will be tried separately. Both faces death penalty if convicted.
No death sentences have been carried out in Illinois since the former Illinois Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in 2000.
(lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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IS “the genie out of that cursed bottle?”, asked the Inquirer’s May 6 editorial on summary killings and abductions, as in the Jonas Burgos case. . “The President gives an order and nothing happens. Or rather, the same thing happens again and again”. Shouldn’t the question be rephrased?. Who threw away the cork?
The President keeps the genie bottled, protests Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.. “Biased”, he said of Arcbhishop Oscar Cruz’s comment: Despite the President’s “ceremonial investigations,” mayhem continues. “The Commander in Chief is no longer in command… She simply accepts what” the military does.
“Comment is free,” Manchester Guardian’s C.P. Scott once wrote. “But facts are sacred.” Spike those bloated tallies by communist fronts. The fact remains the body count has bolted. Thus, European Union Ambassador Alistair MacDonald reached for an undiplomatic but apt adjective: “shocking”.
You’ll have to pardon Archbishop Cruz. He’s handcuffed to the example set by Pope John Paul II. In Malacanang, the Pontiff told Ferdinand Marcos to his face: “Government can not claim to serve the common good when human rights are not safeguarded.”
“Under Marcos, military murder was the apex of a pyramid of terror – 3,257 were killed, 35,000 tortured and 70,000 incarcerated,” Alfred McCoy writes in “Closer Than Brothers” ( Yale University ) That is lower than Argentina’s 8,960 victims but exceeds the 2,115 extra-judicial deaths under General Pinochet in Chile…The Filipino-English dialect coined the neologism ‘salvaging’ to capture the aura of terror…”
“The armed forces were no longer the servant of the state…Brutal and brutalized, the genie “became the bastion of a particular regime.” Young lieutenants – Gringo Honasan, Rodolfo Aguinaldo, Victor Batac and others tortured in “national
security’s” name. “The Metrocom Intelligence and Security Group produced some of the most fearsome and brutal cops in memory…Panfilo Lacson joined MISG right after his PMA graduation and rose through its ranks, for the next 15 years, on a fast track to national police power.”
As in Argentina and Chile, the military here wrung impunity for crimes and coups from the fragile post Edsa One democracy. “Torturers were transformed into heroes”. And despite lonely protests from Senator Franklin Drilon, amnesty was given even for “death squads of PMA graduates led by their barons”, the study adds.
Impunity has consequences. Masterminds of Benigno Aquino’s murder haven’t been brought to book. And it’s legacy spans generations. The Magdalo mutineers were a handful, editor Marites Vitug says in a Christian Science Monitor interview. Many officers work by constitutional values. But others continue to see themselves “as a fiefdom outside normal national law.” This lack of accountability stokes some of the country’s long-running conflicts.
Impunity surging through a weak state, wracked by insurgency and resurgent political warlords, triggered blood lust.
Orphaned by People Power One, communist leaders unleashed pogroms: “Kadena de Amor” in Quezon-Bicol (1982), “Kampanyang Ahos” in Mindanao (1985-86), “Operations Missing Link” in Southern Tagalog (1988) “Olympia” in Metro Manila ( 1998-99 ), among others. Commissars acted as prosecutors, judges and executioners.
How many victims did that psychotic nightmare claim? In a 2003 Inquirer interview, former Communist Party (CPP) chair Rodolfo Salas estimates 1,800 were executed. University of the Philippines Professor Walden Bello figures 700 killed in purges that netted five agents. Who knows? All the graves have not been located yet.
A decimated CPP ultimately halted the slaughter. But communists who quit the movement were salvaged to terrify others. Romulo Kintanar, Felimon “Popoy” Lagman and Arturo Tabara were cut down. “It’s sometimes necessary to kill the chicken to scare the monkey” Jose Maria Sison quoted Mao to justify Kintanar’s murder, Pierre Rousset writes in “The Post 1992 CPP Assassination Policy.” But Kintanar’s widow screamed at Sison: “Stop playing god.”
Like Khmer Rouge executioners, pogrom killers haven’t been held to account. Some are button-down executives in Makati today, survivors say. Reps. Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casino, Liza Masa are deaf to plea from relatives to locate killing field graves.
“The defense of human rights and human dignity… has to be impartial, irrespective of religious belief or ideology,” Catholic bishops noted in their 2006 statement. That includes areas barely touched upon by the Melo Commission or the UN’s Alston report, like executions in Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s Davao and Mayor Tomas Osmena’s Cebu.
In 2007, summary executions rippled out from Davao City to del Norte and Oriental, the Human Rights Commission says. Some 147 were killed in 2005, the US State Department reported. In Cebu City, the body count is 173 today. “Pervasive weakness in rule of law, official impunity, and the wide disparity between rich and poor contributed to cynicism about official justice”.
Cebu’s death squads improved on Davao: Two motorcycle teams back up for the pointman and executioners. Bounties are clipped from businessmen for community security. “Greater love than this no man hath than to lay down” someone else’s life for my peace and order.
Now, 99 judges will start to handle cases of salvaging and abductions. Decisions must be handed down within 30 days. This is welcome. Their performance will show whether impunity is ending. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find that cork.
(E-mail: juanl.mercado@gmail.
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Big election question: where did the money go?
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THE real story about the May 7 election may remain a mystery. It’s a story that may not ever see the light of day.
It’s a story that’s very common during election time. Funds are distributed as usual to buy votes. To pay off political leaders. To buy protection. But in ordinary elections, the amounts involved that slip through the cracks are ordinary amounts.
But during the electons just past, the amounts that were pocketed illegally and not distributed are reportedly staggering. The sums are humongous and those who pocketed them, we are sure, are still trying to solve the money-laundering problems of putting them away.
It’s ironic to realize that the money involved were likely larcenously pilfered from the public treasury. But the harm is that it did not go back into the economic stream, and thus did not benefit the masses who, whether we like it or not, are benefited by election spending.
The story is one of greed. We could imagine the change of mind which caused the trusted funnels to decide that it was time to line their nest eggs instead of lining their masters’ ballot boxes with illicit votes. It’s easy to imagine such a scenario once they realize from the public surveys that their masters are running out of time and will soon be ousted from power. It becomes time for them to heed the writing on the wall and try to grab what they can while the grabbing is good.
This development caused a big change in the outcome of the mid-term elections. Administration candidates were heard to complain that the spigots spewing out campaign funds tightened and slowed the outflow. Palace sources were heard to say it had something to do with the First Gentleman becoming immobilized by his recent hospitalization.
Reports leaked out, however, that a big-time political operator of the administration had something to do with the spigots tightening the money flow, which was deflected through another pipe going to nobody knows where. This development favored the senatorial candidates of the opposition who on their own had been funding their campaigns.
Members of the administration’s Team Unity, on the other hand, were adversely affected by their diminished funding. On top of this, they were saddled by the unpopularity of GMA. Similar funding problems affected the local administration candidates.
As far as the fate of GMA is concerned, a lot now depends on how the combined cheating machine of the Comelec and the military can turn the tide for the administration. The game now is how to dislodge the tail enders among the opposition in the magic 12 to accommodate the weaker members of Team Unity.
But wait for the final surprise of the opposition. After the Senate convenes, some former opposition who joined Team Unity, among them Joker Arroyo, Kiko Pangilinan and Ralph Recto, switched sides only for one reason. To be sure their votes will be counted. In the new Senate, they will show their true colors and become a part of the anti-GMA faction in the upper chamber. This should give GMA more sleepless nights during the balance of her term.
But is that it? Is the problem over for the opposition? They should still worry what the GMA-military combine will do for their Plan B.
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Michael J. Gurfinkel has been an attorney for over 26 years, and is an active member of the State Bar of California and New York, as well as the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Immigration Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has always excelled in school:
Valedictorian in High School; Cum Laude at UCLA; and Law Degree Honors and academic scholar at Loyola Law School, which is one of the top law schools in California.
WEBSITE: www.gurfinkel.com
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