See EU Later Indeed

Killing Mary Jane

Mary Jane Veloso, if you remember, was a Filipina who was caught smuggling heroin into Indonesia. The punishment for such a crime in Indonesia is death.

"Outrageous!" was the cry of the masses. "Human rights!" Filipinos, many of whom travel overseas, sympathized with her. She was the right character for the story that was to be told for mass consumption. Ah yes, the poor, exploited Filipino overseas worker. We all know that one. Her case made headlines and the government gave this incident more attention than it usually does in matters concerning the Filipinos' well being. Hell, even Manny Pacquiao visited her and gave her some money and a bible or something. Back then, Pnoy wanted a nice feel-good story to give his numbers a little boost. It kind of worked. Her execution was stayed while the rest of the other foreigners who were caught were met their ends.

What's the point of this?

Apparently, society now feels that it is morally acceptable to summarily execute criminals, especially those involved in drug-related crimes. Therefore, it ought to have no problem then with Mary Jane getting the axe. Why not?  Just smoke her ass. Bang! Bang!

Before you cry about how she was duped and how it was someone else who planted the drugs, think on what you're crying about. You're arguing for her innocence, yes? Evidence? Circumstances? Isn't that what people typically do in, hmm what was it called? A trial? Oh yeah. So she gets a trial because she's sympathetic enough to you but the regular filth on our streets don't? In this way, supporting Duterte's plan to kill the bad guys without a trial yet trying to find reasons to keep Mary Jane alive after she's been found guilty in a court, is hypocrisy.

There is the central conceit that lies in the heart of Duterte and his fans' support for extrajudicial killings. The conceit is that the people that are going to be (and are being) killed are all, without exception, irredeemable scumbags who are nothing like the saintly Mary Jane. We know "deep in our hearts" that Mary Jane is innocent just as we all know "deep in our hearts" that the weekly corpse on the street was no doubt guilty as sin. Feelings. Because that's what it all comes down to doesn't it, when you take due process out of the equation? It all comes down to how good the sob story of the wrongdoer is. If Indonesia were to adopt our mentality, Mary Jane would have been shot shortly after the discovery of the drugs and Joko Widodo would have taken a page from Duterte and told us to go fuck ourselves.

Oh but we're only going to kill the really bad guys like drug lords. Uh huh. The Davao Death Squad didn't kill only drug lords. Don't be naive. It's mental programming. "Drug lord" is mentioned a lot so that when we hear about how some alleged criminal got shot, we've already been trained to imagine him as the worst of the worst regardless of the circumstance. It's classical political strategy to paint your intended victim in the worst possible extreme. Imagine the Indonesian media painting a not so flattering picture of Mary Jane as yet another  disrespectful foreigner among many, feigning ignorance  and bringing the drug menace to their country. See? It's all a matter of perspective. Feelings. We feel you're either innocent or guilty.

It may seem I'm against the killing of criminals but it's a little complicated. I'll explain my stance another time.

Just wanted to rant.

Deadline

If there's one thing I can definitely say that Pnoy and his ilk were very good at during their reign, it was their skill at destroying our government institutions. The latest institution to suffer a big blow to its credibility is the Commission on Elections, thanks to their phenomenally cynical move to extend the "unextendable" deadline to file candidate's Statement of Contributions and Expenditures at the Liberal Party's behest. Hmm. A deadline that can be extended, kind of defeats the purpose of a "deadline" don't you think?

Sheesh, what more can be said? The law is the law except when the powers that be say it isn't. Once again, its revealed that the game is rigged in favor of the lawbreakers. Isn't it time we, as a people, have done away with this palusot attitude? 

What was their reason for extending the time limit beyond for what the law allows? "Precedent" they said and also that they would not want to frustrate the "will of the people". What a tiresome phrase. "Will of the people" is the same excuse the SC made in allowing an American to run for the Philippine presidency. "Will of the people" sure sounds nice but think about it. If concern for not frustrating the will of the people is a valid excuse to do what they did, then what in God's name is the point of all the excessive rules and procedures the COMELEC has? Why make candidates jump through all those hoops if the "will of the people" is enough to brush all those questions aside. Now that's an idiotic precedent.

If not frustrating the electorate is such a concern, why not just fine the erring candidates? You don't have to stop them from taking office. A hefty fine and warning is a lot better than making it appear that you have zero integrity. I mean, what does integrity mean to the body in charge of running our elections? Poor optics.

You can make all the legal arguments you want until you're blue in the face but by now, you should have already figured out that we're living in a kind of soft tyranny where the law isn't what it is and can be bent to suit any purpose if the right price is paid.

Gnarls Barkley - St.Elsewhere

Two Cities

I was gone the last two and half weeks to visit relatives in California. That was my fourth trip to that state, I think, and the sense of excitement that you get from visiting America for the first time lessens every subsequent trip you make. Not to say the whole trip was a bad experience but your perspective changes and you begin to see that the problems first world people face are not that different from us here in the third world "developing" countries.

Take water for instance. Cebu was in the middle of a nasty drought when I left. The rains have come at last, for all the good (and ill) that brings, but rainfall in California has been inadequate for the past five years. You wouldn't know it from all the lovely green lawns in suburbia but elsewhere was a depressing swathe of brown. We passed a small wildfire in fact, on the highway. All that dead grass makes good kindling for a stray cigarette thrown from some careless tourist's car window.

Traffic too was noticeably worse than my previous visits though still not as bad as the traffic here in Cebu. Manila traffic is in a whole different level of hell, of course. But it was plain to see that the car culture that pervades L.A. and it's neighboring cities is pressing its limits. They still have much room to solve the problem unlike the conditions here where limited space, over-development and lack of government funds make solutions difficult. If only our political leadership cared more about the development of the city instead of their petty political feuds and pretentious posturing.

It was nice to see the rest of the family again.