Misuaris resurrection Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:18 AM November 12, 2016

The reason? Misuari was furious at having been excluded from the peace talks

that the administration of President Benigno Aquino III had initiated with the Moro

Islamic Liberation Fronttalks that appeared to be going swimmingly for a period

that the contours of a new Bangsamoro political entity replacing the ARMM was

under serious discussion. Misuari threw a tantrum at what he felt was his

enforced irrelevance by sanctioning his followers ramp age in Zamboanga. After 18

days of tension and violence, Zamboanga, a major economic hub in the South,

lay bleeding from the enormous damageparts of it in rubble, a number of

civilians dead, more than 100,000 people displaced.

A warrant was issued for Misuaris arrest but he disappeared, reportedly hiding

out in Malaysia. But early this year, sensing the political winds shifting with the

elections near and a sympathetic Mindanaoan candidate, Mayor Duterte of

Davao, bidding fair to become the Philippines next president, he emerged from

his jungle fastness and preened before his followers in an MNLF plenum in

Sulu.

Despite his wanted status, Misuari was apparently confident that his political exile

was about to end. True enough, among the first things the newly inaugurated

President Duterte signaled was his willingness to set aside the law and reinstate

Misuari as a serious partner in the peace process he envisioned for Mindanao.

Soon he called for the suspension of the warrant for Misuaris arrest and invited

the MNLF leader to visit Malacaang.

That visit came to pass a week ago, with Misuari flying out of Jolo in a private

plane and meeting the President in the Palace. Mr. Duterte even allowed him to
make his statement from the presidential podiuman unprecedented breach of

protocol, but one that Misuari lapped up as he expressed profuse thanks for the

political resurrection granted him by the administration.

Mr. Duterte may know something about Misuari that the public doesnt, hence his

fulsome accommodation of the former rebel. But there is the public record: Aside

from the Zamboanga carnage for which he still has to account, Misuari was a

failure as ARMM governor, frittering away the billions of pesos poured into the

region and basically botching the job that was given him as a virtual reward for

forging a peace agreement with the Ramos administration in 1996.

In other words, he had his chance, and he blew it. Why is the Duterte

administration now rehabilitating someone who has, at the very least, failed his

own people? If Mr. Dutertes aim is to be inclusive in his Mindanao peace

campaign, where are the similar overtures to the MILF and other stakeholders in

the region? How come Misuari appears to enjoy the favored earas if the

country hasnt learned its painful lesson from his track record?
 Kalipunan Ng
Editoryal Kartoon
Nobyembre, 2016
(Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Inihanda ni:
Allaiza Kate L. Banting
A84

Nobyembre, 2016
The Ramos factor Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:10 AM November 02, 2016

Malacaang on Monday night said it had not yet received official word from ex-
President Fidel V. Ramos that he was resigning his position as special envoy to
Chinabut the stories that went around over the long weekend only confirmed
what various members of the press already knew: The countrys oldest living
former president was, in fact, giving up the post. In itself this resignation is a
small matter; understood as part of an unmistakable pattern of calibrated
disavowments of Duterte administration policy, the resignation is a matter of
serious concern.
Ramos was among the influentials who helped convince President Duterte to run
for the presidency; in Mr. Dutertes inaugural address, the literal first words were
addressed, in thanksgiving, to the martial law enforcer-turned-Edsa hero.
So when Ramos used the occasion of the 100th day of the Duterte presidency
(itself a tradition that Ramos did much to establish) to mount a campaign of
candid criticism against the Duterte brand of governance, the administration
listenedand did not launch an attack in return.
Ramos used his column in the Manila Bulletin to paint a sobering picture of
opportunities lost. In the overall assessment by this writer, we find our Team
Philippines losing in the first 100 days of Du30s administrationand losing
badly. This is a huge disappointment and let-down to many of us. The cause:
President Duterte failed to hit the ground running instead of being stuck in
unending controversies about extrajudicial killings of drug suspects and in his
ability at using cuss-words and insults instead of civilized language.
The former president also declined to join the Presidents historic state visit to
Beijingan occasion the special envoy to China would have been expected to
join. His conspicuous absence was a statement in itself; and his presence at
events where President Duterte dramatically announced a separation from the
United States would have been problematic. The West Point alumnus and
personal friend of the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin is an advocate of
closer Philippine-US military ties as well as a higher Philippine profile in
international affairs. Putting the Philippines on the map, he used to say.
His resignation as special envoy, then, was only a matter of time.
But now Ramos has written another trenchant criticism of Duterte administration
policythis time of President Dutertes inexplicable refusal to honor the countrys
commitment to (and many years of painstaking negotiation of) the landmark
climate change pact known today as the Paris Agreement.
The lead paragraph of his Oct. 24 column is as forceful as it gets. In his
consistently frequent insulting diatribes against the US, EU, and the UN, in which
President Du30 also keeps complaining against the December 2015 Paris
Agreement on Climate Change (crafted by 195 nations, the Philippines included),
he is unwittingly shooting himself in the mouth, and also all of us, 101.5 million
Filipinos. He may claim that to be more insulting than friendly to our long-
established allies is part of his God-given destiny. But, this is obviously wrong,
and full of S. T!!!.
Obviously, President Dutertes continued use of rude or undiplomatic language
has gotten under Ramos skin again; he is reduced to using the same enemy-
creating rhetoric.
But the larger point is Mr. Dutertes decision to jettison the decades of ultimately
successful climate change negotiation by the Philippines, in order to indulge his
idea that the Western nations have yet again managed to put countries like the
Philippines at a disadvantage. The truth is, President Duterte is wrong. Using all
capitals, Ramos argued that:
IT IS CLEAR ENOUGH (AND SHOULD BE READILY UNDERSTOOD BY
LEADERS) THAT THE PARIS AGREEMENT DOES NOT IMPOSE EMISSION
REDUCTION ON THE PHILIPPINES. SHOULD ANY COUNTRY DECIDE TO
EVENTUALLY BECOME A PARTY TO THE AGREEMENT, IT WILL ONLY BE
ASKED TO SUBMIT ITS NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTIONS,
WHICH ARE ESSENTIALLY SUCCESSIVE 5-YEAR CLIMATE PLANS THAT
WE CAN DETERMINE ON OUR OWN, ACCORDING TO OUR NATIONAL
CIRCUMSTANCES, DEVELOPMENT GOALS, AND DOMESTIC CAPACITY.
In other words, President Duterte misunderstands the Paris Agreement. And ex-
president Ramos has had enough.
Score: 10-0 Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:28 AM November 03, 2016

It was a shootout, police said of the killing of Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu
Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao, on Friday.

They had flagged down the mayors convoy of three vehicles at a checkpoint in
Makilala, North Cotabato, before dawn, police said, based on information that the
group will transport illegal drugs to Maguindanao and Cotabato.

According to the police report, the vehicles slowed down, and then the occupants
opened fire on the lawmen. But the group was outnumbered, the report said, and
Dimaukom and nine of his companions were gunned down while the police
themselves suffered no casualties.

The mayor was killed months after President Duterte made public a list of local
officials who, he said, were involved in drugs. The list of prominent personalities
and public officials allegedly in the drug trade was the administrations response
to criticism that the war on drugs had focused only on the small fryusers and
pushers in marginalized communitieswhile big-time drug lords and high-profile
users were conveniently ignored.
In September, Dimaukom and his wife presented themselves to PNP chief
Ronald dela Rosa and were duly cleared. Shortly, however, police raided the
couples compound, but found no illegal drugs or firearms.
Questions are popping up regarding the killing of Dimaukomalso known as
Mayor Pink for his predilection for this color that, he said, represented peace
and love, and which is the color of his mansion, the towns mosque and his
Hummer. And rightly so, considering the shoot-out score of 10-0.
With photos of the mayors convoy published in newspapers and posted on
social media, citizens want to know how, for a group supposedly fleeing a
checkpoint and opening fire at the police, the vehicles could be parked so neatly
on the roadside instead of helter-skelter in the middle of the highway. And
wouldnt shooting at a checkpoint be done more efficiently when, again, the
vehicles were in the middle of the road?
The questions go on: If the shooting from the mayors group was unexpected,
why didnt the police suffer even a single casualty? If Dimaukoms bodyguards
were such lousy shots, how was it possible that they got jobs as security
escorts? At the same time, for an unexpected shootout, the police must have
been excellent marksmen. Else, why did many of the dead, according to their
relatives, take bullets in the head when they were supposedly fleeing the scene?
And, of course, the alleged shootout having occurred around 4 a.m. on a
deserted road, there is no other eyewitness account except that of the police.
Should the public take their word for it? But how many times has this scenario
been presented to explain away multiple killings by the police? Alleged drug
users killed while in custody have too often been described as attempting to grab
the lawmens firearms, so that they had to be gunned down in self-defense. It
doesnt matter that their hands were cuffed behind them or they were so badly
beaten that they probably couldnt open their swollen eyes enough to see.
Predictably,
Dimaukoms vehicles yielded guns and drugs after a police search that, again,
had no other witnesses. At this point, a cynical public can well ask: Couldnt they
have come up with a better script?
A swift, independent inquiry into the killing of Dimaukom and his nine men is
definitely in order. Why kill the mayor when he had been cleared previously, and
when a raid of his home yielded nothing? Were the police out to get him? To
what end? Is it true what is being bruited about, that the police have to fill a quota
of drug arrests and fruitful searches to prove accurate the administrations
claimed figure of 3 million drug users? And whatever happened to the supposed
investigations of vigilante killings and other unsolved drug deaths? When will the
results be released?
Whim, not rule of law Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:34 AM November 04, 2016

For the first time since 2012, Filipino fishermen are back to fishing in the waters
of Panatag Shoala breakthrough made possible by President Dutertes state
visit to China last month. There is ambiguity over the terms of the agreement that
allowed Beijing to lift its blockade of Panatag (also known as Bajo de Masinloc or
Scarborough Shoal), or indeed whether there was an agreement in the first
place. This ambiguity is good in the short term, but dangerous for Philippine
interests in the long run.
It is good that fishermen like Aniceto Achina and Rodel David, with dozens of
others from Bataan, Zambales, and Pangasinan, have returned home with large
catches, and unharmed by Chinese coast guard personnel. As the Permanent
Court of Arbitration ruled, Filipino fishermen enjoy traditional rights to fishing in
Panatag, and China was wrong to block them from exercising those rights.
The development also allows Filipino fishermen who have been forced to sail
longer for smaller catches to focus their energies on the bounty in Panatag,
about 10 hours boat ride from the western coasts of Luzon.
We have prepared our boats for trips to other fishing grounds, but since some of
our fellow fishermen have started fishing at the shoal again, we will join them,
David told the Inquirer.
But the conditions that allowed the fishermen to return to Panatag are
mysterious. It was one of President Dutertes aims, in his visit to Beijing, to
impress upon his hosts the importance of lifting the blockade, but during his visit
he declined to sign any agreement to make the return of Filipino fishermen
possible. There was, simply, an understanding. Eventually, it became clear that
Philippine officials had opted out of a proposed agreement that would have
required the use of language like allow or permitwhich would have been
inimical to the Philippine position on Panatag.
And yet, despite the lack of any such agreement, Beijing did lift its blockade. It
seems clear now that Chinese coast guard vessels continue to stand guard in
Panatag, and there remains some questions over some Filipino fishermen who
were able to fish in the shoals interior waters. Dozens of fishermen have
returned to the area we define as part of Philippine territory, and have been able
to fish in peace.
But can we really say that this fact is, as argued vigorously on Facebook, a
victory, period? That would be to give too much credit to the Chinese, who are in
a position to block Filipino fishermen again, if they so wish.
The ambiguity is at best a temporary set of enabling conditions. It allows
President Duterte to claim satisfaction with the Chinese response; it does not
bind Philippine officials to any language that would recognize Chinese authority
over Panatag. At the same time, it allows Beijing to lift the blockade without the
need for a limiting document; it does not bind China to any course that would
prevent it from imposing the blockade again.
So the ambiguity is helpful in that carefully limited sense; for the longer term,
however, it puts the Philippines at a disadvantage. Having won a clear decision,
fair and square, about traditional rights to Panatag Shoal, the country would fritter
away the import and the consequences of that decision if it doesnt seek to apply
it.
Fisheries official Laureano Artagame told Reuters: There is already a decision
by the international arbitral court so why are the Chinese still there? That is
the question.
Yes, theres some leniency now, theres no more harassment. But there is still
anxiety, [the fishermen] still worry.
The problem with the return of Filipino fishermen to the waters of Panatag, then,
is that it is contingent on Chinese goodwill; it is at the mercy of Chinese whim,
rather than the rule of law.