“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

“The Power of the Individual Communicator in Changing the World”

This is the theme of the 1^st UP Broadcasters’ Guild Communication Convention which I attended last 29 January 2008 at the Balay Kalinaw Conference Hall with its sub-themes – instigate, innovate, inspire.The speakers were Nina Terol of YVOTE Philippines, Director Raymond Red, Howie Severino of GMA 7 and a lady teacher of UP.The attendees were students from various schools, professionals and less-than-a-handful alien guests (aside from this writer).The masters of ceremonies – Hazelyn Joy Bitana and Mark Vincent Telan – did a very good job as they flaunted their brand of UP education.

Offhand, the whole weight of the lecture centered around the power of the New Media.

Terol on the youth bloc, vote-wise

Her group, YVOTE is said to be an aggrupation of various youth and reform-minded organizations for 2010 and beyond via offline and online collaboration for voter’s registration and education.

Herself a UP alumnus of the IMC (Institute of Mass Communications) a decade ago, she zeroes in the theory of a “Generation We” or Web 2.0. with Barach Obama as its classic beneficiary.

A well-pointed out fact is that the emerging ‘citizen journalist’ has upset the social order through more access to information thus making any citizen an instant celebrity coming as one does from sheer anonymity or obscurity.

There are about 178 blogs in RP alone as Terol estimates and the mercurial rise not being far removed.Across the universe, on the other hand, there are about 184 million blogs as of March 2008 and with this configuration alone, it is clear that a ‘new people power has emerged’- as was read by Terol from the article of columnist Amando Doronilla.

Then, she invited attendees to join this ‘Social Revolution’ since Terol finds in that 48-56% of registrants in the 2010 as a potent ‘youth bloc’.

Red on Philippine cinema

Icon of modern Filipino alternative cinema, Red touched on the state of Philippine cinema vis a vis the new digital technology.Presenting a couple of video clips of his winning works, he likened film language in this way – a shot is a word, a group of shots is a sentence, and a series a paragraph.

True enough, film making as traditionally known is dying in the emerging order called the modern society.The new alternative cinema is at everybody’s finger tips and harnessing the power of the new technology ought to be a must with the burst of this dot.com babble.

While not one formally trained in film making, Red admitted having left UP as a first year fine arts student who got bored with a curriculum that has already been substantially taken up in his high school years.

Severino on ‘media dinosaurs’

Writer, producer, host – all rolled into one – Severino talked on press freedom as we know it today.

Referring to himself as one of ‘media dinosaurs’ (under threat of extinction, I guess), he outlined his professional career as journalist some decades back when as a high school teacher in Ateneo shooting scenes at EDSA was arrested and jailed during the Marcos regime.

His theory of ‘super-empowered individuals’ carries along with it a sense of responsibility against his own personal account of the various social revolutions that the media has gone through.Fact is, he traced media from that period of ‘antiquity’ to the state of modernity it is now – on both realms – Severino did not fail to have mastery.

Certainly, he has outlined the decentralization of the power of content production in media as he attached premium to the role of a well-rounded education required of all media practitioners.

Lady teacher waxes poetic

With self-generated high, the lady teacher of UP started off with the power of the new technology by soliciting would-be-questions from the audience to be texted to the members of Eraserheads and how answers are coming out – which she reads in between her discussion the transforming landscape in media today.

Perhaps, the most important thing she said was that – “every tool is a weapon if you use it right” – which means exactly that media practitioners do have responsibility reposed upon themselves.This is perhaps what Alex Magno calls ‘self-regulation’.

Summing up

Every once in a while, it is liberating to listen to subject matter experts if only to situate or mark the spot where the New Media finds itself today and the attendant role of all media practitioners against the backdrop of a fast-changing media landscape.

As one of questions asked in the open forum, it is clear that for now, anti-libel law extends its cruel reach up to the blogosphere – more for lack of existing protocols, I suppose.But this is more on the level of intuition – so yet.There is yet to be a template on how indeed anti-libel law can invade a different realm to tame a different beast.

All told, there is a media revolution and the Old Media necessarily has to adopt with the New Media.The age of the betacam, filmed-cameras, typewriters, and all that – is entirely gone.Today, everyone can be a journalist, an artist, a film maker, a director, a producer – all in the same mold as a Terol, a Red, a Severino.

Perhaps, the next crop of topnotch media practitioners will come from the trash and garbage of imploding and exploding media production activities – its reach global, its effect unprecedented, its goal basic.With the new media revolution is borne a bunch of media revolutionaries in – us, all of us.

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman, Quezon CityEmail:nielsky_2003@yahoo.com

Congressional earmarks under Obama

A ban on earmarks has closed the doors for otherwise unwise federal spending.This is said to have been ordered by President Obama in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill that is apt for voting.Until it becomes a law, no one yet knows what formulae may have been laid down on how funds so appropriated will be spent.Bottomline, it is presumably designed so that funneling money to pet projects will be a little bit difficult for lawmakers, interest groups, even lobbyists.

As we all know, only Congress provides such funds or earmarks for projects or programs based on allocation process largely being determined by the congressmen themselves thereby curtailing the ability of the Executive Branch to properly manage the funds.

The case of US and RP come from the same mold – our legislative traditions being carbon copy of the West.As defined, earmarks are funds under congressional direction since by tradition, they have become discretionary spending.Now, Obama appears set to make federal spending transparent such that there will be a system that will let the public track exactly where the stimulus money goes.Democrat lawmakers, it is said, even devised an elaborate oversight system that can review how such monies are spent.

In the Philippines, the same is true.Congressmen are always heard to say – they have no hand on how the money is being spent because precisely, a department or office is being designated as the implementing agency for every kind of project or program – not the congressional office itself.But on the ground, we know that congressmen actually do have a more than direct hand since it has become of public knowledge that they derive commissions, kickbacks, and ‘goodies’ from their so-called soft and hard projects.

Will the ban on earmarks be able to make government accountable on how money is being used?This, at the very least, is the intention on Obama’s ban to an infamous practice known as ‘earmarking’.It shall give professional lobbyists in US a hard day figuring out ways and schemes to grab a share of the money for the supposed-to-be clients.What exactly are the new rules if they are said to have been configured indirectly than directly?”Call to mind that superlobbyist Jack Abramoff gave earmarks a bad name and he was in fact imprisoned in the 2004 scandal.It gave spending committees the euphemism – to be dubbed as “The Favor Factory”.

As a result, not few lawmakers themselves are doing the rounds – lobbying from governors, state and local officials who have a say or hand over the funds so they can have a bite of the budget pie.Certainly, $825 billion must cause some trickle-down-effects over their respective cities or districts and constituencies.Everyone now await how the formula will look like and how they can grab an opportunity for themselves for some monies to be parceled out in their favor.This much is known – that some $358 billion will be for road, water, energy programs and others such as transportation projects in high-unemployment areas.

Certainly, members of Congress have a wish list or have outlined their project priorities.Under the ban, one observer thinks that there will be ‘a lot of projects that are not going to pass the smell test” which means that under the modified formulae, some projects that are supposed to be tracked may have to be listed in some uncharacteristic legislative language so as not to invite suspicion from the public.Fact is, projects may have to be listed not in terms of detailed specifics but in more generalized terms.Otherwise, one might be searching where that proverbial “Bridge to Nowhere” could be verified.

The US Conference of Mayors had likewise some $150 billion in so-called “ready-to-go” projects that quickly became fodder for criticism.Or so because it included money for Miami water park and a skate park in Portland, Maine?On the other hand, another group, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials eyed some $64 billion for projects not remotely mentioned thus making it difficult to criticize any item in the list.

Not few believe, no matter what happens, Obama’s earmark ban could always be circumvented.Lobbyists can in fact skirt the ban however way it goes – upfront, transparent to secretive or non-specific.Understandably, this ban has been Obama’s response against earmarking that has run the whole gamut of federal spending.The US economic meltdown has been traced to overspending that has characterized the American psyche.Further, it is said that congressional earmarks and pork-barrel spending have undermined state local decision-making, this according to Dr. Ronald Utt.

To think that pork-barrel spending in US is over a hundred year old – what further harm can it do vis a vis a global economic crisis sparked by the richest country in the world?Aside from a well-defined appropriation for Members of Congress as it is with the Senate, our Filipino lawmakers can have the best of both worlds – pork barrel funds as one and ‘earmarks’ or appropriation bills as another.Earmarks in the context defined brought about the recurrence of so-called ‘payola’ for bills wherein government has some high stakes and where private sector has stakes, lobby money which oftentimes cannot be “smelled” is the name of the game.

All told, we wish Obama can start right a work in reconstructing America and pull it away from an almost predictable economic sinkhole.Ironically, we have heard the government of PGMA asked for the same stimulus bill.I thought Executive Secretary Ermita said Obama will learn a lesson or two from PGMA?In the case of Philippine Senate, the closest example we can give of a congressional earmark would have been the P200 million appropriation for the C5 – appropriated not once, but twice.So who says RP is lagging behind in congressional earmarks, pray tell?

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman, Quezon City

Military elites – emerging power bloc?

The increasing number of former military officers receiving presidential appointments to key and sensitive positions in the civil service may indeed be a cause of alarm.Not few senators pushed panic button questioning a case of “creeping militarization” in mainstream bureaucracy.For them, this is read as a prelude to martial law of possibly the Marcosian type since most quarters see in the charter change move a hidden mechanism for PGMA to perpetuate herself in power beyond 2010 – true or not.

Fact is, Sen. Mar Roxas was first to air concern – all so because he says that millions of Filipinos can no longer trust the president and more so because those chosen for juicy positions are known to have been involved in one form of unlawful act or other.In particular, Mar Roxas shares suspicion that the appointment of a certain Vice Admiral Tirso Danga to the National Printing Office in charge of accountable forms might be a plot to manipulate the printing of ballots to benefit the administration for the 2010 elections.

Perhaps, indeed this comeuppance challenges reflection.So we have a Palparan to head either PDEA or the Dangerous Drugs Board, this despite his reputation for the summary executions and disappearances of left-leaning activists and who should in fact be the subject of criminal prosecution as Sen. Pimentel said.We have Esperon, former Chief of Staff of AFP, to take over Presidential Management Staff which directly manages formulations of projects and policies of the president.Worse, that Tirso Danga is sure to get the post as head of the National Printing Office despite his role in the “Hello Garci” controversy.

And who else are in the existing list of presidential appointees?It may be interesting to run them down very quickly, to wit:Ermita as Executive Secretary, Carillo as military adviser, Isleta as presidential assistant, Rabonsa as director of Office of Civil Defense and NDCC administrator, Atutubo as MIAA assistant general manager, Cunanan as chair of Social Security System, Maligalig of the Reform Armed Forces Movement as head of Bataan Shipyard, Lomibao as LTFRB chief, Aglipay as chair of Philippine Retirement Agency, Ebdane as public works secretary, Mendoza as transportation and communication secretary, Lastimoso as director of Metro Rail Transit Corp., Reyes as energy secretary, Abaya as chair of Bases Conversion Development Authority, Santiago as the controversial PDEA chief, Cimatu as special envoy to Middle East, Abu as ambassador to Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia, Senga as ambassador to Iran, Macaspac as presidential adviser on police affairs, Fianza as head of the Philippine Racing Commission, Querol as ambassador to Indonesia, and De Leon as ambassador to Australia.Perhaps, there are a fairly significant number as middle level executives in government.

Why the bias for appointing retired military and police officers, some of whom, have figured in some reported controversies?Does this give PGMA the much-needed security blanket since she has not since recovered from a consistently negative trust ratings as shown by surveys of polling circuits?Or, is there a continuing plot – as most people suspect – that she plans not to step down from office after 2010 but to stay in power?What really is the beef in all these developments that apparently are already sending ‘shark-attacks-effect’ on our political beach?

In our study of military elites under Dr. Carolina Hernandez, it has never been disputed that the Philippine Military Academy has always been the prime source of regular officers in the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the extent that one can say that PMA graduates, are in fact, our military elites in this country.While this view may not have to be disputed, it is not to say however that there are inherent dangers that only a small number of officers run the affairs of a much larger segment in the entire officer corps of the AFP who in this case are – the non-Peemayers.

For fact is, not only in the Philippines does it happen that military officers are appointed in the civil service.Some governments in Asia also are into this – recruiting them in key cabinet posts and sensitive agencies on account of their rather well-rounded qualification as tested good managers wherever they may be assigned.And this should be understandable since the military is one of two management models, the other one being the church.It is in these two institutions that seniority is sacred and the hierarchy is revered.

Still, our problem rests on the fact that appointing former generals in the AFP or PNP for ambassadorial posts may run contrary to already existing protocols for foreign service officers at the Department of Foreign Affairs.It would have been enough to have military attaches in the active service in countries where the Philippines has close military ties.Ambassadorial posts must necessarily come from the crop of foreign service officers.

Perhaps, the Civil Service Commission must be taken to task.It must be reposed the oversight function to maybe, see to it, that integration of former military generals and officers in civilian agencies of government has also met the requirements set under our Philippine Civil Service System.At the very least, we do not need to infuse the military mind in most agencies of the civilian government since military service has a different ontological existence with civilian service as they are worlds apart. We know that somehow, life in the military is like a camp where eunuchs just allow things to happen in blind obedience to command.What if PGMA’s former PSG commander becomes the next AFP chief of staff?Pray tell, what wish will not be fulfilled from her majesty, the Queen?

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

Email:nielsky_2003@yahoo.com

Obama’s inaugural speech

The inaugural speech flips a new page in world history in that President Barack Obama stands as the first black American president the US has ever had.The 20-minute speech amidst a revering audience of over a million crowd gathered around the magnificent Mall in Washington, D.C. may very well have drawn the outline of what governments around the world and leaders would expect from an Obama’s presidency.It gives a bird’s eye view on how Obama will start work in remaking America this day and beyond.Compared perhaps to Obama’s victory speech, this latter one comes only as the work of genius if not of a wordsmith par excellence.

Against the backdrop of what the more renowned statesmen from around the world have so far said, there is luminous sign that there is more than high enough confidence Obama has inspired from everyone in the global community – from every man to every woman to every child; from every government to every nation to every ally; and from every friend to every foe to every tribe.True enough, the historic message will be the first social document historians and serious observers of trends will browse back over after perhaps Obama’s 100 days in office.The whole world will be watching each week and month and year to vet how the crisis the world is into has been confronted with under Obama’s so-called regime of change.

Noticeably, the first few words that come of Obama’s well-delivered speech are the words prosperity and peace in the context of an understandable crisis as a consequence of violence and hatred which he did not fail to describe in graphic details as when he said – “Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered.Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”And Obama gives us a sigh of relief in that despite or in spite of these more than real but serious challenges, he tells, as he did tell – “But know this, America – they will be met.”What can be more reassuring if inspiring than that for all the people of the world to hear?

Obama appears to embrace a worldview with strong solid moorings in history as whenhe echoed and re-echoed the ‘sacrifices borne by (their) ancestors’, the ‘ideals of (their) forebearers’, and more emphatically, ‘the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.’Perhaps, Obama’s deep sense of humility sparks a light as when he said that the greatness of America is ‘never a given.On the other hand, ‘it must be earned.’

This sense of history has also been reflected in Obama’s all- consuming consciousness not to fail to acknowledge the men and women whom he thinks have carried America and its people up the ‘long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom’ without even as much as appearing to express some sentiment reminiscent of Old America or whipping a word of what then Abraham Lincoln recited in the American public.Truth is, the sweatshops where workers labor; the armed services where military personnel were called to fight and die; the many unknown risk-takers, doers and makers of things – in search of a new life – these were the very people that inspired Obama to a journey that starts on that historic 20st of January in the year of our Lord.

Incidentally, the following words might have to constitute the most beautiful line in that inaugural speech of a young eloquent orator whose charisma touched everyone as when he said – “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works – whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”In so far as other part of the script is written, Obama did not fail to air fair warning against the ‘consequence of greed and irresponsibility’ and thus warned those who manage public dollars to spend wisely and for them to do business in the light of day in order to restore people’s trust in government.To think that in RP, corruption has actually crawled in every layer of the bureaucracy – this warning should serve notice that America does not tolerate nor countenance any shade of greed and irresponsibility as it is most incompatible with US’ leadership by examplein this avowed new era of responsibility, new age.

Did not Obama quite eloquently aired the call against corruption.He said – “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”Even more eloquently stated, Obama espoused those basic truths which are nothing more than the old values that every well-meaning president will advocate.

To me, the speech is first and foremost, well-thought out and written by presumably Obama himself.While generally abstract, it comes to the average mind as full of meaning, clear in mental images, and strikes a popular cord that most peoples, most leaders and most governments cannot but all embrace and adhere to.The characteristically strong sense of history that the man behind the speech has indicated only tells us that with the elementary recognition of freedom as a gift if not a legacy left by those who fought for America; the return to basic truths or old values that reflect America – past, present, and future; and the a priori knowledge of a God all will serve as the survival kit in the face of a common danger.Obama, from where I sit, will usher us in a world of peace, prosperity, and freedom.The speech serves as a basic textbook for governance.Perhaps, it is also a cognitive map to see how the ship of America sails in the high seas.Bon voyage!

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman, Quezon CityEmail:nielsky_2003@yahoo.com

Old vs. new media

It is most unfortunate that the so-called Valley Golf war has been reduced to as the classic example of the excesses of blogging based on an apparently one-sided blog of the person party to the feud.Columnist Alex Magno points an accusing finger that not few journalists have in fact joined the bandwagon hate campaign against the other party in the case to later make apologies as well-meaning journalists unlike bloggers or that lynching mob that never did give a damn hoot after having arrived at some biased conclusions sans the facts.This is not to say however that Magno’s own personal view could be anywhere conclusive of the facts since on purpose, his column, ‘Self-regulation’ failed to discuss about the crucial part where more than sufficient force may have in fact been applied against the persons of the aggrieved parties.

We cannot generalize from a singular instance but from more specimens.One blogger’s blog could not have warranted Magno’s mistaken belief that bloggers are every professional journalist’s nightmare.This (un)thinking betrays his knowledge of blogging and carries his own parochial bias as adherent of the Old Media.In any case, the same stones can be thrown on the journalist’s window who, in more cases than few – have evolved as payroll employees of some corporate patrons or political bigwigs.Editors, publishers, columnists, and reporters are guilty of making biased coverage of news – some of the time – if only to go along the grain of what the limits of libel can allow.In this sense, self-regulation is to the Old Media what seeming deregulation is to the New Media.

Blogging emerges as a new phenomenon in the journalistic landscape – with luminous signs it can in fact replace the rather antiquated form of media.There is now a growing number of journalists invading the blogosphere to morph into bloggers of journalistic consequence as there are now bloggers reverting back to be the journalists they used to be – getting paychecks from the media outfits they belong.In this sense, we can say that the door to either the blogosphere or mainstream media is a revolving one.By Magno’ s rather uncharacteristic hardline underestimation of bloggers, the day shall not come to see one Alex Magno inches his way into the blogosphere – where true dialogue and debate situate themselves in the here and now configuration.The political analysts know too well what ‘balance of power’ means as it applies in this rather worn out debate between bloggers and journalists.

There is a mass of literature delving on the subject that in fact make clear distinctions between the New Media as distinguished from the Old Media, between bloggers and journalists, and that paradigm shift from a single empire to any number of centers of power and influence brought about by weblogs.For instance, Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog” or Mark Glasers’ “Bloggers vs. Journalists is over” – among others, may be instructive in a fuller understanding of the fulfilling dimensions of the blogosphere vis a vis mainstream media.

Apparently, the tsunami story marks the turning point in the paradigm shift to blogging to the career journalists’ imminent peril.It is said that in blogging, there had been a shift in social location if not an amendment to the so-called public service franchise and where the whole traditional conception of “the press” has expanded to the public at large – online than offline.So-called franchise has much been enlarged.No wonder then, that in no time, mainstream media or Big Journalism had been losing great people as they now ran out of room for their ideas.Thus, there is now a ‘culture change’, so to speak, owing to a paradigm shift that no longer makes professional journalism sovereign over the territory it once controlled. The content providers as typical of mainstream and content consumers as akin to the New Media are weighed against where the source comes and the trust it derives in this ‘open-source’ process as a given.

As what Steve Lovelady aptly said, the press “was hopelessly hobbled by some of its outdated conventions and frameworks”.Such changing attitude ought to have been responsible in this loss of editorial sovereignty and its own belief system summed up to have collapsed.Journalists have become a jealous lot in the apparently undiminished freedom that bloggers enjoy.Unlike journalists, bloggers don’t have a code of conduct for journalists but it does not mean, they all violate the bounds of ethical conduct or morality, do they?Unlike journalists, bloggers are not subject of editorial constraints but it does not mean they cannot self-regulate, does it?Unlike journalists, bloggers are content providers than journalists are willing to accept.Now it can happen, journalists would fish in the waters of bloggers first before they can come up with the more balance piece of writing.All told, professional journalism has lost its hegemony as the gatekeeper of news or opinions as its sovereignty in the older landscape has waned with the new technology.The old political contract between the content providers and the content consumers has now changed.The dissemination of news, information and opinions are no longer the exclusive domain of Big Journalism – it will soon be an empty room, gallons of ink will soon be unused, printing press will soon not roar, ink will no longer blot in paper and so on.The day will come that nobody will buy newspapers anymore.It is almost to say that what journalists provide by way of news, information, or commentaries no longer approximate nor represent the truth, the belief, and much less voice of their readerships – no more.Such trained voice can no longer be heard since there are better voices in the wilder blogosphere.This, perhaps, is the present state of the digital eco-system.

The audience of the press has been isolated so long – they cannot even participate without the same journalistic protocol used against them. Even if we gather 10 editors-in-chief from various newspaper brands and give them one type of exams, say edit a long-written prose.It is almost predictable that they will come up with entirely different piece of work. In the blogosphere, there is no such thing as a slaughterhouse for what the audience or bloggers would want to say. The audience becomes the butchers themselves.Each and every time a post or blog is posted, it is feast.And poor bloggers may have to back off or shut off.Anything takes over in terms of news content, information, and first hand accounts.This silly attempt of journalists to make of bloggers of their own image will go to naught.It is like fitting square pegs in round holes.The credentials of bloggers occupy no place of honor in the web and in professional journalism, reverence to who has written is more important than the ideas conveyed in the piece.It is like making of us horses with blinders.

The blogosphere will be here and now – for a long, long time.Blogs come as the better menu.

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman, Quezon CityEmail:nielsky_2003@yahoo.com

Random student drug testing?

The order of PGMA to launch nationwide random drug testing to students in both secondary and tertiary levels, occasioned as it was by the Alabang Boys’ controversy in recent memory – ought to have been carefully studied first since its implications are not few.

It was the Chairman of the Drugs Dangerous Board, former Senator Sotto who made this recommendation to the president apparently but it is easy enough to doubt if this move could have been founded on some empirical data such that the drug menace has already crawled in every school environment.But existing data tell us that random drug testing done in the past only yielded a negligible occurrence at even less than !% of those randomly drug-tested.

In the US military, drug testing was resorted to and yielded a drop from 30% to 2% and in the US workforce, from 18% to 4%.This ought to be the kind of historical backdrop against which a random drug testing must be proposed.Theoretically, it is an exercise in futility and graphically even absurd if not stupid to have to reduce a possible incidence of less than 1% to an even much lesser rate since it tells us offhand, that the drug menace so-called is a myth.Which part of the equation would we have to change here, pray tell?

Offhand, the order is therefore barking up on the wrong tree and Chairman Sotto should not have as much as moved to go into this kind of approach since it throws suspicion wholesale – that in every school, there is an x population of drug users to drug pushers which could be rendered false by a more scientific survey.

The Commission on Human Rights simply thinks it is violative of human rights and when it did think so, this positional view alone should have made it impossible for the proposal to gain any headway.The CHR chair cited specific provisions in the Constitution as well as that of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that would be violated by this executive order.No less than a former UP Law Dean thinks there is no legal basis for a random drug testing and the President of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila shared the same view.How then that we have always thought that the right against self incrimination and the right to privacy are our inviolable rights as citizens of this country?

We then find two institutions not wanting to heed the stand of the Commission on Human Rights on the matter, not wanting to know what the former UP Law Dean and the PLM President have to say.Why would Department of Education have to respond to this order come March 2009?What compelling reason, if any, had the Dangerous Drugs Board have as would justify such a proposal which incidentally, got the president’s approval?

Our problem with knee jerk reactions of this nature is that in the end, it achieves nothing – it will not prove to be preventive, deterrent, nor reductive.At the very least, what existing surveys would validate that students’ substance use has already surfaced as the number 1 concern?Did DDB Chair point to a specific study that validates his proposal?

Absent that, it would have been best that a more thorough preliminary work should have first been undertaken so that better approaches, except this random drug testing, could be tried.What reasons had Sotto for him to believe that students in all schools across the land are into drug abuse or trafficking as the case maybe?Certainly, the case of the Alabang Boys could not have given him the indubitable basis for such a proposal, could it?

Executive Orders, while the sole prerogative of the President should first be studied very carefully and even more so with proposals being submitted especially where there are clear areas of concern that have to be addressed.In that sense, Chairman Sotto failed to provide reliable data that would sustain what he has proposed.Any number of paradoxes can be called to mind.Isn’t it the case that the COMELEC cannot even as much as compel candidates for elective positions to undergo drug testing?

Even when drug testing has been introduced to the American public, a strategy for the last 20 years, to the extent that then President Bush has to spend $15 million to subsidize the program, still major studies show that random drug testing to check student substance use has no deterrent effect. Clearly, this official pronouncement has no two legs to stand on and that it will be a waste of funds in the end since it becomes a whole guessing game.

With a student population at all levels being what it is today, what positive results could we find even if the order would be implemented when everyone can always plan ahead in any case?In fact, the case of the US Supreme Court’s upholding as constitutional drug test to athletes and students involved in competitive extracurricular activities should also be sufficient to tell our leaders that we should not apply random drug testing as a shotgun approach since it will not work.

Certainly, we doubt that this order will be recalled especially so that we now have an overzealous Department of Education as well as a Department of Health and Commission on Higher Education reacting patronizingly.As far as we know, similar drug testings being required for other such purposes have become a profitable cottage industry – driver’s licence, firearms license, whatever.

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman, Quezon CityEmail:nielsky_2003@yahoo.com

Alabang boys – big drug syndicate?

Are the so-called Alabang Boys – Brodett, Joseph, & Tecson – arrested by PDEA’s field agents on a reported legitimate buy-bust operation undertaken separately in posh Ayala Alabang and in Araneta Center aptly fall under the classification of a big drug syndicate who source their drugs from as far as America via e-commerce or online?This readily runs counter to certain sociological facts that these young individuals did excel in their respective schools academically which just don’t come together with drug use and its social implication.

If PDEA’s rather self-serving claim were to be believed, would the evidence of – 60 ecstasy tablets, 11 sachets of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, marijuana grinder and weighing scales (based on Manila Times reports) – have constituted or approximate a labeling of a big drug syndicate?And how much did the alleged poseur-buyer agent of PDEA have to pay for all these prohibited stuff to tell us how big time the drug operation is and how intricate the case build up was as claimed by PDEA’s chief of special enforcement services or Major Ferdinand Marcelino?Did we hear if the purchase by PDEA breaches the million-peso mark?

In Arnold Clavio’s interview with Major Ferdinand Marcelino in Unang Hirit this 6^th of January 2009, it has become rather conveniently clear that there was not a P50-million bribe as could be claimed any more than a mere P3 million on a dubious telephone offer by one claiming to be close to the suspects if not affiliated with the DOJ by Marcelino’s own quite misleadingaccount.This telephone conversation did occur allegedly while Marcelino was interrogating the detained suspects in front of their parents and families.But Marcelino failed to supply the facts or details being asked by Arnold Clavio than to merely validate what ought to have been hearsay or a prank call.For one, Marcelino doesn’t have to be too promising to reveal other ‘facts’ in court.

Further, when Arnold asked him whether the suspects were armed, Marcelino admitted that they were not except it was not determined at the time of the chase.The PDEA fired upon the suspects’ vehicle in an alleged 15-minute chase albeit nothing has been shown that there was any threat to the PDEA agents as would imperil their lives.At least, nothing except that again PDEA did claim in newspaper reports that the suspect was about to ram his car to the PDEA agents.And that may have scared the wits out of skilled PDEA agents?

In a supposedly intricate case build up, there ought to have been no doubt at all whether or not the suspects bear firearms along with the supposedly stuff of high value that should be protected – the prohibited drugs.But it seems that even the discovery of this stuff as claimed to have been found anywhere in the car in what is supposedly an illegal procedure is not one to indicate how legitimate the operation was.Nothing was clear whether or not in the buy-bust operation, there was real indubitable evidence that Mr. X pays Mr. Y a clear amount of money in exchange of a clear amount of goods.Chances are, haste makes waste here.

In the end, there ought to be some kind of fiction work somewhere.At the very least, it is clear that the chief of PDEA did resist having to implement the resolution of the DOJ secretary that dismissed the case for lack of sufficient evidence.Arnold Clavio may have asked the more commonsensical questions except that the PDEA’s chief of special enforcement services did not measure up to confront them with good enough answers expected of a person in authority who is supposed to have full knowledge of the just concluded activity or project.

PDEA’s version might soon fail to pass the litmus test.The PDEA’s claim that the group has international connections contradicts their own admission that this group operates in Metro Manila and only as far as Baguio.From where I stand, we have reason not to be convinced that indeed lawyer Jacqueline Verano may just be right in saying that the buy-bust operation is deemed illegally undertaken and more so without a legitimate warrant for such arrest and subsequent detention without charges having been filed.Moreover, Verano may just be right in claiming that the constitutional rights of the accused have been brazenly violated since they were not read the Miranda rights by the arresting PDEA agents.

The circumstances on that part where PDEA opened fire at the alleged suspects without them having been fired upon by the same should really be looked into in a subsequent reinvestigation to see the light of day on this rather incomprehensible version of PDEA.Santiago is even heard to have said that the suspects should have stopped when fired upon without telling us candidly whether there could have been guarantee that if it did happen, the PDEA would have also automatically ceased firing at them.His statement just does not make any sense at all.

In this so-called sensational drug case, we just do not know what version to believe.For one, that from PDEA cannot prescribe since there is no overwhelming evidence that they are the kind of individuals or suspects who we can normally tag as drug pushers or drug users for that matter.If event organizers with deceiving network of high-end socialites are to be tagged as conduit in international drug operations, then let us simply validate it with more than sufficient amount of evidence – pound for pound – that we may believe what PDEA is really doing.That part that says Marcelino has just booted out his own agents involved in bribery might tell us that there are yet PDEA field agents whom he must determine to have been bribed.

PRIMER C. PAGUNURAN

UP Diliman, Quezon CityEmail:nielsky_2003@yahoo.com