Seven green and pro-people tips for GMA's removal

In light of the current NBN ZTE scandal, environmental activists from Kalikasan PNE offer seven handy tips for the Filipino people to keep in mind.

1.SEGREGATE the truth from lies, especially in the cases of the NBN ZTE, 'Hello Garci' tapes, Jose Pidal, and North Rail scandals, electoral fraud in the 2004 and 2007 polls, the extrajudicial killings of activists, and Presidential Proclamation 1017.

2.THROW THE TRASH WHEN IT STINKS. We can no longer ignore the truth that is coming out of the NBN ZTE and Hello Garci scandals. Now that the stink is finally out, it's high time to throw Pres. Gloria Arroyo along with all her denials, cover-ups, and deception in the trash bin of history.

3.REDUCE corruption in Philippine government, starting with the immediate removal of the largest, filthiest, and dirtiest one in Malacanang.

4.REUSE, RECYCLE and reinvigorate the calls for land reform, just wages and jobs, justice and human rights which the Arroyo administration mindlessly threw into the trash bin. Don't let the people's legitimate demands of the past six years go to waste.

5.PLANT THE SEEDS of social change by doing your civic duty to stop corruption, plunder of our national patrimony and government coffers, political repression, and human rights violations.

6.TAP THE BEST SOURCE OF RECHARGEABLE ENERGY in the form of people power and collective action!

7.CONSERVE ENERGY for the longer walks and rallies to come. Start walking hand in hand with family, colleagues, and friends and join the street protests calling for GMA's resignation now!

link: www.kalikasan.org

Going Green

(Or my preachy Hallmarky-card
contribution
for this year's Blog Action Day
for the Environment,
October 15--it's still 11:26 p.m.,
so I still beat the deadline! hah!)


Last year (or was it two years ago?),
green was the new pink in fashion.

now there's
something green
for everything that isn't:

black is the new green
for web surfers,
smokers can rejoice
with organic cigarettes.
male voyeurs even have
an environmentally-friendly FHM issue.

wanton consumers tote
eco-friendly shopping bags,
mining companies
have green technologies
to bore into mountains,
war economies
have environmentally-friendly bombs,
fuel-guzzling Western luxury cars
can bathe in bio-diesel
squeezed from the guts
of Third World toddlers
howling in haciendas.

so many things green
for realities that are not.

sometimes
we forget
that green
is not about
dollars
but really about
land to till
water for all
air and freedom
flames burning
for justice.

Green is
not about "changing the world"
in little ways
for big people.

Green is
changing the world
in big ways

for little people.

Sometimes,
Going green means seeing red.

The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam and other random news

Am sharing some amusing news bits I stumbled upon in the course of surfing for mining-related articles. Enjoy!

• Wikipedia's one of the best things about the web. I heart Wikipedia! But so did six employees from Japan's Department of Agriculture, who apparently hearted it so much that they spent more office hours on Wiki entries on billboard typos, movies, and Gundam than on administrative concerns. See this: Japan bureaucrats chided for shirking work, editing Wikipedia

• Russia tests the 'dad of all bombs'. The thermobaric device tested by Russian military is said to be 'non-nuclear' and therefore 'environmentally-friendly'. So politically chic at a time when the "in" thing is to proclaim that one will be "going green" to save the earth. The catch: It's still a bomb--a weapon of mass destruction that can be used indiscriminately in wars of aggression by countries such as the United States in Afghanistan.
  

• Prince Harry killed in Iraq. Or at least, that was what a sculptural piece by Daniel Edwards portrays. At first I thought this was novel. Then I realized that the artist was the same guy who did the Paris Hilton Autopsy and the "Suri Cruise poop" sculpture. Then things began to get a wee bit predictable.

• In its blatantly misogynist query of whether the US is ready for a woman president, American political satire series 'The Daily Show' casts former Philippine President Corazon Aquino as a slut. That was done in rather poor taste. It is true that land-owning elites under the Aquino administration used her agrarian "reform" law to consolidate their dominance over large tracts of land (as the bloodshed in Aquino's very own Hacienda Luisita poignantly demonstrated). It is true that the "peace process" of the post-dictatorship regime was used by the status quo as a veneer for more political persecution and human rights violations. But 'slut' is such an infantile expletive, one that fails to articulate the atrociousness of Aquino's record of political compensation.
  

Free Burma Day

Crayola 101: A Green Philippines

All the while the ZTE NBN deal was being threshed out in the Senate like it should be, Gloria Arroyo been attempting to pass herself off at the United Nations General Assembly as a topnotcher in three fields where her administration failed miserably: the economy, peace process, and the environment. According to Arroyo, her administration is making headway towards making the Philippines a healthy shade of green.

Environmental activists in this part of the planet don't exactly approve of this color scheme. According to Kalikasan PNE, if there's any color that Arroyo is turning the Philippines into, it's red: an ugly, bloody and messy red. Scarlet soiled with bloodshed. Red of revolts. Glowing red of a volcano before the big bang.

The Philippines is turning into anything but green under Gloria. Frankly, I don't see how her Green Philippines agenda, which is vaguely described as combining " economic opportunity with a concern for the environment" (concern, perhaps. But policy and action? Most definitely not!), can work towards protecting the country's environment and national patrimony for the benefit of the Filipino people.

By "economic opportunity", I assume Arroyo also refers to foreign investments in sectors such as mining, oil exploration, and biofuel production. Therein lies the problem. Foreign and large-scale mining is as environmentally-friendly as a Cold War nuclear bomb and as helpful to the local economy as a band-aid is to a gaping M-16 wound. Offshore oil exploration, as it is being proposed of late, poses a very real danger of exacerbating marine resource degradation at the very, very least.

And biofuels production? I think that this administration jumped into the global green bandwagon without seriously assessing its local impacts on food security and resource extraction. Many also suspect that all those yummy biofuels deals pending with foreign firms could be a pretext to ink more spurious exchanges and to conveniently exempt the haciendas of her landowning relatives and allies from agrarian reform.

For liberalizing these fields (as well as others such as the outsourcing industry) to even more foreign participation, American firms are already patting Gloria on the head. When Gloria said she wanted a 'Green Philippines', perhaps she meant green--as in, dollar-green?

On the issue of foreign mining, here's an excerpt of an article written for www.bulatlat.com:

Her serene face is as furrowed as an ancient valley, but Carlita Cumila, 70 years old, can still remember the time she and her husband settled in the lush slopes of Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya back in 1964.

"We went to Papaya from Kiangan on foot. It took us three days of walking and hiking. My son Gilbert was three months old at that time," she recalls. Dressed simply in a faded floral blouse and black skirt, it seems hard to imagine how Cumila and her son endured the three-day trek through steep mountains and rugged terrain in search of a home.

Cumila and her growing family were among the first settlers in Barangay Papaya, Malabing Valley. It was here where her other seven children after Gilbert were born and raised.

"When we came to Papaya, we were only a few. Only gabi, corn, beans, and rice grew here. There were no fields. But if we stayed in Kiangan, there would have been little, not enough to provide for an education for our children. In my previous home, there was space for only one and a half hectares of rice terraces to till,"she said.

"Here in Papaya you could have four to seven hectares. Here we had enough food," she said.

Cumila has seen their lives prosper since that first day she set foot in Barangay Papaya. Malabing Valley's residents now reap the fruits from a flourishing local citrus industry that started there over a decade ago. A cooperative in the town center stands. Her son Gilbert finished Agricultural Engineering and now gives seminars to people on citrus cultivation.

Cumila, however, now fears for the verdant valley which has nurtured her family for four decades.

Foreign mining companies have recently entered Nueva Vizcaya and are eyeing the wealth beneath its rich soils. And like many other women residents living in Kasibu and its adjacent valleys, Cumila is now preparing to devote her strength to defending her home against the looming threat of large-scale mining.

[Continued at this link]

Ten Things About Me and the ZTE

1. Sec. Romulo Neri is making waves without rocking the boat at all! After all the suspense and drum-beating about being "ready to lose his job" on account of appearing before the Senate to testify on the NBN ZTE contract, it was quite lame of him to remain tight-lipped on Gloria Arroyo's involvement in the deal. Sure, Neri dropped a big, stinky pooper right smack on Abalos' head. But he flew away from the heat he created afterwards, singing to the tune of "executive privilege". Not quite the hero. No wonder he still has his job intact!

2. Fleeting thought: Sen. Miriam has no business diverting the issue with theatrics and rascist remarks on how the "Chinese invented corruption". Especially when some Filipinos are developing it to such an appallingly sophisticated degree.

3. It's nice to see how the NBN ZTE controversy has generated a lot of inspired and lively blog entries. I had so much fun reading Ina's blow-by-blow account of the Senate hearings yesterday and Pangkulitan's not-so-flattering comparisons between past and present Presidential spouses. After a brief hiatus from blogging, the husband writes about how the Philippines needs a national information network, not corrupt deals such as ZTE nor profit-hungry schemes. But the best thing I've read so far is Kapirasong Kritika's 'Mga Placard ng Panahon ng ZTE" (wala ka talagang kupas, Teo!).

4. Let your protests register on cyberspace! Sign the online petition by the Computer Professionals Union (CPU) to scrap the ZTE NBN contract.

5. I'm getting the last song syndrome (LSS) from hearing the ZTE ringtone by Txtpower. Husband and several other people I know have it on their cellphones, and every now I find myself accidentally humming to the ABC-ZTE-FG jingle.

6. In addition to the ZTE NBN contract, the Arroyo administration is planning to enter into other deals with the Chinese government and private firms, this time involving agricultural and bioethanol production. These, too, should be scrutinized, for their impacts on the people's livelihood and the environment . Among the MOAs that the government is planning to sign is between Yong Kai Industry Group and the Negros Southern Integrated Biofuels Company and BM SB Integrated Biofuels Company, whose biggest stockholder is a close friend of Presidential brother-in-law Ignacio Arroyo. Remember that Iggy Arroyo did not want CARP to be extended to prevent it from covering their sugar farms in Central Negros, which he is reportedly eyeing as an entry point for future biofuel projects. Is this another ZTE in the making?

7. Ang galing ng kuha ng Inquirer kay Abalos at Neri (left). A good photograph can indeed tell more than words.

8. "Big fish"Abalos should just tell all he knows and pinpoint the "Mother of All Fishes". Tutal sila-sila naman ang naglalaglagan!

9. Around 75% of all Filipinos are poor, have no access to technology and the government services that will "benefit" from the ICT infrastructure that the NBN will put in place. Yet it is this 75% who will foremost be shouldering the tax burden that the ZTE NBN contract will bring about.

10. Coinciding with the ZTE controversy is the Philippine's all-time low ranking (133 out of 179) in the Corruption Perception Index. Take note that the Philippines is already ranking as among the worst in other areas, such as recent press freedom indexes, and even in environmental degradation surveys (such as the recent one pinpointing the rivers in Bulacan as among the world's 'Dirty 30').

--------
Mong tagged me a month ago, I noticed only now (sorry, Mong!).

According to Mong's post: A person who gets tagged must write in his or her blog ten weird things or habits or little known facts about himself or herself. He or she should also state this rule clearly. At the end, he or she should tag six other people, except the one who tagged him or her.

So here goes--ten "weird" things about lisa:

1. When typing, my left hand automatically presses the save controls (Ctrl+S) on my keyboard every few seconds or so. This habit started way back in the Collegian. An article I was typing for one and a half days straight (without sleep and with very little food) literally vanished without a trace after a power surge because I--stupid writer--failed to hit the save button all throughout. Since then I kept hitting Ctrl+S like my life depended on it. People used to wonder what the crap was wrong with my left pinky finger and I always have to explain why.

2. I still drink Yakult. Because it tastes good.

3. When I entered the university, I was the lone Art History major in a college with a student population of around 300. It was ironic because I refrained from applying as a Painting major mostly since I thought that there were too few students in their program (around 20).

4. I have this nasty nervous habit of pulling out my hair when stressed out or worried, to the point of creating bald patches if left unchecked. Dermatology and psychology textbooks refer to this as trichotillomania, a minor anxiety-related disorder.

5. Maldita daw ako when I was a kid. Afterwards, I got all the 'Best in Conduct' awards in grade school and ended up as my high school's awardee for "National Discipline", heheh. Only shows that I know when to behave and when to raise hell!

6. I dislike hanging bridges. But that doesn't mean I won't cross them.

7. My first (and hopefully last) TV appearance was at 12 or 13 years old, at a kiddie noontime show with other half-Japanese children. All of us were wearing kimonos and singing a children's song. At that time, we were part of an organization of half-Japanese families in Paranaque. This group mostly got together for Nihongo lessons and field trips, but did a one-shot "performance" for that show's RP-Japan Friendship Day chuva. Thanks to this, I realized that I would never make it in showbiz early on.

8. Before becoming an activist, I also became involved in the following other organizations from grade school to college: Girl Scouts, Peer Counselors Club, Archdiocesian Youth Council, Red Cross Youth, Artists Club, Youth for Christ, and Kontra-Gapi. In that order.

9. I always bring along a small plastic container filled with things for imagined emergencies. Contents for now include USBs, a Bayan Muna pin, a stapler and a box of staple wire, rainbow face paint (for rallies), paper book tabs, band aids, a liquid eraser pen, an invisible ink pen, a spotlight, triple A batteries, wet wipes, and a Swiss knife.

10. My husband says that I sneeze and cough like a cat (imagine that!).

Tama na sa blogging! Back to work!

Damage Control, Diversionary Tactics and Dares

Just when things were beginning to get really exciting, Gloria Arroyo (I refuse to address her as President in this blog. Pwede ba!) backtracks and suspends the national broadband network deal with ZTE.

Even the most extreme of morons can see through this diversionary tactic and last-ditch attempt at damage control. By suspending the deal at the last minute, Arroyo and her co-conspirators probably hope to let rising public furor subside, divert attention away from testimonies indicating her and her husband's direct involvement in the deal, or even perhaps buy time to elbow those involved into a face-saving compromise.

Scrapping the ZTE contract is the best proof of sincerity in exercising "executive privilege". Unless Arroyo cancels the NBN ZTE deal outright, spelled out in plain black-and-white, there should be not let-up in the public investigations and protests. The people, Senate, Supreme Court and media should not let their guard down, not at this point. Not when watching live Senate hearings has become this gripping!

And speaking of Mike Arroyo--why is it that he slipped out of the country to Hong Kong last week, with the same undue haste with which he flew to Germany after Alan Peter Cayetano claimed that the First Family was keeping a multi-million dollar account in Munich last year? If he's so sick and unstained by guilt and in transit to recovery, then he should have no business flying here and about like a flustered bat.

Speaking of Arroyo's propensity to invoke "executive privilege", here's an unsolicited dare for GMA:

Exercise "executive privilege" to REVERSE the MTRCB's X-rating on the Jonas Burgos film project, RIGHTS. Let the film be shown to the widest number of viewers, so that the public may decide.

While we're on the MTRCB's X-rating, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino is calling for Congress to allot an annual budget of P1.00 to the MTRCB for being "an irrelevant agency in a so-called democracy" (nice way of putting it).

The last time the MTRCB was threatened with a P1.00 budget was back in October 2006, when it gave an X-rating to a film bio of Erap, also for "threatening the stability of the state" in the last three minutes of the film. I'm not a fan of Erap but nor do I like seeing works of public interest being given blanket censorship treatment.

This time around, Congress should take up the challenge and consider affirmative action on Rep. Casino's proposal. But regardless of whatever MTRCB gets this year, there's always YouTube to fall back on.