Crowdsourcing a Constitution: Claiming Back the State for the People!

Citizen participation in Constitution drafting is no longer a cumbersome process today. Social networking engines provided public discourse the needed reboot to encourage wider people’s participation. Distance and time are barriers no more. Interfacing via social network sites are the new medium of forming opinions and persuading people to agree.

Crowdsourcing is a method where ordinary citizens are given a chance to discuss and propose the provisions that they like to put in a constitution or statute. Iceland has engaged in this dynamic process in 2009-2011 as part of its phenomenal Kitchenware Revolution. Grassroots and e-discussions on the drafting of a new constitution filled both public and private spheres until a proposal to convene a Constitutional Assembly of 25 people to work on the actual drafting of the new Constitution was actually passed by the Parliament. 

Crowdsourcing concept is premised on citizen participation and social mobilization. Apathy and indifference are anathema to it. It involves mobilization of creative human talents and material resources. It is possible only with consistent and patient guidance of facilitators whose job is to encourage discussion of public issues and concerns. Dangers of manufacturing consent of course are always there. And hence, the tendency to castrate self-expression by these facilitators should be checked and avoided.

What would crowdsourcing mean to the present Philippine society?

It signifies the right of the people to claim back the State from the hands of oligarchic political interests. It is synonymous with open discussion of issues confronting the people and their government which can lead to full scrutiny of our political life. With the massive movement of people, in and out of the social networking sites, the ability of government propaganda machines to manufacture consent is lessen until eventually, they could no longer abuse and misuse the opinions of the people. Crowdsourcing will empower the people to claim back political power which has been taken hostage by dynastico-personalist politicians through bribery, coercion, deceit and high tech machinations.

What does crowdsourcing demand from the people?

It demands openness and sensitivity as it requires the genuine participation of the widest possible number of people. It obliges us to have highly inquisitive spirit as we attempt to bare all to see what went wrong in our government and society so that we can rebuild them with truth and sincerity. It directs us to be conscious and resolute as we restructure the Philippine society and root out the pretentious and mediocre corrupt dynastico-personalist regime. It requires us to be one with the masses as no real change is possible without a social revolution emanating from those who are still excluded from the physical and virtual world.

Crowdsourcing the Constitution should be a call for social and political revolution. Anything less will fall prey to the regime that lives on corruption, mediocrity and shameful display of arrogance. Superficial reforms can no longer root out what have become systemic and deep-seated defects in the Philippine society. People should change themselves and the structures which their ineptness and indifference had helped to create. As such, they should be invited to dream again and live on the idea that unless they take back the power from dynastico-personalist politicians and the oligarchy their lives can never change.

Crowdsourcing a constitution is an idea whose time has come!

   

National Shame

Third Week, August

The Cardinal of Manila shed tears. He cried over the plight of the homeless in his archdiocese and the misuse of billions of pesos by members of the Congress intended for local development programs. The problems of the poor seem legions while the greed of those who plunder the public funds is indescribable.

The indignation over the senseless waste and misuse of public funds is starting to catch fire. Calls for the abolition of the pork barrel funds are snowballing. Civil society groups and the faith communities have made a stand against the continuation of the practice and appealed to the members of the Congress to be sensitive to the demand for accountability.

Congress continues to ignore the issues against the pork barrel funds. It refuses to investigate its own members for the anomaly. It claims that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) can do the job better. It insinuates that it option not to conduct any investigation is dictated by delicadeza since its members might be involved in the mess. However, the Congress misses the point.  If it had investigated other issues and scandals in the name of inquiry in aid of legislation before, why could it not conduct an inquiry involving the misuse of public funds?

Delicadeza has nothing to do with callousness and insensitivity. On the contrary, delicadeza would prompt the Congress to ask its members to go on leave while the matter is still being investigated. Delicadeza would appeal to the sensibilities of the Congress in asking for public apology for the scandal that the issue has been making. Delicadeza demands more than a general denial from members of the Congress suspected of partaking in the mess. Delicadeza calls for serious investigation and truth-telling so that all issues pertaining to the pork barrel mess could be uncovered and shown for public scrutiny. This is what delicadeza demands of the Congress. This is the call of the time. 

The tears of the Cardinal are understandable. The pork barrel scam shows the wanton disregard of public decency and morality. It embodies both personal and structural sins. It weighs on the moral fabric of the society and destroys the integrity of public service. It symbolizes the gravest abuse of power and the destruction of the future. It is greed. It is evil.

            

                The pork barrel scam is a national shame. The issue should occupy the center of public attention. Public discussions should be encouraged to inspire awareness and correction. Officials must heed the call for accountability and responsibility before the issue fuels unrest and violence. They cannot continue to ignore the issue without compounding the shame and stigma that it brings to public service.

    

            It is high time to abolish the cause of our national shame. Abolish the pork barrel funds. Abolish the scheme that gives rise to corruption. Give local government units direct access to development funds without the intervention of lawmakers and other national officials. Redeem our dignity. Do away with the pork now!

Accountability and Apology

Second Week, August

The Republic of China (Taiwan) had announced the lifting of the sanctions that it has imposed against the Philippines for the death of its fisherman in the hands of members of the Philippine Coast Guard. The trade related sanctions were lifted on account of the written apology which the government’s representative handed to the widow of the deceased and the filing of criminal charges against the erring officials.

What does the Philippine government achieved by such gesture? It achieved something political significant for the two governments. The gesture repairs the damage which the incident had caused to the relationship between the Philippines and Taiwan. Of course, the outcome of the cases filed against those responsible for the incident will impact on the restoration of the diplomatic relations between them.

Asking apology for a wrong done is not part of the Philippine criminal justice system. Even in instances where a convicted felon has applied for probation, asking apology for the crimes committed is never a part of the assertions that constitute the application. Nor is the probationer obliged to show remorse for the crime that he had committed before the application could be granted. The conditions of probation also do not include any obligation ask apology from the victims or even to show remorse for the crime done.   

In 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd asked apology to all aborigines of Australian for the suffering and loss that they continue to suffer from forcible evictions and discriminatory laws and policies that the parliament has adopted. His speech before the Parliament was greeted by a standing ovation of the members of the parliament.

Dig the base of the iceberg

First Week, August

“Everybody is searching for a hero,” so the lyrics of a popular song goes. Well, not everybody is searching for a hero now. In fact, nobody needs a hero right now. Nor do we need to search for one. What we need today is truth and whether we seek or stumble upon it would not matter. We need it even if we do not want it.

The P10 billion pork barrel scam is only one of the many anomalies committed in the name of local development. Others remain plain rumors unto this day—they gave rise to no headline or investigation. Billions of money had been lost yet nobody seems alarmed. Our attitudes to such waste, if not plain robbery, is a business as usual type. The phenomenon seems common place and as such, we have become immune to it.

If there is anything worth investigating in the Philippines, it is this. Public moneys have been squandered in billions since the first Edsa Revolt in 1986. No President had able to put a stop into it. Every past President seems complicit in this waste of public money, one way or the other. And thus, everyone seems unworthy of calling for a truth commission that will unearth all evidence of misuse of public funds.

            How much people’s money got wasted by sheer mismanagement of national and local officials? How much people’s money was plundered by elective and appointive officials? These questions seek answer and the answer that they are demanding should take into consideration all past and present government administration.

Fact is that public funds are wasted. Whether such waste happened by corruption or simple mismanagement is inconsequential. We need to know how much got lost and who are responsible for them. Once we now the truth— its complete version of course—we should then resolve to exact accountability and responsibility from those who stole or mismanage them.

Investigate the loss of public funds from 1986 to the present and render full accounting to the Filipino people. This should be the first order of the day to institute administrative and financial reforms in the government. Unless we do this, all our efforts would mean nothing; they would just be like scratching the tip of the iceberg. We need to dig deep towards the base of the iceberg. This sounds revolutionary but the situation demands it. Only a revolutionary action can meet the enormous task needed to change the grave economic, political and social ills afflicting our country. Any initiative short of such drastic action will only be futile for our problems require more than the institution of superficial reforms.

Of Principals, Accomplices and Accessories

Of Principals, accomplices and accessories

When a crime is committed by a single person, the burden of the prosecution is simple: it has to present evidence establishing the elements of the crime and the identity of the accused who committed the same. On the other hand, prosecution of a crime is difficult when it is committed by two or more actors. In such a case, the evidence must show not only the elements of the crime but the participation of all the accused in the commission thereof as well. The evidence must show whether they have acted as principals or accomplices.

Of course, accessories are criminally liable also. However, they do not have any participation in the commission of the crime. Their liability is limited to the acts that they have performed after the principal/s had committed it. 

 First Week, September

Under the Revised Penal Code, a principal is criminally liable for taking direct part in the commission of the crime, or inducing another to commit it, or giving indispensable cooperation to the same. On the other hand, a person is considered as accomplice to the crime if he or she gives material or moral support to the principal accused before or during its commission without any participation in the criminal conspiracy between or among said principals. Principals and accomplices in a crime, as well as those who have acted after its commission as accessories, should be prosecuted if justice is to be done. Full accountability demands that liability should be exacted from all those who have violated the law.

With these basic principles in mind, all persons who have a hand in the pork barrel scam must be exposed and prosecuted. In truth, Janet Lim-Napoles could not have amassed those funds without the indispensable cooperation of officials from the Department of Budget and Management and the direct participation of some Senators and Congressmen. Also, she would not have the callousness to display a lavished lifestyle if she was not assured of protection from high-ranking government officials. Documents pertaining to the pork barrel scam will disclose their common intention of stealing the public funds. Accordingly, they should all be prosecuted for Plunder and the Malversation of Public Funds pursuant to existing laws. In addition, people who have benefited from these acts of despoliation of the public treasury and those who have facilitated or attempted to assist them to evade prosecution should be hailed to court as accessories. This is what justice requires.  

The clamor for accountability and demand for blood must be satisfied if the public is to be pacified. Half-way efforts towards these ends can only be considered as attempts to thwart justice and ridicule the public will.

Of course, all these efforts will go to waste until the source of this evil is totally abolished. Discretionary funds are always prone to abuse and corruption. Their existence gives rise to legions of abuses as no mortal has the power to resist the luxuries and power that they offer to anyone who has access to them. Hence, they should all be abolished. There is no other way but this.  

Rebellion

Government spokespersons have announced that rebellion raps will be filed against Nur Misuari and some leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). They conveniently tagged Misuari’s group as a faction of the MNLF despite of the fact that nobody in the MNLF has tried to contradict or disavow the action of the group. Perhaps a deliberate effort to make the incident appear as an isolated armed assault by a faction of the MNLF, the tag does not describe well in a conspiracy of silence among the other leaders of the Moro armed group.

Compared with arson, murder or torture, rebellion is more reputable as it implies some political sense. In times when the government is plagued with corruptions and accused of neglecting the welfare of its people, rebellion ceased to be a shameful crime. At other times, rebels are hailed as heroes because they take direct political action when others are shamefully silent on the political injustices perpetrated by the government. Somehow the charge of rebellion implies some moral justification for the action of its perpetrators.

Rebellion is also a convenient excuse for atrocities committed by its perpetrators. Rebellion absorbs all violent crimes committed on its occasion or pursuant to the same. Arsons and murders may not be prosecuted separately from rebellion; they are to be proved as integral element thereof. This principle has been affirmed by the Supreme Court in several cases in the past.

             Despite of the seeming logic of this principle, critics are unconvinced of its utility. Prosecuting perpetrators for rebellion means that the government has to let go of the killings and destruction that they have committed. The killings and the destructions committed by rebels would become a mere component of the crime of rebellion. This means that perpetrators have to account only for rebellion whose penalty is lower than the penalty for arson or murder.

The penalty for rebellion is not the supreme penalty under the Revised Penal Code. Only leaders of rebellion face a prison term of twenty years and one day to forty years, which is actually lesser than life imprisonment. Their followers face only a maximum of twenty-year prison term and enjoy the right to post bail for their provisional liberties.

Rebellion is not easy to prosecute also. Showing that an armed group encamped in a barangay and killed members of the security forces that attempted to flush them out would not be sufficient. Motive should be proven even if jurisprudence tells that motive is not an element of a crime. Since rebellion is a political crime, proof must be adduced showing the political motive of the offender to overthrow the government or to remove allegiance to the government any part of the Philippine territory. Certainly, a declaration by the perpetrators that they went to the place to conduct a peace rally does not show the political motive needed to nail them for rebellion. Government prosecutors must adduce more evidence to establish the necessary motive.

And finally, no claim for damages or compensation may be made by victims against the accused in rebellion. There is no civil liability to speak of in rebellion because the crime is deemed committed against the public order. Claimants become faceless participants in a play where the State is trying to pin down a group of scoundrels who used armed violence to challenge its authority. Victims of atrocities are left in the margin waiting their turn to be called to trial so that they can identify the perpetrators and make a detail narration of their harrowing experiences. Sadly, their services would be terminated without any compensation or any sign of gratitude from the State which purport to represent their interest in the trial.      

Armed Violence in Zamboanga City

3rd Week September

News reports claimed that around a hundred fighters of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) have taken hostage some civilians in Zamboanga City. As of this writing, the firefight between MNLF fighters and government troops is still ongoing. Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is on heightened alert because of reported attacks by the combined forces of the MNLF, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Abu Sayaff in other areas in Mindanao. Once again, the region is mired in chaos, bloodshed and uncertainty.

The MNLF had launched a separatist rebellion in the 1970s against the Philippine government in a bid to establish an independent Bangsamoro Republic in Mindanao. These armed hostilities have ceased with the signing of the Final Peace Agreement in 1996 between the MNLF and the government.  As part of the agreement, many fighters of the MNLF were absorbed in the AFP while the claim for a separate republic gave way to a renewed autonomous region. Despite of this, critics and the hardcore elements of the MNLF have continued to assert that the fight for the right to self-determination of the Bangsamoro people remains alive.

Meanwhile, Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a splinter group of the MNLF, has continued with its claim for an Islamic Bangsamoro Republic in Mindanao. The government has tried both military and political approaches to deal with the MILF. The Estrada Administration had launched a total war against the MILF but failed to root out the armed group from the region. The Arroyo administration had tried to make peace with the MILF. Its effort towards peace resulted to the forging of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain Aspect of the Tripoli Agreement (MOA-AD).   However, the controversies which the agreement created and the oppositions posed by many traditional politicians prevented the signing of the agreement.

Last year, the Aquino Administration has announced the signing of the Framework Agreement between the MILF and the government. In the hindsight, the Framework Agreement is a soft version of the aborted MOA-AD. Practically, it is Episode 1 of the MOA-AD.

Meanwhile, Chairman Nur Misuari of the MNLF has declared the establishment of the Independent Republic of Mindanao. His declaration failed to get serious attention from the national media; not much was heard from concerned government agencies also. And now, the armed clashes between the MNLF and government forces put Zamboanga City in the center of the Philippines. They give Misuari’s declaration the attention that it did not get before.   Is this the opening salvo of a renewed armed conflict between the MNLF and the Philippine government?

Nothing is certain at this point. An internal armed conflict is a protracted armed violence between an armed dissident group and the government. Whether the MNLF can still sustain a protracted armed campaign against the government remains to be seen. Most of its fighters are aged but veterans of the armed conflict that lasted for almost two decades. On the other hand, the government claimed it will certainly contain the armed violence and prevent it from spilling out of Zamboanga City. However, its actions in the past days show its capability to do so.

If there is anything certain, it is none other than the displacement and suffering that the armed clashes are bringing to innocent civilians. As long as the fighting continues, civilians will continue to suffer injuries and sustain damages. The fighting must stop now. By what means? Let the circumstances dictate the strategy and the tactics. 

PERKS

The government has explained that the bonuses which the officials of the Social Security System (SSS) have received are legally justified. No statute prohibits the P1 million performance bonus granted to each member of the Board of Trustees. Emilio De Quiros, Jr., the Executive Officer of the SSS, was even quoted to justify the grant as necessary since the system needs to compensate its officials well if it is to compete with the private sector in hiring competitive people. In other words, such “perks” make the SSS competitive with private social insurance companies.

Of course, the reasoning is flawed. No right thinking person can agree to that.  

So what if it is legally permissible? Does it give the SSS Board the right to appropriate P276 million worth of bonuses? 

In the first place, these officials are not chosen because of their supposed qualifications to hold an equivalent position in private companies. Members of the Board are chosen because they are supposed to represent the interest of the stakeholders in the SSS. The law provides for their representation. Their appointments have nothing to do with these professional qualifications. And secondly, the fund and its profits are not for them to squander. The SSS funds are intended for specific purpose that not even the President of the Philippines could touch the. As such, the SSS officials should not be so reckless in handling the funds entrusted to their care.

One wonders whether these officials are living in a different moral order. De Quiros’ moral justification fails in every conceivable moral maxim unless by some arbitrary machination we may be forced to believe that in this case, the end justifies the means. And even by this remote possibility, Machiavellian logic would likely reject such ethical re-formulation since the ends that the SSS has advanced is highly dubious and inexplicable.

            Under existing practice, political appointees to government-owned and controlled corporations normally enjoy some perks. These perks, (the term is beginning to sound more of “pork”), are extended to officials of these corporations to keep them in the public service and draw them away from the lure of fat salaries in private companies. Such idea is also flawed of course. It conveys the uncanny equation between luxuries and public service. In a country where the poor could not afford even the so-called free public education, luxuries—including occasional ones—for public officials are a scandal. And thus, any justification for “perks” in the name of public service fails, not only because of the inherent contradictions of these terms, but by simple logic as well. There is no such thing as sweet dreams in the middle of a nightmare. Awake or not, one simply could not believe that it exists even in a dream land.  

            So what is to be done to this anomalous practice of giving perks to public officials to keep them in the public service?

Abolish the perks, dismiss the officials. This is the only logical answer to the question. Contrary to the notion of some people, talents are not wanting in the bureaucracy and the rosters of government-owned and controlled corporations. Talents and geniuses are there. What is wanting is the political will that can discover and place them in their proper places. Bribes are not necessary to make them do their best. What public servants need is equitable and decent compensation that afford them dignified existence and assures good future for their love ones. Unlike those who have been appointed because of patronage and political affiliation, talented and dedicated public servants live by becoming living examples of the mandate of their position.