S1E73 Give me freedom to pose, or give me death

ix players of the Far Eastern University (FEU) women’s volleyball team, called the FEU Lady Tamaraws, very recently posted a group picture on the internet.

They were all wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with bold letters that read “BBM-Sara 2022.” The picture went viral.

I don’t really know exactly what it means when a Facebook post goes “viral.” But obviously it has something to do with the picture incurring the ire of enough number of certain people with a loud voice on the internet. Reportedly, there’s been this wave of outrage in reaction to that post. But why?

In damage control mode, the school issued a statement of disclaimer, saying that FEU has no political stand, one way or any other. There's talk of sanctions, or at least some form of censure against the girls for "misrepresenting" FEU, or the team, or both.

The daughter of the head coach (not the coach himself) also made a statement that she believes her Papa would not have approved of the post, ostensibly because the image created the impression that the whole volleyball team was for the BBM-Sara Uniteam.

If she were testifying in court, that would instantly raise the objection, “Speculative...Your Honor, the witness is not competent to read her father’s mind.” Any judge would sustain the objection.

First of all, the photo was not posted on the Lady Tamaraws’ Team Facebook page. It was uploaded on the “official fan page” of the team.

Don’t get confused with that word “official”—all it means is that this popular varsity volleyball team has many fans clubs. One of them must be the most intimate with the players, who then agreed to recognize them as the “primus inter pares”—the foremost among equals—of all these fans clubs. They don’t necessarily reflect team sentiment but, hey, you could say it’s pretty darn close.

I don’t know, either, how many players comprise the FEU Lady Tamaraws' full lineup. But the last time I looked, six players are all you need on the half-court in a volleyball game. So, at the very least, these six pro-Uniteam ladies make up one rotation of players on the team. Whether they are first-stringers or reserves, who knows. To me, it suffices that they ARE Lady Tamaraws, and they endorse Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte.

That makes them NOT my new best friends.

But let’s take a brief pause here, and ponder those timeless words of Voltaire, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

You might say it’s a predictable learned reflex. Right upon emancipation from a lifetime of bondage, a slave knows only two positions in life: somebody’s foot on his neck or, in vindication, his foot on somebody’s neck.

I totally agree that life under Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law was a taste of enough oppression to inform anyone’s lifetime. But having shed that yoke, must we yield to the sweet vengeance of putting that same yoke upon another?

Not for me. The only thing I really find intolerable is intolerance itself. Let's leave these girls alone.

Put the shoe on the other foot: when people carried out a political stunt like this against Marcos at the height of martial law, they were never heard from again.

Today, we are NOT under martial law, and the persons (presumably Leni and Kiko) prejudiced by these girls’ adverse messaging are not even in power. And yet, certain of their ardent followers are ready to join the pillorying party against these volleyball players who weren’t even BORN yet when you and I were trudging along the valley of death of the Marcosian 1970s.

Marcos repressed me as a journalist, along with countless others. But these young ladies have done nothing to me. If anything, they are unwittingly setting themselves up to possibly go through what we went through. They simply don’t know any better. But if we bash their skulls with a baseball bat and say, “don’t you do that or you will experience unimaginable violence!” Do you think it will be persuasive?

The 1987 Constitution says, in no uncertain terms, that “The right of the people, including those employed in the public and private sectors, to form unions, associations, or societies for purposes not contrary to law shall not be abridged.” (Art III, Section

That is called the “freedom to associate” clause. It is no respecter of elegance of club purpose. This means it would protect both the William Shakespeare Literary Club as well as the Dolphy Forever Slapstick Comedy Club. So why wouldn’t you cloak that same protection to a volleyball fans club?

Give them equal freedom to ASSOCIATE—that is an active verb meaning to engage in common activity--including wearing uniform white T-shirts and offending the sartorial taste of however many millions of NON-MEMBERS.

If you think this might make me unpopular with my own Leni-Kiko ilk, you could be right. After all, if a simple T-shirt with 3 words ruffled feathers, how could a mealy-mouthed article this long not?

But here’s the rub. The price of freedom and democracy is eternal vigilance. And the symbol of accute vision for justice and fairness is the woolen blind strapped over the eyes of Lady Justice.

You cannot choose for whom, or the time and place to defend freedom.

You must defend freedom in the first place it is attacked.*

S1E72 The Genesis of Corruption (Vote-buying)

f course I know that vote-buying has been around for as long as there have been elections in this country.

People who comment that I am naïve ARE naïve. They think I was born yesterday.

Half of my life I was a local newspaper editor (The Gold Ore, Baguio City Digest), national correspondent (Manila Chronicle, Malaya, Veritas) and international news and photo stringer (Kyodo News, Reuters) .

I have covered elections involving the last seven Philippine presidents. There was vote-buying in every one those elections. I’m not oblivious to it. Certainly am not making noise about it only now.

Vote-buying had always been a crime under the election laws effective during all those elections. I did not do enough research to be able to say that no one has ever been convicted of the offense. But if anybody ever was, I’m pretty sure it did not make the front page headlines. It isn’t shocking enough.

News is like that. All news is bad news. There are thousands of airplanes that take off and land safely around the world every minute, but it is only the one that crashes that makes the news.

However, it is not an excuse to think of vote-buying as “not serious” because it never lands in the news--just because very few people are ever prosecuted for it. Rape is serious. Rape is the most under-reported crime. Should we stop trying to eliminate rape?

I realize I have readers who are also lawyers like me, so I have to say this carefully with a lot of explaining afterwards: Vote-buying is actually a “complex crime”—if we go strictly by its definition.

A complex crime is one where two or more offenses result from a single criminal intent. It may also involve a situation where one crime is a necessary means to commit another.

Vote-buying is a complex crime in that sense. It is only the end transaction—just the tip of the iceberg. Where did the vote-buyer get the money? It’s never his own money. He stole it. How and where did he steal it? By plundering the public coffers. How did he get away with the plunder? By abusing his authority as a public official. Why wasn’t he caught? Because he conspired with many layers of the bureaucracy to facilitate it, as well as to cover it up afterwards. How did he get those other officials to conspire with him? By distributing—in fact advancing—proportionate shares of the proceeds of the crime to every participant. In short by corrupting his fellow public officers, replicating the corruption many times. How? Through bribery. By now, you must have you lost count already of how one crime became a “necessary means to commit” the NEXT of many more crimes down the line.

Vote-buying is that serious because it is not perpetrated by one individual. It is a systemic crime.

Vote-buying is not a victimless crime. It’s like heart disease. You see the unhealthy heart as the problem because it is often the only visible culprit in the post-mortem. You often do not see the billions of cholesterol molecules that caused the heart to fail in the first place. And you certainly deliberately miss seeing that delicious chocolate cake you’ve been eating for years before your fatal heart attack. That why you never saw the attack coming. How can you? The only early warning of a heart attack is sudden death.

Vote-buying is corruption. If you approve of it you are corrupt, too. You succumb to the seduction of enjoying lucrative gains that you didn’t deserve or work for. For the corrupting politician who lives by it, it becomes the very defining experience of his being in public office.

The briber and the bribe-taker both see nothing wrong with vote-buying because both have lost the ability to perceive it. On top of that loss of perception, they have gained the ability to rationalize it. When somebody assails it, they assail him back accusing him of being self-righteous in their fitful attempt to somehow pronounce themselves innocent.

The irony is, people think vote-buying is democratic (they actually mean socialist). It's Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor. That's why instead of being renounced as evil, it is applauded for its redeeming virtue of spreading the loot from a handful of complicit to a community of innocents. How can anyone be angry about that?

I call it the death of outrage--something I do not subscribe to. If I criticize vote-buying as pure corruption and you criticize me for criticizing it, why should I be ashamed? YOU should be.

Do I hope to change anybody’s mind? Hope, yes—but expect, no.

The story is told of a man who was alarmed at the deterioration of basic moral values in his home town. Instead of schools, libraries, museums, art galleries or churches being put up, more nightclubs, beerhouses, lewd massage parlors, gambling casinos and prostitution dens were sprouting all around town. Crime was up, teen pregnancies was burgeoning and deliquency at school was at an all-time high, all of this was countenanced by officials who didn’t care so long as the boom in business brought in revenues.

The man felt that the very social fiber of his community was decaying. So he made some hand-painted signboards and walked all around town bearing a placard that begged “Let’s Return to Decency, Let’s Fight Social Corruption!”

Everywhere he went people just shrugged their shoulders. Many laughed at him.

After doing this for a year, things did not get any better. Hecklers taunted him, “How’s it going old man? It’s been a year and you haven’t changed the mind of anybody by that stupid thing you’re doing! You’re wasting your time! Why do you still do it??”

He answered, “A year ago I started to do this hoping that people would change. It seems nobody did. So now I must continue doing this so that I would not change.”

You want to know about naïve? If you think all this “good projects” bonanza is an original invention by benevolent modern-day politicians, you should know they are copying Marie-Antoinette back in history, just before the French Revolution of 1789.

When the French peasants were going hungry and dissatisfied with the monarchy, she ordered the army to, “Give the people cake!”

All the pretty-looking “good projects” you are seeing now are political cholesterol slowly clogging up the heart of your community. The “good centavos” you are getting out of it now is not even a pittance compared the BILLIONS your fiendish benefactor is looking to stash away once in office.

And yet there YOU are thanking HIM!

If you can’t see it, YOU are naïve.***

S1E71 - Right of Privacy vs. public suveillance

ood evening class. Just for this evening’s lecture, I want everybody to put aside all your election agenda, whoever your candidate is. We will discuss a topic that has been overlooked because of all this feverish excitement in social media about the right to information and the war against fake news. But tonight I want us to talk about the constitutional right to privacy. So no politics first, take a rest.”

“That’s a great idea, sir! A classwide moratorium on campaigning just for tonight so everybody gets a much-needed break! I, for one, am exhausted from running all around town explaining to everybody why this country needs the strong-willed leadership of Leni Robredo because she embodies the honesty, integrity and competence that the Philippines needs in this very crucial junction of our quest to become the next economic miracle story of Asia!”

“You are such a troublemaker, Miss Deema,” I immediately chastised the pink-clad Miss Deema Niwala who was giving out pink lollipops to her classmates.

“These are LAW STUDENTS, your classmates, Miss Deema! What good will your candies do to win their intellectual votes??”

“Oh, you’ll be surprised sir! Juan Dimacaawat here challenged me to prove my claim that everything SUCKS in this campaign, save for Leni. So I gave them these pink lollipops and they all said ‘now we get the point!’ sir.”

I just scowled to show my displeasure and threatened the Alpha class, “If I see one candy wrapper lying on the floor, I’m giving this class a quiz everyday for the next two weeks!” sending all of them scrambling to check under their seats.

I banged the blackboard to restore decorum and refocus the class.

“The individual is the building block of society. The central idea behind the Social Contract is to create rules to govern common behavior. That often leads to trampling the individual’s right making him want to leave the social contract, causing society itself to fail,” I introed the lesson,

“Of course I trust that 3rd year law students must remember what the Social Contract is. But just to be sure, will you please summarize it for us again, Miss Grippa Baligtaran?”

The coffee farmer’s daughter from Natubleng didn’t falter, “The social contract is the hypothetical universal treaty among all men whereby everybody surrenders the enforcement of their individual rights to the irresistible regulating power of a central terror called the State, sir.”

“That’s good, Miss Grippa,” I said with approval, “now take note, class, that the implied occasion for when the State can intervene is only whenever ‘Citizen A’ is menacing ‘Citizen B.’ When we take part in the social contract, we want state guarantee of safety while we transact with others. But suppose it’s the opposite, suppose you want to withdraw from the crowd and be left alone, you must understand that the law also protects you in doing that. That is called the right of privacy. Miss Grippa, will you read your constitutional provision granting that right.”

“Yes, sir. Here it is in Article III, Section 1, first paragraph ‘The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise as prescribed by law.’”

“That’s good. Class, you will not find any other provision regarding privacy in the rest of the Constitution. You may be disappointed, but that’s it. Take note that privacy has nothing to do with hiding your body, so it is not a physical issue. Privacy is about protecting your recorded communication, it’s about hiding your thoughts. Can you speculate why that is so, anyone?”

Juan Dimacaawat, the writer in the class stood up. “Sir, there is hardly any place you can go these days that is not somehow public, except in your own home and only if you live by yourself. Even at the top of a mountain, you are probably trespassing in somebody’s property. Anywhere you go, you will in somebody’s company. Even when you think you’re alone, there could be a CCTV camera aimed at you that you’re not aware of. You can be followed anywhere—except one place…”

“Aha! The last bastion of pure privacy,” I anticipated Juan’s point, “and where is this place, Juan?”

“In my mind, sir. Nobody can follow me there, I am the only one with access, unless I grant someone access into my mind—”

“And how do you do that, Juan?”

“By correspondence, sir, by communicating my thoughts to other people, they can enter the realm of my mind.”

“Good enough, Mr. Dimacaawat, you may sit down,” I prepared to polish Juan’s point a little bit. “whenever you talk, you are also communicating, spontaneously, and you can’t prevent people from hearing you and somehow remembering what you say. The problem is, when they REPEAT what you said, there’s no guarantee they can quote you 100% accurately. Chances are, they might actually misquote you and if they do, that must never get you in trouble. What is that principle, Miss Deema?”

“Res inter alios acta, sir,” teacher’s pet rattled off in Latin without batting an eyelash.

“In English please, Miss Deema “

“Sir, ‘no person must be prejudiced by the acts, omissions or declarations of another.” Miss Deema translated.

“Good. In short, nothing anyone does for me, or says about me shall bind me. That’s the essence of my privacy. Yes, Miss Kata, what is it?”

“So, sir, if some government official says I am a communist sympathizer because they interviewed my best friend in college and she says she remembers me participating in street protests, that shouldn’t count?”

“Miss Kata, even if your own mother said ‘ipinaglihi ko yang si Kata kay Joma Sison, yung founder ng CPP’ it doesn’t count!” sending the whole class bursting in guffaws.

“And, that, by the way class, is an example that combines both action—ipinaglihi—and declaration—founder ng CPP si Joma. Neither of that can be attributed to Miss Kata. In fact, even if the mother said ‘naku mag-best friend yang si Joma at yung anak ko!’ it still counts for nothing even if we were to assume that Joma Sison is guilty in some way for some NPA atrocities. Why is this so, Miss Laarnee Iwasan?”

“Sir, because there is no such thing as guilt by association,” Miss Laarnee answered.

“Correct. So you see class, many of these highly-sensational cases you see in the news are not even political cases. Oftentimes, they are just privacy issues.”

Then I shifted gears, “There’s no need to protect you from misquotation, because you cannot be prejudiced by it. However, when you write down your thoughts, or record it any other way, that’s a different story. This time, you can get into trouble, because you cannot deny what you yourself asserted. What principle is that, Miss Gladys Ondafli?” I called the older Ondafli twin.

“Principle of estoppel, sir, the opposite of res inter alios acta. This time, a person making a representation cannot deny it to another person who relied on that representation,” Miss Gladys recited.

“Very good. Now we get into the most delicate aspect of the privacy issue, class. Remember your classmate Juan pointed out that your mind is the only true private place. So I will say this without any reservation: you can conceive of any THOUGHT, you can even THINK of committing any crime in your mind, nobody will bother you. Now since your mind is finite and forgetful, you can even record your thoughts and those records are an extension of the privacy of your mind,” I could feel my students holding their breaths, waiting for the “but” part.

“But,” I said finally, “when you communicate your recorded thoughts, that’s correspondence. It is still considered private, but remember you have exited the bubble of 100% privacy—which was your mind—and taken the risk of getting your thoughts intercepted. So this time, the legal protection cannot be implicit, it has to be positively stated. And what is the price of having such right positively stated, as in the constitutional provision that Miss Grippa read?” I threw my glance at Miss Deema, who instantly got the hint.

“The right becomes limited by the condition ‘except upon lawful order of the court’ and ‘as may be prescribed by law,’sir,” Miss Deema quickly filled in.

“That’s correct. So let’s summarize here, class. The right of privacy of the mind is absolute. When you externalize your thoughts by recording them, the right remains absolute. When you communicate them or make them available to a any third party, that’s correspondence. The right of privacy persists but this time you invite judicial inquiry—and that tranforms the right of privacy from absolute to conditional. Comprende?”

The while Alpha class nodded their heads and sheepishly chorused, “Yeees, siiir….!”

Then a saw a familiar hand waving in the air, one with pink fingernail polish.

“Yes, Miss Deema, what is your next troublemaking question?”

“Can res inter alios acta also operate the OPPOSITE WAY, Sir?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it possible, is it legal or is it even moral for somebody to be BENEFITED by the acts, omissions and declarations of another?”

“I’m not sure I follow you, Miss Deema, can you be more specific?”

“Well, sir, suppose millions of public funds are used to construct school buildings, purchase police cars, ambulances, pay for public works like roads, barangay halls, rocknettings, etc—it’s not your money, it did not result from your work but from the work of a whole Congress, and really the accomplishment of all the Filipino people who voted these congressmen into office, you are just a temporary caretaker—but then you step forward, grab the p-r opportunity and take credit for all of these good things, shouldn’t that be a crime, sir??”

I stared hard at Miss Deema, trying to determine if she’s serious. My God, she was. Her eyes were glowering, her eyebrows knitted in the middle, she’s using that dagger look—and her classmates were all gawking at her, I could smell trouble and a long political speech coming.

So I just softly whispered, “Class dismissed…!” as the school bell rang mercifully in the background.*