By: Ronnie Nathanielsz

IF our sports leaders, not just the heads of the non-performing National Sports Associations, but the top dogs at the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee, have any sense of propriety left in them, they should all resign following the country’s disastrous performance in the 26th Southeast Asian Games.

The variation might directly influence your personality, especially in terms of empathy. Or it's possible that it's connected to something else that affects the way you act. On the other hand, the research is based on only a few subjects, so much more study is needed, experts say.

Still, the findings may "speak to the power of little genetic differences to predict tangible differences in the way we behave," said study author Aleksandr Kogan, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Toronto.

Over the past five to seven years, researchers have been exploring how genetics affect emotions, Kogan said. "What we're learning is that, to a certain extent, we have a genetic basis that supports a lot of the processes that make us nice."

In particular, researchers have focused on a hormone called oxytocin, which has been linked to emotions like love and trust and is found in a variety of animals. Higher levels of oxytocin have been linked to higher levels of trustworthiness, empathy and willingness to sacrifice, Kogan said.

In the new study, Kogan and colleagues focused on a gene linked to the brain's oxytocin receptor, which is a kind of catcher's glove that receives the hormone. They wanted to see if they could link variations in the gene to the way that people are perceived by others.

The researchers compiled 20-second, silent videos of people listening as their romantic partners told a story about a moment of suffering in the partner's life. Then they showed the videos to 116 subjects and asked them to gauge the compassion, kindness and trustworthiness of the people in the videos, Kogan said.

The researchers then tried to see if patterns in the genetic makeup of the people in the videos predicted how the subjects viewed them.

Those who were considered to be most trustworthy were similar genetically in terms of the single gene. The same was true for those who were deemed least trustworthy -- they were similar to one another, but in a different way.

People with the "kindness" gene showed more empathetic behaviors, like nodding their heads, smiling and making eye contact than people with the other type of gene.

The question now is: If these links aren't a coincidence, how are genes affecting how empathetic people appear to be to others? Could it affect their behavior? The way their faces look? Something else?

In the big picture, the research could lead to better understanding of why some people are kind and others aren't, Kogan said. It could even lead to insight into why some people are psychopaths.

Paul Zak, a brain researcher and founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, in California, said the research is interesting but not yet world-changing.

"Some people would say there is now a gene for being nice to other people. That's not true at all," he said. Many other genes matter, too, he said, as do more important factors like your current physical state and your personal history.

In other words, if you're a jerk or a saint, your genes shouldn't get all the credit -- or blame.

The study appears online in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Saving the Banaue Rice Terraces from the damages brought about by the successive typhoons and abandonment of locals has become an uphill climb for the locals, maybe even tougher than the trail charted by tourists who go on trekking here to see its beauty.

Recent typhoons Pedring and Quiel have aggravated the damages in the Terraces, hiking the cost of repair and rehabilitation or rice fields in 13 barangays to P66 million. The amount, however, would reach to P122 million if it would include the cost for repairing the irrigation systems—an amount greater than the P102 million proposed budget for the National Anti-Poverty Commission for 2012.

Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat of Ifugao noted that the farmers are used to repairing the damages in the Terraces on their own in the past thru bayanihan, but the destruction has recently took its toll on the people.

“We can’t do bayanihan to repair it anymore because the damage is so huge. This should not last long because it would deprive the community of food,” Baguilat told reporters.

The Terraces in brgy. Batad, Banaue—a top tourist destination among other Terraces areas because of its steepness which mimics steps to heaven—badly needs funding for the repair of the damaged 32 Terraces and the two irrigation systems as well as the construction of a retaining wall which would hold the soil until the repairs on the 32 Terraces are done.

A farmer can raise one bundle of rice per 1.5 square meters of the Terraces in Batad.

For brgy. Hapao in Hungduan, the destroyed Common Irrigation System (CIS) is the main dilemma since the damaged CIS irrigates 50 percent of the Hapao Rice Terraces which wider and is more gradual than Batad’s.

Unlike The Terraces in Banaue wherein only those in Batad and Bangaan are declared World Heritage Sites, all the Terraces areas in Hungduan are inscribed in the World Heritage Site record. At least 320 farmers in Brgy. Bulunan are affected by the damaged CIS in Hungduan.

“This CIS should be fixed soon because we need to plant rice. Otherwise, we’ll go hungry,” Captain Rodolfo Dong-E of Brgy. Bulunan, Hungduan said.

“We need immediate solutions because we need to prepare these rice fields before we plant on them. Maybe a few plastic pipes would do for the meantime to facilitate water supply in rice fields,” Hungduan Mayor Hilario Bumangabang added.

The lack of manpower is also threatening the Philippine entry to the World Heritage Site with more and more people migrating to nearby provinces such as Mountain Province, Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya because taking care of the Terraces does not earn them enough money to make ends meet.

Marlon Martin of non-government organization Save the Ifugao Rice Terraces Movement (SITMO) disclosed that threats of poverty have prompted the younger population to opt to finish college so that they can work in the city rather than farm the Rice Terraces.

The farmers of the families, on the other hand, go to nearby provinces wherein they can still farm the land and do other jobs for extra income such as woodcarving and doing handicrafts.

“We need people to take care of the terraces because more than a World Heritage, this is our culture. The Terraces is highly dependent on human knowledge, but we don’t have enough employment opportunities here. We also need economic development,” Martin lamented.

Councilor Froebel Gumbatan of brgy. Nagadacan in Kiangan backed up Martin by disclosing that 25 percent of the Rice Terraces in their area are already abandoned. The recent storms have affected at least 160 Nagadacan farmers.

IT’s not only the Senate’s Honorable Miriam Defensor Santiago but also three congressmen who should be hailed and supported for being champions of the cause to rid our country of the Garapal Monsters. These “kapal muks” government officials shamelessly put up signs and posters to make us, the public, think we owe streets, highways, bridges, schoolhouses and other government projects to them. They are credit-grabbers who are most likely also crooks who have driven up the cost of these projects by demanding huge commissions from contractors.

Senator Santiago is actually fighting a more successful battle than her House counterparts to get her colleagues to pass her Senate Bill No. 1967, “An Act Prohibiting Public Officers from Claiming Credit through Signage Announcing a Public Works Project.” Last Tuesday, the senators began formally discussing her “anti-epal” bill. Commendably, the senators reached an agreement to expand the coverage of the proposed law beyond public works projects and include public officials who have their names and faces painted on police cars, ambulances and fire trucks donated by private foundations and government institutions like the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the PAGCOR.


Unfortunately, an objection to the penal provisions of Sen. Santiago’s bill came from an unexpected source, Sen. Antonio Trillanes, chairman of the civil service committee. As a retired military man—albeit one who got into trouble for acting rebelliously against his superiors—Sen. Trillanes should be a strict champion of correctness and discipline and an enemy of ungentlemanly behavior, like credit-grabbing. Instead, Sen. Trillanes came across in last Tuesday’s deliberations as someone too lenient on the Garapal Monsters. He proposed to remove the penal provisions of Madam Santiago’s bill.

If the bill becomes a law, which we pray it does, a jail term of between six months and one year would be meted out to a public official found guilty of having had his or her name or image printed on an item of “signage announcing a proposed or ongoing public works project.”

Mr. Trillanes was concerned that a political opponent of an incumbent official could have a piece of incriminating signage made, mounted and used to have the official charged, found guilty and punished. That fear may look rather pusillanimous and simplistic. For the incumbent official would ordinarily have men and followers who would easily thwart such a bold attempt by an opponent to put him in trouble. But our country is a place where strange things happen every day.

Because of this fear, Mr. Trillanes would rather console himself—and us, the public—with the hope that one day the practice of shameless credit-grabbing would go away without anybody being punished for it.

Another former military-man, Senator Panfilo Lacson opposed Mr. Trillanes position. He discounted fears that it would be difficult to implement the law and ascertain who really put up a credit-grabbing sign. Mr. Lacson ought to know. As a former police officer, he knows how quickly the police, if they really want to, could find out the true facts about anything.

Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. raised another issue about implementation. He was in favor of passing the Santiago bill but wanted a provision added that would give protection to local law enforcement officers tasked with carrying out their duty to tear down signs and posters put up by their own superiors — the mayor or governor or congressman.


That issue must be addressed. Some protective mechanism must be devised to embolden the underlings of local officials who feel and behave like feudal lords, datu, whom local policemen and other law enforcers fear because they still have the ancient mentality of the alipin.

This inability to do what is right is a universal problem involving duly-assigned law-enforcers and auditors who fear to do what is morally and legally right against powerful officials who have broken the law.


In the House of Representatives, Deputy Majority Leader Roman Romulo filed his bill in January against credit-grabbing officials and politicians long before Sen. Santiago filed her bill in the Senate.

Congressman Romulo’s House Bill 3943 if enacted would make it “unlawful to place on any government property or project, any name, logo, picture, any identified alias, initial, character, symbol, or letter pertaining to a public official who is still in active service, has retired, or is already deceased.”

But the Romulo bill exempts signboards on government property that are “culturally and historically significant.” Following guidelines of the National Historical Commission, signage may be installed in these historical landmarks to honor deceased officials renowned for their heroism or special service to the nation.

Rep. Romulo’s proposed bill — “Public Works Title, Signboard and Marker Standardization Act” — has yet to be acted on by the House public works committee,

Besides Deputy Majority Leader Romulo, two opposition members of the House also feel bad that their anti-epal bill has been ignored by the chamber’s leadership.

The Left’s Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño and Rep. Neri Colmenares co-authored a bill that they actually filed in 2010. Their House Bill 2309 has the title “Prohibiting the naming of public properties and government services after incumbent elected public officials, their kin, spouses and relatives of up to fourth civil degree of consanguinity and providing penalties thereof and for other purposes.”

Both are aggrieved that the leaders of the House Committee on the Revision of Laws have not given their bill the time of day.

The bills filed by Sen. Defensor Santiago, Congressmen Romulo, Casiño and Colmenares must be consolidated and enacted. For, as Sen. Santiago has said, the penchant for credit-grabbing billboards and posters “promotes a culture of political patronage and corruption.”

It perpetuates our ancient feudal culture where datu rule to please themselves and the alipin timorously grin and bear it.

President Benigno S. Aquino III exhorted the local Islamic community to remain resilient towards the goal of “lasting harmony and genuine, positive change” on the occasion of the Islamic New Year, Amun Jadid.

Muharram 1, 1433, of the Hijrah lunar calendar coincides with Nov. 26, 2011, according to the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF).

Muharram is the first of Hijrah's 12 months, reckoning from the migration of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Allaihi Wassalam to Madinah, then Yathrib, in what is now the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

From there Islam took root and is now a religion of an estimated 1.6 billion people across the world.

“My warmest greetings to the Muslim community as you welcome the Amun Jadid 1433 Hijrah,” said the President in traditional message made through the NCMF.

Tall or short, it's long been known that genes account for much of a person's height. Now, scientists have found that short people actually might be missing copies of certain genes, which can leave them significantly smaller than average.

Studying DNA from more than 11,000 children and adults, an international team of researchers learned that those of short stature -- defined roughly as falling into the shortest 2.5 percent of their peer group -- had an excess number of rare deletions, or missing copies, of specific genes. Thus far, most research into genes and height has centered on identifying variations in common genes instead of an absence of others, study author Dr. Joel Hirschhorn said.

"We were a little bit surprised, since we didn't really know what we would find going in [to the study] and whether we would see enough of an effect," said Hirschhorn, a professor of genetics at Children's Hospital Boston. "We were trying to figure out what's the underlying genetics of height and things like it, and this is a class of variation less well studied."

The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Common gene variants linked to height explain only about 10 percent of the variation in adult height, Hirschhorn said, but perhaps half of such variation might eventually be explained by some of the differences his team studied.

First analyzing the DNA of more than 4,400 children whose genetic material was collected for other purposes, the researchers observed that many more CNVs or "copy-number variants" -- in this case, fewer copies of a gene -- were present in those of short stature.

Extending the findings to a larger, population-based group of nearly 6,900 African Americans, the scientists again found that shorter participants had an excess of such missing gene copies. These deletions would typically be inherited from one's parents, but not always, Hirschhorn said.

"Usually [researchers] look at variants one at a time, but this is a cumulative-effect type of variation," said Hirschhorn, also a senior associate at the Broad Institute, a biomedical research organization in Cambridge, Mass.

Several limitations might affect the validity of the study results, the authors acknowledged. One is the fact that children whose DNA was evaluated had initially undergone genetic analysis for other reasons such as developmental delays, autism spectrum disorders and multiple birth defects. So it's possible that those with many missing gene copies are likelier to have conditions leading to poor growth, the study said, but the replication of results in a more representative population suggests the findings can be generalized to others.

Opposition lawmakers on Wednesday criticized a bill seeking to rename Edsa to President Corazon Aquino Avenue as a distortion of history and held it up as an example of politicians using public works projects to grab credit.

The bill, filed by Bohol Rep. Rene Relampagos, would rename Metro Manila’s main highway in honor of the late President and mother of President Benigno Aquino III.

Relampagos, a Liberal Party member like the President, said in his bill that Mrs. Aquino should be recognized as the country’s first woman President and an icon of democracy after she led the 1986 People Power Revolution.

“She gained the respect and certainly the admiration not only of the citizens of our country, but also of the world. She earned certain citations, and was recognized internationally as a woman who helped pave the way for the restoration of democracy,” the bill says.

“Indeed, one cannot think of the 1986 Edsa Revolution without thinking of Corazon Aquino. Even after her term as President of the republic, she lived her life fighting for democracy.”

Edsa, the main circumferential road and highway of Metro Manila stretching from Caloocan to Pasay City, was formerly known as Highway 54. In 1959 Congress renamed the thoroughfare to honor the noted Filipino historian, scholar, journalist, painter and public servant Epifanio de los Santos.

De los Santos was considered one of the best Filipino writers in Spanish of his time and regarded as a literary genius. He served as an associate editor of the revolutionary paper La Independencia and co-founded other newspapers like La Libertad, El Renaciemento, and La Democracia.

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said they supported the renaming of Edsa, and that the late President deserved the recognition.

“It is only fitting to give full meaning to the Edsa Revolution,” Evardone said.

“The rallying point of the Edsa Revolution was Cory.”

But Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño, who has drafted a bill to stop politicians from grabbing credit for projects that were built using the people’s money, said the renaming of Edsa would be a major test case for his measure.

He and Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay said renaming Edsa to Cory Aquino Avenue would be historically problematic.

“The Edsa uprising was not about Cory. It was about our people’s struggle against tyranny,” Casiño said.

“The name Edsa has already been enshrined in our history and collective memory due to the Edsa People Power Revolution. It’s better left that way.”

The Department of Health said that the number of leptospirosis cases in the National Capital Region has doubled. According to the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit’s data a total of 583 leptospirosis cases with 48 deaths were recorded from January 1 to November 12.

The Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) failed to meet its 70-gold medals target or at least a third-place finish for the Philippines in the recently concluded 26th Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) in Indonesia. Far below PSC Chairman Richie Garcia’s prediction, the Philippines won only 36 golds (7.4 percent of the total gold medals) and finished sixth in the biennial meet.

Philippine performance this year is even worse than our shameful fifth place finish in the 2009 Games held in Laos.

Our country’s performance in the SEAG this year is worst in the last 10 years.

The SEAG is the lowest of the international sports festivals. SEAG involves only the 10 Asean members plus East Timor. One must realize that we have also been performing dismally in the Asian Games and of course in the Olympics.

This poor outcome once more calls attention to the sorry state of Philippine sports. Reforms are long overdue in the way the stewards are managing our sports.

The problems besieging Philippine sports—disunity caused by politics and turf wars, the lack of an effective and pragmatic sports development program and corruption, among others—are so glaring and well known to athletes and the national sports association leaders.

Why are they not doing anything to reform the situation?


Led by Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), the mother organization of all National Sports Associations (NSAs) in the country, is apparently more preoccupied with politics within its ranks than ensuring that only the best Filipino athletes be supported and allowed to represent the Philippines in international competitions. Those in the know say that only sports associations headed and tightly controlled by people loyal to Mr. Cojuangco and will continue to vote for him in every election for POC boss get POC accreditation.

As a result, there are two or more associations in each sport discipline. The POC-accredited one is that which is loyal to Mr. Cojuangco. Because their leaders became critical of Mr. Cojuangco, some associations in the outs were POC-accredited once but lost their accreditation to a newly formed group.

The damaging consequence of this is that excellent athletes belonging to associations led by persons outside Mr. Cojuangco’s sphere of influence end up being veritably non-existent in official POC-sanctioned domestic contests. Only POC-accredited associations receive support from the government’s Philippine Sports Commission. And in all the sports, only the results of events held under the auspices of the POC-accredited PSA are recognized by regional and international sports bodies which have mostly come to be governed by the International Olympic Sports Federations (IFs).

It is known that many of the best Filipino athletes are not in the POC accredited associations. The athletes in many POC-accredited sport associations are less than capable of excelling in regional and international competitions—as proved by the recent SEAG. Our country has therefore been sending many athletes to international meets who would not win against other Filipinos belonging to non-POC-accredited PSAs.

The majority of Filipino sports officials appear to be more focused on acquiring and preserving their influence than on bringing sporting glory to our country. There is a lot of money in being the chief of a sports association. Not only does a PSA get funds from the Philippine Sports Commission, it also can campaign for donations from the private sector—and from the PAGCOR.

Most PSA officials are not doing for the athletes what must be done to make them champions—and they ignore athletes who are better championship material than they ones in their turf.


Aside from training our best athletes to become gold medallists in regional and international competitions, the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee have a moral duty to make sports development a vehicle for the improvement of Filipinos as human beings.

Fitness through sports is not being attended to in our country. In most of our fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) this is a rigorously managed concern.


In the light of our pitiful performance in the last SEAG, PSC boss Ritchie Garcia should keep his promise that his agency would evaluate the performance of all NSAs. He said that those who did well in the latest SEAG would receive more funding and those that performed poorly would face severe budget cuts and possible termination of support from the PSC.

We also urge the PSC to demand an honest and mandatory accounting of every centavo spent by each NSA on its programs. The PSC disburses taxpayers’ money and funds from government corporations, like PAGCOR. Those funds should benefit the athletes not fatten some sport officials’ pockets.

While sports officials repeatedly insist that there is a sports development program in the country, the Philippines’ performance in the regional and international sports competitions indicate that the program is not working.

The Palarong Pambansa and other national sports competition badly need a shot in the arm. Grassroots programs aiming to discover new talents should be initiated and sustained. And those who emerge as the best should be given support—never mind if their coaches are affiliated with organizations that have been rejected by Mr. Cojuangco’s POC.

Let us not forget, however, that reforming Philippine sports demands collective effort. While corrupt and self-serving officials are largely to blame for our sports woes, the athletes and the media too have their share of the blame in burying Philippine sports in guano. The athletes must remember that they owe their allegiance first and foremost to their country not to any sports official or politician. They must stand for what is right and not be carried away by the frequent shifting of loyalties within the ranks of Philippine sports associations.

The sports media must not be swayed by patronage and bullying by sports officials. They must perform their role as vanguards of the truth.

“Boy Brillantes and Leila de Lima did not get their law diplomas from a department store, but earned them in the finest law school in the entire Mendiola complex... We have developed such a hatred for former president GMA that many of them have turned into a mob—not unlike the French Revolution’s “public” that wildly cheered the decapitation by guillotine of royals and aristocrats during the Reign of Terror..”

MOBOCRACY

It appears that what the Aquino administration has done to former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has the approval of the majority of Filipinos who append comments to news stories and columns published online, who anchor radio and TV news and public service programs and who are radio and newspaper commentators.

The Inquirer’s Amando Doronila, however, thinks “P-Noy’s double kill of GMA sends chills down public’s spine.”

We think Doronila is wrong—if “public” means the majority of ordinary people. We think the majority of the Filipinos, those who consistently give President Benigno Aquino 3rd very high ratings on his performance and his trustworthiness, have developed such a hatred for former president GMA that many of them have turned into a mob—not unlike the French Revolution’s “public” that wildly cheered the decapitation by guillotine of royals and aristocrats during the Reign of Terror

But he is right that many Filipinos worry that Secretary Leila de Lima—supported by the President and egged on by people in the Palace whom Senator Miriam Santiago has called “the movement”—could be, knowingly or not, leading our country to an uncertain and dangerous future.

One of the potential outcomes of these last few days’ events is the total demolition of the Supreme Court in the eyes of those more numerous Filipinos who might want Sec. de Lima to be the Filipino Robespierre.

It is unfortunate that there have been abridgements of due process in dealing with former president Arroyo. And it is even more unfortunate that if the Supreme Court censures Sec. de Lima, the SC Justices will surely reap the ire of that public whose howls for blood might force President Aquino—with his legal eagles’ encouragement—to take extraordinary steps. These steps could include the removal of Chief Justice Corona and the other justices being vilified as members of the “Coronarroyo court.”

If the majority of the members of the House of Representatives continue to be as steadfast in their loyalty to President Aquino as they have been so far, it will not be far-fetched to think that—emboldened by the Robespierrean public high on hatred for GMA—the House would swiftly impeach the entire “Coronaarroyo court.”

Despite the views of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who has, obviously tempering his opinion, called Sec. de Lima’s treatment of Mrs. Arroyo “unusual,” the Senate could also be swayed by “respect” for the Robespierrean public to hold a quick trial and find the High Court justices guilty.

Then the President would be able to appoint Supremes who would be happy to support him in his campaign to rid the government—and why not also the private sector? — of undesirable officials and smart operators.

Fair trial a must

When the time comes for Mrs. Arroyo, and the others charged with sabotaging the 2007 election, to be tried, the President and Sec. de Lima must ensure that they get a truly fair trial in which due process is genuinely followed.

The state can, of course, use all the heavy but legal means to defeat Mrs. Arroyo’s defense. This should be done transparently. As a bloc of congressmen have suggested, the trial should be televised.

A fair and transparent trial will boost the President’s credibility. The prosecutors must do an excellent job of proving GMA guilty—or there will be hell from the Robespierrean mob.

Saguisag: RTC has jurisdiction re GMA

Perhaps the following opinion of widely respected lawyer Rene V. Saguisag (a Manila Times columnist) will calm the anxious Filipinos who have come to believe one of the most key points made by the lawyers of Mrs. Arroyo. This point is that the Pasay Regional Trial Court that issued the arrest warrant against the former president had no jurisdiction.

Writes former senator and now San Beda professor Saguisag:

“Sec. 268 of the Omnibus Election Code, or Batas Pambansa Blg. 881, vests in RTCs exlusive and original jurisdiction over election offenses. Nothing in R.A. No. 8369 adding electoral sabotage to election offenses says that jurisdiction over such an election offense is to be heard by any other court. It would have made no sense.

“Judicial and administrative economy and symmetry argue against such bifurcation.

“The general law may invest the Sandiganbayan such jurisdiction over high officials. But here, the special law says RTCs [are] for election saboteurs.

“That the special prevails over the general is something we teach in freshman law in San Beda but strange things happen in our Supreme Court.

“Spokesman Midas Marquez should not speak for the SC in cases where opinions are divided, without clearing a priori a written statement agreed on by all Justices concerned. Else, he may just exhibit bias for a certain Justice or opinion, generating heat, not light.

“Boy Brillantes and Leila de Lima did not get their law diplomas from a department store, but earned them in the finest law school in the entire Mendiola complex.”

Meanwhile, the ruling of the Supreme Court on various facets of the GMA case is expected to be made today.

With due respect to the sensibilities of our Muslim fellow Filipinos (who also revere Jesus Christ as one of the four principal prophets and see him as the holy son of the Blessed Virgin Mary but do not believe he is God, the second person of the Holy Trinity), let us pray that Christ the King (whose feast was celebrated last Sunday) rule over the minds and hearts of our officials and our justices so that they always think and act for the common good.

(MANILA TIMES)

Why should the arrest of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo result in improvements in our society when the arrest, conviction for plunder and imprisonment of then president Joseph Estrada did not?

Most expert observers see that the reason our country is so disorderly, the reason Filipinos in general do not respect the rule of law, is that no wrongdoer gets punished.

That is also why a culture of impunity prevails in our society. Everybody who belongs to the middle class and the elite knows that he or she can escape punishment whatever he does.

The only ones who do not esape punishment—who are even punished for in fact doing good things—are the poor and ignorant.

The state is unable to enforce the rule of law. Or the law enforcers are so corrupt that they would rather not enforce the law and receive bribes for looking the other way.

So a sign that at last doing something wrong is causing someone big to suffer punishment should make everybody take notice and resolve to behave better.

Well, somebody big—the president of the Philippines named Joseph Estrada, a popular movie icon, beloved of the masses—was deposed, then tried and jailed (with some comforts, yes).

But our society did not improve. In fact, if her critics are to be believed, our society became worse after Erap Estrada was kicked out of Malacañang and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became president.

Wasn’t Erap ousted by the elite precisely because he was supposed to be a plunderer, an ineffective president who spent his days and night pleasing himself, never mind the affairs of state that a president of the republic should be attending to?

Then why did the elite continue being just as corrupt as Erap’s cronies were supposed to be?
The simple answer is that until now our society is not much different from the one that existed in the villages—the barangay—of our ancestors. Our culure is still that of the datu and the alipin.

This culture is incompatible to democracy. That is why that poor 50 percent segment of the population sell their votes and are willing to be mobilized as flying voters by the datu. But it’s not just in Mindanao where there are datus. In every modern building in Makati and Taguig, in the chaos of Cubao, datu rule and the rest are their alipin.

Why then should we think that putting former president Gloria Arroyo behind bars (when she gets better) will make the Philippines begin to tread the matuwid na daan?

Culture of impunity

It’s the inability of the state of enforce the laws fosters the culture of impunity.

The culture of impunity makes the Philippines the country with the most number of extrajudicial executions and disappeared. That makes elections a farce. That makes basic education and college schooling in most higher education buildings the equivalent of second-year high school.

President Aquino’s spokesmen are right. This move against Mrs. Arroyo—and the many other moves made before to investigate and then build cases against her and her partners—must be made.

Because that is what he promised to do during the campaign and what he and the 79 percent of survey respondents who trust him (and think he is performing well) believe must be done to make ours better society.

But he must do many other things.

And these other things have to do with making ours a more disciplined society.

He has to make moves to make people believe—as the late Ferdinand Marcos, Senate President Enrile et al. did in 1973—that “Sa ika-uunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan!” (Our nation’s progress calls for discipline.)

He also has to restore patriotism in the guts of the Filipinos. Patriotism—okay some writers would rather use the term “nationalism”—as Rizal wished his fellow Filipinos would have in their souls has been ignored by successions of presidents and educators. Instead what we have from many a nationalist book is anti-foreign and anti-American anger.

Most of all, he has to restore the virtues in the school system.

Otherwise such events as the arrest of former president Arroyo will not produce the behavioral motivation results that similar events caused in South Korea, Taiwan, the early years of Singapore and in the first years of countries that are now the First World.

Basic needs of the masses must be met

Meanwhile, the President must also—as we have been saying in this space over and over again—pay attention to creating more jobs, encouraging businesses to start and flourish.

For the fight against poverty must be waged. And this not done by wasting time and effort on pushing the Reproductive Health Bill. But by releasing more funds for infrastructure, for example. (Manila Times)

PacMan should run after Mayweather

By: Dan Mariano

by Ronnie Nathanielsz

POUND-FOR-POUND king Manny Pacquiao was obviously disappointed with his majority decision win over World Boxing Organization/World Boxing Association lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday and wants the Mexican one more time.

“Manny was not happy with his performance either,” strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza told Manila Standard after talking with the WBO welterweight champion Monday afternoon.
“It was obviously a really bad night. I want another one (fight with Marquez),” Ariza quoted Pacquiao as saying.

Ariza then told Pacquiao: “Let’s do it my way and see what happens.”

Back to basics

The conditioning guru wants Pacquiao to go back to the basics in his physical regimen.
“We have to get back to what we did in the days when we were successful and we didn’t have any leg problems (cramps) and things like that,” Ariza suggested to the Filipino champion.
The strength coach recalled their success in the fights against David Diaz, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto when Pacquiao stuck to Ariza’s tough conditioning regimen.
When asked about the cramps suffered by Pacquiao Sunday, Ariza instead compared the Pacman’s previous conditioning regimen with the ones he used recently against Shane Mosley and Marquez.

“In the fights against Marquez III and Mosley, Pacquiao had leg cramps, but when he trained the Ariza way, he had no leg cramps against Diaz, De La Hoya, Hatton, Cotto and Clottey,” the conditioning coach pointed out.

No excuses

He added: “I don’t want to make excuses about leg cramps, but our fights are getting worse. We are starting to go in reverse. Unless we get back to what we did in the beginning, I don’t see how we are going to progress.”

Ariza revealed that the Filipino icon was not doing it his (Ariza’s) way at all for Marquez III.
“Boxing training is different from conditioning training, where sometimes a fighter thinks that because he trains hard inside the gym, the conditioning is going to piggyback on the things that he does. Pacquiao looked good, but his body didn’t cooperate with him again last night. His balance was off, he looked very ordinary, nothing special. He was exposed,” Ariza said.
The conditioning guru was therefore pleased that Pacquiao agreed to go back to the old ways.

Ariza’s way

“Pacquiao told me next time, we are going to do everything my way. I know my way is very hard, it’s very taxing, it’s very uncomfortable, but there is a reason for it. Nobody likes to do the conditioning, but that’s what’s pushing us through, that’s what is making Manny look good,” said Ariza, who added that if he were Floyd Mayweather Jr. and he saw the Pacman’s performance, “I would sign for a Pacquiao fight this morning.”

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who was roundly booed by the Mexican fans, who accused him of stealing the fight from Marquez, said that a fourth fight between Pacquiao and the Mexican is a possibility.

“Not only was this fight not definitive, very few rounds were definitive. If the fighters are willing, we’ll do it again,” said Arum, who may have trouble convincing Marquez to fight Pacquiao for a fourth time and even money may not entice the Mexican legend to take on the challenge.
In fact, Marquez said he is contemplating retirement and was certain that even if he beats Pacquiao, the judges won’t give him the decision.

Sulaiman disappointed

Meanwhile, World Boxing Council president Don Jose Sulaiman, one of the admirers of Pacquiao, said he was “very disappointed” with the Pacman’s performance and that Marquez “didn’t lose the fight.”

“Pacquiao went eight rounds walking forward, but clearly cautiously, throwing one punch here, one punch there. He spent eight rounds without any passion, no heart,” he said. “I believe in Pacquiao. I believe he is one of the very best today, he is much better than he was seven years ago at a weight that he’s very strong. I said that before the fight so I was embarrassed with the result.”