A detainee after the inspection by the Commission on Human Rights. Photo from Inquirer.

News of a detention cell hidden behind a bookshelf in a Manila Police District station spread on social and actual media last week.

Just as quickly were comments defending the police and dismissing the allegations of rights abuses from the detainees and their families.

To his credit, President Rodrigo Duterte did not outright dismiss the allegations nor the existence of the cell. He said he would have Philippine National Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa look into it.

Foremost among those on the defensive were the precinct commander, Superintendent Robert Domingo — he said the detainees were lucky to be alive — and dela Rosa.

Domingo to NCRPO, MPD directors: Walang patawad tayo sa war on drugs; buti nga buháy sila (cell detainees) pic.twitter.com/O9gNLzdobf

— Anjo Bagaoisan (@anjo_bagaoisan) April 28, 2017

“As long as the prisoners were not tortured or extorted, itâ€s okay with me,” dela Rosa said, ignoring how extortion was among the very allegations raised by the detainees’ families. Never mind, as well, that being held in cramped and secret cells is prohibited by the 1987 Constitution and the basic standards of treating people with dignity.

The detainees were also allegedly beaten, which, some people might consider torture.

Dela Rosa, quick to jump at shadowy conspiracies (and away from confiscated firecrackers that suddenly start smoking), cast doubt on the Commission on Human Rights inspection so close to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. This, despite inspections being among the CHR’s powers and duties.

The Dela Rosa Defense, as it is with many in the president’s inner circle, seems to be: Question motive, question timing, but never question the correctness of the thing itself.

But Domingo and Dela Rosa are police officers and can be expected to defend their institution (and, in Domingo’s case, the incredibly ill-advised decision to lock up suspects who hadn’t been formally charged in the secret cell.)

Most disappointing of all, however, was the rabid defense of the detention cell by citizens who have nothing to gain from cheering on the inhumane detention of their fellows.

It is bad enough to dismiss the thousands killed in the government’s war on drugs. The more than 2,500 who died in police operations since July could really have shot it out with cops.

One can easily nitpick and say the thousands others killed were just “regular” homicides and casualties from gang wars since there is no proof that the government was involved.

But to see a dozen people cramped in a dark cell behind a bookshelf and justify that by saying the cell wasn’t really hidden — the door to the cell only happened to be behind a book case — or that all of this is part of some shadowy “Yellow” plot to bring the Duterte government down is a new low in callousness.

Make no mistake, if you explained away the “secret” cell — or, actually, use quotation marks around secret except as some flimsy protection against libel — or saw a conspiracy by the legless Liberal Party instead of 12 people who should have been treated as people, then you might as well have put them in the cell yourself.

It is entirely your right (but it is wrong) to excuse away the maltreatment of your citizens for illusory safety and public order. Know, however, that by trading away others’ rights so you can sleep a little better, you are trading away something of yourself as well.

Call it your soul, or your decency, or don’t call it anything at all, but seeing others as less than human diminishes your humanity as well.

Regardless of whether there is a conspiracy to bring down the government, those who explain away keeping alleged drug suspects in a secret cell are, without a doubt, complicit in keeping them there.

A police investigation team at Mamasapano, Maguindanao

President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday said the Catholic Church is full of shit and accused a bishop of having two wives (and of being a monkey) but that was not the worst thing that a politician said that day.

Sycophant Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, failed vice-presidential candidate and absentee lawmaker of the Senate of the 17th Congress, spoke before the relatives of Special Action Force commandos killed in a covert mission in Maguindanao province two years ago to tell them that their loved ones did not die in vain.

The SAF 44 — the name given to the troopers who died in a badly-planned operation against a terrorist bomb maker– let us be clear, did not die in vain.

This much was already said two years ago by the head of the Philippine National Police, the man who actually had the standing and the experience to say that.

“I declare that Marwan is dead. Mission Accomplished,” PNP Officer-in-Charge Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina said in April 2015.

Cayetano, who pretended during Senate hearings in 2015 that he was an expert on tactics because he has seen many war movies, should know that for many of those in uniform: Mission comes first.

Here, for example, is a quote from the movie Jarhead:

Troy: Fuck politics. We’re here. All the rest is bullshit.
All Marines: Yeah.

But, of course, since Cayetano is who he is, he consoled the SAF 44 families by saying the deaths were glorious.

“It is also glorious because it has produced a man, President Rodrigo Duterte, that understands both peace and war, that understands the barrel of the gun, but also understands how to put together people in peace,” Cayetano said, because his life can rally only be divided into the time before Duterte and the time after.

He is, in many ways, like a Crossfitter except without being strong or fit. He is basically an annoying asshole who never shuts up about this one thing, is what I mean.

But this is par for the course for Cayetano. Tuesday was just the latest instance that he showed he was willing to use the corpses of others for political points.

He did it in 2015 when the bodies of the SAF 44 were still being buried and he did it in 2016 when a farmers’ protest in Kidapawan City ended in a bloody dispersal.

He did it as well to the thousands of people who were tortured, killed and disappeared during the Marcos regime. He spoke out well against the abuses when it suited him — during the vice presidential debate with then Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — but kept silent about it when Duterte allowed the remains of the elder Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

“I haven’t kept quiet. Everyone has [his or her] role. And it is not my role at this point in time to be in the streets and rallying. My role, at this point in time, is helping the president in the capacity that he feels I can help him,” he said in December after people started referring to him as “Quietano”.

There can be no doubt that this man was indeed a Chinese drug lord. Thank you, Batman

June 30 — the day that President-elect Rodrigo Duterte became president in fact and in law — has come and gone and we are pleasantly surprised that none of the following has happened: The total collapse of society, the death of the Philippine economy, nor the end of our Filipino way of life.

It seems the fears of a rise in extrajudicial killings have been misplaced To quote Duterte’s predecessor, but we’re all still alive, right?

Well, not quite. As of the second day of the Duterte presidency, at least 12 drug suspects have been killed across the country, many of them reportedly shot while resisting arrest.

One was killed and left in a ditch in Tondo, Manila. On his body, a cardboard sign identifying the dead man as a Chinese drug dealer. On one corner of  the cardboard sign, Batman’s bat symbol is inked in permanent marker, perhaps as a bona fide that the man who died was indeed a criminal.

Duterte supporters will say that the deaths cannot be blamed on the president. He did not, after all, pull the trigger himself. Nor did he give specific orders, at least not in a way that has a paper trail, to kill drug personalities. He repeatedly spoke about it in his speeches, but, as his supporters say, those are just soundbites and that is simply how he talks.

Indeed, the links connecting Duterte to the deaths are as tenuous as those connecting former President Benigno Aquino III to the deaths of more than 60 Filipinos — but, really, most people only count the 44 police officers among them — in Mamasapano, Maguindanao in 2015.

This has not kept some Duterte supporters from cheering on the deaths of these supposed drug dealers and distributors. For many of those, that is precisely why they voted for the Davao City mayor: to rid the streets of drugs and crime. Surely, as the man in Tondo who was killed by Batman, the only ones who will die are those involved in the drug gangs and therefore had it coming anyway.

Duterte supporters, chief among them Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, have repeatedly said that if one has done nothing wrong, then there is no reason to fear. For Duterte supporters, many of whom come from the upper and middle classes according to pre-election surveys, this is undoubtedly true.

After all, no rich people use drugs and even fewer than none are involved in the drug syndicates. At least, going by the deaths so far. We are all still alive, right?

And that is at the heart of why the uproar over the extrajudicial deaths has been faint. Aquino’s quote, which his critics repeatedly used to highlight his supposed lack of empathy for the people, was directed at a Tacloban City businessman who raised concerns about looting after Typhoon Yolanda.

The man has since died and it would be poor form to dispute his claim of being shot at by would-be looters, but the reports were, to be generous, exaggerated.

Emergency responders who went to Tacloban and to other parts of the Eastern Visayas  did not validate the reports and according to people on the ground, a video of residents swarming inside a shop in typhoon-hit Leyte province was not evidence of looting.

The store had opened its doors because the goods would have spoiled from the lack of electricity anyway, people who were on the ground after Yolanda said.

This drive against drug dealers and the dregs of society is similar in that it is a call for the state to use security forces against a valid if likely exaggerated threat.

There is no outcry over the deaths of these drug dealers — and we have pretty much accepted that that is what they were despite no court saying so — as there likely would not have been any over supposed looters killed after Yolanda.

Neither will there be much vocal opposition to the reimposition of the death penalty, which Duterte wants and for which bills have already been filed at the Senate and House. It will not matter that the death penalty is outdated, is ineffective as a deterrent to crime and is unfairly stacked against the poor, who cannot afford the legal options to keep them out of the lethal injection chamber or, if Duterte gets his wish, away from the gallows.

After all, we’re all still alive.

Image from Adobo Chronicles, a reliable news site, according to netizens

Last year, Manila was in a panic because airport police began finding bullets in people’s luggage.

The apparent extortion scheme saw Overseas Filipino Workers, senior citizens and regular people being charged with illegal possession of ammunition. The charges were often dropped once they reached the prosecutor’s office with the help of the Public Attorney’s Office and the public itself.

Although the existence of an actual widespread scam is yet to be proven, the potential hassle of missing a flight — for one victim, it reportedly meant losing her job — made some willing to settle the case with airport security and make the supposedly planted evidence go away.

Government spokespersons and apologists were quick to point out that these were isolated cases, and were promptly told to stop being unfeeling mouthpieces of this corrupt and inept administration. Even when government officials showed that some of those caught admitted to having the bullets in their baggage or on their body as amulets, people made sure to be extra careful.

Some took pictures of their luggage as proof that they didn’t pack any ammunition. Even more wrapped their luggage in plastic to make sure security personnel couldn’t easily insert bullets and other contraband in their bags.

It didn’t matter that you were sure that there were no bullets in your luggage, almost everyone who went through an airport in the Philippines in September worried, in varying degrees, that someone would find something.

The thought of being prosecuted for a crime that you didn’t commit was so horrific that “laglag-bala”, the name for the supposed scheme, became a campaign issue and was included in the final presidential debate in Pangasinan last month.

And yet here we are less than a year since the scare about to voluntarily subject the country to “laglag-bala” writ large.

Pre-election surveys suggest that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte will be the likely winner in the elections on Monday, a man who has made a reputation on saving the courts time by executing suspected criminals and who has made executions and pardons for police officers who kill criminals a central part of his campaign.

Fuck due process and human rights, his supporters say mere months after raging about the lack of due process (but was actually the presence of — actual charges were filed and, when warranted, dismissed) at the airports.

If you did nothing wrong, then there is no reason to be afraid, his vice presidential candidate sneers, forgetting, or perhaps having never experienced, the absurdity of knowing there are no bullets in your baggage but being afraid that there will be when security screens your bags.

We want change, his supporters cry. And, indeed, who doesn’t? But voting in a new president will not mean the “laglag-bala” extortionists will no longer be at the airports, or that their supervisors will suddenly be vigilant against the scheme.

Having a new face in the Palace will not mean that suspects who die in shootouts with the police, or while in police custody, will not just be fall guys.

Duterte has promised to pardon law enforcement officers who kill in the line of duty, which will mean sanctioning extrajudicial killings that are already happening in the country anyway. And because the Philippines does not have a death penalty, all killings are, by definition, extrajudicial.

In a Duterte administration, they will still be such, but will have the imprimatur of the president and, worse, the consent of the people.

In the campaign for the presidency, Duterte and his supporters have trampled on and discredited institutions that serve as checks on government abuse — the Commission on Human Rights, the media, the very idea of checks and balances in government — in favor of some nebulous change that is coming and that will be difficult to put back in the bottle once uncorked.

Duterte is not President Benigno Aquino III, is not Vice President Jejomar Binay, is not former Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas and his followers trust him precisely because of that. But a government is more than just one person, that is its strength and its weakness. Duterte may have the purest of intentions, but that does not carry over to everyone else in government service and his promise to kill criminals will not mean there will be fewer criminals, only that more alleged criminals will be killed.

Duterte joked more than once that the funeral industry will boom when he becomes president. Another industry that will see huge profits is plastics, because we’ll soon need to wrap ourselves in it to prevent planted evidence in a society where suspected and guilty will mean the same thing.

This time, instead of bullets being found in our bags, they might be found inside us.

Presidential aspirant Rodrigo Duterte kisses a woman during his proclamation rally. GRIG MONTEGRANDE/PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER

Gabriela party-list, a sectoral group with two seats at the House of Representatives, caused a stir on Twitter last night over a statement made by Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan that implied that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s womanizing is not that bad.

In a report on ABS-CBN News that will by now probably be blamed on mainstream media taking things out of context, Ilagan said that the bits about Duterte — presidential candidate of PDP-Laban – having many girlfriends and cavorting with women at political rallies are a product of media hype and, anyway, are just part of who Duterte is as a person.

“I personally even say that look beyond the words, look beyond the actions. Focus on what he has done, what he can do, what he is still doing that will benefit our people,” Ilagan, who is, incidentally, running for councilor of Davao City under Duterte’s local party, said.

Besides, she said, Duterte’s marriage has been annulled, and so he is not really womanizing when he has multiple girlfriends.

In December, Gabriela Rep. Emmie de Jesus said of Duterte in an Inquirer report that “[w]omanizing and treating women as objects is an affront to women and it is not something that should be flaunted.”

This was also said in a party statement that month:

These [acts] reek of machismo, reinforces the societyâ€s low regard of women and consequently increases womenâ€s vulnerability to violence and abuse. This is both distasteful and unacceptable.

A GMA News Online report attributes the statement to both Gabriela representatives.

But this is now acceptable, apparently. Or at least the womanizing part is, going by Ilagan’s statement. The Gabriela representative was silent on Duterte’s kissing sprees and his justification that how he is with women is just basic biology.

And that, perhaps, is the bigger sin than this political accommodation by Ilagan, who is nominally still with Gabriela but whose statement the party-list might yet disavow as her personal opinion.

By excusing Duterte’s womanizing ways — an issue that few have really raised — and being silent about his behavior with female supporters, Ilagan has engaged in a sort of double speak that could gain her points with Duterte and his supporters in Davao City without overly undermining Gabriela’s position.

She has also,  intentionally or not, minimized the objectification of women at Duterte-Cayetano rallies. (Senator Pia Cayetano has much the same thing by pretending to not notice what happens at these rallies, so it’s a common thing.)

This is not, of course, the first time that party-list groups have looked the other way for what they call tactical alliances.

Former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo was once on the same ticket as Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the man who had him jailed during martial law. Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares of the Makabayan Bloc that Gabriela is also part of has also accepted the endorsement of Manila Mayor Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the man that umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan helped overthrow in 2001.

In between, Makabayan has also allied itself with revolutionary figures like Senators Francis Escudero, Loren Legarda and Aquilino Pimentel III, and then Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar

Perhaps Gabriela’s latest statement is only disappointing because of our naivete. We expect these party-list groups to offer better and more principled politics than the prostituted mainstream parties when there is no actual promise of that. Or, at least, no more promise than made by mainstream parties.

Party-list groups are political groups and it is silly of us to think that they are any different from the United Nationalist Alliance, the Liberal Party, or the Nacionalista Party except perhaps in size and advocacy.

If anything, this recent move by Gabriela shows how well some party-lists have moved into the mainstream of Philippine politics. Sadly, it is in a way that makes them near indistinguishable from everyone else.

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, presidential candidate of PDP Laban, attended a forum with students this week and won the day, if, for nothing else than because none of the other presidential candidates showed up for it.

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano (who, people who know these things say, has not been showing up to work at the Senate for a while now), Duterte’s vice presidential candidate, was quick to crow about this, saying:

“Dalawa, tatlo na ang hamon kay Mayor Duterte nang debate, nasaan sila ngayon? Siguro yun ang dapat nating itanong,” said Cayetano.

(There are two, 3 challenges to Mayor Duterte to debate, where are they now? Maybe thatâ€s what we should be asking.)

And he is right. The forum at De La Salle University would have been a good opportunity for the candidates to talk to the youth (and the Internet) about their plans for the country and Duterte and Cayetano should be commended for showing up.

On the day of the forum, netizens were asking where the other candidates were. Vice President Jejomar Binay was apparently in Caloocan, Senator Grace Poe was in Cavite, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago did not want to attend unless all other candidates were there. Liberal Party Mar Roxas, meanwhile, was sick.

His social media team said so:

@DREYAmcatcher Mar won’t be able to attend, Ma’am. He’s been feeling sick since yesterday.

— Ask Mar Roxas (@AskMARoxas) January 20, 2016

And who are we to say that he was not? What they did not mention, though, was that Roxas’ being sick was irrelevant to his attendance at the forum. He had, in fact, according to sources (who were tweeting openly about it), declined the invitation in favor of sorties in Nueva Ecija province. Had he been hale and hearty, he would still not have been there.

This was made clear the day after by Akbayan Rep. Barry Gutierrez, campaign spokesman:

“Maaga pa lang, sinabi na namin, pinaabot na namin, and Iâ€m sure alam ng kampo ni Mayor Duterte na hindi kami nag-confirm for that event. Madaling magmatapang dahil ikaw lang ang nakatayo sa entablado at sasabihin mo na lahat, natakot na ikaw ay makita. Alam mo namang simula pa lang, hindi talaga pupunta. Magkakaroon pa tayo ng tatlong oportunidad para magkaroon ng debates,” said Gutierrez, referring to debates sanctions by the Commission on Elections.

(Early on, we turned the invitation down and I’m sure Duterte’s camp knows we never confirmed for that event. It’s easy to be tough talking when you’re the only one on stage and claim that everyone’s afraid to face you. But they know from the start that we wouldn’t be going. They’re be three more chances to have debates)

Now, candidates are not obliged to attend every speaking engagement they are invited to, not even to the debates that the Comelec will organize.  If Roxas and his team felt that going to Nueva Ecija made more strategic sense than attending the Rappler forum, then that is fine.

But there is no need to pussyfoot about by saying he couldn’t come because he was sick. The Roxas Twitter account is probably run by volunteers, so they may not have known what the situation was, but one cannot be blamed for getting the impression that this was another subtle attempt at spin, and a president whose people cannot speak plainly is not the Leader I Want.

Two marginally related things that, taken together, paint a rather bleak picture of the Philippine media landscape this week.

GMA 7 has decided to shut down its Iloilo City news operations, a move that will see 20 employees get retrenched as the regional station transitions into a sales and marketing office.

Among those who lost their jobs, although they will get their salaries until December and will be receiving compensation that has been reported to be generous, are some employees who have been with the Manila-headquartered network for 10 years.

The retrenchment comes after job cuts in other regional stations in the Visayas, including the one in the regional center Cebu City, earlier this year.

Management explained that the cuts were necessary to lower costs.

“Lugi kami eh. Wala nang ratings eh. In short, wala nang silbi. Lahat naman ng managers ay ginagawa ito. Kung hahayaan mo lang, eh ‘di maba-bankrupt ka. (We were losing money. Ratings were low. In short, thereâ€s no use. All managers do this. If you let this happen, youâ€ll be bankrupt),”

 

the network’s chairman said in May.

The network will likely get by on stringers and by stretching its shrinking news-gathering force but job cuts, especially in the provinces, will always mean weaker coverage overall and will always mean important stories from outside the capital will likely remain outside the consciousness of those in Manila.

And then, there is this story on US President Barack Obama’s visit to Manila for the APEC conference this week, which asks: Did Obama do the “pabebe wave” in this selfie with PHL Navy captain?

The answer, as is usually the case with headlines that end with a question mark, is probably no. Pabebe wave, of course, refers to the signature move made famous by the AlDub kalyeserye that has been running for four months now, has boosted the network’s revenues, and has influenced its coverage to date.

The pabebe wave has, no doubt, enriched the network that airs AlDub and keeping it in the public consciousness makes strategic sense, but, when it drives the news, we are all the poorer for it. Cutting back on regional coverage, especially in an election year, may make financial sense to the company, but it is a loss to the public that the news is supposed to serve.

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween, two hosts of noontime variety show “Eat, Bulaga!” (Or Eat Beluga to our friends from Buzzfeed) dressed up like “Arab sheiks”, a costume that offended some Filipino Muslims, including Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman, who called it “a mockery of and an affront to the image of the Muslim.”

In a Rappler report, Hataman said wearing the costume — which is an Arab national costume and  that many non-Arab Muslims also wear during prayer — “betrays an insensitivity by these hosts, as they equated the Muslim garb as a costume to be feared, in the way that zombies and ghouls are to be feared.” He demanded an apology from the hosts on behalf of his Filipino Moro constituents.

Blogger Jorjani Sinsuat had more to say on it:

I am not angry but I am very disappointed much like most of our brethren because we are all aware that not only there is seemingly an invisible barrier between Filipinos but it feels like we are mocked in front of national television and we cannot do anything about it because we do not have strong media outlets that may address the lack of information on who we really are as a society.

But the real punchline here is how little netizens cared about the issue, many of whom even played down the supposed offense as Muslims “over-reacting”, “not getting the joke”, and “making a mountain out of a molehill.” Hataman was even scored for using the issue for political mileage.

Some countered that they wouldn’t be offended if people dressed up like Catholic priests and nuns, or even as Pope Francis, so why should Muslims be offended at all? Some even offered the counterpoint that Muslims should not be offended by the costume since, referencing the Mamasapano clash and the Zamboanga Siege of 2013, massacres and war seem to be okay. And there lies the problem.

Filipino Catholics and atheists on the Internet are, sadly, worlds apart from your average Filipino Muslim in Mindanao or even in the quarters in Metro Manila. They are often excluded from national consciousness and discourse if not subject to mistrust and to caricatures like, for example, being terrorists and rebels. They are a marginalized minority, and are, as a consequence, more sensitive to injury and offense.

Few Catholics would bat an eyelash at someone wearing a Pope costume because their position is dominant. Wearing a Pope costume would then be a parody, something that can be taken as a light-hearted joke because after — and during Halloween, because despite its pagan roots and capitalist evolution, All Hallows’ Eve is a Catholic tradition — Halloween, they are still the dominant culture. Filipino Catholics can afford to laugh at themselves because there is no loss of face there, no implied lack of respect, and at any rate, religion is not that big a deal for many of them.

The same cannot be said of Filipino Muslims, who are marginalized precisely because of their religion.

How unfortunate, then, that even what they are allowed to be offended by is dependent on whether the dominant culture agrees that they should be offended.

The costume is doubly tone deaf  because it was done on national television and by a senator who has been tasked with deliberating on the Basic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, a piece of legislation 17 years in the making and that has already been tattered and watered down by bias, mistrust, and prejudices.

How, one wonders, can Sen. Tito Sotto be expected to study the proposed legislation objectively when he displays that kind of insensitivity so casually?

It is a small thing, this wearing of the Arab costume, and certainly not the worst faux pas from the Eat Bulaga! hosts, but it is good to keep in mind that for people in the periphery, sometimes small things like being respected and not made a caricature — or, actually, having the right to be offended at something — are all that they hope to have.

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Philippine media industry is facing a crisis: In many newsrooms, journalists are quitting and while that is normal in an industry that has historically had a high rate of attrition, this is happening in the lead up to an election year.

Of those who quit, only a handful do so to join another media company. Many  go into corporate communications, public relations, or into handling media for politicians. Each person who leaves — except for those who are shit at their jobs anyway — is a loss to the profession and weakens journalism in general.

One company — whose coverage has already been weakened by complications with the Bureau of Internal Revenue — has had a record-breaking number of desertions this year, with each resignation meaning more work for those who stay.

Those who do stay are underpaid and unappreciated aside from overworked, leading to low morale in a sickly work force that would more accurately be described as a work platoon.

Things have gotten so bad that it is trying to call back staff who have already left for help in the coming lean months. At correspondent rates for round-the-clock work.

Things are not much better at another company, where at least three veteran members of the staff are preparing to resign if they haven’t already. This is on top of several resignations earlier in the year because of internal politics and the favoritism that is characteristic of newsrooms (and, to be fair, offices) in the Philippines.

The good get going while management has to make do with those who can barely do or who want to leave but are staying more because they have bills to pay than because they still believe in the nobility and necessity of the profession.

At another website affiliated with a broadsheet, three resignations this year, including the loss of its boss. At a broadsheet, more resignations that has seen its staff filing as many as eight long form stories across different beats per day.

The tragedy of the situation, aside from the disservice to the public of a harried news industry with no time for depth and background, is that this is a crisis that media corporations brought upon themselves.

In many local media outlets, pay has not increased in the last three to five years while the workload has by the month. Multimedia journalism, touted as the next wave of news a few years ago,  has become the industry standard and while that is potentially a good thing, it is also, for the most part, a cost-cutting thing.

In many local media outlets, there is no real system to address grievances and human resource departments will usually take the side of management in disputes. This is not because they are morally ambiguous or because they do not care about employee welfare, necessarily, but because they know that their own employment also depends on the currents of office politics.

Graduation season may bring respite with thousands of would-be journalists eager to change the world available at bargain prices, and this is what the media corporations are banking on.

They will welcome these kids and feed them nice slogans and beautiful promises of making the powerful accountable and doing their duty for the country and then send them off with little training and negligible guidance to sink or swim in the field. If they fail, they will get bawled out. If they fail magnificently, they will be fired and replaced.

That, at least, has been the model that many newsrooms have been operating under. But this is an unsustainable model and students are getting wise to the scam. Many are taking up public relations electives for more lucrative work in the corporate world or will opt to work in a content farm where the pay is better and where there is much less pressure.

And that is the problem with treating personnel as more resource than human, of the mentality that there are hundreds out there who would kill for the opportunity to work in media, or indeed to have a job at all.

At some point, you will run out of people who are qualified and idealistic enough for the job or run the people who are qualified and idealistic enough for the job out.

The Bongbong rockets, a Philippine military attempt to be self-sufficient

Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, who is running for the Senate in 2016, said Tuesday that the Philippines should not rely on the United States in its dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea, the country’s economic zone in the South China Sea.

“Let us rely on ourselves,” he said, according to a Rappler report. And that is a wonderful sentiment and a great goal to aspire to. His suggestion is for the Philippines to be “like Vietnam and other countries that didn’t seek [assistance, presumably] from the United States.”

He was perhaps referring to Vietnam’s Three Nos defense policy: No military alliances, no foreign military bases on Vietnamese territory, and no reliance on any country to combat others. And, there, Vietnam has us beat. Despite efforts to modernize our military, Philippine defense policy seems to be the very opposite of Vietnam’s.

But Colmenares’ suggestion holds little water considering how Colmenares and his colleagues at the Makabayan bloc at the House of Representatives and the wider umbrella group Bagong Alyansa Makabayan — Bayan — are also opposed to steps that would make the Philippines closer to Vietnam in terms of defense policy.

Vietnam, according to Global Security, which studies these things, has conscription and has had conscription since at least 1982, when it imposed “a military obligation generally of three years active duty on all able-bodied males in Vietnam.”

That was amended in 1990, when males between 18 and 25 years old were subject to compulsory or voluntary military service, “with conscription typically taking place twice annually and service obligation is 18 months.”

The amended Law on Military Service adopted in 2011 at the 7th Session of the 11th National Assembly reduced the service duration from 24 months to 18 months. This regulation results in the possible increase in the number of the youth to join the army. Those ex -servicemen constitute a powerful reserve force to supplement the regular force when needed

Colmenares’ colleagues, in contrast, want the Reserve Training Officers’ Training Corps — now replaced by the National Service Training Program where military  training is among the options — reduced even further, saying it “will be used as a weapon against students who are fighting for their rights”.

Student activists also point at alleged incidences of hazing in ROTC programs as proof that they must be scrapped.

“The continued proliferation of unexplainable violence in the ROTC fosters a culture of fear, violence and impunity in schools and universities, which are supposedly centers of free discourse, learning and progressive thought,” Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said in 2014.

Although of serious concern as well as illegal, hazing should not mean reforms in the ROTC program, not abolition. It is a little problematic for Colmenares and his allies to call for self-reliance while also trying to undermine one of the programs that could help towards that.

Makabayan has also consistently called for a decrease in military spending, citing the risk of corruption and saying there are better things to use the money on.

“Do we really need 12 fighter jets?” former Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino asked in 2012, saying poverty and not national security should take priority.

That is, of course, true. But consider the Philippines’ record $552-million proposed military budget for 2016 against Vietnam’s $2.6 billion in 2011 (and $3.3 billion in 2007). If you keep putting off spending on defense, you will eventually be forced to rely on some other nation that put money into its military for your defense and survival.

For all the ills it has brought, the Philippines’ defense agreements with the US have also brought the country surplus military equipment that is superior to having no military equipment at all.

Abstracts like “national industrialization” are great, but Colmenares and his friends have yet to present a plan for that to happen, and for the Philippines to be able to defend itself. The idea seems to be for the Philippines to make its own military equipment, something that it has tried in the past to comically tragic (or tragically comic) results.

And even the premise that Vietnam is doing it alone is faulty. It was supported by the USSR until the Soviet Union fell and maintains ties with the new Russia that emerged — it buys a majority of its military equipment there.

Vietnam was also friends with China before a maritime dispute between the two heated up again.

In 2008, “political relations have been buttressed by the regular exchange of high-level delegations, while economic ties have burgeoned. The value of two-way trade  has risen from almost nothing in 1991 to $15 billion in 2007, making China Vietnamâ€s largest overall trade partner (Xinhua News Agency, January 23).”

And, even, then:

Vietnam has had to contend with the problems posed by being the weaker party in an increasingly asymmetric relationship: How to accommodate a rising China, steer a middle path between hostility and dependence, and preserve the countryâ€s political autonomy.

But at least Vietnam isn’t in bed with the imperialist US, right?

Well, in June, Vietnam and the US entered a defense agreement to “expand defense trade between our two countries, potentially including cooperation in the production of new technologies and equipment, where possible under current law and policy restrictions.”

It isn’t a military alliance in the same sense that the Philippines has with the US, certainly, but in 2014, the US and Vietnam held naval exercises.

The non-combat exercises, the fifth between the two nations, was, according to Jonathan London, assistant professor at the City University of Hong Kongâ€s Department of Asian and International Studies, part of Vietnam “pursuing closer relations with countries such as the US as a hedge against China, with which it also must maintain good relationships.”