San Miguel Foods to Sumilao farmers: “cease to exist!”

The management of San Miguel Foods yesterday asked the Department of Agrarian Reform to issue a ‘cease to exist order‘ (CTO) against the farmers from Sumilao, Bukidnon who have been standing in the way of the company’s grandiose plans to transform all town residents into millionaires by allowing them to market the methane gas from its piggery.

The farmers, who walked for almost two months and 1,700 kilometers from Sumilao to Manila, earlier asked DAR secretary Nasser Pangandaman to issue a ‘cease and desist order‘ (CDO) against San Miguel’s illegal piggery. Last Friday, Pangandaman, asked the parties to submit their respective position papers by Monday so he could finally rule on the matter. We learned that during the farmers’ trek, the DAR secretary was busy picking his nose while counting the lizards on the ceiling that were discussing land reform. Or he could have been dreaming of lechon and dinuguan. Or he was just being cautious about not violationg the human rights of Danding Cojuangco…

So on Human Rights Day yesterday, the farmers, who held that their position and the issues were already well known to the secretary, wanted to humbly comply with the climate changing order. But they were prevented from entering the DAR compound on orders of Pangandaman himself. He would authorize the entry of only the farmers’ lawyers because the farmers were unkempt and he feared violence and that they might not leave etcetera etcetera. But the farmers stood their ground and said they were the claimants and not their lawyers.

There are a few Cebuano words whose meanings cannot be captured in Tagalog or English: Pastilan! Intaon! Lecheng yawa!

A piece of our mind

Here’s a movie review we would have wanted to write ourselves on Lions for Lambs (produced by sheep), a fitting one for International Human Rights Day:

“The title of the movie Lions for Lambs is based on comment by a German General in World War I – he admired the British troops who were dying in the trenches, and held their officers in contempt. The movie tries to honor our troops while condemning the current crop of wars, politicians, and media”.

Drunks have human rights too

Some self-proclaimed leaders of ‘civil’ society have recently appointed themselves guardians of the peace as well. This time they are not after pornography, nor litter bugs, nor gun-toting machos, nor geriatric rapists. They’re raising a hue and cry against drunks, specifically the right of drunks to homeward mobility.

Their concern seems valid at first glance. A man was recently convicted for the killing inside a jeepney of a another man who complained the drunk had been making unwanted advances on his wife. Well, we say good riddance to the killer. But now the guardians of the peace are pushing for a law which bars drunks from getting onto public transport to get home.

So what are drunks to do?

1. Sleep upright inside one of Bayani Fernando’s pink abominations?
2. Shack up for the night with a GRO? (some of our friends, like Taroogs, might say that would be an expansion of civil liberties, but we reserve comment).
3. Walk to another bar and drink some more? (All drunks drink moderately, again and some more).

Well, how about simply driving home? While it is illegal in the Philippines to drive without a license, driving without a car is not, which goes to show just how wise our congressmen are. For as long as they have third party liability insurance, why not? And what possible damage can a drunk driving without a car inflict in a collision

On human rights, Arroyo’s on a roll with Christmas parole

by Inodoro Nila

Basking in the afterglow of his boss’s human rights award in Madrid, justice secretary Raul Gonzales yesterday said the parole of former lawmaker Romeo Jalosjos on December 16 or 17 was still possible.

Christmas truly is in the air, despite the whining and bitching of Old Spice and Onionista who wax melancholic over the holiday hues and carols of Decembers past. God damned atheist hippie drunkards!

“After we’ve pardoned plunderers and murderers (including priest killers) and given a Christmas parole to a convicted rapist (of an 11-year-old), what more could Philip Alston possibly want? Golden handcuffs?,” Gonzales railed. “I already stopped Esperon

Cebollas sin lagrimas: gold tumbles on ‘medalla de oro’ award to Arroyo

by Henry C. Bollas

London (via ZTE broadband)–World commodity markets were inundated early today with sell orders for spot and futures gold as the news sunk in of alleged Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo getting the ‘medalla de oro‘ award Tuesday from the Universidad de Alcala in Madrid. The highest civilian award was conferred allegedly for Arroyo’s “defense of human rights, particularly her role in abolishing the death penalty in the Philippines.”

“Que calamidad! Arroyo de lagrimas! (Flood of tears!)” a stock trader at the Bovespa in Madrid said. At the Chicago Mercantile Board, an analyst said “gold has lost half its luster forever.” She revealed hedge funds were dumping gold in favor of oil and onions. Oil prices had begun to slide despite the decision of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to maintain current production levels, probably because of a recent Japanese invention curtailing demand. Oil bets are now off, the lady said.

Our disappearing civil liberties, or why some liberties are greater than others, especially if you have been forced to disappear

by Onionista

Speaking with her now legendary candor and sincerity, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said she was sorry about the sorry plight of reporters who had been cuffed and bussed off to Bicutan for ‘processing.’ “I am sorry,” said she as her nose glowed even with the bright lights in the Malacanang press briefing room. Just a few hours later, around 20 million Filipinos were placed under house arrest in Metro Manila and adjacent regions with what former UP law dean Raul Pangalangan said was an unconstitutional 12-5 a.m. curfew. The streets of the capital were eerier than on Good Fridays in a country dominated by nominally devout Catholics. Only the lord, if there is a lord, knows how many agogo dancers, carnappers, akyat-bahay gangsters, hotblooded teenagers, restless and bored husbands, matronas and their dance attorneys, balut vendors, wanderlustful congressmen had their freedom of movement curtailed, with dire consequences not only for the formal and informal sectors of the economy, but also on the freedom-seeking human spirit.

The ubiquitous checkpoints prompted a variation of the second law of cartoon physics: Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until a checkpoint appears, in which case kotong will have to be paid for the body to regain its momentum. If no kotong is paid, the body will disappear until a writ of amparo makes it reappear.

More recently, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) subpoenaed Maria Ressa of ABS-CBN to investigate the network’s alleged involvement in Oplan Peninsula. The subpoena was served after Malacañang, taking liberties with the word ‘dialogue’ proposed a meeting between the PNP/AFP and the press. Ressa has reportedly sent a conciliatory text message to interior and local government secretary Ronnie Puno: go fuck and talk

Curfew nets P1.5M in kotong

by Mon Tofu

The curfew imposed from midnight to 5 a.m. in the wake of the ‘protest action’ by Sen. Antonio Trillanes and Gen . Danilo Lim yesterday, netted a total of P1.5 million in kotong (petty bribes) from Metro Manila residents who were mostly unaware of it, police sources said. In a press briefing last night, national police chief Avelino Razon said that those manning police checkpoints had been warned not to demand kotong. However, our sources said the collections were centralized at the various police stations in the interest of transparency and proper accounting.

Among those caught violating the emergency regulation, dubbed by human rights lawyers as unconstitutional, were balut vendors, striptease dancers, drunks, and vagrants.

Kotong is one of the major complaints of public utility drivers reeling from rising gasoline prices.

Philip Alston:The blind and pesky Australian

by Onionista

What’s wrong with Philip Alston? According to Malacañang chief of staff Eduardo Ermita, he could shed crocodile tears and blood before the UN special rapporteur on human rights and still fail to convince the expert of the country’s sterling record on human rights. The blind can probably see better than Alston, Ermita said in a press briefing in Malacañang yesterday.

The ‘intelligence’ agencies of government, including the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) under the wing of Norberto Gonzales and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp-Esperon wing) had linked the recent spate of forced disappearances of left-wing activists to a purge conducted by the Maoist insurgency in the late 80’s and early 90’s, in an apparent bid to harass congressmen sympathetic to the National Democratic Front.

“He should just use his imagination and not question the chronology of events,” Gonzales and Esperon protested to TPO over dinner last night. “What does he want us to do? Admit that the insurgency is a bogey to justify our perks and reason for being?” TPO has learned that Gonzales has a confidential long-term plan to drive the legal Left back to the hills because they cannot be coopted by the idea that political power can grow out of the pork barrel of a gun. Once back in the mountains, they can be more easily bombed into

An ear for an ear

by Mon Tofu

Newly appointed Station 11 commander Superintendent Nelson Yabut was all ears when challenged by Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim to catch the criminal who snatched a pair of “catchy” two-toned gold clip earrings purchased from the Binondo jeweler ‘From ear to eternity’ from a jeepney passenger recently. In his haste, the thief also detached the ears of the woman from Cavite. Lim, who gained notoriety in a previous term for spray painting the homes of suspects with skulls and bones, has reportedly offered a reward to anyone who could deliver the perp’s ears on a silver platter.