January 12 - 18, 2003, Bulatlat, Volume 2, Number 48, Top 20 Philippine Newsmakers of 2002,

January 12 - 18, 2003, Bulatlat, Volume 2, Number 48, Top 20 Philippine Newsmakers of 2002,
Quezon City, Philippines


Top 20 Philippine Newsmakers of 2002

2002 was a watershed year in the Philippine scene. Just a few weeks after the first anniversary of the urban-centered people’s uprising that was EDSA 2, our country was swiftly caught in the maelstrom of the Bush-Cheney regime’s war ofterrorism when United States (U.S.) occupation troops landed here last February and made our country the second front of its fake fight against the 9/11 terrorists after its invasion of Afghanistan failed to nab Osama bin Laden until now.

By the Center for Anti-Imperialist Studies (CAIS) 
Bulatlat.com

Before we rush headlong into 2003 girding for more challenges ahead, CAIS offers this list of entities that shaped 2002--for better or for worse--into the colorful year that it was

Vice President Tito Guingona

His courageous stand against the invasion of U.S. troops on Philippine soil deeply cracked the monolithic subservience of the Arroyo government to the designs of the warmongering Bush-Cheney clique, exposed the subversion of the Philippine constitution and sovereignty by the U.S., and lent extraordinary breadth to the grassroots opposition to the U.S. armed occupation that was masquerading as an aggrandized police operation against a puny army of bandits. In a year dotted by claims of “personal sacrifice” by mainstream politicians, his was genuine, patriotic and the first for 2002, by resigning as foreign affairs secretary.

Jose Ma. Sison

How could a Filipino resistance leader, who was a vital actor in catalyzing the massive people’s democratic uprising that threw off the Estrada regime, be tagged as a terrorist following 9/11 by the Bush administration when he--along with the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army, which were likewise tagged as terrorist groups by the U.S.--had nothing to do with the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, by any stretch of the imagination? (He even roundly condemned the attacks and sympathized with the civilian victims, even reminding everyone that terrorism be clearly defined as “willful and malicious infliction and threat of death and other physical harm on innocent civilians.”) Twenty-two members of the European Parliament, and multi-national activists from Canada, Japan and Hong Kong--not to mention local people’s organizations that formed the bulk of EDSA 2--thought it irrational too and protested.

The real reason has nothing to do with terrorism. The real deal is that Sison is one of the keenest independent-minded fighters anywhere of the grand deceit that is the imperialist ideological offensive; and the CPP and NPA are longstanding anti-imperialist revolutionary groups resisting the preeminent violence unrenounced by the Philippine neocolonial state. That’s reason enough for Bush, Cheney, Powell, Ambassador Ricciardone and the rest of the handful of American Reichmasters to pull off the slander. That, in turn, is far more than enough reason for freedom lovers everywhere to give the equivalent of at least a peso for Joma’s legal defense fund.

Rep. Crispin “Ka Bel” Beltran

Ka Bel earned once more the moniker “people’s congressman” as he chose to see through his opposition to the oppressive PPA to the point of sacrificing dark nights at home with his family when Meralco ordered his simple abode’s electricity cut off for his refusal to pay the PPA-padded electric bills. That’s just one of many highlights this year for the former taxi driver who’s part of the triad of Bayan Muna representatives in Congress working overtime to thwart anti-people government schemes.

Michael Terrence Meiring

In the biggest underreported act of terrorism here in 2002, this CIA operative blew it last May 16, in more ways than one. Meiring suffered severe injuries from a major blast from explosives in his possession at the Evergreen Hotel in Davao City. Local authorities promptly investigated the incident, but were thwarted by a preemptive strike mounted by the local U.S. embassy/CIA station, with agents from the U.S. National Security Council and the FBI. Meiring was swiftly cordoned off by the U.S. government from scrutiny, and whisked to medical facilities in California faster than the local media--which is lorded by CIA contacts--can say “cover-up.” Two feisty Manila Times female journalists--Dorian Zumel-Sicat and Jeannette Andrade--bucked the blackout, though, and came up with a searing three-part special feature that showed Meiring’s ties to the CIA and the Abu Sayyaf. A rudely-affronted Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and City Prosecutor Raul Bendico also went ahead with their inquiry and officially proclaimed Meiring a terrorist himself last September.

That should make Meiring the most wanted actual foreign terrorist in our country. And that makes U.S. Ambassador Ricciardone, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, and even President Macapagal-Arroyo (the last two for allowing Meiring’s flight)actual coddlers of topflight terrorists. Emphasize on the plural, for Meiring’s terrorist network--including people both in and out of government, both at high and low levels--still lurks in the shadows, likely going ahead with the plan for the next terrorist act that will justify more U.S. troops here in the Philippines. Can you say “manufactured terror”? I know you could! Now, how about “accountability” and “impeachment”?

Abu Sabaya

More than anyone among the coterie of Abu Sayyaf bandits, Sabaya’s personal fortunes this year reflected the slippery and murky identity of the world-famous gang which he used to lead. And still does. You see, Sabaya was supposed to have been killed in a water-borne chance encounter with state forces. One problem, though: his remains, even just parts of him devoured by sea creatures, have yet to surface. But--surprise!--he was found in one piece, alive, by local residents who in turn informed reliable whistleblower Fr. Cirilo Nacorda, who spilled the beans publicly. Could Sabaya have merely been putting to good use his CIA training in Afghanistan in the 1980s on special destabilization/faux guerrilla/psy-ops? That training may well include misusing the Moro people’s grievances of national oppression for banditry/terrorist/counterrevolutionary purposes.

Colin Powell and Reggie Lane

The highest U.S. official to personally oversee U.S. armed occupation operations in the Philippines last year, Powell personified the U.S. corporate-military oligarchy at the helm of the fake 9/11 war to thousands of anti-war Filipino activists who kept vigilant watch during his July visit.

He may as well take full responsibility for the actions of Reggie Lane, the U.S. soldier identified last July by an international fact-finding mission as the one who shot Buyong-Buyong Isnijal, an unarmed civilian resident of Basilan, in the course of a military operation, violating belabored Terms of Reference for Balikatan 02-1--and the Constitution as well--that imposed on U.S. forces to avoid offensive actions against Filipinos. But interestingly, though: was Powell also enforcing damage control measures in the wake of the botched-up Meiring affair last May? In the wake of the media blackout that ensued, and the significant harm the incident could further impact on ongoing U.S. covert antidemocratic operations here, that question is a no-brainer.

John Campos

The bloody murder of Rosebud’s ex-lover and key PAOCTF operative John Campos brought to the headlines once again the full emergence of narcopolitics as a key dominant tenet of the current Philippine political scene. Given Campos’ previous role as Filipino representative to a major international anti-narcotics body, he was likely privy to the shrouded deals made by Philippine military and political officials with international illegal drug syndicates, especially during the Ramos and Estrada administrations. Compromised by Rosebud’s damning revelations before the Senate, he could have likely then be deemed a liability by these crime lords once this police academy honor graduate probably chose not to be a patsy to their wrongdoings. His death will surely loom over national politics until next year, when his former PAOCTF mentor Ping Lacson--a suspect mastermind in the Campos rubout, by the way--takes up the banner of narcopolitics as he guns for the presidency.

No To All-Out War Signatories and Pilgrims for Peace

Just when the Arroyo regime thought they had the unwavering support of the people in its all-out war against the CPP and NPA by disguising it as an antiterrorist crusade, an online statement endorsed by many revered living figures in Philippine arts and letters and the academe--writer F. Sionil Jose, Palanca-winning authors Rene Villanueva, Pete Lacaba, Reuel Aguila and Fidel Rillo; former CCP director Nick Tiongson, singer Jim Paredes, stage actors Bart Guingona and Rody Vera; director Marilou Diaz-Abaya, former UP President Jose Abueva, publisher Karina Bolasco, former senator Bobby Tañada, former human rights commissioner Merce Contreras, and Ramon Magsaysay awardee Bien Lumbera, among 300 others--rebuffed the war drive and called for the resumption of serious peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front. This was immediately followed by another similar petition signed by Vice-President Guingona, Senator Loren Legarda, House foreign affairs chairman Rep. Apolinario Lozada and four more congressmen; religious leaders from the Muslim, Catholic, Aglipayan, and other faiths; EDSA 2 leader Teddy Casiño of BAYAN, and a longer host of others. A major loose coalition, Pilgrims for Peace, emerged from these efforts. The touted widespread endorsement of the government’s antipeace schemes crumbled and was shown as a sham.

Buyong-Buyong Isinijal

The injured fate of this unlettered Filipino Muslim from Basilan gave the lie to hard-drilled pronouncements by U.S. military officials that they strictly adhered to the defensive and advisory role of U.S. troops in the field in Mindanao. His wife, Hudaira, courageously gave testimony in front of war-hungry Philippine officials, that Buyong-buyong was shot by Reggie Lane, a U.S. soldier who was with patrolling local state forces. Lane, so sure of his innocence, was immediately evacuated from the Philippines to evade further questioning.

Ediborah Yap and Martin Burnham

Just how successful was the joint U.S.-RP military operations against the Abu Sayyaf? Of the three remaining hostages held by the bandits last June, two of them were killed in so-called rescue operations. Yap and Burnham’s deaths were senseless, needless and could have been easily avoided, had high Philippine military officials and the Abu Sayyaf merely employed the same coordination they did at Lamitan in 2001, where all Abu Sayyaf bandits escaped annihilation from a tight death encirclement by state forces.

Fr. Cirilo Nacorda

Already a household name in 2001 for revealing the Lamitan military fraud, Fr. Nacorda punched big holes on the official spin on Abu Sabaya when he exposed that Mindanao residents swore to him they saw the most wanted local terrorist alive and kicking. Fr. Nacorda has got the best solution to the headache that is the Abu Sayyaf: target the high military officials and local warlords protecting these million-dollar kidnappers.

Ka Roger

Leave it to the CPP spokesman to pull off a media coup of sorts. Amid widespread news reports that he was either hopelessly sick or even dead, Gregorio Rosal showed up in a December clandestine press conference in the pink of health and geared to do more battle as his revolutionary political party enters its 35th year.

Sonia Capio, Ruth Cervantes and “Ngayon Na, Bayan!”

Here’s a different sort of media coup. For once, a KBP Golden Dove Award for Best Public Affairs Program went to a truly deserving radio program. Produced by Kodao Productions, “Ngayon Na, Bayan!” has been staple earfare for months already to a growing number of AM radio sticklers tired of payola-greased spin. Daring to tackle jugular issues as the invasion of U.S. troops here, PPA, the longstanding workers’ demand for living wages, everyday pressing concerns of the ordinary Filipino family, even the grassroots inquiry into 9/11, this IS the best public affairs program on radio now, the one we deserve to support. Check out anchors Sonia Capio and Ruth Cervantes fighting the good fight every 2-4 p.m. weekdays at DZRJ-AM, 810 KHz.

Successful Supreme Court Petitioners Vs. Meralco

The biggest legal victory for the people in 2002 has to be the Supreme Court’s Nov. 15 verdict that Meralco overcharged its customers since 1994 and must refund them the 28 billion pesos. Kudos to the battery of oppositors who slew the Goliath: Kilusang Mayo Uno with counsel Public Interest Law Center; Federation of Free Workers; Federation of Concerned Organization of Balut; TUCP; Belen Atendido; Genaro Lualhati; Jose Isip/Philippine Consumers Foundation; Municipality of Sampaloc, Quezon; Cesar Escosa; San Pablo City; Atty. Ceferino Padua/LAMP; Philippine Justice Foundation; Jeepney Owners and Operators in Metro Manila; Federation of Philippine Industries/Multi-Sectoral Task Force on Energy; and NASECORE (National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms). Following through this legal victory with solid organizing of both depressed and middle-class communities around this issue should lend true worth to this court win as our people’s democratic gain.

Beng Hernandez

Beng’s smiling face adorning picket signs at the Mindanao mass actions condemning her murder by armed state forces didn’t manifest the gruesome ordeal of her last minutes alive. But it didn’t hide the pervasive reality that tragically befell on the former CEGP vice president for Mindanao and other grassroots martyr activists nationwide last year: the fascist neocolonial military that fully emerged under the Marcos dictatorship three decades ago remains deeply unreformed in its antipeople ways. The international journalist group Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) noticed as well. Beng personifies the people’s martyrs in 2002 who showed the best in the Filipino and thereby earned the murderous ire of the worst of our countrymen.

The Readers on Sept. 14 Amado V. Hernandez’s Poetry Night

Arguably the most colorful cultural event of 2002 has to be Panata sa Kalayaan, an evening of reading Amado V. Hernandez’s poetry held last Sept. 14 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Among those who lent their powerful voices and musicianship to the powerful verse of Ka Amado were mainstream actors Joel Torre, Leo Martinez, Tommy Abuel, Nanding Josef, and Ronnie Lazaro; musicians Jess Bartolome, Coritha, Pol Galang, Jess Santiago, Jon Corsiga, Patrick Sanchez, Neal Robles and Dong Abay (formerly of Yano) with Pan; grassroots performance ensembles Sinagbayan and Tambisan; and grassroots leaders Ka Bel Beltran, Ka Daning Ramos of KMP, Ka Mameng Deunida of KADAMAY, Teddy Casiño of BAYAN and lesbian activist Rhona Montebon. An encore performance last November added thespian Angie Ferro, director Behn Cervantes and Pinoy rock icon Joey “Pepe” Smith’s talents to the mix. The September event launched the year-long commemoration of the birth centenary of 1950s labor leader, journalist, political detainee and icon of patriotic culture Amado Hernandez, who was born Sept. 13, 1903.

Doreen Fernandez

And now to the most colorfulculinary event of 2002. Doreen’s death surprised everyone, but the revelations made at commemorative events held at UP and CCP surprised everyone even more. The widely acknowledged authority foodie didn’t just touch on food; she was a political activist who continued helping the National Democratic Front in her humble ways, like research assistance in replicating Katipunan-era cuisine for an aboveground NDF activity in the ‘80s. All the more did the cornucopia of connoisseur-class food offered at both events taste much better.

Mark Jimenez

MJ almost did a Chavit Singson in 2002: he blew the whistle on then Justice Secretary Nani Perez’s acceptance of his two-million-dollar bribe barely a month after the anti-corruption EDSA 2 uprising swept Nani’s patron Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo into the presidency. The difference with the Chavit act was that he wasn’t able to thwart the expected retribution: his long-delayed extradition to the U.S. to face court charges of illegal contributions to the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, he scored a Pyrrhic victory of sorts: Nani Perez was forced to resign as justice secretary, and his allegations further set off a series of more exposes detailing bigtime corruption at the heart of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

Which brings us to the biggest loser of 2002. Claims of “personal sacrifice” notwithstanding, GMA’s Rizal Day pronouncement not to seek reelection in 2004 was a forced-to-good move brought by her government’s retreat from the people’s mandate to advance mass democratic gains after EDSA 2. It, in fact, subverted this mandate by indulging in business-as-usual corruption, giving the disgraced President Estrada kid-gloves treatment, whitewashing the mega-anomalies of the administration of her patron former President Fidel Ramos, and partnering with the biggest criminal clique in power in the world today--the Bush-Cheney faction at the White House--in pulling off a fake war on 9/11-related terrorism to disguise this U.S. clique’s designs of total military and economic domination of the world. As its newest moves still show, Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration is likely to end up as another dismal failure for preserving a corrupt, moribund and antidemocratic neocolonial order, much like the rest of her predecessor administrations after the anti-dictatorship people’s uprising at EDSA in 1986.

Center for anti-Imperialist Studies (CAIS)

Ahem, pardon us for allowing ourselves some self-congratulations. It wasn’t easy coming out with the first of a series of references exposing imperialism’s current designs against the peoples of the world, Filipinos included. We’re proud of the fact that our book, Unmasking the War on Terror: U.S. Imperialist Hegemony and Crisis, is the first Asian book to come out arguing for likely complicity of the Bush-Cheney clique--currently at the heart of the U.S. military-industrial complex long in actual command of U.S. imperialism--in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And we’ve argued not for the sake of arguing; there is a whole lot of documented evidentiary material from various independent news sources that give direct proof of this contention. Our book dealt with some of these. And the overall amount of this direct evidentiary material is far more than, say, available direct evidence that Marcos masterminded the 1983 assassination of his adversary Ninoy Aquino. And, even with that, we all know what fate eventually befell on the homegrown tyrant. Bulatlat.com