I'd go home to Manila of course.
President Macapagal-Arroyo pardoned ousted president Joseph Estrada of all his crimes (stealing billions of pesos, you know nothing major).
What the hell. Not only have I been holed up in Library L for the past few months writing why our government can't address terrorism, but now I have this little facet to add to my thesis: we are going to be stuck in this pit of idiocracy until someone realizes that stealing money from a country's citizens is not comparable to merely pissing in public then getting a ticket. Not even sure if Estrada got a ticket, but I know he be chilling in his mansion in a sad state of house arrest.
Political commentator, singer, and the man that makes my grandmothers swoon, Jim Paredes, wrote his own blog on this issue here.
By: Ms. X | Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 2:38 PM | | 
In May, I had the unique opportunity of conducting field research in Manila, Philippines on the government’s counter-terrorism strategies.
One of my research havens was the
Philippine Daily Inquirer’s corporate office in Makati, the country's main financial district. The building, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the city’s main avenue, was perhaps the only one on the block that looked pristine and professional. The library was closed for no particularly good reason the first time I went. By the second time, when I knew it was open, I walked up to the library and was promptly stopped buy a security guard. I needed a pass. After I got my pass and signed my name in a ratty notebook, I went up to the library, where I was stopped yet again. My bag was unreasonably large and I had to leave it with another security guard. I signed my name in a second notebook, found a computer and began looking for articles. The ridiculous bureaucracy from the lobby to the 2nd floor wasted about an hour of my time.
Luckily, the search-engine powered archive of the newspaper made looking up articles easy enough. I brought out a flash drive to copy the articles onto, but was surprised to learn that flash drives were not allowed. I was not about to resort to printing out 300 pages, so I offered money to the lady helping me for the files. She said they charged per kilobyte. And given my files were about 800 kilobytes each, I was going to spend at least $200 on a Word document. My answer was no. The cheaper method, printing every single article, took about a day and a half. I returned to the newspaper and picked up a weighty pile.
I was also able to access the
Ateneo de Manila’s library. A friend of mine who attended classes there, decided to take me along. We had breakfast along the main road by the university, after sitting in an hour of traffic. When we got to the library, I was surprised at how easy it was to obtain a guest pass. However, my trip was not without further signings into record notebooks and queries from security guards about my intentions in a university library.
The library was unlike any other university library I had been to. The books were old and outdated. Given that my topic was more about contemporary issues, I was not able to get as many sources as I expected. Since I could not check anything out either, I proceeded to get chapters and, in some occasions, entire books copied in a photocopier. In the Western professional world, there is typically no need to hire an extra person to make copies of documents, but in the Philippines, any little job that a person could do himself, is done by another human being. As the employee began copying books, I wondered how that would fly in the United States. Course readers in universities alone are expensive enough, given that proper liberties must be paid for copyrights. In Manila, a simple guest in a library could violate copyrights without a blink of an eye. Recognizing that other people would have malicious intentions with this loophole, I pledged to keep my copies to myself – and only to myself.
I also found it particularly challenging to obtain interviews on my topic. While some officials were rather open about being interviewed, given my personal or familial relationships with them, I often found that it was not me, or them, but my topic that was sensitive to the method of interviewing. My grandfather, who was in a position of power during one of the first significant terror attacks in 1995, would not give me anything more than curses and regrets in regards to what happened. Although a relatively fresh phenomenon in Philippine politics, terrorism is not exactly on the minds of the country’s citizens. My friends, who have grown-up in very influential environments, are calloused to the threat. I often found that petty matters were more important to them. My family, forever caught in the whirlwind of domestic political party matters, was too busy to deal with the transnational issue of terrorism. For them, politics was about winning positions during the elections, and it had little to do with what politicians do with their power. Addressing the issue of terrorism meant making a speech, and not employing new tactics.
Everywhere I went during my research trip, whether it was to a contact’s home or another library, it was no secret that the Philippines is besieged with poverty. It was not a rare occurrence to have children begging at my car window on my way to a location, or to pass by the miles and miles of slum areas to maneuver through traffic.
The answer to my thesis question may have been in the simple observations I made during my trip. The government’s efforts to counter terrorism have been inefficient because of the characteristics of the country itself. The people are poor, save for the small fraction of the exploitative elite, and the government is knee-deep in bureaucracy.
The U.S. has always played a part in the affairs of its former (and only) colony. But when Uncle Sam is gone, the Philippines stands alone, clueless and confused about how to handle its own problem. With terrorism, the story is no different. U.S. troops stationed in the island of Mindanao can train Philippine soldiers, but without them, the country would be back to page one. Terrorism requires a steadfast move in the right direction, but with a country that is often found going backwards, it is going to take a while to take the first step on its own.
By: Ms. X | Monday, July 23, 2007 at 12:51 PM | |
Good on you, Colombia for destroying some
14,000 firearms today.
I hesitate to search for a statistic on how many people (on average) could be killed by a single firearm, because this would present several anomalies. Let’s just say that with this firearm destruction, at least 14,000 people might not die from firearm use.
The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a body more reputable than I, gathered these statistics, however: “Seventy-seven percent of the firearms scheduled for destruction were illegal. Of those, 60 percent were illicitly manufactured, 31 percent are privately owned and 9 per cent belong to the armed forces." For a country with a high crime rate such as Colombia, this could be considered a significant step in enhancing human security.
The ceremony took place at a National Plant for Metal Work and the metal proceeds will be used to construct schoolchairs and build a monument for Colombian victims of violence and kidnapping.
Happy International Gun Destruction Day!
By: Ms. X | Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at 2:04 PM | |
In the YouTube era, she reasoned, it is harder to kill a man who has a bit of Internet renown.
Awareness is the new self-defense.
By: Ms. X | Monday, July 2, 2007 at 8:20 PM | |
