A curfew is a curfew. Maybe not in India. 30 November 2007
Posted by bornonacusp in Dateline: Delhi, Muni-Muni, Pinoy politics.add a comment
I was ranting to FrenchBeard about the curfew imposed by the Philippines President Arroyo following yesterday’s aborted coup attempt. He cuts in, obviously concerned, “A curfew, really? For how long?”
“12 midnight to 5am.” (Puzzled as to why he was asking for how long, defining ‘curfew’ in my head to be a period of time, usually in the evening, when people are required to be tucked inside their homes.)
“That’s it?”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it?’”
“Here in India, if a curfew is imposed, it lasts for many weeks. That’s our curfew.”
The last time there were riots in Delhi in 1984, for instance, after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, there was a curfew, and it was the sort of weeks-long curfew. Not the Philippines kind. People were allowed out for a couple of hours to buy food. To this day, in places where communal riots take place, it is also the kind of curfew enforced by authorities.
Not that Filipinos should be thankful that the curfew in the capital and surrounding regions is “only” for five hours. A restriction is a restriction and, for freedom-loving people, something to sound the alarm about.
I was simply reminded once again of how little the Philippines is, if you sit it against India.
Coup, déjà vu, merci beaucoup! 30 November 2007
Posted by bornonacusp in Pinoy politics.add a comment
Yesterday, a group of renegade Philippines soldiers launched a coup bid against President Gloria Arroyo, whom they called “corrupt and bogus”. Walking out of a court hearing where they were standing trial over a similar attempt at mutiny in 2003, the soldiers marched on the streets of the country’s financial district and eventually holed up inside a luxury hotel. They issued statements agitating fellow soldiers to withdraw support from the president.
Several hours later, the coup attempt was quashed, as government troops flushed out the mutinous soldiers from the hotel using tear gas and firing warning shots.
I don’t trust them. I’m sorry, to all those who may feel empathy for these renegade soldiers. But to me, they’re all of the same skin. All they want is power.
While they were being whisked away by the government troops, the leader of the pack said, “We’re going out for the sake of everybody. We cannot live with our conscience if some of you would get killed or hurt in the crossfire.”
‘We cannot live with our conscience,’ whatever, really. Those people would not have been in any peril if not for you.
I’m delighted to note from eyewitness accounts I’m reading online that people were mostly apathetic about the whole drama. In blogs from Manila, while there’s a section that’s cheering on the renegade soldiers, the rest don’t trust them either and would rather go on with their lives.
Not that they love the President. Not that they do not think there’s no truth to any of the allegations of corruption hounding her. Not that they like it that even journalists doing their jobs covering the mutiny attempt were hauled off to a military camp for questioning. But they just won’t place their bet on these power-grabbers either, no, thank you very much.
Philippines polls over; wait begins 15 May 2007
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Counting has begun for the mid-term elections held yesterday in the Philippines, where seats in parliament and local governments were voted for. The stakes are high in these polls, widely regarded as a referendum on the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. If Arroyo fails to muster a majority in the Senate and House of Representatives, she will likely face another round of impeachment attempts from the opposition, who accuse her of having cheated her way to victory in 2004. With help from her devoted allies in parliament, Arroyo successfully escaped such attempts in the previous term. They will want to keep the upper hand.
But latest news reports from Manila show that of the top 12 in the Senate race so far — based on the unofficial quick count of the citizens’ group Namfrel — the top eight are opposition candidates; two others are independent, and only the bottom two slots are with the administration. And a television report has just quoted the spokesperson of the administration slate conceding that the much-hoped-for sweep may not be possible.
It is a long way to go, however, before official results come out. With the counting being done manually — of ballots cast by an expected 45 million voters for this round — Philippine elections have historically dragged for stretches of weeks.
And it is not only in the long wait for the results that yesterday’s polls turned out to be far from different from its predecessors, as the same problems persisted: Confused voters who failed to find their names in the list (while the dead ones were there), vote-buying, and various violations of election laws such as wearing paraphernalia in precincts. Although police officials say the polls were “generally peaceful,” analysts have earlier observed that this election season was proving itself to be among the most laden with violence. In the run-up to May 14, violent incidents were recorded in many places — some of them as bold as a mayoralty candidate being gunned down just as he stepped out of the poll body office in the heart of Central Visayas. Notably, there were attacks too against individuals who have not even declared themselves to be candidates.
Here’s hoping that the election results will not divide the Filipino nation even more. But whatever the results, to the ordinary Pinoy, life will simply go on.
