I am posting this so-called open letter to Joc Joc Bolante of the fertilizer scam, who is now overseas; from Jun Lozada of the ZTE deal scam. For obvious reasons, I do not 100% sure whether this is really from Jun Lozada, but I believe and think this is a good read. UPDATE: I managed to find the source of this open letter: Jun Lozada's blog, click here.
Here goes:
----------------------
"October 24, 2008
Dear Joc-Joc,
Allow me to call you Joc-Joc as you are known in the media and by many Filipinos, too. As of this morning of the 24th of October, 2008, news about your lawyer petitioning the Supreme Court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the implementation of the arrest warrant issued by the Senate upon your arrival, hugs the headline of the major dailies together with the radio and TV news broadcast. The whole country seems to be anxiously awaiting your return, I am sure your family is also eager to see you back as well.
It is about your family that I am writing you, because of what my own family went through when I was in a similar situation that you are in now. Being a father myself, I know that the welfare and safety of your family is your foremost concern in the middle of all the controversy and the uncertainty that you are facing.
There is so much fear right now that pervades your life along with your loved ones. Questions such as, how safe are you in Manila? Is there a possibility that someone may attempt to harm you or your family? How are the people that you are covering for going to help you? How are you going to answer questions from media? How can the people you are covering up be trusted with their dilatory tactics to get you off the hook, away from the prying questions of the opposition senators?
We're caught up in all of these questions and an "us versus them" way of thinking, that we almost forget to ask the right questions anymore - right questions such as: how are my children hurt with the truth that I am generally perceived as a corrupt criminal by the Filipino nation? How are my children going to explain my involvement in this fertilizer scam to their friends? How is my wife going to face our friends and still be seen as a person with integrity? What legacy am I leaving my children? Is leaving them with millions and big houses in Ayala Alabang better than leaving them with a good name?
I am sharing these insights with you, because if there is one thing that I did regret in telling the truth about how this Arroyo administration has been stealing from the very people it is supposed to serve, it is that I was not able to prepare my wife and my children well enough against the backlash of this government's wrath against me for telling the people about their crimes. You still have time to discern your next move, whether or not you are going to tell the people the truth about the fertilizer scam or bring the secret to your grave, just like Romy Neri.
As a father, I am asking you to please think about your children, please consider the legacy you are going to leave to them. Are you going to forever leave them as pariahs branded as children of a thief--or as children of someone who did wrong and yet chose to serve his country in the end, rather than to be a captive forever of the dark forces he used to serve? And, please prepare your family whatever way you may wish to choose. Discuss this together with them because at the end of it all, they will suffer or be affected more as a consequence of your decision.
Secondly, as a fellow Rotarian, how about taking the Four Way test as part of your discernment process? Is it the Truth? Is it fair to everyone concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendship? Will it be beneficial to everyone concerned? You have been a good Rotarian for many good years of your life. Will you now turn your back on these ideals in the biggest test of your Rotarian values?
Lastly, let me share with you one of the most profound lessons I have learned in my own journey towards the truth, a truth not as a goal to be reached but rather as a way of life to be lived.
I have found that the opposite of all the fears I am confronted with is not courage but faith. It is faith in a God who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life", a just God who will judge us not in terms of the wealth we have on earth but in terms of what we did to our fellow human beings. It is my faith in this God that allowed me to face all the fears that I am confronted with when I decided to tell the truth that I know about the NBN-ZTE scam. May you find the faith to lead you to the Light of God's love that no darkness can ever defeat, not even a President of the Republic of the Philippines.
May God bless you with the wisdom to choose your path.
Jun Lozada"
--
We all have to link and expand our ranks till the entire country is bound together with the strength and the ardor of our resolve. I do not exaggerate when I say this could be our last chance to save democracy in the Philippines. The darkness thickens and we have to move. - Joaquin "Chino" Roces, 1985
Bobby Kennedy - "Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws--but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each and every one of us. Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted--when we tolerate what we know to be wrong--when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened-- when we fail to speak up and speak out--we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice."
-
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Numbed with Obama vs McCain
Introduction:
I have been bombarded with McCain "positive" postings and anti-Obama postings in a particular Yahoo group email discussions. I guess the guy is so passionate with his choice of John McCain as his candidate for the US Presidency - to each his own. Hence this email reply:
Thanks Kuyang Willy for pointing this out (an article in Yahoo - click here). I did missed it since am numb with McCain vs Obama issues.
I guess we have our own in built biases as human beings. In the end, we tend to believe what we wanted to believe regardless of the facts at hand. All we can do is diligently do our research and vote for the ones we like. As long as we participate in the process, that is all what counts. If we don't participate at all, we better close our mouth and suffer whatever the consequences.
As a way of sharing, I've been reading a very good (to my own bias mind!) this article by a former Australian Premier, Bob Carr. Here are the excerpts:
Title: This race is far from over (The Sun-Herald, pp 14-15 issue 26 Oct 2008)
"We've been educated in the Bradley (the black Tom Bradley, who was defeated in 1982 for governor of California, he was 15 point ahead in the LA Times poll!) effect -- namely, that a percentage of white voters will tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate but in the privacy of the voting booths do the opposite."
"The brutal truth is that Obama's was not the ideal biography for someone seeking to vault over three centuries of race prejudice. There's the Arabic name: Barack Hussein Obama. And the stubborn ignorance that has Americans insisting he is a Muslim. There are the 20 years spent in the congregation of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Above all, the absence of executive experience.
"None of the above needs count. Except that whites in the South stopped voting Democrats in 1968 in protest of Lyndon Johnson giving votes to blacks and the Democratic party desegregating. Race was the magic that turned the South Republican for 40 years. Remember too, only 18 per cent of American population have passports (compared with about half Australians) and are fed by a media that reports celebrities above news of the world. Their working class is crushed and demoralised, besotted with gun ownership and old time religion. Colin Powell, war hero and conservative, would have been a better bet to break the habits of prejudice.
"By the middle of the year, polls confirmed the election was becoming a referendum for Obama. Six years into an unpopular war and in the middle of what was then a modest recession, everything suggested the election should be about George Bush, not the Democratic candidate.
"A narrow McCain win was - for realist and pessimists -- more likely, especially as the incumbent party generally catches up in the last week of a campaign.
"Then came September 15. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At 9 am John McCain said in Jacksonville: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." The ensuing full-blown, epoch-making economic crisis propelled Obama ahead. Economics dominates the election.
"To be fair, it was Obama's coolness under fire that seemed to clinch the deal, especially in the three debates in which he held his own and pressed every advantage.
"Michael Kelly, an Australian who teaches speech communication, describes the Obama voice as smooth, deep, lyrical, with the use of swinging cadence to "entertain the ear", stringing words and phrases together like a jazz musician.
"It was deliberate, Obama knew he had to prove to whites an African-American need not be angry, aggressive, emotional.
"The first Africans arrived in America in 1619. This was a full year before the Mayflower. Yet America has been coming to terms with their presence ever since.
"Its constitution contradicted the Declaration of Independence to accommodate slavery. The country then fought a civil war to end it. For a century the South fenced in black citizens behind Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation. In the 1950's blacks insisted on due process in the constitutional courts. The nation yielded to black pressure for equality.
"In 1968, Martin Luther King jnr was cut down by racists and the "nigger lover" Robert Kennedy followed King to a martyr's grave.
"If an African-American wins the November 4 election there will be no avoiding the symbolism.
"Abraham Lincoln once warned Americans: "We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves."
"Economic suffering may overtake the last redoubts of race prejudice. And some Americans - in spite of themselves - may do something to make their friends cheer."
Bob Carr, premier of NSW from 1995 to 2005, is a student of American political history.
Also please see and read this news: Aussies jump on Obama bandwagon: survey (click here).
I have been bombarded with McCain "positive" postings and anti-Obama postings in a particular Yahoo group email discussions. I guess the guy is so passionate with his choice of John McCain as his candidate for the US Presidency - to each his own. Hence this email reply:
Thanks Kuyang Willy for pointing this out (an article in Yahoo - click here). I did missed it since am numb with McCain vs Obama issues.
I guess we have our own in built biases as human beings. In the end, we tend to believe what we wanted to believe regardless of the facts at hand. All we can do is diligently do our research and vote for the ones we like. As long as we participate in the process, that is all what counts. If we don't participate at all, we better close our mouth and suffer whatever the consequences.
As a way of sharing, I've been reading a very good (to my own bias mind!) this article by a former Australian Premier, Bob Carr. Here are the excerpts:
Title: This race is far from over (The Sun-Herald, pp 14-15 issue 26 Oct 2008)
"We've been educated in the Bradley (the black Tom Bradley, who was defeated in 1982 for governor of California, he was 15 point ahead in the LA Times poll!) effect -- namely, that a percentage of white voters will tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate but in the privacy of the voting booths do the opposite."
"The brutal truth is that Obama's was not the ideal biography for someone seeking to vault over three centuries of race prejudice. There's the Arabic name: Barack Hussein Obama. And the stubborn ignorance that has Americans insisting he is a Muslim. There are the 20 years spent in the congregation of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Above all, the absence of executive experience.
"None of the above needs count. Except that whites in the South stopped voting Democrats in 1968 in protest of Lyndon Johnson giving votes to blacks and the Democratic party desegregating. Race was the magic that turned the South Republican for 40 years. Remember too, only 18 per cent of American population have passports (compared with about half Australians) and are fed by a media that reports celebrities above news of the world. Their working class is crushed and demoralised, besotted with gun ownership and old time religion. Colin Powell, war hero and conservative, would have been a better bet to break the habits of prejudice.
"By the middle of the year, polls confirmed the election was becoming a referendum for Obama. Six years into an unpopular war and in the middle of what was then a modest recession, everything suggested the election should be about George Bush, not the Democratic candidate.
"A narrow McCain win was - for realist and pessimists -- more likely, especially as the incumbent party generally catches up in the last week of a campaign.
"Then came September 15. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At 9 am John McCain said in Jacksonville: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." The ensuing full-blown, epoch-making economic crisis propelled Obama ahead. Economics dominates the election.
"To be fair, it was Obama's coolness under fire that seemed to clinch the deal, especially in the three debates in which he held his own and pressed every advantage.
"Michael Kelly, an Australian who teaches speech communication, describes the Obama voice as smooth, deep, lyrical, with the use of swinging cadence to "entertain the ear", stringing words and phrases together like a jazz musician.
"It was deliberate, Obama knew he had to prove to whites an African-American need not be angry, aggressive, emotional.
"The first Africans arrived in America in 1619. This was a full year before the Mayflower. Yet America has been coming to terms with their presence ever since.
"Its constitution contradicted the Declaration of Independence to accommodate slavery. The country then fought a civil war to end it. For a century the South fenced in black citizens behind Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation. In the 1950's blacks insisted on due process in the constitutional courts. The nation yielded to black pressure for equality.
"In 1968, Martin Luther King jnr was cut down by racists and the "nigger lover" Robert Kennedy followed King to a martyr's grave.
"If an African-American wins the November 4 election there will be no avoiding the symbolism.
"Abraham Lincoln once warned Americans: "We cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves."
"Economic suffering may overtake the last redoubts of race prejudice. And some Americans - in spite of themselves - may do something to make their friends cheer."
Bob Carr, premier of NSW from 1995 to 2005, is a student of American political history.
Also please see and read this news: Aussies jump on Obama bandwagon: survey (click here).
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Public Lives - Two speeches that made Barack Obama By Randy David
Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 02:37:00 10/18/2008
MANILA , Philippines —No one who has watched Barack Obama’s meteoric rise in American politics in the last four years can fail to be intrigued by what he represents. More than his charismatic presence and eloquence, I think it is Obama’s deep understanding of the major themes of American culture that has given him an intimate connection to the American people. He has grasped these themes well, weaving them methodically into nearly every speech he has made.
Before July 27, 2004, few outside the state of Illinois knew who Barack Obama was. He had been a state senator in Illinois for more than seven years when he decided to run for the US Senate. The Democratic Party chose him to deliver the keynote at the convention that would proclaim John Kerry as the party’s presidential bet against George W. Bush.
That day, all of America took notice — not of Kerry, but of the unknown young man from Illinois . Obama’s speech eclipsed everyone else’s. He spoke about John Kerry and why he should be the next president of the United States . But above all he spoke about himself and how his improbable presence in US politics affirmed the authenticity of the American dream — the dream that in this land of promise, everyone can boldly hope to become what he sets out to be.
“I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy.
“Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ “That is the true genius of America —a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.”
I think the true genius of America lies in its ability to create a social order based on the plurality of races and cultures. Yet race remains an explosive issue. Instead of eliding it as others often do, Obama tackles the issue head-on, almost unmindful of the minefield that surrounds it. He does not ignore the residues of racial prejudice that still divide the American nation, but he chooses to harp on the unity that was meant by the nation’s founders to emerge from the diversity of its people.
“‘E pluribus unum.’ Out of many, one…. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America .... We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America …. I’m not talking about blind optimism here…. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores…. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”
This brings us to the other speech that launched Obama’s political star. Apart from its multiracial character, what Obama knows about America is its religiosity — an astonishing irony in a society that projects itself as a beacon of secular democracy. On June 28, 2006, two years after he won a seat in the US Senate, he was invited to keynote a gathering of religious leaders, a perfect occasion to claim space on an issue that had been the turf of Republicans — religion in the public square. Before joining politics, Obama had been a professor of constitutional law. He was expected to articulate a robust secularism against the rising tide of religious fundamentalism. Instead, he expressed a nuanced view of the vital role of religion in society.
“[S]ecularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause…. Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.”
Obama doesn’t leave the issue there however. “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
Beside John McCain, who personifies an exhausted empire, the younger Barack Obama symbolizes an American nation that is conscious of its most basic strengths — faith in a time of despair, audacity in a time of uncertainty. . America is lucky to have him as its next president.
MANILA , Philippines —No one who has watched Barack Obama’s meteoric rise in American politics in the last four years can fail to be intrigued by what he represents. More than his charismatic presence and eloquence, I think it is Obama’s deep understanding of the major themes of American culture that has given him an intimate connection to the American people. He has grasped these themes well, weaving them methodically into nearly every speech he has made.
Before July 27, 2004, few outside the state of Illinois knew who Barack Obama was. He had been a state senator in Illinois for more than seven years when he decided to run for the US Senate. The Democratic Party chose him to deliver the keynote at the convention that would proclaim John Kerry as the party’s presidential bet against George W. Bush.
That day, all of America took notice — not of Kerry, but of the unknown young man from Illinois . Obama’s speech eclipsed everyone else’s. He spoke about John Kerry and why he should be the next president of the United States . But above all he spoke about himself and how his improbable presence in US politics affirmed the authenticity of the American dream — the dream that in this land of promise, everyone can boldly hope to become what he sets out to be.
“I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy.
“Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ “That is the true genius of America —a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.”
I think the true genius of America lies in its ability to create a social order based on the plurality of races and cultures. Yet race remains an explosive issue. Instead of eliding it as others often do, Obama tackles the issue head-on, almost unmindful of the minefield that surrounds it. He does not ignore the residues of racial prejudice that still divide the American nation, but he chooses to harp on the unity that was meant by the nation’s founders to emerge from the diversity of its people.
“‘E pluribus unum.’ Out of many, one…. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America .... We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America …. I’m not talking about blind optimism here…. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores…. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”
This brings us to the other speech that launched Obama’s political star. Apart from its multiracial character, what Obama knows about America is its religiosity — an astonishing irony in a society that projects itself as a beacon of secular democracy. On June 28, 2006, two years after he won a seat in the US Senate, he was invited to keynote a gathering of religious leaders, a perfect occasion to claim space on an issue that had been the turf of Republicans — religion in the public square. Before joining politics, Obama had been a professor of constitutional law. He was expected to articulate a robust secularism against the rising tide of religious fundamentalism. Instead, he expressed a nuanced view of the vital role of religion in society.
“[S]ecularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King — indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history — were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause…. Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.”
Obama doesn’t leave the issue there however. “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
Beside John McCain, who personifies an exhausted empire, the younger Barack Obama symbolizes an American nation that is conscious of its most basic strengths — faith in a time of despair, audacity in a time of uncertainty. . America is lucky to have him as its next president.
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