MALAYA EDITORIAL: HONG KONG IS OVER-REACHING
MANILA, DECEMBER 31, 2010 (MALAYA) 'The HK government now wants to second-guess the IIRC and the President? Any self-respecting sovereign nation would have none of such nonsense.'
WE know where the Hong Kong government is coming from. It is under intense pressure from residents to determine "what really happened" on that fateful day last August when eight tourists held hostage by a crazed police officer died in a botched rescue attempt. This is the reason the Hong Kong government decided to hold a coroner's inquest a long four months after the incident.
But what additional facts does the HK government seek to find that has not been established by local investigators, primarily the Incident Investigation and Review Committee headed by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima? The eight fatalities were killed by bullets fired from the M16 of hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza, who himself was shot dead by policemen who had assaulted the hijacked bus.
The identities of the fatalities are known. How they died has been established. The killer has been identified. His alleged accomplice, the killer's brother who was a serving policeman, has been charged. That's how things now stand. There is no need for a coroner's inquest whose closest equivalent in the local criminal justice system is a combination of forensic examination by the police and determination of probable cause by the prosecution service.
What else do HK authorities want to know and to be done?
Do they also want to look into the bungled rescue attempt? The IIRC has already established that the unit that was tasked to rescue the hostages was ill-prepared and ill-trained. It has also been established that there was a failure of leadership by both senior police officials and local government officials. The IIRC, in fact, has recommended that some of them be criminally and administratively charged. Upon review, however, President Aquino downgraded the recommendation to administrative charges.
The HK government now wants to second-guess the IIRC and the President? And possibly hold the officials named in the IIRC report responsible for criminal negligence if there is such an offense in the criminal code of the HK special administrative region?
Any self-respecting sovereign nation would have none of such nonsense. The hostage-taking and the killings took place here. Hong Kong is over-reaching. It's time to tell the island's leaders to stuff their coroner's inquest up their behind.
MALAYA OPINION
My thoughts for the coming year DUCKY PAREDES
"Let us hope for a more prosperous Philippines in the coming year, which is easily achieved if only everyone does whatever he is supposed to be doing, as best as he can. "
A SENATOR accuses the President of plagiarizing the budgets prepared by the previous president. Actually, the Senator, who will be ending his lackluster Senate stint before the next elections, only shows his lack of understanding.
Our national budgets, no matter who the president may be, have always been (and will always be) about the same. It is pushing to suggest that a new president, rushed into office, as Noynoy Aquino was, would have a novel approach to budgeting. Perhaps, next year -- for 2012?
The problem is that, once the mandatory expenses have been programmed, there is very little left to budget for special programs. For instance, for 2011, P'noy wants to build 14,000 new classrooms. While that seems like something good, when we input the fact that we actually need 153,000 classrooms to be built, one realizes that there really is nothing to budgeting since there will never be enough money even for all the things that need doing today.
The new classrooms to be built by the Department of Education (DepEd) represent roughly 11 percent of the current shortage in public schools nationwide.
Already, even when the 2011 budget just meets the barest minimum required, the P12.04-billion fund for the construction of schools in the coming year is four times the P3-billion allocation for 2010.
There is really not much that can be done as long as our population keeps growing much, much faster than our economy and the amounts that the government can collect in taxes.
***
We end 2010 and begin 2011, on a note of mandatory optimism. Ever since the 1986 People Power Revolt, the idea that we could find peace with the Communist rebels has been foisted upon us.
Perhaps, President Joseph Estrada was right in that the only way we would have peace in our country would be when one side has prevailed in a civil war that began as a debate between Communism and Capitalism but which has deteriorated into meaningless blood-letting. The combatants – both the once-vaunted New People's Army and our military -- are no more than savages looking for someone to kill.
When we go into peace talk mode, the game deteriorates into a propaganda campaign where each side tries to paint the other side the darker of the two combatants. Thus, hours are spent trading insults and charges – none of which are taken with any seriousness. As with all peace talks, the present one will also end without any resolution since the only acceptable one to either side is a surrender by one side to the other.
Why are we wasting everyone's time? There can never be peace between Them and Us, no matter where one is situated. Yet, we continue to talk, pointlessly. There are really no points on which there can be agreement. Can one negotiate with the Devil himself or with a wild animal?
Then, even if one had a written agreement, would it be worth the paper on which the agreement is written? So what is the point of talking? The only reasonable way to go is to win on the chosen battlefield. Once total victory has been achieved, we would be in the class of Malaysia and Indonesia or Vietnam and China where the ideological debate was finally won on the battlefield and not in any negotiating table during peace talks.
Stretching out the moment of the final denouement is punishing on both sides. Let's get that over with and move on. We are the only country in our part of the world where this question is still being debated and not with wordy statements but with bullets and bombs. Enough already!
Too many of us have already died in this never-ending war, many of them not even combatants but just ordinary folk. To what end?
***
There is no need to talk about the revolutionary taxes that the Communists collect from businesses in their areas of operation. Will we negotiate a sharing of revenues? They have no business collecting taxes because they are not the government. It would also be pointless to tell businesses that do so that they should not pay taxes to these rebels. The truth is that when they feel that the military and the government cannot protect them, it makes sense for them to deal with the rebels by paying the revolutionary tax rather than fighting a war in which the businessmen have no business being involved. The government ought to assure them the security they need. Then, there will be no need for them to pay those revolutionary taxes.
Businessmen will pay those taxes for the same reason why they will pay to do their business without any trouble. Is there any better reason for paying taxes?
If no one can assure them a safe environment, most businesses will fold up their tents and move elsewhere – in this case, probably to another country which can assure them of their relative safety.
***
The normal progression of those who start off as revolutionaries in a spirit of idealistic adventurism all too often is to end as brigands. The different revolutionary movements that the government is facing are no different. They are no better of and no different from outright bandits such as the Abu Sayyaf. They ought to be treated with the same disrespect.
***
Let us hope for a more prosperous Philippines in the coming year, which is easily achieved if only everyone does whatever he is supposed to be doing, as best as he can.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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