“They said it changes when the sun goes down
Over the river going out of town…”
- from “When the Sun Goes Down” by Arctic Monkeys
The kickback-laden ZTE-NBN broadband project has been suspended. This controversial project will cost $329.5 million – that is, ladies and gentlemen, equivalent to almost P15 billion (yup, that’s 15 with 9 zeroes!) at the current exchange rate!
But why was the project suspended? Is it because it was tainted with corruption? Or is it to prevent more stink from coming out? Did Gloria Arroyo wake up one morning and realized the contract is unfair to the government? Or is she trying to save her behind by protecting her husband’s behind?
No doubt this action by the administration is an effort to contain the can of worms that was opened to the public. This is an attempt to diffuse the public anger against the personalities involved in brokering the deal – no less than Gloria’s husband and their corrupt gang – in fact against Malacañang itself.
By all indications this project is nothing but a giant milking cow. This is like the mother (or father) of all kickbacks! With all the problems facing our country and with very low budget for even the basic social services, I cannot fathom the callousness of this P15 billion project.
Yes, a broadband network would make communication among government agencies more efficient. And they claim this will improve government services, which I doubt by the way (but this is another story).
But is this the only way to do it? Can’t we live without it? No, in fact many developed nations and major cities all over the world do not have broadband connectivity. This is comparable to wearing Prada and sporting the slickest cellphone while your stomach grumbles in hunger.
The correct question would be – Do we have to prioritize this project over the more pressing problems of poverty, inaccessible education, unemployment and housing? Just imagine how many classroom buildings we can build with P15 billion additional budget to education. Or think of the number of lives that will be saved with investing this P15 billion to health care.
I think this project should not only be suspended but deserves to be thrown directly into the nearest thrash can. For what is likely to happen is that Arroyo will simply wait for the public opposition to the project to die down and then revive the contract. We know that these greedy, scheming trapos (traditional politicians) will do anything to make their pockets heavier.
The Senate should pursue the investigation of the anomalies surrounding this deal. Suspending the contract should not result to the hiding of the facts of culpability of government officials and personalities involved.
(Send your comments and reactions to: for text messages to 0919-348-6337; for e-mails to ianseruelo@gmail.com)
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Why remove Raul’s posters?
“The great corrupter of public man (and woman) is the ego....
Looking at the mirror distracts one's attention from the problem.”
- Dean Acheson
I read a news article about the justification of the removal of the DOJ posters from the walls of the Hall of Justice. The DOJ poster bears the image of the great Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales.
They said that the face of great Raul in the posters were vandalized with mustache and beard and even horns! When the Hall of Justice’s maintenance office received the communication that Chief Justice Renato Puno is scheduled to visit, then they decided to remove all those “redesigned”posters. They claim that the posters are not presentable anymore.
This column condemns those unfounded action and demand that those posters be pasted back to the walls of the Hall of Justice! Remove all the other posters that they want but certainly not Raul’s posters! Removing those posters is tantamount to a mockery of justice. And they can afford to do that with the image of the Justice himself? They are violating a basic freedom guaranteed by the constitution! This is a big farce!
First, those posters were paid for by the Filipino taxpayers. It was the people’s money that was utilized in the printing of such magnificent narcissistic posters. We spent for the printing of the poster, why remove it? Posters are meant to be, well, posted.
Second, they should respect whatever markings are on the posters for that is a part of its overall aesthetic value. It is a work of art in progress. Don’t they understand that the ordinary Filipino paid for the printing of the posters and now are contributing their artistic talents to make the posters even more appealing, informative and mind tickling?
Lastly and more important – the beard, mustache and the horns are actually appropriate, very fitting! Look at the track record of Raul – his brave lawyering for the American soldier rapist stationed in Subic, his colorful anti-women remarks and attitude, his many anti-people actions and positions plus his unquestioning and undying support to a fake and corrupt administration.
Beards and mustache characterize villains. So what wrong with that? Horns, well, devils wear them – it will portray somebody as evil, or sinister, or dreadful, creepy or simply horrible! So what’s the big deal?
To all readers lets us start a signature campaign to bring all those posters back! No, I do not mean that they replace them with new ones. We want exactly those same posters that they removed. We want the PNP and the NBI in coordination with the FBI, the CIA and the Interpol to determine the location of the posters and bring them back immediately! If needed let us elevate this issue to Congress or maybe to the International Court of Justice. Can anybody draft a position paper?
(Send your comments and reactions to: for text messages to 0919-348-6337; for e-mails to ianseruelo@gmail.com)
Looking at the mirror distracts one's attention from the problem.”
- Dean Acheson
I read a news article about the justification of the removal of the DOJ posters from the walls of the Hall of Justice. The DOJ poster bears the image of the great Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales.
They said that the face of great Raul in the posters were vandalized with mustache and beard and even horns! When the Hall of Justice’s maintenance office received the communication that Chief Justice Renato Puno is scheduled to visit, then they decided to remove all those “redesigned”posters. They claim that the posters are not presentable anymore.
This column condemns those unfounded action and demand that those posters be pasted back to the walls of the Hall of Justice! Remove all the other posters that they want but certainly not Raul’s posters! Removing those posters is tantamount to a mockery of justice. And they can afford to do that with the image of the Justice himself? They are violating a basic freedom guaranteed by the constitution! This is a big farce!
First, those posters were paid for by the Filipino taxpayers. It was the people’s money that was utilized in the printing of such magnificent narcissistic posters. We spent for the printing of the poster, why remove it? Posters are meant to be, well, posted.
Second, they should respect whatever markings are on the posters for that is a part of its overall aesthetic value. It is a work of art in progress. Don’t they understand that the ordinary Filipino paid for the printing of the posters and now are contributing their artistic talents to make the posters even more appealing, informative and mind tickling?
Lastly and more important – the beard, mustache and the horns are actually appropriate, very fitting! Look at the track record of Raul – his brave lawyering for the American soldier rapist stationed in Subic, his colorful anti-women remarks and attitude, his many anti-people actions and positions plus his unquestioning and undying support to a fake and corrupt administration.
Beards and mustache characterize villains. So what wrong with that? Horns, well, devils wear them – it will portray somebody as evil, or sinister, or dreadful, creepy or simply horrible! So what’s the big deal?
To all readers lets us start a signature campaign to bring all those posters back! No, I do not mean that they replace them with new ones. We want exactly those same posters that they removed. We want the PNP and the NBI in coordination with the FBI, the CIA and the Interpol to determine the location of the posters and bring them back immediately! If needed let us elevate this issue to Congress or maybe to the International Court of Justice. Can anybody draft a position paper?
(Send your comments and reactions to: for text messages to 0919-348-6337; for e-mails to ianseruelo@gmail.com)
Not a 9/11 poem
“One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”
- Josef Stalin
It’s almost 9/11. This date is probably the most “recall-able” date in world history. It marked the mourning of the world for the victims of the terrorist attack that brought down the twin towers of New York.
While we always remember the more than 4,000 victims of 9/11, the irony is we tend to forget the thousands and the millions more of people who died from other bigger human-caused tragedies. Atrocities of governments and people in power such as wars of aggression that led to death tolls we simply leave to statisticians to record.
In the anniversary of 9/11 I would like to yield this space to a very meaningful piece of poetry below. Let us pause for a moment of silence, not only for the deaths of 9/11, but for all victims of intolerance, discrimination, exploitation and greed.
* * * * *
A MOMENT OF SILENCE
BEFORE I START THIS POEM
by Emanuel Ortiz
11 September 2002
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th. I would also like to ask you To offer up a moment of silence For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US.
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country. Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin And the survivors went on as if alive. A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it. A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead. Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.
Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years. 45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas 25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky. There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains. And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...
100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if this is a 9/11 poem, then: This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971. This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977. This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored. This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell, And pay the workers for wages lost. Tear down the liquor stores, The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we, Tonight we will keep right on singing... For our dead.
(Send your comments and reactions to: for text messages to 0919-348-6337; for e-mails to ianseruelo@gmail.com)
- Josef Stalin
It’s almost 9/11. This date is probably the most “recall-able” date in world history. It marked the mourning of the world for the victims of the terrorist attack that brought down the twin towers of New York.
While we always remember the more than 4,000 victims of 9/11, the irony is we tend to forget the thousands and the millions more of people who died from other bigger human-caused tragedies. Atrocities of governments and people in power such as wars of aggression that led to death tolls we simply leave to statisticians to record.
In the anniversary of 9/11 I would like to yield this space to a very meaningful piece of poetry below. Let us pause for a moment of silence, not only for the deaths of 9/11, but for all victims of intolerance, discrimination, exploitation and greed.
* * * * *
A MOMENT OF SILENCE
BEFORE I START THIS POEM
by Emanuel Ortiz
11 September 2002
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th. I would also like to ask you To offer up a moment of silence For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US.
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country. Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin And the survivors went on as if alive. A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it. A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead. Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.
Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years. 45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas 25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky. There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains. And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...
100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if this is a 9/11 poem, then: This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971. This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977. This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored. This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell, And pay the workers for wages lost. Tear down the liquor stores, The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we, Tonight we will keep right on singing... For our dead.
(Send your comments and reactions to: for text messages to 0919-348-6337; for e-mails to ianseruelo@gmail.com)
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