Finding your True Self

…..A Reflection on the Matrix movie

A scene wherein Neo finds his true self and capabilities

     
     Although I have watched the Matrix several times before when I was still a child, it is only now that I thought about the message that the movie wants us to think critically about. Before, the only things that I noticed were the cool outfits and the slow-motion action scenes. Now, while I was watching the movie, my mind kept thinking about whether the idea of the matrix can be real and is it possible that we are just not yet “awaken”. 


     Focusing on Neo and his journey to find his true self, there were a lot of obstacles that hindered him from finding it. These were public opinion, environment, and his own beliefs and thoughts. Right now, we live in a society that is greatly influenced by media and the cyber-world. Sometimes, I really do question myself if I am what I want to be or if I am simply going with the flow and be just like anybody else. Relating the matrix concept to real life, I believe that the media is our version of the “fake world” in the movie where everything seems normal and good. Without the media, our world would become boring and plain. In the matrix, neo was easily swayed by the words of the oracle. When she said that he was not the one, he immediately believed it and lost hope for some time. We are also the same, we immediately believe or get affected by what others tell us even though we try to reject the idea, it still lingers in our subconscious. It was only when neo himself lets go of his uncertainties and truly believed in what he wanted to be that he was able to find his true self. This movie just makes us re-think and reflect on what is our perceived self and it’s difference with our true self. It shows that in order to find your true self, one must not let anyone or anything change your beliefs. For me, the journey of neo also signifies how hard it is to find your true self but it is indeed attainable.

An example on how different reality is for everyone

A day in Cyber World

<For my PHILOPE class>

A day in my Cyber World

          It is already a routine that I log onto my computer, access the internet, and travel through the cyber world. My daily travel routine starts with going to Gmail. Before everything else, I make it a point to check my emails regularly to see if I have new mail or updates on stuff I subscribed to. My second destination is Facebook, where I socialize with my friends, update my status, upload new pictures -if there are some, and sometimes view the profile of people I’m intrigued about. I leave the Facebook tab open so that I can still chat with people even when I’m already in my next destination which is Twitter. Before, I kept an alias of bananarama07 in twitter so that people I’m close to won’t see the rants or current updates that I don’t really want them to see but then my friends found out about my alias and so I might as well post my real name. I mostly use twitter to “cyber stalk” my foreign idols and tweet what I’m currently into, where I am, or just virtually shout when I am “fangirl-ing” about a celebrity, drama, movie, etc. In other words, I let out my crazy side on twitter. My next destination is Yesasia.com where I check if the new album or official goods of my favourite artists are already available, if there are and if they are affordable then I purchase them right away. On some days, I side-trip to Multiply.com where I mostly do my online shopping and to Mangafox.com where I read mangas. Next destination is Youtube where I watch the current episodes of my favourite Japanese comedy show –Gaki no Tsukai Ya Arahende, I also watch some music videos and then download them if I find them worthy enough to be re-watched. The last destination I go to on cyber world is Asianfanfics.net where I read a lot of fan made fiction or “fanfics” until I get sleepy and end my cyber journey. My journey’s destinations are mostly social networking sites where I get in touch with friends that I already associated with the whole day before going into the cyber world. 

Corruption in the Media

In the last two decades, murdering journalists has developed into a terrible industry across the Philippines. According to the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, Esperat was the sixty-seventh journalist killed since 1986. As of February 2009, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines list had grown to 100, including no fewer than sixty-four since former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed office in 200.

Arnel Manalo, a columnist for a local newspaper in a province in the Philippines, was killed by two men on August 2004; Armando Pace, a radio commentator in Mindanao, was shot in the back by two men in public with many witnesses; Fernando Batul, a radio commentator in Palawan, was shot by two men on May 2006. Another is the case of George and Macel Vigo, a husband and wife journalist team in Mindanao, who was murdered by two men on a motorcycle on June 2006. And Marlene Esperat herself whose partner, also a journalist by whom she had two children, was assassinated in 1989.

In 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists or more commonly known as CPJ ranked the Philippines as the sixth most dangerous nation for journalists. The Philippines ranked directly after Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Colombia which is more dangerous than Afghanistan, Russia and Pakistan. According to CPJ, what’s striking is that “that the Philippines is one of the only countries in the top half of this list that is a stable, peacetime democracy.”

Most of the murders things in common: the victims were provincial journalists, that are not usually not connected with major news organisations; the victims were exposing stories either through commentary corruption and abuse of power in their locality. Esperat, a columnist for the Midland Review, a local newspaper in Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat province, was a former government employee who had dedicated her life to detailing graft in the regional office of the Department of Agriculture.

Also, the murderers were unknown gunmen, who are presumed to be hired killers. Fourth, hardly any of the killers have been caught. Vergel Santos, a trustee of the watchdog Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR), says: “I can count the number of solved cases on the fingers of one hand.” The Bangkok-based Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPAsays there have been 78 Philippine journalist murders since 1986, and only two have been “partly resolved”.



Sources:

Robles, 2009

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
http://www.nujp.org/media%20killings%202005.htm

Philippines' politics and corruption

In the Philippines, the government controls the school system, while provincial authorities are in charge of health-care matters. Thus, a national preventive health programme in primary schools depends on funds from the provinces’ budgets.

Fit For School (FFS) is a program that ensures that children in government-run elementary schools wash their hands with soap every day, brush their teeth with fluoride toothpaste and are de-wormed every six months. To implement the programme, the education and health sectors of the Philippines are pooling efforts.

Fit For School is also the name of the Philippine NGO that supervises the programme. Its work is supported financially and with human resources by InWent, GTZ, CIM and the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. Because it is simple, effective and in line with global and national health policies, FFS is successful. Its acceptance was boosted considerably by a campaign run by various UN organisations and multinational soap manufacturers to mark Global Handwashing Day. The program fits neatly into the structures of the centralised education sector and is thus easy to implement. The schools cooperate. What is more difficult is the funding and procurement of the materials by the local governments. Local education authorities (Schools Divisions) report to central government. They are responsible for implementation. The health sector, on the other hand, is decentralised, so soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and de-worming tablets are financed and procured by provincial authorities. The programe costs about 50 Pesos a year per child and is thus affordable even for provincial governments that are strapped for cash. But, the support of provincial governors is crucial, according to Alex Villano of the League of the Provinces, an umbrella organisation: “Once staff realise that their governor is interested in the project they will hold the line.” From then on, it is all plain sailing. For the same reason, PhilHealth, the national health insurance agency, also focuses on governors, as a staff member explains: “We talk only to one person and that is the provincial governor. If you get his commitment, then the job is almost done.” Governors also have an impact on local education authorities. According to a senior school nurse, one reason for teachers and Schools Division health officials cooperating on successful FFS introduction in her province was funding from the provincial government: “We are really committed because we don't want to fail the governor after he invested a lot of money.”

Sources:

Schneider, 2009

Monse, 2009

Obermann, 2009

Corruption and tax

High tax rates do not guarantee high tax revenues. A World Bank report argues that other reforms are needed.

The Financial Times reports that Kenya has more than doubled its tax revenues since 2003. And that is not because it has put up taxes. Most of the increase comes from tackling tax-office corruption. One important measure the country has taken is limiting personal contact between taxpayers and tax officers to a bare minimum, thus cutting out encounters where officials might give taxpayers a tax break for a “fee”. According to Michael Waweru, head of the Kenyan Revenue Authority, that form of corruption has decreased significantly since tax payers were given the option of submitting tax declarations via the Internet and making payments online. “It was a small reform that gave a phenomenal result,” Waweru said.

In the World Bank’s eyes, Kenya has taken exactly the right action. According to the report “Paying Taxes 2008”, a joint publication of the World Bank and auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers, a transparent and unbureaucratic tax system with moderate tax rates is the best way to increase and consolidate tax revenue. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, when all taxes are added together, a business has to hand over 230 % of its profit to the tax man. That is only in theory, however, as can be seen from the country’s low tax ratio, which is just 6.3 % of GNP (2004). In Kenya, by comparison, the tax burden for businesses is 51 % of profits. But the 2004 tax ratio, at 17.2 %, was more than twice as high as that in Congo. Countries with high tax burdens “can potentially increase tax revenue by lowering rates and persuading more businesses to comply with the new tax system,” the report says.

Apart from tax cuts and the introduction of online tax declarations, the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers recommend that all taxes with the same base (e.g. income or profit) should be combined. In El Salvador, a business needs to make 66 tax payments a year; in Malawi the figure is 30, in Bangladesh 17 and in Chile 10. The report’s authors also believe it is important to simplify tax laws and make tax audit rules clearer for the taxpayer. Tax revenue in countries with standardised tax audits, they say, is 18 % higher on average than in other countries, even if they have lower tax rates.

Sources:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/taxes

The former president's yearning

Inefficiency and corruption have long plagued the Philippine civil service, but they might soon be overshadowed by a recent and rapidly

growing problem: call it “the president's desire”.

According to former Civil Service Commission (CSC) chief Karina Constantino-David, fromer President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has appointed an unprecedented number of ineligible people to the bureaucracy. The instrument Arroyo has used is something David calls the “desire letter” a document of endorsement signed by the former president, stating that “it is my desire” that a named person be given a particular job.

Under the constitution, the former president has unstated but implied “residual powers”. One of them allows her to directly place her choices in certain government positions where the appointing authority isn't stipulated by the law. Whereas previous chief executives were circumspect about exercising this power, former President Arroyo has apparently thrown prudence to the wind, giving government jobs to thousands of people from outside the bureaucracy. David says that while past administrations appointed favorites through “whispers” or “marginal notes”, under the Arroyo government desire letters are openly “waved around”. Sometimes they are apparently even signed by someone else on behalf of the former president.

In a scathing speech she gave before retiring from the CSC early this year, David said that more than half of the 3,000 career managers appointed by the former President are unqualified and lack the educational skills, training, background, civil-service eligibility and professional experience for their positions. She also pointed out that at least 90 of the presidential appointees were retired military or police officials; and they were given positions that had little to do with their previous jobs, in bodies like the Department of Transportation and Communications, the Bureau of Immigration, and even the Mindanao State University. According to David, desire-letter appointments not only demoralise and politicise the bureaucracy, they also lead to deprofessionalisation: “When the career bureaucracy no longer has merit and fitness as its basis because it is politics in command, you will never have a professional bureaucracy.”

Her speech provoked a vigorous reaction from the former President's Office. One spokesman said: “Her generalisations do a disservice to the over one million civil servants, both career and appointed.” He went on to assert that “all presidential appointees must perform, if they don’t they have to go, whatever their credentials may be.” And Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo said that “questions about legal qualifications are best addressed through due process, not through sweeping generalisations in luncheon speeches”.
But David is far from backing down. In an interview she said that “patronage is happening to an increasing degree.” She notes that because of desire-letter appointments, the bureaucracy already has 60 undersecretaries and assistant secretaries more than it needs. “Each one has a staff and an office, which has electrical costs. And more than half of them are not eligible.”

Perhaps the administration’s most telling response to David’s criticism was yet another political appointment. When David stepped down from the CSC, which as a constitutional body is supposed to be independent of the executive branch, former President Arroyo appointed as her successor Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo, the very Saludo who likes to insist on due process. He is known to be a loyal and close supporter of the former president.
Saludo says he got the job because, as cabinet secretary, he was already dealing with governance matters. He pledges to continue David’s priority initiatives, which included efficient and effective administrative justice, professionalising the civil service and improving public service delivery among others.

He has even devised a new acronym for his agenda: MERCI. It stands for “Morale, Efficiency, Responsiveness, Courtesy and Integrity”. For her part, David has twofold advice for her successor: “One, uphold the independence of the constitutional body; two, recognise that the bureaucracy is not just a machine it's an important component of the entire system of governance.”

The true test for Saludo will be whether he'll stand up for the civil service and oppose the former president’s proclivity for political appointments. As a constitutional body, the CSC is supposed to be independent of the executive, and as its head Saludo has a fixed term of seven years, during which he can’t be dismissed by the former president.

David isn’t too optimistic, however. She says the key to reforming the bureaucracy is a strong CSC, and the prospects of that, “with this former president, are zero”.

In the long term, however, what is most worrying about the desire letters is that former President Arroyo may have set a precedent with lasting impact: Will succeeding former presidents resist the temptation to print out their own desire letters?

Without corruption we have: Leadership, reorganization, performance

There is one thing that is clear: meaningful reform will have to involve the political leadership, the civil servants and the public itself. Governance scholar Brillantes argues that changing the bureaucracy has to begin “at the top” and that progress is “a matter of political will”. He says that demoralisation often stems from leaders not respecting civil-service rules and regulations: “You need good shining leadership above all.”

He also thinks decentralisation – empowering the local governments – should be accelerated. In his view, the bureaucracy’s “frontlines” are in the provinces, whereas “Imperial Manila” continues to dominate the archipelago. As much as 86 % of public finance, Brillantes points out, is still controlled by the national government. He hopes that “somebody with sympathy for decentralisation and local governance should be our next president.”

At the same time, internal reforms in the bureaucracy have to include capacity-building, imparting a performance ethic, Brillantes says. He laments that performance is traditionally measured in terms of “how many meetings, how many letters”. The approach is process-oriented rather than goal oriented. After all, process is easier to measure. Brillantes praises the effort to set up an “Organisation Performance Indicator Framework” to address this issue.

He also thinks the Civil Code should be revisited. It would make sense, to allow civil servants to organise in trade unions, in order to empower them to be more assertive, he believes. Instead, Brillantes says, the civil-service culture is one of obedience.

Former CSC chair David states the bureaucracies of other Southeast Asian countries pulled ahead of the Philippines because “there was a genuine recognition of their importance”. By comparison, Filipino presidents and legislators were lazy, she says.

Congress, in one report, proposed more oversight of the bureaucracy. However, in David’s view, it would make more sense to simply pass the civil-service reform bills that have languished in its chambers. Among them she lists a redesigned Civil Service Code that Congress hasn't even looked at for 15 years, and a Government Compensation and Classification Act that still has to be discussed by the appropriate committee. She finds encouraging that Congress seems to be moving on the Career Executive System Bill, which would reduce the President's powers of appointment.

What can we do? Brillantes urges the citizens to speak up: “We should learn to assert our rights, we are our own worst enemy.” In the end, he says, the bureaucracy is there. “Unless you want to go to the hills or leave the country you have to work with the bureaucracy.”

Philippine corruption history

Corruption in the Philippines came from who?

Indeed, history and political culture contributed to making the civil service what it is. Filipinos got their first taste of bureaucracy from their Spanish colonisers, and it was both unpleasant and formative.
Jose N. Endriga, a former dean of the UP-NCPAG, writes that “the outstanding characteristic of the Spanish colonial regime ... was the wide discrepancy between the letter of the law, which upheld idealistic and noble standards, and actual practice, which was repressive and oppressive”.

Three centuries of a fickle, corrupt and exclusive colonial administration given four things:
– the idea that everything should be rigidly run from Manila,
– a suite of slow bureaucratic techniques best summed up by the Spanish expression I obey but don’t comply.
– a great distrust of government on the part of the indigenous people, and
– the notion that it is somehow patriotic to subvert the bureaucracy.

In 1898, the USA beat Spain in war and displaced the colonial overlords. In 1900, the Americans enacted the Civil Service Act, establishing a civil service that was meant to be efficient, based on merit and politically neutral. In practice, however, the American model was dominated by the executive. Brillantes notes: “We really have a system that is excessively dominated by the presidency, one that is almost a dictatorship.”

It’s also a system which never escaped from the poison of what's called “traditional politics” – the concept of public power being wielded for the benefit of a few families and their cronies. In his book “An Anarchy of Families” historian Alfred McCoy calls it “the subversion of the public weal in the service of private, familial wealth.” People came to regard government simply as a spoils system.

Related to this, and complicating things further, is the value that Filipinos place on personal relations. For the same reasons, this is a well-known phenomenon in other post-colonial societies as well – India, for instance, to name only one. According to risk analyst Wallace, “Filipinos are very personalistic, it’s very difficult for them to stand back and look at things from a dispassionate point of view”. A governmental bureaucracy, however, should treat everyone in the same way.

Today, CSC chair Saludo claims that “it is possible to have a bureaucracy with a lot of personalism, group ethics and family, and still work well.” He acknowledges that personalism marks the Philippines, but points out that that is similarly the case elsewhere in Asia, Latin America or Spain.

Corruption leads to unfulfilled goals

Experts agree that there is no lack of dedication and commitment among the 1.5 million people who currently comprise the civil service. "We have gems and jewels working at the national and local level," says Brillantes, the scholar. Former CSC chair David asserts: "Most people in the bureaucracy do believe in public service. Most of them want to be honest, they do not want to close their eyes to corruption and dishonesty. But they very often do." The reason lies in what she sees as the biggest problem: politicisation.

She describes: “The entire structure of the bureaucracy is such that your highest career people – about 10,000 of them – are all presidential appointees.” The CSC vets each and every government employee – hundreds of thousands of them every year – but it has no say when it comes to presidential appointees (note article below).

Political appointments circumvent the rules on qualifications, and bypass qualified civil servants who've put in the years. Demoralisation and fear are among the consequences. Faced with a patronage system where who you know matters more than what you know, David says, “people in government learn to be quiet, to be timid, to be politic”. She said that the prevailing attitude in the civil service is: “Never mind if you’re wrong as long as you don't step on anybody’s toes, not the mayor’s, not the congressman’s, not even the barangay (village) councillor's.” To David, the reason why Filipinos are unhappy with their civil service is its inefficiency. And there will be no incentive to improve so long as civil servants see their leaders relying on patronage. What they would need instead is incentives to perform well.

David bemoans a lack of real political leadership. Instead of indicating long-term directions, those in charge make “demands to change acronyms of projects, or to undertake short-sighted and short-term projects that must carry the name of the new political leader”. Even while heading the CSC, David didn't refrain from saying that patronage worsened under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The irony of the matter is this very president has been emphasising civil-service reform. Executive Order 366 is a directive to prepare a “rationalisation plan” where selected employees will be encouraged to take voluntary retirement, while certain agencies are evaluated for “structural reforms”.


Asked what he thinks of the government's reform program, Brillantes says it is really only one more example of the well-known rhetoric of “reorganise, streamline, remove redundant people”. Leaders have been using it since President Quirino in 1950. He notes: “It’s a history and mindset we're trying to undo.”

Irrational compensation

An example of this is salary reform. An official says that instead of studying compensation packages for civil servants, various presidents typically gave “across the board” increases – for example, one thousand pesos to every government employee: “So if you're earning 3,000 pesos, and your boss is earning 20,000, you’d get a 33 % increase while your boss only gets five percent.” In his words, “salaries aren't just low, they're irrational”. The result is “clerks who are well-paid, and janitors and guards and gardeners who stay on and on because they cannot get a better deal elsewhere". 



Today, public employees at the lowest level receive 20 % more than their counterparts in mid-sized private companies. By contrast, government professionals and managers are paid 30 to 70 % less than their counterparts outside the public sector. 



Reforms tend to follow an old routine – trim, reduce, restructure – based on the conviction that the bureaucracy is “full”. But despite years of rip-and-remove attacks, the civil service has expanded ruthlessly. According to the SEPO, from 1960 to 1997 the bureaucracy grew faster than the population – 282 % against 160 %. In 1970, there was one civil servant for every 90 Filipinos. By 2001, the ratio was one to 50. That year, one out of five employed Filipinos worked for government. David says that politicians’ constant talk of re-organising and streamlining shows they don't understand bureaucracy. It is really a very complex organisation. As the Congressional Planning and Budget Department points out, “the bureaucracy... is not a monolithic entity. 




It is composed of dozens of organisations tackling a huge variety of societal concerns, including health, education, housing, currency, security, law and order, environment and assistance to or regulation of industry and other production sectors”. The Department acknowledges that the people manning – and managing – these organisations have “various levels of efficiency, moral standards and work ethic”.  It is still important to value these as these makes an organization better. Corruption does not only make an organization have a bad reputation, but also lose its people’s trust.


Sources:
www.Inwent.org

civil SERVICE?

The Philippines, Southeast Asia's oldest democracy, can claim a civil-service tradition going back a hundred years – and even longer, if the three-century Spanish colonial period is counted. Unfortunately, pure-blooded isn't a mark of quality; and the challenges encountered in the Philippines will seem familiar to people from other developing countries.

“The delivery of government services remains dismal,” reports the Senate Economic Planning Office (SEPO). And according to Clarita Carlos of the University of the Philippines, “many times the bureaucracy we encounter is arrogant, aloof, arbitrary and corrupt in its behavior”. She refers to a study according to which “almost 50 % of government expenditures is lost to corruption”.

Foreigners aren't any happier. Peter Wallace, a Manila-based political-risk analyst, describes Philippine bureaucracy as “slow and convoluted”. The World Economic Forum warns that one of the hindrances to doing business here is the inefficient government bureaucracy.

Asked to compare her country’s civil service with its Southeast Asian counterparts, the recently-retired chief of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), Karina Constantino-David, replies: “The best way to describe it is, I'm salivating when I look at Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and, to a certain extent, Vietnam.”

The civil service's problems – corruption, inefficiency, politicisation, imbalances in staffing and salaries afflict bureaucracies the world over. What sets the Philippines apart, though, is that problems have been around for generations, defying attempts to solve them. As the SEPO notes, “reorganising the bureaucracy has been on the agenda of every administration since the 1940s”. It's almost a ritual for every incoming president to vow a knock-down, drag-out decisive fight against the bureaucracy, involving words like “reform”, “re-engineer” and, more recently, “re-invent”.

The result? According to Alex Brillantes, dean of the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG), “things have changed, but things have stayed the same ... many of the problems remain: politicisation, resistance to decentralisation, persistence of corruption”.




Sources:

Alan C. RoblesCivil, 2007:service reform /Whose service?

Jose N. Endriga, 1997:Comparative studies of national civil service systems / Country paper Philippines, prepared for a conference at Indiana University, Bloomington. http://www.indiana.edu/~csrc/endriga1.html

McCoy, Alfred, 1994:An anarchy of families – Filipino elites and the philippine State, University of Wisconsin Press.

Senate Economic Planning Office, 2005:Report on the bureaucracy, April 2005 PI-02-05.

Child Corruption: The story of Angel-Grace

(Original story is from: Father Shay Cullen, 2010)


This is the story of a Filipino girl, Angel-Grace, who one of many, represents millions around the world.

Angel-Grace was five years old, and was living in a poor family in Angeles City, a place known for encouraging sex tourism. Angeles city is a two hour travel from the North of Manila. The little girl was raped continuously by her step-father. This is not something rare; it is a common crime in every nation around the world. Most of these cases go unreported because young children are helplessly at the mercy of their tormentors. Angel-Grace kept silent for years until one day, she told her mother what was going on, but her mother called her a liar and warned her not to make up such stories as her step-father is the family’s source of money and food. After that, Angel-Grace decided to run away. She lived in the streets and joined other children she saw on the streets with similar stories. They roamed the streets as beggars, unwanted and rejected. When she turned eleven, she had no education, no self-confidence and saw no value in her life. She only lived by an instinct to be able to survive. Soon a woman saw her and offered her hamburgers, drinks and money and told her to go with foreign tourists and massage them. What Angel-Grace did not know is that the woman was actually a pimp in disguise. The woman taught her how and soon the child was into it. For two years Angel-Grace lived such a life with no thought of an alternative, once more enslaved of the vicious circle of poverty, despair, abuse and victimization that only leads to yet more poverty and despair. This was Angel-Grace’s life. this would be her future, always poor, always wanting and longing for something she never had – to be loved and to love free. Angel-Grace was lucky, however because PREDA, a children’s rights NGO, took her into its home for abused children. It is jam-packed with 56 victims of such abuse at any given time. They keep on coming – and PREDA’s the­rapists and counsellors keep on healing and helping them. Also, PREDA’s legal office keeps fighting legal battles. Angel-Grace, who was exposed to corruption, now knows that healing is possible thanks to PREDA’s therapies and counselling.

Don’t lose hope

Continuation of my previous entry

There is definite hop for the Philippines, of course. Two years ago, an anti-child pornography law was passed. It reflects similar laws in other countries, prohibiting the possession, making, distribution and display of images of sexual activity involving children or their private parts. Attempts to access or transmit such images on the internet or by cell phone are illegal too. Unlike many other countries, the Philippines has made it mandatory for Internet service providers to install filtering software to block child porno­graphy. But internet is a whole different world and there are lots of ways to surpass that filtering software or blocking software. People nowadays have great knowledge on computer, especially those who are really computer enthusiasts or those who like tinkering with computers. It is possible that, because people are knowledgeable on this topic, that they will create counter softwares to counter the blocking softwares or filtering softwares that they are proposing. Anything is possible when it comes to the digital world.



Law enforcement, however, is an issue in its own right. PREDA and other NGOs will monitor the government’s performance and the Internet service providers on this count. But, knowing how most of the officials work, the tendency is that they will only monitor when people start questioning the status of their project. If the people think its stagnant and starts to protest, then they will act. Its sad to think that some of our government officials will only act once their own life or pride is on the line, but that is the truth.

As our president today won a landslide victory in the presidential elections on an anti-corruption platform, we are still waiting for the anti-corruption campaign he’s promised. Although this was proof of the Filipino people’s desire to finally get an honest government of integrity, the question is whether he and his new administration can overcome the pervading culture of corruption and transform the Philippines. We sincerely hope so.

the other side of globalization

.. a continuation to my previous blogs

Tourist-sending countries, however, also play a significant role. They must realize that trafficking is a global trade and their citizens are part of the problem. “Sex tourists” create demand and pay big money thus making the illegal sex market alive. Donor governments should also take note that some of their citizens are sex offenders in far-away places. Their criminal appetite is stimulated in the Philippines and they are likely to prey on vulnerable minors at home too. And it is possible that they are prone to spreading sexually transmitted diseases including HIV or Aids. It is in the interest of the EU and its member countries to do more to combat modern sex slavery.

Trafficking and exploitation of young people for sex slavery is widespread throughout the world. The US State Department publishes an annual status report that gives grades to the countries that rank from good to bad and to be on the special watch list is bad – that’s where the Philippines ended up once more 2 years ago. This information is very alarming to me because before, I thought that sex exploitation in the Philippines is only minimal. But after reading several news, I figured that there should be something we should do to prevent it from rising. In my opinion, to eliminate this, having a VISA when entering the Philippines should be required. Why not be as strict as other countries when it comes to safety? I think that the only thing our government is concerned about is the number of tourists we get and the increase in revenues, As long as they get something out of it, they don’t care if the purpose of the visitor is to do illegal actions.

The State Department’s report “Trafficking in Persons 2009” states in the Philippines section: “The Philippines is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour.” The document notes that Filipinas are trafficked abroad for commercial sexual exploitation, primarily to Asian countries but also to Africa, the Middle East and Western Europe. The State Department also points out that Filippinas are trafficked within the Philippines from poor rural areas to urban groups “for commercial ­sexual exploitation or for forced labour as domestic servants or factory workers”. The flip side of sex tourism, apparently, is international trafficking of women.

Slavery=Corruption

The significance of child abuse in the illegal sex industry cannot be overestimated. It is important to understand that the lines separating adult and child prostitution are not very clear. Many adult prostitutes were forced into the business at early ages, and when a young woman is held as a slave, it somehow does not matter anymore whether she is over 21 or below 18. The victims’ ultimate human rights to freedom and self-determination are already constantly being violated.

Once a person has been tainted by prostitution, that person’s chances of rejoining society, starting a family and living a normal life become very low. Also, In the Philippines, even teenage prostitutes who get pregnant are forced to have abortions in illegal clinics that can even harm them even more since the procedures are not proper. Clinics like that are usually using primitive, barbaric ways to abort the fetus. There is even a possibility that one might die because of too much bleeding after an illegal abortion. Often the women try to hide pregnancies – with the result of later having to undergo late-stage abortions, a particularly horrific crime. Contrary to what the sex industry claims, sexually-transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS are common.

It is well-understood that girls, or even boys, suffer psychological damage in the sex industry. Many are brain-washed to believe that the club is their new home or their new family that will take care of them, where they will one day meet a foreigner to marry and join for a happy life abroad. It is all an empty fantasy, of course, but the children believe it and look out for their prospective rich future life partners. It is very difficult for these people to build up self-esteem. They face a lot of hostility and violence and have no trust in adults. Their life experience is one of abuse, rejection and hardship.

Our country must be judged on how we treat our youth and children. Hotels and clubs should not be able to operate without a mayor’s permit and license and the local authorities must assume responsibility. It is a disgrace that the our authorities lack the political will or some prosecutors have no moral courage to implement the law in the Philippines.

Perversion=Corruption

It is obviously illegal to sexually abuse children in the Philippines, but it is very hard to bring wrongdoers to justice. NGOs like PREDA fight for the rights of abused children. However, they cannot rely solely on the government, in which corruption is abundant. Most of the time, public prosecutors are in favor of the accused merchants of commercial sex and ignore the rights of trafficked, raped and abused children. Bribes from traffickers, politicians or sex offenders make sure things stay that way(Cullen, 2011). Sometimes, prosecutors simply ignore registered complaints that must be processed within 90 days, according to our law.

According to what I have watched in the news, prosecutors in Olongapo City dismissed trafficking-of-persons charges against two US citizens, who had held two girls captive as sex partners for four years since they were ten years old. One of them now is pregnant. The prosecutors also failed to press charges of child sexual abuse. The suspects, unfortunately, were set free.


The illegal sex industry is at the center of this corrupt mind set. Its simple message is that anything can be bought – even the body of minor. The sad truth is that sex tourism, even in its most criminal form, enjoys political protection because it brings in foreign currency and generates revenues for local leaders, which allegedly, some of whom invest in the business themselves.Theres gossip about a mayor who promoted his city as a sex resort and was even chosen to become the country’s secretary of tourism.

What saddens me is that I know that it is harmful for a country to be considered a destination for sex tourists and I cannot think of a way to completely eliminate it. As Cullen(2011) has said: foreign travellers who are pursuing other, more legitimate motives like nature or cultural heritage, for instance, will be likely to shy from places tarnished by such a reputation, fearing for their own reputation.

Piracy

In Line with the World Anti-Counterfeiting day, I am dedicating this blog to the anti piracy campaign of our government. All my posts here in my blog are about corruption and you might wonder why I am blogging about piracy. Well, there is corruption involved in piracy! And that’s what I would include in today’s blog along with my opinion on the piracy issue. What is the role of corruption in the piracy business? Easy! Let me explain briefly. In order to get a pirated product, let’s say a DVD movie for example, a person must bribe or use illegal means to get a soft copy of the movie. The usual means is to bribe a person working on that production to get a soft copy which will then be sold to mass pirating “companies” to be sold to the markets or be uploaded the internet so that people can access it and download it via torrent or streaming websites. In the news today, there were pirated goods that are estimated to be worth P350 million were confiscated and destroyed at the Camp Crame Grandstand. It is questionable how pirated products that are said to be manufactured in other foreign countries can be shipped here in the Philippines without the government knowing it. Aren’t there a division in our government which deals with all incoming and outgoing containers? Don’t there have to be a waybill in every container or any shipment in that matter that will be shipped in and out of the country? Pirated DVDs, replica bags, shoes, and eyewear were confiscated by the Bureau of Customs, National Bureau of Investigation and the Optical Media Board and were destroyed by authorities, Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines Director General Ricardo Blancaflor said. ‘High value’ goods like fake Louis Vuitton bags, Oakley shades, Lacoste shoes were among the items destroyed during the ceremony, he explained.“Anything that’s illegal, we’ll destroy,” declared Optical Media Board chairman Ronnie Ricketts. He also said the campaign against piracy and counterfeiting is on-going, also adding that the ranking of the Philippines in the US piracy watch-list has been downgraded. “It’s not yet off the watch-list, but our (Philippines) ranking has gone down,” The Philippines has been taken off the Out-of-cycle review of the US piracy watch-list. “Hopefully, by next year we will be off it,” said Blancaflor. Blancaflor said that it is sad reality to piracy and counterfeiting was the loss of livelihood for many Filipinos, comparing counterfeiting and piracy to identity theft. “It’s like when someone’s name is stolen. It’s unfair. (Because of piracy) artists lose their jobs… and counterfeit medicine poses health risks to people.” I also know that Piracy is bad, but how can I afford original DVDs? Im a big fan of asian telenovelas, be it drama, comedy, or action. I cannot buy original DVDs of those here in the Philippines because there’s no one selling it. So I had to give in and buy pirated DVDs. Also, like me, we believe that buying original DVDs is not practical since it costs too much and you will only see one movie. After watching it, you have nothing but a CD that has the movie you already watched. If they can lower the price of the DVDs and make more variety available, then I would gladly buy original than the pirated ones.

Sex tourism

The prostitution industry in the Philippines is a national disgrace. It reflects rampant corruption. Even children are not safe from sexual exploitation. (Cullen, 2011)

The sex industry in the Philippines is growing, spreading all over the nation. Hotels, bars and clubs, and even supposedly empty warehouses serve as fronts. An estimated 1.2 million single male tourists arrive every year but Exactly how many of them buy sex services is unknown; this is an underground business, after all. What’s clear is, however, is that sex tourists exploit and removes the humanity of nation’s youth. Both women and young children, including males, are on offer for those ready to pay in pursuit of sexual indulgence.

Some sex clubs proudly advertise local mayors’ permits and licenses to operate. The purpose of showing it is to tell the “customers” that the girls are supposedly clean of sexually-transmitted diseases. Once, a club operator proudly told Father Shay Cullen (2011) that government-paid health workers come to the clubs to do the tests to ensure the customers that the girls do not carry sexually transmitted diseases that can infect the customers.

I am really disappointed with the health workers because they seem to have no concern that young women are being sold and that they are being exposed to physical and psychological harm. Evidence gathered by NGOs proves beyond a doubt that children as young as 14 can be purchased by private arrangement (Cullen, 2011). Father Shay Cullen (2011) states that sometimes the victims are only eleven years old.  More or less one million children are brought into the sex trade every year worldwide according to UNICEF. The International Labour Organization (ILO) states the figure is more likely to 1.8 million. UNICEF estimates that as many as 60,000 minors are being exploited in the sex tourist business in the Philippines. NGOs believe the true figure is probably closer to 100,000.

I also heard about this on the radio where the radio jocks were discussing how an NGO with the collaboration of the police were able to stop an internet based sex business that is in Cebu city. The “business” involves letting minors (even children from age 11) be videoed, and the watchers in the internet will pay the “company” According to that report, there were different prices for each request. For example, If the customer wants to see a naked woman or child dancing, then he will pay, let’s say, $10. But if the customer wants more than just seeing them naked and dancing, the customer would have to pay more depending on how intense or how hard the request will be. When they went to the site, the operation was caught on the act with women and even children naked or actually doing their “work”. As I was hearing this, I was stunned. Then after a while, the radio jocks said that the women have permits, and that the children have their parents’ consent, which the representative of the “company” gladly presented to the police and NGO workers present. It was shocking to hear that there were parents who actually agreed that their child will be doing these kinds of things. It is so sad to hear that some parents would not care of their children’s minds will be corrupted for the sake of money.

Bilibid Prison/resort/hotel/lodging

Just a while ago while I was in my car going to school, I decided to tune in to an AM station. The two people were discussing the recent issue about the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) wherein there have been reports that some inmates that have a significant power in the society are given special treatments by providing them with better prison cells and better service than the others. During airtime of that radio segment, they decided to contact a police officer in the said prison. They began questioning the police officer if it was true that some were given better treatment than the others, then he said no everyone is treated the same in here. Then one of the radio hosts said that: “Pero ayon sa nakuha namin sa Failon Ngayon, eh may TV at DVD player sa kanyang selda?” (“but according to what we got from Failon Ngayon, there is a TV and a DVD player in his prison cell?”) (Failon Ngayon is a public service show, wherein Ted Failon is the host.) The police officer answered: “ay lahat naman po ng selda may TV at DVD player” (“oh, every prison cell has a TV and a DVD player”) I was in awe when I heard this. Why would a prison have these luxuries? A prison, for me, should be a place wherein people are afraid to be admitted to. In this case, maybe some would even prefer being in that prison instead of sleeping in the sidewalks. Wouldn’t that promote crime? The hosts of the radio show were flabbergasted; they asked the police officer one more time whether he understood the question and was he sure that he answered correctly. The police officer explained that: “donated po iyon nung Gloria administration” (“those were donated by the Gloria administration”) Once again, I was confused once more. Why would they do that? Instead of donating TV sets and DVD players, why not just fix the prison cells to ensure safety and good health of the prisoners because I heard (and I see on the news) that prison cells here in the Philippines are filthy. The hosts began to ask the police officer again whether it is true that there are prison cells that have air conditioners. The police officer, of course denied. Then one of the hosts said: “Pero may nababalita na meron daw talagang may special prison cell diyan, may aircon pa daw!?” (“but there have been reports that there realy are special prison cells that has air conditioning?!”) The police officer just denied it. For me, jails or prisons should not have these special treatments for VIPs. Or actually, all jails or prisons should not have luxuries like TV sets in every prison cells, DVD players, and such. Because they will not feel that they have done something wrong. They would not repent if they are “distracted” with those luxury items that are available and can be freely used by them. Although it may seem like I’m such a “kill-joy” person, it just seems to me that it is just right not to give them these luxuries because maybe they will think that there’s nothing wrong with being prisoned, it’s actually ok because I have a TV, aircon, and even a DVD player. Life’s good in here.

Corruption may be present in the military as well

According to former Army Capt. Rene Jarque, corruption is widespread in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). He said that the AFP has its share of “usual” corrupt practices like commissions, kickbacks, overpricing, padding, substitution, rigged biddings, under-delivery and ghost delivery.

But the AFP is said to have a more sophisticated form of corruption called “conversion” Conversion is the process of converting the budget for military supplies into its cash equivalent by bypassing government accounting and auditing rules bye using false documentation.

Aside from the government, corruption in media also happens. Inday Espina-Varona, the chairperson of National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, said that the definition of media corruption is manipulation of news for personal or corporate interests. According to her, corruption in the media is an open secret.

Luis Teodoro, Danilo Arao and Evelyn Katigbak conducted a study on the media’s coverage of corruption and it showed the weakness of selected print and TV media agencies in evaluating the roots of corruption. According to them, “this necessarily requires looking closely at the workings of government, understanding it, and conveying that information to the readers, viewers and listeners as a living expression of the necessarily oppositional and watchdog functions of the mass media in the Philippine setting.”

In the usual of occurrence of corruption, Tujan pushed for “people’s governance” as the antidote to corruption, a governance which he described as one that would “take the issue of equity as a preeminent concern, ensuring positive action or even a preeminent role for the poor, marginalized toiling masses and develop democratic governance from the perspective of the poor and marginalized.”

This is one reason why Filipinos today don’t know where to go to for help concerning the law. For example, I need to tell the police that I have seen a police officer, wearing their uniform, go into an adult club. In the Philippines, that is not allowed. If I approach the barangay, which for example is where police officer is currently designated, what if the other police officers I talk to are friends of that police officer that I want to report? Or what if they themselves do exactly the same? Would they really take note of my report and do something about it? Most probably, not. So who is the person most likely I’ll run to next? The media people. But then again, corruption also exists in the media. If I go to the wrong person, whom can be a friend of a politician or a person that may be affected by what I will report, will he or she publicize my report? Most probably, I may even be in greater danger than I was before because of the goes out that I am reporting about something bad about the police, other people may follow and then the image of our government will be affected negatively. Of course, our government does not want that. What will happen to me? Most probably, I will be targeted or be falsely charged with something I didn’t know existed. But that’s just my opinion. I don’t know whether I’ll survive the first encounter to whom I reported, It’s probable that by then I will be already assassinated.