BWorld 150, Rising state-inspired murders and budget 2018

* This is my article in BusinessWorld last August 25, 2017.

The second week of August 2017 would possibly be the bloodiest in the drugs war of the Duterte administration. More than 80 people were murdered mostly by the Philippine National Police (PNP) in various drugs-raid and victims were described as “nanlaban eh (they fought the police).”

Perhaps 99% of all countries and governments in the world have their own “drugs war,” like the Philippines. Punishment range from imprisonment to death penalty. Many of our neighbors in the ASEAN have death penalty for drug crimes like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

The “war on drugs” therefore is not a unique program or policy of the Philippine government, the Duterte administration especially.

What makes the Duterte drugs war unique is the absence of due process for poor victims.

True, there is due process for very rich drug suspects like those implicated in the P6.4-billion drugs smuggled from China and passed through the Bureau of Customs. Not one of the personalities implicated including the President’s son, Davao City Vice-Mayor Paulo Duterte, were shot or murdered. They enjoyed due process of investigations, filing of affidavits, dismissal of allegations, if proof is weak.

It is the poor or several middle class or rich but not-politically connected people who get murdered on mere suspicions of being drug users or pushers. Of the roughly 9,000 estimated casualties in the Duterte drugs war, majority are labeled by the PNP as death under investigation (DUIs). However, for those who were killed outright by the PNP because they supposedly resisted arrest, no police investigation is expected.

These are state-inspired murders. The President himself is urging the police to have more deaths for drug suspects, warning the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and other human rights advocates that he will order the police to shoot them.

The continuing murders from mid-2016 — when the Duterte administration was inaugurated — to the present has coincided with the big increase in the government budget, P667 billion in 2017 and P417 billion in 2018. I checked the PNP’s budget and I wondered why its allotment for this year fell by P17B despite the increase in personnel from 184,000 to 194,000 during the same period. What explains this discrepancy?

In interviews by various media (local and foreign) and human rights groups of self-confessed but anonymous murderers, the murderers claimed that they get cash from the PNP for each murdered victim, usually previous or current drug users or pushers but people who are generally poor. Remember also the testimonies at the Senate of several ex-Davao policemen (Lascañas, et al.) who claimed they got paid by then Davao City Mayor Duterte for the murders they made.

If this claim is true — and I hope it is not — where would the government get extra resources given the decline in the PNP budget?

I checked the other items of the proposed 2018 budget and there were five big items that stand out. They get P566B of the P667B total increase in 2017 budget, and P260B of the P417B increase in 2018 budget (see table).

If the claims of the anonymous hired murderers, of Lascañas et al. are true, then the extra resources may be sourced from “Miscellaneous personnel benefits fund” and from “Gratuity fund.” But since this is only surface data, this is hard to prove.

On another note, the Economic Freedom Network (EFN) Asia will hold its annual meeting and conference this coming Sept. 11-12 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. While the focus is on economic freedom and trade, political freedom will also be tackled among network members because there are instances of decreasing political freedom and rising dictatorial trends in the region. These include the continued rule of military junta in Thailand and the rise of murders in the Duterte government.

Economic freedom cannot prosper well in an environment of threatened political freedom and decline in the rule of law. Rise in public health care spending to save the lives of sick and weak people becomes a farce when the same government is engaged in state-inspired murders by the thousands.

Bienvenido Oplas, Jr. is the head of Minimal Government Thinkers, a member of EFN Asia.
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See also:

BWorld 147, Sugar tax and health alarmism, August 15, 2017
BWorld 148, Energy Trilemma Index 2016, September 16, 2017 

BWorld 149, Free tuition and irresponsibility, September 17, 2017

On the CHR P1,000 or $20 budget for 2018

The House of Representatives led by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez passed the proposed 2018 budget and it gave the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) a mere P1,000, less than $20, budget for 2018. Key Duterte officials are displeased with the CHR, headed by Atty. Chito Gascon (a friend since the 80s in UP Diliman) because of its investigation of many murder cases where the main suspects are policemen.

Last Wednesday, September 13, while I was queuing at NAIA for my flight to the US via Korean Air, Chito called me, he would be on the same flight as mine. Picture muna :-)

The CHR was created by the 1987 Constitution, not by Congress and much less by the House of Alvarez. Alvarez wants Chito to resign as CHR head, then he will reinstate the proposed P600+ million 2018 budget. Now look at his reasoning below. Low life logic.

Another lawyer-friend from UP, Gigo Alampay, explained it well in his fb wall the other day.

It is the responsibility of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to protect the rights of the people from abuse BY STATE AGENTS such as the government, police and the military. As a response to our experience with Martial Law, the CHR was created to ensure that the government will not abuse and violate its duty to protect the primary rights of the people.

It is NOT the job of the CHR to investigate violations committed by a non-state or non-government actors, such as criminals. This is not because the CHR condones those heinous acts. Rather, it is simply because investigating crimes is the job of the police. Requiring the CHR to expand its responsibilities to these violations is not only redundant. It would also be a massive waste of manpower and resources. (Is Congress prepared to add the equivalent of the PNP's billion-peso budget to the CHR?)

Do not fall for what appears to be a systematic effort by the President, legislators in the majority, and by Pro-Duterte apologists to discredit the CHR by confusing the public on this issue, and insisting that the CHR must investigate ALL cases of human rights violations.

A former tv clown and entertainer and now Senator Tito Sotto added his equally low-life argument. Suggesting that all government officials including those heading constitutional bodies (CHR, COA, Comelec,...) should always obey the President's orders and wishes.

When I posted my photo with Chito in my fb wall, a certain Manuel Saludadez jumped in with this accusation.

The man did not provide any proof, even news link. I have a term for this type of attitude -- emotional or arrogant idiocy. If one should make a serious accusation of robbery or plunder ("nakulimbat"), one should present some reliable proof. Otherwise, remove the comment or say "sorry, I do not have proof, I take back my words" or similar statements. If there is humility. There is none.

Meanwhile, I think the Senate should also give a P1,000 2018 budget for many agencies that are favored by the President and the Speaker, like the DOJ. That way, a compromise can be made between the two chambers.

Climate Tricks 56, Using the CHR for climate harassment

There's a new development, unprecedented so far -- having the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) -- to accuse and harass multinational firms engaged in oil, cement, coal and mining.

From The Guardian last July 27:

"In a potential landmark legal case, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body with the power to investigate human rights violations, has sent 47 “carbon majors” including Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, a 60-page document accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination”.

I support the CHR and its Chairman Chito Gascon, a friend, in their fight against extra judicial killings (EJKs), hundreds of these cases so far nationwide since mid-May 2016 alone. Their time and resources can easily be depleted if they go person to person cases, dead or imprisoned. 

But I can not support the CHR in this new climate harassment. 

The first round of climate extortion is by governments of developing countries, demanding $100 B a year from governments of rich countries, under the various UN FCCC annual negotiations. So this is the 2nd round of extortion, NGOs and the Climate Change Commission (CCC) that prodded the CHR ultimately to result in demand for big money from big multinationals as "climate justice." So whether we have bad El Nino (drought, less rain/no rain, rise in global and Pacific Ocean's Nino regions temperature) those multinationals should give money. Or a bad La Nina (lots of rains, lots of flooding, decline in global temp.) those multinationals should still give money. Pera-pera na lahat.

A similar situation would be Mr. X having less money and more money and people say that it is proof that he's poor, so government should send him more money and other subsidies.

I remember that last January, Chito posted about the CCC-CHR meeting. So it was the CCC that influenced the CHR to launch this HR investigation. The hypothesis "more CO2 emission = more global warming/anthropogenic climate change" is a global and UN-hyped movement. Then later via other schemes, these firms should pay huge amount of money to the "climate victims" like the thousands who died in Tacloban City in November 2013 during typhoon Haiyan (local name "Yolanda"). 

In November 1912 or 101 years before Haiyan struck Tacloban, a huge storm also struck the same city and killed some 15k people. Haiyan killed more than 8,000 people out of some 98 M people in 2013, but that storm in 1912 killed 15,000 people out of only around 7.6 M Philippine population that time. Those big multinationals in oil, mining, cement, coal were responsible for that "man-made climate crime"? 

(See Climate Tricks 49, No extreme weather, no severe storms in the past? January 14, 2016)

The CCC, WWF, other anti-fossil fuel environmentalists/NGOs/UN agencies have a great grand plan at climate extortion. They use their cars too often (not walking or cycling often), they frequently jetset to nice big beautiful cities abroad (not hitching with witches and manananggals who are fossil-fuel-free), they enjoy huge beautiful buildings and hotels made of cement and steel, they enjoy their electricity 24/7 (largely coming from coal power). Then turn around and demonize the oil, cement, coal and mining companies and demand huge money from these firms to compensate for their "climate crimes". Bright, very bright scheme.

Chito replied that "the CHR, in the course of these proceedings, will not go to the extent of imposing monetary penalties... the outcome of the process will be a report on the matter."

I thanked Chito and apologized for any misunderstanding but I am referring more to the CCC, not CHR, on the money issue. Because it is not in CHR nature to demand money from the accused firms (except the case of the Marcos' HR victims during Martial  Law). But ultimately it will lead there via other channels, with the CCC leading the charge.

Meanwhile, a good chart comparing various computer models' projections of "more global  warming" vs. actual warming starting 1975. 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/26/climate-facts-versus-climate-theories/

A paleo-climate data over the past 1,100 years. Even the first UN IPCC report in 1990 recognized this.

https://climateaudit.org/2008/05/09/where-did-ipcc-1990-figure-7c-come-from-httpwwwclimateauditorgp3072previewtrue/

That chart was removed by succeeding IPCC reports. The UN and various country governments will never accept the theory of cyclical/natural/nature-made CC. It will invalidate their grand plans for global ecological central planning, the various climate rackets and junkets lined up in the coming decades or even century.

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See also:  

Climate Tricks 51, The CCC, Greenpeace and fossil fuels, February 01, 2016

Climate Tricks 53, Paleo-climate data to help counter climate alarmism, June 18, 2016 

Climate Tricks 54, Forcing the linkage between climate change and dengue, June 23, 2016 

Climate Tricks 55, Paris Deal vs scientific papers debunking the AGW hypothesis, July 10, 2016