GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

Two weeks ago, I was privileged to visit the booming city of Ho Chi Minh more popularly known as “Saigon”. I and a bosom friend, Atty. Oscar “Oka” Musni was invited by his brother, Nestor “Totoy” Musni to spend our birthdays there and to see and hear the sights and sounds of Saigon and the nearby places.

As we all know, Vietnam was a war torn country and was liberated from the repressive clutches of the United States in 1975. It is on its way to recovery, which beckons travelers to see it rising up from the rubbles. At present, it is rated as the second most peaceful and safe country in the world, next to Switzerland.

My journey started on the 13^th day of November from here to Manila. It did not seem to start quite right. Upon arrival in Manila, my eyeglasses broke and so, I had to hurriedly visit an eye clinic in Glorietta, Makati. As I was leaving a day after, the optometrist advised me to temporarily bring two new pairs of glasses, one for distance and the other for reading. So I arrived in Saigon with two sets of spectacles.

Since Oka went a day ahead of me in Saigon, he and Totoy met me at the airport in the afternoon of November 14. We had dinner at a deli that sells all types of ham for our baguette (french bread) sandwich. We also had fine Italian wine and spent the night laughing, joking and remembering the distant past when Totoy and I were in the Jesuit seminary. Totoy, by the way, is the only brother of Oka and they both treat me no less than a brother.

My birthday is on the 15^th of November. Oka and I woke up late and took our breakfast in the hotel nearby. Totoy had to work during daytime as a consultant of several big fishponds, so Oka and I were left to go around on our own. We decided to visit one of the famous market places, Bhen Tham Market and bought some cheap souvenirs. Thereafter, we went to the War Museum.

The war Museum exhibits thousands of photographs taken by more than hundreds of war photojournalists. Eighty-four of them died during the war. The grounds of the museum also featured various armaments, different types of tanks, big canons and huge artilleries with warheads that could reach a distance of thirty-two kilometers. The barrel itself of the largest artillery extends up to fifteen meters. Beside the big guns are war planes and choppers.

As I began to peer through the big war photographs, I cleaned up my eyeglasses (for distance) and it is so suddenly cracked. Without glasses, the pictures are just too blurry that I needed to wear my reading glasses and go so near the pictures that I want to see.

The good thing in wearing my reading glasses despite being too oddly near to what I’m looking at is that I see every detail of the pictures from one corner to another. Imagine me, hugging every big blown up picture tucked on the wall with my face about six inches away from what I’m looking at. It was like holding a magnifying glass and searching every significant part of the picture.

This went on all throughout the two buildings of the museum. And I felt a certain numbness deep inside as looking closely at the eyes of bewildered children or the scared face of a mother with her children wading through a deep river. I could almost smell the corpse of ordinary Vietnamese families in Mai lie. The bleeding flesh of the open wounds of soldier in the mud seemed to bring pain on me too. So suddenly, the pictures become so blurry again as my tears started to fall. The inhumanity that befell upon Vietcong as well as the Americans during the war was clearly made manifest in the pictures.

After seeing all the pictures, one could readily conclude that a war makes no sense at all except that it shows the cruelty of the beast inside a man. What a birthday treat that was!

Oka and I left the museum after taking photographs through our cell phones holding the shoulder of the bust of Ho Chi Minh.

Totoy, at about six o’clock in the afternoon waited for us in Highland Cafe at the back of a Big Opera House at the heart of the city. Highland Café is basically like our own Park Café where you can see all the motorcycles and other vehicles roving around in the middle of two streets. Despite the jarring sounds of motorcycles, the three of us managed to talk about petty things.

By the way, the population of Saigon is about seven million people while the motorcycles registered in its Transportation Office have reached a staggering number of three million. So, imagine the streets with so many motorcycles running in different directions while the cars, which are so few in number, try to find its way among the horde of motorbikes.

Totoy told me that he would spend for my big birthday dinner in Lions Beer Restaurant just a few minutes walk from Highland Café. We arrived there at about 7:30 P.M. Lions Beer Restaurant is so big, about the size of two Grand Caprice Restaurant, featuring a brewery inside.

As we sat down after being led by the waiter to our table, Totoy ordered for us dark beer at 1 liter per mug. The mug looks bigger than our ordinary pitcher. We had pig knuckles as our main dish. It tasted really good. Our conversation was so animated and the arguments on how to convert Dollars to Dong and Dong to Peso lasted till the wee hours until we decided to go back to our hotel.

JPEPA, ANOTHER GRAND DECEIT

The Supreme Court, in its decision on the fraudulent People’s Initiative, has pronounced that it is an “agenda” of PGMA. Such agenda has deceived more than six million people who were duped into signing a document for Charter Change. And yet, soon after the decision was rendered, the issue on JPEPA emerged.

JPEPA stands for Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement. It is by far the dumbest agreement or treaty PGMA has entered into.

JPEPA allows the dumping of toxic waste of Japan to the Philippines. Simply put, our country will become the garbage pit of the dirtiest and most hazardous waste at no cost at all to Japan (zero tariff).

Worse, PGMA kept the agreement secret even to the Senate which is supposed to review any treaty entered into by our country with any other country. Sen. Pia Cayetano said, “I can’t see any reason why the government should continue keeping the public in the dark on our commitments a month after the pact’s signing.”

The reality is that Japan produces more than 400 million tons of industrial waste alone every year. In simple terms, that would be about 70,000 shiploads of garbage.

In fact, in 1999, according to World Health Organization, a Japanese Company shipped 6,000 tons of waste that included used diapers, stained sanitary napkins, disposable plastic syringes and surgical gloves to our country. The incident drew complaints and prompted Japan to take back the shipment.

PGMA’s compliant cabal in the Department of Trade and Industry justified the inclusion of the toxic waste in the agreement as a “come on” for Japan to sign the agreement which they figured may not be implemented due to its illegality as it is banned by existing national and international laws. However, Atty. Jeremy Gatdula, a specialist in trade services, dismissed such hogwash reasoning. He said, when JPEPA is ratified, it could override the bans.

When interviewed on ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), Dr. Rene Opreneo, Executive Director of Fair Trade Alliance, disclosed that JPEPA as a whole will not even substantially benefit our country. It will tie our hands in dealing with other countries due to some provisions on exclusivity.

PGMA might not have realized that the dumping of hazardous and toxic waste into our communities will endanger public health and the integrity of our ecology. Even the DENR confirmed that our environment will suffer as a consequence of the flawed agreement. But has PGMA really cared?

Now, we are facing the embarrassment of preparing amendments to JPEPA as it shows the prospects of really hurting public health and our environment.

A story had been told that a species from planet Mars recently landed in Japan. He then visited a blighted area in the Philippines. He learned that 50 years ago, we were at war with Japan. The Mars “man” had only one conclusion: “That Japan won the war!”

Such a pathetic story is not far from reality. We have truly become a country of losers due to the acts of an erstwhile economist president whose dumb decisions have placed our nation in utter disarray.

DODONG QUIJADA

Last Friday night, after attending a birthday bash of my “binata” in Nazareth, I brought an old friend, Atty. Frank Vasig, to Dos Compadres Piano Bar in Pryce Plaza. Atty. Frank Vasig went down to Cagayan de Oro from Bukidnon to attend a two-day Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) to update himself on the new laws and decisions handed down by the Supreme Court.

Upon arrival at Dos Compadres, I saw the stage rather empty except for the organ player cum singer Dodong Quijada and a lady crooner singing familiar songs. I was a bit nostalgic as Pryce plaza was once my habitué every Saturday night in the past years listening to the Rock Beats, a band composed of not so-young yuppies singing the old tunes. Rock Beats had disbanded, I was told.

Dodong Quijada, who was once a low profile Rock Beats keyboard player, surprised us with his repertoire and held us in admiration of his songs until the wee hours. He performed with an enormous amount of talent blowing our heads off. Intently listening to him led me to question why he is still around while his talent could be sold anywhere else in the world.

So, before leaving, I talked to him for a while and he told me of all his travels around Asia. He was in Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and even Brunei. He has performed in almost all types of five star hotels like Hilton, Shangrila and Intercon. Yet, Dodong opted to be around and decided to stay despite the minimal fees he received.

Dodong’s option to stick around is quite ironical in the backdrop of our political milieu. The recent Supreme Court decision that showed the grand deceit perpetrated by PGMA could have given him a signal that the incoming years will not be well at all. This matter however did not bother Dodong at all.

The last week’s conundrum on the decision involving the alleged people’s initiative filed by the Sigaw ng Bayan and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) does not seem to have taken a toll on Dodong. He just keeps on singing and probably continues to believe that our government will do well because of the vigilance of many. Such vigilance was made manifest by the eight justices of the Supreme Court who held on to their principles in protecting the Constitution.

Justice Carpio who named ULAP and Sigaw ng Bayan the “Lambino Group” concluded the decision with these stinging words against PGMA:

No amount of signatures, not even the 6,327,952 million signatures gathered by the Lambino Group, can change our Constitution contrary to the specific modes that the people, in their sovereign capacity, prescribed when they ratified the Constitution. The alternative is an extra-constitutional change, which means SUBVERTING THE PEOPLE’S SOVEREIGN WILL AND DISCARDING THE CONSTITUTION.

Incantations of “people’s voice,” “people’s sovereign will,” or “let the people decide” cannot override the specific modes of changing the Constitution as prescribed in the Constitution itself. Otherwise, the Constitution – the people’s fundamental covenant that provides enduring stability to our society – becomes easily susceptible to manipulative changes by POLITICAL GROUPS GATHERING SIGNATURES THROUGH FALSE PROMISES. Then, the Constitution ceases to be the bedrock of the nation’s stability.

The Lambino Group claims that their initiative is the “people’s voice.” However, the Lambino Group unabashedly states in ULAP Resolution No. 2006-02, in the verification of their petition with the COMELEC, that “ULAP maintains its UNQUALIFIED SUPPORT TO THE AGENDA OF HER EXCELLENCY PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS.” The Lambino Group thus admits that their “people’s” initiative is an “UNQUALIFIED SUPPORT TO THE AGENDA” OF THE INCUMBENT PRESIDENT to change the Constitution. This forewarns the Court to be wary of incantations of “people’s voice” or “sovereign will” in the present initiative.

This court cannot betray its primordial duty to defend and protect the Constitution. The Constitution, which embodies the people’s sovereign will, is the bible of this Court. THIS COURT EXISTS TO DEFEND AND PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION. To allow this constitutionally infirm initiative, propelled by DECEPTIVELY GATHERED SIGNATURES, to alter basic principles in the Constitution is to allow a DESECRATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. To allow such alteration and desecration is to lose this COURT’S RAISON D’ETRE.

The manipulative iron fists of PGMA who tried to use or abuse more than six million people have been temporarily curtailed. Yet, soon after the decision was rendered, the puppets of PGMA in Congress have again voiced out their insistence to alter or revise the Constitution for their selfish ends through Constituent Assembly (ConAss).

The deception goes on. But Dodong Quijada, in his resiliency to all these political hullabaloos, will not be moved. He knows as he keeps on singing and tries his best here in our midst; some people will be around to subvert all the maladies that have been wrought to our nation. People like Dodong give us reason to fight for a better country.