Anthony Lopez-Vito

“

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

”

The Philippine-China standoff is heating up. It seems that this incident is stirring up Filipino patriotic fervor and many want to show that the Philippines will not be intimidated by China. Predictably, their solution is to take the military path and I'm hearing war drums beating from a number of my acquaintances. Armed conflict, however, is not the way out of this particular situation.

In my opinion, this current situation was the result of heavy-handedness by the Philippine government which greatly miscalculated the outcome of their actions. They showed no finesse in their approach of sending a warship to confront Chinese fishing boats in the Scarborough Shoal. Instead of trying to find a diplomatic way forward, it thought we could just throw our weight around and somehow get our point across.

Although using civilian coastguard to confront Chinese fishing boats may have been more appropriate, the Philippine government instead sent a military vessel. This predictably forced the Chinese Navy's involvement to show themselves as the big man in the area. In effect, the Philippine government's actions caused China to escalate by saber-rattling; China cannot be seen allowing a 'small player' like the Philippines to stand up to it without losing face.

The US on the other hand doesn't really want to get involved in an actual armed conflict. With their presidential elections coming up, proposing to send more of their young men and women to fight in another far-off part of the world won't exactly be a vote-earner. However, it certainly has something to gain from this situation with the added advantage of a way out. Even though the US has a Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines, they can if necessary stand back a little by claiming that territorial sovereignty is still undetermined. My friend Harry Santos observed that we got a glimpse of this during the 2008 Georgia-Russia conflict.

At the same time, the US benefits from increased calls to allow their patrols in the area and even perhaps get bases back on the Philippines. It wouldn't really surprise anyone if American diplomats gave assurances of support to the Aquino administration, knowing full well that they could back out. Unfortunately, our own Philippine diplomats are out of their league in this arena. We simply don't have the experience for such maneuverings on the world stage and are likely being played by powers who are both more savvy and have lots to gain from this confrontation.

Exhaust all options before considering war

I've been called unpatriotic and in denial by more hawkish observers for holding these views. They seem to see war as a forgone conclusion and you can almost hear their excitement at the prospect of holding foreign invaders at bay. There's talk of the need for missiles and 'only a few' jets and upgraded navy vessels. Apparently, some military hardware is the magic bullet for the Philippines' problem with China. If only it were that easy.

In order to have any sort of balance of power with the Chinese, the Philippines needs to be an economic powerhouse. We cannot realistically fight a war when we don't even have the money to pay the electricity bills for our local police stations.

Nonoy Oplas, an economist friend who's given a presentation on the economics of this territorial conflict, estimates that it would cost the Philippines a minimum of Php350 billion (over USD8 billion) to wage a three day war. I'm very interested to know where those who believe me to be in denial expect to source the funds, or what we need do to get it.

No-one can tell for certain if war will come. Regardless, we definitely ought to be prepared militarily. That is why I support a policy of having an armed population with no limits on ownership of arms to make us a hard target. But war should always be the last option. If it comes, I doubt that the armchair generals I've heard salivating over a heroic resistance will even be in any condition actually go to war. It will be the troops of Philippine and US military who'll be first in the firing line. Next to suffer will be the old, the very young and the sick. I don't want to waste their lives because of some incompetent politicians with below par diplomacy skills.

So, what's the way out? One answer is to explore harnessing the international community, an avenue that our politicians have not yet effectively leveraged. Nonoy Oplas already covered some options so I won't rehash them in this post. As he observed, the Chinese government simply doesn't know how to effectively deal with civil society organizations and public protest. This has been seen recently with the case of Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese dissident and Nobel peace prizewinner. In trying to silence him, they ended up making him more widely known, with his writings now to be published in English for the first time. Conversely, China knows war and their military is far superior to ours. The Philippine government should not have tried to fight them in that arena. Our politicians are trying to wage war on the country that was the birthplace of Sun Tsu and The Art of War.

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." Maybe if a few of our politicians bothered to read the book, we wouldn't be in this situation.

In 2010, David Cameron and Nick Clegg promised that their coalition government will introduce a Freedom Bill that will "implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion."

Now in 2012, we have the Communications Capabilities Development Programme, another proposal for mass surveillance of British citizens' communications.

Strange, what with Europe's ACTA, America's PIPA and SOPA and Canada's C-30, you'd think that governments were working together to deprive citizens of their freedom. Excuse me while I put on my tin-foil hat.

According to an article in the New York Times, a study to be published in The New York University Law Review finds that the US Constitution's influence is dwindling worldwide. Apparently, people in the world's democracies find it to be an antiquated document that's no longer appealing.

"The United States Constitution is terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights," says Adam Liptak. He goes on to imply that things would be better if it were easier to amend or even replaced completely. From the study, Liptak quotes, "Among the world’s democracies, constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall. Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s."

To say that people now find the Constitution irrelevant is a distraction from the real issue and if I were to be less charitable, I'd say it's almost deceitful. The truth is that governments around the world, including the US government, simply don't like it. Through its Bill of Rights, it was and still is a revolutionary document that puts the rights of individuals above the whims of the government.

Of course the US government wants to be able to change it; those damn First, Second, Fourth, Eighth and Tenth Amendments are bloody annoying. Of course no modern government wants anything like it; they've learnt that codifying individual rights while allowing people the teeth to protect them is just asking for trouble from the pesky citizenry.

It seems that Learned Men Everywhere (a.k.a. apologists for the State) are holding up the Canadian Charter as their new standard for liberty. Why? It contains all the fluffy feel-good back-patting that has mass appeal while keeping power firmly within the government's domain.

SOPA, PIPA and ACTA are worldwide moves to censor the internet. They come under the guise of fighting piracy and enforcing intellectual property. In reality, these bills are a push by large corporations to protect their profits and outdated business models.

Without a free and open internet, our ability to share knowledge would be severely restricted.

Just because these may be foreign laws, don't think that they won't affect us. America's laws are beginning to extend worldwide.

Consider these cases:

1. Even if your company or organization is not based in the US, your website could be targeted as a US domestic site if it was registered or assigned by a US-based registrar. This would be the case with .com and .org domains.
2. Recently, a judge in the United Kingdom ruled that a British student accused of running a file-sharing site could be extradited to the US, despite never having been to America or using US-based servers.

You can find more information at following sites:

• http://fightforthefuture.org
• Say NO to ACTA video on YouTube
• Reddit's technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP
• http://americancensorship.org
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
• The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas

People often confuse violence with aggression and thus believe, foolishly, that the principle of non-violence is virtuous. So twisted are their morals that they would allow the coercion of innocent people in the vain attempt to avoid violence.

They are wrong. Sometimes you need to use violence to protect yourself and others against aggressors. In contrast, it is often difficult to make a rational case for the use of aggression.

How exactly are the two concepts different? Violence can be defined as the "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse". Aggression, on the other hand, is "a forceful action or procedure especially when intended to dominate or master". The difference is subtle but crucial: the intention of domination or mastery over another human being.

Aggression is the threat or initiation of violence with the ultimate goal of subjugation. A robber forces his victim to hand over property; a rapist defiles the body and mind not simply for sex but to dominate; governments enact laws and demand compliance; nation-states go to war to show their power over other nations.

Acts of coercion can ultimately only be countered by violence. Rarely can you dissuade an attacker unless your words are backed by at least the potential of force.

Modern society has become so afraid of violence that we want it banished, relegated only to movie theatre fantasy. We think that passing laws will make it vanish from real life. It won't. Keeping our fighting spirit locked up only encourages the aggressors to come out and play.

The path of non-violence is futile because violence is an innate part of being alive. If anything, believe in the principle non-aggression.

Edit 23/12/2011: Here's Charles St. Michael talking about bullies and explaining why violence solves everything.

It bothers me when I hear rationalizations of the UK riots being about the marginalized poor reaching a breaking point and lashing out against the country's power elite. That's complete nonsense as there was no politics behind their actions.

If the riots were truly an uprising, they would have burned Downing Street, not hauled off flat screen TVs and Playstations. This was thuggery, vandalism, and nothing else. Those who took part were opportunistic violent yobs who had nothing better to do than destroy other people's livelihoods.

We'll only see an uprising when the middle-class reach their breaking point. From the way things are going, it looks like that won't take much longer.

An art exhibit held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) provoked controversy and debate about freedom of expression in the Philippines. Enough people were shocked and offended by the work that the CCP agreed to close it down. Apparently, freedom of expression has gone too far in the Philippines and the devout should not have to suffer such sacrilege.

Personally, I find this kind of so-called 'art' distasteful and a waste of time. However, we do not have freedom of expression in the Philippines, as this case clearly shows. If someone more powerful than you doesn't want your message to get out, they have many methods at their disposal to have you shut up. That is not freedom of expression, only lip-service to freedom.

The best way to deal with this kind of thing is to simply ignore it. After all, what the exhibitors crave is attention and by making a big deal of it, you give them exactly what they want. I would never have heard of the exhibition if it weren't for the furor involved in having it shut down.

A friend of mine asked if it was right to invoke freedom of expression no matter how obnoxious or objectionable the message was to others. The real question is who gets to decide what is obnoxious and objectionable? In Jacobean England, Catholics were repressed; in the USSR, religion itself was objectionable; in Mao's China, intellectuals and professionals were intolerable.

Freedom is one of those few things that must be absolute; it must apply to everyone otherwise it may be taken away from anyone. Today we may be the elites who get to decide what is tolerable. What about tomorrow?

In a free society, people may choose to ignore those views with which they disagree. Dissenting voices are not silenced, no matter how distasteful they are to the mainstream.

Does that mean chaos should reign and people can incite violence? No. Oliver Wendell Holmes said so aptly, "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." But holding an art exhibition is not swinging one's fist at another's nose.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake that hit the Tohoku region of Japan in March 2011, the Philippine media quickly began reporting horror stories about what would happen if a big earthquake were to hit Metro Manila. Apparently, studies earlier this decade—some of which were kept secret by the government for a number of years—showed that we are woefully unprepared.

However, most of the discussion focused on what needs to be done on a governmental level; there was very little advice about what we as individuals could do to prepare ourselves. As I began to do some research, I found that many resources are available online but most are United States-centric.

While the principles of preparedness are independent of location and scenario, I thought it would be useful to have some information set in a context for the specific needs of Metro Manila inhabitants. My aim is for this website to fill that gap.

What we can do

During a large-scale natural or man-made disaster, we cannot expect to depend on emergency services or the government; all resources will be stretched to their limit. Our neighbors and friends will also be busy trying to save their own family and property. It may be several days or even weeks before help comes so we must plan to help ourselves until the crisis passes.

Nevertheless, helping yourself doesn't mean isolating yourself. Depending on the scale of the disaster, we may also need to help with rebuilding our community afterwards.

Preparedness begins at home

We may hear that Manila is not prepared to handle a major disaster but there are many things we can do to minimize the impact to our own families. Preparedness begins at home and preparing Manila means ensuring that enough families take simple steps to look after themselves.

Please visit preparemanila.org and join the discussion on how we can build a more resilient city by preparing our own households.

NINOY + PEOPLE POWER: What MEDIA is not telling us

This video delves into the facts behind the 1986 EDSA Revolution in the Philippines and uses them to challenge our existing narrative. Whether or not you agree with the film maker's interpretation, it's worth at least considering the alternative viewpoint presented here.

Personally, I think this offers the simplest explanation of the events and is more in line with what we know of human nature and how an oligarchy behaves. If you've scratched below the surface of Philippine society and wondered why most of the companies and resources are owned by a few families, this documentary should provide some insight.

“Liberty never came from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.”

- Woodrow Wilson, address to the New York Press Club on September 9, 1912

In an article entitled 'Armed and dangerous: more civilians own guns than military, police,' Gemma Mendoza of Newsbreak.ph published some quite sensational statistics about weapons in the hands of civilians.

She cites cases of Gerardo Ortega, Venson Evangelista and Emerson Lozano, all who were victims of firearms-related crime. The article then goes on to quote figures about gun ownership, weapon types, and approved licenses. It was all obviously calculated to cause outrage and lead readers to the conclusion that legal firearms owners are the danger to Philippine society.

However, the article presented no strong evidence to link legal ownership as a contributing factor to crime. In line with tactics used by anti-gun advocates, all she could do was make a tenuous correlation and through a few cognitive leaps, propose that for the good of society, the best way forward is for only police and military to be armed. Inferences, suggestions and innuendo are the best they can do because, in reality, there are no links.

There can be no doubt that the Philippines has a serious problem with violent incidents leading to death and injury. So just who are the perpetrators? Who are the real dangers to society? Which groups have the established, well documented track-record of posing a danger to innocent civilians?

As a direct result of the huge numbers of journalists being harassed, detained, tortured, and killed, Reporters Without Borders ranked the Philippines 156th place out of 178 in its Press Freedom Index of 2010. Just a year before, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that the Philippines was the world's most dangerous country for journalists, topping Iraq for the number killed on the job. As of 2007, at least 830 people have been killed in an extrajudicial fashion and Amnesty International has said that over 200 Filipinos have been victims of enforced disappearance in the past decade. The Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines estimates that we have had over 1200 political killings since 1991.

Let me ask this: were these killings perpetrated by sport shooters or the average PTCFOR holder?

Amnesty International, in their 2006 paper, Political Killings, Human Rights and the Peace Process, described attacks as, "mostly carried out by unidentified men who shoot the victims before escaping on motorcycles, have very rarely led to the arrest, prosecution and punishment of those responsible."

It goes on to say that, "the common features in the methodology of the attacks, [has led Amnesty International to believe that] they constitute a pattern of politically targeted extrajudicial executions... The organisation remains gravely concerned at repeated credible reports that members of the security forces have been directly involved in the attacks, or else have tolerated, acquiesced to, or been complicit in them."

In 2009, the US Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices states that, "Arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings by elements of the security services and political killings, including killings of journalists, by a variety of actors continued to be major problems."

Since 2005, over 3,000 military and police personnel have been accused of human rights violations. In 2008, the Commission on Human Rights chair, Leila de Lima reprimanded the Philippine National Police for its reputation of not observing human rights, citing as examples, "the Kuratong Baleleng massacre, the Ortigas Highway Patrol rub out, and the killing of suspects in the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation robbery in Laguna."

There is no need to beat around the bush here. We, the average armed citizens, are of no danger to society. In fact, the very groups that anti-gun advocates believe should be bestowed the exclusive privilege to carry firearms have, themselves, a traceable history of violence.

Responsible civilian firearms owners are an easy target because despite our skill in the use of a dangerous tool, we do not force our views on anyone else and are ironically quite powerless. Nevertheless, politicians and the media alike vilify us and paint us as violent, anti-social lunatics. The truth is that we are often better trained, better equipped and show more self-restraint than many of the so-called professionals. This is not to boast of our superiority but to highlight the sad state of affairs that our country faces.

The Maguindanao massacre is said to be the single worst mass killing of journalists in history. It was carried out by a political clan with the support of government security forces and officials. The deaths of innocents should not be placed at the feet of ordinary citizen firearms owners. To do so would make a mockery of those who died and trivialize the true dangers in our country.

PRESS RELEASE
Issued: January 25, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Senator Franklin Drilon recently filed Senate Bill No. 129, known as the Firearms Regulation Act, with the aim of addressing firearms-related crime in the country. Under the bill, only authorized personnel on duty may bear arms. Senator Drilon, a highly capable and widely respected law-maker with a long track-record of service to the Filipino people, is unfortunately off the mark with this move.

Strict gun-control policies around the world have consistently shown that denying citizens access to the legal means of self-defense does nothing to prevent violent crime. In fact, they succeed only in turning people into victims of criminals and creating a new criminal class among ordinary law-abiding citizens.

In a blog post explaining his decision to push for stricter gun control, Senator Drilon says that the right to carry firearms outside of residences is not based on well-founded facts. He also cites the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, as evidence of the deadly consequences of allowing guns in the streets.^[1]

However, if we are to look at the facts, we will find that after 30 years of concealed-carry rights in the United States, more citizens than ever are legally carrying firearms yet the nation is experiencing a decrease in violent crime.^[2] The FBI's crime report showed that for the first half of 2009, violent crime in America dropped dramatically even though gun ownership surged.^[3] It is also interesting to note that the states with tighter gun control, like California, District of Columbia, and New York, have among the highest violent crime rates in the country.^[4] Tellingly, the recent high-pro?le shootings at Fort Hood and Virginia Tech occurred in 'gun-free' zones.

As to the Tucson shooting, this is in fact an example of how laws do not stop society's predators. The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, was mentally unstable and thus not legally eligible to own a firearm.^[5] Nevertheless, he was still able to kill six people and wound 13 others. No law can ever fully protect us from the random act of an insane individual. According to eye-witnesses, it took 20 minutes for the police to reach the scene.^[6] In the meantime, the gunman was stopped only when he was tackled by bystanders, one of whom was concealed-carry permit holder Joe Zamudio.^[7] As we see time and again from similar incidents in the past, the surest way to save lives is for responsible citizens to act until law enforcement can arrive.

When it comes to firearms legislation on both sides of the fence, the United States undoubtedly has more experience than any other country. People have realized that prohibition doesn't protect the law-abiding and legislature is catching up. States are increasingly relaxing their stance with a wave of pro-?rearms laws^{[8][9][10][11][12]} and despite the Tucson shooting, public opinion is still firmly against tougher gun control.^[13]

What happens when a less developed country institutes firearms prohibition? We simply need to look towards Jamaica, Mexico, Rwanda, and Venezuela to see the outcome. Violent crime goes up.

Senator Drilon has brought great respect and admiration upon our nation by being elected as Chairman of the IPU Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians. He is the first Filipino legislator to take the seat since the organization was established in 1889. Under this role, he has surely come to understand better than many the dangers of abuse perpetrated by those in power, especially in a weak democracy.^[14] The lesson of both ancient and recent Human history is that a disarmed population eventually succumbs to the predations of tyrants; free people are trusted by their leaders to be armed.

Senate Bill No. 129 states that only authorized personnel on duty may bear arms. In the Philippines, it is common knowledge that crimes and human rights abuses are regularly committed by those who claim to protect us. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of firearms-related violent incidents involve thugs who obey no law. What hope have we of maintaining our freedoms if the only armed groups in society have amongst their ranks the corrupt and rotten who prey on innocents?

There have indeed been cases where civilians carrying firearms have abused their privilege and these incidents were widely reported in the national media. Nevertheless, they gained attention exactly because they are rare. The vicious altercations that are scattered in day-to-day newspaper reports are predominantly initiated by dangerous criminals, not law-abiding firearms permit holders. It is a distressing reality that violence is a fact of life and this truth is interwoven in the story of the Human race. But a world without risks is an impossible goal to attain. In an open and just society, these criminal cases are handled through the calm execution of existing good laws, not the rushed knee-jerk implementation of bad ones.

Our country already has more than enough firearms laws but these are inconsistently applied or poorly thought out. What we need is an overhaul, not a band-aid on a twisted and broken limb. All sides of the firearms debate share the desire to protect the public from harm. This can be best achieved with a push for education, increased training and a culture of safety in both our citizens and law enforcement personnel alike.

###

Download this press release in PDF format.

PROGUN, the Peaceful Responsible Owners of Guns, seeks preserve the freedom accorded to each and every qualified law abiding citizen to purchase, own and carry firearms in the Philippines.

If you?d like more information about this press release or to schedule an interview, please contact the PROGUN board.

“

The dirty secret of this day and age is that political gain and media ratings all too often bloom on fresh graves.

”

The Tucson shooting in which six people were killed and 13 injured, has tragically proven Charlton Heston's point once again. As soon as the news hit, politicians and journalists quite predictably piled in to offer what was mostly bumper sticker logic. Some were so keen to proclaim their outrage that they didn't bother to check their facts. MSNBC, for example, ran a piece with the well-known political commentator Rachel Maddow acerbically railing against pro-firearms advocates.

Unfortunately for the audience, most of what she was spouting was complete nonsense. Should it be legal for citizens to own the dreaded all-plastic undetectable Glock, she asked? In fact, such a gun does not exist outside of Hollywood movie scripts. The media is fond of portraying crazy gun-loving nutjobs as the source for these mass killings but might they also be part of the problem?

Republican Congressman Ron Paul seemed to be the sole voice of sanity.