The 2010 Presidentiables Blog referenced at Wikepedia on reproductive health (philippines)

we are proud to note that this blog is being referenced at Wikepedia on the topic of  “Reproductive Health Bill”. we like to thank the author at Wikepedia.

click here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_Health_Bill_%28Philippines%29

noynoy aquino vs the catholic church on birth control method

noynoy aquino says he is for open and free choice of contraceptive method for couples. he says he will leave it up to the couples to decide the contraceptive method that they think is best for them – either the traditional method like rhythm or calendar method or  modern methods like the use of pills, condoms or surgery (vasectomy, ligation).

the catholic church is only for traditional methods of contraception. the church is saying the government should not be involved in promoting or allowing modern methods of contraception.

where do you stand on this one?

noynoy aquino favors free choice for contraception method, philippine catholic church goes gaga. 71% of catholics support RH Bill

this was inevitable –  noynoy aquino and the catholic church meeting at a crossroad, with one pointing to one direction and the other to another direction.  while in the US, noynoy aquino announced he was for filipinos choosing their own contraception method and that should there be couples who will need help, the government will provide the couples with help on acquiring contraceptives like the pill or condom.

that statement woke up the bishops of the CBCP and lay catholic groups in the middle of the night. the catholic church is promoting only one method of contraception – the traditional method of contraception or the natural method, like the rhythm and calendar methods and does not support the use of modern methods of contraception like condoms, the pill or surgical methods.

the church was very successful at this, as for 9 years, they had the throat of president gloria macapagal arroyo who imposed her own catholic religious beliefs on the whole nation. under the arroyo administration, only the traditional methods pushed by the church was  promoted in public health centers.  you can’t even get any information on modern methods of contraception from the public health centers and hospitals.  in fact  arroyo stopped the free distribution of condoms and pills which where being done through the funding of USAID.

noynoy aquino was very clear on his position on this matter during the election – he was for free and open choice for couples on the method of contraception. it was a matter of time that he would cross paths with the catholic church. that time is now.

catholic lay groups woke up on the second day of the controversy, on the first day, the bishops of the CBCP were wide awake, saying they were “hurt” by the statements of noynoy aquino. they even said the bishops will be supporting protest actions that will be done by catholics on the matter. on cue, the catholic lay groups woke up and said they have already met and are actually planning protest actions.

here some facts that the bishops and catholic lay groups might ant to look into before they actually hold their protest actions:

>> a high 71% of filipino catholics support the reproductive health bill based on a survey by SWS

that can mean the planned protest actions of the catholic lay groups might not be well attended. or that a large part of the silent majority of catholics are disagreeing with them on this issue. it will be difficult to justify this action by the catholic lay groups when a large number of catholics in the country do not support their views and in fact support the RH Bill.

the RH BIll is the lightning rod for modern methods of contraception which has been pending at congress as arroyo and her congressmen from previous years were able to successfully delay the passage or even a debate on the bill.

it appears to us the catholic church on this one has lost its voice among their own flock.

copy of official first report of de lima committee on rizal park hostage taking posted here

First Report of the INCIDENT INVESTIGATION and REVIEW COMMITTEE on the August, 23, 2010 Rizal Park Hostage-taking Incident: SEQUENCE OF EVENTS, EVALUATION and RECOMMENDATIONS IIRC,

September 16, 2010

“Is that the bus going to the Heroes’ Graveyard?” -PSInsp Rolando Del Rosario Mendoza, to Ruth Del Castillo, Fort Santiago, August 23, 2010.

read here

https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/first-report-of-the-iirc-on-the-rizal-park-hostage-taking-incident/

actions from the de lima report – noynoy aquino’s last chance to save himself

an 83 plus page  final report and at least four other thick booklets have been given to president noynoy aquino by leila de lima, head of the 5-man committee that investigated the lunata bus hostage rescue bloodbath.

several doors are still open, we are hoping at minimum at least a few will be closed. with the end of de lima’s investigation and the submission of the final report. one big door that we are hoping will be closed is the this gaping hole of aquino’s weak leadership.  aquino has a last chance to close that door, for him to show true leadership and save himself from a tarnished image as a leader of a nation.

santiago pascual

rodolfo magtibay

rico puno

jesse robredo

jess verzosa

aquino should show, finally good leadership by taking the final report’s conclusions and fire DILG Usec puno, PNP chief versoza, NCRPO chief santiago, ground commander magtibay, leader of the SWAT team pascual, the SWAT team members,  leaders of all the teams who were at the hostage crisis and the RMN radio anchors who interviewed the hostage taker.  they should all be fired and with some charged with crimes for bungling the rescue of the hostages.  sec robredo should be fired for not managing the situation and not saving his boss, president aquino after the hostage crisis.

if aquino does not take this decisive action as the leader fo the country, aquino’s image as a leader will be tarnished forever. henceforth, he will be indexed against this incident.

the insult noynoy aquino found in donald tsang’s letter – tsang treated aquino as his maid, his alila

in a recent news report, aquino said he found the letter sent to him by donald tsang as insulting, that it was a 2-page letter, had detailed items  and contained “demands”.

now we have this:

Tsang letter ‘said what HK wants to know‘
Ambrose Leung and Raissa Robles in Manila
Sep 11, 2010

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen says he knows better than Philippine President Benigno Aquino what Hong Kong people want, which is justice for those killed in the Manila hostage crisis by getting to the bottom of the tragedy.

“Eight Hong Kong people died there,” Tsang said yesterday, a day after Aquino said he felt insulted by a letter from the Hong Kong government spelling out issues it wanted addressed in the inquiry into last month’s bloodbath. “I trust that my understanding of the people’s sentiments in Hong Kong is deeper than that of the Philippine president and thus was a valuable reference.”

these are the things we can draw from the above:

• what aquino said is highly consistent with what tsang said

• the “demands” aquino was referring to were those tsang described as “what hong kong people want”

• tsang must have enumerated a laundry list of what HK people wanted and that is why the letter ran into 2 pages

• tsang in enumerating what hong kong people wanted must have sounded as demands in the way it was written and most likely its contents. maybe a to-do list type or  a laundry list of deliverables. it must have been very detailed that the letter  reached 2 pages.

with that, we think :

• it is inappropriate for tsang, chief executive  of hong kong to tell aquino the head of state of a country, the philippines, to tell aquino what needs to be done

• equally important, it is wrong for tsang to tell aquino what to do for the purpose of satisfying the wants or demands of the people of hong kong.  aquino is NOT answerable to hong kong people,  aquino is answerable only to filipinos. filipinos may demand things from aquino, but hong kong people has no right to demand anything from aquino.

• hong kong people can make demands on tsang but tsang was wrong  in  telegraphing  those same demands to aquino. tsang should have translated the “demands” hong kong people made into more diplomatic terms

• tsang disrespected aquino in not treating  aquino as an equal and insensitively making demands on a leader of another country

• tsang’s statement saying  “he knew best what the hong kong people wanted than aquino does” can be true. but what does it matter to aquino? aquino is not seeking to satisfy hong kong people’s demands.

• that statement of tsang shows his arrogance and a feeling that he knew more than aquino did

• tsang was clearly wrong on this one and aquino was right on the dot to feel insulted by the letter sent by tsang

to us, it looks like tsang behaved like many hong kong residents behave towards filipinos. many hong kong residents have filipinos as their maids and drivers, tsang behaved exactly the same way many hong kong people behave towards their filipino maids – give demands, utusan ang alila.

tsang must have felt he needed to give very detailed instructions and demands to aquino like the way he probably deals with  his filipina maids in hong kong. what tsang forgot was he was dealing with the head of state of a country and there are very basic rules he needs to follow in dealing with someone who has the stature as aquino has – the head of state of a country.

footnote: if you live in hong kong even for any number of months,  one of the first things you notice is that hong kong people are very rude people.  it is one character that hong kong people are known for among foreigners who live in hong kong. this rudeness may have been shown by tsang in his letter to aquino.

google “rude hong kong people” or click here:

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=webhp&q=rude+hong+kong+people&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=ab5cdb1806fef4aa

noynoy aquino digs himself deeper into leadership hell in saving jesse robredo

we have commented  on noynoy aquino’s leadership style (read: http://wp.me/pnw03-1lG and http://wp.me/pnw03-1l7) and also called for the the firing of DILG chief jesse robredo from his job (read: http://wp.me/pnw03-1lg ) on his performance during the post hostage bloodshed at luneta park where eight  hong kong hostages were killed. robredo as DILG chief to which the PNP belongs to has been getting a lot of criticism from many and we have been reading a lot of them asking for the same thing – for robredo to be fired from his job or to resign.

this is the latest on this issue – president aquino has decided once again to be tentative in his decision making,  malacanang did not submit robredo’s name for confirmation by the commission of appointment saying robredo has only been assigned to his portfolio on an acting capacity. apparently, robredo is under probation for two months, something  nobody knew weeks before the hostage crisis when robredo’s appointment was announced.  also, we did  not know that robredo and aquino had “differences” during the presidential campaign. aquino now wants to find out within the two month period if they can sort it out.

we are totally confused by all of these!

by aquino’s own words, he had differences with robredo during the election campaign. if so, why the hell did aquino appoint  robredo  as DILG chief, in an acting capacity or not? that does not make sense – why appoint someone to such an important position if you don’t trust the person completely and someone you had differences with?

that to us says aquino’s leadership style and decision making skills by themselves are infirm.   based on that incident, it seems aquino puts less than the best people in cabinet positions and with whom he is not sure if he can work well with the person.

actually, we don’t believe this whole story on robredo being assigned on an acting capacity basis because aquino is unsure of  robredo. we think robredo was appointed DILG chief on the basis of his skills and achievements in naga city where he was mayor.  this story was just created recently after bus hostage crisis at the luneta and robredo got flack from many quarters.

we think this is like  sitting in the middle, the middle is along the lines of we might fire robredo sometime soon due to pressure but we will just wait a little longer kind of strategy.

it’s a stupid strategy. whoever thought of the strategy should be fired himself from his job.

this strategy was hatched either to buy time and/or save robredo. malacanang is feeling the heat on robredo. the committee headed by DOJ chief  lila de lima is conducting  its investigation on the hostage crisis, they want to buy time until de lima concludes her investigation. whoever thought of this strategy thinks de lima might uncover something that can save robredo and/or people’s sentiments towards robredo might change in the future and stop calling for his resignation.

the author of this strategy may be  giving robredo some time to stay as DILG chief,  but what was forgotten was that it makes aquino look less competent as a leader.

the value of this move is questionable and in doubt and it puts aquino in a bad light. this strategy has hit two birds with one stone but on the reverse.  it may tentatively help the cause of  robredo but it is hurting aquino.

MANILA, Philippines – President Benigno Aquino admitted on Tuesday that he appointed Jesse Robredo only as acting secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) as reported earlier by VERA Files and ABS-CBN News.

Aquino said he had differences with Robredo during the election campaign, which is why he appointed Robredo in an acting capacity. Robredo’s name has not been submitted to the Commission on Appointments (CA) for confirmation.

He told Malacañang reporters he first wants to make sure that he can get along with Robredo, which is why he is in an “evaluation period” as chief of the interior and local government.

“There are various reasons kung bakit acting. In the case of Jesse, we had some differences during the campaign as to style. We want to make sure we can really work with each other well. It does no good to get him through the whole process of the CA only at the end of the day to find out that there might be difficulties in our working style, among others, our core philosophy, so we did agree na acting na muna,” Aquino said.

“May evaluation period, siguro check ang working style, after two months sigurado na tayo, we still have certain things discussed,” he added. “Dadalawang buwan pa lang kami nagkakasubukan kung talaga nga bang kaya naming mag-mesh.”

http://www.philippinenews.com/9414-article.html

noynoy aquno’s ho-hum leadership style is killing his presidency and the country oh so softly

we are desperately seeking a proper term to describe president aquino’s style of leadership as we have seen it  in (in)action during and after the august 23 bus hostage bloodshed at the luneta. we first described his brand of leadership as “weak, invisible and minuscule” (read here:  http://wp.me/pnw03-1l7) ). that can be summarized as ho-hum leadership, something that might make you fall asleep if you are not a coffee drinker.

first off, we do not blame aquino for the failed rescue of the hostages and the deaths of the hostages. that goes to the leadership and leaders of the philippine national police  who were at the scene. but we blame aquino for some of what happened after the hostage bloodshed.

there are two parts to the hostage bloodshed – one is the operational part which is essentially the attempted but failed effort to save the hostages and resolve the matter peacefully.  it is a police matter, one of security and safety.  the police are responsible for such matters.

what happened is a failure in police operation and as we saw on live tv, most oof the failure was caused by poor planning, poor execution, lack of equipment and bad decisions.

for those failures, the field commander, magtibay, the SWAT team leader  and all the other team leaders who were operating during the hostage crisis are to be blamed for the errors committed during the siege. they need to be fired by the police top brass.

for command responsibility, santiago the NCRPO chieh and versoza the PNP  chief need to resign their post as well. they had leadership  roles to fulfill but they did not exercise them. both even knew errors were being committed but they did not act in their capacity as heads of the PNP.

the PNP is under the DILG. usec puno apparently is directly responsible for the PNP . puno by command responsibility should offer his resignation., he also failed to exercise his leadership role during the failure.

it’s chief, robredo,  is indirectly accountable for the failure of the PNP.during the rescue attempt. he did not have a direct operational role but it is his agency that failed.

the second part of the whole situation is post hostage crisis. for that second part, DILG robredo is directly responsible for,. for that, he needs to resign his position.

the dismal failure of the PNP resulted to lives lost during the hostage crisis and the country humiliated because of the PNP’s failure.  because his agency caused that, he should have shown leadership to manage the  situation, even for damage control.

it  also embarrassed his boss, president noynoy aquino, he should have shown leadership to  at least minimize the embarrassment  if not prevent it.  but  as it happened, he really did not do anything post-hostage crisis.

in fact it seems nobody from the philippne government showed leadership, not even presdient noynoy aquino.  everyone seemed to b e just standing there waiting for the punches to come in.  no action was done to evade the punches not to  counter punch. they all just stood there and took the punches.

robredo was the man who was supposed to do that. but he was nowhere to be found, lost and hidden from everyone. he did not even do anything to defend or protect his boss. if he did not protect his boss, then he did not protect the country as well.

he needs to resign for this failure. in fact, he should really be fired from his job.

noynoy aquino was also nowhere to be found. he did tiny things to fix matters but nothing worthy of the leadership to which he was voted for by the people.

there is universal agreement that PNP failed during the hostage crisis and yet no one seem to have taken the right step to impose accountability on the failure.

aquino’s presidency is getting hit bad and is suffering. to stop that, aquino needs to show his leadership by firing everyone who obviously made an error during  the hostage crisis. there is already universal agreement that there were failures, we just want to know who committed them and we want to be relieved of  them.

DILG chief robredo, usec puno and  PNP chief versoza are hurting aquino and his presidency by not resigning their post. the longer they stay in those positions, the more they hurt aquino.

in fact the more effective action, one that will have better effect is if aquino himself fires them and does not wait for their resignation. firing them, two being his close friends and political allies will transmit the message that aquino is serious about what happened and that he values good performance among his people by acting on bad performance.

aquino accepting responsibility does not do anything for aquino, it only confuses matters. the country did not give a collective sigh of relief when he said he was taking responsibility, it only confused them.  people want accountability, him taking responsibility begs the question why is he not resigning from the presidency. people  have a hard time to differentiate responsibility and accountability.

aquino’s brand of leadership seem to be one of a wait-and-see style. rather than action, he waits for things to happen and then takes action after the fact. it is one that will makes us fall asleep and one that is giving his presidency nightmares.

ho-hum.

the police should set guidelines for hostage taking coverage, not media

Palace wants media to have own guidelines on hostage crisis coverage

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang wants media to lay down their own guidelines on covering hostage crises instead of having the government impose prior restraint.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma said media should know how to avoid endangering the safety of hostages.

“Our stand is that we should not restrain freedom of expression,” he said.

“We should keep in mind that we fought for freedom for us to express what’s on our minds in this country.”

Coloma said media practitioners should evaluate their coverage during Monday’s hostage crisis at Rizal Park in Manila where eight Hong Kong tourists were killed.

source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=606530&publicationSubCategoryId=63

‘Media, not gov’t, should set coverage guidelines’

MANILA, Philippines – It is the media, not the government or the police, which should establish the guidelines on coverage of life-threatening incidents such as hostage-taking, an expert has advised.

“You never want to interfere with covering. But when you come up with voluntary guidelines that people agreed to and try honestly to adhere to, it’s much better than having a government say these are the guidelines, this is how you behave, this is what you do–that really becomes quite onerous,” said Bob Dietz, Program Coordinator for Asia of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told ANC’s Top Story on Thursday.

The hostage drama started when dismissed police officer Rolando Mendoza hijacked a bus full of tourists in Manila in an attempt to get his job back.

Local and foreign journalists flocked to the Quirino Grandstand to cover the incident. Some were criticized for delivering the critical moments of the crisis.

“When we’re in a middle of a news coverage situation, we’re really going for the best that we can get, especially the people on the street–the cameramen, the producers, the soundmen at that level,” Dietz said.

Dietz, however, pointed out that people back in the newsroom should be the one to decide when to call the shots.

“What has to happen is back here, where there are cooler heads in the newsroom, sort of saying ‘that’s too much’, ‘let’s pull this back’, ‘get these people out of that position’,” Dietz said.

http://beta.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/08/26/10/media-not-govt-should-set-coverage-guidelines

we think it is wrong that the government is asking media to set its own guidelines on media coverage of hostage crisis situations.

a hostage taking  is a matter of security and safety, it is a police and law enforcement matter, why is media being asked to develop the guidelines?  that is the reason why the police or the military is given the responsibility and the power to take over the whole situation for  resolution. among all government agencies, they are also the only group who has the arms, the technical skills and experience in resolving such matters peacefully. in other words, they are the ones who know what is needed and what is not needed to succeed in the resolution of the hostage taking situation.

media does not know anything about  such things, what media knows is how to set up the camera to get the best shot, what to say to the audience during the coverage to sustain interest and viewership to their media channel. what they were trained for is how to get the best camera shot possible for great tv or radio. their work  mostly has nothing to do with safety and security.

it does not make sense that the government is asking  media to develop the guidelines on matter they know nothing about.

the guidelines are meant to make sure the police has free and unhampered reign on the whole situation to be able to satisfactorily resolve the hostage crisis. the guidelines are there for the objective of the police successfully achieving their goal, not for media to do it’s job best. the goals of successfully resolving the hostage crisis and getting the best tv shot are separate and distinct, performed by two very different groups with one, the media  negatively affecting the other if they make a mistake.

the guidelines should come from the police, not the media. the police should develop guidelines just like the way they ask the government for new equipment, tools and training to help them become better at what they do and to succeed at achieving their goals.  the media guidelines is exactly the same thing as the police setting up a perimeter around the area where  the hostage taking is to prevent everyone else from interfering with their work.

one of the top key things the police want is control of the situation and that includes media coverage as that affects the hostage taker, the family and co-conspirators of the hostage taker, copycats and the public.

the thinking behind the malacanang direction is on the wrong places and comes from the wrong perspective. hostage talking guidelines is not about good media relations, it is about life and death.  media’s failure only results to lower tv ratings while the failure of the police results to death. there is no comparison at all.

we think malacanang’s media group, one secretary of whom used to work for abs-cbn,  is being given too much voice on this matter. it is all wrong.

~~mindscape landmark~~
carlo p arvisu