Militant groups in RP gear up for big protest vs. Charter amendments

Militant groups in the Philippines and Filipino communities abroad are now gearing up for the biggest protest ever against the proposed amendments of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

On the night of June 2, members of the Philippines' House of Representatives (HOR) passed the controversial House Resolution (HR) 1109, transforming the HOR into a Constituent Assembly (Con-Ass), minus the Philippine Senate.

The passage of the HR 1109 has become more controversial because of the alleged P20 million (US$420,311.66) received by legislators, in exchange for their votes.

In Manila, the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines (SCMP), the largest organization of Christian students which spearheaded the anti-dictatorship campaign during Martial Law in the ´70s, now urges the college students to join their "street classes" to be enlightened about the alleged evil of the recently adopted HR 1109.

While classes in universities and colleges in the Philippines are suspended until June 15 due to the Influenza AH1N1 scare, Ma. Cristina Guevarra, national chairperson of SCMP said it is not a hindrance for the youth to participate in discussions and protests against the Con-Ass, which is a deadlier "virus" than AH1N1.

Together with other youth organizations such as Anakbayan, National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), College Editors´ Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), and League of Filipino Students (LFS), SCMP members from different schools and communities in Metro-Manila will join protestors in Ayala Avenue in Makati City, on June 10.

Critics say, the HR 1109 will not only sell Philippines´ national patrimony to foreign powers, but will allow Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to remain in power, in perpetuity.

However, the HR 1109 received says that it will not allow term extension to all elected officials of the land.

But SCMP does not believe this for as the debates continue in the Congress, they say term extension for Mrs. Arroyo and her allies can be easily inserted in the final copy of the amended Charter.

"This (Con-Ass) must be confronted with the youth´s Con-Ass: Converge and Assemble against ChaCha!" said Anakbayan chairperson Ken Ramos.

Meanwhile, the suspension of classes for college students raises doubts among militants for it is done by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) after the civil society has announced its intent to hold a big protest against Cha-Cha.

"If we need quarantine to prevent students from acquiring the disease, why zero in only on college students? Isn´t it logical that children, with their younger bodies, are more susceptible to the disease?" asked NUSP national president Alvin Peters.

CHED, in its memorandum, said there is a need to postpone the opening of classes in the tertiary level as a preventive measure against identified cases of AH1N1 virus in some colleges.

The Department of Education (DepEd), through its chief, Sec. Jesli Lapus said there is no need for suspension of classes among elementary and secondary students for they (the students) have no regular contact with people who came from abroad.

Lapus also said, as a precaution, he has already issued a memorandum for school authorities to suspend classes for 10 days if there are students showing signs of contracting the deadly AH1N1 virus.

Filipinos in Canada call HR 1109, arrogance of power

In Toronto, members of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) assailed congressmen who voted "Aye!" for the passage of the House Resolution No. 1109, transforming the House of Representatives into a Constituent Assembly, calling it arrogance by those who are in the seats of power.

In a statement sent to CBCPNews, Diwa Marcelino, Bayan's spokesperson in Toronto said the swift passage of HR 1109 in the House of Representatives only reflects what the majority bloc, whose members belong to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's party, plans for the upcoming elections in 2010. The said HR was was passed before the midnight of June 2, using the viva voce.

"The passage of HR 1109 is but a show of force by the majority in the House of Representatives. The House cannot convene itself as a Constituent Assembly without the Senate´s approval of the same resolution. As noted by Fr. Joaquin Bernas, an expert on Constitutional matters, the House of Representatives "cannot exclude the Senate" in voting for such a measure to change the Constitution simply because "Congress is [composed of both] the House and the Senate," he said.

Marcelino said, HR 1109 spells out another dark era in Philippine politics and society, similar to Marcos's martial rule in 1972.

Meanwhile, Bayan Canada Secretary-General Joey Calugay added, that the Arroyo regime is becoming more desperate as the elections approach.

"As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Arroyo is well aware that the military and state agents are widely known to have committed numerous crimes against the people; surely she must also know that her family's involvement in one of the worst cases of graft and corruption since the Marcos dictatorship will land her in hot water when she steps down from office. Arroyo will do everything she can to stay in power, including bribing members of Congress to pass HR 1109 and making sure her cronies toe the line," Calugay said.

He added, this type of cronyism shows that a Constituent Assembly will not vote in favor of the people's interest when making changes to the Philippine Constitution.

He explained, Constituent Assembly, the Arroyo administration aims to strip the Constitution of its provisions that uphold national sovereignty and protect national patrimony, further laying bare the economy to continued exploitation and plunder by foreign corporate greed, thereby intensifying the present economic crisis.

Furthermore, he said, this will set the stage for the unbridled entry of US troops, now numbering some 40,000 US soldiers scattered in 25 provinces since the Visiting Forces Agreement took effect in 1999, into the country and the establishment of permanent US military bases on Philippine soil.

Due this, Jonathan Canchela, chairperson of Filipino Migrant Workers' Movement, a member of Migrante-Ontario calls on the Filipino people, both in the Philippines and other parts of the globe to march in the streets and protest this kind of oppression of the Filipino people by GMA cronies in the House.

"Let the people´s voice be heard in the halls of Congress and in the parliament of the streets. We will not tolerate this arrogance of power and the political self-interest of the Arroyo regime," he said.

On the other hand, Bayan Canada calls on all its allied organizations to continue to monitor the developments on charter change and to organize protest actions in the coming days.

Make protests peaceful, Catholic bishops of the Philippines said

The Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines, on the other hand, fears that the nation will be put under martial rule if protests will become violent.

Catholic Bishops´ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president, Abp. Angel N. Lagdameo said protesters must not give the government any reason to put the nation under a state of Martial Law.

"Express it in a peaceful non-violent way in order that we may not fall into the trap that will necessitate Martial Law again," Lagdameo said in a news item published at CBCPNews.com.

The prelate said the Filipino people must learn the lesson from the past, that is the dark era of Marcos dictatorship from 1972 to 1983.

Lagdameo also appealed to Congress to drop HR1109 convening themselves into a constituent assembly to amend the country´s constitution.

He explained, that the CBCP is firm in its position against Charter change (Cha-Cha) before the 2010 national elections.

"If there should be let it be after 2010 and via a Constitutional Convention whose delegates are democratically elected by the people," said the 68-year old prelate.

Earlier, Lagdameo called on the faithful "to do something" against the "hasty" effort to revise the Charter.

He said the public should not let President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo´s allies in the lower House to "railroad" the Cha-Cha process. (American Chronicle)

Porn Market in Philippines Rakes in $1B Annually

MANILA — The Philippine porn industry, which thrives in an underground market, rakes in an estimated US$1 billion annually, bringing the country to the eighth spot in the porn-profitability race around the world.

After the sex video of Katrina Halili and Dr. Hayden Kho Jr. was uploaded on YouTube, and counterfeiters in Quiapo downloaded, burned and released it in DVDs and VCDs, pornography once again took center stage.

The Philippine Senate is now investigating how the voyeuristic sex video of Halili and Kho made its way into the Internet, how it is now earning huge profits for bootleggers, and how the Philippine government can prevent this from happening again.

While the senators, the key players in the sex video drama and the public are debating over who’s to blame and to be held accountable in the scandal, investors in trading sex videos of the same kind are going gaga over the huge profits they are reaping from recording, producing and selling such videos.

Philippine’s Profitable Black Market

Because pornography and prostitution are illegal in the Philippines, the sex industry thrives in the underground or black market. Porn has recorded a net profit of $1 billion in 2006; experts predict profits to go higher in the years to come.

The Philippines is tied with Taiwan and Canada at the No. 8 spot in the list of countries profiting from this business, according to the Top TEN REVIEWS website.

The bootlegged DVDs, HD-CDs and VCDs are mainly on sale in Quiapo and Divisoria — both in Manila— and Greenhills, San Juan. Copies are then distributed in stalls all over Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

Filmmakers for online porn found “havens” in the cities of Angeles (in Pampanga), Olongapo (in Zambales), Manila, Pasay, Makati, and Quezon City, where they hire prostituted women and men to star in sex films.

Film expert and University of the Philippines Film Institute professor, Dr. Rolando B. Tolentino, said since there is no hardcore porn industry in the Philippines, the films are likely merely subcontracted to local filmmakers.

“Hardcore sex movies are just subcontracted to us, for example, by Korean producers. Most of our sex-themed movies are either soft-porn (from bold films to current gay films) including those which are uploaded to e-sites and the video scandals; uploading and viewing depend on the people’s personal pleasure,” Tolentino said.

Eduardo Manzano, chief of Optical Media Board (OMB) agreed. Manzano said, in a news report, that in 2008, an international porn film producer visited the Philippines to film porn featuring adult Filipinos.

Manzano said the porn-film producer is offering up to $1,000 for every sex scene. A porn film costs $10,000 to produce, said the producer.

Almost every month, the OMB confiscates hundreds of thousands of counterfeit VCDs and DVDs. From January to September 2008, the OMB has confiscated 4,807,012 CDs costing P1.4 billion ($29,400,000 based on the prevailing peso-dollar exchange rate in Sept. 17, 2008).

The World Porn Industry

Some 4.2 million or 12 percent of websites are said to be devoted to pornography. This translates to 420 million pages of porn, according to Jerry Ropelato, an associate at Top TEN REVIEWS website who has conducted an extensive research on pornography and the world’s ‘consumption’ of pornographic goods.

Ropelato reported that today’s porn business has surpassed the earnings of top technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink, combined. He said US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC—the big three media companies in US.

To date, pornography is a US$57 billion global industry and Asian countries top the chart of countries benefiting from selling and reproducing porn, based on compiled reports published at the Top TEN REVIEWS website.

China led in the porn profit race in 2006, with $27.40 billion in total revenues. South Korea came in second with $25.73 billion, followed by Japan, with $19.99 billion in total revenues, then US with $13.33 billion; Australia, $2.0 billion; UK, $1.97 billion, and Italy $1.40 billion.

In the eighth position are the Philippines, Taiwan and Canada, each with $1 billion profits in 2006.

Profits of the 16 countries listed in the 2006 World Porn Revenues totaled a whopping $97.06 billion.

“Every second, $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography; 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography; 372 Internet users are searching sex-related terms in search engines; and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is being created in the United States,” reported Ropelato.

Who Benefits from Porn?

There are two schools of thoughts regarding who benefits from and who are harmed in the proliferation of porn. One warns about the harmful effects of porn and its correlation to sex crimes while the other asserts that porn has no harmful effects and could not be linked to rape and abuse.

In the US, the debate still continues even after its Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, popularly known as the Meese Report, has been released.

The Meese Report concluded that pornography, in general, doesn’t have harmful effects on the American populace and there is no direct link between pornographers and organized crime.

Earlier, in 1969, US President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, formed to study the effects of porn in the American community, concluded that:

· There was no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behavior among youths or adults.
· A majority of American adults believe that adults should be allowed to read or see any sexual materials they wish.
· There is no reason to suppose that elimination of governmental prohibitions upon the sexual materials that may be made available to adults would adversely affect the availability to the public of other books, magazines, or films.
· There was no evidence that exposure to explicit sexual materials adversely affects character or moral attitudes regarding sex and sexual conduct.
· Federal, state, and local legislation prohibiting the sale, exhibition, or distribution of sexual materials to consenting adults should be repealed.

Feminists like Avedon Carol, one of the founders of the UK-based feminist group, Feminists Against Censorship, believes that the demonization of porn — that is, connecting porn with violence against women by some “rightist moralists” — was just another attempt to curtail the freedom being enjoyed by Americans, especially women.

In 1995, she wrote:

“As those among us who have studied child abuse and sexual violence (or experienced it) know all too well, rape and abuses are problems that go deeper and are more intractable than anything that can be blamed on the camera and the printing press. Abusive relationships take many forms and almost anything can be seen as the ‘cause’ of abusive behavior. As many husbands have harassed and humiliated their wives over cooking and housework as have done so over sexual issues - and many women have learned, to their chagrin, that abusers are often more likely to try to suppress sexual expression in their wives than they are to try to force such expression. And most abused women - including those who have suffered sexual abuse - have little to say about pornography as a specific problem in their relationships… (The Harm of Porn: Just Another Excuse to Censor; accessed at http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/harm.htm, May 27, 2009).

In the Philippines, debates raged about attempts to legalize not only pornography but also prostitution.

“If they legalize porn, we might as well legalize the others like abortion or marijuana,” said Ma. Consuelo G. Cabrera, a filmmaker and a painter, from the Southern Tagalog Exposure Media Collective.

Who’s Benefiting from Pinoy Porn?

“Who else but the foreign producers,” Cabrera said. (Bulatlat.com)

Cute dogs used as baits to catch sharks

celebrity_news_in_video

Is she's telling the truth? St. Martha knows...

I saw the interview of Hayden Kho's mother and she's invoking the help of the saints, especially St. Martha.

Though indirectly, Mrs. Irene Kho, during the interview, swears through the Holy Cross that she's holding, the Bible and by the 300-year old image of St. Martha, that his son, Hayden is innocent and that it was Ms. Katrina Halili and her manager, Ms. Lolita Solis who plotted against his son, by spreading the video in the internet and perhaps, in the sex video black market.

Today, Kho-Halili scandal DVDs are selling like hotcake in Quiapo, Recto, Divisoria, and even in our hometown in Malabon City.

Scripted

In a report published in ABS-CBNnews.com, Mrs. Kho said, and I quote:

“Ms. Katrina Halili, nabili na ‘yang arte mo,” Mrs. Kho said.

Adding,

“Alam mo ang ginagawa mo kay Katrina Halili is scripted. Sinabi mo rin yan, huwag ka ng tumanggi… Ang ginawa mo kay Katrina Halili ay ini-script mo--kung kailan iiyak, kung anong a-artehan…. hindi ko alam kung sinong kasabwat mo,” she said.

referring to Ms. Solis.

Mrs. Kho had sworn to the Cross of Christ that she's telling the truth about this "show."

Just asking


If all of these are scripted, why is that there is no opening and closing credit in the videos? It is not only that Ms. Halili's lovemaking with Dr. Kho is now proliferating but Ms. Maricar Reyes as well.

Besides, according to reports, there are about 40 videos, including Katrina's, Maricar's and the allegedly underage Brazilian model.

There are rumors too, that Ma. Teresa Licaros, a former beauty queen and sexy comedienne Rufa Mae Quinto, also into this mess that's why, they have already sought the aid of their respective lawyers.

Is Hayden not a pervert?

Here's another "bomb" against Dr. Hayden Kho. According to my "bubuwit," borrowing the term from DZRH's anchor and assistant station manager, Deogracias "Lakay Deo" Macalma, there is another explosive video showing Hayden having sex with a 15-year old girl in Cebu. After their lovemaking, Dr. Kho allegedly has focused the camera to the child's vagina while it is discharging vaginal fluid.

But let me clarify the above-mentioned allegations: They are about to be proven by the authorities.

Now the delicate question to answer is that, "Who's telling the truth now?" after Mrs. Kho's revelations. Or, the better question is: "Is Mrs. Kho and her son, Hayden, are on the side of the truth?" My answer, I don't know. I hope that St. Martha will intervene and show us the whole truth.