Posts tagged with Batasan

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January 15, 2010

The Danger with the Cybercrime Prevention Act

In a press release by the House of Representatives leadership, Speaker Prospero Nograles revealed that the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2009 (H.B. 6974) is up for third reading approval, meaning there would be no more deliberations nor debates over the bill and all Congress needs to do is to grant it its vote of approval. In other words, it’s as good as having been passed in the House.

Although we recognize the need for legislation that will protect individuals and institutions from malicious attacks through electronic means, it must not be addressed by a law that sweeps broadly to cover a myriad of electronic devices and many other legitimate electronic activities exercised by ordinary citizens. H.B. 6974 unfortunately, does not provide clear-cut definitions to “electronic devices” nor to “cybercrimes”. By deliberately providing a vague and catch-all definition of such devices and activities, government institutions and agents mandated to execute the Cybercrime Prevention Act, in case it is implemented, are dangerously empowered to intrude into the privacy of individuals, interfere with ordinary and harmless electronic activities and suppress legitimate forms of expression through electronic means.

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December 10, 2009

Sowing the seeds of a nationwide declaration

The way the Arroyo administration is stretching the meaning of “rebellion” is utterly absurd. If this is allowed, we’re making possible a bizarre scenario where the Arroyo administration may connive with its many warlord allies across the country to stage any “massing of arms” in order to justify a nationwide declaration of martial law as they near the day they are booted out of office in the 2010 elections. A few days ago, the Defense Secretary came up with an odd press release revealing something we’ve known all along anyway–that there are private armies all over the country. Suddenly, the government claims Ampatuan supporters have arrived in Manila. Then arms and a grenade are discovered near the NBI in Manila. They’re clearly beginning to sow the seeds of justifying a nationwide declaration. All they need is to stage another shocking performance.

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October 10, 2009

Abusing the people’s tragedy

For a while now, I’ve been at loss as to what to blog. Scenes of devastation and the actual loss of life and property to millions of Filipinos was overwhelming. It didn’t feel right blogging about anything else where almost everything else will pale in gravity. Class guilt perhaps, the very fact that I am able to blog in convenience indicates that, unlike majority of Filipinos who are poor, I am “unaffected.” For a while, blogging in the time of crisis reeked of insensitivity. Some people say blogging and online social media networks played a crucial role in the relief and rescue operations. I agree. But then again, the people who need the relief aren’t online, and prolonged online “involvement” seemed to me like a convenient excuse not to immerse with the people and get dirty with the actual operations. Posting and re-posting relief and rescue operations has to translate into actual relief and rescue operations. Many times, especially during the immediate days after the typhoons, they do, as proven by the thousands who flocked to organized relief operations. With an inept and inutile government, private citizens and civilian organizations needed to fill the vacuum in social services. But for how long? Especially when all those volunteers go back to their schools and to their workplaces?

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October 2, 2009

A temporary relief for state universities & colleges

Last Wednesday, the sub-committee hearing the budget of state universities and colleges (SUC’s) unanimously committed to restore the budget to its 2009 level. It means to say that the proposed P3 billion budget cut by the President and the Department of Budget & Management is rejected at the sub-committee level, and the budget for the country’s 110 SUC’s would be back to around P24 billion.

Kabataan Rep. Mong Palatino remarked that this is imperative, as the proposed budget has barely any allocation for SUC’s capital outlay. How then can SUC’s affected by the recent calamities rebuild their schools?

A few days earlier, the DBM released a statement defending the budget cut in response to several protests launched by the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP). They claimed that the proposed P21 billion budget is sufficient to sustain the services of SUC’s, as they are anyway allowed to generate their own income. What they didn’t say is that this forced income generating policy is done at the expense of students, through tuition and other fee increases. The statement only proves that our analysis as correct, that budget cuts and tuition increases are state policies that harm the future of the youth and the nation.

The motion to restore the P24 billion budget drew cheers from the attending university officials and employees. One state university president, however, remarked that though he was elated by the motion of the congressmen, he feared that it may be another disappointment. Apparently, congressmen, the politicians that they are, have for the past years committed to similar promises of budget increases, only to disappoint SUC’s once the General Appropriations Act is passed. Hopefully, the attending congressmen stay true to their word and maintain the P24 billion commitment–insufficient as it is, is better than the P21 billion budget proposed by the Executive.

It must be stressed, however, that this relief is temporary, as though the sub-committee approved the increase, the same must also be approved by the Committee on Appropriations and the House of Representatives in plenary session. It also has to get the approval of the Senate. Needless to say, it is too soon to be glad about the development.

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Tulong Kabataan’s relief effort for the victims of tropical storm Ondoy is still ongoing! You may drop off your donations at any of the donation centers in schools across the Metro. You may also donate via Paypal. Or you may go to our headquarters at 118-B Scout Rallos St., Quezon City for volunteer work. The HQ is near GMA Network’s main offices along Timog Avenue.

With your help, Tulong Kabataan was able to hold soup kitchens in some communities a few days ago. Yesterday, we joined Makabayan’s clean-up effort at Tumana, Marikina. Hand in hand, volunteers helped the residents fill up two garbage trucks of debris. Today, there will be a medical mission in Malate. This weekend, if the weather permits, we will push through with the centralization of all relief goods collected from the donation centers and do repacking and distribution to several affected communities.

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September 30, 2009

We make the university, they make the crisis

Today the House of Representatives will start hearing the 2010 budgets of country’s state universities and colleges (SUC’s). We are of course, for the increase of the budgets of public institutions of higher learning.

Unfortunately however, many of the appointed administrators of state universities are resigned, even subservient, to the government’s policy of reducing government support to SUC’s. This year, the total allocation for the country’s 110 state universities and its almost 1 million students was slashed by P3 billion pesos. This situation, for the past years, has lead to the rampant increases in tuition and other miscellaneous fees in SUC’s, fervently implemented by its administrators. These have, in turn, made tertiary education in the Philippines increasingly inaccessible to the vast majority of Filipino youth.

This phenomenon of state abandonment of public higher educational institutions is not confined to the Philippines. It is a challenge being faced by many state universities and colleges around the world as an effect of a global free market philosophy that forces governments to cut on social services such as higher education in order to “balance the budget” and finance debt servicing.

A few days ago, thousands of students from state-funded University of California (UC) and other state universities and colleges in California walked out of their classes and protested against the budget cuts and the consequent tuition increases that were to be implemented by the state government. In defense of the cuts, the state government hammers the justification that everyone has to tighten their belts in light of fiscal crises and growing budget deficits. It is a rhetoric that is echoed even by the Philippine government. These belt-tightening justifications are nevertheless rejected as crises of their own making and as hypocrisies because governments continue to provide huge sums on questionable allocations and continue providing huge tax incentives to large corporations. In the Philippines for example, the government annually allocates tens of billions of pesos in Presidential discretionary funds that are immune from auditing scrutiny.

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