Fw: [Worldwide-Filipino-Alliance] From Randy David: Mayroon pa lang licensya ang baril ni Secretary Llamas, at ang DVDs, dahil pulubi siya, hindi makautang sa Amazon, baka walang laman ang credit card, kung my credit card
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Princess Nemenzo
Feb 2, 2012, 2:13:24 PM2/2/12
to womanhealth redhats, Kalayaan, FDC, Welga Kababaihan, WMW Philippines, dodong-and-p...@googlegroups.com, akbaya...@googlegroups.com, Laban Masa, Labanng...@yahoogroups.com, Stop the War Philippines, womensle...@gmail.com, Scrap VFA! Movement, Philwomenonasean, Women's Political Collective, women media tobacco group
Against an 'overkill' of villification, though not to condone misconduct, I support friend Ronald. Apologies for cross-posting.
Princess
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Subject: [Worldwide-Filipino-Alliance] From Randy David: Mayroon pa lang licensya ang baril ni Secretary Llamas, at ang DVDs, dahil pulubi siya, hindi makautang sa Amazon, baka walang laman ang credit card, kung my credit card
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Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2012 8:36 AM
Subject: [Worldwide-Filipino-Alliance] From Randy David: Mayroon pa lang licensya ang baril ni Secretary Llamas, at ang DVDs, dahil pulubi siya, hindi makautang sa Amazon, baka walang laman ang credit card, kung my credit card
[1]Public Lives
The outsider
By: [2]Randy David
[3]Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:57 am | Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
[check-big.png] [check-big.png]
The price you pay for being in the public eye, I remember telling
my old friend Ronald Llamas after he took the high-profile job of
Presidential adviser on political affairs, is that you must avoid
doing what every other person takes for granted as normal. Like
buying pirated DVDs, or rummaging through fake branded goods and
donated second-hand clothes at tiangges and ukay-ukays. Don’t
smoke in public places, I told him. Observe speed limits. Never
Xerox entire books; they’re protected by copyright. Don’t cheat
on your taxes. Declare your assets faithfully, no matter how
meager they are. Be careful about your personal life. You’re no
longer an ordinary mortal: you’re now a government official.
But the news must really be slow these days despite the ongoing
impeachment trial at the Senate. For almost a week now, the media
have found Llamas’ act of buying pirated DVDs at a neighborhood
mall grievous enough to place it among their top stories. Thus
projected, it is made to share the same gravity as the offenses
for which Chief Justice Renato Corona is being tried, or the
kidnapping charges that former National Bureau of Investigation
Director Magtanggol Gatdula faces. Opposition politicians and
sanctimonious columnists have called for his resignation.
The irony is that, while selling pirated DVDs is illegal, buying
them for personal consumption is not. The Optical Media Board, a
small agency of government, conducts highly publicized raids on
the DVD stalls that sell these products, but not often enough to
deter them from re-opening. Unlike the campaign against illegal
drugs, the drive against pirated DVDs and fake and smuggled goods
is a fragmented one. It is not, as far as I know, an integral
function of the police or even of local governments. That is why
pirated DVDs continue to be sold and bought openly and publicly.
Needless to say, Ronald should have known better. As a public
official, he is expected to support the government’s fight
against all forms of illicit activity, including the poorly
understood campaign against copyright infringement. He has
rightly apologized for this lapse, even if, deep in his heart, he
may not be inclined to defend the interests of the big
multinational corporations that assert their intellectual
property rights over the copied material. Knowing him well, I am
sure that the DVDs he bought did not include a single Filipino
movie made by local producers.
One nasty columnist went so far as to speculate that pornographic
movies could have been among Ronald’s quasi-licit loot. This line
of thought is consistent with the seeming need to infer his moral
career from this minor incident. Not surprisingly, the matter of
the high-powered rifle found in his service vehicle last year is
being revisited. Never mind that the gun turned out to be
licensed, and that he was attending a conference abroad when the
gun was found in his car. Still, the media went after him as the
owner of the gun. The image that is projected by all this
inordinate publicity is that of a coarse man lucky enough to land
a sensitive job in government because he happens to share with
the President a penchant for guns.
Ronald and I have worked for many years in various political
movements, including Bisig, the socialist group founded by former
UP President Francisco Nemenzo. We have marched together in
countless rallies. One of these took place on Feb. 24, 2006, the
20th anniversary of the Edsa I uprising. It was the day Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo declared a state of national emergency. I was
arrested on Edsa while talking to the police general who was in
charge of keeping order. For trying to rescue me from the
plainclothes men who had led me away, Ronald was also arrested
and charged with sedition. In a landmark decision, the Supreme
Court later declared our arrest illegal.
This I can say about Ronald Llamas, and I don’t mind sounding as
if I am giving a character testimony. There are very few like
him, who are uncorrupted by political power or dazzled by its
perks. Llamas clearly has the ear and confidence of the nation’s
highest official. This role is as diffused as one can imagine
it—a trouble-shooter, a “back-channel” worker, an emissary on
sensitive matters, a strategist, an ideologue, a
problem-solver—rolled into one.
Our national record abundantly shows what someone in this
position can do to monetize the influence that comes with it. He
can quietly push for the appointment of people to coveted posts
in government, and secure a regular cut from their rackets. He
can lobby for corporations awaiting approval of a government
contract or franchise, and charge a fee. Ronald has engaged in
none of these. He could easily have asked dealers of pirated
goods to send him a list of their newly arrived DVDs. But no, he
chose to go to the mall himself, accompanied by his two
daughters, and pay for his purchases—like everyone else.
Ronald is poor—which is why he buys from tiangges rather than
from Amazon—but his taste is cerebral. His reading ranges from
politics to philosophy, and from history to literature. His
library consists of books he patiently dug up from the dusty
piles of bargain booksellers. His idea of a good time consists of
spending hours searching for old junk and little-known titles at
flea markets. He becomes totally oblivious of the time and his
surroundings when he does this. And that’s exactly how the sneak
photograph taken of him at the mall in Quezon City captured him.
This outsider to an entrenched culture of concealed criminality
will probably not stay long in government, but he will always
remain instinctively a socialist.
The outsider
By: [2]Randy David
[3]Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:57 am | Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
[check-big.png] [check-big.png]
The price you pay for being in the public eye, I remember telling
my old friend Ronald Llamas after he took the high-profile job of
Presidential adviser on political affairs, is that you must avoid
doing what every other person takes for granted as normal. Like
buying pirated DVDs, or rummaging through fake branded goods and
donated second-hand clothes at tiangges and ukay-ukays. Don’t
smoke in public places, I told him. Observe speed limits. Never
Xerox entire books; they’re protected by copyright. Don’t cheat
on your taxes. Declare your assets faithfully, no matter how
meager they are. Be careful about your personal life. You’re no
longer an ordinary mortal: you’re now a government official.
But the news must really be slow these days despite the ongoing
impeachment trial at the Senate. For almost a week now, the media
have found Llamas’ act of buying pirated DVDs at a neighborhood
mall grievous enough to place it among their top stories. Thus
projected, it is made to share the same gravity as the offenses
for which Chief Justice Renato Corona is being tried, or the
kidnapping charges that former National Bureau of Investigation
Director Magtanggol Gatdula faces. Opposition politicians and
sanctimonious columnists have called for his resignation.
The irony is that, while selling pirated DVDs is illegal, buying
them for personal consumption is not. The Optical Media Board, a
small agency of government, conducts highly publicized raids on
the DVD stalls that sell these products, but not often enough to
deter them from re-opening. Unlike the campaign against illegal
drugs, the drive against pirated DVDs and fake and smuggled goods
is a fragmented one. It is not, as far as I know, an integral
function of the police or even of local governments. That is why
pirated DVDs continue to be sold and bought openly and publicly.
Needless to say, Ronald should have known better. As a public
official, he is expected to support the government’s fight
against all forms of illicit activity, including the poorly
understood campaign against copyright infringement. He has
rightly apologized for this lapse, even if, deep in his heart, he
may not be inclined to defend the interests of the big
multinational corporations that assert their intellectual
property rights over the copied material. Knowing him well, I am
sure that the DVDs he bought did not include a single Filipino
movie made by local producers.
One nasty columnist went so far as to speculate that pornographic
movies could have been among Ronald’s quasi-licit loot. This line
of thought is consistent with the seeming need to infer his moral
career from this minor incident. Not surprisingly, the matter of
the high-powered rifle found in his service vehicle last year is
being revisited. Never mind that the gun turned out to be
licensed, and that he was attending a conference abroad when the
gun was found in his car. Still, the media went after him as the
owner of the gun. The image that is projected by all this
inordinate publicity is that of a coarse man lucky enough to land
a sensitive job in government because he happens to share with
the President a penchant for guns.
Ronald and I have worked for many years in various political
movements, including Bisig, the socialist group founded by former
UP President Francisco Nemenzo. We have marched together in
countless rallies. One of these took place on Feb. 24, 2006, the
20th anniversary of the Edsa I uprising. It was the day Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo declared a state of national emergency. I was
arrested on Edsa while talking to the police general who was in
charge of keeping order. For trying to rescue me from the
plainclothes men who had led me away, Ronald was also arrested
and charged with sedition. In a landmark decision, the Supreme
Court later declared our arrest illegal.
This I can say about Ronald Llamas, and I don’t mind sounding as
if I am giving a character testimony. There are very few like
him, who are uncorrupted by political power or dazzled by its
perks. Llamas clearly has the ear and confidence of the nation’s
highest official. This role is as diffused as one can imagine
it—a trouble-shooter, a “back-channel” worker, an emissary on
sensitive matters, a strategist, an ideologue, a
problem-solver—rolled into one.
Our national record abundantly shows what someone in this
position can do to monetize the influence that comes with it. He
can quietly push for the appointment of people to coveted posts
in government, and secure a regular cut from their rackets. He
can lobby for corporations awaiting approval of a government
contract or franchise, and charge a fee. Ronald has engaged in
none of these. He could easily have asked dealers of pirated
goods to send him a list of their newly arrived DVDs. But no, he
chose to go to the mall himself, accompanied by his two
daughters, and pay for his purchases—like everyone else.
Ronald is poor—which is why he buys from tiangges rather than
from Amazon—but his taste is cerebral. His reading ranges from
politics to philosophy, and from history to literature. His
library consists of books he patiently dug up from the dusty
piles of bargain booksellers. His idea of a good time consists of
spending hours searching for old junk and little-known titles at
flea markets. He becomes totally oblivious of the time and his
surroundings when he does this. And that’s exactly how the sneak
photograph taken of him at the mall in Quezon City captured him.
This outsider to an entrenched culture of concealed criminality
will probably not stay long in government, but he will always
remain instinctively a socialist.
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
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