A14 Monday, October 30, 2017 • Editor: Angel R. Calso
Opinion BusinessMirror
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editorial
Age of crying ‘wolf!’
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shepherd boy repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking wolves are attacking his flock. When a wolf actually does appear, and the boy again calls for help, the villagers believe that it is another fake alarm, and the sheep were eaten by the wolf. In later English-language versions, the wolf also eats the boy. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a tale from a collection of stories known now as Aesop’s Fables, written in ancient Greece. At the end of the original Greek version is the moral: “This shows how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them”. What is missing from the original fable is any commentary on why the boy acted the way he did. Should we assume that he was simply a pathological liar incapable of being truthful? Was this all just a prank that got out of hand? Maybe the boy had a psychological problem from not being breast-fed long enough, or from eating too much junk food. Looking at this situation in the context of modern events, the boy might have explained that this was the only way that he could get the villagers to accept the dangerous reality of wolf attacks. Notice the “crying wolf” from Earth Day 1970. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation”—Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day. “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate that there won’t be any more crude oil”—Ecologist Kenneth Watt. These statements might be dismissed simply as mistakes, but these words came from recognized scientists and experts in their fields. The villagers assumed the boy knew what he was talking about because he was an experienced shepherd who had expertise on wolves attacking sheep. Samuel Croxall was an 18th-century British writer and translator, particularly noted for his edition of Aesop’s Fables, which popularized these stories in the English language. At the end of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Croxall wrote: “When we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?” Welcome to the 21st century Mr. Croxall. Virtually every global-warming model published in the past 20 years has been completely inaccurate as to extent, results and/or timing. So, now, we are facing climate change. The global climate has always changed, and believing that man can change that fact is far from certain. Yet, brad Johnson, executive director of Climate Hawks Vote, said on September 1, “Global warming is here. Put public officials who reject science in jail”. Galileo heard something similar from the Roman Inquisition and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. This past May, President Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao. It was and is perfectly justified and critically important to question the rationale for that decision and to caution against any abuses. One week later a noted local pundit wrote: “Martial Law throughout the country is coming.” If asked today, that columnist would probably say that, because he wrote those words, Duterte did not declare martial law nationwide. If the wolf had not eaten the boy, he would have probably said, “I told you a wolf attack was coming.”
Reflection for All Saints’/Souls’ Day Atty. Jose Ferdinand M. Rojas II
RISING SUN
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ovember 1 and 2 are two feast days in the calendar of the Church. The first one is the celebration of All Saints’ Day, when we celebrate the great Communion of Saints. On this day, we remember the holy ones who have been canonized and those who were not. Pope Gregory III designated this day for honoring the saints. The other day, November 2, is a day for remembering those who have passed on. The tradition started in the seventh century when Odilo of Cluny designated a day to pray and give alms for those in purgatory. The celebration of All Souls’ Day spread throughout the Church by
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the 10th century. As Catholics, we are obliged to attend Mass on All Saints’ Day, to praise God and honor the lives of the saints. We remember our patron saints, most especially. The following day, All Souls’ Day, we pray for the souls in purgatory, and we remember our
Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan
legally speaking
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lthough now moot and academic by virtue of President Duterte’s acceptance of Chairman Juan Andres D. Bautista’s resignation “effective immediately,” the public has the right to know the substance of the Article of Impeachment against the former Commission on Election (Comelec) chairman.
“Article 1, in that over a period of time in 2016, the following documents and information pertaining to bank accounts, funds, businesses, corporations and financial transactions involving the respondent and/or members of his family were gathered by respondent Bautista’s wife, Mrs. Patricia Cruz-Bautista: Bank accounts a. Luzon Development Bank (LDB) Accounts—Thirty separate accounts in LDB in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig, totaling P227,701,053, and five separate accounts in LDB Makati City totaling P101,519,909. b. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Accounts— A Foreign Currency Account and Peso Account with RCBC, totaling $12,778.30/P257,931.60. c. Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC) totaling HK$948,358.97 Real properties—at least 14 Foreign investments and properties Cruz-Bautista also discovered doc u ment s est abl i sh i ng t he existence of the following foreign
companies in locales known to be offshore banking hot spots and which Bautista apparently did not declare in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN): a. Bauman Enterprises Limited—a company established in the British Virgin Islands on September 29, 2010. This is the trustee company that Respondent Bautista set up with the Bank of Singapore. b. Mantova International Limited—a company established in Brunei Darussalam on April 26, 2011. c. Mega Achieve Inc.—a company established in Anguila on July 15, 2014. Article 2, in that among the documents mentioned above—as there are more—were several checks and commission sheets from a private law firm, Divina & Uy Law Offices. The documents show that Bautista procured the services of this law firm or referred clients to the latter, in order to profit from or in consideration of his position in the government, including the Comelec. What is worthy to note is that, among the
own dead by visiting their graves and praying for them. It is good practice for Catholics to attend Mass also on this day, to light candles for the dead, give alms and to do good. Today it is also the perfect time to think about our own life, and our death. We are all going to leave this earth one day, and it is only right to make our years count. Do we deny the inevitability of death by spending our days as if we have forever? But many wise men have reminded us that death is but a continuation of our eternal existence, and so we must not fear it nor deny it. The poet Khalil Gibran wrote the following lines about death: “For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? / And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?/Only when you drink from the river of silence
clients that Bautista would refer to the law firm are government clients, such as Smartmatic, Bataan Shipyard and Engineering Company (Baseco) and United Coconut Planters Bank—government entities that Respondent Bautista constantly dealt with while in Comelec and as Presidential Commission on Good Government Chairman, and which are clear indications of graft and corrupt practices and his betrayal of public trust reposed on him and his culpable violation of the fundamental law of the land. Bautista knowingly allowed his office including his influence as the Comelec chairman, to be used for private gains and profits including his own. Article 3, that SALN Bautista submitted in 2016, considering the information and documents obtained, was grossly undeclared or substantial properties, as both personal and real, were not included therein, in violation of Republic Act (RA) 3019, otherwise known as the “Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practice Act.” Moreover, based on documents and information obtained Bautista’s total and declared assets in his 2016 SALN are grossly below his true and correct assets that are under his name, as Bautista’s net assets as found and disclosed by his wife as stated in the foregoing far exceed the total assets, including the liabilities, he declared in his 2016 SALN. Respondent Bautista’s accumulated income and assets are manifestly disproportionate and may not be reasonably explained and justified even by his Salary Grade 31. Respondent Bautista has to be made to account for how he was able to accumulate such a sub-
shall you indeed sing./And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb./And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” In this sense, death is a kind of freedom, and a communion with our Creator. It is not something to be feared, but something to prepare for and look forward to. Our final destination, to where all of us shall go one day, is a special place for our soul to finally dance freely, beautifully. nnn
My sincere congratulations to the winners of the October 14, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Officesponsored race in San Lazaro: No Regret (KB Abobo), Speedmatic (MM Gonzales) and Exaggeration (RG Fernandez) who all finished at 1:29; Xia’s Best (JA Guce) and Near & Dear (CP Henson), who clocked in at 1:30; and Shelltex Magic (Pat R. Dilema), who reached the finish at 1:30.
stantial amount of wealth in such a short period of time. By his nondeclaration of these substantial amounts of wealth, Bautista clearly had the malicious and fraudulent intent to hide these huge assets from public view and scrutiny. More important, it is in violation of his positive duty under the law and the Constitution to render and submit an account of his wealth in keeping with the principle of transparency and full public disclosure and the state policy of “maintain[ing] honesty and integrity in the public service” in accordance with the sacred doctrine that a public office is a public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution and acts of massive graft and corruption. Article 4, in that between March 20 and 27, 2016, or before the May 2016 election, a massive personal-data breach involving the Comelec web site and/or dataprocessing system happened, exposing to the recesses of the dark web the sensitive personal information of more or less 50 million registered voters based here and abroad; subsequently, the National Privacy Commission, in a pioneering proceeding under the new Data Privacy Act, RA 10173, found serious omissions on his part, in that Bautista, as the Head of Agency, and despite knowledge of the serious weakness of the Comelec’s data-processing system, failed to implement reasonable and appropriate measures to protect personal data against human dangers, such as, but not limited to, unlawful access, fraudulent misuse, unlawful See “Kapunan,” A15