Liars

For days, Ricky Carandang and Edwin Lacierda were lying through their teeth.

They were trying to convince the public that we did not bow to Beijing’s pressure, that the glaring absence of our ambassador from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony was due to nothing more than “scheduling problems” and, this takes the cake, that the invitation was optional anyway. They flatly denied we were participating in the Beijing-instigated boycott.

 These mouthpieces of a presidency that promised us transparent government were lying to our faces.

 The rest of the world could not be fooled by the blatant lying of our presidential spokesmen. We figured prominently in a list that rapidly shrunk as Human Rights Day neared last week. It was a list of ignominious governments who bowed to pressure from Beijing and failed the test of conviction in the importance of democracy and human rights. We were on a short list in the company of governments who not only refused to stand up for human dignity but who also repressed their citizens with so much cruelty.

When the chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee delivered his most inspiring remarks to honor Chinese democratic activist and peace advocate Liu Xiaobo, he called to task those governments who were swayed by the short-term interests of commerce rather than by the long-term interest in the triumph of freedom for all humankind.

He was referring to us, and only a handful of others. He might as well just referred to us. The other governments who chose to ignore a ceremony that celebrated all that Liu Xiaobo represented for humanity are not known to be exponents of democracy and human rights anyway. The list of countries that boycotted the Oslo ceremonies is a despicable list.

 From here on, our credibility in speaking for the respect of human rights in other countries is vastly diminished. How can we ever take, say, Burma to task when we ourselves yielded to Beijing’s pressure and on December 10, 2010 turned our backs on Liu Xiaobo.

 We have chosen to be on the losing side of history. When, during Nazi rule, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a dissident, Hitler’s government allowed the awardee to be in Oslo to receive the award and denounce the death of freedom in his homeland. Beijing, by contrast, prevented Liu, his wife, his entire family and all other dissidents from leaving and making their way to Oslo. This boycott is unmatched in its vulgarity.

 What a sad day December 10, 2010 is for our country. We squandered the few things that earned us international respect. We trashed the moral cornerstone of our entire engagement with the rest of the world.

President Benigno Simeon Aquino, at least, could be trusted to be candid — eventually. Last Saturday, he admitted that we indeed boycotted the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. The admission established that all the crap dished out by Carandang and Lacierda were indeed lies.

 Snubbing the Nobel ceremonies, says the President, was in the “national interest”. We are currently pleading for clemency for 5 Filipinos on death row in China for drug-trafficking. Then, the President added almost below his breath, that little thing about not yet having closure on that “minor matter” of the August hostage fiasco.

Pray, tell us this, Mr. President: Since when did saving the lives of 5 drug-traffickers been such a grave item of “national interest” — so grave we proved ourselves only too willing to fall into global disrepute on the long chance they might be spared?

And that “minor matter” about the dead hostages at the Luneta: we might have found closure on this weeks ago if your office did not water down the IIRC recommendations in order to spare your allies.

 What’s done is done. We traded our international prestige to (possibly) save 5 criminals in Beijing’s jails. I am not quite sure about the “closure” thing — unless we just won Beijing’s admiration for being so submissive that we defied global sentiment.

Good grief.

Power-play

ABS-CBN, it seems, will not rest until the network shuts down Willie Revillame’s richly rating TV5 show by the force of a court order. This might be the equivalent of gunning down a rival instead of winning the competition on level terms.

Twice the giant network failed to stop the show by way of a restraining order — once by a Quezon City court and then by the Court of Appeals. Now, on the back of “copyright” issues, they are seeking a TRO from a Makati Court.

Revillame’s lawyers calls this forum-shopping. He says the new plea for a restraining order be immediately junked — if only because a superior court has already passed judgment on the matter.

Lawyers for both Revillame and TV5 are demanding that Makati Trial Court judge Joselito Villarosa inhibit himself from further hearing the case filed by ABS-CBN. They allege that the judge was first appointed by then Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Joe Nathan Tenefrancia, a partner of CVC Law — sometimes known as The Firm. CVC Law represents ABS-CBN in the cases filed against Revillame. His impartiality might, therefore, be in serious doubt.

Furthermore, the Revillame camp reminds the court that the old contract between the network and its erstwhile talent specifies that all cases be filed in a Quezon City court. Having included TV5 in its suit, ABS now claims that Makati is the domicile of the other network.

With all the legal talent deployed by both sides in this long-winded battle, the court proceedings might be expected to go on and on, like a never-ending telenovela. If it goes on and on, the whole point of yanking Revillame’s show off the air by force of a court order might be futile — and so to the objective of maintaining the old ratings status quo.