Author: ilda

In life, things are not always what they seem.

Activists are ABUSING Filipinos’ tolerance for people who differ to the norm

Activists preaching “tolerance” seem to be such experts on how people ought to feel. They contradict themselves when they dismiss the feelings of ordinary people whose space is being encroached upon by those whose feelings they selectively defend. They say certain “rights” are being violated when certain people feel they are not being “accepted”.

You “activists” should reflect first on just how inconsistent your advocacies are.

You talk so much about your rights, but what about the rights of women and girls to feel safe and secure while in a vulnerable state, half-naked doing their private business in a public toilet? I guess you didn’t think about that.

Who are you to tell others there is nothing to be afraid of? We don’t know everyone we encounter in public. How do I know what’s going on in everyone’s heads?

Some Like It Hot, Tootsie and Mrs Doubtfire. These are just a few Hollywood movies showing how straight men can dress up and pretend to be women and still have desires for women. It can happen in real life. Male predators can dress up as women and use the women’s public toilets.

How come people with acrophobia, claustrophobia and other phobias are generally understood but people with fear of being sexually assaulted by perverts in public toilets are being labelled “bigots”? Fear is normal. It is our way of protecting ourselves from potential threats.

Don’t presume to be the judge of what feelings are right or wrong. Everyone has a right to harbor feelings about any situation they find themselves in. We don’t have to like one another. We only owe one another respect, and that is only if everyone agrees that respect is earned when we all acknowledge everyone’s equal responsibilty to uphold community standards in shared spaces.

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Sense of entitlement amongst gay “activists” ruining harmony amongst genders in Philippine society

A discussion on whether or not to allow transvestites to use the female public toilets is raging in the Philippines after a transvestite felt discriminated upon when she was banned from using the women’s toilet in a mall.

Those who are agreeing with the ban citing that perverts and men pretending to be trans can abuse the privilege to access women’s facilities and sexually assault women and girls are being labelled “bigots”.

Hang on a minute…Filipinos are very tolerant of gays and lesbians. I never witnessed discrimination against cross dressers and transvestites when I was growing up. It’s always been very much accepted in Philippine society. But now some people are calling those oppose to sharing public toilets “bigot”.

When I say tolerant, I am comparing Philippine society to other counties like Russia and even in Australia where, just a couple of decades ago, some gays were beaten up and thrown off cliffs. I never heard of anything like that in the Philippines. Some are ridiculed but their lifestyle is tolerated.

What we are seeing now, however, is a disturbing trend where the beliefs of a small community of “activists” are pushed in on others and a growing sense of entitlement that is already infringing on other people’s right and safety. An example of this is the push to allow other genders to use the women’s public toilet. This only serves to highlight things in a negative way…

It may be a gay issue, but it’s patriarchal conceit once again, expecting women to be the ones to adjust without throwing a fuss

I personally did not mind sharing until I was TOLD to share and grin and bear it.

It’s as if they don’t need to ask others if it is ok to use what’s always been designated for “women”. Ironic, right? A camp to which so-called “feminists” belong telling women to stand aside. They just push for what they want because they think they are entitled to it. There is something wrong with this mentality. Where does it end? Do we always have to adjust?

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Maria Ressa appeals to Facebook for help to silence her critics!

I read an article about Rappler CEO Maria Ressa on the Australian Financial Review where she is quoted appealing to Facebook to help hold Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to account. She said “the only people who can actually do something to level the playing field in the short-term are the social media platforms”.

Huh? Facebook and other socmed sites did level the playing field as I recall.

Ressa is being inconsistent. She can’t make up her mind about Facebook. One moment she praises it, the next she condemns it. Her opinion of Facebook seems to depend on her mood. Facebook already made Rappler a “fact-checker” but she is still not satisfied with that privilege!

This is why journalists like Maria Ressa lost their celebrity status. Ordinary citizens were given a platform to voice their dissent and hold journalists who publish untruths to account. Ressa is just bitter that most people in the Philippines don’t see her as a “thought leader” anymore.

Still, she is adamant. Ressa insists that Duterte is “weaponising the law”.

“How do you know when an online attack to kill you, burn you, rape you, shoot you or bomb you shifts from words to the time it becomes real,” she said.

“This is the biggest danger. It’s a psychological war. It’s made to silence and intimidate. And you couple that with a government that also weaponises the law. As far as I’m concerned, all of these charges are political harassment and it’s to stop us doing our job.”

That’s the dumbest thing coming out of her mouth. The law doesn’t pick and choose. The law applies to everyone. It’s there to protect innocent people from libelous articles.

The only thing consistent about Ressa is the script she uses to feed the international news media community – that Duterte is trying to “silence” her. She contradicts that by showing she is completely free to go on numerous junkets where she delivers her non-stop media blitzes that only provide her side of the story. No one from the foreign media even checks if any of what she says is true.

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Leni Robredo incites to sedition whenever she publicly undermines President Duterte

Current Philippine “Vice President” Leni Robredo is quite often in the news criticising President Rodrigo Duterte. People who support Duterte can’t get past the fact that all she does is criticise him.

“Robredo questions this and that”.

“Robredo recommends this and that”.

“Robredo criticises govt policy on this and that”.

Robredo is telling everyone she can do a better job than the President. Her lack of delicadeza is always on display. She has no sense of propriety!

Have you ever heard of any Vice President or second-in-command who routinely questions the decisions of the President or leader in public? It only happens in the Philippines and is only because Leni Robredo is too dense to realise she shouldn’t be undermining the President. What Leni is doing is called sedition.

Article 142 of the Revised Penal Code states…

Inciting to Sedition. – The penalty of prision correctional in its maximum period and a fine not exceeding 2,000 pesos shall be imposed upon any person who, without taking any direct part in the crime of sedition, should incite others to the accomplishment of any of the acts which constitute sedition, by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, cartoons, banners, or other representations tending to the same end, or upon any person or persons who shall utter seditious words or speeches, write, publish, or circulate scurrilous libels against the Republic of the Philippines…

Just recall how Robredo, in a video addressed to the UN in 2017 made so many unfair and unfounded remarks about the Philippines government — her own government that she is a part of!

Even without the testimony of “Bikoy” or any other so-called whistleblower, clearly there are grounds to accuse Robredo of seditious acts.

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Cory Aquino exploited Filipino emotionalism to become president then set up the Philippines for disaster

“Vice president” Leni Robredo disagrees with President Rodrigo Duterte’s opinion of ex-Pres. Cory Aquino — that the latter only became popular after former Senator Ninoy Aquino died. But of course Robredo would disagree. She herself only became popular after her own husband died. She’s also delusional like Cory. She has delusions of grandeur.

A lot of people agree in hindsight that Cory should never have been installed as President because, one, she stayed in Boston for years and did not have the residency in the Philippines required to qualify. Two, she didn’t have a platform nor policy to bring the country from Third World to First.

Those who pushed Cory to run were simply emotional and did not think about the consequences of putting up someone inexperienced to run a country. The result was a disaster that lasted for more than 30 years. Her Presidency set the country back and continues to trail our ASEAN neighbors to this day.

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Being gunned down does not make one a hero. Ninoy Aquino is not a hero.

Aquino supporters are still insisting Ninoy was a hero. No, he was not. A lot of politicians all over the world get gunned down by political rivals. The most famous one was John F Kennedy. The Americans did not make him a hero after his assassination.

The trouble begins when people like former Congressman Teddy Casino presumes to prescribe a preferred line of thinking and put it up as some sort of gospel truth that is not open to challenge…

The fact is, it was the coup d’état organised by then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and then General Fidel Ramos that triggered the protest rally, not Ninoy’s death. If the US government at the time didn’t whisk deposeed President Ferdinand Marcos out of the country and had Marcos used military fire power against the plotters, Cory wouldn’t have been illegitimately installed as President.

Protest rallies were a dime a dozen even before Ninoy died. A former member of the communist movement even claimed Ninoy organised the rallies and provided grenades. The Aquinos and their communist allies use rallies today to the point where these have lost any power to move the public.

Ninoy, for his part, was overrated. His speeches are not even great — which means beyond his “martyrdom” he didn’t leave much of a political legacy nor any significant contribution to thought leadership. Filipinos need to think twice about what they’ve been fed by a small clique of oligarchs over the last 30 years. If they examine the historical record carefully, they will find that it was all just a narrative designed to seal a status quo that served the members of a small but powerful oligarchic clan.

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Raissa Robles believes she is the sole authority on “legitimate” journalism

It’s laughable how so-called investigative journalist Raissa Robles got triggered into ranting against an article about journalists. Robles still thinks she is God’s Gift to Journalism when in fact, her only motivation to write is to sell her books against Marcos and Martial Law.

Raissa Robles never criticised the Aquinos and their allies in any significant way. And yet here she is in typical form…

Robles likely refers to is RJ Nieto’s maiden Manila Bulletin article “What, exactly, is a ‘legitimate journalist’?”. But her tweet only seeks to attack Nieto’s character rather than comment on his message.

For that matter, journalists are supposed to report the news, not “throw tomatoes” at the politicians they don’t like. For a so-called “investigative journalist”, most of Raissa’s articles are baseless and mere innuendoes.

Indeed, Robles’s articles are generally all about the “evils” of former President Ferdinand Marcos and the atrocities allegedly committed by the military. However, she never mentions the atrocities committed by the communists who wreaked havoc in Philippine society over a far longer stretch. They got away with their crimes in part because of writers like Robles who prefer to stick to their one-sided take on things.

Respected journalists like Jessica Soho, for example, remain objective even as they deliver confronting messages to their audience. Folks like that serve as an example of what journalism really is. Raissa Robles, on the other hand, brings nothing but shame to her profession.

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Actor Bart Guingona (@guingonabart) believes majority of Filipinos are WRONG!

Bart Guingona asserts in a tweet that, “[this] admin’s biggest legacy, like that of Trump’s will be divisiveness and hatred. Sad.” But when challenged to explain how the approval rating of 85 percent the current government of President Rodrigo Duterte enjoys could be indicative of a “divided” people, Guingona responds with an interesting opinion…

It seems, Guingona presumes to know better than the majority of Filipinos who, according to the Constitution, earned the right to choose their leaders.

For that matter, how can the 15% be right when the public servants they are supporting were in power for 6 years but did not achieve much and stuck with the status quo? They also lost the election. It’s pure arrogance to declare yourself right when you’re not even offering alternative solutions.

The dishonesty of the members of the Yellow camp are mirrored by the character of “influencers” like Bart Guingona. In this tweet, he PUBLICLY accused me of being under someone’s payroll…

I’m no lawyer but that, to me, looks like a clear case of defamation.

Back to the point of this, the fact is, Duterte has only been in power for 3 years but there are already positive changes ordinary Filipinos feel. Meanwhile, the Philippines hardly improved for 30 years under the yellows and their allies.

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Manila Mayor @IskoMoreno should serve as an example to “vice president” @LeniRobredo

Looks like Isko Moreno has been preparing for his stint as Manila City Mayor and started his term sprinting to success. I admire his patience waiting during the previous mayor’s corruption-riddled term even though he was probably cringing at the lack of progress while Vice Mayor.

Leni Robredo should learn from Moreno. While he was Vice Mayor, Moreno didn’t talk bad about then Mayor Joseph Estrada and didn’t try to steal his thunder. He waited patiently for his turn to implement his ideas. In contrast, Leni tries so hard to put current President Rodrigo Duterte down — as if she has better ideas.

It just goes to show that Robredo does not have the patience and foresight needed to be a great leader. She can’t even lead her own political party. The only reason she became popular is because the media helped push her profile up after her husband died tragically during Noynoy’s term

Why is it so hard to find public servants like Isko Moreno in the Philippines? It has become apparent that most public servants only want the perks and connections that come with the job like getting kick backs from mafia groups who extort money from businesses instead of serving.

Until public servants in the Philippines become selfless like Isko Moreno, prioritise the interests of the public, and focus on results, majority of Filipinos will suffer in mediocrity.

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Leni Robredo must pay the price if found guilty of sedition!

As expected, supporters of Vice President Leni Robredo are dismissing the recent charges of sedition against her as mere “harassment”. A group called “Team Philippines” are even mounting a petition to the Department of Justice to drop the charges.

It seems these people feel sorry for Robredo because she looks like a damsel in distress or they want her to be given special treatment because she is a woman. This is not good for advocates of gender equality. They should be reminded of the persecution former Vice President Jejomar Binay experienced.

Indeed, one of the biggest sins of Leni and the Opposition is being too loyal to the members of the Philippine oligarchy instead of to the people. They prioritise their own interests, not the public’s.

Nonetheless, Robredo does not need protection because the law is there to protect innocent people. If there is no proof against her, the case will not even reach the court and will be dismissed. But unfortunately for her, if the prosecutors prove that she was part of the group who employed Bikoy then she needs to pay the price of her offenses and go to jail.

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