January 19, 2011 Vol. 1 No.

The Official Newsletter of the Ateneo Christian Union for Socialist and Democratic Advancement (CRUSADA)

In this issue

Judiciary: Vizconde Massacre 1

Politics: Garcia’s Graft Case 2-3

Economics: Transport Price Hikes 2

Opinion: Facebook Investments 3

Theory & Politics: Luxemburg 3

Quotes of the Week 4

Editorial Board: Miguel Calayag, Kristine Chy, Zarah

Domingo, Daniel Garingan, Joshua Lim, JA De Lima, Jules
Lo, Coco Navarro, James Roman, Miguel Rivera, Maria
Lauro Vizconde cries out against injustice as Webb and co-suspects were released. Venturanza
Source: philippinenewsdaily.com

The Vizconde Massacre: Why High-Profile

Cases Remain "Undead"
For the past twenty years, the “Vizconde Massacre” has been one issue for the books. With the first newsbreak of the
“massacre” of a middle-class family in Paranaque on June 1991, up to the resolution that was made last December, the it was a
case that seemed impossible to bury. Almost a whole family had been brutally killed, including Estrellita Vizconde and her
daughters Jennifer and Carmela (the latter declared a victim of gang rape as well). More than ten suspects have been
apprehended, but it was Hubert Webb, son of former senator Freddie Webb, who was in the limelight of speculation.
Due to weak prosecution, the Supreme Court turned over the decision of the Paranaque City court and deemed the
accused innocent of the charges filed against them. The case would arguably have not merited public uproar if Hubert Webb had
not been the son of former senator Freddie Webb. Even though Webb presented a strong defense, it was put to lie since the
prosecution established positive identification by Jessica Alfaro, the case’s star witness who claimed to be in the Vizconde
household during the night of the murder. Owing to the priority given to a positive identification by a witness over an alibi in
criminal case, it was enough to sentence Webb et al to lifetime imprisonment. However, as the credibility of Alfaro’s testimony
diminished (she admitted to be under the influence of drugs during the night of the murder and her accounts of the events were
inconsistent) and the high improbability of tampering with US immigration papers, prosecution failed to prove that Webb and
the others were guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
The backlash that the Supreme Court decision triggered highlights public distrust on the country’s justice system and
laws. This placed Supreme Court on the defensive, with SC Spokesperson Midas Marquez saying “the Court said there was not
enough basis to [affirm] the conviction of the accused,” further confusing the public. If any, the notion “a man is innocent until
proven guilty” is no longer valued. With this, the public and the court should then focus their energy in delivering justice, not
only to the Vizcondes, but also to those who are truly and undisputedly guilty of this crime.
 THE CRUSADER 2

Garcia's Graft Case:

Systematized
Corruption
After six years of jail time, former AFP Deputy Chief of Staff for
Comptrollership Carlos Garcia who was on trial for corrupting over 303 IMPLACABLE MAN: With the plea bargain in tow,
million pesos from military funds pleaded guilty on charges of direct bribery Garcia appears more “untouchable.”
and money laundering which allowed him to post bail and acquire temporary Source: mrcheapjustice.wordpress.com
freedom. According to court spokesman Renato Bocar, Garcia’s move saved
him from being tried of plunder where he can be penalized of lifetime
imprisonment. The crime was exposed in 2003 after Garcia failed to justify to “Since subsidies
the US Customs how he acquired the $100,000 confiscated from his two
sons. The letter which Garcia’s wife wrote supposedly validating the wealth
the family owned ironically served as evidence against the general. The sum
come from people’s
of their family’s wealth, solely dependent on what the General owned as an
official, is not enough to justify the vast amount they claim entitlement to. taxes… each citizen
Garcia was allowed to plea bargain purportedly due to lack of
evidence. Given this situation, we must now be wary of how the judicial
process is running cases of graft considering that there was also lack of
pays for the
evidence that he legally acquired all his wealth. This case is another proof
that the Filipino people has been constantly fooled to thinking that taxes
MRT/LRT, whether
have been used for the privilege of everyone when in fact, only families of
influential people are benefitting from it. (continue on p. 3) or not they use it.”
Transport Price Hikes: Neoliberal Fruits
The Aquino Administration is under fire after its controversial support for price hikes deemed “neoliberal” by its staunchest
critics. The latest price hike is mainly concerned with the public transportation system, specifically, the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and
Metro Rail Transit (MRT).Currently, the maximum train fare is P 15, but with the fare increase, this amount could double up to P 30.
With this, along with other price hikes on other means of transportation, such as the 12 % value-added tax on tollways and the
expected 60-centavo increase on bus fares, statistics shows that there is a predicted inflation rate of 3.8% this 2011 as compared to
2.4%, as originally predicted by the Monetary Board.
The militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) condemned the recent price hike as a “great train robbery.”
Averaging 56% increase in ticket prices, “some politicians and leftist organizations” foresee profound negative effect on “the low-
income riders, particularly students and workers,” who also constitute the main bulk of the LRT-MRT system’s traditional clients.
Characteristic of neoliberal policies is the shift of responsibility from the government and large companies towards the
“individual choice/responsibility” of the citizens. This is further elaborated by the fact that the fare increase was for the sake of
removing, or at least lessening the subsidies the government was providing for the operations of the train system. Since the subsidies
come from people’s taxes, it entails that each citizen is paying for the MRT/LRT operations regardless whether or not they use it. With
the new schema, the price of running the train lines shall be coming out of the pockets of those who actually avail of the services of
the MRT and/or the LRT. Surprisingly and disappointingly (since the operation of the LRT and MRT is still largely a private enterprise),
it would seem that government would allow public finance to benefit private ends.
The Department of Transportation and Communication, on the other hand, promises to find a solution to the problem by
creating a discount scheme for students and senior citizens. Supporters of the price hikes have used various reasons to justify it, like
Henando Cabrera, corporate secretary of the LRTA who claim it will entail corresponding and appropriate improvement of the trains’
services. In contrast, the private sector, particularly the investors, has vehemently praised the administration’s move as “a
demonstration of President Aquino [III]’s “political will” to carry out unpopular measures.”
 THE CRUSADER 3

Garcia’s Graft Case

(from p. 2)
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has been
allotted by the government the biggest budget annually
and it is disappointing that the country, until this year,
continues to recycle the helicopters and other military
machineries used during the Second World War. To make
things worse, Garcia’s wife declared in her letter that she
and her husband as an AFP Official have been receiving
“travel allowances that paid for their first class flights and
accommodations, stipends which they were never
required to produce receipts and she as wife shopping
money in issued envelopes.” Source: jacktimes.com
The issue should not be directed to the Garcia
family alone but the whole system that enabled them to
act as they have. Returning money embezzled is
insufficient to regain the trust of the Filipino people in the
“Is everything people
government. The Aquino administration must empower
the laws and the mechanisms to enable a justice that are holding on to today
operates for rich and poor alike, influential or non-
influential. Aquino promised an incorrupt government;
holding him to this word, he must mobilize suasion to hold
controlled by capitalism,
Garcia accountable as provided by the law. With
command responsibility in play, Aquino’s inability will cast
with or without us really
doubts on his commitment to democratic restoration.
thinking about it?”

Opinion:
Goldman Sachs & Facebook = Corporate Net Takeover?
In 2010, citizens of the world raised concerns about Facebook’s ethics of professionalism, voicing out that we, the
supposed clients of the social networking site, have been made into a sort of capital for its business, while the seemingly
new clients have been the advertisers that would in turn generate profits.
This New Year, the private company chaired by its 26-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly earns around an
astounding $2 billion a year, but the real news is that it has recently earned a market value of $50 billion being aided by
Goldman Sachs and a Russian firm who had just invested $500 million into the company. Goldman Sachs then plans to
distribute the shares as well to its high net-worth clients - many of them – as only one investor.
This phenomenon is doubtful in terms of the standards of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since
Facebook is not a publicly traded company and thus is limited to have less than 500 investors, but with the plans of
Goldman Sachs, the numbers could reach up to four digits.
Perhaps what is a worrying concern for regular users is the fear that one of these days, Facebook won’t anymore
be known as a unique online trendsetter, which caught a million followers through the new networking strategies it offers.
These types of news, adding to the past year’s intrigues on its advertising, can promote an image of Facebook as just
another corporate entity, whose priorities are already a mixed blur of both user-friendly service and expansion of capital.
For some, this may not really be a problem, so long as the site will not charge users for use of its services and the Wall
Street giants do not make another blunder in economic policies and ruin Facebook into bankruptcy. For others though,
news like this would surely bring thoughts and questions: Is everything people are holding on to today maintained and
controlled by the strings of capitalism, with or without us really thinking about it?
 THE CRUSADER 4

THEORY & POLITICS

“Freedom is always and exclusively
freedom for the one who thinks
differently.” – “Red Rosa”
Source: Marxists.org
ROSA LUXEMBURG (5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919)
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and
activist. She is more familiarly known as among the key thinkers of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), despite being of Polish-Jewish
descent and later breakaway to establish the more radical Communist Party
of Germany. Luxemburg’s key contribution to the vast body of Leftist
thinking is her understanding of the struggles of the proletariat as not
planned nor engineered, but a manifestation of class consciousness
engendered by the working class’s daily experiences of suffering and
struggle. As she wrote in The Mass Strike, class consciousness can only
come to being in “the struggle, in the process of revolution itself, through
the actual school of experience, in collision with the proletariat as well as
with one another, in incessant mutual friction.” She stressed that conducted
political action should be also capable of engaging economic structures,
again through immersion into the experiences of the proletariat. She was
executed in 1919 after supporting the Spartacist Uprising of the Communist
Party of Germany.

Quotes of the Week

“The people of Tunisia have won.”
- Tunisian protesters, cheering the departure of long-time President Zine el Abidine bin Ali after being
overthrown in street protests

“Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral
imaginations…”
- U.S. President Barack Obama, at a memorial service he led in Tucson, Arizona after the shooting
rampage that injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people

“We welcome the decision insofar as it puts closure to decades-long wait of the claimants in this case. It
is a vindication for a wrong that was done to them.”
- President Benigno S. Aquino III, on the recent court ruling in the United States demanding that $7.5
million be paid in compensation for victims of martial law

“We should adopt drastic measures to offset the adverse effects of global warming.”
- Eastern Samar Representative Ben Evardone, on the possible implementation of a total logging ban

"You can channel your sexual energies in the company of a car."

- Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, on President Aquino purchasing a Porsche while being a bachelor