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PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has “vowed,” say media reports, to get the killers of Fr. Fausto Tentorio even if they should turn out to be members of the paramilitary groups he, Aquino, has refused to dismantle.

The call has been made often for the dismantling of paramilitary groups, among them the Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) and Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU) armed and trained by the Armed Forces and that have figured prominently in the assassinations and massacres, illegal arrest and detention, and abduction and torture that in many areas of the Philippine countryside occur with impunity. But that call assumed particular urgency in the aftermath of the Ampatuan Massacre of November 23, 2009, in which the CVOs that were functioning as part of the private armies of the Maguindanao warlords figured prominently.

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THE DESTRUCTION of the country’s institutions is proceeding apace. But it’s not the “enemies of the state” who’re subverting them; it’s the very institutions themselves, including those mandated to protect the state, that are doing it.

“A bulwark of liberty.” “The protector of Philippine patrimony.” “ The guardian of civil rights and the rule of law.”

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THE “American official” President Benigno Aquino III quoted in his speech at the University of Fordham in New York as complaining that “the problem with the Philippines is that it has 40 million cowards and one SOB (son of a bitch) ” was most probably the outspoken US Senator J. William Fulbright, who chaired the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee from 1959 to 1974.

A member of the Democratic Party, Fulbright was critical of US foreign policy, whether as expressed in the invasion of Cuba (1959) during the Kennedy administration, the US presence in the Philippines (in one US Senate hearing, he described US military bases in the Philippines as simply in furtherance of US, rather than Philippine, interests), or the US war in Vietnam (1960-1975). He described the latter as an indication of “the arrogance of power,” or “the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue.”

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IT’S a mantra in the US and much of Western media: 9-11, or the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, “changed the world.”

The planet has never been in as great disorder as today, with war and even total annihilation a constant threat, famine afflicting millions in Africa, an economic crisis threatening to morph into a global depression, and terrorist groups continuing to threaten not only the United States but practically every nation on earth including the Philippines.

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SPEAKING AT a forum on the press and the media, former University of the Philippines president Jose V. Abueva said there were actually five Estates, or powers, in the Philippines.

If the press is the Fourth Estate, the Catholic Church would be the fifth. Abueva did not mention what the other three Estates in contemporary Philippines are. Neither did he mention the sixth Estate, whose influence on Philippine affairs is mostly exercised through its power not only over Philippine presidents and other officials, but also through its hold on the minds of most Filipinos.

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THE University of the Philippines has been celebrating since May this year the birth centennial of one of its greatest presidents. The celebrations, which have included lectures, symposia, photo exhibits and publications on Salvador P. Lopez, who was UP President from 1969 to 1975, will end in October.

“SP” to his staff in the department of foreign affairs and in UP, Lopez came to the presidency of the University with a distinguished background in literature, journalism and diplomacy. He wrote in 1940 the pioneering essay “Literature and Society,” in which he took issue with the then current view of “art for art’s sake” which was identified with Jose Garcia Villa. Lopez contended that to be meaningful, literature must confront the issues that define the human condition, a view he shared with the social realist writers of his time.

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PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has refused to apologize to the relatives of the eight Hongkong tourists killed during the hostage- taking incident at Manila’s Rizal Park on August 23, 2010. Declaring in a speech during the first anniversary of that incident that the Philippine government regretted it, but that it was not right for the slain tourists’ kin to blame the entire country, Mr. Aquino was apparently also addressing the Hongkong government, which since the incident has warned its residents to stay away from the Philippines, thereby costing the country millions in lost tourism revenues.

Mr. Aquino’s refusal to apologize for the incident has most probably earned him brownie points among the population, particularly that part of it that believes it an affront to the entire country for the government to be apologizing to anyone, especially to people from another Asian country.

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