SOME 182 retired military and police top brass two days ago issued an open letter addressed to President Marcos Jr. angrily protesting the government’s budget for next year, as revised by a joint “bicameral” committee of 12 legislators consisting of Senate President Francis Escudero and House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s most trusted people.

The letter pointed out that the new proposed budget, among other provisions, outrageously increased the money Congress members can use for their own expenses as well as for a fund likely to be used for their reelection in the May 2025 elections while reducing funds for critical departments with activities intended to alleviate the welfare of the poor.

There has never been such a widespread protest made publicly by retired officers against the proposed budget, and sources claim their dissatisfaction is shared by most active military officers, who, for obvious reasons, could not sign the open letter. The letter apparently has stunned Marcos, who ordered the postponement of his signing into law of the budget submitted by Congress, originally scheduled for last Friday.

HOWLS of outrage, so palpable in social media, rose up over the quad committee member, party-list representative Joseph Paduano’s arrogant, extremely disrespectful bullying of former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Wilkins Villanueva. Paduano ordered Villanueva jailed “for contempt” when he could not get the latter to agree to his accusations that Villanueva had ordered a warrantless arrest against the wife of a drug personality.

But this is what Paduano and his colleagues in the kangaroo court, glorified as the quadcomm, have done several times: throw a “resource person” in jail when he or she would not agree to a committee member’s accusations.

What angered people though was the fact that Paduano represented a party-list (Abang Lingkod) that grew out of the self-styled Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade, which was the Communist Party’s urban assassination squad. That “army” had broken away from the Communist Party in 2000, under the leadership of Filemon “Popoy” Lagman.

IT is certainly a testament to the incompetence of this government that its foreign affairs officials are either ignorant or confused about our reasons for asserting our sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal after China officially annexed it last month.

While it’s not clear if the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Antonio Lagdameo, himself wrote the Philippine statement on our claim over Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc to us, Huangyan to the Chinese) that he made the other day at the UN, or if it was given to him by Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo or his staff to read, it reflects our government’s confusion over the issue.

Lagdameo merely declared that “Bajo de Masinloc has always been an integral part of the territory of the Philippines.” Lagdameo gives no other justification except implying that the Philippine claim is based on the “1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) and the binding 2016 arbitral award on the South China Sea.”

First of two parts

HISTORY will judge 2024 as the year when China formalized its sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc to us, Huáng Yán Dǎo to the Chinese). It is now the nearest Chinese-controlled feature to the Philippines, just about as far as the 200 kilometers from Manila to Baguio.

It is a testament to President Marcos Jr.’s incompetence and negligence: While he and his cousin Martin Romualdez were busy persecuting Vice President Sara Duterte, they were disgracefully clueless over what is the biggest amputation of our territory since we lost Sabah when the newly formed Federation of Malaysia incorporated it in 1963.

Marcos is impeachable for the loss of Scarborough on the constitutional ground of betrayal of public trust: He has demonstrated himself to be grossly incompetent and negligent in handling our dispute with China over Scarborough Shoal, naively believing that the US would help us recover it, that following the US line of demonizing China, the world would force Beijing to give it back to us.

LOOK at it objectively and rid yourself of their very successful propaganda — started way back in the 1960s — that they are crusading “progressives,” “people’s organizations” or “cause-oriented groups.” Nearly all of those who claim to be such are communist or leftist groups, who have expertly manipulated the democratic process to obtain at least roughly 1 million votes to win a seat in the House of Representatives.

The persons who filed the second impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte are mostly communist cadres, their allies and a few naïve idealists they have fooled and have manipulated. Their spokesman, Neri Colmenares, had long been leading Left fronts, as the first such, Bayan Muna. (Colmenares it seems never forgot his torture by the military when he was captured in 1983 by the military that alleged he was with an NPA propaganda unit in the Cagayan Valley).

The organizations they represent are mostly Communist Party fronts. Believe me on this, as they were my comrades in the 1970s. I was surprised to see in news photos of the complaint’s filing by these aging veterans of the party now in their late 70s and a few cadres I had supervised when I headed the party’s Manila-Rizal organization. One of the prominent ones there brought me to the restaurant where I talked to his boss, the party secretary-general, to find out if they could support Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s 2004 candidacy.