Bayan: PH-Australia pact won’t upgrade our military

Bayan placards earlier this week depict President Benigno Aquino III as a gun-toting cowboy and in star-spangled underwear

Militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan condemned on Thursday the ratification of an agreement between the Philippines and Australia that will allow their troops on Philippine territory.

Bayan said the agreement will do nothing to upgrade the Philippine military and violates national sovereignty.

“The claims that the Australian SOVFA will boost PH security against China is a patent lie. That is the same lie being peddled to justify permanent US military presence in the country. These so-called military exercises do not result in the modernization of our armed forces,” Bayan said in a press statement.

Bayan, which has been calling for the cancellation of a visiting forces agreement and a mutual defense treaty with the U.S., said the Armed Forces of the Philippines is still weak despite more than a decade of the PH-U.S. VFA.

The PH-Australia Status of Visiting Forces Agreement lays down guidelines on the treatment of visiting troops, including jurisdiction over troops who break the law of a receiving country. The agreement also gives visiting forces temporary use of land and sea areas for combined training and other activities.

Bayan noted the agreement with Australia does not require it “to take the Philippines’ side in the dispute with China so it is untenable why this is even being invoked to justify the SOVFA ratification.”

The SOVFA will just turn the Philippines into even more of a military hub for foreign countries, the group warned.

The Senate, voting 17-1, concurred with ratification of the agreement on Tuesday. It had been awaiting ratification since 2008.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said ratification will “not only pave the way for us to improve our defense mechanisms, (but) will also solidify our decades old relationship with Australia, especially in the fields of trade and industry.”

Senator Teofisto Guingona III, who voted for ratification, made clear, however, that the SOVFA “does not say that we have to fight with Australian troops if they are at war and it does not say that Australian troops must fight with us if we are at war with other countries.”

He said it would be misleading to say “we have to vote for this Agreement because Australia will help us in time of serious armed conflict.”

Senator Joker Arroyo, the lone dissenting vote, said the move seemed to have been meant to portray Australia as a potential ally in the South China Sea. “Let us not  grab at straws,” he said then.

The Palace called ratification “an important step in enhancing our national and regional security.”

Bayan said, however, that the Philippines must develop an independent foreign policy and not rely on countries like the U.S., Australia, and Japan. “Only by eliminating our dependence on these countries, and by realizing that our national interest is not the same as theirs, can we be a truly sovereign nation,” the group said.

How Filipino women can make food sustainable

Muh-muh-meat

Filipino women could be a potent force in making food more sustainable, a report from by international non-profit organization Oxfam suggests.

According to Oxfam’s “The Food Transformation: Harnessing Consumer Power to Create a Fair Food Future,” 85 percent of Filipino women surveyed were willing to give up meat and 96 percent were interested in finding ways to use less energy when cooking. The same survey found that 86 percent of respondents from the Philippines “feel they know how the food choices they make affect the wider world.” In contrast, only 46 percent from the U.S. did.

That matters because, according to the report, raising cows for beef requires more resources than growing vegetables or beans. It takes 6,810 liters of water to produce 500 grams of beef versus just 818 liters to produce 500 grams of beans, Oxfam said. Raising livestock also produces more greenhouse gases.

“Meat production is putting a lot of pressure on our environment: it’s water-hungry and land-hungry, as well as creating greenhouse gas emissions,” Oxfam said.

Oxfam estimates that if urban households in the U.S., UK, Spain and Brazil give up meat for just one meal a week, that would mean nine and a half million fewer cows that would need to be raised and butchered a year. “That would mean over 900,000 tons less methane being produced every year, making as much of a difference to the environment as taking over 3.7 million cars off the road for a year,” the report said.

Using less energy for cooking also matters because of the impact it has on the environment and on the pocket. Oxfam said even simple tweaks could cut energy costs. When cooking vegetables, for example, using just enough water to cover the vegetables, cooking them in a flat-bottomed pan covered with a lid, and reducing heat as soon as the water boils could lower costs by up to 70 percent.

“If all urban households in Brazil, India, the Philippines, Spain, the UK and the USA took these simple steps, over 30 million megawatt hours of energy could be saved every year. The benefit for the environment would be greater than if these same households each planted a tree seedling and let it grow for ten years,” Oxfam said.

“The survey shows Filipino women can be a force to fix the way we manage food. Filipino women – and men, who must begin share this responsibility – can do this through positive food choices, choices that redound to the good of our food system,” Kalayaan Pulido-Constantino, Oxfam spokesperson for the Philippines, said in a statement released with the report.

The survey was conducted among 5100 mothers in Brazil, India, the Philippines, UK, USA, and Spain.

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Originally filed for Yahoo! Southeast Asia, but they didn’t publish it. So here.

Hoopty Car, Hooray!

My new dream car is the humble owner-type jeep. I am not sure if this is a step up, or down, from my previous dream vehicles: the Kia Pride and the Toyota Tamaraw FX.

Probably a step down.

It is certainly several degrees less cool than the car I was promised for my sophomore year in college: a Volkswagen Beetle bought with the savings we would have gotten from my going to U.P. instead of Ateneo. I never got it, and will always mildly resent my parents for not following through on that. Even extending my second year in college to what would be more aptly called a sophomore period did not work. Maybe it was precisely because of that that I didn’t get that Beetle.*

I liked the Pride and the Tamaraw for the same reason I want to drive an owner-type jeep. There is very little to say about them except that they are. There is nothing in a Pride or a Tamaraw that serves no purpose, and that purpose is to bring someone somewhere. You can–and people have–dress them up, but that would only call attention to what they lack. (ie modern styling, a regard for beauty, etc)

Hold on, now. Those aren’t even Tamaraws.

The same can be said of the owner-type jeep. It is essentially an ugly box with an engine and wheels and, if you are lucky, air-conditioning and a basic radio. I would be fine without the air-conditioning and the radio, truth be told. For a few years, I drove a beat-up old pickup truck that had neither and that was all right. (For a time, it did not have proper brakes and that was all right too, at least in the sense that I was able to bring it to Batangas and back without incident.)

There’s a certain beauty in that, in things stripped to the bare essentials, that appeals to me. There are no lies to an owner-type jeep. Although it offers little in the way of comfort or style, it makes no promises either. Not for itself, and certainly not on behalf of its driver.

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Related: The Once and Future King, a feature on jeepneys I wrote for California-based, and apparently defunct, magazine Genuine Pinoy.

*There was a story our high school teacher used to tell at reflection period about a kid who asked for a car but was given a Bible instead. Years of resentment and youthful rebellion later, he found a car key taped to the first page of the Bible. I always felt this was a stupid story, and, besides, my parents didn’t give me a Bible either.**

**I realize that as a grown-ass man, I could probably just buy myself a Beetle. And a Bible.