tonyo is now at tonyocruz.com

Nanang Ine, the younger of my dad's two sisters, died today of an asthma attack. Most probably, she died while desperately calling for her housemates' attention as she tried to breathe.

Nanang Ine was known in my father's village as deaf and dumb. But that didn't stop her from expressing love and admiration, pain and depression. When happy, she would show us calendars and point at certain dates, telling us that she'd get married on that day. She'd also show cut-out pictures of the most dashing actors who, she said quite often, would bring her to church and marry her.

At other times, she'd wail and weep loudly especially when she would see her cousins, nephews and nieces getting hitched. Or when Inang would ignore her requests.

I would always remember Nanang Ine because she wasn't really dumb and deaf. She was always smiling, patting my back, welcoming me home at their place and making me feel family. Perhaps, she's my best tita on my father side of our big family.

Goodbye Nanang Ine. Thank you. And advanced congratulations on your grand wedding in the skies, with the most perfect husband and with Tatang himself by your side. Your innocence and warmth and honesty will win all that for you.

I thought ANAD was having a presscon yesterday to finally apologize for being part of the dagdag-bawas in the 2004 polls. A quick check of the Hello Garci transcript clearly states that ANAD was a beneficiary of Virgilio Garcillano's magickry, getting more votes than it truly did.

I thought that Jun Alcover would publicly dissociate ANAD from President Arroyo and the AFP for failing to adequately support its victory, and for involving them in Gloriagate.

I thought ANAD would publicly uphold democracy by assailing the CPR, the no permit-no rally policy and the PSG's new no permit-no mass edict at churches near the Palace.

I simply overestimated ANAD and its capacity for exhibiting evident stupidity, its worship of GMA and its sworn duty to defend the military and US interests at all costs.

ANAD's hysterical anti-communism and anti-Left crusade draws inspiration from Alcover's original NAD formed post-Edsa1. Public documents would reveal it received US funding, AFP support and quality members such as priest-killer/brain-eater Norberto Manero.

NAD and ANAD are so useful to the military that the media would be able to find in their archives the precise moments the nutcases come out of the woodwork: When the Left puts the government and the military in a defensive, during crucial stages of the NDF-GRP talks or when the military attempts to justify its purported role in murders of activists. In exchange for its antics, the AFP adopted the ANAD as its official partylist, switching votes for Bayan Muna and its sister-parties to ANAD, terrorizing rural folk to vote for ANAD and sponsoring ANAD rallies near Camps Aguinaldo and Crame.

For the people, ANAD is a worthless piece of AFP shit. It has no record of standing up against oppressive governments as in the time of GMA's predecessor. Neither has ANAD raised objection to threats to democracy or demanded restitution for victims of the anti-democratic Marcos regime.

If ANAD is to be believed, it is the Reds that are behind the political crisis, behind GMA and Garci.

Given all these and the similar pronouncements from GMA herself and Norberto Gonzales, we might as well suggest that they formally adopt ANAD as the official ruling party and stupid anti-communism its ideology. This could finally ensure that in the next polls, ANAD would be able to enter Congress where it would find itself filling the much deserved role as the village idiot.

Ric Ramos, leader of striking Hacienda Luisita farmworkers, was gunned down the other night near his home in Tarlac. Hours later, a Bayan Muna-Pampanga official and his two friends were shot dead.

Yesterday afternoon, a jeepney driver was shot in the head and chest somewhere in the capital of Bulacan. He was the local chairman of Piston and a leader Anakpawis.

President Arroyo has ignored the murders. Not even a statement of sympathy for the newly-orphaned kin of the slain activists.

It is no coincidence that the murdered persons were at the frontlines of mass actions for Arroyo's ouster. Methinks that was the immediate reason for their killing. The regime has gone nuts over the resurgence of activist and other anti-Arroyo movements.

Perhaps Arroyo and the Armed Forces have again committed the big mistake of equating killing activists with prolonging their plunderous reign.

It should also be pointed out that the most recent murders are a continuation, nay, a worsening of the Palparan plague. This plague of intolerance and baseless anti-communism has followed Jovito Palparan from Central Luzon a decade ago to Oriental Mindoro, to Eastern Visayas and back to Arroyo's home region.

Palparan's terror strategies and tactics against so-called enemies of the state has not been stopped. Arroyo has instead been awarded promotions from colonel to brigadier general and lately to major general.

If Arroyo wishes to do one good thing now, it is to stop Palparan and thereby save many innocent lives in Central Luzon where he has resumed his many acts of terrorism.

But since Arroyo almost always rejects public clamor, it now rests on the other remaining decent people in government and the Parliament of the Streets to protect the rights of activists.

The best protection I could think of right now is ensuring the ouster of a pseudopresident who rewards the likes of Palparan, who is publicly known as an intolerant bitch, and who doesn't care if countless people end up dead in her mad drive to remain in power.

I wrote and uploaded this entry using my Treo 600 with a Globe simcard.

Here's to more frequent, more instant posts.

Humble peasants from the provinces, many of them barefoot, moved Pen Medina to tears at the People Power monument as the Lakbayan inched its way towards the DAR office in Quezon City.

Sino ba ang hindi maiiyak? Thanks to the Lakbayani farmers, many of us who have had the chance to go into schools and live far comfortable lives are given a lesson on civic duty. That educational attainment is not a requirement in putting up a valiant fight for truth and change in this country.

Farmers endure hell in the provinces. They do not own the land they till. They obtain usurious loans for their annual planting and harvesting. After paying the debts and the land rent, and factoring the expenses, they're left with nearly nothing except small portions of the harvest. On top of this, they see the President pampering landlords and corrupting funds for fertilizers for her electoral purposes.

So now that they're visiting Manila and would like to hold a peaceful rally at Mendiola, I think they deserve it as citizens and hardworking people to be respected.

As the Lakbayanis were on there way to Manila, they were treated like scum of the earth, like terrorists or bandits. All excuses were being raised in order to delay the Lakbayan and to paint them as rabble rousers.

Mayor Atienza, the PNP, the AFP and Malacañang should be decent enough not to insult the farmers with paranoid and hysterical anti-riot preparations. (Besides, need we look further and needlessly look for NPAs who are in the hinterlands, when the real sources of street violence are right there near the palace? Behold fully-armed SWAT teams, truncheon-wielding cops, armed goons entering the rallies as caught last night at the DAR. Behold the intrigues against Ka Satur in a transparently stupid ploy to prepare public opinion for a brutal dispersal of the Lakbayan.) Instead these officials should exert all efforts to make the farmers feel welcome, hear out their pleas and give them their day in the parliament of the streets.

Again, as the nation wakes up today to another day of hope, let's pause and think about farmers. Let's show our support and admiration for their militancy, patriotism and enduring strength.

(Note: I am posting here a letter I sent to friends at Mobileactive.)

Dear friends at Mobileactive,

I am writing on behalf of Philippine people's organizations who are now bearing the brunt of a so-called Calibrated Preemptive Response (CPR) policy against mass actions, rallies and demonstrations. Most of these protests are being undertaken by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance), the Gloria Step Down Movement (GSM, of which TXTPower is a participating organization) and the Solidarity Movement.

Disgraced President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has enunciated the CPR policy purportedly in response to mass demonstrations calling for her resignation or ouster through direct people's actions. She is unleashing a reign of fascist terror against the Filipino people in a mad drive to remain in power.

The CPR policy is a radical departure from the negotiations between rallyists and members of the police that have ensured the peaceful and free conduct of protests especially at historic Mendiola Bridge which leads to the presidential palace. It is also brazenly violates provisions of the Philippine Constitution and relevant international laws.

The result of the CPR policy is that policemen have obviously felt licensed to unleased brutality against demonstrators. Arrests are now being made without any warrant, while others are being abducted by policemen in plainclothes while a demonstration is going on. Those arrested and abducted are often mugged inside police mobile patrol cars en route to the nearest police station.

Even activist members of Congress belonging to Bayan Muna (People First) are not being spared from police assaults during the street marches.

For pictures of the violent dispersal operations of Arroyo's police against demonstrators and what Filipino activist groups are being prevented from doing, please visit: www.arkibongbayan.org, www.bayanmuna.net and www.bayan.ph

Relatedly, the Arroyo regime has also proposed a draconian Anti-Terrorism Act that outclasses the US Patriot Act in so far as watering-down the Bill of Rights of citizens, has required presidential approval prior to any high official's appearance before any inquiry of Congress, and has reported to have drafted an Executive Order placing the country under a "state of emergency". Some have described the situation today as a "creeping" martial law.

Please support the campaign against CPR and for free expression, free speech and free assembly in the Philippines. Condemn police brutality being directed against activists and common people joining rallies that demand Arroyo's resignation or ouster.

Help us by spreading the word. Be a friend of Filipinos by circulating this letter.

-Tonyo Cruz
Convenor, TXTPower