Thursday, July 30, 2015

The politics of disaster

It's not the disaster of natural calamity (earthquake, tsunami, typhoon) that will cause a mass kill after those who will die on-the-spot, but the slow mobilization of help and chaos because of our inability to remove an incompetent leader, moreso if the new leader is the incompetent's anointed one. Ang boto mo hindi yan taya sa sugal na may premyo pag winnable sa political ads and surveys ang binoto mo. Ang maling pagboto ng leader ay maaring ikamatay mo o ng pamilya mo sa panahon ng national disaster. Remember Yolanda.

Fearless words that describe PNoy and his Administration in the past five years as President of the Republic of the Philippines: Aid-redtaper, Buck-passer, Credit-grabber, Shameless, Apathetic, Incorrigible, Impunity, Incompetent, Hoodwink, Rogue, Psychotic, Mobster, Traitor, Malaysian Collaborator, Oligarchy, Elitist, Media-hyped.

ANTI-ROYALTY. The anti-dynasty slogan is soft, I will make it stronger with anti-royalty, not as a legislated measure but as a voting culture. Pag ang magulang ay naging Presidente o Senador na noon, huwag na iboto ang anak na kumakandidatong Presidente o Senador, payuhan na lang na i-invest sa private sector business ang mga kinita nila nung naka-upo pa ang magulang nila. Yang mga magkakamag-anak na dala-dalawa na sa Senado, huwag na iboto yang dalawang pareho, isa lang dapat kada angkan. Walang forever - isang termino lang dapat para parating bago ang naka-upo, ma Presidente man, o Senador, o Congressman, Governor, Mayor. WALANG PAGBABAGO SA LUMANG KANDIDATO. #iBOTOangBAGO


Monday, July 27, 2015

George Soros: By failing to help refugees Europe fails itself

By failing to help refugees Europe fails itself
By: George Soros
Financial Times
July 27, 2015

As many as 400,000 people will make dangerous journeys to reach Europe this year, about half of them fleeing the civil war in Syria or brutal government repression in Eritrea. By the time they reach the west, they will have had to risk their lives twice: once in fleeing their countries, and again in entering ours.

The victims of many previous conflicts have had better luck. After the 1956 Soviet invasion, 200,000 Hungarians fled to Austria and Yugoslavia; within months almost all had been resettled in countries as far flung as the US, Australia, Brazil and Tunisia. A generation later, when war scattered millions in Indochina, the international community resettled 1.3m. In the 1990s, the Balkan conflicts displaced almost 4m people, and again the world helped.

But in the present refugee crisis the EU has failed to act collectively, leading countries to take matters into their own hands. Hungary is building a fence along its border with Serbia. Frontline states are shirking their obligations under the European asylum system, for instance by failing to provide adequate reception and asylum processing capacity, thus encouraging them to move elsewhere in the EU. France and Austria have temporarily reinstated passport controls at borders.

After the Refugee Convention was adopted in 1951, Europe served for decades as its moral and operational backbone. No longer. In May, the European Commission proposed a comprehensive agenda on migration that, if implemented, would give Europeans what they seek — a sense of control over migration flows. In most EU countries, citizens view legal migration positively; it is the chaos at their borders that sends them into the arms of populists.

Yet only two aspects of the commission’s agenda received immediate support: a military mission targeting smugglers in the Mediterranean, which launched last month, and a robust effort to return migrants who are found not to qualify for international protection. The rest of the plan, which aimed to save lives and create livelihoods for those unable to go home, came under attack.

The most resisted idea was a mandatory plan to take 40,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to be processed in other member states. In the end, only 32,000 were accepted on a voluntary basis. The impact on most of those countries would be minimal — and they, too, are likely to be beneficiaries of the relocation principle when migration flows shift. A proposal to resettle 20,000 refugees from camps in the Middle East also proved unattainable.

These programmes embody the spirit of shared responsibility that lies at the heart of the EU. If they do not become permanent and mandatory features of the common European asylum system, it will fall apart. If improved, however, the European asylum system could serve as a model for international co-operation on refugee protection.

Europe must make it possible for refugees to apply for asylum in safety. This does not mean offering protection to everyone in need. But those whom Europe does accept should not be forced to risk their lives. In practice, this would entail allowing people to apply for asylum from abroad. Thousands of Syrian refugees with skills needed in Europe — doctors, nurses, construction workers — languish unemployed in Lebanese and Jordanian camps. The EU could allow them to apply for labour visas.

As it pursues one integrated migration and asylum policy, the EU should eliminate the waste and redundancy of 28 parallel systems. There should be a single European asylum and migration agency, for example, that processes asylum applications for the entire union. Eventually, a joint border guard should be established, too.

The EU’s migration system must be remade to reflect a more collective and generous spirit — and one that is more faithful to European values.


Friday, July 24, 2015

Suggestion to new firearm license process

I suggest the new PNP management to just resume the procedure where we took off before the chaos and confusion of gun licensing process. Decentralized dapat yang complete processing ng renewal ng license card. We (the already licensed gun owners) merely bring our old license card to the nearest license processing site (list must be published in the PNP website and also in Official Gazette), and then we complete a form, picture will be taken by the computer, we pay the fee, and we get our new license card right away. Ganyan lang dapat ka simple at mabilis ang "routine" and "non-problematic" renewal process. Pag merong third party complaint against any particular gun-owner, saka na bigyan ng special investigation ang particular na gun-owner at ipa-tawag (summon via subpoena duces tecum) para mag-comply sa lahat na control-requirements such as court clearance, police clearance, NBI clearance, psychiatric test result, drug test result.