MANILA, Philippines: Influential Roman Catholic bishops voiced support Sunday for two officials who exposed allegations of large-scale corruption in the Philippine government, urging Filipinos to back efforts to uncover the truth.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines praised former House Speaker Jose de Venecia and a government consultant, Rodolfo Lozada Jr., for bringing to public attention a bribery scandal that implicated President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s husband and a resigned election official.
The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic, and the church played key roles in the nonviolent revolts that ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 over allegations of massive corruption and misrule.
In the latest instance the bishops, led by Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, called de Venecia and Lozada “courageous” for exposing “the high level of graft and corruption.”
“Their public confession may be considered a providential event that may yet save our country from being hostage to scandalous and shady government deals,” Lagdameo said in a statement posted on the Web site of the bishops’ group.
“Our country has too long been captive to the corruption of people in governance,” he said. “We have to confess that corruption is, in truth, our greatest shame as a people.”
Lagdameo urged the Philippines to back religious groups’ efforts to uncover the truth behind the alleged corruption and to join protest prayers.
“This truth challenges us now to communal action,” he said.
De Venecia, 71, was the longest-serving speaker of the powerful House of Representatives. Arroyo’s dominant allies removed him from the post in a Feb. 5 vote.
Arroyo’s alliance with de Venecia frayed last year when his son, Jose “Joey” de Venecia III — a losing bidder in a government broadband contract — told a Senate inquiry that Arroyo’s husband had been promised a US$70 million kickback from the deal. Her husband, Jose “Mike” Miguel Arroyo, denied the allegation.
De Venecia stood by his son’s allegations, and claims he has knowledge of cheating in the 2004 presidential elections that Arroyo won.
Lozada, a government consultant for the US$330 million broadband contract, told a Senate inquiry last week that Benjamin Abalos, a former elections chief, allegedly acted as a broker for the deal and threatened to kill him if he did not obtain a kickback of about US$130 million for him from the deal. Abalos denied the charge and threatened to sue Lozada for libel.
Lozada and his family alleged he was forcibly taken by authorities as he arrived from a foreign trip last week, to prevent him from testifying about the scandal. Police denied his claim.
Lozada has been under the protection of the Senate, an opposition bastion that plans to resume an investigation of the alleged abduction and bribery scandal on Monday.
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On the Net:
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Web site.
Far-right French nationalist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen has been found guilty for playing down Nazi war crimes and was sentenced on Friday.
Jean-Marie Le Pen. Photo: AP
The leader and founder of the Front National party was given a three-month suspended jail sentence for saying in 2005 that the German occupation of France during World War II as “not especially inhumane.”
Le Pen, 79, scored a surprise second-place finish in the 2002 French presidential election, after beating the socialist candidate in the first round. He lost in the second round to Jacques Chirac. He ran again in 2007, but finished fourth.
He has a history of involvement in racist incidents and facing accusations of Holocaust denial. In 1997, Le Pen accused Chirac of being on the pay roll of Jewish organizations, particularly B’nai Brith. In 2006, he said that France’s national soccer team contained too many non-white players, and was not an accurate reflection of French society. He went on to scold players for not singing the French national anthem, saying they “were not French.”
In the 2007 election campaign, Le Pen referred to Nicolas Sarkozy as “foreign” and as “the foreigner” due to Sarkozy’s Hungarian heritage.
Meanwhile, the French Interior Ministry has suspended three policemen accused of making Nazi-style salutes.
The policemen are alleged to have made the salutes, and also shouted racist insults, in a bar in the northern town of Amiens last week.
The three were in plain clothes and accompanied by two others who were allegedly shouting “Sieg Heil.”
The bar owner reported the incident to local police.
French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie called the incident “intolerable behavior” that “totally contradicts police ethics.”
I have to hand it to these folks, the weather in Cleveland where I am is brutal, so further north in Detroit it took some serious dedication to stand in the cold protesting against the leaders of the Church in Scientology.
An Anon sent these pics of their small, but nonetheless, tough group at today’s protests.
Here’s what someone who was at the event had to say about the protest in Detroit:
I drove to the Farmington Hill’s Org about an hour early to check the place out and parked down the corner. There were already to police cars there waiting. I said hi to the cop and he was none to happy to see me. Wanted to know why I was there and who I was and then what the fuss was all about. He made a big point of saying as cold as it was no one would show. And man it was very very cold.
I explained that if he insisted I would be happy to give him my name and address but first please tell me why he needed it. At that point he rolled his window back up and went back to his morning coffee and paper.
Right before 11 am the cars started coming. And let me tell you there were a lot of them with a lot of people. At last count I had counted over 60 people, mostly teens and young adults. The signs were great and they did everything they could to stay within the law. The only problem we almost had was the police told me and others not to take any pictures of them. And they made everyone remove their masks.
The org sent out one poor cold guy to take pictures. There are no faces in any of the ones I took. Most these guys are kids and I didn’t see the need to provide scientology with any help in that area.
It was a happy go lucky bunch of protesters, some had signs, some had camera’s and some even brought drinks and stuff for everyone. All were very lawful and respectful to the police and did themselves proud.
It was a great morning and I am about to head back out. But wanted to post what has happened so far.
It all started with this. If you’re wondering what the masks are all about, they are from V For Vendetta
Photo’s by me, Sunday, outisde the Chruch Of Scientology, Tottenham Court Road, London.
Header Image, a snippet of the excellent V for Vendetta, Written by Alan Moore, and illustrated by David Lloyd. Published in the UK by Titan Books Limited. It may look like a comic book, but it’s actually about politics – fascism, anarchy, concentration camps and liberty. Written in 1981, but even more relevant today. (Don’t waste your time with the film adaptation)
In a subtitled video that popped up in a few places on the Internet early this morning — Glosslip.com found it, and it was later picked up by Gawker.com and other sites — Scientology leader David Miscavige is shown speaking to an audience about both the religion’s multipronged campaign for the “global obliteration of psychiatry” and its international effort to disseminate a booklet, authored by Church founder L. Ron Hubbard, that the organization uses for outreach. The video appears to have been made in 2006. Miscavige mentions the value of “corporate tie-ins” and implies that multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, 7-Eleven and Dell Computer have been involved in distribution of Church literature.
In describing the workings of what he called “the 2006 campaign for the global elimination of psychiatry,” Miscavige boasts of a coordinated international public relations attack meant to damage and discredit the psychiatric profession, its revenues and the drugs it employs.
“That campaign was expressly, maybe even diabolically, engineered to ignite both government action and media blizzard,” says Miscavige from a lectern. “Our Mental Health Adjustment Kit essentially works like a ’smart’ bomb in that it sniffs out ‘psych’ fuel lines and blows the funding mechanism.”
“To put it bluntly,” he continues, a moment before receiving rousing cheers from a large audience, “we booby-trap the whole psychiatric ecosystem.”
Miscavige also goes into detail about a program he refers to as Operation Planetary Calm, whose goal is the worldwide distribution of Hubbard’s “The Way to Happiness,” a text the Church of Scientology refers to as a nonreligious “common-sense guide to happier living,” according to a website registered under the address of the church. Part of the strategy, he says, is “corporate tie-ins.”
“Multinationals tend to have Third World image problems,” he notes as snippets of video play. “So this is what they’re doing about it — Coca-Cola Pakistan with a braille edition for the blind … Philips Electronics, likewise all over Pakistan, and Dell Computers all over Africa.”
Miscavige also implies that 4,000 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan carry the book, and adds that “the numbers grow even larger when you follow the campaign trail into Taiwanese schools — to date, it’s 250,000 by order of Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.”
At one point, a computer animation depicts a giant grenade, labeled “Psych Buster,” exploding near a building labeled “government” and another building, perhaps a bank, with a large dollar sign on its side. Miscavige repeatedly invokes end-times biblical tropes such as “plagues,” “parting seas” and “apocalyspe,” and cites the goal of breaking “the dark spell cast across Earth by psychiatry.”
After a message was left with the church seeking comment on the apparently leaked videos, links to which were initially sent to The Times by investigative journalist Mark Ebner, a spokesman identifying himself as Kendrick Moxon returned a call to say he was aware of the video. He described it as “an edited copy of a pirated video.”
“Some sort of an excerpt is what it appears to be,” he said, and did not deny that the video represented a real event.
Late calls to Coca-Cola seeking comment were not immediately returned.
As of this writing, at least three copies of the video had been posted on YouTube, the most-watched of which had fewer than 10,000 views.
Web Scout was intrigued by the idea that major corporations around the world might be part of a vast network of dissemination for Scientology-related literature and booklets. So I made a couple of calls to the communications departments of companies named in the latest leaked video. Here’s what they’re saying:
Dell Inc. spokesman: “This came to our attention yesterday. We did research it with our colleagues in our Europe, Middle East and Africa business segment and with our colleagues in South Africa. We found no evidence that this is accurate, and it’s not our practice to disseminate religious materials of any kind. We’ve got no affiliation with the Church of Scientology.”
7/11 spokeswoman: “My international department believes that it’s unfounded and inaccurate. But we’ve got to follow up with our licensee and get to the bottom of it.”
Philips Electronics spokesman: “We were as stunned as anybody this morning. It’s not something we were aware of. As an equal opportunity employer, religion is not something we comment on.”
Several of the spokespeople noted that in the video, Miscavige uses slippery language to avoid directly saying the corporations took part in any distribution efforts.
Take another look at the text of the speech–and you”ll notice the lack of actual verbs.
Then there’s our corporate tie ins. The multinationals tend to have Third World image problems, so this is what they’re doing about it–Coca Cola Pakistan with a braille edition for the blind, nationally televised no less. Philips Electronics, likewise all over Pakistan, and Dell Computers all over Africa.
Other entities named in the video are investigating the matter before commenting.
Anonymous organizers are expecting about 150 masked protesters to turn up outside the Church of Scientology building on Yonge St., south of Bloor St., today.
They are anonymous. They are legion. And they are either an elaborate, viral Internet prank played by bored adolescents on a painfully easy target – the much-maligned, star-studded Church of Scientology – or the amalgamation of a vast network of resourceful cyber-activists intent on wobbling the organization permanently.
Either way, about 150 of them are expected to turn up on Yonge St. today – most of them masked, in the interest of remaining, well, anonymous – to hand out flyers and generally make life uncomfortable at the church’s Toronto property (in their online forums at enturbulation.org, Anons urge one another to practise polite protestation. As one poster put it, “Bring your warm clothes, your signs, your fliers (sic), your food and water. Do not bring your weapons, your inappropriate language, your bad temper or your stupid rowdy troublemaking ass.”)
This being the Internet, the protest – or raid, as they prefer to call it – is just one of a vast mobilization effort of Anons. A network of peaceful demonstrations against the church has been planned in 14 countries and dozens of churches.
The religious group countered in a statement late yesterday that “‘Anonymous’ is perpetrating religious hate crimes against Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry.” It added: “‘Anonymous’ claims of altruistic purposes are no different than those heard from any terrorist or hate group.”
Organized online and completely nonhierarchical, the amalgamation of Anonymous is the direct result of a very public gaffe by the very private organization. Last month, an internal promotional video was leaked to the Internet. In it, a wild-eyed Tom Cruise – the organization’s marquee adherent among Hollywood brethren like John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson – lionized the church as the saviour of a society.
It appeared on several news sitesand YouTube, but its widespread distribution was brief. The organization’s lawyers threatened legal action based on copyright violation.
But one site, Gawker.com, the satirical entertainment industry blog run by Nick Denton, refused, claiming it was newsworthy. The video can still be seen there and has been millions of times: nearly 2.8 million as of yesterday, a new record for the site.
The video, in which Cruise, rhapsodic about Scientology’s potential to heal the world – “We are the authorities on getting people off drugs, we are the authorities on the mind, we can rehabilitate criminals,” he says in the video; “We can bring peace and unite cultures” – has spurred renewed interest in the organization, which has been described by its critics as an oppressive cult.
The most visible product of Cruise’s suddenly public proclamations, though, appears to be a backlash against an intensely secretive organization that has been accused of harassment of its critics and members who choose to leave it. And the most tangible manifestation of that backlash is Anonymous.
“It basically came down to a tipping point,” said one of the organizers of today’s Toronto protest. “There was a random suggestion after the video came out – `We should do something about this.’ And it snowballed into this international effort.”
Mark Bunker, an Emmy-winning television journalist in Los Angeles who has been critical of the church’s affairs for almost 10 years, sees the Anonymous effort as a natural culmination. “It’s been building for 15 years,” said Bunker, who runs a personal Scientology watchdog site, Xenutv.com. “Now, we have an army of people.”
Bunker’s words are harsh, but he’s experienced retribution first hand. Shortly after he began covering the organization, a pair of Scientologists showed up to picket his house with signs: “Beware: Your neighbour Mark Bunker is not all the he seems,” they read. “Your neighbour Mark Bunker is a religious bigot.”
Bunker became a paternal figure for the legions of Anons when, on seeing their first video on YouTube, promising mayhem, he posted a video response, counselling them to remain civil. The exhortation was taken to heart – “Do not bring … your stupid, rowdy, troublemaking ass” – and Bunker is now hailed by the Anons as “Wise Beard Man.”
Though it elicits a chuckle from Bunker, among others, there is little to laugh at regarding episodes in the church’s near 60-year history. Scientology is based on Dianetics, a self-help book written in 1950 by the science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, the church’s founder.
In the 1970s, the organization went to extremes, infiltrating government offices in Canada, the United States and Britain. They called the effort “Operation Snow White.” In 1977, the FBI raided church offices and found evidence enough to convict nine members of conspiracy to steal government documents, notably from the Internal Revenue Service, and obstruction of justice. Among the conspirators charged in 1979 was Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue.
In the years that followed, the organization would eventually gain non-profit status in the United States in 1993 but it would also surrender some of its closest secrets – namely, the disclosure of its vast asset base, which, according to the IRS, totalled $400 million in 1993.
It would also see its central religious myth made common knowledge: Hubbard conceived the notion that an evil alien ruler named Xenu murdered millions of beings from various planets on Earth 75 million years ago. Their souls, or “body thetans,” as Hubbard called them, attach themselves to humans, weighing their spirit down. Scientology purports to help people get “clear” of both the ancient alien spirits that weigh them down, and those who oppose the practice of erasing negative episodes and experiences, gauged by an instrument they call an “e-meter.”
The disclosure did little to dispel the notion that the church was little more than what its critics had called it: a cult.
Nonetheless, it was able to maintain and expand its legion of celebrity adherents – Hubbard identified the significance of celebrity sheen early on, calling them in an internal memo in the 1950s as “quarry” and “game” – and with an estimated annual revenue stream of $300 million, largely from membership, counselling fees and the sales of Hubbard’s books and videos, the church is a financial force. It is a large property owner in Canada and the U.S., most notably acquiring and restoring historic buildings on Hollywood Boulevard.
But with the Cruise video still circulating and the Anonymous movement galvanizing anti-church sentiment, the organization finds itself cast in the uncomfortable position of public scrutiny as new interest opens old wounds and suspicions as to its mission.
And the previously air-tight organization continues to leak. In an internal church video also available at Gawker, David Miscavige, a high-ranking church executive, refers to the organization’s “campaign to break the dark spell cast across Earth by psychiatry,” one of Scientology’s principal missions.
As a slick computer animation plays on a large screen behind him – government buildings penetrated by eruptions of flame – he boasts that the church’s efforts to “obliterate” the practice has “booby-trapped the whole psychiatric ecosystem.” As he says this, the audience erupts in cheers.
Some Anons have admitted that the appeal of the effort is partially shock humour. “But a fair number of people are taking it seriously,” says the Toronto Anon.
A Scientology primerWho: Founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard (b. 1911 — d. 1986), author of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which details a “methodology that can help alleviate such things as unwanted sensations and emotions, irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses.”Where: First Church of Scientology founded in Glendale, Cal., in February 1954. Church claims membership thoughout the world.What: An “applied religious philosophy,” Scientology purports that “man is a spiritual being endowed with abilities well beyond those he normally envisages. He is able to solve his own problems, accomplish his goals and gain lasting happiness.” In 1985, Scientologists in Los Angeles tried to block public access to court documents revealing “advanced” teachings that suggest many human ills date from 75 million years ago when Earth was part of an overcrowded confederation ruled by the alien Xenu. Xenu solved the population problem by rounding up excess beings, transporting them to volcanoes on Earth and dropping hydrogen bombs on them. The victims’ spirits gathered in clusters and attached themselves to humans, whom they haunt to this day. Hubbard called these clustered spirits “body thetans.”
How: Known for its “auditing,” a form of one-on-one counselling in which a lie detector-like instrument called an e-meter is used to help people erase negative experiences, supposedly freeing them to achieve their full potential.
Celebrity Scientologists: Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman, Beck, Jason Lee, Giovanni Ribisi, Isaac Hayes, Lisa Marie Presley.
In Canada: According to the 2001 Census, there are 1,525 Scientologists in Canada.
DOZENS of protests against the Church of Scientology across the US, Canada and Western Europe are planned today as part of a campaign organised by the internet group “Anonymous”.
Anonymous are a loose collection of internet users, including some hackers, who declared “war” on the church last month and temporarily prevented access to at least one official Scientology website.
Members of the group organised a worldwide day of protest to coincide with the birthday of Lisa McPherson, who died while in the care of a branch of the church in 1995. Criminal charges filed against the church over Ms McPherson’s death were dropped in 2000.
A demonstration in central Sydney yesterday drew about 150 people, most of them carrying picket signs and wearing costumes or masks, who accused the church of financially exploiting its members and suppressing free speech.
Up to 200 people attended a similar demonstration in Melbourne, roughly half of them wearing masks. Protests were also planned in Perth and Adelaide.
The Church of Scientology’s Oceania branch condemned the actions of Anonymous and described the group as “cyber-terrorists”.
“Anonymous is perpetrating religious hate crimes against Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry,” the church said in a statement.
“It is Anonymous that has repeatedly attempted to suppress free speech through illegal assaults on church websites so as to prevent internet users from obtaining information.”
Members of the Anonymous group released fresh information in preparation for the worldwide protests, including the locations of Scientology churches in the US, UK, Canada and France, restrictions on protesting behaviour, advice for speaking to the media and a press release detailing the group’s motivations.
One of the guides published online included tips on how to appear confident when speaking to reporters and asked protestors not to use the term “raid” to describe the demonstrations.
In an open letter detailing the group’s intentions, an Anonymous member said the protests would be non-violent and were aimed at exposing the church’s “corrupt” leadership.
“Our first major objective is the revocation of (the church’s) tax-exempt status wherever it has managed to obtain one,” the letter said.
Web Scout was intrigued by the idea that major corporations around the world might be part of a vast network of dissemination for Scientology-related literature and booklets. So I made a couple of calls to the communications departments of companies named in the latest leaked video. Here’s what they’re saying:
