Abby Tan is a long-time Singapore journalist who has made Manila her home. She has been battling cancer for several years now.

Below is her latest e-mail:

Date: Thursday, June 18, 2009, 11:23 AM

Dear Friends and Supporters:

I started on the dendritic cell therapy on an experimental trial basis at the National Cancer Centre of Singapore on June 10. The day before I had my PET/CT scan to check the status of my breast cancer stage 4. The result was catastrophic.

The cancer blew back with a vengeance, in less than 3 months after I finished my 6 cycles of chemo and a new drug Avastin. The cancer has (1) recurred in the same spot where the original tumour was removed 2½ years ago; a lesion is growing and is giving me pain. (2) I’ve many more metastasis now compared to during the chemo treatment; they have grown even bigger in the bone and liver and some are new growths. In sum, I am worse off now compared to before I underwent chemotherapy for six months.

I looked around for anecdotal evidence if Avastin does work for others. I found that the several patients I know (also in stage 4) who used Avastin had the same results, i.e. NO results. Their cancer grew again back the moment they ended their treatment.

It seems like, in my layman understaning, Avastin has only the Baygon spray effect, i.e. as long as you spray, the mosquitoes die, the moment you stop spraying, the mozzies come back. So it has no added value to our cancer treamant when you are in stage 4..

At US$6,600 per dose per month, this is the most expensive repellent I know and its use has broken the bank accounts of all those who tried it.

It will take a few more days for my bewilderment and shock to subside. As my caring friends tell me, I must now focus on the future, on the dendritic therapy.

To the many people far and wide, some very close friends and some not even known to me, who donated money generously to my dendritic celll therapy fundraiser, I say a bigger “Thank You” to you for giving me hope, now that I realise I have a fall-back position.

I’m sure you’re rooting for me even harder.

Hugs and lots of love. Abby

Dragging the Senate into a Constituent Assembly is easier than we think. I’m basing the following on my experience as a Senate reporter.

Imagine the following scene:

The third Monday of July which falls on the 27th is the first and only time of the year that Congress is required by the Constitution to convene jointly to listen to the President address the nation.

Nothing in the Constitution bars congressmen from also using the occasion for another purpose – like convening a Constituent Assembly.

After the senators and congressmen are jointly assembled, both the Senate President and the Speaker of the House announce the session open.

Then the President speaks.

Afterwards the Speaker bangs the gavel to announce the session adjourned. What if in the same sentence that he announces the adjournment he declares the Constituent Assembly open then just as quickly adds the Assembly would meet the following day. Then bangs the gavel.

This would merely take seconds.

Any objections or walkout by any of the senators could become useless by then. Because by then, the deed is done. They need not even attend any of the Assembly sessions because their presence would no longer be needed nor wanted.

If the Speaker does this, he could well create a justiciable controversy that could throw the entire issue onto the lap of the Commission on Elections and the Supreme Court.

Morals aside, this is a beautiful, brilliant and simple doable plan. I’m not suggesting they do this. Merely suspecting they might do it.

It’s similar to what Speaker Manuel Villar did in the year 2000 when he suddenly declared then President Joseph Estrada impeached by the House and declared he was sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate just before banging the gavel.

By Raissa Robles

Whenever a people declare independence, the first thing they do is spell out their dreams and modes of behavior in a social contract.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would like to radically revise the social contract embedded in the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

Her proposed revisions would shut out World Boxing champion Manny Pacquiao from Congress along with the poor and marginalized sectors whose voices are now being heard through party list groups.

Her revisions were compiled four years ago when she commissioned 55 men and women to draft a new constitution using our tax money. This draft constitution made by her Constitutional Commission requires for the first time a college degree for all lawmakers, which Pacquiao doesn’t have. It also abolishes the present party list system that was put there to broaden democratic participation.

The vice-chairman of Mrs Arroyo’s Constitutional Commission is the same Victor Ortega who sponsored this June 2 House Resolution 1109 empowering the House to convene into a Constituent Assembly in order to amend the 1987 Constitution even without Senate participation.

Congressman Ortega chairs the Lower House committee on constitutional amendments and sponsored House Resolution 1109 on the chamber floor.

Thirty-eight years ago, Ortega was a delegate in the 1971 Constitutional Convention which provided the legal legs for Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship.

If the Constituent Assembly is convened, Ortega can simply produce on the floor the draft Constitution that he helped prepare for President Arroyo in 2005.

I bought a copy of that draft which was published by Constitutional Commission chairman Jose Abueva in a book with a green cover.

I was appalled when I read it.

Key provisions that made the 1987 Constitution a remarkable document had been excised. The 47 framers of the 1987 charter had managed to insert sections that diluted the interests of the rich and powerful elite. Not that the framers were against them. They simply believed everyone else should have a more equitable share of the economic and political pie.

The framers therefore wrote in a section that is absent in both the two previous Constitutions of 1935 and 1973. In Article 12 on “National Economy and Patrimony”, the first section states that “the goals of the national economy are a more equitable distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth.”

Nowhere does this section state that the primary goal for the nation’s economy is to achieve a record growth rate of 7% in gross domestic product, as what Mrs. Arroyo has been trumpeting as her achievement in the economic sphere.

Even as economic growth soared, the disparity in income and wealth has widened and economic opportunities are cornered by a select few.

The framers of the 1987 Constitution wanted certain sections to spell out in laborious detail the antidotes to correct what was terribly wrong in the country.

One of the problems they saw burdening the political system was the swarm of political dynasties. They therefore inserted in Article 2 on the “Declaration of Principles and State Policies” the following section: “The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.”

Since the Constitution was ratified 22 years ago, Congress has failed to do its constitutional duty by enacting a law against dynasties. We now have in fact a plague of dynasties across a wide political spectrum. A brother and sister are in the Senate. The Lower House has two brothers, an uncle and an aunt all together. In southern Philippines, members of one clan occupy elective posts from councilor to mayor to governor.

What’s wrong with dynasties if they are all qualified and performing very well?

I’ll share with you a family secret. When I was a child, my late aunt Renata Agudo, who married a judge named Manuel Agudo from Batanes, periodically approached my father who was her brother for a loan.

She said she needed money to run for Congress. She promised to repay it as soon as she won. She told my father in all honesty – “Sa Kongreso, hindi ka kailangang gumawa. Ang pera ang lumalapit sa yo.” (In Congress, you don’t have to steal because money comes to you.)

Political dynasties monopolize this generous flow of money. Why not let others also have the same opportunity? Why should the same family corner it for decades?

When I was covering the Senate, Senator Vicente Paterno justified the pork barrel system as “the democratization of patronage.”

When relatives increasingly fill up elective posts, there is instead a concentration of patronage.

The heart of the Filipino social contract is in Article 2 of the Constitution containing the “Declaration of Principles and State Policies”.

Mrs. Arroyo’s Commission proposed to trim the sections from the present 28 sections to only 13. Among the sections they proposed to excise were the following:

Section 8 banning nuclear weapons in Philippine territory

Section 9 enjoining the State to “promote a just and dynamic social order that will ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free the people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services, promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and an improved quality of life for all.”

Section 13 recognizing “the vital role of the youth in nation-building”

Section 15 enjoining the State to protect the health of its people

Section 16 enjoining the State to “protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature.”

Section 17 enjoining the State to “give priority to education, science and techn0logy, arts, culture and sports to foster patriotism and nationalism, accelerate social progress, and promote total human liberation and development.”

Section 19 enjoining the State to “develop a self-reliant and independent national economy effectively controlled by Filipinos.”

Section 20 recognizing “the indispensable role of the private sector” and enjoining the State to provide incentives and investments

Section 21 enjoining the State to “promote comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform”

Section 22 enjoining the State to promote indigenous people’s rights

Section 23 encouraging NGOs that promote national welfare

Section 24 recognizing the vital role of communication and information in nation-building

Section 25 ensuring local government autonomy

Section 26 granting “equal access to opportunities for public service” and banning political dynasties “as may be defined by law”

And finally, Section 27 enjoining the State to maintain “honesty and integrity in the public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption.”

All these sections were erased from the revised social contract that Mrs Arroyo tried to ram through a plebiscite that the Supreme Court ruled was fake.

Do you want that to happen again through a Constituent Assembly?

Just asking.