Roe v. Wade stuns America like a zombie apocalypse

“I'm against abortion. On the other hand, I believe in a woman's choice.”

—Nancy Reagan

By Alex P. Vidal

EVEN if I am not comfortable with this subject matter, I am obligated to make a stand and say something about the hottest topic that has rocked the United States in the past 48 hours: Roe v. Wade.

But, first, why would Roe v. Wade suddenly occupy the front seat of the national discussion when America is grappling with the issues on all-time high inflation, immigration woes, Ukraine invasion by Russia, the come-backing Omicron sub-variants, and the midterm election multi-state primaries?

Who would have thought that a “zombie” slumbering for 50 years suddenly rose from the cemetery and terrorized America in 2022? 

Nobody but that’s exactly what is happening in the United States today now that the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe V. Wade, the genesis of all this hysteria, was leaked in public.

The controversial Roe v. Wade, a 1973 lawsuit that famously led to the United States Supreme Court making a ruling on women's right to an abortion, or the attempt to overturn it, has been resurrected and the wave of panic among the stakeholders has become like a zombie apocalypse. 

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As of press time protest rallies have continued to be staged in the U.S.  Supreme Court and it appears the issue won’t die down easily in the next few weeks.

Fears and disbelief suddenly gripped the liberals and those who support legal abortion especially when the Supreme Court confirmed the draft’s authenticity.  

For starters, the landmark SC decision emanated from the case of Jane Roe, an unmarried pregnant woman, who filed suit on behalf of herself and others to challenge Texas abortion laws. 

A Texas doctor joined Roe's lawsuit, arguing that the state's abortion laws were too vague for doctors to follow. He had previously been arrested for violating the statute.

Abortion was illegal in Texas at that time unless it was done to save the mother's life. It was also a crime to get an abortion or to attempt one.

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decided two important things:

—The United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion.

—But the abortion right is not absolute. It must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.

The Court split the difference between the two arguments presented. First, the Court recognized that abortion does fall under women's privacy rights.

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The constitutional right to privacy comes from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause does not explicitly state that Americans have a right to privacy. 

However, the Supreme Court has recognized such a right going all the way back to 1891. 

Just one year before Roe, the Supreme Court held that "in a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of 'liberty' must be broad indeed." 

In Roe v. Wade, the Court decided that this right to privacy extends to a woman's control over a pregnancy.

The justices acknowledged that being forced to continue a pregnancy puts a lot at risk for women, such as: Physical health, Mental health, Financial burdens, Social stigma.

The abortion debate is mainly within right-libertarianism between cultural liberals and social conservatives as left-libertarians generally see it as a settled issue regarding individual rights, as they support legal access to abortion as part of what they consider to be a woman's right to control her body and its functions.

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EVEN if President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered an end to on-line sabong “effective immediately”, we doubt if some of the operators who have invested heavily like Atong Ang, will obey him.

For the big time gamblers and operators, it’s not a joke to lose hundreds of millions of revenues in one fell swoop.

Aside from money they amass, big time gambling operators also gain power as they are also hailed like demigods by corrupt policemen, government officials, and media personalities who get regular payola.

As a sign of respect to the president’s authority, they might stop for a while, but might proceed once more with the gambling activity surreptitiously in clandestine operations when no one is watching, or when everyone has forgotten the praiseworthy edict.

Especially when Mr. Duterte is no longer in power. 

(The author, who is now based in the New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)

New York’s ‘Aguy-Aguy’: I hate on-line sabong

“Oh, it's not really gambling when you never lose.”

—Jennifer Aniston

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“AGUY-AGUY” (“ouch-ouch”) assured his children in Brgy. Maria Clara, Iloilo City Proper in the Philippines “he was never involved” in on-line sabong, a cockfighting aired “live” on-line from the Philippines when they recently talked via Facebook messenger.

“Wala na ako naga sugal diri ya (I don’t engage in gambling here anymore). Some (on-line sabong organizers) of them are my friends, but when they started to talk about gambling, especially sabong, I kept quite and slowly walked away. I hate on-line sabong,” the 72-year-old Ilonggo former sailor, a New York resident, told his children in Iloilo City.

Aguy-Aguy’s family became worried for his safety after they learned that several on-line cockfighting bettors and capitalists in the Philippines went missing and were never heard and seen again after being kidnapped since last year.

Many male Filipino gamblers in the borough of Queens were reportedly “very active” in on-line sabong even before the pandemic.

We reported here last year that some of them have been “kicked out” from their apartments by their wives who couldn’t anymore tolerate their gambling addiction.

 

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“Dito sa New York they don’t kidnap each other dahil matindi ang batas dito. Walang patayan. Napaka imposibli yan. What they do is they rat with each other. Pa-traidor ang labanan. Dalawa dito ang sugalan. Sila sila mismo ang nag ti-tip sa mga pulis. Syempre kung nasa Pilipinas sila nagpatayan na yan,” disclosed Boyet Pampanga, Aguy-Aguy’s friend.

He is known in the Filipino community as “aguy aguy”, a Hiligaynon translation for “ouch ouch” in English or “aray aray” in Tagalog.

The real Hiligaynon word for ouch is “araguy”, but friends in Queens call him “aguy-aguy”, slang or shortcut of “araguy-araguy.”

Aguy-Aguy actually loathed the way fellow Filipinos addressed him.

“I have a name, but they teased me because of intrigues,” Aguy-Aguy once bemoaned.

“Yun na kasi ang tatak niya at ang naging identity kaya alam na ng mga tao na siya ang tinutukoy pag may nangyari nanaman sa kalye (That’s already his identity and he has been known for that alias that’s why people are aware if there is another incident in the road),” disclosed Boyet Pampanga, Aguy-Aguy’s friend.

 

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When he didn’t have a job, Aguy-Aguy reportedly would wait for his “targets” in the sidewalks. 

He would reportedly choose passing vehicles driven by women or younger drivers before throwing himself onto the middle of the road or the roadside pretending he had been sideswiped.

When the drivers stopped and checked, he would grimace and moan “araguuuuuy…araguuuuuy” (ouch..ouch). 

For fear of being arrested or booked for the vehicular “accident”, other traffic “violations” and to avoid inconvenience, the drivers would reportedly agree for a “settlement” if Aguy-Aguy “wasn’t badly hurt.”

“Kumita siya sa gimmick na yan (He earned a lot of money in that gimmickry),” Bebot, who allegedly witnessed some of Aguy-Aguy’s exploits, said. 

“Sa una nakakatuwa ang mga ginagawa niya. Pero sa bandang huli na-isip isip rin namin na paano na lang kung matuluyan siya? (His stunts looked funny earlier, but we realized later that what if he will be hit by car fatally?),” Butchoy, another “witness”, intoned.

 

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Aguy-Aguy jumped ship in 1979, two years before Ronald Reagan became the 40^thpresident of the United States.

Five years into his presidency, Reagan signed into law The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 on Nov. 6, 1986. 

It provided amnesty to nearly three million undocumented immigrants who proved that they had been in the United States prior to Jan. 1, 1982.

Aguy-Aguy was among those who benefited from the Reagan Amnesty and became a U.S. citizen.

The law's sanctions against employers who hired undocumented immigrants were never vigorously enforced. 

He was already reportedly a retiree when he started doing the “aguy-aguy” stunts. 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)