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Posted on December 30, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

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HR 1109 will succeed — in bringing all its authors down

Posted on June 10, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

WHAT deadly virus has come upon the majority of our congressman that they have practically turned into lemmings marching on to a tragic, suicidal end collectively? These are erudite, honorable men who help steer the country's ship but who are now tempting the Fates and bringing the whole nation on the brink of a real chaos.  Their House Resolution 1109 may yet be written in history as the Resolution that Brought an Administration Down.

 

If these elected leaders of the people do not tread more carefully (okay, say it straight, repent!) and insist on their haughty, arrogant ways in ramming thru their Con-Ass (constituent assembly) to preserve their greedy hold to power, they may yet succeed in doing the reverse – losing it – and come crashing down.

 

These horrorables even have the gall to “bait” the senators who are opposed to their moves by saying the signatories to their resolution will adhere to a “pre-condition” that if the Con-Ass ever passes, they will not touch the mandated terms of the incumbent senators! What was it that the Spider said to the Fly.. “Come into my parlor…”

 

If any Senator ever falls for that sweetener, he's no better than them 

 

The gathering storm their collective act spawned has made even key administration officials like NEDA’s Ralph Recto tremble and openly ring the alarm bells.

 

Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee – shameless congressmen. The likes of Nograles, Antonino and – funny, but this time, the veterans Villafuerte, Lagman, et al, seem to have faded deliberately in the background — wha' happened?. 

 

 

 

Father and son

Posted on April 16, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

And now, Joeyde Venecia III, the guy’s simply unstoppable, fighting back.
Fresh from a rebuff by the Court of Appeals that just dismissed his case seeking protection from harassment by State agents and forces, he has resorted to e-mailing his frustrations and fears to friends, media included who, he believes, can lend him a sympathetic ear and support.
“Under the Arroyo administration, I have completely lost my right to privacy as proven by the wiretapping of my cellphones and land lines,” Joey said in his e-mail. “I know that this is hard to prove, but I know that it is taking place. My friends, family and business associates know it too.”
De Venecia added that his house too has been under constant surveillance and that the private security of the Makati village where he lives knows it.
But, that’s the price to pay for a whistleblower – everyone knows that.
One can just imagine what Joey’s dad, former Speaker JDV could be going thru in these perilous times. It could be much more than what the son is experiencing – just that unlike the younger one, the elder chooses to lick his wounds silently – well, comparatively.
He knows, JDV knows, that things can and will come to pass, that politics in these islands, is “weather-weather lang.” Maybe Joey III can yet learn to hold his peace.

GSIS, client-friendly? Gimme a break!

Posted on April 16, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

THE vaunted “efficient” service of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), particularly in its regional office in San Fernando City, La Union, apparently includes making life difficult for member-claimants especially among those who have served the best years of their life in government — the retirees.
Many retirees can only wonder who at GSIS devised that stupid rule (policy?) that release of claims (retirement, cash surrender value (CSV) and the like) would only be for a limited time each day –from 9 a.m to 2:30 p.m. only – and not a minute late.
So, even if you the poor member who may have come from the Ilocos provinces or Pangasinan arrive at the GSIS regional office a minute, five minutes or 15
minutes late, you won’t be served, your earnest and plaintive appeals notwithstanding.
All it ever takes is for the clerk or in-charge to rifle thru the bunch of checks for claiming, check your presented ID card and hand over the check, and yet the girl at the counter, like some winded robot or automaton, mouths the mantra that it is past 2:30 p.m., period. She sits there, refusing to entertain you, not even a faked smile as she talks, not even looking up at you and sticking her pretty ass to her seat like some glue was pasted on her behind.
Who cares if you’ve just come from Timbukto trying to catch up – and failed to? It’s 2:30 p.m., dummy, and you’re wasting your and my time.
Kudos to Winston Garcia for such martial discipline on his fieldmen. With such people manning his “service system,” his agency has ensured it will forever grace the pages of letters-to-the-editor sections of newspapers, all from “very satisfied” client-members. (Not to mention opinion pieces like this one.)

GSIS must shape up — or ship out

Posted on February 17, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

 IT’S not just inconvenient, it’s criminal.

The scandalously inept handling of Government Service Insurance System members’ contributions by that giant public insurance system is causing untold misery and woes to the mass of faceless loan borrowers, retirees and other members out there seeking its prompt and efficient service.

As it happens, GSIS has been touting in very expensive ads in tri-media its liquidity and social commitments over the past years since Cebuano Winston Garcia took over the helm. Read more

Presidentiables

Posted on February 14, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

Sen. Dick ‘Da Flash’ Gordon, let’s admit, is as flashy as they come. His staccato and scintillating play with words, picking this up with ease and mixing it with down-to-earth Pinoy wisdom and wisecracks, gets anyone’s ears anytime.
He can be- he is – a presidential timber alright.
He is on the same level as another topnotch senator, Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party when it comes to incisive analysis of an issue, any issue, thrown their way. You are all witness to the proceedings on the Bolante and Legacy messes that were heard at the Senate floor. The two gentlemen showed both their finesse and fangs against those who were obviously trying to play with the Senate rules and decorum.
Roxas and Gordon’s seeming problem now is they quite trail behind their more publicity-savvy colleagues in surveys for the 2010 presidential race – although time is still on their side and they may yet get a deeper and solid public backing between now and the start of the official campaign period.
We wish Gordon and Roxas find themselves good anchorage for their presidential ambitions. It would be the people’s loss if they don’t – in time.

Ebola no joke

Posted on February 12, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

 

IS IT just the tip of the iceberg?

 

For humanity’s sake – and for ours as Filipinos foremost – we hope our local health and animal experts are telling us all there is to know about the current investigation on the scope and potency of the risks we are facing from the Ebola reston virus now in our midst – or to be more precise, in our hogs. On the other hand, what if they really are as clueless as the rest of us? That would be even worse. Read more

Like the cat that has swallowed 'Tatlong Manok'

Posted on January 10, 2009 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

THE big brouhaha over the Alabang Boys drug case , particularly the conduct of the guys at the Department of Justice (take a bow, Prosecutor John Resado and Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuno — a bow of of disgrace!) only serves to highlight the truth in Joe de Venecia's now famous line that in this country  "Everybody  is for sale."

Faced with an uncompromising Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, especially the tandem of PDEA chief, Gen Dionisio Santiago and his operations head, Maj Ferdinand Marcelino, the drug syndicates have found an ally, it seems, in the highly creative prosecutors of the DOJ. Read more

The height of media criminality

Posted on December 31, 2008 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

It’s so dismaying, this piece of report that indeed some local mediapersons (girls included) of Pangasinan have been called to Camp Crame for some clarificatory questioning on the matter of media payola connection to the Binmotobot shabu laboratory caper that somehow linked former city police station commander Dionicio Borromeo (who has since wiggled out of the deep hole, courtesy of the justice guys). Don’t please ask me to which press association in the province they belong. Read more

Speaking thru the nose

Posted on December 31, 2008 - Filed Under | Leave a Comment

I DON’T know which news devastated Gen. Pol Bataoil, head of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) more – the death of innocent civilians in that Paranaque shootout, Alfredo de Vera and his seven-year-old daughter, Lea, or the fact that the De Vera father and daughter were, as was known later, Pangasinenses from the little, agricultural town of Basista here.
Bataoil did sound appropriately doleful and sad in that radio interview by a Pangasinan news anchor last Friday morning but from news reports and TV footages earlier he wasn’t as contrite, in fact, was quite expectedly justifying the tragedy as part of the usual “collateral damage” (civilians caught in crossfire) inflicted during that PNP-Waray-Waray gang bloody encounter. The realization that the dead de Veras were alas, his own provincemates apparently changed the NCRPO chief’s tone. Read more

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