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SEPTEMBER 2010
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A PALACE DIVIDED (PART 2)
It started in the 2010 campaigns and will most likely continue until the elections of 2016. Samar and Balay - then they combined to make possible Aquino's successful candidacy; now they clash to torment him with a miserable presidency.
"The problem, they say, is nobody was really able to predict how warning shots meant to intimidate could set off napalm blasts that indiscriminately scorch. Both camps were pulling at the President’s strings, now they’re all in a tangled mess of yarns and spins - bound to sustain casualties whoever wins the battle, the victor only to be decided in 2016. " <read full>
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Aquino's government is not even a hundred days-old and already the cracks from within the Palace are showing. The jueteng controversy speaks of such a tale.
"Exposé after exposé after exposé, the jueteng controversy has set both the executive and legislature ablaze, and all because - according to insiders - warring factions from within President Noynoy Aquino’s “kingdom divided” have allegedly tried to set each other on fire ...
accusations of connivance have ignited a fusillade of exposes and investigations-in-aid-of-legislation on the issue." <read full>
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MIRIAM SANTIAGO ON JUETENG (PART 2)
Santiago names names, lots of them.
"Allow me now to quote lawyer’s Latin from Petronius: Quid faciat leges, ubi sola pecunia regnat? What may laws do where only money reigns? What power has the law, where only money speaks? And in the same vein, allow me also to quote Horace: Quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? Without morals, what can futile law do?"
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MIRIAM SANTIAGO ON JUETENG (PART 1)
Congress has taken over the jueteng bandwagon and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago has steered the carriage smack into former PNP Chief Verzosa, DILG Usec. Puno, and a host of others.
"The equation DILG + PNP = Jueteng means that illegal jueteng consists of a conspiracy between the interior secretary and the police chief. They are the prime beneficiaries and ultimate protectors of jueteng. If we as a people do not rouse ourselves from our stupor, someday the Philippine president will be elected on the basis of who gets the biggest jueteng contribution." <read full>
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AQUINO's (MIS)COMMUNICATIONS GROUP
What's the greatest challenge for the current administration? How to be taken seriously with three jokers running the Palace's communications team.
"Defending the Office of the President's proposed P4.075 billion budget for 2011, Executive Secretary (ES) Paquito Ochoa Jr., Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, and Communications Secretaries Ricky Carandang and Herminio Coloma, answered lawmakers' questions like - you guessed it - a bunch of amateurs...The least an inexperienced Chief Executive can do is to surround himself with competent advisers (or cabinet members)" <read full>
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PROMISE OR FRIEND, MR. PRESIDENT
The IIRC report cites DILG Usec. Puno, Aquino's friend, as one of those responsible for the bungled management of the hostage crisis. Amid fears of a whitewash, will the President prove his critics wrong?
"The Philippines promised heads would roll. What respect is there to gain from the international community if the President could not keep his promise, because he would rather keep his friends?" <read full>
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THE IIRC REPORT: A FEARLESS FORECAST
The thing about government, if one paid enough attention, is that it is often predictable.
"Mayor ALFREDO LIM, Chairman of the Manila Crisis Management Committee ... or leaving the scene of an ongoing crime and for having 'invited' the ground commander to join him for dinner ... for employing a flawed strategy of 'wearing out' the hostage-taker" <read full>
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ON RESPECT and ALEX LACSON's "THE FILIPINO TODAY"
Lacson says "tell stories" of how great the Filipino is. I say, there is only one worth telling - one of justice.
"... it would be an injustice to the rest of the world ... if we should acquire a sense of pride that allows us to simply go about our daily lives, deaf to the cries of those bereaved in Hong Kong, dumb to our government whose ineptitude caused these deaths. Their uproar, unlike our silence, is not without reasons. <read full>
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THE FILIPINO TODAY by ALEX LACSON
He's cheesy but sincere, what can I say?
"... let’s keep on building the Filipino great and respectable in the eyes of our world – one story, two stories, three stories at a time – by your story, by my story, by your child’s story, by your story of excellence at work, by another Filipino’s honesty in dealing with others, by another Pinoy’s example of extreme sacrifice, by the faith in God we Filipinos are known for." <read full>
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A HOSTAGE-TAKER'S FINAL HOUR (PART 3)
Irony: When the criminal is monitoring government's every move on television, while government is unaware that the criminal is airing live on radio.
MENDOZA: Binaril ko ang dalawang Chinese pagka hindi nila binago ang sitwasyon pati maliit dito sa loob uubusin ko ’to. (I shot two Chinese, if they don’t change the situation, even the little one here, I’ll finish off everybody) <read full>
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A HOSTAGE-TAKER'S FINAL HOUR (PART 2)
Erwin Tulfo, of RMN and ABC-5 joins the interview.
MENDOZA: … lalala to pag di nila nagawa ang gusto ko sabi ko nga itong nasa pinto ng bus ay lalagyan ko to mamaya pag di naging maganda ang usapan. (This situation here will worsen if they don’t do what I want. Like I said, I’ll put a [bullet on] this [hostage] by the door if negotiations don’t turn out well) <read full>
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A HOSTAGE-TAKER'S FINAL HOUR (PART 1)
Excerpts from hostage-taker, Captain Rolando Mendoza’s live interview with Radio Mindanao Network anchor Michael Rogas, shortly before the incident ended in a bloodbath on August 23.
MENDOZA: Walang nilalaman yan ... Wala sa kin ang papel na yan ... (It doesn’t contain anything. It doesn’t mean anything, nothing, sir. All she [Ombudsman] is saying is that she’ll have it investigated. If that’s the case, nothing will happen, nothing, sir. That [piece of] paper is meaningless to me unless it says the case has really been dismissed) <read full>
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AQUINO MANS UP, FINALLY
I had said that ultimately "the buck stops at the helm of this country's leadership. It stops where Aquino sits." It turned out, the President agrees. There might just be hope for the video-game-playing bachelor Chief Executive.
"everyone else here at home ... knew ultimately that a crisis of such magnitude, with far-reaching economic and diplomatic repercussions, ultimately and proportionately will have to be the responsibility of the country’s Chief Executive." <read full>
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CONRAD - NOT HIMSELF
Somebody as sharp was never so dull. Yes, I dare say - de Quiros has become an apologist for Pres. Aquino.
"The de Quiros-of-old would have seen this. 'Vintage Conrad' would have pounced on this with both savage and savvy eloquence...
But Noynoy, it seems, have become a sacred cow. Noynoy sits in the Palace, partly because of a Conrado de Quiros, just as de Quiros’ brother sits at the SSS wholly because of a Noynoy Aquino." <read full>
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"TINIMBANG KA" by CONRADO DE QUIROS
De Quiros on the hostage-taking incident - eloquent still even while missing the point.
"Not the least of what damns us is the lightness with which we have taken this incident. No, more than lightness, levity. To this day, pictures of the crowd that surged forward after the shooting to ogle the dead continue to make it to the social media. To this day pictures of cops and students posing before the blood and gore, in some instances smiling and preening, continue to make it to the social media." <read full>
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AUGUST 2010
................................................................................................................COSTLY MISTAKE
55 days into the Aquino administration, a retired police officer took a bus-load of foreign tourists hostage. But it was government's ineptitude that held the nation and the world, captive for 11 hours of sheer torment. My take on the now infamous Manila hostage-taking incident.
"Now, the backlash is as inevitable as the consequences of a people’s collective folly that “integrity,” “pedigree,” and “legacy” suffice as a substitute for competence...
The buck stops at the helm of the country’s leadership. It stops where Aquino sits.
You think corruption is costly? Try incompetence." <read full>
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PLAYING ALONG
My first post as the Dead Poet Ghostwriter, written at a period of uncertainty and adjustment.
"What I do now is making me dumber by the day...
This is therapy and this blog is the first of many sessions. The next ones will make more sense. This however is just for me - a stream of consciousness from an unguarded moment, the truth as it comes only through anonymity - from the poet who has long buried his poetry, but whose words are sold as voice for others." <read full>
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