lucky napoles, out in two years?

i usually give fearless forecasts by astrologers and other fortunetellers a wide berth at this time of year, i.e., i am never critical — some of these psychics are quite good — rather i’m just interested in gleaning whether or not their prognostications are consistent or not with each other.  when consistent, across tarot, feng shui, chinese and western astrology readings, no matter if as vague as “trouble in the second half of the year,” then in my mind it’s worth noting…

but here i’m taking note, before i forget, of one reading by astrologer henry palacios a few days ago in atom araullo’s ANC show Hiwaga, where after warning of possibly another, maybe even stronger, yolanda, and maybe a big earthquake maybe in september, and some huge problem na kakaharapin ng gobyerno, possibly corruption-related, he ends on a very definitely upbeat note on, of all things, of all people, janet napoles of PDAF-scam fame now under detention in a police camp in sta. rosa, laguna.

say ni palacios :

Matindi ang suwerte ni Napoles. Two years, she’ll get out. Because hindi lang naman siya e. May follow-through yan, may effect di ba, kung hindi lang … dahil sa kanya biglang umikot lahat. So may purpose siya para sa bansa. Wag mo sasabihin na masama siyang tao, may purpose siya.

on facebook palacios assured a group of astrologers that his statements were based on napoles’s birthchart.  i wished that araullo had said so, and shown us the birthchart, and asked palacios to elaborate a little.  after all, he’s practically saying that napoles will be exonerated, and i can’t imagine that happening, given COA’s truckload of documentary evidence, and the testimonies of benhur luy et al, UNLESS she turns state witness and tells all.

and when palacios says, don’t say she’s a bad person, may purpose siya para sa bansa, what does he mean?  that napoles’s motives for stealing PDAF funds were good, maybe a la robin hood?  or does he mean that her purpose for nation is to be the instrument for uncovering corruption?  again, that could only be true if she were to spill the beans and tell on the senators and congressmen who raked in millions and millions of pesos in kickbacks with her help.  which would entail nothing less than a change of heart vis a vis her refusal to answer incriminating questions in the senate hearing pre-yolanda.

as for the matinding suwerte, napoles’s birthchart, posted on the blog of astrologer col. romy solina, is indeed the birthchart of a very lucky and powerful native.  we have no way of knowing, though, whether palacios’ napoles chart uses the same birthtime.  but even if not, even without a birthtime, the zodiacal positions of planets and other elements, and the angles they make to each other, are enough to indicate extraordinary potentials for power and prosperity, especially if, like marcos and reagan in their heydays, she was, is, getting advice from astrologers.

in two years she’ll be free?  in two years it’s 2016, election year, which means she’ll be wheeling and dealing with the next prez.  can’t wait to see how she plays her cards.  maybe she could teach gloria, the other “lucky bitch,” a trick or two.

walang kamatayang pork barrel

so, we’ve been had, we who rejoiced when the supreme court declared the PDAF unconstitutional last november and thought we had heard, seen, the last of it.

Pork Barrel is very much alive and kicking! warns prof. ben diokno.  and, like Dracula, the pork barrel is alive, in another guise, bewails neal cruz.

as it turns out, only 15 of the 24 senators gave up their pork barrel.  9 senators — the cayetano sibs, the estrada-ejercito sibs, lapid, trillanes, recto, and miriam — did not, and instead “realigned” their PDAFs with the budget of one or another line agency, or the calamity fund, in the bicam- and senate-approved 2014 budget that the prez signed into law last december.

senator chiz escudero, chairman of the senate finance committee, and very much the pilosopo lawyer, justifies it thus:

Is the realignment legal or constitutional in the light of the high court’s decision on the PDAF?

Yes, says Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the Senate finance committee. The realignments (Escudero calls them “amendments”) came before the implementation of the P2.265-trillion national budget, he says.

The high court had declared unconstitutional all provisions of the law that allowed legislators “to wield any form of post-enactment authority in the implementation of the budget.”

But Escudero says the identification of beneficiaries of the realigned PDAF “does not violate” the high court’s ruling. “It’s well within our right to review and approve the budget,” he says. “This is preenactment intervention.”

say rin ni bayan muna partylist rep neri colmenares:

“The Supreme Court was not clear on whether lawmakers could realign the funds or not because it is clear that Congress has the power of the purse and has the prerogative where government money should be spent,” says Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares. “What it was clear on was that lump-sum items should be discontinued and that everything in the budget should be itemized.”

Members of the House had realigned a much bigger amount—P930 billion, including the PDAF. 

at parang tuwang-tuwa lang si senator chiz, as in, tipong naisahan nila ang presidente?

“In accordance with the powers of Congress, all of us can introduce an amendment. That’s our legislative power. If the President submits the budget, we can’t skirt our duty to amend it. What are we, a rubber stamp?” Escudero said by phone, chuckling. 

more like, naisahan ang anti-pork people’s movement, as in, nakahanap sila ng legal loophole (salamat sa supremes?) and it’s as if the people’s outcry against all pork-n-patronage fell on deaf ears.  it’s as if two of the nine senators, estrada and revilla, were not facing charges of receiving substantial kickbacks from fake NGOs identified with the notorious accused napoles.  and it’s as if the other seven senators were themselves untouched by any suspicion of similar kickbacks in the past.

of course, it might be that these realignments no longer allow kickbacks of any sort in any way.  if so, i wish they’d come right out and say it, assure us na, wala na pong kickback.  but of course they won’t because it would be to admit na oo nga, dati ay may kickback.

but, hey, jinggoy estrada, who aligned half his PDAF to the budget of the City of Manila of which his tatay, ex-prez erap, is mayor, is the most unrepentant, defiant, shameless, and brazen of them all.  hiyang hiya naman ako for the senate, who allowed him to gift his tatay’s city hall with a hundred million bucks.  hiyang hiya rin ako for erap, who had no idea daw that it was coming, and who doesn’t have the sense to say no-thanks, kahit out of delicadeza man lang.

*

pahabol.  say ng grapevine, the supreme court is poised to rule vs erap in the disqualification case filed by ex-mayor fred lim.  if true, it would serve jinggoy right.

luistro & licuanan, no to september, hurray!

ever since i can remember, there has been this proposal to start the schoolyear in september rather than in june because daw by september the rainy season (july to october) would be almost over and fewer schooldays would be lost due to rains and floods.  but always, ALWAYS, such a proposal would be widely thumbed down because it would mean that the hot hot hot summer months, april and may, would see the students and teachers suffering the heat in crowded and poorly ventilated classrooms, not to speak of the matrapik trip to and from school under the hot sun, out in the streets where everything is hot, the cars and tricycles and buses, the pavements and sidewalks, everything gets so hot, “you could fry an egg on the sidewalk” i’ve heard it said, and it’s easy to believe.  in recent years, the department of health and pagasa have even taken to issuing health advisories, stay indoors, keep cool, drink lots of water, or risk suffering heatstroke and dehydration.

well, this time, last july to be exact, it was no less than senator drilon who renewed the call for a september-june cycle due to the bad weather then prevailing, heavy rains and widespread flooding, and, oh, how he worries for his granchildren, he said.  but what about the summer heat, mr. senator?  ok lang, may aircon naman ang mga kotse ng mga apo ninyo?  at malamang merong electric fans galore, if not aircons, ang well-ventilated classrooms ng sosyal private schools they go to?  pero paano na ang nakararami in the public schools?  sorry na lang sila?

salamat na lang at pumalag si deped sec armin luistro: elementary and high school schedules are keeping to the june-to-march cycle, his paramount concern being the effects of intense summer heat on the health and studies of our young.  here’s hoping he doesn’t change his tune.

even if we were to factor in climate change, granting, for the sake of argument, a “new normal” in rains a la ondoy and supertyphoons a la yolanda (by the way, ondoy came in october, yolanda in november), it’s not as if the summer months aren’t getting hotter and hotter too, and summers are sooooo long, with rarely any reprieve, unlike the wet season’s rains and floods that come and go.  so what if classes have to be suspended, there are ways and ways of making up for that kind of lost time.  besides, it seems to me that there’s more that we can do about the heavier rains and widespread flooding, such as reforestation, clearing our waterways, zero waste management, and the like, samantalang the summer heat we can only beat by doing nothing, or as little as possible, unless happily ensconced in air-conditioned homes and offices.

as for the big universities, UP, UST., ateneo, la salle, that seem to be quite eager to shift to the september-to-june cycle and be in synch with the rest of asean when the ASEAN economic community (AEC) kicks off next year, the better obviously to accommodate foreign students and academics, i share CHED’s misgiving that it would lamentably render these universities out of synch with the rest of the country.  says CHED head patricia licuanan:

“… it is also important to think of what will happen in relation to Filipino students because the basic education will not change. What do you do with these students coming into college—they graduate in March and they will wait until August to enter college?”

“Some compromise might be necessary. One of these might be a quarterly system or a tri-semester to provide more entry points for foreign students coming in and ours going out,” she said.

“This is not for everybody. Schools should assess if they have enough cross border activity to make it worth it to change their academic calendar. What percent of the school population are we talking about?

“Perhaps they should crunch their numbers first,” Licuanan said, adding that flooding and storms will still be a problem in August and September.

She also said CHED is worried about the repercussions of revising the academic cycle, particularly on entrance and licensure exams.

here’s hoping that licuanan doesn’t change her mind either.  i think she and luistro are on the right track, setting the right tone, taking the appropriate attitude toward asean integration: we can be part of the ASEAN economic community without forcing synchronization where it is not advisable because disruptive of, rather than conducive to, the good of the whole.

ping’s box-office flop

interesting that 10,000 hours, touted as a ping lacson biopic, is a box-office flop.  it won most of the awards, including best picture, in the recent filmfest pero, aray, kulelat ito sa takilya, bakit kaya?  maybe it should have been promoted as a robin padilla action pic instead?  but wait, that would have placed robin in awkward competition with nephew daniel padilla na namayagpag sa pagpag horror, talbog si uncle, ouch.  maybe the demographics of the movie viewing public has changed?  mostly young, who prefer comedy and horror to action-con-politics?  but what about their elders?  nanghinayang sa 220 pesos, mahirap ang buhay?

o baka naman the way ping promoted the film pre-festival didn’t help any.  after all, he came right out and said it was only partly inspired by his own story, hindi pala totoong biopic.  my guess is, if it had been truly a biopic, non-fiction, true-to-life, about the dacer-corbito murder cases, and necessarily the erap impeachment and ouster, and about the gma administration that ordered his arrest, and finally the aquino admin that withdrew the murder cases against him, it would have been a box-office hit.

but ping says we’ll have to wait for that juicy story, he’s writing a book, na matatagalan pa dahil biglang na-busy siya with rehab work (read The calamitous appointment…).  hmm.  he could be telling the truth, that he’s innocent of the 2000 dacer-corbito murders, but even if so, i expect that he’s not exactly raring to tell to tell us the whole truth, such as, who ordered the killings.  because, you know, as long as he says nothing, status quo, the guilty ones are indebted to him, or something like that, and that can’t hurt when you want to be president, is my theory.

another of my pet theories is that ping’s anti-pork barrel advocacy while he was in the senate, 2001 to 2013 (minus 10,000 hours), was a deliberate longterm strategy to win himself some pogi points, panabla sa notoriety attaching to him mula pa noong kuratong baleleng case in the mid-90s (rub-out ba or shoot-out) na napatungan pa ng dacer-corbito.  the strategy has finally paid off, ang bango bango niya in this anti-pork barrel season, but not bango enough, obviously, to sell a movie of a fictional senator fighting for truth and justice.