in defense of tish

wittingly or not, patricia cruz bautista has succeeded in sharpening the divide between the pro-duterte — who love her to pieces and can’t wait to see chief andy impeached and replaced with a digong cohort — and the anti-duterte who have only contempt for a mother who has exposed her own children to public scrutiny and shame, never mind that chief andy does have truly a lot of unexplained wealth and unusual banking practices to explain.

and what if tish’s suspicions prove founded.  what if she’s not making up any of this.  what if she  speaks the truth, this is bigger than her and her children, the stakes are just too high.  i can relate to that.  she is said to have a “third eye,” is a faith healer of sorts, and believes that the universe will provide for, will look after, her children.  shades of desiderata.  very brave and new age, kinda like gina lopez, breaking out from patterns that oppress, even, breaking a taboo, as walden bello puts it:

Now that the taboo has been broken, there will be more B vs B cases. Good if the impact is less corruption.

yeah, IF.  would a duterte appointment in COMELEC bring less corruption?  i doubt it.  the president can rant and warn all he wants that he will not tolerate the slightest whiffs of corruption, but it’s really all talk and bluster, the corruption goes on anyway, sa COMELEC pa.  so do  i want chief andy to stay?  it’s out of our hands, it’s all up to congress, and we know naman, what digong wants, digong gets.

digong wants barangay elections postponed once again, from october this year to may 2018, kasabay ng plano nilang plebiscite on charter change (related to federalism and economic provisions malamang) and the BBL, and the house has obliged.  the senate is playing harder to get, good for them, but i’d be very surprised if the super-majority would dare defy, disappoint, duterte on this one.

so if it’s a done deal na pala, chief andy will be replaced, sooner than later, he should be considering options other than taking his wife to court for robbery, extortion atbp. (hell hath no fury like a macho scorned).  on SRO (dzmm teleradyo) i heard alvin elchico ask atty. tranquil salvador III (who was with the defense team of chief justice corona) what he thought chief andy should do.  he said he would advise chief andy to resign (spare us all from house and senate hearings and a possible impeachment process) AND to settle na with tish, for the sake of the children.  then the talk will just die down; he gives it three weeks (correct me if i heard wrong).  then, i suppose, the people can take andy to court, depending on NBI findings? and he can defend himself there.

in other words, huwag nang gatungan pa ang apoy, baka kumalat pa ang sunog.  which makes one wonder, how widespread kaya can it get.  if we are to believe ex-chief sixto brillantes’ parting words to acting chief robert lim in 2015, before chief andy’s appointment…

Brillantes’ advice to acting chairman Lim: “Relaks ka lang. Walang kwenta ‘yung mga batikos… Kalahati lang ang alam nila. Hindi nila alam ang tunay na nangyayari.” (You just relax. Criticisms are of no value. They only know half of the story. They do not know what really happens.)   

… then maybe we should have those house and senate hearings, now na!  let’s hear more from ex-chief sixto, and chief andy, of course.  let’s have the whole story finally, straight from the horses’ mouths.

dirty linen, dirty elections?

natabunan nang bonggang bongga ang customs probe sa lower house kahapon, and not because faeldon the chief didn’t show up, rather because of a corruption bomb exploded by patricia cruz bautista, estranged wife of COMELEC chief andres bautista.

imagine.  tish accuses andy of undeclared unexplained hidden wealth in the hundreds of millions, if not a billion bucks php, and she has all sorts of official documents daw, including bank passbooks, to support her allegations.  read her affidavit here.

andy denies any wrongdoing, of course, he was rich na even before the PCGG and COMELEC gigs, but maybe not that rich?  because he’s disowning some of the bank deposits, some of the assets belongs daw to his parents and sibs, and some, he alleges, could have been faked.  he also says that tish has a long-time lover and the couple has a political agenda, omg.  to discredit the 2016 elections?

nabuhayan bigla ang bongbong camp  atbp. na feeling-cheated pa rin by…ummm….the yellow camp?  smartmatic?  COMELEC?  all of the above?  no wonder andy was always siding with smartmatic no matter what the controversy?  ooops not fair.  innocent until proven guilty.

andy says he’s the victim here, it’s all about money, tish is just greedy.  ang backstory ay, 2013  pa sila naghiwalay pero hindi magkasundo sa settlement of properties because daw tish has been demanding a large amount of money. 

say naman ng abogado ni tish, his client only wants what’s legally her due, that is, half of everything (legally acquired, of course).  but but but, it would seem that chairman andy doesn’t think she deserves that much.  during negotiations, ayon kay atty martin loon, chairman andy said “that his wife deserves zero.” 

ang tindi, di ba.  ang lupit, at ang talim ng hugot.

does she really deserve zero, as in, nothing?  surely not.  is he himself beyond reproach, if not at home, then at work?  we don’t know yet, but because of his very powerful position as COMELEC chief, we need to know whether he deserves our trust or not.

this is not merely a private marital spat but a public face-off between political camps that could have important ramifications.  chief andy should stop talking to the press and prepare his defense, seriously.  badmouthing tish isn’t winning him any pogi points.

seize the day, faeldon!

commissioner nick faeldon should stop with the threats to expose influence peddlers in congress (and elsewhere) and JUST DO IT,  name names!  otherwise he and his cohorts (yes, i remember them from oakwood, too) are proving to be all-bark-and-no-bite and only complicit with the scandalous corruption in the bureau of customs that has been going on like forever.

i’ve heard too many stories from family and friends who have had to deal with customs so napaka-credible sa akin ng info ni senator ping lacson re the payola, the lagayan, in aid of quick access to, or outright smuggling of, all kinds of goods, legit and / or not.

… “Open secret. Alam natin ang three o’clock habit, Friday,” Lacson said in a radio interview, referring to the alleged weekend practice at the BOC when bribes are supposedly divided.

Brokers, according to Lacson’s information, usually pay an average of P27,000 to P30,000 for payola per container. At least 10,000 containers pass through the Bureau every day.

“So P27,000 times 10,000, that’s P270 million per day. Payola ito. Tara lang ‘yan. ‘Pag multiply mo ng 365 [days], easily that’s P98.55 billion,” Lacson said.

“So kung P98.55 billion a year, payola lang ito…Ang budget deficit natin for this year so far [is] P147 billion. So dalawang taon pa lang, wiped out na ang budget deficit. Eh napupunta ito sa bulsa, di naman sa gobyerno,” he said.

but wait, there’s more, sey ni amy pamintuan ng philstar:

… a witness was forced to admit before the House inquiry that he gave BOC officials P27,000 as grease money for every shipping container waved through the “green lane” at the Port of Manila.

The amount is on top of the legitimate fee of P40,000 per container, according to Customs broker Mark Taguba, who imported a shipment from China in May that was found to contain 605 kilos of shabu valued at P6.4 billion. Taguba said he handled the release of 500 shipments through the BOC from March to May this year alone, although Customs officials said the actual figure is 630. That’s P17 million in bribes in just three months.

that’s a lot of money.  does all the 40K go to government?  if yes, great (but maybe not, no?).  27K per is still a lot, given the huge volume daily.  kaya pala, basta taga-customs, madatung, maraming kotse at bahay, panay ang biyahe, malaki ang tiyan, ang sarap ng buhay, ang saya-saya.  ang balita pa, parang dynasty dyan — by the time daw one retires, naipasok na ang anak, kapatid, pamangkin, inaanak.  mana mana.  all at the expense of nation.

isa pang tanong: are faeldon and his oakwood cohorts on the take na rin, like everybody else? sana hindi.  i like to think na bumubuwelo lang sila and that they will finally find the guts to name names, for starters.  no guts, no glory.

but on second thought, it’s not as if there is reason for optimism.  i just saw, listened to, faeldon with henry omaga diaz on dzmm teleradyo and nothing he said inspired confidence.  parang he’s more concerned with PR (public relations) and so we have popular athletes as agents of goodwill aka intel officers kuno.  nakakaloka.

also, parang prinoproblema niyang masyado yung mga mawawalan ng hanapbuhay kung sakaling magkaroon ng purge [my word], i suppose masyadong maraming tatamaan, please correct me if i misheard or misunderstood or read too much between the lines.

sa ganitong sitwasyon, hindi ba nararapat na ang mangibabaw ay ang kapakanan ng buong bayan, hindi ng iilan?  yes, change will be painful for some, pero siguro naman nakaipon na sila, nakapagpayaman na sila, lamang na lamang na, i mean, you know, puwede ba, bayan naman.

and, teka, ilan ba yung “less than 10” congressmen?  9?  2?  more than 5?  less than 5?  i’m so bitin.  it’s so lame, or should i say limp.  whatever.  may i say lang to the house of reps, please stop na with the executive sessions that only serve to protect yourselves.  we’re not all dumb.

anyway i’ve been expecting more from these oakwood guys.  i was looking forward to something as audacious as  the 2003 attempt to take over the arroyo government.  today, in the time of duterte, one can only wonder why faeldon and his men seem so timid and impotent.  surely, duterte has faeldon’s back?  surely, duterte would support a challenge to the status quo, even if only on the BOC front, for the sake of the country and the people he says he so loves?

or is everyone just joking pala.  paano na.