Category: crime

INC, ochoa, de lima

so, that edsa farce is over, with INC claiming victory and the palace claiming that the rule of law has been upheld.  win-win situation, say ng isang taga-iglesia sa tv news.  no-deal, say ng isang taga palasyo in a statement.

i’m trying to be optimistic.  at best, the palace is telling the truth.  no deal, the samson case will proceed (even if no one has said it in so many words), but INC is allowed to claim victory in public, thereby saving face.  kapanipaniwala ito because it was obvious sunday night that neither binay nor chizngrace (despite their quick expressions of support via media) were going to show up with their supporters to make it a multi-sectoral broad-coalition kind of protest that would qualify it as an EDSA and give INC some leverage in its demand that the DOJ drop the illegal detention case against its ruling council.  i mean, you know, pastor boy saycon?  who he?  he has no credibility or following that i know of; neither is he an EDSA 86 icon, as an iglesia tv anchor claimed.  as for peping and tingting, well, at least hindi na lang sila bumalik.

on the other hand, some pessimism about this no-deal eklat is not uncalled for, given this administration’s penchant for secrecy (as opposed to transparency), and given talk on facebook that executive secretary paquito ochoa is an iglesia member (google “paquito ochoa, iglesia” and you’ll get a pile of news reports about ochoa pushing for the appointment of this and that INC member to important posts), medyo kapani-paniwala rin ang speculation na DOJ sec de lima is not likely to move on the samson case.  and when she resigns next month to run for senator, ochoa (it is said) will be picking her replacement, who will likely be pro-iglesia, if not an iglesia member mismo, who will simply sit on the case, and leave it for the next admin to deal with.  this would mean that INC is likely to move heaven and earth, and hell maybe? to get a pro-iglesia president elected in 2016.

what nags at me is the illegal detention case filed by whistleblower benhur luy against PDAF scammer janet napoles that saw napoles sentenced to life imprisonment and, along with senators enrile, revilla, and estrada, indicted and charged with plunder.  i pray that this pasaway drama of INC re samson’s illegal detention complaint  does not impact on these plunder cases in any way.  nakakapraning, with enrile out on bail bigla and back in the senate.

de lima has time to get the samson case moving.  otherwise, who knows, winning a a senate seat might not be a piece of cake.

charleston too quick to forgive

“We have no room for hate so we have to forgive.”

i couldn’t quite believe that the victims’ families were already talking forgiveness.  i can understand eschewing hate, but what about the hurt and the anger?  so soon after the massacre, i would still be too hurt and angry to forgive.  i’d need time to process the loss of a loved one in a house of god during bible study.  i’d need to know more about this killer — is it genetic, he has ku klux klan roots?  is he psychotic, completely out of touch with reality?  or is it racism, he simply hates american blacks the way hitler hated jews?  where did he learn this hate?  from a family member?  a friend?  a teacher?  the web?  all of the above?  i would want to know where he was coming from when he planned and carried out the killings.  to start a race war, he confessed.  as if a race war has not been going on in america like forever.  i guess he wanted to liven things up, he was bored?  i would need convincing that he did not know what he was doing before i can even begin to think forgiveness.

pemberton in JUSMAG, camp aguinaldo

pemberton, who is said to be under US custody, was flown to a compound of the Joint United States Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) in Camp Aguinaldo but no Filipino has yet seen him, it would seem.  dati na bang may JUSMAG compound sa loob ng kampo?  if yes, ah so, has it been there forever?  if no, umm, is this a case then of “joint use of miltary facilities” provided for in the enhanced VFA aka EDCA?  umiiral na ba, operational na ba, ang EDCA?  just asking.

pakikiramay

Asked at a foreign correspondents’ forum on Wednesday if he was following Vice President Jejomar Binay’s lead and go to Laude’s wake, Mr. Aquino replied: “In general, I don’t attend wakes of people I don’t know. I’m uncomfortable with trying to condole with people who don’t know me. How can I say that I really sympathize with them by trying to assuage their loss at that point?” 

kung hindi nauna na si vp binay sa pakikiramay in person sa pamilyang laude sa olongapo, would the president have replied in the same manner?  maybe not.  and then, again, who knows.  we have a president who doesn’t seem to care much about his public relations, really, as though he didn’t need pogi points at all, if not for himself (six more years?), then for the liberal party’s annointed (six more years nga).

tulad ng sabi ni benjamin pimentel: Aquino didn’t have to go to the wake but …

A citizen of his country has been murdered. The suspect is a member of an ally’s military force. It’s an ally he may need as he takes on a bully in the region. But that bully, China, is pushing hard to paint him (and the Philippines) as nothing more than a US stooge, a puppet of Washington. And at home, there are those who also see Aquino as incapable for embracing a path independent of Washington, a leader whose vaunted courage in taking on a regional bully is based on nothing more than a foolish hope that the Americans would actually do the fighting for the Philippines.

Showing up at Laude’s wake would have sent the message that Aquino also has the courage to declare that, while he is prepared to take on China, his people’s welfare, especially those of the most vulnerable, is more important than a military alliance with an ally.

Besides, that ally, the United States, known for being the dominant factor in Philippine politics, already sent a strong signal that it wasn’t going to play games just to save a marine accused of murder.

Even before the US Military turned Private Joseph Pemberton over to Philippine authorities, US Secretary of State John Kerry already said: ”Whatever charges there are, whatever infractions have been affected by any American anywhere, we believe in the rule of law, and we believe in our agreement. ….

“The people of the Philippines who are gracious enough to permit an arrangement whereby we meet mutual interests with this kind of a force’s presence need to know that we’re not seeking a special privilege, that everybody’s rights will be appropriately protected.”

Aquino could have affirmed that message himself at Laude’s wake. Unfortunately, PNoy just isn’t comfortable about doing something like that.

Instead of grabbing the chance to reframe the country’s long complicated relationship with the United States, PNoy gets pinged by a clever Facebook post poking fun at his “I-don’t-attend-wakes-of-people-I-don’t know’ statement.

The Facebook post shows a photo of the hundreds of thousands who attended Ninoy Aquino’s funeral in 1983.

“Mahiya ka naman sa tatay mo,” the post says.

gets ko naman na di niya type umeksena sa olongapo given the hysterics of the family — nothing quiet or genteel about them — over u.s. custody of pemberton.  pero di ko gets why he could not even express condolences the way the u.s. ambassador did.  or why he could not send someone in his stead, you know, like kris and/or boy abunda?