Category: erap

mug shots

in the time of erap’s arrest in april 2001, it would seem that his mug shots were not meant to be released to media.  or so i gather from this bulatlat.com article i found while googling edsa tres for my next (and last, promise!) EDSA book:

Pres. Arroyo was flabbergasted when an “enterprising Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) official” sold a video of a humbled Estrada to the local and international media. Estrada was shown in police custody and grim-faced as his mug shots were taken. A noted TV commentator said that the sight was enough to move people to take the deposed president’s side. And, certainly, this was supposed to have given the “EDSA III” instigators the spark needed to start an uprising.

there was another link that named the PAOCTF official, but can’t find it now, kainis, so guess who na lang, public figure din.

what’s interesting now is that the gma camp is begging the authorities not to release her mug shots to the media.  i suppose they’ve given up on the paawa strategy, which is smart of them.  it would seem there is little sympathy from the masses anyway, i guess because they can’t relate to the notion of, because they could never afford, medical treatment abroad.

which is not to say there is no sympathy for gma.  there is, especially from her own class, but who are not wont to expose themselves unnecessarily.  more likely they’re just storming the heavens with prayers that the supreme court regain the upper hand in the unfolding constitutional thrilla in manila.

meanwhile, media must be on tenterhooks:  heed this tweet…

Marvic Leonen @ANCALERTS there is no public interest in the release of the mugshots except to degrade the accused. Her pictures should not be released.

…or be scooped by the competition.  abangan.

the dacer whodunit 2

kadarating pa lang ni michael ray aquino, pinawalang-sala na niya sina erap at ping in the dacer-corbito murders.  at wala daw siyang alam tungkol sa kaso.  of course no one believes him, least of all the dacer sisters.

read too:
Dacer-Corbito case will not be closed without Tan Testimony
and for timeless links and a host of unanswered questions:
the dacer whodunit and why ping

cowards all

it’s not only manny villar, who has been called a coward for refusing to answer questions re the c-5 extensions that allegedly benefitted his real estate empire in the millions, billions.   i don’t even think that snubbing the senate is as much a matter of cowardice as of some kinda guilt, or why won’t he take questions in the proper forum?   “is manny villar blameless? is the pope protestant?”

by cowards all i mean all five leading presidential candidates noynoy villar erap gibo and gordon, for not having the audacity, the daring, to think big and brave and to talk the radical changes that are implied in the promise of good governance.

this is not just a failure of the candidates though but a failure too of the electorate for not demanding more of these guys, which in turn is a failure of the media for inadequately informing and inspiring themselves, and the people, to ask demand clamor shout-out for changes beyond an end to corruption.   particularly changes in a system that was designed, in the first place, to benefit the few elite and NOT the manymanymanymanymany poor, as we should all see by now if only we hadn’t become too lazy to read and think and be critical, and  if only we would stop trusting in these candidates’ motherhood statements na kunyari they have the best interests of the poor at heart, because they don’t; rather they’re quite willing to play along with the same forces, inside and outside, that gloria arroyo (not to speak of past administrations, including erap, all the way back to the commonwealth) has been playing along with, to the detriment and degradation of our land and our economy, our people and our sovereignty.

they are cowards all, these leaders who don’t have the courage to stand up to the catholic church on the RH bill and sex education, never mind that 7 out of 10 filipinos want need deserve it.   cowards all who won’t stand up to the U.S. of A. on the chauvinist imperialist VFA and the IMF-WB-imposed “development plans” that over the decades have rendered the country nowhere near “developed”, rather turned us into the basket case of the ASEAN, basket-case meaning no legs of our own to stand on, no arms to work and feed ourselves with, how humiliating, how depressing.

they are cowards all.   afraid, not of going to hell if they defy the church’s stand on RH and sex education, just afraid of losing votes that the church allegedly commands.   cowards all.   afraid of espousing any kind of deep-seated change not because it’s undoable but out of fear and disinclination to defy and displease uncle sam, paano na ang campaign contributions, aray, paano na ang “special” fil-am relations, lol, how colonial the mentality pa rin.

it bears repeating what the journalist tony abaya of manilastandardtoday wrote back in august 2009 in response to rumors that noynoy might run: that what the country needs is a forward-looking president, a truly revolutionary president, someone with the attributes and visions of lee kwan yew, mahathir mohamad and gen. park chung hee:

… it is someone who has the qualities of these three foreign leaders that the Philippines badly needs in order to overcome decades of consistently poor governance, restore our badly battered self esteem, and draw for us a credible vision of what we want our country to be.

We need someone like Lee Kwan Yew who was/is personally incorruptible and at the same time was/is so conversant with economics and international relations that he could speak ex-tempore and defend his policies before an assembly of multinational CEOs and diplomats and made/make solid sense, whether they agreed/agree with him or not.

In addition we need the strong sense of nationalism of Mahathir Mohamad who in the 1980s drew a vision – Malaysia Vision 2020, that sought and seeks to transform Malaysia into a fully industrialized country by the year 2020 – that he was able to convince the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious people of Malaysia to embrace as worthy of their national loyalty, beyond the narrow appeals of their tribes and ethnic groups. No mean feat, considering the catastrophic demise of equally multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious federal Yugoslavia in the 1990s that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Mahathir’s nationalism also expressed itself in his readiness to fearlessly fire back at other countries, other world leaders, as well as international agencies whenever he felt they were trampling on the national self-interests of Malaysia.

We also need the single-minded determination of Gen. Park Chung Hee to transform his impoverished, resource-poor and inconsequential Republic of Korea from 1961 to 1979 (when he was assassinated) into a fully industrialized country that is now one of the ten biggest economies in the world.

… this is what the Philippines needs, a leader who can start and lead a revolution, a peaceful one, as much as possible; a violent one, if necessary.

anything less is just not good enough.  hindi na lang ako boboto.

oh and what’s this BS about villar NOT belonging to the elite just because he started out poor, unlike noynoy and gibo?   c’mon, rene azurin, you can do better than that.   by any reckoning, villar and the tsinoy taipans who all started out poor are very much a part of today’s elite, the irresponsible filipino elite, that wittingly or unwittingly collaborates with foreign powers, keeping the masses poor and marginalized.

boyu(chengco)

this fwded email arrived in my inbox the saturday of ondoy, just before the lights went out.   it has since been been posted in several blogs, one of which drew a comment asking if it was really from boyu.   as he’s a friend from way back, i emailed him to confirm, and he said, YES, it’s authentic.   worth a read again.

once more with Feeling

My name is Boyu, short for Boy Yuchengco, aka Alfonso SyCip Yuchengco, Jr.

A couple of days after Senator Lacson’s “privilege” i was contacted by one of our security people who had spoken with a former PAOCTF member. This PAOCTF agent confirmed basically what we knew even then. It was me Estrada had ordered “kidnapped”. Yes, kidnapped, not just arrested. And Yes, Me, not my brother, Tito.

Due to their Low INTEL, they mistook my brother for me, primarily due to the fact that my brother, Tito, and i have the same first name – “Alfonso”. I, the JR, and he, the Third. The nickname “Boy” is given to the Juniors in the family. My brother, who worked at the Bank at the time, being also named after my father, ‘they’ simply assumed was the “Boy”, the Junior. They could not imagine that there was another ‘Alfonso son’ lurking around in the vault.

As a result, when these men came to the Bank looking for “Boy Yuchengco”, all they got was, “Boy Yuchengco? There’s no Boy Yuchengco here.” Wish someone in RCBC had also asked them, “You sure you have the right Bank?” Ha!

Media in general, and INQUIRER, in particular, have this thing where they just can’t understand why my father never went after Estrada “long after the intimidation factor disappeared following Estrada’s ouster from the presidency”. (Quote from Inquirer editorial)

Well, why do you think the Chinese are favorite victims of KFR gangs and Government crooks? One, we will do anything for our children, especially when our SONS are threatened, especially when the SON involved is the favorite SON.

Two, even if Estrada had been ousted from the presidency, who says the “intimidation factor had disappeared”? Remember, you guys Set Your Criminals Free! Free to commit more crimes, more intimidation. Free to send their goons after us.

Three, We Chinese are not Ninoy. We have learned, that in the Philippines, “Kami ay laging Nag-iisa!” We cannot expect help or protection from the authorities seeing as to how it is the authorities who tend to come after us.

Can you all not see the Fear Factor involved? If you still cannot, then, i doubt very much you guys will ever be able to reform anything in this country

The next curiosity noted – “But, they were paid!”. Forgetting that this is very much beside the point when the person didn’t want to sell to begin with.

I have told some in media that they should look into the history of PLDT. This because once people know the history, know how tied to my father PLDT was from the time the Americans owned it, they might just understand why my father would never have wanted to let go of any of it.

It’s as if GSIS paid the Lopezes for MERALCO, even though the Lopezes never want to sell to GSIS and GSIS sent people to threaten the life of one of the Lopez scions to force the sale anyway.

Speaking of the Lopezes, when the TITA took over, they got everything back that Marcos took from them. No questions asked, no red tapes. However, the shares of PLDT taken from my father by Marcos (Yes, this happened once before!) and given to Cojuangco to hold in his (Marcos’) name is now even part of what was sold to First (Metro) Pacific by TbC.

“Tita TITA! Bakit kami hindi?” Was it because it involved a Cojuangco? Why the “Kamag-Anak Shuffle”? This is one reason i cannot kowtow to the TITA. Not that i blame her. She definitely was “Good People”, no doubt about it. However, she was too naive. And, she allowed a lot of people, relatives and others, to ruin what could have been a real honest-to-goodness bloodless revolution. One that could have finally changed Flip Society for the Better and “for GOOD”.

AS for the rest of the “story”. I do not have first hand knowledge as to what did or did not happen. I only know of the threat to me because i had been warned by one of my sisters then to lay low. Btw, another thing that showed “their Low INTEL” – Pretending to arrest me on “trumped-up drug charges” – was that it wouldn’t have worked. I was in ReHab then, had been for some time. In fact, i was already in the HalfWay House of New Beginnings when all that was happening. So, how does one arrest someone for drugs when the person is already inside the ReHab?

I am passing this information around for no other reason then to draw some of the flak from my father who is now quite old and a bit frail. I also want “them” to leave my brother alone. I also pass this around to remind people that it’s easy for Actors to pretend, to fool people, even the Santa Tita. But please don’t forget that the guy was, and is, a Gangster. Just look at his friends and “barkada”… You are who you hang out with.

Please pass this around. Are we all going to finally take a stand against the crooks in Government and the Private sector? Or, Nag-iisa lang ba kami ulit?

Btw, this missive in no way defends or sides with Senator Lac. As far as i’m concerned, they’re all crooks and should be locked up in the same cell. I-sama na rin ninyo si GrandMA.

BUT, when are the Filipino people ever going to do this? When are we going to start sincerely helping one another rather than claw & rip off one another?

When are we all ever going to learn and live the real meaning of “Maka-Tao” (‘Maki-Tao’)? When are we ever going to relearn the true sense of “Utang na Loob”, wherein we live for, and assist, one another because we care and not because we are being paid for it?

MaBuhay ang Pinoy! MaBuhay rin sana ang Tsinoy!