Category: leila de lima

Synchronicity: Leila free-at-last & BBM’s Maharlika fund

On the same day that the Muntinglupa RTC granted Leila de Lima’s petition for bail — almost 7 years overdue — Bongbong Marcos moved the controversial Maharlika fund forward with the appointment of “finance whiz” Rafael D. Consing Jr. to the post of President & CEO.

Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity, going beyond science (cause-and-effect), “takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance” and which is the very principle underlying the use of the I Ching and astrology (among other occult arts) in making sense of “the essential situation prevailing” for any one person or group at any moment in time. https://stuartsantiago.com/falling-chandelier-and-other-omens/

Whether deliberate, as in orchestrated, or purely by chance, the co-incidence — Leila being set free on the same new-moon-in-Scorpio day that PBBM named Consing PCEO of Maharlika — is quite intriguing. Para silang kambal events, na magkatulad ang potentials, strengths, and weaknesses, at maaaring magkatulad rin ang kahihinatnan.

In occult thought, the new moon is associated with new beginnings, and the sign Scorpio with rebirth and regeneration. Nov 13 was quite a great day for Leila — free at last! — which indicates that, at the very least, it was a good day, too, for Consing-Maharlika. But like fellow occultist Ed Cabagnot points out in Facebook, that new moon was attended by other planetary configurations (as above, so below):

[The] De Lima surprise was written in the stars. New Moon in Scorpio conjunct Mars while opposing Uranus in Taurus, with Neptune in Pisces making a soft trine to the three Scorpio planets and a soft sextile to Uranus. Much more to this albeit good news than meets the eye. https://www.facebook.com/ 

For sure it’s a rocky road ahead for both Leila and Maharlika.

Leila has major decisions to make. Take Aguirre to court for jailing her without charges? Get involved in the ICC investigation of Dutz? Run for the Senate in 2025? Will she be safe? Her enemies are still out there, among them, it is said, the former prez whom she placed under hospital arrest in PNoy’s time.

Maharlika, for its part, has to level up the communications and PR. It was kind of smart, the quiet way Consing’s appointment was announced: no fanfare, no photos, no facing the media to reassure nation that Maharlika is a great idea, no Q & A re the revised IRR atbp. Only that Palace announcement via  palace reporters na mabilis natabunan ng balitang Leila. But that very same afternoon YoursTruly @datumx11 tweeted:

May CRIMINAL CASE pala itong newly appointed president ng MAHARLIKA Investment Corp.
G.R. No. 148193 January 16, 2003 People of the Philippines, petitioner
Vs.
RAFAEL JOSE CONSING, JR., respondent
https://twitter.com/datumx11/status/ . 616K Views . 2:12 PM Nov 13, 2023

The next day Consing issued a terse 8-word statement: “All cases filed against me have been dismissed.” But without any supporting documents.  And there’s nothing to be found online beyond the July 15 2013 ruling penned by Bersamin, J. that “he [Consing] cannot be adjudged free from criminal liability.” Read  G.R. No. 162075 here: https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/1/56111

BBM has important decisions to make. If SC records show that all criminal cases against Consing have not been dismissed, will the prez appoint someone else who has never been charged with estafa, and hopefully one who measures up to the qualifications of Maharlika PCEO?

BUSINESS WORLD.  The revised implementing rules were released at the weekend, removing requirements for the holder of the post now assumed by Mr. Consing to have an advanced degree in finance, economics, business administration or a related field from a reputable university.

Enrico P. Villanueva, a senior lecturer of money and banking at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, said it “would have been better from a corporate governance perspective if the board of directors had been selected and approved first.”

“From their ranks, a director or two can be recommended as CEO,” he said in a Facebook Messenger chat. “This way, the CEO is beholden to the board, as should be the case in corporations, and not to the President who directly appointed him.”
https://bworldonline.com/

If BBM insists on Consing anyway, then it’s not looking good for Maharlika. Rather like a non-starter. Why should would we entrust our precious “surplus” funds with a-Consing-beholden-to-BBM? Yes, BBM can ignore us but it would could be to Maharlika’s peril, or so we are being warned.

On Leila’s part, it may be too soon to make moves against Dutz’s DOJ, as her lawyer friends suggest, if only just because may isang kaso pa siya na pending.

LEILA. Wala pa sa mindset ko, whether it’s 2025 or any other subsequent elections because I have yet to really determine and I need a lot of thinking about whether i”ll be going back to public service. https://twitter.com/ Neil Arwin Mercado @NAMercadoINQ Nov 17 2023

It would make sense, dropping out of public service, a worse-than-thankless job for her, so far. But if she’s still got the fight in her, maybe she could steer clear of human rights and Dutz — let that be decided between BBM and ICC — and go back to her pre-CHR advocacy of voter education: defending the sanctity of the ballot.

RANDY DAVID. In a 2016 interview with TIME magazine, De Lima said: “My father’s advice was to avoid joining politics if I could. He said that my personality wasn’t suited for it—that I might just get hurt, because I don’t know how to play games.” Her father, Vicente de Lima, had been executive director and later a commissioner of the Commission on Elections.

De Lima understood the modernist intentions of the country’s election laws, but realizing how hard it was to enforce these in the context of its premodern political realities, she championed the need for voter education. She made herself available to media interviews, and, before long, she became known for the message she articulated with clarity and urgency—that Filipinos must take their votes seriously and defend the sanctity of the ballot if politics is to be a force for good. In May 2008, then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appointed De Lima to head the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). “[This] was never part of my career path,” De Lima told TIME, “ … but I took it as a challenge.”

The rest is history. Hopefully a new, or old, challenge beckons and proves irresistible, for the good of nation. Leila is too good to lose. As for Maharlika, here’s hoping BBM’s right and it’s “close to perfect … as possible,” as in, too good to fail. #crossfingers

*

Readings

the curious case of leila de lima

it cuts across gender, the outrage over the “slut-shaming” of senator leila de lima the day her former driver-lover ronnie dayan was in the house and the committee on justice gleefully lecherously interrogated him mostly about his love affair with the senator, ostensibly in aid of checking out how close, even how intense, exactly the relationship was, the better to convince us that the senator and her former lover were in cahoots, collecting protection money from drug traders in and out of bilibid when she was secretary of justice in the time of aquino III.

but also i thought, and commented on twitter, that she was not exactly blameless.  as a public servant and public figure she could have been more careful.  the retort, of course, zoomed in on the double standard: that a male counterpart’s sexual activities would not be feasted on in a public hearing in the same way.

but how do we know?  it has never happened (correct me if i’m wrong) that a male secretary of justice / cabinet member was accused of accepting protection money or bribes from drug lords or other interest groups with the alleged connivance of an employee, maybe a secretary, with whom he was having an affair, acting as bag lady.

at kung magkaroon man na counterpart case, i have no doubt that the house of reps would behave just as gleefully and lecherously once the bag lady appeared before them.  although i imagine that it would be quite different from the dayan episode where it became usapang lalaki, with dayan being the essential macho, eager to share his sexual exploit with the boss lady who happened to be the secretary of justice, no less.  i imagine that if it were a lady on the hot seat, and she were just a bit more sophisticated than dayan, she would know to draw the line and tell off the machos, even dare them to cite her in contempt for refusing to answer such questions.  public opinion would be squarely on her side.

under de lima’s watch, of course, there was the senator accused of plunder via the napoles pork barrel scam; he was alleged to have received commissions through his lady chief of staff, with whom he was allegedly, and long rumored to, having an affair.  i don’t recall the senate holding public hearings on that one; i don’t recall ever hearing the voice of the chief of staff testifying to or denying anything.  i suppose the senator was just too senior and know-it-all, a hero of sorts even, who would surely have lashed back so that his colleagues in the senate probably didn’t dare; besides, he never admitted to the relationship, saying he was too old.  (the senate, however, did not spare another, younger, senator, also with the opposition, but who was not having an affair with his self-confessed bag lady.)

also under justice sec de lima’s watch, former prez gloria arroyo was prevented from leaving the country and eventually placed under hospital arrest, and eight members of iglesia ni cristo’s sanggunian board were charged for illegal detention based on a complaint by a besieged iglesia minister.

As Secretary of Justice, De Lima continued to collect the enemies that would one day seek her “karma,” in the words of former first gentleman Mike Arroyo and, more recently, the daughter of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile.

that’s tony la viña, standing as character witness, in Leila de Lima: A woman for all seasons. and this is randy david reacting to de lima’s public humiliation in Do lawmakers have a sexual life?

Someone is undoubtedly behind this badly written script, someone who seeks to destroy Senator De Lima because she has become emblematic of everything that the Aquino administration stood for. To destroy her is to deface the legacy of that administration.

indeed de lima could be innocent.  it may be true that she was never on the take, she did not use money from the drug trade to win herself a seat in the senate.  but there are questions that she has managed not to answer satisfactorily, if at all.  principally: why did the drug trade in bilibid continue anyway even after oplan galugad’s more than 30 raids from 2014 to 2016?

and if she was not on the take, then who pocketed/banked all those millions in cash that the bilibid boys said they contributed for her campaign?  dayan?  but how could de lima not have known?  or were they all lying — the bilibid boys, dayan, and kerwin espinosa — just to help along president duterte’s fearless forecast that de lima will rot in jail?

but whether or not she was on the take, de lima was certainly very careless when it came to her love life.  gets ko naman that she has a thing for the driver-bodyguard type of guy.  medyo liberating for a woman ‘yung being in a position to indulge one’s sexual preferences and urges, or should i say, to succumb to one’s sexual frailties, never mind how unconventional or tacky or taboo (as hamlet’s mother did, to his utter dismay).  pero di ko gets that she allegedly indulged in such frailty for 7 long years, from when she was human rights commissioner through most of her stint as secretary of justice — this last a sensitive position that should have compelled her to exercise the utmost discretion para hindi mabuking ang kanyang frailty at ma-exploit ng mga masasamang loob to the detriment of nation.  i mean, you know, she owed it to nation to be beyond reproach and beyond victimization.

i always doubted that she was on the take just because hindi ako makapaniwalang inakala niya that she could get away with it, she would never get caught, no one would ever dare spill the beans on her bilibid drug-trade racket.  i found that quite curious, even incredible.   hubris ba ang tawag doon?  sagot ng isang atribida, hindi po, akala po ni de lima mananalo si mar for president, tapos si leni o si bam in 2022.  di po ba yun ang mantra ng LP?  12 more years?!?

well, that might explain it.  but after mar had lost and digong was going to town na with his allegations of her involvement in the drug trade as protectress, she continued to be quite careless, particularly with that text message via dayan’s daughter advising her former lover to ignore the house justice committee’s summons at magtago na lang.

it was rather shortsighted of her not to have anticipated that without serious assistance the guy would eventually be caught and that text message revealed.  as it turns out, silence would have been the better part of valor.  what if she had at once admitted the relationship instead, and dayan had promptly heeded the summons and faced off with the bilibid boys?   then perhaps much more info would have come to light about the bilibid drug trade, narco-politics, and de lima’s role, if any, than about her sex life.

the good news is, dayan is set to testify in a senate hearing of ping lacson’s committee on public order and dangerous drugs on monday, dec 5.  we might see daw a face-off between dayan and kerwin espinosa.  sana with senator de lima na rin, although she might be, you know, too frail for that.

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.

abusing the webbs

justice secretary leila de lima’s latest statements unequivocally declaring the webbs guilty of lying re the whereabouts of hubert on the night of the vizconde massacre — new evidence daw shows that hubert was in manila and not in the u.s. — smacks of gross injustice to the webb family.  and that she’s not here to answer questions and face the webbs — nasa berlin daw for some conference — makes me wonder: was it deliberate, making her statements on the eve of her departure, so as to avoid the firestorm she set off?

and what about, making her statements on the eve of the lapsing of the 20-year statute of limitations on murder cases.  all the time i thought that the nbi/doj were looking at other suspects.  ang hirap ba masyado?  easier to just go back to hubert, lalo na’t lauro vizconde insists he’s guilty?  really, what makes de lima’s new witnesses so credible, after 20 years of silence?  and again, what about u.s. immigration records that prove hubert arrived in the u.s. when he said he did?  nabayaran din lang?  LOL

all the talk about how former senator fredddie webb was so influential, he was able to have records doctored to reflect hubert’s departure before the murders, is i think misplaced — if he were so influential, hubert wouldn’t have gone to jail at all.

the one who is really influential, it seems to me now, is lauro vizconde himself who i hear is a board director of ibc 13 and a consultant in pagcor, thanks to gma.  ano yon?  reward?  pampalubag loob?  preferential treatment?   if he hadn’t gone overseas as ocw baka buhay pa ang asawa niya’t dalawang anak?

and what about the aquino administration?  masaya ba sila sa ginawang ito ni leila de lima, refusing to respect the supreme court ruling?  or is this part lang of a continuing campaign vs the supreme court?  sana hindi.  there must be other ways to skin that cat without using the webbs who have suffered enough.

revisiting hubert webb
from fritz webb
surreal justice