Category: ping lacson

shabu, semento, senado

i started writing, thinking on, this post yesterday soon after senator panfilo lacson, in aid daw of the blue ribbon committee’s hearings on shabu smuggling sa customs, delivered that privilege speech accusing ex customs chief nic faeldon and his oakwood gang of being on the take, big time.  kararating pa nga lang, may pasalubong na.

“Loud whispers in the four corners of the Bureau of Customs compound tell of a 100-million-peso ‘pasalubong’ to the newly-installed Commissioner, a quarter of which, or 25 million pesos was retained as finder’s fee by his middleman named Joel Teves.”

what, “loud whispers” lang?  no documents, no affidavits by witnesses, no hidden CCTV that prove/show that money illegally changed hands?  interesting.  a former top cop playing like bato’s cops: “shoot” now, explain later.  but not too surprising, given senator ping’s long colorful history.  twice he was the accused in very high-profile cases — the kuratong baleleng shoot-out / rub-out in 1995 and the bubby dacer – alex corbito murders in 2000.

lacson pleaded innocent in both cases and in due time each was dismissed. kuratong baleleng was more easily won.  dacer-corbito was not; ping had to run for it, just before he was charged in court; he was a fugitive for 15 months, there was an arrest order out for him, even the interpol was on the lookout.  umuwi lang siya after the supreme court dismissed the case, affirming the court of appeals’ earlier ruling that the principal witness was neither credible nor trustworthy.  same witness recanted his testimony sometime in 2015.

i’ve always believed that lacson is one very powerful man.  back in the days of erap, when he was PAOCTF chief, there was a lot of talk that he had dossiers on everyone, which inspired fear.  he could be truly innocent of the dacer-corbito murders but i have no doubt that he knows more about these murders than he has ever let on, and that’s like being complicit in protecting the guilty, isn’t it?

but to get back to yesterday when he lashed out at faeldon.  kahit pa sabihin, for the sake of argument, na guilty as charged si faeldon, nagulat ako at the viciousness of lacson’s attack.  guilty until proven innocent.  bakit siya galit na galit kay faeldon? pareho sila ni trillanes, actually.  what do they know about faeldon that makes them so mad at him (or vice versa), but which the president either does not mind or does not know?  is it for PMA’er’s ears only?

this morning faeldon struck back at lacson with a vengeance, wondering what lacson’s motive was for accusing soldiers whom lacson himself knows daw are innocent of corruption.  and then he went on to make kuwento about a cement importer by the name of panfilo lacson jr. whose small company has been bringing in shiploads of cement, tone-toneladang semento, na misdeclared, undervalued (at $8/metric ton) by some 50 percent of market price.  106M pesos worth of cement in 3 shipments over 3 days in july 2016.  nakaka-67 shipments na daw by now.  and like tish, faeldon has documents.

tanong ni faeldon: alam mo ba ito, senator lacson?  kasi kung hindi, kung hindi mo alam ang ginagawa ng anak mo sa customs, then wala kang alam tungkol sa customs.

sagot ni lacson: it’s a big big lie …  i am not my son’s keeper … faeldon’s $16 for cement is too high.

also the senator said that he would not have made yesterday’s exposé re faeldon if he himself were involved in customs corruption in any way.  and anyway why did it take faeldon so long to make sumbong?

hmm.  it is not beyond imagination that lacson made the exposé — even if he himself was not beyond reproach — out of hubris, over-confidence, thinking no one would dare mess with him, or that faeldon in particular would not dare challenge him.  just as it’s perfectly understandable that faeldon was in no hurry to tangle with the senator, as who would be? until he had his documents in order.  and if he is NOT on the take, then it makes sense that faeldon would hit back at the senator with everything he’s got just about now.

it’s not quite as hateful or scandalous as the shabu smuggling — after all, di naman illegal substance ang semento — but undervaluation in aid of paying less in taxes is technical smuggling, a crime that cheats government of millions, maybe billions, in revenue, and which is punishable with fines and imprisonment.

hindi bale sana kung dahil nakamura sa customs ay mas mura nilang ibinebenta ang semento sa mercado.  asa pa.

meanwhile, senate prez pimentel and senators drilon and aquino were quick to express support for their colleague.

PIMENTEL. “We have to make sure that this is not pang lihis lang ng isyu. And Faeldon should state everything he knows about everyone involved in suspicious activities in Customs and not only concentrate his return fire on the person who exposed the tara system in BOC.”

DRILON. “I have full faith in the uprightness of Sen. Lacson and his family. Without any evidence other than Faeldon’s allegation, I will oppose any investigation. It will be a waste of time and will simply be used as a venue for character assassination.”

AQUINO said he is confident Lacson could defend himself against the allegations of Faeldon that his son’s company is the “number one cement smuggler in the country.”

if not for faeldon, we wouldn’t now know that senator lacson’s son is a  customs player pala.  nakakapagpaisip, di ba?  sino pa kaya sa mga senador ang may anak, kapatid, pamangkin, pinsan, at / o inaanak na customs players din.  imposible naman na si lacson lang.  time to circle the wagons indeed.

 

the more lists, the merrier

to my mind, all legislators, past and present, who have availed of pork barrel funds for whatever project through whatever agency, governmental or non-governmental, fake or real, in all the years since cory institutionalized it — whether these legislators appear on any of the napoles-related lists or not — are suspect, i.e., under suspicion of pocketing kickbacks / commissions unless proven otherwise.

the conventional wisdom has always been that in congress, everyone does it.  even ping lacson, before he made that privilege speech in 2003 calling for the scrapping of the pork barrel, was said to have used up 147 M of his 150 M allocation for 2002.  i wonder if he never accepted kickbacks ever.

the same goes for the senators and congressmen, past and present, on the napoles lists, genuine or otherwise, who are quick to deny any dealings with napoles.  so okay, maybe your PDAF went to legit projects, but i’m still waiting to hear anyone deny that he or she has ever received accepted pocketed kickbacks or commissions.  surely there are a few good men and women who deserve to be on a short list of eminently qualified candidates come 2016?

other than lacson, of course, even if he is innocent of kickbacks, until he comes clean and tells us who ordered the dacer-corbito murders.  surely he knows.

^

http://totocausing.blogspot.com/2013/08/lacsons-privilege-speech-scrap-pork.html
http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132884 lacson’s pork barrel 2003
http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2014/05/18/1324398/pork-overload
http://opinion.inquirer.net/74722/who-benefits-2#ixzz327kQUf2S

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.

How the Miriam Santiago vs Ping Lacson circus mirrors the Philippines’ bakla culture

by benignO

Funny that just as soon as Senator Miriam Santiago threatened to reveal the “truth” about Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson’s sexual orientation, the latter senator in a way kind of validated what many people have been speculating by going on a rampaging counter-attack himself. 

For one thing, this all supposedly started after Lacson was accused by Santiago of being one of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile’s attack dogs. Then, for another, Lacson would follow suit and go on an equally public attack on the lady senator. In both cases he seems to be exhibiting the very behaviours symptomatic of the conditions Santiago says afflicts him — being an attack dog and being, well, a bit on the Pinky side. After all, what real gentleman would see no issue with making big public stink about his ill feelings towards a woman.

To be fair to Lacson, Santiago’s attacks are quite crude. The best of threats are best kept veiled in favour of real actions. What was that old Nike slogan again? Just do it. Trouble is Lacson does the same — stoops down to the level of his adversary. Both now are making good use of the Media to further their tirades against one another. Guess who comes out of this laughing all the way to the bank?

Since when has Philippine Media become the sumbungan of choice of powerful Philippine senators?

Veteran journalist Ramon Tulfo, as a matter of fact, is known for his hit show Isumbong mo kay Tulfo where he facilitates getting the issues that affect ordinary powerless citizens to the fore before a mass audience. But that is a concept that suits ordinary people who do not enjoy the clout of Philippine senators.

You really gotta wonder then about the sort of men who obssessively tattletale to any bozo who cares to listen about the women they’ve had confrontations with. Filipinos of all people should understand. There is no English translation for the old observation when beholding such characters: Kalalaking tao pinatulan ang babae. Where I come from, the most admired men are stolid and stoic even in the face of a woman’s wrath — one, I am constantly told, that hell itself hath no fury to match. Indeed, a man resorting to rude behaviour on a one-on-one confrontation with a woman is bad enough, but to be constantly tattling about said confrontation loudly in a public forum of mutual back-patters is another.

Where I grew up such guys are easily told off: Bakla ka pala e.

Philippine senators, any powerful public official for that matter, whether male or female are expected to man up — specifically, settle disputes amongst themselves like men. After all, they serve as models to a citizenry who lack a tradition of doing the same. The sight and sound of senators clawing each other’s eyes out in catfights in living colour and surround sound simply highlights the sort of politics that reflect the character of the Filipino vote.

Why do Filipinos vote for such politicians?

Well, spectacle is king in Philippine elections. No surprise there. Indeed, our most esteemed “activists” for “social change” routinely denounce politicians for acting like clowns while on the campaign trail but are themselves blind to the banal clownery with which folk in their own ranks deliver their “activist” messages.

We can’t continue to reserve our most vitriolic criticism for Filipino politicians and ignore the character of the people who routinely vote for the same bozos year in and year out.

As Raquel Welch was said to have said:

Insanity is expecting different results while doing the same thing again and again.

Ms Welch is quite the woman indeed.