Category: pork barrel
nardong kupit
In our Amazing Stories, here’s the Story of Boy Pikap and Nardong Kupit:
NARDONG KUPIT ! putik, ang ganda! was my rave response to reyna elena’s status on facebook. i wished i had thought it up myself. so apropos a riposte to actor-senator bong revilla’s o.a. dramatics, professing his innocence, alleging persecution, giving what he must have thought was the greatest performance of his life. I … AM NOT …. AFRAID ! i thought he was going to say: I … AM NOT … A PIG ! ay mali.
NARDONG KUPIT ! for the non-tagalogs: kupit is tagalog for filching, pilfering. and an anagram of putik, i.e., mud. nardong putik was a kabitenyo gangster who seemed to have nine lives, thanks allegedly to a powerful anting-anting (amulet), and who was successfully portrayed in the movies by no less than senator bong’s father, also an actor, and senator (1992-2004), ramon revilla sr. (yes, think dynasty).
NARDONG KUPIT ! it was quite a speech, actually. the parts calling out the prez on festering issues and questioning his tuwid-na-daan again and again were spot-on, but, really, coming from bong revilla, i can only say, AS IF ! as if he were some exemplar of tuwid-na-daan! if he were, and if he were truly innocent of pocketing much of his pork barrel funds, he should have used that privilege speech to convince us, prove, that none of his wealth is ill-gotten.
instead of showing us signatures a la jose velarde, i mean, a la joker arroyo, he could have shown us a record of his earnings from all the movies and commercials and tv shows he has ever starred in and/or produced. instead of showing us a passport and airline records a la freddie webb, he could have shown us his bank records, and revealed the sources of any and all large deposits.
and, really, he shouldn’t have brought his wheelchaired dad to the senate. alam tiyak ng mag-ama that the last time, the first time, something like that happened was back in 1991, and the wheelchaired one was the venerable lorenzo tanada, there to witness the historic occasion when his son wigberto voted along with senate president jovito salonga and 10 other valiant ones against the treaty that sought to extend the occupation of clark field and subic by US military forces. i remember tearing up, sharing the old man tanada’s unabashed happiness after decades of struggle.
i felt no such sympathy for the aged ailing revilla whose struggles were for his own ever-growing family, never for country, or so it would seem. there was no sharing his unabashed grief for a sullied name, if that, indeed is what he was so miserable about. if anything, his presence only reminded of his many mistresses and some 72 children, and the question of his own unexplained wealth, not to speak of nardong putik, now kupit.
lucky napoles, out in two years?
i usually give fearless forecasts by astrologers and other fortunetellers a wide berth at this time of year, i.e., i am never critical — some of these psychics are quite good — rather i’m just interested in gleaning whether or not their prognostications are consistent or not with each other. when consistent, across tarot, feng shui, chinese and western astrology readings, no matter if as vague as “trouble in the second half of the year,” then in my mind it’s worth noting…
but here i’m taking note, before i forget, of one reading by astrologer henry palacios a few days ago in atom araullo’s ANC show Hiwaga, where after warning of possibly another, maybe even stronger, yolanda, and maybe a big earthquake maybe in september, and some huge problem na kakaharapin ng gobyerno, possibly corruption-related, he ends on a very definitely upbeat note on, of all things, of all people, janet napoles of PDAF-scam fame now under detention in a police camp in sta. rosa, laguna.
say ni palacios :
on facebook palacios assured a group of astrologers that his statements were based on napoles’s birthchart. i wished that araullo had said so, and shown us the birthchart, and asked palacios to elaborate a little. after all, he’s practically saying that napoles will be exonerated, and i can’t imagine that happening, given COA’s truckload of documentary evidence, and the testimonies of benhur luy et al, UNLESS she turns state witness and tells all.
and when palacios says, don’t say she’s a bad person, may purpose siya para sa bansa, what does he mean? that napoles’s motives for stealing PDAF funds were good, maybe a la robin hood? or does he mean that her purpose for nation is to be the instrument for uncovering corruption? again, that could only be true if she were to spill the beans and tell on the senators and congressmen who raked in millions and millions of pesos in kickbacks with her help. which would entail nothing less than a change of heart vis a vis her refusal to answer incriminating questions in the senate hearing pre-yolanda.
as for the matinding suwerte, napoles’s birthchart, posted on the blog of astrologer col. romy solina, is indeed the birthchart of a very lucky and powerful native. we have no way of knowing, though, whether palacios’ napoles chart uses the same birthtime. but even if not, even without a birthtime, the zodiacal positions of planets and other elements, and the angles they make to each other, are enough to indicate extraordinary potentials for power and prosperity, especially if, like marcos and reagan in their heydays, she was, is, getting advice from astrologers.
in two years she’ll be free? in two years it’s 2016, election year, which means she’ll be wheeling and dealing with the next prez. can’t wait to see how she plays her cards. maybe she could teach gloria, the other “lucky bitch,” a trick or two.
walang kamatayang pork barrel
so, we’ve been had, we who rejoiced when the supreme court declared the PDAF unconstitutional last november and thought we had heard, seen, the last of it.
Pork Barrel is very much alive and kicking! warns prof. ben diokno. and, like Dracula, the pork barrel is alive, in another guise, bewails neal cruz.
as it turns out, only 15 of the 24 senators gave up their pork barrel. 9 senators — the cayetano sibs, the estrada-ejercito sibs, lapid, trillanes, recto, and miriam — did not, and instead “realigned” their PDAFs with the budget of one or another line agency, or the calamity fund, in the bicam- and senate-approved 2014 budget that the prez signed into law last december.
senator chiz escudero, chairman of the senate finance committee, and very much the pilosopo lawyer, justifies it thus:
Is the realignment legal or constitutional in the light of the high court’s decision on the PDAF?
Yes, says Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the Senate finance committee. The realignments (Escudero calls them “amendments”) came before the implementation of the P2.265-trillion national budget, he says.
The high court had declared unconstitutional all provisions of the law that allowed legislators “to wield any form of post-enactment authority in the implementation of the budget.”
But Escudero says the identification of beneficiaries of the realigned PDAF “does not violate” the high court’s ruling. “It’s well within our right to review and approve the budget,” he says. “This is preenactment intervention.”
say rin ni bayan muna partylist rep neri colmenares:
“The Supreme Court was not clear on whether lawmakers could realign the funds or not because it is clear that Congress has the power of the purse and has the prerogative where government money should be spent,” says Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares. “What it was clear on was that lump-sum items should be discontinued and that everything in the budget should be itemized.”
Members of the House had realigned a much bigger amount—P930 billion, including the PDAF.
at parang tuwang-tuwa lang si senator chiz, as in, tipong naisahan nila ang presidente?
“In accordance with the powers of Congress, all of us can introduce an amendment. That’s our legislative power. If the President submits the budget, we can’t skirt our duty to amend it. What are we, a rubber stamp?” Escudero said by phone, chuckling.
more like, naisahan ang anti-pork people’s movement, as in, nakahanap sila ng legal loophole (salamat sa supremes?) and it’s as if the people’s outcry against all pork-n-patronage fell on deaf ears. it’s as if two of the nine senators, estrada and revilla, were not facing charges of receiving substantial kickbacks from fake NGOs identified with the notorious accused napoles. and it’s as if the other seven senators were themselves untouched by any suspicion of similar kickbacks in the past.
of course, it might be that these realignments no longer allow kickbacks of any sort in any way. if so, i wish they’d come right out and say it, assure us na, wala na pong kickback. but of course they won’t because it would be to admit na oo nga, dati ay may kickback.
but, hey, jinggoy estrada, who aligned half his PDAF to the budget of the City of Manila of which his tatay, ex-prez erap, is mayor, is the most unrepentant, defiant, shameless, and brazen of them all. hiyang hiya naman ako for the senate, who allowed him to gift his tatay’s city hall with a hundred million bucks. hiyang hiya rin ako for erap, who had no idea daw that it was coming, and who doesn’t have the sense to say no-thanks, kahit out of delicadeza man lang.
*
pahabol. say ng grapevine, the supreme court is poised to rule vs erap in the disqualification case filed by ex-mayor fred lim. if true, it would serve jinggoy right.