Category: senate
SET decision on Poe’s citizenship unsettling rather than comforting
The Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) decision throwing out the petition questioning the citizenship of Senator Grace Poe is an uncomfortable one. The number of the votes and the members either voting for or against the petition are causes for serious concern.
Read on…
blitzing the binays
on august 20, just 45 days from now, it will be a whole year that the senate blue ribbon subcommittee has been investigating, pounding on, the binays, father and son, for alleged corruption and other sins. the hearing on july 8 will be the 22nd. in numerology 22 is the most powerful of numbers, for good or ill.
“We will come out with something very interesting. It will show the character of the (Binay) family.” Trillanes said it is important for the public to know how the Vice President and his family really are so they would be able to make a better judgment in the 2016 elections.
well, at least di na nagpapanggap ang trying-hard triumvirate that this is all in aid of legislation. trillanes practically admits that this is all in aid of changing the minds of voters who support vp binays bid for the presidency, obviously in aid of improving the prospects of other wanna-bids. basta the mantra seems to be: anyone but binay. hmm. i wonder if that applies to bongbong as well.
i get it naman, this picking on the binays to knock the vp out of the race, and decisively. but why is it taking forever? it took them just six months to impeach and pronounce chief justice corona guilty. maybe impeachment was the way to go? or talaga namang walang ebidensiya that would stand up in an impeachment court? or marami palang binay supporters sa lower house so speaker belmonte did not even want to try?
but what truly grates is that natabunan na lang ang PDAF, DAP, mamasapano, MRT, at kung anoano pa, no thanks to media. worse, cayetano, pimentel, and trillanes don’t really inspire confidence in the rightness of their cause, being themselves not beyond reproach, correct me if i’m wrong.
“actionable intelligence”
feb 11 i caught US president barack obama on CNN explaining his admin’s draft resolution to the US congress for authority to use force against ISIL.
OBAMA: If we had actionable intelligence about a gathering of ISIL leaders, and our partners didn’t have the capacity to get them, I would be prepared to order our Special Forces to take action, because I will not allow these terrorists to have a safe haven. [emphasis mine]
actionable intelligence! it rang a bell. i was sure i heard president aquino use the very same words to justify the mamasapano ops. googled it and, yes, the very same words, when he addressed the nation for the first time 29 january re mamasapano.
“[N]ang nalaman ng ating kapulisan ang tutok na lokasyon nina Marwan at Usman, nagdesisyon silang kumilos upang ipatupad ang mga warrant sa mga ito. Actionable intelligence po ang nakalap ng ating mga awtoridad: Hindi lamang rehiyon, o probinsiya, o munisipyo ang natukoy nila, kundi ang mismong mga bahay na pinagtataguan ng dalawa. Kung hindi aaksiyunan ang kaalamang ito, maaaring makatakas sina Marwan at Usman, at kakailanganin na namang simulan ang mahabang proseso ng paghahanap sa kanila.
and just last wednesday feb 11, the very same day obama talked “actionable intelligence” vis a vis ISIL, palace spokesman edwin lacierda invoked the same to explain why presidential bff purisima remained in the loop despite his suspension from office by the ombudsman last december 2014:
“He (Purisima) had the actionable intelligence. That was the role that he had,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said in a press briefing.
“actionable intelligence” was first used by presidential candidate obama in august 2007 amid debate in Washington over al qaeda and taliban resurgence in northwest pakistan that president pervez musharraf was unable to control.
upon the killing of osama bin laden by US operatives in may 2o11, a senior administration official said in a press briefing:
I would also just add to that that President Obama, over a period of several years now, has repeatedly made it clear that if we had actionable intelligence about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, we would act. So President Obama has been very clear in delivering that message publicly over a period of years. And that’s what led President Obama to order this operation. When he determined that the intelligence was actionable and the intelligence case was sufficient, he gave us high confidence that bin Laden indeed was at the compound.
it would seem — given obama’s words to the effect that the US is prepared to take action should a “partner” prove incapable of acting on actionable intelligence — that president aquino really had no choice but to allow the mamasapano ops when he did, with purisima in the lead, since it was purisima with whom the americans were sharing the actionable info. if the prez and purisima had waited too long, at naka-eskapo ang mga terorista, nagalit tiyak ang amerika, and who knows how that would have affected our foreign and political and security affairs.
naka-eskapo nga si usman, pero patay naman daw si marwan, and the americans may be seeing the glass as half-full, but which brings us back to the finger. i suppose that by now congress is privy to napenas’ story about why and how it was turned over to the americans almost immediately, it would seem, defying all protocol. i suppose, too, that our senators and congresspeeps will not be sharing the transcript of those executive sessions with us ordinary citizens, which would mean that these allegedly honourable ones would be complicit in the cover-up.
a cover-up na nakaka-offend because it’s like they’re saying that we can’t handle the truth about america and our lopsided “special relations.” as if we haven’t known all along.
they think we’re all idiots. no actionable intelligence for us.