of imbeciles and idiots

una kong narinig ang isyung “imbecile” sa SRO (dzmm teleradyo) nang nakausap nina alvin elchico at doris bigornia si mandy anderson sa telepono bilang follow-up (pala) sa congressional hearing earlier in the day (na hindi ko napanood) kung saan kinagalitan ni rep. rudy fariñas si anderson for being disrespectful of house speaker pantaleon alvarez in a facebook post.

the impression i got was that anderson called alvarez an imbecile for insisting that her boss customs commissioner nick faeldon promote a certain sandy sacluti to a permanent position for which anderson considered sacluti unqualified.

as it turns out, anderson called alvarez an imbecile for something else, that is, for threatening to abolish the court of appeals when certain justices ordered the release of the ilocos 6 detained in the batasan re a case vs. ilocos gov. imee marcos.

and now alvarez is saying that faeldon and anderson are only trying to distract from the P5 billion worth of shabu na nakalusot sa customs, while bobi tiglao has been posting about anderson who was with The Firm pala before joining the duterte government.

Curioser and curioser. Faeldon chief of staff Mandy Anderson – a cebuana with her father a Canadian – who called the House Speaker names, was with The Firm (Villaraza and Anganco law firm) right after passing the BAR. Now why would a bar topnotcher (5th 2015) from a powerful and rich law firm working in a posh Bonifacio Global City bldg ( with free meals in its exclusive resto operated by top chef Gene Gonzales of Cafe Ysabel fame) choose to work in a low paying govt job in a dingy office in Port Area in Manila ( with a not so clean canteen). Any ideas?

i’m sure gulung-gulo ang mga ka-DDS.  sino bang kakampihan in a war between duterte peeps?  tapos eto pa si ernesto maceda jr, likening anderson to mislang of PNoy days.

Comm. Faeldon plays the gentleman in standing up for his staff. But the gaffe may have made continued service at the office of the Commissioner untenable. As Sen. President Juan Ponce Enrile reminded all in the earlier case of President PNoy Aquino’s Asst Secretary of Communications (she who had something to say about Vietnamese wine and men): always be on your best behavior as your actions reflect on the institution.

i haven’t quite decided if anderson’s and mislang‘s blunders are comparable.  but i do believe that anderson’s is kind of understandable, if only in the sense that “imbecile” is not too different from “idiot,” a word that president duterte himself has used often enough in public to describe people critical of him, such as the ex-presidents of america and columbia and, even, people he hates, such as drug addicts, and people who put him in a bad light, such as rogue cops.  and the speaker, too, has indulged, calling the CA justices “gago” and “bugok” and “buwang.”

but not understandable really, much less forgivable, given that anderson the bar topnotcher is being praised on social media as a beauty with brains and balls.  what’s so brainy or ballsy about calling alvarez an imbecile because he threatened to abolish the CA.  brainy it would have been had she explained why in her opinion it would be stupid of congress to abolish the CA.   and ballsy it would be if she were now to explain why the shabu shipment got past customs inspection, let the chips fall where they may.  and while she’s at it, she might also want to tell us why in her honest opinion sacluti is not qualified for promotion.

c’mon, girl, better late than never.

Comments

  1. BOBI TIGLAO: Top corporate lawyer Arthur (“Pancho”) Villaraza is behind Mandy Anderson, the Bureau of Customs head Nicanor Faeldon’s chief of staff who became controversial recently for calling Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez an “imbecile”.

    Villaraza in comments on my post in Facebook timeline (which is public) said that Anderson was with his firm Villaraza and Angangco Law, until she joined the Bureau of Customs when former military mutineer Faeldon was appointed July last year to head it. What has raised eyebrows in the bureau is that her contract is for “Chief of Staff” which is a nonexistent post at the bureau, and in that post, has been authorized by Faeldon to sign documents in his behalf.

    The Chief of Staff post is certainly a powerful function in the notoriously corrupt Bureau of Customs in which its head’s signature clearing a single shipment of goods that didn’t pay the required VAT could mean hundreds of millions in graft money. Non-career officials in the BOC as well in the entire government, below the secretary, undersecretary and assistant secretary levels can be recruited only as “consultants”.

    Villaraza backed Anderson, saying that she did nothing wrong to call the Speaker names. He even recommended that Anderson replace Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.

    Villaraza has been one of the country’s top corporate lawyers, and a politically influential one. His firm which in the past had Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio and former Arroyo, and then Aquino, official Avelino “Nonong” Cruz as partners, was considered the most powerful firm during the Arroyo administration.

    Villaraza and Cruz, however, had a messy break-up in 2015. Villaraza forced Cruz and his allies out of the firm’s posh building at the Bonifacio Global City by cutting the water and electricity from the latter’s floor.

    But Cruz, who was very close to former President Aquino’s sidekick, Mar Roxas, the then interior and local government secretary, and would run his presidential campaign in 2016, reportedly got to bring in a police SWAT team to eject Villaraza instead.

    The SWAT team backed off though, and Cruz and his partners had to vacate the building and hold office at his new, although smaller building nearby. What did the SWAT find so frightening that they withdrew?

    They found guarding Villaraza’s floors Philippine Marines, veterans not only of so many battles against the Abu Sayyaf and the NPA, but of the 2003 failed coup attempt—which Faeldon, then a Marine captain, led together with Senator Antonio Trillanes. Faeldon and his loyal Marines saved the day—an entire building to be precise—for Villaraza and his partners. (Margarita Fores, the operator of the firm’s exclusive restaurant and Roxas’ cousin, was quickly replaced, of course.)

    Guess who got Duterte to put Faeldon in that much-sought-after post of Customs head? Do you think that Anderson was so filled with patriotism that she volunteered to help Faeldon, that she left the Villaraza law firm’s posh building at Bonifacio Global City (where she lives in a nearby condominium) to work in the dingy Customs office at Port Area? Or was she seconded there, of course to help Faeldon, but also to keep an eye on him and what’s happening there? It would certainly be interesting to find out how many brokers have retained her former firm as their lawyer.
    http://www.manilatimes.net/rufinos-could-raise-p10-billion-for-marawi/341581/