it’s been one of those times when so much is going on on the family front, there’s always something else more important to think about or attend to than blogging, even on independence day, when i had always managed to post something everytime june 12 came around, to celebrate it kahit paano. or maybe it’s just that planet mercury is in retrograde motion, as above so below, i’m just not thinking straight, rather, paatras, compelled to go back over old ground, rethinking things, mostly unresolved issues.
i do know that the president celebrated independence day in robredo country where i suppose the widow leni keeps the yellow flame alive, except that he was hounded and heckled by leftists anyway, “Patalsikin ang Pork Barrel King! Walang pagbabago sa Pilipinas!” and the noisiest one was arrested and charged for disorderly conduct.
napaka-mercury retrograde kind of event, basta bawal ang dissent. i can almost hear the president justifying the arrest along the line of: “medyo bastos, di po ba? in the middle of my speech! sana nakinig muna sila, baka naman nasagot ko pala ang ipinaparatang nila sa akin…” in that self-righteous tone. but but but what if the noisy minority had simply been ushered out, so the president could finish his speech in peace? bakit kailangan pang arestuhin at kasuhan? bakit masyadong violent ang reaction? nakaka-tense na ba? so so so uncool.
before that, i found the time, out of idle curiosity, to listen to the privilege speeches of bong revilla and jinggoy estrada. swan songs baga? not really. i switched off when revilla was introducing his music video, but that lengthy thank you list — lahat magaling, walang masamang tinapay — and the special thanks to the millions of supporters that voted him into office, tells me he will run again, even from jail, a la ninoy no less, and oh okay trillanes. estrada, in contrast, was quite dignified and seemed quite confident that he would be proven innocent. tells me we’re in for some serious legal calisthenics.
wag tayo maniwala na handang-handa na silang makulong, as in, i’m all packed and ready to go, bring it on, so we can defend our innocent selves and clear our names. in fact, since the three cases were raffled off sa sandiganbayan last friday, delaying tactics have come into play, and i bet st jude, patron saint of hopeless cases, if not the virgin, mother, lady of this and that are being stormed with novenas left and right, let not arrest warrants be issued. ma-delay lang ng mga abogado nila ng isang taon, they could all just run again in 2016, yes, even enrile maybe, kahit for congressman lang uli, and if they win, then for sure they will claim vindication, exoneration, by their constituencies, and what a mess that will be for our institutions.
so, is there absolutely no chance that the three senators will be arrested soon? at first i thought absolutely no chance. but on second thought, significant things do happen during mercury retro (na parang moving-on naman ang mode) though it usually means that things won’t go smoothly, for either government or the accused.
so, yes, there’s actually a chance that the three senators could be arrested sooner than later, and that’s mostly because, come to think of it, it won’t be the first time for either enrile or estrada to be arrested, which means it is more likely to happen again than not. si bong revilla, who knows, baka naaresto na rin siya in some pelikula, haha.
but of course it would all hinge on the president’s preferred strategy. who knows, he might be up to putting the pressure on the sandiganbayan justices to take the word of the ombudsman na lang on probable cause, the sooner for the arrests and trials to proceed, the better to distract us from butch abad and those allegedly missing DBM records. because , really, cavite rep elpidio barzaga jr’s defense of abad just really raises more questions.
He stressed it was possible that the documents have been intentionally destroyed to avoid leaving any evidence of irregularities in the disbursements of congressional allocations.
The veteran solon stressed that Abad should not bear the brunt of the law because he was not personally involved in any anomalous transaction.
straight from the horse’s mouth, ika nga. and while mercury’s retro yet. hmm, everyone’s suspect, of course, admin and opposition, who were in congress and who used their PDAFs 2007 to 2009.
by the way, heard through the grapevine that mar roxas is absolutely clean vis a vis PDAF, which means what? never used his PDAF? used his PDAF but never accepted kickbacks? interesting if true.
I found Cocoy’s blog on the protesting student to be spot on.
http://propinoy.net/2014/06/14/em-mijares-skin-in-the-game/
President Aquino had nothing to do with the arrest. He was just speaking and the local PNP hauled the young man off. I suspect they were a tad upset that the guy embarrassed them as to their responsibility for securing the President in a nation that likely has more guns per capita than the U.S.
We all could benefit by a little more civility in the world. And security.
Joe, libertarian will always argue the “right to disssent” is a constitutional right but the right to “heckle a public official in a public event”,more so if he is the head of the state, is just a matter of moral standard which means a disorderly behaviour is justified by a disorder society and dysfunctional govt.
The question of whether the kid should have been arrested is a good one. It helps draw the line between individual freedom and responsibility to one’s nation, and its leader. I just have a hard time with people laying any blame at all on the President, or security people who would be remiss to let ANY out of ordinary activity to occur. To me, it is either “no blame” or “blame the kid” . . . and support the people who are working for us . . . and protecting us.
the heckler should suffer the consequences of his action. alarm and scandal are crimes defined and penalized under the revised penal code. this is a police matter pure and simple. he could have delivered his message to the president by writing him a letter. but to heckle the highest official of the land is sobra na. good manners and right conduct must be observed at all times.
why don’t these leftist activists heckle tanda, pogi and sexy at the plenary? the last two named senators have been abusing the privilege hour in the senate. bakit tameme ang kaliwa?
Years ago, a student who heckled GMA got arrested and now a student who heckled BSA got arrested. Well, that’s the whole point of heckling… to get arrested and make the news on TV and the papers. So it becomes an issue about freedom of speech, suppression of debate etc etc.
Although tactics like that work very well against an unpopular politician, they backfire when a popular politician is involved. So the heckler in GMA’s time was widely applauded while BSA’s heckler is not getting too much sympathy…except from those who cannot stand BSA in the first place.
Yellowphobia is affliction of the leftists and the loyalists of previous regimes. BSA is not perfect, nobody’s perfect, but the big mistake of the anti-BSA crowd is they ignore the good he has done and they focus exclusively on his imperfections thus they come off as negativists.
They need to accept the fact that the an overwhelming majority of the public approves and trusts BSA and so if they want to be taken seriously they have to change their approach of wholesale and indiscriminate dismissal to one of constructive criticism.
Angela,
Neither Butch nor his wife Dina was a member of Congress 2007-2010. Batanes was represented by Carlo Oliver D. Diasnes, a member of the Lakas Kampi CMD party, from 2007-2010.
Why should they be included as suspects?
because of the say-so of one janet lim-napoles. that’s hard evidence already for the pnoy haters wanting to implicate him to the pdaf scam through abad.
Dapat lang bigyan parangal ang isang “multi-awarded artist from both local and international cinema boards”. Huwag nating pakingan ang mga foreign comments na gustong yurakan ang kapanyarihan ng ating pamahalan na iangat ang sining pilipino sa pamamagitan ng pagkilala at pagpahalaga sa mga natamong tagumpay at maipakita ang sariling kahangahangang talento sa larangan ng sining at pag-awit.
Legal naman yung arrest eh at makatarungan. OK nga na inaresto kaagad ayun sa batas, dahil pinapakita lang na walang hidden guilt ang Aquino government.
Wala ito sa pikatang tao. Batas lang.
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