the DAP affair

so.  at the end of a week that felt like we were watching a reality pulitikanovela, history unfolding baga, with enrile estrada revilla in comfy “jails” and no doubt going through major major physical and psychological stresses as they are forced to adjust to drastic changes in lifestyle, to put it kindly…

also the end of a week when not a squeak was heard from the prez and his budget sec in the palace, only from spokesmen lacierda and coloma who continued to defend DAP, twas all in good faith, and hinted of appealing the supreme court decision…  this while calls for abad’s resignation and the president’s impeachment issued from “noisy minorities” left right and center, and pnoy’s yellow army was is on overdrive, looking for someone else to blame, such as the supreme court, never mind that it was a unanimous decision, or gma pa rin, she started it, lol.

so, at the end of the week, it was not too surprising to wake up to a live tv feed from the palace, a budget presentation, no less, that the prez kicked off with a brisk announcement of abad’s attempted resignation and why he rejected it.

To accept his resignation is to assign to him a wrong and I cannot accept the notion that doing right by our people is wrong. 

my problem with this, really, is that it is simplistic and disingenuous, as though the issue were not more complex.  even more irritating, the president is asking us to take his word for it — they did no wrong, DAP benefitted the country — this, while they get their act, i mean, the documentary evidence, together, i suppose.

pero ika nga ni propesor randy david:

The administration gains nothing from merely claiming that the PDAF and DAP had good intentions. As things stand, nothing less than a full accounting of these funds can persuade the public that these were not plundered. Of course, there is a risk in detailing how the DAP funds were allocated. It is almost certain that doing so will reveal how much of the vaunted “daang matuwid” has been paved in patronage. But I think that is still a small price to pay in exchange for achieving the Constitution. 

and true to the crisis-ridden telenovela format, the weekend brings a palace alert: the prez will be addressing the nation tomorrow monday at 6 pm. abangan!  hmm, suddenly it can’t wait till the SONA, that’s interesting.  crunch time?  should be either of two things: he will convince us that DAP was concocted in good faith, with documents galore to prove that it contributed significantly to economic growth, or he will say i-am-sorry and promise to rein in the “creative” urge to improvise and hasten processes without due diligence.

ika nga ni dean tony la vina:

the Aquino administration might have been blinded by their conviction that they were doing the right thing for the economy and the people, and because of that belief, disregarded the legal technicalities. Even now, one discerns this flawed thinking in the stubborn defense of DAP even after the Supreme Court decision, an attitude that could bode bad for other serious decisions with complex legal issues (the Bangsamoro Basic Law comes to mind) in the remaining years of this administration.

I respectfully urge a little humility to acknowledge mistakes when they happen, as it always does in governance, so corrections could be made. In fact, with the right legal staff work, DAP, which is conceptually an innovation that might have potential to solve the perennial problem of under spending by the departments, could have been crafted in a constitutional way and the same policy objectives could have been achieved without being tainted with illegality. But that, unfortunately, is water under the bridge. 

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enrile, inquirer, surrender

watching the surrender of enrile on tv was kind of surreal, as in, really?  it’s happening?  now na?  wow!

for a while there, when jinggoy’s arrest was not quickly followed by enrile’s, i remarked on facebook that his lawyer estelito mendoza was probably trying out every legal gimmick, every trick in the book, to stop the sandiganbayan from ruling on probable cause.  i could imagine all the wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes, favors being called even, all to no avail, it now would seem, except for a few days’ delay.  wow!

this is nothing like the arrests for “rebellion” in 1990 and 2001 that, in both cases, alleged enrile to be on power-grab mode; both times he was out in a matter of days.  this one is for plunder, some 172 million in alleged PDAF kickbacks 2007 to 2009, which he denies, of course, he will prove his innocence in court, and maybe he will, but meanwhile he is under arrest and detention.

in fairness, it was a relief that his surrender was without the showbiz dramatics that attended the last hurrahs of estrada jr. and revilla jr., two clowns who quite likely entertained the illusion that the millions who voted for them would gather in protest as erap’s masses did when he was arrested in 2001.  enrile, it would seem, had no such illusion, even if he was the original EDSA hero.  no presscon, no statement, hardly any photos or video of him, and no mugshots released.

nakakapagpaisip.  i’m sorry it’s happening now, when he’s old and ailing, but, again, wow, quite a big fish he is, and i have been backtracking: paano na nga nangyari ito?  let’s give credit where credit is due.  o nasabit lang ba kay napoles at sa inquirer scoop of benhur luy’s records?

but wait, speaking of the inquirer, suddenly i remember someone saying something about the broadsheet in connection with enrile’s case, and i google it, and, hey hey hey, straight from an official statement by gigi reyes, issued from the states in sept 2013.

The PDI evidently has an ax to grind against me. I say so because in a private dinner in Rockwell a few months back where I accompanied my former boss, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, PDI Editor-in-Chief Mrs. Letty Jimenez Magsanoc openly told us about her deep personal hurt over the Senator’s published “Memoirs” which recounted the beginnings of the PDI and what she called the “unfair” portrayal of Ms. Eugenia “Eggie” Apostol.

it was just a few months after the corona impeachment trial when enrile launched A Memoir (september 2012).  at totoo naman na grabe ang ginawang panlalait ni enrile kay eggie.  i thought she could have taken him to court for libel atbp. and oh what an alta siyudad media scandal that would have been, who might the rest of media have sided with kaya, ano?  magsanoc was smarter than that, of course.  maaaring the inquirer had inside info on the nbi’s or coa’s investigations of napoles, maaring they got wind of benhur luy’s records, and it would be interesting to know if benhur’s parents offered the inquirer the info out of the blue, or if it was the inquirer that initiated the contact by sending feelers.  how powerful can media get?

whatever, is that cackling i hear from the eggie side of makati?  enrile’s editor and publisher should have warned him about women scorned: hell hath no fury, and all that jazz.

death by hazing

it’s a tragic first for de la salle university/college of st. benilde, the death by hazing of HRM sophomore guillo cesar servando, 18, and it can be the last if the university would only be true to the student handbook that prohibits membership in fraternities, sororities, and “any unrecognized organization that subscribes or participates in any violent act”. The consequence for students found to have violated this contract is dismissal or expulsion. Also punishable are those found to have encouraged fellow students to join, and those who are proven to have been present in any initiation rites.

read HAZING: The deaths are not accidents by G.U.Stuart, MD, la salle hs ’61.

backlash: “Noranians of the world, Unite!”

big mistake, mr. president.  you just lost a lot of votes for your annointed in 2016.  already there is a poster going around sa facebook, exhorting noranians to unite.  the punchline:  You have nothing to lose but Noynoy.” #MayHimalaSaNational Artist!  aray.

malaki-laking constituency po iyan, sir.  di nga po ako makapaniwalang binale-wala ninyo sila, kami, as though your liberal party had the 2016 elections in the bag.  or maybe you THINK you already have the 2016 election in the bag?  but what makes you think so, mr. president?  what makes you think that you won’t be needing the votes of nora’s fans, who are legion?

hmm, suddenly I’m remembering recent tsismis that there’s a shortlist based on some highly credible secret survey and it includes vilma santos-recto among the vice-presidentiables.  yes, vilma herself, nora’s “archrival” in film.  can vilma be the ace up your sleeve, sir?  you don’t need nora because you have vilma, or you hope to have vilma, as mar roxas’s running mate in 2016?

but, if yes, vilma, then why should it mean no to nora as national artist?  charlie manalo’s mole in the palace thinks it’s because you think that it might offend vilma.  carmen pedrosa’s insider source thinks it’s because “if nora were given the national award, she might dilute the impact of the political strategy.”  and then there is also sharon cuneta daw to contend with as liberal party campaigner.

hindi ko gets.  bakit ma-o-offend si vilma at si sharon kung magagawaran ng national artist award si nora?  mas deserving ba si vilma kaysa kay nora, or deserving rin si vilma pero bakit si nora ang inuuna?  seriously?  ganito rin kaya ang takbo ng isip nina vilma at sharon?  that vilma is the equal of nora?

i beg to disagree.  vilma may be a good actress – she was outstanding in burlesk queen – but it’s telling that she has no film that ever won her any nomination or award in international film festivals.  she has also never acted on stage, and hardly ever on tv.  what she did on tv was sing, in her own musical variety show that ran on and on, week after week, for more than a decade, even if she has no musical talent whatsoever, as in, she has a singing voice that only fanatic vilmanians could love; in effect she lowered the bar and paved the way for the likes of loveli-ness and now annekapal, na kulang na lang ang i-love-you-lucky to end the show, swak na.

nor can it be said that vilma was a paragon of virtue back in the good old days before she finally settled down with senator ralph recto a.k.a. VAT-man of the alta sociedad political clan.  it was a brilliant career move, from showbiz to serious politics.  in fairness  vilma has excelled at playing that game, nakikinig kasi sa asawa, lol,  at may panalo talaga siya as VP sa 2016.

pero kapag tinapatan siya ni grace poe (who is on the shortlist of presidentiables) as running mate of binay, then may tulog si ate vi, mr. president, and/but noranians could swing the vote.  itsura ng iglesia.