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Laughable Pueblos, PeNoy & Drilon DIE HARD III Herman Tiu Laurel 06/13/2011

Monday, June 13, 2011

Laughable Pueblos, PeNoy & Drilon

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
06/13/2011
I couldn’t help laughing out loud after reading the exchanges between Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos and the Palace hacks over the former’s call for BSA III to resign posthaste or risk ouster by a “shadowy group.” It’s not that the idea posed is silly — for BSA III has proven so grievously pro-oligarch and anti-people in his economic policies while being so corrupt in appointing so many KKKKs (Kaibigan, Kaklase, Kabarilan at mga Korap) — such that his early resignation is called for; it’s the source of this call and how these erstwhile jolly pots and kettles in the Gloria Arroyo camp are now calling each other black when they’re all the same!

The bishop is alleged to be one of the more well-known “envelope” prelates of Mindanao, along with Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla, during Arroyo’s 10-year bribery rule; but at the same time, we should remind BSA III that he himself also voted to stop the playing of the “Hello Garci” tapes when this caper was being investigated in the Lower House.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, in defending BSA III from the onslaught of the Butuan bishop, asks the prelate where he was when Arroyo was appointing her manicurist and gardener to high government posts; yet he forgets that he was a rabid supporter of Arroyo until such genuine patriots as Sammy Ong, Alan Paguia, the Tribune, this space, and many others helped expose “Hello Garci.”

Today, Drilon should ask himself what he is doing about the appointment of the four Ks as we mentioned above (especially the last), whose felonious records would make any manicurist or gardener accepting government sinecures look saintly.

Still, there is indeed that group (though not as shadowy) that has been active ever since the elections in trying to manage the situation in favor of Arroyo’s proxy candidate while allowing the US Embassy to take command of the entire process through Smartmatic, back-stopped by a shadowy corporate network registered in Barbados and Florida.

Pueblos’ shadowy group, meanwhile, is simply pipitsugin. It has staged sham coup initiatives in the past to get publicity for fundraising, often by using retired, washed-out military generals as fronts. Still, there’s no telling what trouble it can create for the Palace today if backed by potential contributions from Gloria and Mike, along with the participation of some opportunistic generals embedded within the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

In fact, this Pueblos salvo may just be a warning shot across the bow from the Arroyo camp, which has been under some pressure from the allies of Malacañang. Although I don’t believe that any of the taunting and teasing by the Aquino regime of Arroyo is serious — from the dubious Truth Commission to the impeachment drama over Merci Gutierrez and, now, the opposition posed by Arroyo and her decrepit former Justice Secretary over the possible appointment of Carpio-Morales to the Supreme Court — such moro-moros may still be enough to scare BSA III.

The hope for a real force for authentic social reform and economic revolution rests only in an alliance of patriotic, nationalist, civilian mass movements with the idealistic young officers’ corps. In the past, this group of young officers has proven to be a truly serious, reformist and risk-taking lot. Though they have not succeeded, mainly due to the repeated intervention of the US Embassy, their idealism continues to grow, same with their numbers, because of the continuing oppression and injustice the prevailing system is inflicting onto the people.

This force, I have been told by former idealistic young officers, is now three times larger than when it flexed its muscles for the first time in the 1980s. Its members now understand the sham democracy that prevails, having seen through it in the decades that have passed where the nation has become poorer as the oligarchs have gotten richer.

They must be laughing at presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda for engaging Bishop Pueblos in some doctrinal debate on church involvement in politics, saying, “It is not the Church’s task to set forth specific political solutions‚ and even less to propose a single solution as the acceptable one‚ to temporal questions that God has left to the free and responsible judgment of each person. It is, however, the Church’s right and duty to provide a moral judgment on temporal matters when this is required by faith or the moral law.”

That’s because the political history of this country that led to the installation of BSA III’s government is largely based on the interference of the Catholic Church. From Jaime Cardinal Sin baby-sitting Cory Aquino through Edsa I and then Gloria Arroyo in Edsa II, to Bishop Soc Villegas holding Arroyo’s hand after Sin died to cradle the Yellows through the crises of illegitimacy, until a managed transition to BSA III became possible, the Church’s hands have been locked with the Yellows through and through.

Drilon called on Pueblos to resign as prelate and join GMA; but he should also resign his office, along with BSA III, and join the US Embassy if he were to be sincere in his call.

The Catholic Church, this puppet government, and the Yellows — who have all been in control these past 25 years — are all handmaidens of US hegemony, assigned to mesmerize the people with mystic opiates and a sham democracy while the country continues to bleed P800 billion a year in foreign debt amortization, to feed the globalist banking mafia with hundreds of billions more in eVAT and other taxation, as well as allow the Yellows’ Big Business branch to siphon off the same amount in profits from privatized public utilities.

A new generation of patriotic and nationalist young officers must continue to evolve hand-in-hand with popular, civilian mass movements for the historic opportunity to come together to oust this hopelessly corrupt system.

(Tune in to Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m., and Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)

(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110613com5.html

Another show of incompetence EDITORIAL 06/13/2011

Another show of incompetence

EDITORIAL
Click to enlarge
06/13/2011
It was ominous that the 113th celebration of the country’s independence should come with trouble brewing in the South China Sea, where the country has a competing claim with China and a list of other Asian countries on the potentially mineral-rich Spratly Islands.

The Philippines, based on proximity, has among the strongest case on the claim on the islands and other geographically closer land mass in the area. China, however, with its military might is determinedly pushing its territorial claim to the extent of areas which are clearly and without contest within the country’s boundaries.

The Aquino administration has been responding to the Chinese incursions lately — which if strictly defined would be an invasion of the Philippine territory — but in a confused way, such that in one day Noynoy would say that China’s acts of intimidation are exaggerated and on the same breath blame the media for blowing the issue out of proportion while on the next day the Palace would report that it is contemplating on filing a protest against China with the United Nations..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110613com1.html

Incivility reigns FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 06/13/2011

Incivility reigns

FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
06/13/2011
Civility in virtually everything has flown out of the Malacañang window from the day Noynoy Aquino and his uncouth band of officials have taken power and position.

Noynoy and his officials are too quarrelsome alot lot, and they are setting a very bad example for the nation.

They quarrel and insult almost everyone, especially those whom they perceive as their political foes, which include their critics.

Thus far, they have quarreled not only Gloria Arroyo and her officials; today’s minority in the House of Representatives; the Supreme Court justices who do not toe the Malacañang line, his media critics and even his former allies during the presidential campaign who have found him wanting, as well as bishops — or at least two bishops who have openly criticized Noynoy for his incompetence, with one calling on him to resign for being unworthy of the high position. They even openly quarrel with big ticket investors who already have perfected contracts, vowing to cancel them due to what the administration claims are marked with anomalies..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110613com2.html

Syria refugee’s dream of return ends in tragedy FEATURE 06/13/2011

Syria refugee’s dream of return ends in tragedy

FEATURE

06/13/2011
JERUSALEM — When Ezzat Maswadi burst across the ceasefire line from Syria into the occupied Golan Heights, he thought his chance to return to Jerusalem — the city of his birth — had finally come.

But the return that Maswadi had longed for was not to be, and his attempts to reach the Holy City would eventually lead to his death, three weeks later, in the fields between Syria and the Golan town of Majdal Shams.

Born to a Palestinian family in Jerusalem in 1977, Maswadi grew up in the nearby town of Al-Eizariya until 1984, when his family moved first to Jordan and then to Syria.

His father moved back to Jerusalem shortly afterwards, but Maswadi and his mother were told they had lost their residency permits under an Israeli law which quietly revoked the residency of anyone who stayed away more than three years..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110613com3.html

Reasoned diplomacy on Spratlys C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 06/13/2011

Reasoned diplomacy on Spratlys

C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S
Jonathan De la Cruz
06/13/2011
Former ABC News Beijing Bureau Chief Chito Sto. Romana, a well known student activist in the 1970s and key FQS (that’s First Quarter Storm for those who were not yet born during those glorious days of people’s activism which, of course, pre-dated Edsa Uno) player, who stayed in China from the declaration of martial law until recently (more than two decades) is right.

The verbal skirmishes over the disputed Spratlys will be best resolved through reasoned diplomacy. Not more of those high pitched, inflammatory statements from both sides. Not even those humbug, scurrilous posturings of people like Sen. Francis Pangilinan who taunted the Chinese with his reference to “tyranny and arrogance of power.” Pray tell, where has Pangilinan, this born again “fighter” been all these years? Has he ever studied the history and said anything about the principles which should guide claimant countries in the disputed territories? Did he ever bother to say something about the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas and support the Baselines Law when the 14th Congress debated and passed it? No, not a word was heard from this guy. And now he comes around posturing as if he can counter-bully the Chinese, “bully” as he called them?.... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110613com4.html

Aquino ordered DoTC chief to alter report on LTO deal EXCLUSIVE By Charlie V. Manalo 06/13/2011

CLASH WITH NOY OVER TORRES, STRADCOM FORCES DE JESUS TO QUIT

Aquino ordered DoTC chief to alter report on LTO deal

EXCLUSIVE

By Charlie V. Manalo 06/13/2011

The cat is out of the bag. Transportation and Communications Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus did not resign from his post due to health reasons but rather quit in disgust after President Aquino ordered him to change his recommendation on the automated system being rendered by Land Transportation Office (LTO) Information Technology (IT) provider Stradcom that will in effect terminate its contract with the government which was the demand of no less than Aquino’s favorite kabarilan (shooting buddy), LTO head Virginia Torres.

The Tribune yesterday obtained a copy of a memorandum for the President written by De Jesus on the Stradcom deal which pointed out lost opportunities for the government if the deal is terminated.

The memorandum, dated May 23, 2011, received by the Palace at four in the afternoon or three days later on May 26 and assigned Reference No. RE0056600, contained in details the findings of the DoTC on the benefits of Stradcom’s automated system for LTO.

The DoTC study was based on Aquino’s dir.... MORE
SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110613hed1.html

AFP adopts news blackout on Spratlys By Mario J. Mallari 06/13/2011

AFP adopts news blackout on Spratlys

By Mario J. Mallari 06/13/2011

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) had adopted a zipped lips policy over the dispute on the Kalayaan group of islands (KGIs), which are more commonly known as the Spratlys, on the west Philippine sea.

According to AFP spokesman Commodore Miguel Jose Rodriguez, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) now has the authority to speak about the dispute on KGIs which has already turned into a word war between China and the Philippines.

“Per DFA protocol, only DFA (is) authorized to discuss issues on KIG,” said Rodriguez..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110613hed2.html

Disini insists he was acquitted in Bataan Nuke mess By Benjamin B. Pulta 06/13/2011

Disini insists he was acquitted in Bataan Nuke mess

By Benjamin B. Pulta 06/13/2011

A businessman active during the term of the late President Ferdinand Marcos has answered his critics’ insinuations of wrongdoing in connection with the construction of the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) reportedly built at $2.1billion.

Citing an independet United States court’s ruling clearing him, Herminio Disini, through his lawyer, Jose Bernas debunked the claims of his critics led by former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban on the alleged kickback earned by Disini saying the charges against him had been dismissed by the US court as far back as 1993.

In 1986 after assuming power, President Corazon Aquino sued Westinghouse and its local agents for overpricing the cost of the BNPP including Disini, husband of Mrs. Imelda Marcos’ cousin Pacencia Escolin who was also the Marcoses’ family doctor..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110613nat1.html

Filipino declared world’s shortest man 06/13/2011

Filipino declared world’s shortest man

06/13/2011
A Filipino blacksmith’s son who stopped growing when he was a toddler was declared the world’s shortest man yesterday as he celebrated his 18th birthday.

Measuring just 59.93 centimeters, or 23.5 inches, Junrey Balawing is the oldest of four siblings — the rest all of normal stature — born in the rural town of Sindangan on the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao.

“Officially he is the world’s shortest man,” said Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of the Guinness Book of World Records who measured Balawing in front of cheering relatives and villagers.

The previous record holder was Khagendra Thapa Magar of Nepal, who was measured in 2010 at just over 26 inches..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110613nat3.html

Road Users Protection Advocates prexy files plunder case vs ‘ping’ de Jesus 06/13/2011

Road Users Protection Advocates prexy files plunder case vs ‘ping’ de Jesus

06/13/2011
The Road Users Protection Advocates (RUPA) has identified outgoing Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus as one of the respondents in the plunder case the group filed before the Ombudsman against some officials of DoTC and Stradcom, the sole IT provider of the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

In a motion filed last June 10 before the Ombudsman, RUPA through its president Raymundo Junia identified De Jesus as one of the DoTC officials who allegedly aided, abetted, connived or conspired with other DoTC/Stradcom officials in allowing Stradcom to illegally collect almost P3 billion of interconnectivity fees from the public transacting at the LTO.

Although De Jesus has already offered to resign, RUPA pointed out the illegal collection of interconnection fees is “being alluded to as one of the reasons for his offer to resign,” and he continues to be liable for the illegal collection despite his resignation and his past services to the country..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110613met5.html

‘JV’ to Gloria: Why panic when you are not guilty? By Gerry Baldo 06/13/2011

‘JV’ to Gloria: Why panic when you are not guilty?

By Gerry Baldo 06/13/2011

Former President Arroyo is panicking over the appointment of the next Ombudsman.

San Juan Rep. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito yesterday said a clear indication that she is panicking is the fact that she had formally filed an opposition to the possible appointment of Supreme Court Associate Justice Conchita Carpio Morales to the post vacated by Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, a known Arroyo ally.

“Why is Mrs. Arroyo so defensive? Does she know that she is guilty that she is panicking already? Her body language only shows her alleged guilt all the more,” Ejercito said..... MORE

SourceThe Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/metro/20110613met1.html

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