PRESIDENT Aquino is at it again, lying through his teeth and blaming former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for the growing incidence of poverty under his term. He referred to the Arroyo administration as the “lost decade.”
Santa Banana, everybody knows that poverty in the Philippines has been with us for decades, even during the late Cory Aquino regime.
Just look at statistics: Poverty has risen to over 22 percent, and incidence of hunger during the five-year BS Aquino III reign has increased. Joblessness remains a challenge—there are not enough foreign investors to provide jobs, simply because the President does not want restrictive and protectionist economic provisions of the Constitution amended. The reason: BS Aquino wants to protect his friends along Ayala Avenue from foreign competition.
The height of hypocrisy was BS Aquino’s boast to the delegates of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit: “Over the last five years, we cracked down on all those proven to have engaged in wrongdoing. Now, a former President is under hospital arrest after being charged with plunder. The former Chief Justice who had no compunction about being selective about implementing the law was removed through impeachment, after it was revealed that he violated our laws by failing to declare over 98 percent of his assets as mandated by our Constitution.”
My gulay, has Gloria been proven to have committed any wrongdoing when almost all her co-accused in that P336-million Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office plunder case have been granted bail? She remains in hospital detention because BS Aquino III wants her to be the poster child for his straight path policy.
And what did BS Aquino and his cohorts do to convict former Chief Justice Renato Corona? They used the Priority Development Assistance Fund and that mongrel called Disbursement Acceleration Program (declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) to bribe members of Congress to oust Corona.
The President claimed that the former Chief Justice has no compunction about being selective about implementing the law. He must have been really hurt when Corona, as Chief Justice, wanted to increase the benefits given to the tenants of Hacienda Luisita, owned by the Cojuangcos. For that, Corona became a target for conviction and ouster.
BS Aquino III accused Corona of being selective in implementing the law. Was the President not selective himself when he adopted a double standard of justice, one for his political enemies and another one for his friends and supporters? True, he had three opposition Senators charged and now undergoing trial at the Sandiganbayan for plunder in connection with the pork barrel system. But, they are still presumed innocent unless convicted.
Can the President be equally resolute in going after his friends and supporters linked to the pork barrel scams? No—in fact, one of them is now running for the Senate under the administration ticket.
Again, Santa Banana, by playing up to the Apec delegates the “miracle” of Edsa One, BS Aquino III lied. It was not the making of his mother who was then hiding in a Pink Sisters convent. It was caused by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement led by now Senator Gringo Honasan. The late Cory Aquino, BS Aquino III’s late mother, was just the beneficiary.
For five years of BS Aquino III’s reign, what has he done to solve poverty, hunger and joblessness? Nothing, because he was more interested in trying to destroy the opposition and his political enemies. And now, the President is talking about inclusive growth by making economic gains trickle down to the poor. Again, he’s being hypocritical. He refuses to open the doors for foreign investments, making the country the laggard in Asia insofar as foreign direct investments are concerned.
My friend, Mar Roxas, the administration candidate for President next year, is echoing the lines of BS Aquino III. Roxas does not want to amend the Constitution if only to get rid of its restrictive and protectionist provisions.
My gulay, President Aquino perhaps thinks the Apec delegates are all stupid to believe what he said. With the Internet, everybody knows what truly happening around the world!
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From BS Aquino III’s point of view, the Apec summit is a success and that all Filipinos should be proud of it. Major thoroughfares have been cordoned off and delegates are billeted in five-star hotels. The country is spending P10 billion for this event.
At whose expense?
We have seen thousands of commuters walking along the boulevards and streets just to go home after a day’s work. My family’s household worker walked from Merville Park where we live all the way to Edsa just to take a ride, waiting for two hours because people were scrambling for a ride home. That’s not as bad as people walking from the Coastal Road all the way to Plaza Lawton also for a ride since Roxas Boulevard was “off-limits” to vehicles and was made into a special lane.
Contractual workers have no income these days because the rest of the week has been declared by President Aquino as a holiday.
All these are an attempt to show the delegates that the Philippine president is a gracious host.
On the contrary, all these are indications of utter incompetence and ineptitude by people in power who could have used their common sense in making the Apec venue elsewhere like Subic, where it was held in 1996, Clark where there is need for more infrastructure and hotels, and even Cebu City, which is in need of government attention to make it a tourist destination.
I cannot believe as many others do that a President can spend that much just for a summit. He had years to seek private sector participation as then President Ramos did in 1996.
Incompetence. Ineptitude. Lack of common sense.
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If the nine-member Senate Electoral Tribunal applies the law and on the disqualification cases against Mrs. Mary Grace Poe Llamanzares, she will surely be disqualified for not being a natural-born citizen as required by the Constitution.
However, if some of the SET members become personal and resort to political considerations, she may not be disqualified.
Certainly, as night follows day, the case will be elevated to the Supreme Court.