IT’S not yet New Year’s Eve, but the Department of Health and the police have listed more than 50 cases of firecrackers and pyrotechnics injuries, and one case of poisonous ingestion of firecrackers.
Despite calls for a nationwide ban on firecrackers and pyrotechnics, PNP Chief Ronald dela Rosa tells us that it might be difficult because President Duterte is also thinking about the manufacturers and peddlers of such products.
Is it now a choice between those engaged in a dangerous business, or public safety? What priorities!
Despite this apparent lunacy that accompanies the coming of 2017, I wish one and all a blessed New Year.
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If I were to grade President Duterte’s first six months in office, I would give him a passing grade of 7.5 percent, a rating he’s used to anyway when he was in school.
It’s a grade good enough, all things considered after six years of BS Aquino’s regime of incompetence, lack of empathy and compassion, selective justice and vindictiveness.
But in his obsession with his war against illegal drugs, crime and corruption, Mr. Duterte was not able to give priority to poverty and joblessness which continue to stalk the land, principally in Mindanao where he comes from.
It’s precisely poverty and joblessness that gave birth to the separatist movements of the Moro National Liberation Front of Nur Misuari and the splinter group we know as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and likewise MILF’s breakaway group like the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, and the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf in Sulu.
I understand why the President feels he needs to focus on the drug menace. This indeed involves the future generation, and the country may descend into being a narco-state. Still, his methods have occasioned discomfort among many here in the country and abroad. He must realize that he cannot end the menace simply by restoring the death penalty.
It is ironic that President Duterte would now pivot to China even at the expense of our decades-old economic and military ties with Washington. The biggest drug suppliers come from China. It’s the Chinese triad that has been responsible for all those shabu laboratories found nationwide.
Still, President Duterte earns the grade of 7.5 if only for his dedication and commitment.
Next year, though, the President must address all our other problems. Only this can real change be experienced.
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The Duterte Cabinet, on the other hand, gets a 6.5 from me. It is generally incompetent and lacking in professionalism.
The only members of the Duterte Cabinet we can all rely on are Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez as secretary of finance, Benjamin Diokno as secretary of budget and management, Vitaliano Aguirre as secretary of justice, Leonor Brioness as secretary of education, Wanda Teo, secretary of tourism, Salvador Medialdea as executive secretary, Emmanuel Piñol as secretary of agriculture, and former members of the Communist Party of the Philippines Judy Taguiwalo, secretary of social welfare and development, and Rafael Mariano, secretary of Agrarian Reform.
The Cabinet, I think, would be better off without Gina Lopez of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The problem of the President as I see it is that he had no deep bench of Cabinet members to choose from. Thus, he must rely on his friends when he was city mayor, or his former classmates. Unfortunately, this was also the problem of BS Aquino who relied on his friends, classmates and other allies.
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Andrea Domingo, chairperson of gaming regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., has announced that the gaming license that used to be Philweb’s is now up for public bidding. I believe that there’s only one that can qualify for it—Philweb itself.
Philweb has a new chairman, Greggie Araneta, who bought from former Philweb chairman, Roberto V. Ongpin the latter’s total shares for P2.5 billion. Ongpin divested his entire shareholdings after President Duterte tagged him, unfairly so, I believe—as an “oligarch that must be destroyed.”
Bobby Ongpin is not an oligarch. In fact, he suffered during the BS Aquino regime, for being a friend of the former First Gentleman. He was sued left and right.
Philweb is the only one that can qualify for the license to operate e-games, which cannot be accessed at home nor offices, but only with some 280 e-Games operators licensed by Pagcor itself. Those operators have P1.8 billion in investments. Philweb has extensive experience in being Pagcor’s service provider.
Some 6,000 workers from Philweb and e-Games operators nationwide will be affected. This is what Ongpin has been concerned about. He expressed interest in donating to Pagcor his shares, which the agency could use to build rehabilitation centers for drug addicts. But Pagcor did not agree.
Just for the record, Ongpin effectively lost P22.5 billion. Still, he looked at his loss philosophically, saying it was all part of business.
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The Philippine National Police reported that while common crimes like robbery and rape have decreased since the start of the Duterte administration, incidents of murder have increased as the government intensified its war on illegal drugs.
No wonder there is now a climate of fear.