Though he did not specify who, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo in a recent homily decried “evil spirits” lurking in Malacañang. He and like-minded leaders of the Roman Catholic Church are trying to blow up the unfortunate recent murders of priests to some sinister design or at the very least influenced by the President’s diatribes against antiquated Church dogma and the sins of human priests.
Pabillo made the remarks as he castigated the killings of priests, the push to revive the death penalty, even the Marcos burial, the martial law declaration in Mindanao, Sereno’s ouster by her peers, and the drug war deaths under the Duterte administration.
That’s already too political. Pangingialam na po iyan, Bishop.
Despite my own Catholic upbringing, I find the President’s acid-laced remarks against members of the clergy, or even the institution of Roman Catholicism itself, as a healthy check on the history of Church interference on temporal matters which should be left to the State.
It’s about time clergymen are reminded about the strict interpretation of the constitutional dogma of separation between Church and State, and though the President may be criticized for his “foul” language, to label Malacañang as creeping with “evil spirits” is far too much.
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One reason feng shui experts have always been advising a transfer of the capital from west-facing Manila, or at least a transfer of the seat of power elsewhere than Malacañang is it’s supposedly bad location and bad feng shui.
Located beside a stinking river, in fact, one that divides presidential office and residence, with the main entrance to the office facing the west, and blocked off by of all things, a centuries-old balete tree, geomancers always describe the presidential palace as “malas.”
Maybe the auxiliary bishop of Manila wants to become a geomancer himself.
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Watching how the evening news programs continually harp on rising prices in the marketplace and how consumers are so bedeviled by it, along with the “pag-bulusok ng piso” (“sumadsad na naman”), makes one wish that the Palace, or our economic managers, hire a full-time communications expert to explain the workings of the economy in language understandable to the man-on-the-street.
The administration needs a spokesman for the economy, as this column has suggested several months ago. An able spokesman with good communication skills and a good knowledge of economics and business would have been able to explain even during the deliberations on the TRAIN Law, and especially thereafter, that it is not and would not be the main culprit for expected inflationary effects.
Harry Roque has been doing an excellent job defending the President and government as a whole from a slew of concentrated negativities but perceptions about the economy need to be addressed and properly explained.
Even the matter of explaining the centerpiece Build, Build, Build program and updating the public about developments is rather wanting.
FVR did very well in projecting his Philippines 2000 vision, and were it not for the 1998 Asian recession, people were given a reason to hope, a reason to dream that things would get better.
Duterte is doing exactly that, giving people a reason to hope, but he needs better staff support. Explaining for instance, his vision of connecting Sorsogon in Luzon to Eastern Visayas by a link bridge, Panay to Guimaras and thence Negros, Bohol to Cebu, and Southern Leyte to Surigao in Mindanao, are all doable projects that would lay the foundations for greater economic growth. Here in Taiwan, these would be banner news material; in the Philippines, it is in the inside pages.
Sayang.
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Speaking of my good friend Harry Roque, with whom I have collaborated on many passionate advocacies in the past, his very forgiving attitude towards whoever invented “Norwegia” or could not even get the right name of a distinguished departed public servant right may be uncharacteristically kind and charitable, but shouldn’t the Office of the President deserve better?
Would a legal brief, even an ordinary demand letter in his previous position as a distinguished law practitioner passed his or Joel Butuyan’s eagle eyes, if such gaffes were written?
Just ribbing, Harry.
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GSIS CEO Clint Aranas is one government official you cannot fool around with. He wants to eject Gloria Maris, the famed Chinese restaurant, out of its long-expired lease in that beautiful location by Manila Bay. He wants Sofitel to vacate two prime lots owned by GSIS beside the hotel without appropriate permits or leases. He has done an inventory of such properties owned by the government pension fund which have been illegally occupied for ages, and has the political will to go after persons and corporations with a bloated sense of entitlement.
It turns out these are squatters in every sense of the word, using highly-paid lawyers to flaunt the law. It’s bad enough that our cities are teeming with illegal settlers who make poverty their excuse for entitlement. It is unforgivable that there are also many rich squatters.
Well, Clint is no pushover. He knows his law; he knows how to conduct operations like a business professional so atypical of Filipino bureaucrats. Would that we have more of his kind in the service of President Duterte.
Which reminds me of a dream project Aranas once intimated to us—a bridge that would span Occidental Cebu to Negros Oriental, connecting San Carlos to Toledo or some other nearby town in Cebu. I noticed that what is programmed to connect Cebu Island to Negros would be the easier and shorter link between Oslob or Santander and Dumaguete or San Jose. Given the geography and economic importance of both island provinces, Clint Aranas’ dream of a connection between northwestern Cebu and northeastern Negros is economically viable indeed.
If fulfilled, imagine the economic benefits of linking industrial Cebu with the agricultural powerhouses that are Negros and Panay. Business would flourish all around.