“Hopelessly trying to be the attack dog to please her eerily silent and mostly unseen masters, (Senorita Harry 2.0 in Malacanang) sashays into the podium in daily fashion changes to attack the Dutertistas and defend the Bongbongers with sarcastic lack of wit”
Right after Donald Trump’s defense honcho left our shores came the announcement that the US of A will extend a loan for us to be able to purchase 20 F-16s to shore up our external defenses.
That will cost the Filipino taxpayer US$5.58 billion, or P320 billion, more as the peso devalues through the years as we pay, on top of a 16.7 trillion current indebtedness.
As economics is the science which allocates scarce resources, Paul Samuelson gave governments a choice between “guns and butter,” very apt for the current government’s defense spending.
Our colleague in this paper’s opinion page, Rod Kapunan, made the choices even more grim, between buying 50-year old fighter planes due for total phase-out by 2035, amid a recent SWS survey where 27.2 percent of the population are experiencing involuntary hunger, the worst since 2020 when COVID razed the land.
For many in the urban warrens of the nation, it will be “pagpag pa more,” leavings from fast food tables. But in what a pompous Fil-Iranian political analyst described as “sub-Saharan” southern Philippines, there will at least be “balinghoy” or “kamoteng kahoy” to replace unaffordable rice.
Guns instead of butter or near-obsolete, high maintenance jets instead of food on our tables — that is what the Marcos Jr. government will have as legacy. Hallelujah!
But our loudmouths in the AFP are deliriously happy, “the more the merrier” as they dream of “toys” from madman Trump whose “liberation day” announcement spells disaster for the world economy.
A full global trade war has been unleashed, triggering a recession, impacting gravely upon small economies whose waistlines can hardly yield to more belt-tightening. Watch the results later this year and into the next years.
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In the midst of all our internal political jitters and the accelerated war games of China in the waters surrounding Taiwan, Romeo Brawner spoke before the Northern Command in full view of the media about our certain involvement in the conflict, challenging our soldiers to prepare for massive repatriation of “250,000 OFWs in the island (please check your bloated figures with MECO Chair Cheloy Garafil).
Yes, bringing 160,000 Filipinos will be a veritable nightmare for which MECO has placed funds on reserve since 12 years back, spanning the presidencies of PNoy and Digong. Caveat: I don’t know if that fund has been depleted by successors since I left in 2021, and I thank the wise-spending Chairperson Cheloy for bringing sanity back into the finances of our de facto embassy in Taiwan.
General, sir, would not a fatigue-clad, closed-door conference with the DMW secretary and the MECO chair be more effective and less panic-inducing than preening with full medal regalia before media?
Plans which involve our soldiers need to be done quietly, unless Brawner’s loud-mouthing is part of diversionary tactics engineered by the unseen and unheard PCO secretary who needs to badly shush the emotional outburst brought about by the manner in which his overlords shanghaied a sick old man into the waiting arms of the decrepit ICC.
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“Diarrhea of the mouth” which is how the late Ninoy Aquino used to describe the incurable disease afflicting most politicians (with the exception of Lito Lapid and Bong Revilla in the Senate who hardly open their mouths), has become stock in trade of our trying to be Senorita Harry 2.0 in Malacanang who has to say something about anything, as useless babble bordering on prevarication and obfuscation is endured by the palace press on a daily basis.
Hopelessly trying to be the attack dog to please her eerily silent and mostly unseen masters, she sashays into the podium in daily fashion changes to attack the Dutertistas and defend the Bongbongers with sarcastic lack of wit.
Sometimes she contradicts herself, as when she defended Brawner’s Nolcom loudmouth about a Taiwan repatriation: “If such contingencies take place, we are always ready… if that happens, we should not sleep on the job. We should be ready.”.
Classic, my high school English teacher would comment with drooling sarcasm, repeating with a sneer, “always ready…should be ready?”
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We have no sense of the common good. It is ‘every man for himself.. The only thing that matters is that we get what we want, no matter at whose expense. This situation cannot go on forever.
Although I am not running for public office in this or any future election, I believe these points are important enough and could use some space in the ongoing political discussion. Some young people have indicated their willingness to take them up in the relevant political forum.