“The bloodhounds in the HoR, formerly legion, are thinning, with just about two still protesting the Senate’s insouciance”
So many things are happening, all at the same time. Malacanang has been pushing so many narratives about “working” frenziedly, after three years of doing little.
There’s busy body Sec. Vince Dizon, the tireless workhorse of the “energized” BbM administration trying his best to make ordinary folks feel there is a government ready to serve them well. Praiseworthy, indeed, with the president in Dizon’s tow in these picture-pretty news events.
That it took a Vince Dizon to question why there is a Mt. Kamuning punishing commuters with a tortuous hike just to cross an intersection past the MRT line shows how insensitive to the plight of ordinary people idiots in the MMDA can be. Whoever were responsible for such a monstrosity should be exiled to Mt. Kilimanjaro.
These day-to-day scenes in the lives of the commuting public have somewhat moved attention away from the palace briefings of Claire Castro and into EDSA, whose two-year rehabilitation has been mooted by the president’s “listening” to the complaints of the people.
Plus NAIA, where Ramon Ang is promising more and more improvements in what was perennially adjudged Asia’s worst airport.
See how one good man like Dizon can make a whale of a difference?
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Meanwhile, in the Senate, the impeachment complaint of the HoR’s Railroad Express is being given short shrift, to the consternation of the Duterte haters (why is Bam Aquino eerily silent on the matter?), leaving it to Leila de Lima to carry the pinklawan torch?
Suddenly the political analysts and bloggers are sporting glum faces while months ago they were preening with glee at the “inevitable” political demise of the vice president.
The bloodhounds in the HoR, formerly legion, are thinning, with just about two still protesting the Senate’s insouciance.
Short shrift or continuing bloodbath?
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But as Alan Cayetano explains, the HoR bloodhounds can wait till next year to re-file an impeachment should they wish. That’s just six or seven months away. Or they could file charges with the Ombudsman in less than two months time, by then no longer a Duterte appointee.
Unless of course, all they want is the attendant publicity via telenovela in the once august session hall of the Senate.
All that hullabaloo about accountability can wait, instead of being rushed by the terminal 19th Congress, or cross-over to the 20th.
The conviction of an impeached president may matter very much to a suffering nation, but not that of a mere spare tire. The vice-presidency, as John Nance Garner once described, is “not worth a pitcher of warm spit.”
Or are they simply afraid of 2028, when none of their “manok” can match a Sara Duterte, more so an Inday whose father is still incarcerated in a damp cell in Den Haag?
The 215 congressmen who signed posthaste on Feb. 5, mostly without reading the articles of impeachment and their annexes, were merely marching to the tune of a hoped for “funebre” for Davao’s champion?
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On the tourism front, a hallelujah chorus from tourism stakeholders asked the president to retain his tourism secretary, who of course was retained in the Cabinet revamp, where promised mountain of change produced a mouse.
But sky-high domestic airfares are such a big problem that even the usually unflappable DoTR secretary was shocked that Ormoc’s power couple, Richard and Lucy Gomez, had to fork over 40 grand for a trip to Manila from Tacloban.
Does our DoT secretary know that a one-way ticket to her native Cebu on premium economy costs 13,000 pesos, taxes included? And more for Mindanao cities, unless you buy months in advance?
That Siargao is reachable by air if you have 28,000 pesos, which goes as high as 60,000 pesos at peak season?
And that accommodation in our resorts cost an arm and a leg, compared to Bali or Chiang Mai, Da Nang or even Hanoi?
That our unparalleled white sand beaches on islands are accessible only by puny bancas and nothing else? What has DoT done to make even domestic travel enjoyable rather than an expensive pain in the ass?
Since the Chinese do not feel welcome, and the Koreans and Japanese are mugged and robbed in the streets of the metropolis, whither Philippine tourism?
We can love the Philippines all we want, but foreigners and even locals will simply give our attractions short shrift, not worth all the hassle.