SANTA Banana, I thought I’d never see in my lifetime a vice president like Leni Robredo so lacking in self-respect and “delicadeza.” She refuses to resign her Cabinet post as chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council despite openly criticizing President Duterte’s go-signal to have the remains of former strongman President Ferdinand E. Marcos buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
She claims she serves at the pleasure of the President, adding that if the President wants her out, he should say it.
Doesn’t Robredo know that as a member of the Cabinet, she’s supposed to be an alter ego of the Chief Executive? My gulay, obviously not. Robredo is the typical “kapit-tuko.”
I thought all the while that Robredo as a “provinciana” lawyer would be different from her “yellow” gangmates that ruled the country for the past six years. I thought she was angelic, but now it is clear I was wrong.
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There are some clowns parading as victims of Martial Law. They want to exhume the Marcos grave at the LNMB to find out if it’s really the remains of Marcos that were entombed. Santa Banana, they are out to desecrate the dead!
Don’t these clowns realize that there is a law preventing the Marcoses from burying a former soldier and a president at the LNMB? The issue was never about Marcos being a hero. The fact is that he was a soldier and president. Thus, he is qualified to be interred at the Libingan.
My gulay, these clowns even want the Marcoses and everybody responsible for that unannounced burial cited for contempt by the Supreme Court. Contempt for what? For complying with the majority decision of the Supreme Court and being in compliance with the law? The gods of Mount Olympus on Padre Faura have given their go-signal. I doubt whether the decision would be reversed.
What worries me though is the silence of the Catholic Church on this circus. They know full well that what the Marcos haters are doing is desecration of the dead.
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Some characters are making an issue out of the non-attendance of the President at the gala dinner and the photoshoot of leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Peru. They say it was an insult to the host.
I don’t see it that way. Duterte arrived in Lima from New Zealand, a good 10- or 11- hour flight. He is not used to long flights. And worse, he arrived in Peru at dawn, when he is supposed to be sleeping.
I can only sympathize with him.
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Speaking of leeches in government, the President ordered all the Energy Regulatory Commissioners to resign because of graft and corruption as revealed by an ERC executive in his suicide note.
But the commissioners refuse to do so because they claim they have a fixed tenure and to do so would be an admission of guilt.
This reminds me of that incident when a Philippine National Police (PNP) official refused to resign because of charges of corruption. He had to be carried out of office while sitting on his chair.
Well, the President can always give the ERC a “zero budget” to render the ERC commissioners useless.
Speaking of how pervasive graft and corruption has been embedded in government, Customs Commissioner Nick Faeldon was honest enough to admit that corruption and smuggling continues at the Bureau of Customs.
Past presidents have tried to revamp Customs. How many Customs commissioners have been appointed? Has anything changed?
I admit I cannot offer any solution to this, but I know that some countries have already privatized their customs services. That could be a thought for President Duterte.
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An area where graft and corruption has also been embedded in government is Conditional Cash Transfer, a dole program with an appropriation that has reached P62 billion.
The program is supposed to reduce poverty. It was patterned after programs in some Latin American countries— which later found it self-defeating because it resulted in mendicancy instead of poverty reduction.
Now that President Duterte is on top of the situation, perhaps he could dig deep into the anomalies that went on for the past six years under BS Aquino. For instance, the Commission on Audit found that some recipients of the dole were not all poor. Some of the money went to alcohol and illegal drugs.