The unprecedented victory of President Duterte in the May 9, 2016 national and local elections decimated the Liberal Party, despite all the cheating it apparently did in favor of its presidential and vice presidential candidates, Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo.
Former President BS Aquino III and his cohorts in the LP, in cahoots with the Comelec and the Smartmatic, tried to help Mar win but Duterte’s lead over him was just too big to overcome.
They succeeded, however, with Leni who was able to defeat former Senator Bongbong Marcos with a slim margin.
Santa Banana, almost immediately after the polls, the LPs in the House of Representatives and the Senate aligned themselves with what they called the supermajority. This is clearly a move for self-preservation. The alliance with PDP-Laban, Duterte’s party, would mean chairmanships of and memberships in congressional committees. This only validates that in politics, there are no permanent friends or allies, only permanent self-interest.
Thus, the role of the Liberal Party, which normally would be the opposition party, went kaput. The LPs cannot call themselves the opposition because they have aligned themselves with Duterte. They also do not have credibility—Duterte’s victory was a repudiation of BS Aquino and the incompetence, selective justice, and lack of compassion and empathy that his administration represented.
My gulay, how then can Robredo lead the LPs and the opposition when people know that she became Vice President by cheating? She just begged Duterte to become a member of his Cabinet.
Isn’t this the height of opportunism and bigotry?
Robredo wants former President Aquino and Roxas to join her in leading the opposition. But these two have been rejected by the people!
Look at the faces of some members of Congress calling themselves the opposition. They are pathetic. They do not have credibility.
This is the tragedy of our times.
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Some weeks ago, the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN came out with what it called an expose of an anomaly during the incumbency of Francis Tolentino as Metro Manila Development Authority chairman. This was with regard to the purchase of 18 pre-owned motorcycles used during the 2015 Papal visit and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Tolentino is said to have engaged in these deals without the benefit of public bidding. Some of the business addresses were in Cotabato and Davao.
Just to set the record straight, the purchase of pre-owned motorcycles made by the former MMDA chairman was not only legal because Tolentino used his own money, something not covered by the National Procurement Act. This had to be done in a hurry, however, because of the delay in the release of funds from the Department of Budget and Management on Jan. 12, 2015, or just three days before the arrival of the Pope.
Because of the lack of available stock of big police motorcycles, which could be purchased only from Japan, Tolentino did what had to be done. He used his own resources to buy pre-owned big police motorcycles from motorcycle clubs nationwide.
These police motorcycles are not available locally. They are only used for recreation. The reason some of them were registered as far as Davao and Cotabato was that they were pre-owned by motorcycle enthusiasts from these places.
It would have been a big embarrassment on the part of the country if there were no available police motorcycles for the papal visit and the Apec summit. In fact, Pope Francis blessed the motorcycles before he returned to the Vatican.
MMDA General Manager Thomas Orbos has already clarified that the purchase of those 18 pre-owned police motorcycles were regular, above board and necessary.
The DBM released the necessary funds all right. But Tolentino had to do something for which he should be credited, not condemned.
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During the BS Aquino administration, investor confidence at Camp John Hay waned because of the continued controversy between the Bases Conversion Development Authority and Camp John Hay developer Robert John Sobrepeña.
New BCDA president and chief executive officer Vince Dizon was correct when he described Camp John Hay as “sayang” (a lost opportunity) when he ordered an audit of the many pending cases and lawsuits taken by his predecessor, Arnel Paciano Casanova, in an attempt to oust Sobrepeña’s developer of CJH.
After CJHDevCo won the bidding under the Ramos administration in 1996 to develop the Camp, there were mutual breaches of contract that ensued between BCDA and Sobrepeña’s firm. Case after case was filed. CJHDevCo countered with suits against BCDA for non-fulfillment of contracts when the developer stopped paying for lease contracts until it came to a point that the controversy had to settled by an arbitral tribunal.
The arbitral tribunal in 2015 directed Sobrepeña to leave CJH and mandated the BCDA to pay P1.4 billion representing CJHDevCo’s investments. Instead of paying what was due the developer, Casanova had some 1,631 investors and possessors in good faith evicted. The case was elevated to the Court of Appeals which ruled that the investors were possessors in good faith. Casanova then elevated the case the Supreme Court where it’s now gathering dust.
Because of Casanova’s actions and the non-payment of the arbitral award of P1.4 billion to the developer, the Camp’s full development was stymied. More than that, the 25 percent income due from the development the Baguio City government also ended.
Dizon, the new BCDA president/CEO, must be told that it was all the fault of Casanova who was obsessed in ousting Sobrepeña from CJH. There were rumors that Casanova had wanted Ayala. He was a former executive of the Ayalas.
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It was unfair for media to single out former government corporate counsel and former Secretary of Justice Agnes Devanadera for her participation in a 2006 deal that would have obligated the cash-strapped Philippine National Construction Corp. to pay a P6.1-billion debt that its original Japanese creditor, Marubeni, had already written off more than two decades earlier.
Santa Banana, since there were 18 other PNCC directors and officers included in the Ombudsman’s suit over the compromise deal which was said to be disadvantageous to government, why was Devanadera singled out?As government corporate counsel, her participation was merely ministerial.
Under Philippine law, obligations can legally be written off 20 years after the borrower received the last demand letter from the lender. This is precisely what happened.