Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista, the Commissioner of Customs and the Immigration Commissioner should look into what is happening at NAIA
In the aftermath of the end of the Japanese Occupation and the execution of Japanese commander Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was known as “The Tiger of Malaya” after his conquest of Singapore, his Occupation of Malaysia and Burma (now Myanmar), talks and rumors abound that Yamashita had brought with him a treasure, the biggest of all, a Golden Buddha.
These talks, Santa Banana, persisted so much that a B-movie was even made about it.
Talks, gossip and rumors persisted when a buddha was discovered in Baguio City, owned by a family, not a golden buddha, but with some jade and other expensive rocks.
All these gossip and talks about the Yamashita treasure persisted, enhanced by a B-movie so much so that when then President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. came to power, there were talks about FEM’s wealth being attributed to his having found the Yamashita treasure.
I know for instance that even Marcos Sr. suspected the existence of the Yamashita treasure since I knew that he even commissioned my elder brother Desi, who was his good friend, having both served in the guerilla movement of the USAFIP-NL with my brother Desi belonging to to 121st Infantry under then Major Conrado Rigor, the head of the 3rd Battalion, and with then Major Marcos of the 14th Infantry that covered Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya, all under the command of Col. Russell Volckmann.
Together with my brother Desi, Marcos Sr. commissioned General Zosimo Paredes of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to look for Yamashita’s treasure.
After three months of searching, my brother Desi and General Paredes gave up. According to my late brother Desi, the alleged Yamashita Treasure was just a hoax, Santa Banana!
But because of the talks, gossip and rumors about the treasure of Yamashita, treasure hunters from all over the world came, obviously hoping they would find Yamashiita’s treasure.
They started digging in almost all the places, like Fort Santiago and places where they thought Yamashita buried his treasure.
Santa Banana, it was the biggest hoax of the century since the alleged Yamashita treasure was more of a gossip and rumor.
I myself started asking questions like “ why would a Japanese general like Yamashita come to the Philippines and bury his treasure and how could he hide the treasure?
But treasure hunters came and left – all disappointed and empty-handed, my gulay !
83 percent of Pinoys
The Department of Information and Communication Technology has made a very interesting study on the use by Filipinos of the Internet.
It found that 83 percent of Pinoys are Internet users, Santa Banana!
But, the problem, according to DICT, is that Filipinos don’t use the Internet for useful platforms that can help them in their jobs, or to find jobs, or use the Internet for productive purposes.
Santa Banana, would you believe a worldwide study of the use of the Internet showed the world average use of the Internet daily is only around six hours?
In the Philippines, the average use of the Internet is more than 10 hours.
The DICT also said “connectivity” is “neutral” and it depends on how a person makes use of it.
Another interesting survey is on the use of social media.
The global average use of the internet for social media is two to three hours only.
But in the Philippines, it is four to five hours, with Filipinos using it for games and for connecting themselves with friends and relatives, and often reading information which is disinformation and fake news.
My gulay, how many times have I heard that Pinoys who are Facebook addicts have become gossipers and rumor-mongers, spreading disinformation?
There are of course many Internet platforms like Twitter and others, but Pinoys prefer Facebook.
It is also interesting to note the DICT found that many countries use the Internet for productive purposes like the use of skills and the use of the Internet by micro and medium entrepreneurs to maximize productivity.
The DICT also noted the so-called “Generation Z” – from ages 18 to 24 – among Pinoys, are spending more time in social media for gossiping than for using the web or search engines to learn helpful information.
I can believe that since I often see people using their phones for social media rather than for productive use.
In fact, I would say that, because of the Internet, people have lost the “art of conversation.”
In my generation, we wrote love letters.
Now the “Generation Z” just text each other to meet at shopping malls.
How I miss those days when I had to visit somebody who I was in love with or wrote silly things in love letters.
That’s what I call the “Great Divide” that divided my generation, before the internet came, from the later ones
The DICT advised Pinoys it is important for people to realize that “digitalization” could be inviting scams, like employment scams or many other scams.
There are many scams in digitalization the government must regulate.
It is for all these reasons that DICT has entered into agreements with the Departments of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of Justice on scams like the Anti-Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Law since the abuses of all forms can get access to information online.
No peace talks
New National Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro has ruled out any peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines.
And for the DND secretary’s negative stand on further peace talks with the communists, the usual reaction of the Makabayan party-list bloc was expected.
As far as I see it, what’s the use of peace talks which the CCP uses only for propaganda purposes?
And what for since the insurgency is slowly becoming a dying movement after the death of its founder Joma Sison?
As I see it, nobody has stepped into the shoes of Sison.
Even the New People’s Army is no longer as active as it used to be, already divided by a small group of ideologues and now they are mostly bandits extorting what they call “revolutionary taxes’’ from countryside businesses, like mining, logging, and lumber, and the usual victims, bus companies, that are victimized so often.
Gibo knows only too well that most of the NPAs are now plain bandits.
It’s all for these reasons why I commend Gibo. He knows whereof he speaks – has been there, and done that.
Corruption at NAIA
Inside sources informed me the main gateway to the Philippines — the Ninoy Aquino International Airport — has become a very corrupt government agency where NAIA, Immigration and Customs are all engaged not only in human trafficking, but in the entry of contraband goods including smuggling of illegal drugs like crystal meth and shabu.
Only recently, NAIA personnel were found to be escorting people using private planes out of NAIA without going through Immigration and Customs.
More than that, according to my sources, NAIA personnel are in connivance with immigration in escorting alleged OFWs destined for abroad without going through Immigration or going through in connivance with Immigration without necessary papers.
There is also what is known as “the escort service” provided by corrupt NAIA personnel for known smugglers and VIPs without going through Immigration and Customs.
Worse, I am told that unaccompanied luggage are surreptitiously released by Customs without being opened, again with the connivance of corrupt Customs guards at Customs and NAIA personnel.
The reasons, my sources said, why NAIA General Manager Cesar Chiong was sued before the Ombudsman by NAIA personnel was his attempt to cleanse NAIA of corruption by rotating personnel.
Chiong was later suspended.
Santa Banana, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista, the Commissioner of Customs and the Immigration Commissioner should look into what is happening at NAIA, my gulay.