Filipino people
KILLING THE CARTEL
By: Al S. Labita & Miguel Raymundo
IN a dark alley in Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown, a Chinese rice trader ponders on the fate of the tons of rice he illegally stockpiled in his leased warehouse.
Not only were the grains rotting, but their storage also drained him of “dirty profits” he pocketed from speculating on the supply and demand cycle of the Filipinos’ major staple.
Call it “bad karma,” but the tsinoy trader—like his peers in the cartelized trading of rice—is bearing the brunt of the government’s resolute political will to stabilize the rice market–and stamp out smuggling, hoarding and price manipulation.
Based on OpinYon’s research, a paper trail leads to Binondo as the epicenter of cartelized trading of grains, apparently in cahoots with corrupt government officials.
Mostly involving Tsinoys, the syndicate–described as “big and powerful”—corners and manipulates rice prices, creating an artificial shortage in the grains market. #OpinYon #banner#RiceHoarding #Rice
read cont | http://bit.ly/16G1q9v
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AMBASSADOR JORGE DOMEQ : Selling Spain to the World
WITH over 300 years worth of shared history, it is fitting that Spanish Ambassador Jorge Domeq’s first Asian posting be here in the Philippines.
Born November 28, 1960, Domeq entered the Diplomatic Corps in 1985 serving in the Spanish Embassy in the NATO Council and Brazil. In 2004 he was appointed second in command at the Embassy of Spain in Morocco and in 2005 he held the post of deputy director general of the Bureau of Gibraltar. He began his official tour of duty here in the Philippines in March 2011 and—like a duck to water—easily felt at home with the Filipino culture and way of life.
Much like Filipinos, Domeq says Spaniards are a blending of rich cultures. #OpinYon#foreign #Spain
read cont | http://bit.ly/152GG8K
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UNUS INSTAR OMNIUM
by: Francis De Guzman
THE above is Latin, and translated in the English language to mean –“one for all.”
This is seen as the very essence that embodies the ‘soul of democracy’ if it were to be taken in the context of socio-political realities of our times.
The success of the “million people’s march” as this writer would term the recent turn of events in the country, which was birthed by a unified call to the nation against the excessive evils of corruption that has reached the highest echelons of political power, is but the tip of the iceberg that could hopefully bring about true transformational change.
Based on the final outcome of those tasked to investigate the said “Mother of all Scams” and how the truth and nothing but, will now determine the future course of events for this nation of more than 90 million Filipinos. #OpinYon #opinion
read cont | http://bit.ly/172ukuI
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Mother Figures: Filipino matriarchs in new local films
by: Boy Villasanta
IN the recently concluded maiden edition of the Film Development Council of the Philippines’ Sineng Pambansa National Film Festival, alternately dubbed as All Masters Film Festival, participated in by the country’s veteran directors, Filipino matriarchs were once again painted and presented in multi-colored and multi-dimensional types.
These were, more or less, underscored in the three (out of nine official entries) films we’ve watched.
In Gil M. Portes’ “Ang Tag-Araw ni Twinkle,” there were at least two mothers, one, Twinkle’s (Ellen Adarna) biological mom, a New People’s Army amazon who was shot dead by a junior military official during an encounter in the boondocks her baby wrapped in cloth around her chest during the fatal shootout, the other, the adoptive ma (Rina Reyes), the wife of senior officer General Payawal (Cris Villanueva).
In Jose Javier Reyes’ “Anong Kulay ang mga Nakalimutang Pangarap?,” there was one matriarch (each generation played intermittently by Madeleine Nicolas and Kimberly Diaz) and a surrogate one, the nanny Teresa (Rustica Carpio). #OpinYon #ePlus #entertainment
read cont | http://bit.ly/19xY9Fm
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Swiss Ambassador to the Philippines Ivo Sieber: IN LOVE WITH THE PHILIPPINES
ABOUT 10,530 kilometers of land and ocean separate the Philippines from Switzerland. But in an instant, Filipinos can easily answer what comes to mind when they hear “Swiss”—the Swiss knife, chocolate, cheese, watch, and the Swiss Alps.
Many generations of Pinoys have been raised on products made by the Swiss food and beverage giant Nestle and treated for various ailments using Swiss-manufactured medicines.
Fact is, Switzerland has had official relations with the Philippines since 1862, when the Philippines was still a Spanish colony and most of our revolutionary heroes were still toddlers. The Swiss Consulate in the Philippines was the very first consulate in Asia and have maintained consular offices here until today.
Their man in Manila today is Ambassador Ivo Sieber. And, the Philippines is close to Sieber’s heart because he has been married for some 20 years now to Gracita—a beautiful Filipina with whom he has two teenaged girls. #OpinYon #Foreign #Swiss
read cont | http://bit.ly/14F88t2
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SINS OF CORY
BY MIGUEL RAYMUNDO
PRESIDENT Benigno S. Aquino III is surely feeling the heat with some of the country’s top technocrats forming an alliance to make him answerable for the billions of pesos in government funds under his control.
Former national treasurer Leonor Briones says the legislators’ pork barrel is just a “coin purse” while Malacañang, that is PNoy, holds the” power of the purse”.
According to the group of Briones, the President has control of over PhP1 trillion in government funds. The national wrath over the lost PhP10 billion in pork is a small percentage to what Malacañang could be liable of with those trillions.
The question is can we trust PNoy to use that money for the good of the country?
Many think PNoy cannot be trusted. Everyday more Filipinos are added to those who do not think PNoy can be trusted in his office. And there is a reason for the growing distrust.
Blasted in Social Media
In the social media, blogs and posts denounce PNoy’s inappropriate interest in protecting the country’s most hated “queen of the pork barrel” Janet Lim-Napoles.
His apparent coddling of Napoles sent signals to the public that something was cooking. This sparked suspicions that PNoy was “too frightened” of Napoles. This also generated some angry questions that got even angrier answers.
And the anger against the un-presidential caring of and protection given to Napoles, “queen” of ten-billion robbery of the countryside development funds entrusted to legislators and bureaucrats, grew louder as stories of the past are brought back to life.
The people are reminded of the sins of the mother of PNoy, the former President Cory Aquino, who has been sold to the Filipino people as saint and martyr.
OpinYon finds it fit to run some of these reminders to the Filipino people. In this issue we pick from the controversialfiles.net.
Scandals of the Cory Era
One of the biggest urban legends of recent times in the Philippines, is the story that the Cory Administration was supposedly the “cleanest” among the Administrations in the last three decades.
Thanks to Nostalgia, and the fact that her Administration was at the dawn of the internet age, much of the negativities of that Administration has been largely forgotten, and people tend to remember only the “good” things about that Administration.
Well, thanks to Noynoy Aquino’s “holier-than-thou” campaign strategy, much of the “unpleasantries” during Cory’s time are being brought back to the surface slowly, but surely. Here are some that we have managed to dig out:
Continue: http://bit.ly/18xAFUA
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EDITORIAL: No Killing the Pork
WHISTLEBLOWER Benhur Luy is the man of the hour.
Not a few were impressed—if not shocked—by the apparent casualness of Luy’s testimony as he described details of how Napoles managed to get her dirty little hands on the millions of pesos in government funds.
Luy’s lurid tales of forgery and collusion with lawmakers comes as a direct affront to the millions of Filipinos mired in poverty. A slap in the face of the jobless, the underpaid workers and, most of all, to the taxpayer who religiously pay their duties only to have the likes of Napoles steal it away.
While most of us are busy with the daily struggle of making ends meet, Napoles and her cohorts in Congress splurge on public funds and lead lives of unimaginable wealth and luxury. And to think that Napoles is just one of many involved in this decades-old scam, is enough to make you sick–sick of all the rotten, dirty scumbags who run our government.
Calls have been made to scrap the pork barrel system. Well and good. Even if there is nothing wrong with the system in the first place. But, considering the perks of being in power and how politicians spend, cheat (even kill) in this country to win an election, it is very hard to imagine a Congress without its pork. Napoles’ cohorts in government may be cringing in fear of impending implication—but the horror of being without the PDAF to a crooked lawmaker is a hundredfold greater.
(Image source: http://everyoneisstupidbutme.com)
Everything was roses until Luy had a falling out with his employer Napoles, who also happens to be his relative. Like whistleblowers before him, Luy is now state witness, a mob insider-turned-squealer. Like all whistleblowers before him, his courage to spill the beans on the pork barrel scandal is admirable. But killing the pork will be easier said than done. Its fate, after all, rests in the hands of people who are in the same club as those accused of abusing it. #OpinYon #Editorial #Philippines
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