Malacañang Palace
Impressing School Girls
By Erick Fabian
IN President Benigno Aquino III’s recent forum with Miriam College high school students who visited the Palace last January 7 (Tuesday), he told them that his New Year’s resolution is “to ignore critics”. He added, “”We have a cottage industry already of people who make a living criticizing me. And it [distracts me] from solving the problems of this country if I have to attend to them…Walang makitang maganda sa sasabihin mo” (they see nothing good in what I will say). He called his critics ‘hopeless’ and told the students that devoting time to them will only distract him from his work.
While giant news outlets barely glossed over this seemingly inconsequential piece of news, a simple reading between the lines says so much about the arrogant attitude of the person who holds the most powerful position in a country of almost 100 million people.
A quick look at the news shows that 2014 is becoming the harbinger of things to come as far as the failure of the Aquino administration to address the country’s actual concerns. His term ends in 2016, and he is playing a desperate game of patching his pockmarked public image. One would think that a more sophisticated politician would do a more elaborate stunt, but his PRs resort to publicizing a President regaling wide-eyed, star-struck high school students about how he is doing the country a lot of good by ignoring his critics. This is where the problem lies.
Democracy, in whatever permutation, at its most basic requires a two-way dialogue where each party plays both speaker and listener, giver and receiver. Calling your critics ‘hopeless’ and labelling them in a simplistic manner, by calling them ‘a cottage industry of critics who make a living criticizing the President’, is a conversation killer.
Just like the foolish emperor in the story ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, it appears that the man who touted himself the people’s hero and a crusader against corruption is not even attempting to hide his disdain for people like you and me, Filipinos who are doing their best to be good citizens by being truthful and honest, rather than pretend that there is nothing wrong.
It’s no surprise really, seeing as honesty is the farthest thing from his mind. A person who desires to engage in mature discourse will show respect for the other person, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with what the other person is saying. It is already a given that when you hold the highest position in the land, the conversation is between you and the collective of citizens that you extract taxes from. You agree to follow the social contract, to serve the interests of the people you are governing. All other interests fall on the bottom priority. At least, that’s the ideal that public servants are supposed to aim for.
Ignoring criticism is a symptom of a social cancer that has been befouling our political landscape since day one of the republic. An administration that spends most of its time and the taxpayers’ money on hand-waving PR maneuvers rather than making the most of its last two years in power by coming clean to the public and actually doing reparations and responding to the grievances of the people is an indicator of collective neurosis and mental incapacity to handle the job, not to mention immaturity.
Please, let’s stop fooling ourselves: we are not his boss, like he keeps saying over and over you’d wish he’d just recorded it and pushed the button on demand. His boss is Henry Sy. His boss is Manny Pangilinan. His boss is Lucio Tan. His bosses are the taipans. His bosses are the powerful people who keep him from seeing that he is a public embarrassment, again, like the emperor who thought that he looks grand in his invisible clothes. His bosses are only those who are willing to kiss his bottom end in exchange for favors and power.
It is too easy to allow awestruck high schoolers and field-tripping students who will be dazzled with the initial grandiosity of power, and all the perks of holding the most influential position in the country. On the other hand, student activists and civil groups with real-life concerns are rarely welcomed beyond the gates of the Palace compound, if at all.
Mr. Aquino also said that he will not pressure his Cabinet, as part of his New Year’s resolution. Saying that is tantamount to saying that he will not do his work properly. He should be pressuring them to bring about changes that will benefit Filipino society and improving the lives of the general populace. He should be shouting orders short of beating their backs with a stick because there are life-and-death decisions to be made, and he is making light of things can save people’s lives and ensure a better future even after his administration is over.
Sadly, the President is not interested in those things. He cares more about impressing high school girls, his Yellow cult, and the public by putting up a nice guy image. Sure, he is nice. He is not your typical movie villain. He is no Darth Vader and he is not planning to blow up a planet. Neither is he planning to address the suffering of millions of Filipinos who are hungry, homeless, jobless and desperate. He may not do the evil laugh, but what makes him any better than evil people?
In his last two years as President, if he keeps doing this, then there will be no resolution for the rest of us.
It’s all a brave front, a dismissive response, and nothing but the bravado of a political failure who is desperate to keep his already tattered public image. We should be concerned because we do not want two years of hell for the rest of us.
War in the Palace
IS THERE trouble brewing in Malacañang? With two camps running the Palace—the so-called Balay and Samar groups headed by Sec. Mar Roxas and Executive Secretary Pacquito Ochoa, respectively—the answer is a resounding YES.
It’s an odd marriage forged in 2010 during the election campaigns, a partnership that was immediately strained with the loss of Mar Roxas to Jejomar Binay in the race for Vice President. From then on the two camps barely managed to co-exist, engaging in minor scrapes and arguments every now and then on the handling of issues of national import. But that was before the PDAF scandal got out of the bag which put the whole administration in its biggest quandary.
The fragile relationship between the two camps have reportedly reached critical mass anew with President Aquino’s “I am no thief” speech, which aired on primetime television recently. Apparently, the idea of giving the speech was a unilateral decision made by the Roxas camp—a call made by the Liberal Party. This means Ochoa and company were against the speech which put PNoy on a defensive stance on the PDAF issue.
In hindsight, PNoy’s speech appeared to have had very little positive impact on the public perception that PNoy and company are equally liable in the PDAF scandal. If the intention was to disconnect PNoy from the PDAF fiasco and reinforce his “matuwid” image, the speech backfired. “Why deny involvement in the PDAF scam if you are not involved in it the first place?” Ochoa’s camp must have argued.
As it is, the PDAF scandal will involve lawmakers in both the opposition and administration camps. The present ploy of limiting the scandal to a handful of lawmakers is simply a means to buy the PNoy administration some time to figure a way out of the fiasco.
If there is a way out.
With the Senate Blue Ribbon failing to get a piece of testimony from Janet Lim-Napoles, it is clear that the PDAF scandal will be a long-drawn drama. It will take years before charges are filed against the guilty parties and even longer before the guilty are brought behind bars. PNoy and company do not care if the whole investigation process takes forever. Right now, they just need to survive until 2016.
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- CHRONOLOGY OF THE RIFT: Pacquito Ochoa VS. Mar Roxas (opinyon2010.wordpress.com)
- Trouble at the top (manilastandardtoday.com)
- Palace urged to adopt ‘orphaned’ pork scholars (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
- PDAF defeat prompts Aquino to fly back to Manila (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
- LP eyes new budget scheme vice PDAF (manilastandardtoday.com)
- President to discuss pork issue Wednesday night (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
- Why I Voted No to the Pork-laden 2014 Budget (mindanews.com)
- Philhealth, BSP got P29-b of PNoy’s special ‘pork’ (manilastandardtoday.com)
- What Is PNoy Up To? (opinyon2010.wordpress.com)
- Snake Pit (opinyon2010.wordpress.com)
CHRONOLOGY OF THE RIFT: Pacquito Ochoa VS. Mar Roxas
November 28, 2009 – Benigno Aquino III and Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas II file for candidacy as President and Vice President.
June 30, 2010 – Atty. Pacquito Ochoa Jr., handler of Aquino’s legal affairs since his run for Congress in 1998, is chosen to be Aquino’s Presidential Executive Secretary. Atty. Ochoa’s father (former mayor of Pulilan, Bulacan) is a longtime close friend of Aquino. Ochoa is a partner in the Marcos-Ochoa-Serapio-Tan law firm (MOST), with Atty. Liza Araneta-Marcos, wife of Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. and cousin of Jose Miguel ‘Mike’ Araneta Arroyo, former presidential husband.
May 10, 2011 – May 13, 2011 – Political analysts and veteran government officials Ernesto Maceda (ex-Marcos executive secretary and former senator) and Albay Gov. Joey Salceda (ex-Arroyo chief of staff) predicted in an interview with ABS-CBN that a clash between the Ochoa and Roxas camps are inevitable. Maceda previously stated similar concerns in his Philppine Star column.
June 29, 2011 – In an interview with Newsbreak, Ochoa denies influencing Aquino in his appointment of Roxas as incoming DOTC chief rather than as supposed Chief Of Staff, as insinuated by Aquino in past press interviews.
June 30, 2011 – Despite public expectations that Mar Roxas will be appointed as Aquino’s Chief Of Staff, Roxas accepts Aquino’s offer to take on the then-recently vacated position of Secretary of Transportation and Communications, right after former DOTC head Ping De Jesus resigned.
August 31, 2012 – Aquino appoints Roxas as new DILG chief, and Cavite Rep. Joseph ‘Jun’ Abaya as new DOTC head.
September 3, 2012 – DILG Secretary Mar Roxas and Ochoa gave contradicting statements to the public on DILG Undersecretary Rico Puno’s exit. Roxas claimed that the President is giving Puno a different assignment, while Ochoa insisted that no such decision has been made by the President yet.
August 25, 2013 – Malacañang dismisses Brian Raymund Yamsuan, consultant to Ochoa, after being mentioned as the one who brokered the meeting between Napoles and the editors of Philippine Daily Inquirer.
September 10, 2013 – Ochoa denies link to Janet Lim-Napoles. His law firm MOST used to represent Napoles, as indicated by NBI affidavits with the MOST imprint in them.
November 4, 2013 – Palace denies rumors about infighting within the Aquino administration’s ranks. Mar Roxas and Pacquito Ochoa appear together in public, beside each other, during an awarding ceremony for the soldiers in the Zambo siege.
Nov. 6, 2013 – According to Francisco Tatad’s column in Manila Standard, “Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa was quoted in this paper as saying it was Roxas who had pushed Aquino to make that widely derided ‘I am no thief’ speech on television, which has now become the latest national calamity under the Aquino administration.”
-Compiled by Eric Fabian
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SNAKE PIT
By Miguel Raymundo
MOST of us believe the pork scandal is a corruption issue. Yes it is, but to some high-risk political operators, this is just the start of the 2016 presidential campaign. The last three years in Malacañang has been the most dangerous, if not unproductive, for sitting President BS Aquino. Not only has he found himself abandoned, but also tamed even by his most trusted allies. As expected, powerful forces are now on each other’s throat in what could easily be a warm-up fight for the presidential contest two and a half years from now.
But if you think the war is between Malacañang and the opposition, you fail to see deeper into what is happening behind doors in the current pork barrel scandal. The war is now between forces inside Malacañang. Manila Standard Today reported that DILG Secretary Mar Roxas is to blame for the 12-minuter fiasco, the “I-am-no-thief” televised speech of PNoy. The Manila Standard also reported of a Laygo survey that said PNoy’s popularity rating is down by 35 percent, a major slip in his ratings. The broadsheet said Malacañang is in panic. The paper said they have a Malacañang insider for a source. OpinYon sources inside Malacañang say the Manila Standard story is half-true. It is true that there is a bloody war between forces of Executive Secretary Pacquito “Jojo” Ochoa and those of the Liberal Party led by Roxas. It is too bloody that PNoy has been reduced to become a victim of the ambitions, greed and fears of the Ochoa camp.
BOC: Cash Cow
The Ochoa camp is not ready to give up its control over Malacañang even after PNoy is gone. That is the ambition and the greed. The fear is should an enemy group take control of Malacañang, Ochoa and company could be joining another President behind bars. The fears of Ochoa’s group are not unfounded. There are persistent reports that some top Malacañang officials are in control of smuggling. Billions of pesos in lost taxes and government revenues end up in the pockets of the relatives of these Malacañang officials. Out of power, they will not only lose this cash cow, their boys might even be charged of corruption. The Bureau of Customs is the favorite cash cow of any political party in power. It has lately become a center of controversy and power play between Samar and Balay groups. Attempts by the Balay group to take control of BOC has always been derailed resulting in Ruffy Biazon keeping the post even with his dimwit performance. Also the agencies known for massive corruption like the DPWH are controlled by the Samar group. There is sharing of powers in some agencies that bring in the cash. The bigger pie almost always ends up with the Samar group.
Dirty Tricks
In the elbowing in the power game, pockets and egos are bruised creating deep resentment and plotting between the two forces. The war inside Malacañang is a very interesting as regards the use of dirty tricks. Unbelievable it seems the claim that only the Roxas camp is to blame for the 12-minuter speech fiasco. The report said that PNoy delayed facing the camera for that “I-am-no-thief” speech to give time for corrections of the speech by Ochoa. Being the last official to tinker with the transcript, Ochoa should take the blame for the final copy. But the Manila Standard source from inside Malacañang said that Roxas takes the blame and played up the slant that he is bringing down the President.
Who owns Manila Standard?
An OpinYon source said it is the other way around. The almost perfect handling by dirty tricks operators of Samar is making Roxas the bad boy. Almost perfect is the handling in the demolition of Roxas except that the top broadsheets appear to be treating the story with suspicion. So does OpinYon, forcing us to sneak in and get our side of the truth. Why is Manila Standard on top of this “inside sources” trick? This brings us to ask: who owns Manila Standard? That paper is owned by the Romualdezes, who are actually the Marcoses. We encourage you to do your own math and we would end up with the same conclusion. Notice one story finding space and getting viral in social media: the Marcos wealth and insinuations that its return will solve poverty in this country. Another interesting side of this 2016 battle for the presidency is how the camp of Binay is being treated by these two forces inside Malacañang. It appears that a decision has been made that Binay is not a serious contender, if not an already destroyed potential enemy.
Binay, A Goner?
With Binay already reduced to ashes, ironically by his own acts and moves by Malacañang, the two groups are now on each other’s throats, suspecting that whoever takes Malacañang will have the other join the President behind bars. Roxas has minced no words in seeking the presidency come 2016, but speculations are rife that Ochoa may have a different agenda – backing the presidential bid of opposition Senator Ferdinand Marcos “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. The Ochoa-Marcos link is via a law firm – the Marcos, Ochoa, Serapio and Tan, thus the acronym MOST. Marcos refers to Liza Marcos, wife of Senator Marcos, while Ochoa is Aquino’s executive secretary and S and T for Edward Serapio and Joseph Tan, respectively. The law firm was recently tagged as lawyering for pork barrel queen Janet Lim-Napoles, accused in a case of kidnapping and serious detention.
It should be noted, as well, that as early as Aquino’s 2009 presidential campaign, the salt to the wound has already been added. Members of the Balay faction of Aquino supporters, the one headed by Roxas, started blaming the Samar group under Ochoa for the failure of the Aquino-Roxas banner, after Chiz Escudero endorsed the Aquino – Binay tandem, without the knowledge of the said candidates. Escudero even went as far as to print t-shirts saying ‘Aquino-Binay’, which did not help the already widening division between the two groups that are supposed to be united under the Aquino flag. The publicity spin doctors in Malacañang were quick to rush and patch up the holes created by the infighting, but not fast enough that sources from inside were able to spread the knowledge that Aquino is running a divided political household.
Battle Royale
Since Filipinos are known for putting premium on keeping up appearances, Ochoa and Roxas would come in public ceremonies together, standing side by side, just to make it appear that allegations of infighting are baseless. Other than the obvious nonverbal tension that one can observe in this play-acting to feign truce, we know that the Filipino public has seen the same political drama repeated over and over again, and they are not fooled.
As preparations for the 2016 elections begin, we see a repeat of the 2010 battle royale between these two groups. But this time, it will be bloodier and it might trigger the fall of Pnoy even before the 2016 elections.
Malacañang is now the most dangerous place to be: a snake pit.
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This Week on OpinYon : SNAKE PIT
“As expected, powerful forces are now on each other’s throat in what could easily be a warm-up fight for the presidential contest two and a half years from now. But if you think the war is between Malacañang and the opposition, you fail to see deeper into what is happening behind doors in the current pork barrel scandal. The war is now between forces inside Malacañang.” – Miguel Raymundo
Coming out this week! Available in National Bookstore, Powerbooks, and Fully Booked.
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Aunt Tingting vs ‘Digi-President’
This puts in question all the top winners that the vote manipulations installed through the now infamous Smartmatic-PCOS 60-30-10 standard, cross-country pattern for administration, opposition and independent candidates. #OpinYon #opinion #PNoy#TingtingCojuangco
read cont | http://bit.ly/1hB2jzp
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What’s With PNoy?
by: Ramon Orosa
SO PNoy went to Zamboanga to try and put an end to the conflict. After one week, he’s back in Manila, but though reduced, the fighting has not ended. Somehow, his “visit” to Mindanao has raised questions although even prior to his visit, other questions were already being raised.
For example, the MPM and all the brouhaha about government and the malfeasance of legislators high and low and the assemblies to protest and keep the pressure to ensure that PNOY follows his own slogan of “Matuwid na Daan”. The peoples” demand is that PNoy applies the demand for accountability before the bar of justice across the board, meaning allies and foes alike, seeking not just examples to prosecute but to have hailed to court any and all involved within 100 days as his sign of sincerity if he is truly allied with the MPM as his minions have declared although there is a strong sentiment that that was no more than an attempt to preempt the MPM march.
Some have suggested that a diversionary tactic had to be created. The problem is that as I had it recounted to me, two weeks before the Zamboanga problem started, a senior ranking military official had already indicated that indeed such a development would take place in Mindanao without being area specific. #OpinYon #opinion
read cont | http://bit.ly/15Ictyo
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AWOL
By Miguel Raymundo
PRESIDENT Aquino’s choice to stay in the Zamboanga war zone and away from Malacañang is taking a toll on his Presidency.
With much of Zamboanga’s commercial and business facilities shut down because of continued fighting between government forces and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels, the President is unable to attend to other issues of import that require his immediate attention.
Away from the public eye since Sept. 14 when he left the Palace for Zamboanga City, many are wondering what the President is doing there and who’s running the government’s affairs while he is away.
Is the President still in control? Has he gone AWOL to escape public censure over the P10-billion pork barrel scandal? Is he just sitting around playing his video games—content to sit in the sidelines while the lives and livelihood of the people of Zamboanga lie in the balance?
And where on earth is PNoy exactly? #OpinYon#CoverStory #Pnoy #AWOL
read cont | http://bit.ly/15srVOR
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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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Demeaning the Presidency
by: Atty. Salvador S. Panelo
THERE is universal condemnation and outrage against President Benigno Aquino III, for the latter’s personally accepting the surrender of Janet Lim-Napoles in the seat of political power that is Malacañang, and worse, for escorting, the fugitive from justice to the Philippine National Police Headquarters in Camp Crame.
As if the gigantic and monstrous presidential faux pas was not enough, the highest official of the land, sworn to uphold and enforcing the law, had to inspect the room to check if it was airconditioned enough and sufficiently comfortable for the woman charged with seriously illegally detaining another and believed, if not reputed, to be responsible for – and the mastermind of that 10B pork barrel fund scam that has shocked the entire nation, triggering a social media blast protest by netizens that led to the so-called 1 Million March protest for the abolition of the pork barrel. #OpinYon #Pnoy #Opinion
cont | http://bit.ly/17msaZg
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