Senator Loren Legarda is running for representative of the lone district of Antique, my province.
Loren, who comes from Gella family from Pandan is offering her experience and expertise for the province. It’s my fervent hope that my province mates appreciate Loren and vote for her.
In her 18 years as senator, Loren has never been involved in graft and corruption. She has undertaken not so popular causes like protection of environment and promotion of arts and culture.
As long as we have journalists like Felipe Salvosa II, the likes of Bobi Tiglao don’t matter.
Salvosa provided a much-needed silver lining last week at the time when dark clouds of lies threatened to overwhelm the public pre-occupied with the business of surviving.
Until last week, Salvosa was Manila Times managing editor. He was fired for voicing his reservations about the story his newspaper was putting out.
I’m using the word “fired” because he himself admitted that he was asked to resign by management over his tweet posted early afternoon of April 22 which said: “A diagram is by no means an evidence of ‘destabilization’ or an ‘ouster plot.’ It is a very huge stretch for anyone to accuse PCIJ, Vera Files and Rappler of actively plotting to unseat the President. I know people there and they are not coup plotters.”
Almost every day, from my place of work to my residence is almost three-hour energy-sappy travel, one way.
In those three hours, I witness scenes that re-affirm my admiration to the suffering Filipinos — from the kilometer-long queues for a ride to the sardine-like situation in the MRT and many more.
In the three years of the country under Rodrigo Duterte, 27,000 have been reported killed in drug-related incidents, more than 4,000 of them during police operations, most of them small-time drug runners. None of the big-time suppliers have been arrested.
Until last week, when more than 300 Chinese vessels surrounded Philippine –occupied Pag-asa Island, the government didn’t complain about China’s aggressive activities in the disputed areas in South China Sea.
Every day we read about misgovernance, incompetence and mis-use of funds.
Yet, the Filipinos are satisfied with him as leader.
After Bong Go, President Duterte’s former special assistant who is now one of the frontrunners in the senatorial race, did the humiliating act of undressing in front of the media and under the glare of TV cameras, to show his tattoo-less back, the question of those who were initially impressed with the first three episodes of “Ang totoong Narco list” is, what’s Bikoy going to say about this?
Bikoy, for those who did not follow his video series, claims to be a former member of a drug syndicate operating in Southern Luzon and Visayas region. He said he was involved in the recording of transactions and showed copies of the documents in the video where he appeared as hooded figure.
For many days after Go debunked his claim about having personally seen a tattoo with dragon figure on the back of Duterte’s aide, he was silent which was not surprising. As Terry Ridon, former urban poor chief of the Duterte administration, in his opinion piece in the Philippine Daily Inquirer said, “ Wala na, finish na.”
The title of Ridon’s article was “The ‘Bikoy’ who cried wolf”
This is a classic case of Duterte getting a dose of his own medicine.
Two weeks after he released the initial list local officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking, two videos implicating the President’s son, former Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and now candidate for Representative of Davao City’s first district, were uploaded on You Tube and Facebook account of “Metro Balita”, which lists itself as “media/news company.”
Titled “Ang Totoong Narcolist” , Episode 1 is 6 minutes and 50 seconds long. Episode 2 is three minutes and 30 seconds.
The videos look professionally done. So is the annotation.
In his briefing on the latest takedown of accounts in Facebook and Instagram in the Philippines found to be engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” Nathaniel Gleicher, head of Facebook Cybersecurity Policy, underscored that the reason was not the posted content.
He said it was because “the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves.” That’s “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
It so happened, however, that tracing the trail of the 67 Pages, 68 Facebook accounts, 40 Groups and 25 Instagram accounts that were taken down, led Gleicher and his team to Nic Gabunada, head of Rodrigo Duterte’s social media during the 2016 presidential campaign.
A political analyst-friend has an interesting observation about how Pres. Duterte is preparing for post- 2022.
He said contrary to what many assume that Duterte is grooming his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, to succeed him in 2022, it’s actually his most reliable, ever loyal aide, Bong Go, that he wants to install in Malacañang after his term.
“No, no, it’s not Sara, without an “H,” he said. He explained father and daughter don’t see eye to eye on many issues and choice of people. ‘He can’t control Sara. He does not want that,” the analyst said.
He makes sense.
With Bong Go, it will truly be an extension of the Duterte presidency. Unlike Sara, Bong Go will do what Duterte says. He knows his role in this world: a Duterte gofer.
“My office ‘s independent and impartial preliminary examination into the situation in the Philippines continues.”
That statement by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda issued Monday should put a stop to the misleading statements of Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo about the ICC process.
Last Monday, Panelo said in his press briefing, “… ICC cannot proceed with any proceeding that it has started specifically because it said that they conducted a preliminary examination and not a preliminary investigation. And under the Rome Statute clearly says that any preliminary investigation or any proceeding relative there to it commenced prior to the withdrawal of state party, can’t continue and will continue. Therefore, if it does continue, it violates its own provision because there has been no preliminary investigation.”
Pres. Duterte was into his “I will kill you” element again during the PDP-Laban campaign rally at Negros Occidental last Friday. He was talking, as usual, about his campaign against illegal drugs.
He said every day, there’s news about shabu. “P***** i** talagang papatayin ko kayo because drugs will destroy my country. Nagkalat — hindi na halos ma-control eh. “
Apparently, he has not thought of assessing the efficacy of his “kill, kill” strategy as he himself admits the proliferation of illegal drugs remains unabated.
In front of an impressionable audience, Pres. Duterte usually gets carried away with his story-telling and says things that are false and vulgar.
Spewing out false claims has become a standard practice for Duterte. I think it has come to a point when he believes his own lies.
That is dangerous because he is president and many of his statements are basis of government policies. The most glaring example is his figures on the number of drug addicts in the country, which is his justification for his brutal anti-drug war which has killed more than 27,000. At the start of his presidency, he said there are three million drug addicts in the country. Then it became four million. Yet, the Dangerous Drug Board reported in 2016 only 1.8 million drug addicts in the country.