Category: Malaya

Rep. Roilo Golez (Parañaque) is asking House Speaker Jose de Venecia and his gang to postpone by at least a week deliberations on Cha-Cha in deference to the calamity caused by typhoon “Reming.”

Golez said, “It would be the height of insensitivity and callousness to discuss Cha-Cha while hundreds of thousands have been dislocated and mourning their dead or looking for heir missing loved ones amidst the debris and mudflow.

“It would be in very poor, terrible taste to discuss Cha-Cha while a huge fraction of the nation are in pain and anguish. We should have a moratorium on Cha-Cha for a week,” he added.

The latest version of Malacañang’s charter change via Senateless Con-Ass shows the depth of the desperation of Gloria Arroyo and her cohorts.

When we say cohorts, that includes House Speaker Jose de Venecia and his dishonorable gang.

In a text statement, Rep. Roilo Golez (Parañaque) yesterday said,

“Last night, I witnessed one of the saddest and most saddening episodes in the history of the House (of Representatives.)

Continue readingWorst is yet to come

It’s a tribute to Henrik Ibsen that his writings continue to be relevant and provocative today as they were more than a hundred years ago.

In commemoration of one hundred years after the passing of Norway’s most famous playwright, the Norwegian embassy in Manila held a special screening last Wednesday of a modern adaptation of Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People.”

Ambassador Stale Forstein Risa said the 2004 movie adaptation of Ibsen’s 1882 play has been entered in the Norwegian movie festival. It’s actually the fourth rendition in film. The first two were done in the United States (the 1978 movie starred Steve McQueen) and in 1989, in India.

Gloria Arroyo was granted by US President Bush her most ardent desire to have a “one-on-one” meeting with her last Saturday, on the sidelines of the 14th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam.

That’s a big deal for Arroyo because the schedule released by the White House of Bush’s Vietnam trip did not mention any meeting with her.

The White House mentioned the Nov. 17 luncheon meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard; Nov. 18 morning meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and luncheon meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan; and Nov. 19 meetings with President Hu Jintao of China and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Sideswept by Atong Ang’s high-powered arrival last Friday was the testimony of the owner of the printing press that printed some of the official election returns that the ERs inside the ballot boxes in Congress are fake.

Robert Payongayong, manager of Ernest Printing, made the explosive revelation at the hearing of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal of the election protest of Loren Legarda, vice presidential candidate of the opposition Koalisyon ng Nagkaisang Pilipino against the proclaimed winner, Noli de Castro of the administration’s Koalisyon ng Karapatan at Karanasan sa Kinabukasan.

Payongayong said the ERs being kept under guard in Congress are “fake” but those submitted by the Commission on Elections and the National Movement for Free Elections were “genuine”.

In all power struggles, there are behind- the-scene tales of corruption and sex scandals.

Sometime last week of October, a young cabinet member of Gloria Arroyo met with an opposition senator with explosive information about the love affair of another senior cabinet official and a female member of the Consultative Commission formed by Gloria Arroyo to recommend revisions to be made in the Constitution.

The information from the cabinet member allegedly contained details of what had been talked about in coffee shops and passed around in text messages. In fact, a short item came out in www.uniffors.com, the blog of the underground group of foreign service employees, last Sept. 27, 2006.

The resignation of Defense Secretary Avelino “Nonong” Cruz Jr. signals a situation more destructive and dangerous than the bickerings over the People’s Initiative that was junked by the Supreme Court as fraudulent.

Reliable sources said Cruz felt he was losing control over the armed forces to members of the cabinet who want to use the military for the Arroyo administration to survive at all cost.

Cruz is aware of the strong sentiments among military officers about being used in the cheating operations as what happened in the 2004 elections and he feels “he could no longer guarantee to officers that the military will be insulated” from electoral fraud that Malacañang operators would be perpetrating in the 2007 elections.

The incident between Luli Arroyo and Immigration officer Edgardo Padlan underscored the accepted reality in this world that men and women may be born equal but there are those who are more equal than others.

At Bank of the Philippine Islands and its sister-banks, BPI Family Banks, they have a special lane for “Preferred Clients”. One time, at the BPI Family Alabang-Zapote branch, the line at the counter for ordinary clients was very long. One depositor transferred to the shorter line of “Preferred Clients”.

As expected, he was told to go back to where he belonged. He didn’t take it kindly and berated the teller for discriminating against small depositors.