Tag: rodrigo duterte

Matobato and the firefly

Published by Ellen on March 25, 2018

Edgar Matobato in the Senate. Photo by Senate PRIB Albert Calvelo

The message of Holy Week, Fr. Fidel Fabile – our parish priest in Moonwalk in Las Piñas, said is hope.

After Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem marked yesterday with our waving of the palms, suffering and grief followed culminating in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Then comes the Resurrection which is celebrated on Easter Sunday.

Fr. Fidel said Holy Week re-assures us that amidst all suffering in life, something beautiful awaits us. That there is something to hope for.

Fr. Fidel’s sermon reminded me of the self-confessed member of the Davao Death Squad Edgar Matobato and the incident with a firefly.

Duterte is mistaken if he thinks he has escaped from ICC by withdrawing PH membership

Published by Ellen on March 16, 2018

Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, the first president in Southeast Asia to be the subject of an examination by the International Criminal Court. Malacañang photo.

If Pres. Duterte thinks he is now out of the reach of the International Criminal Court because he directed the Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to withdraw the ratification of the Philippines of the Rome Statute which established the ICC, he is mistaken.

Former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay said Duterte has no unilateral constitutional authority to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the ICC. The Rome Statute was ratified by the Senate, which shares the Treaty Power with the President. Withdrawal, as a constitutional matter, requires a similar concurrence.”

Hilbay also said, the withdrawal cannot be made “immediately”.

Dumbfounded

Published by Ellen on March 14, 2018

Pres. Duterte receives Cebu businessman Peter Lim whom he tagged as a drug lord in Malacanang in 2016. Malacañang photo.

The Department of Justice panel has junked drug trafficking charges against suspected drug lords Peter Lim, Kerwin Espinosa and several others.

I’m dumbfounded.

I share Sen. Grace Poe’s feeling of distress. In a statement, Poe said: “I am disturbed by the basis upon which the DOJ panel made its recommendation to dismiss the drug charges against Mr. Espinosa and others. For one, Kerwin Espinosa, himself admitted before a Senate inquiry that he was indeed involved in the drug trade.

Duterte revises his number of drug addicts in the Philippines

Published by Ellen on March 12, 2018

Pres. Duterte shares a light moment with former President and Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo on the sidelines of the meeting with local chief executives from Luzon at in Clark, Pampanga. Malacanang photo by Robinson Ninal.

At the start of his administration, President Duterte said there were three million drug addicts in the Philippines which was the reason why he launched a brutal campaign against illegal drugs which has now claimed over 4,000 as of March 2017 per data from the Philippine National Police.

From three million drug addicts, which number he attributed to former head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Dionisio Santiago, he increased it to four million in less than a year.

He even fired then Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Benjamin Reyes for saying there were only 1.8 million drug addicts in the country. Reyes was replaced by Santiago whom Duterte fired after just a few months at the DDB for saying the 10,000-bed capacity mega drug rehabilitation facility in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija built by a Chinese official was a “mistake” and an “impractical solution” to the drug menace.

And the people laughed

Published by Ellen on March 4, 2018

The audience laughed at Pres. Duterte’s boast of having two families in a speech in Dingle, Iloilo Feb. 22. Malacañang photos.

March 8 is International Women’s Day to highlight the achievement of women in all fields – social, economic, cultural and political.

In the Philippines, where women have long proven their worth, they are still subjected to a lot of disrespect. And this is from no less than the President himself.

Last Feb. 22, in his speech at the 6th Regional Community Defense Group Ground, Camp General Adriano Hernandez, Dingle, Iloilo last Feb. 22, Duterte talked about the difficulty of maintaining two families with the salary he is getting as President.

Duterte’s ‘garbage’ continues to stink

Published by Ellen on February 6, 2018

Pres. Duterte, speaks at the 2017 Anti-Corruption Summit 2017. Malacañang photo by Ruji Abat.

When then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte dismissed as “garbage” the exposé of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV during last two weeks of the election campaign about his bank deposits with the Bank of Philippine Islands, Julia Vargas branch, he thought probably that was the end of it.

Duterte was leading the surveys in the contest that he eventually won convincingly.

With the powers of the presidency, Duterte has been effective in crushing most of political his enemies. His devoted mob has been successful in spreading chaos in cyberspace.

But as one sage said, “Truth is always like oil in water; no matter how much of water you add, it always floats on top.”

The truth is in the numbers

Published by Ellen on January 24, 2018

Sara duterte kisses the hand of her father during the IBP Davao chapter oathtaking on September 30, 2017. Malacañang photo by Robinson Niñal.

Take note that in the statements of Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, they were not denying the contents of their bank accounts cited by VERA Files in its special report about the President and his daughter’s undeclared wealth.

They dismissed the story as “hearsay” because they said the bank records, where we based the report, have not been authenticated by the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

Last Sunday, VERA Files, which I am part of, released its analysis of the bank documents which Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV exposed in April 2016 comparing them with the Duterte father and daughter statements of assets, liabilities and net worth.

This is what VERA Files found out:

Duterte, Sara fail to declare P100M investments, documents show

Published by Ellen on January 21, 2018

By VERA Files

President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter Sara omitted to fully disclose their joint deposits and investments at the Bank of Philippine Islands, which conservatively exceeded P100 million in some years, when they were mayor and vice mayor of Davao City, our analysis of bank records submitted to Congress and their annual net worth declarations shows.

According to the bank records, Duterte and Sara’s transactions with BPI, initially its Greenhills-EDSA branch and later the Julia Vargas branch, included:

• A P48.17 million placement in 2006 that grew to P55.13 million by 2013
• A P40.55 million investment in 2009 that stood at P41.72 million in 2013
• About $220,000, roughly P10 million, from 2006 to 2012
• The purchase of P80 million in insurance policies in 2014
• A P16.85 million investment begun in 2014

The bank records came from the Senate. Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV entered the documents that he said were from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) into the Senate records on Oct. 3 after delivering a privilege speech saying the president had more than P2.2 billion in questionable bank transactions.

Is Duterte unraveling?

Published by Ellen on September 19, 2017

President Duterte admits alleged Trillanes offshore accounts were products of his imaginaion. Screengrab from PTV4.

President Duterte never ceases to stun us.

Yesterday, he admitted that his story about the offshore accounts of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV was a product of his imagination.
“Wala ito. Produkto ng isip ko ito. Tinanggalan ko talaga. Ginamit mo. Nag-issue ka ng waiver… Iba ang account number, iba ang totoo. Sinadya ko iyan,” he said after Trillanes went to Singapore and proved that the two bank accounts supposedly based in Singapore in the list Duterte read to the public were non-existent.

His admission made him a manufacturer of fake news.

If that was not jarring enough, he bragged that he has fooled Trillanes.”Kita mo siya ngayon. He’s desperate. Pumunta ng Singapore, mag-gastos lang para propaganda lang,” he further said.

We thought only a fool would do that.

The trade off: multi-billion dollar projects in exchange for Chinese exploration in PH EEZ

Published by Ellen on July 29, 2017

Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi July 25,2017. DFA photo.

From the fragmented information about the resumption of talks on joint exploration with China in the disputed parts of the Spratlys, what is emerging is a repeat of jumbo loans that the administration of Gloria Arroyo obtained from the Chinese government in 2004 in exchange for agreeing to allow China to explore within the country’s economic exclusive zone.

In his State-of-the Nation address last Monday, the issue about West Philippine Sea was mentioned sort of in passing. “The West Philippine Sea issue and federalism are matters that we have to tackle sooner or later,” Duterte said.

Reporters followed it up in his post-SONA press conference. Duterte added more information:

“When they start to excavate the gas and all. I tell you, it’s going to be just like a joint venture. Para pareho. (So it’s equal). “