ANL 1st Quarter
2014 Issue
E d i t o r i a l
2014, Year of the Wood Horse: Kicking ass around!
But of course, the nation must rise!
In the aftermath of a debilitating
series of disasters the country has gone through during the year of the water
snake, 2013, the need to rise up and move on is even more commanding for a
people who can only suffer from the follies of man himself, if not from an
angry nature, or both.
But hardly the horror and
trauma brought forth by the dreadful Bohol quake and Yolanda’s killer storm surge
late last year, comes the year of the wood horse kicking up mid-January a weeklong low pressure area-turned-cyclone “Agaton”
ushering early torrential rains for the year resulting to flash floods
and landslides in eastern Mindanao and eastern Visayas.
Rarely two at onset-month
of year, storm “Basyang” straddled same route as “Agaton” but is miniscule in rain and wind pack to create worries
for an inept government.
Like a storm surge, the killing
spree on the streets of Metro-Manila and elsewhere by men riding-in-tandem on
motorbikes is on the uptrend attacking with daring ease and alarming frequency at
one or two attacks a day rendering police authority virtually inutile even as
this feared phenomenon spikes crime rate around the country to worrisome level.
The nagging rice crisis won’t
die down just yet. Talks of so-called rice supply shortage upping prices
enormously was unveiled by media as being manipulated by a Mafiosi-type rice
smuggling syndicate that is compounding the already dubious nature of the
problem dragging the names of no less than high government men and agencies into
the billions-worth new scam now being investigated by Congress. [Read following news feature on the topic].
The quarrel on the pork
barrel is much alive as the proverbial thief lurking in the dead of night. After
the demise of the priority assistance development fund [PDAF] at the sala of the Supreme Court, President BS Aquino III
and his ilk are hanging on tooth-and-nail to yet another pig’s fat belly called
“hol”DAP [disbursement acceleration program] clandestinely created September
2011 by Secretary Butch Abad’s Department of Budget and Management. DAP is
under litigation at the Supreme Court for a verdict as to its
constitutionality. Folks, let’s pray to Allah who certainly detests pork.
Having called on Allah to
shed some mercy to a touted only-Catholic-country in Asia, we can only pray for
the eternal repose of 34 Filipinos killed daily in road accidents while
government transport regulators are idling by watching “colorum” buses plying
routes with dead franchises and/or switching fake double-plates. The latest of
which was a Florida bus unit that plunged into a 114 feet-deep ravine February
7 in Bontoc, Mountain province killing
15 passengers including a local artist-celebrity and three foreign tourists.
What’s deplorable on this tragic incident was that the said bus has no
franchise and was using then a fake plate while government seems
unknowing of such criminal acts!
Unknowing is definitely
not for a contemptuous power supplier Meralco charging customers wilfully a
hiked rate even while a Supreme Court’s temporary restraining order [TRO] on
the matter is very well in effect. A monster-cheat and criminal this Indonesia’s
Salim-controlled company disguising as Filipino-owned!
Meanwhile, gluttony is a
norm for the oil giants as they lubricate their pockets with fat price hikes
running almost weekly. Goes with it a silly rollercoaster scheme of a huge
increase for every miniscule rollback thus effectively passing on the buck to
the overburdened consumers.
And going for the slaughter,
BS Aquino III—doing a Marcos, or a “shameblance” of it—set the mantle of cyber
martial law on “Black Tuesday”, 18 February 2014, when its appointee-Supreme Court
virtually upheld in its entirety Republic Act 10175 [Cybercrime Prevention Act]
enshrining libel as constitutional—this necessary
evil of a law to ever stay and haunt dissent, stifle freedom of expression and speech,
astutely insulating the powers that be to being untouchables in a nefarious regime
led by a moron crazed with double-talk: “kayo ang boss ko!” [you, people, are my boss!] laced with the now
infamous pledge for a “daang matuwid”
[straight path] sort of governance.
At the end of the day, the
“double-talk” remains just that--“empty talk”!
The infamous Maguindanao
massacre case of 2009 is going nowhere in almost five years of long and
complicated court litigation typical of justice-delayed-justice-denied, only in
the Philippines. The Luneta hostage taking of Taiwanese nationals killing at
least eight of them in August 2010 remains unresolved four years after that
bungled rescue operation by Philippine authorities resulting to a critically
strained relations with Taiwan. Same is true with the unresolved Sabah standoff
February last year between the royal forces of the Sulu Sultanate claiming
Sabah and the Malaysian forces that saw
one more inept handling by the Aquino administration who, by a stroke of
ignorance in both history and diplomacy savvy, even sided with the enemy and
sold wholesale our Muslim brothers and for that matter—Sabah.
The displaced victims of
killer typhoons Sendong and Pablo both in Mindanao two or three years ago are yet
to be fully rehabilitated and languishing in poverty. Same is true with the
crossfire victims of the Moro National Liberation Front’s September 2013 siege
of Zamboaga City are still there—quite a number of them—in makeshift evacuation
centres with their children hungry and
sick. What’s frightening about the case was that the culprits are still on the
loose and fully armed.
The trauma ushered in by
the horrible 7.2 magnitude Bohol quake that hit the island province October 15
last year still haunts the victims with recovery from vast destruction seen to last
a decade or so as government ineptness prolongs the agony. Same is true with the thousands
of families victimized by the dreaded storm surge
roused up by
record-strong typhoon “Haiyan”
[Yolanda] snuffing out about 7,000 lives with quite a number still
missing under the rubbles of a virtually wiped out city of Tacloban in Leyte
province, east Visayas.
With over four months
since Yolanda struck early morning November 8 last year people were now
restless and protesting on the streets due to
sluggishness of government action and inadequacy of support to an
estimated ten [10] million victims in ravage areas of the Visayas and north
Palawan in Luzon. This despite the formation of a government rehabilitation
agency to cater to the needs of the victim areas and over PhP 3 billion-worth
of local and foreign aid. There were reports even that quantities of relief
goods were discovered rotting in government warehouses for unknown reason[s] or
purpose[s].
The horrific truth is that
time is running out. This early—on fire prevention month of March—the nauseating
fire and smoke of a stinking traditional politics is very much upon this misruled
and divided nation more than two years before the 2016 regular national
elections. Political camps are up in
frenzy realigning forces thereby thrashing aside relevant issues in favour of
their narrow parochial and/or dynastic interests.
And while the P-Noy
government had just signed up an ambitious and hastily crafted Comprehensive
Agreement on the Bangsamoro [CAB] this March 27, 2014 with the rebel group Moro
Islamic Liberation Front, the nation is
neither marching on to progress along a so-called “straight path” of
governance. Rather, people were taken for a ride on a crooked,
rough-and-tumbling road to ineptness
and kleptomania.
But being fooled for too
long now by crooks in high places, the horse’s instinct in us victims is but to
kick the shenanigans’ asses for good! editorial
board . anl . 1st Q 2014
H o m e f r o n t N e w s
Asingan. – While scribbling this news on a
“stinking” piggery in a barangay of this town, a group of doting “balikbayans”
who hail from this same locality were seen busy preparing supplies, equipment
and personnel for a medical-dental mission slated April 4 as a “summer
gift-activity” to their beloved birthplace--Carosucan Norte. With due respect
to others in the group, known only to this writer were leading personalities
Rudy Antonio and good wife Evelyn from Vancouver, BC; and Ronilo Corpuz from
Vienna, Austria. Rudy and Ronilo were classmates of this writer and members of Rizal Academy Class ’68. Kudos,
good guys!
Said mission mentioned above somewhat
offsets the unsavoury news topic pestering Carosucan Norte for a decade or so
now re: a “stinking” piggery sitting right at the midst of a populated
community with an elementary school nearby. A provincial road slices through
the barangay and all types of transport vehicles and their passengers that pass
through the area at critical hours of 4pm and 4am readily smell the foul odour
of a poorly maintained [as shown on facebook photos] piggery said to be owned
or, at least, under the name of a certain Alberto Lim.
What is even more “obnoxious” [like
its “foul smell”] and alarming on the matter is the obvious political backing
that the piggery seems to be enjoying all these years. People in the community
easily associate a certain Chinese businessman and party-list politician from
Rosales town as one of the backers of the piggery. The mayoral campaign in 2010
saw some promises to eventually close permanently the erring and DENR-padlocked
piggery.
To the dismay of the entire community, the piggery reopened not long after the
elections that year after allegedly posting a huge sum of a million pesos as
penalty [fine] for violations of environmental rules and regulations in its
management.
To whom goes the million bucks? The
DENR’s regional office at Region 1 sounds vague in saying they punishes the
piggery owner[s] on the latter’s environmental violations [cleanliness, waste
disposal, etc.] but says the local government is answerable for the “noise and
odour” issues attributed to the piggery. On splitting the blame; and a million
bucks for a fine, at least, for now, everybody backing the piggery are happy!
At the expense of the entire community, its own schoolchildren, and the
commuting public. Which prompts us to ask: Peoples’ welfare, or cold cash for
Lim and his backers?!
--o0o--
Meanwhile, at barangay Ariston
Este in the easternmost side of town, another contentious issue has likewise
been dragging on for quite sometime now, a Yamashita-like treasure hunt
activity at a private lot of the Delfin family that has been going on-and-off for
almost two decades with a dozen or so
treasure hunter groups changing hands with nary a rewarding result as of yet.
Puzzling as most treasure
hunts were, this one at the Delfin family backyard in Ariston Este has been
dragging on for long without any tangible result and yet one-after-another
hunting group despairing and quitting empty
handed exits out only to be replaced by one more interested party. This
hunter’s appetite for the puzzle’s pieces though is not the concern of this
writer nor the community residents affected by the rowdy, noisy and destructive
nature of the digging operation.
The extensive deep-digging
operation has now eaten up a land surface of about 200 square meters and is
already eroding lot boundaries with neighbours who have started complaining years
ago of encroachment to their private domain. Moreover, silt and fine sand being
pumped out from the open pit are being discharged into outlying rice
paddies via a nearby small irrigation canal that is
now filled up to ground level with dirt and sediments. This aside from the
noise pollution coming from both men and machines [booms and backhoes] used in
the daily operation.
Quite puzzling, too, is
the nonchalance of both lot owner and contractor-hunter on the discomfort and
environmental consequences of the hunting operation which reportedly have not
secured any permit and/or license from government to conduct such major land
bashing and treasure hunting. Local barangay officials who are at hearing
distance of the operation were silent [or silenced?] all those years! Backers
at work, too?!
--o0o--
Still at the homefront, this
national interest news is less expectedly a surprise for a shocker in a banana
republic but nevertheless the “mother of all suckers”. The headliner screams: “Supreme
Court clears Marcos heirs of ill-gotten wealth charges!”
Thus read in part the Manila Standard Today news story dated
March 31, 2014: “THE Supreme
Court has junked the ill-gotten cases against the heirs and in-laws of
the late President Ferdinand Marcos due to a lack of evidence; and took the Presidential Commission on Good
Government and the Office of the Solicitor General to task for bungling the
job.
The dismissed cases involved the alleged accumulation of P200 billion in
ill-gotten wealth and the acquisition of media networks IBC-13, BBC-2 and
RPN-9; the alleged use of De Soleil Apparel for dollar salting; and the alleged
acquisition and operation of the bus company Pantranco North Express Inc….”
“What the hell is this lousy joke,” grumbled an old colleague and comrade
in the “parliament of the streets” upon reading what he feels was a thoughtless
decision of the country’s highest court.
And for the bonus to those forgiving and forgetful souls of a
dysfunctional society—the leeches are back with a vengeance virtually up there
at their former foothold. Lick their asses so you may live puffing their hot
air. engr. jlsevilla, anl asingan
correspondent
E D I T O R I A L B O
A R D
MEMBERS:
Rudy D. Antonio [Canada Correspondent]; Engr. Silver
Casilla & RN Merly Grospe-Mayo [U.S. Correspondents]; Ronilo R.
Corpuz [Vienna Correspondent]; Fely Dumaguing-Malgapo [Milan Correspondent]; Engr. Joe
L. Sevilla [Asingan Correspondent]; Col. Lalin Layos-Pascual; Ross C. Diaz;
Engr. Lorie dG. Estrada;
CPA Rod A. Layco; Wena
Agaton-Balino [Photo & Lay-out Artist];
Ruben “Bencio” Balino [ Editor-In-Chief].
