EYES ON THE BALL
November 11th, 2008 by RGas i write i keep on getting information that JocJoc Bolante will spill his guts when he faces the senate on thursday.
puhlease.
if he was gonna spill he would have done so a long time ago. his body language simply doenst suggest he will do that. 1st of all he’s hidden for 3 years or so. he fought off asylum. he came home and sought medical sanctuary from the same hospital where the president and her family gets their medical care. and he only agreed to face the senate after all legal remedies seemed lost to him already.
but you forget one thing—his rights to remain silent, against self incrimination and the various legal instruments the law provides like the right to privacy. already some have looked into possible coverage of bolante by the executive privelege.
sounds familiar? why not. he’s getting legal advice from the same lawyer who looked for jose pidal’s interests. this time around he’s being coached and rehearsed too by the establishment’s chief political operator.
so my guess is thursday’s testimony will be a dud. malacanan isnt even worried by it, with the president leaving for the US monday night. (if you prefer to be nasty—you might even say that shes after a photo opp with president obama—who continues to elude her. tan unsurprising turn of events when she cast her lot with john mccain and hillary clinton during the campaign. after all, the president will be in the obama-land of chicago)
my 2 cents worth is that political observers should be widening their eyes from a myopic view of the political situation. the president leaves as jocjoc takes the witness stand, which happens as the congress tackles the latest attempt to impeach the president (which i hear only has 13 lawmakers backing them—and that includes JDV)—which also happens as the lower house tackles charter change.
so many things happenning in the poltical arena its so easy to get lost—which works to the advantage of those who want an unpopular agenda sneaked into right under our noses. gee, wonder what that agenda is?! so observers! eyes on the ball. pick which is the biggest of them all.
November 11, 2008 at 3:14 am
why do you have to insinuate that gma is trying to pander to obama, as has been the bad habit of philippine presidents in brown-nosing newly elected presidents? for what?
November 11, 2008 at 5:21 am
The end of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will be ugly. Full of treachery, disloyalty, abandonment, decay, retribution, poetic justice, and that innocent, puzzled, wondering rhetoric from diehards and sycophants and the studiously apathetic, that asks, “Why? what has she ever done wrong?”
November 11, 2008 at 6:10 am
no philippine president, ever, has been so ill-served by her people in handling the election of a new american president (with the possible exception of aguinaldo gambling on the defeat of mccinley and publicly stating the philippines’ hopes for deliverance if william jennings bryan was elected, but that was a different situation, wartime). none. the president was made to look foolish and desperate and pathetic. and i’m being charitable by blaming it on her subordinates.
November 11, 2008 at 6:32 am
Hmmm but just for levity, Kuya Bencard, are you say the “insinuation” is that it’s a brown-nosing-to-black-nosing exchange?
But seriously now, did you know that a Gallup survey tracking 70 countries between May and September found that Filipinos had initially indicated strong preference for McCain then shifted to Obama in the home stretch when the surveys pointed to a definite Obama win? Bumalimbing rin ba ang mga Pinoy sa 2008 US elections?
November 11, 2008 at 6:35 am
there will be time enough for brown-nosing later. But if I were Barack, I wouldn’t want to be goosed in the caboose by a lame duck, especially a flocking bird of Bush’s feather. I guess, if anything, Barack’s Cold Shoulder actually offers us all, ahem, a quantum of solace in that he knows she is not our Obama.
November 11, 2008 at 8:16 am
ding, the bandwagon syndrome, you know. most filipinos always want to be on the winning side. who cares about principles – do they have any? the worst is that they act as though it’s their own personal victory. kind of like a nobody’s vicarious sense of triumph out of somebody’s success.
in the case of obama, i’m certain the veneration will be a fleeting thing – much too fleeting. watch when all the promised goodies turn out to be no more than hollow props.
November 11, 2008 at 9:37 am
The Fertilizer Fund Scam really does have P-L-U-N-D-E-R written all over it. Once GMA is out and a new Ombudsman replaces the derelict Merceditas Gutierrez, it is this case that could catch a lot of Big Fish involved in the 2004 election fund raising scams involving DA and NFA, including the President. Jocjoc is a marked man. I wouldn’t want to be in shoes.
November 11, 2008 at 9:55 am
There is something eally wrong with our psyche. We always think that we need the Americans to improve our image or that their approval elevates our own image as a country. Thus if we get snubbed by them we feel that we should be ashamed already and do a “sepuku”. Hugo Chavez of Venezela and Ahmadinejab of Iran do not need the approval of the Americans and they continue about the business of running their country. Not that we should emulate their deeds for they are simply ruthless leaders of their own country. But look, one was exporting oil and the other could be exporting nuclear weapons soon.
An American rebuff will bring us down from our levitation and give us some rewarding insight that we have deficiences as a people or as a nation and therefore we must struggle hard to get noticed by powerful nations.
The simple reason for the snub was that we have no oil and we cannot export nuclear materials, and with the way we run the country, we have absolutely no credentials why powerful countries should flatter us. :)
November 11, 2008 at 10:22 am
Dean,
I wish I were as positive as you.
November 11, 2008 at 10:26 am
Virtually no one gives the 4th impeachment attempt on GMA an ice drop’s chance in hell. But why some enterprising Congressman has not tried to impeach the Ombudsman, Merceditas Gutierez escapes me. The matter of the automated counting machines, ZTE/NBN, the Jocjoc case and 99,999 others, seem more than enough evidence of her infernal dereliction of duty. She deserves to be removed from office, and in the process, resuscitate an important power of the Congress.
Without impeachment as a viable tool of Congressional oversight and judicial power, we do not have a functioning system of Checks and Balances in the government, especially where the Executive has captured the Judiciary. Even those who support Gloria now will realize that this is not good, when the shoe is on the Other Foot, as inevitably it will be, one day.
The sheer inability to bring to closure something as well documented and investigated as the Fertilizer Fund Scam — by no less than the very Senate itself! — this is a serious sign of dysfunction that can be laid at the President’s feet. For it is she at the very heart of the coverups, whitewashes and serial fugitivism by key allies and/or operatives who should be govt witnesses of plunder, systemic corruption, election fraud, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
November 11, 2008 at 10:33 am
We really need a comprehensive Whistleblower Protection Law that empowers the million-man government work force to become watchdogs over the government and its ample resources. I think it is a very small, very rotten core of people that infects and infests the Public Service. The proven antidote is to make whistleblowing patriotic, but not suicidal.
November 11, 2008 at 3:11 pm
DJB,
The question foremost in the minds of legislators is why antagonize the Ombudsman? They know they will never get the numbers to impeach her anyway. Remember congress was afraid of disierto too.
If we want anything to happen we have to do it ourselves. We cannot rely on congress anymore to do anything for us. The opposition in the House is dead. The LPs might as well rejoin the Atienza wing and the other parties might as well join Kampi.
The only reps who endorsed the latest impeachment were the reds and only on the condition that the MOA-AD, the strongest possible ground, not be included. We are on our own buddy.
November 11, 2008 at 3:18 pm
mlq3,
LOL. it isn’t characteristic of her to make such a miscalculation.
djb,
good point.
well… because there is no incentive to congress.
indeed. he’ll cling to arroyo and sink and float with that ship.