Two Pinoys Iraq's Experience

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Nasa headline kamakailan ng Business World na kulelat ang Pinas sa pag hatak ng Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) sa South East Asia.

U.S Special Forces in Iraq

  Ito po ang take ko: Habang nandiyan ang 60-40% biased na pro-Filipino equity sa negosyo sa bayan natin, habang mahal ang kuryente sa Pinas, habang magulo ang Mindanao na kinukulang na rin sa supply ng kuryente, magiging kulelat tayo maski na lang sa Vietnam in terms of snaring FDI sa taon-taon na lang na ginawa ng Diyos. Ayon sa Business World noong last year 2013 "Singapore emerged as the top FDI destination in the region anew with $63.77 billion. It is followed by Indonesia, $18.44 billion; Thailand, $12.95 billion; Malaysia, $12.31 billion; and Vietnam, $8.9 billion, while Philippines netted $3.9 billion.

---

Habang kulelat tayo sa pag attract ng financially heavy foreign investors, kulelat din tayo sa pag generate ng trabaho sa mga pinu-produce na graduates ng mga universities and colleges natin. Kaya huwag ho kayong magalit pag sinabi noong batang si Angeli Diamante na sumulat ng nag viral na article sa Young Blood ng Philippine Daily Inquirer na ". I hate how a few centuries ago, we were a proud and strong race, but are now reduced to being servants of all—caregivers and nurses in countries outside our own."

Kaya ang masabi ko: Blame the 60-40% xenophobic (anti-foreigner) equity in our constitution. Habang nag papa-kuba sa pagta-trabaho ang mga Overseas Foreign Workers natin, nagiging drug addict iyong mga anak dito sa Pinas, habang si Mr. o si Mrs naman ay naging immoral dahil sa kapalpakan ng government sa economic priorities niya na mag karoon ng enough works dito para hindi na magkahiwalay ang ama at ina ng tahahan.

Blame, too, the absence of enough power plants, nuclear, coal, hydro, at iba, that make doing business in the Philippines very expensive for investors. No brainer po itong analysis ko kasi it results for “ less investors and less jobs para sa atin itong dala ng “60-40”.

I hate too this country where the ironically poor people bear more children despite their limitation to feed their offspring that turned out to be beggars in the street, I hate too the "Ayatullahs" and their faithful in the Catholic church who, hammer and tong, ridiculously and idiotically opposed the good things about the reproductive bill passed by Congress that was eventually signed into law by the government and upheld by the Supreme Court.

***

A high ranking police official called recently my attention on this paper’s June 22-28 issue “Balolong tried to withdraw gun vs. killers – Police” that I bylined and can be seen on the back page of the paper (You can access it at http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2014/06/urbiztondo-mayor-tries-to-draw-his.html ).

“Why would you write that (assassinated Urbiztondo Mayor Ernesto) Balolong had a gun when he was not carrying one when he was shot?”.

 I told him I and some reporters heard it when the town's chief of police Senior Inspector (captain in the military) Michael Bautista narrated the incident to former congressman Mark Cojuangco at the door of St. Pius V in Urbiztondo after the wedding of Volter – the late mayor’s son.

“No, Bautista did not say it,” what he was saying was the mayor’s bodyguard PO1 Eliseo Ulanday failed to pull out his service pistol in his clutch bag”.

He complained too why I cited a source from the intelligence community that a resident saw two females and a male disembarked from the black Toyota Innova get away car that the assailants of Balolong abandoned at Caoayan-kiling in San Carlos City.

“How can you say its two females and a male who got out from the vehicle where what the police report said there was three males that disembarked and shot the mayor near his (commercial) building in Urbiztondo?”

I told him my source was not from the PNP but from a direct source from the other law enforcement agency that made an investigation in the place where the Innova was left and where the passengers transferred to a cream colored Innova as part of the deception.

“But remember Innova can carry a lot of passengers and not only the two females and a male”.

He said he called my attention since some people can “capitalize” or exploit my news reports.

***

At the recent birthday bash of Solo de Venecia , nephew of former House Speaker Joe de Venecia, held at Aristogracia along the de Venecia Highway, I asked Solo and Calasiao Vice Mayor Roy Macanlalay if they were following the development at CNN and Fox cable TV about the occupation of  one half of Iraq by Sunni militants supported Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for a caliphate state and the plan of U.S President Barrack Obama to send 300 Special Forces to laser spray the tanks of ISIS so the drones and aircraft carrier based F-18 jets can accurately fire their hell fire missiles from the sky?

The two were not only privy about the tribal configurations of Shiite, Sunni, and Kurds in that Middle East country, son of a gun, they have been there and even visited places that ISIS’s now  controlled or heavily contested cities Mosul, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Ramadi, and Fallujah

 “I, Speaker Joe, and company were called Sheiks there by the Iraqis when we were drilling oil through Speaker Joe and the Romans of Bataan’s consortium Land Oil,” Solo said.

 “I’ve been there when I was still an overseas worker. It was Iran-Iraq war when they clashed near and in Bashr. Iraq was a liberal country where nigh clubs and other Western cultures proliferated in the cities. It was dirty, and the four halls of a restaurant there have  four laminated pictures of Saddam (Hussein) while public places have huge billboards with the face of the dictator,” zealously recalled by the former mayor and the patriarch of the politics of Calasiao.

 I could not believe what I heard from both of these folks, I thought I was the only one glued on CNN, Fox, or BBC following the development of this war that the U.S taxpayers bled by P$1.7 Trillion and lost the lives of 4,486 compatriots' service men and women between years 2003 and 2012 when it invaded it because of the “selfish” desire of the ‘oil hungry and neo-conservatives’ gang” of former President George Walker Bush , former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield, and former Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz  .

“All I know about Iraq, like the bloody sea - saw battles between the U.S Marines and the Shiite  Mahdi Army of religious and political leader Sadrist Muqtada al-Sadr  at Fallujah was through the books of Bob Woodward, the left, er, pro Democrat New York Times, and the right or pro Republican’s Washington Post.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).