The Death of Filipino Sugar Workers

Blame the Nonchalant Philippine Government, AFTA would Gobble PH's Sugar Industry

DEATH FOR FILIPINO SACADAS.These dirt poor Filipino sugar cane "sacadas" would become jobless in the work they inherited from their ascendants. Thanks but no thanks to the incompetence of the Philippine government in not rendering assistance to the sugar industry. Starting January 1, 2015 cheap Thailand sugar will flood the Philippine market, thanks to the Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Free Trade Agreement Filipino consumers will find more savings whenever they buy sugar at the expense of the sacadas.

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Free Trade Agreement will be implemented on January 1, 2015. It’s upside the P40 a kilo of white sugar could drastically plunge to P30 or less. It bodes well to the consumers.
Its downside however is it would be a blow to the owners of the 28 sugar centrals in the Philippines that provide 700,000 Filipino jobs.
According to the Sugar Regulatory Administration, the country’s sugarcane industry has to be reinvigorated to be competitive. Private sector data show that other countries produce cheaper sugar, the cost of which is equivalent to even one-half the cost of our sugar.
Why? While the Philippines government ignored any assistance to buttress the sugar industry, Thailand, the No. 2 sugar producer in the world after Brazil, has galvanized its sugar millers to compete in the take-no-prisoner’s AFTA.
Thailand provides direct and indirect support for its sugar industry, such as supplemental payment to farmers, low interest loans at 2 percent per annum, fixed domestic prices, free irrigation services, and a well-developed and maintained transport infrastructure such as road networks and transloading ports,” according to Ma. Regina Bautista-Martin, administrator of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), who wrote “Pump-priming for a Stronger, Globally Competitive Sugarcane Industry: Through the Sugarcane Industry Development Fund”.
Martin cited that despite the contribution of P88 billion  in the Philippine economy from the sale of raw sugar, refined sugar, bioethanol and molasses, tolling fees of refined sugar, value-added tax (VAT) on tolling and VAT from the sale of refined sugar, the sugar industry does not receive any funds from the Department of Agriculture, either for the construction of farm-to-mill roads, sugar warehouses, irrigation or water-impounding facilities, research and development or extension services.
If Thailand backs up its sugar industry, and other industries, why the Philippine government ignored this industry?  Because of this governmental incompetence sugar workers would be gobbled by other countries in the regional laissez faire where tariff is pegged at 5% only.

Can you imagine if each of these workers has been feeding some mouths and after AFTA he finds himself jobless.
*** 

One of the most sought legal eagles in Pangasinan told me that the lawyers of the sacked Pangasinan Provincial Administrator Raffy Baraan and Provincial Housing and Urban Development Council Office chief’s Alvin Bigay are lightweight.
“Mahina, natangal sa puesto ang kliyente niya”.

P10M Bets Daily for Poor Man's Gambling in this Province

Jueteng paraphernalia and bets

A former police top brass in my 2.8 million populated province Pangasinan told me that the proceeds of Meridian Jai Alai (successor of jueteng whose legality is under injunction at the Court of Appeals) run up to P10 million a day.
“Tangal mo araw-araw ang 30% (P3 million) para sa mga panalo and tauhan (like cabo, cobradores, maintainers) ng palaro, tangal mo ang 20% (P2 million) para sa mga pulitiko sa national and local, para sa kapulisan, sa operator ng sugal meron siyang naiwan na P5 million daily”.
He quantified that P5 million (from a manipulated draw in a rattan made container being held thrice a day) in 30 days or one month would be a staggering P150 million or P1.8 billion a year.
“Puwedi na siyang magpatakbo ng gobernador?”  I posed.
My source told me that funding a gubernatorial candidate is an understatement. “He can even fund a presidential bet!”
Now I know why the legality of Meridian Jai Alai is stranded at the Court of Appeals for several years already. Geeez, usually injunction case is resolved by months or a year! Why the procrastination at the C.A?
“Ano bang meron diyan sa Meridiane at hindi ma resolve-resolved ng C.A?” I asked.
***
I asked the top brass about the clamor of chiefs of police in Pangasinan why they have been ordered, through a memorandum, that they should not be taking their weekly share from Meridian.
“Umaangal sila, wala na daw silang pangpaka-in sa mga tauhan nila, and pang-gastos sa operation nila”.
He told me that it is not only Pangasinan but other provinces that are deprived of the S.O.P from the number game played like jueteng that is managed by controversial Gambling Boss Atong Ang.
“The same order too in other provinces, the police there were ordered not to accept their share,” he said.
He explained this happened because then Chief of the PNP Director General Alan Purisima suspected Atong Ang to be behind the bankrolling of demolition job where his mansion and a four-hectare property in Nueva Ecija, a multi-million peso official residence for the chief of Philippine National Police, and his 2013 model multi-million pesos Toyota Prado have been exposed in the media.
He said the police should not be smarting. The policy now is different to the time of former PNP Chief Ping Lacson where the cops were ordered not to accept bribes from jueteng operators at the same time police operatives in Camp Crame would sweep the gambling dens in the provinces at the expense of the chiefs of police who found themselves relieved and sued.

Patrol Boats to Undermine China's Warships

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Chilean Navy Sa'ar 4-class fast-attack craft Angamos and Casma perform
 tactical maneuvering exercises in the Strait Of Magellan

Can you still remember my column about an Archbishop who agreed with the Chief of Police (CoP) of a City who told him that the payolas from illegal number game jueteng were necessary for the police operation against the bad guys?

Two months after the respective shares of the CoPs in Region 1 had been cut from the management of Meridian  Jai-Alai (successor of Jueteng ), an intelligence operative of the police in a town in Pangasinan told me that police operation reeled in their fights against criminals.

“Mantakin niyo naman may hinuli kaming babae na may kasong non-bailable dito, pero kailangan naming i-present sa judge sa La Union dahil doon nanggaling ang warrant of arrest. Wala kaming pang gas para ibiyahi siya doon,” he lamented.

What he and fellow police did was to ask the husband of the woman if they could hitch a ride on the woman’s car going on the other province.

“Ayaw sana namin sumakay kasi baka makita kami ng judge mapapagalitan kami, pero wala kaming magawa kasi wala ng budget si hepe”

He reminisced the time when payolas from gambling were allowed by the higher command and they have more elbow rooms to chase, arrest, and lock the malefactors.

“Now we contented ourselves for the P200 a day gasoline allowance for our patrol car”.

He cited one of the top wanted men who killed a man in the town whom their intelligence operative found to be hiding in a province near Manila. He said they need around P5 thousand for their vehicle's gas, tool gate fees, meals, and others so they can serve the warrant of arrest to the suspect and bring him back in Pangasinan.

“Ang ginawa namin kina-usap namin ang missis ng victim. Mabuti naman nagbigay ng P5000. Nakakahiya nga pero kulang na kulang ang operation fund namin”.

He cited another instance that a pusher in the town was being protected by two police men from the nearby city and in their town.

“Ang ginawa ko kina-usap ko ang mga taga Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) para hindi ako mapag-initan ng mga kabaro ko. Pina-xerox namin ang P500 pesos then pina-blotter para magamit namin ang tunay na pera sa buy-bust”.

He said the pusher was very suspicious when his poseur-buyer, a civilian who even brought his wife, fished out the P500 bill and offered to buy a shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride).

The pusher told the duo that he could not sell them because he just seen their faces for the first time.

When the poseur-buyer went to their location just meters away to tell them the pusher would not acquiesced, he said he felt embarrassed with the six PDEA operatives who accompanied him because of his tip to them.

“Ginawa ko pina-inum ko sila ng worth P1,500 na beer, tapos nagbigay pa ako ng P500 for their vehicle’s gas”.

When he told his CoP that he spent P2000 of his personal money, the former, apologetic, gave him P1000 to mitigate his expenses.

“Pasensiya bata, wala tayong pera sa laro (Meridiane) ngayon”.

He said many policemen all over the region shelled out now their own money to buy their meal.

“Gone are the days when cops have free chow complement of those who manage the gambling operation”.

With these pathetic situations among the police, the government should spike the  Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses or famously known as MOOE of the police so they should not stooped on this level.

*** 

Big and expensive ships do not mean they could be sure winner in the theater of warfare. The Philippine government has been appropriating and mulling billions of pesos to buy frigates and destroyers made in other countries to contain the growing threat of Mainland China  in our territories in the South China Sea.

But look what I got here, in the book “War in the Fourth Dimension: U.S Electronic Warfare, from the Vietnam War to the Present “  that talks about air and naval jamming that could neutralize the enemies’ radar, author Dr. Alfred Price talks about a smaller Soviet –era made the lethal Komar (mosquito) patrol boat supplied by the Ivans to Egypt in their proxy war against U.S backed Israel in the late of 1960s. 

Here are the excerpts:

“On the afternoon of October 21, 1967 the Egyptian Navy delivered a message that shook navies around the world. That day Soviet-supplied Komar patrol boats, sitting in the harbor at Port Said, launched three SSN-N-2 Styx active homing missiles at the Israeli destroyer Eilat patrolling off the coast. Fired from a range of about 15 miles, all three missiles scored hits on the Eilat and she sank with heavy loss of life. For the first time, guided missiles launched from warships had caused the destruction of one of their kind”.

It discussed there that since the appearance of the 70-ton Komar missile patrol boat it had been a naval curiosity. It had a maximum speed of around 40 knots in calm seas and the two Styx missiles, credited with a maximum range of 23 miles, sat in canisters mounted on the after deck. A Square Tie surveillance radar provided target acquisition. Once launched on the target’s azimuth, the mssile’s  active radar homing system picked up the target and guided the Styx to impact.

“Yet it could be a nasty opponent. It was a small and hard to find, and as nimble and hard to hit, as the traditional PT boat. It could launch missiles from beyond the range of the guns of a much larger warship. These boats were cheap to build, they employed relatively simple technology and crews did not acquire long training to become effective,” according to Dr. Price

Can Pacquiao Negates the Excellent Footwork's of Rangy Algieri?

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

When veteran radio commentator Ruel Camba asked me recently inside the booth of DWPR in our city the difference between Chris Algieri and Manny Pacquiao, I told him that even 5’10 in height and 72 inches shoulder and hand reach Algieri, native of Huntington, New York, has 20 bouts on his sleeves where he technically knocked out eight of his opponents, he has a master’s degree in nutrition.

World Boxing Organization's  Welterweight Champ Manny Pacquiao (L) poses
 for posterity with the taller and rangy Chris Algieri whose style is to
 box backtracking.

 “Si Pacquiao aside from his knocked out ratio of 60% of his 63 bouts, he finished only elementary grade until he was accelerated, (through the intervention of the Philippine President?) to college while his fellow examinee, brother and wannabe boxer and wannabe PBA (professional basketball) player flunk,” I explained.

Style makes fight.
I agreed with Siberia, Russia citizen the hard puncher (harder than Pacquiao) Ruslan Provodnikov who bewailed that he should not be fighting the absconding Algieri last June 14, 2014.
Although Provodnikov knocked down twice the New Yorker in the 1st Round, transformed his face from celluloid screen heartthrob Ding- Dong Dantes (Philippine’s version of Ben Alfeck) to flick’s villain the ugly Max Alvarado, the Russian southpaw could hardly hit the back pedaling – Algieri whose   footwork’s could be an inferior version of Ali.

“Ali Dimaporo, the Marcos warlord?” Ruel jokingly posed.
“No”, the greatest Muhammad Ali whose famous poetic quipped “Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”, I told him.
But Algieri could only float but his stings lack venom, thus branding him as less dangerous pug whose punches lack the knock out’s pop.
In that split decision that Provodnikov lost, his face was unscathed.

STUPID MEDIA MEN

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

PHOTO CREDIT: www.hollywoodtoday.net

Bureau of Internal Revenue Regional Director Arnel Guballa, Revenue District Officer – 4 Chief  Renato Molina, and Assistant RDO-4 Chief Charmaine dela Torre should check this Mainland Chinese –owned three-storey store near the Orchid’s Hotel in Dagupan City. I just called it a store since it has no commercial signage displayed on its façade.
It does not issue a BIR official receipt or O.R, instead it gives its customer a piece of paper enumerating the goods and the corresponding prices the latter bought there.
“Under process pa po ang O.R noong papel namin kaya papel na lang po ang recibo namin na i-issue sa iyo, “ a Filipina sales lady told a man who bought a set of kitchen utensils
BIR should charge the Chinese who owned the store with either a fine of P10 to P20 thousand for failure to issue the O.R or tax fraud. The owner’s malpractices give unfair competition with their Filipino counterparts who religiously pay their dues at the tax bureau.

Some of these Chinese stores who used this underhanded business strategy have been padlocked and fined by the BIR in the past through Operation Kandado.
***

Could you still remember my columns before about a broadcaster (a pastor who accidentally became a radio commentator of a religious station) who asked the mayor of a city why the hizzoner practiced double standard on filing a corruption cases against the city treasurer, cashier, and a clerk who were found to have Prima Facie (Latin words “on the first appearance”) on the cases they allegedly committed.
“Bakit niyo kinasuhan iyong tatlo ng Anti-Graft & Corrupt Practices, bakit si Prima Facie hindi niyo kinasuhan – ano ba ang meron kay Prima Facie at hindi magalaw-galaw, mayor?” he exasperatedly posed in a press conference in San Carlos City.
Of the 30 media men who were at that conference, only three chuckled. The rest were probably as “stupid” as the broadcaster, they thought Prima Facie or Prima Fa-Sy was the older brother of Northern Times publisher Lelia Sy.
Could you still remember a lady radio commentator explaining in his program that those suspected John Doe and Jane Doe who escaped the police dragnet were probably sibling or cousins because of their similar surnames?
The Americans have a quipped for all of those boo-boos: “I’ll be damned!”

Several mornings ago, a TV reporter of a national network reported that Governor Amado T. Espino and two of his department heads had filed a Motion for Reconsideration on the administrative indictment of the Ombudsman against them on the illegal mining in 2011 of magnetite black sand they allegedly committed.
Her report was wrong unless she and her news writer perused the press release of the Ombudsman sent to us media men through our e-mails.
In that e-mail it showed that the Governor was absolved administratively because he won his reelection bid in 2013. The law says that the election of a public officials exonerate him for the administrative case or cases filed against him before he won his reelection. The logic, according to jurisprudence, is the electorates have forgiven him. We called that the Doctrine of Condonation.

Obama’s Veto Power and the Republican's Majority

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

PHOTO CREDIT: ABC 7 Chicago.com

The American voters have spoken, according to CNN.com.election as of press time it says: 53 senators for the Republican Party or the Grand Old Party (GOP) while 46 solons for the Democrats who used to control that House before the November 4 election.
In the House of Representatives, according to the same source, 244 congressmen for the GOP while 186 representatives for the Democrats.
So what’s the implication of this U.S election to legislation that will be passed by Congress dominated by the Republicans that will be signed into law by a Democrat Party President Barrack Obama?
If the president vetoes the bills he did not like, then he has to return it to Congress where each of both Houses overturned the bill by two-third votes to make it a law.
But the problem is the GOP could not muster 290 votes or two-third from the 435 members of the House or the 66 or two-third from the 100 members of the Senate to pass a law at their own volition.
Just like in the Philippines, a two-third vote of both Houses can overturn a presidential veto into a law.
Here’s the United States Constitution  and its provisions written in a plain English - attention Filipino writers who have the propensity for high highfalutin!:

Despite Exposing Binay, Why Cayetano’s Polls Stock Falls

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

A former chief of police (COP) of a city in Northern Luzon said that when he told an anti-jueteng Catholic archbishop that he could not stop the sprouting of illegal number game in the city and the indispensability of jueteng’s payolas to the police he used to apprehend criminals; the bishop told him he understood his plight.

Author in a tete-a-tete with Senator Alan Peter Cayetano

“Huwag mo lang papasukin ang mga big time na jueteng financers outside the province,” the prelate said.

Before he left he gave the COP almost a hundred thousand of pesos.

“Gamitin mo iyang pera pang gas at pang gastos sa police ninyo laban sa mga masasama”.

Ha, ha, ha, with the tax- free funds from the Catholic Church and another tax free hundreds of thousands of pesos a month from jueteng, the bad guys would be a wimp against the cops in the hide and seek game!

*** 

I asked recently the eloquent and inquisitive Senator Alan Peter Cayetano who is the worst nightmare of Vice President Jejomar Binay, why of all those incriminating charges he throws at the Vice President in the sub-committee level of the Blue Ribbon Committee his polls stock falls 5% in June to 1% September this year according to Pulse Asia.

“You have been the one doing the yeoman’s job in exposing the Vice President that cost a significant chunk of his polls stock why that happened to you, too?, “ I posed to him.

Although he is still No. 1 in the polls war, Social Weather Station showed Binay dropped by 15% or from +67 in June to +52 in September this year.

Cayetano should challenge Binay for a Debate

Binay would chew and spit the non-lawyer Trillanes

By Mortz Ortigoza

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano

I was amused when two eloquent legal eagles Senator Alan Peter Cayetano and lawyer JV Bautista clashed at the Senate last Wednesday afternoon.
When Cayetano presented the slides that Vice President Jojo Binay owned SunChamp Agri-Tourism Park as he and wife Dr. Elenita host their visitors there, JV vigorously objected. He said that that any lawyer would know that photos could not incriminate his client.
“They are not admissible in court!” Bautista protested.
“They are admissible,” retorted by Cayetano.
“They are not!” Bautista protested.
“They are..” Cayetano answered.
“We can test that..” Bautista pointing his hand to Cayetano.
Senator Antonio "Sonny" Fuentes Trillanes IV  cut Bautista “ Your 15 minutes is over”.
“No, it is not!” Bautista, with all the confidence, protested.
Trillanes, seems exasperated, told JV that he was selfish.
Gee whiz man, was it not a treat? Ha, ha, ha! We have not seen that “circus” on national TV for sometimes.

Senator Trillanes                   Vice President Binay                 

O.K, seriously what I want to point here whether or not the photos can be admissible or not as backed up by jurisprudence, was immaterial. For me to the projection of the Vice President to snare more votes on his march to the Palace in 2016 has been damaged.
Son of a gun, the Senate’s investigation, led particularly by the searching and scorching questions of Peter Cayetano, has been gnawing the significant chunks of Binay’s popularity every time the investigation ended its inquiry.
VP Binay, I bet you, is doomed to the fate of presidentiable former Senator Manny Villar when the “kaleidoscopes” of his opponents zero to his malpractices with the government.
“Di ba pinulot si Villar sa kangkungan at si P-Noy ang naging president natin noong 2010?
Sooner Binay would be “pupulutin din sa kangkungan”
By the way, is Cayetano ambivalent to run for the presidency as he is bent to run for the nursery after he talks with his wife, Taguig City Mayor Ma. Laarni, for a baby next year.
Cayetano will be coming in Dagupan City for his Presyo, Trabaho, Kita or PTK Program.
I’ll be asking him why not he asked Binay to debate with him since they are both lawyer and not Senator Trillanes who is a military man.
Binay would chew and spit Trillanes in the debate in terms of the labyrinths of commercial and corporate laws that grips the ill-gotten wealth of the former.
But with Allan Peter, it would be like watching Nicolas Walters beating the shit out of the smaller Nonito Donaire.

The Humorous Ambassador Amadito Perez, Jr

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Just heard my hard hitting veteran radio commentator friend Ruel Camba opining that Secretaries Proceso Alcala and Dinky Soliman should be insulted after President Aquino awarded recently a  Labrador  K-9 for meritorious service on its role in the Coast Guard’s search and rescue operations in Bohol that was bellied-up by a killer earthquake last year.
"Mas mabuti pa ang aso may award!" Ruel, the Joseph Goebbels at the P.I.O during the three termed Governor Victor Agbayani Administration, pounded his radio booth at DWPR.

Ambassador Amadito Perez, Jr. with his 100% unadulterated
steel made cane that acted, he said, as his third foot.
The veteran politician is in a huddle with (L-R) former
 Congressman Mark Cojuangco, former Binalonan
Mayor Monching Guico, Pozzurobio Mayor Art Chan,
Sison Mayor Mina Joy Pangasinan, and Villasis Mayor
Nonato Abrenic

Here's my funny experience with K-9 in 2011. A fellow media man who only finished high school (we in the media industry do not have a Philippine Regulatory Commission to police us who can practice and those who cannot with our profession) brought and patched me with the Superintendent of the Department of Education who mulled to sue me with libel. Here is the conversation that ensued in that office:

 MEDIA MAN: Maam ano ang pinagkaka-abalahan ninyo ngayon sa Dep Ed? SUPERINTENDENT: Ito, busy kami ngayon sa K-12. MEDIA MAN (surprised) K-12? ha, ha, ha! Kelan pa pinasukan ng Dep Ed ang mga aso? SUPT : Ikaw talaga, Carding (not his real name) hindi K-9 ang pinagkaka-abalahan namin, K-12 , Kindergarten to Grade 12, kaya K-12. MORTZ: Maam, pasensiya na kayo kay Carding, accidental media lang ho iyan. Noong inutusan ng nanay niya na bumili ng suka nakasalubong niya sila Tony Text Back and Dennis Mojares na pinasama siya sa interview sa mayor, kaya hayon nakatikim ng sobre nag media na!

***

Although he seldoms cracked jokes, but whenever former congressman and incumbent de facto Ambassador Amadito Perez, Jr. pulls one it was hilarious.

In the extended birthday party celebration he tendered to gubernatorial aspirant Mark Cojuangco at the Urdaneta City University’s gym last October 12, Perez, an octogenarian and still a rumored Casanova, told the politician guests and visitors how times fly:

 “May baston na ako ngayon. Sabi ko sa mga kaibigan ko na ang ikatatlong pa-a ko ay gawa sa bakal. Ang hindi alam ng iba na meron pa akong ika-apat na pa-a na pinagawa ko na rin sa bakal”.

Ha, ha, ha!

***

The first time Perez jested with me was after the 2010 election when his son Bobom defeated in an acrimonious contest his Vice Mayor Julio “Julie” Parayno who ran too for the mayoralty.

Here’s the excerpt of that banter that I wrote in 2010 at my Northern Watch’s column:

 “What legacies are you leaving in your city that you’re now retiring for good after being in public office since the late 1950s?” I posed in English to an English speaking hizzoner.

“I would not answer that question. That would be self-serving on my part,” he told me.

Then Vir (Maganes, fellow columnist at NW) asked him about the significant margin of votes his son Bobom got against his bitter mayoral rival and critic Parayno.

 After Perez, a last term mayor during that time finished talking, Vir asked me to shoot my second question.

Still unprepared, I shot a naughty one:

“Sir, is it true that Julie committed suicide — since he was telling everybody that he would win hands down in the mayoral derby?”

Perez was taken aback and then he smiled.

“Oh yes, Julie not only committed suicide. He even invited Ninoy (Angeles) and Ed (Ferrer) (Julie’s media PR and Perez’s harsh critics, too) to simultaneously put a noose on their neck and simultaneously jump from the chair where their feet stood. Pero matibay si Julie, ayaw mamatay-matay. Buhay pa rin hangang ngayon. Pero si Ed at si Ninoy ay sabay na nanga-matay”.

I had a guffaw to that antics complement of the irrepressible Mayor Perez.

Ambassador Says Cojuangco is Incorruptible

Lauds his No -Take Stance on Jueteng and Projects' Cut

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

SISON, Pangasinan – Have you heard about Members of Congress soiling their hands with cuts from illegal number game’s jueteng and funds for government projects implemented by private contractors?

NOT A PLAYBOY. Manila Economic & Cultural Office (MECO) 
Chair Amadito Perez, Jr. (holding the microphone)  told recently the birthday guests 
of former Pangasinan Congressman Mark Cojuangco that the latter is not a Casanova. 
Perez, a rumored Lothario, jocularly cited that unlike the incumbent mayor and former 
mayor at the presidential table, Cojuangco is a faithful husband to wife Representative 
Kimi Cojuangco (5th District, Pangasinan) (extreme left). "Matagal ko ng kasama si
Mark hindi ito malikot sa aparatus, talagang takuza talaga ito".

De facto Philippines' Ambassador to Taiwan Amadito Perez, Jr. said that when Mark Cojuangco was still a three-term congressman, he did not taint his office with proceeds from jueteng and S.O.P (euphemism for cut) by conspiring with private contractors who implement government projects in the eight towns and one city’s 5^th Congressional District of Pangasinan.

Speaking last October 6 at the birthday bash of Cojuangco, an aspirant for the governorship of the humongous province Pangasinan, held in his cloud-kissed residence here, Perez has all praises for the former solon.

“Noong panahon ng teng-jue (jueteng) hindi tumatangap si Mark iyong para sa mga congressmen binibigay sa kanya, hindi ko na sasabihin kung sino ang nagbibigay tinatangihan niya. Magbigay ng kontrata sa mga contractors  bibigyan siya  pero “huwag na, huwag na! Hindi ko na kailangan iyan idagdag ninyo na lang doon sa project” (he said).Ganyan siya”.

A source who asked anonymity said that the hands off stance to shenanigans like these by Cojuangco has been continued without fan fare by his wife Kimi - the incumbent congresswoman of the district.

(When Kimi was the mayor of this town, many police officials shunned to be assigned here because a chief of police was not a weekly recipient of proceeds from jueteng - thanks to the mayor's illegal gambling -free policy.  – AUTHOR)

TETE-A-TETE. Birthday Boy Mark Cojuangco and wife Congresswoman Kimi in a tête-à-tête  before the start of the  press conference cum natal day celebration held last October 6 at their residence in the cloud-kissed Barangay Labayug, Sison in Pangasinan while Pangasinan's politicians are in the background. MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

“The Cojuangcos are very strict about the implementation of government projects. They do not like that contractors and the officials of the Department of Public Works & Highway allow roots of trees to remain underneath the pavements before they started cementing the highway. These roots would become ampaw (hollow) and would destroy the cement in the near future”.

Fat Philippines' Police Generals

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

It was pathetic to see the sight of four Police District Directors who were all star ranked in Metro Manila sacked by Secretary  Mar Roxas of the Department of Interior & Local Government and Police Director Alan Purisima.

Just like their chief at the Philippine National Police, they look like a toad with their beer belly.

What happens to the 35-inch waistline limits’ PNP Physical Fitness Program vigorously implemented during the time of then national police chief Panfilo Lacson ?

I am green with envy every time I see physically trimmed police officials like Lacson, Police Regional Office Director Chief Supt. Roman Felix, and Pangasinan Police Provincial Office Director S/Supt. Rey Biay. These officers and gentlemen probably maintain a strict physical or diet regimen.
Look at General Felix,with all those well toned body like PC General Job Mayo I met in Mindanao, you would mistake him to be in his mid-40s.

Iyan ang dapat hindi lang sa mga generals kundi sa mga colonels, Lt. Colonels, and majors whose "handsome dividends" in their post as chief of police could really make them stout.

***

Talking about good physique and athleticism one can cite former Urdaneta City's Chief of Police Supt. Pat Pinol, a British trained Royal Marine Commando and former trainor of the elite Special Action Force. Sannamagan, he can still jog 21 kilometers with regularity in my Province Cotabato. I could cite also former president Fidel V. Ramos (USMA 1950) who challenges any captain or major for 100 push up or abdomen flexing contest.

He once challenged me, although I was only a lowly tanod (watch man) of our barangay then, for 100 pushed up and abs flexing on the river cruise at the pristine Dawel River of Dagupan City.

I stopped at 95 in both the two contests in deference to the man who fought along side with my father against Mao-Tse Tung’s Chinese and North Korean Communist troops in the Korean War in the 1950s.

***

But a good example of athleticism, I told police colonels and majors who treated me with booze, was Army Four Stars General David Petraeus (USMA 1974).When the jogging buff Petraeus, whose body looks like a 35 years old man according to Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s War, was the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), every colonels who wants to confer with him could find themselves running and discussing with him in a 5 miles (8 kilometers) speed jog that the general has been doing regularly. Petraeus, however, was, disgraced as  CIA Director because of a tryst with a pretty West Point alumna who was a writing her dissertation for her Harvard studies about him.

***

As what Chris McDougal of The Daily Beast (successor of Newsweek Magazine) described the run-till-you-drop exercise regimens of Petraues in 2010:” At 57, the newly minted leader of the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan still likes to start his day at sun-up with a five-mile run, blazing out each of those miles in under six minutes. Then it’s straight to the weight room, where he ignores all those cushy-seated machines and heads for his torture device of choice: a single iron bar, lag-bolted eight feet overhead. A Petraeus pull-up is nothing as simple as hoisting your own body weight up and down a few dozen times. Instead, he slowly jack-knifes from the hips until his shoelaces are level with his face. After 20 of those babies, he drops to the floor for crisp 100 or so pushups. And to recover from these self-imposed beatings, the general treats himself to a total of one meal per day and four hours of sleep. This was from a guy who a year ago was being treated for prostate cancer and survived getting shot in the chest when a soldier tripped during a live-fire drill”.

How to Fight Assassins on Motorcycle

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

The more than 5000 students Pangasinan National High School in Lingayen, Pangasinan, where former President Fidel V. Ramos is an alumnus, where three teachers and one collector have been 

Motorcycle riding in tandem (MRT) hit men were popularized by Colombian 'Cocaine Queen" Griselda Blanco, known as  the mentor of  Columbia Medellin Cartel’s Boss Pablo Escobar,  in the early 1980s when she ordered her sicarios or  hitmen to travel by motorcycle, after some of her men used a car to carry out a killing, and were captured by the police while stuck in traffic.

killed and three mentors have been wounded by a running berserk Police Officer 3 Domino Alipio, teemed with corrupt teachers.

“They are not only delinquent borrowers, some of them were corrupt,” my source told me.’

He cited that when a friend contracted the brass there for him to manufacture the identification cards (ID) of the students there several class advisers asked him how much was the one inch by one inch (1x1) photo that they said they were going to use for their students’ records, cards, and others.

“Dahil iyong picture naman ay duplicate doon sa I.D na ginawa namin, binigay ko na lang na P4 ang apat na one by one,” he stressed.

He learned later that some of these mentors were collecting P7 to P10 for that P4 pictures.

“Worst doon, iyong pinaka collector nila, pinabalik balik ako sa pag singil doon sa pera na sabi ng mga teachers na na-remit na nila sa kanya”.

He said he has even the tape recorded statements of the students who could attest that they paid up to P10 to some advisers

***

After browsing recently Jojo Robles' column in Manila Standard about the "jolting" experiences at the University of the Philippines to then Armed Forces Chief of Staff’s General Hermogenes John Esperon  and later Budget Secretary Butch Abad where they were harassed  (Esperon, in the Army service uniform, was pelted with eggs that hit instead two UP Professors) by radical leftist students, I recalled Bob Woodward book's The War Within where retired U.S four stars General and later CIA chief David Petraues (USMA Class 1974), brain behind the military surge in 2007 in Iraq), have been badgered and pestered by livid students of City University in New York.  The students were shouting invectives and taunting the nonchalant Petraues, a jogging buff, with “War Criminal” and “Every class, David!”:

Here's the video of that incident incase you want to see the real score between a harassed warrior uncouted college students:http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/09/11/video-david-petraeus-harassed-and-bullied-by-ny-university-students

***

Author (extreme right) Rubbing elbows at Starbucks Dagupan City with Pangasinan Police Provincial Director Rey Biay (PMA '86) and Dagupan City's Chief of Police Lt. Col. Cris Abrahano (PNPA '96) (extreme left). left

The other night Pangasinan Acting Police Provincial Director (PD) Reynaldo Biay and Dagupan City’s Chief of Police Cris Abrahano invited me for a  cup of coffee at the  exotic and exquisite global coffee chain Starbucks in Dagupan City.

MORE CONG DISTRICTS, MORE MONIES

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Last July 29, I diligently observed the public consultation undertaken by the Sanguniang Panlalawigan (provincial board) on the implication of redistricting or legislative apportionment in Pangasinan.
Many spectators were there, including many, as usual son of a gun, board members who did not make their homework.

These assignments should be reading the two pages annotation of the Philippine Constitution by Lawyer Hector de Leon on apportionment vis-a-vis Section 5 (4) of Article VI.
To cut short my verbiage: Adding two more congressional districts in the humongous province Pangasinan has more advantages.

Philippines Congress

First, two legislative district means P70 million each from the Priority Development Allocation Fund or the controversial “Pork Barrel” or P140 million for Pangasinan from both of them; Second, striking out the more than 200 thousand populated city of San Carlos in the present aggrupation of towns like Bayambang, Calasiao, Malasiqui, Mapandan, and San Barbara in the Third Congressional District means Representative Baby Arenas’ PDAF can benefit more of her constituents in terms of school buildings, roads, books, scholarships.
***
That’s why I ribbed a resource person, a distinguished member of the BAR who sported a coat & tie after I bumped into him at the ground floor of the stately American era provincial Capitol.

How PH Media Men Earn a Living - Legally and Illegally

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Although I have written in the past about media prostitutes – figuratively and literally – and media hao-shiaos (fakes), I could not forgive myself if I could not give my takes on my just read book Who‘s Looking Out For You written by U.S No. 1 talk show host Bill O’Reilly of Fox News Channel about how media elites became biased on their calling.
As a media practitioner, who did not even have a BS in Journalism or Mass Communication, for sometimes, I saw how the local elites exchanged notes if not ingratiate with the power-that-be while they enjoy the ambiance of some bars of high end hotels and restaurants.
Media colleagues in Pangasinan treat me with stories how they spent sometimes with high level government functionaries in some five stars hotels imbibing expensive liquors and eating the sumptuous food Imperial Manila can offer and going home with oodles of monies in their pocket. Expose, these practices would be scandalous on the parts of the government and the media networks in the United States, to see head of their version of Bureau of Custom, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Departments of Interior & Local  Government and of Public Works & Highway, or the Philippines National Police indulging to a “Bacchanalian Feast” with these susceptible members of the Fourth Estate.

Reason Behind Cha-Cha: P-NOY FEARS JAIL

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I got mixed reactions on President Benigno Aquino III latest pronouncement that he welcomes Charter Change (ChaCha)
.

Ever since I was espousing in this column that to get rid of that present 12 million unemployed Filipinos, over abused Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), and the moral backlash brought by the migration of Filipinos abroad where the families at home committed immoralities and indulging to illegal drugs because no one watch them, the government should open its restricted xenophobic economic 60-40% provision that favors the financially overstretch Filipino oligarchs in the Constitution.

My usual argument: More foreign investment in our country means more jobs. More jobs means OFWs from Libya, and other countries would no longer be vulnerable to rape and other abuses. Husband or wife does not resort to infidelity with fellow OFWs or the woman or man next door in the Philippines, or sons and daughters don’t become drug addict or impregnated at an early age because a parent or parents are there to watch them grow.

My usual poser: Why the standard of living of a Thai is much better than those of the Filipinos who in the 1970s have almost the same number of population? Aside from their aggressive government sponsored family planning program, they snared, according to the World Investment Report, last year $12.95 billion of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) while the Philippines contented herself with a minuscule $3.9 billion in the same year.

Now it seems that I digress to why I have a mixed reaction on the president’s amenability for Cha-Cha. Our balding president smarted as seen on his State of the Nation Address (SONA) how he was being treated by the 13-0 of the Supreme Court because of his Disbursement Acceleration Program that jerk-up, er, perk- up by more than 6% the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

It means the 13-0 DAP’s decision of the high tribunal is the Sword of Damocles that hangs above his head.

It is a threat to his limb because whether he likes it or not he goes to jail in a non –bailable crime of plunder through technical malversation because he usurped the power of congress to allocate the DAP’s P177 billion funds and channeled to other economic stimulating projects.

“But he did not pocket any of the P177 billion. He did not profit for himself on the DAP” Objected recently to me by a lawyer when we were conversing.

“That’s beside the point. What we are seeing here is the probable cause for technical malversation as provided in the Revised Penal Code and the Special Law on Plunder found by the Ombudsman and the Sandigabayan, and the warrant of arrest issued by the latter against  former president Aquino in 2016. It was just like Gloria Arroyo who was thrown in the calaboose without bail”.

REPORTERS' BOO-BOOS

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

VIDEO of News.PH.Episode 86 with moderator Pia Hontiveros (

extreme right) and one of the guests Rep. Niel Tupas, Jr. 

In the Solar News TV weekly political talk show's "News.PH."Episode 86, Rep. Niel Tupas (5th District, Iloilo) told host Pia Hontiveros that if he has his way he would no longer appeal the 13-0 decision of the Supreme Court on the Disbursement Acceleration Program that was adverse to Malacanang.
 “That’s 13-0 decision of the Supreme Court, and if I’ll be the party on that case I’ll no longer appeal,” Tupas stressed.
“The party? What you mean the party, the Liberal Party?” Pia innocently posed to Tupas.
I chuckled at my seat while I saw Tupas paused and was momentarily confused of what he heard from his pretty interviewer.
“The party, the party let us say the defendants (Respondents President Benigno Aquino III, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, and Budget Secretary Butch Abad -MCO) there,” Tupas said.
“Oh, the party…. I thought bago….kasi…,” Hontiveros stuttered.
The solon told her that they are talking about the case on DAP (and not the Liberal Party that has nothing to do with the topic – emphasis mine).
(You can access these exchanges at 3:20 of the above video)

***
Here’s another blunder at 4:33 of the video:
TUPAS: The president signifies his intention to file a motion for reconsideration. Nakita mo na siya mismo sina-submit niya ang executive to the constitutional provision sa korte suprema so hindi ganoon….
PIA: (Butted in a confused manner)The president is submitting himself to a constitutional process?
TUPAS: Yes.
PIA: Even if he does not recognize the decision of the Supreme Court?
TUPAS: (Momentarily puzzled) Hindi nya sinabi na hindi niya ni-recognized. Ang narinig ko na hindi siya sang-ayon.
PIA: Ah? Okay.
TUPAS: (In a Political Science 101 Lecture)You can disagree for the decision of the Supreme Court. It does not necessary you don’t recognize it.

Why Catapang, not Iriberri, got the Top AFP’s Post

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

President Benigno S. Aquino III graces the Testimonial Review and AFP Change of Command Ceremony at the AFP General Headquarters Grandstand, Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo in Quezon City Friday (July 18, 2014). With the President is Lt. Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang, the new AFP (left), outgoing AFP Chief Gen. Emmanuel Bautista Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin. (Photo by Gil Nartea/Ryan Lim/Malacanang Photo Bureau)

Until the AK-47s' brouhahas, some colonels have been telling me that Police Regional Office-3 Director Chief Supt. Raul Petrasanta (Philippine Military Academy 1984) would be the shoo-in, despite bypassing three senior PMA classes 1981, 1982, and 1983 who have still bets for the top police post, after chief PNP Director General Allan Purisima retires on November next year.
“Matibay iyan. Habang mga mistah (classmates) niya M-16  ang dala-dala sa field noong tinyente pa sila, siya payong para kay Kris Aquino noong panahon ni (President) Cory (Aquno),” one quipped.
Political observers have been wide eyed by Petrasanta’s rise to power.
From being the chief of the envied Firearm & Explosive Office in the police national headquarter to being the top honcho of the chosen Police Regional Office-3 based in Pampanga, he is not only the top gun but have a deputy regional director for administration (DRDO) Chief Superintendent (military rank of a star rank) Wendy Rosario, a member of PMA Class 1982 –  his town mate in Pangasinan and his senior when he was a plebe and Wendy was a junior or cow (3rd year) at the long grey line at Fort del Pilar, Baguio City.
(You can accessed my Petrasanta's article entitled "The Elusive PNP's Top Post" at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-elusive-chief-pnps-post.html

Army Chief Lt. General Hernando Iriberri

Until Gregorio Pio Catapang (PMA 81) appointment by President Aquino as the chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines last week, the AFP has been rife with rumor that the next chief of staff is either Army Chief Lt. General Hernando Iriberri (PMA ‘83), the protégée and fair haired boy of Cory’s former Presidential Security Group and current Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin or Air Force Chief Jeffrey Delgado (PMA ’82) a former senior aide of President Aquino.

The Elusive Chief PNP’s Post

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I told a high elective official that I saw him with President Benigno Aquino III at the helipad of the Virgin Milagrosa University in San Carlos City and at the residence of the slain mayor Ernesto Balolong, Jr.
(You can accessed my earlier column, as the “first series” of this column, “PSG Smitten by the Smoking of the President? ”at http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2014/06/psg-smitten-by-smoking-of-president.html)

BELEAGUERED: Police Regional Office 3 Director
Chief Superintendent Raul Petrasanta.

 “Oo, pinatawag niya ako pero noong nandoon na siya sa crime site (Urbiztondo town) umuwi na kami (with his body guards). Pero tumawag ang PSG (Presidential Security Guard) hinahanap daw ako ni presidente”.
He said his convoy of sports utility vehicles that were already near San Carlos City made a quick u-turned for Urbiztondo. After he jumped off from his vehicle, with a body guard covering his head with a wide umbrella as it was drizzling during that time, rushed to the president but, an armed- to- the- teeth black garbed members of the PSG blocked their way.
“O, saan kayo pupunta?” one of the PSG, armed with a laser-scoped Israeli made sub machine gun confronted them.
Before the official opened his mouth, the commodore (general in the army) who was the commanding officer of the PSG shouted to the PSG to allow him to enter as the president was looking for him.
“Kaya nandoon ako katabi ni presidente mismo habang iyong ibang V.I.Ps nasa sideline lang”
After spending some 20 minutes at the crime site, the president, the VIPs, and the curios multitudes have left the area.
But unknown to the many, he, the president, and Police Regional Office Director Chief Supt. Roman A.Felix went to a sari-sari store and the president sat at the bench there, whisked a stick of Marlboro Gold from its flip top box and puffed some smoke to relax before going airborne in the Bell Helicopter waiting at San Carlos City.
“O bakit nawala ka kanina doon sa crime site?” the president posed to him.
“Doon lang ako sa kabila sir, nag yosi (smoke) rin,” he answered as he stooped with a folded arms from where he stood to hear what the president was telling him.

MOIST EYE FOR THE PNP's TOP POST?
 Criminal Investigation Detecton Group
chief Director Benjamin Magalong.

Now dear readers you probably asked me the relevance of this antics, er, column about the president relaxing in a corner with his nicotine producing stuff.
 Son of a gun, this is public interest that is unheard by the hoi-polloi where the president went to a “gareta (variety store)”, sat on an innocuous bench, flipped up the cover of his Gold, took a stick and lighted it.
This can be juxtaposed either to the human nature of the president who came from the illustrated lineage of the Cojuangcos and Aquinos of the landed elite of Tarlac province or as an Exhibit A of an International tobacco-control organization that smoking cannot only be cancerous but could dragged a president, as the nicotine clouds his thoughts by committing a bind called Disbursement Acceleration Fund or DAP.
***
It seems this one was immaterial to others but Calasiao Chief of Police Satur Ediong and former Malasiqui Chief of Police Abugan have left some legacy to the town folks to cherish.
Abugan was able to solve the perennial traffic congestion that haunted every commuters and motorists who entered the town proper.
“What I did was to divert away from the highway the vehicles that were bound to Dagupan City, Calasiao, and Sta.Barbara, while allowing those bound to Bayambang, Tarlac, and Manila inside the poblacion area,” he told me in a chance encounter at a car repair shop in Dagupan.
Ediong told me in his office that he studied thoroughly why there is a vehicle’s traffic bottleneck in the market area of the burgeoning town. He said one of the causes of the congestion was drivers of Dagupan City-San Carlos City public utility jeeps (PUJ) habitually parked their PUJs in front of the Senior Montesoro Church.
“I asked them to leave the place and park in a designated area to give some breathing space for traffic in   the poblacion area,”
Aside from solving if not mitigating the traffic snarl, he trained and provided, of course with the imprimatur of Mayor Mark Roy Macanlalay and Vice Mayor Roy Macanlalay, new uniforms for the presently snappy Public Order & Safety Enforcer (POSO) that primordially manned the traffic situations of the town.
Have Ediong and Abugan really made a difference with their predecessors who since time immemorial could not solve the traffic nuisance’s puzzle? With a smooth if not mitigated traffic condition that these two towns enjoy I think they made an unheralded difference.

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.

Pomp, Pageantry, Security of Obama's PH Visit

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA



AIR FORCE ONE
Eye strained by the lights of my laptop but could not sleep the other day, I snatched a book by Dan Rather with Mickey Herskowitz’s “The Camera Never Blinks Twice (The Further Adventures of A Television Journalist)” from my book shelves to spend the night to get a doze. To the younger generation who are preoccupied with Candy Crush Saga and Double Down Casino at the internet Rather is the equivalent nowadays of U.S TV broadcasting icons like Bill O’Reilly of Fox News TV or the less superior Anderson Copper of CNN (Cable News Network, not Caloocan News Network).
“Parang si Noli de Castro or Mike Enriquez kung sa Pilipinas?,” butted and posed by my errand boy Procopio Matulis who could not get a sleep in his “dog house”.

AIR FORCE ONE is a converted Boeing 747. The other plane that accompanied the Air Force One is a Boeing 707 or what Dan Rather called the "Zoo". It hauled reporters that join the presidential trip. Rather was not sure if reporters
really smoked pot in the "Zoo".

“Noli de Castro, Mike Enriquez, sino iyon? Bakit mo sila ikino kompara kay Rather?” I stoically posed too at my jack fruit faced gofer.
I was laughing like crazy on my bed reading Chapter 12 (The Accidental Tourist) when Rather, because he chose to go with fellow “good” Newsday reporter Marty Schram in a “god-forsaken” county, er, village in Belgrade to drink a Yugoslavian native liqueur,a plum brandy whose name in Serbo-Croatian  means in English“Paint Thinner” instead of attending a boring presidential ball hosted by Marshal Josip BrozTito (dubbed as communist bad-boy to Kremlin ) to the entourage of U.S President Richard Nixon, was left by the Air Force One in the Communist country.
As a result of the lethal kicked of the “paint thinner” poor Dan Rather baby was left by Air Force One, arrested by the Yoguslav’s version of the KGB, jailed, released, and was whisked by a concerned native to a chartered British two propeller powered airplane for London, and the rest was an amusing history for a media man to share to media guys in and outside the U.S.

Police General "Kidnapped" by Ball Pens and Notes Wielding Men

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

What is the difference between South Korea’s Danwon high school Vice Principal Kang Min-gyu, 52, and pork barrel scams alleged conspirators Janet Napoles, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Ramon Revilla?

GENERAL AND MEDIA MEN - Police two-star General  Manuel Barcena
  (2nd from left) recently rekindled and renewed old ties with media practitioners
of Pangasinan in a luncheon at the seafood restaurant Silverios in the city.
 Barcena, a PMA class 1981 classmate of Chief PNP Allan Purisima, was in
Dagupan  to attend the homecoming for the Top Chief of Police (COP) challenge
shooting competition with former police chiefs of the city as one of the draws in
 the month long Bangus Festival. According to Dagupan COP Supt. Chris Abrahano
 those who responded to the invitation were Police Director Barcena; Police Chief
Superintendent Noli G. Taliño, Deputy Director, Special Action Force; Police Chief
Superintendent Francisco Manalo Jr. (retired); Police Senior Superintendent Mariano
Luis M. Verzosa Jr. (retired); Police Superintendent Ditz Quijardo (retired); and Police
Superintendent Romeo M. Caramat Jr. 

Kang committed suicide by hanging himself with a belt on his neck on a tree because of the shame where a ferry that carried 476 passengers mostly students under his watch capsized. Among the passengers, 202 as of press time have been saved.

274, son of a gun, have been feared drown.

What’s the difference between former Army general Angelo Reyes and former police chief Avelino Razon (who is incarcerated now at Camp Crame for malversation in connection with the alleged bogus repair and maintenance of 28 police armored vehicles to the tune of P358.58 million in 2007 and 2008),plunder accused Generals Carlos Garcia, Jacinto Ligot, and Lt. Col. George Rabusa, and Supt. Dionesio Borromeo, former Dagupan City chief of police ( who is jailed at Muntinlupa after he was accused of allegedly protecting a trillion of pesos worth of illegal drug shabu laboratory in La Union), and Euro Generals?

Reyes who was fingered to be involved in hundreds of millions of pesos of “paba-on” shot himself to death because he could not bear the shame the accusation being hurled to him by the media and senators of the Republic.

Except for Kang and Reyes, the rest have the gall to tell us: “Just see you in court”

Inquirer's Scribe Mea Culpa on Plagiarism of PMA Story

By GABRIEL ORTIGOZA, Ph.D

ELK GROVE, California – A senior journalist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) apologized Monday to this writer after being accused of plagiarism on her article about a beleaguered cadet of the Philippine Military Academy.

Philippine Daily Inquirer's senior correspondent Cynthia Balana

 This writer, a former military professor of PMA, sent an e-mail to PDI on May 2, 2014 and suggested to acknowledge their source of information and give proper credit to whom it should be given.

 On May 5, 2014, Cynthia Balana of PDI sent an e-mail apologizing for not acknowledging this writer as one of her sources in her article: CHR: PMA Cadet Cudia not guilty of lying, should be granted diploma. The controversial article was published in the Inquirer’s April 30, 2014 issue.