LP’s solons will desert Roxas after kickbacks

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

A veteran politician and a successful contractor of government projects told me that those congressmen who did not only swear to high heaven their support to lethargic presidential wannabe Mar Roxas but even campaigned for him whenever he barnstorms in the provinces will desert him 45 days before the May 9, 2016 election.


Why? Because   the bidding of the projects awarded to the chosen and favourite contractors of these congressmen would be finished before that time as mandated by election law,” he told me.
As you know solons who are allied with the Aquino Administration move heaven and earth to look for hundreds of millions of pesos of projects at the Departments of Public Works & Highway, Social Welfare & Development, Education, Agrarian Reform, National Irrigation Administration, and others and then look for the intercession of Malacanang patrons like Roxas to funnel these to their districts.
With the projects budget already allocated at the Department of Budget & Management, their favourite contractors give them advance sum to be deducted to their kickbacks they call S.O.P from the 20 percent or more of say P100 million highway concreting projects so they can use the monies for their electioneering.
But with Roxas’ pathetic poll performance, these congressmen would just use him for the meantime and run to their popular presidential bet after they get their S.O.P so they can maintain their racket in the next administration.
Who said pork barrel was already abolished?

Economy

Compared the Ramos and Arroyo Administrations to the present Aquino Administration, which among them was the best in expanding the growth of our economy?
According to the December 7 Merrill Lynch’s report, President Benigno Aquino, Jr. was responsible for the 6.5 percent spike of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in his last five years against President Gloria Arroyo’s 4.8 percent growth GDP in the nine years in office and President Fidel V. Ramos’ 3.1 percent hike under his six years’ term.
But it doesn’t mean that Aquino was much better than Arroyo. The research penned by analysts Jojo Gonzales and Claudio Piron said.

Super Dry Beers and Grace Poe

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I was into my third San Miguel Super Dry beer and a plate of Cebu grilled chicken at the ChickBoy Restaurant in Robinson Mall  recently when a judge joined me on my table.
I asked him to get some beers so we can have an animated conversation that usually evolves on politics. He told me he would just avail of the free lunch I offered as he had a meeting with some folks an hour later.

We discussed whether presidential candidate Grace Poe is a natural born or cesarean born, er, naturalized citizen who was born Filipino after four petitioners filed a case for her disqualification at the Commission on Election.

As you know the cases filed by former Senator Francisco “Kit” Tatad, Government Service and Insurance System chief legal counsel Estrella Elamparo, De La Salle University political science professor Antonio Contreras, and former Dean Amado Valdez vary from her questionable citizenship to the number of years she resided in the Philippines after she married a Filipino - American citizen.

Here was what ensued with that encounter with my friend:

JUDGE: She cannot be a natural born citizen because Section 2 Article IV (Citizenship) says “Natural-born citizens are those who are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Remember Mortz the operative words “without having to perform any act”,” he told me.

She could not be natural born and run for the presidency because she performed an act on the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act of 2003.

ME: But what about “Repatriation”? It is a performance but it is encouraged by Section 3 that says Philippine citizenship may be lost or reacquired in the manner provided by law.

***

I told him that “Repatriation” was defined in Bengzon v.HRET and Cruz  in May 7, 2001 by the Supreme Court.

The high court decided there if what was lost was natural citizenship for the applicant then that is what he or she  will reacquire.

 (NOTE: Bengzon versus Cruz, G.R No.142840,  was a land mark Supreme Court decision about a Pangasinanense who joined the U.S Marine in November 5, 1985, took an oath of allegiance to the United States, returned to Pangasinan and won a congressional seat against rival Antonio Bengzon III)

“As defined in the same Constitution, natural-born citizens “are those citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to perform any act to acquire of perfect his Philippine citizenship.” On the other hand, naturalized citizens are those who have become Filipino citizens through naturalization, generally under Commonwealth Act No. 473, otherwise known as the Revised Naturalization Law. (Teodoro) Cruz was not naturalized but repatriated. Repatriation may be had under various statues by those who lost their citizenship due to: (1)XXX; (2)XXX; (3) service in the Armed Forces of the United States at any other time; (4) marriage of a Filipino woman to an alien; and (5) XXX,” the Supreme Court said on that jurisprudence.

I cited too to my judge friend, who was eating his sizzling sisig, Republic Act 9225  or An Act Making the Citizenship of Philippines who Acquire Foreign Citizenship Permanent passed by Congress and signed into law by President Gloria M. Arroyo in April 2003.

If we read Section 3 or the Retention of Philippine Citizenship, the Act said that any provision of law to the contrary notwithstanding, natural born citizenship by reason of their naturalization as citizens of a foreign country are hereby deemed to have re-acquired Philippine citizenship upon taking the following oath of allegiance to the Republic:

“XXXXX”

Natural –born citizens of the Philippines who, after the effect of this Act, become citizens of a foreign country shall retain their Philippine citizenship upon taking the aforesaid oath”.
One of the logics of the members of the Constitutional Commission that hammered the Philippine Constitution was that dual citizenship of the woman because of her marriage to her foreign husband was beyond her control as it is the law of the land of the alien husband.

Republic Act 9225  talks about “Repatriation” that was used  by the high court in giving back the natural born citizenship of former Teddy Cruz, the friend of my media friend Harold Barcelona.
It gives too to the citizenship of  any Filipino who lost it.

So what was the fuss about Grace Poe not a natural born citizen of the Philippines and thus barred for the race to the presidency?
Bengzon vs. Cruz and Republic Act 9225 back her up for her natural citizenship that she availed with her three kids in 2006.

“But she lacks the ten year residency if we count it from 2006?” probably some critics posed here as they are reading this article.

Q & A: Hit men’s boss

My interview with the hit men’s boss could be likened to the flick “Leon: The Professional”. The only difference with the hired gun movie was the hit men’s boss was not Italian killers’ God Father  "Uncle" Tony (Danny Aiello)but a retired police officer somewhere in a town in Luzon while the hit men were not Leon (Jean Reno) and Mathilda (Natalie Portman) but policemen and civilians' sicarios (gunmen). Brace yourself as you read the narration how people with shady characters were mercilessly killed so that other would be criminals would not emulate them. Here is the interview you seldom read on newspapers and magazines. Excerpts.

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA: How did you order the killing of a notorious criminal?

SICARIOS. A motorcycle killer riding in tandem
 left his bike and treacherously pumped a bullet
at the back of the head of his victim.

ANSWER: There was this notorious akyat bahay (burglar) in a village. He was fingered every time there was robbery that ensued. Usually I learned his and other culprits’ shenanigans from my police precinct commander.

We would talk how to eliminate the habitual-delinquent. My commander would ask me my verdict: “Sir, engkuentro o sparrow?

Q: How did you eliminate him?

A: We resorted to “sparrow”. The hit man would be selected ala-round robin; I got two civilians and few policemen who are killers who have killed people in the past. I chose the one who did not kill somebody for a while.  Some of them badgered me that they do the billing since they have an itch in doing it. Killing among the hard core is liked an addiction their bodies craved.

Q: What happen to the burglar?

A: My men stabbed him one night. Killing by using a knife needs two to three killers. That’s why you can see a cadaver with multiple stabbed wounds on different parts of his body. Aside from it, it was a signature of our plot, we see to it that the target did not survive. There were cases in the past that a killer would plunged for several times a knife to the victim but still the latter ran away and survived the attempt.

That’s why whenever they strike it’s like an ambush when they mercilessly stabbed simultaneously and in the flurry the victim to make sure he died instantly.

Interviewer points to a victim of killers who were motorcycle riding in tandem in San Carlos City, Pangasinan.
Interviewer and fellow media man were in the former car when ahead of them a hit man caught up with a motorized tricycle driver  and peppered him with lethal shots from a Colt .45 U.S made pistol.
The 45 is the standard weapon uses by hired killers in the Philippines. 

Q: Why you resort to stabbing and not shooting?

A: Because stabbing is the politically correct, it can be suspected to be perpetrated by robbery, grudge, or whatever. Shooting could prejudice my tour record in my post.

Q: I heard from one of your men you ordered the killing of a notorious swindler. How was it done?

A: There this incident when a notorious swindler, an effeminate, in another province hid from those he duped there and resided and ran a restaurant in my area. A high police official who had an earful of complaints on the nefarious activities of this man asked me to silence him.

After some casing (police jargon for “back ground investigation"), my men, four of them composed by two civilians and two cops, implement the mission. I told them to stab the suspect.

Q: What happen to that swindler and restaurant owner you ordered killed?

A: When my men arrived they hesitated first because there was a policeman from the other station having his dinner there. The black jacket he wore exposed his police patrol uniform inside. But my men would not back out. Two of them guarded the policeman while the two charged the swindler with their knives.