Biyernes, Marso 23, 2018

The General Who Saved Mindanao


By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Former Army General Fortunato Abat, a warrior of the Mindanao Campaign versus the Moro, died at 7 p.m of March 7, 2018 at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).

“The Day We Nearly Lost Mindanao” was a book authored by then Army Commanding General Abat.

My father was assigned in Cotabato City during this conflict in the middle of the 1970s and he narrated to me how they called the Northrop F-5 combat jets from Mactan Air Base to drop napalm bombs against the Libyan government backed  Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) under the leadership of Nur Misuari, a former University of the Philippines' professor, to deter them in conquering Cotabato City.
WARRIORS - Army Commanding General Fortunato Abat accepts the surrender of a Muslim
rebel's commander  and his battle scarred warriors. 
Photo Credit: General Allan Luga
According to the March 1973 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, the first shipment of firearms, courtesy of Libya’s Strongman Muammar Qaddafi and Sulu born Sabah State Minister Tun Datu Haji Mustapha, landed in December 1972 at the town of Lebak in Cotabato province. Boats, each powered with three Volvo-Penta 170 engines, brought in Belgian made Cal 7.62 rifles, anti-personnel mines, grenades of the cylindrical unserrated type, plastic explosives, Cal 30 LMG, Browning carbines, Cal 30 Mis and several thousand rounds of ammunition to Cotabato and other landing sites regularly for the next fourteen months.

Pres. Digong should kill those corrupt NFA officials



By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
Do you know that a poor Filipino nuclear family of seven, yes seven because the poor here ironically breed like rabbit, as based on my conversation with some destitutes, contend themselves with a kilo of rice that they mixed with patis (salted fish sauce) or bagoong (anchovies), HesusMariaHusef, to survive the daily grind?
Because of abject poverty many of them forget what viand is all about. Their grown up children could not even spell V-I-A-N-D because malnutrition sapped out their intellectual ability.
When then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte stumped the provinces and cities, the great unwashed saw the light of hope at the other end of the tunnel when the firebrand candidate promised a P15 kilos of rice to the poor (manilatimes.net June 17, 2016).
When Duterte failed to make true his promise, the poor put their trust on the P27 a kilo of the staple courtesy of stocks from the government run National Food Authority.
But that price is still a pipe dream son of a gun! 
Despite the bumper harvest from the farmers and the available funds from the National Food Authority to buy a kilo of palay at P17, the P27 a kilo of rice in the market is still elusive, thanks but no thanks to the miscreants at the NFA who conspired with the wheeler dealing traders by mixing the cheap staple and sell it from P37 to P45 a kilo.
 The impoverished who trembled with starvation at corner could not comprehend what hit them.

Mayor Uses Usufruct to Protect Land from DepEd


By Mortz C. Ortigoza

LINGAYEN – With the audacity of the Department of Education not to allow the local government units in the country to lease the part of the lot owned by the latter, the mayor here uses usufruct to protect her town interest.
Mayor Josefina Castaneda said that before the DepEd can use the municipal land, her office requested the executives of the education department to have a usufruct contract with this Capital Town in Pangasinan.

MAYORS - Lingayen Mayor Josefina "Iday" Castaneda (left) and Binmaley Mayor Simplicio Rosario. Both mayors of Pangasinan have different experiences with the Department of Education in relation to their towns' lot where the DepEd used.

According to the Civil Code of the Philippines, the contract gives a right to enjoy the property of another with the obligation of preserving its form and substance, unless the title constituting it or the law otherwise provides.
“We required them first to sign a usufruct before we allow them to use our land,” Castaneda said.
The law cited that the owner of the property can end the usufruct by grounds like prescription, termination of the right of the person constituting the usufruct.
The statement of the mayor happened after the DepEd through Region - 1 Director Ruby Torio rejected the request of Binmaley Mayor Simplicio Rosario  to allow him to use  2, 396 square meters (sqm) for the construction of a mall Primark Group of Companies-LDC in the 8, 358.70 sq.m presently occupied by the Binmaley Central School.

Poe to Alvarez's Irreverence: We Need 2 Chambers’ Courtesy

Senator Grace Poe



 Q & A: Political columnist Mortz Ortigoza interviewed recently Senator Grace Poe on the mocks of House of Representatives Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez that the House of Senate was Mabagal na Kapuluan (Slow Upper Chamber) in terms of passing, debating, and concluding the bills there. Ortigoza posed also to Poe, a presidential candidate in 2016 poll, about the procrastination of Congress in the amendment of the Public Service Act (PSA) otherwise known as Commonwealth Act No. 146 that should have avoided the tragic incidents that befell Philippines’ Overseas Contract Workers (OFW) abroad because they could not find gainful jobs in the Philippines. EXCERPTS:

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA (MCO): Domestic workers like Joana Demafiles and other female OFWs have been abused, raped, or murdered by their masters in the Middle East Countries. Experts blamed the lack of gainful jobs in the country thus the migration abroad of these people. Can we blame Congress because its members did not act to open up the business equities for foreign investors in the PSA so jobs come to the Philippines? Kung ginawa ng Congress iyon 20 years ago we have probably avoided these Dimafiles liked cases.



SENATOR GRACE POE: Kasi noon siyempre the government has to take care of its own business assets, di ba? So ngayon we are opening it kasi mas established na tayo. Kaya iyong Telco companies na sinasabi ng ating pangulo na magkakaroon ng third telco player, puweding fourth, fifth, mas may competition. Noon kasi kailangan nationalized, bago pa lang tayo. The government had to invest and we saved the Filipinos would own it but now I think there are more opportunities to everyone.
(Before, the government has to take care of its business, am I right? Now, we are opening it because we are now established. That’s why the telecommunication companies that the president wanted to have a third telco player. We can even have fourth, fifth players so there would be more competition. In the past we need to nationalize because our industries were in infancy).
The government had to invest and we saved the Filipinos would own it but now I think there are more opportunities to everyone.

MCO: Speaker Alvarez ridiculed incessantly in the past  the Senate as the Mabagal na Kapulungan. He said they have passed in the House of Representatives countless of bills like the PSA in the third and final readings while the Senate only tackles now the PSA?

POE: Alam mo iyon ang palagi niyang sinasabi na ganoon, e. Ang importante sa amin sa Senado hinde namin basta basta pinapasa ang isang bagay na hindi kami nag iingat. Hindi naman namin sinasabi na hindi sila nagiingat basta kami malinis ang aming kunsensiya na nirerepaso natin mabuti kasi lahat naman ng kailangan inuuna.
(You know that what he (Speaker) usually said. The important thing for us in the Senate we don’t pass in haste the bill because we were careful. We don’t say the members of the House of Representatives were not careful. Our conscience is clear that we screen carefully what would be the priority bills to be passed)

MCO: Was there a case where the House of Senate passed a bill compared to its version at the House of Representative where the congressmen there did not act on it?

POE: Tulad niyan noon inuna namin iyong Freedom of Information na hindi naman napasa din sa Kongreso, pero ngayon mas advance stage na kami ng Freedom of Information at ng ibang batas hindi naman ito, ayaw ko ng magsalita, basta kortesiya na lang siguro sa isa’t isa.
(Just like before we prioritized the Freedom of Information (bill) that the House of Representatives did not pass. Now, we are in the advance stage of the Freedom of Information and other law unlike what he said, I don’t want to discuss it, what we need is courtesy between the two chambers).


READ MY OTHER ARTICLE:

Solons to oust Speaker Alvarez next session