VP succeeds Prexy, not Binay or Duterte

By Mortz Ortigoza

 Critics of presidential front runner Grace Poe crowed that big financial contributors from the Top Corporations in the Philippines would shun Poe because of the legal spectre she will be disqualified.

Presidential front runner Grace Poe (Left) and her vice presidential
 tandem Senator Chiz Escudero.

Let’s see the probable arguments of Poe’s PR’s spiensministers on how they will parry this argument and still encourage contributors to open the handle of their faucet for the campaign and up to the May 9, 2016 presidential election.

1.      She files a petition for certiorari with grave abuse of discretion of the Commission on Election to the Supreme Court to settle the questions with finality on her citizenship and residency;

2.      Presently, she filed a temporary restraining order which the High Court granted that would usher too for her name to be included in the ballot. So the fuss that she was out of the race is just plain b*llshit.

3.      Litigation at the Supreme Court takes years as based with the cases of other elective officials like those decisions in the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) that have been appealed to the SC that took years and where many of them handed sometime to the petitioners a month before the elective official terms end. Since people rooted for her, as seen in the past surveys where she was No.1, there is a big chance she would be elected.

Lousy Corporate Practices

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Let’s compare the services rendered by these corporations to us and see who among them give the best worth of our money.

Two weeks ago, when the flick Star Wars ’ Episode 7: the Force Awakens had been showed in our place, Robinsons Mall in Calasiao, Pangasinan and CSI Plaza in Dagupan City hosted it.

At the first day of the show, my wife and daughter told me they watched the futuristic film in 3Ds for P170 per ticket.

For those street vendors who sell isaw (grilled chicken intestine) and poso negro (septic tank) “engineers” who also read this column, 3D means a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception, hence adding a third dimension to what one has been watching.

On the third day of the film showing, I and my son Nico, 20, and a Star Wars fan since he was three years old, watched the 3D versions of the latest Star Wars' movie at Robinsons for P250 per ticket.

Watching with my son the celluloid screen produced by Disney after it bought it for $4 billion from Lucas Films was sentimental because Nico since he was three years old had been collecting all the CDs of the series of these futuristic films, shown every several years, where I too learned who were Chancellor Palpatine and Darth Maul, C3P0 and BB8, Chewbacca and Jar Jar Binks, and Yoda and Anakin Sky Walker.

Opps did I digress to my ticket’s topic? 
I said earlier each tickets cost each of us P250.

Yes Virginia, P250 and not P170 per ticket as what CSI billed my wife and daughter!

“Why the 3Ds here are expensive than the P170 at CSI?” I posed to my son as David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage and Adam Smith’s “the inefficient perished,” flashed out in my memory after a decade stint of teaching economics in a university in Manila and in Dagupan City.

“Masisira itong Robinsons pag ganito ang presyo nila versus CSI (Robinsons undermined itself with this pricing),” I murmured as we entered the dark hallway for the silver screen.

“Kaya pala P250 kasi may pop corn at soft drink sa paper cup (Geez, now I know why it was P250 because of pop corn and soda),” my son blurted after we retired on our respective seats and after he browsed on the ticket using the light of his cellophane.

It says there P180 for the flick and the P70 for the food.

Our congressmen are better than Zambales' solons

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

In my more than a decade stint as media practitioner, the bursting birthday party hosted by a politician that I attended was the one by then House Speaker Joe de Venecia in early 2000s in Dagupan City and the one in 2011 at the high-end Golden Bay Sea Food Restaurant in Pasay City when he was no longer the top whip of Congress.

Six lanes MacArthur Highways at Urdaneta City in Pangasinan.
This happened through the intercession of former Congressman
Mark Cojuangco (5th District, Pangasinan) to the national 
government.

At his sprawling residence in Dagupan  I saw five or seven roasted calves chopped by the waiters for his literally hungry constituents at the 4th Congressional District to devour and for many of them to ‘balkot” (Pangasinan derisived term for those who wrapped and bring the food home) while the elites, mostly government officials who ingratiate with the Speaker for promotion and favour,  rubbed elbows and patted the backs of each other at the corner as they waited for the rabble rousing top man of the Arroyo Administration descended from the white helicopter he leased from Manila.
His other birthday that was held at the Golden Bay Sea Food Restaurant in Manila saw only the invited elites of the society while the “illeterate Unwashed of the Society” who loved to “balkot” were conspicously absent.
The elites were composed of former President Fidel V. Ramos, many members of Congress who were closed when he was the Speaker, diplomatic community like the U.S and Chinese Ambassadors to the Philippines, lady solons brought by de Venecia's wife Rep. Gina, the members of the media elite like Larry Henares, whom President Ramos introduced to me as half-Ilonggo-half-Pangasinense, and other illustrious members of the opinion section of the national dailies.
As you know the Speaker loved to mingle and discuss with media men worth their salt as he was a journalism graduate of the elite Ateneo de Manila.
All these parties were held for a day or six hours.

Two days and Two Nights Party

Here was the ostentatious party of a politician I attended recently  where for the first time, son of a gun,  all the residents of the entire province were literally invited for a two days bacchanalian feast for people to eat the roasted calves, prawn , ox tongues, fried chicken, variety of tropical fruits served in small plates, others from breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the swanky ground covered by three giant make shift tents that covered hundreds of people sitting on white cloth covered plastic chair and surrounded a red mantled round tables. While they gorged the free foods, bands, one of them the famous Manila pop group Free Style, actors Christian Bautista and Kim Chiu  and stand up comedians entertained them.
I, my son Nico, and broadcaster Harold Barcelona were in another building that hosted the VIP visitors watching the shows and pyrotechnic display as we contented ourselves with the same foods eaten by the governor’s constituents except those sushi bar that provided nigirizushi, makizushi, temaki, other Japanese rice delicacies, where I heartily mixed with Silver Swan, kalamansi, and the hot wasabi paste, served to us by a Bulacan based caterer.

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.

Next president decides if AFP Modernization v. China continues

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

After the hearing on the PNP Modernization Bill last November 26 at the swanky Sison Auditorium in Lingayen, Pangasinan,Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil (2nd District, Pangasinan and PMA ’76) introduced me to Congressman Romeo Acop (2nd District, Antipolo and PMA ’70) as a former personnel of the Tactics at the Philippine Military Academy in the late 1980s when he was one of the tactical officers there.

RAFALE. U.S$101 million apiece French made Dassault
Rafale multi-role jet.Photo Credit: Dassault Aviation

“Sir, what class are you?” I asked Acop, a lawyer.

“1970”

“Oh, your mistah (classmate) was Julius Javier (living legend and hero of the black panther commando the Scout Ranger). He just reacted last week on my blog I posted at Face Book on my article about former U.S General Colin Powel during his stint at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

“I’m still seeing Julius; we played golf together with my other “mistahs”.

After I narrated to him that I and my family lived at the RFC near the statue of “young boy” General Gregorio del Pilar when they were still firstie (graduating cadets) in the 1970,I asked Acop, a member of the Oversight Committee of Revised AFP Modernization Program, why it takes several years (2018 to 2022 of Horizon 2) for the AFP to buy a squadron or two squadrons of multiple jets like the U.S made $19 million apiece F-16 bloc C/D, Sweden made  U.S $ 70 million each Saab JAS 39 Gripen, or U.S$101 million apiece French made Dassault Rafale to buttress the Philippines’ defense of her  islands, and reefs at the West Philippines Sea (WPS).

“In case Congress deliberate and fund in 2017 the multi-role jets, funds will be available in 2018, order and delivery of the brand new jets will be on 2019 or 2020, baka ubos na ang isla natin sa WPS in case we keep procrastinating on buying them?"

He told me that the Revised AFP Modernization Act  (RAFPMA) or Republic Act 10349 already funded all the items needed by the AFP up to the end year 2028 of the Horrizon-3.

“The ball now lays on the executive department especially the new president whether he/she supports it, " he told me.

***

When  I asked him in case the tension at the WPS get out of control, why not Congress pass a special appropriation to buy  second hand F-16s or Israeli Kfirs, all multi-role fighters, especially the latter the Israelis offer us in a basement price.

“They were manufactured in the 1970s but their frames and platforms were spruced up to fly for thousands of hours not to mention the warranty given by the Israelis, their new avionics and munitions are at par with the F-16,” I declared.

GRIPEN MULTI-ROLE JET. Sweden made  U.S $ 70 million each
Saab JAS 39 Gripen. Photo Credit: pinterest.com

As what rhk111smilitaryandarmspage.wordpress.com wrote: ‘All Kfirs being sold now are taken from the mothballed stocks of the IAF (Israel Air Force), but are refurbished and upgraded with advanced avionics. The latest version in the market is the “Block 60″ armed with an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, the EL/M-2052. IAI is selling this new version with a 40-year manufacturer’s guarantee for the low price of only USD 20 million each, which would be cheaper than the FA-50 Golden Eagles (priced at U.S $30 million apiece - MCO)”.

Acop said we should instead buy for brand new than procuring those French Mirage III/5 delta-winged inspired Kfir, whose technology the Jews stole from the French after the latter would not sell those hundreds of Mirage III Israeli ordered and paid before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

***

Here under was my Question and Answer with Congressman Sam Pagdilao (Baron, PMA ‘79) before I and Rep. Acop had a huddle:

MORTZ: May question is not on the PNP Modernization Bill but on the RAFPMA because you and other former military or police officials are members of the Oversight Committee of the military modernization.

Sir, nakita ko kasi sa Horizon-1 (2013 to 2017) 33 military items, dadalawa o tatatlo pa lang nabili ng government iyong fighter-trainer jets sa South Korea and Bell Helicopters sa Canada. Bakit marami ang hindi nabibili sa Horizon-1? Wala bang supurta ang Congress sa procurement?

F-16 C/D. $19 million apiece F-16 Bloc C/D.
Photo Credit: taiwantoday.tw

CONGRESSMAN PAGDILAO: Okay, we are also members of the AFP Modernization Oversight Committee. Tama ka diyan. Una, I observed hindi nabibili hindi nasusunod ng AFP iyong Time Line saka iyong pagbili ng dapat bibilhin according to different Time Lines o Horizons sa bill.

So, wala bang suporta ang Congress?