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.