Special Treatment

There's a lot of complaining going on that Bong Revilla, one of the senators accused of graft and plunder in the Pork Barrel Scam, is being given special treatment in his detention. The treatment isn't actually special; it's just that it's unusually... humane. How terrible it is in the Philippines that the treatment of common prisoners is so abominable, that seeing someone treated in a normal and humane fashion is considered special treatment.

Anyway, a lot of people are saying Bong should be made to suffer like the common rabble in the stinking, overcrowded, inner city prisons. Well, as tempting as it is to watch one of the high and mighty brought low and made to suffer like the rest of us, such thinking is layman thinking. It is not justice and it is illogical. Philippine society has always been about putting emotions first before thought.

Consider this: You cannot, on one hand, call the treatment of common prisoners cruel and intolerable and on the other hand, call for the same cruel treatment when it comes to certain people-- people like Bong. It's inconsistent. The situation that common prisoners find themselves shouldn't be allowed but it should be allowed when it comes to certain people?

Look, if overcrowded prisons are so bad, we shouldn't suddenly find it OK so long as the people we hate are put in it. Just as he shouldn't be given special treatment, he shouldn't be given special maltreatment either. While the situation of common prisoners is deplorable, we shouldn't want Bong to be dragged down to subhuman levels but should instead, want to see the common prisoner lifted up to more humane standards.

Better?

The The List

Panfilo Lacson came out... er, I mean, produced a list containing the names of individuals allegedly involved in the Pork Barrel Scam. If this is some sort of bombshell, I'm not impressed. 

What is the point of all this, do we still remember? Oh yeah, justice. Now, if any red-blooded Filipino is reading this, I want you to ask yourself this question and try to answer it truthfully as best as you can: "Who do you trust?" Who among the talking heads on the TV screen can you truly say has the interest of justice at heart and not looking to protect his own ass or advance his own interests?

If you answered, "Pnoy", then I truly envy your blissful state of mind. You'd make a fine contestant on any stupid noontime show.

I'm asking for a person who is serving justice, not himself. Can't think of any? I don't blame you. It is no longer surprising when a man in power chooses to serve himself  rather than a cause so noble. In fact, we've come to expect no better. The truth of the matter is that there is nobody left to trust. They say testimony is the weakest form of evidence but it is not so only because people lie but also because people distort the truth and twist it to suit their own ends.

How do we know this list is the absolute truth? How do we know it wasn't altered to protect the few and damn the many? How does this list compare with De Lima's list? How about Sandra Cam's list? How do we know those lists are the correct ones? Where's the truth in all of this?

That would depend if you trust the list makers and that's even harder to do. There is nobody left to trust because we know everyone is out to serve themselves or their sugar daddies. Nobody cares about the truth or about justice. Isn't it telling that the list was sent to the Blue Ribbon Committee, the most inconsequential investigative body in this whole charade, and then to the vultures in the media? It tells me they're not serious. None of this is serious. They want to keep this political because in the world of politics, truth dies. It's all about image and manipulation, illusions and storytelling. There are no consequences or final judgements.

You know what, I think for the first time, I feel genuinely hurt. I'm no longer trying to be funny but I'm being honest. I play the cynic and pretend all of this is beneath me but for some reason, not this time. They are all liars and I see no good end to any of this. A country "run like hell" alright.

From the outside, I look from pig to man and from man to pig but cannot say which is which.

The List

There's a lot of noise from the usual "activists" and the social media twitterati calling for the disclosure of a list containing the names of people who have dealt with Janet Lim Napoles in the Pork Barrel Scam.

I don't really care much anymore. I'm not sure if it is even proper to demand the list. It's not a public document or an official record of sorts. If it's a piece of evidence for a courtroom then there's going to be a long wait but oops, I forgot; actual courts of Law are too boring compared to the court of public opinion.

You ever notice that people exhibit a deep distrust of government and yet, at the same time, give that same government more power to "fix" their problems? In a sane world, we would leave the Pork Barrel Scam to the justice system. But oh my God! How slow and cumbersome our legal system is right? How corrupt and incompetent our officials are right? Why, we can't trust it! We gotta have our own Blue Ribbon Committee in the Senate to do something about it! Oh, wait! That kinda sucks too and won't actually accomplish anything... Let's just rally in the streets and post selfies about it on Facebook, that will work for sure!

See my point? There's a deep dysfunction in our whole system. That's obvious to anyone paying attention. No wonder people become apathetic and cynical. Can't say I blame them. Nothing is working right. Even a revolution doesn't work it seems.

Nothing. Is. Working.

Legacy

I wonder how President BS Aquino will be remembered in history.

I'm sure his propagandists are hard at work crafting a suitable legacy even if that legacy is just a fabricated image. It seems like only yesterday Cory Aquino died. I remember that time. It seemed her body wasn't even cold yet and PNoy seized the opportunity to run for President. I'll give him credit, it was the perfect time. The Aquino name plastered all over the headlines, name recognition in an all time high, the sympathy vote... Hell, the story of the son of heroes off to finish his parent's legacy practically wrote itself. The media had no problem with it. They love the Aquinos.

I'll remember differently.

I'll remember an image-obsessed incompetent who merely rode in on a wave of public sympathy and had no great achievements in his prior service as a legislator. I'll remember a privileged, petulant, petty child who had an abnormal and irrational obsession with persecuting his political enemies. I will never forget that travesty of a trial where the highest magistrate of the land was judged and bought low by thieves who we now know were paid off. I'll remember a poor excuse of a man who wouldn't take responsibility for anything and spent much of his efforts blaming others. 

I'll remember a terrible leader who presided over the decay of every single institution of the country from top to bottom, left to right, the executive, legislative and judiciary. A rot accelerated by his ironically named Development Acceleration Program. I'll remember a leader who was not up to the task in the face of a national crisis; a man who sowed division even in the worst of times and the worst yet is still to come.

Don't drink the yellow Kool Aid.

Blow My Whistle

Today, I saw something strange on TV. The so called "whistle-blowers", stool pigeons who want to spill the beans on the pork barrel scam, were celebrating mass on TV. Apparently, that's super important. It seems like the usual theatrics to me.

I just thought it was odd. Why do we always have to drag God into every big thing that happens in our country? I'm sure the big guy upstairs has more pressing concerns. By the way, didn't anybody think it was, I dunno, a little dangerous having all those people in the same room?

Considering what they're up against, I guess a little prayer wouldn't hurt.

With Great Power

You know what ticks me off?

About the pork barrel scandal, you get jackasses like Senator Drilon who insist that giving out money is the duty of an elected representative. Otherwise, he says, without the pork barrel,we should just abolish congress altogether. 

Good grief.

He says it like that's a bad thing. Anyway, assuming that we continue the pork barrel as is, does this mean that our lawmakers are gonna be more careful with how they spend the people's money? Not so says Senator Estrada. According to that buffoon, it's not the responsibility of the Senator to verify the NGO involved! Well, how about that!? Senator Enrile apparently agrees with him on this assessment. And I thought Enrile was supposed to be the "smart" one.

What this boils down to is quite simple. Our representathieves just want all the money and power, insisting that it's absolutely necessary to their jobs but at the same time want none of the actual responsibility when it all goes to hell. What two-faced, good-for-nothing parasites.

Sometimes, I wonder if people will ever tire of suffering these idiots.

Ten Minutes

 

They got her.

No wait, they didn't. She surrendered to the President who then had a little chat with her for ten minutes and personally brought her to Camp Crame. Yes, the President of the Philippines personally escorted the suspected mastermind of the pork-barrel scandal. El Presidente even rode the lead car, which is the most dangerous position in a convoy! Who's the boss here?

There's a lot of hubbub in the social media networks. A lot of people are yelling about Janet receiving special treatment or that the President could have made a "secret deal" with her on who to spill the beans on and who to protect. It does seem suspicious. A lot can happen in ten minutes...

Here's my take. What I think happened was, Janet approached the President out of fear of her safety because there's a lot of lawmakers who have no qualms about giving the old deep six to the odd blabbermouth or two. In an effort to look like he's taking charge, Dear Leader jumped at the chance and perhaps imagined himself as a Caesar in his triumph with the reviled enemy as a prisoner in tow. But being inexperienced at taking charge of things and not blaming others, El Presidente instead, only managed to look servile and the whole thing raised more questions. What did they talk about in those ten minutes? Your guess is as good as mine.

The President should know by now that this is the social media age. The vocal "anti-pork" groups are beasts that lurk on Twitter and Facebook. Therefore, they are not so easily swayed by the excuses of his spokespersons or his lackeys in the media. If it looks suspicious, hell will be raised. You can't wrestle the narrative man, it's not like the old days. This whole mythology of The President as the son of heroes with a glorious legacy won't hold, at least, not on people with enough brains to use a computer. The poor maybe, but remember, his enemy right now are the social media kiddies and some of them are quite competent.

What remains to be seen is if the social media crowd can translate their movement into something concrete like a party or voting bloc. Anger isn't enough. That anger must be transformed into a tangible thing; voting power.

As for Janet, well... due process, etc., etc., all that crap.

The People vs. Pork

Cebu Rally

The rally in Cebu began in Fuente in the morning and marched towards Plaza Independencia. It was a sizable crowd but not so much that the plaza overflowed. They had an assortment of speakers from all sorts of sectors in the public.

It was a peaceful protest. Not much happened but the anger was there. I thought business would pick up when the usual leftist groups came out with their Che/Castro caps in an attempt to be relevant again. However, they seemed glad to just be out there and were content to sit in their side of the rally.  

The rally ended before lunch and seemed anticlimactic. All in all, the rally was, dare I say, "festive". The anger was still there, don't get me wrong.

Manila Rally

 The Manila rally on TV lasted from the morning to the afternoon. The news reports puts the number at a hundred thousand which is a little off from a million. But still, it was a varied crowd with multiple sectors showing up.

Something funny happened when the former Chief Justice showed up at the rally. I have a sense of humor but unlike me, the people were incapable of appreciating the delicious irony of the former Chief Justice's situation; that the judges who impeached him turned out to be biggest hypocrites on the planet. They booed him out of the rally. Shame. If you recall, after congress railroaded his impeachment, it was raining pork in the house as their reward.

If this were anywhere else in the world, I think it would have been really violent but whatever. The people didn't go all "Arab Spring" sadly and not a single truck was overturned.

If I could sum up the rallies in one word, it would be "tame".

State of the Indignation

Tomorrow there's going to be a whole bunch or rallies nationwide to demonstrate against the government for the misuse of public funds in the pork barrel scam. I think it goes deeper than that and is also a rally for people to vent out their anger over the government in general.

Is it gonna be big? So I've been told. In Manila they're calling it the "Million People March"  so I assume, you know, it's gonna be a million people. There are rallies here in Cebu as well as in other major cities.

I'm going to check it out.If it sucks or gets ugly, I'll just duck into my favorite Indian restaurant.

Power to the people, eh?

More BS from BS

Today, El Presidente gave a press conference to address the outrage over the "pork barrel scam". Actually, it's not entirely correct to call it a press conference since he didn't deign to allow hard questions. Anyway, he said the words he should have said years ago; "Panahon na po upang i-abolish ang PDAF. (It's time to abolish the pork barrel)."

Except not really.

In an amazing moment of blunt political doublespeak, Dear Leader then went on about how a "new mechanism" is needed to address the needs of the people. Jesus Christ, this man still DOES NOT GET IT. 

A "new system" to allow lawmakers to fund their projects? Hey, here's a novel idea; How about we let the lawmakers focus on studying and crafting laws like they're supposed to and just send that pork money in the general budget. I'm sure the Department of Public Works and Highways can make better use of that money like say, drainage for floodwater? Just a suggestion.

The problem here is that El Presidente seems to miss the problem entirely. He sees the pork barrel system as perfectly alright and the problem is just  the misuse of the money. He made a statement that the PDAF could be used for "good or evil" and all we need are better guidelines. His simplistic way of thinking fails to dig deeper to the root of the problem; that the pork barrel IS the problem. It's unnecessary, it's prone to corruption and only enforces the patronage system of politics where we have to beg for scraps from the tongressmen and representathieves.

Let me tell you a story.

The Rains of Every Year

by ThatGuy

You live in a house. It's a bit crowded  and smelly but it's a charming old house that's quite beautiful and you call it home. However, there's a large gaping hole in the roof. When the rains come, the rainwater just pours into your living room and ruins all the furniture and appliances, not to mention soak everyone. Tired of being drenched day in and day out, you all chip in to hire the only carpenter in town.

The next day, a balding carpenter in glasses and yellow overalls arrives. He looks a bit stupid and arrived later than scheduled but he assures you he knows what he's doing. He takes a look at the hole and scratches his head.

"You know..." He starts. "This hole isn't really all that bad. On sunny days, it provides free natural lighting. It can be a good thing or a bad thing." He grins.

"Yeah, but we're living in a country that rains often! We can't just sit here waiting to see if the sky decides to rain or not. I'd rather have it fixed!" You say.

"Well..." He begins again in a condescending tone you steadily begin to hate. "What you really need is a better system to deal with the problem. You should check the weather bulletin to see if it's going to rain or not. If it rains, you and your family should just leave. Alternatively, we could just move all your living room furniture into the kitchen. It'll be like a New York studio apartment!".

"Well, can't I just have it fixed? I'd rather have it fixed." You say as it becomes increasingly clear there was no getting through to him.

"Fixing a hole this big is just too much work." He sighs. 

"If you're not going to fix this, me and my family are going to rally in front of your company's main office this Monday!"

"Oh no, don't do that!" He says with a look of panic on his face. "I'll get on it right away!"

You and your family leave for the mall for a few hours while the carpenter does his work. When you arrive, what you see leaves you speechless. "There, it's fixed." the carpenter says proudly. You are amazed to see an array of pots, pails and basins placed on strategic locations to "guide" the rainwater and keep it "regulated". All the furniture are covered with large tarps which you pray are at least waterproof.

"Here are some yellow raincoats for you to wear too for when it rains! I made them myself." He smiles with glee as he hands your youngest with his very own branded yellow raincoat. He hands you the bill.

"That will be about ten billion pesos, Sir!"

Oink! Oink!

So the scandal this month is the pork barrel scam. What happened? I thought corruption was gone! Listening to our President, I thought we had turned a new leaf and the sick man of Asia was on the straight and narrow path to rehab!

Oink! Oink!

But it seems there's no curing (no pun intended) the sick man's addiction...to pork. I don't blame our senators. After all, we are really a pork loving people. Look at all the lechon and chicharon we consume despite the health warnings. It seems Filipinos (or is it "Pilipinos" now?) can't stop bad habits like eating too much pork or electing thieves into office. Unfortunately, unlike a typical roast pig served at a town fiesta, the only ones getting fed nowadays are not the townspeople but the vultures and crocodiles in Congress.

As much as I'd like to explain a little bit about the origins of the Philippine Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or"the pork barrel", let's skip that for now. Just think of it as the President's "stash". This stash is allocated in the budget and is worth about 25 billion pesos this year; 200 million for each senatong and 70 million for each representathief.

How it works is that the lawbreaker lawmaker would send a request to Committee,  then through the Senate President or Speaker (presumably collecting grease on the way while they're at it) and then finally to the Department of Budget and Mismanagement or the DBM.  The DBM then releases the sweet, sweet, golden-crispy pork to the implementing agency identified by the lawmaker which is usually a Non Government Organization.

Even those with no cynical bone in their body can see the potential problems with this. The DBM doesn't bother to follow up if the NGOs are on the level apparently. There's very little guidelines as to what kind of "projects" the lawmakers are allowed to fund except that it has to be in their district. Basically, the entire thing hinges on the honesty and good faith of our lawmakers. That's kind of like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

I call it the President's stash because this "pork barrel" has been the method by which the executive, via the DBM, exerts control over legislators. Think of it this way; the President is the sugar daddy and the lawmakers are the hoes, get it? Lawmakers who fall in the Presidents disfavor, refuse to toe the line or refuse to repeat the mantra that our President is the best ever, can find their funds "unreleased". It's a well known fact that the Arroyos, the President's enemies, don't receive a centavo of the pork barrel. Who knows? Maybe their requests got lost in the shuffle, maybe the department is too busy or maybe their papers got "misplaced". You know how bureaucracies are... bureaucracies with a lot of discretion and next to no oversight.

Which brings us now, to the present scandal. The circus is in town! Step right in and don't worry, you already bought a ticket!

Once upon a time there was a guy named Benhur who worked as an assistant of Janet Napoles, who appears to be the worst boss ever because she allegedly kidnapped and illegally detained him. He filed a case in the Department of Justice against her but it was dismissed. Frustrated, he decided to get even by going to the NBI and spilling the beans on Janet. You see, Janet  as it turns out, is at the center - the very black heart of the Pork Barrel Scam. She allegedly orchestrated the scam by providing fake NGOs for lawmakers to endorse, then she would take the cash for herself after giving the lawmakers their share of the booty.

I'm disappointed that it sounds a tad simplistic but think about this for a minute. This whole thing blew wide open because some guy was pissed and not because of some police investigation or government oversight. It may as well have been an accident.

As expected, the scandal was big news and inspired overly dramatic posts on Facebook and inane "tweets" from the twits on Twitter. An arrest warrant was issued for Napoles on the illegal detention charge but she had miraculously vanished into thin air. It was as if she knew ahead of time the warrant would be issued. It was as if someone on the inside tipped her off. It was as if our government was corrupt at every single level and we know that simply can't be true because our President said so.

So the hunt is on for Napoles, who could be hiding in any of the many large houses she owns; including the upper and lower houses of Congress. Always hide in the last place they expect! Hey, maybe they should ask Lacson for advice on where she may be hiding. He's the expert on hiding like a coward. 

Speaking of cowardice, the noticeable lack of interest and effort by the lawmakers in pursuing this case is palpable. Weren't these the same jokers who ranted and raved and impeached a Chief Justice for not revealing certain things in his statement of assets and liabilities? The hypocrisy is so much that I actually feel physically ill just thinking about it. These same jokers who put on their little robes to play Justice make the former Chief Justice's "crime" look like small potatoes.

Our Honorable Senators

And what of our President? Why, nothing AS USUAL. He seems content to pontificate and ramble as he usually does. No need to even promise he'll do anything about it because we know he won't. His tough talk of fighting corruption rings hollow now, but it always had to people like me who don't drink the yellow Kool-Aid. Today on the radio, he and his lackeys told the press that they just simply needed to "make the system better". Right... like in the same way that the gas chambers in Auschwitz weren't wrong you see, they just needed to "make the system better". Get rid of it. The pork barrel is like shit to flies. Get rid of it you morons. And AS USUAL, the President went to the old stand-by and blamed his predecessor because it all allegedly started then. No, Mister President, your mother's administration came up with the pork barrel. Go whine on her grave.

Even the church is in on it. Nobody is clean in this disaster. Janet loaned out her house in Makati for the favored priests who would attend to her, pray for her and even give her private prayer sessions with the statue of the Black Nazarene. Yes, the very same Black Nazarene that MILLIONS crawl all over each other just to touch and she gets a private session. Even Manny Pacquiao with his billions has to get in line in Quiapo. Not even the Virgin Mary herself has that privilege. What, you gonna try to  bribe God too?

Lining Up is for Losers

Right now Manila is in its third day of flooding. Oh, if only we had the money to build a drainage system! Oh, if only we had say, ten billion pesos that wasn't squirreled away by corrupt legislators, we could have built public works to avert this catastrophe! Oh, we are the gates of hell! Oh, scratch that, we're the River Styx!

And this little piggy went "wee! wee! wee!" all the way to her twenty-eight mansions.