MIDNIGHT SALES

At least those officials in Malacanang and the executive department, faced with the prospect of having to vacate their offices in a couple of months, are trendy.

They have plunged into a selling binge of valuable government properties running into billions of pesos so they can enjoy their retirement in comfort and in style. Some malls call these bargain sales midnight madness.

But here is the damper. Opposition leaders have promised they would send to jail soon-to-depart officials who participate in these anomalous transactions, and in cases involving more than 50 million pesos, the charge would be plunder which is punishable by death. However, has anybody here really been put to death for plunder?

To really discourage such deals, opposition officials warned the buyers that the transactions would not be honored when they come to power.

KJs all, these oppositionists.

(Image from http://kaboodle.com/)

GIVE THEM MERCURY (NOT THE DRUGSTORE)

Among the Romans, the deity who presided over commerce and banking was Mercury, who, by a strange association, was also the god of thieves and orators. The Romans, who looked upon merchants with contempt, fancied there was a resemblance between theft and merchandising and they easily found a figurative connection between theft and eloquence; hence, thieves, merchants and orators were placed under the superintendence of the same deity. On the seventeenth of May, in each year, the merchants held a public festival, and walked in procession to the temple of Mercury, for the purpose of begging pardon of that deity for all the lying and cheating they had found it to practice, in the way of business, during the preceding year. Lying, Cheating, Thievery and Eloquence? Hmm ... perfect. The very elements which best describes this administration. Experts in cheating and stealing. Eloquent in lying. Perhaps, Executive Secretary Ed Ermita and Speaker Boy Nograles would now care to start the new year with statues of the Roman god Mercury to be given as Christmas gifts to cabinet members and congressmen respectively. And then have GMA sign an Executive Order (E.O.) making Mercury the patron god of cabinet secretaries and congressmen. While at it, let it also be the official icon to be prominently displayed all over the Office of the President.

(Image from http://thealchemicalegg.com/)

SCRIPTED PRAYER, SCRIPTED PRESIDENTIAL REACTION

Just a thought. While Press Secretary Jess Dureza looks at the President and prays for her, the Filipino people likewise look at the President - and then pray for the country.

"She is a woman of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt, like a rotten sardinas under a full moon, she shines and stinks." Just a thought.

(Image from http://pyroenergen.com/)

PINOYCCHIO

When talking to each other face to face, Gloria Arroyo and Ed Ermita have to step back a few inches, otherwise their noses would be touching each other. I say this because just like Pinnochio whose nose grows longer whenever he tells a lie, so do the noses of Gloria and Ed each time they go fibbing the public. And they did it again recently. First, GMA boasted of an available US$10 billion standby fund for the Asean region of which the Philippines would be one of its beneficiaries, in the event of another paralyzing Asian economic crisis. Gloria made public this alleged assistance courtesy of the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), during the recent oath-taking of the newly-elected officers of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) right at the Heroes Hall in Malacanang Palace, hoping to strike a hero's pose herself as she made the announcement. But soon after, World Bank executive Jim Adams denied Gloria's boast and said that "committments for such funds were never discussed at the regional level," and that the discussions touched only on the manner of which the World Bank may help the country if and when the crisis spreads throughout the region. No such thing as US$10 billion. Perhaps, only Gloria's elongated ilong could have smelled the green backs even miles away? Then comes Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, reacting (anticipating?) to the Supreme Court's decision of the botched Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) as unconstitutional. Ermita announced that it was a good thing that Gloria wasn't caught in the mess since there were items discussed by the GRP Panel and the MILF of which GMA wasn't in the know, sometimes even in disagreement. It was actually a washing of the hands on behalf of Gloria. It's hard to believe that GMA didn't know every intricate detail of the MoA-AD. I would even imagine that she wanted to be informed of the day-to-day, hour-by-hour developments of the discussions. And of course, as expected, the sour-graping arrogance of General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the brainless brains behind the MoA-AD, co-conspirator of General Rodolfo Garcia, co-architect of the MoA-AD, declared on nationwide TV that the Supreme Court was wrong to rule that he committed grave abuse of discretion. This guy should be sent to the jungles of Malaysia instead and just hang out with an orangutan, but even that beautiful monkey will surely be bored with Esperon's intellect. He is a disgrace to the nation and to each country-loving patriotic Filipino.

(Image from http://farm2.static.flickr.com/)

GLORIA'S ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENCY IS A LEGITIMATE CURSE

Filipinos above a certain age remember the fifties and sixties as the "golden age of Philippine progress and development." The country led the rest of South-East Asia in scientific research, education, business, the arts, and the practice of democratic governance. Filipinos then exuded an air of confidence and a purpose befitting a people in control of their destiny with a bright future ahead of them. Contrast that image with today's reality as outlined by a fact which we quote in part below:

By her own admission, President Gloria Arroyo accurately assessed that "over the last decades, our (strong) Republic has become one of the weakest, steadily left behind by its progressive neighbors, and forty years ago, we were second only to Japan in economic stature, and way ahead of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand." At our present growth rate, it will take us some 30 years to get where Thailand is today. And by the year 2030, our children will experience far worse conditions than we have today:

1. A population of 160 million;
2. Of those, 70 to 90 million will live below the poverty line;
3. Our national debt is estimated to be US$ 200 billion (compared to US$ 28 billion when President Ferdinand Marcos fled the country in 1986, and US$ 72 billion today);
4. We will be competing, not against Thailand or even Vietnam, but against Bangladesh;
5. We will still be the most corrupt nation in Asia, if not the world.

The signs are very clear. For as long as Gloria Arroyo remains our President, our nation is headed towards an irreversible path of economic decline and moral decadence - contrary to what she and her economic snails are now reporting to the people.




(image from http://www.chinapost.com/)

'TROJAN' - THE OFFICIAL SEAL

At the rate this present administration bungles on every issue it puts its hands on, the official seal of Malacanang today should be just a simple condom. Why? Because a condom allows inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects and covers-up for a bunch of pricks in government and in business, and gives you a sense of security while being screwed!

(Image from http://cpyu.org/)

IMELDA THE BEAUTIFUL / GLORIA THE VILE

Packaging is everything. When Gloria's apologists keep boasting of their master's achievements as a top-gun economist, and yet our economy is in the doldrums, that's wrong management of our investments. There's really only so much that the world economy can do to inflict damage in our country, for as it is we are on our own at the end of the day, and we can really do better even without those MOUs and MOAs. When Lorelei Fajardo, Anthony Golez, Jess Dureza and Ed Ermita and even my favorite flunkie Cerge Remonde keep saying that their master isn't bothered at all with her dismal acceptance ratings, and yet with Gloria's 24/7 tongue-lashing at them, they go on working late hours in the Palace to spin a weave of a miracle to improve her image, and then we see all over huge posters saying "Ramdam Ang Kaunlaran," and yet we have become a society of instant noodles with the high prices of food and commodities, they sure have packaged her in a very poor way, for the truth is "Ramdam Ang Kaunlaran" is really "Ramdam Ang Kahirapan." Take the case of former First Lady Imelda Marcos. In her campaign for the presidency of the country years ago, she tried appealing to the poor. At a rally in Manila, she told several thousand impoverished followers, "I am a squatter like you too." Then she climbed into her air-conditioned stretch Mercedes-Benz and returned to her $2,000 a day hotel suite. Now, that's another bad way to package a candidate, isn't it? And guess what? The approach didn't work. So, Mrs. Marcos' next tactic was to claim that the foundation of President Marcos' wealth was simply good fortune - he stumbled upon a vast horde of gold hidden by Japanese soldiers when they occupied the Philippines in World War 2. The First Lady added further that President Marcos had generously sold much of the gold to help the Philippines through difficult economic times in the 60s and 70s. Well, subsequent Philippine regimes didn't do any bit better. In fact, it is at its worst today! Previous administrations countered that the Marcoses accumulated their fortune through embezzlement and kickbacks, which in comparison with today's crooks in Malacananang, is mere loose-change. So, whether it be a MOU in China or a MOA in Malaysia, it all boils down to one thing - the people are the losers again.

(Image from http://amazon.com/)