It was a huge albeit unexpected news coming from the Supreme Court that declared the Truth Commission (chaired by our good friend, former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.) as unconstitutional as it violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution! No doubt this was a big setback for the Aquino administration whose election campaign promise was to crucify former President Gloria M. Arroyo for the sins during her administration.
Naturally, Malacañang Palace will seek a motion to reconsider from the SC, but if you ask me, this issue is dead in the water! If Malacañang truly believes that there is enough evidence to indict the former President, it is up to them to file those cases in the courts or in the Office of the Ombudsman. I’m in full concurrence with the SC on this matter because we’ve always known Lady Justice to be blindfolded, but the Truth Commission created under an administration that vowed to bring her to court already gives one an idea that Justice is titled against the former President.
Again let me remind the Aquino administration that the bigger problem we face is a serious lack of justice… especially speedy justice, which under our present snail paced speed, the criminals simply adore! I’ve always said that if a Governor, Mayor or Mr. Public Official knew that after filing of a case in six months he would be in jail, corruption would vanish! Speedy justice is something that PNoy should give to the Filipino people.
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Still smarting from the faux pas that he did in pushing for that preposterous “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” Tourism slogan, Department of Tourism (DoT) Secretary Albert Lim is fighting back against the stakeholders in the tourism industry who did not support him in his ill-fated attempt to change the DoT slogan… this time it comes in the form of a frontal attack (which was front page news in The STAR last Tuesday) when the legitimacy of the Tourism Congress Board was questioned by a certain Marciano Ragaza, former president of the Philippine Travel Agents Association (PTAA).
Mr. Ragaza said, “When it was convened last year, there were only 58 members out of the 1,360 accredited tourism enterprises who were invited to participate in the Tourism Congress. The officers were elected in a meeting of just 58 people handpicked by Tourism Sec. Ace Durano.” Why is it all of a sudden the Tourism Congress is being questioned? Could it be because Tourism Congress Vice-President openly complained that DoT Sec. Lim did not recognize the Tourism Congress, which was created under the Tourism Act of 2009? Our tourism industry people in Cebu also confirmed this as true!
So the question we should throw back at Mr. Ragaza is, “Is he complaining about the Tourism Congress because he was not elected into this body, why didn’t he complain about this after the elections?” I just got a text from a friend from Manila who said that Sec. Lim and Mr. Ragaza were friends a long time ago, when they used to work for ANSCOR? Is this really true?
In my book, no one should question the legality of the Tourism Congress especially if they held that election under the strict guidelines of the Tourism Act. Call Mr. Ragaza’s timing highly-suspicious because I just got hold of a resolution signed by the National Associations represented by Trustees of the Tourism Congress and a lot of National Tourism Associations represented by the Board of Tourism agencies, like the Hotel, Resorts and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRRAC) the Davao Association of Tour Operators (DATO), the Philippine Tour Operators Association, the Hotel and Sales Marketing Association (just to name a few) totally opposing the confirmation of Sec. Lim before the Commission on Appointments (CA).
If you pit all these tourism stakeholders vehemently opposed to the confirmation of Sec. Lim against the solitary Philippine Travel Agents Association (PTAA), it seems that the majority does not have any confidence in the leadership of Sec. Lim. If something like this happened to a top Cabinet official in the Japanese government, the high official would embrace the Bushido Code and resign in shame because of this no-confidence vote.
Mind you, Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III won his Presidency by debasing the previous administration as corrupt and worse without any delicadeza. But all those attacks against the Arroyo Administration only shows that the people behind the Aquino Administration are not much different from the people they once disfigured as corrupt; they are akin to the pot that called the kettle black!
In last Tuesday’s STAR report, World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati was tagged as expressing her support for the good governance reforms of the Aquino Administration. What Good Governance reforms is she talking about when a beleaguered Cabinet official holds on to his job like leech, when Good Governance dictates that he ought to resign?
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For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.