‘Mission incredible’ plus a snap wedding in Macau

La Presidenta is flying to Macau tomorrow afternoon in a surprise trip – no, not to visit the Gaming tables or casinos in that former Portuguese bastion of Christianity and gambling (now an SAR of the People’s Republic of China). She’ll be going for a more pious reason: to be the Ninang (Godmother) at the wedding of Mrs. Gina de Venecia’s daughter Carissa Vera-Cruz, who’s marrying businessman Juju Evangelista, owner, among other enterprises, of Toshiba Medical Equipment.

For the turn-around trip, she won’t stay overnight in that capital of fun and frolic lest there may be accusations of Lutong Macau as they used to say in the old days of Commonwealth politics. La Ninang will be using the Hawker-Siddley jet of a business tycoon. Further this gossip-monger sayeth not.

Carissa is Gina’s daughter from her first marriage to Philip Cruz. Why Macau? The buzz is that the bride’s stepfather and Gina’s loving husband, Speaker Joe de Venecia, might otherwise have to invite everybody in town. Betcha, despite the hush-hush over the wedding and its details, enough Congressmen might still rush over there anyway to constitute a quorum for a session of the House of Representatives in the Hotel Lisboa.

I wonder whether that hotel belonging to Stanley Ho still has its added feature which enhanced the Fan Tan and other gambling games in the days gone by, Le Crazy Paris Show which was the Far Eastern version of the Moulin Rouge, Lido and Folies Bergeres rolled into one.

The wedding – by last report – will take place in Mount Carmel Church in Macau, and the reception will take place in the Westin Hotel there.

In any event, best wishes to groom and bride! Sorry for having let the secret out, but La Presidenta’s movements belong to the public domain.

* * *

If it comes to her desk, the President must say "No" to any sneak appeal by Prisoner Rolito Go and his lawyers for "executive clemency" or "commutation of sentence".

This rascal, Rolito Go y Tambunting, alias Ernesto Diaz y Tamondong, alias Nester, Prisoner No. N96P-0982, now confined at the New Bilibid Prisons, Muntinlupa City, is a convict who has shown no remorse for his heinous crime – the killing in cold blood of an unarmed victim, Mr. Eldon Maguan, on July 2, 1991.

Go was convicted of murder on November 4, 1993, and imposed a penalty of reclusion perpetua by the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City, Branch 168.

The Judge who sentenced him was the Hon. Benjamin V. Pelayo, now retired from the service. The penalty of Reclusion Perpetua is more binding than a mere "life sentence" as befits the gravity of the offense for which Go was convicted.

When Go’s lawyers petitioned for conditional pardon or commutation of sentence, Presiding Judge Lorna F. Catris-Chua Cheng of the RTC National Capital Judicial Region, Branch 168 Marikina City (formerly Pasig City), who took over the court on May 31, 2005, noted to the Board of Pardons and Parole that the Board "must take into consideration a myriad of factors, such as, but not limited to, the sentence . . . for which he was convicted: the fact that he escaped from detention prior to the promulgation of the Decision in this case and the fact that he was able to elude authorities out to arrest him for a considerable length of time, three (3) years, more or less; and his conduct while serving his sentence."

The Judge rightly asked the Board to study whether Go has "been completely rehabilitated . . . so as to erase all doubts that he would not be a threat to the society, which he desires to rejoin."

Judge Cheng pointed out, in her submission to the Board (Attn: Atty. Ernesto P. Dizon, Chief Parole Officer) that "the records of the case do not show anything that would suggest prisoner Rolito T. Go has, in deed and in fact satisfied the monetary award imposed by the Court in favor of the family of the victim."

In fact, the RTC Judge noticed that the requirement of law that Notice "be furnished the offended party" had apparently not been complied with, and underscored that the comment of Ms. Rosario Maguan or Grace Maguan See (the slain Eldon Maguan’s sister) had not been solicited.

Ms. Grace Maguan See was aghast the family had not been informed and immediately filed their strong objection to any clemency or commutation for the killer Rolito Go.

I checked with Ms. Grace Maguan See yesterday and she told this writer that last week, the family learned, Go’s request for commutation, etc., was denied by the Board of Pardons and Parole. However, she informed me worriedly, "somebody in Malacañang suddenly asked for his file with the possibility the Bureau’s denial might be reversed by the Office of the President."

Sanamagan. Is it true that the Go appeal is being clandestinely pushed by a Governor who’s very influential in politics and business? My suggestion is, if this is true, that my friend the Governor ought to reconsider helping this Go, and cease and desist.

As for the Malacañang "facilitator", he’s not doing his boss the President any good. On top of her current woes, any move on GMA’s part to extend executive clemency or commutation to Go may backfire on her and her good intentions.

Rolito Go, as his lawyer Ernesto Vinluan-Perez (Martinez & Perez Law Offices) stated, in his appeal to President GMA through the office of Executive Secretary Eduardo R. Ermita, dated December 2, 2005, that "per our verification of his prison records on 14 November 2005, Mr. Go has already served 12 years, 11 months and 25 days. As of date of this letter, he has served time equivalent to 13 years and 13 days."

Yeah, but 13 years don’t add up to the life sentence imposed on him.

It’s important for the President to understand what happened on the evening of July 2, 1991. Poor Maguan was driving his car from his residence nearby. Go had been going in opposite direction – the wrong way up a One-way Street. The two cars collided. It could have been a mere traffic altercation, but Go drew his gun and shot the victim, Eldon Maguan to death. Just like snuffing out the life of a fly.

I followed this case up personally as a journalist in those days, and was amazed that Rolito Go believed he could get away with the crime owing to his personal connections with powerful officials and police officers. I know of the death threats received by the victim’s family and even the public prosecutor then handling the case, now Special Prosecutor of the Ombudsman, prosecuting, by the way, the case of former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, namely Prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio.

Since the threats had allegedly come from Mr. Go’s henchmen at that time, would it be safe for Go to be released on "executive clemency" and return to mainstream society?

Ms. Rosario C. Maguan had written Director Reynaldo Bayang, the Executive Director of the Board of Pardons and Parole, DOJ Agencies Building, when she objected to Go’s application for clemency or commutation (on April 10, 2006), that Go "does not deserve any privileges or any form of consideration . . ."

She stressed that Go had escaped from detention a few days before promulgation of sentence. The government had exerted great effort and entailed much expense, she declared, to recapture him, while he eluded the authorities for three years. The government had to put up – and subsequently pay to the whistleblower – a reward of no less than P700,000.

"He has not complied with the court orders including but not limited to the civil aspects of its decision," Ms. Maguan asserted.

She added that "during his escape, he falsified his identity and documents for which he has not yet been prosecuted or made to account for . . . Morally, he has not shown any remorse for his crime to the victim’s family."

In conclusion, Rosario Maguan noted that "cases of road violence similar to his case continue to be repeated. Mr. Go’s commutation and eventually pardon would give traffic criminals, the wrong signals regarding obedience to the law." Sus, even that, Madam President.

This is a case, I’ll have to repeat, in which GMA must say, "No."

* * *

Last Wednesday, at the invitation of Country Manager Lawrence "Larry" Llamzon of DHL and my kumpadre Charlie Agatep, I attended the Premier showing in Greenbelt Cinema 3 of Mission: Impossible III starring, of course, Tom Cruise.

Yesterday, the movie was panned by Martin Hoyle of the Financial Times of London in a scorching article which he headlined: "Mission risibly improbable." (I consulted my Ilocano Dictionary to find "risibly" means laughably or in a ridiculously silly manner, with apologies to Wille Shakespeare).

Scoffed Mr. Hoyle, who was subbing for FT’s usual movie critic Nigel Andrews: "In a slightly surreal week, the prize for the wildest mishandling of recognizable reality to dottily absurdist effect goes to Mission Impossible III."

The FT critic wittily jeered that the IMF which "causes employees to dangle from Shanghai skyscrapers, kidnap businessmen from the Vatican and accidentally destroy eco-wind-turbine farms in Berlin is not the International Monetary Fund." It’s the Impossible Mission Force which sends "Secret Agent Ethan Hunt" in pursuit of one of those "smoothly sophisticated international villains with unlimited resources," played by Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, in the role of an international weapons and information provider, a no-remorse, no-conscience rat named "Owen Davian."

Hats off to Hoyle for his sarcastic turn of phrase, but as for a simple guy like me, I loved the movie. Don’t miss it!

The very things attacked by Hoyle, Esq., are what make it colorful, breath-takingly action-filled, and exciting. Heck, who do you think James Bond was – and is thus worshipped by hundreds of millions of fans everywhere: a lethal 007 Secret Agent "with license to kill" who’s actually Peter Pan with Pistol, the Little Boy who Never Grew Up, but gets chased by glamorous women anyway. Bond is adventurous fantasy – so is Tom Cruise’s Secret Agent Ethan Hunt.

GQ Magazine (May issue) put Tom Cruise on its cover. The glossy magazine described the scene in which Cruise as Agent Hunt goes "mano a mano on a bridge with a burning truck while a menacing black chopper juts and jerks overhead." That’s just one of the action sequences in a motion picture which shows Cruise, at age 43 by golly, doing all sorts of acrobatic stuff and puncturing baddies with his automatic, or captured machine-pistol, all over the place, from Berlin to Shanghai.

In the Vatican – authentically taken in the bowels of St. Peter’s and the Vatican Museum – there’s even a sequence of the IMF bunch escaping in a speedboat on the Tiber River, flashing by Hadrian’s Tomb with the Angel atop it, or blowing up a posh Lamborgini in the middle of the Piazza San Pedro.

Those who’re speculating that Cruise’s sortie into Mission Incredible might prove a flop owing to his muddled involvement with Scientology, his romance with Katie Holmes (the baby was a girl!), and public outbursts against psychiatry, should recall that his War of the Worlds last year was Number Two in the motion picture hit parade. Will the producers (of which he’s one) recover the $210 million spent on the picture? You bet. To me, whatever middle-age lines may begin to furrow his handsome face, he’s still Top Gun. Enough of gush. My advice is go see for yourself whether Cruise is still The Last Samurai.

* * *

What’s really interesting is the revelation that DHL co-sponsored the motion picture. Larry Llamzon said that DHL played a pivotal role behind the cameras as "the official shipping and logistics partner" of the picture.

Doing this for the high-octane film, Llamzon said in a speech to the audience, was no easy "mission," in fact almost as "impossible" as the title.

He averred DHL was involved in everything "from arranging a charter flight from Beijing to Los Angeles to packing, crating, and shipping technical equipment to numerous filming locations in Italy, the US, China and Germany." The DHL team, he disclosed, worked 24/7 with Paramount Pictures to ship equipment, from movie sets to cars, camera gear, film material and props ("by land, sea, and air") to every destination. Of course, Larry couldn’t resist the plug that "DHL provides fast and reliable service to over 200 countries and territories around the world."

There, I’ve paid for my free ticket.

But, honestly: this is a great movie all ye Action fans. I might be "risible" in nature (to quote FT), but I enjoyed it.