A most accidentally apt line came from the admin’s Raul Gonzalez. “Only rats abandon sinking ships,” he sneered on cam at Lakas-Kampi party mates who are defecting to the NP and LP. Ever tart, Gonzalez aimed to insult them. But he also let on that the vaunted admin warship is keeling over. This reveals the panic gripping Gonzalez et al. So far ten of their governors, 44 congressmen and dozens of mayors have switched camp.
Also very unnerved is Speaker Prospero Nograles, who’s running for mayor of Davao City. One moment he was threatening to bolt disarrayed Lakas for the NP. The next, he said he’s staying since he’s party president. Nograles erred on two counts. He was, not is, president; two have succeeded him since Nov., Gov. Mike Dominguez and Francis Manglapus. He can’t jump to the NP because he’s unwanted there; NP presidential standard-bearer Manny Villar himself told Nograles’s rival Sara Duterte so.
As for the defectors, there’s something to be said about their nature. First they gnawed off Lakas from founders Fidel Ramos and Joe de Venecia. Then they left it to rot. Thus, Gonzalez picturing them as dirty crawlers in dark holes. Still, as the ship sinks, he like Nograles has nowhere to go.
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Mar Roxas is almost sure to win the Vice Presidency. Less than a month to Election Day, his concern as LP president is to make party mates win. Plus, keep a formidable 21-point survey lead over closest contenders.
The latter means mainly repelling black propaganda. Like, a rival’s assembling of farmers in Rizal to demand redistribution of 1,600 hectares of land owned by the Aranetas on Mar’s mother’s side.
At first glance, this might seem to be Mar’s Luisita. Wealth, landless tillers, and the general nastiness of the campaign create the perfect formula to trip the electorate’s darling. (Mar’s 43-percent poll rating is the highest among all candidates for all positions). But is there really fire here, or is it just artificial smoke?
Research yielded facts that seem to clear Mar in this issue. One, the land isn’t even agricultural, and not due to any wheeling-dealing by the Araneta estate. It was found to be 70-degrees sloping, and Marcos in the ’70s decreed it residential for purposes of a Lungsod Silangan Townsite. Despite this, the Dept. of Agrarian Reform issued “emancipation patents” to later squatters in the ’80s. The Court of Appeals deemed the act illegal.
The Solicitor General raised the issue before the Supreme Court. The Aranetas, ever protective of reputation, must have been ready at that point to pay the settlers just compensation. But as the case pends in the SC, the estate cannot pursue any action; the heirs cannot distribute the land even if they wanted to. Makes one wonder if going to the SC was a good move.
Back to the bottom line: what does Mar have to do with all this? As it turns out, nothing. He is not a listed heir; the real landowners are alive and well. What he can do — and I believe he will — is take the squatters’ side in negotiations with the Aranetas, to ensure them adequate recompense. Mar as politician must represent the interests of the downtrodden. He has stated that, no matter what happens, he will ask the estate to house and pay the settlers properly.
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Reader C.M. Baquiran fumes at “an obvious Comelec anomaly”:
“It awarded P500 million for tracking and delivery of official ballots. As there are approximately 76,000 precincts nationwide, the contract price is about P6,600 per precinct. In comparison, DHL charges door-to-door delivery of roughly P70 per kilo. The 1,000 ballots per precinct would weigh no more than ten kilos, so should not exceed P700 to deliver.
“FedEx can track in real time the location of parcels around the globe. DHL likewise. P6,600 vs P700 is just too much to stomach.”
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Presidential son Mikey Arroyo’s disqualification from party-list election is an open and shut case. That is, if the Comelec bravely will enforce its own rules.
Arroyo and Ang Galing Pinoy did not submit proof that he is its member for at least 90 days already. This violates Comelec Resolution 8807. The poll body had set Mar. 26 as deadline for parties and nominees to show that they truly belong to the marginalized sector they claim to represent. As certified by Comelec chief lawyer Ferdinand Rafanan, Arroyo and Galing Pinoy did not comply. So they automatically must be debarred from the May 10 balloting, said genuine sectoral group Akbayan.
Other groups had complained of Arroyo’s false claim to long be representing security guards and tricycle drivers in Galing Pinoy. He couldn’t have done so, they said, because he was and is Pampanga’s 2nd-district congressman. He is only using the party-list as backdoor reentry to Congress. This is because mother Gloria decided to run as representative of his district.
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“The truth in our mind is often blocked by the fear in our heart. The truth in our heart is quite often mangled by the resistance of our mind.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ
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E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com