Partylist Reps, a good excuse for chacha!

Today is the first death anniversary of the late Malacañang Press Secretary Cerge M. Remonde, a fellow colleague in the Cebu Media who rose from the ranks, moved out of Cebu to join the administration of then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo . From the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) he rose to Cabinet rank when he took charge of the Office of the Press Secretary and literally died with his boots on.

At least amongst us in Cebu media, Cerge made his place in history as one mediaman who died and was afforded Cebu’s most attended funeral. No less than Pres. Arroyo and her entire Cabinet went to Argao to bury their colleague. In my talk with a few media friends, we somehow concurred that Cerge died at the right time. I mean, if he died at this time, he’d just be a footnote in the news. When he died a year ago, he made the front page of all the media outlets in this country. How time flies indeed since Cerge has gone ahead to the great beyond. May we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of his soul.

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Ordinary people when they become politicians almost immediately assume a new persona, that of traditional politicians who are like leeches sucking our nation’s coffers as if it were their own piggy bank. Last Monday, The Philippine Star came up with an interesting front-page article dubbed “New excuse for junket: Fact-finding” which I’m sure is just one of the so many ways for politicians to get the government to spend for them.

What is even deplorable in that Star story is that this group of “fact-finding Congressmen” was led by Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello and Democratic Independent Workers Association (DIWA) party-list Rep. Emmeline Aglipay who went to Saudi Arabia to look at the “virtual slave” conditions of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) there. The other Partylist Representatives who went to the oil-rich kingdom of the House of Saud were Rep. Carmen Zamora of APSAY and Rep. Cresente Paez of COOP-NATCCO.

According to the report by Rep. Walden Bello, almost all OFWs are distressed, many of them working 18 to 22 hours a day under constant threat of sexual abuse from employers whom they described as “maniacs”. Wait-a-minute! This is something that most Filipinos already know. In fact some of their stories have been made into local movies. So there really is nothing new that these Partylist Reps are telling us hence that story about it being a junket is very plausible.

What Congress ought to do is to come up with plans that would hire more Filipinos right here at home. Unfortunately, there are no projects available here at home because there’s just no more money for such job creation projects. Thanks to the addition of the Partylist Congressmen who also have to be paid their pork barrels and their junkets! So perhaps if we got rid of the Partylist Reps, maybe there just might be enough money to fund job creation projects.

I’m sure you must have heard of that incident inside a Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight to Los Angeles last Dec. 17, 2010 where Alliance of Volunteer Educators (AVE) Party-List Rep. Eulogio “Amang” Magsaysay had a verbal spat with PAL Flight Attendant Sarah Ocampo, which ended up with Rep. Magsaysay calling the flight attendant “a menopausal bitch!” He insulted her because he wanted a seat together with his children. Now why were they separated in the first place?

The Partylist Representative has since apologized to Ms. Ocampo, but she’s filing a case against him to teach him a lesson. We should support her because those Partylist Reps have become arrogant, abusive and struts about like ugly politicians who have ruled our country for decades. What these Partylist Reps do not know is that, so many people are not happy with them and consider them a waste of money.

If there is a reason to call for Charter Changes, it is to get rid of the Partylist system, which in effect has only created more Congressmen that this country needs like a hole in the head! But then I don’t believe that we will have charter changes in this country for as long as Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III doesn’t embrace it, simply because our present constitution is named after his mother, Cory.

Like it or not, this country needs charter changes if it wants real, honest-to-goodness political reforms, like getting rid of the Partylist system. There are many more reforms that we need in this country. For instance, elections every three years is just too short. We ought to revert back to the old and tested way - four years with reelections for another four years. But we can’t do that unless we dance the cha-cha tune.

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