There’s big news coming from the Catholic Church. First, that the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) held an election during its 103rd Plenary Session and chose Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma as the new President replacing Nereo Odchimar, Bishop of Tandag, Surigao Del Sur. Congratulations to Arch. Palma, now his work is cut out for him.
The bigger news comes from the Vatican, from no less than the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI who now has officially backed the Philippine Church, through the CBCP, on its stand against the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill and Divorce. With this news, those pro-RH might as well stop blaming the bishops for their unwavering stand against these issues that the Aquino administration has been vigorously pursuing. Now we have the Pope with us in this spiritual battle. If you didn’t know, the Pope is the official representative of our Lord Jesus Christ here on earth. Hence it’s no coincidence that the Pope’s message came together with the election of Arch. Jose Palma as CBCP President. It was divine intervention and God has spoken!
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I watched Monday night’s Talk Back with Tina Palma on ANC about the controversy broiling within the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), with Atty. Raul Lambino, former legal counsel, and former PCSO Chairman Manoling Morato, as guests. The two gentlemen confirmed what I have always suspected, that the more they dig deeper into this controversy, the more skeletons they would uncover.
Notice that PCSO General Manager Rosario Uriarte is no longer talking about ambulances? That’s because the more they searched for potential “culprits” from Congress, the more they will uncover that many congressmen from the Liberal Party would be dragged into this controversy. In the end, we learned that since the time of Pres. Fidel V. Ramos, more than 3,000 ambulances have been given to many Local Government Units (LGU) and it would be unwise for the PCSO to investigate these deals because all of these ambulances were given to the LGUs concerned.
The other scandal that Mrs. Uriarte wanted to expose was the so-called “Pajero Seven” a word that she coined herself, but in the end, none of these bishops got Pajeros. They did, however, get money from the PCSO and some of them used it to purchase Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs). Clearly we can see a sinister effort to discredit the bishops and implicate them into a mess that they created themselves in the hope that it would end up in the filing of charges against former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA).
In that show, Atty. Lambino clearly stated that the official title for the so-called Intelligence Funds of the PCSO is Extraordinary, Confidential and Miscellaneous Funds (ECMF), which were used for a specific but confidential purpose. But now they are making it appear that it was illegal. Again, it brings us to ask, when will the Aquino vengeance binge stop? I ask this because; while I agree that the PCSO’s systems are often too loose, the problem is within the systems that allow it to become somewhat of a personal piggybank of the President.
Again, let me reiterate that if the PCSO General manager digs deeper, she may uncover questionable deals even up to the time of then Pres. Cory Aquino. In the case of Butuan City Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, who wrote a letter to then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo asking for a birthday gift, it was a personal letter, which isn’t illegal at all. However, if you are the President and had all the resources of government are within your reach, chances are, you would do what Pres. GMA did, tap the PCSO to give a friend the gift he was asking for. It was okay during GMA’s time, but apparently it is no longer okay under the present dispensation.
Hence then, the CBCP has formally apologized to the government for any wrongdoing that they may have caused and the bishops already agreed to return the money given by the PCSO. I would have expected that with this offer to return the money, the PCSO would have decided no longer to accept it. But it seems that the PCSO would accept the return of this money, which in truth is peanuts compared to the huge expenditures they make annually.
In the midst of all this, Sen. Francis Escudero has called on the Department of Justice (DoJ) or the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to conduct a lifestyle check on former PCSO General Manager Rosario Uriarte as she personally sought the release of some P150 million for their so-called Intelligence Funds in January last year. This was triggered by the presence of luxury cars inside her home when the Senate invitation was sent to her residence. I fully concur with Sen. Escudero’s request for a lifestyle check so once and for all we would be able to know whether she “profited” from being the General Manager of PCSO.
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com