Suddenly Congress goes on recess…why?

For our special presentation on our Talkshow on Straight from the Sky, we bring you The Life and Times of Bro. Bo Sanchez. Yes who doesn’t know Bro. Bo Sanchez whose TV program Kerygma appears regularly on many mainstream Television Networks…and MyTV Channel 30 also has Bro. Sanchez regularly on Sundays, including his TV shows for youngsters Mustard TV. But it isn’t easy to catch Bro. Bo Sanchez for he is a very busy man.

So I asked my good friend Dr. Joen delas Peñas of the International Marketing Group to arrange this TV interview with the preacher in blue jeans…and voila! I had to fly to Manila and had the interview at the IMG Head Office in Makati. So watch this very up and close interview with Bro. Bo Sanchez on SkyCable’s Channel 61 at 8 p.m. and replays on MyTV channel 30 on M-W-F.

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After more than a month of political scandals in Congress…the 15th Congress decided to go on a two-week recess. That means we’re all getting a brief respite from the nation’s greatest scandal ever called the Napoles P10-billion scam which has been splashed all over the newspapers and television for more than a month now and has jolted Filipinos to wake up to the present realities that the pork barrel or the Priority Development Assistance Program is a program purportedly designed to help the poor, but in the end, the political elite helped themselves into this booty of people’s money!

But just when this scandal hit a new high, when Sen. Jinggoy virtually accused Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III of bribing Senators to convict former Supreme Court justice Renato Corona, an accusation that was validated not only by former Sen. Ping Lacson…but verified by Senate President Franklin Drilon and Florencio Abad of the Department of Budget and Management, although they insist it wasn’t a bribe…but an incentive, then all of the sudden Congress goes on recess. I don’t believe in coincidences this recess was a deliberate move to cut the tension in order to diffuse the heat against Malacañang. But the die has been cast. Well, let’s see where this will lead to.

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Perhaps we’ve all been so scandal-weary so last Saturday night, almost everyone I knew from Cebu way back in the 70’s went to the Reunion Concert of the Circus Band and the New Minstrels at the Waterfront Hotel. They were the greatest singers of my generation. Circus Band had Hajji Alejandro, Pat Castillo, Tillie Moreno, Basil Valdez, Jacqui Magno and Richard Tan. But we knew that Richard Tan and two other members of the Circus Band had already passed away. The New Minstrels had Joey Albert, Louie Reyes, Eugene Villaluz, Ding Mercado and Cebuano singers, Rey-an Fuentes and Chad Borja.

It was total entertainment by the greatest singers from the Philippines. Put Basil Valdez, Joey Albert or Hajji Alejandro alone on a concert and they would probably get the same crowd. Their songs brought us back to the 70’s and the 80’s where life was less of a hassle, traffic in Cebu was nonexistent and yes, politicians really earned the title of “honorable” because they still had honor and integrity.

But last Saturday night, we all forgot our nation’s troubles and simply had a great night with friends. As I put in my Facebook, half of the people I knew in my generation were there. The other half had already gone to the great beyond. But their songs will remain in our hearts forever.

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There is no doubt that our nation is still in a deep mess and whether you like it or not, the Aquino Regime cannot be blameless for what’s happening to our nation today. They are after all, nothing but a student government that never learned how to manage the Philippines in the three years they were in office. This is because of policies that they instituted, but we warned the officials not to implement them because it won’t work.

That so-called Conditional Cash Transfer program where the Department of Social Welfare and Development has spent more than P120 billion purportedly to feed the poorest of the poor, but in the end, it didn’t make a dent in our poverty levels and in fact the people have remained poorer than before. That’s because the Aquino officials did not listen to our proverbial advise, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” What a waste of public funds!

In another arena, while I heard that finally the three-week-old Zamboanga incident was considered officially over. So we must now come up with a commission to study how this can be prevented…this means having the MNLF and the MILF together in the peace talks. As I’ve pointed out, signing a peace deal only with the MILF resulted in the Zamboanga incident.

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