Punchline
CHR’s Wilhelm doing the province proud
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
As charges of brazen violation of human rights fly all across the nation, there is one unsung courageous man from Pangasinan doing a yeoman’s job upholding, protecting and defending human rights in the country.
Human Rights Commissioner Wilhelm Soriano of San Carlos City is doing the province proud.
At a time when most government appointees are already expected to simply parrot and defend a government position regardless of moral implications, Wilhelm is surely showing the way to an independence of mind for the common good.
Not a few thought Wilhelm will simply coast along, take safe positions vis-à-vis reported human rights violations just mouthing motherhood responses while waiting for another more important appointment.
But he did no such thing.
Wilhelm did not shirk from his responsibility taking all suspected violators of human rights, mainly the police and the military, to task whenever it was called for.
Wilhelm gives us hope in the eye of a storm of wanton killings of militant leaders and journalists today.
This corner salutes Commissioner Wilhelm Soriano.
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DERAILED EXPRESS TRAIN. Whether chief train engineer GMA admits it or not, it is becoming more evident that the ballyhooed Cha-Cha Express train is now running behind schedule. The railtracks are not in place as expected, and the stations are still not equipped with “basic necessities”.
Translation: the People’s Initiative is meeting major legal obstacles along the way.
Word has it that the reason the parallel action by congressmen, namely the Constituent Assembly, is now being actively pursued is because the Supreme Court cannot and will not likely uphold the legal leg on which the People’s Initiative is precariously perched on.
Tsk-tsk after all that heroic rush to have people sign the “petition” whether they understood what they were being made to sign by the “Sigaw ng Bayan” or not, will come to naught after all.
The Supreme Court had ruled that the People’s Initiative can be adopted only in introducing amendments to certain provisions of the Constitution but not for the purpose of adopting a new system like the parliamentary system in the Constitution.
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Meanwhile, not even the Con-Ass can fast-track the running time for the Express Train.
The senators are running their own train from opposite direction, and unless senators’ train steps on the brakes for a full stop and allow the congressmen’s train pass them by, the Cha-Cha Express via Con-Ass is not likely to reach its destination as well. At least not by both GMA’s and JDV’s reckoning.
The senators are not about to lay their bodies across the tracks just to be run over.
Methinks the proposed economic amendments to the Constitution will finally be in place in about three years time, but certainly not via the Cha-Cha Express!
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WHAT JUETENG RAIDS? If the Senate did not conduct its investigations on the extent of corruption that jueteng has cultivated over the decades, we will continue to be gullible about the reported police raids of jueteng dens and arrests of kobradores.
Since the Police Provincial Station maintains that there is no let-up in the war vs. jueteng, we are expected to take that hook, line and sinker. But we can’t, not after what the “jueteng operators” revealed during the senate investigations – that the raids are mostly staged, and arrests of kobradores are part of the charade.
Sr. Supt. Alan Purisima must, therefore, realize that unless he tries another tact to make his “raid” stories credible, the whole script will always fly in his face. As I see it, the only time he can be believed is when he can say with a straight face that Pangasinan is again “jueteng-free.”
What the senate investigations also established is that jueteng can be stopped by police directors anytime they want. Therefore, one can only conclude that either Mr. Purisima has taken it upon himself to tolerate the jueteng or he is under orders to allow jueteng to operate in his area.
So, what’s the situation with you, Mr. Purisima? Is the resurrection of jueteng about your pocket? Or someone else’s?
Those reports of arrests made don’t mean anything anymore just a waste of precious paper and ink.
But even more worrisome is that no police chief to date has been sacked on the “One-Strike Policy” of Chief PNP Arturo Lomibao. (By the way, some wags in Metro-Manila have it that he recently gifted Secretary Raul Gonzalez with a bullet-proof brand new car! Tsk-tsk, very unkind thought to make there).
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STILL NO ACCOUNTABILITY. It’s been three weeks since the bands have left, the touted grills collapsed and packed away, the hang-overs disappeared, and the streets cleaned but no one in the city hall nor the city council has asked for an accounting of the city-sponsored Bangus Festival.
Councilor Nic Aquino, the festival’s chairman, is moving around with nary a concern about having to be made to account for all the monies he received and dispensed on Mayor Benjie Lim’s instructions.
Curiously, not a single councilor appears interested to pop the question hey, not even Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez, the next touted mayor in a post-Lim administration. Why is there no one interested in knowing where some P2.8 million that was released to the councilor, went. Aken kasi lalamet?
Did they have another of those profitable “division in the house”?
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In our last issue, City Councilor Alex De Venecia gave a valuable lesson on transparency and accountability. He accounted for every single centavo raised and spent for the 2005 city fiesta, being the Hermano Mayor.
But it seems, nobody among the onor-onors is the least interested about the lesson. In fact, I have a hunch that they wished Councilor Alex didn’t have to be a “show-off” (in their books) at their expense.
I guess, it’s too much of the onor-onors now to improve on de Venecia’s lesson by compelling another onor-onor to account to the people. Bad habits are simply too difficult to break especially when these open doors of “opportunities”.
But if the onor-onors actuations don’t offend you still, then the best is yet to come. Listen to them swear to high heavens that they are honest, dedicated public servants when they start their campaign for their re-election in January next year. It’d be fun to have the readers’ bet on who among the onor-onors they think will brazenly lie through their teeth.
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