The Big Burn

Philippines- I cannot blame senator Teofisto Guingona III for voting to retain Juan Ponce Enrile as senate president, although I did hope he would buck the trend. How could he? After receipt of the PhP 1.6M as additional Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE), he was 'house broken'.
Save for Sotto, Lacson, Honasan and Estrada, staunch Enrile supporters and United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party mates, (Revilla and Lapid probably decided on the result of a coin toss) senators who voted to retain Enrile, decided not to decide against themselves. How could you have received money then denounce the distributor?

It was a master stroke alright. Enrile in his ripe age is still the cunning, highly astute politician he was 40 years ago. Paradoxical and complex, Enrile on top of the heap remains a tragedy and a blessing for  Philippine politics. No one comes remotely close. 

But back to Senator Guingona, in those days when he insisted on being addressed as 'Toots', managing a moderately successful realty company called Tierra Minerva, he struck me as an honorable man, consistent and uncompromising in his beliefs yet entirely diplomatic and conciliatory. He is a highly learned person dabbling in diverse interests, able to communicate and apply accumulated knowledge from the most simple to the complex. Above all he is a man of the people, embracing quirks of those around him, welcoming strangers and controlling the most difficult of oppositions. He is hip, stands above the crowd (towering at 6 feet two inches), contains an air of royalty yet humble and can drink beer with the best of them. For me, he is the best dude in that crowd called the 15th congress. In fact, he is presidential material. So, his decision of allegiance to the senate president comes as a big burn.

At its face, the additional MOOE seem to adhere within legal standards but not quite. Foremost, Additional MOOE is to cover budget shortfalls in expenditures, specifically in cases where needed services or materials have been procured but remain outstanding as a result of deficit spending. Most agency wait for the next budget to plug these shortfalls. Definitely additional MOOE is not to be distributed as bonuses to staff where amounts reported reached as high as P120,000 for senior officers. The glaring disparity where ordinary bureaucrats receive a measly P10,000 tells you of its immorality and illegitimacy.
Hey man, you know this better than anyone. Your pops was Commission on Audit (COA) commissioner.

Senator Angara calls it a tradition which he himself has done. Then I submit, the Filipino people have been traditionally and monumentally fucked for a long time. Definitely, it is a time for change and I don't mean a change in terms of generation or relations- Jackie from Johnny, Sonny from Ed, Cynthia from Manny, another Estrada or Binay or Marcos or Aquino or way too many Cayetanos. A change of leadership in the senate is needed to veer it away from the disaster it has inflicted on the public: the misplaced spending (pork barrel, travels, bonuses etc);  its succumbing to the carrot in the impeachment case; its non public disclosure of SALN; expensive deliberation of the RH no brainer; its overall non-performance. The senate has long been filled with people of delusions of grandeur,  stale politicians, polluticians, magicians, fools and useless eye candies. The Philippines need a change of scene.
We also need new faces in the house of representative, first to go should be the speaker, Feliciano Belmonte. These legislators stall the coming of a better Philippines.They have instead imposed coplan armado, the Bae shooting spree, calamities, everyday crimes,the pabaon of the AFP, the likes of Garcia, Reyes and Ligot among a host of debacles that continuously ruin the country.

The 15th congress of the senate maybe the strangest bedfellows based on their past and current alliances. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and the Cayetano siblings, whose fathers were partners of Enrile at some point, seem indifferent to the senate president somehow, a cause for celebration. On the other hand,  Sotto, Drilon and Arroyo, known critics of Martial law and Enrile seemed to have a change of heart and embraced the Enrile leadership to no end. Maybe they have all forgotten what they fought for during those years of martial law. Maybe, Saguisag should remind them. Lacson, another scourge of martial law at least is standing pat as a reminder of Marcos and later Estrada.

Add to the lot Guingona, whose father had nothing but disdain for the father of martial law.

Santiago who was aligned with Enrile during Erap and probably before, as they both worked for Marcos is leading the fight against Enrile. I celebrate the challenge and woe the misplaced allegiance of Drilon, Escudero (UNA senatorial bet), Guingona; the absence during the voting of Santiago, the Cayetanos, Pangilinan, Villar and Osmena; the abstention of Arroyo.
It's been a long arduous journey to Jericho. We are at its walls, so let  the walls fall now and let it start with the senate president and the speaker of the house.