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YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
7/4-7/10/2011



After one year


After P-Noy’s “Ulat ng Bayan” last Thursday, June 30, what is next? What is new? What will happen for the next year? Or in Filipino, “Ano pang pambobola? Ano pang pagmamalaki? Ano pang pagmamalinis?”

At least, one thing I noticed about the First Birthday Celebration is that P-Noy did not name drop or, rather, take his father and mother’s names in vain anymore. He wants to be his own man or boy already. However, his sisters still tried to do a chorus. And, there was no more direct reference to protect their parent’s legacy.

False Hopes for the SONA
What is next is that those who cling on to hope eternal will expect that last Thursday’s milestone will give him, P-Noy, enough practice to prepare for a better SONA (State of the Nation Address).

The “Ulat ng Bayan” was a soft launch or practice run. The SONA will be the real thing.

If P-Noy has got any brains, if he has any experience, if his Administration has any Vision and Program, and if his spin artists have any abilities at all, then on Monday, July 25, at the Batasang Pambansa Plenary Hall, usually from 4 to 5 pm, P-Noy will show us, his Bosses, where we are and where we will go from there.

What is new is that at the Ultra, P-Noy tried to put on a show with a young audience.

Maybe they thought that the younger the person, the more the tendency to be pro P-Noy.

More of the Same
Well, as they say “nakabenta na iyan”.

That was true during the campaign, the May 10, 2010 elections and the pre-inauguration period (May 11 to June 30, 2010, about 50 days.).

You can check it out for yourself.

If you were to conduct your own survey you would find out the following. Staff of Mc Donald’s, Starbucks, and the like tend to be for P-Noy because they are younger. Those from fine dining restaurants are older and tend to be for former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada.

What will happen for the next year? More of the same.

Let us start at the Creation of the Second Aquino Administration from September 2, 2009 to June 30, 2010.

That Guy, Jojo Ochoa
Let us look at the core of that Administration – the Little and the Midget President.

Usually, the Executive Secretary is called the “Little President”.

However, under the Aquino Administration, P-Noy is already “Little”, and therefore, we have to call the Executive Secretary something else. Let’s call him the “Midget” President.

A year ago, P-Noy could hardly commit any mistake. But he did.

The biggest mistake of both his life and his six-year term as President was to pick his overall Kabarkada, Paquito “Jojo” Navarro “Midget” Ochoa of MOST (Marcos, Ochoa, Serapio and Tan Law Office) and formerly former Quezon City Mayor Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte’s City Administrator, as his Executive Secretary.

This immediately gave the lie to the “Matuwid na Daan” and the “Walang Mahirap pag Walang Korap” slogans.

Ochoa and QC
There is a general impression posing into a question: How could someone who worked for more than a day, if not nine years, in the Quezon City Government, not be corrupt?

If you think, P-Noy, Ochoa, Puno and Torres are angels and patriots, tell that to Johnny Chang, Rod Kapunan, Hans Palacios, and Andy Rosales.

They are Quezon City citizens, who ran for Mayor, Vice Mayor, Congressman (4^th District) and Councillor (3^rd District) last May 10, 2010.

They did not expect to win but they have a lot to say and tell about graft and corruption in our city.
To keep this part of the story short, just go to Morato Ave. and see for yourself how they spent billions on sidewalk bricks, just barely two or three years old. Now, they are tearing this billion-peso project up the sidewalks for the third time in a few years.

Who did it the first and second times? Belmonte, Ochoa, et al. Who did it this third time? Since they keep Mayor Herbert “Bistek” Bautista as a virtual puppet, are Belmonte and Ochoa’s men still responsible?


QC Dad as Solon
You may also do your own research and compare the perks and pork of an average Congressman with those of a Quezon City Councilor.

QC Councilors who get promoted to Congressmen suffer a culture shock.

The staff of a Councilor is three times that of a Congressman’s in size.

Considering that there are six councilors to a district, a Congressman has to take care of a constituency thrice as big for the same amount of pork.

His staff has an 18-fold more difficult a job than a councilor’s staff, taking care of the district constituency.
Quezon City was the home of Ninoy, Cory, Noynoy, and his sisters, since I first heard of the Aquinos. But even then, P-Noy could not have not known of the “reputation” of his allies in the City Government.

Then, Sonny Belmonte became the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The last time that he was the Speaker for a brief five and a half months, he was allegedly involved in the payola scandal over the passage of the EPIRA Law. That is another long story that is better left to Butch Junia and Mentong Laurel.

Samar HQS
When I learned in December of 2009 that Noynoy had appointed a certain Jojo Ochoa as the scheduler of his campaign over and above his Liberal Party Campaign Manager, Florencio “Butch” Abad of the new KamagAnak, Inc., I was surprised.

When I learned that there was an unofficial rear campaign headquarters on Samar Avenue owned by Jerry Acuzar of San Jose Builders, I knew something was awfully wrong.

When we learned that the MOST Law Partner and Quezon City Administrator Atty. Paquito Jojo Navarro Ochoa would become the Midget President, we realized that there was nothing “Matuwid” about P-Noy.
We knew that the number of “Mahirap” would increase because the reverse of “Walang Mahirap, pag Walang Korap” is “Pag may Korap, may Mahirap”.

What if, may I add, the corrupt come so close to the President? Given that question, the best answer could only be: the number of “Mahirap” and “Naghihirap” will increase.

Dirty Linen Exposed
We started our column last week (A sad 1^st Birthday for an Haciendero!) by relating what P-Noy did and said at the 113^th Anniversary of the DPWH.

There, without naming them, P-Noy said that he is not happy with three of his Cabinet Secretaries. And that these three, he said, keep on bringing him problems without the corresponding solutions.

It had come to the point that he did not want to see them anymore. We also went on to explain why P-Noy does such childish and unprofessional things.

We tried to explain that in his case, it is not only a failure to control internal differences and factions. It is in his character to create, encourage and publicly expose his own dirty linen.

Last week, we found out who the three pet peeves are from an insider to the insiders. Our source is an ally of the formerly Civil now Evil Society. He is only an insider in this faction and not a direct insider in the Aquino  Administration.

According to him, the three Secretaries are: Ricky Carandang of the “Tatlong Itlog”; Ging Quintos Deles of the Peace Process, and Bertie Lim of Tourism. (Although as of this writing, speculations gave a name other than Ricky’s.)

An Insecure Noynoy
These names are completely different from my original three suspects. I had thought that they were DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima, DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo, and DOE Secretary Jose Rene Almendras.

Because of P-Noy’s insecurity, he does not want to be outshone by brighter and noisier subordinates. That goes for De Lima.

However, in Robredo’s case, it is the haciendero trait in P-Noy that makes him detest Robredo. The latter looks too much like a peasant or at the most a “kapatas” to be to P-Noy’s liking.

In the case of Almendras, I guess there were many more fuel price increases than decreases.

Although Ricky Carandang may not be brighter than P-Noy, he tries too hard to be more “Mayabang” than his Boss.

Ging, whom I knew since college days and who is married to my comrade, Jojo Deles, is “pesada” and appears condescending. She just does not have the chameleon abilities of Dinky Juliano Soliman (who, by the way is from Tarlac and most probably from Hacienda Luisita).

My theory holds – to P-Noy Dinky may appear like a peasant, but she is the peasant who got into the Landlord’s household as a cook, maid or “yaya”. She may rub elbows with the “amo.”

Finally, we have Bertie Lim. He was my classmate. I think he never recovered from the scandal when his Undersecretary Enteng Romano (who loved P-Noy better than Kabarilans Rico Puno and Virginia Torres, and, therefore, resigned.) spent so much money to replace the “Wow Philippines!” Tourism program with something new that we can not even remember.

Black and White
After spilling the secret last week, our source threw a question at us.

What do the three hold in common?

They are all Black and Whites that begged Vice President Noli de Castro to take over the Presidency from GMA up to November 30, 2005.

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TEOFISTO ‘TITO’ GUINGONA TODAY, MONDAY, JULY 4, 2011!