I was in the House of Representatives at the time when the very big surplus of the Oil Price Stabilization Fund (OPSF) caught the greedy eyes of our congressmen and senators, particularly Cong. Tony Diaz of Zambales and then-Senator Maceda.
There was, if I can recall correctly, about a ten billion peso (P10B) surplus in the OPSF at that time and the oil companies could not raise the prices of their products due to this big surplus in the OPSF. So, the oil companies approached our greedy congressmen and senators and "suggested" a big fund source for them to get as their pork barrel and this was, you guessed it right, the OPSF.
And so, our greedy congressmen and senators passed a law which transferred the surplus of the OPSF to the general fund (as the OPSF was a trust fund which could not be intermingled with the general fund) and designated it as a fund for the "rehabilitation of Mt. Pinatubo-ravaged areas."
As it turned out, it was our legislators who "ravaged" the fund, together with Saint Cory (who is said to be "not corrupt") and Cong. Andaya, Sr. who was then the corrupt Chairman of the Committee on Plunder este Appropiations!
Tony Diaz presented as part of his liquidation of his fund allocation (from what used to be the OPSF surplus) official receipts from Furusato Japanese Restaurant whose manager was his crony and the amount was staggering, to say the least!Apparently, Diaz had a lot of ghost purchases from Furusato Japanese Restaurant in order to pocket the funds allocated to him (in cahoots, of course, with the manager of the said restaurant).
I do not know where Maceda "invested" his loot; I believe Andaya Sr. bought a mansion in Ayala-Alabang from his share of the loot (the OPSF surplus).
The OPSF comes directly from the consumers and not as a subsidy from the government as Evil Almendras would have us believe. When the price of oil in the world market is low, the price here in the Philippines is not lowered, in order to build a fund (the OPSF) so that when the price in the world market is high, the oil companies can draw from the OPSF (under the strict watchful eyes of the Commission of Audit in Marcos' time). However, during Cory's time (when there was allegedly no corruption), the CoA was instructed by Saint Cory herself to go soft on its audit of the draw-downs of the oil companies from the OPSF. The objective was to deplete the OPSF and "show" that it "does not work" so that it would be abolished. But the OPSF kept on having surpluses so the "bright boys" of Cory came up with the idea of using the OPSF surplus for the "rehabilitation of the Mt. Pinatubo-ravaged areas."
It was ravishing to ravage the OPSF surplus. After the OPSF was wiped out by a "Republic Act," Cory announced that the OPSF was a "failed mechanism" and should be abolished. She then pushed for the deregulation of the oil industry which finally happened under Cory's forced "President" on the people - Fidel Valdez "Deregulation, Globalization and Privatization King" Ramos.
(Anon)
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Origin of the debt economy (Part 2)
BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
9/17-18/2011
Deregulating portfolio investment
If Karl Marx condemned capitalism for alienating man from his labor, maybe he had his consolation, for then, capital was used to mass produce goods to create additional wealth. Today, the capital he condemned has become an instrument to create a much bigger surplus value in an economic system fueled by usury and monetary trading.
Like the workers whose labor was reduced to commodity by the value of their wage, today the capitalists are seeing their capital reduced to commodity by a new class called “money traders” to produce a much greater profit without producing a single product! Thus, if the workers lost control of labor as their property to the capitalists, the capitalists today are losing control of their capital to the usurious money traders!!!
This explains why the usual economic plans for development and industrialization with the government spearheading in constructing strategic industries to serve as base in generating capital, in giving incentives and protection to the manufacturing industry, or in embarking on import substitution were all stultified because the deregulation of interest and the convertibility of the local currency to any foreign currency resulted in the melting of whatever local capital the country could use to create wealth.
To ensure that the new system of money market trading would work unimpeded, the international oligarchy, through the same financial institutions of the World Bank and the IMF, insisted that countries, as a condition for financial assistance, have to pass another law that would strictly prohibit the government from regulating portfolio investment.
Although most of these foreign-imposed laws again take their cover of enticing investment, the bottom line remains that to allow these international hustlers disguised as foreign investors to enter freely, the country paradoxically has to assure them that they are free to take out or remit not just the whole amount they invested, but including the “juice” generated out of that unorthodox method of investment wholly confined to stock and money market trading. That guarantee was made to assure that money traders could bring in and out unhindered their unique commodity.
That then implanted the rules on how to convert our economy to one big casino. But unlike the casinos in Las Vegas, Monaco and Macao where it would take gamblers a zillion dollars to bring to its knees the “dealer,” here our government practically assured them of winning.
One good example is our grant of that humiliating tax exemption to portfolio investors, while treating harshly our own who are engaged in the actual business of trading and production. This has put the government on the defensive, and unable to explain why, despite the huge capital inflow that is recorded and traded daily in the market, the economy continues to slide down to the precipice of bankruptcy.
The casino economy
Capital holders then began to rely more on gambling their capital than in using them to invest in production. It is gambling, much that the trading of money with other currencies bears profit out of intangible transactions, yet it rapidly grew alongside with the decline in production. Having its own realm of demand and supply, countries became helpless in fending off the depreciation of their currency much that their money became more and more dependent on how its value would command at the stock and money market, and not that there has been an increase in production, or positively that people have more money to buy.
Realizing that indeed gambling is lucrative, the government decided to put up its own casinos. In every major city, gambling casinos sprouted like overnight mushrooms. Casinos proved to be profitable because the rate of return is astronomical that the revenue from gambling is almost gaining parity with the revenue generated by the remaining government-owned and controlled corporations. Time will come that instead of taxes and duties, the government will be depending more on proceeds from gambling for its annual budget. That then would put truism to the saying of “only in the Philippines!”
Poor man’s credit card
Before those credit cards were peddled by those neatly-dressed salesmen similar to what vendors do to sell their cheap wares on sidewalks, only a few enjoyed that emblematic seal of financial exclusiveness. They were honored by international banks, and their card denotes they have solid cash deposits, or to put it differently, liquid at all times. Thus, American Express, Visa Platinum and Master Card became their identification as indeed belonging to that “super-select” entitled to be billeted in five star hotels, to enjoy a vacation in first class resorts, to spend time on luxurious cruise ships, or to dine in exclusive clubs and restaurants.
With the legalization of usury, credit cards were soon “doled out” that almost everybody has it now. Banks have to repackage the system to suit to the demands of the wage earners without telling them they were walking straight into the gauntlet of a debt trap. By creating a poor man’s version of a credit card, the banks were in effect tapping a reservoir of funds that could reduce to puny the amount they traditionally collected from the so-called “super-select.” The instrument of credit card made easy for the middle class wage earners to buy expensive items and appliances they could not otherwise afford to pay in cash. The easy installment plan was their gambit.
However, what these eager-beavers failed to foresee is that there was no way they could pay the credit they obtained by the purchase of those goods inside those big malls. Many of them were awakened to find out they were already nose-deep in debt. The logic is simple: the cost of goods they purchase kept on increasing every minute because of interest plus the cost of inflation, while real wages kept on decreasing. It would not take a genius to compute the formula why many of them ended up bankrupt. Aside from the interest and charges, the charges themselves bear interest and computed on a compounded basis.
It is not even a question that their wage remained static, but of the fact that the real value of wage was moving much faster towards the opposite direction. It therefore came as no surprise to see why almost 70 percent of those who were gypped into getting those credit cards failed to pay their obligation. Many ended up poorer than before with the less fortunate losing their dwelling, their car, their appliances, encountering marriage problems, and at times ending up in court answering estafa cases filed by the usurer's collecting agency represented by shoddy law firms.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Rod Kapunan
9/17-18/2011
Deregulating portfolio investment
If Karl Marx condemned capitalism for alienating man from his labor, maybe he had his consolation, for then, capital was used to mass produce goods to create additional wealth. Today, the capital he condemned has become an instrument to create a much bigger surplus value in an economic system fueled by usury and monetary trading.
Like the workers whose labor was reduced to commodity by the value of their wage, today the capitalists are seeing their capital reduced to commodity by a new class called “money traders” to produce a much greater profit without producing a single product! Thus, if the workers lost control of labor as their property to the capitalists, the capitalists today are losing control of their capital to the usurious money traders!!!
This explains why the usual economic plans for development and industrialization with the government spearheading in constructing strategic industries to serve as base in generating capital, in giving incentives and protection to the manufacturing industry, or in embarking on import substitution were all stultified because the deregulation of interest and the convertibility of the local currency to any foreign currency resulted in the melting of whatever local capital the country could use to create wealth.
To ensure that the new system of money market trading would work unimpeded, the international oligarchy, through the same financial institutions of the World Bank and the IMF, insisted that countries, as a condition for financial assistance, have to pass another law that would strictly prohibit the government from regulating portfolio investment.
Although most of these foreign-imposed laws again take their cover of enticing investment, the bottom line remains that to allow these international hustlers disguised as foreign investors to enter freely, the country paradoxically has to assure them that they are free to take out or remit not just the whole amount they invested, but including the “juice” generated out of that unorthodox method of investment wholly confined to stock and money market trading. That guarantee was made to assure that money traders could bring in and out unhindered their unique commodity.
That then implanted the rules on how to convert our economy to one big casino. But unlike the casinos in Las Vegas, Monaco and Macao where it would take gamblers a zillion dollars to bring to its knees the “dealer,” here our government practically assured them of winning.
One good example is our grant of that humiliating tax exemption to portfolio investors, while treating harshly our own who are engaged in the actual business of trading and production. This has put the government on the defensive, and unable to explain why, despite the huge capital inflow that is recorded and traded daily in the market, the economy continues to slide down to the precipice of bankruptcy.
The casino economy
Capital holders then began to rely more on gambling their capital than in using them to invest in production. It is gambling, much that the trading of money with other currencies bears profit out of intangible transactions, yet it rapidly grew alongside with the decline in production. Having its own realm of demand and supply, countries became helpless in fending off the depreciation of their currency much that their money became more and more dependent on how its value would command at the stock and money market, and not that there has been an increase in production, or positively that people have more money to buy.
Realizing that indeed gambling is lucrative, the government decided to put up its own casinos. In every major city, gambling casinos sprouted like overnight mushrooms. Casinos proved to be profitable because the rate of return is astronomical that the revenue from gambling is almost gaining parity with the revenue generated by the remaining government-owned and controlled corporations. Time will come that instead of taxes and duties, the government will be depending more on proceeds from gambling for its annual budget. That then would put truism to the saying of “only in the Philippines!”
Poor man’s credit card
Before those credit cards were peddled by those neatly-dressed salesmen similar to what vendors do to sell their cheap wares on sidewalks, only a few enjoyed that emblematic seal of financial exclusiveness. They were honored by international banks, and their card denotes they have solid cash deposits, or to put it differently, liquid at all times. Thus, American Express, Visa Platinum and Master Card became their identification as indeed belonging to that “super-select” entitled to be billeted in five star hotels, to enjoy a vacation in first class resorts, to spend time on luxurious cruise ships, or to dine in exclusive clubs and restaurants.
With the legalization of usury, credit cards were soon “doled out” that almost everybody has it now. Banks have to repackage the system to suit to the demands of the wage earners without telling them they were walking straight into the gauntlet of a debt trap. By creating a poor man’s version of a credit card, the banks were in effect tapping a reservoir of funds that could reduce to puny the amount they traditionally collected from the so-called “super-select.” The instrument of credit card made easy for the middle class wage earners to buy expensive items and appliances they could not otherwise afford to pay in cash. The easy installment plan was their gambit.
However, what these eager-beavers failed to foresee is that there was no way they could pay the credit they obtained by the purchase of those goods inside those big malls. Many of them were awakened to find out they were already nose-deep in debt. The logic is simple: the cost of goods they purchase kept on increasing every minute because of interest plus the cost of inflation, while real wages kept on decreasing. It would not take a genius to compute the formula why many of them ended up bankrupt. Aside from the interest and charges, the charges themselves bear interest and computed on a compounded basis.
It is not even a question that their wage remained static, but of the fact that the real value of wage was moving much faster towards the opposite direction. It therefore came as no surprise to see why almost 70 percent of those who were gypped into getting those credit cards failed to pay their obligation. Many ended up poorer than before with the less fortunate losing their dwelling, their car, their appliances, encountering marriage problems, and at times ending up in court answering estafa cases filed by the usurer's collecting agency represented by shoddy law firms.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
Friday, September 16, 2011
Lite Moments with the Heavyweights
YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/14-16/2011
Exchange among Publisher Ray L. Junia and Editor-in-Chief Luchie Aclan Arguelles and Newsboy Linggoy: at the OpinYon Editorial Offices at the Lower Ground Floor of Cityland 9 Building, # 7648 along de la Rosa Street in Makati City:
Newsboy Linggoy - Boss, Let’s launch our third weekly issue ASAP. Since we already have OpinYon Regular and OpinYon Lite, let us call it OpinYon Zero.
Publisher Ray L. Junia & Editor Luchie A. Arguelles - We thought you were complaining about OpinYon Lite. Can you write five columns (including two days, Monday and Friday in Diaryo Pinoy) per week? Can you still carry a hundred to a hundred and fifty copies at a time?
Newsboy Linggoy - Zero stands for zero criticism. So I’m disqualified from writing for the Zero issue just as Ka Mentong is disqualified from writing for the Lite issue. His topics are always heavy and serious. So, I will keep on writing four times a week but deliver five issues per week. That’s my problem.
With GMA
Let’s go on with other heavyweights as I recall my light moments with them:
In 1997 former President GMA was still Senator but angling to run for President in May 1998. She had just organized the Kampi as her own political party. She convinced former Cong. Jose “Peping” Sumulong Cojuangco to be her campaign manager and Cong. Emigdio “Ding” Tanjuatco to be the Kampi Chairman, President or Secretary General.
The whole of 1997, a full year before the election, she was going all over the country.
Her goal was to match her late father, former President Diosdado Macapagal, Jr., and visit all the 1,560 municipalities before the Presidential elections.
4 by 4s
When she sortied in Davao del Sur, I (As the Kampi Regional Desk Officer for Region II composed of four Davaos, Gen. Santos City and South Cotabato.) was one of those who escorted her. She was using a Ford F 150 4 x 4 which was a bit high for her shortness.
However, she always managed to climb up to the front passenger seat.
Until one time, the driver failed to see that he had stopped right beside a big pothole.
The depth of the pothole was just enough to make it impossible for GMA to climb up.
It so happened that I was the person nearest to her. My choices were to either carry her bodily or go done on all my fours and let her step on my back and use me as a bench to get up and on to the front seat of the F 150 4 x 4.
On my 4s
Guess! What did I do?
If I carried her, I might hold a wrong part of her body.
What would happen when she became President and remembered the “chancing”?
So, I went down on my fours. Let the indignity be mine and not hers.
But if this is a true story, she should have appointed me to something better than a member of the PCSO Board of Directors.
The story is apocryphal.
Sorry! I just like to imagine what could have been…
With Erap
Former President Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada and Story Teller Linggoy have too many things to share that it would take a book thicker than his biography.
We will have to wait for a future time to share these stories with you.
But hold on please. “Baka may daplis sa baba.”
With FVR
In 1991, former President Fidel V. Ramos wanted to run for President but he did not have a political party to run under.
FVR joined the Lakas ng Demokratikong Pilipino. He ran against Speaker Ramon V. Mitra in a series of informal Regional Conventions.
He lost in the vast majority of them.
With Cory
Although Cory had fired me as Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission in November of 1989, Mitra and the LDP had not fired me as the LDP Intelligence Officer.
Cory fired me for publicly predicting the December 1, 1989 Coup.
In December 1992, our intelligence indicated that FVR was going to bolt the party and still run for President.
FVR Cornered
FVR and I met at a baptism of the daughter of DZRH’s Eloy Aquino.
The reception was at a Chinese restaurant. We were seated at a typical round table.
Aside from FVR, Eloy, her husband, and I, former General and then EIIB Director Jose Almonte, Jr., Rey Langit and several other media practitioners were with us around the table or within earshot.
I had picked up a few bits of information from my classmate, friend and sometime lawyer, now Justice Antonio T. Carpio.
He had been helping FVR. He told me that FVR had been scheduled to bolt the LDP a few nights before but at the last minute postponed it.
I filled in the blanks and bluffed FVR:
I said: “Sir, the other night, the LDP held a meeting at the sixth floor executive lounge of the Jose Cojuangco & Sons Building on de la Rosa and Palanca Streets in Legaspi Village, Makati City.
“After the meeting, you and Peping went up to his office on the seventh floor. After a brief talk, you went back to the lounge, picked up one of the phones beside a couch and called your backroom boys in your war room at Perea Street. ‘Hindi tuloy. Pwede na kayo umuwi’. , you whispered.”
So I asked, “Sir, anong hindi tuloy?”
Riding the Tide
The table burst in intriguing laughter. Rey Langit kidded FVR that I was the master spy and expert in electronic surveillance and that I was bugging him.
FVR’s face turned red.
Later on, I found out from his boys that he inquired whether all the phones in their political headquarters and offices were being swept.
When told that they were doing it every day, he ordered a morning, noon and night routine.
For the Books
The light and heavy moments between former President Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino and NTC Commissioner and Coup prophet and seer Linggoy Alcuaz will require another book.
However, just to give a preview, let me say that Cory appointed me in spite of being Ninoy’s friend and fellow conspirator for several reasons.
When I visited them in Boston from 1980 – 82, I did not smoke. I often offered to help Cory with the dishes. I never took Ninoy out.
We met and talked in their home, either in his study or in the dining room.
To do justice to former Speaker Ramon V. Mitra and the LDP and as their former Intelligence Officer, another book will be up coming.
Oh my God, there is so much justice to be done! Let me give you a preview of parts of my future books.
Snippets
Miriam in wrong meeting: Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago once went to the wrong room, intruded into an ongoing committee hearing and called the hearing to order again. Nobody dared to tell her that she was wrong.
‘Sticky’ Nani: I designed and printed stickers with a moustache (representing DOJ Sec. Nani Perez) for Cong. Mark Jimenez. However, since he was handcuffed, Cong. Prospero Pichay and Willie Villarama had to be the ones to distribute and stick the stickers.
Slice of the Cake: I requested former Senator and Executive Secretary Bert Romulo in October 2001 to replace me as a PCSO Director with my wife, Baby, so that as Big Mike put it, I could have my cake and eat it too.
Blank Check: I owe my promotion to NTC Commissioner to Senator and former Executive Sec. Joker Arroyo and his one-minute rule. On July 4, 1986, during the Manila Hotel incident, he gave me a blank check.
Funny Moments in Next Issue:In future columns, I will share with you my funny moments with: Press Sec Bunye in Muntinglupa and at the PCSO; Press Sec Noel Cabrera and the lababo; DOTC Sec Nani Perez; DOTC Sec Rainerio Reyes; DOTC Usec Maning Domingo; PC Chief/INP Dir. Gen Ramon Montano, and many others.
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/14-16/2011
Exchange among Publisher Ray L. Junia and Editor-in-Chief Luchie Aclan Arguelles and Newsboy Linggoy: at the OpinYon Editorial Offices at the Lower Ground Floor of Cityland 9 Building, # 7648 along de la Rosa Street in Makati City:
Newsboy Linggoy - Boss, Let’s launch our third weekly issue ASAP. Since we already have OpinYon Regular and OpinYon Lite, let us call it OpinYon Zero.
Publisher Ray L. Junia & Editor Luchie A. Arguelles - We thought you were complaining about OpinYon Lite. Can you write five columns (including two days, Monday and Friday in Diaryo Pinoy) per week? Can you still carry a hundred to a hundred and fifty copies at a time?
Newsboy Linggoy - Zero stands for zero criticism. So I’m disqualified from writing for the Zero issue just as Ka Mentong is disqualified from writing for the Lite issue. His topics are always heavy and serious. So, I will keep on writing four times a week but deliver five issues per week. That’s my problem.
With GMA
Let’s go on with other heavyweights as I recall my light moments with them:
In 1997 former President GMA was still Senator but angling to run for President in May 1998. She had just organized the Kampi as her own political party. She convinced former Cong. Jose “Peping” Sumulong Cojuangco to be her campaign manager and Cong. Emigdio “Ding” Tanjuatco to be the Kampi Chairman, President or Secretary General.
The whole of 1997, a full year before the election, she was going all over the country.
Her goal was to match her late father, former President Diosdado Macapagal, Jr., and visit all the 1,560 municipalities before the Presidential elections.
4 by 4s
When she sortied in Davao del Sur, I (As the Kampi Regional Desk Officer for Region II composed of four Davaos, Gen. Santos City and South Cotabato.) was one of those who escorted her. She was using a Ford F 150 4 x 4 which was a bit high for her shortness.
However, she always managed to climb up to the front passenger seat.
Until one time, the driver failed to see that he had stopped right beside a big pothole.
The depth of the pothole was just enough to make it impossible for GMA to climb up.
It so happened that I was the person nearest to her. My choices were to either carry her bodily or go done on all my fours and let her step on my back and use me as a bench to get up and on to the front seat of the F 150 4 x 4.
On my 4s
Guess! What did I do?
If I carried her, I might hold a wrong part of her body.
What would happen when she became President and remembered the “chancing”?
So, I went down on my fours. Let the indignity be mine and not hers.
But if this is a true story, she should have appointed me to something better than a member of the PCSO Board of Directors.
The story is apocryphal.
Sorry! I just like to imagine what could have been…
With Erap
Former President Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada and Story Teller Linggoy have too many things to share that it would take a book thicker than his biography.
We will have to wait for a future time to share these stories with you.
But hold on please. “Baka may daplis sa baba.”
With FVR
In 1991, former President Fidel V. Ramos wanted to run for President but he did not have a political party to run under.
FVR joined the Lakas ng Demokratikong Pilipino. He ran against Speaker Ramon V. Mitra in a series of informal Regional Conventions.
He lost in the vast majority of them.
With Cory
Although Cory had fired me as Commissioner of the National Telecommunications Commission in November of 1989, Mitra and the LDP had not fired me as the LDP Intelligence Officer.
Cory fired me for publicly predicting the December 1, 1989 Coup.
In December 1992, our intelligence indicated that FVR was going to bolt the party and still run for President.
FVR Cornered
FVR and I met at a baptism of the daughter of DZRH’s Eloy Aquino.
The reception was at a Chinese restaurant. We were seated at a typical round table.
Aside from FVR, Eloy, her husband, and I, former General and then EIIB Director Jose Almonte, Jr., Rey Langit and several other media practitioners were with us around the table or within earshot.
I had picked up a few bits of information from my classmate, friend and sometime lawyer, now Justice Antonio T. Carpio.
He had been helping FVR. He told me that FVR had been scheduled to bolt the LDP a few nights before but at the last minute postponed it.
I filled in the blanks and bluffed FVR:
I said: “Sir, the other night, the LDP held a meeting at the sixth floor executive lounge of the Jose Cojuangco & Sons Building on de la Rosa and Palanca Streets in Legaspi Village, Makati City.
“After the meeting, you and Peping went up to his office on the seventh floor. After a brief talk, you went back to the lounge, picked up one of the phones beside a couch and called your backroom boys in your war room at Perea Street. ‘Hindi tuloy. Pwede na kayo umuwi’. , you whispered.”
So I asked, “Sir, anong hindi tuloy?”
Riding the Tide
The table burst in intriguing laughter. Rey Langit kidded FVR that I was the master spy and expert in electronic surveillance and that I was bugging him.
FVR’s face turned red.
Later on, I found out from his boys that he inquired whether all the phones in their political headquarters and offices were being swept.
When told that they were doing it every day, he ordered a morning, noon and night routine.
For the Books
The light and heavy moments between former President Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino and NTC Commissioner and Coup prophet and seer Linggoy Alcuaz will require another book.
However, just to give a preview, let me say that Cory appointed me in spite of being Ninoy’s friend and fellow conspirator for several reasons.
When I visited them in Boston from 1980 – 82, I did not smoke. I often offered to help Cory with the dishes. I never took Ninoy out.
We met and talked in their home, either in his study or in the dining room.
To do justice to former Speaker Ramon V. Mitra and the LDP and as their former Intelligence Officer, another book will be up coming.
Oh my God, there is so much justice to be done! Let me give you a preview of parts of my future books.
Snippets
Miriam in wrong meeting: Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago once went to the wrong room, intruded into an ongoing committee hearing and called the hearing to order again. Nobody dared to tell her that she was wrong.
‘Sticky’ Nani: I designed and printed stickers with a moustache (representing DOJ Sec. Nani Perez) for Cong. Mark Jimenez. However, since he was handcuffed, Cong. Prospero Pichay and Willie Villarama had to be the ones to distribute and stick the stickers.
Slice of the Cake: I requested former Senator and Executive Secretary Bert Romulo in October 2001 to replace me as a PCSO Director with my wife, Baby, so that as Big Mike put it, I could have my cake and eat it too.
Blank Check: I owe my promotion to NTC Commissioner to Senator and former Executive Sec. Joker Arroyo and his one-minute rule. On July 4, 1986, during the Manila Hotel incident, he gave me a blank check.
Funny Moments in Next Issue:In future columns, I will share with you my funny moments with: Press Sec Bunye in Muntinglupa and at the PCSO; Press Sec Noel Cabrera and the lababo; DOTC Sec Nani Perez; DOTC Sec Rainerio Reyes; DOTC Usec Maning Domingo; PC Chief/INP Dir. Gen Ramon Montano, and many others.
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