New Villar tactic: Run to mommy

Furthering eroding Tondo‘s image as a land of the tough, Nacionalista Party presidential candidate Senator Manuel Villar Jr. brings out the toughest member of his posse: his mother.

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PGMA’s Manicurist at Pag-IBIG? Hell, Why Not?

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has apparently appointed her manicurist to the board of the Pag-IBIG fund, a government corporation that gets a portion of our salaries each month in the hopes of getting a housing loan someday. The President’s gardener has also reportedly been appointed to a debatably plum position as deputy of the Luneta Park Administration. But deputy presidential spokesman (and all-around patsy) Gary Olivar asks in all seriousness, “why not?”

We do not want people saying gardeners and manicurists do not deserve to get government posts. Ordinary citizens need representation too.

And, really, technically speaking, Olivar is right. The President’s manicurist is a regular government employee (hired to do the President’s nails), and has as much right as any other government employee to sit on the Pag-IBIG board.

And, I suppose, Luneta has gardens and plants that the Presidential gardener is eminently qualified to tend to.

So it’s all perfectly legal, I guess. In the same way that every scandal that the President has figured in has been ‘perfectly legal’.

What Olivar hasn’t addressed, aside from his disconnect with reality, though, is that those appointments would never have gone to these ‘ordinary citizens’ had they been just that, ordinary.

It’s nepotism at its most pathetic. It’s sort of sad,really,that  the President has run out of friends to give government appointments to.

Mikey Arroyo: Comelec can’t disqualify me!

Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo, party-list nominee of security guard group Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP), hit back today at attempts to have him disqualified for not actually being part of a marginalized sector. Instead of defending AGP as a legitimate sectoral group, or arguing that even douche bag politicians can be marginalized, he plans to nip the issue at the bud by questioning whether the Commission on Elections can disqualify him at all.

"They're not the boss of me..."

Unfortunately, we were not able to get a direct quote of how Rep. Arroyo figures that the constitutional body that governs elections in the country does not have the power to revoke his candidacy. Still and all, today marks the day that we topped our 2010 quota on our gross national what-the-fuckery.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: An Open Letter

To the Alumni Association:

It was with a heavy sense of disappointment that I read about the decision of the Ateneo’s Board of Trustees to unanimously reject Mr. Manuel Pangilinan’s resignation from the board over the plagiarized commencement speech delivered to this year’s graduating class.

In my twelve years at the Ateneo, I was taught that plagiarism, along with other acts of dishonesty, was wrong. I prided myself in attending a school with an honor code, and that took that code seriously.

 

I believe that rejecting Mr. Pangilinan’s offer to resign, especially in view of his numerous contributions to the University, belittles the act of plagiarism as well as his supremely Atenean act of owning up to his mistake.

 

I no longer wish to be counted as a member of the Ateneo Alumni Association, and am requesting that my name be removed from all mailing lists and e-mail lists.

 

While the Ateneo loses nothing by losing me as an alumnus, I believe that I lose more by claiming to be an alumnus of a school that taught me most of the values that I hold dear, and that I still try to live by, but sets these values aside for whatever consideration. This is not the Ateneo way.

Is this Sen. Aquino’s psych profile?

Just one question about this supposed psychological report on Senator Benigno Aquino III:

What was Fr. Carmelo Caluag doing signing reports at the Ateneo Psych department?

(Got this in my spam folder, so…)