Much ado has been made about Liberal presidential candidate Benigno Aquino III’s alleged depression when he was 19, and when he was in his thirties.
Both reports have been shown to be fake, but what’s more troubling, really, aside from the depths that politicians stoop to for a win, is how stupid everyone is being over depression itself.
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.
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.
Either Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo has been a Leftist sympathizer all along, or he just doesn’t give a damn anymore because when you’re the President’s son, victory is pretty much a sure thing.
The Makabayan Coalition, composed of eight progressive people’s organizations, has accused Arroyo and the party-list group of tricycle drivers and security guards that he claims to represent of plagiarism.
Allegedly, Arroyo’s Ang Galing Pinoy party-list copied militant party-list Bayan Muna’s constitution and by-laws pretty much to the letter. According to Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares, the basic documents that Ang Galing Pinoy submitted to the Commission on Elections were very lazily copy-pasted.
A statement on the Makabayan web sitesums it up thus:
Ang Galing Pinoy was found to have plagiarized the following from the Bayan Muna Constitution even copying the exact number of articles and sections:
(i) Bayan Muna’s 10 point program in its Constitution, including its vision of establishing a nationalist and democratic government.
(ii) A word for word copying of Bayan Muna’s organizational structure and membership principles, even copying Bayan Muna’s provisions on Intermediate Leading Bodies and Barangay chapters.
(iii) Ang Galing Pinoy also copied Bayan Muna’s Special Provisions on the formation of alliances and regional parties and even how to generate funding and resources.
“Rep. Arroyo’s group is so completely detached from the marginalized sectors that it doesn’t even know the issues and condition of the poor they have to copy Bayan Muna’s declaration of principles and even organizational structures,” says Colmenares.
While probably true, a more simple explanation presents itself: Mikey is an asshole.
(Thanks, FreeSince09)
Remember that grade school retort “wala yan sa lolo ko? (roughly: my grandfather is even more badass than that)” that nobody ever really used except ironically?
Makes as much sense as declaring Martial Law in Maguindanao over what ought to have been a straightforward investigation. The Ampatuans just might be able to paint themselves as underdogs here.
With magic man, and senator, Francis “Chiz†Escudero’s decision not to run for president (or at all) in 2010, our hopes of a perfect tandem have forever been shattered. Indolent Indio had been waiting to throw our support behind a superhero team up of Senator Richard Gordon with Escudero as his VP if for nothing else but to be able to say Dick-Chiz with a straight face.
Motorists who have been turned away from gas stations with no gas, and those who have been left with no choice but to stock whatever was available (suspiciously, the more expensive Shell V-Power) will be glad to know that the past few days were all just a bad dream.
The Nacionalista Party, led by Senator Manuel Villar, Jr., wants Senator Benigno Aquino III investigated for allegedly lobbying for the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway. Said project allegedly benefited his properties, you see.
And now for something completely different:
damned dirty ape
(Thx, spy mouse!)