Achieving Happiness

Juice ko! Pagkatapos daot-dautin ng mga katulad nina Raul Gonzalez at iba pang elitista sa gobyernong ito (sandamkmak sila) ,   si Erap Estrada dahil artista at naging pulitiko, eto naman at mabaliw-baliw sa tuwa ang mga alyado ni Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo na tatakbo na sa ilalim ng bandila ng administrasyon ang Bench model at kontra-bida sa Captain Barbell na si Richard Gomez.
Majority leader Prospero Nograles is quoted as saying that Goma’s inclusion in the admin slate will draw crowds to their rallies and meetings.
Juice ko ulit.

I wonder what kind of platform of government Goma will present. Probably one that focuses on the campaign against drug addiction and one on sports. Play basketball and don’t do drugs. After all, he once ran for congress under the Mamamayan Ayaw sa Droga (MAD) party-list (which was exposed to be directly led and funded by one of the ruling parties (I don’t remember which, Lakas-NUCD?)

I never liked Gomez. I think the first and last time I was ever intrigued by him was when I saw him play a mentally retarded person who had the power to talk to and command snakes in the movie ‘Tuklaw.’ I was what, 10 years old?
He has always seemed like an arrogant person, quick to take offense, self-righteous to a fault, with a superiority complex to boot. I will admit that I do try to keep up with local showbiz news (especially when I was editor of Hong Kong News and had to edit showbiz stories for the Palabas section), and Goma has always struck me as someone very ambitious, but also very full of himself.

I wonder what makes him think that he can run for public office. I mean, sure that he’s good looking and popular (not that the former was ever a requirement for politicians, but it does help that one doesn’t look like a rock or a foot), but what the heck are his stands on national issues?! How does he analyze the current economic and political situation?! How are his diplomacy skills? (He loses his temper in basketball competitions with his fellow actors, for crying out loud).

But it’s not really Richard Gomez who deserves the flak here. It’s the Macapagal-Arroyo camp and its increasing desperation. Gad, now Gloria and her slate will be pinning their hopes on an actor who played a evil metal-man on a local soap opera (that had a plot ripped off from Smallville). They’re hoping that if they make Goma sing and dance and flash his wide, toothy smile at the crowd, they will forget all about the president Goma and his slate-mates are supporting and trying to save.
I want to be fair to Goma — hey, maybe the guy does have a few intelligent and pro-people ideas up his noggin — but the fact that he chose to run under the Arroyo slate is so against him.

Also, I haven’t forgotten  how he campaigned for the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in 1997, and he looked so silly and fake in a Barong Tagalog.
If we put Chiz Escudero or Alan Peter Cayetano (he   definitely has my vote) next to Goma, who will command more respect and not just get catcalls?

—-

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s generic and almost
scripted response to the Melo Commission’s report was expected, but it’s
obvious that she still wants to keep up the pretense that she is giving full
importance to the issue of extra-judicial killings by asking the European
Union’s assistance in further investigating the matter. She has completely
ignored the report of the Nobel Prize winning international human rights
institution Amnesty International on the killings; if the EU lays down the
exact same findings and conclusions, that the extra-judicial killings of human
rights advocates and political activists are a state policy, will
Macapagal-Arroyo respect the EU’s findings?

Where’s the report? We want to see it and analyze it in full. Macapagal-Arroyo is clearly going to
use the report and flaunt it in the international community as proof that she
has acted on the extra-judicial killings. Already, the representative of the
European Union (EU) Alastair MacDonald has said that the report was a good beginning,
but foreign diplomats and the rest of the international community should know
that it’s a report that none of the families of the victims support or laud.

Arroyo’s silence on the issues of command
responsibility and the Melo Commission’s conclusion that Major Gen. Jovito
Palparan is behind the killings exposes her true approach to the matter. She is
deliberately ignoring the Commission’s most important finding, that Palparan is
responsible for the killings. By doing this, she once more absolves Palparan
and puts him under the cloak of her protection. By protecting Palparan, she
also saves herself because both of them are the masterminds of the bloody
campaign against political activists and human rights workers. She has no
genuine intention to give justice to the victims of extra-judicial killings and
to go after the perpetrators. A shocking 830 activists, members of progressive
party-lists, and human rights advocates have been killed since her term began, and none of the killers have been
brought to justice.

Also, Macapagal-Arroyo’s orders to the Department of Justice and the
Department of National Defense (DND) to coordinate with the Commission on Human
Rights was also for show. He said that Sec. Raul Gonzales himself admires
Palparan and wanted him to work at thee DOJ. Sec. Gonzalez is one of Palparan’s
biggest fans, and next to National Security adviser Norberto Gonzales, is the
most virulently anti-human rights bureaucrat under Macapagal-Arroyo.

The DND, and the DOJ aim to shield Palparan and the Armed
Forces of the Philippines from criminal charges and liability for the killings. AFP chief of staff
Hermogenes Esperon himself has already said that the military cannot and will
not go after Palparan because the latter is already retired and out of the
service. The machinery that Macapagal-Arroyo is mobilizing to supposedly act on
the issue of extra-judicial killings is oriented towards protecting the killers
and ensuring that the investigations never end in the conviction of the
perpetrators.

Her hypocrisy in declaring that she upholds human rights and
abhors human rights violations is most contemptible. If Macapagal-Arroyo were
sincere in putting a stop to the political killings, she would have publicly
ordered the scrapping of the AFP’s Oplan Bantay Laya I and II, and thrown
Palparan behind bars long ago. She has consistently refused to give up Palparan
and instead held him up as an example to the rest of the AFP – a model killing
machine. How does she sleep at night knowing full well that she condones and
supports the brutal killing of activists, journalists and human rights
advocates? It is most certain that the international human rights community can
see through her double talk and her hypocrisy. Her administration’s attack
against Amnesty International has already cemented her government’s true
character as anti-human rights.

In the meantime, ano kaya kung patakbuhin ni Arroyo si Palparan?

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