Beware!

By Ellen Tordesillas

February 6 ,2009

When Gloria Arroyo last week ordered Lakas and Kampi, her political parties to merge, her minions quickly added that charter change is dead in the water.

They tried to give the public the impression that they are preparing for the 2010 elections.

Beware! It’s all part of the genius of Gloria Arroyo in putting one over the Filipino people. She has gotten away with it several time since 2001; she has no reason to stop doing it this time.

Just when her political adviser Gabby Claudio gathered leaders of Kampi and Lakas to work on that merger, the resolution of House Speaker Prospero Nograles to amend the Constitution’s economic provision passed the House committee on constitutional amendments.

Given the dominance of pork barrel-satisfied House members, Nograles resolution should have no problem in the plenary voting.

Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros warned the public of the bigger sinister agenda of the Nograles resolution. “We believe that the so-called economic reforms will be used as a Trojan horse to introduce amendments to the political provisions, specifically to lift term limits,” she said. “Under the approved resolution, nothing prevents the House majority from extending the term of GMA.”

The passage of Nograles’ resolution confirms Malacañang’s Cha-Cha timetable. Passage of the House resolution in March. Since it will bypass the Senate where it has no chance of being passed, it is expected that someone will question it before the Supreme Court.

No problem. Arroyo has enough minions in the Supreme Court to uphold the continuing travesty of the Constitution. The referendum is expected to be held in September. Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno has laid down the machinery in the local government to ensure that Arroyo and the whole cabal including him will continue to be in power as long as they want.

People, beware!

***

Dr. Cecilia Llave, chairman of the UP-PGH Cancer Institute, has written to friends warning them of spurious email asking money (1900 pounds) because she was supposed to be stranded in the United Kingdom after her bag was stolen.

Cecile is my oncologist.

A complete lie, Cecile said.

One of the programs being carried out by the Cancer Institute is the Cervical Cancer Prevention Center supported by the JHPIEGO an affiliate of John Hopkins Hospital.

Cecile notified us that “someone hacked into our CECAP email address and sent out a letter using my name, saying that I have been stranded abroad and all money and pertinent documents have been stolen and that I am in debt and need financial assistance.

“None of those is true. I am still in the Philippines and have not been out of the country for quite a while. So please ignore that email and DON’T send the letter-writer any money should you been contacted by him/her again. Whoever is sending that email has apparently accessed our email directory as well, so everyone in that directory might receive that fraudulent letter.

“Also, we can no longer access our CECAP email address, so please be wary of any email bearing that address because it could not come from us. We will inform you of our new CECAP email address if we fail to recover and secure the original one.

“I am sorry if that email has caused you some inconvenience. I understand that such kind of scam has been going around for some time now, and it is unfortunate that CECAP has become one of its victims as well.”