We are getting a study in contrast between former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and incumbent President Benigno Simeon Aquino III.
While BSA III continues to display, by his own admission, a streak of vindictiveness, former President Arroyo exudes equanimity and quiet grace while languishing in hospital detention. She is suffering from cervical spine ailment, a rare and life-threatening bone disorder. There are no known medical experts in this country who can treat the former President.
Mrs. Arroyo is detained at the Veterans Medical Hospital on charges of plunder filed by the Office of the Ombudsman, allegedly for misusing Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds.
She is yet to be found guilty after three years of hospital arrest. But with the glacial pace of her trial at the Sandiganbayan, she might as well have been sentenced to death as she is steadily wasting away. She is down to 80 pounds and continues to lose weight as she is having difficulty swallowing food.
Mrs. Arroyo, who showed a more Christian disposition, allowed then-detained former President Joseph Estrada to seek medical attention for a much-needed knee surgery. This, while Erap was detained and already convicted of plunder.
Former President Ferdinand Marcos in 1980 released from detention PNoy’s father, the late Senator Ninoy Aquino, to undergo a heart bypass heart surgery in the US.
But when it comes to his friends, like PNP Chief Alan Purisma who has been accused of corruption and unexplained wealth before the Office of the Ombudsman, President Noynoy Aquino is quick to defend his mother’s former close-in security.
“I know Alan Purisma as someone who’s not given to greed or extravagance and he’s doing his job well,” said Aquino to the disbelief of the public which is seeing a surge in criminality. Most of the high-profile crimes such as kidnapping, carnapping, and assassinations are committed by policeman under Purisima’s watch.
Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and 15 others have been charged with graft in connection with the allegedly anomalous maintenance contract of the Metro Rail Transit. Abaya, former MRT manager Al Vitangcol and members of the Bids and Awards Committeee are under indictment for awarding without public bidding the service contract to a company owned by Vitangcol’s relative.
Without any track record of train maintenance, PH Trams CBT & T is blamed for the frequent breakdown of MRT trains to the detriment of the riding public.
Three other Cabinet members —Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman and Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala--have also been accused of graft but Aquino has shielded them from prosecution.
Abad, the architect of the Disbursement Acceleration Program declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, continues to enjoy Aquino’s confidence. Under his Machiavellian management of government funds, he has been able to hide from congressional scrutiny lump sums in the 2015 national budget.
Dinky Soliman has been asked to account for more than P62 billion she has doled out under the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer program for the poor. She is also being asked to explain why she kept in a DSWD bank account foreign donations intended for Typhoon Yolanda victims.
Alcala, on the other hand, has been linked to rice smuggling but charges have yet to be filed. The agriculture secretary is a key member of the ruling Liberal Party.
I have already written about this in previous column as others have, but it might be best to remind the President in case he has attention deficit disorder that his “bosses,” the people, are waiting for him to clean up his Cabinet.
Specter of ISIS
Even as the military establishment tries to downplay the specter of ISIS here, there are signs the terrorist threat is already operating in Mindanao. A photo taken in 2012 of the ISIS black banner unfurled by heavily armed new recruits in Basilan would prove the ISIS scourge is more than just “raw information” as claimed by an AFP spokesman..
ISIS stands for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a group formed by radical Islamist rebels from the two Middle Eastern countries presently in the throes of a civil war.
The Department of Foreign Affairs also sent a confidential memo to the AFP informing it of the death of two Filipino ISIS recruits in Syria.
Could this be another failure of intelligence as when the Moro National Liberation Front of Nur Misuari suddenly laid siege to Zamboanga City? Zamboanguenos are still feeling the effects of the MNLF siege with many of those displaced by the fighting still living in evacuation centers.
Will ISIS affect congressional passage of the proposed Bangsamoro? There are fears in Mindanao’s Christian communities an autonomous Bangsamoro could be a precursor to an independent, separate state supported by the well-funded ISIS.
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