Winners and losers in SC’s rule on RH

By Emil Jurado

After Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman’s criminal neglect, utter incompetence and failure to bring aid and relief to Yolanda’s survivors in Samar and Leyte, she has become a comedian. 

Upon being informed that the Department of Social Welfare and Development was peddling relief bags of rice in Tacloban despite the big red sign “DSWD Not for Sale,” guess what she did: She fumed and went mad at the poor peddler who bought the bags of rice and had the peddler’s goods confiscated.

But Santa Banana, who sold those bags in the first place? Not the store owner. They could not have come from nobody else but from Dinky’s own people. That had happened before.

Which makes this caper very funny. Instead of finding out from her own people who sold those rice bags in the first place, Dinky penalized the buyer.

Reproductive Health Law proponents and pro-lifers or those against the law both claim victory after the Supreme Court ruled the law as constitutional but struck down several portions of it as unconstitutional.

While the RH law has now the go-signal from the High Court for it implementation, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippine claims that then law got watered down because some parts of its with reference to health workers, minors and government people were declared unconstitutional.

The watered-down portions of the RH law were small comfort to the Catholic Church which had lobbied strongly against the law that made it a state policy to promote contraception and sale of the so-called abortifacient medicines. In other words, the law goes against everything a true Catholic believes in.

Actually, the winners in this decision are not the Filipino people as a whole, not even the proponents of the law and its advocates.

Santa Banana, the real winners are foreign interests, like the United States, the United Nations and the West in general. They all are in favor of population control worldwide, especially among third world countries like the Philippines. Likewise, another big winner are the multi-national firms peddling condoms, IUDs or Intrauterine Devices to prevent conception, morning after pills and other abortifacient medicine. It’s a multi-billion industry that won, not the Filipino people, my gulay!

Let’s rewind a bit, and see how the Aquino administration has been made a patsy in the enactment of the Reproductive Health Law ruled as not unconstitutional by the High Court.

Way back in 1974, the United States came out with its National Security Study Memorandum, otherwise known as the Kissinger Report entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interest.” The report showed the concern for “US security and overseas interests.” I have a copy of such report, about which I wrote years back when the RH law was debated in Congress.

The Report focused on 13 key countries for its population control program, namely, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia, Columbia and of course, the Philippines, seeking to downsize their population to only two children.

My gulay, by what means would population control be implemented? By means of contraception, sterilization, and even abortion. While, we in the Philippines have not legalized abortion, it may soon come since the government has already opened its doors for it.

For what purpose the US and other foreign interests are keen on population control? For one thing, population growth, especially when a country has a large young people, the US and foreign interests consider them threats to further US own interests, like colonization and control of natural resources. That’s why Washington so readily grants the Aquino government aid not to further Philippine interests but its own.

Be that as it may, the Supreme Court has spoken and as I always say, whether we like it or not, admit it or not, when the gods of Mount Olympus speak, that’s the law.

As for me, as a faithful Roman Catholic, who believes in Catholic dogma and the gospel, I hate to see the day when the country will legalize abortion, same-sex marriages and the paganization of the country. Most importantly, that my taxes which I pay religiously will promote everything I am against. Fortunately, I will no longer be around when these things happen.

* * * 

There’s no doubt that Metro Rail Transit General Manager Al Vitangcol and company whom Czech Republic Ambassador Josef Rychtar had accused of trying to extort money from Inekon, the Czech Republic group that wanted to supply MRT coaches to expand its services, are being protected by people up there.

It’s very clear that if Malacañang and Department of Transportation and Communication Secretary Jun Abaya were honest enough and truly sincere in digging deep into this scandal, the investigation should been have finished already.

But, my gulay, what can you expect from an administration that investigates its own? Nothing, but absolutely nothing. And that caper was exposed way back in July 2012 by Rychtar himself.

Now that Rychtar is resurrecting his charges of extortion and is even willing to shed his parliamentary immunity to appear before a congressional investigation, comes palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda castigating the ambassador for talking to media. The pieces are coming together- Vitangcol and company won’t be found guilty, much less fired by Malacañang since people up there are all in it together.

President Aquino and Abaya may not realize it, but at the rate they are trying to whitewash this scandal, the names of presidential sister, Balsy and husband, Eldon, will never be erased from the minds of the people of their involvement, which to me, is unfortunate since no less than Rychtar has absolved them.

One thing about the Aquino administration, it always tries to protect one of its own whenever they are exposed. Now, the administration is circling the wagon, as it were, to clear Vitangcol and company of involvement. Santa Banana, it’s becoming a habit for this administration to deny any wrongdoing by its people. Well, it’s least that’s one thing the administration is good at.

* * * 

I cannot believe that Delfin Lee’s Globe Asiatique (GA) was not given special treatment when former Vice President Noli de Castro was then the “housing czar.”

For one thing, how could Pag-ibig which funded Lee has given such a huge amount of money like P5 billion to have it function as a developer when the funding commitment line given by Pag-Ibig to developers was a maximum of P500 million and the buyback period was only two years.

In the case of Lee’s GA, Pag-Ibig claimed that GA was a big project, or a township development so much so that a five-year buyback guarantee was given to Lee.

It’s for this reason why there’s need for the Senate committee investigating the Delfin Lee scam to ask him to appear before the Senate and former Pag-Ibig officials also to shed light on the mechanics of granting Lee a special privilege over and above that given to ordinary developers.

Globe Asiatique has been charged with granting loans to “ghost buyers” and double-titling when Pag-Ibig found that the total cost of the take-out of GA had amounted to P7.016 billion. In July 2010, Pag-ibig revoked the authority granted to GA to evaluate the borrowers and it was also during that same period that GA failed to remit its collections to Pag-Ibig, which led to the cancellation of the Collection Serving Agreement of Lee.

By October 2010, after President Aquino assumed office, GA and its key officials were blacklisted by Pag-ibig for failing to buy back some 1,753 borrowers amounting to P1.2 billion for its Xevera II project alone. My gulay, that would not have happened if Pag-Ibig had only done its job in ascertaining that Lee’s GA was following the law.

That’s the reason why I cannot believe that Lee’s GA was not given special treatment during Noli de Castro’s time as “Housing Czar.” That why I have a sneaking suspicion that more than special treatment given to Lee’s GA houses the red flag of graft and corruption behind it all.