PUT THE LITTLE GIRL TO SLEEP!

ARROYO: Hates chopper rides.

TAGUIG CITY - CGMA's spokesperson Elena Bautista-Horn lamented to the media this morning about the administration's "delaying tactics" in transporting the former thief (sorry!) president to the VMMC today. They said that the administration must implement the transfer order now by land instead of an air transfer as originally planned. "Weather" and "chopper" are apparently Mrs. Horn's other words for "delaying tactics."

DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo and the Philippine National Police has clarified that there were no intended delays to the transfer of Mrs. Arroyo to VMMC. The agency has decided to forestall the chopper transfer until better weather arrives, and has decline the Arroyo camp's insistence on a land transfer. Meanwhile, Mrs. Horn insisted that it will be safer for Mrs. Arroyo to be transferred by land. "Kung ang problema lang naman nila ay yung mga rallyista bakit hindi nila hawiin. Hinihintay lang nilang dumami ang mga Anti-Gloria protesters sa harap ng ospital! Payagan na lang sana nila kami, kahit magtaxi na lang kami papunta dun," the spokesperson said, to which a reported asked, "Hindi po kaya barilin naman ang dating pangulo kung by land ang pagbiyahe sa kanya gaya nga nung sinasabi niyong planong patayin siya sa Operation Put The Little Girl To Sleep?" Mrs. Horn replied, "Ah, hindi baril ang gagamitin sa Operation Put The Little Girl To Sleep." I wonder why Mrs. Horn knows so much about this plan. Could it be? I smell something fishy.

CGMA insisted on being transferred by land to the VMMC instead of air. Atty. Ferdinand "Itlog" Topacio, in an interview with GMA News, said that the former president has had trauma after her previous experiences with chopper crashes. Meanwhile, in footage release by GMA News, three PNP choppers were spotted circling St. Luke's Medical Center in Taguig which is part of the transfer convoy. These are apparently, the "brand new" Robinson choppers sold by her husband Mike Arroyo to PNP officials. No wonder the president is traumatized!

Atty. Ferdinand "Itlog" Topacio said that the former president is already stressed because of her waiting ordeal.  She has been sitting all morning in a wheelchair, has already had two breakfasts and is also experiencing stomach pains. If I had two breakfasts in one morning, while seated all throughout in a wheelchair, I will have stomach pains too. Pwede namang tumayo, humiga di ba? O tumuwad kung gusto niya!

Atty. Ferdinand "Itlog" Topacio, when asked if former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo is also irritated by the delay of transfer, stated: "Kung ako nga na di asawa eh naiirita na eh!" ALIN po ang naiirita?

These are just some of the statements we've heard in today's fiasco about CGMA's tranfer to VMMC. The usual boisterous and preposterous ranting and whining of the Arroyo camp's spokespersons has been irritating us since the former president's "ordeal" started. It irritates us for the fact that their statements do not corroborate with what they have acted upon before. Why insist on being detained at the VMMC at such unfortunate moment when they were the ones insisting in the first place that CGMA is in grave danger? St. Luke's is a well-guarded, well-equipped hospital -- what else could go wrong in there? Can't she just wait to be transported after the weather clears up? Didn't the court order explicitly said that she has to be transferred safely and properly and yet she wants to brave the downpour and flood, and wrath of the angry masses! The people has had enough! We just hope that the former president could have chosen her mouthpieces well, because the way they are speaking to the media, the more CGMA sounds a ridiculous, desperate, spoiled brat. Its making us want more for her to be put to sleep instead, just to end this ruckus.

But more than anything else, this entire act by the Arroyo camp is ridiculous and desperate. Their so-called "demagoguery" by the administration is nothing but a ghost created by their own scheming party in order to portray her as being persecuted and prejudged. This is no demagogue. This is a poorly scripted act to win the hearts and minds of the unaware, uneducated, emotional and ill-advised masses like the handful of Kampampangans we saw in VMMC today.

This is a teleserye, entitled, "Put The Little Girl To Sleep". TSS

THE KING'S SPEECH

STABBED UPFRONT: Corona and PNoy in yesterday's 1st National Criminal Justice Summit. (From Interaksyon.com)

What do I want to write?

Since this weekend, last night, and the whole morning, I can’t figure out what itches in me to write something. This blog has been neglected for a month now, and it needs a fresh dose of creative release. And yet, at the moment I laid my hands on the keyboard, it is as if a blood clot has blocked all sense of creativity and imagination, which prevented me from publishing anew. But as Sean Covey said that “a mission will only remain a wish if not put to pen”, I decided to write instead about what I’ve been meaning to write all this time.

I want to write about PNoy finding his voice. How he has finally had the courage the lash out at this country’s opponents right in their face, this case, Chief Justice Renato Corona. I want to write at how shallow SC spokesperson Midas Marquez is at commenting about the President’s speech as “disturbing”, when the acts of the court Marquez is trying to embellish is in itself “disturbing”. I want to write out how ridiculous Representative Mitos Magsaysay and the Daily Tribune for calling the President a loose cannon for criticizing the “Highest Court” in the land. Somehow, they are forgetting that the Executive and Judiciary are co-equal branches, the same as Congress, and have therefore every right to check each other’s balance in the use of power. It is ironic how Magsaysay and Lagman call the President a loose cannon when they themselves act like cannon-heads when openly criticizing his policies in the halls of the House.

I want to write at how all this crap by the Arroyo camp about the President’s speech being disrespectful and arrogant as a mere defence mechanism, and how onion-skinned they are in the face of guilt. I want to write how proud I am that this President we have right now, no matter how perceived by many as incompetent and disoriented, has finally found his balance, his direction and his confidence to walk through that path and poke at the impediments on its way. I want to write at how he dared this time to speak for himself, and not on behalf through his spokesperson, Abigail Valte or Edwin Lacierda. He's no Colin Firth in "The King's Speech", but the strength and confidence he mustered to do such feat is worth a movie script. I want to write about how the President’s acts cannot lead to a constitutional crisis or in the downsizing of the Supreme Court’s integrity, for it is not Court itself that has committed these whimsical and impartial acts against the people, but the justices which Arroyo have placed for herself in the last minute. The President has not attacked the Court, but the personification of its incompetence and prejudice which we now know by name as Renato Corona. The President has not attacked the Court but has somehow defended it, by pointing out what it should be doing otherwise since day one of this administration. Corona should be even thankful to have not been stabbed at the back, but upfront. That only shows he has a true friend in PNoy, as Oscar Wilde said.

In the end, what do I want write? Looking back, I’ve written it already. There is nothing more I want to write today.

Don't Give Women A Bad Name

I almost forgot the March is Women's Month. What usually comes into my mind around this part of the year is the scorching heat and constant talk of numerous fires in the metro which has earned this month another moniker as the Fire Prevention Month. But I ain't talking about fires in this post. Not yet. I wanted to give tribute to women in society for this article. However, I don't want to it to sound cliche like they do in women's magazine, like "Ms. Tapia, defender of women's rights. Blah..blah..blah..." I don't want anything like that for a Women's Month special.

We've always heard of women who have made big contributions to society through their talent, services, and convictions. Women like Heidi Mendoza, who defied corruption within her agency to expose high-level embezzlement of public funds in the military institution; Danica Magpantay, whose sheer Filipina beauty landed her as the first Filipina to be declared winner of the Ford Supermodel of the Year; or former Secretary of Health Esperanza Cabral, who despite pressure from the Catholic Church, has continued to lobby for the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill.

But not all women are like these people I mentioned. The freedom which women enjoy since the introduction of women's suffrage at the turn of the century has created not just conscientious, liberated, and strong-willed women but has also spawned some bad, scrupulous femme fatales. Here are just some of the women who have given women a bad name: