Philippine Politics

Feb. 21, 2010

4:30 am - I had a good sleep last night and getting adjusted to my new time zone. Since my arrival, I’ve been holed up in the compound and haven’t set foot outside. My father who will be 94 this coming May has been keeping me company every day and he too seems to be enjoying the flow of people in and out of this place. Boredom doesn’t seem to exist here (for older people at least) even in the absence of Starbucks, malls, theaters and all those hangout places people normally go – at least for the time being.

What bothers me the most is my indignation about the Philippine justice system and what happened to my brother’s protest case. I do not understand why the Supreme Court Justice can be so incredibly swift in reversing the Lower Court and the Commission on Election judgments that seated my brother back to office. The case took more that 2 years to deliberate but the SC reversal of the judgment only took them less than a month. How can a SC hand down a “status quo” ruling that was so vague that they had to issue a second ruling (7 – 8 vote) favoring the other party. It is common knowledge how corrupt the Philippine politics is but this one I believe is the pits. I also heard there was a PHP8 million dirty money injected to swing the SC order to their favor. They know who they are. I won’t be surprised if the Ampatuan massacre in Maguindanao goes to the dogs the way it is going.

I also have a gripe about our senators whom I sent email letters about Gov. Maliksi’s military takeover several weeks ago. Not even one acknowledged at least receiving them for courtesy purposes. I guess it is election time that they are too busy preparing for their political survival.

Alfonso Election 2010

It's Saturday afternoon and I am in Alfonso for 3 days now adjusting my bio clock(16 hrs ahead). I finally set up my internet access the reason why I can write this blog and hopefully write something interesting in the next 3 months.

I'm here to help out in my brother's mayoral campaign which I've done for the 3rd time since 2001. It is a hectic and stressful experience and for sure, this one will be most difficult but there's no turning back now. The campaign here in Alfonso is getting dirtier and I've already seen black propaganda from our opponent even though the official start date of the campaign has not yet started. I have to admit they are really good at it.

I just learned yesterday that our province of Cavite now has 7 congressional districts from 3 districts since 2007 election; meaning we will now have 4 more new congressmen having millions in pork barrel each. I think the Philippines is really going to the dogs considering how our politicans squander taxpayers money.

Since this morning, I have seen 4 people came in to my brothers compound asking for favors such as help getting someone out of the hospital, a father with her little sick daughter needing medical help, a young mother asking for recommendation to find a job, someone who asked for transportation fare. These go on everyday with people coming in and out of the compound.

The highlight of my day is a woman asking for advice when her husband was hit by a car and died. She settled for PHP50,000.00 because the driver of the car was poor and can only afford that much. Life here is so cheap actually it was about PHP4000.00 some years ago. I was told that it is cheaper if the victim died instead of being disabled.

In Retrospect 'cont'd..

As I mentioned in the previous blog, the above is the 2nd page of the ACF brochure laying out the list of priorities of our vision for the town. Looking back, my brother's admininistration did a very impressive record of accomplishments. Regretfully, these are not enough for the people of Alfonso and perhaps true for most part of the country. I have always believed that there is hope for the Philippines and making a difference no matter how small matters. I'm getting older and I now believe I will not see this happen for the country during my remaining years. I can only hope that we can make this happen for Alfonso and sow the seeds for our youth for them to achieve a better future. My own children are not better off today than my generation even though they all have college education. It makes me sad to think about those who are less fortunate that their opportunities for a better future are being limited by some corrupt leaders who only think for themselves.

The May 2010 election is coming and we will give our vision for Alfonso another breath of hope.

Till my next blog....

In Restrospect 'cont'd..

This is the original ACF brochure (front page) I developed stating our vision for Alfonso.

These pictures I took in 2004 were 3 major post war bridges in Alfonso.

If seeing is believing, one only has to cross these bridges today. The Pajo bridge was unpassable for more than one year. All these bridges were built under Mayor Joy Penano's 3 year term.

In addition, the infrastructure projects such as Kaytitinga/Amuyong road concreting, Luksuhin Market Renovation, and almost everything on the list were completed and the rest could have been on the way to realization.

We are not perfect people but we challenge anyone to bring out any charges of corruption against us. Our father was a civil servant who resisted every opportunity and temptation to enrich himself during his term as Provincial Treasurer of Cavite instilled in us to, "Never feed your family with stolen money". It always amazed us to listen to his stories about those so called "missed"opportunities and the people who took advantage of them.

The 2nd page of the brochure is shown on the next blog. I beg to apologize for the way this blog is structured but I'm having difficulty arranging them the way it should be because the draft comes out differently than the final layout when I hit the publish button. I promise to get better when I get familiar with this "blogger" site.

In Retrospect

February 6, 2010

I'm writing this with a heavy heart. It's 5:00 am, I am losing sleep and my stomach churning over what's going on in Alfonso. My head is swirling with thoughts that I'm having difficulty putting them into words. One of the hardest thing in writing for me is to sit down and start doing it

I'm also having a lot of thoughts about the Charitable Foundation I created in the sense that it was put "on hold" due to personal setbacks my family had to attend to for the past several years which will be another story (click here). It took a tremendous toll on our emotional and financial well being and disrupted my family temporarily.

Unfortunately, the Foundation also lost its website which took me months to develop on my own to save expenses. I spent hundreds of hours learning to create a website since I am not a computer expert. After the AT&T/SBC Global merger and unmerger, the foundation domain name got lost in the transition and ended up being sold to some domain peddler in Australia. I tried to recover the domain but they now want to charge me again for something we already paid for. In principle, I figured it will be easier to start all over.

The Foundation "on hold" quit soliciting personal donations last May 2007 and was left with about $2300.00 in its account. I decided to re-direct fundraising not from individual donors from Alfonso but instead focus on other charitable groups and other generous friends and individuals who are truly supportive and believe in my integrity without question. It is a "lesson learned" in this experience that I decided to take a different path in continuing my mission.

I went thru my files this morning and and found some stuff which in the absence of the original website, provided some background information where I started. See the next blog.