But all we are hearing are sound bites from Malacañang. GMA is talking tough but nothing is happening. Perhaps she can do nothing after helping to create the monster that is the Ampatuan clan. They are, after all, her close allies.

They are, however, turning out to be her worse karma. This is what she gets for cheating in Maguindanao through the Ampatuans. Now the Ampatuans believe they’re demi-gods, able to do anything with impunity.

It is hoped this massacre will haunt her to her death, because we believe she really won’t do anything.

Yet, we hope.

He’s now advocating that top officials of the PDEA also go on leave after his own prosecutors went on leave. Let’s see now, why should the PDEA officials go on leave? It was the PDEA that busted the so-called "Alabang Boys." It was the PDEA that blew the whistle on bribery attempts. It was the PDEA, particularly Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino, who received a call from justice undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor following-up on the release of the Alabang Boys, when he’s not even involved whatsoever in the case.

Now let’s see why the prosecutors went on leave? They resolved that the case against the Alabang Boys be dropped without further investigation. Someone gave one of the defense lawyers a blank official letterhead of the DOJ secretary so he could type in a release order that Gonzalez would merely sign. Incidentally, there have been arguments whether this was ethical or not. I want to squash these arguments with one word. Read my lips: D-E-L-I-C-A-D-E-Z-A! And, of course, there’s the meddling of Blancaflor.

Question is, who’s the boss of the prosecutors and Blancaflor?

At present, ask the average Filipino who’s more credible, Gonzalez or Maj. Marcelino?

Conclusion: Raul Gonzalez should go on leave along with his lackeys, not the PDEA officials. Unless he’s gunning to be Top Twerp of the Year. Well, this early in the game, he’s neck and neck with an early front runner: Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr. If you don’t know why, click here.

In a previous blog I had hoped that Antonio Trillanes’ idealism would make him a good senator in spite of my doubts that he was merely a pawn. Read it here.

Now, I’m convinced, without a shadow of doubt, he’s a pawn. His latest misadventure establishes that.

His financiers probably used him like a guinea pig. Told that "People Power" would follow his latest "uprising," he and Gen. Lim trooped to the Manila Peninsula hotel and held siege. No "People Power" came. A political has-been came, by the name of Teofisto Guingona, but hardly anyone noticed him.

Before this, in the aftermath of the Glorietta explosion, someone whispered to him that the explosion was caused by a bomb planted by the government. Immediately, he went public with this sans any evidence, saying that the informers were being kept in a safehouse.

After police came out with the results that it was a gas tank explosion, nothing came out again from Trillanes.

Trillanes could have used his idealism to effect a senatorial presence and use senatorial power to reach out to disenfranchised Filipinos and establish a political base through which he can legally challenge the administration.

Many, I believe, would follow and support him.

His election into the Senate was no small feat. Yet, he threw this in the garbege can of obscurity with his latest fiasco.

Now he’ll be spending many years in prison and the name, Antonio Trillanes IV, will be a mere speck in the history of the Philippines, known as a man whose idealism fizzled out even before it had sparked.

If you’re anti-Erap, don’t gloat. This episode is an embarrassment to our country. We’ve convicted a former President. Move on and help build this benighted country of ours.

No need to say more. Too many of our politicians are falling over themselves in trying to say something erudite about the conviction of Estrada.

It’s sickening.

Filipinos are generally peaceful. We don’t read news about a Filipino suddenly waking up hating the world and then shooting up a school or climbing a building to snipe people on the streets at random with a rifle.

Yet, what we’re known for is violence when elections come around. This is the best proof that power corrupts. Why have a rival politician killed? To serve the people?

Imagine a mayor calling on his hired thugs and saying, “I want Mr. Rival killed for the good of the people!” Incredulous. Rather, it’s “I want Mr. Rival killed because I want to keep power.”

The barrel of a gun replaces the will of the people.

The US ambassador tactfully described our political violence as “sad.” That is a gross understatement. Our political violence is utterly embarrassing. It completes the picture that the Philippines is corrupt.

Yet, the good ambassador is not totally off the mark. Our political violence is sad because we don’t do anything about it. We keep on electing people who desire political office out of sheer lust for power.

Take a look at our Congress. Has it made significant moves to do away with pork barrel? Has it legislated to prevent political dynasties? When a congressman can’t run anymore, he’ll let a family member run for his seat. For the good of the people? If you believe that, then you’ll believe anything.

When you believe in anything, power-hungry politicos will always be elected.

Technorati Tags: philippine politics, political crime, violence, congress

Justice Sec. Raul Gonzales may be forgiven if he was just being tactless. But he was being obnoxiously tactless when he blamed the death of Julia Campbell, a US Peace Corp volunteer, on Julia herself.

In trying to sound cocky or perhaps intellectual, he only managed to insult the sensibilities of both Americans and Filipinos, not to mention the loved ones and friends of Julia Campbell. He should have tried to bring comfort to those who were aggrieved by Julia’s death. Instead, he insinuated that she was irresponsible and careless in making a trek to the Banaue terraces alone.

At the very least he should have assured all and sundry that everything posible was being done in investigating the circumstances around the death of Ms. Campbell. But what can you expect from a man who has been bumbling his way all throughout his career as the Justice Secretary?

The man should resign and not heap his senility on the Philippines he has sworn to serve. But, for once, I enjoyed what United Opposition campaign manager JV Ejercito said about him: “Let him stay on. He’s a big help in our campaign.”

Technorati Tags: Raul Gonzales, Julia Campbell, US Peace Corps, JV Ejercito, United Opposition

That hostage-taking drama last Wednesday had only 3 elements to it: senseless, stunned and stupid.

Senseless was the act of Armando “Jun” Ducat when he took hostage a busload of children and teachers of his own day-care center. He demanded no ransom and only used this terror-tactic to air his grievances about government corruption and the lack of education for children. He never took into account, of course, the very real possibility that he may have permanently traumatized some if not all of those kids.

Apparently Ducat has a history of making publicity stunts to air out his grievances. Obviously, the guy needs to be in a mental institution, not in prison.

Stunned were the police. They simply didn’t know what to do except blockade the area where the drama was taking place. Neither could they stopped two politicos from using the highly dangerous situation to act like heroes.

Fortunately, the police were too stunned even to resort to what they usually resort to when they don’t know what to do: charge in with guns blazing regardless of whether bullets would hit victimizers or victims. Perhaps the thought of mostly children being the victims scratched their otherwise itchy trigger fingers.

Stupid were the actions of Bong Revilla and Chavit Singson. They could have endangered further the lives of the children by insisting on talking to the hostage-takers. But the police allowed them to because they didn’t know what else to do. Stupid also is the thought that Ducat was doing a noble thing. There is nothing noble as terror even if the end justified the means, which is what terrorists actually believe, that the end will always justify the means.

Like I said, Ducat needs to be placed in a mental institution and for the rest of his life. Perhaps he should be joined by the police chief, Revilla and Singson.

Technorati Tags: hostage-taking, armando ducat, ramon revilla, chavit singson

One thing authorities can’t seem to control, however, is petty crime that sometimes turns into a felony when victims resist.

Take, for example, the shooting to death of a female student. Coming out of her classes at the University of Cebu in the evening, Carmela Cabanog took a public utility jeepney to go home. On the way a man jumped in and tried to snatch her bag. The student resisted. He pulled out a handgun and shot her in the chest. She was only 19 years old.

What makes this crime doubly tragic is that this student worked part-time to augment her college fees as she was born of poor farmers who had scraped, scrimped and saved to put her to college. She was their hope of a better life. She did not take this burden lightly. She sought to excel in her studies and was an honor student. In one senseless moment, that hope got snuffed out.

The irony of it all is that Metro-Cebu’s police force was beefed up with around 400 new recruits from other parts of the country. They certainly couldn’t do anything to prevent this crime. Sometimes you’d wonder even if 4,000 of them would have prevented the crime knowing how inept our police is.

Somehow you can’t help feel that all that vigilantism in Cebu is a big joke because it doesn’t seem to curtail crime.

What does this all mean? In preparing to look like a world-class city for the Asean Summit, we can do all the external cleaning up we want. But the death of that student will always be a reminder that, deep inside, we’re rotten as ever.

First, he was able to downgrade the charge of three of the accused to accessory to rape, which will get them a lighter sentence if convicted. This move so discouraged the prosecuting attorney that he resigned.

It looks like this defense head will be able to have the accused acquitted, earning for him the gratitude of the United States of America and perhaps a green card for him and his family.

What’s the name of the defense head of the American rapists? Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez!

Yet it’s no wonder why Gonzalez seems to love those accused of a heinous crime. His boss does too. After all she commuted the sentence of all those in death row into life imprisonment. Some of the families of the victims waited for years and spent thousands of pesos for justice to be done. Suddenly justice was stolen from them by a political move to appease the Catholic hierarchy, some of whose clergy, by the way, have been found guilty of such despicable crimes as child molestation.

Gloria the Liar’s move had nothing to do with pro-life or pro-death, in spite of her sanctimonious pronouncements. It was mere political prowess for power.

Take ABS-CBN, for example. Instead of quietly preparing for its legal defense for its involvement in the Wowowee stampede, it instead lashed out at the NBI and the DOJ for not implicating the Pasig police for negligence in preventing the stampede.

I suppose you can’t expect anything else from a network that has become callous to the sense and sensibilities of this nation as it dishes out TV fare that have no redeeming values whatsoever. The only 2 reasons for the existence of ABS-CBN is profit and profit. When profit is what drives you, arrogance becomes your nature. It’s written all over their lawyers.

Meanwhile, the families of the stampede victims appeared in court without a slick lawyer. In fact, they had no lawyer at all. In this case, the saying, "Offense is the best defense,&quot cannot apply because they had no defense. On the other hand, the Lopez network had all the defense it can buy and they went on an all-out offense.

Maybe they’re fans of Baby Dalupan.

As for Willie Revillame, his new mantra in the shamelessly revived Wowowee is, "Gusto lang namin tumulong." I wonder if he’s trying to convince the audience or himself.