Many are appalled that trapo politician Danilo Suarez voiced the idea of Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte sharing the six-year term of the presidency the way Martin Rromualdez shared the House Speakership term with Alan Peter Cayetano.
The idea is not new.
In fact, it was President Rodrigo Duterte who had first promised to share his presidential term with Bongbong Marcos.
I was reading a piece on the spike in Covid cases on the Philippine Daily Inquirer site when out popped a Google ad showing a smiling Karlo Nograles asking we, the people, to donate to a Palace-driven project to aid the poor. Nograles is the secretary to President Rodrigo Duterte’s cabinet.
So I posted this on Twitter:
Two things wrong with this pic: 1) Duterte’s secretary to the cabinet Karlo Nograles asking 4 donations when Palace has not released all Bayanihan ayuda; 2) Palace wants to centralize ALL PRIVATE DONATIONS after discouraging everyone from donating to various groups. #ManigasKayo pic.twitter.com/0T7VtidOKK
— Raissa Robles (@raissawriter) March 10, 2021
In its eagerness to smother the country with an all inclusive and oppressive anti terror law, the government may have shot itself in the foot.
To read the rest, please click on the TITLE of this piece. Thanks.
In the first part, I explained why I used the words “stealthily” and “hastily” to describe the manner by which Senate defense committee chair Panfilo Lacson had inserted the dangerous Section 25 in the Anti-Terrorism Law.
Section 25, according to prominent legal experts, gives President Rodrigo Duterte – through his cabinet officials who comprise the Anti-Terrorism Council – the power to “designate” or tag as “terrorist” anyone and any organization the cabinet officials suspect of being one.
In fact, Duterte went ahead of the new Anti-Terrorism Law and publicly tagged communist rebels “terrorists” because he said so. He said, “They think that they are a different breed, would like to be treated with another set of law, when as a matter of fact they are terrorists. They are terrorists because I finally declared them to be one.”
Senator Lacson had to scramble and say there was “nothing illegal” about Duterte’s statements because the Anti-Terrorism Council had already “designated” them terrorists in 2017.
Lacson insists the tag will not lead to arrests, but only to the freeze of assets.
But legal experts told the Supreme Court last week that is not the case. The tag can result in the arrest of any person and members of organizations that have been so “designated” by the ATC as “terrorist”.
Lacson has also claimed in his official Senate press releases on the Senate website, several media forums and press interviews and releases that my blog post was “malicious.” To read the rest, PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINK.
Over the past week since Senator Panfilo Lacson said my use of the word “stealthy” to describe his insertion of Section 25 in the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) “is malicious and untrue”, the senator has gone on radio, print and the official Senate website to belittle my blog post.
What did I say that upset him so much? I said that first, Section 25 was inserted at the last moment and second, Section 25 is a dangerous provision. To read it, please click on this link: Senator Panfilo Lacson hastily inserted the new Anti-Terrorism Law’s ‘dangerous’ Section 25 empowering Duterte officials to ‘designate’ anyone a terrorist
Before I go on, let me explain that my reply to Senator Lacson will be divided into three parts:
Part 1, which is this post, will explain why I found Senator Lacson’s insertion of Section 25 “stealthy” and “hasty”;
Part 2 will show proof why my blog post has no malice, because the senator is implying he might file a cyber libel suit against me (he did this by saying he would not sue me for libel,); and
Part 3 will post all the documents I used as basis in Part 1, in other words, the documentary proofs.
And so, my reply is going to be lengthy. To read the rest, please click on this link.
The most dangerous section of the Duterte Terror Law, which the President signed today, empowers his cabinet officials to call anybody a “terrorist” and order that person’s arrest without any warrant. That victim can then be detained for up to 14 days. It’s a tool straight out of Ferdinand Marcos’ brutal dictatorship.
That section was inserted stealthily, at the last minute, by Senate defense committee chair Panfilo Lacson. To read the rest, please click on this link.
I thought it was a scam because the Twitter account of Raul Arcaya was made only this April, he only had two followers and no photo uploaded.
I thought he even calculatingly used photos of a baby attached to a respirator to tug at women’s hearts.
And his cry for help seemed overwrought. To read the rest, please click on this link.
Let’s lighten our bleak world a bit by singing this song “The KOKOnut nut” that someone – I do not know who – wrote new lyrics for national artist Ryan Cayabyab’s hit song, Da Coconut Nut. To read the rest, please click on this link.
Solicitor-General Jose Calida has made it very, very clear that Philippine Depositary Receipts or PDRs are bad for media companies.
PDRs are financial instruments sold to local and foreign investors by ABS-CBN through a separate company called ABS-CBN Holdings Corp. When ABS-CBN gives out dividends, ABS-CBN Holdings obtains part of the dividends, which are then distributed to the PDR holders, minus a management fee.
Calida said ABS-CBN’s use of PDRs violates the Constitution which requires media companies to be 100% Filipino-owned. He warned that “criminal liability is also imposed on those who violate foreign equity restrictions and evade nationalisation laws of the Philippines through various modes of proxy arrangement, making it appear as legal, but the entirety of the arrangement is to accomplish a transaction not allowed under Philippine laws”. To read the rest, please click on this link.
Last year, Asian Dragon magazine asked my hubby Alan to write a speculative story answering the question, “could things be possibly worse than they already are under this government?” He decided to have a little fun and write a political sci fi thriller. It involved a virus. Coming from China. Ending up in the Philippines. Does any of this sound familiar?
Last week the editor of the magazine emailed Alan and said “holy shit your story is coming true.” You can be the judge. Keep in mind, this is just FICTION. Pure fantasy.
