Korina Sanchez, wife of Mr. Palengke Mar Roxas has forgiven Senator Aquilino Pimentel for making an uncanny remark about personal insertion. Everyone understood this insertion and some bones were actually tickled. But, the Senate’s committee of the whole has uncovered a fouler insertion. This insertion cuts the flesh of our children, and sends all of us into our moral grave. We have a name for this insertion: corruption.
Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence, Senator Manny Villar says this is simply a political ploy out to cut his rising election rating. Satur Ocampo, Villar’s party mate, reports that Villar does not want to face his colleagues in the Senate for fear of losing face.
Will he lose face? This is not the issue of his face but pocketed money. Ultimately, this is not about Villar’s face but the fate of 80 million or so population. If you are able to ransack Philippine coffers 6.9 billion pesos, who will stop you for wanting even more?
We know the story line. Acquiring ill gotten wealth and power from public office, most especially in this benighted land of ours, do not satiate once appetite for more. Like a hungry beast, this appetite takes evil proportion. Once acquired, wealth and power are not dispensed to better the lives of people as earlier promised, they are simply used to hide ill-gotten riches, ransack even more, avoid accountability, and worst of all, massacre a poor and hapless population.
We do not have to check bygone history, or Villar’s famed bank account, to prove this point. Our national records are there to see. Better still, all you have to do is to get out of your car and see how many children are naliligo sa basura.
Did you or did you not stash away 6.9 billion pesos of the hard-earned money of the Filipino people? Senator Manny Villar must answer this question— no ifs no buts. And the answer should be delivered not in media interviews, but right there in the very house he has represented for years now, in the very house where he once presided the fate of a former chief executive turned thief.
If Senator Villar refuses to answer, then his paid political advertisements, exhorting among other things, to end poverty, open up jobs and opportunities, even provide decent meals to our starving population are simply that: paid advertisements. The paid jingles, notwithstanding the easy and well-liked tunes, are merely lip service. They do not carry the force of truth. Precious truths that this nation needs considering the lies plied around to sugar coat the so-called achievements of the present dispensation. Precious truths urgently needed to arrest the moral bankruptcy amongst us, and bring us out into the rot we are all in.
Ironically, without losing the historical pun, it is Senate President Johnny Enrile who calls the Senate verdict of the C-5 controversy a conscience vote. The moral plea is not only for other senators looking at this issue, whether they are of LPs or NPs, but should be directed to Manny Villar himself. Villar has the moral obligation to clear himself. His mettle as a national leader will not be tested with simply being evasive. He needs to face his accusers because he is facing a nation that direly needs an honest and uncorrupted leader.
Why does the presidential-aspirant Manny Villar need to take the bull of this issue and provide us with an answer? Because this issue is about integrity and its absence, greed for wealth and power and its counterpoint—sincerity to actually serve and better the lives of the Filipinos.
This issue is about truth and lies.
Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence, Senator Manny Villar says this is simply a political ploy out to cut his rising election rating. Satur Ocampo, Villar’s party mate, reports that Villar does not want to face his colleagues in the Senate for fear of losing face.
Will he lose face? This is not the issue of his face but pocketed money. Ultimately, this is not about Villar’s face but the fate of 80 million or so population. If you are able to ransack Philippine coffers 6.9 billion pesos, who will stop you for wanting even more?
We know the story line. Acquiring ill gotten wealth and power from public office, most especially in this benighted land of ours, do not satiate once appetite for more. Like a hungry beast, this appetite takes evil proportion. Once acquired, wealth and power are not dispensed to better the lives of people as earlier promised, they are simply used to hide ill-gotten riches, ransack even more, avoid accountability, and worst of all, massacre a poor and hapless population.
We do not have to check bygone history, or Villar’s famed bank account, to prove this point. Our national records are there to see. Better still, all you have to do is to get out of your car and see how many children are naliligo sa basura.
Did you or did you not stash away 6.9 billion pesos of the hard-earned money of the Filipino people? Senator Manny Villar must answer this question— no ifs no buts. And the answer should be delivered not in media interviews, but right there in the very house he has represented for years now, in the very house where he once presided the fate of a former chief executive turned thief.
If Senator Villar refuses to answer, then his paid political advertisements, exhorting among other things, to end poverty, open up jobs and opportunities, even provide decent meals to our starving population are simply that: paid advertisements. The paid jingles, notwithstanding the easy and well-liked tunes, are merely lip service. They do not carry the force of truth. Precious truths that this nation needs considering the lies plied around to sugar coat the so-called achievements of the present dispensation. Precious truths urgently needed to arrest the moral bankruptcy amongst us, and bring us out into the rot we are all in.
Ironically, without losing the historical pun, it is Senate President Johnny Enrile who calls the Senate verdict of the C-5 controversy a conscience vote. The moral plea is not only for other senators looking at this issue, whether they are of LPs or NPs, but should be directed to Manny Villar himself. Villar has the moral obligation to clear himself. His mettle as a national leader will not be tested with simply being evasive. He needs to face his accusers because he is facing a nation that direly needs an honest and uncorrupted leader.
Why does the presidential-aspirant Manny Villar need to take the bull of this issue and provide us with an answer? Because this issue is about integrity and its absence, greed for wealth and power and its counterpoint—sincerity to actually serve and better the lives of the Filipinos.
This issue is about truth and lies.
