After inheriting House post, Judy Syjuco faces jail term

“We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of.”

–George Chapman

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY — Was it a case of “ako ang bahala, ikaw ang kawawa?” (I’ll be in charge, you face the consequences).
If she did not “inherit” the congressional post from her husband, former Iloilo second district Rep. Judy Syjuco would have been enjoying her life as a private citizen today.
Syjuco is a wealthy woman. She looks more of a socialite than a public servant.
She was supportive of her politician husband, but was never a politician herself in her entire life until she became a congresswoman in 2004.
In fact, she did not need to run for any public office to steal and enrich herself. She could donate her salary for three years and her net worth wouldn’t suffer a dent.
Her income as a politician would be peanuts vis-a-vis her family’s income from their business empire.

RICHEST

In fact, Rep. Judy Syjuco was among the richest solons during her time.
Her trouble started when husband, Augusto a.k.a. “Boboy”, did not want the position to be grabbed by their political rivals, thus he convinced Judy to succeed him.
It was Augusto’s obsession for political power that drove Judy to enter the dirty world of politics, which was probably far from her dream when she married Augusto, a successful industrialist before he became a Constitutional Convention delegate in 1971.
Now Judy is in trouble and there is a chance she would end up in jail if she can’t wiggle out from a graft case filed by the Office of the Ombudsman.

EVIDENCE

The Sandiganbayan has ruled that the evidence submitted by the Office of the Ombudsman is enough to proceed to trial for the alleged payment of P5.9 million to West Island Beverages Distributor (West Island) for the purchase of 1,582 units of Nokia 1100 cell phones using Syjuco’s Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel.
Payment was made despite the non-delivery of the cell phones to the intended beneficiaries–the municipal tele-centers in Western Visayas, according to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Since West Island is not an accredited supplier, it should have been disqualified from the bidding, added the Office of the Ombudsman.
“What cell phones? I never saw cell phones nor any single centavo,” Syjuco said in a statement after the Sandiganbayan Third Division denied her motion to dismiss the graft and malversation cases filed against her and 10 other individuals including former officials of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

 

You want peace in Bacolod? Kick out Bing and Monico

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

— Mark Twain

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY — As long as Monico “Nyok” Puentevella and Evelio “Bing” Leonardia are active in Bacolod City politics, the City of Smile can never have a political peace of mind.
The two archenemies are Bacolod’s version of Cromwell vs Charles I, Stalin vs Trotsky, Pompey vs Caesar, and Pizarro vs Atahualpa.
They will stop at nothing until they have totally obliterated one another.
The bad blood between the two Ilonggo leaders has escalated in epic proportions.
Whoever sits as city mayor will always be at the receiving end of tidal waves of graft and corruption cases, including their proteges who happen to take over while they are either under suspension or have been sacked.
Whoever between the two is the representative in the city’s lone congressional district will surely wipe his face with graft and corruption charges–real or imagined.
Graft charges have been their most abused weaponry to rock the boat whoever between them is in the helm or the sitting mayor and congressman, respectively.

OMBUDSMAN

When Puentevella was the city mayor, then congressman Leonardia peppered Puentevella with graft cases in the Office of the Ombudsman, one of which was related to the anomalous purchase of P26-million worth of computer sets that resulted in Puentevella’s preventive suspension for 90 days in 2015.
Leonardia, who ousted Puentevella in their epic match in the May 2016 mayoral election, was himself recently ordered ousted by the Office of the Ombudsman for neligence in the procurement of P50-million worth of furniture and fixtures.
Leonardia’s camp pointed an accusing finger at, who else, Puentevella, to be behind the “harassment.” Puentevella, as usual, feigned innocence as Leonardia wont to do.
Their counter accusations have become akin to a pot calling the kettle black.
Their long-drawn-out quarrel, although political in nature, has demoralized their respective followers in particular, and the Bacolodnons in and outside the country in general.

POWER

As long as they continue to wield power and influence, even if they are temporarily out as elected mayor or congressman vice versa, their bitter rivalry will hamper the basic services and operations in the metropolis’ seat of political power, in one way or the other.
If Bacolodnons want to bring back stability, harmony, and even sanity in city hall, they should stop treating the selection process of their mayor and congressman as like that of a game of Trip to Jerusalem between two angry slow-mo dancers.
They should stop limiting the positions of city mayor and congressman only between two harpooned and recycled gladiators.
They should elect fresh faces, new leaders with a reinvigorated vision and mission; leaders that possess humility and emotional intelligence; and modern political philosophy sans any shade of petty intramural and infantile bickering.
Bacolod has to move on; move forward even without Puentevella and Leonardia.

 

French Revolution ends; our revolt vs graft and corruption, abuses accelerates

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” Che Guevara

By Alex P. Vidal

AYN Rand would have been amazed by the force and effectiveness of today’s netizens to influence and shape public opinion.
In this generation, they constitute the social media’s New Intellectuals, the most vigilant vanguards of the nation’s social, cultural, and political spectrum via the Internet.
No act of brutality, arrogance, malfeasance and demagoguery in the civilized society can escape the radar of amazing digital world.
A hailstorm of public censure and condemnation awaits those who possess the delusions of putting the law in their hands; those who think they are above the law and reason, owing to their power and influence, pelf and privileges for belonging in society’s higher social and political strata.
Gone are the days when publicly performed criminal acts and other forms of civil disobedience can be kept under wraps and the culprits getting away with impunity.
There’s always a big brother and sister watching: CCTVs and mobile phone cameras.

IDEAS

Meanwhile, objectivist Rand held that abstract ideas are man’s basic means of dealing with practical life.
She stressed that abstract ideas enable man to understand concrete issues, to evaluate them, and to act successfully to deal with them.
Rand further held that the problem with Western civilization was not that it was too intellectual, but that too many of its intellectuals accepted and propagated fundamentally wrong ideas.
Rand believed that what the world needs urgently are New Intellectuals.
As civilization marks this year the official end of the French Revolution on December 15, 1799, we begin the era of fighting graft and corruption, abuse of authority in military and government through a new wave: the social media.
We cannot afford today to give life to a modern Napoleon Bonaparte, the dictator who wanted to overrun Europe had it not been for his Waterloo defeat.
Politicians who want to overrun our treasury via pork barrel and other thinly-veiled acts of plunder and graft and corruption, are the smaller versions of Napoleon.
The specter of graft and corruption in government today is the rallying point of public anger and disgust that transformed into a bloody revolt; the tipping point that brought down the monarchy and cut off King Louis XVI’s and Marie Antoinette’s heads in the revolutionary scaffolds.

MANTRA

Under the mantra of “Liberte, egalite, fraternity” (liberty, equality, fraternity), French society itself underwent a transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges disappeared and old ideas about tradition and hierarchy were abruptly overthrown.
Under the mantra of “tuwid na daan”, the President has failed to curb the age-old graft and corruption.
The rich becomes richer; the poor becomes poorer.
Marie Antoinette wanted to give the French people with empty stomachs cake; our government has been giving us empty promises and empty treasury.
The wealth of the nation has been wasted.
Our leaders have abandoned the spirit that ignited the “Cry of Balintawak” or “Pugad Lawin” of the katipuneros, and the “Cry of Sta. Barbara (Iloilo)”.
We give them our votes and confidence; they gave us shame and scandal via plunder and graft and corruption.