“(A)ny other political party will welcome Ramos and De Venecia and their 50 or so political leaders. As Senate President Amang Rodriguez used to stress constantly: ‘Politics is addition.’”
by Ducky Paredes
When Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno, co-vice chairman of the merged Lakas-Kampi-CMD, calls the former President Ramos and former Speaker De Venecia “ people with no public support” to speak of, you know that the coalition is hurting.
Speaker Prospero Nograles adds that the two are merely “retired and inactive former Lakas renegades whose names may long have been removed from our list of active members as they have not been attending our party meetings.”
Only Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who served with Eddie Ramos in the military, gave the former President some respect:
“I don’t want to claim to speak for President Ramos. The former president is a founder and chairman emeritus of the party.”
The main problem of the merged parties is actually that they have not been listening to Ramos and have steamrolled over any opposition to the merger. They offered the post of chairman emeritus to Ramos. Eddie refused it and said that he prefers to be chairman emeritus only of Lakas, which he founded with De Venecia in 1992.
At that point, a sincere effort to get Eddie on board should have been attempted. The leaders of the merger, instead, ignored Ramos.
I was with Ramos at the showing of a documentary on Raul Manglapus, who was the founder of the National Union of Christian Democrats in the Philippines, which merged, with Lakas at the time when Ramos needed a vehicle for his presidential run against established political parties. We all know how that ended. Eddie, the candidate of Lakas-NUCD trounced the more established parties and won the presidency.
Can Ramos do a repeat of what he did in 1972?
Let us wait and see. In the meantime, any other political party will welcome Ramos and De Venecia and their 50 or so political leaders. As Senate President Amang Rodriguez used to stress constantly: “Politics is addition.”
Only Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Bayani Fernando, a presidential aspirant under the administration party, expressed hope that things could be patched up. A Lakas member, Bayani notes that “a majority of those in the Lakas-Kampi coalition came from Lakas-CMD.”
He added the total unity of the two parties could still be attained if both can agree on their standard-bearer in the 2010 elections.
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A five-centavo tax on text messages sent though SMS (short message service) is not necessarily and added burden to anyone. Certainly the telcos can afford this and the texters are not at all affected unless the telcos will pass on this measly amount to their customers.
Since there are, at present, an estimated one billion text messages sent from 70 million Philippine cellular telephones for our 80+ million population that includes about 30 million under fifteen years old. This will mean an income of P50 million a day. Wow!
The next problem will be how to use that money so that it does not end up as houses bought by limited liability corporations in California controlled by children of the powerful.
A cell phone users group, TXTPower (www.txtpower.org) has come out against the proposal, which already passed the House and will be taken up next by the Senate and proposes instead decreasing the pork barrels of legislators and the President.
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It isn’t so much that Deogracias Iñiguez, CBCP Public Affairs Committee chairman, is commenting on the candidacy of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s decision to seek the presidency when he says:” Whoever enters the arena, we have to study them. Tingnan natin yung kanilang mga programa. Hindi basta Aquino ay iboboto na natin,” but because I really do not appreciate religious leaders going into or even just commenting on politics and matters that ought not to concern them.
What do I mean? If bishops and priests and even cardinals want to comment on politics, I will not use their designation. They are no more “very reverend” than the regular Juan or Johnny. Since they are talking as “citizens,” let us treat them as Mr. Citizens. Understand that I am just playing fair; this should be the new norm. What they say should not be taken as coming from bishops or abbots or priests and given a patina of being almost ex cathedra.
Another CBCP member, Mr. Honesto Ongtioco, advised Aquino to follow the example set by his mother in upholding a righteous but competent campaign. Honesto says that having competent advisers and divine guidance would compensate whatever shortcomings a candidate may have.
“I believe we can never get a perfect candidate. What is important for Senator Aquino is to get a good circle of advisers. His openness is necessary but firmness should be exercised. “
Where does Honesto get the gall to tell a candidate how to run his campaign?
If these religious leaders talk about matters that touch on religion or moral values, then, okay, let’s use their titles which they deserve only when they are talking not about politics but about what they should rightfully be talking about.
Honestly, we should not even be listening to their silly comments on political matters in which they are far from being competent commentators.
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A letter: “Our basketball officials are fooling our people. Our style of basketball is one generation behind the times. Modern basketball is played above the rim. One should be able to dunk the ball or make alley-oop shots. Conversely, one must also have the skills to defend against such shots. Our players neither have the height nor the physical ability to perform in such manner. You are correct; we should give up basketball as our national sport. Our third place finish in the l954 World Basketball Championship in Brazil in 1954 was played under an antiquated style which has become as extinct as the dinosaur.” — Hermie C. Cruz
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hvp 09.10.09
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