Month: February 2008

messages

of families and movements

sibayandoveseries.jpg Danilo “Dani” Sibayan. Doves of Peace series. 1992. Watercolor. Pinoy Arte Filipino Art Gallery. Rightclicked and downloaded with express permission, non-commercial use of course (thanks again!) from the webmaster at  www.pinoyarte.com prices of paintings: check website.

 

From Voltaire Lozada:     

 

      Quote “the thorough surfing of the net regarding these issues led me to your blogsite… i’m a nephew of Jun Lozada, and I thank you for your genuine concern for this country by following these events… 

 

         Quote “GMA 7 was calling up my dad (my dad was the guy who filed the Writ of Amparo, and the same guy whom my uncle had called upon his arrival from Hong Kong) when Harapan went on air. Of course they would be furious because ABS-CBN had ratings all for themselves. But as it turns out, it wasn’t that bad for them, as Harapan turned out to be an extended “1 vs. 100″……My uncle was eager to hear what Abalos would say, and us Lozadas were never taught to back down against anything, basta kaya. He has a good ally with him, truth. No matter how many pawns they throw at him, he’ll stand by his word. It’s just sad to know that these respectable journalists would submit to those kinds of manipulation…            Quote “Mike Defensor: “…tatrabahuhin lang naman namin sa media yan eh.” “ closed-quote. Comment by voltaire lozada — thep29e02beTue, 19 Feb 2008 21:09:45 +0000 28, 2007 @ 10:47 p02 

 

          Dear Mr. Voltaire Lozada,                     I hadn’t expected a letter like yours. Nephews, nieces, sons, daughters, children, shouldn’t have to be  dragged from their quiet happy  lives into the vortex of a disruptive unpredictable uncertain political storm if only we had finished the movements we started and fundamental changes we vowed to institute in  1986 and 2001, but we didn’t; we went on to go back to our comfortable lives, and now, young people like you have to pick up and look for solutions to bigger problems we have created; bigger problems because  the perpetrators are more adept. We finished the plunder case of Estrada, status reports and case folder archived neatly with stories to tell the next generation but the plundering continues on a much larger scale. The massive stealing continues and the perpetrators  have become more brazen snatching witnesses in broad daylight  in front of many people and their wailing wives and brothers and sisters —  as what happened to your uncle. And maybe that’s why many felt responsible for your uncle, and  decided to act all at the same time.  She can ignore only at her peril.     

 

     Maybe the corruption has seeped into certain members of the media, but when the Press does its job, it  does it real well:  it stops time, races after witnesses  and their captors, rouses  all of us up at 2:00 am for the nuns, captures live action in hearings, and gives comprehensive investigation and insight. I guess we have to look at their entire body of work, and we will see too, with the good and the bad, that  throughout the unfolding of this story, the DZMM live coverages, the ANC interviews, the Probe Team and Correspondents’ investigative reports, constantly  and tirelessly informed us.  Not  many were too happy with the Harapan episode, (Abalos’s lawyer being allowed to speak at length, Abalos being given pre-production with his   “exhibits” with yellow highlight projected  on TV but no pre-production for your uncle’s work and no lawyer for your uncle;  the delayed, because remote, audio from your uncle, some senseless questions, and your uncle having to contend with not just Abalos, but the lawyer, Razon, Formoso, Golez, Donald Dee.). We can look too  at the entirety of  all the shows on the subject matter. Last night on “The Correspondents” (ABS-CBN) i saw a well-researched, well-backgrounded investigative report on trade, foreign, and diplomatic relations between the Philippines and China, China’s expansionist ambitions, and how China sweetened these with contracts  like the ZTE deal (i haven’t read any of the contracts and trade agreements so i cannot verify), maybe their good outnumber their bad  nine out of ten, i don’t know, let’s continue keeping each other on our toes.    

 

     I do not know where the “communal actions”, the prayer assemblies, the confessions and expressions of guilt, the  candle-lighting and the stepping-out-of-our-confines would lead us; but i know it will purify all of us. And when it does, we’re all set.  

 

        (just keep away the politicans and candidates-wannabes, they’re the same breed as Gloria).     

 

        Thank you for writing! 

                                                                                                                                                                         –   marichu           

 

messages

The Nephew

     I’ll be posting Voltaire Lozada’s comment with a reply as a blog post tomorrow. He’s Jun Lozada’s nephew, i checked out his site and it looks genuine. Thanks!

           Ms. Stuart-Santiago: I copied and pasted our exchanges in a hard disk and will post it as one blog post  over the weekend i’m looking for this book i picked up when i was a college freshman and had my first press card  and my first job it’s in my dead writers’ collection (actually i think a friend has it) to quote an essay there, it’s an I.P. Soliongco, i can’t find it! Although we’re just going  around in circles with the exchanges i hope the weekend post would be the end of it;  it’s cluttering up the widget.   thank  y’all! (to use my fake Southern twang) 

Rules of Court

Admissions, admissions; corroborating Jun Lozada

edermitaandgloria.jpg Right-clicked from www.ops.gov.ph

You don’t need lie-detector tests, you don’t need game shows and botox injections  and dog-and-pony exhibitions: You just need to listen. Jun Lozada’s testimony is being corroborated. You  just need to research and to listen.            

         The Deputy Executive Secretary of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo  today corroborated  the testimony of Jun  Lozada that indeed he gave P500,000 to  the witness last February 4, 2007 but explained he gave the money because Jun Lozada texted him he ran out of money and “was cold” and needed winter clothes.        

        Who is Presidential Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite? His name first figured in this incident when Jun Lozada testified that Gaite as Deputy Executive Secretary gave him antedated papers to travel. As everybody knows, when government employees travel on official time and purpose they always need an authority to travel (and i think they use  their red passport for official  travel, let’s ask the custodian of Jun Lozada’s passport to produce his passport). As i understand it, sometime during FVR’s time, in order to cut down  on junkets, the Office of the President had a memo centralizing the form for authority to travel of the entire bureaucracy to an office in Malacañang itself and the form had to be signed by a factotum in the office of the Executive Secretary (don’t worry, if you know a lawyer in Malacañang, it doesn’t get buried, it gets signed right away in time for your flight.)     

          How close is Manny Gaite to the Office of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?

      

             A heartbeat.        

       

      Executive Secretary Ed Ermita who sits next to the President admitted last February 9 (www.inquirer.net by Michael Ubac) that : quote “Even before he (Jun Lozada) left for Hong Kong, I had information that he was being invited to the Senate hearing and that he didn’t want to attend. It’s the legal division under Gaite who attends to this matter of this nature. That’s my only instruction,” said Ermita. (from www.inquirer.net )     

        Ed Ermita again:  quote “ I told Gaite, (he) being the one in charge of legal division, to get in touch with (Environment) Secretary (Jose) Atienza because he is the immediate superior of the head of a subsidiary under the supervision of the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources).” Closed-quote. (ibid)     

       In other words, Deputy Executive Secretary Manny Gaite is the trusted errand lawyer (that’s alright, my friends and i sometimes refer to ourselves as errand lawyers, we run  errands for  senior lawyers) of the Executive Secretary who sits right next to the President.        

         

      The website of the Office of the President shows him as an “honourable” Deputy Executive Secretary  of the Presidential Staff (the Palace factotums put “Hon.” as titles before their names, cheap thrills.)    

          Here is his working relationship in connection with Gloria, based on the website of the Office of the President:     1.)Her Excellency, Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Right below that: 2.)His Excellency Vice President Noli de Castro. Right below that: 3.) the Executive Secretary (Ed Ermita), then, 4)names of Cabinet Secretaries. 5)Then Presidential Advisers and Assistants. Then the Office of the President Staff which includes the 6)Honourable Deputy Executive Secretaries. Being Deputy Executive Secretary, Honourable Manny Gaite is under the direct supervision and control of the Executive Secretary; he takes his orders from Ed Ermita, and the latter, the Little President  of course sits right next to the President.   ermita.jpg Right-clicked from http://www.ops.gov.ph(of course we already illustrated how close he is to the Office of the President with Ed Ermita’s extrajudicial admissions).     

    A quick Google search of Manny Gaite (see? I told you, you don’t need klieg lights and botox injections for this, just research) showed that Manny Gaite’s career as Palace factotum spans more than nine years in Malacañang. He had been trusted enough with money, enough to make him handle grants and donations in the range of tens of millions of pesos. Based on a 1999 press release of the Office of the President  (www.ops.gov.ph ) Gaite in 1999 was  undersecretary of Presidential Committee on Flagship Projects and programs , and  was in charge of 6.6 million pesos worth of relief assistance to Sulu . From the Office of the President website in 1999: quote  “Well, as of now, a total of P6.6 million has been used to provide relief assistance to evacuation centers in Sulu,” he (DND Usec Conejos) said on JEEP ni Erap: Ang Pasada ng Pangulo, the radio-TV program of President Joseph “Erap” Ejercito Estrada.    

        Quote “Undersecretary Manuel Gaite of the Presidential Committee on Flagship Projects and Programs said that aside from providing relief assistance, the government also sees to it that other priority needs of displaced Sulu residents are taken care of. “ (from www.ops.gov.ph  )  There are also press releases in the Naga City Journal of his infrastructure projects in 2002 for Baao, Camarines Sur for Mayor Mel Gaite.        

         In other words, the trusted errand lawyer of Malacañang,  of Ed Ermita who sits right next to the President, trusted to handle funds in tens of millions of pesos for more than nine years in the Palace, was trusted enough to handle P500,000 to give to Jun Lozada; sure it’s impossible to trace fungibles like cold cash to the national treasury because you can turn around the paper work.  He said it was to help Jun Lozada for his conference in London. This (the payment or “loan”) after the Senate had issued a warrant of arrest for Jun Lozada. The trusted errand lawyer thought he would be on the clear with that. Hold on just a minute: You and Jun Lozada are not relatives, not BFF’s (best friends forever) and all your dealings with him have all been in an official capacity. Why would Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Deputy Executive Seretary give half a million pesos to help someone for a conference in London, does the explanation make sense in the ordinary experience of people? You think? You’re on the clear?

         (And you don’t need botox injections  for that. You just need to listen.)