Can President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as the Agriculture Secretary, stop rampant smuggling of agriculturalproducts at the customs bureau?
WALANG MANGYAYARI DIYAN!
Broadcaster Korina Sanchez doesn’t see the smuggling slowing down or stopping even with Marcos at the helm of the department that was embroiled lately by an unauthorized importation of 300,00 MT of sugar..
To make matters worse for the President, Sanchez said she expects more scandals in the importation of rice, garlic, onion and other agricultural products.
“Dapat mapangalanan lahat ng iligal na nagpapasok ng mga iyan, kung magagawa nga ng administrasyon. Kung totoo nga na mga malalakas na puwersa ang nasa likod ng mga gawaing ito, wala ngang mangyayari diyan. Huwag na tayong magtaka kung bakit nakakalusot sa Bureau of Customs ang mga iyan,” she said in her September 2 column for Pilipino Star Ngayon .
Sanchez also expressed doubts over the outcome of the investigation on the sugar importation mess.
“Ito ang tawag na ‘rubber stamp Senate’ kung saan lahat ng nais ng presidente ay susunod lang ang Senado. Baka sa Kongreso ganundin. Hindi ba ganun nga ang nangyari sa ilalim ng adminstrasyong Duterte? Kung ano ang gusto ng hari, sundin,” she said.
The greatest enemy of Mar Roxas, standard bearer of the ruling Liberal Party, in this election is his own self, Davao City-based daily SunStar Davao said in an editorial.
“Not any of the three contenders need even resort to black propaganda against Roxas as the presidential candidate can generate it all by himself.”
CALLOUSNESS &
ARROGANCE
Simply put, the editorial’s message is this: Roxas is committing political suicide by self-immolation with his arrogance.
Couple that character with a wife in former television personality Korina Sanchez and this early we will already know that the political weather for Roxas’ presidential bid will be as tragic as the devastation of super typhoon Yolanda.
What is tightening the noose around the neck of this callous and arrogant scion of one of the Philippines’ wealthiest families?
Arrogance and Korina.
At the approach to the celebration of International Women’s Day this month, a video that went viral had Roxas’ wife’s former house maid detailing the physical violence inflicted on her by Korina.
Last week, in a stunt severely assailed as political bribery by critics, Roxas’ wife Koring, a former ABS/CBN news reader, led in the distribution of farm equipment and checks to several farmers in Tagum City in Davao del Norte. The subsidy was sourced from funds of the Department of Agriculture.
This being political season with Koring’s hubby Mar running for president, the camp of PDP-Laban presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and a farmers’ group questioned the propriety of government resources being used to promote the candidate of the Liberal Party of President Benigno Aquino.
Korina Sanchez personally handing out cash and farm equipment to farmers is a form of bribery and vote-buying to influence voters to support her husband, said Peter Laviña, Duterte’s spokesman.
Laviña earlier also lambasted Roxas for “bribing” barangay officials with promises of billions of pesos worth of projects if he is elected President in the May elections.
“Korina is now an accomplice in a systematic shameless act that conditions the electorate to accept doles in exchange for votes,” said Laviña.
The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said Sanchez’s participation in the event is “tantamount to vote-buying.”
“Sanchez’ campaign stunt before farmers is a preview of a Roxas presidency. Imeldific, deceptive, and corrupt,” said KMP secretary general Antonio Flores.
“Worse, they are exploiting the predicament of hapless farmers in a desperate bid to win their votes,” according to Flores.
On Tuesday, March 8, a few days after Koring was skewered, Roxas, on a campaign sortie in Davao del Norte, was asked by a local journalist to react to the criticisms.
From a presidential candidate vowing to crush corruption if he is elected, the answer was callousness and a deafening silence of evasion to accusation that his dear Koring committed bribery with her stunt in the distribution of government aid to farmers.
It is her right to freedom of expression to campaign, answered Roxas.
But he did not stop there. And the arrogance showed.
For presidential candidate Mar Roxas (the criticisms) deserve his typical hot headed reply, and so videos (show) him ranting against a reporter (who asked the question).
Unmindful that there were journalists and regular folks with their cellphones and tablets, Mar ranted on as if ready to challenge anyone to a fistfight: “Ano ang sinasabi mo… deretsuhin mo ako, misis ko ito. Sinasabi mo ba na ginagamit ng misis ko [‘yung Department of Agriculture]? Una, pribado ang kanyang sasakyan. Pribadong pera ang kanyang ginagamit. Inaanyayahan siya. Ang sinasabi mo ba ay hindi siya pupunta sa kung saan siya ikinukumbida? ‘Di ba? Baka ginagawan mo lang ng issue ito na wala namang issue.”
“May ano ba na hindi siya pwedeng magbiyahe at mangampanya para sa kanyang asawa? Ano ang issue? Siya ang nangangampanya para sa kanyang asawa. ‘Yan ba ay tama or mali? Or illegal, di ba? So ano ang tinatanong mo?”
“Yun ang usual pero ‘yun ang sinasabi ko [na hindi] dahil lamang na may mga binabato na paratang, mga binabatong akusasyon, hindi ibig sabihin na totoo iyan.”
Is Mar Roxas avoiding the city whose tough-talking Mayor once challenged him to slapping, boxing and gun duels?
Roxas, the ruling Liberal Party standard bearer in the May election, will be on a day-long sortie in the Davao Region but is purposely avoiding Davao City, capital city of the region and stronghold of his rabid critic PDP/Laban presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Roxas will fly in (March 8) early morning and out in late afternoon through the Davao City International Airport.
From the airport, he goes straight to Kapalong town in Davao del Norte to visit a cooperative of banana growers then meets with local government officials in Tagum City, also in Davao del Norte. He would then join in Nabunturan the founding anniversary celebration of Compostella Valley and proceeds to Mati, Davao Oriental to grace a political asembly, before returning to Davao City for his flight back to Manila.
Roxas may as well avoid an engagement in Davao City like a dog with tail between his legs.
Dabawenyos have been waiting for a face-off with Roxas who had earlier called as a myth claims that Davao City is one of the country’s safest cities.
Dabawenyos hold with great pride their claim that their city is safe under the leadership of Duterte who had ruled for more than two decades this metropolis known as the most progressive cities of Mindanao.
Stung by Roxas’ slur, Duterte challenged the former Interior secretary of President Benigno Aquino to physical confrontations that did not, however, materialize.
Subsequently, the cussword-spewing Duterte would variously call Roxas as, among others, a bayot (sissy), pisot (uncircumsized), most incompetent Filipino to have aspired for the presidency and a helpless zombie during the Yolanda crisis while interior secretary tasked with confronting the aftermath of the devastating super typhoon.
Roxas had lately renewed his verbal assault on Davao City and Duterte.
Belittling the anti-illegal drugs campaign of Duterte and claims that drugs and drug lords are under rein in Davao City, Roxas said he could buy shabu anytime in the city with media tagging along to prove his point.
For this, the Duterte camp said Roxas is a protector of drug lords for not reporting the presence of drugs in the city to the authorities.
Roxas’ visit in the Davao Region may not have positive impact on his presidential bid.
In the 2010 election, Dabawenyos (nearly 1 million registered voters), junked Roxas and voted for then candidate Jejomar Binay, also running for president in the May derby, in the vice presidential race that Binay won.
The Davao Region (2.8 million registered voters), is a bailiwick of Duterte, whose hold Roxas was not expected to unshackle.
The nationwide survey had Senator Grace Poe, Duterte and Binay in a statistical tie at the top, with Roxas taking the 4th spot and Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago at the tail end of the 5-way contest.
Roxas’ poor showing in the surveys is blamed largely, by both public and political analysts, for his so-s0 performance as Secretary of Interior and other Malacanang departments (Trade and Industry, Transportation and Communications) and to his vow to continue the Tuwid na Daan (Straight Path) governance of Aquino if he is elected President. Amid accusations of massive corruption in the Aquino government, Tuwid na Daan has been violently flayed and mockingly described as Tuwad na Daan (Crooked Path) by critics.
Roxas’ Davao Region sortie could be untimely coming three days after his wife, broadcaster Korina Sanchez, was slammed with a tsunami of criticisms after leading the distribution of farm equipment funded by the Department of Agriculture to farmers in Tagum City.
The Duterte camp accused Roxas and Sanchez of using government resources in promoting the presidential bid of the Liberal Party.
Sanchez had also been skewered by the Duterte camp after the broadcaster verbally attacked the PDP/Laban bet during a political gathering. Going viral in social media is a video of Sanchez’s former maid accusing the broadcaster of physical violence and illisit relations.
Although his chance of winning is slim, if the demon inflicts the worst of fate on the Pinoys to make Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas win in the May presidential elections, the country will have A MAID-BEATER AS FIRST LADY.
Couple that character with a wife in former television personality Korina Sanchez and this early we will already know that the political weather for Roxas’ presidential bid will be as tragic as the devastation of super typhoon Yolanda.
Is Mar Roxas avoiding the city whose tough-talking Mayor once challenged him to slapping, boxing and gun duels?
Stung by Roxas’ slur, Duterte challenged the former Interior secretary of President Benigno Aquino to physical confrontations that did not, however, materialize.
Although his chance of winning is slim, if the demon inflicts the worst of fate on the Pinoys to make Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas win in the May presidential elections, the country will have A MAID-BEATER AS FIRST LADY.
GOTO DAVAO - LIFE IS HERE 