‘The overzealous congressional panel for the impeachment trial seems more prepared and able to remove the Vice President from office rather than to solve our huge flooding woes.’
IF the Senate impeachment trial pushes through, the first part will surely be dominated by the prosecution and its big guns, party-list Representatives Leila de Lima and Chel Diokno, determined to tear away at Vice President Sara Duterte.
Armed with voluminous documents specifically on the alleged misuse of the P612M in confidential funds at the OVP and DepEd, De Lima and Diokno are expected to present the most staggering case against Duterte. Even if the prosecution’s stinging arguments are valid, Duterte still deserves a fair shake, especially from the media’s live, incisive and incessant coverage that would likely and unfairly portray her as a villain.
During the impeachment trial of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, he had to endure a highly politicized barrage of accusations arising from two technicalities on his SALN. He was virtually “crucified” in public by Noynoy Aquino loyalists in Congress.
Many followers of Duterte are disgruntled over the apparent selective form of “injustice” being inflicted on the Vice President, in contrast to the almost similar amount of more than P600 million for the repair and maintenance of pumping stations in Manila, allegedly pocketed by three congressmen.
After President Bongbong Marcos, in his SONA, called out erring congressmen involved in rampant corruption of flood control projects, a House committee finally decided to conduct a probe of wayward lawmakers engaged in scandalous thievery of government funds.
The overzealous congressional panel for the impeachment trial seems more prepared and able to remove the Vice President from office rather than to solve our huge flooding woes.
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Huge congratulations to Elena “Jingjing” Romero, a recipient of a Distinguished Service Award this year by the UP ALUMNI Association. Jingjing is a highly respected professional and entrepreneur in the public relations and advertising industry. I am privileged to be her friend and batchmate at the UP College of Mass Communication not too long ago. She authored a best-selling book on public relations as a rewarding and ethical profession.
I have a relative who can easily be cited as an outstanding UP alumni. But she says she does not need the rare recognition which may, according to her, be dangerous to her health. She belongs to the fearless and highly competent group of Philippine General Hospital doctors who braved the weather or any form of terrain in the far reaches of our country to reach mostly the despairing sick and suffering.
She was somehow targeted by the military several years ago for being overly sympathetic to NPA rebels whose diseased, wounded and infirmed she never turned away.
Whatever money she made, she plowed it back to sick indigents in the mountains of Luzon and the Visayas; for her services, the rural folks would provide her vegetables and chickens as a payment of sorts.
A UPAA Board Director has asked for her bio-data for her to be assessed as almost a sure awardee as an outstanding alumnus in community service. She fears that the military may still go after her due to several NPA leaders she had helped. She replied, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Today, she has aligned herself with the medical advocates led by Dr. Allan Landrito, who had strongly opposed the COVID-19 vaccines. To date, statistics show that some 100,000 fully vaccinated Filipinos have died due to strange and unexplained causes, which the government has deliberately ignored.
