Impulses
The truth about Noy
In http://noynoy.ph/anti-smear/ I have encountered some claims and rebuttals of Noynoy’s camp. I believe it deserves your audience in the midst of the election spree. Here they are.
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CLAIM: Noynoy did nothing in the Senate, and his kind of public service was unsatisfactory.
TRUTH: Senator Aquino’s legislative record is filled with laws that push for transparency, accountability, curbing corruption and leveling the playing field so that special relationships do not take precedence over quality public service.
A good lawmaker must not be judged solely on the number of laws penned, but the quality of these laws in the interest of the public good. Congress is a democratic institution that is also meant to guard against government excesses. Aquino believes we already have many good laws, and what is needed is proper enforcement.
Contrary to criticism that he has a lackluster legislative achievement, Senator Aquino has been consistent in standing up for the rights of ordinary Filipinos and representing the nation’s interests in the House of Representatives and later in the Senate.
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CLAIM: Cory Aquino changed the law while she was president to secure the Hacienda Luisita properties of her family.
TRUTH: Sugar and coconut lands were completely left out of the agrarian reform program during the Marcos regime, and so the government could not intervene in activities involving such lands, neither were benefits or protection awarded to farmers because of this. President Cory Aquino remedied the situation by including these lands in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, allowing government oversight. The CARP was enacted by Congress in 1988, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1989.
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CLAIM: The farmers of Hacienda Luisita wanted the property to be redistributed to them immediately, instead of the “shares of stock” scheme that they considered illegal.
TRUTH: In 1989, the farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita overwhelmingly approved stock distribution instead of outright land distribution. Hacienda Luisita then adopted the Stock Distibution Option (SDO), provided for by Section 3(a) of CARP.
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CLAIM: Sen. Aquino allegedly did not want to divulge to the public the “Hello Garci” tapes hence he is not a true-blue anti-GMA.
TRUTH: Noynoy voted against using the “Hello Garci” tapes in a court of law because the tapes are illegally obtained evidence, but to say that he was pro-GMA because of that is to take things severely out of context.
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CLAIM: Noynoy authored the RH Bill which is anti-Church, and supports abortion.
TRUTH: The RH Bill was authored by Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay. The RH Bill does not support abortion. The RH Bill seeks to work with the church, and is not pro-abortion.
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CLAIM: Warlordism started in the time of President Cory Aquino.
TRUTH: The history of warlordism in Mindanao is far and wide. It has been there even before President Magsaysay’s time. But its private armies worsened through the EO 546 of Pres. Arroyo.
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The country’s first weather disturbance “Agaton” (international name: Omais) has intensified into a storm and continues to move northwestward, Pagasa said Thursday.
Sadly, it will not even kiss the peripherals of Western Visayas. Goodbye precious summer raindrops.
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Iloilo City lone district representative candidate Raul Gonzalez Sr. was irked by accusations linking him again to the grenade throwing incident at the ancestral house of the Treñas family.
In fairness to him, a possible angle in the incident may be that it was Gonzalez’s enemy that did the callous act. Treñas may have been hit by the bombs, but Gonzalez is hit harder due to bad publicity. Whoever is the culprit, I am sure his favorite authors are Sun Tzu (Art of War) and Robert Green (Laws of Power). This is shrewdness at its worst best.
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A ranking official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said recently that some members of the clergy are planning to join another popular revolt in the event of a failure of elections.
Given the right moment and situation, many might follow him and push for Edsa 4.
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Presidential Assistant for Western Visayas Raul Banias expressed confidence that the kick off of the campaign for local candidates this Friday will surely boost the presidential bid of former Sec. Gilberto Teodoro.
That is if the local Lakas-Lampi bets are true to their words. For the trapos, personal gains are far more valuable than party loyalty.
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Happy graduation to the Grade 6 (March 24) and high school seniors (March 25) of Ateneo de Iloilo!
I am pretty sure that your parents—same with your teachers—are very proud of you. Goodbye and until we meet and have fun again.
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Smartly funny quotes:
Everybody knows politics is a contact sport.—Barack Obama, US President
Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.—Peter Ustinov
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Random Quotes:
The ballot is stronger than the bullet—Abraham Lincoln
I think the next best thing to solving problems is finding some humor on it—Frank A. Clark
There are times in politics when you must be on the right side and lose.—John Kenneth Galbraith
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Compliments are given to the very informative websites of local newspapers, Philippine Online Chronicles (POC), The Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, ABS-CBN Network, PNA, PIA, joke-of-the-day.com, and The Business World.
(Engr. Herman Lagon, who “Facebookly” describes himself as a “social scientist,” is a physics teacher and a PhD. student in Math. He may be reached through h_lagon@yahoo.com.)
