With just a week to go before the elections, this is the time to finalize our choices for senators, congressman, partylist group, governor, mayor, board members or councilors.
This is also the final week for unli-advertising and annoying social media text blasts designed to capture our attention.
Let’s brace ourselves for more fake news and last-minute scandals to swing undecided voters. Some leading candidates will try to boost their advantage by paying supporters while neutralizing their opponents by buying off their prominent allies.
Multimedia platforms and personalities will be influenced to deliver final messages from candidates to voters. “Pera-pera na ang laban para manalo sa ultimo kwarto, ika nga. (It’s money in the final stretch that makes the winning difference).”
But please be reminded that Monday is also the culmination of the moneymaking business of politics by our “beloved” and “respected” candidates. After the elections, they and their financiers will definitely recoup their investments through their positions.
I’m sure you know these candidates (incumbents or making a comeback). You’ve seen how they handled the people’s money in the past and how they coddled their businessmen backers, gifting them with “government guarantees in public contracts.”
Let us not vote for candidates who kept silent during the Dengvaxia mass inoculation and “SAF 44” issue or received pork barrel funds during the impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona. The same goes for those who were jailed over the pork barrel scandal with Janet Lim Napoles and those incompetent members of the “Committee of Silence” in Congress.
Whether they are orange, yellow, “balimbing (turncoats)” or pro-Duterte, we must vote for candidates who have been proven to have integrity in handling government money. Let us support only those who have consistently upheld the people’s real interests without a leftist, rightist and political agenda.
* * *
The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent “conditional approval” of Dengvaxia exposed the monumental blunder made by former President Noynoy Aquino and ex-Health Secretary Janette Garin in giving the dengue vaccine to 731,133 students in April 2016. This also goes for former Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial of the Duterte administration who continued the program by injecting 100,000 students with Dengvaxia in 2017.
The US FDA said Dengvaxia should be given only to patients with “previously confirmed infections.” But during the 2016 mass inoculation conducted by the Department of Health, no such distinction was made. More than 50 percent of vaccinations were done without the consent of parents.
And the saddest thing is that complications are expected to arise three years after the vaccines were given, meaning, this year and 2020. The Public Attorney’s Office has reported 700 deaths with autopsies conducted on 133 victims. Of the 133, a total of 124 were not previously diagnosed with dengue.
* * *
Last week, former Sen. Nikki Coseteng exposed the proliferation of “ampaw” steel bars following the collapse of Chozun supermarket in Porac, Pampanga province.
Right now, we cannot distinguish if the steel bars available in the market are really Grade 60 or Grade 40.
It appears that embossing the grades on steel bars is a thing of the past, after the trade department and several government committees allowed the grades to be painted on instead. In a country where earthquakes are common, is this advisable?
Tune in to the “Banner Story” radio-TV show, Monday-Friday, 6-9 a.m., on dzIQ (990AM), ABS-CBN TV Plus Channel 30. E-mail
jakejm2005@yahoo.com for comments.