Karma, good and bad

The government is making a VIP out of a suspected thief, Janet Lim Napoles.

It spends so much on her stay at a police commando training camp when she should be confined in an ordinary jail.

Because of Napoles, activities at the Camp Crame General Hospital virtually came to a standstill while her ovary was being examined.

Normalcy returned only when Napoles had left.

* * *

All the money Napoles stole from the poor cannot be used to pay for special medical treatment in a private hospital because she’s in jail.

Her only consolation is that she’s being guarded 24 hours a day by police commandos, which an ordinary citizen doesn’t enjoy.

She can’t pay off any judge who will hear the cases to be filed in court against her even if she has billions of pesos stashed away somewhere, because the public is watching.

All her friends have abandoned her, treating her like a woman with a highly infectious disease.

That’s bad karma.

* * *

When Mike Arroyo was in power because his wife Gloria was the President, he was harsh toward his critics, especially journalists who wrote unfavorable stories about him.

He filed cases left and right against journalists, and had no qualms filing trumped-up charges against some of them.

Mike Arroyo used the resources and power of the government to go against his journalist-critics, which President Marcos and Imelda did at the height of their power.

Today, the former First Gentleman is a beaten man: He faces several criminal cases and can’t leave the country without permission from the courts.

Karmic justice has come upon Mike.

Mike’s wife Gloria is also serving out the law of cause and effect or karma.

She never prevented her husband from abusing his power because she was party to his shenanigans.

* * *

One of the big companies actively—but secretly—helping the victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” is San Miguel Corp. (SMC).

I learned about this from a government official who is involved in rehabilitating Tacloban City and other towns in Leyte and Samar provinces devastated by Yolanda.

The official didn’t want to be quoted.

This official said SMC’s Ramon Ang had pledged to build 5,000 houses in different places in Leyte and Samar, costing P200,000 each.

That’s a total of P1 billion.

Ang also pledged to build 200 school buildings.

Ang visited Tacloban City recently on his private jet but went incognito, the official said.

Last December, Ang told this columnist he would deploy SMC’s heavy equipment to Samar and Leyte to help in the rehabilitation effort, which he did without fanfare.

Now, do you still wonder why SMC under Ramon Ang is becoming bigger and bigger?