President Aquino alienates 2M voters

Angry militants and ultra-nationalists oppose the increased presence of American troops in the country under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca).

But they are greatly outnumbered by the majority of Filipinos who want the return of US troops in the Philippines.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Edca in a recent ruling, which some consider “historic.”

The US military was driven out of Clark Air Base in Pampanga province and Subic Naval Base in Zambales province by the Senate in the early 1990s that wanted to flex its muscles and show the world the country was not a stooge of Uncle Sam.

But would the Senate have decided to end the lease contract with the United States to maintain military bases in the country if there was an external threat to the country at that time?

Now that China is bullying us, a weakling compared to our superpower neighbor, should we not depend on the United States to stand up to China?

On our own, we don’t have a chance against a country that has a standing Army of several millions and equipped with modern weapons of mass destruction.

Forget about David overcoming Goliath: It only happened in the Bible and the story is probably apocryphal.

We need the United States, a dependable ally, to stop China from pushing us around.

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President Noynoy has just written the death warrant of administration candidates—especially Mar Roxas, who’s running for President—when he vetoed a bill increasing the pension of retired members of the Social Security System (SSS).

It would have given SSS member-retirees an additional P2,000 across-the-board pension hike.

There are more than 2 million SSS retirees that the President has alienated when he disapproved an increase in their pension.

The proposed increase would have meant a lot to the retirees whose monthly pensions have not kept up with inflation.

Even if, say, one-fourth of the 2 million SSS pensioners—500,000—don’t vote for the administration ticket as a result of the President’s vetoing the  pension hike, that’s a big number of voters.

This is an insensitive Chief Executive who doesn’t have bright advisers.

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Here’s an insider’s view of how retired military generals, who were sacked recently from their posts as collectors of the Bureau of Customs, got into the agency.

A customs insider said the President made a big mistake when he appointed Ruffy Biazon, former Muntinlupa City congressman, to head the customs bureau.

The President and Biazon were former colleagues at the House of Representatives.

Biazon didn’t have any background in finance, much more in revenue collection. Malacañang soon found out he was incompetent but the President didn’t want to take back his appointment as that would be an admission he made a mistake.

So, the Palace appointed Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Jessie Dellosa, who was fresh from retirement, as deputy customs commissioner to watch over Biazon.

Dellosa, in turn, asked that retired generals like him be taken in at customs, and Malacañang immediately approved his recommendation.

The retired generals were honest but were as incompetent as Biazon, as they didn’t also have any background in revenue collections.

The subordinates of the retired generals in their respective ports ran circles around them, resulting in low revenue collections.

That always happens when employees in a graft-ridden agency like the customs bureau know their chief doesn’t know what he’s doing.

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