EMMANUEL de Guzman, vice chair of the Climate Change Commission (CCC), goes around with 14 bodyguards, according to an insider.
Why would De Guzman, the executive director of a noncontroversial and little-known government agency, have so many bodyguards?
(The CCC is chaired by the President).
But in a phone interview with this columnist, De Guzman denied having 14 bodyguards. He says he has only a driver and one bodyguard.
The list provided by a CCC insider, however, showed that he has 14 “security consultants,” most of them policemen.
When De Guzman went to Tacloban City to inspect a project funded by the United Nations Development Programme for victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” he allegedly took four bodyguards and nine police escorts with him.
If this is true, why was there a need for him to have 13 security
escorts when he was just inspecting a project?
Even President Digong shuns bodyguards, although he can’t do away with them because of protocol.
According to the insider, De Guzman, a holdover of the previous
administration, also went on a two-month vacation with his family to Italy, Switzerland and the United States.
This was supported by pictures on his Facebook account which showed him and family members in the countries mentioned.
The insider claimed that the trips were shouldered by the government although De Guzman clarified that only his expenses were covered since he had to attend conferences in Italy, Switzerland and the United States.
He said he took advantage of his accumulated leaves and took his family with him but he paid for their expenses.
The commission insider went on to allege that De Guzman chose a travel agency which charges exorbitant rates when there are others that charge less.
De Guzman, the insider added, doesn’t call for a meeting or consult other commissioners, ignoring the fact that the CCC is a collegial body where other members should take part in the decision-making.
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Some policemen are taking advantage of the President’s war on drugs to settle personal scores.
On Sept. 8, Mark Anthony Culata, 27, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) on vacation in the country, left home to go to a friend’s house and didn’t return.
He was found days later by his relatives in a funeral home, his body bearing several gunshot wounds.
The funeral home workers showed his kin the cardboard sign with the message, “Pusher ako (I’m a pusher),” found on his body.
Officials in the barangay where his family lives say Culata did not have any record of being a drug user or pusher.
Based on the footage taken by a closed circuit television camera on a road in Tanza, Cavite, the motorcycle-riding Culata was stopped at a police checkpoint.
But the lawmen manning the checkpoint—later identified as PO2 Yves Sosa Luyun, PO2 Emerson de Ocampo, PO1 Edgardo de Guzman and PO1 Hernan Romanes—denied having accosted anybody at the time the footage was taken.
One of the policemen had a reason to harm the OFW.
Culata’s parents said they had admonished their son against seeing his former girlfriend who is now in a relationship with one of the policemen.
A few days after his disappearance, Culata’s room was shot at by unidentified persons, the bullets leaving holes on the wall.
Police authorities should look into the love triangle angle.
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Bangladeshi Ambassador John Gomes has thanked the government and the Inquirer for the return of $15 million out of the $81 million that hackers stole from the Bangladesh central bank and diverted to a branch of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.
The good ambassador forgot to thank Kim Wong, the guy who returned the $15 million.
Kim Wong, a junket operator, returned to the government the money that big-time gambling clients paid him for his services.
Wong didn’t know the money was stolen but when he learned about its provenance, he returned it immediately.
Don’t be surprised if the Bangladesh government doesn’t get back the rest of the money.