Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Andy Bautista has asked his estranged wife Patricia to stop “this media circus” as their children are being affected by their public quarrel.
Poor kids!
In any conflict, the innocents always suffer or get shot in the crossfire.
Being a father, I can understand how the Comelec chief feels about his children.
However, if the quarrel with his wife didn’t take place, his alleged P1-billion assets—including P329,220,992 in deposits with Luzon Development Bank, HK$948,358.97 and US$12,778 with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.—could not have been exposed.
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This column praised Bautista when he, as chair of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), proposed the abolition of the agency.
This space said Bautista must be a very honest official because previous PCGG chiefs and commissioners had a grand time taking advantage of the perks and privileges of their positions.
Instead of looking for ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies, for example, PCGG officials were helping themselves to the loot.
Bautista was different, this column said, because he wanted the PCGG abolished.
But apparently pakitang-tao lang pala (it was just meant to impress); he could be just like the rest of them.
If the allegation is true, how could he have amassed P1 billion in his years as a public official if he is not corrupt?
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Customs broker Mike Taguba was telling the truth to the House ways and means committee when he exposed the “tara” or bribery system at the Bureau of Customs.
“Yan talaga ang kalakaran sa Customs noon pa (That’s really the system at customs even before),” a bureau insider said.
Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon and his fellow Oakwood mutineers were appointed to the graft-ridden bureau because President Digong had thought they would prevent corruption.
The Oakwood mutineers rebelled against their superiors in the Armed Forces on July 27, 2003, because they claimed the military establishment was corrupt.
Well, my source may be sour-graping when he said corruption continues inside the bureau, but he gave us inside information that an outsider could not have given.
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Ysmael de Jesus, a baker, was sleeping in the back seat of a vehicle driven by Omar Simbulan when the latter bumped and killed a motorcycle rider in Pasay City.
But De Jesus was not spared in the murder charge filed against Simbulan.
Eyewitnesses said Simbulan accidentally bumped the motorcycle rider but later ran over him several times—this time allegedly on purpose—when he was already lying on the road.
Kudos to Assistant State Prosecutor Cesar Chavez for filing a murder charge against Simbulan.
But why include De Jesus, who was not behind the wheel and was even asleep when the crime was being committed?