NPA’s biggest recruiter
If things go as planned, a Mazu shrine will rise in the middle of next year at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) complex on a wharf facing Manila Bay, to watch over sailors and attract hundreds of thousands of Chinese worshippers.
Mazu is a Chinese goddess of the sea and has millions of devotees from all over the world.
President Digong has approved in principle the building of the shrine on that part of the CCP complex which is currently a trysting place for lovers and a haven for homeless people who dirty up the place.
Construction of the shrine, which will cost millions of pesos, will be financed solely by China Mainland tycoon Jose Kho, founder of the Friends of the Philippines Foundation and a Mazu devotee.
In places where there are Mazu shrines—like an island in Fujian province in China, Taiwan and Macau—millions of devotees visit or do pilgrimage every year.
The shrine will be very good for Philippine tourism.
Incidentally, Kho is reclaiming hundreds of hectares on Manila Bay to convert the area into a new Hong Kong or Singapore.
He is also financing the construction of a P750-million drug rehabilitation complex in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
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I have no love lost for former President Noynoy Kuyakoy but I can’t understand why the Senate blue ribbon committee allowed Ferdinand Topacio to make accusations against him and other former officials without presenting evidence.
I can’t understand why the usually stern Sen. Dick Gordon, the committee chair, was unusually quiet all along while Topacio was grandstanding before his committee.
It was obvious that Topacio, who represented the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), wasted the committee and the public’s time in his harangue.
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Heard from the grapevine: Some of the people that Customs Commissioner Sid Lapena brought with him from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) are allegedly asking “goodwill money” from importers (sometimes read: smugglers).
The amount reportedly ranges from P5 million to P10 million.
When the discredited Nicanor Faeldon took over the helm of the Bureau of Customs, he was allegedly the only one being given “pasalubong” (welcome) money, according to some customs insiders.
This time, however, there are so many people demanding pasalubong money, although Lapena, in fairness to him, probably doesn’t know the extortion activities of his boys, say the same old-timers.
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PO3 Marvin Perez of the Baliuag, Bulacan, police arrested the landlady of his sister who could not pay her apartment rent.
Perez’s sister Rosana Reyes and her husband Michael left with the landlady, 69-year-old Estelita Agluba, a table as collateral for vacating their rented apartment.
Perez arrested Agluba and her daughter for theft, booked them and filed charges against them in court.
Here’s another very abusive cop.
PO3 Alan Rich Silva of the Manila police accidentally bumped a drunk, Regent dela Cruz, with his motorcycle in Caloocan City recently.
In the ensuing altercation, it was Silva versus Dela Cruz and his buddy Gilbert Soriano, both street diggers.
Silva took Dela Cruz and Soriano to the Sangandaan police station where he filed complaints for attempted robbery, illegal possession of deadly weapon and ammunition, and direct assault against the two.
Both men are now languishing at Caloocan City jail because they can’t afford to post bail at P180,000 each.
The barangay tanod (village watchman), Romeo Cueto, who accompanied Silva to the police station swears he didn’t see any deadly weapon on Dela Cruz and Soriano.
The Philippine National Police is the biggest recruiter for the New People’s Army (NPA).
