Digong’s other side

The public knows a little about the daily trips the President makes to areas hard-hit by Typhoon “Ompong” in northern Luzon.

Typical Digong: publicity-shy when it comes to what he does for his people.

He makes daily sorties to devastated areas and comes home to Malacañang late in the evening aboard the presidential chopper.

I had a scheduled meeting with the President at the Malago Guest House inside the Presidential Security Compound at 7 p.m. on Tuesday but he arrived at 9 p.m.

The President had just come from Isabela and we hardly had time to talk—he skipped dinner—because he looked exhausted.

He retired at 11 p.m. and, early morning of Wednesday, flew to Nueva Ecija and other adjoining provinces aboard the presidential chopper.

And yet, the President hardly makes a fuss about his trips to the devastated provinces.

I had asked his special assistant, Bong Go, to take pictures of the events in presidential sorties to the affected areas so I could post them on my Facebook page and Twitter account, but he said the President didn’t want it.

————–

A customs official, who was once rumored to be a girlfriend of Mayor Vicente Loot of Daanbantayan, Cebu, has been given a lucrative position even if she is in the bureau’s list of corrupt officials.

Loot is on President Digong’s list of officials involved in the illegal drug trade.

The customs official was chief of the Bureau of Customs’ X-ray unit, which checks cargoes going out of the piers and reportedly the most corrupt office in the bureau.

The customs lady, so the scuttlebutt in the bureau goes, facilitated the exit of illegal drugs that ended up in Cebu and with you-know-who.