Breach
When supertyphoon Yolanda battered Eastern Visayas an appalling news broke: hundreds of inmates from the Tacloban City and the Leyte Provincial Jails escaped. Of all those who broke out more than a hundred from each detention center were to be tracked down. The detention prisoners took advantage of the precarious condition of the jails destroyed by the storm.
Almost three months after, another shocking talk scooted around the Hall of Justice in Tacloban City: another jail break occurred at the LPJ with about two hundred detention prisoners still to be recaptured. But this time, there was no evidence of forced egress. The fugitives passed through the main gate with ease as if they were in command.
There was a breach of tranquility and order in the provincial jail located atop a hill in the remote Brgy. Kauswagan in Palo, Leyte and few kilometers from the Philippine National Police regional command. What used to be a peaceful custodial center for alleged felons suddenly turned into a hatchery of sinister plans to overturn duly constituted authority. It was a semblance of mob rule where looters went on their robbery frenzy without fear of arrest or police encounter.
Thanks to the quick and responsive uniformed men of the Leyte Provincial Police Office detailed at the vicinity of the provincial jail, a hundred and forty-three absconders were in no time wasted recaptured and placed behind bars again. Still a sizeable number are on the loose creating fear at least among those who were involved in the cases they are facing or those directly embroiled in what they complain of. Just like what?
Delay in the distribution of food being rationed to the detainees is one. Another is an even more dismal delay in the termination of their cases. One inmate claimed that their cases take too long to be heard or called again in court or worst not called at all.
These two excuses could be valid but necessarily too compelling as to move them all detainees to jump out of the detention cells and go scot-free from their stainless shackles and face the risk of being fugitives of the law. Something must be lying beneath the tip of the iceberg.
Whatever the whys and wherefores are, they surely are a rehash of the usual plight of inmates ignored through the years, pent up feelings that were never elevated and grievances taken for granted. This breach could not have happened with a sound leadership of the jail. Something must be worked out to improve the situation for those left in prison.
School children at the Pawing Elementary School in Pawing, Palo in Leyte receives educational kits from the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) on Jan.30.(TOTEX ARCUENO)
(TOTEX ARCUENO)
The Amazing Kap, Bong!
When this image-shattering bombshell with legislators as the culprit relative to the P10B pork barrel scam was top story, cum expose in print and broadcast channels, I did not entertain an iota of doubt that the scam is true. This reaction is based on what is known to everyone that the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel of old has been an illegitimate source of wealth of majority (if not all) of our lawmakers, both in the Upper and Lower Houses!!
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Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr., Juan Ponce Enrile and Jose Jinggoy Estrada face a plunder complaints over the scam before the Ombudsman, together with 34 others to include Janet Lim-Napoles, a businesswoman believed to be the P10B racket manipulator who provided kickbacks to these legislators – to as much as 50% from the PDAF fund released to what has been found out as non-existent NGOs of Napoles.
Then privilege speeches!
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Are we impressed or are our people convinced? Based on my queries from independent observers what I got was a big flat NO! Rightly so!
Why are the privilege speeches of Jinggoy, son of an ousted President and Amazing Kap Bong not convincing?
Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada used almost an hour of his privilege speech but said almost nothing to defend his case except that of sharing his frustration why they were the only ones singled out (3 of them), because others did it? My interpretation: Right from the horses’ mouth so to speak, Jinggoy, strengthened people’s belief that indeed the scams like these is a way of life among them.
Then the Amazing Kap, also a Senator Bong, like Jinggoy Estrada, just categorically said he has not been involved in the scam claiming that his signatures were faked. But how could he now deny written documents about this scam, as revealed by Ben Hur Luy, his signatures were “all his” and the COA OFFICIAL FINDINGS.
Let’s face it that the “downloading” of funds from lawmakers pork starts with the Senator or representative “writing a letter- request addressed to either the Senate President or House Speaker on how the lawmakers PDAF were to be implemented; and how much will be allocated. All signed by them.
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The actor Bong wrote and executed a script by appearing before the Senate hearing with a toy truck loaded with stocks of clean coupon bond paper. What was his purpose? Nothing but a showbiz strategy and Bong forgets that such act can only be done in a make- believe movie script, his domain. In fact those loaded in the toy truck where not scrutinized.
A toy truck is a young boy’s plaything a revelation of the boyish Bong persona and Legislators are adults, there’s no place for boys in the august halls of the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines.