Quotes of the day

Prospero Nograles, on the eve of the merger of Lakas (Teddy Boy Locsin’s favourite “party of thieves”) and Kampi (Gloria and Mike Arroyo’s favourite party of what else?) was “ecstatic” over the conjugal union of the two. As of this writing, the mega-event is supposed to be ongoing.

Said Nograles: “For now, winning the elections in 2010 is not our main goal. Changing the character of our politics is”.

Oh my God! After almost nine years of Gloria’s hegemony, during which Nograles has seen himself catapulted to the speakership of the lower House (low, lower, lowest) this guy talks of “changing the character of our politics”. To more of the same. Six more years of Gloria, and Mike, and Mikey, and Dato, and Iggy, and Marilou (not to forget her), and of course, more “nogralese” from the gentleman from lower Davao, perhaps as the next executive secretary, or the next secretary of injustice.

Another “nogralese”: “The new party will articulate, as its mother parties did, a bold program of action based on ideology --- because only by offering this program can we build institutional dialogue … (more useless gibberish) … lead our people in breaking the status quo … (even more inane gibberish)…”

Ideology? Institutional dialogue? “Breaking the status quo?”

Oh my Nograles! He of course will be (unless the thieves find a last minute replacement) president of this new “mega” party (until June 30, 2010, if there’s May 10, 2010). The new, improved, re-energized, re-incarnated “party of thieves”, which can now be called Nakaw, as in --- Nagkakaisang Kawatan.

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But there’s another quote of the day, from Jose de Venecia, progenitor of the win-win solution, the rainbow coalition, and all other forms of political transaction, until his son Joey the better, denounced what his conscience could not accept, the NBN-ZTE mega-deal, thus causing JDV’s fall from grace, but sadly, not “into the arms of the people”.

JDV warns the new party’s only potentially winnable 2010 champion (that’s what the current surveys claim), Noli de Castro, “to think twice about being GMA’s anointed”, as “her unpopularity could rub on De Castro and ruin his chances for the highest position in the land”. JDV also warned De Castro against “entering into a deal with Mrs. Arroyo”.

But JDV is not telling the people everything. Such as that his personal choice for president in 2010 has already given assurances to Dona Gloria, through a crony businessman that there will be no prosecution after June 30, 2010, if he wins, with her “quiet” support. The businessman had arranged for a Mediterranean tete a tete between the tall Villar and his not-so-short Cynthia and the not-too-tall Dona so that the transaction could be quietly sealed outside the prying eyes of media and the public. But Senadora Jamby blew the whistle, so the deal was made instead, mais non tete a tete, but through “brokers”.

Was JDV kept in the dark about this? Or is he simply happy that his better-half Gina will be in the senatorial ticket of this “presidentiality”, instead of his son Joey? And now he is working on Noli to once more be vice-president?

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Not yet married, but here comes a threat from the wife of another “presidentiality”. Rep. Nikki Prieto Teodoro, warned that “very powerful people” are prepared to back up her husband, SND Gilbert, or Gibo as he prefers to be called, “if the administration coalition does not declare him its standard-bearer for the 2010 presidential election”. According to the Tarlac congresswoman, “certain members of the soon-to-be-merged Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats and the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi), civil society and big business have informed her and her husband of their readiness to support his independent run for the presidency if and when… and they said that if it’s not him, they will bolt their own party.”

That’s a mouthful, indeed. Hindi pa kinakasal ang mga kawatan, maghihiwalay na?

It must be Gibo, or nothing, indeed. And Gibo, for his part seems mightily pleased that he, Dona Gloria’s military supervisor, will likely team up with Ronnie Puno, the dona’s police supervisor. Ronnie the Tree for vice-president, yehey!

“He is a good interior secretary and we both have an understanding of security matters. So I am hopeful that he can do a lot being the vice president,” Gibo said. Piloto ang presidente; pulis kotong ang bise, wow! And I can conjure a perfect police state, with the Dona as Queen Regent. Long live the Queen. Or is it “God Save the Queen”, sang by, you guessed it, Manny Pacquiao on inaugural day.

But La Senora Nikki must have the last word, for she adds, “this country needs change right away. If he (Gibo) runs for the Senate or for VP, what will happen to our country?” “Are we willing to sacrifice the future of this country?”

“Change right away” – ah, so des ka ? But I thought Gibo supports everything the Dona has been doing? Why change right away? Akala ko ba ang galing-galing ni Donya, as per your husband Gibo? Akala ko ba your galing-galing Dona has assured our future?


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As for Ronnie Puno, the man who would be vice-president, he has already bought a Learjet to transport himself and possibly his presidential running-mate, to anywhere in the country’s benighted islands. He is better prepared than even Joker’s “presidentiality”. Like Jojo Binay the perennial Boy Scout, Ronnie is “laging handa”.

Ronnie will compete with (so far), Kiko Pangilinan, who will run in the party of Megastar, and Jojo Binay, who will be Erap’s VP to be or not to be.

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Not to be outdone in our quotes of the day is Manny Villar, who sashayed into a newspaper office and declared that “whether I will be judged guilty or not guilty, it will depend on numbers, not on evidence”.

That’s exactly what he did to President Erap in November of 2000. Sans due process, sans committee proceedings, sans committee report, he immediately dispatched the signed “numbers only” impeachment complaint for trial by the Senate. Now he cries foul that his peers want to hear his side of the ethics complaint against him.

But of course, before the newspaper’s editorial board. Villar drew a map of his tale of two roads, using chopsticks, spoons and forks, to explain that there was no diversion of one road project to another location that would traverse his lands.

If we are to believe Villar, there will be one toll road from SLEX to Coastal, and another free-passage road from SLEX to Coastal, one and the other less than a kilometre apart. He, he, he. So who will pay tolls for use of the “other” road, the “other C-5” on which government had already sunk 1.8 billion pesos in road right-of-way payments, most of it to Brother Mike of El Shaddai? The DPWH has a lot of explaining to do, assuming what Villar says is true.

As the Marines would likely say to moneyed Villar --- “Tell that to the Senate”.