SONA 2013: Foreign Dignitaries Don't Look Like Idiots Anymore

BY MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Geez, foreign dignitaries were wearing ear phones at the State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2013.
I was the only one probably in the country who observed in my blog the following in my column after I accidentally attended the SONA 2012 when the Taxi driver thought I ordered him “Dalhin mo kami ni Ronel (de Vera of the Toro-Toro Tabloid) sa Sona” instead of the “Dalhin mo kami sa Sauna” after an all night drinking binge at the Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City.
 Excepts of what I wrote in that blog that has a photo headline of Gabriela Congresswoman Luz Ilagan wearing a frock designed by Kukor (short for Kukortinahin in her pink and checkered Bayanihan in “Alampay” and “Tapis”) : "That I pitied the foreign dignitaries who looked like idiots listening to the one hour-and- a- half speech of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in Tagalog. That the Office of the Speaker should have purchased earphones (just like in the United Nations- for those dignitaries who come as far as the Republic of Timbukto ) on which they listen to translations in English.
 (You can accessed the entirety of my article and see for yourself if Representative Ilagan really garbed in Kukor athttp://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2012/07/from-sauna-to-sona.html)
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 MY FAVORITE SONA 2013’S PIECE: One of my favorite lines of the balding President Noy in SONA 2013:
"In fact, we are already holding the former leadership of TESDA accountable for his part in the outrageous overpricing of purchases by the agency. For example: one incubator jar is priced at 149 pesos. But Mr. Syjuco priced the same jar at 15,375 pesos. The normal price of a dough cutter, 120 pesos. The price according to Mr. Syjuco: 48,507 pesos. Let’s be clear: this is a dough cutter, not a Hamilton Class Cutter. Perhaps when he finally has his day in court to face the cases filed by the Ombudsman, Mr. Syjuco will finally learn to count."
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 MORE OF MY MINDANAO VISITS: When I was passing from Davao City to Davao del Sur I was awed by new seafood restaurants that sprouted in the areas. Some are still being constructed. I and my brother and his family from California dropped by at Jona’s Sea foods & Restaurant that was already near the border of Digos City since they pitied my “famished look”.  I did not eat breakfast and lunch after I left Dagupan City to beat my 12:55 pm flight of Air-Asia from Clark, Pampanga to Davao City. Man, they joined me to partake my late lunch of my favorite “kinilaw na tanigue”.and joined me to be awed by the magical taste of roasted “itlog ng tuna” that would be a draw to Manilenos and other non-Mindanaon tourists who visited one of the sea food houses in the Davao areas that introduced delicacy they called in Bisaya as "bihod."
 “Probably, these ubiquitous seafood houses draw moneyed customers in the Davao-General Santos City areas since they have been experiencing economic spikes?” I posed in Visaya to Jared Ballenas, the van driver who should be replacing the frail Bembol Rocco in the “Pinilukang, este, Pinilakang Tabing” or “Showbiz” in English, we hired.
He affirmed what I observed but told me to my amusement that some of these restaurants that we Luzonians considered a treat have been built by Filipinas who married Japanese.
 “ Bakero, what? They just built these without considering the law of demand and supply?” I posed to him my bewilderment. “Baka malugi sila later pag dumami na sila dito like mushrooms!” I quipped. After we egress the Davao del Sur area (where huge tarp of its grateful new governor Claude Bautista (his political family hailed from Binmaley, Pangasinan as what I told Congressman Pol Batoail of neighboring Lingayen town ) adorned the strategic areas of the province). I saw the ugly side of what is an economic pariah in North Cotabato, one of the poorest province in the Philippines, where I heard the price of raw rubber cup lump, major industries of people there, there has been pegged down and controlled by a cartel owned by the power-that-be for a price of 36 pesos instead of the real price of 80 pesos per kilo dictated by market forces. “Son of a gun, no more seafood restaurants, no more chugging sounds and billowing smokes from construction equipment building houses and edifices just like in the Davao areas.
This is the epitome’ of what is a backwater economy without investors including those Japayukis pouring their monies to change the landscapes of the areas” I told folks inside the van as we traversed. But the saving grace of the province is its lush vegetation that would be a treat to commuters who passed by its highway. Weather there is cooler than in most areas of Luzon where balding vegetation looks like the thinning hair of President Benigno Aquino III who is messed up with all the corruptions concocted and executed by his subordinates in the country. Grabe, even the mountains in the Makilala-Kidapawan City areas are cloud-kissed around 4pm when we passed there going to the humongous town of M’lang (saving grace of Cotabato Province especially after its airport would be finished anytime from now), that believe it or not can shame major towns in Pangasinan with its P142 million appropriation for Fiscal Year 2013.
 “Ganoon? Halos tatalunin niya na ang P145 million budget ng Rosales with its vaunted SM-Rosales, “ A Dagupeno quipped when I told him about it. I retorted because probably of the town’s sheer size and the real property tax the people there pay. “Dito kasi sa atin sa Pangasinan bukod sa maliit, tabi-tabi lang ang mga bayan at ciudad like in Central Pangasinan,” I said in the vernacular.
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