Reason Behind Cha-Cha: Pres. Aquino Fears Jail

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I got mixed reactions on President Benigno Aquino III latest pronouncement that he welcomes Charter Change (ChaCha).

Ever since I was espousing in this column that to get rid of that present 12 million unemployed Filipinos, over abused Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), and the moral backlash brought by the migration of Filipinos abroad where the families at home committed immoralities and indulging to illegal drugs because no one watch them, the government should open its restricted xenophobic economic 60-40% provision that favors the financially overstretch Filipino oligarchs in the Constitution.

My usual argument: More foreign investment in our country means more jobs. More jobs means OFWs from Libya, and other countries would no longer be vulnerable to rape and other abuses. Husband or wife does not resort to infidelity with fellow OFWs or the woman or man next door in the Philippines, or sons and daughters don’t become drug addict or impregnated at an early age because a parent or parents are there to watch them grow.

My usual poser: Why the standard of living of a Thai is much better than those of the Filipinos who in the 1970s have almost the same number of population? Aside from their aggressive government sponsored family planning program, they snared, according to the World Investment Report, last year $12.95 billion of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) while the Philippines contented herself with a minuscule $3.9 billion in the same year.

Now it seems that I digress to why I have a mixed reaction on the president’s amenability for Cha-Cha. Our balding president smarted as seen on his State of the Nation Address (SONA) how he was being treated by the 13-0 of the Supreme Court because of his Disbursement Acceleration Program that jerk-up, er, perk- up by more than 6% the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

It means the 13-0 DAP’s decision of the high tribunal is the Sword of Damocles that hangs above his head.

It is a threat to his limb because whether he likes it or not he goes to jail in a non –bailable crime of plunder through technical malversation because he usurped the power of congress to allocate the DAP’s P177 billion funds and channeled to other economic stimulating projects.

“But he did not pocket any of the P177 billion. He did not profit for himself on the DAP” Objected recently to me by a lawyer when we were conversing.

“That’s beside the point. What we are seeing here is the probable cause for technical malversation as provided in the Revised Penal Code and the Special Law on Plunder found by the Ombudsman and the Sandigabayan, and the warrant of arrest issued by the latter against  former president Aquino in 2016. It was just like Gloria Arroyo who was thrown in the calaboose without bail”.

President Aquino, a person who dreaded to tinker with the Constitution, dread to think of that day he would be rubbing with his hands the iron grills of the detention center for years as  he waited for the Sandiganbayan and his pet peeves the Supreme Court decide for the case thus his amenability on the amendments or revision of the Constitution.

With his overwhelming allies in the Houses of Representatives and Senate dependent on the opiate called pork-barrel (who said there was no pork barrel? I’ll discuss it here later), I am sure Constituent Assembly will be formed soon to change the Constitution. 

***

Forget about the Beatles in their Hard Days Night’s album belting: Money Can’t Buy My Love.
Money is everything that even Manny Pangilinan of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone is in a quandary how to resuscitate his bleeding TV-5 network tens of millions of pesos against the competition given to it by ABS-CBN and GMA-7 TV networks.

Money is pecuniae obediunt omnia  (money rules the world) in Latin that you now understand since I put its English translation.

“Without money or S.O.P through cut from the solons' favorite private contractor who get it from the pork, congressmen and senators would no longer support the president all the way like impeaching the chief justice of the Supreme Court and even those present justices in case the president make his clarion call to his allies in Congress,” I told my errand boy Procopio Matulis when we were drinking liquor – San Miguel Lights for my gofer while Mortz baby imbibed Emperador Brandy as my blood pressure shot up lately to 140/100.

But does pork barrel still exist even the high court said it was illegal and unconstitutional?

Pork is alive and kicking according to Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) Chair Patricia Lichuanan and Health Undersecretary Janet Guarin. Both said, as taped by the staff of ACT Teachers Congressman Antonio Tinio that all the P14 million budget for scholarship of the Commission on Higher Education in every congressional district, and all the Medical Assistance Program (MAP) in every government hospital have been intended for the recommendation of the congressman who are the real recipient of that project.

“There are many people out there, who really think I now have P4.1-billion new scholarships. They don’t think it’s the PDAF, they don’t think it’s going to you (lawmakers) … And then I’m supposed to tell them ‘No! No! Don’t do that, because actually the congressmen are all going to get it,’” Licuanan said.

 “We have to go through this kind of semblance. We understand each other. I really want to cooperate.”

She also confided that her regional directors actually thought they had an extra P14 million in scholarship grants for each district so she had to tell them that this was “really for the congressmen,” as written on August 12 by the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s titled  “Party-list rep presents ‘smoking gun’ on pork”.

The same article said: “Tinio also revealed a recording of Garin, a former Iloilo representative, during a meeting between officials of the Department of Health (DOH) and House members last May 20 to iron out the “chaos and confusion” on the medical assistance program (MAP) of lawmakers inserted in the 2014 budget.

Garin said the MAP would only be available to individuals recommended by lawmakers or their designated staff”.

***

With pork still around at the behest of the president expect the unexpected in Philippine politics as the president march for survival in amending the constitution to extend his term, and try to clip some of of the powers of the Supreme Court as it becomes a threat to his future freedom.

My poser here: Would the president be successful on this brinkmanship?

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).