This Priest Court’s Contempt, Charges

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I was amused with GMA-7 sports caster Chino Trinidad's opinion on Pound-for-Pound's boxing king Manny Pacquiao vs. Oscar dela Hoya, Pacquaio vs. Miguel Cotto. Walang binatbat daw iyong dalawa kahit mahaba ang kamay.

He, he, siyempre walang binatbat nag reduced ng weight sila.  Cotto (who should be in 154 lbs limit’s Junior  Middleweight) and dela Hoya (who climbed the canvas at 145 lbs despite fighting as Middleweight) reduced ng ilang weight classes. Those guys were dehydrated, salamabit!
Mayweather vs. Pacquiao? Wait for my article; I'll carefully analyze it for you guys.
Oh by the way, Pacquaio vs Mayweather’s mega fight of the century can rake up to $500 million where both divide the $250 guaranteed purse on a 60-40% basis. In this tussle Manny could pocket a staggering P4.5 billion more than enough for his senatorial hustling in 2016.
 Pacquaio's biggest-earning tiff was against Sugar Shane Mosley in 2011, generating 1.3 million Pay Per View (PPV) hits and a gross of $75 Million. Of the top 10 highest pay-per-view grosser, Mayweather accounts for three with  Canelo “Saul” Alvarez at $150 Million, De la Hoya at $136 Million and Cotto at $94 Million. The Pacquiao-Mosley fight is the ninth highest grosser in history. Pacquiao’s other fights with over 1 million PPV buys were against De la Hoya (1.25 million PPV), Antonio Margarito (1.15 million PPV), Juan Manuel Marquez 3 (1.25 million PPV) and Marquez 4 (1.15 million PPV)
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Fr Eliseo “Jun” Mercado, OMI, a Catholic priest in Cotabato City, announced recently he stands with his comment accusing the government of paying the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for the return of the weapons taken from slain Special Action Force troopers (SAF) last month.
Mercado’s statement can inflame a combustible situation where Filipinos have been smarting of the Mamasapano carnage that cost 44 lives of Philippine’s police commando’s Special Action Force because the government abandoned them.
Luisito Montalbo, director of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), criticized the priest, a known peace advocate, for coming out publicly with claims that are “unsubstantiated and unverified”.
The least the government can do to Mercado is to file a case of sowing intrigue, libel, or law on national security.
But the priest was adamant, he said he stood to his pronouncement and invoked “privilege communication”between a priest and a flock" not to disclose his source at the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Priest crowing to the public what a parishioner (a Muslim rebel?) disclosed to him?
Is Mercado a media man that he could not divulge his source?
Republic Act 147 said that even member of the Fourth Estate can be forced to disclose his source “ if the Court or a House or Committee of Congress finds that such revelation is demanded by the security of the State”.
With this privilege (being a priest) and the exception for the member of a Fourth Estate not to divulge one’s source, Mercado will find himself in a legal bind through contempt by Congress or indictment by the Court.

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The thing I liked about former Apo Hiking lead singer Jim Paredes was he composed classy songs like Blue Jeans, Batang-Bata Ka Pa, Panalangin, Libug lang Iyan, and When I Met You.
The thing I don’t liked about him was he did not consult his older brother political columnist Ducky Paredes when he made the following premises and conclusions vis-a-vis the Mamasapano, Maguindanao’s carnage I saw as tag at FaceBook.
“Why did the people in Great Britain, France, Germany, United States when hundred of thousands of troops perished in Dunkirk, Dien Bien Phu, Normandy ask for the resignation of their president just like what some disgruntled Filipinos ask for the resignation of President Benigno Aquino?” the good nature and probably well intentioned Jim posed.
The outrage did not happen in those countries because the military blunders there was not a result of of ABANDONMENT.
Besides, those countries and their enemies were engrossed in killing each other and they don’t have the luxury of time to blame each other.
The good example Jim should be citing that caused outraged among the people involved and kibitzers were the non-fiction Bay of Pigs' blunder in April 17, 1961 where President John F. Kennedy and the Central Intelligence Agency abandoned the Cuban freedom fighters’  Brigade 2506  at the Bahia de los Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) and the fiction (but based on a real situation) “Clear and Present Danger’s” flick main led by actor Harrison Ford (as CIA analyst Jack Ryan) where the CIA absconded the U.S Special Forces, who battle the Colombians drug cartels, massacred, just like in that corn field in Mamasapano, Maguindanao,  by the Columbia army.
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The Bay of Pigs incident was one of the angles being looked at by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the assassination of President Kennedy in November 23, 1963 by the smarting Cuban’s freedom fighters, although many suspected the CIA, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, the generals, and the military contractors conspired as Kennedy and his brother Robert, at the time the U.S Attorney General, have been against the continuation of the American war in Vietnam.
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Watching lately on TV the Senate Hearing on Mamasapano carnage. AFP Chief Gen Catapang defending the abandonment, er, procrastination of the AFP to the beleaguered SAF.
Another good example of abandonment could be cited in my conversation with a Chief of Police, an alumnus of the Philippine National Police Academy, of a city that has an equivalent rank of a Lieutenant Colonel in the military.
He told me that the procrastination (other meaning is “delay” to those tricycle drivers who read this article) by Army Brigadier General Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Philippine Army's 6th Infantry Division in Awang, Maguindanao, to save the embattled and being slaughtered British inspired commando Special Action Force, trapped in a corn field cum hell hole, could be hypothetically cited in a local situation that could happen in his city.
“Parang dito sa lugar ko, papasok ang CIDG (Criminal Investigation & Detection Group) o NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) sa isang drug den then they were met by superior gun fires and eventually surrounded by the drug lord and his men that start killing each of them. In case they would ask help from me to extricate them, why would I immediately go there? They should suffer first for their indiscretion in bypassing me with their operation”.
(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)