If Lt. Sonny Trillanes has his Class of ’95, GMA has her Class of Assumptionistas to run to for "backup." According to our ear-spies, GMA met her closest friends from Assumption College last Tuesday at the Palace, not to stage her own "coup," but probably to cook up some soup and banana cakes and share her frustrations from the volley of untoward events and criticisms, which made her a little too grouchy recently. Let’s just hope this is not her answer to the text messages that have been circulating lately that another group of "rebels" are intending to stage a "rebellion" allegedly led by two gay legislators. The group is called "Magdalena" as opposed to the young and robust boys of the "Magdalo."
With GDP falling below targets after Oakwood (as expected), but with foreign portfolio investments picking up by 69 percent, it appears confusion is the name of the game today. According to our ear-spies, a foreign business analyst writing for a well-known newspaper is wondering what is the real reason for the economic rollercoaster ride in the Philippines - the "Magdalo" rebellion, or it’s inevitable failure? In this country where coup plotters get elected to the Senate and are offered full-length movie contracts, no one would ever know.
One of our top eye-spies bumped into a foreign business correspondent recently and asked her what she thinks about George Bush’s visit to Manila this October. The foreign journalist said all this racket about the economy of the Philippines picking up if Bush pushes through with visiting the country is a lot of hogwash. How can the US help our economy when its own economy is in dire straits for the past few years? It was only recently that it broke out of the almost endless doldrums to post one of its strongest showings this year. She further said it would take a little more than beating the PR drums around Bush’s visit to turn the economy around after Oakwood and lingering rumors about another ‘coup’.
| The problem with revolving door appointments |
In conversation with top military officials, one of our ear-spies said the American military has known about the needed AFP reforms since 2001 through the Mutual Defense Board’s Joint Defense Assessment. In fact, these reforms which were urged by the United States have been set in motion in the AFP in the same year. But the idealistic and fatally romantic rebels of Oakwood, however, were a little bit impatient. An American official said that the boys’ perspective from the field have given them a sense of desperation when what was needed was a sense of urgency. Although these reforms were already set in place, there was no one to communicate these changes down the rank. The problem, the official maintained, could be the system of revolving-door appointments of Chief of Staff.
Our eye-spies said it was like the rumblings on Mt. Sinai when GMA stormed into the Tower Club last Wednesday and started thundering over the head of the Makati group for allegedly not being supportive of the president during the events of the past two weeks. The infamous presidential adviser, who is brother to the head of the Makati group, immediately denied having anything to do with his sibling. He was overheard by our ear-spies as saying he is not his brother’s keeper. As usual, he will deny outright even his own brother just to save his behind.
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