Will JPE be happy only as Senate president?

The coup that ousted Senate President Manuel “Manny” Villar the other day and installed Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile (JPE) was one coup that the dynamic duo, JPE and his pal, now Sen. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, engineered and succeeded in! Sure, it wasn’t a bloody coup that ended up causing an economic glitch like the way the Oakwood mutiny did for our economy, but it was a coup nonetheless. Now whether this would result in positive changes in the Philippine Senate, we don’t know. But whether this coup is linked with the impeachment proceedings that’s going on in Congress, it seems that this is the scenario that certain pundits want to sell.

Meanwhile, I doff my hat to JPE, whom I first met sometime in 1973 at the old Magellan Hotel, where as a kid, we used to play that very Filipino game called “pelota.” To tell the truth, I didn’t even know it was JPE, much less did I know that he was the second most powerful man in the country; after all it was only six months after Martial Law was declared. He was with Secretary Alejandro Melchor and they wanted to play a game with me and my friend Bobby Lozada and when he showed me his metal racket that had his name engraved on it, it was then that I knew he was JPE. We won the game against them and lucky for us, he wasn’t “pikon” and didn’t send us to jail.

Now the aging JPE is once more the second most powerful man in the country and all I can say is, he should thank Filipinos for their tolerance or forgetfulness because too many of our people suffered under Martial Law and proof of this can be had right in the Senate, where JPE once jailed oppositionist Sen. Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. and the father of Sen. Noynoy Aquino. But will JPE be happy only with the Senate presidency? Abangan!

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I got this e-mailed reply from Mr. Winston Obidos on the Boracay issue:

“I am deeply concerned with what is happening on the island. After decades of ownership of the properties in Boracay, the government, with one executive order, deprived all the owners and investors there of ownership of their lots which, though covered by a tax declaration, had been registered with the register of deeds and all the real estate taxes and capital gains all paid for with the assessor’s office and the BIR. What protection does an investor have against such a government action? What will be next? The Cebu resorts? The Bohol, Palawan resorts? Camiguin and Guimaras?

“Some officials say that the local residents will have the chance to bid or apply for the titling of their properties under certain conditions, but who among the locals can afford to bid against big and influential people who have shown interest in the island? As to your question as to whether we are closing ourselves to investors from abroad, I think the case of Boracay gives the potential investors in Boracay a clear message. What may not be good for us is that many foreign investors in Boracay come from countries which are our major sources of investments… [email protected]”

One of the reasons why the number one dream of every Filipino is to get a green card and live in the USA is the fact that it has a strong government… not just a strong President! I’m sure that you’ve seen many movies or documentaries that show signs on private properties that declare, “No Trespassers Allowed! Trespassers will be shot!” I have never seen such a sign here despite our having a very bad human rights record. This is because trespassers here, if they stay long enough in your private property, end up owning your land! Thanks to the Lina Law. It’s only in the Philippines!

In this country, the Torrens title you wave in your hand isn’t proof that you are the owner of your property. It only means that you have access to the land because for all we know, someone else may have a similar title to your property. I can name you a multitude of stories about land controversies on Mactan Island alone, where once someone even claimed ownership of a hectare of land in the middle of the runway of the Mactan Cebu International Airport! This is due to the grave injustice (I got this word from former Chief Justice Hilario Davide) committed by corrupt judges with their corrupt lawyers who more often than not entertain spurious landowners who were bought by the Chinese Mafia in Cebu and voila, the government loses!

All this is happening throughout the country because of our corrupted justice system, which we thought we could change when we booted out the Marcos Dictatorship in the 1986 EDSA Revolt. What a bunch of fools we were, believing that Tita Cory, the widow of our hero, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., would institute real reforms to make this country better than what Marcos left us. Twenty-two years later, we’re worse off than when we started, especially our serious lack of justice!  

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.