This is one time of the year that we can really say…“How time flies!” Today is the first death anniversary of a good friend and media colleague, the late Press Secretary Cerge M. Remonde who died last year at the Makati Medical Center; he was 51 years old. Cerge and I go a long way especially when both of us joined the anti-communist group dubbed “PAAC” (People’s Alliance Against Communism). But from Cebu, he joined the Arroyo government and made it all the way to the top to become Press Secretary.
My last time with him was when he asked me to join the President for the ASEAN Leaders Summit in October 2009 where we spent a whole night together for dinner and an evening out. He made it a point that we first dropped by then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in her hotel in Hua Hin, Thailand. Perhaps it was his way of saying goodbye to me.
Now a year later and seeing how the Aquino Administration so badly mangled the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS, now run by three people with different titles) a lot of people whom I met would reminisce and tell me how they miss Cerge, when the OPS had a very clear direction.
After his burial last year, I spoke with our media friends and we sort of agreed that Cerge died at the right time… in the sense that he was feted with the biggest funeral Cebu had ever seen with no less than the President of the Philippines in attendance. No media man in Cebu was ever afforded such an honor, except Cerge Remonde, whom we all miss. May we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of his soul.
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Just when we thought that the Year 2011 would have fewer controversies, well it seems that Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III loves to wallow in such “man-made turmoil”. Last week, the cat was literally out of the bag when the public learned that P-Noy apparently purchased a 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo 3rd hand “kuno”. This instantly triggered a debate over the propriety of our President purchasing such a luxury item when everyone else especially in government has been prohibited from acquiring such luxuries. Sure P-Noy’s defenders insist that this car was purchased with his own money, after he sold his BMW, so we have no right to question him on whatever he buys for himself, especially when government money wasn’t used.
But that’s really beside the point. First of all this purchase runs counter to his program for everyone else to be frugal in their expenses. Secondly, it is the wrong time for the President to buy his “Toy for the Big Boys”. In fact a good friend of mine told me that if he were the head of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) he would not allow the President to drive this car as it is too dangerous for him, risking his life driving such a car that could run at more than 300 kilometers per hour!
During the awarding ceremonies of the 30th Coral Tee at the Cebu Country Club (CCC) I talked with friends who owned sports cars and we all agreed that the reason why someone buys a sportscar is… first to tell the whole world that you have arrived. Second to show off to the girls and third and perhaps more importantly to show off your friends! In short in Cebuano “Pang Hambug!” Hambug is the exact opposite of humility in our tongue!
Surely P-Noy doesn’t need to show to the world that he has arrived… after all he is the President of the Philippines. He also doesn’t need this car to show off to girls because the girls can’t approach him in the first place because the PSG would stop them. If you put all your priorities inside your brain into a pie chart… for us ordinary mortals, a Porsche would fall under the “Dream” category. But for P-Noy, his priorities should be his political promise to our people that we can lick poverty and eradicate corruption. It makes me wonder how much room is in P-Noy’s brain for his Porsche?
When Pres. Arroyo was in power, the opposition chastised her for extravagance for eating an expensive $20,000 dinner at the swanky Le Cirque, even if the President didn’t pay the bill. So in a way, we can say that P-Noy’s purchase of a luxury sports car falls under the same extravagance, so we can say that back then, it was really the kettle calling the pot black!
Meanwhile the other controversial thing that P-Noy just did was his appointment of election lawyer Atty. Sixto Brillantes as the new Chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Wait! Isn’t this fellow the lawyer for the Liberal Party (LP) and doesn’t he have a lot of pending cases by his political clients before the Comelec? If you ask me, choosing an election lawyer (even my friend Atty. Romulo Macalintal) is wrong as they are very biased to their clients. P-Noy once accused Chief Justice Renato Corona of being biased for GMA, now we can say this fellow Brillantes will be biased for P-Noy and the Liberal Party. So we might as well boycott the 2013 elections!
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For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@ gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.