Cebu is beginning to look like a refuge and ‘sanctuary’ for GMA

Sure, she may have had a speech scheduled before an international IT group of foreign delegates and businessmen. There must have been a raft of other projects to be toured or inaugurated. But her rushing for solace and prayer to the Pink Sisters yesterday gave La Presidenta’s real intent away.

Cebu, where she won big in last year’s now "wiretapped-tape" assailed election has become GMA’s sanctuary and refuge in times of woe and crisis. Sus, her Cebuano is even better than her Kapampangan. No wonder she held the formal inauguration for her second term in Cebu and declared that city of the Sto. Niño her Malacañang of the South. Pesky Metro Manila, with its pollution and its "back-stabbers" (her own phrase) is apparently not for her.

What’s interesting is that, though she returned last night, fleeing to Cebu City for most of the day left two foreign Presidents who’re still here on state visits mucking around Luzon while she was away in the Visayas. Protocol-wise this wasn’t an act of discourtesy, since the official "talks" were conducted and completed last Tuesday between GMA and visiting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and subsequently visiting President Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh of Gambia. Yet wouldn’t it been wonderful if she had spent much of yesterday – and better for foreign relations, one with the chief of state of our powerful, very strategic next-door neighbor, the other with the first African head of state to come to the Philippines – escorting her state visitors in their rubbernecking expeditions?

It’s a question of priorities. Both lead Muslim nations. Indonesia, in particular is vital to us in the mutual battle versus terrorism, while Gambia’s President is in the upper echelons of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

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Perhaps, GMA didn’t want to remain in Manila, within earshot of the hilarious hearings in the Congress yesterday, during which three "tapes" surfaced in the hands of different persons, and there was much haggling in the five House committees over where they came from, and who had made them.

La Gloria’s continued refusal to comment on whether the "voice" on the bandied-about wiretapped cellphone calls (and ringtones) is hers will continue to fester. But what the heck – it’s rather late in the day already for her to "fess up" or deny it. What I find bizarre is the fact that an Undersecretary of Health is the one telling her not to say anything. Why the Health USEC? For her political health? Even more bizarre is the fact that her appointed Undersecretary of Health (a former Customs Chief) is not a doctor, but a lawyer – USEC Alex Padilla – a son of the late Senator and brilliant legal expert, Ambrosio Padilla. What would lawyer Padilla do if there were a "bird flu" epidemic? Delve into his law books and declare, "it’s for the birds"?

Another thing I find strange is that GMA’s bright boys have even gotten Ronnie Puno – remember the Sulo kid, and Erap’s former DILG man? – to vouch for her and her Cabinet. It’s just like contracting Madonna to give a series of lectures on virginity. One of Madonna’s famous songs, after Evita and Papa, Don’t Preach was Like a Virgin. Being like innocent simply doesn’t wash.

What we need for GMA to do is not just to give two-in-a-row interviews to foreign newspapers, like the Financial Times, which make frontpage taglines such as "Macapagal Defiant: Philippine president stands firm," last Tuesday, and, yesterday, "Confident Macapagal Tries to Rise Above Graft Claims."

Not just try, Madam President: Do something.

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The good news announced by GMA in Cebu was that OFW Roberto Tarongoy, 31, who was abducted November 1, last year, in Baghdad, had been "released" by the Muslim jihadis who had kept him almost eight months in captivity.

Although the details on Tarongoy’s liberation remain sketchy, Foreign Affairs USEC Jose "Chito" Brillantes said on TV that Tarongoy, who comes from Davao, was reasonably healthy, and would soon be brought home. Brillantes, who’s been confirmed as our next Ambassador to Canada and will be leaving for Ottawa within a month or two, didn’t appear to have much more information, except to say the former hostage was safe thanks to the efforts of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis who had been in Iraq continuously working for his recovery.

Had Tarongoy been "rescued", or merely released – just like that? Nobody could tell last night. It will be suspected, of course, that ransom was paid to the Islamic radicals – just as it was suspected that, aside from GMA humiliatingly withdrawing our tiny Philippine contingent in Iraq to save another OFW, Angelo de la Cruz, from being "beheaded", a ransom of $6 million had been forked over for him.

A few months ago, if you’ll recall, the abductors had reportedly been demanding $10 million for Tarongoy. I hope no money changed hands, but who knows? If our government or private "financiers" paid ransom, it would become "open season" on all Filipinos working in Iraq or in nearby Middle Eastern countries. There must still be more than 4,000 of our OFWs working in bomb-wracked and embattled Iraq (now terrorists bombing a water pumping station has cut off water from most of the faucets in Baghdad).

True, Philippine Passports are now stamped "Not Valid for Travel to Iraq," but Pinoys continue to brave going there, desperate to make a living they can’t make at home.

Tarongoy – an accountant – didn’t even tell his 28-year old wife, Ivy Grace Tarongoy, he was going to Iraq. Indeed, when she was interviewed soon after his abduction, Ivy recounted that, although he had a plan to go abroad, when her husband left Davao on June 28 last year, he had said he would be working in Manila.

Instead, it seems Tarongoy left the country on July 23, 2004, for Bangkok, then proceeded to Doha, Qatar. A month later, he crossed over to Baghdad to work for the Saudi Arabia Trading Company which caters food for the Iraqi military.

To recount his ordeal: gunmen seized Tarongoy, an American named Roy Hallums, and four others, from the company’s compound in the upscale Mansour district of Baghdad.

Last March 7, at 11 p.m. (Qatar time), the al-Jazeera Television network showed a video of Tarongoy in the hands of his captors. At one point, it was reported that the Islamic militants had threatened to kill Tarongoy unless more than "6,000 Filipino workers" were withdrawn from Iraq and "stopped supporting the US military presence" there.

But now, thankfully, he’s free.

There must be great rejoicing in Davao today. We’re happy, too. But it’s a reminder that every Filipino in the diaspora, particularly in combat areas, remain at risk. That’s the price we pay for not having a viable domestic economy.

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Almost two weeks ago, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said that a smear campaign was being mounted against him. Among the slurs he predicted, would be allegations of sexual misconduct. Why? Because of the churchman’s angry exposés of widespread jueteng and his encouragement of whistle-blowers coming forward to make their revelations on who were getting payola.

Mind you, this was long before the tapes scandal erupted.

Virtually on cue, a fellow claiming to be a former sacristan and a tabloid journalist has come out to accuse Archbishop Cruz of not merely sexual indiscretion (fathering two children) etc., but of taking money from druglords and being a heavy gambler. But the clincher was that the accuser said he, too, had been sexually abused by Monsignor Cruz some 18 years ago! Wow.

The 37-year old fingerpointer announced he had addressed his complaint-affidavit to Pope Benedict XVI in Rome.

Yet, according to the newspaper report we received from Pangasinan, when the guy, a certain Jaime Aquino, was confronted by some members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in the CBCP office, he failed to recognize which one was Cruz.

Oh well. Draw your own conclusion.