Radaza’s caricature: Was it a veiled threat?

Mayor Arturo Radaza has started to fight back against the accusations that have been thrown against him in this latest Battle of Mactan, by calling a presscon dubbed “Kadaugan sa Kamatuoran”. Mayor Radaza’s troops and mouthpieces were in full force all right, but “Der Leader” was conspicuously absent! Yesterday, CDN featured in their front page a caricature taken from the video presentation of the Radaza camp depicting him as Lapu-Lapu slaying Ferdinand Magellan, which was represented by the face of Mactan Business Chamber President Efrain Pelaez Jr.

Nice caricature, except that in this new Battle of Mactan, Mayor Radaza has shown to us that he is scared to show his face in public, sending only his legal beagles to fight his battles for him! Why Mayor Radaza can’t show his face in his own presscon only makes us wonder why. Is he scared to look into the camera lenses of our tv or news photographers?

Instead of answering the latest accusations against him especially about those overpriced computers, his lawyers, Atty. Richard Sison and City Attorney Joseph Vincent Lim merely pointed out that these figures are still being audited so they cannot yet confirm what the prices are. I’d like to point out that the Commission on Audit (COA)  merely does a post audit report and whatever figures they find can no longer be changed.

The main question is, why did they buy those computers at a highly-anomalous price of almost P50,000 apiece? If we checked the computer prices not from other companies, but from Kein Enterprises, the very same computer dealer where they bought those computers, you’d be surprised at how much they are actually selling those computers. I learned this while I was watching the morning tv Program of Ricky Poca and Divine Marcial “Hello Cebu, Maayong Buntag Sugbo” in CCTN channel 47. Their camera crew went to Kein Enterprises to check their prices.

While Kein Enterprises did not grant them an interview, this company had their prices posted in their front window, which showed that they were selling PCs at P17,500 for Intel Celeron with printer and table and P20,500 for an Intel Pentium D with Complete accessories and table. This is a far cry from the almost P50,000 per computer that the City of Lapu-Lapu bought which was exposed by Mr. Efrain Pelaez when he filed criminal charges against Radaza et. al. before the Office of the Ombudsman. No one from the Radaza camp came up with a credible answer to this critical question.

If you ask me, the Radaza presscon wasn’t even a Radaza presscon at all because of his absence. Call it a presscon by his legal beagles, designed to parry the blows thrown by Mr. Pelaez. Atty. Richard Sison began hitting the establishments of Mr. Pelaez for not having any permits and owing back taxes to Lapu-Lapu City. If this is true, then Lapu-Lapu City officials are remiss in their duties for failing to exact the proper taxes from Mr. Pelaez. But we know what the truth is. This is Radaza’s way of hitting back by throwing trump up charges against Pelaez to spite him or scare him off.

Let me go back again to that caricature made by Radaza’s henchmen, which could be misinterpreted as an “ominous” warning or threat given to Mr. Pelaez, that Radaza intends to slay him. Is this a veiled threat to kill Mr. Pelaez? I just hope that Mayor Radaza would not dare do this. He is already in deep trouble with all the criminal cases filed against him.

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Former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) has chastised Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s (GMA) offer of pardon to deposed Pres. Joseph “Erap” Estrada for the legal reasons he cited. I didn’t know of this until FVR mentioned that the President can only extend a pardon or use her powers called Executive Clemency to an accused convict only after the Supreme Court has already rendered a final and executory decision on the convict’s case. Right now, the status of Erap’s case is still on appeal before the Sandiganbayan that gave him a guilty verdict. So what’s this talk about clemency or pardon is the Arroyo government pursuing?

But there’s more. People are grumbling that pardoning Erap would in effect exonerate him from all the crimes that he was convicted of; therefore, all the monies and the Boracay mansion that was supposedly ill-gotten would have to be returned to Erap. Wow! If Erap is pardoned then he gets to have his cake and eat it too! I supported the move to pardon Erap but only if he gives a public apology. But if a pardon means he gets to have his cake and eat it too, then methinks giving him a pardon after all may just be a huge mistake! No one, not even Erap, should be allowed to keep any ill-gotten wealth!