New BSP notes reveal the Aquino dynasty

Straight from the Sky brings you a talk with the Bureau of Customs and those involved in bringing in goods and materials into Cebu. This is the second time in my 10-year program that we featured a top ranking official from the Bureau of Customs. Years ago, I interviewed Customs Collector Lourdes Mangaoang, but she has been transferred somewhere in Luzon.

 Tonight we have with us Atty. Ronnie Silvestre, District Collector of Cebu Bureau of Customs, Ms. Leah Constantino, branch manager of APL Co.PTE. LTD and Mr. Emmanuel Tesalona, proprietor of JJBCJ Customs Brokerage who will give us a background of the ins and outs of dealing with the Bureau of Customs, its problems and its successes. So watch this very interesting interview on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 pm tonight.

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Kudos again to my good friend, Mr. Christopher Go for his second Jovian discovery. He found another peculiar spot in the planet Jupiter. A few years back, Chris Go found what is now known as the Red Spot Jr., the second Red Spot in the planet. Since we were kids, we’ve always known that Jupiter had a Red Spot, but who would ever predict that another Red Spot would be discovered by our own homegrown amateur Planetary Imager, who teaches in the University of San Carlos (USC). His discoveries is making Cebu and USC known to the world of astronomy.

Chris' latest find had astronomers all over the world scrambling to validate this new spot. Thanks to the Internet, whenever you find something new in this world or in the sky, it is easy to dismiss it as a fake or instantly validate it as true. After I interviewed Chris Go a couple of years ago on my TV show, I dropped by his house to see the Red Spot Jr. on his telescope.All I could say was… Amazing!

Chris Go was recently our guest speaker of the Cebu Rotary Club (Mother). He also wowed our fellow Rotarians about the scam that many so-called Climatologist have been trying to impress upon the unsuspecting world. He said in no uncertain terms that the Climate Change issue is dead! I’m sure this statement strikes in the hearts of our self-proclaim environmentalists who make it their business to give us doomsday scenarios so they could get their funding from abroad.

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Five months into the P.Noy presidency, the only concrete changes that we can see is the disappearance of the "Wang-Wang" even here in Metro Cebu, which is not really an issue of national consequence. After all, wang-wangs or sirens were not a big deal anywhere else except in Metro Manila.

Last Thursday, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) presented to President Noy the new banknotes that carries his signature. These new banknotes will be released this coming Friday. Accordingly, two billion bills of all denominations will be printed every year. I gathered that the new P500 bills would feature not just Ninoy Aquino, but also the late Pres. Cory Aquino and the son, Senator Benigno Aquino III who is now President. Of course it will be his signature on those bills.

What this new P500 bill teaches us Filipinos and I’m sure the foreigners who come and visit our country would also notice, is that the new P500 bill proves that the political families or dynasties in this country have always ruled us and if after so many decades we are still a 3rd world country. It is time we start blaming the people whose faces you will find in our new peso bills. As we all know, P.Noy has vowed to eradicate poverty, something that his father and mother could not do. So forgive me if I’m not so optimistic that he’ll succeed in his campaign promise.

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It is unbelievable that the faux pas done by the Department of Tourism (DoT) is still the talk of the town two whole weeks after this controversy exploded in the nation’s consciousness. I guess this is due to the fact that the DoT officials continue to justify their actions, despite the obvious, that their real objective is to spend the supposed P100 million budget to sell the new slogan here and abroad. In this world of corruption, it is a very highly suspicious move and a no-brainer, someone would absolutely "profit" from this!

Meanwhile, Undersecretary Vicente Romano III resigned because of this fiasco. But pundits believe that the poor fellow is merely a fall guy as delicadeza dictates that the head of the DoT, Sec. Albert Lim should have been the one to resign. But there is no doubt that Sec. Lim has powerful supporters who are hell-bent on keeping him onboard the Aquino Cabinet. But P.Noy should be told that the stakeholders in the Tourism Industry no longer have confidence in his capability to run the DoT. Hence, delicadeza dictates that Lim should resign otherwise, we’ll demand for his resignation!