A tale of two resignations!

For our special presentation on our talkshow on Straight from the Sky, we bring you a very important topic on the issue pertaining to US Immigration in the State of New York from the perspective of a Filipino immigrant who is now practicing law in the New York State. With us tonight is Atty. Marco Tomakin, who comes from Cebu City and became a registered nurse. He studied law at the University of San Jose-Recoletos and became a lawyer.

 He migrated to Albany, New York and worked as a nurse there and somehow, by a stroke of luck, his patient, who was a practicing lawyer in Albany, hired him to be a paralegal. He ended up taking the New York State Bar and passed. With his experience as a nurse who migrated to the US, he now has a very successful law office in Albany.

 I first knew of Atty. Tomakin when he would email me his comments from New York about certain issues I write in my columns in The Freeman and the Philippine Star. I eventually met him when he attended our Rotary Club meetings and learned that he also established an office here in Cebu. Now how many nurses who became lawyers have you ever met… more so one that is now a lawyer in New York? So watch this very interesting interview of Atty. Marco Tomakin in SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm tonight.

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 I was out for most of last week as I was with the group from the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) for a teambuilding exercise in Moalboal, Cebu from Tuesday to Friday. We stayed at the very homey Hale Manna Resort, which unfortunately didn’t have newspapers and no television, hence I was truly out of touch from the world, except when the Internet gets connected, mostly at night.

 Anyway, as I looked at the newspapers that I missed last week, the big news was about resignations. The first was about the resignation of Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama from the Bando-Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) Party and the other was the resignation of Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Sec. Jose “Ping” de Jesus.

 Let’s discuss first about the resignation of Sec. De Jesus, which just a week ago was vehemently denied by Malacañang Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda. But when the rumors persisted that this resignation was really happening, we began to see the real picture that this wasn’t a just simple resignation because of poor health or that Ping de Jesus wanted more quality time with his grandchildren. It was something deeper than that.

 The DOTC Secretary’s resignation is quite interesting because while he pointed the reasons why he was retiring, his three undersecretaries from the DOTC are also resigning with him. What many pundits have noted is Sec. Ping de Jesus’ resignation was accepted right away, while others appointed by PNoy who have resigned are not accepted right away.

 That means there is truth to the rumor that there really was a verbal argument between the President, Lacierda and Sec. Ping over the reinstatement of Land Transportation Chief Virginia Torres who was earlier suspended due to corruption. I gathered that it was PNoy himself who wanted her back against the vehement opposition of his own DOTC Secretary.

 At this point, I’m happy that this issue blew into the national consciousness because it is proof of the inability of Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III to govern our country. He cannot even get a cohesive team in Malacañang to work together. Just take a look at what used to be the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) which was once held by our dearly departed friend, the late Cerge M. Remonde. Now it is run by three characters that cannot even get their acts together. They are like the keystone cops.

 Indeed, there’s more than meets the eye on this resignation and it will surely widen the cracks that we have already seen within the halls of Malacañang Palace. Now when you put PNoy’s runningmate former Sen. Mar Roxas into this equation, no doubt a collision is in the offing!

 As for the resignation of Mayor Michael Rama from his own party the Bando-Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK), this was not entirely unexpected. With the way things were going, it had to happen sooner or later. The big question is, who in the BO-PK will move out with Mayor Rama?

 Now should we take pity on Mayor Mike that suddenly he has become party-less? For one, Mayor Mike already got his life-long ambition to be the next Rama to be Mayor of Cebu City since his granddad Sen. Vicente Rama authored Act. No.58 creating the Cebu City Charter in 1937, thus earning him the prestigious honor as the “Father of Cebu City.” At this point, I’d advise Mayor Mike to come up with reforms in City Hall that would make us Cebuanos remember the time when he was Mayor and not bother himself with ugly politics, which only prevents our economic growth!

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