Of filthy rich politicians and communists

I was watching a Cable Network News (CNN) report yesterday morning which showed how rich China has become vis-à-vis the United States and this comparison was focused on the National People’s Congress (NPC) as against the US Congress. In short, the report only talked about politicians from both sides of the Pacific Ocean. It is unbelievable that the top 70 richest members of China’s NPC had a combined net worth bigger than the entire US Legislature, the US President and his entire Cabinet and nine Supreme Court Justices. Can you believe that all this happened in less than 15 years?

Bloomberg pooled the top 660 US officials from all branches of the government and they apparently have a combined net worth of US$7.5 billion bucks. For us Filipinos, that is a fortune we can only dream of and it gives us an idea that politicians all over the world especially in the US do make a lot of bucks, courtesy of the taxpayers. But we’re not done yet! We have to give you the information about China.

As we pointed out the top 70 members of NPC have a combined net worth of US$89.8 billion based on the Hurun Report, a Shanghai based magazine. China’s close to US$90 Billion against the US officials of only US$7.5 Billion is more than enough proof that China has become the world’s richest nation. However, what we have something in common with China and the United States is the gap between the rich and poor have continued to widen so much. Another commonality here is the fact that politicians whether in China or in the Philippines make tons of money… the difference is just in the figures of dollars, yuan and our peso.

The richest Chinese lawmaker has a net worth of US$ 6.5 billion while the richest American lawmaker only has US$700 million. If he belonged to China’s 3,000 member National People’s Congress, he would be number 41. The richest in the NPC will soon be joined by the Lian Wengen, first businessman who is considered China’s richest man by Forbes magazine at US$9 billion. Where does this put us? If you want to read more about this, go to http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/93/02chinas-ultra-rich-lawmakers-makes-u-s-officials-look-poor/#ix10x2YvNto.

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I watched a special report on “Pipol on ANC” by Ces Oreña Drilon on the story of Rodolfo Salas a.k.a. Kumander Bilog and it was one great frank and honest interview by Ces Drilon. Rodolfo Salas was the former chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). In that interview, Salas came up with stories that validated what we’ve written about the Communist in this country, which was founded way back in Dec. 26, 1963, especially when he admitted that his fellow Commies, like NPA Chairman Romulo Kintanar and Popoy Lagman, were all killed by their own fellow cadres in a serious case of injustice to their families.

In truth, I have all but forgotten about Kumander Bilog after he was granted an amnesty in 1992 by former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) who allowed both the leftists and the rightists their freedom. I’m sure that few people who were born after the Marcos years even remember him. If you didn’t know, then Pres. Marcos tagged Rolando Galman for the assassination of the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino whom he said was acting under the orders of Kumander Bilog. This was never proven in court.

In that interview, Rodolfo Salas talked about how the Communists killed their own, starting with the Cebuano leader of the New People’s Army (NPA Romulo “Ka Romy” Kintanar a Maoist revolutionary who was gunned down in a Quezon City restaurant. This was actually an execution perpetrated by the NPA whom he once headed and he was purportedly expelled from as publicly admitted by CPP spokesman Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal.

Another Communist party member that Rodolfo Salas mentioned who was killed in a pogrom was Popoy Lagman, who was shot in the face by three gunmen at the Bahay ng Alumni Bldg of the University of the Philippines (UP). Lagman was head of the dreaded Alex Boncayao Brigade, the NPA’s Urban Guerilla arm. But his assassins came from the very unit he used to head. Lagman’s only crime? He broke away from the CPP and created his own labor group dubbed Bukluran ng Masang Pilipino and the Sanlakas Party, which in 1998 won a Partylist seat held by Rep. Renato Magtubo.

What got me was when Salas said that the same problems remained many years later… that in politics, if you have no money, you have no chance to win. There is progress in the upper 10 or 20 percent, but the large majority remain poor. Ces asked, “How do we characterize you an ex revolutionary?” Salas said we need to change through peaceful means. The Armed struggle should be the last resort. Finally, I got to agree with a former CPP chairman.

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