Daang matuwid is a total failure!

I got this report from last Sunday's Philippine Star by Donnabelle Gatdula, which said, "Phl has one of the lowest tourist arrivals in Southeast Asia." Wait a minute! Didn't just Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, III praise to the high heavens Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez for doing a good job? Hence is the problem with the Aquino Regime, they have a very good spin masters in their payroll that run their propaganda machinery.

But this recent report on our tourism arrival figures comes from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) that showed that the Philippine tourism arrivals in 2012 was at 1.8 percent compared to Malaysia at 10.7, Thailand's 9.6,  Indonesia 3.9, and Vietnam's 2.9. So let's ask, why did PNoy praise Tourism Secretary Jimenez? I can only second guess that if he didn't recognize the Tourism Secretary, there would be nothing good to talk about in his SONA. The Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) was correct in asking PNoy to tell the Filipino people about the truth in our economy and that includes tourism.

Meanwhile, no matter how Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, III goes and revamps the Bureau of Customs (BOC), he can never hope to cleanse this highly-corrupt agency even under his watch for as long as BOC Intelligence Chief, Gen. Danilo Lim, doesn't tell the whole nation who are those so-called "powerful forces" that have corrupted the Customs for many years now.

In my book, there really is no point in having that revamp or even replacing BOC Chief Ruffy Biazon for as long as those powerful forces are not neutralized because they could and still would do their nefarious activities inside the Customs regardless of who the President appoints to that post. If PNoy wants action in the BOC, it behooves upon him to call upon Gen. Lim and demand from him to publicly reveal the names of those people.

In the first place, a great majority of the Filipino people already have an idea of who these people are. Just ask yourself a simple question, who do you think are the powerful people in this country? I'm sure you already know they are those highly-connected politicians, especially those belonging to political dynasties that have ruled this nation for decades.

Now that we've identified who are these so-called "powerful forces," the next question to ask in order to narrow our search is… do these people belong to the opposition or to the ruling party? Given the propensity of PNoy in publicly humiliating his political opponents (former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former Chief Justice Renato Corona just to name a few) and charging them in our courts, it would have been a no-brainer for Gen. Lim to expose those powerful forces belonging to the opposition.

I suspect that these groups are not with the opposition. Rather they are supporters of the Aquino Regime. Why do I think this? If you looked into the history of Gen. Danilo Lim, you will note that he was the leader of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) who successfully led the military coup that toppled the Marcos Dictatorship but reluctantly installed Cory Aquino as President. I said reluctantly because in 1989, Gen. Lim led that coup against the Cory Presidency but he failed miserably.

While Gen. Lim was incarcerated for two years, the assumption of former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) General Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) as President of the Philippines gave Gen. Lim an opening when FVR granted the military rebels full amnesty. But having that "Messianic complex" in the year 2007, Gen. Lim once more figured in another coup attempt against Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the famous Makati Peninsula incident where he was finally dismissed from active service, disgraced and sent to jail. We thought that it was the end of Gen. Lim's career.

When Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, III became President he made sure that he would be surrounded with people who are rabid anti-Arroyo and so he resurrected Gen. Lim and put him on active service as BOC Intelligence Chief. In his three years inside the BOC as its intelligence chief, after the President's humiliating the BOC officials in his SONA, Gen. Lim could only say that there were "powerful forces" that were corrupting the Customs, but he refused to name these people. Daang Matuwid is a total failure!

But despite his deafening silence, Gen. Lim statement has already given us directions as to who are these people corrupting the customs and whether he believes it or not, they are people supporting the Aquino Regime. So much for PNoy's daang matuwid! I dare say that if PNoy cannot expose those people in cahoots with the customs, then please don't expect him to cleanse the other corrupt gov't agencies. As my fellow Star columnist Federico Pascual, Jr. said, "We should rename the Philippines into Scamdinavia" because of all the scams happening even under PNoy's watch.

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