Sowers of discord and delays

Hazing may have been their reality at the PMA but today’s leaders in Congress and the PNP should know better than to talk about the practice and experience like it is a necessary evil. If you tolerated it you probably believed in it, and accepted it, and practiced it.

But as the saying goes – just because the greater majority believes and does something it does not make it right or true. Many things that were done in the past have now become our mistake, our shame, our regret, our fear, even our nightmare.

Don’t talk about it as if it actually did you good. You did not become tough because of the beating; you became tough because you were raised to be tough.

Do not lend credence to what is fundamentally wrong. The only thing that hazing develops in your character is how to torture someone.

Judging from the way current Senators and Generals reminisced on their hazing experience, it is evident that the one gift that the academy did not give them is the gift of wisdom or they would have simply kept their silence.

Every PMAer-government official interviewed about the latest hazing related death spoke about hazing as if it were part of their glory days.

Yes be proud that you survived the brutality of this institutionalized form of violent bullying, but be very ashamed that years after, you the very victims and graduates of the academy did nothing, or failed to stop this practice, and most of all failed to prevent the deaths that have taken place year after year.

If today’s guardians and leaders overseeing the PMA want to end hazing, then the rule should be that if there is a discovery of hazing and no one in the “class” reports the matter, then the whole class should be flunked or kicked out of the academy for violating the honor code and obstructing justice! Honorable resignations won’t stop hazing if the victims are either too scared or spineless to stand up for their rights and their dignity.

That being the case then they don’t deserve to be called soldiers, officers and certainly not gentlemen!  

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Oil companies should be forced by law if not regulation to unbundle or itemize their operating costs so that government and the public can figure out if there is “cartelization” in the prices of fuel as well as misrepresentation and fraud in handling, processing and marketing of fuels.

In part 2 of Agenda’s focus on fuel prices, we were told by Congressman Carlos Zarate that three major oil companies filed three different cases for TRO in three different cities.

Columnist Marichu Villanueva pointed out that if the oil companies really believed they had a solid case to stop the government, they would have gone straight to the Supreme Court and not resorted to the dilatory process of starting with Regional Trial Courts.

Zarate said that this is one situation where the Office of the Solicitor General should step in and fast track the lifting of the TROs and dismissal of the cases filed by the oil companies because Filipinos are paying hundreds of millions for unexplained cost and prices.

Beyond that, the OSG could prevent a possible backlash on government because one thing that surfaced during the show was the impact and continuing effects of TRAIN1 on fuel prices.

From 2018 to 2020, TRAIN 1 will have completed the course of raising fuel taxes to a sum total of P6 per liter.

If the government fails to rationalize, unbundle and reassure Filipino consumers that they are not being ripped off and taken for granted, I am almost certain that the public, NGOs and of course politicians will all be calling for the removal of excise tax if not the repeal of TRAIN 1 related taxes on fuel.

Speaking of possible backlash, I discovered why most legislators seem unconcerned about fuel price hikes; they don’t have to pay for their gasoline or diesel fuel.

They all charge it to their office expense, which is charged to Congress, which in turn passes it on to YOU the Filipino.

Not only are we all paying for expensive fuels, we are also paying for the fuel our representatives and their staff including back-up vehicles are consuming!

Given this discovery, perhaps it is time for us taxpayers to create a level-paying field by demanding that legislators ALSO UNBUNDLE their expenditures and require them to pay for their own gasoline or diesel like the rest of us!

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When news items came out that Presidential son Paulo Duterte was quite displeased with Secretary Berna Romulo Puyat over the management style of the latter regarding DOT projects, I had a suspicion that some sumbungeros or tattle tales were probably up to no good and had opted to light up the ass of the newbie Congressman in order to throw off the DOT Secretary or scare her into cooperation.

A very reliable source told me that a business group that had once attempted to build a casino in a cultural site was once again trying to push buttons in order to land a deal, but the DOT Secretary would have none of it because no less than President Duterte spoke out against the matter during his latest SONA.

Failing to get their way with Secretary Berna, my source claims that they made “sumbong” or complained to the young Duterte about Secretary Berna’s inflexible position or “management style.”

I have no idea how they managed to reach out or influence the Congressman but they apparently succeeded in one thing: To cause strife and disagreement among the President’s “family”.

This divide and conquer style of the business group is something that should not be tolerated by the President’s immediate and official family members.

Lobbying is legal in the Philippines but making government officials quarrel or fight so that greedy low class characters can have their way already tells us that these are the sort of people and companies that should not be allowed to enter the field.

These are also the kind of characters that elected officials such as Congressman Duterte should simply avoid.

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