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Any doubt that corruption is pandemic in our country
should be erased by news from the Commission on Appointments
(reported by Efren Danao) about a twice-convicted military officer
whose name was presented by his superiors to the commission for
promotion to colonel.
Famed for his rigorous law
and order advocacy, Sen. Richard Gordon got so angry about why the
promotion documents for Lt. Col. Jesus Anquilo had reached the
Commission on Appointments.
A commission team had discovered
that Anquilo had been found guilty of embezzling P130,000 from the
government and of conduct prejudicial to the service.
The AFP command people
responsible for submitting these promotions to the bicameral
commission were either sleeping on the job or had “fixed” the
recommendation. Sen. Rodolfo BIazon, who is a former AFP Chief of
Staff, also bristled at the incident. He said any officer who has
been found guilty of embezzlement must be sentenced to five years of
hard labor and discharged dishonorably.
The members of the commission
found out that Anquilo was neither detained nor discharged despite
his two convictions.
How will the AFP command explain
this case?
I offer these
explanations—given in the spirit of the times and copying the way
Malacañang and its allies explain away strange happenings like the
abduction of Rodolfo Lozada Jr. when he arrived from Hong Kong.
One, all the papers about
Anquillo cannot be found. The precedents are the mysterious loss of
contracts and agreements signed by Palace officials with Chinese
counterparts.
Two, Anquillo’s convictions
were only an intelligence cover. He has never been convicted. He
only pretended to have embezzled some money to pursue an
intelligence operation. This has many precedents.
2008 budget
If plans did not miscarry
President Arroyo finally signed the P1.27B 2008 General
Appropriations Act yesterday.
Why did she have to wait for the
Senate Minority Leader to make a big stink about her failure to sign
it at once? She had pushed for its passage and at last the Congress
passed the bill before the Christmas break. The bicameral conference
committee passed the bill on January 28.
But it seems that the Palace was
not happy with some of the provisions in the budget bill.
It’s things like this that add
to the perception of dishonesty in the Arroyo administration.
Fight poverty
The Holy See’s message to the
United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture applies
perfectly to leaders of our country and our region in charge of
solving the poverty problem.
The UN must apply solutions
that attend to both the material and spiritual dimensions of the
person.
Monsignor Renato Volante,
permanent observer of the Holy See at the U.N. Organization for Food
and Agriculture, addressed this message to the 29th session of the
agency’s regional conference for the Near East, held in Cairo on
March 1-5.
Speaking on behalf of the
Holy See, the monsignor considered the situations of hunger, food
deficiencies and malnutrition in the region from “that ethical
point of view” proper to the nature and mission of the Church.
He told conference
participants to “focus the results obtained during this conference
in a perspective that involves the human being as a whole, recalling
those fundamental values of history, different cultures, religious
experiences and social life in the Near East.
“These aspects easily express
concepts of justice and solidarity to be put into practice in
politics, rules and actions to fight poverty in all its material and
spiritual dimensions,” Msgr. Volante said.
“But it is also necessary
not to relate poverty and food insecurity to mere technical
situations that, although important, could even limit cooperation
and assistance.”
He urged the conference to
remember that all solutions must involve “respect of the dignity
of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged and for this reason it
cannot leave us indifferent.”
And he added, “Indeed, we
must recognize the central position of the human being in society
and in the decision-making processes. And we cannot forget … rural
development…”
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