Iggy goes ahead

Of course, I was jarred by the report from former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo that Rep. Ignacio Arroyo (5th, Neg. Occ.) had died yesterday in London. I had known that he was suffering from a liver ailment but I never thought it was a killer.

But anyway, I was saddened to know that he died so young. Not that I had never anticipated that he would go soon. But, then, I also realized that Iggy was a living burning candle at both ends.

He was a close friend. And I shall miss him. He lived a fruitful life. And he must have made a lot of his constituents happy.

You may wonder why I had a soft touch for Iggy. You know he was a close friend. During the senatorial years of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, he was then in a small house at Lacson Street. Then, only a few of us (close friends) used to visit his house whenever GMA was in town. There were often only Franklin Fuentebella, Iggy, Cano Tan, Ely de los Santos and wife, and myself as well as a few friends who frequently sat down with them.

That relationship lasted until after she had run for vice president and won the race.

Later, with the President already installed in Malacañang, we seldom met. But he went out of his way to sponsor my scholarship, together with several other NPC members as special scholars on conversational Spanish under Mrs. Gilda Puey-Locsin. Otherwise, our meetings became scarcer. After all, when he became congressman of the Fifth District, he was quite busy and I also.

Well, there’s goes another friend. But I must admit that he always considered me a close friend even if we seldom met again.

Goodbye, Iggy. God allows you the rest that you have always longed for. Now you may finally find comfort in the bosom of the Father.

***

Have you noticed the sudden increase in the number of fatalities due to violence in the country?

There is, among others, the massacre of 15 fishermen of Basilan in Mindanao. Then, those killed in the explosion of an explosive IED in a Taguing welding spot.

Then, there was the massacre of a family of three by a distraught live-in partner.

So, what’s happening to our country today? The police seem unable to disarm the weapons from the Moros of Mindanao. Thus, they keep killing one another over virtually nothing but the intrusion into their territorial waters.

And we are still riveted on the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, despite the relevance of the potential disaster that could happen to the country with the tensions in the Gulf of Hermuz between America and the European powers with Iran.

The Coronavela seems to preoccupy our time. And again, but on the second week of February, we will again be riveted to the trial of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo over the case of electrical sabotage filed against her and Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and others by the Comelec and the DOJ.

In short, we are presented with theater and forget about the more fundamental problems confronting us and our country.

***

I thought all the time that it is only Chief Justice Corona who is being tried by the SenateImpeachment Court. But now it seems that the Corona children arethe subjects of an intense scrutiny by the Bureau of Internal Revenue for failing to file the corresponding ITR and for receiving property beyond their capacity to buy or pay.

In short, what’s happening is that the entire government machinery is throwing the book at the Coronas, including their children.

Oh, well, time for me to stop writing about the impeachment trial. After all, they are now undertaking a concerted PR trial against the Supreme Court Chief Justice.

Anyway, yesterday, other than the result of the proceedings, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago had to leave the hearing early. The reason – her physician advised her to rest because her blood pressure shot up to 180/90, according to her spokesperson.

A lot of people really missed Miriam and her famous Ilonggo accented English perorations whenever she stood up in the floor to give the lecture to both the prosecution and the defense her mind. Usually the object of her ire is Rep. Niel Tupas, Jr. of Iloilo.*

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