You’re not alone,
Thaddy Sayson

I sympathize with Bacolod mayoralty candidate Jude Thaddeus Sayson for the trouble he is encountering with the filing of certificate of candidacy by someone with the same surname as his. However, Thaddy should be consoled by the fact that “Hindi siya nag-iisa (He is not alone)”. In his piece on Wednesday, Philippine Star columnist Jarius Bondoc wrote about a similar case that happened in Dagupan City.

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Jarius said the city incumbent vice mayor Belen Tan Hernandez, who is planning to go up in the political ladder, went to the Comelec Office to file her CoC for mayor and surprise! Somebody named Belen Tamondong Hernandez had beaten her to it, and had already filed a CoC, also for mayor of the city! But VM Hernandez’s people were quick to locate her almost complete namesake and found a frail, 66-year-old woman who seemed terrified by all the attention she was getting from the media, and immediately confessed that “someone” had prodded her to do it with promises of cash, groceries, and a house and lot!

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Well, our Thaddy is a seasoned campaigner already, so he must know how to deal with dirty tactics when they are made supposedly at his expense. In this case, however, the ruse is turning out in his favor, because people are no longer wondering, they all seem to know whom to blame. Dagupan’s Vice Mayor Henarez is fortunate that she immediately unearthed the culprit, who has not made a peep since the discovery of his trick.

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The former president of the Philippine Air Force School of Aeronautics was found guilty of various misdeeds for which he was charged by the Commission on Audit, and sentenced to 10 years in prison by the SandiganBayan, for unlawful reimbursement of expenses. He was also penalized with four more months for altering official receipts and jacking up the prices of items by altering the amounts. Then he also did not account for P65,000 released to him for a supposed conference in Singapore that did not take place.

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But again, I say, “Hindi siya nag-iisa”. In Bacolod City, we also had an official who tampered with receipts from restaurants and altered the amounts reimbursed to her and her underlings. But, as in the case of the Aeronautics official, the COA checked the receipts with the restaurants and voila! got shocked at the amounts, and the temerity of the official, for whom a case is pending until now. What was laughable was that that official had claimed that the visitors she treated at the restaurants included President Gloria Arroyo and Senator Franklin Drilon, who probably had not even heard of that resto.

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The baptism of fire that the new chief of the National Capital Region Police Office, Gen. Leonardo Espina got, when his own son was victimized by a crooked cop, has sent him going hammer and tongs against the so-called “kotong” cops in his area. So far, he is reported to have sacked 34 policemen already, and everybody is egging him to keep at it. The causes for the dismissal or charging of those cops ranged from beating of arrested suspects, neglect of duty, like when they do not show up for hearings of suspects, going absent without leave, or AWOL, and, in one case, losing some pages of police blotters. Let us hope he keeps at it until all the rogue cops have been ousted.

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“Tiger, Tiger, burning bright”. Those words of poet William Blake must have flashed across the mind of President Noynoy Aquino when news reports from abroad referred to the country as a new economic “Tiger” of Asia. Wow, Tiger pa. This was said to have been stated by an agency that also named the other Tigers as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. So is it time to growl already? Let’s hope they were not thinking of paper tigers only.

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I actually felt relieved when I heard that American Ambassador Henry Thomas, who had indicated before that he was coming for the MassKara Festival, may not come, after all. I guess it is because the U.S. is still smarting from the killing of its ambassador in Libya recently. Just imagine how tense the situation here would be with a U.S. ambassador walking around the plaza, or watching the dance competition there! We might need 2,000 cops and soldiers trailing him everywhere. Thanks for the decision, Mr. Ambassador. Maybe next time?*

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