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Saturday, December 03, 2005
Malilong: Thai PM and a child
By Frank Malilong
The Other Side
My friend brought his nine-year-old son to the Marikina sports complex last week to watch the Southeast Asian Games (Seag) women’s football match between Vietnam and Indonesia. They chanted “Let’s Go, RP, Let’s Go!” until their voices became hoarse but their cheering failed to stem the Vietnamese avalanche.
With the outcome no longer in doubt and not wanting to get caught in the ensuing traffic, my friend told his son that they were going home. The boy rose, clinched his right fist and, raising it, defiantly shouted, “We will be back next year!” The amused father told his son that the next Seag was not going to be until two years after. “Whenever!” the boy shouted, raising a clinched fist again.
My friend’s son made more sense than the Thai Prime Minister who complained against alleged cheating by the Philippines in the ongoing Seag. Poor old man.
He probably had read a lot about our elections and Hello Garci.
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir but the last time I heard, Garci was still in hiding somewhere in Mindanao so there was no way he could have intervened in the tabulation of the results of the games or in the medal count.
***
Board Member Jose Ma. “Tito” Gastardo feels shortchanged. He bought a commemorative license plate (CLP) for his Mitsubishi Adventure from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) when he attended the annual convention of the IBP in Baguio last year and was issued Certificate of Authority No. 123, signed by Transportation and Communication Secretary Leandro R. Mendoza and then IBP National President Jose Anselmo Cadiz.
Confident that the IBP was authorized to issue the plate, Tito had it and the accompanying windshield sticker installed on his car. He was made to understand that the use of the IBP commemorative plate was authorized by both the Office of the President and the Land Transportation Office and that it was valid until April 19 next year.
You can therefore imagine his surprise when last Saturday his vehicle was apprehended for sporting an unauthorized plate! When he complained that he paid good money to a legitimate organization for the CLP, he was shown a memorandum from a certain Anneli R. Lontoc, said to be an assistant secretary in the Land Transportation Office (LTO), saying that as of the date of her memorandum, there were only four valid CLPs, which did not include the one issued by the IBP.
Tito insisted that the IBP officials couldn’t have done something criminal as to sell/issue something that it did not have. “As far as I can remember, we are a law-abiding organization,” he says, “so why is an LTO functionary saying, albeit impliedly, that we are not?”
Good question. And if I may add: what is Lontok’s business overriding her own boss, the DOTC secretary?
(fmmalilong@yahoo.com)
(December 3, 2005 issue)
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