Monday, September 15, 2008 Ledesma: Product endorsers and our senators By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
IF WE go by the rules of the Thais, and apply this on our senate, we will have a virtual ghost house in the upper chamber.
For appearing on TV as a cook which does not preclude that maybe he is endorsing some products for how else would that show survive, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej got the axe from the constitutional court.
How will that make out of our senators who had been moonlighting as product endorsers? If we have that law there will be no more presidentiables in the senate standing and perorating. No more Mar Roxas, Manny Villar, Loren Legarda, Ping Lacson and Chiz Escudero. Some of them even endorsed products that are dangerous to once health and skin. In pursuit for popularity and money, our senators can sometimes be "manhid". They do not care about the health hazards that the product the endorse may cause people provided they achieve their goal for being popular all the way to 2010.
As 2010 draws near, the senate cabal, which is consumed with the maniacal desire to oust GMA is now at each others neck.
On the one side of the coin is Sen. Ping Lacson shooting arrows at Senate President Manny Villar over what looks like an inserted appropriation measure of about P400-million intended for the extension of C5 highway to Parañaque.
Villar of course does not like the insinuation that he is bilking the government. He told the Tuesday Club of which he is a member that he has not touched even five centavos of the appropriation. But Lacson is not buying Villar's retort. He would have delivered a privilege speech in the senate hall had it not been for the fact that the session was to be cancelled posthaste because of a typhoon which obviously is much stronger than Lacson. But Lacson promises his speech is going to be a super howler. We'll see about that.
On the thin side of the coin is Mar Roxas who might be smiling ear to ear with what is developing in the senate. Actually Mar, true to form, is afraid to engage Manny Villar. While the two palenkeros have not traded barbs however, a TV host who is alleged to be romantically linked to the former has taken the cudgels.
Poor Villar. Even as the Department of Budget had repeatedly announced that no money had been released or will ever be released to the "inserted" appropriation measure, his own colleagues have not stopped pinning him down. Imagine, even the crying lady, Jamby Madrigal, who is a partner of Lacson in the ZTE expose has her own piece of intrigue against Villar.
This gives significance to the dictum that "in politics there are no permanent friends. Only permanent interest."
I believe though that Villar will not allow himself to be pummeled. In the first place those who pillory him are actually living in the house of glass.
This is taking the heat of Malacañang Palace in the meantime. Which is good so that it can concentrate on hunting the MILF marauders in Lanao and in Maguindanao.
BTW, I have been receiving text messages and e-mail from banana growers, seeking help and for me to continue my crusade against Abbar & Zainy who came shopping for bananas but left without paying their delivery.
My heart bleeds for you guys. When I was writing column pieces to warn you against the pole-vaulting and reneging on your contracts with your regular trading partners, nobody seemed to listen. AnZ came promising billions of pesos to develop banana farms when it cannot even pay what had been delivered.
For a few pesos more, many contractual growers and small time contractual growers shifted alliance. Now they reaped the fruits of their indiscretions. Of course I will continue writing about this anomalous transactions. But as you considered this corner before as a voice in the wilderness, do not expect much from me. What you can do right now is to recite an act of contrition before your previous partners and face the prospects of forgiveness and reconciliation.
But you have to also face the consequence of your action. Most of the farms of pole-vaulters are badly damaged by diseases since AnZ never provided the inputs for farm maintenance against diseases. The cost of rehabilitation is more than the cost when you open new farms. Are you ready for that?
Please do not text. Email me at scledesmajr@yahoo.com.
