PEOPLE are talking about...
* MISSING LAWYER. A Cebu lawyer is reportedly nowhere to be found to face a complaint of sexual abuse made by a 13-year-old girl. The lawyer was named in a call-out made on radio Tuesday (March 18) but there were no specifics on the nature of the abuse and the subject and forum of the complaint. KBP, the lawyers' organization, was teased to raise reward fund for the capture of the lawyer. There must be a warrant out already.
* 'DIZZYING' PORK. Senator Ping Lacson wondered why the House still had not recalled the House version of the 2019 general appropriation measure and replaced it with the original bill that it approved en banc. "It must be the dizzying pork," he said. Pork used to be in millions; now, in the current smuggling attempt of House leaders, it is in billions of pesos allocated to favored congressmen and congresswomen.
The House leaders had the amounts approved in lump sums, then before submitting the bill to the Senate, had it "laundered" by breaking up and itemizing the lump sums under specific projects so it will pass the Senate scrutiny.
Heckling at USC
The unidentified student who briefly disrupted the candidates' forum at the University of San Carlos Monday (March 18) started the disruption when he shouted "Liar!" after Lorenzo Gadon, one of four candidates present, spoke.
The student reacted to the answer of senatorial wannabe Larry Gadon to the submitted written question (presumably the student's) why he said there was no corruption during the term of Ferdinand Marcos as president.
Gadon's contribution to the offensive language in the form were: "You are just ignorant," "Eh bobo eh. He's stupid," and "You are wasting my time. I am more important than you."
Worse than that, he lost his cool. Heckling is not allowed in most formal forums but when it happens, it becomes a test of the character and mettle of the speaker heckled. Those who triumph in heckling incidents are those who can answer with humor or wit. One can get away even with an insult if it is wrapped in humor or wit.
Gadon wanted the student evicted from the forum but was prevailed upon to allow him to stay with the warning that he keep quiet or be ousted.
Gadon apparently failed to exploit the heckling to his advantage. His affection for the word "bobo" is not helping any. Voters may become more "aware" of him but may not be "inclined" to vote for him.
Gadon received 3.3 percent, a rating below 10 percent, in December as reported by Pulse Asia last January. It is not known yet how much it has improved since then. Most news stories on the latest poll didn't include the tail-enders.
Gadon's argument
What set off the "Liar!" comment from the student. Larry Gadon compared the total budget of Marcos and that of Cory Aquino -- FM's was P467 billion budget for 20 years; Cory's was P1.7 trillion for six years -- and the large-scale projects under each administration. Marcos had many big-ticket projects while Cory only had a few (Gadon mentioned only one), so, he concluded, "there was no corruption."
The issue of Marcos corruption was not even debatable anymore, given the court findings here and abroad and the recorded volume of wealth recovered from the Marcoses (about US$3.2 billion out of an estimated US$5 billion-US$10 billion stolen wealth).
Gadon's answer could've been refuted with facts not with a slur, or left there, for fact-checkers later to belie.
Who is Gadon?
He became nationally known more recently when he filed an impeachment complaint with the House of Representatives against Ma. Lourdes Sereno. He was a member of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's legal panel, representing her on a number of press-cons regarding the charge of plunder she was then facing.
Gadon ran for the Senate in 2016 under the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, the party that Marcos used during his term. He lost and is making a bid again in this May's election.
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