PEOPLE talk about...
[1] CHINESE 'CONTROL' OVER PINOY POWER GRID. The State Grid Corp. of China owns 40 percent of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines. Before you rush to say it was the China-loving Duterte administration that did it, it was not. The "intrusion" of China, according to former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio, happened in 2008, during the watch of President Gloria Arroyo who ruled from 2001 to 2010.
Why are concerned leaders, including senators, worried over a foreign country's part ownership of the Philippine power grid? It could shut it down. The senators were alarmed during a public hearing when informed that the shutdown could be done in China because the operation manual is in Chinese.
[2] CEBU CITY'S 'PROBE' BEING PROBED. The demolition team -- whose long name is remembered and mentioned only by its acronym -- is being investigated for alleged maltreatment of a vendor.
Confiscating the goods sold by a vendor was standard practice of City Hall as it was known to deter repetition of an offense by the vendor. This time, however, Cebu City Hall is scared by bad publicity in social media and the mayor has ordered that removal of the vendor's stall shall not include seizure of the goods sold, presumably even if the vendor repeatedly defies Probe's order and action.
The councilor they hate
Clearly, the quarrel between two Barug candidates for councilor who lost in the 2019 elections -- Pastor Alcover Jr. and Ramil Ayuman -- and fellow Barug bet for the same slots in Cebu City north district, Nina Mabatid, who won her seat in the City Council, is far from over.
Ayuman on Tuesday (November 26) admitted to dyCM radio's Jason Monteclar that both he and Jun Alcover have resented Mabatid's moves during the campaign which they think were aimed solely to promote her own candidacy to the exclusion of her Barug team mates. Not a team player, the two had kept repeating since the elections last May. Six months after the May elections, Alcover and Ayuman are definitely still sore at the lone woman councilor in the Barug camp and they're not hiding it.
Mabatid didn't just win, she landed as #2 top vote-getter and was one of the only two Barug aspirants who survived the BOPK juggernaut in the north Cebu City councilors' race (the other Barug winner was Raymond Garcia, who finished #8 with 101,578 votes).
Alcover was #13 with 84,359 votes and Ayuman, #14 with 83, 377 votes, both separated from the last two slots, #7 and #8, by five other candidates ahead of them. Mabatid was way up (113,908 votes) with five other candidates serving as her buffer.
While Alcover and Ayuman are out of the city legislature and Mabatid works there, there are party meetings at City Hall or elsewhere when they might stumble into one another. Expect them not to emit warmth or affection. Mabatid still belongs to Barug but, as she allegedly did in the last campaign, is said to be operating on her own in her preparations for a possible run for Congress in 2022. Because of that, or the perception of an overly ambitious councilor, she is being hated by a number of Barug leaders, particularly those who lost in the north elections for councilors.
It's a kind of cold war within Barug but the heat that the feud fuels is really intense and anything but cold.
Mayor Sara's 'I told you (so)'
Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio had opposed the term-sharing agreement between House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano of Taguig City and Pateros and Representative Lord Allan Velasco of Marinduque. But they went ahead with the deal brokered by her dad, President Duterte. Under the pact, Cayetano would sit as speaker for 15 months or until October 2020 while Velasco would take over the post for 21 months.
With the Cayetano camp sending signals that it wanted the whole term for Alan Peter, Mayor Sara sees turbulence ahead for PDP-Laban, the dominant party in Congress. While the mayor heads her own regional party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, the president depends on PDP-Laban to push the programs in the remaining half of his term. The expected quarrel might endanger the administration programs.
MalacaƱang watchers didn't see the purpose of Mayor Sara in posting her "I told you (so)" note on Instagram. She expected a heated discussion, which might not help heal the rift.
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