Ides of Mars, or Punch and Judy?
DUTERTE’S foreign trips earned 11,000 for every 17 centavos spent – News item.– Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said PDu30’s foreign jaunts raised $33 billion against 1270 million expended.
If he were not fighting drugs at home, we’d have PDu30 travel more abroad as the most productive President.
*** If Dominguez says PDu30 “brings home the bacon,” make sure he travels first class and every week.
But for the next 40 days, he should stay home. (No meat on Friday.)
*** DOF Secretary Dominguez and DENR Secretary Gina Lopez set up a technical working group to ensure that all DENR-declared mining closures are airtight against the courts giving them relief to re-open and the mines filing for damages.
“We all belong to the same team of President Duterte,” quoth Dominguez.
*** The DOF is negotiating with Chinese officials the US$ 9-billion Official Development Assistance (ODA) and commercial loans.
Beware Greeks bearing gifts. *** Japan committed another $9-billion ODA and commercial loans. The Japanese Prime Minister is named Abe-san, not ODA-san.
*** Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Malacanang recognizes three co-equal branches of government and had no hand in the stripping of Liberal Party of Senate committee chairmanships.
He didn’t say anything against those who run the hare and hunt with the hounds.
*** When Senator Manny Pacquiao declared the post of Senate president pro-tempore vacant, his motion was seconded by the incumbent Frank Drilon, no less.
Prudence is the better part of valor. Senator Drilon remembers the sine qua non condition that whoever wishes to interpellate the Kamao ng Bayan must also face him in the boxing ring.
Senator Ralph Recto replaced Drilon as Senate president pro tempore. They are from the same LP, but the administration wants a loyal opposition.
O tempore, or mores!
*** To which the new Senate President pro tempore Recto said the Senate has always been pluralist in outlook and a bulwark of free debate. He cautioned the administration not to rashly brand constructive criticism as a plot to replace the government, “There’s no ‘destab’, no Ides of March, or May, or June.”
Beware only of destab in de back!
*** Pacquiao also declared vacant the chairmanships of the Committees on Health and Demography (Raisa Hontiveros); Agriculture and Food (Francis Pangilinan), and Education, Arts, and Culture (Bam Aquino). They were replaced by Senators Joseph Ejercito, Cynthia Villar, and Francis Escudero, respectively.
*** After the tragic tourist bus accident in Tanay left 15 dead and many injured, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairperson Patricia Licuanan ordered a moratorium on fieldtrips and other similar activities.
Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Field trips don’t cause tragic accidents; poor maintenance or errant drivers cause accidents.
Ding Wenceslao wrote to correct an item in last Monday’s column “Highway 54 and Others”: The St. Pope John Paul II church and museum is coming up at ASEANA City in Parañaque (not Pasay). Note: That’s a saint and a pope; and a church and a museum.
*** Instead of cursing the darkness, they strike a match! The Daang EDSA Consortium (DEC) – composed of Engineering Equipment Incorporated (EEI) and IPM Holdings, Sta. Clara International Corporation and the D.M.Wencesalo and Associates Inc. (DMWAI) – proposes a long-term solution to metropolitan traffic by constructing a subway under the EDSA Right-Of-Way (ROW). FEEDBACK: