The fatalistic President

Even after some members of his advance security team were waylaid in Marawi City, President Digong would still proceed with his visit to the city on Wednesday.

“I am going there, if I can’t make it (to Marawi) … we have a Vice President, Leni Robredo (anyway),” Mano Digong said in his speech Tuesday during the inauguration of a rehabilitation center in Nueva Ecija province.

I know you to be a fatalist, one who believes in predestination, but please, Mr. President, do not ever tempt fate!

Why should you go to dangerous places, where even angels would fear to tread, when you can help it?

The citizenry wants you to serve your full six-year term because the country needs you in these troubled times.

If you die, you think your successor, Vice President Robredo, would be able to continue your war on drugs?

I’m not casting aspersion on Leni Robredo—I endorsed her and voted for her—but she’s a woman and probably doesn’t have the stomach to see bodies of drug pushers, dealers and drug lords littering the streets.

Please don’t be makulit, Mr. President, about your safety!

———— President Digong opened a 10,000-bed rehabilitation center for drug addicts, considered a “megafacility” because it’s huge.

The rehab center has many dormitories and sits on a 10hectare area inside Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija.

The President has his lucky stars to thank because the funds for the construction of the P1.4billion facility came from Chinese philanthropist Huang Rulun.

———— Huang, one of the richest tycoons in China, did business in the country in the 1980s but left because of rampant corruption.

He said he came back because he knows Mr. Duterte is a very sincere and capable leader.

Huang became super-rich after he cashed in on Deng Xiao Peng’s move to open China to foreign investors in the 1990s.

The real estate tycoon’s de- cision to invest in the country is a sign of better times ahead.

———— My woman friend is getting married to an Australian citizen.

The requirements put forth by the Australian Embassy to allow its citizen to marry a nonAustralian are clearance from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), birth certificate and certificate from the National Statistics Office ( NSO) of her husband’s death (my friend is a widow).

All those requirements my friend was able to get from the NBI and NSOwithin three days.

She’s very thankful to President Digong who fulfilled his campaign promise that a citizen who applies for clearance or certificate from any government office should not be made to wait more than three days.

You know where she encountered problems? From the Catholic Church.

She was told it would take at least a month for her to get her baptismal certificate.

And you know what? The church in Quezon City where she and her Australian fiance are supposed to get married refuses to do the ceremony because she can’t produce her certificate of confirmation!

No wonder many Catholic faithful who are intelligent are planning to leave the Church.

———— The Catholic Church disallows separation or divorce as “what God has put together, no man should put asunder.”

But the Church allows annulment of marriage.

Last time I heard the fee was P300,000 for a marriage to be annulled by the Church.