Shady intentions
PLEASE allow me some immodesty and bask in the reflected glory of the latest Cebuano medical board topnotcher. Venil Lovely Estella Bolambao, who placed first, is the daughter of Venancio Bolambao and Nilda Estella, my wife's elder sister. She is therefore family.
Congratulations, Lovely! Will I be seeing you soon driving a brand-new car, courtesy of Southwestern University? What do you say, Dean Peter (Aznar)?
*** The National Transformation Council (NTC) insists that Cardinal Vidal is one with them in demanding the resignation of President Aquino. It is only the cardinal's secretary who is denying his participation, the NTC points out. Vidal has maintained his silence.
The NTC appears to have a point. Why, indeed, has Vidal not come out to denounce--okay, cardinals don't do that (denounce) so let's just say, claim--that he has been taken advantage of, if such were the case?
Indeed, there are talks that the cardinal was and still is convinced that Aquino should step down and knowingly collaborated with martial law propagandist Kit Tatad, among others. In fact Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma's name has been mentioned, too as a silent sympathizer. The resulting public backlash, it is claimed, forced them to do a double take.
The comments of the young and idealistic news reporters (see yesterday's column) who covered the NTC presscon-- the same one where Vidal read the group's manifesto--do not seem to support this view. The Freeman's Jessa Agua deplored what she saw as an attempt by some of those who managed the presscon to spoon-feed them with lies.
They were not priests, they were not Cebuanos and they had shady intentions, Jessa said.
Who were they then? Tatad? Norberto Gonzales? Grecor Belgica?
They were not given straight answers, the reporters complained, and they were not given the chance to interview Vidal himself.
"I understand why the cardinal refused to elucidate what he read despite our repeated questions," GMA's Alan Pacional Domingo said. "Perhaps, he himself did not believe in it. If only, we had been given the to talk to him alone, we could have had the clarification that we were seeking."
Indeed, why was Vidal not made available to the media for a solo interview after he had read the statement? And is it true that the statement that the NTC released is different from the one that Vidal read?
I do not know if this has any bearing (I leave it to the reader to make the connection), but I'd like to mention that a barrage of messages announcing Vidal's supposed call for Aquino to resign immediately came after the presscon. That very day, the NTC's propaganda machine went into overdrive.
If they expected the call for Aquino's resignation to gather momentum with Vidal's indorsement (whether real or faked), the NTC were in for an unpleasant surprise. Public reaction was swift and condemnatory. The people may be frustrated, even angry, with Aquino but they do not want him removed before June 2016.
The Archdiocese saw the signs and promptly apologized for their perceived role in the Aquino Resign plot. Vidal's part has never been fully explained and the bishops and other men of the cloth who were with him when he read the NTC manifesto have lost their tongue.
To think that we are supposed to confess the truth to them and their kind.
That very day, the NTC’s propaganda machine went into overdrive