Rally vs p.b. Our version of Arab spring?

Looking at the social networking sites and our local newspapers and TV reports, I'm truly elated at seeing Cebuanos feverishly working together in trying to stop the seeping oil coming out of the sunken M/V St. Thomas Aquinas from destroying our fabled beaches in Mactan, especially in Cordova. This shows the indomitable Cebuano spirit is alive and well and we would go to extreme lengths to preserve our tourism industry.

I just hope that someday, when our tourism boom gets choked by our single runway at the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA), we would have the same spirit of cooperation and activism to come out in the open in order to preserve our tourism industry. Again I would like to point out that we should never follow the way Metro Manila has grown without proper planning. If we want to preserve our tourism industry, we must have a second runway soon. Unfortunately, that P17 billion earmarked for Mactan Airport doesn't even include a second runway. This is why it is high time that we have the DOTC investigated on why this PPP project is overpriced.

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Calls for the coming August 26th Million Man indignation rally against the pork barrel at the Luneta and at the Fuente Osmeña here in Cebu (and many other places nationwide) has turned into a wildfire in just a week. This emanated from the social networking sites, which means it is leaderless, very much similar to the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia which toppled the infamous rulers like Libya's Moamar Khadaffy and Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. There will now be an indignation rally also in Baguio, Davao and even in the United States.

The coffeehouses in Metro Manila (even at the height of the great flood that inundated 80 percent of Metro Manila) and in Metro Cebu and elsewhere are abuzz with people signifying their anger over the continued abuse and misuse of the pork barrel, which through the fugitive Janet Lim Napoles our corrupt congressmen and women and our Senators used to launder their respective pork barrels to fake NGO's so they could get their pork barrels into their personal bank accounts.

Lest we already forgot, while the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is still planning to investigate this scam…there is already a real case filed by the Sandiganbayan against former Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez, whose Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was allegedly channeled to her personal bank account then into the Girl Scouts of the Philippines district of which she was the chairperson at that time.

Former Rep. Clavel Martinez and her son Mayor Tining Martinez were supposed to be arrested a couple of weeks ago, but when the NBI searched for them, they were nowhere to be found. Later we heard that this warrant of arrest was quashed for reasons unknown. But this is still a live case and if the Sandiganbayan fails to prosecute it, then what hope is there for our country to prosecute the more powerful senators who are still in power today? Hence this indignation rally at the Fuente Osmeña vs. the pork barrel is much a rally against the pork barrel and our snail-paced justice system which hasn't acted on the case of the Martinez's ten years ago.

Meanwhile the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee headed by Sen. Teofisto Guingona III and Majority Leader Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano has recom-mended to the body naming Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson to become an "independent" special investigator during the investigation of the P10 billion scam. I should warn these Senators that Sen. Ping Lacson isn't really as independent minded as they think because he owes a lot to Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, III and former Senate Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile who sent him immediately back to the Senate after he disappeared for a year.

I'd like to point out that I still have the copy of Sen. Ping Lacson's speech seeking to abolish the pork barrel way back in the year 2003. But like it or not, he hasn't pursued this quest after that speech. Perhaps that was just for "Pogi" points. In short, the Filipino people cannot rely on Sen. Ping Lacson to be a prober of this scam because he has zero integrity.

As for the reports that the yellow propagandists of Pres. PNoy has been trying to "infiltrate" this million man march… well, let's just be on the look out as to who these people are. The Filipino people are incensed and an-gry that these politicians have misused the people's money. What we want is the total abolition of the pork barrel in any shape or form. Also, there will be no one allowed to make speeches in that rally as this is a silent protest against the pork barrel. So call it a warning to politicians who want to use the rally for their personal and selfish political gains. So let's watch history unfold this coming Monday and we hope you won't miss the boat of history.

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