Demons among angels

“HE FOLLOWS a pattern of abuse against his female students who are in the age of minority. He is a ‘serial offender’ who is very methodical and deliberate. First he uses his position as teacher, bestowed with moral ascendancy among (sic) students, to get close to his prey. Then he conditions the minds of his potential victims, as he slowly tears apart their moral defenses. And finally thru (sic) his influence and manipulation, he slowly and relentlessly seduces them to experiment (sic) his sexual sins, while he deflects our attention toward the physical pleasures rather than the shamefulness of the act.”
Thus, “Rose” portrayed the predator that fed on her young womanhood in a sworn statement she submitted to the Department of Justice to formalize her complaint for 32 counts of rape and 32 counts of qualified seduction against one Arnel Atienza Ocampo, identified as an English professor at the Holy Angel University in Angeles City.
Enrolled from 2006 to 2008 at the HAU, “Rose” said Ocampo first raped her in October 2006 when she was about to turn 17.
How the professor managed to continue abusing the student for so long, “Rose” had this to say, again in her sworn affidavit: “Ocampo would take videos to blackmail and prevent me from revealing the abuses to my parents. He also mentioned that if a case is filed against him, he will not hesitate to spread the sex videos to the public…He threatened to recopy and spread the sex videos if I resisted his sexual advances. Ocampo got me into deeper trouble being so much in control of me. He would force me to execute different kinds of sexual performances on and with him. His perversion is so evident…”
The narrative readily reminds one of those various “sex scandal” videos purportedly shot on coeds from different campuses all over the country, ranging from Silliman University in Dumaguete to Angeles University Foundation here.
The purported video of “Rose” though is clearly cut from the pattern of that case in a Southern Tagalog school where a professor also used one to blackmail a married student into submission to his carnal desires. I think it was in Mike Enriquez’s “Imbestigador” over GMA-7 that I saw this.
Anyways, how such predators are able to penetrate and make their lairs in institutions of learning – in the case at hand, how a demon was able to mingle among angels – bespeak of the laxity, if not indifference of college administrations in screening their faculty members.
In her sworn affidavit, “Rose” claimed that in 1997 a fourth year high school student of Magalang Institute filed a sexual harassment complaint against Ocampo who was teaching there at that time. That prompted the school to dismiss Ocampo.
How the HAU administration missed on that incident when it took Ocampo in can well be considered as a lapse in judgment that caused untold harm on an innocent life.
The parents of “Rose” filed with the HAU administration a complaint against Ocampo. So he was suspended for all of three months last November 2008. And has since returned to teaching.
And that was it?
A school has as much moral authority – and therefore also the concomitant responsibility – as parents in the rearing of a child. By allowing demons to roam free and prey on angels within its hallowed premises, the school is clearly shirking that responsibility.
Already, we have been receiving information feeds from various sources that Ocampo, allegedly, is not all alone in the preying racket. One other professor – publicly known as saintly with his righteousness rubbed off the font of righteousness and good governance in this corner of the land – is actually an even worse predator.
So this Lothario has been punished by the school when he was deprived of a deanship. So that’s it?
A misnomer is the Holy Angel University indeed, if demons make a sanctuary of it.
Time for the archangel’s flaming sword to fall on Lucifer’s ilk.

Savonarola lives!

WHEN THE Rev. Fr. Eddie T. Panlilio decided to run for governor of Pampanga as “the alternative moral choice” to a contest of evils – jueteng and quarry, I came out with the piece “The moral alternative” in my Free Zone column in the now defunct Pampanga News (March 29-April 4, 2007).
I wrote then that Panlilio’s entering politics reminded me of one of the most colorful figures of the Renaissance, the Dominican reformer Fra Girolamo Savonarola who took over the government of Florence in 1494.
Panlilio’s reason – circumventing the Canon Law prohibition – thus: “I have heeded the clamor of the laity to serve God’s people by running for public office. An extraordinary situation like that in Pampanga requires a radical option” hewing closest to Savonarola’s wordier and worthier rationalization thus: “O my people, you know that I have never wanted to intervene in matters of state: do you think I would do so now, if I did not see that it was necessary for the health of your souls?...Your reform must begin with the things of the spirit, which are above the material, of which they are the rule and the life; and your temporal good must serve your moral and religious welfare, on which it depends. And if you heard say that states are not ruled by paternosters, remember that this is the rule of tyrants, or the enemies of God and the commonweal, the rule for oppressing and not for raising and liberating the city. If you desire a good government you must restore it to God. Surely, I should not meddle in state matters, if this were not so.”God-centered good governance, a Panlilio mantra finding parallelism with Savonarola’s ideal there.
For a better appreciation of the issue at hand, here is a reprint of the crash course on Savonarola in that PN column.
“A gifted preacher, Savonarola, the Prior of San Marco, electrified and terrified the Florentine faithful with his fiery sermons warning of an impending doom, a castigo de Dios, for the moral corruption, decadence and degeneracy of the people.Riding on the French intervention in Florence in 1494 that ousted the ruling Medici family – in fact deeming it as God’s retribution – Savonarola attempted to establish a theocratic government, seeing himself as a prophet sent by God himself to pronounce judgment on Italy, on Mother Church herself.Of Pope Alexander VI, the Friar reportedly wrote: “I testify, in verbis Domini, that this Alexander is no Pope, nor can be considered such, since, leaving aside his most execrable sin of simony, by which he bought the Papal throne and daily sells ecclesiastical benefices to the highest bidder and his other manifest vices, I affirm that he is no Christian and does not believe in God, which passes the limit of every infidelity.” The Borgia pope promptly caused his excommunication in 1497 which validity the Friar vehemently rejected.It was this intransigence and defiance that turned popular feeling against him, leading to his arrest, torture, trial and conviction. Condemned to death for heresy and schism, he was hanged and then burned on May 23, 1498, four months short of his 46th birthday.”
So I wrote then too that:
"Even casting aside the Savonarola story, there still obtains fear in my heart of hearts. With Fr. Ed’s joining the political fray, there could be polarization – schism would be too strong a word – not only among the clergy but in the Church in Pampanga herself. And the increasingly heated debates on the separation of Church and State are mere manifestations of a widening partisan divide among the faithful.
Already there are a number of priests who have expressed disapproval of his decision to run. One canon lawyer even went to say that Fr. Ed should “have himself defrocked before entering electoral politics.”Fr. Ed has said that he would ask Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto to grant him a “temporary dispensation from priestly ministry while I try to fulfill this obligation.” (He was suspended from his priestly duties.) It is an open secret too that a great number of the clergy support the candidacy of their “Nanay Baby.” How will they now position themselves vis-à-vis Fr. Ed’s gubernatorial aspiration?
I dread to hear from Fr. Ed the lamentation of Savonarola over the inter-monastic jealousies of his time: “Filii matris mea pugnaverunt contra me” (The sons of my mother fight against me)?No, I am not saying that Fr. Ed is Savonarola’s second coming. So I said in my piece then. So was I wrong in saying so!
And I mean not just the number of priests who went all out for the recall of the governor.
Listen now to Panlilio.
“Tumatagos na ang impluwensya nito (jueteng) sa pulitika, sa simbahan, maging sa gobyerno. ( Jueteng’s influence has already infiltrated politics, the church, and even the government).”
So Panlilio made a sweeping indictment not only of government but of the Church herself in a statement he e-mailed to the media. So very Savonarola, damning the very womb he came from. “Our people have lost their hope in the government. My administration is one of those remaining rays of hope. Let it not be the catalyst which will move our people to rally for change.”
So Panlilio warned Interior Secretary Ronnie Puno of a castigo de nacion in a letter. So very Savonarola, the very font of all righteousness, the sole hope of national redemption.
Police matters in Pampanga, Panlilio declared, are dictated by the circle of suspected jueteng lord Bong Pineda, Rep. Mikey Arroyo, and the Rev. Msgr. Jun Mercado.
“I don’t have evidences but they have to clear themselves (of the accusation).” So was Panlilio heard and seen on national television talking.
Unfounded accusations. The burden of proof imposed on the accused. That is not only Savonarola. That is a clear travesty of fairness, of justice, of truth.
Where did this Panlilio come from?

Police matters

ADVERSARIAL HAD been my personal and professional dealings with the Pampanga police, from its early Philippine Constabulary persona to its old Integrated National Police incarnation to its present Philippine National Police corpus.
Sometime in November 1972, it was at the Pampanga PC Command that the student activist with the nom de guerre “Carlos” experienced the dreaded romanza militar – the euphemism for torture during interrogation – in the heavy hands of a Sgt. Pascua even as a Lt. Samuel Tomas took charge of the psycho side.
It was the good Apu Ceto, then rector of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary, that plucked his battered, baffled and bewildered ex-seminarian from further harm, and sure detention at the Camp Olivas stockade. This by signing his custody papers with the proviso that should “subject Communist Party member rejoin the movement,” the PC would just arrest and detain the good priest in his stead.
Ah, how I plotted for years to get even with those PC berdugos. For naught of course, the thirst for revenge quenched by the forgetfulness, if not the forgiveness of time.
Sometime in the later ’80s, it was at the Pampanga PC-INP Command that Col. Efren Q. Fernandez read in a press conference an “order of battle” that included the names of mediamen allegedly belonging to the propaganda unit of the CPP-NPA, to wit: Elmer Cato, Manila Chronicle; Chandler Ramas, Daily Globe; Jay Sangil, Philippine Daily Inquirer; Sonny Lopez, Malaya; Bong Lacson, People’s Journal/Tonight.
Raising hell with the Ilonggo EQ, a kasimanwa of my wife, I learned that his intel officer provided him with our names based on a list they found during a raid of the offices of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luzon (AMGL). Yeah, it was the attendance sheet at a press conference the AMGL held a few days prior to the raid that certified us mediamen as CCP-NPA propagandists. That’s how intelligent the intelligence officers of that era were.
That was no joking matter though as our being branded as CPP-NPA agit-prop agents could have primed us for termination with extreme prejudice by some ultra-rightist military forces.
Indeed, Cato, Lopez and Lacson were marked for liquidation – not by elements of the Pampanga PC-INP though but by the right-wing vigilantes of an Army colonel then engaged in a war of attrition with the urban partisan unit of the NPA, the Mariano Garcia Brigade.
Cato lived to be third secretary at the Philippine Mission to the United Nations, Lopez to be public affairs manager of the Clark Development Corp., and Lacson to be editorial consultant and columnist of Punto! by the grace of God, the intercession of our saints, and the intervention of friends in the police force, notably the Angeles City Metropolitan District Command under Col. Amado T. Espino, Jr. and the 174th PC-INP Coy under Maj. Roman Lacap, and our patron, furniture magnate Pert Cruz.
February 10, 2009, on the very day of my birthday, I received a letter from the Pampanga Police Provincial Office inviting me to its celebration of the 18th founding anniversary of the PNP on Feb. 16 – today – as “one of the awardees on the said occasion in recognition of your valuable and unrelenting support towards the Pampanga police force.”
Wow! What have I done to merit this?
In so far as I know, nothing has changed with my adversarial stance toward the police, criticizing them no end for faults and failures, both perceived and real – as we do now on the Angeles City police office for the unsolved high profile killings, as we did on Singian himself on the Capitol siege.
Of course, we did commend the police too for job well done – as in too many instances of crime solutions, prevention, even promotions.
By being true to the journalist’s calling, of being both adversarial and advocate, I am now getting this – my first ever – award from the police?
As I know that I have not mellowed a bit, maybe, just maybe, it is not me but the police that has changed stance after all these years.
Yeah, the police see media criticism now under the light of critical collaboration rather than destructive damnation. Else, my name would not have entered their mind for this award.
Here’s a snappy salute to you Sirs.

Intimations of immortality

PLANT A tree. Sire a child. Write a book.
Was it a Chinese sage that made those the prescription for immortality?
Unimportant really as the adage has long been appropriated by the Rotary.
So I’ve done all three – in excess too: hundreds of trees planted from Mount Arayat to the edges of the shoulders of MacArthur Highway to my own front- and backyard; six bright kids and a grandson to boot, and yet another on the way; and five books, so far. So am I now immortal?
Thoughts, nay, apprehensions over one’s mortality – most pronounced on one’s birthday – are endemic to the Age of Aches when the knee joints creak, the fingers start stiffening, and it takes longer and more difficult to get out of bed. And that makes only the easy part.
This too is the Age of Don’ts when the spice, the salt and the sweetness of life are deemed a forbidden lot. Unkindest, most insufferable of all though is the quenching of the once raging conflagration in one’s loins.
Comes to mind now a departed elder’s toilet lamentation over his lifeless member: “We were born together, why, in heaven’s name, did you die ahead of me?”
And that notice posted atop a urinal at a retirement home in Big Sur, California: “Your hose is short. Your pump is weak. Come a little closer or you’d pee on your feet.”
Machismo knows neither retreat nor surrender though, else it ain’t…well, machismo. From the myth of the Spanish fly and the legend of the Korean bug, the search for the ultimate stiffening tonic stopped at Pfizer’s sterile lab. So with the blue V the inevitable was defied. So manhood rejoiced at the resurrection. So comes now a novel entry in the coroner’s report: stiff staff in advanced state of rigor mortis. Dropped dead ignominiously.
In the not so distant past, a politically incorrect chauvinistic take on the aging distaff side made the rounds: “When a woman finds herself unattractive to men, she turns to God.” Ah, how the churches filled with veiled manangs lighting votives to just about every saint to intercede their case with God in Her heaven.
Ah, how times have changed! O tempora, o mores! as Cicero ejaculated. At the first sign of the dreaded wrinkle or the initial lump of the distressing cellulite, women now haste, not to the nearest church but to the spa, the centre, the clinic. Their hallowed velos traded for the doctored Belo.
Vanity of vanities, all the world is vanity. Can’t we just age gracefully? And meet our Creator as we are, most honestly, naturally, the least artificially?
Intimations of mortality generally spur too a frenzied accumulation, if not an accounting, of one’s worldly possessions for a lasting life of ease and some guaranteed provisions to loved ones that one would leave behind.
It is not bad to prepare for the future of one’s progeny. It is supremely better to prepare for one’s suture spiritually.
I remember the sudden death of one who amassed much material wealth in so short a period and immersed himself in the pleasures of the world. As I sat down to say a little prayer for the repose of his soul, I got the shudders when I opened the gospel for that day he died, Luke 12:13-21, The Parable of the Rich Man: “…I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, ‘Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong? Thus it shall be for the one who stores treasures for himself but not rich in matters to God.”
We give much account for worldly wealth. What shall we present for the the divine audit?
In the divine scheme of things – and people, yes – heritage, legacy, what we leave behind, no matter how great, is not as important as what we take along. The purity of our soul. Then God have mercy on us all.
(Updated from a commentary by the author in Sun-Star Pampanga in 2006).

Dishonoring Don Perico

ON FRIDAY’S (Jan. 30) commemoration of the 133rd birth anniversary of Don Pedro “Perico” Abad Santos, founder of the Socialist Party of the Philippines (1932), testimonials were naturally the order of the day in the City of San Fernando.
Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez, rooted and nurtured in the same ideological ground as Don Perico, extolled the man as “the champion of the Central Luzon peasantry... truly a titan in an era of irreducibles.”
"A lot of people think of me as a socialist, hence, my honoring socialist Fernandinos. True, I am a socialist, pure and simple. But in honoring our hero Don Pedro Abad Santos, his being a socialist was not our only measure for the recognition...We do not look at him as a socialist or a communist as many people think, but rather we look at his deeds, his principles, his lifelong dedication in the struggle to liberate the peasants from the bondage of the soil, to free the poor from the chains of poverty."
So the plebeian son Oca honored the socialist father Don Perico.
For his part – as reported by Sun-Star Pampanga – “Governor Eddie Panlilio said people must not judge Abad Santos for his means in achieving his cause but rather pay tribute on how he used ‘right for right’ and his righteousness, including how he turned his back on a ‘good and privileged life’ to uphold the dignity of the peasants and the poor.”
So panegyrized the governor of the socialist leader who, in 1926, lost the election for the governorship of Pampanga.
Furthered the Reverend Governor, again as reported in Sun-Star Pampanga: "Allow me this time to talk like a priest, because Pedro Abad Santos led the crusade of the Virgen Delos Remedios while advocating good governance during his time."
Thus, Panlilio deconstructed history. Thus, Panlilio dishonored the long interred Don Perico.
Don Perico died on January 15, 1945, succumbing to complications of stomach ailment at a guerrilla base of the Hukbalahap in Minalin town, 16 days short of turning 69. His ailment compounded by the hardship of his two-year incarceration at Fort Santiago by the Japanese Imperial Army.
The “crusade of the Virgen de los Remedios” Panlilio talked about was the cruzada de caridad founded in 1952 by San Fernando Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero.
For Don Perico to have led that crusade – seven years after his death – is an absolute impossibility. So what could have gone into Panlilio’s head there?
Already impossible in the aspect of time, insulting – supremely insulting yet – in matters of ideology is Panlilio saying Don Perico “led the crusade of the Virgen de los Remedios.”
A Marxist to the core when Marxism was at its unadulterated purest, Don Perico would have most certainly adhered to the precept of religion as the opiate of the people, that which, with promises of a heavenly hereafter, lulls the masses into full submission to the will of the ruling, oppressing classes.
Indeed, the cruzada with the images of the Virgen de los Remedios and the Santo Cristo del Perdon moving from barrio to barrio in “processions of penance” was made as the very counter-offensive of the government to the influence of socialism in the Pampanga countrysides in the turbulent ‘50s through the revolutionary ‘60s and ‘70s and until the present time.
Listen to the songs of the cruzada and discern political meanings: “O indu ming virgen quequeng patulunan / icang minye tula ampon capayapan / quing indu ning balen quequeng lalawigan / uling calimbun mu caring sablang dalan / ding barrio at puruc caring cabalenan / agad menatili ing catahimican...(O virgin mother, our patron / you give us joy and peace / through you our mother of the province / when you are taken in procession through our streets/ the barrios in our towns all become peaceful).”
Subliminal is the impact of the images to the barriofolk. The Virgen de los Remedios – the remedy, the cure-all to the ills besetting them. The Santo Cristo del Perdon – the forgiving, pardoning lord. Liberation from the hardships of this world is in the next world. Thus, to secure a passage to the rewards of heaven, the need to bear all worldly sufferings, all oppressions in Christ-like passion, er, fashion.
One inhered in Marx and Engels, one habituated to historical and dialectical materialism, as Don Perico most certainly was, having the distinct privilege to have studied at the Lenin Institute in Moscow – the very cradle of Marxist thought-in-praxis at the time – would have readily dismissed the cruzada as counter-revolutionary stirrings of the reactionary classes meant to perpetuate the subjugation of the masses.
A diametrical opposition, nay, a dialectical contradiction clearly obtaining here: the religious cruzada made the antithesis to Don Perico’s socialist thesis.
What worse dishonor can one heap on a man than to attribute to him in death that which he abhorred most in life?
Panlilio did a most grievous spite to Don Perico at the very foot of his monument, on the very day meant to honor him. A blasphemy, were we in a religious mindset.
To invoke Marx now, lumpen is not a monopoly of the proletariat. It exists among governors. And clerico-fascists too.
Shame.

Sandstorm brewing

WHAT HATH Ordinance 362 wrought!
A total mess in the quarry industry, that’s what. And where there’s a mess, there opens something for exploitation by the sly and the wily.
Ordinance 362 repealed Ordinance 261, the local law regulating the hauling and transport of quarry materials in Pampanga. The nullity of such a “perfect law” as the latter, constrained by the imperfections impacted in its implementing rules and regulations (IRR), notably the “cutting” of trucks to prevent them from overloading. Crafted by a task force created by the governor, the IRR were never intentioned in the ordinance, the sangguniang panlalawigan declared.
The IRR destroyed the spirit of Ordinance 261, so holds Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao. Hence, the imperative of its termination. With extreme prejudice, if the governor were to be believed.
Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio’s immediate reaction to Ordinance 362 was to bask in his legal breathing space of 15 days to act on it, declaring to all and sundry that he would veto it. But not immediately. As of this writing, he still has 14 days to do so.
And, in the interim, Panlilio declared Ordinance 261 as still very much in effect. No matter Guiao’s protestations that the repealing Ordinance 362 is immediately implementable, if only for its passage at the SP by an overwhelming 10-1 vote.
With that, chaos ruled the quarry industry.
Wednesday afternoon, at the Upper Porac quarry checkpoint, the Balas checkers let through an “evidently uncut” trailer truck (RJF-474). Three “uncut” others were also given easy passage.
So why were they allowed through despite their obvious violations of the Ordinance 261 IRR? Monitoring members of the Federation of Pampanga Truckers Inc. (FPTI) led by interim president Benedicto Lacsamana demanded from the quarry checkers.
One Joselito Reyes, the Balas supervisor in the checkpoint, was quoted thus: “We don’t know anything about that. All that was told us was to let through those who have hauling passes and stickers. We don’t know about the cutting. Don’t blame us.”
Media reports quoted the truck driver, one Rick Pingul, to have said they were loaded by the quarry operator with the right volume, pointing to a short red line on the trailer’s front end siding.
So, “even if the truck was not cut, the mark is being followed to determine the load.” So Pingul reportedly said.
To the FPTI monitors though, it mattered much that the owner of truck RJF 474 was reportedly one “Manman,” allegedly a very close associate of the “other” FPTI president Mike Tapang, declared by the Lacsamana faction as the third spoke in the Panlilio-Dabu-Tapang axis bedeviling the quarry trucking industry.
The drivers of the three other trucks reportedly disclosed that “it was upon the instance of environment and natural resources (Enro) officials that the trucks just be marked without necessarily cutting the sidings anymore.”
The IRR damned by the very people that made them! What say now Panlilio, Dabu, and Tapang of this?
And there is more.
Truckers belonging to the Lacsamana faction of the FPTI complain of being refused loading at the quarry sites, “even with our hauling passes and stickers.”
“My hauling pass was confiscated for some trumped-up violation soon as I stopped my truck at a quarry site,” complained one.
“Tapang is flexing his muscles here as president of the Pampanga quarry operators,” said another.
But isn’t it bad business for quarry operators to refuse loading trucks? That is loss of sure income.
“A small loss of income much preferred over the loss of their quarry permits, which at any moment can be revoked for one cause or the other by Panlilio and Dabu. Upon the recommendation of Tapang, of course.” So the trucker claimed. “We are being pushed against the wall. Our survival is already threatened. Our options are running out.”
A storm brews over the sands of Mancatian. Gathering strength day by day with the stalemate at the Capitol over the two ordinances unresolved.
A bloody mess we pray not to happen.

Panlilio confidential

“YOU MISSED the more essential dialogues.”
So greeted me someone who exuded the holiness of a priest soon as I took a seat at Starbucks SM Clark with my espresso Thursday evening. He had in his hand a copy of the Jan. 19 issue of Punto! where Dayagulo appeared.
Really, so what did I miss?
He just handed me an envelope, saying everything was there and left without telling me his name. So he wanted anonymity: respect that I did.
Here’s what’s inside.
Kong Bong,
Good afternoon!
This is mainly about three of the many dialogues we had with the governor.
The first one was held at the former residence of the governor at De la Paz. The whole team of the governor requested a meeting with him, with the specific request that Atty. Velez (then putative provincial legal officer) and Atty. Dabu (then and still putative provincial administrator)be informed of but not invited to the meeting. That particular condition was set in order for us to speak freely about the two attorneys directly to the ears of the governor. Topic was of course the two attorneys, but more on Dabu and how she made life and work difficult for all of us. This meeting happened around late August or early September.
Another meeting was requested around November, but this one we hoped would be a dialogue along the level of that which we were used to in the seminary, heart-to-heart, as ex-seminarians talking to a priest. Again, the topic centered on Atty. Dabu and Atty. Velez. During that time, those two lawyers made a pact- that if Dabu resigns, Velez will also leave together with another lawyer, Atty. Quiambao. It was ex-seminarians against the lawyers. We poured our hearts out, we shed tears in that dialogue. At that time, there was already a very strong clamor from within our ranks for the removal of Dabu. We even considered resigning en masse just to emphasize our resolve and our belief that Dabu should be removed.
The third was held around September 2008. Many have already resigned by then, including Velez, Archie Reyes (Panlilio’s chief of staff) the Balas heads and a lot more. Another dialogue was arranged: on one side were those who have left, on the other were the governor, Dabu and the rest who remained. This time, the governor demanded that Dabu should be given due process- that she would be present in the dialogue and answer all accusations against her. Venue was the theology department of the Mater Boni Consilii Seminary. Our group wanted it closed door- just us. The governor insisted that there should be observers from the civil society groups, particularly, members of the KMI (Kapampangan Marangal Inc.), some clergy and religious sisters. Our reason for insisting it to be closed door was that we wanted to maintain the confidentiality of some things which happened inside the capitol. But the governor insisted that there should be observers. So we insisted that the proceedings be recorded, video and audio and that there should be a moderator. Present during that dialogue were Fr. Deo Galang, Fr. Paul Velasco, Sr. Celine Saplala, Sr. Vangie, Averell Laquindanum, Banjo Serrano, Rene Galang, and serving as moderator, Aldrin Angeles. We started at around 9:30 p.m. We went home 5:30 in the morning. We were disgruntled, disgusted, exhausted and wasted.
What did we talk about?
1. intelligence funds.
2. cash advances reaching to almost P1.4 million to Rop Syquia (case is now pending before the Civil Service Commission- an administrative case filed by Syquia against Dabu)
3. our "incompetence" (Dabu mu ing competent, anya indispensable ya (Only Dabu is competent, so she is indispensable)
4. our reasons for leaving
5. our in-your-face-recommendation for Dabu to resign
At the end of the almost eight-hour dialogue, Atty. Velez said, "Among, nung ali me buring mako king siping mu i Vivian, ilipat mu ne mu aliwang position, as a consultant or as legal officer. (Gov, if you don’t want Vivian to leave your side, transfer her to another position, as consultant or legal officer)"
At the end of the almost eight hours of dayagulo – to use your word – this is what the governor said, “I'm not removing Atty. Dabu and I won't even consider moving her to another position."
So, there goes the dialogue. For the governor, a dialogue happens only when everybody agrees to what he wants and do what he says.
Sometimes, when we read your columns "attacking" your kumpare, we feel that you are being too cruel. But on second thought, maybe he deserves it; maybe he brought it upon himself to be ridiculed, insulted, his clerical integrity doubted and his personal and mental capacities questioned.
By the way, the letter from the governor which saw print today in Punto (Jan. 20) just shows what kind of people were left behind to stick it out with him.
Thank you and more power.
Brothers in Good Governance.
THIS COLUMN is open to any reaction from the governor or any of the names mentioned in the piece.