By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Sotto bares Lapid’s plan to join 2019 Senate race – news item
If Lito Lapid eventually decides to return to the Senate, we will have an update on the exact number of stupid Filipinos of voting age to the last digit.
The gatecrashing of the Senate by the likes of him, the father and son Revillas and now Manny Pacquiao supports my theory that our IQ as a race is deteriorating. I read that in the past, the Senate was reserved for the best and the brightest of the race.
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According to a report, Facebook has shut down at least 20 websites suspected of spreading fake news favoring President Rodrigo Duterte.
Maybe Facebook is not aware that there are more than 10 million Filipinos whose days are not complete without a generous dosage of pro-Duterte fake news. Facebook should have retained a few of the websites least the fake news addicts go berserk.
I could not really fathom how people could not right away detect deception when they read far out news like Queen Elizabeth praising Duterte or that the prime minister of Singapore indorsing the candidacy of Duterte. It really beats me how sane people with normal IQ could swallow the posts and statements of Mocha Uson hook, line and sinker when she has been exposed frequently as a spreader of fake information.
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300,000 politicians have jumped ship to PDP-Laban, says Senate President Pimentel – news item
Correction please: 300,000 turncoats.
I wonder what the venerable father of the current Senate President, former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr., is thinking about the massive influx of carpetbaggers into the party he co-founded as part of the courageous but losing fight against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Is Aquilino Sr. also happy about the prospect of having Mocha Uson, Freddie Aguilar and Harry Roque in the Senate slate of the party next year?
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2017 bar topnotcher Mark John Simondo vowed to promote peace and uphold the rule of law – news item
I know of an old lawyer who is a product of a law school in MetroManila who would let out a torrent of expletives if Simondo will fulfill his vow.
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Special Assistant to the President Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go who is included among the possible candidates of the PDP-Laban for senator next year said he would not run despite being openly endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte because he did not have money to spend for a campaign and that he still had a job with the President.
What? A few months back, President Duterte exonerated Go from alleged attempts to influence the decision on the purchase of the multi-billion Navy weapons system on the ground that he is a billionaire and has a yacht and now here is Go saying he is not running for election because he has no money! A billionaire who has no money? Using the logic of Duterte, this fellow tried to intervene in that multi-billion transaction after all.
And mark my word, this statement that he will not run is just drama because being a lapdog of Duterte, he will do anything the latter says and I suspect that he knows that Duterte will insist he will run.
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In her speech at the London School of Economics early this month, Vice President Leni Robredo unwittingly or wittingly spread false information on the poverty situation in the country and in so doing, exposed her carelessness or readiness to believe the worst about her political enemies without the benefit of normal fact-checking. Citing an Ateneo study, she told her audience that political dynasties are to blame for poverty in the country. She claimed that because they are ruled by dynasties, Ilocos Norte, Pangasinan, Batangas, Rizal, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija which are relatively rich provinces are consistently included in the 20 poorest provinces list.
What’s worse, even after Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos and Pangasinan Governor Amado Espino had slammed her for the error more than a week ago, Robredo has made no attempt to apologize and correct the elementary blunder.
Not even after Vera Files exposed that seven of the provinces mentioned in her speech are not in the list of poorest provinces in the very Ateneo study she based her speech on, she has kept mum on the monumentally blunder.
On this score, Robredo is no different from Mocha Uson – even when caught spreading false information, she is unapologetic.
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Philippine Daily Inquirer correspondent Karlston Lapniten expressed in a Facebook post the hope that no one among the country’s newest batch of lawyers thinks and behaves like Atty. Lorenzo Gadon, the accuser of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno..
I prolonged the list by adding Attorneys Rodrigo Duterte, Salvador Panelo, Vitaliano Aguirre and Harry Roque. **