To The Point

By Emil Jurado
Manila Standard Today
August 31, 2007

(excerpts)
I’d just like to ask what end-result the opposition senators intend to achieve by reopening the “Hello Garci” tape issue. If it’s to pin down the wiretappers, since T/Sgt. Vidal Doble has already identified them to the members of Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, then they should be charged, including Doble himself, for committing the crime of illegal wiretapping.

This means that it’s no longer the Senate that has the responsibility of not only implementing Republic Act 4200, otherwise known as the Wire-Tapping Law, but filing charges against people committing the crime.

Since the mere act of possessing it and playing it or relaying to others its contents is criminal and can even ban senators doing it from public office in perpetuity. People don’t expect anything to come out of it. Certainly this is not going to be in aid of legislation.

I say it’s all in aid of publicity and the presidential ambition of Senator Panfilo Lacson, who hopes that that issue of the legitimacy of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the “Hello Garci” scandal would be his ticket to Malacañang.

Can you imagine if media were to simply ignore Lacson and his cohorts in the Senate? My gulay, he will have nothing else to say or do.

***

Why make an issue of the legitimacy of GMA when by 2010 when she steps down, she will no longer be an issue?

The answer to this, to my mind, is that so long as media become a tool of rabble-rousing and publicity-seeking senators like Lacson and his cohorts, they will make all the noises against Malacañang believing that it’s a popular thing to do.

Here I think the opposition insults the intelligence of people, who are sick and tired of the “Hello Garci” issue. The people also believe and expect that nothing will ever come out of the investigation. In other words, resurrecting the issue is just a waste of time and money on the part of the people.

***

I am beginning to wonder why Senator Jamby Madrigal has become the foremost defender of the communist insurgents and the political Left to the extent that she’s now defending Communist Party of the Philippines founder Joma Sison, who is now incarcerated in a Dutch prison for allegedly masterminding the execution of his former comrades.

Perhaps Jamby wants to become Suprema once the communist succeed in overthrowing the government and install their kind. Santa Banana, is Jamby really naïve to think that the Madrigal billions will be spared by the communist?

In any case, if Jamby believes that siding communists will endear her to the people, she’s sadly mistaken. But, if it’s media publicity she’s after, she’s getting it. Which brings me back to a basic question: What has Jamby done in the Senate to make us notice her? Nothing, absolutely nothing!