Will President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. finally drop the albatross on his back and throw his lot behind a brewing coup that seeks to topple Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez?
That’s the question on many people’s minds as the avalanche of bad press continues to heavily weigh down the Marcos administration arising from the multi-billion flood control project scandal that is finally out in the open. As it turned out, the President’s blunders, incompetence and drug issues are not all there is to it.
Romualdez poking his sticky fingers into the budget has taken plunder to a whole new level is a problem in itself. The worst part of it is that the worst flooding ever in the National Capital Region (NCR) is because Martin and Congress obliterated the budget by chopping off the funds for the Official Development Assistance (ODA).
BBM’s PR machine has been desperately turning out stories that make it appear that it was the President’s state of the nation address that opened the lid. It’s a desperation shot, and the country knows it. With floodwaters submerging entire neighborhoods like never before, there is no need for anybody to make an announcement to make the people realize what’s happening. In fact, the most that BBM’s Sona did was to call out the obvious – while hiding the most important details.
BBM wisely focused on 15 contractors he claimed cornered most of the flood control projects. As succeeding events showed, it was intended to contain the damage to the contractors, most of whom look more like dummies than the real McCoy. Unfortunately for them, the controversy spun beyond BBM’S control.
Before they knew it, the web widened to include officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways and eventually to the politicians who had links to them. It did not take long for congressmen and senators to be embroiled in what is turning out to be the biggest scandal of this administration. It’s bigger than the death of Paulo Tantoco under scandalous circumstances with the party of First Lady Liza Marcos. And it’s bigger than BBM’s continuing refusal to take a hair follicle drug test despite a growing clamor for it.
With much of the NCR submerged in floodwaters, sparing no one in its wake, it did not take long for the outrage to spread. Unlike the orchestrated impeachment case filed against Vice-President Inday Sara Duterte which failed to catch fire even with all the usual suspects coming out to add their voices to it, the outrage over the flood was swift and spontaneous.
It was the seemingly routine question raised by Cong. Isidro Ungab that unmasked the culprit. His question opened the eyes of the people that it was the emasculation of the 2024 and 2025 annual budgets that signaled the doom of the flood control efforts. Because the funds appropriated for the big-ticket, high-impact projects that would have minimized, if not contained, the floods, were diverted elsewhere, the nation’s capital region was left at the mercy of nature.
This time, there is nowhere to hide for Romualdez and Cong. Rizaldy Co. No amount of motherhood statements from Romualdez can pacify an irate citizenry. It doesn’t help that Co flew the coop. Flight has always been viewed as an indication of guilt, and claims that he has sought treatment – even if true – can no longer pacify the nation. Only surgery will suffice.
“And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell,” Jesus told His listeners in Matthew 18:9. He could well be telling this to BBM.
If Martin’s continued stay as speaker will bring down BBM’s administration, what is BBM going to do about it? Just be teary-eyed, or to be exact, appear teary-eyed? Whoever advised BBM to try his hand in acting this late in his life needs to have his head examined. If anything, it only made BBM more pathetic in the eyes of his constituents. Even die-hard Marcos loyalists must have winced in private because there’s no way BBM will get away with that.
By this time, only the hopeless fanatic and the inveterate liar can declare with a straight face that BBM isn’t in trouble. There is not much swagger from the rogue’s gallery like before. A lot can be said about all of them, but being stupid is not one of them. Deep inside of them, they know that BBM has to give up a part of him, otherwise he will sink with the ship.
How do you solve a Martin? The answer is obvious: gouge him out and throw him away. Unfortunately, in his alternate universe, BBM is still hoping he will wake up one day to find out that it was only a bad dream. It means Filipinos will face the same nightmare every time the flood waters rise.
How does BBM solve a problem like Martin? (THE GUEST COLUMNIST by Chito A. Fuentes)
Will President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. finally drop the albatross on his back and throw his lot behind a brewing coup that seeks to topple Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez?
That’s the question on many people’s minds as the avalanche of bad press continues to heavily weigh down the Marcos administration arising from the multi-billion flood control project scandal that is finally out in the open. As it turned out, the President’s blunders, incompetence and drug issues are not all there is to it.
Romualdez poking his sticky fingers into the budget has taken plunder to a whole new level is a problem in itself. The worst part of it is that the worst flooding ever in the National Capital Region (NCR) is because Martin and Congress obliterated the budget by chopping off the funds for the Official Development Assistance (ODA).
BBM’s PR machine has been desperately turning out stories that make it appear that it was the President’s state of the nation address that opened the lid. It’s a desperation shot, and the country knows it. With floodwaters submerging entire neighborhoods like never before, there is no need for anybody to make an announcement to make the people realize what’s happening. In fact, the most that BBM’s Sona did was to call out the obvious – while hiding the most important details.
BBM wisely focused on 15 contractors he claimed cornered most of the flood control projects. As succeeding events showed, it was intended to contain the damage to the contractors, most of whom look more like dummies than the real McCoy. Unfortunately for them, the controversy spun beyond BBM’S control.
Before they knew it, the web widened to include officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways and eventually to the politicians who had links to them. It did not take long for congressmen and senators to be embroiled in what is turning out to be the biggest scandal of this administration. It’s bigger than the death of Paulo Tantoco under scandalous circumstances with the party of First Lady Liza Marcos. And it’s bigger than BBM’s continuing refusal to take a hair follicle drug test despite a growing clamor for it.
With much of the NCR submerged in floodwaters, sparing no one in its wake, it did not take long for the outrage to spread. Unlike the orchestrated impeachment case filed against Vice-President Inday Sara Duterte which failed to catch fire even with all the usual suspects coming out to add their voices to it, the outrage over the flood was swift and spontaneous.
It was the seemingly routine question raised by Cong. Isidro Ungab that unmasked the culprit. His question opened the eyes of the people that it was the emasculation of the 2024 and 2025 annual budgets that signaled the doom of the flood control efforts. Because the funds appropriated for the big-ticket, high-impact projects that would have minimized, if not contained, the floods, were diverted elsewhere, the nation’s capital region was left at the mercy of nature.
This time, there is nowhere to hide for Romualdez and Cong. Rizaldy Co. No amount of motherhood statements from Romualdez can pacify an irate citizenry. It doesn’t help that Co flew the coop. Flight has always been viewed as an indication of guilt, and claims that he has sought treatment – even if true – can no longer pacify the nation. Only surgery will suffice.
“And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell,” Jesus told His listeners in Matthew 18:9. He could well be telling this to BBM.
If Martin’s continued stay as speaker will bring down BBM’s administration, what is BBM going to do about it? Just be teary-eyed, or to be exact, appear teary-eyed? Whoever advised BBM to try his hand in acting this late in his life needs to have his head examined. If anything, it only made BBM more pathetic in the eyes of his constituents. Even die-hard Marcos loyalists must have winced in private because there’s no way BBM will get away with that.
By this time, only the hopeless fanatic and the inveterate liar can declare with a straight face that BBM isn’t in trouble. There is not much swagger from the rogue’s gallery like before. A lot can be said about all of them, but being stupid is not one of them. Deep inside of them, they know that BBM has to give up a part of him, otherwise he will sink with the ship.
How do you solve a Martin? The answer is obvious: gouge him out and throw him away. Unfortunately, in his alternate universe, BBM is still hoping he will wake up one day to find out that it was only a bad dream. It means Filipinos will face the same nightmare every time the flood waters rise.
