I agree with Tito Sotto! Changing names etc.

Photo not mine: CTTO

I agree with Sen. Tito Sotto. Our national anthem is up for an update. It's a million years old and the lyrics especially the last line speaks of a romantic era where dying in a revolution against the colonial oppressors is the ultimate sacrifice patriots could do for their country. Would you die for your country? Me?  Hell, no! It's not fun.

Filipino politicians have the propensity to change things especially ones they can legislate easily. They love changing the names of streets, avenues, buildings, towns, provinces after names of their long departed relatives or political allies. I guess it's all about name recall, or vicarious immortality where they want their heritage, in this case surnames, perpetuated.

Take the case of the Municipality of Montalban, Rizal. My mother had an uncle who lived there and we visited the place maybe three times and the town was beautiful then, the mountains, the river where we bathe, and the myth of Bernardo Carpio were the main attraction of the place. 

Artwork not mine: CTTO

I was told that all earthquakes emanates from Montalban and that there were two giant boulders colliding with Bernardo Carpio trapped in the middle trying to prevent the rocks from crushing himself. He was cursed to do this Sisyphean task because he fell in love with the wrong lady. 

The mythical giant is still alive, according to folklore,  and the earthquakes occur every time Carpio shakes his shoulder. I guess his shoulder shakes created the west valley fault. nah, just kidding. Its the other way around. The area where Bernardo Carpio was supposed to be trapped is in the west valley fault which explains the legend of the origin of the earthquakes.

Montalban does not exist anymore, instead in its place the Municipality of Rodriguez emerged. What happens when the name of a town is changed?

A lot. The myths, the historical references, traditions,  the romance it evokes, so many things that are intertwined with the name. I guess it's like meeting a person you know as Charice introducing herself/himself as Zyrus. The person changed too.

I had the chance to visit Montalban a few years ago and I was a bit disappointed to see the hundreds of vacant/abandoned row houses project in place of the once forested feet of the mountains. 

The sad thing is, the Rodriguez Family is a virtually forgotten and they are hardly remembered in most of Rizal Province except in the isolated municipality of Rodriguez. I hope the provincial board has seen their errors and return the municipality's name to Montalban.

Politicians should be the last thing to consider when naming public places, buildings, parks etc. History, aboriginal names, folk tradition, municipal identity, fruits, animal, insects, rock formations, etc. aa lot of names that evokes natural beauty, myths and palates, to choose from. 

Politicians names should be there at the bottom of the list of names along with the obscene and the sexually explicit. In fact sewers and water treatment plants, drug rehab centers, nuclear plants, mine shafts, etc. should be named after them.,

Where was I?

 The Lyrics, nah, I was joking. The lyrics needs no changing, its the senator and the people in the government who betray the government that needs changing, in fact, all of us needs changing.

My EDSA III experience and stuffs about the anti-Marcos rally

  It seems that the anti-Marcos people are trying to spark a movement (snowballing is what this is called, I think, though we don't have snow here, ) to reverse President's Duterte's decision to allow the burial of Manong Ferdie in the LNMB.

I was watching the news last night and I was a thinking, here we go again, is this another EDSA in the making? To tell the truth, I have grown tired of rallies and I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way because these demos cause horrendous traffic jams. Though my only experience in joining one was during the pro-Erap's EDSA III when me and my friends went to Ortigas in support of Erap, I could say, that demos or rallies or whatever you call them is not for everyone.

It was an experience that will never happen again. I mean, the effort and the energy spent to support someone who I did even knew personally and would never care for me, the discomfort of being surrounded by thousands of people behaving like one mindless mass was enough for me to say, hey, that was stupid!

We were young (not that young really, I guess the better description would be: we were bums then and had nothing better to do) and it was really a spur of the moment decision. We took advantage of the free jeepney rides provided by politicians to transport people from Rizal to the rallying area in Front of Robinson's Galleria. There were rumors of free food, which there was, and drinks (ice tubig) and of course there was the curiosity, the experience.  But in all honesty we thought that Erap was the hope of the masses and wedid vote for the guy. We later found out that most people in the rally were INCs. Curious as we were, we did not really belong there. 

The morning after, saw the video footage of the violence and the arrests in Mendiola,  I realized how foolish our actions were considering that we almost went along with the march to take Malacanang. Not worth my life.

Anyway, to the present.

Rallies are being held in opposition to President Duterte's decision to bury Apo Marcos at the LNMB. It seems that the Marcos-not-a-hero movement is expecting their rallies to snowball and culminate into a nationwide "people's movement" with enough number and decibel to change the president's mind.

Judging from the number and the composition of the rallies, I predict that the movement will fizzle into a moist fart in a few days. Of course, I could be wrong.

Here we go:

Renato Reyes and his group. I don't personally know this guy. All I know about Mr. Reyes is that every time I turn on the TV to watch news, his face would be there spewing out statements in pure Filipino in that UPish manner in a cadence that I could only say was trademarked by professional demonstrators. Listen to him and his comrades talk, check the rhythm, check the volume, check the angry neck veins and arteries, and look in their eyes, they're all clones. 

It seems to me, that he and his group would rally for any reasons under the sun. But I'm not saying he and his group is bad or evil, it's just that with the way he hugs the headline, I can only opine that he is up for a congress or a senate seat like his predecessor Teddy casino and his ilks. 

I saw former senators Saguisag and Tanada speaking in the Black Friday rally yesterday. These
guys are the real McCoy, genuine freedom fighter who fought and suffered during the martial law era. But I don't think they have the influence like they did during the eighties and the nineties. But seeing them in the rally, I think, gives the rally a bit of credibility especially to those who knew these two ancient ones. But I don't think they could contribute number to the movement.

College students. My daughter is a second year college student at the PUP. One of her first experience with rally is when a professor asked them to attend an activity only it turned out to be a protest of some sort. I am not saying this is the norm but there are professors who give "considerations' to students who join rallies.

According to estimates, majority of the anti-Marcos are college students. This is not surprising, college students have always participated in rallies knowingly or unknowingly. What is confusing is the lack of GnX and Ys, the middle agers, who are the connecting generation between the Millennials and the baby boomers or the senior citizens who truly experienced living under martial law. Why is that? I guess the GenX, doesn't give a damn that much. Our generation have been through a lot of EDSAs and seen a lot of political dramas that I think we are better off doing something else. speaking for myself of course.

 A lot has been said about this photo, but honestly, grade school pupils? 

Again, I don't care about Marcos. He is now buried at the LNMB, a national shrine where K9 are also buried. Whether Marcos is a war hero or not, is another thing which the anti-Marcos should take to the court to settle the question once and for all and they'd better be prepared to be disappointed.

Finally, Marcos is allowed to be buried. What now? A sort of phenomenology

The Supreme Court has now ruled that there are no legal impediments to the burial of Former President Marcos to the Libingan ng mga Bayani. And again, it would be naive or stupid, a better word, to say that the ruling of the court would settle the issue, heal the wound, unite the nation again, and move on with our lives. 

It would take generations before this issue will be settled, at least emotionally, until the Marcos saga becomes nothing but cold historical facts devoid of  first person experiential and emotional narratives, heck, even the Irish and the British are friends now.

The court has ruled that there are no legal impediments, no laws and jurisprudence banning Marcos to be buried in the heroes cemetery. The nine justices said that Marcos was not total bad-ass, he was a normal human being like you and me prone to commit mistakes. He was a soldier who fought for the country and he had medals to prove it. The cases against Marcos were purely civil cases and hence  he was not guilty of moral turpentine, err, turpitude (what the hell is that?).

The five dissenting Justices opinions on the other hand boils down to the fact that Marcos was the anti-thesis of a hero because he was a dictator and a human rights abuser. He was ousted through a people's revolution and that his burial in the LNMB is a sacrilege to the national shrine.

Now how do I internalize this, what does this ruling means to me as an ordinary citizen who had no first hand experience of Martial law abuses?  

First, EDSA. I was too young then. Like martial law, I had no real and authentic good or bad experience about it. 

What do I know about EDSA Revolution? It was a revolution that ousted Marcos and brought back democracy to the country. Others say that it was a political and a statistical anomaly, or an anomalous event where a minuscule percentage of the population in a minuscule land area made decisions for the whole country without consulting the general population. That it was a revolution of the minority composed mostly of onlookers, oligarchs and a few real revolutionaries.  Look at what's happening to our timeline, right after the Aquino presidencies, things have turned around and the EDSA philosophy  was relegated to a few parks and small ceremonies of few individuals, other than that, it never got imbibed in the heart of the Filipinos. 

The books say otherwise. It was revolution that brought back democracy to the people. It stopped the Marcos from plundering the country. And all that Ninoy Aquino deification stuff.

It was an event that shocked the world but never really got hold in the Filipino psyche, at least my generation and the later ones. The Marcoses are back and there's the real possibility that they could be back in power in a few years. Mention EDSA and "1986" would not even be remembered,   EDSA is traffic.

Martial and Human rights abuses. I read Mejares' book "The Conjugal Dictatorship" which is now revised, I read. And the book reveals how bad ass Marcos was. Mijares narrates Ferdie and Imelda's escapades from the steaming Imelda and George Hamilton trysts to Marcos begging Dovie Beams for a fellatio. 

Yet, Marcos was a product of his times, JFK, Lee Kuan Yew and other bad ass world leaders. the only difference was that JFK died a saint. Lee Kuan Yew used his bad-assness in a positive way, while Marcos stuck to being a bad ass without the thought that he'd lose.

Bury or not bury, doesn't really matter to me. The guy is dead but Ferdie was an interesting person and Filipinos will never forget the talented President (or dictator, to be fair) good or bad, and that fact alone had granted him immortality.  And judging from the last elections, the Libingan ng mga Bayani burial is nothing but a token to the fact that Marcoses are back, big time. 

What are these Filipinos doing?

I am not surprised that Donald Trump won the election, but what surprised me is that Hillary Clinton lost. Anyway...I'll leave American politics to the Americans. What made my butt itch was these pictures of Filipino youth rallying in front of the US embassy shouting anti-Trump slogans and burning flags. As of this very moment, while typing these letters, I am trying to figure out what is going on inside their heads, what are the thought processes going on in there. 

Like, maybe, inside their heads they were thinking, "I hate Donald Trump because he is the new president-elect of the USA!" "Donald is Satan! "Donald trump is an asshole!" Even if I write the most offensive expletives I can think of and threw it up against Donald Trump, what does it accomplish and the fact remains that the Raccoon (it's the small hands) is still the president.

Obviously they are holding a rally, but first let's think of Geography. The US is on the other side of the globe. It's day here and night there. We are separated by twelve hours and thousand of miles.  They do their own things which we should not really meddle with. They have elected a businessman for president and it's their choice and we should leave it at that. Our likes and dislikes doesn't count. they could elect a hamster for all they want and we shouldn't do anything about it.  

I know that these rallyists are against Trump because they believe that Trump will be harsh against illegal immigrants unlike the Democrat Hillary who's willing assimilate illegal aliens (I doubt if it's for humanitarian reason rather for vote reasons). Trump said that he will deport them and the fear is that illegal Filipinos in the US would bear the brunt of the crack down.

My hearts bleeding for these illegal immigrants. I mean, most Filipinos are still possessed by the American dream, of going to Canaan to the land of milk and honey. This mentality is a remnant of the colonial superiority inculcated in us not by the Americans, ironically, but by many us.  

It's still about money. There's this argument that Filipinos in the US, including the illegals, are sending dollars to the Philippines. They are contributing to the dollar reserve. I understand the economics but there's something wrong with the ethics. Does sending money to the Philippines justify their illegal stay in the US or any other countries at that? Do we even encourage that? I see the weeping Filipinos crying for something that is not even right in the first place. 

Another thing is that the Fil-Ams fear for their safety and this I understand for there are horrible stories of discrimination and racial violence in the land of milk and honey. There are still many Americans who still think that they are superior to people of different color. I guess that's one of the risks of leaving your own country. The US is a country governed by the constitution and the president is bound by it. In fact they have the most individual-oriented constitution in the ensuring the citizens freedom from the right to speech to the right to pursue happiness. 

I guess, alienation is natural when your not in your nation (Hmmmm...does that even make sense?).

So, what the hell are these Filipinos doing?  

My advice to them, go home and do productive stuff like reading or studying. Rally for something that would better our country, like planting trees, or picking up trash, or promoting clean and green stuffs. Leave the Americans to Trump and leave Trump to the Americans.

So Delima is one hot momma. What's the fuss?

Senator Delima is proving to be one tough lady. She is being tormented by the Duterte administration for her opposition to the president's anti-drug war that has resulted to thousands of death from police operations and other drug related torture and executions perpetrated by vigilantes styled killers. 

She is accused by the DOJ of being part of the New Bilibid Prison's drug cartel where she allegedly asked the gang leaders in the prison facility to sell shabu within and outside the Bilibid complex. Quotas were assigned to the gangs and the proceeds were used to finance her senate candidacy.  

I for one find these accusations difficult to believe. Delima's record in government service is impeccable aside from the fact that she's one brilliant lawyer who, I think, would not stoop to the level of narco-politicking. Another thing, the witnesses being paraded against her are hardened prisoners who will sell their mothers for a stick of cigarette. The prosecutors will need credible witnesses and hard facts to nail Delima down with the Bilibid Conspiracy charges. But the combined attacks of Digong's social media and the House of representative trolls are doing a good job of demolishing the poor senator's image.

Is she guilty? I am not defending her but all the allegations against, which is backed by a bunch of criminals, is not that convincing, at least for me.

There's a new twist to the mob lynching, the sex video.  I have not seen the video but there's a possibility that this  could be edited. So, I cannot judge but granted that the video is true, I guess Delima would, at the very worst, be guilty of engaging in extra-marital affair and at the very least, producing bad porn. 

Her alleged amorous relationship with her driver-body-guard, is, for me, probably true. She has never denied it categorically and the witnesses who corroborated this allegation is a former body-guard who saw the video from Dayan's cell phone.

Delima's hell is just beginning. She still has five years to go. I don't think she'll back down but I hope the President would be true to his words when he said that vindictiveness is not in his system.

Anyway, the thought if watching the video did not even enter my mind. I guess, it's just too...too much even to the imagination.

Yuck Fou Obama and why Duterte is right to wean us away from our former colonial masters

First of all I don't hate Americans.  Many if not most Filipinos like the American people and things Americans. I love burgers, French fries, Hollywood movies, Traci Lords and AIDS. Ok, maybe not the last  two items. 

Though at times they are a bit condescending, I and most Filipinos (I guess) have no ax to grind against most citizens of the United states of America. So when I speak of the Americans here, I'm talking about their effing government.  

Lately, our president Duterte has been cursing Barrack Obama and his curses are not terms of endearments but a vitriolic contempt filled curses that are usually reserved for the low life drug pushers.  Duterte, it seemed to me, is not a bit intimidated by Obama who still holds the CODES to thousands of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles nuclear warheads that could literally turn the whole country into a radio-active magma. No, our president is not impressed by the US of A.

I guess the actuation shocked many Filipinos for we have looked upon the Americans as not only an ally but a big brother protector and Pinoys are used to seeing Filipino presidents kow towing to the Americans and aligning their foreign policies to that of the foreign government's interest. In our collective mind as a nation there's this inculcated idea that we could not survive without US's suzerainty .

How do I read our president's actuations?

The president is correct in saying that the US will not automatically defend us. Of all the US's mutual defense treaty partners in the region, the Philippines got shortchanged. Why do I say this? In the Chinese-Japanese disputed islands in the South China sea, the US affirmed the Japanese sovereignty in these islands. Obama even warned the Chinese that they would go to war in defense of Japanese' sovereignity.

Another thing is what happened in Taiwan in 1996 known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. Because mainland China felt betrayed by the US when the then Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui visited Cornell and spoke about the democratization of Taiwan. The recognition of Lee by the State Department and his visit violated the One China policy agreed upon by the US and the Mainland. In reaction, the PLA deployed missiles and conducted military exercises to intimidate Taiwan. The US, true to its commitment to the mutual defense pact with Taiwan, sent two carrier battle groups to defend the Island. The Chinese, upon seeing the US resolve to protect the renegade province and the overwhelming firepower in front of them,  backed down.

While in the case of Scarborough Shoal, which is well within our exclusive and territorial zone, the US kept mum. Pnoy has kept his ground and initiated a diplomatic war against the Chinese aggression citing the US-Philippines mutual defense pact as a deterrent, but did the US gave the country any assurance of retaliation? When Obama visited the Philippines he assured the country that the US would respond to Chinese attacks subject to the approval of US congress which means it is not automatic like that of the Japanese and the Taiwanese! I guess the US does not see us the way it sees these two economic powerhouses.

Where are the USS Nimitz and USS independence battle groups when the Chinese are invading these islands? Nothing came and instead our mutual defense protector sold us two effing World War II Hamilton class frigates, to add insult to injury, stripped of its main weapons. Our most trusted ally and the most powerful navy in the world gave us two floating WWII museum pieces!   

While Obama was still trying to make up his mind, the Chinese had built fortresses which defense experts now call unsinkable aircraft carriers.  Obama only realized the enormity of the situation when his intelligence people realized that these islands virtually neutralized their aircraft carriers at very little cost to the Chinese. The chain of island fortresses also gave the Chinese control over the shipping lanes which gave the Chinese strategic military and economic leverage  against the US.

Well, Obama sorry for you, you deserve all the disrespect our president dished at you and more.

This is the reality. The Chinese is there to stay. The US, despite it's military power, can not dislodge the Chinese short of starting a nuclear war. The only thing the US could do is parade it's fancy warships in the South China in the hope that Chinese navy would die of irritation. But here's the catch, keeping an armada in the South China is expensive and all the Chinese has to do in their island-resort fortresses is fish and enjoy the beach. 

The US navy would need ports to call to while the Chinese are comfortably entrenched in their unsinkable carriers. And now, as they see it, the Philippines, their beloved ally is starting to look good and smell like roses, again. They are wooing us. 

Well, the president sees through the charade and how, again, we would be used to forward the American's interests at our cost. I hope that the president stand firm because the Philippines should definitely deny the US armada access to its port as a revenge for its dilly dallying and inutility during the early phase of the crisis, and at the same time because we cannot afford to irritate the Chinese.

The only thing we could hope for is for the Chinese to allow us to fish there, which is what is foremost in Duterte's mind. Coitus you Americans!

Of all the effing people, why Hitler?

I guess like most of my countrymen, I was shocked when our president compared himself to Adolf Hitler. I know that President Duterte knew the Fuhrer and what he had done.  

"Between 1939 and 1945, the Schutzstaffel (SS), assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people, including 5.5 to 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe),and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people.Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps,ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease or while working as slave labourers. In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan. Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists. Together, the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost would have led to the starvation of 80 million people in the Soviet Union. These partially fulfilled plans resulted in the democidal deaths of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war.

Hitler's policies resulted in the killing of nearly two million Poles,over three million Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled,Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler did not speak publicly about the killings, and seems never to have visited the concentration camps."

From Wikipedia

Why in the world would he compare his war against drugs to Hitler's holocaust. I guess he was trying to tell the world that unlike Hitler who killed the Jews for no reason at all he is willing to kill millions of people who are criminals for a noble reason, to make his country safe for the Filipinos. 

This has always been his argument against the hypocritical west.  Well, the US is commuting mass killing by dropping bombs on innocent civilians killing thousands while me, I am killing a few thousand criminals, so what's the difference? 

He is waging a war against drugs but unlike conventional warfare that uses bombs and destructive weapons, he is using precise and surgical operations that target individuals which results to controlled and minimal collateral damage.

His arguments is good and it is still holding, I think. But that Hitler thing...

I know that he would not intentionally say that he is imitating Hitler, no one in his right mind would (unless his is off) he is just saying that he is willing to kill many, like Hitler, in order to achieve his objective of eradicating drugs in the country, which for him is the root of all evil. 

But his analogy sucked. It opens up a lot wounds especially among the Jews and the other cultural minorities that died and suffered under Hitler's rule. Wasn't it only a few days ago that he mentioned the American butcher Gen. Smith and the Balangiga massacre which killed about a hundred Filipinos and how he used that historical fact to attack the Americans? Now he mentioned the holocaust to compare himself with Hitler. I have no problem with the idea of killing drug pushers but citing hundreds of Filipinos killed to humiliate the Americans and then citing Hitler who killed 6 million Jews to justify his war on drugs? Just doesn't jive. 

If only he had used Magneto instead of the Fuhrer...

Miriam Defensor and my Alta Presyon

I was nineteen years old when Miriam Defensor Santiago first run for the presidential race. My friends and I volunteered as poll watchers for her for free. We even spent our own money for our snacks and lunch which was unusual because watchers, though called volunteers, were normally given cash for allowances and packed snacks and lunch through out the election and the counting, which was manual then. 

But since we were enamored by Defensor's no nonsense, fierce image, especially when dealing with death threats, we were attracted towards her. We were amazed at the way she talked to the press especially when she confronted illegal aliens who tried to answer back to her. Her vocabulary was also something, she used unusual words to insult her enemies eliciting laughter and thought at the same time. 

I guess, to our young mind then, she was the opposite of president Cory Aquino who was soft spoken and politically correct.

She ran for the second time but Erap got my imagination which in retrospect was a waste of my vote. The third time, I was rooting for her but her deteriorating health was already showing. I voted for Digong.

She had her faults when in a brief moment of  illogicality she sided with Erap Estrada. But other than that, she is one the brightest and the funniest senator I have seen and heard.

She will sorely be missed especially now when the senate and congress is being filled up by people who could only be described as below average mediocre.

_________________________________

I thought I was about to have an asthma episode because I am getting short of breath untilI  checked my blood pressure. I admit I was eating a lot lately and have not been walking in weeks due to the weather and also from the exhaustion of teaching. I guess I need to get back to my routine and stop being a sloth.

I avoid our school office. One of the reasons is that I always associate that office with paper works and memos. I have this belief that if I avoided that office, I would be spared being one of the subjects of the memos. This is not actually a belief but it is based on the premise that if the boss do not see me, he/she will not know that I exist, And if I do not exist, at least with in his/her field of vision, chances are my name would not be brought up for a task or an assignment. I have survived under the radar for so long that being called to a meeting  in the office rattles me. I guess once in a while my butt sticks out. 

I always feel safe under the radar, and I'm not the only one who feels this way.

He admitted he's a killer, so why waste time? Wow De Lima

Everybody knows that Duterte is a killer. The guy even bragged about the number of criminals he has executed. Whether this is true or just bravado, does not matter, what is important is the message he sends: I will be merciless with criminals. This is how he turned Davao into what it is now, by becoming the mayor-punisher. 

Though the CHR and the Ombudsman's investigations and fact finding missions could not pin down the mayor, every Davaoenos know that their mayor-protector instilled fear among the criminals by showing them no mercy, it's either stop or die, no middle ground, no justice system for the criminals to seek shelter and protection from, it's the highway or the grave.

So, I think the senate investigation on Extra Judicial Killings and the result it could have put out i.e. if Sen De Lima was not ousted, would not mean that much to the Filipino. Sen. De lima sees a man-eating tiger and proved that it's man eating tiger. The Filipinos sees a man-eating tiger and knew it was man-eating tiger. So, what's the use of telling everybody that it's a man-eating tiger when everybody knows that the animal is a man-eating tiger. It's not as if De Lima has shown and proved anything new. But the problem with De lima's crusade is that she's prosecuting the president for the present alleged killings using evidences from different and past alleged killings. Not synchronized.

I admire De Lima for her guts. It takes a person of great courage to stand up against the temperamental and foul mouthed chief executive of the country with the power of the whole government behind him. Though I disliked her misdirected sympathies, and I bashed her once too often on FB for the impression that she's lawyering for the criminals and the drug pushers, for me, though, she looks real. I believe she's clean and she's sincere in her advocacy against these killings it's just that she opted to take the unpopular side. 

When the President and his men started the counter-attack with the matrix and the videos , etc. it was only expected. I am not incline to believe these accusations because as Sen. Lacson said, the papers and the matrix are just papers and videos can be edited with great clarity that it's impossible for the naked eye to detect the manipulations. Unless backed by corroborating and circumstantial evidences, these accusations and papers are just papers.

This dirt war is normal in Philippine politics but judging from history and after the twists and turns, in the end, these politicians always end up together. Wasn't it only a few years ago when the then DOJ Sec. De Lima prosecuted and hunted down Sen. Lacson for the alleged murder of Bobby Ducer? After a year in hiding, the CA annulled the arrest warrant and Sen. Lacson surfaced to the humiliation of De Lima. Fast forward and Sec. De Lima was elected a senator and here they are now sitting together in the senate panel conducting an investigation into the EJK. 

Anyway...the drama continues. While the senate is continuing the hearing on Extra Judicial Killing implicating the President, the House of Representative is conducting its own investigation implicating Sen. De Lima.