Showing posts with label 2010 Election. Show all posts

Para kay Gov. Ed Panlilio

3:04 AM

Para kay Among Ed Panlilio...

Ang sumusunod ay ang nakasulat na pahayag/paliwanag ni Pampanga Governor Ed Panlilio hinggil sa kanyang pasyang tumakbo bilang presidente sa 2010 at ang paghingi nito ng dispensation o pahintulot mula sa Santo Papa na umalis sa pagkapari. Matatagpuan ang kopya nito online sa website ng Kaya Natin!

Minarapat kong i-repost ang pahayag na ito, kalakip ang aking sariling komentaryo para kay Gov. Ed, upang makatulong sa ating mga mambabasa na magbuo ng kanilang sariling pagtingin hinggil sa isyung ito.

Sa tingin ko, ang nakasulat na pahayag na ito ay may layuning ilinaw/ itama ang ilang mga naunang pahayag ni Gov. Ed sa media na nagresulta sa mga headlines tulad ng, “God is calling me to run for President”, “God wants me to run in 2010”, and “Priest chooses politics over God”, bagay na lumikha ng pagbaha ng matindi at negatibong mga reaksyon ng ating mga kababayan. Sana ay hindi mamasamain ng Kaya Natin! at ni Gov. Panlilio ang libreng publicity na ito.

“Panlilio for President?” http://kayanatin.com/blogs/among-ed-for-president/

Noong Martes, inilahad ko po sa isang press conference ang aking hangarin na magpa-file ako ng candidacy para sa pagka-presidente ng ating bansa bago o kaya sa mismong araw ng Nobyembre 30. Mayroon pong natuwa at mayroon namang nagalit.

[Gov Ed, paano naman po matutuwa ang mga nagalit sa inyong deklarasyon eh idinawit ninyo pa ang Panginoon sa inyong political plans nang gamitin ninyo Siyang Top Endorser. Bukod sa nagalit ang mga Obispo ng Pampanga dahil sa hindi kayo tumupad sa usapan ninyo noong pinagbigyan nila kayo noong 2007 sa inyong pangako na tatlong taon lang kayong magpu-pulitiko, aba eh na-question pa tuloy ang katinuan ninyo.]

Gusto ko pong ipaabot sa inyo ang pagpasok ko sa pulitika at pagtakbo sa pagka-presidente ay hindi nagsimula sa akin. Wala naman kasi akong political agenda.

[Ano po ang sinasabi ninyong wala kayong political agenda? Hindi po ba ang deklarasyon ng inyong pagtakbo ay isang political endeavor? O non-political na po ba ang pagtakbo sa eleksyon ngayon? Eh ano po ang agenda ninyo, kung ganon? Moral? Spiritual? Parang palabo ng palabo.]

Pinasukan ko ito sapagkat ako ay tumugon sa pangangailangan at sa kahilingan ng mga tao.

[Kung totoo man po na hindi nanggaling sa inyo, kayo pa rin naman po ang magdedesisyon kung kayo ay tatakbo o hindi, aalis sa pagkapari o hindi. Sana ay tigilan na natin ang pag-finger point sa kung sino-sino na nagtutulak sa inyo upang tumakbo: una si God, ngayon mga karaniwang naman. Sana, kahit ngayon lang, ay mapanindigan ninyo kung ano talaga ang sa ganang inyo. Hindi po ba para po kayong nag-aaplay sa isang mabigat na trabaho na ang itinuturo ninyong nagtutulak sa inyong mag-aplay ay nanay o tatay, o ate, kuya o kapitbahay ninyo. Pero kayo, hindi nyo naman talaga gusto. Pwede ba ‘yon? At paano kung kayo’y matalo, at tiyak naman iyon, sino ang sisisihin ninyo? Si God? Ang mga nagpatakbo sa inyo? Aba, Harvey Keh at Patrick Pantaleon, maghanda na kayo at baka maririnig ninyo rin sa bandang huli na “Hindi ko naman sinabing suportahan ninyo ako,”, o kaya, “Pinagsisisihan ko na isinama ko pa kayo sa aking team.” Anong klaseng presidente naman ang aasahan namin sa kagaya ninyo kapag ganyan kayo? ]

Noong walang mapiling disenteng alternatibong kandidato sa pagka-gobernador sa Pampanga noong 2007, ako ay nagpasyang kumandidato pagkatapos kong magnilay. Ganito rin ang nangyari sa pagkakataon ngayon. May mga grupo at sektor na wala raw mapiling presidential candidate noong ako ay nilapitan

[Gov. Ed, nakakataba nga naman ng puso ang mapili kayo ng ilang mga grupo at sektor na ito na walang mapiling kandidato kundi kayo, ano? Pero teka, gaano po ba kayo kakilala ng mga ito? Ito po ba iyong mga tao na kagaya ko ay hangang-hanga at naluha sa tuwa sa naging tagumpay ng ating Krusada sa Pampanga noong 2007? Alam na po ba nila ang mapait na katotohanan na iilan na lang po sa mga kasamahan natin sa Krusada ang nagtitiwala pa sa inyo? Alam din po ba nila kung bakit ganoon ang nangyari, o your convenient version of truth lang ang nakakarating sa kanila, tulad halimbawa ng “Malakas ang mga kalaban ko, pinagtutulung-tulungan nila ako. Nagamit at nagpagamit ang mga dating supporters at confidence team ko para siraan ako. Ang totoo, I am doing a very good job as a Governor!”?

Gob, sa pagkakakilala ninyo sa iyong sarili, sa inyong mga nagawa, at sa kabila ng nakakalungkot na nangyari sa Krusada at sa Pampanga, hindi po ba nagtataka o nahihiya, kahit kaunti, kung bakit kayo ang napili nila?]

Pagkatapos ko ring magnilay ako ay nagpasyang kumandidato. Kahit pa naman noong nakaraang taon, malimit akong tinatanong kung ako ay hahabol bilang presidente?

Tatlong palatandaan ang aking tinakda:

una, walang ibang nakikitang karapat-dapat na kandidato

[Nakapagtataka pero sige na nga, check, sabi ng ilang sektor at grupo, ika n’yo];

pangalawa, suporta ng mga tao

[“clamor” at hindi lang simpleng suporta Gov. Ed ang sabi nyo. Nasaan itong “clamor” na ito?]

at pangatlo, kung pagkatapos kong magnilay at nagpasyang tatakbo, kapayapaan ang nadama ko. Ngayon pong nakikita kong nandito na ang mga palatandaang ito, ako ay nagpasya nang tumakbo.

[Simple lang pala ang hinahanap ni Gov Ed na palatandaan para makaramdam ng kapayapaan sa kanyang puso. Aba eh, kahit ilang pirasong tao lang ang magsabi na susuportahan nila ang kanyang kandidatura ay solved na siya, at kahit pa nga higit na napakarami ang galit at hindi sumasang-ayon ay wala siyang pakialam. Ayos yan, Among Ed!]

Sa gitna ng mga nag hihirap at nagugutom na maraming Pilipino, sa paglala ng katiwalian sa pamahalaan at sa paglaganap ng kawalang pag-asa, ito ang panahon na kailangan tayo ng ating Inang Bayan.

[Totoo, ito ang panahon para kumilos ang taumbayan upang magkaroon ng tiyak at makabuluhang pagbabago sa ating bansa, maitaas ang antas ng kabuhayan ng mga mahihirap, at buhayin at palaganapin ang pag-asa para sa pagbabagong ito. Pero Gov. Ed, pwede ninyo bang sabihin sa amin: gaano karami po ba ang nabawas sa mga nagugutom sa Pampanga? Mataas po ba ang moral at pag-asa ng mga Kapampangan sa ilalim ng inyong pamumuno? Hindi po ba kabaligtaran ang nangyari sa Pampanga sa inyong inaakalang kayang gawin para sa buong Pilipinas?]

Bilang Pilipino na may malasakit, dapat tayong nakahandang ialay sa bayan ang pinakamainam sa ating sarili. Kung itong pag-aalay ay nangangahulugan na kailangan nating isakripisyo ang ano mang bagay o lahat ng bagay sa atin, mangyari nawa sana ito. Para sa akin, ang sakripisyong tinutukoy ko ay ang paghingi ng DISPENSATION sa Sta. Iglesia sa aking pagkapari. Ito po ay napakalaking bagay para sa akin. Pero maaari ko pong gawin ito. Bakit?

Para sa akin ang pinakapuso ng pagpapari ay pag-aalay ng sarili sa kapwa lalo na sa mga mahihirap at maralita. Ito naman po ay aking ginawa noong ako ay nakadestino sa mga parokya at patuloy kong sinasabuhay nga yong ako ay gobernador. Mas higit ko pa ngang nilalaan ang aking sarili ngayon kaysa noon. Kaya lang po kailangan kong hu mingi ng dispensation upang maipagpatuloy ko ang aking panunungkulan sa pulitika sapagkat ito ang batas ng Sta. Iglesia na kailangan ko itong sundin. Ayaw kong sumuway sa kahilingan ng Iglesia.

Nagpapasalamat po ako sapagkat ang ating Sta. Iglesia ay maunawain. Kung sa bagay naniniwala akong hindi rin naman masama ang aking layunin. Kung ako naman ay bi nabatikos ng iba sa ginawa kong desisyon na ito, nire respeto ko po ang kanilang pahayag at pagtingin. Wala akong galit sa kanila. Tanging hangad ko lang naman ay ako ay manindigan batay sa nakikita kong buhay na dapat ialay upang sama-sama na ting itaguyod ang ating Inang Bayan.

[Gov, kung hindi mo na ramdam ang pagpapari, at ang pagiging pulitiko na talaga ang nasa puso mo, umalis ka na lang, huwag ka nang magpapigil. Huwag mo sanang konsensyahin ang mga kababayan natin para suportahan at iboto ka dahil sa iyong sinasabing “sakripisyo”. Maging totoo ka sa iyong sarili na mas pinili mo na ang buhay sa labas ng Simbahan kaysa sa loob nito. Sana rin ay huminto na rin kayo sa pang-aabuso sa pagiging maunawain ng Simbahan at ng mga Obispo sa ginagawa ninyong paglabag sa inyong mga sinumpaang tungkulin sa Panginoon at sa Simbahang Katoliko bilang isang pari.]

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Bistado

3:13 PM

BISTADO

What a bummer it must have been for the handful dreamers of an “Among Pres” (Father President) in 2010 had they imagined that the ANC Leadership Forum held at Ateneo last week may just be the perfect opportunity to showcase and promote their manok.

Well, ideally, it should, kung may ibubuga ang nasabing manok.

For one, it is a free 2-hour prime time TV exposure with a fairly wide captive audience especially from the upper/middle class professional/intellectual folks here and abroad who are also potential big-time funders, influential opinion shapers, campaigners and volunteers. Added bonus too is that the questions seem to have been given in advance (which explains how the slow-to-discern Panlilio went sleepless over the question of PGMA’s positive contribution to our country) giving the guests the opportunity to deliver their best President-material responses and perhaps minimize the generic motherhood, ill-conceived and even goofy statements.

Having some idea of how grueling any public face-off / battle-of-Presidential-wits under the close scrutiny of intellectuals, experts and professionals can get, the lead dreamer/convener of the Panlilio-for-President Utopian Society could have called for a mock-Question and Answer session with their manok thereby making sure that he will come out of the battle victorious and worthy of the hallowed pedestal that they had him installed. But since they obviously did not, ayan tuloy, nangamote. Kawawa naman.

The commentaries of national columnists and online bloggers after the forum somewhat demonstrates my point. Almost in unison, the general sentiment was: THERE IS NO WAY THAT THIS PRIEST CAN BE THE NEXT PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT.

Clearly unimpressed, the ever-sharp Amado Doronila of PDI concluded that all the aspirants where opportunistic and would grab every chance, even Manny Pacquiao’s fame and fortune, to get their hands on the presidency. Talk about the claims over Panlilio being the ‘real alternative’ presidential candidate!

Also incisive but more direct was the comments of Herman Tiu Laurel of The Daily Tribune. He wrote: “Then, there’s that newcomer whom everybody knows is kicking himself upstairs because he failed to fulfill the expectations of his provincemates who helped secure his fluke of a slim win, who wouldn’t be able to win again given his situation today. This fellow, a priest, is sadly possessed of a hyperbolic perception of his own significance, who clings to an ideology that is too limited to the anti-corruption issue, betraying an ignorance or denial of neo-colonialism, as well as corporatocratic feudalism as the real problems of this country.” OUCH!

Mr. Tony Lopez of the Manila Times wrote his take on Panlilio: “Retired priest, Ed Panlilio, the governor of Pampanga, sounded like he didn’t want (he gave a lot of “ifs”) to join Pacquiao but he didn’t have the mental honesty to say so on prime time TV. Ricky Carangdang asked the right question when he asked Governor Panlilio why so many people in Pampanga hate him. The governor ducked the question by saying many other people also like him. What Carangdang didn’t ask the good padre is why is it the nearly the entire Pampanga officialdom doesn’t like Panlilio, which says a lot about his style of governance. The ANC anchor also didn’t ask Panlilio what gives him the right to run for president when he seems to have made a mess of running the Pampanga provincial government. And why does he give so many conditions before he could be convinced to run. Is he a frontrunner? Surveys don’t even sniff his name among the top-of-the mind choices of voters for president. To me, Father Panlilio is simply on an ego trip. He is not a viable presidential candidate. He has very little chances of winning. Right now, he is not even sure of winning reelection in his native Pampanga.” OUCH! OUCH!

Fernando Gagelonia posted on midfield.blogspot.com, “Panlilio was the least impressive alternately sounding like the man of the cloth that he still is, while grappling with the intricacies of vested-interest local politics in his native Pampanga.”

From Gov. Panlilio’s responses on the 10-minute one-on-one interview with Ricky, it is clear that what’s keeping the suspended priest from finally seeking dispensation from the Vatican or to resign from the priesthood is really no longer about his love for the vocation as he piously and repeatedly declared in the not so distant past.NOW, THE TRUTH IS OUT: IT IS REALLY JUST ABOUT THE MONEY!

Ricky: What are the factors that will make you decide kung tatakbo talaga kayo?Gov. Ed: Wala tayong pera, Ricky eh… Kung tutulungan ako, if this will snowball, then I might go for it.
Hay naku, Among Ed, with the way you treated your campaign donors, fellow Crusaders, supporters, volunteers, staff, friends and relatives after THEY installed you into power, how can you expect a nationwide snowballing of support? With less than a year to prove that you were worth the sacrifice and the votes of the people of Pampanga, what have you got to show for it?

We all reap what we sow.You sow disunity among the people, contempt and suspicion of any elected official who refuses to kowtow to you, and you consistently listen only to the voice of – no, not God’s, but his own and that of his goddess. Ganun na ba talaga kayo kagaling ngayon, Gov?

If there is one really good thing the ANC Leadership Forum did for its viewers, it is this: IT HELPED EXPOSE GOVERNOR PANLILIO FOR WHAT HE TRULY IS AND WHAT HE CLEARLY IS NOT.

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Political Participation as a Christian Obligation

11:59 AM

Political Participation as a Christian Obligation

In their better mood, I am called a pakialamero by some erring government officials who wish to keep their questionable public performances, well, private. It gets me into minor, and, once or twice, major trouble. Some say it’s because of the way I do things, my approach, how I attack given problem(s) at hand to get necessary things done. I suppose I am a pakialamero -- I meddle, poke and nose and find ways for the people to whom they are most accountable to, find out, makialam themselves and let the public be their judge and, where necessary, their executioner.

No, I am not running for any public office in 2010. Been there, done that. Being in public service since 1967, I would fall under the category of some as a traditional politician, although I will insist that not all traditional politicians are bad, in the same way that not everything traditional, conventional or customary is evil.

But let this column not be about me, or, God forbid, an apologist write-up for “trapos”, to which I was not long ago unfairly accused of. Let this column be about all of us, citizens of this poor but a country and people that deserves the best, and our role, paano tayong lahat makikialam, in the 2010 elections onwards.

Last week’s pastoral exhortation of CBCP President Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, D.D which he called Year of the Two Hearts for Peace-Building and Lay participation in Social Change reminded us of our Christian obligations in politics, to get organized, leading to positive and lasting changes for our people and country.

He said, “We challenge our Catholic laity, in particular, to take the lead in the task of moral renewal towards a deeper and more lasting change in the Philippine society. We challenge all lay people involved in politics to renounce corruption and bond together in the task of evangelizing politics for effective governance and the pursuit of the common good…We urge every Catholic lay person to give a concrete expression to Christian discipleship through responsible citizenship.”

I have always believed that WE ALL have a distinct and special role in the politics of nation building, one that must never start and end with the ballot during elections. This is how, together with a group of lay Catholics, we conceptualized Groups United to Serve God or GUTS in 1992. Bishop Teodoro C. Bacani, Jr mentioned GUTS in his book, Church in Politics, as a group with the “avowed purpose of asking Catholics in different parishes to make a united choice for the particular candidates the parishioners find deserving of election.”

GUTS is perhaps one “radical” approach in which without tinkering around or crossing the boundaries of the separation of church and state e.g. having the priest themselves run for public office, the Catholic Church and all other Christian faiths, for that matter, may exert their moral and spiritual role in building a nation led not of corrupt and incompetent government officials but by honest, God-fearing, competent and genuine public servants that are collectively and carefully chosen through an ala - US primary system by informed, enlightened and organized citizens. (Yes, we thought of adopting the “primaries” long before others did).

As much as the CBCP is encouraged by the rise in the call of the people for “moral regeneration” for our country, I am also personally excited by the fact that there are so many concerned groups and individuals who are formulating and working on ways towards finding just and lasting solution to the crisis of politics and governance in our country, some of them ‘hard-liners’ as my activist friend would say, but some are more realistic and open-minded. Now, if we could all work together and realize that real change can only happen when the do-gooders accept that the even traditional politicians can also contribute to nation building, mindful that there are good and bad politicians (traditional or pseudo-alternative) just as there are corrupt civil society members (like those who do not pay the correct taxes) and there are the real good ones.

Change can only happen when we all accept each other - take the bad with the good - believe in Redemption - give everybody a chance to reform like St Paul who was a murderer and formulate procedures where the fakes can be detected as soon as possible.

Yes, I am a pakialamero, even an idealist pakialamero, but I would rather be a pakialamero than a sleepless fence-sitter who knows that s/he can do something and contribute in improving the lives of many but dare not to.

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