Revisiting the Chiong rape slay case

BACK in July 2005, I was assigned by ABS-CBN Publishing's Metro magazine to do a story on Chiong sisters rape slay case in Cebu, because one of those convicted of the case is a scion of the late President Osmeña. To this day, it still is the most exhausting/exhaustive story I've ever worked on, primarily due to the number of people I interviewed, w/c included the respective mothers of Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong, and Paco Llarrañaga; their respective friends; a case investigator; and lawyers. Due to then Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez' pussyfooting (aha! I'm finally able to use the word!), I was unable to interview Llarañaga himself, who is now back in the news because his transfer to a Spanish prison was recently approved by the Department of Justice.

I am publishing here the piece I did for Metro to give the public a glimpse into the complexities of the case, and cannot help but be moved again by the intense suffered by both families. As I was unable to interview Llarrañaga himself, I cannot ascertain whether he committed the crime, or not. Based on the legal documents and interviews I conducted with people connected to both families and to this case, however, and with the limited time available to me to put together that story back in 2005, I can only say that there seems to have been lapses in the investigation process itself, while the evidence presented by both prosecution and defense are riddled with loopholes.

Chiong/Larrañaga case (Metro) Aug. 2005

Coolness!

Click this.

This is not: Click! and Click! (scroll down).

The palusot here.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

IN an attempt to boost her sagging popularity and credibility among the public, the Presidentita and her henchmen are trying to take on issues that would seemingly reinvent her as a heroine and savior of the country.

First she goes to the Department of Justice five times in a row just to see how cases against so-called rice hoarders/smugglers are coming along.

Second, she has her incompetents at the Ombudsman's office regurgitate a six-year-old corruption case against her former justice secretary Hernani Perez, his ailing wife, Rosario, and businessman Ernest Escaler.

Third, she has pushed her GSIS juggernaut Winston Garcia to take on the Lopezes so government can take over Meralco.

Fourth, she now wants telecommunications companies not to charge for text messages.

What's next? Will she now tell the banks not to charge fees for using their ATMs?

All these are desperate measures to shore up confidence in her flagging presidency. If the presidentita thinks that by coming to our defense in populist issues like these will make us like her better, she is sadly mistaken. As usual, her idiot brigade in Malacañang, who sit in their airconditioned offices all day, and who travel in style by land, sea, or air, anywhere they go, are so out of touch with reality. They don't know us really and what we think, and so they keep feeding their Madam the wrong ideas and concepts to help reinvent her image, which has been drubbed in the mud ever since the Hello Garci, the ZTE-NBN scandal, etc.

The Presidentita's makeover program will all be for naught, because she lacks the values that will make all of these desperate measures credible...honesty and humility. No one believes her because she has never been sincere in her intentions and motives.

I wonder, when she was thinking of grabbing Malacañang from Erap...did she actually want to do it because she wanted to change the country and improve our lives? Or did she just want to become President? Period.

Maybe it's about time the Presidentita thinks of the legacy she wants to leave behind. Because the way things have been going lately, I don't think History is going to be kind to her.

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NOW here comes the JDV threatening to spill the beans on what really transpired in the ZTE-NBN shenanigan. Isa ka pa! Here's another political opportunist trying to take advantage of an issue that he should have spoken on before, when the Senate hearings were at its peak. Why come out just now? Why not before when his own son had stuck his neck out and testified about the deal?

Kasi nawala na sa limelight so gusto na namang pumorma! Kesho the information he has may lead to the "fall of the government," etc. etc. Pwede ba?! This JDV and Manay Gina make me sick!

Pathetic

THAT'S how most people felt about the serial coup plotters' caper yesterday. Parang, ano na naman ba yan?! I don't really understand why Trillanes and company actually thought people were going to join them in their idiotic cause when they weren't successful the first time around. Remember 2003 boys? Then they said they were ready to die for their cause and all that crap, but what happened? they surrendered. Then Trillanes had to cry to his mommy to get him out of his predicament. The poor woman had to go Malacanang and beg the Presidentita not to harm him!

This time around, Trillanes and his group said they decided to give up because they didn't want the media covering them to be hurt. Lemme tell you guys a thing or two about journalists who were covering yesterday's stunt. I know most of them, have covered the field with them...they are all battle-hardy journalists who have been to war-torn areas in the country. They have risked life and limb in the name of covering a good story.

Yesterday was no different. They chose to cover the coup-lang sa pansin rebels, because it was their job. If anything had happened to them in the event that government troops had attacked Trillanes and company, no one would have blamed the government. They put their lives on the line in the name of a scoop, an enterprising story, and public service. The media's presence just provided a convenient excuse for Trillanes' group to stop their foolishness. I'm not surprised many of the Magdalo soldiers, those who stand co-accused with Trillanes for the 2003 coup attempt, didn't join him this time around. Once burned, twice shy.

We are all aware of the Presidentita's illegitimacy, her and her husband's corrupt bent, so too her henchmen, but a coup would not solve these problems. C'mon, didn't you think things would change when Marcos and Estrada were booted out of power? Corruption got worse. For a young democracy such as ours (compared to 'older' countries like the U.S., for example), the path towards real honest and competent governance is often, and will continue to be bumpy. We just have to keep trying. Perhaps things may change a bit with someone like MAR Roxas as President in 2010.

Anyway, let's hope this weekend turns out to be more quiet and peaceful.

Too much politics or too much of GMA?

THE Presidentita oversimplifies it...that too much politics led to the deaths of the child Mariannet Amper and Comelec official Alioden Dalaig. Actually it's too much of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is what probably did them in.

While I don't want to impinge on the grief of Dalaig family, has anyone bothered to find out just what business did the Comelec official have in playing at the Casino Filipino in Hyatt Hotel? Last I heard, government officials were prohibited from gambling in government-owned casinos. Remember how much gulo there was over photos taken of then Vice President presidential candidate Sherap Estrada playing at one Pagcor casino, which were then released to the media? Tsk, tsk, tsk. I wonder whatever happened to that case...casino employee Edgardo Bentain mysteriously disappeared (and is presumed dead) because of that controversy.

Moral of the story: something tragic always happens when government officials gamble in Pagcor casinos.

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Btw, don't you think it strange that with questions still lingering over the exact cause of the blast at the Glorietta mall, here now comes another explosion at the House of Representatives in Batasan Hills? At a similar time when more issues against GMA's credibility are heating up. And of course, the same smarty pants "initial assessments" from the same cast of amateurs. Pasok Geary Barias!

And you might not believe in feng shui, but if I remember correctly, at the beginning of the Year of the Pig, geomancers such as Merlina Merton did predict that fiery elements would still be present this year in the form of bombs and explosions.

“…the elements of the Pig year are Fire over Water. Fire and water clash so the indications are another year of fighting and fiery events such as wildfire, bombs, explosions and political strife. But since this year the fire element is yin, which is not as strong as last year’s yang fire, the people and the forests will suffer less…” (Jazspitz.blogspot.com citing Phil. Star, Jan. 25, 2007)

Gasp! those wildfires in California!

Merton also predicts that the Presidentita will likely stay on until 2010. Shudder! Will Merton prove to be correct or be another Joseph Chau? (Funny that during the Chinese New Year feng shui writeups earlier this year,Chau evaded questions regarding GMA's term, still probably smarting from the ridicule he received from his incorrect prediction that Sherap would remain in office. I remember Chau's prediction very well...we published in on the front page of the old Manila Standard. Ach!)

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This piece I nominate as the weirdest story of the day: Indian man marries dog.

Now what do you think can we Filipinos do to ward off the curse that is GMA?

Jinggoy, Binay in 2010...is this a joke?

Opposition eyes tandem of Jinggoy, Binay in 2010

By Jose Rodel Clapano
Phil. Star, Nov. 4, 2007

The United Opposition may field the tandem of Sen. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay in the 2010 presidential elections, dispelling speculations that the opposition is in disarray following former President Joseph Estrada’s acceptance of executive clemency for plunder.

Opposition leaders did not specify which positions Estrada and Binay may run for.

Former senator Ernesto Maceda of UNO’s elders committee made the announcement in Vitas, Tondo where a huge crowd had gathered to welcome the former president, the party’s titular head.

Estrada’s widely publicized Tondo visit, his first since his ouster six years ago, appeared to signal an early foray into the campaign trail

“We are asking Senator Jinggoy Estrada and Makati Mayor Binay to talk and decide for themselves who among them will run for president and vice president,” Maceda said.

(Click Opposition 2010 for the rest.)

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Manong Ernie are you effing kidding us?!?! C'mon, can't the so-called United Opposition find anyone better than these two? Sure Binay may have proven his mettle as mayor of Makati City but running a country is way more complicated. And Jinggoy? What has he actually accomplished in the Senate? Even his father, the former president, and newly-reinvented pardoned Erap Estrada, at least was able to champion an anti-US bases effort when he was Senator.

While I don't like GMA and her present crop of hee-haw do-nothings like the next Pinoy, geezus gejovas witness! can the Opposition give us better alternatives naman in 2010? If they don't stop this foolishness, I'll be emailing Stephen Colbert to run here instead! Or maybe we can draft Michael V. and have his Bubble Gang serve as his Cabinet once elected.

In other words, wala na bang iba? Give the rest of us a reason to stay in the country, damnit!

The Estrada verdict

THE guilty verdict handed by the Sandiganbayan on plunder charges against former Philippine president Joseph "Erap" Estrada felt almost anti-climactic. Like many others, I too expected the verdict, especially with the overwhelming documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts like those of former EPCI banker Clarissa Ocampo, showing who was the true owner of the Jose Velarde account.

In the same manner that we expected the guilty verdict, we should also expect a presidential pardon. Not right now, because that would only raise the hackles of many civil society groups and interested parties, but perhaps in the near future. (I, for one, am not opposed to a pardon.)

There are two possible scenarios I could think of. Maybe the pardon can be handed down before the Presidentita GMA steps down. By then, we would probably be too wrapped anyway in electing a new set of monkeys into office, we would be busy to even notice it. And I still think that despite what she projects to be, the Presidentita wants to go down in history books as someone who was still compassionate and understanding. (Who knows, she could also be setting a precedent in case someone files a graft case against her and her family.)

Or she could probably endorse the presidential pardon to the next President, who will probably come from the Opposition camp anyway. (Hmmm...let's see...Manny Villar? Mar Roxas? or ick, Loren Legarda?) Anyway, memories of Filipinos are short, and we are generally a forgiving lot.

Whoever the next President will be can only look to the US as guidance. In 1974, then US President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his misconduct surrounding the Watergate scandal, except that Ford did so before Nixon's case even went to trial. It was a controversial decision but Ford made a compelling and sympathetic argument, which Americans eventually were able to live with. (Read Ford's explanation here.)

A presidential pardon in Erap's case could work too except that I doubt that he could reinvent himself the way Nixon did, who went on to become a prolific author, speaker, and well-respected elder stateman. Maybe Erap could resurrect his film career and make a movie based on his trial or have someone ghostwrite his memoirs. A few chapters devoted to his paramours would make the book an instant best-seller.

Seriously, this country needs closure in the political arena. There are just so many issues still hanging out there that are keeping us as a nation from moving forward, e.g. the Ninoy Aquino murder, the Marcos millions, the Hello Garci scandal. (It's a good thing that Marcos has finally been buried because that too, was one closure we needed.) The guilty verdict on Erap and a subsequent pardon could be the start of a turnaround for us.