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4 M aliens in ‘pastillas’ scam stealing jobs from Filipinos

4 M aliens in ‘pastillas’ scam stealing jobs from Filipinos

by | Nov 4, 2020 | Gotcha

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4 M aliens in ‘pastillas’ scam stealing jobs from Filipinos

4 M aliens in ‘pastillas’ scam stealing jobs from Filipinos

Four million young aliens who bribed their way into the country since 2017 are a menace. Mostly Chinese, they are stealing as many Filipino jobs. Some have taken Filipino spouses, to acquire land. They enjoy privileges reserved for Filipinos, like extracting natural resources, and owning utilities and firearms. Having entered fraudulently, they could be into crime, like narco- and human trafficking. The spies among them are embedded in Filipino communities, industries, academe, institutions and associations.

Being illegals, they pay no taxes. Yet many of them do business exclusively for each other: restaurants, delis, travel agencies, apparel, home and office supplies and services like translation, escort and security. They are a drain on scarce Philippine resources: food, water, housing, transport, telecoms gadgetry, WiFi connectivity, capital goods. Twenty seven-million Filipinos lost their livelihoods during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

Every one of them must be arrested and deported, Sen. Francis Pangilinan said. He called the sneak-in of four million Chinese a “soft invasion.”

The Chinese illegals are a national security threat. Since 1988 China has been grabbing Philippine territorial sea features and maritime jurisdictions. Beijing’s communist rulers are an enemy feigning as economic friends. In 2014 Beijing concreted seven Philippine reefs into island fortresses from where warships harass Filipino patrol, exploration and fishing vessels.

3,000 Chinese army spies are on “immersion mission” in the Philippines

Sen. Panfilo Lacson

4 M aliens in ‘pastillas’ scam stealing jobs from Filipinos

Citing intelligence sources, Sen. Panfilo Lacson revealed last year that 3,000 Chinese army spies are on “immersion mission” in the Philippines. It is like the Japanese imperial forces deploying operatives as gardeners, shopkeepers and ambulant vendors prior to 1941 Philippine Occupation. It is unclear what the government has done about the exposé of Lacson, a former Philippine National Police chief.

China intends to seize the Philippines in case of war with the US over Taiwan, former Armed Forces chief Emmanuel Bautista warned last week. China will take control of strategic sea passages to the Pacific in Batanes, Mindoro, Palawan, Samar and Surigao. China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy includes the Philippines in its “First Island Chain of Defense” since 2009, when it illegally enforced a “nine-dash” boundary in the South China Sea. Among the foremost Filipino military strategists, Bautista headed the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea after serving as chief of staff in 2013-2014.

The four million Chinese illegals entered the country through the “pastillas” scheme of each paying off crooked Immigration men P10,000. The bribees themselves named it after the native milk candy in white wrapper because the bribes came in rolled envelopes.

The scam has raked in P40 billion since 2017, divvied up among Immigration bigwigs, airport staff and protectors in the National Bureau of Investigation and the Office of the Ombudsman.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros uncovered the racket in the course of an inquiry into white slavery in Chinese-run online gambling in Manila. Taking P10,000 under the table from four million illegal aliens became possible by discarding checks and balances, Hontiveros concluded. Father and son Maynardo Mariñas and Marc Red Mariñas were appointed chiefs of Immigration Special Operations and of Port Operations Divisions, respectively. That enabled them to hatch up the scam, according to Immigration whistleblowers Allison Chiong and Jeffrey Dale Ignacio. The NBI also arrested its Legal Assistance Division lawyer Joshua Capiral in an entrapment in September, taking grease money to not implicate “pastillas” collectors.

Sen. Richard Gordon unearthed last week what seemed a parallel scheme. Philippine Retirement Authority officials were granting special retiree visas to thousands of Chinese as young as 35. PRA general manager-CEO Bienvenido Chy claimed to be merely following long-standing rules. Gordon threatened to have the agency’s 2021 budget slashed if it persists in the sham.

In seeking the arrest and deportation of the Chinese illegals, Pangilinan cited Commonwealth Act 613 and amending Republic Act 503. Those require such action against law-breaking aliens. “Foreign nationals who circumvent immigration laws in connivance with corrupt Immigration employees forfeit their right to stay in the country,” he said.

4 M aliens in ‘pastillas’ scam stealing jobs from Filipinos

The “pastillas” racketeers are deemed to have sold the country to a foreign aggressor, short of treason during war.

Aliens here legally may work in the Philippines by securing employment or investor visas. The latter requires $75,000 deposit to the Land Bank or Development Bank of the Philippines. Foreign spies face lifetime imprisonment.

The “pastillas” racketeers are deemed to have sold the country to a foreign aggressor, short of treason during war. They need reminding of the fate that befell such Quislings right after Philippine Liberation of 1945. Atrocity victims and kin decapitated or disemboweled collaborators and informers of the cruel Japanese Kempeitai police. Those whose lives were spared ended up with noses, ears and hands chopped off.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM).

My book “Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government” is available on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/Amazon-Exposes

Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/Anvil-Exposes or at National Bookstores.

*      *      *

Gotcha archives: https://tinyurl.com/Gotcha-Archives

 

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Who says the rich don’t steal? Read this

Who says the rich don’t steal? Read this

by | Nov 2, 2020 | Gotcha

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Who says the rich don’t steal? Read this

Image by klimkin from Pixabay

Who says the rich don’t steal? Read this

Whoever says the rich don’t steal must bone up on current events.

Foremost example of rich persons who continued to amass dirty money was Pablo Escobar. For seven straight years Forbes magazine ranked the Colombian drug boss among the world’s richest. Seventh in fact in 1989, when his personal fortune was estimated at $25 billion. Eyeing political entry then, he offered to pay the $10-billion national debt. He enriched himself smuggling cocaine to America.

Escobar is often compared to Al Capone. The Chicago Mafia capo is said to have hauled in by 1939 1.3 billion in today’s dollars from illegal alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and vice. His bookmaking and extortion syndicate employed 600.

Other wealthy persons lived lives of crime. Frank Lucas earned $1 million a day sneaking heroin from Vietnam to America inside coffins. Griselda “The Black Widow” Blanco netted $2.5 billion heading the Medellin Cartel for Escobar. Amado Carillo Fuentes took over Mexico’s Juarez Cartel after killing his gang boss, and became the world’s second richest drug lord. He was called “Lord of the Skies” for his collection of aircraft, including 22 Boeing-727s, used to smuggle cocaine to the US.

In the Philippines are the rich who loot the economy. Oligarchs control utilities: water, power, fuel, telecoms, transport.

Who says the rich don’t steal? Read this

Swindler Dawood Ibrahim’s wealth was estimated at $6.7 billion when he funded the 1993 Mumbai terror attacks. Economics graduate Semion Mogilevich became Russia’s richest Mafia chief, $10 billion, via counterfeiting, securities and mail fraud, contract murders, money laundering, arms trafficking, and white slavery. By controlling the entry of drugs to Puerto Rico onto the US, Jose Figueroa Agosto amassed $1 billion. A tenth of that, $100 million, he spent bribing public officials. Despite a 200-year prison term he was able to walk out with fake release orders. All those gangsters thrived by paying off law enforcers and judges, notes investopedia.com.

In 2008 was uncovered the world’s biggest Ponzi or pyramiding scam and America’s worst financial crime. No one suspected Bernie Madoff pulling it off for years because he was the wealthy non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market. In his bank account were $64.8 billion of 4,800 investment clients of Madoff Associates.

To say that the rich don’t steal is to cover up crime.

In the Philippines are the rich who loot the economy. Oligarchs control utilities: water, power, fuel, telecoms, transport. Although but a few families, they own industries like banks, food, retail, and land development. Deplorable is that they cheat taxes and bribe to wangle state concessions. Many books have exposed their decades-long greed.

Controlling politics are dynasties. Again, only a few families corner national and local government positions — against the Constitution. Alternating or simultaneously sitting are spouses, siblings, parents and offspring. Public service is their family business. They take kickbacks from the government contracts they concoct.

In 2013 was exposed the collusion of oligarchs and political dynasts in plundering multibillion-peso pork barrels. Eight senators, more than 150 congressmen, and dozens of local officials were implicated. They were listed as sponsors of the fixers’ fake projects. Those fixers came from well-to-do families.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and cronies were the worst oligarchs and political dynasts. The Marcoses ensconced themselves in power for life. They used aliases William Saunders, Jane Ryan, and more to squirrel away the national wealth into Swiss banks. They amassed companies, buildings, lands, mansions, artworks, jewelry, antique, and signature watches. Total loot: $30 billion.

Due to the Marcoses and cronies, the economy collapsed in the 1980s. Due to the restored oligarchs and political dynasts the economy still cannot revive.

Who says the rich don’t steal? Read this

Could the Marcoses have inspired Prime Minister Najib Razak and wife Rosmah?

 For lack of checks and balances, dictators are able to amass ill-gotten wealth. Seven recent ones are:

  • Muammar Gaddafi, Libya, $35.1 billion seized in 2011 in the US, Austria, Canada, and Britain;
  • Bashar al-Assad, Syria, $1.5 billion;
  • Hosni Mubarak, Egypt, $70 billion over 30 years;
  • Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen, $32 billion to $60 billion over 33 years;
  • Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia, $17 billion when overthrown, but his wife escaped with $60 million in gold bullion;
  • Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe, $1 billion;
  • Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea. $600 million, including a $35-million estate in Malibu and two $1.7-million Bugatti Veyrons.

Invariably their people wallowed in poverty, investopedia.com reports.

Could the Marcoses have inspired Prime Minister Najib Razak and wife Rosmah? The son of Malaysia’s second PM, Najib is said to have stolen $385 million (1.6 billion ringgit) from one state bank alone. Earlier as defense minister, he took kickbacks from the purchase of two French submarines. If Imelda had a collection of 3,000 pairs of shoes and handbags, Rosmah amassed from frequent shopping sprees abroad 300 designer handbags. Police raiders found cash in various denominations and jewelry stashed in the bags.

* * *

Ten things money can’t buy: (1) Manners, (2) Morals, (3) Respect, (4) Character, (5) Commonsense, (6) Trust, (7) Patience, (8) Class, (9) Integrity, (10) Love.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

My book “Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government” is available on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/Amazon-Exposes

Paperback: https://tinyurl.com/Anvil-Exposes or at National Bookstores.

* * *

Gotcha archives: https://tinyurl.com/Gotcha-Archives

 

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Chinese need to be told about Beijing’s sea lies

Chinese need to be told about Beijing’s sea lies

by | Aug 14, 2020 | Gotcha

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Chinese need to be told about Beijing’s sea lies

Image by Roland Schwerdhöfer from Pixabay

The world must wake up the Chinese to the truth.

Every year the People’s Liberation Army-Navy sails an armada to China’s “southernmost territory.” James Reef in the South China Sea (SCS) is 1,000 miles distant from China and only 50 miles off Malaysia. There the Chinese sailors hoist their flag, sing their national hymn and pledge fealty to the Communist Party. Everything looks solemn except for the fact that James Reef is 30 meters undersea (equivalent to a ten-story building). It’s a wonder that no PLAN admiral questions the absurdity of it all. Not even ancient Romans, who treated the Mediterranean as “Mare Nostrum” (“Our Sea”), marked the empire’s boundaries via submersibles.

James Reef is in fact wrongly translated in Chinese as an above-water sandbar. It is like calling Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, a ring of rocks and reefs, Huangyan Island. Only 120 miles from Luzon and for centuries called by Filipinos Bajo de Masinloc after the jurisdictional mainland town, it is 800 miles from China. Yet Beijing claims that too as its southeastern-most border. (It even “owns” Okinawa to the east.) Other crude translations of British Admiralty maps comprise China’s invented “ancient historic rights” to the SCS as its inner lake. The Kuomintang had copied the maps in imagined Chinese sea supremacy before the humiliating colonization. A tale was spun that Chinese engineers had scanned the sea from a series of towers on the mainland. Yet ignorance showed in the lack of ancient differentiations of basic sea features as island (with own freshwater source), uninhabitable sandbar and underwater reef, rock, shoal, atoll, bank and deep. 

The world must wake up the Chinese to the truth.

Antonio Carpio

Retired Chief Justice

The world must wake up the Chinese to the truth.

Still Beijing lives the lie. It claims ownership of the entire SCS by virtue of a “nine-dash line” chart with no longitude and latitude coordinates. Since 1949 takeover the communists have mis-educated every Chinese citizen in what retired justice Antonio Carpio has labeled the “fake news of the millennium.”

China, like all ASEAN littoral states, is a signatory of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Under that world law, no submerged marker can serve as a boundary of inner seas. Nor may it generate outwards a 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The Hague arbitral tribunal upheld those in July 2016, favoring the Philippines. Beijing’s concreting of three Philippine reefs into artificial islands cannot also generate EEZs. Outlawing the “nine-dash” farce, the court said Beijing’s reef concreting in fact irreparably damaged the marine environment.

Beijing’s commissars are conspiratorial Leninists, bent on perpetual one-party rule. With China thriving economically, the demand for democratization is growing. The communist rulers need a diversionary issue to keep the Chinese under their dictatorship. Most convenient is to claim that “bullies” like the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Indonesia are stealing the SCS. Only the gullible or the co-opted believes that, US assistant state secretary for Asia-Pacific David Stilwell remarked. It is China that poaches fish; explores oil, gas, rare metals and new medicines; and militarizes other countries’ EEZs.

The world must wake up the Chinese to the truth, Carpio told the recent global webinar of the National Youth Movement on the West Philippine Sea. Many countries have begun to do so, he said:

• Since 2002 under a Declaration of Conduct, ASEAN states have asked for resolution of SCS disputes in accordance with international law, especially UNCLOS.

• During The Hague proceedings Vietnam wrote the Tribunal that China’s nine-dash line has no legal or factual basis, yet encroaches on its jurisdiction. Ignoring China’s “historic claim,” Vietnam also filed its extended continental shelf.

• Before the arbitral award came out, the European Union and G-7 countries stated that Manila and Beijing should comply with whatever ruling.

• After the award came out, Indonesia renamed its EEZ in the Natuna Islands, where China poaches, as the North Natuna Sea, citing as basis the invalidation of China’s nine-dash line.

• Before and after the award, Malaysia filed two extended continental shelf declarations facing the SCS, rejecting China’s concocted historical claim that encroaches on it.

• India called for dispute settlement under UNCLOS.

• On the fourth anniversary of the award last July 12, the US declared support for the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Indonesia, and warned against any more bullying by China.

• Australia wrote the UN General Assembly that no country should be bound by the nine-dash line despite China’s militarization and propaganda.

Under international law and UNCLOS, navies legally can conduct sea and air exercises in EEZs anywhere in the world.

The world must wake up the Chinese to the truth.

“There are those who claim that the award remains unenforceable since the UNCLOS has no mechanism for it,” Carpio said. “On the contrary the award is being strongly enforced regularly. Every time that American, British, French, Australian, Japanese and Canadian military vessels and aircraft conduct naval and aerial exercises in the West Philippine Sea, they rebut China’s claim that no other coastal state has an EEZ in the WPS. The naval powers conduct freedom of navigation and over-flight exercises in the WPS precisely because there is an EEZ in the WPS.”

Under international law and UNCLOS, navies legally can conduct sea and air exercises in EEZs anywhere in the world. But they may not extract or explore resources in the EEZ of any country.

China shrilly protests the freedom of navigation and over-flight operations of other countries in the WPS yet its People’s Liberation Army-Navy has been conducting exercises in the EEZs in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas without consent of the coastal states. The PLAN has also drilled in the EEZs of Australia, Guam, Hawaii and Alaska without securing any country’s consent. The Chinese people must be told of that double standard.

*   *   *

The world must wake up the Chinese to the truth.

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Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

by | Feb 4, 2019 | Gotcha

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Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

Image by cvfder43 from Pixabay

Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

As Filipinos were securing their locales from terrorists the past week, lawmakers were busy securing personal pork barrels. Pork plunder is as heinous a crime as mass murder. Both fetch life sentences. Yet terror bombers and lawmakers fear not the consequences. All believe in impunity to do wrong – and even go to heaven for it. Pork barrel partakers have a clear edge over terrorists, though. None of the former goes to jail.

In recent days individual lawmakers’ pork barrels were found to be larger than earlier reported embedded in the 2019 national budget. Lone anti-pork senator Panfilo Lacson at first discovered P2.4 billion for Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo alone, plus P1.9 billion for then-House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya. In defense, the latter spread the guilt around that 99 other congressmen had pork slabs bigger than Arroyo’s. Two of those favored congressmen even got P8 billion and P5 billion, Andaya said, while the 195 others P60 million each. Even the senators had about P8 billion.

That’s around P270 billion, exposed or admitted at the start of Senate hearings on the national budget.

Billions of pesos were being thrown into dikes, ripraps, and canals whose dimensions were easy to fake and costs to pad.

Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

As that unfolded the House of Reps summoned Budget Sec. Benjamin Diokno for questioning. The House leaders knew he had allotted P52 billion in the 2019 budget for public works of the faction they had just deposed. Part of that, in fact, was the P60-million pork reward each to the 195 congressmen who went along with the leadership coup d’état. Those clearly were “lumps sums”, one of the Supreme Court’s definitions of pork in outlawing it in 2013. But that’s of no worry to the lard-greedy. What they demanded to know was why Diokno had “parked” most of that P52 billion in Bicol region. Was it for his in-laws there, a vice governor and a mayor, allegedly to commission as usual from bogus flood control projects? So were divulged new ruses for pork barrels. Billions of pesos were being thrown into dikes, ripraps, and canals whose dimensions were easy to fake and costs to pad. And while the projects mostly were in Bicol, the parked funds were in the names of congressmen as far north as Luzon, west as Visayas, and south as Mindanao.

Diokno disavowed knowledge of the in-laws’ businesses, and justified the flood controls in this onset of climate change. He did admit, though, that the outlay not only was P52 billion but P71 billion. In chorus congressmen and senators denounced that P19-billion extra. They moved it to health services, but kept quiet about their individual pork barrels.

Came the time last week to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the 2019 budget. Lacson proposed open conferences by the bicameral committee. For, in that committee is where funds are juggled or inserted post-legislation – another of the SC’s definitions of forbidden pork. Congressmen and senators made a show of inviting the press in the earlier hours, but closed the doors by nightfall. The House panel publicized that they’d scrutinize the senators’ own lump sum and post-legislation insertions. That was the signal for horse-trading to begin.

Beforehand Lacson smartly had detailed to the Senate President amounts that certain agencies requested as additional funds. Totaling P30,497,826,800, only P3,965,935,000 was for drug enforcement reviewed by his sub-committee; P26,531,891,800 were for others, stated in open plenary deliberations. He posted them on his official pinglacson.net website while challenging other conferees to be as transparent.

Sadly they were not. That provided congressmen with ammo to accuse senators of inserting P190 billion in all.

In truth, as Lacson discovered at the bicameral conference, his Senate colleagues did have their own lump sums totaling P23 billion in all. And the congressmen’s counterpart minimum pork was not only P60 million but P160 million each. This consisted of P70 million each in “hard projects” (roads, flood controls, buildings) and P30 million in “soft” (medicines, books, scholarships), plus the P60 million each redistributed by Arroyo and Andaya upon their accession, Lacson said.

When the SC banned pork barrels in Dec. 2013, the slabs were P200 million each for 24 senators and P70 million each for 255 congressmen

Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

Added to the initially discovered and admitted pork of P270 billion, the lard is now worth at least P305 billion.

Congressmen and senators cannot explain themselves. To avert any more public discussion of their lard, they chatter about delayed government projects and salary increases due to prolonged budgeting. Worth recalling, when the SC banned pork barrels in Dec. 2013, the slabs were P200 million each for 24 senators and P70 million each for 255 congressmen – P22.65 billion.

Today, five years later, pork is 14 times larger.

All experts know that good governance is the only solution to terrorism. Equality, justice, education, sustenance, contentment lessens the chances of fringe obsessions and violent extremism. With porky lawmakers, there won’t be any of those: terrorism will reign.

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Pork barrel now 14 times larger than when outlawed

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How narco-politics emerged in 2001

How narco-politics emerged in 2001

by | Sep 12, 2016 | Gotcha

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How narco-politics emerged in 2001

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

How narco-politics emerged in 2001

How did it grow this bad, people invariably ask about the drug menace. Why are there hundreds of narco-politicos, -judges, and -cops as exposed by President Rody Duterte? What makes street pushers fight back in police raids, and shabu manufacturers persist despite the all-out war on drugs? When did the number of junkies swell to nearly four million, with 700,000 unprecedentedly surrendering in recent weeks? Where were the authorities all that time?

Some of the answers can be traced back to fifteen years ago. Narco-politics was emerging in the country then. Some national leaders, top cops, generals, journalists, and NGO workers already were noticing the trend. Pushers were being let off the hook, eventually to rise as drug distributors; politicos were joining the protection racket, employing chaos to cover their tracks; all the while the public was being distracted with political sideshows.

From my archives, I dug up this column of June 27, 2001: “Narco-politics is for real.” Oddly, the events being reported then seem to be the present. Here it is, in full.

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US authorities coined “narcopolitics” to mean the ascendancy of cocaine barons in national politics

How narco-politics emerged in 2001

“Narcopolitics” has yet to enter The Oxford Dictionary of New Words. But it already has entered reality. Ever since earlier listed “narcoterrorists” in Central and South America began winning the fight against drug laws, US authorities coined “narcopolitics” to mean the ascendancy of cocaine barons in national politics. Once puny and gun-shy, Colombia’s Medellin cartel grew big and bold in the ‘80s to pay off not only the usual small-town judge or police chief but also senators, spouses and siblings. It graduated from assassinating prosecutors and journalists to associating with guerrillas and terrorists to prevent narcotics enforcement. Unfazed by a CIA-backed military offensive, the cartel expanded to transship or plant poppy and coca in neighbors Panama, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela. At one time, it even had in the pocket a leading presidential contender and the brother of the sitting president.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo used “narcopolitics” in a recent speech. Declassifying a police-military intelligence report, she said the Chinese Triads have gone beyond bribing fiscals, judges and policemen and already recruited generals, justices, mayors and governors – perhaps even higher officials. She warned that Hong Kong’s 14-K Gang had so controlled large portions of Mindanao through kidnapping and robbery syndicates that it could also operate widespread election dagdag-bawas. If authorities sleep on the job, she rued, the country could wake up with a Triad-installed President in 2004.

GMA’s words were lost in the din of the election campaign. One opposition senatorial candidate sneered that she was just politicking. Yet, narcopolitics is real. And its claws and tentacles are growing.

An example of it is the rise of a one-time petty pusher to political organizer. Albert Sy Española (alias Noli, Bebot) started peddling shabu in the ‘80s. He has had a string of arrests, but always managed to bail out by bribing either the arresting officer or inquest fiscal. The ability to pay off law enforcers – sometimes with cars of unsuspecting friends, which he was also selling on the side – made Española bolder. He moved to the big-time, graduating from pusher to wholesale distributor. In 1992 then-PNP Eastern Police District Director Lucas Managuelod twice bagged him in buy-bust operations. On both occasions, Española managed to get remanded to the Mandaluyong town jail, where he had protectors in the right places. Cellphone in hand, he continued cutting deals behind bars – and slipping out at night to make deliveries and sleep in a condo nearby. Then-President Fidel Ramos was so rankled by news on Española’s escapades that he paid a surprise visit to the jail early one morning. The subject was there alright, sitting at the warden’s desk with burger and newspaper in hand, while all the cops were sleeping in their underwear. The presidential bawl out proved futile. Española soon got out on bail despite the volume of shabu found on him to warrant the non-bailable charge of narcotrafficking. He disappeared for a while but resurfaced at the NBI detention center after another buy-bust. He managed to post bail anew and went back to the underworld. The last time Española was in the news, he was riding high with the addict-son of a ranking politician. That son even mauled Española’s aging mother-in-law over shabu he had left in their house. Española didn’t mind, so long as he rose up the syndicate ranks to top-level distributor.

One out of every three rioters arrested in the subsequent assault on the Presidential Palace was found positive for shabu

How narco-politics emerged in 2001

One would think that Española and his ilk would disappear from the scene of new politics, for which drug-free youths marched to EDSA last January. But no, that only happens in fairy tales. At the height of Puwersa ng Masa’s EDSA imitation from April 25-May 1, Española was spotted cheer-leading a segment of the crowd. An ex-classmate from his San Jose, Mindoro hometown said Española had managed to work his way into the staff of a senator, first as bodyguard, then as gun supplier, later as trouble-shooter and field organizer. As a politician’s personal aide at the EDSA gig, Española allegedly bused, fed, paid and otherwise entertained throngs of provincial recruits. He was also among the agitators of the attack on Malacañang at dawn of May 1.

One out of every three rioters arrested in the subsequent assault on the Presidential Palace was found positive for shabu. Nuns who cleaned up the EDSA Shrine that day also collected half a mini-truckload of empty gin bottles. A dangerous mix, shabu and liquor, according to drug-rehab medics. A potion for violence, like molotov cocktail, military officers discovered. One wonders if Española provided the stuff that emboldened the mob.

That’s for the police to investigate. But one thing sure, Española has gone places and found protectors high enough to stay out of jail while wholesaling narcotics. He in turn uses his dirty earnings to get patrons promoted or elected to higher positions. The ex-classmate says Española was never fond of books. He may not have read about it, but he apparently also has learned a trick from other narcoterrorists in Asia: using drugs to work up mobs into killing sprees, like in East and West Timor, the Jakarta riots, and the pre-teen Burmese “liberation guerrillas” who raided a hospital in Thailand.

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How narco-politics emerged in 2001

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From PCOS to OMR to VCM: hiding the crime

From PCOS to OMR to VCM: hiding the crime

by | Sep 20, 2015 | Gotcha

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From PCOS to OMR to VCM: hiding the crime

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From PCOS to OMR to VCM: hiding the crime

Comelec’s re-baptized “vote counting machines” will churn out inaccurate, rigged Election 2016 results, as in 2010 and 2013.

The Comelec has re-baptized the notorious PCOS to hide its true nature. At the hearing of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on election automation, Sen. Koko Pimentel asked why the PCOS is now being called OMR. Chairman Andres Bautista admitted to deodorizing its public image. The PCOS had come to be derided as “Hocus-PCOS,” he said. They switched to the generic OMR, but he heard it being referred to as “O-MaR,” alluding to Mar Roxas, the ruling Liberal Party presidential standard bearer in Election 2016. So he now layman-izes it to VCM, or “vote counting machine.”

They may later coin a Biblical name for it, as even the Devil can quote Scripture. But they can never live down the PCOS as inaccurate, illegal, flawed, costly, inappropriate, prone to tampering, and good only for cheating – therefore evil.

PCOS stands for Precinct Count Optical Scanner, the brand that Venezuelan dealer Smartmatic gave the product lent by Canadian developer Dominion Corp. “Hocus-PCOS” became apt due to its emergent dubious performance and traits:

  • It flunked the 99.995-percent accuracy standard in all pre-election dry runs and post-election audits in 2010 and 2013;
  • It not only violated that accuracy requirement of the Election Automation Act, but also lacked specified security features, like UV-light fake-ballot detector, voter-verification receipts, and election inspectors’ passcodes;

Despite the PCOS’ invulnerability, syndicates in Comelec were able to sell party-list seats and fabricate fake results

From PCOS to OMR to VCM: hiding the crime

  • It failed to transmit from precincts to canvassing centers nine percent of votes in 2010 and 26 percent in 2013, comprising thousands of votes for local and hundreds of thousands for national candidates;
  • It over-counted the senatorial votes in 2013, prompting the Comelec to fudge the figures, prematurely declare “winners” although only 56 percent of precincts had sent in the results, and surreptitiously overprint more ballots for cover-up;
  • It has cost Filipino taxpayers P16 billion so far to lease-purchase, accessorize, transport, and warehouse the 82,000 PCOS units since 2009, or nearly P200,000 apiece for only two usages – yet the Comelec is throwing another P14 billion into 94,000 new ones;
  • All that, when what the country needs is to retain the old manual precinct count, and, as Filipino info-technologists demonstrated, automate with cheap ordinary tablets and cell phones only the transmission and canvassing where wholesale cheating used to be done;
  • Despite the PCOS’ vaunted invulnerability, syndicates inside the Comelec still were able to sell party-list congressional seats and fabricate fake results, as proven in Compostela, Cebu; Biliran; Pasay City; General Tinio, Nueva Ecija; Dinalupihan, Bataan, and elsewhere;
  • During the dry run a week before Election 2010, the randomly picked PCOS test units churned out votes only for the outgoing admin’s presidential bet, requiring the rush replacement and reformatting of 152,000 compact-flash cards by 6,000 Smartmatic techs, thus teaching the cheaters among them the secret programming codes;
  • Again in 2013 Smartmatic technicians altered the figures of the Comelec Transparency Server, after PPCRV tabulators noticed the surge of an impossible 20 million precinct results, more than half of the estimated 35-million turnout, within only two hours of the closing of the balloting;
  • The PCOS produced a 60-30-10-percent result for admin-opposition-independent senatorial candidates in all precincts, districts, municipalities, cities, and provinces – defying usual voting patterns, like regional junking for Bicolano candidates, ARMM preference for Muslims, and known bailiwicks.

In bidding for new PCOS machines this year, the Comelec reverted to Optical Mark Reader, OMR, the generic term for the scanning varieties. But the derogatory “O-MaR” emerged due to suspicions of cheating by the ruling LP, after Malacañang filled up the three Comelec vacancies with known allies. Mar Roxas’s campaigners loudly had complained about being cheated by the PCOS in 2010, but are now its staunchest defenders.

The new moniker VCM does not conceal the crimes committed via the PCOS. “Vote counting machines” predictably will be replaced with “vote cheating machine” when the Election 2016 fabricated results come in.

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From PCOS to OMR to VCM: hiding the crime

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