Just thank the lord

“People, get ready. There’s a train a-coming. You don’t need no ticket. You just get on board.” –Curtis Mayfield, People get ready

I STILL can’t get the grip of how the number of “ingrates” in this country has grown in just two short years.

Imagine the gall of these fault-finders. Can’t they see that Digong Dada is hard at work? Can’t they see that now, because of the 16 million “enlightened” citizens, we are better off, as a country and as individuals?

Don’t you believe me? Let me enumerate at least three things this administration has been “astonishingly good” at the past two years.

This regime has been busy unclogging our swamped out court dockets. It has been busy helping the judicial branch. The Philippine National Police puts the number of drug personalities killed in legitimate operations at 3,451 as of July 26 last year.

This figure, the police say emphatically, does not include the vigilante killings. Other human rights advocacy groups have their own number of drug suspects killed but what do they know, right? It’s not like they can actually count how many people have been killed simply because they didn’t kill them. So, I’m sticking with the PNP figures. Now, that is reliable data.

Imagine how liberating this 3,451 deaths to the lower courts are? Judges can now schedule more important cases. They don’t have to settle cases regarding drug use. Kudos!

On another front, didn’t the President promise a train system for Mindanao? Well, he did one “better”. He gave us the Train (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) for the entire archipelago to “enjoy”.

Look, with this Train, the government does not only make your take-home pay tax-free, it also helps you watch your blood sugar. It doesn’t matter if it’s your only source of energy because you don’t have a regular income on account of having absolutely no job security being contractual, this regime will tax your sugar anyway.

Under this Train, drinks containing high-fructose corn syrup are levied at P12 per liter while excise rate on drinks containing caloric or non-caloric sweetener is P6 per liter.

Isn’t that great? With or without you meaning to shape up, this government will do it for you by raising the tax on sugar. The same thing could be said for the sugar barons, but to hell with them. This regime doesn’t care for them. Digong Dada has said over and over again that he hates oligarchs and the elite.

This Train simplifies the estate and donor’s tax, increases the excise tax on petroleum products, as well as with automobiles, and expands the value-added tax. Let’s see the oligarchs and elite claw their way out of that! Woot woot!

Don’t you believe me? You can check it out for yourself at http://www.dof.gov.ph/taxreform/. There, you could see that I used the same exact words they used.

This regime’s propaganda team (read: PCOO) even touted it as the “best Christmas gift to Filipinos ever.” Now, these people wouldn’t lie to our face, would they? What with their stellar embodiment of the truth.

Okay, that may be taking it too far. There have been instances where this team of intellectuals and pundits have spun the President’s pronouncements in the past. But hey, they do it so we, the people, could understand what Digong Dada is actually saying. They are looking out for us, that way.

Speaking of propaganda, if it hadn’t been for PCOO assistant secretary Margaux Uson’s booboo on the location of Mt. Mayon, our visual artists would not have been able to flex their creativity with photo editing software that much. See? The faux pas ushered in a massive interest where the friggin’ volcano really is from this generation of entitled half-wits and meme-dependent truth-seekers.

Palace spokesman Harry Roque eloquently argued this point by saying last Sunday: “Kung walang fake news, hindi natin malalaman ano ang true news. Let there be a free marketplace of ideas.”

I didn’t know that Roque is heavily into dialectics. Like, how would you know white if you haven’t seen black? How would you thresh out the truth if you haven’t heard the lies surrounding that truth? This argument makes perfect sense. Sieg Heil!

The killings, the Train, and this regime’s propaganda team are all for the “benefit” of every freedom-loving Filipino to enjoy.

Going back to my opening quote from Curtis Mayfield’s “People get ready, I suggest we stop our whining and just enjoy this regime’s Train ride to, err, somewhere. Let’s forget about critical thinking and what it’s for. Hell, let’s just give up thinking altogether and just thank the “lord.” Pfft.

Ms. Informed

A WEEK ago, this administration’s (mis) communicators dished out a flurry of faux pas. They now appear to be the comedy piñata that keeps on giving and I, a certified self-confessed online heckler, am enjoying every bit of it.

So, the comedy week started with an intra-office memo written by Presidential Communication Operations Office assistant secretary Margaux Uson, which she then posted on her Facebook page.

Now, I’ve always believed in content over form. Uson’s letter has neither of those. It had bad grammar, spelling included. Worse, the content and message of the memo were uninformed (read: ignorant).

Uson wanted to “reclassify” online news organization Rappler as a “social media” so the news outfit would be under her purview.

It is clearly written and guaranteed in our 1987 Constitution that government shall not abridge the people’s freedom of expression and by axiomatic extension, the people’s right to a free press.

I say Rappler is doing its watchdog role and this administration cannot stand it.

A few minutes after Uson posted her memo, UP communications professor Danilo Arao posted the memo with his corrections. Let’s just say, for humanitarian reasons, that the memo looked like a Christmas tree — it was adorned with a liberal amount of red ink.

As if to explain her erroneous memo, Uson compared Rappler to bloggers Mindavote. Her premise is that because of Rappler, like Mindavote, has no print and broadcast outputs is not a news media but a social media. For her information, social media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Rappler, like most newsrooms, have field reporters and they do not publish unvetted information.

Sure, they’ve had some “kuryente” stories before but it retracts and issues an erratum right after. Now, how many Facebook users or Youtubers have you seen issue an erratum for erroneous or libelous posts?

The next office to entertain us with their impeccable command of the English language was the Asean 2017 National Organizing Committee.

A tarpaulin to supposedly welcome Southeast Asian delegates misspelled the name of its own country! The tarp reads: “Asean 50 Philippines: Welcome to the Philppines! Asean delegates.”

The NOC has since ordered the removal of the embarrassing tarps.

In a statement, lawyer Michel Kristian Ablan, assistant secretary for PCOO’s policy and legislative affairs, said the tarps “did not conform to the approved final artwork.”

He then passed the buck to Department of Interior and Local Government-National Capital Region.

“The DILG NCR already issued a statement (that) clarified that it was issued by them, it was posted by them, and they already took them down and that they are replacing those posters with (the) correct spelling of the country Philippines,” Ablan added.

As I was scanning my Facebook newsfeed the morning after, I saw that, as usual, the apologists and fanatics of this administration did not get the point about the erroneous Asean tarps.

1. Online trolls were quick to quip that the dilawans will surely use this latest faux pas and pin it on Digong Dada. If you look closely at the humorous reposting of the photo of the tarps, nobody is blaming their lord and savior. All of us merely pointed out how embarrassing the tarp is considering it has misspelled the name of our own country.
2. The Asean tarps were bought and paid for with taxpayers’ money. Our money. For the information of these online trolls, the budget allotted for #Asean50 is about P15 BILLION (all caps mine).
3. Some trolls also pointing out the supposed “crab mentality” of those who critiqued the tarps. Do yourselves a favor and Google what that idiom really means so you’ll not appear stupid. Well, you are but that’s not the point.
4. Trolls rebut that those who pointed out the mistake are nitpicking and are “nagmamagaling.” Again, and I cannot stress this enough, for P15 billion, you can’t even hire a decent proofreader?
5. When you use the copout: “Well, that’s my opinion. Respect it.” We are not discussing opinions here. It’s spelling-grammar.

Yes, you have the right to your opinion. That’s freedom of expression. But respecting and appreciating your opinion is not part of that freedom. I’m well within my rights to express to tell you your opinion is ludicrous.

T.G.I.F.

“If a really stupid person becomes senile, how do you know?” -George Carlin

NOT that I didn’t expect it to happen but this administration’s supposedly best and brightest have gone bananas lately. Every single day, the functionaries of Digong Dada seem to be looking for spectacular ways to show how inept they are.

Let’s start with the less despicable to the most abhorrent stunts these schmucks have done. Sorry, too, if you will not find Margaux Uson in this list, my dear readers. I’ve limited this list to people in this administration who I thought knew better or at the very least act like rational human beings. All of these stunts happened within a single week.

After learning that public school teachers have been availing of various loans, even from 5/6 neighborhood loan sharks to make ends meet, Education Secretary Leonor Briones issues Deped Order 55 or the “Revised guidelines on the Implementation of P4,000 Net Home Pay for the Deped Personnel.”

It sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, all this fancy-titled order means is that it will make sure that the outstanding loans the teachers have due for the Government Service Insurance System and the Pag-ibig Fund are being deducted from their salaries.

The department will also “identify measures that will enable teachers to manage their finances.” Here’s a good idea. Why not increase their salaries so they can manage their finances?

But then again, it might do me good not to ask questions to this administration. It has this nasty habit of branding people “kupal” for asking questions that make them uncomfortable.

In its verified Facebook account, the Office of the Presidential Spokesman, a supposed “former page administrator” of theirs posted insults against TV News 5 news reader Lourd de Veyra and Rappler’s Pia Ranada.

Scrambling to do “damage control,” Rene “The Pastor” Abella said the access of the former page administrator who was “no longer connected to with the office” to its official Facebook page has been revoked.

“The said comment does not reflect the official and personal views of the Presidential Spokesperson or his office on the individuals being referred to,” Abella said in probably the lamest statement.

I say lame because Abella didn’t bother to name the person responsible. He did not explain why a person who is supposedly no longer connected to his office could still access to its official social media account.

Abella’s statement even lacked the most basic of statement on faux pas, an apology. For an office that deals with communications, it’s heartbreaking to see them fall flat. The statement was sophomoric at best.

However, none of that is Abella’s problem anymore. He has been replaced.

In what was a literally midnight appointment, Digong Dada announced on Friday that Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque will be the new presidential spokesman.

Roque will have the item of secretary while the bumbling Abella is an undersecretary. When he made the announcement, the President said Roque fits in his Cabinet because they’re both talkative — “medyo malikot ang bunganga namin.”

The midnight appointment raised a lot of eyebrows. Roque who has been known to be a human rights and freedom of expression advocate accepting a post known for its spins and “interpretations” is quite unnerving.

But maybe this is a good thing. After all, Roque has been known to fight tooth and nail for the assertion of human rights.

“By taking up this position, I intend to refocus the attention of the people more towards the fundamental position of the State, and less towards the manner by which such has been declared,” Roque said in his statement on accepting the post.

He stated further: “By accepting this position, I am not condoning the violence surrounding the government’s anti-drug campaign, nor do I intend to further the same.”

However, as fast as you can say “Pinocchio,” Roque’s first statement as presidential spokesman was that the President is not a human rights violator.

Way to go, earning your keep, Sir, using your background in human rights advocacy to deodorize the bloodthirsty administration. Apparently, two wigs are, indeed, better than one.

Let’s wind down this list with the two over-sexed and underlaid minions Salvador Panelo and Martin Andanar.

What can say? These guys are obviously copying their principal’s penchant for “shock” contents in their public engagements. Panelo did it during a Swiss National Public Radio and Television interview and Andanar during his “meet and greet” with Filipinos in London.

Panelo blurted out that he f**ks like an 18-year-old. Then he doubled back to say that he mispronounced the letter “p” and that he meant “pack like an 18-year-old.” This mother of packers even had the gall to accuse the interviewer that by pointing out his gaffe, she had swept aside “the meat of the interview on the rationale of the issues raised against the Duterte presidency.”

Being a Bisaya myself, I know that mispronouncing the letter “p” as “f” is common. I remember a friend who proudly declared he had just been hired by “Pilifin facking korforeyshen” and that he had been hired to “fack faynepols.”

Let’s just give this geezer the benefit of doubt for a second. If he truly meant packing his bags, how then does that connect to the prior statement that he is “better in bed?” So, no, Mr. Panelo. I won’t buy your packing reason.

Another Bisaya in this administration, Andanar, introduced a colorful Bisaya word to the world: “pala-**ot.” He relegated the critiques of this administration as noisy underlaid and bitter people.

So yeah, this government is f***d, alright!