A policeman with the rank of major was arrested by his fellow cops for playing a slot machine in a casino in Pasay City.
The police officer’s identity is not important, since he is just another cop; what is important is that the Philippine National Police (PNP) high command is serious in its efforts to get its members out of the casinos.
Many policemen should be barred from casino premises even if they’re not gambling. That also goes for their family members.
It’s all right if they go to the casinos with their families to dine in one of the restaurants. But they should not linger in the casino premises after dinner or lunch.
Anyway, their patronizing a casino restaurant is also suspect since those dining places are way beyond a cop’s salary grade.
But does the PNP high command know that policemen are mostly seen in the casinos not because they gamble, but because they act as bodyguards for foreigners who are into high-stakes gambling?
Foreigners or locals who are given police bodyguards should not risk danger by exposing themselves in public without reason.
Police bodyguards assigned to a foreigner or local who frequents the casinos should immediately be pulled out.
Many foreigners, especially Koreans, I was told, are assigned police bodyguards because they’re friends with high PNP officials. This practice should be stopped.
Another practice that should be stopped is for policemen to engage in the business of being loan sharks in the casinos.
Some cops loan out money to gamblers at high interest rates. If these gamblers don’t pay, they’re kidnapped and held until their families pay up.
The casinos are a rich source of easy money for cops engaged in loan-sharking. These cops should be uncovered and punished, as what they are doing is illegal.
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The Philippine Reclamation Authority has granted the request of a company owned by a family of politicians to defer the payment of the regulatory fee and start its reclamation project worth P34.3 billion.
The company has been awarded a 318-hectare reclamation project in Manila Bay.
How can the company pay the regulatory fee when the family that owns it can’t even afford to rehabilitate a hotel on Roxas Boulevard, which used to have a five-star status but has now completely gone to seed?
The patriarch of this political family was once an alien who was granted citizenship by the Supreme Court in a controversial decision.
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Sen. Joel Villanueva is right in saying that the importation of salt by a country surrounded by the sea is “shameful.”
It’s like a place with so many rivers, but there’s no water to drink.
The Philippines is full of ironies.
Students from Thailand studied sophisticated rice-growing methods at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) at the University of the Philippines campus in Los Baños, Laguna, years ago. Now, the country is importing rice from Thailand!
Also, many years ago, the country exported bangus (milkfish) fingerlings to Taiwan. Now, we’re importing bangus from that country.
Finally, the country has a bountiful supply of tuna, which it exports to Japan. But the imported tuna served in Japanese restaurants in the country – in the form of tuna sashimi and sushi – came from our waters.
If you don’t find the above-cited ironies disgraceful you must be from another planet.
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It’s a shame that the Philippine National Police (PNP) disallowed quite a few people who wanted to visit former justice secretary Leila de Lima on her 63rd birthday.
De Lima has been in detention for six years at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame on drug charges.
Among De Lima’s visitors who were not allowed to see her were former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, former senator Frank Drilon, lawyer Christian Monsod, economics professor and former Inquirer columnist Solita Monsod, human rights lawyer Chel Diokno and former senator Mar Roxas.
Although she’s in detention, De Lima has not been convicted of any crime, and is therefore considered innocent of the charges against her.
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If the country stands pat on its decision that our dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea should be anchored on the arbitral ruling by the United Nations, the problem will continue to be unresolved.
The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of the Philippines in its territorial dispute with China over some rock protrusions in the South China Sea – that we call the West Philippine Sea – but China does not recognize the ruling.
The best platform for the two countries is the negotiating table. Dialogue and not inflammatory rhetoric on both sides is the solution.
Mainland Chinese are rational and not predisposed to settling disputes through force of arms. They know the feeling of being bullied by other countries in the past. They don’t want to do that to their fellow Asians.
On the other hand, the Philippines should not be swayed by other countries in its misunderstanding with China. We’re no longer another country’s puppet.
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I might have had disagreements with former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, but the lifting of his travel ban by the Court of Appeals was proper and fair.
The travel ban on the controversial former solon was a result of his conviction for libel by a Makati court for accusing, rightly or wrongly, former mayor Junjun Binay of bribery. His conviction for libel resonates with me.
Anyway, whether Trillanes’ accusation concerning Binay is true or not, there’s no reason for him to be barred from traveling since he is not a flight risk.
His travels will even benefit the country, as he will be attending short courses in governance at the Harvard School of Government in the US and the National University in Singapore.
