Rigoberto Tiglao’s claim that $390 million or P16.6 billion worth of rice was smuggled from Vietnam is wrong. It is meant to justify a predetermined conclusion that “Rice smuggling explodes under Aquino” (Inquirer, 12/20/12). Citing International Monetary Fund trade statistics between the Philippines and Vietnam during President Aquino’s first two years in office, Tiglao anchored [...]
The Anti-Money Laundering Law (AMLC), amended in 2003, was enacted mainly to prevent organized crime and global terrorists from using the banking system. President Aquino however has debased it, turning it into his deadly weapon against his enemies.
IN THE ’70s, Cebu was heroically defiant of Marcos’ dictatorship. By some quirk of fate, it is again proving to be the nemesis of a more modern type of one-man rule, this time mainly based on the power of media and with a Machiavellian expertise in manipulating laws for its vile aims. For nearly [...]
Despite former National Food Authority Administrator Angelito Banayo’s claims of a tuwid na daan policy during his watch, International Monetary Fund trade figures show that rice smuggling in the Aquino administration’s first two years—abetted by the NFA head himself, witnesses recently alleged in the Senate—has exploded to unprecedented levels, estimated at over P16.6 billion worth during this period.
The accusations hurled by Joe Valencia against Ambassador Rigoberto Tiglao are completely untrue. Tiglao’s track record as Philippine ambassador to Greece and Cyprus is impeccable and distinguished.
WE WOULD like to respond to the latest round of lies that Rigoberto Tiglao peddled in his column, “Akbayan’s OFW parasite and con man” (Inquirer, 11/22/12). First and foremost, we are not at all surprised with how low Tiglao sank in slandering Jose Valencia, president of Kasapi Hellas, an OFW organization in Greece. The slanderous remarks about Valencia and Akbayan were prompted by the concerted, successful effort of migrants, led by Valencia, to remove Tiglao from office due to his shoddy performance as Philippine ambassador to Greece.
I must sincerely sympathize with Bureau of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon; he very humbly responded to Rigoberto Tiglao’s Nov. 15 column highlighting the bureau’s poor performance, essentially owing to rampant smuggling, under the present administration (Inquirer, 11/16/12). In the same breath, I must also express my high admiration for Biazon’s untempered truthfulness and courage in objectively reacting to Tiglao’s deeply pugnacious, yet fairly convincing, assertions. Indeed, that was a gallant feat of Biazon never yet exhibited by any of this country’s Cabinet secretaries, past or present.
Foreign direct investments into the Philippines during President Aquino’s first two years in office have steeply fallen, putting the country only a notch above Cambodia as the least-favored site in East Asia for offshore investors.
When President Aquino needs to hit his enemies, and make it appear as if the “masses” are doing it, he calls on his fake party-list Akbayan. Aping its boss, when Akbayan needs to badmouth its critics, it calls on its letter-to-the-editor-writing trolls, and in my case recently, on a bogus OFW leader in Greece, one Jose Valencia.
Smuggling in the Philippines is at its worst under President Aquino’s administration, with the smuggled value averaging $19.6 billion annually, an explosion from the comparable figures of $3.1 billion and $3.8 billion yearly during the terms of Presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, respectively.
We from Kasapi Hellas, an organization composed of overseas Filipino workers in Greece, would like to lay bare to one and all what Rigoberto Tiglao holds against Akbayan, which explains his successive attacks against the party-list group, including his latest (“Akbayan case: a test for Comelec’s integrity,” Inquirer, 11/8/12).
THE DISQUALIFICATION of Akbayan as a party-list group is a litmus test for the Commission on Elections’ integrity and independence from President Aquino. Its reasons for disqualifying Ako Bicol, which garnered the biggest number of votes in 2010, and 12 others apply more to this rent-a-demonstrator outfit. It can’t have one standard for Mr. Aquino’s party-list group and another for others.
