Category Archive for: komentaryo

kultura

Refusing accountability: Liza Diño and PPP Year 2

President Duterte insists that there is no corruption in his government, because (1) just a whiff of corruption and you’re out, (2) there is transparency, and (3) there is an anti-corruption agency — that can even look into his bank accounts if they want (he of course appointed the people in that commission, so really).

But there are many instances in which this has been proven questionable, in fact many instances in which Duterte’s own people discredit the President’s pronouncements, not just because they are not held accountable, but also because they are far from being transparent. We could be talking about Wanda Teo and how she has brushed off even a major complaint against her by DoT employees — officially received and stamped by the Office of the President from June 2017. But it could also be as simple as Liza Diño, chairperson of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), who cannot for the life of her respond properly to valid criticism and questions about her leadership and projects.  (more…)

komentaryo

Duterte rages against fact-finding missions

Halfway through the week and the Duterte government, in seemingly separate and distinct instances, has revealed how what it has normalized — what it has strengthened — in the past two years is a form of leadership that fears criticism and rages against accountability. It’s easy to think that this is just about the drug war, and how Duterte has tried consistently, and unsuccessfully, to evade accountability, by either (1) saying that it is not illegal for a President to say “I will kill you!” or (2) discrediting and / or removing from position anyone at all who stands against the war on drugs.

But this attitude has seeped into the ways in which other branches of government work, how these agencies are run, given leaders who are taking from Duterte’s school of (non-)governance, which seeks nothing less than a citizenry that will kow-tow to a leader’s whims, no matter how wrong or violent, unfair or unjust. At the heart of it are leaders that cannot handle criticism and do not know how to even respond properly and accordingly. That it cuts across Duterte’s sacred cows is no surprise: Wanda Teo’s Department of Tourism, Liza Diño’s Film Development Council of the Philippines, the Bureau of Immigration and the military.  (more…)

komentaryo

Portrait of Spocky Farolan as UP Regent (Part 2)

Does this man deserve two blog entries?

Yes, for two reasons. One, he has not stopped. After he went ballistic on that first thread, he actually posted another status, this time saying that he might now be open to the proposal to make the State University a post-grad university, so that he doesn’t have to deal with UPCAT examinees anymore. He hashtagged this thoughtless assertion “Not really a proponent of this but I’m pissed so screw you” and “galit sa mga punyetang ingrato” and “I have been anger free for a while ngayon pumutok so putangina niyo.”

Two, while he *tries* to admit that he lost his temper when he shouldn’t have, he also spends as much time defending his original violent, angry, and absolutely uncalled for responses to the public on his Facebook page, saying that in fact, if you look at his thread, whenever there’s a proper comment, he actually responds properly as well.

That is not only the weakest excuse, it’s also a lie.  (more…)

komentaryo

Portrait of a Duterte appointee as UP Regent (Part 1)

One wanted to give UP Board of Regents member Spocky Farolan the benefit of the doubt, and imagine that whatever was posted by the Philippine Star on Twitter on April 7 about his response to UP entrance exam (UPCAT) takers on his Facebook wall was just taken out of context. But as I read through Farolan’s Facebook comments thread myself, I realized that what was tweeted by Philstar was but the tip of the iceberg.

This government official and Presidential appointee, went ballistic on social media unlike any Duterte appointee so far. This is a man who represents first of all the President of the Philippines in the UP Board of Regents, and here he was using foul language, calling K-12 graduates names, throwing invectives their way, and saying to kids and parents waiting for the UPCAT results that they didn’t have to go to UP anyway — UP doesn’t need them.

It’s easy to dismiss Farolan as just another one of Duterte’s men — after all, we’ve got many Farolans in Congress and the Senate, across the Cabinet and our government agencies. What else is new?

But what is new is that Farolan is speaking for the State University, which (we would like to think) is held to higher standards of professionalism and ethics and public service. This is not the kind of behaviour we stand for in the State U. In fact my UP education taught me to stand against displays of arrogance and entitlement such as that which Farolan displayed for all the world to see on social media.  (more…)

komentaryo

Wanda Teo and the tale of the traveling “little people” OR, a whiff of corruption (Part 2)

It was in June 2017 when I started receiving information from Department of Tourism employees about Duterte appointee Wanda Tulfo Teo. It was seven months after the blind item about a government official who had asked for free shoes, shopping GCs, and 150 tickets to watch a theater production at a mall — which she denied. It was soon after this column was written, speaking about Teo’s incompetence and cluelessness about the environment and sustainability, given her ‘excitement’ over Nicolodeon building a development project in Coron Palawan.

At this point, Teo was a year into office and DOT employees had already given her enough time to prove herself as a competent, trustworthy government official. Alas, what was revealed in the seven-page letter to the Office of the President’s Presidential Complaint Center (stamped received June 9 2017), was a Teo leadership controlled by her Chief Of Staff Arlene Mancao who was defined as a “tyrant” by the employees. It also spoke about how Teo runs the DOT. (more…)