Lawmakers should not be lawbreakers!
As a journalist, many of our readers appreciated my writing my health experience in order to be educated about the issue of having kidney problems, its challenges and solutions, whether you should go through a dialysis treatment or pick the ultimate solution of having a kidney transplant. Of course, the best side of everything is to avoid getting kidney problems, which means you must do something to lower your blood pressure and your blood sugar, both of which were my medical issues that worsened my kidney problems.
When I approached Cebu’s foremost kidney transplant surgeon, Dr. Alvin Roxas, we talked for two hours in his office and in the end I decided to have a kidney transplant at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center because it has Cebu’s most modern kidney transplant surgical theater exclusive for use only for kidney transplant patients. Of course, part of the deal was for Dr. Roxas to guest on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, which he agreed.
So tonight, allow us to discuss the problems of kidney disease and its solutions with Cebu’s foremost kidney transplant surgeon, Dr. Alvin Roxas on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8:00 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9:00 p.m. Monday and at 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.
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I read a news report that the House of Representatives is “watering down” the proposed bill to re-impose the death penalty in this country so it would be less divisive and also more palatable to Congressmen from both sides of the political fence. Apparently House Speaker Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez said that the Super Majority Coalition has agreed that the imposition of the Death Penalty “will not be mandatory”. Alvarez also said that they agreed to reduce the number of heinous crimes to be covered by the death penalty bill.
One of the crimes that were removed was plunder! This is one of the reasons why we can’t trust our politicians, notably our legislators who use their powers to enact the laws of the land, but exempt their kind! While I’m still against the imposition of the death penalty, if this law is re-imposed it should include plunder. If you recall, my good friend and fellow columnist, Mr. Tony Lopez who wrote in his Op-Ed column in the Manila Times last August 20, 2013 said that “Congress is the Philippines’ Biggest Criminal Syndicate.”
Let me extract what Mr. Tony Lopez wrote when he said, “The biggest criminal syndicate in the Philippines is not any of those crime groups listed regularly by the Philippine National Police. It is Congress. As a syndicate, Congress is really massive 24 Senators and 289 Congressmen. This group of con men and women help themselves with money called the Priority Development Assistance Fund to the tune of P25 billion, if not more, a year. The simple word for PDAF is pork barrel.”
Under the Duterte administration, Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte promised the Filipino people changes and that he would fight for the small man. The removal of plunder from crimes punishable by death is self-serving to our legislators, who are the only ones who can be charged with plunder because they are the ones who are able to use or misuse government funds.
The last potential plunder case that came from the PDAF and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was worth P25 billion and it is sad that until this time, only a few congressmen or senators involved in the DAP and PDAF have been charged by the Office of the Ombudsman. In my view, lawmakers should never be lawbreakers…but apparently, not in the Philip-pines! So let them face the death penalty for plunder!
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