A Pandora's Box called the pork barrel

I was in Tagaytay since Thursday for the annual Invitational Retreat for Professional Men by Opus Dei to mark the ending of the Year of Faith. Those invited were 30 Filipino professionals and businessmen and four of us came from Cebu. It was really a good way to meet new friends. I was the only media personality there and I could only wish we had a media retreat in that place. If I recall, the Cebu media did have a short recollection exactly a year ago at the Archbishop's Palace and I think we should repeat that again. The theme for this year was "Faith and Fidelity to the Church in our Work for Economic Development and Social Progress."

Dr. Jesus P. Estanislao the Guru of Good Governance was Director and person-in-charge for the Retreat and personally emailed my invitation, while Rev. Fr. Edgar (Garry) F. Soria was our priest and speaker and between these two spirit-filled people, we got food for our malnourished souls from Thursday evening all the way to Sunday lunch. But the weather was most uncooperative. I arrived last Thursday in drizzling rain that didn't let up all the way to my return flight to Cebu last Sunday.

I encourage all Catholics to find time to go to an annual retreat. If we go on vacation to rest our tired bodies, you must realize that we are both flesh and spirit and our spirit also needs spiritual nourishment that only a full-blown retreat can give us. If there's anyone interested, Opus Dei here in Cebu will be having a retreat in Mountain Pines, Bukidnon, this coming December 5-8 which will be led by Dr. Bernie Villegas. I took that retreat two years ago…and came home truly refreshed knowing that God will always be there to take care of my needs. Write me if you are interested to join.

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Being on a retreat, meant that I was incommunicado for three full days, which meant no newspapers, no TV (although there was one in the living room, but no one dared turn it on) and with the Internet busted until Friday afternoon, it was perhaps Divine intervention for all of us to leave the whole world behind. By Saturday, I knew that there was the Sept. 21st massive rally that was held at the Luneta Park. I only learned the following day that there were only a few thousands of rallyists who went there.

One can partly blame Typhoon "Odette." If Tagaytay which is located in the high part of the caldera of Taal Volcano was drenched with lots of rain, surely I thought that the streets of Metro Manila would be flooded as usual and I was right. What good is rallying against the Pork Barrel when your house is literally floating due to floodwaters.

However the rally against the pork  barrel should be focused or directed to what changes our people want or need? There were 30 participants at the retreat and during in-between sessions, we got to know many of these professionals. In fact two of them are top officials of the government and they told me that they too fear that the pork barrel issue has turned into some kind of Pandora's Box where new revelations would surface from time to time. Notable among them is the expected, explosive revelation by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada…a virtual bombshell that would shake the Aquino government to its core. This highly anticipated bombshell is the nation's current cliffhanger. I expect more cliffhangers to come in the near future.

But there were three columnists who came up with revela-tions that raised the Filipino people's eyebrows. First was the column of former Sen. Francisco "Kit" Tatad last Tuesday in the Manila Standard that Janet Lim Napoles was seen having lunch in Malacañang with the president and his cabinet officials. Of course Malacañang spokesmen-cum-propagandists denied this…but only presented information that the president was in Malacañang at the time pointed in Tatad's column.

Then there was the more explosive column of another friend, Mr. Jojo Robles also of the Manila Standard wherein he says that he has an unimpeachable source that showed Ms. Janet Lim Napoles was in charge of handing out money to the senators for the impeachment of former chief justice of the Supreme Court Renato Corona.

The other exposé was that Janet Napoles also played a major role in "bribing" congressmen to approve the Reproductive Health Bill. If this is so, then one can say that Pres. PNoy Aquino used the corruption of the pork barrel to "buy" the votes of the members of Congress to vote for the RH Bill. If this is true…shame on the Aquino Presidency.

Finally there was Philippine Star's Chit Pedrosa whose col-umn last Sunday went viral as she talked about a "Transition Government." All I can say is; I live by the principle that if there is smoke, there must be fire. Something is a brewing and it doesn't augur well for the Aquino Presidency.

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