Final plea: No signal only on parade route

Call this a final appeal to the PNP on the signal interruption they have arranged for Cebu City and other areas for 31 hours. Again I would like to reiterate that if there is any fire that would happen residents cannot call the fire department, someone will have to accept the blame for that disaster and whether they like it or not the PNP will be one of those to be blamed. So again, the PNP should show us what they find more important, the safety of the people or their security?

Also since I no longer have columns over the weekend, except a religious column, I would like to reiterate my call to devotees not to throw trash in the streets. Let us have a Sinulog Festival where we see clean streets after the procession and grand parade. Mind you, this is really nothing much to ask for, rather this should be our personal gift to the Señor Sto. Niño so we would have a remarkable and memorable 2019 Sinulog Festival.

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In my last column, I wrote that the Tsunsiehi Heavy Industry in partnership with the Aboitiz Group was doing well according to Aboitiz Equity Ventures CEO Erramon Aboitiz. I wrote that article to assure shipyard workers in Balamban that their company isn’t about to close due to financial difficulty. But then, the reality is Hanjin Heavy Industries in Subic Bay declared bankruptcy and thousands are being affected.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said explained President Duterte’s position during the plenary deliberations on the proposed P183-billion budget for the Department of National Defense. This was in reaction to Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri’s calling the Hanjin debacle a “golden opportunity” for the DND to operate the South Korean giant’s shipbuilding facilities and save thousands of jobs.

Zubiri also pointed out that rather than purchasing Navy ships from foreign countries, we can actually build them here if the government takes over the facilities. Lorenzana also reiterated Zubiri’s speech saying that we can build more ships for the Navy at a lower cost and at the same time save the jobs of thousands of shipyard workers! Lorenzana said: “I brought this idea to the president last night and he is very receptive to the idea.” Indeed, this is a golden opportunity for the Philippines to modernize its ragtag Navy with new vessels made in the Philippines, more so when he revealed the position of President Duterte during the plenary deliberations on the proposed budget for the DND. Call it a lucky break for the Philippines indeed.

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Here’s an open letter for a Clean and Honest Elections.

“We, members of the Tanggulang Demokrasya (TanDem) strongly condemn the heinous crimes of torture and murder, which by strong real evidence and circumstantial admission, were perpetrated by scalawag policemen on the late Richard ‘Red’ Santillan, our colleague and close-in aide of anti-Comelec-Smartmatic crusader, Atty. Glenn Chong, reportedly at dawn of Monday, December 10, 2018.

“We also condemn the eerie silence of our law enforcement leaders, national and church leaders, commission on human rights, and the mainstream media on what forensics results clearly point out to be a torture and murder of an innocent civilian, so shocking and brutal it shows for all to see the inhumanity of the perpetrators!

“How low can we go as a people if justice for a citizen merely desirous of clean and honest elections this 2019 would be so blatantly denied by a collusion of silence among the very leaders of our society? Thus, we demand that the national police leadership lead in the quest for justice being sought by millions of citizens also desirous of clean and honest elections in 2019, that only the truth about Richard’s torture and murder can achieve!

“This is the time to wean the chaff from the grain among the officers and members of the police force. We pray the police leadership would be up to the task. We also pray that the present national, religious, and media leadership will awaken from their denial of truth and reality, and join together strong to ensure clean and honest elections in 2019, by looking at the dark and ugly picture behind the torture and murder of our brother Richard, who through these past 8 years has been among our strongest supporters in exposing the gross automated anomalies of Smartmatic and Comelec!”

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