A very sound proposal

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion has a very sound proposal that needs to be considered by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

Concepcion’s proposal: Open malls, restaurants, and other establishments in Metro Manila to vaccinated people.

The staff in those establishments should be fully vaccinated as well, according to Concepcion.

That proposal comes from a presidential adviser who doesn’t have a military mindset.

President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte should appoint more people in his Cabinet who think out of the box like Concepcion.

Digong may want to consider COVID-19 as a health issue and not a national security matter.

Get the soldiers and policemen off the streets and subordinated to doctors, nurses and other health workers.

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Sen. Richard Gordon, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, played medical counselor to beleaguered Secretary Francisco Duque III during a hearing on how the Department of Health spent the questionable P67-billion COVID-19 funds.

During the hearing, Duque forgot to mute his microphone and was overheard telling his subordinates in Filipino: “My brain is confused. I don’t know what…”

Hearing Duque’s complaint, Gordon said, also in Filipino: “You have many psychiatrists at the DOH. Have yourself treated by DOH psychiatrists.”

The senator then made an offer to Duque: “We have psycho-social support in the Senate (that you may want to avail yourself of).”

Gordon then went into English: “I know it’s very stressful to work in the government, so please make sure that you get it done.”

The Blue Ribbon committee head said: “Accountability is significant to the budget cycle. I consider you as a friend, but my loyalty is to the country first, before my loyalty to the government.”

Gordon’s bottom-line message to the health secretary was to resign because the excrement has hit the fan.

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Overpricing by the DOH of supplies to combat COVID-19 is all over the place.

Take, for example, the failed attempt by the DOH to buy laptop computers.

Health Undersecretary Eric Tayag said P700,000 was set aside for four laptop computers, or P175,000 each.

Tayag said the high-tech computers would have been used in recording names of people who have been vaccinated. Fast computers were needed to do the job, he said.

However, Senate Majority Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri said that the high-performance laptop computer he used for video meetings and sessions in the Senate cost only P96,000.

And that’s only for computers.

The prices of face masks and face shields are not included yet.

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Party-list Rep. Claudine Bautista, who was married recently, is being bashed for her lavish wedding in the super expensive and high-end Balesin resort.

If it’s her money and her bridegroom’s that was spent, that’s none of the public’s business.

But then the wedding should have been made secret. The couple could have been more discreet given the current situation.

Bautista, who represents the Drivers United for Mass Progress and Equal Rights (DUMPER), should have thought about her constituents who are out of work and hungry as a result of the lockdown.

The ostentatious wedding left a bad taste in the mouth.

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Bautista, scion of a wealthy family in Davao, is like a square peg in a round hole in representing a sector whose members are poor.

She’s never been a driver of a public utility vehicle.

Well, we can point to former presidential son Mikey Arroyo who was a party-list representative for Ang Galing Pinoy!, a sector composed of security guards and tricycle drivers. Needless to say, Mikey is neither a security guard nor a tricycle driver.

There are exceptions, of course. Ako Bicol party-list is represented by Zaldy Co, who’s a Bicolano; and the An Waray party-list is represented by Florencio Noel, who is also Waray-Waray, or from Leyte and Samar.

By and large, most party-list congressmen/women are not genuine representatives of the sector they’re supposed to stand for.

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A House bill allowing absolute divorce in the country has been approved by a panel.

The committee on population and family relations has unanimously approved the bill that seeks to allow the voiding of marriages and divorced spouses to remarry.

It’s high time the divorce law was passed. It’s downright hypocritical of a couple that no longer loves each other to plod on “till death do us part.”

How come the Muslims in our country are allowed divorce under their Sharia Law?

Why can’t non-Muslims have divorce as well?

The Philippines is one of two countries in the world where divorce is not permitted by law; the other is the Vatican.

The Vatican is a city-state populated by celibates – the pope, cardinals, bishops, priests and nuns.

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Here are some jokes to relieve your tension from reading bad news.

A man walked into a bar-and-grill, went to up to the bar and ordered a beer.

“Certainly, sir. That will be one cent.”

“One cent?” the man asked, flustered.

He glanced at the menu and asked, “How much for a nice juicy steak and a bottle of wine?”

“A nickel,” the bartender replied.

“A nickel,” exclaimed the man. “Where’s the guy who owns this place?”

The bartender replied, “Upstairs with my wife.”

The man asked, “What’s he doing upstairs with your wife?”

The bartender replied, “The same thing I’m doing to his business down here.”

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Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

But that’s not the case with the names of schools in three provinces, to the ears of the Tagalogs:

First, we have Bayag National High School in Bayag Sur, Leon, Iloilo.

And then, there is Tulo Elementary School in Bgy. Milagrosa, Calamba City, Laguna.

Finally, there is Cantutang Primary School in Cantutang, P. Burgos, Southern Leyte.

Do you want to hear more? Enrique Romualdez of Tacloban City is nicknamed Kiki.