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When will they ever learn?

BLURBAL THRUSTS

Louie Logarta

10/21/2007

After three years, Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. has come to the realization that his current job as a legislator is quite boring and totally out of sync with his image as one of the biggest action stars in local tinseltown.

During a recent chat with a few reporters, Revilla reluctantly admitted he is now inclined to accede to the proposal of his octogenarian dad, former Sen. Ramon Revilla Sr., that he shouldn’t anymore entertain plans of seeking a second six-year term to which he is entitled and instead run for Cavite governor (a position he once held before he became a senator) in 2010.

Revilla is said to have intimated to one tabloid newsman that he had actually wished to run for vice president, but that he couldn’t afford to put up the estimated P2 billion needed to fund a respectable campaign on a nationwide basis.

But Senate sources say the more compelling reason for Revilla’s decision not to seek the vice presidency was the recent announcement of Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos when she was interviewed by one TV reporter that she was being courted by Senate President Manny Villar Jr. as his running-mate under the banner of the Nacionalista Party.

Should this prospect materialize, Santos indicated she would step down from the Batangas governorship in 2010 in favor of her brother-in-law former Vice Gov. Ricky Recto.

Villar, with his reported fabulous fortune behind him, is widely considered as the most serious contender for the presidency (if Mrs. Arroyo ever decides to relinquish her iron grip on the position) above all the others.

The prestigious Forbes Asia magazine has him on its 2007 list as the fifth richest man on the Philippines with an estimated net worth of about $940 million or roughly P41.5 billion.

Those that Forbes claims are richer than Sen. Villar (together with wife Rep. Cynthia Villar of Las Piñas City) are as follows: Jaime Zobel de Ayala with $2 billion; Henry Sy with $1.7 billion; Lucio Tan with $1.4 billion and Andrew Tan with $1.1 billion.

Mediamen based in Quezon are complaining that full-scale illegal logging activities — abetted by corrupt Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and provincial officials — have resumed in the hinterlands and far-flung areas as evidenced by the numerous truckloads of lumber streaming out of the province daily.

And at the rate the forest denudation is progressing, genuine fears have been raised by environmentalists that the province is courting another disaster like the one which devastated the countryside a few years ago. Toward the end of 2004, flash floods spawned by Typhoons “Violeta,” “Winnie” and “Yoyong” washed away several villages in Dingalan, Aurora and claimed around 1,000 lives.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, then DENR Secretary Angelo Reyes was obliged to ban all logging activities in the immediate area indefinitely in order to allow the forests to recover from the ravages of man. Since the government hasn’t lifted the logging ban, it remains unclear why authorities have been playing dumb to the criminal activities of unscrupulous businessmen thereby putting the safety of thousands of unsuspecting people at risk.

When will they ever learn?

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has ordered the arrest of the controversial Maguindanao provincial election supervisor Lintang Bedol after he wasn’t able to secure a TRO from the Supreme Court.

Interviewed during the weekly Meet the Press program of the National Press Club which is aired over Channel 4 every Wednesday night, Comelec Chairman Rex Borra said he is actively pursuing the arrest and detention of Bedol, who had publicly dared the poll body to sue him in court for snubbing Comelec’s order to produce official documents relating to the Maguindanao elections.

The Comelec, then headed by Benjamin Abalos Sr., had earlier convicted Bedol of indirect contempt and ordered him jailed for six years after he failed to show up on several occasions during en banc sessions regarding the questionable conduct of the Maguindanao polls.

“I am now the acting chairman (of the Comelec) and I want things to be implemented,” Borra was quoted by Comelec reporters as saying in some published stories.

Which simply implies that during Abalos’ term they weren’t. Which is why Bedol managed to remain free as a bird.

We’d like to greet the tabloid newspaper Hataw (where we write a thrice weekly column in Pilipino) and its publisher Jerry Yap and staff a belated “happy birthday.”

Hataw marked its second anniversary with a sit-down dinner at a downtown hotel last week which was graced by Sen. Chiz Escudero, Pasay City Mayor Wenceslao Trinidad, Director Geary Barias of the Philippine National Police-NCR office, National Bureau of Investigation chief Nestor Mantaring, Customs Deputy Commissioner Celso Templo, NAIA Customs Collector Carlos So and Customs Police chief Joey Yuchongco.