Friday Mini-roundup

The Marcos loot has been re-looted. Read this too.

Ninez Cacho Olivarez on the Thai PM's meeting with Arroyo:

Gloria Arroyo sounds more and more ridiculous as she attempts to get into the world’s limelight by forcing herself to get into global and regional issues and trying hard to project herself as an influential world leader, especially at a time when she has become a virtual international pariah.

With the new Thai prime minister under a military regime coming to the country to meet up with the regional leaders, in his bid for him and the military regime to be acceptable and recognized in the region if not the world, Gloria had the gumption to state that she would exhort him to speed up the restoration of democracy in Thailand by lifting martial law there.

This is ridiculous talk coming from Gloria for a multitude of reasons, prime of which is the fact that her regime is hardly a democratic one, and neither was she positioned in power democratically, and all talk of freedom and democracy is mere lip service.

There are other major reasons as well: For one, since she had accepted to recognize and receive the Thai prime minister, she therefore has absolutely no call to publicly, or even privately, urge him to lift martial law, as she is clearly interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. Further, she came off so stupid since she could not have been unaware of the fact that the new Thai premier is a figurehead who takes orders from the military government, and obviously, any lifting of martial law would not be dependent on him or even the military-dictated parliament, but on the military council, which makes all the decisions, which are evidently blessed by King Bhumibol.

And the decision of the military council is to hold elections in a year’s time and long after a new Constitution will have been drafted by the military government.

For another, Gloria has no moral or legal ascendancy to speak of democracy to a foreign head of state who rose to power through a coup d’etat, since she herself made a mockery of the democracy in the country when she — as the incontrovertible evidence shows — plotted with military officers to oust a legitimate state head, then sitting President Joseph Estrada, from power a full year before the actual ouster.

Talking to the Thai premier about restoring democracy coming from her is absurd, given the incontrovertible evidence of her having massively cheated to win Malacañang in the 2004 polls. And she thinks the world does not know of her having lied, cheated and stolen all this time?

Plus Conrad de Quiros on the same topic.

Ernie Maceda says na maraming ghost employees sa PNP.

Ghost employer. The office with the most number of ghost employees for the longest time is not the city of Makati or any other city government. It is the Philippine National Police (PNP).

PNP Finance office sources informed us that hundreds of policemen from National Capital Region alone are now working in the United States and other countries but are still on the PNP payroll and their salaries are being paid to someone. Lately, some policemen have been recruited by US firms to serve as security personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan but the bulk is in the Los Angeles area. Some dead officers are kept in the payroll long after they passed away.

Some police officers assigned as bodyguards of politicians and executive officials have never reported back to their mother units even after their bosses have left public office.

Even the three police officers assigned as security of Jaime Cardinal Sin, who died a year ago, have not reported back to Camp Crame but are still collecting their salaries even while managing businesses in Laguna.

Will Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita dare to look into this matter? Will he admit there are hundreds of 15-30 employees in Malacañang?