I'll repost in here, Perez

Since I couldn't post my reply (probably because of the links) in perez's blog.

Continuation ng usapan namin ni Magnificent Perez. Did not know na he was a member of LAKAS and Joker Arroyo's lead counsel pala. Makes you see his "Necessary Evil" in a different light. (eto po ang initial reaction ko sa post niya. Reaction ni Patsadakarajaw.) Anyway, nakita ko kasi yung comment niya about Escudero, and I pointed out na there are similarities between Chiz Escudero and his idol. He responded.

At eto naman ang sagot ko atty. perez:

But then again, the fact that Joker actually went to jail during Martial Law era and got tortured for standing up to human rights abuses doesn’t count for much nowadays, does it?

thank god escudero did not experience those things, but other arroyo critics were not as fortunate.

Joker's reputation as a "human rights" fighter has lost its luster a little bit because of his silence on most of the arroyo admin's human rights abuses..

And when he did speak up, it was too little, too late.

While we’re at it, why don’t we overlook the fact that Joker is the active head of the Senate blue ribbon committee and has been doing a fairly credible job at it, like let’s say… insisting on the opening of the Jose Pidal bank book?

credible? Are you on drugs? ang alam ko, si joker ang pumatay ng pidal investigations eh.

The "Erap 11" vs. the "Pidal 10"

FPJ aside, what many people are missing as they get fixated on who the opposition bet will be is the emergence of a new bloc of senators along the lines of the much-maligned "Erap 11".

Remember them? These were the 11 senators who voted against the opening of the so-called "second envelope" during the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada in the Senate in 2001.

Now, we have the "Pidal 10". These are the ten senators, led by Blue Ribbon committee chair Joker Arroyo, who have voted to uphold Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo's "right to privacy" claim before the Senate investigation on the Jose Pidal accounts. By this decision, the 10 senators are saying that Iggy Arroyo cannot be forced to tell more about the accounts; neither can he be forced to sign the name "Jose Pidal" in front of the committee members.

Never mind that the signatures Iggy had submitted to GMA-7, which the network in turn submitted to the Senate, clearly show that they are not done by the same hand that signed the checks that Panfilo Lacson showed during his exposé.

gustong ngang buksan ulit ni lacson ang pidal investigations, pero "serado" na raw ang issue na yan, sabi ni joker.

Walang ginawa si joker from 2001-2005 kundi protektahan ang mga Pidal. Nung sumabog ang Hello Garci, nag-lie low siya muna, then he made his move, trying to look "independent" by opposing Arroyo's plans to abolish the Senate and contesting EO 464 and Proc 1017.

Pero pagdating sa pagnanakaw ni Jose Pidal, extra judicial killings, at ng dayaan sa 2004 elections, he sided with the arroyo admin.

Please, disregard the fact that Joker was also an active hand in both the overthrow of Marcos and Erap administrations. I guess that thing’s just not worth mentioning in the history books.

But he was also an apologist for the arroyos and it's admin -- an admin that is clearly more corrupt, abusive, and illegitimate than the previous one it replaced.

The point I’m trying to make Atty. Escudero is that without your crusade against GMA, you are nothing but an empty tin can, the kind that makes a lot of noise.

Same thing can be said re Joker and his crusade against Marcos and Erap.