TODAY is Lopez-Jaena Day, a holiday in Iloilo City and province to celebrate Ilonggo national hero Graciano Lopez-Jaena’s birthday, a member of the Propaganda Movement which advocated for reforms in the Philippines, then a Spanish colony. The Movement eventually sparked the Philippine Revolution against Spain.
Funny thing, Graciano Lopez-Jaena is probably spinning in his grave on what’s happening in the supposedly independent Philippines, particularly in Congress or the House of Representatives (HOR).
It seems the House of Representatives, rather some members, have been manipulated by the usual suspects who are out to undermine the government using government resources to bring it down and take over.
A while back, a rather naïve but rabidly ambitious (careless whispers say he wants to be president of the republic, not Rotary) Speaker of the HOR, a certain Martin Romualdez, did his own “peace talks” with the usual suspects, you know, those pseudo-communists who wear red knickers yet are allergic to “red tagging” (a phrase they concocted and inflicted upon themselves).
Obviously, a tactical alliance resulted from that meeting, with the naïve Romualdez not fully aware that the pseudo-communists, the so-called Makabayan block, can no longer command substantial votes with only three seats in the current Congress and the CPP/NPA/NDF a leaderless spent force on the verge of collapsing, their fighters running out of bullets and dying of hunger/diseases in the hinterlands.
And then “Le Affair SMNI” happened. Excerpts from the December 11, 2023 issue of The Manila Times by Rigoberto Tiglao:
“It is certainly tempting, indeed accurate, to say that the two-House committees’ ordering two of our contemporary heroes — bold anti-communist crusaders former Presidential Communications undersecretary Lorraine Badoy and ex-NPA officer Jose Celiz — to be detained for ‘contempt’ is an assault on our free press.
“However, the speed at which these congressmen acted on such matters that do not really have any significance to the work of their committee on franchises makes me believe the reason may be more banal, something that our political elite have heard of by now.
“This is the widespread report that this early, House Speaker Martin Romualdez is assiduously and methodically preparing the ground to be the second of the Marcos-Romualdez progeny to rule the country, either as president or prime minister.
“Why do I seem to be jumping to this conclusion based on the persecution of Badoy and Celiz? It was breathtaking how Romualdez’s minions chose to take up an issue few people had heard of — how much the Speaker spent in his foreign trips — spend precious time on it, and then order them jailed for contempt. Not only that, they are moving to close down one of the fastest-growing broadcast networks (SMNI).
“I don’t have any doubt that it was the Speaker who ordered them to persecute Celiz and Badoy. “Celiz already admitted the figures he was given may be wrong; but what the representatives wanted — which Romualdez needed to know — is who fed Celiz the wrong information, so he or she could be purged immediately and totally removed from government and politics.”
So, who were the congressmen involved in “Le Affair SMNI”?
Raoul Manuel, Arlene Brosas, France Castro, Benny Abante, Migs Nograles, Romeo Acop, Stella Quimbo, Gus Tambunting, Joseph Paduano, Johnny Pimentel, Dan Fernandez, and Jayjay Suarez. The first three are obviously from the so-called Makabayan block.
Worth mentioning is Abang Lingkod party-list representative Joseph Paduano a.k.a. “Carapali Lualhati”; he was a former national commander of the Alex Boncayao Brigade of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army.
Finally for the uninitiated:
A “useful idiot” is a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause — particularly a bad cause originating from a devious, ruthless source — without fully comprehending the cause’s goals, and who is cynically being used by the cause’s leaders.
Erroneously attributed to Vladimir Lenin, the term was often used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and psychological manipulation.
And to answer our question…Are there “useful idiots” in Congress? Seems obvious./PN
