Piercing Pens

“If I were Archbishop Cruz I’d run for president, let’s see if he’ll win. Many priests are running in politics anyway, and one of them became Pampanga governor. Perhaps Cruz would like to run for president.”

This was what Justice Secretary Raul M. Gonzalez reportedly said in reaction to Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s statement that the Arroyo government suffers from “shortages in honesty and integrity plus consequent shortages in credibility and acceptability.”

The archbishop reacted by saying minding him is not good for Gonzalez’ health.

In the past, Gonzalez had also verbally attacked other critics of President Arroyo such the two widows of the anti-Arroyo movement: Susan Roces-Poe and President Corazon Aquino.

How much public money has been spent in the past scams under the Arroyo administration?

Senator Pia Cayetano, reacting to reports that President Arroyo wants to allocate P43.7 billion pesos for food security, computed the total amount of money involved in recent scams:

“We’re talking about P43 billion that the President wants to allocate. I computed the figures involved in the past scams: P750 million for the fertilizer scam, P2.25 [billion] for the swine fund, P3.1 billion for the irrigation fund, that’s already P6 billion that’s questionable. Then the administration will refuse to explain, will refuse to attend hearings, will go to court and have a case that says they will not go to the Senate?” (Senate.gov.ph)

First we saw this:

Now, this just came out:

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Ibon’s latest survey revealed that 77% of Filipinos consider themselves poor.

According to Ibon, 76.8% of respondents to the IBON July 2007 Survey said they thought of themselves as poor. This is an increase from 67.6% in January and 69.3% in the same period last year.

IBON executive editor Rosario Bella Guzman, said the survey results are not surprising considering that there are still insufficient livelihood opportunities in the country. (more…)

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