Crisis mode

Don't you hate what's happening to our country?

I've been having a bad feeling about this whole thing since last week. I've tried to be detached about national issues since the elections last year, because they have a tendency to drain you, and because I just see it as hopeless.

But I couldn't ignore this whole thing about the tapes and the jueteng allegations was driving me batshit, partly because the last couple of weeks I had to edit some copy regarding TV reports on the issues for use in the website. I just had a bad feeling about it, and true enough, by Friday last week, I was nursing a terrible fever.

If you want to get up to speed on these issues, check out MLQ3, who's doing his best Andrew Sullivan impression on his blog (or is it the Huffington Post?), as well as the PCIJ blog, which offered up mp3s and transcripts of the controversial conversations. MLQ3 in particular is pretty stoked about all these, convinced that something big's going to happen and fervently doing play-by-play coverage every hour, in the process aiming to make blogging history.

I think he's right.

The most sensible thing I've heard is Sen. Aquilino Pimentel's call for President Arroyo and Vice-President Noli de Castro to resign, a sentiment echoed by Conrado de Quiros. I think Noli's the only thing that's keeping us from doing another people power, and if there was any hint that we could get rid of him too, Gloria would be in trouble. I personally welcome the idea of voting in a snap election.

I don't have anything substantial to add, but in the famous words of Seth Cohen, I'm just here for comic relief. So I offer the following observations:

1. Apparently, Rez Cortez is now the leader of the opposition. Now, I can't begin to tell you how much pleasure this brings me. I'm, like, the biggest Rez Cortez fan; not only is he the only action movie villain who looks like a gay dance instructor, he also has the longest eyelashes in all of Philippine showbiz. Add to that the fact that he's been rocking that perm for nearly twenty years now. Plus, you can't go three hours on Cinema One without coming across a movie with him in it. If there ever was a Paquito Diaz Pinoy Baddie Hall of Fame (you know, with Bomber Moran, Max Alvarado, Joaquin Fajardo, et. al.), it should have a Rez Cortez Wing in it.

2. I love the fact that Lito Lapid is leading the investigations regarding jueteng in the country. Do you know why he's at the forefront for such a sensitive issue? Because he's the chairman on the Senate Committee on Games! I'm not even kidding. Isn't that unbelievable?

3. When Samuel Ong declared to the media that he possessed the "Mother of All Tapes" he said he feared for his life, he implored for protection from Susan Roces.You know, because Susan Roces is such an all-powerful, uhm, what is Susan Roces again? I mean, Ong does know that even though people call her "Queen of Philippine Showbiz" she isn't really a queen, right?

I wish she had turned him down, just to see if Ong would ask Dolphy next (because, you know, he's the "King of Comedy").

(And then I wish Dolphy would turn him down so he'd be forced to ask every other celebrity, and they all turn him down until Ong is forced to ask someone like Jay-R, who's the "Prince of R&B".)

4. After Ong got kicked out of the sanctuary, the opposition took him to some other safehouse. With Rez Cortez leading the opposition, I bet the safehouse is either an empty mansion or an empty warehouse, just like in those action movies. Which is bad news for Ong; when the police finally decides to conduct a raid, they'd all end up dead (especially if Lito Lapid decides to lead the way).

5. It's crazy how self-serving this administration is, I mean, it doesn't even pretend to not be doing something dirty. Like the source of this mess, the appointment of Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcellano. Let's see, the election was extremely close, the President desperately needed to win in Mindanao, so who does she appoint to oversee the elections there? The guy who's the Michael Jordan of Philippine electoral fraud.

Wow.

And now, we see the NBI telling the public that the tapes have been altered, Justice (heh!) Secretary Raul Gonzales telling everyone on TV that he'd have everyone who had a copy of the tapes arrested, the NTC releasing a memo banning all press outlets from broadcasting or printing excerpts of the tape, and the police telling everyone that they want to take Ong into custody to "protect" him. Galing no?

- posted by jaemark @ 6/14/2005 09:34:00 PM