Saturday, September 20, 2014

Why Drilon should accept Syjuco’s challenge to a debate

“A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.” Nelson Mandela

By Alex P. Vidal

If we were Senate President Franklin Drilon, we would accept the challenge of former Tesda director general Augusto “Buboy” Syjuco to a debate.
The debate with Syjuco would be a perfect venue for the Ilonggo senate president to prove his critics wrong about so many issues that have bedeviled him these past months.
This would give Drilon the chance to disabuse the minds of the Doubting Thomases that he and his selected minions benefited from the P479-million Iloilo Convention Center (ICC) project in Iloilo City.
The debate would be a perfect opportunity for Drilon to dispel or refute allegations that he misappropriated his multi-million pesos Disbursement Allocation Program (DAP) or pork barrel share.
Since it appears that nobody in the senate today has the guts to engage him in a debate over so many controversial issues, Drilon should accept Syjuco’s dare.
But immediately after Syjuco made the challenge last September 16, Drilon rejected it.
He called Syjuco a "discredited" politician.
The senate big man said he is willing to face Syjuco in a debate if the latter is already a senator.
But Syjuco is very much qualified to debate with the third highest official of the country.
Aside from being a former congressman for three terms, Syjuco was a member of the 1973 Constitutional Assembly where he was the constitution principal author and sponsor of accountability of public officers, Sandiganbayan, and Ombudsman; and the law on dual citizenship and absentee voting.

CHALLENGE

Syjuco’s challenge went this way: “Drilon, be a man. Kakasa ka ba, or kakaba-kaba?
“Mr. Drilon: ‘I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who its for
or against.’ – Malcom X
“Some time ago, I challenged you to a public debate. You merely made excuses and crawled away.
“For the second (2nd) time now, I am again challenging you to a public debate, in Plaza Miranda. Let us together, you and I, bring back the revered tradition of taking public issues to our people, in Plaza Miranda.
1. Choose your date & time.
2. You and I will share the physical costs of the debate.
3. My subjects are your Iloilo Convention Center pet project, and other projects you have overpriced.
4. You can choose your own subject(s) to hurl at me.
“Take this now my 2nd challenge. Running away shows you to be guilty. Be a man. Clear your name and reputation.
“Show us all that you are right, and that I am wrong. Let our people decide.”
If Drilon has nothing to hide and if he believes that he can prove his critics wrong, why not accept the challenge?

-o0o-

Anomalous appointment.
This was how Ilonggo lawyer-philosopher Ernesto Justiniani Dayot viewed the recent appointment by President Benigno S. Aquino III of fellow Ilonggo lawyer Francis Jardeleza to the Supreme Court.
While he was also proud and happy that another Ilonggo jurist has made it to the higher court, Dayot, 81, said Jardeleza virtually became a tuta (puppy) of the president because of his being a former solicitor general.
“A solicitor general works under the president,” Dayot pointed out. “There would have been no controversy if Jardeleza came all the way from the lower courts or in other agencies not directly under the president. It’s pure and simple delicadeza.”

MESSAGE

Dayot said Mr. Aquino wanted to send a curt message to Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno who did not support him in the DAP or pork barrel tumult.
As for Sereno, who was accused by Associate Justice Arturo Brion of manipulating the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to make sure that Jardeleza would not make it to the shortlist of the nominees, she should not only resign as suggested by many legal luminaries in the country, he said.
“She should be impeached,” stressed Dayot of Dingle, Iloilo.

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