The hypocrite

“Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”

—Will Rogers

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

HOW do we call a Filipino politician who interferes in the affairs of Israel and Palestine but is adamant to denounce massive irregularities or plunder by high elected officials in the Philippine government?

Hypocrite, ano pa?

Such is the image Senator Loren Legarda probably wanted to portray when she recently “strongly condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and relocate its Palestinian residents to neighboring countries.”

The former Antique congresswoman claimed she was “deeply troubled” that Palestinians now clinging on to the last fragments of their destroyed homes in Gaza Strip facing the cruel prospect of forced displacement calling it “unacceptable” because the Palestines had “endured 15 harrowing months of violence, and decades of continued oppression.”

We have no problem with Legarda’s choice of topic to use in her grandstanding binge and tawdry effort to attract public attention.

After all, she is a known traditional politician who loves to showboat and ego trip at any given time; a political opportunist who has mastered the art of timing.

 

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But where was the condemnatory Legarda when the Filipino people needed a critical voice other than Senator Riza Hontiveros to denounce alleged grafters in government like Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and their ilk?

In the first place, she has no business whatsoever to encroach on American politics and in the complicated tumult in the Gaza Strip, which is miles away from the Philippines.

Why don’t we leave this matter of geopolitics to Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and mind our own business in the Philippines?

Legarda was “deeply troubled” by the Palestinians’ plight but wasn’t affected by the social and health services denied the Filipino peopled because their taxes were allegedly stolen by Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio through the misuse of multimillion pesos worth of intelligence funds in the Department of Education (DepEd) and Office of the Vice President and Romualdez’s abuse of billions worth of people’s money in the guise of the deplorable Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP)?

Her mouth was sealed against the abuse of intelligence funds and AKAP, which are legitimate national issues in the Philippines, but was bubbling when she “denounced” President Trump’s stand on Gaza Strip?

If only the Filipinos can get an iota of the degree of Legarda’s concern for the Palestinians, toxic politicians like her will be less vexatious to the national soul.

 

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SEX REVS UP IMMUNE SYSTEM. Researchers from Wilkes University showed that college students who engaged in sex once or twice a week had 30 percent higher levels of infection-fighting antibodies than did their abstinent classmates.

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(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)