After her incarceration and detention for almost seven years, former Senator Leila de Lima was finally granted bail by the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court.
The grant is significant because bail can be granted if the evidence is weak. The former senator has a third case pending. This means that her final release is expected.
Santa Banana, can you imagine spending 2,453 days in detention, from Feb. 24, 2017 to Nov 13, 2023 for crimes she did not commit, only because former President Duterte did not like De Lima?
Some people must be held accountable for the injustice against De Lima.
Fake Filipinos
Santa Banana, because of so much corruption in government agencies, foreigners have succeeded in making us Filipinos look like fools! I don’t like saying this, but to some extent it’s true.
That great scandal of “pastillas” when so many undocumented Chinese from Mainland China entered the Philippines as tourists, many of whom have not left and corrupt immigration agents were bribed with dollar bills wrapped like the well-known delicacy “pastillas.”
Then came the infamous Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations that gave birth to kidnapping, even torture, by Mainland Chinese crime syndicates that victimized their own fellow nationals.
Despite calls from the Senate and the House of Representatives that we had enough of these POGOs, many operating illegally, they are still around.
Can you believe it, China itself has outlawed the offshore gaming operations, but we in the Philippines continue to harbor them,
Just recently “fake” Filipinos, having Philippine passports, authentic birth certificates and government-issued IDs in their possession entered the country.
Santa Banana, these foreigners are really making us Filipinos look like fools, all because of corrupt government agencies.
Surely, these fake Filipinos could not have gotten those passports, birth certificates and government IDs without the connivance of corrupt government employees and officials.
The problem, with all this corruption and the existence of fake Filipinos, is a great threat to national security.
With all our recurring disputes with China at the West Philippine Sea, I am certain there are now members of the People’s Liberation Army of China posing as Filipinos.
Call me paranoid, but for how long can we Filipinos continue to look like fools, my gulay, unless we do something , really something, to stop all this?
My China experience
I would like to recount my experience with China during the 70s when I used to write reams of columns against Communist China.
At that time, I could not get a visa to visit China since I was one in the long list of Filipinos banned from visiting China.
The first time I saw China was when I joined the official state visit to China of then President Ramos.
I had wanted my wife to visit China years after that. Knowing Vicente Tan, a banker and his connection with China, I sought his help to get visas for my wife and myself.
He assured me of getting our visas from a travel agency also with connections to China.
Thus, it was foursome (Vic and his wife Helen, my wife and myself) on a two-week visit to China. Our itinerary was set, first to Xiamen then to Beijing, then to Shanghai, then back to Xiamen and on to Hong Kong.
Strangely enough, we were accompanied by a Chinese man whose name I can no longer remember.
He was always following us wherever we went, sleeping in a room next to our rooms, and always with us for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
When I asked Vic who the Chinese man was, Vic simply smiled and said: “Don’t mind him.”
Yes, my wife and I enjoyed that China visit but I wondered why there was a Chinese man who had to accompany us on our trip.
I had my suspicion he was there to monitor my movements,
Santa Banana, I enjoyed that trip but I felt like somebody was monitoring my movements.
True to myself, this proves how paranoid the Chinese can get.
Up to this date, I ask myself ? Am I still banned from going to China?
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