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Run, Bato, Run (The Chaos)

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Shots were fired. The Senate was supposedly under siege. Some senators were live streaming from within – and you could tell that it was really staged. Bad acting. Seriously, if you’re being assassinated or the senate was under attack, why wait until all the minority senators were not present any longer? Why the chill moments with DILG secretary Jonvic Remulla strutting in and striking a post with the remaining senators? Wouldn’t they all have been more terrified like the reporters were? The situation didn’t seem that natural because the crowd were all too scared while the senators and the full battle geared up security guards of the OSAA were, for the lack of a better description, relaxed.

With the facts all in from the Wednesday chaos, we now know more verified information.

  1. Mao Aplasca replaced Ret Maj Gen Rene Samonte, who was OSAA chief, after a scathing confrontation when Bato de la Rosa suddenly appeared and reprimanded (bullied should be the more appropriate term) Samonte for allowing the NBI agents into the Senate complex last May 11.
  2. Samonte resigned right there and then after the verbal abuse of Bato. Prompting Bato to nominate Aplasca (a former military academy classmate) to take his place. Because Alan Peter had already taken the helm as Senate President, the resolution was approved immediately.
  3. There was obviously more tension building up between the now minority and the majority force. Robinhood Padilla became interruptive during sessions when Kiko Pangilinan was still speaking prompting reactions from both camp sides. Of course, as all thugs would go, the actor did not take it well.
  4. That show of force had led to the setting where the disarray of May 13 would come into play. Shots were fired and as the video of the news reporters were being pieced together and as reports were coming in based on actual timeline – the NBI was NOT in the senate building but in the GSIS part of the GSIS building. If people don’t know, the senate is RENTING only from the GSIS space (that’s why they’re building a senate building in Taguig which is now amounting to a billions of pesos over priced). This is in contrast to what Aplasca was saying. His claim is that the NBI was in the senate building and that he had fired a warning shot when he saw they were armed. This was in stark contrast to videos showing that shots had been fired in the senate building and the NBI were in the GSIS building and had rushed to where the shots were being fired. Imagine that!!! 27-30 bullets were supposedly warning shots…now how stupid is that?
  5. The OSAA is security detail for the senate. They are not law enforcement officers. They are security guards. That includes Aplasca who was once a General but has been retired since 2019 from the Philippine National Police. He forgets that he is NOT a police officer any longer. That engagement between the OSAA and the NBI, was a tail of fiction.
  6. During the live interviews with Bato, he was babbling like a frightened criminal, seeking shelter from his comrades. His sudden appearance after 6 months in hiding was the clincher. Someone was up to something and they had a plan. This was the plan.

The investigations during the chaos clearly show that the events leading up to the ‘escape’ and press conference of Alan Peter was obviously a diversionary tactic. If Bato was free to come and go because he is not under arrest but only protective custody, then why all the drama? He could have just left in a car at 6pm or the day before when there was a standoff.

It was a poorly written script that would fire back at them, just to have Bato come and go.

The disruption in the Senate is not acceptable.

The behavior of the Senators including that of Imee Marcos is deplorable.

Those who connived in this grand scheme should be held accountable.

Because the reputation of that Senate has been tarnished forever.

And no matter how things go with the transmittal of the impeachment complaint versus Sara Duterte and the eventual judicial process in the senate when the sit en banc as judge and jury – all eyes of the Filipino people will be on every senator and they will hold them ALL accountable for justice or injustice at the end of the day.

[Photos from CDN Digital https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1407454624747878&set=pcb.1407315408095133]

Run Bato Run! (Premier episode)

kidatheart1 Comment

May 11, 2026 marked the premier telecast of the worst series in Philippine politics.

I’ve always thought that many of our local telenovelas were badly written. Hence, my dislike for Filipino soap operas. Talk about horrible scriptwriting!

So there was a shuffle in the senate. The surprise? A senator who had disappeared from the public eye for over 6 months, suddenly makes a grand appearance on the show! The spectacle was to make the numbers stick – change the sitting senate president.

Of course, everyone was surprised with his appearance because with all that drama and bad acting (tears, jeers, anger and all), there was a shift in the senate leadership. Well orchestrated I may say as the senate prepares themselves for the transmission of impeachment complaints against the sitting Vice-President. After all, the senate needs the numbers to quell the complaint as they sit en banc, forthwith, as judge and jury after the complaint is transmitted to them.

And what better person to make as senate president than the very person that coddled the former president of the Philippines – Allan Peter Cayetano? I mean, seriously, this guy has a glib tongue with could you look straight in the eye and defend a lie as he saw fit. Even if you were in the side of right, he would most likely twist the story to favor his side. I’ve seen many of his interviews during the past administration and it’s something he cannot deny. Worst? He uses the name of God and any form of religion in vain.

But if you look at the cast of characters who are not in the so-called majority in the senate, their reputation (or lack thereof) precedes them. Familial interest, lack of moral values and accountability to the Filipino people, blind following to personal interest – in short, shameless, were their predominant feature.

They knew that the lower house was going to convict the sitting VP, guilty as charged, and should be impeached on so many grounds. In the meantime, the VP is in the Netherlands, streaming on how sad and pathetic the country has become under the leadership of PBBM. Most likely playing the savior and victim in all this charade.

Pretty cool if you think of how the first half of the first episode was written.

Then comes the climactic second half, where former Senator Antonio Trillanes, together with the NBI, were waiting for Sen. de la Rosa to appear in the senate. Whoever gave the intel to the NBI must be an insider as well because the NBI came in droves to make sure that they would serve the warrant of arrest of the ICC to Sen. de la Rosa. With so much chasing caught on CCTV, it became comedic at some point with all that cat and mouse game.

The premier episode ended with the NBI in a standoff and standing down as the new Senate President refused to give up Bato because to APC (Allan Peter Cayetano), there was no legal basis for serving a warrant of arrest from the ICC. The majority concurred.

APC placed Bato under “protective custody”. (A move that would reverberate back to him in the next episode of this so inconsistent ongoing saga.) The poor guy spent the night in the senate under the watchful eyes of the OSSA (Office of the Senate Sergeant at Arms) Ret. Police Major General Mao Aplasca. Aplasca leads the chamber’s primary law enforcement and security operations, overseeing protective details for the senators and maintaining order within the Senate premises. In the next episode, we will see how his role in this series will eventually pan out.

The irony of this episode went with some twists. Two senators – Sen. JV Ejercito (stepbrother of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada) and Sen. Migz Zubiri vote to abstain because according to them, they wanted to remain “independent”. To me, that’s some laughing matter as independence also means playing it safe, not playing it right. Another comedy.

Then there was the surprise shift in allegiance of Sen. Loren Legarda. Her shifting gears was not surprising as she has been known to have moved from political alliance depending of course on what benefitted her or her family. As her son, Congressman Leandro Leviste is now embroiled in a war with the Department of Energy (of course the son was able to bag the multibillion pesos solar project of the government during the time of Duterte) who has slapped a multibillion pesos fine against Solar Boy, this wasn’t a difficult choice to make.

For all that oomph and bravado that de la Rosa had uttered and dared in the past to have the ICC arrest him and that he’d be willing to accompany FPRRD in The Hague, he’s not that courageous now is he?

At the end of the day, we knew that blood was thicker than water. And that saving one’s skin was more important than anything else.

In Philippine politics, political survival IS more important because it is after all, a family affair.

That in a nutshell was the tragedy of the first episode of this series.

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

[All photos are CTTO]

That senseless 12% VAT on medicines

kidatheart2 Comments

Every citizen is entitled to better healthcare.

This does not imply only having access to a healthcare facility or a doctor, but to medicines as well. After all, without the appropriate pharmacologic treatment (when needed), patients will not get better. Medicines encompass all economies of scale – from class A to E. It is why the access to cheaper and yes, effective, medicines is a RIGHT of every Filipino citizen.

It is why I have always been troubled with the fact that there is a 12% value added tax (VAT) added to the cost of medicines (and healthcare, but that’s a different story altogether). Vaccines, for example, are essential in preventive health care. All of the vaccines in the Philippines are imported. Which means, that unstable dollar to peso exchange accounts for the erratic cost in the purchase of vaccines. Because many infectious diseases are now preventable when vaccines are accessible, all vaccines should not carry 12% VAT. Doing this not only makes immunization more expensive but inaccessible to the poor, the latter of whom are most vulnerable to getting sick and cannot pay for better healthcare.

There is something wrong in our financial system. The institution of the Value Added Tax scheme for healthcare is something that was not well thought of. As a matter of fact, not only has it become a burden for the people, but a dumb idea to begin with. For example, the Department of Health has announced recently several medications which are now VAT exempt. I don’t know how the DoH is able to nitpick on which should and which should not be exempted, as diseases are specific for certain individuals. For example, if a patient with dementia will need a medicine but is not VAT exempted, the patient can either use the senior citizen (SC) or person with disability (PWD) trump card. However, if the patient is neither a SC or PWD (yet), then he/she will need to spend more for a disease that does not include them just because the drug is not VAT exempt. Only the poor suffer from the burden brought upon by VAT.

This begs the question of: how does the government choose which drugs can be VAT exempted and others cannot? How much power does the authorities have over which medicines can be granted VAT exemption? What is the science behind being VAT exempted or not, when it comes to medicines?

Let’s face it. Our healthcare system in both the public and private sector are broken. And while we are all trying to fix it so that we can provide better and affordable health to the Filipinos, the government can begin with a no brainer suggestion where removing all VAT from all medicines that require prescription and vaccines is a big step of the current administration in being serious at providing optimum healthcare to every Juan.