The Senate Fluke







I find it rather odd that tattoos and bank deposits will have any relevance to the Senate investigation on a PHP6.4-billion drug shipment, part of which had been recovered in Bulacan. Odder still is the attempt of Senator Antonio Trillanes to impute that (Davao City) Vice Mayor Paolo “Pulong” Duterte and brod-in-law Mans Carpio have influence over some crooks in the Bureau of Customs. 



Trillanes wants to make a propaganda capital from statement of broker Mark Taguba, who had stoically insisted that the dropping of the name of the Davao City Vice Mayor, his brother-in-law Mans and their participation in the drug smuggling were pure hearsay.



Trillanes wants to see the dragon tattoo of Pulong. Dragon is looked up to by the Chinese as a symbol of strength, power and even good luck. 



It's China’s traditional logo. So when Trillanes says dragon is the symbol of a drug triad and that Pulong is a member, I have a serious doubt whether his intention was to make the Vice Mayor strip in front of him for some lurid intent other than catching the drug smuggler who got away. 



Well, Pulong invoked his right to remain silent. He does not want to entertain Trillanes' irrelevance. The senator must really be frustrated he did not have his fetish.



Trying to question Attorney Carpio with a posture that reminds me of a grand inquisitor, Trillanes used the same trick he did in his attempt to denigrate presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte to a Bank of PI (Philippine Island) account. He even displayed a bank statement with billions of peso-deposit. Later, it turned out the form is not that of BPI so maybe he must have secured the spurious statement from C. M Recto St. in Manila which is notoriously known as the home of artists who can produce “genuine” transcripts, birth certificates and diplomas to name a few. That notoriety of Trillanes had long been buried in the catacomb of forgetfulness but when he once more used the same technique on Mans Carpio, husband of Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio, the out-of-tune senator once more revived the devious strategy against those close to President Digong.



Senator Trillanes' hatred of President Duterte almost borders in irrationality that is only equaled by his intimate pal in the Senate, Leila De Lima, who is now in detention. But that is not difficult to understand.  

Trillanes, prior to the presidential elections, wooed Mayor Duterte to pick him as his running mate. Bongbong Marcos and Alan Peter Cayetano also persistently presented themselves to Duterte who was gaining popularity in the surveys. Cayetano eventually was chosen as his running mate. But while Bongbong merely take it in stride, Trillanes fumed like a woman scorned. In the course of the campaign, he did nothing but to demonize Duterte. Obviously until now the poor guy, who felt Digong spurned him, cannot still go over with that experience.



In like manner, Senator De Lima cannot accept the fact that as Chair of the Commission of Human Rights, Secretary of Justice and then as Senator, she failed and cannot produce any bit of viable evidence to pin Duterte whom she charged as the organizer of the Davao Death Squad and a murderer. 



As Senator, she produced two witnesses who made up stories that could shame Aesop’s fable. Both claimed that between the two of them they killed 2,200 EJK (extra judicial killing) victims which they buried in an abandoned quarry land in Davao City. That number entered in just one area is almost like it’s a cemetery and yet they cannot exhume any skeletal remains.



Yet, Trillanes has not stopped despite the incredulity of the witnesses claim and now he is trying to compose another episode this time implicating Pulong and the Mayor’s husband, Mans, to smuggling and drug triad! 



I do not know how De Lima is reacting to the Senate circus, but I think she loves watching the handsome Vice Mayor and Attorney Carpio from her cell.



Trillanes is now facing a complaint before the ethics committee for his childish behavior in the Senate hall. Soon the country will get rid of this fluke.