Archive for October 2008
PA Banias on Suplico’s claim: It’s a lie!
Presidential Assistant Raul Banias was quick to react upon hearing a report that vice governor Rolex Suplico is claiming credit as the “original author” of the P8.5 billion Panay rehabilitation fund and declared: It’s a blatant lie!
Banias, interviewed over Aksyon Radyo on Sunday morning, said that Suplico had nothing to do with the Panay rehab fund that is intended to help repair the devastation caused by Typhoon Frank. “It’s the handiwork of Majority Floor Leader Arthur Defensor, DOJ secretary Raul Gonzalez, House Speaker Prospero Nograles, myself and the congressmen of Panay island and Guimaras,” Banias clarified.
Nabuking si Rolex! He should realize that he cannot tell a lie and get away with it!
Suplico’s latest boast
If Congress passes the Panay rehabilitation fund of P8.5 billion, the people will have to thank vice governor Rolex T. Suplico for “being the first to broach the idea.”
In a speech before micro entrepreneurs at the CPU Rose Memorial Hall last Friday, Suplico claimed that he was the “original author” of the rehab fund after he saw the devastation of Typhoon Frank all over the province and the rest of Panay.
He said he proposed the setting up of a P50 billion fund and asked 4th District Rep. Ferjenel Biron to file a bill in the House of Representatives.
I don’t remember Suplico making any mention about the rehab fund before. I don’t remember Biron filing a bill for the setting up of the fund.
The truth is that it was former Senate President Franklin Drilon who proposed the idea during an interview with Danny Fajardo on the “Reklamo Publiko” program in which Majority Floor Leader Arthur Defensor was present.
Defensor was in fact caught off-guard and reluctantly gave his commitment to fully support this measure.
About a week later, House Speaker Prospero Nograles, Jr. acknowledged during a press conference in Iloilo City that the idea originated from Drilon and it was Defensor who initiated the bill in Congress.
This only exposes the blatant lie and empty boast that Suplico made in his speech. He wants to ride on the rehab fund as the “origiinal author”. How could he be an author of a bill when he is no longer congressman? And does he mean that Biron has no brains of his own not to have thought of such measure? Does he mean that Defensor was slow in responding to the calamity and it took the brains of a former congressman to broach the idea?
Suplico always likes to grab credit for big deeds. In truth, he has not done anything worthwhile, not while he was congressman, and not during his first 16 months as vice governor.
Aksyon Radyo’s big leap
This week, a team of anchormen from Aksyon Radyo Iloilo, namely award-winning Joel Tormon, Jay Balnig and Alvin Dennis Arabang, will be leaving for the United States to bring to the Ilonggo radio audience a blow-by-blow account of the Nov. 4 presidential elections.
Tormon will report from Chicago, Balnig from San Francisco and Arabang will broadcast from New York to give local color to the most exciting elections in the whole world. No other radio network in the country has done this before. In 1996, I was working in New York when Bill Clinton ran for re-election agains Bob Dole, and then Bombo Radyo anchorman John Paul Tia (now station manager of Aksyon Radyo) made me an instant correspondent to report on the election.
The deployment of these anchormen in the U.S. is a big leap for Aksyon Radyo and reinforces its claim to being global in scope. The internet audio streaming of Aksyon Radyo is considered one of the best, and its website (www.aksyonradyoiloilo.net) provides listeners with broader content that includes the photography of Leo Solinap.
This is also a signal that our radio stations are discarding parochial viewpoints and adopting a broader perspective of its reporting and commentary.
