June 25, 2018 - Unjust Judges

June 25, 2018 - Unjust Judges Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Father Edward McIlmail, LC   Matthew 7:1-5 Jesus said to his disciples: "Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove that splinter from your eye,' while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye." Introductory Prayer: I believe in the power of prayer, Lord. This time spent with you is the most important time of my day. Let me be confident of your presence and your love, in order to take full advantage of these privileged moments. Petition: Lord, help me to rid myself of judgmental attitudes. 1. Judge Not: Judging others is sometimes our favorite pastime. It is so easy to pick out the faults of others -- to see their defects. It can make us feel superior. Yet, focusing on the faults of others can often distract us from our own failings. We tend to see in others the very faults of which we ourselves are guilty. That is why a husband who spends endless hours on Internet might complain about the amount of time his wife spends at the shopping mall. What do I complain about the most? Could I be guilty of the same fault? 2. Silence Out of Human Respect: Our Lord doesn't dissuade us from trying to help others to improve. In fact, fraternal correction can be a form of charity if -- big if -- done charitably (see Matthew 18:15). Indeed, instructing the uninformed is a spiritual work of mercy. Unfortunately, for the sake of being "cool," we often keep quiet as others wallow in sin. Christ isn't inviting us to be indifferent in the face of a loved one's faults. The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. Am I afraid to guide those whom the Lord has entrusted to my care? Do I remain quiet in order to "keep the peace"? On Judgment Day we will have to answer for our sins of omission (see Luke 19:20-24). 3. Eliminating Our Mediocrity: We are all called to holiness. Life is but a brief opportunity to grow in holiness before we step into eternity. What we do here dictates the state of our eternal reward or punishment. That is why we have to be on guard against growing accustomed to our faults. God doesn't want us to be mediocre. He wants us to struggle against our weaknesses. Am I actively trying to get rid of a vice? The best way to drive out a bad habit is to form a good habit. Am I eating too much? Then form the habit of smaller desserts. Am I short-tempered with my spouse? Then do a special act of charity for him or her each day. Conversation with Christ: Life is short, Lord, and I need to grasp the importance of each day as an opportunity to grow in holiness. Let me put more effort into criticizing myself rather than others. Help me to see truthfully where my worst faults lie. Resolution: I will say something nice to the last person I criticized or spoke badly about.

CHR NAG-INGAY UKOL SA NAMATAY NA TAMBAY 'Inatake sa puso sisi pa rin kay DUTERTE' - Dante Maravillas

TRILLANES ABSWELTO NA RAW Panoorin

June 24, 2018 - What's in a Name?

June 24, 2018 - What's in a Name? Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist Father Edward McIlmail, LC Luke 1:57-66, 80 When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, "No. He will be called John." But they answered her, "There is no one among your relatives who has this name." So, they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, "John is his name," and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, "What, then, will this child be?" For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel. Introductory Prayer: Lord, I make this effort at prayer for the sake of my soul and the souls of my loved ones. I believe that you died for us and want us to be with you forever in heaven. Petition: Grant me new respect, Lord, for parents. 1. Bundle of Joy: The arrival of a new baby has been a source of joy throughout the ages. Babies are God's way of saying the world should go on. Each new child reflects a facet of the infinite beauty and mystery of God. And by teaching us patience and selflessness, the little ones help us grow in holiness. In their childlike simplicity they teach us to remain simple. Their neediness can, and should, soften our hearts. They don't even have to be our own children; we can feel an obligation to help all kids, since their lives enrich all of us. What have I done lately to help the little ones, born and unborn? Is there a crisis-pregnancy center that could use help? Have I spoken well of parents who are open to large families? 2. God's Choice: For the ancient Jews a name captured, even defined, a person's identity. So, for Elizabeth to name her son "John" was significant. It showed her recognition of God's great plan for the child. John was in the Almighty's special care from the start. Even today, each and every child is loved by God and has a destiny in the heavenly Father's plan. Each has a vocation, a calling, in the Church. Do I appreciate the role that little ones have in God's plans? Do I respect their dignity? Or do I try to impose my prejudices on them? They are tomorrow's adults. How will I want them to remember my example? 3. Loosened Lips: Zechariah had doubted God and was struck mute. He regains his speech only after publicly accepting God's plan and allowing his newborn son to take the name John. We, too, might have a bit of Zechariah in us. We resist God, only to hit a dead end. Bad friendships, habits of serious sin, rising despair – all of these can eat away at us. Yet, repentance is slow to come. Why? "We think that evil is basically good," said Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI (December 8, 2005). "We think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being. … If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings, but degrades and humiliates them." Am I resisting God's plans? Conversation with Christ: Lord, you have put family members and other loved ones in my life for a reason. I'm to help them get to heaven, and they are to help me do the same. Remind me of this truth and help me in a special way not to interfere with the plans you have for the children in my life. Resolution: I will pray a decade of the rosary that all my family members reach heaven.

Sereno got to be Chief Justice because of Aquino’s DAP

BY RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO ON JUNE 22, 2018

IT is poetic justice that the day after the Supreme Court ruled “with finality” that Maria Lourdes Sereno was a fake chief justice and booted her out, the Ombudsman announced its decision to indict her patron and boss, former President Benigno Aquino 3rd, for his

colossal fund scam, camouflaged as the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Without the DAP, Sereno wouldn’t have been a chief justice in a million years. Some P6.5 billion from the DAP was used to bribe Congress to remove then Chief Justice Renato Corona, to be replaced by Sereno.

Aquino’s DAP scheme was so illegally brazen and so huge in scale that only an Aquino, prodded by the schemer par excellence and brain trust, his budget secretary Florencio Abad, had the gall to pull it off. It was an unprecedented assault on our republican system, one pillar of which is he principle that Congress determines the use of taxpayers’ money rather than the President. Through the DAP, Aquino was in effect a dictator who used taxpayers’ money at his whim.

Aquino and Abad imperiously declared as “savings” funds of agencies the Congress had allocated to them, and put these all into a contrived DAP fund that was purportedly to be disbursed in order to stimulate the economy. The World Bank, however, belied that DAP stimulated the economy, pointing out that the DAP meant only “mere realignment of funds” and that the DAP amounts were “minuscule, at less than 0.01 percentage points, relative to the size of the economy.”

Much of the P72 billion in total DAP funds was disbursed – at Aquino’s total discretion – for such purposes as the P2 billion used to build infrastructure at his overbuilt home province of Tarlac and the P10 billion to bribe Muslim leaders to acquiesce to his Bangsamoro bill project.

The PDI’s out-of-character banner story, February 24, 2014.

Recipients of the DAP’ s largesse were also for projects in the home provinces and agencies of Aquino’s main minions, among them Sen. Franklin Drilon, P100 million for “Relocation sites for informal settlers along Iloilo River and its tributaries;” Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, P4.5 billion in LGU support fund; and even peace negotiations adviser Teresita Deles, P1.8 billion for “peace activities.”

Main intent

These DAP uses though served to hide its main intent, for which it was originally conceived: to remove Corona, not only because Aquino detested that he was appointed by Gloria Arroyo, but also because he wouldn’t acquiesce to his clan’s wish that the Supreme Court award it P10 billion in compensation for putting Hacienda Luisita under land reform.

Aquino’s pork-barrel funds were not enough for such an extraordinary assault on the Supreme Court, that he needed bigger money to undertake it.

The DAP provided the P6.5 billion to bribe – in the pork-barrel style of infrastructure funds directed by the lawmakers – first the House of Representatives, led by then Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and justice committee chairman Niel Tupas, Jr., to pass, hardly with debate, the impeachment complaint against Corona. And then it was used to bribe the Senate as the impeachment court to vote Corona guilty.

The Aquino-controlled media had shamelessly undertaken one of the biggest hatchet jobs in media history against a person of the highest integrity. The website Rappler – hurriedly set up in time for the persecution of Corona – and the Philippine Daily Inquirer bannered a claim that he cheated to get his Ph.D. from the UST (totally debunked). They alleged that he had 45 properties (he only had four). They even dragged his daughter into the mud, falsely alleging that she bought for her father a property in Los Angeles – although it turned out she was a physical therapist working 14-hour days to raise the down payment that got her the house at dirt cheap prices during the US real estate crisis.

While these media lies fooled the gullible portion of our middle class that Corona wasn’t fit to be Chief Justice, our more street-smart legislators of course needed more than propaganda for them to remove the Chief Justice. It was the P6.5 billion from the DAP that convinced them.

I have written 20 columns to expose one of Aquino’s biggest crimes that was the DAP, and even provided images there of secret government documents involving its use. Just to point out that there were others who exposed this crime, I’m reproducing here excerpts from a February 24, 2014 article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, reported by Gil Cabacungan, an extraordinary one because of the paper’s unabashed bias for Aquino:

Inquirer article

“The Aquino administration used P6.5 billion from the little-known Disbursement Acceleration Program before, during and after the impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona to bend Congress to its will, two members of the House of Representatives told the Inquirer.

“The sources estimated that the House got as much as P5 billion in DAP funds, while the senators received the remaining P1.5 billion, as admitted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) itself.

“The sources, who did not wish to be identified because of the confidential information involved, said the DBM released to the representatives at least P10 million each from the DAP, supposedly a novel scheme to stimulate the economy.

“The funds released to congressmen from the DAP, whose constitutionality has been questioned in the Supreme Court, were on top of the P70 million in annual allocations from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or pork barrel.

“The sources said that the House leadership and its impeachment team were rewarded between P25 million and P50 million in DAP funds after Corona was convicted in May 2012, or seven months after Budget Secretary Florencio Abad announced the P70.5-billion spending plan for the DAP, including a P6.5 billion augmentation for the PDAF.

“They said they were asked by the DBM to give their preferred LGUs and beneficiaries for their DAP allocations.

“Asked for comment, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte said: ‘I cannot remember the incident. Haven’t heard of DAP back then. We will check.’

“In a statement, Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco said: ‘Based on reports and by its own admission, the DBM used the DAP before, during and after the Corona impeachment trial between 2011 and 2012.’

“Tiangco said the DAP was ‘used as an excuse to cover the P50-million bribe to senators and P10 million given to congressmen for the conviction’ of Corona.”

(My series on the South China territorial dispute resume Monday.)

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
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ATTY TRIXIE NILINAW ANG POLICY UKOL SA "TAMBAY" 'DUTERTE never said na arestuhin ang mga tambay'

'TAMA SI DUTERTE, MARAMING KR1MEN ANG GINAGAWA NG MGA TAO NA NAGTATAMBAY' - Prof Antonio Contreras