OP-ED: You will have your karma, RAMON T. TULFO & THE TULFO BROTHERS

You will have your karma, Bingbong Medialdea

WHY can’t Executive Secretary Salvador “Bingbong” Medialdea face the fact that he’s now a government official and that criticisms leveled against him are par for the course?

I know, I know, I know: Medialdea has a reputation to protect when he filed libel cases against me, and the owners and editors of The Manila Times for an article which he deems to have destroyed his reputation.

ADS by Cloud 9:
.
– SPACE RESERVE FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT –

The article appeared in my Times column of May 28, 2019.

.

ADS by Cloud 9:
.
– SPACE RESERVE FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT –

It concerned the threat of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) board member Sandra Cam to resign.

Cam said she was tired of corruption at the PCSO and wanted to see the President, but that the latter did not have any time for her, prompting her to issue a statement that she was resigning.

Malacañang, through presidential spokesman Sal Panelo, called Cam’s bluff.

The woman, whose claim to fame is in once having been a whistleblower, did not resign and continues to hold office to this day.

.

ADS by Cloud 9:
.
– SPACE RESERVE FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT –

I wrote in that column that Cam’s appointment papers had gone through Medialdea’s office, which glossed over the woman’s sordid record in the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

You see, all applications for appointments to government positions pass through the Office of the Executive Secretary, Malacañang.

I have the PNP and NBI records on Sandra Cam.

Now, why would Medialdea take offense at the article which, in effect, questioned his competence in scrutinizing all appointees to key positions in President Digong’s government?

Perhaps Bingbong has forgotten that I was the one who told him to take my sister, Wanda Tulfo-Teo, out of the Department of Tourism (DoT) for not having been careful about signing a contract which later got her into trouble.

(I’m referring to the P60-million advertising contract the DoT signed with state-owned PTV-4 which my brother, Ben, benefited from. In short, it was a conflict of interest on Wanda’s part, although she swore to me that she never knew beforehand that Ben would benefit from the contract.)

I challenge Bingbong to deny my above statement because if he does, I will call him a big fat liar.

.

ADS by Cloud 9:
.
– SPACE RESERVE FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT –

Now that I’m criticizing Bingbong for not being careful in looking after the interest of government in regard to Sandra Cam, he reacts with a libel suit.

Hasn’t Bingbong, in his voracious reading on many subjects as a lawyer, come across the saying, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?

Shame on you, Bingbong, for using the power of your office to harass journalists who are doing their job of exposing the ills of society and government!

You, of all people, should know that as executive secretary, or “little president,” your office is so powerful that whatever cases you file against those who criticize you will just breeze through the National Prosecution Service of the Department of Justice.

Medialdea filed the libel case with the Manila Prosecutor’s Office on June 17, 2019.

My co-respondents in the case are Dante F. M. Ang 2nd, Blanca C. Mercado, Nerilyn Tenorio, Arnold Belleza, Leena C. Chua and Lynette O. Luna.

Ang 2nd is the Times president and CEO; Mercado, chief operating officer; Tenorio, publisher-editor; Chua, news editor; and Luna, national editor.

Because of Medialdea’s lofty position (little president) in the Duterte government, the case will — I repeat — whoosh from the prosecutor’s office to the courts.

The Manila prosecutor who will handle the case will pass it on like a hot potato to the Manila Regional Trial Court.

I’m reminded of the numerous libel cases years — as well as the trumped-up extortion cases — filed against me years ago by former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo or, in the case of the extortion charges, upon Arroyo’s order.

All those cases breezed through the various prosecutors’ offices and into the courts.

One Manila prosecutor, apparently to please the first gentleman, would have wanted the preliminary investigation conducted right in Malacañang, but my lawyers objected.

.

ADS by Cloud 9:
.
– SPACE RESERVE FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT –

Ayaw mig daug-dauga, bai, kay basig magabaan ka! (Don’t oppress us, my friend, because karma might pay you a visit.)

People who abuse their power will soon have their comeuppance, not from those they have oppressed, but from the universe, the bestower of poetic justice.

Look at Mike Arroyo. My then editors at the Inquirer and I were no match for his immense power then but the universe dealt with him in a way he will always remember to this day.

Arroyo, who was obese at the time, suffered a heart attack and had to withdraw all the cases he filed against me and my Inquirer editors upon the advice of his pulpol lawyers.

Think about it, Bingbong, since you, like Arroyo, are obese.

And when I tell you that you’re obese — excessively overweight — I’m not libeling you because it’s true.

Truth is a defense against libel.

As a topnotch lawyer, Mr. Medialdea, you should know that.

.

ADS by Cloud 9:
.
– SPACE RESERVE FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENT –

It's only fair to share...