Their own money, they say

Was it very cold in Madrid ? In the pictures published yesterday of President Arroyo with her husband and the Spanish royal family, she was wrapped up in something that was not quite a stole nor a panuelo, while the queen and the princess were rather lightly clad. Maybe it is because they are used to the climate, while, for Filipinos, it could be very cold. One thing I really admire in the President is the way she can walk around for a long time, always wearing very high heels. Even if they are the most expensive footwear and as comfortable as their designers could make them, I doubt if they do not pinch her toes most of the time. It's admirable, really.

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As for the cold, well, it is really the season for it over there and we even feel a reduction in the temperature here these days. As soon as I arrived in Manila Sunday the first thing I noticed was how comfortably cool the weather was. My nephew and his family who came to meet me at the airport said the temperature that morning was 19 degrees, a very rare one for Manila , but one very much enjoyed by residents. Then, when we met with the other delegates to the Experts Forum on the Peace Journalism Fellows, our member from Baguio City told us that the night before, it was nine degrees out there, too cold even for the natives! Does this mean that the prospect of global warming has been mitigated?

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Anyway, hearing about the cold in Madrid, and very likely in London, too, makes us think about the junketing members of Congress who probably had to buy extra warm coats and other clothing, particularly thermal ones, to survive the British winter. Well, they won't lack for funds to go shopping, reports from Congress say that aside from the other perks, they also have $3,000 each for their own discretion. By the way, House Speaker Jose de Venecia has stressed that he had not authorized the trip of all those congressmen and women, so no releases of funds had been approved.

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So why has a Congress source disclosed that each of the junketers had been allowed $5,000 for their plane tickets, $500 per night for hotel rooms, $500 for daily food allowance, and $3,000 just for “allowance” – or a total of $9,000. But if De Venecia says it did not come from the House coffers, where did it come from, that almost P380 million that went to the junketing solons? Yes, they were right, when they said they spent their “own money”. Certainly it is theirs, since it was given to them already. What we are not likely to know is where it came from, or who donated it. Will this be like the P300,000 to P500,000 handed out in money bags to governors and congressmen that got priest-turned-governor Ed Panlilio in trouble and has remained a mystery until now?

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Meanwhile, there is something onerous about the insistence of the Justice Department on transferring the group of Senator Antonio Trillanes, and his co-accused in that rebellion case, to the national penitentiary in Mutinglupa. I thought only convicted persons are sent there? One newspaper said this was also the order of President Arroyo. Hmm… I hope she realizes that something could happen to Trillanes in Muntinglupa for which she and her government will be blamed, no matter what caused it. Even if Trillanes decides to commit suicide there, who would believe he did it?

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I thought I was the only one with the suspicious ideas about what the police had in mind when they insisted on getting the media people out of the Peninsula Hotel. Readers of this column probably recall that yesterday, I mentioned that there may have been plans to mow down the recalcitrant people, but the journalists were in the way. Yesterday, too, Inquirer columnist Neal Cruz expressed the same view. My other suspicion is that Trillanes probably has a death wish, thinking that his death at the hands of government men would make him a rallying point, like Ninoy Aquino. As for the additional case he is facing, I don't think he minds at all. As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

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But could it be possible that Trillanes and company had been tricked during that hearing by someone who assured them that the thousands were just waiting to join and support them if they walked out of the court? I remember that the soldier-turned-senator looked very confident when, while walking out, he said that the people would be joining them soon. If there was trickery, who planned it?*

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