The more the electorate chooses the same faces, the same clowns, the same grafters and the same surnames for the Senate, House of Representatives and local elective posts, the worse it would be for the Filipino people. Voters erred in electing Rodrigo Duterte as president in 2016, voters were wrong in electing Bong Go and Bato de la Rosa to the Senate in 2019 and the electorate chose the wrong guys led by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio in 2022. It would be a farce to elect the same clowns in 2025.
As the Americans say, hire clowns and expect a circus. And a circus it will be if we were to believe the commissioned survey of the Social Weather Sations (SWS) conducted this month that showed Bong Go y Tesoro beating Erwin Tulfo as the topnotcher in the Senate race. Why should Bong Go top the Senate race? This is the same Bong Go who thought that the Senate was a karaoke and brought his consultant to join him at the lectern to respond to questions from his Senate colleagues. Such a bad duet since Bong Go is not noted for being logical and it is such a pity that he pays a lot for ghostwriters who dish out his pablum, day-in and day-out.
You can blame the Philippine Star and the Daily Tribune (which he purportedly owns) for promoting this shadow of a lawmaker. Imagine a gallant senator whose consultant controls the microphone and who only repeats what his underling says. The usual excuse is that he hasn’t learned much and that he is a work-in-progress (WIP) but this doesn’t justify why after five years, he hasn’t mastered Robert’s Rules, which is the bible of legislative assemblies on procedure. There are many copies of the general’s book around town. Proof of this is that Bong Go committed the basic error of criticizing his own proposal before the floor, gobsmacking even your favorite comedian.
He was unfit to be senator in 2019 and it must be a world-class joke for him to lead the race in 2025. The SWS is the best argument against rudderless social media and the stupid internet, which has harbored lies rather than truths, and those who control these platforms have become puppets of Donald Trump as well. Bong Go is better known as the “boss” of Christopher Lloyd Lao, his aide at the Palace who got shunted off to the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) and then seconded to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), where he presided over the unjust enrichment of Pharmally, which monopolized the purchases of face masks and other protective gear during the Covid 19 epidemic. Reports have it that it was Bong Go and his kin who also dominated the face shield business.
The icing in the cake is that it was also Bong Go who introduced Michael Yang to Duterte, who paid homage to Southern China bosses before he ran for president in 2016. So morally upright is this Bong Go that some critics pounced on him for tacking his name on donated relief goods, to the laughter of recipients and the dismay of other officials. Cheap tricks for someone who wants to be in the public eye for keeps and who hankers that name become a household word. All because he sponsored the Malasakit Centers Law, which added another layer of bureaucracy to social and health services, much of them already devolved to local government units (LGUs.)
Lincolnn Ong is another Pharmally executive linked to Bong Go, the young but brash Cebu-based businessman noted for his penchant for driving around in luxury cars, and poking his fingers into reclamation and dredging projects, invoking Go’s name. This is the same Ong ordered detained at the Senate during the Pharmally quiz that Duterte bitterly opposed an who howled that he be freed since the wife was pregnant. One businessman who was given the runaround at the graft-ridden Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) swore that Ong talked to him to “share” his approved dredging project at a time when Duterte was the one who controlled the grant of dredging and reclamation projects in Manila Bay.
Of course, Mohit and Twinkle Dargani featured infamously in the Pharmally quiz but eventually tried to flee to Singapore via Davao City, only for the NBI to nab them, courtesy of a member of the Duterte clique said to be appalled by Go’s influence on Duterte. Indeed, Pharmally was incorporated in time for the outbreak of the Coid 19 pandemic in Wuhan City, China, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records showed that Pharmally was registered with SEC on Sept. 4, 2019 by Huang Tzu Yen, a Singaporean, with 40% of the initial P625,000 in paid-up capital, Mohit Dargani with 30%, Linconn Ong with 16%, Twinkle Dargani with 10% and Justine Garado with 4%. With 80% controlled by Singaporean and Indian nationals, Pharmally doesn’t appear to be a Philippine corporation.
Worse, Lao, Bong Go’s aide, was shipped to head the Procurement Service (PS) of the DBM only on January 2020, or barely two months after Covid 19 broke out. It seemed everything was fortuitous to Lao, Bong Go, Pharmally and the other characters in slimy episode. Pharmally was a spring of good fortune as Ong bought a P13.5-million Porsche Carrera 4S and a P5.9-million Lexus RCF after Pharmally bagged lucrative Department of Health (DPH) deals. Mohit Dargani also bought a Porsche 911 Turbo S for P8.5-million while sister Twinkle bought a Lamborghini Urus for P13-million. Later on, more names were uncovered, including that of a suspected big-time drug kingpin, a POGO owner and others, including one who has purchased properties in the United Arab Emirates (UAE.)
Without Bong Go, Michael Yang and Huang Tzu Yen would not have established and funded Pharmally when reports of unexplained pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan were filtering to the Philippines and even Chinese doctors demanded quick action by Beijing. Significantly, a law was passed purportedly to battle the pandemic by doing away with stringent procurement rules, like the Bayanihan 1 that Lao was invoking to justify the award of multi-billion supply contracts to Pharmally. With Bong Go’s guidance and the indispensable collaboration of a compliant Congress, the stage was set for Pharmally’s “success,” only for the awards to be questioned as Bayanihan 1 was not yet effective when rapid-fire deals were cut, signed and delivered. As Duterte insiders argue, nothing gets to Duterte without passing through Bong Go, including who gets to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Ask Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and Sen. Alan Peter Cayerteno. “Sa tagal niya sa kusina, siguradong naulingan si Bong Go,” one wag quips. Believe the facts, not the surveys, warn another. The verdict? Not one vote for Bong Go. (DIEGO MORRA)
