What‘s in a name? Jokes and more jokes

When Kapunan reminded Ferrer that misleading questions were not allowed, Ferrer pushed back: “They are allowed.”

That remark became particularly significant when prosecution counsel Amando Virgil Ligutan then posted on social media about the prohibition against misleading questions. At the end of the hearing, the defense accused Ligutan of taking an indirect swipe at Ferrer, although he did not name her.

Ferrer’s defense was that she was simply doing her job. Her aggressive style, however, drew attention away from the substance of her questioning and toward her conduct.

That is a problem.

Ferrer has every right to challenge the prosecution, push a witness, and disagree with Kapunan.

But if she wants to be taken seriously as a legal heavyweight, she needs to prove that she can control her cross-examination as effectively as she controls the microphone.

The courtroom rewards precision. Volume is not a substitute for it. — Jason Mago

Noah’s Ark

The great flood is coming.

The heavens will open, the waters will rise, and judgment will come to wash away sins.

Whose sins, you ask? The sins of every senator, congressman, and politician who dared to lie to us, defraud us and feast upon our money.

But here lies the cruelty: The sinners commit the sins, while ordinary Filipinos pay the penance.

We pay through our taxes. Through our flooded homes, broken roads, overcrowded classrooms, and hospitals without beds. We pay with our lives.

So now, we build the ark. An ark for the Filipino who works, pays taxes, and asks only for a government that serves him.

And when the great flood comes, let the Filipinos board the ark. Let the corrupt remain outside, where their sins will claim them.

After decades of lies, thefts, and suffering, the time for mercy has passed. The reckoning is due.

And the waters shall rise.

There will be no room aboard this ark for these filthy, evil sinners. Judgment has come.

— Carl Magadia

We Got Punked

It’s funny how quickly Mary Grace Piattos became irrelevant.

In just days, a new fruit salad of names surfaced — some sounding like food, some like nicknames, and some like they were thought up five seconds before the paperwork was submitted.

There was Conti’s. Nova. Casim. Kamote. Mango. Pampano. Then came the supposed signatories: Honeylet. Revilla. Diokno Jr. Two Lapids.

There was even Denise Tanya Escudero and Heart Santiago.

To be fair, a funny name does not automatically mean a fictitious person. But attaching these names to public money and expecting nobody to ask questions? That is where the joke begins.

These names supposedly received P50,000 to P350,000 each.

And that is what should make us angry. Not just the names. The audacity.

Surely, this is not the only questionable thing happening in government. It is simply one of the things we happened to catch.

So don’t crucify only Sara. Look at the offices that processed these documents. Look at the people who signed them. Look at the system that was supposed to verify them.

We spend minutes inventing ridiculous names for Monito Monita just to keep our exchange gift partners guessing. Meanwhile, someone apparently thought they could attach equally ridiculous names to hundreds of thousands of pesos in public funds and nobody would bother perusing the paperwork.

They forgot one thing: We can read.

They thought nobody would check. Unfortunately for them, we did. — Vivienne Angeles