The article goes on to outline how the data can be used over the Internet [...]…

Below is my full response to your article. I had posted an original version of it on my facebook account. But here, I had to change the pronouns to second-person since i’m communicating with you direct now (plus a little additions):

First off, I disagree with my dad that Sen. Miriam is insane. I also do not agree with the petition he filed with Comelec. But I love him fiercely and I am proud that he is my father and that I am his son. No doubt all my seven other siblings would say the same. But, I am my own man and I will vote for Miriam because she has comported herself pretty well in public office. She has “heightened contradictions” in the Senate. I would if I were in her place. In the overall, the results were good for the country. It does not mean to say that because my dad filed a petition against her, I would take a similar position. Only disempowered people do that.

HOWEVER, I draw the line when any person has the temerity to say that my dad “ass licked” somebody from Malacanang. I know that isn’t the case. Anybody who “ass licks” somebody in Malacanang is bound to get something in return; Cash or some political favors. My dad got NONE. He was just returning a favor to a friend, Bonifacio Alentajan. Alentajan agreed to lawyer for Ako’y Moro to the Supreme Court PRO BONO. Maybe Alentajan has an axe to grind against his next door neighbor, and so he asked my dad to file the petition. Believe me, it wasn’t Gibo or Punong Magikero (whom my dad’s people, the Bangsamoro people, hate to high heavens for the kind of things both had done here in Mindanao in the past years) who was behind it.

What you do not know is that my dad had refused “get rich” opportunities from the administrations of past and present so often that he is now living in a small house (no land title, only rights to occupy) in Quezon City. I am a testament to the hardship that my family has faced all those years. And at 70 years old, supporting a 62 year old wife and our little Dimple is slowly getting to be a difficulty for him and his law practice in the metro. I am sure my dad doesn’t “lick ass”. Never has. Never will. I can vouch for that. And if you don’t believe in that, then you can go to 182-D Batasan Road, Commonwealth Ave. and see for yourself the size of my parents’ house. Maybe you would want to compare the size of your house to that of his to see who has more statistical probability on the ass licking thing. You are richer than my father. You have the Atenean education, the makati strategic adevertising consultancy firm, and (most probably) the bigger, posher house.

This monologue would sound pathetic to the indifferent, but that would mean they never were sons to their dads. Now, that would be pitiful.

Journalists seek the truth. Not “paint” the truth according to their masters or to their profiteering tendencies. Any self-respecting journalist knows that. but then again, there are journalists and there are propagandists.

Thank God I hate politics and all the hypocrisy that comes with it.

thank you

Fabulous article! Lots of common sense, good advice here. Thank you….