PNoy to blame for Veloso’s death?

LIFE’S INSPIRATIONS: “… There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground…” (Amos 5:7, the Holy Bible).

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PNOY TO BLAME FOR VELOSO’S DEATH? If we are to follow the tendency of President Aquino to blame his political opponents for problems being encountered by his soon-to-be ended government, then I am sure the Binay family and all Filipinos who have overseas Filipino workers (OFWs0 for relatives should also be blaming Aquino for the impending death of Filipina maid Mary Joy Veloso in Indonesia.

Why? Well, according to Sen. Nancy Binay just days before Veloso’s case hugged the headlines, President Aquino literally stopped the use of some P100 million in government money which had been allotted as a legal defense fund to help OFWs defend themselves from legal cases brought against them while working abroad.

Binay said Aquino vetoed or rejected a part of the 2015 annual budget which gave the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) authority, as in past annual budgets, to spend the legal defense fund for OFWs which was increased, through Binay’s efforst, to P100 million from P30 million in 2015.

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PNOY VETOED USE OF P100 M FOR OFWs DIRECT USE: Instead of the money being used freely by the DFA for OFWs as was the usual practice before Aquino became President, the Department of Budget and Management would now have to clear first the release of even just a single centavo to help OFWs in trouble.

Sen. Binay said this posed problems since data from the DFA showed that, as of June 2014 alone, there are around 6,000 OFWs who are languishing in jail abroad, awaiting or are being subjected to trial for crimes being attributed to them. Some 800 are facing drug-related cases, 79 are accused of crimes whose penalty is death, while 3,047 were victims of human trafficking cases.

And yet, Aquino is now making a big publicity for his supposed plea for clemency for Veloso when he meets Indonesian President Joko Widodo at an international conference abroad? Not only is this supposed plea an insult to Veloso, but is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Aquino government, while basking in the millions of dollars remitted by OFWs, has no care nor concern for them.

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WHY DID AQUINO CHANGE THE RULES RE: USE OF P100 M FOR OFWs? Indeed, I cannot understand why Aquino had to change rules with respect to the use of the P100 million legal defense fund for OFWs, from its free use by the DFA to help OFWs with criminal cases abroad, to its stymied use now under the stringent requirements of budget releases by the DBM.

Was Aquino and his click maneuvering to keep the P100 million legal defense fund intact, not to help our OFWs who are definitely “heroes” who are saving the country from capsizing economically with their dollars, but for some other purposes? And what could these other purposes be that Aquino and his gang were thinking in relation to this legal defense fund?

Now that Filipinos are being executed in foreign soils mostly for crimes for which they were simply framed or were made fall guys, where they were unable to defend themselves because the money intended for their defense was subjected by their very President to administrative goobledygook thereby making it impossible to be used for them, where can we seek succor?

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