Conscious uncoupling

Netnet Camomot /

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair and his wife, or should that be ex-wife, are now on a he-said-she-said battle of the brainless, er, strain-less.

Strain-less because it seems so easy for both of them to expose their dirty laundry to the madlang pehpohl. But this exposure has definitely added more strains to what’s left of their marriage before it can regress to what Gwyneth Paltrow calls conscious uncoupling.

What’s mind-boggling, though, is not their uncoupling but the almost P1-billion deposits and assets that the ex-wife has revealed. The blind items even mentioned more—that it’s P2 billion.

The blind items began in March 2017 or earlier, when the ex-wife was expected to tell all a week later. The week-later morphed to months later, and here she is, presenting evidence to no less than President Rody Duterte who then referred her to the National Bureau of Investigation.

Apparently, she wants to separate herself and their children from the questionable billions, and to separate the legal from the allegedly ill-gotten wealth.

The yellow party is not happy with this revelation since it was PNoy who appointed the Comelec chairman in May 2015, a year before the May 2016 elections. With all the controversies that have surrounded Comelec’s service provider Smartmatic, which might have resulted to the electoral protest filed by vice presidentiable Bongbong Marcos against the yellow party’s VP Leni Robredo, the he-said-she-said may reveal some truths the madlang pehpohl have to digest, like as if they’re not having enough indigestions already from the Marawi siege and the Ozamiz drug raids. Add to that the rebel—communist at iba pa—attacks, oh my gas, tummy aches pa more.

Information overload is now the new normal. It’s best to tune off once in a while, and read fiction. But how to separate fiction from non-fiction? Much like the Comelec chairman ex-wife’s dilemma on how to separate her estranged husband’s legal wealth from the allegedly ill-gotten one. And she’s doing it so beautifully and eloquently on TV.

President Duterte recently blurted out at least one bad word against PNoy. The censored word was a reaction to the former president’s statement that nothing much has been achieved in the incumbent president’s war on drugs. With all the Tokhang, extrajudicial killings, the Marawi siege, and the Ozamiz drug raids, there was PNoy saying, “Parang wala yatang nangyari.” And he has proof based on government records that there were 1.8 million drug users during his term, and 1.8 million users again at the end of 2016.

President Duterte is not known for keeping quiet in one corner, so he said, “Sabi ni PNoy, parang walang nangyari. Sige, pumasok ka sa droga PNoy, ‘pag hindi kita pinutulan ng ulo, buang ka. Anong walang nangyari? G**o ka.”

By the way, PNoy is not president anymore and it’s time to address him with some other nickname—how about FPNoy? For Former President Noy. Or XPNoy for Ex-President Noy. Hmmm.

The 1986 People Power is now 31 years old. At that time and for as long as the yellow party was at the helm, the color was always yellow. I wonder if their public-image experts would use Coldplay’s “Yellow” if that song was already around in 1986: “Look at the stars/Look how they shine for you/And everything you do/Yeah, they were all yellow.”

Tita Cory and her family have been known to be religious, with priests and nuns among their close friends. They’re the type you can always picture hearing Mass, praying, always attached to the Holy Rosary and novenas. Well, you may have a hard time understanding that if the only Aquino you’re familiar with is Kris.

Kris has this video on how to tell if a vintage bag is authentic or not. It’s a video that may not resonate with a homeless person, but it does have an attentive audience among Hermes fans. Much like your reaction to the last breakup news on Facebook. No, it’s not about the Comelec chair and his ex-wife. Chris Pratt and Anna Farris have called it quits after eight years of marriage. And you’re now asking, Chris Anna who? Well, not as famous as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, whose separation helped fans realize that if love could go pfft for People magazine’s sexiest man alive and the world’s most beautiful woman, then anything is possible now.

And here’s one of those possibilities. Recently, a monsignor was arrested for hiring the “services” of a 13-year-old girl through a 16-year-old pimp. That’s a priest about to have sex with a minor whom he hired through another minor. There’s no such thing as a perfect human being but to ignore horrendous news like this and treat it is another ordinary day in paradise, is the same as saying, Bahala na ang Diyos, when we tolerate everything and anything bad that happens around us.

Meanwhile, the plot chickens, er, thickens in the Comelec chair’s seat. He said, she said pa more.