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Herbie Gomez

THE ideas of some of those behind the now passé revolutionary government proposition are becoming weirder and weirder everyday. We can ignore or laugh off baseless assertions by the opinionated and loud barber next door but when the preposterous and dreadful proposals come from people in government, especially the highanking, then they ought to be called out — their dangerous ideas should be challenged.

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The last time I checked, Benito “Ben” Ranque is one of the undersecretaries of the Department of Energy, a position he bagged apparently not because of his qualifications but because of patronage politics. (I may be wrong and I will gladly take that back if Ben presents his curriculum vitae to establish that he has expertise on energy matters.)

Not only is he holding a highanking position in government, Ben is or was also the deputy secretary general for Mindanao of the administration party, the PDP-Laban.

His Facebook account shows him claiming to be a director at the Office of Sen. Aquilino Martin Pimentel III, the Senate President, the top lawmaker in the upper chamber of Congress, and the third highest and most powerful official of the Philippine government.

In just a matter of one year or a little more than a year, Ben has reinvented himself and morphed from someone trying to figure out who the next donor for the PDP-Laban cause would be while walking all by his lonesome at the foot of that pedestrian overpass near Gaisano City on CM Recto Ave. to a well-connected big shot now rubbing elbows and taking selfies with the who’s who in the Philippine oligarchy.

Today, Ben is a man of great political influence who no longer needs to bother to talk anyone into becoming generous to the PDP-Laban cause, not to mention that as a Barong- or flashy suit-wearing undersecretary of the energy department, he is into the business of power which is of national interest in that it affects us all because we are power consumers.

And so, it baffles me how a highanking Duterte administration official who is or was also a deputy secretary general of the President’s political party and a director at the Office of the Senate President can openly advocate wiretapping.

Is Ben Ranque’s wiretapping advocacy reflective of the position of the Duterte administration, PDP-Laban or Senate President Koko Pimentel? Is this how officials in government officials think nowadays?

These are exactly Undersecretary Ranque’s words: “Wire tapping best weapon to track corruption. Not now coz (sic) Congress will not allow. Obvious. If Revgov many goes prison (sic).”

Wiretapping? Is that something that’s supposed to be open for debate or discussion now? What the heck is going on inside the head of this government official? That is so wrong in all levels. That is a no-brainer.

Someone who openly endorses wiretapping as a means to achieve an end, no matter how impressive in appearance that goal is, has no business being a public servant in a democracy because that person cannot grasp the basic concept of civil liberties.

What the hell have you been smoking or drinking, Mr. Undersecretary? Pastilan.

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