Gathering of thieves

By Alex P. Vidal

“Three groups spend other people’s money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision.”—Dick Armey

THE biggest event in the past 78 hours that attracted huge national media coverage in the Philippines was the gathering of thieves, hypocrites and plunderers in a lavish wedding ceremony in Luzon.

The grand reunion was orchestrated by a disgraced senator, a showbiz misfit who should have remained in jail for stealing the taxpayer’s money worth more or less P500 million through Janet Napoles’ “pork barrel” scam, and not in that wedding ceremony (until now justice has not been served the taxpayers).

Because he was scandalously released in jail under the pampering Duterte administration when he should be in the calaboose for a non-bailable crime, this plunderer managed to organize a bacchanalia where social climbers, presidential sycophants, desperate presidential aspirants, grafters, thugs, rascals, pagans, fifteen-percenters joined together wearing business attires.

Some of those present were notorious scalawags and returning politicians trying to slowly inch their way back to the cookie jars by tickling the bones of The Daughter-who-cried-wolf, who was also present (believing she will surely be the next Empress).

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The graft court actually decided to free this plunder convict on a bail but admonished him to return the money he stole from the people through Napoles’ infamous machinations.

But there has been no word or report that this convicted plunderer was able to return what he had stolen. Just like that.

He was elected as senator, amassed ill-gotten wealth, convicted by a graft court and sent to jail, only to be released under a mysterious circumstance when the Duterte administration came.

Many Ilonggos, or Visayans for that matter, are not thrilled with what they have heard and seen in that wedding event on social and mainstream media.

Visayans are thinking voters; they understand what’s going on and they won’t be inflicted with amnesia come May 9, 2022.

They think the parade of those notorious and infamous political and showbiz characters is a portent of things to come.

If the standard-bearer (Bongit Marcos or Inday Sara “The Daughter Who Cried Wolf” Duterte-Carpio) will go down in the May 9, 2022 election, they will also, naturally, go down with a thud.

Luzon, after all, is not the Philippines; and there are strong indications people from the Visayas, most parts of Luzon, and a good majority in Mindanao, are ready for a major change—and their decisions will not be influenced and tantalized by the last-minute substitution melodrama.

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It’s been six months since my Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination in Queens,  thus I am now qualified for the COVID-19 Pfizer-BioNtech booster.

At 10:50 o’clock in the morning on Monday, November 15, my appointment for the vaccine booster has been confirmed.

I will also have another vaccine for flu in the same schedule to be administered by Walgreens on 9108 Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.

I learned that any of the COVID-19 vaccines can be used for booster vaccination, regardless of the vaccine product used for primary vaccination.

When a heterologous or “mix and match” booster dose is administered, the eligible population and dosing intervals are reportedly those of the vaccine used for primary vaccination.

The criteria for a booster shot can include our age, job, where we live and our underlying health.

In most cases, we have to wait until six months after our first two shots. What’s more, a booster shot doesn’t have to match the first vaccine we had.

People who are 65 or older, people ages 50 to 64 who have certain underlying health conditions and adults 18 or older who live in long-term care settings like nursing homes are all reportedly at higher risk of getting COVID-19.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) said people in all of these groups who got the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines originally should get a booster six months after their initial series.

For anyone 18 or older who got only one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the CDC advised that they get a second shot two months after their initial shot because research reportedly showed that this can substantially bump up their protection, rivaling the levels seen with two shots of the mRNA vaccines.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)