Buencamino writes political commentary for Action for Economic Reforms. This article was published in Business Mirror, June 7, 2006 edition, p. A6.
My Palace contact sold me this page purloined from the Queen’s diary.
“Dear Diary,
I can’t wait to leave for Spain. I need a break. The help around here is so useless, I have to do everything myself. I’m so exasperated na.
The other day, I wanted to dictate a martial law proclamation but my butler informed me that all the Palace stenographers had been seconded to work at a newspaper. He offered his dictaphone but I told him no thanks my husband has one. And then I remembered I couldn’t use his dictaphone because it’s been malfunctioning.
My soldiers bungled a simple salvage operation right when the world was beginning to wise up to my human rights record. They couldn’t cover it up properly so they expect me to protect them with EO 464.
My education secretary, Fe, failed to read her script before attending a televised cabinet meeting and now everyone is comparing me to the red queen in Alice in Wonderland.
And then there’s that motor-mouth commissioner from PCGG. Oh my god! I really have to do something about him. I’d write him a memo right now but I don’t know how he spells his name. Is it R-i-c-k ? Or R-i-k-k-i ?
Anyway, I still can’t fathom why he had to video himself singing and dancing with Imelda Marcos. He stirs a hornet’s nest and then he says, ‘I don’t know why people are making a big thing out of it. On my part, I just wanted to have fun with friends.’
Anybody who saw his video could see that rubbing elbows with Imelda was a big thing for him.
He looked so silly acting blase about it; like he and Imelda had been ‘beso-beso’ buddies for years. My Assumption chums remarked, ‘Naks naman, as if…’
Rikki—I prefer it to Rick— doesn’t know it yet, but Imelda phoned me right after she left his birthday bash—just to tell me how much she missed her pedigreed friends. I wonder if that was her way of telling me that I too will have to sing and dance with Rikki someday. I swear the thought of suffering a similar fate gave me such a cold sweat, I couldn’t go back to sleep.
I still don’t know what made Rikki say, ‘I would prefer to get Imelda’s millions for the people rather than have the chance to slit her throat.’ He scared the poor woman out of her scarf. I wish he’d think twice before he opens his mouth.
He should really be a little more circumspect about what we’re doing. Look what Edcel Lagman said,
’A compromise will be a contrived deodorant to obscure the government’s lackadaisical efforts to completely recover what has been robbed even as it would be a veritable gold mine for corruption and a camouflage for graft.’
I don’t want anybody to suppose that I still need Imelda’s money. I don’t. I’m fine and doing finer each and every day.
By the way, I looked up ‘amicable settlement’ after Rikki said, ‘That’s why it’s an amicable settlement, I have to be amicable with them. (Marcoses). I am negotiating from a position of strength but I would also like them to be in the proper frame of mind so they will be open to a compromise.’
Guess what? Amicable settlement simply means that conflicting parties agree to settle their differences out of court. That’s it.
Everything can be done through lawyers. No need for dancing and singing or hugs and kisses before, during, or after such a settlement. Not even a handshake.
Rikki does not have to bend over or, as they say in the vernacular, ‘make tuwad’ for the Marcoses. I don’t know why he thinks that making ’tuwad’ will put Bongbong Marcos ‘in the proper frame of mind.’ Bongbong is not like that.
I’m going to fire Rikki. He’s been making so many pronouncements on television I’m sure he has forgotten that it is I who is the Queen of the Enchanted Kingdom. Besides, his incessant prattle is fraying my nerves.
Oops, I have to go. My education secretary is here for her lessons in Palace arithmetic. She still can’t grasp the concept of ratios. Maybe I should ask Rikki to teach her the ‘PCGG 75/25 Formula.’ On second thought, I better not. Rikki does not have a sense of proportion either.
June 7. 2006”
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