ILIGAN City ― If something increased my knowledge regarding the recent hearings on financial matters, it was about squids.
I only understand that these creatures living in the waters are edible. Sometimes. they are referred to in some joking manner as "worthless." Because the Bisaya word for this is "nukos." Some slide it in the English word as "No cost.'' Hence, the "no value" joke.
Per reports, they are full of toxins. Because they gather in them the toxins in the waters they live. But they are pleasant to the taste, so who cares if they are full of toxins in them? Now in the recent hearing by some representatives in the lower house regarding the 2025 budget, one of their resource persons was Vice President Sara Duterte/
Among the questions for the VP to answer was about her confidential funds. They say the amount of p75 million or so was consumed in just 11 days. That is, from December 21 to December 31, 2023. They questioned her on its details. France Castro of the ACT party list was emphatic in her questions. As the VP did not answer directly, she talked of the "pusit" (tagalog for squid.) She says that it squirts some black liquid to lessen some pressure.
VP Sara said that such amounts or items of confidential funds were not in the 2025 budget. So, why question her office on that?
I was somehow saying that the question was irrelevant.
The questioners though insisted in so many words that she had to answer that one.
The VP then insisted on her point of view that it was. And then at one point saying or requesting that the chair of such hearing, be "replaced." To show, maybe that the chair did not know how to preside?
The chair, Stella Quimbo could not be out-nsulted. She said that it was not within the VP's power to change the chair.
Seeing them trading barbs with VP Sara extending her left or right arm to emphasize her point, like "Why is someone there, a convict of 'child abuse' sitting there made me think further about squids. That is when she talked of a "pusit" (Tagalog term for squid).
I have always wondered what that term meant. But the congresswoman said that the "pusit' squirts some black liquid if pushed into a corner. What the VP is doing? So that questions on her confidential funds stop? Then another representative pointed out her book, "Isang Kaibigan" which she sought to be funded then of P10 million as to who edited that book of hers. Implying thereby that it was political propaganda and that it had many things on it that leaves much to be desired.
Oh, then, I realized that it was not the hands that made a representative utter the word "squid tactics." It was more than that. Even if I saw that the VP's hands extended longer than the others who were in that room. And then I remembered the story of her punching a sheriff years ago. making me remember some lyrics of a song that said, "I shot sheriff/ But I did not shot the deputy…."
At one point, she said, "Why are you crucifying me, is it because there are many of you while I am the only one here?" Or words to that effect.
Yet after all was said and done, well, not all is said and done because as I understand it, there is still another hearing sometime this month. the thought that lingered in my mind was this one used by a watery creature called squid. As in "squid tactics."
But I think this has no relation to something on Netflix called "Squid Game."
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