Sunday, February 08, 2009

Bambee Dela Paz: Justice or Bust.

Apparently and for now, it seems bust.

The last bit of news I found on Google was a news report on the ABS-CBN news website saying that the NBI had concluded their probe sans any recommendation as to what action should be taken.

Here's an excerpt of that report posted on abs-cbnnews.com on 01/16/2009:
the report on the incident did not contain any recommendation from the NBI-National Capital Region (NCR) since the two parties have already filed cases against each other in the courts. The decision not to include any recommendation, the NBI said, was to avoid influencing the court's decision on the cases.

NBI-NCR chief Atty. Edward Villarta, in a phone interview with ABS-CBN News, said the report included a chronology of events in the brawl, which occurred at the Valley Golf and Country Club in Antipolo City last December 26,

All people involved in the incident, including witnesses, also submitted affidavits.

Villarta said they hope their report would help the DOJ find out what actually happened in the brawl.


Sylvia L. Mayuga who writes "For Better or Worse" in INQUIRER.net posted her own observations on 01/18/2009

The chink in Bambee Dela Paz’s blog account of the incident has been revealed to the indignant audience. Her dad lost his temper first, poking Nasser Pangandaman, Jr. with a golf umbrella on his tummy or his bottom, depending on which caddy you talk to. Here’s a roundup of the story thus far. Note how Mrs. Dela Paz carried a knife and her son carried a baseball bat.

I mention this as another evaporating tempest in a teapot to make a point – it pays to verify before getting emotions all riled up in crusade, a power media wields regularly but not always wisely. In his column, old hand Mon Tulfo, macho police reporter-turned-opinion- columnist, has been man enough to acknowledge jumping to conclusions. Here’s hoping more of us, media and otherwise, remember the present blush of embarrassment and the lesson that came with it.

Other mentions in Philippine online newspaper websites include:

Gloria, Mike can learn from Obama inaugural
Philippine Star, Philippines - Jan 21, 2009
I refer to the media madness that followed the blog-posting by golfer Bambee dela Paz of her account of the December 26 brawl at Valley Golf involving her ...

The darker side of media
Manila Times, Philippines - Jan 19, 2009
Of course, the slant was that the teen-age children of Mr. de la Paz—Bino and Bambee—were at the receiving end of the punches from the mayor-son of ...

Manila Times columnist Alito Malinao writes:

After investigating the incident and based on the testimonies of eyewitnesses, the Valley Golf and Country Club finally came up with its findings that showed it was the de la Paz family that started the scuffle and the Pangandamans only acted in self-defense.

As a result, de la Paz was expelled from the club but Pangandaman was only given a slap on the wrist by suspending him for two years.

Are the self-righteous columnists and commentators now going to admit that they were unfair to Pangandaman? I don’t think so.
Comments in Bambee's blog seems to have topped out at around 2,000.

The "Updates and Thank you" post has become the host of a troll fiesta of sorts with commenters arguing over the point of whether Bambee's camp was completely innocent or not.

I was of the opinion that while Bambee's family seemed to have been on the losing end of the brawl, it was clear in all accounts of the Valley Golf Brawl that her father had started the fight and at least in one account, said that Bambee participated in the fisticuff by attempting to gouge out the eyes of one of the Pangandamans.

I shudda known better because for my efforts to inject intelligent debate in a sty of self confessed sodomites and quack doctors, I've earned the ire of a blogger who is now impersonating my Blogger profile. Quite funny to those who know me personally but really quite damaging if it gets used to do something illegal -- in addition to Identify Theft I've already notified Blogger several times about it but it seems they are taking their time to notify me about what action they are taking.

Yugatech's review of Blogger had already warned others of its flaws -- one of them being that it is commonly used by spammers and unscrupulous people. Blogger moves quite slowly on complaints, particularly with regard to IDENTITY THEFT and there are no visible safeguards against it.

Other bloggers have put up blogs supposedly to keep the Dela Paz' quest for justice alive, but so far, the posts are stale with nothing new about them.

News about the court cases the Dela Pazes and Pangandamans against one another are hard to come by.

The last bit of information I got directly from one of the parties involved was that settlement was being pursued. The way the Dela Pazes are pursuing the settlement, as one described it, was similar to someone running in front of a Mercedes Benz in order to get hit and later demand exhorbitant reparations from the driver of the vehicle.

2 comments:

English To Tagalog The Blog said...

having scruples ain't bad after all.

Admin said...

I never said it was wrong to have scruples. I'm pretty sure this problem will go away, anyway.

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