(Reposted from Lamang Lupa)
Cynthia Carrion – the most kapalmuks of them all!
Yes, we’ve heard of all those midnight appointments Gloria Makapalmukha Arroyo granted to her friends to offices with fixed terms and how these jerks are hanging on to dear life to keep their jobs. These as so many that P-Noy has made it a key act of his administration to review each and every one of them, especially since they are in very sensitive areas in government that they could do actual damage to the nation’s future.
One of the worse examples of this is none other that Cynthia Carrion – Gloria’s Assumption classmate and personal aerobics trainer.
Carrion was appointed Chief Operating Officer (basically General Manager) of the Tourism Promotions Board (TPB), which, under the new law (called the Tourism Act 2009 or RA 9593) is the most key agency in implementing in promoting, marketing and providing all PR support to Philippine tourism. In money terms this agency gets the most of the tourism budget – think advertising, junkets, promotions money, PR budgets… you get my drift.
Okay, Carrion insists that she was appointed by a 10-man board. But consider the events leading up to this:
1. After much deliberating, Senator Richard Gordon was able to craft and pass the Tourism Act of 2009.
2. Then Tourism Secretary Ace Durano, in the dying days of the regime, hurriedly drafted the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the new law – but in their mad rush they made one that merely cut and pasted what the law contained. No real value added and detailed implementing guidelines.
3. Then Ace hurriedly called for the Tourism congress where the industry stakeholders were supposed to ratify the IRR. They did, but not without opposition from the true industry players, some of whom even sued Durano as a result.
4. With the sham IRR in place, GMA and Durano hurriedly put the TBP board in place where they voted for a COO, not Carrion, but was rejected from up high. It took three board elections until Carrion was finally elected!
So there. But who is this Cynthia Carrion?
Well, she was GMA’s Assumption classmate – the tisay gal who used to hang around the president’s daughter. They probably were similar to what Tina Fey now calls “The Plastics” in her Lindsay Lohan movie “Mean Girls.”
As GMA moved up, Carrion, being the aerobics instructor and dive buddy, was placed in a sports portfolio – similar to what she tried with her Palace manicurist in housing and gardener in national parks.
GMA first appointed Carrion as commissioner (literally) in the Philippine Sports Commission. But she ended up with so many shenanigans especially in the 2005 Southeast Asian Games that the PSC looked for ways and means to get her out rather than have them face the embarrassment of criminal prosecution.
PSC insiders say that Carrion pocketed so much SEAG money including cash refunds from unused hotel rooms.
Carrion was transferred to the DOT as Assistant secretary for Sports and Wellness Tourism where she supposedly organized (and spent for) exhibitions and conferences for medical and wellness tourism and sports events. In her years in the department there were many such events supported by the DOT. But their funding was greatly from other sources such as Congress or the private sector, leading many to wonder where the DOT budget actually went.
Then came the TPB.
First order of business of Carrion: she wrote the newly appointed Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim that she intends to STAY and will fight tooth and nail to do so. She believes she earned her six-year term. And this despite appeals from her own family (siblings) and class mates from Assumption.
Well, the Tiyanak has news for Carrion: the TPB board is made up of members from the various government agencies (ex-officio) and private sector with the Tourism Secretary as Chair. Since she was elected by the board she can be removed by it.
Add to this, the wrath of God… well, uh, maybe not. But the wrath of P-Noy, at least. You see, nobody in the current crop of the GMA kapalmuks midnight appointees represents this most despicable act than Carrion – because of her unique in indisputable stature as THE Gloria gal.
Cynthia Carrion is the embodiment of everything P-Noy is against.
Cynthia Carrion is wang-wang personified
