HE may be the president of 95 million Filipinos for a year and half now, but P.Noy’s favorite tune in this season of hope still revolves around juvenile truancy.
Instead of reaching out to the heights of his martyred father’s battle hymn, The Impossible Dream, P. Noy on Wednesday reprised a Freddie Aguilar song, Estudyante Blues, that he belted out during his raucous inaugural party. This time around, P.Noy was whooping it up with his congressional allies for voting to impeach a less-than-stellar Chief Justice.
Outside of P.Noy, Ka Freddie’s monster hit still finds resonance to people below a certain (mental?, psychological?) age. To those unfamiliar with its words, the song has raffish lines on parent-child issues such as:

Paggaling sa eskwela
Diretso na ng bahay
Wala naman akong aabutan

Wala doon si Nanay
Wala doon si Tatay
Katulong ang naghihintay

Tatawag ang barkada
Sa kanila’y sasama
Lagot na naman paglarga

And speaking of the late Nanay, the first time that then President Cory Aquino obliged the media with a song, also around this time of the year, was to hark back on a World War II classic, I’ll Never Smile Again. Written by a young widow grieving the loss of her husband, it was easy to understand why Mrs. Aquino found solace in the song.
As to the Freddie Aguilar song, the songwriter’s own discography lists 1990 when the album came out, although the Viva Films Web site dates the song even earlier.
Viva Films attributed the resounding success of its 1989 movie of the same title “despite the fact that ‘Estudyante Blues’ became an earlier hit via the Philippine music airwaves as a single sung by Freddie Aguilar.”
P.Noy, in any case, was already in his late 20s, closer to 30, earning a living and dating Korina Sanchez (among others) when Estudyante Blues struck a chord in the then First Son.
Like the shrapnel that had lodged in his neck during the 1989 coup attempt, Ka Freddie’s celebration of youthful mischief remains embedded in P.Noy’s memory to become, two decades and the onset of advanced alopecia later, the presidential favorite far and away.
(Congratulations to ABS-CBN reporter RG Cruz for having scooped the P.Noy video showing you-know-who singing with gusto you-know-what. No matter what anyone says about the Lopez network being a yellow partisan, good journalists still could not resist writing and broadcasting a darn good story.)

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad may be the keeper of the P1.6-trillion budget, but Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman still edges him out when it comes to the take-home budget.
Soliman received over P823,000 in her first six months upon return to Malacañang. Abad, on the other hand, had to content himself with exactly P700,871 for the same period.
Good that Abad’s daughter, Julia, received more than her dad, P738,624.38, by heading the Presidential Management Staff.
Soliman is even better compensated than Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory Domingo, who suffered a severe pay cut in leaving the SM Group in exchange for P664,309.25 in first semester pay to be with P.Noy.
Soliman even nosed out her female colleague in the Cabinet, Leila de Lima, who as justice secretary took home P813,187.65 for the same period.

Does the Solicitor-General outrank the justices of the Supreme Court?
Apparently, Jose Anselmo Cadiz does, pay-wise.
Cadiz, who is better known in the legal profession for his astute politicking than on the size of his practice, took home P4.39 million in his first six months of office, more than double the annual salary of a Supreme Court justice.
For instance, Chief Justice Renato Corona’s annual take-home pay amounts to only about P2.2 million; Antonio Carpio, who could be the next chief justice should Corona be impeached out of office, brings home to his Vietnamese wife P2.08 million a year, less taxes.
Cadiz’s salary is even miles ahead than Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.’s; the Little President received only P703,532.48 for the same six-month period, according to the Commission on Audit.