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The following is a response to a query by a letter-sender to The Outsider.
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Mr. R writes...

sorry for being so sudden... but, i'm still new here and i can't understand why they give a lot of money to Guru Varnish?

Hope to keep in touch!
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Ariel writes...

Good day, Roi.

Welcome to the Philippines!

The Philippine government has never willfully donated money to the Guru Varnish organization. The people behind that organization are thieves. They stole money from the national treasury, but the government has successfully defeated them and they will never be able to commit the same crimes against our nation again.

A Brief History of the Varnish Debacle

Once upon a time in the Philippines, before you were born:


THE WAVING PHILIPPINE FLAG

The people were living in relative peace and harmony. The third President of the Republic and the second Philippine Congress had ushered in a new era of heretofore unseen prosperity for the nation.

Food prices dropped dramatically, inflation took an astronomical dive, many jobs were created, new companies popped up all over the place, defensive installations were put up, and the Philippines was rising up in rank among the nations by leaps and bounds. In short, the economy was booming. It wasn’t that grand, of course. But, it was something compared to the period before that.

About three months ago, the national treasury was robbed of its “starting stash” of 1000 GOLD and tens of thousands of pesos by selfish foreigners, leaving the economy in utter shambles. Cheap food was so scarce. The people had barely enough to afford food and it was so hard to find a good job.

But that was over. A new era of progress and abundance had begun. Until...


JURGO EVERGETES’S AVATAR

A few days before the April 15 political party president elections, a real-life (RL) Spaniard named Jurgo Evergetes, along with his friends, moved into the country and joined the Partido Nacionalista (PN), where he, without saying a word, filed his candidacy for party president.

On the day of the elections, he won by a wide margin and promptly renamed his party, the Secta del Guru Varnish (hereinafter referred to as “the Secta” or SGV).


THE GURU VARNISH AS PORTRAYED BY THE SGV

In the following days, droves of RL Spaniards came to the Philippines proclaiming the gospel of the Secta del Guru Varnish, and spamming the Philippine media with articles and comments written in Spanish. They dreamed of propagating the farcical Secta religion in all the Philippine islands, and of creating a “borderless” eNation with the Philippines at its center. For all intents and purposes, of course, the gospel was consummate hogwash.

The people of the Philippines bashed them left and right in the media, and denounced them as crackpots and ignoramuses.

But the people were wrong. They had carelessly underestimated the cunning Spaniards and they would pay dearly for it.

Underestimating the Enemy


”NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT”

Disarmed by the Secta’s seemingly naïve antics, public blunders and shenanigans, the rulers of the country -- those in the ruling majority of the RL British-led Filipino Progressive Movement (FPM) party, and to a lesser extent the RL Filipino-led Philippines for the Filipinos (PFF) party, had not prepared as well as they should have for the then-imminent April 25 Congress elections.

The Secta religion was a farce all along, designed as a diversionary tactic. By the time, the time the FPM and the PFF had noticed the throngs of Spaniards migrating to the country en masse, it was already too late.

They had set up a systematic voting system to make sure that as much of the Secta congressional candidates as possible could actually get into Congress. The FPM and the PFF had no choice but to merge and form united front against the Secta. They tried to set up a similar system, but it was too little, too late.

On April 25, the Secta del Guru Varnish Congress candidates won 48% of the seats in Congress. Immediately thereafter, a handful of candidates from the Philippine Advancement Party (PAP) and the FPM had resigned, giving the Secta a full 50% of Congress.

The nightmare had begun...


CORRUPTION BY WAY OF LEGISLATION

Fearing that the Secta would use their majority rule to force the transfer of funds from the national treasury to their own coffers, the FPM immediately proposed a transfer of all the GOLD in the treasury to the Bank of Philippines organization, the country's de facto national reserve bank, which is controlled by the FPM.

However, the Secta-led Congress quashed the proposal in the polls

For the next 8 days, the FPM and the Secta raced with each other to serve donation proposals to Congress. Only one donation proposal could be submitted at any one time, so proposing one meant barring the other party from doing the same.

Eventually, the Secta was able to submit their own proposal to transfer the same GOLD to their OWN organization, while accusing the president of trying to steal from the treasury.

The proposal was approved by a Secta majority-Congress and the country lost 38 GOLD.

All in all, a total of 9 donation proposals by either party were submitted, but only 4 of them were approved.

In that time, however, while the Bank of Philippines was able to receive only a measly 10 PHP, the Guru Varnish organization received a total of 38 GOLD and 2015 PHP.

Looking back, it's not really a lot of money. But, for a small developing nation, it had had to hurt.

Sasha Grey Companies


MODEL-ACTRESS SASHA GREY

The Guru Varnish organization distributed the moolah among the Secta members. The ill-gotten wealth was also used to start the Sasha Grey Grain and Sasha Grey Food companies, which exclusively hired members of the Secta. These companies doled out hefty salaries to its Spanish employees, and offered their products at dirt cheap prices to displace domestic competition.

Economic Sabotage


THE ECONOMY TAKES A BEATING

Besides the Secta's thievery, they had also passed several laws, including exuberant tax and minimum wage hikes, that more or less mucked up the Philippine economy for a short period of time.

The people branded the laws a stupid and ignorant when they were actually deliberate, surgical and precise; designed to cause the masses to lose hope, systematically cripple the economy, and turn circumstances favorably towards their own companies.

Eventually, the FPM and the PFF were able to arrest and revert the Secta's insidious legislations, and save the country from the brink of economic suicide. But, the damage had been done. The country had already fallen several places in the world rankings.

Underestimating the People of the Philippines


AGAIN, “NEVER UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OPPONENT”

Soon, the May 5 Presidential elections were fast approaching. The Secta was poised to grab the Presidency from the FPM.

Just as they did with the recent Congress elections, they campaigned in Spain for voters to move to the Philippines. They cajoled them with promises of unrealistically high salaries and of being as overlords to the Filipino people.

Thinking that they had once seized Congress with relative ease, they thought of the Philippine establishment as unorganized pushovers. They had thought that they could grab the Presidency just as easily.

But the Secta was wrong. They had carelessly underestimated the cunning eFilipinos, and that would spell their eventual downfall.

On the front lines, eFilipino writers, journalists and propagandists were relentlessly promoting the name of their presidential candidate.

Backstage, the government, concerned citizens and foreign sympathizers were hard at work at rallying international support, getting media attention around the globe and getting more and more foreign voters to pour into the country.

Meanwhile, the tides were turning against the Secta in the Congress chamber, and the Secta's proposals were continuously being rejected, one after the other.

Surrender and Retreat


THE SECTA FINALLY SURRENDERS

As time passed by, the collective confidence of the Secta in their ability to subdue the Philippines had waned despite their best efforts, and, soon enough, they realized they would lose the battle for political dominance in the country.

Just immediately preceding the opening of the polls, the Secta's presidential bet, EWITO, withdrew his candidacy, packed his bags and fled the country, with him, a number of prominent (rea😛 notorious) Secta congressmen.

The following morning, the rest of the Secta congressmen followed suit and left, handing over the majority in Congress to the FPM-PFF Coalition.

A New Tomorrow


DUH

The storm has passed, but we still have a long way to go.

Now that we have learned our lesson, let us forge ahead, look forward to a bright new tomorrow for our country, and work hard to make this nation great.

More power to the Philippines. Mabuhay!

Yours,

Ariel David Buena
Congress Representative, Luzon
Supervisor, Philippine Department of Home Affairs
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May 8, 2009