The President's point man, DPWH's finger man

 

YEAH, EVERY Juan – and Juana and Juanix to be universally gender-sensitive – knows Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon is President Marcos Jr’s point person for infra, and before that for transportation.

Really in character, as Dizon’s presidential point-personality merely crossed over from the Duterte administration where it was in fact birthed and bred: 1) as president-CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, the point man for the development of New Clark City, notably the construction of world-class sports facilities in time for the 2019 SEA Games – never mind the much-criticized P50-million “kaldero” used as the cauldron for the Games; and 2) as deputy chief implementer of the National Task Force Against Covid-19, the point man for the government’s Test, Trace, and Treat (T3) program, even earning him the moniker “testing czar.”

So ingrained is this point persona in Dizon that he has come to channel it in his body language, literally with the forefinger, whether he is inspecting infra projects, fielding media questions, or holding meetings with his minions. 

Case in point is his recent inspection blitz in Pampanga where Dizon’s finger made a dramatic standout: at the collapsed – for the nth time – slope protection of the Candating flood control project; at the stalled flyover construction project in Angeles City; and at the proposed site for a bypass road connecting NLEX to some barangays in Mabalacat City.  

With cleaning DPWH of graft and corruption included in his functions as infrastructure point man, Dizon has naturally assumed the akin persona of finger man, openly demonstrated in Candating when he named three DPWH personnel he suspended for allegedly demanding 8% kickbacks in government projects.

Point person. Finger man. It serves Dizon, the government, and the people well thus far. That we have to concede. May he keep it with the right finger.

 

Photos from the web.

HINDI AKO CONGTRACTOR: DON’T US, DONG!

 

Dong denying. ABS-CBN

“MAY ALLEGED links kay former Congressman Dong Gonzales ang kontratista, so we have to look into that… Meron ding mga alegasyon na hindi talaga sila yung gumagawa, may ibang gumagawa.”

On national TV and social media, Public Works Sec. Vince Dizon finally disclosed what just everyone in Pampanga had long known – the former House senior deputy speaker’s alleged connection with the contractor of the thrice-collapsed Candating flood control project.

 Sec. Dizon alleging, ABS-CBN

Maybe in Dizon’s next flash of revelation, he would divulge the blood, if not business, lines bonding Eddmari Construction with 4^th District Rep. Anna York-Bondoc’s husband, San Luis Mayor Jay Sagum.

Eddmari Construction owner Edgardo Sagum and company officials with unidentified DPWH functionary and you know who at the company depot. Contributed photo

Anyways, Dizon’s (un)reveal of late, a mere allegation at that, pales and fades under the brilliance of Ombudsman Boying Remulla’s direct accusation of Gonzales: “Congtractor yan eh… People didn’t believe that there would be accountability whatsoever in violating the law, harap-harapan kasi nga walang manghuhuli. Bawal iyan eh. It’s a prohibited activity, it’s a conflict of interest found in so many laws on corruption so mahirap na makatakas diyan.” That was on Nov. 20, 2025.

 

Boying’s virtual indictment of Gonzales. News 5

Unlike his reaction to Remulla’s virtual indictment which he simply dismissed with the pro-forma: “While I welcome any inquiry on the matter, I am not aware of an ongoing Ombudsman formal investigation against me on prohibited interests,” Gonzales was vehement in his denial of Dizon’s mere allegation.  

“Hindi ko kilala si Eddmari. Kung engineer man yan, engineer ako, di ko pa nakikita ng personal. Okay, ang pamilya ko contractor yan, pero ako hindi ako congtractor… Bakit ko pa hihiramin si Eddmari? Bakit di ko gamitin yung family ko kung ako ang gagawa?” Gonzales said at the public hearing on Candating called by the local government of Arayat with local DPWH officials and Eddmari Construction representatives.

Picture says it all. SunStar-Pampanga

To be fair, we give Gonzales the benefit of the doubt: that he did not know Eddmari from any other contactor, er, contractor. Out in the open though is his rather deep concern with the Candating project.  

In January 2025, still the sitting House senior deputy speaker and Pampanga 3^rd District representative, Gonzales had this learned take of the August 2024 Candating collapse: “The project, a 110.2-meter flood mitigation structure, suffered damage due to a combination of natural forces and design vulnerabilities.”

Emphasizing: “The repair is expected to be completed by April 2025 at no cost to the government, as the project is still under warranty (by the contractor).”

Further noting that “Officials are also considering additional measures to prevent future occurrences.”

More than congressman, Gonzales took the role of contractor, construction foreman, and DPWH spokesman rolled into one there. To no avail, as by July 2025, whatever repairs – completed or not, whatever additional measures – instituted or not, were obliterated by another collapse of the flood mitigation structure.   

Still the civil engineer that he is and the contractor that he says he once was, Gonzales attributed to “natural forces” the 2024 collapse, the most recent one he deemed an “act of God” outside human control. Where others point, all too loudly, to substandard sheet piles used as retention walls.  

Sheet piles become Dong

It is precisely to the sheet piles that people in Pampanga, principally in Mexico and Arayat, made the most obvious, if perceived, connection between Gonzales and the Candating project.

As early as August 2023 – a full year before the first collapse in Candating -- Association of Barangay Captains-Mexico president Terence Napao had called out: “Bagutan la reng sheet piles,” referencing alleged anomalies in the flood control projects in his town contracted to A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading, the congressman’s eponymous company.

 
Napao with complaint-affidavit vs. Gonzales

Napao subsequently haled Gonzales to the Ombudsman on graft and corruption charges which was unceremoniously junked for “lack of evidence,” if memory serves right.    

Nature however fortuitously provided the evidence veritably vindicating Napao, when, in September 2024, heavy rains washed out a P199.495-million flood control project along the Abacan River in Barangay Suclaban, Mexico, unearthing visibly short-of-specification sheet piles. The contractor: A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading. Project duration: June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023.  

 

Unearthed sheet piles at Gonzales-contracted flood control project

Thence, Napao’s call Tagalized to “Bunutin ang sheet piles” reverberated across Pampanga in the aftermath of the August 2024 unraveling in Candating.

By induction, the image of the dug-up seemingly shortened sheet piles in the Gonzales project in Mexico readily affixed to the damaged Eddmari project in Arayat, with the all too ubiquitous smiling mug of the congressman attached.  

Is not, is not, is

“Si Dong Gonzales po ay hindi congtractor…hindi po ako congtractor. Ako po ay isang mambabatas.” Insistent was Gonzales in defining himself during the Jan. 26 Arayat public hearing. Noting that he divested from his eponymous company in 2007 when he first won as congressman and throughout his House incumbency until June 2025, interrupted only with his loss in 2013.

A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading getting government infrastructure projects contemporaneous with the honorable A. D. Gonzales Jr. holding prime positions in Congress, culminating in the senior deputy speakership in his last term, does not exactly hew to Gonzales’ take of his entrepreneurial-political dichotomy.

It makes the exact definition of the term “Congtractor,” a rather recent portmanteau referencing congressmen who also own, manage, or profit from   construction companies that have secured DPWH contracts.

Pampanga’s Top 10 partaking of P15-B

Of the Top 10 contractors that snagged the lion’s share of DPWH flood control contracts in Pampanga culled from the “Sumbong sa Pangulo” website last August, A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction and Trading Co. Inc. ranked only Top 5 but was awarded the largest funded single flood control projects in the province, to wit:  

1)     the Abacan River diking and slope protection project in Mexico, Pampanga at a cost of P270.194 million reported completed on March 6, 2024; and

2)     flood control works on the Pasig-Potrero River and the San Fernando-Bacolor section of the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin Tail Dike at a cost of P257.255 million and completed on June 5, 2024. (Erroneously placed in La Union in the sumbong website).

Gonzales’ tail dike project

One more project listed under A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction is another Abacan River diking, also in Mexico but distinguished as Phase I, with a cost of P96.496 million and completed on Nov. 23, 2023. 

Gonzales may have divested from his company, but self-named as it is, he is the very face of it, with his family as the functioning body.

All in the family matrix

In Napao’s complaint with the Ombudsman, listed as officers of A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading were Gonzales’ son Aurelio Brenz, then a councilor now vice mayor of the capital city, as the company’s president and majority shareholder; daughter, then-provincial board member now Pampanga 3^rd District Rep. Alyssa Michaela Gonzales, as secretary and treasurer; son Aurelio III, as vice president; daughter Aurelio Michaline as director; and the Gonzales’ elder sister Zenaida Quiambao also director.

“Any right-minded citizen would easily figure out why and how a senior deputy speaker, a city councilor and a bokal (provincial board member) owning a construction company and with DPWH officials under their beck and call were favored with hundreds of millions worth of government contracts,” Napao alleged at the time. “With huge projects such as these, it would be the height of naiveté not to sense a collusion between the congressman’s company and the DPWH.” 

Reminded we are here of an urban legend at the DPWH-3 office first heard before the Covid pandemic: An unnamed honorable member of the House frequenting the director’s office with the standard intro: “I am not a congressman here now. I am a contractor.”

“Si Dong Gonzales po ay hindi congtractor.” Don’t us!

Punto Op-Ed: Dizon backtracking on Candating

 

DPWH Sec. Vince Dizon: We will not let this pass. GNN-44

“UNANG-UNA, mukhang hindi talaga tama ang disenyo nung flood control sa Candating, Arayat. Kung maaalala ninyo pinilit natin yung kontratista na ayusin dahil nagigiba yung mga pundasyon. Eh, ngayon, hanggang ngayon hindi nila maayos-ayos.

So, kailangan na tayong magdesisyon dito na talagang panagutin yung mga dapat managot diyan. Kasama na yung mga tao ng DPWH, kasama yung kontratista, and meron naring nagre-report sa atin na may links sa mga kongresista.

So, lahat yan kailangang imbestigahan natin. At, ah, kung ano man ang rekomendasyon natin isa-submit natin sa Ombudsman at sa DOJ.

Pero hindi talaga maayos-ayos kase mukhang may mali talaga sa disenyo. At kawawa naman yung mga kababayan natin dun na apektado yung mga bahay nila. So, hindi natin pwedeng palampasin ito."

Now, Public Works Sec. Vince Dizon is talking: three days since the latest collapse of the slope protection of the Candating flood control project on Jan 23 – only hours after he led an inspection of the cracked Arnedo Dike road and the unfinished San Agustin Bridge, both in Arayat too, not all that far from Candating.

Dizon should not even be talking about this now, if only he did his job of translating into action the words he uttered right at the site only last Sept. 24 while confronting Engr. Edgardo Sagum, owner of Eddmari Construction & Trading, the Candating project contractor.

Making a direct point at the contractor. CLTV-36

Indeed, his words today are veritably but a rehash of those he mouthed four months ago, to wit:

“Dapat naman (bunutin ang sheet piles), gusto nating malaman kung talagang 36 meters. That’s practically 10-storey building.

Dalawa lang ang problema…either may problema sa paggawa mo or yung design mali. Ganun lang ‘yun. So aalamin natin yan. Kailangan ito ipa-assess yung design nito kung tama ba o hindi.

Ikaw ba talaga ang gumagawa dito? Hindi mo ito sinubcon? Tsini-check ko yan engineer. Ikaw ba talaga ang gumagawa? Iba ang naririnig namin. Basta on record sinabi mo sa akin ikaw ang gumagawa. Malalaman at malalaman ko rin kung sino talaga ang gumagawa dito, kung pinahiram mo lang ang lisensya mo.”

Some foot-in-mouth disease there, Sir Vince?

It is well within reason to assume that Dizon received constant and conscientious apprisal of the Candating project after his biting onsite discourse. Given the fear he instills in the agency since becoming its head.

Hence, he must have known that the sheet piles were not pulled out after some perfunctory tries; that Eddmari Construction – sans any reported design re-assessment – just went on with its way of “repairing” the damage to “completion ahead” of its promised last-week-of-November-2025 target.

 

Crane failing to pull out sheet piles. Pampanga Newsweek

If not Dizon himself, at least his minions at the DPWH-3 and whatever district engineering district that has responsibility of Candating, must have seen or heard the media blast over the repair completion, uniformly quoting Sagum proudly proclaiming: “Tiniyak namin na matapos ito bago pa maabutan ng sunod-sunod na bagyo. Ipinangako namin sa publiko nitong Oktubre na matatapos ito ng huling linggo ng Nobyembre, pero we’ve finished the rehabilitation first week pa lang ng buwan.”

Rehabilitation completed ahead of schedule, Eddmari claims. GNN-44, SunStar-Pampanga  

The absence of any official response from the DPWH to the contractor’s cocky confidence could only mean acquiescence, if not assent.

Here now comes in full force Qui tacet consentire videtur, that assenting-silence doctrine that while quietude assumes consent, silence can also warrant the continuation of wrongdoings.

Thus, Candating caught in a vicious cycle of collapse and desultory rehabilitation and repair for the past three years, at least, to the cost of hundreds of millions, to an even higher cost of human suffering. 

“So, hindi natin pwedeng palampasin ito." So, Dizon is now saying.

“E, noong Setyembre, pinalampas na po ninyo ito.” So, we are retorting.

Same difference. Unconvince us, Vince. Photos grabbed from the web

 

 

Candating: Vince Dizon's own undoing

 

IN HIS inspection of fractured infrastructure projects in Arayat town on Jan. 23, Public Works Sec. Vince Dizon did not come to Candating. So Candating came to him, if only to impact in the secretary its utmost gravity as much as a physical peril in the immediate vicinity as to the (un)seriousness of government in pursuing transparency and accountability in the flood control project controversies.

                 Cracked stretch Arnedo Dike

 
    Unfinished San Agustin Norte Bridge

Not that the cracked and sinking slope protection of the Arnedo Dike in Barangay Cupang, and the as-yet-unfinished-after-so-many-years San Aguistin Norte Bridge were less worthy of the secretary’s inspection, but that Candating merited greater, if graver, concern.

Hence, mere hours after Dizon left town, what was supposed to have been completed repairs on the slope protection in Candating collapsed again, taking along its wake at least 16 houses, leaving the whole barangay terrified.

 

                    Homes destroyed on the collapsed slope protection in Candating  

That Dizon did not even spare a peep at Candating speaks volumes, the site absent in his itinerary for the day absolutely droll.  

‘Face of failed flood control projects’

  

While it has been the subject of sporadic reports in the local media as early as 2023 and getting full blown coverage in August 2024 when it sustained considerable damage at the onslaught of Super Typhoon Carina and the southwest monsoon, it was in August 2025 that the Candating flood control project was inflicted upon the national consciousness with Sen. Ping Lacson naming it as “the face of failed flood control projects,” evidenced by the year-after-year program for its rehabilitation uniformly pegged at P100 million, its contract price as uniformly tagged at P91 million, its contracts as uniformly awarded to Eddmari Construction and Trading Corp. from the original P20 million for the project in 2018, ballooning to over P274.8 million in repeated repairs, and still, as uniformly, collapsing. 

 

Sen. Ping Lacson’s matrix of Candating contracts awarded to Eddmari Construction

Dizon could have taken the cue from there, as indeed, he did as newly minted DPWH secretary.

‘Bunutin ang sheet piles’

It was only last Sept. 24, right atop the sunken, cracked slopes of the dike in Candating that Dizon, with then Independent Commission on Infrastructure special advisor Benjie Magalong in tow, famously cried out: “Bunutin ang sheet pile at magkaalaman kung 36 meters nga ba.”

 

             His rage bordering on the righteous, Dizon confronts Sagum

Right to the face of Edgardo Sagum, owner of Eddmari Construction & Trading, Dizon damned the project as “substandard,” if only of it collapsing within a year of completion, not to mention a previous collapse even before a prior completion the year before. Seeing either faulty planning or flawed implementation as the cause, hence pulling out the sheet piles will provide the answer.

 Failed try at pulling out the sheet piles. Pampanga Newsweek

No, the sheet piles were never pulled, not for lack of trying – to be fair – but for “engineering” issues – soft ground unable to hold the weight of the crane to pull out the piles, the bottom ends of the sheet piles interlocked and welded together, absence of appropriate crane for the pullout – combined to make Dizon’s call as well shouted under the deeper waters of the Pampanga River.  

Thereafter, we never read of Dizon making even but a casual inquiry on the Candating sheet piles. In all appearances, everything was left for Eddmari Construction to tie up the loose ends and mop up, in its own way, by its own means, unreported much less unchallenged. That is one all-too-red a flag to unsee. That, Dizon did not or chose not to even notice.

Case unclosed

A closed case Candating may have been to Dizon. No doubt given by his minions’ subservience, er, subscribing to some perceived full compliance of Eddmari Construction with the promised completion of repair in November 2025. The stillness pervading in Candating among residents and barangay officials, even of the local government unit, an evident acquiescence.  

No, Dizon did not have to stand triumphantly on a repaired Candating flood control project, the media in tow, and hail it an exemplar of the “Build Better More” flagship infra program of the Marcos administration. Tooting his own trumpet is not in his character.

He would rather go to controversial infrastructures where he could push for results – and do his best at performative outrage, where he has had a rather successful run from the EDSA Busway to the Maharlika Highway, on to MacArthur Highway in Apalit, Arnedo Dike and San Agustin Norte Bridge in Arayat on Jan. 23. Only to be kicked off centerstage and put under the harshest limelight, so to speak, by the latest collapse of the slope protection in Candating. 

In effect, the latest unraveling in Candating spells Dizon’s own undoing. His is now the body to the very face of failed flood control projects. That is following that other Lacson’s logic. Photos: Pampanga PIO, FB pages

 

Arayat Action Agenda: Rising to the challenge, riding the opportunity

 

 

                      Mayor Jeffrey Luriz

ALL PEACE and quiet now at what Sen. Ping Lacson once dubbed the “face of failed flood control projects” in Barangay Candating after its once-demonized contractor made good – reportedly – with the requisite repair and rehabilitation promised.

A sense of relief too with the resumption – after an eight-year hiatus – of the construction of the San Agustin Norte Bridge linking Arayat and the rest of Pampanga to Nueva Ecija. Coming as it is in the wake of Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon famously saying he felt like jumping off the unfinished structure when he came for inspection.

                         Unfinished San Agustin Norte Bridge. Contributed photo

Dizon now earning the townsfolk’s gratitude and praise, so expressed Mayor Jeffrey Luriz during the recent Talakayan forum with the Central Luzon Media Association-Pampanga Chapter.   

There’s still some more though in Arayat’s infra wish menu needing DPWH catering, notably:

1.     The immediate repair of the Barangay Cupang stretch of the Arnedo Dike that developed large cracks in December last year posing imminent danger of collapse that will endanger Arayat, Sta. Ana, and Magalang towns from floods.

2.     The completion and immediate operation of the P235-million 6.23-kilometer Sta. Ana-Arayat Bypass Road, with groundbreaking in March 2021 led by then-3^rd District Rep. Aurelio "Dong" Gonzales, Jr. and reported to have been 70% complete in March 2024.

3.     The completion of the 5.09-kilometer Arayat-Magalang Bypass Road, reported in March 2024 by then-DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan himself with a completion rate of 80% for the works under the P96.5-million allocation in the 2023 General Appropriations Act for the Arayat Segment.

A component of the so-called Pampanga Megalopolis Masterplan, the Arayat-Magalang Bypass Road will serve not only as an additional and alternate route between the two towns but a boost to tourism by providing quicker access to the Mt. Arayat National Park (MANP) which, naturally, is among those at the summit of Mayor Luriz’s Arayat Action Agenda.

 

                                                                               FB photograb

Park protection

Far from being “the showcase of a balanced ecosystem and biodiversity, conservation in Central Luzon" it was envisioned upon its “return” in 2004 to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources from the Department of Tourism, the MANP has through the years eroded into dilapidation, impacted by forest fires and landslides, kaingin and deforestation, informal settlements, lack of maintenance of facilities, among others.

Grassfire on Mt. Arayat in April 2024. Photo: Sinukuan Gazette/Pampanga State Agricultural University

Since assuming the mayoralty, Luriz has incessantly called on the DENR for greater protection of the MANP, notably through the designation and deployment of more forest rangers – the LGU has organized its own Bantay Kalikasan for this purpose, and for expanded participation of the municipal government in the conservation, preservation, and promotion of the national park consistent to its being a protected area.   

Security and public health

As with the town’s natural resources, so with its human resources that Luriz endeavors to protect, promote, uplift to a quality of life at once secure and stable.  

Securing the safety of the community foremost, more so in a place for a long time known as a no man’s land. The 2024-2025 focus crime index dropping by 66.67%, to wit: Murder: 9-1; Homicide: 0-0; Physical Injury: 2-0; Rape: 11-3; Robbery: 3-0; Theft 1-4; Motorcycle Theft: 1-1; Carnapping: 0-0.  

Public health expansion is most notable in the town’s Super Health Center now operating recently procured essential medical equipment such as X-ray, ECG, and blood chemistry laboratory rendering free services to the residents; and 33 ambulances 24/7. Set to start operating on Jan. 20 is the LGU’s Animal Bite Treatment Center.

 

Inspection of Dr. Emigdio C. Cruz Memorial Hospital. Contributed photo

Preparations are ongoing for the expansion of the Pampanga district hospital Dr. Emigdio C. Cruz Memorial Hospital in Barangay Laquios from its current 25-bed capacity and installation of modern medical equipment under the directive of Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda herself.

 

New building and desks at Arayat National High School. Contributed photo

For this, Mayor Luriz expressed the town’s gratitude to the governor and to Vice Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda “sa walang sawang suporta at patuloy na pagtugon sa pangangailangan ng bayan ng Arayat,” citing also the recent completion of a building at the Arayat National High School with a complement of school desks.

Waste management

Aside from the provision of medical services, public health also demands proper waste management. At the mayor’s initiative a new materials recovery facility was constructed in Barangay Tabuan with a compliment of 65 waste segregators to ensure proper garbage sorting. The Department of Science and Technology has been tapped by the LGU to provide training in the three Rs of waste management as well as in composting for fertilizer. 

To address the bane of plastic pollution, the LGU initiated the “Plastic Palit Bigas” program, an exchange of a kilo of rice for every kilo of plastic waste.

Food security, social amelioration

The town primarily agricultural, food security is a major concern of the LGU. 

In partnership with the Department of Agriculture, the LGU's sustained support to the farmers comes in measured phases covering cultivation: from the distribution of high-quality, certified inbred rice seeds under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) Seed Program, to the allocation of fertilizers, and irrigation assistance to ensure bountiful harvest. Complementing this is the construction of farm-to-market roads that in 2025 cost some P150 million. 

                                     Fertilizer from DA. Contributed photo

As with the DA for the farmers, so with the Department of Labor and Employment for workers, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development for emergency assistance does Mayor Luriz engage for the benefit of his constituents, notably Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) and Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS).

                                            TUPAD payout. Contributed photo

Recognition 

So much accomplishments reported here – so much more unpublished – at such short period of barely seven months since assuming the Arayat mayoralty on July 1, 2025 has made neophyte Mayor Jeffrey Luriz one whiz kid not only in politics but more so in local governance. Proof positive of this are the major awards of recognition he and the LGU under him have been bestowed with:  

 

The Balangay Seal of Excellence, the highest recognition conferred by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to LGUs that have successfully implemented the Barangay Drug Clearing Program.

The 1^st Place winner of the 2025 PEACE Makers (Provincial Excellence Awards for LGU Champions on Effective Implementation of Peace and Order and Public Safety Programs) in Pampanga.

The SubayBAYANI Awards of the Department of the Interior and Local Government to LGUs that excel in transparent, accountable, and participatory governance, especially in monitoring local infrastructure projects, promoting community involvement and innovation for better public service.

The 25^th Gawad KALASAG (Kalamidad at Sakuna Labanan, Sariling Galing ang Kaligtasan), for excellence in disaster risk reduction and management.

In the locality long ago, a catchphrase instantly sounded and was as quickly forgotten because of its emptiness, today resonates in its fullness -- Arangkada, Arayat! And to the catalyst that has made, and still making it happen, the Arayateños cheer: Luid, Luriz!  

 

 

 

 

 

Imperial America

 

                        Grafix from web 

2026 WAS but two days old when US special forces intruded into Venezuela, seized President Nicolas Maduro from his home, and flew him, along with his wife Cilia Flores, to the USA to reportedly face federal narco-terrorism charges in New York.

Brazen as it is and defiant of all international laws, there is nothing new to the Venezuelan experience of American aggression and infringement of its national sovereignty. No, it did not start nor shall it stop with President Donald Trump. As a matter of course, these are de facto instruments of US national policy that is imperialism. 

The United States was not even 25 years removed from its declaration of independence when it triumphantly entered its first major international conflict – the Barbary Wars (May 1801 to June 1805 under President Thomas Jefferson; and June 17-19, 1815 with President James Madison) – fought in the Arab World, notably in present-day Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia, over piracy and the demand of exorbitant tributes by the Barbary states.

In its own backyard – or backwaters, as some put it – a mere eight years from the end of that three-day second war, US President James Monroe declared his eponymous doctrine enunciating US primacy in the Western Hemisphere, depriving European powers of any foothold in the Americas. 

                                Grafix from web

The Monroe Doctrine further hardened in President Theodore Roosevelt's own self-named Corollary of 1904 asserting the US right to intervene in Latin American affairs to prevent any European inroads “to ensure stability, financial responsibility, and order” in the Western Hemisphere, thereby justifying American interventionism in the region, even sans any trans-Atlantic threat.

Eighty-one years apart and over two centuries since, both articles of American hegemony have since provided the “justness” of “righteous” intrusions in central and south American national affairs.

Cold War

In 1961, with the imprimatur of President John F. Kennedy, the Bay of Pigs Invasion was launched and as instantly failed in its objective of ousting communist Fidel Castro from Cuba.

In 1965, 20,000 US troops were sent by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the Dominican Republic to prevent the return of former President Juan Bosch who was overthrown in a US-backed coup in 1963, and avert the establishment of another communist regime in the Americas.

While direct involvement of the US government under President Richard M. Nixon was not expressly established in the bloody 1973 coup that did not only oust from office but terminated with extreme prejudice democratically elected devoted Marxist President Salvador Allende, it was stated fact that the CIA was at the spearhead of destabilization and covert operations that fostered the “coup climate” leading to the regime change that ushered in the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.  

Under President Ronald Reagan, CIA destabilization in Nicaragua in the 1980s aimed at overthrowing the Sandinista regime through covert operations, psychological warfare, and direct funding, training, and arming right-wing Contra rebels culminated in the Iran-Contra Affair – the illegal sale of arms to Iran in exchange for cash to be sent to anti-Sandinista forces.  

In 1983, President Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada in the wake of the overthrow and execution of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, citing the protection of US medical students in the Caribbean island nation and preventing it from becoming a communist “Soviet-Cuban colony.”

In the span of over twenty years from Kennedy to Reagan, the US raised the communist bogey as sole casus belli in its political-military intervention in the Americas.  

Close to the end of the Cold War, with the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, 

a new cause of war evolved with President George H.W. Bush (the elder of the two Bushes) ordering the invasion of Panama in mid-December 1989, to depose de facto dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega who was criminally charged in the US for racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering. Surrendering in January 1990, Noriega was flown in shackles to the USA and subsequently tried, convicted, and imprisoned.  

Déjà vu. Maduro’s case hews uncannily all too closely with Noriega’s.

Manifest destiny

Even at its onset, US imperialist adventurism has pushed and shoved beyond its geopolitical locus that is the Western Hemisphere.

Remember the Maine? The US Navy ship that mysteriously exploded and sank in Havana Harbor along with over 200 crewmen in February 1898, providing fodder to sensational journalism that precipitated the Spanish-American War ending with the US’ annexation of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, and the Philippine Islands.   

                                   Grafix from web

Of the US “benevolent assimilation” of the Philippines, President William McKinley bore witness, as it were: “… I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died…”

Thus, Manifest Destiny defined, in the fulness of its three basic tenets – per historian William Earl Weeks – “1) The assumption of the unique moral virtue of the United States; 2) The assertion of its mission to redeem the world by the spread of republican government and more generally the ‘American way of life’; and 3) The faith in the nation's divinely ordained destiny to succeed in this mission.”

Whatever the declared rationale in the US military engagements across nations, most notably in WWI under President Woodrow Wilson and WWII under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the underlying cause remains attributable to its Manifest Destiny.

Thus, President Harry Truman engaging the US in the Korean War in the early ‘50s to defend the “Free World” against communism.

Hence, America in Vietnam in the ‘60s to the ‘70s from President Dwight Eisenhower to Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon – lest its fall to godless communism leads to a domino effect in all of Southeast Asia.   

On the initiative of President GHW Bush, Kuwait was invaded by a US-led coalition in the early 1990s to liberate it from the despot Saddam Hussein.

Under President Bill Clinton, the US engaged in the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 initially with extensive aviation sorties and finally brokering the peace negotiations in Dayton, Ohio that ended it. 

The 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan under President George W. Bush (the younger) started as punitive action in the wake of 9/11 against al-Qaeda and to overthrow the Taliban, turned into a 20-year war of counter-terrorism while propping up an interim power-sharing government – through the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and ended under President Joe Biden in a hasty withdrawal – ala Vietnam – in 2021 with the Taliban retaking power.

Instigated by horrific images of weapons of mass destructions and al-Qaeda fears, Bush the Younger initiated the Iraq War in 2003 under another US-led coalition that finally overthrew and executed Saddam and installed an Iraqi government along republican lines but was immediately beset by an insurgency even after the withdrawal of US forces in 2011 under Obama.

It was under Obama too that US forces re-engaged in the conflict with the ISIS in Iraq in 2014.

No invasion but intrusion into Pakistan of US Navy SEAL Team 6 on May 2, 2011, to kill al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad, culminating the decade-long hunt for the 9/11 mastermind. Obama famously watching the actual operation in real time.

All the presidents but one

Jefferson. Madison. Monroe. McKinley. Roosevelt. Wilson. Roosevelt. Truman. Eisenhower. Kennedy. Johnson. Nixon. Bush Senior. Clinton. Bush Junior. Obama. Trump. Biden. Trump.

Destined or not but definitely most manifest, all these presidents – and definitely even the others – had had their own take of military adventurism on a global scale. Nonetheless, the presidents were no more than mere implements in the great scheme of things: America is in and of itself the very embodiment of imperialism.  

“America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”
How John Quincy Adams, the 6^th US president, must be rolling over in his grave.