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The Search for the Mysterious Merkado CTTO
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The old man in the toga has already blocked me on Facebook. Right now, I'm wondering who is this "reliable source" known as Merkado CTTO. Okay, he spelled it out as CTTO Merkado. CTTO means credit to the owner. However, I prefer to call it Merkado CTTO instead of CTTO Merkado. My reasoning would be that CTTO could easily be edited as the surname Cotto. Maybe, let's call this person Merkado Cotto. The fact that we don't know him reminds me of an incident in the past.
I could remember the late presidential candidate Atty. Miriam Defensor-Santago or MDS for short. She always reminds me of my feisty former economics teacher who chastised me for the better. I'm still thankful for my fierce economics teacher who actually helped me after she had to flunk me. The incident, more than a decade ago, had Atty. Harvey Keh of the Kaya Natin (We Can) movement. It was during the impeachment of the late Renato Corona. There was this Mr. Anonymous source. Man, it really blew up MDS' fuse when Atty. Keh himself made a claim to "good governance".
Man, I recall my former high school economics teacher when MDS ordered the arrest of a certain Mr. Anonymous. These lines crack me up until now:
“You’re acting on anonymous source, every time there is something that requires identification of the source the prosecution says there is no source, it came anonymously. Who is Mr. Anonymous? I just want to ask the PNP (Philippine National Police) and AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) to issue an arrest order against him,” the Iloilo senator said.
I really laughed so hard when the late MDS lost her temper. I'm annoyed whenever people say she's just a crazy disrespectful woman. She lost her temper when the prosecution didn't do their job well. She lost her temper because of what could be spurious sources. How can anything in a trial be sourced by well, Mr. Anonymous or Miss Anonymous? "There was no source, it came anonymous!" is a classic line that I'll never get over with her. How can you prove innocence or guilt when there's no source but it just came from Anonymous. A lot of stupid blog comments these days come under the guise of simply Anonymous or an account called Unknown.
As for the term Merkado, it's pretty much a Filipino word meaning wet market. It's also the Spanish word for market. With the Spanish colonization, Spanish words got mixed with Malaysian words in several Filipino languages. Suddenly, I remembered one of my Chinese language teachers who was also very feisty. That Chinese language teacher of mine said in Hokkien in her class, "Are you selling eggs? Are you selling chicken?" It was because the class was so noisy. I could remember getting scolded by the same teacher for participating in the market-like noise. The same went for my teacher who was pretty much like MDS. A lot of parents may not like her but I respect that teacher until now. I still thank her for having a huge impact in my life.
I guess the best way to interpret Merkado CTTO (or CTTO Merkado, take your pick is) that the source is from the market. I could remember going to the market and gossip is often found there. I guess that arrogant old man in the toga got his sources from a market gossip. In short, it's not a reliable source at all.
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