http://pacificnewscenter.com/local/9285
There is no one on this island more willing to believe and promote any evidence that would expose this archbishop as a conniving liar and a manipulator than me. However, I am NOT going to let Vice-Speaker Cruz get away with this bull crap.
I am also aware that there are those on my side of this war against the evils perpetrated by this archbishop that would rather I shut up about this. But I am NOT going to let Vice-Speaker Cruz get away with this bull crap.
And it is bull crap because of this one sentence from the story:
The vice speaker refused to name who those senators were allegedly taking directions from the archbishop.
Why not, Vice-Speaker Cruz? Why not name them? Could it be because there really weren't any phone calls? Go ahead, call them out. Prove me wrong. I really am so sick of your manufactured reality, the one you make up to make you the victim, the poor suffering servant, the maligned champion of the little people. Bullcrap.
FIRST there is the fact that Cruz' bill was actually successful. It passed and was signed into law. The only difference between his bill as introduced and as passed an signed into law is that the final version excluded institutions from liability. Governor Calvo explains this in his transmittal letter:
In the PNC story, Cruz said that no one came forward after the bill was enacted into law because: "They took out the ability to be able to reach for the deep pockets." Well maybe they did, but it wasn't the pockets of the Archdiocese of Agana "they" were worried about, it was their own.
I know this because it was I, ME, TIM ROHR, who was working directly with the chancery back then to protect the church from what I knew to be only revenge legislation. I had guessed that Cruz did NOT have any "victims" he was championing, that he really did NOT care about any possible victims, but was only - once again - promoting himself as a persecuted champion of the rights of "the little people," and also to hit back at the Church because of its opposition (and very weak at that) to his domestic partnership bill (which failed because it was terribly written, monstrously ambiguous, actually did not provide what it intended, and because Cruz did not do the hard work of soliciting support before introducing it.)
In order to wake up the legislature to the consequences of permitting institutions to be held liable for the crimes of its employees, I wrote a letter to all of them reminding them that this would include the Government of Guam too, and that the potential for harm to government coffers could be many more times that of the archdiocese.
The idea - according to Cruz - that Apuron was "puppeteering" senators on the floor is ludicrous. First, if he was doing so, he did a really bad job since the final version still left himself personally, including his substantial personal wealth, EXPOSED. And second, the idea that Apuron would be smart enough to know how to do that is laughable to anyone who knows him. If there is one thing that has become extremely clear in these past three years it is that Apuron has not been in control of anything for a very long time.
And there is another thing. It was I who had been paying attention to this legislation. Apuron was hardly aware of it, even though I tried to keep him informed personally. In fact, the day it went to the Floor, I met him near the sacristy of the Cathedral and warned him that he had better pay attention to it. He responded with a question about the status of some marijuana initiative.
I heard that Cruz has tried to prove his allegation that Apuron was "puppeteering" on the Floor of the legislature by saying that the senators who received calls from Apuron had shown him their phones with Apuron's name on it. WHAT? That's funny. If they did then that would disprove Cruz' claim that "the senators who added the amendments were doing so at the behest of Archbishop Anthony Apuron."
Can you imagine senators bending to the will of Archbishop Apuron on the Floor of the Legislature via a phone call and then turning to Cruz and proudly showing him their phones???? LOL!
If Apuron's name was on the phone and they actually got a call from Apuron then Cruz' saying that they showed him their phones with Apuron's name is evidence that the senators who supposedly got those calls were mocking Apuron and could NOT have been submissive to his alleged "behest."
I would love this to be true. I would love to prove once again that Apuron is a conniving, narcissistic liar, a manic manipulator, and a crude thief. So go ahead Vice Speaker, help me out, put up some documentation like I do - Not just another story with no names that is scripted to make you look like the persecuted hero. That makes you no better than Apuron.
That said, I support a new initiative to lift the statute of limitations for the same reason I supported the amended version of Cruz' 2011 bill: hold the perpetrators responsible. Then do what Cruz was unwilling to do: THE HARD WORK of actually finding and helping victims, even if it costs you personally.
Vice Speaker Cruz will soon have a demonstration of how that works.
Final Note: When we win this war, and we WILL win it. We are going to win it with THE TRUTH, every single bit of it. For the TRUTH is so AWFUL, that no made up stores will be necessary.
My interview with Patti Arroyo
One more thing. Cruz should be thanking me, the governor, the other senators, the archbishop, or whoever influenced the legislation to exclude institutions and saving his political back side.
In the states, dioceses have had to sell millions of dollars of church property to pay for suits and claims. But people aren't connected to church lands in the states like they are here. Here on Guam, it is the PEOPLE who gave those lands and built those churches, and it is the FAMILIES of those PEOPLE who still attend those same churches built on those same lands that belonged to their ancestors who gave it to the Church. Had the Church been forced to liquidate those properties, properties that many FAMILIES still look upon as ancestrally theirs, the backlash against Cruz would have been vicious and immediate.
Vice Speaker, you are welcome.
And one more thing. The more I think about it the more Cruz' story simply makes no sense. Given Apuron's amorality and willingness to give away archdiocesan property to protect his own back side, why would he "influence" legislation that left himself exposed but not archdiocesan assets? He would have been more than glad to sacrifice church lands to pay for law suits and legal fees than have it come out of his back pocket. We have already seen that!
And one more thing. The more I think about it the more Cruz' story simply makes no sense. Given Apuron's amorality and willingness to give away archdiocesan property to protect his own back side, why would he "influence" legislation that left himself exposed but not archdiocesan assets? He would have been more than glad to sacrifice church lands to pay for law suits and legal fees than have it come out of his back pocket. We have already seen that!
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