Consuelo de Bobo

Please lang Jamby, MODERATE your GREED!

Hey guys, your responses about my Jamby entry were overwheeeeelming! Kaya’t heto ang latest chapter sa walang-katapusang dramedy sa buhay ng ating paboritong senadora.

Kawawang Jamby.

Not even a grain of local or imported rice was bequeathed to her by her childless Tita Chito Madrigal Collantes, who passed away last March 24, leaving behind her fabulous fortune to other heirs but she.

Jamby could not believe that she wasn’t even mentioned in her tita’s last will and testament. As in nada, zero, zilch, none! And to make matters worse, even her Tita Chito’s maids got a cool fifty grand each.

Aray! Ouch! Araguy! Kasakit naman, naman...

What made Jamby feel like choking her dear aunt to death again was that Tita Chito gave Jamby’s ate, Chuchu Madrigal Eduque, 40 percent of her residuary estate.

Residuary estate is defined in law dictionaries as what is left of an estate after debts, taxes, expenses, and specified gifts have been paid and distributed. It is often the largest portion.

The rest of Collantes’ fortune went to the billionaire’s husband, former Foreign Affairs Minister Manuel Collantes; a grandchild, Vicente P. Gustav Warns; and a niece, Gizela M. Gonzalez-Montinola, whose husband, Bank of the Philippine Islands president Aurelio Montinola, executed Collantes’ will two years ago.

Jamby was not included in Collantes’ will because the late socialite kuno already spent hundreds of million pesos for her failed bid for a Senate seat in 2001 and in her successful campaign in 2004.

Yun naman pala, buhay pa si Tita Chito, nag-advance na ng bienes. Di naman pala kawawa ang pamangking ipinangalan after the iconic socialite!

Dumbo Jumbo – este, Jamby -- of all people, should understand this. But no, she won’t. She’s not in the mood for understanding dead people’s past acts.

“Ang isyu dito hustisya at prinsipyo. Hindi pera ang habol ko dito,” ang sabi ng kuripot na senadora na butas ang sapatos pero gahigante ang mga suot na South Sea pearl earrings, necklace at brooch.

Oh, really? You’re not after the money? Then why grumble and grouse?

So what are you after, Jamby? What justice and principle are you talking about when, instead of mourning for your beloved aunt who bankrolled your entry to politics, you’re contesting her will and slapping and pummeling her in her death bed, her coffin, under six feet of earth?

Now Jamby is saying she’s not truly greedy. She just wants a trinket, a thicker slice – maybe a slab -- of her Tita’s wealth. The entire caboodle of fortune? No, that’ s“not greedy,” in Jamby Dictionary.

Jamby says at the moment the issue is a family affair, but she will release details once it becomes a public affair.

Oh, is she threatening to unfurl in public even her aunt’s dirty linen? Exciting!

“Pag malaman ninyo yung katotohanan, it will be one of the biggest telenovelas. And you will be there to know,” she says, like the teaser of a horror-suspense movie.

She says her relatives hired a professional PR not only to do a job on her but also to dissuade her from going to court to get a piece of her late aunt’s assets.

She however refused to say whether she would contest the validity of her aunt’s will. Eh bakit kaya siya kumuha ng abogado?

Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, a topnotch lawyer, commented that Madrigal’s fight for what she believes is her inheritance is futile because she isn’t Collantes’ child.

Sabi ni JPE, only the children and the spouse of a deceased person have the right to fight for their share of an inheritance.“Unless the civil code has changed, I think she will lose. Eh kung ayaw kang pamanahan, ano’ng magagawa mo?”

“I would not begrudge her claiming something from her aunt. But she is not a forced heir. Being a niece, you are not a forced heir, you do not inherit by law, you inherit by the grace of the deceased,” ang sabi pa ni Manong Johnny. “Maybe her lawyer knows something I have not learned when I was in law school. But unless the Civil Code was changed, I think she will lose.”

Kaya Senadora Jamby: Moderate your greed – just like what former NEDA chief Romulo Neri instructed whistleblower Jun Lozada to tell former Comelec chief Benjamin Abalos.

Otherwise, Neri might think you’re also evil.

Image source: www.comappt.gov.ph/IMAGES/sen._jamby.jpg