This is what we have come to

Published: November 30, 2014 at 6:44pm

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Joseph Muscat shaking hands

In a normal country, I would have been able to report the chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology to the prime minister who appointed him, and write formally to the board of directors at the Council to register a complaint about their chairman’s abusive behaviour.

But this is not a normal country, so I know up ahead that it would be pointless, and that the prime minister would actually enjoy laughing with his not-fit-for-purpose appointee about his highly inappropriate behaviour because they have a common ‘enemy’ and they do not care about standards, systems or even the reputation of the Malta Council for Science and Technology. The man is cracked. He sends me a messages that are completely inappropriate for somebody his age and in his position, and when I don’t reply, he sends another and another and another, with increasing hysteria.

To whom do I report this? I can’t report it to anyone.

That is what we have come to. The chairman of an important state council harassing a journalist with crazy text messages and she can’t report the matter for action to his immediate superior, the prime minister, or even to his fellow directors at the Council.

This isn’t ‘Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’ we are talking about. This is the chairman of a state council. It is shocking that this country accepts with such apathy the appointment of unstable people to public office and then continues to see them as the person when they should be seeing them as their role.

For comparison’s sake: would anybody shrug and take it for granted if the president of Malta repeatedly sent me slews of crazy messages? If the prime minister did so? If Helena Dalli did? Of course not. But they take it for granted from the MCST chairman on the basis that he’s abnormal. So it follows: if he is abnormal, then why do we accept the fact that an abnormal person has been given public office.




52 Comments Comment

  1. H.P. Baxxter says:

    Publish the messages and let the people decide.

    Besides, any of us can make a professional assessment.

    As well as having enormous fun into the bargain.

  2. adrian says:

    You should start publishing his text messages. Maybe someone will notice that his behaviour is not appropriate.

    [Daphne – This is unbelievable. What sort of country is this? The very fact of a state council chairman repeatedly texting a journalist (or anybody else for that matter, but especially a journalist) with unwanted messages is problematic, regardless of the content.]

    • Adrian says:

      This is a sick country and is getting sicker every day.

      • H.Galea (NRK) says:

        That the country is sick does not worry me in the least – it is the prognosis which worries me stiff. Povra Malta f’hix gaghbuk.

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      I think there’s a very real public interest in having the text messages published. This man is the chairman of an extremely important state council. Citizens need to know who they’re dealing with when dealing with the council.

      You have stated repeatedly that for public officials, public and private life cannot be put in separate compartments. I happen to think that neither can the public organisation from the people who run it.

  3. Alexander Ball says:

    Why did Lawrence Gonzi put him there?

    [Daphne – Lawrence Gonzi didn’t put him there now. Joseph Muscat did. All politically appointed chairmen tender their resignation after a general election and must be reappointed by the incoming prime minister (or not). Muscat reappointed him.]

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Because he never understood what MCST should do.

    • Antoine Vella says:

      Pullicino Orlando was always a rather shifty character but, with time, his behaviour has become progressively more erratic and unstable. Today he is much worse than he was 4-5 years ago.

  4. FP says:

    Is he feeling threatened in any way?

    Loser.

  5. Ruby says:

    But what can the prime minister do? As I see it, if he had to sack all the persons which are not suitable/abnormal he’ll end up with very few people around him. Very sad situation indeed.

    [Daphne – He can replace them with normal people who won’t bring down the institutions they represent and harm his own image, which seems to be the most pressing priority for him.]

    • Makjavel says:

      If the prime mister starting sacking these unsuitable persons , he will have to end with himself , after sacking the rest.

  6. Maximus Aurelius says:

    Daphne, what you should do is put the messages on your blog ad verbatim and shame this sorry excuse for a man. Malta is going to the dogs.

  7. Banana republic ... again says:

    May be you could report it to the head of the anti-cyber-bullying lobby. What’s his name now?

  8. P Shaw says:

    Remember when he was launching a campaign on the so-called cyber-bullying? Is there an equivalent for voice and text messages?

  9. Katrin says:

    You could easily block his number if you have one of the newer mobile phone models. Or hit ‘delete’ without reading this crap. If you feel threatened, file a police report (at least like this is on record) and get a restraining order.

    • Caroline says:

      The point is not that Daphne feels threatened. Why should she when she’s had to deal with far worse situations.

      The point is that JPO is unstable and unfit for the role he has been given and that since there is nothing anyone can do (except the person who reappointed him), people just accept it without any further questions. That is the point.

      [Daphne – Thank you, Caroline. I feel like applauding.]

    • Tabatha White says:

      On record.

      Do you mean like Stephen Morrison Smith’s statement?

    • Arnold Layne says:

      That’s hardly the point, is it? The issue is that this public person is sending the messages in the first place.

  10. Freedom5 says:

    MESSAGE TO Manwel Mallia / PM

    You have every opportunity to take the heat off the driver shooting incident. Arraign JPO for cyber bullying Daphne. Take action and protect the person most hated by the Labour Party.

  11. ian says:

    I’m really hoping he pushes your buttons enough for you to publish them and shut him up.

    It would be terribly amusing.

    [Daphne – No, it wouldn’t. There is nothing remotely amusing in a situation in which a man with clear psychiatric issues is in charge of a budget of millions at a state council, and the council itself. And there is nothing amusing about a man of 51 with a history of abuse so bad that two wives have left him, one of them even seeking to have the marriage declared null, harassing yet another woman via mobile phone (a crime), more so when it is the state which pays his phone bill and has probably also paid for the phone itself. Maybe you think it’s amusing because you’re a man? No woman thinks aggression by a man, whatever form it takes, funny or amusing. And it might interest you to note that we find this form of harassment more disturbing than a blow to the face, precisely because it so creepy.]

    • ian says:

      I’m sorry. There seems to have been a misunderstanding. Nothing you mention is amusing and nowhere in my comment to I mention them as amusing. Maybe I should have been clearer.

      The amusing bit would be watching him squirm as his madness goes public. People like Jeffrey hate to be ridiculed even it is their own actions that make them look like fools. They want to act how they like behind closed doors but are embarrassed when it goes public and people laugh at them.

      As you say nothing is amusing about what he did to both his ex wives or what he is doing to you.

  12. Tabar says:

    This is what we have come to.

    Varist comparing PN to a whore who wants her virginity back by doing a hymen operation. Are they all going bonkers.

    Ahjar inrodd is-salib bil-maghqlub.

  13. Honest says:

    Xandar il-messaggi u ibqa ghamel hekk sakemm jieqaf jew xi hadd iwaqqfu.

    Pero dejjem ghandek taghmel rapport lill-Anti Cyber-Bullying u ibqa ghamel hekk sakemm xi hadd ikellmek.

    Tieqafx hawn jew ma tghatiex kazu ghax izjed jaghmilek.

    Ikxfu ma’ kullhadd, hekk jew hekk hemm bl-eluf jaqraw il-posts tieghek.

  14. ciccio says:

    The report needs to be made to that branch of the police which arrested a man who was conducting a one-man peaceful and legitimate protest outside the office of the prime minister, and which ordered that he be taken to Mount Carmel.

    But you have to be ready for a cover-up.

  15. canon says:

    Try the President of Malta.

  16. Mk says:

    Isn’t that a form of bullying. Wasn’t he the one talking against cyber bullying.

    Double standards in everything.

  17. edgar says:

    I am sure that he is annoying you but I would not feel threatened by a drunk, pussy, good for nothing coward.

    Publish his texts and I am sure that he shall start crying.

    [Daphne – You cannot be serious. He is vile and utterly dangerous, plotting and scheming behind people’s backs like the coward he is. Of course I’m not scared of him on a PHYSICAL basis. I’m much bigger and taller than he is.]

  18. Tabatha White says:

    This is the question I have been asking.

    If there is something to report there is no one to go to.

    Strategy not justice is the dirty game being played.

    I will also repeat that they have been playing it since before the elections.

  19. H.Galea (NRK) says:

    Just publish the trash … please continue to let the general public appreciate what is going on.

    I do not agree to ‘block’ his works – just let him void his bowels, only to make him eat the whole lot at the opportune time – do not worry – the day will dawn – and that’s for sure.

  20. ChrisM says:

    Sounds like when Franco Debono was sending Lawrence Gonzi hundreds of SMS’s at all times of the day. Birds of a feather and all that.

  21. Persil says:

    Perhaps he told you that he loves you,Daphne.Publish the texts and I am sure he will stop.But is this a personal matter,Daphne?As a chairman and a full time single father has he time for these things?

    [Daphne – Of course he did, I don’t think. He is not a single father, let alone a full-time one. His son and daughters are adults, the oldest in her mid-20s and not even in Malta, and they always had a mother.]

  22. matt says:

    Sadly, the people still applaud this government.

  23. Alexander Ball says:

    Is his mobile paid for as part of the job?

    Then it’s a case of misusing public dosh.

  24. Joe Attard says:

    The idiot is clearly deranged. However it is quite amusing how certain people are now taking exception to his antics when they would gladly have given him a pat on the back a few years back when he was throwing similar tantrums in public against the LP as a PN MP.

    [Daphne – The missing bit of logic in your argument is that people didn’t have the information then that they do now. I was one of them. Though Pullicino had been in politics for years, I never took any notice and barely registered his name or face. It was when he came to attention repeatedly at a national level that his psychological problems became evident, and awareness intensified as he shoved himself onto every television programme going. It didn’t take me long to grasp the situation after that and I quickly understood that you can give no quarter to a man of that nature and must close the door on him completely because he regards anything else as a sign of weakness and permission to get into your face all the time.]

  25. Viva il- Farizej says:

    Publish his messages and let us have (yet another) good laugh at his expense.

    [Daphne – This is getting extremely irritating. Abusive situations are not amusing. Jeffrey Pullicino is not James Mercury Mifsud. He is executive chairman of a state council, handling a budget of millions and putting his friends and associates on the payroll there. It’s not just Lara Boffa either.]

    • Viva il- Farizej says:

      You’re right of course. It’s no joke. I apologize for sounding insensitive. I hope the messages are not threatening you physically.

      [Daphne – No, I can deal with those sorts of threats. It’s mental illness that I can’t handle. I really don’t agree with those people who say that mental illness should be treated no differently to, say, cancer. People with cancer are in control of their behaviour and are not harmful to others. People whose mental illness is untreated are not in control of their behaviour and they are harmful to others. The subconscious should never be ignored. When I looked at his messages this evening, I had a sudden unbidden mental image of Jack Nicholson cackling madly in The Shining.]

  26. Sun Tzu says:

    Publish them. And together with them publish some of the (correct) opinions of him expressed by Alfred Sant and which appeared in print. It would help us realise the how bizarre the relationship is between Pullicino Orlando and the PL.

  27. Painter says:

    I think that you should take a screenshot of the messages he sent you and publicize them.

    [Daphne – Certainly not. The correct thing to do in this situation is to file a report against him with the police and make that fact known, which I have done. This man has a long history of abuse. His messages are not cracked in a funny, amusing way. They are cracked in a disturbing way.]

    • Viva il- Farizej says:

      Maybe it was the Earl Grey having its effect.

    • Painter says:

      I have no doubt that this guy is a bit disturbed. The fact that he thinks of himself as an 18 year old with that cake is proof of that.

      • Gahan says:

        Refined people who supposedly brew Earl Grey would only settle for a proper almond fruit cake.

        Put everything into perspective: a proper small personalised almond fruit cake would set him back around €40, so he spent half that money on a sponge cake.

        And probably he normally drinks Te’ tal-Iljun pretending it is Earl Grey which he scrounges from hotel rooms and uses it in special occasions, or he buys it from the airport and slips the bill in with the Malta Council for Science and Technology travel expenses.

        He also wears the same dirty pink trousers.

        My conclusion: he’s tight fisted.

        Qammiel.

  28. David says:

    Speak to Joseph Muscat if he really bothers you. You might be in for a surprise.

    [Daphne – I have filed a report with the police.]

  29. Joe Fenech says:

    You’d better report him to a psychiatrist. The man is profoundly sick and suffering from some kind of personality disorder.

  30. Wilson says:

    Get another line or just have him blocked off. I wouldn’t, just make sure the damn thing has enough memory to keep all evidence plus two separate backups – all in the name of a future publication including times, frequency and content. They always come in useful.

  31. Gahan says:

    Ask the police to stop him from sending you messages and phone calls.

    I had someone annoying me with anonymous phone calls and the police, after finding the “private number” (a long process) asked me whether I want to proceed against the caller in court.

    The mobile phone is being misused.

    I don’t know whether it can be done, but try blocking his number from your service provider.

  32. Mare Azzurro says:

    Can’t you report him to the police?

    [Daphne – I did so yesterday evening.]

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