According to a keenly observant friend, after every natural calamity like floods, earthquakes, typhoons, landslides and other related occurrences the media and of course those who believe the President does not deserve to be in Malacanang, seem pressure the top executive to personally go to the calamity area. One example was the earthquake that hit the province of Abra in the north last July. The President had just assumed office when it happened.
Initially PBBM did not want to go to the site because he wanted the job of evaluating the damage, undertaking the response, and the relief and rehabilitation done through the functioning bureaucracy. Marcos may have thought how cumbersome it was to assemble and implement the security process if he goes to an area where devastation was massive. But as what had happened the President eventually relented to the pressure and went there bringing a caboodle of his Cabinet secretaries whose agencies are supposed to handle all the responsibilities before, during, and after any major calamity hand-in-hand with local government officials.
As consequence of the President’s visit, the LGU executives went to where the President wanted to get briefed on the situation. This resulted to a temporary abandonment by the heads of local governments and of regional offices of national agencies of their bases or disaster command centers to attend a briefing asked by the President. This temporary vacuum left response operations on the ground level “rudderless” for a while.
During the succeeding disasters the President must have realized that more can be done if secretaries of national government agencies are given full authority under established guidelines, to do what they are supposed to do while the disaster and its immediate impact prevail. Instead BBM took the more convenient and less cumbersome scheme of issuing directives and getting updates on the situation on the ground through virtual meetings including receiving of reports, except of course in the case of the deadly floods in the Maguindanao and Cotabato Provinces where he personally visited and presided a situation briefing.
But again this scheme does not bode well with his critics. Immediately they (critics) bombarded social media with posts such as “During disasters and calamities the President resort to ‘on-line meetings’ but when it comes to parties he is quick to be personally around.”
Frankly, we are at a loss as to what is right as far as these sectors are concerned. Indeed our country can never attain the desired level of development that it so badly aspires because any which way is never the right way for them. And they bludgeon every move the government takes if it does not suit the way they want it.
Poor Philippines.
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This one is almost unbelievable. According to news reports from the National Capital Region, specifically in the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinglupa City, some 7,512 cans of beer were surrendered by inmates (Persons Deprived of Liberty or PDL) at the National Penitentiary early this week during a “thorough” inspection of the prison compound.
The inmates who were said to be in possession of the intoxicating beverages were all from the Maximum Security Compound, according to acting Bureau of Correction Chief Gregorio Catapang. And the cost of each can when sold to the inmates could go as high as one thousand (P1,000.00) pesos.
Is that so? The PDLs, as the jail authorities would want them called now, could be oozing or lying in wads of money. They must be employed by some very enterprising inside “establishments” that can afford to pay the inmates so much that the “merchants” inside are mot hesitant to put a ceiling of their beer in can as high as a thousand pesos.
But what makes our head swirl in disbelief is the fact that the 7,512 cans will require a giant delivery truck to bring them to the vicinity of the prison facilities. And if the truck is not allowed entry inside the compound, it would mean hundreds of PDLs will have to get out to hand carry the toxicant inside. Definitely the crowd of inmates outside carrying cartoons of beer will create an unusual scene.
There is therefore no reason the scene can escape the observant “ Mariteses” around. How come it seemingly did escape? That it took a new Prison management to assume to have the contraband “discovered” is intriguing.
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The contractor of the Samal Island-Davao City (SIDC) bridge project has already started drilling boreholes at the Davao side of the P19 + billion (P23 billion?) project.
Meaning, construction has already started on its first phase. But from what we heard the opposition (not to the bridge project but to its alignment) is still very much around. There is no sign of giving up. The other day we heard on television that the environmentalist groups led by the EcoTeneo still insisting that if the bridge will not be realigned it would mean the end of the long effort to preserve nature including that of the underwater between Davao City and Samal.
They talked of the possibility of seeking legal action if only to pursue their cause even going to the last option – that of filing a Petition for the Issuance of a Writ of Kalikasan with the Supreme Court.
Now, will this controversy have to reach this far? We will possibly know within the next few days.
