INDEED the late DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman must have touched a lot of lives during her time at the helm of the agency. No less than the people behind the Davao Multi-stakeholders Group for Energy Concerns (DMGENCO) mostly businessmen, industrialists, professionals. and community residents appear to have a big loss with her recent passing. Our former boss at Davao Light Manuel “Bobby” Orig apprised us of the group’s sadness with the woman’s demise.
It is for this reason that if only to show we are one with the DMGENCO members, we are giving a space for their group’s condolence and its intention to let the late Secretary Soliman’s family know that the DMGENCO is agonizing with them in their loss.
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We’d like to apologize to our readers for not being able to come out with our column yesterday. Everything in us – the body, the mind, the spirit and even the issues we were to tackle – was ready and in place. However, a freak accident denied us the opportunity to do what we normally do – write our piece.
Actually a bamboo groove toppled as early as 5:00 or 6:30 in the morning. The entire groove composed of so many bamboo grass (bamboos are categorized as a kind of grass) fell on the power line leading to our rural residence. The result denied us the power needed to run everything electricity-driven in our house as well as the entire areas affected. In other words, we could not encode in our computer; we lost our Wi/Fi and internet connections. We cannot even call Davao Light as our landline connection is also dependent on the availability of power. That is what we got from getting a PLDT Fiber subscription. And perhaps it is worthwhile to share to our readers that the power outage lasted for about five (5) hours ONLY! So when electricity was back it was already hardest to meet the deadline for submission of our column. So, we decided to forego with at least one day missing in the usual page of the Mindanao Times. We can only hope it won’t happen again as it would also mean the deaths of our stress relievers that were already gasping for oxygen in their pool – our Koi fresh water fishes, a number of them.
May be an ordinance designating specific places for the planting of bamboos should be considered so similar situations can be avoided in the future and there will be no unnecessary wastage of economic and other livelihood activities.
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In our column last Monday (or was it earlier?) we harped on a new political party soon to be launched. The party, one which calls itself the Partido Pilipino sa Pagbabago or PPP (sound familiar) is slated to do its official launching on Monday, September 28, 2021. According to a friend who is privy to the organization and has some close acquaintances in the party hierarchy, the PPP is headed on an interim capacity by a newly molded businessman from north of the Davao Region.
We have no doubt that the guy has only the best of intentions in sacrificing his time, effort and even money to bring together other people like him, non-government organizations, professional groups, and even the many nameless and faceless common men. Perhaps he believes that there could be so many others who had long been wanting for a change in the country’s mode of governance, in the way this should be run, and of course in the choice of characteristics of people who should be on top to oversee the change process.
For now that the launching of the party is not yet done, we’d rather withhold mentioning names of those who sacrificed to jumpstart the efforts in organizing the group. But for a starter we want to share what the PPP organizers claim as the realities that prompted its creation.
- The clear attainment of the change introduced by the government and the need to sustain it. Meaning the swift, sustainable, genuine and meaningful change in the economic, political, cultural, and social situation of the Filipinos that are not only noticeable among the rich, the oligarch, the politarchs or those people who have long been holding political power.
- The unprecedented broad and almost total confidence of the people in the government especially on matters of curbing criminality and corruption, addressing the Mindanao conflict, infrastructure, social services, non-aligned international policy and confronting terrorism;
- Serious consideration for a more inclusive and appropriate form of government, notably a Filipino style of Federalism;
- The continuing issue of patronage politics controlled and propagated by traditional politicians, the politarchs, and the oligarchs; and…
- The need to sustain the change introduced until this becomes institutionalized in both society and government.
What caught our attention though is the movers’ getting biblical in disclosing their inspiration to push for the institutionalization of the genuine change. Quoting the bible in Luke 5:37 they say: “And no one pours new wine into old wineskin. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.” Well, for sure the PPP movers have their way of interpreting the Luke lines to suit their purpose.
Now whether this quoting of a biblical passage will do justice to the ends the party intends to attain we have no idea for now. But what we can read between lines written in the manuscripts for the soon-to-be launched party is that it has no intention to field its own candidates in all elective positions this coming May 2022 elections. Rather, it is clear that they have plans to collaborate with parties whose candidates the movers might have seen espousing similar advocacies that the PPP has.
We think we would be able to intelligently discern the wholeness of the party principles after its official launch this coming Monday in Davao City.
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