The PDAF that Malacañang assiduously fought for, is dead. The Honorable, The Supreme Court killed it. Congress says, it will now be without any money to pay for scholarships of their poor, indigent constituents. Perhaps, those poor children and youth will then be asked by their dishonorable Congressmen and Senators to stop studying, we will never really know. Although, the money man, Secretary Florencio Abad, says they are looking for ways to get add on funds - or as Senator Franklin Drilon says, "supplemental funds."
This is good for the country, but not for Mr. Aquino the 3rd. What to do? Señor Aquino de Tercera, said Senador Francisco Tatad, must go now. in his column at Manila Standard:
"Amanpour’s interview defied description. I thought my vocabulary was wide enough to allow me to describe the interview with adequate precision, but no, I couldn’t. I could not find the right word for it. Unreal, surreal was simply not good enough, there must be another word for it. Amanpour’s long experience in covering wars, rebellions, disasters had not sufficiently hardened her to be able to suppress her emotion in describing the humanitarian ordeal, but Aquino looked completely detached, uninvolved, unfeeling, unaffected by the incredible human tragedy that has covered the world with grief and pain.
"Aside from a suppressed half-smile that had no place in that conversation, Aquino was totally expressionless as he mechanically answered Amanpour’s probing questions like a sixth grader who had memorized a script and tried to spit it out without understanding what he was saying. Asked how he would reassure his people in the face of the terrible calamity, Aquino said typhoons were not an unusual occurrence in the Philippines, and that “we have been able to demonstrate as a government and as a people collectively that we take care of each other. And that the government’s immediate response, I think, has been reassuring to the vast majority of our people.”
This was not just a terrible misreading of the sentiment on the ground but a pure and simple lie. The Aquino government remains paralyzed, period. Instead of admitting and assuming responsibility, Aquino tried to pass it on to the local government unit, whose structures and facilities, if any, had been totally washed out. “We are now trying to fast-track the situation where the national government takes over this local government function,” Aquino said. A long week has passed, and Aquino is still “trying to fast-track” the appropriate response?
"The survivors are looking up to heaven, the dead are piling up, and the death toll has been estimated at as much as 10, 000, said Amanpour. What could Aquino say to that? “About 2,500 is the number we are working on as far as deaths are concerned,” Aquino said, as though he was talking of cattle or bangus fingerlings. A more sensitive president would probably have said, one death is one too many even in the worst tragedy, and he was hoping and praying the death toll could be kept as low as possible. But he showed no sign he was talking of human lives, not mere statistics, cattle or fingerlings.
"Amanpour asked about his moral responsibility as President. “Clearly, I don’t know whether you will agree,” she said, “but the way you respond or your government responds to this terrible devastation will probably define your presidency. Many have talked about how much efforts have gone in, how much reform you have done, how much work you have done against corruption, but many people might end up judging you on how your government has responded. What do you say to that?”
"He missed the question altogether. He answered: “I think you can ask all the governors, for instance, of the areas that have been saying that our making them aware of the dangers that were forthcoming from this typhoon enabled them to move their population from danger areas to safer areas and thereby minimize casualties. A lot of them, with the exception of Leyte province, Eastern and Wetern Samar, have reported that practically well, one or two casualties or even zero casualties, when normally when we have a typhoon you will also have ships that were traveling that would have sunk, casualties in the hundreds probably didn’t merit too much attention.”
"The truth is none of those other areas were hit as badly as Leyte and Samar.
"I was waiting for Amanpour to say: “You’re truly for the birds, Mr. President.” But she was extremely courteous to the very end, and ended the interview before it became cruel and unusual punishment to the viewer.
"After listening to the interview, I felt I had to apologize to the religious congregations that had heard me earlier in Cebu. At the request of Sister Maria Lirio Gavan, SPC, chairperson of the convention, I had spoken about “Our Hope for a Better Philippines.” I had tried to give an extensive lecture, but failed to mention one important point. I am now convinced that Aquino’s immediate departure from the presidency is a conditio sine qua non for the country’s recovery from the recent disasters, and for the building of a much better Philippines." More > >
By now, you’ve probably heard of that ill-disguised attempt to absolve President Noynoy Aquino and his government of any blame for the disaster in Tacloban City and other areas, which is couched in language that seeks to reproach you for not being civic-spirited enough to help the victims: Shut up and just pack relief goods. More > >
There will be no tears. If indeed Simeon Benigno Cojuangco Aquino the 3rd will go, he won't be missed. His time has come and everyone knows how badly spent those years of stay in Malacañang were for many people: the victims of the fouled-up hostage crisis in Manila, the Zamboanga Siege people who lost loved ones as well as their houses and livelihood, the Boholanos and Cebuanos who were struck by Boholindol and Cebulindol, and now the people of 9 Regions of the Philippines who were badly hit by Typhoon Yolanda.
All are victims, in the very same way that too many were rendered helpless during the term of the late President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino when around countless people were injured and 300+ were trapped in debris during the 16 July 1990 killer earthquake. 23 persons were immediately accounted for as dead after the dust died down, but many people were looking for their missing relatives everywhere.
The Mt. Pinatubo eruption in June 1991, 847 were instantly killed as the roaring volcano's ash, rocks, lava and lahar took everything to Kingdom come that were in its path.
The Ormoc flash floods on the other hand where no less 8,000 were killed in a flash. The rampaging waters from the mountain range bordering Ormoc and the tidal wave from the sea both conspired to take away thousands of precious lives as well as valuables and houses, leaving a wide swath of destruction in its wake.
This was compounded by the stampede of logs, rocks and tons of soil from a man-made quarry-like pit on top of a large mountain where allegedly treasure hunting was being stage managed by powers-that-be. The treasure hunters did not bother to fill up the giant hole after leaving the digging site; when the huge torrents of rain came, the hole filled up and gave way, creating an avalanche of mud, stampeding tree trunks and everything that the force of the rushing porous substance could carry.
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