Saturday, November 9, 2013

INCONGROUS WORDS OF A NATIONAL PRESIDENT IN TIME OF NATIONAL CALAMITY


By Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy 10/11/2013

A general shot shows fallen trees and destroyed houses in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, eastern island of Leyte on November 9, 2013. One of the strongest typhoons on record killed more than 100 people as savage winds and giant waves flattened communities across the Philippines, authorities said on November 9 while corpses lay amid the devastation. (Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)

At times of a national calamity, the people are looking upon a leader who will guide them through recovery and reconstruction, not from a president who will put the blame to someone or something  else if things got bad.

Philippine authorities had expressed confidence on Friday that only a few people had been killed, citing two days of intense preparation efforts led by President Benigno Aquino.

But things went haywire in the parts where the storm made its first landfall. More than a thousand were killed.

Aquino said on Saturday night it appeared some communities had not heeded the warnings.

“I hesitate to say this, but it seems that Tacloban was not that prepared, shall we say, compared with other areas,” he told reporters in Manila.

It will be very interesting if this was uttered in lapsus, or it was just that the president has the habit of putting the blame on someone when things does not go according to his wishes.

It is clear that the country has prepared for the coming of a typhoon, but surely, not even this was enough to prevent the unexpected. The country has sustained the onslaught of a storm of class 5 hurricane. The Philippines is on the natural path of storms and typhoons in past. But all the past atmospheric disturbances has nothing to compare with the monster storm that lashed the country this time. The president putting the blame on the victims themselves demonstrated his callousness.


But let us be reminded that we cannot blame nature on the tragedies it has caused. Since storms are a natural phenomena, no human planning could control it. Let us put an end to blames. Something went wrong. People died and properties are wrecked, but it was not nature’s fault, nor it is the people who are to blame because they died.

Now,, Mr. President, who’s next to blame because a storm has wrecked your plans,  surely not your predecessor?

At this point, the people including the farflung OFWs themselves are mobilizing to aid the victims. That’s gerat! But what little the people could afford to help will not be enough for the giant reconstructions that is coming. This reconstruction will need  vast amount of money. The government has no reason to say there are no funds.

The funds are there in form of the President’s DAPand the Congressmen’s PDAF, and that is no mean amount. It must be funneled into this reconstructions.

But mind you, dear  honorables! The people do not want to hear that you are contributing your hoarded pork barrel to buy the votes of the people! We do not want you to use it to beautify yourselves! The country want that money back and it must be given back to the people in this reconstruction of the heavily devastated areas! And it must not be distributed to false NGOs who will just nominate crooked construction companies to build low quality projects like roads without steel reinforcement that leads to nowhere or structure made of low quality concrete!


Now, let us talk of rebuilding the country and the nation, Mr. President.


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