Sir Bobby Aboitiz: A knighthood well-deserved!

For tonight’s special presentation on Straight from the Sky, we bring you an honest and frank discussion with Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama on Cebu City’s future. There is no doubt that Mike Rama is the most experienced official to run the affairs of the City of Cebu after Mayor Tomas Osmeña exits in 2010 because he has been Tommy’s Vice-Mayor since he came back into office in the year 2001. Everyone knows that Vice-Mayor Mike Rama is the “anointed one” of Mayor Osmeña. What would the City of Cebu be like under the leadership of Mike Rama? Watch this very interesting no-holds barred interview with Mike Rama on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00PM tonight.

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Last Friday evening, we went to the Casino Español to attend the celebration of the ties of friendship between Cebu (specifically Cebu) and the Netherlands with His Excellency Ambassador Robert G. Brinks gracing the affair. It was the Ambassador’s way of recognizing and thanking Netherlands Honorary Consul Roberto E. Aboitiz for his 30 years in the Consular Service for the Netherlands. I didn’t know that Mr. Bobby Aboitiz was honorary consul for such a long time already.

In his speech, Amb. Brinks exhorted the “tireless efforts in nurturing the ties of friendship between Cebu and the Netherlands under Consul Aboitiz.” I can attest to this not only because of the Haarlemmermeer projects and ties between Cebu City and the Netherlands, but 15 years ago, a group of journalists were given a special fund to open up a newspaperman’s newspaper with a P1 million grant coming from the Netherlands, through the instance of Mr. Bobby Aboitiz. It was then that SunStar Daily columnist Manuel “Jun” Satorre Jr. called me to join the group. We created a new newspaper dubbed “NewsTime Daily”, where I served as a Director and columnist.

NewsTime lasted only for a few years, but we’ve learned our lessons well, that the business of running newspapers cannot be totally left to people within the editorial group. The business group is the heart and life of a newspaper. So NewsTime folded and entered into Cebu’s Journalism history one of the failed newspaper ventures in Cebu. But thanks to the Netherlands, at least we tried, with their full support.

But Amb. Brinks had something up his sleeve. He used the occasion to announce that Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands had conferred upon Honorary Consul Roberto E. Aboitiz a Royal Knighthood in the Order of Orange Nassau in recognition of his outstanding service in all the 30 years as a consul and for his other remarkable achievements and activities for the good of society. This also took Sir Bobby by surprise as he wasn’t told about this until that Friday evening!

True to form, in his impromptu speech thanking the Ambassador for this special recognition, Sir Bobby in turn recognized his man or should I say, his woman Friday in the person of Ms. Zeny Monterola, as she’s the workhorse behind all his consular activities. That’s giving credit where credit is due! We’re proud of Sir Bobby Aboitiz for this recognition in bringing Cebu closer to the Netherlands. While he may be up for retirement this year, I don’t think Sir Bobby is retiring from being an Honorary Consul to the Netherlands, so we expect more things to come.

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That headline printed by the Philippine Star last Friday which blared, “WB-Blacklisted Firms to Rejoin DPWH Bids” tells us how indifferent we Filipinos have become about the stories of corruption. DPWH Undersecretary Manuel Bonoan pointed out that seven of these blacklisted firms were given a 15-day suspension pending investigation. But since nothing has been proven yet, these firms can bid for projects!

Doesn’t these government officials know what is a preventive suspension? This is the least we should expect from DPWH in response to the blacklisting by the World Bank of these firms due to collusion. There was already a Senate investigation on this issue, but as always, those Senate investigations never get into the bottom of those scandals. Those construction firms could never have won those contracts if they only had a DPWH truck driver as their main contact inside DPWH.

Hence all the more should DPWH officials be extra careful in trying to protect their pals who “collude” with them. Allowing these firms to continue dealing with the DPWH gives us the impression that they don’t care anymore about public opinion. Perhaps it is because they know that the Office of the Ombudsman won’t file cases against them anyway, just like the Lamppost Scam.