God has a future for unwanted children

I did my eulogy on the passing of the Digital Age’s icon Steve Jobs in my Friday column in The Freeman, but what I did not expect was that the top two newspapers in this country headlined his passing with “iSad” which gives us an idea that even in a 3rd world country like the Philippines, Steve Jobs made an impact in our lives. Twenty-five years ago when I began my journalistic career, I found the typewriter quite difficult to use; hence I was one of the first people in the media to use a computer. Being a techie in those days, I learned about the Apple Computer, but thought that it was only for computer freaks to play with. Hence we used the cheaper kind of computer.

While my sister was now using her Mac, it was only in 2001 when I got my first Apple product… the iconic iPod, which today I replaced with the iTouch and finally I got myself a MacBook. It was then I realized that Mac computers were not only state-of-the-art and very user friendly it was also virus-free! So I was hooked on a Mac whenever Steve Jobs launched a new product, I made sure I watched it live on TV. But in death, we learned more about how Steve Jobs came into this world… as an adopted child.

Yes, his mother Joanne Schieble was a young unmarried college student who found out that she was pregnant. Rather than have the child aborted, she had him adopted… and in 1955 Paul and Clara Jobs adopted a baby boy named Steven, who never got to know his biological father. But then in the ’50s an unwed mother had few options. However this story would have been different if it happened today where abortions are funded by the US Government and contraceptives as easy to get as chewing gum.

While Steve Jobs was far from perfect, like he dropped out of college, when he became filthy rich, he was never known as a philanthropist. But then these are the character traits of geniuses. For us Mac users, we know that Steve Jobs should be in God’s iCloud up there. But for many of our anti-RH friends, the life of Steve Jobs is one of the best examples why we should not abort unwanted children because when they grow up, God always has a special place for them in this world and Steve Jobs is our best example.

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I was too busy to watch the Senate investigation on the alleged Behest loans purportedly done by the previous Board of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). But let me remind you that this Senate hearing was aimed at finding out whether or not businessman Roberto Ongpin had any links to First Gentleman Mike Arroyo as that was what the media reported before the Senate hearing was conducted. But reading the report of The Philippine STAR, one can conclude that the Senators did not find any such links between Bobby Ongpin and the First Gentleman.

Sure, my good friend, Sen. Serge Osmeña III asked the poignant question “Is there a big man behind Roberto Ongpin?” Pure speculation that could not be proven, but for the skeptic, the doubts will always remain, much in the same way that we can ask whether or not there was a “big man” behind the assassination of the late Ninoy Aquino Jr. Behest loan or not, what we also learned from that report by Rey David was that the DBP profited handsomely from that loan to Ongpin. So now we shift to another issue, “insider trading”. If you ask me this is similar to what they call forum shopping in judicial parlance, the hunt for FG is shifting to insider trading.

I fully concur with the opening statement of Blue Ribbon Committee Chairman Teofisto Guingona III for the Senate to get into the bottom of why DBP lawyer Atty. Benjamin Pinpin committed suicide. While they’re at it, they might as well look into that criminal complaint for alleged “coercion, intimidation and threats” filed against DBP chairman Jose Nuñez at the Office of the Ombudsman by DBP senior executive vice-president and chief operating officer Edgardo F. Garcia as this case sound eerily similar to what happened to Atty. Pinpin. Whatever happened to Atty. Pinpin, from my viewpoint, it seems that the DBP is no longer the icon for Good Governance that we used to know just an administration ago.

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I was pleasantly surprised to read last Saturday’s editorial in The Philippine STAR entitled “Potholes along Daang Matuwid” which was almost like the title of my Oct.1st column “Potholes in Pres. PNoy’s Daang Matuwid” where I discussed the DBP issue. But this time the target was the real potholes along S. Osmeña Ave. where our editors bewailed the poor quality of work done by contractors of DPWH. Mind you, this is happening everywhere, like along the Juana Osmeña St. in Cebu City where everytime they fix the road, in less than a week, it already breaks apart. So when will the DPWH truly give us taxpayers high-quality roads we can be proud of?

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