Still no investigation of Comelec purchases

For our special presentation on our talk show Straight from the Sky, my TV crew and I went to the General Aviation for an inside look at the Aviatours. On August 18, our good friend, Capt. Jessup Bahinting and his co-pilot Kshitiz Chand, flew DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo from Mactan to Naga City, but their Piper Seneca II instead diverted to the nearby Masbate City airport for an emergency landing… but somehow the plane crashed and all three perished, except for Robredo’s aide, Sr. Insp. Jun Abrazado.

While the nation went on official mourning for the late DILG Secretary, we in Cebu also mourned the deaths of Capt. Jessup and his Nepalese co-pilot Chand. Suddenly there were reports sent by anonymous sources that perhaps the Seneca II was using bad fuel… which later Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) Director General William Hotchkiss II debunked. But that didn’t stop the rumors from churning out more misinformation.

Then there was that news report from The Freeman that Capt. Jessup’s pilot license had expired, a report that was vehemently denied by Aviatours officials, which later on, proved totally wrong because Capt. Jessup’s pilot license was renewed, but CAAP did not encode it yet. Clearly, someone or a group of people inside CAAP was out to discredit the dead Capt. Bahinting, who can no longer refute their lies.

Then came another story… that the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) of the Seneca II wasn’t working. But how do we know that it wasn’t… or that the satellite that was supposed to receive that signal did not get hold of this signal? Could the ELT been damaged in the crash? We don’t know. But the insinuations were crystal clear… that the same group inside CAAP was trying to destroy the reputation of Aviatours or Capt. Jessup Bahinting.

Finally, there was that report that Capt. Jessup flew the plane not on a charter, but as part of the commercial pilot training of Chand…, which is why Capt. Jessup’s body was found on the right side of the plane. But no one told us that they retrieved the body of Capt. Jessup on the right side of the inverted aircraft, which means… he was on the left side of the plane.

Clearly, these were unfounded insinuations designed to pin the blame of this crash to the highly-experienced Capt. Jessup. But no one even talked about wind shear, a worldwide phenomenon that is feared by many pilots, even on those huge commercial airliners. Pissed by all of these insinuations, I called up Aviatours for this interview and they allowed me to go into the Aviatours hangar and even take shots at the other two Piper Seneca IIs that they still have.

To give us an inside look at Aviatours, we have Ms. Jemar Bahinting, the daughter of Capt. Jessup who has taken over as Chief Operation Officer of the company. She also tells us about her relationship with her father. With us also are Capt. Antonio Jureidin, Director of Training and Flight Operations of Aviatours together with Capt. Thakuria “Capt. Raoul” Tirhankar, Chief Pilot for Multi-engine aircraft, who usually flew the Piper Seneca II that crashed off in Masbate. So watch this very interesting and informative show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 p.m. with replays on MyTV channel 28 on M-W-F.

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Finally, the chips are down, One Cebu Party will have as its standard bearer for the 2013 elections, Rep. Pablo John Garcia for Governor and former Danao City Vice-Mayor Ramon “Boboy” Durano, IV as his running mate. It is too early to tell how this tandem would fare during the 2013 elections… more so that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be using the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS), which is notorious for its easily “tweaked” to cheat in the elections. Yes, I already warned both Rep. PJ Garcia and Boboy Durano of this possibility, so we’ll just have to continue banging on the doors of the Comelec until they show some kind of transparency.

At this point in the game, when Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III appointed Ma. Lourdes Sereno as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, one of her first acts as Chief Justice was to allow the Filipino people to look at her Statement of Assets, Liabilities & Net Worth (SALN) as a new beginning for the Judiciary. But how come no one from the Comelec wants to show their SALNs to the Filipino people?

What gets my gall is that, the Comelec was recently exposed by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano for questionable purchases for their Baguio City Mansion, wherein, they purchased king size beds for P95,000 and queen size beds worth P85,000. When this irregularity was brought to the attention of Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes, he immediately issued a statement that this purchases were “not overpriced” but luxurious. In these harsh times, the Comelec should never show to the people that they are living in luxury, courtesy of the people’s money. So Ombudsman… still no Comelec investigation?

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