Cha-cha and the SK abolition

An Asiana Airlines Flight 214 Boeing 777-200 from Seoul crash landed at the San Francisco International Airport runway last Sunday and we could see the lightning quick response to this accident, which thankfully only had two fatalities. Hopefully our Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) could learn some lessons on how to react during accidents, unlike what happened with that Cebu Pacific Airlines Airbus 320 in Davao City just a little over a month ago.

In the Davao incident CAAP officials immediately made public statements right on the very next day that this accident was caused by pilot error. Such statements speak of the unprofessionalism plaguing CAAP, where its top officials could not stop issuing statements until the formal investigation was over. In the Asiana Airlines accident, we saw the Asiana Airlines CEO expressing his apologies for the accident, while American Aviation authorities refrained from making statements until the airplane’s blackbox is recovered and analyzed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Speaking of the NTSB, perhaps it is time that the 16th Congress should focus its attention on one glaring problem that our nation has been facing… our lack of our own National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) which is an independent body tasked to investigate, air, land and sea disasters. I know that CAAP officials too want Congress to create the NTSB… and let’s see if Congress would give this a priority this year.

Still on Congressional matters; for the nth time, allow me to say that I support the calls for Charter changes (cha-cha) which is spearheaded by no less than our very own House Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte Jr. However if I wasn’t too eager to respond to his call for Cha-cha, it is only due to the fact that we’ve been disappointed over and over again knowing too well that President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino, III would douse cold water to that proposal as he still doesn’t want to change the Constitution named after his mother.

What do we need Charter changes? We can give you thousands of reasons why and one of them is the need for political reform. We read last week a news headline, “Comelec Supports Abolition of SK Polls.” I too have been writing articles seeking to abolish the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK), which was created at the height of the Marcos dictatorship in order to introduce politics to the Marcos children… notably Ms. Imee Marcos.

I honestly don’t know why the SK was continued even in the 1987 Cory Constitution, but 27 years after the EDSA Revolt, now I think I have a general idea why our political establishment kept the SK. Because they can use the SK to teach our youth their selfish kind of politics… where their children or relatives get into the SK as the breeding ground for political dynasties. But how can we come up with better politicians if our present crop of politicians needs to reform themselves?

There is no doubt that the Filipino people removed an unwanted and unlamented Marcos dictatorship in EDSA. But the Filipino people were conned into believing that EDSA would bring about a political reform that would have been inclusive to all Filipinos. But instead, the Spirit of EDSA was hijacked by power hungry traditional politicians who created a Constitution that virtually cemented their vise grip control over the Philippine Islands. Like it or not, these politicians are using the SK to train their siblings to “inherit” their political positions and train them to embrace the cheating machinery perpetrated by the Comelec.

It is for this reason why no less than “PNoy” doesn’t want to change the 1987 Constitution because he is scared that it would spell the end of their political rule, which has been going on for decades. This is why all the more we must clamor for Cha-cha and get rid of those political dynasties ruling our nation.

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Today the Supreme Court (SC) tackles one of the most controversial issues that ever happened in this country… the Reproductive Health (RH) Law, where petitioners questioned its constitutionality. As we already said before, we already exhausted all avenues on the pros and cons of the RH Law… now it is the time for the Justices to decide once and for all whether they are going to protect the weak, the defenseless and the unborn from state policies that do not reflect the culture of the Filipino people? Abangan!

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Exactly a week ago, we had a special dinner at the fabulous Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort & Spa upon the invitation of our good friend Ms. Mildred Amon so she could introduce their new Italian chef for Acqua, Chef Gianfranco Pirrone, who comes from Sicily. Chef Gianfranco prepared a very unique Sicilian dish that only a real Siciliano could cook. Kudos to the Shang!

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