PNoy should listen to us…his boss!

 Today, the 4th Aboitiz Invitational Golf tournament kicks off at the Cebu Country Club (CCC) with foreign and local pros vying for the prize money of US$65,000. This golf tournament has been part and parcel of the Asian Development Tour, which was launched in the year 2010 and is aimed to enhance the competitiveness of Asian Tour pros across Asia and the rest of the world. Today, amateur golfers like me will have the chance to play with the top golfers in Asia, which is a great honor and opportunity for us “duffers”. The official Aboitiz Invitational tournament is on July 24-27.

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Again I would like to point out that the floods that struck Cebu over the weekend wasn’t even due to any typhoon or any low pressure area disturbing the Philippines. It was just a plain and simple thunderstorm which can be traced to the problems of the global climate change. For your simple understanding, water is one element that can change its properties. It can be as hard as a rock, drinkable or simply evaporate into a fine mist. But since the polar caps have already melted, this means that the snow has become water vapor and taken into the atmosphere. This is why the rains these days are heavier than our usual rains because where else will those melted snow from the polar caps go…but back to rainwater.

Again I would like to reiterate that the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (LDRRMC) ought to come up with various alert levels from one to five, with five as the highest level. Actually if Mr. Alvin Santillana, Operations Officer of the LDRRMC, did their job thoroughly, they could easily identify the areas where there is constant flooding. Colon Street and the surrounding streets should be tagged as high-priority. In short they should not be reactive in their work but pro-active and prepare for any eventuality. If they see huge dark clouds hanging over the city, they should immediately prepare for rains and the possibility of flash floods or worse.

The areas in Mabolo and the roads around SM City are without any doubt prone to flooding. They should also identify areas in the mountain barangays which are landslide prone. But the key to solving this problem has already been repeated by Mayor Mike Rama, to implement the drainage master plan for Cebu City. This means the Cebu City Council must carefully but quickly look at this drainage master plan and act on it with the highest priority. I just hope that the discussion on the funding of the drainage master plan won’t be bogged down by internal political problems.

It is high time to remind all our newly-elected officials that the elections are over and that those who were elected into office owe their elective seats not to former Rep. Tomas Osmeña or Mayor Michael Rama. It is us, the citizens and constituents of Cebu City who put you in your positions. So we expect you to work feverishly to solve our drainage problems.

If by election year 2016, our drainage problems still haven’t been solved because of lack of funding, then we will find out who is blocking or clogging this problem and campaign against those councilors who would not cooperate in the best interest of Cebu City. I hope we made our stand very clear that politics should be set aside so they can concentrate on solving the problems plaguing our beloved Cebu City.

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We’re supposed to monitor and come up with our own analysis or comments of Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III who made his State of the Nation Address (SONA) yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately our deadline came before he could finish his speech, so we will just discuss this in our next column. If there is one thing that we are getting from the Aquino regime, it is too much propaganda, which means a lot of hot air or plain bull.

A case in point was when the Social Weather Station (SWS) came up once more with a self-serving pro-Aquino survey which they supposedly conducted from Mar. 19 to 22 that showed that a high of 74 percent of the respondents were satisfied with how our democracy works. The same thing goes for Pulse Asia which gave PNoy an increase in his approval rating.

Come now, didn’t we tell you that the Aquino propaganda machinery is full swing dishing out misinformation so that the gullible Filipino will take his propaganda hook, line and sinker? Take the case of SWS, who really cares if their respondents polled from Mar.19 to 22 believed in our democracy? This survey was done long before the May 2013 elections, long before the Automatic Election Systems (AES) watch uncovered the misdoings of the Comelec especially that 6-%-30%-10% result of the last elections. If there is a huge problem with the Aquino regime, they should tell us more about the truth rather than dish out more self-serving propagandas. It’s high time that PNoy listens to us… his boss!

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