A Congressional hearing or whitewash?

I have already written an article calling for a thorough, non-biased and complete investigation of what happened before, during and after super typhoon "Yolanda" struck Central Visayas. But apparently, there are no groups collating any information or doing research on this with the end in view of finding out where things went terribly wrong and how to improve their systems in order to prepare us for any future natural calamities.

Yesterday morning, I chanced upon a Congressional hearing on ANC TV regarding what happened when super typhoon Yolanda struck Central Visayas and caught Rep. Rodolfo Biazon giving a dissertation of these events and giving out suggestions on how to improve the capabilities of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. In fact NDRRMC Executive Director Eduardo del Rosario gave a power point presentation before the Congressional hearing to appraise the Legislative Branch of Yolanda's wrath,

In that power point presentation, we learned that super typhoon "Yolanda" affected 131,615 families, 698,882 persons and damaged 51,144 homes. I don't know whether these figures are accurate or nor or can be validated. I did not see the true number of deaths reflected in that power point presentation. So in the end, we have to rely solely on the NDRRMC for these figures. But these figures must be verified and validated by an independent source. Today the death toll has risen to more than 6,000 dead and a few hundreds missing. But what about those unnamed people who were washed away into the sea when the storm surge retreated back to the sea?

What I found disturbing yesterday was when someone suggested said "We are not here to pin the blame on anyone, we are hear to learn how to improve our systems." When Pres. PNoy Aquino flew to Tacloban City in the aftermath of the disaster, he started to pass the buck to the Local Government Unit, which in effect blames the City of Tacloban for their unpreparedness when the typhoon struck. But we already know that despite his presidential boast the night before the typhoon struck that the NDRRMC was just as unprepared to handle the disaster. So we'd like to know what really is the figure of the dead and missing?

If you ask me, we don't need to go into a debate on what really happened on the ground. We saw all those satellite footage on national and international TV networks like CNN or BBC where we all saw that the local government officials of Tacloban City became typhoon victims themselves.

Meanwhile, Rep. Biazon proposed to enact a law that would delineate responsibilities during typhoons or disasters or where the national government can take over an LGU when it has become incapacitated. In my book, this issue only reveals the flaw of the Philippine Constitution, a constitution that was supposed to be created to address the needs of the Filipino people.

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Speaking of the Constitution, 27 years ago, during the EDSA Revolution, then president Cory Aquino called for a new Constitution hammered only by 49 pro-Aquino people, that created a constitution that literally restored the political elite that controlled the nation before then president Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law and they continue to rule our nation today.

In the 1987 Cory Constitution, we have already more than proven to the Filipino people that the Office of the President could be more powerful than the supposedly two co-equal branches of the Philippine government; the Legislative and the Judiciary. This is the reality that we are living with today; where the son of Tita Cory, PNoy, is more powerful than Marcos when the latter was dictator of the Philippines. Today, PNoy has in his pockets the Senate President, the Speaker of the House and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

In my book we are living in a very a dangerous imbalance, when one branch of the three supposedly co-equal branches of the government is more powerful than the others as they pose a grave danger to our democratic way of life. Such situation should never be allowed to exist...but alas, this is the reality that we are living with today and I dare challenge PNoy to change course now while he still has some time to leave a lasting legacy, otherwise history will be unkind to PNoy. 

If he refuses, then we can already see the writing on the wall…that after the 2016 Presidential elections, the same political names will rule the land and happy days would no doubt be here again. A great majority of the Filipino people can no longer count on the Legislative Branch of the Government, and they only have contempt for the Executive Branch. Hence, we must find a way out of this hopeless situation before it is too late.

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