Two bus accidents and only one company suspended?

Last Monday's news in the Philippine Star Business section was quite a revelation to many people, as it is proof that even if our economy is stable, it doesn't translate to foreign investments pouring into our country. Think about it, the only bright side that the Aquino Regime has been touting to the media as its success story is that the Philippine economy is doing better than most ASEAN countries or even in Asia.

But as we've been writing for the past two years, this eco-nomic success is not due to the perception that Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III is squeaky clean of corruption, but rather it is due to the billions that the Overseas Foreign Workers, who have been working hard in foreign lands away from their family, contri-bute to our economy so that they could put food on their tables. This is the reality that has been going on for decades and it has nothing to do with any economic effort done by the Aquino Re-gime.

This is the Philippine Star Business section's headline re-port:"Phl ranks low as investment destination among SEA coun-tries." Frankly speaking, the business groups in the country and even here in Cebu already knew this as a fact. We can never be a tiger economy for as long as foreign investors do not find the Philippines an attractive destination. If at all, our best bet in the last 10 years are the Business Process Outsourcing industry, which has taken advantage of the Filipino's capability to speak English.

Yet the Department of Education continues to muddle the minds of our school kids by insisting that they should be learning how to speak "Filipino" which we know is 99.9 percent Tagalog. Whether you like it or not, learning to speak Tagalog isn't going to land you a well-paying job, especially if you are looking for a job in call centers because Tagalogs have a different accent than Cebuano. Just let someone say "Apple, Bicycle or Beetle" and you will know where he comes from.

As we've also known, the Aquino Regime has given Cebu nothing in infrastructure development. Without infrastructure to ease traffic jams, and with our electricity rates the second highest in the world, it is time we asked ourselves how do we convince for-eign direct investors to invest in the Philippines? Gads! We were even beaten by Laos in ASEAN!

Well, the Aquino Regime has less than three years to go and we can no longer hope to get anything from them. Sure the DOTC recently bid out the Mactan Cebu International Airport and Mega-wide with their Indian partners who had the lowest bid. So say goodbye to our dreams of Mactan Airport becoming the next Changi  Airport. Gads, India is not even in the top 20 airports in the world, according to the World Airport Awards! India is not even in the top 50 list, while the best of the best Changi did try to bid to win MCIAA. Is this the Aquino legacy for Cebu?

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That horrific bus accident in the Skyway in the South Luzon Expressway with the Don Mariano Bus Lines that killed 18 pas-sengers and wounded 21 passengers is symptomatic of the prob-lems plaguing the land transportation industry, where there are still no special or separate driver's licenses for bus drivers to truly turn them into real professional drivers.

We saw the CCTV footage of this bus accident and you can clearly see that the bus was speeding on a very wet road that it began to hydroplane, which then made the bus swerve from side to side and then the driver lost control of the bus which rammed the railings of the Skyway and plunged into the road below, hitting a closed van. The overturned destroyed bus had tires that were totally worn out and bald, this is why the bus hydroplaned on a wet road.

But while we should blame the bus driver for overspeeding, the Don Mariano Bus company cannot be blameless for scrimping on tires. The SLEX, too, should be blamed because it is a closed or controlled roadway, where vehicles and buses have to pay a toll. They could assign their traffic enforcers to put a CCTV just to check tires and prevent those vehicles with bald tires from using the Skyway.

Meanwhile, Winston Ginez, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board chairman, suspended the Don Mariano Bus Lines and he even personally delivered the suspension order himself, where it was revealed that the Don Mariano Bus Line had seven franchises. What we are looking at here is corruption staring at us in our faces.

Right here at home, another Ceres Bus has met an accident that killed two people and injured 32 others. But strangely the LTFRB has not slapped Ceres Bus with a suspension order. How come? How many deaths should the LTFRB require before they suspend erring buses? If you ask me, it is the corruption inside the LTFRB that allows these rolling coffins to operate.

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