The sub-stories

Was he simply turning on the light in order to attract the moths of media away from PNoy or was the statement of NAIA General Manager Ombet Honrado a “trial balloon” to see how receptive the public and the media are to the idea of building NAIA Terminal V?

Those who caught Honrado’s suggestion that a new terminal needs to be built, were surprised given how the public’s attention has been glued to the Mamasapano massacre. Some were shaking in disbelief that Honrado apparently has his nose too close to the problem that he can’t see the big picture. But experience has taught me that when someone says something totally off tune or out of timing or counter to public sentiment, it is usually an intentional distraction to draw the moths away.

Every administration has had their respective lightning rod who gallantly stands in the middle of the plaza to draw the ire of the public or the media. In the PNoy administration it has always been the members of the Presidential Communications group and some willing performers. The only difference is that under the PNoy administration there are no significant, colorful, and challenging lightning rods, which is why critics and the public always revert to focusing on PNoy as the original target.

As for GM Honrado’s suggestion to construct a new Terminal V, it only proves that the PNoy administration and the DOTC want monuments even if they are the equivalent of white elephants. First they thumbed down Ramon Ang’s unsolicited advice and offer to build a second runway by saying they can build it themselves. Now they want to build a new terminal that will only provide space to stuff people in but won’t solve the problem. Similar to the Port congestion of Manila, the problem at NAIA is caused by having only one runway, which cause delays in take offs and arrivals, which creates a ripple effect of delays in take offs and arrivals in airports outside Metro Manila.

On the other hand constructing a new second runway would be faster, cheaper, can be started and done immediately and have greater impact in reducing human traffic and air traffic congestion. Honrado’s fears that illegal settlers and right of way will take too long are unfounded. He might be overlooking the fact that the MIAA owns all those lands being squatted on and that forms a threat to aviation security to say the least. Under the PNoy administration the courts and the LGUs have been less tolerant of squatters blocking national and commercial development given the realization that squatters don’t always vote for them. The MIAA and DOTC have all the laws on their side, the real question they need to answer is do they have the political will and balls to do it?

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 The main story was about a family of five that shocked their entire community by committing suicide due to financial woes. It was certainly shocking realizing that they lived in an upper class section of San Juan City and the fact that they valued good education by sending their children to highly competitive Chinese schools aside from the fact that the eldest was reportedly graduating from Ateneo De Manila University.

But a sub-story that popped underneath was the suggestion that the parents lost everything when they could not operate business due to the Port congestion because they could not draw out badly needed materials for production before the last quarter of the year in 2014. As we all know the last quarter is the “Make or Break” time when manufacturers and producers can take in orders and post the highest sales over the year.

While talking about that family tragedy with my wife Karen, she then shared with me another sub-story on how one of her expat friends had wanted to do business with a local swimwear manufacturing company. The company had been managed by two generations where the first generation produced for export. When the export market started to shrink, the second-generation managers shifted to the local market and managed to survive with a healthy customer base. Unfortunately their inability to access materials for manufacturing ruined everything and got so bad that they simply closed their operations.

The sub-story to that is a number of people lost their jobs and created the recent headline: 12.5 million Filipinos jobless in last quarter of 2014. As expected government apologists challenged that survey even before asking the DTI and the DOLE to undertake a full-blown study of lay-offs, shut downs, and losses related to the Port congestion.

Some people I know lost billions of pesos not just in failure to manufacture and deliver, they also lost in fines for failure to deliver, payment of share of sales percentage to malls and sales peoples commissions. You still have to pay incentives to people even if there are not stocks because these people make their income based on performance incentives not salaries. But if you fail to deliver the goods for them to sell, its your problem not theirs!

As an afterthought, the PNoy administration should concentrate more on building better facilities to fix the port congestion because it is not a traffic problem, it is A SERIOUS THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY. Businesses are shutting down, jobs being lost, families suffering and economic security being threatened. It is not as emotional as Mamasapano, it is not as prestigious as a new terminal at NAIA, BUT it is far more important for the entire nation!

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From a reader in Tacloban: “ We lost 44 brave members of SAF. The FBI is keeping the $5 million and all PNoy got was the dirty finger from Marwan.”

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