WHEN then senator Noynoy Aquino came to the Philippine STAR office in 2010 in the course of his campaign for the presidency, I approached him to ask a question. He turned his back on me.
This time, still in good faith, I want to offer the President some unsolicited advice before he leaves Malacañang. I hope he will at least pretend to listen, before turning away:
• Slow down to a safer cruising speed, the end of the road is near. There is no point rushing to do in the next six months what you and your coterie failed to do in the past six years. Too late.
• Order your gofers to stop making a financial fastbreak in the last two minutes. Tell them, and follow through, to quit cooking up ways to extract juice from big-ticket projects.
• Exceptions to the last-minute rush jobs: the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 which should be rehabilitated quickly (but without anyone pocketing a single dirty peso) and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport named after your father which needs upgrading to world class.
• Break your disturbing silence of the past five years on illegal drugs and act resolutely against the scourge that has gone rampant in the barangays and campuses under your watch.
• To maximize opportunity for public service, do not waste your limited time campaigning for anyone. If Liberal Party-administration candidates deserve to be elected, they should win on their own merits.
• Spend time mending fences and making amends, especially to the victims of your vengeful inclinations. After you step out, you might find yourself at the receiving end in karmic retribution.
• Stop blabbering about “Daang matuwid.” Bumenta na po yan. Besides, there is nothing “matuwid” in the continuing corruption and the self-righteous persecution of perceived enemies.
• Consider tossing to the noisy crowd beneath your balcony the heads of the Three A’s: Butch Abad, Joseph Abaya and Proceso Alcala. Loyalty to cronies ends where loyalty to the country begins.
• As the coming national elections are crucial to national survival, make it your personal mission to ensure that the May 9 polls do not turn into another automated electoral hocus-PCOS.
• Use the powers of the presidency to speed up the full turnover of Hacienda Luisita to the rightful owners, its workers. Then bring in massive aid to make Luisita a Global Model of a land reform area where the beneficiaries are happy, productive and secure.
• Find the humility and honesty to admit command responsibility for the massacre of 44 of the best men of the PNP Special Action Force last Jan. 25, 2015, in Mamasapano, Maguindanao. Keep trying to give comfort and restitution to their widows and children.
• The Nobel Peace Prize bubble has burst. There is no more need to force the passage of a constitutionally challenged basic law creating a separate Bangsamoro state. Abetting secession, under the pretext of solving the strife in Mindanao, is treasonous.
• Stiff fees of hospitals, doctors hit
THERE MUST be some way of regulating and even standardizing most of the professional fees collected by doctors from their patients. This is to minimize malpractice and ensuing complaints.
The point is raised again after the experience of writer Dr. Erick San Juan who complains that he was billed P75,517.97 by a hospital in Sta. Mesa for the treatment of a half-inch wound in the palm of his car wash boy.
To compound a patient’s problem, aside from having to produce a down payment to get admitted, for every day’s delay in settling his bill at the end of the confinement a surcharge is added to his final bill although he is no longer being treated.
Let me quote from San Juan’s letter to Dr. Rustico Jimenez, president of the Private Hospital Association of the Philippines:
“I would like to reiterate my complaint against (hospital’name) asking for exorbitant payment for professional fees, miscellaneous charges, etc., for a very minor operation at the palm done to my car wash boy, Alejandro Estelloso, in the amount of P65,517.97 allegedly handled by three doctors (names given).
“The poor patient was not told beforehand on how much the operation will cost him. The hospital attendant even got his P10,000 loaned money as deposit. Instead of attending to his situation that morning of Nov. 28, 2015, he was treated and operated on in the afternoon. Estelloso was told to stay overnight in an overcrowded room with several patients to allegedly monitor and observe his condition.
“The next morning, he was told to pay a shocking total bill of P75,517.97. I was told and reacted over the cellphone and talked with the attending nurse. She told me after a while that I was granted a discount of P10,000.
“I left my meeting and went straight to the Lourdes Hospital. We and the head attendant went to the administration office. I was told by the lady officer in charge that they can’t do anything about it because of the hospital policy and they cannot contact the attending doctor coz it’s Sunday. The lady head even told me that if I will not discharge the patient that same day, he will be charged for another day plus other charges.
“To my dismay, I was forced to bail out Estelloso. I didn’t expect that helping a person will put me in a bad situation.”
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APOLOGY: Sorry, I failed to beat my Postscript deadline last Thursday. Halfway through composing my column, the Caps Lock key of my weather-beaten keyboard got stuck. Everything I typed was coming out all-capitals. Banging my keyboard on the desk could not free my Caps Lock key. We old fogies of the trade sometimes recall those days when writing without computers was simpler, albeit slower – but we always managed.
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