Sec Roxas, stop making reckless statements!

For our special presentation on our TV talkshow “Straight from the Sky” we bring you the fourth episode of our pilgrimage travelogue to the Holy Land with Delmar Tours & Travel. For this episode, we journey first to the Church of the Mount of the Beatitudes, where our Lord Jesus Christ gave a set of teachings that starts with “Blessed are you”. These are eight blessings in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, but in Luke it is called the Sermon on the Plain. Perhaps St. Matthew was with our Lord Jesus on the mountainside, while St. Luke was on the plain. 

Then we head off to the traditional place in Cana, made famous when our Lord Jesus Christ, on the prodding of the Blessed Virgin Mary, did his first miracle. In the Catholic Church in Cana, 10 couples from our pilgrimage had a renewal of their marriage vows officiated by our two priests, Fr. Gerry Matriano and Fr. Dante Barcelona. This was one of things I never expected to happen…had I known, I would have insisted for Jessica to come with me.

After the renewal of wedding vows in Cana, we proceeded to Nazareth, to the traditional home of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was high on a mountainside. If Cana was in JY Square, Nazareth was in Mountain View that’s my best description of the distance and the height of the mountain where Nazareth is. There we were lucky to have the Angelus prayed right at high noon at the very spot where the Angelus was first said when the Angel Gabriel announced the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary who responded to the Angel’s message with a resounding “Yes do it to me as you said.”

Finally, we ended up in Yardenit in the Jordan River, which is actually far from the original and traditional place where St. John the Baptist baptized our Lord Jesus. The Israelis decided that this place was very similar to that place in the old days because the river in that place already dried up. So watch this very interesting and educational travelogue to the Holy Land on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8 p.m. with replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m.

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While I’m doing this column last Saturday night, CNN was showing its Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (International code name “Haiyan”) special entitled “Witness to Courage” which was a very thorough and comprehensive report of the destruction wrought by the strongest super typhoon that ever hit planet earth. It once more gave an honest report of what the International Community has done for the typhoon victims in light of the near absence of the Philippine government agencies in the first three days since the super typhoon struck. This is the truth that happened in Tacloban.

Yes CNN showed the video footage of Taclobanons looting stores in day four and day five…and CNN’s Christie Lou Stout admitted, “The people must have reached the limit of their endurance and needed food badly.” But our legislators, notably Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sen. Chiz Escudero, wanted these “looters” to be charged in court. They didn’t even realize that there were no courts, nor any police stations opened in Tacloban in the first five days after the typhoon struck. Shame on these two!

Meanwhile I read in the social networking sites that the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council has stopped counting the dead as the death toll reached 4,011. But Task Force Cadaver has already counted at least 5,283 dead and more than a thousand still missing.

What’s wrong with this government? Are they still trying to please Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III who originally wanted zero casualties? A president who fired Philippine National Police Region 8 Director Elmer Soria for blurting to the press that 10,000 may have lost their lives in the strongest typhoon to hit planet earth? Are they scared that PNP Regional Director Soria may have been right after all? Shame on these people.

Last Friday Department of Interior & Local Government Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas announced, “The worst is finally over. It’s stabilizing. If last week we were at the ER, now we’re in the ICU. Still critical but stabilizing.” Why is this man still there making stupid announcements? His parallelism is to say the least stupid because he uses hospital lingo and says, “We’re out of the ER and in the ICU.” In my book if anyone is in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) then the worst is not yet over. It is when we are out of the ICU when one can declare that the worst is over!

Sec. Roxas further said, “Our priorities are being met: the distribution of relief goods, law and order…there are no more reports of looting…people are more calm all because of the cooperation between the national and local government as well as the people.” The truth is, without the international community there would have been chaos! But the fact remains that for people who lost their homes and their work, the worst is far from over. I hope Sec. Roxas know this very well before he makes another reckless statement!

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