In line with his new job, the First Gentleman will fly to Rome next month, of course to meet with the Filipino community. You can bet there will be many more such trips to come. Will Juan de la Cruz foot the travel expenses of the peso-a-year adviser? What about the expenses of Mike A’s entourage? Surely the First Gentleman can’t travel alone.
Oh well, in this country, all is fair in love, war and politics. Those overseas forays will be even more effective in winning hearts and minds when Sen. Noli de Castro joins the First Gentleman. Why Noli? The buzz is President GMA wants "Kabayan" as her running mate. Malacañang has reportedly been spooked by internal surveys showing Noli with ratings too high for comfort. Persuading him to become the President’s running mate will not only take him out of the presidential race (there goes an ace of the Lopez clan), it will also create (Malacañang hopes) a formidable administration team.
Is the presidential campaign in full swing? Why, it started in January 2001.
Perhaps we should just ignore the politicians and work on improving the nation by improving ourselves and doing our best in our line of work. But this is easier said than done. In this country there is no sense of nationhood, no caring for the greater good. It’s every man for himself – whether in traffic, politics or public service. No one ever admits responsibility for disasters, and no one admits guilt even when presented with evidence. When an official is accused of stealing public funds, the common reaction is: But everyone else is doing it! Why pick on me? This is nothing but politicking.
When everyone is a crook, who can start national cleansing?
While stuck in traffic in Pasay City yesterday afternoon I idly examined the taxi ahead of me, a white Corolla with TVU 705 license plates. Stuck to its dashboard were two miniature glow-in-the-dark religious statues. I was trying to determine what the driver had suspended from the rear-view mirror when he got out of the car, then dumped a bunch of boiled banana peels on the pavement.
Then he drove off and changed lanes, and I saw it was a "NineONine" cab.
I was at the approach to the northbound lane of the Roxas Boulevard flyover on Gil Puyat Avenue. With NineONine gone the vehicle ahead of mine was now an FX taxi so grimy I could make out "Harry Pater" written in bold letters in the dust that had accumulated on the rear window.
Our vehicles crawled down the flyover. Then we had to dodge the carts of peanut vendors who have become a fixture on that stretch of Roxas Boulevard. You know you’ve left Pasay and entered the city of Manila when the vendors disappear.
And where else in the world can you buy peanuts boiled in drums and pushed in carts in the middle of a busy boulevard? Before Chairman Bayani Fernando slugs it out with sidewalk vendors, maybe he should deal first with hawkers in the middle of busy streets.
A good black box, I was told, could be almost as expensive as a small plane itself, especially the used aircraft that are converted for commercial purposes after years of heavy use by the military. So small planes make do without the black boxes. Air transportation officials simply look the other way, and we all know the reason for that. Also, I don’t think we have enough air transport personnel with the competence to determine the airworthiness of all aircraft in this country.
Anyway, this time an owner of an ill-fated aircraft may yet get punished. Not for violating air safety regulations, however, but for being an illegal alien. That way no blame will fall on some transport official.
The Laoag Air owner’s franchise, incidentally, was approved by Congress reportedly with the endorsement of a politician from Ilocos. You fly on a wing and a prayer in this country. And nothing will change as long as we have too much politics.