Adieu Mr. Ernie Aboitiz

For our special presentation on Straight from the Sky, we bring to your TV screens a very famous name…that of Rep. Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos, Jr., the son of the late President Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. I have personally known Bong Bong since 1982 when we joined the First Practical Shooting Competitions of the Philippine Practical Shooting Assoc. (PPSA) in Laoag. Back then, Bong Bong was Governor of Ilocos Norte and I still wasn’t involved in the media. But Bong Bong was a very warm person without any air and we would approach him casually for some small talk. To think he was the son of the most powerful man in the country.

I met Bong Bong again after he returned from exile from the US and it seems that he was still the same warm person that I met more than 20 years ago. There is no doubt, Bong Bong has charisma and with elections coming very soon, he is seeking Senate seat. So watch this very interesting and intimate talk with Rep. Bong Bong Marcos on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00PM.

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It was a sad day last Thursday when we learned that a dear friend of ours, Mr. Ernesto “Ernie” Aboitiz, succumbed to cancer. We’ve known Ernie for a long time and shared his passion, especially on World War II history, for which he often gave me historical materials to read. One material I wrote was about the largest PT-Boat base in Bobon Pt. in what is now the town of Mercedes, six kilometers north of the town of Guiuan in the southernmost tip of Samar. That information sent me looking for the US PT boat base when we rode our big bikes to Guiuan and, yes, we found its ruins still there.

Ernie headed the National Power Corporation (NPC) when the Cory Administration took over the reins of power after the EDSA revolt. Too often, Ernie suffered harsh criticisms because of the decision by the Cory Administration not to use the Bataan Nuclear Powered Plant (BNPP), which was the backbone of the Marcos administration’s solution to the growing power problem the country was facing. Hence, Ernie had to literally start from scratch to find ways to get power from various sources, which we all know could not just happen in six years. But Ernie did his homework and started constructing mini-hydro dams that gave power to small communities.

If today, Aboitiz Power (AP) has grown phenomenally, it is due to the vision of Ernie Aboitiz. He ran Davao Light & Power with utmost professionalism that his management system is now being used by the Visayan Electric Company (VECO). Today, VECO is one of Cebu’s most admired companies. Another passion Ernie shared with me was his love for flying his airplane… a Piper Super Cab and told me that someday he’d take me up on that plane. But we won’t be doing that anymore.

This afternoon, his cremated remains will be brought to the Redemptorist church for a funeral mass at 3:00PM. I will miss our many conversations with Ernie Aboitiz, but certainly I will never forget a man whom many of us loved as a great and very humble friend. May we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of his soul.

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By now, you must have heard that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has approved 144 party-list groups, including the controversial “Ang Ladlad” gay rights group. Again, let me point out that the party-list was a direct result of the Cory Constitution, which now allows people without any real constituents to officially become Congressmen representing their sector. But to the vital sectors that really need a representative in Congress, they often end up getting nothing. I’m referring to the often misunderstood and humiliated sector of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). The inclusion of 144 party-list groups is therefore a nightmarish problem for the Comelec.

In a country of irresponsible politicians that create political parties out of nowhere or their famous family names, allowing for party-list representatives only exacerbates our ugly style of politics. It’s bad enough that we have too many political parties that has no clear-cut ideology, except for the “me, myself and I” attitude of the politician, now we’re getting more irresponsible politicians that would certainly be a waste of our precious tax money that would have otherwise gone to more notable projects.

If we had a Constitutional Convention (con-con), I dare say that it is time to return back to the two-party system (we can even compromise with a 3rd party) so that the government can use its funds to prepare the next generation of politicians. In the past, political parties were a good training ground for future politicians, which is why before Martial Law, we saw great names, like Sen. Gerry Roxas, Sen. Raul Manglapus or Sen. Ninoy Aquino, Jr., Sen. Salvador and Teroy Laurel. This is why we need to push for a con-con so we can truly have an honest to goodness political reform!

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