Buses plaguing the Aquino administration

The Aquino administration hasn’t yet completed its first 100-days yet his administration is already reeling from bus-related disasters. It may have begun here in Cebu when that tourist bus plunged into a ravine in Balamban killing 50 Iranian students last June 13. Then last Aug. 18 another tourist bus fell in a ravine Sablan, Benguet killing 35 tourists and injuring scores more. Then last Saturday Aug. 28 another tourist bus fell in a ravine in Pagbilao, Southern Luzon killing 4 passengers and injuring 36 other passengers. This is not to mention the hostage taking of a tourist bus that ended in the untimely deaths of 8 Hong Kong tourists that has brought shame to all Filipinos.

One may say that when the tourist bus fell in Balamban, it was still during the time of former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, but then, GMA was already preparing to leave Malacañang, hence Aquino already wielded the vast powers of the Presidency at that time. This brings me to the query in The Freeman editorial yesterday entitled “Who is driving the bus?”

We’re barely 60 days into the Aquino administration and already it is mired in severe problems that they said they “inherited” from the previous administration. As the editorial pointed out, “That the Aquino government is just two months old does not justify any inability to start walking on its own two feet. Filipinos do not relish the thought of being led over the next six years by someone who needs the crutch of failed administrations past in order to move forward.”

The editorial adds, “The Aquino government cannot spend the entire six years of its governance being hobbled by the misdeeds of its predecessors. It wanted power for itself on the premise that it could do better and do more. Now that it has the power, its business is doing, not complaining.” I fully concur with this editorial. Indeed it is true that Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III won his Presidency by ostracizing the previous administration, demonizing former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the worst President we ever had. P.Noy had the full support of the so-called Yellow Press. But now that it is in power, it continues to dwell on the problems they inherited from the previous administration.

Every Tom, Dick and Pundit in the media and all bloggers and Twitters have already expressed their opinions (mostly negative) about the way the Aquino administration has mishandled the hostage taking tragedy. But for as long as reforms in the Philippine National Police (PNP) are not implemented, don’t expect our police officers to suddenly turn around for the better. Sure, there are many police officers who are very law abiding, but like it or not, these bad eggs give the PNP a bad name.

At this point, many PNP officers who were on top of the hostage crisis have been sacked. But then, being sacked in this country doesn’t mean that they are fired, like the way people get fired in the US. In PNP parlance, they go into the usual “musical” chairs, where sacked officers are sent to far-flung areas, hopeful that their misdemeanor will soon be forgotten. This is why scalawags in the PNP are always there because they’re merely transferred.

Meanwhile, on the solutions of the numerous bus accidents, we have been telling the Land Transportation Office (LTO) that by now they should have a separate licensing program for bus and truck drivers, separate and distinct from professional driver’s license we give to jeepney drivers. For as long as the LTO doesn’t make this a reality, we will never see the end to bus accidents due to reckless drivers.

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The flip-flop of the Supreme Court on the issue of turning municipalities into cities and then turning them back again into municipalities has taken its toll on the so-called excess councilors as municipalities are only allowed only six councilors, while cities may have eight. So now, this means that the last two councilors with the lowest number of votes have suddenly found themselves in a unique role of being a city councilor at a time when they thought that their town have turned into a city, when it’s just a town.

If there are lessons to be learned from this totally useless political exercise, it is that the Supreme Court should never again come up with a final and executory decision only to reverse itself later. It plays havoc on our people, especially in this case who believed that their town was now a city; hence they made decision to add two more councilors to their councils. In the end, what a huge waste especially in the cost of elections, only because our Supreme Court couldn’t decide with finality. So the next time we hear of a SC final decision, people might think that it is not really that final!

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