Pacman and Kris ought to do a Keanu Reeves!

I read this report in Metro Section of The Philippine STAR that Filipino boxing great Rep. Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Presidential sister Kris Aquino were forced to take the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) at the height of the snarled traffic in EDSA last Tuesday so that they won’t be late for their respective TV commitments. My message to these celebrities is they ought to do this more often, like all the time… and do a Keanu Reeves!

Yes, I just saw from Facebook the most watched video of the week of superstar actor Keanu Reeves taking a subway Q train in New York City and even offering his seat to a lady. That shows that popularity clearly has not gotten into the head of Keanu Reeves. May his tribe increase. Surely, our celebrities can learn a thing or two from this great but humble actor.

Then there’s that CNN video report of Japan Air Lines (JAL) president and CEO Haruka Nihimatsu taking a bus to and from his office and eating with his employees in their canteen. JAL is one of the top airlines in the world and what CNN showed to the world is the humility of JAL’s CEO, whose office is not in a private room… but together with his co-employees. You can check this story if you Google it and hopefully it would teach us that humility is strength of character…rather than a weakness.

Now if you read The Philippine STAR Business page last Thursday, surely you’d be alarmed by the headline report that blared, “Car sales up by 21% in August.” That’s 13,700 units sold in this country. Granted that at least 70% of those who can afford to buy new cars live in Metro Manila. Some of those brand new cars must have joined that humongous parking lot called EDSA last Tuesday evening.

If you folks who live in Metro Manila have to pass EDSA…let me tell you that it is not beyond your station in life if you take the MRT or LRT once in a while or every day! Whenever I’m in Manila, I always take the MRT or LRT as it always gets me to my appointments on time. So Mr. Pacman and Kris Aquino… you should do a Keanu Reeves!

*      *      *

The Zamboanga siege is now on its 5th day and people are beginning to ask…why did this have to happen in the first place? The latest we heard is that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is preparing charges against Nur Misuari and his Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) soldiers holed up in areas within Zamboanga City. Come now… are the filing of charges the solution to this impasse? It doesn’t help our cause that in this country, justice is so much delayed… it is already called justice denied.

Whether they like it or not, there has to be a political solution to this political problem. If President Aquino is thinking straight, then he should first take stock of what went wrong with the peace deal he signed with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)? In my book, he was misled into signing that deal believing that it would result to peace in Mindanao. Now he knows that there can be no lasting peace if they just talked with the MILF. Include the MNLF then we might achieve this elusive peace.

Allow me to quote an excerpt from an email as suggested by my faithful reader, Joe Nacilla to which I fully concur. “I suggested to change Miriam Coronel Ferrer as Chief Negotiator and Teresita Deles as Peace Process Adviser, both are clueless and totally ignorant on Muslim’s character and culture. They are people that breed helplessness and hopelessness that lead to violence and criminality. Mayor Duterte of Davao personally suggested not to leave Misuari behind in the peace talks.”

No doubt, the peace deal with the MILF has become irrelevant to peace in Mindanao. President Aquino must clean the slate and start all over with the MNLF on board and may I suggest that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte should be part of the peace panel? Meanwhile P-Noy should get another peace adviser for the last one failed to give him a good and sound advice.

No doubt, the Aquino Regime has totally mishandled the way to Peace in Mindanao and no matter how Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas defends the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) for suspending flights to and from Zamboanga City I still say that it was a monumental mistake that only allowed more innocent people to be trapped inside a potential war zone.

There were many incidents when cities were under siege and usually it is the airport that is shutdown at the last minute only because the fighting has reached the airport. This happened in Saigon in the last days of South Vietnam. What the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) should have done was create a safe corridor wherein aircraft could land or take off without being shot down by the rebels. Alas, CAAP’s decision only allowed for the non-combatants to be trapped inside Zamboanga City. Sec. Roxas bungled it!

*  *  *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.