A gathering storm

While practically the entire nation was bracing for the expected entry of super typhoon “Yolanda,” our “honorable” senators were busy conducting yesterday their probe into the “pork-barrel” scam. Dubbed as “monster” typhoon, typhoon Yolanda packed winds of more than 240 kilometers per hour. It entered the Philippine area of responsibility Wednesday midnight.

The 24th typhoon to visit the country this year, Yolanda kept many national and local government officials on their toes as early as last Tuesday. No less than President Benigno “Noy” Aquino lll mobilized all agencies under the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) to undertake the necessary precautionary measures in a bid to minimize, if not prevent casualties and damage that the super typhoon, whose international name is Haiyan, may cause.

President Aquino even went on live broadcast address yesterday (again) to give public assurances on government preparations to keep people, especially those living in danger areas in the direct path of Yolanda, out of harm’s way. Aired from Malacañang on television and radio stations, P-Noy appealed to all Filipino families to do their own disaster mitigation preparations to keep them safe.
   The full impact of the Category 5 cyclone is tracked to directly hit today the provinces of Samar, Leyte and cross to Bohol and Mindoro before the typhoon’s projected exit early Sunday. Though not in the direct path of the typhoon, Metro Manila residents will still experience the effect of Yolanda due to its huge 600-kilometer radius.

Taking the presidential cue, the Metro Manila Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council convened yesterday to finalize preparations for Yolanda that weather forecasters warned would affect southern Metro Manila starting this afternoon. According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), Yolanda may dump as much as 10 millimeters of rain per hour.

For those of us who reside in flashflood-prone areas in southern Metro Manila — specifically in the cities of Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas and Muntinlupa — this means we have to brace for the prospect of being stranded on the road, at the very least.

The thought of floods reminded me of how public funds were misused for many road projects. So much taxpayers’ money have been spent for asphalting or paving the roads without first making sure the drainage system still works, or if it is even installed.

Take the case of our city of Parañaque, now headed by newly elected Mayor Edwin Olivarez. He is formerly the congressman in the first district of Parañaque for three years. Former Parañaque vice mayor Gus Tambunting is now the congressman of the second district of the city.

During his three years in Congress, Mayor Olivarez obviously spent much of his annual pork-barrel allocation to road asphalting or paving projects. This could be seen in the many billboards he had put up in each of these places around the city declaring as much.

Now that he is mayor, he will have to deal with the fact that the family-owned Olivarez Hospital and college is located at the deepest part of Sucat road, at risk of heavy flooding. Only last month, I got stuck in traffic for almost two hours going home that night due to monsoon rains (habagat) that flooded that part of Sucat road.

Fortunately, our company vehicle CRV successfully navigated through the flood. After we got past Olivarez hospital, we found out in dismay that aside from the flood mainly causing the traffic, northbound motorists occupied one of the three lanes in counter-flow. It was because the northbound Sucat road was no longer passable to vehicles due to waist-deep flood.

 It would be unfair to ask too much from the neophyte mayor — barely four months in office — to do something about this flooding problem right in front of their own family-owned front yard. Incidentally, his younger brother Eric is now the new congressman in the first district. Both mayor and congressman belong to P-Noy’s Liberal Party. Their father, former Parañaque mayor Pablo Olivarez just got elected as San Dionisio barangay chairman.

The problem of flooding is not unique to Parañaque City but also in other low-lying areas around the country. Perhaps, by way of suggestion, all these elected local officials could pool together the state and local fund resources at their disposal to address this perennial problem of flooding to best serve public welfare and interest of their respective constituents.

Unfortunately, we are only getting depressed to learn how public funds were being misspent and worse, being stolen brazenly by the people we elected into office. This we got to see again yesterday at the resumption of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee public hearing on the pork-barrel scam probe.

Glued for almost five hours on TV watching live the Senate proceedings, I got the impression that senators attending the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing were working very hard trying to save their own house from being destroyed by the most disastrous political storm.

The lawmakers implicated in the pork-barrel scam could only breathe a sigh of relief yesterday after businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles stuck to her guns not to cooperate with the “inquiry in aid of legislation.” In his opening statement yesterday, Sen.Teofisto Guingona III stressed to Napoles in desperate attempts to cajole her into spilling the beans, so to speak, against senators and congressmen being linked to the pork-barrel scandal.

However, Guingona’s clownish attempt turned pitiful as a high school graduate like Napoles ran circles around his questions. If they succeed, Napoles’ public confession could send several senators and congressmen into political oblivion, if it has not damaged them yet.

The first appearance of Napoles at the Senate public hearing on the pork-barrel scam was just the start of a gathering storm. No wonder the two houses of Congress are in panic mode. Public pressure to give up their pork-barrel funds is gathering wind and steam.