Smuggled, free. Relief goods, dunay bayad

Would you believe that seven months after the strongest typhoon in the recorded history of the world wiped out many areas in the Visayas, hundreds of container vans of relief items from abroad remain unreleased at the Cebu port because they failed to comply with government regulations on donations?

I have never seen or heard of such a stupid and ridiculous situation than this one. And yet, quite incredibly, some people actually have the gall to say that government should not be blamed here because it is only acting in accordance with its own regulations.

I have no beef against that. I am a stickler for regulations. But didn't I just tell you that we have been hit by the strongest typhoon ever to hit land in all of the recorded history of the world. We are talking of Yolanda here, for God's sake. We are not talking of everyday happenings at the Cebu port.

Yolanda was the most destructive typhoon to hit any place on earth ever. That is the reason why almost the entire world, with the notable exception of the Philippine government itself, moved swiftly to mobilize whatever they can to help. Some sent relief goods. Others volunteered skills and manpower.

Since the Philippines was caught flat-footed, unmasked as grossly unprepared and inefficient in dealing with a catastrophe of such magnitude, the very least it could have done to facilitate the relief it itself could not produce and muster was to waive regulations so the help can get to where they are intended.

But no, this stupid government, nga mao pa'y gitabangan, mao pa hinuon ang naglisud-lisod sa nitabang. Sa pulong pa ni Sir Bobby Nalzaro -- pagkatuytoy gyud. What gives me the greatest fear as a result of this stupidity is if another big typhoon strikes and no one, learning their bitter lessons, will be coming to help.

Not that I would like to wish ill on our own selves. But Mother Nature is increasingly getting angrier at how human populations have been destroying the environment, destruction so massive and so wanton that they have caused possibly irreversible changes in the weather and climate.

Yolanda was the result of such changes. And it was just the first. God help us, but there will be more. And by all indications, the Philippine government will still be as helpless when the next one comes around. Why, seven months after Yolanda and it has only rebuilt 200 houses in Tacloban? What a catastrophe.

I am really appalled by suggestions that the reason why hundreds of container vans of relief goods still lie undelivered and undistributed at the Cebu port is because government is only trying to enforce its own regulations.

Enforce regulations, my ass. Take away all the typhoons. Take away all the Yolandas. Let us assume that everything is all hunky-dory at the Cebu port -- do you really believe, in the name of all your children, that government authorities at the Cebu port are enforcing their own regulations to the last letter of the law?

If the government is such a stickler for its own regulations at the Cebu port, why does the Cebu port have such a bad name? Why is it being called a haven for smuggling? If smuggling is rampant at the Cebu port, then who the heck is explaining that relief goods intended for Yolanda are being held for failing regulations?

I have read somewhere that foreign donors of relief goods for Yolanda could have breezed through the Cebu port had they coursed their donations through the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The trouble is, the foreign donors did not want to.

Now, I can perfectly understand why foreign donors are wary of the DSWD. Word does spread around very quickly. Perhaps the foreign donors heard of that incident, shortly after Yolanda struck, that the DSWD was repacking foreign donations to make it appear that these were the DSWD's own. What a shame that was.

If this government is truly what it is claiming to be, it should waive all those regulations, in the same manner that it pretends such regulations do not exist when things are being smuggled, so that the relief goods can be released to where they are intended.

Letting them rot in port on the strength of a fallacious adherence to regulations is not only painfully funny, it is unfair to the foreigners who mobilized their resources and energies just to help a ravaged people they do not even know. Gaba-an baya ta sa mga tao nga nalu-oy ug nitabang nato.