No projects for Cebu for 4 years under PNoy
For our special presentation on our talk show “Straight from the Sky,” we once again go outdoors for this shoot and interview and drive to Balamban to show you the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI’s) Kool Adventure Camp, which recently opened its doors just 9 kilometers short of the town of Balamban, just off the Transcentral Highway.
KAC is a flagship program of RAFI that started way back in 1999. Our good friend, RAFI President Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz, introduced me to the KAC program when it was still in Mactan and he gave the Cebu City Traffic Operations & Management a special rate so I took the opportunity to take the program with two teams of officers and staff from CITOM.
KAC is the first and only fully dedicated Adventure Education Center in the Philippines and its mission is to equip organizations and individuals with the character, competence and citizenship to be leaders of change, through powerful learning experiences. I should know, I also took this course with my CITOM staff. I didn’t want to miss it for the world!
So tonight we bring you KAC Camp Director Edvan Loh, youth Development Programme Manager Daphne Dia, and Leomil Urpania Senior Facilitator who will give us a tour of the KAC. For this special show, we brought two TV crews, my SkyCable crew and MyTV crew, and it is the first time that Straight from the Sky will be using the Phantom Drone of MyTV, which will give you a bird’s eye view of the KAC facilities literally Straight from the Sky!
So watch this very interesting show about KAC in SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00PM with replays on Wednesday and Saturday. Replays can also be seen in MyTV’s channel 30 at 9:00PM after the SkyCable showing. Replays for MyTV are on Wednesday and Friday at 7:00AM and 9:00PM respectively.
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Last Friday I was invited by The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. to a meeting with MEGA Cebu dubbed “Convergence of MEGA Cebu Leaders where civic society met Cebu Governor Hilario “Jun Jun” Davide III, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, Cordova Mayor Ade Sitoy, Consolacion Mayor Teresa Alegado, Liloan Mayor Duke Frasco, and many other mayors.
Also in the group were the Cebuano congressional leaders, led by North District Rep. Raul del Mar, South District Rep. Rodrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa, Rep. Luigi Quisumbing, Rep. Samsam Gullas, and Rep. Red Durano. The attendance of Cebu’s political leaders was crucial in this Mega meeting because of the importance of the message that Bobby Aboitiz was sending to the political leadership in Cebu.
I got there in time for the speech of RAFI President Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz when his PowerPoint presentation highlighted the Projects Approved by the NEDA Board for the entire country, which was emblazoned by a huge red “NONE FOR CEBU” sign across the screen. This is what Cebu has been getting for voting Pres. Benigno Aquino III into office and everyone was stunned! I’ve been writing this in my column for four years now!
The next PowerPoint presentation was equally disturbing when MEGA Cebu’s Engr. Fortunato Sanchez, Jr. showed a tale of two cities. Cebu City and Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city. It was an aerial or Google Earth view of both cities, which showed their roads and creeks or rivers. Jun pointed out that in Surabaya, the rivers had a constant width in its entire length, while in Cebu…the best example was the Subangdaku River, which was 50 meters across at its mouth in the sea, but after the bridge, it reduces to 30 meters and then further up stream it reduces to 5 meters.
After the two presentations, emcee Carol Go told the audience that she was in near tears that nothing was happening in Cebu and now we know why Metro Cebu gets flooded every time it rains. Indeed, squatters or informal settlers have reduced the width of our rivers and this is due to the lack of political will from our political leaders.
After the response of Mayor Rama and Gov. Davide, it was my turn to speak and I rammed down the throats of our Cebu political leaders that they literally closed their eyes to the fact that Cebu got nothing in the last four years under Pres. Benigno Aquino III but still supported him!
I bluntly asked them whether their political survival was more important than the needs of Cebu. Of course I didn’t name names. But Gov. Davide was the only one who took offense to my statement, saying he wasn’t “sip-sip” to the President. In my book he sounded the guiltiest of our political leaders.
It is high time to ask our political leaders, what have they done to reduce the poverty in our country? Indeed, our political leaders only care for their own political survival than the needs of Cebuanos! The time for change has come!
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