Tarungon man kaha nato ang hiwi?
This is our maiden show for the New Year 2015 and Straight from the Sky would like this year to be a revolutionary year within the hearts of the Filipino people. So we are starting this year by joining a group that has a great advocacy called “Rebellion Against Trash.” Our guests for tonight are Dann Diez, Margo Loor, and Kadi Kenk both from Lithuanian where this rebellion against trash took root in social media and has become a worldwide event.
Cebu has also joined this worldwide rebellion against trash and hopefully, Filipinos would someday embrace this ideology of cleanliness. After all, we Catholics embrace that old adage, “Cleanliness is next to godliness. So watch this very interesting show tonight on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00PM with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time. We also have replays on MyTV on channel 30 at 9:00PM and on Wednesday and Friday at 7:00AM and 9:00PM respectively.
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“This is officially my first column for the Year 2015 because the columns we made last January 1st and 2nd were advance columns. So technically this is the first column we are making for this New Year 2015. Last weekend as I went around Cebu City, I noticed immediately that traffic was so light, which reminded me of the old Cebu, when wherever you went, it was always a five- to ten-minute trip. In today’s traffic jams, you can stay inside your car in exactly the same place for ten minutes before you move to another spot and get stuck there for some more minutes.
While at the stoplight, two motorcycles jumped the red light and I said to myself these are the people who should never be given driver’s licenses. Just because there are no CITOM enforcers around, it doesn’t give you the right to jump the red light. Then later as I was heading home in the evening, there was a jeepney that had no lights on.
By a stroke of luck, we stopped beside each other at the corner of Gorordo Ave. and Escario St. so I opened my window and asked the driver to turn on his headlights. He told me instead that he had a short circuit. So I asked him why is he plying his route if he didn’t have his lights on? Obviously the fellow was lying to me. So I wrote down his plate number GVV-886 plying the 04C route and called up CITOM Operations Chief Joy Tumulak to have this driver arrested.
Yes, how many of you know that a running vehicle without lights endangers other motorists or pedestrians? This has been going on for many decades with no end in sight. I dare say that for this New Year, CITOM must take the extreme effort to stop this type of violation, which is actually the job of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.
We must find a way to stop this nonsense this year for this has been existing for so many years already. This is in fact the pet peeve of my good friend, US Honorary Consul John Domingo.
I personally go out of my way to ask those erring drivers as politely as I can to turn on their lights, but to no avail. Those repeat violators should never be allowed to drive in our streets again. In the United States, whenever the police stop this type of reckless drivers, they have their guns drawn and the violator bodily searched out of his vehicle.
Here in Cebu, those erring drivers just smile at you because they don’t know the consequence of their actions. This is why we are requesting Mayor Michael Rama who has taken over the command of CITOM to make this his advocacy because we must all find ways to stop this nonsense. Tarungon man kaha nato ang hiwi?
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I stumbled upon the Jan. 3rd Saturday editorial of Manila Times, which asked the question, “Why does Smartmatic have so much power over the Comelec?” Allow me to reprint that portion of the editorial, “This private Venezuelan company has gained almost total control of our country’s election process. That is against the law. But why is the Commission on Elections allowing it to possess that power? The Comelec is mandated by law to make our elections transparent, honest and the results verifiable. Why have the Comelec commissioners neglected their responsibility?
In 2009, the Comelec awarded the contract to supply election materials and technology to Smartmatic– even if this bidder did not meet many of the required qualifications. Comelec disqualified the other bidders who had also failed to meet the very prerequisites that Smartmatic failed to meet.” These are legitimate questions that ought to be brought into a Senate Blue Ribbon investigation. But then, the Comelec scares these politicians.
We hope that for the New Year 2015, Filipinos would march in indignation against a Comelec that has given in to the whims and caprices of Smartmatic, whose PCOS machines haven’t given us any transparency at all.
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