Growth in tourism: Private sector driven

It was a wonderful three days of fun at the 19th International Hot Air Balloon Festival in Clark Air Base, Pampanga. Last Saturday, I finally met Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. whom Capt. Joy Roa invited to the event and he told Capt. Joy, “The reason I’m here is because I read about this event in Bobit’s column.” I’m sure that the Tourism Secretary was just pulling our leg, but the truth is the International Hot Air Balloon Festival has been going on for 19 years now thanks to the hard work of Capt. Joy Roa, with whom I share his passion for the Aviation Industry.

But the Tourism Secretary said something that I never realized before when he quipped, “I love this Balloon Festival… because all the festivals happening all over the country, like the Sinulog, Dinagyang or the Masskara Festival glorifies our past. But the Balloon Festival is the only one of its kind that glorifies the future of the Philippines.” Indeed the Tourism Secretary is right on the nail with his observation… especially with the great shortage of pilots that the global aviation industry is in dire need of.

Again kudos to the private sector for its major role in promoting the Philippines. Another case in point is something that I also wrote about last Saturday where my good friend, Bobby Joseph had to skip the Balloon Festival as he had to go to Baguio City for the 6th Annual National Tourism and Hospitality Convention at the CAP Convention Center in Camp John Hay in an event hosted by the Tourism Educators and Movers (TEAM) Philippines, the League of Tourism Students of the Philippines (LTSP) University of Baguio and the Department of Tourism, Philippine Tourism Promotions Board and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).

As his close friends know, Bobby Joseph has been suffering from cancer since six years ago, yet that did not deter him from his advocacy in trying to help professionalize future leaders of the Tourism industry by providing assistance in training and service to higher education institutions offering Tourism and Hospitality Management programs for the growth and career development of the faculty and students to become professionally competent, intellectually competitive and socially responsible workers or staff in the Tourism industry. This is why as Tourism Secretary Jimenez said, “Tourism is growing despite the problems of the country.”

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I was still in Clark Airbase when the National Transformation Council (NTC) led by his eminence Archbishop emeritus of Cebu, Ricardo Cardinal Vidal held a presscon in his residence in Cebu City to call for the resignation of the entire government of President Aquino, including Vice President Jejomar Binay and allow a caretaker government to handle the needed reforms in our system of governance.

Mind you, this is not the first time that Cardinal Vidal made this call. Last Oct. 1, he also issued the same call, but for other reasons where the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I wrote this story last October.

Anyway, things are happening very quickly. First was that Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago openly asked Defense Sec. Voltaire Gazmin to validate coup rumors that was funded by a rich man? Of course she didn’t get a straight answer, but like most of the questions thrown by the Senators, you can second guess that the majority of Filipinos already know the answers to those questions.

Meanwhile, former President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) did something quite dramatic during the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Manila in Intramuros when he donned on the Beret hat of the Special Action Force (SAF) and removed his jacket to reveal a T-shirt with a SAF logo on it. I guess that’s because FVR was the creator of the SAF. But his message was crystal clear… that a full-scale armed conflict in Mindanao was not an option.

But he did talk about what he did when he was AFP Chief and the Abu Sayyaf burned the town of Ipil in Zamboanga del Sur and he conducted hot pursuit operations against these Moro bandits and many of them were neutralized. FVR continued, “You must balance your actions with hot pursuit, this is law enforcement with peacemaking.”

Why didn’t President Aquino order hot pursuit operations against the MILF who killed 44 SAF policemen is something he has to answer to the families of the dead SAF soldiers, more so when PNP Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina tearfully revealed to the Senate that 27 of the 44 SAF soldiers killed were shot in the head at close range and that is something we saw on that MILF video… and the nation is only asking “Who should be made accountable for the gruesome killings of our 44 SAF policemen?

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