Our great Filipino culture and tradition in celebrating All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day over the weekend meant that families always hold reunions with family and friends who by the millions trooped to cemeteries all over the nation. Lucky for us in Cebu, there was only a slight drizzle that really wasn’t disturbing to us…some even call it a blessing from heaven, while we were saying our prayers for dearly departed members of our families and friends.
If there was one topic that was the talk in all the cemeteries all over the country it is the still the raging issue of the “Laglag Bala” or “Tanim Bala” controversy where almost all the people I talked to in the cemeteries were discussing this very embarrassing incident and why it has happened at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
Many people commented to me that this must have been going on at the NAIA for sometime now until this was exposed in the media when that old lady, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was caught with a bullet in her bag as she was going back to her work in Hong Kong. Because of this incident, the media got hold of this story and soon Netizens in the social media networking sites turned this story viral in our Facebook accounts.
Many people got offended by what Communications Secretary Herminio “Sonny” Coloma said in trying to diffuse this explosive story, saying that it was an “isolated incident” that people should focus on the gains that the NAIA have gotten after it was repaired after bagging the unenviable title as the “Worst Airport in the World.” While the NAIA is no longer in the number one slot as worst airport in the world, I reckon that this new incident will cause it to regain its lost title as the world’s worst international airport. As the Philippine Star editorialized yesterday, Another National Embarrassment!
I really don’t know why our woes under the P-Noy Presidency was always linked with Hong Kong? On Aug. 23, 2010 while Pres. Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III was still new as President, Malacanang was faced with that hostage crisis at the Quirino Grandstand that ended in the untimely deaths of 8 innocent Hong Kong tourists and the hostage taker former Supt. Rolando Mendoza. A simple hostage incident that could have been averted!
What was of great embarrassment to the Filipino people is that all worldwide satellite television networks featured that ill-fated hostage rescue by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Swat team, who looked more like keystone cops than a disciplined paramilitary group who could have killed the hostage taker and freed the hostages. Millions of people worldwide saw this bungled rescue attempt on TV and caused a great embarrassment to Filipinos not just here at home…but throughout the world!
What made matters worse was that Pres. Aquino even to this day refused to apologize to the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Hong Kong or to China, which is why today, our otherwise good relations with the People’s Republic of China has soured to the point of breakup. With this incident, people called the Aquino government a student government and indeed, after the Jan. 25th Mamasapano massacre where 44 Special Action Force (SAF) Troopers were massacred by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) P-Noy can still call his government a student government.
You can characterize the five-year presidency of P-Noy as episodes of yearly embarrassing incidents. For instance, the following year on May 29, 2015, thanks to well-documented reports from within the Commission on Audit (COA) we have learned that when the Senate convicted the sitting Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona for violations of his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN) we now know that many Congressmen and Senators were given their Priority Development Assistance Program (PDAF) a.k.a. pork barrel in what many people say was nothing but a bribe to have CJ Corona convicted.
While P-Noy mistakenly thought that he would get away with his nefarious scheme in giving those who voted to convict CJ Corona their respective pork barrel… then out of the blue, on Nov. 18, 2013 the Supreme Court declared the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the PDAF as unconstitutional. This was another embarrassing episode in the Aquino presidency, where even his own appointees in the SC voted (14-0) to declare the DAP and PDAF as unconstitutional.
I don’t need to mention that close friends of the President like former PNP Chief Alan Purisima has only caused untold embarrassment to the President and to the Filipino people. Now we have this “tanim-bala” incident, which has become worldwide news, causing embarrassment to the Philippines. So why has P-Noy not fired his “bata-bata” NAIA General Manager Angel Honrado just like what he did to Gen. Purisima? Abangan!
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Email: vsbobita@mozcom.com or vsbobita@gmail.com