What’s the truth about Mamasapano massacre?

Posthumous awards in most countries are usually given to soldiers who die in the battlefield after their remains are given full military honors and buried, but not a year later! So a year after the Jan. 25, 2015 Mamasapano Massacre, the giving of posthumous awards… a Medal of Valor to Dr. Christine Cempron, widow of Special Action Force (SAF) P02 Romeo Cempron who comes from Cebu and to Mrs. Leah Tabdi, widow of SAF Senior Inspector Gednat Tabdi by President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III was meaningless. There is no question that 44 SAF troopers died with their boots on and yet the President could only recognize the efforts of two SAF soldiers?

What these widows and their orphaned children want is justice for the killing of their fathers. But a year later, we are still in the midst of a massive cover-up to hide the whole truth about who should be held responsible for the Mamasapano massacre. Now did I hear the President blaming the SAF for entering the MILF territory? Then a year later, Presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte says that he was with the President in Zamboanga City when the Mamasapano debacle happened.

Why then all of the sudden is Mayor Duterte coming out in the open a year later? To save the President’s skin and ingratiate himself to the powers-that-be or to fool the Filipino people? I close this piece while watching the Senate investigation on the Mamasapano Massacre, which Senate committee chairperson Sen. Grace Poe pointed clearly that it was a massacre and not a misencounter. This is what we’ve been harping for so long. So let the truth come out in the next few days!

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Now that new year 2016 is upon us, my good friend, Mr. Robert “Bobby” Joseph of the Network of Independent Travel and Allied Services of the Philippines, Inc. (NITAS) has once again tasked the Department of Tourism (DOT)’s Hotel Ratings Program but with a new twist. He wrote DOT Undersecretary Ma. Victoria Jasmin asking her to shed light on the $7.1 million or P320.5 million grant from the Canadian Government purportedly to boost tourism in the Philippines. Yet the same Canadian Government has no such programs for their own hotel industry.

Bobby Joseph got hold of an Asian Development Bank (ADB) paper dated Feb. 8, 2013 entitled “Proposed Technical Assistance to the Philippines for Improving Competitiveness in Tourism.”  What was very revealing is that a huge chunk of the Canadian grant went to Uniquest, an Australian company as “consultant” of which $2.3 million or P109 million were paid… for what?

What does an Australian company know about Philippine tourism? I checked this out in Google and the only Uniquest featured is linked to the University of Queensland… specializing in global technology transfers, intellectual property and university collaborations. So Usec. Jasmin, I would like to hear your side of the story. Let’s hope you will show true transparency!

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Last Sunday, we joined the 50th anniversary celebration of CitySavings Bank (CSB), which started in the year 1966 co-founded by Don Ramon Aboitiz and its first President, Mr. Teotimo “Timo” Abellana. They started what one would call a small bank with one branch and today, they are not only in Cebu, but they have one hundred (100) branches throughout the Philippines with a client base of over 300,000 borrowers… most of them simple school teachers. They are considered a “Thrift Bank” today. But what a terrific growth they experienced in their 50-year journey.

Early during its first few years… I can never forget their radio slogan…”Pa hotcake, hotcake lang ni bai, pero CitySavings Bank sab kini!” They made a huge thing about being small and their logo today screams, “50-years of keeping it simple!” One of the speakers in last Sunday’s celebration was Cabinet Secretary Rene Almendras, who took over as President in the year 1999. Today CitySavings Bank is under the Aboitiz Equities Ventures (AEV) and it continues to experience growth.

Speaking of the Aboitiz Group of Companies, they just launched the Green Fashion Revolution, asking fashion designers to come up with a wearable clothing pieces using recycled material, dubbed “Ecouture: Green Design for a Better World.” These new designs will be featured in a grand runway show on January 30th Saturday at the SMX Convention Center, Aura.

Green Fashion Revolution is a CSR initiative under the Aboitiz Group’s Wealth on Waste Program. It promotes creative recycling of waste materials after its useful life. A brainchild of a group of Aboitiz scholars during the Aboitiz Scholars’ CSR Summit in December 2011, the program was first staged in 2012 through the auspices of the Aboitiz Foundation.

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