Aren’t legislators public servants?

As of today there were 77 recovered bodies at the Barangay Tinaan, Naga landslide area and eight more missing since the disaster struck on Sept. 20. This means there are less than a hundred persons who died in that landslide, which to many of us who saw the video footage when the earth finally moved, was one of the biggest landslides that ever happened here in Cebu. The whole disaster area covers about 80 hectares of land in Naga. With more than a week that has passed since the landslide happened, there are no more survivors to be found. Slowly the dead are being found and the number of missing is dwindling.

At this point the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has restored all the cancelled quarrying all over the country except in Naga, Cebu. Call it just what the residents of Naga wanted DENR to do in that place of disaster as they did not want the quarrying to continue. But for the record there are many in Naga who want Cemex to continue.

Meanwhile, Atty. Benjamin Cabrido, an environmentalist lawyer plans to file a consolidated case against Apo Land and Quarry Corp. (ALQC) and its business partner Cemex and three government offices for the deadly landslide that struck Barangay Tinaan in Naga. Accordingly this  damage suit will also include the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the city government of Naga.

The P1 billion that they are requesting is P500 million for the reparations of the victims and P500 million for the rehabilitation of the landslide area. Again, I’d like to point out that there has never been a disaster of this magnitude that struck the Apo Cement Company since it began operating in Naga at the turn of the century.

While we do not question this court suit and hope that this can be done swiftly, however knowing how our courts move ever so slowly, I’m sure that any court decision on this issue would take years to settle. Perhaps if Cemex can help out the victims of this disaster, it would certainly help the people of Naga in its time of need.

Still on the issue of disaster, I was distraught to learn from the headlines of the Philippine STAR yesterday that a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami had struck Palu in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Looking at the photos being shown on Facebook, one can see how bad is the devastation in Indonesia with this latest natural disaster. I just hope that the Philippines would offer Indonesian President Joko Widodo some kind of assistance. As of this time, no Filipinos were found in the disaster area. Right now Indonesia needs warm bodies to help find survivors in this natural disaster.

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Yesterday, I couldn’t resist reading the article of Pia Lee-Brago entitled “Fake News Charges vs. Journalists Increasing Worldwide”. It seems that governments around the world are increasingly charging journalists who contradict official statements as purveyors of “fake news,” the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the CPJ, a United States-based non-government organization promoting press freedom and advocating for the rights of journalists worldwide, underscored the reality that journalists are regularly threatened, attacked, killed and imprisoned in record numbers around the world.

Indeed, how the world has changed and I can only blame this on today’s digital technology especially in the social media networks. Today anyone with a Facebook page can be a journalist/blogger and more often than not, they sell good stories, but since they do not work under an editor, it is just a matter of time when they could sell a story which is far from the truth just so they can sell their story. Mind you this is also happening in mainstream media, including television!

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Over the weekend, a Facebook issue became viral when a Party-list Congressman, ACTS-OFW Rep. Aniceto ‘John’ Bertiz III was shown on video practically showing off his Congressional ID in order to escape from having to pass through the security checks at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). This Congressman did not realize that the video cameras of the NAIA can be used in Facebook. Not far from his line of passengers was Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos who has to remove her shoes in order to pass through the security guards. He has since apologized, but why is the Party-List Congressman still part of our Legislature? When will legislators realize that they are public servants?

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