It all began with the report about that controversial cauldron that costs at least P45 million, which opposition Senator Franklin Drilon believed the cost should have built more schools for our children. Then the floodgates opened and the social media network went on full throttle attacking anything negative about the hosting of the 30th Southeast Asian Games. What Sen. Drilon has done was reawaken the quiet Filipino crabs that splashed the social media network with negative stories on our hosting of the SEA Games.
If you really think about it… most of the negative stories are not even printed in the newspapers of other nations when they host such an important sporting event. Then came a major newspaper that printed fake news about how their stadium was built… more proof that so many Filipinos are not in unison in support of our hosting the Southeast Asian Games. This awakened our crab mentality!
This issue made House Speaker and Philippine Southeast Asian Games Organizing Committee head Alan Cayetano suggest that the Office of the President may conduct the investigation on these so-called allegations, which then Pres. Rodrigo Duterte said that he would have this investigated.
We gathered that among the problems plaguing the SEA Games organizers are the confusion in the billeting and transportation of some athletes, insufficient food, the failure to provide halal food to Muslim athletes, the unfinished game venues, media center, and players’ facilities. Frankly speaking I’m sure that these are problems that previous hosts of the SEA also had and didn’t make a big fuss out of it.
But if and when it comes to corruption, this is another story that really needs a full-blown investigation. However I just hope that our investigators would pause a little bit and wait until our hosting of the SEAG is over and done with. Then by all means, let’s get into the bottom of this. But in the meantime, all Filipinos are enjoined to cheer for our Filipino athletes to show to the world that Filipinos are one when it comes to sports.
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I really didn’t want to add any more stories on the issue of the firing of Vice President Leni Robredo as co-chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) so that hopefully she could move on from this ugly episode in her life. However we need to respond to what opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay said the other day that her firing was likened to an extrajudicial killing (EKJ). Hmmm it just gets me where Edcel Lagman got this idea? Firing a person can never be likened to killing a person!
Here is what Edcel Lagman said, “The summary dismissal of the Vice President as ICAD co-chair without any valid reasons and due process is akin to an extrajudicial killing. Like EJK victims, Robredo fought and criticized the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.” He claimed that the President fired Robredo to hide from her data on the anti-drugs campaign.
I have no doubt that opposition leaders like Lagman have really lost their wisdom. Sure we understand that as a staunch ally of the Vice President he would always defend her. But to say that her firing was akin to an EKJ killing is truly out of bounds and totally unreasonable!
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I’ve been watching a very interesting documentary entitled “The Future of Water” which gives the viewer an insight into the world’s most important rivers and the nations that benefit from the water those rivers bring to their communities. If I placed all the things that I saw in a column, it would perhaps take many columns to do… so let me simply state that we who live in the Philippine islands are lucky or blessed in the sense that we do not have to deal with other foreign nations when it comes to our water needs.
But then I read in the news a couple of weeks ago that three congressmen warned their colleagues yesterday that creating a new department to put water agencies under one umbrella would not solve the water crisis that millions of residents of Metro Manila and neighboring areas are facing. I fully agree… when it comes to our water needs, creating a Department of Water only creates a debating society as to where we should source our water needs. What our people now needs is water and creating a department of water does not solve our water crisis, as it only adds more costs to our water.
If there is any grave importance to consider it is to stop the local government units (LGUs) from appointing their political allies into our water districts because it is really putting the wrong people to solve a very important issue, unless of course they have allies that really know about the water needs of their community. But most important of all is to make water the top priority of our LGUs.
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Email: vsbobita@gmail.com