Bicol storms, Bicol boys

This week, two storms hit Bicol.

The first is political. Former senator Leila de Lima, jailed for six years and Bicol’s political icon, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, faced the powerful House quad committee on drugs; public order and safety; human rights and accounts, to detail the extraordinary killings when Rodrigo Duterte was mayor of Davao, and to complain against the injustices done against her by Duterte as president, to silence her and punish her for exposing the EJKs. Her testimony lasted over an hour, after which she asked the House to let the International Criminal Court take over Duterte’s case as a crime against humanity.

The second storm is more devastating on the life of Filipinos, particularly Bicolanos. Tropical Storm Kristine, despite being only Typhoon Signal 1 or 2, poured more rains on Bicol in one day (on Oct. 23) than the rainfall expected in one month, more than 440 millimeters – even before the TS could make landfall, which is early morning of Oct. 24.

Before quad comm, De Lima insisted that despite the Philippines’ withdrawal – by then president Duterte – from the ICC or Rome Statute (ratified by the Philippine Senate in 2011), a law, RA 9851, enables the country to remain with the ICC.

RA 9851, “An Act Defining and Penalizing Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity, Organizing, Jurisdiction, Designating Special Courts and for Related Purposes,” was enacted Dec. 11, 2009. It punishes the same crimes under the ICC’s Rome Statute.

Still, since the quad comm now acts like a Truth Commission (De Lima’s description), then it shows a criminal justice system works in this country. ICC comes in only when a country cannot enforce its laws and demand accountability from offenders.

Which means Digong Duterte will have to deal with his favorite bete noir, the president of the Philippines, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. The old man’s judicial future is now literally in BBM’s hands. A stroke of signature can clear things up.

But how can Digong now approach BBM when his recalcitrant, fissiparous daughter VP Sara Duterte wants to chop the President’s head off and excavate the remains of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and throw them into the West Philippine Sea?

Now for the floods.

At this writing, blogs and tv reports indicate Naga (Camarines Sur), as well as Albay, are flooded. Some say their floods are the worst in 30 years. Others say they are the worst in living memory. Still a few claimed the floods are the worst of the century.

Camarines Sur accounts for 33 percent of the economic production of GDP of Bicol, worth more than P700 billion a year as of 2022. Albay adds another 25 percent, for a total regional GDP share of 58 percent (or P406 billion) for the two provinces. If Kristine’s floods could damage at least a third of that production, you are looking at typhoon damage of about P120 billion.

CamSur’s agriculture production (valued at P40 billion) accounts for 43 percent of Bicol’s total agricultural output. Floods can easily wipe that out. CamSur’s industry (worth P60 billion a year) is 28 percent of Bicol’s total industrial production. Its services (P96 billion) is 34 percent of total Bicol services output.

Albay, meanwhile, had total economic production of P145 billion in 2022 – P14 billion in agriculture (15.3 percent of total Bicol region), P51 billion industry (24.3 percent of total Bicol) and P80 billion in services (28.4 percent of the region’s services value added).

With Bicol in bad shape, shouldn’t the powerful probe committees in the Senate and the House quit their telenovela investigations, muna, and help the people of Bicol, please? Bicol needs all hands on its deck, to use a sailing metaphor.

The Senate is headed by a powerful and popular Bicolano, SP Chiz Escudero, of Sorsogon. The House of Representatives decides who gets how much in government. And VP Sara Duterte says only two people do that for the House – Speaker Martin Romualdez and Ako Bicol Party-list Congressman Zaldy Co. “The budget of the Philippines is held by only two people,” the fractious Sara fumed in a video.

In 2023, Sara recalled, DepEd’s original classroom budget was P5 billion. Some congressmen asked for a share of the money, ostensibly for their classrooms. She refused.

In reaction, the DepEd’s classroom budget suddenly ballooned to P15 billion, up P10 billion, a mathematical magic, to accommodate the classroom requests of the congressmen. “The P10 billion (hike) was not controlled by Deped,” Sara protested in a Sept 5, 2024 video, “it was controlled by Cong. Zaldy Co and Cong. Martin Romualdez. In 2024, without DepEd asking for it, the classroom budget was again raised, from P19 billion to P24 billion. So P10 billion in 2023 plus P5 billion in 2024 – an additional P15 billion for classrooms.

I am sure Zaldy Co can divert part of that extra P15 billion to build classrooms damaged in Bicol.

It will be good money after good. Bicol has one of the highest literacy rates in the Philippines – 97.4 percent.

Unbelievably, Filipino literacy is rising, from 95.8 percent to 97 percent in 2020. Two regions topped in literacy – Metro Manila, 98.9 percent, and Ilocos, home region of the President, 98.6 percent.

If this is true, that nearly all Filipinos are literate, how come, of the 7,200 Filipino 15-year-olds, chosen at random nationwide, to participate in the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), 75 percent (75 of every 100) failed the basic tests in reading, math and science?

Could it be that those extra billions for classrooms were never built, that they were diverted to some private pockets? I heard that a Bicol congressman (not Joey Salceda) having to do with budgets is now worth easily P100 billion.

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