Filipinos satisfied with the war vs. drugs
The casualties of the Naga landslide are now at 46 dead and 59 people still considered missing. Last weekend, we just had too much rain but thankfully the volunteers did not mind and continued to search the area where the landslide occurred in Sitio Sindulan, Barangay Tinaan, Naga City. Already people are talking about stopping all kinds of quarrying supposedly to prevent future disasters from happening. Also, groups are calling for the complete stop to mining in this country.
Come now, the purpose to mines is really to help in the economy of our country. As I already pointed out, the Apo Cement Corp., now called Cemex, has been in existence for over a hundred years and like what I already wrote, Apocemco cement was used in the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam, two of America’s greatest infrastructure projects. So the question is, should cement plants be stopped because of the Naga landslide? I think not!
Mind you, people moved to Naga because the cement plants give jobs to many people and if you count the number of deaths and missing, it is just unfortunate that it happened at this time. But in the past Apocemco never had any huge casualties to justify its closure. But like what I said, let us continue to search for those missing and resolve this question whether we should close the cement plant or not. If at all, the economy in Naga has been quite robust and this disaster is just one of those things that happen to people when things go wrong. But to stop all mining activities in this country is totally wrong and disastrous for the Philippine economy!
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According to the Social Weather Station report, 78 percent of Filipinos are satisfied with the war on drugs waged by the Duterte administration. This tells you that it is the international news media that gives the Philippines a bad international image. Just a week ago, the International People’s Tribunal found President Rodrigo Duterte guilty of human rights violations, citing witness testimonies on alleged incidents.
The ruling, handed out by a jury last Wednesday, was expected to be forwarded to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the European Parliament, and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where complaints against Duterte are pending. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the ruling was a “sham decision” that has “no official sanction.” The validity of the findings will depend on the validity of the tribunal. They appear to be a propaganda body of the international left and, therefore, we set it aside as being a useless piece of propaganda against the government.”
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Last weekend, I got invited by my classmate Mr. Enrique “Quito” Fararrons to his rest house in Tuburan town. As I’ve already been there a lot of times, I decided that for this trip, I would take the old route, which means passing through the old Banilad road passing through the Ateneo de Cebu, then we passed through the main street in Consolacion then from there passed through Liloan, Compostela, Danao, and finally to Lugo.
It was raining the whole Saturday and because of traffic in the area, the whole trip took me nearly four hours. I knew that this trip would take a lot of time, but I just had to pass this route since I had not passed there for more than two years already. Mind you, a lot of the national road has already been widened, but that widening is useless for as long as vehicles are allowed to stop on the side of the road, which causes the road to narrow. Let me just say that if the traffic authorities do not allow vehicles to park on the national road, then things can move more smoothly.
On Sunday after lunch, I drove from my friend’s house in Tuburan via the Transcentral Highway and that trip only took me two hours and I wasn’t even in a hurry to overtake slower vehicles. This just gives you the story that in going to Bantayan Island via Hagnaya you are better off driving along the Transcentral Highway because while it is about 15 kilometers longer, with lesser traffic you can actually drive faster.
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