EDITORIAL - Drilon is missing a point

The opposition has questioned what it claimed as highly expensive the construction of a giant cauldron that will be used for the torch lighting ceremony during next week’s opening of the 30th Southeast Asian Games.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, an opposition stalwart, questioned the validity of the cauldron’s construction, explaining that the P50 million spent for it is enough to build at least 50 classrooms.

"Is it valid, is it just that we do away with 50 classrooms to build a P50-million kaldero (pot) that we’ll use only once?" Drilon asked. "I am not even talking about overpricing. I am talking about the propriety of doing away with 50 classrooms in order to put up a P50-million kaldero."

Whether or not the cauldron is overpriced is yet to be determined in a Senate investigation that Drilon is pushing for in the coming days. But, as many see it, the senator only wants to find a means to trigger public perception that the whopping amount makes the cauldron’s construction highly anomalous.

Drilon is missing the point, however. He may have thought the Duterte administration is wasting public money on a cauldron that will only be used once. But he failed to realize the significance of this ‘expensive item’ as the country hosts Southeast Asia’s most prestigious sporting spectacle for the fourth time.

The point that the government is trying to demonstrate here is the fact that the country is really showing the international community that it is capable of raising the bar from its previous hosting of the biennial meet, regardless of the billions it needs to spend.

It is useless to single out just a tiny part of our hosting when the country is shelling out at least P7.5 billion for the entire SEA Games. What is important is the success of the event, one that leaves a lasting impression that reminds the world that the Philippines has slowly become a force in hosting major sporting events.