Like It Is
It’s the Holy Week, time to think of others
By Peter WallaceBut isn’t it always time to think of others?
But isn’t it always time to think of others?
I’m going to clear my desk a little (you should see the mounds of paper on it; I think there’s a desk underneath) with some notes I’ve made as events happen.
I know it’s unpopular with the nationalists, but I’ve long argued the importance of not losing English as the country’s principal language. Yes, losing. When my wife went to school in the ’50s and ’60s, English was the language of tuition and the language at home together with Tagalog.
The president doesn’t want to create a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) because it will further complicate the bureaucracy, there are already too many departments, agencies, etc., etc. I couldn’t agree more; simplification of the bureaucracy should be top of his list in addressing the administrative governance of this country. That’s one of [...]
Somehow, whenever there’s a cost increase in something, the immediate reaction is that someone must be gouging the public, some profit-hungry company determined to make as much profit as it can in whatever nefarious way it can. Those who complain so loudly don’t seem to care much about facts.
I’ve seen some very disturbing numbers that Mighty Corp. has to refute far better than it has so far. Let me start with just one—cost of manufacture. Over the past 11 months since the sin tax increase, Mighty, a small (3 percent of the market at the time) cigarette manufacturer owned by a Mr. Wong [...]
My heart goes out to the poor, poor people of the Visayas. We must help them, all of us. Even the smallest amount can add up. I’d suggest through the Red Cross, an organization designed to assist in emergencies, and we can trust it to do the job.
Amendments to the Cabotage Law would help do it. There’s a bill in Congress—and has been there since the late 1990s. As expected, approval of the bill is being opposed by local shipping companies, one of which had too many accidents that resulted in the death of more than 4,000 passengers yet is still allowed to ply its deadly trade. I’ve no idea why. Perhaps someone at the transportation department can tell me.
It’s called the proposed Freedom of Information Act and it seeks to promote transparency in government transactions. The President promised its passage during the campaign: He must honor his promise.
Last week I talked about the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System’s abrogation of its contract through the exclusion of tax it had committed to include. But there were other questionable decisions it made. It said there were some errors in the financial reports submitted by the concessionaires, but these are relatively minor items that could have been clarified with the latter, particularly as the external, independent auditors had found no such faults.
The so-called Napoles scam is a subject we cannot allow to turn into a one-week wonder. Unless public pressure is aggressively exerted on the establishment, the scandal will eventually be swept under the rug by conniving officials. This is potentially a pivotal point in President Aquino’s fight against corruption. If he handles this controversy forthright [...]
Guilty until proven innocent. For too long, far, far too long, the politically powerful have gotten away with their crimes. It may be unfair, it may be wrong, but the people at Luneta believe the senators and congressmen—not their staff or anyone else they try to transfer their guilt to—are guilty in the so-called “Napoles” scam. So they have to prove beyond reasonable doubt their innocence. And this we should insist on. We do not have to prove their guilt in a court of law; this is not, at its core, a legal issue, it’s a social, a moral one.
