Ako Bicol obesity bill embarrassing

Ako Bicol has sponsored a bill to curb or cure obesity? A few months back, leading politicians in Camarines Sur were at each other’s throats over a proposal to divide the province so that another old political clan may lord it over half the territory.

What preoccupies Bicolano politicians speaks eloquently of the sad quality of our leaders. We are among the poorest regions nationwide with the highest incidence of malnutrition and poverty, and our political leaders can think of nothing better than parochial territorial boundaries or a program to rescue the rich from the effects of overeating and sloth.

It does not require a genius to imagine and wish for a southbound replication of the global-quality highways going north from Manila to either Subic or all the way to Tarlac City and beyond, traversing the great unpopulated expanse of Hacienda Luisita. Unless one’s focus has been beclouded by too much fat.

One day in some distant future, when the pork barrel system shall have been scrapped and the Philippines shall have institutionalized measures eradicating thievery in government and, thus, politics is no longer a lucrative family business, perchance a new breed of politicians will rise and have the capacity to  think of or visualize what would be good for Bicol, or the entire country for that matter.

It is not hard to imagine what economic miracles an express mass transit system (like a bullet train) spanning the entire breadth of the country would mean in terms of social, cultural and economic development. Or at least, start with a road infrastructure like the SCTEx going all the way to Sorsogon and beyond. What wonders would that translate into! So how about proposing that instead?

And we all know those projects would pay for themselves so lack of funds would not be a viable objection.

But for now, it is becoming an embarrassment to be a Bicolano!

—JUAN AGAPITO M. TRIA II,

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