Panay News | PEOPLE POWWOW Boracay goes ‘green’ again

THE OTHER night, a TV newscast played a video clip of the beach of Boracay in its greenest “splendor”. The white sand thereat had disappeared, covered anew by a carpet of moss splashing ashore. The newscaster sounded fair when he echoed the assurance of the islanders that it was just a “temporary” aberration characterizing the onset of summer.

But the news was not really news; I had reported it in this corner three years ago while on a three-day vacation in Boracay. Suspicious that it was aggravated by worsening pollution emanating from nearby septic tanks and poor drainage, I begged of the municipal government of Malay, Aklan to solve the pollution problem. It was around 9 a.m. one morning when photojournalist Ric Octavio and I tried to see the then mayor, John Tan, but in vain; the security guards said he was still asleep in his room at Casa Pilar.

Until now, the hoteliers, restaurateurs and shop owners leave it to their staff to rake up the accumulated “green carpet” every morning. But the moss always tends to add up with every wave breaking over the beach.

It is alarming that three years have passed with no solution to the problem emerging. Moss is not “natural” in a tourist haven that is supposed to attract swimmers. Because it is not in its normal habitat, moss on the beach is clearly a pollutant, even on the assumption that it’s not toxic by itself.

Moss is a fibrous plant that normally grows on damp stone and wood, or even on a shipwreck under the sea. No matter how infrequent it appears, it is never a welcome site on a tourist “paradise”; it could discourage first-time tourists from coming back.

Of course, objectors may shrug off the warning by citing statistics. It is no secret that Boracay is the biggest contributor to the income of the province of Aklan, what with an unprecedented 1.7 million foreign and local tourists recorded in the entire year 2016.

If I heard it right from Regional Director Helen Catalbas of the Department of Tourism, thousands of international tourists on three cruise ships are coming to Boracay between now and the end of this month.

Do we have to wait for reversal of tourist volume to act decisively?

Let this be another wake-up call to local authorities. Either they act now and prevent further degradation of the island, or lose the tourists who lay the golden eggs.

If truth be told, the island no longer projects the ambiance of a natural hideaway. High-rise and air-conditioned hotels like those in Metro Manila now line the beachfront, replacing the bamboo-and-nipa cottages. Were it not for the surrounding white-sand beach, the place could be a mistaken for any other Philippine city where no one could escape air pollution belched by tricycles running on narrow roads that betray poor infrastructure planning.

The shopping area known as The Mall reminds us of the crowded shops in space-starved Divisoria and Baclaran markets in Metro Manila. The narrow roads, barely able to accommodate vehicles coming from opposite directions, betray the place’s lack of development planning.

Boracay is no longer what it used to be when Panay News founder Danny Fajardo and I first visited the island in 1982. There was not yet a single concrete building lining the beach front.  Spaced far between were a score of bamboo-and-nipa huts and carinderias. We rented a two-bedroom hut for an overnight stay at twenty-five pesos only.

Change has indeed come to Boracay.  But as to whether it’s an environment-friendly change, your guess is as good as mine./PN

Uncertain post-Duterte scenario

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

TWO unpalatable facts haunt President Rodrigo Duterte: disease and old age. By his own admission, he suffers from the spine-degenerative Buerger’s disease which he caught from years of cigarette smoking; and which, according to Dr. Irene Vergara of the University of Santo Tomas Hospital, forced him to quit smoking. It causes arterial swelling and blood clots, thus restricting normal blood circulation.

To free himself from pain, he takes Fentanyl, a regulated, stronger-than-morphine opioid.

Is Buerger’s the reason why he has repeatedly “joked” about dying? A case in point was when he told an audience of Filipinos in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Dec. 13, 2016, “This is my last hurrah. I am not sure if I will still be around by the end of my term.”

Based on the latest finding of the World Health Organization, the average person residing in the Philippines has a lifespan of 68.5 years.  Duterte is older at 71 going on 72 come March 28.

The President’s health and age, no doubt, are primordial reasons why both his political allies and adversaries worry over their own future.  Although the issue on presidential succession is well defined in the Constitution, “spare tire” Vice President Leni Robredo faces the possibility of being booted out because of the “electoral fraud” protest lodged against her by contender Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

We therefore don’t see the “vice” stepping up over and above the diverse pro-Duterte political forces who would scramble for power among themselves in case Duterte fades away amid a supposed destabilization plot which Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez attributes to “allies of former President Aquino.”

But how could the opposition Liberal Party (LP) seize power when most of its members have already jumped over the administration bandwagon? It could only do so in convergence with disgruntled elements within the Duterte circle, including sympathizers of incarcerated Sen. Leila de Lima and dismissed National Irrigation Authority administrator Peter Laviña.

The “courage” of Sen. Antonio Trillanes, steadfast in accusing Duterte of stashing away P2.4 billion in hidden bank accounts, implies undisclosed strong connections – say, with his “mistahs” at the Philippine Military Academy who now occupies high positions in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Then, too, the confession of a retired police officer, SPO3 Arthur Lascañas on his involvement in the Davao Death Squad (DDS) killings when Duterte was still mayor of Davao City – in effect reversing his denial before a Senate inquiry – bolsters the earlier testimony of another self-implicating cop, Edgardo Matobato.   

It’s a paradox that the two have found “safety” in holding Duterte liable for ordering them to eliminate suspected drug pushers and critical broadcaster Jun Porras Pala; and for having also named the other cops in the alleged operation.  Why would they risk their lives if they were not telling the truth?

The Matobato-Lascañas exposés are among the fodders that two prestigious human rights organizations – Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – have used in urging the United Nations’ Human Rights Council to investigate the “human rights calamity in the Philippines.”

A defiant Duterte talked back last Thursday, “When you kill criminals, it is not a crime against humanity. The criminals have no humanity.”

Rather than cultivate “killings fields”, shouldn’t the President have sought the intervention of his Chinese friend and counterpart, President Xi Jin Ping? As admitted by spokesman Derrick Carreon of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, “The majority of the meth we have come from China.” 

Remember, China is the ally Duterte has embraced at the expense of the United States.

But then, let Digong Duterte be reminded that the Americans had played a part in the unexpected downfall of used-to-be popular President Ferdinand Marcos./PN

Will the truth set DepEd officials free?

Panay News Editorial

Dated: Sept. 13, 2014

Will the truth set DepEd officials free?

THE Department of Education’s Iloilo division superintendent, Dr. Myrna Castillo, has spoken in a press conference, “My conscience is clear.”

She was clearing herself of any anomaly committed by her office’s direct involvement in the Little League Softball World Series, where high school and elementary school girls from Zarraga, Iloilo competed in the major league softball in Portland, Oregon (August 7-13, 2014) and junior league in Kirkland, Washington (August 10-16), respectively.

Well, whether her conscience is good enough to “clear” her is one thing. Whether the investigating bodies — the DepEd regional office and the Sangguniang Panglunsod — agree with her is another matter.

Let us take her word at face value: Despite the help of Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr., she and other delegation officials had not raised enough millions of pesos demanded by their USA trip, and so they had to pick their own pockets.

If they are that rich, we hope they would not be liable for unexplained wealth punishable under the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. No doubt any ordinary DepEd employee would not waste more or less $2,000 for a round-trip fare.

Let us also take Dr. Castillo’s word at face value: Only her son Nonie Mark, not her daughter Marian Grace, went with her as “comforting coach.” Has Marky, a college student, ever played a game of softball?

We now agree that Marian Grace Castillo–Suiza was not able to join the trip for whatever reason, but we don’t agree that she had no participation in soliciting funds. The letterhead of their solicitation letter listed her as “finance officer.”

She must have given way to Ruby Theresa Palmaira, a DepEd supervisor detailed in the division office who made it to Kirkland, Washington as “assistant team manager.”

A school principal (name withheld upon request) said Ruby had worked hard in reminding 180 school principals and 52 district supervisors to send in their donations. It remains to be proven, however, whether each of them was really forced to cough up public funds ranging from P5,000 to P20,000, unless they eventually “sing” at the risk of being implicated.

In the list of donors that Castillo gave to the media, no name of supplier or contractor appeared. But these suppliers and contractors were the biggest “pressured” donors.

In fairness to the division superintendent, she is not the only “nepotistic” official in the junior league delegation. Lina Dordas, principal of Zarraga National High School, had her daughter, Arvek Clydel Dordas, listed as player in the junior league.

As regards the claim of team manager Antonio Oquindo that the Iloilo team had defaulted only one game in Oregon, the Little League website shows that they had defaulted two — against Northern California on Aug. 7 and against New Jersey on Aug. 8. They lost all of their games against Canada, Louisiana and the Czech Republic. True, they placed 5th in the pool of five teams in pool B. Therefore, after losing to the 5th placer of pool A (Czech Republic), our team was as good as 10th placer.

Demoralization could have devastated our “coach-less” team in Portland, Oregon. Believe it or not, the “comforting coach” was no real coach. If it was any consolation, our team in Kirkland, Washington won one game. As to why Castillo did not even announce what team they had defeated, we don’t know why.

We agree with Novie Guazo and Regan Arlos of RMN Radio: the delegation officials were primarily motivated by their quest for a US visa, not for a medal for the 24 Ilongga players. Jun-Jun Sornito of Aksyon Radyo, on the other hand, echoed the ruling of the Civil Service Commission that public funds could not be used for private activities.

Bombo Radyo and Super Radyo likewise questioned her “fund-raising.”

The Commission on Audit was right in disapproving the Division Office’s request for a million-peso donation to be sourced from the school board fund. As we have noted in a past editorial, the Little League World Series is a private US-based sports organization with no formal DepEd linkage. It should have coordinated with the Philippine Sports Commission.

Incidentally, sports are no longer within the domain of DepEd, which used to be known as Department of Education, Culture and Sports, or DECS. DepEd has bigger problems to attend to, such as dilapidated and unrepaired schools.

PEOPLE POWWOW: A misleading indicator of productivity

As Published in Panay News

Dated: Sept. 12, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: A misleading indicator of productivity

By HERBERT VEGO

EACH time President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III paints a glowing picture of the country’s “prosperity” because of tuwid na daan, the poor can only shake their heads, wondering whether he is referring to New Zealand.

Well, how can we argue against the Philippines’ 7.8 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth? GDP refers to the annual domestic output of a country, including exports. The climbing percentage is therefore measured against the previous year’s output, hence not indicative of the general population’s economic productivity.

In fact, nine of the top 10 GDP performers in the latest list of the Economic Intelligence Unity of the United States are “poor nations” by world standard.

As published in a recent issue of the Washington Post, here are the 10 countries that are expected to have the most economic growth in 2014, ranked from first to last by percentage of GDP growth:

(1) Mongolia, 15.3 percent;

(2) Sierra Leone, 11.2 percent;

(3) Turkmenistan, 9.2 percent;

(4-5) Two-way tie: Bhutan, 8.8 percent; Libya, 8.8 percent;

(6-8) Three-way tie: Iraq, 8.5 percent; Laos, 8.5 percent; Timor-Leste, 8.5 percent;

(9) Eritrea, 8.0 percent;

(10) Zambia, 7.9 percent

You will note that all of these countries, with the exception of Libya, are very poor. In most of them, economic growth is driven by oil or any other natural resources. Many of the booms come from the sale of those natural resources to developing countries.

A very poor country growing rich because of a single natural resource is nothing new, to cite Saudi Arabia as the best example, which has been transformed by a half-century of selling oil to Western countries.

Top-ranked Mongolia has been the world’s fastest-growing economy since 2012, resulting from the massive sale of its mineral resources to China. The country’s families that have been nomadic for centuries have now homes of their own.

But on the local front, as far Juan dela Cruz who does not feel the trickles of prosperity is concerned, the President’s glowing boast sounds Greek.

We have heard enough of broken promises from PNoy.  We have seen enough of graft and corruption, but not a stretch of tuwid na daan.

I wonder how many of us remember the words he said when he ran for President against his cousin Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro in 2010. He said, “This will be a fight of good versus evil.”

The allusion to “evil” was in the sense that Teodoro was the candidate of the then outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Gibo, were he not a gentleman, could have reminded PNoy that the battle between good and evil only refers to the battle between God and Satan.

Has PNoy vanquished Satan in four years of his administration?

Considering the current population of the country which is a hundred million people occupying an archipelago of 115,830 square miles, the fact is that with more mouths to feed than we can afford, our average per-person income or gross national product (GNP) – that is, value of all goods produced annually divided by number of people – is only around US $1,000 or P44,000 per year or P3,666 per month. Oh no!

Worse, since 90 percent of the country’s wealth is in the hands of only 10 percent of the population, the poorest of the poor cannot eat three square meals a day.

Compare our GNP to that of Denmark, a smaller nation with a population of only seven million people, and you will gasp in awe. Denmark has a towering GNP of US $27,000. That’s 27 times of our own!/PN

PEOPLE POWWOW: Raul Gonzalez Sr. was also a journalist

As Published in Panay News

September 10, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: Raul Gonzalez Sr. was also a journalist

By HERBERT VEGO

IN the wake of the death of former Justice secretary Raul Gonzalez Sr. Sunday night, we heard Ilonggos from all walks of life reminiscing the “good old days” with him. Even his political allies-turned-enemies could only count the ways – as private citizen, congressman and Justice secretary – the old man had helped them.

I was no longer close to the man when he ascended the political ladder. But I would like to share with you readers how we had crossed path in the past because of our common passion for journalism. I am sure most Filipinos do not yet know that, aside from being lawyer, politician and Cabinet official, Gonzalez used to be an active newspaper columnist.

The first time I saw his byline was sometime in the early 1970s when he was writing a column for the now defunct “We-Forum”, at that time a hot weekly critical of martial law and President Ferdinand Marcos. Being also a Manila-based journalist, I knew then the bigger risk he had undergone when he stood as lawyer to then Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. who was facing subversion charges before the Marcos-controlled military tribunal.

The first time I saw Raul Gonzalez Sr., he was at the check-in counter of the Manila domestic airport. I sidled up to him and introduced myself as a fellow journalist.

“I’m going home to Iloilo City to deliver a speech before a civic organization,” he said while giving me his calling card.

It would take many more years before I saw him again. I contented myself reading his columns and reading about him.

It came as no surprise when the next President – Ninoy’s widow, Cory Cojuangco Aquino – handpicked him as the tanodbayan in her revolutionary government in 1986. The said new position was the equivalent of today’s ombudsman.

Sometime in 1992 or 1993 while I was holding office as editor of the weekly Visayan Tribune at the Iloilo-YMCA Building, a surprise visitor came in. He was Raul Gonzalez Sr. who had gone back to private life.

He offered an idea I could not refuse. He would write a column for the paper for free.

From then on, he paid me a weekly visit to submit his typewritten column.

More often than not, he was tackling local, rather than national issues, in his columns. He would often criticize the congressman at that time, Rafael Lopez-Vito.

One afternoon, he asked me to list down the names of all the 180 barangay captains in Iloilo City. This done, he issued a check for a year’s subscription of each of them to our weekly newspaper.

Later, he also wrote columns for Panay News, which was still a weekly.

Of course, most of the barangay leaders at that time were identified with the incumbent congressman. But Gonzalez saw this not as a handicap but as a challenge to hurdle.

As president of the Iloilo Press Club at that time, I proposed that he sponsor a bowling tournament to be participated in by the print, broadcast and TV media. That should endear him to the most important people who would boost his image as upcoming public servant.

He agreed to sponsor. In fact, he personally attended our bowling tournament at Saint Elizabeth Center. He footed all the bills and left cash prizes for individual and group winners.

That single act of camaraderie endeared him to the Iloilo media. The news that he would run for congressman against Lopez-Vito in 1995 had gone “viral” in the tri-media.

The late Rodolfo Legaspi, an incumbent provincial board member at that time, predicted that Gonzalez would win.

“If Raul becomes congressman,” he told this writer, “he would be flooded with invitations he couldn’t accept. Now that he is not yet a candidate, please relay my invitation to him to visit Marina Beach Resort.”

Marina, owned by Legaspi, was then a popular tourist resort in Miag-ao town.

When I told Gonzalez that the invitation had come from the owner of Marina, he snapped, “Okay, I will be there on Sunday. I have to find out if the resort would be an ideal place to gather together my political leaders and followers.”

To cut the long story short, he ran for congressman and unseated Lopez-Vito in 1995, in effect sealing his colorful political future.

From then on, he ceased to be a journalist in order to be a newsmaker.

Happy trip to the more wonderful world, Sir!/PN

Trillanes half-correct on K-12

As Published in Panay News

July 25, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: Trillanes half-correct on K-12

BY HERBERT VEGO

THIS corner half-agrees with Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV who said the other day that the K-12 program should be suspended until the government has resolved the current fundamental problems of the country’s education such as lack of classrooms and school materials. The clarion call of the moment is to rebuild the typhoon-wrecked public and private schools. There are still thousands of them.

That’s correct. I “half-agree” because, rather than just be suspended, the K-12 should be discarded. As envisioned by the elitist Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro, it would require compulsory kindergarten and prolong elementary-to-secondary education from 10 to 12 years on the wrong assumption that “we have been left behind.”

It would also prolong the agony of poor parents and students. Shouldn’t we be prouder that we do it in only 10 years while others do it in 12?

The K-12 program having kicked off, most parents now see added commercialism beneficial to the schools, especially private ones, and textbook publishers, among other beneficiaries.

Look at some of the new modules K-12 has enforced. To name a few: Handicraft Production, Bread and Pastry Production, Caregiving and Electrical Installation and Maintenance.

Why ram them all into high school kids? Does Luisto expect high school graduates to bake cake or baby-sit for a living right after high school graduation?

These are the same modules that the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) separately teaches to short-course vocational trainees, depending on the field sought. In fact, the main reason why TESDA exists is to accommodate students who can’t afford long professional courses.

The extra two years of high school would have been more than enough for a vocational tertiary education, or for the first two years of professional education. Extending the agony of students and their poor parents would not result in better and more college graduates.

As I said in a previous column, records at the DepEd show that, out of every 100 students who enroll in elementary school, only 58 make it to high school. Of these 58, only 33 enroll in college but only 14 finally graduate. Those who drop out do so due to the incapacity of their parents to spend for their tertiary education.

On the other hand, Trillanes is correct in citing the government’s unpreparedness to solve  the threatened retrenchment of about 85,000 college professors and employees when the first batch of K-12 students enroll in Grade 11 (the equivalent of fifth year high school) in 2016. Without K-12, they will have graduated by then.

Simply put, with no high school graduates moving into college in the year 2016 – of course with the exception of a few previous years’ graduates who temporarily stopped schooling – instructors and professors of college freshmen would go either unemployed or underemployed for at least two years.

And so, the only sane move for the PNoy government to do is scrap Luistro’s K-12 program, which has not undergone public hearing, before it’s too late.

It’s really not too late to scrap K-12 because this year is only the third year of its implementation; the third year high school students this year would be glad to hit fourth year and finish high school in 2016.

Who cares what President Noynoy Aquino and Education Secretary Armin Luistro say? The prolonged basic education would only result in more dropouts.

There has been no evidence to show that Filipinos who spend only 10 years in basic education do not succeed. If that were so, then Luistro himself would have gone to the farm.

I remember my friend Canuto, who did spend six years in high school long ago. Did that make him a good college student?

No, he did not have to. His parents bought him a plow and carabao to work on the farm. Today, he is one of the richest farmers in our barangay./PN

The oatmeal solution

As Published in Panay News

Dated: July 23, 2014

PEOPLE POWWOW: The oatmeal solution

By HERBERT VEGO

AS late as one year ago, I had become so frail and underweight that I thought it was a matter of time before I checked into kingdom come. I blamed it on my proven afflictions, namely hypertension, atherosclerosis and ventricular dysfunction.

“Don’t give up,” my sister Susie, a doctor of medicine, advised. “Try altering your food preferences.”

Today, at age 64, I am no longer that skinny scarecrow. For whatever benefit it may give our readers, I am now writing about it.

My sister’s advice was for me to immediately forget pork, beef and all other fat-rich meals as much as possible and switch to fish and plant-based products. Since then, oatmeal – topped with fresh fruits – has become my favorite breakfast.

Oatmeal contains soluble fiber, which reduces low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol. Soluble fiber, which is also found in such food as kidney beans, mongo sprouts, apples, pears and prunes, appears to reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the intestines. Gel-like soluble fiber binds bile (which contains cholesterol) and dietary cholesterol so that the body excretes it.

Based on my sister’s research, five to 10 grams of soluble fiber a day decreases LDL cholesterol by about five percent. Eating 1.5 cups of cooked oatmeal provides 4.5 grams of fiber — enough to lower cholesterol.

A cholesterol-lowering diet in which 20 percent of the calories come from may reduce LDL cholesterol by 12 percent. For a 1,200-calorie per day diet, a little less than 1/3 of a cup of pili nuts or peanuts is more or less 240 calories, or 20 percent of the total calories for the day.

Since all nuts are high in calories, a handful will suffice. As with any food, good or bad, eating too much can cause weight gain, and being overweight places you at higher risk of heart disease. To avoid gaining weight, replace food high in saturated fat with nuts.

Studies in the 1970s showed that Greenland Eskimos had a lower rate of heart disease than did other individuals living in Greenland at the same time. Analysis of dietary differences between the groups showed that the Eskimos ate less saturated fat and more omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and whale and seal meat.

Researches since that time have supported the heart-healthy benefits of eating fish. The Eskimos are naturally healthy because they have plenty of omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon.

Other good sources of omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil are mackerel, herring, sardines and tuna, which are also noted for their triglyceride-lowering effect. They also help the heart in such other ways as reducing blood pressure and the risk of blood clots. In people who have already had heart attacks, fish oil significantly reduces the risk of sudden death./PN