Thursday, February 14, 2008 Editorial: We need not go far
WITH all due respect, we need not go far and focus on Rodolfo Noel "Jun" Lozada, Jr. We have done him enough publicity, information and education. Any other smear campaigns against him, people will not believe. He is such a great Tsinoy with a big Filipino heart.
We are more concern of what is within our reach. Around us are "lost opportunities" committed by plunderous political leadership and their bureaucratic cohorts. Each city and municipalities, Bacolod City included, has their own version of what Sen. Ping Lacson called, "ang mga pinaka-Abalos," (allusion to corrupt officials).
National surveys, international, World Bank and Asian Development Bank reports are replete with data-based estimates of what had been plundered. These estimated cost of corruption included provincial inputs and had been here for decades and decades. Here in the local front, the better question is who will be our Jun Lozada?
Once in a while, we see local mass assemblies that generally does not work. It is time then to see a local resident who would stand up 'against the gap' and return the misery cause by these plundering political leadership. Let them suffer what they have caused by going to the courts. Who will?
It was not hopeless when the late Dr. Patricio Tan was alive. Unfortunately, graftwatch died with him.
We see hope in the whistleblowers Dr. Benito Bionat and Bryan Baylon deploring the state of health at the Corazon L. Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital. We see bravery in retired police Captain Victor Eduardo and his government center "windmill." There could be some more in other cities and municipalities.
Mass assemblies will have its rightful role in the struggle against corruption. Manila personalities like Jun Lozada can inspire and fire our visions.
It is best, however, that someone nearest the local vortex of corruption should dare the powers that sow misery.
