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Saturday, October 01, 2005
Ledesma: Brain scan for senators
By Jun Ledesma
Sunbursts
'The grim scenario is farfetched and the prospects of martial law is remote'.
THIS subject had been overtaken by some dramatic events now preoccupying the Senate, but I cannot let this pass without letting off some thoughts and steam on the grand inquisition in that small legislative house.
When Secretary Raul Gonzales talks, take it with a grain of salt but do not take it as a biblical truth. When National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales negotiates, there are chances he will go overboard dragging with him the President. When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo says there will be "calibrated response" to wildcat rallies that sounds rhetorical. The PNP actually, if they know their rules and regulations, will haul off participants in street rallies without permits. Simply said, no one has the right to inconvenience another just because you want to vent out your anger, making the streets a venue of your protest.
That is not emergency power and definitely not an indication martial law is in the offing.
We do not blame Senator Serge Osmeña for getting jittery. After what he'd gone through during the martial law years of Marcos dictatorship (he capitalized heavily on his "Great Escape" from his martial law jailers during his first senatorial campaign), the senator can hallucinate and create a scarecrow out of Secretary Gonzales specter of civil disorder when oil becomes scarce and production of consumers commodities and public transport comes to a halt and pandemonium takes its toll.
The grim scenario is farfetched and the prospect of martial law is remote. However thinking about the possibility of a crisis situation similar to what the Justice Secretary speculates is not sinister at all. In fact we cannot just idly wait for the worst thing to come. Already the price of oil has astronomically gone up and no amount of bullying in and out of the senate can stop the spiraling of prices of oil products and consequently of prime commodities. Given the penchant of the political opposition and the communist fronts to whip up a storm of protests whenever the President and her men slip we cannot second-guess a possible stampede when the bad comes to worse. In the meantime however, that scenario is extremely remote and the apprehension of Senator Osmeña is solely his personal perception and paranoia.
What is more critical at this point is the virtual transformation of the Upper Chamber into a gladiators' arena, where the senators disembowel and disgrace their victims by torture and shame in aid of impotent legislation. While the doctors think Bert will need a scalpel, some of our senators are in dire need of a brain scan.
BTW, We Dabawenyos ought to celebrate for having been chosen as the venue of the 2006 ASEAN Tourism forum. Moreover it looks like we leave everything for our City Mayor Rody Duterte to do everything to make this event a success. This is utterly unfair. Once I heard my indefatigable Ninong, the Regional Development Chairman Jesus, "Chito" V. Ayala, exchanging assurances with the Mayor early on his first term as Mayor. "Just take care of the peace and order and we will take care of the growth of business and industry," JVA said. The Mayor shook hands with JVA in affirmation of the covenant between the local government and the business sector.
The Mayor did his part and kept the promise of making Davao City a livable place and an ideal city where to invest, however, there are situational conditions that would require greater responsibility and dedication from the private sectors particularly the business community.
What I am driving at is the coming tourism summit here on mid-January. It will be a Herculean task for the mayor to look after the security aspect, we cannot put additional burden on the city executive to do what other sectors ought to have started now. The event is just about 100 days from today but we see nothing concrete that would suggest that business is helping in terms of face-lifting even just the façade of their establishments. Look at San Pedro, which some great minds in the City I heard once want to convert into a tourist attraction. The avenue is one dingy place where hawkers, ambulant vendors, peddlers of smut videos and magazines abound.
Take a walk in major city thoroughfares. The walls are festooned with screaming political posters demanding the repeal of the oil deregulation law, the ouster of Arroyo in a city that is pro-Arroyo, commercial ads that forms a dizzying collage that mar the panorama of what is truly a calm and vibrant city. And decaying jute sacks that bear the slogans and graffiti of the CPP/NPA who refuse to believe their ideology has long been buried in the land where it was first conceived. Elsewhere in other darker corners of the urban center the stink of human and canine piss mingle with the putrid stench of uncollected garbage. There is no indication that business will clean up and spend to make the drab and ghastly sites a little spruced up and pleasant to the eye.
Maybe the Chamber should shake a leg and take up a bit of responsibility to make the city surroundings clean and smell real good. Maybe the city can give our sidewalk vendors a tender on the knee and ask them to wash up a little bit, get organized and orderly. Threw away the makeshift stalls and invest a little so they will look good like decent merchants.
January is not too far away. In fact it is too close for comfort. Mayor Duterte is doing his best for peace and security; we hope this time business will do the rest to make the tourism event Asean's best.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (October 1, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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