“Have you seen my Papa?”

The June 25 issue of the Inquirer carried a photo of a young girl clutching what is apparently a picture of her father, a crew member of the ill-fated Princess of the Stars.  

The picture was captioned:”Have you seen my Papa?”

Below the picture, the banner seems to answer the young girl’s question. It read: “Divers find only death inside ferry.” 

The on-going tragedy reminded me of another one ten years ago and the subsequent coverage I did for the Inquirer then. That tragedy of course was Cebu Pacific Flight 387 which crashed in the wilderness of Mt. Sumagaya in Claveria, Misamis Oriental.  

There were fewer lives lost then as, naturally, airplanes carry less people than boats. But the scene was the same—relatives waiting, desperate for news, and the national dailies’ hysterical headlines of the victims’ horrific fate.  

Then, as now, the stories carried graphic eye-witness accounts of the terrible scenes that confronted rescuers and disaster response teams. Then, as now, the cameras panned and focused on the many faces of grieving fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends. And then, as now, every tidbit, every little detail of the tragedy was hounded, listed down in reporters’ notebooks, and published as news the next day. 

As befitting a major daily, the newspaper I worked for fielded a team composed of four correspondents and two photographers for the coverage. Other national dailies did the same as the crash was, at that time, the biggest air disaster in the country’s history in terms of number of lives lost (a still worse air disaster occurred a few years later in Davao City) . My specific assignment in the coverage was to stick to the victims’ families, do interviews, do profiles of certain victims, or simply to do as told by my editors.  

That I found the assignment distressing is an understatement. I think most reporters would agree that one of the hardest stories to do are those that involve loss of life (or lives) due to or partly caused by human error. Any and every death is painful. But because in catastrophic mishaps the manner is both horrific and unnatural, the toll it takes on those they leave behind are magnified ten fold.  

It is in this context of human tragedy that reporters must wade through to get the “story”. And just by merely doing their jobs, reporters invariably intrude in what is supposed to be private moments of grief. Imagine hanging around in the sidelines while families grieve, waiting for just the right moment to thrust that recorder in their faces and do that interview. Imagine, too, having to act as grief counselors, as liaison to authorities, as sources of any bit of news and gaining the trust of “sources” in the process because of constant interaction; then becoming the personification of the bearer of bad news as newspapers hit the stands the next day. Talk about shooting the messenger.

After several tragedies I should think that our reporting would be more even tempered, conscious of the fact that victims’ families read the news too. I thought we would have no more of the grisly descriptions, the ghastly accounts of the various states of victims’ remains. But it seems that is part of the way we do news in this country.  

I should like to think that we write about the grieving in order to highlight the terrible costs in human suffering in what could have been very preventable incidents. I should like to think that we write about that little girl clutching Daddy’s picture so that no other little girl would have to stand outside a shipping line’s office asking for news, any news of her father. I should like to think that we write about the tears, the anguish so that the rest of us would not have to know such pain.  

Otherwise, it would all just be pornography.  

                        –oOo–

On another topic, City Hall should look into the modus operandi of pseudo taxi drivers at the Lumbia Airport. These unscrupulous sons of motherless whores are luring unsuspecting passengers into their taxi cabs and then refusing to charge by the meter and instead forcing their passengers to pay a fixed, exorbitant fare. Bad for tourism, bad for all of us Cagayanons.

Living In Cagayan de Oro and Loving It

It took a while before I began loving living in this city. I mean, except for several years living some place else, I have lived most of my life here but I’ve never really given much thought to just what I love about living here.

 

Unlike Manila or Davao City, Cagayan de Oro has no rock solid claim to fame. A city is too often defined by, say, the number of museums it houses or perhaps by the quality of its restaurants. Cagayan, while not lacking, has very few of those. In fact, if you are one of those who, as the song goes, like the night life, I do not think this is the place for you.

 

Of late Cagayan de Oro has been called “the adventure capital of Mindanao” for its white water rafting tours and outdoor adventure parks. The sight of tourist-laden jeepneys with white water rafts lashed on their roofs has become an all too familiar sight. But besides its promise of weekend fun, there isn’t much going on.

 

But I think this is precisely why I love living here. Life is simpler here as they say. There is less clutter—there’s home, there’s work, and there’s what you plan for the weekend.

 

Here you do not have to gulp your coffee in the morning, risking scalding your tongue in a desperate effort to get to the office on time. You can sit back and brew your coffee; sip and savor the aroma and wait for the caffeine to kick in and prime your nerves. Here there is time enough for that second cup of coffee, if you need it. Provided, of course, you wake up way before needing to rush which is not too early here.

 

I love, too, the fact that everywhere seem to be nearer here. Nearer especially during summer when all the people who swell the population of the city during school time have gone home. Yes traffic occasionally goes bad here. But doesn’t it go bad on occasion almost everywhere else save perhaps in the boondocks?

 

Cagayan de Oro ,too, has the perfect or near perfect terrain for bicyclists—a little bit of rolling terrain here and there but generally as flat as flat iron. I live in a subdivision in Gusa in what used to be the outskirts of Cagayan. Yet if I  have to cycle to, say, buy some bread in DV Soria in the heart of the city, the trip would take only about 20 minutes tops.

 

I love that mountains ring the city. I have been an avid mountain biker for the past ten years and I have found that the perfect MTB trail is just a mere ten minutes away. Where else can you ride your bike three times a week and ride a different trail each time?

 

But perhaps I love living here because this is my home: home in the sense that almost everything of note that has happened to me happened to me here. Grew up here, got married here, had my two children here. Will probably die here. 

 

I guess I got lucky. Cagayan de Oro, after all, has the perfect mix of opportunities for making a living and living a life.

Pessimism Said To Be Growing In RP

 

For those of you who might have missed the banner story of yesterday’s BusinessWorld here’s the scoop: more and more of us are having pessimistic expectations about the economy. The respected business daily apparently commissioned the Social Weather Stations (SWS) to do a survey on personal outlooks on the quality of life as well as on the economy and it found that “pessimism about the Philippine economy has worsened to 45% from 37% previously and the ranks of the optimists have thinned to 15% from 17% last year. In other words, out of about 91 million Filipinos (estimate as of July 2007), about 41 million are somewhat certain that the shit will hit the fan sometime soon, if not already. In like manner, only about 14 million see the light at the end of the tunnel, an obvious drop from last year’s 15.5 million. Another survey says many Filipinos are suffering from poor eyesight but that is another story.

A National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) official, asked for comment on the survey results, said the pessimistic sentiments “may have been caused by the higher prices of rice and oil.” “There may be more pessimists in the next quarter,” the good official added.

It seems the good official is not certain about the exact cause of the general increase in pessimism. Indeed, with so much misfortune befalling many of us, pinpointing the exact cause of the overall pessimistic sentiment may be tricky. Or perhaps not.

“May have been caused by the higher prices of rice and oil,” the good official says. It is precisely because the price of rice has gone way up the roof that many of us are rather “pessimistic.” It is precisely because the price of fuel, which is increasing by about P1.50 per week that we are “pessimistic,” although we must admit that this particular inconvenience afflicts not just us Filipinos but the rest of the world as well.

We are particularly pessimistic not so much because we are confronted by these problems; we are pessimistic because the government seems to be bungling in providing its citizens relief. We are pessimistic because in putting forth solutions, government seems to be much more inclined to score popularity points than in getting down to business.

Case in point: a news report in the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer last Saturday, June 7, 2008, quotes an official of the UN World Food Program-Philippines as saying that government is “focusing it selling of cheap NFA rice in Metro Manila, depriving the poor of Mindanao and other areas of the country of the cheap staple.”

We all know rice prices in our very own Cagayan de Oro have hit P 51 per kilo, with cheaper varieties selling from P41-P46. The NFA, on the other hand, has increased its selling price in the city to about P25 per kilo while still selling rice in Metro Manila at P18.25. Why? Because it is easier to deal with discontent at the fringes than at the capital itself?

This is precisely why many of us have viewed the efforts of this government in helping the poor cope with rising prices with skepticism. Sure, GMA has earmarked P4 billion in direct assistance to the poor, some in the form of cash transfers to pre-selected families and individuals. But the specter of political patronage creeping into the selection of beneficiaries is becoming all too real.

It is bad enough that the middle class (whose shrinking incomes and rising expenses are getting worse each week) will not be targeted for government intervention in these hard times. It is bad enough that the overburdened middle and lower classes would have to shoulder the subsidies. But to discover that government is allocating its resources with obvious bias is an outrage. “Playing favorites” is like rubbing salt on still fresh injuries.

 Indeed, as the NAPC official said,“there may be more pessimists in the next quarter.”

More Of The Same

Even with the prospect of gasoline hitting P65 per liter; even with rice prices running amok, GMA and company do not seem to be hauling ass. Indeed, GMA formed a government panel last Monday to identify measures to mitigate the impact of rising oil prices. But a look at just what those measures are reveals that the government is more intent on scoring political points than on coming up with long-lasting solutions.

Particularly troubling is the government’s decision to allocate P2 billion “to help small electricity users” pay their power bill. This will benefit four million “lifeline users” (those who consume less than 100 kilowatt-hours per month) in the form of a one-time P500 cash subsidy.

This is troubling, to say the least, because beyond the obvious, short term gains, what then? The dole-out may help four million users pay for their electricity bills for a month but after that, what? Another round of dole-outs?

At the end of the day nothing substantial has really been done to bring down the cost of electricity. At the end of the day, or at the end of the day a month from now, those same four million lifeline users would be paying the same high rates as before.

And it is not as if government is moving heaven and earth to fund this subsidy.  Data from the Bayan-led KulimVAT, a multi-sectoral group calling for the suspension of the VAT on oil, show that for every P1/liter increase in the oil price, government collects an additional P5.47 million in revenue daily. Multiply that eleven times as oil firms have recently announced that they are set to implement an eleven-peso price increase and you get the picture.

Why is the government adamantly against suspending the VAT on oil? The internet magazine Newsbreak reported that government collected P274 billion from VAT last year. Citing DOF statistics, Newsbreak reported that P29 billion and P11.4 billion of the total VAT collection came from oil and power, respectively. With the prices of oil and other commodities increasing to record highs this year government is expected to collect more. Which explains the reluctance to, pardon the cliché, kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

And why kill the goose at all, especially now that 2010 is just around the corner? Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said suspending the VAT would mean less or no money for government services for the poor. Translation: GMA and company do not want to endanger projects that would affect their chances in 2010, especially since we all know how important infrastructure projects are in scoring political points.

Touch the pork barrel? Of course not.  Why antagonize the congressmen whose support would be invaluable in a year and a half’s time? Political allies now are as indespensable as ever, especially since a friendly successor is necessary should GMA desire some peace and quiet once she leaves Malacanang in 2010. If she does leave.

But the question now is: for how long can GMA and company continue dancing their jig as the queues for cheap NFA rice gets longer and longer; as food prices continue to soar and as the public braces itself for yet another round of fare hikes?