Our Royal Displeasure Manila Standard Today, January 1, 2015 On Tuesday, Rizal Day, Seniang pounded Visayas and Mindanao and caused yet - unaccounted for damage to lives and livelihood. Unlike its predecessor Ruby, this typhoon was something that took the country by surprise, arriving as it did amid the much-anticipated holiday season. Our national and local officials must have still been in a good mood after having done a relatively decent job with preparations for Ruby that they did not think they would be tested again too soon. Seniang has claimed at least 30 lives as of Wednesday morning and occasioned declarations of states of calamity in some places. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, wreckage of the ill-fated AirAsia flight 8501 was finally located at sea after a two-day search. The painstaking task of retrieving and identifying the remains of 162 people on board lies ahead. With such tragedies happening in and around the Philippines, who would have time to watch inane comedies at the film festival and attend a celebrity wedding where the dashing groom drove up in a Ducati while the bride was radiant in a P2-million wedding dress? Only our President, of course. This is the same man who could not be bothered to meet with typhoon survivors when they trooped to Manila to air their grievances, the same chief executive who met with coconut farmers only after turning down their pleas for a dialogue in previous occasions, and who refused to attend the wake of a murdered transgender woman because he does not like going to wakes of people whom he does not know. The movie stars were free to get wed any manner they please, of course. They spent their own money and they had no public obligation to tone down their preference for the ostentatious. But the President’s time is not entirely at his whim to spend, however much he complains about the lack of private time he seems to enjoy since he signed up for the job. It was the height of insensitivity for the Palace to release its photos of the President attending the high-profile wedding with nary a statement about the rain and flooding down south. On this first day of the year, the President’s bosses — the Filipino people, not just those whom he knows and parties with — should make their displeasure known and felt. A survey said most of us are greeting the New Year with hope rather than fear — let us hope,then, that the President will for once start leading through compassionate actions instead of moralizing with mere words. manilastandardtoday/2015/01/01/our-royal-displeasure/
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 21:31:18 +0000
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