THE government is like an orchestra with the President as the conductor. When the different instrumental ensembles are on their own, disharmony occur. It appears disharmony took place during the botched management of the Hong Kong hostage crisis that placed the country in very bad light in the eyes of the world.

Disharmony within the administration of President Noy is obviously manifested in the blame-game being played by its key officials. Until now, no one would squarely own up the responsibility on the miserably bungled operation. Lack of coordination within the administration during the hostage-crisis and its aftermath led to the mismanagement of the tragic situation.

Reports in the media attributed the disharmony within the current administration to the two major factions vying for influence. The two factions are the Bahay Puti group of former senator Mar Roxas and the Liberal Party and the Samar group of the Aquino family and Cory yellow army.

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MANY praised Iloilo City Mayor Jed Mabilog for being “decisive” on the controversial P130-million Pavia housing scandal after he revoked the contract of Ace Builders Enterprise (ABE) last week by signing a Notice of Termination of Contract, an act that should have been done by his predecessor, Mayor Jerry Treñas.

The ABE contract, according to news reports, was revoked on the grounds of “substantial defects in workmanships and use of substandard materials in the partially completed units such as but not limited to roofing sheets, ceiling board and reinforcement steel bars.”

The contractor’s shortcomings were contained in the Summary of Cost of Report on Finding of Substandard Materials and Report of Defects, Deficiencies and Discrepancies as of June 30, 2003 issued by the Office of the City Engineer and the Commission on Audit Evaluation Report dated November 16, 2005.

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IN ONE of his press conferences after the hostage-taking and bloodbath at the Quirino Grandstand, a phlegmatic President Aquino pledged that “heads will roll” as soon as an official investigation determines responsibility for the bungled government response to the hijacking of a bus with 22 tourists from Hong Kong on board.

A week into the tragedy, the new government is unclear on whose head the axe will fall. What is clear is that the fallout from the episode has heavily damaged the prestige of Mr. Aquino in the first major international test of his ability to cope with crisis. The tragedy has also marred relations between the Philippines and China, its largest and geographically closest Asian neighbor.

No one among the key Cabinet members and senior officials of the Aquino administration, who had something to do with responding to the hostage-taking, has come forward to take responsibility, in spite of the fact that eight of the hostages were killed and the demands from an outraged Philippine public for the dismissal or resignation of certain officials. These officials have been busily washing their hands of the responsibility.

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IT shocked me to read our editor Francis Allan Angelo’s news report the other day that while Iloilo City Mayor Jed Mabilog had held in abeyance the takeover of the inefficient Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) by the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), he could still resort to that option.

For as I related in this corner the other day, too, I had personally given the mayor a copy of my August 27 column that alluded to Presidential Decree No, 198, the law governing the operation of local water systems, which specifically defines LWUA as nothing more than “a specialized lending institution for promotion, development and financing of local water utilities.”

Well, perhaps, the city mayor is more inclined to swallow hook, line and sinker the self-serving pronouncement of Prospero Pichay, LWUA chairman of the board of trustees, that he could “plant” LWUA people to replace the five-man MIWD board of directors.

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WE. ARE. Sorry.

But let us not grovel. We must be humble and admit mistakes, inefficiencies and stupid thoughtlessness. We must take it on the chin as a people, but we must not grovel on the ground. Let us show in concrete that we want to make things right but we must not allow anyone to walk all over us. Hate statements and tit-for-tat accusations that hark back to wrongs committed in the distant past will not help heal wounds.

That is my two cents on the aftermath of the botched Aug. 23 hostage crisis that ended in the death of eight Hong Kong tourists and a Filipino hostage taker.

There has been a hurricane of morning-after opinions and analyses, a lot of blame throwing, mea culpas, prayers, acts of reparation, expressions of sympathy from all sides. But the fact remains: there is no name for the pain of the families who lost loved ones in the tragedy that happened on our soil.

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MY friend Allan of barangay Dungon A has not been drinking faucet water – no thanks to the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD) – because “it’s brownish in the early morning.” He could only guess it must be because of the system’s leaky pipes that allow dirty surface water to seep in whenever water pressure is low.

“On the brighter side,” I joked to appease my friend, “that should keep your children safe from dengue because dengue-carrying mosquitoes breed only in clean water.”

“Ah,” Allan called my attention to a couple of five-liter containers of drinking water in his kitchen. “But you see, my family can’t drink MIWD water anymore. So I spend more for potable water delivery.”

I wondered whether he had been buying his drinking water from the general manager or the administrative manager of MIWD, who are also in the private business of selling drinking water. The less efficient the MIWD service, the better for these managers. I wonder where they get the water they sell.

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CONGRATULATIONS to the new officers (2010-2012) of RO AKEANON, Iloilo Chapter, who were inducted into office in the evening of August 28, 2010 in a fitting Induction Ceremony and Ball at the Sarabia Manor Hotel & Convention Center. Theme of the occasion was: “Bisan Sin-o Ag Bisan Siin, Ro Akeanon Masaligan, Ag May Ikasarang.”

The new executive officers of Ro Akeanon are: Dr. Sonia V. Seville, President; Dir. Russel I. Ildesa, Vice President; Ofelia M. Tungala, Secretary; Mrs. Mae A. Icamina, Treasurer; Rosalie M. Sales, Auditor; Wilhelmina C. Fuentes, Business Manager; and Rudy Esleta, Press Relations Officer.

Elected to the Board of Directors are Ruth H. Jarantilla, Felicidad P. Ortigoza, Lobella A. Chua, Gaudelia V. Doromal, Dr. Noel B. Icamina, Amelita E. Lazarraga, Dr. Oseni M. Millamena, Shirley B. Reyes, Hitler S. Seville, Dr. Silvino R. Teodosio, Aurora S. Tingson, Gamaliel O. Tungala, Jindra Linda L. Demeterio, Dir. Edwin G. Trompeta.

Again, congratulations!

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AMID THE frenzy of blame-seeking over the paralysis of the Aquino administration during the hostage-taking and massacre of Hong Kong tourists last week, a non-political event took place at the University of the Philippines Asian Center on Saturday, when the Union of Writers of the Philippines conferred the Francisco Balagtas awards on five Filipino writers in different languages forming the main body of Filipino literature, including in English.

The awards underscored the failure of Filipino to foster national unity. The writers include Bonifacio Ilagan (drama in Filipino), Gremer Chan Reyes (fiction in Cebuano), Go Bon Juan (essay in English ) and Ricarte Agnes (drama/essay/fiction in Iloko). Having received the award for English essay, I was impressed by the diversity of the contributions to the body of Filipino literature from our various linguistic regional cultures, but I was bothered at the same time by the fact that since President Manuel L. Quezon legislated the establishment of the national language, based on Tagalog, we have not evolved a national language to which all linguistic groups can relate. I raised the issue whether Filipino is the proper vehicle to promote Filipino nationalism and define our national identity. In my response, I delivered a message, an edited extract of which follows:

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IF Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Palace communications and operations office is to be believed, the administration of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was also to blame for the bloody end of August 23 hostage-taking drama at Rizal Park because it left a police force that is poorly trained and ill-equipped.

“I would like to point out that the administration of Benigno Aquino III is just 55 days old while Arroyo’s administration lasted for nine years. We just inherited the state of the Philippine National Police,” Coloma told the ABS-CBN morning news program “Umagang Kay Ganda” on August 26, three days after bloodbath.

A week before Mendoza protested his dismissal from the police service, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced in its website that thousands of skilled construction workers from the Philippines would be needed in Guam in line with the transfer of United States military facilities from Okinawa, Japan to the US territory.

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It’s not the ideal time to get sick and be hospitalized nowadays with private and public medical facilities filled beyond capacity. The district hospital at Guimbal, Iloilo had to erect a tent; even its corridors can’t accommodate additional patients.

So far, the accumulated figure of dengue cases since january in Iloilo Province alone, excluding Iloilo City, went above 2,500 with 13 deaths, which is still better than 1996 when the death toll shot above 50, mostly children.

This year, the Philippine Science High School at Jaro, Iloilo City, shut down for a week for fogging operation after a dozen of its students were infected by dengue. We don’t know how successful the procedure was.

The Department of Health scorns fogging because it does more harm than good; while it may help eliminate a generation of mosquitos, it does not the eggs which will hatch and spread the terror anew.

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