The manning of pedestrian lanes by members of Task Force Jay Walking who are casual workers of the Iloilo City government has an unpredictable consequences deterrent to top officials responsible in enforcing the ordinance.

We understand the need of Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog for funds to maintain the smooth operation of the city government. But the manner how the task force source it can force an innocent victim of this ordinance to run amuck.

It saddened us too, that Mayor Mabilog has assumed aschief local executive of Iloilo City with only P40,000 left in the city coffers. On how the hundreds of millions of cash were spent, former mayor and now Cong. Jerry Trenas has a lot of explaining to do.

The dire need for money is maybe the reason why task force jay-walking members are very strict in enforcing the ordinance. For that, others members stepped-over the line of pardonable behavior by going beyond what the law commands.

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ON SATURDAY night, July 24, three days before President Aquino delivered his State of the Nation Address, and before Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile was elected Senate president, the leadership of the new Philippine Senate was delivered bound head to toe to the President.

Enrile, who was elected Senate president on July 26 with a majority vote of 17 senators, paved the way for the capture of the key and strategic Senate committees by the minority Liberal Party of President Aquino. In engineering such a distribution of the chairmanships of the plum committees, Enrile executed the role he had played in setting up the legal apparatus of the dictatorship when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on Sept. 23. 1973.

An authoritarian by instinct and inclination, Enrile helped build brick upon brick all the decrees and directives of Proclamation No. 1081, starting a year before martial law was declared. Since he first served the elected government of President Marcos as commissioner of customs, Enrile entered public office without an independent electoral base or constituency. As a zealous Marcos acolyte, he served as a facilitator of Marcos’ seizure of the two-party system Philippine democracy even up to providing the official pretext for the proclamation of martial law, by fabricating the fake ambush on himself inside Wack-Wack Golf and Country Club on Sept. 21, an incident that Marcos seized as the provocation justifying the proclamation of martial law.

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WE are glad to note that the major thrust of our Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 6 under Regional Director Larry Nacionales is for rice sufficiency. Maybe, with this program, Iloilo would regain its place in rice production as in the early 1960s when Western Visayas was ranked No. 1 in the whole country.

The DA in our area has an ongoing program of distributing through farmer’s cooperatives farm machineries such as palay-drying machines and, we gathered, also deep well irrigation pumps and palay threshers, installed without cost for rice farmers.

For example, a cooperative that we have been associated with has received a grant of one palay-drying machine and engine worth about P700,000 particularly for its farmer-members in Sta. Clara, Oton, Iloilo. This was supplied and installed by Agri Component Corp. operating in Western Visayas.

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THERE was a time during the “Water Summit” at the Iloilo City SP session room last Tuesday when Mayor Jed Mabilog reprimanded a lady official of the Metro Iloilo Water District (MIWD), “Do not put words into my mouth.”

Whereupon the lady clarified that it was she herself who was referring to the MIWD board of directors.

What the lady had previously said was that the management had been harassed into disabling them from implementing solutions to the water problem. But she did not substantiate her charge.

There were three board directors in that assembly: Chairman Celso Javelosa, vice-chair Adrian Moncada and Danilo Encarnacion. Rather than react to the uncouth innuendo, they kept their cool.

The lady also dropped the name of her friend, Kagawad Perla Zulueta, as somebody who could vouch for the integrity of the MIWD management. She seemed to imply that there was no need for MIWD to source out to a concessionaire its job.

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Lawyer Romeo Gerochi is puzzled why the head of the Office of the Ombudsman in Western Visayas, Virginia Palanca-Santiago, continues to drag her feet in the graft charges he slapped on then mayor, now congressman, Jerry Treñas.

He accused Treñas in 2003 for the P130-million housing scam at Pavia, Iloilo. Granting for the sake of argument, that Treñas pocketed nothing from the project that accomplished nothing but unfinished, substandard structures, he and his gang cand still be held criminally and administratively liable for grave misconduct and criminal negligence.

Treñas still paid P90 million to the erring contractor, Ace Builders, even after the latter abandoned the work; he still let it laugh its way to the bank despite its contractual violations that calls for tough measures like seizing its surety bonds and suing it for rescission with damages. He deliberately did not lift a finger to protect his constituents who now bleed P17,000 daily for the interest alone.

The sanggunian investigation body chaired by Kgd. Raul Gonzalez, Jr., and lawyer Antonio Pesina likewise filed separate charges with the local office of the Ombudsman in the same year. Virginia Palanca-Santiago, also assistant ombudsman for the Visayas, still sits on them, too, for reasons known only to her.

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A WICKED SMILE forms on my lips and a nasty glint appears in my eyes whenever there’s news of car thieves and carjackers, and their ilk— lowlifes from hell—getting mowed down in a bloody gun battle with law enforcers. I feel like shouting, “And here’s a few more for your skulls, for the car you stole from me.”

And I think of a photo taken years ago that shows me wearing ear muffs while aiming a .45 and firing at a target. I did quite well but that was the first and last time I was ever in a target range. I am not gun crazy but my mind does a Dirty Harry when I think of the lowlifes that menace society.

And why not. I was a victim. That was way back in Dec. 2002, but I will never forget the day, the shock, the rage, the feeling of helplessness. Who said journalists aren’t supposed to feel helpless in that kind of situation? It’s really a nightmare for anyone and you keep wishing you’d wake up in the morning and find your car on the driveway. But no, I found myself in the police station and almost immediately doing the paper trail so that the vehicle could be tracked down, and if not, so that I could get a certificate of non-recovery and make insurance claims.

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WHAT is El Niño and La Niña?

El Niño is a climate phenomenon characterized by long periods of hot, dry season. It starts in Peru (South America) with a rapid warming of the sea surface. This warm water is slowly brought by the north equatorial current across the Pacific Ocean and to the Philippines.

It brings flood, drought and famine. It is called El Niño (Child Jesus) because it usually starts around Christmas time.

In the West Visayas, the El Niño-prone areas are Capiz, Iloilo, Guimaras, Negros, Occidental and Aklan – all with “high vulnerability.” Antique has “low vulnerability.” Usually, it starts late November up to early June.

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UNLIKE THE solid foundation of the landslide election of President Aquino, the Senate has turned out to be the fragile base of the relationship between the executive and half of the legislature. Mr. Aquino’s election failed to deliver a sizable bloc of seats to his Liberal Party to make it the stable nucleus of a majority coalition. The LP won only four seats, not more than the four that the Nacionalista got.

The current unrest over the distribution of committee chairmanships stems from the disgruntlement of other senators over the assignment of important committees to LP senators based on the ill-founded claim that to the victors belong the spoils. Enrile was elected Senate president on the basis of his seniority as one of the most experienced members of the Senate, his savvy in forging a compromise among contenders for committee chairmanships as well as his somewhat authoritarian style of leadership honed during his stint as the chief architect and administrator of the martial law regime of the dictator, Ferdinand Marcos.

The distribution of committee chairmanships in the Senate has always been a cause of squabbles. To state this fact does not provide new information and insights to explain the Senate imbroglio. What is important is that the unrest highlights the limits of Enrile’s power to influence the Senate to give the new President the support he needs to pass his legislative agenda, or block it if he chooses to be obstructive.

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Take note: A two-lane concrete road construction with a length of one kilometer cost about P20M to P22M. This is reported by RD Rolando Asis of the DPWH Region 6. But the flyover of 250 meters long at the corner of Gen. Luna Street and Benigno Aquino Ave. cost about P420M.

This first flyover was constructed during the stint of then mayor now Cong. Jerry Trenas. Although it distorts the beautiful straight sight of Gen. Luna Street from the Iloilo Provincial Capitol going to  Plaza Molo, still, for having awarded that grossly overpriced project, Mayor Trenas is an honorable man.

It is seen a discomfort to the operators of two big hotels and two big universities in the city. Affected at the Northern end of the flyover are the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) Iloilo City and The Sarabia Manor Hotel, all at the right side of the road.

The other two establishments affected by the Southern tail-end of the project situated between them are the John B. Lacson Maritime University and the Hotel Del Rio. Despite the non-essential need, the flyover was completed and Mayor Trenas is an honorable man.

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THE frequent cancellation of domestic flights of Philippine Airlines due to the “disappearance na walang paalam” of 25 domestic pilots could have been avoided had the PAL management bended to their demand for better pay. It is no secret that being “global citizens,” they inevitably get better offers from airlines abroad.

A radio flash report yesterday alluded to two of the recalcitrant pilots as having joined Air Hong Kong already at a monthly salary of US $17,000.

The PAL management’s threat to go to court unless the pilots return to work would probably fall on deaf ears because the pilots, all members of the Airline Pilots Association of the Philippines (ALPAP), have prepared for it.

I remember that, more or less ten years ago, a similar problem struck PAL. Among the “rebels” was my friend Capt. Ismael Lapus, who was flying international flights. At that time, Lapus was already making more than P200,000 monthly but joined the lesser-paid strikers after management had nixed their demand for pay increase.

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