Category: why

binan steel, saturday explosion, media fail

it’s three days later and (correct me if i’m wrong) nary a news report, whether on mainstream or social media, on the huge explosion that rocked binan, laguna last saturday night.  learned about it lang on facebook, from the sunday morning status of my niece ainee amador-mapili who lives in filinvest, binan.  she and husband art were on their way home along dona justina right beside the wall of binan steel when hell broke loose.

Leilani Marie Amador-Mapili : It was really scary. A sudden blast of hot air and then falling debris in flames! My car window was open and I thought I was going to get burned. Biñan Steel is our neighbor. It is located within a residential area but was re-classified into an industrial area by the then Biñan municipal govt when this was pointed out by concerned homeowners. According to an engineer friend who also lives in the area, a furnace may have exploded. Mayor Lenlen Alonte-Naguiat, Vice Mayor Dimaguila, city councilors: The blast could’ve been stronger, it could’ve been fatal (or is it? We heard sirens in the distance). What are you waiting for?

more from ainee and the comment threads:

…mukhang malakas nga kasi may nadinig kami kakaibang pumutok kahapon,, nasa bandang bicutan kami.. malaki yung tunog kasi.. hindi transformer ng meralco ang tunog … Explosion was so strong it ripped the roof of Binan Steel when I passed by the highway this 7:30 am. Columns of twisted sheet metal on the plant’s wall along Dona Justina st …  nabingi nga yung right ear ko kasi nasa side ko yung explosion … aside from previous explosions, acrid smell was emanating from the steel mill, and according to homeowners living near the site, fine gray powder is often found on their cars and garden. The Sanggunian said they will look into the classification. And they did, they changed it!! Galing ‘no! …  super lakas na as in parang World War 3 was declared!!! … Yeah!! Everyone in the village was jolted!! The blast was horrifyingly strong!!!…and the powers that be in Binan surely felt the strong blast as well….strong enough for them to investigate and act on the Binan Steel long pending issue … Don and i did the same (googled) and we were surprised na wala talagang news! Dumating daw ang gma7 and abs-cbn, don’t know  kung totoo.  … not sure why it’s not in the news. sobrang lakas ng kapit ng BS kung nagawa nila ng news blackout. Nothin on tv, radio … Mga anak ko nga just finished watching Prometheus nung nangyari yung blast, kala nila merong naglanding na aliens sa bubong, hahaha!

monday update:

The firetrucks and police weren’t allowed to enter the BS compound on the night of the blast. There were reported casualties and the police will try to find out where they were brought. … according to the police, kung bomb explosion daw, they can force their way in. But still, they have to make a report na ayaw sila papasukin. E yung firetruck, bakit d nila pinapasok? … somethin is cookin here….smells like cover up…Again!

tuesday update:

Hi Ainee! Just got this message from Mayora….denr issued an interim cease order to BS to stop operation…according to cenro mas titibay daw order ng local govt for the order to stop operation…good morning…

calling out media.  bakit kayo dedma?  who owns binan steel ba?

vice pangit

so what does this tell us about viceganda.  s/he’s not dumb — it takes smarts to do stand-up comedy, even the bastos kind — surely she knew she was crossing a line.  is it a measure of his/her contempt for social and moral no-no’s?  or was she testing the limits of her audience, among them “ma’am charo,” and the fouler she got, the louder they laughed.   no one walked out.  all is fair in the network war?

garbage in, garbage out #lubak2normal

the president’s been having a bad week, what with 21 areas under a state of calamity, on top of having to make an emergency landing on a flight to tarlac with his pet senatoriables, so maybe to cheer him up, and maybe to distract us, even give us a sense that we’re not totally helpless, here’s what his communications team cooked up: a twitter campaign with the hashtag #lubak2normal, no kidding.  lubak, as in potholes.  the message is, things are back2normal (the “new normal”?) so let’s get the potholes fixed.

Edwin Lacierda ‏@dawende
Nothing is impassable. Help DPWH repair potholes on national roads by tweeting photos/details to @pcdspo w/ hash tag #lubak2normal
6:45 PM – 10 Aug 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® 

Manuel L. Quezon III ‏@mlq3
Shot through the heart the rain’s to blame you give lubak a bad name! Report potholes to @pcdspo to help DPWH fix. Tweet photo, location…
6:44 PM – 10 Aug 12 via HootSuite6:44 PM – 10 Aug 12 via HootSuite

Abi Valte ‏@Abi_Valte
Lubak stops here. help DPWH repair potholes on national roads by tweeting photos/details to @pcdspo w/ hash tag #lubak2normal
6:25 PM – 10 Aug 12 via TweetDeck 

nothing is impassable, mr. lacierda?  what about the waterways that are. clogged. with. trash?  the rain’s to blame for potholes, mr. quezon?  hindi ba it’s the poor quality of materials?  and lubak stops where exactly, ms. valte?  the buck, i know, stops with the president, but lubaks are the last thing i’d nag the president about at a time like this.

but okay, i get it, nagpapa-witty kayo, nagpapa-cute, but puns are the lowest form of wit, did you know?  and i suppose natuwa naman ang presidente?  good job?  lol?

gross, actually, na nagpapatawa na kayo, e hindi pa tapos ang krisis.  at kahit pa matapos na ang krisis, bakit lubak, na hindi naman deadly, ang poproblemahin, sa halip na basura, which is super-deadly on all sorts of levels?  mas madali kasing solusyunan ang potholes?  mahirap kasing magpatawa tungkol sa basura?

the levity is unseemly, coming from government officials.  show some gravitas naman.  or fake it, at the very least.

karma daw

nakarma daw ang japan for past war atrocities, say some chinese bloggers (and some pinoy commenters in pinoyexchange.com), to the dismay of the chinese government.   read China’s official sympathy for Japan’s woes undermined by blogger’s glee.

read too The State Hornet’s Editorial: Disaster in Japan is not ‘karma’ with which i tend to agree.   kung tutuusin pinagbayaran na ng japan lahat ng iyon when the u.s. dropped atomic bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki in 1945 killing 150,000 to 240,000 people  (which is not to condone that heinous act of revenge, it was totally uncalled for, tokyo was negotiating na for surrender).

if i’m thinking karma at all, it’s in the sense of, umm, knowing this area of the world to be earthquake prone, why are we all still here?   why did our ancestors not have the sense to move away to safer places?   i suppose because earthquakes didn’t happen that often, and never killed off entire populations?

in japan’s case, they got very smart about building earthquake proof buildings, but were not smart enough to stay out of coastlines, never imagining that tsunamis could come so instantly?   and they just weren’t careful enough pala about upgrading safety features of old model nuclear plants, read Glenn E. Sjoden’s Why nuclear power is a necessity

dito sa pinas, if a big one hits metro manila, and estimates of widespread devastation prove true, because many of our buildings are poorly weakly constructed, and many of them are built on top of a major fault line, yan, yan ang karma.