PBBM: Mahigit limanglibo at limang daang flood control projects ang natapos na at marami pang iba ang kasalukuyang ginagawa sa buong bansa. [Applause]
The following night bumuhos ang katakutakot na ulan at bumaha nang bonggang bongga across Luzon, even in places that never used to flood, so reminiscent of Ondoy2009, The following day a state of calamity was declared in all of Metro Manila, Bataan, Bulacan, Batangas, and Cavite. [Ambilis ng balik]
DJ Chacha https://x.com/_djchacha/status/1816275607157874692
Last year, 147.5 Billion Pesos ang total budget for flood control projects for Metro Manila only. Sa lake ng halaga na yan paulit ulit pa rin ang problema natin sa baha. Anyare?PING LACSON
It is because most of the budget for the flood control projects flood the pockets of the proponents in Congress in connivance with the implementing agencies and their favorite contractors.
So, were there really 5,500 finished flood control projects? If yes, what difference did they make? Totoo ba na walang-epek sapagkat substandard ang materyales at trabaho sapagkat kung minsan halos kalahati na lang ang pondo dahil sa mga komisyon ng kongresista, DPWH, LGU, at contractor? [Guys, mahiya naman kayo]
So now I’m wondering, too, about other stuff BBM said at the SONA that were met with great joy by nation: the ban on POGOs and the unequivocal stand on the West Philippine Sea, in particular.
Already nakikiusap ang PAGCOR that “12 of the 43 POGO companies” be spared kasi masyadong marami ang mawawalan ng trabaho. Yan na rin ang concern ni Senator Tolentino sa isang interview with Karen Davila back in June that I blogged on: #BagongPilipinasWalangPOGO.
G. Senador, lumang tugtugin na ang ganyang justification: na may mga Pinoy na mawawalan ng trabaho. Iyan na rin ang daíng ng mga taga-Zambales at Pampanga nung isasara na ang US bases. But the good Senators of the 8th Congress agreed that the welfare of the whole, the common good, is more important than the welfare of the few.
Besides, the US bases and POGOs were bad ideas to begin with.
And yeah, great that he took such an unequivocal stand on the West Philippine Sea and had the grace to thank our fishermen, coast guards, and soldiers for their vigilance and sacrifice. I was hoping he would say, too, that the repairs of BSP Sierra Madre are to proceed apace whether China likes it or not ’cause #AtinAngAyungin! Alas, bitin. [Unless I missed it lang]
There’s a lot more na kaduda-duda especially re the grand promises of infra and ayuda. Saan kaya kukuha ng pera na panggastos? Lubog na tayo sa utang. Bugbog na tayo sa taxes. Paano na ba.
Looking for kakampi, post-SONA, it was good to hear some credible pundits airing similar concerns on social media.
Check out Christian Esguerra’s political podcast Facts and Fiction in President Marcos Jr.’s 2024 SONA with guests Pulse Asia president and political science Prof Ronnie Holmes, RJ activist and PNoy’s political adviser ex-Sec Ronald Llamas, UP econ prof. and ex-Finance USec Cielo Magno, and PR strategist Alan German na anak ni PR OG Reli whom I sort of knew back in the days.
Holmes, Llamas, and Magno are better informed than most, with a sense of the true state of affairs, past to present, and who clearly care about nation. German is a glib PR political tactician who always seems to know more than he’s telling and teases with tips on how-to-sell politicians, among other powertrippers. Host Esguerra, once of ANC, steers the talk with a GenZ’s take on national concerns that tends to provoke discussion, though only up to a point.
Unlike public affairs TV talkshows of yore, there’s a lot of banter, chortling, private jokes, whatever, between Esguerra and German, Esguerra and Llamas, apparently to keep the talk from getting too serious, or maybe his regulars like his GenZ sense of humor, I’m not sure. Whatever, it’s medyo nakaka-put-off, but the serious exchanges were | are worth staying for.
The same goes for Magno’s Chikahan podcast that premiered the Friday before the SONA with Llamas as senatoriable Edu Mansanas. It was the best conversation I’d heard yet on the state of the nation 2024, though you’d have to sit through some patawa and pababaw moments that interrupt trains of thought. And parang the sax and sing-along numbers are for another kind of podcast altogether.
If senior-short-memory serves, Magno and Llamas had a brief exchange about the pink movement, recalling what that campaign was like, how huge the crowds, how magical, parang EDSA, or something to that effect [sorry ang hirap hanapin ng exact words]. That was a pretty solid base of 14M – 15M voters, as it turns out — some 14.4M voted her in as VP in 2016, and some 15M voted her for president in 2022.
And if my social media algo is any gauge, buhay na buhay pa ang kakampinks — a third force neither pro-Marcos nor pro-Sara — naghihintay lang ng timon at direksyon. Which brings me back to Esguerra’s and Magno’s podcasts, the likes of which can be the perfect vehicles for thinking Filipinos with a bias for the Common Good to discuss current issues frankly and in depth, hopefully towards a consensus to organize around certain advocacies — like flood control, land use, anti-dynasty, proper wage hike, divorce law, atbp. — that sina Bam and Chel et al. could campaign on and carry into Congress in 2025. Hope springs.
***
SONA blogs across three admins 2008 – 2019
SONA 2019 message: he ain’t no lame duck, not yet anyway
ChaCha: Duterte’s endgame #SONA2018 #NoToChaCha
sona, tsona, torre de manila #takeitdown (2015)
SONAkakaiyak (2014)
SONA’s deafening silence on coco levy loot atbp. (2013)
SONA as farce (2013)
the spin that is SONA(kakasuya) (2011)
SONAkakadismaya (2010)
kontra-SONA (2008)
CITO BELTRAN: “All under water”
…practically every government project that involved construction of flood control involves two kinds of mobilization.
The first one is to mobilize payoffs, or the 20 to 40 percent commission demanded at the LGU level and national agencies. Then comes the actual project-related mobilization for the project at hand. It seems that today’s 40 percent estimated payoff is a combination of local and national bribery.
After the payoffs are made, the contractors will now have to cut corners in terms of concrete-to-sand mixture or formulation, downsizing rebars or culverts (those round concrete 2- to 4-foot “pipes”). They downsize or shrink dimensions or specifications as well as ignore load bearing capacities or curing time.
As a result of all these cutting corners to compensate for budgets lost to corrupt politicians and officials, the end product can be 30 to 50 percent less or below the designed requirement. The projects are either smaller, narrower, shorter, lower or weaker.
So, the canals, waterways and the like won’t meet the need or solve the problem. But who cares, they are all underground anyway and now after several days of pouring rain they are all under water. As the saying goes: “Out of sight – out of mind.”
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/07/26/2373041/all-under-water
RANDY DAVID. “Varieties of ecological communication”
Scientists need to weigh in on these complex questions. They need to enrich public discourse by discussing the various ways in which ecological dangers take shape—especially those that arise from policies issued by the political authorities and from the unsustainable practices of some economic entities. These institutional systems are not any less self-referential and subject to blind spots as the slum dwellers that are accused of thoughtlessly throwing their domestic trash into esteros and rivers.
For such is the structure of modern society: It tends to be so differentiated into autonomous function systems that it’s almost a joke to say that government can spearhead a so-called “whole-of-nation” approach to environmental problems. Right within the government itself, as we have seen, various agencies and offices are prone to operate on different bandwidths. Proceeding from different perspectives and priorities, they do not always manifest the same level of sensitivity to environmental events and their effects on people.
It was painful to watch Mr. Marcos desperately coaxing his subordinates to align their compartmentalized communications with his own communicative needs. This is better done off-camera, and in accordance with a framework that distinguishes the information requirements of the various phases of disaster management.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/175525/varieties-of-ecological-communication
IRIS GONZALES. “The homeland of the bizarre”
Isn’t it strange that more than a decade after Ondoy struck in 2009, we’re back to where we started or perhaps even worse? Isn’t it strange that for a nation battered by some 20 typhoons every year, it seems we haven’t really learned our lessons.
Where indeed do our taxes go?
For nearly every move we make as citizens – from buying food and other goods, to using our mobile phones, to ordering online, to using our roads – we pay a tax and yet we hardly feel our taxes working for our benefit.
Whatever happened to all those congressional investigations on flood-related disasters? Whatever happened to the tens of thousands of pages of feasibility studies about flood control projects? Whatever happened to the pending National Land Use Policy proposed in the first year of the Marcos administration? Whatever happened to all those multilateral loans for climate-resiliency?
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/07/28/2373433/homeland-bizarre
JARIUS BONDOC. “Generals blame floods on corruption, ‘declare war’ against perpetrators”
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/08/07/2375962/generals-blame-floods-corruption-declare-war-against-perpetrators