Romero ululating

SO, WHAT else is new?
When the provincial government won the Gawad Galing Pook 2008 for the spectacular increase in quarry collections, businessman Rene Romero had this to say: “Parang bumaba ang pagtingin ko sa Galing Pook…The quarry collection system did not deserve the award. It miserably failed to meet the criteria of sustainability, transferability and consistency.”
(Subsequent results in the quarry collection proved Romero miserably wrong. The high collection generated by the Panlilio administration was sustainable, transferable and consistent, what with even higher collections in the Pineda administration.)
When the Metro Angeles City Chamber of Commerce and Industry won the Most Outstanding Chamber Award 2010 over the Romero-led Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, here is what he wrote the board of directors of the Philippine Chamber of Chamber of Commerce and Industry: “Deeply dismayed over the result of the MOCA 2010 awarding last October 15 at the 36th Philippine Business Conference in Manila Hotel…
“For MOCA 2010, we shall respect the decision as rendered by the judges and awarded by PCCI albeit with reservations because we are still of the opinion that our chamber merits recognition as an outstanding chamber…”
When no award was given the business sector in the recent Most Outstanding Kapampangan Award last December 11, Romero had this to say, in Tuesday’s banner story of Sun-Star Pampanga yet: “The business sector is disappointed, sad and more so, insulted by the results. It simply means that despite our efforts and support of the Provincial Government, parang sinampal kami at sinabing walang matinong negosyante sa probinsiya.”
Indeed, what else is new with this Romero’s after-loss ululations? Making himself in effect the perfect template of the miserable loser.
But let us indulge Romero’s whimpers, believer as we are in the Desiderata: that we have to listen to everyone, “…even fools, for they too have their own stories to tell.”
It is foolish for Romero to drag the provincial government in his lamentation over the MOKA. The provincial government had no hand in the choice of the awardees. This was undertaken initially by a pre-selection committee and finally by a board of judges of which I was a member.
For the un-MOKAed, dismayed Romero to generalize “the business sector” as “disappointed, sad and more so, insulted by the results” is an arrogation unto himself of the whole “business sector.” A super-ego ascendant there. But for Romero and one or two unnamed others quoted in the Sun-Star Pampanga story, who else questioned the MOKA results?
Indeed, who can question the outstanding contribution to Kapampangan pride of the 2010 awardees? From honorary Kapampangan Fidel Valdez Ramos, to Central Bank Gov. Amando Tetangco Jr., from AFP Chief of Staff Ricardo David to UST’s Fr. Pompeyo de Mesa, from health specialist Juliet Cervantes to World Relief Mission’s George Samson, to Emmy Award winner Jess Espanola, to renowned architect Lor Calma, to name just those who instantly came to mind.
All business and no altruism is Romero in saying, to quote again: “It simply means that despite our efforts and support of the Provincial Government, parang sinampal kami at sinabing walang matinong negosyante sa probinsiya.”
Clear as a blank ledger there is Romero’s avid expectation of a payback, an ROI for whatever efforts and support he considered as capital infused in the provincial government.
A slap on the face indeed! For well-meaning and truly award-deserving businesspersons, of which there is no dearth of in this province, After all PamCham has absolutely no monopoly of the good and the deserving. Go, ask MACCI. See the highly successful un-chambered entrepreneurs all around us.
It is precisely those businesspersons who, for some reason or the other, were not nominated for the MOKA. Businesspersons who have no lost and losing suits at the National Labor Relations Commission, who paid their taxes rightly and timely, who were religious in the remittance of their workers’ social security contributions, who respected and upheld workers’ rights, especially that which pertains to security of tenure not the exigency of contractualization.
Not the leeches who suck the blood out of the workers, not the vultures whose corporate aeries and stately nests are built upon the bones of laborers. As much as Romero laments for the absence of any awardee in the category of business, so we mourn for the deprivation of the rights of the workers by award-seeking, honor-chasing exploitative businessmen.
That Romero had to vent his apparent frustration on the provincial government is the height of conceit, if not the nadir of folly.
“Is this the kind of government we have which allows such people to influence something? Where has professionalism gone? Changed with personal conflicts?” So Romero ululated once more, impugning a vacuity of mind at the Capitol.
This, complexed with his allegation of “influence peddlers at the Capitol that will not be good and helpful to effective governance.”
So who are these “influence peddlers,” “termites” as Romero called them “that would destroy what (he) and Capitol have started in terms of development?”
The Capitol leadership influenced by termites is a leadership with the brains of cretins. Romero implied there.
Unkind. Unfair. Uncalled for. There is no simple disrespect there. There is utter contempt for the provincial leadership: What had Gov. Lilia Pineda done to merit such affront to her very person? Where had Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao failed to earn this aspersion to his integrity?
Feeling deprived of the MOKA anew, Romero unmasked himself. A spoiled brat who lost his second lollipop, resorting to bullying, so he could get the next one. Plain and simple.
An unsolicited advice – not to Romero – but others dreaming of the MOKA and some such other awards of recognition: Don’t seek the award. Let it seek you.
Anyways, maybe, just maybe, it is high time to institute a parallel event to the MOKA. We shall call it MOTA – Most Outspoken Talunan Award. No need for the any other nomination there. The choice there is unanimous, hands-down.
Miserable loser.

The happy life

A BALATO of P50 will be just fine with me.
So I told my coffee confederates at Starbucks SM City Clark at the height of the frenzied betting for the grand lotto.
They just could not believe that I could be so disinterested as to pass off this one-in-29-million-chance of being a multi-multi-millionaire. With none of them betting less than a thousand pesos in multi-multi-combinations at each failed draw.
My greed is not only moderate but very manageable. So I told them.
But with the winnings, you can buy lots of cars, said the espresso-dazed one.
So how many cars I got now? A vintage ’66 Beetle. A collector’s ’94 Crown. A stock Avanza. A first edition CRV. And an Andre Agassi-endorsed Sorento.
No brand new, no Range Rover, no Porsche or even just a BMW.
So what’s the need for those brands? My cars are as utilitarian. Where those luxe wheels go, they can take me too.
You don’t arrive in style as you’d do in them rich men’s cars.
So have you forgotten, style is the man? So who really needs cars?
Winning the lotto can take you places, travel the world over and over. It’s the cappuccino imbiber talking now.
So what have I been doing? Macau, Ho Chi Minh City, and a Singapore-Penang-Phuket star cruise this year. Fifth time in Hongkong and first in Guangzhou last year. Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur the previous year. Already hit Jakarta and some other islands in Indonesia. Done with Kyoto and Nagoya. Twice in Taiwan. All these without the benefit of lotto, not even a balik-taya.
But your travels are restricted to Asia, lotto’s hundreds of millions can easily take you to America…
Sorry, but been there, both coasts five times, six to include the territory of Guam. Disney and Universal, Broadway and Times Square, D.C. and Philly, Vegas and Atlantic City, Frisco and even those lovely enclaves in Rhode island I called God’s own little acre, I’ve experienced them all.
To Europe then…
Post-springtime, Paris still blooms in romance. Bonn with its famed university and Koln with its magnificent cathedral have that quiet elegance. Brussels is aptly named Little Paris…
You’ve been there too?
Yes, and smelled six million tulip bulbs of all colors in Keukenhof Garden in Lisse, Holland, walked the cobblestoned streets of The Hague, visited Madame Tussaud but got frustrated at the closed Van Gogh Museum around Dam Square and was blocked by a 300-pound, 6’8” bouncer from photographing the ladies of all races in various stages of undress encased in escaparates along the canal in De Wallen. Again, all these without having to win even just three digits in the lotto. They just happened.
Which means?
Which ultimately means I have no need for the lotto to live my life as I want to. Winning the lotto will just ruin it.
For as long as I can remember, I never dreamed of being moneyed. All I wanted in life since my childhood days are summed up thus: RTW – read, travel, write. Precisely what I do now. So why alter it, drastically and horrifically, with money?
As the Most Rev. Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz advised the unidentified lone winner of the P741-million jackpot on Tuesday: Pack up and go abroad.
Among Oscar’s personal sermon: "It's best for the person and his family to hide and go abroad. It would be better for him to hide than to risk his or her life here…This person is a pity because he should be very careful... because the money he will have came from a lot of people so therefore the money is not really his or her own because he did not work for it…The winner should also be careful about his safety together with his family because many will try to frighten and kidnap them for the money ... in short, the winner will lose because of these problems."
So why still desire that much money?
Desire is the root of all disappointments. A basic tenet from the dhammapada that can very well be the key to inner serenity, and in turn to world peace.
Finding resonance in John Lennon’s Imagine -- “…no possession/ I wonder if you can/nothing for greed or hunger/ a brotherhood of Man…”
And an affirmation in yet another nugget of Buddhist wisdom: “Happiness is not in getting what you want. It is in finding contentment with what you have.”
Oini ing bie. So I am happy.

Fair comment

UNFAIR! Cried the flawless and fair Councilor Maricel Morales over our Wednesday editorial Shortchanged.
The opinion piece logged the arrival of the honorable members of the sangguniang panlungsod at the Angeles City Hall last Tuesday for their regular session.
Only the Honorable Willie Rivera came earlier than the set time of 2:00 p.m. while Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting made it en punto. All the rest were late, with the Beautiful Marang the “latest” at 2:58 p.m.
What made the tardiness significantly galling was that those invited to act as resource persons in one particular agendum of the day – the toxic pollution caused by poultry and piggery farms in the city – were asked to come to the session hall at 1:00 p.m.
Shortchanged was yet a kind word to describe what these people felt at having to wait for over an hour, only to be rushed through a discussion of an issue of such critical magnitude, and abruptly slammed the door for further interchange for the day.
Anyways, in a text message to this paper’s editor – published in our Friday issue – the Beautiful Marang ululated with argumentum ad hominem (Go see your fallacies of reasoning for its meaning) thus: “I hope that whoever came up with the editorial tried to be fair enough by trying to find out reasons behind our arrival. This was soooo 1 sided! As Councilor’s, we are not only expected to report session every Tuesday. We have other commitments we have to attend to being elected officials. Meetings here and there. It is also beyond our control if the mass oath-taking of brgy Officials was scheduled on our regular session day, as we were not the ones who planned and decided for the event, we were only told we’re expected to be with our Mayor on that event to welcome our newly-elected brgy officials. What I am saying is, there are other angles to be looked and it is so funny that our writer probably thought that as Elected officials, we are not confined to attending city council sessions.”
Fairness, Madame, is stating what actually happened. You were late. And that was that. Late is late. No such thing as better late. Never best left to its state of nothingness.
Yes, we understand, you have commitments other than attending the Tuesday session. You have to understand too that legislation is your principal job description, attending the session is paramount over all other functions. Yes, even gracing the oath-taking of new barangay chairmen takes no precedence over that. Even with the Mayor personally asking you to do so.
That the session has a fixed time and date: 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, makes all the less difficulty for you to schedule all other peripheral activities accruing to your being councilor off that date. Short of a life-or-death situation, there is no justification for absences or tardiness in sessions. Again, that being the very defining moment of councilorship.
“How come when we have to wake up on odd hours to attend to some of our constituent’s needs or stay up late on meetings and discussions, that is not written about?” So the Beautiful Marang threw in argumentum ad misericordiam there. (Again, go to the fallacies of reasoning for its meaning.)
Tell our reporter Joey Pavia anytime, Madame, and he will be most inspired to write about it. On second thought though, what is there really to report about a councilor attending to his/her constituents’ needs at odd hours or staying late for meetings? That is par for the job. Public service is 24/7. That is what being an elected official is all about.
“That is the problem with other media practitioners, they attend once, and without making research, act like they know everything that happens in the session hall. They could have been more fair had they tried to find out, if not from all, at least from some, why the delay.. or why the rush?” Ay, the Beautiful Marang throwing in some jabs there.
Madame, we assure you, that Tuesday was not the first and only time that Punto attended a session of the sangguniang panlungsod, in this administration or in any of the past administrations.
No, we neither act nor assume that we know everything that happens there. But what we know is that absences and tardiness are so endemic in the sangguniang panlungsod of Angeles City, then as now, that they have become the very hallmark of the council.
That is a fair comment. Records may be altered but our observing presence there would bear us out. And no ululation can negate that.

Trees as bounty

“CASH-UALLY” ENVELOPMENTAL, rather than socio-economically developmental may be the actual driving force in the widening of the MacArthur Highway and the massive tree-kill it entailed.
So declared a close coffee confederate at Starbucks SM Clark, holding Tuesday’s issue of Punto! opened to Zona Libre’s Invitation to murder.
Rather strong opinions there, I said.
With the strongest of convictions, and without any fear of contradiction, from anyone with enough brains to see through the ploy of the determined triumvir of tree-killers. So further qualified my espresso-driven friend, arrogating unto himself the patented phrase of Mayor Boking Morales.
Triumvir of tree-killers?
The Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the city government of San Fernando, the Department of Public Works and Highways – they who are advocating for and implementing the defoliation, desertification, the very degradation of MacArthur Highway and its immediate environs.
Oh…okay, socio-economically developmental I understand, but what’s with “cash-ually envelopmental?”
Cash in an envelope, as compound adverb-adjectival modifier.
Heavy semantics, wow!
Simply, trees along MacArthur Highway serve as a bounty. The bottom line in their killing and in the widening project is money, money, money.
Very strong allegations there, clearly needing strong bases.
Yes, your very column served that need.
What? How?
Read here your take from the Colorado Trees Coalition at www.coloradotrees.org:
Urban Forests Can Extend the Life of Paved Surfaces.
The asphalt paving on streets contain stone aggregate in an oil binder. Without tree shade, the oil heats up and volatizes, leaving the aggregate unprotected. Vehicles then loosen the aggregate and much like sandpaper, the loose aggregate grinds down the pavement.
Streets should be overlaid or slurry sealed every 7-10 years over a 30-40 year period, after which reconstruction is required.
A slurry seal costs approximately $0.27/sq.ft. or $50,000/linear mile. Because the oil does not dry out as fast on a shaded street as it does on a street with no shade trees, this street maintenance can be deferred. The slurry seal can be deferred from every 10 years to every 20-25 years for older streets with extensive tree canopy cover. See there?
What?
By killing the trees along MacArthur Highway, the asphalt pavement will be deprived of the protective canopy, the heat of the sun roiling the aggregate which gets easily loosened by the vehicles, thereby pockmarking and ultimately carving the pavement.
Knowing how the roads here are made the same way as Cabalantian’s puto-seco, they all the more get easily destroyed.
So?
The DPWH will have to make more frequent asphalt overlays.
So?
The DPWH will have to get more funding, both general and supplemental, for non-stop road maintenance.
So?
The DPWH will have to bid out contracts for the road rehabilitation and maintenance to contractors.
So?
The favored contractors will have to gift the DPWH, and maybe the local government, with the requisite por-diez-por-diez-por-diez-porciento package.
Ah, por Dios, por santo, say it ain’t so Director Alfredo Tolentino!

Invitation to murder

"WE ARE saddened that they were not able to join us last week but they are still welcome to join us."
So rued Rene Romero, president of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry and chairman of the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon, over the non-participation of greenies, particularly the Save the Trees Coalition (STC), to the so-called “urban tree planting” project.
It would have been the height of folly for the STC to have heeded Romero’s call, it being an invitation to murder.
There is everything right with the planting of new seedlings “a safe distance from the widened portion of the highway,” as Romero put it.
There is everything wrong, patently criminal, if we may in the moral and environmental sense, in the express intent of that planting activity. Again, the blabber straight from Romero’s mouth: “the old trees along the path of the road widening must go,” with the (un)justification “that the people would reap the economic and social benefits from a good road infrastructure.”
The first clause there but a reprise of Romero’s mantra: Cut down all trees along MacArthur Highway. The second, we shall reduce to its true dimension, presently.
Planting new seedlings – 750 in all, so crowed Romero’s mouthpiece – is now being impacted to the public as ample justification for the wholesale killing of trees along the national road.
So PamCham and its cohorts of tree-killers – the city government of San Fernando, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources, road contractor Leadway Construction – can now go their way of cutting down all mature trees along MacArthur?
“We at the DPWH are pro-environment. The fact that we try to make a balance between progress and nature preservation is an example of our commitment to save the environment.” So was Public Works Director Alfredo Tolentino quoted as saying, disclosing that “the event will see to the planting of 1,500 more trees, which is more than four times the number of the old trees along MacArthur Highway.” So did Tolentino lie.
What 1,500 is he talking about when only half of that – 750 – were reported planted?
So he talked of his proffered number as “four times” the number of old trees along MacArthur? I wonder how this character got his engineering license. His agency itself reported not too long ago that there were some 5,000 trees along the Bulacan-Pampanga-Tarlac stretch of MacArthur Highway. What type of mathematics is Tolentino now applying? 5,000 X 4 = 1,500? No engineer but an idiot there!
And what had the good Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez to do, but to provide the chorus to Romero and Tolentino, as he “hailed the on-going project, saying it is beneficial to the public.
“He said new trees are needed in order to make the road shoulders of MacArthur greener. This in turn, he said, will also help in filtering carbon emissions that are harmful to the people’s health.” So reported Sun-Star Pampanga.
If Rodriguez had any sense of what he was reported to have said, he should have had, right there and then, kicked the very daylight out of Romero, Tolentino, Leadway, and all advocates of any tree-cutting.
Planting new trees can never be an either-or-alternative to killing mature trees. These should be complementary as it takes no less than 10 years for young trees to be able to even approximate the beneficial capacity of mature trees.
Here are some finds from the Colorado Trees Coalition at www.coloradotrees.org
Trees act as a carbon sink by removing the carbon and storing it as cellulose in their trunk, branches, leaves and roots while releasing oxygen back into the air. A single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs./year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support two human beings. Over a 50-year lifetime, a tree generates $31,250 worth of oxygen, provides $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycles $37,500 worth of water, and controls $31,250 worth of soil erosion. Reduction of Other Air Pollutants. In one urban park (212 ha.) tree cover was found to remove daily 48lbs. particulates, 9 lbs. nitrogen dioxide, 6 lbs. sulfur dioxide, and 2 lb. carbon monoxide ($136/day value based upon pollution control technology) and 100 lbs. of carbon.
Urban Forests Protect Our Water :Trees reduce topsoil erosion, prevent harmful land pollutants contained in the soil from getting into our waterways, slow down water run-off, and ensure that our groundwater supplies are continually being replenished.
Urban Forests Can Extend the Life of Paved Surfaces: The asphalt paving on streets contain stone aggregate in an oil binder. Without tree shade, the oil heats up and volatizes, leaving the aggregate unprotected. Vehicles then loosen the aggregate and much like sandpaper, the loose aggregate grinds down the pavement. Streets should be overlaid or slurry sealed every 7-10 years over a 30-40 year period, after which reconstruction is required. A slurry seal costs approximately $0.27/sq.ft. or $50,000/linear mile. Because the oil does not dry out as fast on a shaded street as it does on a street with no shade trees, this street maintenance can be deferred. The slurry seal can be deferred from every 10 years to every 20-25 years for older streets with extensive tree canopy cover.
Urban Forests Can Increase Traffic Safety: Trees can serve as a buffer between moving vehicles and pedestrians. Street trees also forewarn drivers of upcoming curves. If the driver sees tree trunks curving ahead before seeing the road curve, they will slow down and be more cautious when approaching curves.
Urban Forests Can Improve Economic Sustainability: Studies have shown that: 1) Trees enhance community economic stability by attracting businesses and tourists; 2)People linger and shop longer along tree-lined streets;3) Apartments and offices in wooded areas rent more quickly and have higher occupancy rates; and 4) Businesses leasing office spaces in developments with trees find their workers are more productive and absenteeism is reduced.
Urban Forests Can Increase Sociological Benefits Two University of Illinois researchers (Kuo and Sullivan) studied how well residents of the Chicago Robert Taylor Housing Project (the largest public housing development in the world) were doing in their daily lives based upon the amount of contact they had with trees, and came to the following conclusions: 1) Trees have the potential to reduce social service budgets, decrease police calls for domestic violence, strengthen urban communities, and decrease the incidence of child abuse according to the study. Chicago officials heard that message last year. The city government spent $10 million to plant 20,000 trees, a decision influenced by Kuo’s and Sullivan’s research, according to the Chicago Tribune. 2) Researchers found fewer reports of physical violence in homes that had trees outside the buildings. Of the residents interviewed, 14% of residents living in barren conditions have threatened to use a knife or gun against their children versus 3% for the residents living in green conditions; and 3) A U.S. Department of Energy study reports that trees reduce noise pollution by acting as a buffer and absorbing 50% of urban noise.
So what was Romero saying? “The old trees along the path of the road widening must go so that the people would reap the economic and social benefits from a good road infrastructure.”
Yeah right. Look at all those vulcanizing shops, jeepney and tricycle terminals, mobile carinderias and instant talipapas that have sprouted all along the widened portions of MacArthur Highway from Malolos down to Apalit. Yeah, right Romero, really economic and social benefits there from a good road infrastructure.
And Romero had the gall to protest the Metro Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Industry beating his PamCham for the Most Outstanding Chamber Award of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry?
Ay, that’s another story.