Down the summit

ITEM 1. The city Government of San Fernando on Friday spearheaded an education summit at Heroes Hall in response to the urgent and critical need to improve the quality of basic education.

So Sun-Star Pampanga reported. It furthered: Together with Department of Education officials led by City Schools Division Superintendent Esperanza Laya were heads and representatives from the Department of Labor and Employment, Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, teachers, students and other allied stakeholders gathered for the whole day summit themed "Reaching Out and Building a Better Community."

Item 2. Subject of a recent Balitaan forum in Bale Balita at the Clark Freeport were the doldrums of the socio-economic and political kinds keeping the wind off the sails of the Clark airport to reach its destiny as the country’s premier international gateway, or even just an equal twin to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

The solution proffered by 1^st District Rep. Yeng Guiao: Clark summit, among all stakeholders – representatives of airlines, freeport locators, local government units, the CAAP, CDC, CIAC and DOTC, travel and tour agencies, hotels and restaurants, advocacy groups, business chambers, etc.

Item 3. Faced with the persistence of tuberculosis in many areas of Pampanga, both urban and rural, the provincial government in coordination with the Department of Health held a health summit participated in by chiefs of the provincial and district hospitals, heads of rural health units as well as barangay health workers.

Item 4. A series of carjacking cases and killings in Pampanga prompted the provincial government to hold a peace and order summit participated in by the Camp Olivas top brass, the provincial police office, all commanders of city and municipal police stations, the Highway Patrol Group and the Drug Enforcement Agency.      

Item 5. The Department of Public Works and Highways last May announced the completion of the repair and rehabilitation of the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin tail which, it said, “was designed to protect the towns from floodwaters coming from upstream...(and) can rest assured of the integrity (of the repair) of the dike to prevent another flooding.”

Came typhoon Marin and the habagat again last August:  the dike was breached again, the towns inundated anew.

To come up with a definitive solution to this perennial flooding, no need to guess what has been recommended – a flood summit, dummy, to be participated in by the local governments of Pampanga, the DPWH and all its attached offices, and other stakeholders.

Education. Tourism. Health. Peace and Order. Infrastructure. Any and all problems and issues in any and all sectors have only one solution – hold a summit.

Summit. A most misappropriated word, given its current usage hereabouts.

Summit came with perfection the first time I heard of the word – in Grade 1 or Grade 2 with a picture of Mayon Volcano providing the visual aid.

Summit, thereafter, I associated exclusively with mountains, their highest points specifically. No matter their jaggedness, as in the Alps. No matter the imperfection of their cone, as in Fuji.

I have not yet graduated from the elementary grades when summit assumed another meaning. That was when the so-called leaders of the “free world” gathered in the Philippines to talk about the Vietnam War.    

I still have a mental image of Nguyen Cao Ky and Van Thieu of South Vietnam, Holt of Australia, Holyoake of New Zealand, Thanom Kittikachorn of Thailand – I don’t know but that name is forever etched in my memory – and Lyndon Johnson of the USA seated on a roundtable with our very own Ferdinand E. Marcos presiding, in what was hailed as the Manila Summit.

Associations in definitions now – summit means the top of a mountain, a summit meeting means that which is exclusive to the top of a hierarchy, principally political.

As in the Reykjavik Summit between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to ban or limit intercontinental  ballistic missiles.

As in the periodic G-20 Summit of leaders of the world’s major economies. Or the APEC Summit of the leaders of the countries in Asia and the Pacific. Or the ASEAN Summit among leaders of neighboring countries in Southeast Asia.

In all those wise, it is the exclusivity among top leaders that makes a summit meeting. Any other participated in by just any Tom, Dick and Harry whose family names are not Jefferson, Nixon and Truman, won’t make a summit meeting.

Just like all those education summit, tourism summit, flood summit, health summit or peace and order summit foisted at every turn of a problem or a disaster. Summit is not the proper term there. General assembly or forum is the more appropriate.

Yeah, from the rarefied airs of Olympus, the summit has descended to the pits of triviality.

Still, for those too hung-up on summitry here are some words from Barry Goldwater: “The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place.”

Touche.