Letter to Pres. Aquino and Sec. Abaya
Open Letter to His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III,
President of the Philippines
and Honorable Joseph Emilio Abaya, Secretary
Department of Transportation and Communications
Dear President Aquino and Secretary Abaya:
Between 1989-1990, we began the advocacy for a Philippine safety agency that led to the passage of the Republic Act to create the NTSB – National Transportation Safety Board.
Shown below is the reconstruction of the briefing on the need to operationalize the National Transportation Safety Board. We revised the briefing over and over again. The updating of the voluminous data on accidents over land, to include actuarial and statistical computations of the probabilities of new accidents for extended, extrapolated periods, is not included since it would be too tasking for us and we do not have the resources nor are equipped any longer to undertake the job.
In the past, we were fortunate to be working with a foreign counterpart – the Harris Corporation Florida USA, a conglomerate with over 100 companies under its wings, that allowed us to opportunity to campaign for the privatization of the then Air Transportation Office’s ATS (Air Traffic Service) as well as to push for the creation of the Philippines’ transport safety agency.
Safety on the road
Recently, one of the buses of Don Mariano Transit figured in an accident where it is reported that 18 people died (see photo below).
Photo Credit: Manila Bulletin, December 16, 2013 by Michael Varcas
The attention of everyone, especially our government officials, is most earnestly called towards past proposals, suggestions, recommendations, encouragement, admonitions, for making transport safety a key concern of the public sector.
At this time, whether or not the Philippine Government under Pres. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino the 3rd will listen to all these unsolicited advice will be the determinant of the future of public safety on the streets of the country, sea and ocean lanes, and the Philippine air ways.
One of the hundreds of proposals on transport safety became a certified legislation of the Ramos Administration in 1994-1995. It was an executive order draft that instead was forwarded with strong endorsement by former President Fidel V. Ramos to the two houses of Congress to be made into Law due to the inclusion of a component providing for changes in users’ fees and charges in the transportation industry.
Because Congress holds the power of the purse and is the only one mandated to create taxes, fees and charges that will be levied upon the public, Congress was the last stop of the proposal for transport safety. Under the late Pres. Corazon Aquino, the same proposal was submitted to Malacanang because of the need for a Philippine council on Safety – or any kind of agency concerned with Safety in general.
If we look at our Philippine Government’s structure, there is a myriad of government units, offices, bureaus on safety. From the Department of Labor, Health, National Defense, Transportation and Communications, and the list goes on and on. Despite this however, or because of too many duplicating functions, there is a seeming confusion as to who will be responsible for this and that concern on Safety.
Hundreds of world, international, regional Conventions, conferences and Workshops are held all over the the globe on Safety. The United Nations, cognizant of the value and importance of the universal concern of Safety, has elevated its status consistently from low to a very high Category under the UN Structure.
Therefore a single agency, unifying at least a wide array of safety concerns and lessening the duplication and conflicts of functions of too many agencies under the bureaucracy was proposed.
Out of these proposals, at least one was favored to become law: the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) Act that came about due to the strong wording by Malacanang stating that the proposed law was part of its certified legislative agenda for the period.
That certified priority legislation under the Ramos administration, became law. Secretary Vicente Rivera, past head of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) disclosed that former Congressman Manuel A. Roxas III and Senator Franklin D. Drilon were very instrumental in making the draft bill become law.
During her tenure in Malacanang, the late Philippine President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, appointed a lady by the name of Emilia Boncodin to the post of Director at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Eventually, Ms. Boncodin rose in the ranks and became Assistant Secretary, Undersecretary and yet was the source of complaints from too many sectors due to her insistence on ten percent (10%) commission or kickback for herself when it became her turn to be the one to release the payments to government service providers. When the supplier-contractors could not produce the cash, Ms. Boncodin will hold the payment hostage in return for a post-dated cheque or any other debt instrument, bank note that will ensure her 10% kickback will be paid.
However enormous and tremendous were the monies earned by this Boncodin in the past due to the immense, uncontrollable power of hostaging and illegal detention of the DBM, Boncodin refused and returned the enacted and signed (by President Ramos) Law creating the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to Congress.
Her reason was that DBM did not have Fifty Million Philippine Pesos (Php50-M) to cover the operationalization of the NTSB into a functional office. While amassing more than a few billions in office, Boncodin refused to fund Php50-M for the NTSB Law. More > >
Speeding and bad road structures
Yahoo: CCTV shows Don Mariano Transit speeding before tragedy
From yahoo.com, a video shows that the killer bus owned by the Don Mariano Transit that took 18 lives of its passengers was on a speeding frenzy prior to the accident, the report says.
The authorities reviewing the video say the bus was running at more than 100 kilometers per hour while at the point of the accident the speed limit was only 80 kilometers per hour.
Bad road design and structure in RP
A comment by “A Yahoo User” on the video sourced from ANC, says thus:
Bad road design and structure in RP
A comment by “A Yahoo User” on the video sourced from ANC, says thus:
if one where to look closely at the footage, one can see that there was water in the path of the bus. What does this mean? I believe that the swerving may be the cause of hydroplaning.that and the speed of the bus i believe could be the main causes of the bus falling
By design, the coupling of speeding vehicles and bad road designs and structures that are common in poor or developing countries are a mortal combination. Compounded with dilapidated vehicle features and parts – that as claimed by the Skyway administration was evident in the Don Mariano Transit bus unit’s totally bald tires with treads wholly worn away – the accident was bound to happen.
In the face of burgeoning mishaps not only in the Metro Manila but in other areas of the country due to accidents like the Don Mariano Transit bus’ plunge into the netherworld, government must be concerned not only with the implementation of laws, rules and regulations similar to the Congress-Senate approved National Transportation Safety Board Act but also the strictness of parameters for approving and performance-assessing the quality of the country’s road network.
As our advocacy has pointed out in the past, in Tokyo, Japan, it was observed that a speeding car in a heavy downpour of rain at night, in a toll bridge, appeared to be travelling on almost dry road that was clear even to the average eye aided by vehicle lights. This is reportedly due to the fact that the structure of Tokyo’s roads is characterized by multiple layers. More > >
Letter to the President and DOTC
Open Letter to His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III,
President of the Philippines
and Honorable Joseph Emilio Abaya, Secretary
Department of Transportation and Communications
Dear President Aquino and Secretary Abaya:
Between 1989-1990, we began the advocacy for a Philippine safety agency that led to the passage of the Republic Act to create the NTSB – National Transportation Safety Board.
Shown below is the reconstruction of the briefing on the need to operationalize the National Transportation Safety Board. We revised the briefing over and over again. The updating of the voluminous data on accidents over land, to include actuarial and statistical computations of the probabilities of new accidents for extended, extrapolated periods, is not included since it would be too tasking for us and we do not have the resources nor are equipped any longer to undertake the job.
In the past, we were fortunate to be working with a foreign counterpart – the Harris Corporation Florida USA, a conglomerate with over 100 companies under its wings, that allowed us to opportunity to campaign for the privatization of the then Air Transportation Office’s ATS (Air Traffic Service) as well as to push for the creation of the Philippines’ transport safety agency.
– Original proponents for National Transport Safety Board 1994
Aquino government moro-moro
The zarzuela continues. This supposedly “good-intentioned” Senate Hearing, in aid of Demolition, succeeds as a major public relations campaign of world wide magnitude. As a play, the entire production does not rate even a low D grade. It was too transparent to be stage managed, with Madam Janet Lim Napoles talking to her friend-senators as if they were long-lost friends. She does not even use the respectful address of Your Honor and never leads her statements with Mr. Chairman of the Committee.
Madam Napoles was in the Senate at her best element. She even complained that she must be given her free lunch time.
Led by Senators TG Guingona, a known substance abuser and Peter Alan Cayetano, a man insanely driven by the ambition to rise above the person who fed his young models-loving father from the palm of his hand (called Tanda by Sen. Miriam Santiago, ex Judge and former Cory appointee as well as collector of about a half-million pesos bribe per head now ensconced in Switzerland from the lion’s share of undocumented 4 million chinese in the Philippines during the 1986 installed revolutionary regime), the drama goes on attempting to be the best Pitong Komikera-Komikerong Itlog show in this part of the globe.
The lady from Lima was also present, hubnubbing with Sen. Santiago during recess with Sens. Cayetano and Trillanes trading ideas from time to time during the interregnum when the Great Madam money giver to presidents, politicians and bureaucrats and money grubber, in the league of Mr. Zaldy Co and Mr. Edwin Gardiola said Time Out, I Have To Eat Lunch. Missing the action was the real lawyer of Madam, Atty. Fred Villamor, for whom the lady of Lima lawyered for Madam Napoles, being an obedient , willing partner with or without her underwear.
The useless debates centered on the scripted silence of Ms. Napoles and the supposedly honest, “credibility of the truth” statements of Benhur Luy, as well as other Napoles underlings. Even President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino the 3rd did not bother to listen to any of the burdensome, inane and previously scripted talk flying freely at Senate. The turd had prepared speeches to media about the bagyo – super typhoon Yolanda. The Madam continuously denied everything while Brain dead Miriam Santiago became her tutor in how to deny everything in the most decent, legalistic manner: “I refuse to answer, I invoke my right against self-incrimination.”
On occasion, at least once or twice, it was mentioned that the famous NGO (non-government organization) and PO (people’s organization) community organizer, Madam Napoles, even used the dead to populate her NGOs and POs. From her probably great gratitude to the dead, she possibly bought beautiful Heritage Park lots for her benefactors – Senators, Presidents, Congresspersons, the President’s top men and women, local officials and national budget bigwigs.A multi-million several days’ partying and catering marks the visit of Ms. Janet Lim Napoles to the Heritage Park in Global City aka The Fort. The Inquirer reports that the Heritage Park mausoleum dedicated to Ms. Napoles’ mother even became a tourist spot recently after this same newspaper broke the news on the Napoles fund scam:
Napoles Mausoleum in upscale Taguig now a tourist spot
The luxurious two-story Lim-Napoles mausoleum at Heritage Park in Taguig City has become a “tourist spot” after the Inquirer broke the exclusive stories on Janet Lim-Napoles as the alleged mastermind behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam.
Those laid to rest in the upscale memorial park must be turning in their graves.
Janet Lim-Napoles, alleged pork barrel scam mastermind, owns around 280 square meters of “lawn and estate lots” at Heritage Park in progressive Taguig City, according to an insider privy to the sale of the lots.
It was at Heritage Park that Napoles made her voluntary surrender to presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda on Aug. 28.
“The lots were under different names, but it was Ms. Napoles who paid for 200 lawn lots and eight family estate lots,” where the mausoleum now stands, said the source who spoke to the Inquirer on condition of anonymity.
“She bought all the adjacent lots of her mother’s mausoleum because she said she wants space for catering and tents when they celebrate All Souls’ Day as well as the death anniversary and birthday of her mother,” the source said.
The source said the Lim mausoleum is the burial site of Magdalena Luy Lim, the mother of Napoles, who is now detained at Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna province.
“It is complete with amenities and furnishings of a high-end condominium unit,” she said.
‘Tourist spot’
The two-story dark grey mausoleum adorned with Halloween trimmings on the ground became a “tourist spot” after the Inquirer broke the exclusive series on Napoles’ illegal transactions using public funds, according to the source.
“Madami nagpapicture (A lot of people are having their pictures taken at the grave site), especially now,” the source said.
The lowest value for a lawn lot based on Heritage Park’s latest price list is P95,000 at 1.2 sq m and a family estate lawn cost around P4.6 million at 4.9 sq m.
“The worth of Napoles’ lots alone could reach around P30 million, but the cost of the construction of the mausoleum we do not know,” she said.
She added that government people who claimed they were with the Commission on Audit had also visited the mausoleum.
Said the source: “For the past four years, at least three times a year, they held a party complete with 24-hour catering and air-conditioned tents.
“Usually, the party preparation began on Oct. 30 and the party lasted three days, until Nov. 1. It was a festive costume party and the kids were given chocolates and candies.
“There were nuns and lots of people arriving and going during the celebration. Plenty of cars.”
Party’s over
Emy, a dirty ice cream vendor who claimed she supplies the ice cream for Napoles every Nov. 1, showed up yesterday at the mausoleum, but was turned away by a man named Marco, because “there was no party today (walang party ngayon)”.
Emy said she saw the developments of Napoles’ case unfold on TV but she took the chance and brought ice cream to the mausoleum but was told that no party guests were coming over.
“Madame Jenny (as Napoles preferred to be called), who was good to us, paid us P6,000 for the ice cream and gave a P1,000 tip,” Emy told the Inquirer.
Another family who had relatives buried near the mausoleum told the Inquirer that they “kind of missed the fanfare, because they even had a stage there once and some concert, plus free food.”
“We did not know who she was. We were told when we asked that the owner was a Chinese businesswoman very close to Erap,” the neighbor said, referring to former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada. Read More >>
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The administration is making the people of the Philippines look stupid and tickling the entire nation to emotional highs using a badly written script played by a drug addict, a highly ambitious imbalanced person, a mental retard called the turd, a brain damaged collector of undocumented chinese bribe money, a fat frog looking principal actor, among a coterie of what Madam Senator Brenda calls cockroaches and assholes (public relations experts and specialists).
At the same time, a super typhoon waits to ravage the entire country with storm surges and possible numerous deaths, damage to crops, property and countless losses and sorrows for millions of people in the land. Still the people are being occupied with the stupid spin of media doctors and drug addicts, brain damaged solons and a turd also using drugs to pacify his reported Asperger’s Syndrome. God bless the Philippines that is growing stupider everyday while the fatted cows in government and in their plush business offices keep laughing at all of us.
If the awful drama continues, a crippled duck might soon get kicked out of the duck pen.
A Letter Inviting GeoHazard experts to Manila for a Conference
December 9, 2013
Dear Sir / Madame,
Greetings!
This is to formally invite your attention to our determination to hold the international conference on geohazard mapping and relevant environment issues. Our group decided to launch a campaign in 2009 for sustainable crisis hazards mapping and relevant environmental concerns after returning from Mindanao, Philippines following the end of the effort in ending the highly expensive hotel billeting by Juma’a Abu Sayyap of selected staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from Switzerland (Andreas Notter), Italy (Eugenio Vagni) and Philippines (Mary Jane Lacaba). More > >
Reconstruction and Recovery
The World Bank says that timely reconstruction will help lessen the impact of super typhoon Yolanda. Before we digest these words, it is also significant to look back into the past.
There was a time in fairly recent past when NBC news anchor Brian Williams sounded like a broken record repeating the words over and over again that: Aviation in the United States of America is dying. This is now true with Philippine air line companies and selected several other businesses in the Philippines right at this very moment.
During the post-Yolanda period, only at least one air line company that very enterprisingly lowered its passenger rates (presumably including for cargo) per seat-mile, notwithstanding that the Philippine government ordered that a number of fees and charges being levied in the aviation sector will be waived, among other behests in order to lessen the burden for victims of the calamity and those that had to fly to ground zero to participate in disaster relief and recovery operations . . . .
Dire is a weak description for the situation that a select number of businesses in the Philippines are in right now. More > >
Bandera Uno's Bulletin 