By Rolo B. Cena
Hushed Poppies
Dumaguete Star Informer
8 April 2012
Cebu, Philippines - About ten years ago, I retired from the Country’s top government-owned-and-controlled shipping corporation where I spent more than ten years. This year, after my sojourn from my Middle East adventure, I luckily joined another shipping company; this time, it’s privately owned and with almost the same compensation package as I had overseas.
As part of my job orientation, I had to undergo an immersion trip via one of the company’s cargo ships. From the port of the “Queen City” of the south, I had to sail to Cagayan to meet the branch staff and to get familiar with the operations. From Cagayan, I had to enplane to Manila for the same objective.
Fifteen minutes past six, I took pride in boarding the steel-hulled carrier that holds tons of assorted cargos. The apprentice ushered me to the messroom while waiting for the master. He reminded me of the associate who ushered detained former Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos to a meeting with ZTE officials that led to the hospital arrest of the petite lady he unwittingly served for. As I took a seat, I overheard from the background the news anchor of one of the terrestrial giants broadcasting the proceedings of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Obviously, these sailors are keeping track of the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice. And like other Filipinos, these calamity-tested white-uniformed men, who are as fiercely convicted to live as the Vikings of the golden era of seafaring, are eager to know the results. In fact, quoting the Second Mate, he wanted Corona convicted.
But for most of them, there is more to it than the session in the messroom: Life. Known to be bold and strong, they wittingly conquer the high seas that often pose overwhelming and threatening perils: Nature and man-made calamities. Most often, they overcome these perils by utilizing their skills and an ounce of providential luck; failure to overcome these dangers would certainly imperil their very own lives.
Peeping through, Titanic, the biggest and the most sophisticated luxury liner during her prime, lost hundreds of lives to Atlantic Ocean when it hit a submerged portion of the iceberg. Though it was a contact of nature, human error was the prevailing and proven factor in that case. Recently, Italy-based luxury liner Costa Concordia ran aground and tilted off the coast of Miglio, an island off Italy.
In two months time within the domestic shores, at least three storm-caused maritime disasters were recorded and reported: Off the coasts of Batanes, Catanduanes, and Aklan. Luckily though, all crew members survived.
Peeking through, the perks of sea-based workers are, by industry standard and practice, relatively higher and different from that of the land-based. For one, the risk involved is undoubtedly greater. Two, the detachment or alienation they experience is uncompromisingly incomparable.
Whether tsunami or hurricane, tropical storm or sand storm, cyclone or avalanche, they all fall under one label in life: Dangers. And in that we mean, dangers that put all of them, including us, in threatening situations. Any error in calculating the ships position in the navigational highway would certainly mean a maritime disaster that would consequently translate to loss of properties, loss of lives, or even nature.
Seeing through the barriers of opaque horizon, seafarers oftentimes dismiss the idea of seeing loved ones soonest, discount the possibility of sleeping with their wives, or forget the idea of dining with the family.
Cruising with the seafarers and sailing through the ups and downs translate to sailing with the two extremes this government accorded its constituents: the roller-coaster ride to uncertainty.
When was the last time we had our best cruise with any of the highest political leader of the country? Glitch: It’s not fun in the Philippines anymore!
Friday, April 6, 2012
Harboring the Harbour
By Rolo B. Cena
Hushed Poppies
Dumaguete Star Informer
15 April 2012
Manila, Philippines – As the Philippine Airlines airbus touched-down the tarmac of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I couldn’t avoid transporting myself back to the years my family and I spent in the imperial Manila, home to egocentric approaches of self-propelled political platform in the guise of consumer-istic economic development.
Overwhelmed by the perks I had to enjoy in visiting our branches located in major seaports of the country, the stimulation gradually deteriorated as reality of Manila was slowly unfolding.
The supposedly shorter trip from the South to North Harbour took hours due to severing traffic congestion that has plagued the metropolis for decades now. As we drew near the Harbour, a glimpse of the informal settlers’ asymmetrically constructed shanties lining from the entrance of the bridge to the end part of the area caught my attention once more. From my recollection, the number significantly increased since late nineties.
Looking at the canvass reminds me of the informal settlers in most towns and cities in Negros Oriental that I have been to or have lived. From 2003, the number of shanties at the riverside, creeks, bridges and government-owned lands increased tremendously. In the neighboring town of the capital city alone, the alarming increase of informal-settling immigrants disturbed the government and the populace.
Based on my assessment, the bliss houses constructed by former Presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos seem like aged significantly over time. For someone who had witnessed its inauguration, the beautiful structures are beyond recognition: devoid of colors, sanitation, and order.
Drawing nearer to Vitas, West of Tondo’s Smokey Mountain, supplied deeper sense of my probe: Tondo has never improved and the government has failed in their programs of transforming the area from being a dump-site to a business-earning industrial estate of the sprawling North Harbour. Tons of garbage are dumped daily in the area and hundreds of informal settlers are arresting the area every month making it another “Bagong Silang” in the west of the metropolis. What a sight it would have been if the government is only sincere in their programs of eradicating poverty in the country. Thanks to pork barrels and election sheets attached to illegal squatting and poverty.
Side dish: Will the “tuwid na landas” of the younger Aquino succeed in relation to this agenda? Will he be able to put his teeth on what he was professing? As it is now, the country has been dragged to a more destructive process that brings us to another distortion; he is more inclined to convicting the people who became obstacles his family’s interests, instead of focusing on economic reforms that can propel the country to another paradigm and consequently alleviate long-running poverty.
Formerly known to be home to the beautiful sunset that became the tourism brand in the early Marcos years, today, Manila bay is a spot no more: a sanctuary of nocturnal flesh trades, crimes and criminalities, and commercial urban thrash that slowly deteriorates the country’s business and economic profile in the Far East.
And Manila is not Manila alone. It is a depiction of human and political greed that translates into a cascaded political disorder and economic chaos down to the smallest political subdivision of the country from Batanes to Tawi Tawi.
And what more can we expect from this wrong turns of uncontrolled and unprecedented economic and socio-political activities: A promise of wrath only titans can abort in their own sense and style, time and passion, and self-serving will.
And Dumaguete or Negros Oriental is not spared from this!
Hushed Poppies
Dumaguete Star Informer
15 April 2012
Manila, Philippines – As the Philippine Airlines airbus touched-down the tarmac of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I couldn’t avoid transporting myself back to the years my family and I spent in the imperial Manila, home to egocentric approaches of self-propelled political platform in the guise of consumer-istic economic development.
Overwhelmed by the perks I had to enjoy in visiting our branches located in major seaports of the country, the stimulation gradually deteriorated as reality of Manila was slowly unfolding.
The supposedly shorter trip from the South to North Harbour took hours due to severing traffic congestion that has plagued the metropolis for decades now. As we drew near the Harbour, a glimpse of the informal settlers’ asymmetrically constructed shanties lining from the entrance of the bridge to the end part of the area caught my attention once more. From my recollection, the number significantly increased since late nineties.
Looking at the canvass reminds me of the informal settlers in most towns and cities in Negros Oriental that I have been to or have lived. From 2003, the number of shanties at the riverside, creeks, bridges and government-owned lands increased tremendously. In the neighboring town of the capital city alone, the alarming increase of informal-settling immigrants disturbed the government and the populace.
Based on my assessment, the bliss houses constructed by former Presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos seem like aged significantly over time. For someone who had witnessed its inauguration, the beautiful structures are beyond recognition: devoid of colors, sanitation, and order.
Drawing nearer to Vitas, West of Tondo’s Smokey Mountain, supplied deeper sense of my probe: Tondo has never improved and the government has failed in their programs of transforming the area from being a dump-site to a business-earning industrial estate of the sprawling North Harbour. Tons of garbage are dumped daily in the area and hundreds of informal settlers are arresting the area every month making it another “Bagong Silang” in the west of the metropolis. What a sight it would have been if the government is only sincere in their programs of eradicating poverty in the country. Thanks to pork barrels and election sheets attached to illegal squatting and poverty.
Side dish: Will the “tuwid na landas” of the younger Aquino succeed in relation to this agenda? Will he be able to put his teeth on what he was professing? As it is now, the country has been dragged to a more destructive process that brings us to another distortion; he is more inclined to convicting the people who became obstacles his family’s interests, instead of focusing on economic reforms that can propel the country to another paradigm and consequently alleviate long-running poverty.
Formerly known to be home to the beautiful sunset that became the tourism brand in the early Marcos years, today, Manila bay is a spot no more: a sanctuary of nocturnal flesh trades, crimes and criminalities, and commercial urban thrash that slowly deteriorates the country’s business and economic profile in the Far East.
And Manila is not Manila alone. It is a depiction of human and political greed that translates into a cascaded political disorder and economic chaos down to the smallest political subdivision of the country from Batanes to Tawi Tawi.
And what more can we expect from this wrong turns of uncontrolled and unprecedented economic and socio-political activities: A promise of wrath only titans can abort in their own sense and style, time and passion, and self-serving will.
And Dumaguete or Negros Oriental is not spared from this!
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