A BITTER LESSON FOR HAVING WEAK LEADERS

I watched President Arroyo’s news conference on Television last night, announcing she was creating a special commission for the infrastructure rehabilitation to receive donations from other Countries as she leads the Philippines out of its current quagmire of problems. This panhandling for donations had taught us a bitter lesson for having weak Leaders and is bound to meet a wretched lot of a ruined nation as miserable as a dog in a house of death. This can surely heralded as a trademark to our country’s reputation and will surely tarnish and mar the foundations of our dignity and pride. Are we always on our knees gasping for air?

Tropical storms `Ondoy’ and `Peping’ have ravaged the Mega Cities of Metro Manila and Northern Luzon. Lives were lost; damages to homes, infrastructure, the interruption to normal life and commerce compel us to stress the need for immediate and dramatic measures to ensure reconstruction and rehabilitation. What has been on offer to the region so far is woefully inadequate.

Our country received double hits. First there was storm `Ondoy’ that struck on 26<sup>th</sup> of September leaving hundreds without food, water, homes and power. Then came storm `Peping’ only days later, further exacerbating the problems.

Madame President,

Our Country has always experienced all kinds of storms or typhoons since a minimum of at least 20 of them visits every year. It behooves us therefore to understand the phenomenon that we are facing including its connection - if any – to climate change that low lying states have been warning about. These facts also demand that our own Country should better plan for the eventualities that we know have been and are going to continue to be part of our lives. We cannot let lack of planning be a possible cause of the undermining of our sovereignty in this way. The world is soon wary and weary; the phenomenon of donor fatigue sets in. We lose our dignity if we cannot be seen to help ourselves.

Madame President,

You must get rid of any or all people who aren’t doing their jobs. Waiting another time and keep procrastinating is not the answer. And, if you don’t find a faster, more efficient, way of getting rid of the bad apples, then the only alternative for the people is to just stop sending the government money! Believe me, if the taxpayers stopped paying, these JERKS would leave like rats off a sinking ship. (See: LATENESS IN DECIDING HAS CAUSED MANY GOVERNMENTS BEING OVERTHROWN.)

Madame President,

Listen and hear-- tick tack tick tack, TIME just keeps running. Do not let it steal a precious moment of you and the people. Protect everyone from its treacherous fingers which will not spare those who disregard it. Stand firm and accurately come out with higher thinking. Remember a pilot knows what to do when the gear box on a plane fails. What about you, what will you do when you reach the crossroads? And be mindful of TIME running.

For those people who sympathized, whose hearts bleed for those who died from drowning, and their houses and properties were all damaged and gone; for those who died from landslides by the government’s intentional release of volumes of water from the Angat, San Roque, the Pantabangan, and the Arayat Water Dams without notice, The time is NOW to translate our political resistance into action–stimulating change that disrupts and alters the political landscape. Simply put, we must flip this house now! ( See: MADAME PRESIDENT-- EVERYTHING IS IN YOUR HANDS TO REBUILD OUR NATION, THE PHILIPPINES.)