Good intention, wrong application 

THE Dagupan City Council adopted a resolution recommending the creation of a “Task Force on Anti-Flooding” to be led by City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez. Evidently, it is in response to residents’ frustrations manifested on social media over the extended days of flooding in the city.

The thrust of the resolution is well-intended but misplaced because it gives a wrong impression that the city hall needs prodding to act on the flooding crisis.  From its past performance, the Fernandez administration is known to be proactive and can be expected to act expeditiously on crisis situations like the massive flood that hit the city.

What the city council should do instead is to create its own task force or committee with its own priority agenda that will work alongside the executive to achieve its mission.  Such a committee can have for its agenda the possibility of arranging and hosting a summit meeting with the provincial government and officials of Departments of Public Works, Environment and Natural Resources and Budget and all congressmen in the province in attendance to identify and agree on short term and long term solutions to address flooding in the province. Dagupan’s concern is its being a catch basin like other towns. The executive can certainly assist here.

The recommended task force is redundant since its core members are city department heads reporting to the mayor.  A city council working committee (task force) assures the city residents of a total approach to the crisis. Simply passing the buck won’t cut it.

 

Health is the heart

THE health of a President of any country is of paramount importance.  Thus, when Jose Ma. Sison said Mr. Duterte was ill, if not in a coma, it was a major cause for serious concern.  If true, our nation could be in peril.  Turns out it was fake news.  To prove he was not ailing, the President released a video clip showing him as having dinner with a friend at the exact time Sison claimed Mr. Duterte was in bed sick and weak.  Immediately, Sison, the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines living in exile for decades now in The Netherlands, denied having said that the Chief Executive was “in a coma.”  Bong Go, the President’s chief aide, joked:  “The President was in a kama and not in a coma.”  There is a lesson here to be hammered hard between the ears:  The President’s condition is everybody’s anchor.  His health is the nation’s heart.  Precious as gold.

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