Think about it
Bombed bus not just a terrorist attack
By Jun Velasco
WHEN we wrote here about an idea – earnestly being pushed by a close kin (Tony Rala) – about the need to install CCTV facilities in passenger buses and other means of public transport, we didn’t know that in a short while, a horrifying event would dramatize the nation’s need for it.
We are referring to the bombed passenger bus on Edsa in Makati City on January 25.
The bus was ripped off killing five passengers and injuring several passengers.
Doomsayers were fast in denouncing it as a negative reflection of the Philippine police. But our friend Edwin Lacierda was quick to show statistics that the Aquino government has a better record in peacemaking than its predecessor.
Some readers who must have seen our item sent us text messages urging us to alert authorities on the CCTV. Some high officials in the government, one of them Senator Jinggoy Estrada, are batting for it. We sounded out DOTC officials about it; they have no objections.
As to the police’s decision to assign marshals on buses and in light rail systems, great! But we sense there’s too much haste in solely blaming the terrorists for the bus attack, particularly bomb expert Omar Patek, an Abu Sayaff hire, because of the use of an 8l-mm mortar which he used in a Jolo bombing last Christmas day.
Let’s not discount the political element as large-scale anomalies in government are being unearthed left and right. There’s more than meets the eyes in the grand confusion pervading the islands.
In the 60’s, we recall how former KM member Nestor Pulido rallied the youth with these words, “create trouble for truth.”
The avalanche of reports about multi-billion peso government irregularities should confirm the theory that the quest for truth is disrupting the dark side of the establishment. The stable is being cleaned and cleansed. The process should necessarily hurt a lot of people. But the general public is applauding.
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Congratulations to Rep. Gina de Venecia for her election as president of the lady legislators of the country, besting Congresswomen Gloria Arroyo and Imelda Marcos.
That should not be a surprise at all because she has been the woman in the House, being the president of the congressional spouses association and wife of the longest-serving House Speaker, Joe de Venecia.
It’s a familiar terrain for her. What’s remarkable is her lighting transformation as a woman solon with an internationalist mind. May pinagmanahan.
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