An adventure from Iloilo City

Yesterday, hundreds of Weesam passengers suddenly heard the engine of their fastcraft conk out. This was just shortly after they had left Iloilo City. Suddenly, however, the skipper revved up the engines and the ship surged forward.

Later, after the second conkout, the stewardesses made the announcement. The boat was slowing down because of a minor engine trouble.

I already had misgiving by that time. I was sure by the sounds that we were running only on one engine. And resuscitating the other while at sea would prove a difficult problem for the ship's engineer.

Later, the stewardess stressed that the boat was already on only one engine. There was nothing wrong with that. It was a mere mishap, although I had misgivings about how the skipper pushed the engines to full power before one of the engines died out.

Anyway, we had to resign ourselves to a two-hour trip instead of one. And I enjoyed my siesta. When we reached Bacolod, I stood up and waited for the ship to dock. So with Tony Benedicto. And Mari Miranda on the opposite end waved to us his greetings.

Then, I started wondering what took the skipper too long to dock the boat. Then, Tony and I went to the window after several minutes of virtually no movement. Then, we saw the cause of the delay, four porters were pulling the boat toward the dock.

That took the cake. There was not even a winch that could have smoothened the operation. At least, speed it up. It took sometime for the boat to finally make it to the pier.

There, I thought, is a classic Filipino phenomenon. Just trying to save a few pesos that could have been invested in a mobile winch. Instead, it was again disponeering in this starkest sense.

No wonder this country virtually only inches forward.

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Convenors of the Save Our Language Through Federalism yesterday literally threw up their arms in the face of a determined campaign by the House majority to ram through the constitutional convention. And they knew, from documents received, that it was all just shadow-boxing - advocacy of federalism.

Dr. Joey Dacudao, SOLFED president, admitted that the many documents he had received from the House simply points to a pretense at federalization. But there was nothing about federalism. Not only that. They also put in so much obstacle to be able to federalize. Forty steps!, cried out Dr. Dacudao.

In short, the present exercise is to amend the Charter. But none of the many proposals from various quarters are being heeded by the House leaders. Instead, just like the Constitutional Commission, all they have done so far was submit their own pre-planned amendments. Nothing about federalism.

"I think the best course will be for us to align ourselves with the Senate and endorse their proposal for a Constitutional Convention. It is quite dangerous now to allow the House to handle the amendment of the Constitution," stressed lawyer Leopoldo Causing.

At the rate things are going, pointed out Councilor Palo Guanco of Pototan, Iloilo, the future of the country can be ensured only if "we bat for an amended charter through a constitutional convention."

But more. Richard Cezar from Guimaras Province, pointed out the need for SOLFED members to convince the public to bat for the constitutional convention.

"Right now, the House had already betrayed signs that they are trying to ram through a constitution that will be self-serving. That's exactly what the Senate was pointing out - that any action on the part of the legislators on the Constitution will be for their self-interest."

Worse, I said, the House leaders and the administration have both the organization and the resources to ram through its ratification. "With the people still uneducated as to the implications of the various provisions already crafted by the House leaders," I added.

SOLFED leaders from Mindanao, the Visayas, and Luzon are expected to converge in Cebu on Jan. 27 and 28 to finalize their action on the issue.

But one thing is definite now. They are batting for Con-Com and not Con-Ass. The latter, they found out to their consternation, was just like what it had been suspected all the time - a kick in the ass for the Filipino people.*

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