Inferior goods

I admire my fellow journalists in Manila who are pressing on with the campaign to ensure that the rest of us will not be subjected to the harassments and intimidation that they had experienced in the past few weeks. Since we cannot physically be with them, we pray for their success, and join them in spirit. Let's pray that they will not allow themselves to be turned off by the boorishness of some officials, both from the police and military and, especially from the Justice Department, who sneer at their efforts by sniffing that media people are “also after publicity”. Look who's talking!

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A news headline in a national daily yesterday said: “Arroyo orders intensified drive vs inferior goods”. Obviously she was not talking about the kind of inferior goods her Civil Service Commissioner meant when she disclosed to the Makati Business Club, and to the whole country, subsequently, that 60 percent of the officials she had appointed were, civil service-wise, also inferior goods.

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The revelations of outgoing CSC Commissioner Karina Constantino David really rankles among government workers who resent the fact that they have to equip themselves with the appropriate eligibility, that is submit to, and pass the required examinations, before they can get appointed to a clerical position in their cities or municipalities. Now it had been flaunted in their faces that those named to high-paying and very influential offices need not go through tests, they only need to have the right connections or, maybe, have served in some useful capacity during elections.

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Take the case of the top post in the Armed Forces of the Philippines which is now occupied by Hermogenes Esperon. Although he is nearing the retirement age for military men, his term has been extended for a few more months. We don't know the real reasons, maybe he lacks a few months to be able to collect the maximum in retirement benefits. But the one who is said to succeed him when he does retire, is already named as a certain General Alexander Yano, probably the chosen heir of Esperon himself.

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The selection of Yano has reportedly dismayed many other military officials who had been hoping that someone else would be the heir-apparent. They have pointed to Lt. Gen. Cardozo Luna, known as the “Thinking General”. They point out that Luna holds a master's degree as well as a doctorate degree from Pennsylvania University . But who needs a “thinking” chief of staff? His Commander-in-Chief can do all the thinking, and has been doing so, anyway. And so Esperon stays on, and after him Yano, and the reasons for the choices we know.

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Congress is reportedly willing to recall the bill it had passed allowing the conversion of – Good Heavens! – 27 more towns into cities. And only for the simple reason that these towns are the capitals of their provinces and want to also be elevated to the status of city, even if they do not meet the qualifications set down in our Constitution. I hope that is true, because the mayors of existing cities are now bucking against the entry of 16 new ones that will slice off millions from their internal revenue allocations. We may soon find ourselves a country with too many cities, but, save for a very few, all poor ones.

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Friends and relatives here of Hecha Lou Claridad Villarosa-Barretto who has been based in Los Angeles , California for several years now, will be saddened to know that she died of a lingering illness there last week. Hecha was very close to us in our childhood, together with her family, since we even shared the same house for some time and went to school together. We sympathize with her sisters Laura, and my tocaya Ninfa, now also in L.A. and Corazon who is based in Madrid , Spain , and brother Roming who, I understand is still in their home in Sum-ag, Bacolod City .

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We were asked to attend a mass for her at the Lupit Church yesterday by her former classmates at Assumption, Iloilo and my sister Perla and I and brother Joe, with whom Hecha has kept close communication even after he came home to Bacolod , attended and offered our prayers for her. I was surprised, however, that I did not see any of the friends and relatives who informed us about the mass there. Anyway, I hope they are also praying for her and that it was not enough just to have the mass scheduled yesterday. May she rest in peace.*

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