A matter of
delicadeza – apologize

Senator Aquilino Pimentel over the weekend displayed an utter lack of delicadeza and the arrogance of a member of the Philippine Senate. He refused to apologize to Agriculture secretary Arthur Yap for having insinuated that the latter’s father-in-law was in the rice business.

Of course he had not directly accused Yap’s in-law of engaging in the grains business or that Yap, in some way, could have been coursing some of the rice import permits to his father-in-law.

That turned out later to be a canard. But Pimentel refused to apologize. He pointed out that asking questions about it did not amount to indicting Yap or his father-in-law of anything anomalous.

The least that can be said about that Pimentel caper – it elicited headlines and temporarily placed Yap on the disgraced Cabinet men. Definitely it did hurt Yap’s reputation and threw doubts about his actuations.

That’s the whole trouble with the Senate. Often, a solon simply unleashes a lot of questions under the parliamentary immunity of the Congress. The target of the attack simply must defend himself. And that’s that. The headline intended had been accomplished. Nothing more to it. Tarnished reputations? Oh, no, that’s the intended target’s problem.

The loss of Senate credibility may be traceable to this pernicious practice of its members. Take the case of Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada. Senators Ping Lacson and Jamby Madrigal had owned that they had prior meetings with the snitch long before the airport kidnapping and his disappearance ostensibly bound for London.

Now, that’s something that immediately made some jaded journalists suspect a scenario of the Lozada NBN-ZTE broadband revelations. And the airport “kidnapping” managed to steal the thunder from the meetings. Instead, it made Lozada into a sort of hero. And the impression has captured the imagination of naïve nuns and sisters as well as priests even bishops.

The other side of the controversy is the credibility of Malacañang. Because it had plummeted sharply, nobody gives a hoot anymore to explanations and the point that Lozada, himself, had admitted before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee that he had committed malfeasances in the sale of government lands, to members of his family!

In the psy-war game, the Palace had been the loser. Plots were presented to the public. But these did not have the public sympathy. Instead, the administration found itself of using these and rumors of coup attempts or plans to scare the public against mounting a determined campaign to stymied some of the planned demonstrations against the administration on the ZTE-NBN deal. Nothing seemed to be working that could divert public attention from the Lozada testimony and that of Joey de Venecia.

But how many of us actually use our brains to distinguish between the truth and half-truths? And who demands apologies for mistaken comments and innuendoes coming from the lips of our senators?

That should help us introspect on these questions for the week.

* * *

I had previously mentioned the repeated brownouts of the Central Negros Electric Cooperative. And, of course, the worries of airport officials in Silay City.

Of course, the brownouts are registering heavy impact on the residents of Silay City and nearby areas. But the more serious and challenging are the conk-out of sophisticated navigational and computers of the Silay Airport.

Now, that’s something which Ceneco officials should worry about. Of course, they can always contend that it’s none of their concern. But whether they like or not, these pose possible disastrous consequences until the airport authorities can buy a generator.

That’s worth studying by Ceneco consumers. Many of them are also airline commuters.*

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