Author: Ed Lingao

Rail against the ailing rails speeds up again

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

By Cong B. Corrales

AN ONLINE petition started last year calling on Philippine government officials to ride the trains has again been making the rounds on the Internet in the wake of another accident that injured dozens of commuters when a defective Metro Rail Transit (MRT) carriage plowed through a steel barrier at its Taft Avenue station earlier this month.

Initiated by Dinna Louise Dayao and posted on the online platform Change.org, it calls on President Benigno S. Aquino III to require all government officials to take public transit once a month. As of August 20, 2014 it has gathered 10,309 supporters.

Inday Espina-Varona, change.org Philippines campaigns director, said almost 3,000 signed on following the latest MRT accident after mainstream columnists and commentators took notice of the petition. Dayao, a freelance writer-editor by profession, said in the petition that the national government’s efforts in solving the traffic congestion in Metro Manila is mainly focused on creating more spaces for vehicles but it has done virtually nothing to the solve public transportation system.

PASSENGERS QUEUE at a train station in Singapore. Public transport is seen to be more efficient in other countries in Asia compared to the Philippines | Photo by Julius D. Mariveles

PASSENGERS QUEUE at a train station in Singapore. Public transport is seen to be more efficient in other countries in Asia compared to the Philippines | Photo by Julius D. Mariveles

“We keep building roads and flyovers that only encourage more people to drive their cars but we don’t invest in facilities that make it easier for transit riders to get from point A to point B; these facilities include comfortable bus, jeep, and train stops, wide sidewalks, and well-designed walkways that connect the different modes of transport,” Dayao’s online petition reads in part.

She added: “The only way government officials will understand the plight of commuters is if they themselves take public transit regularly.”

On August 13, this year, an MRT carriage rammed into a steel barrier at the Taft Avenue Station, injuring dozens of train riders in the process. The carriage was on its way to Taft from Magallanes when it stalled. There have also been seven separate incidents involving MRT trains from November 2012 to March 2014.

“Calling it an accident is not a constructive word,” Dayao told PCIJ in a phone interview, since an “accident” means that the incident could not be avoided.

“Walang may kasalanan kung accident ang tawag (If we call it an accident that means that no one is to blame); it was a crash. (It’s) a failure on someone’s part. They say there was an uncoupling of the trains. Why?” Dayao asked as she pointed out that calling it as such would not contribute to efforts in solving the problems of the country’s public transport system.

Dayao said eight of ten persons in the metropolis ride public transport and it is the right of the people to have an effective and safe transport system. “If we look at the infrastruction investments of government, these are flyovers, underpass and bridges; what that says is that government is encouraging more people to drive their own cars, thus congesting the roads in the metropolis.”

AN LRT TRAIN in the Philippines | Photo by Cong B. Corrales

AN LRT TRAIN in the Philippines | Photo by Cong B. Corrales

“Bulok na ang mga trains at (the trains are already worn down) 80 percent (of the people in the metropolis) are suffering because of this neglect,” Dayao pointed out. “The problem is that policy makers do not know how important public transportation is for the average Filipino.”

She also said they lack empathy for the riding public because “they don’t know what hell we go through every day.”

A spokesman for the MRT was quoted in newspaper reports [read: Manila Bulletin story] as saying their trains are supposed to rehabilitated at least every eight years but those plying the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue have not been rehabilitated since 2006. He also added that the MRT started operations 15 years ago and it has not undergone any major rehabilitation for lack of funds, Hernando Cabrera said.

Memory, Martial Law, and Ninoy Aquino

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

THE WORD “memory” traces its roots to the Latin word “memoria” and “memor,” meaning “mindful” or “remembering.”

It is defined as the human mind’s ability to “encode, sort, retain, and subsequently recall information and past experiences in the human brain.” The website human-memory.net also said that memory can be “be thought of in general terms as the use of past experience to affect or influence current behavior.”

Sociologists also talk about “collective memory” – coined by the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (“The Collective Memory”), which is defined as a construction of created narratives and traditions to give people a sense of community to understand an event or a “social phenomena.”

The declaration by President Ferdinand Marcos of Martial Law in the Philippines on September 21, 1972 is a social phenomena. The debate over his role and how society should judge the Marcoses who are still in power was renewed recently.

Some say that the country was better off under Marcos. They say we need need an iron fist for the Philippines to progress. Others believe that those who have not experienced or seen the horrors of Martial Law are the only ones who would favor it.

Some say, however, that the lack of understanding about Martial Law, especially those belonging to the young generation, is because the nation lack of a sense of history, a collective memory. Not much sense is made of the past, the horrors, sufferings, and hardships under Martial Law.

The most prominent victim of Martial Law was then Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., an opposition solon who was imprisoned by Marcos. He was placed in solitary confinement for more than seven years, suffered a heart attack, and was sent to the United States for treatment.

He returned August 21, 1983 and was gunned down on the tarmac of what was then the Manila International Airport that was renamed in his honor several years after his wife, Corazon Aquino, assumed the presidency through a military-backed people’s uprising in February 1986.

It was not only Aquino who suffered under the dictatorship. At least 9,000 more were imprisoned, tortured, and killed during what is now being called as the darkest days in Philippine history based on the records that TFD holds it in its files.

This is the collective memory that the Task Force Detainees want Filipinos to have to point the nation in the right direction.

This video short by PCIJ deputy producer Cong Corrales tells us about this museum as the death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino nears.

Indeed, as the movie says, without memories, there would only be “the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.”

Baboying pork

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Agri producers, hog raisers call for probe on smuggling of “expired” imported meat

Philippine agricultural producers and hog raisers called on national government officials to probe the alleged smuggling of at least six million kilos of “expired” imported meat that did not pass the country’s required quarantine tests and food safety examinations.

The Samahan ng Agrikulturang Industriya (SINAG) said conflicting data from two government agencies, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), point to the possibility that at least six million of “expired” imported pork are now in the Philippine market.

SINAG said data they have obtained from sources in the BOC showed that the agency released 121.6 million kilos of imported pork from January to June this year but official figures from the BAI showed that only 116 million kilos passed through quarantine inspection, pointing at the possibility that 5.6 million kilos are “unaccounted for.”

Vicente Mercado, chairman of the National Federation of Hog Farmers, Inc., said the director of the BIA and all meat imported should “come forward and disclose the amount of meat they imported this year.”

He added that they should also release other important data like the dates of arrival, quarantine inspection certificates, the places where the importations were brought, and the names of companies or restaurant chains that received the imports.

SINAG chairperson Rosendo So, on the other hand, called on Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala and BOC Commissioner John Philip Sevilla to probe the alleged missing imported pork. “Bakit nakakalabas sa BOC ng walang quarantine clearance at bakit walang quarantine officer to check on the imported meat?”

(“Why were these released by the BOC without quarantine clearance and why was there no quarantine officer to check on the imported meat?”)

Mercado said their discovery about the missing “expired” imported pork comes at “critical period” after a group of meat importers said that is alright for the public to eat expired meat as long as these are frozen.

“These meat importers have no business in the food industry as they pose the greatest threat to our public health security. Kung gusto nila, sila na lang ang kumain at ‘wag na idamay ang pamilya at mga anak natin,” So said.

He also pointed out that the meat importers’ position is alarming, coming as it is in the face of the recent expired meat scandal in China where the Shanghai Husi Company was found to be supplying expired meat to several fast-food chains.

Pork is one of the agricultural commodities that are being smuggled into the Philippines. A study funded by the Department of Agriculture and the results of which were released this year showed that agriculture produce being smuggled into the country is valued at $10 billion yearly.

The study, titled “An Assessment of Smuggling of Selected Agricultural Commodities in the Philippines,” also showed that agricultural smuggling evolved into a big-time illegal trade starting in the 1980s.

President Aquino, in a message delivered by Agriculture Sec. Alcala last April 2014, assured hog-raisers that the government is committed to ending meat smuggling.

“We have been directing our government offices especially the DA to intensify its efforts in impeding meat smuggling to give local hog raisers the opportunity to gain better incomes,” he said.

Baboying pork

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

Agri producers, hog raisers call for probe on smuggling of “expired” imported meat

Philippine agricultural producers and hog raisers called on national government officials to probe the alleged smuggling of at least six million kilos of “expired” imported meat that did not pass the country’s required quarantine tests and food safety examinations.

The Samahan ng Agrikulturang Industriya (SINAG) said conflicting data from two government agencies, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), point to the possibility that at least six million of “expired” imported pork are now in the Philippine market.

SINAG said data they have obtained from sources in the BOC showed that the agency released 121.6 million kilos of imported pork from January to June this year but official figures from the BAI showed that only 116 million kilos passed through quarantine inspection, pointing at the possibility that 5.6 million kilos are “unaccounted for.”

Vicente Mercado, chairman of the National Federation of Hog Farmers, Inc., said the director of the BIA and all meat imported should “come forward and disclose the amount of meat they imported this year.”

He added that they should also release other important data like the dates of arrival, quarantine inspection certificates, the places where the importations were brought, and the names of companies or restaurant chains that received the imports.

SINAG chairperson Rosendo So, on the other hand, called on Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala and BOC Commissioner John Philip Sevilla to probe the alleged missing imported pork. “Bakit nakakalabas sa BOC ng walang quarantine clearance at bakit walang quarantine officer to check on the imported meat?”

(“Why were these released by the BOC without quarantine clearance and why was there no quarantine officer to check on the imported meat?”)

Mercado said their discovery about the missing “expired” imported pork comes at “critical period” after a group of meat importers said that is alright for the public to eat expired meat as long as these are frozen.

“These meat importers have no business in the food industry as they pose the greatest threat to our public health security. Kung gusto nila, sila na lang ang kumain at ‘wag na idamay ang pamilya at mga anak natin,” So said.

He also pointed out that the meat importers’ position is alarming, coming as it is in the face of the recent expired meat scandal in China where the Shanghai Husi Company was found to be supplying expired meat to several fast-food chains.

Pork is one of the agricultural commodities that are being smuggled into the Philippines. A study funded by the Department of Agriculture and the results of which were released this year showed that agriculture produce being smuggled into the country is valued at $10 billion yearly.

The study, titled “An Assessment of Smuggling of Selected Agricultural Commodities in the Philippines,” also showed that agricultural smuggling evolved into a big-time illegal trade starting in the 1980s.

President Aquino, in a message delivered by Agriculture Sec. Alcala last April 2014, assured hog-raisers that the government is committed to ending meat smuggling.

“We have been directing our government offices especially the DA to intensify its efforts in impeding meat smuggling to give local hog raisers the opportunity to gain better incomes,” he said.