When you reach the age of 90, you do a lot of reminiscing. And today I cannot help but recall what Christmas was like when I was growing up in the province of Abra, where my father was district supervisor of public schools.
One significant thing I can recall during the Christmas season was that my mother would get me new shirts and short pants. The family would have ice cream on top of a contraption—I don’t remember what it was called, but I have seen replicas.
Abra in those days was so primitive. Actually, even now, it does not rank high as a destination. There is only one branch of McDonald’s and one of Jollibee. The medical facilities are not good—three of my other siblings died in infancy.
My father used to have a helper build me a toy made out of a can of condensed milk. He bore four holes, two on each side, and used sticks to connect them for the wheels. I would be going around the house with this toy car, using a string to carry it around.
When I was staying in Manila with my brothers and sister in their apartment, I was not difficult to please. On birthdays and Christmases, I was happy with one peso.
I think young people today should thank their stars for technology. At my age of 90, I am a dinosaur compared to my children and grandchildren. I still pound on my typewriter to write my column. I never learned to use the computer or e-mail the newsroom. Believe it or not, I don’t know how to text.
But back to my memories. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with paper trumpets our teachers would give us in school.
How simple life was back then. I miss those days.
***
President Rodrigo Duterte should consider creating a Department of Climate Change. This is in connection to deaths, loss of homes, livelihood and infrastructure after typhoons. People get displaced and live in evacuation centers.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council is only an ad hoc body under the Department of Defense, although now devolved, and the Climate Change Commission which has billions to spare.
This department will need the budget that the NDRRMC is enjoying.
I would say that Senator Loren Legarda, who is already retiring from the Senate in 2019, would be perfect as the first Secretary of the Department of Climate Change. The environment has always been her advocacy. How about it, Mr.President?
***
The pork barrel system is very much alive. No amount of denial by Malacañang and Budget Secretary Diokno can prove otherwise.
With the House opposition lawmakers saying that Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has deprived them of their own budget for infrastructure and livelihood as some kind of punishment for being on the other side of the political fence, what do you make of that?
In effect, Alvarez was depriving the people from those constituencies of what is due them.
The zero budget of Davao del Sur Rep. Antonio Floirendo is something else. While Floirendo is with PDP-Laban and a contributor to the campaign of President Duterte, the root of all this is personal—a spat between their respective girlfriends.
I wonder what the President thinks of Alvarez’s actions.
We were told that this administration would be about change. It appears, however, that the more we talk of change, the more things remain the same.
***
One of the controversies that would erupt next year is the move to enact the Bangsamoro Basic law.
There are, for instance, provisions that would make the Bangsamoro region a practical substate—its own budget commission, interior department, even commission on audit. It would also have control of its natural resources.
However Mr. Duterte would like to please the Muslims in Mindanao by giving them all these, what then would stop the Cordillera Administrative Region from asking the same? The result would be a country with so many sub-states! This is unconstitutional!
This, to me, is the weakness of the federalism campaign of the Duterte administration. No wonder it is losing steam.
And with federalism, what will stop dynasties from taking over a region?
I am all for a parliamentary system of government, not a federal system. It can create more problems than solutions.
