The Philippines will probably make it to the Guinness Book of Records. Believe it or not, a diaper thrown by some jerk got caught in the overhead electric cable of the Manila Rail Transit 3, once again disrupting operations.
The diaper was not the Pampers type that babies use nor the kind for women during their monthly visit by nature. But let us not go into detail. The retrieved diaper turned out to be an adult diaper. The gross reality of it all is the irresponsibility of some people in disposing of their trash. This type of people are worse than their disposable trash. They are a menace and a danger to society.
MRT officials said an alert train driver engineer saw the obstacle hanging over the electric line and had the good sense to stop the train nearing the Edsa/ Taft Avenue station.
“Oh no, not again,” cursed early-morning commuters who are used to the MRT’s daily glitches. Little did they know their lives had just been saved. MRT officials said the diaper, if it had landed on the tracks, could have caused a derailment. Why it took the MRT two hours to remove the diaper is still being asked.
It looks like there are more obstacles ahead for MRT. The government said it has terminated the maintenance contract with Buri because of shoddy work. Buri, on the other hand, said the government owes them an estimated P300-million back payment for its services.
In another development, the Department of Transportation also announced that former Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and 10 other officials will now be charged for the allegedly anomalous service maintenance contract they entered into during their DoTC watch.
Changing tack
Realizing his mistake, embattled Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista said he was now ready to step down immediately. For not resigning irrevocably and immediately, the House of Representatives, voting in plenary, impeached Bautista for misdeclaration of his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Networth (SALN) and betrayal of public trust for negligence in line with his duty in the poll body.
President Rodrigo Duterte, according to the Malacañang press office, accepted Bautista’s resignation and is now looking at a short list of potential replacements. It is just as well since the House has not yet forwarded to the Senate the articles of impeachment against Bautista. An impeachment trial in the Senate would be costly—not only resources but time that could be well spent on priority legislative measures.
But Bautista’s woes are not yet over. His estranged wife, Patricia, through her lawyer Lorna Kapunan, said they will still pursue the plunder charges for the unexplained P1-billion wealth case against Bautista.
It was Patricia who exploded the unexplained wealth charge against her husband. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so goes the old saying.
Foreign telcos
Foreign telecommunication carriers, including an Australian company, Telstar Corp., want to enter the local market to break the duopoly of telecom giants Smart Telecom and Globe. But it looks like that would be like cutting the Gordian Knot if we are to read recent developments in the industry.
The Court of Appeals allowed Smart and Globe to buy the P69-billion shares of businessman Ramon Ang of San Miguel Corp. The appellate court in effect stopped the Philippine Competition Commission from reviewing the SMC sale of its share to Smart and Globe.
That means that subscribers and consumers to the two telco carriers will continue to suffer from the poor service like slow delivery of text messages and choppy lines when calling.
The Philippines is known as the text messaging capital of the world. But consumers are not even getting a break from Smart and Globe whose billion pesos of profit is more than enough for them to lower the cost of text messaging. Is there no limit for the acquisition of wealth?
So next time you read the names of Filipino billionaires in Forbes Magazine’s “100 richest people in the world,” know that some of the money Filipino tycoons made came from you.