Congressman Jose Atienza pushes for a Master Plan for the National Capital Region.
We would like to thank Rep. Atienza for pointing this out. On the other hand, there is also a need for a master plan for managing any kind of disaster that will hit Metro Manila. From our honest assessment, there is really none.
Early this year, my uncle Nick Fernandez and myself had an audience with Chairman Francis Tolentino of the Metro Manila Development Authority.
We were told by Chairman Tolentino that he and an Australian group now had a disaster map of Metro Manila that cost a few million pesos. It shows the many hazards and risks that Metro Manilans are exposed to. Chairman Tolentino stressed that he and his Australian counterparts are ready to post the disaster map over the internet. Most politely it was told to the Honorable Chairman that the need is really for a truly interactive map that will benefit the people of Metro Manila when it comes to the issue of forewarning during disaster. Such a map will certainly require a really big budget – as I have found out during the entire advocacy for safety and disaster prepared since 1990.
In the World Bank Study of 1996/7 up to 1999 alone, more than United States Dollars Two Millions (USD2,000,000) was spent on mapping only the earthquake fault emanating from the Marikina West and East Valley area. How much would have been spent at today’s costs (nearly twenty years later), if all the environmental hazards are figured into the final geohazard map for Metro Manila?
US Dollars Twenty Millions (USD20,000,000) will not nearly be enough. Read more from here
Considering that the Visayas and Mindanao areas only fairly recently suffered the #Yolanda tragedy, among other calamities in recent past, the prospects of electorate preference shifting is great.
The current majority party – Liberal Party that considered the incumbent interior and local government secretary Hon. Manuel A. Roxas III as its standard bearer, is foreseen to suffer irreparable loss of voter confidence in the next elections.
This is not taking into account a future catastrophe similar to that of Fukushima-Sendai, Japan. Collective electorate mood swings have been noted during the #Yolanda / #Haiyan fiasco that foretell of very few votes in favor of the majority Liberal Party in the 2016 elections.
Investor confidence and political supporters, despite the drumbeating of the public sector of high levels of new investments for the Philippines after #Yolanda, is very low. As many predicted in the past, H.E. President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino 3rd has not only turned into a lameduck President, but will not be able to influence the tides in the next presidential elections. What with the current ruling of the Honorable Supreme Court that the Malacañang baby called Development Acceleration Program (DAP) is unconstitutional.
Granting that President Aquino 3rd will be impeached, this more so bodes unwell for the Liberal Party and that organization will be forever branded in Philippine Politics as worse than any other political party in the world that steals money and government resources with all abandon. It will be labeled as a party of thieves and others will go as far as even making them heinous crime perpetrators – with all the death and serious ailments being reported over media from the inability of the public sector to deal promptly with major national problems and even international incidents such as the farcical Sabah invasion led by Datu Punjungan claiming to be the incumbent reigning Sultan Kiram.
For the world community, the 2016 elections may not be as much interesting to watch as the next FIFA, NBA or Israel-Palestine event or incident. But those that are concerned with the coming changing of the guard in the Philippine government will surely appreciate that placing their bets on any other political group other than the Liberal Party will not only be the correct thing to do.
It is the only thing to do.
Philippine Election Reforms Modernization and Accountability 