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How do they sleep at night?

Monday, 09 January 2012 00:00

There are 80 children, more or less, who won't be returning to the City Central School--forever. Many of these little boys and girls belonged to poverty-stricken families who were recipients of city hall's "piso-piso" lots in Sitio Cala-cala. Others lived in Isla de Oro. These are some of the areas clearly identified
by the environment department as places that are not suitable for habitation. Children died, for crissakes! What this-is-not-the-time-forfingerpointing
are you talking about?

Chances are, the parents of these dead children perished, too, in the Dec. 17 floods. They were poor and the feudal lord and his army of ass-kissers offered them lots, each for a one-peso token. They grabbed the chance, naturally. Now, their communities were flattened and they're dead because the
feudal lord never told them about the inevitable. What this-is-not-the-time-forfingerpointing are you talking about?

The feudal lord knew--or was in the position to know--what was bound to happen. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) repeatedly warned Cagayan de Oro's rulers about Cala-cala, Isla de Oro and other areas. The feudal lord was told that "stronger typhoons" were likely to result in
great losses in these flood-prone areas from September to December 2011. They didn't take the DENR and Pagasa warnings seriously. They turned a blind eye to the warnings and kept the crucial information to themselves. They kept the public in the dark. What this-isnot- the-time-for-fingerpointing are you talking
about?

Many people died without realizing that their rulers exploited their poverty and that the only reason why they became beneficiaries of the "piso-piso" was because their votes were needed. If this overlord and the Council of the Makapili really cared for them, they wouldn't be dead.

For the impoverished and homeless voters, it was a choice between the devil and the deep blue... um, shallow brown river of Cagayan. Never mind the risks as long as the Cala-cala and Isla de Oro votes were assured. It was the politics of the feudal lord that put them in the hawak-sa-patalim situation. It was
his love and obsession for his politics that killed all those people.

The dead could no longer vote and so their remains were dumped at the Landfill. Had they known, the same people might have buried the
feudal lord alive in the basurahan a long time ago. The trapos of Maguindanao had, for lack of a better word, the "decency" to bury the victims of the Nov. 23
massacre in shallow graves in the town of Ampatuan. But in Cagayan de Oro, the dead were literally trashed. Garbage--that's exactly how the feudal lord treated the very same people whose votes were held hostage by his "piso-piso."

The entire city was traumatized. I have yet to hear of anyone in the city who's unaffected, directly or indirectly. How many more will die due to
leptospirosis? And, as I write this, the health department has yet to sound alarm bells over the inevitable rise in the number of dengue cases in the evacuation centers. The aftereffects are still being felt. The nightmare is not over yet. The feudal lord, actually, was the first to point an accusing finger at the DENR, Pagasa and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). On national TV, he blamed the DENR for the unabated logging and mining operations as if city hall
can't be held liable for the forest denudation in Cagayan de Oro. He also tried to make it appear that there was no Pagasa warning when the fact is, there
was. And then he tried to make the NBI look like it was responsible for the cadaverdumping at the city dump. Yet, by his own admission, the order
to send the dead there came from him.

Cagayan de Oro lost about 36 thousand hectares of watershed since 1987. It's down to about a thousand hectares today, according to the
environment watchdog Task Force Macajalar. The revelation only means that the enemies of the environment have long been taking turns in raping the
city's remaining watershed areas under his nose. He has already ruled in the city for over a decade. Where was he when the orgy of forest destruction
was taking place in the city?

Why did he allow this to happen to Cagayan de Oro's watersheds? Sir, do not make it appear that logging operations are only taking place
in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Now that they could no longer point fingers and people's fingers are pointed at them, the apologists are
parroting the feudal lord's thisi s - n o t - t h e - t i m e - f o r - fingerpointing line. Make no mistake, he can never be a whipping boy.

A "whipping boy" is someone who is punished for the errors of others. The "piso-piso," the unpreparedness, the mismanagement, the disorganization, the crooked politics and all the bad governance that shamed Cagayan de Oro were not the "errors of others." It was city hall that erred. It was his
administration, not the "others," that screwed up big time. If he is being whipped now, it is because he has been a very naughty boy. That, of course, is an understatement. "OK lang po. Tatanggapin ko na lang po ang lahat ng ito," he said on national TV. Aba, eh, talagang tanggapin mo. Mean it or usapa na. Words are cheap. His rhetorics won't work this time.

It was his politics and the blind loyalty and subservience of the Makapili who swallowed hook, line and sinker all his orders that killed all those people.
Together, they signed the Dec. 16-17 death warrant. City hall has to pay. There was a betrayal of public trust. It failed Cagayanons before, during and after Typhoon Sendong. People died and those who survived are suffering. I say it's the right time to point fingers and make all those responsible pay.
Have they started counting all the children who were orphaned as a result of their shenanigans and inactions? I ask all of them: How do you
sleep at night?

What this-is-not-the-timefor- fingerpointing are you talking about? Tell that to the man who lost his entire family because of city hall's criminal neglect. Tell that to the suicide who, out of desperation, stabbed himself and slit his throat open before his little boy and other evacuees at the City Central School last Friday.
The line has been drawn after Sendong. The undecided have ceased to exist. A sleeping giant has been roused. Gather your Makapili and your army of
bootlickers, Overlord. Count them and prepare. The people are possessed by righteous rage and they are now beating their plowshares into swords. The
call to arms has been made and soon, there will be justice here and in the afterlife. There is hell to pay.

What this-is-not-the-timefor-fingerpointing are you talking about? The dirty old boney finger between my right index finger and ring finger is itchy, stiff and needs
stretching, and I see a lot of people already giving the middle finger. O 'yan, um, tanggapin ninyo. Pastilan