Binay candies in the aftermath of Yolanda leaves a bad taste.

Binay cannot control his followers. After claiming that relief packages bearing the image of the Office of the Vice President was actually donated by one of his supporters in Panay, we have another case of the uncontrolable election campaigning of VP Binay, this time labeled candy wrappers.

Photo republished in the public interest. Photo may be viewed in abscbn

Of course it is not only the vice-president of the Philippines trying to gain popularity during relief operations. Here is another photo showing what our politicians can do during post-calamity periods.

Src: IREPORT.Cnn

Peque Gallaga is a brave but foolish man in his Open letter to the president and national leaders

Not since Marcos have we as a people been so polarized. As far as our hearts and minds are concerned it’s like we’re in the edge of a civil war. We are forced to take a hard look at ourselves and what we value.

Because of this, we are fighting friends in coffee houses, on the telephone, and on Facebook. We are a people whose lives have been upended. We don’t know what to do to get things done right and right away. We lash out. We insult our leaders trying to get them to do a lot more than to pose for photo ops – of giving out relief goods on a one-by-one basis. We cry desperately for demonstrable government response – we get almost next to nothing.



It is increasingly apparent that local media goes hand in hand with self-servicing Malacañang press releases which are more concerned with their showbiz image than confronting, accepting and dealing with the problem. What our leaders tell us is contradicted by the reports from international commentators who are understandably more objective and growing less dispassionate as they witness the horrors around them.



What our leaders tell us is also contradicted by the victims in these areas who are slowly able to give us the true picture of the realities of the situation. And the reality is that people are starving. The dead still lie on the streets even five days after the event. There are anguished souls scavenging for whatever they can to survive, as well as professional looters ambushing the helpless and relief caravans. It’s a war zone out there.



This disaster has affected, not only the islands in the path of Yolanda, but all of us as a nation. We have all been judged and found wanting. But more worrisome, is that we take a long hard look at our leaders and we judge and we find them wanting. It is worrisome because we have chosen them and are paying them to serve the needs of our nation and it seems that they can’t deliver. I don’t think that anybody, even the most criminal politician, can be that hard-hearted and close his eyes to this calamity so I can only surmise that they don’t know what to do. That they are impotent and incompetent. I am 70 years old and I don’t know what to do, but then again, I didn’t run for office promising the voters that I would take care of national concerns.



I am a private citizen and like most of my fellow citizens, have given of what I have to the relief effort. I have given to the point of hurting. I am 70 years old and have been stupid a lot of times for seven decades. I want to think that I can be a little less stupid now. This time, I want to make sure that my hard-earned money will reach its intended goal. I am sick and tired of throwing away my money; of making our politicians wealthy because of my unconcern and my inattention. I am sick and tired of my stupidity.



So I very much care now where all this help is going. I read Marvin Xanth Geronimo who was there when Yolanda struck: that TV personalities and politicians like Mar Roxas and Ted Failon going to Tacloban for the photo op. They never helped; endless tracking video shots of flattened towns with people walking clutching a plastic bottle of water with no government presence whatsoever; Korina Sanchez calling Anderson Cooper “misinformed”. Cooper was in Tacloban. Korina was not; the US landing 5 planes full of goods and not allowing any politicians to touch any of it. How much more do we need for us to realize that the enemy was not Yolanda? Yolanda was just a force of nature. The enemy is our leaders. And the leader of our leaders is the President.


So what now? There’s nothing I can actually do. I can only rage, rage against the dying of common decency. I can only rage against this man who claimed in a Christian Amanpour interview that he couldn’t get to the disaster areas because the weather after the storm left didn’t permit him to fly. This is 24 hours after the sun was shining all over the Philippines by then. I can only rage against a man who made light of the tragedy, refusing to identify it as a major disaster; who made light of a victim of looting who was shot at by telling him, “But you did not die, right?” I rage against a man who continually blames the LGU’s on the ground for their incompetence and their inefficiency because it is beginning to dawn on me that these Visayan LGU’s happen to be Romualdez people and this man is playing politics with people’s lives.



This is a crime. What this man does is unconscionable. I can only state it here. I can do nothing about it for now. I will wait for whatever movement develops after this fiasco and I will join it. But for now, what I can do is to declare that I am deeply offended by the people who try to stop me and others from stating the obvious.



All those people who charge us for criticizing, for being negative, for Aquino bashing – I am done with these people. In a very Yellow Army way, they try to hide behind an illogical argument that we cannot help if we criticize. I don’t know how good these friends are at multi-tasking, but one does not cancel out the other. We can help and we can criticize. And at this point I am convinced that we do help when we criticize; if at one point we can, as Hamlet says, “catch the conscience of the king”. But I know that this is futile. This man is no king. He is not even a real representative. What can you expect from someone who never worked an honest day in his life. What could he possibly relate to?



So my friends who accuse me of Aquino bashing: I want you to know that I’m done with your line of thinking. Either you defend this man or you defend the people that this man is ignoring. Don’t believe that the people are his “boss”. This was a piece of advertising sound byte created by showbiz experts to get the unthinking masses out there to swallow this uniquely unqualified man. This man who is totally unprepared for the most difficult job in the country. So my friends, as far as I’m concerned, you choose him or you choose the people. But if you instruct me again to stop bashing this man I am unfriending you. I will unfriend you in Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and out in our leaderless streets. —Peque Gallaga

• Where was Peque Gallaga's open letter during the term of one of the most scandal riven administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo?
  
  
• Does Mr. Peque knows that the Yolanda tragedy is a unique supertyphoon to visit the Philippines, one which is quite different from other simple typhoons?
  
  
• Is Mr. Peque quite happy now that he has succeeded in shifting the attention of humanity to Yolanda's victims to this cheap shot at the President and Korina Sanchez?
  
  
• Does Mr. Peque knows that his incendiary statement
  "How much more do we need for us to realize that the enemy was not Yolanda? Yolanda was just a force of nature. The enemy is our leaders." instills disrespect and invites contempt for our leaders?
  
  
  

Binay campaigning early in Tacloban tragedy caused by Supertyphoon Yolanda Haiyan

Our brothers and sisters in Tacloban, Palo and other parts of Southern Leyte and Samar suffered the worst of the brunt of super typhoon Yolanda. The storm surge, equivalent to a tsunami's effect leveled most buildings and other infrastructures, shutting down communications which effectively starved the rest of the nation of news of the current situation in Tacloban. Now here comes another sensational event, the delivery of relief goods marked as coming from the office of the Vice-President!

I hope the people remember NOT to vote for politicians exhibiting gross insensitivity to the sufferings of the people of Tacloban City.

Are most Filipinos masochistic? A disaster is a PRIVILEGE.

Filipinos love to condemn themselves to a life of tragedies, even considering visited by typhoons, earthquakes as a PRIVILEGE! So welcome more of these forthcoming tragedies, including possible Chinese invasion, since Filipinos will just smile, 0k??!!


They are uncomplaining. No wonder, Napoles, and senators innvolved in the pork barrel scam may go scot free. Enough of these sad, syrupy baby talk.

Anonymous commenter responded to the posted comment [by a guy named in a CNN site.

Such collective "long-suffering" philosophy is the reason why thieving and corrupt politicians in government succeed in their opportunism. They use emotional bylines and tag lines and the majority of the people do not even realize they are being patronized. Instead of preventing repeated disasters like flooding as a result of natural calamities, they come to accept it as a way of life. So progress is slow to come. A smart nation will not accept a fatalistic fate but rather respect nature and avert tragedies through human ingenuity I.e. Earthquake-standards for homes and buildings, flood plans, zoning, population control, etc. this is the reason why after being Asia's leading emerging economy in the fifties and sixties, the Philippines is now behind Japan, South Korea, India...let their leaders tell those people that it is a privilege to suffer while they empty the country's coffers, and there will be a likely revolt. Filipinos accept it as a way of life. It is evidenced by the current state of things. They will make a fuss for a while and then forget about it. Politicians love these disasters, they work to their advantage.

Here is the comment posted in a CNN site and shared by a virtual friend:

"Time to get to know the Filipino people...unbelievably resilient, long suffering, good natured, uber friendly, loyal, ingenius, and a bunch of survivors.

At the end of the day, the Filipinos will just shake off the dirt from their clothes and go about their business...and SMILE. They do not complain much, they will bear as long as they can.

Maybe this is why they were given the "privilege" of bearing the burden of the strongest typhoon ever recorded.

The indomitable human spirit at its finest.

Here is a graphic:

Supertyphoon Yolanda: Is the Philippines prepared?

In 1999, India suffered a battering from a category 5 cyclone, whose aftermath listed around 10,000 people officially dead, and massive destruction totalling around US4.5 billion dollars. Read Odisha 199 Cyclone

Based on this frightening experience, India implemented a well-designed anticipatory policy. Thanks to modern satellite imagery, that country made a successful smooth rapid and massive evacuation procedure for the population living near the shorelines of the Indian Ocean.

Now a category 4 Super typhoon is making a beeline to the middle portions of the country, which include Leyte, Masbate Northern Panay, Romblon. The width of this supertyphoon easily encompasses Mindanao Island!

November 7, 2013 (posted 7:00 pm)

Here is a satellite imagery of the Western Pacific on November 7, courtesy of the
JTWC (Joint typhoon warning center).

It is predicted that the eye of the supertyphoon will make a landfall on October 8. Here is a graphical map of the predicted path of the supertyphoon codenamed Haiyan and locally named Yolanda.

And we start a series of DOST/PAGASA satellite photos of the current supertyphoon. this one was taken at November 7, 2013 near 7:00 pm

We hope and pray that the Philippines will survive this current supertyphoon.
But the cruelest disasters besetting the Philippines are man-made, like the Napoles PDAF scam.