Tulfo fires two rude DSWD employees

I’m not patronizing my brother Erwin, appointed secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (although I may sound like I am), but what he did should not surprise the public.

The Tulfo brothers’ public service programs – Raffy’s, Ben’s, and until lately Erwin’s and my Isumbong mo kay Tulfo – treat people who come to us for help courteously.

People who come for help should be shown compassion. They sought help because they had nobody else to turn to.

Even if some of their grievances are not valid, one should at least give them an ear. Most of them just want to unload their problems and feel relieved that somebody cared to listen.

In my years of hosting “Isumbong,” I fired several subordinates who were discourteous to people who sought our help.

If private entities like those in media patiently attend to people in need even if it’s not their job, the more our government should do the same when dealing with the public.

Many bureaucrats are so full of themselves that they shout at ordinary citizens who deal with their agencies.

Officials and rank-and-file personnel at the Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Philippine National Police (PNP), Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Land Transportation Office, Social Security System (SSS), DSWD and Department of Health through its public hospitals, among others, deal with the citizenry on a day-to-day basis.

Doctors, nurses and nursing aides in public hospitals, particularly, should be courteous and sympathetic to poor patients.

I’ve heard of some doctors in government hospitals who shouted at patients during surgery. They were crying in pain because there was no anesthesia.

Years ago, my son Patrick was born at the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center. The nursing aide shouted at me when I complained that she was clumsily handling the newborn baby’s mother and the baby.

“Ikaw na kaya dito (Why don’t you take my place),” she said.

Now, you know where I’m coming from when I lost my cool at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in 2018 after an intern forbade me and my crew from recording a medical procedure of an 8-year-old girl that my driver bumped.

Bureaucrats are sometimes referred to as public servants. In Filipino, they are the alila ng taumbayan (servants of the citizenry).

Don’t these people know they are where they are because of the taxes paid by the citizenry?

Just because people who come to you are very poor doesn’t mean they have lost their dignity.

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Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte was on the right track when she ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to investigate cases of students being abused at the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) at Mt. Makiling, Los Baños, Laguna.

Reports of male teachers sexually harassing or having sex with their students are not new in this country. These reports were hush-hush before, and just came to light because of the abuses that happened at the PHSA.

Those in the know will surely know about the “cuatro o cuarto” syndrome common in academic circles.

Under the cuatro o cuarto syndrome, a male teacher would have a female student with a failing grade of cuatro or 4 – 1, 2, 3 being passing marks – pass if the girl agreed to have sex with him in a room (cuarto) at a hotel or motel.

Many years ago, a male teacher and his students were caught copulating inside their classroom.

Sexual harassment of female students by male teachers – and, for that matter, female teachers of their male students – should stop.

In my years at the now defunct Isumbong, my staff and I encountered numerous complaints of female teachers harassing their female students or homosexual professors harassing their handsome students.

Because of Isumbong, many of these abusive teachers were either dismissed or suspended.

Still, reports of sexual harassment on students have persisted.

It’s a good thing that the sexual harassment and abuse of students at the PHSA have come to light.

Now, the government is listening.

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A wealthy 87-year-old woman’s plea to the Makati City government to help her carry out a court order in her favor has been ignored many times.

Modesta R. Sabeniano’s request is for the posh condominium in Ayala Avenue to reconnect her water connection as ordered by the court.

The order came from then Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Cesar Untalan.

Sabeniano, a real estate broker and developer of the Modesta Village in Marikina, has been commuting regularly between Manila and San Francisco, California where she has a residence.

While she’s gone, her relatives occupy her 262-square-meter unit on the ninth floor of the ritzy condominium. She has not been remiss in paying her unit’s electric and water bills and association dues.

Apparently, the condominium’s homeowners’ association doesn’t want “ordinary” people – Sabeniano’s relatives – living among them.

When her relatives would not vacate the unit, the association cut her water connection apparently to force them out.

Sabeniano told this columnist they fetch water at a friend’s unit on the 16th floor every day.

Here’s an excerpt of Sabeniano’s letter to Mayor Abby Binay dated June 14, 2022:

“Please, please and please Hon. Mayor (Binay) act or reply whatever your decision to my very serious suffering request with all the attached documents to prove my request. A senior citizen, I’m 87 years old.”

What’s the good mayor waiting for? Is she afraid of the rich homeowners of the condo?