Really???

OMG! A government official who actually admits his mistakes and apologizes for it. In the Philippines? Really?

The fact that a Cabinet secretary would own up to a shortcoming committed by his department, accept not just responsibility but blame – “kasalanan namin” – and straightaway apologize to the public is, sadly, a not very common thing hereabouts. I think Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson surprised everyone by his forthright acceptance of responsibility for the late – by like three hours or so, from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. – opening last Monday morning of a portion of EDSA after the major Holy Week reblocking on multiple sections of the main thoroughfare, and effectively silenced the kibitzers and commentators (what’s that new term? kumain-tators?), especially some on early morning radio who were fulminating about that delay.

The usual practice is to obfuscate, or better yet, blame someone else – as one of his subordinates did, saying another government agency was to blame, having delayed their start of work by 16 hours, thus causing them not to finish on time. Leadership by example is powerful, although sometimes not everyone follows the example.

That could be true as well in the matter of corruption within the department. Unlike some other agencies which seem not to have managed to figure out – much less curb or even minimize – corruption in their midst, the DPWH has, by most accounts, corralled the beasts of rigged biddings, roads to nowhere, dredging and de-silting projects that never ease flooding in the surrounding areas, ridiculously overpriced and sometimes dangerously substandard bridges, etc. Of course, it would be unrealistic to think that anomalies have been totally and completely eliminated, but by and large it is acknowledged that, all over the country and not just in the metropolis, infrastructure projects are now actually being built and completed at reasonable cost.     

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On the pedestrian overpass on Roxas Blvd. near the US embassy (northbound lane) is a blue-and-white sign that says: “This is a project of Manila Mayor Alfredo S. Lim and MMDA Chairman Francis N. Tolentino.” Really? Did the two of them pay for that walkway out of their own private funds? If they did, thank you most kindly, sirs! Or, more likely, did you and I pay for it with our taxes? I thought such epal public displays were a thing of the past dispensation. I guess not everyone follows the example of good leadership, in this case the presidential directive to officials not to claim credit for projects funded by public money.

The only good thing I can say about this is that at least they did not put their photos on that sign, as the epals used to do. Now that would be enough to cause accidents. For shame!