For our special presentation in our talk show “Straight from the Sky,” we gathered a group of people to talk about the congestion in the Port of Cebu. We Cebuanos have long known that the Port of Cebu is one of the longest in the country and never in our minds did we ever thought that someday, this port would be congested as it is now. There are many reasons for this port congestion, from the shallow draft of our port due to siltation, down to the scheduling of arriving and departing cargoes and, yes, including those container vans that have been abandoned inside the port.
So with us tonight are Department of Trade & Industry, Inc. Regional Director-7 Ms. Asteria Caberte, lawyer Annabel Page, legal counsel for Opascor, Mr. Franklin Supatan of Opascor Customer Services, and Mr. Fred Escalona, executive director of PhilExport, one of the heavy users of the Port of Cebu. Our bevy of guests will discuss tonight why we are experiencing congestion at the port and what we should do about it.
So watch this very interesting discussion on the congestion of the Port of Cebu on SkyCable’s Channel 61 at 8:00 tonight with replays on Wednesday and Saturday at the same time slot. We also have replays on MyTV’s Channel 30 at 9:00 tonight with other replays on Wednesday and Friday at 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. respectively.
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I was out for three days when I learned from ABS-CBN that retired Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal called for President Benigno Aquino III’s resignation in light of the Mamasapano massacre of our 44 fallen Special Action Force soldiers, where three weeks later, we still have to get into the bottom of this controversy.
Actually this was not the first time that Cardinal Vidal, as chairman of the National Transformation Council, exhorted President Aquino to step down. Last October 1st the cardinal made that call in Cebu City during the NTC at the ALU Building in the Port Area. This was after the Supreme Court declared the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional. With what happened in Maguindanao, Cardinal Vidal is merely reiterating that call for the entire Aquino Regime to step down and make way for reforms.
Also very critical of President Aquino is former president Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) who spoke at the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Manila in Intramuros. But before he made his speech, FVR removed his jacket to reveal a T-shirt bearing the SAF logo and donned a SAF beret and proceeded to chastise the Aquino Regime saying, “You must balance your actions with hot pursuit, this is law enforcement with peacemaking.”
FVR then talked about what he as Chief of Staff of the AFP did to the Muslim rebels called Abu Sayyaf who attacked and burned Ipil, Zamboanga del Sur just before the signing of the peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front. His hot pursuit operations put the Abu Sayyaf out of operation for most of his presidency.
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I was gone for three days to attend the 19th International Hot Air Balloon Festival in Clark Air Base, Pampanga as the special guest of Captain Joy Roa, who has singlehandedly run this annual Balloon Festival on his lonesome. I got there by Thursday for the 4-day event. But last Saturday, I was totally taken aback by the huge crowd where cars were parked more than a kilometer to and from the Clark Air Base runway at 6:00 a.m. so the hundreds of thousands of people could watch the balloons sail into the sky.
Indeed, it was “The weekend of everything that flies.” Since Saturday was Saint Valentine’s Day, families trooped to the grounds around the airbase pitching tents and teaching kids to fly a kite, while others watched skydivers do their thing. Last Friday, one skydiver had a near fatal incident when his chute failed to deploy. Thanks to his emergency chute, he floated into the ground without a scratch.
Captain Joy Roa introduced me to Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr., who told Captain Joy, “I’m here because I read the column of Bobit Avila in the Star about this event.” If he didn’t know about this annual event, it is because it is private sector-led. But he had good words for it when he told us “All festivals in the Philippines celebrate our glorious past, but this Balloon Festival celebrates our future.”
I guess the Tourism Secretary saw that there are so many private flight schools in Bulacan and Pampanga, churning out pilots for the aviation industry that has a shortage of pilots. We too in Cebu have our own flying schools like Cheyn Air of Captain Jeram Sarmiento and Airworks, run by Mr. Vince Ong. They do their best to help fill up the Aviation Industry of professional pilots trained in the Philippines.