By KATHLEEN T. OKUBO
www.nordis.net

The Benguet Electric Cooperative, which according to some of my cynic relatives is not really a cooperative, has made a proposal to our City to manage and maintain the City’s street lights for a monthly flat rate. This offer has been pending for more than a year on the desks of our leaders in City Hall. I doubt very much that the proposal was not studied from all angles of politics and commerce by the minds in city hall. Nor do I think Beneco managers would give a proposal that would drain the coffers of the cooperative. It makes us wonder and drift into entertaining scenarious that the parties could not agree on the how much. Tax payers are not, nor have been proven to be selfish especially with their temper when they feel they are shortchanged or are being, literally, put in the dark of transactions that concern them and their pockets. Also, it is not as if government or Beneco has been truly transparent to their constituents about contracts like this.(?)

My household and neighbors are truly grateful for the new lamp posts Beneco has installed along our barangay’s roads, and of course this community would remain happy if these street lights (a source of security and sight at night) are regularly well maintained even if sometimes our young naughty boys feel the lights are a good target for stone throwing.

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Allow some Wistfull thinking
Coming Monday is the new president’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA). Being the son and heir of a couple looked-up to with reverence by an election winning number of Filipino citizens so much is expected of him. He can say he is but human and can only do so much.

This was also what the former female president seem to mean when she went on air to say, “I am sorry.”

With five extra-judicial killings reported committed with impunity in the beginning of his presidency by the same alleged culprits under the previous presidential rule, I really want to see the son of the revered Ninoy annd Cory Aquino order without wincing the investigation, pursuit and arrest of the perpetrators of this heinous crime against the Filipino people, and the real-to-life delivery of justice to the survivors.

History indicates that the freedom of expression and to assembly has been mangled and denied by all Philippine presidents one time or another to a point of tyranny. Can this new president of our nation at least stop the killings and in his Sona say he can with strong conviction?

James Moy Balao, the first victim of enforced disappearance in the Cordillera has not yet been surfaced even if the Courts of Justice has so ordered. This is such a slap on the face of our justice system being ignored with impunity by its own so-called agencies in government. If this was a common practice in the governance of the GMA, I should want to see P-Noy condemned it, surface James, throw the culprits in jail, file charges. By command responsility expected of leaders elected to rule, P-Noy can work to deliver justice to the nation that is held hostage by poverty, militarization and the eroded sense of sovereignity.

When P-Noy delivers his Sona (and to borrow somebody’s favorite line…) I wish he would prove me wrong that he is but another bloody blundering bureaucrat capitalist towing the imperialist noose.# nordis.net