Typhoon damage estimated at Php. 100 M

The cost of devastation by both typhoons Pedring and Quiel was estimated to be close to Php. 100 M. If you can remember, President Abnoy donated USD. 1 M to a rich country, Japan. USD. 1 M is equivalent to Php. 50 M. If only he is capable of thinking, which he is not, he would have realized that the USD. 1 M is better spent with his constituents.

We are a third world country and we should not pretend to be somebody that we are not. Everyone knows our status. We should admit that we’re poor. The Japanese knows that we’re poor but they’re just too nice to refuse our donation. There’s no use bragging by donating a huge amount of money from the tax payer’s pockets. It would have been better if the money comes from President Abnoy’s own pocket. Unfortunately, it comes from the Filipino people.

There are ways to express our sympathy to the victims of the Japanese tsunami. We could send health care workers such as doctors and nurses. We could also send one unit of our Armed Forces to help the cleanup. But our President is incapable of thinking out of the box. And may I remind President Abnoy that we should help first ourselves before we help others. There’s nothing wrong with being generous but we should always ask ourselves if we can afford to be generous.

The flooding and heavy rains destroyed the livelihoods of the farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture says that they could not reach their target rice production for this year because of the calamity. This is one of the reasons why our farmers could not go out from the cycle of poverty. Scientists believed that the unpredictability of the weather is caused by the global warming. President Abnoy should make disaster preparedness and climate change initiatives a priority in his administration.