A4
Opinion
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2017
mst.daydesk@gmail.com
EDITORIAL
A
Adelle Chua, Editor
Student safety comes first
FIELD trip can be a rewarding and exciting learning experience, but for 14 students of Bestlink College of the Philippines in Quezon City this week, a schoolsanctioned outing to a resort in Tanay, Rizal, proved fatal. The 14 students died, while 44 others were injured—some critically—after the tourist bus they were riding lost its brakes on a downhill slope and crashed into an electric post along the highway to Tanay. Disaster officials said 10 of the students died on the spot, while four others died while being treated in nearby hospitals. The driver also died.
The bus was among nine hired by the school to go to a camping activity as part of its National Service Training Program. The eight other buses had already arrived safely at the resort when the fatal accident took place. In the aftermath of the Tanay tragedy, Commissioner Prospero de Vera of the Commission on Higher Education called for a suspension of field trips and educational tours while the bus crash is under investigation. The suspension will cover all field trips and educational tours in all colleges and universities until the investigation is completed. De Vera said it must also be determined if universities and colleges comply with safety guidelines and whether policies on school trips give adequate protection to the students.
“The Tanay tragedy is a reminder that we must be very strict in regulating the use of public transport for school-sponsored trips,” the CHED commissioner said. He added that while field trips are essential for students to learn, their safety must always be ensured. The steps announced by De Vera make sense and suggest several avenues for reassessment. 1) What, if any, liabilities should the schools assume? Are the waivers they make parents sign sufficient and fair? Should schools be made to take out insurance on each student who goes on a field trip? 2) Should schools be allowed to make field trips—and the additional expenses they entail for parents—compulsory? 3) The CHED covers only universities
and colleges. What is the Department of Education doing to ensure the safety of students in schools in the lower levels? 4) Are the field trips truly essential? Should schools not be made to justify a field trip to ascertain that it is beneficial to students? 5) From the point of view of the Transportation Department, what is being done to accredit public transport companies to ensure passenger safety? In theory, field trips can help students see how what they are learning is applied in the real world. They also give students an opportunity to learn outside the classroom to break the monotony of their daily routine. The Tanay tragedy, however, brings home the point that none of this matters if we don’t put student safety first. VIRTUAL REALITY TONY LOPEZ
Watergate moment for Trump, Duterte
Cabinet should quit because they should no longer support the alleged murderous dictator who appointed them. Feel free to have a flashback of the Hyatt 10 resignations that the Yellow members of Cabinet pulled off in order to pressure then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to resign. Only make sure you remember that the Hyatt 10 stunt didn’t succeed in making Arroyo step down, either. De Lima must really have lost her mind, as she attempts to come to terms with her impending arrest and imprisonment on charges of bribery and aiding and abetting drug trafficking in the New Bilibid Prison during her term as secretary of Justice. Either that, or she is still following some Yellow checklist on how to bring down a sitting President, a program that was first drafted and implemented during the 1986 revolt. Of course, the checklist includes massive protest actions like the one that will reportedly
DONALD Trump and Rodrigo Roa Duterte have reached what is called their Watergate Moment very early in their presidencies. Watergate is the term that describes a series of clandestine and often illegal activities that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1973. The name “Watergate” and the suffix “-gate” have since become synonymous with political and non-political scandals in the United States, according to Wikipedia. In later versions of political “gates”, they didn’t necessarily result in the ouster of the ruling power but only in a severe crisis that leads to substantial loss of credibility and eventually legitimacy to rule and thus inspiring military plotters. Trump’s job approval has been eroding since he assumed the presidency on Jan. 20, 2017, hitting a low point of 40 percent on Feb. 10-12, 2017, after a three-day average high of 46 percent on Jan. 23-25, 2017, according to Gallup. His average disapproval rating among various polls is 50.6 percent (as high as 57 percent by Pew Research). Since Trump became president, majority of Americans have not liked what he has been doing. Duterte’s, meanwhile, keeps steadying, if not rising incredibly. The veteran Davao mayor is the most popular Philippine president today. Duterte’s approval and trust ratings are both at 83 percent during the last quarter of 2016, according to Pulse Asia. Trump’s Watergate Moment came following revelations Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, before he became the national security adviser, made a phone call to the Russian Ambassador in Washington DC Sergey Kislyak advising him not to react after President ordered on Dec. 29, 2016 the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the United States as part of the sanctions against Russia for alleged US hacking activities. Under a US law, it is a felony for a private American citizen to interfere in US government sanctions against a foreign government. When the Flynn-Kislyak call discussing the sanctions was leaked on Jan. 12, Flynn denied it. Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer, also denied it
Turn to A5
Turn to A5
Bad, stolen scripts LOWDOWN
JOJO A. ROBLES YOU know a confession is fake when it rips off lines from some famous script, like from the Godfather Part II. Of course, as one almost-famous Yellow once said, it doesn’t have to be true— it just has to appear that way. Of SPO3 Arthur Lascanas, formerly the bete noire of supposed Davao Death Squad whistleblower Edgar Matobato, little more should be said apart from what Senator Richard “Dick” Gordon already has. And this, in brief, is how Gordon reacted to the call for him to reopen his investigation in the Senate, now that Lascanas has done a 180-degree turn and admitted his participation in the mythical hit squad: “He has already appeared before the Senate and he said the... Squad did not exist. Why should
I call the committee again? How would I know if he is telling the truth this time?” I reviewed Lascanas’ videotaped testimony during the Matobato hearings last year, given before Gordon and Senator Panfilo Lacson, and came away with the impression that he had truly been hurt by the alleged whistleblower’s claims of his involvement in the vigilante group. Then I watched his “public confession” at the Senate this week —which was not given at a real hearing, mind you—to compare the two Sergeant Lascanases. Like Gordon, I wondered which of the two testimonies was actually true and if it will, at some future date, change again. And I wonder if Lascanas’ new testimony isn’t as fake as Senator Leila de Lima’s sense of outrage when I heard him talk about a four-year-old boy whom he wanted to spare but couldn’t, because the killers had to follow the Godfather script. If you’re a fan of that classic
movie series, you’ll know what I’m talking about. In one scene in Part II, the local mob boss orders the killing of young Vito Corleone after already having killed his father and brother; young
I guess we shall soon see if all the noise will remove a President and install yet another Yellow in his place. Vito’s mother pleads for the boss to spare the boy, which the boss rejects, reasoning that Vito will seek revenge when he grows up. This is the same story that
Lascanas, now retired from the police force and reportedly a dialysis patient, wants us to swallow. That Duterte, as Davao’s mayor, ordered the killing of the entire Sapataha family, including a four-year-old boy whom Lascanas wanted to save but couldn’t, because he was ordered to make sure that the boy doesn’t grow up and demand Sicilianstyle vengeance. I am agog and aghast, as they say in Les Miz. No wonder Lascanas’ backers don’t want to file a case in court, as Gordon has suggested, but only seek an oldfashioned Senate hearing where he will be prodded, Matobatolike, to parrot more lines from a poorly written (or stolen) script. *** Speaking of bad scripts, how else to describe De Lima’s call yesterday for the members of the Duterte Cabinet to resign en masse but as yet another terribly unreasonable and unoriginal demand? De Lima, in another Senate press conference, said the
Rolando G. Estabillo Publisher can be accessed at: thestandard.com.ph
Benjamin Philip G. Romualdez Former Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno
Philippine Press Institute The National Association of Philippine Newspapers
Anita F. Grefal Baldwin R. Felipe Edgar M. Valmorida
ManilaStandard
Published Monday to Sunday by Philippine Manila Standard Publishing Inc. at 6/F Universal Re Building, 106 Paseo de Roxas, corner Perea St., Legaspi Village, Makati City. Telephone numbers 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558 (connecting all departments), (Editorial) 832-5554, (Advertising) 832-5550. P.O. Box 2933, Manila Central Post Office, Manila. Website: www.thestandard. com.ph; e-mail: contact@thestandard.com.ph
ONLINE MEMBER
PPI
Chairman Board Member & Chief Legal Adviser Treasury Manager OIC-Ad Solutions Circulation Manager
Ramonchito L. Tomeldan Chin Wong/Ray S. Eñano Francis Lagniton Joyce Pangco Pañares
Managing Editor Associate Editors News Editor City Editor
Emil P. Jurado
Adelle Chua Honor Blanco Cabie Romel J. Mendez Roberto Cabrera
Chairman Emeritus, Editorial Board
Opinion Editor Night Editor Art Director Chief Photographer