Sympathy and apathy

 The provision of relief to the victims of super-typhoon Yolanda, as well as the rehabilitation of badly hit areas like Leyte, started on the wrong foot with then Interior Secretary Mar Roxas engaging more in politics than in actually helping the affected people.

Two years after Yolanda, it’s heart-rending that many of the victims are still waiting for government to make good on its promise to put a roof over their head. Meanwhile, the Commission on Audit has blown the whistle that millions and millions of pesos allocated for the Yolanda victims have largely gone unspent by the government.

As things stand, areas like Tacloban, whose Congressman Martin Romualdez has recently gone to the Vatican to seek blessing from Pope Francis for a two-foot Sto. Niño, will have to get back on their feet on their own, without waiting for help from the national government.

On Nov. 8, Romualdez will lead the inauguration of a marker at the Tacloban airport commemorating the visit last year of Pope Francis which certainly raised the spirits and hopes of Taclobanons. The plan is to build a chapel to house the Sto. Niño in the new terminal of the airport.

Romualdez is seeking one of 12 seats in the Senate in the 2016 elections under a platform of genuine concern and sympathy. If elected, he can be expected to bring into the national scene the concerns of the marginalized in the countryside.

Apathy is the anti-thesis of sympathy, a fault which many in the outgoing administration has been displaying of late with the tanim-bala scandal at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

As correctly called by Senator Alan Peter-Cayetano, it was not right for Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya to cite statistics to belittle as mere “isolated incidents” the tanim-bala cases.

Cayetano said Abaya’s lame excuse was no different from his pilloried statement that traffic does not kill. Abaya apologized for that “traffic booboo” but it may be beyond him to apologize for disregarding the maxim that one victim of any crime like bullet-planting is one victim too many.