From rescue to retrieval

The current search for DILG Secretary Jessie Robredo has graduated from search and rescue to search and retrieval. For chances are that, with several days already having gone, what is being sought is no longer just a living Robredo but his remains and those of his two companions.

Still, as they say, miracles do happen. Although, from our vantage point, the chances of Robredo having escaped death appear slim. The retrieval of the part of the wing of the light plane that Robredo and company had boarded at the Mactan Airport in Cebu a few days ago, proves a point. The current of the area must be really strong.

Senior Inspector Jun Abrazado, Robredo's aide-de-camp, gave graphic descriptions of what had happened just before he managed to get out of the plane when it sank into the sea.

He said he had tightened the seat belt of Robredo before the plane crash-landed in the sea, just about 300 meters off the Masbate Airport.

The impact of the crash must have rendered Abrazado unconscious. Although he suffered fractured arm, still it is possible that he was unable to help out Robredo when the latter must have hit his head on any part of the plane.

That there was a swift current in that part of the sea, most likely Robredo and his two companions may have been swept away. The twin engine piper Seneca was piloted by Capt. Jessup Bahinting, who was also the owner-operator of the Aviator Air, his copilot was Kahitz Cland, a Nepalese national.

Normally, a twin-engine aircraft, does not easily lose power. But in the case of the Seneca, it seems it must have really been a major emergency since it was forced to crash land.

Incidentally, Bahinting, himself, has gained fame as a do-gooder. His most recent feat was to send a plane to Camiguin to get hold of an anti-venom serum badly needed by a Cebuano zoo handler who got bitten by a cobra.

Robredo, a multi-awarded local official, had also been conferred the Ramon Magsayay Award, the equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize, for his inspirational work as mayor of Naga City.

As Interior Secretary Robredo, despite repeated failure to get the nod of the Commission on Appointments, just went ahead and performed his task as interior secretary without a murmur.

He was honored and highly esteemed by local government executives. Incidentally he had also been at one time the president of the local executives' organization of the country.

Anyway, because of so many offering their prayers for Robredo and his companions, who knows that was miracle may still happen.

He must have knowledge of what He had wanted Robredo's saga to instruct us with. That life is something that is beyond our control that death can come anytime.

Kudos to President Benigno Aquino III for having maintained a vigil in Masbate in the search for Robredo and company.

So with DOTC Secretary Mar Roxas.

God grant Robredo His blessing and give him the rest that he truly deserves.

For his family, we salute your great father. He is one whom you will always be proud of. The country truly misses him.

***

Somehow, we, Negrenses, seem to have overlooked the recent demise of Rep. Sonny Escudero of Sorsogon.

I remember that the father of Senator Chiz Escudero was revered by Negrenses farmers, including the leaders of the sugar industry.

Agriculture Secretary under the late President Marcos, Escudero was not the typical bureaucrat – bonhomie and always smiling and never fazed by any problems brought to his attention.

And he was fast on the draw. He immediately solved problems on the spot when he knew of them. And he always lived up to his promises to farmers.

As executive assistant to former Negros Governor Alfredo Montelibano Jr. I never could forget how Junior doted on Sonny.

I think there are still a lot of Negrenses industrial leaders who revere him for what he had done for the sugar industry and the agriculture sector of Negros.

***

I cannot but suspect that somebody big had been behind the move to emasculate Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. as governor of the province. At the same time, the group behind this movement seems unable to grasp that Marañon may still prove them wrong when he announced that he was definitely running for governor despite the effort by the group to eviscerate the United Negros Alliance.

I guess the whole thing boils down to this – will Negrenses vote for somebody whose program they really do not know?

In Marañon, they all had their share of the bonanza that they had with the implementation of several development programs in agriculture, and other seemingly inconsequential areas such as the dairy and the piggery.

The beneficiaries of these programs are the small people. And they represent the bulk of the voters, not the multibillionaires ensconced behind their fortress-like offices.

The fact that most of the UNA leaders wish to retain their coalition intact means therefore that they are also intent on foiling this conspiracy from getting the upper hand on UNA.*

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