Time to get a new a plane

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The tragedy that befell Secretary Jesse Robredo in Masbate on Saturday deprived the country of one of its most committed, outstanding and dynamic officials, who belonged to a breed now very seldom seen in our midst.

At the time Robredo and his two pilots went down in that Piper Seneca airplane, he was the head of the Department of Interior and Local Governments, a position tailor-made for him, having himself been a local government executive, and an exemplary one whose accomplishments and reforms in his native city, had earned for him the highly prestigious Magsaysay award, Asia’s counterpart of the Nobel Prize of Europe.

Among the things that are being looked into as the probable cause of the crash, was the condition of the aircraft that some suspect to be quite old, and possibly no longer as air-worthy as it should be.

But that is now no longer debatable, in the same way that nothing can bring back Robredo, the pilot, and his young co-pilot.

What has come up, and has been revived by several sectors, is the need now to acquire a new, and very efficient plane for the use of the President and other high officials of the land. The demands of their job, and the times call for the fast and safe transport to wherever problems have arisen anywhere in the country. We can no longer entrust the safety of our top leaders to decrepit, aging, or discarded aircrafts that, in most cases are simply reconditioned by those who purchase them and then offer them for public use.

For sure, there will again be protests against the expense, and charges of extravagance may even be poised against the President. But a new, modern, state-of-the-art aircraft will not be a luxury, it is a necessity in this day and age.

Let the critics cry and curse, but this is one time when our leaders should decide for themselves, and ignore those who would always wish them ill, anyway.*