An APEC to look
forward to

The headline said: “Noy-Hu meeting at APEC fails to push through”. Hu, hu, hu…

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President Aquino probably was not surprised that the Chinese president could not find time for him. But maybe he did not lose anything with the failure of the talks to push through. For all we know, the words again may not match the actions, so they would only be back at Square One after the chit-chat. But, then, how do we know? PNoy might have reminded him that his mother has Chinese blood, and, in fact, when she was president, she made it a point to visit the village in China where her forefathers came from.

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Maybe, then President Hu Jintao may have lent him an ear, or, at least told him he will think it over. Doesn’t he know that blood is supposed to be thicker than water? A recent report said that the Chinese have condescendingly allowed Filipino fishermen to catch fish in the waters of the disputed area. That is another clever move that may give other alarmed countries the idea that the once Sleeping Giant of Asia is relenting. But we know better, don’t we?

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Meanwhile, the APEC meeting in Vladivostok, Russia ended with the announcement that the Philippines will host the conference in the year 2015, with Indonesia and China the venue for the next two, after Russia. Well, Aquino will still be president by then, and the country might have been transformed already (cross your fingers). The APEC was last held in the Philippines when Fidel Ramos was president, and Carla and I were privileged to cover it.

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The meetings were held in Manila and in Subic, and among the state leaders who came was American President Bill Clinton, then in his most popular days, and looking his best, too. We enjoyed our strategies is trying to get as close to him and his party as possible, which included involving a relative who was an officer of the country’s top security agency. Oh, all the girls in the media team had crushes on Bill C. and we could not resist boasting that we had gotten closer to him than any of them because of “connections”. And we were able to take his photos, but, alas, no posing with him.

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One can sympathize with Undersecretary Rico Puno of the Department of Interior and Local Government. As such, he was the Number Two man of the department after the late, much-lamented Jesse Robredo. One would have thought that he would be named in, at least, an acting capacity, when Robredo died so suddenly. But Puno queered his chances by trying to, well some people call it “raid,” his boss’s condominium as well as his office, even before the body was found. Unluckily for him, the Robredo staff, both at his residence and at this office, were wary enough to stop him and his crew, and informed Mrs. Robredo immediately.

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Later, President Aquino was reported to have said that he had instructed Puno to “secure” Robredo’s place. But it sounded as if he said that after the fact, that is, when Puno was already getting into warm water when the news of the attempt broke out. Now Puno has no less than Senator Miriam Santiago on his tail, and wants to call him to the Senate for a face-off. As I said earlier, one can also sympathize with Puno. La Miriam has not gotten into a good show for sometime now, and he may be the one to provide it. And he better be ready with his explanations, or she might shriek at him: “WAH!”

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Meanwhile another undersecretary, of the Social Welfare Department, also got in the news when she was victimized by a “dugo-dugo” operation at her residence, when her maid was tricked into delivering her family safe – a miniature one, it seems – to a man who told her to bring it because money was needed for her employer’s treatment after an accident. Now the maid is the one in hot water, because she never thought of calling her boss before picking up the safe with the cash, jewelry and important documents and handing it to the swindler.

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Today is September 11, 2012, the 11th anniversary of the infamous attack on the famous Twin Towers of New York City, where thousands of innocent people were killed when two terrorist suicide bombers rammed two planes at the buildings. Last July, my cousins and I visited the site, where one building has already been set up, and went around the place that had been the killing ground of people from various countries. It was a somber excursion, and the people we met there were mostly solemn and were going around reverently, as if they were still thinking of those who had perished there. It really felt like hallowed ground, and we prayed that such a tragedy will never happen again not only in the U.S.A., but in any country, and that there will never again be human beings as cruel and wicked as to stage such a massacre.*

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