Fathers and orphans

How apt that on this Friday the 13th day we quote what was wisely said that “Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.” Such is the way the wheel of life turns and when the Friday the 13th day occurs in our lives, nobody wants to admit failure. On the other hand, there are many claimants to success, so many want to declare credit.

In the aftermath of the massacre of the 44 SAF policemen, nobody wanted to claim they had a direct hand in the fiasco, except PNP Deputy Director Getulio Napeñas who was relieved of his command of the PNP elite forces. He practically took all the blame but his admission did not sit well with public that believed that the two most responsible officials are President Benigno Aquino and former PNP Director General Alan Purisima. Both, of course, denied they gave a categorical order for Napeñas to launch the assault.

Almost everybody is washing his hands of blame. The MILF that was directly pinpointed as the culprits who killed the policemen, refused to admit they had a hand. Their hands are dripping with fresh blood but they blamed the SAF for not coordinating with them. The AFP is also distancing itself from the botched operation, saying the SAF failed to bring them in into the operation until the SAF men were already killed and needed only extraction from the scene of battle.

Do these gentlemen think that people will believe that Napeñas, on his own accord (he called it my judgment call), would launch an operation of such magnitude and without timely coordination or information with other friendly forces if he was told to do so?

Indeed, Napeñas is left an orphan. Would PNoy and Purisima, etc. have denied any hand in the operation had Napeñas and the SAF succeeded without, or just minor casualties?

Closer to home, Monico Puentevella claims he was the original father of the new road system that would link Sum-ag to the Silay Airport. If he is correct, then he must metaphorically have abandoned his child without life support and left it to die. Granting that it be so, now that Cong. Evelio Leonardia gave it life, Puentevella claims fatherhood.

The fact is that the idea of the road system outside and bypassing the Bacolod’s interior is not new. That was included in the “Plan de Misiones de Negros” of 1888, and then revised and finally implemented in 1894. This road system stretched and created today’s towns from Isabela to Magallon, La Castellana, Maao, Cansilayan, Murcia, Alegria, Granada, Concepcion, Dos Hermanas, San Fernando, Guimbalaon, San Isidro and ended in Victorias. Note that the Americans have not added a single town in this route.

The link between Bacolod and Bago was already done since 1780 passing through Mansilingan then Dulao with a swerve towards Sum-ag.

Last year I got a copy of the plan of Third District Congressman Alfredo Benitez to link Barangay Concepcion with Alegria in Murcia passing through, as it was planned and used during the Spanish times, Alangilan and Campuestohan.

The idea of a sugar road came out during the term of Governor Rafael Coscolluela. I know because I was chairman of the Infrastructure Committee of the Provincial Development Council and we discussed then that the huge funding necessitated phased implementation. Although this idea of a sugar road is Lito’s, we do not hear him declaring to the world it was his. That was just part of his job.

This is the way public officials should think – they start and allow their successors to complete the idea because the successors built on what one leaves behind. In truth, nobody begins from nothing, but from what others before him have already laid out.

Assuming that Puentevella thought about it, ideas are useless unless and until they are implemented. As the saying goes, anybody can dream but only doers make ideas work. It would do well for Puentevella to present his alleged plan for which he sought funding and was denied. If he does that then he can claim credit for that particular plan, but since that was not implemented, he should be happy part of his plan is bearing fruit instead of shouting like a child as if he was robbed.

Let’s ask for that alleged plan, his covering letters and moves in Congress for its funding. After all, he was close to the Gloria Arroyo government. We may also know whether his plan is the same as that of Leonardia’s.*

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