AT THE rate things are going, the Clark Development Corp. is not only proving to be sleeping on the job – natutulog sa pansitan, as its critics contend – but also aping the proverbial three monkeys: seeing nothing, hearing nothing, saying nothing.
Last February 3, we raised here a few questions on the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, coming after its denunciation by various sectors as covered in the banner of our previous day’s issue, “Hot air balloon fest assailed.”
So we are reposting our queries:
1. Will organizer Joy Roa be made to liquidate every peso of the P3.5 million subsidy given him by the CDC and the CIAC?
2. Will organizer Joy Roa be taxed for the fees for entrance, parking, and booth rentals collected during the festival?
3. Will organizer Joy Roa be compelled to publicize the amount of sponsorship the festival received?
4. Will the Aeta tribesmen get their own space in the festival area to sell their products?
5. Will there be enough traffic enforcers to ensure the freeflow of vehicles to and from Clark on the days of the festival?
So we are reprinting our caveat: Answer not these questions soon and the CDC be damned as Rip Van Winkle dozing over a plate of chow mein again. So much flavor there.
Yesterday, no less than Department of Tourism Regional Director Ronaldo Tiotuico scored Roa’s organizing Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Foundation for excluding his office from the event this year.
This is the height of ingratitude, if not injustice, as it was Tiotuico himself, with then-DOT Undersecretary Mina Gabor, that initiated the hot air balloon festival in Clark in 1994.
If only for the pioneering role of the DOT, the office should even be investitured as the chair emeritus of the balloon fest. But no, the organizers apparently would rather re-write the history of the festival for self-glorification. Thus the DOT reduced to a paying concessionaire.
Tiotuico noted in the story yesterday that the hot air balloon festival was indeed turned over to Roa “to make it a private sector initiative” but “with the proviso that government would be freed of its financial obligations to it.” That is providing the subsidy, precisely.
As precisely too is a clear violation of that turn-over condition with the CDC’s – and now the CIAC’s too – continuing subsidy to Roa’s show.
So what has the CDC got to say?
May as well ask one of the three monkeys, that is if he is awake.
Makes me and lots of other people think: with this hot air balloon fest, the CDC’s gone bananas.
Ask not if it’s lacatan, latundan, saba, or senorita. A monkey has no way of knowing.
Last February 3, we raised here a few questions on the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, coming after its denunciation by various sectors as covered in the banner of our previous day’s issue, “Hot air balloon fest assailed.”
So we are reposting our queries:
1. Will organizer Joy Roa be made to liquidate every peso of the P3.5 million subsidy given him by the CDC and the CIAC?
2. Will organizer Joy Roa be taxed for the fees for entrance, parking, and booth rentals collected during the festival?
3. Will organizer Joy Roa be compelled to publicize the amount of sponsorship the festival received?
4. Will the Aeta tribesmen get their own space in the festival area to sell their products?
5. Will there be enough traffic enforcers to ensure the freeflow of vehicles to and from Clark on the days of the festival?
So we are reprinting our caveat: Answer not these questions soon and the CDC be damned as Rip Van Winkle dozing over a plate of chow mein again. So much flavor there.
Yesterday, no less than Department of Tourism Regional Director Ronaldo Tiotuico scored Roa’s organizing Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Foundation for excluding his office from the event this year.
This is the height of ingratitude, if not injustice, as it was Tiotuico himself, with then-DOT Undersecretary Mina Gabor, that initiated the hot air balloon festival in Clark in 1994.
If only for the pioneering role of the DOT, the office should even be investitured as the chair emeritus of the balloon fest. But no, the organizers apparently would rather re-write the history of the festival for self-glorification. Thus the DOT reduced to a paying concessionaire.
Tiotuico noted in the story yesterday that the hot air balloon festival was indeed turned over to Roa “to make it a private sector initiative” but “with the proviso that government would be freed of its financial obligations to it.” That is providing the subsidy, precisely.
As precisely too is a clear violation of that turn-over condition with the CDC’s – and now the CIAC’s too – continuing subsidy to Roa’s show.
So what has the CDC got to say?
May as well ask one of the three monkeys, that is if he is awake.
Makes me and lots of other people think: with this hot air balloon fest, the CDC’s gone bananas.
Ask not if it’s lacatan, latundan, saba, or senorita. A monkey has no way of knowing.
