SO WHAT else is new?
That is the bitter lamentations and raging recriminations after each edition of the hot air balloon festival, the single biggest tourism event in Clark: indeed, the very reason for the freeport’s being. That is if we go by the sickening obeisance the Clark Development Corp. pays to one Capt. Joi Roa, the ballooned impresario.
Raged one matron: “Ano ba ang hot air balloon na yan? Pinapila ang mga tao dun ng 4 a.m., tapos nung nakalipad na lahat ang balloon ng 7 a.m., saka sinabi na walang ma-accommodate. Mga pamangkin ko galing pa ng Australia, Numbers 8 and 9 sila sa balloon ride list, pinigil. Inuna ang VIPs. Hindi na nakasakay, wala man lang refund. Sayang, nagastos pa kami sa hotel. Wala namang nangyari. Lumalabas, habol lang ng organizers yung P150 entrance at P50 parking fees. Pinagkakaperahan lang ang tao.”
The lamentation of that matron was but one of the text messages we received from disgusted, dismayed, enraged hot air balloon festival goers. And there were others who made SM City Clark’s coffeeshops the sounding boards for their similar rants at the just concluded fest.
And again, workers in the garment factories and duty free shops, call center agents, staff of hotels and casinos, down to the construction crews in various sites at the Freeport uniformly complained of getting to work late for the duration of the festival. And with that, a cut in their pay for the day.
“Peste, hindi festival, sa hanay ng mga manggagawa sa Clark ang hot air balloon na yan.” So damned a sewer.
And again too, local media cried “Discrimination!”
Manila-based reporters sported special press cards and bracelets marked “VIP” which entitled them to a special tent where food and drinks were served.
The local mediamen had only puny press cards that prevented them access to the special tent. (Served you right for being thick-skulled masochists. Roa himself proclaimed, two years ago pa: “I don’t need the local media.” So why still bother covering his festival, only to be griping later?)
Even photographers from the CDC public affairs department were themselves given the evil eye when they tried to enter the special tent.
So these people – festival patrons, Clark workers, the local media – and a lot more are complaining?
So what?
Roa has staged his spectacular show and his principal partner, Benny Ricafort of CDC is all agog, in the afterglow of what to him is one more grand accomplishment of his CDC presidency.
If Ricafort could not the least be bothered by questions over the (im)propriety, if not patent illegality, of the unliquidated and therefore unaudited P3.5-million subsidy the CDC doles out to Roa year after year for the hot air balloon festival, why should he give the least of his attention to these gripes?
So the P3.5-million subsidy, in Ricarfort’s own words, is “to finance the design services and production costs of promotions and for the media launch.”
So to PR – promotions and press relations, we presume – the P3.5 million was intended. So to PR it went. Presumably so, PR being one hallmark of the Ricafort CDC incumbency. Why, only in December last year, a CDC director announced to a group of mediamen that the CDC Board had approved the CDC’s “special PR budget.” Which, both promotion and ad agencies and media entities have yet to feel up to this time.
In the light of the Senate hearings on corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, of the currency of “pabaon” to retiring chiefs of staff, we may have to consider – no matter the seeming ludicrousness – a totally different meaning to PR here.
Already, we are hearing from within and outside CDC of PR taking the meaning of Pabaon kay Ricafort. Complete with a vision of Ricafort on a loaded hot air balloon, singing “up, up and away in my beautiful balloon…”
No, I don’t like to even entertain so malicious a thought, For Christ’s sake, Ricafort is a good man. See how many amputees he has made to walk again with prosthetics. See how many ngongo and bungi he has made to smile again through cleft palate surgeries. See what has he done for the Clark Freeport.
So what has he done to the Freeport?
Yeah, I could only join in singing – off-key and all – “up, up and away…”
That is the bitter lamentations and raging recriminations after each edition of the hot air balloon festival, the single biggest tourism event in Clark: indeed, the very reason for the freeport’s being. That is if we go by the sickening obeisance the Clark Development Corp. pays to one Capt. Joi Roa, the ballooned impresario.
Raged one matron: “Ano ba ang hot air balloon na yan? Pinapila ang mga tao dun ng 4 a.m., tapos nung nakalipad na lahat ang balloon ng 7 a.m., saka sinabi na walang ma-accommodate. Mga pamangkin ko galing pa ng Australia, Numbers 8 and 9 sila sa balloon ride list, pinigil. Inuna ang VIPs. Hindi na nakasakay, wala man lang refund. Sayang, nagastos pa kami sa hotel. Wala namang nangyari. Lumalabas, habol lang ng organizers yung P150 entrance at P50 parking fees. Pinagkakaperahan lang ang tao.”
The lamentation of that matron was but one of the text messages we received from disgusted, dismayed, enraged hot air balloon festival goers. And there were others who made SM City Clark’s coffeeshops the sounding boards for their similar rants at the just concluded fest.
And again, workers in the garment factories and duty free shops, call center agents, staff of hotels and casinos, down to the construction crews in various sites at the Freeport uniformly complained of getting to work late for the duration of the festival. And with that, a cut in their pay for the day.
“Peste, hindi festival, sa hanay ng mga manggagawa sa Clark ang hot air balloon na yan.” So damned a sewer.
And again too, local media cried “Discrimination!”
Manila-based reporters sported special press cards and bracelets marked “VIP” which entitled them to a special tent where food and drinks were served.
The local mediamen had only puny press cards that prevented them access to the special tent. (Served you right for being thick-skulled masochists. Roa himself proclaimed, two years ago pa: “I don’t need the local media.” So why still bother covering his festival, only to be griping later?)
Even photographers from the CDC public affairs department were themselves given the evil eye when they tried to enter the special tent.
So these people – festival patrons, Clark workers, the local media – and a lot more are complaining?
So what?
Roa has staged his spectacular show and his principal partner, Benny Ricafort of CDC is all agog, in the afterglow of what to him is one more grand accomplishment of his CDC presidency.
If Ricafort could not the least be bothered by questions over the (im)propriety, if not patent illegality, of the unliquidated and therefore unaudited P3.5-million subsidy the CDC doles out to Roa year after year for the hot air balloon festival, why should he give the least of his attention to these gripes?
So the P3.5-million subsidy, in Ricarfort’s own words, is “to finance the design services and production costs of promotions and for the media launch.”
So to PR – promotions and press relations, we presume – the P3.5 million was intended. So to PR it went. Presumably so, PR being one hallmark of the Ricafort CDC incumbency. Why, only in December last year, a CDC director announced to a group of mediamen that the CDC Board had approved the CDC’s “special PR budget.” Which, both promotion and ad agencies and media entities have yet to feel up to this time.
In the light of the Senate hearings on corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, of the currency of “pabaon” to retiring chiefs of staff, we may have to consider – no matter the seeming ludicrousness – a totally different meaning to PR here.
Already, we are hearing from within and outside CDC of PR taking the meaning of Pabaon kay Ricafort. Complete with a vision of Ricafort on a loaded hot air balloon, singing “up, up and away in my beautiful balloon…”
No, I don’t like to even entertain so malicious a thought, For Christ’s sake, Ricafort is a good man. See how many amputees he has made to walk again with prosthetics. See how many ngongo and bungi he has made to smile again through cleft palate surgeries. See what has he done for the Clark Freeport.
So what has he done to the Freeport?
Yeah, I could only join in singing – off-key and all – “up, up and away…”
