The political buzzword for this month is – no, not related to 2010 – is summit.
When the price of crude oil reached US$ 100, the Department of Energy is calling for an Energy Summit this month. The summit aimed to seek solutions on how the cushion the impact of impending oil price hikes. Yes, folks, the political appointees at the DoE have no idea. No wonder a lot of people are calling this summit a waste of time. I agree. It is just that some of those who are complaining are clueless, too.
Anyway, with the strengthening of the Philippine peso against the US dollar, the impact should not be that hard, right? We cannot tell. Heck, we cannot even say if oil companies are being greedy or not, since most of them are private and thus their books are not open for scrutiny by government.
Then, the Bureau of Fire PreventionDILG is calling for a summit, too. The Galleria Baclaran fire, which raged for more than 24 hours, pricked a lot of egos in the Department of Interior and Local Government (which oversees BFP). All fire fighting volunteers who responded in that fire blamed the ground commander for the fiasco, first by raising the general alarm 3 hours after the fire broke out, and by ordering these volunteers to go away.
You know, it was incredible. There was an emergency situation, and these guys were squabbling. They need a summit to smooth things out. Incredible. They had been fighting fires since Heaven knows when, and they don’t even have a protocol on this? Absolutely stupid.
What’s more incredible? Marius Corpus recommending for a formation of an armed task force to keep fire fighting volunteers in check! Not only that. He also says they will be filing charges against these volunteers. Tsk. These actions are typical responses from Arroyo lapdogs.
Incredible. Absolutely stupid.
Oh well. Remember that dialogue that the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters ng Pilipinas had brokered between the government and the media in the aftermath of the Manila Pen affair? Nothing was accomplished, right? These two summits will reach the same fate, the same way that the Feliciano and Melo commissions ended – producing useless reports and nothing else.
As long as Gloria Arroyo is busy doing something else (don’t ask me what she’s really doing), reports and recommendations will remain as that – papers that will remain unacted.