Not Cory Aquino government

In Mr. Bong O. Wenceslao’s column published by SunStar Cebu on March 4, 2017, he wrote: “Soon, Cebuanos got accustomed to paying toll, like they were accustomed to paying toll, like they were accustomed to all the other impositions of the dictatorship, like the oil price stabilization fund and the coconut levy. Then in the ‘80s the protests came, then the paying of toll and other impositions became an issue. After Marcos was ousted, the ‘hated’ and ‘incompetent’ Cory Aquino government abolished the first bridge toll and the other Marcos impositions. No good Cory.”

In the name of truth, may I controvert columnist Wenceslao. It was not President Cory Aquino who abolished the toll for the first Mactan bridge. It was President Ferdinand Marcos who acted favorably on my recommendation that the toll be lifted in response to the people’s clamor and most especially to the Mactan residents who, under the setup, could not leave Mactan Island nor return thereto without paying toll. He signed the memorandum that I handed to him at Kalayaan in LapuLapu City were we converged after the miting de avance at the Cebu Coliseum In January of 1986. Since then toll were no longer collected.-- Adelino B. Sitoy, secretary and head, Presidential Legislative Liaison Office

Gina Lopez’s appointment

Untenable. A word that is widely used in the appointment of Gina Lopez as Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) secretary. In Bisaya: “dili makataronganon.”

Gina Lopez is the right person for DENR. The Commission on Appointments has therefore gone too long in its deliberation.

If she kicked out too many people under her, then those kicked out might be inefficient. The Filipino people want radical reform. We are tired of promises and projects that remained projects without being completed.

We have seen what Gina Lopez has done. She came up with a sweeping move to help our environment, implementing it faster than the way past DENR secretaries combined did it. Monumental, indeed.

Those people opposing the appointment of Gina Lopez are clearly fighting for their own businesses. The miners, of course, support the mining owners, for they may lose their livelihood. Even if they know that these are all at the expense of our environment, and with the mine owners getting billions of pesos in profits. But are the miners profiting from this? They are not.

This natural resource is for everyone. It must not be exploited by only a few. The government knows what responsible mining is, or which protocols are pro-environment.

Let there be a strong grasp of these rules. And the government should be the one to own and manage the mines.