Seeing first-hand the progress of Bohol

I was in Anda, Bohol, over the weekend and I took the OceanJet to Tagbilaran City, Bohol. Pier 1 was as filled up as the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at the height of the disruption caused by the Xiamen Airlines plane crashlanding on the main runway. While we are glad that finally the Cebu Port Authority has established a port similar to an airport to handle ferryboats to Bohol, someone ought to fix the air-conditioning of that facility. Come on, there were just too many passengers last Saturday going to Bohol from Cebu.

The OceanJet was full of passengers, many of them Chinese tourists who were quite noisy talking among themselves despite the lack of air-conditioning. This gives us an idea of how the Bohol tourism industry has taken off. Indeed before the late Anos Fonacier was still doing his tourism fling in Cebu, there was really nothing happening in Bohol. However, how things have changed, thanks to Fonacier who helped Cebu’s tourism boom, and also started tourism in Bohol.

Incidentally, Department of Tourism-7 director Shalimar Tamano didn’t think that the travel advisory from the United Kingdom warning its citizens against visiting southern Cebu would have a significant impact on our tourist arrivals simply because the UK is not a major tourist market for Cebu. Frankly speaking, I saw a lot of foreign tourists leaving Cebu for Bohol, but mostly they were Chinese tourists and I didn’t get to see a single Briton in that group.

So I guess the DOT regional director was correct in his assessment that Cebu in the first place was never a UK tourist destination. Honestly, I never got to see what the UK government issued about southern Cebu. Incidentally as we passed by Jagna, Bohol, there were so many signs that revealed that McDonald’s fast food chains were opening their doors in Jagna! This is what I call a progressive town!

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I’m sure that by now, you have heard that the oppositionist Representative Gary Alejano filed an impeachment charge against the seven Supreme Court justices led by newlyappointed Chief Justice Teresita de Castro, and associate justices Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Andres Reyes, Francis Jardeleza, Noel Tijam, and Alexander Gesmundo. Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. said he had asked the committee on justice to begin holding hearings on Wednesday. He said upon instructions of House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the complaints will be included in the House order of business for referral to the justice committee upon the resumption of session on Tuesday or today.

The big question is will Representative Alejano get the full support of Congress? Apparently, Alejano filed this impeachment case believing that the supposedly solid majority party is now in shambles with the sudden removal of House Speaker Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez. While there is no doubt that the majority party has split up several ways, however most of the members of Congress still support President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte.

More so that no less than former president Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III used the Church to deliver his statement that he will be supporting the oppositionists against President Duterte in the 2019 mid-term elections. Frankly speaking, the former president should not have used the Church as his stepping stone to launch his attack against President Duterte simply because people once perceived him to be above board until the issue of Dengvaxia surfaced and, yes, the case of the Mamasapano debacle which remains unresolved. So if the former president wants to lead the opposition, all the more people will support President Duterte and his candidates in next year’s elections!

Even Alejano admits that he might only get 40 votes, very short of the one-third votes that one needs to file an impeachment case. So in the end, Alejano is doing this for publicity’s sake and nothing else. The so-called Magnificent 7 opposition group of representatives Edcel Lagman of Albay, Teodoro Baguilat Jr. of Ifugao, Tom Villarin of Akbayan, and Alejano filed separate complaints against the seven justices. The three other members of the Lagman group did not sign the petitions, although they said they support the justices’ impeachment. So why didn’t they sign the petition? I guess because they know that it will fail anyway!