For comparison
People cannot help not to compare the past national administration with the present in terms of accomplishments and blunders. As national figures, they are prone to both comparisons and criticisms.
Officially, Marawi City siege is now over as Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana announced that combat operations will be put to a halt. Five months ago, fighting erupted between government troops and the Maute Group in the said city in Mindanao.
Government’s focus now is on the rehabilation of the embattled city and the department of budget and management has estimated it to cost billions from the public coffers. I was taken aback when some critics compared the kind of temporary shelters that are proposed to be built for Marawi City with those that were built after supertyphoon Yolanda struck the country in November 2013.
In the aftermath of Yolanda, government housing spent P800,000.00 per unit of row houses made as temporary shelters for the typhoon victims in Samar and Leyte, provinces which were badly devastated by the weather phenomenon. They are made of crude coco lumber and plywood.
For Marawi City, individualized, single detached shelters made of galvanized iron sheets are pegged to cost only around P200,000.00.
If we are to compare, the proposed houses intended for Marawi City residents are far better than those made for Yolanda victims. For the latter, billions of dollars and goods poured in from other countries as aides and assistances for typhoon victims were received by the then Aquino administration and yet the said temporary shelters now are better than those in made in Samar and Leyte.
Marawi shelters have their own comfort rooms while those Yolanda have none except common toilets and sh ow er s.
Critics of the past administration woke up when they see the comparisons made for the temporary shelters. We cannot blame them since the difference is quite glaring and leading to the assumption that funds for Yolanda devastation were pocketed.
*** Perhaps many have seen the television commercial of a shampoo showing a woman displaying her hair while at the back of a big airplane’s running jet engine. The advertisement intends to show that despite the airplanes strong blow of hot air, the woman’s hair remains to be strong, shiny and beautiful.
The scene seems to be realistic but only on television because in reality, no one can stand behind a jet engine that is running. Aside from the strong exhaust of air, the latter is too hot to be withstood by someone. The woman could have burned not only her hair but her whole body as well.
Sometimes television commercial advertisements can be ridiculous aside from being unrealistic and unbelievabl e. ***
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