By Alex P. Vidal
“Bad news is bad news because it drops your willingness to carry on.”
― Meir Ezra
NEWS people are trained not to be emotional especially when covering events in the field and when delivering the story as anchors.
But, human as we are, there are news that will really wreck our hearts and bring tears to our eyes—on and off the camera, in and outside the news or editorial room.
For instance, we were largely touched and even cried when we repeatedly viewed the primetime report over the weekend about the sinking on September 2 of Gulf Livestock 1, a cargo ship crewed by 39 Filipinos, two New Zealanders and two Australians, in the waters off Japan during Typhoon Maysak.
It’s hard to imagine the terror they went through before and probably during the actual sinking of the 133.6-meter-long (438 foot) ship after being battered by giant waves.
Our hearts go out in particular to their families in the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia who could spend their gloomy Christmas and forever lose their loved ones and breadwinners.
As of Sunday, only two Filipino seamen – Jay-Nel Rosals, 30, and Edvardo Sareno, 45 – have been reportedly rescued.
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No additional person has been added as Japan Coast Guard decided to suspend the rescue operations due to bad weather conditions.
The ship, with a cargo of more than 5,800 cows, was sailing from Napier, New Zealand, to Tangshan, China, according to the authorities in Japan, New Zealand and Australia.
The Panamanian-flagged ship left New Zealand on August 14 according to New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Typhoon Maysak was blowing by southern Japan at the time of the sinking.
The ship’s automated tracker reportedly showed it sailing in high winds of 58 knots (66 miles or 107 kilometers per hour) at its last known position, according to the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.com.
Another powerful typhoon was reportedly approaching southern Japan over the weekend.
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BY their votes we shall know who are the House of Representatives lackeys of the administration in Western Visayas.
If their constituents want to know their true colors, or whether they have backbones or independent solons, all they need is to review how they cast their votes in controversial bills and resolutions in the past like the new anti-terror law, additional emergency powers for the president in the time of pandemic, denial of the renewal of franchise of ABS-CBN, and recently the Marcos birthday bill or the “Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Day” in Ilocos Norte Province
There is one neophyte Ilonggo congressman who always caught my attention: Iloilo third district Rep. Lorenz Defensor.
Defensor, son of former Iloilo Governor Arthur Sr. and younger brother of Iloilo Governor Arthur Jr., did vote in favor of the Marcos bill co-authored by Rep. Angel Barba, nephew of the late former president, saying it’s “a local law applicable only to Marcos’ home province.”
He would have voted against it if it was a national law, Defensor explained to Aksyon Radyo Iloilo as reported in Daily Guardian.
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Defensor pointed out: “This is a bill that we leave to the [province] of Ilocos Norte on how they celebrate the things that are important to them. In most cases, this is similar to bills changing the names of schools or roads, and the same as dedicating holidays to people who they think are important to their province.”
The Iloilo solon added: “If this were a national bill, declaring it to be a national holiday in the country, I’ll surely say no, but if this a local bill pertaining to a municipality or a province (like) Ilocos (Norte), we’ll just leave that to the representatives of their province.”
The political career of this Defensor solon is worth watching.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)
