WHAT do I want done in 2017? A lot. There’s an ocean of work ahead, a sorry result of badly run dispensations past. Plans that went awry abound.
From Cory to P-Noy, zero—almost. Political will was merely lip service. The poor have remained poor; they have even increased ten-fold—almost. Sigh. The rich have become richer; they have even multiplied—and continue to multiply. Good.
While my heart bleeds for the multitude still living in abject want, I have nothing against the moneyed, though. The rich ought to be hailed for their uncanny ability to amass more wealth. Gifted they are, I must admit? But if they’d done it, continue to do it, at the expense of the poor—labor oppression, unjust compensation and child exploitation, not to mention endo—that’s when I want to raise hell; for they would simply fit the labels “scum of the earth.”
But there will always be exceptions. And so, we have a few rich who care, always, for the downtrodden. Special mention goes, therefore, to Dr. George K. Ty and Ramon S. Ang. They have never ceased to help the needy, in both good times and bad times.
For decades now, Ty’s Metrobank has made it a point to pour in an enormous amount of money—through its yearly Toyota Classic Concert—to help a public school, chosen from any point of the archipelago, gain excellence in advanced education. And didn’t Ty also put up that Toyota Technology Development center at UP Diliman some years back, not to mention his noble deed of erecting a technical college in Santa Rosa City and accepting students free of tuition and matriculation fees?
Unknown to many, Ang—or RSA to those dear to him—has this marshmallow-soft heart that will instantly extend help at the flick of a finger. Numerous already are his acts of kindness and generosity through the years that, to keen RSA admirers, he is now being dubbed as “TQP” or “The Quiet Philanthropist.” To date, his half-a-billion peso donation for housing construction to Typhoon Sendong victims in Cagayan de Oro a while back remains as the biggest ever by an individual donor in any calamity of all time.
The examples of Ty and RSA are really worth emulating. I know there are also others out there doing their own share and to them, I say, keep on loving—till it hurts.
Tribe increase
YEAR in and year out, I pray and hope that their tribe will increase. I know God has heeded my pleas. I had the luck to have seen some who got rich and shared their “loot” to our less-fortunate brethren. Happily, consistently, they don’t publicize their good deeds—unlike the Pharisees of old who bandied their righteousness while the klieg lights were on.
And while Ty had seemingly immersed himself to education uplift, RSA appears to have trained his gun on infrastructure.
To date, RSA, the humble San Miguel Corp. (SMC) president, has earmarked a whopping P205-billion budget centering on roads, such as expressways, both around the four airport terminals in Pasay City and off it, as in state-of-the-art freeways going up North in Laoag City and traversing down South all the way to, hopefully, Mindanao.
The airport’s first phase from Skyway terminals 1 and 2 to Pagcor Entertainment City is already in operation, including the project’s Naia phase 2 that was opened just very recently.
The heart of the Naia Expressway is a four-lane, 7.75-kilometer elevated road and a 2.22-km at-grade feeder road from Naia Terminals 1, 2 and 3 leading to Skyway and the Manila-Cavite Expressway—tremendously easing traffic there.
SMC’s Boracay Airport
AND then there is that SMC Boracay Airport in Caticlan, which can now accommodate larger aircraft for Boracay-bound tourists numbering by a million or so each year. Another terminal is expected to be built there in two years—to the eternal delight of President Duterte.
While we weren’t looking, the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) has now reached Binalonan, Pangasinan. By early 2017, the final TPLEx exit in Rosario, La Union, shall have been completed.
RSA is also in the thick of preparations to build the P45-billion Skyway Stage 3 connecting the South and North Luzon expressways. And this is not to say that, with the present dispensation’s high trust rating on RSA, the SMC mogul might yet dig ground soon for the Slex extension from Santo Tomas, Batangas, all the way to Legazpi City. That will be the day, indeed.
Happy New Year!
PEE STOP The eighth Boeing 777-300ER of the Philippine Airlines arrived in Manila last December 13, completing PAL’s 777 fleet. With a fleet of 81 airplanes, PAL plans to fly to new destinations in 2017, including new routes from Clark starting last December 16. Cielo Villaluna, Eya Prospero and Pinky Mag-iba said the 777 delivery team included Second Officer Arthur Andrew Biyo, Capt. Royce Alexander Piczon, Laly Paz, PAL manager-aircraft cabin development; Capt. Leo Ezquiel Bernabe; First Officer Rodelio Gabriel, Ryan James Manuel, senior ATS; Roderick Briones, Caap inspector; Edwin Gandia, LTP inspector; Peter Gindap, LTP flight mechanic; and Ceasar Jimenez Jr., Caap inspector.
Image credits: bilyonaryo.com , Bloomberg.com
1 comment
Title/heading of the article is deceiving, at the least melodramatic. Everyone knows their is a huge business and tax advantage to corporate giving.