Peque Gallaga blasts PNoy in Facebook rant, calls gov’t ‘impotent and incompetent’

Peque Gallaga. (Rhoy Cobilla)

Add Peque Gallaga to growing voices of discontent over what is increasingly perceived as slow delivery of aid to victims of typhoon Yolanda.

In a lengthy rant posted on his Facebook account Thursday under the pseudonym Nelson Bakunawa, the mercurial filmmaker lashed out at Malacañang for “self-servicing press releases” that tell a different story from the reality of the situation in the south.

“What our leaders tell us is contradicted by the reports from international commentators who are understandably more objective and growing less dispassionate as they witness the horrors around them… And the reality is that people are starving. The dead still lie on the streets even five days after the event. There are anguished souls scavenging for whatever they can to survive, as well as professional looters ambushing the helpless and relief caravans. It’s a war zone out there,” he wrote in the statement that went viral when it was reposted in Facebook as well as in several blog sites including CorrectPhilippines.org.

A native of Bacolod City, which also happens to be one of the hardest hit areas of the super typhoon, the 70-year-old Gallaga further decried the seeming inability of the country’s leaders “to serve the needs of the nation”.

“I don’t think that anybody, even the most criminal politician, can be that hard-hearted and close his eyes to this calamity so I can only surmise that they don’t know what to do. That they are impotent and incompetent. I am 70 years old and I don’t know what to do, but then again, I didn’t run for office promising the voters that I would take care of national concerns,” he pointed out.

Gallaga then noted that he has done his share in giving what he can to the relief effort and now wants to make sure my hard-earned money will reach its intended goal. He then trained his guns on Vice President Mar Roxas and ABS-CBN news anchor Ted Failon for not helping and instead engaging in photo op.

Also not spared from Gallaga’s ire is another ANS-CBN news anchor, Korina Sanchez, who recently described American journalist Anderson Cooper as “misinformed” after she disputed the latter’s report on the present state of Tacloban.

“Cooper was in Tacloban. Korina was not,” he argued.

The director known for his outspoken nature reserved his harshest remarks for President Noynoy Aquino, whom he described as “a uniquely unqualified man totally unprepared for the most difficult job in the country.”

“I can only rage against this man who claimed in a Christiane Amanpour interview that he couldn’t get to the disaster areas because the weather after the storm left didn’t permit him to fly. This is 24 hours after the sun was shining all over the Philippines by then. I can only rage against a man who made light of the tragedy, refusing to identify it as a major disaster; who made light of a victim of looting who was shot at by telling him, ‘But you did not die, right?’,” he snapped.

Gallaga went as far as to suggest that the slow relief efforts may even be politically motivated.

“I rage against a man who continually blames the LGU’s on the ground for their incompetence and their inefficiency because it is beginning to dawn on me that these Visayan LGU’s happen to be Romualdez people and this man is playing politics with people’s lives,” he further wrote.

The Romualdez that the director is referring is incumbent Tacloban City mayor Alfred Romualdez, son of the former mayor who is also the brother of former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, who hails from Tacloban.

Although Gallaga did not cite official reports, it seems like his strongly-worded pronouncements are based on international reporting of the ongoing disaster crisis. The New York Times in its November 13 report wrote that Aquino is now facing “the biggest challenge of his presidency” as “Filipinos are losing patience with the slow relief effort, increasingly angry with their president…”

In closing, Gallaga also addressed people who accuse him of “Aquino-bashing”, including close friends who accuse government detractors of not helping by criticizing.

“I don’t know how good these friends are at multi-tasking, but one does not cancel out the other. We can help and we can criticize. And at this point I am convinced that we do help when we criticize,” he shot back.

He also vowed to “unfriend” anyone “in Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, and out in our leaderless streets” who will ask him to stop bashing Aquino.

Comments on Gallaga’s rant have mostly been favorable.

Peque Gallaga blasts PNoy in Facebook rant, calls gov’t ‘impotent and incompetent’

Source: InterAksyon.com (November 15, 2013 at 09:21AM)

Continue...