JHMC Holy Week, pilots gone mad plus faulty congressmen

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

The John Hay Management Corporation has lined up its own activities for the Holy Week to be held at the Bell Amphitheatre from March 28 to April 5, 2015. Dubbed “Spiritual Journey at the Camp”, the line of events is in partnership with the John Hay Business Club and Ayala Technohub.

On these dates John Hay will hold Public Masses, Stations of the Cross, Veneration of the Black Nazarene and a camp-wide Easter Egg hunt on Easter Sunday from 8:00AM to 11:00AM. The public is invited. Registration for the Easter Egg Hunt will be at Mile-Hi and Ayala Technohub. See you there.     

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Remember the song popularized by Dionne Warwick that goes: “Going out of my head over you … day and night, night and day and night, wrong or right. I see you each morning. But you just walk past me, you don't even know that I exist.” It came back to me while watching on TV the mystery about the recent plane crash on a mountainside in the French Alps.

French and German security officials found no indication that anyone on board had links to terrorism. They revealed that German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was normal during the last moments of Germanwings Flight 9525 but denied that he committed suicide. This was because he took 149 other people to their deaths with him, and so this was not suicide. Other than that, there is another word, they said.

Okay, if it was not suicide then maybe he went “nuts”, as suggested by other analysts. Based on a study conducted for the aviation industry and published in 2014; out of 2,758 aviation accidents recorded 2003 to 2012, only eight were determined to be suicides. The pilots of all the flights were male, four of whom were heavy drinkers like some Filipino pilots I know, and two were taking antidepressant drugs at the time of the crash.

One case involved a pilot who had a history of depression and at least one suicide attempt during his lifetime. The unidentified pilot took off from the runway then the plane headed straight down to the ground shortly after. There was no other explanation except that the pilot went nuts during take-off.

Another case involving a 47-year-old student pilot who was in a custody dispute took off in a small Cessna 150 with a child passenger. The report said the plane flew for more than an hour, headed back for the airport, took a steep dive and crashed into the pilot’s ex-mother-in-law’s house. The pilot went crazy.

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Lately, former congressman Bernardo M. Vergara along with 15 other individuals were under preliminary investigation for alleged violations of various election laws in relation to the 2013 polls. The Comelec Law Department filed charges against Vergara, his press relations officer, the Baguio City Treasurer and unnamed CTO personnel, other individuals including PNoy’s aunt Margarita Cojuangco in five separate cases before the Comelec en banc.

This means that it is not only Baguio Congressman Nick Aliping who is facing court charges for violating environmental laws. Recently also, the prosecutor who was assigned at the Benguet Prosecutors Office to handle the environment case against Aliping endorsed the same to the Ombudsman. 

In case the Office of the Ombudsman recommends suspension and finally hands down a verdict, we may have a city with no congressman. By now, some politicians are toying with the idea about who could be possible congressional candidates in 2016. Of course, there are a lot of them in waiting such as businessman Mark Go, lawyers Edgar Avila and PablitoSanidad, soon to retire Judge Del Claravall, councilors PoppoCosalan and Leandro Yangot, and not to discount Mayor Domogan who might suddenly decide to take back his seat in congress, and maybe even Joe Molintas.

By the way, in fairness to Aliping, he said he moved for the deferment of HB 4976 that proposed for the segregation of three hectares of Forbes Park for the housing of a favored group. He did this in consideration of the opinion of the DENR that Forbes Park is a critical water source for Baguio, and after Domogan earlier asked him to withdraw the bill. At least, Aliping and Domogan, unlike the pilots who have gone nuts, are getting back their right senses.