Weary and in despair, Agapito (not his real name) narrated to us how he slowly rebuilt the roof of his very old mother's house in Central Philippines without a single nail or a single peso of help from anyone and from any government agency. Though at first he felt rather lucky that none of his relatives perished when Supertyphoon Haiyan struck...
Admittedly, it is a challenge for both the local government agencies, international aid & relief organizations and foreign government aid agencies - to ensure an equitable or even distribution of relief and rehabilitation resources and efforts to...
But what so dishearten them all in his village, he laments, is a near-decade of bad governance as they think the local chief executive (Mayor) minded only how to enrich himself and not just recover his election vote-buying expenditures. He never embarked on any infrastructure improvements, as he amassed wealth rather fast affording his family to buy several vehicles in a short period of time (a phenomenon so common in the Philippines, anyway)...
This blog is under development and our lives are some danger... We are actually under some clandestine persecution right now but nothing stops us... A courage and risk we're taking as nothing stops the severely corrupt local officials from trying their most ingenious means to steal or profit from even charity money for their constituents, the very ones they deprived of much development funds over the years, including disaster-mitigation funds...
It's so big a shame for us Filipinos to do nothing as many volunteers who live comfortable lives in their paradise-like communities or countries help to mitigate not only the devastation caused by natural disasters here but by man-instigated or man-exacerbated disasters...
We invite you all to share us stories of destruction caused by corruption in your villages, towns, cities and districts... We need your help. You can help. And we all can help beyond superficial level - that we are all guilty of as we simply shrug-off reports of corruption... Corruption that kills...
Thank you.
Ernest Barraquias Jr.
Rian Igos
We aim to help save at least 99 lives a year in the next ten years. How? By a number of creative & innovative, but simple & doable means we have thought of and will try to use to achieve phenomenal success - 'phenomenal' here means helping save at least 99 lives over ten years. As Rian Igos & I, Ernest Barraquias Jr shouts: "We can if we care to act"
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