Airline crew good only at dancing

A Catholic priest, who’s supposed to be more understanding of ordinary mortals’ shortcomings, is very angry at Cebu Pacific Air because of its inefficiency in handling passengers on its plane that met an accident at the Davao airport recently.

Fr. Joel Tabora, Ateneo de Davao University president, was so angered at what he called the  “insensitivity” and “ineptness” of the crew of the Cebu Pacific plane that he has called for a boycott of the airline.

After the jetliner landed on a grassy area off the runway of the airport, the plane crew were apparently so shocked they didn’t know what to do and just froze in their tracks.

In an emergency, every second counts; lives are lost when these few precious seconds are wasted.

But the Cebu Pacific crew apparently didn’t have any training or was poorly trained in dealing with a crisis situation.

If that plane had caught fire, all the people on board would have been killed because the crew panicked.

The airline management should teach its flight stewardesses how to deal with emergencies instead of doing dance steps in front of passengers during their flights.

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Why did the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issue a permit to Investwell Mineral Development Corp., a firm owned by a Malaysian national, to mine iron ore in Jose Panganiban, Camarines Sur province?

Doesn’t DENR Secretary Ramon Paje know that Investwell has been linked to illegal mining operations?

When Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo was still alive, he forbade Investwell to operate in Bicol after he was told that the firm was allegedly using heavy equipment and explosives in areas where small-scale mining and only Filipinos are allowed.

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The three San Juan City cops who “planted” drugs on Michaela Joy Reyes, a 23-year-old mother of two, would be charged under a law that penalizes cops who frame innocent citizens with life imprisonment.

That’s what Director Leonardo Espina, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), told me when I asked him if he would pursue criminal charges against the cops, aside from the summary dismissal cases they are facing.

The three—SPO1 Pablo Selloriquez, PO3 Erich Joel Temporal and PO3 Jayvin Pangilinan—had earlier been disarmed and reassigned to a unit that handles problem cops.

Espina said the trio were also facing charges of illegal arrest, acts of lasciviousness (for mashing the woman), physical injuries, slander, robbery (for confiscating  P13,500 form Reyes, which was has not been returned) and trespassing.

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Gabriela, the party-list that claims to champion the rights of women, has been unusually quiet since Michaela Joy’s plight first appeared in this space last Saturday.

Gabriela’s silence is deafening.

The party-list, which won a seat in the recently concluded elections, was noisy in backing up comedienne Ai Ai delas Alas who complained of being a battered wife.

But Michaela Joy is not a celebrity, so Gabriela ignores her complaint.