By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
If you haven’t scolded every subordinate in the office, shouted at your family and neighbors, cursed at traffic enforcers and fellow drivers along EDSA, or dropped dead from the heat index the past week, then brace yourself for this week.
The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) has repeatedly warned us about dehydration, heat stroke, and heat exhaustion due to the punishing summer heat. But this week, the heat index is rising to fatally dangerous levels.
Heat index is not just the temperature but the measure of how hot our surroundings feel when humidity and other factors are considered. So, imagine what 52 degrees Celsius would feel like.
Apart from the usual warning you get from your friendly state weather bureau, Firing Line advises you to watch your temper. Consider that the people around you might not be the ones that really make your blood boil.
Except, perhaps, the security guard we saw on Tiktok with Sen. Cynthia Villar.
Capital of double standard
Over the weekend, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin insisted that no country has the right to interfere in its relationship with Russia, chiding comments from Washington questioning the sincerity of wanting peace in Ukraine.
Look who’s talking!
The Philippines has invoked the same rights to maintain its long-standing partnerships with the United States amid years of protests and diplomatic efforts to tell China to leave our West Philippine Sea alone and in peace.
Beijing, the capital of double standard!
Get Mayo first
Mayor Benjamin Magalong of Baguio City — a highly respected former general in the Philippine National Police — has contradicted Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos’s assertion of a cover-up in the arrest and release of rogue anti-narcotics cop, ex-Master Sergeant Rodolfo Mayo Jr.
Magalong claimed to have conducted his own inquiry and questioned PNP Chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. and former Drug Enforcement Group chief Brig. Gen. Narciso Domingo, to be certain that their actions did not betray their sworn duties to the law and the organization.
I think what’s important is to keep our eyes on the ball. Something wrong happened here, which is why north of 40 kilos of “shabu” has been pilfered from the P6.7-billion drug haul seized in Manila and why Mayo is now at large.
That has to be explained before anyone can reasonably exonerate anybody.
* * *
SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View. Read current and past issues of this column at https://www.thephilbiznews.com
