By Nora Soriño
ILIGAN City ― There are several voices now being heard in the city. There’s the voice of city info officer Jose Pantoja saying that they are not quite all right at the local Inter-Agency Task Force.
Because for one, after the Incident Commander Fire Marshal Butch Baulete has stopped being so due to transfer of assignment, the OIC Commander now is Dr. Belinda “Bunz” Lim who too is the manager of the Emergency Health Cluster Operations Center. Even as she too is the acting city health officer.
So, when she presides over the meetings of the local IATF here, several members of the said “team” do not show up. Meaning, they don’t like Lim and that “they” want her replaced, Pantoja said further. Even as the Philippine Information Agency is dragged into the fray as Pantoja says that said agency’s job is only “to assist” in the matter of information re this city.
Lim on her part, when asked about the matter, said: “no comment” although she said there's “nothing wrong” with this local IATF.
Therefore residents here are in “wonder” attitude. I mean, city folks are wondering what is happening here?
It seems therefore that even with the city “warring” against this Covid thing, they at the IATF are at war. With themselves!
Lim too for her part says that the IATF is meeting two times a week. Implying of course that she is the one who is presiding over these meetings.
Residents are wondering now where is the mayor in all these? Why has he hasn’t spoken about all these happenings? Some are even wondering whether the city still has a mayor as he couldn’t be seen now or heard. Has he become mute or deaf through all this, the “wonderers” further ask.
It was learned too that “he doesn't have a mobile phone.” What? The “wonderers” are further bewildered.
Of course, city mayor Celso G. Regencia was the one who signed Executive Order 88 which among other things placed the city under “color coding.” Which provided that residents cannot go out if the code of the barangay in which he lives does not correspond to the color to which the barangay is assigned. Although there are exceptions.
And “there will be no movements during Sundays.”
Of which many residents do not follow and many are asking, “in that case where’s the ayuda?” This was for the period May 1 to 31. Although the city is still under the GCQ or General Community Quarantine.
Maybe mayor CGR still has a voice. Maybe it is a “silent voice.” Just like a deep ocean, which “run silent, run deep.”
But is there such a thing as a “silent voice?” And maybe, there is. For I can recall a song which partly says: “I hear the silent voices/ those endless silent voices/ and when the night gets longer/ I hear them getting stronger/ until they’re tearing me apart!”
Frankly the song makes me wonder further. Joining the other “wondering” voices.
Email: norasorino2@gmail.com
