[Rappler’s Best] Sarangani, not your senators’ antics, needs your attention

We’ll accept any help…we need everything, Gerlita Wata told our reporters John Sitchon and Jelo Mantaring who spent a week in Sarangani, which was worst hit by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that jolted many parts of Mindanao on June 8. It’s been two weeks since, and students in the province have yet to go back to school. Here’s how to help.

The principal of an elementary school, Gerlita showed us her makeshift office that contained what they were able to retrieve from the school. It’s not much; their sole printer was broken. Over a hundred schools in the province alone suffered from major damage. Here’s a situationer.

The earthquake shook an already fragile public school system and rattled a government infrastructure roadmap already wounded by a massive corruption scandal. 

• In Barangay Poblacion in Glan, the tent city is now bursting with evacuees, forcing many locals to simply live outside their homes. They’re among some 13,000 residents seeking new shelters in the town of Glan alone. Know more about them in this report.
• Villages in Glan are in ruins, as John’s story shows us. Life is on hold because work has been at a standstill, says Mary Jane Origenes. 
• And then there’s the coastal uplift after the earthquake, which extended the shoreline and pushed the seabed to rise by as much as two meters. This impacts not only the livelihood of fisherfolk, but of beach resort owners as well. Watch Jelo tell us more in this story.
• Why does the sea seem to vanish after a strong earthquake? Learn more about coastal uplift here.

Watching images of people and villages devastated by the earthquake, I wonder what’s in the heads of senators who won on the back of the Mindanao vote, but who continue to spend time acting out in the session hall, making false narratives that fit the algorithms of lies, and just turning themselves into wrecking crews. A visit here and a relief mission there does not give justice to the Mindanao vote — if all of that is a mere tactic bent on widening the political divide. Then again, perhaps that’s how the Duterte senators are understanding the situation, that by harping on the divide, they’re catering to a base that’s beyond conversion.

Which is why many believe that the peace at the Senate in the aftermath of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano’s concession and the assumption of Senator Sherwin Gatchalian as Senate president is fleeting.

• Last month, we said that Senator Chiz Escudero offered his bloc (with senators Joel Villanueva, the now detained Jinggoy Estrada, and the Villar siblings) to the minority bloc so that it can oust Cayetano, who was Senate president then. In exchange, Escudero asked to be Senate president. What happened, according to insiders, were negotiations that got deadlocked on term-sharing between Escudero and Gatchalian. Escudero, however, wanted to go first, as presiding officer of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte. The then-minority bloc rejected the idea. 
• But what did we witness? Escudero eventually saved the day for the Gatchalian bloc by providing the needed one vote for a quorum that revamped the Cayetano leadership. 
• And so they’re back to where they left off, only this time Escudero seems to be getting his wish — that while he is not Senate president, he would be presiding over the Duterte trial. An anti-corruption bloc is aghast at the thought, a most imperfect choice, they said.

Pre-trial proceedings of the Sara Duterte case at the Senate began last week. Why is a pre-trial important? Listen to constitutional lawyer John Molo. But don’t let how smooth it’s been so far to deceive you. The coming weeks and months in the Senate will be rocky as they are unpredictable. No rest for the wicked. 😣

Here are some of Rappler’s bests that you shouldn’t miss:

Jodesz Gavilan exposes yet another US property associated with former speaker and presidential cousin Martin Romualdez, fitting a pattern of layering. 

Mario Aurelio explains why the coast is uplifted after an earthquake. 

Jonathan Malaya, former assistant director-general of the National Security Council, argues that a Chinese base at Bajo de Masinloc would “effectively support a chokehold over the Luzon Strait and the maritime approaches to Manila and Subic.”

Iya Gozum tackles the lessons that need to be learned from what we have witnessed in less than four weeks: buildings crumbling to the ground. 

Complaint vs Teodoro seeks answers to ‘lingering questions’ on past Maltese citizenship

After 11 years, Mary Jane Veloso finally gives testimony vs recruiters

Scientists identify 64,000 square miles of coral reef capable of surviving climate crisis

World View with Marites Vitug: What drives Europe’s strategic interest in PH

How Mindanao’s coffee farmers reclaimed their place on the world stage

– Rappler.com

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