GMA's State Visit to the United States in the Midst of a Tragedy

With the recent visit of the President to the US, there are some opposition from her critics. The most vocal critics of the President said that she should have cancelled her state visit to the US because of the problems that she left in the country. the devastion of typhoon Frank is so vast that hundreds of people died and thousands of families left with no shelter. The estimated damages to infrastructure and agriculture already reach 4.5 billion pesos.

Another issue that the president should handled personally was the tragedy met by MV Princess of the Stars, the biggest ship by the Sulpicio Lines. The total passenger of the ship was 800 plus including the crews. As of this moment, there are only 50 plus who were able to survive from the tragedy. Although rescuers from the PCG and Navy still continue to search for possible survivors but according to them the possibility is very nill. The US already sent their help by sending 2 ships to help in the rescue operations. One of the ship is the US Ronald Reagan, a nuclear powered ship which was criticized by some senators especially Senator Biazon. He questioned the presence of the ship since according to him it violates some of the provisions in the constitution.

The number of fatalities is still increasing as more bodies are recovered from the ship. Some were recovered from nearby islands and some from other provinces including Masbate and Quezon Province. The bodies recovered were now moree than 100.

The main issue is why should the President still continue her state visit to the United States when she is badly needed by her people? Although some people may have the point in bringing up this issue. However, state visits are not that easy to cancel. The use of information technology also helped the President to do her obligations even outside of the country. She conducted several video conferencing with her cabinet secretaries to update her of the situation especially the MV Princess of the Stars tragedy. We can say that all of her cabinets and responsible government agencies are working to solve the problem and issues. At least we know that these government officials are working.


WE just hope that President GMA will bring back home more aid from the US to at least help those provinces hit by the typhoon and the families of the victims of the tragedy.