The Overseas Filipinos must “reinvent” the sending of relief supplies or donations and disaster relief itself. Once again, after a major natural calamity in the wake of Typhoon Frank, many Overseas-Filipino organizations are gathering relief supplies and/or raising funds to send either to the National Disaster Coordinating Council (as coursed through Philippine diplomatic posts), the Philippine National Red Cross or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Ayala Foundation, the Gawad Kalinga and other private entities. But it seems that there is no coordinated system of response, no synchronized way of handling the relief funds and/or supplies. The response of the Philippine national government itself is so slow, as Sen. Nene Pimentel has complained. In fact, Senator Pimentel traces the “slow response of the ‘Imperial Manila’ to calamities traced to flawed system of government.”

Veteran observers of the Arroyo Dispensation, especially members of the Filipino Fourth Estate and the Filipino-American press, do not find amusing the latest misadventure of the Philippine President, especially since it happened in the United States. She tried to seek an audience with Sen. Barack H. Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee.