Christmas in October

By Marifi Jara

We Pinoys pride ourselves in claiming that we have the longest Christmas celebration in the world.

As soon as September, the first ‘ber’month, sets in, radio stations and malls already start playing Christmas carols. And the countdown to December 25 starts.

Perhaps that’s the reason why our congressmen, governors and mayors were not disconcerted when one sunny day in the midst of October, after meeting with the President in Malacañang, gift bags containing wads of money were distributed to them.

An early Christmas gift! Why not? It’s the ‘ber’ months already, right?

Now indulge me with a little math exercise.

Let’s take a conservative assumption of P200,000 per congressman. Multiply that by 190, the number of reps reportedly present that day; that would be P38 million. At P500,000, that would be, hold your breath P95 million. Now add P500,00 each for the 48 governors who attended and various amounts ranging from P20,000 to 300,000 to the undetermined number of city and municipal mayors (the amount is varying because it is supposed to correspond to the size of the town or city).

So much moolah, indeed!

My initial thought is, imagine how far that could have come in terms of repairing public school classrooms, even building new ones, or buying books, or building decent comfort rooms for the school children, or buying chairs and tables to make learning more conducive, or maybe as an added incentive to primary and secondary public school teachers who are earning an average of less than P150,000 for a whole year of back-breaking and stressful work.

Ah, but of course, that money was not intended for educational development, or any development whatsoever. It was supposedly meant to woo support for the dismissal of the impeachment complaint against the top boss in Malacañang in the case of the reps. As for the local government leaders, for the barangay elections, or whatever way they feel best to spend it, after all, no one was going to account for it.

But what’s really funny is how now everyone is saying there is no such gift that went around.

And the denial comes even after Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco and Baguio City Representative Mauricio Domogan have admitted to it. And the most damning witness is, of course, Fr. Ed Panlilio, governor of Pampanga, the shining local government hero in the last May election. Bulacan’s governor, Joselito Mendoza, a political neophyte, has admitted his confusion over the matter and takes his cue from Fr. Ed.

Everybody wants to come clean now. But that would mean Cuenco, Domogan, Mendoza and Fr. Ed are lying.

Never mind the experienced politicians. And I don’t believe that all members of the Catholic Church hierarchy are incapable of lying. But in this case, I would bet my life on Fr. Ed’s honesty.

And I believe him not so much because he is a priest, but because I admire his courage. He’s a non-conformist. He has defied dogma. And despite knowing that the crusade towards moral ascendancy in government is rough and tough, he is putting up the fight.

Honesty is not a merry place in Philippine politics.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/roots/
Readers may reach columnist at marifijara@gmail.com . For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

 

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