Punchline
Fund-raising for 2013
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THE fund raising for the 2013 election has started. Watch Dagupan Mayor Benjie Lim.
He already awarded the bid for the construction of the initial phase of the ridiculous Tsunami Hill for P4 million even without an approval from the sanggunian, in clear violation of the local government code. Then he reportedly also awarded last week the bid for the controversial primary hospital that will displace the Juan P. Guadiz Elementary School for P43 million without a go-signal from the DepEd! And there’s more! Mr. Lim is now asking the city council to give him another P10.6 M as supplemental budget ostensibly for the Bangus Festival.
Let me see…who was it that told me that to win the mayoralty, a candidate must spend at least P50 M! A councilor candidate needs P10 M!
My calculator says, the city needs to spend another P25 M to reach the target campaign fund. Right, Mr. Lim?
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WHAT MIGHTY 8? What makes Mr. Lim and City Administrator Vlad Mata so brazen as to award the city’s money to their favorite contractors like they were dispensing money from their personal ATM accounts? It’s truly amazing how the duo has been able to move deliberately albeit illegally under the very noses of the Mighty 8 in the city council in whose hands supposedly rests the city’s welfare. Even more amazing is how the Mighty 8 suddenly became afflicted with paralysis of the mind and body, unable to stop the foray of the duo into the city’s coffers for every conceivable reason.
If we go by the series of illegal disbursements that the city hall managed for the duo’s activities, it is becoming evident that the two, indeed, could have a tight stranglehold on the city council’s Mighty 8. Note that After Councilor Alfie Fernandez made it appear two years ago that the Mighty 8 would take up the dare of Councilor Brian Lim to sue his father, the Mighty 8 just went pffft just as quickly while some laughed all the way to the bank. Tsk-tsk. The same pattern was observed in succeeding schemes conjured by the duo.
Now comes Councilor Alfie’s prediction that the P10.6 supplemental budget requested by BSL will not be approved, to which I can almost hear Mr. Lim say: “Ya wanna bet?”
Gosh, are we already seeing the resurrection of the Onor-onors in the city council? Let’s see what the Mighty Pffft…ooops Mighty 8…will do about the Tsunami Hill, the hospital and the supplemental budget. Who knows, the Mighty 8 might still see a chance and a reason to redeem themselves.
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HELP 1,000 PUPILS, NOT 20 EXPECTANT MOTHERS. There are a million and one reasons that the Mighty 8 can invoke if they want to stop the railroading of the 4-storey, 20-bed primary hospital that will effectively cost the city an obscene P1.791 million for each bed! The question is will they have the stomach for it?
For starters, P43 M can deliver 23 new classrooms if DPWH’s cost formula is used, or 46-48 classrooms if the former Sta. Barbara Mayor Rey Velasco’s formula is adopted.
Assuming the city council finds merits in ex-Mayor Velasco’s formula, the city can already have 23 new classrooms to benefit a minimum of 1,000 pupils daily who otherwise have no options (instead of 20 pregnant women who have at least 6 options) and still spend P18 M for the provision of computer laboratories in all city schools, completely wired for internet. And to ensure that the city’s kids get quality teaching form the crop of professionals manning the classrooms, P2 M will make a difference for the teachers’ retraining all year round while P1.5 M can send deserving students to full scholarship in private universities in the city.
I believe these are enough reasons alone for DepEd Sec. Armin Luistro to block the Lim-Mata conspiracy and prod the city government instead to use the funds it suspiciously and desperately wants to spend to help upgrade educational facilities in the city. Perhaps, the school superintendent and principals would be more courageous to fight for the plight of the city’s kids!
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HERE WE GO AGAIN. No matter how I look at it, I still cannot understand the justification for a P43 M primary hospital in an urban setting like the city that hosts 1 regional hospital and at least 5 private hospitals, all fully equipped and staffed.
A primary hospital is normally urgently needed in a place where there are no tertiary hospitals and I cannot see how this can apply to a city like Dagupan.
Secondly, there are no reports of high incidence of childbirth (whether mother or child) deaths in any of the city’s hospitals, so one can only wonder how and why the Lim-Mata partnership believe that the city is in dire need of a 4-storey primary hospital for 20 beds!
This brings to mind what Mr. Lim told the city nine years ago why the Malimgas Market needed 3 floors to operate. He said a parking space is needed to serve the hundreds of car owners who will flock to the market. To this day, and ever since the Malimgas Market was inaugurated, the 3rd floor was never occupied! So what was the 3rd floor for? Obviously, it was to justify a higher construction costs for you know what!
And here we go again!
Today, the Lim-Mata conspiracy insists the hospital must have 4 (not 3, not 2) floors for the 20 beds! If for some reason the Mighty 8 again thinks it’s a reasonable proposition, then all is lost to the new set of onor-onors!
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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The “urgent” needs for the hospital that the Lim-Mata conspiracy wants to serve can actually be served even better by existing services, courtesy of PhilHealth! To insist on a primary hospital and displace a school, at this time is actually an indictment of the government’s PhilHealth program, a position I know is unacceptable to the PNoy administration.
And this is where I expect PhilHealth to come forward with – to tell the city government that PhilHealth is in a position to render service where the city thinks it is needed most.
So unless and until the Lim-Mata conspiracy can convince PhilHealth and DepEd Sec. Luistro that the P1.7 M per hospital bed is primordial over education and what PhilHealth can provide, I pray someone in the city council would have the courage soon to say: “Enough is enough!” and will act stop the frenzy looting of the city’s coffers.
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FIGHTING PLAGIARISM. I wish to commend my fellow editors and publishers in the province for taking concrete steps to finally end the culture of plagiarism in our midst. I have noted that the “columnists” whose attention we called have stopped “contributing” after their weekly “work” was exposed as products of plagiarism.
I hope my colleagues are already warning teachers as well who have their work published in their publications for “promotion” purposes that plagiarism has no place in their pages. I’m certain they agree that we cannot have teachers who have no qualms about plagiarism to look after the education of our kids and grandchildren.
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SEAT FOR TWO. The tricycle and padyak have been with us for the past 5 decades. And everyone knows that the only way to ride in one comfortably is to sit alone inside the cab. Why? Because the cab was designed for a single passenger only!
But wonder of all wonders, the commuters merely accept the situation that for two passengers to feel cramped inside the cab is as normal as walking under the sun, feeling the simmering heat on your skin. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Why walk under the sun when you can don’t have to? Why ride a single cab when you can choose to pick a two-seater cab?
But first, someone should manufacture a two-seater cab! I believe that such a cab will be a hit in no time, leaving the single cabs eating their dust.
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