Punchline
The PUNCH is guilty
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
OK 2010, here we go!
In deference to our people’s wish to celebrate Jesus Christ’s birthday in a festive mood, I’ve held my peace over the past 2 weeks even as my favorite ex-mayor Benjie Lim ranted about his failed “landmark” projects. I certainly didn’t want to be a party-pooper on his account but now that the celebration is done, it’s time to call a spade a spade again!
Firstly, I nearly fell off my chair when he tried to clear his soiled hands off the failed sanitary landfill in the city by blaming the media. Duh? If Mr. Lim meant exposing the wheeling and dealing that he, as city mayor, aggressively orchestrated to get his landfill project paid with an atrocious price, at the expense of the city, the first of the series of scams during his administration, then the PUNCH takes the honor and privilege of being the first to plead guilty.
It’s obvious that he thinks Dagupeños have such short memory that he had the temerity and the gall to even pledge the revival the failed landfill project that cost the city a cool P16 million down the drain much of it finding their way in our former city officials’ pockets. For this pledge alone, I certainly hope Dagupan voters are forewarned on what to expect from another Lim administration if he should take it upon himself to start another landfill project.
So I’ll let Mr. Lim himself refresh everyone’s brain cells by explaining the dubious circumstances that led to the city’s loss of P9 million in overprice and eventually ownership of the 30-hectare land in San Jacinto.
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Firstly, why and how did his business associate Jose Mariano Cuña become the overnight surprise owner of the land in Barangay Awai to whom the city paid a lot more than the P30 per sq. m commercial value of the 30 hectare land. Was it a case of coincidence? Try again.
Secondly, why did his administration rush the negotiation with his business associate knowing all along that the tenants of the land had a pending complaint before the Department of Agrarian Reform? Today, thanks to him and his cabal of corrupt onor-onors in the city council, the city government has completely lost its right of ownership over the land because the Lim administration surreptitiously defaulted in its defense before the arbiter of CARP. Yes, the city government lost it without a fight, thanks to the Lim administration.
Thirdly, why didn’t he, representing the city as new owner, present a defense for the retention of ownership of the land? Why wasn’t even the city council alerted about it? Or was it? If so, who was guilty of dereliction of duty? But he insults Dagupeños’ intelligence today by taking the Fernandez administration instead to task for not pursing the landfill project in San Jacinto that he initiated. Omigosh!
Fourthly, who in the city government during his incumbency shared in the landfill loot? Was his vice mayor, now Mayor Al’s city administrator, part of the cabal? And pray tell, Mr. Lim, how much did each of your loyal onor-onors get? Here’s your chance to get even.
Yes, Mr. Lim, go ahead and blame the PUNCH for your failed landfill project, make my day! But explain first!
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THE LESSER EVIL. Mr. Lim has every right to attempt and reclaim his lost throne. He prides to be the performer when compared to re-electionist Mayor Al Fernandez. Perhaps so.
It was Mr. Lim who summarily cleared sidewalks of hawkers and vendors. He certainly set order in the city streets. He succeeded in marketing the city with the label “the bangus capital of the world”. He initiated the groundwork that raised the city’s level of preparedness in times of calamity.
In contrast, Mr. Lim wants to point out that Mayor Al was an absentee mayor in the city hall, who left the city to be run by his son, Alvin, as city administrator, while he was busy developing his fish farm. In short, Mayor Al failed to perform as hands-on mayor.
So, in fairness to Mr. Lim, lets hear it from Mayor Al how he matched or outdid Mr. Lim’s “performance”. (Notably, Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez has been doing a yeoman’s job filling in the seeming slack with her own public service advocacies in the name of the Al Fernandez administration. He can start or end with that).
But in fairness to Mayor Al, too, he already made known early on that the city government was literally penniless when he took over from Mr. Lim and, therefore, had no resources to match the “legacy” of Mr. Lim, i.e., building the most expensive public market that has become a burden to the city government since his time buying one useless overpriced brand new dredging machine and negotiating the purchase of the MC Adore Hotel for conversion to a modern city hall that never was.
For now, what Mayor Al has to account to Dagupenos is the mayhem in the streets with the occupation of sidewalks by vendors in every nook and cranny, the proliferation of illegal fish pens and existence of illegal gambling to name a few. Not a few city hall employees have also grumbled about the policies of his city administrator that affected morale and efficiency in the bureaucracy.
Our columnist, Gonz D, who delights in playing with fire in the city hall, I’m afraid, is correct in his impression that, indeed, the Dagupan mayoral election has been reduced to an election of the lesser evil.
But I’m sure, he’s also always happy to be proven wrong.
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PNP’S SMOKING GUNS. Someone ought to tell the PNP brass to stop making a spectacle of themselves in public showing how they cover the muzzle of cops’ firearms (with tape). The gesture, while it makes a good photo op for media, only serves to give public the impression that today’s cops cannot be trusted enough to obey their superiors’ legal orders.
If the PNP brass wants to impress public with its policy of accountability, what they should do instead is subject firearms of cops in particular stations to ballistic tests if a victim has been reported to have been shot by a stray bullet in their jurisdiction then announce what action had been taken against the erring cops.
This PR gimmickry undermines the integrity of their own organization.
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The PUNCH again congratulates Usec. Bebot Villar for that added feather in his cap, as chair of the Dangerous Drugs Board. I only wonder why it took PGMA this long to know that he is the right man for the job.
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