Punchline
Hubris
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THE smoldering enmity between Dagupan city hall and the city council has turned from bad to worse. Blame it on the propensity of Mayor Benjie Lim to push the envelope too far in his evident desire to show who’s boss in the city.
From where I sit, it was plain hubris on his part that caused the city to operate on a reenacted budget. The needless power play that he triggered by his decision early on to bar department heads from appearing in council sessions and investigative hearings in aid of legislation will likely result in more unwarranted inefficiency in governance.
All the name-calling he has whipped up to cover-up his main agenda –to make a rubber stamp out of the city council – ironically only served to unmask his own political insecurity. There is no way he can justify his predilection to make his own rules without regard to what is provided by law.
Paraphrasing the local government code (Section 444, Article 1, Chapter 3), it clearly states that the city mayor should be responsible to the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) for the program of government…to provide such information and data needed or requested by the sanggunian in the performance of its legislative functions.
If Mayor Benjie refuses to allow the city’s department heads to help the city council understand the budget he presented, how, indeed, can the latter be expected to act and pass approval on the budget? In this regard, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know and understand that provision in the law that specifies the process by which a budget is approved unless you are Mayor Benjie. My favorite mayor obviously wants nothing but complete submission by the city council to his whims, circa 2001-2006, and reinstate his notorious “onor-onor” (rubberstamp) council.
For him, therefore, to simply ascribe the failure of the city to operate based on an annual budget to the city council’s “laziness, irresponsibility and callousness” is hypocritical and the height of arrogance on his part.
Mayor Benjie is doing the city a great disservice something that those who elected him this year to give him another chance at political glory (after suffering a political debacle in 2007) don’t deserve.
Shame, shame shame.
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For its part, the city council, in spite of Councilor Brian Lim (mayor’s son) and perhaps Councilors Red Erfe-Mejia, Chester Rosario, Guillermo Vallejos (all Lim’s allies), it is finally showing a semblance of independence for the right reason.
The sanggunian, as mandated by law, is the people’s main hope for an effective check and balance in governance. People have reason to fear once a sanggunian becomes a rubber stamp. A co-opted sanggunian is the first indicator of corruption in government.
While a sanggunian is also expected to support the town’s/city’s chief executive, the support it must extend must be based on merits and urgency required to effect good governance. It must not default in its mandate to probe and ask questions to protect the people’s interests.
A sanggunian, on the other hand, that operates mainly on political lines or expediency is no better than an onor-onor council a profile I know that does not apply to the Dagupan City council at this time.
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SAVING THEIR LIVES. If the rash of violence over the holidays is any indication, it is the provincial police command that seems to be losing the war against guns-for-hire murder syndicates.
Our ill-equipped and undermanned police are now at the receiving end of the killers whom they have has vowed to put out of business. No doubt the unprovoked shooting of an Urdaneta cop by the motorcycle-riding killers sends a chilling warning to our would-be protectors, and to us helpless public. If the police can’t protect themselves, who will protect us?
The deteriorating peace and order in the province can no longer be helped by the police’s two-strike policy imposed on police chiefs in whose jurisdiction murder cases are not solved in 60 days. It would have worked if police presence was enough to ward off murderers. But today, such a policy will now only serve to further weaken and send the police in disarray. Imagine a number of police chiefs being relieved while their uniformed personnel are being waylaid with impunity. That’s a double whammy for a police force that needs to be strengthened and supported in the face of a group of phantom hardcore murderers who kill targets for a measly P20,000.
The situation urgently calls for an out-of-the-box solution. The usual “Everything is under control” police response no longer catches any worm. If the war has to be won, the local government units can no longer take the back seat simply waiting for results to be delivered.
The task ahead calls for the pro-active involvement for Guv Spines, the mayors and barangay kapitans, not as armchair generals but as a cohesive unit collaborating with the police.
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The only reason why the highly mobile hired killers continue to be elusive as they easily dispose of their targets is because their pursuers, the police, are clearly identifiable and predictable. They know too well that other than our men in blue, no one stands in their way!
So it’s time to pull out plan B – the activation of the executives of LGUs, the peace warriors, as second frontliners in the campaign. They make for effective invisible pursuers who can help corner these mad killers.
The strategy is all too simple – create a high level of awareness in their respective communities about the possible presence of motorcycle riding strangers, the would be killers, in their midst. A pre-arranged communication alert signal for a quick response police action about the presence of strangers, should be enough to limit the killers’ movements inside the province. (This strategy presents a rare opportunity to justify the imprudent distribution of the shotguns to the kapitans).
The local executives will just have to pitch in because the next lives they save may be their own.
