Punchline
Trapo Politics 101
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
HERE’S a letter reaction from Dagupan City Administrator Vlad Mata to our last week’s item on the scheduled State of the City Address (SOCA) being held outside of the sangguniang panglungsod’s regular session:
Dear Mr. Garcia, Jr.:
Borrowing your own word, it seems you “outdid” yourself when you insisted that the City Mayor would violate the law if he delivers his “state-of-the city address” outside of the Sangguniang Panlungsod session hall. We do not recall if you ever called the attention of then City Mayor Alipio F. Fernandez, Jr., and / or City Vice Mayor Belen T. Fernandez and the Sangguniang Panlungsod before or after the former delivered his SOCA at the Dagupan City People’s Astrodome on 26 January 2010, which, by the way, was his only SOCA during his three-year term, from 2007-2010. But if you did not, it was probably because you did not then see anything wrong with then local chief executive delivering his SOCA at the astrodome which comfortably accommodated the large number of invited guests.
Have you ever been inside the Sangguniang Panlungsod session hall? If you haven’t, then it is time you should be told that it has an undeniably inadequate space to accommodate the audience usually invited to the SOCA, which, by tradition and practice, necessarily includes, aside from the City Vice Mayor, city councilors, and the SP secretariat, representatives from the cross-section of the local populace, such as local government department heads and frontline division chiefs, heads of national government offices or agencies based in this city, the local mass media, leaders of the business community, leaders of civil society or nongovernmental organizations, barangay leaders, representatives of the city’s Sangguniang Kabataan, senior citizens’ councils, the academe, and many other concerned stakeholders.
Of course, like you, we cannot imagine the President of the Philippines delivering his state-of-the nation address at the Araneta Coliseum or anywhere outside the halls of Congress because, unlike the SP session hall, the session hall of the House of Representatives is precisely built to accommodate a large number of guests, aside from the members of both chambers.
Oh, yes, Mr. Garcia, when oh when will all your follies ever end?”
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My reply: Firstly, while I concede that there was, indeed, a precedent in holding the SOCA outside of the SP’s session hall there was a difference in the circumstances, and still, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a law that states what should be.
Secondly, I am sure the framers of the local government code were fully aware of the physical sizes of many if not most sanggunian session halls around the country, and still nothing was mentioned about taking exceptions to the rule that these can be held outside of the session halls to accommodate the town’s population. (Attention SP members!).
Thirdly, that I found nothing wrong then when City Mayor Al Fernandez delivered his SOCA outside of SP during his term was because it was made possible with the prior consent of the Sanggunian. This is the difference.
And fourthly, he is mistaken to think that I had not criticized Mayor Fernandez for failing to deliver his SOCA for two years since he assumed office in 2007 because I did.
But thank you Mr. Mata for helping call attention to the propensity of elected officials to do things contrary to law. I only wished you were more candid and pointed out in your letter that the Sanggunian had not stated its conformity at the time you made the announcement instead of extraneously justifying an obvious folly of the mayor (and yours?). If you had, I would have readily eaten my words and apologized profusely. But you were not truthful and chose to hide the true facts behind your rhetoric, a practice that has since become a habit as one of the lead onor-onors in the city council when Mayor Benjie first became mayor in 2001.
Rest assured, I feel your angst on seeing a council you are not used to, a rubber stamp of the mayor. Which reminds me, you have not come clean on your role in the failed Awai sanitary landfill project, the overpriced streetlights, the useless dredging machine, real estate deal the MC Adore Hotel by the city. Frankly, you were one among the first in the city who I thought would make his mark as a respectable public official. I had rated you even higher than Mayor Benjie himself. But as usual I was wrong. Sayang… so young then and so promising… and now this.
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Still in Dagupan, when my distant relative Councilor Red Erfe-Mejia posted his privilege speech in Facebook, I told myself – “Ah there is the guy allied with Mayor Benjie Lim who can talk sense” without reading through it. I guess I spoke too soon because as I read through, my head started to spin on seeing how he exposed his own naivety as Councilor Brian Lim did. He was saying the right things at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons.
The debate on the city budget had been going on for months and he only stood up last week to say he finally understood the implication of a reenacted budget. Duh? So what was he doing the whole time? It seems it never dawned on him that he is now a legislator who is expected to study and craft laws.
Then, he parroted the line of Mayor Benjie (and his son-councilor) that the delay in the passage of the budget is politically motivated on the part of his colleagues in the city council. Duh? Since he attends the council sessions regularly, I would have expected him to be the first to protest if that was true, but he was quiet and evidently saw nothing wrong. Now, he cries “wolf” obviously on cue from the city hall after his ally Councilor Brian failed to impress the public with his antics.
Then again, he questioned why the budget is being studied by the council en banc and not by a mere council committee which is the practice. I agree! But why didn’t he stand up then to vigorously object when the motion was made and accused his colleagues in the majority of acting in bad faith if indeed it was what it appeared to be? By opening his mouth more than 30 days later to lament, he appeared ignorant of parliamentary rules that he now invokes. That’s a duh!
Councilor Red evidently still does not have what it takes to discern what trapo is but he can be forgiven for that, being a neophyte. But to act and talk like a true onor-onor is disconcerting and a big disappointment to those who believe in him, being young and promising.
So Councilor Red, here’s a clue on who is playing trapo politics at the expense of the people. The public official who challenges anyone to snap elections even knowing fully well it cannot happen under the constitution is a trapo. The mayor who refuses to be accountable to the city council of which you are a member, is a trapo. The politician who talks about “shared responsibility” with the city council but actually simply demands full submission to his whims is a trapo. The city executive who uses POSO personnel to compel jeepney drivers to sign a manifesto that serves a self serving political agenda is a trapo. The man who tells you to obey him blindly is a trapo. And the person who refuses to see these is an onor-onor!
That’s the basic lesson taught today in Trapo Politics 101. Study well, relative, and do us proud!
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Lest the relatives, friends, admirers, appointees and yes, the FOBs (Forever Onor-onors of BSL) of Mayor Benjie think that I am a hopeless anti-BSL who “endlessly and unfairly” criticizes him like he is a bad mayor, the truth is I still do think he still has the capacity to be best mayor the city ever had if he chooses to.
Today, he lists a number of positive achievements, including having outstanding appointees (in spite of Mr. Mata) in the city hall. He has several creative initiatives and we have reported all these in our pages. And we will continue to do so. But in the same vein, he has to be made accountable for his trapo ways.
Frankly, I wish I didn’t have to call the attention of Mayor Benjie each week but his follies, often insulting the intelligence of his constituents, never end. (Here’s the latest: Mr. Lim decided to postpone his SOCA because he wanted to listen to the SOPA of Guv Spines. Duh? Will someone tell me if the city has already ceased to be a chartered city, independent of the provincial government? The last time I looked, the city government never had to bother itself with affairs of the provincial government yet he suspends an important event for the city so he can listen to Guv Spines. Duh-duh!).
Not unknown to Mayor Benjie and PUNCH readers, this corner is simply critical of insulting, stupid and self-serving things that public officials and government agencies do. Personally, I have an aberration towards politicians who speak with a forked tongue in order to steal and cheat an unsuspecting public.
In brief, he, like other public officials, gets a nudge from us for a reason.
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Here’s a great news for Pangasinenses seeking quality health care. There is one hospital in Dagupan City that can give the likes of St. Luke’s Hospital and Makati Medical Center a run for their money if they were operating in Pangasinan. The Nazareth General Hospital is now a class of its own. You must see it to believe it. Simply world class.
