Punchline
The tale of the Daongan and Kangkungan
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
YOU have to hand it to Dagupan Mayor Benjie Lim. He is one enterprising businessman who makes interesting deals when an opportunity strikes. It is that trait that separates the men from the boys – knowing when to pursue a great deal when nobody’s looking. Many wives surely eye First Lady Celia enviously for the kind of man she has. Ambitious, dynamic, calculating, imaginative and a go-getter.
Alas, for all his enviable qualities, Mr. Lim keeps finding himself in trouble that he can ill afford. Because of his business success (and having gotten away with all his not too respectable deals in government), he no longer seems able to distinguish what is an appropriate act for a public servant being the mayor, and what is timely and opportune to make a grand profit for himself being the astute businessman that he is.
His latest folly, the construction of the Daongan ed Dawel, is again proof of this. He has completely muddled the distinct line between governance and business for his purposes. Even his logic and motives behind the “magic” erection of the Daongan and the still mysterious structure across it that now appears as the “Kangkungan ed Dawel” totally escape me. He practically treats the city government as his private corporation that can negotiate and make deals for him.
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THE END GAME. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see through his Machiavellian approach to governance.
First, he quietly started the construction of the Daongan with nary a hint on what was afoot except the notion that the River Cruise tourism project of the city needs to be supported by an infrastructure. Mr. Lim could have easily won sanggunian support for such a laudable project but he didn’t and deliberately so. Only he, his city administrator and his contractor were aware that while the Daongan is a city project it did not have the approval of the sanggunian and, therefore, did not have a budget. Still, Mr. Lim proceeded.
Then, since it was not approved by the sanggunian, no public bidding was required as mandated by R.A. 9184, known as the Government Procurement Reform Act. Without anyone looking over his shoulder, Mr. Lim managed to proceed unhampered without need to be transparent about the costs of the project, and who was undertaking the expenses. (More on this later).
And, after the Daongan was finally inaugurated and completed, lo and behold, Mr. Lim suddenly wants the city government to pay him through the nose without accounting for the project via a public bidding for the completed facility. How that can be accomplished will, of course be dictated by Mr. Lim. He initially attempted to compel City Engr. Virginia Rosario to conduct a stage-managed public bidding for the Daongan as if the facility had not been completed. The end game obviously is to have the city pay a whopping P11 million to whoever Mr. Lim names!
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VALUE ENGINEERING? But now that the PUNCH finally exposed the likelihood of another scam that will make the city hall’s sanitary landfill scam look like an amateur adventure, Mr. Lim puts forward a cover-up story that’s poorly scripted. What his cover story only succeeded to achieve was to demonstrate his arrogance and superciliousness. I particularly find his explanation for the “arrangement” between him and the Daongan “contractor” and his demand for the city to vindicate him for his noble motive (?) with a fake public bidding as extremely insulting to Dagupenos’ IQ. He said: It is my obligation that the contractor which (sic) I convinced to do the project will be paid.” So who asked him to convince the “contractor” anyway? And because he considers it his personal obligation, he wants the city to pay. Ang swerte naman nya!
Then to exculpate himself from possible legal suits, he said. “Alam po ninyo, many government projects are done prior to bidding. And that’s a fact. Even if you go back to the past city administration, you can find projects whose bidding were done after the projects had been completed.” I dare him to name at least one by Mayor Al Fernandez and one by Guv Spines.
His cockeyed gobbledygook like “value engineering” as his defense for flouting the intent of R.A.9184 is pure hogwash! Gosh, I’ll pay his “contractor” P22 million if he can show any public document or provision in the Constitution or a jurisprudence that says “value engineering” can be invoked by any government official to be exempted from coverage of the R.A.1984 or the Local Government Code! Failing that, I ask nothing of him but to sign an irrevocable resignation letter as mayor with a pledge never to run for any public office in the country.
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HALF-TRUTHS. Then, Mr. Lim’s absurd half-truths only gave rise to more questions than answers.
Is there a businessman/contractor (sucker) in this world that would risk spending P11 million (?) without guarantee of profit, much less a reimbursement? Only he who thinks he can make the government pay.
Did the Daongan cost P11 million? Many contractors estimate that the facility would have cost P3 million max. Why the attempt to seek P11 million as reimbursement?
By refusing to name the “contractor”, Mr. Lim only served to confirm what most everyone already long suspected – that it was Mr. Lim who bankrolled the construction. (He was seen supervising the construction regularly if not daily whenever he was in town).
How does Mr. Lim’s touted “value engineering” concept work? I guess it must look this way: P3 M + 0 factor (unnamed contractor) = P11 M. (I love “value engineering” already, it’s a good cover for my poor math skills).
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IN DEEP TROUBLE Given all the public admissions Mr. Lim made on his Daongan project, i.e., the land is owned by government; project was funded privately by contractor; there was no approval for the project by the sanggunian; there was no public bidding prior to its construction, etc., these are virtual prima facie evidence for a serious criminal and administrative complaint against him by the city government today or in the future.
Anyone who, therefore, lends his name and signature in the attempt to legalize the Daongan project (which was illegal from the very beginning through his own fault), will be equally charged and can be found guilty by any court. The city hall folk should already know that for all his hubris and pretenses, Mr. Lim cannot invoke his “value engineering” theory, nor the criminal precedents by other government officials as alibi to escape criminal culpability.
As it is, Mr. Lim and his cohorts who manipulated the distribution of calamity funds without the declaration by the sanggunian last year are already in deep trouble. The 2010 COA report on Dagupan City rendered a faithful account of how Mr. Lim and other city officials violated R.A. 10121, specifically for utilizing and distributing calamity funds without the sanggunian’s declaration. (Read Item 5 of the report’s chapter on Detailed Findings and Recommendations). All that the majority in the city council has to do is to pass a resolution reiterating the finding of COA without need to submit its own finding. It’s enough to make everyone involved be made to account.
I am not a lawyer so I cannot advise Mr. Lim on the gravity of his offence and what it can mean to him personally. The only thing I know is: no one is above the law. And from the looks of it, he is compounding his situation with the Daongan and his “Kangkungan” projects.
I certainly don’t see the Ombudsman dismissing the COA report as incredible or without basis knowing that her mindset is carved along PNoy’s Matuwid na Daan.
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