Punchline
Crunch time
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
IT’S crunch time for the Belen Fernandez administration.
After Mayor Belen proved her detractors wrong when she managed the city’s fiscal crisis that she inherited from her predecessor, creditably well, she must now attend to festering issues that test her political mettle. Will and can she really walk the talk, her tough talks in the past?
Topping her list is the continued operation of the Citystate Savings Bank sans the required building and business permits. This on top of the bank’s continued unauthorized use of the electric meter of the city government to date.
Now that the time has come for business establishments in the city to pay their business taxes, how will the Citystate’s case be handled by the Belen city hall? Will her administration reverse itself and finally issue the building and business permits in order to accept the taxes due the city? Or will the bank be exempted from paying its taxes while allow it to continue operating under these highly irregular situations? Or will she force the issue and demand the suspension of the bank’s operations until the permits are issued?
The mayor has already directed Dagupan Electric Corp. to terminate the city’s service contract and cut off power through its meter lodged at the MC Adore building. Could this be an indication of how the city government will finally act on this issue?
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FUNDAMENTAL. The issues involved in the Citystate affair here are fundamental to governance. It’s about enforcement of the city’s ordinances and assertion of the city government’s authority over its properties. In both cases, the Belen administration cannot possibly do less than what is expected given the mandate prescribed to it by law – to enforce the law and protect its properties.
While this is undoubtedly clear to businessman Antonio Cabangon Chua, the bank’s owner, apparently it is an unacceptable situation for his profit agenda. His “diplomatic leadership in local governance” obviously suggests that the issues affecting him should be resolved amicably via “diplomacy” (Our translation: Compromise!) and not by what the law strictly dictates. Is he suggesting that the city hall makes an exception and the law should be bended to favor his bank?
This is an issue that is beyond political interests or business development interests for the city or consideration for personal affiliations. If the Citystate is granted exemption today as Mr. Cabangon Chua wants to suggest, the Belen administration must be ready to face a belligerent business community that will invoke the same “exemption” when similarly situated in the future. Why should they bother with building and business permits when these are negotiable at a convenient time?
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DIPLOMATIC? The Cabangon Chua group is clearly poised to force the Belen administration up against the wall, force it to accept the group’s will. This intent became evident when they decided to operate a radio station in Dagupan and attempted a take-over of the Pangasinan Press Club in preparation for a protracted major media offensive promoting Mr. Cabangon Chua’s business agenda in Pangasinan. When the press club take-over failed, a libel complaint against The PUNCH was filed whom the group obviously suspects to be owned by the mayor.
Now comes the second complaint. This time against the City Engineer for refusing to issue the building permit. This was announced over Mr. Cabangon Chua’s radio station even before Engr. Rosario could receive a copy of the complaint. Note the pattern of intimidation there. Some mutual acquaintances believe it won’t be long before Mayor Belen is sued as well because the group is perhaps confident that it has determined what it believes is the Belen administration’s weakness – the reluctance to sue and the fear to be sued!
This month will tell us whether Mr. Cabangon Chua’s “diplomatic” agenda is working or whether Mayor Belen, the tough-talking city mayor, will shoot it down.
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QUINTO’S REPORT. Other issues include the string of cases expected to be filed against those who plundered the city’s coffers during the Lim administration.
To these, Mayor Belen said last year that decisions would have to be made based on the city auditor’s recommendations.
City Auditor Virgilio Quinto has been poring over piles of documents over the past months, particularly illegal donations made by the city government to unqualified beneficiaries that included civic and professional clubs. He already adduced that the illegal contributions received by the organizations should be returned! I hope he will release his report soon so Mayor Belen can decide whom to charge and replace.
At the Dagupan Sanggunian, Councilor Joey Tamayo, chair of the city’s Blue Ribbon Committee, gave me this update on the complaint I filed against Vice Mayor Brian Lim, Councilors Red Erfe-Meja, Guillermo Vallejos and Alvin Coquia (and Marianne Ang) on their failure to remit and account for revenues received as chairmen of past city fiestas and Bangus Festival. The case was referred to Mr. Quinto for his opinion and the latter replied that the case has been endorsed to the Fraud and Audit Investigating Office of the Commission on Audit and he would rather wait for the results of the investigation. That’s fine Atty. Joey, so let’s move on with the other complaints that need to be addressed.
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RESTORING A TRADITION. Kudos to 2013 Fiesta Hermano Mayor Atty. Ope Reyna! He has demonstrated to all and sundry that the city’s annual fiesta can be staged successfully and observed fittingly without the city government forking over a centavo to host it. A real boost to the city fiesta was the restoration of the religious component of the celebration. As Reyna correctly pointed out, the fiesta is about honoring the city’s patron saint and thanksgiving for blessings bestowed on the community. Over the years, the fiesta became just another commercial event, forgetting the main purpose for the fiesta – remembering St. John, the evangelist and fisherman! The presence of Archbishop Soc. Villegas in many of the fiesta events, including the crowning of Miss Dagupan, was, therefore without precedence!
Then, without saying as much, the collective efforts of the city’s civic-spirited groups under Atty. Reyna’s stewardship highlighted the true potential of the events as revenue-earners for the city. What remains to be seen is how much will be reported by the city hall. Until Mayor Belen and Atty. Reyna agreed to undertake the challenge necessitated by the city’s fiscal crisis, the money that was being earned and pocketed by the appointees of the Lim administration in the past would have remained a guarded secret to this day.
Now, the city government has an idea how much it should demand from past chairmen to account for on top of the P3 million “seed money” released to them by the city hall.
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LEGACY MODE. The tested Ope Reyna-Manny Roy business and political tandem is clearly on a legacy mode. After their successful partnership in bringing out the best in the citizenry during the fiesta, Manny was recently asked to succeed Ope in running the affairs of the Dagupan City National High School Alumni Association to ensure the continuity of the impressive development of the school under Ope’s leadership.
Today, the DCNHSAA is the only alumni association in the city that boasts of an impressive home for its thousands of members, they who consistently leave their distinctive marks in the city’s economic and political development.
Without a doubt, the DCNHS will remain the bastion and the source of respectable and distinguished community leaders for Dagupan and other towns for many generations to come. Future graduates cannot but look back and pay tribute to the untiring support of the school’s alumni who looked after their welfare through out. For sure, Ope and Manny will be among those who will be long remembered with fondness.
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