Punchline
Finally, a demand for accountability
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
WE, at The PUNCH, feel vindicated by the 2013 extensive report submitted by Commission on Audit’s (COA) Auditor Virgilio Quinto .
The series of suspected graft cases being committed with impunity during the Lim administration that we reported were confirmed in the report.
Mr. Quinto’s report, covering fund releases and expenditures of the Lim administration from 2010-2013, effectively refuted the earlier glowing reports filed by former City Auditor Ofelia Celi. (Recall that we reported Ms. Celi received P1.25 million as fund assistance from the city hall in 2010 in the name of the Pangasinan chapter of GACPA – Government Association of Certified Public Accountants – an illegal practice known to a COA auditor).
To COA’s credit, its latest report signals an opportunity for the city government to launch sweeping reforms in the city hall, particularly in public fund management. Whether the Belen Fernandez administration can live up to the Dagupeños’ expectation is now up to Mayor Belen Fernandez. Hers can be the legacy for the restoration of good and accountable governance if she wants it.
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POLITICAL WILL. City hall observers believe Mayor Belen will not have a difficulty making herself accountable and transparent to her constituents but she will likely have a serious problem making responsible city hall officials accountable for past and future misdeeds. To date, she has been seen to be reluctant to file cases against department heads who wittingly or unwittingly carried out and implemented illegal orders, or conspired to defraud the city government in the past, many of which are now confirmed by the COA report.
Perhaps, they say, her reluctance stems from a management style that proved successful in her private business activities, but they maintain that managing the city government that has a thousand and one rules to be enforced and implemented is a different ball game altogether. In private business, employees understand that a violation of company policies can easily lead to their unemployment. In government, employees believe that they deserve utmost leniency since they have political patrons to protect them, making accountability practically a mission impossible.
What the COA report is effectively communicating to the mayor today is for her to begin making employees face up to their accountability as a serious policy to reckon with. Without a determined effort to make officials accountable today, she cannot possibly stay the moral high ground by procrastinating or being selective.
In brief, a reformist to succeed must send the clear signal that he or she has the political will to do what is right and decisively, and not merely expect the end to justify the means. I sense that Mayor Belen’s situation may need the prayers of Dagupeños that she may muster the political and moral courage to restore true accountability and decency in governance now that the opportunity has presented itself.
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NO TITLE. Finally, Dagupan city has something on record that it does not have the title to the 30-hectare lot in Barangay Awai in San Jacinto for which the city spent P16 million! For years, then Mayor Benjie Lim insisted the city had the title, a fact that past audits neither confirmed nor questioned.
The question now is – will the city demand for a refund from Mr. Mariano Cuña, the seller? Will the city council, presided by the former mayor’s son direct the city hall to issue a demand letter to Mr. Cuña?
If Mr. Cuña cannot refund what was paid to him on the pretext that he never received the money, apparently a fact known to his circle of friends, his only recourse is to describe the conspiracy that led to the purchase of the highly overpriced farm lot. Who took part? Who pocketed what?
But first things first – let’s see the city council establish accountability for the lost land title. Or will it be another “see, hear and speak no evil”?
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PROTECT THE ELECTRIC CONSUMERS. The news about the directive of Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) to Meralco to recompute generation charges that surprisingly led to lower billings for consumers in the months of December and January has brought a sigh of relief to over-burdened households in Metro Manila.
What is not clear today, however, is whether the reconfiguration of charges by power suppliers and passed on by Meralco to consumers is also true for Dagupan Electric Co. and the three electric cooperatives in the province.
For the benefit of the thousands of Pangasinan households, the sangguninan panlalawigan and the sanggunian panlungsod of Dagupan should convene post-haste an inquiry how the latest findings of the Energy Regulatory Commission are going to benefit Pangasinan consumers.
This early, Decorp has already served an advisory that the generation charge in April will increase anew! It is likely that the Cenpelco and Panelco 1 and 3 are also moving in the same direction in spite of ERC’s new directive. Nothing has been heard about a re-computation of charges or offer of a refund scheme for consumers.
Will someone please stand up for electric consumers in Pangasinan?
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BATTLE JUST BEGUN. Now that the brouhaha over the cutting of trees for the widening of roads in Eastern Pangasinan has temporarily died down, those who bravely stormed the walls of government should not rest.
Managing to save the remaining 700 trees from being cut mercilessly is not and should not be the end of it. The bigger task that lies ahead is to make sure the government and the contractor comply with the terms of the authority to cut the tress – that 100 new trees are planted for every cut tree – that’s more than 120,000 trees for you!
For too long, most contractors are notorious for not complying with terms that require repair and replacement of damaged portions at the contractors’ costs. Unless the stout-hearted groups demonstrate that they are keenly advocating for the preservation and increasing the number of planted trees by closely monitoring the compliance of the contractor and DPWH, we can kiss the death of the trees without justice goodbye. No contractor will take the pains of planting 12,000 trees that they believe nobody cares for anyway.
Note that when thousands of trees were cut to make way for the Sual Coal-fired Power Plant, not a single new tree was planted because nobody demanded and monitored the replacement of trees.
The felled trees can’t talk and cry for justice. Only humans can but will they continue to be around to see to it that at least 120,000 seedling are planted in a clearly identified area? Will there be groups that will file appropriate charges against the contractor that fails to comply?
The battle for the trees has just begun.
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ALL CLEAR. Our columnist and chairman of the Pacebook Awards Jun Velasco clarified that the correct information on Drugs and Dangerous Board Chairman Bebot Villar, (a PUNCH columnist as well), as published in the souvenir program was what was read during the ceremony.
It was the subsequent news report on the ceremony published in a national daily that failed to indicate the true status of Sec. Villar who was mistakenly described as “former Usec. Antonio Villar.” So for the record, our columnist Bebot is “Antonio Villar Jr., ” presently the DDB chairman with the rank of Secretary.
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