Punchline
Pretentious advocacy of Lim, Erfe-Mejia
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
FIRST of all, I doff my hat to our indefatigable Sunday Punch photojournalist Willie Lomibao and Playing with Fire columnist Gonz Duque for their well-deserved selection as two of Dagupan City’s 70th Anniversary Pinablin Dagupeños awardees!
Willie’s regular contribution to the city’s growth is unlike anyone else. As a photojournalist, Willie projects life and stories in and about Dagupan City to the nation and to the province through his camera lenses. Regular readers of Sunday Punch (print and online) will attest to the compelling images of life he submits to The PUNCH weekly. He has competently filled in the shoes of my late uncle Gilbert Garcia, the dean of photojournalists in Pangasinan circa 60s-70s.
On the other hand, Gonz’s contribution to the city’s development and progress is already practically legendary. Gonz has always been in the middle of development, from education to peace and order, cultural to clean water and media. His choice is clearly hands-down backed by thunderous applause!
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CLEAN, THEY ARE NOT. There is something disturbing about the clear intent of Dagupan Councilor Red Erfe-Mejia and Vice Mayor Brian Lim to paint the planned transfer of the city hall to the donated lot along the De Venecia Ext. Highway as tainted with corruption.
If there are two members in the council who cannot take the moral high ground to object to the transfer of the city hall and allege corruption in the transfer, that would be Messrs. Lim and Erfe-Mejia!
The duo (as leaders of the Judas 9) led the charge and voted for the anomalous sale of the MC Adore Hotel (as brokered by Brian’s father, then Mayor Benjie Lim) to a private company for a sum, entirely inimical to the interests of the city. And they yet did so knowing fully well that Mayor Lim justified the purchase of the derelict hotel as the site for the new city hall.
Could their suspicion (?) and “unwavering” objection today to the free transfer (not even sale or purchase of land) to a new site for the city hall stem from their own profitable experience in that corruption-tainted sale?
Could they be objecting to the transfer today because there is no sale or purchase that involved cash payments between the city government and the landowner?
VM Brian Lim should be the last to speak authoritatively against corruption since it was his family that clearly benefitted the most, too, from the 2006 ‘fire sale’ lease of the Magsaysay Park by the city government (again brokered by his father as mayor) where the Metro Plaza now stands today.
Who sold MC Adore? Who helped sell it? Who owns Metro Plaza? And who also stonewalled the investigation on the land grabbing in Bonuan Binloc? Pray tell Messrs. Mr. Lim and Erfe-Mejia! People have not forgotten. We can go on and on with this.
So Messrs. Lim and Erfe-Mejia should quit gabbing about their pretentious advocacy for good governance while they are still ahead, and start working finally for the interests of the city. The city’s interests are not about assets of Magic vs. CSI!
Also, the two can never walk and talk like Mr. Clean, because they are the antithesis of a Mr. Clean. Let them prove their detractors wrong about them.
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WANTED: FAKE-NEWSBUSTER. If netizens don’t seem to care about truth and ethics in the use of social media, our country is doomed to cop the world title of ‘Fake News Capital of the World’ in no time.
The national and local governments (Dagupan City), political camps, the secessionist groups, and now the church hierarchy are already alarmed by the excessive abuses particularly in posting of fake news on Facebook and Twitter with impunity.
Unfortunately, I don’t think even laws that prescribe penalties can stop the malady for as long as creating, posting and forwarding fake news can be done with the ease of a click on keyboards unless government offers to file cases as People of the Philippines vs….
Then there are fake accounts to deal with in the first place, so how can anyone prosecute a netizen allegedly for posting a fake news when the account used was faked by an anonymous user in the first place? There is no stopping trolls from doing their worst. They know how to secure their identities and how to create as many fake accounts as one can.
So how can one help stop fake news from spreading to hurt others deliberately?
In Pangasinan, let’s call on Metro Dagupan ICT Community (Facebook) to help man the line of defense in the frontline. It should organize to put out alerts to determine which posts are fake news from dubious sources or trolls. They may not be able to cover all, but any effort to call out one fake news daily will help. We need a Fake-NewsBuster!
An easy giveaway whether a post is fake or not is a message that’s meant to alarm the populace or is libelous in nature. Unless you hear or read the posted ‘warning’ from mainstream media that have the capabilities to verify sources, these posts are fake news. Don’t forward.
Then Google a website that purports to be a legitimate news organization and you can be guided quickly.
Finally, do your FB friends a favor who unwittingly forwarded a fake news… get back to them and tell them about the fake news you verified. Be a volunteer FakeNewsbuster!
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