Punchline
Please believe him!
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THE waivers are fake! It’s true.
I say this because I have no reason to doubt City Administrator Vlad Mata’s claim. Indeed, the alleged waivers issued for the ritzy squatters illegally occupying premium beachfront areas in Bonuan Binloc must be bogus, because he said so.
Didn’t Mr. Mata, as head of the bids and awards committee in the city, present fake claims to legitimize the purchase of overpriced food items intended for the city’s malnourished poor children? Wasn’t it the mayor’s office that faked a declaration of state of calamity so it can release calamity funds to favored barangay kapitans running for reelection in 2010 (and favored candidates) to be used as campaign funds? Wasn’t it Mayor Benie Lim who initiated the construction of the Daongan ed Dawel and the aborted “Kankungan Restaurant” without a building permit? Isn’t the mayor’s office behind the illegal occupation and closure of streets in the city purportedly as an activity for the city fiesta and worse, refuses to this day to account for the rental fees received from stallholders?
So believe Mr. Mata when he insists that documents purporting to be authentic are actually fake! It always takes one to know one.
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I listened to Mr. Mata’s radio interview last week on the fake waivers. Sadly, his clarifications only led to more questions about the role of the mayor’s office. From what appeared initially to be a mere administrative lapse on the part of the mayor’s office over the ‘waivers’ issue, he pointed to a supposed large-scale swindling and falsification of documents in the sale and illegal occupation of the beachfronts owned by the national government. Paging the NBI!
Through it all, Mr. Mata painstakingly recited all the factors that pointed to the innocence of the mayor’s office over the presence of the illegal commercial structures that sprouted like mushrooms since the Lim administration took over. While he told Dagupenos of a grand scale swindling involving the misuse of the city government’s authority, he unwittingly sounded like neither he nor Mayor Lim was (or is) alarmed by it all. I felt it was unusual for an indignant city official not to mention the sweeping actions the city government would take to support his claim. His lame statements made the mayor’s office’s position even more tenuous, if not suspect.
While he pointed to the city engineering office as the responsible agency that would enforce a demolition order against the squatters, or to the One-Stop Shop unit that would close down commercial operations of the squatters, Dagupeños didn’t hear Mr. Mata say the city government will call Barangay Bonuan Binloc Kapitan Pedro Gonzales on the carpet and make the latter account for the sudden proliferation of illegal structures in his barangay, as mandated by law. Nobody heard Mr. Mata say Mr. Gonzales will be charged administratively for dereliction of duty and possibly for abuse of power and discretion.
Mr. Mata didn’t say the city hall already asked (or will ask if it had not done so) the National Bureau of Investigation to immediately investigate and identify the members of the syndicate behind the swindling and falsification of documents.
Mr. Mata did not even hint that his office will have the owners of the illegal structures arrested for presenting fake documents (that bore his and the mayor’s falsified signatures) to Decorp, and for failing to secure mayor’s and business permits. He also didn’t say he would demand an explanation from the Treasurer’s Office why the illegal “resorts” were not listed as among those without permits when it did a mapping months ago.
Why, Mr. Mata? Is it possible you and Mayor Lim fear the backlash of such actions?
I would imagine that a mere attempt by any group to implicate a government office such as the mayor’s office in a criminal activity is enough to make a mayor so incensed and angry that he can’t wait to throw the book at the first suspect. But Mr. Mata did nothing of that sort for the mayor. He merely nonchalantly recited facts to assert his office’s non-involvement in the scandal.
This is not to mention that his recent reactions were belated and only after The PUNCH made the scandal a running story in its issues.
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Yes, I believe Mr. Mata’s claims. You should too! What I don’t believe he (and Mayor Lim) will do is to charge Kapitan Gonzales with administrative cases over the scandal, to arrest the ritzy squatters who presented fraudulent documents implicating the mayor’s office, to press the NBI for results of investigation, to suspend some employees of the Treasurer’s Office for failing to list the delinquent “resort operators” in the area.
As always, I earnestly pray to be proven wrong in my face whenever The PUNCH reports a criminal “value engineering” project of the Lim administration. Sadly, I was never given that opportunity to apologize for the paper’s possible errors in reporting facts unearthed about the city hall’s nefarious activities if, indeed, the paper erred. I always wish I am wrong about the city hall but it is not to be.
My hunch is reporting the truth just really doesn’t matter to the city hall occupants because they know that nobody in the city anyway, not even one of the “Mighty 8” in the city council, will dare charge them in court. This should explain why corruption-ridden “value engineering” in the city goes on unabated to this day. Check out the latest – new illegal collection of stall fees along the illegally closed streets on the order of the city mayor. Or is it by Hermano Mayor Guillermo Vallejos?
The city is definitely ripe for the picking by the Lim administration, by default.
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ANOTHER LANDFILL. For the eastern and half of central towns in the province, there is a glimmering light at the tip of their garbage dumps. The Urdaneta landfill is already in place that provides them the legal option when they finally close their dumpsites in compliance with the law.
But the western and mid-central towns don’t have that option. They need a landfill and soon before a mayor is sued with the writ of kalikasan for continuously violating the law against open and or controlled dumpsites.
As the DENR’s special representative in the province, Guv Spines would have the authority and the ascendancy to call the congressmen and the mayors in the 4th, 5th and 6th Districts to a meeting to decide on the site of that elusive landfill.
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