By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

THE ongoing debate at the Dagupan City council over the scholarship fund continues to simmer all because the past Lim administration refuses to be accountable and transparent and the allies of Mr. Brian Lim holding fort in the SP are keen on being obstructionists with their endless, juvenile grandstanding like they never left the student councils they worked with in their better days.

Their accountability in their foot-dragging antics on the supplemental budget cannot escape the eyes and ears of their constituents. The 7 epaLiFes don’t seem to realize that they have everything to lose, particularly a mandate in 2025, the longer they withhold support for the education of the city’s youth. But I guess it’s too much to expect them to act and think rationally given all that they have done to themselves since they marched to the session hall in their campaign uniforms!

If they think they are effectively able to hamper governance of Mayor Belen by withholding support to her social programs, they should get some feedback from no less than their cheering squads. If they are angrier than ever with the mayor, then it means they’re losing the battle.

Thanks to Councilor Red Erfe-Mejia, the rest of his colleagues are painted to be no different from him as an obstructionist.

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COSTLY MISTAKE. The recently discovered two missing motorboats shouldn’t really be too much of a concern to the Belen Fernandez administration.

The pea-brain operators of Mr. Brian Lim forgot to delete, hide the documents that incriminated their top boss and other city officials in that corruption-ridden transaction that had his name and signature, and other accountable officials who conveniently negotiated the overpriced purchase, instead of a public biding. (They were at least smart enough to keep the amount below P1 million to allow for negotiated bid). Going by the documents, going down with Mr. Lim will be those who signed the voucher for “immediate release” before the Christmas holiday in 2020 knowing that the motorboats would not be delivered soon enough but at least before 2021 ends. Or so they thought!

Well, since the barkada at the city mayor’s office already spent their more than half a million in kickback, they totally forgot about the motorboats that needed to be delivered to cover their tracks.

They also forgot the old adage in crime-solving– “In any crime, there’s always a detail that leads to the perpetrators.”  In this case, there’s more than one detail that boxed in Mr. Lim and his barkada – the voucher, the check and the admission of the supplier that she was only paid P230,000 or only 23% of the purchase price that the city government paid. It’ll just be a matter of time before those who shared 77% of the loot are identified.

If there’s another city official who may have to worry big time, that would be the city auditor if he, indeed, failed to note the missing motorboats in his annual audit of the city! tsk-tsk. The COA commissioner will surely hear of this.

And, if the NBI agrees to investigate the series of missing and/or deleted computer files and documents at the Dagupan City hall, that should be an easy assignment for the agency’s techie cyber-crime specialists.

Computers never lose track of perpetrators because the machines never forget to save perpetrators’ “footprints”. Tracking actual footprints of fugitives on the run can actually be more challenging to our law enforcers.

Leave it to the NBI to give the genius operators of the Lim administration their due. So, I hope Mayor Belen will not let another day pass to have the NBI reporting at her office.

Meanwhile, the city government would do well to keep the compromised computers in a safe place, away from the prying eyes of the still unidentified saboteurs.

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HYBRID VOTE-COUNT. The initiative of Laoac Vice Mayor Atty. Nelson V. Gayo launching the “Count me in” petition as a nationwide educational campaign, not merely as a signature campaign, for the adoption of the Hybrid Election System, is timely.

It’s a system that assures voters that their monitored votes cast in the polling places are no different from the electronic data sourced by Smartmatic machines.

Not a few election results in the past were questioned and protested since the Comelec adopted the Smartmatic system. Under the hybrid system, manual vote count at the precinct level must be done before the votes are forwarded to the national voting center for digital processing.

I hope the activities planned for the campaign will move our congressmen and senators to seriously consider the hybrid system that will eliminate speculations about veracity of number of votes cast.

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EASIEST TO SABOTAGE. The recently launched rehabilitation and re-engineering of Dagupan’s 60-year-old dumpsite was off to an officious beginning.  There were the impressive photo ops and motherhood statements from the officials of the city government and DENR.

But before Mayor Belen starts to believe that nothing else can go wrong, she ought to know that such an activity is the easiest to sabotage and there are parties who’d like to see the program fail.

Offhand, residents in the area are beginning to wonder why persons are not allowed to enter the dumpsite area but dump trucks loaded with garbage can. Hmmm. This small talk can prompt her political detractors to go to town with it.

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REWARDING BRAWNS AND BRAINS. The proposal of Cong Toff de Venecia to make national government acknowledge and reward distinguished creatives who earned honors for the country, much like what the government does for our athletes who make their mark in sports, deserve public support.

Indeed, why should brains and creativity be less in importance to brawns and discipline in national spotlights?

Much of the focus on brains and discipline are the results largely of the hype created by creative minds that dwell on every discipline.

Beautiful bodies, great performances, awesome accomplishments are drawn and described by creative men and women who will never have a chance to win Olympic gold medals.

Mr. Toff’s proposal deserves the support and endorsement of our Pangasinan members of Congress.

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TILL WE MEET AGAIN, GENERAL OLIVER– It is with sadness that we share the news of the totally unexpected passing of my uncle, Rev. Msgr. Oliver Joseph Mendoza, 61, Rector at the Mary Help of Christians in Binmaley. May we request our pious readers to say a prayer for the repose of his soul.

I used to tease him, calling him General Oliver because he was always the dependable organizer of rallies for the then late Archbishop Oscar Cruz to support the latter’s advocacy contra jueteng. He will be sorely missed by those whom he loved and loved him back for his faithfulness to God as His servant.  

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