The meaning of giving and sharing for epaLiFes
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
NO country in the world can ever beat the Philippines in celebrating Christmas. First of all, it’s the only place on earth that begins to play Christmas carols as early as September (the start of – Ber months)!
Then malls and shops begin to mount decors and images of Santa Claus and Christmas trees as early as November, right after observing All Souls Day! Caroling in the streets by children are heard on the first week of December when the cold air begins to blow and the full merriment blasts off in almost every community!
Catholic Churches bring out their decades-old interpretation of the Nativity, with new added images to better recall the biblical story and spiritual significance of Christmas.
The Christmas rush for shopping and brightening of front yards and entrances to barangays and private villages ushers in the long lines of stores along highways displaying and selling brightly lit colorful parols in different images and designs!
It is the time of the year when practically all plans for worldly affairs and activities other than a Christmas parties and family reunions are almost always suspended!
If you think PH is a God-forsaken country with all its social and economic ills today, you must be one of the angry, bitter Scrooges left behind by politics and Covid pandemic.
You know it’s Christmas time again when one can sit back and feel there’s more to life when one joins friends, neighbors and communities celebrate Christmas in every way… particularly in the spirit of giving and sharing!
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EpaLiFes’ SHARING AGENDA – Speaking of giving and sharing public funds in the name of public service alone, Dagupan City has a group of arrogant, self-centered bunch of newly elected councilors that comprise the majority in the Sangguniang Panlungsod, that cannot think beyond giving and sharing among themselves.
I dare call them the epaLiFes, why? They have shown their capacity to play up their one-for-all, all-for-one unity as the Li-Fe political group yet are thoughtless and insensitive to needs of their constituents if these don’t serve their political agenda. Pa-epal lang to the bones!
The epaLiFes are still keen on holding the sixth committee hearing on the two proposed measures, to further delay their approval, even knowing that the supplemental budget is necessitated by the depletion of the 2022 annual budget by their allies under the Lim administration in just first four months of 2022.
Worse, behind the intransigent posturing of the epaLiFes holding city residents hostage are what the bunch really wants – for the Fernandez administration to pay all their selected scholars since 2021 their cash grants unconditionally in spite of discoveries of “flying’, and “dummy” status already of some 246 scholars. At P32,000 per scholar paid out to their scholars and with more than 2,000 “scholars” under their belt, they expect a big cut from the expected P64-M to be shared among them. And they have the gall to demand that the P55-M remaining balance be paid to their “scholars”.
Then, the epaLiFes also continue to press their demand that they be allotted 10 job order employees whose budget allocation is P10,000 per. Translation: The epaLiFes want P100,000 allocated to each of them as their privilege.
That is the bottom line for the epaLiFes before they consider approving the two supplemental measures. I was wrong to think that the epaLiFes were just motivated to make things difficult for the Fernandez administration as payback for their “boss” Brian Lim’s humiliating defeat as a reelectionist. It was not their blind loyalty after all that makes them to move as one against anything that Mayor Belen wants for the city – it was the millions they wanted to be shared among them
Yes, it’s about the money they can get from the city for their “livelihood”!
They are confident they can force the hand of Mayor Belen to give them the cash they demand on a silver platter because they hold the power of the purse, that without them, she cannot fully maximize impact of her programs! They think it’s a win-win situation for them.
So, wonder no more. After all the humming and hawing, the bottom line after all for the epaLiFes is: No scholar grants and JO monthly allocations, NO SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET for health, education and peace and order in the city!
I wonder if the INC already has a name for them!
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STILL REFUSING TO BE ACCOUNTABLE. Here we go again with Guv Mon-Mon Guico who keeps hiding from the local media!
After authorizing a private citizen (or is it Special Assistant to the Governor?) Von Mark Mendoza to endorse Ordinance No. 6 that was eventually rejected because he had no official capacity to do so, the governor asked his provincial administrator to resubmit the same ordinance as his second best alter ego.
Why couldn’t the governor sign the endorsement of the ordinance, citing is as urgent? Is he afraid to be made accountable over the impact of the ordinance? Or is he afraid to be asked by media about the details of the plans because he knows little about it?
Pangasinan has a governor that not only refuses to face the local media, but refuses to be made accountable over an ordinance. Tsk-tsk.
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STILL SILENT ON THE DRUG WAR. I recently had a talk with former Sen. Ping Lacson about the seeming failing drug war in the country today.
I cited PDEA’s recent successful P2.3 billion shabu raid in Pozorrubio. His quick reaction? He said there must be a lot more going on in Pangasinan because protection from local officials never end.
On hearing this from Mr. Lacson, I cannot but help ask myself “Could that be the reason why Guv Mon-Mon Guico never uttered a single word of concern over that discovery of billions worth of shabu in Pozorrubio to this day? How much does he (did he) really know about the Pozorrubio operations that was under his jurisdiction as former congressman of the district and as mayor of Binalonan, just 14 kilometers away?”
I’m still inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt that he knew nothing which was why he was silent. What doesn’t fit into the picture is the fact that as governor, he was not heard nor seen enraged that the discovery was made during his watch!
Today, mainstream media continues to report hundreds of kilos of shabu being intercepted across the country daily. Yet, everything appears eerily quiet in Pangasinan. The PUNCH only gets reports of buy-bust police operations of street pushers. Is it possible that suddenly the drug syndicates dumped Pangasinan, a large rich and profitable market? Or, as Mr. Lacson suspects, are there local government officials still protecting the drug trade?
It’s worrisome that with no word from the governor, nothing is also heard inside the provincial board, and from the provincial police about the status of the drug war in the province after the discovery of the one of biggest shabu bust in Luzon!
Guv Mon-Mon owes his constituents his thoughts, directions and plans about the drug situation in Pangasinan. It’s what’s expected from him as the first and foremost accountable elected public official in the province.
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