By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

WITHOUT any doubt in my mind, the mangled P864.91-M annual budget awarded by the 7 epaLiFes to the Dagupan City government has changed some lives in the city for good.

The unprecedented reckless imprudence in legislation and ignorance of the law demonstrated by the arrogant 7 epaLiFes (Councilors Redford Erfe Mejia, Celia Lim and Irene Lim-Acosta (mother and sister respectively of ex-Mayor Brian Lim), Librada Reyna-Macalanda, Alfie Fernandez, Alvin Coquia and Marilou Fernandez since January this year, definitely resulted in dramatic, woeful changes in their private and political lives, and may change for the better, hopefully! They wanted to be paid P100K monthly by simply wearing their campaign uniforms during sessions and doing little else! Only the corrupt can believe it’s possible!

The 7 epaLiFes arrogance will forever be seen as the city’s curse on the lives of lowly city hall employees in 2023 when they summarily deleted budgets for their salaries, allowances and fees and left thousands of families out on the streets without means of livelihood.

I’m afraid they can no longer look anyone they meet in the eyes because there’s a big chance the people they meet were among those whose lives they wasted out of their sheer greed and power-tripping since they took their oaths in 2022.

In fact, I dare them to walk the city streets in the days and weeks ahead, replete in their blue campaign uniforms, like they did when they high-handedly dismissed and rejected the proposed 2023 budget. I won’t be surprised if they are scorned, viewed with contempt and shunned like pariahs for being the scourge of thousands of indigent families in the city.

There is no telling how many of the terminated and jobless JOEs will finally file cases against the 7 epaLiFes before the Ombudsman, and later expected to be found guilty by the Sandiganbayan for plotting against the city government and the populace.  The 7 epaLiFes were well aware that by displacing all JOEs, the city government can’t possibly deliver the city’s social, economic and health programs of the city government. One case filed should be enough to kiss their political lives goodbye!

There will also be sleepless nights of belated regrets over their childish antics that earned public contempt and hatred.

Aaah… they also have to deal with disgusted and angry relatives who are made to suffer the shame and disgrace brought to their family names by their LiFe campaign uniforms and self-centered politics.

I have no idea how they can redeem themselves from the deep rut they dug themselves in. Even if a belated amendment of their ludicrous and idiotic budget is possible, such an effort can no longer spare the humiliation because they have already been fully exposed for what they really are!

P.S. Hey 7 epaLiFes! Stop believing that simply because you have the numbers, you can always have things your way.  It doesn’t work for personal selfish agenda. Learn from your lesson well.

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CHAMPION OR TRAPO? Alas, the Belen Fernandez administration continues to admonish and castigate the 7 epaLiFes for their illegal acts but these begin to sound hollow because it still has not done what it declared would do about the alleged discovered anomalies in the distribution of the scholarship funds by the Lim administration’s committee. Now that the P864-M budget ultimately also deprived its 2,000 new scholars of funds due them, will there be justice finally for the taxpayers and the legit scholars?

To date, the city legal office continues to drag its feet on the case even after more than 100 irregularities have already been documented as evidence.

If Mayor Belen doesn’t want the likes of the 7 epaLiFes to thrive in the city, the  7 epaLiFes must be made to account for their devious plots, from the day they rejected the first 2022 supplemental budget submitted by  her administration without clear justification. That alone, prevented the city government from implementing projects that the Local Development Council endorsed. The 7 epaLiFes should be made to account! There’s no avoiding that responsibility and duty for a mayor.

The biggest insult that Mayor Belen can heap on her constituents is to eventually decide not to file cases vs. the 7 epaLiFes. She must be told that such a decision to back down “in the name of unity” smacks of the worst political hypocrisy.  That can only mean she reached a compromise with the guilty to protect the anomalies and corruption committed by her own allies under her administration, they who continue to operate or protect illegal fish pens under her very nose.

Whether she decides to file the cases against Councilors Erfe-Mejia, the mother and daughter Lims, Reyna-Macalanda, Coquia, and the two Fernandezes, or not, the choice before her is either to be forever marked her as another compromising corrupt trapo or be the champion vs corruption that Dagupeños have longed to see in her.

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FIVE Ws, ONE H, PLEASE!  Now that Guv Mon-mon Guico has given  life to his series of projects to justify his administration’s plan to secure a P6-B credit line with Land Bank in his first State of the Province Address, it’d be interesting to hear and see him present the feasibility studies for each of the projects in the months ahead.

Basically, he simply has to spell out and define the “Who”-“What”-“Where”-“When”-“Why” and “How” of each program that will commit the provincial government to pay the P6-B loan over the next 25 years!

Hopefully, Vice-Guv Mark Lambino and the provincial board members will then take the opportunity to validate all the factors brought to their attention during the Question Hours on those projects, then seek to perform creditably as true public servants.

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SALVATION OR CONDEMNATION. Happy Easter to our well-meaning public servants. May they continue to glorify Christ’s Resurrection year after year. To the corrupt among them, I hope they realize soon that their ultimate salvation in their afterlife is not how much they left millions in stolen public funds for their families but how Christ’s Resurrection has reformed them while they still breathe. 

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