By Leonardo Micua

 

WHEN I interviewed Mayor Belen Fernandez at her office last week, I asked whether her political allies who are now temporarily holding the majority in the city council can pass Dagupan City’s 2025 annual budget of P1. 6 billion on or before the end of the year, she replied tersely: “That was the intention.”

I also teasingly asked whether she plans to send the councilors who will pass the budget to an overseas holiday, similar to what Gov. Mon-Mon Guico did when he sent most of the members of the provincial board to Barcelona, Spain right after passing the provincial budget of P7.6 billion, she blurted: “Of course not! We cannot afford to be extravagant in the midst of crisis.”

To prevent Belen from possibly getting hypertension, my naughty self shifted to another topic.

As to the Pangasinan board members’ group tour to Barcelona, many find something fishy about it as it came just on the heels of the very speedy passage of the provincial budget.

Since the province is bankrolling their foreign junket, they have accountability to the public.

Or was it their reward for imposing a 90-day preventive suspension on Urdaneta City Mayor Julio Parayno III and later a one-year suspension for the simple violation of the law on Ease of Doing Business? (The complaint and penalty were, however, invalidated by the decision of Regional Trial Court Judge Cruises Ravanzo Vismanos-Nabua)

They went on vacation en grande to Barcelona at a time when Pangasinan was reeling from the impact of Typhoon Kristine which left almost a billion pesos in damage to crops and infrastructure, and also destroyed the livelihood of many of our province mates.

Foreign travels for the provincial board seem to be an appropriate carrot in winning blind obedience.

Recall that most of the incumbent board members were under the ticket of then Governor Amado Espino III. But they immediately switched side to Guico for reasons they only know.

In their hurry to leave for Spain, the BMs forgot to advise Governor Guico to seek the passage of a resolution declaring Pangasinan under a state of calamity, which cannot be declared by the six remaining board members, including Vice Governor Mark Lambino, for lack of quorum.

Did they perhaps plan to convene a session in Barcelona to declare a state of calamity for the province or join their counterparts online? But then again, isn’t participating in official session while on overseas travel patently illegal?

As for the BMs who stayed behind, we heard they will have their turn to travel to another country.

Recall that our elected provincial officials had just warmed up their seats following the bruising 2022 election when they took their first foreign trip ostensibly to honor the invitation of Pangasinenses living in the west coast of the USA, including San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Their second overseas junket was when they joined Filipino Americans in celebrating the Philippine Independence Day celebration in early June this year.

These foreign travels, including the latest in Barcelona, were totally unrelated to their duties as lawmakers of the province.

These trips could have had a semblance of being official trips if they linked up with counterparts in the countries they visited and shared best practices, say on matters of flooding and emergency response.

Our sources at the capitol say that the honorable board members have yet to submit an official report about their travels, which is required from all civil servants who travel overseas on official time with their plane tickets, accommodations, allowances and per diems drawn from public funds.

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Our Punch colleague Rolly Dioquino suspected that something unusual was happening at the Dagupan City Hall Tuesday when he saw SWAT units in the area, some in full battle gear. 

It turned out that it was the session of the city council that was being guarded.  

P/Lt. Colonel Brendon Palisoc ordered the deployment to respond to a violent reaction from the suspended opposition councilors who were suspended for 60 days by the Office of the President, like they did during the October 28 session, Victoria Charinna Lim-Acosta, Redford Erfe-Mejia and Alipio Serafin-Fernandez and their allies insulting and badmouthed Vice Mayor Bran Kua.

Well, there was no violence that took place but I’m sure the three and their four colleagues are thinking of going to court to contest their suspension.

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