Punchline
Begging their forgiveness
By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
This Christmas will be my 59th celebration. I think it’s time I do something I’ve been meaning to do as a true Christian every Christmas, but never got around to it.
I’d like to address all the elected and appointed public officials known to me personally but whom I’ve exposed, criticized, censured, attacked and roasted in my column. I ask for their forgiveness for I had not meant to hurt, shame, embarrass, nor make them self-conscious or uncomfortable before their family and friends. I assure them, it was not easy writing about their corrupt ways. I had even wished I had not met them when I wrote about their illegal activities.
To the public officials I never knew personally but felt they were unduly exposed, lambasted, scolded, reproached, rebuked and reprimanded in my column for being the corrupt rascals that they were, I also ask for their understanding and forgiveness. (They were simply too corrupt to be ignored, kaya sorry).
To the news subjects I failed to expose and castigate for their reported rapacious capacity to steal public funds, I beg your indulgence for not favoring you with the appropriate recognition in this corner but I assure you it was not out of lack of interest but because the PUNCH only comes out weekly and there simply was not enough space to write about you. Next year, perhaps?
That should cover for all my “omissions and sins” against my neighbors to date. (Note: My next column items after this will already be applied to my promised act of “contrition” next year).
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THE NSO’S STUPID RACKET. Archbishop Oscar Cruz was understandably riled up and furious about the recent directive from the National Statistics Office requiring diocesan priests to attend a seminar for a not too measly sum as fee before they are given licenses to wed couples. Who wouldn’t?
There are only ten reasons by which I can explain why NSO came up with this ridiculous requirement:
1. A senior NSO official is set to retire next year and the NSO employees have been required to raise funds for his “despedida”.
2. Since Congress never allots for their annual bonuses and Christmas parties, revenues from seminar fees will suffice.
3. The NSO has been taken over by a PCGG commissioner whose term is about to expire.
4. A bright NSO official wants to prove that what Jose Pidal, LTO, BIR, PNP, DOTC, Customs, Comelec can do, NSO can do better.
5. A BIR commissioner suggested it as a novel idea for taxing priests who get paid for doing the ritual.
6. A Malacañang bureacrat wants to get even with the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines for endorsing Speaker Joe de V’s call for moral revolution.
7. The NSO was recently privatized, no longer a government agency.
8. One NSO lady official wants to get back at a parish priest who refuses to provide support for their child.
9. NSO thinks it will take a lot more to teach priests than seamen, hence. . P2,000 seminar fee is reasonable.
10. NSO wants the priests to stage and lead People Power 4.
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By issuing that directive, the NSO only succeeded to alienate the religious sector even farther, a situation that it can ill afford at this time. But I guess, given what the Arroyo lackeys have been able to get away with the past years, this initiative which can serve as a lesson in Politics 101, it’s obvious that this government doesn’t really care how the priests respond.
As it is, the NSO seems to have forgotten that it is supported by public funds to render public service to citizens by providing an efficient and credible data to serve both government and the populace. To achieve this, it must continuously provide for an efficient system at the least inconvenience to the public it seeks to serve. Its latest directive is, therefore, everything that spells R-A-C-K-E-T.
The right thing for NSO to do would have been to offer the services and facilities of its offices to Catholic and Protestant clergy for a free briefing on how its systems operate and how they can help support it. I’m certain the religious sectors would be more than willing to help make it work, including hosting the lecturers.
Before the Catholic and Protestant bishops organize to lead a religious war against this oppressive directive, the NSO office in the province can serve its bosses well by holding back on the implementation until their bosses wake up from their power drunkenness.
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THE MEANING OF ANARCHY. The recent decision of RTC Judge Rolando Mislang of Branch 42 directing Dagupan City Engineer Virginia Rosario to issue MetroState Development Corporation a building permit sets a dangerous precedent not only in the city but across the country.
As a layman interpreting the decision, I can only surmise that what the judge is telling the public is that it is ministerial on the part of the city or municipal government to issue a building permit to anyone who wishes to construct a building or a monument (never mind that it’s intended to glorify a criminal) on any government land. It appears it is not pertinent to get written permission from any local government unit that has jurisdiction over it. (What is not clear to me is if his ruling also applies to lands owned by the national government).
With a precedent like this, what will stop the squatters now occupying the beachfront at the Tondaligan Park from building their own permanent cottages when all they need to do is to send an application to construct and the city engineer can be expected to dutifully grant the building permit?
If you still don’t know what anarchy means, you will surely understand this finally when professional squatters finally take Judge Mislang’s decision to heart constructing permanent structures for their stores and houses on every public land they can identify, and later sell these at hefty prices..
For now, private landowners appear protected, thank God.
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DAGUPAN AT ITS BEST. If there’s any city in the country worth visiting to enjoy the festive mood of Christmas and New Year, that should be Dagupan City. Dagupeños are primed to be cheerful, lighthearted, merry, Christmassy and convivial during this time of the year. It beats having a “white Christmas”. Most tables inside homes are even laden with food.
For this alone, this year’s fiesta celebration (and Pawil Dagupan project) is already a success. Making it a huge success now depends on how the city officials make it with buzzwords “clean”, “peaceful” and “organized”.
Merry Christmas, Dagupan!
(Readers may reach columnist at punch.sunday@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/
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