Punchline
The Lims’ privacy
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
“THANKFULLY, his (Mayor Benjamin Lim’s) condition was stabilized and he was transferred to a Manila hospital for further treatment.”
These were the words of Councilor (now Vice Mayor-elect) Brian Lim to refute our earlier announcement that his father had passed away last May 13. We will take his as the final word on the issue -that he is alive and well – since the condition of Mayor Lim at this point is already a private matter. Know that when the reins of political authority have been passed on by the DILG to incumbent Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez as acting-mayor by operation of law, Mr. Lim has assumed a private persona. This means accountability to the public where he left off can no longer be demanded of him.
Hence, Mr. Lim, being a private citizen today with no responsibilities to the people, has all the right to invoke privacy and we cannot but respect that. How the family wishes to confront its present difficulties is now a matter exclusive to them, no longer an issue for the media and the public to debate or insist upon to know. We submit that whatever motivation or reason the family has in keeping the public largely in the dark is no longer anyone’s business.
We hasten to point this out because at the time he suffered a stroke, Mr. Lim was still the active chief executive of the city and therefore, his health and welfare was a matter of public concern and interest. So when The PUNCH (via Facebook) and other media outfits alerted the community, it was out of duty to serve the people’s right to know about how governance may be affected by the unfortunate ailment and tragedy that befell the mayor. We even followed the lead provided by Councilor Brian and his supporters about the mayor being in a hospital in Manila in an effort to prove him right and us, wrong but our search proved futile. Makati Medical Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, St. Luke’s Medical Center, Medical City, Asian Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Chinese General Hospital and Metropolitan Medical Center all denied having the mayor as a patient. Some say he is a “Denied Patient” (secretly registered). But all that is now irrelevant. What we believe or know is no longer pertinent. Their invoked privacy now has to be protected. The city will now simply have to wait for any announcement the Lim family may make about the mayor. There lies the difference between leading a public and a private life.
Meantime, let us continue to pray for Mr. Lim following the request of his family, for no man or woman deserves to be stricken ill or die because of politics.
I sincerely wish his wife Celia and his family the calm and the moral strength to cope with their untimely crisis that’s felt by all.
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SETTLED ISSUE. I doff my hat to Alaminos Mayor Nani Braganza and former PNP Director-General Art Lomibao for leading by example when they conceded their defeat at the polls.
There were no recriminations, no regrets just a grand demonstration of humility in the face of defeat. Their example should be emulated by the next generation of political leaders. Their desire to pursue their stated advocacy is admirable for that will ensure a check-and-balance is in place.
On the other hand, there’s nobody who certainly would feel unburdened the most than Guv Spines. He has every right to feel vindicated after charges of plunder and murder were thrown at him shortly before the start of the campaign period. Unfortunately, the cases have been filed and Guv Spines must still hurdle past the investigation and trial if the pieces of evidence presented warrant it.
But for now, the issue about who will govern and serve the province is settled. We congratulate Guv Spines, Vice-guv Ferdie Calimlim and their team for braving the odds and wining convincingly in the end. Godspeed!
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OF POLITICAL WILL AND ACCOUNTABILITY. In Dagupan City, the results of the election point to a very interesting yet difficult change in the city’s political landscape. While mayor-elect Belen Fernandez won on her platform to launch reforms marked by transparency and accountability, the process will certainly not be easy for her.
I do not foresee a walk in the park for her because her inclination to be a populist leader can be the same thing that will be her undoing. Lasting reforms by a populist leader simply are not possible because giving in always to immediate gratification of a sector with compromises to boot does not spell reform. She will have to make difficult decisions that will disappoint a sector in need for the general good of the city. To Mayor Lim’s credit, he did demonstrate on several occasions that he is capable of doing just that. This is the test that she will have to hurdle in time, or sooner than she thinks.
Let’s wish her well as we watch her from the sideline.
Then there’s vice mayor-elect Brian Lim who will now be his own man whether he likes it or not. The young Lim must now learn to paddle his own canoe, establish his own brand of leadership to meet public expectations. Unfortunately for him, he will find himself in the same situation where VM Belen was, his hands will be tied behind him as he sets out to fiscalize the new majority because of the rules that he himself crafted in order to restrain VM Belen as sanggunian’s presiding officer. Will he find it in himself to adopt his father’s slogan calling for “Shared responsibility” in that situation? This remains to be seen.
The people who gave the re-electionists among the Mighty 8, Councilors Maybelyn Fernandez, Alfie Fernandez, Jigs Seen and Karlos Reyna a fresh mandate now expect more from them. It is prayed that after seeing them lose their momentum midway because of their tentativeness and the lack of political determination to pursue what was good for the city, the new mandate ought to give them the moral courage and the political will to promptly do what is right and henceforth turn their backs on political convenience. They must be at the forefront making transparency and accountability the gold standard for good governance, never to countenance any sign of corruption in the Belen Fernandez administration. To attempt any cover-up will make them no better than the Judas 9 of the old.
The re-elected members of the Judas 9, Councilors Jess Canto, Alvin Coquia, Red Erfe-Mejia and Emong Vallejos cannot feel vindicated. The ghost of the anomalous MC Adore sale will continue to haunt them in their next term. But they, unlike their other Judas comrades, have the opportunity to redeem their lost honor and integrity. Will we see in them a new zeal to make up for their past disgusting performance? We certainly hope so. (By the way, the public awaits Mr. Coquia’s financial report on the recent Bangus Festival as promised. Ditto for Messers Lim, Erfe-Mejia, and Vallejos for past events).
The newly elected wannabes, Marvin Fabia and Jose Netu Tamayu, although the latter is a veteran of three terms in the past, have a lot to prove that they deserve the mandate given them. Unfortunately for Fabia in particular, there will be no time for learning the ropes, he must cope with the momentum for change. They simply have to choose whether to be perceived as doers or obstacles.
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WRONG MISTAKE. The announcement of the Celeste brothers who took control of western Pangasinan to stop the construction of the Alaminos airport is an unstudied reaction that typifies shooting from the hip. If they do, they would have committed their biggest “wrong mistake” yet even before they can do worse damage to their governance.
Their recommendation runs counter to their own pledge to make the Hundred Islands the hub of tourism in the province. They obviously don’t understand that the reason many fantastic destinations in the country don’t see beyond seeing local picnickers in their area is because of the lack or absence of convenient access to their places. To stop the construction of the airport which we all assume already had undergone a series of serious studies by experts to deserve the billions in logistical support, is going back to batting stage instead of running to make the bases full and go for three runs on the field.
The Celestes simply cannot hope to double foreign arrivals to Hundred Islands without the airport, that’s a promise! The only reason Boracay became a world favorite destination is because there are two airports that serve the island resort. There are more and far better beaches than Boracay in the country but cannot hope to join the big league because access is their biggest obstacle.
The Celestes can do Pangasinan a big favor by not being parochial in their ideas, moving in an opposite direction simply because there was Nani Braganza who started it. They can help the Espino administration achieve world recognition for the province’s many attractions by building on what the Braganzas started but cannot continue to build on.
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