MC Adore a sellout

COULD it have been idiocy or plain honesty that the City Information Office itself called the sale of the MC Adore a “sellout”?

“MBSL confident MC Adore sellout is legal” reads the press release for radio issued by the CIO last January 10.

Sellout could mean to run out of or be out of stock, which obviously does not apply in this case. Another meaning of sellout is to give in or surrender under dire circumstances, as in we could say “the bankrupt company was forced to sellout to the competition” or “she sold out her soul to the devil”. Then there’s sellout as a betrayal of principles for reasons of expedience – and this seems to be what rings true in how city hall, led by Mayor Benjamin Lim, went about selling the MC Adore property owned by the people of Dagupan.

The rush with which it was sold is a projection and self-revelation of the motives behind the disposal of the once grand building purchased by the city government, also under Lim’s term, supposedly to be converted into the new city hall and for other government offices.

There are legal questions surrounding the authority of Lim to sell it, which is precisely the matter brought to court. And the court has handed out an injunction on the planned deal — issued on the same day that the sale was hastily set.

Lim and the councilors who gave him the authority to sell the property must be made to account for this contemptible sellout, which can never be viewed as justified and legal.

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Pure kid stuff

“YOU don’t like my biscuit, I also don’t like your money.”

That’s what Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said when she returned the P250,000-gift given her by Juan Ponce Enrile on January 4. On the other hand, Enrile, at odds with Santiago for some time now, rejected Santiago’s gift of biscuits given him last Christmas. Aside from Santiago, three others also received “only” P250,000 — Sonny Trillanes and siblings Alan and Pia Cayetano – but they have not returned the amount to Enrile. The remaining 18 senators got P1.6 million each from the Senate president.

One senator, who requested anonymity, said Enrile disbursing Senate money to 22 senators for Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) was “unconscionable” and “unconstitutional.”

If so, why not come out in the open and hale Enrile to the Senate chamber for debates?

We see their actions as pure kid stuff. And we thought we elected senators and not actors for Sesame Street, if not Iskul Bukol.

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