Punchline
Mayor Benjie’s gambit on jueteng
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
Many high-handicapped golfers will tell you that they oft swore to give up and drop the game after holing out with mostly double bogeys up until Hole 17. Then just as they were about to switch to cycling or bowling, a perfect shot made in heaven on the 18th hole simply made them forget their 60 errant shots in the last 17 holes. It was enough for them to look forward to another game.
Well, that’s exactly what I felt having had to write about Dagupan City Mayor Benjie Lim’s antics practically every month. So just when I was about to give up on him, he unfurled and strung streamers around the city that read: “Dagupan must be jueteng-free!”
Gee whiz, he must have either been promised a short-cut to heaven by Archbishop Oscar Cruz or he simply wanted to be remembered to have at least one good thing.
Now, let’s see if he has the political will and the muscle to make that stick. This time, I’ll only take the Archbishop’s word on this.
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Some close advisers of Mayor Benjie, however, I know are wont to caution him about his strong anti-jueteng stance.
They say they fear a backlash from the 4th district’s mayors who have grown fondly of jueteng payola. These mayors might not be inclined to support an anti-jueteng congressman.
Remember Oca Orbos, they chorused.
***
Dagupan City police chief Supt. Edgar Basbas must have been red in the face when the streamers were strung up without any prior knowledge about them.
It was obvious that it was a message that was also clearly directed at Mr. Basbas for failing to stop jueteng bet collectors from doing business in the city. This obviously embarrassed Mayor Lim no end before Archbishop Cruz after promising a jueteng-free city.
Then, Mr. Basbas’ report that he has arrested two, yes only two, jueteng bet collectors to impress upon the mayor that he is doing his best is almost comical. Is he saying that the Dagupan cops are like the Keystone cops who kept running around in circles while in hot pursuit of a platoon of jueteng bet collectors? Or did the two collectors ask to be arrested?
If Mr, Basbas can’t herd in the jueteng bet collectors in hordes, it can only either mean he is well-loved for a consideration by his men and the jueteng lords or simply not feared by both as a law-enforcer.
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PAY-PARKING PAYOLA. The absence of jueteng payola for Dagupan City officials must be hurting some of them pretty good. Now it appears some councilors are desperately still looking in the direction of a possible “substitute” – the pay-parking concession.
Councilor Chito Samson cannot be faulted to insist on the immediate implementation of the pay-parking scheme in the city. He said it’s a good source of revenues for the city especially at this time when shortfalls in revenue collections are being reported in the city hall. I agree.
What doesn’t make sense about his proposition is when he insists that the city government should earn only 20%, nothing more. And still on top of that, a 20% share for barangays that host the pay-parking slots will be lopped off from the city’s 20% net revenues.
Then he wants the city government to enter into a contract with a private contractor who should be cajoled into accepting a hefty 80% share of the parking fees.
I must have been absent in my Logic 101 course much too often when the professor explained how logic works out in governance because I simply cannot fathom the rationale nor reconcile the stated objective with the proposed strategy.
The scheme is not only plain onerous, but patently anti-government.
If the city council finally approves this scheme, one need not wonder who will get a cut in the contractor’s 80% share. Just look at the names who shall have voted in favor of the measure.
***
IRA AND GMA’s ENCHANTED KINGDOM. The provincial employees are prematurely finding out for themselves what the vaunted “Enchanted Kingdom” promised by President Arroyo is all about.
As the employees have already been told, they can no longer hope to get their additional compensation allowances because the national government has devised a clever way of diverting the province’s committed Internal Revenue Allotment back to the national coffers while making it appear on paper that the local government units are awash with cash.
The government financial geniuses under her tutelage crafted the scheme to better strengthen the political patronage system using the pork barrel and ensure her survival. So who cares, if the governors and mayors go pot?
In effect, Mrs. Arroyo has chosen to treat local government unit executives as second class citizens while she dangles the carrot to her newfound first class citizens, the congressmen.
And why not? In her book, it’s the congressmen, not the governors and mayors, who will save her from being impeached. And she also believes that at the end of the day, it’s the congressmen who will make her prime minister before or after 2010.
In case the governors and mayors don’t know it yet, they’ve been had!
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IMPEACHMENT BY THE CITIZENS. Many congressmen who signed the amended impeachment complaint filed by maverick lawyer Oliver Lozano last year now appear wary in signing the complaint expected to be filed on Monday.
For many of them, it has been politically disastrous particularly for those who had programmed their pork barrel funds in their districts to endear them to their constituents. The Arroyo government used the barrel-and-stick approach to the hilt and that explains why the opposition finally failed to deliver the needed 79 votes.
But the barrel-and-stick approach may not work wonderfully this time. There is a new weapon that has been unsheathed by citizens groups who refuse to accept GMA’s “I am sorry.”
They call it the “vote-and-stick” fashioned to appeal to reelectionist congressmen in both Arroyo allies and opposition camps.
The citizens groups have already threatened to launch and wage the “I-hate-you” campaign in the provinces against those would dare vote to kill the impeachment complaint that they will file.
From where I sit, Mrs. Arroyo’s headaches and tummy aches are far from over.
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