Punchline
The gang’s templates for corruption
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
Last week, we reported how the ‘chief miracle workers’ of former Dagupan City Mayor Benjie Lim were resurrected and recycled by the Espino provincial administration to wit, Raffy Baraan now as provincial administrator and Dindin Baniqued as provincial legal officer. (And not to be left out is my favorite mayor himself, Mr. Benjie as provincial consultant).
Recall how the cabal of Mayor Benjie brought the city down on its knees with various multi-million ‘undertakings’, i.e., LandBank loans to fund overpriced projects, over-priced land deals that involved dummies, negotiated purchase of useless foreclosed properties, cheap leasing of public land for commercial malls, illegal sale and distribution of public land via tax declarations, official cover-up for jueteng and coopting a pliable sanggunian. The gang has since improved on the templates to benefit their new patron.
Here are the indicators.
Just barely 12 months in office, the gang’s template for LandBank loans was already operative under the close watch of Guv Spines! Last week, the governor already signed the P79 million loan contract with the bank for still unspecified projects! The key was to rediscount the IRA of Pangasinan due in 2001 and 2004!
What this means to Pangasinenses, is that the amount generated by the loan is not covered by the province’s annual budget and therefore, the governor alone has the discretion to disburse it for any ‘project’ he wants, with the endorsement of his own cabal of ‘onor-onors’ in the provincial board.
And despite official avowal of war against illegal gambling, jueteng is now more rampant more than ever in the province.
Officially, the people just lost the last voice of opposition in the board. BM Alfie Bince was ‘persuaded’ to join the ‘majority’.
And with Benjie’s gang pressing the buttons for Guv Spines, many are now watching how public lands in the province will be disposed of among favorite cronies and allies of Guv Spines. The gang has a template for this and Dagupan City Legal Officer George Mejia can attest to this, he who is up to his neck untangling the legal knots that protected the tax declaration racket involving parcels of beachland in Bonuan.
So here’s a fair warning to all prospective landowners of public lands just by being F.O.B. (Friends of the Boss), you can lose all your tax declarations and monies paid to the ‘syndicate’ for the privilege of owning some precious real estate across the province, in time. Watch Atty. Mejia do it!
* * * * *
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO OUR POLICE? The once smart-looking and multi-awarded police in the province appear to be looking like the keystone cops in the eyes of our local government officials.
It’s bad enough that the police still have absolutely no clue on how to solve past high profile murder cases, but that the killing spree of government officials are proceeding with impunity, and without let-up.
The politicians who feel they might be the next targets and the families of the victims whose violent deaths remain unsolved already theorize that either the police’s intelligence funds are being misused and squandered for other purposes, or that the task forces formed are so incompetent that they can’t profile the assassins for hire or that they know who the hired killers are but wont tell because they are useful to them.
Either way, both Guv Spines, himself a former chief of the Pangasinan police, and Sr. Supt Isagani Nerez must come forward to turn the situation around to prove that Pangasinan is still a safe place to live in.
Speaking of Guv Spines, he will never achieve his dream economic boom for the province for as long as hired guns freely pick out their targets anywhere, anytime in the province. Unless he lowers the boom on his police today, Pangasinan could very well be known as “The Wild North” what with the rampant gambling and series of killings under his watch.
All his grandiose plans for the agriculture development, modernization of hospitals, increase in investments etc. will surely come to naught with the shocking state of peace and order in the province. Sayang!
(Readers may reach columnist at punch.sunday@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/
For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
