Punchline
Ineptitude and incompetence
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
CHICAGO, July 23 — I am appalled by the new tack taken by Dagupan City Agriculturist Emma Molina vis-à-vis the proliferation of the illegal fish pens in the city’s rivers and tributaries.
She complains that there is no penal sanction prescribed for violation of the fishery ordinance and does not give her enough authority to enforce the law. In the same breath, she acknowledges the continued operations of the unregistered fish pens, and she even knows who are behind these.
This is a classic example of how inept bureaucrats can be. They blame the law to cover up for their incompetence (or the racket they are protecting).
There is nothing in the ordinance that says the city agriculture must wait for the mayor to give the go-signal before illegal structures found in the rivers can be demolished so her only plausible explanation for her evident inaction is to admit that she was under orders by her superiors not to touch the illegal operators. But she has kept mum on this.
There may be no provisions for penalty for violating the ordinance but surely she knows that government has the right to seize, demolish, confiscate, etc. all illegal structures, in whatever form, everywhere around the city. What has she done? Nothing.
She claimed earlier she had the list of violators as if to prove that she did her duty, but when asked to release the list, she adamantly refused! So, does she or doesn’t she have the list? Did she or didn’t she do her work? Her responses so far tell us only one of two things – she is either playing the dangerous game of “protection” racket or she is plain incompetent. If she cares to disprove public perception of her, all she has to do is produce the list of the unscrupulous bunch of businessmen. I doubt if she will.
For Ms. Molina to claim unabashedly that she cannot even compel violators to pay fines already should tell the city council that there is no urgency to amend the ordinance. The priority is for the city to find a motivated no-nonsense city agriculturist who has the guts to uphold the law whoever is the boss at the city hall, not a whiner who blames everything and everyone but herself!
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THE DROP-BALL PAYOLA. Still in Dagupan City, Superintendent Romeo Caramat, new officer-in-charge of the city police, seems to have caught the “see nothing-do nothing-say nothing” virus in the city as well.
Since he assumed his post, illegal gambling has proliferated and more barangays are now hosting “Drop-Ball” operations 24/7 under the watchful protection of the police outposts.
Curiously, not even Councilor Chito Samson, chair of peace and order committee, appears concerned that the city is fast becoming a “Drop-Ball” capital in the province. And Councilor Lino Fernandez, the president of the Liga ng mga Barangay is eerily quiet about the widespread illegal gambling being hosted by his fellow kapitans. (Is it possible that Mayor Benjie is still too busy cleaning up the city streets and may not still be conversant with the racket targeting the city’s poor).
The latest report I got from my moles in the barangays is while some do get lucky and win P1,500 after a few hours, the rest go home leaving the family’s budget for next day’s meals and the kids’ baon to the Drop-Ball operators!
So, gentlemen, what’s in it for you for protecting this illegal gambling? Everyone knows none of these can operate without your say so. How much is your weekly payola for seeing, doing and saying nothing? Who has the biggest share?
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BENJIE AND BEHN. No, they are not a couple in that sense but, yes, they could represent the best partnership yet in Dagupan City in the name of public service in the months ahead.
I was pleased to learn last week from Behn Hortaleza, our PUNCH associate editor (circa 70s) and a well-respected colleague in the media, that he finally accepted the offer to be Dagupan City’s information officer. Actually, talk was already rife weeks earlier that he was being eyed as CIO. I was beginning to wonder what was taking him too long to decide.
If he had not taken the post this week, Behn would have confirmed my suspicion that he realized Mayor Benjie is the wrong guy to work with. Now that Behn is in harness, I am convinced the former ex-mayor is not so bad a guy to work with after all.
With Behn by his side, people can be more assured that the likelihood of Mr. Lim picking up his old bad habits would be nil, at least that’s what I’d like to believe. But should the time come when Mr. Lim decides his old bad habits are more exciting to keep, I would not be surprised to see Behn walking out the door not a minute later.
I had not spoken with Behn for sometime but I do know that he’s the kind who’s motivated to help others make a real difference for the city. So read Behn’s lips, Mayor Benjie …and listen good.
A Benjie-and-Behn act should be good for the city.
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TRIVIA ON THE PUNCH. When the first issue of the Sunday PUNCH hit the streets on July 6, 1956 (I was 8 years old then), I once heard my father say to his friends that he got a big kick out of putting out a different kind of provincial newspaper. It was only 11 years later (when I took on the paper) that I found out how he started what I am continuing today.
With a few hundred pesos in his pocket, and a small band of excited friends who knew no difference between newspapering and community gossip, Ermin Sr. breathed life into his lifelong dream –a community newspaper. His concept was to have a newspaper that readers can easily fold and fit into their pockets. Indeed, the first issues measured only 9”x12”! His friends quipped that, yes, they could easily pull out a copy from their pants’ pockets and read it conveniently anywhere. It also served a practical use after reading it inside a toilet.
I never got to ask my father why he chose “Sunday Punch” for the paper’s name. I checked out his editorials and columns and I found nothing about it. And, as I later found out, “Sunday Punch” was the title of a movie produced in 1942. It was also a name adopted by the crew of a B-25J US warplane that saw action in Europe in 1943. There was also a publication in the early 50s in London that carried the “Sunday Punch” in its masthead. Was he inspired by these earlier accounts?
How and why he was inspired to name this paper “Sunday Punch”, I will never know. But I am certain our readers already know this by now.
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