Punchline
The roads to a legacy and perdition
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
OK, guys and gals…there they go on their way to greatness or perdition.
We’ve all heard heaps of stirring rhetoric from our new set of elected local officials on the day they took their oath. For many of us plain citizens who have become cynical over the decades, they have not really said something different from their predecessors or from their own speeches in their previous terms.
But hey, let’s give it to our new batch of “Honorable” men and women! After all, it’s the start of their honeymoon period so let’s swing with the mood of back-patting, expressions of best wishes and congratulations, with our fingers crossed behind our backs for our own sake and sanity.
Those who had performed creditably in their previous term and were re-elected for another have raised hopes of better things to come. The new beavers have the advantage of having no political baggage to worry about. Those who are coming in new, either as term-caretaker for a spouse, a parent or a sibling who had “graduated” by law, may be handicapped by the common perception that he or she will merely be a front for the real political figure. The “come-backing” officials, however, raise that curiosity among fence-sitters and wonder whether they have reformed (naturally for the better) or are actually back with a vengeance.
All these thoughts of hope and despair will soon be validated once the traditional 100-day honeymoon is over.
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But what can these mean for the voters who sold their votes?
The voters who sold their votes to the elected officials who turn out to be exemplary and achievers, would be ecstatic for having taken their cakes and eaten them too! Maabilidad ira kuno!
But the voters who took from candidates who turned out to be abusive and corrupt would likely be shaking their heads out of embarrassment for their wrong choice. But in any case, I surmise that their number would not be that big. Why so? Majority of voters who unabashedly sold their votes took from all sucker-candidates (they who desperately wanted to believe they were buying votes from persons with “integrity”) so they could still claim shamelessly they had no hand in the crook’s election. Mas maabilidad ira kuno!
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BLS AND HIS JAYCEE SPIRIT. Zeroing in on Dagupan City, Mayor Benjie Lim pledged to demonstrate a political will that would lead him to make the difficult decisions, pursue a reform agenda, and establish a new work ethic.
I sincerely hope all that means there will be no more fixing of public bidding of projects, no more cronies as front men for dubious projects, and no more “business-deals” during his new stewardship. In other words, he will usher the city to an era of a truly transparent and accountable government, something I know he has trained for. Or am I reading it wrong?
His declaration to wage war against the unscrupulous fish pen operators that have no qualms polluting the city’s rivers augurs well for the city’s food security and protection of its environment. It is a step in the right direction, no doubt. Go for it, Mr. Lim! While you are at it, there’s the District Jail that continues to disgorge the inmates’ wastes right at the city’s beach water. Save the city’s main tourist destination from further degradation!
But I note he was ominously quiet on the proliferation of illegal gambling in the city. I’d like to believe he’s still contemplating the strategy but he must act soon before the city earns the tag “capital of illegal gambling” in the province under his watch.
In fairness to the Fernandez administration, Mr. Lim is not inheriting a whale of major problems. The city is fairly in good shape but he can make a whale of difference for the residents when he casts his touted political will on the horizon to install the desired and elusive order in the city.
Mr. Lim, you have given the city some awesome sound bites oozing with a great promise of a grand legacy, so, go for it! You’ve got 60 days to prove you’ve still got the Jaycee spirit n you to make the difference. (He doesn’t need 100 days since he already know which buttons in the bureaucracy to press at any given time).
Damn the guys who tell me: “Perish the thought!” Mr. Lim might just prove me right for believing he can still deliver!
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LEGACY FOR CHILDREN. There is one other legacy that Guv Spines can consider after succeeding in his efforts to upgrade the provinces’ hospitals and health programs. Indeed, the immediate beneficiaries from this legacy are the more than 300,000 indigent families that are completely dependent on government’s health care.
The literacy rate of the province’s children now hangs in the balance. If the provincial government will simply sit idly by as the national government continues to fumble getting its act right on the worsening classroom lack and book shortage situation, the future of the next generation of thinking Pangasinenses will further be at serious risk. It’s bad enough that there are not enough classrooms, seats and books for every Pangasinan child who deserves to get a quality education, our children in public schools have no access to facilities that train them to read, research and think!
Guv Spines earlier found the motivation to ensure quality education by directing the completion of a teacher’s teaching guide for distribution to all teachers in the province. He was stymied briefly by politics in the bureaucracy but he moved on nonetheless. It’s time he ups the ante for our next generations.
Armed with the same chutzpah, he can give the national government its comeuppance by forging forward with its own plans to construct more classrooms and books for primary and secondary levels. With this vision, I have no doubt that our countless Pangasinan organizations elsewhere and overseas would be more than happy to pitch in to augment the provincial government’s limited funds.
To get it going, this corner recommends to Guv Spines the appointment of former Sta. Barbara Mayor Rey Velasco as Education Infra czar, he who proved to all that the national government’s P1 M budget for one classroom can actually yield at least 3-4 classrooms with toilet and running water to boot, minus the corruption that accompanies a construction project!
Yes, damn the torpedoes from DepEd and DPWH, full speed ahead for the future of Pangasinan children! Certainly neither P-Noy or Education Sec Armin Luistro will not begrudge Guv Spines for showing the way how to be self-reliant!
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