No buck-passing, please

By Ermin Garcia Jr.

BUCK-passing in a bureaucracy is the biggest loophole in our system that criminal minds exploit to this day.

The case of the continuing reclamation at the city’s Calmay River along JdV Sr. Extension by 888 Dagupan Properties despite a cease and desist order by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, is a case in point.

Now that the Dagupan City Council has determined that the CDO issued by the DENR against the company has not been lifted, it is incumbent upon the city government to make sure that the CDO is observed. While I note that City Mayor Benjie Lim is obviously for the enforcement of the CDO, it is not enough for him to simply ask the DENR to enforce the CDO.  A more categorical and definitive stand must be made and quit the buck-passing.

Ironically, Mr. Lim himself acknowledged that the company is also violating a city ordinance that he claims to have been passed during his past administration. So why wait for the DENR to act?

Moreover, if Mr. Lim wants to deflect further public suspicion on his alleged interests in the erring company’s activities, since the company brazenly defied the CDO a day before Mr. Lim’s first day in office giving the impression it is protected by city hall, he must direct the police instantly to stand guard 24/7 on the site and prevent the entry of trucks loaded with gravel with the specific order to immediately cause the arrest of those defying the DENR CDO and the city’s ordinance.  (The trucks have been avoiding detection lately by unloading under the cover of darkness). He cannot be seen to be simply passing the buck to DENR to enforce the CDO as a convenient ploy to escape culpability and allow the defiant company some leeway to finish its monkey business.

Short of that, Mr. Lim will again be bruited about to be protecting and patronizing cronies again like the old times. Sayang ang magandang umpisa mo Mayor pag pinalampas  mo ito!

Then too, Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez and the city council, on the other hand, cannot stop in their tracks and simply await enforcement by either the city hall or the DENR. It should not waste time to initiate court action and seek multi-million award in punitive and moral damages against the company and its board of directors and other officials for the people of Dagupan, to pay for the criminal and wanton destruction of the city’s environ.

To let the company off the hook easily will, as VM Belen correctly noted, embolden others to follow suit since they’ve everything to gain and little to lose.  Lessons have to be taught and learned.

From where I sit, the reclamation project issue looms as a large Damocles sword on our city officials’ heads until it is resolved in favor of the city.

* * * * *

WANTED: PROACTIVE, NOT REACTIVE RESPONSE. The province, by God’s grace, escaped the wrath of typhoon Basyang by a last minute shift in the direction of its path.  One can only imagine the extent of the damage that the typhoon would have had if Basyang had not been fickle minded about her direction and proceed on course as originally forecasted. It was originally headed straight for Pangasinan!

Basyang should serve as a real wake-up call to all local executives if the growing dangers of typhoons have not dawned on them yet.

I am told that Gov. Spines and some members of the board proceeded to San Roque Dam a day after Basyang made its exit for a quick assessment of the protocol applied in the face of Basyang’s threat. That was reassuring but a post-typhoon trip routine will not cut if for the province if the likes of Pepeng hit us.  What we need to see is a proactive preemptive strategy, not reactive.

I strongly suggest that the Espino government organizes and authorizes a quick-response team that will rush to the San Roque Dam the minute a typhoon is forecasted to hit the province.  It’s main duty is to monitor (not to interfere with) the dam officials’ critical decisions vis-à-vis the agreed protocol and to pass on information to the provincial disaster coordinating council as decisions are made on site for the latter’s guidance.

Surely, Napocor and the dam’s managers will not object to the province’s coordinating team’s presence since the latter can be the dam’s own defense should anything go wrong even after strict observance of the established protocol.

* * * * *

THE ASSASSINS’ TWIN VICTIMS. The tandem-riding motorcycle assassins are laughing all the way to the bank, with a red-faced police force in tow! They continue to zap their victims like picking mangoes off the trees on a summer day.

The recent killing of another barangay official in Tayug in the dreaded manner by professional assassins can no longer be perceived as simply another statistic added to unsolved homicide cases in the province, not after Smiley PD Barba hyped his response to the series of motorcycle–riding killers.

Evidently, the merciless killers have upped their ante in the face of Mr. Barba’s threats to hound them. They are now bent on thumbing their noses at all the police chiefs who stand to be replaced by Mr. Barba’s “two-strike policy”.  I surmise that the assassins now gleefully eye two victims: the person to be terminated and the police chief to be embarrassed and replaced!

Perhaps, Smiley PD Barba, in fairness to his local chiefs, should also give himself a self-imposed 6-strike policy before he asks for his own transfer.  Fair is fair.  If he does it, only two things can happen – the assassins will have bullets between their eyes before Mr. Barba’s  self-imposed quota is reached, or six more victims will be waylaid in the weeks ahead to hasten Mr. Barba’s relief.

So what will it be, Mr. Barba?

* * * * *

TWO GREAT TOWNS.  The newly elected mayors and councilors of the towns and cities should not tarry to avail of the Lakbay-Aral program for a quick trip to the towns of Bani and Sual!

There are innovative projects and success stories they can learn from the two town’s environmental projects.  There’s absolutely no need for anyone to take a long trip to the cities of Marikina and Olongapo just to see how things are done.

Back to Homepage

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments