Punchline
All bets are off
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THINGS are not looking good for Dagupenos.
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind today that Mayor Benjie Lim is already inextricably at loggerhead with the city council headed by his arch-business rival Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez.
All bets are now off for a possible teamwork as pledged by Mr. Lim shortly after his election. He has since adopted a “no mercy-take no prisoners” policy as his standard response to all the initiatives from the city council.
This became evident when he surprised everyone the day he issued the gag memo to city hall department heads directing them not to attend any council regular session meeting or committee hearing without his say-so. And Mr. Lim has not withdrawn it to this day in spite of what the local government code mandates him to do as mayor. “Enough of transparency,” appears to be his message.
Thus when the family of Vice Mayor Belen obtained the popular endorsement of the city council for its grand hotel project for the issuance of a location permit by the city hall, it no longer came as a surprise that the family’s request for the permit was effectively archived by city hall clearly on Mr. Lim’s order. He blocked it unabashedly, never mind that the city will not have a premium hotel that will create jobs and further spur economic activities in the city. Read his lips: “No way highway…!”
Then came his veto of Ordinance No. 1957-2010 (Comprehensive Tricycle Franchise Ordinance of 2007) citing specifically the “encroachment” of executive function by the council as reason. Mayor Benjie took the ordinance as a dilution of his power hence, the veto, in spite of what the local government code again mandates. His body language reads: “Only what I say goes!”
In sharp contrast, the council approved the supplemental budget that Mr. Lim forwarded without much ado notwithstanding the absence of the city accountant during the council’s deliberation as dictated by the gag memo.
It’s a pity that we are seeing these acts of official belligerence in just 60 days since Mr. Lim reassumed the mayoralty. And, it doesn’t look like the trend is going to change until the city council becomes onor-onor a third time around wrapped around his little finger. Yes, methinks the worst is yet to come for Dagupenos. Tsk-tsk.
As always, I hope to be proven wrong.
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ONLY ONE RULE. The blame game that has since characterized the Luneta tragedy hopefully will soon stop and lessons learned are adopted as operational policies for both the law enforcers and the media.
In the case of the envisioned engagement rules for media, I’m afraid the attempt of both government and media to arrive at compromises to form the set of rules for coverage in life-and-death situations, i.e., hostage-taking, armed robberies, military encounters, etc., where civilian lives are threatened and police (and military) operations are ongoing, will yet lead to more mishaps. More rules, more chances of divergent interpretations as a result of a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the rules.
There can only be one rule – No live coverage until the government says “All secure”. Dependence on self-regulation by media ends where lives are threatened, risked and endangered. It is government’s mandate to secure the citizenry’s general welfare.
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Why ‘No live coverage’? What are the perils of ‘live coverage’ in the country?
First of all, our broadcast reporters are trained to report even the most trivial detail to fill in the otherwise dead airtime. How many times have you heard unthinking reporters even ask the most inane questions –“Sir, anong gagawin nyo sa kanya?” or “ Sir, bakit nya ginawa ito?– even before the law enforcers can assess the situation? Most are not simply trained to report on security matters, and if I may add, including the protection of privacy of women and children in distress. Many glibly dish out their own interpretations instantly, including their own unstudied speculations about the scenes unfolding before their eyes. The standard for most is – the more sensitive details that could be hyped ‘live’ by an emotional field reporter, the better to heighten the drama that would keep listeners and viewers tuned in. But why? For what purpose?
The bottom line for ‘live coverages’ is to keep the ratings up, and draw the advertisers in. Don’t believe for a moment that it’s about serving the right of the people to information because it’s not the real-time reporting but confirmed facts of events reported after the crucial period that serves that purpose, and better. The ratings-game has become the primordial objective for broadcast and TV stations that virtually transformed the mass media sector into a vicious dog-eat-dog industry.
By imposing a ‘No live coverage’ policy, radio-TV field reporters will be taught the discipline to go after the facts so they can report the “blow-by-blow” accounts with more accurate and studied insights when reporting after the crisis. Besides, a ‘No live coverage’ policy does not prevent photojournalists and TV news crew from recording the events as these happen for a post-crisis reportage. This way transparency can still be achieved, showing both the fumbling and the heroic acts of characters in vivid, living color.
The policy also provides the TV-broadcast media the opportunity to rush their most senior and trained reporters to the scene allowing for a more professional handling and delivery of the news.
Will the radio-TV news media lose their audience if reporting is done after-the -fact? Not at all. The fact that people still buy and read newspaper accounts, 10 hours after the crisis has ended, tells us people need to know the verified facts and circumstances, something that the entertaining ‘live coverage’ cannot offer on real time.
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RAISING THE QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE. There’s another impressive landmark in Dagupan, the Eastgate Plaza on A.B. Fernandez East. It supplanted the previous old landmark, Unique Lumber, in that part of the city. It now hosts a fantastic Korean Restaurant and an American-diner resto among others. No it’s not a venture of some Manila investors but one of the city’s very own young entrepreneurs, couple Howie and Angie Cham. Many of the young entrepreneurs in the city today, they who chose to locate their business in the province instead of Metro Manila, will definitely make their mark in the city as idea movers changing the city’s landscape as they help raise the quality of urban life in the city. For instance, I know the yuppies in the city have since found in the Oriental Pacific Center, the Cham’s first venture, a safe hangout where they can dine on authentic Japanese cuisine or simply laze with their laptops inside a coffee shop, a free wi-fi spot.
Another set of young entrepreneurs is the Cruz sisters of the St. Joseph Drugstore that has since branched out across the province to give Mercury Drug a run for its money.
The city will benefit greatly with more entrepreneurs like them so the very least the community can do is to support them with regular patronage.
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