Punchline
More horror stories at the city hall
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
HERE are more newly discovered horror stories at the Dagupan City hall under the stewardship of Mayor Benjie Lim to date.
Acting Mayor Belen Fernandez was belatedly advised by Dr. Leonard Carbonell that the city health office has only P175,000 (out of P1.7 M) to run the city’s projects till the end of the year. Reason? In his absence, P1 M of the 2013 budget was used to pay 2012 accounts!
The city’s indigents who are still not covered by PhilHealth will have to make do with nothing because all P7.47 M have been fully expended in 4 months! Whether the full budget was paid for premiums is another story.
Then, the city’s barangay health workers will only be paid for six months of services this year. The same fate will be suffered by the city library’s personnel!
Then out of the P2.5 M budget for traffic management, there’s only P.6 M to cover operations till the end of the year! Special projects in the city will have to do with P.8 M since P2.8 M was already spent!
The city’s tourism program that banners the river cruise was allocated P5 M, and voila, only P5,000 can now be sourced to restore the cannibalized Daongan ed Dawel project.
Budget for electricity was pegged at P27 M for the whole year but the city can only expect to be lighted up until the remaining P.7M is exhausted!
Engineering services will soon come to a halt because there’s only P19.10 left in the kitty box, out of the P2.4 M allotted budget! Expect vendors to take over the streets because the incoming administration has only P8.75 from its P2.5 M budget to work with!
In the absence of Mayor Lim, City Administrator Mr. Mata should make time to explain to Dagupenõs where all their money were used instead of defending the anomalous sale of the MC Adore! He can start with the excessive funding for the fiestas and Bangus Festivals.
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DEFENDING AN ANOMALY. The lawyers of Amb. Antonio Cabangon-Chua came to town last Friday to defend their cheap acquisition of the MC Adore hotel made possible by the Lim administration.
They cited every possible legal argument in the book to defend it, and that’s par for the course. But they sorely missed the main point in this contentious issue. Clearly, the problem does not lie with the decision of the court declaring the process resorted to by Mayor Benjie Lim as illegal but with the “special” arrangements reached between their client and Mayor Lim that accompanied the sale!
The Dagupeños are well aware that the problem stemmed from Mayor Lim’s own most unusual interest in the property as another land deal to be had as he had similarly done in the Awai land. Evidently, “guarantees” were freely given but what nobody anticipated was the subsequent incapacitated state of Mr. Lim. Now, that they cannot make him account for his failure to deliver on his pledges, lawyers have been engaged to attempt to collect on the IOUs’ and retain ownership even knowing that the city would be holding the short end of the stick. It grates one’s nerves listening to the lawyers invoking their client’s willingness to help develop and promote the city when profit at the expense of the city is what it’s all about.
The lawyers can argue their cases till their faces turn blue but the fact remains everything about the MC Adore has all the signs of an anomalous deal, a fact that RTC Judge Mervin Jovito Samadan did not hesitate to point out when he said that the deal was “passed in indecent haste.”
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First, there was the special meeting in April 2012 that gave life to the Judas 9. Then, the same resolution was again submitted in another session, still without complying with due process as required by the legislation process.
Then, even before the court could act on the petition filed by Mr. Ryan Ravanzo, Mayor Lim, who appointed himself as head of the disposal committees, preempted the court by conducting the public bidding. It was even done without due notice to the public as required by law.
These were followed by more anomalous situations. Mr. Lim allowed Mr. Cabangon-Chua’s City State Saving’s Bank to construct and start its branch operations in the property without being made to pay for a business permit and to secure a building permit.
Then Acting-Mayor Fernandez found out that Mr. Lim allowed the bank to illegally tap and use the city government’s electric service for its operations for free! One can only wonder why the Lim administration surrendered the city’s assets in such “indecent haste” while the city was going bankrupt! I can only surmise who benefitted from the deal besides the Judas 9! On the other hand, Mr. Cabangon-Chua’s group exploited the “benefits” to the hilt, already laughing inside their bank! But now that their fortune has changed, they are crying “foul”.
If Mr. Cabangon-Chua wants to further protect his investment which understandably he must do, his lawyers can still opt to sue Mr. Lim for reneging on his “promises” because the family claims he’s still alive and well on the way to recovery. (P.S. to his lawyers: there is nothing political about the issue as they now claim to justify their legal moves. Trabaho lang po for the city by the mayor-elect!).
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THEIR “PPC”. Don’t look now but the orphaned media lapdogs of Mr. Lim are now in the kennel of Mr. Cabangon-Chua. Yes…lock, stock and barrel, lies, deceit and all!
For P500,000, the same lapdogs attempted a kiddie-like power grab at the Pangasinan Press Club by staging their own “mock” election. But the seasoned PPC president Gonz Duque quickly countered and filed a complaint with the court. And the court just as quickly and easily resolved the seeming stand-off in the club.
The verdict: the lapdogs can’t claim to be the rightful officers of PPC until the merits of the case have been thoroughly determined by the court. But it was still the lapdogs’ lucky day. They were not told that they cannot use the name “Pangasinan Pitpit Club” as the official name of the group!
And here’s what takes the cake – the idiocy of their failed power-grab. They insist they are still card-bearing members of the legitimate press club after they comically mimicked the heroic act of the revolutionaries of Andres Bonifacio, by tearing up their membership cards during their “sponsored” mock election to dramatize their desperation to appear legit. (It was this group that facilitated the presscon for the Cabangon-Chua group, need I say more?).
To see grown-ups acting like grade school kids is simply nauseating, to say the least.
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THE GOOD AND THE BAD. When is considered one to have acted in bad faith, and in good faith? Compare the official acts of the Lim administration with the Espino administration.
Bad faith was exemplified by the Lim administration when it conducted a public bidding before the court can decide on the petition for declaratory relief filed by Ryan Ravanzo. It knew that continuing with the bidding was legally fraught with risk of being cited for contempt but it proceeded nonetheless.
Good faith was all the reason that the Espino administration needed to explain the suspension of any work on the planned golf course project even after getting the ECC clearance. It wants the resolution of the complaint filed against Guv Spines for allegedly violating a mining law before the Ombudsman to be resolved first.
Bad faith always smacks of arrogance and hubris. Good faith is about transparency and accountability. See the difference?
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