Punchline
What’s next?
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
“HE did that?”
This is the common reaction of former Mayor Benjie Lim’s close friends who feigned knowing him well to be upright and honest in his governance. They are incredulous over The PUNCH’s weekly reports of uncovered anomalies in the city hall under the Lim administration.
And their almost common reaction in defense of the previous administration was, “Marami naman siyang nagawang mabuti!” Duh? They make it appear as if the Lim administration’s “accomplishments” were enough to cover-up (justify?) the rampant lying, stealing and cheating that we reported.
The most recently discovered scam, the payroll padding that siphoned millions takes the cake. It was an operation that even escaped detection by our moles in the city hall. So far, the ongoing investigation reportedly netted four more cases but the city hall has decided to withhold details to prevent those behind the scam from identifying persons whose cases have been discovered. A number of EWs have already been traced as employees of city hall’s cronies. The verification of the status of more than 800 “emergency workers” will be painstakingly slow so it looks like we’ll have to wait before we finally see the complete picture.
One suspected ringleader is already reportedly building a two-storey house in Malued District that couldn’t have been funded by his monthly pay at the city hall even if he didn’t spend a single centavo of it for three years. While another former city official was already driving around in his customized Hummer. Hmmm. Interesting improvements in their lifestyles. I am certain that neighbors of many former city hall officials have noticed the unmistakable upswing changes in lifestyles of their once “powerful” neighbors. We’d be happy to receive pictures or descriptions of new “acquisitions” and lifestyles of their neighbors that could not possibly be supported by city hall monthly pay slips. Just email them to me at punch.sunday@gmail.com. (I guarantee confidentiality and protection of my sources).
Wait, now comes the business establishment license plate anomaly. What’s next?
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DAGUPAN’S NAPOLES CASE. Here’s another one for Ripley’s Believe it or Not!
The Lim administration actually distributed some…hold your breath… P100 million to some favored non-government organizations, civic clubs and professional groups over a 3-year period!
Geez…if the national government is dealing with its P10 billion pork barrel scam allegedly with a Napoles couple in the middle of it, it looks like Dagupan City has its own reckoning with its “pork barrel”. Imagine what P100-M can produce for our city schools!
While waiting for the outcome of the audit on these funds, I wonder if members of the civic and professional clubs and volunteers of NGOs were aware that their presidents and executive directors received millions in their names ostensibly for various community projects.
Actually, I was already alerted a year ago that one professional group headed by a city hall official was made the recipient of P1 million in fund assistance but actually only P500,000 was delivered to the group. Who pocketed the undelivered P500,000? It appears that the members knew and just decided to keep it as the club’s secret since it was manna from city hall that was not expected at all.
The unwitting members of the groups that benefitted from the largesse from the city hall will be in for a big surprise when the full details are published here.
Speaking of civic and professional groups in Dagupan, the Inner Wheel Club of Dagupan, The Dagupan Jaycees Inc. and the Pangasinan Medical Society are showing the way how a group can make a difference for the communities they serve without need of a “pork barrel” delivered to them. All three are actively supporting the Fernandez administration’s desperate efforts to continue the children’s feeding program till the end of the year after learning that P3 million intended for it were misused by the previous administration.
Each group decided to adopt particular barangays over specific periods to continue the feeding program for indigent school and day-care children. May their tribes increase!
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THE PUNCH’S SUPPORT. The decision of Guv Spines to go into legacy mode in his third and final term is palpable.
The Guv’s recent dramatic enlistment of the capitol’s young scholars as an added army in his declared war against drug lords has given everyone an indication that the war is on! He has made Pangasinan’s youth aware of the need to fight back and help government protect their future, something that the drug lords could not have anticipated from a politico.
But that alone will not instill fear in the hearts of the coldblooded criminals who delight in sucking the blood and money out of vulnerable families. What will make them shake in their Havaiana’s flip-flops will be the series of non-stop arrests and prosecution of the members of their networks in the next 3 months. Nothing short of a no-nonsense hunt will stop them.
Will Guv Spines be up to the challenge? Will Provincial Director Sr. Supt. Marlou Chan lead the charge for the provincial government? Will the newly elected and reelected mayors also choose to go into legacy mode and make their respective towns and cities drug-free? I wonder if one of them will be found a protector of drug pushers.
The PUNCH will definitely keep a scorecard of this campaign. Readers would be interested to know which government prosecutor filed weak cases to ensure dismissal of the complaints by the courts, which judge liberally dismisses cases on simple technicalities, which lawyers regularly represent drug lords and pushers in courts, which police chiefs hesitate to collaborate with PDEA, etc. On the other side of the card, we will list the town that recorded the highest number of arrests, and the police station that registered the most number of successful raids and netted the biggest volume of shabu and marijuana.
Yes, Guv Spines can count on The PUNCH to do its part!
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OPTIONS FOR GRIDLOCK. The touch-and-go traffic experiment in Manila City, followed by the MMDA crackdown of colorum buses plying EDSA, should provide Dagupan’s political leaders the luxury of learning from their mistakes and gains.
The once notorious gridlock in Urdaneta City and in the town of Rosales used to be a bane that discouraged many motorists to pass through them. The widening of the MacArthur Highway that cut across Urdaneta took a lot of political will to get it done. There was a lot of resistance from storeowners initially, fearing shutdowns should the proposed major road construction be done. Today, the same establishments are now reaping the fruits of a widened highway.
In Rosales, the strict enforcement of No-loading / No-Unloading ordinance along the highway was initially protested by storeowners by the highway. Today, the controlled movements of provincial buses allowed smaller vehicles to easily park and do business with the small stores. Then construction of SM Open Bus Terminal for provincial buses fronting the SM City Rosales precedes what is being planned for Metro Manila.
Today, the daily worsening gridlock in Dagupan already necessitates serious plans to position and construct terminals in its four entry points for buses and jeepneys from other towns to avoid a crisis situation within the next four years.
If widening of existing roads and construction of road arteries are no longer possible, terminals are the only viable solution left. Paging Dagupan planners.
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