Punchline
Mayor Belen’s decent proposal
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
HERE’S a good (and not-so-good news) for AMB ALC Holdings and Management Inc. headed by businessman Antonio Cabangon Chua, the winner of the tainted public bidding of the MC Adore property conducted by the past Lim administration in Dagupan City!
Mayor Belen Fernandez is reiterating her win-win situation for both Mr. Cabangon Chua and the city!
Mr. Cabangon Chua’s company will be given a chance to own the property with no one complaining, and will lead to the immediate termination of the pending case!
The caveat, of course, is for Mr. Cabangon Chua’s group to agree to earn the privilege through a rebidding of the property, backed by a correct process sanctioned by law and with a starting bid that fairly reflects the current market rate for the property. Or through a less messy process, a transparent renegotiation.
I surmise that if the choice will be a rebidding, the city will return the P119 million that Mr. Cabangon Chua’s company paid as the company’s winning bid price for the hotel during that “garage sale” that then Mayor Benjie Lim craftily organized with the Judas 9 in tow.
The question is – Will Mr. Cabangon Chua be the gentleman-businessman, whom his newly hired lapdogs claim to have the best interests of the city at heart, agree? Will he accept the decent proposal that should have been served him the first time? Will he make a grand turnaround and give the city what’s due it? Will he be a man for Dagupan and Pangasinan, to be a worthy adopted son of Dagupan City?
Or will he be anything but what his PR weavers picture him to be?
But judging from Mr. Cabangon Chua’s lawyers’ demeanor, my sense is he will not accept any proposal that will lead to a rebidding or renegotiation except to insist on the result of that tainted bidding. I don’t think he will even care to consider what the proposal promises as his added legacy. But as always, I would like to be proven wrong, to make me eat my words about my impression of his companies’ profit agenda given what I have seen so far from his alipores.
Realistically, the hope to see the issue resolved via the mayor’s “win-win” proposal may simply be wishful thinking. Do I hear Mr. Cabangon Chua saying: “Dream on!”?
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NO RETURN, NO EXCHANGE. The unspoken term in the mayor’s proposal, and understandably so is that the city cannot be made to return to whoever may have given the rumored P50-million (?) in exchange for the guarantee that the MC Adore will be sold for a song.
Judging from the events that preceded the public bidding, I and thousands of Dagupeños share Judge Mervin Jovito Samadan’s impression that, indeed, the public bidding was pursued with “indecent haste” by the Lim administration. It could only mean lots of dirty money changed hands for that “magical sale.” The permanent knowing smiles on the faces of the Judas 9 say it all. (In case readers have forgotten – don’t we all have short memories – the Judas 9 were members of the city council class 2010: Onor-onors Brian Lim, Red Erfe-Mejia, Emong Vallejos, Chester Gonzales, Chito Samson, Karlos Reyna, Alvin Coquia, Dada Reyna and Jess Canto).
In this case, I believe the only recourse left to the “negotiator” to get a full refund of the “guarantee moolah” is to threaten the “guarantors” with lawsuit for swindling or other means, but that could be messier. Or the benevolent “negotiator” can just turn away, lick his wounds and resign to the fact that being swindled by corrupt politicos is part of the territory.
Since nobody wants to point a finger at the “benevolent negotiator,” the ugly under-the- table deal may just as well be forgotten. But what obviously cannot be forgotten is the fact that someone is deeply troubled because the promised fool-proof guarantee was not delivered after paying a hefty sum.
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WATCHING THE ZOMBIES. Allow me to digress a bit, let me revive here some talk about the Judas 9 of the old. Contrary to my earlier belief that we have seen the end of them, some quarters have seen their shadows lurking behind the walls, some heard them plotting another quick-profit, ala MC Adore vintage.
I have received reports from credible sources that the ragtag survivors of Judas 9 are still bent on making a killing for themselves given an opportunity. That opportunity apparently came when Mayor Belen expressed desperation for a supplemental budget to cover the huge deficit engineered by the Lim administration. They boycotted the regular session to send their message! Sadly, some naïve members of the majority obviously thought they could learn a thing or two from the remnants of the Judas 9. I don’t have the exact numbers yet but the ringleaders have been identified for my benefit. One of them is an ex-onor-onor of the Judas 9.
Well, boom! They failed. They miscalculated what stuff Mayor Belen is made of.
Anyway, the supplemental budget was eventually passed when the blackmail went pffftt. What should grate nerves of Dagupeños was the shameless but successful attempt of my relative Onor-onor Red Erfe-Mejia‘s to block the passage momentarily of the supplemental budget last Monday that necessitated a special session last Friday. In the end, he was the lone objector when the budget was passed. Gosh, Red had the gall to obstruct help for the city even knowing he has not and still refuses to this day to account for all the millions entrusted to him by the city during the Lim administration. Worse, he was invoking a rule that was found to be non-existent in the rules that the notorious Lim majority in the past crafted. What gall, indeed!
So, here’s a fair warning to the new would-be set of blood sucking Zombies, the corrupt–to-the-bone councilors who refuse to die, and I refer initially to those behind the Nov. 11 “blackmail” coup. The PUNCH will watch every move you make! And if Mayor Belen should make that fatal mistake of sustaining the culture of corruption against the best interests of the city, the people will know promptly.
Again, it’s not a threat, it’s just the usual – “The PUNCH promise”!
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ACCOUNTABILITY IN WAR VS. ILLEGAL DRUGS. Finally, we are seeing signs of activity at the Capitol’s frontline in the war vs. illegal drugs.
Guv Spines did not mince words when he addressed the province’s judges during the seminar organized by the Pangasinan chapter of the Judges Association of the Philippines on the jurisprudence on illegal drugs cases.
He complained about the low percentage of successful prosecution and conviction of drug lords, pushers and users. While he reiterated the need for a permanent court to decide on cases filed for illegal drugs, I hope the Guv cannot and will not stop there simply because the courts are not there.
It’s time to hear him bark strict orders to the police and the mayors of the towns and cities, making them accountable to him and their communities. It’s only fair since he has already made himself accountable in the campaign to make Pangasinan drug-free.
PD Marlou Chan, for his part, cannot escape accountability for his town chiefs’ respective performances. Either he shapes up and deliver results as can be expected from him or the people will demand that he ships out even before he can finish with a string of alibis.
If the principle of accountability is made the buzzword in the war vs. illegal drugs, Pangasinan will become drug-free in no time. The happiest will be Guv Spines, PD Chan, our kabaleyan DDB chairman Bebot Villar, and of course, the thousands of grateful families of Pangasinenses all over the world!
But today, the limelight is on Dagupan Mayor Belen Fernandez alone, adjudged by DDB as the most outstanding mayor in the country in the war vs. illegal drugs. Take a bow, Mayor!
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