Punchline
Civility and statesmanship
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
IT is encouraging to note that despite all the fears that the anticipated tight and emotional contest between the Espinos and the Cojuangcos would end up in rough and tumble situations, it was peaceful and quiet in the frontline!
We have to give credit to the high sense of civility and statesmanship of both Guv Spines and Cong. Mark! Mr. Espino was clearly magnanimous in victory while Mr. Cojuangco accepted his defeat with grace. I think the partisan lines drawn by local media practitioners in support of either one caused more hurt among themselves than it did their two giant politico-benefactors. There is a lesson to be learned there by my colleagues: Never bark louder than the dogs or risk get bitten.
Messrs. Espino and Cojuangco have shown the way, other politicos should emulate their example in future elections!
Of course, the high visibility of the police helped but even that could not have minimized the violence if one of them said: Let’s go to war!
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NO CONTEST. The buzz in Dagupan City today was the totally unexpected results of the “voting” between Mayor Belen Fernandez and BSL Team’s mayoral (but withdrawn) candidate for mayor, Celia Lim.
Mayor Belen had 37,620 while Mrs. Lim had 37,494., That’s only 126 votes that separated them! A scary thought for 2019? Not necessarily!
In fairness to Mayor Belen, the numbers alone certainly do not give the proper context.
Firstly, it must be recalled that since Mrs. Lim announced the withdrawal of her candidacy, Mayor Belen stopped actively campaigning for herself, and focused on campaigning for her councilors and the bid of LP’s Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo.
Secondly, when the ballots did not remove the names of Mrs. Lim and Mr. Bryan Kua (for vice mayor) and the Board of Election did not advise voters to disregard voting for mayor and vice mayor, one cannot but suspect that votes for Mrs. Lim were prompted. How in the world could have voters chosen to state preference for Mrs. Lim when she never did anything for the city compared to Mayor Belen’s numerous accomplishments. Elementary.
The successful bid of Team Belen’s six candidates for council seats should indicate the extent of influence that Mayor Belen continues to enjoy to help them win. BSL Team could only manage four in spite of Veem Brian’s seemingly ‘landslide win’.
In brief, the numbers do not indicate a contest that was fought. In truth, there was no contest at the polls at all!
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DARK CLOUDS. Mayor Belen could very well shrug off these numbers but it’d be prudent for her to take the numbers as an indicator of dark clouds ahead. For voters to be easily prompted to ‘vote’ for Mrs. Lim with little consideration should indicate to Mayor Belen that there’s a lower level of vote of confidence and satisfaction in her administration than she’s been made to believe by her sycophants.
I venture to say that the “surprise” votes may point to a growing degree of discontent or dissatisfaction in her administration. To what? It can be anything and that’s really for Mayor Belen to discern for herself. It could be about one or two policies that made people suspect unabated corruption (from project bidding to traffic enforcement) in her administration, or about unfulfilled 2013 campaign promises, or constant rude behavior and bullying of some of her key officials, or failure to correct reported anomalous situations that affect their daily lives, or about a perception that she is unfairly playing favorites among kapitans.
In my book, Mayor Belen rated highly in programs on health, senior citizens, sports, education, fiscal management, livelihood, infrastructure and disaster rescue and response management. Her accomplishments easily beat all her predecessors combined!
But she has unfinished business that continues to hound her administration: 1) Her continued failure to close illegal fish pen operations after 3 years of committing to act decisively. 2) Her inability to galvanize action among her barangay officials to act on the worsening illegal drugs problem that already victimize hundreds of families daily, and 3) Her failure to effectively implement her traffic and safety program to exact discipline in the streets.
If she chooses to ignore these signs on the wall, she could end up grappling with more issues with disgruntled city hall workers, barangay kapitans, business sector and constituents that could frustrate her well-intended programs. Worse, if these are not contained and corrected, she could kiss her re-election for a final term in 2019 goodbye because her vice mayor is just waiting for her to bungle her affairs.
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BACK TO MR. MBM. I’ve been receiving feedbacks about “Prof. Nicanor O. Melecio, MBM,” about his behavior and unprofessional conduct since I wrote that item about his plagiarizing and tampering the work of Visionarch. I chose to ignore them until I received one from Mr. Melecio himself. Yes, implicating himself further!
Several of Mr. MBM’s Facebook friends forwarded screen grabs from his FB account that tried to prove me wrong, only to prove me right! Strangely, these were his “shared “ posting of his key staff yet addressed to me titled “So Dagupenos may know.” Yet, he knows I have no access to his FB account because we are not “friends.” Obviously he wants to make certain I can’t react to his posting but makes sure he impresses his FB friends with more of his mumbo jumbo language.
The ‘shared’ message: “You goofed Ermin Garcia, easily believing the lies of your city hall gofers and adding your own ignorance:…” and went to on to quote an item in my column questioning his credentials and his office’s Public Alert and Response Monitoring Center’s (PARMC) capabilities. Then, as one might have expected from him (and his staff), they copied from the internet and pasted the meaning of the word “goof”. Duh? Now, I’m really impressed!
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NO CREDENTIALS. To refute my claim about the absence of competency in PARMC, they simply enumerated all they did as encoders and assistants, and one as computer graphic artist (he who evidently executed Mr. Melecio’s design on Visionarch’s work)! Like Mr. Melecio, no one in PARMC could claim to have had formal academic background on environment, weather and e-governance studies. That should be enough reason for Mayor Belen to close that office and move everyone to the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Center that operates efficiently with only P3.058 M, for better use of their talents.
Imagine, for PARMC’s P3.39 million a year budget, (including P360,000 for Mr. MBM plus other expenses at his discretion), Mr. Melecio can’t even respond to Bitstop’s CEO Mr. Wilson Chua’s basic query posted in Mr. MBM’s FB last April 27 – ”Prof Nicanor O. Melecio Mbm how far inland would a 30 ft .wave go? Hello? Mr. MBM?
The city government must stop throwing good money after bad in his case. Mr. MBM has proven himself a serious embarrassment as a habitual plagiarist, an unqualified professional who doesn’t have the proper credentials, and a big bully to hapless rank and file at the city hall. But hey, if his services are truly indispensable to the mayor, I strongly suggest she hires him as her nattily dressed personal social secretary, with a hefty salary paid by CSI (not by city funds raised by taxpayers).
As things stand, the longer she keeps Mr. MBM tied to her jeans, the bigger the embarrassment it will be for her and the city each day. That’s a fact!
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My sincerest congratulations to the elected public servants! (Note: Presumptive President Duterte detests the use of public ‘officials’ to describe them). May you all survive the Duterte administration’s forthcoming drastic reforms!
(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)
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