Punchline
CAO vs. CLO at city hall
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
A SHOWDOWN between City Legal Officer Atty. Vicky Cabrera and City Agriculturist Emma Molina appears imminent over the fate of 63 illegal fish pens that remain operating in the city’s rivers and tributaries despite the order and the deadline set by Mayor Belen Fernandez for the clearing of the city’s rivers and their tributaries last October 30.
For the nth time since 2013, Molina has been sparing the illegal fish pens that allegedly are covered by land titles from demolition. For the past five years, she’s been arguing for the pen owners, maintaining that the city government cannot demolish private properties unless a court orders it. She consistently and conveniently invoked the ‘rights’ of the owners to save their structures from being demolished. And for reasons known only to then City Legal Officer Atty. George Mejia, he endorsed Molina’s position, prompting Mayor Belen to accept the opinion as valid. Consequently, to this day, the owners of the 63 pens are allowed to continue operating, polluting the rivers in violation of the city’s ordinance.
Yet, many revered legal minds in the city are themselves baffled by the position taken by Molina and Mejia. The national law stipulates that when a portion of a private land recedes to a river due to natural accretion, that portion covered by the river becomes public domain. This was even affirmed by the CENRO during a meeting with Mayor Belen earlier. Was it even possible that both Molina and Mejia were not aware of this law? If they didn’t, how they qualified to become civil servants escape many.
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LAWS ARE CLEAR. Molina continues to defend the pen owners saying they have the right to a litigation process before the land titles can be amended. With the litigation scenario, she (and Mejia) decided a litigation case should be avoided and simply wait for the goodness of the hearts of the illegal pen owners to voluntarily remove the structures. Translation: Allow the unhampered illegal operation of the fish pens indefinitely!
Wonder of all wonders, Atty. Mejia (and even the city councilors), did not bother to qualify and clarify that the claims of property ownership and the enforcement of the city ordinance banning fish pens that the two are distinctly separate legal issues. Meaning, even assuming that the claimed area in the river is legitimately owned by private individuals, the land (river?) owners cannot conduct illegal activities in their properties.
In this case, the operation of the fish pens is illegal. Fortunately, Atty. Cabrera, the city’s no-nonsense legal officer, says the laws are clear. The illegal structures have to go particularly because the mayor already gave them the final ultimatum.
Since the policy of the CAO is violates the city’s ordinance, the city council should motu propio investigate Molina and seek her dismissal outright for her acts inimical to the interests of the city government. She never even filed a single complaint against any of the owners of fish pens at anytime in the past for violating the ordinance, a policy that led to loss of revenues for the city.
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WALKING THE TALK. I wonder if Guv Pogi and VGuv Ferdie Calimlim have monitored the implementation of the provincial board’s resolution authored by BM Jinky Zaplan requiring barangay officials to take the drug test.
It should be to their interest that they find out soon who among the barangay officials are users and actively involved in the illegal drug trade before the information about kapitans that PDU30 already has in his pocket is known. Feigning ignorance of the status and activities of the erring kapitans months after the resolution was passed, will not keep them from being red-faced by the certain embarrassment that the presidential revelation and expose will bring.
The possibility that there are at least 100 of the 1,330 kapitans are positive of drug use and are involved in the drug trade is real because Pangasinan has been tagged by PDEA that it has become a major transshipment point for drugs in central and northern Luzon, it would not be farfetched to think that the top political leadership in Pangasinan offered protection to the drug trade.
Also by the Pangasinan police’s reckoning, only 128 barangays are confirmed drug free, and all others continue to be drug-infected. This alone should be a cause for serious concern by Guv Pogi! There’s much to be done, and lip service at this stage won’t cut it anymore.
Guv Pogi, VG Ferdie and yes, Kapitana Jinky should walk their talk about being fully supportive of PDU30s war on drugs lest it explodes in their faces before they can preempt the shame campaign.
So far, nobody has even heard any word about kapitans of Sta. Barbara, Zaplan’s territory, taking the drug test. Tsk-tsk. In case she is not aware, the information that a police officer in the town continues to operate as drug distributor is making the rounds in the town. Is that ‘ninja cop’ enjoying official protection?
I guess PDU30 will soon find out himself.
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CROP INSURANCE TODAY. Last week, I was invited by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano to attend a consultation meeting with DTI, DBP, Landbank and CARD (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) Bank for the preliminary discussion on the Duterte administration’s proposal to allocate P1 billion budget for each region to support and promote a micro-financing program for small entrepreneurs, i.e., market vendors, tricycle and jeepney operators, fishermen, farmers, etc.
The brainstorming on the program, a brainchild of the senator, was aimed at determining how existing micro-financing programs of the government can either be complemented or improved given a P1 billion budget per region.
In the course of the discussion, Dr. Aris Aip, founder and head of CARDbankph., told the group that in addition to its ongoing lending program for small entrepreneurs, it recently launched its crop insurance program! Boom!
I was told Cardbankph has several branches in Pangasinan.
Last week, I was of the impression that farmers and LGUs still need to wait for a legislation that will prescribe an expansion of the crop insurance program of the government’s Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation. With CardBankph’s crop insurance program, our farmers can already seek assistance from LGUs to have their seasonal crops covered by insurance today.
As Dr. Alip correctly pointed out, farmers who access micro-financing loans may actually find themselves in financial crisis if their corps are continuously destroyed by typhoons and floods.
Without a doubt, a crop insurance coverage for a farmer is the best safety net that the government and entrepreneurs can provide to mitigate the impact of the worsening climate change in the country.
It would help our farmers if Guv Pogi and other mayors can already initiate a discussion with CardBankph.
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Our condolences to the Velasco siblings (Dante, Jun, Mel, Butch and other brothers and sisters) over the passing of their mother last Friday. Losing a mother is an emotional pain that can only heal with loving childhood memories.
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