Brian’s P21-M plus vs. Benjie’s P16-M

By Ermin Garcia Jr.

THE plan of the Lim administration in Dagupan City to opt for daily collection and delivery of city’s garbage to another garbage site is not only worrisome but poses a serious threat to the city’s sustainability as a first class city.

In sum, it’s about big-time corruption, while aggravating waste disposal problems in the country.

The garbage collection racket is as old as corruption system in city halls all over the country. The only difference is, corruption in city halls is largely paper transactions that are manipulated to appear legit while in garbage collection, ghost pick-up and deliveries, and under quota does it bigtime for the corrupt officials protected by tons of visible garbage.      

Note how the city council was prodded to pass supplemental budget for the city’s waste and disposal management in haste for a whopping P70-M plus budget for one year!!! With thirty percent (30%) going rate for kickback, translate that to a cool P21-M plus to be pocketed by Dagupan City officials, from department heads whose signatures will be needed to release the P70-M in tranches and the city councilors who will defend the project.

With guaranteed illegal take home without one’s signature implicating himself or herself, it’s not difficult to understand why the Lim administration is rushing to sign an agreement with a truck hauler for the P70-M contract instead of rushing the implementation of the Waste-to-Worth program that will not make the city spend a single centavo for corruption.

Former Mayor Benjie Lim’s P16-M deal for a sanitary landfill that never was, is a pittance compared to the son’s, Mayor Brian Lim, P70-M budget with a forecasted P30-M cut.

But like the father, the son will use piling garbage in the city as the trigger for the signing of the contract. The father already used it to justify the need for sanitary landfill.

I’m convinced the son is brighter and smarter than the father. 

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ILLEGAL GAMBLING GALORE. And while the Christmas lights around main streets of Dagupan continue to glitter before the eyes of Dagupeños and visitors, unknown to the impressed crowd, behind all that bright colored glitter are various illegal gambling activities being tolerated by the city government and the city police.

Punch readers pointed to a ‘drop ball’ gambling behind a big merchandise store A.B. Fernandez Ave. that was operating for the duration of the city fiesta last December.

Today, a Punch reader recently pointed to a daily gambling activity under the Quintos Bridge on A.B. Fernandez Ave. Just below the bridge where the residents and visitors continue to take souvenir pictures at night.

Then tour reader pointed to the illegal cockfight in Bonuan Boquig every Saturday and Sunday which according our reader reports is organized by a former barangay official whom he identified.

The information that the people behind all the illegal gambling are claiming protection from cronies of Mayor Lim is not surprising. That these indeed happen are proofs enough that the city hall is protecting illegal gambling in Dagupan.

If the police are not protecting these illegal activities, the reader says police chief Mangelen can prove it by stopping all these illegal gambling in the city’s barangays given all the information on the locations passed on to us.

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ILLEGAL FISH PENS GALORE. Meanwhile, the Dagupan City’s rivers are now teeming with illegal fish pens in the city’s island barangays in direct contravention of the city’s fishery ordinance.

One cannot but wonder, where City Agriculturist Emma Molina in all these? Where is the city council in all these? Where is Mayor Brian Lim in all these?  Where is the city’s flood mitigation commission in all these? Is the monthly tong for everybody enough to keep everyone paralyzed, blind and dumb, instantly afflicted with dementia?

For as long as illegal fish pens owners are tolerated to dump huge volumes of commercial fish feeds in their pens daily, the overflow of floodwater due to heavy rains and serious siltation in the city’s tributaries is inevitable.  All the dredging today and in the past will all become an exercise in futility.  Dagupan will soon see its worst flooding yet, courtesy of illegal fish pen owners protected by the Lim administration!

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BRIAN’S A-TEAM. Could the recent appointment of Vlad Mata as permanent city administrator have something to do with these planned illegal transactions? Mr. Mata was the one of the city councilors who batted for the P16-M transaction for Barangay Awai deal was consummated. (In that deal, there was also our friend Tony Uy whose name was mentioned in that dubious transaction involving Jose Mariano Cuña).

Hmmm… Mayor Brian’s “A-Team” is complete. Good luck!

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