By Gonzalo Duque

 

MANY people are asking me who among the presidential candidates am I going to vote for on May 9. My answer: I’m still waiting for President Duterte’s signal on who he will support. But some of the Duterte die-hards, among them former Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones, already manifested their support for Isko Moreno and Sara Duterte for president and vice president, respectively.  The other is Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay who supports fellow Bicolano Leni Robredo for president and Sara Duterte for VP.

It seems many want to endorse Sara to partner with Isko or Leni, taking Bongbong away from the equation. Maybe, even Sara is worried that her father’s die-hard followers’ endorsements for other presidential hopefuls may not sit well with BBM, and this might result in a strategy to counter such maneuvering.

Of course, I am all for Sara as Vice President, whom I never met in person. But because of the many achievements of his father, I will support her irrespective of how Digong has been pictured by the opposition. I believe that Digong has accomplished a lot of things. What these are will be my topic in the next column. Abangan!

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The senatorial candidates adopted by different parties appear to be making the life of presidential contenders miserable. An example is when the group of Ping Lacson excluded Senators Win Gatchalian, Miguel Zubiri and former QC Mayor Herbert Bautista from their team for violating their gentleman’s agreement: Not to endorse any other presidential candidate on stage even during sorties they join.

Maybe the three thought that Lacson’s bid for the presidency is already a hopeless case, that’s why they decided to endorse Marcos. A friend has a hunch that Lacson will not be able to earn the support of most of the 350 more or less congressmen because of his campaign line that he’s the only lawmaker who did not accept a pork barrel, meaning all the others had gained weight from pork in Congress.

Does he want to picture himself as the only anghel at yong ibang mga nasa Kongreso ay puro mga demonyo for accepting their respective pork? Even before he threw his hat into the presidential race, Ping always said he “is the only Senator who has not accepted any pork barrel.”

There is something to that! Being the only voice in the wilderness will really affect his chances for the presidency. Maybe Lacson’s good intention will be realized in the future, but not now when people are hungry!

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In Dagupan, ang mga konsehal ay binubusising mabuti yong budget bago ipasa! I find nothing wrong with that? At yong mayor, ay parang ayaw ipabusisi ang budget.

What is laughable is how the councilors themselves get mixed up themselves. Take their move to override the mayor’s veto of the city council resolution expressing its disappointment and disgust to the Dagupan PIO for disinformation over the budget. I thought only the nine in the majority voted for it but it appeared all the councilors voted for it because there were no objections. So it was a unanimous decision!

It meant even Celia Lim, the mayor’s mother, Dada Reyna and Cisco Flores voted to override the mayor’s veto! And yet, Celia delivered a privilege speech challenging her fellow councilors to finally decide to vote whether they will pass the budget or not and to stop wasting each other’s time. Oh well.

We know that if there is no budget approved for the year, the previous budget will take its course and this situation has not only affected Dagupan but Calasiao as well. The Calasiao councilors are demanding for a public accounting for every centavo of the public  funds spent for programs and projects by the mayor.

In Dagupan, one cause of the budget stalemate is the non-enrollment of indigent citizens and barangay families for the last two years. I heard one barangay official was hospitalized and was not able to collect the reimbursement of her hospital expenses from PhilHealth,  simply because Dagupan never re-enrolled them with PhilHealth.

Are the poorest of the poor, including barangay tanods and BHWs the least of the priorities of the current city administration? PhilHealth insurance for indigents and members of the barangay family was allocated P6 million in 2020 and another P6 million in 2021. Where did these budgets go?

Then it appears that one side is claiming that the non-approval of the 2022 annual budget will delay the salary of employees while the other side of the spectrum says this is not true! Ano ba yan?

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