By Gonzalo Duque

NOBODY is disputing the claim of Celia Lim and company that the Mother  and  Child Hospital was the brainchild of her husband, former Mayor Benjie Lim. The problem is, the late Lim patriarch was not able to accomplish the project nor did this project able to take off when their son, Brian Lim, was the city mayor.

Here comes Mayor Belen Fernandez wanting to put up the Mother and Child Hospital to be bankrolled by the national government at no cost to the city provided the city will provide the site where the hospital will stand.

Noting that the city has no available land for the purpose, the mayor’s brother, Kerwin, volunteered to donate his land to be the location of the hospital. The problem is, the seven majority councilors ascribed lack of sense of delicadeza to the Fernandez family in donating the lot as site of the hospital.

I find nothing wrong with Kerwin’s donation for the hospital even if he’s the brother of the city mayor. As a citizen, he wants to give back to the city that helped his businesses grow. Sana ganun din sila!

They should appreciate instead that Kerwin made the donation because the city has no alternative site for the MCH. What could be a hidden agenda to a donation to solve a problem? There is no other donation on the table, not even a desire from anyone in the opposition to donate. And, Belen certainly doesn’t need to profit from the construction of the MCH by the national government. May CSI Malls na siya. Mga trapo lang ang kailangang kumita sa governemt projects. May report na ang COA dito.

In questioning the donation of the lot as site of MCH, including its legal aspect, the majority councilors are clearly using it as a convenient excuse to derail, reject or postpone the approval of the long requested resolution authorizing Mayor Fernandez to sign a MOA with DOH for the implementation of the MCH.

Anyway, since there was no vacant lot owned by the city during the time of Benjie, except for the land occupied by the Juan P. Guadiz Elementary School under the jurisdiction of DepEd, he asked DepEd to vacate the premises of Juan P. Guadiz Elementary School, but no dice. Not even a proposal to swap a newly-built three story school building within the city engineering compound was acceptable.

Then, the seven councilors want the MCH be located at the boundary of Dagupan and San Fabian where Dagupan City has no lot of its own there. Meron ba?

Then, they suggested the present site of the CSI Market Square as another alternative site even knowing that the site is being leased by the city to the Fernandez family since 1992 and the city must honor its existing contract to any party. Pati contract ng city government sisirain?

In the same vein, can any of the Lim family donate part of their land as location of the MCH? Or are they willing to give up their lease on the lot occupied by their own Metro Plaza or MC Adore as site of the MCH? I doubt very much if they can do.

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Apropos to my comment about the seven majority councilors salivating over the prospect of putting up a Dagupan City-owned college using the yearly P200 million allotted for scholarships, I recall a report in The PUNCH that the scholars of the past Lim administration were teeming with so-called flying or alien scholars, and worst ghost scholars.

The flying scholars reportedly came from Alaminos City, Mangaldan, Manaoag, Lingayen etc. All or most wanted to be included in the roster of scholars of the Belen administration but many failed to secure certificates of residency and indigency from the barangay they claimed to come from.

Ang solution nila, mag register mga alien scholar as voters to qualify. But during the election, they were not able to cast their vote because they did not even know the barangays where they were supposed to vote. Yan ang crime does not pay!

So, in the remote possibility that they succeed to return to the city hall again, expect them to put up a city college instead of continuing with the scholarship program while putting up a roster of scholars from other places willing to register as voters in Dagupan in return for a chance to pad their votes in the election. 

Damn the scheming bastards. Nakakahiya kayo!

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