By Gonzalo Duque

 

SOME years ago, at the Dagupeña Restaurant, then located along A.B. Fernandez Avenue in Dagupan City, I found myself having an animated conversation with then newly elected mayor Benjie Lim, now deceased.

With bravado, he declared to me that he has the long-awaited solution to the garbage problem of Dagupan City, and even boasted to me that if he could not resolve the problem in six months, he will resign from his post.

I found out later that his self-assuring declaration hinged on the purchase of a more or less 30-hectare land in Barangay Awai, San Jacinto.

I was informed that the land was purchased from its original owner, Estrella Sangalang, by a certain Jose Mariano Cuna of Dagupan City in the amount of P7 million in December 2001, and in just three months, it was sold to the Dagupan City government for P16 million.

When the land was about to be transferred to the city of Dagupan, several tenants complained to the Department of Agrarian Reform, stating among other things that the land was under the Comprehensive  Agrarian Reform Reform and could not be transferred to the city government just like that.

Several months passed, beyond the six-month period promised by Lim to me, the land was never titled in the name of Dagupan, and worst, the dumpsite turned into a vast smokey mountain, thus affecting, inconveniencing and compromising the health of the people of Bonuan Boquig, Gueset and Binloc.

When Mayor Belen Fernandez was elected as city mayor for the first time in 2013, she had a good project to solve the garbage problem.

She concluded an agreement with international company Sure Global for the latter to build a $15 million waste-to-energy facility at no cost to Dagupan.

The only obligation of the city government was to provide the lot for the  project.

In support of this novel project, and responding to the request of Mayor Belen and the Sangguniang Panlungsod, then President Benigno Aquino III issued a proclamation segregating two-hectares of land from the present Tondaligan national park as site of the project.

When Mayor Belen lost her reelection bid to Brian Lim, the project was abandoned, and Brian and his ilks resorted to a multi-million peso contract for the delivery of our  wastes supposedly to the Metro Clark Sanitary Landfill.

There was a report that actually, the garbage was being delivered to the property of the contractor in San Jacinto, not at Metro Clark.

In an interview by newsmen with Brian Lim, he claimed that he already cleared the dumpsite, but it turned out they merely pushed mountains of garbage to the deeper portion of the dumpsite to hide growing rubbish pile from public view.

Worst, they built a leachate pond that led to the sea, polluting it.

Before Brian exited as mayor in 2022, they spent P54 million in just 40 days, apparently with the same contractor that was suspected to be just delivering the trash to San Jacinto.

May be, my good friend Chito Samson, can enlighten us and add to the details of our historical assertions.

*          *          *          *

The senatorial race has become more thrilling and exciting.

I wrote before that the only way the opposition or the PDP Laban can beat the Alyansa sa Pagbabago ng Pilipinas is for a “trigger” that could suddenly make their slate surge.

Looking at political history, the Liberal Party scored a 6-2 win against the Nacionalista Party under then President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos in the mid-term election of 1971 because of the Plaza Miranda LP rally bombing.

In the same manner, the illegal arrest of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte and his immediate rendition to The Hague has awakened the Filipino people to protest the illegal acts of our government.

Even without Digong personally campaigning for his candidates, the PDP Laban senatorial line up has become a formidable team with Bong Go, Bato de la Rosa, Rodante Marcoleta and Raul Lambino now surging in surveys. 

With the growing dissatisfaction of our people against the present administration, there is a big chance that candidates of the opposition will land in the magic 12.

The  only caveat here is if the COMELEC will cheat the people of their sacrosanct right to elect their chosen candidates. 

Well it be a case of the people versus the COMELEC?

I fear that there will be a histrionic verdict that could happen if the COMELEC becomes an instrument for cheating. 

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