Punchline
Taxes to pay for corruption
By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
To the Arroyo government, the imposition of EVAT signals to the world’s financial capitals that the country is prepared to pay its debts unconditionally. This development has pleased the country’s creditors no end.
But to the people, the EVAT represents the unabated corruption of the Arroyo administration. Had it been crafted and implemented from the first day of the Arroyo administration in 2001, the people would have damned her predecessors no end.
But since it is being imposed now that the public debt has doubled under her stewardship, the public faults no one else for this extremely heavy financial burden but Mrs. Arroyo.
Their fears were founded when Mrs. Arroyo issued E.O. 464 refusing to be made to account for the anomalous fertilizer fund, the Venable contract, the road users’ tax, the China North Railroad project.
How can we can blame people for feeling that the EVAT to be collected will be used to cover the trail of corruption that accompanied these contracts and fund releases?
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PAY-PARKING. The Dagupan City government is contemplating on collecting parking fees for the privilege of parking in major streets in the city. Personally, we see nothing wrong with it. What we thought was an obnoxious idea was the decision of the city government to pad construction costs for the New Malimgas market by providing for useless parking areas on the third and fourth floors of the building.
Pay-parking is considered one of the most efficient ways of regulating traffic and parking on busy streets in any town or city. And its application in Dagupan will be no exception.
But if the intent for it in the city is for revenue-raising more than regulation, then an even bigger problem will inevitably surface.
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But I have a hunch that this pay-parking ordinance is really a ploy solely to help close the worsening deficit in the budget.
And I suspect that the same guys plotting to implement it are the same conspirators who partook of the kickbacks for the construction of the Malimgas market, overpriced street lights and dredging machine.
Like the EVAT, car-owners in the city will soon be penalized for all the money lost, and will continue to be lost, to corruption.
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DOCTOR WHO? A regional DOH official is in hot waters in the province for incriminating doctors in government hospitals in the sale of counterfeit drugs.
But his report is no different from the news that a number of provincial officials, mayors and police chiefs have been involved in the promotion of jueteng in this province. It is no different from a public perception that many members of media are corrupt. There are scalawags in every sector in our society, including the clergy.
So, why the big fuss over the statements of Dr. Dr. Rey Jacinto, chief of the Standards and Regulation Division of the Department of Health in region 1, that doctors in government hospitals are engaged in the sale of counterfeit medicines?
Indeed, there ought to be a big fuss but for a different reason – the quality of medical treatment in the province is at risk. Not because it was a “sweeping indictment” of doctors, for it was not.
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The outrage expressed by both Dr. Jess Canto, director of the Region 1 Medical Center in Dagupan City and Dr. Jackson Soriano, chief of Pangasinan Provincial Hospital in San Carlos City, is understandable.
But they are not helping the situation any by merely expressing indignation yet feigning ignorance over the issue. If they don’t know what their subordinates are up to, then they have no business staying in their posts one minute longer.
But the fact is, they do know. They know the extent of the malpractice but are probably helpless to stop it. So, instead of demanding a public apology from Dr. Jacinto, they ought to be the first to volunteer their cooperation with legislators and law enforcers to help put an end to this malady that has put all doctors in government hospitals under a cloud of doubt.
They call this accountable leadership in public service.
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It was Dr. Jacinto who exposed the wide scale syndicated operations involving doctors, clinics and drug stores initially on the basis of the content of a black book of arrested suspects and subsequent investigations. He is clearly working for the interests of our people.
He is not the culprit, nor was he irresponsible. All he did was sound the alarm bells to alert the provincial officials and law enforcers.
In my book, Dr. Jacinto certainly owes no one an apology, particularly the doctor-businessmen who are guilty as hell but manage to hide behind their indignant yet protective colleagues.
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Board Member Saffe Villar Jr. and his colleagues would serve public interest if they press Health Sec. Pingkoy Duque instead to investigate and prosecute the doctors listed in the syndicate’s black book.
It is also in the public’s interest that they look into the evident lapse in the monitoring of hospitals’ operations by the provincial government.
To simply demand for Dr. Jacinto to name names smacks of grandstanding that leads to nowhere but a series of needless counter legal suits between the implicated doctors and Dr. Jacinto.
More than focusing on protecting the doctors’ collective reputation, the public urgently needs protection from unscrupulous doctors. Instead of putting Dr. Jacinto on the spot, the province should express its gratitude to him for helping curb the malpractice in the province.
If our public officials can’t trust the word of another government official who is doing his job, then who can they trust? Just the affluent and the influential?
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BY THE WAY, private memorial parks like Mt. Zion and Eternal Gardens should prohibit the operation of videoke and karaoke machines inside their premises at anytime. By tolerating the use of these loud machines, they negate the promised serenity in the parks. Or is it possible that the management of these memorial parks are actually inviting others to kill all severely and acutely out-of-tune songbelters so they can sell more lots?
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