By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

THE son has learned from the father – how to fast track a self-serving agenda with dubious interests, specifically of the pecuniary kind.

On the other hand, today’s councilors didn’t learn how the Dagupan City had its share of traitorous Judases in favor of the mayor’s pecuniary interests, that they all shared.

I’m talking about the city’s 12 councilors who voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance giving Mayor Brian Lim the authority to implement a reorganization based on 1993 and 2001 UP studies that were not even revalidated or reviewed by the public administration experts of UP!!

Why and how in the world can a bunch of well-educated city officials believe that a 28-year-old study, updated 20 years ago, be something that Dagupeños need to make their lives better when other urban cities in the country are already thinking Smart City and Safe City adopting modern technology?

I’m certain that even barangay councilmen in any barangay in the country would laugh off a proposition that a 28-year-old study that governance would improve by simply employing more people, giving them new titles, unless it promised them a bonanza.

Aaah, there’s the rub! Still, they are “honorable councilors” who pride themselves to have been educated in the country’s best universities!

Hence, it’d not be difficult to understand why they did what they did. Note that the approval of the reorganization came with the passage of a P350-M supplemental budget! Nothing new there, right? Ask the three councilors who remain as councilors today who conspired to sell the MC Adore with no added value to the city.

But to make themselves and the city believe that a 28-year-old study – at a time when smartphones were not even thought of as possible tool and when their own children didn’t have the luxury of playing with a tablet with a wi-fi connection – is what the city needs, makes them no different from the proverbial Three Wise Monkeys who “See, Hear, Speak No Evil”!

In Dagupan’s case, apparently there were 12 wise monkeys from the same tribe who met to pass the reorganization ordinance on May 14, 2021 to proclaim without batting any eyelash that the city needs a 28-year-old study to improve Dagupeños’ lives in the city!

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SHS MONKEYS. The special session called by Mayor Brian Lim for the approval of the proposal filed by his mother, Councilor Celia Lim, and sponsored by Councilor Dada Reyna, was a demonstration of the ultimate “APPROVE NA WITHOUT LOOKING” expression of support by a typical school or street barkada for a “win-win” situation. In their book, it was a special session that lived up to the Lims’ vision of “Living the value of ‘our city, our shared responsibility”. It can’t be more apt than that! 

Assuming that some closely reviewed it, I seriously doubt if any of the councilors can credibly defend the details of the 28-year-old UP study. Did Councilors Dada Reyna and Celia Lim really read both studies or were they merely told to mouth paragraphs of imagined highfalutin description of benefits to the city?    

So, to the Dagupeños victimized twice over, meet city’s 2021 edition of ONOR-ONORs, the 12 SHS (See-Hear-Speak no Evil) Monkeys. Anyone among them who considers himself/herself honorable, respectable, learned legislator that they present themselves to be at this point, are plain hypocrites. They have become blind followers to where their self-interests for aggrandizement lead them.  

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FOR THE BARKADA. But admittedly, like the ordinance that authorized the sale of the Mc Adore building, there was nothing that would appear patently illegal or immoral about the passage of the ordinance directing the reorganization. But the hidden agenda beneath the cover provided by the UP study is the creation of the Executive Management Group that intended to piggyback on the reorganization ordinance. The main objective is mainly to give his Barkada monthly salaries, allowances and other emoluments.

Gratefully, the 12 SHS Monkeys saved themselves from being further tagged as 12 ‘Stupid’ SHS Monkeys for not knowing any better than to create EMG as a department. They knew that creating it as a department will completely expose the conspiracy.  To be created simply as a group attached to the mayor’s office was the least incriminating.  Besides, Barkada nga, di ba?

As presumptuous as the title is, one wonders what could the Lim administration possibly need for such a group, to help in the city’s governance, when Mr. Lim himself has not even initiated anything to uplift the lives of Dagupeños since the pandemic started.

Take the City Health Office. It has been performing beyond its call and duty accomplishing its tasks for the vaccination rollout. Does it need an EMG looking over its shoulders? If Mr. Lim could not even do anything to stop overnight surges in active Covid cases, what can an EMG do for the city?

The mayor has department heads at its beck and call. So far, many of the department heads are performing their mandated tasks. They can do more new programs if only Mr. Lim would govern beyond sloganeering.

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ENTITLED BARKADA. In approving the creation of the EMG, nothing has been heard about specific mandated tasks to justify its urgent creation. The only evident urgency is for it is its inclusion in the supplemental budget that it also passed last Friday – salaries and allowances for the members of the EMG! 

After almost two years without a sustainable program to show, an EMG under him will just be a pool of order-takers just happy walking with and around Mr. Lim as the Barkada with entitlement. And our 12 SHS Monkeys shamelessly backed the plan to give the Barkada the entitlement the mayor wants for them.   

There lies the true agenda behind the plan to implement an antiquated reorganization plan for the city government. Mr. Lim wants his Barkada to rule the city in his behalf without any accountability to anyone but him.  

Getting down to brass tacks, instead of exploiting the expected bonanza from next year’s Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) from the national government by skimming sizeable fund for sizable salary items for the Barkada, the targeted amount would be far useful in investing on the foundation for a Smart City or Safe City operation utilizing modern technology.  

Unfortunately for Dagupeños, they have a mayor that cannot think beyond its version of “shared responsibility” for corruption.  The city will proceed with the antiquated reorganization system in governance – employing more people!  (My sense of it – the new positions will actually be ghost employees of the councilors, the prize for supporting the adopted twisted system of governance).   

By insisting on the EMG, Mr. Lim is telling all and sundry that he cannot run the city on his own, and needs help!!

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