The artful dodger

NO, this has nothing to do with the wily pickpocketing li’l ‘un of Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

Yes, this has everything to do with the craftily dodgy governor of Pampanga who acts more and more like a fork-tongued politician and less and less than a priest. ‘Tis indeed way past time to delete the reverential “Among” before his name as it has ceased to befit his person, much less his passions.

Gov. Eddie T Panlilio is afflicted with a foot-in-mouth disease arising from his predilection of issuing irrationalities which when exposed he belabors to rationalize with determined unreason.

Remember Panlilio’s “caretaker administration” tag of Acting Governor Yeng Guiao’s term some two weeks before the capitol turnover?

After Guiao gave him a piece of his mind solidly grounded on a mandate to serve until noon of June 30, Panlilio was reported to have said that what he meant was for Guiao to “take care of the administration of the province.”

When his letter directly impacted into Guiao that as a mere acting governor – and in the wake of Panlilio’s proclamation – he did not have the authority to push through with the then-scheduled bidding of some projects.

Bokya na, hihirit pa. As the tambay would have it.

A graver case of Panlilio’s proclivity for palusot is the current “blanket authority” issue.

On July 11, Panlilio shared the seat of Guiao at the Sangguniang Panlalawigan and read this letter dated July 9 that he himself signed: “In order for me to effectively carry out my duties, I shall need full authority to enter into memorandum of agreement, contracts, deeds of donation, and any other transaction for the benefit of the province.

“To date, there are several non-governmental organizations and private individuals who are offering various help for our province. In this regard, may I request for the passage of a resolution granting me blanket authority to sign said contracts, memoranda, and/or deeds in order to facilitate the processing of said transactions. Enclosed is a draft of the proposed resolution for your consideration.”

Asked for his comments later, Guiao said he found the letter “irrational” as it struck at the very core of the sanggunian’s being: the check-and-balance democratic essential seriously imperiled.

Of course, media played this out.

Panlilio took to the offensive and – on CLTV36 – virtually took Guiao to task for: a) taking the issue to media; b) failure to understand his letter request – that the authority he wanted was only for donations, not for anything else.

Panlilio was wrong on the first count; on the second, either he did not understand his own letter or he lied through his teeth.

Guiao did not take the issue to media. Panlilio himself did, publicizing his letter before the sanggunian members and the media.

Any grader with the most rudiment knowledge of the English language will readily understand what Panlilio wrote which he is now convoluting.

If, indeed, all he meant for the blanket authority to cover were donations, then why were the specifics of “memorandum of agreement, contracts…” and the all-encompassing “…and any other transaction” included in his letter-request?

Panlilio’s enclosure of a “proposed resolution re blanket authority to sign” to his letter further cleared all doubts of his intention, to wit:

“Whereas, through a letter dated 09 July 2007, the Office of the Governor is requesting for the issuance of blanket authority to sign contracts, memoranda, and/or deeds in order to facilitate the processing of donations and all other transactions aimed at alleviating the needs of the Province;

xxxxxxxxxxx

“RESOLVED, as it is hereby resolved that Hon. Eddie T. Panlilio, Governor, is hereby granted blanket authority to sign any and all contracts, memoranda, and/or deeds for the benefit of the Province.”

All the underscoring are mine to show greater clarity of the cluelessness, if not the patent lie, in Panlilio’s irrationalizations.

So what has happened to the trumpeted transparency of the Panlilio administration?

Just lying there. For anyone to see.

Sige, hirit pa.

No quarry miracle

“WALANG himala. Ang himala’y nasa tao. Ang himala’y nasa puso.”
Came to mind were these immortal lines of Nora Aunor’s Elsa character in Himala, one of the best Filipino films ever produced, upon reading and hearing the hallelujahs heaped the governor’s way in the wake of his “miraculous” leavening of the quarry dough accruing to the provincial coffers.
Walang himala. This won’t endear me a bit to Panlilio’s fanatical faithful who may have readily taken their idol on the road to sainthood: the incredible increase in the quarry income paralleled with Christ’s very own multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Maybe, even with His turning water into wine at Cana. For didn’t Panlilio in effect turn sand into gold?
Walang himala. This will re-affirm their belief that “nothing good about Among Ed will ever be written by Bong Lacson as he brims with the bitterest bias against the priest-turned-governor.” Aw, shucks.
Even if Among Ed walked on water, Lacson would write that Panlilio just did not know how to swim. So a friend of the governor chided me.
So let’s get to the facts. (I place the amount in words instead of figures for greater effect.)
On June 29, the last working day of the Lapid administration, the measly amount of forty-five thousand pesos was collected from quarrying.
On July 2, the first working day of the Panlilio administration, the quarry fees totaled a whopping one million, one hundred twenty-five thousand pesos.
In all, the first working week of Panlilio brought in six million, one hundred fifty thousand pesos to the provincial treasury. Spectacularly incredible indeed! But miraculous?
That “there is money in quarry” as Panlilio exclaimed is an understatement. And this is where the miracle is not.
Anybody who has given but a cursory look at the number of sand-overloaded dump trucks plying the OG Road, err, Jose Abad Santos Avenue, and MacArthur Highway cannot help but see the vast profits from and even vaster potentials of the burgeoned industry belched by Pinatubo’s bowels.
Anybody who has seen the palaces in Porac would be but blind as not to see the prized jewel in the sand, nay, the prized jewel that is the very sand.
That too little actual returns – to the public weal, that is – come from too much promise and potential is sheer magic, of the blackest kind: the evil that is the corruption in the quarry industry.
That embodied the mantra of Vice Governor Yeng Guiao since he sundered his partnership with the younger Lapid six months into their term in 2004.
That was the casus belli raised by the former Porac Mayor, the now-lamented Roy David against his erstwhile political protégé that was Lito Lapid from 1998 up to the ambush in June 2000 at DWGV-AM station where he was critically wounded and three confederates slain.
That was what the now dearly departed Ody Fabian – and the still-alive Bong Lacson – fleshed out in a series of exposes that earned for The Voice the Best Newspaper in Investigative Journalism plum in the 1999 Philippine Press Institute-Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Community Press Awards.
And, that was what triggered the ascension to the governorship of the then-Senior Board Member Edna de Ausen-David with the suspension of the elder Lapid by the Ombudsman in 1998.
Rightly and justly, Guiao felt vindicated by the latest developments. So would have Roy and Ody too. So did I and Attorney Junior Canlas too who played a principal role in the exposes and actual cases lodged against Lapid then. So did the Inquirer’s Tonet Orejas who pursued the quarry issue relentlessly, and so bravely.
Money for the public coffers amassed in private pockets. That was the quarry magic. Money, oodles of money going to the provincial treasury. That is the quarry miracle?
In collecting what ought to be collected, Panlilio simply did one duty he was sworn to as elected governor; and to his credit, Panlilio started delivering on the promise he made during the campaign – to right the quarry wrongs.
So pray tell, where is the miracle there?
The long years we’ve been inured to NPAs – non-performing actors, and CIAs – corrupt, idiotic assholes that we elected to misgovern us have made us believe a simple just-doing-the-job as the very act of God.
Still, Panlilio did a good job here.

Alibi we won't buy

A RESPONSE that answered nothing. An alibi that held no water to either sense or reason.
That is the purported clarificatory statement of Atty. Vivian T. Dabu, provincial administrator of Pampanga on the joint manifesto of all media groups in the province deploring the discrimination and arrogance Capitol rank and factotums inflicted upon some of their members last June 30.
By calling the whole affair a “misunderstanding,” Dabu awfully, if not willfully, misunderstood the events that transpired and their ramifications to media practice in Pampanga.
The manifesto charged: “Former Pampanga Press Club President Chris Navarro of Sun-Star Pampanga, Jojo Due of Pampanga News and Romy Barredo of Radio DZME, among others were prevented by Dabu from entering the second floor of the Capitol Building when they tried to cover the entry of Panlilio to the Governor’s Office, citing “I don’t think you need to cover this.”
Dabu wrote: “…access to the second floor of the capitol immediately following the inauguration rites was limited for a brief period of time to give Gov. Among Ed some time to rest and allow him to take flu medications.”
Good try, Attorney. But how would you explain that at the time the local media were being barred from the second floor, crews of GMA-7, ABS-CBN and Infomax were seen moving freely around the place?
Indubitably, if that is not an instance of discrimination, then it is unarguably a case of favoritism. Which amounts to the same thing.
And what about your having been quoted as telling the media: “I don’t think you need to cover this” when all they wanted was a photo-op of the new governor entering his office for the very first time?
The manifesto is correct: “Dabu has no business telling mediamen what to cover or not. This smacks of prior restraint which is anathema to the freedom of the press.”
Any lawyer worth his title surely knows what prior restraint means. You sure do. Don’t you?
The quote attributed to you also gives the impression that at this early you are already fixing limits of coverage at the capitol, and – malicious as sometimes we are – setting hidden closets to cache the skeletons of the Panlilio administration. Whither now goeth the vow of transparency subscribed to by then-candidate Panlilio? Goeth the way of all flesh?
You failed to make any clarification, merely lumping it under the generic “misunderstanding” another – and an even more serious – claim in the manifesto: “A policewoman even physically restrained Due from entering the Capitol building itself while civilian bodyguards wearing “Gov. Eddie Panlilio IDs” arrogantly shooed him away despite Due showing his press identification cards.
The incident goes well beyond the manifesto’s kinder phraseology of “…continuing bias against the local press exhibited by Panlilio’s camp during the election campaign.”
There was physical contact of the non-cordial kind. There was repression. There was a direct assault on press freedom.
So you wrote: “Please rest assured that our intention was never to restrict the media in any way, shape or form as they have and continue to be our partners in public service.”
Rest assured we are. Though not with your statement, but with the fact that the provincial capitol is a public place and therefore ever open to us, not only for being mediamen but for being citizens.
And right again is the manifesto: “That this discrimination and arrogance came right after Panlilio declared the Capitol gates always open to every Kapampangan smacked of the highest duplicity.
“Neither discrimination nor arrogance has any place in public service, nor in civilized society itself.
“This is not only patently immoral but abjectly uncivilized, if not inhuman. And most assuredly unChristian.”
So sorry, but you have misplaced your hope that your statement has clarified the issues. Specific cases or instances can never be clarified by generalized statements.
And also, the next time around be a little more professional in formatting your statement. I do not mean to lecture you but here is how to do it:
At the top of the page but below the name of your office, write PRESS STATEMENT and the date.
Two clicks below it, write the title or a slug of what the statement is all about. It helps to write this in bold letters.
Two clicks below, start with the statement.
Two clicks below the last line of the statement, write REFERENCE: then your name or whoever issued the statement. Under your name, write your contact numbers so that if media wish to clarify more they shall have ready access to you.
Share this with your public information officer. I am sure he/she is clueless about making press statements. Else you would not have done it so amateurishly.