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.
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.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 10:03 AM
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