Whatever

WE TAKE the words of our officials seriously. We take our officials to mean what they say. So, we now ask them whatever happened to their pronouncements. At random now:
To Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio: Whatever happened to the wad of P500,000 you so gloriously waved before the news cameras and again presented at the Senate probe on the so-called Malacanang payola?
Still in the care of your putative provincial administrator? If it is against your conscience to put that money to use even for some good things, why not just freeze it in some glass case and exhibit it at the lobby of the capitol as a testament to your honesty.
Speaking of conscience naturally leads us to Madame Lolita Hizon of Conscience, Inc. though she’s not a public official, she is very influential and thus worth our space.
So Madame, what have we so far drawn out of the archdiocese on the sacerdotal status of Eddie T. Panlilio? Whatever happened to your inquiry on the provision of Canon Law pertaining to clergymen joining politics?
To Board Member Cris Garbo: Whatever happened to your vow to sponsor a resolution nullifying the 2007 Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards and depriving the “winners” from inclusion in the roster of MOKA awardees? Ditto the winners in the 2007 Mutya ning Kapampangan?
Still to Doctor Garbo: Whatever happened to your threat to file a case with the Ombudsman against the Balas boys for the “pamagbareta” in the quarry operations?
Ah, Garbo is still in the US? Why, is he joining the New Hampshire primaries to go Barack Obama?
To Panlilio again, or anyone of substance at the Office of the Governor, except those job-order and casual employees: Whatever happened to the P136 million from the 20 percent development fund programmed for implementation in 2007?
One Engineer Andy Henson was quoted in the capitol press release last November 28 as having “stressed that the implementation of the infrastructure projects is just on time.”
Has anything been implemented? Or have the P136 million been reverted to the general fund? Panlilio, you owe your constituents an explanation. There is an abject failure of governance here.
To Panlilio yet again: Whatever happened to the case you filed with the Ombudsman against Bacolor Mayor Buddy Dungca after he refused to apologize to you for desilting the Gugu Creek? Or is that just bully’s bluff?
To Panlilio’s chorus line of Abak na Balen, Kapampangan Marangal Inc., Pampanga Association of Non-Government Organizations: Whatever happened to your threat of unleashing people power upon Yeng Guiao, the sangguniang panlalawigan and the Pampanga Mayors League via a signature drive to start an initiative against Ordinance 176? So, were there no signers except your miserable numbers? Puro lang ba pautot ito?
And last but not least, to Panlilio and his civil society again: Whatever happened to the anti-jueteng campaign you so promised to pursue tooth and nail during the gubernatorial campaign, and again at your 100th day in office when you promised the press something big would happen in December on this campaign? It is now January, Sir and it is all silence on the jueteng front.
In all these promises of a bang fulfilled in whimpers, there is an applicable Latin saying I learned from Horace’s Ars Poetica in the seminary: “Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus. “
I presume the Reverend Governor went through Latin himself, so he would know the meaning, and more importantly, the implication of the phrase. If not – and to the non-Latined mass of you out there – the witticism translates to “The mountains are in labor, a ridiculous mouse is born.”
A mouse for men? Whatever.