Dabu on top

PUTATIVE SHE may be as provincial administrator, Atty. Vivian Dabu is de facto governor of the province of Pampanga. No, make that on top of the governor, her authority already abutting on the enforcement of justice.
She accuses: “... the trucks of your office were hauling and transporting quarry materials, without permit, receipt or even tarpaulin securely covering their contents.
She lectures: “Please be reminded that your office or your people are not above the law. The Philippine Mining Act specifically requires that permit must be secured prior to extraction and/or hauling of quarrying materials. Based on our records, your office did not secure any permit for extraction and/or hauling. In fact, in no instance did your office inform the provincial government thereof... Also transport without receipt of quarry materials is being penalized under Ordinance 1-93.”
She enjoins, but with corresponding judgment : “Lastly, may we invite you and your representative for a meeting on 13 March 2009 at 9:00 a.m. at the office of the undersigned for us to discuss the settlement of your violations.”
So was Dabu, as instanced above, communicating with a lowly subordinate?
No, she was writing to the Honorable Oscar S. Rodriguez, three-term congressman of the 3rd District of Pampanga, currently on his second term as mayor of the City of San Fernando, and, 3rd runner-up in the World Mayor search in a few years back.
With that letter dated March 9, 2009, Dabu has overinflated her stature as provincial administrator – putative at that – and arrogated unto herself that of the governor, reducing Rodriguez – duly elected and mandated by the people – to the lowly level of a government clerk. True to form, the gentle Rodriguez simply dismissed Dabu’s arrogance thus: “Let us let her be, if that makes her happy. We know Vivian already, things like these make her happy.” And promptly, rightly too, instructed City Administrator Ferdinand Caylao to answer in writing the allegations of Dabu.
Arrogant. Disrespectful. Rude and uncalled for. That was how many Kapampangans – from city hall insiders to civil society groups and elected local officials – called Dabu’s letter.
“Even granting that what she claimed were true, she should have referred this to the governor and for him to take the matter with Mayor Rodriguez. That is the right way of dealing with the matter,” said a retired diplomat. “Dabu clearly has no sense of protocol.”
Caylao was more direct, calling Dabu’s letter “disrespectful, arrogant and bereft of social graces.” “Under what authority is she questioning the actions of the city government? We do not recognize her authority,” Caylao fumed, reminding Dabu to “place herself in the proper level and not write to government officials as if writing to her subordinates.”
Okay, so was the City of San Fernando indeed “hauling and transporting quarry materials”?
“The only project we have now that involves trucks is actually the desilting of the river system here under the Sagip-Ilog program,” Rodriguez stated, explaining that the said program aims to rehabilitate the rivers and creeks in the city as a way of defense against flooding, primarily and to provide an alternative route for travel here, secondarily.
“Some of the silt is being carried to the Heroes Hall since we are elevating the area for an ongoing construction. There is no quarrying in this city.” Rodriguez emphasized.
Engr. Marni Castro, chair of the city’s Task Force Kontra Albug (anti-flooding) lamented what he called “utak balas” or the quarry mind-set of the Capitol.
“Bala namung akit dang makasake dump truck, isip da balas nang dapat singilan. Burak namu ampong banlic a kinulkul karing ilug ampong kanal buri da pang pagtubuan (They see sand in every dump truck. Even the mud and silt excavated from the rivers, they would want to tax),” the city’s anti-flood czar rued.
With Dabu, what else is new?
Have we – in the media – not spoken and written of her arrogance since her very first working day at the Capitol, even appending to her the moniker Dabusado?
Arrogance is apparently Dabu’s maiden name. Go ask the dismissed Balas quarrymen and the sangguniang panlalawigan. Go ask Archie Reyes and the dozen other men and women comprising Panlilio’s confidence team who resigned one after the other. Go ask the principal and teachers of the Pampanga High School and the Pampanga truckers, the senior citizens and the people with disabilities. Go ask Madame Lolita Hizon and Rene Romero, the Rev. Fr. Resty Lumanlan too.
Go, but don’t ask the governor, er, Panlilio though.
“It’s not Dabu, bobo.” So I wrote more times than thrice in Zona Libre columns last year. “It’s Panlilio, who wields the authority. Dabu being only an instrument of that authority. Nothing happens at the capitol without the governor’s imprimatur. The issue of ignorance of basic procedures is traceable to Panlilio allowing Dabu much leeway. A case in point was that memorandum from Panlilio written on a stationery of the provincial administrator with the second page written on the governor’s. Nakapatong ang administrador sa gobernador. (The administrator is on top of the governor.)”
It is Dabu, bobo. That governs Pampanga. Find the reason in this paraphrase of an American writer: A man despicable in his ignorance, forfeits even the privilege of simple thinking.
So was Dabu once likened to the proverbial langaw na dumapo sa likod ng kalabaw, pakiwari’y malaki pa sa tinuntungan. (A fly atop a carabao’s back thinks it’s bigger than it.)
So why should the carabao mind, if it enjoys having the fly on top.