Morality play

MORALITY IN governance was the standard that the suspended Catholic priest Eddie T. Panlilio unfurled and raised full mast at the Pampanga Capitol.
Morality in governance was the font whence sprang the tremendous increase in quarry collections that won for the province the Gawad Galing Pook. Never mind businessman Rene Romero ululating “Undeserved!”
Morality in governance exorcised the bidding process and the procurement system of the evils of the “SOP” and under-the-table commissions. Never mind the oh-so-slooooow implementation of projects and purchase of medicines.
Morality in governance – the operative and definitive phrase of the Panlilio administration appears to be lapsing into dysfunction.
No, never on account of those malicious rumors of some romantic entanglements between key Capitol players.
No, not simply because of the fall in the quarry collections.
No, not simply due to the P675,000 paid by the Capitol to a denominational church where still (?) putative provincial administrator Atty. Vivian T. Dabu worships.
The moral issue besetting the Capitol now is all about Dabu. Her sworn statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) specifically, vis-à-vis her income tax return (ITR).
To refresh, Punto! on Monday bannered “Dabu’s worth nearly doubled in 1 year.”
Yes – despite the global recession, despite her being an unsalaried Capitol worker – Dabu managed the miracle of zero liabilities and a net worth of P7.9 million in 2007.
A greater miracle Dabu wielded in 2008 when her net worth – again despite the global financial crunch and the absence of salary from the Capitol – even soared to P13.9 million.
If that earning came from Dabu’s listed “business interests” of a Chrono International Co. in San Pablo II, Lubao, Pampanga which she owns; of stocks in Petron Corp.; and of a Dabu and Duque Law in the City of San Fernando, where she is a partner, her SALN did not indicate.
In an interview with this paper’s Joey Pavia, Dabu said her earnings came from legal fees: “I stopped handling legal cases when I began to work at the Capitol beginning 2007. But there were some cases I chose to finish and we won them, allowing me to earn.” So there, she did not earn millions from Chrono International Co. selling perfumes in Barangay San Pablo. So there too, she did not earn millions from her Petron stocks with gas prices reaching the stars.
So she earned from legal fees. Must be some big cases there, with millions earned. Corporate? Realty? Electoral? Criminal? Dabu did not say. As Pavia did not ask.
So we leave it at that? Convinced of Dabu’s straightforward: “I declared the truth and they are still receivables” as gospel truth?
Dabu gave only a half-truth there. Yes, for 2007 the amount of P7,050,000 is indeed entered under “cash and receivables.” But for 2008 the amount of P13,050,000 is listed as “cash on hand/ bank deposits.” That is not something still awaiting receipt of. That is money in the bag, whether in the hand or in the bank.
But that is the least of things wanting in consistency where Dabu’s documents are concerned.
In her 2008 SALN, Dabu’s annual gross salary was listed at P297,276, her annual gross family income at P560,000. Where Dabu got these incomes – remember, she did not get any salary from the Capitol – it was not indicated in the SALN.
Now, consider Dabu’s purported 2008 ITR.
“Total revenues” or income earned amounted to P71,722.75.
Do we see here an undeclared income of P6 million – the difference between her 2007 and 2008 assets, on top of the gross salary and gross family incomes she listed in her 2008 SALN?
I am neither a financial whiz nor a legal luminary, so I can’t deduce a case of tax evasion or under-declaration here.
But moral issues I can raise. Not so much for any moral conceit on my part as for the expressed morality the Panlilio administration has championed at the Capitol, as for its self-proclaimed moral ascendancy.
As Caesar’s – the great Julius’ that is, not the lowly Lacson’s – wife must be above suspicion, so must Panlilio’s partner in the moral governance of Pampanga.
Did I just hear someone shout ‘Ombudsman”?

Partisan Panlilio

BY TAKING his oath as a member of the Liberal Party, Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio shucked liberalism and clothed himself with partisanship.
Taking “liberal” here in the sense of “suitable for a freeman; not restricted…, broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness…,not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry…”
By taking his oath as a member of LP, accepting the party chairmanship for Pampanga and now directly engaging in highly-partisan politics, Panlilio has restricted his political thoughts and action to the advancement of the interests of his party.
For starters, Panlilio named a number of individuals to carry the LP standard in the battle for mayoralty posts, to wit: sitting vice mayors Diman Datu in Bacolor, Norman Lacson in Magalang, Bajun Lacap in Masantol and Jing Capil in Porac; winning electoral protestant but still not-sitting Mozart Panlaqui in Sasmuan; vice-mayoralty loser Dr. Victor Tiglao in Mabalacat; one Juvy Navarro in Macabebe, and one Agnes Yambao in Minalin.
Panlilio was expected to bring in this harvest of prospective leaders, along with later finds, before LP standard bearer Senator Noynoy Aquino and running-mate Mar Roxas in a grand spectacle at the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center yesterday.
As to what elective position Panlilio would seek, a slot in the LP senatorial ticket or the governorship anew, Panlilio kept mum.
"The process we are taking is that we select, negotiate and confirm with the prospective candidates their willingness to run and join the LP. Thereafter, for mayors, as an example, they would subsequently be in charge of creating their own line-ups. The provincial level, for vice-governor ay wala pa. Same is true with the gubernatorial post. We are still in the process of negotiating with prospective candidates." So a local daily quoted Panlilio as saying.
"We are continuously trying to convince and talk to prospective candidates for governor…” So stressed Panlilio, the local daily said.
Who these prospective candidates for governor are, Panlilio did not say.
But – as it was in 2007 – Panlilio himself opened his availability to run for the governorship “no one rises to the call for governor.”
A unnamed supporter of Panlilio was reported to have said that the governor “is already firm on his decision to run again in next year's elections.”
"There are some who are asking him to run for senator but that lack of possible candidate in the gubernatorial race here is keeping him away from that possibility. The truth is he has in fact made up his mind on the matter." So was the supporter quoted directly.
Whether Panlilio runs or not, the fact that he now call the shots for the LP in Pampanga makes him highly partisan, and therefore a divisive force in the community, and thus an open violator of the Canon Law.
One instance of Panlilio cleaving even families is his reported wooing of former vice-governor Cielo Macapagal-Salgado to run against her half-sister, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, should she aspire for the 2nd district congressional seat.
Panlilio’s high-partisanship was not lost to many Kapampangans but it took one “parishioner” Armando Canda to write Archbishop Eduard Joseph Adams, D.D, the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines: “Your Excellency, please take note that Fr. Panlilio has cruelly divided the Catholics in Pampanga including the Clergy. We have learned from our catechism that among other things, a priest should be the symbol of Christian unity and communion. Fr. Panlilio is exactly the contradiction of this precious truth.”
Pleaded Canda: “Fr. Panlilio is a bad example to the other priests especially the young ones. As he engages deeper into the realm of partisan politics, we believe that the Church need not wait for him to seek this dispensation. Instead, we feel that the time has come for the Church to conduct an investigation to once and for all determine if Fr. Panlilio is still an acceptable and qualified member of the priesthood. If determined otherwise, we believe that he should be immediately laicized and removed from the priesthood so that he will not be able to use his status in the Church to influence and pursue his personal or his party’s political agenda,”
Now, will the Church set the line on Panlilio this time?

Capitol coupling

BAD ENOUGH for Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio to run the province like a parish, as the revered Fr. Resty Lumanlan keenly observed .
Worse, the suspended priest has blurred the long established Constitutional lines separating Church and State. Not so much for his Church but for that of his putative provincial administrator, Atty. Vivian Dabu.
The provincial government – news reports said – made an advance payment of P675,000 via PNB Check No. 153653 to the His Life City Church last October 30, 2009. Receipt of payment was duly acknowledged with the church’s official receipt No. 0052 bearing the same date and signed by one Alfredo Montero, Jr., reported as the “authorized person of the said church.”
The news reports furthered: “The payment has disbursement voucher No.101-12762 and was charged against the General Fund. The voucher was signed by Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio with the initials of Dabu and the provincial accountant and treasurer.”
No, the provincial government did not make a donation of P675,000 to the church where the putative provincial administrator worships. The amount was for what was billed as a “leadership training and worship services” for the youth of Pampanga.
No, it was not the His Life City Church that conducted the training and worship services but its youth arm, a Wild Fire Organization, in coordination with the Provincial Employment Service Office (PESO).
The PESO-WFO youth camp was held on November 4-6 at Mt. Peniel, Patling, Tarlac. A registration fee of P2,500 was reportedly charged each of the 300 participants. That covered board and lodging as well as honoraria of the resource persons.
Now, how the His Life City Church instead of the WFO which actually conducted the training became the payee is for provincial government to explain.
“Highly irregular,” cried Senior Board Member Cris Garbo over what has been wisecracked as the “His Life-Her Gov” transaction centered on Dabu.
“When they (Panlilio, Dabu, et al) took over the Capitol, it was bragged about that they boned on the Constitution and the Local Government Code. Now, they appear to be either in ignorance or in utter disregard of the provision of Church-State separation in both bodies of laws,” Garbo said.
“Ing puwede mi mung dinan pondo deng munisipyu, barangay ampo deng tau king Pampanga. Pero kareng pisamban, ali malyari uling iligal ita, (The provincial government can provide funds to municipalities, barangays and the people but not to churches. That is illegal,” added Garbo.
Questions on how the WFO “won” the youth camp project have also been raised. So did this pass through any bidding process? Or was the P675,000 contract negotiated?
It is not only questions on the legality or propriety Dabu’s church’s transaction with the Capitol that need to be raised. The whole exercise itself should be dissected.
“Leadership training and worship services.” What did it cover? What did it entail? What experience in leadership did its resource persons possess?
And, even more important, what kind of worship services? Incessant singing of Praise the Lord, hallelujah?
Who was the object of worship? Most probably the same god that put Dabu at the Capitol and therefore made her “irresignable” amid those cries for her to step down last year. Or, the same god that told Panlilio to run for the presidency, which he nonetheless spurned.
Already, there are some quarters in the sectarian divide that say the youth camp participants could have been subjected to indoctrination, if not proselytism, into the His Life City Church.
Yeah, Panlilio and Dabu may have really coupled there, her church and his Capitol, that is.











He added that the church’s WFO is a distinguished awardee of the commission.
The advance payment included the board and lodging, transportation and honoraria of the Church’s WFO facilitators.
Asked if the youth camp has been bidded out, Lintag said he is not familiar whether the training package went through the bidding process or not.
“Hindi ko alam kung iyong registration (na P675,000) ay binibiding pa, hindi ako pamilyar. Basta shoulder ng probinsiya iyong lahat ng registration fees na P2,250 each,” he said.
He explained that the whole youth leadership training package facilitated by His Life City Church was shouldered by the provincial government, hence, an advance full payment of more than half a million pesos was paid to the church with PNB check no.153653 last October 30 – four days prior to the said PESO-Church youth activity.
With this, the His Life City Church, Inc., has issued official receipt No. 0052 dated October 30 to the Provincial Treasurer’s Office with the signature of Alfredo Montero Jr., authorized person of the said church.
The payment has disbursement voucher No.101-12762 and was charged against the General Fund. The voucher was signed by Gov. Eddie Panlilio with the initials of Dabu and the provincial accountant and treasurer.
Lintag said the “successful” PESO-His Life Church Youth Leaders Camp included in its module the different attributes and characteristics of a leader including worship service.
In an interview with a legal luminary, he said that the state has no business with the church because the state cannot stand with the church and the constitution provides that there is separation between the church and state.

Mayor Boking, but of course

IT’S ALL over for the mayorship of Mabalacat. Kaput. Finis. Done with, six months before the elections.
No counting required, no proclamation needed. Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales just got re-elected for the umpteenth time.
All it took is just an hour guesting in John Susi’s Hamon Central Luzon over CLTV-36 last Tuesday.
Boking agonistes. A performance worthy of a Palm d’Or or an Oscar – okay, a Famas will do – were it in reel, was Mayor Boking’s projection, nay, sincere portrayal of a father pained to near-devastation by a daughter’s betrayal but still forgiving, still loving her, and remaining hopeful, pining for her requited love.
But real, all too real was Mayor Boking’s pain. The Parable of the Prodigal Son, albeit transgendered and transposed in Mabalacat, unraveled here.
Not that the daughter loved her father less, but that she loved her husband more. So the viewer took it in from Mayor Boking.
Our poet Balagtas immortalized: “O pag-ibig na makapangyarihan, kapag ika’y nasok sa puso ninoman, hahamakin lahat – maging ang magulang -- masunod ka lamang.” The power of the words will be lost in translation so I leave it at that. Of course, the parent in the quote is my insertion.
So the Kapampangan has his own take of the clichéd not-losing-a-daughter-but-gaining-a-son in the father of the bride’s toasts in wedding receptions: The daughter marrying a good man, gains the father a son; with a bad one, the father loses a daughter.
Ah, what parent would not have melted in total empathy with Mayor Boking there.
Pained as he is over the decision of beloved daughter Marjorie Morales-Sambo to run against him for mayor of Mabalacat, Mayor Boking nonetheless has to stand squarely on his performance to face all the issues the daughter has started raising as the impetus of her candidacy.
Sambo’s run, she says, is primarily platformed on “change.” A rather rickety platform given the only change the electorate would expect with a Sambo win is a change of gender, if not a change of face which – if we choose to believe some Mabalacat matrons – Sambo is reputedly a master of. Cry Belo, and let loose a thousand tongues wagging there.
Change is the worst thing Sambo, or anyone, could impact against Mayor Boking. For, notwithstanding his continuous term in office since 1995, Mayor Boking is the very embodiment of change. The constancy of change makes the defining line of his administration. By remaining mayor, Boking has effected tremendous change in Mabalacat. No paradox there.
In 1995, Mayor Boking took over a Mabalacat best known for its appropriately named Barangay Tabun, which along with a number of other northern villages was swamped by lahar rampages.
Today, Barangay Tabun is at the very epicenter of urban renewal, the core of the emerging central business district of Mabalacat, the promise of being Makati of the North. The P6-billion Xevera project serving as warranty for its realization.
In 1995, Mabalacat had no more than P20 million in annual income, its principal industry that is the US surplus goods, used and stolen, is no industry at all being mere trading.
Today, Mabalacat has an annual income of P400 million and still rising, is home to the Clark Freeport, and the industrial center of Pampanga.
In 1995, Mabalacat was no more than a poor suburb of Angeles City.
Today, Mabalacat is on the threshold of cityhood, and right at the vortex of of development being at the crossroads of the SCTEx, the NLEx, not to mention the old but rehabilitated MacArthur Highway.
In 1995 – better yet to say “before Mayor Boking” – Mabalacat did not even have a national high school.
Today, with Mayor Boking, Mabalacat has not only a national high school but is the first in Pampanga to have its own community college – beating the City College of San Fernando by over a year.
All these statistics of achievements articulated to the fullest, and most convincingly, by Mayor Boking on John Susi’s high-rating show.
With his unconditional love for a rebellious daughter, Mayor Boking won the hearts of his audience, the parents among them, most especially. His daughter Sambo exposed as apparently causeless as much as clueless about her rebellion.
With his unimpeachable achievements in Mabalacat, Mayor Boking captured the minds of his audience, the Mabalacat electorate most especially.
With but an hour of performance in John Susi’s show, Mayor Boking has rendered all pretenders to the Mabalacat mayorship irrelevant, and the challenge of his daughter no more than the temper tantrums of a brat.
The elections are over and done with in Mabalacat. On to cityhood!

Cry "Dabusado"

"UNJUST DISMISSAL without due process and (based on) a biased decision from an unfair investigation."
So cried Jannette Tricia Pineda, a Capitol employee for 12 years and of late a member of the technical working group of the bids and awards committee, as she lodged charges before the Ombudsman against Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio, Provincial Administrator Vivian Dabu, et al for violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019).
Pineda specifically slammed the Capitol couple for “abuse of authority, oppression, and grave misconduct” in violation of Section 3e of RA 3019 that proscribes public officials from "causing any undue injury to any party,
including the government...”
Pineda claimed she was charged on August 19 for serious “dishonesty and falsification of public documents” relative to canvass documents for procurement that she allegedly tampered and altered.
Before a probe committee headed by Dabu, Pineda alleged she was subjected to investigation without the benefit of counsel and was deprived of copies of the investigation report and the subpoenas for the witnesses.
“Ang nakakapagtaka nga po ay pirmado na nila (Dabu and Panlilio) iyung mga canvass sheets. Pero pinipilit pa rin nila na handwriting ko iyon kahit hindi," Pineda claimed.
On October 22, Panlilio issued a decision finding Pineda guilty as charged and ordered her dismissal from service.
Pineda said she sought advice from Civil Service Commission officials who told her Panlilio’s decision was not final and executory and that she can continue working at her post.
"Pero noon nga pong pumasok ako noong November 4 ay hinarass na ako ni Attorney Dabu at sabi niya ay 'O, bakit ka pa pumapasok? Hindi mo ba alam na dismissed ka na?'’” Pineda related. "This humiliated me so much at talagang iyak ako ng iyak. Hindi man nila pinakinggan na mayroon pa akong 15 days to file for a motion for reconsideration."
Furthered Pineda: “I feel like I have been totally stripped of my person and morale. I feel like I could no longer face other people, especially my officemates and I have been treated like a convicted criminal. No amount of money can compensate for the unfair, unreasonable and oppressive acts of (Panlilio, Dabu, et al).”
So what hath Dabu to say?
"I would not do that. In fact, I saw her in uniform with her ID on November 4 during the Israeli ambassador's visit. It was just after Luningning Vergara, her current superior, [who] sought my advice that I summoned them into my office to talk. The discussion was cordial and she was never scolded. We just reminded her of her dismissal." So was Dabu quoted in Sun-Star Pampanga.
“Unjust dismissal without due process.” Pineda’s cry is but the latest in a long list of cases of this nature against the Capitol couple.
Engineer Juanito Macatuno, unceremoniously yanked out of the provincial engineer’s office. Guess who took over his functions?
Provincial social welfare and development officer Luchie Gutierrez, charged before Dabu’s investigating body in absentia – she was on a mission in Japan, suspended and subsequently dismissed from service over expired noodles fed to schoolchildren and Panlilio himself.
The quarrymen of the Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisikapan (Balas), hailed by Panlilio himself as the heroes behind the tremendous increase in the quarry collections, dismissed unceremoniously after their alleged run-in with Dabu that sparked their protracted picket at the Capitol grounds.
“Unjust dismissal without due process.” In elementary terms, abuse of authority. In the Pampanga Capitol sense, DABUSADO.

On loving and losing

PATSY WAS her name.
In the ten short days she stayed with the family, she was able to capture all our hearts, coming to love her so much that not one of us had dry eyes when she left.
I met Patsy at Shanghai Restaurant. And readily had a fondness for her. So I took her home.
The wife had an immediate liking to her. An unnatural reaction as she always had the green eye on every member of the female species that I set my eyes on: pity anyone I express fondness for.
But like, nay love, Patsy the wife did. So did the kids. Paquito, the youngest, just could not get enough of her. Even wanting to take her to school with him. Jonathan, the Philippine Science High scholar, forgot his weekend home studies just to amuse her with his tricks. The three girls competed with one another in preparing her favorite dishes.
Even the eldest son took pride in presenting her to his girlfriend as the newest member of the family. (I guess the girl must have felt real bad as Patsy took precedence over her in terms of family acceptance.)
It was so easy for us to love Patsy. She had an innate happiness in her. An inner glow about her that radiated to all those she came in contact with. An openness that reached out and touched the heart. With her around, it was so very easy to smile. To be happy. With onself. With the world.
In the ten days she spent with us, there were no petty quarrels around the house. An impossibility in our pre-Patsy past. (Or have you tried being cooped in one little house with five teen-aged kids and one 7-year-old who thinks he is already nagbibinata?)
Yes, total harmony and understanding, sympathy and love abounding – as the Fifth Dimension’s Age of Aquarius says – reigned in our home in the ten days that Patsy was with us.
Then, as suddenly as she came, she left us. Hokding on to the last gasps of life until we – the wife, Paquito and I – came home from a visit to the folks in Alabang. As though she did not want to let go until we were beside her. How bitterly we wept!
Whoever it was that said all dogs go to heaven was very right. You know why?
Because they are creatures of love. That was what Patsy’s short life taught all of us. (The Voice, July 19-25, 1998)T
THE PAIN in remembering our loss of Patsy is still there in all our hearts, 11 long years after her death.
Hence, I most sincerely sympathize with fellow columnist here Voltaire Zalamea over the loss of his beloved Porntip. Praying that he would soon be back to him unharmed.

Dispensing Panlilio

“THERE WAS a secret consistory in which he declared that from his early years he was always, with all his spirit, inclined to the secular condition; but that his mother had wished absolutely that he should give himself to the ecclesiastical state, and he had not believed he should oppose her will. But since his mind and his desire and his inclination were still for the secular life, he besought His Holiness Our Lord, that he should condescend, with special clemency, to give him a dispensation, so that having put off the robe and the ecclesiastical dignity, he might be permitted to return to the secular estate, pursue a political career, even contract matrimony; and that he now prayed the Holy Father to give his consent willingly to such a dispensation.”
A record of the request of Cardinal Cesare Borgia for dispensation from his own father Pope Alexander VI transplanted to a not-too-impossible scenario in the case of the Pampanga governor.
A scenario first broached by Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz after Panlilio won the governorship: “Leave the priesthood, get married, start a political dynasty.” The sarcasm not lost in that unsolicited advice.
No, the Honorable Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio has not asked for a dispensation. As a matter of course, Panlilio has made a mantra of his desire to return to the priesthood. Even as running for the Senate in the Noynoy-Mar ticket remained an open option for him.
Neither then has Panlilio asked for re-admission to the priesthood, notwithstanding his expressed desire to be so.
San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David says: “As far as we are concerned, he has yet to inform us of his intention to be readmitted to the priesthood.” And the Church is not pressuring Panlilio to return. Neither will the issue of dispensation be forced upon him.
Furthered the foremost intellectual of the Church in Pampanga: “Among Ed can either decide to seek readmission to be able to perform his priestly duties or seek dispensation. It all depends on him now, but he cannot seek an extension of his suspension since it was only agreed that he would be suspended from performing his priestly functions for only one term.”
Yeah, as Among Ambo once said, Panlilio could not have his cake and eat it too. Sooner than later, he’s got to choose between the priesthood and politics.
Panlilio could not invoke yet another God-a-calling pretext in either option. He had used this up when he fancied himself as presidentiable, disposing of it like a used rag when he made the supreme sacrifice – in absolute disobedience to God’s call – of making way for Noynoy Aquino.
Running now in Aquino’s ticket for senator would make Panlilio an opportunist, a horse-trader – swapping his presidential ambition for a slot in the senatorial line-up. Going this route, Panlilio would need more than dispensation. A public absolution will be much in order.
Discernment, a process Panlilio so liked to profess, will help him out in finding his true calling, or what’s best for him for now.
For starters, he should seriously consider the words of Among Ambo: “He should return to us. He is a good priest and the priesthood would surely be the best thing for him and not politics.”
That’s short of telling Panlilio he is a political failure. And that’s no shortening the truth. That Panlilio is a political failure.
Look how Panlilio has become totally irrelevant to Pampanga politics. The fact that his so-called civil society groups are now clamoring for City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez to run for governor is an indictment of Panlilio’s failure at the Capitol.
If he indeed was cut-out for governor, shouldn’t we be hearing shouts for his re-election by now?
A streamer strung at the fence of Heroes Hall in the City of San Fernando proclaims: MAYOR OCA – guelingan mu kailangang kailangan king kapitolyo (Your greatness is what’s most needed at the Capitol). It was put up by “the parishioners of Betis.” Yes, the very same people who formed the very core of Panlilio’s run for the governorship.
If that is not a slap on Panlilio’s face, I do not know what is.