Can Oca say NO to PNoy?

“MAYOR OCA dispelled rumors that he is running for governor. He has set his sights on his congressional bid and return to the lower House in 2013. There is no truth (to the report) that he will make the gubernatorial declaration during their EDSA Revolution commemoration.”
Not quite straight from the horse’s mouth, but close enough – from the horse’s mouthpiece – is that declaration, er, announcement by Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan of the electoral path three-term City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez has chosen for 2013.
Indeed, a big dud was all there was to the bombast that Oca would turn the anniversary celebrations of the EDSA Revolt into a stage to launch his gubernatorial ambition.
The temptation was there at the EDSA rites in Heroes Hall Saturday evening – civil society, clerico-political leaders, mass organizations from all of Pampanga’s four districts harangued by speakers into one reverberating voice of all-out support to Oca’s run for the Capitol.
Oca obliquely refusing to bite the forbidden fruit there and then with a challenge hurled to the assembly to bet their money where their mouths are, so to speak. No, I was not there so I had to rely on the word of one most distinguished as a freelancer but hardly dignified as a freeloader.
Conspirators – Oca jokingly called those who egged him to seize the moment and throw the gauntlet at the governorship. So it was reported to me.
“As Mayor Oca told us, ‘Don’t believe in what is going around.’ If it does not come from him or me, it is not official. But for the record, Mayor Oca will run for the third district congressional seat and face the incumbent Dong Gonzales.”
EdPam painstakingly reassured the media of the veracity of his revelation, to the extent of disclosing a hush-hush powwow Friday night at his house between Oca and the powers-that-are in Pampanga that lasted way beyond the usual bedtime of all those present.
“How many mayors (in the third district) are there anyway? Five? During our meeting, mayors in Pampanga have professed their willingness to support Mayor Oca.” So EdPam declared, blurring party considerations – Oca’s LP is in coalition with Dong’s NPC, while many mayors won as Lakas-Kampi – implying not so much a political détente as an accord forged between Oca and the other parties at the meeting.
EdPam left much to the prolific imagination of mediamen the nature of the “agreement” reached at his house that night of February 24. A provisional coalition? A tactical alliance? A strategic collaboration?
EdPam could only suggest some sort of a political rapprochement now obtaining between two entities that have not engaged in any connectivity, much less partnership in previous electoral exercises.
Whatever, it would not – most assuredly – sit well with Oca’s myrmidons, his sanctum sanctorum of moralists, EDSA 1 exclusivists, and good governance monopolists. They who are most adamant in Oca’s sole – if not divine – right to the governorship, pertinaciously adhering to that so-called moral crusade launched in 2007 to save Pampanga from the stranglehold of the Evil One, no matter its ignominious crushing in 2010.
Unholy alliance!
So shall be damned any political bond Oca shall tie with the current Capitol administration.
Principled politics subjugated to personal exigency, if not to expediency!
So shall be denounced Oca’s abandonment of his gubernatorial aspirations.
Aye, how do you suppose the President will take even the slightest connection between Oca and Gov. Lilia G. Pineda?
Not so well? That will be an understatement.
A betrayal. That will be more like it. As in sleeping with the enemy.
That is if we go by the perceived bitterness of PNoy over anything connected with GMA.
It is a story told – its truthfulness affirmed at each retelling – that Clark Development Corp. President-CEO Felipe Antonio Remollo so got PNoy’s goat that he came to near-firing for a most mundane act of signing a memorandum of agreement with the governor for the establishment of some Market! Market! food center at the Freeport.
Consorting with the enemy. So was Remollo charged, reportedly.
It is not likely that PNoy will just let go of Pampanga – in the hands of a non-ally at the least, a perceived enemy at the most – that easily.
It is more likely that PNoy will exercise, indeed exert, presidential persuasion – with all appurtenances thereto – on Oca to make a go for the governorship.
Yes, I believe – really, I do with all my heart – EdPam in saying that Oca “has set his sights on his congressional bid and return to the lower House in 2013.”
So sorry, I do not see any finality in that though.
Can Oca – or anybody for that matter – say “NO” to the President?

Grand view to 'suicide'

“EXPERIENCE LUXURIOUS living at Grandview Tower Hotel.”
So crowed a praise release finding front page space in one local paper.
“And suffer ignominious dying, as a suicide.”
So we wish to add, in view – not grand but morbid – of the fatal fall of 75-year-old Austrian national Norbert Walser from Grandview Tower’s roof deck to Tamarind Street below on Valentine’s Day.
That Walser was identified in the police spot report as an American named Tom Miller; that the police readily concluded he committed suicide, sans the most elementary investigation, opened more questions, raised speculations, and stirred up imputations rather than closed the case.
Why, even the city police director himself, when queried about the incident, dismissed it as “lumang isyu na yan.” Leading us to conclude that what’s-his-name Recomono is more suited to be tabloid editor than cop. Which makes us now understand the proliferation of petty crimes in the city.
Yeah, it takes more than petty minds to check petty crimes, as the now lamented Colonel Carbungco of the 174th Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police Company was won’t to say.
Walser’s fall opened, as it were, Pandora’s Box, releasing all its malevolent content upon Grandview Tower.
Sleuthing by Punto! ace reporter Joey Pavia discovered that Grandview Tower was issued a “partial” occupancy permit signed by City Engineer Donato Dizon in August 2011.
The permit specifically covered only the ground, the 6th and 7th floors of the building.
Neither architect nor engineer, I am at a loss as to how it was possible to occupy the 6th and 7th floors with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors unpermitted for occupancy and therefore presumed to be still under construction.
It defies my sense of logic all the more that Wasler, a walk-in customer at Grandview Tower’s coffeeshop, was able to climb all the way to the roof deck – likewise not covered by an occupancy permit – and from there fall to his death.
Don’t these constitute clear violations of the “partial” occupancy permit?
The elevator within the premises does not exculpate the owners-management of Grandview Tower.
Except for those covered by the partial occupancy permit, all floors of the hotels – no matter their accessibility by elevator – are understandably off limits to customers and guests.
So why was Walser and, presumably, other customers allowed access to the roof deck?
Indeed, why – despite the absence of any occupancy permit – did Grandview Tower commercialize the roof deck during the hot air balloon festival from February 9-12?
Issued were invitation cards for viewing of the hot air balloons from Grandview Tower’s roof deck complete with breakfast for P500 per pax.
Thereafter, the double visionary from Mabalacat, Deng Pangilinan, regaled the media boys of the great vantage point the Grandview roof deck provided for photographing the balloons.
Commercialization of a yet unfinished – and therefore unsafe, yet unpermitted to occupy place makes a blatant violation of the building code. It does not take a lawyer to know that.
So amid all these open violations, what is the Angeles City engineer doing about it? Sadly nothing.
Maybe waiting for another suicide to take place.
“Live the grand life, Grandview Tower redefines living in style and luxury.”
So read a Grandview collateral.
Yeah, Grandview Tower – with Walser’s fall – has definitely redefined dying in ignominy.
A grand view to a kill there.

Night flyers

FLY-BY-NIGHT. The very derisive term finds most fitting appropriation to tour and travel agencies that have flocked like bees to the honeycomb that is the Clark Freeport area.
Yeah, night flyers too – as in vampires – that suck to the last drop the blood of the innocent traveller.
Camp followers – like the prostitutes of old – are these unscrupulous traders wanting to make the fastest buck at the least or nil cost out of the burgeoning opportunities at the Clark International Airport.
The low-cost carriers proffered as their stocks-in-nefarious-trade to the born-every-minute-suckers lulled with the promise of paradise – at cheap, cheap prices – in exotic yet not-so-distant places.
Their modus operandi: tour and travel agency easily put up by proprietor multi-tasking as manager, clerk, booking staff, cashier, receptionist, janitor who arranges not only the ticketing needs of the client but venture into visa requests complete with the acquisition of fake bank accounts, fake income tax returns, fake TCTs attesting to fake real estate ownership – the works, that is.
Filipinas – not necessarily only the denizens of Fields Avenue – seeking marriage to their foreign fiancées make the bulk of the unwitting victims of these conmen, conwomen too, to be gender equal. Hard earned pesos paid for the pursuit of dreams that never come true make the most heart-rending sob stories now being told and retold over beer at the city’s foremost avenue.
The dubious and devious deals of these bogus agencies have impacted so much on the tour and travel industry that the integrity of even the most established travel firms has come under suspicion by the travelling public.
There is a need to stop this nefarious trade.
Comes now the call of the Alliance of Travel and Tour Agencies of Pampanga (ATTAP) for the Angeles City government to be more circumspect in issuing business permits to travel agencies.
Solve the problem where it starts. ATTAP simply states there.
Putting up a tour and travel agency is as easy as putting up a sari-sari store, a taho or fish-ball stall, or a mobile phone e-loading venture. What with the same basic requirements for the grant of business permits.
In a resolution sent to the city government, ATTAP enjoined the city to adopt and thereafter strictly implement the guidelines set by the Department of Tourism (DOT) for travel agencies, even as it proposed requirements to rationalize the issuance of business permits.
Gilda Padua, ATTAP president, said her intention in coming up with their resolution is to professionalize the industry as their contribution in attracting more tourists under the DOT’s initiative.
“This will also be one actualization of DOT’s new slogan ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’ as it shall weed out the unscrupulous travel agencies that give a black eye to the industry,” Padua added.
Among the proposed requirements for the city government to adopt are: company profile, organizational chart, list of employees, list of suppliers, endorsement letters from international and local tour operators and airlines, proof of industry record of owner or general manager of at least five years working experience in a reputable travel agency, bank certificate showing financial capability of at least P500,000 capital investment, picture and location of office, and sample of tour packages.
Yes, no fly-by-night ventures can be set up under such rigorous requirements.
DOT Regional Director Ronnie Tiotuico has thrown his full support behind the ATTAP initiative.
“I agree with ATTAP to professionalize the industry beginning with enforcing the rules,” said the brains behind the Pinatubo trek and co-founder of the hot air balloon fest.
The ball is now in the hands of the city government.
Score big on this one, please.

Oca's options

DEAD ON the spot or dead on arrival.
So some political seer of sorts presented – oh, so morbidly – the electoral choices open to the term-ending City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez in 2013.
Between the Sahara Desert – for the devil, and the Marianas Trench – for the deep blue sea.
So seconded the Zaldy Ampatuan deadringer among local mediamen.
Qualify, I asked them.
Stalemated is Oca politically. In the game of dama, he is what is said to be mekuchi.
On one hand, if Oca so chose to run for governor – as he is known to have long desired – he would most surely be ran over by the irresistible force that is the incumbent Gov. Lilia G. Pineda.
There simply is no way for Oca – or for anyone else, P-Noy not excluded – to beat Nanay Baby.
Her signal accomplishments: a) the quarry collections of P383.5 million from her first day in office in July 2010 to the end of January 2012; b) the rehabilitation, repair and construction of the Pampanga’s provincial and district hospitals and the upgrading of health services; c) the provision of vehicles and communication equipment to the police forces, as well as the coming repair of the police stations; d) the extension of lowest-interest loans to micro-entrepreneurs, among other programs, have made the governor electorally formidable.
Her cornucopia of generosity to her constituency has made the governor politically invincible.
Go, challenge her, and weep.
On the other hand, if Oca opted to try to regain his former seat in the House, he would most certainly crash against the immovable object that is Dong Gonzales.
So how many thousand kids Dong sends to and keeps in school? How many kilometers of roads and bridges, school buildings and markets, covered courts and flood control systems has Dong caused to be erected? After all is said and some things undone, Dong did not get from the GMA administration over P700 million in priority development assistance fund – in but a single term – for nothing.
Then there’s Dong’s mini-Marshall Plan that is the Bacolor Rehabilitation Act…
Dead on the spot against Nanay Baby. Dead on arrival versus Dong. Either way Oca’s politically dead?
Deader than dead. So Zaldy Ampatuan’s look-alike pronounced.
So sorry, your analyses of Oca’s premature political death are not only grossly exaggerated but also utterly prejudiced, extremely subjective.
Now it’s your turn to qualify, they ordered me.
If Oca runs for governor, he can have an ally in Dong.
For one, Dong’s Nationalist People’s Coalition is coalesced with Oca’s Liberal Party. So, no sleeping with the enemy here.
Two, Dong – grateful to his godfather for not running against him – may put his own political machinery to Oca’s service, may share his storied formidable war chest with Oca.
On the other hand, if Oca runs for congressman, he can have a patron in Nanay Baby. And patronage ever crisscrosses political lines.
Gratitude – along with sincerity – is a core value of the governor. Of course, she will be most grateful to Oca for avoiding a collision course with her. And that gratefulness will most assuredly directly translate to tangible support.
As you can see now, the dead-on-the-spot or dead-on-arrival zero-sum situation you damned Oca in may not, indeed, does not obtain in a political triangulation.
In fact, with but a single movement, a win-all for Nanay Baby, Dong and Oca is granted high probability.
How?
Engage Oca and Dong in the kid’s game of marbles – exchange positions: Dong to the mayorship and Oca to the House.
An untenable proposition!
The fixity of your subjectivity has closed your mind to the praxis of politics as the art of the possible.
The choice is Oca’s, of course. And Dong’s too. With Nanay Baby – already chosen – hardly bothered here.

Gas-trapped

SOME TWO years in the making, the Biosphere waste-to-energy facility in Barangay Lara, City of San Fernando has started operating.
So crowed the Honorable Reden Halili, city council environment committee chair, presenting to Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez green energy pellets supposed to have been produced at the facility.
“We observed the production of the green pellets during the dry run…We are hopeful that by March 1 this year, we will dump garbage there and not in Kalangitan,” Halili said.
(But the city’s been dumping its waste there, not in Kalangitan, Your Honor. The procession of overloaded garbage trucks from San Fernando’s barangays is a morning ritual at the megadike. To be doubly sure, I will have to check with Sonny Dobles, chair of the environmental desk of the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon. He has a list of all LGUs accessing Kalangitan for their garbage.)
Anyways, Halili also said that once all pieces of equipment of the Biosphere facility are put in place and it becomes operational next month, it can already generate electricity for the city and nearby towns.
Rodriguez welcomed the move and said the facility would be a big relief in solid waste management for the city and other municipalities.
So we read in Sun-Star Pampanga over the week-end. Which got me hitting the daily’s archives for earlier stories on the Biosphere project, and bingo! One dated August 11, 2011 reads:
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- After about a year and a half in the making, this city's waste to gasification program may see light as Mayor Oscar Rodriguez confirmed that all equipment needed to run the Biosphere facility have been completed.
Rodriguez said during his State of the City Address that he received a call from an official of Bluesteel, proponent of the ballyhooed multimillion waste to energy project, that the needed equipment have arrived in Manila.
The project has been taken much "off the books," after Rodriguez and City Administrator Ferdinand Caylao opined they have been "taken for a ride" by proponents of the project. Capitol has a similar project being undertaken with the McKay Group of Germany.
"I just received a call from our proponents and I was told the equipment needed to run it is Manila. Let's hope for the best we could work this out for the sake of the province," said Rodriguez.
The multi-million Biosphere project, which Rodriguez and City Administrator Ferdinand Caylao earlier dismissed as "just a ride," will now complement Capitol's moves on adverse solid waste management.
Provincial Government Environment and Natural Resources Office chief Art Punsalan said: "If that materializes, then we could get a breath of fresh air on our garbage woes. If San Fernando's Biosphere could churn out 600 tons per day into power and Capitol's McKay program an additional 700 tons, we could very well be addressing our solid waste management problems."
Punsalan added that Capitol's waste-to energy project will start late this year, as soon as required documents are complied with.
From Biosphere, we segue now to the Capitol’s “McKay program” that the PENRO talked about.
On September 14, 2011, Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda and Lubao Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab signed a memorandum of agreement with James Mackay, chairman of the Pampanga Green Management Inc. (PGMI) and the MacKay Green Energy Inc. for the establishment of a US$63-million facility that will convert the province’s garbage into electricity.
Per the MOA, the facility will not entail any cash-out from the provincial government while the Lubao municipality will provide the site for it at its central materials recovery facility in Barangay Sta. Catalina.
The facility is expected to be completed within four months from the signing of the agreement.
Mat Evans of MacKay Green Energy Inc. explained that through a process dubbed as “treating metropolitan solid waste and using the refuse derived fiber to produce renewable energy,” 800 metric tons of garbage a day will go through combustion to generate 22 megawatts of electricity, enough to energize 110,000 households at the rate of one megawatt for every 5,000 households.
“With combustion at 1,200 to 1,800 degrees centigrade, the facility produces no toxic gases,” Evans stressed. “With our system, there will be no longer any need for landfills. With our facility you can be guaranteed to be safe from any leachate, which is very hazardous. Methane issues will no longer be a problem.”
That was the last thing we heard of the MacKay program.
Almost five months have passed since the MOA signing, and no facility stands at the Lubao MRF site.
Could it be that the Capitol and the municipality of Lubao took heed of the warnings aired by Greenpeace activist Von Hernandez at the time of the MOA signing?
Said Hernandez: “The Clean Air Act of 1999 explicitly prohibits the incineration of municipal waste, and the proponent (MacKay) is using clever semantic subterfuge (i.e. characterizing their technology as gasification, pyrolisis, or plasma airs) to try to exempt their proposed facility from the ban.
“They will claim that their technology is state of the art and without emissions. I find such spectacular claims hard to believe. While there may be state of the art incinerators, there is no such thing as a pollution-free incinerator.
“The combustion of waste especially chlorine containing materials like plastics creates cancer-causing dioxins and furans, liberates heavy metals into the air, essentially converting a waste problem into a formidable toxics pollution problem which will threaten the communities around the proposed facility.”
Concluded Hernandez: “The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and the Pampanga provincial government should be cautious and not fall into this trap. Under the Clean Air Act, the public can take them to court for sabotaging and violating the provisions of the law.”
As San Fernando’s Biosphere facility is similar to MacKay’s, then the gas-trapped city has one hell of an environmental situation in its hands.
That is if Hernandez – the 2003 Goldman Environmental awardee, 2007 Time Hero of the Environment, member of the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, an international anti-incineration coalition promoting zero waste, and the executive director (on leave) of Greenpeace Southeast Asia – is right.
Yeah, I really need to consult Mr. Dobles on this.

Mind blowing

THE LAW of supply and demand.
So said Senior Supt. Rudy Gamido Lacadin, chief of the regional Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of what caused the steep street price of marijuana nowadays – at P45 per gram.
Lacadin was fielding questions from media at Monday’s press presentation of a large haul of hallucinogens – 15 hashish brown flakes weighing 1.5 kilograms valued at P362,500 and 164 bricks of dried marijuana leaves weighing 154.4 kilograms worth P6,946,470 – taken in a police buy-bust operation at the Dau bus terminal Sunday afternoon.
The CIDG-3 chief declared that the successful operation effectively crippled the so-called Kamot Gang, reportedly a big-time dealer of marijuana and its derivative hashish, with the arrest of its leader, one Catherine Lamog, 44, of Barangay Mainit, Bontoc, Mt. Province and cohorts Julie Bagcas, 37, of the same barangay, and Yolanda Adaol, 42, of Loccong, Tinglayan in Kalinga province.
The Kamot Gang, police said, operated not only in North Luzon – where the marijuana plantations are located – but also in Central Luzon, Metro Manila and parts of the Southern Tagalog region.
Police vigilance has taken its toll on the dangerous drugs industry, Lacadin says. It’s not as easy now to cultivate marijuana plantations, to process, pack and transport the finished smoke-ready product. Thereby, resulting to a big dent on the supply side.
That – and the high risk involved in all process from production to marketing – greatly contributed to the spike in the price of the commodity. Yeah, just what we learned in Economics 101: The higher the risk, the greater the price, the higher the profit.
Product quality was a factor in the price increase too. Lacadin hastened to add that Benguet-grown marijuana – cannabis sativa, lest you’ve forgotten the scientific name – now takes high premium in the global drug market, “far superior to the Colombian and Mexican produce.”
Yeah, the lowly Benguet hemp finally outclassing Colombian gold and Acapulco red. Us old jeprox potheads thought we’d never see the day!
“This is a revelation and eye-opener for our police authorities.”
So spake Mayor Edgardo D. Pamintuan, one gloved hand holding hashish flake like some prized possession.
“Just think how many lives could have been destroyed if the police have not intercepted this contraband,” said Lacadin.
Which led me to ask: So where is the intended market for this shipment?
In Pampanga, including Angeles City, replied Chief Inspector Julius Caesar Mana, Pampanga CIDG chief.
The sheer volume of the confiscated illegal drugs impacts on Pampanga as a major market in the nefarious trade, with Angeles City making convenient transhipment point as well.
Think how many sticks one can make out of 154.4 kilograms of dried marijuana leaves. At two sticks per gram, that would amount to some 300,000 joints.
Think how many bongs – that’s pipes – can one fill with 1.5 kilograms of hashish. Wow, man, heavy!
Truly mind-boggling.