Barrel of fun(d)

THE PORK barrel treated as the personal piggy bank of the politico.

Thus, the Honorable Lani Mercado-Revilla (2nd District-Cavite): "Sige, basta wag lang manghihingi ang mga tao sa amin" on her reaction to scrapping the priority development assistance fund.

Furthering: "E ano'ng ibibigay namin? Hindi naman puwede yung pinaghihirapan namin dahil sa personal naman namin 'yun, sa mga anak, sa mga pang-araw-araw na paggastos naming."

Galante with the people’s money. Kuripot with her – and her husband’s – own.

At least the lady legislator showed some transparency there – displaying for  everyone to see what’s in her head.  

And more telling: "I have to tell 7,000 scholars that without PDAF, I can't help them…We give out scholarships to empower people. It is in our menu. Our constituents ask us for medical and burial assistance."

You give out scholarships, Madame? It is the PDAF that makes the scholarships possible. Without it, your 7,000 scholars are nada. An arrogation unto thyself of what is rightfully the state’s therefore is your Cong. Lani Mercado-Revilla Scholarship Program.

But of course, Misis Agimat is not all by herself here, the scholarship menu a staple fare in the PDAF’s of all other congressmen and senators.

In Pampanga, I remember, it was the fear of losing his PDAF in support of his over 25,000 scholars that (in)famously constrained Cong. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales to break ties with his patron, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, even as she was being wheeled to St. Luke’s Medical Center in the first of her series of confinements, medical as well as legal.

Not that Cong Dong loved GMA less, but that he needed his PDAF more. Not so much for himself as for his scholars. Whom Congressman Oscar S. Rodriguez is now in a quandary to adopt as his own, abolished PDAF and all.

Even as the PDAF has been declared abolished by the President, Senate President Franklin Drilon said lawmakers would still retain their right to direct a portion of the annual budget (P200 million for each senator and P70 million for a representative) to a hospital or a road project that they desired.

“What will happen if we will not take a direct hand (in the identification of projects)?” So was Drilon quoted as asking.

The better, and more relevant, question is: What has happened when politicos take a direct hand in the identification of projects?

A case in point – in Pampanga, again – is the rehabilitation of the Porac District Hospital.

At its inauguration on April 11, 2013, paeans were heaped upon Senator Lito M. Lapid, Porac’s favourite son, for his generosity in bearing the bigger share of the funds to provide the hospital with “clean and spacious patient wards as well as private rooms, modern X-ray machine, and 24-hour pharmacy and laboratory.”

Lapid directed P25 million from his PDAF to the hospital while the Department of Health provided P10 million.

Lapid’s beneficence though came with some quid pro quo – the Porac District Hospital renamed – after his father – Jose Songco Lapid District Hospital.

So, who was Jose Songco Lapid that a government hospital was named after him?

In January 2011, the Porac town council approved Ordinance No. 480 seeking to rename the hospital after the bida’s father to “immortalize his legacy and valuable contributions to the province of Pampanga and his fellow Kapampangan.”

What contributions? The resolution said the “patriarch of the Lapid family who has distinguished themselves in the realm of public service.”

Aye, Lito Lapid being the first ever Pampanga governor suspended by the Ombudsman in the wake of the quarry scam. Mark Lapid taken to a congressional inquiry – also on quarry anomalies. Their joint governorship of twelve years contributing to the Capitol coffers what succeeding governors Among Ed Panlilio  and Lilia G. Pineda each contributed well within their first two years in office. Distinction, indeed!

There was no string attached to the renaming of the Porac district hospital to Jose Songco Lapid District Hospital other than the P25 million for its rehabilitation from Lapid’s PDAF.

Government money to perpetuate some private person’s memory, significant, mayhaps but only to his immediate family. Epalitics at another level here.

Aye, it is in the pork barrel that epal  feeds and breeds, manifesting itself in tarpolitics.

The construction of this bridge is a priority project of Cong…The widening of this road is a priority project of  CongW…The rehabilitation of the Manila North Road is a priority project of Cong…The renovation of this hospital is a priority project of Senator…Screamed tarpaulins impacting the large-fonted names and larger-than-life photoshopped images of your representatives, arrogating unto themselves projects funded by your own taxes.

So impacted in the people’s consciousness that prioritized project implementation is all there is to being congressman or senator. The business of legislation, but optional activity on the side.  

The gangs in the House and Senate never had it so good. Indeed…

Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we've got the blues on the run
Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer
Now's the time to roll the barrel, for the gang's all here…    

The Filipino people never had it so bad. With a BS Aquino for President, expect little, if any, betterment.   

The pork barrel has become a powder keg just about ready to explode. 

  

 

     

Tall tale of the tail...

…DIKE, THAT is.

Just last May, it was oh-so gloriously proclaimed: The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Region III completed the repair and rehabilitation of the tail dike which breaching at the height of the habagat or southwest monsoons in August last year submerged in floodwaters the towns of Minalin and Sto. Tomas and southern parts of the City of San Fernando.

“The tail dike was designed to protect the towns from floodwaters coming from  upstream. The towns affected by habagat can rest assured of the integrity (of the repair) of the dike to prevent another flooding.” So one Engr. Luisito Sibug, chief of the construction division of DPWH-3, reported to Gov. Lilia G. Pineda at the  Governor’s Staff House in Clark, detailing that at least 102 meters of the breached section of the dike in San Fernando and 96 meters in Sto.Tomas was completed as of April, costing P27.8 million.

Sibug furthered that engineering interventions complementary to the rehabilitation of the tail dike were also undertaken. These included the development of a “pilot channel with slope protection” of the Gugu Creek in Sapang Pari to Labuan with a length of 1.2 kilometers costing the DPWH P34 million, to include the widening and desilting of the area.

 “This will prevent the water current from targeting the newly constructed CSF-Sto.Tomas-Minalin tail dike,” Sibug noted.

(Factual accounts are the above, with me having authored the news story that carried them, published here on May 28, 2013.)

“Considered as the last line of defense against inundations during heavy rains, some 96 meters wide of the breached section of the tail dike specifically along Sto. Tomas-San Fernando areas, and 102 meters at Minalin side were already restored and armored.” So one Antonio Molano Jr., regional director of DPWH-3, said, as quoted in a May 27, 2013 post in Dredging Today.com  titled “Philippines: DPWH Completes Tail Dike in Pampanga.”

The poor flooded folk assuaged: “Rest assured that DPWH shall continue to perform dredging of the rivers and water tributaries especially in Minalin to allay fears of a repeat of last year’s devastation.”

Headlined the Philippine Information Agency: “Tail dike reconstruction, an answered prayer to Kapampangans.” And hosannas were sung to the DPWH for a job well done.  

Came Typhoon Maring and the habagat last week.

Past 5 a.m. Tuesday, August 20, the tail dike overflowed at its Minalin section  unleashing floodwater to 100 hectares of fishponds and about 1,000 homes, Mayor Edgar Flores reported.

The following day, Flores raised the SOS as the 20-meter breached of the previous day widened to more than 40 meters, shifting “70 percent” of the waters from Gugu River toward nearby Sto. Tomas and onward to the City of San Fernando.

Mass evacuations followed, Sto. Tomas and Minalin were isolated, the capital city’s major roads were rendered impassable. Sufficed it to say of last week’s devastation. 

As it was in August 2012 with habagat so it is in August 2013 with habagat again, this time compounded by Typhoon Maring.

So what happened to all those affirmations and assurances of the DPWH meant “to allay fears of a repeat of last year’s devastation”?

“I don’t know if we are to be blamed for [the disaster].” Thus, Molano, as quoted by the Inquirer’s intrepid Tonette Orejas.

Yeah, having done its job of completing the repair and rehabilitation of the tail dike, Molano’s DPWH could not be blamed for the breach.

That could only be an act of God. Or the devil did it.

 Yeah, not the DPWH.

 Moronic. 

Only Clark

AUGUST 20. Torrential rains and heavy flooding in most of Metro Manila – Central, Northern and Southern Luzon too – paralyzed the operations of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

With the roads leading to NAIA in various degrees of inundation, from knee-high to waist- and chest-deep, all its terminals were inaccessible to departing passengers. And those lucky enough to have gotten their way – packed like wet sardines in dump trucks or squatting atop padyaksikels, luggage and all – found themselves stranded, their flights cancelled due to bad weather. Sharing the lot of arriving passengers whose sundo were stranded in some waterworld somewhere.

The state of helplessness articulated thus: “The flood on Sucat Road is waist-high. Andrews Avenue going to Terminal 3, Roxas Boulevard in Baclaran, Tramo Road from Fort Bonifacio to Villamor Airbase are also no longer passable to light vehicles. Park ‘N fly is passable but you will be stranded before you get there.”

Best thing in a worst setting, to Manila International Airport Authority GM Jose Angel Honrado, was for passengers to “rebook their flights if they are not too important.”

Virtually, all departing flights, both domestic and international, at the NAIA were grounded. With portions of its runway reported to be also flooded.

As this developed, the Clark International Airport Corp. reported that two Philippine Airlines Airbus A319 from Davao, two Airphil Express A-8 aircraft from Masbate and Calbayog and Cebu Pacific Airbus A-320 from Thailand started diverting to Clark Airport with the rains triggered by storm Maring and the southwest monsoon obscuring visibility in Manila. 

An Airphil Express aircraft from Naga City also landed here after being diverted from NAIA.

Only last Sunday morning, a Qantas A-380 airbus bound for maintenance at the NAIA was also diverted to the CIA arising from lack of parking grounds at the Manila airport where another similar aircraft was also undergoing brief maintenance.

Despite continuing rains – the rainfall at Clark even more intense than that at NAIA – operations at the CIA have remained unimpeded.

Said CIAC President-CEO Victor Jose “Chichos” Luciano: "Clark Airport is ready anytime to accommodate diverted flights as a result of poor visibility and traffic congestions at the NAIA."

Chichos did not have to stress it, but all too clear there is the indubitable fact that the CIA is an all-weather airport with clearer visibility and better runways than NAIA.

Which, once more, impacts CIA’s superiority over NAIA and therefore the imperative to fully develop it as premier international gateway, in a twinning-scheme with NAIA, at the least.

For all the devastation caused by this latest scourging of the southwest monsoons, behind all these nimbus clouds that continue to rain down and inundate the land, we see the proverbial silver linings in the Clark airport. Alas, our government is still not seeing.

As with the NAIA, so it is with Sangley – pushed by the brothers Abaya of Cavite, Transportation and Communications Joseph Emilio and Philippine Reclamation Authority’s Peter Anthony to be site of the country’s premier international airport and seaport.

Think: What plane could have possibly landed at Sangley with the heaviest rainfall for the day? What passenger could have reached Sangley with Metro Manila and Cavite submerged?

There’s only Clark. So the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement and all men of vision have long been saying.

There’s only Clark. So Mother Nature is now showing.       

So time to end all these noy-noying.

Clark International Airport as premier gateway, now!

Q'nomics

NOT ONLY does it overbrim the Capitol coffers but the quarry industry drives Pampanga’s very economy, virtually the single, greatest contributing factor to its high liquidity.

That is, if Engr. Art Punsalan, the provincial government environment and natural resources and focal person of the quarry operations, is to be believed.

That is, if the local papers – not Punto – that reported Punsalan’s statements got them accurately.  

"More or less on our estimate, P25 million per day is being contributed by the quarry industry to various stakeholders. That is considering we have 3,500 trucks hauling our quarry materials to different points in Luzon and Pampanga." So was Punsalan quoted as declaring.

A whopping P25 million a day, produced by 3,500 trucks. Culled from the news reports and broken down here to simplify, thus:

P14 million for the P4,000 cost of diesel per truck.

P2.8 million for wages of one driver and one helper (@P800 combined) per truck.

P700,000 in meals spent by drivers and helpers (@P200 for both)

P350,000 in compensation to “hustlers” (@P100/truck) who guide the trucks to the quarry sites.

P350,000 in maintenance (@ a minimum of P100/truck).

P1.6 million in toll charges.

P700,000 in “passway fees.”

P480,000 wages of four helpers at each of the 80 quarry sites (@P1,500/pax)  per

P2.1 million daily cost of living of the families (@P300 each) of the 7,000 truck drivers and helpers (@2 pax/truck).

Adding up – short of P25 million there, but still a whopping P23.08 million a day.  

Notwithstanding the double entry on the truck drivers and helpers’ wages and the daily cost of living of their families, the latter sourced from the former.

P23.08 million a day. Mind-boggling. Easily translating to – oh, God how could my handy calculator contain all those zeros? – P8,424,200,000 a year. Eight billion, four hundred twenty four million, two hundred thousand pesos. Just saying it makes one gasp, in breathless disbelief. Dizzying.

Why, that’s five times the P1.7-billion budget of the Province of Pampanga for 2013!

“Engineered economics.” So one smartass who looked like Zaldy Ampatuan’s media clone called Punsalan’s account, as much referencing on the guy’s schooling as in the figures’ deconstruction.

Even granting that the figures actually obtained, there is no absolute certainty that they circulated in the local economy, he says.

For instance, the pump price of diesel the trucks pay is shared by the local gas stations with their suppliers which offices are usually Manila-based. And then, the trucks gas up as much in Pampanga as in the metropolis where they take their cargo. 

The toll charges are remitted to the tollways central office, again located in Metro Manila.

As not all truckers are Pampanga-based, it follows that truck maintenance is not all undertaken in the province.

Similarly, not all truck drivers and their pahinantes live in Pampanga. And therefore not all their wages are funnelled back to the local economy.

Still, I would indulge Punsalan for his infectious enthusiasm: “The ripple effect is really encompassing, if you take a careful look at it."

Though, one local economist who looked a bit like the erudite Jun Sula of Sun-Star Pampanga told me he already got the eyes of Deng Pangilinan, the double visionary of Mabalacat City, but still could not see, much less feel the ripple effect Punsalan said quarry operations had on the Pampanga economy “outside of the increase in the provincial treasury.”

He says it is in shopping malls that the vibrancy of the provincial economy is most felt. And judging by the demeanor of the mallgoers, the quarry industry makes the least, if any contribution, there.

Balikbayans and vacationing OFWs and their families, yuppies and employees, self-employed and professionals, officials, retirees with disposable incomes, students with savings from their allowances make the most visible shoppers as well as hangers-on at the malls.   

So how did he take Punsalan’s statement then that: "So many stakeholders are able to send their children to school, live sufficiently daily and even get proper healthcare."

True. Insofar as the quarry operators and truckers are concerned.

False. When it comes to the truck drivers, helpers and the hustlers.

No economics of scale, just scaled down economies there. No ripple effect but ripped results.     

Said he. Not me.

No need to wonder now why Punto did not carry the story, headlined “Quarrying contributes P25-M to local economy” in Headline Gitnang Luzon  and “Pampanga earns P25M per day from quarry operations” in Sun-Star Pampanga.

No, we were not scooped. Our ace reporter Ashley Manabat covered Punsalan at the Capitol dialog with quarry operators much longer than any other newsman there.

It’s just that Ashley had the nose for hard news that sneezes at fanciful fiction.

P25 million in circulation daily in Pampanga from the quarry operations alone.   That’s no simple liquidity, that’s a tsunami of hard cash that would have long drowned the Kapampangans in wealth.

     

Investment talks

“OUR TARGET is that at least P10 million is spent by out-of-town visitors in San Fernando every weekend.”

So declared Mayor Edwin Santiago at last week’s meeting of the reconvened Investments Incentives Board composed of the regional offices of the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Economic Development Authority and the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce (PamCham). So trumpeted a press release from the city information office headlined “Mayor EdSa keen on investments promotion”.

Santiago was pepping up his push for the full implementation of the…well, Investment Incentive Code “that will benefit new and expanding businesses in the capital city.”

So, will that mean the exclusion of old and downsizing or constricting businesses in the city from the benefits of the Code? Now, that’s some class legislation there, Sir.

Anyways, Santiago may have to set some target higher than the P10-million weekend expense of out-of-towners, that having been long achieved. Ask not how, where and when. Just take your favourite spot at SM City Pampanga on a weekend and find the indubitable proof of what we just said, er, wrote.

What’s Santiago to do in this wise is to make sure of the city gets its fair share of what’s incoming to SM. And for that matter to Robinsons Starmills too, and SM San Fernando Downtown, S&R and Walter Mart as well.

With the Code, the city expects the “the influx of new businesses” and the corresponding job generation and local revenue augmentation. And Santiago was quick to point that one of the first business applicants is the Best Western International partnering with locals to put up a five-storey international standard hotel – the “first-of-its-kind ‘green’ building in the city” – to be constructed in the city’s business district of Dolores.  

For added measure, one Glenn Nakamura, identified as the area development manager of Best Western International, was quoted as saying: “I am very confident that this project will work.” We believe you, Sir.

Not to be left out in the act is the councillor who fancies himself as some green crusader – the Honorable Lito Ocampo, chair of the trade and industry committee, “disclosing his plans of crafting ordinances to promote eco-tourism and enforcement of laws that will promote discipline and order.” 

“We want to promote the City as a tourist destination that is why we are welcoming these kinds of investments,” said he.

Yeah, easier said than done there, Your Honor.

Given that a simple erection – and quick destruction – of height restriction barriers at the JASA-MacArthur Highway junction flyover created horrendous traffic not only in the immediate vicinity but as far as the arterial roads north, south, east and west.

And did he say “eco-tourism”?

What is in the City of San Fernando that can, even remotely, spell eco-tourism?

Ah, yes, the still operational open dumpsite in Barangay Lara, in some perverse ecological attraction, er, destruction, of sort. 

Indeed, what is in the city government that bear, even the slightest traces of some green conscience?

No, the city government has not had the slightest remorse, much less made amends for the massacre of the trees along MacArthur Highway which it – along with cohorts PamCham and the Department of Public Works and Highways – perpetrated. Indeed, the stand of this triumvirate of tree killers to rid the whole stretch of the national highway of trees still – to this time – remains as obstinate as ever. Notwithstanding the cities of Angeles and Mabalacat having effectively stayed the DPWH’s chainsaw in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

Eco-tourism in the City of San Fernando?

Spare us of this hogwash.

Meanwhile, the city’s investment code also identified manufacturing, services, industrial estates, agri-business, and waste management facilities as investment priority areas.

Make the last in that list first, and you’re talking.

    

         

Tears for fears

“SINO BANG Pilipino na merong pagmamahal sa bayan ang hindi mababagabag, at lalo na kung ikaw ay may kaunting pagsunod kay Hesus? Parang nadudurog ang puso mo na, kaya bang gawin ito ng tao sa kapwa tao? Kaya ba talagang sikmurain na magagawa ang ganito kalaking, kumbaga, kasiraan para sa bayan?”

(What kind of Filipino who has love for country will not feel disturbed, especially if you follow, even but a little, Jesus? It’s like your heart is breaking into pieces (in asking), can one really do this to one’s neighbor? Can one really stomach inflicting this kind of damage on the country?)

The cardinal reflected.   

“Siguro maglakad-lakad kayo sa gabi, kapag nasa bangketa ka na, makikita mo ‘yung… ‘yung mga pamilya na nagbubukas ng karton, para doon matulog. Mahawakan lang ninyo ang kamay ng mga mahihirap. Siguro naman maaantig ang inyong puso, sana.”

(Maybe you could walk around at night, and when you reach the sidewalks, you can see the… the families who open cartons, to sleep there. If only you could hold the hands of the poor, maybe it will move your hearts – hopefully.)

The cardinal wept.

“…Sometimes, I think those who thought about doing this were able to do so because the poor were absent in their lives. Maybe they don’t see or refuse to see. But if you still see and still have empathy, maybe you would still be horrified and feel compassion.

“First of all, who would not be shocked about these reports. While it is still being

investigated, (you could see) the magnitude of the money involved. And then every day, you would see the machinations, whether true or not, it seems that it’s a very intricate web that reached this far. Who will not be horrified?”

The cardinal sermoned.

His reflection, tears and sermon – especially his tears, may as well have been as much for the poor, for the predators of the public coffers, as for churchmen themselves.

Msgr. Josefino Ramirez, former rector of the Quiapo Church, has been cited by the pork barrel scam whistleblowers as recipient of subsidies amounting to hundreds of thousands of pesos from Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

It was even alleged that Quiapo’s revered Poon Nazareno was taken to the house(s) of Napoles whenever she wanted to pray before the image. Ah, the rich are different from the rest of us, even in their ways of worship. Aye, I could not help but sense some (non)sense here of the idiomatic mountain coming to Mohammed if he can’t go to the mountain.

Anyways, Ramirez, along with five Chinese priests are reported to be Napoles’ witnesses in the serious illegal detention case filed against her for allegedly kidnapping Benhur Luy, the principal whistle-blower in the pork barrel scam.

Last Saturday, August 17, Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle’s own Archdiocese of Manila distanced itself, not from Ramirez, but from church projects that received money from the family of Napoles.

“There has been mention of Msgr. Josefino S. Ramirez in stories on Janet Lim-Napoles in newspapers, in particular his ties with a foundation named after her mother that she set up. This involvement is a personal apostolate of Msgr. Ramirez, now a retired priest of the Archdiocese of Manila, and does not officially involve the archdiocese,” the archdiocese said in a statement.

Earlier, Ramirez wrote the archdiocese to set in context, if not aright, his relationship with Napoles, saying he met her late mother, Magdalena Luy Lim, “an ardent devotee of the Divine Mercy,” when he was parish priest of Binondo in 1992.

“Lim has always supported our apostolate for the poor, most especially the Pantawid Gutom Feeding for the street people and malnourished children both in Binondo (1992-2004) and Quiapo (2004-2007) parishes,” Ramirez wrote.

Lim’s charity to church programs continued even after Ramirez was transferred to the Divine Mercy Shrine in Mandaluyong City in 2007, this time with the elderly and prisoners in the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa as beneficiaries.

“Since her death on Feb. 28, 2008, her family, relatives and friends, especially Chinese-Filipino devotees, continue to contribute in her memory to the now referred Magdalena Luy Lim Charity Foundation in the Service of Divine Mercy Inc.,” Ramirez said.

How to deal now with the Napoles contribution to the Church…okay, church projects?

Will Cardinal Tagle do a Cardinal Sin?

As in: "If Satan appears to me and gives me money, I will accept the money and spend it all for the poor. It is not the practice of the Church to ask donors where their donations come from. Our duty is to make sure all donations go to the poor. The devil remains . . . my enemy but I will use his resources to feed the poor."

That was in 2000 in his defense of the Catholic Church's acceptance of a total of P181 million in donations from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. since 1998.  

Or will Cardinal Tagle do a Cardinal Rosales?

As in: “If the donations go into private pockets, then that would be evil, even if the donor is a saint. But if the donation ultimately ends up with the poor, there is no evil.”

To cull from his statements above: “And then every day, you would see the machinations, whether true or not, it seems that it’s a very intricate web that reached this far. Who will not be horrified?”

Cardinal Tagle will be weeping some more.

Without asking

“BUT BEFORE we rush to pass judgment on our legislators who avail (sic) of the pork barrel, it would be opportune for us citizens to search our souls and ask ‘What have I done to contribute to this?’ 

“In reality, we ordinary citizens partake of the bounty of the ‘discretionary funds’ by asking our government officials to help our personal needs, family concerns, barangay projects or even Church fiestas.

“Let us make it our rule of life when we relate to politicians ‘Walang hihingi!’ Every time we ask our politicians for monetary help, we tempt them to dig into the pork barrel coffers or jueteng chests to accommodate our request.”

Walang hihingi. No asking, begging, soliciting money from politicians as this has made the public “grateful beneficiaries” to the officials’ largesse, sinking them deeper in the mire of political patronage.

So called the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines in a pastoral letter to the faithful on the misuse and abuse of the congressional pork barrel. 

Addressed too are the church workers: “We in Church can contribute to the corruption by grabbing a piece of the pie through our solicitation from government officials—from candles to basketball uniforms to bags of cement to government bulldozers. We tempt the public officials to get money from jueteng or the pork barrel in order to accommodate us. Walang hihingi.”

Well articulated – moreso by its incoming president, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates “Soc” Villegas – is the CBCP position. Who, mere mortals as we are, can question, much less quarrel with the good bishops in matters of morals?

The Holy Spirit come, filled their hearts, kindled in them the fire of His love, thus their words veritably assuming ex-cathedra status. To the cerrado Catolico, utmost.

Walang hihingi. And we can only solemnly say, Amen.  

So where will our churchmen get the funds for their never-ending repair, rehabilitation, reconstruction of churches, rectories and chapels? For the parish social action programs, works of charity, upkeep of parochial schools, and the like?

Walang hihingi. Again, we respond, Amen. 

But how can the poorest of the poor eke out the barest of existence without the ready relief from the politician? In a bag of rice, two cans of sardines and two cups of noodles for a brood of five in a hovel under the bridge or in cardboard boxes in some dark streetcorner.  

Walang hihingi. Once more, we answer, Amen.

So what must we do with the tubercular patients, the malnourished children, the sickly mothers, the elderlies ever in ailment – they who, without some enveloped assistance from the congressman, the governor or the mayor, would most surely be deprived of life-lengthening medical care?

Walang hihingi. Amen. Amen. Amen.

So we are reminded of the governorship of the suspended priest Among Ed Panlilio. Of his ready blessing and prayer for anyone asking financial assistance from his office.

Didn’t it come to pass that a constituent brought her nearly blind mother to the governor to seek financial help for her eye operation, costing all of P70,000? “Pangadi da na kayu mu (I will just pray for you),” Panlilio reportedly said and dismissed them with a priestly blessing.

A month after – so the story went – the woman brought back to Panlilio’s office her mother who has fully regained her eyesight.

Daughter: “Manakit ne pung pasibayu y ima ku. (My mother is able to see again).”    Panlilio: “Salamat king Apung Guinu. (Thanks be to God)”

Daughter: “Salamat pu king pangadi yu, tinubud ne pu ning Guinu y Baby Pineda para pakibatan na ing gastus king operasyun nang ima ku (Thanks to your prayer, the Lord sent Baby Pineda to take charge of the surgery of my mother).”

This really happened. The astute Ashley Manabat and persistent Peter Alagos attest to the veracity of the story, having met mother and daughter in the 2010 election campaign.      

Walang hihingi?

What if there is some giving even without any asking? Should there be no taking too?

How would have this stood with the very patron of Archbishop Villegas, the late Jaime Cardinal Sin?

It was Sin that famously said: "If Satan appears to me and gives me money, I will accept the money and spend it all for the poor. It is not the practice of the Church to ask donors where their donations come from. Our duty is to make sure all donations go to the poor. The devil remains . . . my enemy but I will use his resources to feed the poor."

That spoken on Oct. 25, 2000 in his defense of the Catholic Church's acceptance of a total of P181 million in donations from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. since 1998.  

The congressional pork barrel has only been demonized and Archbishop Villegas would not want the faithful and the Church to have anything to do with, else they be tainted with its corruptive influence.

Cardinal Sin would deal with the Satan himself, if only to help the poor.

Walang hihinga. It leaves me breathless.   

(Published in Punto! July 31, 2013. Late posting here) 

What ye sow...

DÉJÀ VU?

Empty city coffers made the headlines of the day the three-term congressman of the 3^rd District, the Honorable Oscar Samson Rodriguez, assumed the mayorship of the City of San Fernando in 2004.

Why, it was even loudly bruited about that Rodriguez’s predecessor to the mayorship and successor to the House, the equally Honorable Dr. Reynaldo Bondoc Aquino, left no more than 30 miserable pesos for supplies – not even enough to buy a decent signing pen – until the next budget allocation.

Thence commenced the demonization of Aquino that, arguably, served as the most devastating infliction leading to his political demise – losing to Rodriguez in the grudge fight for the mayorship in 2007, and then, notwithstanding his presidency of the PhilHealth at the heyday of GMA, losing again to Rodriguez – in the person of his protégé Edwin Santiago – last May.            

So it was on the proven failings in fiscal administration and perceived instances of graft and corruption by the Aquino administration that Rodriguez founded his doctrine of good governance at city hall, proclaimed, promoted and practiced in the performance government system that earned countless awards of recognition for Rodriguez as well as for the city at the national, even international levels.

No matter of conjecture but of consequence then is the chairmanship of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability bestowed – on a silver platter – upon Congressman Rodriguez, the very avatar of everything good in governance.

It has been but over a month since Santiago took over the reins of city hall from the highly acclaimed Rodriguez, already some cracks are showing in the good government façade he so laboriously – and so gloriously – built.

So what was done to Aquino, so shall be done to Rodriguez? Some karmic cycle in the offing here?

The city council is astir over allegedly “un-reconciled differences in the balance sheet of the General Fund.”

News stories – principally from Sun-Star Pampanga -- emanating from city hall, citing Councilor Joselito Ocampo of the Committee on Good Government, Public Ethics and Accountability, reported: 

“According to the city accountant and treasurer, the estimated cash balance as of December 31 (net of fixed expenses and contractual obligations) that will be used to finance LGU programs and projects amounts to P188,522,983. Actual cash as of June 30, as the treasurer reported is P360,303,960, but the accountant reported that it is P73,783,062. The difference of P286,520,898 has to be reconciled by the treasurer together with the accountant.”

That’s not just simply irreconcilable, but a hell of a difference there.

The fires stoked further with “the cash flow from July 1 to December 31 this year, in which the treasurer’s report was indicated as ‘official’ and the accountant’s report as ‘unofficial’…”

Some gobbledygook that can only mean to confuse, if not to cover up. Finding some credence in the failure of the city accountant, one Giselle Rivera, to attend a council inquiry “in aid of legislation” – but naturally – on the city’s financial status.

Why did she not attend, despite the mayor’s imprimatur for her to? The plot thickens here.

How explain – cried Councilors Nelson Lingat and Noel Tulabut – “advances to  contractors and employees, and significant inventories of gasoline, medicines, construction materials and office supplies among many others, amounting to P153,236,732.”

Asked they: “Why maintain significant inventories of these? Where are they located? Why give advances to contractors? Why is there a continuous purchase of such items to date?”

Declared Vice Mayor Jimmy Lazatin: “It is the right of every Fernandino to know about the financial status of the city. Just what will we tell them when they ask about it? This is the very essence of the inquiry. It must be established soon so we can move ahead with our mandate to serve our constituents.”

Valid issues there. And what has the mayor to say?

“The city council inquiry is just right. It is in line with due processes and principles of transparency. Everything will be reconciled, we’re certain of that.” So was quoted Santiago and his administrator Ferdnando Limbitco as saying.

Yeah, everything better be reconciled, perfectly and fast. Else all that good government, all that performance government system so hallowed in the administration of the Honorable Oscar S. Rodriguez would mean no more than illusions at best, pretensions at worst.

And total vindication for the mayor doctor.      

Scams, lies and the web

POWER CORRUPTS. Scandals erupt.

So trite a tenet it has long become a truism, finding reaffirmation in the current of events, socio-political and economic too, buffeting the nation.

So the Philippine Daily Inquirer made the first crack with its expose of one Janet Lim-Napoles via her self-acronymed JLN Corp. using at least 20 dummy non-government organizations (NGOs) as beneficiaries of the pork barrel of certain legislators reaching as much as P10 billion.

That – per the statement of the principal whistleblower -- “JLN offered to lawmakers as commissions equivalent to 40 to 60 percent of the amount of PDAF in exchange for the right to determine the implementing agency and fund beneficiary.”

Fair is fair, but of course, with the Inquirer, quoting Napoles as having declared that “the charges against her and her family were false, fabricated, and a mere product of lies perpetrated by business competitors conspiring with corrupt agents of the National Bureau of Investigation with the ulterior motive of besmirching our reputation.”

Five senators and 23 congressmen were cited in the expose, with Senators  Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada proving quicker to the draw than their movie personas in denying ever even knowing Napoles, much less having anything to do with her NGOs.

Thereby the dam broke, so to speak, and the scandals gushed forth.

Photographs of Napoles partying with Revilla and Estrada exploded in the web, picturing the lie to the honourable senators’ denials.

Not to be outdone by his fellow action stars, Sen. Lito Lapid belatedly came into the pork barrel picture show with P20 million of his pork siphoned to another character allegedly for anti-dengue inoculants in dengue-unaffected towns that turned out to be garbage deodorizer that have remaining unused in landfill sites.

Like his fellow kiss-kiss-bang-bang bidas, Lapid denied ever knowing anything about Innsbruck International Trading, the company that received his PDAF.

Only for the Inquirer to put the lie to Lapid’s denial too, with a bunch of pictures showing him with Innsbruck GM Ma.  Victoria Sevilla Tolentino, one right in front of the senator’s palatial home in Porac town.

Pictures speak a thousand truths. Videos tell even more. And the web chronicles it all.
The internet exploded a few days back with the power of a megaton bomb in photographs and videos of Napoles daughter Jeane at her most outrageously outlandish ostentation of the gilded lifestyle.  
Porsche Boxster for her birthday. Porsche Cayenne for her graduation.

Luxury watches – costing some P1 million each. Hello Vacheron Constantine. And  jewelry – Hi, Bulgari. Signature clothes and shoes – nine pairs costing P360,000 each. Take a bow, Manolo Blahnik.

The shelves of branded bag store emptied of its display in one spree. How about one clutch bag reportedly costing roughly P400,000? Hermes, is that you? Or is it Louis Vuitton?

The Imeldific nearly reduced to a bag lady here.

And then some more – a train of baggage at a Japan airport after yet another shopping safari. Eat your heart out, Michelle Duvalier.  

The crowning glory in this oh-so-glorious-display of self-indulgent luxuriation is  Jeane’s 21st birthday party at Beverly Hills – coming straight from the soirees of Marie Antoinette herself with all that affectation and ostentation, bloviated ego and shameless pride.  

That which has spawned what is called a firestorm in the web.

One netizen summed it all up: “So much money, so little class.”

I tend to add: So much luxury. So crass.

It could have come only from un-labored wealth.

Power corrupts. Scandals erupt. Decadence results.

No straight and narrow path, but the road to perdition we are treading here.