Don't Re-Elect Those Members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan

I could not understand the demeanors of those high officials of the Commission on Audit on the return of a former colleague whistle-blower Heidi Mendoza as their new  deputy commissioner.

Assistant Commissioner for Finance Isabel Agito posed that after what Mendoza has said about a corrupt COA she has the temerity to work in the agency.

The head of the fraud audit Leonor Boado was surprised about Heidi’s return after what she said.

I disagree.

The return of Mendoza could stymy, if not eliminate, corruption at COA.

Officials of COA are accomplices of honchos of corrupt government offices like the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Departments of Public Works & Highway and Local Government, Bureau of Custom, Armed Forces, Philippine National Police and their sub-offices in the provinces and cities all over the country.

For example, here in the province, some officials of COA could emulate the excessive lifestyles and ostentatious display of wealth by those “vultures” and “hyenas” of those government offices I mentioned.

It takes two to tango in embezzling the government.

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Amid the brouhaha brought by spikes of up to 500% Real Property Tax that scandalized Pangasinenses, my informant told me that members of the Sanggunian Panlalawigan (Provincial Board) want to deflect the public outcry from the law they whimsically created.

They do a ridiculous stunt by re-igniting the intention of the province to host two nuclear power plants despite the present radiation being emitted by those nuclear power reactors in Fukushima, Japan.

They invited even the unwitting nuclear-advocate former Congressman Mark Cojuangco in their session recently as their resource person.

Although everybody wondered but laughed on this audacity, nobody bites it.

The nuclear hosting dies down, the land tax brouhaha continues to haunt the electoral chances of these provincial dads and their vice governor.

The latest bombshell posed by Abono Party-list chairman Rosendo So was if the provincial board gave Governor Amado T. Espino a blanket authority to negotiate a 5% RPT with mammoth power suppliers San Roque Hydro-Power Plant and the Coal Power Plant in the towns of San Manuel and Sual, why did the Board members not give the same option to the governor to give a 5% RPT instead of 500% land tax (and the Special Education Fund)?  Their grievances are snowballing. They felt ripped off by these excessive and confiscatory taxes.

Unless the members of the Board amend this onerous (as it lacks an exhaustive public hearing) ordinance, voters should not vote those members who will seek re-election in the 2013 poll.

They are the following: Vice Governor Ferdie Calimlim, Board Members Von Mark Mendoza, Angel Baniqued, Jeremy Agerico Rosario,Napoleon Fontelera Jr., Teofilo Humilde Jr, Raul Sison, Generoso Tulagan Jr., Mojamito Libunao Jr., Clemente Arboleda Jr, and Ranjit Ramos Shahani.

(You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)