A stupid Catholic priest

BY MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

What I don’t like about many of the Catholic clergies in this country, they sided with issues that are no brainier.

For instance issues like the artificial methods of birth control.

The absence of free contraceptives glares its ugly heads on our street.

Poor families kept bearing children that become street urchins, petty criminals, you name it. Vehicles on the streets’ slums are hampered by poor malnourished kids playing their things there.

“These sorry sights would aggravate for another ten years from now,” I told somebody in the car as I tread carefully the roads.

         By the way, we are already 101,833,938 (July 2011 estimate) million rambunctious Filipinos. Number 20 in the world in terms of demography.

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Then here comes my neighbor on this paper retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz and a priest who officiates a novena mass at the Supreme Court lately for the beleaguered chief justice Renato Corona.

I could forgive and forget Cruz craps there at the executive department of the government  that he accused of bullying the chief magistrate, but I nearly kicked my TV after I heard the officiating priest asking Corona if he is ready to become a saint after the conclusion of his impeachment try.

Susmariosep my foot! How can be the chief justice be a saint when he could not even submit publicly his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and  Net Worth (SALN) for some years now and his recently P14.5 million already discounted posh condominium unit  purchased that would not jibe with his salary?

A saint is beyond suspicion. Corona’s stalling to show publicly his SALN elicits strings of suspicions that he enriched himself after he prostituted himself with the infamous former president Gloria Arroyo.

On the latest Pulse Asia survey, it said that Corona had the highest disapproval (24 percent) and distrusts (27 percent) ratings among the five top government officials

Res Ipsa Loquitor eh, chief justice?”

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“Another one bites the dust!” belts by my favorite British rock band Queen.

Is Dagupan City destined to bite the dust forever from the blazing Urdaneta City?

The budget appropriation of the Carabao Ciy this year is P641 million - as the Bangus City lags at the still proposed and unstable P581million.

Last year, Urdaneta’s budget was P 652, 645,824.5 while Dagupan ran under P490 million re-enacted 2010 budget – thanks to the incessant fireworks between the mayor and the vice mayor and her allies that control the city council.

I thought that despite a reduced budget this year from the slashed shares in the Internal Revenue Allotment and in the League of Cities of the Philippines, Dagupan City still play second fiddle with Urdaneta.

“No, there was this city in Ilocos that has an appropriation higher than Dagupan City,” Urdaneta City Mayor Gregorio “Bobom” Perez IV told to me recently when I commented that Dagupan City is number two.

After I Goggled the internet, I found that Laoag in Ilocos Norte has an appropriation of P600 million in 2011 according to the Ilocos Sentinel.

Geez, what happens to you my beloved city Dagupan? Is this what you reaped? A ripped-off, after electing a mayor and an opposition dominated council led by a suspicious vice mayor?

Is this polarization, schism, gridlocks, or whatever helps undermine the once premier commercial hub in Northern Luzon?

“Wake Up Little Susie.” as what the Everly Brothers would sing.

I know that a lot of Dagupenos would not like hearing that the bangus city would be relegated as a “pussy” at number three.

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 “Thanks to the UCU (Urdaneta City University), all its profits were automatically included in the General Appropriation,” quipped by Perez.

Aside from the burgeoning entrepot (bagsakan of goods) city for Regions 1 and 2, and the Cordillera she hosted, the city has been earning an averaged of P25 million yearly from the city owned university according to city councilor Jennelyn Sison when she was asked by Mayor Perez last year to give me the figure.

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I was not surprise if another Ilocano dominated city outside Pangasinan eclipsed in the past a Pangasinense speaking Dagupan City.

Why? Because the playing field in terms of national financial assistance is not equal with us here in Pangasinan compared to any of the cities there.

It was former governor and Congressman Victor Agbayani who told me in the past why people in Ilocos are rich per capita versus the sorry people of Pangasinan after it was surveyed by the Department of Social Welfare & Development.

“Because aside from their annual IRA (Internal Revenue Allotment) they receive yearly a share from the tobacco excise tax that runs to millions of pesos. Most of us here in Pangasinan don’t have shares like that”

Agbayani said each of the local government units there have a share of the excise tax almost as big as the IRA.

That’s why a wide eyed media man Ruel Camba was all praises to towns in Ilocos Norte when he visited it on November last year.

“All of their towns have their own municipal air conditioned buses with the names of their towns boldly painted on the side body of the behemoths”.

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In-case the mammoth retail store SM put shop either at Brgy. Anolid in Mangaldan  or Brgy. Ventinilla in Sta. Barbara, blames the politicians in Dagupan who dilly-dally for the hosting of the giant store.

 With Robinson mall that is based in neighboring Calasiao opens to the public this February, and SM to follow suit outside Dagupan, there goes my beloved city to the dogs.

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