An incorruptible congressman

By Mortz C. Ortigoza You probably read my previous expose’ about corrupt members of the House of Thieves, er, Representatives ,extorting a mayor for a P300 thousand a month share from the illegal number game jueteng, getting in advance a significant share from almost every government funded project funded by the solon’s pork (Priority Development Assistance Fund) from a private contractor, pocketing up to 40 to 60 percent of the multi-million peso dredging of rivers, relatives of the lawmaker’s shameless interference in every government projects to maximize the solon’s cut on the funds for road works, bridges, school buildings, and others, and a “solomonic (local moniker of a greedy official)” lawmaker getting all the cut for the projects without giving a cent from the spoils to the grudging mayors who hosted the site of the projects. (For the details of these brouhahas, you can read all these alleged anomalies by scrolling the topics at my blog at mortzortigoza@blogspot.com) *** “But there is a congressman and a congresswoman that ever since I could remember, they did not ask a dime for an SOP (Standard Operational Procedure, a misnomer for an anomalous cut) for every infrastructures financed by their pork ,” a very high government regional official in Region -1 commented on one of my expose’. He was talking about the spouses’ former Congressman and Congresswoman Mark and Kimi Cojuangco of the 5th Congressional District of Pangasinan. He proudly told me why these spouses did not ask for an SOP because they are already very rich with their billions of peso business empire. Mark is the scion of business czar Danding Cojuangco, the chairman of the San Miguel Corporation- the largest publicly listed food, beverage and packaging company in the Philippines with 100 major facilities throughout the Asia-Pacific. Mark heads the family run National Cement Corporation in the town of Sison in Pangasinan. *** When Kimi used to be a mayor of Sison, chiefs of police (COP) detested being assigned there. Their reason: Kimi did not want jueteng and a red light district that proliferated during the time of her predecessor former Mayor Dionisio Lagmay. Without jueteng and nightclubs, COP would be deprived of up to P90 thousand a month payola that their counterparts earned in other towns of Pangasinan. (Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)