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| DOLE Sec. Rosalinda Baldoz |
By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
I emphatically call the attention of Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz of the Department of Labor & Employment. Your DOLE provincial and regional office in Pangasinan and in San Fernando Ciy, La Union have been giving you and your department a bad name for inefficiency and incompetence. Last summer, students from the marginalized sectors all over the country have been selected by local government unit (LGU) to work in your department’s Special Program for the Employment of Students or SPES where the LGU shoulder 60 percent of their salary while DOLE shoulder 40 percent of the more than P7000 salary in a one month work.
Susmariosep, the LGU of Dagupan City has long been given the 60 percent counterpart in May this year while many of these sorry students and out-of-school youth still wait for the counterpart from your local offices here in Northern Luzon. What is happening with your department Secretary Baldoz?
Sylvia Catapia, your point woman for this endeavor in Pangasinan, has been telling parents who follow up the balance fees of their children that their papers are still being scrutinized in the DOLE’s regional office.
But Holy Casseroles and Guacamole Secretary Baldoz, it is already September of 2012 but still no text or call from Catapia from the “scrutiny crap” just to ease up the parents’ anxiety who have been given a run-around in that office despite being there for the umpteenth times.
Catapia and your staff in La Union should have the common sense to call up and update the recipients or their parents on what your office should be paying.
Moreover, Mrs. Secretary, I thought red tape has been a thing of the past under the Aquino “Matuwid na Daan” Administration?
O baka naman bina-banko pa ng mga staff niyo iyong pera para magka-interest?
***
5th Board Member Nino Arboleda of Pangasinan should know that there are some quarters in the 5th District of the province that have been grumbling about his alleged apathy to his constituents and the village chiefs. A source told me last week that in case City Councilor Rio Esteves (a rumored bet of political king maker Rosendo So of Abono Party-list and the Cojuangcos) throws his hat in the derby against you and re-electionist BM Danny Uy, maiiwanan ka daw sa kangkongan . Readers of this paper should know that in every congressional district, only two BMs are elected to the August Chamber based in the capital town Lingayen.
My source told me too that the election” daw ngayon di makukuha sa pag guapohan and pagandahan ng porma sa provincial board lalo na pag ang isang bocal ay miembro ng Silent Committee.” I don’t know if my source, a powerful media man, who was in a hurry, refers to Arboleda. I’ll clarify with him when I meet him again kasi maraming miyembro ng Silent Committee naman talaga diyan sa Board.
***
In a hastily called press conference by Mayor Benjamin S. Lim of Dagupan City and Regional Director Roy Sanchez of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the 83.65 grams methamphetamine hydrochloride or "shabu" couriers Emily Fernandez y Rodriguez alias Emy and Kim Gama y Bolledo was the biggest catch done by PDEA agents in Dagupan after Lim started to wage war against this society’s scourge in the last two months. Geez man, I got my “comeuppance” when I asked Director Sanchez in a press conference that if 200 gram of shabu is non- bailable, the 83.65 grams he and his men swept was bailable thus the alleged culprits can still go scot-free.
He told me that in the amended Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 or Republic Act 9165 a mere possession (remember dear readers the word “possession”) of 10 grams is already non-bailable. “Son of a gun, what was in my mind was the old law R.A 6425,” I told him in Ilonggo after the press con held at the conference room of Dagupan City hall. He told me that not only that, even a mere possession of 00.01 gram of shabu is already non-bailable as long as the agent or the police could give a prima facie evidence at the prosecutor and the judge that the one who possess it was a pusher and not a user.
“Susmariosep,” I told myself again to start downloading pronto from the internet the amended version of RA 9165 and read all of them like crazy and not to rely in a cramming attitude on my Magellan era worn-out codal of the Revised Penal Code that puts me in a bind 15 minutes before I threw that first self destructing question by even quoting RA 6425 with all the confidence one can buy at the Okay-Okay store when I should be quoting RA 9165.
***
Although my booboo seems innocuous to the local media, who came in drove there, it flashed in my mind the “imbroglio” that ensued between Mayor Ayoy Resuelo of San Carlos City and his officials and the media in a press con in that city when the mayor told us that the officials involved in the loss P6 million city payroll have been charged at the prosecutor’s office.
“There was a prima facie evidence thus Mrs. so- and- so and Mr. so- and- so have all been charged already,” Atty. Samson the then city legal officer declared to the media. A reporter fresh from Manila Zoo, er, Manila- based- radio grabbed first the microphone and asked in his distinct husky voice that broadcaster Jerry Cambay and Tito Tamayo would grudgingly envy.
“As you were talking there in front and bragging that Mrs. So-and- so and Mr. so- and- so have been charged in court, I was wondering what kind of officials you were in charging all those culprits and failed to charge Ms. Prima Facie since you have been juxtaposing his name with Mr. so and so and Mrs. so and so,” he confidently asked the panel led by Resuelo. Everybody in the media was all awed by the new face in the local media. “Son of a gun, this guy is our man! Thanks that he exposed the sleight- of- hands played by politicians who want to spare Prima Facie,”
I heard one media guy, who accidentally became a media man after his parents asked him an errand to buy a vinegar, at the back murmured.
Mayor Resuelo and Atty. Samson looked at each other amused. Samson carefully explained to the poker faced announcer that Prima Facie is not a person but is a legal term (that means a fact presumed to be true unless it is disproved). “Oh, that’s what they mean of Prima Facie. I thought Prima Facie is the cousin of Lelia Sy, the publisher of Northern Times,” I heard one member of the Hao-Shiao Media Industry told his collegue. After that hulabaloo that media guy who asked Mayor Resuelo et al whom everybody called thereafter as Mr. Prima Facie, absconded the Dog-eats-Dog World of Pangasinan’s acrimonious media. You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com
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