CASE DISMISSED?!: No proof Freddie Aguilar had sex with the minor

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Can we call this the “Politics of filling a case just for the sake of a filing”? 

 Lawyer Fernando Perito filed a Qualified Seduction case at the prosecution office in Quezon City against “Anak (child)” crooner, the internationally acclaimed folk singer Freddie Aguilar.

Aguilar was accused to having different sexual orgies with a 16 year-old minor.

“This cradle snatcher wants to take advantage of the adulation of the child by pretending to be loving her and allegedly marrying her later. This old man deserves to be castrated to spare the children,” Perito argued in his complaint-affidavit given to the prosecutor’s office.

According to Article 337 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, qualified seduction is the seduction of a virgin over twelve years and under eighteen years of age, committed by any person in public authority, priest, home-servant, domestic, guardian, teacher, or any person who, in any capacity, shall be entrusted with the education or custody of the woman seduced, shall be punished by prison correccional  in its minimum and medium periods.

To the tricycle and jeepney drivers who read this article it means imprisonment of two years, four months and one day to four years and two months.

Qualified seduction means consensual sexual intercourse has been consummated by both the accused and the minor.

My poser: Does Attorney Perito has the proof that Aguilar and the minor copulated?

Ask any Tom, Dick, and Atong and they will tell you that the minor and even her parents, who probably benefited from the generosity of Aguilar, would frantically deny heaven and earth that Freddie has completed his carnal knowledge (sexual relationship) with her.

Baka sabihin niya pa na sexual- free and kanilang relasyon and sheer platonic love ang kanilang affair.

Unless members of the Department of Social, Welfare & Development and Perito resorted earlier to peeping Tom, the prosecutor’s office would dismiss the case.

Tsk, tsk another precious government resources been wasted.

Building Public Offices without Spending

In the press conference called recently by Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez, she said the city mulls to build a commercial complex at the new growth corridor in the Jose  De Venecia Highway Extension that connects the Dawel-Pantal-Lucao Road.

“Why not emulate a city in Metro Manila which did not spend a peso for a four-story commercial building. The private sector that built the multi-million peso edifice just ask the city for a Build Operate Transfer or Private-Public-Office to run the ground floor for definite years as its market,” I said.
(Son  of a gun, I saw City engineer Virginia Rosario and City Planning and Development Coordinator Romeo C. Rosario nodded their heads  several times in approval for what I asked).

The mayor said she will consider and study my proposal.

I could not fathom why officials of local government units (LGU) insisted that they borrow tens if not hundreds of millions of pesos just to construct a municipal or city hall or a commercial center.

One of the examples of this is just under the noses of Dagupenos: Their losing three-story Malimgas Market that was constructed for half-a-billion pesos that continued to bleed the city coffer for P40 million a year of amortization of its P500 million loan from Land Bank of the Philippines.

LGUs borrow from Land Bank, Development of the Philippines, or Philippine National Bank while the LGU hemorrhages in paying the amortization worth millions of pesos a month.

Someone told me that officials of LGUs love to contract loans because of the kickback that runs up to half-a-million peso for each of the councilor who voted for the resolution empowering the mayor to contract the loans, in behalf of the town, with the bank.

Susmariosep, who said elective public office is a bane?!

Urdaneta City has the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs

I asked Mayor Fernandez if we can still regain the grandeur of the Bangus City as the premier city in Region 1 after Urdaneta City eclipsed Dagupan in budget appropriation:

“In 2013 Urdaneta City yearly budget runs up to P637 million (It became P700 million as it included the supplemental budgets, while Dagupan City settled only for P612 million in the same year,” I said.

In 2012, Urdaneta  approved an appropriation of P641 million for fiscal year 2012 compared to Dagupan City that has proposed budget of P P581 million only which was be subjected to some slash by the opposing city council,” I commented.

 Fernandez said, for starter, she will make the One-Stop-Shop business friendly by reducing the processing time of business permits from four days to one hour.

“Why Urdaneta City seems to be richer than Dagupan City?” I posed to some media friends who were near my seat.

“It has the goose that lays the golden egg through its Urdaneta City University!” cried  Northern Time Publisher Lelia Sy.

In my recent conversation with Carabao City Mayor Amadeo ”Bobom” Perez IV, he said UCU used to give the city coffer P200 million a year but because of the slump in the demand for Filipino nurses abroad,  UCU delivered only more than P100 million to the city treasury a year.

Susmariosep, that’s still a huge amount that Dagupan City, San Carlos City, and Alaminos City can not emulate.

But Attorney Gonzalo Duque, who was seated near the mayor, reacted to the questions of City Information Officer Rhee Hortaleza and DWIZ Manager Allan Sison about his take of Dagupan City constructing a city college.

Duque, owner of Lyceum Northwestern University, explained that the city must  first improve its  Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) on its two year program in K to 12 basic education before it ventures in running a city college. He said that for the city to construct the edifices of the college, it needs P500 million which is impossible because the city is cash- strapped.

“Wala pondo ang siyudad. Asikasuhin muna natin ang basic education na K-12 para mabigyan ng skills ang  mga bata”.

(Send comments to totomortz@yahoo.com)