Cuts for Dads in LGU's Loan

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

A reporter asked a politician why members of a council (it can either be of the town,  city or province) stayed loyal to a sitting elective chief executive.

“What’s with the official?” he posed.
The politician tried to be civil in his answer how hypocrites are these members of the legislature.
 But the straight and honest answer that I’ll tell you in the vernacular: Itong mga members ng council walang loyalty ang mga ito. Just like some members of the media, ang loyalty niyan ay sa pera primera. Kung saan ang pera doon sila nag i-ingratiate sa power-that-be. Gaya rin iyan ng mga members ng Congress, kung saan ang nagbibigay ng pork barrel doon ang mga congressmen  at senators nagiging loyal lamang dahil sa pera. Without it, they go against the chief executive, by impeaching him or rejecting the bill he wants to be passed.
In that meeting I told a lawmaker who was part of a group who approved the multi million of pesos loan. “Magpa-inum kayo boss alam kong marami kayong pera as your share in approving the loan”.
 “Wala pa ang pera galing sa banko. Pag andiyan na text ko kayo,” he told me and some media colleague.
Ganoon lang ang kalakalan sa LGU, ginigisa sa sariling mantika ang mga kawawang gullible na voters at residente na walang kaalam-alm. Hindi lang ang mayor ang dapat kumita (up to 30% of the loan or 50% if he owns the dummy contractors for the project.) dapat kumikita rin ang mga councilors, ng tag ka-kalahating million pesos or mahigit, na nag-aaproved.

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Manaoag chief of police Chief Inspector Edison Revita is the lesser version of Vietnam’s Võ Nguyên Giáp – the general who defeated in May 1954 the French in Dien Bien Phu and the Americans in April 30, 1975 in the Vietnam War as the Yanks scampered for safety to the Huey helicopters that waited for them at the rooftop of the U.S Embassy in Saigon. Giap greatness was not by his own choosing, he was a journalist (who was a dedicated reader of military history and philosophy, revering Sun Tzu particularly) before he was plucked to the dirty calling of war to fight the French and the U.S that wanted to colonize his country.
Revita, an optometrist by diploma, told me that he took just for kicks the entrance examination of the Philippine National Police Academy thrice and passed them thrice handily.

But after he hurdled it in his third try; his family insisted he joined the Academy.  Grudgingly, he packed his things and told them if he backed out there they would not blame him after he accommodated their desire.
“Pero nagustuhan ko doon sa Academy, kaya ito naging police ako”.
Aside from his feats in his other assignments, this optometrist by profession is destined for “greatness”. He makes raves and waves in the Pilgrim Town for his zero crime rate last  Holy Week vis-à-vis the roughly million of devotees that swarm the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag. He made a dent there by “hurling” in police vehicle  18 poor kids with cleft lip or cleft palate last year and brought them to “Operation Smile, Bridging the Gap”runs by Dr. Frederick Enrile, regional coordinator of Smile Train, in Urdaneta District Hospital (UDH) in Urdaneta City.
Now OIC Provincial Director Rey Biay, member of Philippine Military Class of 1986, adopted his Operation Smile” in a bigger scale by helped curing  initially 28  kids who have  the same problems by bringing them at Dr. Enrile’s clinic.
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 If I was critical with some incompetent police chiefs, P/Supt. Charles Umayam has been putting in the highest bar the San Carlos  City Office.
The Bible quoting Umayam, my former political science student at the then Lyceum Northwestern in Dagupan City, even went to the boondocks and villages of the rambunctious Wild West City and talk with the folks and leaders there how they can prevent the crime to even rear its ugly head.
“Prevention is better than the cure,” Umayam told me.
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If Dagupan City, through the City Council, approved but frantically shelved the stupid No-Helmet Law after media men raised a howl and a former judge, and motorcycle enthusiast, filled an injunction for Declaratory Relief, Calasiao Chief of Police P/Supt.  Satur Ediong plans to put a makeshift bamboo gate that could be lowered and even padlocked by tanods (watchmen) in village roads as barricade to hinder absconding motorcycle riding criminals (MRC) after they shot or robbed somebody.
“Mga 10 minutes lang naman magka-traffic habang hinahabol ng police ko ang MRC who would be apprehended or would leave their vehicles (he can used as evidence) because of the barricade,” he said.
Would the town council freak out or support this laudable intention of Ediong after the village councils approve it through a resolution? Let’s wait for it.
(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).