Baraan, Bigay’s Lawyer a Lightweight

Former Provincial administrator Rafael Howard Baraan holds one of the locally-made and export quality sword showcased during the trade seminar conducted by the Pangasinan Brotherhood-United States of America,Inc.(PB-USA) at the Leisure Coast Resort in Dagupan City..CESAR RAMIREZ

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

One of the most sought legal eagles in Pangasinan told me that the lawyer of the sacked Pangasinan Administrator Raffy Baraan Provincial Housing and Urban Development Council Office chief’s Alvin Bigay was a lightweight.

“Mahina, natangal sa puesto ang kliyente niya”.

Attorney Raffy Martinez, who lawyers for several mayors in the province, told me that after the Ombudsman dismissed Baraan and Bigay by meting them the cancellation of their eligibility, forfeiture of retirement and benefits and perpetual disqualification from reemployment in the government service, Baraan and Bigay’s lawyer should have filed a Petition of Declaratory Relief at the Supreme Court.
Declaratory Relief occurs when the two parties go to court to get clarification. The camps of Baraan and Bigay were protesting the haste the Ombudsman inflict on them. The duo had instead filed last December 16 an Urgent Motion to Lift the Implementation Order to the Ombudsman.

When I asked him that their lawyer or lawyers should have filled an injunction with temporary restraining order to prevent the Ombudsman in immediately kicking the asses of the beleaguered duo from the Capitol, Martinez agreed that that should be what their lawyer should have done.

One of the digs to those incompetent lawyers would be when either their clients have been dismissed or jailed after a raid or arrest despite the patent loopholes on the implementation of the warrants by the raiding team just like what happened to two cases in a Central Pangasinan's town for the past several months.

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 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Free Trade Agreement will be implemented on January 1, 2015. It’s upside the P40 a kilo of white sugar could drastically plunge to P30 or less. It bode well to the consumers.

Its downside however is it would be a blow to the owners of the 28 sugar centrals in the Philippines that provide 700,000 Filipino jobs.

According to the Sugar Regulatory Administration, the country’s sugarcane industry has to be reinvigorated to be competitive. Private sector data show that other countries produce cheaper sugar, the cost of which is equivalent to even one-half the cost of our sugar.

Why? While the Philippines government ignored any assistance to buttress the sugar industry, Thailand, the No. 2 sugar producer in the world after Brazil, has galvanized its sugar millers to compete in the take-no-prisoner’s AFTA.

Thailand provides direct and indirect support for its sugar industry, such as supplemental payment to farmers, low interest loans at 2 percent per annum, fixed domestic prices, free irrigation services, and a well-developed and maintained transport infrastructure such as road networks and transloading ports,” according to Ma. Regina Bautista-Martin, administrator of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), who wrote “Pump-priming for a Stronger, Globally Competitive Sugarcane Industry: Through the Sugarcane Industry Development Fund”.

Martin cited that despite the contribution of P88 billion  in the Philippine economy from the sale of raw sugar, refined sugar, bioethanol and molasses, tolling fees of refined sugar, value-added tax (VAT) on tolling and VAT from the sale of refined sugar, the sugar industry does not receive any funds from the Department of Agriculture, either for the construction of farm-to-mill roads, sugar warehouses, irrigation or water-impounding facilities, research and development and extension services.

If Thailand backs up its sugar industry, and other industries, why the Philippine government ignored this industry?  Because of this governmental incompetence sugar workers would be gobbled by other countries in the regional laissez faire where tariff is pegged at 5% only.

Can you imagine if each of these workers has been feeding some mouths and after AFTA he finds himself jobless.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).