Greedy Lady Mayor

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

In a get together with some media friends one of them said that Pangasinan Provincial Administrator Raffy Baraan and Provincial Housing and Urban Development Council Office's chief Alvin Bigay have been dismissed from  the Capitol by the Ombudsman last December 12 in relation to their case on the black sand issue.
I argued that probably it was the six months preventive suspension, not dismissal, just like what the Ombudsman had done to Director General Alan Purisima, Chief of the Philippine National Police.
“Paano ma dismissed wala pa naman ang trial proper, unless other government body had tried administratively the case already?” I posed.
But a close member of one of the accused told me that there was a letter one of them received last Friday.
Here's one of the excerpts (sic) from Implementation of the Joint Resolution of the Office of the Ombudsman in OMB-C-C-12-0028-A and OMB-C-A-12-0024-A Entitled: Vicente C. Oliquino, et al. vs. Amado T. Espino et al (Pangasinan Government Officials):
 "Respondents (Pangasinan Provincial Administrator) Rafael F. Baraan and (Provincial Housing and Urban Development Council Office chief’s) Alvin Bigay be adjudged Guilty of Grave Misconduct and meted the penalty of DISMISSAL FROM THE SERVICE, with the accessory penalties of CANCELLATION OF ELIGIBILITY, FORFEITURE OF RETIREMENT, BENEFITS AND PERPETUAL DISQUALIFICATION FROM REEMPPLOYMENT IN THE GOVERNMENT SERVICE."
***
Who is this lady mayor in Pangasinan who is being detested by suppliers?
A publisher told me that when he won a bid at PhilGEPS (Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System) to publish an ordinance passed and signed by the town council and the mayor he was told by the chief executive:
“50% ang cut ko dito”.

The publisher was taken aback since he won the right to publish in a proper bidding.
“Sobrang suwapang naman ng mayor na iyan”.
Usually getting a cut in the approved ordinance or resolution have been an old racket of either the vice mayor or secretary of the Sanggunian Bayan (council), but the gall of this mayor reverberates among newspaper publishers in the province.
Publication of a local government in a newspaper could be lucrative. One page could be billed up to P7000 where a printing cost only for P500. The town or city published up to 200 pages in three consecutive weeks of its ordinance or resolution in a paper that won the bid.
One of the publishers was able to build a house and bought a car just for this kind of publication.
***
The administration of this most expensive elementary private school in Dagupan City should stop this malpractice every December. Parents of pupils flood the teachers with expensive gifts. Son of a gun, parents are outshining each other to ingratiate with receptive teachers who wait the overflowing manna once a year. "Exploited" mentors there received a measly P8000 a month in a school where a pupil pays almost P55, 000 tuition fee a year. Allowing this extravagance of gift giving could influence the grading discretion of a teacher to the student whose parent has the most ostentatious gift this yuletide.
***
 I doff my hat to Police Superintendents Charles Umayam (PNPA Class 2000) and Cris Abrahano (PNPA Class 1996) who did not tire sending text messages to me on the arrest of their men of malefactors who committed swindling, illegal drugs, murder, you name it.
Umayam and Abrahano are the chiefs of police of San Carlos and Dagupan Cities.
If they can be proactive sending to media their accomplishment, why not other city police stations like Urdaneta and Alaminos follow suit? Why not municipal police stations emulate them, too?
***
A veteran politician and a mayor in a Central Pangasinan town told me in a huddle that a challenger for his post has a yeoman’s  to do if he wants to clinch the mayorship.
“Ang ginagastos niya sa mga taong pumunta sa kanya ay sarili niyang pera, ang ginagastos ng nakaupong mayor na pera ay galing sa kaban ng bayan at sa illegal”.
He said what he spent these to his constituents who are indigents who needs medicine, coffin, fare going to Manila, media men are monies he got from jueteng proceeds and his S.O.P from private contractors who  construct the town’s projects.
“Grabe, ngayong araw na ito gumastos ako ng P40,000,” a mayor in a city told us media men.
This city mayor, according to our insider, earns P3 million a month from 1 to 37 number games Meridiane (successor of jueteng).
“Know thy self, know thy enemy,” Sun Tzu’s adage says.
A private individual who wants to become a mayor or a governor should have known the political, social or financial strength and weakness of his opponent if he wants to be victorious.
But not to this lady mayor who won by defeating a sitting mayor because his campaign financial chest were limited
“Iyan ang nakakahiya pag ikaw incumbent natalo ka ng challenger mo,” a mayor of another town told me.
“Nasa iyo na ang lahat ng resources at pam-paguapo galing sa municipio matatalo ka pa!”.
Take for instance the case of the lady mayor I mentioned, her opponent, a vice mayor, had been whisked to the town’s top post after the mayor succumbed to a heart attack several months before the poll.
Aside from being a tight wad, a beggar in a wheelchair called him “bato sa kakuripotan”, his P40, 000 a day payola from jueteng could not compete with the generosity of his challenger whose campaign had been sustained by her chain of multi-million U.S dollar's earning businesses abroad. .
The lady mayor campaign chief told me millions of pesos of crisp hundred of peso bills have dumped inside the trunk and inside of his Toyota Vios in the eve before the election.
“We just gave P300 to people n the villages as if there was no tomorrow”.
He said the lady mayor could not stop thanking him not only after she won with a wide margin but because there were still several millions of pesos left in the sedan.
In my next article I’ll tell you two political rivals who buy votes to win by using vans full of tens of millions of pesos. One of them got his wherewithal from S.O.P or cut from billions of pesos government projects and the other from pocketing some funds of a lucrative national position he held as a reward by the president he supported when the latter ran into the highest post of the country.
(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).