Did Bayambang Mayor, Council borrow P100M for kick back?

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

I could make scathing comments on politicians and would not regret 

about them. 

But I found out that there are sensible people whenever I touched their religion’s 

malpractices either it be for real or for the humour of it.

Bayambang Mayor Ric Camacho led municipal officials as godparents in the free mass wedding of 205 marginalized couples who were living out of wedlock for some time. Mayor Camacho said that there are still countless of unmarried couples in the town. He added that he would not stop until these people become spouses under the law because it bodes well for their children when they grow up and look for employment 

Because most of them are my friends, I stop doing either of these on social media Face 

Book.

I could cite however two examples here that friends felt slighted.

When I lauded some individuals who expose the leadership of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) 

and called the sect as cult where many members were ignorantly submissive to voting

as one what the church brass told them to vote. Some friends and members of INC took offense, 

although shallow, at the same board at social media Face Book (FB) where I posted my observation.

Another was when I posted a poster at FB making fun of a Muslim passenger of a taxi in

 Davao City. A town mate, a Muslim, asked me he was hurt by the joke mocking their 

people. I immediately removed the post in deference to him because he was a nice friend.

By the way the poster was about a Muslim guy asking a taxi driver to stop playing the 

car 

stereo because musical instruments are sins in Islam and Muhammad would get angry 

on him. Instead of stopping the song, 

probably a rock & roll, the taxi driver stopped the car in front of SM-Davao, opened the 

passenger door, and told the fanatic to get out and just wait for a camel to come by and

 ferry him to his destination. Many Christians laughed at the wisdom and hilarity of the 

poster when they started posting their comments on my FB’s board but it did 

not humour my Muslim friend and his friends who were my playmates and 

classmates when I was growing up in Cotabato.

**** 

 I could make scathing statements on my comments on politicians and would not regret about

 them. 

But I found out that there are sensible people whenever I touched their religion’s malpractices

 either it be for real or for the humour of it.

Because most of them are my friends, I stop doing either of these on social media Face Book.

I could cite however two examples here that friends felt slighted.

When I lauded some individuals who expose the leadership of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) and 

called the sect as cult where many members were ignorantly submissive to voting as one what the 

church brass told them vote. Some friends and members of INC took offense, although 

shallow, at the same board at social media Face Book (FB) where I posted my observation.

Another was when I posted a poster at FB making fun of a Muslim passenger of a taxi in 

Davao City. A town mate, a Muslim, asked me he was hurt by the joke mocking their people. 

I immediately removed the post in difference to him because he was a nice friend.

By the way the poster was about a Muslim guy asking a taxi driver to stop playing the car

 stereo because musical instruments are violable in Islam. Instead of stopping the song, 

probably a rock & roll, the taxi driver stopped the car in front of SM-Davao, opened the passenger door, 

and told the fanatic to get out and just wait for a camel to come by and ferry him to his 

destination. Many Christians laughed at the wisdom and hilarity of the poster when the

 started posting their comments on my FB’s board but it did not humour my Muslim friend and 

his friends who were my playmates and classmates when I was growing up in Cotabato.

**** 

It seems the hoopla on Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima who ran 

roughshod with the block voting Iglesia ni Cristo has been misdirected.

Son of a gun, did de Lima run roughshod with the INC?

I wonder how de Lima got all the plaudits for her courage. As a consequence she was being endorsed

 to run for the vice presidency of the land. What did the secretary had done that she is being lionized 

now by Filipinos? De Lima did not do anything! Isaias Samson Jr. and family went to the DOJ on

 August 25 to file the criminal illegal detention cases against the eight members of the Sangunian

 (High Council) of the powerful sect lead by lawyer and INC’s spokesperson Edwin Zabala.

The filing led to hundreds of thousands of INC to mass for four days at EDSA in Manila to

 the consternation of commuters who were caught by the monster gridlock.

Where was the influence peddling exerted by the Secretary on the DOJ?

Because of that perception that de Lima stood against the whims and caprices of the High 

Council not to prioritize the illegal detention cases that could be non-bailable
 against Zabala and other brass, gullible Filipinos thought she was their political saviour.
E mukhang na areglo na rin si de Lima noong nakipag dialogue ang INC sa group ni 
President Benigno Aquino III how to resolve the rally.

These Filipinos, who composed the majority of the more than 101 million populations, had had enough

 with the electoral interference and arrogance of the INC members who composed only 2.5% of the 

population.

What took the goat of the Council members and their protesting brethren was the filing 

should be in a regular process just like what all Filipino litigants all over the country

 have been doing.

The filing should be at the Prosecutor’s office in Quezon City where the complainant 

wait for a month or two for the respondent or defendant like Zabala to refute 

his complaint through a counter-affidavit and where the prosecutor evaluates it whether there

 is a probable cause

 in a resolution and recommend the warrant of arrest to a judge.

But before the judge can issue a warrant Zabala and the other respondents can ask the 

prosecutor for reconsideration and if denied he and company can go to the regional 

prosecutor’s office to refute the decision of the fiscal.

If still denied there, Zabala and the seven defendants can finally appeal to the DOJ.

All of these processes can take a year, or two, or more (it depends on the power-that-be 

there at the DOJ) to be finalized by the DOJ if there was indeed probable cause to indict the 

members of the Sanggunian for illegal detention.

***

De Lima is not beyond reproached. She had past controversies. Few of them. 

despite their incredibility, were posted on 

social media and one I stumbled in my work as media man.

One of them was the allegation that she had sex tapes with cashiered police colonel
Cesar Mancao. Another was when I bumped into the brass of the Volunteers Against
 Crime & Corruption (VACC) and told them about my column on the driver-body 
guard of de Lima firing his hand gun and physically hurting a woman and men
 in Urbiztondo, Pangasinan but the chief of police of the town did not charge him.

(You can accessed my article: Relieve and Charge Urbiztondo Police Chief at http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2014/08/relieve-and-charge-police-chief-of.html )

 “E, iyon ang kabit ni de Lima iyang driver-body guard (that driver-bodyguard of de Lima is
her paramour,” the brass, a dark fellow, of the VACC exclaimed when they went to the
 place to check the abuses perpetrated by the driver-body guard.

These can be rumours but many people believed on these.

***

Every time election is approaching, many smart-aleck chief executives of Local 
Government Units all over the country concoct, just like the witch on the 1990s flick 
“The Witches”, different rackets how to earn huge kick backs to shore up their campaign fund.

I don’t know if Bayambang Mayor Camacho is one of those malefactors.

But judge his action and those members of the Council.

In 2011 the vendors vacated their stalls in the old public market due to the municipal government’s plan to construct a new public market to replace the old one.

In 2011, the council unanimously passed Resolution No. 194 authorizing the mayor to 

enter into a P100 million for the finances of the construction of the public markets 

(Block III) which is included in the approved Local Development Projects and Public 

Investment Program.

“When the construction of the new public market was nearing its completion by the end of 2012,

 I was surprised by the news that the market vendors would be staying in their temporary stalls since the 

new public market building would be leased to a grocery chain,” Iglesia cited.

The contract of lease between the LGU and the MGC stipulated that the latter will

 use the new edifice as mall for 10 years starting from March 1, 2013 and ends on

 February 28, 2023 with P307,625 a month payable every or before the 5th Saturday

 of the month.

According to another complainant Adela I. Ferrer of the same charges against Camacho at the

 Ombudsman, the town pays P24 million a year for the P100 million loans and interest at the LBP as she 

quoted it from the Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM).

Where can you see an LGU borrowed P100 million to earn only P37 million in ten years.

How can you find vendors in case they are allowed to come back and could pay more rent if the power-that-be renovates the old market with stalls for these vendors to occupy where they could recoup the loan in ten years or less.

***

The Bayambang’s hullabaloo has its precedence. The Magsaysay Park and Market in 2007 where then Mayor Benjie S. Lim, whose family owns MGC, was suspected by its critics to manipulate the lease of the market, where he was suspected to be the owner of the edifice constructed there, to the Manila based vendors in lieu of the vendors who were
 dislocated when a fire gutted the Market.

They said the city government of Dagupan could earn million of pesos a month instead of the  tens of thousands pesos paid by the Metro Plaza, that housed high ends Star Bucks, Yellow  Cab Pizza, Mint Club, etc.

Was the general welfare of the people of Bayambang in the mind of Camacho when he 
leased the Block III of the public market or was he in after for the kick backs on the huge
 loans he and the council borrowed?

(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