Nonsense arguments!

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

A critic should not only be a critique just to be called a critic, he should critique intelligently.

Here’s an example how shallow if not stupid the critics of Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez when her brother Kerwin donated a 1.2 hectares of land to the local government as situs for government building.

They said the market peso value of the donated lot is not sixty million pesos but could reach up to four hundred million pesos.

In short, they insinuated the donor underpriced the property.

My Answer: The prices are immaterial. The land, for Christ sake, was being donated to the city government. It means it was given for free otherwise we would be applying for loans at the bank to buy a lot and will be paying the amortization for years at the expense of our funds for social service.

Even a top brass of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Central Pangasinan told me that the donation by the donor to the government is not even taxable.

The purpose of the absence of the 30 percent tax to the zonal valuation of the property given as “gift” is to encourage people like Kerwin to give to the “cash-strapped” government.

“It’s benevolence,” as what Councilor Jigs Seen, the brother-in-law of the mayor told the members of the August Chamber why he voted “yes” to empower the city mayor to accept the donation.

Son of a gun Jigs, because of your “benevolence or compassion term I remembered the Americans who want to educate us in the early 1900s colonization.

The Yanks’ high officials in P.I, not P__ng Ina but Philippine Islands, argued for appropriation in the U.S Congress to help us flips, er, Filipinos’ in the name of  Benevolent Assimilation.

Now, my favorite DVD seller Datu Odtog Ramanam Amin asked me what in heaven “Assimilation” was. I surreptitiously whispered to him he could buy it at the malls.

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One of the critics said that the area where the city hall will rise will undermine the grandeur of the fishponds that made Dagupan City’s famous.

My Answer: What grandeur?  That imagined grandeur of the fishpond could not substitute for the nagging economic problems of Dagupenos to find jobs and wiggle from the going hellish traffic congestion around the old city hall.

The Lucao-Pantal Road where the city hall and the commercial growth centers would provide Dagupenos with the projected 5000 jobs from Business Process Outsourcing –Information Technology, and other investors to be brought by the likes of  Kapideco (Ayala Project) Estates, SM Properties, and the Megaworld, and others just like the burgeouning city of Iloilo .
Moreover, Councilor Seen told me the affected area covered by one of the three growth areas by the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) of the local government composed only 10 percent of the entire fishponds in the entire topography of the city.

Gee whizzzz, how could that imagined grandeur massage the ego of those unemployed and those who are bitching and bellyaching in the middle of the traffic congestion?

That grandeur crap only protects the fishpond owners who are modicum in our entire local population.

Back off critics, we are talkin’ here about the 5000 jobless and the multi-plier effects that situs would give us!

Another argument: Relocation of the city hall to the donated lot of Kerwin Fernandez only worsen the plight of the residents of Eastern Barangays Tambac, Tebeng, Mamalingling, Mangin, and others because they would be doubling their fares on public utility jeeps in going to the new city hall.

My Answer: That’s bullshit! Are we going to allow ourselves to be hostaged by that ‘stupid” argument that because a few portion of the population would be doubling their eight pesos fare in going to the new city we better scrapped the relocation of the government building that would stimulate growth for the majority of the population?

Crap!

 (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)