Lady Councilor Returns Bribe Money

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I lauded Dagupan City Councilor Celia “Manang Celia” Lim for reportedly returning the envelope containing wads of monies given by an owner of fishpond that ingratiate with members of the legislature, we call Sangguniang Panlungsod, for them to act positively and promptly on the conversion of the real property from agriculture to commercial.

Commercial means tabon or the owner can fill it up with soil and sand and can sell it expensively to investors who want to build their edifices for business.

The actuation of the newly elected councilor, the matriarch of Magic Groups of Companies and the mother of the incumbent mayor, surprised many political kibitzers.

Members of the lawmaking body be it in Dagupan or any part of the country are assumed to be “rent seeking” upon assumption of their elective office.

Rent seeking means the fact or practice of manipulating public policy or economic conditions as a strategy for increasing profits (Google Dictionary).
In the vernacular, nagpapabayad!

The designated pay scale of a councilor we called Salary Grade 25 is more or less P100, 000 monthly inclusive of allowances is not enough to bank on the indigents that solicit help with him or her with almost daily regularity.
Notwithstanding the savings he or she prepares for his or her reelection. 

Thus, most of them are vulnerable to bribery that runs to tens, hundreds, and millions of pesos not only to the proponent of land conversation and others at the legislature but to other illegal transactions they entered in collusion with the mayor.

We have rich examples about these moral decays.

We can cite for example the Solid North Bus Company, if this one qualify in conspiracy, that until now mocks the ordinance that prohibits the egress of any commercial buses to the national highway’s Perez Boulevard.

Of the three bus companies Victory Liner, Five Star, and Solid North, the last one is like the burr in the blanket, the pebble in the shoe, or the albatross around someone’s neck.

Was it because of the P3 million bribe monies yearly given allegedly by the company to several members of the Sanggunian and the executive department in the previous administration?

Does that illegal arrangement still exist with the present dispensation and with the several if not many of the city dads?

Because of the bus company's impunity to exit the prohibited highway, many residents of the city who learned about the law are flustered.
You cannot prevent them to think maliciously about illegal transaction clandestinely being made.

The corruptibility of the councilors in various parts of the country continues to scourge us because they need the monies to sustain their popularity with the voters like patronage come election time.

But Celia Lim was exempted probably because she has the monies and the morality.

READ MY OTHER BLOG:

How Mayor, Guv, Solon Steal to Fund Their Election

(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)