By Mortz C. Ortigoza
The Mayor is now a laughing stock by people inside and outside of the coastal city marred by infighting among its recalcitrant majority opposition and acrimonious minority councilors.
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FALSE NEWS. Dagupan
City Mayor Belen Fernandez (extreme left of the left photo) in a huddle with opposition
Councilors Alvin Coquia and Malou Fernandez after the Local Development Council’s
meeting, Other photos from top and clockwise show opposition Majority Leader
Red Mejia and Coun. Alfie Fernandez in a bar/restaurant with Coun. Dada Reyna,
Coquia, and Fernandez a few days after the vaunted LDC meeting. Mayor Fernandez
posted on Facebook that the meeting of the LDC where the two opposition solons
would join the following morning was her pasabog or big news. Many people
believe that the heydays of the opposition have been over after the duo
capitulated to the mayor but those photos above rebutted her declaration.
The
“pasabog” of the “Hizzoner” once
dubbed as “the Mayor with Balls” was an embarrassing flop that fell flat on her
face.
She
looked like that Aesop’s fable my father told me when I was a kid: The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. It was about a shepherd
who got the ire of the villagers who ran to his succor every time he yelled an
imagined “wolf” that would endanger his herd.
The
presence of opposition lawmakers Alvin Coquia and Malou Fernandez in the Local Development
Council’s meeting was not really to defect as insinuated by the “pasabog” but
to heed the Local Government Code’s mandate to “assist the corresponding Sanggunian in setting the direction of
economic and social development, and coordinating development efforts within
its territorial jurisdiction”. Not to mention the warning of Department of
Interior & Local Government Provincial Chairman Virgilio Sison (who’s in
the national news lately about those faked suicides of onion farmers in
Bayambang) for the immediate passage of the P1.3 billion snagged city budget otherwise
the opposition members face administrative charges because of their
procrastination.
After
reading my blog’s Opposition MembersDefected to Dagupan Mayor? a DILG honcho in a town sent to me in Facebook a
video clip of opposition stalwart Red Mejia with Coquia and Fernandez in a bar
a few days after that failed supposed defection's hullabaloo.
Damn,
I should be titling or headlining my blog: Opposition Members DESERTED to
Dagupan Mayor but am afraid that presumed grammar police and news reporter Atong Remogat would correct me
again how the word DESERT entered the scene when there was no desert like in
Saudi Arabian Desert. Or how come DESERT came into play when the topic was
Dagupan City and not the Filipino sumptuous DESSERT like creamy leche flan and the yummy ginataang bilo-bilo.
What say you Dagupan City’s intellectuals
Prof. Nick Melecio and nonpareil writer Rex Catubig?
The
city solons on that video at FB seem to mock their opponents and the Mayor that
they were still intact and ready to rumble with their war of attrition with
Fernandez who was responsible for the misery and defeat of their patron former
Mayor Brian Lim.
A
pro-Lim’s broadcaster said he called Coquia and Fernandez, a Dentist, if they
succumbed to Mayor Fernandez's entreaty but the duo denied it.
During
Lim’s last two years, Fernandez majority councilors stalled in approving the
P1.38 billion 2022 budget.
After
Fernandez won the May 9, 2022 poll, she saw to herself that she was almost
kaput without the majority of the solons backing her proposed ordinances like
the P1.3 billion 2023 budget.
Her
cousin Vice Mayor Dean Bryan L. Kua becomes political inutile as he became a
decoration in the august body reigned by Majority Leader Mejia and the ex-mayor’s
mother Celia Lim.
Dagupan
Citry is the only local government unit in Region-1, son of a gun, that still
need to have its 2023 budget to be approved. Most of these LGUs okayed already
their budget in the two-and-half months of the previous year as mandated by
law.
The
war of nerves in the Sanggunian Panlungsod (legislature) is embarrassing for
the people of Dagupan. Without the budget we would not have the 20% development
fund for infrastructure projects this year. It means no new school buildings or their repairs, no
new roads, and others.
With
a mayor who cried wolf in a dropped of a hat and with the anti-progress
opposition members whose hatred with Fernandez afflict the more than 200, 000 populations
(where most if not many of their voters are for sale), this city is going to
the dogs.
READ MY OTHER BLOG:
How Mayor, Guv, Solon Steal to Fund Their Election
MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
I am a twenty years seasoned Op-Ed Political Writer in various newspapers and Blogger exposing government corruptions, public officials's idiocy and hypocrisies, and analyzing local and international issues. I have a master’s degree in Public Administration and professional government eligibility. I taught for a decade Political Science and Economics in universities in Metro Manila and cities of Urdaneta, Pangasinan and Dagupan. Follow me on Twitter @totoMortz or email me at totomortz@yahoo.com.
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