Sidetracks galore

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- It is not so often that I come across hullabaloos that turn out to be confusing but when I stumble on one, I always find out that those involved are people in government service. Indeed, in a basket of good-looking apples, there are a few or a couple of rotten ones, so they say.

What makes things confusing and complicated is when the ones involved cannot give easy, straight and understandable answers. A person who is embroiled in a controversy makes attempts to sidetrack the real issue by “going around the bush,” so to speak. The debate, in barber shops, at city hall, in social network, among academicians and politicians on whether to oppose or allow the “development” of the Baguio athletic bowl by a private Korean group is a matter that went out of focus lately.  

Apparently, the effort by unseen hands is to have the Terms of Reference thrashed out and discussed in the city council that could have resulted to a division of the house. If such actions in the city council pushed through, it could have practically appeared that the honorables in the council have already accepted that the athletic bowl be developed and managed by the favored Korean team.

With no public consultation scheduled ahead of any action that would look like an approval of the project, the proponents and their shadowy collaborators in government would be laughing to the bank. The Local Government Code provides that a public consultation is required on matters that affect the general welfare of a community.

But that is exactly what the proponents wish to skip in the first place. The most important issue prior to discussing the TOR is whether to stop or allow the improvement of the athletic bowl by a private Korean team. This would successfully be skirted if deliberations on the TOR proceed.

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At Benguet State University, former DOST director Ben Ladilad who was appointed as president last December said his petitioners who want him removed due to several allegations of irregularities he has committed, are “sour graping.”

One allegation was the work appointments he made to some employees with questionable backgrounds, whom he assigned as “special assistants” to the president. Another accusation is the approval and signing of contracts. What I knew all along was that the Board of Regents held the power to approve and enter into agreements and contracts with other parties.

           

But, this is the catch. Maybe someone close who would benefit from the president’s actions suggested that as head of the school, he is the pinaka-boss. I was told that Ladilad claimed his accusers are getting back at him because with him as president they cannot get what they want. But they said that is exactly what is happening now. Those close to him are getting what they want.

           

According to informants, in one of the meetings with the BOR, Ladilad presented a certain MOA that was already signed even while other signatories have yet to signify their approval by affixing their signatures. Friends who had knowledge of some of the accusations against him were quick to tell me that he is close to one guy who had long-overdue debts to BSU. Then another guy is alleged to have been profiting from the lease of BSU lands.

           

They said these guys were always seen around Ladilad even before he was appointed president. Of course, his association with other persons with questionable backgrounds is not a crime, although the relationship becomes suspect.

           

My informants said, Ladilad claimed BSU gained positively from his official trips outside of the school and that he was able to get some P20 million for the school’s organic agriculture project.

           

But I corrected them saying that I was told that it was Dr. Roger Colting and Dr. Joe Balaoing who secured that funding from the Department of Agriculture and nobody else, while Dr. Tess Merestela and Dr. Jofel Calora were responsible for the CHED funding, nobody else.

           

Enough for the credit-grabbing but the way things are going, I can see that the finger-pointing at BSU would not end in the near future because each allegation has a corresponding answer.                        ***

           

Over at Beckel, La Trinidad; resident-farmers of Sitio Obulan complained to Mayor Greg Abalos that the court has restrained them from protecting their properties when the National Grid Corp. of the Phil. (NGCP) that is partly owned by SM son Henry Sy, Jr. secured a TRO that now allows the power company to change its 230KV, 69KV and 23KV wooden posts to steel poles, barring opposition from the lot owners.

           

According to the residents, they have bent backward so much that NGCP and even Napocor in the past have not been compensating them for allowing the electric companies to put up electric poles inside their properties. What makes things worse is that NGCP now wants the indigenous landowners to vacate at least 30 meters on both sides, away from the poles and electric lines’ right of way.  

           

With documents on hand, they asked Abalos to help them saying that with the TRO, they would not fully benefit from their properties even while they have been paying their taxes religiously. There seems to be a reverse in the positions of the parties.

           

It is puzzling why it was the NGCP that asked for a TRO, not the residents whose lives and properties were to be endangered with the installation of the high-power electric poles.

           

It clearly appears that the main problem was not studied carefully, instead it was sidetracked. In a country where everything has an equivalent price, the rich and powerful can buy anything and anyone, and can be bullies anywhere and anytime. Remember the SM tree-cutting case? – marchfianza777@yahoo.com