Baguio, La Trinidad try to outclass Malacanang

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

True blue La Trinidad boy Joseph Zambrano of the Philippine Information Agency is calling on all graduates of SAN JOSE HIGH SCHOOL, La Trinidad, Benguet to a GRAND ALUMNI HOMECOMING on APRIL 9, 2010 at the SJHS Gymnasium.

Registration starts at 8 AM of the same day. For more information, please contact Bernadette Lubos-Berad at mobile phone no. 09202086153, or call land phone no. (074)422 1816.
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My father’s lineage is rooted in La Trinidad which I believe included Lucban, the northern part of old Kafagway, before colonial history books called it Baguio . I grew up here as my great grandparents on my father’s did. Maybe that is why I did not go to San Jose High School .

Unforgettable reunions and alumni homecomings are rare. Most of them come like any ordinary sunset that is easily erased from one’s memory by another warm sunset. But reunions too, become memorable especially if things are reminisced along with schoolmates’ faces that are growing old and wrinkled.

Reunions and alumni homecomings that I have attended were unavoidably related to neighborhoods or places about how they were before – and how they are right now. Reunions also take me back when traffic along Magsaysay Avenue down to Km3 and Km5 in La Trinidad was manageable then because business permits near roads and alleys were hardly issued.

Anyway, for the reunion and homecoming of my padli Joseph, cousin Bernadette and their batch mates, I am sure they will laugh about how seatmates teased and courted girls and boys from other class sections.

Most of all, I am sure they will remember when La Trinidad was clean and orderly. Many of them, graduates of San Jose High School , will remember La Trinidad when it was then described as “land of strawberries and flowers” or when school children all over knew it as “vegetable basket of the Philippines .”

I am 101 per cent sure that many SJHS graduates will talk about how they would want La Trinidad to be. And I am 101 per cent sure that many SJHS alumni will express disgust over what La Trinidad has become today, as they regret electing into public office some, if not all, officials who have become filthy rich out of what they have done to the municipality.
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Time and again, government financial planners talk about a bullish economy in the country. Whether there is some truth to that statement or none at all can be proven by looking at the shifting lifestyle of the masses from the grassroots level and up.

If that is not true, then that statement is only good for newspapers and radio-TV broadcasts. If it is correct, then the masses – working class and all, should be able to feel the manna that trickles down to make life a bit easier.

But in most pronouncements of an upbeat economy in the past, people do not feel its effects, not even by the genuine urban poor in Manila that is very near Malacanang where the orders come from.

Come to think of it, what trickled down instead was the surplus of bad exploits of public officials close to Malacanang. What LGUs have received as inheritance are the legacies of corruption characterized by dishonesty and bribery.

It seems these are what many of our public officials on the LGU level are copying and trying to accomplish. That is even done with impunity, bearing in mind that this administration has not been hauled to court, much less testified in court because of corruption.

And if ever graft cases were brought to court, those charged had the confidence that all things would settle down soon because they have implanted in their minds that there are justices who peek through their blindfold, there are court decisions that can be bought, or there are judges who could be controlled by the President.

Today, the country has yet to see the closure of the $329 million ZTE contract, along with two other Chinese deals – the $500 million North Rail Project to rehab the Luzon rail network, and a $465.5 million cyber-education project.

If the May 2010 elections are won by the bets of the present administration, then probably we will have to say goodbye to any court case against Jocjoc Bolante who was linked to the P728-million fertilizer scam of 2004.

A 2006 report of the Senate Committee on Agriculture headed by then Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. charged that the bulk of the P728-million funds for the government’s fertilizer program found its way to the 2004 war chest of GMA and her bets. The Senate had approved the report. The DOJ and the Ombudsman did not file any case.

If the results of the May 2010 elections are favorable to the administration then it would be useless to wait for a re-opening of any probe on the “Hello Garci” scandal. If so, then I would rather forget about Ampatuan, because I would not expect him to talk in court nor testify against Garci and the army generals who allegedly cheated for GMA in the 2004 presidential election.
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Talking about graft and corruption, we do not have to go far. We also have local versions of the same impunity to commit “mistakes” that have many opportunities to be “corrected,” depending on who the players are.

In the case of Baguio , we have a set of local officials who nearly gave away the athletic bowl to a foreign investor. In La Trinidad, our local elected officials have agreed to a BOT scheme to construct a commercial center right in the heart of the town.

Okay with me. Let us have a commercial mall in La Trinidad. But let us offer Jarco a better site where he can construct it. Decongestion is the guiding word in urban planning, not money or profit.

By the way, all discussions in bars, restaurants, in living rooms and public places lead to conclusions that these latest “swindles” were entered because of the temptation of money that pours out from these projects. Awan sabalin nga rason. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com