Thursday 19 December 2013

Merry Christmas!


Native Parol … Apat na tulog na lang, Pasko na…!. A symbol of Christmas in the Philippines, the native Filipino lantern has evolved from the simple structure of intersecting strips of bamboo sticks that formed the star design that was first seen during the Spanish colonial times, to the most sophisticated, complicated and artistic concoction that came to be known worldwide. In the Philippines, Christmas won’t be complete without the “parol”. - Websitepic












FROM MWBUZZ: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!


Editorial: Christmas is what it's all about




WITH a series of crisis that befell the nation – from deadly temblors and floods, a super typhoon, media murders, the separatists’ armed hooliganism in Mindanao, rice shortages - to the soaring commodity prices, and of course, the damming pork barrel alongside the massive corruption that clings to it, the coming of Christmas is the only bright, cheerful light that every Filipino could see right now.

In fact, there’s no end to our woes, which are being worsened by the shameful squabbling among the nation’s leaders.

And when we speak of such, the name of the President would immediately pop out, followed by those who are ready to taint their names in his defense, and the rest of high-ranking officials, who could only cloud the issues instead of making them clear to be appreciated.

Focusing our sight on Mambulao, many of our citizens are still of the wildest belief that the advent of Christmas would, as usual, bring the good tidings that we came to know of since we were children.

But we, the adults, would like to go on believing this. It is the only way for our children to fortify their faith in the coming of Baby Jesus into their lives and in the bright prospects that go with it.

While many parents, in one way or the other, would dread this season for the untold expenses that could burn their pockets, the children, on the other hand, are in great anticipation of the multitudes of material wealth that would drop onto their laps.

After all, this is what Christmas is all about – the children’s special day with Baby Jesus in foreground.

For if we start saying that this coming Christmas would not be as merry as it was in the past year, then we are just doing a great disservice to the emotional and psychological needs of our children and to ourselves.

We could say that the past twelve months had been relatively good to us Mambulaoans, with some positive development across the municipality that are hoped to spawn progress later.

For instance, the local government was able to stretch its meager funding to bring the tip of the cemented Larap road to Spurline, about two kilometers from the heart of this desolate community, which is Larap.

And finally, the bridge that connects baranggay Parang to the poblacion – one that has caused needless animosity between and among the residents and natives overseas – was finally completed, letting with ease the people to get back to their normal lives.

The ancient bridge at the entrance to baranggay Pag-asa is nearing completion, - at least in two months’ time - and it is hoped that travel from this spot inwards the forested sleepy community would soon be smoother.

And there’s this housing relocation site project that is now being developed along Spurline in Larap for about 300 squatter households that crowd along the beach of Parang, who were once accused of spoiling the sand stretch with their rubbish.

While this and a lot more are taking place across our municipality, there’s something worrisome that many among our kababayan are not aware of.

This has something to do with the junked pork barrel – the money that had been flowing in the veins of community development – Mambulao’s development for that matter -- until it was revealed lately as being the proverbial milking cow of the corrupt members of the Senate and House of Representative and a lot more down the line.

The Supreme Court subsequently declared it illegal.

Pork had funded a big potion of the local government’s infrastructure projects, particularly during the first term of Mayor Ricarte “Dong” Padilla that began in July of 2010.

By the way, he is now six months into his second term.

During the first 38 months of his governance, with the last two months ushering in his second term as mayor, Padilla received modest funding from lawmakers, who included senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Chiz Escudero and Teofisto “TG” Guingona and congressmen from CamNorte.

This money, which was sourced from the lawmakers’ pork barrel allocations, mostly went into the concreting of the municipality’s baranggay roads.

Other substantial amount, although not in millions, went to socio-economic projects such as deep well pumps, baranggay halls, health care centers, classrooms, so on and so forth.

Very recent of such projects to get pork was the 2km San Pedro-Baranggay Silang Dos (Labo town) concrete road that would connect Mambulao to the Maharlika Highway, one that would serve as a diversion road in future.

The funding came from Enrile and estimated between P15 million and P20 million.

Of course, Mambulao also received a windfall of pork that also funded various projects in its 27 baranggays from the office of the Provincial Governor Edgardo “Egay” Tallado.

The provincial capitol said the governor poured into Mambulao a total of P159.5 million in so called development initiatives.

Most of the provincial government development funding for Mambulao during the years 2011 to the present came from the pork barrel allocations of the Office of the President, specifically the Office of the Presidential Affairs on Peace Process (OPAPP), Enrile and other lawmakers, and money from the General Appropriations Act, through the Agrarian reform Community Projects (ARC), National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and Department of Health.

Right now, Padilla must be banging his head, trying to figure out how he could fulfill the continuous flow of development, and later progress, that he promised to his 75,000 constituents in 27 baranggays.

This could also be one reason why the supposed funding of P500,000 for two Senior Citizens’ social hall building projects – in Larap and in Luklukan Norte – never went into their construction and was instead diverted to another LGU project in baranggay Sta Rosa.

Vice-President Jejomar Binay, who looks after the welfare of the Senior Citizens, had expressly told Padilla through his trusted aide that the half-million peso-funding was to be used solely on the two Senior halls’ building projects and not elsewhere.

Feeling the funding crunch, and with more community projects that the LGU has to deal with that are more urgent than a Seniors’ club house, Padilla was forced to scrap the Larap project.

The question that is now bugging the municipal government: Where would it source funding for the other road and bridge projects that the LGU has lined up?

And even if the government decides to free the pork barrel money for use in community projects across the country, how soon would such funding reach Mambulao?

Would the Larap road ever be completed once and for all even if funds have already been allocated by the Department of Tourism under its own development funding program?

What about other community projects that would only rely on the generosity of the province’s congressmen and senators who, unfortunately, have been cleansed of the grease?

Would Padilla scale down his programmed projects owing to the acute lack of money – something he won’t be willing to source from the LGU’s funds generated from its own revenue-making machine?

Christmas always brings to the people the good tidings.

Let’s continue to make-believe that it will, for it is the only way to cushion us from the impact of stagnation that Mambulao would surely face in the months to come.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to one and all!



--- Alfredo P Hernandez










Squatter relocation




Uncertain future … This young mother is tending to the health care needs of her few weeks’ old baby one morning in April when MWBuzz chanced on them. Married to a fisherman, her young family is one of more than 300 squatters (some of the shanties pictured below) along the 1.5km shoreline of baranggay Parang, Mambulao, in CamNorte. As of now, their future has become uncertain after the local government announced recently that their squatting days are numbered. Mayor Ricarte “Dong” Padilla wants them out of the beach front that’s why he launched an ambitious project to develop a relocation site for these informal settlers at Spurline, a sitio of baranggay Larap about 7km west of the town proper. Their relocation,  which would only happen once the new community is developed and, hopefully, self-contained, would pave the way for the LGU to intensify its push for local tourism. He said sometime ago that the squatter shanties have become eyesores and blamed them for spoiling the beach area with their rubbish. The relocation site is undergoing continuous ground work by laborers who have been provided bunk houses nearby. The completion of the project is of course subject to “funds availability”, a bulk of which would have come from the pork barrel of some friendly lawmakers had it not been outlawed by the Supreme Court. So, right now, the squatter families are about confused as to whether they should rejoice the shutdown of Padilla’s pork barrel pipeline. Because with pork barrel money to fund Meyor Dong’s relocation site venture, they know their future is on hold. – MWBuzz text and pic by AP HERNANDEZ











MAMBULAOWATCH: Larap Seniors’ most frustrated this Christmas



Mrs Josepina Francisco (second from left), with close friend Mrs Elvira P Hernandez, of Parang, Mambulao, and grandchildren during Mrs Hernandez’ visit recently. – MWBuzzpic by AP HERNANDEZ



By ALFREDO P  HERNANDEZ

JUST recently, Josefina Francisco, 80, retired from her job as president of the Larap Senior Citizens Association (LSCA) owing to her poor health and after guiding this group for four years from 2010.

The association’s leadership has been taken over by Linda Prima, 70.

A frustrated member of the community, Mrs Francisco left her job without seeing under her watch the fulfillment of one dream – the completion of the social center for the baranggay’s Senior Citizens of more than 400.

And her frustration has been echoed across the community by the rest of the Seniors.

Through tireless fundraising activities in 2010, Mrs Francisco and her group managed to erect the shell of the project – four walls and roofing beams.

Then, donated funds just came in drips and the project ground to a halt.

When Mambulao Mayor Ricarte “Dong” Padilla told Mrs Francisco sometime middle of this year that the social hall would finally be constructed to completion starting last October, the Seniors immediately saw a structure that would house their “second home” by at least this month of December.

A “Christmas home” they had imagined. But this was not to be so.

The funding of at least P250,000 to complete the building, courtesy of Vice-President Jejomar Binay, was diverted to another project at a baranggay just outside the town proper.

Why the money, which was extracted from Binay’s barrel of pork, was used in another project instead of the Larap Seniors’ social hall, deserves an explanation.

Has it something to do with politics? We really don’t know although Padilla promised not to play it within the halls of the LGU’s Sangguniang Bayan (SB).

But outside of SB, he has the prerogatives to play the game.

We don’t know if the election of Fe Yanesa as Larap baranggay chairman, thus ousting then chairman Nimfa Dilao, wife of the former vice-mayor Icasiano Dilao, has something to do with Padilla’s sudden change of heart.

Ms Yanesa and Mrs Francisco are said to be very good friends.

The Larap Seniors have been expecting for the completion of the project as early as May 2012 after Binay made an allotment of P500,000 (the other P250,000 was to go to the social hall project in the far-flung barangay of Luklukan).

But with the dropping of Larap Seniors social hall, it also means that the Seniors’ social hall project in Luklukan would follow suit, since the money for this also went down the “I promise you” sinkhole.

Sometime ago, however, to appease Mrs Francisco, Padilla once again promised he would start the project next month (January).

Now, this really becomes suspect.

The Mambulao LGU is beginning to feel the crunch after pork barrel money of lawmakers has been scrapped, thus turning off the tap for funding on thousands of community projects across the country.

Many of the major infrastructure projects in Mambulao had been funded by pork, courtesy of some friendly lawmakers both from the Senate and House of Representatives.

Pork money went to projects such as baranggay roads, feeder roads, bridges, social projects, basketball courts and baranggay/community halls, among others.

With the flow of pork being stopped for good, Mambulao suddenly finds itself with no other source of alternative money to pursue its projects.

The Larap Seniors’ social hall project is not an urgent one, as far as the LGU is concerned, since it’s not a Padilla project.

On the other hand, it is one initiated and pushed by Mrs Francisco and her members to cater to the welfare of the members.

Therefore, any LGU funding would only come if it so decided to help it.

But it opted not to do so by depriving the Seniors’ pet project of funding that has already been earmarked for its completion.

The allotment from Binay, who is looking after the welfare of the country’s Senior Citizens, had been made ready for this project and was only waiting to be disbursed, until Padilla scrapped the construction and took the money elsewhere.

For the Larap Seniors, having their own social center is like having a second home.

They have been dreaming to hold their activities in their own refuge, spend their time here when they are not at home and be in their own world away from the peering eyes of people much younger than them.

In short, it is a long-dreamed home, especially for Mrs Francisco.

But this has been frustrated by no less than Padilla.

After cruising through his first term as mayor of Mambulao, and is about to complete the first six months in his second term end of this year, he is gradually acquiring the nasty habit of a generic, bad politician – that is making false promises.

And more promises he will make to his constituents just to keep face without the prospect of fulfilling them, now that the LGU is expected to go crunching on funds with the junking of pork barrel.

But January 2014 should allow Padilla to disprove this.

The question, however, is: would he spend the LGU’s limited funds on a non-LGU project such as the social center for Larap’s Seniors?

MWBuzz is inclined to doubt it.