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
