ILOILO CITY - Many reelected mayors in the concluded May
9 election lost their bid.
“The loss was a huge slapped on the face of these
politicians,” an incumbent Mayor, who served his first class town for
more than 20 years, told me.
He cited that a sitting mayor of a burgeoning town
receives more than a million pesos a month of payola from illegal number game’s
jueteng and other forms of gambling, millions of pesos S.O.P (euphemism of 20
percent or cut) from government projects and supplies sold by the contractors
to the municipal government, while his opponent spends to defeat him in the
election by using his personal monies.
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JUMP SHIP. Congressmen from various political
parties took their oath of allegiance to presumptive 17th Congress House
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and his and President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte’s
PDP-Laban Party. PHOTO CREDIT: Rappler
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Recent news reports said that outgoing House Speaker
Sonny Belmonte was disappointed about the mass defection of the members of the
once vaunted Liberal Party. Just weeks after the May 9, 2016 poll, these
solons swear allegiance to the Partido Demokrito Pilipino- Lakas ng Bayan
(PDP-Laban) of President-elect Rody Duterte.
Many of them fought tooth, gum, and nail for the
presidential victory of Mar Roxas who helped them get projects from the Palace.
Now they unabashedly sing hosannas to Duterte forgetting
that weeks ago they were flirting with Roxas as if he was the best
"thing" that happened in their lives.
Was this bad taste in the mouth?
Yes, if you have halitosis or bad breath, but congressmen
chart their reelection by intervening thru his or her connection with
Malacanang on the number of multi-million pesos’ projects and the millions of
pesos the national government can give to his or her district.
In each of that projects he or she can pocket through the
20 percent or more S.O.P like those farm-to-market roads by the Departments
of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform or concrete road pavement or elevation
pavement of highway done by the Department of Public Works & Highway.
Thanks to the moro-moro played by their
favorite private contractors who rigged the bidding to overprice it so they can
stash away a big chunk of public monies. (Read here my previous article how
government officials rob the coffer, by clicking How
contractor profits from gov't project).
For those who read this column on the hard copy of our
newspaper, here are some excerpts of that topic:
“He said in a P28 million gravelling of roads, the Palace
connected guy who interceded for the project in the province gets 10%, the
district Congressman who identified the place of the infrastructure gets 5%
from the worth of the project.
“Mga P15 million ang kita ko diyan sa project,” a
contractor whispered to me when I asked him how much he earned from it.
“Tubong lugaw,” ang raket na napasok ninyo,” I
told him after I mentally calculated that the government and the public get
only P8.8 million after P2.8 million goes to the Palace’s connection, P1.4
million goes to the congressman, and the P15 million profits he pocketed.
I believed what this Contractor told me.
In the past, a Mayor who was a contractor told
me the anatomy of the two-third of the government monies that went to the
pocket of the contractor and government officials.
He cited a P3 million fund for re-gravelling of
road from the national government in a town in a Congressional District of
Pangasinan. The mayor asked him how much he would give him in case he (Mayor)
asks for his service.
“I give you P1 million.” The grateful town
executive shook his hand for the conclusion of the negotiation.
My contractor pal told me he got the P1 million for himself, while the
remaining P1 million was deducted by P100 thousand for the municipal engineer
who certified that the substandard project was above board, an average of P5
thousand to each of the barangay captains whose jurisdiction were beneficiaries
of the project.
“Iyong re-gravelling ang contractor spends only
less than 30 percent of the total amount (It means less than P900 thousand from
the P3 million budget that goes to the Filipinos - MCO),” he told
me."
***
Now that Bayambang, Pangasinan mayoralty elect Cesar
Quiambao gears to assume office at noon of June 30, I am curious to see what
happen to a media practitioner who was an avid apologist and rah- rah person of
former mayor Ricardo Camacho.
A few days before the May 9 election, I bumped into
Quiambao’s Man Friday Levin Uy, former councilor and Director of
Quiambao’s Kasama Kita sa Barangay Foundation (KKBF), and PR man Jessie Perez
in a coffee house in Dagupan City.
They told me that they want to see this person, who sow
intrigued against them during the Camacho’s heydays, yank-out from the media
circle of the new mayor.
Reports say that this practitioner had been heaping
praises and plaudits to Quiambao.
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