Tax man in Jeep, Gadaffi's antidote vs dissent

by Mortz C. Ortigoza

Amid the brouhaha spawned by the almost P21 million 16 Ford Everest SUVs purchased by the provincial government without bid, members of the Sanggunian Panlalawigan should look how down-to-earth this BIR bigwig in terms of her riding life-style.

Ms. Cristine Cardona, the newly assigned Revenue District-4 chief of the BIR based in Calasiao, uses her issued lowly Innova Asian Utility Vehicle in going to work. But during Saturday and Sunday, you can see her riding in a public utility vehicle or jeep in going to the market and the church in Manaoag, Pangasinan.

She said she does not use her official car on those days because it is no longer an official working hour.

Cardona does not only supervise a premier tax office in Region 1 that has a tax goal of P1.5 billion this year from the 14 towns and two cities in Central Pangasinan.

She is also the wife of a three-term mayor in Ormoc.

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She is the exact opposite of a former controversial boss of a Revenue District whose life style is an eye-sore to the people.

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It's the Airport, stupid!

Bevy of new financially empowered tourists - the Chinese Mainlanders.

by Mortz C. Ortigoza

When I was in Cebu City recently, I was amazed at a bevy of Chinese tourists queuing  at the lobby of the swanky Water Front Hotel & Casino as their buses kept unloading them even at the wee hours of the night.

That’s why I wondered why Chinese tourists were not on the top list of visitors at the Hundred Islands in Alaminos City. Instead, those that top there were Filipino expatriates (balikbayan), Americans, and Canadians.

“Chinese Ambassador Liu Jianchao said that last year there were 270 thousand Chinese tourists that visited our country. It is winter now in China, and Alaminos should have a piece of action on the number of these tourists,” I posed to Alaminos City Mayor Nani Braganza recently during the press conference he called with Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro.

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LCP ‘storms’ Supreme Court

Members of the 122-strong League of City Mayors in the Philippines marched last March 9, 2011 to the Supreme Court after it flipped flopped on the city hood bids of the 16 towns in the country

by Mortz C. Ortigoza 

In the special general assembly of the 122-strong League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) held recently at the Century Park Sheraton Hotel in Manila, its secretary general Hernani Braganza (Mayor of Alaminos City) thundered before the hundreds of saber-rattling mayors and their supporters that the entry of the 16 towns to cityhood would gnaw at P3.7 billion of the yearly Internal Revenue Allotment from the national government.

“11,000 employees’ ang matatangal, housing, PhilHealth, kalsada, farm-to-market roads, proteksiyon sa kalikasan...” Braganza rabble roused.

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Showboating of wealth at PMA's alumni rites

by Mortz C. Ortigoza

My wife and kid attended recently the two-day alumni homecoming of the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City - complement of a high ranking police relative.

They were billeted at the expensive plush two-bedroom suite in the Camp John Hay Manor Hotel.

“Grabe, it’s all expenses paid for the PMAyers.  Even the gas of their vehicles was shouldered by their organizations,” she exclaimed to me through phone.

She told me that “palakihan pa sila ng sasakyan (they brought big cars)” that were gas guzzling multi-million of pesos worth Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) to show boat” their wealth to their classmates.

Many of them were from the Philippine National Police.

I could not agree more.

When I was working at the public information office of the PMA in the early 1990s, I was an avid listener of the morning radio program in Manila of humorous commentator (and also villain-actor) Rod Navarro.

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LCP, DepEd sign MOA for school building design

Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro in an ocular inspection of a public school room in Alaminos City. At the left side is Alaminos Mayor Nani Braganza

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How Philippine public officials rob the coffer (Part II)

by Mortz C. Ortigoza Here’s what I told Senator Migz Zubiri in a press conference I attended recently: “I talked with a mayor-contractor who told me that the infamous pork- barrel should be directly given by the President (Benigno AquinoIII) to the mayors. Kasi sabi niya iyong pork, kukurakutin lang ni congressman iyong 25%, ika-cut pa ni DBM (Department of Budget & Management) ang 2% (kung mabilisan iyong bigayan ay 5% ang ika-cut nila), kukunin pa ni DPWH iyong 5%. Pero pag i-direct kay mayor, iyong kurakot sa kanya lang .” ...

Why Towns Want to be a City?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Woe to the cities all over the country. 
With the latest decision of a flipped flopping Supreme Court on its third reversals of its decisions, the petition of 16 towns for city hood is almost a certainty.

The downside however is that the present 122-strong members’ League of Cities of the Philippines would see a reduction of their share of their Internal Revenue Allotments from the national government.

Cities like Alaminos, Urdaneta, San Carlos, and Dagupan would lose tens of millions of national funding a year that mostly comes from the share in the Value Added Tax .

But the hardest to be hit among them would be Dagupan City.

Members of the 122-strong League of Cities of the Philippines were furious recently after the Supreme Court upheld for the third time the bid of 16 towns to be a city