Indeed if Philippine politics will be dominated with people whose immediate agenda when they are elected to office, say as mayor or governor, is to immediately look into alleged wrongdoings of their predecessors, progress will be hard to attain as desired.
Look at newly assumed come backing Mayor Isko Moreno of Manila and the new administration of Makati City. The former, during his inaugural address, made a litany of the alleged infractions of the government of the defeated mayor Dr. Honey Lacuna, the most serious of which are the cash advances authorized by the lady city chief executive.
The total amount advanced by a few city officials was over a billion pesos. Mayor Isko reiterated his not knowing where the huge amount of money was spent. He also lamented the failure of the advancing officers of City Hall who he publicly identified using a power point presentation to account the money.
Mayor Isko also called the attention of the advancing officials that until his take-over no liquidation was ever made on any of the advances.
The Manila mayor did not have even an iota of qualm in identifying the officials who are already levelled as the perpetrators of anomalous cash advances even before they are made to account the money they got from the city government.
Meaning, Mayor Isko has apparently judged them as guilty of the possible crimes they have committed by drawing the multi-million cash advances and even before the Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged the act as having violated standard requirements for drawing advances.
In the case of the new administration of Makati City its first major action taken after its assumption, is to review the partnership agreement entered into by the City of Makati and the company that is the city’s partner in implementing the multi-billion pesos Makati City Subway project.
By having the partnership agreement reviewed it has effectively stopped the work on the subway system. It may even be possible that if the new Makati City administration finds some provisions in the agreement that the new city executives find totally not their liking, the subway will end up a useless cavern endangering the above ground of the leading Metro Manila city.
These moves by the two new city administrations reminds us of the multi-million Davao City Sports Dome, a project of then mayor Benjamin de Guzman. It was mothballed by the succeeding administration despite the fact that the project was about to be completed. The reason of its discontinuation was supposedly its being constructed on top of a land in an earthquake fault line.
Of course that reason was only the one put forward on the surface. The real reason behind the abandonment of the sports dome project is politics.
Today what is left of the sports dome is an empty edifice with all its appurtenances already missing. And it is now the favorite resting place for animals like goats and others.
In other words the sports dome that was once boasted to be the best in this part of Mindanao once completed instead became a costly “elephant” and a white one at that.
It has become a monument of waste more so that the abandoned project was funded by a loan drawn by the city government from Land Bank. And the loan of something like P300 million or over was paid by the money of the Davaoenos.
One question that we might as well asked: What happened to the donation of the land that the project was to be constructed? The donation of the land along C.P. Garcia Diversion Highway had as a major condition – that it shall be used for the construction of a Sports Dome. Was the donation pushed through or did the Uy family of Tagum withdraw the offer?
*****************************
The controversy on the Samal Island-Davao City Connector Bridge Project now subject of a Writ of Kalikasan issued by the Supreme Court (SC) is getting further heated up with this recent development.
Yes, former IGaCoS mayor and newly assumed board member of Davao del Norte, is passing a resolution in the Provincial Board urging the Province to file a case against those who petitioned for the issuance of the writ by the SC.
We know Board Member uy has been strongly advocating for the immediate construction of the bridge claiming that it will hasten the socio-economic development of the island city. He has also been crusading for the longest time the change in power supplier to the city he was once mayor.
Should the Province comply with the Uy resolution and file case against the petitioners of the Writ of Kalikasan, how would it possibly impact on the project that is now about forty percent on its way to completion?
We can only think of one. That the bridge project completion will likely not be seen by the present generation of Davaoenos – perhaps not even by the next one.
-30-
