Pet Melliza

By Pet Melliza/The Beekeeper One year after the “closure” of the so-called Pavia housing scandal, its ghosts still squirm inside the closet. The last term of Mayor Mansueto Malabor (1998-2001) floated bonds to raise P120 million to erect 413 houses at the lot along the national road at Pavia town. The property was owned by Iloilo City   which wanted to a village for its employees. The succeeding administration of Mayor Jerry Trenas implemented the project. However before the end of his term (2001-2004), subcontractors withdrew and chorused that  they were constrained to use substandard materials because the contractor, Ace Builders Enterprises (ABE), gave them only a pittance. Before the May 2004 elections, three criminal complaints rained on Trenas et al. He still got reelected for two more terms in which he faithfully paid the delinquent contractor up to P90 million despite the substandard works. Not a single house was completed; the contractor fled and laughed its way ...

By Pet Melliza THE BEEKEEPER I rarely go to CD-R King due to unsavory tales spun in its wake by irate customers. Its products are substandard and many have sad tales to tell about CD-R King. Last Saturday (June 5) though, I violated my own rule and found myself shortchanged. I bought from its SM City branch (Mandurriao, Iloilo City) six optical  disks that had no brand name. I was bummed not only by CD-R King’s substandard good but also by its callous disregard for customer welfare. Blue on one side, the disks can be distinguished with the symbols “DVD-RW 2X …Made in Taiwan”. It was almost 1 o’clock in the afternoon when I bought them. Of the six, only one worked. In other words, five out of six disks I had bought from CD-R King were defective. I returned to the store at past  4  pm of the same day to complain and ask for replacement. Its branch head, Agnes Alcala, refused to replace them. According to her, the DVDs had scratches from repeated attempts to “burn” t...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper   I  had the rare opportunity to talk with Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol, and he confirmed the abusive behavior of Virginia Palanco-Santiago. This woman was part of the cover-up structure put together by Mark Jalandoni to protect the crooks and plunderers in the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government. Apostol said she is evil.” –  (Manuel Mejorada, Iloilo-based columnist) Iloilo Press Club president Rommel Ynion is just shooting at the moon by   lodging a complaint against Iloilo City Jed Patrick Mabilog with the Office of   the Ombudsman. There is no assurance that the Ombudsman will take him seriously  given the fact   that its regional office based in Iloilo City is headed by one named Virginia   Palanca-Santiago, the embalmed version of Mommy Dionisia, a moral pygmy whose   sense of right and wrong is as revolting as her looks. Ynion seeks to protect city taxpayers from Mabilog who i...

The Beekeeper By Pet Melliza I never had an idea that the supposed re-union I would be attending had nothing  to do about tete-a-tete among alumni of a Catholic seminary.  It turned out to be a serious discussion on how to attract vocations, that is,  applicants to assure the continuity of a religious congregation that is in  danger of becoming extinct unless its ageing clerics had a line-up of young successors. It was May 1 and my attention was roaming to the site of an earlier commitment,  the Iloilo Provincial Government parking lot where a crowd was gathering to celebrate Labor Day. I was wondering why recruiting students to the seminary to eventually become priests and members of this religious congregation became such a problem.  The congregation, fresh from a split when majority of its Filipino priest opted to form a new order, already tried come-ons to entice young boys, particularly, high school and college graduates, and p...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper   I  had the rare opportunity to talk with Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Pelagio Apostol, and he confirmed the abusive behavior of Virginia Palanco-Santiago. This woman was part of the cover-up structure put together by Mark Jalandoni to protect the crooks and plunderers in the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government. Apostol said she is evil.” –  (Manuel Mejorada, Iloilo-based columnist) BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER In April 2004, three groups accused then Mayor Jerry Treñas for the Pavia  Housing Scam. The city government borrowed P130 million in 2001 to erect 413 houses for  employees. In 2005, contractor Ace Builders Enterprises quit without completing  one.  Treñas got reelected and paid it up to P90 million despite the slippage, instead  of seizing its surety bonds. The city council adopted the report of the body led by then Kgd. Raul Gonzalez,  Jr., which recommended rescission of contract and demanded...

By Pet Melliza/The Beekeeper Even god almighty is as ignorant as the sovereign people on the number of “task forces” and their members operating in Iloilo City. They simply sprout like mushrooms before we wake up in the morning. There’s the Task Force Adam’s Apple, TF Anti-Jaywalking, TF Anti-Littering, TF Anti-Smoking, TF Kilohan, TF Anti-Dengue, and what-not. Their number defies the “personal cap” limiting salaries and wages below 45 percent of the annual budget. The task forces are premised on the fact that they are temporary, they exist only when there is need for them, thus, they are exempted from the 45 percent budget cap. And that’s the best way for Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog in repaying those who campaigned for him in the 2010 elections. TF Adam’s Apple which runs after women entertainers sans mayor’s permit, gave birth (or was merely renamed) into another task force with the sublime name “Value Formation and Moral Recovery”. What? We have no objection to that. Definitely,...

BY PET MELLIZA/The Beekeeper Palay has dipped to P10 per kilo and farmers saddened by the depressed price have no choice but dispose of their produce that cheap because traders already feel the glut and slow down buying. Two or three months back, a farmer earned P14-P17 per kilo of palay. Favorable rainfall has enabled farmers to go into third cropping and it’s not uncommon to see fields today bustle with people harvesting and threshing  palay alongside paddies being tilled for the next cropping. However, the Philippines, a predominantly agricultural country, cannot feed its people without importing food, rice included. It is a heavy importer or rice. Vietnam, its main source, already hinted that importers like the Philippines should better raise their own production because it would be reducing its rice exports over the years to fill the growing demand of its own people. There’s no cause for alarm for that. Even if the Philippines traditional rice sources India and Vietnam shut do...

The narra tree beside the gate of the Iloilo Capitol is the contemporary of the one about to be cut down beside the power substation, facing the Iloilo River. After shearing a half-century old narra tree, morons responsible for it further ensured that the tree that stood by at the Iloilo Provincial Capitol Ground since the time of Gov. Rafael "Nono" Palmares dies for lumber by debarking or "girdling" its trunk. Stripping off the bark and outer layers around the trunk stops nutrients from reaching other parts of the plant eventually killing it. The pics that I took of the dying tree show one thing, morons behind it want it for lumber. It does not endanger public safety or any public building or structure and there is no reason for them to eliminate it. Narra is the national tree of the Philippines and its cutting is strictly regulated. According to DENR rules, one needs a permit signed by the DENR secretary to cut a narra tree. The endangered tree. The moro...