Pet Melliza

BY PET MELLIZA/THE BEEKEEPER Igbaras, Iloilo mayor Vicente Escorpion continues to play it coy in defying the order of the Ombudsman reinstating two town employees it had earlier kicked out. Municipal treasurer Cynthia Cabanero and accounting clerk Pio Elumba, received October 4 the resolution of the Ombudsman granting their motion for reconsideration, in effect, reversing its order of dismissal from service and reinstating them with full back wages and other emoluments denied them since they were dismissed August 2009. Escorpion, a lawyer, evaded the Ombudsman’s order which the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) relayed in a communication directing him to execute it, that is, reinstall Cabanero and Elumba. The counsel for the two employees wrote the Ombudsman – Visayas, a “request for assistance”, informing the latter that Escorpion remained intransigent, thus the request to investigate and if warranted,  impose administrative sanction, and file pro...

  By Pet Melliza/The Beekeeper A congressman recited and completed that prayer called “Credo” to the last “amen”. His name is Augusto Syjuco (Lakas, 2 nd district, Iloilo). Hallelujah praise the Lord! And he spews that holy vituperation  against the RH Bill. The social medium FaceBook has a box showing nine members of the Lower House, Syjuco included, who peddle hilarious reasons for opposing the RH Bill. Their arguments run on a common thread that identifies ideas such as good, evil, morality, heaven, hell, and what not, to have originated from and are revolving around, the super-idea called god. Syjuco, who faces multi-billion peso plunder case arising from his past job as director general of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), cannot think beyond his pietism why the RH Bill is evil other than by the presumption of it being against the will of his diety. Basta lang evil . It is evil, according to  Rep. Catal...

BY PET MELLIZA/ The Beekeeper We don’t need the Department of Health (DoH) advising us to celebrate the Yuletide with blow horns, electric sounds and lights, instead of fireworks. On second thought though we need that department to nag us twice, thrice and even the umpteenth time to ensure a safe Christmas and New Year especially for children. Government warnings almost always fall on deaf ears. Yours truly used to stock firecracders at home by pouches for lighting December through the homestretch of the New Year on the mistaken belief of buoying up spirits and warding off evils. I stopped buying and lighting firecrackers the past five years fully convinced on the wisdom behind the makulit DoH reminder. There are many reasons for using alternative sources of lights and noises instead of fireworks, off and in Yuletide Season. Firecrackers and fireworks contaminate the air we breathe, the soil we cultivate, and the water we drink with toxins, to include hea...

BY PET MELLIZA/The Beekeeper The busiest propaganda bureaus hereabouts belong to the camps of Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patgrick Mabilog and his challenger  Rommel Ynion. Aside from tapping friendly reporters and buying radio and cable TV blocktimes, both unreel scenarios that catches public attention. Ynion has Manuel “Boy” Mejorada whose opinion pieces land in The News Today and various social media sites. He also hosts a blocktime simulcast in radio and cable TV. To sell himself and members of his slate for the May 2013 local elections, Ynion further kicks off activities – gimmicks if we may call it – like the curtain raiser involving tankers delivering drinking water free to barangays unreached by MIWD pipes. Ynion became a household name that prompted Mabilog to adopt the former’s water distribution – after persuading the city council to place Iloilo City in a state of calamity for reasons more hilarious than legal. There was no natural or human...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER   The RH Bill, though at the back burner the past 15 years, is not about to die yet. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago says they have the number to pass it at the Senate.   The staunchest RH Bill proponents at the Senate are women: Sen. Pia Cayetano and Defensor-Santiago; at the Lower House, there is Rep. Janet Garin (1 st district, Iloilo).   Anti-RH Bill senators introduced four amendments but the pros shot them all by 11 – 6 vote.   Oppositors merely rehash arguments that people ignore anyway. Top antis act like clowns, thus, defeating their own cause.   There is Sen. Vicente Sotto III who equates it to contraceptives and sheds crocodile tears for his baby, blaming its demise on the pill. It turned out that the contraceptive was introduced in the market only in 1975, two years after his son died.   The Philippine Senate is the only one in the world that tolerates intellectual dishonesty. First off, Sott...

That is what Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago says in a report that has been “twitted” on my account. Well, that’s good news. The RH Bill has been sidelined the past 15 years, says its principal author at the Lower House, Rep. Janet Garin (1st district, Iloilo). Incidentally, the staunchest RH Bill proponents at the Upper House are women: Sen. Pia Cayetano and Defensor-Santiago. In predicting smooth sailing for the passage of the bill at the Senate, Defensor-Santiago says at least 11 senators are for it. Anti-R Bill senators introduced four amendments, all of them shot down by a vote of 11 against 6, adds Santiago. Hope for the immediate passage of the RH Bill. Oppositors merely rehash old arguments that people ignore anyway. Top apologists of the antis act like clowns. There is Sen. Vicente Sotto III who equates it to contraceptive use and sheds crocodile tears for the death of his baby, blaming its demise on the pill. It turned out that the medication was introduce...

By Pet Melliza/ the Beekeeper Rep. Janet Garin breezed through three straight elections notwithstanding her authorship of the Reproductive Health Bill. She won all elections in the first district of Iloilo Province despite tags denouncing her, a doctor of medicine,  “pro-abortion”. Oppositors equate the RH Bill to abortion though all that you can read in the draft are measures to empower women, giving them control of their bodies and access to maternity health services.  Intentional abortion is killing a fetus inside the mother’s womb by ingestion of drugs or clinical method. Preventing fertilization of the egg by the sperm or neutering the sperm before it reaches the egg is contraception but it appears oppositors  can’t distinguish one from the other. Oppositors, incidentally, are not women. They belong to the men’s world, majority of them flaunting their divine mandate as deputies of the god to save souls from sin and eternal damnation. Oppositors...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Former Iloilo City mayor, Mansueto Malabor (1992 - 2001), appears least guilty but he is treated the guiltiest by the Ombudsman fiddling with the "Pavia Housing Scandal". The project rolled in 2000 with P125 million debt via bond flotation that the Philippine National Bank (PNB) assumed.  Public bidding was done and Malabor signed the contract with Ace Builders owned by Alex Trinidad with authority from the SP. With that, Iloilo City would stand as the first in the Philippines to invest huge sums for its employees. That did not happen though. The next year 2002, the “Pavia housing scandal” blew up after a subcontractor decried he was underpaid and subcontractors used substandard materials to adjust to the pittance from Ace Builders. That same year, the city council created an investigating committee that became "committee of the whole" that is, its membership is the entire legislature. The committee wound up in 2003. Its c...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper If you can’t beat the, maake them “ sana mapikon man lang ”. Harry Roque said that in one break of the ASEAN Media Litigation Defense Conference which he and another UP Law professor Romel Bagares convened in Cebu October 2009. He was referring to the brazen indecency of Malacanang, to be  more specific,  by one Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, husband of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in handling criticisms. The Arroyos drew flaks from the media but they responded the wrong way, with a  deluge of  libel suits. The complaints were hastily resolved by prosecutors, some even without the respondents being notified. The rule says, the respondent has the right to be notified so to file counter-affidavits for rebuttal. Mike Arroyo charged not only the writers or reporters but everybody  – publishers, chief editors, desk editors, radio anchors and managers. It was so devious; in a short time, the investigating prosecutors resolve...

BY PET MELLLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER Two employees accused for grave misconduct and dishonesty still remain jobless despite the order of the Ombudsman clearing them of any administrative liability. Pio Elumba, accounting clerk, and Cynthia Cabanero, municipal treasurer, both of Igbaras, Iloilo, were kicked out of office August 2009 by order of  Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez. They filed a motion for reconsideration January 9, 2009 which Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales granted in a resolution that reached the two on October 4, 2012. They are supposed to be back to work by now. The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Pelagio Apostol, Jr., deputy Ombudsman – Visayas sent separate orders on Igbaras mayor Vicente Escorpion Jr. to implement the Ombudsman’s decision, that is, reinstate the two employees. Those orders remain unenforced to date. They fell on deaf ears. Escorpion continues to defy the DILG and the Ombudsman.  Here’s one instance where a local ...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER   It is just baffling how government could spend money repairing functional roads in Iloilo City while neglecting those in need of one.   The sides of Luna Road, formerly “McArthur’s Highway”, the stretch fronting San Agustin University and the Iloilo City PNP station, doesn’t need repair at all but is now being wrecked by jackhammer preparatory for reconstruction.   Another road, also named “Luna” from La Paz to Jaro undergoes the same activity. It sides are being punched with holes from hydraulic jackhammer and abandoned indefinitely until such time that the contractor decides to repair them. For the time being, the wrecked sides of the road slow down traffic flow.   In our ordinary thinking, only roads in the state of disrepair, which is aplenty in Iloilo City, ought to be repaired but what we see and lament is that,  scarce resources are being squandered on streets that need no repair at all, like wha...

By Pet Melliza/ The Beekeeper Vicente Escorpion, lawyer and mayor of Igbaras, Iloilo, continues to defy orders from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Office of the Ombudsman to reinstate two employees. We don’t know his reasons. The latest order came two weeks ago from Pelagio Apostol, Jr., Deputy Ombudsman – Visayas directing him to implement the order of the Ombudsman who had cleared municipal treasurer Cynthia M. Cabanero and accounting clerk Pio Elumba of any administrative liability. Apostol, in brief, told Escorpion to reinstate the two who a scoundrel, the embalmed version of Mommy Dionisia kicked out of their jobs in August 2009, or three years ago. Mommy Dionisia II retired in July and carted off a booty of more than P4 million lump sum from her leave credits alone. She got that much because throughout all 16 years that she worked in the Office of the Ombudsman, she incurred not a single absence nor tardiness. She never got sick in a...

BY PET MELLIZA/ THE BEEKEEPER   Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog does it right by just taking in stride Iloilo   Gov. Arthur D. Defensor’s remark.   The media blew up the governor’s commentary   as derogatory of the city.     Mabilog’s mouthpiece Jefrey Celiz took that as declaration of war and tersely reminded Defensor he had already too much to handle in the province itself. Mind your own business, Celiz snorted in effect.   Defensor merely called a spade a spade:   neither the city nor province has sufficient infrastructure to cater to large tourist arrivals, although the governor took more time to dig at the city for its perennial problems like insufficient potable water supply and sanitation.   The problem is not Defensor but the overly sensitive ear that refuses to listen to the wisdom behind his candid remark.   Defensor is just unfortunate that Mabilog has the likes of Jefrey Celiz who considers it ...