Hijacked by personal partisan agenda

WHILE WE'RE at it, I actually found the latest editorial of Bicol Mail's angry old man funny in a different sort of way.

I mean, how can the Bicol Mail people continue to put up with this kind of garbage that finds its way to its editorial space? Does its editorial staff even discuss among themselves the burning issue of the week that their paper must address -- as any well meaning newspaper worth its salt should?

Sadly, Bicol Mail's editorial has been hijacked to serve the personal partisan interests of its editorial writer. Like this one.

Questions that Councilor John Bongat has to answer

THE classic statement in the Spiderman movies that great powers demand great responsibilities does not end with a period. In fact it does not have a period. It has a relative phrase: that give rise to great questions that demand great answers. How true this is when one political term ends and another begins. The current issue on the great power of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has given rise to great questions from senators, luminaries in the law, even bishops -- who demand great answers.

In the local scene, the great power handed down to Councilor John Bongat to lead the Liberal Party has with it great responsibilities that have given rise to questions that demand equally great answers. The funny thing is that most of the questions that Councilor John Bongat has to answer are not about himself or about what he has done as the Number One Councilor in the Sanggunian Panlungsod of Naga. The questions that he must face and must give truthful and off-the-cuff answers to are about his predecessor, City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo.

The title and opening paragraph starts well enough; in the context of the coming May 2010 elections, Councilor John Bongat's fitness and readiness to become Naga's next mayor actually deserves attention and scrutiny. But then the second paragraph unmasks the real object: it's not actually about Bongat, it's about the writer's continuing obsession with Mayor Robredo.

This is yet another proof of the once venerable Bicol Mail's growing bankruptcy of ideas. So, are we to judge now a candidate's fitness for office, not on his own merits and accomplishments but on the basis of a Q&A about somebody else, who's not even running anymore? How sad.

This is understandable because Councilor John Bongat is perceived to be an ally if not the clone of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo. For what has he been endorsed as the standard-bearer of the Liberal Party, most of whose candidates were of Aksyon Demokratiko, if has not been perceived as capable of providing the sequel to the great powers and equally great responsibilities experienced by Naga under Robredo’s term?

There are great questions that are raring for great answers that Councilor John Bongat must be prepared to give truthfully, off the cuff -- preferably without any coaching from Mayor Jesse M. Robredo -- preferably after having taken a glassful of wine for, as the saying goes, in vino, veritas (in wine, there is truth).

So John Bongat now needs to drink wine to be able to tell the truth -– and about somebody else? Is the wine-sipping Bicol Mail editorial writer also implying that Bongat is a liar for the most part of his waking hours, when he has to make do with water and other non-alchoholic drinks?

One question is on the investment code in the City of Naga. Has this code been truly implemented, its provisions followed to the letter, its organizational set-up manned with elements who independently perform their duties and responsibilities as provided for in the code without any intervention from those sitting in the executive and legislative branches of the local government of Naga?

What does this have to do with Bongat's credentials to be mayor if and when he wins in May? This is a question better addressed to Robredo, who is still the sitting mayor and therefore accountable for the investment code's implementation. And Bongat will have every opportunity to do his thing in regard to the code and the Investment Board, which the editorial writer may or may not like, when his time comes.

Another is on the loans contracted by the City Mayor as authorized by the Sanggunian Panlungsod. How much really are the loans -- in government banks and in other non-government banks, if any -- that the residents of, and those to be born in, the City of Naga have to pay? Transparency has always been claimed by the administration of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo but this item has not been included, wittingly or unwittingly, in his State Of the City Report (SOCR) or in the website www.naga.gov.ph.

This is as stupid a question as stupid gets. Simply because the answers are actually available in the internet, especially the 2010 budget in the city website, which lists Naga's statutory obligations, and this news article and the SOCR for the amount of the most recent Coliseum loan. At least, Atty. Che Carpio, when he asked for a copy of the S&P report, said he did an internet search first.

Still another is on the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN) of Mayor Jesse M. Robredo, from the time he entered the political arena in Naga City some twenty-years ago until this year when he is tasked to head the campaign of Noynoy Aquino–Mar Roxas tandem in the Bikol region. What were his assets and liabilities, his salary then, compared to what he has today -– his assets and liabilities, including his net worth and salary?

This should be compelling topic for an investigative report, ala PCIJ. Well, I guess it's because the Bicol Mail is not PCIJ.

But come to think of it, why in the first place should Bongat answer for Robredo's SALN?

These are just three of the many questions that Councilor John Bongat has to give truthful answers, barring the excuse that the most qualified person to give the details is Mayor Jesse M. Robredo.

If Councilor John Bongat shall keep us in the dark by evading the questions, he is literally telling us that we are in for a long, long dark night.

If the Bicol Mail continues to churn out garbage like these, then its readers are in for a long, dark night of inanity and stupidity.