Friday, March 09, 2007 Seares: Buck-passingon lamps mess By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
PASSING the buck is usual defense of people accused of anything bad, from obscene writing on campus wall to peddling lies about a rival, from stealing a playmate's marbles to pocketing millions on overpriced lamps.
"Not me!" is a familiar plea. Trapped, most of them say, "I didn't do it, someone else did."
There are variations of buck-passing. Some point to the other guy if some other person can be remotely linked to the larceny. Hardy buck-passers caught in the act insist they are not the perp or it is not what we think it is.
Not for Glo
Buck-passers can be desperate: A husband, on top of another woman and surprised by his wife, insists, "It's not me, dear." A pedestrian urinating on a fire hydrant tells the cop: "It's dirty and I'm peeing off the dirt."
"The buck stops here" is for US presidents, not for President Glo who got burned when she said, "I'm sorry" for the infamous Garci tapes that recorded phone calls with a Comelec commissioner in an alleged plot to rig the 2004 elections.
Mandaue City Mayor Ted Ouano and Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Art Radaza are blaming DPWH. DPWH 7 says it is DPWH central office, not the local DPWH.
Smell the stink
But wait, they prepared or approved program of work. Couldn't local officials have seen the enormous gap between price tag and production cost? Couldn't DPWH in Cebu and Manila have known and stopped the cheating? And they don't even need experts to smell the stink.
There are explanations for what happened and the most charitable are stupidity and neglect.
Collusion among crooks is very much in that list too.
