Friday, August 29, 2008 Seares: Ghost busters By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
WHATEVER plea of innocence Mandaue City Vice Mayor Carlo Pontico Fortuna and his gang may raise about their "ghostbuster" project, the name drips with malice.
It snidely refers to City Hall ghost employees allegedly hired by Mayor Jonas Cortes under "job orders."
CP and other critics earlier asked how the mayor spent a budgeted P58.9 million from January to June this year. They suspect that some job-order employees are ghosts.
The word "ghostbusters" came from the 1984 movie "Ghost Busters," a sci-fi comedy comedy about three wacky parapsychologists who go into business chasing ghosts and spirits in New York City.
CP set up "ghostbuster stations" and encouraged each job-order employee to come forward and give his name and assignment.
Nobody has appeared so far, despite the budget for a three-month pay the City Council dangles (maybe with the hit tune blaring, "Whom do you wanna call? Ghostbusters!").
The no-shows aren’t surprising. CP's ghostbusters are mere clerks who don't have equipment and savvy to flush out any spirit, real or metaphorical.
Headcount
To check if job-order employees are people in the flesh, why not scour City Hall records and do a headcount?
But the chance to wound the mayor in an oblique attack must have seduced his critics. Thus, the meanly named listing stations.
Jonas can show that CP's idea is a political stunt and the mayor is no creator of ghosts. The mayor can have all the job-order employees, garbed in white sheets, descend on the City Council while in session.
Who knows? That might scare the anti-Jonas guys enough to leave him alone till the next elections in 2010.
