Friday, March 31, 2006
Maxey: The 'wounded' City Council
By Ram Maxey
Bar None
CITY Councilor Diosdado "Dado" Mahipus has a new role in the city's lawmaking body. The normally combative young lawyer said in an interview with Sun.Star Davao that the Council has been "wounded" by constant bickering among its members. "I want the wound to be healed," he said.
Dado was referring to the well-publicized heated debates during council sessions, which occasionally raised the blood pressure of the protagonists arguing over controversial issues of the moment, sometimes even to the point of near-fisticuffs.
One such issue was the case of certain members of the previous committee on housing being allegedly involved in mulcting favors from some development firms. The favors reportedly ranged from free roundtrip plane tickets to cold cash. The controversy led to the resignation in a huff of committee members who angrily denied the charges, which were never proven anyway.
Then there was the so-called "legislative planning" session of recent memory participated in by the majority group in faraway Malabalay, Bukidnon at a place called Monastery of Transfiguration. The minority had refused to join the out of town trip by bus, saying it was a waste of public funds at P700 a day per participant, deciding to do their own separate, but austere, legislative planning within the confines of the City Council's session hall.
The year before, both majority and minority blocs did their planning at the posh Pearl Farm resort on Samal Island at a reported cost of P4,000 per participant.
Did that stay-over at such an idyllic but expensive setting induce amnesia? How can P700 be more expensive than P4,000? I'm just wondering about the return-on-investment (ROI) aspect. Baka the Pearl Farm thing was really worth the expense. Baka productive naman.
Then there is the case of the unfinished roof deck over the collective heads of the councilors (remember those leaking offices?). According to whispers among some of the honorable members the construction, which began as long ago as 2002, has been tainted with irregularity. Does the word "irregularity" also mean "graft" or "corruption" -- or both? At any rate the case is now with the Ombudsman for Mindanao.
"It bleeds me to know that there is an irregularity involved in the construction of the roof deck," Mahipus said, adding that he is hoping that his colleagues who may have been involved in the irregularity to come clean for the healing process to begin. They can start, he said, by "listening to their conscience or to the whisper of their inner being."
Hopefully, that will stop Dado's bleeding. But some people may pretend to listen yet refuse to hear. You have come across such.
According to the dictionary the word "bicker" means "to argue over petty and trivial matters". It's a wonderful invention. The dictionary.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (March 31, 2006 issue)
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