Why I oppose the P25,000.00 cash gift given to our municipal employees

Many people have formed a bad opinion about me because of my opposition to the Php. 25,000.00 cash gift (3.6 Million pesos in total) requested by the municipal employees, which was hastily approved by our Sangguniang Bayan and released by our vice-mayor while I was away on official business. Some say I am a miser, some say I am just plain mean.

Let me set things straight: By opposing the cash gift, I am also depriving myself of Php25,000.00 because I too was due to receive it as per the resolution passed by the Sanggunian, together with all the other elective officials in the municipality.

The reason I oppose the granting of the cash gift is that it is simply contrary to law. It violates Section 325 of the Local Government Code of 1991 which says:


Section 325. General Limitations. - The use of the provincial, city, and municipal funds shall be subject to the following limitations:

(a) The total appropriations, whether annual or supplemental, for personal services of a local government unit for one (1) fiscal year shall not exceed forty-five percent (45%) in the case of first to third class provinces, cities and municipalities....


The Municipality of Gubat's Personal Services (PS), meaning the total expenses for the payment of salaries, wages and other compensation , already exceeds 45% of the total annual budget. The granting of the Php25,000.00 cash gift further bloated the excess in the PS expenditures of the municipality by close to four million pesos.

What about the Php10,000.00 cash gift due to all government employees announced by President Aquino? The President's Administrative Order No. 3 says:


SECTION 4. PEI for Employees in LGUs. The grant of the one-time PEI to employees in LGUs, including those in barangay governments, shall be determined by the sanggunian depending on the LGU financial capability, subject to the Personal Services limitation in the LGU budgets under R.A. No. 7160....


It is very clear from the text of the President's AO No. 3 that the granting of a Php10,000.00 cash gift to LGU employees is still subject to the PS limit set by the Local Government Code. If an LGU has already exceeded the limit, as Gubat has, it should not grant even the Php10,000.00 cash gift mentioned by President Aquino, much less Php25,000.00.

The grant of the Php25,000.00 cash gift to our municipal employees, approved by our Sangguniang Bayan and released by our vice-mayor, is, therefore, contrary to law (not to mention the spirit of general austerity being laudably introduced by our president), and that is why I stand firm against it.

Wishing the best for Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi is free again. After seven years of house arrest imposed by the Burmese military junta, she is free again to walk outside her lakeside home and resume her work building the democratic movement in Burma.

As the many Burma observers keep pointing out, we have been at this same juncture before. The military junta has in the past released Suu Kyi only to have her re-arrested again. News reports say her latest release is unconditional, but she is free only at the pleasure of the junta and could be re-arrested anytime.

I sincerely wish and hope that Suu Kyi will not be re-arrested, and the other 2,000 political prisoners be released from Insein prison. What is so sad about Burma is that because of this political struggle, many young people, perhaps the country's very brightest, lost their youth. Instead of plotting their future career paths, they are languishing in jail, driven to exile abroad, or killing time in a refugee camp in Chiang Mai. If you are interested to know some of their stories, you can read Christina Fink's Living Silence.

It is very, very sad. Personally, no other international issue affects me more than Burma's struggle for democracy. It is, for me, Southeast Asia's greatest issue of our time. The ASEAN can not move forward as one regional bloc that could discuss such issues as,say, a regional currency, without resolving once and for all the Burma impasse. Suu Kyi will have to face the question of what to do with international trade sanctions against Burma. The Wall Street Journal reports today that she has given signals she might be revising her thinking on that matter.

I heard Suu Kyi being interviewed and she said she's having a hard time deciding how to connect to younger generations and to the world: Facebook or Twitter. It is nice -and oddly comforting - that after many years of being cut off from the world by a brutal military, The Lady who is the world's most inspiring advocate for democracy and human rights is now dealing with questions as mundane as what social network to register to.

we are all keeping our fingers crossed as we hope for the best for Burma(and those status updates to come soon from Aung San Suu Kyi).

The difficult life of a teetotaler

Last night, I was at the oath-taking of the officials of the Barangay Defense System (BDS) and after the short program, an old lady approached and reproached me repeatedly for being so young. I kept answering: Thank you, it's a compliment. Gaining no traction with her harangue, she then asked me for money to buy a bottle of gin. She was incredulous I didn't have cash. All the while I was thinking, "Shouldn't she be home knitting and minding her liver?"

It is a real health concern: Some heavy drinkers are afflicted with Hepatitis B (see information on the disease from the Mayo Clinic here), and because they never got tested for the disease, are unknowingly inflicting further damage to their livers by drinking alcohol.

One of the hazards of being a mayor is that you invariably get asked for money to buy alcohol, sometimes by people who obviously have had so much to drink already. During the election campaign, I was initially torn about the subject of alcohol. Personally, I could live without it. The Taliban could take over the Philippines tomorrow and I won't be pining for beer.

One classmate who operated a sari-sari store before simply refused to sell alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. She was not Muslim or Iglesia, but as a matter of principle simply refused to sell those items.

Job Opening: Market Supervisor

Gubat Public Market
Gubat, Sorsogon

Salary Grade 18


Requirements

1.Bachelor’s Degree preferably in, but not limited to, business-related disciplines.2.Proficient or at least familiar with major office applications, especially Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel or similar equivalent programs.3. With initiative to undertake innovative projects with minimal supervision.4. Able to work with people from all walks of life.5. Excellent communication skills.6. Ability to develop alternative solutions to problems & reach decisions.7. Civil Service eligible.

Responsibilities

1. Supervise the operations and activities within the public market pertaining to sanitation and orderliness.
2. Implement market code and other ordinances/existing rules and regulations.
3. Supervise “Market Day” and assure that the related ordinance is properly implemented.
4. Formulate and, subject to the approval of the Local Chief Executive, implement programs, plans and activities to enhance the efficiency of the operation of the public market.
5. Perform such other duties and functions as may be delegated by higher authorities from time to time.


For applications, please fax to (056) 311 7962 or e-mail to aidamendivil@yahoo.com and/or ronnel@gmail.com. You can also send your applications directly to Ms. Aida Mendivil, Human Resources Manager, at the municipal hall. Applications will be accepted until October 25, 2010. Examination and panel interview to be scheduled after October 25. Successful applicant to to begin November.

Will blog again

I met Dr. Alvin Marcelo of UP-PGH and he asked me if I blog and he casually remarked I should blog my observations. He didn't know that I was once an assiduous blogger.

I promise to blog again once I get somebody to help me in the office so I could have some time to write. These days, when I arrive at home, I'm so beat I could do nothing else but lie down and sleep. I really think I should blog again and transform this blog into a local government-centered blog.

The president's power over the national budget

Much is made of the power of Congress to make appropriations, but really the power is with the president. After the sound and the fury of the congressional hearings, after the General Appropriations Act has been published, the president can simply impound what she doesn't want released, declare the unappropriated money as savings and then use that savings to meet expenditures she likes.

News reports say that Congress has finally curtailed this power of the president by including a provision in the recently passed budget expressly forbidding the president from impounding funds. The president is now in a Catch-22 situation. If she vetoes that provision, she confirms her malicious intent on the budget all those past years; if she does not veto it, she would in effect be curtailing the power of (possibly) President Noynoy Aquino in preparation for her being Speaker of the House.

The Filipino films that were

I don't know if Sky Cable carries the channel but at over at Destiny Cable, there's a new channel called GPC (Global Pinoy Channel)which is having a test broadcast--and is showing some wonderful Filipino movies.

Last night, when I accidentally tuned into it, there was Nora Aunor, pre-Flor Contemplacion, playing an abused maid. Tonight, I caught Celso Ad Castillo's Ang Alamat ni Julian Makabayan in medias res with Christopher de Leon playing an inchoate communist agitating for agrarian reform and suffrage. The movie has such gorgeous shots of Philippine countryside of Nueva Ecija.

Himala starring Nora Aunor has recently been honored in Australia as the best Asian-Pacific film, besting Kurosawa, Ang Lee and Wong Kar Wai (even Himala's writer Ricky Lee was incredulous). I think it's a signal time that we should all rediscover the best of Philippine cinema.

Are you Eco Active?

Wear Green and come to the UP Diliman Eco Active Day

DECEMBER 2, 2008
UP Diliman Grandstand
*Registration starts 8 am

Mini Program (8:30-11:30am) featuring award-winning environmentalists Ms. Chin-chin Gutierrez and Mr. Von Hernandez of Greenpeace

Go Renewable March (2:30-4:00pm) with the Firefly Brigade, Miss Earth candidates, E-Jeepneys, Padyaks and more Ban the Styro Human Formation (4:00-5:30 pm) at the UP Sunken Garden

Eco Active is a project of the University Student Council (USC), uniting all environment protection efforts in the University, and promoting practice of a greener lifestyle towards a more sustainable UP Diliman.

For more information, visit http://iamecoactive.multiply.com

What to do

Here's Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Review of Books, on what to do to avert the next financial crisis:

...anything that has to be rescued during a financial crisis, because it plays an essential role in the financial mechanism, should be regulated when there isn't a crisis so that it doesn't take excessive risks. Since the 1930s commercial banks have been required to have adequate capital, hold reserves of liquid assets that can be quickly converted into cash, and limit the types of investments they make, all in return for federal guarantees when things go wrong. Now that we've seen a wide range of non-bank institutions create what amounts to a banking crisis, comparable regulation has to be extended to a much larger part of the system.

Interestingly, he is also advocating long-term restriction in the movement of international capital flows, saying that the lesson learned during the Asian crisis (i.e. shoring up foreign exchange reserves) is not enough.

Huli man at magaling maihahabol din?

Now, Former Speaker De Venecia is talking. Had he done this earlier, when he was being forcibly removed from the leadership of the House, we probably would have seen another president booted from Malacanang. But now, with almost just a year before the national elections, people might not be in the mood to shake things up. Why bother to forcibly remove the president when she will surely disappear in a year's time?

De Venecia should have fought earlier and showed all he's got instead of delivering that soliloquy at the floor which only betrayed his age. Machiavelli said that fortune is a woman and she favors the adventurous than the cautious. "She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her."

I have always felt that if one were to fall, one must fall with all guns a-blazing. (This brings to mind a film I want to recommend which gloriously illustrates the point: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) Had De Venecia fought back earlier, he probably would still have fallen, but he would have had the satisfaction of seeing the whole House of Representatives fall down with him. If the president ruined his legacy as a great consensus-builder, why not be remembered as a great destroyer instead? As Abraham Lincoln said, great men of history build things, but lacking an opportunity to build, must destroy. De Venecia had a glorious chance to destroy, but he blew it.

Is Somali piracy a retaliation for toxic waste dumping?

For quite sometime now owing to the presence of many Filipino sailors, we have been hearing all about the tanker ships being commandeered by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. According to the International Maritime Bureau, 61 attacks by pirates have been reported since the start of the year. Now a new angle of the story has appeared: the pirates are hijacking the ships and asking for ransom to partially pay for the cleanup of toxic waste being regularly dumped off the coast of Somalia.

The UN envoy for Somalia confirmed that toxic waste dumping does happen and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says that when the tsunami hit in 2004, rusting containers of toxic waste were washed ashore. UNEP says that "Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there."

Al Jazeera has this very interesting story here.

You know you are getting old when...

you go to a club and, instead of a condom as a freebie, you get a free tablet for arthritis, as we did get last night when we went to RJ TV bar on Jupiter Street, Makati. We all had such a good time, although half of the time I was dancing to tunes I never heard before in my life.

I've always wanted to go to RJ for so long, until last night we finally had an excuse as a colleague from the US was in town. If you want to have good clean fun and enjoy a trip down memory lane to the good old days of rock'n roll, RJ Bar is for you. And since smoking is not allowed inside, you wont get home with emphysema to aggravate your arthritis.

Job opening: ChemSafe Program Coordinator

The EcoWaste Coalition is looking for a part-time staff person who will facilitate and oversee the implementation of the five-month program dubbed as Enhancing Consumer Knowledge and Action towards Chemical Safety or ChemSafe.

The ChemSafe program aims to launch a creative awareness-building efforts on the safe and ecological alternatives and strengthen the awareness of civil society groups towards chemical safety advocacies and appropriate policy development.

Responsibilities:

1.Organize a national NGO/CSO workshop on "Chemical Safety: Protecting the Filipino Consumers from Toxic Harm".
2.Organize public information, education and communication (IEC) activities on chemical safety issues.
3.Prepare IEC materials and press releases.
4.Liquidate project expenses and prepare necessary reports.
5.Participate in strategic meetings on chemical safety issues and policy development.


Job requirements:

* With experience in environmental, health and related work, either as staff or volunteer
* With leadership qualities and "people skills"
*Good oral and written communication skills, including writing of press releases and reports
* With project management skills
* Knowledge of financial management and financial report preparation
* Proven ability to work independently and in close coordination with a team
* Ability and willingness to travel


To apply, please send your resume to Rei Panaligan at ecowastecoalitionATyahooDOTcom not later than 18 November, 2008. For inquiries, please contact the EcoWaste Coalition at 9290376 or 09209062348.

Red Cliff

You should not miss Red Cliff (see Wikipedia entry about the film here), John Woo's first Chinese film after he went to Hollywood and did titles such as Mission Impossible and Face/Off. The film stars Tony Leung, Takeshi kaneshiro and Zhao Wei (from So Close).



Even sans flying, the fight scenes are superior, as can be expected from John Woo. The story is akin to that of the Trojan War, with talk about the need for a balance of power. The second part of the movie is coming in December and I can barely wait to see the second part. See trailer below:

She reached for the stars and fell back to earth

Senator Miriam Santiago really really wanted to be at the International Court of Justice. But she lost her bid and now she's back to the muck of the Senate where she has to share space with obviously lesser mortals.

So what went wrong? Several news reports said her election was assured as nine members of the Security Council gave written promises of support. But Senator Santiago said only five ultimately supported her; the other four reneged.

The reason for Sen Santiago's failed bid is simply our country's lack of political clout in the international community. And we were beaten by Somalia no less.

Why is this so? Because President Arroyo is perceived as weak in the international community. Even ASEAN, our very neighbors, almost brothers to us, did not solidly support Sen Santiago's bid. Utterly unacceptable. If we can not expect ASEAN to help us, who will? Now, we hear even Barack Obama does not return the calls of President Arroyo.

We as a country do not actively collect IOU's from other countries. When another country asks us a favor, we just do it. Despite the high calibre of our foreign service officers, it's embarrassing that we don't have a foreign policy. We never find a treaty we don't like(except the Rome Statute which we didn't sign because US told us not to). People in our embassies, demoralized as they are by events back home, just attend cocktails and wait for a Filipina maid to be executed to get busy doing what Filipino diplomats do best: supplicate.

Senator Santiago, in the greater karmic logic of the universe, is also not blameless. A justice in the ICJ is supposed to uphold the law. In her analysis of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, she said the treaty was unlawful and yet she championed it in the Senate nonetheless. In pushing for the JPEPA, she played power politics to her advantage. But at the United Nations, other countries played power politics on her and, this time, she lost.

Dos Palmas in Batangas

Dos Palmas, that resort of the Abu Sayaff kidnapping fame, is now operating a resort in Isla Verde, Batangas. It's quite a nice place and there are still very few people. The resort is still sort of on trial mode (soft launching was four months ago) so some amenities are not yet available, but, guests can snorkel and dive all they want. During the weekdays we were there, we had the place all to ourselves. The people are very friendly and the assistant cook (from Camarines Sur)was a wild dancer.

The blogger from Malaysia

In case you don't know it yet, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has been blogging for some time now, commenting on the many political issues in Malaysia and continuing his crusade against Anwar Ibrahim. The blog, www.chedet.com, has legions of fans and Mahathir even finds time to respond to comments, I'm told. New York Times's Seth Mydans has a write-up on Mahathir's blog, Malay Blogger Fights a System He Perfected.

Given the insecure state of freedom of speech in Malaysia, I often wonder what would happen if Mahathir gets arrested for his blog posts. It would definitely make for some riveting political drama.

What is your favorite film from Asia-Pacific?

CNN's Screening Room is having an online poll for the "favorite Asia Pacific movie of all time." The winner will receive the CNN APSA Viewers Choice award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards on November 11.

From the Philippines, there's Ishmael Bernal's Himala, which, really, is probably the best Filipino movie of all time, although Oro, Plata, Mata comes close. But judging from the stampede that happened at UP when its sequel premiered at the UP Film Center, Scorpio Nights is close to many Filipino hearts (or loins). (I also saw the Korean remake of Scorpio Nights and it is also quite good, but not many Filipino have seen it.)

Among the nominated films for the poll, the two best for me are Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express. I can still vividly remember the communal awe of the audience at the theater when Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi started leaping over walls and fighting for the possession of Chow Yun Fat's sword. Chungking Express is also a gem of a movie, Wong Kar Wai's best work before his artistry got the better of him and he started producing smoky films with extended soundtracks.

Infernal Affairs is also really good. I liked it so much I refuse to this day to watch Scorsese's The Departed, its Hollywood remake.

Recto's racist remark

NEDA Secretary Ralph Recto could have just said Secretary Margarito Teves was tired after a long day. It would have been perfectly understandable. But instead he explained Secretary Teves's prematurely telling President Arroyo of a US$ 10 B World Bank support fund by saying that the latter was probably confused who the white guy he was talking with in Washington DC. After all, according to Secretary Recto, "They're Caucasians and they look alike."

I think such a comment is racist. You often hear it from wisecrackers who dismiss Asians. There are even some people who seriously suspect that this "they all look alike anyway" mentality also partly explains why the United States chose to drop the atomic bomb in Japan and not in Germany.

I bet Secretary Recto would also feel bad if Caucasians confuse him with, say, Secretary Romulo Neri, his predecessor at NEDA, when he goes abroad. We don't like it when we hear Caucasians say we Asians all look alike. We also should not say it about them. Because, truth of the matter is, Caucasians don't look anywhere alike. One would have thought Secretary Recto knew better.

Charge it on the general's card

This is the second time a general's wife is travelling with too much cash. First, there was General Garcia's wife; now, there's Gen. Eliseo de la Paz, his wife and P6.93 M in St Petersburg. In what seems to be an overreaction especially given Secretary Puno's assurance that nothing was irregular, Gen. Verzosa is suspending all foreign travel by our police. What if there's an important urgent foreign travel that needs to be done?

Really, the solution to this "contingency fund" problem is simple. The PNP should issue an expense account credit card for the the generals travelling. That way, all expenses are easily accounted for and no need to carry too much cash.