I was in Bohol over the weekend for a short leave from my computer. As usual, when I got back last Sunday, I got a huge number of emails to read. I noticed a lot of these emails were from many businessmen who forwarded their emails to me expressing their full support to Mr. Efrain Pelaez Jr. on his crusade against corruption, specifically about the latest suit that he personally filed against Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza.
Just when we thought that Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza had the upper hand – first by winning his reelection bid and then having his suspension lifted by the Ombudsman even before its expiry date – then came that other explosive exposé by Jun Pelaez, this time, another complaint for corruption that included some 19 officials of Lapu-Lapu City for an alleged anomalous purchase of some 470 units of computers amounting to P23.4 million purportedly costing some P50,000 per unit.
What is highly questionable is that, these days, computers cost very much less than the figure per unit that was purchased by Lapu-Lapu City. Worse, the purchase request was for Pentium 4 processors but Celeron processors were delivered, which were very much lower in price than the Pentium 4. I understand from the news reports that the winning bidder was Klein Enterprises, whose capitalization was only P30,000 and held office only in an apartment. Who owns Klein Enterprises and why it won this bidding is something that the Ombudsman should look into.
Call this the next chapter or another battle in the raging war in Mactan waged by irate businessmen of the Mactan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. vs. the Lapu-Lapu City Mayor. No doubt that Mayor Radaza is incensed by the lags of Jun Pelaez. But should we blame Jun Pelaez for waging this war against Mayor Radaza? No sir! Taxpayers also have the right to check the behavior of elected officials.
If there is anyone to blame, it should be Mayor Radaza and his officials in the City of Lapu-Lapu for allowing themselves to be put in the spot with this computer deal that on paper looks highly anomalous. They probably think that businessmen are stupid and could not see through the huge difference in the prices of a computer vis-à-vis the prices that the City of Lapu-Lapu paid for.
So, will this new case filed against Mayor Radaza result in another preventive suspension and perhaps the suspension of all the 19 Lapu-Lapu City officials? This is the job of the new Ombudsman in the Visayas. But I wouldn’t count Mayor Radaza out yet because I’m certain that he still has enough tricks up his sleeve. Just look at the record of cases filed against him and the very high rate of dismissal of his criminal cases. I dare say that we should insist that Justice be served and meted against corrupt gov’t officials.
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (Unesco) is currently holding the Unesco HIV-AIDS Prevention Workshop for Teachers of Asia, the Philippine Adaptation of the HIV Preventive Education Information Kit for School Teachers at the Cebu Normal University (CNU) yesterday and today with Unesco Amb. Preciosa Soliven and Ms. Rosanne Wong, Unesco Bangkok Program Officer for HIV and Preventive Education. Also in the workshop is Dr. Susan Gregorio of the Philippine National AIDS Council. This workshop is part of Unesco’s Lifelong Learning, literally a “cradle-to-grave” educational process.
Last year Amb. Soliven was in Cebu having a workshop on Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development. This year’s workshop focuses on the worldwide plague called HIV-AIDS, where Metro Cebu is considered a “hotspot”. While HIV-AIDS isn’t common in Cebu we certainly do not want the dreaded disease to spread to a point it could no longer be contained.
I’m happy that the thrust of Unesco is education through a Teacher’s Kit so that they can easily teach our youth about the danger of AIDS. Perhaps when those teachers finish this workshop, they ought to also teach the Philippine National Police (PNP) especially those in the Vice Squad whose job is to rid our streets of prostitutes and pimps. Alas, too often it is the police who give these people some kind of “protection.” If and when our policemen realize the dangers of HIV-AIDS, perhaps they would work harder to stop the spread of AIDS, which men often get from the women in the sex trade. We’re lucky in Cebu that AIDS is not yet rampant. We need to nip this problem in the bud before it’s too already late to stop it.
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