Cityhood: all about money or finality?

Flash: A Eurasian interior designer has been yanked off an Australian reality-TV show for being the daughter of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. So reported the online news.com.au this week, citing The Daily Telegraph. Producers allegedly called celebrity designer Analisa Hegyesi days ago to say she was off the show that has yet to begin taping home makeovers. Analisa was quoted as saying she was shown the door because of her controversial parentage. Her mother is Evelin Hegyesi, a 1970s bikini and Playboy model. The news item carried Analisa’s photo. (See: www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/ferdinand-marcos-girl-is-shown-the-door/story-e6frfmqr-1226030520002)

Journalist Ellen Tordesillas, fast-rewinding to July 2004, recalls an item from the Sydney Morning Herald. Featured in the story, “Hunt for Tyrant’s Millions Leads to Former Model’s Home,” was Evelin. She was then 57, living in a posh beachfront district of Sydney. Reportedly Evelin gave birth to Analisa, second name Josefa, in 1971. Soon afterwards, she supposedly inherited millions of dollars from President-for-life Marcos, who fell from power in 1986. That story carried Evelin’s pix. (See: www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/03/1088488200806.html)

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Justice Sec. Leila de Lima demands that Sen. Panfilo Lacson name the pals who helped him hide for over a year. It’s unlikely she’ll extract such info from him. De Lima has threatened to charge him with flouting the arrest warrant for the kidnapping-murder of Salvador Dacer and Emmanuel Corbito. This gives Lacson all the more cause to clam up, on grounds of self-incrimination. Too, the appellate court’s quashing of the warrant, since the star witness who has yet to testify is incredible, jumbles the issue in his favor.

De Lima will have to rely on agencies under her to reconstruct Lacson’s whereabouts from January 2010 to March 2011. To start with, the immigration office has the numbered travel document that he used last weekend to enter Cebu from Hong Kong. From the issuing Philippine consul and the processing time, de Lima can trace how long Lacson was last in Hong Kong — or Macau, or Mainland China.

Meantime, de Lima can cajole Lacson into identifying the mastermind he claims to know. This matter borders on the senator’s reputation as former chief of the National Police. He held the post at the time of the heinous crimes in November 2000. As such, he had the duty to find out who had garroted the prominent publicist Dacer and driver Corbito. More so since his men, Colonels Michael Ray Aquino, Cezar Mancao and Teofilo Viña, and Major Glenn Dumlao, were implicated.

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The issue of the “16 cityhood laws” used to be of constitutionality. Mayors of the 122 older cities once argued that since the 16 newcomers’ annual income is less than the required P100 million, they are ineligible under the equal-protection clause. Mayors of the latter retorted that since it was Congress that raised the income bar from P20 million to P100 million, it can also grant exemptions under its legislative powers. Both sides agreed to let the Supreme Court referee the debate.

Five years hence, the contentions have turned east and west, and never the twain shall meet. The 16 new cities now claim it’s all about money, that the 122 oldsters want to keep for themselves the internal revenue allotments from the national government. The latter are dismayed that the SC first upheld them, then junked them, then re-upheld them, only to junk them anew. They now contemplate impeaching certain justices for disrespecting closure of jurisprudence.

The 16 new cities are Baybay in Leyte; Bogo, Carcar and Naga in Cebu; Catbalogan in Samar; Tandag in Surigao del Sur; Borongan in Eastern Samar; Tayabas in Quezon; Lamitan in Basilan; Tabuk in Kalinga; Bayugan in Agusan del Sur; Batac in Ilocos Norte; Mati in Davao Oriental; Guihulngan in Negros Oriental; Cabadbaran in Agusan del Norte; and El Salvador in Misamis Oriental.

The 16 newcomers back with figures their “it’s all about money” line. They point up the 122 oldsters’ initial claim that IRA shares would diminish with the entry of low-revenue upstarts. But the 16 debunk the fear by citing the shares of 28 not-so-rich oldsters in the League of Cities of the Philippines. The 28 enjoyed jumps in IRA by tens of millions of pesos from 2006 to 2008, the year the 16 cityhood laws were implemented.

The 28 are Bais, Bayawan, Batangas, Cadiz, Calapan, Calbayog, Cauayan, General Santos, Gingoog, Himamaylan, Iloilo, Iriga, Legaspi, Ligao, Oroquieta, Pagadian, San Carlos, San Fernando, Santiago, Silay, Surigao, Tacurong, Tagaytay, Tarlac, Tangub, Urdaneta, Victorias, and Zamboanga.

The LCP maintains that it’s not about money at all. As oldsters, its members welcome cities that meet the P100-million mark: Sta. Rosa in 2003, Meycauayan in 2006, San Juan and Navotas in 2007, and Biñan and Dasmariñas in 2010. What it wants is finality in SC decisions. More so since, when the oldsters were first upheld in 2008, two motions for reconsideration were rejected, an Entry of Judgment was made, and the budget department already implemented it by withholding IRA from the 16. And yet followed three flip-flops in less than three years.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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