Before Arlene cries again

Churchill Aguilar

WHILE Oca Moreno and Ian Acenas continue to fight legitimacy for mayorship in Cagayan de Oro, it would be easy to get derailed by personal emotions and loyalty to the personalities involved forgetting the real issue why such problem took place in the first place.

Let us be reminded therefore why the ombudsman made a ruling on dismissing Oca and perpetually barring him from holding a public office. The ombudsman has ordered the mayor in connection with a tax settlement between city hall and Ajinomoto Philippines. It was found that Oca and city treasurer Glenn Banez violated the Local Government Code by agreeing on a tax settlement with Ajinomoto without prior authorization from the city council.

The ruling from the ombudsman has officially established the fact that indeed there was a tax settlement between the city hall and Ajinomoto. That tax settlement involves giving the company a discount of more or less P2.5 million on its tax dues. While tax discounts can be a strategy to encourage investors to invest, the case of Ajinomoto’s discount was just too irregular and was done beyond the powers of the chief executive, thus the dismissal.

And take note, the mayor’s excuse was that he has no knowledge of such deal. A deal involving more than P2 million happened under the mayor’s nose without him knowing it? And if such thing happened, I could not begin to imagine what else is going on underneath without his knowledge as he claims. And the fact that the city council did not do anything about it (it was former barangay chairman William Guialani who filed the case), then that is enough reason to doubt that perhaps they may have also been benefited by such settlement. Otherwise, they, too, were too lax on their job. And their excuse was “naunhan lang mi ug file.” Again, how convenient.

Ang grabe ka sakit pamalandungon kai kung wala sila ni pasaylo ug nihatag ug diskwento sa mga sari-sari stores ug mga barber shops pag kolekta ug tax nga intawon mao ra gyud na ang panginabuhi sa mga pobre nga naningkamot mabuhi, ngano nakaya nila ug hatag ug diskwento nga minilyon sa us aka dako na kayung kompanya? If they collected the tax in full, they could have given about 3,000 families of sari-sari store owners a discount of P1,000 in tax and still have the same amount of tax collected in the city.  Isn’t this a big affirmation that the administration is indeed anti-poor?

Kanus-a pa kaha ta makakita ug mayor nga ang unahon sa agenda ang mga pobre? Kanus-a pa kaha ta maka konseho nga ang pirmi pandayun nga bala-od mao ang pag hatag ug benepisyo sa mga pobre, dili away politika?  Ang mga sapi-an kabalo na mu protekta sa ilang interest basta naa lang klaro nga peace and order sa lugar, pero ang mga pobre nag kinahanglan sa gobyerno para maka tindog ug ma haruhay.

So before we take matters to the streets, let us ask ourselves, are the leaders we are trying to support really supporting our interests, too?  Or gaka luoy lang ta sa ila. Sila intawon wa gyud na luoy sa ato.