Advocacy, friendship, truth (4)

Ben Contreras

LIKE the Regional Director of LTO who introduced change thereby depriving certain people their additional/extra income, Ralph may have stepped on big toes or deprived a few with their sidelines. But the bigger picture is the industry itself.

More investors are coming in. More infrastructures are to be implemented. Big buildings are sprouting everywhere. All these would require huge amount of sand and gravel and even filling materials.

CLENRO has always been a money making office. Properly managed, it can bring in huge income to the city coffer. But because there are dishonest people inside CLENRO, any honest man is taboo to them.

I have a copy of a Monitoring Monthly Accomplishment Report for the month of May 2014 duly signed by Norman S. Rosal. Mayor Moreno, please get a copy of this.

The report enumerates names of sand and gravel permit holders with their respective monthly production. Three have 10 cubic meter monthly production, one of which is using backhoe. I wonder which one of these who have no heavy equipment to use but was able to report hundreds of cubic meter.

10 cubic meters! That’s baloney! It’s not even one dump truck load. To think that this report has not been taken up during CMRB meetings is reason enough to believe that this report is being intentionally glossed over.

The very same reason why Ralph’s recommendation dating back October last year never saw the light of day being discussed, the very same reason some documents of an application were hostaged and the very same reason why Joy resigned. Unsa man ta, mga bugok? Dili makasabot?

Personally, I still hope that Edwin Dael has not been eaten by the system. I sincerely hope that he was just pressured to dance with the music. I pray for him to come home.

Edwin had a tiff with Kokong Quiblat and he would call me up from time to time about his problems. Kokong was OSM’s man at the “basurahan”. But Edwin complained of Kokong meddling in his job and encroaching in his territory.

But Kokong is OSM’s man. OSM sided with him. Roy Raagas defended Edwin. And when the conversation between OSM and Roy turned ugly, “wala man koy utang kabubut-on nimo Roy”, it was like a slap on Roy’s face! Roy then went missing and agonizing. Ralph spent more than 24 hours to locate Roy. And when he did, the rest is history!

Is Edwin really dancing with the music? “Can Edwin deliver?” This was asked of Roy Raagas when he defended Edwin. If Edwin is being pressured, where is the pressure coming from?

Edwin’s mistake that led to where and what he is now may have started when he acceded to the request of the congressman to give Gayla two booklets of Delivery Receipts while his application is being process. He consulted Ralph, begging on this and was advised not to. Ralph’s wife is a witness to this conversation. He did and it was allegedly repeated with another two. With that, Edwin has unwittingly lost the moral ascendancy to his position. What can stop the others to also demand the same favor? No wonder Gayla can raise his voice inside the office of Edwin with us around demanding more DRs.

With the potential of CLENRO as a money-making office, there also are potentials “buayas” waiting to cash in in the guise of authority. They are supposed to be Ralph’s friends but are not lifting a finger to help Ralph.

Change! We seek change but aren’t getting it. Instead, we are, as one leader of an advocacy group said, getting the lesser evil. We are stuck in a rut! The only difference I see is that OSM is doing a lot of good things to compensate or camouflage for the negative feedbacks against him.

Let the people of Cagayan de Oro judge this administration for themselves.

Ralph can take care of himself. He has his plans. How he will fight with truth as his only tool may open cans of worms.

You want to talk of “conflict of interest”, let’s talk about it next! (to be continued)

(Ben Contreras worked for a mining company but, at the same time, he was actively involved as a volunteer in environmental advocacy work. He and his close associate Ralph Abragan were also involved in the local mining regulatory board and in some actual operations against illegal miners in the city. Their involvement with the regulatory board stopped when the environmental group Sulog replaced Abragan as its representative to the board after finding out that he was engaged in the business of quarrying. Not even a punctuation mark in this opinion piece has been touched so that it can be read as is, and exactly how it was written. The author’s views do not necessarily reflect the position of this paper or any of its staff members who are in no way involved in mining or quarrying. -Editors)