GARBAGE. Dirty water reservoir. Floods. Traffic. If these are symptoms of a city that’s aiming to be a metro city, then Cagayan de Oro is speeding fast on its way there and beyond.
For a while there, it did seem like city hall didn’t care anymore. Until the new green garbage trucks appeared on the streets, with one immediately getting involved in an accident, and another getting impounded for the lack of an Official Receipt and Certificate of Registration.
City hall has been busy collecting payments for business permits. Instead of one business permit for a business and all of its branches all over the city, it’s now one business permit for each business in each barangay. I don’t know if this is truly how it works now, but I’m too frustrated about the whole thing, I don’t have the energy anymore to ask city hall. I’m not even asking my CPA retainer. I simply want to know the amount I have to pay, and that’s it.
As if that’s not enough, there’s already a warning that real property taxes may — will? — increase next year. Whew. The price of being Pinoy.
And as if that’s not enough again, the flood control projects’ political beneficiaries may go free, much like what happened to Janet Napoles’s political beneficiaries who are again embroiled in these current congressional hearings. See? Absolutely no conscience at all. They would keep on stealing from the national treasury for as long as they have the power to do so.
If only we can use the flood control projects as an excuse to not pay taxes. You know, throw tantrums around, not paying taxes until they have built real flood control projects. Because apparently the existing ones are fake.
But we have to pay taxes even if the corrupt government officials and their favorite contractors continue to steal from the national treasury. We are expected to obey the rules while they don’t.
Yeah, tantrums galore: It’s so unfair! But will corrupt government officials listen to our whining? After the 1986 People Power’s aftermath went pfft, the current throne occupiers know they can always get away with whatever it is they do with the taxes we pay. The only gods they worship now are money and power. With greed urging them to crave for more.
I’m so tired of dealing with the government. Which is what I’ve been doing this year. Oh. Correction. Since forever. We put up a business. We pay taxes. And we get punished for declaring we have a business.
Meanwhile, illegal businesses go forth and multiply like bunnies, and their owners are always able to survive tax-free and to go scot-free, with much thanks to their powerful connections.
Pinas will never be able to progress from developing country status. It will stay there forevermore unless it manages to go down to a lower level—the least developed country. Oh. My. Gosh. God forbid.
The corrupt government officials’ example has been trickling down to the madlang pehpohl, by the way, with some Pinoy citizens now believing that if the bigwigs can steal, so can they.
