Tubong Lugaw

 

YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED

Dine with the President of Clark Development Corporation, Atty. Agnes VST Devanadera, as she celebrates her first birthday in Clark in a meaningful way! 

IT COULD – as it should – have been the grandest birthday bash ever at the Clark Freeport. Had the conviviality, aye, the cordiality did not end right there. And with it, whatever well-meaning the invitation carried utterly lost along the way.

LUGAW FOR A CAUSE

So, it said. But what specific advocacy Madame Devanadera’s birthday was intended for, alas, did not merit the least mention in the printed invitation. Absent the cause, present the cost: Admit One/PHP5,000 on a perforated stub attached to the invite.  

Easily – as the dear lamented Gov. Bren Z. Guiao was wont to say – the priciest rice porridge ever!

“I thought we were being offered a franchise for Lugaw Republic,” said an aghast locator, referencing the successful ascent in the business hierarchy of the lowly food carts serving what has come to be hyped as “Ang Pambansang Lugaw.” His company received 10 tickets – “good as sold.”

Mistaking it as an adjunct of Lugaw ni Leni – the supplementary feeding program for the hungry initiated by the beloved former vice president – an unrepentant “Pinklawan” locator welcomed the “substantial number” of invitations that went his way, only to wail in lamentation later.   

Another did indeed think the event was to raise funds for a feeding program for the indigenous kids in the communities contiguous to the freeport and “paid for a number of invites with all the goodness in my heart.” 

On the other hand, there was only bitterness at the very core of the corporate being of at least two managerial level executives. (No names here in deference to the request of my sources for complete anonymity, lest they be exposed to reprisals. Their word, not mine.)

Given the uncertainties that the implementing rules and regulations of the CREATE Law and certain BIR issuances impacted upon their companies, Devanadera’s Lugaw for a Cause was likened to “death row’s last meal” – paid for by the state and on request of the prisoner before his execution.

“On second thought, much worse, as we even paid for it,” one quipped.

To the beleaguered members of the Association of Concerned CDC Employees, Devanadera’s birthday bash was the “height of insensitivity adding insult to injury” in their struggle to regain what is “justly ours unjustly taken away by agents of the state.”

“If she really wanted a meaningful way to celebrate her first birthday as president of CDC, she could have taken our cause as her own, truly befitting of a caring, compassionate leader,” said a unionist.  

Aye, the struggle continues, comrade.

Incidentally, did Lugaw for a Cause have a permit from the Department of Social Welfare and Development? I did not see in the invite the usual DSWD Special Permit XXXX imprinted on fund-raising tickets of old.

Isn’t there some violation here?

Expressly cited by DSWD Circular NO. 05 S-2021 – Guidelines in the Processing of Regional and National Solicitation Permits is EO No. 292 (The Administrative Code of 1987) 3.2 Title XVI, Chapter 9 (Fund Drive), Section No. 20 that states any person, corporation, organization or association desiring to solicit or receive contributions for charitable or public welfare purposes shall first secure a permit from the Regional Offices of the Department.

Still and all, here is one uninvited wishing you a belated happy birthday, Madame.