Finding solons, doing the math in Pampanga flood control projects

IT MAY only be No. 5 in the Top 10, but A.D. Gonzales Construction and Trading Co. Inc., the eponymous company of the immediate past House Senior Deputy Speaker and three-term Pampanga 3^rd District congressman, holds the largest funded single flood control projects in the province. 

Matrix of the A.D. Gonzales Construction company officials among the exhibits in the 2023 graft case filed against the congressman by barangay chair Terence Napao of Sto. Cristo, Mexico 

A listing in the “Sumbong sa Pangulo” website shows A.D. Gonzales Construction undertaking:

1)     the Abacan River diking and slope protection project in Mexico, Pampanga at a cost of P270.194 million reported completed on March 6, 2024; and

2)     flood control works on the Pasig-Potrero River and the San Fernando-Bacolor section of the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin Tail Dike at a cost of P257.255 million and completed on June 5, 2024. (Erroneously placed in La Union in the sumbong website). 

One more project listed under A.D. Gonzales Construction is another Abacan River diking, also in Mexico but distinguished as Phase I, with a cost of P96.496 million and completed on Nov. 23, 2023. 

Ferdstar Builders Contractors

Considered small in some grander hundred-million standard of infrastructure largesse, the cost of P96++ million – intriguingly – institutionalized some sort of mathematical equation among the contracts. 

                                    Beltran after taking oath as House member. 

This, most notable in Top 3 Ferdstar Builders Contractors Inc., listed as a sole proprietorship of Ferdinand Beltran, neophyte House member representing the – of all sectors – Magsasaka Partylist, with eight projects tagged at P96++M each, to wit:

1)     slope protection of Sapang Maragul, Betis, Guagua at P96.494M, Jan. 18. 2025;

2)     slope protection Guagua River Phase 2, Betis at P96.493M, Dec. 25, 2024;

3)     slope protection Upper Dalan Bapor Phase 2, Sasmuan at P96.494M, Dec. 19,2023

4)     rehab Guagua-Pasak River Phase 3 (with Cedar Construction), P96.489M, Feb. 11, 2023;

5)     rehab Guagua River, Sta. Ursula, Betis, P96.476M, Dec. 13, 2022;

6)     slope protection Betis River, P96.491M, Nov. 22, 2022;

7)     slope protection Angeles City-Porac Bypass Phase 2, P96.143M, Nov. 11, 2022; and

8)     slope protection Angeles City-Porac Bypass Phase 3 (with Tonka Construction), P96.098M, Nov. 16, 2022.    

Variation of the P96++M constant in Ferdstar Builders’ undertaking were a smaller – P72,358M slope protection in Sapang Maragul, Guagua completed on Nov. 27, 2022; and a much bigger – P144.750M flood control and slope protection at the Pasig-Potrero in Bacolor and Porac completed on March 7, 2024. 

Incidentally, Ferdstar Builders in April 2025 was awarded the contract for Phase 2 diking and slope protection works along Abacan River in Mexico, taking after A/D. Gonzales Construction. 

Sto. Cristo Construction & Trading

Ferdstar’s top contract of P144.750M for Pasig-Potrero though was but one of four similarly priced for Sto. Cristo Construction and Trading Inc. of one Noel J. Cruz, all slope protection works at the Malasik River, in Candaba town, to wit:  

1)     Barangca Section, P144.750M, July 16, 2024;

2)     Magumbali Section, P144.750M, May 16, 2024;

3)     Mapaniqui Secction, P144.750M, May 16, 2024; and

4)     Salapungan Section, P144.750M, May 16, 2024.

Lower but as invariant values also obtained in more slope protection project by the same firm at the same Malasik River:

1)     Magumbali Section, P91.095M, Dec. 15, 2024;

2)     San Agustin Section Phase 1, P91.095M, Dec. 11, 2024;

3)     San Agustin Phase 2, P91.192M, Feb. 3, 2024;

4)     Barangca Section Phase 4, P78.798M, Nov. 1, 2024;

5)     Barangca Section Phase 3, P78.798M, Nov. 1, 2024;

6)     San Agustin Section Phase 3, P78.857, Oct. 21, 2024

                        Damaged Malasik River slope protection

                        Ongoing repair 

The lowest cost of Malasik River projects – P68.394M at Barangca Phase 2 – seemingly set the tone for those at Maasim River, also in Candaba, to wit:

1)     damaged dike rehab Vizal San Pablo Phase 1, P68.321M, Jan. 25, 2024;

2)     damages dike rehab Vizal San Pablo Phase 2, P68.394M, Jan. 19,2024;

3)     slope protection Phase 2 Pulong Gubat, P68.321M, Jan. 11, 2024;

4)     slope protection Phase 1 Bahay Pare, P68.321M, Jan. 11, 2024; and

5)     slope protection Phase 2 Bahay Pare, P68.321M, Feb. 12, 2024.

Outside Candaba, Sto. Cristo Construction did projects in Arayat: riverbank revetment Phase 2 San Mateo, P91.095M, Nov. 16, 2024; in Apalit: slope protection Sapang Are, P74.883M, Nov. 11, 2024; and in Floridablanca: slope protection Valdez Section of Porac River, P48.844M, in Sept. 14, 2022. 

By the sheer number of projects, Sto Cristo Construction is Top 1 in Pampanga with P1.713-B. The Malasik River projects alone already amounting to P1.157 billion.

Eddmari Construction & Trading

Candating, Arayat: The very “face of failed flood control projects,” as Sen. Ping Lacson put it in his privilege speech that launched government investigations and opened the floodgates, no pun intended, of public denunciations, of rants and rages over the shameless ostentation of wealth of contractors and what have come to be called their “nepo babies.”

Candating, infamously Sisyphean in its cycle of destruction and rehabilitation, inevitably becoming itself the face of its contractor – Eddmari Construction and Trading, at Top 4 is a slot ahead of A.D. Gonzales Construction by P40 million in total flood control project allocation.  

Recurrence relation again obtained in the cost of the Candating rehabilitation projects, to wit:

1)     P91.626M, Oct. 17, 2023;

2)     Phase 1: P91.485M, Nov. 5, 2024; and

3)     Phase 2: P91.485M, Nov. 4, 2024.

As well as in two other Eddmari projects: flood control at Dalaquitan Bridge, Sto. Tomas, P91.674M, Feb. 22, 2024; and slope protection in barangays Cupang and Guemasan, Arayat, P91.578M, Jan. 19, 2025.

Furthermore, revetment wall of the Pampanga Delta project in Capalangan, Apalit, P74.883M, March 5, 2025; drainage system in barangays Cabalantian and San Vicente, Bacolor, P37.239M, Aug 7, 2022.

Plus, a joint project with Nulas Builders: rehabilitation of eroded riverbank in San Juan, San Luis, P83.810M, Oct. 26, 2022.

That last project instantly raised a moral red flag: Eddmari owner Edgardo A. Sagum is close kin to Dr. Jayson Sagum, the mayor of San Luis who, himself is the husband of Pampanga 4^th District Rep. Anna York P. Bondoc.

Congresswoman Bondoc with Edgardo Sagum and Eddmari executives and DPWH official at the company's event. Source: FB 

                              House Speaker Martin Romualdez in the same event 

For all it’s worth, Eddmari Construction is in joint venture partnership with J.H. Pajara Construction Company in the construction of the ₱566.6-million Pampanga Delta Bridge Project implemented by DPWH Unified Project Managent Office – Bridges Management Cluster. 

Pampanga Delta Bridge inspection by DPWH Usec Sadain with Eddmari's Sagum, among others  

Reported in September 2022 by DPWH Senior Undersecretary Emil K. Sadain as 88% complete despite disruptions wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 270-meter bridge has remained incomplete three years after. 

Only last Aug. 21, Congresswoman Bondoc assured the public that the Pampanga Delta Bridge Project will be completed by 2027, after “ironing out remaining components of the project” with DPWH-3 officials.

No ghost hunting

Reported to have been completed – as indicated in dates attached per item – no phantom projects obtain in Pampanga, at least on paper.

Unarguably, a number of these projects – Candating, Malasik River foremost – have been found substandard in their construction, at the minimum. Thereby, meriting the deepest investigation by the most competent and independent authority. The inclusion in any and all fact-finding probe of the government officials and members of their families with even the slightest involvement in the contracts, a sine qua non.

This, not so much in aid of legislation or pursuant to political ambition but in the interest of justice. In the service of the Filipino people, the Kapampangan most particularly.     

 

 

                                                       

 

    

 

Pampanga mayors' vow: To serve with honor, lead with integrity

 

“CORRUPTION IS not only illegal – it is a betrayal of the trust reposed upon us by our constituents.”

Thus, the League of Municipalities of the Philippines-Pampanga Chapter declared in an official statement during the Pampanga Business and Investment Forum 2025 held at the Kingsborough Convention Center in the City of San Fernando on Aug. 27. 

The local chief executives “categorically denounce all forms of corruption, in any level and in any guise, for it robs our people of resources that are meant for their welfare and their future.”

Citing the current public discourse on the flood control and infrastructure anomalies, the mayors highlighted transparency and accountability as “the guiding principle in all areas of governance – in health, education, social services, procurement, budgeting and local legislation.

Toward that end, they committed themselves to:

“Demand transparency in the use of public funds and ensure that all programs and projects are aligned with the real needs of our people;

Promote accountability by strengthening internal controls, reporting mechanisms, and participatory governance; and

Safeguard the public trust through proactive measures that prevent misuse of government resources and ensure equitable delivery of services.”    

Adhering to the highest tenets of public administration thus: “Our people deserve nothing less than a government that is clean, transparent, and accountable.”

Ending with a call to arms: “Together, let us reaffirm our pledge to serve with honor, to lead with integrity, and to build a Pampanga where governance is defined by trust, not tainted by corruption.”

So, help them God.

Disservice to the people

So, it cannot be helped to feel some bitter sense of irony as much in the statement of the mayors’ league as in the very locus of its issuance. 

It was but 22 days back, Aug. 5, at that same room of the same Kingsborough Convention Center that these same mayors took their “Panunumpa ng Lingkod-Bayan,” vowing:

“… ako’y maglilingkod nang buong katapatan, malasakit, at kahusayan, na walang kinikilingan.

Isusulong ko ang katarungan, katotohanan, at kapayapaan; ilalaban ko ang tama, lalabanan ang mali, at isasantabi ang pansariling interes alang-alang sa kapakanan ng bayan.

Paninindigan ko ang prinsipyo ng mabuting pamamahala: ang pagiging bukas, tapat, makatao, at makabayan.

Ipagkakaloob ko ang aking panahon, talino, at lakas sa matapat at makabuluhang paglilingkod sa mamamayan, anuman ang katayuan, paniniwala, o pinanggalingan nila.

Ako ay mananatiling tapat sa aking sinumpaang tungkulin sa buong panahon ng aking panunungkulan.

Hindi ko pababayaan ang tiwalang ipinagkaloob sa akin ng taumbayan.

Ako ay lingkod ng bayan. Taumbayan ang aking paglilingkuran.” 

That pledge, serving as the leitmotif of the LEAD (Leadership, Ethics, Accountability, and Development in Local Governance) Program conducted by the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Pampanga Provincial Government.

Ethics there fleeing with San Simon Mayor Abundio “JP” Punsalan’s date with destiny over P30 million at Café Mesa in Clark Freeport Zone in the afternoon of that same day.  

“Pasumpa-sumpa ka pa, ‘tangna ka,” that old ditty about broken vows went viral with photos of Punsalan pledging to ethical public service juxtaposed with video clips of his arrest by the NBI. Those bundles of crisp P500 bills, just too damning. 

Out of 21, only one. Punsalan can be readily dismissed as an isolated case among the mayors of Pampanga. Fair enough. 

What cannot be helped, if only in this instance, is the diminishing credibility of pledges verily taken on one’s honor. Gone the way of political promises, pledges are routinely broken, peeled of all virtue, clothed in shame.   

Pledges can only be redeemed in deeds. It is not even enough to just walk the talk. Live the vow is what matters most.  

 

 

Candating contradictions: Sen. Ping's revelations belie Cong Dong's declarations

ONLY LAST January then-House Senior Deputy Speaker and Pampanga 3^rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. said the flood control project in Candating, Arayat – damaged at the onslaught of Super Typhoon Carina in August 2024 – will be repaired at no cost to the government.

“The project, a 110.2-meter flood mitigation structure, suffered damage due to a combination of natural forces and design vulnerabilities,” said Gonzales, a civil engineer himself.

Emphasizing: “The repair is expected to be completed by April 2025 at no cost to the government, as the project is still under warranty (by the contractor).”

And noting that “Officials are also considering additional measures to prevent future occurrences.”

Only last July, the same flood control project in Candating was again damaged in the wake of the southwest monsoon and series of weather disturbances – the Gonzales-expected repair completion date of April 2025 all too obviously unmet. This, ascertained in the separate site-visits of Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda and Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, both finding difficulty, if not impossibility, in seeing whatever repair was undertaken. 

Belied there was Gonzales’ claim of “officials… considering additional measures to prevent future occurrences.” It happened, like that excremental slang says. With the stink pervading not only the site but wafting to the contractor, the DPWH, and the House itself.  

Face of failure

Yesterday, Aug. 20, the Candating flood control project was inflicted anew upon the national consciousness with the stinging privilege speech of Sen. Ping Lacson.

“The face of failed flood control projects,” said Lacson of Candating, evidenced by the year-after-year program for its rehabilitation uniformly pegged at P100 million, its contract price as uniformly tagged at P91 million, its contract as uniformly awarded to Eddmari Construction and Trading Corp.  

Notable in Lacson’s presented graphics is the second entry of P91,485,523 for 2024 – presumably the cost of the repair post-August 2024 damage, and the P100 million for 2025. This evidently putting the lie to Gonzales’ declaration of the repair to be undertaken by the contractor “at no cost to the government.”

How Eddmari Construction still managed to snag the contracts for the same projects after repeated failure, Lacson did not have to say.  

Sufficed to prove his point, perhaps, how the original P20 million for the project in 2018, ballooned to over P274.8M in repeated repairs, all awarded to the Eddmari Construction and still collapsing. 

The company has a reputation in Pampanga, way beyond the congressional district where the Candating flood control project is sited. Giving rise to all kinds of speculations, malicious ones included.

Gonzales: Fake news  

In his press statements last January, then-SDS Gonzales was quick to dismiss any involvement in the Candating project.

“Marami pong fake news ang kumakalat na pilit inuugnay ako at ang aking pamilya sa pagkasira ng dike. Para sa kaalaman ng lahat, wala po akong kinalaman, o ang aking pamilya, sa implementasyon ng programang ito,” he was quoted as saying then.

Clarifying, thus: “Nililinaw ko po na ang tanging kontribusyon ko ay maghanap ng pondo upang magpagawa ng mga mahahalagang proyekto sa ikatlong distrito ng Pampanga, katulad ng Candating dike. Yun lamang po. Malaki po ang pasalamat ko sa DPWH at nasama ang proyektong ito sa kanilang priority programs.”

“And just to set the record straight: hindi po ako ang contractor ng Candating dike. Wala po akong kinalaman, o ang aking pamilya, kung papaano na-implement ang proyektong ito,” said Gonzales whose daughter Mica has since succeeded him to his 3^rd District congressional seat.

Foto story

At the time of the August 2024 collapse of the Candating flood control, Gonzales did not figure in any story relating to it. It was the DPWH that veritably stood as the outspoken spokesperson for the contractor that it did not even name then. 

“Notwithstanding the posted notices on the P91.485-million project where the contractor was prominently named, there was no mention of it in the DPWH statement issued on Aug 18. And given the gravity of the damage, it was rather uncanny of DPWH to fail – miserably — to even mention what the contractor is bound to do to correct such epic engineering failure, including possible compensation to the households damaged and/or imperiled by the dike collapse; what sanctions it would impose on the contractor, etc. – the usual provisos in contracts, government or private.”

So, we published in Punto! on Aug. 21, 2024. (https://punto.com.ph/unraveling-in-candating/)

Furthered: “In effect, the DPWH stood for the contractor not only as spokesperson but its very front. This, not a few netizens noticed, thereby sending Punto! some photos that they hoped could unravel – even if only partly – the story behind the collapse of the dike in Candating which could impact on the other projects DPWH awarded to this contactor, er, contractor.”

Enough of that saying of a picture’s worth. Shucks.

 

Is that Pasudeco’s chimney rising at Capital Town anew?

 

                                                    

ICONIC smokestacks that merited a place in the official seal of the Province of Pampanga – detailed in the old, representative in the new – vanished with the dismantling of the storied sugar central that was Pasudeco – registered business name: Pampanga Sugar Development Company – at the start of the groundwork for Megaworld’s Capital Town some seven years ago.

 

Actually, three chimneys in all, but one collapsed even before the developer’s first shovel struck ground, one returned – refurbished like new, and then there is the so-called Smokestack No. 2 which absence raised a howl from the city government under then-Mayor Edwin Santiago, joined in by the cries of the local culturati harmonized in the call to preserve a piece of Kapampangan heritage.

“A future built on heritage.” Megaworld’s blurb for Capital Town in its initial presentation veritably went up in smoke sans Smokestack No. 2.

Some broken promise or untruth in its advert levelled at Megaworld hence, affirmed, unwittingly in all probability, with the coming of its new pitch of “Heritage meets progress at Capital Town.” 

The pursuit of progress at the expense of heritage, what with all the buildings rising.  

The heritage part complied in nothing other than the seasonal calesa rides at the site. So, it seemed.     

 

And then, from out some greenery dark metal tower steadily rising, the form of a chimney shaping. 

An official announcement has yet to be issued by Megaworld if the structure is indeed Smokestack No. 2 in replica reborn. But to the city’s culture vultures, it is enough reassurance of a returned heritage to lavish on again. 

Photos of old Pasudeco and new tower by BZL. Other photos by Megaworld Capital Town 

 

A TikTok disconnect

 

LV redefined to Lim -- BM Sherwin, and Vilma -- Mayor Caluag. Photo: Sherwin Lim FB page

DON’T LOOK now but the political fallout from the fiduciary blowup ignited by Pampanga 3^rd District board member Shiwen Lim has drifted to City of San Fernando Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag.  

And her honor – if she chooses to – can only blame the newbie bokal, aka Estelito Lim, as he has only himself to blame for this consequence as unmitigated as the quagmire of his own making.

The blame game has been much overplayed by Lim that it backfired and struck him senseless, granting that he has some semblance of sense in the first place.

For the promised interest of unreturned investments, he blamed his self-declared – sans any court issuance – bankruptcy of his Umpukan venture.

For the public outcry of the scores of victims of his schemes, Lim blamed a “media outlet” for publishing on Aug. 1 the notice of garnishment of his accounts with Land Bank of the Philippines-JASA Branch. “Hindi ko alam ba’t sinapubliko pa ng ibang Tao,” he said in a post on the same day.

Aye, the very publication of the story – only Punto! carried it – Lim blamed on politicians still smarting from his winning alliance with their rivals in the last polls, thereby driving them to instantaneously see red at his courtesy call on Mayor Vi, with whom he established a putative friendship most manifest in TikTok and other platforms during the campaign.  

As immediate was the backlash in social media with the mayor’s good name virtually dragged into the quandary. Just goes to show how impacted is the public mind with the perceived bond of friendship gluing the two as one. (Posts adjusted for punctuations, capitalization, abbreviations, grammar. Direct imputation of scamming deleted)  

“Ooooppps! Ka-friendship ni Mayora? Hmmm.”

“May kilala ako, Mayora Vilma ang pangalan. Galit sa kurakot at mandarambong, pero ito oh friendship niya naglalaro ng yaman-yaman, (deleted) pala.”

“Galit sa mga kurakot pero may BFF na (deleted).”

“Kunwari lang naman yata galit si Vilman sa kurakot. E malamang alam nyang (deleted) yang kaibigan niya. Pareho pa nga yata.

“Ganyan pala ang kaibigan na gusto mo Vilma, (deleted). At puro utang…”

“Eto yung mga uri ng kaibigan ni Vilma, kaya wag kayong maniniwala sa mga mayayaman na nagti-TikTok agad. May mga scammer dyan. Magkakaibigan sila.”

“Sinasabi ko na nga ba eh mga friendship! Same-same sila mga pasikat pero manloloko!”

“Grabe ang friendship goals nyo Mayora ha! (deleted)”

“Proud siguro si friendship Vilma hahaha.”

“Kadiri ang friendship nyo! Huwag niyo na kame idamay, Mayora please lang.”

“Bestie sa pag-(deleted) sa mga tao ano? ‘Yan ang tunay na pagkakaibigan.”

“Tanong ko lang po tandem din po ba kayo pagdating sa pag-(deleted)?”

“Mag-friendship talaga kayo ni Vilma. Parehas kayo ng galawan…”

“Vlogger yan sa TikTok … umaastang mayaman (deleted) naman pala, tapos kaibigan pa ni Mayora Vilma, ay matik yan!”

Ostensibly, these netizens’ collective mind is fixed on that age-old truism of same feathered birds flocking together, and – if I may add – the predators among them preying, aye, scavenging, in pairs.

Or, that ancient adage too of one’s real self revealed in the kind of friends one keeps.   

Of course, sayings, maxims, euphemisms, trite as truisms are, do not come anywhere close to Gospel truth. But still, grains of it obtain in them. Else they would not have survived, more so thrived, all these years.  

In the matter of showing who your friends are to show who you are, the certainty lies in knowing that kind of person you are based on what you’re willing to indulge, oblige, tolerate, or accept. Like, you keep friendship with a scammer, you may not be one but will surely be imbued with some aura of that character.

Partner in crime, then? Mayor Vi does not make one to Lim evidently. A collateral damage to Lim’s self-inflicted but all too public offence, the mayor is most like it.

The Lim-Vi connection – luxuriant LV, some wag says now uncopyrighted from Louis Vuitton – has so settled in the public mind, particularly in the City of San Fernando and the 3^rd District of Pampanga, that the two have become peas in the same pod, for the cara y cruz addicts, head and tails of the same coin. Again, thanks to their virtual omnipresence.  

Hence, a TikTok disconnect needs to be established, not merely emphasized here.

For starters, what hath Mayor Vi to say of her friendship with the beleaguered Lim?

“A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Will she answer to that call?

  

Politicizing the rule of law

                                                                                                        Inquirer.net

PRINCIPLED politics is a contradiction in terms: mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, for in politics “no one acts on principles or reasons from them.”
There is that generalization arising from the fixity of our intellectual habits that deems the recurring characteristic trait of a segment of one species as representative of that species, if not of the whole genus. 

Thus, taken on the whole, politicians are “…the vilest and the narrowest of sycophants and courtiers that humanity has ever known; their sole end basely to flatter and develop all popular prejudices, which, for the rest, they but vaguely share, never having consecrated one minute of their lives to reflection and observation.”

And, Monsieur Leroy Beaullieu did not even live long enough to read of the Filipino politician, writing as he was of the French kind in the 1890s. So, what’s the difference between a Filipino politico and dalag? One is a voracious filth-feeding bottom dweller. The other is a fish.

Expediency and convention, utility and interests – self-serving, vested interests, are the fundamental matters – I could not dare write principles here and desecrate the word – whence politics breeds. 

In no single recent issue – political, naturally – are all the above “matters” instanced than in the Senate archiving the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision ruling it as unconstitutional.

“A victory of the rule of law!” So chorused the senators who voted Yes, along with the Duterte myrmidons suddenly turning constitutional law experts.    

The rule of law. How many crimes have been inflicted upon the people in its name? To prevent anarchy in the streets and restore the rule of law, so Marcos’ proclaimed Martial Law. To prevent disruptive rallies and restore the rule of law, so Macapagal-Arroyo issued those EOs. Why, even Duterte’s bloody drug war was, in his time, ruled as the triumph of the rule of law. 

In the context of the impeachment complaint against the Vice President being archived, the “rule of law” that was invoked by a compliant, if not kowtowing Senate, in its railroading was a rule, yes, but not of Law. It was simply the rule of numbers. 

Considered, that is, under the lens of these universal givens:
Stripped to its essentials, Law is a “function of Reason,” as Aquinas put it. Kant furthered: “the expression of the Reason common to all.”
Law is “the rational or ethical will” of the body politic; “…the principal and most perfect branch of ethics,” as the British jurist Sir William Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries. 

Thus, in the archived impeachment case, the subsumption of a moral inquiry, nay, its nullification on mere technicality, no matter how “legal,” is a travesty of Law. As factored in the above-given “truths.”

Aquinas, yet in Summa Theologica: “Laws enacted by men are either just or unjust. If they are just, they have a binding force in the court of conscience from the Eternal Law, whence they are derived…Unjust laws are not binding in the court of conscience, except, perhaps, for the avoiding of scandal and turmoil.” Touche. But, really now, has conscience a place in Philippine political praxis? 

The “rule of law” in its application hereabouts takes primary place among those that a forgotten jurist said were “…laws of comfort adopted by free agents in pursuit of their advantage.”

Time for us all to reflect on “the doctrine that the universe is governed in all things by Law, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.”

And to those misnomered solons: “To interpret the Law, and to bring it into harmony with the varying conditions of human society is the highest task of the legislator.” Not to vote YES to archiving the impeachment of VP Sara, yeah, sans the H.
(But for the subject on hand – the archiving of the impeachment cases against the vice president – this piece was published virtually as is in the Jan. 19-25, 2006 issue of the now defunct Pampanga News.)

 

"Ali kayu kalat-kalat, Damputan dakayu"

                                           Mayor Abundio "JP" Punsalan. contributed photo

Alcalde ning San Simon

Bewalan ing pamagluyun

Cambe ning pamanacut

Caring masias a buntuc.

 

Panaun ning Covid canita

Masampat mung mamintu ca

Qng caburian at utus na

Maca-ustu’t macatud ‘ya.

 

Singquildap panaun milabas

Pandemiang pitacutan linipas

Meto yatu anti’ng selda mibuclat

Matua’t anac luyun-luyun, calat-calat.

 

Qng pamagbalic ning sigla,

Quecatang alcalde mibagua

Aro, cabaragbag ya pu guewa

Ombudsman, sanggunian metulala

 

Anti-Graft, carelang guilisac

Suspension nang Abundio mipasiag

E mu misan nune makata-apat

Qng municipio ya rugu miculdas.

 

Dapot, atin ya mo waring birtud

Qng suerti parati nia mung tutud

Nanu mang casu caya mianud

Acabiusan nang alang patlud.

 

Oita na pin ing meganap

Abundio lalu yang miglipagpag

Mipmung saquit, mipmung caplas

Caring memalen, negosyante miras.

 

Alang tacut nanu pa man

Qng Ombudsman, sanggunian

Nanu mang casu queyang atacpan

Qng macananung paralan e agiung isipan.

 

“Hubris” – qng asta ng Abundio ing aus da

Capalaluan, dala ning suerti caring casu na.

“Nemesis” ara naman quetang capupusan

Macariquil datang qng nanu mang calabisan.

 

Qng palalung capagnasan acalinguan

“Ali cayu, calat-calat” babala nang licuan

Carin qng Clark miglaiunan

Oita na pin quepaliarian.

Bultung cualta qng lamesa

Aisip mung dumanup pa?

Dapot rugo, alti’ng digpa

Dimput re pu ring sicreta.

Ing carma, calagua na

Ding netizen arapaia

Calat-calat binawal na

Cang Abundio miras caya.

 

Pangaracap mibulalag

Cang Abundio pin meganap

Camarinaian e mu micalat-calat

Tune nang pangatau misalbag.  

                         Vandalized mural of Mayor Punsalan. contributed photo