Bunutin ang sheet piles: Constant cry unheeded

                            Sheet piles marked for pull out. Paulo Gee Santos FB page

“BUNUTIN ang sheet pile at magkaalaman kung 36 meters nga ba.”

Visibly livid, Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon barked during his inspection of the Candating flood control project site in Arayat only last Sept. 24 with Independent Commission on Infrastructure special advisor Benjie Magalong in tow. The Baguio mayor has since resigned from the ICI and the sheet piles remained as buried in the mud, as of Sept. 29.

 

DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon with ICI special advisor Benjie Magalong confronting Eddmari Construction owner Edgardo Sagum. Contributed photo

Dizon deemed the Candating project as substandard, impacting that to the very face of Edgardo Sagum, owner of the project contracting firm Eddmari Construction & Trading, No. 4 in the Top 10 flood control project contractors in Pampanga at P653.780 million.

The flood control project collapsing within a year of completion, not to mention a previous collapse even before a prior completion the year before, has all the red flags of its being substandard, reasoned Dizon. Seeing either faulty planning or flawed implementation as the cause. Of course, there is the possibility of both. 

Hence, pulling out the sheet piles will provide the answer. That they have stayed unpulled raises more questions and speculations running the gamut from the righteous to the ridiculous, and yes, malicious.

Especially given how the call to dig out the sheet piles in questionable flood control projects have reverberated across Pampanga at least for the last two years.

Accuser Terrence Napao holds complaint-affidavit filed at the Ombudsman vs. Cong. Dong Gonzales

“Bagutan la reng sheet piles,” Association of Barangay Captains-Mexico president Terence Napao called out in August 2023, referencing alleged anomalies in the flood control projects contracted to A.D. Gonzales Construction & Trading, bearing the very name of then-House Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr., representative of the 3^rd District of Pampanga.

Napao subsequently haled Gonzales to the Ombudsman on graft and corruption charges which the Ombudsman unceremoniously junked for “lack of evidence,” if memory serves right.    

Washed out portion of flood control in Suclaban, Mexico with project billboard naming the contractor: A.D. Gonzales Construction & Trading

Nature fortuitously provided the evidence veritably vindicating Napao, when, in September 2024, heavy rains washed out a P199.495-million flood control project along the Abacan River in Barangay Suclaban, Mexico, unearthing visibly short-of-specification sheet piles.

The contractor: A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading. Project duration: June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023.  

 

         The Candating flood control with flood-impacted sheet piles in August 2024.

The unraveling in Candating came a month earlier, on August 17, 2024 when the flood control project was damaged at the onslaught of Super Typhoon Carina and the southwest monsoon.

“Bunutin ang sheet piles,” cried out former multi-term Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, in the immediate aftermath, during an interview at the “Gising Pilipinas,” hosted by Alvin Elchico and Doris Bigornia over DMM Teleradyo. 

“Look if the sheet piles [that buckled and collapsed] were properly compacted or if they met standards, else these were cut short of specifications [for the contractor] to increase profits,” Pelayo said. 

                                          Ex-Mayor Jerry Pelayo’s FB post.

 “This was constructed precisely to mitigate flooding, do not reason now that its collapse is due to flooding,” the former president of the Pampanga Mayors League and then-consultant at the Department of Agriculture also noted.  

In another social media post, Pelayo alleged the Candating dike constructor, Edmarri Construction & Trading, was also the contractor of some other infra projects in San Simon that were “sira la ngan (all damaged).”  

“Sobra no pera (they have amassed much money,)” he said. 

In his own turn at Candating, Dizon essentially echoed Pelayo, thus: “Yung dami ng perang binuhos ng gobyerno dito since 2018, tapos Ganyan-ganyan lang…roughly P600 million that is useless now…Pinagkakitaan n’yo lang ito, paulit-ulit.”

                                   Former Arayat VM Sixto Mallari Jr, in presscon. 

In a press conference in September last year, former Arayat Vice Mayor Sixto Mallari Jr. articulated the call of the town’s barangay chairmen to pull out the sheet piles in Candating dike to determine if these were really short of specifications which could have contributed greatly to its collapse. 

“Pero paano po makikita kung pinutol? Nakabaon pa po eh. Bunutin muna, di ba? Para makita,” Mallari urged the DPWH. “Pagka binunot po yun, instead na, for example, yung size nga nasa 50 meters, eh kung ang lumabas is 20 meters, talagang pinutol. Di ba?”  

Bunutin ang sheet piles. Sounded across two years, amplified with the Public Works Secretary himself making the same call for all to hear. Still unheeded. As of the end of September. 

           Sec. Dizon. GMA screengrab

It’s getting harder to disbelieve disbelievers of Dizon calling his outrage performative, to the point of ridiculing him as no more than a Marcosian mongrel with all bark and no bite.

Sad.   

 

 

 

Cruzada perpetua (2025)

 

AQUI EN la Pampanga hay mucha piedad pero poca caridad.

It has been seventy-three years, this 2025, since that lamentation over the “wealth in piety but poverty in charity” expressed by Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero, the first to occupy the bishopric of San Fernando, noting “the stark class differences between the rich and the poor, the strife between the landlords and the tenants, and a deteriorating socio-political-economic situation bordering on socialism.”

These were manifest situations of the imperative of revolution in his See. And a revolution did indeed obtain then in Pampanga, with the Huks already “at the very gates of Manila.”

Marked as apostates pursuing the establishment of a “godless” society, the Huks naturally had to be stopped, and their ideology uprooted to “save the country and preserve Mother Church.” A strategic policy of the Cold War placed the Church at the bulwark of the war against communism.

It was at the very cauldron of that simmering social ferment that Bishop Guerrero organized the Cruzada de Penitencia y Caridad – the Crusade for Penance and Charity – in 1952.

In revolutionary praxis, the Cruzada served the ends of a counter-revolution. The conscientization of the oppressed masa that was the spark to start the inevitable prairie fire, doused by the sprinkle of holy water, the heart soothed by hymns and prayers, the soul seared with the promise of redemption, of eternal bliss in the hereafter. So long as the hardest of toils, the worst of privations, indeed, all injustices and oppression be borne as Christ did with His cross.

Unrepentant communists would readily see it as the affirmation of that Marxist dictum: “Religion is the opium of the people.”

Images of the Virgen de los Remedios and Santo Cristo del Perdon were taken all around the Pampanga parish churches and capillas where they stayed for days, the faithful seeking their intercession and intervention through nonstop prayers and nightly processions.

A hymn to the virgin was composed with peace as recurrent refrain: “…ica’ng minye tula ampon capayapan / quing indu ning balen quequeng lalawigan / uling calimbun mu caring sablang dalan / ding barrio at puruc caring cabalenan / agad menatili ing catahimican…” (…you gave us joy and peace / to the mother of our province / when taken in procession / in all the barrios in the towns / peace descended upon them…) Forgive the poor translation.

The charity end of the crusade – lamac – was institutionalized – all the barrio folk, even the poorest of them, contributed some goods that would accompany the images to their next destination and shared with the neediest there.

The Cruzada in effect became an equalizing and unifying factor among the faithful, regardless of their socio-economic situation. And relative peace did come to the province. For a time.

The breadth and depth of the devotion to the Virgen de los Remedios of the Capampangan moved Pope Pius XII to approve her canonical coronation as the patroness of Pampanga on September 8, 1956.

Since then, without fail, no matter the rains and high water, the Capampangan faithful flock to the annual commemoration of the canonical coronation. (Covid-19 made the exception in 2020, and limited attendance in 2021 though). In a ritual of renewal of faith in their Lord of Pardon, of rededication to their Indu ning Capaldanan (Mother of Remedies), in celebration of their Tula ding Capampangan (Joy of the Capampangan).

Seventy-three years hence, that “deteriorating socio-political-economic situation bordering on socialism” may have been arrested – the communist insurgency virtually as dead as Marx and Mao, Joema Sison too, if not deader.

“The stark class differences between the rich and the poor, the strife between the landlords and the tenants,” though still obtain. In various manifestations, in the farms and factories, in the mills and in the malls – as much the wages of sin, as the sin of capitalism – from workers’ exploitation to farmland-grabbing, from contractualization to union-busting.

So, did the good Bishop Guerrero’s Cruzada of peace through charity and prayers fail?

So, we do still come in prayerful celebration every Sept. 8, in thanksgiving, in supplication.

O Virgen de los Remedios / damdam ca qng quequeng aus / iligtas mu que’t icabus / qng sablang tucsu at maroc / ibie mu ing quecang lunos / ‘panalangin mu que qng Dios. (O Virgin…/ hear our pleas / free and save us / from all temptation and evil / grant us your compassion / pray to God for us).

The Cruzada can only continue.

(Updated piece on Pampanga’s patroness, the Virgen de los Remedios, first published in the now long defunct Pampanga News, July 6-12, 2006)

 

 

Ghost haunting: Failed flood control project resurfaces

THANKS TO Facebook, the proverbial brevity of public memory gets routinely jolted by the website’s Memories, even at the most opportune moments in many instances.  

As this Sept. 6, 2024 post in the Punto! FB page finding relevance in the current public discourse on spectral infrastructures:    

FLOODWATERS UNEARTH INFRA SHORTCUTTING

Sheet piles of a diking system on a stretch of the Abacan River in Barangay Suclaban, Mexico were unearthed by erosion caused by the heavy downpour seemingly proving the suspicion of barangay officials – that the sheet piles were much short of specification. The site was reportedly a part of the P199.495-million “Project: Construction of Flood Control Abacan River Diking and Slope Protection Works” awarded to A.D. Gonzales Jr. Construction & Trading Company Inc., for construction within the period June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023. Pampanga 3rd District representative and current House Senior Deputy Speaker Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr., reportedly owner of the construction firm that bears his name, was haled to the Office of the Ombudsman in August 2023 by Mexico Association of Barangay Captains president Terence Napao, for alleged graft and corrupt practices over flood control projects including the one in Suclaban. Punto News Team/Contributed photos

 

In the https://sumbongsapangulo.ph/ list of flood control projects, three are entered as having been undertaken by A.D. Gonzales Construction and Trading Co. Inc., to wit:

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). 

3)     Abacan River diking, also in Mexico but distinguished as Phase I, with a cost of P96.496 million and completed on Nov. 23, 2023. 

Intriguingly, the tarpaulins at the project site eroded last year showed its cost at exactly P199,494,072.90, the construction period set June 13, 2022 to June 7, 2023. 

Given that the sumbongsapangulo list covered projects from 2022 to 2024, where lies this failed project that merited the case filed by ABC-Mexico president Napao before the Ombudsman but was subsequently dismissed “for lack of evidence”? Incidentally, the barangay chair has announced that we would refile the case presently.

Are there more Abacan River projects awarded to A.D. Gonzales Construction & Trading than what has so far surfaced?

The ghost haunting continues.

 

 

 

Vilma ululates vs. media at giant lantern fest launch

QUICKLY dispensing with the usual pleasantries to her trademark “friendships” and paeans to the parol makers and sponsors at the Giant Lantern Festival 2025 launch, Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag segued to lamentations against mainstream media.

A totally bizarre turn of talk, indeed a spite to the spirit pervading the Sept. 4 occasion at Robinsons Starmills, complete with the mall’s traditional Christmas tree lighting rites and gift-giving to those in need, young cancer warriors in this instance.

“Hindi na natin alam kung ano ang paniniwalaan natin sa lumalabas sa mga Tiktok, Facebook. Hindi natin alam kung ano ang totoo kasi po, ang dami-daming fake news.  Ang dami-dami pong fake news ang lumalabas…,” opened Calaug’s spiel. 

In her next breath, invoking Divine Providence: “Mabuti na lang po, pinagkalooban tayo ng Diyos na maganda at medyo malawak na platform para po maipahayag naman po ang kakotohanan sa side natin.”

That platform the Good Lord blessed her with: TikTok, the very stage whence her political career took off, spinning off her daughter’s in the same app.  

A self-contradiction: Caluag calling out fake news in TikTok first (two paragraphs up), then citing the same platform as God-given for her to propagate truth, her truth that is.  

Bewailed Vilma that truth: “Nakakalungkot pong isipin kasi na may mga media na one-sided lang, hindi kinukuha iyong isang panig.”  

Hence, her pining for the halcyon days of journalism in this season of hope: “Ako, ang wish ko po ngayong Pasko, maibalik po yung dating mamamahayag, maibalik iyong tapang, patas na pamamahayag, iyong hindi sila biased. Para naman mabalik po ang respeto natin sa dating mga mamamahayag na may tapang, may dangal, may dignidad, at kampante tayo na maririnig natin ang tamang pamamahayag at hindi lamang po ang isang panig.”

Caluag did not even have to wish now for that. If only, she made herself accessible to open media interviews instead of restricting her side of issues on her TikTok. If only her seasonal, read: pre-major event, media conferences set limits on questions to be asked solely on the event. If only she gave her own prejudgment of mainstream media but a little rationalized thought.        

“Nakakalungkot na ngayon po, mayroon pa rin na naman mapagkakatiwalaan na mamamahayag pero marami nang hindi. Kaya nga po ngayon, hindi na natin alam kung ano nga ba ang totoong nangyayari at sino ang nagsasabi ng totoo,” in distress, thus Caluag, partly of her own making.

Her ululations against the media no more than Vilma’s trying-harder, second-rate copycatting Vico Soto. Absent, the evidentiary “resibo” of identified journos.

Pushing harder her case, Vilma made a general indictment of media: “Kasi po ngayon ang mga media kukuhanan ka lang nila tapos ii-splice nila yung gusto lang nila ihayag, iyong parang magmukha kang katawa-tawa tapos natatakpan na ang katotohanan.” Again, citing no specifics.

Her very words instantly refreshing that scene at the Senate probe of contractors in flood control anomalies, of the embattled Rolls Royce umbrella-enamored madame proclaiming: “When I said DPWH, because prior to that we were in local government, so ang hirap makasingil sa local government. They spliced the video that was taken of me and just mentioned the DPWH.”

Hard-put to do a valiant Vico Sotto, Vilma ended up a ridiculous Sarah Discaya.

(Lest we be charged of splicing, the photos in this commentary are composite stills from the livestream of the GLF 2025 launch by CLTV-36.)

 

 

Pampanga rivers flooded with funds; Top 10 contractors get P6.02-B

 

MAJOR RIVER channels in Pampanga are as much inundated with floodwaters at every downpour as with government funds in the never-ending engineering interventions for the protection of their slopes and embankments.

So, shows a cursory look at the list of flood control projects in the sumbongsapangulo.ph website. At that, focusing only on the Top 10 contractors who got most of the projects reported to have been completed from 2022 to 2024.  

      Upstream Abacan River 

Abacan River – P666.946-M

At the Angeles City side alone, three construction companies reportedly completed mainly slope protection projects, to wit:

1)     Three-In-One Construction with four projects amounting to P178.621 million;

2)     Tonka Construction with two projects at P91.992 million; and

3)     Radians Builders & Supply Corp., also with two projects at P29.643 million.

The three companies getting a total funding of P300.256 million. 

                            Damaged diking downstream Abacan River in 2024

Downstream Abacan River in Mexico was A. D. Gonzales Trading Co. Inc. with two diking and slope protection projects, one at P270.194 million and a “Phase 1” with P96.496 million. For a total amount of P366.690 million.

 

Pampanga 1st District Rep. Pogi Lazatin and Mabalacat Mayor Geld Aquino check damage to Sapang Balen slope protection last August.

Sapang Balen - P676.036-M

Slope protection works at the creek that meanders through the cities of Angeles and Mabalacat to Magalang town were also awarded to three companies, to wit:

1)     Three-In-One Construction with the sole project in Angeles City costing P48.992 million; two in Mabalacat City at P145.411 million; and four in Magalang at P325.177 million – for a total of P519.580 million;

2)     MCJ-Valenzuela Construction Enterprises with one project in Mabalacat City at P48.993 million and three projects in Magalang at P58.492 million – for a total of P107.485 million; and

3)     Tonka Construction with one project in Magalang at P48.971 million.

In terms of sites, Angeles City had the least funding at P48.992 million while Magalang had the biggest at P432.640 million. Mabalacat City got P194.404 million.

 Magalang Mayor Malu Lacson inspects damaged slope protection of Quitangil Creek on Sept. 1. 

Quitangil Creek - P492.852-M

Another waterway shared by Mabalacat City and Magalang with the engineering interventions undertaken by three by-now-familiar contractors, to wit:

1)     Three-In-One Construction with two projects in Magalang at P119.932 million and one in Mabalacat City at P96.464 million for a total of P216.396 million. 

2)     MCJ-Valenzuela Construction Enterprises with one project in Magalang at P19.762 million and five in Mabalacat City at P108.145 million for a total of P228.077 million; and

3)     Radians Builders & Supply Corp. with one project in Magalang at P48.379 million.

Prominently figured in all three major undertakings, Three-In-One Construction got the biggest share at P914.597 million.

                               Betis River 

Guagua River – P554.805-M

Along with its tributaries of Sapang Maragul, Betis River, and Upper Dalan Bapor, Guagua River rehabilitation works comprised of five projects uniformly costing P96.49 million and one at P72.358 million, all undertaken by Ferdstar Builders Contractors.      

Guagua-Pasak River – P338.331-M

The separate entry of Guagua-Pasak still showed Ferdstar Builders with a P96.489 million project it undertook with Cedar Construction.

Also undertaking one project each were 11-16 Construction at a cost of P48.842 million, and Northern Builders with P193 million.  

 

                         Gumain River 

Gumain River – P127.668-M

Tonka Construction undertook projects totaling to P127.668 million all sited in Cabangcalan, Floridablanca.

 

                        Caulaman River

Caulaman River – P94.032-M

Still in Floridablanca. In Barangay Sto. Rosario, Radians Builders & Supply Company reportedly completed a slope protection project in three phases at P28.704 million, P28.704 million, and P36.624 million.

                    Porac River 

Porac River – P290.094-M

Sto. Cristo Construction & Trading had here what could be its minutest project in terms of cost at P48.844 million.

Northern Builders got the single biggest block of P241.250 million.

                         Manuali section of Pasig-Potrero

Pasig-Potrero River – P241.243-M

Ferdstar Builders with one project costing P144.750 million.

A smaller P96.493 million awarded to 11-16 Construction. 

Maasim River - P341.679-M

Sto. Cristo Construction monopolized the projects at this river in Candaba, to wit:

1)     damaged dike rehab Vizal San Pablo Phase 1, P68.321 million;

2)     damaged dike rehab Vizal San Pablo Phase 2, P68.394 million;

3)     slope protection Phase 2 Pulong Gubat, P68.321 million;  

4)     slope protection Phase 1 Bahay Pare, P68.321 million; and

5)     slope protection Phase 2 Bahay Pare, P68.321 million.

Total cost: P341.679 million

                   San Miguel Corp. doing dredging works on Pampanga River

Pampanga River – P1.044-B

Focused on the recurrent saga of failure that is the Candating, Arayat flood control project by Eddmari Construction at a cost of P274.596 million in one year alone (Oct 2023-Nov. 2024), the other flood control interventions along the stretch of the Pampanga River and its tributaries make a staggering discovery as well. 

Other Pampanga River-related projects of Eddmari Construction included:

1)     slope protection in Cupang and Guemasan, Arayat costing P91.578 million;

2)     revetment wall in Capalangan, Apalit at P74.883 million;

3)     eroded riverbank in San Luis at P83.810 million; and

4)     slope protection of Dalaquitan Bridge in Sto, Tomas, at P91.674 million.

A grand total of P616.541 in projects went to Eddmari Construction.

Not totally left out is Sto. Cristo Construction with a riverbank revetment project in San Mateo, Arayat at a cost of P91.095 million; and slope protection along Sapang Are in Apalit at P74.883 million. For a total of P165.978 million.

Also, in the Pampanga River projects board was 11-16 Construction with a slope protection in San Luis at P93.604 million; road dike in Sucad, Apalit with similar P93.604 million costing; and rehab of eroded bank in Cansinala, Apalit at P74.883 million. Total: P262.091 million.

Malasik River - P1.157-B

Grand as the cost of flood control project befitting the Rio Grande de Pampanga, no other such engineering intervention in recent memory could, arguably, compare in scope to that at the Malasik River in Candaba town: four major sections at P144.750 million each (Total: P579 million); five other sections and six phases at P578 million.

All these, by a single contractor -- Sto. Cristo Construction & Trading, meriting Top 1 among flood control project constructors in Pampanga in the sumbongsapangulo list.