What's up, Vice Mayor Alvin?
Posted on February 28, 2007 - Filed Under General |
IT IS always alarming when there‘s relative silence, the absence of a development, any development, in an investigation especially a major one like the sangguniang panlungsod fact-finding on the Tondaligan beachlot scam. Graveyard silence, as the novelists would call it, and the eerie aptness of the phrase doesn’t escape us at all. .
Beyond Publisher Ermin Garcia’s weekly perorations in his column and environmentalist Nick Melecio’s tit-for-tat on the issue of “landgrabbers” in his own print corner, nothing has been heard for sometime now on Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez’s well publicized probe.
This is when we get worried. Not that we doubt sincerity and determination on any party’s part regarding the full unmasking of culprits behind the illegal parceling out and “ownership” of the beachlots in Bonuan but that we feel any form of reprieve on those behind the great beach “robbery” now – such as a little diversion of attention on the part of the investigator-public officials – could become permanent. And this, to the great mockery of public accountability.
The good vice mayor has started on the right foot, that much must be made clear. He has produced some concrete indication of shenanigans in the grant of declaration of those beachlots that are “inalienable” to start with. If some faces at DENR are red, it can only be because these should be, in full embarrassment. Guardians of natural resources and public domain turning betrayers of public trust deserve not one day more in their seats or positions.
This is what the sanggunian investigation should be aiming at first and
foremost –due punishment for the misbehaving public officials — and only secondarily, a public ostracism of those involved in the apparent conspiracy.
Comments
Leave a Reply