Last October 13 , Governor Ed Panlilio of Pampanga came out to declare that he was given P 500,000.00 in cash which came from a Palace Staff Member in Malacañang. The money was allegedly given for baranggay projects and to support candidates for the upcoming baranggay elections. Since Gov. Panlilio's admission, there have been other local officials and congressmen who have admitted to receiving money from Malacañang as well. Up until today we still don't know where this money really came from.
But since then, Gov. Panlilio has been under fire because of doing the right thing. Right now, local officials in Pampanga led by Vice-Gov. Yeng Guiao are ganging up on him and marginalizing him by not respecting his authority as governor. Media Publications in Pampanga are even being used to destroy his credibility. If one looks at Gov. Panlilio's performance thus far in the less than 6 months that he has been in office, the results would speak for itself. He was able to raise the same amount of quarry taxes in less than 2 months compared to the former governor who raised the same amount in 1 year. Due to this, mayors and board members are now demanding part of this collection money and are blackmailing Gov. Panlilio by not passing important policies that will benefit the constituencies of Pampanga.
Isn't this a familiar refrain in our country? Someone does good and yet he is often punished for doing what is right? And worse, while this is happening many of us just turn a blind eye without doing anything. We s just shrug it off and move on with our lives. It is no wonder why majority of our government leaders are becoming bolder and bolder in becoming corrupt since for them no one would dare complaint about it. In short, we deserve the kind of leaders that we have because we continue to do nothing despite the fact that we see that there is something wrong. And this is why I am writing to appeal to you right now, I'd like to ask for a few minutes of your time to send an email of support to Gov. Ed Panlilio, let us all tell him that we are behind him in his quest for the Truth. What is at stake here is not only the people of Pampanga but the nation as a whole. Gov. Ed exposed what has long been happening in Malacañang and now he is being punished for it. Will you do something about it?
Subject: Fr. ED PANLILIO – Newly Elected Governor of Pampanga
I'm 100% sure this income disparity is replicated in all the provinces of the Philippines . If we had more Ed Panlilio’s in our government, we would be just like Singapore in a short time.
Read on......
We hope we are witnessing what will be a sustained revolution in good governance in the Province of Pampanga , under its newly elected governor, Fr. Ed Panlilio.
According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer of August 26, only one month after Fr. Panlilio assumed his gubernatorial duties, the province ' s income “only†from the quarrying of volcanic ash from Mount Pinatubo had reached P29.4 million . (Haulers pay a fee of P300 per truck of volcanic ash that they haul from the quarry.)
By contrast, during his predecessor Mark Lapid ' s term as governor, the province ' s income from the same quarrying operations amount Ed to only P29 million a year . This gaping variation in official incomes from the same activity should inspire a new set of textbooks in Arithmetic, especially for the school children of Pampanga.
There is nothing like local color and local situations to cultivate comprehension in young minds.
Sample problems:
1. If Fr. Ed ' s provincial government can collect P29.4 million in 26 days (we assume no quarrying on Sundays), how much does it collect in one day?
Answer : An average of P1.130 million.
2. If Fr. Ed ' s provincial government collects an average of P1.130 million a day from quarrying
operations, how much can it collect in one year of 313 days (365 days less 52 Sundays)?
Answer : P353,690,000, or P354 million.
3. If Fr. Ed ' s provincial government can collect P354 million a year, and Mark Lapid ' s provincial government collected only P29 million a year, what is the difference in their official yearly collections?
Answer : P325 million a year.
4. If Mark Lapid was governor for four years and his provincial government ' s annual collections from quarrying amounted to an average of P29 million, how much did his provincial govt. officially collect in four years?
Answer : P116 million.
5. If Fr. Ed manages to remain as provincial governor for four years, and his provincial government ' s annual collection from quarrying were to average P354 million, how much will his provincial government collect in four years?
Answer : P1.416 billion.
6. What is the difference between P1.416 billion and P116 million?
Answer : P1.3 billion.
7. Where did this P1.3 billion go?
Answer : Only God and the Lapids know. ( ' Lapids ' is in plural because Mark, as a second-generation political dynast, succeeded his own father, now Sen. Lito Lapid .
We don ' t know how much Lito ' s provincial government officially collected from quarrying operations during his watch. Should be a good investigative project for media.)
8. If Gawad Kalinga spends an average of P75,000 per low cost house, how many low-cost houses can P1.3 billion build?
Answer : 17,333 low-cost houses.
9. If the average Pampanga family were to consist of five persons (father, mother, three children), how many people would be benefited by 17,333 low-cost houses?
Answer: 86,665 persons .
End of Arithmetic lesson.
Fr. Ed is to be congratulated for setting a high benchmark for collection from quarrying operations against which his predecessors have a moral obligation to explain why their collections were so low, and against which future governors will be judged by the people of Pampanga.
Volcanic ash, by the way, is a superior building material. Many of the buildings, aqueducts & monuments of the Roman Empire that have survived for almost 2,000 years are known to have been built w/ volcanic ash, quarried from the environs of Mount Vesuvius after it erupted in 79 AD.
We don ' t expect Fr. Ed ' s moral victory in Pampanga to be remembered for the next 2,000years.
We would be happy with five, ten or 20 years, enough, we hope, to spawn a moral-revolution- by- example to save the Filipinos from their worst enemies - themselves.
