In 2023, during the deliberations on the 2024 General Appropriations Act, our honorable members of House of Representatives thought of another way to pad their undeclared income.
Aside from their monthly salary of at least P273,000 plus of course the unseen commissions they get from contractors of the DPWH office within their respective districts, they so thoughtfully inserted a special provision: that all infrastructure projects of State Colleges and Universities (SUCs) above P5 million in cost be implemented by the DPWH.
This, in effect, increased the largesse they have been receiving from contractors of projects in the DPWH district engineering offices.
You see, the congressman is the de facto boss of each DPWH DEO, the man to whom every district enginer owes his position and to whom every contractor who wants to have a piece of the infra pie gives the predetermined share of the project cost in advance.
That is why, for the past two years or so, no less than four district engineers and three assistant district engineers have occupied their posts in the Catanduanes DEO.
No one can be appointed, promoted or designated to a choice post in the district office without the blessing of the real DE: the congressman.
So, the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA) or the federation of senior citizens associations cannot do anything about the decision of the honorable representative to locate the proposed Home for the Elderly at a remote corner of the Catanduanes State University about 1.3 kilometers away from the nearest highway.
After all, the circular governing the DPWH’s implementation of the SUC infra projects is just a piece of paper, a fact confirmed by the lack of the required Memorandum of Agreement between the agency and CatSU before the project was commenced.
It is with the same apparent disdain that the former university president, and now gubernatorial candidate Patrick Alain Azanza, treated Republic Act 11396, which mandates that “all land use or infrastructure projects of the SUCs shall be required to follow the Land Use Development and Infrastructure Plan of each university.
In concert with Congressman Eulogio Rodriguez, who does not want his political opponents to benefit from “his” DPWH projects, Mr. Azanza consented to the repeated violation of CatSU’s LUDIP starting from the People’s Center.
The P90-million three-story edifice was supposed to be built at the left side of the open field just after the Real St. gate but the solon’s powerful spouse wanted it transferred to the right side where the LUDIP indicated the university would erect its College of Medicine building and its Health and Wellness complex.
The incumbent president, eager to earn “pogi” points for his then nascent political bid, agreed to violate the LUDIP.
This transgression of the development plan was repeated with the MICES gymnasium now rising 1.7 kilometers from the main campus and the Home for Elderly 1.3 kilometers from the highway.
Nowhere in the Bicol region would you find a congressman going through that many DEs during his first term and ignoring common sense by deciding to locate projects as far away from its supposed beneficiaries as possible.
Of the 24 SUCs in the region, only CatSU can boast of a president who apparently never intended to realize his “Paglaom” development plan and abandoned it ahead of his four-year term, just to scratch his political itch by banking on a supposedly meritocracy-based and corruption-free administration.
To add to the woes arising from the lack of consultation or approval sought from the senior citizens and the Board of Regents, the Home for the Elderly might end up as an example of the wanton waste of scarce public funds if the LGU does not spare money for its operation.
In 12 days, before they put their pens to the ballot, the electorate should ask themselves if really want to have as their leaders these politicians who put their personal interests ahead of their constituents’ needs.
As one participant in the recent Aratubangan indirectly urged voters, the electorate should judge these two main actors in the Home for the Elderly controversy by their acts, not their flowery campaign promises.