The blaming game; casino hullabaloo

“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.” J. Michael Straczynski

By Alex P. Vidal

Like Brazil’s semifinals shellacking from Germany in the FIFA 2014 World Cup, Ilonggos already anticipated with absolute certainty the floods that hit the city last July 7 due to heavy downpour brought by typhoon “Florita”.

Several days before the Germany vs Brazil showdown, everyone was already talking about the host country’s impending exit from the world’s most prestigious soccer conclave when it was crystal clear that Neymar and Thiago Silva would miss the important match.

Each time there was non-stop monsoon rain in Iloilo City, Ilonggos were expecting the water level to rise rapidly due to our poor drainage system and clogged manholes. Waterways were blocked by garbage and other debris thrown by irresponsible characters.

Aside from the inefficient flood control program from our local government that dates back during the incumbency of post-EDSA OIC mayor Rosa “Tita” Caram, the lack of discipline also did us in.

We are actually not blameless. We also neglected our social responsibility; we were complacent and passive. We move only like a house on fire when calamity is already on our doorsteps. When it comes to blaming others, we are World Cup winners.

STRIKE

When calamity strikes, we resort to endless buck-passing and blaming games. We denounce our public officials and unload unrestrained brickbats at city hall without letup to emphasize our disgust and outrage.

We always expect too much from our authorities. We think they are supermen and wonder women who can solve the crisis overnight. We forget the fundamental factor why these public officials are also hard-pressed to address the gnawing problem that has bedeviled the Ilonggos for more than forty years now.

We lack a comprehensive urban planning. The city’s physical layout and infrastructure is tailor-made for floods. Since time immemorial, we elected politicians, not urban planners and highly skilled engineers. Our squalid electoral system has goaded or programmed our psyche   to vote for glib-tongued punks and tantalizers.

We have parsimoniously avoided or refused to vote for candidates not gifted with eloquence in speaking but are genius in architecture and engineering works. We are suckers to debaters and smart alecks who mesmerize us with empty rhetoric during the campaign period.

And now that these ninny lobcocks are in power and can’t solve the flood problems in one fell swoop, we angrily raise the whimper and resort to trouncing them with unsavory remarks. And we get a high blood pressure.

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Some members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod who unraveled a can of worms involving the Casino Filipino’s failure to secure a business permit from the Iloilo City hall since 2012, are now the objects of a smear drive.

Some city hall minions who authorized Casino Filipino’s monthly remittance of P500,000 cash to the city treasurer’s office and allowed the gaming establishment to operate without a business permit, are jittery since no less than the Iloilo Business Club (IBC) has issued a terse statement that no one should be given a special treatment when it comes to securing the mandatory business permit before being allowed to operate a business anywhere in the city.

They have more reason to be panicky now that the local legislative body has hinted that it would conduct a committee hearing on the hullabaloo.

We have emphasized earlier that operators of Casino Filipino can’t invoke the weight of the monthly largess they gave the city government as a bargaining chip so they could be exempted from their obligation to secure a business permit.

The caveat is clear and categorical: the city tax ordinance does not exempt any individual or entity from securing a business permit. There is a whale of difference between a donation (in whatever amount) and a fee paid for the business permit.

Who authorized city hall and casino ‘cash-sunduan’?

“The measure of life is not its duration, but its donation.” Peter Marshall

By Alex P. Vidal

Whoever authorized city hall’s modus vivendi with the Casino Filipino for the latter to remit to the former P500,000 cash monthly since 2012 and operate in Iloilo City without a business permit, should be charged administratively or sacked.

Just because Claudius married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, Hamlet will no longer seek justice for the murder of his father by Claudius, who is Hamlet’s uncle?

To make the long story short, no one is above the law. Not even operators of the Casino Filipino, which has been operating in Iloilo City since 2012 without a business permit.

The city’s tax ordinance requires all business establishments, big or small, to secure a business permit before they can operate anywhere in the city. No ifs. No buts. The Business Permit and Licensing Office (BPLO) is mandated to enforce the ordinance lock, stock, and barrel sans favoritism and exemption.

OBLIGATION

The monthly P500,000 cash remittance does not absolve Casino Filipino from dodging its obligation to secure a business permit. The law does not give any establishment or individuals a special treatment. No business permit means no permission to operate.

The argument that the fee the Casino Filipino would be paying for the business permit "is peanuts" compared to the P500,000 monthly cash remittance to the city hall coffer, is illogical and hogwash. It’s non sequitur.

A fee is intended for the business permit. A remittance can be relaxed or waved especially if it is not covered by any memorandum of agreement (MOA), which must be ratified first by the legislative body and approved by the executive branch. It is not mandatory.

Casino Filipino’s P500,000 monthly cash remittance to the city government since 2012 was never authorized by the Sangguniang Panlungod. If the treasurer’s office received it, the cash should be considered as donation. Any donation, cash or kind, cannot be invoked to hostage any ordinance or hold its implementation in abeyance. It should not be used as a bargaining chip to circumvent the law.

The origin of the "cash-sunduan", or whatever we may call it, could have emerged from a poisonous tree and, therefore, irrelevant and off tangent in as far as the issue of requiring all business establishments in the city to secure a business permit is concerned.

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Many Ilonggos were saddened by reports that their best bets for the presidential derby in 2016, DILG Sec. Mar Roxas and Senate President Frank Drilon, recently fell by the wayside in the recent approval ratings.

While they received the survey results with bated breath, Vice President Jejomar Binay’s ratings skyrocketed once more.

This could be the reason why each time Binay made an out-of-town visit, eager-beaver political underlings of administration governors and mayors were excited to be photographed with the diminutive political kingpin of Makati.

Binay, like the late former senator and Iloilo City mayor Roding Ganzon, has the habit of calling characters introduced to him for the first time by their first names. It's a political strategy, of course. Calling individuals by their first names titillate them. They are thinking that Binay will remember them when the latter wins in the 2016 presidential polls and occupies Malacanang.

We beg to disagree. All politicians do the same to almost all those they meet in out-of-town sorties especially when the election is near. Binay, a traditional politician like Roxas and Drilon, et al, is not an exemption. Politicians want people forming a beeline and a wall around them to feel a sense of belongingness. That these nameless individuals have become part of their "extended family". Tralala.

Once they are in power– or in Malacanang, for that matter—they can’t even remember a mole on your face.