Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Entrepreneurial Farmer

Ambrosio R. Villorente

Luz Exposes One Style of Government Corruption

“The supply of commodities…is sufficient and prices (of them) remain stable,” says the Quarterly Monitoring Report dated September 22, of DTI Provincial Director Ermelinda P. Pollentes of Aklan. However, the price of iodized salt Ram increased by 6 percent while evaporated filled milk; Carnation and Angel increased by 5.19 percent and 5.73 percent respectively. The increase in prices is attributed to the increased in the cost of skimmed milk powder and other inputs in the case of filled milk and the increase in the cost of packaging material in the case of iodized Ram salt.
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There were fish kills found in the shallow water in Kalibo specifically in Barangay Buswang New. Some fish species like Danggit were found dead on September 26 and 27, 2005. People in the Barangay suspected the fishes died due to insecticide poisoning. They suspected some farmers after spraying chemicals to their rice crops or fruit trees washed their sprayers in the creek and throw excess chemicals thereby contaminating the water therein. Due to the rains last week, the water polluted with chemicals drained to the sea, hence poisoning the fishes.
The fish died and floated on the water. Its cause of death will never be confirmed because there is no fish laboratory in Aklan to analyze the flesh or samples of dead fishes. Nobody, either private or government functionary bothered to take laboratory samples for analysis in order to confirm what cause the fish kills.
If the cause was really due to pesticide poisoning, our farmers had not learned the proper pest management practices otherwise the agricultural technologists had not taught proper technologies in the farms and environmental protection measures to the farmers.
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Undersecretary Miguel Luz of the DepEd, for honesty and loyalty to his job, got the ire of Malacañang Palace after he returned three post dated checks worth P15 million at P5 million per check.
According to Usec Luz, first he received a check valued at P5 million from Malacañang Palace. But he did not know the purpose for which the money will be spent. So he inquired in Malacañang. He was told that the money may be released to the DepEd Regional Office to finance the scholarship program of Congressman Antonio Diaz.
But what are the items to be paid as Grade I to high school educations are free? Luz asked. However, he finally consented to release the money to the Regional Office, DepEd provided a “Program of Work” will be submitted to his office for which the P5 million will be spent.
After one week, in the middle of September 2005, he again received three post dated checks which maybe encashed as follows: one in December 2005, one in March 2006 and the other in June 2006. USEC Luz returned the three (3) checks to Malacañang as “it violated government accounting and auditing rules and regulations,” Luz said.
After a few days, USEC Luz received a “thank you letter” from Malacañang Palace for his government services rendered. In simple terms, that thank you letter, is actually sent as a marching order for him to quit his job as USEC of DepEd.
But USEC Miguel Luz has vowed to continue with his job in the DepEd. Being a qualified member of the Career Executive Service Officer, USEC Luz cannot be dismissed in the government service because of politics being a career man in the government. He has the backing of the Civil service Commission on the matter.
USEC Luz deserves the admiration, respect and salute of the Filipinos for being loyal and honest on his job. He has exposed one of the styles of corruption in the PGMA administration. The P20 million, will just be lodged inside a few persons’ pocket and a lose to the Filipino people. /MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com

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