NO COMEDY of errors but a farce, abutting on idiocy, if I may be so candid about it, was a recent session at the hollowed – yeah, right, not hallowed – hall of the sangguniang panlalawigan.
Witness your honorable representation from the 1st District of Pampanga asking honorable councilor from Bacolor why the town council “proceeded with the approval of the conversion of Xevera Phase 1 despite a memorandum circular from the Department of Land Reform suspending the conversion of all lands from agricultural to residential.”
The circular, prompted by the severe rice shortage last year was dated April 18, 2008.
On record, the Bacolor council approved the ordinance reclassifying the land owned by Globe Asiatique Holdings, Xevera’s developer, on May 20, 2008.
Aha, a clear violation right then and there!
Not so fast though, as obtains there is a contradiction, okay, difference, in the terms: conversion vis-à-vis reclassification. Clearer now, the honorable board member was on a totally different plane of thought there from the issue on, well, board.
So honorable councilor prefaced his response on the difference between conversion – banned by the DLR memo, and reclassification, a totally different matter. Furthered he that authority at their level, the sangguniang bayan, was limited to reclassification and exclusive of conversion. Hence the reclassification ordinance, that honorable board member inadvertently – to be kind to him – took as conversion.
Thundered 3rd district board member at poor councilor: “You are here to answer our questions by “Yes” or “No” and not to lecture us.
Honorable as he is, I have not the gumption to call 3rd District board member stupid with that statement. But pray, tell, how the hell can a why question be answered by either yes or no?
To paraphrase: Why did the Bacolor sangguniang bayan approve the conversion of Xevera Phase 1 despite a DLR memorandum circular suspending all conversions of agricultural lands to residential?
Yes, Sir. No, Sir.
A proposition most stupid, if not outrightly idiotic. Save for the beautiful mind of the honorable 3rd district board member.
A lapse there, if I may say. As great a lapse, if not greater, as that in the period of time – all of 30 days – given the sangguniang panlalawigan for the review of the Bacolor ordinance: submitted in August 2008 and taken only in March 2009. Well over six months or some 180 days past deadline. Rendering the review purely moot and academic, as my favorite lawyer, Attorney Agaton is wont to say.
The other 1st district representation put some sense and legal frame on the Bacolor ordinance admitting the sangguniang panlalawigan could have “overlapped” its functions when it asked for the Xevera housing plan details, something outside the provincial board’s ambit and an intrusion into, if not a usurpation of, the authority of the municipal mayor and the municipal engineer.
So did the brighter head from Mabalacat knock some sense into the thick craniums of his peers?
Not in any way. What he raised were some suspicions, if not innuendoes, of some motivations that inspired him to “lawyer” for Xevera. Ah, what tangled web the green- eyed spider weave!
Yeah, right. As one stalked, er, haunted, by a bittersweet Bacolor past.
Witness your honorable representation from the 1st District of Pampanga asking honorable councilor from Bacolor why the town council “proceeded with the approval of the conversion of Xevera Phase 1 despite a memorandum circular from the Department of Land Reform suspending the conversion of all lands from agricultural to residential.”
The circular, prompted by the severe rice shortage last year was dated April 18, 2008.
On record, the Bacolor council approved the ordinance reclassifying the land owned by Globe Asiatique Holdings, Xevera’s developer, on May 20, 2008.
Aha, a clear violation right then and there!
Not so fast though, as obtains there is a contradiction, okay, difference, in the terms: conversion vis-à-vis reclassification. Clearer now, the honorable board member was on a totally different plane of thought there from the issue on, well, board.
So honorable councilor prefaced his response on the difference between conversion – banned by the DLR memo, and reclassification, a totally different matter. Furthered he that authority at their level, the sangguniang bayan, was limited to reclassification and exclusive of conversion. Hence the reclassification ordinance, that honorable board member inadvertently – to be kind to him – took as conversion.
Thundered 3rd district board member at poor councilor: “You are here to answer our questions by “Yes” or “No” and not to lecture us.
Honorable as he is, I have not the gumption to call 3rd District board member stupid with that statement. But pray, tell, how the hell can a why question be answered by either yes or no?
To paraphrase: Why did the Bacolor sangguniang bayan approve the conversion of Xevera Phase 1 despite a DLR memorandum circular suspending all conversions of agricultural lands to residential?
Yes, Sir. No, Sir.
A proposition most stupid, if not outrightly idiotic. Save for the beautiful mind of the honorable 3rd district board member.
A lapse there, if I may say. As great a lapse, if not greater, as that in the period of time – all of 30 days – given the sangguniang panlalawigan for the review of the Bacolor ordinance: submitted in August 2008 and taken only in March 2009. Well over six months or some 180 days past deadline. Rendering the review purely moot and academic, as my favorite lawyer, Attorney Agaton is wont to say.
The other 1st district representation put some sense and legal frame on the Bacolor ordinance admitting the sangguniang panlalawigan could have “overlapped” its functions when it asked for the Xevera housing plan details, something outside the provincial board’s ambit and an intrusion into, if not a usurpation of, the authority of the municipal mayor and the municipal engineer.
So did the brighter head from Mabalacat knock some sense into the thick craniums of his peers?
Not in any way. What he raised were some suspicions, if not innuendoes, of some motivations that inspired him to “lawyer” for Xevera. Ah, what tangled web the green- eyed spider weave!
Yeah, right. As one stalked, er, haunted, by a bittersweet Bacolor past.
