CAPITOL YIELDS P1.1-B in quarry revenues.
So screamed the banner of Headline Gitnang Luzon, June 20-22, 2014 issue. So has the Capitol gone bonkers, giving up its crown jewels?
Electrified by the shocking banner, I read on: “The provincial government’s collection from sand spewed out by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 has yielded P1,100,565,000.”
Wow, mali! Wrong choice of word in the headline. The story is not about the Capitol yielding – in the sense of surrendering – the quarry revenues. It is about the Capitol collecting quarry revenues amounting to P1.1 billion.
The more appropriate headline would have been – using those same words – “Quarry yields P1.1-B for the Capitol” the verb there in its sense of producing. Better, and succinct yet, “Capitol nets P1.1-B in quarry fees.”
The editorial lapse though did not in any way diminish the impact of the achievement – unprecedented, aye, undreamed of, as it is. Quarry collections reaching P1 billion in four years was outside the realm of the possible even during the heady days of the Panlilio administration when the daily take started registering P1 million.
So the banner story continued: “The quarry collection from June 1 to 18 of this month alone reached to P17,340,000 while the Capitol also generated income from weighing scale fees totalling P52,261,500.”
See through the editorial slip – “…from June 1 to 18 of this month” – and marvel at the collection of P17,340,000 in just 13 days, as Saturdays and Sundays are not factored in the quarry equation.
Be astonished even more by the incredibly enormous income from weighing scale fees of P52,261,500 for the same period “from June 1 to 18 of this month” as inferred in the italicized sentence above.
Further detailed thus: “Some P49,432,000 were collected from quarry trucks doing business in Pampanga while weighing fee collection of P2,329,500 were collected from quarry trucks coming from other provinces that utilize the public roads of Pampanga.”
Never has there been any prior report of the Capitol earning a staggering P52 million out of weighing scale fees alone, and practically in but a fortnight at that! Truly an incredible feat for the provincial government there.
If only for that, Pampanga is handsdown winner in the Gawad Galing Pook, the Lingkod Bayan Award, the Presidential Award of Merit, even the Ramon Magsaysay Award and any and all other recognition the national government and the private sector can ever conceive of.
No other local government unit in the whole Philippines, maybe even in the entire Asia-Pacific, if not the world, can equal, much less surpass the Pampanga Capitol in such stupendous display of fiscal sourcing from so simple an apparatus as a weighing scale.
Sans exaggeration, I had to restrain myself from immediately calling all award-giving bodies I could think of to get some nomination forms for the provincial government of Pampanga. To do first some fact-checking for a thorough verifi cation of what I deem as the most outstanding of accomplishments of the Capitol.
The man routinely quoted in any and all things quarry-some, Engr. Art Punsalan, head of the Provincial Government Environment and Natural Resources Office (PGENRO), unfortunately was “outside coverage area” this weekend that I tried to reach him.
So I did the next best thing – surf the web for past stories on Pampanga quarry collections, particularly the income from the weighing scales.
Found the site Positive News Media with this story, again see through the slips in editing: “CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, July 3, 2013 (PNA) — The provincial government’s quarry revenue collection has reached a recordbreaking more than P840 million in a span of three years.
This feat has been achieved under the administration of re-elected Gov. Lilia Pineda and former vice governor, now First District Rep. Joseller Guiao. The Provincial Government Environment and Natural Resources Office headed by Engr. Art Punsalan said the efficient collection from all quarry derivatives like sand and gravel fees, anti-overloading and weighing scale fees, and accreditation of motor vehicles, has brought the total quarry revenues to P842,097,879 from July 2010 to June 30, this year…”
And then: “…Anti-overloading penalties and weighing scale fees were recorded at P26,808,000 with bulk posted from June 11, 2012 to June 27, 2013 at P25,752,000 plus P81,000 on June 28 this year. From haulers from other provinces, P975,000 was collected as weighing scale fees.
Eureka! Weighing scale fees plus antioverloading penalties totalling P25,752,000 in a period of one year and 16 days – “from June 11, 2012 to June 27, 2013.” Compare this now with the P52,261,500 in only 17 days — “from June 1 to 18 of this month” inference. This can only be an ACT OF GOD – all caps there in awesome reverence of the Almighty.
Halfway through genuflection at this realization of some divine manifestation, I was struck with the caution of my atheist son on the folly of readily ascribing to some supreme, unseen being, what can readily be explained as human error.
Indeed, finding gospel truth in an erroneously written, badly edited, press release makes the worst journalistic blasphemy. Truth and accuracy being the foremost virtues, aye, the premium values of the writing profession.
But still succumbing to that error in this instance, with the suspension of disbelief inflicted by the truly magnificent performance of the Pineda administration as much in the generation of quarry revenues as in the wise and efficacious disposition of these in peoplecentered programs and projects.
Minus the rose-colored glasses now, P52,261,500 in weighing scale fees “from June 1 to 18 of this month” directly translated to P2,903,416.67 per day. Nearly triple the P1 million per day quarry collection benchmark.
Can that even be remotely possible? Short of an actus Dei, this can only be the product of stupidity. The overachieving Pineda Capitol totally undeserving of this disservice.
What says the PGENRO now?
