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NUMBERS DON’T LIE: How Among Ed Plays the Game of Stats and Still Lose
The recent press statement of Panlilio congratulating himself and the new BALAS Boys for having surpassed quarry collections compared to the past administrations is really a clear attempt to deceive the public by creating the wrong impression and elevate himself as the good and honest governor.
Everybody knows that prior to Panlilio’s assumption as governor of Pampanga, Vice Governor Yeng Guiao has already sued the Lapids for plunder because of alleged irregularities in the quarry collections. In fact, Panlilio himself capitalized and benefited from this very issue, partnered with that of jueteng, and used both as effective campaign lines to defeat his political opponents in 2007 elections.
Now, why did Panlilio and his public information office compare his own quarry tax collection performance to that of the Lapids, and a huge announcement at that toying with statistics (millions and millions of that, more than double this, 14 times more than that) even while, as we all know, the latter were ridden with multiple allegations of corruption?
Oh, that’s right, it was a nice friendly reminder to the public of the long running good vs evil theme, and a build-up for his next move which he did four days later (Yeng says 1 year later) to file the graft and corruption charges against the Lapids et al.
Oo nga naman, aside from projecting himself as THE ULTIMATE GRAFT BUSTER, he can also try to steal Yeng’s thunder (going after the Lapids on the issue of corruption in quarry collections was Yeng’s bitter and lonesome crusade) and strategically try halt Leon Guerrero on his tracks on the way back to Capitolio.
He knows full well that he may have luckily beaten the son, but there is no way he can win over the father. Besides, with him being a disastrous flop in what is now clear to many as being nothing more than an act as Pampanga’s governor (where Dabu is said to be the director), his chances of getting re-elected is glaringly slim-to-none.
Okay, please bear with me, say for the sake of argument, let us suppose that GOOD AND HONEST GOVERNANCE in Pampanga is only about the quarry tax collection of the last 23 months as Panlilio’s recent statement seems to imply. Can we all truthfully say that such is at work in this province? Has he satisfactorily explain why his administration failed to meet the benchmark of P1 million per day collection that it has highly publicized and therefore set during the first few months of his career? If the system is good, and the management efficient, shouldn’t the quarry collections increase instead of plunge?
Reports and figures clearly indicate a downward trend in the collections, especially after the termination of the original supervisors and checkers of BALAS:
If, as the governor declared, the collection for the 23-month period is P397,608,000.00, and the total collection from July 2007 – February 2009 is P347,510,000.00, then the collection from March – May 2009 can be grossly estimated as only P50,098,000.00 – that’s on the average P17M of monthly collection – a far cry from the P24, 20, 21 millions collected during the first 3 months of Panlilio administration!
Instead of the spurious comparison between the Lapids - Panlilio quarry performance (which by virtue of Panlilio’s graft and corrupt charges against the Lapids would be and is actually very low), why did he not instead evaluate his own 23-month performance and honestly explain why the collection is going down instead of up? In fact, as per reports, there are more or less 3,000 trucks of sand hauled from the quarry sites all over Pampanga every day, and with a truly efficient system of collection, the province can collect as much as P900,000.00 daily. The benchmark. So what happened?
What is happening?
This ‘cheating’ of Panlilio to deceive the public is a trapo technique. Paging Kaya Natin and the Ateneo School of Government: Please teach Among Ed to be ‘honest’ in his political propaganda.#
