CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—It’s up to the publishers and editors to decide when this piece comes out but I hope it does see the light of day before 2024 ends and 2025 begins.
As I wrote this I was still recovering from the fatigue caused by the dancing and mingling I did with my former colleagues in the local media industry here in the City of Golden Friendship. I had a lot of catching up to do and industry gossip aside, it was a great time to be had for everyone in attendance. I enjoyed every minute of it regardless of how brief the time I spent in the event last Friday evening (Dec. 27).
Di na ta bata (we’re not young anymore) so late nights for me are reserved only for those rare special (read: personal) occasions and meetings of urgency. In fact, I went home at 8 pm just as Congressman Lordan Suan of the city’s 1st district was about to deliver his message to the local media at the Philtown Hotel where the Cagayan de Oro Press Club (COPC) yearend Christmas party was held.
Even if I do live abroad, I make sure that I keep connected with the goings on in Cagayan de Oro City and Misamis Oriental and the Philippines. More so now that the midterm elections is close at hand and the political noise is expected to ramp up to an 11 in the months to come. It just so happened that the political noise coincided with the holiday season so animosities on all opposing sides are set aside until the campaign season kicks off.
Until then, we all deserve a break from whatever tumult and personal crisis we are experiencing one way or another and let the joy and merriment of the holiday season sweep over us like a welcome and well-earned tidal wave of blessings and fulfillment. I know I’ve had a good time so far connecting with family and friends since my arrival in Cagayan de Oro City last month and I wish all of you the same joy and blessings for the remaining days of 2024 and the coming 2025.
Speaking of parties, I’ve heard some not so merry news from Cagayan de Oro City Hall and the Provincial Capitol about the delays in salaries of employees of both local governments during the holiday season. This delay is an eventuality I usually associate with the reality of political accommodation that occurs in every change of administration in government.
Based on a recent interview by Vice Mayor Jocelyn Rodriguez over at Strong Radio, it was disclosed that City Hall’s total work force is estimated at over 6,000 which is well over the 4,000 plus employed during the previous administration. That includes of course the job orders, the contractuals and the casuals who are more often than not experience the full brunt ot delayed salaries and benefits no thanks to a perpetually bloated bureaucracy.
I am reminded of this in light of the developments over at my adopted country of the US where incoming President Donald Trump created a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that one of its prime movers, billionaire businessman Elon Musk, pledged will remove the fat from the US government bureaucracy and streamline it enough to achieve savings and efficiency of service to the American people.
Already there was some friction created as the DOGE encountered some opposition from the Democrat leaders in Congress who got whooped soundly in the elections no thanks to their outgoing leaders President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. It would be an interesting development in the days to come for the incoming Trump administration.
Sadly the same cannot be said in the Philippines where as I said, streamlining the bureaucracy is about as real as discovering the actual Yamashita treasure. In Cagayan de Oro City alone, hundreds of so-called ‘barangay coordinators’ were receiving honoraria from City Hall in the form of cash payouts during the days leading up to Christmas Day while the yearend benefits of casuals, contractuals and job orders have yet to be budgeted.
And all this is happening while the top officials and their minions in City Hall are partying it up for the world to see in their social media pages. I am very much constrained to talk more about this to avoid risking the identities of these job orders, casuals and contractuals who suffer from the delayed release of their salaries and benefits and yet are being monitored for ‘disloyalty’ to the incumbent administration.
I also hear pretty much the same plight for the casuals, contractuals and job order workers at the Provincial Capitol though the chatter isn’t as loud as those being heard at City Hall—for the simple reason that City Hall is supposed to be more financially solvent than the Capitol and yet is experiencing quite the money problems insofar as paying their employees are concerned.
I will hopefully get more into this in detail in the weeks to come but for starters I do wonder whether the mass weddings implemented on a weekly basis by the incumbent administration dubbed as ‘Kasalan Ng Bayan’ have anything to do with City Hall’s financial bottomline. In fact, I do wonder whether these weddings will pass muster at the Commission on Audit (COA).
Remember that COA flagdown of the P1.3 million ‘lechon orders’ at Liloan town in Cebu province back in 2023? Would state auditors be bothered to look into the ‘lechon’ served to each couple wedded in these ‘KSBs’, considering that the number of couples to be wedded often reach double digits? Not to begrudge these couples who also receive rice, cake and groceries from benefactors with an eye for local positions in 2025.
If Elon Musk were to be appointed to oversee government spending in the Philippines, particularly in Cagayan de Oro he would probably experience an epileptic seizure from seeing all the expenditures made by City Hall ‘for public service.’ But I digress. This is enough talk about local political affairs for us to discuss for now. I end by wishing everyone a Happy New Year and belated Merry Christmas.
