When ‘good governance’ is good only as lip service

IT HAS been more than a month now since Super Typhoon ‘Kristine’ inundated Metro Manila and most part of Southern Luzon.

And yet, for the nearly 100,000 residents of Bgy. Malaban and Bgy. Dela Paz in Biñan City, Laguna, their problems, like the tepid floodwater that submerged their communities, remain.

To begin with, these two villages are already prone to flooding as they are among the communities that rested right beside the Laguna De Bay.

But their problem got worse when Mayor Arman Dimaguila suddenly got this “great idea” of “reclaiming,” not just a “portion” of Laguna De Bay, but huge swaths of it, some 15 hectares to 20 hectares, according to the residents and locational plans that we have seen.

It would have been good if the aim is to alleviate the sorry situation and uplift the living condition of the residents. And yes, it would have been good if the project, started in 2019, was “aboveboard.”

Unfortunately, none of the above was true. First off, documents show that it is only now, when the reclamation is nearly complete, that we learn that the reclamation started without approval from the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

For LLDA administrator Senando Santiago to smoothly dismiss the residents’ question of non-compliance by the camp of Mayor Dimaguila before the project started not to complain anymore because the compliance process has already started is bordering on gross incompetence, if not criminal negligence on his part. He should be sued and dismissed from his post, pronto.

For the question begs to be asked: What gives, administrator Santiago? How can you be sleeping on your mandate in the four years that the reclamation has been going on and which has now darkened the lives of nearly 100,000 people? The same question goes to the DENR. What gives?

Because of the reclamation that according to residents elevated the reclaimed areas to as high as 15 feet, flooding in Bgy. Malaban and Bgy. Dela Paz has now become a part of their daily lives for the most part of every year, a breeding ground for diseases that mainly victimized the frail and the children.

Worse, the landfill not only choke the Biñan River thereby intensifying the flooding but also covered up their own source of living by killing off the kangkong that grow plentifully in Laguna De Bay and which they gather for selling in the local market.

We are told that the project has never been approved to begin with by the Sangguniang Panglungsod and it is estimated that the backfilling alone cost over P3 billion, an amount that is about the entire budget of Biñan for one year.

Is this private money? If so, from whose pocket?

For certainly, this was also not a ‘PPP’ (Public-Private Partnership) project as it would have been made public even before a spade of dirt was thrown into Laguna De Bay four years ago.

The Ombudsman is already on into this case and the people of Biñan are keeping their fingers crossed in the faint hope that justice would be given to them over this glaring abuse of power by their local officials.

Suffering and misery are what people get when officials of whatever rank consider ‘good governance’ as only good for lip service.