The following article was originally published last year at Sunstar Baguio. We are re-publishing it here because Linapet Day is around the corner once again and those of you with Besao roots might want to go home to join the celebrations.
It is also a very unique event — we don’t think there’s an event like this in other parts of the region — so we’re sure you would be interested in reading more about it.
We don’t want to spend our time criticizing the Honorable Representative of Mt. Province, Congressman Victor Dominguez because 1) he is getting old in years and 2) to be honest, we also admit that we grudgingly respect his achievements as a politician.
To have maintained a long political career — spanning from the 70s (?) to the 2ks — speaks of his ability to harness whatever political tools there are that one needs to remain in power or to win in the game of politics.
To be honest, we are not sure whether this project is good or not. But since both the Mt Province provincial government and UNICEF believe that it is worth funding then maybe it is worth funding. What do you think?
Please note that we grabbed the picture above from a random website and that it doesn’t depict the toilet bowls that the provincial government is going to distribute. If our computation is correct that the budget for each bowl will be around P348, then we’re pretty sure that they will be distributing less fancy toilet bowls. The one in the picture is not actually fancy but you know what we mean.
Continue reading Project Watch: Things That Make You Go, "Hmmm"
If there is one thing that online communications taught us, it is that you can do things cheaply. So why is the Department of Science and Technology proposing to spend P97.1 million (that’s a little over US$ 2 million) to build a tourism online database?
Granted we do not know the details of this project, but if the goal is to “build an online tourism database for Sagada and Banaue” and to “provide the medium for digital (travel) transactions directly from consumers to service providers” surely they can do it for much much less, say P500,000. Maybe P1 million to be a bit more generous. Boy, do we smell a fish?
From Sunstar Baguio:
Internet link for Sagada, Banaue proposed
Continue reading Project Watch: Tourism Online Database at P97.1 Million
After Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan and Benguet Rep. Samuel Dangwa got “chairmanship” positions in Congress, we speculated that the other Cordillera Representatives will not be getting any significant post. It turns out that we were wrong because Mt. Province Rep. Victor Dominguez is now the chair of the Committee on Games and Amusements.
We don’t know exactly what the committee does but the congressional website states that it has jurisdiction over “all matters directly and principally relating to all forms and places of recreation, gaming and amusements.” So, apparently, this committee focuses on gambling related matters like jueteng, small town lottery, casinoes, etc. etc. Maybe this is the reason why the committee has a mind-boggling number of members, 122, which is about one third of the total House membership?
Continue reading Congress Watch: Dominguez Heads Games and Amusements