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  1. #1

    Default Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez


    Speak out: We love Mactan--way kurap-kurap
    by Efrain T. Pelaez Jr.
    President, Mactan Island Chamber of Commerce and Industry

    TODAY a new Battle of Mactan is brewing.

    It is not being fought with bolos, spears and swords but attitudes.

    Are we about to lose our paradise island to poor planning, social indifference, political ineptness and environmental atrophy?

    Unless we stand defiantly, as Lapulapu did 500 years ago, to confront these problems, we will surely lose this paradise.

    Recently, a group of Mactan businessmen formed the Mactan Island Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

    Fed up with local government harassment and ineptitude, and the pervasive pattern of graft, it has set itself on course for affirmative action.

    Mactan businessmen have muddled along all these years without much government support or tourism infrastructure.

    If not for maverick entrepreneurs and private investment, there would still have been nothing on the island other than Mactan’s other true success story, the export zones of Peza.

    No tourism estates, no tourism infrastructure like good roads, streetlights, sidewalks, utility services, waste management, and the like can be attributed to judicious government planning.

    Everything is done in fits and starts, always long overdue with private business picking up most of the tab.

    Asean summit

    It is only because Mactan co-hosted the Asean summit in January 2007 that we finally got a few kilometers of highway repaved.

    We also got a bit of facelift plus hundreds of overpriced streetlights and decorative lamp posts.

    Our local officials went over the top with their Christmas lights and bamboo towers and landscaping projects.

    We are all waiting to see the accounting and final bill of all these capricious and often ridiculous initiatives.

    The hundreds of deco lamps and streetlights costing over P175 million could have housed over 3000 squatter families using the Gawad Kalinag model, with P50,000 per house.

    We could have easily installed decent lighting for the vent in the same streets and routes used by the Asean summit guests and still would have provided 3,000 new homes for our Mactan brethren who live in squatter hovels.

    All we ask is for an infinitesimal fraction to make our island tourist friendly before it is too late.

    Dark side

    While we see the good side of Mactan in some slick government TV ads and propaganda, there is a truly dark side to this equation.

    One only has to take a short ride from the posh Shangrila Mactan Island Resort to see the contrast.

    A few meters away from the Magellan Shrine area, you will already find a pathetic eyesore.

    Streets that remain unpaved and have slipped into pitiful disrepair are found all over Mactan’s interiors.

    Open garbage dumps, squatter homes multiplying annually and even illegal drugs sold in just about every barrio.

    Is this the same Mactan glorified in our travel brochures?

    Simple plan

    Our chamber has drawn up a simple plan to save Mactan.

    It is the common sense plan devoid of the frills and bureaucratic embroidery.

    It will not cost much, and it is plain, simple, doable, cheap and logical.

    It is made so that our leaders will note that we who love Mactan and invested in its future cannot even live in its past.

    And that we will no longer accept apologies or apologists for the present, or trust them with our future.

    We will not accept incompetent local government leaders either.

    We have had enough clowns and showmen, enough traveling salesmen who try to sell our paradise to the world so tourists will come in droves.

    Yet, we have done nothing to clean house and even put it in order.

    If you cannot control the squatters, pick up the garbage, fix our streets or build proper sewers, why do we want to invite anyone here anyway?

    If by some magic we can turn the clock back 20 or 30 years and start over with out pristine beaches and coral reefs and simple and welcoming townsfolk, we would be able to develop this island into one of the most coveted pieces of real estate on the planet.

    But this we know can not be so.

    Nevertheless, we businessmen can still do what we can to put our house and our island home in order.

    Let us beg our leaders to take heed and listen to our plea.

    And let us once again instill a culture of honesty and hospitality that is required of a real tourist paradise and investment haven.

    We love Mactan---way kurap-kurap! That is our battle cry.




    Who's telling the truth?


  2. #2

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    Klaro na kaayo uy...

    50k for a low end classroom computer?... wow

  3. #3

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    50K for a low-end PC? They gotta be kidding. Kanus-a pa kaha na matanggong si Radaza oy.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    Gi unsa kaha ni pag hawsiao ang bidding nga ang nakadaog kay mu buy and sell ra man gani ug dry goods... di man gani computer store..

  5. #5

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    Quote Originally Posted by LytSlpr
    Who's telling the truth?
    The Efrain Pelaez I know is an honest-to-goodness, no-nonsense guy. Between his words and a formerly suspended mayor's, there's no contest at all. I admire Efrain for his courage to face up to the powers that be in Mactan. Not too many people will even dare think about doing what he's doing.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    .. mods note: put a link on the issue or this topic will be deleted due to lack of substance

  7. #7

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    Mayor Arturo Radaza kurakot maayo iipon ni Teddy Ouano ug Erap Estrada.

    Mga nawong ug kwarta! Dili makontento bisag mga adunahan na!

  8. #8

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    Stop mudslinging: Radaza to trader.

    LAPU-LAPU City Mayor Arturo Radaza yesterday asked businessman Efrain Pelaez Jr. to clean first his own backyard before turning “vengeful eyes” on his administration.

    He said Pelaez, who is the spokesperson of the Mactan Island Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MICCI), is violating the Solid Management Act with his failure to segregate waste at the Marina Mall and is a delinquent taxpayer.

    He also said that because most of the members of MICCI are concessionaires of Marina Mall, which Pelaez owns, the group’s credibility is dubious as Pelaez wields influence over them.

    Brothers Richard and Rafael King, who have pending cases against the City Government in court, are also members of the group.

    “I do not know their grievances. They should sit down with us and talk so we can correct if there is any defect…dili kay maglabay ta ug lapok,” Radaza said (Let us not resort to mudslinging).

    Rolando Duero, the mayor’s secretary, also alleged that there were many instances when the City Government issued citation tickets to Marina Mall for the mall management’s failure to segregate its waste.

    Pelaez, for his part, said he pities the city officials for their failure to focus on legitimate issues that his group had raised against them and for resorting to personal attacks against him.

    “We are all for the development, but what they are doing is pitiful as it appears childish that they are turning legitimate
    issues into personal (attacks). Now, they are not collecting my garbage at the mall,” he said.

    However, he said that Presidential Assistant for Central Visayas Felix Guanzon has already offered to mediate between him and Radaza.

    Aside from accusing Radaza and some department heads at City Hall of corruption, MICCI has expressed its desire to be allowed to send a regular observer at the City Council sessions.

    Pelaez urged the city’s legislators to stay independent from Radaza.

    “I heard there was an attempt to pass a measure to cover up the tong collection in the city’s terminal and it is unfortunate. We want to make sure that the legislators are maintaining independence from the executive office,” Pelaez said.

    The MICCI also wrote President Arroyo and Department of Tourism 7 Director Patria Aurora Roa to inform them of the issues that they feel would affect Lapu-Lapu’s growth and the tourism industry.

    MICCI also continues to intensify its “New Battle of Mactan” or its fight against corruption.

    The group recently earned the authority from the Tanodbayan to become an anti-graft watch unit of the government.

    It can help investigate, report or even recommend actions against persons involved in corruption.

    After coming up with paid advertisements on the piles of uncollected garbage in each barangay of the city, the group also held public forums to discuss the failure of the City Government to deliver some basic services to its constituents. (AIV)


  9. #9

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    inatay naman nang 50k low end PC... perti na gyud klaroha... hahayz

  10. #10

    Default Re: Mayor Arturo Radaza VS. Efrain Pelaez

    The person is innocent until proven guilty. It's very easy to accused a person but very hard to proved. Any person who has the money and resources can make any accusations without any proof.

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