MikeLigalig.com

By Ven rebo Arigo

Tagbilaran City Mayor Dan Lim and his protegee to the 2013 gubernatorial derby, Carmen Mayor Conchita De los Reyes, must have realized how solid is Gov. Edgar Chatto’s ground that they are in a mad rush to demolish him.

Their rounds of “poisoning” the minds of the people have gone high gear, appearing not less than an early campaigning over three months before the very filing of candidacies.

But for the constituents, resorting to lavish politicking than attending to neglected concerns in their respective local government units only indicates Lim’s and De los Reyes’ admission of Chatto’s toughness to beat.

The demolition spree in the “premature campaigning” against the celebrated Bohol leader extremely contradicts the composure of the governor who chooses to be consistent to his mandate.

Chatto has gone even most focused on his sustainable inclusive development agenda for the province because he holds solemn his oath of office and covenant with the people.

This is why the incumbent leadership and management of the provincial government are not disrupted by any calculated moves of the detractors, according to the mayors who met here on Friday.

Town and barangay leaders and constituents said they are not disturbed by the heightened black propaganda from the opponents of the governor.

They are firmer in their support to his administration, evaluating Chatto as a people’s figure who involves the public in governance because he really understands public affairs and needs.

They have observed that the detractors would employ deception, distortions and lies in attacking the governor because Chatto has earned deep respect and trust from both his sector in the government and the community.

But the critics whose lone motivator is politics have always failed even to demoralize the rank and file of the province, capitol personnel asserted.

At the same time, Lim and De los Reyes would try to devastate Provincial Administrator Alfonso Damalerio II, an alter ego of the governor.

They are dead hoping and hell-bent on causing a capitol management crack thru issues they can connect to Damalerio’s sensitive jobs, like his being the governor’s focal person on peace concerns.

Dangerously, they recently fabricated the intrigue about an escapee who, according to their tailored story, was “allowed” to bolt the jail “to run after the critics of the governor.”

Even in Chatto’s hometown of Balilihan, the men of Lim and De los Reyes would intentionally monger rumor that the latter could no longer freely roam around---and would often cry---for fear for her life.

However, their false appeal to emotion just would not work, according to the Balilinhons who claim they have been the Boholanos most insulted by Lim throughout his Tagbilaran mayorship for almost nine years now.

Still, the tale has been spread around even if the family and relatives of the escapee, Exequiel Aniscal, were forced to beg the mayor and his circle to stop sowing intrigues and lies.

Aniscal’s sister Carina Sale, a long-time regular capitol employee, told Lim that his insinuation of her brother as a hired killer already hurt the innocent, especially the escapee’s young children who have to suffer from ridicule.

Sale sympathized with the governor and the provincial administrator for being also falsely dragged to the escape and supposed “mission” of his fugitive brother.

She said Lim would connect the capitol officials to the escape of her brother simply because she is working at capitol.

Actually, Sale already worked in the provincial government in several past administrations or long before Chatto assumed in 2010.

In Tagbilaran barangays, Lim would bring along with him De los Reyes and try to condition the minds of the city barrio folk.

They are driven by their desire and design to make people wrongly believe that capitol under Chatto, Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan is most crooked.

This is amusing since the Tagbilaranons themselves have long been aware of how the present city government itself has been mismanaged by Lim and his circle of government misfits, according to some city hall employees.

In contrast, the province led by Chatto has kept reaping awards and recognitions for good and competent governance.

At city hall, the Commission on Audit (COA) uncovered, for example, some P57 million unliquidated cash advances after the close of fiscal year 2010 alone.

The COA report suggested that parts of the unliquidated cash advances must have constituted a misuse of public fund.

City hall sources hinted that Lim and De los Reyes should better advise each other to accomplish themselves as elective public servants in their respective LGUs.

Strictly casting aside money’s power over votes, they said this is plainly because people had voted them on first belief that they could be straight and competent local chief executives.

They have complete doubt if the lady mayor of Carmen might have ever been provided an honest-to-goodness assessment and a mirror-clear picture of how Tagbilaran and its city hall have been run.

As what they further heard at city hall, Lim and his insiders are in no way convinced that the first-termer Carmen official can even come close to Chatto’s ability in administering the province sense she has yet even more to do in her town.

But De los Reyes has been pushed to run against Chatto reportedly on perception that she has plenty of money, a main factor which must be advantageous to her pushers and their individual interests.

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