By Ven rebo Arigo
The lady director of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Bohol is accused by barangay heads of electioneering when she allegedly allowed the Nacionalista Party (NP) candidates to distribute provincial aids in the recent orientation on automated election.
The recent incident ruined the credibility of the Coordinating Council for Honest, Orderly and Peaceful Election (CCHOPE) created by Gov. Erico Aumentado. Provincial Local Government Operations Officer (PLGOO) Rose Mascariñas heads the council.
Mascariñas’ vice chairman of the CCHOPE is lawyer Eliseo Labaria, provincial head of the Commission on Elections, who was not in the orientation.
The orientation, held at Bohol Tropics days before the start of the campaign period for local candidates, was attended by the barangay captains from First and Second Districts.
While the intent of the affair would suggest what activity should take place, the giving of financial aids by NP candidates Vice Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera and Ex-Provincial Administrator Tomas Abapo, Jr. instead highlighted the event, captains said.
They said the local DILG notices said provincial aids would be given during the orientation, but there was no mention of who would distribute the financial assistance.
Aumentado did not appear in the gathering of the captains but Abapo, who is no longer a provincial official, instead came together with Herrera to distribute the provincial barangay aid.
Reports said the group, still using Mascariñas and the CCHOPE, would gather other barangay figures like tanods.
Well-meaning Boholanos said Mascariñas should not have allowed the CCHOPE to be used for whoever’s politicking. The council membership alone of figures held with high esteem like Bishop Leonardo Medroso should have been respected, they said.
It was the PLGOO herself who announced in the captains’ automated election orientation that they had come to the part of provincial aid distribution.
A governor’s office worker then got the microphone to introduce Herrera together with Abapo for the giving of the financial aids worth P10,000 to each captain.
Abapo, despite his being no longer officially connected with the provincial government, would then shake hands with the captains as soon as Herrera turned over the aids.
Herrera was made to deliver campaign promises to the barangay officials on the same occasion.
Board Member Concepcion Lim joined her fellow captains in that activity, but she left the venue when the NP bets distributed money aids. Captains said Lim was the one who felt ashamed for Mascariñas, Hererra and Abapo.
Lim, the vice gubernatorial candidate of Lakas and runningmate of gubernatorial aspirant Rep. Edgar Chatto, attended the affair also in her official capacity as the provincial federation president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC).
Lim was not accorded respect even if she is the Bohol head of all barangay captains or the Liga ng mga Barangay.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=27050.0