JONG CADION
Chief of reporters
Is this what they’re supposed to get for being an early bird? Interior and local government (DILG) Regional Director Loreto Bhagwani reveals to the media for the first time their one-of-a-kind, unanswered office problem.
Bhagwani’s revelation was directed to the media during the second breakfast forum of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP)-Pagadian City Chapter held July 19 at Café Guiller, Hotel Guillermo.
Bhagwani lamented his new office is giving him and his staff a headache and when he said this, he meant the long-awaited electric power transformer installation, which was stalled until now for no apparent reason.
The new DILG office needs to have an exclusive transformer and the delay of fitting this up resulted to damages in their computer online system, air conditioning units and electrical facilities, he said.
Then he further said that they wanted to have their parking built at the back of their office, which is at present inside the compound of the sports complex.
Such request is important, Bhagwani justifies, because of vandals and thieves who kept burgling their vehicles, which they used to park along F.S. Pajares Avenue.
Not only this, the building they are presently occupying, which doubles as their residence, is unsafe and dilapidated; rainwater would trickle down the ceiling every time it rains.
“One time, all of us came on duty without baths because there was no water from the faucet. We thought this was cause by the water district but we later discovered that our water meter was stolen,” he said.
“You know, all these problems can be solved. We only need the money but the P200-million for the regional offices transfer promised by President Gloria Arroyo was not yet released,” he told journalists.
“Because of the delay, we have these little troubles,” Bhagwani said, as he disclosed their national office will soon allocate P3-million for their new building office to be located at the Regional Center area in Balintawak.
It can be recalled that the DILG Regional Office was the first to transfer from Zamboanga City, following the full implementation of EO 429.
Last January, Bhagwani told this paper that they will definitely relocate here by February, which they did.
EO 429, created years ago, mandates the transfer of all regional offices from Zamboanga City to Pagadian City, the new regional seat of Zamboanga Peninsula Region.
However, because of political pressures and opposition from the other end, the order was defied for almost 20 years
DILG Sec. Ronaldo Puno, in his visit last September 2006 for the province’s 54th anniversary, has promised to effect the transfer of the agency’s office to Pagadian, even boasting that he will allocate P1-million for the said effort.
But it was later learned that only DILG employees are to be transferred to Pagadian, a move to which Romeo Arnejo, an aide of the mayor called Puno a “botboton.”
Bhagwani, for his part, said that they will eventually transfer because of the completion of their P600-thousand Local Governance Resource Center (LGRC).
LGRC is a repository of profiles and facts about Region 9. It will cater to clients from Zamboanga del Norte and Sur, Sibugay and the cities of Pagadian, Zamboanga, Dipolog, Dapitan, and Isabela.