Read this and weep

MISSING. You'd think that government officials will do their utmost to take care of these lamps, which cost P224,600 each, but not only are they not used, they have also been left at the mercy of thieves.

Here’s a quiz for you. Look at the photo below (don’t read the caption yet). Which is more expensive? Is it 1.) the street lamp on this road in Mandaue City in Cebu or 2.) the motorcycle and the bag that contains a laptop, digital camera, and various other gadgets of my trade?

Here’s a hint: the lamp is part of the batch bought by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Cebu.

That hint was a giveaway, wasn’t it? That single lamppost, if you believe government officials, costs P224,600. The motorcycle costs, at a discounted cash purchase, P51,000. The laptop, again at a discounted purchase, costs P43,000.

STAGGERING PRICE. This lamppost on a street in Mandaue City, Cebu costs P224,600 per unit. More than double the cost of the parked motorcycle and the bag that contains a laptop, digital camera, voice recorder, and various other digital accessories.
STAGGERING PRICE. This lamppost on a street in Mandaue City, Cebu costs P224,600 per unit. More than double the cost of the parked motorcycle and the bag that contains a laptop, digital camera, voice recorder, and various other digital accessories.

Even if you include the digital camera, micro tape recorder, USB stick, and various laptop accessories in the bag, it still wouldn’t add up to half of the purchase price of that single lamppost.

That single lamppost costs more than a second-hand car. And that lamppost is not even the most expensive model. Anti-graft investigators at the Ombudsman-Visayas found models, installed in Mandaue City, costing more than P300,000 each.

Multiply this cost by the hundreds of units DPWH bought and the amount is staggering. It would have been enough to turn some of the posts into Wi-Fi access points and then roll out a municipal Wi-Fi system for Metro Cebu. That would have been a massive boost for Cebu tourism and commerce.

WE'RE SCREWED. You’d think that at its cost, government would have used better quality screws to hold these posts in place but a couple of months after they were put off, joints are already rusted.
WE’RE SCREWED. You’d think that at its cost, government would have used better quality screws to hold these posts in place but a couple of months after they were put off, joints are already rusted.

Sun.Star Cebu, the newspaper I work for, has uncovered import papers that place the import value of the lamps at less than P4,000 each. According to the report, the papers show that the actual value of the P350,090 lamp is, get this, P3,626. The P325,916 lamp’s actual value is P2,009. The single-arm lamp that costs P314,698 is listed as actually costing P1,764 each.

Even if the posts actually cost its contract price, how can you, in conscience, spend as much for street lighting. But that’s giving public officials too much. Public officials generally understand only the first three letters of the word “conscience”.

MISSING. You'd think that government officials will do their utmost to take care of these lamps, which cost P224,600 each, but not only are they not used, they have also been left at the mercy of thieves.
MISSING. You’d think that government officials will do their utmost to take care of these lamps, which cost P224,600 each, but not only are they not used, they have also been left at the mercy of thieves.

What is even more mind-boggling is the fact that the posts are not being used, at least during the times I pass the road at night. Those posts stick out like dirty fingers lining up the road telling people to “f..ck off, what are we in power for?”

The Freeman newspaper, in today’s issue, includes a table on what you can buy for P350,000, the cost of a single unit of one of the lamps installed in Mandaue. For the amount, you can buy 291 sacks of rice or 8 motorcycles or 36,458 cans of sardines.

BE HONEST. Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago in a conference with a DPWH official and a lawyer on the alleged massive overpricing of street lamps bought for the Asean Summit.
BE HONEST. Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago in a conference with a DPWH official and a lawyer on the alleged massive overpricing of street lamps bought for the Asean Summit.

The deal is unraveling. It’s a good thing we have Visayas Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago looking into it. Her integrity is, by all accounts, beyond question. She didn’t get her office’s top post because she refused to have a politician sponsor her nomination.

Look closely at her desk. Figuring prominently on it is that ubiquitous (and largely ignored) “Be Honest” message. It makes you wonder how crooked government officials feel when they read the notice. Ah, but that’s giving government officials too much. It’s not as if they aren’t thick-faced.

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4 responses

  1. This is simply revolting. More reason why not to vote for the Administration slate, which brings a thought to mind.

    If these posts are way overpriced, where’s the excess money?

    Oh wait, it’s election time and the Admin slate is already campaigning! 😉

  2. Pissed! Avatar

    So do you think if we’ll replace the current administration corruption will go away???? NO WAY is it going away!

    How about we try summary execution for those corrupt gov’t. officials, they’re much, much worse than those drug users being liquidated by so called vigilantes!

  3. Let’s just hope people will use their votes this May to make a stand against bad governance.

    As for summary executions, I think death is an easy way out for them. They deserve nothing less than to rot in jail and see the their ill-gotten fortune taken away from them.

  4. This is really one of the most outrageous and ugly corruption-schemes in the long history of post-Marcos rip-offs and sundry “sweetheart-deals.” – It shows utter contempt for the poor and for those who pay their taxes. These kind of things need to be prosecuted TO THE HILT. – It’s little more than rape, piracy and plunder of not only the Filipino poor, … but EVERY Filipino and their future.

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