Grand Plan at the Kingdom by the River (19)

By Peter G. Jimenea/ Hole of Justice

               

Hydrocephallus, erstwhile usurper to, and still covets, the Kingdom Information Office (KIO), admits he and his muni-muni Ritchiel Jacerla spent the whole day in his office at the palace of the Kingdom by the River last February 27, a Sunday, as yours truly exposed it here.

However, he denied having turned his office into a motel, the same charge that cost him his job earlier as communication consultant to a quasi-government project funded by the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI). Well, he lost it after his enraged wife Rutchild formally complained, which his co-employees corroborated.

Accordingly, he spent weekends there not to paupas damang but to write a thesis. I don’t know whose thesis they are working on, definitely not his muni-muni who is not in school; definitely not his because he dropped out from a master’s course.

If indeed, they were writing a thesis, it must be a lengthy one and he must have expended a lot of “ink”and tissue paper, if you know what I mean.

For his feat of spending weekends in office,  Hydrocephallus reaped a windfall by turning them into “overtime” for which he collected 9,000 in overtime pay for the month of March alone.

Meanwhile, the travails of Ma’am Malou and the kingdom information office still lingers on despite King Tura’s order that she stay and Hydrocephallus to refrain from usurping her position. Hydrocephallus still holds the purse of the KIO and use that to make life hard for its personnel by withholding its procurement. To date, the KIO has no printer ink, no bond paper and other supplies because Hydrocephallus, who was kicked out of a national daily for plagiarism, sits on its purchase requests.

***

Section 12 Republic Act 10121 mandates the creation of a “disaster risk reduction and management office” (DRRMO) in every LGU.

RA 10121, known as Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Act of 2010 further obligates in Section 21 all LGUs to allot at least five percent of their revenues from regular sources for the DRRM office. Of the amount, 30 percent is to be set as “standby” or “quick response fund” to enable LGUs to respond to calamities immediately.

The DRRM Act took effect last year and by this time, LGUs must have already complied with it. However, sad to say, two premier kingdoms, namely, the Kingdom by the Lunok (temporarily by the Mall) and the Kingdom by the River have been stricken by amnesia. They forgot the law and their duties to create their respective DRRMOs.

When natural disaster strikes, these two kingdoms will surely be caught with their pants down as literally as Hydrocephallus was caught with his muni-muni.

During King Lean’s reign, the kingdom allotted five percent of the internal revenue allotment or IRA for disaster preparedness. There was no Kingdom DRRM office yet but King Lean responded quickly to the calamity by Bagyo Prank. After the declaration of the state of calamity, he quickly released funds to procure relief goods and rushed them to his subjects.

Today, the 100 million or so disaster fund for the Kingdom by the River is not yet in place. The program that King Tura submitted to parliament was disapproved. The five percent DRRM fund is automatic, there is no need to debate on that. The law requires LGUs to spell a program how that would be disbursed.

When calamity strikes, King Tura has to convene parliament and report on the extent of damages. If parliament declared a state of calamity, that would give King Tura a free hand tani to immediately disburse 30 percent for quick response, but he could not because his program and subsequently, the budget, were disapproved gani.

If parliament placed the kingdom in a state of calamity, King Tura can do nothing because the DRRM fund has not been appropriated, his disaster response program disapproved by parliament through a tricky provision that requires him to seek parliament approval every time he wants to disburse the calamity fund. He innocently signed the ordinance that spelled his own doom. The person, whoever he may be, who tricked him into signing it should be hanged. The ordinance did not pass through the scrutiny of either Jery B, secretary of the calamity coordinating council or Papa Dionisio, kingdom attorney.