A P5 million ‘worthless’ school edifice

The other day, officials of the Batino Elementary School in Quirino District in Quezon City approached a member of the media asking that they be assisted in finding sponsors to have their new school building finished.

The school building, with four classrooms, is bare. No school furniture and fixtures such as blackboards, desks and fans, it is still unpainted. Worse, even if the building has its own comfort room, it has no septic tank making it virtually non-functional. And the whole structure is worth P5 million.

According to the school officials, the building was funded with the Priority Development Assistance Fund of Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello. And for this reason, members of the Akbayan party-list have requested that one of the rooms be reserved for their exclusive use for the group’s headquarters.

If these reports are true, then this could very well serve as a fitting monument to Akbayan’s hypocrisy.

With their president, Ronald Llamas, serving as political adviser to President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, we were made to believe that Akbayan would be at the forefront of Noynoy’s daang matuwid concept of governance.

However, the said school building, costing taxpayers P5 million is a clear contradiction of everything they espouse. Not only does the school building seem overpriced and useless, but the very demand of the party-list group of having one of the classrooms be reserved for Akbayan’s exclusive use smack of abuse and arrogance. Just like baking their cake and eating it as well.

Since its inception, the Akbayan group has been at the forefront of denouncing abuses and corruption in the government. And it is on this platform it has won seats in Congress with an attempt to bag one in Senate.

It is also on this basis Akbayan has supported Noynoy’s candidacy in the 2010 elections en route to his presidency.

How then it can Akbayan’s leadership explain this “anomalous” P5-million school building?

We need not be experts in the construction industry, but based on the statistics Akbayan and other militant groups air, a decent classroom cost only P250,000 each. Given the additional comfort room could not have jacked up its cost to P1.25 million per classroom. And how do we expect this comfort room to be put in use if no septic tank had been constructed to serve its purpose?

To top it all, asking for the exclusive use of one of the four classrooms it has sponsored is like asking for a 25 percent cut on the construction cost.

And all along, they made us believe they were against tong-pats. But what would they call that?

With the way Akbayan has lambasted the previous administration for alleged anomalies, it should now investigate its own people regarding this issue and lambast its members if these allegations are proven true.

With the way Akbayan had been filing charges against the previous administration for alleged corrupt practices, it should also file charges against its members if these allegations are proven true.

Akbayan cannot claim it truly represents the people’s collective voice against corruption if it cannot prevent its own people in committing the same acts of which they have condemned the previous administration.

It has to prove its sincerity in its fight against corruption starting within its own ranks. Otherwise, it would digging its own political grave. –charlie manalo, Daily Tribune