Treñas not dumping Baronda

By Herbert Vego

 

HOW true is the rumor that Mayor Jerry Treñas would no longer run in tandem with Congresswoman Julienne “Jam-Jam” Baronda in 2022?

My coffee mates at Hotel del Rio have been talking about that possibility. Everybody wants to know each other’s two cents’ worth on the above question. My opinion is that it would do the Iloilo City mayor no good.

“Not true,” quipped the mayor when I phoned to ask whether he had ended his political alliance with Jam-Jam.

Jam-Jam agrees. But of course, as the old song Que Sera Sera says, “Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see.”

There are two versions to the rumor. The first is that the mayor would like to anoint one of his sons to run with him.

Let us count that out. Remember what the then-Congressman Treñas told us in the media in November 2016? He said that while he was toying with the idea of quitting politics, he could not pass on the baton to any of his children because “they are not interested in politics.”

I also doubt the other version that the mayor would have “graduating” Senator Franklin Drilon as running mate for congressman. We all know Drilon is not “pang-lokal”; he certainly lacks the charisma that has firmly endeared Jam-Jam to ordinary people.

To the question of whether Drilon could apply pressure on Treñas, I heard that a retired relative of the former has been rehired by the latter as an executive assistant. I have yet to confirm that though.

As to whether Drilon would unexpectedly run for a lower position with the blessing of President Duterte, he might do so. Here’s a clue:  He voted yes to what is now known as the Anti-Terror Law. But that’s another story.

Considering the above ironic “weigh-in” between the big man and the petite lady, we can imagine the dilemma that must be haunting JPT this early.

Sadya dya…

 

INVESTMENT SCAMS FEED ON GREED

THE news that two alleged investment scammers —  Hanovel Lumacang, 48, and April Abao, 38 — fell in the hands of Roxas City police was probably good news for a few of their victims, but not for the majority. Their scam entails collecting cash “investments” from both the rich and the poor on the promise of doubling their money in a month.

Naturally, the gutsy who invested PHP500,000 woke up one day as new millionaires.

And because the scammers had fulfilled their promise to early investors, many others rushed to also get rich quick.

Even the ones who have not yet been so blessed would have preferred to keep the scammers going until they themselves get what they had hoped for. They probably know that they aAre victims of the so-called Ponzi scheme.  So what, as long as more victims fall in line to expand the base of the pyramid?

Having been caught, Lumacang and April Abao would now find it hard to entice new victims.

It is both understandable and ironical why politicians, especially Roxas City Mayor Ronnie Dadivas, have not uttered a word against the swindlers. It would not be politically correct; the voters would turn their ire against them, not the perpetrators, for missing their windfall.

The scammers who stand to gain the most from “dream buyers” must have heard of the good luck that befell Charles Ponzi in the early 1900s.  Who was he?

Ponzi was an Italian immigrant named Charles Ponzi who came to Boston, Massachusetts and persuaded tens of thousands of Bostonians to entrust to him their “sleeping” money for a sure opportunity to double their money in three months. He encouraged them to attract more investors to keep their own investments growing,

He would not reveal how he did it, but his enviable lifestyle spoke louder than words: a 12-room mansion; servants; two cars; fine clothes and diamonds.

He eventually bought the Hanover Trust, the same bank that had turned down his loan application.

However, the bubble soon burst; so did the bank and all its depositors.

Charles Ponzi was arrested on August 12, 1920, and subsequently spent 14 years in prison. He died poor in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 18, 1949.

 

ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY

MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) reminds us of the adage, “Rome was not built in a day.”

It came into the job of rehabilitating a dilapidated distribution system left behind by its predecessor, Panay Electric Co. (PECO),   With already more than 70,000 households to energize, the task of changing thousands of old poles, crossarms and cables could be intimidating but unavoidable.

The mere act of replacing an old wooden pole with a concrete one and installing gadgets thereon could consume three hours. That entails unavoidable brownout in affected areas.

Part of the daunting work is dismantling the power thieves’ illegal connections aimed at cutting system’s loss that has triggered higher bills charged to paying consumers. Shed of pilferage, the “inherited” system’s loss of 9.03 percent could be reduced 6.5.

So far, MORE Power has replaced all switchboards and transformers in all the old five substations. It has put up a mobile substation. Being new in the power business has not prevented the company from mastering trouble-shooting. It has the technical support of engineers from Meralco Industrial Engineering Services Corporation (MIESCOR).

MORE President Roel Castro assured us that the company has a budget of PHP 1.9 billion in its three-year rehabilitation time frame.