Leyte’s 4th district Rep. Richard Gomez took to social media, particularly Facebook, to air his scathing criticism against a city mayor who lately has positioned himself as a no-nonsense fighter of official graft and corruption.
The fact that Gomez used social media and not the usual official privilege speech on the floor of the House to launch his vitriols is something to note about. Could the honorable representative from Leyte be hiding a dark motive for taking this route?
Let us take a closer look at the facts.
Last July, President Bongbong Marcos vilified in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) all those responsible for spending billions of pesos for flood control projects nationwide that failed to mitigate flooding. For shame!, the President told these officials to their faces.
The Chief Executive ordered DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan to investigate and report on this anomaly, which later was confirmed as a huge irregularity, when the secretary himself admitted during the first Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing last August 19 that there were ghost flood control projects in his department.
There were a series of actions emanating from both the executive and legislative branches, all for the purpose of digging the truth about the SONA revelations.
Marcos conducted personal inspection of projects in Bulacan, where the biggest bulk of flood control funds was allocated by Congress, seeing for himself that his SONA allegations were true.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada delivered a speech following up on what the authorities (DPWH) did following the collapse of the Cabagan bridge in Isabela. After the highly charged hearing of the Blue Ribbon panel headed by Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, where details of the flood control issue were uncovered, Sen. Panfilo Lacson came out with more revelations, naming particular questionable projects and names of DPWH officials and congressmen supposedly involved.
For more than a year now, Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, a retired police official, has been leading a lonely fight against official corruption, supported by a couple of city and town mayors. His crusade suddenly became popular, with more local officials and mayors added to its adherents.
Among the ranks of local officials, it would seem that joining the Magalong bandwagon is a mark of “clean governance” — the not-too-obvious message is that “we are not corrupt.” They are now known as Mayors for Good Governance (M4GG).
Just like Lacson, Magalong is forthright with his accusations. He said contractors and various sources told him that lawmakers get as much as 35 to 40 percent of a project’s contract price to line their pockets. He also said the solons accompanying Speaker Romualdez in the distribution of “ayuda” were given millions of pesos for their pet projects in their districts.
This of course struck a nerve in Rep. Richard Gomez, and his sense of belonging with the House of Representatives (or is it loyalty to the Speaker?) pushed him to engage Magalong in this potentially incendiary debate.
Gomez believes Magalong has been hitting the congressmen because the representative in his own district has been delivering more projects for the city. In other words, jealousy.
He wrote in this FB account: “It doesn’t surprise me anymore that this so-called ‘clean’ mayor is throwing accusations of corruption at us congressmen. Corruption has become the easiest issue to ride on nowadays, but let’s be honest, I don’t think this is all about corruption.
“If this is about his own congressman, who happens to bring in more projects for his district than he can for his city, don’t include all of us. If you have a problem with your congressman, face him. Don’t drag all of us into your fight. Don’t discredit every congressman just to make yourself look good.”
The Leyte solon pointed out that the mayor’s own city is “drowning in problems: the air quality is getting worse, there’s not enough public transport, the waste disposal system is broken, the city is overcrowded, illegal structures are all over, and urban planning is in shambles.”
Our take in all these?
The Waray congressman is using “ad hominem” argument, particularly the “poisoning the well” subtype of “ad hominem” which involves presenting adverse information about a target person with the intention of discrediting everything that the target person says. There is also “appeal to motive.”
Congressman Gomez is lending whatever remains of his credibility to his Speaker, Rep. Martin Romualdez, taking the heat himself so that blame and anger of the masses (also presidential ire) against the Speaker and the House that he heads is diffused.
In assuming this role, Gomez becomes no better than Bennie Abante, Joseph Padiano, Dan Fernandez and Ace Barbers, the notorious inquisitors of Quad Com. He joins the Romualdez-Tingog-Sandro cabal of Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales, Jayjay Suarez, Joel Chua, Stella Quimbo, Paolo Ortega, Zia Adiong, Ronaldo Puno, etc.
It takes only a cursory perusal of Gomez’s post to know that this is a classic red herring fallacy, calculated and proffered to shield Martin Romualdez from responsibility for this mess.
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