Senior Board Member Dionisio Balite, waited for the gloom of the Holy Week to clear the cloudy skies over at the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, before “detonating a bomb” in reaction to a paid advertisement which according to him was reeking with lies. Mincing no words, the gentleman from Valencia went ballistic, when he read a paid ad from the SP entitled “All for One-not Against One”. The ad was a take off from two banner stories of both The Bohol Sunday Post and Bohol Times that highlighted a meeting among SP members presided over by Gov. Edgar Chatto.

The “out of the ordinary meeting” was held to thresh out issues involving so-called centralized procurement system of office supplies and gasoline slips where two factions were at odds with each other. According to the banner stories, the toast during the meeting “All for one, one for all” was dedicated against V-Gov. Concepcion Lim. But the majority's interpretation of the catchphrase was not meant to be that way as seen from the perspective of the two newspapers. The editors of the two papers stood by their stories on the account of the leaks of what really transpired during the meeting by Balite and seconded by Board Member Godofreda Tirol.

BALITE'S BEEF

What seemed to be Balite's beef against the paid ad was anchored on three issues. First, he said, the paid ad, made the people of Bohol, the taxpayers or electorates, were made to believe that the SP remains, “a big, one, happy, working, family”. “Such a twisted fact”, Balite blurted. Balite reasoned out, how can one expect a one big happy family when such paid ad instead lengthened some more the cleavage of misunderstanding between and among some member of the august body. On issue No. 2, Balite belied that there was no centralized distribution. He said this was another brazen lie. The ire of the board member was irked when he was unable to render a committee report citing the lack of bond papers apparently resulting from the centralized procurement system initiated by V-Gov. Lim apparently in the name of austerity and cost cutting.

“The last straw that broke Balite's back” was the insinuation in the paid ad that there was no failure of the “senior board member” to render his report due to unavailability of supplies. In fact, he said, his staff was made to face the SP members and that staff admitted that there was no available bond paper for the purpose. Reacting sharply on this issue, Balite balked saying this was the worst perversion of truth that this “representation has ever known in the history of mankind after St. Peter's Good Friday denial of Jesus Christ”. He said he can swear to high heavens adding that “this representation can still afford to have a face to face encounter with the Almighty if only to cleanse his soul on this very particular issue. In closing Balite said, to be true and candid, not one among the office members of this representation has ever pronounced even a word or two declaring that there was available bond paper for the purpose. However, in a check with all the board members as of Friday, it was gathered that practically all of them have their own supplies after their Annual Procurement Plan including that of Balite was already approved by the presiding officer. The procurement plan of each board member forms the basis of the issuance of PR or purchase requests paving the way for the release of office supplies.