Goodbye, George

“In the fear and alarm, you did not desert me, my brother in arms.” ― Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms [1985]

 I LOST a dear friend. George Bagsic, one of the popular folksingers in the city died of cardiac arrest on Friday night.

 He told me his family was into folk music in Olongapo. His partner, who had since become his intimate partner, is a resident here. He relocated here in Cagayan de Oro after a contracted gig in South Korea.

 We first met under competitive circumstances. There was an acoustic playing contest in Butuan City and I enlisted as a contestant. He wasn’t but I was determined to outplay him — in musician’s lingo — lagyan. But he rose to the challenge. He also played his best piece.

 Weeks later, I saw him fetching water in our neighborhood communal faucet. We were both surprised that we were neighbors. From then on our friendship flourished. He became my brother from another mother.

 I remember that time when we broke in my brand new component. We used an LCD projector and enjoyed a concert like we were there by sitting on the floor, with a picnic like banig with a bottle of rum, ice, and two glasses.

 The skill he taught me with the guitar will his legacy to me. I remember he taught me one particularly difficult A chord structure — A major 9th dominant +13. He also taught me the creative phraseology of certain melodies.

 His last text message to me was on March 16. It was a memo for the performers at a resto-bar he was playing at.

 “Please be advised that our acoustic (performances) will be suspended…starting tomorrow March 17, 2020. Wait for further notice (when) to resume,” the memo reads.

 He was anxious because he lived from gig to gig. He had no day job like I had when I used to “lagare” the local bars with him before. Music was literally his bread and butter.

BURGOS STREET MUSIC COLLECTIVE

 With the bars in Cagayan de Oro closing as part of the preventive measures in containing the contagion, he was clearly in dire straits. He was at his wit’s end as to where to get the money to buy their next meal. His heart gave out.

 When I replied with a sad emoticon to his text message, he replied with a smiling emoticon with a halo. Rest easy, my dear friend. You will be missed.

Flygate Kagay-anons

CAGAYAN de Oro has lately found itself riding a wave of stomach-related illnesses sloshing through urban neighborhoods.

🎶 Whoo…hoy! Ayaw pagbalod. 🎶

A mass movement unlike the one the city saw last Sunday — this time of the bowel variety.

In other words, business as usual in a country where diarrhea is still treated less like a public health failure and more like a natural disaster.

The fascinating bit isn’t the outbreak itself, but the collective yawn outside Northern Mindanao. Even social media — that great amplifier of idiotic outrage — has barely burped.

If this were happening in NCR or Baguio, you’d expect hourly updates, DOH briefings with infographics, maybe even a temporary water-rationing scandal. At the very least, a “WALANG PASOK” banner on Facebook daily.

But because it’s “just” Cagayan de Oro…

🎶 Krik…krik…krik 🎶

Same old story: disasters in Mindanao are tragedies only to Mindanaoans. 

A cholera scare in BGC would be a national emergency; in Kagay-an it’s a quirky footnote, filed between #sanaolCarmen and a multi-million boulevard closed to traffic.

That shrug should worry everyone. 

Waterborne diseases don’t check plane or bus tickets before traveling. Today it’s Kagay-an; tomorrow, your city’s tap.

Still, as long as the problem stays “down south,” the rest of the archipelago acts immune.

Enough self-pity. We are, after all, the e-gateway to Northern Mindanao [pun intended]. We are the new ‘flygates.’

Here’s a modern civic trick: people get sick, officials point at “contaminated water,” and then perform the ritual dance — tests, press releases, reassurances.

Right now, the City Health Office has sent samples to DOH-10, restaurants have quietly stopped serving free water and ice, and everyone is waiting to see what’s what.

But if you want to know why your stomach is playing percussion, just step outside: look at the sidewalks, the Cagayan River, and the perennially flooded highway in the ironically named Barangay Kauswagan.

For months, residents have posted photos of uncollected garbage while officials wrestle with a contractor that can’t (or won’t) collect on schedule. The city council is even mulling giving every barangay its own garbage truck because the current system is collapsing.

And here’s why that matters: garbage isn’t just ugly, it’s a five-star hotel for bacteria, flies, and rats. It clogs drains. It floats. It seeps into shallow wells and roof tanks.

Then the rains come — during the “ber months” — and all that trash turns into a mobile contamination unit, delivered by floodwater straight into where we keep our drinking water.

That’s not speculation; that’s human behavior plus government neglect.

We’ve already seen flash floods this year that stranded people and swept away cars. Combine that with months of festering trash and you’ve got a recipe: pathogens hitch a ride on floodwater into homes and cisterns.

People drink, get sick. The Cagayan de Oro Water District insists its supply is safe. Restaurants stop serving tap. The health office wipes its hands.

Yes, COWD says its pipelines tested negative. But that doesn’t answer the tank-in-your-yard question, nor does it stop restaurants and households from treating tap water like poison.

That’s the uncomfortable theater: a clean central supply can still be sabotaged by roof tanks caked with bird poop or by streets so jammed with garbage they turn into septic rivers with every downpour.

Complaints about garbage aren’t just about bad selfies — they’re the city’s early warning system for the next health crisis.

So what should happen, besides the obligatory press conferences and “we’re investigating” FB posts?

Start with the obvious and unsexy: enforce collection schedules. Audit and, if necessary, fire useless contractors.

Oh wait — we didn’t even bid out a new contract until the old one expired. Only then did the city scramble for a new schmuck.

Meanwhile, inspect restaurants and building tanks. If they’re testing positive, fix them — instead of wedding old couples in the hinterlands.

Yes, people will bitch and moan about budget lines and tender processes. But the alternative is getting used to waves of gastrointestinal misery.

So to the water district, city hall, and contractor: congratulations! #wootwoot 

You’ve cleared stage one of this civic drama — denial and testing. 

The hard part is stage two: accountability and action.

If Cagayan de Oro really wants to live up to its “City of Golden Friendship” brand, maybe start by making sure visitors aren’t greeted by floating trash.

And if you’re a resident with a roof tank: for the love of chlorine, clean it. 

Kagay-an can’t save you if you’re swimming in last month’s garbage and calling it “communal compost.”

The ber months are coming. They don’t care who’s in charge. Pfft

State auditors flag Misamis Oriental's JOs

 MISAMIS Oriental’s legislators remained tight-lipped as state auditors spotlighted their engagement of over 700 temporary workers in 2022, alongside the contentious practice of designating a lone wage collector for some of the workers.

In its 2022 audit report, the Commission on Audit (COA) questioned the “necessity and reasonableness” of the hiring of 737 “job order” workers or JOs which cost Misamis Oriental P75.4 million last year.

Job order workers are people hired on a temporary or contractual basis to perform specific tasks or projects for a government organization.

“(It) is dubious due to the actual functions performed by these JOs which do not fit the definition of a job order,” the COA report read in part.

The provincial board has kept mum about the matter in public or during their sessions. This reporter repeatedly tried to ask for comments from at least two provincial board members – Gerardo Sabal III and Dexter Yasay – but not one of them responded. In a phone call on August 14, Sabal declined to be interviewed because he was supposedly preparing for a meeting.

They did not respond to text messages sent to them on August 17.

Neither Misamis Oriental Vice Governor Jeremy Jonahmar ‘Jigjag’ Pelaez nor any of his staff was available when this reporter went to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan on August 16.

In the audit report, a copy of which was sent to Misamis Oriental Governor Peter Unabia on June 6 by COA-Northern Mindanao director Mathew Magno, state auditors pointed out the duplication of functions in the provincial board and the “non-submission of individual accomplishment reports, organizational structure, and staffing pattern.”

The COA said the hiring of 737 job order workers went against the guidelines set by the Civil Service Commission (CSC), COA rules, and the Local Government Code, thus, “affecting the regularity and necessity of hiring JOs and payment of their wages.”

State auditors also urged the provincial officials to exercise “due prudence” in hiring temporary workers to avoid unnecessary and excessive spending.

The officials can avoid this, COA added, by limiting the hiring of contractual workers, especially if their services are not required.

Auditors also advised the officials to coordinate or delegate the screening and selection of job order workers to the Provincial Human Resource and Management Office because it can properly determine the merit, fitness, and qualifications of workers.

The COA also recommended that the provincial board require its job order workers to personally prepare their daily time records and submit detailed accomplishment reports.

It called out the provincial board for allowing only one person to collect the wages of some of these job order workers. The report did not identify the collector.

“The wages of some of the JOs hired in the Office of the SP totaling P4.496 million were not claimed directly by them but were claimed and collected by a person with Special Power of Attorney,” the COA report reads.

State auditors said such a practice went against government audit rules.

“Stop the practice of allowing another person to claim and collect the salaries of the JOs and the transfer of cash from one person to another in order to protect government funds from possible losses,” read a part of the report.

In the 2022 audit report, the COA also flagged the capitol’s hiring of 37 consultants from January to June last year, which cost the provincial government more than P6 million.

State auditors found out that the consultants were “not prudently evaluated since their services were already undertaken by existing (local government) personnel, while three of them performed services that were not highly technical in nature.”

The audit report pointed out that the hiring of consultants doing redundant functions resulted in the provincial government incurring “unnecessary expenditures.”

It recommended that the Capitol instruct its department heads to incorporate the need for individual consultants in their respective Project Procurement and Management Plan and to make sure that these consultants meet the qualifications set under the Government Procurement Reform Act. (This article was first published on Rappler.com)