Why recall poll was withheld in Puerto Princesa

Now, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chair Sixto Brillantes can no longer hide behind the flimsy reason of lack of funds for holding a recall election in Puerto Princesa City after the Supreme Court ordered him to do so.

Brillantes had been saying that the poll body didn’t have enough funds to hold the election which would pit the current mayor, Cecilio Bayron, against his predecessor Edward Hagedorn.

The real reason, this columnist learned, is that an influential official had talked the poll body chief into withholding the recall election.

The majority of the people in Puerto Princesa City asked for a recall election because of the city’s sharp economic downturn due to Bayron’s alleged inefficiency.

Under Bayron’s administration, tourist arrivals in the city, which earns mostly from tourism, are now just a drop compared to the figures during Hagedorn’s term.

Bayron, who is a “brod” or fraternity brother of Vice President Jojo Binay in the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity, allegedly doesn’t care about businesses that cater to tourists as his emphasis is on patronizing the poor with monetary doleouts.

Under Hagedorn, Puerto Princesa City was bursting at the seams with local and foreign tourists as he promoted the city’s attractions to the outside world.

*                               *                           *

If Corrections Director Franklin Bucayu has any sense of shame at all, he should resign his post since he’s been caught sleeping on the job for the nth time.

Once again, anomalies at the country’s primary prison, the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP), where Bucayu holds office, have been exposed by media.

Among the most glaring is the unholy alliance between NBP guards and wealthy inmates who are given privileges unheard of in prisons systems in other parts of the world.

Convicted drug lords, for example, are allowed to own cellular phones and the use of the Internet which keep them in touch with their respective drug syndicates outside.

Bucayu’s subordinates at the NBP, most of whom are related by blood or affinity, allegedly allow inmates to smuggle in drugs and keep deadly weapons in their cells.

A hand grenade exploded inside the prison compound last year during a war between two rival gangs.

But despite being a sleepyhead or, possibly, even in collusion with his subordinates, Bucayu has not been removed.

One of Bucayu’s predecessors, Ernesto Diokno, a close friend of President Noynoy, immediately tendered his resignation after a high-profile inmate was caught gallivanting in Makati City when he should be inside the NBP.

Bucayu apparently doesn’t have Diokno’s old school delicadeza or sense of propriety as he continues to hold on to his position like a barnacle on a ship.

Could it be that the prisons official is banking on his friendship with an official at the Department of Justice to keep his post?

If that were the case, the President should give Bucayu the boot or ask him to go on leave as he did with Health Secretary Enrique Ona who was allegedly involved in a reported scandal in the purchase of medicines.