The recently held Dinagyang Festival was truly a success. But invited visitors don’t have the faintest idea where the income of the affair should go. Many believe the celebration is still sanctioned by the church who would benefit from this religious celebration.

Unknown to them, it is already under the administration of a foundation, the Dinagyang Foundation headed by Mr. Ben Jimena, city tourism officer and chairman of the festival authorized by Mayor Jerry P. Trenas.

It was the late Pacifico Sudarion who gave the name Dinagyang to this church affair. Unfortunately after the flow of contribution from different sectors began coming-in, elected crooks of the city government formed this Dinagyang Foundation conceived by greed at the expense of church of leaders and religious-organizers.

Thus, for the past decades no proper or transparent accounting of income and expenditures were presented to the public. As a matter of fact, the Dinagyang Foundation became a milking cow of few officials who became overnight millionaires from this affair.

Sad to say, however, but as always, the new breed of leaders in-charged of handling the foundation surpassed the atrocities committed by crooks in the previous administration to the collection of the Dinagyang Foundation.

Now although some donations or contributions for the affair came from the government offices, we cannot hold the officials of the Dinagyang Foundation (now a private organization) liable regarding public accountability and responsibility attendant thereto.

But that is not only what we are looking for. The sad part of this story is the deliberate neglect of our Dinagyang officials to observe the protocol in running this affair. Both the city mayor and his tourism officer deliberately failed to invite the important city officials to grace the affair.

They are Cong. Raul Gonzalez, Jr., congressman of the Lone District, Iloilo City and father who is also a cabinet official. They were not present during the highlight of the festival. We know the two are political nemesis of the city mayor for the upcoming 2010 elections.

But RA 6713 or Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards should be observed. We were thought at school about good manners and right conduct which has molded us to become respectful and law abiding citizens. On why the mayor and his Dinagyang Foundation chairman forgot to uphold this principle, they have yet to say.

For educated people, this is “kabastusan.” If the mayor doesn’t like the father and son by his side at the Freedom Grandstand, he can assign a person or a committee to attend to the Gonzalezes need and to accommodate them at the other judging areas away from him.

But according to Cong. Gonzalez and the Presidential Chief Legal Counsel father Raul Sr., they received no invitation from the city mayor, even a car-pass. If the mayor asserts he inadvertently overlooked the names of the two public officials in the list of those he invited, that’s baloney!

Mr. Ben Jimenea, chairman of the Dinagyang has also a lot of explaining to do. Being in-charge of the affair he should have talked to Mayor Trenas about the consequences of this act to deliberately neglect the presence of the two public officials at the festival.

Prudence dictates that public employees in government service like the city mayor and city tourism officer should strictly observe the official protocol in such big affair. They must understand that in traditional notion of animosity between two public officials of the government, as general rule, RA 6713 should always prevail.

I thought Sec. Gonzalez would be a rude ruler of the city as what the claim of adversaries hinted at. But for this act of Mayor Trenas, he is now perceived as the real dictator of this higly urbanized city without a City Hall. I don’t know about the Gonzalezes if apology of the mayor and the tourism officer for what they did can be accepted!

Now it holds true that politics is dirty and contagious game. There is no permanent friends or enemies, only interest. So, maybe its true,for Mayor Trenas, si vis pacem, para bellum – if you want peace, be prepared for war!

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