Herbert Bautista: A case of a bad movie plot
Credit to Author: Mauro Gia Samonte| Date: Sat, 08 Feb 2020 17:57:23 +0000
Literary critics are wont to stress that a good plot is one in which the hero overcomes difficult beginnings and ends up having good times. Conversely, a hero’s drop from success to failure is a bad plot anytime.
From the beginning, Herbert “Bistek” Bautista’s story had been an impressive one. Here was a young man naturally cut for comedy and showed great promise as a movie celebrity, yet early on in his life, he chose to be more of a politician than a movie star.
As president of the Kabataang Barangay (Village Youth Council) from 1986 to 1989, he was designated ex-officio member of the Quezon City Council, representing the youth sector.
Since then, his rise in Philippine politics has been meteoric of sorts. After serving a full-fledged term as councilor of the city from 1992 to 1995, he was elected vice mayor at 27 years old, the youngest ever to serve as vice mayor of Quezon City. In 1998, he threw his hat into the city’s mayoralty race, challenging incumbent Mayor Ismael Mathay Jr.
That was a fight particularly significant to me.
That was also the year I ran for mayor of Antipolo City, and I remember having a ride with Director Herminio “Miniong” Bautista, Herbert’s father, in which he expressed surprise at my political aspiration.
“Tatakbo kang meyor?” Miniong asked, his voice sounding like a Doubting Thomas, eyes glinting with a look that said, “Aw, come on. You’re kidding.”
It was Don Quixotic, I would admit, to aspire for my city’s top executive post when I have not undergone the process traversed by Herbert.
“Councilor muna, direk,” advised the city’s public high school principal. “Number 1 ka.”
But I was rather desperate. The Sisonite revolution in which I have staked the fortunes of the Philippine proletariat had clearly already lost due to the sweeping rectification campaign implemented by Jose Maria Sison which resulted in the splintering throughout the entire breadth of the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army. Completely abandoning the armed struggle, I thought I should make a last ditch stand at regaining the upperhand for the proletariat by participating in bourgeois parliamentarism.
But why run for mayor right away and not take after the proven surefire method exemplified by Herbert? This was, in fact, what prompted Miniong to question my decision to run for the top post of Antipolo.
“We have too many laws already,” I told Herbert’s dad. “What the country needs is good law implementation.”
I did not have the temerity to throw the same question to Miniong in the case of Herbert’s own running for a similar post. He sounded so cocksure his son would win in his fight.
It turned out, Herbert lost to Mathay, while I lost to a neophyte in Antipolo politics, who happened to have invented the sachet way of packaging chemicals — which has been popularly perceived as the source of his millions.
From hereon, Herbert would prove his political mettle a lot superior than mine. While I completely gave up the political struggle, whether armed or parliamentary, like Greek heroes who surmount obstacles and overcome, Herbert ran again as mayor of QC in the next elections and won. Since then, the Bistek had not lost any elections again.
Such a terrific plot, indeed, if Herbert’s saga had been a movie. Completing the last three of his constitutionally allowed tenure at the post, he bowed out of the limelight of QC politics, not seeking any more elective post in the last polls.
So, for Bistek, all’s well that ends well, it seems?
Not quite, so would it turn out. If Bistek’s political career had been actually one well-guarded grand criminal episode, then in the end, as in a Greek tragedy, there is the great irony of a clue to the crime not having been expunged completely.
It was quite legit, and commendable, as well, the project called QC Smart City Data Infrastructure by which to provide free internet to all villages of the city. But to this day, not an iota of the undertaking has been in place, but its entire cost has already been paid for by the QC government — a staggering amount of P318 million.
A complaint filed with the Ombudsman by Noel Emmanuel Gascon, internal auditor of the Internal Audit Service (IAS) of the QC government, accuses Herbert of plunder. The need for clarity and accuracy in presenting the case against Bautista requires a presentation here of the matter exactly how the QC auditor states the case in his complaint, thus:
“1. In accordance with the duties and functions of the IAS of the Quezon City government, the IAS conducted an audit of Project No. 180552527 or the QC Smart City Data Infrastructure (the ‘Project’), The Project was supposed to provide a city-wide broadband network deploying free internet base stations in each barangay of the City allowing residents free internet access therefrom.
“2. Purchase Request No. 953537 dated 15 July 2017, attached herewith as Annex ‘A,’ for the amount of Three Hundred Eighteen Million Pesos (P318,000,000.00) was issued to the Project. The signatories therein were then City Administrator Aldrin C. Cuna (‘Respondent Cuna’) as the requesting party, and then City Mayor Herbert M. Bautista (‘Respondent Bautista’) as the approving authority.”
The case being under official consideration of the court, this column does not intend to make any further comments other than pointing out that Herbert’s political career hasn’t been exemplary after all.
If it were a movie, the plot stinks.