FEDERALISATION WILL PRODUCE REAL EFFICIENCY MORE THAN PARLIAMENTARISM

CUARTEROS BREAD AND CAKES
JAGNA PUBLIC MARKET, JAGNA, BOHOL


Date : December 14, 2006
To : Day Care Center Teachers of Can-ipol, Canjulao I, Canjulao II, Faraon, Larapan, Mayana
Re : Collection of Ramaining Balance


Dear Madaames:

Greetings!

This is to inform you that the 24 stale checks of the 24 Day Care Centers have not yet been replaced. It is almost 7 months now since June.

The total of 10 months since we started supplying Nutri Bread to 33 Day Care Centers (i.e., March – June) and the following 7 months of waiting patiently for the payments – has caused much difficulty to our bakery.

First, we were forced to borrow from lending investors with interest so high that our small profit from the Day Care Feeding Program was eaten up, and secondly, a large part of our daily profit are being also eaten up by these loan sharks.

So, the business is being hurt – it is bleeding.

If we can’t find additional capital or if we can’t collect our collectibles from you, we will continue to operate without profit and at a loss! The profits of our bakery will continue to go to the pockets of some exorbitant lending investors or loan sharks.

To our part, this means: inability to pay the salaries of our employees. This will then cause so much suffering upon their families. Furthermore, as we cannot continue to buy complete ingredients for the bakery, it will mean decrease of sales – as you can see, this may even lead to our bankruptcy.

So you see, one person’s or a few persons’ negligence or apathy or lack of concern can create a chain of difficulties which may not be obvious to them; however, the sufferings are real and grievous.

If we continue to live and act and think and plan like that, we violate the Law of true Christianity which is: “You shall love God our father above all and your neighbor as yourself.”

Our Lord’s love commandment is being rejected, ignored and maligned in society – in this nation. Result: “biting one another, devouring one another and destroying one another” as Paul says in Galatians 5. Instead of edifying, nurturing and building up one another like a big Family, WE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ONE ANOTHER -- we pull one another like crabs inside a container. The crab who makes progress by climbing up is pulled down by the others. Although everybody wants to progress or say, escape from the captivity or poverty, yet everybody does not want others to make progress or escape. Each one wants progress and freedom for its own Self alone, and not for others or anyone! The crab wants others to rot, while it wants the crown at the top.

For crabs to be the inhabitants in a country, progress will remain an elusive dream. There will infightings everywhere, such as what is happening to the Philippines! This kind of behavior or character will never result to progress nor freedom because everyone is a slave to the first enslaver, SELFISHNESS or selfish Self-love. If we want freedom for the self, each one of us must seek freedom from selfishness, first and foremost. And it means at the same time, that each of us will seek progress and freedom not only for the self but for ALL! The slogan of brotherhood applies here: One for all, and all for one.

He who seeks freedom will not find it, if he seeks it only for himself, forgetting his brethren. Rizal understood it well. That’s why he said: “One single midrib is easily broken, but a number binding themselves together for form a broom is not easily broken.” “One man’s hands can’t break the prison down, two men’s hands can’t break the prison down,” so goes a famous scouting song, “but if two and two and fifty make a million you will see the prison down…”

If we want personal freedom and progress, we must simultaneously pursue it both for ourselves and for others. For the regulation and principle is not “Love your neighbor less than yourself” but “love your neighbor as yourself.”

By giving our Day Care children the most nutritious bread we can make at low price, that is what we meant. We wanted to put our Christian belief and Christ’s law into practice. And we will do this every time in the future whenever the right opportunities present themselves.

For the moment, we request you to help lighten up our financial difficulty by settling your payable accounts which are as follows:

1. Can-ipol - balance: P 400.00
2. Canjulao I - balance: P 420.00
3. Canjulao II - balance: P 1,232,00
4. Faraon - balance:P 414.00
5. Larapan - balance: P 1,292.00
6. Mayana - balance: P 1,380.00
========
Total Balance: P 5,138.00

For ordinary unsophisticated people like us, it is difficult to understand why it would take 7 months for DSWD-Region VII to replace only 24 stale checks which until now are not yet replaced! That’s too much for small businessmen like us who have no enough capital to cushion such long overdue! According to the Head of GSO, Provincial Capitol of Bohol, this is only one of thousands of cases of inefficiency and lack of concerned (cold services) taking place every day in the government bureaucracy. “That’s why,” he concluded, “We must federalize where Federalism means real autonomy and decentralization of as much of the government functions as can be to finally achieve fast and warm services to the people.” We are most aware of this old problem with government bureaucracy: snail-pace, cold service and worst, the need to grease their palms with money, otherwise your papers or need will not move. Whether you talk about getting a Land Title or getting a birth certificate, you can sense this slow, cold service and greed. I spend space to highlight this here so that we, the people, will join hands in fighting over this old evil. WE HAVE TO GO FOR FEDERALISM FOR THE GOOD OF ALL, BUSINESS AND CITIZENS!

Finally, we would like to request you that since you had already your checks encashed, we hope you can settle your remaining accounts with us as soon as possible – in full or by installment. We plan to see you a few days from today.

Very truly yours,

Cocoy and Vida

cc: DSWD, Mayor’s Office