What's in a lamp post?

To parody Shakespeare, what's in a lamp post? That which whoever enterprising manipulators call the pricey lamp post, by any other name would smell as scandalously sour and costly.

Going by the tv report on the ASEAN Summit wastrel - not the building of the CICC edifice over which Gov. Gwen Garcia has said to have scrimped, like, Scrooge or Silas Marner - the national government defrayed P1.7 billion or so. Of this gargantuan sum, P100 million was for the decorative lamp posts alone.

It was further shown that they had been ordered from Japan at the unit cost of P90,000, but other newsbits quote it at P95T or P96T per post. Measured against such a prohibitively tagged decorative items, it's probable that each lamp set to complement such rare gem is in the vicinity of P10,000. To round up figures, every lamp post and lamp could be P100,000 per.

If Benjamin Franklin were alive - he who philosophized that death and taxes are the two basic truths in life - he would have exclaimed many times over his favorite witty wisdom against wastage as, "too much for a whistle".

Even a dense pupil in arithmetic can compute that 10 decorative lamp posts with lamp sets will total P1 million. Ergo, out of the P100 million, there could be some 1000 lamp posts installed. Again, that's too much for a whistle! What could have been the elements or materials used in forging the collector's item of a lamp post? Obviously, it could not be gold, or even silver, or bronze perhaps, or gold-plated of some kind? Whatever they are made of by the Japanese manufacturer, it appears that they are worth their actual weight in the likes of Midas' touch.

Pegged against the reported P20,000 enticement to each owner of squatter houses and shanties at the Cebu City pier area to vacate, the P100,000 per lamp post equals five houses paid for and destroyed. If not for the P20 thousand ante, the pier area squatters would have fought with their lives just to stay put. Thus, each squatter family was only worth 1/5 of the decorative lamp post cost.

It appears that except for the CICC complex financed by the Cebu Province, the sprucing up and street beautification for the ASEAN Summit along Lapulapu, Mandaue and Cebu City, have been sourced from the national government through the local DPWH. It's no wonder that on one aspect of Summit expenses - the installation of security cameras to be anomalous - certain DPWH officials have been sued for plunder. Ergo, it's very likely that the similar shady deal on the sky-high lamp post funding was also through the same national agency.

Thus, these expensive lamp posts pose another call for fiscal accountability. Besides, one wonders what would happen to them after the Summit shall have been over, in terms of usability or further usefulness. Would these ornate, costly fixtures continue to beautify, or uglify, like unlit or snuffed-out candles, as in the deserted morning after the All Souls' Day in cemeteries?

Well, whatever may remain would perhaps be uprooted and stored as Summit collector's items as souvenirs for posterity. That eventuality is even iffy, considering that even before the Summit onset, some of these lamp posts had been pilfered by petty thieves and sold to fence buyers for a pittance.

Indeed, Juan dela Cruz who now wallows in penury shall, again, bear the financial cross over the scandalous wastage of the P100 million worth of lamp posts. Instead of backing or quarter-backing the fervent efforts of the Summit organizers up the pitch, it appears some may have bucked them down the pit.

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