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KWEBA ni BAROK

Congratulations, Cebu Taxpayers: You Just Bought the World’s Most Expensive Invisible Garbage

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Louis ‘Barok’ Biraogo

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Congratulations, Cebu Taxpayers: You Just Bought the World’s Most Expensive Invisible Garbage
Now with 300% markup and zero actual trash included — limited edition plunder!

By Louis “Barok” C. Biraogo — December 3, 2025

1. The Miracle of Multiplication: How Trash Became More Valuable Than Truffles

In a feat that would make Jesus’ fish-and-loaves stunt look amateur, Cebu City officials managed to triple the value of ordinary garbage overnight. Contract rate: ₱600 per ton. Actual payments: ₱1,800 per ton. That’s a 300% markup with no added caviar. Total overpayment: a cool ₱239.73 million of your money.

The method was gloriously simple:

  • Contractor submits bills at triple rate, backed by falsified Truck Scale Slips (some photocopied, others pure fiction).
  • Eleven public servants form a conga line of approvals.
  • Money vanishes into contractor accounts in 3–12 days — faster service than GrabFood when there’s plunder involved.
“When your trash budget needs a miracle, just add 300% holy markup and watch the loaves & fishes look like amateur hour.”

2. The Ombudsman Swings… and Gently Tickles: Why Plunder Got Dropped But Graft Survived

Give the Office of the Ombudsman a slow clap for finally filing charges — graft and malversation against former City Administrator Floro Casas Jr. and ten other City Hall acrobats plus three private contractor elves.

But dropping the plunder charge? ₱239 million is apparently just a misdemeanor now. Congratulations, you brought a feather boa to a bank robbery.

3. The Arias Doctrine Defense Choir: “I Just Signed, I Didn’t Read, I’m Only Human (Allegedly)”

Coming soon to Sandiganbayan near you: the greatest hits album

♪ “I relied on my subordinates~
The irregularity wasn’t patent enough~
₱239 million looked totally normal at 2 a.m.~” ♪

The Supreme Court in Arias v. Sandiganbayan (G.R. No. 81563, 19 Dec 1989) said heads of office may rely on subordinates unless the irregularity is glaring, patent, and gross.

A 300% garbage surcharge is not “glaring” — it’s the Las Vegas Strip at midnight. The Arias shield just melted.

4. Filipino Corruption 101: The Sacred Rituals of Phantom Tonnage Theater

Every masterpiece follows the same holy script:

  • Phantom Tonnage Theater – Billing for garbage that exists only in corrupted Excel sheets
  • The Approval Conga Line – Eleven signatures so responsibility disappears like smoke from Inayawan landfill
  • Fast-Track Fandango – Payments released faster than a politician’s promise during campaign
  • Gross Inexcusable Negligence Cha-Cha – “I didn’t know” performed by people paid precisely to know

5. The Law, Served Ice-Cold and With Extra Contempt

Charges filed:

  • Malversation of Public Funds (Article 217, Revised Penal Code) – non-bailable when the amount makes your eyes bleed
  • Violation of Section 3(e), Republic Act No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act) – for causing undue injury or giving unwarranted benefits through “manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross inexcusable negligence”

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly (see Bacasmas v. People, G.R. No. 189343, 22 Jul 2013) that you don’t need to pocket the money yourself. It’s enough that your spectacular negligence permitted someone else to steal it. Enjoy the free orange jumpsuit fitting.

6. Coming Attractions at the Sandiganbayan Circus

  • Motion-to-Quash pageant
  • Endless medical certificates (“Your Honor, the accused has acute allergy to accountability”)
  • Possible conviction sometime after the heat death of the universe

7. Modest Proposals So Obvious They Hurt

  1. Do not pay three times the contract price for literal trash without asking a single question.
  2. Install a giant red flashing sign in City Hall that screams “300% OVERPRICE” in 72-point Comic Sans.
  3. Require at least one approving officer to actually read the contract before signing away a quarter-billion pesos.
  4. Jail people who treat public funds like an unlimited GrabPay wallet.

Revolutionary concepts, I know.

Until Cebu City adopts at least one of them, the only thing being recycled will be the same excuses, the same officials, and the same stench.

Stay angry, mga ka-kweba. The trash may rot, but the corruption is forever.

— Barok

Key Citations

Primary News Source

Primary Legal Sources

Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo

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