Trio Los Bobos

by Peter Jimenea, of The Daily Guardian

OUR hero Kuyabog still pursues his dream of instilling discipline, professionalism, industry, diligence and what have you on the 2,000 subjects of the Kingdom by the River.

And in so doing, turns that land into an elementary school because Kuyabog, capo di tutti capi of the trio los bobos, cannot, and does not care to, understand what the words above mean.

He does not see the substance of those values. All he sees are only forms, which is the trait he shares with the trio, este, mucho los bobos, pretending like him to be leaders but actually groveling nitwits that they are.

All that Kuyabog et al do is limit professionalism, industry, etc. to mere rituals like wearing of proper uniform, attendance to the flag ceremony every Monday morning, and perfect attendance sheet.

Like grade school toddlers, lowly employees must beat the traffic and be at the flag pole by 7:50. Otherwise, they might miss the ceremony. Kuyabog, the flirting Tibakla and Sirum-Sirum ordered the guards to shut all doors to the palace, so none gets out to the flagpole and none gets in to time in.

Those unable to attend get memorandum from Kuyabog himself chiding her/him for being unpatriotic and demanding explanation for disrespecting the flag.

The late ones fare worse. They may have catch up with the flag ceremony but their lateness of less than five minutes can swell to one hour because the flag ceremony can drag indefinitely. Tibakla the star of the show titled “Illegal Connection at the Old Palace” and Sirum-Sirum have the propensity to deliver lengthy but useless messages after the flag ceremony.

What the mucho los bobos fail to see is that to learn to become good civil servants, all that employees need to do is to do the exact the opposite of what Kuyabog et al do.

Kuyabog steals and steals because he has to support a costly lifestyle. He visits first class night spots and coffee shops, and maintains mistresses like Karing with whom he has a child, Bitang with two, his own wife Sakrifisya with three, a special male friend initialed “M”, another woman with a child whom he rescued from the town of the housing scam at the height of Bagyo Frank.

Kuyabog conspired with Mister Cutter and Gurami in rigging a public bidding to favor a notorious contracter named “CDC” to procure a substandard and overpriced autoclave (sterilizing machine) for a district hospital. The defective machine bled the kingdom P1.4 million.

Kuyabog, Gurami and Mister Cutter also conspired to rig another bidding to favor the same contractor to supply another hospital with an overpriced anesthesia machine that is already obsolete because the company already stopped producing it and its spare parts. the deal costs P2 million.

Not contented, Kuyabog and another official conspired to buy an overpriced software used in the assessment and payment of real property taxes. The supplier initially offered it at P1 million which was already overpriced at that but Kuyabog wanted a costlier one. He asked the supplier to change name to justify a higher rate that the latter gladly did. Here is the case of an individual, renaming its company to sell the same software at the bloated price of P4.5 million.

Employees get warned and disciplined for minor infractions like being late or missing flag ceremonies but we have here a master disciplinarian and his fellow gangsters inflicting irreparable injuries on the kingdom and its people. They get away with it and laugh their way to the bank.

Caterers, in addition, curse them. These trio, este, mucho los bobos, appointed themselves “tasters” to ensure that meals and snacks served during seminars meet quality standards. The problem is that, they taste not mere samples. They are actually eating to the point of satiety. That happens almost everyday and these mucho los bobos still get free food on top of their loot! Ex puduratos- shameless!