After All

Tricycle anarchy

behnfer — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:12:54 +0000

MANY DAGUPENOS, pedestrians especially, are wondering whether there’s still the law regulating the operation of tricycles in Dagupan City. They feel that if the law has not been repealed or amended, perhaps it’s more honored now in the breach than in the observance.One need only look at the buzzing, roaring tricycle units in the city roads today to realize what these observers mean – there are infinitely much more units running on the road now than at any other time and, hear this, six out of 10 of them do not have the mandated route and windshield numbers painted on them.That could only mean they’re, in more sense than one, colorum (or unregistered) units. Woe to the passenger who meets an accident while riding in one of these three-wheeled contraptions. (more…)

Poor aren't worried about rice shortage

behnfer — Sat, 03 May 2008 09:09:24 +0000

Local farmers are surprised at all this talk of rice shortage. They did the harvesting themselves and from experience, they know there’s enough rice to go around, in Pangasinan at least, for the next several months till the next harvest season.“What’s all the fuss?”, some farmers our team talked to had this expression written all over their faces, when asked for comment on the national ”crisis” scenario. They’ve asked around from their own farmer-relatives in other towns and said no one’s complaining, much less, seeing anything out of the ordinary in the rice harvest and supply. (more…)

The color of money

behnfer — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:26:10 +0000

YOU can’t blame local officials and traders tripping over each other on radio to sing hallelujahs to business tycoon Lucio Tan the morning after his visit to Dagupan City to receive an honorary degree for leadership in entrepreneurship from the Lyceum Northwestern University. In this material world, it’s to each his own kind of praise, to each his own motive. It’s rather unkind to say this, I know, but frankly a perceptive reading of their universal acclaim for the man who ranks No. 785 in Forbes’ Magazine’s Top 1,000 Billionaires of the world can be summed up this way: Come on, Lucio, pour us part of your billions here in Dagupan and Pangasinan and you, too, will be our God. A rather selfish, if disdainful, motive at paying tribute to a self-made man who made his pile by the sweat of his brow – and some uncanny sense of business timing. (more…)

Rice as gut issue

behnfer — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:48:01 +0000

SOMETHING that’s closest to the gut of Pinoys now threatens to put everything going on in this country– NBN-ZTE deal, Lozada’s crusade, Lakas-Kampi merger, Villarosa’s acquittal, the smuggling issue brouhaha between congressmen and PASG chief Bebot Villar , typhoons, even Ben’s to die for ‘borjer’ – in the back burner.

Rice, the staple, the cereal that most Pinoys can’t do without in a day, now looms in scarce supply. And that is bad news, real bad news. The administration, quite naturally, won’t say it directly but the telltale signs are there: We’re importing rice from Vietnam, the President has suddenly allocated a whooping P1.6 billion to the Department of Agriculture to boost rice production and the grains agency, the National Food Administration, is nervously twitching as it calculates how long the available stocks in its bodegas could last.. (more…)

Vidal's big blooper

behnfer — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:02:06 +0000

POOR Cebu archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, now he’s really brought it upon himself, this snowballing mood of disrespect for his ecclesiastical authority. For one steeped in the psychology of human behavior being a shepherd of men, he appears to have overreacted on the Lozada phenomenon , if the reports are true, for unilaterally deciding for his faithfuls’ when he could have best left them to discern things for themselves.

Vidal has done a fatal mistake if he indeed reportedly barred any Catholic mass in Cebu for star corruption witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada in the latter’s current guest speaker mode that’s taking him around the nation. We are quite sure even those who have been lukewarm to the Lozada ‘truth’ phenomenon, in fact may be distancing themselves from any active participation in the NBN-ZTE controversy, have just been given some reason to show their dislike for the Church’s seeming partisan moves.

(more…)

Playing right into Uncle Sam's hand?

behnfer — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:29:46 +0000

LAW students, especially those studying international law, must now be finding the current issue on the Philippines' action in the Kalayaan Group of Isands or Spratlys a thrilling case for discussion.
Already, legal experts and luminaries have chimed in with their views on how defensible or indefensible the government's position is on the issue. It's a gem of a legal point and if pursued to its conclusion, perhaps, soon become a precedent in territorial and sovereignty jurisprudence once it reaches the Supreme Court like many people now predict it would.
(more…)

A Chinatown in Dagupan?

behnfer — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:10:01 +0000

SO FAR, it’s just a plan, alright?

But surely, creating a novel Chinatown in Dagupan sounds romantic enough, considering that the Chinese entrepreneurs of the city have been here for as long as those now in their late fifties can remember.

The Chinese-owned stores in Dagupan have come as huge and imposing as the CSI and Magic mall chains and as modest and sturdy as the Botica China and Kwong Tay and Sanitary bakeries downtown. Their managements have been passed on from one generation to the next and while the heirs have imbibed the native Dagupenos’ culture and street ways, they basically adhere to the cool efficiency of the mostly Mandarin community. (more…)

Suffer the law-abiding citizen

behnfer — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:01:31 +0000

PANGASINAN Police Director Isagani Nerez’es quick answer to the Provincial Governor’s order for a total gun ban in Pangasinan is, as widely expected, the setting up of checkpoints on the road and body searches or frisking of persons in such frequented spots as video-oke bars and nightclubs. It is supposed, and perhaps quite correctly so, that the probability of armed customers being present in such places of entertainment is high.

A report said two members of a gun-for-hire gang were caught at a video-oke joint in Sual last week precisely in implementation of the gun ban. Let us pray that more such pre-emptive operations against such armed individuals or groups roaming in our midst earn similar good results in the coming days so that peace-loving citizens would be relatively safe from those nasty “stray bullets” when guns suddenly start barking. (more…)

Mayors' 'general' problems

behnfer — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:54:33 +0000

CIVILIAN local executives had better watch out in the next few years because their political careers are under serious threat.

This, especially if they have among their constituents an illustrious, top-ranking, high-profile police officer who strongly feels there’s life after retirement. You see, chances are these uniformed men, not their current vice mayor or councilor or previous opponents, will be their next (bitter) election rivals.

Lingayen mayor Jonas Castaneda, as reports now go, is in one such fix. (more…)

Corruptors of media

behnfer — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:06:17 +0000

SOMETIME last December, a media colleague forwarded to me a message from Regional Police Director Pol Bataoil apparently meant to answer the issue on media payola from illegal gambling that has somehowlinked the police to the issue.

It still gains relevance, I believe, as illegal gambling seems to be very alive and well in Pangasinan and the cities – with the media, a great majority of it anyway, already hardly mentioning the “bad word” in their commentaries.
Here’s the text message(yes, I haven’t erased it yet all these time) from the Great Pol Profile. (more…)