FLOWERS FOR THE CETACEANS— Flowers are laid at the tomb of a giant whale named ‘Moby Dick’ in observance of All Saints Day at the country’s only fish cemetery inside the Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center in Bonuan Binloc. Those who visited are (from right) Pierre Morissens of Belgium, France’s Dr. Bernard Chevassus-au-Louis, Punch writer Eva Visperas and Dr. Westly Rosario, interim director of the Nat’l Fisheries Research and Development Institute.

FOR KIDNAPPING, SHABU POSSESSION

Raid in San Quintin sans mission order

TAYUG - Four agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) based in Cordillera Administration Region have been charged with kidnap-for-ransom and illegal possession of shabu at the provincial prosecutor’s office here after local and provincial police caught them in a dragnet operation Thursday.

       Senior Superintendent Alan Purisima, Pangasinan’s provincial police director, identified the four as Police Chief Inspector Fortfillio Calagan, the team leader, and SPO4s Marquez Wadcon and Arthur Lucas and PO2 Edwin Garcia. They had two other companions who remain unidentified.

The incident happened just as newly assumed Police Provincial Director Leopoldo Bataoil has warned he won’t tolerate “hulidaps” in his area of operation.

Purisima told The PUNCH the charges have been prepared for filing based on a report prepared by Chief Inspector Sotero Soriano, chief of San Quintin police station.
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AT long last, Dagupan City’s emergency workers (EW) have been paid their salaries after two months of delay.

 The Sangguniang Panlungsod approved a P2-million supplemental budget in last Monday’s regular session.

The amount covers the EW salaries September only but it is uncertain yet if the local government can source funds for wages from October to December.    

According to officials, the frequent delay in payment of wages of emergency workers was blamed to lack of funds since, according to City Budget Officer Ildefonso Calimlim, the salaries of EWs were not included in the annual budget.
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URDANETA CITY - It’s a university status at last for the 40-year year old City College of Urdaneta (CCU) following the approval by the provincial board of a resolution passed by the city council here effecting the institution’s conversion.

Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr., chairman of the board of trustees of the CCU, revealed that only a resolution of the municipal council, approved by the provincial board was all that was needed for the CCU to be upgraded into a university.

Saying the university status of CCU is already a “fait accompli”, Perez revealed that the city council decided to convert CCU into a university based on its present number of enrollees, facilities and track record in education as a school of higher learning.

“The CCU as of the present time is a university already,” said Perez, adding that the school has now been in fact renamed University of the City of Urdaneta.
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 AGNO VALLEY COLLEGE OWNERSHIP

MALASIQUI - The Supreme Court has issued a decision awarding a controlling stake in Agno Valley College to spouses Jevie “Jebong” de Guzman and Amelia de Guzman.

In a ruling handed down recently, the country’s highest court affirmed an earlier decision of the Court of Appeals ordering the school and its board of directors to register the de Guzman couple’s 82 shares of stock, which represent 50% of the total shares and a controlling stake in the private academic institution located in this town.

“The latest Supreme Court affirmation will definitely change the composition of the members of the board of directors,” said De Guzman, adding, “We are looking forward to a court-supervised election in December or January. With our majority ownership, we will definitely control the school and we are hoping that things will be peaceful during the election.”
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URDANETA CITY - This city can teach its neighbors, particularly the city of Dagupan, a lesson or two in managing a public market.

Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr., who is at the helm of the construction project for the new Public Market, said they have no fears about temporarily locating the wet market at the third floor of the first phase of the market building because the goods sold there are a “necessity” and consumers are sure to follow.

Perez said they have also ensured convenience for buyers by installing escalators leading up to both the second and third floors of the building.

Dagupan’s local government has been facing financial difficulties with the low occupancy level of its controversial Malimgas Market.
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LOOKING FOR PA’S SAVIOUR — Korean business magnate Dukshin (D.S.) Park (right), guest of retired police director Reynaldo Velasco, relates his personal mission in the country to search and pay his father’s debt of gratitude in 1942 to an unknown Filipino farmer and his family in Bataan at a news conference in Sta. Barbara.

A WEALTHY Korean businessman is looking for a family in Bataan province who gave shelter to his father when he deserted the Japanese Imperial Army in 1942 after refusing to fight Filipinos defending that peninsula during the Second World War.

Dukshin (D.S.) Park, in his early 60s, said his late father, Park Shung Shuk, was a second lieutenant of the Japanese Imperial Army sent to invade the Philippines.

In an  interview in Sta. Barbara town last Saturday as a guest of retired PNP deputy director  general Reynaldo Velasco, the Seoul-born Park said his father told him from boyhood to look for the family of a Filipino farmer who hid him for three months from the Japanese Army that was doggedly looking for him.

Had he been located, he would have been summarily executed for desertion or made to fight in the battle against Filipinos and Americans that would have cost his life.
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SAN CARLOS CITY - The Virgen Milagrosa University Foundation (VMUF) has reasserted its “supremacy in nursing education” when it topped among nursing schools in Pangasinan and ranked third in the entire Region 1 based on the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) performance rates of nursing schools in licensure examination released recently.

The CHED, in cooperation with the Educational Statistics Task Force of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), released the performance of nursing schools in percentage of passing in the Licensure Examinations for the past five years covering 2001 to 2005.

The VMUF ranked first among Pangasinan nursing schools with a rating of 45.95 percent; followed by the University of Pangasinan (Dagupan City), 40.02 percent; Perpetual Help College of Pangasinan (Malasiqui), 38.10 percent; University of Luzon (Dagupan City), 36.50; City College of Urdaneta (Urdaneta City), 34.91 percent; Lyceum Northwestern University (Dagupan City), 28.82 percent; and the Pangasinan Colleges of Science and Technology (Urdaneta City), 26.73 percent.
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The first was saved for the niceties. Next time it will be down to serious business.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said Ilocos police regional director Chief Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil’s courtesy call to him was a “very pleasant meeting” and he plans to return the visit to the newly-installed police chief “with some concrete reference data on gambling”.

“I was not exacting anything from him or asking anything”, Cruz told The PUNCH.

But the church official was quick to add that when he visits Bataoil in his regional office in San Fernando City, La Union soon, he intends to bring him pasalubong of material information related to gambling operations in the region.
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