Ms.Ric
13 Jan 2006

Hopefully, businesses around the city are already showing a better bottom line. This month long fiesta might just be what the city needs to boost economy, even for just a limited time. I realize it must be a grueling 31-manic days if you live or work in the area, but speaking strictly from a tourist’s point of view, I love visiting the city around Christmas time, so I can stay for the fiesta. I don’t go back “home” often, but when I do, there’s something about Dagupan Fiesta that’s quite magical and endearing.

If you haven’t been back for a while, let me try and sell you a vacation worth every cent: The whole city is lit up and dressed up. The people are very hospitable and are genuinely friendly. Take a walk by the cathedral for a gorgeous light display and eavesdrop on angelic carols emanating from within. Walk into a mall and fall in love with all those catchy things you want to bring back that’ll fit in those balikbayan boxes. For what its worth, try the public market. There’s absolutely something for everyone!

You can’t walk the streets of Dagupan without sampling most of that food either – find some Calasiao puto, but make sure there are enough of those pink, chalky tablets around. And don’t leave town without trying public transportation. Usually, the brakes don’t work where you’re sitting, traffic lights are all shades of green, and keep all body parts well inside the vehicle. Oh and don’t forget to bring the two most important stuff: lots of patience and a ton of sense of humor.

Happy Fiesta Dagupenos! Wish I were there!

Franco Munoz
13 Jan 2006

How many law schools does Dagupan have? Which one stands out as the best? Anybody who knows how much is the tuition fees and admission requirements? Can somebody who earned his law degree overseas be admissible to take the Philippine bar exam?

Eduardo Pontaoe
13 Dec 2006

Mr. Sosimo Pablico:

The advancement in agriscience, it’s wonderful. Your take in this farm mechanization if available, is a breath of fresh air to the poor and struggling Filipino farmer. With the different phases in rice planting and harvesting that can be covered with this machine, it would be a great boon to the agri-rice-industry of the Philippines.

But, how you prioritize implementation of policy? You are comparing the island of Formosa in its farming needs on its success which by comparison is so small in scope. Formosa is a disciplined country…no politicization on its farming requirements. If this project proposed by Dr. Andales of the PhilRice Institute, an agency of the government then there would be problems you could encounter at once. Distribution of equipment in Pangasinan alone would be a killer.

In my place, we plant three times irrigation withstanding. Should a farmer wait to have his farm tilled while the seedlings are growing fast and not hire a private tractor? Which way, Mr. Pablico? Cooperatives to manage the deposits of palay harvested are minimal.

Let me be perspicuous on this. In the town where I came from, we got FACOMA… a cooperative so politicized that farmers don’t even dare to go but the private rice mills. FACOMA as of this writing does not exist anymore. It was a disastrous and inefficient entity that revival of its kind won’t happen. It may work in the pilot area of Nueva Ecija but not in Pangasinan. The regional mentality of those farmers is so different from these parts politics wise.

I hope, Mr. Pablico, if you hurdle the hedgerows something will come good out of it or it’s just an agricultural calisthenics in frivolousness.