A time to learn

EDUCATION is a recurring theme in many of the news and feature stories this week.

The tale of Sally Lopez is most inspiring. This 33-year old wife, mother and fish trader from Dagupan has taken the initiative to study how to read and write - considered two of the most basic skills that many often take for granted - at this rather late stage in her life. Then again, it is never too late to learn. We are never too old for new knowledge.

And speaking of old, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, who will be 73 this year, is itching to retire so that he can pursue higher education. He has a bigtime goal: a PhD in Philosophy of Law. And he wants to write more books - a tool that is yet another important means for learning.

Whether at its most basic or within an elevated degree, education is undeniably important.
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Disturbing choice between Jose and Pablo?

By Gerry Garcia

A GRAND show-down seems to be in the offing between Congressmen JdV and Pablo Garcia of Cebu in the bid for the House speakership. Expected venue: The Batasan Pambansa where an all-party caucus has been planned prior to the assumption of the 14th Congress.

JdV, incumbent House Speaker, was, as usual, firm in throwing the challenge against his rival: if Garcia has the numbers to claim the leadership of the House, he’d better “put up or . . . shut up.” Ever the accommodating leader, our favorite Speaker added he was willing to forgo his plans for an unprecedented 5th term as Speaker of the House if the 81-year old Garcia could drum up the required support from 124 House members.
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Ed, get those cellphone snatchers!

By Jun Velasco

LAST Thursday afternoon, first year student Dindin Iñigo, daughter of Balita sports editor Dennis Iñigo and Bulletin correspondent Liezel Basa, just alighted from a trike from Mother Goose High School in Dagupan to Calasiao when her Motorola cellphone fell on the trike’s floor.

When she tried to get the unit, the driver, who is loco by nature, sped away despite the victims yelling and pleading for him to stop.

Up to this writing, Dindin’s hope to recover her cellphone has dimmed despite POSO boss Robert Erfe Mejia’s effort and broadcasters’ ganging up on cellphone snatchers which have proliferated in the city.
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Van S. de Leon
25 June 2007

 

A life-size bronze statue of Gov. Aguedo Agbayani was put up in the middle of Lingayen Park and recently inaugurated.

I don’t question it but I am envious and I tremble, in behalf of the great Pangasinense and a hero who was assassinated for speaking of truth as journalist and editor of the Sunday Punch-Ermin Garcia Sr, to have one statue also to remind all Pangasinense that somebody is willing to die for them.

His brothers are still around putting up the same unfading courage in the field of journalism amidst all the non-stop assassination of journalists all over the Philippines. I will someday research on his biography and would like to know more about the story of the assassination of this great man, Mr. Ermin Garcia Sr.

I would like to request a privilege speech during one of those the Provincial Board session to present this idea.

My dear fellow Pangasinense posters here in this FORUM, we are not anonymous here, may I invite you to join me in this endeavor. Let us all go together as a solid Pangasinense Sunday Punch Forum posters to the Lingayen Provincial Capitol to present this.

Please advice me on the proper protocol on this. Let us try this one small step of caring of our Province.

Email me dear fellow posters. We will set the venue, date and time of meeting each other in Pangasinan. Share among us your opinions, ideas, plans, inputs, about this etc. —

Email me dearest fellow FORUM posters. Let us plan. Let us march solidly together as Pangasinense to the Provincial Capitol. Let us put a little action to our postings here in this forum. “No anggapoy ongalaw. Anggapoy ongalaw”.

Dearest Forum posters email me, please. We can achieve this!!!!!!. It is a small project yet so grand. I am open for opinions and criticisms.

Isidro Ramos
25 June 2007

 

Ms. Marifi Jara’s statement in her SP column, “That the casket was draped in an American flag, arriving a day before the celebration of the Philippine’s Independence Day during which the waving of our own flag is supposed to take on special meaning, was quite disturbing”, shows how young she is and uninformed of her Philippine history.

I am proud to be a Filipino however, I am thankful twice to the American youths who served in the US military to save the Philippines from tyranny, i.e. first the Spanish conquistadores and second the Japanese imperial army.

If not for the US government and military, Ms. Jara might not see a freedom if at all and a Filipino flag waving in front of her face.

Just a reminder to Ms Jara, Abu Sayaff followers would still be running around terrorizing the island if not for the American flag wearers.

So I suggest to Ms. Jara to talk to local folks who had some pleasant memories of American GI’s during their “short” stay in the archipelago.

Pangasinan has no clear history?

By Gonzalo Duque

ON the occasion of Dagupan City Day last Wednesday, we locals couldn’t help but be proud of the city’s history. Can we say the same of our province?

Sadly, we cannot. We congratulate the outgoing Agbayani administration for the construction of the Maramba Boulevard and, also, well, well, how’s this? And of the Governor Agbayani Park.

Naman, naman, how about the other governors? Silang dalawa lang ba nina Maramba at Agbayani ang pwede?

I am disappointed that up to now, we have no definite record and celebration of a Pangasinan Day. There are records, yes, but nothing   definitively clear. The one we observe on November l3, which is the birthday of the late Eugenio Perez won’t tally with the province’s founding day which must be somewhere in the l4th century. That should be its anniversary day.
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Insan Ponsing’s Malasiqui, a boom town

By Al S. Mendoza

SOL Juvida and I were in Malasiqui on Tuesday, June 19, to pay our last respects to Eufemia Barrozo, a gracious woman who was the mother of Alma Juvida.

The last time we were there was last Holy Week. We heard Mass at St. Ildephonse.

I consider Malasiqui a boom town and I must say my insan, Mayor Ponsing Soriano, deserves much of the credit for that. 

As Malasiqui mayor for nine years, Insan Ponsing, the graduating chief town executive, did a good job transforming Malasiqui, the province’s bamboo capital, from a rustic, almost sleepy town to what it is today alive and literally bursting with economic energy.
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Who’s next?

By Eva C. Visperas

I can’t help but cry whenever I interview families of slain Pangasinan officials.

I still recall when tears flowed down my cheeks when I interviewed a relative of slain Mayor Jose Peralta Sr.  of Balungao who was shot inside a church, when  I rushed to Tayug to interview a daughter of Tayug Mayor Guerrero Zaragosa  after he was killed inside a cockpit arena.

I cried when I interviewed a son of slain former San Nicolas Mayor Conrado Rodrigo who was killed inside the town multi-purpose, and when I talked to the wife of slain Mapandan Vice Mayor Podong Aquino who was shot in front of the town hall. Then recently when I interviewed Acting Mayor Julier Resuello after his father, San Carlos City Mayor Julian Resuello was shot dead inside the city auditorium late April.
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Sad dependence days!

By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.

Lately, the Philippine Independence Day was celebrated—with the sour note that it was declared a working day plus school opening, the eventual results of which were relatively few celebrants and big traffic jams. As expected, people were exasperated and the national leadership was even more despised and even loudly cursed at times.

It was right and proper then that some people greeted one another with “Happy Independence Day!” it was the anniversary of something historical in the liberation of the country from foreign domination. There were Filipinos who suffered much to the extent that some of them gave up their lives for the cause of Philippine independence. They are heroes who deserve the gratitude and admiration of the present generation and those yet to come.
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BPRE develops copra moisture meter

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

An agricultural engineer of the Bureau of Postharvest Research and Extension (BPRE), based in the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, has developed a moisture meter that will now prevent farmers from being cheated by copra traders who more often than not over estimate the moisture of their product by mere visual observation.

Coconut farmers normally are at the losing end because of the buying behavior of traders. The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) estimated that farmers lose 1,600 to 2,000 per hectare every year due to over estimated moisture of copra.
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