The Urdaneta template

By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.

With Urdaneta’s City Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. at the helm, Urdanetans will undoubtedly be one of the more fortunate Pinoys who will never have to go hungry in the face of a food crisis.

The city’s Tulungan sa Purok, a food production program through self-reliance, is a timely no-frills and simple yet practical community project that doesn’t require a congressman’s  pork  barrel to get it done and can result in  millions-worth of goodwill.  It’s a kind of project   whose full benefits when successful will surely be felt by the community. Above all, the community will have the rare privilege of claiming and sharing the credit for and among themselves, taking pride in what they have accomplished together.
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‘Fests of the North’, city’s ‘grandest’

By Gerry Garcia

THE “Festivals of the North”, virtually a grand cultural event into which the Dagupan Bangus Festival, under the leadership of the city’s first lady vice mayor ever, Belen Fernandez, has expanded were overwhelmingly impressive in the number of crowds and commuters drawn on one hand and participants in the street dance competition on the other. Actually and publicity wise, the Festivals of the North outshined the city’s last fiesta celebration, including all the other previous fiestas.
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Is GMA giving Benjie a Cabinet post?

By Jun Velasco

THAT was a brotherly act by Dr. Salvador “Ado” Duque proposing reconciliation between President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former Speaker Joe de Venecia.

He thinks the rift was childish because it began with their kids, Luli, Mikey, and Dato Arroyo and Joey de V.

How we wish  it could be done!  But the rift has gone beyond the personal, bordering on a clash on leadership style and philosophy of governance.
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Lessons of Myanmar

By Gonzalo Duque

IT’S shocking that a very young man known for his amiability, industry and “workaholism” would die at a tender age.

Reggie Ubando, 40, who until  lately, was in charge of the city’s waste  management, succumbed to cardiac arrest while Dagupan was in the midst of merry-making at the world renown kalutan of which  he was very much a part of,  whether  under  Mayor Al Fernandez or former Mayor Benjie Lim.

Reggie’s passing is symbolic marking a passage from joy to sorrow, which could strike in seconds or minutes.

Who would ever imagine that such a young, brilliant (he was a top graduate of Lyceum Northwestern University), well-meaning guy would leave this world too soon!
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Do you know the way to Baguio?

By Al S. Mendoza

I WAS in Baguio only a while back and guess what I saw: A totally altered traffic in the City of Pines.

Has Mayor Bautista become a sudden fan of Bayani Fernando?

Fernando is that favorite bloke of Ate Glo - the favorite son of Marikina City whose penchant for roads and traffic is rivaled only by his obsession for everything pink.

Pink overpasses. Pink foot bridges. Pink public urinals. Pink bus/jeepney/taxi stops. Pink road railings.
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NSIC releases 2 hybrid rice varieties

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

THE NATIONAL SEED INDUSTRY COUNCIL (NSIC) has again released for commercial planting two hybrid rice varieties bred by private seed companies but developed with the national Rice Varietal Improvement Group (RVIG) led by PhilRice (Philippine Rice Research Institute). 

The new varieties are PSD 3 of Syngenta Phils. and BCS 064 of  Bayer Crop Science, which now carry the names NSIC Rc166H (Mestizo 10) and NSIC Rc168H (Mestizo 11), respectively.  In the national cooperative tests (NCT) in four cropping seasons from the 2005 dry season to 2007 wet season, both varieties produced an average yield of 130 bags a hectare (ha). 

Both are recommended for transplanting culture in irrigated lowland areas throughout the year, but preferably during the dry season.
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Resign

By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.

There are not only many individuals but also a good number of organizations that have been all saying the same thing by words and statements, through placards and effigies, by way of rallies and marches: “Resign!” Needless to say, all these verbal, written and action driven moves are addressed to one and the same national figure whose over-all credibility and approval ratings are far from enviable. Mere perception or reality, repeated credible national surveys all come out with the same conclusion: The Malacañang occupant should go and be gone—even before 2010.
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Adopting buro

By Glaiza Bernadeth Pinto

It was April 1997… I still remember that month as if it was only yesterday. We arrived in the town of Alcala from Mambusao, Roxas City in the Visayas.

It was summertime then but it seemed to be the beginning of the season of rains, when water from the heaven brings forth nourishment upon the earth, removing the thirst of the soil.  But my ten-year old heart remained dry; the rains failed to bring new life into my heart for I was a stranger in a strange, new land.

Our family — my mother, two brothers and myself — tried to accustom ourselves to this new place, to fulfill my father’s wish that we also learn to love the place that holds his roots.
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Re-evaluating our values

       (Conclusion)  

By Emmanuelle

Not to be confused with its numerical successors, the first EDSA revolution will always remain a phenomenon in the perception of the international community. The personal experience, however, had awakened us Filipinos to the surprise that the values we had looked for, or had presumed long-dead and buried, were there smoldering within ourselves all the time - courage, pagkilala sa tama o mali, pagkalinga sa katarungan, pagkakaisa or solidarity.

Since EDSA I of February 1986, social scientists believed that the Filipinos thus remain re-awakened, watchful, restive even.

It is not yet a cauldron boiling over. It is, though, a huge kettle simmering, bubbling in spurts and hot bubbly puffs. Waiting for more stuff to ignite, to heat it up, tipping  its  temperature from puede pa siguro to sobra na talaga. Again.
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Cabinet Revamp and Transactional Politics

By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.

Now it can be said without reserve and with ethical certainty. There are more than enough indications that Malacañang itself even wants it openly known and noted. The ruling administration has nonchalantly demonstrated and continues to prove that transactional politics is its devious expertise. The publicly admittedly “secret” of a forthcoming cabinet revamp is exactly what transactional politics is all about. Political interests – not the good of the general public – are the priority. Partisan concerns – not the general welfare of the people – are the focus.
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