PUNCH linking Dagupan to Florida, USA

By Gerry Garcia

MORE than half a century has elapsed since two long lost friends, this writer and the son of the late father-founder of the University of Pangasinan, Blas D. Rayos, Jr., separated ways following graduation from the University of Santo Tomas in the early 50’s, he as student of the College of Medicine and me from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters.

The wonder of it is that Blas Jr. or “Benny” (as I used to call him then) who had practiced medicine and consequently retired in Indialantic, Florida (USA) and this writer here in Dagupan City were brought together again through the Sunday Punch’s being in the internet. And this is testified to by Benny himself who wrote in his e-mailed letter to me in September 2003: “The Rayos family and I wish to thank you, as Editor of the Sunday Punch. We enjoyed your articles, especially your Editorial Columns which are free of bias and prejudice and you have always shown a sense of fairness and justice for all which sysmbolizes the Freedom to the Press.”
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Let’s get rid of the ‘old’ City Hall

By Gerry Garcia

LACK of parking space continues to hound the city even after it had gone past its 60th year as chartered urban community and half of the proposed circumferential road designed to ease internal traffic has already been completed.

      Even the expected opening of the new multi-B Dawel-Pantal-Lucao Road with its P906-M bridge within this month April is faced by the same problem related to parking space. It probably would lessen congestion on the city’s roads.

      The pedestrian overpasses over AB Fernandez Ave. are incontrovertible indications pointing to a worsening of the parking space problem, especially in the downtown area wherein stands the City Hall — the government center.
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Cha-cha still kicking?

By Gerry Garcia

A businessman in Makati who probably was intrigued by the church’s call for communal action to  resolve the unending government  problem  of graft and corruption  jumped on the chance to put in his two cents worth of view of what’s basically wrong in our form of government.

The temptation to corrupt has always been there, he said, and the best way out would be to come up with a system that does not provide greater temptation to corrupt.
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Happy Easter to all!

By Gerry Garcia

A TWO-fold announcement of outstanding events was released by media by mid-March regarding national sports and a major road infrastructure here. One has to do with the inspiring and highly hoped for triumph of boxing icon Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao in Las Vegas Nevada  over Mexico’s Juan Manuel “Denamita” Marquez while the other, about the alleged opening of the multi-M new Dawel - Pantal-Lucao road on March 15, was something which turned out into sheer koryente, courtesy of local tabloid  NJ which printed the news on its front page. The actual scheduled inauguration by Mayor Al F him-self of the new road, including the bride, was in April, the following month.
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Hope news of Dawel-Lucao road opening not ‘kuryente’

By Gerry Garcia

TODAY, Palm Sunday, is the beginning of the Holy Week (Semana Santa) that will end gloriously on Easter Sunday commemorating the resurrection of Christ.

Palm Sunday is celebrated with palm branch decorations signifying Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem . . . a happy welcoming event which, by the way, almost coincides with an equally victorious event which took place yesterday Saturday — the opening of the new Dawel-Pantal-Lucao road, a 4-kilometer diversion road expected to end (daw) the daily traffic jams gripping the city’s downtown area.
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Jueteng in perpetual motion

By Gerry Garcia

OFF-the-cuff rundown on what makes the GMA regime most “evil”. After joint agreement with ASEAN for stand-off vs. China in the Spratlys RP suddenly left on its own and joined China on a joint seismic “exploration” of RP’s which gov’t politicians and bureaucrats could skim $400 million in kickbacks up to 2010.
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Tradpol or astute JdV?

By Gerry Garcia

CONVERSION of the old Pantal road starting from Sitio Patalan in the west into a riverside boulevard certainly would be  a welcome change from a previous stand of City Hall to build a riverside boulevard extending  from Star Plaza Hotel  westward which raised objections from affected land owners.

Upgrading the old road by its conversion into a well lit boulevard could also be a positive step towards exploiting the potentials of a tourist-oriented plan to establish a tri-ferry service system linking the cities of Alaminos and Dagupan in Pangasinan and San Fernando in La Union. The new boulevard, with its entry point in Patalan from the near-completed Dawel-Pantal-Lucao diversion road, would end up at the eastern foot of the Quintos Bridge from where the Star Plaza Hotel, this city’s tourist land-mark, stands a few hundred meters away.
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Moral reform via Cha-cha

By Gerry Garcia

THERE’S a sudden upsurge in the rise of “councils for moral reform” in our government following whistle-blower Joey de Venecia II’s expose’ of over-pricing and bribery in the $329-M national broadband network -ZTE Corp., deal, with the ironic twist that the main drive for reform in the government is led by unceremoniously-ousted House Speaker de Venecia who had been co-leader and founder with PGMA herself of the largest political coalition group rooting for the Administration.
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CBCP’s ‘Communal action’ divisive not premature

By Gerry Garcia

THE Catholic bishops’ call for “communal action” in view of whistle blower Rodolfo Lozada Jr’s expose’ of corruption in the $329-million national broadband network has been called “premature” by Palace spokesman Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye.

Communal action or mass or people power action (in the words of Lingayen-Dagupan Bishop Oscar Cruz), according to Bunye, is creative of an emotionally-charged situation susceptible to grandstanding. As a result of which we end up cutting each other’s throat on the floor instead of arriving at the truth and obtaining justice.
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Choir Olympics in Austria, Germany

By Gerry Garcia

IT was through  Eva Visperas’ story on page one of  last Wednesday’s Phil. Star issue that we learned of the sudden turn-around of some former JDV followers who voted for the Speaker’s ouster: two law-makers each representing  the 1st and 3rd districts, respectively one ABONO party-list representative and his brother, both sons of a former Pangasinan governor.

Whatever  these instant turn-coats offered as excuse for opting for Davao Rep. Prospero Nograles as the new House Speaker do not hold water, at least for  us long used to politics’  wheeling -dealing tactics. These congress neophytes could not probably resist the persuasive hugeness of the financial carrots being dangled above their noses.
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