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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The boy… and sex

By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.

Summer season is that time of the year that most boys aged 5-11 either look forward to or dread coming.

‘Tis the time for circumcision! It means pain and a test of one’s courage. It means passage to maturity, affirmation of manhood.

Alas, it’s also the start of misconception about sex and nature’s reproductive system. And members of the immediate family of the newly circumcised boy unwittingly contribute to it.
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Labor Day for OFWs, especially

By Gerry Garcia

LABOR Day celebrated in honor of workers is most often a holiday.  In the US it falls on the first Monday of September . . . unlike here in Pinoyland and in other countries where May 1st is the common choice.

In this country which brags with understandable pride how its economy is buoyed somehow by remittances from millions of OFWs abroad, especially in the Middle East and in Asia, including Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, etc., Labor Day should have a special meaning focused on giving recognition, to our overseas foreign workers, of their deserved role as the country’s unsung heroes. And to the unfortunate ones who fall prey to the deceptions of illegal recruiters, the Administration could do no less than to exert efforts to help or protect them as they are part of the country’s unwitting saviour.
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All these festivals are good for nothing if . . .

By Jun Velasco

WE were locked in a lively exchange over how and why a modernizing city could be so crazy over a fleshy aquatic animal called bangus.

Can’t you, Dagupan people, come up with something better, say, larger than life, or something more meaningful?

A scholar-friend must have found the mestisang bangus too trifling or bland to advertise the city of Joe de Venecia and Al Fernandez asked us that.
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Origin of Pista’y Dayat

By Gonzalo Duque

THESE festivals  we are  having these days — from Lingayen to Dagupan and all the coastal towns of San Fabian, Binmaley, Labrador and  Sual  including Alaminos City — have  their  stories of  origin. Read on.

Manong Resty Basa, well-known local historian and awardee for his work, wrote a recent article for the local papers, and we are taking the liberty to reprint it here:

“Pista’y Dayat is Governor Francisco Q. Duque’s legacy to the people of Pangasinan. It was his brainchild.
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A trip rooted to roots

By Al S. Mendoza

I HAD a chance encounter with Mayor Rey Velasco of Sta. Barbara on Tuesday at the fabled Dagupeña Restaurant.

After the usual handshakes and hellos, I asked the good mayor, “What’s the latest on your airport project?”

Rey was quick to reply.

“The feasibility study is ongoing,” he said. “But don’t you worry a thing, Al. I’ll get my airport project done. I can guarantee you that. You’ll be the first to know when the ground-breaking ceremonies will be held.” So there. Right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
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Craving for mushroom turns into a thriving agribusiness

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

Eleven years ago, a mechanical engineer in San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija craved for mushroom but was not able to buy any because no one was culturing it.  This prompted him to look for mushroom spawns instead so that he would produce the mushrooms himself.

For a number of years in between his busy schedule as a construction contractor, Jack Nagano continued asking people where he could buy the spawns but no source could be found.  After five years, he was invited to attend a three-day seminar on mushroom production and he offered his resort as the venue of the seminar.
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Uprooting

By Marifi Jara

This time last year, I wrote a melancholy piece about celebrating the sea. This year, there is a happy note. Our barangay, Nibaliw Narvarte (though it will always be Sabangan in my heart), just celebrated its first Tuyo Festival, timed with the province-wide Pista’y Dayat.

Activities were aplenty and though there was hardly anything related to highlight the sea and its bounty, it was an excellent beginning for hopefully more environment-focused festivities in the coming years. To begin with, it bears thinking the irony that our coastal community does not actually source its fish for making tuyo from its own waters.
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Re-evaluating our values

By Emmanuelle

Doctors of the mind claim that our realities are stuff that dreams are made of. On the other hand, they also claim our dreams cross-over to the reality of our days.

Usually, the lingering waking effects of these dreams diminish to nothingness. Sometimes though, these escalate to the status of walking stalking nightmares.

Who among the Pangasinenses relish the nightmare of Kuya Joe’s fall from gloria? Flash us back, anytime, to shots of the sons and their clones during the cabalistic ritual of disenthronement, and worms in our skin crawl. The images are immortalized, on film and on print. And in the screen of our minds.
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Forgiveness without Repentance, Restitution, Repentance

By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D.

Forgiveness is so easy to say, to give and even to preach when the forgiving persons were not the ones ravaged and damaged, neither the individuals exploited and trampled upon, nor the ones cheated and robbed. And even supposing that the victims themselves of big graft and gross corruption do forgive the culprits, the truth is that these are not forgiven when they are not really repentant, when they simply keep what they stole, when they actually do nothing to repair the damage they did, to undo the injustice they committed. In this case, the ones forgiving must be well commended not only on behalf of humanity but also in the name of the Good Lord. But the ones forgiven remain as culpable, reprehensible and guilty as they really are in reality and fact.
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