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.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
After JDV, Archbishop Cruz is next
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
In case you are not aware yet, the vengeful yet threatened Arroyo government has been flexing its muscles looking at its targets in Pangasinan straight in the eyes, promising dire results. The Malacañang operators have discerned that their notorious carrot approach (P.5M inside paper bags) apparently can work wonders with most of our elected officials in the province but not with a few who dare stand up to the government who insist on ferreting out the truth.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
Meet the BBs!
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
I received an email from my sister Frieda in Illinois last week enjoining me to read a column that appeared in New York Times penned by David Brooks. His piece was titled “The Great Forgetting”.
I knew why she sent it. The column pointed out what we have began to complain about recently, forgetting many things that we never had problems with until two years ago. I knew she meant to say: Hindi tayo nag-iisa!
That was truly consoling for someone who’s been in constant denial about his state of mortality.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
Keystone firemen in the city
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
The news item about the discovery of Dagupan’s gallant firemen and fire volunteer brigades that the specifications of the city’s water hydrants are not compatible with their equipment is another sad commentary of how governance works around here.
Nostalgic images of the daring and courageous Keystone cops and firemen trying to put out a fire in a tall building with pales of water quickly came to mind.
It was ironic that while the city fire department ballyhooed its preparedness for the fire prevention month last month, little did we (and they) know that they were not effectively equipped (and yes, synched!) to put out any fire at anytime! While I don’t fault them for failing to anticipate such a potential problem when anything and everything is possible in this country, this is a wake-up call for our firefighters and law enforcers not to be complacent ever, as in ever in everything.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
A cheap shot at the truth
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
NBN-ZTE whistle-blower Jun Lozada came and went.
Except perhaps for the opportunity given the curious among us as to what he’s really like in the flesh being a media celebrity, perhaps his visit could have been largely gone unnoticed even by the national media. He really had nothing much to add to what had been written and said about him and by him in the national media.
But thanks to the fertile yet unimaginative works of black propaganda laid out for Lozada on his arrival, the visit gained a lot more attention than Archbishop Oscar Cruz originally hoped for.
The cheap smear campaign launched against Lozada here only impressed upon Pangasinenses how truly significant and important Lozada must be to the crusade for truth and justice in the NBN-ZTE deal.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
Killing us softly with rice
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
The utter lack of transparency and candor on the part of the Arroyo government is again noted in the latest “rice crisis”.
The longer it waffles on the issue, the more suspicious the public becomes. Worse, as it gingerly avoids creating images of neglect and manipulation with its unwarranted flip-flopping on alibis, images of another massive cover-up conjure in people’s minds.
Curiously, while Malacañang is being pictured as a busy bee responding to the “rice crisis”, the regional office of the Department of Agriculture here is boasting there is and there will be no rice crisis in the region, particularly in Pangasinan.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
Jueteng’s new face?
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
I hope that by the time this issue hits the streets, San Fabian Barangay Chairman Roland Villegas shall have returned to his family, safe and well.
At presstime, nothing is certain about Villegas’ whereabouts. What is certain is another family, not just the father, has been taken hostage. What is certain is our police force in the province continues to be inadequate in preempting the commission of heinous crimes, worse unable to solve them and bring criminals to justice.
While there is talk of a business deal gone awry as the obvious motive, still there is the possibility that it may have been just a kidnapping for old kidnapping’s sake, meaning just about “business”, nothing personal.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
Why is God so unfair?
 By Ermin Garcia Jr.
This Holy Week, hundreds of families in the city will again likely be bumping into each other in Tsim Tsa Tui District in Hong Kong, on the beach of Boracay, or along Session Road in Baguio City. Long gone is the Christian practice of solemn observance, or an opportunity for spiritual upliftment, or simply put, being close to Jesus Christ, He who died on the cross for us.
At the rate families have taken to the Holy Week as “adventure week” or “travel time”, the present and future generation of Christians will no longer likely know what true Christianity is all about.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
Usec. Villar rides again!
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
Usec. Bebot Villar is like a square peg in a round hole in the GMA government.
He would have been the first senior GMA official to resign if he had not been prevailed upon to stay on by his direct boss, President Arroyo. But unlike the resignation sought by the group of ex-cabinet officials to see GMA abandoned, Usec. Bebot’s unilateral resignation would have been the first resignation out of sheer loyalty to his Bosswoman not as a fall-out from the NBN-ZTE scandal.
Read more
Filed under Opinion, Punchline by Sunday Punch.
The lying and the cover-up
 By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
More lies continue to be weaved around the conspiracy to keep Mrs. Gloria Arroyo in power.
And as I listened over the past weeks to the array of cabinet officials pitching in to the effort to earn their keep, I had prayed that none of the Pangasinenses in the cabinet, namely Health Sec. Pingkoy Duque, Trade Sec. Peter Favila and Agri Sec. Arthur Yap would never have to be harnessed for a “lying” mission. But even before I could say “Amen”, there loomed before me Peter’s image on national TV. (I guess it was inevitable for Peter to join the “lying chorus” sooner or later, after all, it was his office that crafted the “memorandum of agreement”).
Read more
Filed under Punchline by Sunday Punch.
|
|
