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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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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Dagupan is Disneyland

By Jun Velasco

MAYOR Al Fernandez  is under siege.

For crafting Dagupan City into a veritable  Disneyland — what with  the fiesta  galore,  colorful  buntings on every street , the boom-boom sound, the  lilting music  — from  the poblacion to  the outskirts, the  non-stop activities with  the very popular  Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez directing the extravaganza —  it’s likely natives and visitors of Nandarugapan won’t simply allow  this  downpour  of  gaiety and pleasure  to go without an assurance from the  mayor  of  its  comeback,   in all  splendor,  that is, like say, having it institutionalized as an integral part  of the Dagupan milieu and psyche.
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Ancient poems sparkle

By Jun Velasco

ASIDE from the food shortage, which economists say is a global phenomenon, the US presidential race is the favorite topic in conversation circles pushing aside the self-punishing corruption tales that have brought shame to the country.

Last week, an uncle, Erning Martinez, lent us a book, “Unlimited Access,” written by a former FBI agent, Gary Aldrich, who worked at the White House with no love lost, as the book glaringly shows, between him and the Clintons.
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Bless them who save poor people’s vision

By Jun Velasco

YOU’d mistake him for a retired movie actor ala Edmund Purdom or Gary Grant, this tall and handsome ophthalmologist who has under his care thousands of patients suffering from eye diseases in San Fabian, Pangasinan.

Dr. Guillermo de Venecia, 76, has, for more than 30 years, been doing this missionary work, together with his wife, Martha, and a group of American volunteer medical practitioners from Wisconsin, USA that has cured or benefited more than 30,000 poor patients in the Philippines.

De Venecia, a cousin of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., says the mission was formed in l979  in the name of  Free Rural  Eye Clinic that has been doing surgical operation on indigents in some parts  in the Philippines such as in San Fabian, Pangasinan;  Nueva Vizcaya, Aurora and Zambales provinces.
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Bonuan bangus’ global popularity

By Jun Velasco

MANY are now considering Jun Lozada a shoo-in for the senate if and when he decides to enter the world of politics.

Administration efforts to downplay his forays in the provinces such as the vaunted pulling down of his streamers and posters in Pangasinan only made him popular. The common folk were asking, what was there in this “nobody” that Malacacang would want to silence? The streamers’ caper has made people even more curious. Nagdagsaan tuloy ang nagpunta sa People’s Astrodome!

Becoming a senator was probably beyond Lozada’s wildest dreams before.
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Lingayen cityhood long overdue

By Jun Velasco

CONGRESSMAN Joe de Venecia’s debt-to-equity plan looms as a simple yet dramatic solution to the huge gap between the rich and poor countries on our planet, especially those in the Third World.

On paper, the plan is doably cute, be-all solution, which can come only from the creative mind of JdV.

At lunch last Sunday, JdV tells us the Italian ambassador has endorsed the idea — and, for that matter, its initial implementation — in his country, Italia. That means it would be Italy that   will take the lead in realizing it, and with that, he says,   most of Europe will follow suit.

If  successful there,  the plan  will be  adopted and implemented   in most  countries in the entire Europe, although we in the  Asian Third World  that have  more  poverty-shrouded  countries and therefore bedeviled by the proverbial economic  chasm.
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Think of the poor, too

By Jun Velasco

ASSEMBLYMAN Vic Millora — he with the boyish face and generous smile — is not the only story-teller in the family.

His half-brother Roger Canto, a modest private contractor, also is.

Roger related that last Palm Sunday, as he sat at the family home to view the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Marquez brawl, he mistakenly switched on Channel 4 with Fr. Jerry Orbos making his Sunday homily. Probably it was the priest’s magnetic voice that glued him to the channel, but he said he never got to watch the much boxing rematch anymore. He got “detained” by Fr. Orbos’ “Reflections” on the story of a successful artist who by twist of fate became despondent, a kin, Joey Velasco, a UP bred artist.
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Freshen up with Sendong So’s balita

By Jun Velasco

SECRETARY  Arthur Yap is probably the first pro GMA  cabinet  man who has made a  sensible  pitch for the embattled  lady  in a manner  that  dashes cold water to the heat  the anti forces have created.

At Sendong So’s agri expo on a 9-hectare former rubbish land but now a robust   rice and corn plantation in Carmen, Rosales, Arthur Yap —the Dagupeño native who made good in Manila — said “what are they still investigating, investigating  all these weeks? This is our country, let her finish her term till 20l0.”

Apt timing with thousands of farm producers displaying their wares in native booths. An air of hope and abundance was unmistakable. If only correct farming methods were used! Sendong enthused.
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Mike Enriquez’s Angels

By Jun Velasco

THE advent of March usually brings up thoughts of the hottest season of the year, starting with Lent.

It seems, as Bob Dylan celebrates it in a song, the times, indeed, “they are a ‘changin,’” as you, too, must have noticed the subtly biting air, colder than the past Christmas days.

It should be a welcome change though because we already have our fair share of heat in the political establishment.

When Speaker Joe de Venecia warned his former staunch ally, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in PDI’s colorful headline, “I fall, you fall,” we already got a feel of the heat at the top.  Every thing is tumbling down as a result, and before we know it, the political heat would become hate and would reach a point where enmity, animosity and distrust become the order of the day.
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