By DANNY O. SAGUN

LINGAYEN – The campaign for the leadership of the Pangasinan Councilors’ League is heating up with the contending parties trading charges and countercharges as to which camp is being financed by either drugs or jueteng money.

The two leading candidates for the PCL presidency are Raul Sison of Urbiztondo and Dennis Uy of Pozorrubio and son of Board Member Danilo Uy, who himself used to be the PCL president before he won as a regular board member representing the fifth district in the last May 14 elections.

Sison was said to be enjoying the support of Gov. Amado Espino, Jr. Jueteng money allegedly beefed up his campaign chest in the wake of media reports that jueteng operations became more rampant and open now than during the previous administration. Read the rest of this entry »

THE DAMS, have hardly filled their reservoirs with the rains dumped by typhoons Chedeng and Dodong in the nearly one week of downpour last week. And it is almost unexpected, if quite incredible, that they should be releasing any of the water they have , well, painstakingly, awaited for so long and almost lovingly impounded.

We note this as Dagupan stood witness to another one of those unusual phenomenon that seems to grip most of the continents in the world today. For four days straight since Thursday, flood carpeted a good part of the downtown area, the eastern Read the rest of this entry »

By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

I FIND it comic, if it were not so tragic, that even the Philippine National Police is now going into an investigation on whether or not jueteng or drugs money is involved in the current heated campaign for the Pangasinan Councilors’ League (PL) leadership.

This certainly speaks volumes of just how deep in the pits we’ve come. If I were any of the two top protagonists for the presidency, considering the muck now surrounding the elections, I’d just leave it to the others to fight for the post. That should dispel any notion, allegation or public impression, however big or small, that I am involved in drugs or illegal gambling. Read the rest of this entry »

By DANNY O SAGUN

DESPITE his busy schedule, agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, who traces his roots to this city of bangus, is finding time to visit the provinces. He visited Basista, Manaoag and Sison last Friday to have a dialogue with farmers hit first by the long dry spell and then by flooding.

Only some three weeks ago, he was in San Manuel and then in Alaminos City, consulting local leaders and farmers. He also frequents the Manaoag Church.

Irrigation, farm-to-market roads and flatbed dryers. These, he said, are his priorities to ensure success of the agri industry.
The way he talks to the farmers, we sense he has the knack to Read the rest of this entry »

By YOLANDA Z. SOTELO

EVERYONE knows that Kimi Cojuangco, the new mayor of Sison, is a rich-rich girl. She has everything in life and she could just be enjoying whatever material riches have to offer.

But there she is, a mayor of a fourth class town, deeply involved with the problems of marginal farmers, on women’s health, on local governance, etc.

Yet she seems to be enjoying it, too. Maybe in helping others she has found something that gives her the satisfaction that no money can buy. Read the rest of this entry »

Nen MARIO F. KARATEKA

MALOREY met so panaon. Pinabayag toy tiagew tan aburidon kinmerew na oran so katoowan pian nabawasay petang tan makatanem iray dumaralos. Pati artipisyal ya oran panamegly na “cloud-seeding” a kuan, sinubok na too pian naparonoman so linmeletak-letak laran dalin.

Nia natan, inioran toy libog-libog tan inmaapaw iray kailogan tan adelap-delap so dakel a lugar.Kasompalan,pikasi daray katoowan lamet, itonda la komoy oran.

Walamay kuandad anlong na Inglis; “As a rule, man is a fool/When it’s hot, he wants it cool/When it’s cool, he wants it hot/Always wanting what is not.” Read the rest of this entry »

By LIWAY M. YPARRAGUIRRE

TRAVELED to La Union a couple of times last week.

There was the Regional Mobile Group 1 (RMG1) turn-over of command at the Police Regional Office 1 (PRO1) headquarters in San Fernando City last Tuesday.

Supt. Edgar Basbas, former Dagupan City police chief, succeeded Supt. Dionico Borromeo (they swapped posts) as RMG1 group director with Gen. Leopoldo Bataoil, PRO1 director, administering the ceremony.

Last Thursday, through the invitation of Engr. Joseph Dumuk, La Union Provincial Information Officer, I covered the La Union Peace and Order Council Meeting presided by Gov. Manuel Ortega. Also present were Gen. Bataoil, La Union Provincial Read the rest of this entry »

TAYUG—A regional trial court judge here, claiming he was moving in the name of economically harassed litigants, has ordered thru a court resolution a radical departure from the legal provisions of Presidential Decree No. 1079, the law mandating regular court raffles of judicial notices for publication among local newspapers.

Certain to draw legal complaints from newspaper publishers who stand to be affected by his order which he confidently said he is ready to defend on behalf of “poor and oppressed” court litigants, the resolution practically dispenses with the raffle of court notices and instead leaves to the client the choice of where among pre-accredited newspapers he wishes to publish his notice in.
Read the rest of this entry »

THE HEAVENS appear to have heard the northern and central Luzon prayers for long, hard rains to save parched farmlands and drying dam reservoirs from a most disastrous drought – the first in some two decades – hitting this agricultural part of the Philippines.

Rains aplenty poured throughout last week on the northern and central Luzon plains, just a couple of weeks after a worried national government took stop-gap measures to alleviate the farmers’ inability to transplant their seedlings because of the absence of rains to moisten the soil.

Farmers should have under normal weather patterns already planted palay as early as June, especially in the rainfed areas. Read the rest of this entry »

URDANETA CITY – With its promising economy as the melting pot and center of commerce and education in eastern Pangasinan, Urdaneta City is now ready to jump from second to first class, besting other cities in the province and in the Ilocos region.

An elated Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. announced that the city last year posted an income of P440 million, from local taxes and Internal Revenue Allotment, excluding P123 million it realized from its own City of Urdaneta University (CUU).

The city-operated CUU, a model for all Local Government Units, is virtually the goose that lays the golden eggs for Urdaneta as it earns extra income for the city’s general fund. Read the rest of this entry »