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.

But, of course, if it’s true their backers are drug lords or jueteng kings, it’s inconceivable they will give up their ambitions so easily. At least, by the results of the elections later, we in the galleries will know who reigns supreme in this nook of northern Luzon – jueteng or drugs.

With the PNP playing the umpire?

Horrible!

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Looking at how just three days of rains could submerge the roads at Arellano and the eastern part of A.B. Fernandez in Dagupan, many are tempted to say this city’s situation is really hopeless. It seems no one in the new administration remembered to use – and use fast and sure – the Vactron machine used extensively under the Lim administration to clean and clear the drainage canals.

When the sun was up and the roads were dry, the guys must have been lulled into complacency especially since the prolonged dry season seemed to dispel any thought of rains (ergo, flooding) and there was uh, no particular hurry.

Too late and too wrong.

Nature decided otherwise and let go the rains, in torrents, and as the nursery song goes, the itsy-bitsy spider was flushed out of the waterspout.

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After a long spell not visiting Mayor Amadeo R.Perez, Jr. I finally found myself Wednesday at his office at the old city hall of Urdaneta. It was one of those rare moments when he was practically sitting there just waiting for someone to come in.

I happened to be coordinating with his office for a Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office Roadshow on September 18 in the name of the Philippine Information Agency, a partner agency in the project.

The durable Amadito, a kumpadre, who has turned the city’s huge debt situation around together with the highly supportive sangguniang bayan and has started to bring in a big surplus for the city government since he returned to the city’s saddle, was his usual soft demeanored self. No airs, plain talk, easy grin and fatherly-brotherly gestures. He said the road-widening of the national highway, now almost finished except for the other side of the bridge at Macalong river, should further boost the city’s trade and commerce.

Urdaneta, as many travelers are now happily finding out, has shed its bad, knotty, snail-paced traffic highway image. It has joined many big cities in the country that offer wide maneuvering space in their main highway to travelers, whether they’re just passing thru or stopping by for a meal or meeting.

Watch Urdaneta grow by leaps and bounds in the present decade under Amadito’s superb administration.