By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

THAT much ballyhooed “first-ever” transport summit being planned by the city administration of Dagupan which is being prompted by the continuing agitation from the ranks of transport operators and drivers certainly has merit.

I am afraid however that, without meaning to doubt or denigrate the capability of the very young Councilor Karlos Reyna, the city council’s chairman on infrastructure and public utilities, the old guys in that chamber are practically feeding wide-eyed Reyna to the lions. Imagine an amateur alderman being ranged against veteran and militant transport leaders in a no-holds-barred confrontation – this, even with side “support” from his peers in the council – and you have the unfolding scenario of a prey tossed into the mouths of giants.

Re-electionist Councilor Joey Tamayo, who according to the report, first broached the idea of a transport summit himself, could well better chair that conference, given his broad experience at handling such mass meeting of minds in the transport sector, a very volatile sector, to be sure.

Since the last election when the brunt of drivers and operators’ ire was positively felt by some “objects of ire” among some members of the council, particularly former Councilors Alex de Venecia and Vlad Mata and to some extent, Tamayo himself, most of the honorables at the sanggunian appear to be steering clear of even just appearing to “displease” the transport alliance members. They ended up tossing the concerned committee to Kid Karlos.

Note how most of the aldermen have been mouthing the line of “supporting” the drivers petition/demand for a host of changes in the traffic code and you’ll know what we mean.

The great City Hall resolve TO DO GOOD FOR THE MAJORITY is now under test.

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The petite, simple and unassuming Melanie Anicoche of the National Transmission Corporation (Transco) North Luzon information office is most certainly a credit to her job. Her devotion to work is simply super (and believe us, we rarely praise the work done by public servants – it’s supposed to be their job, in the first place!) making me wonder if she ever knocks off to rest or sleep after office hours at all.

(Of course, it may have helped her situation that she remains single?)

Melanie never fails to come up with those periodic, up-to-the -hour-updates on how Transco is responding to sudden emergencies in the power transmission office’s lines, flashing text messages like she was giving a running account of where and when the trouble was spotted and until it is finally fixed. And this she regularly does even way past office hours –or even way before office hours.

These same messages are what we at the Philippine Information Agency also, in turn, send to local radio outlets for public info dissemination so people are not left in the dark wondering why their lights suddenly went out.

Sample of her text message (here, it was the sudden brownout last Friday in parts of Mangaldan, San Jacinto and other nearby towns):

“Sir, kakaenergize po ng line. Ok n po lahat. May naputol pong cross-arm s may poste s may ilos s mangaldan. Medyo natagalan po bago nkta yong fault. Kakauwi lang po ng nga linemen namin..”

With Melanie, you don’t even have to start asking questions; she gives you the answer ahead.