LOCAL newspaper reports that the Awai lot in San Jacinto purchased by the city government in 2002 is covered by the comprehensive agrarian reform program (CARP) and already subdivided among tenants of the land, has sent the city government of Dagupan scurrying to verify the alleged development.
City Mayor Alipio Fernandez immediately directed City Legal Officer George Mejia to gather all the necessary data concerning the status of the controversial city-owned lot in neighboring San Jacinto town. Read more

OUT-OF-TOWN sessions for legislative bodies are fine. There, away from the perfumed, sometimes stale, airconditioned offices or sessions halls, one gets to hear the real voice of the hoi poloi, the local leaders, straight and frank.

We commend the sanguniang panlalawigan for this move to have their sessions moving from one district to another, with mayors and perhaps barangay leaders able to not just see their provincial leaders in person but also interact with them. We can’t exactly recall now but sometime during the administration of former Gov. Rafael Colet, there was one such similar undertaking – for sanggunian legislators holding court in the field.
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By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

SOMETHING tells me that yet again, the Arroyo-De Venecia schism that many in the opposition are gloating about will soon be played down – on the initiative of both parties. Both, we believe, stand to lose in a protracted, scorched-earth fight of the kind that (as a letter from one of our readers pointed out) the Chavit-Erap set-to produced for history.

Of course, not being the top power-wielder, our very own House Speaker Joe would be at a disadvantage; if that playing-it-cool, playing-it down scenario is followed and some time is allowed for a breather, because the next time around, he might wake up not knowing what hit him. That’s politics. Read more

By DANNY O. SAGUN

HAD Dagupan city engineer Virginia Rosario come to our Pantongtongan Tayo public affairs program last Tuesday over Radyo ng Bayan, she could have clarified issues surrounding the controversial stoppage of construction work at the Magsaysay area as well as other burning issues involving her office.

We could not fault her representative, engineer Ogie Ventenilla, for his very cautious general answers to our questions. Rosario was reportedly scheduled to attend a meeting at City Hall that day so that she instead sent Ogie to our weekly radio program.
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Dear Editor:

One has to be an incurable optimist or a totally clueless Simon, to ever think that the brouhaha over the National Broadband Network (NBM) ZTE issue is something that will die down soon.

The battle lines have been drawn between the Palace and Speaker Jose de Venecia. You’ll know it by the way a propaganda machinery has started to demonize the Speaker on his alleged “cornering’ of contracts and lobbying for his son’s company, Amsterdam Holdings, Inc. The next few days should find a plethora of more damning issues being suddenly unearthed by administration-type special agents against the very man who has stood by and for the Arroyo administration all these years.

Even Joey de Venecia’s past drug use in his young yearshas been dug up as cannon fodder in the emerging battle that could probably culminate in either party/parties being annihilated or, at the very least, shamed to obsolescence.
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EXPECT traffic in downtown Dagupan to lighten up significantly by June when the new six-kilometer Dawel-Lucao bypass road is finally opened.

Second Pangasinan engineering district head Rodolfo Dion said construction work on the diversion road project to include the new 300-meter bridge is ahead of schedule by some three months, thus the possible opening of the road to motorists by June instead of September.

Concreting works are almost complete, Dion told the Pantongtongan Tayo radio program of the Philippine Information over Radyo ng Bayan-DZMQ last Tuesday. The construction crew is finishing a portion of the Lucao section, he said. Read more

SAN FERNANDO, La Union – Barangay officials who had been in office for three consecutive terms are no longer qualified to run for the same position in the coming barangay polls, according to the Department of Interior and Local Government.

DILG Provincial Director Trigidia Colisao said a Department Advisory received by her office, said this was explicitly provided in Section 2 of Republic Act. 9164, entitled: An Act providing for Synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections.

This section states in part: “No barangay elective official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms for the same position”. Read more

LINGAYEN – The Pangasinan State University has been named one of the six participating institutions in a Call Center project to be undertaken by state universities and college in the entire country.

PSU President Victoriano Estira said the Call Center project, which is divided into three phases, will be set up at their campus in Lingayen.

Phase 1 involves the development of a state-of-the-art call center facility that can accommodate 30 seats, expandable to 50; Phase 2 will have the actual training of potential call center agents; and Phase 3 deals with the evaluation of the outputs of the university grantees. Read more

THE city council has just been halted in its tracks on its plan to convert the third floor of the newly-built Malimgas Public Market as a large Information Communications Technology Center (ICT).

Councilors warned that the city government must first determine whether the market’s third floor, which was originally intended as a pay parking area, was leased to a private contractor to avoid legal complications. Read more