THE city government of Dagupan is seeking more time to operate the city’s open dumpsite in Bonuan while it is still looking for a suitable area to build its permanent sanitary landfill in.

City Waste Management chief Reginaldo Ubando admitted the city received a 10-day ultimatum from the Environment Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources within which to adopt a safe closure plan, preparatory to eventual closure of the open dumpsite. Read the rest of this entry »

BAD news is good news. Correct?

Wrong.

Over the past few weeks, local newshounds and newshawks have noticed a dearth of fresh scandals unearthed on the past Lim administration by City Hall functionaries. Either that – a real, palpable absence of new brickbats to divulge or hurl on the defeated city administration – or the usual mouthpieces, notably city legal beagle and ex-judge George Mejia has finally imbibed the dictum “Discretion is the better part of valor.”

If so, good for him, and good for City Hall too. Read the rest of this entry »

BY BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

HARD-NOSED mediamen, those who do look for news, not doleouts, are agreed that local sanggunian bayan weekly session agenda or calendars of business are now generally better read and more professionally organized and presented than say, a decade ago. I can still recall some colleagues laughing their hearts out at the flaws in grammar and sentence constructions of many a local municipal council session agenda some ten, fifteen years ago. In a number of towns, one can hardly make heads or tails of their agenda, copies of which are furnished mediamen in those days.

The apparent professionalism in the outputs of sanggunian scribes or secretaries now is perhaps a result of the constant trainings and seminars that sanggunian secretaries have undergone and continue to undergo. Many of them in fact, have Read the rest of this entry »