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 gone on to finish their masteral degrees, doing their best to shed off their political protégé images to become a corps of more capable, competent and career servicemen ably assisting a vice mayor and his councilors with the usual “staff work” on council business.

I have particularly noted such welcome transformation in town council agenda copies in Mangaldan, Santa Barbara, Alcala, Binmaley, Lingayen, Labrador, Malasiqui and even in faraway San Nicolas, Santa Maria, Asingan, Rosales and Tayug. This is not to mention the cities where naturally only the best and the brightest get to be sanggunian secretaries, sometimes (to the good sense of the local execs) irrespective of their political affiliations or inclinations.

Many real newsmen covering the local sessions find the minutes of the sessions churned out for public reading now comprehensive and clear, a credit to the painstaking labor of the secretaries and their stenographers or clerks who have evolved as capable assistants of public administrators in charting a local government unit’s directions and missions.

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Heard the news of fellow mediaman Allan Sison’s latest brush with death at presstime. They got to him this time, — but not quite. He’s recovering at the hospital from two (three?) bullet wounds coming from a .45 cal. pistol fired by two assassins almost pointblank sometime before midnight last Friday. Lucky, lucky guy.

Allan strikes some fellow newsmen as too smug and cocksure but to me, he has always been a friendly, warm chap. He might simply be a confident, frank broadcaster given to sporadic bursts of emotions. In Pilipino, mabait pero madaling mapuno. His kind, I can get along with. In fact, I can get along well with even his ‘enemies” among our colleagues in the Press, at least those of them who do not hide behind a fake façade of righteousness when they’re in the announcer’s booth and are just being themselves. No, let’s not name names here anymore.

Sometimes, I think it’s the hypocrites who hate Allan’s guts. So do I, I mean, abhorring these media hypocrites who can’t even admit to getting bribed – and living and loving every minute of it!
Now, we’re getting carried away again.

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The three-day North Luzon Trade Expo brought to Dagupan City by a brilliant team of organizers from Team Icon Incorporated gave local entrepreneurs and tradesmen a glimpse and feel of how modern trade and technology has really grown in the country.

Various exhibitors showcased their products and services at the 3rd floor of the Nepo Mall from Friday till today, Sunday and both the truly interested and plain curious were there to take close look at what modern business has to offer – and it has much to offer indeed..

On opening day, I had the opportunity and privilege to join Provincial Trade and Industry Director Peter Mangubat and Dr. Edwin Aguirre, the city mayor’s executive assistant and the Team Icon staff in welcoming the exhibitors and guests. City Administrator Alvin Fernandez was at the venue much, much earlier but had to beg out from doing the opening honors because he had another engagement.

DTI did a splendid lecture on business franchising that was well attended by local business entrepreneurs and even by just-passing-by mall shoppers.

If you missed the Norlex here, you can catch it at its San Fernando, La Union swing early next month.