THE city government will work for the restructuring of its loan of more than P300 million with the Land Bank of the Philippines this year in order that the city’s yearly debt servicing can be reduced.

Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez said this was among the plans spelled out by Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr., at the start of the year.

The mayor spelled out his proposed initiative during the traditional New Year’s Day call on him Monday by members of the city council.
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AS we’re wrapping up this week’s issue of the Pangasinan Star, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake, felt at Intensity 4 in Dagupan City, rocked the province.

It was fairly mild but enough to jog our senses to that big quake of July 16, 1990 and rekindle a brief fear about the unspeakable consequences of a Big One occurring anew in this city sitting on land geologically below sea level.

Quite significantly, we’ve been hearing the past weeks calls for better disaster preparedness in Dagupan aired by not a few of our city officials who, no doubt, were thinking more along the lines of the floods and typhoon surges along the beaches and waterlines that are common occurrences, in fact almost traditional, in our neck of the woods each year. Read the rest of this entry »

BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR

YOU don’t have to be a genius to know that there’s now bad blood between Secretary Antonio ‘Bebot” Villar, Jr. of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) and Assistant Director Reynaldo Berroya of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) over the car smuggling and registration fiasco.

The exchange of hot barbs by the two on the status of registration papers of the seized suspected untaxed cars — with Berroya doing his best at image damage control for his underlings and deflecting Villar’s pointed asides at LTO negligence (connivance?) – clearly indicates a magma of ill feelings welling up.
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By DANNY O. SAGUN

FROM now on, ambulances will only be used to transport patients to hospitals. This was the stern directive of Gov. Amado Espino to chiefs of government hospitals in Pangasinan whom he met recently.

Apparently, the governor was irked by the presence of those ubiquitous white-painted siren-laden vans at the Capitol ground that day he called the meeting. We used to also note that every time the provincial health office called for a meeting with the hospital chiefs, the Capitol ground particularly the front of the Kalantiao building where the PHO is housed, would be full of parked ambulances. The vehicle is also used by hospital personnel for transport when they submit reports to the health office.
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By DANNY O. SAGUN

THE retirement in February and March of two senior police officers heading two major units will pave the way for a reshuffling of key men especially of senior officers.

This was bared by Regional Police Director Leopolodo Bataoil in an indirect answer to a question on the possibility of his reassignment soon from the Ilocos regional police office to somewhere else.
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MARIO F. KARATEKA

AGTO akabayag nen kaaron Cesar Carpio, say probinsiyal impormesyon opiser nen Gobernador Amado T. Espino. Nandimiti lay Cesar nen imbeneg a simba kasompal na singa anem bulan labat ed serbisyo tan say sinmalat ed sikato et sakey met a kaaro ed medya a si Orpheus “Butch” VelascoSi Butch et presidente na samay olopay managpalapag say Pangasinan Tri-Media Association (Patrima) tan peles met a media consultant nen Bise Gobernador Marlyn Primicias-Agabas.

Nipawil kod si kaaron Cesar. Sayang ta kinmapoy kono so abig-laman tonia , onong ed say sikato, kanian apilitan ya inmekal bilang PIO so sayan matalisiw met a managsulat. Pigaran simba Read the rest of this entry »