By BEHN FER HORTALEZA JR.
PIA Dagupan Infocenter

CAMP BGEN OSCAR M FLORENDO –The Police Regional Office 1 based here recently received a big boost for its armory from no less than the trial courts which, under an arrangement, turned over 142 assorted, court case-related firearms to the latter under the “custodia legis” program.

The firearms collected were used as pieces of evidence in various cases which were confiscated through the implementation of search warrants and the intensified campaign against loose firearms in line with the police’s ‘Oplan Bakal,’ Police Regional Director Romeo C. Hilomen said.

The guns were collected upon termination of court litigation involving these. Read more

NO “rice access cards” have been issued yet by government thru the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) which is still in the process of finalizing the list of beneficiaries and developing a distribution strategy that will be as fool-proof and tamper-proof, as possible.

DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral issued this clarification in the wake of reports that some families are this early already being offered such “access cards” for P2 to P10 apiece.

She asked barangay officials to be alert for such scams, admitting that her office cannot keep a 24-hour watch over such scam artists who may go to communities. Read more

SO far, so good.

This was the assessment of Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, Executive chairperson of the Dagupan Bangus Festival 2008 a week into the 19-day festivities that ends May 4.

Fernandez hailed the mammoth crowd participating in the festival, especially those who lined up in the streets even under the blazing sun to watch the featured “Gilon-Gilon ed Baley” street dancing last Monday afternoon.
Read more

By DANNY O. SAGUN
PIA Dagupan Infocenter

PANGASINAN has enough rice supply for the next four months or up to July, according to the National Food Authority.

Edilberto Libatique, branch manager of NFA western Pangasinan based in Lingayen, said that the total rice stocks in the province amounts to some 3.6 million bags with NFA having 193,000 bags in its bodegas. Estimated household stocks today stand at 2.2 million bags while traders have some 860,000. The province expects to harvest some 635,000 bags of palay, equivalent to 413,000 bags of rice.

He said that based on this data, there is enough rice supply for the province for the next four months.
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THOUSANDS spent Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Saturday at the Tondaligan in Dagupan, savoring the vastly improved rest and recreation area by the beach initiated by the city government.

The city government jointly launched on Wednesday Oplan Semana Santa and Oplan Baywatch to ensure a stress-free long holiday weekend for residents and visitors alike.

The beachgoers started coming in on Monday, their numbers peaking on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The huge crowd gave the owners and operators of the newly-built huts and sheds in the park a good earning weekend.
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ROSALES—Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has tagged Pangasinan as one big sleeping giant in agriculture.

Yap, speaking during the opening of an eight-day Agricultural Exposition 2008 in barangay Carmen East, Rosales, said although Pangasinan is the biggest province in Region 1, it lags far behind in the production of rice, corn and vegetables over the years.

Pangasinan is not only the biggest province in the Ilocos Region but is also the biggest in the entire country and yet it is not producing much in rice, corn and vegetables unlike other provinces, Yap noted. Read more

HAS the current national crisis really become so malignant it has turned provincemates into enemies?

Congressman and ousted House Speaker Jose C. de Venecia and Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) head Usec. Antonio A. Villar, Jr. , Pangasinenses both, appear to be the latest pair of protagonists ‘infected’ by the unraveling national bitter drama sparked by the National Broadband Network-STE deal.

In a press conference with local mediamen Saturday on his way to inaugurate several municipal projects in the fourth district, De Venecia issued another one of his calibrated response at what he said were Malacanang’s “desperate” moves to divert the issue from the NBN-ZTE bribery scandal to his alleged link to some oil smugglers. Read more

By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

BINALONAN — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo unwrapped in a brief visit here last Saturday five major projects for Pangasinan’s development as part of the master plan for the North Luzon Agri-business Quadrangle (NLAQ) super region.
The President spoke during the formal inauguration of a private airstrip and groundbreaking for a new two-storey school building timed to be completed when classes open in June in this quiet agricultural town that is her mother’s hometown.

Owned by the family of her cousin Binalonan Mayor Ramon Guico Jr., president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, the airstrip .measuring 850 meters, was put up by the World City Colleges (WCC) Aviation Company whose president is Captain Ramon V. Guico III, vice mayor of Binalonan. Read more

By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.
THE city administration of Dagupan is proceeding ever more cautiously now in its fight against illegal squatters at the beach area in Bonuan Binloc after the initial bravado it exhibited on the issue of public land squatting.

This, after a neighborhood association in the place urged the city hall task force to first determine “with absolute certainty” which tax declarations are valid and which are not to avoid embarrassing situations later. Read more

By BEHN FER. HORTALEZA, JR.

SUPREME Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno put in perspective growing public questions about which takes precedence in the administration of justice between civil rights and national security.

The “point of balance,” he said is a moving point. “There is no fixed point of balance in the administration or dispensing of justice.” Read more