ANY way you look at it, and despite the seeming “caution” of the Espino provincial administration not to make it look like a political issue against the previous Agbayani administration, the investigation into the fiasco that is the buried expired medicines and medical supplies in the Capitol compound is one nasty wound inflicted on Victor Agbayani’s record.

There is reason to believe he may not have really done the direct authorization, as in micro-managing even the disposal of the said unusable medicines. But even if his underlings or lower lieutenants did it, the fact is he cannot escape blame. Legal prosecution? We doubt that. Read the rest of this entry »

COMING from no les than the Director-General of the Philippine National Police, it was candid enough alright.

In tagging the New People’s Army (NPA) as being involved in the production and trafficking of illegal drugs and the Al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) as being into the distribution of shabu in the countryside, PNP Chief Jesus Verzosa made no bones about also admitting that some of his personnel may be “involved directly or indirectly in trafficking of illegal drugs.”

That’s putting it properly, fair and square. Read the rest of this entry »

IN A way, Governor Amado Tutaan Espino’s damning the torpedoes to proceed with his pet shotguns-for-barangay-captains project is producing something beneficial. It has triggered a healthy debate on the merits and demerits of guns as defense or offense objects throughout a broad spectrum of society.

Whatever percolated in GATE’s military-molded mind to go ahead despite some obvious stumbling blocks to the plan, only he probably knows. As one observer quipped, noting the governor’s quick moves to dispose of the guns bought, it was “like a military ops.” Read the rest of this entry »

IT DOESN’T look good, to say the least, for local officials to be wandering off to various destinations abroad in these times of crisis and calamities where no one can say, least of all PAG-ASA or Phivolcs, when the next wrath of Nature will explode.

That’s not to mention the money spent for such foreign travels, official or otherwise, that prudence dictates can often be better answered by sending just a modest couple of top men, not an entourage.

Other local officials may just say they’re taking the cue from the national officials widely known to have their own itchy feet for travel but all things being equal, the former local officials cannot escape the Read the rest of this entry »

MORE and more people are getting convinced of the dangerous times we are living in as calamities, mostly natural ones, come one after the other.

There appears to be little surcease or relief, especially in this third quarter of July, August and September during which we’ve seen all sorts of disasters happen going by our common experience of past years and decades.

Disaster preparedness is never as vital and as pronounced as during Read the rest of this entry »

THE charming and feisty Kimi Cojuangco, mayor of Sison town and better-half of Rep. Mark Cojuangco put the problem in just four words – to describe the sluggish response of major agencies tasked to undertake the typhoon rehabilitation in Pangasinan : “All sorts of excuses.”

At last Friday;’s meeting of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council (RDCC) at the newly refurbished session hall of the sangguniang panlalawigan at the Capitol, it didn’t take a minute for President Arroyo to get wind of the almost palpable resentment of the local executives regarding the slow arrival of the promised aid coursed thru local offices and agencies.
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THAT all-too-familiar fear coming with the first heavy gust of wind and strong lash of rains in their own backyard gripped the hearts of Pangasinenses, especially Dagupenos, once again last Sunday afternoon as Frank stormed into the province.

Everyone who had gone through killer howler Cosme earlier last May 17 were anxiously waiting for that certain degree of ugliness in the wind force anew, a sure sign of a repeat disaster at a time when everyone has hardly recovered from the first calamity.
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AS may be expected in relief and rehabilitation assistance mounted on such massive scale as the P500 million worth of galvanized iron sheets (yero) pledged by President Arroyo to typhoon Cosme victims in Pangasinan, there are flaws and fidgeting, pats and brickbats, bumps and hitches.

This time, the delay in delivering the goods to the waiting recipients is what the victims are wailing much about. With 38,000 totally damaged houses, as supposedly “validated” by the Social Welfare, in Pangasinan and La Union alone to tend to, relief agencies have hardly reached a tenth of the figure. This, almost a month after the windy calamity that saw entire roofs of houses blown away, trees uprooted and whole hectares of fishes from fishponds breaking free and swimming out to sea, not to mention the 40 or so persons who perished in Cosme’s passage.
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SINCE the dark evening of May 17, the sun has been generally shining in bright abundance in Pangasinan, enough period within which to hurry up reconstruction and rehabilitation in all its devastated areas.

Someone Above has blessed us with fair weather up to this time, against all the guarded projections of Pag-asa on the first visit of Preisdent Arroyo to the province May 23 that it can only forecast good weather four days upwards, or until May 27 beyond which it was already a question mark as far as the weathermen are concerned.

Before the gathered wise men and women in that National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) meeting at the Narciso Ramos Sports Center, a curious President upon hearing the Pag-asa’s latest prognostication had told DPWH bossman Jun Ebdane : ‘O, Jun, you have only four days to do your job!” meaning reconstruction and rehab. Read the rest of this entry »

SUCH a pity that this great province of Pangasinan has been reduced to imposed self-help with whatever little it has in the kitty after the great calamity that visited its bosom early evening of May 17.

It’s even almost tragicomic that some media spin dabblers, no doubt under the baton of the provincial government, are using up precious provincial funds for inane broadcast ads exhorting the people to self-help in this time of crisis – when everyone has long tightened his belt and going about rebuilding shattered properties and lives on his own, biting the bullet as it were. Hello?
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