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.

The Custodia Legis program of PRO 1 provides the guidelines in “the proper disposition of recovered evidence acquired by PNP units and stations in their police operations or acquired in the course of follow-up investigation including any article of material property illegally possessed or voluntarily surrendered by any person or group of person.”

Chief Supt. Hilomen thanked the judiciary in the region for being supportive to the program of PRO1. He also commended the police operatives for their relentless effort in the campaign against all forms of criminalities involving the use of firearms.

Withdrawal of these firearms was coordinated with court personnel and judges in compliance to Supreme Court Memorandum Circular No. 47-98.

Based on the Crime Incident Data Management System of the Regional Investigation and Detective Management Division (RIDMD), a total of 1,456 firearms were accounted from 2003 to present which were used as evidence of cases filed in court.

Hilomen said he will request PNP Chief Avelino Razon Jr., thru the Firearms and Explosives Division at Camp Crame, Quezon City to approve the eventual issuance of the recovered firearms to police personnel of PRO1 who are still without issued firearms

THE coming of television giant GMA-7 finally with its studios and crew to Dagupan can only be for the greater good of public service and information in Pangasinan and its four cities.

One way of viewing this development in the local information sector is that GMA’s setting shop here to pit programs with rival network ABS-CBN’s means there’s money to make in this part of northern Luzon, something you can hardly begrudge these giant telecom industries for wanting to have a piece of.

Another way of looking at GMA’s chosing to be in Pangasinan, specifically Dagupan, is that there’s a whole wide and fertile ground out there for public service and news-entertainment that eager servers can fill and often eagerly do.

Indeed with its vast area and vibrant economic potentials, Pangasinan is every agency’s and investor’s dream for a playing field and commanding presence. Its people always open to welcome newcomers and fresh opportunities, it is just now slowly realizing that for it to attain the pinnacle of success seemingly already achieved by its counterpart giant provinces like Cebu and Rizal, it must empower its people with information to turn their
lives – and manner of thinking – around.

Media is a vital part of such empowerment. While the province already has a surfeit of newspapers and radio stations to begin with, the coming of television into the landscape completes the equation.

From here on, and sooner not later, with the combined effective reaches of these media forms, not a single corner, not a lone nook of the province, will ever be caught and labeled as “information poor.” The modern-day purveyors of news and information who set out to do their daily task of bringing the news to the people where it happens and when it happens, will see to that.

MANY DAGUPENOS, pedestrians especially, are wondering whether there’s still the law regulating the operation of tricycles in Dagupan City. They feel that if the law has not been repealed or amended, perhaps it’s more honored now in the breach than in the observance.

One need only look at the buzzing, roaring tricycle units in the city roads today to realize what these observers mean – there are infinitely much more units running on the road now than at any other time and, hear this, six out of 10 of them do not have the mandated route and windshield numbers painted on them.

That could only mean they’re, in more sense than one, colorum (or unregistered) units. Woe to the passenger who meets an accident while riding in one of these three-wheeled contraptions.
And the manners and discipline of many of these drivers – they’re fit to be hanged for gross discourtesy! City Hall (or anyone interested to find this out among the many salaried, sitting factotums in there – hello, anybody home?) need only ask the first citizen on the street to validate this observation.

* * * *
This unwelcome development can also mean many of these public utility conveyances (to include the jeepneys), since the start of this city administration, have been thumbing their noses at enforcement authorities (and the law itself) and violating regulations at will.

They can hardly be blamed though; with no official (surprisingly even Robert Erfe Mejia’s “orange boys” – the POSO) now seemingly giving a hoot about authorized or unauthorized, legal and illegal, genuine or fake operators, it’s a free zone out there. And the law be damned!

Perhaps, they’re all waiting for a precedent case when an accident victim, riding in one of these colorum tricycles, finally sues the city for allowing these illegals to ferry people even without the mandatory insurance covers.

Remember that case long ago of a citizen who fell on an open manhole here and sued the city for his pain and shame? Well, the city lost that one – and the city seems not to have learned its lesson well.

* * * *

Speaking of the Public Order and Safety Office (POSO), while we commiserate with Robert’s Boys for their largely marginalized role (compared to BSL’s time) in the Fernandez Et.Al. era, we feel that does not at all justify their ever making light of their duties (after all, they’re still being paid by the city, correct?) or worse, making hay, using precisely such duties.

During the Bangus Festival Street Party on April 30, for instance, a friend was hot under the collar reporting to us about an alleged lucrative trade of a POSO operative stationed at the Mayombo (near Mercury Drug area) loading/unloading area when traffic was rerouted.

It seems he made a ‘killing’ charging P20 from each driver loading passengers for the Calasiao, Urdaneta, Santa Barbara route.

“Akalmoy baleg”!,was how our informer described the POSO guy’s “livelihood” that stretched for several hours that day.
I know Robert won’t stand for this one bit. Too bad, this reached us very close to deadline I didn’t have the luxury of time to talk to him, though I did try calling him up but missed him.

* * * *.
Everyone who has worked with him will miss “Reggie”– yes, Reginald Ubando of Bonuan, this city, he who gamely handled the Waste Management Division when no one among the limpia manos wanted to.

Reggie was one of the few city officials I could relate to, both in the past Lim administration and the new Fernandez regime, which he both served. He had that uncanny way of seeing to it that your questions or concerns about governance are answered with tact and humility, whether it’s embarrassing to him or not.

When I first noticed him in the City Hall area, that is, during the first years of Mayor Al Fernandez as a seemingly overeager technical assistant (consultant) of the late controversial Jaime “Kamagong” dela Cruz who sat in the city council for a time, I immediately sensed the young Reggie would make a career in local government.

And he did. Not as an elective official, perhaps, (although I’ve always believed he was only marking time and piling resources before he would make a run for a council seat) but as an appointive one who soon became a byword in the City Hall circle.

He was everywhere during the Bangus Festival all of last month and nobody could have known what that heart of his was carrying as a burden all throughout. It proved too much even for the young dynamo that he was.

Goodbye, Reggie. Yours was a life well lived, not wasted.

RAINS spoiled what could have been a grand street party last Wednesday night, the Kalutan or Bangusan as this year’s organizers called it, at Dagupan’s main thoroughfare. There was no record to break unlike in the time of former hizzoner Benjie Lim so that there was less worry whether rains would spoil the event or not but it could have been merrier and drew more people considering that big names in the local rock/pop industry were invited.

Whether Lim grinned or not when heavy downpour played KJ (kill joy) to the fun and disappointed the city administration, the people, and the visitors no end, we nevetheless congratulate Mayor Al Fernandez and this year’s Bangus festival chair, Vice-Mayor Belen Fernandez, for staging the festival that made Dagupan famous not only in the Philippines but in the world.

It only showed that they put partisan politics aside and thought about the welfare of the city. A good program or project must be pursued even if it was started by a political enemy.
* * *

We are therefore watching with keen interest how the city officials treat other projects started by the previous administration. One is the idle Mac Adore building which the city purchased for P50 million from the national government. Another is the building construction project just across city hall. And of course the losing Malimgas market which was built out of a bank loan to the tune of some P300 million.

The former five-star hotel was supposed to become a government center that would house some national government offices.

Perhaps Mayor Al was not keen on the plan so that up to this time, the building is kept idle and deteriorating. Or there is no money to renovate it. We think there are bright boys at City Hall however who can devise ways to make the edifice alive again as it was decades ago.

By the way what happened to the plan to accommodate SSS and Philhealth there? Those two income-generating agencies can readily pay whatever rent the city may impose.

* * * *
Too bad construction of the building project at the former Magsaysay (Bugnay) market was still on going when the new administration took over. Immediately upon assumption of Mayor Al, the city engineer ordered construction to stop purportedly due to the owner’s failure to secure a building permit. Of course, as building official engineer Virginia Rosario had all the right to do so.

Interestingly, she waited for the new administration to come to perform her function. She did not dare doing it when Lim was still around. We really don’t know if she was pricked by pride and vengeance when she padlocked the premises. We all know how she fared during Benjie’s time.

Still, the city government can make that area productive. We do not think it is sound management to let that place as it is till Kingdom come. The city is losing much money both from those idle properties.

For the Malimgas market, we also believe that there are many ways to make it an earning entity. The city has to move fast on its plan to convert the upper floors for other commercial uses.

People are watching what Dagupan may become in the next two years.

The 18-year-old incoming B.S. Pharmacy student of the Saint Louis University in Baguio City, admits that her greatest passion is modeling.

“I want to become a ramp model, in fact, it is my long-time dream since I was young,” she says.

The only daughter in a brood of three of George Poulakos, a Greek-American marketer and part time ‘indi’ film producer, and the former Heidi Sison, a medical assistant in New York, Lindsay chose to finish her college degree in the Philippines before joining her family in the US where she was born and raised.

Adjudged as Miss Chowking and Miss Talent with her scintillating and innovative violin rendition of the Pangasinense song, ‘Malinac Lay Labi’, the lady is a homebody, preferring to read books and play the violin to while away the hours.

Strikingly tall at 5’7” with regal bearing and queenly sculptured face, she bested the other 19 candidates with her wit during the casual interview done by the emcee to gauge the breadth of her intelligence for the selection of the seven finalists and also in the final interview by the judges..

Runners –up in the Limgas na Pangasinan pageant held May 1 at the Capitol grandstand are : Joy Anne N. Cornejo (Lingayen), 1st runner up and Marilee S. Dela Cruz ( San Carlos City ), 2nd runner up.

The special awards winners were: Miss Friendship – Marilee Dela Cruz ( San Carlos City ), Miss Personality – Ma. Angela Veronica S. Carretero (Malasiqui), Smart Texters Choice – Lovely Angelica Pre (Lingayen), Miss Talent – Lindsay Pauline Poulakos (Bugallon), Darling of the Press – Elaine A. Manangan (Binalonan), Best in Swimsuit – Aimee Flor F. Romero (Binmaley), Miss Coke Zero – Aimee Flor Romero’ Miss Photogenic – Krizette Chrishna A. Unabia (Lingayen), Miss Chowking – Lindsay Pauline Poulakos (Bugallon), Best in Evening Gown – Jarydel V. Prado (Lingayen).

Cash prizes are P80,000 for the Limgas titlist, P50,000 for the 1st runner-up and P30,000 for the 2nd runner-up.

The title holder will serve as the ambassador of goodwill and promote environmental awareness and conservation as well as the various tourist destinations of the province, one of the priority concerns of the provincial government. (Ruby R. Bernardino)

NENGNENG mo pay kalokoan daray totoo met, awa?

Imbes a mikasakey iratan ingen iyagel day siyudad da ed makapoy a pakabitla ed sayay kalabalabas ya Bangus Pistibal, sikarani so manderal na pakadayewan na siyudad.

Say tutukuyen ko aliwa labatlan satay apabalitan pigaran tuson pinalsan manga-alay kontribusyon ed saray lokal iran negosyantes para konod say Bangus Pistibal balet ibubulsa da labat so nakolekta, no ag ingen pati samay impinge-ekas na saramay “tarpaulins” ya anunsiyo na saray nanduruman aktibidades ed Pistibal.

Agaylay dismaya toniay makolin Bise Mayor Belen Pirnandis nen naimano ton baleg a porsiyento daray pinanirapan a impepeket tan inkakabit iran istrimers tan tarpaulins ed nanduruman pasen na siyudad anggadman ed Bonuan et – niaka—tinatakew na sakey sindikato.

Sindikato kuanko ta singa nalmoan ed impansukisok, saray angaala tan nan-eekas na tarpaulins et grupo kono na akatraysikel ya aka-ID met na Bangus Pistibal. Siyempre anggan walay makaimanod gagaween da bilang, ta walaan met iray uniporme tan ID na BF lanti, et agdalara banoen.

Manisia kayo tan diman lad solar mismo nen Madam Belen ya CSI Da Siti Mol et inekas niray tarpaulin yaw wadmad paloob o butada na Nanarian nen Nana Belen tan apalusotan so saray akatanyareg ya sikyos?

Alay sibeg daranian sindikato met!

Walay inap kon sarayan animales et say trabaho dad abong… manekas na impesak no asingger lan onoran. Korik ka, Nana Ilet, Saraya et man-ngaray Andres.

Korni?

The Dagupan Bangus Festival started with a bang on April 16 and ended last Sunday.

Rains marred the highlight events, the Bangusan ed Dagupan and
the Festivals of the North Grand Street Dancing on April 26 and 30 but overall, the festival was stunning success and “achieved its purpose”, according to Fernandez.

He said the festival not only promoted the city’s number one product, bangus, to the world but also Dagupan as an important tourism and investment destination.

With its featured “Festivals of the North”, the Bangus Festival also fostered regional solidarity and cooperation and enhanced the preservation of cultural heritage through songs, dances, arts and sports, he said.

It rained on April 30 soon after the Bangusan Street Party was opened but as soon as the downpour stopped, the multitude that earlier came and left, returned to the streets to jam all night till morning, with up to nine top bands from Metro Manila providing the music in stages along A.B. Fernandez Avenue.

“Overall, it was a stunning success as many people, including visitors, kept on telling me,” Fernandez confided.

Fernandez was himself among the many spectators who saw the events nightly from day one, explaining that he was enthralled at seeing people happy and really enjoying.

The mayor said he will favorably endorse the earlier proposal for the formation of a Bangus Festival Foundation to institutionalize the yearly festival and make it part of the cultural heritage of the people in the years to come.

He said also to be institutionalized is the ‘Gilon-Gilon’ dance depicting the popular way of harvesting bangus which was introduced by Vice Mayor Fernandez in 1997, then city councilor, when she was chairman of the 50th Golden Year celebration of Dagupan.

SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union – The National Food Authority regional office has warned all its accredited outlets of revocation of their licenses if they are found violating the guidelines in selling government rice.

NFA Regional Director Joseph Dela Cruz said that 60 “Palengke Watch Teams” have been deployed on daily basis to various markets in the region to monitor and apprehend violators of the guidelines.

The move is in consonance with the directive of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to ensure the visibility of NFA rice in the market, Dela Cruz said.

Violations included the diversion and overpricing of NFA rice, unreasonable deviation and refusal to sell, selling NFA rice as commercial rice, and of NFA rice with inferior quality.

“There are about 610 NFA accredited rice outlets regionwide selling government rice at P18.25 per kilo.

The need to monitor and inspect these outlets has become imperative because of reports that some outlets are diverting and overpricing the rice due to the wide price gap between NFA rice and commercial rice at P27 to P30 per kilogram, “Dela Cruz told.

He disclosed that his office is presently implementing the delivery of rice allocation of outlets right at their stalls in markets to prevent the diversion and selling of NFA rice as commercial rice.

“We are also repacking rice into one and two kilogram plastic bags to easily identified NFA rice stocks,” he added.

At the same time, Dela Cruz appealed to consumers to report immediately to the different NFA provincial offices in the region any violations committed by outlets in selling government rice.

Meanwhile, Dela Cruz also reported that NFA
Region One has 600,000 bags of rice stored in its warehouses.

In addition, another 280,000 bags of imported rice from Vietnam had been unloaded at Poro Point in San Fernando City, La Union last April 5.

“A total of two million bags of imported rice is allocated to Region one and Cordillera region to further ensure the availability and sufficiency of rice during the lean months starting July to September this year,” Dela Cruz said.

Dela Cruz noted that NFA in Region 1 does not only serve its four provinces but also the Cordillera region to include Baguio City and Abra.

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, who was recently in Dagupan vowed to do something to save the AVRC and the adjacent community in Bonuan seriously threatened by erosion coming from waves of the Lingayen Gulf.

Cabral was informed by DSWD Regional Director Margarita Sampang and AVRC personnel that a large tract of the property of the Center had already been eaten away by giant waves from the Lingayen Gulf through the years.

In fact, she said, the property of AVRC is being eroded at the rate of three meters each year and by 2010, one of the center buildings may soon be part of the sea.

She told newsmen that relocation is an option but on the other hand, she thinks that it is best that they should first do something to prevent erosion.

Proposed to be the relocation site of the AVRC is the lot on which the Center for Children and Center for Abused Women in barangay Bonuan Binloc are located. Cabral said that since they lack money, they can not build the same building facilities that AVRC ha in the new location.

“Relocation is an option but we need a lot of money to develop the same kind of infrastructure that we have in another area,” she explained.

The other option, she said, is to do something so that the sea would not encroach on the AVRC property, as well as the rest of the community that will be the next ones to be eroded into the sea.

“Okay we move, but we should think of what will happen to the next structure after us,” she said.

AVRC was established in 1962 as the first Regional Rehabilitation Training Center in Dagupan City. It covers the provinces of Region 1; Abra; Benguet; and Mt. Province in the Cordillera Administrative Region, and Zambales, Tarlac and Olongapo City in Region III.

The AVRC I provides rehabilitation to persons with disabilities (PWDs) for them to achieve highest possible level of physical, mental, social and economic self-sufficiency within the bounds of their capacities and limitations so they may have useful and productive community life.

The clientele of AVRC includes the physically disabled, socially disabled and mentally disabled.

The physically disabled include those visually impaired, orthopedically handicapped, hearing and speech impaired and those with speech defect, hunchback, cleft palate and harelip.(PNA)

City Legal Officer George Mejia, speaking for Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr., said everything is normal yet as far as rice situation in the city is concerned.

He noted this when he was asked by the mayor to visit the market last week and talk to retailers in the face of the reported increase in the price of commercial rice.

The price of commercial rice in Dagupan ranges from P32 to P35 butthere are retailers who have pegged their lowest price of rice at P30.

There are at least four outlets of NFA (National Food Authority) rice in the city that sell at P18.25 per kilo but buyers are queuing up on them.

Mejia said although everything is normal as far as rice supply is concerned, they are preparing a contingency plan in case the situation wosens.(PNA)