Alunan alone

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NOTA

IT TOOK Sunday’s presidential debate for me to finally decide whom to vote for in May: NOTA – none of the above.

Aye, to tag the debate “presidential” is to debase the honor and demean the dignity inherent in the term, intelligent discourse having left the campus of the University of the Philippines-Cebu – ah, such irony – even before the event started, with a simple question of rules wasting one full hour to resolve. One rule, to be exact: whether a candidate can bring notes to the podium, which Comelec has, even before the first debate, already ruled out, but for some reason or the other, the carrying station Channel 5 did not know. No-brainer there.

Alas, all the rules that make the very definition of debate – reasoned argument through disciplined presentation, logical consistency, factual accuracy, and civility among the debaters – buried in the highly-charged verbal engagement right at its commencement.

More than the presentation of their position on varied issues of national interest thereby affording the public an informed, if not enlightened, choice, the debate was seized by the presidential pretenders as an opportunity for mutual annihilation. Thus, the skewed arguments and non-sequiturs peppered with name-callings and vapid one-liners. Thus, the three honorable men and one esteemed woman reducing themselves to the absurdity of bungling schoolyard brawlers, unfit to be elected even as Row 5 monitor. Thus, a farce was all it was: pure entertainment, enlightenment only by accident.   

What the presidentiables passed off as valid arguments make the very examples of the Material Fallacies of Reasoning any student of my day learned in Philosophy 101. Yes, the very things we were warned against, lest we fell into nonsensicality.  

The fallacy of emotive language in Rodrigo Duterte calling Mar Roxas a “fraud,” questioning anew his being a Wharton School of Business graduate, even as media has long reported that the school has vouched for the veracity of Roxas’ claims.

Roxas, in turn, minting “Duterte Justice” to mean “kung ano ang nasa isip niya, kahit hindi totoo, ‘yan ang kanyang papaniwalaan, ‘yan ang kanyang gagawin.”

Jejomar Binay calling Roxas and Grace Poe “disipulo ito ni Goebbels” referencing the Nazi propaganda minister who memorialized the power of the lie, thus: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Applied to allegations of corruption against him which often repeated by his rivals may be believed by the public as proven truths. Aren’t they?

All that name-calling also categorized under the classic argumentum ad hominem – focus more on the person, less on the issue, especially to the point of ridicule.

More ad hominem with touches of argumentum ad misericordiam to tug at the heartstrings with Binay: “Magtiwala po kayo. Uulitin ko po, ako, man of action ako, kaya nga ako minahal sa Makati.”

The fallacy of “contrary to fact conditional error” in Roxas’ broken record-spinning of his Yolanda role as it alters reality on the ground and then draws conclusion from that alteration. He did good in Yolanda?

On Poe’s citizenship issue, Binay: "Basta ikaw, hindi ka tunay na Pilipino kasi ikinahiya mo. When you took your oath of allegiance for you to be naturalized as a citizen, [you said], 'I abjure ikinahihiya ko ang pinanggalingan [ko].’"

Poe countered with an ignoratio elenchi or irrelevance by likening her case to the  millions of Filipinos who aspired to get higher-paying jobs abroad, thus: "Sinasabi mo, ikaw ang number one na nagpro-protekta sa mga OFW pero sinasabi mong ang isang nakatira sa ibang bansa, hindi na pwedeng bumalik dito para manilbihan?"

Binay’s response: “Madame Senator, hindi po kayo OFW.”

Right, as OFWs do not renounce their Filipino citizenship to work abroad, unlike Poe who swore allegiance to the American flag and became US citizen.

Cornered, Poe could only resort to more ignoratio elenchi: “Hindi sa kulay yan, nasa pagmamahal. Nandito ka nga sa bansa, pero nangulimbat ka naman.”

On accusations of selective justice in the Aquino administration, Roxas resorting to argumentum ad verecundiam – appeal to authority: “LP, non-LP, lahat ay nakakasuhan, natatanggal sa puwesto, ‘yan and record, ‘yan ang totoo, hindi po ‘yun kathang-isip.” By whose record? By whose truth? By whose authority, but the Aquino administration’s, duh!

The way the presidentiables conducted themselves during the debate, they only succeeded in living up to yet another fallacy: tu quoque – “you too” – as in the Kapampangan “Pare-parehu tamu mu qng acbac nang Hudas (we are all the same in Judas’ skewer).”

And what can one make of Duterte’s “kung takot kang pumatay ng tao at  mamatay, you cannot be president”  impacted as Roxas’ proof of character weakness?

Of Binay promising to pass the Freedom of Information Bill once elected when he did not even have the guts to face the Senate probe of allegations of corruption?

Of Poe’s fantastic inter-island bridges in the Visayas, multiple dams in Cebu, ballistic missiles to counter the China threat, amid the sore lack of funds, if not near bankruptcy, of government?

Of Roxas’ robotic refrains of continuing the discredited daang matuwid?  

Finally, of Duterte saying “sincerely” that Binay is better qualified for the presidency than him?

With the mockery of reason, the negation of logic that was Sunday’s debate, the farce that is the presidential contest this year has played out. 

And I cannot bring myself to take any part of it.

Bargaining the ballot

ONE MAIN reason cited by the Commission on Elections in its abject refusal to implement the Voter Verification Paper Audit Trail in the coming elections was that the voting receipt could be used for vote-buying.

Quickly shot down by the Supreme Court, thus: “Vote-buying can be averted by placing proper procedures. The Commission on Elections has the power to choose the appropriate procedure in order to enforce the VVPAT requirement under the law, and balance it with the constitutional mandate to secure the secrecy and sanctity of the ballot.”

How trusting of the Comelec is the High Court to even consider it capable of averting vote-buying. “Proper procedures” and all, there is no way that vote- buying can be prevented. Not by the Comelec, not even by the Supreme Court. Certainly not by politicians who, generally, are engaged in the commercialization of the ballot.

Why, the vote has been so commodified as to be less governed by the law of  suffrage as by the law of supply and demand. Stopping vote-buying then takes the chicken-or-egg causality dilemma: which came first, vote-buying or vote-vending?    

Whichever, vote buy-and-sell is here to stay. And I can only write about it, all judgments, personal and moral, suspended. Thus:

An honest voter, to paraphrase one 19^th century American politician, “is one who, when bought, will stay bought.”

A caveat emptor though is necessary here: What is the warranty given the buyer that whom he/she bought stayed “honest” all the way to the poll precinct?

This becomes all too problematic given the exhortations of pastors: Kunin ang pera, sundin ang konsiyensiya! and Kunin ang pera, iboto ang kursunada! Some scam there, were it not for its moral mooring.

To get their money’s worth, what politicians and their strategists did in the business of vote-buying in manual elections past was to provide carbon paper – along with half of the pay – to the payee which he/she was required to sandwich between the ballot and a piece of paper. That paper was to be presented to the “coordinator” of the payer for the other half of the agreed-upon price for the vote.   

Technology upgraded voting with the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines. So was the carbon paper upgraded to the cell phone. The payee now required to take a photo of his accomplished ballot with his mobile to prove that he/she did his/her part of the bargain.

Pre-election buying of votes has even less guarantees of “honest” returns. If a voter can sell his/her vote to one candidate, what prevents him/her to sell it to the rival candidate? As there are double deals in government contracts for so-called SOPs, so there are double sales of votes.

Indeed, long and loud are the lamentations of losing candidates over the waste of so much money on voters who just (re)sold out to the higher bidder. 

Wise to the ways of “dishonest” voters, a local candidate in the 2010 elections was reported to have corralled the voters that were purchased 30 hours before the elections, providing them with food and accommodations as well as bags of goodies, thereby preventing them from being bought back by the rival.

Before the precincts opened, the quartered voters were herded like sheep to their respected polling places.

Thus, the dictum: Secure, hide what you have purchased, lest they be stolen from you.

In the 2013 campaign, vote-buying was said to have taken a different turn. Voters were asked, in exchange for cash, not anymore to vote for a certain candidate but not to vote at all.

Through honest surveys, a candidate knows the bailiwicks of his/her opponent. It is there that money is widely spent on the rival’s supporters for them not to bother voting anymore. Just to be sure that their money is spent wisely and the bought voter stayed “honest,” indelible ink shall be put on his/her forefinger on election day.

In one town, it was said that the going rate for the no-voter was P1,500. That’s quite a sum compared to the paltry P300 per vote bandied about in one city. Which reminds me of the now lamented, dearly departed Tirso G. Lacanilao, three-term mayor of Apalit.

Campaigning for his second and last re-election, Pogi Lacanilao lambasted – on stage – voters who commodified their ballots, thus: Mababa ko pa uri kesa karing babi. King P300 pisali yu pati kaladuwa yu. Ing babi halaga ne man libu-libo. (You have lesser value than pigs. For P300 you sold your very souls. The pig costs thousands of pesos at least).”

Shame before swine. Awfully shameless.

A consolation for those who don’t buy, who can’t buy, who won’t buy votes: One can only buy so much.

In a tight contest though, that so much can be more than enough to make the difference. Yeah, there’s a bargain sale of votes out there. Voting receipts, or not.

The endgame

IN THE end, it will be Jojo Binay versus Mar Roxas. And Bongbong Marcos, all his lonesome, by a mile.

More fearsome than fearless are these forecasts of Filosofo Facundo, a seasoned political analyst who asked to hide behind that presumptuous name lest he be hanged in shame.

Facundo’s prognostication goes against the tidal trend cresting from the recent survey results, the Social Weather Stations’ particularly, showing Sen. Grace Poe leading with 27 percent, up three percent from her February’s number of 24.

Erstwhile topper VP Binay got 24 percent, down by five from the previous survey's 29.

LP standard bearer Roxas is top gainer, his number increasing by four percentage points to 22.

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s numbers slipped down by three percentage points to 21.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago kept her number at four percent, and remained tailender.

With the SWS survey's ±2-point margin of error, even the unseasoned analyst will see Poe and Binay statistically tied at the top there. As well as the overlap in the  numbers of Binay, Roxas, and Duterte.

Meaning, Facundo says, any of the top four can make it all the way to the presidency. So, where’s his Binay-versus-Roxas finale coming from?

In a tight presidential race, the winning factor boils down to organization and war chest. These obtain only in Roxas – with the still-ruling LP, and in Binay – with the organized opposition, not to mention his nationwide APO fraternity and the sister cities he developed through the years as Makati mayor.

Poe’s endorsement by Danding Cojuangco’s Nationalist Peoples’ Coalition found as much enthusiasm as enmity among the party members.

All Duterte can boast of in terms of organization is a “ragtag rabble of rabid ranters.” That phrase is Facundo’s, not mine. Just to clear myself of any offense to Duterte-diehard family and friends.

When push comes to shove, more precisely in the case of the presidency, when the heat of battle turns infernal, he who wields the well-oiled political machinery and the limitless largesse will triumph.

For the administration candidate – Roxas in this instance – given elections past hereabouts, an extra plus factor. In fact, the BIGGEST factor to victory – deus ex machina. God from the machine. In 2013 mintage, “Hocus-PCOS.”

So, still in search for any meaning to all the current babbling at the Commission on Elections lately? Better look for the motives, Sir.

So Sen. Chiz Escudero upped his numbers by two percentage points to 28 in the latest SWS polls.

So Sen. Bongbong Marcos remained static with 26 percent while LP’s Leni Robredo leaped by five percent, to 24, and, again the survey’s ±2-point margin of error made a virtual statistical tie of the three vice presidential wannabes.

Already relegated as also-rans are Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano at 11 percent, a drop of five points from the previous survey; Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV at six percent; and Sen, Gringo Honasan at five. Their Warholian 15-minuter fame is up.

Robredo’s surge – at the perfect time, and hoped to continue up to the close of the campaign – has tantalized her camp to now project her as the woman to beat in the VP race.

Indulge them with their illusions. That’s Facundo again, not me.

Marcos’ numbers may have plateaued but the dynamics of campaign politics goes beyond survey numbers.

Of all the presidential candidates, Marcos, arguably, has the best in machinery and money. Unarguably, the most expansive political base.

Marcos Loyalists are alive and well – even increasing with the “historical revision” of the Marcos years served to and lapped up by the young generation who couldn’t have known any better, having been unconceived of at the time of the dictatorship.

Needless to say, money, no matter how obtained, is synonymous to Marcos.

The Solid North, notwithstanding some cracks, have remained Marcos’ holy ground. That’s practically three regions – Ilocos, Cagayan and the Cordilleras.

Eastern Visayas – the Samar and Leyte provinces -- remains Romualdez country.

In Mindanao, the old royal families as well as the now-entrenched political warlords owe some debt of gratitude to the beneficence of the Great Ferdinand. Witness how the Junior has been bestowed the title of “datu” by just about every clan and tribe.

Why, even Mindanao’s purported darling, Duterte, has publicly endorsed the candidacy of Marcos. Did he not, before the media and the Marcoses in Ilocos, say that he would cede the presidency to Marcos when he failed to solve criminality in his first three to six months in office?

So, are we in for a 1969 redux, when reverberated the cry: “All over the land, it’s again Ferdinand”? Albeit his Junior, and in a different post, this time?

The frenzy with which those “No to BBM” movements and “Never Again to a Marcos” coalitions were organized only made an affirmation of what they sought to deny.

Binay or Roxas. Certainly, Marcos.

Fearsome, yeah. To others, simply awesome.   

Once upon a press club

WEDNESDAY THE Pampanga Press Club celebrated its 67^th anniversary and induction of its new set of officers led by the double visionary Deng Pangilinan of dwRW and Balacat News.

The PPC prides itself as one of the oldest, if not indeed the oldest, press clubs in the whole country, predating the organization of the National Press Club by three years.

Anniversaries are often said as milestones from where we look back, as well as we look forward, if only for balance, be it existential, intellectual, emotional. Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter of the book Of the Press (1999), my “non-definitive” history of the PPC as a throwback.
1949. No one remembers the exact date but it was at the now-extinct San Fernando Restaurant in the capital town that the PPC was founded.
There are also variants on the mediamen who actually formed the PPC. Eight names though are constant: Silvestre Songco, Romeo Arceo, Emerito de Jesus, Alejandrino Songco, Lino Sanchez Sr., Tomas San Pedro, Gregorio Sangil, and Armando P. Baluyut.
Coming soon after were Renato “Katoks” Tayag, Antonio Torres, Benvenuto Maglaqui, Ulpiano Quizon, Fred Roxas, Ben Gamos, and Hector Soto, the oral chronicler of the club’s early history.
The first “official headquarters” of the PPC was Camp Olivas, as it was the primary beat in the province, being the headquarters of the 1^st Military Area, comprising all the provinces north of Manila and covering all the major services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Sited in Olivas, the PPC provided more than an historical footnote to the transformation of the military geography in northern and central Luzon – from 1^st Military Area to 1^st Philippine Constabulary Zone, to 3^rd Regional PC-INP Command, to 3^rd Regional PNP Command, to the current 3^rd Regional Police Office.

The 8 Fathers

At Olivas, Beting Songco of Manila Times-Mirror-Taliba was the primus inter pares, famously for institutionalizing journalistic “SS” with his ever present “three of the fatalities have remained unidentified as of press time” on top of identified casualties at every report of Huk-PC encounters.
For all his sensationalized style, Beting had this aversion to tabloids. This was most manifest with a horrified Beting spitting out “Bastos!” at a picture – taken with a zoom lens – of an American girl peeing on a rice paddy along a highway captioned “American girl watering Philippine soil.”
There is not much of Romy Arceo I came to know of other than that he was editor of The Quezonian at the then Manuel L. Quezon Educational Institution, now MLQU. He came into local journalism with his brother-in-law Emerito de Jesus.
‘Marito of The Evening News covered the defense beat and soared to the post of Department of National Defense Usec for Munitions during the Diosdado Macapagal administration. It was during his PPC presidency in 1958-1959 that the PPC club building at the Capitol Compound was completed on a land leased by Gov. Rafael Lazatin to the PPC for 50 years.
‘Marito went on to become mayor of Bacolor and president of the Pampanga Mayors League at the time of Gov. Estelito Mendoza.
Toto Songco of the Philippine News Service started the PPC building construction as club president in 1957-1958. During the Marcos era, he headed the regional office of the National Media Production Center.
Lino Sanchez, Sr. of The Manila Times was known for his penchant for scoops. In the midst of coverages, he routinely disappeared for no apparent reason surprising his peers the next day’s Times with his stories they did not know about.
It was Lino that coined “Huklings” in reference to young Huk partisans.
I get close and personal to Don Tomas San Pedro who opened his Pampanga Newsweek to my first column sometime in 1978.
Bren Z. Guiao, when he was governor, had the habit of teasing Don Tomas with his journalism roots traced to the latter’s Luzon Courier in the late ‘50s, only to remind him of his unpaid salary.
As broadcaster of dzAP, Don Tomas was most remembered for his thorough reading of the news, complete with “Continued on page…”
Yoyong is the best Sangil where writing is concerned. No apologies to his younger brother Max and his son Jay. At the Philippine News Agency where he was stringer, Yoyong wrote oh-so-slowly but oh-so-surely, his syntax and grammar ever in perfect synch.
Yoyong served as provincial information officer of the Capitol during the stint of his cousin, Gov. Juanita L. Nepomuceno, and later consultant to his Porac townmate Lito Lapid in his turn at the governorship. (Nearing his 90s, Yoyong is the last living PPC founder).
Don Armando P. Baluyut founded Central Luzon’s oldest running newspaper, The Voice in June 1954. A poet laureate with the nom de plume Arpiba, Don Armando never became president of the PPC – an “anomaly” corrected thrice over by his son Lincoln’s three terms in the presidency.
IT HAS been 67 years, blessed am I not only to have been a part, and one-time president (1990), of this the grandest press club in the country but moreso for having personally interacted with most of the founding fathers.                

  

The philanthropy of Don Juan

THERE’S SOMETHING about the musicals of Andy Alviz that never fails to sear, then soothe, the core of my being, eventually raising it to some spiritual high. Those I had the chance to experience, at least.

Perry the Musical and Ciniong took me back to my own Age of Innocence, rejuvenating that Faith once lost, regained, and, from time to time, still faltering owing to the weakness of the flesh. Coming to rekindling with Tulauk. Aye, Alviz’s musicals are not merely watched; a feast for the senses, they are absorbed, internalized, even conscienticized, if we can take to the spiritual plane one  favorite term of the usually-atheistic aktibista of old.      
So much regret then for my failure to be at the Holy Angel University Theater this Saturday and Tuesday past for Andy’s latest opus, Juan & Nena Nepomusical.
“The story of the couple who helped transform Angeles town into a city through their unparalleled contributions to business, church, education and social life of Angeleños.” So the press released blurb of the musical said.  
“Juan D. Nepomuceno founded Holy Angel University, Angeles Electric Company, Angeles Ice Plant, Villa Teresa Subdivision, Nepo Mart, and other businesses that have influenced the everyday lives of Kapampangans and helped shape the destiny of an entire community.” Impressive!
“His marriage to Teresa Gomez, descendant of a learned but feisty Spanish friar, produced 10 children including a Jesuit priest and a Benedictine nun, a pioneer top executive of the Ayala Corporation, a college dean at UP, and patriarch of a business empire.” Awesome!
“Truly an unforgettable couple.” So was quoted Robby Tantingco, HAU’s vice president for student affairs: “Their individual personalities, their romance, their Catholic values and their legacy deserve to be told and retold for generations to come.”
Not mere duty-bound obsequiousness from Robby there, owing to his exalted post in the Nepomuceno-owned institution. He speaks the truth of the Don Juan and Dona Nena legacy, indeed meriting – like a prized heirloom – to be passed on to progenies and plebeians alike, for all time.
And certainly, I would have been levitated anew to sanctified heights, had I partaken, even but a bit, of the Juan & Nena Nepomusical, for:
IN MY age of innocence, Don Juan Nepomuceno made the supreme representation of all things good and holy.
In all my four years at the Mater Boni Consilii Seminary (MBCS), there was never a day that we did not pray for Don Juan and his wife Dona Nena, whether in the recitation of the rosary, in novenas, or in the Holy Mass. The very names of the couple defined – in our young minds – the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope, and above all, Charity.
That time, Don Juan was benefactor to up to 50 seminarians – veritably half of the student body – coming not only from Angeles City but throughout Pampanga and Tarlac. Don Juan paid for the tuition, board and lodging of these papari and gave them allowances. In many instances, the families of the poorest among them were also provided for by the Don.
In all those years, I rued my misfortune of not being one among those so much blessed with the generosity of Don Juan.
Even after they left MBCS, many of these ex-seminarians continued being scholars of Don Juan at the family-owned Holy Angel University. Just goes to show the depth of the man’s philanthropy.
Aside from sending young boys to study for the priesthood, Don Juan extended unquantified and unqualified support to MBCS itself.
One of the most awaited events among seminarians was the Christmas caroling at the home of Don Juan. We practically fought to be included among the carolers not only for the sumptuous feasts Dona Nena always prepared and the to-go giveaways of Hersheys, Baby Ruths, grapes and American apples – exclusively from Clark Air Base that time, but moreso for the honor of kissing the hands of the holy couple. It was as though our young lips touched heaven itself.
Holiness veritably permeated the ground upon which Don Juan and Dona Nena stood. The couple did indeed make “a cofradia of two” as the book on their life was most appropriately titled.
Philanthropy Don Juan lived. Philanthropy Don Juan left as legacy. Philanthropy metaphored, synonymized, aye, verily defined: Don Juan. 
Until – long detached from MBCS and already immersed in secularity – I chanced upon Renato “Katoks” Tayag’s definitive epic The Sinners of Angeles.
“…(I)n Angeles there are two kinds of sinners, those who sin against God and those who sin against Don Juan” made a fittingly sublime summation of “a tale of self that forgets all others – neighbors, brothers, relatives, the whole town even.”    
Aye, the man’s “philosophy of self,” I readily (dis)contextualized to the oxymoronic “philanthropy of self.” Definition defiled, whence emerged one shattered showcase of sainthood. Twice, thus, have I become the sinner, against God and Don Juan, albeit I am not from Angeles.
After Katoks, the adored Don, like Humpty Dumpty, cannot be Juan and the same again.
But then, had I just sat through Juan & Nena Nepomusical, who knows? Given the beatific effect Andy’s works unfailingly impact in me.  

'Sentral' sentimentality

THROWBACK TO July 29, 2008, when appeared here this piece titled

Reinventing an icon.

“SENTRAL.” That was how it was called for as long as I can remember.
And I do remember well having had a really personal attachment to the place.
In my boyhood, from the green rice fields of somnolent Sto. Tomas, lounging on the backs of carabaos we took to pasture, we eagerly anticipated the first signs of black smoke from its twin chimneys signaling the start of the milling season, cabio it was called in Kapampangan, usually in mid-October.
It would be time for my father to store in our lalam-bale his farm implements and report to the sentral as seasonal worker, a bagon driver. No, he never referred to himself as a freight train engineer. It was, to him, too lofty and presumptuous a title.
Pre-elementary – we were too poor for me to enter kindergarten – Tatang routinely took me along whenever he was on the primera shift. I enjoyed those downhill rides especially when he allowed me to pull the lever that sounded the horn. On the tersera shift, the family anticipated Tatang coming home early morning with cans of inuyat which we ambula in steaming rice and gatas damulag.
That Tatang served the sentral well was given testimony on his 25th year of service: some cash award, a certificate of recognition for his loyalty signed by the president of the sentral, the respected Gerry Rodriguez, and a black-dialed Seiko 5 watch.
That our family was served well by the sentral was seen through our family having coped with the hard times, all seven of us kids getting through high school and college before Tatang retired.
That the sentral served well not only the capital San Fernando but the whole of Pampanga was manifested in its chimneys made a part of the official seal of the province.
Ah, those smoking chimneys. The very signs of progress in my youth turned to be the symbols of environmental degradation in my early adulthood. The sentral became the scourge of Pampanga that poisoned the air with its smoke, and the river with its acrid and acidic effluents.
At the Department of Public Information, Region 3 office where I sat as bureaurat-mediaman, the sentral became public enemy Number 1 from the late ‘70s through the ‘80s. And a war we did wage in the press, in various fora, up to the National Pollution Control Commission until the sentral was ordered to buy and operate some pollution-abatement devices.
Segue now to the ‘90s: the sentral not spared from the aftereffects of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions of lahar and floods, the take-over of its management and operations by a new company, and the subsequent establishment of the Sweet Crystals sugar mill in the hinterlands of Porac.

And the sentral looked more like a rusted relic of a long past industrial age, totally alien in a City of San Fernando bursting with prosperity and aspiring to be the habitat of human excellence in the near future.
Last week, at a solidarity forum in the city, came word on the hoped-for reinvention of the sentral.
On its 90th year of serving the province, Pampanga Sugar Development Co. (Pasudeco) plans to transform its 35-hectare property into a multi-use facility to be of greater relevance to the times and contribute more to the development of Pampanga.
“We would like to remake the old Pasudeco as the new center of San Fernando to make the city a nicer place to live and work in.” So announced Michael Escaler, company chair and president, stressing: “We will not be guided by what is most profitable, but by what will be good for San Fernando.”
Adjacent to the Heroes Hall, the city hall annex, the Pasudeco property is planned to be developed for light industries, commercial enterprises, business offices, housing and parks.
“We have been part of the history of the province. All our ancestors and the whole community benefitted from Pasudeco, so our generation, the direct beneficiaries want Pasudeco to give back to the community by reusing the area so we can make San Fernando a better place to live in,” Escaler was quoted as saying.
Now, I am back as the pasture boy, in awe of the sentral anew. Here’s hoping the chimneys will be preserved as heritage, as reminders of the sentral's part in Kapampangan history.

ALAS, IT WAS not meant to be.

On my way to the Capitol this Tuesday, the sentral was a sad sight to behold: a literal rusted skeleton of its old massiveness – stripped of its tin roof and sidings, the sliced top of one chimney bound by steel cables of a crane boom ready for dismantling, the other chimney already cut in half in some freak accident last year yet.

Middle of last year too when we read in the papers that Pasudeco was acquired by Megaworld Properties for development into a commercial, light-industrial and residential complex. Precisely what Escaler said nearly eight years ago, minus his express “not by what is most profitable, but by what will be good for San Fernando” guideline, though.

Unarguably, a giant leap to progress there for the City of San Fernando. As certainly, an impoverishment of Fernandino culture, with one more heritage irretrievably lost. 

Sad.