A SPIN off last week’s acrimonious brouhaha in the web over the non-suspension of classes in Angeles City at the onslaught of habagat is a pride-of-place piece uploaded by city businessman Marco Nepomuceno, scion of the local aristocracy.
Just my opinion, Mr. Nepomuceno empathically ended his piece. Which instantly, and in
the scheme of things opinionated, naturally, drew clashing viewpoints.
Premised on the
geographical given of landlocked Angeles City as 90 meters above sea level to
the City of San Fernando’s 45 meters, thereby affirming gospel truth in the old
folk’s belief that "Bayu lumbug king
Angeles, lumbug ya pa ing pisamban king Sampernandu," and on political
grounds of the highly urbanized city being independent of the Pampanga
provincial government, even ranking 15th most competitive city in
the country, the brilliant Mr. Nepomuceno asked:
How come when the Pampanga provincial government (with
due respect to Gov. Lilia Pineda), declares a disaster, no matter the
magnitude, people also think that Angeles City should also be automatically
included in the declaration?
The obvious answer would
be: Those people did not know the political autonomy of the city from the
province.
And granting they did know,
they still expressed some wish – indeed, hoped against hope as it turned out –
for empathetic consideration, given the very magnitude of the calamity befallen
their area outside the city.
Who are these people? Are they Angeleños or are they
transients from the outlying areas who work, study and play in Angeles, use the
resources of Angeles, but do not pay income taxes to the local government.
Sure, they have sent their children to the schools in Angeles, but they do not
spend in Angeles most of the income they might make in Angeles.
Perorated the excellent Mr.
Nepomuceno, who went on to lecture:
From an economist's point of view, their contribution
to the local economy is limited since the household (which is the basic unit of
the economy) to which they belong is located elsewhere. Households make the
economy move and, in a certain sense, households that are located outside the
local economy do not contribute as much to the local economy as those that are.
I cannot hold a candle to
the brilliance of Mr. Nepomuceno in matters of economics: he, being an esteemed
business leader whose recent master’s degree from the Ateneo making but a
single leaf in his already thickly foliaged laurel.
Woe then unto one netizen
who dared contest Mr. Nepomuceno’s learned assertion by saying that even the
casual traveler to the city who buys bottled water already contributes to its
economy. Obviously a non-Angeleño, less
so a master’s degree holder. So what did he know?
From one Jason Paul
Laxamana – the prize-winning filmmaker? – came these hugot
lines:
Sounds like a Brexit sentiment...I think the progress
of highly urbanized cities, especially for those that have no abundant natural
resources such as Angeles, is built also on the contribution of
migrants/transients. A lot of these transients eventually become residents
anyway, and to not consider their concerns as important as (that of) the
so-called hardcore residents is a bit problematic, discriminatory,
non-compassionate.
#PampExit, anyone?
Conceded the erudite Mr.
Nepomuceno, but with the qualification:
Of course, I agree with the first part of your
statement. As for the second part, the kind of "discrimination" you
are talking about, including protectionism, is allowed by the jurisprudence of
many countries all over the world.
Pursued Laxamana: Angeles is just a chartered city within a
country. It can't even survive without IRA from the national government. For it
to imagine itself as a developed city-state like Singapore is a bit over the
top.
Declared the knowledgeable
Mr. Nepomuceno:
Discrimination, exclusivity, and protectionism are
practiced by cities all over the Philippines. It's not illegal.
In the context of the WTO,
of ASEAN integration, is there still room for discrimination, exclusivity and
protectionism in this part of the world?
Then, how will this “not
illegal” discrimination, exclusivity and protectionism stand before the eternal
truth of the Christian values of faith, hope and charity? Indeed, of
guardianship upon which Angeles was founded, dedicated as it was – and still is
– to its patrons, Los Santos Angeles
Custodios?
So has Angeles City gone
the way of Cain scorning the Almighty: Am
I my brother’s keeper?
But then, what do the
opinions of this plain AB-holding, struggling journalist matter vis-à-vis those
of the highly respected, supremely successful, eminently progenied master of
economics?
Nada. Zilch. Ala man qñg calingquingan.
Faced then with the
impeccable reason of Mr. Nepomuceno, we can only reduce ourselves to ad hominem
and ad misericordiam, as one JP Dizon precisely did:
It does show that you know much about what we should
be thankful for as an Angeleño. However, in weather like this, you do not
consider these things. What you do is put yourself in the regular Juan's shoes.
You do not think if they even meet the city's or your standards. Why become
politically correct in a time you can just be simply empathetic? Wa, megaral
ka, wa maimpluwensya ka, pero milalako mu silbi uling eka makaabut keng
panandaman dareng tau.
Comes to mind now F. Scott
Fitzgerald: ...the very rich. They are
different from you and me. As the aristocracy from the rest of the
miserable mass of society, so is Angeles City from the rest of Pampanga?
God forbid! Marx now: The history of all hitherto existing society
is a history of…patrician and plebeian, lord and serf…in a word, oppressor and
oppressed…
Got to stop here before I
end up with Les Miserables…
Do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of
angry men…
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