Perverted populism

THE VETO on the Security of Tenure Bill – a direct, not to say dialectical, contradiction to his thundering “stop contractualization or I will kill you” threat to capitalists at the onset of his presidency – gives the brazen lie to Duterte’s professions of being for, from, and of the masses.

Duterte’s arbitrary order to suspend all gaming schemes authorized by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office – complete with a show of force in true stormtrooper style by the police – is an absolute negation of whatever pro-poor molecule still extant in this organism.

The evil of Endo on one hand, the deprivation of the social benefits the poor get from the PCSO on the other. A double whammy in a matter of days inflicted upon the toiling, suffering masses by the very champion they voted into office. Na-Duterte, the bitterest irony of it all.   

“Mahirap kayo? Putang ina, umalis kayo. Magtiis kayo sa hirap at gutom, wala akong pakialam.”

Comes to the fore anew the scorn Duterte heaped upon the drivers and operators of jeepneys protesting the government’s transport modernization program, not so much for the convenience it will bring to the public as to the cost it would entail, way, way over and above their quotidian means.

Self-contradiction is a Duterte affliction: The self-avowed socialist at the time of the election campaign, the tyrant of a president.

His disdain, if not utter abomination, of the masa – the very core of his political base – most manifest in his fulminations against those jeepney drivers, in putting the Chinese worker over and above the Filipino laborer, in opening the nation’s seas to the Chinese and shutting down the same to the Filipino fishermen, in consigning the farmers to a life of deprivation, indeed starvation, if not extinction, with absolute neglect made more resolute with the rice tariffication law. Above all, in the fulsome slaughter of the poor, be they drug addicts or pushers, or innocent collaterals to his war on drugs, as well as in his military aggressions in the countrysides targeting NGOs, journalists, lawyers, IPs – with the utmost intensity on the Lumad.

There is not an iota of the socialist in Duterte. There is in him everything of the elitist, at the least, of the peti-burgis.

Still, he gets high rust ratings, ostensibly from the very victims of his anti-poor whimsy – policy, is too high-brow a word for it. Readily dismissed as some case of mass retardation, damned as “Dutertardism” by the same class as Duterte’s but who happened to be on the other side of the elitist divide.   

Time to raise the class card anew with this unrepentant socialist’s musings in the long defunct Pampanga News issue of March 23-29, 2006 under the heading The masa antithesis. 
HINDI MANGMANG ang masa. Sila’y pinagkaitan lamang ng tamang pagkakataon upang ganap na umusbong ang kanilang katalinuhan, ng akmang kaganapan upang malinang ang kanilang karunungan – pagkakataong pinigil ng hagkis ng kahirapan; kaganapang sinupil ng hataw ng pang-aapi’t pagsasamantala ng mga naghahari-hariang uri.

That “the incompetence of the masses is almost universal throughout the domains of political life…” is a fundamental fallacy in the bourgeois postulates on the people.

The masa response: There is no inherent mass incompetence among the people: there is mass oppression, exploitation, and deprivation that caused – and still causes – incompetence.

Premium to the existence of class exploitative societies is the oppression of the people. Of the highest priority is the reduction of the people to their basic animal instincts, the deprivation of their natural rights as human beings, in order to best serve – in the bourgeois interest – their principal purpose as nothing more than tools of production.

Sa kaisipang elitista, ang masa ay kawan ng baka’t kalabaw na isinisingkaw sa mga bukirin, sa mga planta’t pabrika upang mabigyan tugon ang lahat ng mga pangangailangan, upang masustentuhan ang lahat ng luho at kapritso ng uring peti-burgis.
Tunay ka, kasama: Tamad na burgis na ayaw gumawa, sa pawis ng masa ay nagpapasasa.
Deprivation damns the people to incompetence, dispossessing them of the necessary knowledge and skills to rise above the lot pre-ordained for them by the ruling class.

Born poor. Live poor. Die poor.

Paldac-sicaran ning cacaluluan ibat qng quebaitan angga na qng camatayan, as we Capampangans put it. An animal existence. To the elite, that is the masa destiny. A vicious cycle with neither definitive end nor fixed beginning.

Of that, it certainly is not.

Incompetence is reared upon deprivation which in turn is rooted in exploitation which spawns from oppression. To make possible the elimination of incompetence among the people then, exploitation need to be uprooted.

Ang pagkapantay-pantay ng mga mamamayan ang sandigan ng isang demokratikong estado. Ang mga kalakarang piyudal, pagbubusabos sa mga anak-pawis, paniniil sa mga anak-dalita ay walang puwang dito. 

So, government exists for the purpose of preserving the status quo. This does not cover though the preservation of the system of class exploitation. 

Ang pagtaas sa antas ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan ay hindi lamang pangunahin kundi sagradong gampanin ng pamahalaan. Lakip nito ang pagbibigay puwang sa pinakamaliit at pinaka-aba mang mamamayan ng bahagi sa mga gawain at pagkilos na tuwirang tumitimo sa kanilang buhay. Anumang kaganapang taliwas dito ay isang kabalintunaan sa demokratikong estado.

The bourgeois thesis of governance as a monopoly of the propertied class has been – rightfully – long consigned to the dustbin of history.

There is, though, an emerging new elitism. This, the masa should fight with a determined populism.

NO, NOT that kind of populism arrogated unto Duterte. Who, in fact, is an elitist to his rotten core.

Bangon sa pagkakagupiling, bangon kauring alipin…

Tourist trap

“TOURISM IS a gold mine waiting to be unearthed. Fortunately, we have Clark… Its development shall make Angeles City a tourist destination, both international and domestic. We are coordinating with the leaders of the industry and jointly, we will be crafting a city master plan for tourism.”

So declared Mayor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr. within his first five days as hizzoner.

Walking his talk, Pogi has since advanced toward that direction he set, if only a step at a time.

“In order to prevent the negative response of tourists staying in Angeles City, the Angeles City government has deemed it necessary to abolish the collection of the P20 Tourism Promotion/Development Fee.”

So, he issued in an executive order immediately hailed by the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Pampanga (HARP).

“We will have an impressive city that is conducive for tourism and business…No minors working (in the clubs or in any business), no illegal drugs, and no prostitution…Tanggalin po natin ang prostitution, tanggalin po natin ang barfine. Napaka-simple lang. Magtulungan po tayong lahat.”

So, he exhorted his constituency only last Saturday as he led a clearing operation from infamous Fields Avenue to the garish Korea Town.

While at this, we suggest that the Honorable Pogi look into the proliferation of purported tour and travel companies in the city and their nefarious malpractices that have taken the industry down new lows of disrepute. Something that was already raised before the previous city administration, but for one reason or another remained unaddressed, thereby further compounding its complications.

Written over seven years ago, in February 2012, the situation reported in this Zona piece titled Night flyers has not remained the same, it has worsened. Therefore, the imperative of a response.         

FLY-BY-NIGHT. The very derisive term finds most fitting appropriation to tour and travel agencies that have flocked like bees to the honeycomb that is the Clark Freeport area.
Yeah, night flyers too – as in vampires – that suck to the last drop the blood of the innocent traveller.
Camp followers – like the prostitutes of old – are these unscrupulous traders wanting to make the fastest buck at the least or nil cost out of the burgeoning opportunities at the Clark International Airport.
The low-cost carriers proffered as their stocks-in-nefarious-trade to the born-every-minute-suckers lulled with the promise of paradise – at cheap, cheap prices – in exotic yet not-so-distant places.
Their modus operandi: tour and travel agency easily put up by proprietor multi-tasking as manager, clerk, booking staff, cashier, receptionist, janitor who arranges not only the ticketing needs of the client but venture into visa requests complete with the acquisition of fake bank accounts, fake income tax returns, fake TCTs attesting to fake real estate ownership – the works, that is.
Filipinas – not necessarily only the denizens of Fields Avenue – seeking marriage to their foreign fiancées make the bulk of the unwitting victims of these conmen, conwomen too, to be gender equal. Hard earned pesos paid for the pursuit of dreams that never come true make the most heart-rending sob stories now being told and retold over beer at the city’s foremost avenue.
The dubious and devious deals of these bogus agencies have impacted so much on the tour and travel industry that the integrity of even the most established travel firms have come under suspicion by the travelling public.
There is a need to stop this nefarious trade.
Comes now the call of the Alliance of Travel and Tour Agencies of Pampanga (ATTAP) for the Angeles City government to be more circumspect in issuing business permits to travel agencies.
Solve the problem where it starts. ATTAP simply states there.
Putting up a tour and travel agency is as easy as putting up a sari-sari store, a taho or fish-ball stall, or a mobile phone e-loading venture. What with the same basic requirements for the grant of business permits.
In a resolution sent to the city government, ATTAP enjoined the city to adopt and thereafter strictly implement the guidelines set by the Department of Tourism (DOT) for travel agencies, even as it proposed requirements to rationalize the issuance of business permits.
Gilda Padua, ATTAP president, said her intention in coming up with their resolution is to professionalize the industry as their contribution in attracting more tourists under the DOT’s initiative.
“This will also be one actualization of DOT’s new slogan ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’ as it shall weed out the unscrupulous travel agencies that give a black eye to the industry,” Padua added.
Among the proposed requirements for the city government to adopt are: company profile, organizational chart, list of employees, list of suppliers, endorsement letters from international and local tour operators and airlines, proof of industry record of owner or general manager of at least five years working experience in a reputable travel agency, bank certificate showing financial capability of at least P500,000 capital investment, picture and location of office, and sample of tour packages.
Yes, no fly-by-night ventures can be set up under such rigorous requirements.
DOT Regional Director Ronnie Tiotuico has thrown his full support behind the ATTAP initiative.
“I agree with ATTAP to professionalize the industry beginning with enforcing the rules,” said the brains behind the Pinatubo trek and co-founder of the hot air balloon fest.
The ball is now in the hands of the city government.
Score big on this one, please.

MAYOR POGI, your move.

Hellish highway to...heaven?

CURSES! ALL the idiots and imbeciles out on the road soon as one hits MacArthur Highway from the St. Jude Village home.  

Jeepneys making the highway’s northbound outermost lane from the Lazatin Blvd. intersection a dedicated expressway exclusive to them, in utter disregard of the traffic light there. Gago!  

Tricycles taking the innermost, and therefore fast, lane in their own sweet time, holding all vehicles behind them to a processional, aye, funereal, pace. Bolang!   

Stuck in traffic with the red light by Vista Mall with neither vehicle nor pedestrian turning to or coming from its small street entrance. ‘taknayda…!  

Caught in horrendous jam at St. Scholastica’s Academy during morning classes and afternoon dismissals. Buwisit!   

Motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, take the very median, and drive through traffic lights at whim. Ulol!

Dump trucks heavily loaded with sand making a speed track out of the national highway. Tarantado!

The whole breadth of the highway occupied by hauler trucks entering or exiting Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and San Miguel complexes. Put…naydayo!  

Got to expel all the expletives, else one’s system gets so pressured the blood in the brain explodes. And for what good?

So, take photos of all and any traffic infraction one sees as one drives and upload them later in the web. With traffic enforcers no better than the inanimate electric posts they lean onto, the blood boils, the curses more damning, the simple bolang devolving to mabolang-bolang a buguk!   

Really got to take the mind off this rage. So, why not engage oneself in some game, like counting cars. As in how the Mitsubishi Montero fares against the Toyota Fortuner in sheer numbers? The ratio is for every one of the former, there are three of the latter.

Or, which color is predominant among cars and SUVs? It’s a toss among red, black, and white.

Or, trying to sight a still roadworthy kotseng kuba? But for the four in St. Jude, I regularly see only two on the highway. On a good day at that.  

Getting tired of mental sports, why not entertain oneself with funny road stories, like that one about a Baluga – damn the political incorrectness but that’s how the character was originally called – going on his first mini-bus ride from Angeles City to San Fernando.  

So, the kulot took the Thames mini and settled himself in a cramped seat. Once on the way, the conductor began asking passengers where they would alight. One said “Pepsi.” Another, “Coca-Cola.” A third, “Cosmos.” A fourth, “San Miguel.” When it was the Baluga’s turn, he sheepishly said: “Danum na mu pu, coya. Ala cu pung panyaling sopdrink (Just water, I don’t have money to buy soda.)” For the uninitiated, the bottling companies and the brewery are main stops along the highway between the two cities.

So, the frown invariably melts into a smile at every memory of the kuwentong kulut. The revelry, only to be smacked anew by the reality of street anarchy. Anakpu…!

So much hatred of these road idiots and imbeciles that when one chances upon a dump truck that smashed some wall, a jeepney that struck a tree, a tricycle on its side by the roadside, a riderless broken motorcycle on the road, one finds more sympathy with the wall, the tree, the roadside, and the road. A feeling of karmic glee even – bage yu, diyablos! Of schadenfreude: pleasure, in this case ah, so supreme, over the misfortune of another.

Until one realizes the unChristianity of it all, and seeks some other means, charitable and prayerful ones, in coping with traffic tension here.

Like, suppliant invocation of the saints and the Holy Virgin Mother, and asking for mercy from Jesus or thanking Him along one’s way, as one passes or is paused along areas that remind one of them.

As in one’s usual route: starting from home with the patron of the impossible St. Jude, onto San Agustin (parish church), St. Scholastica (school), San Isidro (barangay), San Miguel (brewery), Nuestra Senora Del Pilar (village), Mother Teresa of Calcutta (hospital), St. John Bosco (school), Our Lady of Fatima (college), St. Paul (novitiate), Our Lady of Mt. Carmel (hospital), St. Maximillian Kolbe (subdivision), San Rafael (college), onto the Most Sacred of Jesus (church), before reaching the Punto! office.

That personal litany of saints has since evolved into praying the Holy Rosary – supplemented with a longer litany, and prayers for the dead and the sick, for benefactors, for the Pope, even for the President – in my daily commute, my fingers serving as the beads, difficult as it is to hold a rosary simultaneously with the wheel.     

Of course, I harbor no illusions of holiness. The sinner that I am, this may not even take me to heaven, but it has most certainly given me much relief from the demons that make hell out of MacArthur Highway.     

So far, so Pogi

NO, HE didn’t hit the ground running. Yes, Mayor Carmelo Lazatin Jr. was virtually sprinting before he even hit the ground.

Prior to his inaugural, Lazatin had already made public definitive decisions on massive overhauls at the Ospital ning Angeles, and the review – with reprioritization in sight – of the more massive loans the previous administration entered into for a new city hall and sports complex.

Right on the day he was sworn into office, Lazatin declared a “one-strike policy” to weed out erring city hall employees, making specific the “rotten eggs…asking money for fixing permits, arranging discounts on real property taxes, fixing marriage licenses, annulments, adoptions and facilitating building permits.” For that singular purpose of upholding integrity and transparency at city hall, he would task investigators and legal assistants.

Within his first week in office, Lazatin has certainly undertaken more mayoral tasks than any of his predecessors, his father Cong Tarzan not excluded, within the same time frame. Arguably, with even a longer period for the others.

A total truck ban has been imposed along Pandan Road, to include Pandan Bridge. This, pursuant to the DPWH certification on the “inadequacy” of bridge to bear the load of trucks weighing over 20 tons.

This, even as hizzoner brainstormed with DPWH engineers on the development of a diversion road in barangays Cacutud and Pulung Maragul if only to ease traffic in the vicinity of those areas abutting to Pandan.

To reclaim for employees and visitors a section of the city hall parking area, impounded and junked vehicles dumped there for as long as anyone in the city GSO can remember have been ordered release by Lazatin. The absence of the “custodia legis” principle was cited in the release order.    

Parking at the city hall complex was constricted with the diggings for the new city hall sited at the very parking area fronting the current one. With the mayor’s order to suspend the construction of the new government edifice, the area will be reverted to a parking lot, the mayor said.

Suspension

Speaking of suspension, Lazatin ordered the City Environment and Natural Resources Office to stop the issuance of environmental compliance clearance to businesses, a requirement in securing the Mayor’s Permit.

“The suspension shall be until such time that the process of issuance of such requirement shall have been recalibrated in such a manner that it both satisfies national and local environmental laws, rules, and regulations and serves most of all the best interest of taxpayers,” read the order.

Upholding the highest interest of the public and serving them to the best capacity of city hall employees warranted the strict compliance to working hours and the No Lunch Break policy.  

Even more stringent is the mayor’s fiat to the ONA staff, as it is “…their duty to serve the marginalized people of Angeles City with all their heart and sincerity. I will order them to be friendly at all times. To be sensitive to the needs of our marginalized constituents or, otherwise, I will deal with them with an iron hand. I will reiterate that I will enforce a one-strike policy to ONA employees, who are mistreating patients.”

With its P2 billion budget, Lazatin said “there is no stopping my administration from rehabilitating ONA so we can provide excellent health care services to our marginalized sectors.” There fits the need for malasakit and professionalism of the hospital staff.

Business

As for the poorer sectors of the Angeles City society, so too for its captains of commerce and industry.  

“In the area of economics, I will make sure that my administration will be business friendly,” said Lazatin, declaring that there will be no – as yet foreseeable – increases in business and real property taxes. In their stead, the enforcement of strict and proper collection of taxes to increase the city coffers.

Amity with the business sector will also include dialogues with the certainty that “their inputs shall be continuously considered in the determination of policies that would enhance the business climate in the city.”

Happy and Immediate, so apparently, was the business sector’s acceptance of the friendly hand Lazatin offered.

Within his first few days at city hall, the officers of the Metro Angeles City Chamber at Commerce and Industry expressed full support of his socio-economic programs during their courtesy meeting with the mayor.

This was followed by Clark Investors and Locators Association chair Irineo “Bong” Alvaro, in his capacity as BB International president-CEO signing a MOA with Lazatin for the establishment of an e-Library at the City College of Angeles where BBI has 30 scholars.

And by the end of the week just past, Lazatin was considering a tourism masterplan to ride on the development of the Clark airport.

“Tourism is a gold mine waiting to be unearthed. Fortunately, we have Clark…Its development shall Angeles City a tourist destination, both international and domestic. We are coordinating with the leaders of the industry and jointly, we will be crafting a city master plan for tourism,” he said.

But first, Lazatin ordered, improved waste management. “In order to attract trade and tourism, we should make sure that the city is physically clean and impressive, and with a properly managed traffic system. Our garbage collection will definitely be given priority.”

Meanwhile, the city library has been ordered open to the public from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Lola Prudencia Inocencio, aged 101, of Barangay Cacutud was personally handed by the mayor her centenarian check of P100,000 and a DSWD certification. Generating a vow from Lazatin: “The members of the senior citizens, our parents, will be given priority under my leadership. They will be provided with free cataract operations, free medicines and check-ups and even simple cakes for their birthdays.”

All in a week’s work. No, Lazatin is not – to use the current parlance for the go-go local chief executive – “umiisko,” after the Manila mayor. Lazatin is simply being himself – Pogi.   

By the book

BIBLIOPHILES, REJOICE!

The Big Bad Wolf Book Sale is coming to Pampanga for the first time on July 12 - 22, 2019 at the Laus Group Event Center in the City of San Fernando! It is the World’s Biggest Book Sale that aims to provide affordable books by offering a wide range of brand-new English books across various genres with discounts of up to 50% - 90% off recommended retail price. The Book Sale will be open 24 hours a day, for 11 days straight and entrance to the Sale is FREE!

Tidings of great joy that instantly pushed me to the old reliable Lenovo to pound something in words of a lifelong affair with books, and, but of course, reading. Only to remember this short piece five years ago articulating this same delectation:

…THE VORACIOUS reader Ding Cervantes preaches the convenience of the tablet with its vast library of e-books, adjustable fonts, lightness of weight over the old hardbounds and paperbacks.

No tech-savvy like Ding, I prefer my books as they are – the smell of pulp actually an inducement to read, a stimulant to greater understanding, indeed, to internalizing both spirit and letter of the book.

So, to each his own preference, reading is its own reward anyways.

Comes to mind Francis Bacon’s Of Studies, thus: “Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

Impacted during my formative years at the Mater Boni Consilii Seminary, the best of Bacon’s Essays has since served as my reading beacon.  

In the choice of books, he cautions: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”

Many times, a cursory browse of the teaser or gist on the flaps is all it takes to “taste” the book, and finding it unsavoury promptly return it to the shelf.

Of the great finds – I read “wholly with diligence and attention” and re-read with greater diligence and interest. Sun Tzu’s Art of War, Machiavelli’s The Prince, The Confessions of St. Augustine, The Communist Manifesto, Pablo Neruda’s 20 Love Poems, and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil are among the most prized of the over 1,000 books I have collected for my modest library. (Later additions are G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy and Heretics.)

It is to Bacon too that I owe this habit of reading three books at every sitting, categorized to heavy, light and inspirational. Currently I am into the thick of Fidel Castro’s spoken autobiography My Life, the atheist Chris Hitchens’ god is not Great subtitled How Religion Poisons Everything, and Paulo Coelho’s Manuscripts found in Accra.

Earlier were American Lion of Andrew Jackson’s years in the White House, a re-read of William Safire’s The First Dissident subtitled The Book of Job in Today’s Politics, and, finding an eternity to finish, Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror subtitled The Calamitous 14^th Century.

For inspirational, restful intermissions – from all the heavy reading – Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, the poems of Rumi, and the Dhammapada, the Buddha’s Path of Wisdom I find most pleasing.

In the wake of Putin’s audacity (mis)addressing the crisis in Crimea, I am dusting off a biography of Stalin and the history of the Crimean War with Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade on the side. Still remember, “…theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die: into the valley of death rode the six hundred…”? (In the era of Duterte, it was Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars that I readily referenced, particularly its accounts of Caligula and Nero, and Bullock’s Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. Amid this regime’s propensity for “fake news” and penchant for “alternative truths,” I re-read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley’s Brave New World.)

Obvious by now my preferred reads: history and biography, philosophy and poetry, morality and religion. Again, in submission to Bacon: “Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.”

Alas, the last fling I had with mathematics was in third year high school trigonometry. The only connection to the subject now exclusive with my Tokyo-based actuarial specialist son Jonathan.

Wise. Witty. Subtle. Deep. Grave. Not only able to contend but contentious even. The fruits of reading, the very requisites to writing. One who rarely reads but appends “writer” to his name is no more than a pompous pretender then. Not unlike the idiot who thinks anyone who can read his mail is a man of letters.

Bacon, fittingly: “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.”

So, I read. So, I write. So, I am. 

Indeed, there is life in books. There is life to books. Inhering in human life itself.  

Read John Milton in Areopagitica: “Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

Unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”

The Good Book, aye.

Pampanga's Delta

CONTINUITY, NOT change.

So went the campaign cry of the Kambilan Party in the election past. The nationally acclaimed governance of Pampanga by Gov. Lilia G. Pineda needing to be sustained for the progressive well-being of the cabalens, and with no else but the son, Vice Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda, to bequeath it to.

Now that the son has risen, the call to service has evolved into continuity plus more.

At the turnover of the vice governorship to his mother “Nanay Gov” and the subsequent inaugural session of the sangguniang panlalawigan Wednesday, Gov. Delta presented the nine-point priority agenda of his administration.

Yes, they hewed so close to the programs of Nanay that she could not help but comment with a chuckle, “Cacu la ren, ah. (Those are my programs).”   

Indeed, they were. But more.

Health was the centerpiece of the Pineda administration just past, so inhered in the mother persona of the lady governor. Delta further enhances the program with the expansion of preventive health care and the upgrading of the facilities, equipment and personnel of the provincial and district hospitals.

Education. Sustained educational assistance and increase in the number of beneficiaries. Delta’s initiative here is the establishment of student learning and research centers in the local government units with free internet services and in-house computers.

Peace and Order. The upgrade of police stations, to cover the infrastructures, communications equipment, and additional patrol vehicles. A no-nonsense drug abuse prevention program targeted at the youth, and an equally holistic rehabilitation program for the drug users comprise the “soft approach” of Delta to the scourge of drugs. The “hard” part: strict law enforcement against the pushers, and draconian punishment to the utmost extent allowed by law.

Disaster Management and Environmental Protection. With Delta at the helm, the disaster risk reduction and management in this calamity-prone province has received multiple recognition as one of the finest in the Philippines, indeed, the best with it being bestowed the national Gawad Kalasag award in 2018 by the Office of Civil Defense and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.   

The upgrade of vehicles, rescue and retrieval equipment, and facilities will go hand-in-hand with the proactive initiatives as desilting operations with upgraded equipment for the purpose.

Climate change mitigation programs will be intensified, with the further greening of the coastal areas with more mangrove planting activities. Greening Pampanga will also include reforestation program in Mount Arayat and in the hills and mountain ranges of Porac and Floridablanca, as well as tree-planting in all cities and municipalities of the province. The clean-up of the province’s rivers and their tributaries will be a regular activity.  

Waste management will go beyond the procurement of equipment for trash collection to strict segregation of garbage, recycling, and initiatives toward the establishment of state-of-the-art sanitary landfills with energy-producing components.

Agriculture. Mitigation of the adverse effects of the Rice Tariffication Law on the Capampangan farmers takes utmost priority here, to be complemented with modern agri technology.

Social Service. The least, the last, and the lost will be first and foremost in the social agenda of Delta. Not with simple assistance but greater empowerment will be extended to the senior citizens, PWDs, the youth, women, the LGBTQ, and the indigenous people.

Infrastructure. The maintenance and upgrading of existing road networks and construction of new ones to accommodate increasing motor traffic in the province. More covered courts not only for community socials but as ready evacuation centers in times of calamities. More public school buildings to meet the rising school population.

Organizational Development. Skills-to-position matching among Capitol employees to tap their utmost potentials for effective and efficient service to the Capampangan. Institutionalization of HR training programs for the employees.

Pampanga Megalopolis Plan. Unarguably, the most ambitious plan crafted for the province and developed during Nanay Gov’s administration.  

The legacy of good and effective governance he inherited from his mother no mean feat for him to continue, Governor Delta yet faces the enormous challenge of the gargantuan task of transforming this megaplan into full realization.

With the overwhelming confidence the Capampangan has invested in him, with Nanay Gov and the whole Capitol working with nothing but the interest of Capampangan in their hearts and minds, and yes, the former President herself, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on hand, there is no reason to doubt that Pampanga’s Delta will succeed.                                 

Toilet talk

LEGACY OF the loo, anyone?  

Angeles City councilor Edu Pamintuan may have lost in his bid for the vice mayoralty post but he certainly won his niche in many an Angeleno heart, figuratively, in many an Angeleno anus, literally, leaving an indelible mark in local legislation with what can only be aptly called the “bidet provision” in the amended city sanitation code.

Ordinance No. 326 makes it mandatory for commercial and business establishments in the city to install bidets in their toilets, deemed as a more hygienic alternative to tissue rolls.

In signing the ordinance last week, Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan was reported to have hailed it as “great news.”   

 “The availability of access to a bidet helps in making sure the city is clean.” So was the elder Pamintuan quoted as saying.

Indeed, this ordinance may go down in the annals of the city council as one of the greatest legislative measures ever. The cleanest, unarguably.     

Clean as clean can ever get, yes. In a sense, AC has come full circle here, thanks to the younger Pamintuan’s intervention.

We Capampangans pride ourselves for our cleanliness. The riverbank dwellers that we started as a race had for their toilets the cumon – outhouses on stilts – that did not find any need for a deposito or septic tank, the hole on the floor directly discharging to the river below. But it always had the tapayan filled with water, and the tabo with which to draw the water, and wash.

In matters of toilet hygiene, manos buldit was the proper procedure, as against the mananggilu – wash-clean sanitarily superior to wipe-clean, that is. The latter, often resorted to when hit by the call of nature on the road, done behind the nearest bush, with leaves or grass for wipes, ever giving one the feeling of being unthoroughly-clean, of smelling mabange instead of mabanglu. Which is so un-Capampangan.  

A matter of comfort inhered in too: where water is soothing, tissue paper is chafing, given the sensitivity of the sphincter ani externus. Maplas, especially in those afflicted with almoranas.

“Sana rugu balang manos ko buldit, aiiisip yu ku.” The young Pamintuan teased in his Facebook post of the ordinance. Swell, what a way to be remembered, Edu – daily, and in some (in)digestive cases, three or more times a day. Now, if only those who stand to gain from this ingenious legislation find some debt of gratitude to its sponsor and commit their votes to him in 2022, Pamintuan Junior would be runaway winner in any city elective post he would contest.    

In all seriousness, Edu’s bidet provision is now being pushed in some local sanggunians – proof positive of its most efficacious impact. And lest we forget, the bidet will also minimize the use of tissue paper, thereby saving thousands of trees from the axe. To the sheer delight of the tree huggers.   

UTI at the mall

A lively banter with City of San Fernando Mayor Edwin Santiago and Macabebe Mayor Bobong Flores on the sidelines of the mass oath-taking rites for Pampanga officials last Saturday at the LGC Event Center turned serious at my mention of Edu’s l’affaire bidet.  

Santiago pulled the passing city councilor Reden Halili and asked him to do a study on a similar measure.

“Ala namang matsura queng mangopya, lalu na nung improve ta ya pa.” Noted Halili, adding that he would further incorporate the provision of a sink for hand washing after the “discharging.”

Make it ASAP, Santiago requested Halili.

Flores had a different toilet issue altogether. A habitue of a fast-food chain in SM City Pampanga along with senior peers, the mayor monikered Zorro asked Santiago to enjoin the mall management to direct the food chain and other eateries to put up gender-segregated toilets in their premises. Rued he:            

“Tunggal la cubeta, Guinu co, deng mangatua mangapali la talaga queng pila. Lalu na istung babai la ring maca-una uling magcaluat la qng pamagbawas da.”   

Flores reminded me of the wisecrack of the Jack Nicholson character in The Bucket List: “Three things to remember when you get older: never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart.” The toilet as basic necessity highlighted in the first and third reminders there. And in case of uncontrolled urgency, when “armed struggle” would suffice, even in the second.  

While at this, and pursuant to the state policy of gender-sensitivity, the local government units may as well require the shopping malls to increase the number of toilets for women.

On any day, in any mall, the long queues to the women’s CRs are an unvarying constant. This is as much an assault on the dignity of the fairer sex as an endangerment of their health. As it has long been medically proven that holding in pee can result to urinary tract infection, and worse, bladder and kidney problems.

It is well within the power of the malls to give UTI a positive meaning – unrestricted toilet ingress. Then, they can rightfully say “wee-wee got it all.”