Via satellite

THE DON Honorio Ventura State University (DHVSU) system has been set into motion in the towns of Candaba and Apalit.  

Its main campus in Bacolor – established in 1861, considered the oldest vocational school in the Far East – DHVSU followed the template it used in its earlier campus extensions in Mexico, Porac, Sto. Tomas, and Lubao.

In quick succession last week, memoranda of agreement were signed by the LGUs – Gov. Dennis G. Pineda, Mayors Rene Maglanque and Jun Tetangco – and DHVSU president Dr. Enrique Baking for the establishment of satellite campuses in the said municipalities.

Gov. Pineda committed P25 million to each campus for the infrastructure required.

Mayor Tetangco and his wife Jennifer donated a 12,074-square meter lot for the campus site.

The Candaba campus on the other hand shall sit in a 2.3-hectare lot in Sitio Pansol, Barangay Pasig near the boundary of Sta. Ana, Arayat, and San Luis towns. To better serve the needs of the contiguous communities.

“We want to bring DHVSU services closer to the people here. This is our way of helping our Kapampangan youth to have quick access to quality education. We will bring DHVSU here to further reach out to the distant populace in the far-flung areas who are unable to access tertiary education there,” said Baking of his school’s satellite campus initiatives.

For the governor, the DHVSU satellite campuses are “a manifestation of the commitment of his administration to provide inclusive, affordable, and quality education to the less privileged youth in the province.”

To this observer, these are a direct affirmation of what we dubbed here as “Continuity, Plus, Plus” to encapsulate the core agenda of the first term of the Delta governorship. Proof positive? Here’s our Zona dated June 30, 2013, at the start of the second term of Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda, to wit:

Gov as NASA:

“PINEDA TO spread satellites of state universities, colleges.” So screamed the banner story of Headline Gitnang Luzon, issue of June 28-30.

Wow! State universities and colleges hereabouts are far, far superior to their counterparts in all the world by having their own satellites! Beating even the Americans in their own game!

Wow, WOW! Gov. Lilia G. Pineda is her own National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launching these satellites! Eat your heart out PNoy, whose closest thing to launch is a kuwitis.

Yeah, the Gov does one better – she launches satellites – even over the mythical Helen of Troy – she launched only ships, albeit a thousand, that precipitated the Trojan War.

Really one for the books! Fictive, that is.

Defective, rather misleading, was the use of “satellites” in that headline. It’s not actually satellites – as we understand the dictionary meaning of “artificial body placed in orbit around the earth or another planet in order to collect information or for communication” – that is inferred there.

The word is used as a modifier – connotative of, rather, synonymous to “branch” – to an absent noun – “campus” – as in “Pineda to spread satellite campuses of state universities and colleges.”

There indeed are new satellite campuses of the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University (DHVTSU) that Pineda caused to be established in Sto. Tomas and in Porac. The former at the Bacolor-based DHVTSU’s southeastern orbit, the latter at its northwestern orbit. Orbit here in all its astronomical, geographical, and journalistic meanings. He, he, he.

In the works is yet another DHVTSU satellite campus in Lubao – the land donated by the Pineda family – to serve the second district of the province.

And Pineda is now going outside DHVTSU in putting up satellite campuses, training her sights on the Mabalacat Community College (MCC) that forever-Mayor Boking Morales set up in Barangay Tabun in 2008, the first ever of its kind in Pampanga  

The governor is keen on an MCC satellite campus in Barangay Dapdap to cater to the seekers of higher education in the resettlement centers in Mawaque and Madapdap.

Hallmark

Come to think of it, “satelliting” has become a hallmark of the Pineda administration in its delivery of services to its constituents. The Gov indeed some kind of NASA, as in Nanay’s Advocacy for Speedy Action. The last terms interchangeable with Social Advancement.

So, in education there are the satellite campuses.

In health, the district hospitals which Pineda repaired, reconstructed, rehabilitated and refurbished serving as medical satellites of the Provincial Health Office, the Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Hospital and the JB Lingad Memorial Regional Hospital.  

In peace and order, Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines Action Centers (PAACs) were constructed by the provincial government in coordination with the PNP and AFP at the provincial boundaries in Barangay Mapalad, Arayat; Barangay San Roque, Magalang; Barangay Dolores, Mabalacat, and along Floridablanca-Dinalupihan.

The PAACs make a nexus of dragnets, or, keeping with our theme, satellites, to check the ingress and egress of criminal elements in Pampanga.

In disaster preparedness, the local municipal disaster risk reduction management councils serve as satellite offices of their provincial counterpart, inter-connected by a communications system and rescue and relief support services…

THERE, WHERE the mother established, the son builds on. And the Capampangan could not be any happier.