Uncommon valor

TEACHER’S HEROISM Day, January 30, has served in the past few years as an opening event in the annual celebration of Kaganapan cityhood charter celebration in the City of San Fernando.

A most auspicious event to start the coming-to- fulfilment – that’s what “kaganapan” precisely means in Pilipino — of whatever promised greatness for this capital city and its people.

But for a select few in-the-know at city hall itself, who is even remotely aware of the meaning of that day? Of what heroic act the teachers accomplished and are now celebrated for. Or, who these teachers even were.

The significance of the event not only to the city but to the country itself prodded me to re-issue this piece published here some years back.

The “Rape of Democracy” it was called by the mosquito press – the intrepid underground publications and tabloids of the time – as it merited little if any play-up in the mainstream Marcosian media, especially in its flagship broadsheet Daily Express which was derisively punned and fittingly panned as the Daily Suppress.

So, the electorate was allowed to vote freely in the local elections of 1980. But the manual counting and canvassing of their votes was an altogether different matter.

Sensing imminent wholesale defeat for the administration’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) candidates – yes wholesale, as bloc voting was prescribed by the Commission on Elections itself – even at the onset of the counting, operatives of the party in-power let loose their armed goons upon the polling precincts, taking the ballot boxes and all election materials, and – when they resisted – the teachers themselves.

Fading memory now notwithstanding, it was in the small barangay of Malpitic that the news of the “snatching of ballots” and “kidnapping of teachers” first came out, and spread fast across town with reports of similar incidents occurring in practically all barangays of San Fernando.

Herded at the municipal hall and under pain of death, the teachers were forced to play the charade of vote-canvassing – first reading “KBL,” then tallying the vote in the designated KBL box of the canvass sheet, regardless of what was written on the ballot.

No mere urban legend were the stories of the teachers – in fits of nervousness and intense stress – peeing in their skirts and, perhaps on impulse of courageous defiance, reduced to stuttering “LBK,” “KLB,” and “BLK,” everything but the acronym they were forced to utter.

Truly, a stuff of legend though was the fearless stand of the teachers led by Madam Tess Tablante to publicly expose the ordeal they went through that forced the regime to nullify the election results – acknowledging that the teachers were “threatened and coerced into making spurious election returns without regard to the genuine ballots in the ballot boxes” – and unseated the Comelec-proclaimed winner, re-electionist Armando P. Biliwang.

In the interregnum ensued an unprecedented rule of succession with a Philippine Constabulary officer, Col. Amante S. Bueno, deputy commander for administration of the 3rd Regional PC Zone at Camp Olivas, taking over as OIC-Mayor, and succeeded by lawyer Vic Macalino, on the recommendation of the Honorable Estelito P. Mendoza, governor of Pampanga, secretary of justice, solicitor-general, among other titles.

The political impasse coming to an end with the special mayoralty election in 1983 won by Virgilio “Baby” Sanchez, who was Biliwang’s predecessor. That this: the teachers defending – with their very lives if needed – the sanctity of the vote at the height of the dictatorship when elections were a mockery of democracy, was damned heroic.

That in all of the Philippines where electoral terrorism was wanton practice, such heroism had to happen in San Fernando could only speak of redoubtable courage, a testimony to true grit of the local teachers.

January 30, 1980 in San Fernando is no mere footnote but a shining milestone in the history of the Filipino struggle for democracy, coming as it is full six years before the EDSA People Power Revolt that finally ousted the dictatorship.

More than just being opening event to the annual celebration of Kaganapan, Teachers’ Heroism Day needs to be memorialized – in stone, as in a monument to the courageous teachers, most fittingly at the Heroes Park; in book form, as in an oral history of the personal accounts of the teachers themselves.

In this era of fake news and forged histories, that task for the city government is as much incumbent as urgent. As much for the teachers, as for patrimony of the Fernandino.

So, what’s keeping the city from doing it?  

Deconstructing EdSa

INTO THE last half of his third and last term as City of San Fernando hizzoner, has Edwin “EdSa” Santiago been bitten by the construction bug and developed an edifice complex?

So, how does this impact in his city and people?

P300-M convention center to rise in San Fernando. So screamed SunStar-Pampanga this weekend past, reporting of Santiago, along with 3^rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales and DPWH officials, breaking ground for the project in Barangay Calulut.

“This is another of our priority projects that aim to spur development in this area of the city and would galvanize the role of the capital as perfect place to host major events and gatherings.” So was Gonzales quoted.

“We have been pushing for growth areas in the city and this area is one of them. This project will surely bring in much needed development.” So Santiago echoed.

“This project will make government a direct competitor – formidable at that for simply being government – of the privately owned convention centers in the capital.” So a number of local businesspeople cried. No, not one of them having any interest, personal or financial, in the LausGroup Events Center and the Kingsborough International Convention Center.
My, my, my! Is it by some serendipity, or irony, that it was at the LausGroup Event Center in July 2018, in his state of the city address, that Santiago announced what SunStar-Pampanga duly reported thus: City of San Fernando to establish P1.2-B civic center.

Of the amount, some P236 million had already been allocated for funding, so Santiago was quoted as saying. And that “some of the projects have already been started like the command and control center, youth development center, multipurpose center, central evacuation center, Department of Education training center, special drug education center and the technical vocational school.”

It was though at the launch of Kaganapan 2019 in February last year that Santiago made the civic center project as centerpiece of the cityhood anniversary celebrations. To much public acclaim, I vividly remember.  
Having that in mind, I expected Santiago to announce another mega infra project at Monday’s news conference launching Kaganapan 2020, if only in keeping with last year’s impressive template. The still-hush-hush P600-million (or is it P650-M?) loan that the sangguniang panlungsod reportedly approved only last week to be contracted with the LandBank of the Philippines (?) for the rehabilitation of the old public market, I had hoped Santiago would unravel but did not.   

That nothing on this issue has come out officially from the city government – not from the council, not from the mayor – not only merited those question marks in the above paragraph but, moreso, fanned the flames of controversy, and validated the speculations, mostly unkind if not downright damning, about it.

In the run-up to the 2019 local polls, Santiago – on local cable television – vehemently denied any loan for a market project. No loans involved: CSF granted P500M for new market, so headlined SunStar-Pampanga on May 7, 2019.

Santiago was quoted in the story as saying “the redevelopment of the new public market here will be funded by the Office of the President, contrary to claims that the city government took a loan to pursue the project.”

Claiming further: “…the Office of the President granted the city government’s request for assistance amounting to P500 million.”
“We presented the study to the Malacañan Palace and just recently, we finally received their response which meant that they are granting our request.” So was Santiago quoted.
Reported the paper: “Based on a letter from the Office of the President dated March 13, 2019, it “identified the project under Priority Funding in Fiscal Year 2019” and is only awaiting some documents before the Department of Budget Management facilitates the release of funds.”

Declared Santiago: “There is no loan, we never took one. We looked for funding through our partners in the national government and we are very lucky that Malacañan heard our request.”
Pray, tell, dear mayor: Where is that P500-million grant from the Office of the President now?

Given the almost certainty of that P600 million (P650 million?) loan the city council last week approved (?) to be contracted by the city with the LBP (?), that grant was no more than hot, tepid, air – pautot, in kanto lingo – only for the campaign hustings.

Santiago – the sangguniang panlungsod too – is bound by duty, by transparency, to come clean about this – whichever: grant or loan? old market or new market? As well on the other infra projects being implemented by the city government.

Else, the most malicious of all imputations – of these as sources for pabaon or pakimkim – will impact upon them, primarily on Santiago, happening as these big-ticket infra projects – P300-M, P1.2-B, P500-M, P600-M or P650-M – are in his last term.

By the heart, defined

THE INRUSH of relief and aid initiated by Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda for the victims of the Taal Volcano eruptions has not slacked off among local officials of Pampanga as well as the local businessmen.

On Tuesday, Mabalacat Mayor Cris Garbo motored to Lemery, Batangas delivering P1.7-million in relief goods and P1 million cash for the victims.

The following day, Angeles City Mayor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin led a convoy of three truckloads of relief goods, a truckful of hygiene kits, ambulance and assorted vehicles carrying medical staff, social workers, and rescue teams to Lipa City and the towns of Tuy and Balayan.

Thursday, it was Mexico Mayor Teddy Tumang that personally delivered P1-million assistance to the provincial government and relief goods to evacuees at the Batangas Provincial Sports Complex.

Earlier, mayors who made their compassionate and helping presence among the evacuees included Apalit’s Jun Tetangco, Arayat’s Bon Alejandrino, and Sto. Tomas’ Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo. The LGUs of Candaba and Floridablanca were reported to have sent corresponding assistance too.

Pampanga ICT mogul Dennis Anthony Uy personally handed a P5-million check to Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas.

Earlier too, the Bridges of Benevolent Initiatives Foundation and the World Medical Relief Inc. Phil., at the initiative of Dr. Irineo “Bong” Alvaro, set an initial donation of P500,000 for the Taal victims.

All these, as private individuals, civic organizations, and professional groups – from wedding planners and events organizers to chefs and lawyers – continue to donate and solicit relief goods for distribution to the victims.

Aye, the heart of the Capampangan is not only in its right place, it is of solid gold. This, already manifest in the evacuation centers of Batangas, still finding that singular luster at the Banaba Center Elementary School – four-year-old evacuee Hendrix found afflicted with hydrocephalus and a heart condition, Governor Pineda immediately offering to shoulder the medical, as well as support expenses, for the boy’s treatment.

Payback time. So, the governor himself called the immediate response of Pampanga to the Taal Volcano eruptions: “Ito po ay ating pasasalamat dahil noon pong pumutok ang Mount Pinatubo, marami po ang tumulong sa atin para iligtas tayo at muling makabangon.”

Paying it forward, of course, is the more appropriate idiom – kindness returned by the recipient not to its originator but to another in need. The editor in me just could not help it there.

But then, in the greater, nobler scheme of things, what does semantics matter, when altruism, indeed, compassion becomes the very heart of the matter?   

The Taal eruptions made one defining moment of the governorship of Dennis Garcia Pineda and, by extension, of the Capampangan race. Duly attested by thousands of expressions of gratitude from the people of Batangas and elsewhere, and as much articulation of pride of their governor by the cabalens. The all-too trite Capampangan cu, pagmaragul cu never resounded with as much dignified truth as here, as now.  

Indelible – and spectacularly dramatic – as that definition is, it is but one more reaffirmation of the goodness of heart whence Delta was birthed and bred. That which has long been made a Capampangan truism: Alagang Nanay, Serbisyong Tunay…    

Of course, finding completion with the silent whisper of: …Walang sawang tulong ni Tatay.

Luid ya ing Capampangan.

Falsity for legacy

“THE REAL change we have all yearned for so long is now happening. We have made the significant starts, pioneered initiatives and accomplished impressive milestones as a nation during the first half of the Duterte administration … The President’s vision for a better Philippines is already a reality.”

So declared Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea last Friday, monumentalizing the regime’s self-proclaimed gains as his president’s legacy to the Filipinos.

This, at the launch of the information drive of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) on what it holds as the impact of the administration’s programs dubbed…yes, self-servingly, the “Duterte Legacy” grounded principally on the Build, Build, Build Program; Alternative Learning System; Poverty Reduction; Job Generation; the Bangsa Moro Basic Law; Universal Health Care; Universal Access to Tertiary Education; the Boracay and Manila Bay rehabilitation; and the war against illegal drugs.

Not so fast, Medialdea. Hold your gun, PCOO. Sen. Ping Lacson (no relation in any way) was quick to the draw: “It’s too early — just three years. So many things can still happen. They’re entitled, though, to do their own propaganda.”

The senator noting that it would be up to the people to judge whether the proffered legacy of the Duterte presidency is credible or not: “For example, if the government says they won the fight against graft and corruption, the public should ask: Is it true? If the government said they are successful at the anti-drug operation, people should ask: Is the government telling the truth?”

As indeed, a number of netizens have started not only questioning the veracity but readily probing, if not proving, the apparent untruth behind some of the claimed achievements of the regime, to wit: The ALS already being implemented when Duterte was still a mayor. The 64 airports – made to appear like they were constructed under the Build, Build, Build Program – were actually in various stages of repair, rehabilitation, upgrading. So are the claimed 243 seaports and 2,709 bridges – absent any location, or if even real.

So, it was claimed that the Philippines ranked 49^th in the IMD World Talent Ranking 2019. So, the Philippines too has the lowest IQ in Southeast Asia – scoring 86, as against the 108 for record-setting Singapore – in the World Smartest Cities study of the World Population Review last year.

Aye, to every claim of achievement by the regime, the resounding counter-proof of failure from these netizens.

Instantly finding its way in the web side by side the PCOO infographic of the Duterte Legacy is “the correct, all-too real” if defaced version of it, the so-called accomplishments superimposed with the “actual” failings, to wit: the devastation of Marawi; the P12-B shabu smuggled through Customs; EJK and tokhang; recycling of incompetent, inept, and corrupt officials; martial law in Mindanao; surrender of the WPS to China; POGOs; red-tagging of journalists and activists; persecution of critics; ravings against the Church; misogyny and profanities; culture of impunity; bukbok rice and imported galunggong; the P50-million caldera exclusive to the 30^th staging of the Southeast Asian Games; fake news and DDS trolls.

No game of truth or consequence here. Only the reality of consequential truth demolishing crafted falsity. A legacy of lies and lunacy, as some netizens readily damned the PCOO grand production.

Succinct is one Facebook post: “So much ado about the 'Legacy' when Duterte will be remembered by one dominant issue: FAKE NEWS. That the regime was immoral, apathetic, murderous, thieving & totally corrupt - all sprung from how they manufactured, used and thrived on FAKE NEWS.

The 'LEGACY' is merely their compilation of the FAKE NEWS of "accomplishments" they want repeated and repeated in the subconscious until it assumes the appearance of Truth.

Without FAKE NEWS, the entire Duterte facade is nothing but a recital of regression in the Economy, international standing, and of our democratic way of life.”

That it has to come out midway through the Duterte presidency – too early, as the better Lacson observed – is as much prematurely as preemptively.

Legacy is a judgment of history. Duterte’s minions could not wait for that verdict – ominously damning as it already is. Hence, the haste with which to write their own peremptorily, though twisted as it may be.  

“The evil that men do lives after them…” So, the Bard immortalized. So, it could be of Duterte. As it was with Hitler, as it was with Stalin, and yes, Marcos.

That Marcos Junior is moving hell to rewrite, aye to revise, indeed to pervert this country’s history to glorify his Dictator Senior may not have been lost to Duterte’s sycophants. The PCOO and Medialdea, for sure Panelo too, may even have taken their inspiration for the Duterte Legacy from there.

By coming up with it presently, they may be entertaining thoughts of saving Polong, Sara without the H, and Baste from the same dire straits that Bongbong is now in.   

Ay, the lunacy of it all.

    

Rising from the ashes: E ko magmalun...Agyu tamu

HASHTAGS ABOUND with the Taal Volcano eruptions but we have yet to see any stirring slogan that could serve as a rallying cry for the victims to rise from the dire straits they have been consigned to.

Like what we’ve had in our own Pinatubo experience. That proved beyond doubt their efficacy of motivating, indeed of rousing, of transforming victims into victors. So, we remember anew…

E KO magmalun, mibangun ya ing Pampanga.
The exhortation of Gov. Bren Z. Guiao for his people to end their collective grief, rise from despair, and believe in a renascent Pampanga brought the first ray of hope in the wake of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions.
It was the faintest flicker of hope though, the Kapampangan trapped in the most desperate straits: damned in a wasteland of buried homes and broken dreams, doomed in a landscape of death and desolation.
Beyond PR savvy – of which Guiao was a guru – the slogan was founded on the governor’s unwavering faith in the Kapampangan character: of grit and resiliency, that have served him well in rising from every adversity, be it socio-politico-economic, as in the agrarian unrest, the Marcos dictatorship and the communist rebellion; or natural, as in the floods that perennially devastated the croplands and aqua farms of the province and damaged its infrastructure…
A faith well placed. A prophesy coming to pass. Pampanga indeed rising from the ashes of Pinatubo to use that overwrought cliché. As Bren Zablan Guiao promised. As my foreword in the book Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit (2008) put it.

Agyu Tamu!

FROM OUT of the depths of desolation and despair, a cry – faint at first, then resonant all across the city.

There rekindled some flicker of hope that the city can rise again, if only the people believed in themselves – that, yes: “We Can.”

Summoning storied People Power, Acting Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan led thousands of his constituents to the Abacan River to confront the gravest threat to their very existence: Lahar.

“Pala Ko, Buhay Mo,” the activity was named.

With picks and shovels, hoes and rakes – many with no implement other than their bare hands, the determined populace sandbagged the riverbanks – bamboo stakes serving as improvised sheet piles – in a bid to check further scouring by lahar. It was futile as pathetic an effort, with but ten minutes of lahar flow, not the slightest trace of the day’s work remained.

The determination of the community though gained international respect and recognition, their activity winning for the coordinating agency, the Angeles City “Kuliat” Jaycees, the Best Community Involvement Project in the 47^th World Jaycees Congress in Miami, Florida.

The can-do spirit at the Abacan River thence inspiring and spawning clean-up projects all around the city. Manufacturers joined their craftsmen and artisans in rebuilding their factories to revive productivity. Among the first was Cruz Wood Industries which resumed its manufacture and export of high-end furniture within 45 days after the eruptions.

At Fields Avenue, bar girls and bar owners themselves hosed mud from their dance floors, sprayed the ash off their neon billboards, and opened up even to zero customers if only to perk up the place. US veterans that opted to stay helped in the famous avenue’s clean-up.

The abandoned Clark golf course was literally dug up from several meters of sand and ash by the Angeles City golfers in a team-up with the PAF’s Clark Air Base Command. And made it playable in due time, the constant threat of ashfall providing additional degree of difficulty to their drives, pitches and putts.

So it is clichéd that familiarity breeds contempt. So it was with lahar, the dread and horror it initially brought lost with the advent of heavy rains: its scalding heat fizzled, its viscosity dissolved with the abundance of water.

Lived with lahar, the Angelenos did. And even profited from it. Where lahar flowed – at the Abacan River – enterprise flourished.

With the bridge totally destroyed, passenger vehicles loaded and offloaded commuters at each end of the gap. For them to go down the river and cross to the other side.

Makeshift ladders of all makes – steel, aluminium, bamboo, wood – and sizes were soon ranged against both bluffs of the river to ease the ascent and descent of the commuters – for a fee of course.

To cross the river, commuters had a choice of the “Pajero” – and improvised sedan chair, and the “Patrol” – the carabao-drawn farmer’s cart locally known as gareta. Again, for a fee.

The pumice stones belched from the volcano’s bowels became a principal source of livelihood, a backyard industry. Crushed to golf-ball size, the pumice was used in stone-washing denims. Handicrafts, ornaments, even art objects were fashioned out of pumice rock, among the more familiar were Japanese stone lanterns, ashtrays, religious images – the head of the crucified Christ, angels and cherubs – and miniature jeepneys.

Needless to say, sand quarrying became a principal source of income in the city.

With the sense of normalcy returning to the city, there arose the need to jumpstart the still-lethargic local economy. Thus newly-elected Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan and his confidant, the activist Alexander Cauguiran, brainstormed Tigtigan, Terakan King Dalan.

Grounded on the defining character of Angeles as an entertainment city, the Mardi Gras-like festivity – of street music and dancing, of food and drinks – ably delivered to the nation and to the world: “Happy Days are Here Again.”

A happy beginning

AS THE phoenix birthed itself from its own ashes, to rise, to soar to greater heights of glory, so did Angeles City.

Clark Air Base reborn as a freeport zone. Its airport well on its way to full transformation as the country’s premier international gateway.

Manufacturing abounding.

Foreign investments rising. The Koreans keep on coming. Fields Avenue upgrading.

The service industry – hotels, restaurants, entertainment – rebounding. New ones, like business process outsourcing, aborning.

Shopping malls sprouting.

Thousands of jobs opening.

Greater opportunity spelling prosperity. A promised land of plenty.

More than a happy ending to the Pinatubo story, this is yet a new beginning for Angeles City. 

So went the capping essay in our book Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph (2011).

Pinatubo redux

IMAGES OF Taal Volcano erupting – the billowing grey pyroclastic cloud crisscrossed by sparkling orange lightning, most notably – caused an instant recall of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions to those old enough to have suffered the devastations they caused in 1991 through 1997 – when the FVR megadikes was completed to contain the lahar rampages that buried a number of villages.

Most vivid of the memories was, invariably among the netizens who reminisced on Facebook and twitter, were the initial eruptions. And so we indulge ourselves too in remembering…

ANXIOUS, APPREHENSIVE anticipation of an expected unknown gripped the people of Pampanga in the weeks leading to June 12, 1991.
Like the prophet of old – or the doomsayer, as a number who questioned his wisdom, if not his authority, were wont to deride him – Director Raymundo S. Punongbayan of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology had raised the alarm of the impending eruption. The signs and sounds upland and on the plains were foreboding.
Like the beating of distant drums that precede a conflict, the incessant rumbling sounds from the bowels of Mount Pinatubo rang the certainty of a coming catastrophe.
On June 10, all the roads out of Angeles City were jammed by hundreds of vehicles in the exodus of American servicemen and their dependents from Clark Air Base to Subic where US warships awaited them for their final journey home.
Up in the Zambales mountain ranges, Aetas, like frightened creatures sensing danger, had heard the initial rumbling and felt the unsettling tremors of mighty Pinatubo since April.
Several months back, the Philippine National Oil Company-Energy Development Corp. had drilled three giant exploratory pipes into the area around the slopes of the volcano in a bid to tap geothermal energy deposits.
The mountain tribesmen of Pampanga resented the exploration as an act of sacrilege and warned of rousing the wrath of the volcano’s mythical deity, Apu Namalyari. Thereafter, the tribesmen reported of animals scalded by searing sediments and vents billowing hissing sulfuric fumes.
Pampanga residents proximate to the volcano did not sense imminent danger up to the second week of June 1991, but held their uneasy peace with the tumultuous fear of the Aetas’ belief about their disturbed god.
On June 10, ominous dark clouds enveloped Mount Pinatubo, casting an eerie darkening shroud over Clark Air Base.
The following day, tremors started shaking a wide swath of western Pampanga. There was a flurry of movement in personnel, aircraft, and transport units inside Clark. Save for a security contingent, the US Forces had completely abandoned the biggest American military installation outside continental USA.
June 12, 1991. Philippine Independence Day. There was no nationalistic sentiment in the speech of Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos that followed the flag raising ritual. He underscored the dependence of the city on the American forces, their abandonment of Clark he lamented as “overacting.” Whatever parade scheduled for the day was rained down – not by cold water, but by hot ash and pumice stones.
At 8:51 A.M., a series of thundering explosions shooting a giant plume of ash rising to some 20 kilometers high broke the 600-year slumber of Mount Pinatubo.
Bursting from the volcano’s crater was a gargantuan gray-greenish cauliflower cloud – not unlike the atomic blast in Hiroshima – that blotted out the morning sun. Volcanologists though recorded the first eruption at 3:00 A.M. and reported an avalanche of pyroclastic materials – searing gas with a temperature upwards to 1,000 degrees Celsius, hot ash and molten rocks – that blanketed the mountain’s lush green slopes in a dark grey shroud…
…With Angeles and Olongapo bearing the first full brunt of the eruptions, the deeply religious discerned the wrath of God in Pinatubo: the rightful destruction of the host cities to the US military bases for the same sins as Sodom and Gomorrah’s.
But the devastation would not remain contained there; even holy sites as churches and chapels were not spared.
Punongbayan described the June 12 blasts as major eruptions but warned that Pinatubo still held plenty of built-up magma capable of more severe eruptions.
“This could only be the beginning,” he said, prophetically. (Excerpted from Chapter 2 of Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit edited by this columnist and published in 2008 with the San Fernando Heritage Foundation as publisher.)

INDEED, THAT Big Bang of June 12 was followed by the even Bigger Bang of June 15 -- The Great Eruption that turned bright day – starting at 8:15 in the morning – to darkest night. The roll of thunder, the flash of lightning, the rain of ash and stones, and the tremors of the ground foreboding the very end of days.

More eruptions – if lesser in magnitude – followed, compounded by the lahar rampages that trapped the Capampangan in the most desperate straits: damned in a wasteland of buried homes and broken dreams, doomed in a landscape of death and desolation.

The story, of course, did not end in that tragedy but in the ultimate triumph – of the will, of the spirit of the Capampangan. Most manifest in the state of the province today as one of the most progressive in the whole Philippines.

In remembering, we are far from disheartened at the Taal eruptions these days. Confident as we are that the Batanguenos, as we Capampangans, can weather these most trying and desperate times, and even rise, excel from them.

  

Way to discipline

SUNDAY SURPRISE. That social laboratory of street anarchy that is the stretch of Gen. Hizon Ave. at the side of the Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown San Fernando was a showcase of order – no parked vehicles, not even a bicycle, no counterflowing padyak-sikels and motorcycles, no crisscrossing pedestrians anywhere. As well as a spectacle of spanking cleanliness – not even a single candy wrapper, in an absolute absence of garbage.

Ay, puede naman pala.

Monday validation. Press release from the city information office: The City of San Fernando, thru the City Public Order and Safety Coordinating Office (CPOSCO), conducted its regular monitoring and clearing operation around the city public market and sidewalks to tighten peace and order in the said places referred to as “Discipline Zones” on January 06... 

…The “Discipline Zone” is a Philippine National Police program wherein national laws and local ordinances in designated areas are strictly implemented and enforced to promote discipline and ensure adherence to the law. (Question: Should not the whole city, and for that matter, the whole country be considered a “discipline zone” given that it is “national laws and local ordinances” that are being “strictly implemented and enforced”? Banish the thought for now, so as not to disrupt the flow of this piece.)

Prohibited acts inside the “Discipline Zone” are as follows: Overloading, Not wearing helmet, Disregarding traffic signs, Over Speeding, Illegal parking, Smoking, Jaywalking, Littering, Vandalism, Illegal vending along passage ways and sidewalks; and violation of other pertinent statutes.

All Fernandinos are enjoined to adhere to the rules and regulations of the “Discipline Zone” to avoid penalties and sanctions.

Anyone caught violating traffic and public order rules will be sanctioned and meted with fines ranging from P500 to P1000.

At last, at last, at long last, the city government has come to its senses to instill proper discipline among its constituents.

“This activity is one of the city’s measures to elevate the peace and order status in San Fernando. Let us, Fernandinos, be the first to show discipline and order so other cities and municipalities could follow.” So was Mayor Edwin Santiago quoted in the PR. Indeed, sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan. No, it does not take only a Marcos in-tyranny to see this.  

Tuesday, Wednesday affirmation. In pictures posted on its Facebook account, CPOSCO engaged in relentless operations – night and day – against: violators of No Helmet Ordinance (NHO) and tricycles entering Poblacion Area, illegally parked heavy vehicles and violators of NHO along JASA and MacArthur Highway, particularly at Barangay Del Pilar near New Public Market and in front of SM City Telabastagan, tricycles traversing JASA and MacArthur Highway.

Did I just say Wednesday?

Driving with the wife along JASA around 9 a.m. this very Wednesday on the way to Mexico, I followed two tricycles through the flyover and thereafter was joined by three others and two motorcycles with helmetless riders taking all the lanes but the outermost one. All this, in clear sight of at least five CPOSCO enforcers! And a team of Land Transportation Office “flying squads” flagging trucks for some random emission tests!

Instant reaffirmation now of the pessimism thrown by a number of netizens on CPOSCO’s page – Ningas Cogon, Nganga, Sana all…  

From all appearances, CPOSCO is engaged in some cat-and-mouse game with truck and tricycle drivers and motorcyclists – scofflaws born to ignorance, nurtured in arrogance, inured in disorderly conduct.

Aye, the cat is not even away and the mice are freely, fearlessly at play. Which begs the proverbial sixty-four-dollar question, hopefully as yet unanswered in Philippine pesos. Encourage them to be consistent every day and don’t forget to reward them with appreciation. So exhorted the City of San Fernando page sharing the CPOSCO operations photographs.

So, I take heed. Precisely, consistency – plus constancy, fairness and firmness, of course – in the enforcement of the law is the key to achieving discipline – on the road, and for that matter, elsewhere. Impacting this as much to the erring drivers, as to the errant enforcers.                       

Nanay's 2020 agenda

Improved quality of life

Safe water, road safety, waste management top Nanay’s legislative agenda

 CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The seemingly never-ending queues of the infirm, the ailing, the sick – in all degrees of seriousness – at the Capitol on Mondays have remained a constant as much in the public life as in the private person of Lilia G. Pineda, from her three terms as governor, through this the first year of her vice-governorship.

No other Pampanga governor – aye, all of them combined – has initiated, implemented, and impacted as much health programs, projects, and services to the Capampangan as much as Pineda, indeed meriting her the endearing Nanay to her people.

Her efforts at providing her constituents universal care – in the true meaning of the word – with her engagements with PhilHealth and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office have earned accolades from the national government. Her organization and deployment of health workers and her eponymous Nanay volunteers at the barangay level have been hailed as “best practices” for emulation, moreso, for replication in other local government units.

The improvement of the province’s 11 district hospitals and the provincial Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Hospital in facilities, equipment, staff and services has likewise been hailed a template for other LGUs.

Still, Pineda herself would be the last to call her health program a “success.”

“All our efforts seem to be always falling short, notwithstanding the amount of resources, both manpower and material, we infused in all these health initiatives and interventions,” she said, her mind not far from the long lines to the medical assistance office at the ground of the Capitol and to that to her office on the second floor.    

Pineda said it was high time that the “curative phase” of health programs be “strongly complemented by the preventive aspect.”

“The quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, among others, need be of the safest standards,” she said. “We all know how disease-causing germs thrive in a dirty environment.”

In a short talk with Punto! at her office on Monday, Pineda adumbrated a series of legislative measures she said shall be enacted to ascertain the health security of the Capampangan constituency this 2020.  

Potable water

Local water districts (LWDs) and their joint venture partners shall be made to account of their strict adherence to, “not simple compliance with,” the set standard parameters for drinking water quality.

“Hindi puede yung malinaw naman, kaya puede nang inumin. Dapat, talagang puro sa kalinisan,” she said.

Reports of periodic safety water standard tests conducted by the LWDs shall be asked to be provided to the local government units, “not only for their information but moreso for their immediate action in cases of problems.”

Food security

It is not enough that there is enough food supply, it is imperative that the food is safe, especially with the penchant of the Capampangan to make even the blandest of dishes “not only edible but even delectable.”

“Safety starts where the food is grown,” Pineda said. “Our experiences with the H5N6 avian influenza in 2017 and the African swine flu last year are lessons here.”

Poultry and piggery farms, as well as abattoirs, need to be subjected to stringent health and environmental standards to “guarantee food safety.”

“The cleanliness of these food farms will also greatly minimize, if not totally eradicate, air pollution,” Pineda added.   

Waste management

While Pineda took exception to the validity of the reasons of Environment Undersecretary for Solid Waste Management and LGU Concerns Benny Antiporda in closing four “open dumpsites” in the province last year, she has nonetheless advanced “more stringent” measures to the local implementation of the garbage law.

“There have been a lot of concern over the disposal of hospital wastes, which is really called for owing to their impact to the health of the people. As much concern though should be given to funeral parlor wastes,” she said.

Close monitoring by concerned departments of LGUs on both provincial and municipal/city levels of the disposal of hospital and funeral wastes will be mandated through local legislation to assure they undergo proper procedures and prevent their posing danger to the people’s health.

Road safety

“I mourn the loss of lives, especially the young and promising ones, in that New Year road tragedy,” lamented Pineda of the mishap in her native Lubao that claimed seven lives.

While conceding that transport regulations are primarily “within the ambit of national agencies” like the Land Transportation Office and the Land Transportation and Franchise Regulatory Board, the LGUs “will be shirking their responsibility to ensure the safety of their constituencies if we just these accept accidents as inevitable.”

“We can – through resolutions, for one – ask the LTFRB to strictly implement the banning of dangerously dilapidated public transports, the LTO for the revival of the drug-test and its strict implementation as requirement for the issuance of driver’s license,” she said. “Also, the deputization of local traffic enforcers and their deployment in major routes.”

In cases of indigents being fatalities in road accidents, Pineda said she would be calling a meeting with funeral parlor proprietors to “strongly request an automatic 15 to 20 percent off the cost of their services.”

“We in the LGUs have already institutionalized funeral assistance to indigents, it is not too much to ask of similar assistance from funeral parlors in terms of discounts,” Pineda said. “If only for humanitarian considerations.”   

3^rd District board member Atty. Ananias Canlas, Jr. said he would be putting into resolutions “Nanay’s expressed agenda.” 

Septic talks

“LET US learn from the lessons of Manila Bay which became a ‘gigantic septic tank’ and Boracay which was described as ‘a virtual cesspool.’ Local governments should already put their foot down by not issuing business permits to non-compliant establishments.”

So Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año prefaced his directive to LGUs to stop issuing business permits to establishments without septic systems that conform with existing environmental policies.

The directive mandates as requisite to business permits clearances such as discharge permits and environmental sanitation certificates required by the Department of Health, Laguna Lake Development Authority, and other concerned agencies.

Año likewise cited DILG Memorandum Circular 2019-62 that says all LGUs should ensure that all residential, private, and public establishments in their areas must have proper sewage treatment and septage management system.

The mere mention of a DILG circular gives me the creeps – of yet another failed Año directive in the making. Given his penchant for issuing directives that are more (dis)honored in the breach than in observance.

Was it only last October that Año pompously press released DILG Advisory No. 2019-0016 that bans tricycles and pedicabs from major roads? Actually but an iteration of the much older DILG Memo Circular 2007-001, which in turn sprang out of Section 10 of Presidential Letter of Instruction No. 1482 Series of 1985 – Marcos pa ito – that tricycles are “prohibited to operate along the national highway or any road which allows maximum speed of more than 40kph, especially on well-paved, high-speed roads, unless special tricycle/bicycle lanes on the shoulder are provided, except to cross.”

The implementation of that DILG directive started and ended with tarps and posters announcing not even the banishment of trikes from the national highways but their restriction to the outermost lanes. And we are all witnesses to the utter disregard of that directive.

Okay, last Monday we saw a number of traffic enforcers accosting trikes traversing Jose Abad Santos Avenue in the City of San Fernando. Elsewhere in the city and in Angeles, they rule and reign over the highways.

Año’s directive being septic in nature instantly reminds me of the crowning glory of Edu Pamintuan’s councillorship in Angeles City. What I wrote here in July last year as his legacy of the loo, to wit:

…[He] 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…

SO HOW many business establishments in the city have complied with Ordinance No. 326?

So, what is the city government doing about it?

Año na naman. As in disobserved, unenforced. Nganga.  

Bannering Clark

UNDER THE brightest lights of constructive, aye, even promotional reporting, Clark has been bannered in this paper in 2019. Thus:

Highest since 1994

GOCCs remit P40-B to national treasury

Dividends remitted by government-owned or -controlled corporations, including the Clark Development Corp. here, breached the P40-billion mark in 2018, the highest since the law requiring state firms to hand over 50 percent of their annual net earnings to the national government was enacted in 1994… (Jan. 7-9)

For flight punctuality
Clark airport gets two-star ratings

The Clark International Airport received an impressive two-star On-Time Performance (OTP) Rating from an air travel intelligence company based in United Kingdom, according to an executive of the Clark International Airport Corp.

“Clark is the only airport in the country to be given this two-star rating by the Official Aviation Guide and the first ever star rating we received,” CIAC president-CEO Jaime Alberto Melo said.

CRK’s two-star rating was based on its annual OTP of 71.3 percent in 2018… (Feb 4-6)

$25-M aviation project breaks ground in Clark
Metrojet’s biggest single investment

Metrojet Ltd., a Hong Kong-based business aviation service provider with presence throughout the Asia-Pacific, broke ground for its regional expansion project here on Wednesday.

The project, a state-of-the-art business aviation parking and maintenance facility which costs $25 million, is planned to be operational by the second quarter of next year… (Mar. 7-9)

Punto 2018 MAN OF THE YEAR

LIKE A dream. For the longest time that is what Clark has been – its greater expanse called the sub-zone, particularly – in visions of an entertainment mecca, of a new frontier, of a green city, varying at every change of leadership in the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.

It works. Finally, with the accession of Vince Dizon to the helm of that state-owned and -controlled corporation tasked to transform the former bastions of American military might in the Asia-Pacific into engines for national development.

At no time in Clark’s history has there been this concentration of projects – flagship and blue chips at that – as now, tapping as though every bit of Clark’s immense potential.

At no place other than Clark is the Duterte administration’s Build, Build, Build mantra most solidly manifest… (Mar.14-19)

New Clark terminal to open in 2020

The new terminal building of the Clark airport will be finished ahead of schedule in June next year.

This was the observation made by government officials led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III during Wednesday’s inspection of its ongoing construction.

“We are looking forward to this project’s completion ahead of schedule,” Dominguez said as he noted that the building is already 53 percent complete.

The new terminal will be operational by mid-2020. By then, passenger capacity will be tripled, adding another eight million to the current capacity of 4.2 million… (Mar. 28-20)

Cebu-Pacific hailed

Clark-Narita flights to start August 9

The announcement of Cebu Pacific that it will be the first Philippine carrier to mount flights between Clark and Narita in Tokyo starting August 9 was met with euphoria by Kapampangans, travel agents and Clark locators.

Clark Investors and Locators Association president Frankie Villanueva said: “We are delighted that Cebu Pacific is launching the Clark-Narita route as it enhances our connectivity to one of the world’s greatest metropolis and brings Metro Clark closer to becoming the main gateway of the country and the epicenter for economic development.” (Apr.4-6)

Clark airport now ‘full blast’
But airlines left to deal with backlog

With earthquake-collapsed ceilings now repaired, the Clark International Airport here resumed “full operations” Wednesday afternoon but left to airlines how to deal with the backlog since Monday’s earthquake…(Apr. 25-27)

For industrial peace

Gov bats for labor center, workers’ hospital in Clark

“That $4.6 billion speaks of the imperative for all of us to do our share to ensure and enhance productivity in this freeport.”

So cited Gov. Lilia G. Pineda of the 2018 export volume of the Clark Freeport during the “Linking of CFZ Locators and Pampanga Public Employment Service Office” that gathered the human resources managers of locator firms, local government executives, officials of the association of barangay chairs, and municipal PESO heads at the Royce Hotel here… (Jun.10-12)

DOTr announces
Transfer general aviation from NAIA to Clark, Sangley

The Clark International Airport Corp. is focused on preparing the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport here for the opening of its new passenger terminal in June next year.

This developed even as the Department of Transportation announced that general aviation services and turbo prop operations will have to move out of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in order to decongest it to Clark, and Sangley airport in Cavite… (Jun. 10-12)

SEA Games facilities 80% complete at NCC

The Bases Conversion Development Authority has reported to visiting senators over 80 percent completion of the 20,000-seater Athletics Stadium, the 2,000-seater Aquatics Center and the 1.4-kilometer Riverpark at the venue of the Southeast Asian Games later this year at the New Clark City..(Jun. 24-26)

Moving nat’l gov’t offices to NCC ‘makes lot of sense’
MM decongestion, ease of doing business cited

Convenience of transacting with government and decongestion of Metro Manila have been identified by Finance Sec. Carlos Dominguez III as among the top benefits of the National Government Administrative Center now nearing completion at the New Clark City within this freeport in Capas, Tarlac.

Thus, the project “makes sense,” he said during a recent visit to the project site… (Jun. 27-29)

Mayor, Aetas deny dislocation at NCC

Aetas that were reported to be claiming they were displaced by the ongoing development of the 9,450-hectare New Clark City here are dreaming.

This was how Mayor Reynaldo “Reycat” Catacutan described their complaint during a press conference attended by Aeta tribal leaders, members of the sangguniang bayan and village officials.

“Kaya po sila nananaginip lang dahil binenta na nila ang lupa nila 30 years ago. Nung pumutok po ang Pinatubo, sila po ay inilipat na sa resettlement area sa Barangay Cristo Rey sa O’Donnel Resettlement Site na puro sementado na kaya wala nang makikitang kalupaan doon,” Catacutan said. “As the local chief executive, I will be the first one to resist any project or development that is not pro-Capaseňo…” (Jul. 11-13)

$13-B first tranche signed for Malolos-Clark railway

President Duterte was witness recently as the Department of Finance and the Asian Development Bank signed $13 billion for the first tranche of $2.75-billion loan for the Malolos-Clark Railway Project…

“The Malolos-Clark railway is part of the Philippine government’s North-South Commuter Railway project, which aims to link New Clark City to Calamba by 2025,” the ADB said in a statement… (Jul.15-17)

NCC sports complex, gov’t center finished by August

Phase 1A of the New Clark City here, including the sports complex to be used for the Southeast Asian Games as well as the National Government Administrative Center, is now 90 percent done and is expected to be fully completed by the end of August, the Bases Conversion Development Authority said.

The August completion of the P120-billion project would be earlier than the October 15 target earlier announced by its developer MTD Philippines, Inc… (Jul. 18-20)

SMC’s Bulacan airport no problem to Clark

“It will dramatically improve connectivity.”

Thus, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority said in reaction to the impending mega-airport in Bulakan, Bulacan.

Vince Dizon, BCDA president-CEO, said “all these airports are aimed to complement eaxh other and make air travel within and outside the country more convenient and comfortable.”… (Aug. 5-7)

BCDA supports national sports academy at NCC

The proposal of Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go to establish the National Academy of Sports in New Clark City gets much-needed boost for the Bases Conversion and Development Authority…

“We laud the initiative of Sen. Bong Go to push sports development in the country further,” BCDA president-CEO Vince Dizon said. He added that NCC is the perfect venue for the National Academy of Sports, being the home of a world-class sports complex… (Aug. 8-10)

NCC ready by 2030 as seat of Phl gov’t

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority said yesterday the New Clark City it is constructing in the Tarlac portion of this freeport would be ready to become the seat of the national government by 2030.

This, even as the BCDA expressed full support to the proposal of Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian to transfer the seat of government to NCC by that year.

“This initiative will not only solve Manila’s congestion problems, but will also create opportunities in Central Luzon and nearby regions,” said BCDA president-CEO Vince Dizon... (Aug. 12-14)

Clark airport to LIPAD

“Paliparin ninyo ang paliparan. Make it go. Make it glow. Make it grow. So, it becomes the envy of airports within this country and all over the world.”

Thus, Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade exhorted the Luzon International Premiere Airport Development Corp. as he turned over the operations and maintenance of the Clark International Airport to the consortium.

LIPAD, a consortium of JG Summit Holdings, Filinvest Development Corp., Philippine Airport Ground Support Solutions Inc., and Changi Airport Phil., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Changi Airports International, will operate and manage the Clark airport for 25 years. The agreement covers the existing terminal and the new terminal currently under construction… (Aug. 19-21)

$210-M waste-to-energy plant eyed in NCC

The Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. has bared plans to construct next year a $210-million waste-to-energy facility in the New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac.

MCWM president Rufo Colayco said this would initiate “transitioning from merely landfilling to high technology recycling and renewable energy generation...” (Oct. 10-12)

P12-B luxury mountain resort soon to rise at NCC

A P12-billion luxury mountain resort will soon rise at the New Clark City (NCC) in Capas, Tarlac.

This developed as the Widus Group, owner and developer of Widus Hotel and Casino and the Clark Marriott Hotel here, is set to sign an agreement with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority to lease and develop a 450-hectare property at the NCC for the high-end project.

The signing of the agreement set at the Clark Marriott Hotel here will be between Dae Sik Han, president-CEO of Hann Development Corp., a member of the Widus Consortium, and BCDA president-CEO Vince B. Dizon… (Oct. 24-26)

NCC sports stadium fit for Olympics

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the international governing body for the sport of athletics, has given a Class 1 certification on the Athletics Stadium of the rising metropolis here.

This means that the Philippines can now use the stadium to host “Tier- 1 athletics competitions like the SEA Games, the Asian Games, and even the Olympic Games…”(Nov. 11-13)

Grand SEA Games opening expected at New Clark City

With most unsavory things already said about the country’s hosting of the 30th Southeast Asian Games, its opening is expected to be joyous and fiery grand at the New Clark City.

A “dress rehearsal” for the opening, as posted in a video on Facebook, revealed a short-but-spectacular fireworks display crowning the athletes stadium alongside the controversial 40-meter high symbolic cauldron looking like a steely ice cream cone topped by flaming ice cream… (Nov. Nov 28-30)

BCDA says

NCC deal ‘most transparent, aboveboard’

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority said its joint venture agreement with MTD Capital Berhad for the development of New Clark City is both “transparent” and “above board.”

In a press conference with Government Corporate Counsel Atty. Elpidio J. Vega, BCDA president-CEO Vince Dizon laid down the facts, emphasizing that the JVA with the developer underwent all the legal requisites and processes and that it is very advantageous to the government.

This debunked unfounded allegations that the deal was full of irregularities and designed to defraud the government.

He said there was never an unfavorable opinion in the Jan. 30, 2018 contract review by the OGCC… (Dec. 2-4)

After hosting SEAG

BCDA faces odds of Olympic history

The euphoria over hosting the 30th Southeast Asian Games is set to dissipate after its dramatic conclusion at the Athletic Stadium at New Clark City here last Dec. 11.

Now the question expected to resurface is: Will not the rising city’s Athletes’ Village head towards being a white elephant as did most other grand structures built for international sports events worldwide?

Sen. Sonny Angara, chair of the Senate committee on finance, said during a Senate hearing that P188 million has been allocated for the maintenance of the SEAG facilities: P120 million for the athletic stadium, P50 million for the aquatic center, P10 million for the Athletes’ Village maintenance and P8 million for the warmup track.

He downplayed fears that the village would become a white elephant, citing rental and sponsorship opportunities for the multimillion-peso SEAG facilities in the future…

The BCDA has announced that NCC will host the 11^th Asian Swimming Championships… (Dec. 12-14)