Taking trikes off highways

“FOR SAFETY reasons, no tricycle or pedicab should operate on national highways utilized by four-wheel vehicles greater than four tons and where normal speed exceeds 40 kilometers per hour.”

So, said DILG OIC-Secretary Eduardo M. Año only last Tuesday as his agency reiterated its call to all mayors to prohibit the operations of tricycles and pedicabs along national highways.

Furthered he: “Allowing them on main thoroughfares poses hazards to other motor vehicles, the riding public, and even to the drivers themselves…The regulation of tricycles and pedicabs on national highways is, therefore, to the best interest of everyone.”

Personally, I have had three brushes with tricycles – each time I am on the right side of the law, but ending up just the same paying for the damages on my cars which ran to tens of thousands of pesos. The trike driver always going scot-free. Little, if perverse, consolation to me that on two occasions, the tricycles were total wrecks. ‘Dana.   

Hazards on the road, everyone knows that, Sir. Not the least the trike drivers themselves. Still, on any day, any hour of the day in fact:

Tricycles traverse stretches of the national highways in direct violation of the law, being confined only to crossing them.

Tricycles keep to the innermost – and therefore, fast – lane at processional speed holding traffic and raising blood pressures of drivers behind them.

At other times, tricycles – especially the lowered sporty types – turn the national highway into an Indianapolis 5000, unmindful of all other vehicles.

Tricycles are loaded to the roof with passengers and goods as they ply their merry way along the major roads and highways.

Tricycles have made street corners, many times even whole streets as their terminals, complete with sheds and karaokes.   

Include in this group too the padyak-sikels who lord it all over city streets – making terminals atop bridges, counterflowing traffic at will, do pick-and-drop passengers wherever, whenever.

Want to undertake a study of anarchy in Pampanga’s principal cities?

Go downtown San Fernando from 6:30 in the evening onward and drive through a maze of jeepneys, tricycles and tri-wheelers parked, idling or slowly moving in all directions, in utter contempt of the right of way.

No, Sir Año, a reiteration of that call to local government executives, embodied in DILG Memorandum Circular 2007-001 yet – all of 11 years now – is way past due date.

Strict enforcement is the call of the hour.

Sir Año, you have the guts – if not the gall – to recommend to the Commission on Elections to disqualify candidates included in the narco list from running in the 2019 elections. Even if no cases have been filed in court against them. 

Surely, you have the grit to impose administrative sanctions on the LGU who continue to be remiss in the enforcement of a lawful order.   

For a start, your DILG should stop dispensing all those Seal of Good Governance even on LGUs that fail to implement DILG MC 2007-001.

It makes your agency look ridiculous giving awards of excellence in governance to LGUs that miserably fail even in such a rudimentary task as keeping tricycles out of the national highways.  It’s stupid as it can ever get.

Will. That is the key here, Sir Año.

Where the mayors will not, fearful of losing the votes of the tricycle operators and drivers associations – aptly named TODAS – in the coming election year.

May Año will. If only befitting the discipline of his military upbringing.

  

Shielding Abe

A CASE of the patrician Aguinaldo stealing the Katipunan from the plebeian Bonifacio. Albeit on a minuscule scale and sans the collateral bloodbath.

That ignobility on high, descended to the ludicrous low of the proverbial guest welcomed into a home only to lord over the hearth and ultimately evicting the homeowner.

Precisely what happened in Partido Abe Kapampangan.

It can’t get any more literal than once AbeKa guest candidate for vice mayor Bryan Matthew C. Nepomuceno, scion of wealth and political power, now poised to be party standard bearer in the Angeles City mayoralty race next year.

AbeKa co-founder and president Alexander S. Cauguiran, of workingmen stock, though not necessarily kicked out but nonetheless left clutching at straws.

And Cauguiran knows only too well how to make the best out of this worst situation. In the Bonifacio analogy of the walis tingting, by binding the straws into a broom with which to sweep his candidacy to greater feasibility, and ultimately to victory. Hence, the old AbeKa faithful keeping to the Cauguiran fold, more determined than ever to make him win.  

Then comes the windfall for which Cauguiran did not even have to cry Nanay!           

The ruling political monolith that is Kambilan (Kapanalig at Kambilan ding Memalen Pampanga), founded by Gov. Lilia G. Pineda readily taking Cauguiran under its benevolent wings.     

Aptly screamed the headline Gov ‘Nanay’ opens door to ‘rejected’ Cauguiran.

"(Angeles) city hall shut the door but the provincial Capitol opened it wide for me,” said he. "Thank you, Governor Nanay (Pineda) for seeing our strong managerial leadership, sincerity and ability to mobilize tens of thousands of supporters to realize our advocacies.”

As profuse an expression of gratitude to the governor was Cauguiran’s pained lamentation of his rejection by his long-time comrade in the party.    

Blinded

Read between the lines, and damn: What the Capitol readily recognizes, aye, openly sees in Cauguiran, city hall is wittingly blinded to. 

The play of emotions attendant to this is the least flattering to Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan.

No mere urban legend but public lore is Cauguiran tried and tested loyalty, and efficacy to Pamintuan as he braintrusted and backstopped Pamintuan’s triumphs in the city mayoralty contests in 1992 and 1995, in his 2010 comeback on to 2016. In the intervening Malacanang years of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as well.

For Pamintuan to now “reject” Cauguiran and take Nepomuceno as his chosen one unravels once and for all the falsity of the mayor – in stark contrast to the trueness of Cauguiran – to their storied comradeship forged in the people’s aspiration for true liberation, tested in the crucible of the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.

Still, "we will also support Pamintuan, in spite of everything, as partylist candidate in the same elections," declared Cauguiran, in an affirmation of his loyalty to the man, consequently magnifying his betrayal by him.   

Expect to currency anew the queso de bola derision the kasama of the old order spits at “altered” activists. As much for the color – revolutionary red on the outside, craven yellow inside, as for their proclivity in beguiling the masa with their…what else, pambobola. Cheesy as they can get, and stinking too.      

Loss, gain

In rejecting Cauguiran, Partido Abe Kapampangan lost the moral ground upon which it is founded – as mass-based party of the ordinary folk seeking to end the stranglehold of local politics by the elite.

By taking in the rejected Cauguiran, Kambilan reaffirmed its very meaning – shield, sanctuary as well, in Kapampangan.

Indeed, Kambilan ding Abe Kapampangan.     

To Cauguiran, Kambilan's nomination “disproves the 'sure to lose' remark labelled against him by opponents.”

On the other hand, Kambilan is by no means a sure ticket to winning at the polls.

No less than Governor Pineda has said that in her engagement in electoral politics for over 30 years now, no political party has served as determining factor to victory as much as the individual – with capabilities, rapport with the public, and performance as premium.

Above all, it’s destiny, the governor said. So, it is – with her. As that truism holds: Character is destiny.

As for Cauguiran, take comfort in Psalm 118:22 -- The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

And then seize the old Tagalog maxim: Ibinigay na sa iyo ang santo, bahala ka na sa milagro.   

To the point

BEING AT odds with publishers/owners is an all-too-common predicament among editors, including presumptive ones like me, who strongly adhere to the dictum: “Publish first, truth always, be damned later.”

Owners have their corporate interests to preserve, protect, and promote which, in many cases are at variance with the editor’s fundamental duty to publish Truth, no matter the cost.

No way is this more articulated than in Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America’s Newspapers by James D. Squires, a former editor of the Chicago Tribune, thus: “The marriage of corporations and journalism is an unnatural, unhappy union. The best journalists are naturally skeptical individuals with a healthy disrespect for authority, pomposity and ruling classes. They understand and appreciate the ideal of democracy that one man’s vote and voice are as important as another’s. And they have a well-honed apparatus for detecting two staples of the corporate culture – bullshit and insincerity.”

You will know who wears the pants in that unnatural, unhappy union with but a cursory browse of the pages of a newspaper – the owner, when his photographs and news about the most banal of his activities pepper the pages, page one not excluded. Yes, there are publishers who simply love to publish themselves, when even the least of their business endeavors crowd legitimate news out of the pages, in effect reducing their papers to nothing more than company journals.

In such set-up, even the best editors can only do their worst. As the great Arthur Krock, winner of three Pulitzer Prices and once “Dean of Washington newsmen,” wrote: “A hired journalism, however zealous, however loyal, however entrusted, however brilliant, cannot be great because it speaks through the mist of subordination.”

The editor having the upper hand? When the publisher subordinates his interest to the “sanctity of the desk.”

As in the early days of journalism, newspapers are published to 1) indulge the whims and caprices of the publisher; 2) promote his businesses; and 3) serve the political causes he espouses. Civic duty is a thoroughly alien entity to the greater number of publishers.

To paraphrase from memory what I read somewhere, the title of the material I cannot immediately recall: If you told that kind of publisher that he had a duty to the public to print the news objectively and accurately, he would have asked what kind of duty some other kinds of businessmen had. His newspaper being a business enterprise, news to him would be the same as cars to a Levy Laus, or house and lot to a Nestor Mangio, or tocino and longanisa to a Lolita Hizon, even halo-halo and pancit luglog to a Razon.

News being no more than a commodity to sell, a product to be packaged and presented in whatever way that will be most appealing to his customers and thus will bring him most profit. Even at the expense of integrity.

But commercial viability and editorial integrity are not mutually exclusive.

This is best exemplified in The New York Times, unarguably the number one newspaper in the world.

A well-known lore: At the time of World War II, faced with newsprint rationing, the Ochs and Sulzberger families that owned the Times chose to print news over advertising, thereby sacrificing much-needed revenues that the latter offered. The act singularly established their paper’s moral ascendancy over all other newspapers in America.

With the Times emerging – and remaining to this day – the most influential newspaper in the USA, if not in the whole world. That good decision of the owners proved to be good business sense too. High-mindedness returned better profits in the long run, so the moral lesson of the Times ­story instructs us.

Perhaps, Punto!’s publishers have read that same story. Hence, their express policy of editorial integrity first, profitability second.

So I wrote ten years ago. So I rewrite on this the eleventh year of Punto!, with my appreciation to my publishers for putting up with my prejudices even when they do not always share them.                      

Abe, absolutely

CLASS WAR is not only imminent but imperative in the coming Angeles City mayoralty contest. If, indeed, it has not started yet.  

Partido Abe Kapampangan endorses Alex Cauguiran.

Screamed our banner story of Sept. 18, reporting of the assembly of some “500 card-bearing party leaders representing the city’s 33 barangays” held Sept. 13 in Balibago that elected the party’s new set of officers and declared its president, Cauguiran, as party standard bearer in the Angeles City mayoralty race next year.

Even as Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan was re-elected party chairman, he was most obviously absent in the assembly.

Partido Abe Kapampangan selects Bryan-Edu tandem.

Headlined our online page on Sept. 23, reporting of “another” assembly held Sept. 20 of “about 800 delegates” where they selected Vice Mayor Nepomuceno and councilor Pamintuan as official candidates for mayor and vice mayor respectively in elections next year.

Ubiquitous, monopolizing even, was the elder Pamintuan’s presence in the latter assembly.

What gives? Same party. Distinct candidates.

Pamintuan makes all the difference.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. So, it has been clichéd. 

But as much as so metaphored, houses don’t make political parties. Hence, even when fissured or factionalized parties still stand, albeit tottering to the slightest wind. In the process developing wings – as in LP-Kalaw Wing versus LP-Salonga Wing, and NP-Roy Wing in some distant past; like the LP-Atienza-Defensor Wing and LP-Drilon-Pangilinan Wing of the PGMA era.

So, takes the same route Partido Abe Kapampangan now, with PAK-Cauguiran Wing and PAK-Pamintuan Wing, as deduced Ashley Manabat in our online story’s very lead paragraph?

No. A farce Partido Abe Kapampangan makes of its very self, if it does so.

Abe – comrade, in Capampangan – makes both the party framework and the ground upon which the party is founded. On an even loftier plane, Abe is the very soul that animates the party.

Thus, cleaving the party to two factions – if only for fairness and equity to Cauguiran and to Pamintuan – is not Solomonic, but rather moronic. As this snuffs out the very essence of its life.  

There can only be one, as there is but one, Partido Abe Kapampangan.  

It is that “multisector grassroots mass organization” founded on the ideals – members committed themselves to – “..iisang uri ng pinanggalingan na dapat mabigyan ng puwang at pagkakataon ang kinatawan ng ordinaryong tao at wakasan na, kahit pansamantala kung hindi man panghabang panahon, ang paghawak sa panunungkulan na lagi na lamang sa mayayaman at malalaking politiko.” Long and winding articulation concluding no blunter than: From the masses, by the masses, for the masses. The ruling elite be damned!

The two-wing contradiction that has seemingly befallen Partido Abe Kapampangan is neither dialectical nor diametrical, as one unrepentant Marxist contextualizes it. In fact, it is not even a contradiction but a perversion.  Of the ideals that make the party’s raison d'être.

To declare as standard bearer of Partido Abe Kapampangan the very dynast of the “mayayaman at malalaking pulitiko,” precisely against whom the party was founded, is not just an insult to the party members but an abomination of everything that the party stands and lives for.

Here is a case when principles – reduced to principals – are debased to prejudices. Of the plutocratic fallacy of governance as sole domain of the propertied, the have-nots as mere subjects. 

Here is an instance when comradeship is subjugated to exigency, and subordinated to expediency. When the interest of the party is subsumed to those of the self.  

Thereof, a class war, in all its classicism, with all its romanticism, is an imperative for the Partido Abe Kapampangan.

First from within – to cleanse it from the bourgeois decadence that has most manifestly infected its body parts.

Then to the age-old struggle of “the history of all hitherto existing society…”

On one hand: the landed gentry, the feudal lords, the political dynasties and their lackeys embodied as the immovable object -- preserving the status quo, keeping their socio-economic and political stranglehold of the city.

On the other: Partido Abe Kapampangan of the working classes, the barrio folk, the intelligentsia, the greater mass of Angeles society -- banded as the irresistible force to crush bourgeois domination.

Only one forged in the anti-dictatorship struggle, conscienticized in the grassroots pedagogy on the imperative of the rebellion of the poor towards their ultimate liberation, steeped in dialectics, possessed of rhetorical skills can embody Partido Abe Kapampangan. One with proven leadership and managerial capabilities on the side.

We don’t have to look far to find him: As he is us, so we are him.

Sana'y maulit muli

ANG MATAGAL nang tahimik na bulung-bulungan sa kalunsuran ay sumambulat – kahit sa social media man lamang – nitong nakaraang araw: Ibalik si Mayor Oca!

Sa tawag ng panahon sa kabisera ng lalawigan Kapampangan, ang magiting na mambabatas at premyadong World City Mayor si Oscar Samson Rodriguez ang akma at natatanging kasagutan. Ito wari ang mithiing namutawi sa internet, Setyembre 19, mismong araw ng kanyang kapanganakan.

Muli, ang pananariwa sa mga mamayan ang matatag na paninindigan, ang malinis na pamamahala, ang kaayusan at kaunlaran ng Lungsod San Fernando sa panahon ni Mayor Oca.

Mula sa ating About Oca: A Story of Struggle na isinulat noong 2005, ang buod at ubod nito, mula kay Ka Oca mismo:

Magsilbi Tamu

ARAL NG kasaysayan, at ng karanasan, na ang matapat na at makabuluhang ugnayan ng mga mamamayan at ng mga namumuno ang sandigan ng demoktratikong lipunan.

Ang mapayapa, matatag at maunlad na pamayanan ay nakasalalay sa tibay ng ugnayang yaon. Kaya’t lubos na napakahalaga ng ganap na katapatan sa isa’t isa ng mga mamamayan at mga pinunong lokal.

Higit sa mga namumuno kaysa mga mamamayan ang tawag ng katapatan, dahil na rin sa tindi at bigat ng tungkuling iniatang sa kanilang mga balikat, at saklaw ng kaakibat nitong kapangyarihan, tungo sa mithiing isang maaliwalas na pamumuhay para sa lahat.

Lubos ang aking paniniwala na sagutin hindi lamang sa bayan kundi higit sa Poong Maykapal ng isang namumuno ang anumang kahihinatnan ng pamayanang kanyang pinamumunuan. Atas ng pananampalatayang Kristiyano, o Islam man, at itinatadhana ng demokratikong tradisyon na ang masang mamamayan ay hindi sinasakupan, kundi pinaglilingkuran ng mga namumuno.

MAGSILBI TAMU, kung gayon, ay hindi isang hungkag na islogan kundi ang mismong matatag na saligan ng pananaw na makatao, panininidigang makabayan at pamamaraang maka-Diyos.

MAGSILBI TAMU – ang gumagabay sa lahat ng aking panuntunan at pagkilos bilang lingkod-bayan, sa aking panunungkulan bilang punong-lungsod.

Ang natatangi at takdang layon ng pamahalaang lungsod ay ang tapat at malinis na pamamahala. Tungo dito, bukas sa madla ang lahat ng mga tanggapan sa city hall at hayag ang lahat ng kasunudan o transaksiyon ng pamahalaang lokal sa mga mamamayan. Cuentas claras o transparency ang patakarang ipinaiiral sa lahat ng gastusin dito. Anf kaban ng bayan ay dapat na pakahalagaan – pinagbuwisan ito ng pawis at dugo ng mamamayan, at pakaingat-ingatan – lalo na ngayong taghirap ang buong bansa.

Hindi lamang likas na karapatan kundi takdang tungkulin din ng mga mamamayan ang makibahagi at maki-alam sa lahat ng gawaing pambayan, ang magpahayag ng kanilang kaisipan at damdamin ukol sa mga usaping panglungsod, ang magbunyag ng anumang katiwalian tungo sa malinis na pamamahala’t paglilingkod, at ang pakikinig at pagtugon – ng mga nanunungkulan – sa kanilang mga karaingan tungo sa ikabubuti ng kanilang pamumuhay. Tugon dito ang pagtakda ng mga pulung-pulong sa mga barangay kasama ang punong-lungsod, ang buong Sanggunian, sampu ng mga tanggapan ng lokal na pamahalaan.

Kabalikat ang pamahalaang lungsod sa mga gawaing bayan ang pribadong sektor, partikular na ang mga mangangalakal, samahang sibiko at NGO. Bunsod nito, sila din ay may mahalagang papel sa mga pagpupunyagi ng lungsod sa larangan ng pangangalakal, pamumuhunan at turismo; sa pagpapatupad at pagpapalaganap ng kaayusan, kalinisan, kalusugan at karunungan.

Sa pagtahak natin sa landas ng kaunlaran, ating inaagapayan ang kapakanan ng kapaligiran. Ang Sagip-Ilog, ang paghihigpit sa mga planta at pagawaan na bumubuga ng usaok at nagdudumi sa mga kailugan, ang pagapapatupad sa solid waste management ay ilan lamang sa patunay nito.

Ang pinakamahalagang pamantayan ng kaunlaran ng lungsod ay hindi lamang ang kasaganaan kundi higit ang pangkalahatang kalusugan ng mga mamamayan. Atas nito ang higit panga pagpapalakas sa outreach programs at pagpapalawak sa mga health services ng lungsod.

Itinatadhanang tungkulin din ng pamahalaan ang buong-pusong pagkalinga sa mga nakatatanda. Ating pinapahalagaan, itinatangi’t pinaglilingkuran ang ating mga senior citizens. Ang yaman ng kanilang karanasan, ang karunungang kanilang naimpok ay mahalaga sa kagalingan ng bayan.

Ang hanay ng mga kababaihan ay may sariling lakas at kakayahan upang maging ganap na kabalikat sa paglilingkod-bayan. Tugon dito ang ang pagapapalakas sa programang gender advancement and development at ang matibay na pakikipag-ugnayan ng pamahalaang lungsod sa mga samahang kababaihan sa mga gawaing pangkaunlaran.

Magkakaroon lamang ng kaganapan ang pangakong binitiwan ni Gat Jose Rizal – ang kabataan ang siyang pag-asa ng bayan – sa pagbibigay sa kanila ng kaukulang pagkakataon na mapanday ang kanilang kakayahan, mahubog sila sa kagandahang-asal, at maging kabahagi ng usapin at gawaing pambayan. Hindi kailangang maging balakid ang kahirapan upang ang kabataan ay makapag-aral at makakuha ng pagsasanay na bokasyonal o teknikal.

Ang pinakamahalagang pamana ng lungsod sa susunod na salinlahi ay ang kalinangang Fernandino. Muli, kabalikat ng pamahalaang panglungsod ang pribadong sektor, ang mga pamantasan at dalubhasaan sa ating pangangalaga at pagpapalaganap sa kasaysayan, sining at kultura ng ating lipi.

MAGSILBI TAMU. Ito ang sandigan ng aking pananalig. Ito ang saligan ng aking paninindigan.          

Citizen Marni

NO FLOODBUSTER, literally – his official moniker “anti-flood tsar” of the City of San Fernando at the time of now much missed Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez notwithstanding – still, it’s Engineer Marni Castro that city residents in the know have come to turn to at every coming storm or heavy monsoon rain.

Thus, Saturday past with Typhoon Ompong still unleashing intermittent rains, Marni it was that I texted after a quick look-see at developing cracks on the small bridge to Phase 3 of St. Jude Village where I am domiciled.  

Marni had already assessed the bridge situation – the northern approach had caved in, onrushing water and mud already spilling on the flooded streets every which way, the nearby (uninhabited?) house of Mayor Edwin Santiago unspared  – by the time I returned from an errand with the wife to a nearby drugstore  I found him coordinating immediate response on his mobile – mobilizing a backhoe and dump trucks to take out tons of debris that impacted the bridge, sending advisories to city officials, etc.

Affected residents and a team from CLTV 36 were milling around Marni with myriad fearful concerns over the situation when Mayor Santiago and VM Jimmy Lazatin arrived at the site less than an hour later.

Quick was the mayor’s lamentation over what he said was the “opposition” of the Phase 3 residents to the construction of a new bridge over that same spot that should have started in February this year, with posted notifications around the village in late January.

(As quick was the bashing I got from a number of the Phase 3 residents when I posted on my Facebook page pictures of the collapsed bridge and the mayor’s lamentation. “Get your facts right,” one said. Of course, I stuck to the facts, citing only what the mayor articulated. That they said they did not oppose the construction was another, if related, story. That did not detract any the facts I cited in my post.)

Anyways, the mayor deferring to Marni’s recommendations on the immediate to-do’s about the bridge just showed how much confidence the city government has invested in its premier volunteer worker.

Indeed, a volunteer of the highest order Marni makes, shooting to prominence – of the selfless kind – in the lahar aftermath of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions.

His off-roading skills were put to good use in rescue-relief operations at each onslaught of lahar from Porac to Bacolor. And even broadened now: at the onset of every typhoon or habagat, he mobilizes his off-roader groups to be on-call for rescue operations.

He went beyond being among the strongest advocates for the FVR megadike systems to actually monitoring – daily – its construction from the digging stage, to the filling and the armoring. No, his did not wangle any contract in any phase of the megadike erection. Why, up to this time he routinely takes the megadike road just to check its condition.

Marni was likewise among the brain trust that birthed the San Fernando-Sto. Tomas-Minalin taildike that helped saved the southern part of the city and the two towns from more destructive inundations. As in the megadike, he now pushes for the taildike to serve as a major road to from the capital city to Minalin, thereby easing traffic at the old provincial road through Sto. Tomas.

For a number of summers now, Marni has quietly coordinated the declogging of waterways linking San Fernando and the two mentioned towns to immediate, though, as yet incomplete, results – floods are much lower and subside faster in the city.            

That Marni has done much for the city – and Pampanga too – at all cost to him and no cost to the government and the people is beyond an iota of doubt. Unreasonable, otherwise.

His mantra says it all: “I live for a cause, not for applause.”

Come to think of it, what has he got for it?       

This then is but an affirmation of the badge of citizenship long bestowed on Marni Castro. Can anything be more honorable than this?   

  

Weathering politics

PUBLIC SERVICE Announcement from Angeles City LGU:

After thorough discussion with the ACDRRMO and Vice Mayor Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno, I, Mayor Edgardo D. Pamintuan hereby declare the suspension of classes on ALL LEVELS (public and private) in Angeles City on Sept 13-15 (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) in anticipation of the adverse effects brought about by Typhoon Ompong.

BE safe, Angeleños.

There is full sunlight coming through my window as I started writing this – 7:35 a.m. Sept. 13, Thursday at St. Jude Village, City of San Fernando.

The expected – aye, predicted – over-200 kph winds and torrents of rain once Ompong entered the Philippine area of responsibility still a figment of PAGASA’s imagination. Or, mayhaps, this is but the proverbial lull before the deluge.

Still, and all, the Angeles City LGU is not taking any chances. Having been thoroughly drenched in public outbursts over class suspension – when the sun shone brightest, and non-suspension – when the city was inundated, with the onset of successive typhoons and the southwest monsoons only last July.

Sala sa lamig, sala sa init. The city government made there. This time, they know better. Maybe, even best. As they have taken out of their present announcement any reference to PAGASA altogether.

At the time of monsoons past, VM Nepomuceno, in his capacity as acting mayor while Pamintuan was in some official mission abroad, posted in his and the city’s official Facebook account:  

 July 18, 5:54 a.m. ADVISORY: Good morning po. Considering the 4 a.m. forecast of PAGASA that there will only be light to moderate rain showers in Angeles City, and the advice of our Disaster Risk Reduction Monitoring Team that there are no threats of flooding, classes in all levels have NOT been SUSPENDED. Please be advised to still bring umbrellas and rain coats to stay dry and safe. Thank you.

For PAGASA’s failed forecast – the skies opened up with the proverbial dogs and cats – Nepomuceno metaphorically drowned in the online deluge of denunciation and damnation by a citizenry drenched to the bone.

A sampling, I gathered and pasted in a column I wrote at that time:

Kaya kayo naba-bash kasi tanga mag-announce. Pag umuulan, may pasok. Pag di umuulan, walang pasok. Ayaw niyo may nagrereklamo pero ganyan dapat ninyo.

Itatanong ko lang po kung immortal po ba ung mga taga-Angeles.

Tagal namin naghintay ng announcement. Hindi sa ayaw namin ng walang pasok pero ba’t gano’n? Kaka-iba ya talaga ing Angeles.#AgyuTamungMabasa

Tindi mo naman Vice. NOT SUSPENDED? Pero hayan, mga school principals na ang nagsuspend ng classes dahil sila ang nakakaalam na mahihirapan ang mga bata sa ulan o baha!

Paano ba naman maiintindihan ng mga yan e rich kid sila e, di naman nababasa mga yan na nagko-commute kagaya ng karamihan. Laging naka-service, kulang nalang buhatin ng mga kasambahay nila.

So, feeling nyo concerned na kayo nyan? Stop being apathetic.

Napaka-unfair nyo. Nakaka-inis kayo, palibhasa kase sarap ng buhay nyo! Mga anak nyo kasi nasa magandang paaralan! Kapag nag cancel kayo may araw! kapag bumabagyo na dun may pasok.

This time, it was Mayor Pamintuan himself that declared the suspension of classes.

This as much to keep his constituents safe as to save Nepomuceno from yet another political backlash as impacted upon his non-suspension of the same last July. Call me malicious, but I sense some political moves here.

BE safe, Angeleños. Pamintuan exhorted. Not so subliminal, but outright political the BE there. The tandem of Brian-Edu for 2019 pushed by you-know-who. As in those postings of BElievED in the web.

BE safe from them Angeles. Did I just hear ABEKa whisper?

Whatever, it’s now 8:30 a.m. and the sun is still brightly shining.