The Balacat heritage

IN THE Capampangan language, the prefix ma- means “full of” or “teeming with.” Thus, a number of towns were presumably named for what was common to the place: Masantol, for the many "santol" trees; Macabebe, for the "cabibi" or shellfish; Magalang, for its very respectful citizens.

While I long assumed that Mexico was named after that other Spanish colony on the other side of the Pacific with which Islas Filipinas had the galleon trade because the timber for those ships came from here, I was told that the name actually evolved from the old Masico. That name conjures two visions though: the town once teemed with chico trees – "sico" to the elderly Capampangans, or the flagrant use of the elbow – "sico" too in the local language – as representative symbol for the way disputes were settled among the "baracos" and "pusacals" in the town.

Then there is Mabalacat. What the heck is "balacat" after which the town was named? With the longevity of the mayor there and the number of his kin in public office, someone who looked like the witty Perry Pangan once said the municipality would have been more appropriately named Mamorales. And he was only half joking.
So "balacat" is a tree. It is to Engineer Rox Pena of Recyclers Foundation Inc. (RFI) and the 2004 Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awardee in the field of environmental protection that we owe our knowledge of this fact. And more.
With the scientific name Zizyphus talanai (Blanco) Merr., the tree that once made a lush forest in the place – thus, Mabalacat – was most valued commercially for its large, long and straight trunk which, Rox said, reached up to a diameter of one meter and a height of 30 meters.
Balacat timber was used for general construction, as in house posts as well as for the masts of ships; furniture and sash, tool handles, turnery, household utensils, baseball bats, among a host of other goods. The branches were also used as sticks in the Filipino martial arts arnis.
With such expansive, and presumably lucrative, commercial use, coupled with the need for land for cultivation and habitation by the early settlers, the depletion of the forest of balacat trees came not long after, said Rox.
Thus it came to pass that succeeding generations of the townspeople forgot all about their heritage tree. Why, even the name they affixed unto themselves – Mabalaqueños – altogether dropped the slightest reference to their town’s origin. The town’s name is not Mabalac, so why must its people be called Mabalaquenos? Should it not be Mabalacateños? Got to consult my seminary brother Robby Tantingco of the Center of Kapampangan Studies on this.
So, where can we find a balacat tree in Mabalacat, I asked Rox.
There is one in front of the Our Lady of Grace Parish Church, he said. But it would not be long before the town will be lush with the balacat trees again, Rox promised.
Already a memorandum of agreement has been signed among the municipality of Mabalacat, the DENR, and RFI to save and propagate the vanishing species through the Balacat Greening Project.
An inventory of the remaining trees has been undertaken along with seed sourcing and propagation. For his part Mayor Boking Morales is set to establish a municipal balacat forest park and will urge the sangguniang bayan to pass a municipal ordinance declaring the balacat as the municipal tree.
Yes, it would not be long for Mabalacat to regain its core essence.

MABALACAT HAS since become a city – after the above piece came out here on Jan. 7, 2008. The forever puede pa Mayor Boking ingloriously unseated in 2017 for overstaying, soundly defeated in his vice mayoralty bid in 2019, and buried in ignominy in his comeback try in 2022.

With Mayor Cris Garbo, reverberated in the city a new mantra – puede pala, as much as for the can-do as for the can-serve kind of local governance he impacted not only upon the city but in other LGUs far and near. More of this in a future feature.

This balacat heritage bit found relevance anew with the announcement this week of an eponymous festival in lieu of the Morales-era Caragan Festival held in the city every February.

Lest it be misconstrued as downgrading if not revising the Aeta part in Mabalacat’s history, or of expunging what still remains of the Boking legacy, the Balacat Festival is – in the words of both purveyors and proponents – a case of righting wrong impression on Mabalacat’s very core essence – the very words with which I closed the short essay above.

The erudite Robby Tantingco – whom I invoked in the story – summed it best: FROM CARAGAN FESTIVAL TO BALACAT FESTIVAL. The change intends to correct the wrong impression created by the previous festival name—that Aetas are the ancestors of the people of Mabalacat.

The change will also bring the focus back to what makes Mabalacat great—the beauty of the land and the strength and resilience of the people, as symbolized by the balacat tree.

Thus, Balacat Festival celebrates the city’s real origin, which is not the Aeta chieftain, but the balacat tree. There is no other place anywhere in the country or the world named after this tree.

Balacat Festival also has a greater name recall, because it comes from the city’s name itself. In addition, Balacat Festival is more inspirational because it resonates more with the people of Mabalacat themselves, not their Aeta brothers and sisters.

Balacat is more than just a tree. Balacat is fortitude, stability and resilience. Balacat is the heart and soul of the city. Balacat is the spirit of its people rising to the sky.

When you say “Mabalacat,” you are not just referring to a place that is full of balacat trees, but to someone who is full of fortitude, stability and resilience. Thus: Capampangan cu. Mabalacat cu. I am a Capampangan. I am a Mabalacat. Masican cu. Matatag cu. Mabalacat cu.

 

      

Past that age

 

GETTING TO 50 was the pits.

The body enters the Age of Pain – the blood pressure shoots up, the head spins, the fingers stiffen, the knee joints creak, the back aches, and it takes longer and harder to get out of bed – irreversibly rushing into an Era of Don’ts, when all the sweetness, the salt, and the spice of life become a forbidden lot.

As though these were not enough a painful infliction, there is yet the most insufferable of all – the quenching of the fire that once ran amuck in one’s loins.

Sans Pfizer’s petrifier, sex at 50 starts becoming mostly a matter of gender, least of lust.

Here though, that biblical passage of the willing spirit, readily giving in to weak flesh assumes a different dimension, if not a higher meaning. Far from, aye, the very opposite of what it has been interpreted to convey – of the frailties of the human body rampaging over any sanctified wish, benevolent intention, noble goal.

Here, it is the grace of spirit that trumps and triumphs over weak, worldly flesh.

Something of an epiphany when I turned 50: with the ebbing of bodily strength, the keenness in matters of the spirit – not necessarily translating to religious revival – suddenly inhered in me.

My daily walk at the village green, transformed from an exhausting physical exercise to an ecstatic spiritual experience, indeed become a joyous occasion for worship.  

The rays of the early morning sun, the canopy of trees, the singing birds perched on their branches, the fluttering butterflies among the wild flowers, all living testaments to the goodness of my God. And for these and all other blessings, I thank you, Lord.     

Songs stir the soul even more – mournful strains as those of Schindler’s List invariably draw – along with a torrent of tears – images of the least of God’s children, in the Sudan, in Somalia, in Syria. Sharing – albeit spiritually – their sufferings, solidarity with them in their sorrows, is an enrichment to the soul.

So, is it not written, “As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”?

Weddings become more than mere organized events for fellowship and food but actual partaking, a communion, in the celebration of love. Ah, how they make me cry, even when it’s not my kids, nephews and nieces being wedded. Copious tears of joy, For All We Know and Sunrise, Sunset always bring.

The fullness of love before the altar renews, refreshes all that is reposited in my heart, seeking an expression of its own through sharing, most especially with the unloved.

So, who was it who said: “The love in your heart was not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away”? As good a thought there on one’s birthday as on Valentine’s Day. 

As in weddings, more so in funerals – tears. A sign of the cross, a tear or two for the loss, a short silent prayer for the repose of his/her soul at each encounter with a funeral procession. That I don’t even know the dead matters not. All that counts is a fellow human being having passed, and the hope that God judged him/her worthy of His kingdom.             

Commencing at 50, the sense of one’s mortality has taken greater intensity and frequency in me as I turned 51, 52, 53…onto this, the last year before my euphemized “dual citizenship.”

More than the legacy I shall leave behind – neither much nor great, in the first place – it is that which I shall take along that concerns me. That which I shall present before the mercy and compassion of my God. For His judgment, I shall most surely fail. So, His forgiveness I most humbly plead.

Getting to 50 is the pits, in ways and means of the world.

On another plane, aptly named is 50 as the Golden Age – in which to pass through the crucible of spirituality to earn a rightful passage to the Diamond Age where celebrated the purity of the soul.

With the grace of God, how I long to come to that dazzling threshold.       

WOW, this was published under the title Leaving the golden years on Feb. 11, 2013, my last year as a quinquagenarian. Ten years hence – with me now at the cusp of septuagenaria – it seems that time stood still through my 60s. Only the hair – more salt than pepper now – gives away the ravage of age.  A good life, thank God. And yes, what a way to reflect this Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023.    

This elderly fights back

AT THE clearly designated priority lane: “For PWD, senior citizens, pregnant women” – as though any other human can get pregnant – at the tellers’ counter of a bank inside a mall I queued.

Being served at the moment was an elderly woman. Next in line were a robust male in his early late 30s or early 40s with a bulging string bag, a lass who could not be more than 30 holding a libreta del banco with a withdrawal slip between its pages, and me. Red flag: So, why were those plainly non-seniors, non-PWDs, and non-preggos on the priority lane?

Still, I kept my cool. It would not take much time with only two to go before my turn, anyways.

Came the turn of the man with the backpack – and eternity set in. Apparently, he was depositing a large amount of cash to multiple accounts. How the money counter buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed… At the close of that eternity of over 20 minutes, I heaved a sigh of relief as the lady next in line had but that single bank book and a withdrawal slip – so how much could she possibly withdraw?

Lo, and behold, before the lady could even rise from the bench we were seated on, a stocky man in a red hoodie – plainly an errand boy – with a backpack darted straight to the counter and was immediately served by the smiling teller.

There went another eternity in the making, and whatever pretensions to priorities this bank held going straight to the dustbin.

As though on cue, the teller at the regular lane suddenly called out to a biz-looking man at the tail end of the queue there and served him ahead of some others meekly waiting for their turn. A woman, obviously familiar to the man and the teller, thereafter jumped the line too and was served ahead.  

Age, truly, has mellowed me. It took all courage not to create a scene at the bank as I did twice at MacDonalds-Dolores Junction and at another time inside the customer service section of the same mall when I berated their staff for opening their priority lanes to everyone else but those they were created for, slamming the priority lane signage at their counters for effect.  

This time, I simply stood up and left the bank, but not without a “Your service sucks” uttered to the security guard but loud enough for everybody to hear. Outside the bank, I immediately called the mall manager and complained.

“Again, Sir Bong?” He was profuse with his apologies and said he would personally deal with the matter, as he did the first time I had a run-in with the same bank, not so much as a year back.

That time, I was told at the bank entrance that I had to fill in bank forms outside the bank. When I asked where, I was motioned by the security guard to the plastic chairs at the waiting area.

Dutifully, I got a chair and propped it at a security guard’s table by the entrance of the mall and started filling in the withdrawal form. As I was taking a selfie on the situation I was in, the guard told me it was prohibited to take photos there. It was then that I called the mall manager.

And he did come and asked the bank manager to hear me out. I simply told her if the bank wanted customers to accomplish bank forms outside the bank, they could have at the least provided tables or desks for the purpose. Plain common sense.

I immediately cut her down when she offered to fill out my form herself and take it straight to the tellers. I told her I sought neither special treatment nor entitlement. I did it all – inside the bank on a counter – and queued at the priority lane to finish my transaction.

Back to the most recent incident. Even before I left the mall, I posted on FB a photo of the hoodie guy with the backpack doing his business with the teller and captioned it as a violation of the rights of seniors and PWDs as mandated by law – seen by a number of friends, among whom the mall’s top brass who messaged me that they would take action. (Having served its purpose, I have since deleted the post).

It was not even 10 minutes after arriving home that I got a call from an unknown number that turned out to be the bank’s assistant manager. She made the perfunctory sorry for the inconvenience and said the non-seniors-PWD-preggo at the priority lane were “diamond card” holders which I understood as big-time clients.         

Aye, it could only be that mellowing that comes with age that gave me the patience to explain to her: That the diamond cards are a courtesy or privilege given to preferred patrons. That the priority lane is mandated by law exclusive to defined individuals. That the law is supreme over mere privilege.

She promised me that the bank will institute measures to ascertain that the priority lane will serve as the law mandated it to do.

That I will have to see. Meantime, may this serve as a warning to establishments that disrespect priority lanes. This curmudgeon will be out there to take the fight.    

    

The sermon of the sea

 A flock of seagulls flies in the blue cloudy sky over the sea and burrows into the waves/Freepik

TO BREAK out of the hustle and bustle of human toil.

To escape from the rut of encultured habit.
To flee from the jealous, constricting embrace of vainglory.
On New Year’s Eve, hastened I to the eternal sea.
And in my solitude, a soliloquy.

Cast off the old. Ring in the new. The incessant monotone of the year-end… after year-end, after year-end…So, we bid 2022 good riddance, and joyously welcome 2023 with much louder boom than the proverbial bang.

Fleeting as the wind, footprints in the sand are.
Swept to nothingness by the onrushing waves.
As fleeting are the days, flushed by the tides of time.
So waste not repentant tears over the demised year.
Refresh, renew. The new one promises something truly dear.
The year just past is better forgotten. With some spirit of thanksgiving and forgiveness.

The incoming one best taken. With open arms, with hope and prayer.
Less thanksgiving and lesser forgiveness, guarded hope and incessant prayer there, if I may. But not ever to be simply cast away.
To simply consign to the deepest recesses of memory injustices and atrocities, is in itself a worse injustice and the worst atrocity. An invitation to the revision, nay, the perversion of history. Of the past –

We may end the wailing but not the mourning,
We can stop the weeping but not the grieving.
This our sworn duty – as human beings –
As much to the dead, as to the living.
And as much as justice, to wish the cruelest death and damnation upon the perpetrator. That it may not ever happen again.
The waves rise, crest, fall – surging to ritual death upon the shore.
The sea murmurs, nay, roars:
”Leave the forgetting to the gull, 

its fish for the day its only care.

Leave the forgetting to the fish, 

escape from the gull’s hungry beak its very cause to exist.”

I am no gull. I am no fish.
The sermon of the sea I hear, and shall heed.

“…Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children…ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and the children play…” The Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in Gitanjali, I suddenly well remember.

Over. Done with. 2022 was.
Dwell in the past, no matter how dead. Why must I?
In. Going. Doing. 2023 is.
Live in hope only of a future best. Why can’t I?
For like the sea – rising and falling,
In its very waters the old in the new abiding. I am.

(Updated from a piece published here January 2010)

 

 

 

SunStar-Pampanga: The origin

AN IMPOSSIBLE dream. For the longest time, just about every newspaper in Pampanga had its thoughts fixed on a daily frequency as soon as it got birthed.  Only, to grow and live a weekly existence – many even dying before getting to their volume 2.

Even in these dot.com times, still impacted in the very core of Central Luzon’s oldest newspaper – founded in 1954 – is that dreamed-of masthead, The Daily Voice. Notwithstanding the nearing extinction of the print media. There’s just no substitute to the smell of pulp, especially on a daily whiff.  

But dreams come true. Not, unfortunately, for Pampanga’s “best in reading, no kidding” “most cherished newsweekly.”

Sometime in mid-1995, media maven Jose “Joe” Pavia called his PNA (Philippine News Agency) bright boys to a meeting at the Shanghai Restaurant in Angeles City. Over a sumptuous lunch, Joe adumbrated the plan for a daily newspaper that will serve, primarily, as a platform for the Clark Special Economic Zone as well as the recovery of Pampanga from the then-still extant Mount Pinatubo devastations. SunStar-Clark, it will be called.    

While owned by the Sun-Star Cebu of the Garcias, SunStar Clark will be independent of it with Joe himself as publisher-executive editor, thereafter promptly assigning Bong Lacson as editor-in-chief, Fred Roxas as news editor, and Peping Raymundo as managing editor, giving us the freehand to recruit the editorial staff – from section editors, to reporters, correspondents, and photographers.

Fred cited possible conflict with his position as PNA-Pampanga bureau manager but could help from the sidelines. Lacson begged off being the senior consultant to Gov. Lito Lapid, unwilling to risk the paper being identified with the then new governor.

Asked who could be EIC, Lacson recommended Ody Fabian, then acting publisher of The Voice. Roused from his siesta, Ody managed to join the group for coffee.

Joe asked if Lacson could be at least named associate editor and serve as opinion editor, to which the latter acceded.

Among the first to go onboard SunStar-Clark were news reporters Joey Pavia, IC Calaguas, and Ashley Manabat; photographer Ricarte “Boy” Sagad; columnists Sonny Lopez and Cora Taus. Lacson’s column Golpe de Sulat in Mabuhay, Joe’s Bulacan-based weekly, was also moved to SS-C.   

Dry-runs thereafter ensued – first weekly, then three times weekly, until all weekdays. The editorial offices moving from the office of Sonny’s Sunny Vision company at the Marlim Mansion to Ody’s rented house at Sta. Maria Subd., both in Barangay Balibago, until settling at Plaza Romana in Dau, Mabalacat.

The maiden issue was officially launched with former DOTC Secretary Jesus Garcia Jr. and Gov. Lapid as guests of honor in November 1995.

Joe Pavia has left a lasting impression not only on the staff that worked under him at SS-C, but on every journalist that came under his tutelage. No anniversary of the papers he founded or served would be complete without some memorials for him.

Joe was the most respected long-time general manager of the PNA and no-nonsense editor of a number of publications from the pre- to the post-martial law eras, as well as chair of the Philippines Press Institute.

To say that Joe Pavia was a pillar of Philippine journalism is an understatement.

The mantra every journalist fortunate enough to have been mentored by Joe is “Accuracy. Accuracy. Accuracy.” Be it in a news story or in a headline.

No, he would never settle for simple fact-checking. It had to be checked, rechecked, cross-referenced with all possible sources for a final check. And then, after each news story: “Ang follow-up?”

Still, to Joe: No story is worth dying for. The well-being of the journalist of utmost precedence.

And then, Joe had this never-the-twain-shall-meet rule with news vis-à-vis opinion writing. At SS-C, he expressly enjoined me to lay off news stories as I was already writing a column and the editorials. Precisely, as news is bound by facts, and columns/editorials stand on opinions.

Food for thought: What would Joe say about SunStar-Pampanga today?

(P.S. Reconstructed from ageing memory, the writer apologizes for whatever lapses in this story solicited for the paper’s 27^th anniversary.)

 

Once upon the CL press

1978. It was July, most probably. Department of Public Information-Region 3 director Ricardo Velasquez Serrano – Kapitan Gigil, fondly – newly assigned to Central Luzon, though a Kapampangan by parentage, asked his senior staff how the office can engage the provincial press in development communications to support the socio-economic and infrastructure initiatives of government.  

Freshly schooled in OD (organization development) at the Development Academy of the Philippines, his chief of research, training, and development division suggested the formation of an association of “all working journalists” in Central Luzon, which Serrano readily approved, and tasked the proponent to do the working paper for such association.

The primary consideration laid out in the working paper was membership. Aware of the intramurals between provincial press clubs of the time, acceptance into the proposed regional press organization would be by individual membership with representation not of the press club but of the publication or radio station of the member. Thereby, an inclusive umbrella organization that will not be in conflict with the press clubs in terms of membership.

In a week’s time, backstopped by Fred Roxas, bureau manager of the Philippines News Agency in CL, and Ben Gamos of the Times Journal, the proponent traveled around Central Luzon in a campaign for membership to the new organization.

At the time, there were two press organizations that, unfortunately, were regional only in their nomenclature but not in scope of membership: the Tarlac-based Central Luzon Association of Journalists headed by Carlos Gatdula of Bulletin Today, and the Central Luzon Press Club of Romy Medina of Times Journal domiciled in Olongapo City.

It was naturally to these gentlemen that the trio from DPI deferred – they responded positively to the new organization, but with Medina asking for first right to the presidency. In character, the self-effacing and gracious Gatdula readily conceded, merely requesting that something of his club should be in the name of the new organization, hence: Central Luzon Media Association. 

From there, it was a breeze tapping the services of the “old guards” in  organizing: Rod Reyes of the Journal Group, along with brothers Jess and Bert Matic of The Reflector (CL’s first and only broadsheet) in Bulacan; Efren Molina of Bulletin Today in Bataan; Pacifico de Guzman of The Monday Post, Pete Salazar of Dahongpalay, and Anselmo Roque of Daily Express along with Isagani Valmonte of Times Journal in Nueva Ecija; Ben and Rose Razon of the Tarlac Star and radioman Ben Gonzales, Feliciano Pasion of Manila Times, and DPI coordinator Luz Ducusin in Tarlac; spouses Elpidio and Susana Curiano of Olongapo News in Zambales.

In Pampanga, members of the Pampanga Press Club enlisted en masse to the CLMA.

Aurora – at that time still part of Region IV-A – nevertheless joined in the person of Rodante Rubio of Malaya.   

That the greater mass of members came from the print – both provincial and national newspapers, reflected the state of media obtaining in the region at that time: only Olongapo, Tarlac, Angeles, and Cabanatuan had operating radio stations.

September 24, 1978. At the DPI-3 office in San Fernando, Pampanga, the first set of officers of the CLMA with Romy Medina as president was inducted into office by Public Information Secretary Francisco S. Tatad. 

Director Ricardo V. Serrano is the First, while the rest of those mentioned here are the rest of the Founding Fathers of the CLMA. Suffice for this writer to hold on, with honor and privilege, to the title Serrano himself bestowed upon him – “founding proponent.”

CLMA presidents: The first decade

1978. Romualdo Medina (Times Journal). Loosely organized, absent any constitution and by-laws, CLMA adapted to the standards of media practice – objectivity, fairness, and accuracy – and adopted these as protocols. 

1980. Maximo L. Sangil (Daily Express). The framing of the CLMA constitution and by-laws, engagement of the association in crusades in partnership with the Ministry of Public Information notably: the anti-pollution campaign that forced polluting sugar mills, pulp and paper manufacturing factories in Pampanga, Bulacan, and Bataan to put up pollution-abatement facilities; the anti-illegal gambling drive that resulted to the sacking of a regional Philippine Constabulary commander, provincial commanders and chiefs of police; and the anti-illegal dikes campaign which resulted to the demolition of some 300 dikes encroaching the waterways of Bataan, Bulacan, and Pampanga.     

Re-elected in 1981, Max holds the distinction as the only CLMA president who succeeded himself. Successive reelection has since been prohibited.

1982. Alfredo M. Roxas (Philippines News Agency). All the shibboleths of political campaign – T-shirts, streamers, balloons, food and drinks, leaflets – obtained in the election that saw Fred triumph over Amante Reyes (The Voice). The heavy turnout of voters indicated the rise in membership resulting from the increase in the number of provincial newspapers and radio stations in the region. 

1983. Jesus Matic (Reflector) and Hector P. Soto (Times Journal). With equal number of votes, a coin toss decided not who should be president but who would sit first in the shared presidency. Jess’ half of the term was cut short by his death leaving Toy more than his half-share.   

1984. Jeremias J. Lacuarta (Bulletin Today). A court injunction filed by a disgruntled CLMA director came too late to stop Jerry’s election. Lawyer-friends later questioned the injunction over the CLMA, it being a “social organization” unregistered with the SEC. The CLMA was officially affiliated with the National Press Club. CLMA meetings started to be moved from province to province instead of being centered at the MPI regional office. 

1985. Carlos P. Gatdula (Bulletin Today). His sacrifice of the presidency upon the organization of the CLMA bore fruit six years hence, being the only candidate for president in what turned out to be an acclamation rather than an election. Serious threats to his life constrained Gat to seek temporary sanctuary in the USA ceding the presidency to his executive vice president Bert Padilla (Bulletin Today).

1986. Benny Rillo (Balita). Along with acting president Bert, Feliciano Pasion (Manila Times) and Rizal Policarpio (Balita) were handily beaten by Benny in the election held in Cabanatuan City.

1987. Feliciano Pasion (Manila Times). Exchange of gunfire between NPA rebels and the military in an armed encounter in nearby Samal, provided the horrifying accompaniment to Ising’s election to the presidency held in Balanga, Bataan. A revised CLMA Constitution and By-Laws was drafted during his term.

1988. Jeremias J. Lacuarta (Manila Bulletin). The Constitution and By-Laws was approved overwhelmingly in the general assembly preceding the election. Jerry renewed his call to cleanse the CLMA of media scalawags and extortionists.  

(P.S. Reminiscing over events more than four decades back has taken its toll on ageing memory. This is the best reconstruction I can do for a piece celebrating the 44^th anniversary of the CLMA held last Dec. 2 at the Hiyas Convention Center, Malolos City. My apologies for lapses.) 

 

Punto's ultimate timeline

MAN OF THE YEAR. An annual encomium to the most substantively significant individual – man, woman or any of the multilettered genders – traditionally bestowed by publications has become, hereabouts, the signature mark of Punto! Central Luzon. For no other reason than it is the only publication that unfailingly comes out with this otherwise regular feature.  

Simply put, newsworthy and – as much as possible – praiseworthy comprise the only criteria to making it as Punto’s MOTY which, serendipitously, has come to serve as the very measure of Punto’s years in existence.

On this our 15^th year, we look back, guided by the opening paragraphs of each tribute, generally giving the rationale for our choice, and some micro zeitgeist of their period.  

2008: EDDIE T. PANLILIO, Governor of Pampanga

MIRACLE MAN of the year. Even if that homage of his fanatical followers be taken out of the equation, Pampanga Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio will still surpass the grade as the most significant personality to have emerged in 2007 in the whole expanse of Central Luzon, if not in the whole country. If only for crafting history as the first Catholic priest to be ever elected governor.

Breaking his priestly vow of obedience – unheeding the five-fold plea of his superior to forego with his political ambition – Panlilio ran – and won – on the sheer strength of his sacerdotal persona, Among Ed.

2009. VICTOR JOSE LUCIANO, President-CEO, Clark International Airport Corp.

IT WAS a no-nonsense job tailor-fit for our Man of the Year.
Thrice offered by no less than President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the top plum of the then fledgling Clark International Airport Corp., is one our Man of the Year could not refuse. Not in Puzo’s The Godfather sense of the phrase though, but for the sheer challenge – of blazing a trail, and the impact – to national development – it posed.
Thus, it was that the fellow from Magalang, Pampanga who has made a name for himself in the national scene, retraced his steps back home to serve not just his fellow Kapampangans, but the rest of the people of Central and Northern Luzon and help them – and the nation – find their niche in the international arena of development.

2010. OSCAR S. RODRIGUEZ, Mayor of the City of San Fernando

EXCELLENCE IS a passion; good governance, a duty; service to the people, a commitment. The cardinal virtues of leadership in a republican state – long lost in the parody of democracy that is the Philippines – find renaissance in Mayor Oscar Samson Rodriguez of the City of San Fernando. And the Fernandino could not have been happier, nay, more blessed and prouder: of his city and his leader.
As 2009 proved yet another banner year for the city, reaping just about every recognition in myriad fields of endeavor. 

2011. LILIA G. PINEDA, Governor of Pampanga

2010 MAY as well be “Year of the Mother” for the Province of Pampanga with the ascendancy of Gov. Lilia Garcia Pineda. 
In all her public incarnations – mayor, board member, and now governor – as much as in her private persona, motherhood has come to be the very definition of Lilia Pineda: its full meaning finding expression in her singular efforts to promote the health and well-being of her people. The endearing sobriquet “Nanay Baby” as much a manifestation of the reciprocal respect and esteem her people hold her in, as a testament to the nurturing care she unceasingly provides them.
Thus, it came to pass that “Nanay Baby” was all it took to strip the veneer of sanctimony of a rehashed morality play, of a discredited crusade in the 2010 election campaign and buried in an avalanche of 488,521 votes the pretender to the Capitol throne. Indeed, an indubitable vindication of a true Pineda victory in 2007.

2012. EDGARDO D. PAMINTUAN, Mayor of Angeles City

RIGHTING – rather than just fighting -wrongs. Forged in the crucible of the Marcos dictatorship, Edgardo Dizon Pamintuan is steeled in the protection and promotion of human rights, and thus fated to a public life of correcting human errors, political, social and fiscal, administrative and criminal: his end in view, a society grounded on the democratic ideals of equality and liberty; his goal-in-hand, a community sharing in prosperity. 
Pamintuan's persona as honorable mayor of Angeles City makes the latest -if arguably, the greatest - testament to this: taking over a city awash in wrongs, if only to set everything in it a right, and how! As a call of duty, at the instance, mayhaps even the insistence, of destiny. 

WE MADE a break from the usual when instead of men and women, we opted to give our annual accolade to the COMPANIES OF THE YEAR.

2013. SM MALLS

THE SHORTEST distance between rural rusticity and cosmopolitan sophistication is an SM City mall.
No more is this truer than in the coming of the Philippines’ premier mall to Central Luzon, instantly turning the landscape from rural to urban, promptly transforming the shopping, dressing, eating, leisuring habits of the people. Setting a new lifestyle aptly captured in the catch phrase: “Mag-SM tayo!” translating to “The SM mall is all.”
The pre-eminence of SM City malls in this once rice granary of the country upped and maxxed some more in 2012 with the opening of SM City Olongapo in February and SM City San Fernando Downtown in July, bringing to – count them: SM City Marilao and SM City Baliwag in Bulacan; SM City Pampanga and SM City Clark in the regional center; and SM City Tarlac – seven Henry Sy’s malls in this region, the greatest concentration outside Metro Manila. 
Unarguably, SM Prime Holdings – with all its mainstay shops and tenants in its malls – is the single biggest job provider in the whole of Central Luzon. 

2013. CEBU PACIFIC AIR

ADRIFT IN the doldrums was the Clark Freeport for much of 2012, the impermanence at the helm of the Clark Development Corp., arguably, taking its toll on prospective investments.
Performing CDC president-CEO Antonio Remollo was replaced in April by former AFP Chief of Staff Eduardo Oban Jr. albeit in an OIC capacity, and was in turn replaced in mid-December by businessman-lawyer Arthur Tugade. Like the banana republics of yore, the constant changing in the CDC leadership gives the wrong signals to investors, to say the least. 
Providing the only redeeming value to the Clark Freeport in 2012 was – is – Cebu Pacific Air, the Philippines’ largest national flag carrier.
On December 4, CebPac opened its Philippine Academy for Aviation Training (PAAT), a P1.8-billion joint venture with CAE (NYSE: CAE; TSX: CAE), world leader in aviation training. Aptly capping 2012 with the greatest promise of a bullish 2013 for the Clark Freeport, as well as the Clark International Airport. 

2014. ATTY. ARTHUR P. TUGADE, President-CEO, Clark Development Corp.

COMPETENT. DARING. Caring. Beyond sheer sloganeering, Atty. Arthur P. Tugade redefined the Clark Development Corp. by living up to that corollary meaning, therefrom the Clark Freeport Zone highly profiting. 

“We want to make Clark a logistics hub but this cannot be done without a business environment and a habitable society,” Tugade told Punto in April 2013, some four months into his term as CDC president- CEO, in his first ever interview with media.

“So, basically what’s the direction? Set the predicate for business here and once it is there you can pursue the logistics hub and effect a habitable community. The trust gained, the total persona of the businessman – pleasure, education, leisure and enjoyment – attained.” The road map set there…

2015. DENNIS ANTHONY UY, Co-founder and President, Converge ICT

NOT SO much with the Joneses but with Gates and Jobs that he has kept up – the extraordinary individuals, as well as the generic meaning to their names. As in information gatekeeper. As in job generator.

This is Dennis Anthony Uy, the self-made man ever at the forefront of the march to modernity, starting as trader in Betamax and VHS tapes back in the early ‘80s, now in the cutting edge of the information and communication technology that will soon connect the Philippines to the world…

2016. DAESIK HAN, President-CEO, Widus International Leisure Inc.

TURNING A $4 million investment into a $90 million hotel-casino-convention complex in a period of 10 years is no mean feat.

Raising the ante to $190 million by next year is nothing short of spectacular.

Widus International Leisure Inc. is – unarguably – the Clark Freeport Zone’s longest running success story starting out a dream of Daesik Han, its president-CEO…

2017. IRINEO “BONG” ALVARO, Phd

NO PERSONAGE in contemporary politics and business hereabouts has invested as much personal stake in Clark as Dr. Irineo “Bong” Alvaro.

In Clark’s American past, Alvaro was a young working student soon catapulted to the top leadership of the Filipino Civilian Employees Association that championed the cause of labor rights and won for the local hires working conditions, salaries and benefits that their off-base counterparts, aye, Philippine labor itself, could only dream of.

In Clark’s freeport present, Alvaro is a blue-chip investor, upping the ante in the hotel and gaming industry, priming Clark as premier destination area of what he called the three Rs – rest, recreation, and recuperation…

2018. ALEXANDER S. CAUGUIRAN, President-CEO, Clark International Airport Corp.

AS 2017 turned out, the unfolding story of the Clark International Airport may well be timelined B.C. and C.E. Not of the Christ-centric old and the all-too secular new dating systems though. But one oriented in Alexander Sangalang Cauguiran, president-CEO of the Clark International Airport Corp.

Simply put, Before Cauguiran – for well over a decade – the Clark airport was at best a long-held promise epically failing short at every try of delivery….

Flights were a matter of coming and going, and going, going, unreturning. Destinations, both domestic and international opened, and just as quickly closed.

By the end of 2017 – the first full 16 months of the Cauguiran Era – Clark had recorded 103 percent increase in aircraft movement at 12,620 and 59 percent rise in passenger traffic at 1,514,531 passengers, surpassing the previous highest figure of 1,315,757 recorded in 2012…

2019. VINCE DIZON, President-CEO, Bases Conversion and Development Authority.

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 Vivencio “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.

FOR 2020, there was no MOTY with the suspension of Punto’s print edition caused by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

2021. Dennis “Delta” Pineda, Governor of Pampanga

“’PAYBACK TIME’…I don’t know this guy. I don't know what his politics are. But this is the kind of thing that people – Batangueños, Caviteños, helpless-feeling Filipinos everywhere – need to hear at this time. That someone cares, that someone who can marshal resources is doing something. A message that imparts not just what he's doing but also the solidarity that's driving him.”

Thus, Pampanga Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda in a social media influencer’s articulation of the expressions of awe and gratitude posted by hundreds, aye, thousands in the web for his initiative in mobilizing a 50-vehicle convoy of relief and rescue within a day of the Taal Volcano eruptions at the start of 2020.

Pineda’s motivation for prompt action drawn deep from Pampanga’s own volcanic ordeal: “Payback time po ito. Ito po ay ating pasasalamat dahil noon pong pumutok ang Bulkang Pinatubo, marami po ang tumulong sa atin para iligtas tayo at muling makabangon.”

2022. CARMELO “POGI” LAZATIN JR., Mayor of Angeles City

OUT OF the reflected glory from his illustrious forebears, into the light on his own shines now Carmelo Gurion Lazatin Jr. – Pogi to everyone – honorable mayor of Angeles City. His brilliance breaking through the pandemic gloom, giving full measure to that toughness of character ultimately tried and tested in the toughest of times – and thrived. Indeed, 2021 defined Pogi Lazatin. His response to the coronavirus pandemic gave the essential meaning to leadership in a time of crisis.

AYE, AN extraordinary league of gentlemen, lady, and corporate entities make Punto’s MOTY. To our reading public’s acceptance, if not acclaim.