Columns

 Punchline
 By Ermin F. Garcia, Jr. 

 

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HERE & THERE
By Gerry Garcia

Putting '100 Islands' back on tourist map

Alaminos Mayor Hernani Braganza and company must be going great guns to develop the Hundred Islands Park to the outmost  if   it's true, as he says, he noted an increase in tourist influx to the islands as evidenced by P600,000 earned from entry tickets  all a result of building new infrastructure projects and improving basic services after hardly a year following the park's turn-over to the Alaminos government. This is amazing, Nani! 

  Compared to its situation when the HI park was still in the hands of the Philippine Tourism Authority a year ago, your park today must be a super-luminous  pearl chalking up an approval rate of 15.13 percent among online voters and coming out third, out of 20 nominees, in the online survey conducted by the Asia Pacific Management Forum for Best place in Asia! All in a year's work.

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We've not been to the Hundred Islands yet since our last visit about two years ago. What we then  saw there was at least as impressive as what we presently see at Dagupan City's Tondaligan Park. But it seemed our Tondaligan Park attracted more visitors including a spattering of foreigners, than the Lucap Park, especially during weekends.

In Eva Visperas' story in last Sunday's Punch issue, however, about 10 percent of tourist influx to Alaminos Hundred Islands today is foreigners.

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Among the  crowd-drawing  improvements made on the Alaminos HI Park are: provision of more clean, non-smelling comfort rooms or kasilyas); putting up wooden foot bridges at Quezon Island connecting it with adjacent islands; putting up more picnic huts and tables; also available are overnight cottages, including opportunities for adventure seekers, like jet-skiing, para-sailing, kayak-rowing and snorkeling.

Mayor Braganza, super entrepreneur, has launched  an all-out drive to make HI magnificent and more magnetic than  Boracay. He even received offers from Japanese and British developers to set up a solar power in Quezon Island even reaching out to his fellow-Alaminians abroad asking them to give cash or kind in promotion of the 100 Islands.

The three major islands in the Park that have so far been developed are the Quezon , Governor's, and Children's. And they are drawing more visitors and tourists than flies.

Gone are days when owners of motorized launches destined  for the different islands used to twirl their thumbs waiting and waiting for passengers. 

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                       THINK ABOUT IT
By Jun Velasco

 Teddy Manaois is ready for a big fight

BY THE time this column is out, all this Morales-Pacquiao hoopla would have reached feverish levels and then "there’d be none."

 One wonders why the event   was  being played  as if   Filipinos were  fighting   Mexico. Far from it, we have the most excellent relations, according to  our friends  Philippine Ambassador Tito Orros to Mexico  and his counterpart, former Ambassador Enrique Hubbard.

  How  the showdown  has  whipped  up public sentiment for and against  is  a handiwork of  mass media, and of course, you know who the crazed  megabuck beneficiaries are —  the rich and the mighty, who else?

It's  a simple brawn and muscle - and skill —  match, albeit  in  the world championship level, but  has succeeded in attracting and  gluing world attention to it.

We've not seen our friend, Ambassador  Hubbard, with whom we swapped banters on our respective countries' boxers, to perk up interest on their  second  match, and surprise, Eking  rooted for Manny Pacquiao, but somebody who looked like cycling star Jess Garcia (a Mexican-Jew- Filipino) shrugged it off as  "pini-PR nyan lang tayo."

 Through PLDT's long-distance facility, we got  the ambassador and Jess talk in Mexican while we were at  Casino Español.

At this  writing,  the dailies' news stories were warning Pacquiao rooters that the Mexican could  knock out  the Indio early in the rounds, but we hope not.  Well, that's the way media business hounds intoxicate the public and before we knew it, our pockets were emptied and  we'd say, "what happened"?

That’s the prize of being vulnerable, especially  the  hoi poloi, as   Frank Sinatra, the eternal favorite singer   of  singing Mayor Jonas Castaneda,   swoons  "That’s life."

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Wednesday  night, we had  a taste of  Havana  with  scintillating lights beside a swimming pool when Com. Al  Fernandez treated us to a  round of  beer, cognac and  yummy pulutan at his Inn Asia.

 This  pogi  Immigration chief  who’s responsible for  l4,000 Filipinos’   re-acquiring their original citizenship has sired two gentlemen-sons, Vice Mayor Alvin and  future Congressman Alfie, who are their pa’s look-alike, minus Alvin’s thickening  bulge.  The duo have a good-looking cousin, Number One Councilor  Michael Fernandez, incoming president of another Rotary club, who was chatting a table away with Number Two Councilor Farrah Decano.

Alvin and  the Rotary Club of Dagupan of which he is  the president  were hosting a l00-man Chicago medical contingent  which just arrived to  do a medical safari hereabouts in collaboration with the the Regional Medical Center, the  city and provincial governments and other groups.  In our table were Vice Gov. Oca Lambino and Mayor Jolly Resuello, former  RCD president Edwin Aguiire, BI Pangasinan chief Bert Garcia  and  fellow newsman Ruben Rivera, and in such a setting, you should  expect a  merry-go-round of political gossip.

Al,  whose rise to political stardom we helped  hatch and plan   in l97l when he ran for Dagupan  councilor (and topped  the elections), stirred   the conversation  to spirited  and multi-faceted  exchanges. Hottest subject were   charter change and  the intriga-triggered souring of relations between  Speaker Joe de Venecia  and  Mayor Benjie Lim.                  

Everyone  didn’t believe the two would  clash in an open and ugly  war, because they, JDV and  BSL,  belong to the same  social  group,  political clique and circle of friends.

It happened before when the Speaker and  Lyceum Northwestern U president Gonzalo Duque raced for the 4th district congressional seat. Now Joe de V and  Gons are the best of friends, with Gons  even serving  as education consultant  at the Speaker’s office. It’s a small world, where diffferences can be settled  over dialogue, inspired  by the dictum, "we can disagree without being disagreeable."

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It’s been sometime we hadn’t  seen and talked with former Vice Mayor Teddy Manaois, but we did last week at the residence of  Bonuan Gueset’s Number One  Kagawad Angel Gumarang.

Teddy, a brother in Christ, was a picture of  excellent health, serenity  and  wit. He said he keeps himself busy these days in  the farm, in the family’s fish farm in Sto. Tomas, La Union. A keen observer  of  local and national politics, Teddy  has remained inscrutable with what he’d do next in  the call for  public service, finding  the  public scene  fluid if not unpredictable. But one couldn’t mistake the depth  of  his  mind, even as we talked about   seemingly light and  picayune  subjects. 

You see, when one goes through life’s  ebbs and flows and  low points, it’s  one  golden opportunity  for reflection, and it seems  Teddy, being  bright and  perceptive,    must have  wrestled with  himself  hard and long,   and  seen  the world in  a new  dimension.  We found him ready for a  big fight, no,  not   in partisan politics "which  demeans the self,"  but in one where he’d tower over  a worldly life. We were elated when he confessed to have embraced a  family-centered  and spirtiual life. Cumadre Tessie  must be a very happy wife.  

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University of Pangasinan employes  and students are anxious over a cluster of   old and dilapidated houses and  fire-hazard buildings facing the old Mendoza Press  beside the campus. It would be any day the situation would become volatile and  bring damage to life and limb among the  university  employes, students and residents in the area.

March is Fire Prevention month, and we hate to see Dagupan  become a victim of  a big fire. Paging the local police  headed by Colonel Ed Basbas  and his  fire fighters!   

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                        PLAYING WITH FIRE
By Gonzalo Duque

 Please support the PRISAA games!

DON’T  want to be a killjoy, much less an "intriguer," in the colloquial sense of the word, but how do you   interpret  this conversation starring former President  Fidel V. Ramos and a group of politicians and political hangers-on in a five-star hotel lately?

Off the cuff, the grand old man of   Philippine politics said that if he has his choice, he would want Mayor Felimon  Belmonte to be prime minister in case we evolve into a parliamentary  government.  What is this, ha, Nelson Sotto? I thought all along FVR and Speaker Joe de V whose obsession to become prime minister is known to everybody except God were ideal pardners?

This is not funny, ha, Nelson? Among those who heard FVR were  Mayor Benjie Lim, PR man Mel Velasco and five others. What I saw and heard  was a serious FVR, and I almost fell on  the floor when I heard FVR.

I know how Joe de V fought for FVR when he ran for president in l992, and I also know how FVR supported JDV when he ran for president l998. Has the friendship  faded out? What’s going on?

At any rate, Sonny Belmonte, a former World   Jaycees president, former House Speaker like Joe de V,   owner of  the Philippine Star, former newsman like JDV, and former assemblyman is very much qualified.

But what I don’t just  get so easily is why FVR, chairman emeritus of Lakas, seems to be distancing himself from chairman JDV and party president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, our infant terrible Philippine President.

Don’t tell me, Mayor Benjie, that you were responsible for this change of mind of FVR. I don’t think Mel Velasco  would dare attempt to influence FVR. Mel would root for FPJ hands down, but he is now dead.

When I heard the FVR latest pakulo, I thought the Lakas was going in circles. Nahihilo ang tao. Ako hilo na e, kayo? Will FVR please clear things up? 

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There’s something suspicious on the charter change debates. Why is it that we are being asked to debate on whether we shall have elections or not such  as on  the no-el proposal?

It strikes me as odd that  we are not  asked to choose between a  Con Con or Con-Ass? Why limit the choice between Con-Ass and elections? Fact is I favor charter change but not through a Con-Ass but through a Con-Con.  Kuya Joe, please clarify!

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Because of  our rounds of  the   venues  for the  PRISAA games, we stumbled into many facilities that were in state of disrepair. Good thing our discovery of  the defects  came on time, we all have  of them repaired.

The Dagupan swimming pool, the only  one of world standard, is a good example. Mabuti’t  naagapan.

In my humble view, one of the best things that happened in our PRISAA hosting preparations is the re-propping and substantial repairs and rehabilitation of our sports facilities.

The other good thing  was the show of unity and cooperation  by our national and local officials from Pangasinan led by Speaker Jose de Venecia, Commissioner Al Fernandez, Gov. Victor Agbayani, and all our congressmen, and many mayors including Benjie Lim, Jolly Resuello, Sammy Rosario, Jonas Castaneda, and all the rest. Thank you, thank you.......

Speaker Joe will be the guest of honor and speaker on opening day, while Commissioner Al, who is incoming president of  the Philippine Amateur Track and   Field Ass’n,  will be the closing speaker.

While going through the motions as  host of the PRISAA games,  I saw an urgent need to hold a  sports summit in the region or province with the end in view of  involving more people especially the youth in sports.

It occurred me that the reason the United States has outstanding leaders  who are all sports minded  is that the Yanks are into sports even while they are still young.

Why do sportsmen make good citizens and good leaders? Because they are of sound mind and sound body. And they are trained to play fair and square. This must be  why the Americans have a successful political or democratic system.

Kasi, when they fight, they say, sport lang ha? Dito sa atin, lahat ng natatalo sa politika ay biktima ng pandaraya. Most are sore  losers. Kaya walang katapusan ang laban. In sport, the rules are followed strictly save in exceptional cases.

Up with sports.

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GENERAL ADMISSION
By Al  S. Mendoza

Picking  Pacquiao

MAYBE, as you are reading this, you already know if Manny Pacquiao beat Erik Morales or not.  You see, the two fought this Sunday morning in Las Vegas, Nevada (Jan. 22). The fight was supposed to begin at 8 a.m., Philippine time. (It is Saturday today in America.) I wrote this piece days before today's fight time. 

As is my nature, I predict fights.  And the Pacquiao fight today is no exception.

It's a risky job, this writing thing, especially so that I am known more as a sports columnist than anything. And part of the sports writing job is predicting fights.  Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.  My motto is, and has always been, that you can't win them all.

I get brickbats when my prediction goes awry.  I rarely receive praise when my prediction comes out true. 

Goes with the turf. 

As a sports columnist, people look at me as knowledgeable, a virtual know-it-all.  If people view me as almost infallible as the Pope, that is more of a compliment than anything.  Thank you very kindly.  I am grateful to people who buy me beer each time I make the correct prediction, which happens (ahem!) very often.

Truth is, I can only know so much.  Or can only say so much.  The little that I know, I am always more than willing to share it with you.

Thus, this belief: Pacquiao will beat Morales.

I predicted Pacquiao to win, not because I am a Filipino, but because I believed in his capacity to beat Morales. 

As always, against any fighter in his 130-pound division, Pacquiao can beat anyone.  Pacquiao is the hardest puncher in his class that no one can survive his power once it hits the target.

Pacquiao lost the first time he fought Morales on March 19 last year, but that is no reason I wouldn't pick Paquiao to win today. The first fight is history and the second  fight is a new ballgame altogether. I wouldn't abandon Pacquiao for one loss, given the eerie circumstances that attended the first fight.

First, Pacquiao seemed to have taken Morales lightly the first time around.  He indulged in show-boating before the fight, not to mention that he even went gambling in the casinos of  Las Vegas.

Second, Pacquiao started tentatively in that fight, allowing Morales to run and run and thus, dictating the tempo of the bout.

Third, Pacquiao got head-butted in the eyebrow in the fifth, causing him to weaken as the fight progressed since blood kept oozing from the wound.

When Pacquiao started to force his way into the fight in the latter rounds, it was too late.  Morales had piled up enough points - and confidence û so that it  was merely hit and run tactic the Mexican employed to easily score a points victory.  Pacquiao just couldn't tag him with the one BIG PUNCH.

I  predicted Pacquiao to win today - by a knockout no less - as I believe he has learned his lessons from the first fight.

Thus, the first - and last - order of business for Pacquiao today would be to connect that knockout punch as early as possible. Nobody's on his feet once he gets hit by a Pacquiao punch.

I hope Pacquiao gets the luck to land that and, thus, make this blighted nation happy - even just for a fleeting moment.

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Comments to menju@pldtdsl.net.