A healthy city

By Al S. Mendoza

WHY THIS PENCHANT for us to try to break world records boggles the mind.

I have nothing against world records.

But can’t we be creative, for once?

I love world records, Olympic records. They boost the soul, advance national identity, cultivate cultural pride.

However, let’s look for records that attempt to push the city folk’s livelihood, well-being, station in life. Like, create excess jobs in the city and that’d surely be a record worth Mang Pandoy’s while.

Who cares about the longest grill being recorded in Dagupan? What’s that got to do with the city’s development programs, say, youth uplift through education, traffic management, senior citizens protection, sports projects, nature conservation as in dredging rivers to make for a better habitat for our marine life?

We can’t even lick the coliform bacillus plaguing our rivers. Or we simply refuse to, for Chris sakes?

C’mon, fellas, let’s quit the crap.

The “Kalutan ed Dagupan” is nothing but an ego trip. Whoever concocted it teems with ideas fit for morons.  Why the city leaders adopted it, only Rasputin could supply the answer, if not Racuyal.

Unproductive, a waste of both time and money, the “kalutan” is as trivial an endeavor as forwarding corny jokes on your cell phones. It achieves nothing but put Dagupan in a hollow pedestal.

Look, even neighboring towns like Alcala has followed suit.

Originality has also become a lost art in Pangasinan.

What should be conceived and vigorously achieved so that our people can live with pride, dignity and honor is the city’s life itself.

Can’t we still dig it in this day of i-pods and laptops, that a healthy city can trigger a multiplier effect?

Do we have enough potable water, to begin with?

Is our garbage properly and efficiently collected and dumped in sanitary areas?

Are our rivers, ponds, saltwater-based pescarias safe for our bangus and tilapias, oysters and malagas, if not pingaws?

A drug-free city is also a healthy city.

Are our police, the NBI operatives and other law enforcement agencies doing their job without fear or favor?

A God-fearing city is also a healthy city.

Are our officials spiritually equipped so that they can be looked up to by those they govern as clean not only in body but soul?

A leader-oriented city is also a healthy city.

Are our elders, leaders and icons real role models to our youth?

A hunger-free city is also a healthy city.

Are our people properly fed, getting the nutrients necessary to keep them strong physically and alert mentally so that the engine of the city would remain humming till kingdom come?

If there are jobs, then there will be no hunger, no poverty to stalk the land.

OK, OK, the “kalutan” will provide food for the hungry.

Are you kidding?

We don’t need palliatives here. The band-aid solution, like grocery bags come election time, has long been exposed as the tool of the crooked politician. In just a day, the fish would be gone, the fiesta over. What we need is a long-term thrust designed to improve the life of our city, our people.

Enough with unproductive projects. Down with paek-eks and gimmickry, as in the “kalutan” and other borloloys that merely feed on the egos of a few.

Long live a city that is healthy from its sea down to its smallest stream, from its mayor down.

As the saying goes, health is wealth.

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