Business Log
The supot from Urduja
By Eva C. Visperas
we Filipinos are known for our hospitality. We serve food to our visitors. We offer them anything we think is best to please them. Some even borrow money from other people just so they can offer their guests some hospitality.
Yes, gracious hospitality is what this item is all about.
A few hours before I started to write this, Mader Helen, Violy Ferrer and I had a late evening chat with a public official and the story she narrated made me feel depressed. I asked Mader and Violy if I should write about it. Go ahead, the governor should know, they said. So here are the details.
The event: Governor Victor Agbayani’s traditional courtesy call. Place and date: Urduja House, Lingayen last Jan. 26.
Invited to the occasion were many people from the different corners of Pangasinan, and certainly not ordinary people. They came excited to see and listen to their beloved governor and the other provincial officials as well.
Most obviously didn’t have time to eat breakfast that day, particularly those who had come from the farthest parts of the province. It was a sunny day and yet the people didn’t mind the heat except for one particular unexpected situation.
According to our source, the visitors were handed each for their merienda a supot that contained a sandwich whose filling you could hardly detect, a small tetra pack of juice that even a kid would not be content with, and a bite size Cloud 9 that could slide down in one gulp. That’s all? We chorused in disbelief. (Actually a mayor from the third district called earlier about the bite size Cloud 9 item |and I honestly thought it was just a cruel joke). So it was true. That was all the hospitality afforded the dearly beloved Pangasinenses who trooped to the hall.
What happened to the funds allocated for the merienda of the visitors? Can’t a province as big as Pangasinan no longer afford to provide a decent set of snacks for its people? Is the province bankrupt? I wonder how the officials who partook of the sumptuous meal served at the Urduja dining hall felt knowing that their constituents were merely served snacks that even a three-year old kid would not appreciate.
I know Pangasinenses love our governor and they deserve to be loved and treated and respected justly in return. Not this. (It was a good thing I decided to take my lunch at home that day).
This could be the reason why a board member decided to invite his constituents from the fifth district who attended the affair to a restaurant in Dagupan City. Perhaps, he was embarrassed by what was offered being to his constituents.
Our source, on seeing the contents of the supot, decided to leave without greeting the guests as she would customarily do. She even decided not to join her fellow officials for lunch. I don’t know if the others felt the same embarrassment.
But did the governor and his wife ever know about this? Perhaps not, in which case I feel Mr. Governor and Mrs. Agbayani, should start asking questions and make some people accountable.
I pray this won’t happen again. The people don’t deserve that kind of treatment especially from someone they dearly care for.
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/business-log/)
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