Think about it
Warning vs those who play around with the hoi poloi
By Jun Velasco
“The greatest mistake we ever make is not learning from and correcting the first one” – John Maxwell
SUMMER in Pangasinan and its coastal towns including Dagupan City is always with fun and frolic.
No less than our favorite ASNA Awardee Ana Marie V. Pamintuan, whose mother is a Mangatarem native with a unique surname Vehelmente is excited about the province’s summer scenes.
She must have watched Dagupan’s fabled Bangusan and street dancing with its kilometric-long grilled bangus.
Did you know that in one beer encounter along Bonuan beach, Mon Tulfo finished off with ten grilled Bonuan bangus? — Of course, with ice cold beer.
It’s usually hot these days but the joy of summer renders the sweat, the prickly heat and the humidity “ordeal” to naught amid the colorful frolickers’ crowd!
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Another ASNA awardee, our former boss at the Manila Bulletin Hermie Pobre, he with the classic stamp of professionalism on his persona, and disciplined lifestyle befitting his 18-year chairmanship of the Professional Regulations Commission felt in love – head over heels – with the province’s marine wealth – the sea or the Lingayen Gulf, the “waterworld” life and, yes, the people, the Pangasinenses, he couldn’t help but propose that the leaders here, friends and foes alike, reconcile their differences and beat Boracay or Palawan to the draw by cashing in on the beauty of our beaches!
To visitors, welcome to Lemuria Country!
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Did you notice that everywhere you go today, you are treated with instant coffee and under several brand names at that? They are all pleasing to the taste, never mind if the sweetener is white sugar which doctors warn predisposes you to diabetes.
Our doctors frown on this instant or 3-in-1 coffee what with their chemical mix, but they favor brewed coffee.
But there’s a new kid on the block with a John Maxwell disciple as its founder, J.P., called Café de Manila. It has no caffeine, but carries the name “Café de Manila,” a smart move to lure the intelligentsia to a nutritious coffee that is rich in Malunggay, Mangosteen, Centella Asiastica, Hi-calcium, Grape seed extract.
In our meeting, J.P. says it was a Canadian scientist who introduced the Café de Manila formulated for executives and hard brain workers.
What’s good about this coffee is that it’s an ideal drink even before bed time.
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We remember our first days of the Martial Law era on May 1-8, Press Week.
Bung Ferdinand, using his loyal assistants, Jake Clave, and later Greg Cendana, hired us and Rod Rivera to work at the National Media Production Center in Dagupan City.
We were fresh from a 30-day detention at Camp Aquino then, and you can imagine how mind-boggling the experience! But the architects of the New Society used the hoi polio approach of the progressives, the tao uplift, the mass line, the hoi polio language. We were at home with the nomenclature and phraseology of the regime, what with progressive writers Blas Ople, Adrian Cristobal, Kit Tatad and Gina De Vega on the vanguard of the so-called New Society.
In those days, we bumped into a young Dagupan communicator, Philip Landingin, moderator of Pulong Pulong sa Kaunlaran, with Behn Hortaleza, and this writer becoming regular panelists later.
We were “at home” because we were addressing the hearts and minds of the hoi polio towards a new nationhood, with a new scent called, New Society, which was even baptized as Democratic Revolution.
Were it not for the fact that it was used to perpetuate Marcos rule, the New Society would have been a great national, if nationalist movement. But it was not meant to be because it lacked, nay, it had no check and balance mechanism which eventually led to abuse and unchecked dictatorship.
It is a fact of life that one-man rule is incompatible with democratic processes, even if it pretends to be so on a temporary or interim basis. Eventually, the artificial skin will peel off and expose the cancer.
It is therefore a fair warning to those who would try to play around with “the people gobbledygook unless they mean to be sincere and honest.
The fraud will be exposed eventually.
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