By Gonzalo Duque

 

WHEN I attended a birthday party of Chito Samson, one of our best friends and a cumpadre, at the Breadhouse on JDV Highway, the hot conversation of one group among his well-wishers was the problems of Dagupan, zeroing on the recurring floods and—hold your breath —Pamana, the company that entered into a joint venture agreement with the Dagupan City Water District sans any consultation with the people of Dagupan.

Pamana is now running the show and the DCWD appears to be just a second fiddle. Fortunately, the barangay captains, aided by their legal counsel, former Councilor Joey Tamayo, petitioned before the National Water Resources Board against the application of Pamana for a franchise, which is in conflict with the existing franchise of DCWD that is still in effect.

Lest the people of Dagupan forget, the JVA between Pamana and DCWD was inked when Dagupan City was under then Mayor Brian Lim, and the DCWD board was then headed by Atty. Ope Reyna. There was a suspicion that it was Lim and his key man in the DCWD board (and, of course Ope) who facilitated the agreement that is believed to be grossly disadvantageous to Dagupan City.

Of course, the other issue mentioned by Chito’s guests was the recurring floods in Dagupan. Floods will happen irrespective of who’s the mayor of Dagupan. No mayor can be blamed for the floods, although flooding was an election issue used by Brian in 2019 that worked against Belen.

But because Brian reneged on his promise to finally end or ease the flood during his three-year term despite parading his Flood Mitigation Commission, he lost his reelection bid to comebacking Belen by the proverbial mile of more than 14,000 votes.

Many asked if Brian can still crawl his way back to city hall after that monumental loss. Add it to the skeletons in the closets now coming out under his administration, like the rigged scholarship program where the money of Dagupeños was spent even for flying scholars (non-residents) and even for non-existent or ‘ghost scholars’.

And if he chooses to run for Congress and grooms his mother Celia to oppose Belen, they will still be haunted by his colossal defeat in the May 9, 2022 elections. I think Brian and his Magic were already done in the last election.

And who do you think Chito’s guests might be willing to support other than Brian? His mother Celia Lim or his sister Irene? Or even Red Erfe-Mejia or Alfie Fernandez?

Well, Chito’s guests indicated they want an alternative to Brian, and a challenger to Belen, one who is weaned from any business interest and will just want to leave a lasting legacy to Dagupan. That could be Toff de Venecia or his mother Gina de Venecia, but that would be quite impossible because both are close political allies of Belen.

Then, somebody stared at me and I guessed what he had in mind. But no, for pabor, don’t involve me. I am still for Belen. In fact, I am a member of a committee she created and was named by her to head a secretariat tasked to prepare the activities for Dagupan’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. It was the first time I ate balut with her and her lady staff.

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I tried to call Fr. Soc Villegas to ask him about the alleged misappropriation of funds of the Cabalens Club by a priest of the Mary of Help Christian Seminary in Binmaley. This allegation was made by an officer of the club whose son was kicked out of the seminary for disciplinary action or for academic reasons. 

I sent a text message to this guy who is presently overseas to ask him to clear up the alleged mess involving the priest because our names were dragged into it, insinuating that we had a hand in this unfounded accusation.

Instead of replying to my question, this guy insulted me by asking for my bank account number because he said he was going to send me $5,000 to pay for the P100,000 that he owed me. That was not my point.

Because he accused a priest, the ax fell on us all. Fr. Soc had all our pictures and names (as alumni of the seminary and members of the Cabalens) removed from the seminary wall giving the impression that we all lied with our false accusation. 

By the way, the Cabalens Club made a modest contribution to Mary of Help Christian Seminary to help repair damages of its facilities after the onslaught of Typhoons Gading and Cosme.

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