By Leonardo Micua

 

IT is now less than one year before the 2025 election.

It is about time, Mayor Belen Fernandez and the 180,000 Dagupenos stop hoping that eventually, the seven majority councilors will eventually change their mind and endorse the construction of the P150-million Mother and Child Hospital.

It will never happen because of their distorted belief that if the project pushes through, the family of Mayor Belen that donated a 1.2-hectare lot as site of the hospital will further enrich themselves.

This scenario was pointed out by Councilor Redford Erfe-Mejia in his privilege speech two sessions ago, chiding Mayor Fernandez for conflict of interests for pushing to build the MCH in the property of her family. This is simply not true.

Erfe-Mejia believes that when the hospital is built on the donated land, the value of the adjacent properties will hit the roof and the beneficiaries will be no other than the Fernandezes who have the titles in their names on the adjacent properties.

The councilor thinks that if the MCH is built in the area, it will serve like a magnet and draw investors to build a number of business establishments in front and around it, all of which will benefit the Fernandezes.

What a shallow, juvenile thinking. It only showed that the opposition in the city are envious of the opportunities that may go to the donors because of their generosity.

Since no one, including the opposition councilors, is volunteering to donate one vacant lot, only Kerwin, the youngest of the Fernandezes, agreed to donate a piece of his property to the DOH.

Kerwin only wants the P150 million made available by DOH through the General Appropriations Act of 2022 to be used only for the purpose for which it was really intended and not be returned to the national treasury for non-use.

Councilor Dennis Canto, although an ally of Mayor Belen, showed more mature thinking than Erfe-Mejia when he said that without the MCH yet, that area of the JdV Expressway Extension in Pantal is already crowding with investors.

It is only normal to expect more establishments to rise in the area where the MCH will be located but this is no fault of the donor, Canto said.

The donor with a big heart should not be faulted for donating his lot to enable DOH to build the MCH.

The opposition in SP can’t have their way since they are not the one at the helm in the city. If they keep blocking the MCH, methinks they will suffer rough sailing in the  2025 elections. That would be their own Waterloo.

I challenge any of them to donate their own land as site of the MCH, this way they will enjoy their imagined benefits of increased value of their properties in the area.

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Two weeks after the fishkill or the isolated fish mortalities in Anda, the terminology used by BFAR, authorities in Dagupan are still on alert 24/7 over the possible entry of more rotten bangus into the city.

Officials of the City Agriculture Office and Market Division were called by Mayor Fernandez never to relax their guard so that any new attempts to bring fish that died from fishkill or whatever, can be thwarted.

 Last June 6, some 800 kilos of rotten bangus, which were declared unfit for consumption, were surreptitiously brought to Dagupan to be sold at the Magsaysay Fish Market.

 Mayor Fernandez cited the risks and consequences if rotting bangus manage to enter the city’s Magsaysay Market, particularly, losing the reputation of the Dagupan bangus brand to its various clientele in Manila if the traders mix bangus with the rotten ones.

 She said not only will Dagupan be answerable to consumers but also answerable to the law.

 Meanwhile, fish mortalities in Anda and other coastal areas in Pangasinan may recur again because of the changing climate from hot to cool and cool to hot, putting the fish in captivity at risk and pressure, causing some of them to die and float in the water. 

 Somebody suggested that because of massive fish deaths in Anda, it may be prudent for fish farmers to impose upon themselves a moratorium in raising fish at the Kakiputan Channel. 

 This will at least allow the water and the ecosystem of Kakiputan to recover and the plants in the water to regenerate and breath life. Seeding of fingerlings is again possible after that. 

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