Punchline
The Urdaneta template
By Ermin F. Garcia Jr.
With Urdaneta’s City Mayor Amadeo Perez Jr. at the helm, Urdanetans will undoubtedly be one of the more fortunate Pinoys who will never have to go hungry in the face of a food crisis.
The city’s Tulungan sa Purok, a food production program through self-reliance, is a timely no-frills and simple yet practical community project that doesn’t require a congressman’s pork barrel to get it done and can result in millions-worth of goodwill. It’s a kind of project whose full benefits when successful will surely be felt by the community. Above all, the community will have the rare privilege of claiming and sharing the credit for and among themselves, taking pride in what they have accomplished together.
Obviously inspired by the success of the Green Revolution of the Marcos era, Mayor Perez was right to follow his commonsense by re-launching it simply with another label minus the usual grandstanding as one usually expects from politicians.
A community that has proven to be truly self-reliant evokes pride in everyone àso watch out for the truly proud Urdanetans in the year ahead.
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A NEW HALL OF FAMER. Mayor Perez, again perhaps learning from the lessons of the early successes of the martial law, feels the operational word for this community project is “force”, as in to “force” his constituents to be productive.
In a sense, he is right. Motivation hardly works in a place where people have been so used to mediocrity and easy money, easy go. The only way he can make people reap the benefits of self-reliance is to force them initially to do what they never imagined doing, in this case planting vegetables and fruit trees in their backyards.
Hopefully, “force” will be replaced by another buzz word —”initiative” — over time by the communities themselves. And Mayor Perez will be the first to realize that the transformation has began once the communities begin to demand that they be allowed to plant in unoccupied, idle government and private lands.
And why not?
For this feat and his other equally ambitious yet achievable projects, I name Mayor Perez to our Hall of Distinguished Creative Leaders. (He is joined by Alaminos City Mayor Hernani Braganza).
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A TEMPLATE FOR THE PROVINCE. The Urdaneta project is a good template and deserves to be copied in all towns.
All it takes are town executives armed with the political will and the vision to see their constituents survive an impending food crisis, and motivated communities who want nothing but respect for themselves as they seek to ensure that their families will always have enough food on the table brought about with the toil of their hands.
Foremost of all, it needs a provincial executive to see to it that it’s done.
Imagine Pangasinan to be self-sufficient in rice, vegetables and fruits without need to infuse millions which otherwise could be used for better classrooms well-equipped with quality books. Pangasinan will be the envy of the rest.
It’s a dream that Guv Spines can verily turn into a reality well within his first term. But would he find such a proposition challenging, if not interesting enough?
Given what’s before us, bridges and roads can wait, but not food.
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THE RIGHT REASONS FOR STAGING A FESTIVAL. Ours is a society that certainly knows how to live it up even under the most difficult times. Who would think that our country is reeling under troubled economic times what with the endless staging of festivals practically for any reason, across the country?
Going by what we have seen thus far, it would appear that most mayors are of the belief that the best way to promote their local produce is to hold festivals. From bangus to bucayo, pandan, talong, puto, etc, name it, we have a festival name coined for them in the province and elsewhere.
Indeed, the festivals as we enjoy them today make for good respite from the humdrum of life in a community. It creates excitement where there is none. It gives an occasion to celebrate where there was none.
Alas, it also promises a better life after when there is none and that’s when I truly worry for whom the festivals are staged.
But don’t get me wrong on this. Festivals are a good thing for the Pinoy psyche but the possibilities of overnight success after some lavish spending cannot happen, not by a long shot. What the festivals can achieve for the community if at all (after easily spending unbelievable sums for revelry but little for priority livelihood projects), is name recall and the realization perhaps by more Pinoys that their town exists. (Believe it or not, many children of today’s generation are even hardly aware where to find Pangasinan on the Philippine map for the same reason that many young Pangasineneses themselves have no idea where Misamis Oriental is).
In the case of the Dagupan Bangus Festival, Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez being the astute and down-to-earth businesswoman that she is, pointed out squarely what her goal was as festival chair for staging a festival worth talking about until the next one – it is to stimulate business in the city. (Making the bangus more popular has always been the lofty aim but we know that making it more popular each time doesn’t make Dagupeños’ lives better than ever). And she hit the nail right on the head because the businessmen and small entrepreneurs acknowledged they were happy with the results even as others expected nothing but the excitement that could be found in the 19-day revelry.
VM Belen made no false promises except well-planned events for residents and visitors to enjoy and new opportunities for businessmen to earn revenues from in the midst of a weakening economy.
That’s how festivals should be organized. Simple, straightforward, no-nonsense objectives and the rest will take care of themselves.
Take a bow, Vice Mayor Belen.
(Readers may reach columnist at punch.sunday@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/
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