By Farah G. Decano IT has been seven years since my father had passed on. I cannot help but be reminded of his last moments on earth, how ephemeral life is, and how tough that “final” battle was. My two older sisters took care of my father during that…
By Eva c. Visperas HE was a VIP visitor during last week’s Bangus Festival highlights in Dagupan City. Meet Vice Mayor Garry Barbadillo, ESQ, of Milpitas, California, USA. He visited Dagupan on an official trip in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the sister-city relations between Milpitas and Dagupan….
What Dagupan taught a visiting Milpitas VM

By Rex Catubig THE recent Placemaking competition organized by trailblazing creative Cong Toff de Venecia, whose culminating event was held a few days ago, harks back to the street art exhibit and installations that transformed an otherwise abandoned and lifeless shells of what was the OVR or Office of…
Placing the possible
By Ermin Garcia Jr. TO commemorate the 104th birthday of my late father, our founder editor-publisher, on April 25, and to allow PUNCH readers a chance to know a tidbit of his personal life, I’m reposting here an interview of him recorded by the late Fr. Arsenio Jesena, S.J….
Meet Ermin Erfe Garcia
By Gonzalo Duque SOME years ago, at the Dagupeña Restaurant, then located along A.B. Fernandez Avenue in Dagupan City, I found myself having an animated conversation with then newly elected mayor Benjie Lim, now deceased. With bravado, he declared to me that he has the long-awaited solution to the…
A history of Dagupan’s garbage
By Leonardo Micua IF Comelec wants us to believe it is playing fair and square, it should send a show-cause order not only to Alyansa senatorial candidate Camille Villar but to all others who seemed to have made a mockery of election laws by letting out so much of…
Calling on Comelec to probe GuiConsulta
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo IN the Bible, dreams are regarded as a form of direct spiritual communication, between God and man, or between an angel, upon instructions from God, and a human being. In Matthew 1:18-25, an angel appears to Joseph in his dream, telling him not to fear…
Hey, what are you doing in my dream?
By Farah G. Decano “SON, behold thy mother.” That was Jesus Christ entrusting his mother, the Virgin Mary, to his beloved disciple John. This is also interpreted as the Lord’s instruction to the faithful to consider her as the mother of Christianity. Such is His love for His mother. …
A zombie strikes again!
By Eva C. Visperas AS the country inches closer to the next local election, in Pangasinan, especially in Dagupan City, all eyes are once again on Mayor Belen Fernandez—a figure who, despite political noise and intense scrutiny, remains unshaken, committed, and deeply connected to her people. We had the…
The tireless heart of Dagupan

By Rex Catubig I had high expectations. The Abet abet ed Olin Inbilay that we held on Easter Sunday last year was a crowd drawer. Impressed, the Mayor enthused: “Let’s make it bigger”. I started to work in earnest. After working on successive big events, my adrenaline was still running…