Think about it
Mayor Amadito Perez, ageless
By Jun Velasco
WHILE legal luminaries and practically the whole nation are in a hubbub over the Court of Appeals and the GSIS rift, we seem to have sidelined a bigger bomb that is about to blow up the archipelago to smithereens – the Mindanao crisis.
The peace dialogue has been called on and off, but is inexorably leading us to armed confrontation and worse, a divided nation.
The President should not be swayed by cries of blood amidst atrocities that have cost hundreds of lives because, as former President Fidel V. Ramos and Sen. Dick Gordon insist, it is only through understanding that the crisis can be resolved. We should not forget that the Moros are the victims here since their ancestral homeland was illegally annexed to the Republic hundreds of years back without their consent.
The witty FVR, so inspired by the recent Olympic show of unity battle cry of “One Dream, One World” warns that unless our elected leaders and the negotiators on both sides of the GRP-MILF (Government of the Republic and Moro Islamic Liberation Front) can resolve the conflict the outcome may well be “One Dream, Two Philippines.”
It’s time to regroup the 90 million strong Philippine Team, the inimitable FVR said.
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Over in Urdaneta City, one can’t help but admire “forever young” Mayor Amadito Perez animatedly discourses on the life and times of the Spanish friar who founded one of the oldest Pangasinan towns that has evolved into the prosperous city that it is today.
It must be on account of his youthful leadership that three outstanding women leaders of the nation led by no less than President Gloria, Undersecretary Vilma Labrador and National Commission on Arts and Culture czarina Cecille Guidote Alvarez have pooled their efforts to pay homage to Fr. Andres de Urdaneta who, the mayor said, was a hero in Spain in his own right as a brilliant explorer of Asia Pacific during the days of Ferdinand Magellan, officially acknowledged as the discoverer of these body of islands known as the Philippines.
A series of meetings involving the three women and Mayor Amadito has coughed up a consortium of sorts that has tapped a group of national artists led by the Napoloen Abueva who proposed to design and concretize a park fronting the city’s version of Camelot in the new city hall on Anonas Road.
The dashing mayor has impressed us with his verve, elan, and youthfulness and, to borrow the words of former Dagupan dad, Jimmy Arzadon, “perennial state of ganacity.”
Those of us who have lived in Pangasinan long enough, continue to be impressed with Urdaneta where Mayor Perez’s air of newness, aliveness and contemporariness can be gleaned from the widening of the main road on the city’s central parts, an indelible proof of a leadership that never tires of innovations, a thirst for relevance, and dotell us, can anybody in the local scene match that kind of political bravado?
Congressman Mark Cojuangco was a big help in crafting Urdaneta’s new face, but he is not an Urdaneta native; the entire weight of responsibility rests on the small but firm shoulders of the diminutive mayor.
It wasn’t picnic to do just that.
Amadito’s battle cry to catapult Urdaneta City to the 2lst Century has bruised a lot of egos and hearts among the city’s economic elite. That’s the price of progress.
Urdaneta can now with justified pride lay claim to the monicker, “the city that strong political will built.”
What surprises, however, is the mayor’s feverish effort to link up with the past, as he is now blending and harmonizing the city’s modern face and its long past when it was founded by Father Andres Urdaneta.
The proposed park with Father Urdaneta’s monument will recapture the Spanish friar’s adventurous spirit which Mayor Amadito hopes to recharge his constituents’ batteries to move forward farther.
It’s a romantic view, an artist’s, a poet’s, and a lover’s striving to extend his full reach in life, undoubtedly Mayor Amadito’s secret formula for perennial youth.
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NOTES: Was that former Councilor Boy Rayos who did a Demosthenic appeal at the Sanggunian for Councilor Chito Samson to enforce strictly the wearing of protective helmet by motorcyclists? The incumbent prexy of the Rotary Club of Dagupan East is tireless in rallying the public against community issues making us wonder if he is Mayor Al Fernandez’s consultant. The great CTD of UPANG also wants to find out.
(Readers may reach columnist at junmv@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/think-about-it/ For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)
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