Punchline
Your Sunday PUNCH at 64!
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
GUYS, your Sunday PUNCH, the only surviving senior citizen in the field of community journalism in Region 1, is again a year older at 64! And still Pangasinan’s News Leader!
To those not familiar with the long history of The PUNCH, here’s a short trivia:
: It was founded in July 5, 1966 by the late Ermin Erfe Garcia with editorial office at then Tiongson Bldg. (now Duque-Tiongson Bldg) in Dagupan City. Most everyone thought The PUNCH would stop publishing with the murder of my father in May 20, 1966 by a Lingayen councilor. He was succeeded by my uncle Gerardo, as editor who was only writing a column then. I assumed the editorship after my uncle resigned in the 90s.
: A street in Cubao District, QC was named “Ermin Erfe Garcia” in 1966 to honor his martyrdom, the first journalist to be killed in the country.
:I joined The PUNCH in 1968 after I earned my college degree in Ateneo, initially as managing editor. It was the only newspaper in Pangasinan to continue publishing when martial law was declared in 1972.
: The PUNCH was the first community newspaper in the Philippines to have its online version in 1989 and the first Pangasinan newspaper to be affiliated with the Philippine Press Institute. It was the source of information and contact for overseas Pangasinenses and their relatives long before Facebook came into being.
: Its print and page format and news reporting have evolved with each technology that dawned on the country, i.e., from black and white to color printing, use of internet, etc.
: More than 50 local journalists and photo-journalists have since covered news beats for The PUNCH.
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BLITZ CAMPAIGN VS PASAWAY. Last week, the Quezon City government launched a two-day blitz to call attention to the importance of wearing masks outside homes and observe physical and social distancing when in public. The police patrols and Public Order and Safety enforcers rounded up more than a thousand on the first day, and another on the second day. (Among those initially arrested and eventually released was GMA reporter Howie Severino.) All were charged and forced to sit and listen to lectures on the COVID-19.
The QC government said it decided to go on the offensive after numbers of positive cases continued to spike, especially after the IATF has determined that the main cause of the contagion was community transmission.
While the spread of the virus in the province appears to be contained, the Pangasinan provincial government should take the warning of a community transmission seriously especially now that the World Health Organization has confirmed that COVID-19 airborne transmission is already possible.
Given the easing of quarantine protocol in the province, many are already seen leaving their masks loosely covering their chins. Clearly, residents are beginning to take the enforcement of the protocol lightly.
It’d be both useful and instructive for all the local governments in Pangasinan to consider launching a week’s intensive campaign organizing foot and mobile patrols to call attention for the need to wear their masks properly and to be conscious about need to keep their social and physical distancing.
The violators should be rounded up, and be forced to listen to lectures on the virus and how difficult the treatment is.
Like they say, prevention is better than cure.
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PORK-LESS MENU. While the country continues to reel under the COVID-19 pandemonium, we have to contend with a pork-less menu on our table all because of the already prohibitive price of pork – ranging from P250-275 per kilo!
The pork being sold are African Swine Flu-free but it was the ASF that constricted the supply normally raised by hog raisers.
While there was an earlier report that claimed the ASF has already mutated to be contagious to humans, that has not been confirmed to date.
So while the reported slack in the supply is bad news, it actually is a positive sign. It means all the suspected ASF cases in Pangasinan and elsewhere have been culled and buried. So whatever is sold in the market is certified to be ASF- free although even ASF infected hogs have always been safe for consumption.
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THANK YOU, LORD! Thank God for the new law, Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020!
Finally, our law enforcers can be more effective in combatting terrorists in our midst. Under the Human Security Act of 2007, supposedly adopted to help government forces in its campaign vs. terrorists, did not help at all because there were many limitations that tied our law enforcers’ hands before they could effect any arrest.
To our relief, President Duterte demonstrated his political will again to push back the bleeding hearts and human rights advocates who only showed concern for the protection of rights of arrested terrorism suspects, not of the lives of innocent citizens, whom terrorists use as disposable pawns in their war vs. the government.
The opposition to the ATA2020 were all about imagined fears of abuses by our lawmen as if all our policemen and soldiers are all trigger-happy bandits. Worse, they ignore the fact that the new law explicitly provides for deterrents to their imagined abuses.
I can’t believe that the oppositors do not need the protection from terrorists because they do, so the only plausible explanation is they are simply looking for issues with which to stone and discredit the Duterte administration. You can be sure, they are not willing to volunteer to cross the paths of terrorists with their concepts of a “correct” law, without the powers and authority found in the new law.
In my book, they are simply political hypocrites cum destabilizers.
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