SOON after Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took his oath as president of the Philippines in 2022, he announced the appointments of cabinet members, except a secretary for the Department of Agriculture. He said he would be the DA’s concurrent secretary. The agriculture sector wondered if, indeed, he had the experience or…

NOW that the Dagupan City government led by Mayor Belen Fernandez, has established once and for all that General Douglas MacArthur first landed at the Blue Beach (Dagupan) when he launched the liberation of Luzon island by allied forces led by the Americans. From this, the city government is also…

AFTER all the months and weeks of listening to national and local officials and the Commission on Elections how prepared they were fpr the 2025 midterm elections, well, the test of the pudding is now in the eating, which began last week. However, the preparations they cited were mainly about…

THE two key cities in Pangasinan, Dagupan and Urdaneta, today share what could be said to be ‘lost causes’. In Dagupan City, the opposition in the Sangguniang Panlungsod finally restored its status as the ‘majority’ after it lost the status to the five-member minority when three of its members were…

AS we usher in the year of the Chinese Wooden Snake, many have expressed hopes that the protracted political animosities seen at the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod will finally come to an end. While the five minority members (Councilors Michael Fernandez, Jigs Seen, Dennis Canto, Kap. Marcelino “Lino” Fernandez and SK…

SO much has been said and written in mainstream and social media about the obvious attempt to cover up the anomalous and irregular process in the filing of the Bicameral Conference Report. To this day, the honorable politicians in the House of Representatives have so far refused to show proof…

LINGAYEN-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas’ call on the Catholic community to do a critical evaluation of the approved 2025 national budget as recently signed by President Marcos Jr. is a bit too late in the day. Quoting him: “As your Archbishop, I admonish you to study diligently, judge critically and act…

THE signing of the country’s 2025 annual budget by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., with all his vetoed items was a big letdown to the Filipinos who turned out in an unprecedented number in 2022 to elect him with a majority vote that not even his late father, former President Ferdinand…

LAST week, The PUNCH reported the decision of the Bolinao local government to ban the manufacturing and trading of firecrackers of any make and size, making it the only the second local government to do so despite endless reports of residents being injured fatally. There is no denying that communities…