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…

THE decision of Bolinao Mayor Alfonso Celeste to impose a total ban on firecrackers and pyrotechnics is what Pangasinan’s mayors should consider adopting in their respective towns and cities. Every year, we hear of the local police taking measures to ensure that no fatalities or injuries will be suffered by…

THOSE born in the 50s -70s celebrated Christmas as a religious activity with a Noche Buena prepared at home, midnight mass inside community churches. Christmas narrative remained on the Nativity and the birth of Jesus. Gift-giving with the magic of Santa Claus kept children’s excitement over Christmas as one of…

THE Dagupan citizenry is finally in for the good times ahead, thanks to the proactive new majority at the Sangguniang Panlungsod. Vice Mayor Bryan Kua, Majority Leader Michael Fernandez, Councilors Dennis Canto, Jigs Seen, Marcelino Fernandez and Bradley Benavidez have been working tirelessly for the past weeks, meeting in regular…

SOME seventy-four anti-Duterte forces composed of civil society leaders, Magdalo faction, left-wing activists and members of the Makabayan bloc have filed not one, but two separate impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte accusing her of having committed more than two dozen crimes. As of this writing, a third complaint…

THE Quad committee of the House of Representatives has been holding investigations “in aid of legislation” zeroing on alleged corruption and plunder in the office of Vice President Sara Duterte. The hearings wanted to know how the P125 million was spent by the vice president. Were it not for the…

THIS was the terse message that the seven opposition councilors at the Dagupan sanggunian got from Regional Trial Court Judge Michael Paul Israel, who junked the Special Civil Action No. 2023-0008-D (for Declaratory Relief with Prayer for Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order) filed by Councilors Librada Fe Reyna, Maria Lourdes…

IN an unprecedented show of leadership, former President Rodrigo R. Duterte did the unthinkable. He showed up in two separate congressional hearings, first at the Senate and then at the House of Representatives, breaking a tradition of enviable mutual respect extended to past presidents – not to be made to…

THE 7 opposition councilors at the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod met their second comeuppance with the 60-day preventive suspension of Councilors Redford Erfe-Mejia, Alipio Serafin Fernandez and Victoria Czarinna Lim-Acosta. The preventive suspension was issued by the Office of the President based on a petition filed by Vice Mayor Bryan Kua,…