By Gonzalo Duque   WE just learned that the House of Representatives, through the Committee on Appropriation, recommended P733 million budget for next year of the Office of the Vice President, cutting the proposed original budget of P2.3 billion. The committee re-allocated the bigger chunk of P1.567 billion as additional…

By Gonzalo Duque   WE have observed that a lot of would-be candidates for the different elective positions in the 2025 mid-term elections are already feverishly campaigning even before the go-ahead shot could be fired. In this case, these different candidates have found that unless one has filed his or…

By Gonzalo Duque   I will not write about any local issue except about BASURA. Hanggang ngayon, BASURA pa rin ang amoy ng ilang parte ng Dagupan. Wala akong maisulat  dahil hanggang ngayon, basura pa rin ang pinag-uusapan.  Paging the 7 EpaLifes… and Mayor Belen Fernandez. *          *          *          *…

By Gonzalo Duque   THE Sangguniang Panlungsod of Dagupan approved all the items in Supplemental Budget No. 3-2024 covering the incremental increase of salaries of regular employees, their Representation and Travel Allowance (RATA), and other costs with a total amount of P38.1 million. As usual, the majority bloc owned and…

By Gonzalo Duque   TWO precedent-setting cases that checked abuses of local Sanggunians must teach the Belen Fernandez administration how to deal with the recalcitrant seven members of the majority of the Dagupan city council. These cases — one in Quezon province and the other in Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya — involved…

By Gonzalo Duque   LAND Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) Chairman Teofilo Guadiz III, I learned, has not been enticed by the Lim camp’s proposition that he run for mayor of Dagupan City next year against Mayor Belen Fernandez. I can easily understand that. If Guadiz files for candidacy,…

By Gonzalo T. Duque    THE ever-nagging problem of garbage collection in the city of Dagupan remains unresolved. Mayor Belen Fernandez submitted lot of proposals for the collection of our garbage during her previous administration and now during her current term after the failed 15 million dollar Waste-to-Energy project by…

By Gonzalo Duque   TO me, the State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last July 22 was like a reading class. All he did was to read what was before him on the teleprompter. In his SONA, he bragged that 550 flood control projects…

By Gonzalo Duque   CONGRATULATIONS to The Sunday Punch for adding another milestone in its history as a fighting community newspaper—its 68th anniversary. The Sunday Punch is now the longest surviving community newspaper in the country today. The Baguio Midland Courier, the oldest community newspaper in Baguio and the Cordilleras…

By Gonzalo Duque    IN the United States today, activists are tearing down statues of different historical heroes from as far back as the American Revolution against British autocratic rule, the Civil War and down to World War II. They consider these memorials as irrelevant today and began tearing them…