Editorial
Wasted opportunity
UGLY.
This is how the occasion of President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III’s first official visit to Pangasinan turned out. All because local partisan politics got in the way of mature judgment.
Protocol was not observed and left a bad taste, embarrassing both the provincial government and the President. To put it bluntly, it was bastos not to have invited the governor, the province’s highest official, to the visit of the country’s highest official. Local members of the Liberal Party, who clearly arranged for P-Noy’s visit, admit they intentionally did so because, at the very least they feel they owe nothing to Governor Amado Espino Jr., and at worst because, well, they are simply not friends with him. The Presidential Management Staff should also be ashamed of themselves for opting to overlook basic protocol.
It is all the more made ironic because Bani Mayor Marcelo Navarro Jr. and Espino are both graduates of the Philippine Military Academy, in fact from the same batch and were once roommates, both former high-ranking police officials, and would have been expected to be the first to observe official protocol having been steeped in the concept of “chain of command”.
It was a wasted opportunity for Pangasinan, where majority of the voters actually elected and put their hope and trust in P-Noy. The President’s visit could have been a perfect opportunity for our local government officials, elected by the Pangasinenses to represent them, to lobby for the many development projects, not just those being backed by his LP partymates, that are lined up around the province. It should have been a chance for Pangasinan to bring to P-Noy’s close attention such major concerns as flood control infrastructure and issues in the agricultural sector. It could have been a time to impress upon P-Noy that Pangasinan IS an important province. Now all P-Noy will perhaps mostly remember would be the bickering among our local government officials.
It is one thing to maintain party loyalty, that could very well be a sign of principled politics, but it is another thing to allow local partisan grudges and personal resentments to get in the way of basic respect and protocols, which at the end of the day redounds to the detriment of the province’s welfare.
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