A year of choices

IF the way this year is ending in Pangasinan’s political scene an indication of how 2013, an election year, will pan out, it looks like it won’t be too pretty.

But let us not welcome the New Year with pessimism. Instead, let us look back and pick up the most important lessons of 2012 so that we can make good choices and decisions in the midterm election.  Two things: corruption in governance and disaster-preparedness.

In terms of corruption, the case of Dagupan City is particularly glaring as the Lim administration takes on one project after another through questionable steps and transactions.  The biggest casualty of the mayor’s maneuvering last year is the Seafood Processing Plant, which to this day remains not fully operational. Such a waste, and not to mention an embarrassment to the Korean government, which funded the project through a full grant of P100 million. Good governance must be at the heart of discussions in the coming election. Candidates at all levels – including re-electionists, challengers, and newbies – should be queried by the voters on matters of transparency and fraud.

Last August, Pangasinenses saw how days of continuous rains, which was not at typhoon level, could flood parts of the province and destroy agricultural livelihood. We can be thankful that despite the severity, with Pangasinan put under a state of calamity, loss of lives was avoided thanks largely to disaster-preparedness systems in place following lessons learned disasters past. Weather irregularities is real and disaster-risk reduction programs must be firmly institutionalized such that it will not be dependent on the whims of politics.

If only for the midterm elections in May, we can expect 2013 to be memorable because once again, the power to make a change is in the hands of the people. We hope that voters will make sensible choices.

Many good wishes from the staff of The Sunday Punch for the coming year. Celebrate safe!

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Stay the course

TIME flies when we keep ourselves busy. You do nothing worth your while, and time becomes virtually at a standstill. But you work your butt out, and one day is too short to get the job done. One year is quite short for one good President to do good to the country, but too long for one crooked chief executive. President Aquino is halfway through his fixed one term of six years, and what have we got thus far? There is a remarkable economic growth but, alas, it has not concretely cascaded down to the Filipino masses comprising 70 percent of our 94 million people. Poverty still stalks the land. Crucial for Mr. Aquino are the last three years, which could either spell doom or boon for his Boss. It begins on Wednesday, when P-Noy starts work on the first day of 2013.

Each year isn’t perfect but that is no excuse for a leader to fail. Stay the course, Mr. President, stick to the straight path so that your Boss will feel relaxed the rest of the journey. Godspeed.

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