Cleaning up Dagupan

 

OF the 48 mayors-elect in the 44 towns and four cities in the province, Dagupan’s Belen Fernandez is facing the most unenviable position.

To begin with, unlike the other mayoralty victors in the May 13 elections who will officially assume their renewed or new posts on July 1 and would have some breathing time after the rigors of the campaign, Fernandez, the outgoing vice mayor, is now taking on the task as city chief executive in an acting capacity after outgoing Mayor Benjamin Lim fell into a serious health condition the night before election day. The challenge lies not so much in the mayor’s functions per se, but the housecleaning that is necessary if Fernandez intends to push Dagupan forward during her coming three-year term.

The Lim administration initiated several litigious projects that require sorting, including the Tsunami Hill in Barangay Pugaro; the Maternal, Children and Lying-in Hospital and its constituent 3-storey school building; and the sale of the MC Adore property. Then there are the illegal fishpens that have proliferated around the city’s rivers over the campaign period plus the still unresolved long-term garbage management scheme for the city and the related unsettled Awai land which was supposedly intended as a sanitary landfill facility.

And to make matters worse, the city coffer has apparently been bled dry.

Fernandez could not afford to waste any time and from the looks of how she’s been attending to her role in the past two weeks, she does understand the urgency of the things that need immediate action, the legal complexities involving the controversial projects, and the painful tightening measures needed to address city hall’s financial crisis. The gargantuan job of cleaning up City Hall is a prerequisite to Fernandez’s vow to bring back Dagupan to its glory days, and it will not be fully accomplished without making those responsible for the mess liable for their actions – or inaction – their consent, and any form of involvement. Fernandez will have to pursue that part of the task if she wants a sparkling and genuinely clean renewed Dagupan City.

 

*          *          *          *          *          *

Truth hurts

 

MAKING a mountain out of a molehill.  That’s a cliché as old as time.  But its resurrection is apt in the wake of the furor generated by a line in a book picturing Manila as “the gates of hell” by an American fictionist, Dan Brown.  A character in “Inferno”, Brown’s latest book, has also described Manila as dirty, reeking both of poverty and prostitution.  Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Francis Tolentino reacted rather inappropriately by writing to Brown and taking the American to task. Tolentino’s action only helped Brown’s book sell more.

Sometime in 2000, Hollywood’s Claire Danes described Manila as “filled with rats and roaches,” promptly earning the ire of then President Joseph Estrada, who would next ban the actress from re-entering Manila.

Is Manila the “gates of hell” and filled with rats and roaches?

Truth hurts only to those who refuse to recognize truth.

Back to Homepage

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments