By Jun Velasco

BY THE time this column is out, all this Morales-Pacquiao hoopla would have reached feverish levels and then “there’d be none.”
 One wonders why the event   was being played  as if   Filipinos were  fighting   Mexico. Far from it, we have the most excellent relations, according to our friends Philippine Ambassador Tito Orros to Mexico  and his counterpart, former Ambassador Enrique Hubbard.
  How  the showdown  has  whipped  up public sentiment for and against  is  a handiwork of  mass media, and of course, you know who the crazed  megabuck beneficiaries are —  the rich and the mighty, who else?
It’s  a simple brawn and muscle – and skill —  match, albeit  in  the world championship level, but  has succeeded in attracting and  gluing world attention to it.
We’ve not seen our friend, Ambassador  Hubbard, with whom we swapped banters on our respective countries’ boxers, to perk up interest on their  second  match, and surprise, Eking  rooted for Manny Pacquiao, but somebody who looked like cycling star Jess Garcia (a Mexican-Jew- Filipino) shrugged it off as  “pini-PR nyan lang tayo.”
 Through PLDT’s long-distance facility, we got the ambassador and Jess talk in Mexican while we were at  Casino Español.
At this writing,  the dailies’ news stories were warning Pacquiao rooters that the Mexican could  knock out  the Indio early in the rounds, but we hope not.  Well, that’s the way media business hounds intoxicate the public and before we knew it, our pockets were emptied and we’d say, “What happened”?
That’s the prize of being vulnerable, especially the  hoi poloi, as   Frank Sinatra, the eternal favorite singer   of  singing Mayor Jonas Castaneda,   swoons  “That’s life.”
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Wednesday night, we had a taste of Havana with scintillating lights beside a swimming pool when Com. Al  Fernandez treated us to a  round of  beer, cognac and  yummy pulutan at his Inn Asia.
 This  pogi  Immigration chief  who’s responsible for  l4,000 Filipinos’   re-acquiring their original citizenship has sired two gentlemen-sons, Vice Mayor Alvin and  future Congressman Alfie, who are their pa’s look-alike, minus Alvin’s thickening  bulge.  The duo have a good-looking cousin, Number One Councilor  Michael Fernandez, incoming president of another Rotary club, who was chatting a table away with Number Two Councilor Farrah Decano.
Alvin and  the Rotary Club of Dagupan of which he is  the president  were hosting a l00-man Chicago medical contingent  which just arrived to  do a medical safari hereabouts in collaboration with the the Regional Medical Center, the  city and provincial governments and other groups.  In our table were Vice Gov. Oca Lambino and Mayor Jolly Resuello, former  RCD president Edwin Aguiire, BI Pangasinan chief Bert Garcia  and  fellow newsman Ruben Rivera, and in such a setting, you should  expect a  merry-go-round of political gossip.
Al, whose rise to political stardom we helped hatch and plan   in l97l when he ran for Dagupan  councilor (and topped  the elections), stirred   the conversation  to spirited  and multi-faceted  exchanges. Hottest subject were   charter change and the intriga-triggered souring of relations between  Speaker Joe de Venecia  and  Mayor Benjie Lim.                  
Everyone  didn’t believe the two would  clash in an open and ugly  war, because they, JDV and  BSL,  belong to the same  social  group,  political clique and circle of friends.
It happened before when the Speaker and Lyceum Northwestern U president Gonzalo Duque raced for the 4th district congressional seat. Now Joe de V and  Gons are the best of friends, with Gons  even serving  as education consultant  at the Speaker’s office. It’s a small world, where differences can be settled  over dialogue, inspired  by the dictum, “we can disagree without being disagreeable.”
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It’s been sometime we hadn’t seen and talked with former Vice Mayor Teddy Manaois, but we did last week at the residence of  Bonuan Gueset’s Number One  Kagawad Angel Gumarang.
Teddy, a brother in Christ, was a picture of excellent health, serenity and wit. He said he keeps himself busy these days in the farm, in the family’s fish farm in Sto. Tomas, La Union. A keen observer of local and national politics, Teddy has remained inscrutable with what he’d do next in  the call for  public service, finding  the  public scene  fluid if not unpredictable. But one couldn’t mistake the depth  of  his  mind, even as we talked about   seemingly light and  picayune  subjects. 
You see, when one goes through life’s  ebbs and flows and  low points, it’s  one  golden opportunity  for reflection, and it seems  Teddy, being  bright and  perceptive,    must have  wrestled with  himself  hard and long,   and  seen  the world in  a new  dimension.  We found him ready for a big fight, no, not   in partisan politics “which demeans the self,” but in one where he’d tower over a worldly life. We were elated when he confessed to have embraced a family-centered and spiritual life. Cumadre Tessie must be a very happy wife.  
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University of Pangasinan employees and students are anxious over a cluster of   old and dilapidated houses and fire-hazard buildings facing the old Mendoza Press beside the campus. It would be any day the situation would become volatile and bring damage to life and limb among the university employees, students and residents in the area.
March is Fire Prevention month and we hate to see Dagupan become a victim of a big fire. Paging the local police headed by Colonel Ed Basbas and his fire fighters! 
 

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