Playing with Fire
Nakakasuka na!
By Gonzalo Duque
ALL is well that ends well. You guessed it. Our series of column articles on the fraternity issue in Dagupan must have created unruffled feelings to some. Sorry, but that’s part of the territory.
At the birthday bash of Commissioner Al Fernandez, some people thought that our noisy meeting with Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez and Councilor Joey Netu Tamayo was bound for the rocks. Impossible because our friendships with the Fernandezes date back to childhood and Councilor Joey knows deep in his heart that we meant nothing malicious in my column articles but to affect something.
And true enough, the city council thru Joey and Councilor Jojo Guadiz have collaborated to see to it that an ordinance or resolution regulating the activities of fraternities would be passed. No less than Mayor Benjie Lim wanted that out.
So from this day on, we consider the frat issue a settled issue. And we congratulate our city councilors for heeding public opinion.
It shows that there is still hope in our city.
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I don’t want to miss writing about this: our neighbor columnist Al Mendoza and his pretty wife Sol were gracious guests of the Fernandezes. In that table where we sat – about three tables from that of Usec Bebot Villar and Mayor Sammy Rosario – Cumadre Mina, her daughter Ana Cunanan, Jun Velasco, Hermie Rivera, and Ruben Rivera, and Mayor Jaming Libunao, former Vice Mayor Ramon Bautista and the celebrator himself, Commissioner Al, were just all too familiar with media’s spirited fireworks when they meet amidst booze.
Happy birthday, Commissioner.
* * *
Publisher Ermin’s friend Senator Ping Lacson has come out openly supporting President GMA’s anti terrorism campaign especially when she put up the Pl billion fund to wipe out the communists from the islands. My instinct was a tinge of reservation because political ideologues should be treated properly, but knowing the extent of the local communists’ terrorist activities, I couldn’t help but agree with the presidential decision.
With all candors, I must say again that Ping is different from the professional detractors who have nothing good to say about the present dispensation. All they see is darkness unmindful of the general good that Filipinos by and large are enjoying.
What? They will again file an impeachment assault against the President? Mind you, my fearless forecast is it will again suffer the same fate it had the first time the professional oppositionists filed the case. Pagod na ang masa. They want a break from all this. Sayang yang Congressman Chiz Escudero na yan. Nalalabas la. Apalamlaman la, nitan, agto la laingen labay so ontonda. Ay, Katawan con Dios, Casian yo ray makasalanan.
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On the occasion of Jose Rizal’s l45th birthday last June l9, this corner has joined his millions of admirers all over the world, not only in the country, who paused from their daily routine to salute and reflect on his life and teachings.
If you visit our Lyceum Northwestern University, you will have a pleasant surprise of your life to see Rizal’s monument beside that of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the Christ’s statue has a higher place because He is the Son of God. The tandem just shows the high regard our school accords Rizal.
Both personas deserve our veneration because their love for humanity is matchless. Rizal’s much despised equivocation vis a vis revolution was not only due to the Katipuneros’ lack of preparation against the sophisticated armory and training of the Spanish troops.
It’s now becoming clearer that Rizal was the first advocate of one peaceful world, who did not favor narrow nationalism but healthy internationalism. Maybe, it is correct to say that Rizal was among those who predicted the computers and the cell phone which have effectively eliminated geographical boundaries.
As education is our advocacy, I find Rizal’s instruction to all Filipinos that progress, growth and greatness can only be achieved through education. The fact that Rizal is being ranked with Gandhi, Mao Tse Tung, Tagore, Martin Luther by the world’s most respected leaders, and coming from this small body of islands should make us all proud of him and ourselves.
Whoever said that Bonifacio is greater than Rizal? Did you know that the portrait of Rizal was placed at the center of the KKK headquarters? Rizal was Bonifacio’s hero.
He is our hero too.
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